Joseph Hiester
Joseph Hiester | |
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Pennsylvania Senate for the 17th district | |
In office 1790–1794 | |
Preceded by | district created |
Succeeded by | Presley Carr Lane |
Personal details | |
Born | Bern Township, Province of Pennsylvania, British America | November 18, 1752
Died | June 10, 1832 Reading, Pennsylvania, U.S. | (aged 79)
Political party | Democratic-Republican |
Spouse | Elizabeth Whitman Hiester (?–1825; her death) |
Signature | |
Joseph Hiester (November 18, 1752 – June 10, 1832) was an American politician, who served as the fifth
Biography
Hiester was the son of John Hiester and Maria Barbara Epler. He received a common-school education when he was not working on the farm, and became a clerk in a store in Reading run by Adam Whitman. He became a partner in the store in 1771 when he married Elizabeth, Whitman's daughter.[2] He owned slaves.[3]
At the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, he raised and equipped in that town a company with which he took part in the battles of Long Island and Germantown. He was then promoted to colonel. He was captured and briefly confined in the prison ship "Jersey," where he did much to alleviate the sufferings of his fellow prisoners. Later he was transferred to New York City where he was exchanged.[2]
He was a member of the convention of 1776 that drafted the
He was known by the nickname of "Old German Grey" and spoke with a Pennsylvania Dutch German accent.[5]
Initially buried at Reading's Reformed Church cemetery after his death in 1832, his remains were exhumed and reinterred at the Charles Evans Cemetery during the mid-19th century.[6]
Legacy
A residence hall on the
Notes
- ^ "The Governors of Pennsylvania." Mount Union, Pennsylvania: The Mount Union Times, January 27, 1911, p. 1 (subscription required).
- ^ . (subscription required)
- ^ "Congress slaveowners", The Washington Post, January 19, 2022, retrieved July 11, 2022
- ^ "Pennsylvania State Senate - Joseph Hiester Biography". www.legis.state.pa.us. Retrieved November 2, 2019.
- ^ "Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission". www.phmc.state.pa.us. Retrieved November 2, 2019.
- ^ Youker, Darrin. "Were City Graves Relocated to Charles Evans Cemtery?", in "You Ask Youker". Reading, Pennsylvania: Reading Eagle, June 10, 2010.
References
- United States Congress. "Joseph Hiester (id: H000574)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
- Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1892). . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
- The Political Graveyard