BIO:  Hon. Jacob CASSAT, Gettysburg, Adams County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis

Copyright 2005.  All rights reserved.
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History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania
Chicago:  Warner, Beers & Co., 1886
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Part III, History of Adams County, Pages 351-352

HON. JACOB CASSAT (deceased) was born in Straban Township, Adams Co., Penn., 
February 7, 1778.  His grandfather, Francis Cassat, was a French Huguenot, who 
married in Holland and came to this country in 1764, with his wife and children, 
of whom David, the father of the subject of this sketch, was one.  The family 
became extensive farmers and influential citizens, and took an active part in 
the war of the Revolution.  David Cassat reared a family of eight children - 
five sons and three daughters - the sons all becoming distinguished members of 
society.  Jacob remained at home on the farm and prepared himself by diligent 
study for the useful life he afterward led.  He was entirely self-taught, having 
attended school only three months.  He was married in 1806 to Mary McConaughy.  
When still a young man he was chosen as an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and 
about the same time he started and organized, so far as is known, the first 
Sunday-school in Adams County outside of Gettysburg, and became its 
superintendent.  He was an active church member and retained his position as 
elder and superintendent of the Sunday-school without interruption till his 
death.  When quite a young man he served as county commissioner, and afterward 
assisted in the defense of Baltimore in 1814.  In 1819 he was elected to the 
State Legislature and served four sessions, and afterward to the State Senate, 
where he died on Christmas night, 1838, in the sixty-first year of his age.  In 
politics he was a Whig, a man of great learning, ability and dignity, an 
eloquent debater, and while in the House and Senate a recognized leader of his 
party.  On the night of December 23, 1838, on the occasion of what is known in 
the history of Pennsylvania as the “buckshot war,” he made an impassioned appeal 
against mob rule, and with others was driven from the Senate chamber at the risk 
of his life.  The next morning he was found dead in his bed.  It is no 
exaggeration to say that at the time of his death he was the most prominent and 
honored man of his county.  He was six feet in height, weighed about 170 pounds, 
was of dark complexion, amiable in disposition and dignified in deportment.