Isaac Ellmaker Hiester

Isaac Ellmaker Hiester (May 29, 1824 – February 6, 1871) was a nineteenth-century American political leader, lawyer, and jurist from Pennsylvania. Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, he was the only son of William Hiester, a prominent Pennsylvania politician, and was a member of the influential Hiester family political dynasty. On his father’s side he descended from one of the oldest and most prominent German families in the state, and through his mother he was connected to the equally well-known Ellmaker family. He was also a cousin of Hiester Clymer, who would later serve in the United States House of Representatives. Born to wealth and social position in a region shaped heavily by German-American political and cultural traditions, he grew up in an environment that expected public service and professional distinction.

Hiester received a highly regarded education for his time, reflecting his family’s means and aspirations. After preparatory study in Pennsylvania, he attended Yale College, from which he graduated in 1843. He then read law and was admitted to the bar, establishing his legal practice in Lancaster. From the outset of his career he adopted what contemporaries described as the highest standard of professional morals, insisting that no client’s cause should be hindered or delayed from malice or for financial gain. His early legal work quickly earned him a reputation for careful preparation, intellectual rigor, and a “peculiar eloquence” that was said to sway both court and jury.

As a lawyer in Lancaster, Hiester became one of the leading members of the local bar. Colleagues later recalled that he always brought complete preparation to the trial of his causes, whether appearing before a jury or before a court of last resort. His word, they said, was as good as his bond, and “no man’s bond was better.” He was known for keeping even his lightest promises sacred, and was especially careful to do so when it might advantage an opponent or work to his own prejudice. In private life he was remembered as generous without ostentation, unable to witness suffering without attempting to relieve it, and as a man of the highest honor and elevated character. These traits, combined with his legal skill, made him a central figure in the legal and civic life of Lancaster County.

Hiester’s prominence at the bar and his family’s long political tradition naturally drew him into public affairs. A Democrat in a state where his relatives had long been influential, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives as a Democratic representative from Pennsylvania. He served in the Thirty-sixth Congress, representing his district from March 4, 1859, to March 3, 1861, during the turbulent years immediately preceding the American Civil War. In Congress he was regarded as a serious, principled legislator, and later commentators referred to him as a “distinguished Pennsylvania congressman and jurist.” His service in the House placed him among the last generation of antebellum lawmakers who struggled with the sectional crisis that would soon erupt into war.

After leaving Congress, Hiester returned to Lancaster and resumed the full-time practice of law. In the years following his congressional service he deepened his reputation as one of Pennsylvania’s leading attorneys. He was frequently engaged in important litigation and was widely consulted on complex legal questions. His professional conduct and courtroom demeanor reinforced his standing as a jurist in the broader sense of the term, a lawyer whose opinions and arguments carried weight beyond the immediate cases in which he appeared. He remained active in civic and religious life in Lancaster, notably as a member of St. James Episcopal Church, where his leadership and generosity were well known.

Hiester died suddenly in Lancaster on February 6, 1871. News of his death deeply affected his colleagues and community. In the House of Representatives, his contemporary Oliver James Dickey rose to announce “the sudden decease of Isaac E. Hiester,” confessing himself “utterly incapable” of performing the “mournful task” and describing Hiester as a man of “the highest sense of honor” and “the purest integrity,” whose unexpected loss “unnerves and overpowers” those who knew him. At the Lancaster bar, former city solicitor Samuel H. Reynolds declared that the bar had met with “irreparable loss” in Hiester’s death, praising his “peculiar eloquence,” his elevated character, and his private virtues, and asserting that “his virtues will outlive the marble which may mark his last resting place.”

In the months following his death, tributes to Hiester’s memory continued. During the fall of 1871, a new lectern was installed in his honor at St. James Episcopal Church in Lancaster. Local newspapers described it as “one of the finest specimens in sculpture in wood yet executed in this country,” featuring an eagle resting upon a massive pillar with an elaborate capital of black oak. A century after his death, American newspapers were still memorializing him as a “distinguished Pennsylvania congressman and jurist,” emphasizing both his public service and his character. Remembered as a worthy son of the German-American community that had given Pennsylvania some of its best governors and transformed much of the eastern part of the state into a “garden,” Isaac Ellmaker Hiester’s life embodied the blend of professional excellence, civic responsibility, and personal integrity that his contemporaries regarded as the ideal of public service.