400 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY to the education of the children of members in low circumstances ; but provided it was not needed in the society, then it should be appropriated for the education of others who were not members, without regard to color; this money re. mains, a school fund in the hands of the society to the present day. Mr. Moore was a man of herculean strength, who was able to carry nine bushels of corn up the mill steps at one time. He was able to take a fifty-six pound weight on each of his little fingers and touch them together over his head.* He married his fourth wife when 75 years of age, and also survived her. He died in the year 1810, aged 94 years, and his descendants comprise a large and respectable portion of the citizens of Sadsbury, Lampeter, Columbia, and many other places. James Moore had, by his first wife, four sons and two daughters, all of whom attained to considerable age and raised families. His sons were Andrew, Jeremiah, John, and Doctor James Moore ; and the daughters, Rebecca intermarried with John Cooper, the father of Calvin, Jeremiah, James, John, and William cooper; and Ann, who was married to Asahel Walker, the grandfather of Joseph C. Walker, of Salisbury, and of Isaac Walker, of Sadsbury. MOORE, JOHN, brother of Andrew and Thomas Moore, Octoraro, and an Indian village called "Old Shawana town." Rupp's History of Lancaster, p. 42. It was probably on this visit that George Pierce first discovered this tract of land, which he purchased and settled on two years afterwards, He was among the very first pioneers who made a substantial settlement in Lancaster county. Meetings of worship were held at the house of George Pierce, near the residence of the late Joseph Pownall, many years before the meeting at " Old Sadsbury" was established, and these meetings were attended by the Musgroves, the Leonards and other early Quakers. The old grave yard which had been laid out on land now owned by Levi Scarlet, 4 rods square, was reserved in the patent given by William Penn to Moses Musgrove, (the original patent is now in the hands of the McGowan family.) At the time of .the organization of Lancaster county, Caleb Pierce, son of George Pierce, was appointed one of the associate justices of the Lancaster county Court, and held other important trusts. Some years afterwards they sold out to the Musgroves and removed to Fallowfield, Chester county, and their descendants in both counties are numerous and respectable ; among the number is the well known George Pierce, of Bart township. *Friends Miscellany, vol. vi., p. 45. OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 401 purchased the Christiana tract in the year 1727, which had been patented by Philip Howell in 1702 and 1703. John Moore left no children, and willed his property to Thomas Moore, his brother, in 1728, who sold it to Calvin Cooper about six years afterwards. MOORE, THOMAS, brother of Andrew and John Moore, was an early pioneer in the settlement of the eastern section of Lancaster county. He came from Ireland and settled in Sadsbury township, at very early day. He had erected the first grist mill on the Brandy wine creek before the year 1718, from which a public road led to Philadelphia, called the King's highway.* At a council held at Philadelphia, May 29th, 1718, a petition of several of the inhabitants of and near Conestoga, was presented, setting forth the great necessity of a road to be laid out from Conestoga to Thomas Moore's mill and the Brandywine; and the board having taken said petition into consideration, appointed Isaac Taylor, John Taylor., John Cartlidge, Ezekiel Harlen, Thomas Moore, Joseph Cloud, (of Pequea), and William Marsh, to lay out said road, and make report thereof to the Board, in order to be confirmed.† MORRISON FAMILY. Samuel and James Morrison, brothers, settlers originally in Drumore township, about 1717 or 1718. They emigrated from the North of Ireland. Each of them took up considerable tracts of land. Samuel lived with his brother and his family, and died leaving no heirs. James Morrison had two sons, named James and Daniel, both of whom. were prominent men in their day. James Morrison, jr., was a captain of the militia, and served for a time as a soldier of the Revolution. He was a member of the. Legislature in the years 1791, 1792, 1793, and 1795. His son, Daniel, was also a member of the Legislature in the years 1818 and 1819. Samuel Morrison served in the Legislature in the years 1822 and 1824 ; and George Morrison in the years 1845 and 1846. George was born in 1789, and died in 1860. George Morrison was an extensive cattle and sheep grazier, and an influential man in the community. *Col. Records, vol. iii., p. 142.  † Col. Records, vol. iii., p. 43. 402 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY MOSHER, JEREMIAH, a blacksmith in Lancaster for many years. He served under Arnold in the attempt to storm Quebec, and was one of the forlorn hope which penetrated to the works in what was called the lower town. All his companions were killed or wounded but himself, and being taken prisoner, was afterwards released, and served in the American army till the close of the Revolution, and then retired covered with honorable scars. He carried on black. smithing extensively in Lancaster, and did most of the work for the different stage lines running from Philadelphia through Lancaster to Pittsburg. He was a man of excellent character and good judgment. He was a member of the Legislature in 1815 and in 1818. He was elected colonel in 1812.. Be was buried with the honors of war, and a horse upon which his regimentals were placed, was led in his funeral procession. MUHLENBERG, FREDERICK AUGUSTUS, M. D., was born in Lancaster city, Pa., March 14th, 1795. Having attained an education, he studied medicine under the instruction of the celebrated Dr. Rush, and graduated with high honors at the university of Pennsylvania, April 9th, 1814. He immediately began the practice of his profession in Lancaster, being but 19 years of age; and he was not slow in winning his way to public confidence, and establishing for himself a large and lucrative practice. In 1821 he received from Governor Hiester the appointment of prothonotary of Lancaster county, an office he held until succeeded in 1823 by N. W. Sample. He was for many years president of the old Lancaster Bank, and to himself and James Evaris, cashier of the institution, was it owing that the old corporation enjoyed for a long time a high degree of popularity and business prosperity. He served as trustee and treasurer of the old Franklin. college for many years, and exerted the weight of his influence in securing the removal of Marshall college to this place, and the consolidation of the two institutions into the present Franklin and Marshall college. Upon the establishment of the State Lunatic Asylum at Harrisburg, he was named as one of the trustees, a position he held until relieved at his own request. He had no political aspirations, but owing to OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 403 his great personal popularity, he was often urged to become the candidate of his party for office, but usually declined. On one occasion he was the candidate of the Democratic party against Thaddeus Stevens for Congress. He gave his steady attention to the business of his profession for a period of over fifty years, and for a long time ranked as one of the two leading physicians of Lancaster. Even in his later years, when physical infirmity required of him to relinquish the most of his business, a large number of his old patients still clung to him, and anxiously sought his professional advice. Upon the breaking out of the Southern rebellion, he gave his adhesion to the war party in favor of the restoration of the Union of the States, and thenceforth acted with the Republican organization. He lent his influence towards the establishment of the Union League in Lancaster, and acted as its first President. For many years he was, perhaps, the leading member of the Trinity Lutheran church, of which he was a steady and consistent member. In all charitable and benevolent movements, Dr. Muhlenberg always bore a prominent part, and but few enterprises of importance were inaugurated unless he was first consulted. He died July 5th, 1867, in the 73d year of his age. MUULENBERG, HENRY ERNST, the youngest son of Henry Melchoir Muhlenberg and his wife, Anna Maria, (a daughter of the celebrated Conrad Weiser,) was born in Montgomery, Pa., November 17th, 1753. He attained the rudiments of an education in his native village, and after his parents removed to Philadelphia, he attended the schools of that city. In 1763 he and his elder brothers were sent to Europe, and were entered as pupils in the orphan house of Halle. He here pursued his studies, and obtained a know! ledge of the Latin, Greek, Hebrew and French languages. In 1769 he entered the university, where he remained for one year, and returned to America in September, 1770. In the following month he was ordained by the Synod of Pennsylvania, at Reading, and became his father's assistant, preaching in Philadelphia, Barren Hill, and in the churches on the Raritan. On the 4th of April, 1774, he was elected minister of the Philadelphia congregation, which position he 404 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY held until the British obtained possession of Philadelphia, when he retired to New Providence. During the period of the Revolution his situation was transitory for a time, and until he accepted the charge of the Trinity Lutheran Church in Lancaster, in 1780. Here he spent thirty-five years of useful and active life in ministerial duty, and until the shaft of death removed him from the sphere of his usefulness, May 23d, 1815. The University of Pennsylvania conferred upon him the degree of doctor of divinity, a merited tribute to his learning and varied attainments. As a theologian, he ranked amongst the ablest in the Lutheran church of America. In the study of natural science he evinced a great fondness, especially in botany, and was named by Dr. Baldwin, the American Linnaeus. He was, in 1804, honored by a visit from the distinguished scientist and traveler, Alexander von Humboldt. He prepared and published an English and German lexicon and grammar, in 2 vols. He wrote the " Catalogus Plantarum " and the " Descriptio Uberior Graminum," works frequently quoted by botanical writers in Europe and America. He has also left considerable manuscript materials on theology and ethics. *MUSGROVE FAMILY. John, Aaron, Moses, Thomas and Abraham Musgrove, were the first settlers in the valley of Sadsbury, Lancaster county. Their warrant bears date in the year 1713. They purchased nearly all the land in that rich valley from George and Caleb Pierce, cleared off their land, and erected themselves residences, some of which stand to the present day. They were members of the society of Friends, and attended the meetings for worship at the house of George Pierce for many years before the establishment of the meeting-house at old Sadsbury. The old Musgrove burying ground was expressly reserved by Moses Musgrove, when, in 1747, he sold the land to Samuel Williams. It was on the southeastern part of the place, and is now on the land of Levi Scarlet. It was kept enclosed with a fence within the recollection of the oldest inhabitants, but having fallen into sacrilegious hands, it was plowed up long since with the cultivated field. *Contributed by Isaac Walker, of Sadsbury. OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 405 JOHN MUSGROVE, sr., was a valuable and worthy member of society, and stood among the most prominent of the early pioneers in the settlement of Lancaster county. At a council held at Philadelphia, October 15th, 1726, a petition of divers inhabitants about Pequea, in the county of Chester, was presented, setting forth that, by an order of Chester court, a road had been laid out through the township of Pequea, over hills, swamps, rocks, &c., to the great inconvenience of travelers and the said inhabitants, which road is that which leads from Thomas Mill's place towards the township of Donegal, and therefore the petitioners pray, that six good men may be appointed to view the said road, and make such alterations therein as may be necessary for the public service. This petition being considered, it was ordered that John Wright, George Aston, Samuel Blunston, Samuel Rutt, John Musgrove and Edmund Cartlidge, or a majority of them, view the. same road, and particularly that part leading through the township of Pequea, (now Strasburg, &c.) and make such alterations therein as may seem to them most just and reasonable for the public service, and make return of their proceedings herein to this board. Colonial Record, Vol. iii, p. 263. John Musgrove was appointed a commissioner in the year 1728-29, to divide the county of Chester, at the time that Lancaster county was stricken. off from Chester and organized. He was elected a member of the general Assembly for the years 1730-31. His son, John Musgrove, sr., served on the first grand jury in Lancaster, November, 1730. After having conveyed his lands to his sons, the old homestead to his son James Musgrove, he died about the year 1737, and was buried in the valley, at Musgrove's old burying-place. He was in all respects one of the most worthy and 'exemplary men of his time. AARON MUSGROVE was also a worthy and serviceable citizen among the early settlers of Sadsbury. He was the original purchaser of a large tract of land in the valley (including that now owned by Levi Pownall.) He was one of the most influential men in that early settlement, and was greatly instrumental in procuring roads to be laid out, some of 406 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY which yet bear his name. In the year 1738 he became a member of the Sadsbury meeting of Friends. In 1754 he sold his lands and removed and settled at New Garden, Chester county, Pa. His son, Aaron Musgrove, was married to Ann, the daughter of James and Alice Smith, of Lampeter township, in 1757. His grandson, Aaron Musgrove, was the leader of the party that captured, in the year 1788, those notorious desperadoes and outlaws, Abraham and Levi Doane, who were hanged at Philadelphia on the 24th of September of that year.