Pennypacker, Elijah Funk

Life Span
to
    Full name
    Elijah Funk Pennypacker
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Free State
    Occupation
    Politician
    Businessman
    Educator
    Relation to Slavery
    White non-slaveholder
    Church or Religious Denomination
    Quakers (Society of Friends)
    Political Parties
    Other
    Other Political Party
    Prohibition Party
    Other Affiliations
    Abolitionists (Anti-Slavery Society)

    Elijah Funk Pennypacker (Appleton's)

    Reference
    PENNYPACKER, Elijah Funk, reformer, b. in Chester county, Pa., 20 Nov., 1804; d. in Phœnixville, Pa., 4 Jan., 1888. He was educated in the private schools in Burlington, N. J., taught there, and subsequently engaged in land surveying in Phœnixville, Pa. He then became interested in real estate, was in the legislature in 1831-'5, chairman of its committee on banks, and a principal mover in the establishment of public schools. In 1836-'8 he was a canal commissioner. He joined the Society of Friends about 1841, and thenceforth for many years devoted himself to the abolition movement, becoming president of the local anti-slavery society, and of the Chester county, and Pennsylvania state societies. He was an active manager of the "Underground railroad," and his house was one of its stations. With John Edgar Thompson he made the preliminary surveys of the Pennsylvania railroad. He aided the suffering poor in Ireland in the famine of 1848, and subsequently identified himself with the Prohibition party, becoming their candidate for state treasurer in 1875. He was an organizer of the Pennsylvania mutual fire insurance company in 1869, and was its vice-president till 1879, when he became president, holding office till January, 1887, when he resigned.  John G. Whittier says of him: "In mind, body, and brave championship of the cause of freedom he was one of the most remarkable men I ever knew."
    Jaems Grant Wilson and John Fiske, eds., "Pennypacker, Elijah Funk," Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1900), 4: 719.
    How to Cite This Page: "Pennypacker, Elijah Funk," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/6383.