This promise he honorably and faithfully fulfilled.
Matthias Babb stepped forward, signed the article, and took the money from the drumhead. His example, and the further advancement of smaller sums of money, induced twenty men that evening to subscribe to the articles of association. In ten days Captain Joseph Hiester had enrolled a company of eighty men.
The company became a part of the Flying Camp, but soon Captain Hiester was induced to extend his efforts, and a battalion was shortly obtained. He could have been made their colonel but declined to be even a major, so attached was he to his original company.
When his command reached Elizabethtown, N. J., it was learned General Washington had moved to Long Island. Captain Hiester used his best endeavor to induce the men to advance, as they had enlisted only for Pennsylvania service, and following his patriotic lead, they marched to join Washington.
The gallant captain little knew the hard fate that was to be his. In the battle of Long Island he was taken prisoner, with most of his men, and confined in the notorious prison-ship, Jersey, where they were subjected to every indignity which refined cruelty could invent.
After seven months’ imprisonment Captain Hiester was exchanged, and returned in time to take part in the battle of Germantown, where he received a wound in the head.
In the varied fortunes of the patriot army he continued to share until the close of the war.
He was appointed by the Supreme Executive Council one of the commissioners of exchange, April 5, 1779, and on October 21, following, one of the committee to seize the personal effects of traitors.
He was chosen to the General Assembly in 1780, and served almost continuously from that date until 1790.
He was a delegate to the Pennsylvania convention to ratify the Federal Constitution in 1787, and in 1789, he was a member of the convention which framed the State Constitution of 1790. He was chosen a presidential elector in 1792, and again in 1796.