¹ See Col. Record, vol. xv., p.502. MOSES MUSGROVE was also a valuable member of society among the first settlers of Sadsbury. He was well educated and did much to render the wilderness a fit dwelling-place for civilized men. After he had labored for more than thirty years in the settlement of Sadsbury, in his declining years he sold his estate to Samuel Williams, and removed to Fallowfield, in Chester county. .It is now owned and occupied by Levi Scarlet, and that large and respectable family of the McGowans. THOMAS and ABRAHAM MUSGROVE were also valuable members of the Friends' society, about the time Sadsbury monthly meeting was first established; and after having the names of their sons and daughters enrolled in the records of that meeting, they removed and settled at Darby, near Philadelphia, in 1749. Their lands are now owned by Truman Cooper, J. D. Carothers, esq., William Spencer, esq., Levi and Henry Pownall, the McGowans, John Allen, Calvin Carter and others. But a small remnant of their descendants reside at the present time in Lancaster county. MUSSER, GEORGE, was born July 11th, 1777, and died May 26th, 1868. He went out as a Lieutenant in the war ¹ Philadelphia, Thursday, July 31st, 1788, before the Hon. Peter Muhlenberg, esq., Vice President, and the Board : Upon the opinion of the Attorney General, now received in favor of the claim of Aaron Musgrove and others, to the reward offered by proclamation of Council, dated the 26th of July, 1784, for apprehending and securing Abraham Doane and Levi Doane. Resolved, that two orders be drawn on the Treasurer in favor of Aaron Musgrove, Thomas Taylor, Benjamin Miller, William Webb and John Morrison, for the sum of one hundred pounds each, being the reward offered as aforesaid, for apprehending and securing Abraham and Levi Doane. OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 407 of 1812, and was promoted to the rank of Captain. He was for many years a director of the branch bank of Pennsylvania, located at Lancaster. He was elected one of the board of county commissioners in 1814. He was, with Wm. Cooper and John Bomberger, security: for Wm. Hamilton, when he was elected treasurer of Lancaster county. He served for many years as an alderman of Lancaster. He was for nearly sixty years a member of the vestry of Trinity Lutheran church, and for a number of years one of the three trustees, an office only bestowed upon the oldest and most respected members. MUSSER, HENRY, elected Clerk of Quarter Sessions in 1860. MUSSER, JOHN, a member of the Legislature in 1820. MUSSER, MUSSER, MICHAEL, elected County Commissioner in 1802. MUSSELMAN, HENRY, elected County Commissioner in 1848. MUSSELMAN, MICHAEL, elected County Commissioner in 1830. MYERS, FREDERICK, elected Sheriff of Lancaster county in 1869. MYERS, JAMES, is a leading citizen and iron-master of Lancaster county, and widely reputed for his benevolence and Christian charities. His sympathies have ever strongly manifested themselves in behalf of the poor and down trodden. He has on several occasions been spoken of as a candidate for Congress, but has informally declined a nomination for this position. He was elected to the Legislature of Pennsylvania in 1861. MYERS, SAMUEL M., was born in Rapho township, Lancaster county, October 24th, 1824. He is of German descent. His great grandfather emigrated from Germany at an early day, and settled in the northeastern part of the county. He served about six months as an apprentice to the tailoring business, and afterwards went into the mercantile business, in which he continued up to 1860, when he was elected Clerk of the Orphans' Court. 408 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY - N - NAUMAN, COL. GEORGE, U. S. A., was born in Lancaster, October 7th, 1802. He entered the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, as a cadet, in 1819 ; in 1821 was acting assistant professor of French in that institution ; in 1823 he graduated, and the same year was appointed second lieutenant of the first regiment of artillery; was assistant instructor of French at West Point, from September, 1828, to August, 1829 ; promoted first lieutenant, May, 1832. He served continuously in the Florida war from February, 1836, to May, 1838, and was distinguished particularly in the battle. of Wahoo Swamp ; captain of first artillery, February, 1837 ; served through the Mexican war under Generals Taylor and Scott ; brevet-major for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battle of Cerro Gordo, April 18th, 1847 ; brevet-lieutenant colonel for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battles of Contreras and Cherubusco, August 20th, 1847 ; and was wounded in the battle of Chapultepec, September 8th, 1847. He commanded the first regiment of artillery, and was commissioner of prize, at Vera Cruz, at the close of the war, and conducted the evacuation of that city by the U. S. army. He served on the Pacific coast from May, 1854, to January, 1861; was promoted major of the third regiment of artillery, December 24th, 1843, and commanded that regiment from May, 1854,. to March, 1857, and for seven months in 1860 ; was inspector of artillery for the department of Oregon and California, from 1859 to 1861, and conducted the artillery school at Fort Vancouver in 1860. He was promoted lieutenant-colonel of the first artillery, July 23d, 1861, and was chief of artillery at Newport News, in March, 1862, during the engagement with the Merrimac, Yorktown, Jamestown, and other rebel steamers, on which occasion he was favorably mentioned by General Mansfield, in his report of the affair. He was stationed at Fort Warren, in the harbor of Boston, in 1863, engaged in placing that important work in a proper state of defence. OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 409 He was promoted colonel of the fifth artillery, August 1st, 1863, and died in Philadelphia, August 11th, 1863, of sun. stroke, his health having been much impaired by exposure and hardships incident to his long and faithful services. For forty years he served the United States, and had been stationed in every section of the Union, participating in three wars, and in every capacity acquitted himself with honor and distinction. He had just left California, and was with his family, then residing in Florida, when the rebellion broke out. He was offered high rank and command by the men then organizing the new confederacy, but he spurned the offer, preferring to stand by the flag under which he had so often fought. As a compliment to his- long and distinguished services, the war department issued the order promoting him colonel of the fifth artillery, after they had received official notice of his death. NEALE, THOMAS, was a member of the Legislature in 1835. NEVIN, JOHN WILLIAMSON, D.D., was born February 20th, 1803, in Franklin county, Pa. He is descended from Scotch-Irish ancestry, and one conspicuous in statesmanship and literature. His paternal grandmother was a sister of the distinguished Hugh Williamson, LL. D., one of the framers, of the United States Constitution, and a man noted in the republic of letters. His parents were strict members of the Presbyterian church, and the subject of this notice was early indoctrinated into the religious principles of this influential and respectable body of Christians. His father was a farmer and a man of strong native ability, who had received a liberal education, having graduated at Dickinson college, Carlisle, Pa., then under the presidency of the celebrated Dr. John Nesbit. The subject of this notice being designed by his father for one of the learned professions, he was early introduced by that parent to the knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages, preparatory to his entering upon a college career. In the autumn of 1817 he was matriculated as a student in Union college, New York, then under the presidency of Dr. Nott. Although the youngest in his class, he was able to rival in study any of his classmates, and gradu- - 29 - 410 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY ated with honor in 1821. His college course was a severe ordeal for him. Owing to his youth and the close application he had given to study (for his ambition would not allow him to be outstripped by his classmates), he left his Alma Mater with health prostrated, and for the next two years was sickly and unable to engage in any avocation. When at college, he attended a series of revival meetings conducted by a Mr. Nettleton, and professing a change of heart, he united himself as a member of the visible church of Christ. The bodily prostration that followed his classic career, was accompanied with dyspeptic ailments, and being advised to take plenty of exercise upon his father's farm in his wanderings amongst the fields and woods, he acquired for a time a taste for, botanical pursuits. He was in the habit of perambulating for days upon horseback and upon foot in search of plants and flowers; and of these, in a short time, he acquired quite a collection. This course of life was at the time just what was required; and as health began to return, his thoughts recurred to the fancy scenes of Greece and Rome once more. Gradually the study of Cicero and Homer was again taken up ; and the sweet flowing language of Fenelon and Bossuet, for which he had an especial taste, was now prosecuted with greater zeal than ever. Martial arder came in for a share of recognition also from our youthful ad libitum, student, and having united himself in a military company, be was unanimously chosen orderly sergeant. After his health Was found to be quite well restored, and it was perceived that he was again giving much of his attention to study, he was induced, in conformity with the wish of his father, to take up the study of theology. This had from the first been the wish of his parent, but was abandoned when he returned from college, utterly bankrupt in health, and for a long time showed scarcely any signs of returning strength. Accordingly, in pursuance of this view, he entered the theological seminary at Princeton, in the fall of 1823. Ever impelled with a longing and thirst for knowledge, he felt an inexpressible pleasure as soon as the consecrated walls of the seminary had enclosed him. he thereupon made no haste to prosecute his career with great OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 411 celerity through the seminary, feeling that in this institution a more congenial home existed for him as a student than might be found in any other pursuit of which, as yet, he had any knowledge. In the regular theological course of the seminary, he took a special interest in oriental and biblical literature, and made great progress in the study of Hebrew, outstripping in this branch all his classmates. Before the close of his seminary course, he had read the whole Bible in Hebrew, and secured the flattering distinction of being universally admitted as the best Hebrew scholar in the institution. This distinction in Hebrew scholarship was what formed the turning point in his life, and contributed to mould his whole subsequent career. It was owing to this distinction that he was, in 1826, invited to supply the place of Dr. Hodge, who had gone on a visit of two years to Europe for the benefit of the institution. This occupied his attention for the next two years, at the small salary of S200 per annum, and it was during this period that he wrote his Biblical Antiquities, an excellent hand-book of Bible knowledge, and one which has obtained an extensive circulation, not only in America but also in Europe.. Upon the return of Dr. Hodge from Europe in 1828, his duties expired at Princeton, and in October of the same year he was licensed to preach the Gospel by the Carlisle Presbytery ; and to this he now devoted himself for the next year in a more or less itinerant manner. Before leaving Princeton, he had been selected as the person who should fill the chair of biblical literature in the new Western Theological Seminary in Allegheny city, which the general assembly of the Presbyterian church were taking steps to establish. During this time he became enlisted in the cause of temperance, and, as a consequence, his sermons breathed more or less frequently denunciations of the sin of manufacturing and selling intoxicating liquors. He became exceedingly ardent and condemnatory at times of the dram-shops, and he was by no means careful to discriminate whether his remarks might occasion offence, should some be present whom his castigation might personally affect.. This Proved to be the case in fact, and in one instance turned. 