My recent visit to Manheim was actually my first time ever visiting. It's a pleasant little borough with just four historical markers, although one is currently missing. Three of the markers (including the missing one) focus on the life and work of one man, but the fourth is a case of "One of these things is not like the others," and that's the one we're going to discuss this week.
The marker is technically for the house. However, there's not a lot to be said about the house, or at least not a lot that I've been able to find. About the man who was born in the house, however, I've been able to find a fair amount of information, so let's take a look.
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The marker stands in front of the building at
24 South Main Street. |
His name was Samuel Peter Heintzelman, and while his name might not be as familiar to us today, he was kind of a big deal back in the 19th century.
Samuel was born in the house that stands (or stood) on Manheim's South Main Street on September 30, 1805. He was either the first or second son of Peter and Hannah (Grubb) Heintzelman, who were the parents of eight children - M.P., Juliana, Maria, Hieronymus, Samuel, Henry, Elizabeth, and Susanna. Peter's own parents, Hieronymus and Catherina Heintzelman, were born in Bavaria, Germany, and moved to Pennsylvania during the colonial period. Hannah's father, meanwhile, had been Peter Grubb, the minority owner of the Cornwall Iron Works and a colonel in the 8th Lancaster Battalion during the American Revolution.
(Hannah's family tree was a bit tangled. Her mother, Hannah Bellarby, had been the adopted daughter of Peter Grubb's uncle, and both Peter and his brother Curtis had relationships with her after the deaths of their respective wives. She was married to neither man, but bore each of them one child. How the Grubbs treated Hannah and her half-brother/cousin Jehu, especially as compared to their legitimate half-siblings, is unknown. Grubb family historians, however, apparently regard Hannah Bellarby as an unsung heroine who kept the fractured Grubb family from falling to pieces.)
As for Samuel himself, I can't find a whole lot relating to his own early years, since of course all of that took place well before he was born. At the age of 21, he graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1826, where he was ranked 17th out of 41 graduates. The Army appointed him a brevet second lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Infantry, and over the next decade he received several promotions. He served as quartermaster in Florida during the Second Seminole War, remaining in that state with the 2nd Infantry until the conflict ended in 1842. Two years later he married Margaret Stuart, but there seems to be no record of when she was born or who her family was. They welcomed their son Charles in 1846, and as far as I can tell he was their only child. In 1847, Samuel went to Mexico to serve under General Winfield Scott in the Mexican-American War and was soon promoted to the rank of brevet major. He later also served in the Yuma War in California and the First Cortina War in Texas. I'm not going into detail about those because we'll be here all day, but his time in all of these conflicts was considered exemplary.
Samuel's story really picks up in 1861, when he was appointed Colonel of the 17th Infantry and Brigadier General of volunteers. The American Civil War had begun, and he led a division during the First Battle of Bull Run. He was wounded there, though only in the elbow. In November of that year, he led a regiment of the 2nd Michigan Infantry to Lorton, Virginia, where they invaded the historic Pohick Church. This is, in hindsight, a very regrettable act, though at the time I'm sure it made sense. Pohick Church was originally built in 1769 through the joint efforts of George Washington and a handful of other colonial Virginians. Following the War of 1812, it had been beautifully restored under the direction of then-President Martin Van Buren, who was working alongside John Quincy Adams and a few other patriots to bring the church back to its glory. On Samuel's orders, the church building was raided and ransacked, and stripped of valuables. A number of artifacts were lost as a result.
The following spring, in March 1862, President Lincoln reorganized the Army of the Potomac into corps, and appointed Samuel to lead the Third Corps of the Army. The photograph of him seen here, courtesy of the Library of Congress, dates from around this period. His corps were vital to the battles at Yorktown, Seven Pines, Fair Oaks, Williamsburg, Oak Grove, and Glendale. He actually took a severe bullet wound to the left wrist at the Battle of Glendale, leaving him without the use of that arm for some time. He also served in the Peninsula Campaign, but fell ill with pleurisy during that time, and so his command wasn't as effective as it had previously been. Following the Second Battle of Bull Run, he was relieved of command, citing his age - it was late in 1862, and he was approaching his 57th birthday at the time. He spent the rest of the war helping to defend Washington, D.C., and afterward relocated to Texas to serve on boards of inquiry and perform occupation duty during the Reconstruction.
At his retirement in 1869, Samuel was given a final promotion to major general, so he could draw that rank's pension. He moved to New York with Margaret, where he dabbled in business ventures for a few years as a member of the board of directors of various companies. He retired completely in 1874, and died on May 1, 1880. His cause of death was stated to be complications from that bout of pleurisy he suffered during the war. He was buried at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in the city of Buffalo, and Margaret was interred with him following her own death in 1896.
Both their son and their grandson followed in Samuel's footsteps and became military officers of note. Charles graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1867 and rose to the rank of captain in the Army. He was serving as assistant quartermaster, and might have gone on to higher ranks. Unfortunately, he died at the age of just 35, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He and his wife, Emily Bailey, had just one child called Stuart, after Charles's mother's maiden name. Stuart, who graduated from West Point Academy in 1899, eventually rose to the rank of major general just like his grandfather, and served with distinction in World War I.
As for the Heintzelman house, it's still standing... I think. At least one of my sources admits that there's no confirmed indication as to whether the house on South Main Street today is the original one where Samuel was born, or a refurbished version of it, or if the original was completely torn down and replaced with what's there now. But the historical marker makes it clear that it was the birthplace of one of the Union Army's most loyal generals.
Sources and Further Reading:
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.
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