sibilities. While the Senate was in session no one could assume the office until confirmed by that body, and no one he could have appointed could have been confirmed. Congress did not adjourn until August. The adjournment left the way open for the President's action, and he appointed as Mr. R.'s successor Thomas S. Smith, who cheerfully assented to all that the administration required of him. Notwithstanding this subserviency on the part of Mr. Smith, his appointment was rejected by the Senate at the instance and with the approbation of the President, and Calvin Blythe was appointed Collector in his place. Mr. Blythe had been removed by John Tyler to make the appointment of Mr. Roberts, and he was now reappointed without any other reason than the hope of his support as a prominent Democrat-so far had the President drifted from the party that had elected him to the Vice Presidency. In refusing to bend at the behests of the President, Mr. Roberts was controlled by influences solely of a public nature, and did not forfeit the respect and confidence of President Tyler, who through his intimate friend, Mr. Catlett, in the hour when he was about to restore Mr. Blythe, assured Mr. Roberts that he thought as highly of him as he ever did. Mr. Roberts left the Custom House with the affectionate regard of all who had been associated with him officially and with the good will and respect of all who had had business transactions with him.

From that time Mr. Roberts held no public position, but continued to have a lively interest in all that was transpiring of a public character. He had reached the ripe old age of 71 years, with unimpaired mental powers and vigorous physical strength. The last twelve years of his life were spent in rural occupations upon his extensive farm and in the enjoyment of books, his keen relish for the acquisition of knowledge seeming to increase with age. He was an ardent friend and advocate of general education, and paid much attention to that work at home and elsewhere. Several very able. lectures of Mr. Roberts on the subject of education are still in existence in manuscript, which were written and delivered at a very advanced age. He has left in his memoirs, which he addressed to his children, a treasury of information which is not attainable elsewhere, but which, owing to its personal nature, is not well suited for public reading.

As before stated, Mr. Roberts was until nearly his 40th year a birth-right member of the society of Friends. Owing to the active and prominent part which he took in the National Councils in support of the war of 1812 against Great Britain, he was disowned by

that denomination.

This he felt to be a relief from observances which he could not apprehend were suited to a free and independent exercise of his intellectual and moral promptings. He always continued, however, to sympathize with Friends in most of their views and convictions. He notwithstanding never sought to renew his connection with either branch of that divided religious denomition. Up to within a few months of his death he continued in the full enjoyment of all his faculties. In the spring of 1854 his strength began to fail him, and continued to do so until the succeeding July, when on the 21st of that month he died in perfect peace, "confident of a spiritual life beyond the grave neither limited as to time nor restricted as to its possibilities."

Mrs. Roberts survived him nearly eleven years. She passed a life of general usefulness in her various spheres of action hardly less marked and prominent than that of her distinguished husband. Her whole life was devoted to the good of others. She lived to the ripe old age of 76, and passed to the reward of the righteous on June 11th, 1865.

The remains of Jonathan Roberts and wife sleep beside each other in the private cemetery of the family on the farm of William B. Roberts, their son, a little west of the road leading to King-ofPrussia. The lot is enclosed and the graves indicated by plain marble memorials.

Mr. and Mrs. Roberts had nine children: Mathew Thomas, Mary C., William B., Anna M., Jonathan M., John B., Sarah H., Mathew, and Edward F. Of these children Mathew Thomas, Mary C. and Anna M. died when young. The youngest of the four, Mathew, attained maturity, but was not married. He was drowned in the spring of 1851, in California, while trying to save the property of a friend. The other five are still living.

William B. Roberts married, in 1842, Susan H. Holstein, youngest daughter of Colonel George W. Holstein, of Upper Merion. They (William B. and wife) have eight children, all living: Eliza A., who is married to David Conrad, of Plymouth; Sarah L., married to William Wills, Jr., of Plymouth; Mathew H., married to Clara V. Conrad; William H., married to Laura Massey, of Chester county. Jonathan, George, Edward and John are unmarried. At the fall election in 1878 William B. Roberts was chosen a member of the lower house of Assembly on the Republican ticket.

Jonathan M. Roberts married Mary H. Abbott, of Norristown. They have had seven children, six of whom are living. They are

Susan A., Rebecca H., Eliza B., Mary T., Virginia L., Anna T., and Sarah T. All survive except Eliza B., who died in infancy, and all are minors.

John B. Roberts married Virginia M. Lewis, of Burlington, New Jersey. They have had two children, Louisa and Jonathan M. The latter, a minor, survives; the former died in infancy.

Sarah is married to Samuel Tyson, of Upper Merion, and they have had four children, Jonathan R., Edward M., Eliza H., and Mary F. The first three named survive, and are minors; the last died in infancy.

Edward F. Roberts is unmarried.

