Maj. Robert Klotz, formerly a Member of Congress, is a well known resident of Mauch Chunk.  His great-grandfather, Jacob Klotz, came to America from Wurtemberg, Germany, in 1749, and settled in Lowhill Township, Northampton County (now in Lehigh County), where in 1767 he located land.  A few years later, his son, John Klotz, married Fronia Krous, and also located land in the same township, where he resided throughout his remaining days.  Christian Klotz, the father of our subject, was born in 1789, and about 1814 left his native township, settling soon afterward in Mahoning Township, Carbon County.  There in 1816 he married Elizabeth, the daughter of Robert MacDaniel, whose wife was Elizabeth Kicks, a Quakeress.

  Robert Klotz, their second son, is the gentleman whose name heads this sketch.  He was born in that part of Northampton now Caron County, October 27, 1819, and acquired only such education as the winter school afforded, with the exception of six months at a private school in Easton after his twenty-third  year.  At the age of twenty-four, in 1843, he was elected the first Register and Recorder of Carbon County.  In 1846 he was chosen Lieutenant of Company K, Second Pennsylvania Infantry, for service in the Mexican War, and afterward became Adjutant of the same regiment under command of John W. Geary.  He was with General Scott on his triumphant march toward the city of Mexico, and took part in the battles of Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo.  At the latter he had charge of the men who delivered at General Scott's headquarters twenty thousand silver dollars in bags, which were in a wagon captured from the Mexicans.  From the city of Jalapa, he came home on a short furlough on important business, and on returning took part in the memorable fight at Puente Nacional, and a second affray at Cerro Gordo, Huamantla (where Walker fell), Pueblo, etc., finally reaching the city of Mexico under Gen. Joseph Lane, on the 9^th of December, 1847.

  Major Klotz then joined his old command, with which he served until the close of the war.  For his courage and bravery at the second battle of Cerro Gordo he received honorable mention in the reports of his superior officer to the War Department, and to his gallantry was largely due the success of the engagement at Puente Nacional in August, 1847.  Here he was temporarily placed under arrest for refusing to obey orders to spike a cannon and retreat, the cannon being manned by himself and another officer.  The curt and emphatic reply of Lieutenant Klotz was that he did not come to Mexico to spike cannon.  The next morning he was relieved from arrest, as he was the only man  under Major Lally's command that had ever been on the hills of Cerro Gordo, and in command of Company C, of the Regular Army, under Henderson's command, he successfully dislodged the enemy.

  After his return to his home at Mauch Chunk, Major Klotz served two terms as a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature, and in 1854 removed to Kansas in response to an invitation from Governor Reeder of that territory.  He was a prominent and active participant in the stirring scenes and events during the period immediately preced-

ing the admission of Kansas as a state.  He located in the town of Pawnee, and there built the first hotel in western Kansas.  This house became a noted stopping place for persons representing both parties engaged in the free-state and anti-free state discussions.  The first session of the Legislature was moved from Shawnee Mission to Pawnee.  Major Klotz was a member of the historic Topeka Constitutional Convention, was the first to sign the constitution, and after its adoption became the first Secretary of State under Governor Robinson's administration.  In 1856, he was a member of the celebrated Committee of Safety to protect the state from invasion, and was appointed Brigadier-General of the state troops at Lawrence, where he was associated with Dietzler, Gaines, Jenkins, Robinson and others.  He exerted a strong influence in securing Topeka as the capital of Kansas.

  Again returning to his native state, Major Klotz served as Treasurer of Carbon County for one term, and at the opening of the Civil War entered the Federal army for three months' service under General Patterson.  In 1862 he was chosen Colonel of the Nineteenth Pennsylvania Regiment of Emergency Troops at the time of Lee's first invasion of Pennsylvania.  Since the war he has been successful in conducting a number of business enterprises, and is one of the Board of Managers of the Laflin & Rand Powder Company of New York. For a number of years he was a Trustee and is now an honorary Trustee of the Lehigh University.  In 1878 he was elected to Congress on the Democratic ticket form the Eleventh Pennsylvania District, receiving eighty-two hundred and eleven votes against eighty-one hundred and sixteen for the Republican, fifty-one hundred and seventy-three for the Greenback, and forty-one hundred and forty-five for the independent Democratic candidate.  Two years later, when re-elected, his majority was eighty-three hundred and forty-seven votes.  He served on the Committee of Mines and Mining, and on the District of Columbia.  In Congress he obtained influence among the members on account of his practical views and his business-like force.  During the extra session of that Congress, he prepared and introduced a bill for pensioning soldiers and the families of deceased soldiers of the Mexican War.  The provisions of this bill eventually passed both houses and became law.  General Klotz is one of the Vice-Presidents of the National Association of Mexican Veterans, and takes a deep interest in looking after the comforts and welfare of his surviving comrades of the war with Mexico.

  In 1849 Major Klotz was married to Sallie, daughter of Col. John Lentz; and to them was born one son, Lentz Edmund, who was married in April, 1879, to Emma E. Laubach, daughter of Joseph Laubach, of Bethlehem, Pa.  The General's wife and son are both now deceased, and he was left with his four grandchildren, Sallie L., Robert L., Mabel E., and Lentz Edmund, and their mother to cheer him in his declining years at his beautiful home in the picturesque town of Mauch Chunk.