412 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY Out to his disadvantage. A call of a large and wealthy congregation was about being extended to him, but because he had preached a sermon which inflicted severe censure upon the liquor-selling members, these feeling themselves person. ally aggrieved, exerted their influence in preventing the call being made. In the spring of 1829 he set out au chebal to see after the theological seminary in Allegheny city, and so shaped his arrangements that he should return in the fall and undertake the duties assigned for him in the new institution. On returning home he became stated supply to the congregation at Big Spring, Cumberland county, for four months, and was strongly urged to become the pastor of this congregation. He also, about this time, received a pressing invitation to return to Princeton and become a writer of books for the Sunday School Union ; but his mind was now fully made up to go to Allegheny city. The father of the subject of our notice died in 1829, and this devolved on him, as the oldest of the family, a weight of responsibility he had not heretofore felt. This necessitated him to give some of his time to business affairs, although up to the present period he had charged himself little with matters of this kind. In consequence of the new relations thus devolved upon him by the death of his father, he was not in condition to set out for Allegheny until the beginning of December of this year. When he entered upon the discharge of his duties as instructor in the Western Seminary, he was in the twenty-seventh year of his age. At the time Dr. Nevin entered upon this field of labor, the Western Seminary was but a feeble institution. It "had no buildings, no endowments, no prestige from the past, and only doubtful and uncertain promise for the future." The movements that had secured the establishment of this seminary had met with great opposition ; the affections of the east were wedded to Princeton; and in the west great dissatisfaction was felt in its being thought .not sufficiently central to meet western wants.. Upon western Pennsylvania, as a consequence, devolved the whole responsibility as to the support of this institution. Prof. Luther Halsey and Dr. Nevin labored in the building up of this seminary, and OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 413 their labors were crowned with good success. The Western Theological Seminary, which has now become a power in the Presbyterian church, owes much of its prosperity to the assiduity and ability of the subject of our notice. For the three first years of his life in Allegheny, Dr. Nevin made his home in the house of Dr. Francis Herron, president of the board of trustees, and until his mother and her family removed thither. In 1835 Dr. Nevin was united in marriage with Martha, the second daughter of Hon. Robert Jenkins, of Windsor Place, in Lancaster county. During his whole ten years connection with the Western Seminary, Dr. Nevin continued to preach in different churches, almost as regularly as if in charge of a congregation. At first he officiated simply as a licentiate, but after some time was ordained in full to the ministry by the Presbytery of Ohio. During part of the time he preached with considerable regularity at a young ladies' seminary, at Braddock's Field, near Pittsburg, and afterwards served as stated supply for the congregation of Hilands, some miles out of Pittsburg. He frequently appeared as contributor to the press during his connection with the Western Seminary, and many sermons, delivered by him on special occasions, were published by request of the congregations before whom they were delivered. In 1833-34 he conducted the editorial management of the Friend, a literary and weekly journal in the service of the young men's society of Pittsburg and vicinity. This journal, while under the guidance of Dr. Nevin, was the unreserved opponent of infidelity, fashionable amusements, ladies' fairs, and theatrical entertainments ; and the views of the editor upon these topics proved the occasion of considerable offence. On account of the opposition made by this journal to the movement set on foot to get up a theatre in Pittsburg, he was threatened with cowhiding ; and on another occasion fears of a mob were apprehended, on account of the supposed incendiarism of the Friend upon the subject of slavery. For no other reason than the pro-slavery proclivities of the Community at that time, was the journal obliged ultimately to succumb, the last issue appearing March 12th, 1835. 414 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY Dr. Nevin was ever the staunch and outspoken opponent of slavery in every form, and battled in favor of abolitionism in a truly Christian spirit. He, however, never sympathized with the so-called abolition party of the North, and openly condemned Garrison and his followers as irreligious in spirit and unpatriotic. But the system of slavery, as it existed in the southern States, was, in his opinion, a vast moral evil, and one especially deserving criticism and censure. He never spared the institution in his articles in the Friend; and on one occasion he was denounced for this cause by a prominent physician of the place, as "the most dangerous man in Pittsburg." That his opinions upon this point may appear, some extracts from the Friend are here adduced. In the journal of April 17th, 1834, he speaks as follows : "We trust that the time is not far distant when, what has been rashly spoken by abolitionists and colonizationists may be forgotten, and the friends of humanity will find themselves able to stand on common ground in regard to the great evil of slavery, without denouncing either the one interest or the other. That abolitionism has exhibited, in some cases, a wildly extravagant form, we have no doubt; but we have just as little doubt that great and powerful principles of truth have been all along laboring underneath its action, and struggling to come to clear and consistent development by its means." In the valedictory issue of the Friend, Dr. Nevin thus discourses : " Slavery is a sin as it exists in this country, and as such it ought to be abolished. There is no excuse for its being continued a single day. The whole nation is involved in the guilt of it, so long as public sentiment acquiesces in it as a necessary evil. That which is absolutely necessary for its removal, is the formation of such a public sentiment throughout the country as will make slaveholders ashamed of their wickedness, and finally reform the laws under which the evil now holds its power in the different States. Such a. sentiment has not heretofore existed, and it is plain that much discussion and thought are needed to call it into being there is, therefore, just the same reason for the system of action pursued by the abolition society, with reference to this subject, that there is for the system of the temperance OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 415 society with regard to the curse of ardent spirits. The institution and the effort are among the noblest forms of benevolent action witnessed in the present age. We glory then in being an abolitionists and count it all honor to bear the reproach for such a cause. It is the cause of God, and it will prevail." . When the above sentiments were penned by Dr. Nevin, the Presbyterian church, along with the other churches of the country, was fully committed to the southern side of the slavery question, and considered it a religious, as well as a moral wrong, to meddle in the discussion of this question. The leading religious newspapers were, likewise, hostile to the anti-slavery movement in every form. All the ecclesiastical judicatories, as well as the anniversary meetings of all the great national religious societies, made it a point from year to year to ostracise and repress, by all manner of means, every attempt to get the question of slavery before them. The merest whisper of abolitionism was enough to throw a whole general assembly into agitation. In 1837 Dr. Nevin was unqualified in his dissent from the ecclesiastical policy which divided the Presbyterian church. In the struggle between the two great parties in the church, his sympathies were upon the side of the old school ; but he nevertheless entertained the opinion, that the controversy on that side was in certain quarters urged forward in mi. extreme way. He deprecated especially, the idea of the Pittsburg Synod being forced to take part in the eastern quarrel with regard to Mr. Barnes ; and he went so far as to urge seriously, through the Christian Herald, Dr. Alexander's plan of relatively independent Synodical jurisdiction. It was during Dr. Nevin's connection with the Western Seminary , that he began the study of the German language, which he has succeeded in mastering, and now reads with equal ease and satisfaction as his vernacular. This study he undertook in order to reach the contents of the theological and philosophical works of the deep thinkers of Germany, the land of profound erudition and ripe scholastic attainment. The first work read by him in the German, was Neander's " Geist des Tertullianus." Dr. Nevin by this time had become a man 416 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY widely reputed for his attainments in biblical science, and as a theologian of rare penetration and deep philosophical mind, His reputation had far passed the boundary of his own religious persuasion. His services, therefore, became a prize in the eyes of many, and he was tendered on the part of the Synod of the German Reformed church, the professorship of theology in the theological seminary at Mercersburg, Pa. In this call Dr. Nevin seemed to recognize the summons of his Divine Master, to a field in which he might be able to perform more effective service than in the one where he then labored. Accordingly, after mature and serious deliberation, he concluded to accept the position, tendered him, and entered upon the duties thereof in May, 1840. This change of position was not considered. to be of itself any change of denominational faith. It was simply a transition from one section of the general Reformed Confession to another., and took place accordingly with the full approbation and favor of the friends of Dr. Nevin in the Presbyterian church. It was under the advice and recommendation in particular, of his former theological instructor, the late venerable Dr. Archibald Alexander, of Princeton. Still, like change of position in all cases, it exerted a material influence on the subsequent progress of his spiritual life, and became thus a central epoch for his history. Without taking him out of the Reformed church, it widened his view of its proper constitution and history, enlarged the range of his German studies, brought him into new and closer communication with the theological life of the Lutheran Confession, and in this way made room in his mind more and more for a sense of the catholic, the historical, the objective in Christianity, which may be taken as the key to the whole course of his thinking and working in the church afterwards, down to the present time. In the theological seminary at Mercersburg, he fowl. himself associated with the well-known German schola Frederick Augustus Rauch, who was at the same time president of Marshall college in the same place. The death of Dr. Rauch, March 2d, 1841, left Dr. Nevin in sole charge of the Seminary, and made it necessary for him besides to OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 417 assume the presidency of the college also ; a provisional arrangement in the first place which, however, the wants of the infant institution converted into a permanent one ; the office being held by Dr. Nevin, in fact, for ten years afterwards without any salary. In 1843 Dr. Nevin became involved in what has been known as the " anxious bench controversy," through the publication of his tract called the Anxious Bench, directed against the use of certain means and methods (new measures), employed extensively at the time among different denominations in the service of religious revivals. This may be looked upon as the beginning of the movement which has since come to be spoken of as the Mercersburg theology ; a. movement whose ultimate bearings and consequences were not dreamed of at the time by either side in that first controversy, while they can easily be seen since, nevertheless, to be all in one and the same direction. The controversy, while it lasted, was carried on with great activity, partly within the German Reformed church itself, but mainly in the end, as between this body and surrounding religious communions. The same view of Christianity which led to the publication of the Anxious Bench, appears also in Dr. Nevin's opposition to another new measure, as we have it represented in his tract on Religious Fairs, published towards the close of the same year. This, however, was in the main but little more than what he had published on that subject ten years before, in Pittsburg. In the fall of 1844 Dr. Nevin received as his colleague in the seminary, Dr. Philip Schaff; who had been brought by special call from Germany to fill the place whose name has since become famous throughout the world, and who is now honored as professor of church history in. the Presbyterian theological seminary of New York. On the 25th of October this gentleman delivered his inaugural address at Reading, in the German language, a truly able discussion of the distinctive, original and fundamental meaning of the great Reformation of the sixteenth century. It was the first fair attempt to vindicate the historical right of Protestantism in 418 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY this country, and went full against the unhistorical spirit which has all along formed the life and strength of our American sectarianism. This work Dr. Nevin translated and published in 1845, under the title, The True Principle of Protestantism as related to the Present State of the Church, with an introduction from his own pen, and by Dr. Schaff's particular desire, with the appendage also of a sermon on Catholic Unity, preached by Dr. Nevin the previous year, before a convention of the Dutch and German Reformed churches in Harrisburg, the whole forming a volume of more than 200 pages. Here, of course, was new offence to the general sect-spirit of the land. Anti-popery began to take the alarm, and a formal attempt was made in a Synod held at York, to make out a charge of heresy against the Mercers-burg professors, particularly Dr. Schaff, but the result was their triumphant vindication. The following year, 1846, Dr. Nevin published the " Mystical Presence; a vindication of the Reformed or Calvinistic doctrine of the Holy Eucharist." This also led to controversy. Strangely enough, Lutheranism, in certain cases, contended against it by openly forsaking Luther, while Presbyterianism did the same thing, by trying grossly to falsify Calvin. Looking in the same general direction, we have from the pen of Dr. Nevin, in 1846, The Church, a sermon preached at the opening of the German Reformed Synod, at Carlisle; in 1847, The History and Genius of the Heidelberg Catechism; and in 1848, a tract, entitled Antichrist, or the Spirit of Sect and Schism. From January, 1849, to January, 1853, he edited the Mercersburg Review, published by the alumni association of Marshall college, being himself, during' all this time, the chief contributor to its pages. And he has written largely since, also, for the same periodical, as well as for the Reformed Church Messenger. At the close of 1851 Dr. Nevin, much against the wish of the church, resigned his situation as professor in the theological seminary, continuing however to act as president of Marshall college until .its removal to Lancaster, in 1853, when it became consolidated with Franklin college, under OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 419 the title of Franklin and Marshall college. He was offered the presidency of this new institution, and the place was kept vacant for a whole year, with the hope of his being induced to accept it but