Lancaster County PA Biographies
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William Addams
Sydenham Elnathan Ancona
Samuel John Atlee
Lydia R. (Steele) Bailey
ADDAMS, William, a Representative from Pennsylvania; born in Lancaster County, Pa., April 11, 1777; moved to Berks County, near Reading, and served as auditor in 1813 and 1814; commissioner of Berks County 1814-1817; member of the State house of representatives 1822-1824; elected as a Jacksonian to the Nineteenth and Twentieth Congresses (March 4, 1825-March 3, 1829); unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1828; member of the committee for the Deaf and Dumb Institution for the States of New York and Ohio; elected associate judge of Berks County and served from 1839 to 1842; captain of the Reading City Troop; largely interested in agricultural pursuits; died in Spring Township, Berks County, Pa., May 30, 1858; interment in St. John’s Church Cemetery, Sinking Springs, Pa.
(Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present; contributed by A. Newell)
ANCONA, Sydenham Elnathan, a Representative from Pennsylvania; born near Lititz, Lancaster County, Pa., November 20, 1824; moved to Berks County, Pa., in 1826 with his parents, who settled near Sculls Hill; attended public and private schools; taught school; moved in 1856 to Reading, Pa., where he entered the employ of the Reading Railroad Co.; member of the board of education; elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-seventh, Thirty-eighth, and Thirty-ninth Congresses (March 4, 1861-March 3, 1867); unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1866; became engaged in the trust, fire-insurance, and relief-association businesses in Reading, Pa.; delegate to the Democratic National Convention at Cincinnati in 1880; during a visit to the Capitol at Washington, D.C., in 1912 was tendered a reception on the floor of the House of Representatives, it being stated at the time that he was the last surviving Member of the Thirty-seventh Congress which assembled at the extraordinary session called by Abraham Lincoln on July 4, 1861; engaged in banking and in the insurance business until his death in Reading, Pa., on June 20, 1913; interment in Charles Evans Cemetery.
(Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present; contributed by A. Newell)
ATLEE, Samuel John, a Delegate from Pennsylvania; born in Trenton, N.J., in 1739, during the temporary residence of his parents at that place; moved with his mother to Lancaster, Pa., in 1745; educated by a private tutor and subsequently commenced the study of law, but abandoned it to enter the Army; during the French and Indian War at the age of sixteen was placed in command of a company of the provincial service from Lancaster County, Pa.; commissioned ensign in Col. William Clapham’s Augusta regiment on April 23, 1756, and promoted to lieutenant December 7, 1757; served in the Forbes campaign and participated in a battle near Fort Duquesne, September 15, 1758; was commissioned captain May 13, 1759; appointed colonel of the Pennsylvania Musketry Battalion on March 21, 1776; during the Revolutionary War was captured by the British on August 27, 1776, at the Battle of Long Island and held as a prisoner until October 1, 1778, when he was exchanged; Member of the Continental Congress 1778-1782; served in the general assembly in 1782, 1785, and 1786; elected supreme executive councilor for Lancaster County in 1783; appointed a member of the board of commissioners to treat with the Indians in 1784 for the unpurchased lands in Pennsylvania; one of the charter members of the Society of the Cincinnati; died in Philadelphia, Pa., November 25, 1786, while attending a session of the assembly; interment in Christ Churchyard.
(Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present; contributed by A. Newell)
Lydia R. (Steele) Bailey
Bailey, Lydia R. (1779-1869) - printer and publisher, was connected with the printing industry for sixty years and was the first and only woman to become official city printer in Philadelphia. Of her early life nothing is known, but when she was nineteen she married Robert Bailey, son and successor of Francis Bailey (q.v.) and at her husband's death, 1808, found herself in debt and with four small children to support. The youngest child was only four months of age. Being a practical printer she set about paying off her husband's debts and established a successful business. In this effort she was assisted by several influential persons who knew her plight. One of these was the patriot poet, Philip Freneau, who gave the widow the publication of a new edition of his "Poems." These she issued in 1809 in two small volumes, with frontispieces engraved by Eckstein. From about 1830 to 1850, she was City Printer of Philadelphia and the specialty of her office was book work. She died February 24, 1869, three weeks after reaching her ninetieth (90th) birthday, but had retired soon after the death of her son, Robert, who was her trusted assistant, in 1861.
[Source: Jackson, Joseph,. Encyclopedia of Philadelphia. Harrisburg, Pa.: National Historical Association, 1931-1933]
Republican Compiler (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania), July 18, 1827
From the Lancaster Gazette
Lydia R. Bailey
This lady is a native of Lancaster county. She is the daughter of the late William Steele and niece of General James Steele and General John Steele, all of whom served their country faithfully and bravely during the revolutionary war. Her husband, Robert Bailey, printer, also a patriot of the revolution. On the death of her father-in-law, she was left nearly destitute, with a family of small children to support by her own industry. Thus situated, she made an effort to continue the business in which her husband was engaged, and through the kindness of Mr. Mathew Carey, and some other liberal Booksellers, she succeeded in obtaining employment and when her uncle General John Steele, was appointed Collector of the Port of Philadelphia, she obtained the printing of the Customhouse, which with her general business and her ingenuity and dexterity in putting maps upon rollers, enabled her to educate her children and support her family decently.
With all her claims upon the public, the little government patronage which she enjoyed, could not escape the greedy eye of a prominent partisan of Messrs Adams and Clay, and Mrs. Bailey, who does not print a newspaper and therefore can have no immediate claim to the support of the administration, was dismissed as custom-house printer, to make room for Mr. John Binns.
The claims of this gentleman upon the general government, we understand, have been admitted to their fullest extent, and though he had neither father, uncle, brother or relative, who served the United States in her great struggle for liberty; and though his claims to personal bravery or services to this country, in his own person are not of a more brilliant character than those of the Widow Bailey, yet does the administration by its acts prove that it "delights to honor him."
Mr. Binns was appointed an alderman of the city of Philadelphia by Governor Hiester, which lucrative office he still holds. He was also appointed a publisher of the laws of the United States and of the proclamations and advertisements of the Executive, Treasury and War Departments by Mr. Clay as some compensation, we presume, for his going over to the Adams party.
To all this we might have submitted without a murmur; but when we see the rapacious talons of this cormorant, seizing upon the widow's mite, to stuff a maw already gorged by the hands of his very liberal feeders, we cannot repress our indignation.
Mrs. Bailey is a daughter of Lancaster county. Her relations have always been among the foremost when their country needed their services. Their course has been distinguished for manly rectitude. No man but the duelist Clay, could have insulted her poverty and trampled upon her merits. No man, but Mr. Binns would have deprived her children of bread. The people of Lancaster county will not be slow to manifest their disgust at such evident baseness.
[In addition to the items of profit received by the Editor of the Press, enumerated in the preceding article, we add the furnishing stationary for the custom house, amounting to about $500 per annum, and what renders the removal of Mrs. Bailey the more ungracious is that Binns had the printing of the custom house at the time he got the furnishing of the stationary from Mrs. Bailey.] - American Sent.
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