Judge Dillinger was born at Dillingersville, Lower Milford township, this county, May 27, 1798, and died Nov. 3, 1861. He was of German ancestry, his great-grandfather coming from Würtemberg, Germany, and settling where Dillingersville now is.

When he was about seventeen years of age his father, with his family, removed to Philadelphia to engage in the wholesale dry goods business, where he entered a drug-store, and at the age of nineteen years his father sent him to Ironton, this county, for the purpose of selling out a stock of goods that had been furnished by the father to a party there on credit and which was not successful and returned the possession of the goods. In disposing of the same he showed much aptness and skill as a salesman, and so encouraged the father that before he had sold the entire stock he established him in business in Balliettsville, this county. He subsequently removed to Ruchsville, also in this county, Allentown, Hellertown, Northampton Co., and again Allentown, respectively, continuing in the mercantile business until within a few years before his death.

During the time he lived in BalIietstvil1e, in the year 1819, he was elected a member of the House of Representatives of this State, being at the time but twenty-two years of age and the youngest member of he body. He was re-elected three times, it being the first instance in the county that a member served four successive terms. Having a little experience in civil engineering, he was appointed to and accepted, at he close of his membership, the office of deputy surveyor of the county, which was an office of importance during that time.

In 1830 he removed to Allentown, having been appointed by Governor Wolf clerk of the courts, which office he continued to occupy, and for a time that of prothonotarv, until 886. He was a member of the Convention of 1837-38 which revised the Constitution of the State. He was twice elected Democratic Presidential elector, casting his vote for Jackson and Van Buren, respectively. He was associate judge from 1844 for five years, and again from 1851 until he resigned to accept the presidency of the Allentown Bank. In the year 1850, after his first term of judgeship, he was elected justice of the peace for Allentown, which he resigned to accept his second term of judgeship. In 1851, he was made the last president of the Allentown Bank, now the Allentown National Bank, which position he held until his death, it recognizing his integrity, prudence, and correct business habits, and that much of its prosperity, character, and usefulness was owing to him.

He was again elected to the office of justice of the peace in 1861. In 1848 he was nominated to Congress, to fill the unexpired term of Hon. John W. Hornbeck, deceased, who died shortly after he took his seat, but declined it on account of delicacy of health; whereupon the late Hon. Samuel A. Bridges was nominated and elected. He was the rival candidate for canal commissioner of the Hon. Morris Longstreth. He held the office of burgess of Allentown. He was one of the projectors of the Lehigh County Agricultural Society, and to him is due its plan of organization.

In the first organization under the charter of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, recognizing the importance of the influence Judge Dillinger brought to hear in securing the charter, he was made, as a compliment, the first superintendent, and Dr. Jesse Samuels, the member of Legislature who was mainly instrumental in the passage of the charter of incorporation, its first engineer.

In 1831 he became the husband of Salome Schreiber, who was born in Whitehall Township, this county, Sept 6, 1805 (who is still living), a daughter of Jacob Schreiber and Eve Catharine, his wife, both of German ancestry, the father being a resident of Whitehall township, and the mother a daughter of Conrad Leisenring, who is also of Whitehall and North Whitehall townships, and was an uncle of Hon. John Leisenriug and A. W. Leisenring, Esq., of Mauch Chunk. Their wedded life was blessed with five children, two of whom died, a son in infancy and a daughter, Margaret E., who intermarried with P. S. Fretz, a son of Hon. Christian Pretz, the subject of a sketch elsewhere, leaving to survive her a daughter, Aline Diillinger Pretz, and a son, Jacob Christian Fretz.


First, "Captain" John P. Dilliuger, who was born in Allentown, May 3, 1833, was educated at the Allentown Academy, and in the year 1850 took charge of the office at Allentown of the Philadelphia and Wilkesbarre Telegraph Company. In 1852 entered
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