in conformity with his previously declared intention he declined the service, and withdrew into private life, being now in truth much worn out, both in body) and mind, and not expecting to take upon. him again any public charge. He delivered, however, by special request, a baccalaureate address to the first graduating class of the new college, on the 31st of August, 1853, which was published as a tract, under the title of Man's True Destiny. Leaving Mercersburg, after the removal of the college, Dr. Nevin lived for a year in Carlisle, where he stood in close and pleasant social relations with the professors of Dickinson college. He then came to Lancaster county, residing for a year first in the city ; in the next place, from the fall of 1856 to the spring of 1858, making his home, for domestic reasons, at Windsor Forge, near Churchtown, the old mansion property of his wife's father ; and finally settling himself permanently, where he has since continued to reside, in the immediate neighborhood of Lancaster city, at Caernarvon Place. Through these years he still continued to preach frequently, and also to perform occasional work with his pen. He had much to do, in particular, with the long and difficult task of bringing to completion the new Liturgy, which engaged for so many 'years the best energies of the Eastern Synod of the German Reformed church. In the end, as advancing age seemed to bring with it for him a renewal rather than a decline of health and strength, Dr. Nevin yielded to the desire there was to have him back again in the college, and in the fall of 1861 took upon him partial service in its faculty, as professor in particular of History and Esthetics. Five years later, in 1866, he became once more president of the institution, with full charge, a position which he has continued to occupy since with all the vigor of his best days. In connection with the Sunday services, which devolve upon him as the pastor of the college church, his department of instruction embraces now, mainly by lectures, the Philosophy of History, the Principles of 420 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY Mental, Moral and Social Science, and the Science of Æstheties in its modern German character and form. No biographical account of Dr. Nevin, however brief, can be complete without some notice taken of the so-called Mercersburg system of theology, which it has been common on all sides to associate with his name. This has never claimed to be an original system or rounded whole in any way; neither has it owed its existence to any spirit of philosophical speculation, as has sometimes been imagined. It has grown forth historically from an interest in the felt needs of the Christian life itself. Without going into details, let it suffice here to present the following comprehensive outline of the system, taken from an article on the subject in vol. xii. of the new American Encyclopedia, published in 1863. " The cardinal principle of the Mercersburg system, is the fact of the incarnation. This, viewed not as a doctrine or speculation, but as a real transaction of God in the world, is regarded as being necessarily itself the sphere of Christianity, the sum and substance of the whole Christian redemption. Christ saves the world, not ultimately by what He teaches, or by what He does, but by what He is in the constitution of His person. His person, in its relations to the world, carries in it the power of victory over sin, death, and bell, the force thus of a real atonement or reconciliation between God and man, the triumph of a glorious resurrection from the dead, and all the consequences for faith which are attributed to this in the Apostles' Creed. In the most literal sense, accordingly, Christ is here held to be the way, the truth, and the life,' the resurrection and the life,' the principle of life and immortality,' the light' of the world, its righteousness,' and its peace.' The 'grace which bringeth salvation,' in this view, is of course always a real effluence from the new order of existence, which has thus been called into being by the exaltation of the Word made flesh at the right hand of God. It must be supernatural as well as natural, and the agency and organs by which it works, must, in the nature of the case, carry with them objectively something of the same character and force. In this way the OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 421 church is an object of faith; the presence of the new creation in the old world of nature ; the body of Christ, through which as a medium and organ He reveals Himself and works until the end of time. It mediates with supernatural office, instrumentally, between Christ and His people. Its ministers hold a divine power from Him by apostolic succession. Its sacraments are not signs merely, but the seals of the grace they represent. Baptism is for the remission of sins. The eucharist includes the real presence of Christ's whole glorified life, in a mystery, by the power of the Holy Ghost. The idea of the church, when it is thus held as an object of faith, involves necessarily the attributes which were always ascribed to it in the beginning, unity, sanctity, catholicity, and apostolicity. The spirit of sect, as it cleaves to Protestantism at the present time, is a very great evil, which is of itself sufficient to show that if Protestantism had any historical justification in the beginning, its mission thus far has been only half fulfilled, and that it can be rationally approved only as it is taken to be an intermediate preparation for some higher and better form of Christianity hereafter. The distinguishing character of the Mercersburg theology, in one word, is its Christological interest, its way of looking at all things through the person of the crucified and risen Saviour. This, as the world now stands, embraces necessarily all that enters into the conception of the church question, which this system holds to be the great problem for the Christianity .of the present time." These views in the nature of the case, could not be otherwise than distasteful to much of the popular religionism of the country. For years, accordingly, as is well known, it has been the fashion in certain quarters to stigmatize them in the most contradictory terms of reproach, as rationalism, mysticism, pantheism, transcendentalism, Romanism, Irvingism, Swedenborgianism, and much else of like bad sound. By Dr. Nevin himself the system has been maintained all along as being, in his view, neither more nor less than the simple theology of the Apostles' Creed. Among his more important publications relating to it, and not yet named, may be mentioned the following ; 1. The Doctrine of the Re- 422 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY formed Church on the Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper an extended answer to Dr. Hodge's review of the " Mystical Presence" in 1848. 2. The Apostles' Creed : Its Origin, Constitution and Plan, 1849. 3. Early Christianity, 1851. 4. Cyprian, 1852. 5. The Dutch Crusade, 1854. 6. Review of Dr. Hodge's Commentary on the Ephesians, 1857. 7. The Liturgical Question, 1862. 8. Christ, and Him Crucified; a concio ad clerum, preached at the opening of the first general Synod of the German Reformed church in Pittsburg, 1863. 9. Vindication of the Revised Liturgy, 1867. 10. Answer to Professor Dorner, of Berlin, Germany, 1868. 11. Once for All; based on a sermon preached before the Synod at Danville, Pa., 1869. 12. Revelation and Redemption ; opening sermon before the Synod at Mechanicsburg, 1870. 13. The Revelation of God in Christ ; anniversary discourse before the theological seminary at Mercersburg, 1871. 14. Christ and His Spirit, 1872. 15. Baccalaureate Discourse on John iii: 13, 1872. Dr. Nevin, as a theologian, is one of no ordinary cast. His strong dialectic acumen has led him far beyond the range of mere theology, and has enabled him to unravel the mazes that metaphysical subtilty has drawn around the Christian faith. His own mind is a deeply metaphysical one, and his profound inquiries into this department have led him to scan the whole range of philosophy, and to investigate it on the metaphysical side from Aristotle to Hegel, as well as on the metaphysico-theological side, from Plato to Schleiermacher. The argumentations and reasonings of an Origen, an Augustine, an Anselm, and an Aquinas, are to him no longer mysteries. The thoughts of these world-renowned thinkers he has made his own. Nor is he unfamiliar with the range and results of modern German metaphysical ratiocination. He has, although an American, after having made himself familiar with ancient forms of thought, and, after grasping the results of the Kantian problem; kept pace with the latest developments of the German mind. Like Jonathan Edwards, unfavored with European university culture, who, by his own innate strength of intellect, could grasp and solve the problems of the philosophers of whom he had OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 423 never heard, and who ranks as the first metaphysician of his century, the subject of our notice has also probed the depth of the human understanding; and to his comprehensive mind metaphysical difficulties retire, and faith and reason stand harmonized in gospel revelation. To Dr. Nevin will 0111 history also accord, if not the highest niche in the temple of the metaphysical fame of the century, at least a very high one. It is because he has made the different theological and metaphysical systems so thoroughly his own, and has by long usage and reading acquired their entire terminology, (which has now become a part of his own thinking), that his sermons and writings appear to those unfamiliar with such forms of thought, mazy and unintelligible. Often will his auditors confess that they do not comprehend his ideas. This is not strange. Whoever comprehends in a remote degree the vast revolution that theology has undergone in Germany during the last one hundred years, will not be surprised at this terminology made use of by Dr. Nevin. It is necessary if he be true to the feelings of his own soul, that he use no other manner of expression, for no other language conveys the deep import of evangelical truth as illuminated by the christological and philosophical developments of later ages. Not that any new truth is thereby promulgated, but modern thought is but fully awakening to the full comprehension of the great truths of revelation ; those truths that ages ago to the mental eye of a St. Anselm and a Duns Scotus were looming into view. These intellectual giants were simply ages in advance of their times, and the moderns are but beginning to recognize the truths they so fervently attested. Later ages, as they will come to take up in their conscience-perceptions, the discoveries of those now standing upon the highest pinnacles of mental vision, will see the rectitude of doctrines that are being promulgated and that are now so seemingly obscure. And in the march of ages, instead of Dr. John W. Nevin being found to have been the advocate of pantheistic absorption, he will gradually be elevated upon a pedestal in the Schleiermacherian school along 424 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY with the brave leaders who strove to turn aside by the light of scientific and philosophical progress the stream of humanitarian error, and enable the faithful soldiers of the cross to capture the great Babylon of modern infidelity. Dr. Nevin, as a critical scholar, has but few equals, life reads the Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French and German, with ease. Before taking up the study of German, he chiefly read theological works in the Latin; but for many years past, since his mastery of the German, he reads the most theological works in this latter language. In this he has perused the master-pieces of modern composition. He has a fine memory, and therefore retains most that he reads. His articles upon "Cyprian and His Age," published in the Mercersburg Review, evince his deep study of ancient Christianity, and are of themselves sufficient to give him a high rank in the theological world. They are quoted and cited as standard authority even in Europe. Dr. Nevin, deservedly, is entitled to rank amongst the first, if not as the very first theologian and metaphysician of America, after Jonathan .Edwards. Had circumstances thrown him in a different sphere, where vast libraries would have surrounded him, and should he have chosen the field of history, he might have ranked with Mosheim and Neander. Choosing, however, to keep aloof from great metropolitan centres, he has attained to the merited distinction of being intelligently ranked amongst the first thinkers of his age ; and after generations' will universally concede to him a place in the category of a De Wette, a Dorner, a Daub, and at Marheineke. In conversation, he is exceedingly entertaining, especially when the subject turns upon metaphysical questions; for in this department he seems especially at home. Any question propounded in theology or metaphysics will receive a minute and lengthy explanation, which serves more than all else to show the great depth and wonderful profundity of his mind. German, French and English schools of philosophy and theology will be cited, their diverging opinions presented and compared, and the correct conclusions of reason educed therefrom. In his lectures to the students of his classes, his OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 425 breadth of mind and comprehensive grasp of the subject in hand are constantly apparent. In his deportment no triviality is ever percentile, but a gravity upon all occasions marks his demeanor. In personal appearance Dr. Nevin is tall, spare and slender, and in the pulpit is not at once attractive. In his delivery of a sermon no indications of oratory appear. He is by no means fluent, and none but those who can follow an argument are much attracted by his preaching. His sermons, however, are pregnant with thought from beginning to end, showing complete mastery of his subject and great research. He has ever been a close student, and this his appearance indicates.. Thought is marked upon every lineament of his countenance. NISSLEY, C. H., elected County Commissioner in 1866.. NISSLEY FAMILY. Jacob Nissley, the original settler of this family, came to this country