My Genealogy Hound

HON. SAMUEL WHITTAKER PENNYPACKER, Governor of Pennsylvania, is descended from an old colonial family of Dutch origin. He was born at Phoenixville, Chester county, Pennsylvania, April 9, 1843. He has been a prominent figure in historical, judicial and political circles in the past quarter of a century, achieving distinction in several lines of effort such as falls to the lot of few men.

The father of Governor Pennypacker having removed to Philadelphia, to accept an appointment to a professorship in the Philadelphia Medical College, he attended the Northwest Grammar School, and later obtained a scholarship in Saunders’ Institute, in West Philadelphia. On the death of his father after several years’ residence in Philadelphia, he returned to Phoenixville, where he attended the Grovemont Seminary. He prepared for Yale University, but circumstances prevented his entering that institution. In 1862 he attended an examination of teachers in Montgomery county, and taught school the following winter in the village of Mont Clare, opposite Phoenixville.

In 1863 Mr. Pennypacker enlisted in the service of the United States, and was mustered in some time prior to the battle of Gettysburg. The organization to which he belonged was the Twenty-sixth Emergency Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers, and he was a member of Company F, of Pottstown. The regiment was the first force to encounter the Confederate army at Gettysburg.

On his return from military service, Mr. Pennypacker entered upon the study of law, and enrolled himself as a student in the Law Department of the University of Pennsylvania. At the same time he entered the office of Hon. Peter McCall, a well known lawyer of Philadelphia. He graduated in 1866 with the degree of Bachelor of Laws conferred by the University, and immediately entered upon the practice of the legal profession, in which he was very successful. In the same year in which he engaged in law practice he was elected president of the Bancroft Literary Union, and in 1868 he was chosen president of the Law Academy. In 1886 he was appointed a member of the Philadelphia Board of Education. He was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1887. In 1889 he was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia by Governor James A. Beaver. In November of the same year he was elected to that position for the term of ten years, and in 1899 has re-elected to the position for ten years longer.

Judge Pennypacker’s career on the bench made him a reputation as a jurist of learning and ability. His decisions were very seldom reversed by the Supreme Court of the commonwealth. His opinions were models of good sense, sound reasoning, and enlightened judgment. He stood high in the judiciary of Philadelphia, whose reputation for integrity, ability and learning is second to none in the country. In this position Judge Pennypacker was honored by his fellow- members of the judiciary, and enjoyed the esteem and confidence of all with whom he came in contact.

The governorship is the first political position held by Judge Pennypacker. At the time of his nomination for the office by the Republican State Convention, June 11, 1902, he was President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas No. 2, of Philadelphia. He was placed in nomination in the convention, which met at Harrisburg, by Hampton L. Carson, the present attorney general of the commonwealth, and his lifelong friend. Mr. Carson, in nominating Judge Pennypacker, said:

“He was in early manhood a teacher in a village school in Montgomery county; later a law student of remarkable attainment in the office of that great teacher, Peter McCall, a graduate of the law department of the University of Pennsylvania; an honored and successful member of the Philadelphia bar; a, member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States; a historian and a scholar, with the principles and the lives of our noblest patriots imprinted on his heart and inspiring his speech and pen; a citizen of public spirit and of high ideals; a man of sturdy common sense and courageous probity of character.

“Esteemed, beloved, and honored, a jurist of learning and capacity; a judge who has worn the ermine for twelve years without spot or stain; a public servant faithful to every trust; a leader fitted by nature and training to command respect and silence calumny, let us carry the soldier lad of 1863 from the steps of the Capitol to the Governor’s chair, to adorn the service of the state with the name, the talents, and the character of Samuel W. Pennypacker.”

After a canvass of unusual interest and activity, in which the late Robert E. Pattison, twice governor of the state, was the Democratic opponent of Judge Pennypacker, he was triumphantly elected to the position, his plurality exceeding; 156,000. He entered upon the duties of the office early in January, 1903. He had never previously entered the domain of politics, in which he has been as successful as elsewhere, a seat on the bench, where candidates are usually supported by Democrats and Republicans alike, not being included in political positions.

Governor Pennypacker is thus a jurist of extensive learning and great legal ability, a citizen of the highest character for honor and integrity, and a historian of colonial days who is everywhere recognized as an authority on such subjects. He is the executive of a great commonwealth whose citizens have good reason to be proud of him. A descendant of early German settlers, he personifies the sterling virtues of a race that has in the course of a century past furnished so many Governors of Pennsylvania, three others of whom- Porter, Shunk and Hartranft -have been, like himself, citizens of the county of Montgomery. In 1899 Judge Pennypacker purchased the ancestral homestead of the family at Pennypacker’s Mills and has since occupied it as his country-seat, only leaving it in the winter months for his city residence. The mansion was the residence of Samuel Pennypacker during the Revolutionary war, and became the headquarters of General Washington at the time the American army was encamped on the Perkiomen. Two letters written by the General while there are preserved in the house, which is of the old colonial style, eminently adapted to the antiquarian tastes of Governor Pennypacker. The Montgomery County Historical Society, of which Governor Pennypacker is a member, has erected near the mansion a monument of native granite, suitably inscribed, to mark the encampment of Washington’s army on this historic ground.

As he was an able and impartial judge, Governor Pennypacker has been a model executive of the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He has never given his approval to a measure which was not calculated to promote the honor or prosperity of the state and the best interests of its citizens. When the passage of road legislation was demanded by the people of the state, and the members of the Senate and House of Representatives were deadlocked, he insisted that the bill for highway improvement be passed. It was adopted, resulting in the present State Highway Department, over which Governor Pennypacker appointed a worthy citizen of Montgomery county, Joseph W. Hunter, to preside. As a member of the Valley Forge Commission, for years prior to assuming the duties of the executive of Pennsylvania, Governor Pennypacker had exerted himself to preserve from destruction the historic remains of the occupation of the place by Washington and his army. As governor, he has urged upon the legislature the duty of providing the means for improving and beautifying Valley Forge Park, and his suggestions have been followed by both bodies. It is impossible to enumerate all the instances in which Governor Pennypacker has upheld the honor and promoted the welfare of the state, but they are many, indeed. He has been a faithful and efficient governor, as he was all that a judge should be in the course of his judicial experience.

Governor Pennypacker has been for many years an active and leading member of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and a frequent visitor to its building at Thirteenth and Locust streets, Philadelphia. As its president he has done much towards placing the institution upon a basis commensurate with the importance of its objects. Governor Pennypacker is also president of the Philobiblon Club; vice-president of the Sons of the Revolution and the Colonial Society; past commander of Frederick Taylor Post, No. 19, Grand Army of the Republic, of Philadelphia; member of the Society of Colonial Wars, and of the Society of the War of 1812. He is a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of “Pennsylvania Colonial Cases,” “Pennypacker’s Supreme Court Reports,” “A Digest of the Common Law Reports,” “The Settlement of Germantown,” “Hendrick Pennebecker,” “Historical and Biographical Sketches,” and more than fifty books and papers. His library of early Pennsylvania publications is the finest of the kind in existence, containing over eight thousand books, pamphlets and manuscripts, many of them exceedingly rare and valuable. He is a connoisseur in colonial antiquarianism, and an authority upon everything of the kind, having made a lifetime study of it. Governor Pennypacker married, October 20, 1870, Virginia Earl, daughter of Nathan B. Broomall, of an old Chester county family. Their family consists of three daughters and a son.