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Mr. Stevens' maternal grandfather, General P., while residing in Trenton, in 1793, at the suggestion of General Washington, prepared a treatise, entitled "The Discipline of the Cavalry of the United States," which he dedicated and presented to General Washington, as appears on the records of the War Department, in Volume LXXVIII, page 189. The following is a copy of the note accompanying the book:

TRENTON, December 13th, 1793.

Sir-I flatter myself with the hope that you will pardon the liberty I have taken to dedicate to your Excellency this small performance. My labor shall be amply rewarded if it meets with your Excellency's approbation.

I propose presenting it to the Congress for their acceptance also as the book of "The Discipline of the Cavalry of the United States." I am, with great respect,

Your Excellency's most obedient, humble servant, To the President. NICHOLAS PARisett.

General Parisett died at Trenton in 1803, universally respected as a patriot and soldier. Mr. Stevens' father, as before stated, was engaged in civil engineering and maritime enterprises between New York and other ports, making that city his residence. In the year 1824, upon the arrival of General Lafayette in New York harbor, John Stevens was one of twelve persons selected by the authorities to row the General to the wharf, in a superbly built yacht, from the ship lying in the stream. Commodore Bainbridge, of the United States navy, acted as cockswain, the party landing at Castle Garden. Mr. John Stevens died in the prime of life at the island of Cuba, of yellow fever; his widow, in Philadelphia, in 1868.

We return now to a further account of the proper subject of this notice. At nine years of age he commenced elementary instruction, preparatory to entering Rutger's College, and on completing his education, studied law in Philadelphia, was admitted when quite young, and soon gained a lucrative practice there; but his health failing by reason of a bronchial affection, he relinquished practice in the year 1857, and moved into our county, settling in Whitemarsh township, though he had been admitted to our bar as early as October, 1848, he having a case to try here for a Philadelphia client. He came to Norristown to reside in 1868, and returned to practice.

Mr. Stevens is married to a daughter of Thomas Dallett, deceased, of Philadelphia. She is the granddaughter of John Simcoe Saunders, of London, author of the celebrated law work known as "Saunders' Pleadings." Mr. Stevens' family consists of wife and three sons, Henry Saunders, Charles Albert, and Alfred Herbert. He has been for several years an active Democratic politician, and is a fluent speaker at the bar and on the stump. He has been in nomination for Burgess of Norristown, and other town offices, but failed of election by reason of a dominant Republican majority.

ROBERT IREDELL, Esq.

'Tis not a year or two shows us a man.-Shakspeare.

The men now in any wise at the head of business establishments in Norristown who were so engaged forty years ago, may be counted on the fingers of one hand. Of this number, however, the subject of this sketch is conspicuous.

Robert Iredell, the son of Jonathan and Hannah Iredell, was born in Horsham township, Montgomery county, on the 15th of October, 1809. His great-grandfather, Thomas Iredell, a prominent member of the Society of Friends, settled in Horsham township in 1709; his grandfather, Robert Iredell, was born there in 1720. He is the youngest of eight sons. After receiving a good common school education he was apprenticed to David Sower, Jr., in March, 1827, to learn printing. At that time there were four young men learning the business in Norristown who became noted editors or eminent in after life, to wit: Samuel D. Patterson and William H. Powell at the Register, and Philip R. Freas and Robert Iredell at the Herald office.

Mr. Iredell belongs to a long-lived race, the ages of his parents and grandparents, six persons in all, aggregating four hundred and ninety-six years.

In 1831, soon after coming of age, Mr. Iredell purchased the Norristown Free Press of Henry S. Bell, who had started that

paper as an anti-Masonic organ. The former published it six years, until January, 1837, when John Hodgson, who had become the owner of the Norristown Herald, sold him his paper also. From this time forth, for more than twenty-seven years, Mr. I. continued to issue the united journals as the Norristown Herald and Free Press. He thus outlived or remained longer in journalistic harness than any of his cotemporaries, except Mr. Freas.

On the election of Joseph Ritner as Governor, in 1835, Mr. Iredell had been named as Recorder of Deeds, which office he held three years. Mr. I. was superceded by James Wells, appointed on the accession of Governor Porter.

From the time he issued the joint paper, till 1843, he continued to edit and publish one of the handsomest Whig journals in the eastern part of Pennsylvania. In the latter year he sold a half interest in the paper to William Butler, Esq., of Chester county, recently made Judge of the United States District Court in the city of Philadelphia. Mr. B. was joint editor and publisher eighteen months, during which he studied law here, and was admitted to practice on the 18th of November, 1845. He retired from the paper, however, about that time, and at once entered practice in Chester county. During the time Mr. Butler was connected with the Herald the previous high character of the paper was fully sustained. From the time Mr. B. retired from the paper, until March, 1864, when the establishment passed into the hands of Morgan R. Wills and Robert Iredell, Jr., his son, it was conducted with the same unswerving fidelity to Whig and anti-slavery principles.

