“Quaker soldier,” born in Philadelphia on the 10th of May 1740; died there on the 14th of July 1814. His parents were Quakers, and he was brought up with much strictness. In 1764, Mr. Biddle, at the head of a company of Quakers and others, repelled a force of desperadoes, known as the “Paxton Boys,” and from that time was active in all military actions of the day. He was a soldier of the Revolutionary war, and present at the battles of Princeton, Germantown, Brandywine and Monmouth. He was a personal friend of General Washington. He attained the rank of colonel in the army, and was afterward quartermaster-general and marshal of Pennsylvania.
