Barnt De Klyn Clothes The Continental Army and Hosts a King
Barnt De Klyn made a fortune supplying the soldiers of the Revolutionary War with clothing.
He later entertained a rather curious house guest.
Barnt De Klyn
Born in Massachusetts, Barnt De Klyn had married and moved to Philadelphia by the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.
De Klyn used the opportunity to invest in the manufacturer of woollen cloth.
He sold these products to the Continental Army, which were then used to make uniforms.
While this act was certainly patriotic, as the soldiers desperately needed clothes, it also made Barnt an extremely wealthy man.
Predicting a Capital
After the Constitution was signed, word got out that the nation was searching for a new capital.
Like many other wealthy spectators, Barnt took a gamble.
He invested heavily in hundreds of acres of land around Trenton, New Jersey. It was a good choice, as Trenton was close to the center of the United States plus it sat nicely between the two metropolitan hubs of New York City and Philadelphia.
Woopsie
Well, maybe it wasn’t a good choice.
De Klyn didn’t expect the government to decide on building an entirely new city (AKA Washington, D.C.).
Because his risk didn’t pay off, Barnt lost most of his fortune.
Bow Hill
Luckily, De Klyn had already paid for his mansion, Bow Hill.
Decades later, he would rent out the estate...to a King!
Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother and former King of Spain, had sailed away from Europe in exile.
For some reason, this former regent decided to live in New Jersey. He rented Bow Hill from the De Klyn’s where he lived with his mistress, Annette Savage, and their children.
Read about some other people who clothed the Continental Army here:
Ester Reed and the Ladies Association
Jeremiah Wadsworth Gets Rich by Winning the Revolutionary War
Supplying Fighting Founders - Commissary General Samuel Hodgdon
Speaking of clothing…
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