at an early day and settled in Mt. Joy township. He had five children—two sons and three daughters, viz : John, married a Sechrist, Martin, a Snyder ; the daughters married, one a man named Buhrman, another an Eversole, and the other a Steward. John had six sons and one daughter, viz : Michael, Abraham ; John, married to a Hertzler, born 1746 and died 1825 ; Jacob, father of Martin, of Conewago, died 1796 ; Rev. Samuel, his wife a Kreider, born 1761, died 1838 ; Martin, his wife a Lehman, born 1763, died 1825 ; and Fanny, her husbands, a Frantz, a Long, and a Hiestand, born 1759, died 1813. The children of Rev. John, of Paxton, were : Jacob, his wife, a Nissley ; John, his wife, an Ober ; Martin, his wire, a Landis, born 1786, died 1868 ; and Maria, her husbands, a Frantz and Rudy Martin. Jacob Nissley's children were: Martin, married to a Kreider; Fanny, to C. Mumma, born 1789 ; Elizabeth, to Long and Hershey, born 1794 ; and Maria, to a Bear, born 1784. The family of Rev. Samuel Nissley were : John, (Rapho), married to a Hershey, born 1786, died 1847 ; Martin, married to a Bomberger, born 1788 ; Sem, married to an Eby, born 1792, died 1868 ; Rev. Christian, married to a Bomberger, born 1794; Jacob, (Sporting Hill), married to a Witmer ; Henry, married to a Nissley ; and Fanny, married to Jonas Eby, born 1798, died 1839. The - 30 - 426 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY family of Martin Nissley, (of Paxton), are : John, married to a Rupp ; Samuel, married to a Wissler ; Maria, married to a Heiges; and Catharine, married to an Overholt. The family of Martin, (of Middletown), are : Nancy, born 1808, died 1841; John, married to a Heiges, born 1811 ; Martin, born 1812; Felix, born 1814, died 1864 ; Mary, born 1816, died 1847; Fanny, born 1820 ; Isaac, born 1822 ; Solomon, born 1825 ; Jacob, born 1828 ; and Joseph Herman, born 1831. The family of John, (Rapho), are : Elizabeth, married to C. New. corner, born 1808 ; Nancy, married to Levi Eby, born 1810, died 1866 ; Fanny, married to C. Nolt, born 1812 ; John, married to B. Gerber, born 1819; Catharine, married to John Musser, born 1827 ; Sarah, born 1829, and died 1843. The family of Martin Nissley, (Rapho), are : Martha, married to Sem Brubaker, born 1814 ; Barbara, married to J. W. Niss. ley, born 1818, died 1868; Nancy, married to Emanuel Cas-8,4, born 1819, died 1845 ; Fanny, married to J. W. Snyder, born 1821; and Maria, married to Benjamin Musser, born 1824. The family of Sem Nissley, (Rapho), are : Henry, married to Ann Hostetter, born 1814, died 1851; Fanny, married to Samuel Snyder, born 1816 ; Christian, married to a Breneman, born 1818 ; Samuel, married to Long and Hershey, born 1818 ; Jonas, born 1821, died 1848 ; Benjamin, married to Susan Stauffer, born 1823 ; Catharine, born 1826 ; and David, married to a Rutt, born 1829. The family of Rev. Christian Nissley, (Chiques), are : Samuel, born 1817, died 1824; Joseph, married to Martha Sherch, born 1821; Christian, born 1825, died 1844; Martin B., born 1829 ; Martha, married to Andrew Gerber, born 1818. Abraham Nissley moved from Conoy to Franklin county in 1800, and died in 1823. He had six children-three sons and three daughters, viz : Elizabeth, married to Samuel Ott ; Jacob, married to Susanna Rutt ; Mary, married to Jacob Leidig ; Herman, married to Elizabeth Witmer; Joseph, married to Sarah Schwartz ; and Fanny, married to Abraham Metz, born 1800, died 1838. The family of Martin Nissley, (Mt. Joy); he had two wives, the first a Snyder, and the second a Stauffer; and eight children-four sons And four daughters, viz : Jacob, married to a Detwiler ; OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 427 Martin, married to Barbara Reist, born 1747, died 1799 ; John, married to Gertrude Shearer ; and E. Neff, born 1750, died 1819 ; Christian, married to a Stauffer, and Catharine Bossier, born 1759, died 1822 ; Barbara, married to a Shelly ; Anna, married to Abraham Stauffer, of Fayette county, born 1752, died 1817 ; Fanny, married to J. Shallenberger, of Ohio, born 1756, died 1840 ; Maria, married to Christian Musser, born 1763, died 1811. The family of Jacob Nissley, (Dauphin county), are : Martin, married to a Rutt ; Barbara, married to J. Hershey, of Swatara, born 1773, died 1823 ; Esther, married to Jacob Nissley, of Highspire ; and Fanny, married to Joseph Bossier. The family of Martin Nissley, (Dauphin county), are : Jacob, married to Charlotte Books ; Martin, married to E. Mumma ; Esther, married to Abraham Long, of Franklin county, born 1799, died 1865. The family of Martin Nissley, jr., (Mt. Joy township), are : Anna, married to Jacob Stauffer, born 1774, died 1856 ; Rev. Christian, married to Maria Kreybill, born 1777, died 1831; Rev. Martin, married to Anna Witmer, born 1784, died 1834 ; Peter, born 1787, died 1799 ; Barbara, born 1780, died 1799 ; Veronica, born 1792, died 1799. The family of Rev. Christian Nissley and of his wife, Maria Kreybill, are: John, married to Barbara Snyder, born 1800; Rev. Peter, married to a Witmer, a Kreider, and a Sherch, born 1802; Jacob; married to Elizabeth Kreybill, born 1808, 41111F died 1862 ; and. Barbara, born 1812, died 1812. The family of deacon John Nissley, sr., (Mt. Joy,) and his wife, B. Snyder, are : Henry S. Nissley, married to Anna B. Reist, born 1827 ; Mary S., married to Martin W. Nissley, born 1828 ; Fanny S, married to C. K. Hostetter, born 1832 ; Christian S., married to Mary N. Eby, born 1835 ; Sarah S., born 1837 ; John S., married to Sarah N. Eby, born 1839 ; and Barbara S., married to Samuel S. Garver, born 1843. The family of Rev. Peter Nissley, of East Donegal, are : Mary K., married to Solomon L. Swartz, born 1830, died 1856 ; Esther K., born 1832, died 1853 ; John K., married to Maria B. Reist, born 1834 ; Leah K., married to David L. Miller, born 1835 ; Christian K., born 1838, died 1867 ; Barbara K., married to C. F. Hostetter, born in 1840 ; 428 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY Catharine K., born 1844, died 1862 ; Anna K., born 1848 died 1850. The family of Jacob Nissley, of Mt. Joy township, and Elizabeth Kreybill, his wife, are : Christian, born 1830, died 1833; Jacob K., married to Anna Rissor, born 1831 ; Martha, married to Elias Eby, born 1833 ; Amos, born 1835, died 1843 ; Barbara, married to Jonas E. Hostetter, born 1837 ; Mary, born 1839, died 1842 ; Catharine, married to Michael H. Engle, born 1840 ; Elizabeth, married to David Rutt, born 1843 ; Anna, married to Jacob Good, born 1845 ; Samuel, born 1847, died 1855 ; Rebecca, married to Jacob Mumma, born. 1848 ; and Simon K., born 1854. The family of Hans or John Nissley, who lived on the first mansion farm, his first wife being Gertrude Shearer, born 1754, died 1794 and his second, Elizabeth Neff; born 1757, died 1815, are : Martin, (miller,) married to E. Hershey, born 1784, died 1854; Henry, married to Elizabeth Hershey, born 1795, died 1860 ; Abraham, married to Nancy Wissler, born 1798 ; Samuel, married to Mary Hershey, born 1800; Barbara died single ; Fanny, married to C. Witmer, born 1779, died 1807 ; Gertrude, married to David Eversole, born 1780, died 1821; Anna, born 1782, died unmarried, 1861; Elizabeth, married to Peter Kreybill, born 1787, died 1826; Mary, married to Christian Kreybill, born 1790. Family of Martin Nissley, (miller,) of Mt. Joy township, are: Elizabeth, married to Jacob Rutt, born 1813, died 1858 ; Anna, married to Christian Mumma, born 7 815 ; Maria, married to Christian Rissor, born 1816 ; Barbara, married to Joseph Wolgamuth, born 1819 ; Fanny, married to Joseph Rissor, born 1820 ; Susan, born 1823, died 1823 ; Christian H., married to Barbara Lindemuth, born 1824 ; Martin, born 1826, died 1843 ; Catharine, married to Jacob Rissor, born 1828, died 1852. The family of Henry Nissley, of Mt. Joy township, and his wife, Elizabeth Hershey, born 1795, are : John H., married to Anna Gisch, born 1820, died 1867.: Henry H., married to Jane Wolgamuth, born 1822 ; Christian, married to Anna Wanner, born 1824, died 1866 ; Isaac, born 1825, died 1850 ; Abraham H., married to Susan Garber, born 1828; David, born 1831, died 1852 ; Mary, married to Abraham Rissor, born 1819 ; Elizabeth, married to OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 429 Jacob Shenk, born 1825. The family of Abraham Nissley, of Mt. Joy township, and his wife, Nancy Wissler, born 1800, died 1867, are : John W., married to Elizabeth Berry, born 1823 ; Jacob W., married to Mary Lindemuth, born 1825 ; Anna, married to Henry Breneman, born 1827 ; Mary, married to Peter Gisch, born 1831 ; Fanny, married to Abraham Bachman, born 1833; Henry W., married to a Miss Horst, born 1836; 'Abraham W., born 1838; Daniel, married to Elizabeth Musser,. born 1840, died 1867 ; and Sarah, married to Henry Heisey, born 1842. The family of Samuel Nissley, of Mt. Joy township, and his wife, Maria Hershey; are: Joseph H., married to Mary Brubaker, born 1826 ; Samuel H., born 1831 ; Elizabeth, born 1835, died 1867 ; Mary, born 1837, died 1848. The family of Christian Nissley, (above Maytown), first married to a Stauffer, and next to Catharine Bossier, are: John, married to Mary Hershey, born 1788, died 1823 ; Christian, married to. Fanny Hershey, born 1790, died 1822 ; Jacob, married to Mary Miller, born 1797, died 1869 ; Martin, married to Anna Bachman, born 1798, died 1833 ; Joseph B., married to Mary Snyder, born 1804, died 1857 ; Nancy, born 1791, died 1809; and Barbara, married to Jacob Kreybill, (miller), born 1795, died 1814. The family of John B. Nissley, near Bossier's meeting-house, are : Catharine, married to John Engle, born 1809, died 1871; Rev. Jacob H., married to a Brubaker, born 1810; Elizabeth, married to Benjamin Martin, born 1811; Barbara, married to an Eshleman, born 1813, died 1841; John, married to a 13rubaker, born 1815, died 1849 ; Christian, married to a Musser, born 1820, died 1849 ; and David, born 1824, died 1824. The family of Jacob Nissley, of Cumberland, and his wife, Mary Miller, born 1802, are : Elizabeth, married to an Eberly, and afterwards a Sener, born 1819 ; Benjamin, married to a Felsenhard, born 1821; Jacob, married to Leah Fetroe, born 1824 ; David, married to Anna Brintle, born 1827 ; Maria, married to a Belshoffer, born 1829 ; and Christian, married to Mary Markle, born 1834. The family of Martin Nissley and his Wife, Anna Bachman, born 1799, are: Peter B., married to a Huffman, afterwards a Huffert, born 1823, died 1869 ; 430 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY Nancy, born 1825, died 1830 ; Christian, married to Christiana Hilty, born 1827 ; Daniel B., married to Sallie Lindemuth, born 1829 ; and Jacob, born 1831, died 1851. The family of Joseph B. Nissley, (Donegal meeting-house), and his wife, Mary Snyder, born 1808, are: Samuel S., married to Martha Kreider, born 1830; John S., born 1832, died 1839 ; Joseph S., married to Maria Stauffer, born 1834, died 1861; Catharine, married to Christian Stauffer, born 1838, died 1863 ; Mary, married to Abram Ruth, born 1842, died 1869; and Elizabeth, born 1849, died 1850. The family of Rev. Martin Nissley, of Donegal, and his wife, Anna Witmer, are : Anna, married to Joseph Eversole, born 1811 ; Joseph W., married to Barbara Nissley, born 1813; Barbara, married to Daniel Heisey, born 1816, died 1862 ; Fanny, married to Jacob Snyder, born 1818 ; Maria, married to Philip Greiner, born 1820; and Martin W., married to Mary Nissley, born 1824. NISSLEY, JACOB, elected a member of the Legislature in 1849 and 1850. NOBLE, WILLIAM, elected a member of the Legislature in 1835. NORTH, HUGH M., was born in Juniata county, Pa. He read law in New Berlin, Union county, in the office of Hon. Joseph Casey, Chief Justice of the Court of Claims at Washington city, D. C. He was admitted to the bar in 1849. He located at Columbia, Lancaster county, Pa., about the year 1850, and engaged in the pursuits of the profession in which he has been employed up to this time. He was elected to the Legislature in 1854, serving one session. He was delegate to the National Democratic Convention at Charleston and Baltimore in 1860, and represented Pennsylvania on the committee of credentials. He was the Democratic candidate for Congress in 1864. He has served as a member of the Columbia school board for upwards of thirteen years, and for a time filled the position of president of that body. Ile has been for years the confidential solicitor of several banks and other corporations,. and has for some time been the solicitor of the Pennsylvania Railroad company. Mr. North is an assiduous, industrious and persevering business man, OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 431 and has at this time a large and lucrative practice, and can be regarded as a man of means and independence. He is a sound, well-read lawyer, and prepares and tries a cause well. - O - OBER, MICHAEL, was elected a member of the Legislature in the year 1860. OLD, JAMES, was one of the early iron-masters of Lancaster county, and an influential and leading man in his day. He was elected a member of the Legislature in the years 1791, 1792 and 1793. ORTH, ADAM, elected a member of the Legislature in 1788-84 OVERHOLTZER, HENRY D., a member of the Legislature in 1826. OWEN, BENJAMIN, a member of the Legislature in 1821. - P - PARKE, SAMUEL, was a member of the Lancaster bar, admitted in the year 1820. He was a leading lawyer for many years, and was a man of considerable influence in political movements. He was elected a member of the Legislature in the years 1829-30. We find the following notice of him, written February 18th, 1840 : " The lecture of Mr. Parke on Matter,' delivered before the Mechanics' Institute on last Thursday evening, was listened to with profound attention. The originality of his remarks respecting the formation of coal beds, mountains and valleys, gave this production a degree of interest of which lectures in general are not possessed. The subject throughout was managed in the most skillful manner, fully sustaining the high reputation which Mr. Parke enjoys as an able writer." PARR, WILLIAM, was a native of England, who emigrated to America at an early day, and settled in Lancaster. He read law, and was admitted to the bar in 1752. He was 432 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY elected a member of the Legislature in the year 1783. He was a man of considerable