The Singmaster Family

Singmaster Family Homestead, 165 East Main Street

William Mickley Weaver Photograph (1889)

Macungie Historical Society Collection

Singmaster Tannery, Main Street, Macungie

William Mickley Weaver Photograph (1889)

Macungie Historical Society Collection

Copyright ©2006 by the Macungie Historical Society, Inc.  All rights reserved.

No family has contributed more to the development of the borough of Macungie than the Singmaster family. The most influential of the Singmasters was James (1823-1896), a fourth-generation Pennsylvania German who was elected as the first burgess when Millerstown (now Macungie) was incorporated as a borough in November 1857. He was the borough’s largest property owner and most prominent businessman for nearly half a century.

The immigrant ancestors of the Singmaster families in North America were Johann Adam Zangmeister,  and his son, Georg Friederich Zangmeister (1725-1811), who emigrated from the German Palatinate, and arrived in Philadelphia on September 19, 1749 on the ship Patience. They settled near Trumbauersville in Bucks County. Georg Friederich’s son, John Adam Singmaster (1766-1820), moved to Millerstown; and in 1794, married Lydia van Buskirk (1779-1865), the daughter of the Rev. Jacob van Buskirk (1739-1800), reputedly the first ordained Lutheran minister born and trained in America. Jacob van Buskirk purchased a tract of land from Peter Miller on November 19, 1784; and around 1785, established a tannery in Millerstown while serving as pastor of Lehigh Church (1770-1800). John Adam bought the tannery, and his father-in-law’s farm of about 105 acres, around 1810. John Adam Singmaster is buried at Zion Lehigh Lutheran Church near Alburtis; but Lydia Singmaster, who lived until 1865, is buried in Solomon’s Union Church Cemetery in Macungie. Her grave is surrounded by an iron fence near the Cherry Street cemetery entrance behind the church.

John Adam and Lydia Singmaster had seven sons and one daughter. Four of the sons moved west; Samuel (1807-1899) settled in  Keokuk County, Iowa in 1843, where his descendants became internationally known breeders of Percheron horses; Charles, Reuben, and William moved to Missouri, where many of their descendants live today. Their daughter, Sarah, married William Miller of Allentown. Jacob and Henry and their brother-in-law, William Miller, established a large tannery near Lewistown, Pennsylvania. Only John Singmaster (1797-1877) remained in Macungie, where he engaged in farming and the family tannery. He married Esther Weiler (1802-1884) and had five children, two daughters and three sons. Mary Ann (1820-1875), for whom the Mary Ann Furnace in Longswamp was named, married William Trexler (1816-1905), and Caroline (1825-1872) married Thomas C. Breinig (1825-1916). Edwin F. (1832-1901) was a “bachelor of considerable means.” Alexander (1834-1911) married Hannah C. Keck (1829-1916), and they had three children: Caroline (1851-1923) who married Charles Oliver Shimer (1853-1910), Elmira (1854-1945) who married John Erdman (1851-1927), and Caleb Alexander (1862-1902) who married Alice Neumeyer (1870-1944). In his younger years, Alexander was connected with the family coal, grain and lumber business, and later operated the family farm. He served one term as county commissioner, and was a director of the Allentown National Bank. John Singmaster and his wife Esther, along with their daughter Mary Ann, and sons Edwin and Alexander, are buried in the Singmaster family gravesite at Fairview Cemetery in Macungie.

