We will later today discuss Senator Matthew Stanley Quay as a Civil War soldier, but will now touch on his civilian accomplishments as one of the great political leaders during the last half of the 19th century.
Matthew Quay came to Beaver in 1840, when his father became minister of the First Presbyterian Church. He graduated from Jefferson College in 1850 and was admitted to the bar of Beaver County in 1854. He served several terms as Beaver County Prothonotary before resigning in 1861, as mentioned at the Chapel, to enter the military.
Following the Civil War, Quay became editor of the Beaver Argus and Radical, and then steadily moved up the political ladder ... terms in the Pennsylvania Legislature; State Treasurer; Secretary of the Commonwealth; Chairman of the Republican State Committee; Delegate to the National Convention; membership in and then Chairmanship of the Republican National Committee; and, finally, United States Senator from 1887 until after the turn of the century. As Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Matthew Quay played a major role in the selection of U. S, Presidents and was commonly referred to as "the king-maker." It is said that after Quay was instrumental in the election of President Benjamin Harrison, the new President rejected several of Quay's recommendations for cabinet posts, saying that the Lord had put him in the White House. "In that case," said Quay, "let the Lord reelect you." Without Quay's help, the Lord did not see fit to have Harrison reelected, and he was soundly defeated by Democrat Grover Cleveland.
Quay was visited several times in Beaver by famous writer Rudyard Kipling of England, who said he had come to Beaver to interview the greatest political boss of his time... but found, Kipling said, one of the greatest classical scholars he had ever known.
Quay's last home in Beaver, at the corner of College Avenue and Second Street, now housing the J. T. Anderson Funeral Home, was designated as a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service in 1976 in recogniton of Senator Quay's important role in American history.