ability, and was noted in his day as a skilled marksman. PASSMORE, JOHN, a citizen of Lancaster, and a man of remarkable corporeal proportions, weighing about 450 lbs. He was appointed by Governor Snyder, in 1809, prothonotary of the Lancaster district of the supreme court, comprising the counties of Lancaster, Berks, York and Dauphin. He was, in 1818, appointed one of the aldermen of the city of Lancaster, and the same year was elected the first mayor of the city, a position to which he was twice reelected, discharging the duties of the office for three years. PATTERSON, ARTHUR, a member of the Legislature in years 1743, 1744, 1745, 1746, 1747, 1748, 1749, 1750, 1751, 1752, 1753 and 1754. PATTERSON, D. W., is a native of Lancaster county, and a graduate of Washington College, Pennsylvania. He read law, and was admitted to the bar in the year 1842. He was elected a member of the Legislature in the year 1846. In the year 1858 he was elected District Attorney of Lancaster county, the duties of which he discharged for three years. He is engaged in the pursuits of his profession. PATTERSON (JAMES) FAMILY. James Patterson .was born in the north of Ireland in 1708, and emigrated to America in 1828, and settled in Lancaster county. He was a farmer by occupation. He married Mary Montgomery, and had the following children, viz.: William, born March 14th, 1733, died June 29th, 1818 ; John, Hannah, Mary, Samuel, Jane, Isabella, James, born November 14th, 1745, died August 17th, 1825 ; Elizabeth and Thomas, born February 1st, 1754, died March 28th, 1829. James Patterson, the first settler, died in Little Britain township in 1792. WILLIAM PATTERSON, son of the first settler, married Rosanna Scott, by whom he had the following children : Mary, born January 7th, 1759; Moses, born October 16th, 1760 Samuel, born October 7th, 1762 ; Thomas, born October 1st, 1764, died November 17th, 1841; and James, born March 1st, 1767. He, after the death of his first wife, married OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 433 Elizabeth Brown, born March 16th, 1747, died January 30th, 1826. With his second wife he had the following children: John, born February 10th, 1771; Rosanna, born December 31, 1772 ; William, born April 8th, 1775, died September 20th 1844 ; Nathaniel, born 1777 ; Rachel, born June 3d, 1778, died January 9th, 1817 ; Elizabeth, born January 8th, 1781 Josiah, born November 10th, 1783, died February, 1843; Hannah, born May 22d, 1786; Nathan, born September 11th, 1788, died February, 1846; and Eleanor, born October 17th, 1792. William Patterson settled in Washington county, Pa. Two of his sons, John and Thomas, were members of Congress' during the contest between Jackson, Adams, and Crawford for the presidency. JOHN PATTERSON, second son of the first settler, was a farmer in Little Britain township, but late in life removed to Ohio. He was married to Eleanor Milligan, and had the following children: Mary. born April 24, 1765; James, Martha, John, Hannah, Eleanor, William and Elizabeth. SAMUEL PATTERSON, third son of the first settler, lived in Little Britain township, where he also died. He married Mary Wylie, and had two children, Elizabeth and Mary. The first married Dr. Smith, of Westmoreland county, Pa., and left a large family. JAMES PATTERSON, fourth son of the first settler, lived in Little Britain township, and was a member of the Legislature in the years. 1802, 1803 and 1804. He married Letitia Gardner, and had the following children: Isabella, born April 29, 1783 ; died December 24, 1818 ; Francina, born May 17, 1785; died December 1, 1823 ; Robert, born March 21st, 1787, died March 31,1861; Mary, born April 17, 1789, died May 1, 1848 ; Elizabeth, born April 26, 1791, died July 26, 1830 ; Jane, born February 28, 1794; James, born M arch 7, 1796 ; Letitia, born May 29, 1798, died November 12, 1823; Rachael, born May 20, 1803. THOMAS PATTERSON, fifth son of the first settler, married Mary Tannehill, by whom he had the following children Rebecca, born August 13th, 1778 ; Elizabeth, born March 18th, 1780; Samuel, born March 3d, 1782; Nathan, born 434 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY February 20th, 1784; died January 24th, 1792; Mary, born March 3d, 1 786 ; died June 5th, 1854; Margaret, born June 10th, 1788 ; died March, 1821; Thomas, born February 13th, 1790; died July 30, 1857; James, born January 11th, 1792; and Jane, born May 10th, 1796. PATTERSON (ARTHUR) FAMILY. This branch of the name in Lancaster county, all descended from Arthur Patterson, who emigrated from the north of Ireland in 1724, and settled, with his wife, (who was Ann Scott,) the same year, on the banks of the Big Chiquesalunga, in Rapho township, Lancaster county, then a wilderness. He purchased and located a large tract of land and commenced farming. He had acquired in the old country the trade of blacksmithing, and which trade he found almost indispensable to the success of farming, after coming to this country. Mechanics of all kinds were then very scarce here, not less so the blacksmith; and Arthur Patterson, at first for his own convenience and economy, performed his own smithing; afterwards the wants of his neighbors and the settlements, still farther west of him, demanding it, he carried on the blacksmithing very extensively, in connection with his farming. Often did it occur that the farmers composing the settlement in Cumberland valley, in the vicinity of Carlisle, sent their plow-irons, &c., on pack-horses, all the way down to Arthur Patterson's, to be sharpened and repaired, the messenger waiting until they were done, then would return, taking them with him. Arthur died leaving nine children, four sons and five daughters. One son, Arthur, the youngest, died while quite young; Samuel, James and William grew up to manhood, and all served their country in the war of the Revolution.. The latter was taken prisoner by the British, and died while held a prisoner in the prison-ship, on Delaware bay, the fate of many of our patriotic army who were unfortunate enough to be taken prisoners, and where the American officers openly charged the British with deliberate murder, by means of supplying their prisoners with unhealthy and spoiled food. Samuel and James both survived their campaigns ; the last severe conflict they participated in being the battle of Princeton, after which James OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 435 returned home, having in charge the prisoners taken by our forces in that engagement. They were also members of the committee of safety for Lancaster county, in 1775, a body chosen from the several townships to concert measures to defeat the machinations of the tories, and to resist the unjust and tyrannical edicts of the British Parliament. James also served several sessions in the Provincial Assembly of Pennsylvania. SAMUEL PATTERSON, son of Arthur, married Martha Agnew, and died November 15, 1820, at the advanced age of 93 years, having left four children, Arthur, Rebecca, James and Samuel. Arthur married Elizabeth Moore, and died, leaving two daughters, one of whom married Benjamin Osbourne; and left two sons, James and Patterson Osbourne, who reside now in Ohio ; the other died young. Rebecca married Rev. Matthew Henderson ; James married Elizabeth Witherow, and died near Mount Joy, October 29, 1852, and left two children, viz : Sarah, who died in her 18th year, and Samuel Smith Patterson, who is still living, and now a citizen of Sterling, Illinois, where, by engaging first in merchandizing and latterly in banking, he has acquired large wealth, and is' much respected for his amiable qualities of character. He had married Mary McJimsey, by whom he had a large family, six of whom still survive, viz : five sons, all successful business men, Joseph M., James B., Smith, Frank and John ; and one daughter, Martha Rebecca, who married Doctor Thos. Galt, once a citizen of this county, and now residing in Rock Island, Illinois. Samuel Smith Patterson succeeded his father, Major James Patterson, at farming, near Mount Joy, and spent a large part of his life there, taking an active part in local and State civil affairs. He ably represented Lancaster county in the State Legislature for two successive sessions, in the years of 1834-35, His son, Samuel, married Mary Ann McJimsey, and died October 27th, 1831, at his farm, below Mount Joy, leaving ten children, six sons and four daughters. Of the sons, Samuel Patterson, now a successful merchant of Marietta, is the sole survivor. John Patterson, late of Mount Joy, and a successful and much-esteemed coal and lumber 436 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY merchant there, was another son ; also James M., and Thos. Jefferson Patterson, formerly of Mount Joy. Robert died young, as did S. Alexander and Elizabeth. Martha intermarried with Thomas Sterrett, Mary Ann with Jas. B. Ferree, and Rebecea Jane with William Spangler. WILLIAM PATTERSON, son of Arthur, who died a prisoner, had married Elizabeth Dysart, and left three children ; one a daughter, Eleanor, who married Alexander Dysart, and settled in Huntingdon county, where some of her descendants still reside, respected by all who knew them; and two sons: Arthur, the father of William, Douglass and Alexander Patterson, the two latter now residents of Mount Joy, the former residing in the west, and several daughters; and Alexander, who died February 2d, 1842, and who intermarried with Jane Pedan, leaving three children, two of whom died young ; and one, a daughter, Sarah, grew up to womanhood, and married Abrm. Hatfield, both now residing in Chester county, Pa. The daughters of Arthur were five : Catharine, married Robert Hays; Elizabeth married Mr. J. Thomas ; Eleanor married Ephraim Moore ; Jane and Rebecca died unmarried. JAMES PATTERSON, son of Arthur, intermarried with Margaret Agnew, by whom he had nine children, viz : Arthur, who married Mary Witherow, died September, 1822, leaving seven children, and whose three sons located in Franklin county, Pa. Rebecca intermarried with James Scott, and again as a widow, married Col. James Agnew, of Bedford county, Pa.; James, who married. Mary Watson, died May 30th, 1863, leaving seven children ; Martha, who- intermarried with John Scott, lived and died in Washington county, Pa., where she left a large family ; Samuel, who married and resided in Steubenville, Ohio, where he died, leaving one child, Samuel; Margaret, who married John McConaughy, a lawyer of Gettysburg, Pa., had five children, viz : Robert and David, both of whom studied and practiced law in Adams county, the latter of whom represented that district in the Senate of Pennsylvania for three years, commencing in 1868. James resides in Johnstown, Pa., and successfully carries on a large steam tannery. OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 437 Hannah Mary intermarried with the Hon. Moses McClean, an attorney of Adams county, who represented that district in the United States Congress. Elizabeth married Prof. M. S. Stoever, late of Gettysburg college; and Emeline married the Rev. D. Wilson; the three remaining children of James, Ann, William, who was a physician; John died unmarried. The foregoing constitute the greater portion of four generations, descending from their ancestor, Arthur Patterson. PATTERSON, COL. JAMES, the subject of this sketch, was born in Rapho township, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, on the 7th day of October, 1775, and died, after a brief illness, in Mount Joy, where he spent his last years, after retiring from farming on the 30th of May, 1863, in the 88th year of his age. He was the son of James Patterson of revolutionary times, who was a devoted soldier in that war in behalf of the colonies. His grandfather was Arthur Patterson, who emigrated from Donegal county, Ireland, in 1721; and settled in Rapho township, Lancaster county, where he afterwards lived and died. Col. James, therefore, sprang from Scotch-Irish ancestors, and was one of a family of nine children. His father being a farmer, his son James was reared to out-door labor and exercise, and in consequence grew up to manhood with a strong and vigorous constitution. In the days of his boyhood there were no common schools, and the opportunities to obtain even a good common school education, were exceedingly limited. The entire time afforded to him to acquire learning in school, was all embraced in the short period of ten months. At the age of about fifteen years, and just on the eve of the troubles incited by the whiskey insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, his father died, and he was left without the directing hand and cherishing culture of paternal affection. His older brother, Arthur, and the adult population generally of his native section, being shortly after called out to military service by the United States government, to quell the whiskey insurrection, James was left to take the sole charge and direction of a large farm, and to manage it the best he could. This, and the many incidental responsibilities, threw 438 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY him quite young in life on his own resources, and gave hi m a maturity in experience and a decision of character, long before he attained to years of manhood. As may be supposed, therefore, when he arrived at adult age he had acquired an enviable reputation amongst his neighbors for good practical common sense, and fearless candor in expressing his convictions. These traits, united with a natural cheerful disposition and genial social qualities, caused him to be held in high esteem by all his neighbors. Although deprived of school privileges, and his time devoted to constant labor, his love of learning made him seek opportunities for acquiring knowledge. This, added to fine natural abilities, gave him great success in acquiring information on all topics. His stock of knowledge and experience made him a wise counsellor and a judicious adviser; and on many occasions, both of public and private interests, his counsel was sought and obtained. On attaining to his majority he took charge of his own farm, and commenced clearing away the heavy timber and erecting the necessary buildings. In the year 1805 he was united in marriage to Mary Watson, a daughter of the late Dr. John Watson, of Donegal. By her he had seven children. One, a son, died in his