James Singmaster (1823-1896), was the third son of John Singmaster and Esther (Weiler) Singmaster. He married Sarah Ann Mattern (1824-1894) in 1850 and had four children: Walter Filmore, John Alden, Ella, and Howard. When the map of Macungie was published in the 1876 New Illustrated Atlas of Lehigh County, James Singmaster was the largest single property owner in the borough. He operated the tannery on the south side of Main Street between Poplar and Walnut, and conducted an extensive coal, grain and lumber business, originally located along the East Penn Branch of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad to the east of the railroad depot. At a special election in December 1857, he was elected as the first Burgess of the newly incorporated Borough of Millerstown; and when a group of local businessmen decided to build an iron furnace in 1873, James Singmaster became one of the major stockholders. This was an inopportune time to build an iron furnace and the economic depression that followed the Panic of 1873 led to the ultimate failure of the Millerstown Iron Company in July of 1879. By the time of its dissolution, James controlled a majority of shares, most of them in his capacity as president of the Macungie Savings Bank. The business was reorganized as the Macungie Iron Company later in 1879. James continued his involvement with the successor company, serving as its president from 1883 until his death in 1896. In matters of the spirit, James was an ardent Lutheran and became a protagonist in the controversy that split the German Lutheran congregation of Solomon’s Union Church in 1868. In 1869, James donated land and chaired the building committee for the new Saint Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church on East Main Street, adjacent to the Macungie Institute. His son, the Rev. John Alden Singmaster, served as pastor of this congregation from 1882 to 1885. James Singmaster died in 1896, and is buried with his wife Sarah in the Singmaster family gravesite at Fairview Cemetery in Macungie.

The economic security of the Macungie Singmasters was enhanced in 1875 upon the death of tanner and leather broker Jacob Singmaster (1805-1875). Jacob had sold his interest in the tannery near Lewistown to his brother Henry and brother-in-law William Miller, and established an extensive tannery business in Monroe County. Jacob was the founder of the village of Tannersville where he built two large steam tanneries, and later moved to Stroudsburg where he took up residence and built another tannery. He became the dominant figure in the leather markets of Philadelphia, Boston, and New York, amassing a fortune, and was one of the founding stockholders in the Thomas Iron Company of Hokendauqua in 1854. As he never married, his stock in the Thomas Iron Company was divided among his brothers, sister, nephews, and nieces upon his death. His younger brother Henry (1813-1885) moved to Stroudsburg and looked after him for several years before his death and inherited more than $100,000, some of which was used to buy Jacob’s mansion in Stroudsburg. Henry and his wife had no children, and after his wife’s death, the estate was divided between the Lutheran theological seminaries in Philadelphia and Gettysburg. At Gettysburg, some of the money was used to endow the 'Henry Singmaster Professorship of Biblical Theology', a position first occupied by his great-grand nephew, the Rev. John Alden Singmaster.

Many of the children and grandchildren of James and Sarah Ann (Mattern) Singmaster gained distinction and contributed to the economic life of the community. Howard M. Singmaster (1859-1880) died of typhoid fever, unmarried at the age of 21 years. At the time of his death, he held the position of acting postmaster and operator of the Lehigh Telegraph Company's Macungie office. Walter Filmore Singmaster (1850-1882) was a founder and first president of the Macungie and East Texas Telegraph Company in 1876, which became the Lehigh Telegraph Company in 1878. Its office was in the Singmaster building on the south­east corner of Church and Main Streets. He was also extensively engaged in the family tannery as well as the grain, coal and lumber business, and was served as Macungie postmaster after Howard's death in 1880. Walter F. married Ida Ann Baughman (1856-1919) of Shippensburg, and they had two children, James Walter (1881-1957) and Howard Mattern (1883-1963). After graduating from Gettysburg College in 1904 and 1905 respectively, J. Walter and Howard were taken on as partners by local inventor Horace Falk Neumeyer in his brass foundry on West Main Street, near Grace Lutheran Church. Neumeyer later sold his interest to the two Singmaster brothers, who built a new plant on the north side of the Reading railroad, opposite the train station, and operated it under the name Macungie Brass and Manufacturing Company. In 1917, J. Walter sold his share of the business to Howard, and became president of Lehigh Valley Supply Company in Allentown. Howard later converted the brass operation to a cast-iron pipe foundry and renamed it the East Penn Foundry Company. In later years, it was managed by Howard’s son-in-law, John M. 'Tubby' Franks, before being sold to Tyler Pipe Industries of Tyler, Texas, in 1964. Today the foundry is still one of the borough’s largest employers.