[NOTE.-Since the earlier pages of this biography were printed the author learns that his conjecture-expressed in a foot note-that Mr. Roberts' repugnance, when a boy, to declaim "Cato's Soliloquy" was not on account of Addison's reputed intemperance, but because the boy's moral sense was shocked at Cato's suicide, following his lofty musings on the immortality of the soul. Young Jonathan Roberts had not then learned that self-murder was right and honorable according to heathen ethics, and only condemned by christian morals. Very properly, Addison made Cato talk like a heathen, as he was, and not like a christian.]

BRIGADIER GENERAL FRANCIS SWAYNE.

Other things are disposed of by Chance and Fortune, but Death treats all men alike. -Seneca.

The first public notice of General Francis Swayne is the recorded fact in the Pennsylvania Archives that he was State Clothier, appointed July 23d, 1779, probably with a Colonel's or Major's commission, to contract for clothing for the State militia during the Revolutionary war. He settled here about the time of the organization of our county, and was elected the second Sheriff in 1787, to succeed Zebulon Potts. As the office was then annually elective, he was twice re-elected, closing his term of service in October, 1790. He had probably received the appointment of Brigadier General by brevet in the State militia, for we find his name appended as such to a notice to the qualified and enrolled militia to meet and hold the annual election in 1805. In 1800 he was appointed Clerk of

the Courts and Prothonotary by Governor McKean, which posts he held nine years, till superceded by Philip Hahn, who was appointed by Simon Snyder in 1809.

Towards the close of Governor McKean's first term there began to be great opposition to him (McKean) in the ranks of his own party, the outcry being that he was an aristocrat and sympathized with the English. In 1804 Swayne was a Presidential elector. He had married a daughter of Henry Melchoir Muhlenberg, and in 1807 was left executor of the estate of his brother-in-law, General Peter Muhlenberg, who died that year. When parties began to develop, after the formation of the Federal Constitution, Swayne, in common with the Muhlenbergs, Hon. Frederick Conrad, and others, took the Federal side as against the Jeffersonians. Accordingly we find him participating in a public meeting in 1807 in favor of Mr. McKean and against Jefferson and Snyder, and opposing Jonathan Roberts, Nathaniel B. Boileau, and other Republicans. Before McKean retired from the Governor's chair, in 1808, he appointed Swayne a Justice of the Peace, which at that time was a life office. In 1811 he was elected President of the Ridge Turnpike Road Company and one of the commissioners to superintend the sale of stock. On March 17th, 1813, he advertises in Winnerd's Register to sell all his household furniture. It is presumed this was just after the death of his first wife, who was buried at Trappe, in the Muhlenberg family row. General Swayne was elected the first President of the Bank of Montgomery County, which was organized shortly after the events just recorded, but having expressed a desire in 1817 to resign the post, the Board of Directors accepted, and tendered him a vote of thanks, signed Levi Pawling, President, and Zadok Thomas, Secretary of the Board.

General Swayne built the large two-storied brick house at the southeast corner of Main and Cherry streets, afterwards owned by John B. Sterigere, and occupied it till his death. After his first wife's demise he married a widow, who on his death married an innkeeper of Pottstown named Ritze. In person General Swayne was rather under medium height, stout made, of florid complexion, and was advanced in age at the time of his death. He left no children by either of his wives, and the time of his death is not certainly known, but doubtless was previous to 1825. He sleeps beside his first wife at St. Augustus Lutheran Church, Trappe.

PHILIP YOST, Esq.

It was not by choice meats and perfumes that our forefathers recommended themselves, but in virtuous actions and the sweat of honest, manly labors.-Seneca.

There is no family of German descent in eastern Pennsylvania whose respectability and standing have been better preserved than the Yosts. They are spread nearly all over the county of Montgomery, and so separated that relationship is scarcely traced among its remote branches.

The progenitor of the family of which we are writing was Philip Yost, who was born in Nassau, West Germany, in 1718, and emigrated about 1740. The maiden name of his wife was Vronicei Dotterer. They settled near Pottstown, where he died in 1804, aged 86 years, leaving among other children Philip Yost, the subject of this biography. He was born in Limerick township, August 24th, 1757, and received a good German and English education at Pottstown. When quite a young man he enlisted in the army that assisted to gain our independence. He was first enrolled as a private, but subsequently attained the position of Cornet, and went through the disastrous battles of Brandywine and Germantown unhurt. Returning at the end of the war he married Rozina Beringer. The children of that union were Mary, Jacob, Benjamin B., Salome, Tobias, Elizabeth, Rozina, Herman, Jonas, Sarah, and Philip. Of this large family, one (Rozina) is still living at or near Limerick Station.

Philip Yost, the Revolutionary soldier, and subject of this notice, was, as his father, a member of the German Reformed church. He learned the trade of a wheelwright, but afterwards followed farming till nearly the time of his death, which took place on August 28th, 1832, in his 76th year.

We will now give the descending genealogy through the line of his son, Benjamin B. Yost, who was born December 31st, 1787, in Pottsgrove township. He also received a good common school education, and married Sarah Feather on November 30th, 1813. Benjamin B. Yost, when the war of 1812 broke out, enlisted as his father had done in the Revolution, and was fife or drum major at the camp at Marcus Hook, on the Dela