youth; another, a daughter, died just as she verged into womanhood. The five remaining children grew up to mature years, four of whom still survive—James A. Patterson, whose occupation was that of a farmer, but now retired and residing in Mount Joy ; David W. Patterson, a member of the legal profession at the Lancaster bar ; Harriet B., now the wife of Dr. J. L. Zeigler, of Mount Joy ; Rachel J. Patterson, and the remaining daughter, Anna Mary, who was intermarried with Robert S. Mcllvain, of Paradise township, and died in the year 1855. No man excelled Col. Patterson in public spirit and disinterested sacrifice for the public good. He occupied important positions, both civil and military. When the war of 1812, between this country and Great Britain broke out, be immediately left his farm and family and volunteered for the war. A battalion of troops having been raised by his exertions, Gen. Nathaniel Watson, major-general of the division, composed of Lancaster and York counties, commanding, OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 439 made Col. Patterson (then major) one of the aids on his staff. Be remained in the service until peace was declared, having most of that time commanded a regiment of Pennsylvania volunteers as lieutenant-colonel, and returned home holding that commission. For a decade of years after that war, the whole country, encouraged by liberal legislation, were active in developing the militia system, then high in popular favor, for home defence. Col. Patterson took a prominent part in organizing and commanding that strong arm of the Republic. While his taste led him to take part in military matters, a pure patriotism seemed to be the motor of his action. An instance of that may be remembered by many yet living. When the South inaugurated the late unnatural and terrible rebellion, Col. Patterson, although then in his eighty-sixth year, said with all seriousness, " I wish I was a little younger, I would go out myself and defend the life of our government." In the civil affairs of his native State, he always took a deep interest. Feeling the want of educational advantages in his youth, he expressed the deepest anxiety to see those advantages placed within the reach of all. These convictions made him a warm and active supporter of our beneficent common school system, declaring that school-tax was the cheapest tax that any citizen could pay. As all know, the school system was at first left to a vote of the people of the several townships. This feature caused many warm contests at the polls, in which Col. P. always took the side of free schools, although his own children were at the time all advanced in their studies beyond the then standard of common school education. Col. P. represented Lancaster county in our State Legislature in the session of 1817-18, and again for two successive sessions of 1832-33 and 183334, taking an active part in the political questions of that period. But the occupation of his life—farming—was his favorite pursuit. He largely gave his personal attention and labor to his farms ; read extensively on the subject ; studied the nature of the soil, and the character of the fertilizers best adapted to produce the highest state of cultivation. And his neat farming and abundant crops, showed 440 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY the wisdom of his conclusions. With him has gone another of the landmarks between the present and the past, and he is no longer seen amid his native and long-life familiar surroundings. His last days, as well as his last moments of dissolution, were calm and peaceful, for the well-grounded faith of the Christian believer did not forsake him. His remains rest in the old Donegal churchyard, with the dust of his fathers.; and a long, honorable and useful life is at an end. Our forefathers are at rest, a worthy band whose fine virtues, honest purpose and high-toned morality make their memories a richer legacy to their children than gold or silver, or even the daring deeds of heroism. PATTERSON, JAMES, was elected County Commissioner in 1809. PATTERSON,. THOMAS, elected County Commissioner in 1845. PAXSON, JOSEPH, was elected County Commissioner in 1838 and 1840. He was also elected a' member of the Legislature in 1844. PAXSON, REV. WILLIAM, was born in Lancaster county, April 1st, 1760. He devoted the early part of his life to agricultural employments, and served in two companies at different times during the revolutionary war, in one of which he was present, .and participated in the battle of Trenton. His love for knowledge afterwards induced him to seek the advantages of a liberal education, and he began his preparatory course when twenty-four years of age, in the Strasburg academy, then taught by the Rev. Nathaniel W. Sample. He never obtained the advantages of a collegiate education, but by diligent study he laid a foundation upon which he accumulated a more than ordinary amount of knowledge, literary, scientific and theological. He was taken under the care of the New Castle Presbytery, April 29th, 1789, and having passed, with great credit, through the several trials assigned him, he was licensed on the 8th of April, 1790, as a candidate for the gospel ministry. On the 6th of October following he was appointed stated supply to the churches of West Nottingham and Little Britain. In this service, having continued about six months, he received a call from these OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 441 congregations to become their pastor, which, after deliberation, be declined. In his probationary visitations and preaching, he accepted an invitation to preach to the congregations of Lower Marsh creek and Toms creek, in the Carlisle Presbytery. They had recently become vacant by the transfer of the Rev. John McNight, their late pastor, to the collegiate Presbyterian churches of the city of New York. Mr. Paxson's services were so acceptable to those vacant congregations, that they promptly and unanimously gave him a call to become their pastor. He accepted the call on the 4th of April, 1792, and was accordingly dismissed from the Presbytery of. New Castle to put himself under the care of that of Carlisle. This took effect on the 7th of June, 1792, and on the 3d of October following he was installed as pastor of the churches above named. On the 20th of January, 1794, he was united in marriage with .Miss Jane Dunlap, daughter of Col. James Dunlap, then residing near Shippensburg. He ministered to the united congregations composing his charge for several years, until Lower Marsh creek congregation became desirous of securing his entire services. To this change the other con.; gregation submitted with deep regret,. and from that time until his death his labors were devoted to Marsh creek alone. His service to this congregation was a devotion, indeed, being one of larger duration than falls to the lot of most clergymen, and extending over a period of forty-nine years. Very rarely, indeed, was he absent from the public duties of the Sabbath, unless to assist a brother in the administration of the Lord's Supper, and in one or two instances when, by sickness, he was for a short time unable to render 'his ordinary services. His ministrations were always characterized by decided ability and great faithfulness. By his congregation they were always appreciated, and their attachment to, and estimation of him, suffered no abatement. To relinquish him as their pastor, was very unwelcome, even when his bodily infirmities rendered it not only expedient, but absolutely necessary. In 1826 the degree of doctor of divinity was conferred upon him by Dickinson college. He severed his long connection with his congregation by resign- - 31 - 442 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY ing his charge on the 19th of October, 1841. He, however. afterwards preached.to them occasionally, until they obtained a successor. He died April 16th, 1845. As a preacher, Dr. Paxson was highly interesting and acceptable. His sermons were distinguished for appropriate and well-digested thought, natural and lucid arrangement, and thorough discussion. 'Far from being dry and merely intellectual, they were lively and impressive ; and a well-regulated imagination often added force and beauty to his scriptural illustrations. In preparation for his public services, he was conscientiously careful and punctual. His manner of preaching was what is usually denominated extempore; but the matter was the result of. mature thought and exact preparation. In manner he was solemn, dignified, commanding, graceful, without any theatrical effort, and with only those gestures which his feelings naturally prompted him. As a pastor he was affectionate and faithful. In the exercise of church discipline, he was strict and conscientious, yet considerate and wise. In his habits, he was very domestic. He was, however, eminently social in his disposition, and fond of the society of his brethren.* PEARSOL, JOHN .H., one of the editors of the Lancaster badly and Weekly Express, was born January 12th, 1818, near Waynesburg, Chester county, Pa. His parents belonged to the humblest of society. From Chester county they removed to sporting Hill, and from thence to Marietta, Lancaster county. In this place, when he was but four years of age, he had the misfortune to lose his mother, who was shot by a drunken man, named Hamilton.¹ At the age of ¹ William Hamilton, more familiarly known, subsequently, as " Billy Hamilton," was a North-Irelander, who had settled in Marietta at an early period of its, history, and followed the occupation of hand-weaving. Under ordinary circumstances he was regarded rather as a useful and industrious citizen, but somewhat irritable and obstinate, and, when under the influence of liquor, a man of almost ungovernable passions. Mr. Pearsol's mother was his nearest neighbor, and was known as a remarkably mild and benevolent woman, who often acted as a peacemaker between belligerent neighbors, and possessed marked influence as such. She had often used her influence previously in pacifying Hamilton in his stormy moods, when they were directed against his *Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, vol. 3.. OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 443 seven he was placed in the employ of Hugh Maxwell, publisher of the Lancaster Gazette, as errand boy, and continued in his service for seven years, and so long as to partially acquire a knowledge of printing. Having left Mr. Maxwell, he worked in Philadelphia several years, and made himself fully master of his trade. When twenty-one years of age he returned to Lancaster, and Bryson, Pearsol & Wimer started the Semi- Weekly Gazette as a literary paper. With this firm he continued for about a year and six months, and then sold out his interest, losing in non-payments all the products of the sale. On a borrowed capital of $500 he began, February 10th, 1843, as a temperance organ, the wife, his neighbors, or other members of his family. On the unfortunate occasion which so suddenly and so violently resulted in Mr. Pearsol's early orphanage, Hamilton was under the influence of strong drink, and had an altercation with some one, and as is usua on' such occasions, when he came home he directed his ire against his wife and other members of his family. Mrs. Pearsol, either voluntary or through solicitation, attempted to administer the oil of peace which she had so successfully administered on former occasions, but her benevolent mission only seemed to have chafed him the more, if he did not come to regard it as an impertinent interference ; he therefore ran up stairs into a room, and declared he would shoot the first person who entered it. His terrified family would fain have persuaded her not to approach him in his present frame of mind, but she, perhaps, not knowing that he had a deadly weapon, or fearing he might do violence to others if his stormy passion was not allayed, nevertheless entered his room, when the phrenzied man immediately shot her dead, and escaped from the house. It was some days before Hamilton was arrested, and having some very warm friends in the place, who connived at his concealment, it was considered hazardous to attempt his arrest, even if his whereabouts had been known. At length suspicion fell upon the house of his friend, James Kane, or McKane, familiarly known as " Jimmy Kane," and the " Marietta Blues," a volunteer company, then under the command of Lieut. Elijah Russel, was called out, to assist in making the arrest. The company proceeded to the house aforesaid, and after a feeble resistance on the part of the inmates, entered it with charged bayonets ; where, after a thorough search, they found Hamilton concealed under the flooring of the cellar. Kane, having been discovered with a gun in his hand, which he had threatened to use, before Hamilton was discovered, was, with another of his friends, also arrested as accessories after the fact, and the three men were immediately lodged in the Lancaster jail. At the trial Which followed, his two friends were discharged, but Hamilton was convicted of murder in the second degree, and sentenced to eighteen years' imprisonment in the old Arch street prison, in Philadelphia. 