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{Webmaster's note: This article contains numerous errors and should be consulted with discretion.} Henry Muhlenberg Hiester, Montgomery Township, Franklin county, is the son of Joseph Muhlenberg Hiester. His ancestry is as follows: (I) Three brothers, John, Daniel and Joseph von Hiester, students at Halle, Germany, were obliged to leave the country on account of their political convictions about the middle of the eighteenth century. They escaped to England. There they were furnished with funds from Germany to go on to America where John, the oldest brother, purchased a large tract of land near Reading, PA, naming it Bern. Land also was purchased art Tulpehocken, near Philadelphia, in that city, and near Harrisburg. (II) John had one son, Joseph, who at the outbreak of the Revolution, raised a regiemnt in Reading for the Continental army, declining the command, however, as he thought others better fitted to the position. He served as captain to this regiment, rising afterward to General. In the campaign of Long Island he was opposed to his cousin, General Von Hiester, who comanded the Hessian troops. During the war Captain Hiester was captured and placed onthe "Jersey" prison ship. There General Von Hiester visited him, offered him much kindness, also offering him a commission in the English service if he would desert the American cause. This he refused to do, and was so indignanbt that he changed the spelling of the name to Hiester and dropped the Von. This spelling has since been used by the family. He was a member of the Convention of 1787 to consider and ratify the Constitution of the United States, and was also a member of the convention that framed the Constitution of Pennsylvania. For thirty years he served either as a member of one or another of the legislative houses in Pennsylvania, or in the Congress of the United States, finally resigning his seat in the lower house of the United States Congress, after occupying it for a score of years, to become Governor of Pennyslvania in 1820. An old watch bearing his name, and the date of his military service and governorship, is in the possession of the family. He married Elizabeth Witman, of Pennsylvania, who bore him one son, John Sylvester, and several daughters. (III) John Sylvester Hiester was born in Reading, Pa., July 28, 1774. He was educated at Princeton, graduating with honor in 1794. He afterward studied law in Philadelphia under the direction of Jared Ingersoll, Esq., and was admitted to the Bar. During his life, he was called to various stations of responsibility. For nine years he held the offices connected with the courts of Berks County now distributed among five persons. His business habits were of peculiar value inthe station of cashier of the Farmers Bank of Reading, a station he held during a most critical financial period, and to which, after resigning, he was recalled. John Sylvester Hiester married Maria Catherine Muhlenberg, daughter of Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, Speaker of the First and of the Third Congresses of the United States. He was educated at the University of Halle, Germnany, where on accoutn f his scholarship he was presented with a snuff box by Frederick the Great of Prussia. This box is still in the possession of the family. His father, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, was sent over from Germany to America to establish the Lutheran Church in America. Another son, Peter Muhlenberg, a clergyman of the Lutheran Church, rose to the rank of Major General in the Continental Army, serving on General Washington's staff, and his statue, representing Pennsylvania, with that of Fulton now stands in the capitol at Washington. John Sylvester has five children, four of whom married, Joseph M., Frederick A.M., Eugenia, and Catherine. 1. Frederick A. M. married Lydia Garrettson, of Georgia. He had one son, John S., who married Emily Gelston, of Reading, PA.; He has no children. 2. Eugenia was twice married, first to her cousin, William Sheaf, of Philadelphia, by whom she had two daughters, Catherine and Ellen. Catherine married Murray Stewart, of Maryland, and left two children -- Murray Stewart, of Wilmington, Del., who married Julia McIlvaine, of Wilmington (they had no children);l and William Hiester Stewart, who married Anna Carter, of Virginia, and has one daughter, Anna (William H. Stewart is a surgeon in the U. S. Navy and is now resident in Rio Janeiro, in Brazil). Ellen married Generak David McMurtrie Gregg,of the United States Army, by whom she had two sons, George Sheaf Gregg and David McMurtrie Gregg, neither of whom are married. The family is resident in Reading, Pennsylvania. Eugenia married a second time Murray Rush, of Philadelphia, by whom she had one son, Richard Rush, now commander inthe U. S. Nacy. Richard Rush married Ella Camp Day, of New York, and has one child living, a daughter, Ella Day Rush. 3. Catherine married Judge Pringle Jones, of Pennsylvania. She had no children. (IV) Joseph Muhlenberg Hiester, eldest son of John Slyvester Hiester, was educated at Princeton and at the Jefferson Medical School, of Philadelphia, graduating with honors. He resided at aReading and Philadelphia,. and at his place at Millmont, in Franklin county, engaging as consulting surgeon. He was much abroad and was appointed commissioner tothe first Paris exposition. He married Isobel Craig McLanahan, of Franklin county, Pa., daughter of William and Mary (Gregg) McLanahan, of whom the mother, Mary Gregg, was a daughter of Andrew Gregg, who served in the Senate and Congress of the United States for thirty-five consecutive years and was a life-long and warm personal friend of Governor Hiester. Three children were born to Joseph M. and Isobel C. Hiester: 1. Eugenia died in infancy. 2. Maria Catherine Muhlenberg. 3. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg. (V) Henry Melchior Muhlenberg Hiester was born Aug. 4, 1852. He was educated at Princeton and at the Columbia Law School of New York, graduated in 1876, and was admitted to the Bar of New Yrok inthat year. He practiced his profession in the city of New York for a number of years, but on the death of his mother, in 1891, he returned to Millmont, Franklin county, Pa.,where he has since lived with the exception of years spent in Europe. Mr. Hiester is unmarried. He is an independent in politics. Millmont, one of the family homes, came into the possession of Governor Hiester about 1819 and has since been held by the family. It is one of the most beautiful country seats in Pennsylvania. The Hiester family can be traced back in German history to the twelfth centiry, and its records teem with gallant and inspiring deeds, which demonstrate the noble character of those who accomplished them. Source: Biographical Annals of Frankln County, 1905, p. 569 |