Samuel Breck Biography
About Samuel Breck:
Birth And Background | Samuel Breck Moves To Sweetbriar | Politics, Religion And Business | Arts And Charity Work | Diary And Other WritingsPolitics, Religion And Business
Politically, Samuel Breck was a Federalist, and, although that party had lost its power, Breck, a reluctant candidate, nevertheless won elections. He spent the years 1817–1821 in the Pennsylvania Senate, 1823–1825 in Congress, and was returned to the Senate at Harrisburg in the 1830s.
The causes he espoused were the abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania, internal improvements in the form of canals, and free education for the poor. For much of his life he was constant in his attendance at local political meetings; his efforts to guide public opinion are preserved in articles he wrote for the newspapers.
Having flirted with Catholicism when under the influence of the Benedictine monks at Soreze, he became a devout Episcopalian. He was a founder of St. Mark's, a chapel at Mantua near Sweetbriar, and later of St. Luke's in Philadelphia, and of course a vestryman and an attendant at church conventions.
For a man out of active business, he received a surprising number of calls for his services. Thus, he was a promoter of two bridges over the Schuylkill, director of several canal companies, a founder of the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society, a director of a commercial bank, and a board member of the Philadelphia, Wilmington And Baltimore Railroad Company.