POTTSTOWN — Descendants of four area Revolutionary War veterans were featured in a Daughters of the American Revolution service on Wednesday to celebrate the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on Sept. 17, 1787.
Two hundred thirty-eight years ago, as the delegates to the Constitutional Convention left the Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall, socialite Elizabeth Willing Powel, reportedly asked delegate Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” He famously replied, “A republic. If you can keep it” — a reply which remains relevant today.
Pennsylvania was the second state to ratify the Constitution on Dec. 12, 1787, and it became the founding law of the land six months later on June 21, 1788, when New Hampshire became the ninth state, the minimum required, to ratify it in a vote.
But before the United States could ratify a Constitution, it had to win its independence from Great Britain.
That effort was aided by locals George Bechtel, Michael Egolf, William Lesher and Christian Lessig.
All four were from the greater Pottstown area, and all four served in local militias during the war, some participating in the battles of Brandywine, Paoli and Germantown.
Standing in front of the obelisk and Memorial Wall at Zion’s United Church of Christ, the stories of those four patriots were recounted.
Denise Hughes said, “Each of these men helped to shape our nation.”
Two of those who spoke, Janis Tomko and Audrey Bentley, are direct descendants of two of those men — George Bechtel and Christian Lessig, respectively.
George Bechtel
The year was 1744 when George Bechtel was born to John George Bechtel and Anna Maria Klingman. Bechtel’s father was lost at sea when returning from Europe, where he went to settle an estate, leaving his mother alone with two young children on their farm in Amity. In 1770, now married to Hannah Yocum with their three young children, Bechtel purchased a farm in Douglass (Berks).
By the time the Revolution came, his farm had been expanded into what was then known as Pottsgrove, in Montgomery County, and he became a private in the Pennsylvania Militia, 4th Battalion, 7th Company under Captain Jacob Witz. He also supported the war effort by paying the “supply tax.” He died in 1818, the father of 11 children.
“I descended from two of their children,” said Tomko, who researched and read Bechtel’s story. “Their son George is my fifth great-grandfather on one of my family lines and their daughter, Anna Maria, is my sixth great-grandmother on another line.”
Michael Egolf
Michael Egolf was born to German immigrant parents and lived in Douglass Township while serving in the militia, according to Marcia Levengood, who researched and read his story in his own words as recounted to a government official.
“The first time I marched to Warwick in Chester County in the year 1776 under the command of Captain William Antis. “I was there two months guarding cannons that were made there,” she read.
“The second time I marched from (his home in New Hanover) in the year 1777 in the fall to Philadelphia. Then we went by water down to Chester and Wilmington. From Wilmington, we went to Brandywine. I was in the Battle of Brandywine,” read Levengood. “From Brandywine by boat up to the Schuylkill and then marched down to near Germantown. Then I was discharged.”
And, “the third time I marched from the same place under Captain Benjamin Markley in the year 1778 to Germantown, then to Newtown in Bucks County, thence to the river Delaware opposite Trenton, then we went back to Newtown,” she read. “Then we were discharged.”
Finally, Egolf marched to Germantown and the Delaware River and marched prisoners through Lancaster, to Little York, and “on to the Virginia line.”
William Lesher
Kathy Wilcox read the history of William Lesher, who entered the militia at age 18 while living in Germantown. He served in the 4th Company, 7th Battalion as a third-class private.
It was also at Lesher’s house in Germantown on Nov. 2, 1787, that five people were nominated for the Pennsylvania General Assembly to ratify the Constitution.
“In 1801, William Lesher married his wife, Catherine, in Germantown, and by 1807, he was living with his wife and six children in Pottstown, where he was a storekeeper. He died in 1818 at the age of 56,” Wilcox read.
Christian Lessig
Born in 1745 in the German village of Zweibrucken, which means “two bridges,” Christian Lessig came to Philadelphia in 1765 on a ship named Chance, with his parents and several siblings. Within a year of their arrival, both parents had died.
Christian and at least one brother moved to Pottsgrove, where he managed a farm, ran a grocery store, “and even opened a distillery,” read Audrey Bentley, who is descended from the subject of her reading.
In 1771, he married a woman named Elizabeth Reifschneider at the New Hanover Evangelical Lutheran Church, and they had several children.
During the Revolutionary War, he served as a private in the Philadelphia Militia, 4th battalion, 5th regiment. “It is likely Christian saw action in several key battles during the American Revolution, such as the battles at Brandywine, Paoli and Germantown,” Bentley read.
She said more information is available about his children than about Christian himself. For example, his son Peter started a shoe manufacturing business. Many of his children served on the local school board and one of his descendants was secretary and treasurer of the Ellis-Lessig Steel and Iron Company, according to Bentley.
Two of his great-grandsons built the Pottstown Iron Company, as well as being masons for the brick and sandstone work on the construction of Emmanuel Lutheran Church. They were also officers of the Pottstown Gas and Water Co. and helped found the Citizens National Bank of Pottstown in 1893. One great-grandson, Brooke Lessig, graduated from The Hill School and Yale University and returned to be a teacher at Pottstown High School. He served as a colonel during World War II and, for 37 months, served on the staff of General Douglas MacArthur.
“I will end with saying Christian might have been laid to rest here in 1805, but his legacy lives on in all of us descendants. We are the legacy of our ancestors,” said Bentley.