444 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY Weekly Express,¹ and continued its publication up to 1856, it being the longest instance of the connected publication of a temperance paper as yet known in Pennsylvania. During 1856 he associated with him Mr. J. M. W. Geist, and the firm started the Daily Express, (and also continued the weekly), which they have published up to this time. In the subject of this sketch, we have an instance of a man rising from the humblest origin to respect, influence and independence, by dint of determined energy and steady perseverance, qualities always sure to win when properly observed. The early event that deprived him of his mother, was that which originally gave him his first bias in favor of temperance, and Hamilton became very penitent, and his conduct in prison was very meek, exemplary and praiseworthy, so much so that the usual rigor of the prison rules were relaxed in his case, and he was entrusted with many minor duties, all of which were faithfully discharged. After serving nine years in prison he became a subject of executive clemency, and, accordingly, received a free and full pardon from Governor George Wolf, in 1831. After his discharge from prison he returned to Marietta, where he married a widow Coble—his former wife having died in the meantime, if she had not been released by his diabolical act and criminal conviction—and led a rather quiet and industrious, if not a religious life, and died in 1847. Notwithstanding his religious professions, the odium of having committed a murder, ever attached to Hamilton—whether justly or unjustly, he never outlived it—and, doubtless, on a multitude of occasions, he. realized that " the way of the transgressor is hard." Many people imagined that they could read murder in the lineaments of his face, and herein perhaps consists as solemn a warning- as the indulgence in inebriation. Every indulgence in violent anger leaves not only a scar upon the moral character, but also more or less impresses itself ultimately upon the facial angles of a man. Intoxication, therefore, only relaxes the bonds of moral and civil restraint, a violent breaking down of these barriers, and letting the habitual inner man recklessly rush forth in some act of violence. Early impressed with the fact, that it was through the instrumentality of ardent spirits, as a primary cause, that Mr. Pearsol was wantonly deprived of a kind and affectionate mother, at the very period when he most needed a mother's care, it is not surprising that he should have devoted the best energies of his life to the advancement of the temperance cause. ¹ When Mr. Pearsol published the Express, as a temperance organ, the tone of society was very different towards the temperance cause from what it afterwards became, and has been for years. During the thirteen years of its temperance career, he was prosecuted eight times for libel, found guilty in every instance, and mulcted in fines and costs. In OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 445 the same which has ever intensified his support of this cause. No more worthy instance of genuine worth and steady adhesion to principle, triumphing over poverty and all accompanying obstacles, is presented in our county's history than is afforded in the career of the man whose sketch we have penned. PEELOR, JOHN, appointed Recorder of Deeds in 1830. PENNEL, BENJAMIN, was born in Chester county, Pa., June 26th, 1787. He served as a soldier of the war of 1812, and was present at the battle of Baltimore. He was a wool-carder and. fuller by occupation. He settled in Warwick township, being induced thither chiefly through the influence every case he had simply published what he stood ready to prove, but this the law forbade, and for publishing the truth he was obliged to endure the penalty. On one occasion he was found guilty of libel, and sentenced to pay a fine of $200 and the costs, which pearly equalled the fine; and not having the means to liquidate the penalty, he was committed to prison in compliance with the sentence of the court. So great, indeed, was the antipathy towards the temperance sheet, that some of the leading business men of Lancaster refused to have the name of the temperance editor stand as an imprint upon their business bills. The cause of temperance was in the lowest repute, and it even, required a man of courage to avow himself as its supporter. Mr. Pearsol was often threatened with cowhidings for his support of the cause. This was the passage through the fiery ordeal that tries the metal of which men are composed. Such, to the unreflecting, however, would seem the lowest ebb in one's career, but in this instance, as is often the case, it proved the turning point in his life. ' The determined effort to ruin the Express and its owner, roused the friends of the cause, of which it . was the organ, and funds were immediately raised, the editor released, and during the same year the list of 'subscribers was increased from. 500 to 3,500. The struggling paper was at once placed upon' a permanent and enduring basis. It had passed the turning point, and its success was established. Since the year 1856 many prosecutions have been instituted for libel, but all have uniformly been withdrawn and none prosecuted to, judgment, with the exception of one case, in which a verdict of not guilty was rendered. It may be here added, that the lager beer trade was first started up in Lancaster about the year 1843 or 1844. One of the first lager beer . saloons opened in Lancaster city was kept near where the Pennsylvania railroad depot now stands, and the beer was named Bavarian beer, (bierish). Henry Franke was one of the first in the business in this City, and afterwards went into its manufacture, which, in late years, has developed into a large and profitable trade. It is now one of the growing branches of Manufacture. 446 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY of Jacob Reist, and he followed his trade there for some years. He was appointed a justice of the peace by Governor Shultz, under the old. Constitution, and served until the adoption of the new. In 1840 he was elected to the House of Representatives, and reelected in 1841. He died August 12th, 1865, aged 78 years. Mr. Pennel was a man of a remarkable memory, and was able in citing events that had transpired, to name the year and day of its occurrence. He was a strong friend of the temperance cause. He was perfectly honest and upright, and no man could sway him in any manner from what he regarded as right. Any corrupt overture to him, when a member of the House, would have been spurned, and would have received a fitting rebuke. He chose to remain poor and leave an untarnished reputation in preference to the accumulation of .pelf by base and dishonorable means. Poor Benjamin. Fennel was a man of honor, and highly esteemed where honor is respected, and by the few who appreciated his inner worth. Raise an humble monument to his memory, for mausoleums have decked less worthy ashes. PETERS, ABRAHAM, was born August 29th, 1791., near Millersville, Lancaster county, Pa. His father, of the same name, emigrated from Alsace, in France, (now Germany), about nine miles from Strasburg, when nineteen years of age, and located in the vicinity of Millersville,¹ then called Millersburg. He purchased ten acres of land, for which he paid £270 in the year 1777. He died February 5th, 1818, aged 77 years. He kept tavern in an old log house, in which the subject of this notice was born, and also carried on a distillery. Abraham Peters, after the death of his father, still continued the distilling business, and did so up to 1853. He was, at the same time, engaged in farming. Up to 1851 he also kept ¹ Millersville, originally called Millerstown, afterwards Millersburg, derives its name from the founder of the village, John Miller, who owned a large body of land upon which the village now stands. Ile sold five-acre lots, reserving ground-rent. John Miller erected a large brick house, composed of extremely thick walls, and displayed his taste in having one of his rooms covered with beautiful and artistic carvings. Miller, in after years failed, and his property passed into other hands. His large house was torn down some thirty years since. OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 447 tavern. He was married on the 16th of October, 1825, to Miss Fanny Clamber. Abraham Peters was one of the leading movers with B. B. Martin, Lewis M. Hobbs, John Brady, Jacob K. Shenk and others, in the establishment of the Millersville Normal School. Mr. Peters was elected the first president of the board of trustees, a position he has held up to this time. The meetings that led to the foundation of the Normal School, were held in the years 1853-54. The institution was opened in 1855, as the Millerstown Academy. After Mr. Peters retired from the distilling business in 1853, he prosecuted the business of farming up to 1862. For many years he had carried on the business of saw-milling, at Petersville, on the Conestoga Navigation. In. 1861 Mr. Peters was nominated and elected on the Union ticket, a member of the House of Representatives, and discharged the duties of this position with credit to himself and to the satisfaction of his constituents. Since 1862 he has retired from active pursuits, and resides on his place in Millersville. PETERS, JACOB G., son of Abraham Peters, was born September 4th, 1834, in Millersville, Lancaster county, Pa. He was educated at the schools of his district, and afterwards pursued a collegiate career in Franklin and Marshall, in the first years after the college was removed to Lancaster. He was going to Marshall college, in Mercersburg, and was the student selected by the faculty of the college to have charge of the transportation of the college fixtures from Mercersburg to Lancaster. After graduating at college, his father having been engaged in the lumber business, and wishing to retire therefrom, Jacob G. Peters continued the same steadily up to 1866. From that time he has chiefly devoted his attention to agricultural pursuits. When the Farmers' Mutual Insurance Company of Lancaster county was reorganized in 1870, Mr. Peters was elected as the general agent of the company, with full power to remodel the same, and he is clothed with authority to issue new policies to insured. During 1870 he acted as superintendent of the Lancaster and New Danville Turnpike Company of Lancaster county; also as superintendent for the erection of a bridge across the Con- 448 - BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY estoga creek. Up to the breaking out of the war, Mr. Peter was an active and influential Democrat, but since that time he has operated with the Republican party. He was, by this latter party nominated in 1868, and elected a member of the House of Representatives. He has been a frequent delegate of his party to the nominating conventions, and was a member of the State Convention at Philadelphia, which placed Gen. Grant in nomination for the Presidency. Mr. Peters has for several years been an active member of the board of trustees of the Millersville Normal School, and acts as chairman of the household committee. PORTER, GEORGE B., a son of General Andrew Porter, of revolutionary memory, was born in Lancaster, February 9th, 1791. He read law and was admitted to the bar in the year 1813. He speedily won a front rank in the profession, and Was for several years one of the leading lawyers at the Lancaster bar. He was, in April, 1818, appointed prothonotary of Lancaster county, succeeding J. Passmore. He was a leading Democratic politician, and was recommended by the convention of his party in Lancaster county as a candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania. In 1824 he was appointed adjutant-general of the State. He was an eloquent speaker, and was chosen by the city of Lancaster to make the reception speech to General Lafayette,¹ when he visited it in 1824. He was selected as the attorney to defend :Walter Franklin, when the latter was impeached before the Senate of Pennsylvania. He was elected a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature in the year 1827. He was appointed Governor of Michigan territory, the duties of which office he discharged for three years. He died at Detroit, July 6th, 1834, in the 44th year of his age. PORTER, JAMES, was, a delegate from Lancaster county to the Reform Convention of 1837-38. PORTER, JAMES, was one of the early settlers of Lancaster county. He owned a large body of land in the south- ¹ At the time Lafayette visited Lancaster, a ball was given in honor of the nation's distinguished guest, which eclipsed everything which up to that day had been seen in the old inland city. OF LANCASTER COUNTY - 449 ern section of the county. His son, William Porter, was a member of the Legislature in the year 1779. PORTER, JOHN J., was elected Clerk of Quarter Sessions in the year 1854. David Fulton filled the last year of his office by appointment. PORTER, THOMAS, was a member of the Legislature in 1775. He was also a delegate from Lancaster county to the convention of 1776, which framed the first State Constitution. POWELL, REV. WALTER, a native of New York State, and pastor of the Presbyterian church in Lancaster city, from the year 1857 up to his death, in 1858. Rev. Powell was a man of rare intellectual capacity, and one who had caught the new spirit of liberal christianity ¹ which has so thoroughly made its way into the churches of New England and some other sections of America.. His sermons to the old members of the congregation seemed entirely strange, and many of his congregation were unable to become reconciled to his style of preaching. He was a close student, a deep reasoner, and one who (had years been spared him) would have left a ¹The religious tone of the people of Lancaster county, is a matter of all others that deserves some consideration. It may be said, perhaps, without exaggeration,.that there is no inland county in Pennsylvania where a greater variety of religious sects exists than in Lancaster. It is owing to this great commingling of sects and interchange of opinions, that Lancaster county has risen to so comparative a height in the scale of toleration and liberality of sentiment, compared with many other sections of our country ; for, it is a fact well known, that the entertaining of no religious opinions (those of any sect) serves to arouse antagonism or ill-will upon the part of any of opposite sentiments. Perfect harmony and good-will prevail amongst all denominations ; even Roman Catholics and those of the different Protestant sects live in the best social relations toward each other. The liberalizing sentiments of modern theological views have silently insinuated themselves, to a certain extent, into the midst of all the various religious denominations of the county, and the harsh visage of the olden times has been driven in the background. A large number of intelligent and influential citizens of the county are scarcely nominally attached to any precise faith or mode of worship, and yet many such rank amongst the most respected of our People. Such are, nevertheless, benevolent, humane and charitable to an extent that may cast the virtues of professors in the shade; but a wide tolerance is entertained by all such for opposite opinions, and with these sincerity is accepted as the all-justifying requisite. Indeed, this sentiment, originally emanating from this independent class, has made its