John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg

John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg (1746–1807), born in Trappe, PA, first attended the Academy of Philadelphia, then started to study theology at the “Pädagogium” of the Franckesche Foundations at Halle (1770), but returned to Pennsylvania after two years. Believing in the right to free the country, he enlisted for the War of Independence and even became Major General under George Washington (1783). After the war, in 1784, he was elected to the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and also as vice president of the council in 1787.