Matthew S. Quay, Beaver, Beaver County

I'm almost afraid to say anything and possibly jinx things, but we're finally starting to have some decent temperatures around here. I had to skip last week's post because I was down with a severe head cold, no doubt at least partly because of the roller coaster weather we had throughout the month of February. But I did get the March newsletter out on schedule yesterday, so if you aren't subscribed to that and want to check it out, you can find it here.

Meanwhile, let's take a trip out to Beaver County, which I had intended for the end of February, and have a look at the last of the markers sent to me by my kind friend John Robinson.

The marker stands a few blocks from the Quay house, at the
intersection of Third and Insurance Streets, Beaver.
Image courtesy of John Robinson.

Matthew Quay was not originally from Beaver County. He was born in Dillsburg, York County, on September 30, 1833; he was one of several children of the Rev. Anderson Quay and his wife Catherine McCain. As a young man he attended both Beaver Academy and Indiana Academy, and in 1850 he graduated from Jefferson College (today known as Washington & Jefferson College) in Canonsburg. He started studying the law while teaching, and presumably around this time he began growing his epic mustache. In 1854 he was admitted to the bar and began his law practice in Beaver. The following year, he married Agnes Barclay, a native of Beaver. 

For the first few years of their marriage, Matthew served as the prothonotary of Beaver County. (If you're not familiar with the term, the prothonotary is the elected civil clerk of the Court of Common Pleas. This person is responsible for recording all civil procedures before the court, for signing and sealing all writs, and for processing various other documents for the Court.) He held the position until 1860, which was also the year in which their first child, Elizabeth, was born; Matthew and Agnes would go on to have nine children over the course of sixteen years.

Matthew S. Quay. Image courtesy of
the U.S. Senate Historical Office.

The year after Matthew became a father, the Civil War broke out. As the war continued, Matthew decided that he needed to lend his support to the Union, and in 1862 he joined 134th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment. This regiment was formed of volunteers from Butler, Beaver, and Lawrence Counties, and most of them (including Matthew) had no prior military service. The men trained at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg, named for then-governor Andrew Curtin. From there the troops were transferred to Washington, D.C., where Matthew was named colonel of the regiment and Edward O'Brien was his lieutenant colonel. They joined forces with the 91st, 126th, and 129th Pennsylvania regiments, commanded by General Erastus Tyler, and helped to defend the capital during the Northern Virginia Campaign.

The 134th had a bit of bad luck with getting to the battles on time. In August they were sent to Manassas, Virginia, but they arrived too late to help with the Second Battle of Bull Run. In September they headed for Sharpsburg, Maryland, but arrived too late to participate in the Battle of Antietam. While in the vicinity, Matthew contracted typhoid fever, and by December, his illness had rendered  him so weak that he was forced to resign his commission. However, the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13th was too important; Matthew refused to leave his troops. Instead, he volunteered to remain as an aide to General Tyler throughout the battle, providing valuable support during the fight even in spite of his poor health.

The Quay family home in Beaver, with a different marker.
Image courtesy of John Robinson.

Once the battle was over, Matthew returned to his home in Beaver, pictured at right, and managed to recover from the typhoid. He soon became involved in a different kind of battle - he turned his attention to Pennsylvania's political climate, and ran for public office. As a member of the Republican party, he served in the State House of Representatives from 1865 to 1867. He then took a break - perhaps due to his health concerns, or perhaps to be more present for his growing family - before returning to work in 1886, when he became the Pennsylvania State Treasurer. In 1888 he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his participation in the Battle of Fredericksburg despite his condition, and the citation observed that "Although out of service, he voluntarily resumed duty on the eve of battle and took a conspicuous part in the charge on the heights." Also in 1888 he was named Chair of the Republican National Committee, a post he held until 1891; in that capacity he was influential in the elections of Presidents Benjamin Harrison and Theodore Roosevelt. In the 1890s, there was a campaign to create a new county from parts of Luzerne, Carbon, and Schuylkill Counties, which would have been named Quay County in his honor and had Hazleton as its county seat. The bill passed the legislature, but it was vetoed by Governor Daniel Hastings, for which the people of Hazleton hanged him in effigy.

In 1897 he was elected to the United States Senate. Regrettably, he left that position just two years later when he was accused of misappropriating state funds, although he was later acquitted of the claim. In 1901 he once again was elected to the Senate, and he remained there until he died three years later at the age of 70. Agnes followed him in 1911, and both are buried in the Beaver Cemetery and Mausoleum. The house in Beaver has since been declared a National Historic Landmark; another house he owned in Philadelphia has received that designation as well.

Despite being a war hero, Matthew was rather a controversial fellow. As a politician, he was allegedly in the pocket of Standard Oil, John D. Rockefeller's conglomerate. He pushed Pennsylvania to become a heavily Republican state, and only really paid attention to legislation which might affect his alleged patrons. However, he was also of Native American descent (something he discovered through his own genealogical research) and embraced that fully, working on behalf of the Native people in the Senate; he was actually recognized as a member of the Delaware tribe, who even elected him a war chief in recognition of his military service. I guess that, like most public figures, he's best described as complex and you have to take the good with the bad.

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Sources and Further Reading:

Matthew S. Quay in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

Matthew S. Quay at FindAGrave.com

Kehl, James A. Boss Rule in the Gilded Age: Matt Quay of Pennsylvania. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1981.

Matthew S. Quay at the Historical Marker Database

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.