Peter Muhlenberg

Peter Muhlenberg

John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg (* 1. October 1746 in Trappe , Montgomery County , Province of Pennsylvania ; †  1. October 1807 in Grays Ferry , Montgomery County, Pennsylvania ) was an American politician who in the early years of the United States the State Pennsylvania represented in both houses of Congress .

Life

John Muhlenberg was a member of a well-known family of German descent, whose members were mainly active in politics and theology. His father Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711–1787) was born in Germany and is considered the founder of the German-speaking Lutheran church system in the British colonies in North America and is therefore referred to as the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in North America . His brother Frederick Muhlenberg (1750-1801) was a member of Congress and in 1789 the first speaker of the United States House of Representatives . Another brother, Henry Muhlenberg (1753-1815), was a theologian and naturalist. His nephew John Andrew Shulze (1774-1852) was governor of Pennsylvania. His relatives also included congressmen Henry AP Muhlenberg (1782–1844), Henry Augustus Muhlenberg (1823–1854) and Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg (1887–1980). His son Francis Swaine Muhlenberg (1795-1831) also sat in the US House of Representatives.

John Muhlenberg received a classical education. He studied Latin in Halle between 1763 and 1766 . There he was in the meantime as a dragoon in the military. He then returned to Pennsylvania and studied theology at the Academy of Philadelphia , now the University of Pennsylvania . In 1768 he was ordained as a Lutheran minister. In the following years he served as a pastor in the cities of New Germantown and Bedminster, New Jersey . Then he moved to Woodstock , Virginia . In 1772 he went to England, where he was ordained a clergyman by the Anglican Church .

In the 1770s he joined the American Revolution . In 1774 he was a member of the then colonial House of Representatives of Virginia ( Virginia house of burgesses ). He then became chairman of the security committee in what was then Dunmore County, which later became Shenandoah County . During the American War of Independence that followed, he set up the eighth regiment from Virginia, which consisted mainly of soldiers of German descent. He also commanded this unit from time to time. In 1777 he became a Brigadier General in the Continental Army . In 1783 he was promoted to major general. After the war, he returned to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It was there that he began his political career. In 1784 he became a member of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania , which was roughly equivalent to a current state cabinet. From 1785 to 1788 he was vice-president of this body. This corresponds to the later rank of lieutenant governor .

He represented the State of Pennsylvania in the US House of Representatives from 1789 to 1791, 1793 to 1795 and from 1799 to 1801 . Politically, he became a member of the Democratic-Republican Party founded by later President Thomas Jefferson in the late 1790s . During his last term in the House of Representatives in 1800, the new federal capital Washington, DC was moved. In 1800 John Muhlenberg was elected to the US Senate , where he took up his new mandate on March 4, 1801. He only held this office until his resignation on June 30 of the same year. This move came after President Jefferson named him head of the federal treasury for Pennsylvania. Then in 1802 he became head of the Philadelphia Customs Service . He held this office until his death on October 1, 1807, his 61st birthday.

According to him, Muhlenberg County named in Kentucky.

literature

• Muhlenberg, John Peter Gabriel . In: The New International Encyclopædia
• Muhlenberg, John Peter Gabriel . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 18 : Medal - Mumps . London 1911, p. 956 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Commons : Peter Muhlenberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Peter Muhlenberg in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)