General Thomas Mifflin, Soldier, Statesman and Several Times Governor, Died January 21, 1800

When the venerable Franklin was about to step aside as the President of the Council and withdraw from public employment, the people of Pennsylvania became concerned in the successor to so brilliant a man. The choice fell upon Thomas Mifflin, and he occupied the enviable position of Chief Executive of the Commonwealth longer than any other Pennsylvanian, two years as President of the Council and three times Governor, an aggregate of eleven years.

Thomas Mifflin was the son of Quaker parents, and was born in Philadelphia in 1744. He was educated in the Philadelphia College, and his parents intended that Thomas should follow a mercantile profession. Upon the completion of his college course he entered the counting house of William Coleman. At the age of twenty-one he made a tour of Europe and then entered into a business partnership with his brother in Philadelphia.

In 1772 he was elected one of the two members of the Legislature from the City of Philadelphia, and was re-elected the following year, when he was the colleague of Franklin, then just returned from his mission to England.

So conspicuous were his services in the Assembly, that when the appointment of delegates to the first Continental Congress came to be made, Mifflin was selected as one, and he occupied a position of commanding influence.

“When the news,” says Dr. Rawle, his biographer, “of the battle of Lexington reached Philadelphia, a town meeting was called and the fellow citizens of Mifflin were delighted by his animated oratory.” None did more than he to arouse the populace to a sense of the danger which threatened. He did not only exhort, but he put in practice his pleading. When the troops were to be enlisted and drilled, Mifflin was among the foremost to train them, and was selected as a major in one of the earliest formed regiments.

The patriot blood spilled at Lexington and Concord fired a martial 55spirit throughout America by which the bold leaders in every State were nerved to resist and resent those unprovoked assaults, and when Washington appeared at the camp in Boston as the Commander-in-Chief of the American armies, Mifflin was by his side.

Recognizing his great personal popularity, the ease and dignity of his manners, breadth and soundness of his views, Washington placed Mifflin at the head of his military family. In the absence of, or at the retirement from the table of the chief it fell upon Mifflin to occupy his place and do the honors; and for this duty, by his social position at home and his foreign travel he was admirably fitted. Colonel Mifflin was the first person in America who officiated as aide-de-camp.

When Washington, July, 1775, organized the entire army, the difficult position of quartermaster general was assigned to Mifflin. The duties were new and arduous. Everything was in chaos. Order had to be established and system inaugurated.

On May 19, 1776, Congress appointed and commissioned Mifflin to be a brigadier general and he was given command of Pennsylvania troops. An assignment to the active field was much more to his liking than one at headquarters.

Upon taking the field Mifflin was relieved as quartermaster general by General Stephen Moylan, who was ill suited to the difficult task of providing for an army where the authority for calling in supplies was little respected and the means of paying for them was rarely in hand; and not long after accepting the position he abandoned it.

Congress called upon Mifflin to again assume the duties of quartermaster general and he reluctantly responded to the call of his country, deeming it a matter of duty.

The reverses of the American Army during the summer and fall of 1776 culminated in its withdrawal into New Jersey, hotly pursued by the British troops. Pennsylvania was threatened and especially Philadelphia, where Congress was sitting. At this dark hour Mifflin was sent with dispatches from Washington to Congress, calling on that body loudly for help.

Mifflin, at the request of Congress, made a stirring address, setting forth the perilous situation, and appealing for the means to oppose the further advance of the defiant enemy. That body was greatly exercised and ordered that General Mifflin should remain near Congress for consultation and advice.

As the enemy pressed toward Philadelphia, General Putnam was sent to take command in the city and General Mifflin was placed in charge of the war material and stores.

The victory at Trenton produced a gleam of hope and Congress dispatched Mifflin throughout the State of Pennsylvania in order that, by his personal appeals, volunteers might be drawn to the support of Washington’s decimated ranks. He caused large numbers to enlist.

56Mifflin was mixed up in the “Conway Cabal,” but in after years he explained his position, and it would seem to prove the intensity of his devotion to the struggle in which he had staked fortune and life itself.

In 1783 General Mifflin was elected a member of Congress, and had the satisfaction of being President of that body, when General Washington, December 23, 1783, resigned his commission into its hands. Mifflin made an eloquent reply.

General Mifflin was a member of the Assembly of Pennsylvania which met in 1785; also of the convention which sat in 1787 and framed the Constitution of the United States.

In 1788 he was chosen a member of the Supreme Executive Council, and upon the retirement of Franklin, he was elected President.

General Mifflin was the president of the convention that framed the State Constitution of 1790, and he and General Arthur St. Clair were the two candidates for Governor. Mifflin triumphed and was continued in office for that and the two succeeding terms.

Governor Mifflin was very efficient in quelling the Whisky Insurrection of 1794, and personally commanded the troops from Pennsylvania.

His last official communication as Governor was made December 7, 1799. It contained his farewell sentiments on taking leave of office and was received with every manifestation of respect by the Assembly.

He was elected to the Assembly and took his seat, but did not long survive. He died during a session of the House, then sitting in Lancaster, on January 21, 1800. His decease was noticed with becoming ceremonies, resolutions being adopted expressive of the high sense entertained for him as a soldier and statesman, authorizing his interment at the public expense and providing for the erection of a monument to his memory.

“Thus ended,” says Dr. Rawle, “the checkered life of Thomas Mifflin—brilliant in its outset—troubled and perplexed at a period more advanced—again distinguished, prosperous and happy—finally clouded by poverty and oppressed by creditors. In patriotic principle never changing—in public action never faltering—in personal friendship sincerely warm—in relieving the distressed always active and humane—in his own affairs improvident—in the business of others scrupulously just.”

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