Hiester Home
Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Site of house occupied by Joseph Hiester from about 1792 until his death, 1832; a Lt. Col. in Continental Army; Delegate to Provincial Convention in 1776; Member of Congress for 14 years; Governor of Pennsylvania, 1820-23.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
From about 1792 until his death in 1832, this Reading site was the home of Joseph Hiester, whose life spanned the founding era. He fought as a lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army, sat as a delegate to Pennsylvania's Provincial Convention in 1776, served fourteen years in Congress, and capped his career as governor of Pennsylvania from 1820 to 1823.
Why it matters
Hiester embodied the citizen-soldier turned statesman, the Revolutionary generation that fought for independence and then governed the republic it created.
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Related people
- · Joseph Hiester
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Dr. Bodo Otto
Reading, PA · est. 1951
This was the home of Dr. Bodo Otto, a military surgeon who served the Continental Army from 1775 to 1782. As surgeon-in-chief at Valley Forge during the brutal winter of 1777–78, the aging physician tended troops battling smallpox, exposure, and starvation in the encampment that became a symbol of American endurance.
Doctor Jonathan Potts
Reading, PA · est. 1951
On this Reading site stood the home of Dr. Jonathan Potts, who served from 1777 to 1780 as Deputy Director General of the Continental Army's Northern and Middle Departments. In an era when battlefield disease killed more soldiers than musket fire, Potts organized the army's overwhelmed medical service during the hardest years of the Revolutionary War.
Thompson's Rifle Battalion: Capt. George Nagel's Company
Reading, PA · est. 1989
In June 1775, with war just underway around Boston, the Continental Congress took a momentous step: it authorized its first troops raised directly under national authority—rifle companies drawn from the frontier. Captain George Nagel's company, filled with Berks County marksmen, mustered at Reading that July and then set off on a grueling march of roughly 350 miles to reinforce the American siege of Boston. These backwoods riflemen, prized for their accuracy, were among the first soldiers to serve the united colonies rather than a single province.
Hessian Camp
Reading, PA · est. 1949
When General Burgoyne's British army surrendered at Saratoga in 1777, thousands of captured German auxiliary troops — most of them Hessians hired by the Crown — became prisoners of war held far from the fighting. Some were marched to Reading, where from 1781 to 1783 they lived in a camp of huts on the hillside just north of this spot. Many of these soldiers, once enemies, would remain in Pennsylvania after the war and settle among its German-speaking communities.