Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker was born in
Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, on April 9, 1843. He was the son of Anna Maria (née Whitaker) and Isaac Anderson Pennypacker, and the grandson of
Matthias Pennypacker and Sarah Anderson (daughter of
Isaac Anderson), and of
Joseph and Grace Whitaker. He was the nephew of
Matthias J. Pennypacker and a cousin of
Galusha Pennypacker. He and his grandfather Whitaker witnessed
Abraham Lincoln's speech outside Independence Hall in February 1861, standing away. He received his education at the Grovemont Seminary at Phoenixville and at the West Philadelphia Institute. The family emigrated from Germany to Pennsylvania in 1699 with his great-great-great-grandfather Hendrick Pannebecker (aka Pfannebecker; 1674–1754).
Abraham op den Graeff, an early
abolitionist and signer of the
first organized religious protest against slavery in colonial America in 1688, was his fourth great-grandfather. From 1876 to 1888, he was reporter-in-chief for the Court of Common Pleas No. 3. In
1902, he soundly defeated
Robert Pattison, who was seeking a third nonconsecutive term as governor, from January 20, 1903, to January 15, 1907. During his term in office, Pennypacker signed into law the Child Labor Act of 1905; setting a minimum age and standard for young workers. He created the
Pennsylvania State Police and the
State Museum, and oversaw the completion of the new
state capitol building. He led a war on the easy divorce system of Pennsylvania. He also signed the
Salus-Grady libel law, requiring newspapers to print the names of their owners and editors and making them responsible for negligence. In 1906, Pennypacker
vetoed what would have been the first
compulsory sterilization law in the United States. At the time of the veto, Pennypacker stated: It is plain that the safest and most effective method of preventing procreation would be to cut the heads off the inmates, and such authority is given by the bill to this staff of scientific experts...Scientists like all men whose experiences have been limited to one pursuit...sometimes need to be restrained. Men of high scientific attainments are prone...to lose sight of broad principles outside of their domain...To permit such an operation would be to inflict cruelty upon a helpless class...which the state has undertaken to protect..." During his time in office, Pennypacker made his home in
Schwenksville at
Pennypacker Mills, a farm and
mansion that eight generations of Pennypackers lived in before it was eventually donated to
Montgomery County and is now a historic park. He also used
Moore Hall as a summer home. Pennypacker was later president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and held positions of honor in various German and Netherlandish societies. As president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, he wrote extensively. He was a founding member of the
Philobiblon Club of Philadelphia in 1893. Amongst his publications was a history of the Phoenixville area,
Annals of Phoenixville and Its Vicinity: From the Settlement to the Year 1871. He had a collection of over 10,000 items pertaining to Pennsylvania history. In 1915, he was appointed chairman of the Public Service Commission of Pennsylvania, which office he held until his death. He married Virginia Earl Broomall in 1870. They had four children. He died at
Pennypacker Mills, aged 73, and was buried in Morris Cemetery, Phoenixville. Pennypacker Hall at the
Penn State University Park campus is named for him, as is the
Samuel W. Pennypacker School in Philadelphia. ==Works==