My Genealogy Hound

GEN. EDWARD M. BIDDLE, son of William Macfunn and Lydia (Spencer) Biddle [see Biddle Family], was born in Philadelphia on July 27, 1808, and died May 13, 1889, in Carlisle, where he had resided for sixty-two years. His widowed mother moved to Carlisle in 1827 and in the following year erected a spacious brick residence on West High street, in which some of her descendants continued to live until 1904, when it was converted into a business building. Having been graduated from Princeton College on Oct. 6, 1827, Edward M. at once entered upon the study of law in Carlisle in the office of his brother-in-law, Hon. Charles B. Penrose, and was admitted to the Bar in 1830. He practiced his profession for only a short time and then became interested in various manufacturing enterprises, including the Big Pond Furnace in Southampton township, and later the straw board mill at Middlesex, the latter having been built in 1853-54 by himself and Hon. Charles B. Penrose as partners.

On January 14, 1836, Gen. Biddle married Juliana Watts, youngest daughter of David Watts, Esq., one of the most distinguished lawyers of southern Pennsylvania. In 1839 he was elected secretary of the Cumberland Valley Railroad Company and in 1840 was elected to the additional office of treasurer. These two positions he held continuously until his death, in 1889, at which time he was the oldest railroad official in point of service in the United States.

In early life he took a conspicuous part in the military affairs of the county. In 1830 he was commissioned second lieutenant of the “Carlisle Light Artillery,” in the 1st Brigade of the 11th Division of Pennsylvania militia, rising in 1832 to be first lieutenant and in 1835 to be captain. In 1836 Major Gen. Samuel Alexander, of the militia, selected him as his first aide-de-camp, with the rank of a major of the line. In April, 1861, upon the breaking out of the Rebellion, Gov. Andrew Curtin appointed and commissioned him adjutant general of the Commonwealth, and while holding this position he organized the earliest regiments which went to the field of battle. In the succeeding January he resigned, his private business requiring his undivided attention, and he never thereafter entered the public service. His wife survived him until Aug. 9, 1899, and of the six children of the happy union, only two are now living, namely: Lydia Spencer Biddle and Hon. Edward William Biddle. [See sketch.]