HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 



87 



dcau. He graduated at Princeton in 1766, 

 studied law and became eminent in his pro- 

 fession. At the beginning of the Revolu- 

 tion he at once joined the Associators of that 

 city and was commissioned a lieutenant. 

 April -8, 1776, he was commissioned lieu- 

 tenant-colonel and placed in command of 

 a rifle battalion. He was appointed in 1775 

 and again in 1776 by Congress as a signer 

 of Bills of Credit, and held the offices of 

 deputy commissary-general of prisoners and 

 commissioner of claims of the treasury. 

 During the closing years of the Revolution 

 he removed to Reading, Berks county, and 

 represented that county in the legislature 

 in 1782 and several succeeding terms. He 

 died at Reading, January 25, 1810. He had 

 married in 1782 Mary Weidner, daughter of 

 Peter and Susan Weidner, of Berks county, 

 who died December 5, 1802, in her forty- 

 sixth year. Their children were Ann, born 

 1782, who died unmarried in 1852; Will- 

 iam, born 1788, died October 10, 1845, an 

 eminent lawyer of Reading; and Edward 

 Tilgham, born August 14, 1790, died 

 March 6, 18.31. Edward Tilghman Clymer 

 was born at Reading, Berks county, and 

 was educated at Princeton. He married 

 June II, 1818, Maria Catharine Hiester, 

 daughter of William and Anna Maria 

 (Meyer) Hiester. She was born March 

 4>_ 1793, and died March 24, 1845. Edward 

 Tilghman was a man of scholarly attam- 

 ments, and follows 



1. Daniel Roberdeau. a merchant and 

 lawyer of Reading, born March ,31. i8ig, 

 died May 5, 1889, aged seventy years, 



2. William Hiester, the father of the 

 subject of this sketch; see forward. 



3. Edward Myers, born July 16, 1822, 

 died May 25, 188.?, in New York City, pro- 

 jector and first president of the East Penn- 

 sylvania railroad, later president of a coal 

 company connected with the N. Y., L. E. & 

 W. Railroad Companv, with offices in New 

 York. 



4. Wiedner, born May 12, 1824, died 

 July 16, 1824. 



5. Mary Hiester. born July 19, 1825, 

 drowned in the English Channel November 

 26, 1878, with two of her children ; mar- 

 ried August 10, 1852, her cousin, William 

 Bingham Clymer, son of Henry, and grand- 

 son of George Clymer, the Signer, who was 



jDorn April 18, 1801, at Morrisville, Bucks 

 county, Pennsylvania, died May 28, 1873, 

 at Florence, Italy. 



6. Hon. Hiester Clymer, born Novemlier 

 3, 1827, died June 12, 1884; lawyer, state 

 senator, congressman. Democratic candidate 

 for governor, president of Union Trust 

 Company, etc. 



7. George Edward - Clymer, born Jan- 

 uary 8, 1830, died July 7, 1895, major of 

 Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry in the civil war 

 and prominent in the iron and steel indus- 

 tries. 



William Hiester Clymer, the father of 

 the subject of this sketch, was born at the 

 Clymer homestead in the Conestoga Valley, 

 near Morgantown, Berks county, October 



9, 1820. His father dying when he was 

 eleven years of age, he was placed with his 

 uncle, William Hiester, at New Holland, 

 Lancaster county, arid was educated at 

 Lititz, and assisted his uncle in his store. 

 He later removed to Reading, where he and 

 his brother, Daniel R., conducted a dry 

 goods store until 1846, when he sold out 

 to Daniel, and with his brother Edward M., 

 purchased the Mt. Laurel iron furnace. 

 They built the Temple iron furnace in 1867, 

 and, having seven years previously pur- 

 chased the old Oley furnace, became exten- 

 sive manufacturers of iron, organizing the 

 Temple Iron Company in 1870, and later 

 the Clymer Iron Company, both of which 

 W^illiam H. Clymer was president, until 

 September, 1882, when he resigned and re- 

 moved with his family to Reading, where 

 he died July 26, 1883. He was president of 

 the First National Bank of Reading from 

 1876 to his death. He married, June 12^ 

 1855, Valeria Smith, eldest daughter of Levi 

 B. Smith, who was born March 14, 1828,. 

 and died August 17, 1901. They were the 

 parents of six children : Emily Smith ; Ed- 

 ward Tilghman ; William Hiester ; Lee 

 Smith ; Valeria Elizabeth ; and Frederick 

 Hiester. 



The ancestors of Maria Catharine Hies- 

 ter, the grandmother of the subject of this 

 sketch, were of Silesian origin, her first 

 American ancestor being Daniel Hiester, 

 the youngest of three brothers, John, Jo- 

 seph and Daniel, who emigrated from Wit- 

 genstein, in Westphalia, to Pennsylvania, 

 early in the eighteenth century, and took up 

 their residence in Goshenhoppen, now Mont- 

 gomery county. Daniel had several sons, of 

 whom John, born April 9, 174S, was a mem- 

 ber of congress from Chester county 1807-8 

 and was succeeded by his son Daniel ; Dan- 

 iel, a representative in congress from Mont- 

 gomery county, 1789-97, and from Mary- 

 land 1801-5 ; Gabriel, for thirty year's a 

 member of the state legislature from Berks 

 county; and William. All four of these 

 sons of Daniel Hiester were in the conti- 

 nental service during the revolution, the 

 two elder as colonels, the third as a major,. 

 while William, the youngest, born June 10, 

 1757. being required to look after his aged 

 parents, did not serve but one campaign. 

 Joseph Hiester, governor of Pennsylvania, 

 was the only son of John, and a cousin of 

 the four brothers above named. 



Daniel Hiester. the elder, was born m 

 the town of Elsoff, county of Witgenstein,. 

 province of Westplialia, in Silesia, Ger- 

 many, January r. 1713, and died in J^erii 

 township, Berks county, Pennsylvania, June 

 7, 1795. His wife was Catharine Schuler, 

 whom he married September 29, 1742. She 

 was born Sepiember 10, 1717, and died 

 August 17, 1789, aged seventy-two years, 

 eleven months and seven days. 



William Hiester, the great-grandfather 

 of the subject of this sketch, born at Go.sh- 

 enhoppen. Upper Salford township, Mont- 

 gomery county, June 10, 1757, was the 

 youngest son of Daniel and Catharine 



