Just as Robert Morris was the financier of the Revolution, so Stephen Girard also of Philadelphia, was the financier of the War of 1812. The Government needed $5,000,000 and offered high interest, but only $200,000 was subscribed, when Girard stepped into the scene and subscribed the balance. He staked his whole fortune in his trust of his adopted country, which none other would do, and saved the Nation from a humiliating defeat. He also took Treasury bills at their face value, and his example shamed other creditors, who then accepted the money of the Government.
Lieutenant Colonel Antes, Soldier and Frontiersman,
Died May 13, 1820
Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Antes died at his stockaded home, long known as Antes’ Fort, May 13, 1820, aged eighty-three years.
This pioneer statesman and soldier was an early settler on the frontier of Pennsylvania, a member of a distinguished family in the Province, an officer of the Revolution, Sheriff of Northumberland County during the stirring days of the Wyoming controversy, and an ardent patriot whose influence, both in civic and military affairs, was most potent a century and a quarter since.
The ancestral home of Colonel Antes was in the beautiful and fertile valley, called Falkner’s Swamp, in what is now Montgomery County, about six miles from Pottstown.
Philip Frederick Antes, grandfather of Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Antes, of the noble family of Von Blume, of Rhenish Bavaria, Germany, owing to religious persecutions, came from Friensheim, Germany, sometime between 1716 and 1723, and settled for a short time in Germantown.
On February 29, 1722–23, he bought 154 acres in the Van Bebber tract in what has since been called Falkner’s Swamp. This was a tract of 500 acres in the original patent made by William Penn, October 25, 1701, to the Frankford Land Company, and comprised 22,337 acres of the most fertile land in the State.
On December 16, 1708, the tract was sold by the agent, Daniel Falkner, to John Henry Sprogel for £500, current money of Pennsylvania and was paid for in “Silver Coyne.” This was known as the German tract and also by other names.