One of his grandsons was General Muhlenberg, another was the first Speaker of the House of Congress. General Washington said of him: “Posterity will not forget his just deserts.”
Wetzel, Lou.
Wetzel, Lou.—The present generation is not too old to recall the flood of Indian stories of their youth, for in the ‘70s the Indian was still a factor in the contest for the development of the West and the papers at times contained thrilling accounts of battles with Indians on our frontier. Cooper was still a much-read novelist, and less famous writers still sought their inspiration in the French and Indian wars, the wars which the English and Tories, with their Indian allies, carried into the valleys of the Schoharie and the Mohawk, as well as in the bloody conflicts in Kentucky and Ohio. In these stories no names were of more frequent occurrence than those of Lou Wetzel, the scout and Indian fighter, and Simon Girty, the renegade. Both these names are strictly historic. Wetzel, was next to Daniel Boone, the most famous frontiersman of our early middle west history. His father was born in the Palatinate and came to Pennsylvania, settling afterwards in Ohio, where each of his four sons won fame as frontiersmen, scouts and guides, but above all, Lou, who after an eventful career and many hairbreadth escapes, died in Texas and was buried on the banks of the Brazos. Other noted Indian fighters of the period who were of German descent were Peter Nieswanger, Jacob Weiser, Carl Bilderbach, John Warth and George Rufner. The Poes, too, were well known in early border history, and were the sons of German settlers from Frederick County, Md. The elder,Frederick Poe, who moved west in 1774, and died in 1840 at the age of 93, was, like his younger brother, Andrew, a typical backwoodsman, contesting for every foot of ground with the native Indian.
Wirt, William.
Wirt, William.—Famous jurist and author. During three presidential terms Attorney General of the United States; appointed by President Monroe to that office in 1817-18; resigned under John Quincy Adams, March 3, 1829. Born at Bladensburg, Md., November 18, 1772, becoming a poor orphan at an early age. Learned Latin and Greek and studied law at Montgomery Court House, being licensed to practice in the fall of 1792. Commenced his professional career at Culpeper Courthouse, Va., the same year and soon became eminent socially and professionally. In 1802 received the appointment of chancellor of the eastern district of Virginia. Wrote his beautiful essays under the name of “The British Spy” and in 1807 prosecuted Aaron Burr for treason. His great speech on that occasion made him famous. Was a member of the Virginia Legislature in 1808, and from that time until after the war pursued his profession successfully until summoned into the Cabinet of President Monroe. In 1832 he was nominated by the anti-Masonic party for President of the United States, but received only the electoral vote of Vermont. He died February 18, 1834. The most famous production of his pen is a “Life of Patrick Henry.” Mr. Wirt never forgot his German antecedance and during 1833 engaged in founding a colony of Germans in Florida, but the venture was not successful. Lossing says “he was greatly esteemed in Richmond for his talents and social accomplishments.”
Wirtz, Captain H., of Andersonville Prison.
Wirtz, Captain H., of Andersonville Prison.—For many years after the Civil War, Andersonville Prison served as the outstanding symbol of the atrocities practiced upon Union prisoners by the Southern Confederacy. The prison was commanded by Captain Wirtz, who was subsequently tried by a court martial at Washington and hanged. General Lee’s nephew, and his biographer, has stated that General Lee used his influence to save him by showing that Wirtz was not primarily responsible for the sufferings of Union prisoners under his care, but that these were in a large measure due to the blockade against Southern ports, which prevented the landing of medicines and supplies. Because of his name, Wirtz has been cited by Prof. John D. Lawson, of Columbia, Mo., and others, as a typical personal embodiment of German brutality. Mr. Louis Benecke, a prominent attorney, of Brunswick, Mo., who himself was for seven months a Union prisoner in a Confederate prison, and who afterwards became the historian of the Association of Ex-Union Prisoners of War, has shown that Wirtz was not a native of Germany. Mr. Benecke says: “As the record shows, his grandfather was a French wine merchant at Bonnerville, France, and his name was there spelled with a ‘V’instead of a ‘W.’ The father of Wirtz located in Switzerland, near Geneva, and while there changed his name to Wirtz, conforming to the phonetic of the French ‘V.’ It is further shown that the mother of Captain H. Wirtz was a French Italian. A prisoner of German descent, believing Wirtz to be a German, applied to him for a favor, and insinuated that his nationality entitled him to some consideration, to which Wirtz replied, ‘Je ne suis allemagne; je suis Suis.’ Wirtz at no time or place ever claimed to be anything but a Swiss or French descent.”
Wistar, Caspar.
Wistar, Caspar.—In 1717 emigrated to America from Hilspach, Germany, where he was born in 1696, and established what is supposed to be the first glass factory in America in New Jersey, thirty miles from Philadelphia. (It is believed that an earlier glass factory was established by Germans in Virginia.)