Clement Biddle (1740-1814)
Col. Clement Biddle, U.S. Marshal & Quartermaster-General of Pennsylvania
He was born in Philadelphia at his father's house on the south side of Market Street between Second & Third Streets. He was a Quaker and began his military career in a company that was raised in 1763 to protect the Conestoga Indians from the "Paxton Boys". He was a successful Notary, Scrivener, and Broker, and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1766. During the Revolutionary War, he fought at the Battles of Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. Headquartered at Moore Hall, he was Washington's Commissary-General at Valley Forge. He resigned from the Continental Army in 1780 and returned to his pre-war career and the following year (1781) was appointed Quartermaster-General of the Pennsylvanian troops. In 1789, he was appointed the first U.S. Marshal for Pennsylvania. In 1764, he married Mary, daughter of Francis Richardson, of Chester. Their only son, Francis, died in childbirth. He married secondly Rebekah, daughter of Chief Justice Gideon Cornell, of Rhode Island. They had ten children and eight (listed above) lived to adulthood.
