Biography

12/29/1805 - 05/17/1879


PACKER, Asa, a Representative from Monroe and Northampton Counties; born, December 29, 1805 in Mystic, New London County, Ct.; carpenter and mechanic; engaged, boat and canal business; engaged, coal and ice shipping; elected as a Democrat to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for the 1842 and 1843 terms; appointed, associate judge, Carbon County (1843-1844); elected, delegate, Democratic National Convention (1844); builder and president, Lehigh Valley Railroad Company (1852-1879); elected, United States Congress (1853-1857); unsuccessful campaign, Pennsylvania Governor (1869); founder and trustee, Lehigh University; died, May 17, 1879 in Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania; interred, Mauch Chunk Cemetery, Mauch Chunk, Carbon County, Pennsylvania. 

Bibliography

Cole, Robert C. Asa Packer. n.p., 1983.

Coleman, Lyman. Guidebook of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and Its Several Branches and Connections. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1873.

Lehigh University. An Outline of the Career of the Hon. Asa Packer, of Pennsylvania. Bethlehem, PA: Amos C. Clauder, printer, 1867.

Lehigh University. Exercises at the Celebration of the Founder’s Day.  Reading, PA: B. F. Owen Press, 1882.

Stuart, Milton Caleb. Asa Packer, 1805-1879, Captain of Industry, Educator, Citizen. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1938. 

Yates, W. Ross. Asa Packer, A Prospective. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 1983.

Archival Collections

various, Lehigh University Libraries and Special Collections, Bethlehem, Pa.

Congressional Biography

After 2 session(s) serving in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Asa Packer went on to serve in congress


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