He returned to the United States in 1780, and in 1781 he married Deborah Norris, who went on to become a noted historian and diarist. Two years later they moved into Stenton, a mansion built in the Germantown area of Philadelphia by James Logan that is now open to the public. Partly due to the demands of restoring and maintaining Stenton, Logan gave up his career as a physician and became a gentleman farmer and politician.[2]
At Stenton, the couple entertained a wide circle of politicians, artists, writers, and businesspeople, counting among their friends Thomas Jefferson and the painter Charles Willson Peale.[3] They were music lovers and had an admiration for many composers including Haydn, Mozart, Clementi and Pleyel.
The Logans had three sons.
Career
Despite his Loyalist background, Logan took part in the political life of the new United States. In 1785 he was elected to the Pennsylvania legislature, serving for four years; and he was elected for another term in the late 1790s.[1]
In 1790, he was disowned by the Society of Friends (Quakers) for having joined a militia, which engaged in activities wholly antithetical to the Quakers' pacifist views.
In 1798, he went to Paris to negotiate peace with the French to settle the Quasi-War. On his return, he found he had been denounced by the anti-Jeffersonian Federalists, who had passed a statute informally known as the "Logan Act", which made it a crime for an individual citizen to interfere in a dispute between the United States and a foreign country.[citation needed]
In 1801, as Jefferson's presidency began, Logan ran for the open U.S. Senate seat previously held by William Bingham, who was retiring. He narrowly lost to Peter Muhlenberg.[5] However, when Muhlenberg resigned in June of that year, Logan ran for the seat once again and won overwhelmingly against congressman Joseph Hiester.[6]
Logan's reputation was mixed. With reference to his political activities, he was called at various times a "busybody" and a "great fool",[1]: 308 but Jefferson considered him "the best farmer in Pennsylvania, both in theory and practice."[7]
Logan died in 1821, and not long afterwards Deborah Logan wrote an account of his life under the title Memoir of Dr. George Logan of Stenton, including excerpts from letters. It was published in 1899.[7]
^ abcMancke, Elizabeth. The Creation of the British Atlantic World (Anglo-America in the Transatlantic World). Johns Hopkins Press, 2005.
^Premo, Terri L."'Like a Being Who Does Not Belong': The Old Age of Deborah Norris Logan". Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 107, January 1983, pp. 85–112.
Logan, Deborah Norris. Memoir of Dr. George Logan of Stenton. Frances A. Logan, ed. Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1899. (Modern reprint by Kessinger Publishing, ISBN978-1-4326-4242-6.)
Tolles, Frederick B. George Logan of Philadelphia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1953.
Tolles, Frederick B. "Unofficial Ambassador: George Logan's Mission to France, 1798." William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 7 (1950): pp. 1–25.
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