For some two or three years before the breaking out of the war of rebellion, Mr. Iredell's brother-in-law, Loyd Jones, was associate editor, as he had for a long time been a correspondent on political topics, and did very efficient service, being a bold and vigorous writer, an accomplished politician, as well as a competent business assistant. He retired from the paper in 1862 to take a position in the provost marshal's office. He died in 1870, leaving a widow but no children. As a writer, Mr. Iredell has always been characterized by boldness, perspicuity, and force, but never as a bitter partisan. The paper

during the palmy times of Whig rule and effort was always very decidedly anti-slavery in its tone and sentiment.

Mr. Iredell served four years in Town Council, during which DeKalb street was opened north from Airy, the borough purchasing the Academy property, and the market-house was built.

On the accession of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency, Mr. Iredell was in 1861 appointed postmaster at Norristown, which post he held during Lincoln's term. He was reappointed by Andrew Johnson, but subsequently superceded by him in 1866, when the latter began to "swing around the circle." On the election of U. S. Grant, in 1868, Mr. I. was reappointed in the May following, and on the President's re-election still once more nominated and confirmed, which was done for the fifth time in 1877. He has thus held the Norristown post office at the hands of four Presidents, and during a period of eighteen years, with a short interregnum in 1866-69 under Johnson. He still fills it with great public acceptance. Being an affable, obliging man, with much suavity of demeanor, and having in Mr. William Acker a most efficient deputy, the people have never been better served than during his protracted term.

In 1832, in his twenty-third year, Robert Iredell married Teressa, daughter of Charles Jones, then of Norristown. They had four children who arrived at maturity. The eldest, Charles Jones Iredell, learned printing in his father's office, and on the breaking out of the rebellion entered the Fourth Regiment. Upon the expiration of its three months' service he was one of the four members who took part in the first battle of Bull Run. Subsequently he entered the Fifty-first Regiment under Colonel Hartranft, receiving the appointment of Sergeant Major. On the 13th of August, 1862, while going from Fortress Monroe to rejoin his regiment, he was lost on the ill fated steamer West Point, which was run down by the George Peabody, on the Potomac. Of this melancholy occurrence, Major Schall, in a letter from the army at the time, pays the following merited tribute to his memory:

"Among the number lost was our Sergeant Major, C. Jones Iredell. When the news of his death was made known we could hardly believe it. And as we walked through the camp we could hear his name on the lips of every soldier. Every one knew him, and every

one loved him. We can well remember him on the morning we left Newport News. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, did he remain behind. It was the first time the regiment marched off without him, but he yielded to the will and bid of the Surgeon. As we bade him good-bye, we little thought it was the last time we would hear his voice and gaze on him alive. But so it proved. Death appears when least expected. The steamer was almost within a stone's throw of its destination, and when danger was least apprehended she was struck, and in a moment sank to the bottom. Our friend was asleep at the time, it is said, and thus unconscious of danger he sank into that sleep from which there is no waking. We can hardly realize his death. Had he fallen on the field of battle we would be more reconciled, for there he seemed rather to court than shun death. He was most earnestly devoted to the cause for which he has given his life. From the very moment of the outbreak of the rebellion he gave his services to his country, and on the fields of Bull Run, Roanoke, Newbern and Camden, bravely did a soldier's duty. He possessed talents of a high order. His beautiful letters to the Herald and Free Press were perused with intense interest."

Their fourth son, James W. Iredell, Jr., was also a soldier in the Fifty-first Regiment until transferred to a clerkship in the commissary department at Newbern and Beaufort, North Carolina. He subsequently rejoined his regiment in the Army of the Potomac, and soon thereafter was appointed chief clerk in the Commissary department of the Ninth Army Corps, under General Burnside, where he remained till the close of the war. He is now in business in Cincinnati.

Their fifth son is Robert Iredell, Jr., who also learned printing, and for a time, as has been stated, was associated with M. R. Wills, Esq., in the publication of the Herald and Free Press In 1869 he purchased the Lehigh Register of Allentown, and soon after founded the Daily Chronicle, subsequently purchasing and joining to it the News, both of which papers he continues to issue at the present time with gratifying success. In 1877 he was appointed postmaster of the city of Allentown, which position he still holds.

Their youngest child is Phebe J. Iredell, who resides with her father.

The mother of these children died on the 12th of June, 1868.

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