Biddle, Henry J. (Henry Jonathan)

Henry Jonathan Biddle (1862-1928) was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1862. He was a member of the prominent Biddle family of Philadelphia, and the son of Maj. Henry J. Biddle (1817-1862), who died the year Henry was born, from wounds suffered in the Battle of Newmarket Crossroads. Maj. Biddle's widow, Mary Deborah Baird Biddle (?-1900), endowed a college in his memory in Charlotte, North Carolina. (The institution endures but was later renamed Johnson C. Smith University; a Biddle Hall still stands on campus.).

Biddle was the youngest of five children. Oldest brother Jonathan Williams Biddle (1855-1877) was a lieutenant in Company K, 7th Cavalry and was killed in the conflict against the Nez Perce in 1877. Spencer Fullerton Baird Biddle (-1887), the third child, served in the Navy. Henry had two sisters, Lydia Macfunn Biddle (-1896) and Christine Williams Biddle. In 1887 he married Helene Rudolph in Germany. The couple produced two children, Rebecca Baird Biddle (1888-?) and Spencer Biddle (1890-). Spencer accompanied his father on some of the expeditions.

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