Captain Stephen Chambers Fatally Wounded in Duel with Dr. Rieger May 11, 1789

In May, 1789, there was a brilliant banquet given at the public house of Colonel Mathias Slough, on the southeast corner of Penn Square and South Queen Street, Lancaster. This social function was attended by a large number of officers and soldiers who had fought in the Revolutionary War, among whom were Captain Stephen Chambers and Surgeon Jacob Rieger.

Captain Chambers was neatly dressed in his military uniform, and in personal appearance was one of the finest-looking officers of that period. Dr. Rieger was quite the opposite, rather diminutive in stature, unshaven and otherwise very untidy.

During the progress of the banquet Captain Chambers made some disparaging remark about Dr. Rieger, which the latter overheard and deemed insulting. The result was a challenge to a duel, which was as promptly accepted.

The parties immediately named their seconds, who fixed the following Monday evening, May 11, as the time. The parties met according to arrangement on the outskirts of Lancaster, and after the necessary details were concluded the antagonists faced each other, and at the command of fire neither shot took effect. The seconds, at this point, made an earnest effort to reconcile the principals, Captain Chambers and his seconds being in a mood to offer such terms as they believed to be proper and satisfactory, but Dr. Rieger would not consent to any terms of reconciliation.

They took their places and on the command of fire Captain Chambers snapped his pistol without discharging, but Dr. Rieger sent a ball crashing through both legs of Captain Chambers. His wounds bled freely, and for two days it was thought they were not dangerous; mortification, however, set in and he died in great agony on Saturday morning following, May 16.

Thus perished one of the noblest patriots and most brilliant legal minds of the bar, an event which agitated the public mind for years afterward as an unwarranted and cold-blooded murder.

Judge John Joseph Henry married Chambers’ sister, Jane, and was the attorney for his executors.

Captain Chambers was a native of Ireland, being born there in 1750. He came to Pennsylvania prior to the Revolution, and settled at Lancaster. He studied law and as soon as he was admitted to practice in 1773, he removed to Sunbury, where he became the first resident attorney of Northumberland County. Fithian, in his journal under 332date July 20, 1775, met him at Sunbury, “a lawyer, serious, civil and social.”

At the outset of the Revolution he entered the service. He was appointed first lieutenant of the Twelfth Regiment of the Continental Line, October 16, 1776, and promoted to captain in 1777.

He was chosen to the General Assembly from Northumberland County, October 2, 1778, and while in attendance thereon was admitted to the Philadelphia bar, March 6, 1779. In 1779 he was a member of the Republican Society of Philadelphia, whose object was the revision of the Constitution of 1776.

In the fall of 1780 he returned to his former home in Lancaster and soon attained a large and lucrative practice, owned several farms and also became interested in the iron business. He represented Lancaster County in the Council of Censors, 1783 and 1784. He also was one of the original members of the Pennsylvania Society of the Cincinnati.

He was a delegate to the convention November 29, 1787, which ratified, on the part of Pennsylvania, the Federal Constitution. In the debate he took a most aggressive part, frequently becoming very personal in his attack upon members of the opposite side, especially toward William Findlay. Captain Chambers voted with his comrades in arms, and on the side of the adoption of the Federal Constitution.

It is a matter of interest that Captain Chambers was among the distinguished patriots who were in the house of James Wilson, in Philadelphia, when the mob made a disgraceful attack against it, October 4, 1779. Captain Chambers appeared with James Wilson, and others, before Supreme Executive Council, October 19, 1779, and was bound over to appear at the next term of court, in the sum of £5000. George Clymer and Samuel Caldwell becoming his suretiessureties in the sum of £2,500 each.

The evening of the day of the riot at “Fort Wilson,” Captain Chambers attended the Quarterly Communication of the Grand Lodge of Ancient York Masons and was installed Worshipful Master of Lodge No. 22, which was constituted at Northumberland the following month.

At the constitution of Lodge No. 22, about the middle of November, 1779, Chambers became its first Worshipful Master, and the warrant for that body was produced and presented by him at “his own proper cost and charges.”

In July, 1785, he became the warrant Worshipful Master of Lodge No. 43, at Lancaster, and both of these ancient lodges are still at labor, the former, Lodge No. 22, now at Sunbury.

Dr. Joseph Rieger was the surgeon of the Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment, commanded by Colonel Samuel Hiles. He was commissioned March 22, 1776. He was a highly respected physician of Lancaster. He died there in 1795.

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