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Oil on canvas, Samuel B. Waugh after Joseph Wright, 1881, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives |
MUHLENBERG, Frederick Augustus Conrad, (brother of John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, uncle of Francis Swaine Muhlenberg and of Henry Augustus Philip Muhlenberg, and great-great-grand uncle of Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg),
a Delegate and a Representative from Pennsylvania; born in Trappe,
Pa., January 1, 1750; pursued an academic course; attended the University of
Halle, Germany; studied theology and was ordained by the ministerium of
Pennsylvania a minister of the Lutheran Church October 25, 1770; preached in
Stouchsburg and Lebanon, Pa., 1770-1774, and in New York City 1774-1776; when
the British entered New York he felt obliged to leave, and returned to Trappe,
Pa.; moved to New Hanover, Pa., and was pastor there and in Oley and New
Goshenhoppen until August 1779; Member of the Continental Congress, 1779-1780;
member of the Pennsylvania state house of representatives, 1780-1783, and its
speaker, 1780-1783; delegate to and president of the Pennsylvania state
constitutional convention in 1787 called to ratify the Federal Constitution;
elected as a Pro-Administration candidate to the First Congress, reelected as
an Anti-Administration candidate to the Second and Third Congresses, and
elected as a Republican to the Fourth Congress (March 4, 1789-March 3, 1797);
Speaker of the House of Representatives (First and Third Congresses); was not a
candidate for renomination in 1796; president of the council of censors of
Pennsylvania; receiver general of the Pennsylvania Land Office, 1800-1801; died
in Lancaster, Pa., June 4, 1801; interment in Woodward Hill Cemetery.
BibliographySeidensticker, Oswald. Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg:
Speaker of the House of Representatives in the First Congress, 1789.
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. 13 (July
1889): 184-206.
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