James’s daughter, Ella (1854-1929), married William Mickley Weaver (1851-1890) a few years after he became superintendent of the Macungie Iron Company. In addition to operating the iron furnace, William M. Weaver became Lehigh County’s first amateur photographer of distinction. Many of his photographs taken in the Macungie area during the 1880s are now part of the Macungie Historical Society collection. Ella and William Weaver’s son, William Singmaster Weaver (1866-1967), became a locally prominent orchardist and nut grower, and some of the hybrid chestnut trees with which he experimented still grow on the farm he operated on Orchard Road in Lower Macungie Township, as well as on the farm of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Gettysburg.

The Rev. Dr. John Alden Singmaster (1852-1926) was educated at Pennsylvania College (now Gettysburg College) and the Gettysburg seminary, and ordained by the East Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1876. On November 1, 1877, he married Caroline Hoopes (1852-1931) of West Chester, Pennsylvania. Rev. Singmaster served four pastorates: Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania (1876-1882), Lyons and Macungie, Pennsylvania (1882-1886); Brooklyn, New York (1887-1890); and Allentown, Pennsylvania (1890-1900). In 1894, he was named to the Board of Directors of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg; and in 1900, he accepted a position at the Seminary as professor of Biblical theology. In 1903, he succeeded Dr. Milton Valentine as Professor of Systematic Theology and Chairman of the Faculty; and in 1906, he was chosen as the first president of the Gettysburg Seminary. During his lifetime, Dr. Singmaster helped organize and served as the first president of the Allentown Hospital Association (1895-1900), and was the organizer of the Civic Nursing Association and first president of the Gettysburg Hospital. He served as president of the East Pennsylvania Synod (1897-1899) and the General Synod (1915-1917) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and was a member of the committee that prepared the constitution of the United Lutheran Church in America. He authored numerous religious articles for various Lutheran journals, including the Lutheran Observer and Lutheran Quarterly, and his book, A Handbook of Christian Theology, was published after his death, in 1927. The Singmaster family had a long history of service to the Lutheran Church, and family records of Dr. Singmaster indicate that a Zangmeister ancestor studied under Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon at Wittenberg. Dr. Singmaster and his wife Caroline, along with their daughter Elsie, and sons James Arthur and John Howard, are buried in the Singmaster gravesite at Fairview Cemetery in Macungie.

Dr. Singmaster's daughter, Elsie Singmaster Lewars (1879-1958), became a noted Pennsylvania novelist and short-story writer who published 42 books and more than 350 short stories for American literary journals and popular magazines of the day. James Arthur Sr. (1878-1962), became a very successful metallurgical and chemical engineer, and an inventor of numerous improvements in the manufacture of zinc, zinc products, and rayon. James Arthur received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Gettysburg College (1898), and studied at Lehigh University (1899). In 1903, he married Helen Priscilla Jacks (1883-1970). He was a cofounder and president of Singmaster and Breyer, a New York chemical engineering consulting firm. During World War II, he worked on the Manhattan Project and was recognized for his contribution to the creation of the Atomic Bomb. Another son, John Howard (1881-1957), returned to Macungie and operated the coal and lumber business started by his grandfather. John Howard was later succeeded in the business by his son, Harry Alden (1908-1983), who was the last Singmaster to run the Macungie lumber yard now operated by Shelly Enterprises of Perkasie.

The village of Macungie and the Singmaster name were inseparable for nearly two centuries, with Singmaster descendants living and working in the Borough until the 1980s. But sadly, a 2002 review of local phone directories uncovered no Singmaster surname listed in the Lehigh Valley area.

Copyright ©2006 by the Macungie Historical Society, Inc.  All rights reserved.