USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of genealogy and biography of the state of Pennsylvania with a compendium of history. A record of the achievements of her people in the making of a commonwealth and the founding of a nation, Volume II > Part 17
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Middletown, Connecticut, 1851: mayor of Middletown, 1856; state senator, 1857: president and treasurer Shaler and Hall Quarry Co .. 1858-1866; called to Washington to consult on plans for prosecution of war, offered rank of major general and command in southwest. de- clined ; offered position as assistant secretary of war, declined : requested by war department to put in writing his plan for prosecution of war and did so ( this was afterward pirated by one who had access to the files of the department : it contained the outline of the "March to the Sea"). 1862; furnished the war department with plans for coast defense, 1863: made surveys for marine railway around Niagara Falls, and was in Washington in the interest of the Panama Ship Canal. 1865-1866: chief engineer Northern Pacific railroad, 1866: consulting engineer Lake Ontario Shore railroad, 1868; consulting en- gineer Northern Pacific railroad, 1871, until his death in 1872. Had he lived five years longer he would have seen the metals laid upon prac- tically his own lines from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He employed his leisure in the preparation and publication of numerous professional. scientific, philosophical and political papers and contributions to reviews and journals. He was a trustee of Norwich University from 1834 to 1846, and the degree of A. M. was conferred upon him by his alma mater and by the University of Vermont. In addition to his professional reports and works Mr. Johnson published the following: "A Treatise on Surveying": "Journal of March of Cadets to Plattsburgh, to Wash- ington, to Niagara": "The Newellian Sphere"; "Land Surveys"; "A Project for a Great Western Railway, New York to the Mississippi Valley," 1829: "Method of Conducting Canal Surveys": "The Epicy- cloid": "Cubical Quantities, Railroad and Canal"; "Mountains of New York": "Tables of Quantities for Tracing Railroad Curves"; "Rail- road System of New York": "Gauge of Railways": "Railroad to the
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Pacific, Northern Route, General Characteristics, Relative Merits, etc." with illustrations and approximate profile, 1850: "General Plan of Mili- tary Operations. Civil War," by request of secretary of war: "Re- port on Northeastern Coast Defense," to the secretary of war : "Caesar's Bridge"; "Ship Canal and Marine Railway"; "First Meridian": "Words for the People": "The Reciprocity Treaty"; "Navigation of the Lakes" ; "Niagara": "Water Supply of New York"; "Transcontinental Rail- ways"; "Historical Sketch of Early Norse Settlements and the New- port Tower": "Banking and Currency," etc.
He married Charlotte Shaler, daughter of Nathaniel Shaler, mer- chant, of New York, and Middletown. Thomas Shaler came to this country from Stratford-on-Avon. England, about 1660. He was one of the first proprietors of Haddam, Connecticut, where he is mentioned in 1662 as one of a party of twenty-eight men from Hartford, Windsor and Wethersfield who began a settlement there. His wife was Alice Brooks, widow of Thomas Brooks and daughter of Garrard Spencer.
(Garrard Spencer, son of Jarrard Spencer, was born in England. came to this country in 1634. and settled in Cambridge, then Newe Towne. Massachusetts. Removed to Lynn. 1636; was granted the "fferry" there, and was ensign of train bands, 1638: removed to Had- dam about 1660: was deputy to the general court at Hartford. 1674. 1678, 1679, 1680 and 1683 and to the special session of same 1675; died in 1685. )
(2) Abel Shaler, son of Thomas, born 1673. died 1744. (3) Reuben Shaler, son of Abel, was born in Haddam. 1711 : was a ship- master and owner : removed to Middletown. Connecticut. in 1741 : mar- ried Abigail Stow in 1741.
(Jolin Stow came probably from Maidstone or Cranbrook, Kent county, England, with his wife and six children. in 1634, and settled
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in Roxbury, Massachusetts. He and his son Thomas joined the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts in 1638. He repre- sented Roxbury in the general court, 1639; sold his property in Roxbury and removed to Concord in 1648, and died there. Rev. John Eliot says of Elizabeth Stow, his wife, that she was a godly matron, a blessing to her family and to the church. Thomas Stow, son of John, born in Eng- land. 1617, came to this country with his father and preceded him a few years in Concord. He moved to Middletown (Upper Houses, now Cromwell), Connecticut. 1669. Thomas Stow, son of Thomas, was born in Concord. 1650: removed with his father to Middletown, 1669; was made ensign "of the north company or train band on the south side the ferry river in the town of Middletown." 1717; commissioned lieutenant in the third company in the town of Middletown, 1723; died in 1730. He married Bethia Hopkins Stocking, granddaughter of George Stocking, a man of good family from the west of England, who came over with his family in or about 1630. Samuel Stow, son of Thomas 2d, and Bethia (Stocking) Stow. born 1681, died 1741. He was the father of Abigail Stow, who married Captain Reuben Shaler.)
The Shalers, like many other inhabitants of Hladdam, were a family of sailors, "long voyage men" as they were called then and later. Thomas Shaler was a sailor, and his grandson Reuben followed the sea. Captain Shaler, as he was called in Middletown. accumulated quite a good property, for those times, before his death. He sailed on his last voyage in 1749, was spoken in the Gulf of Mexico during a hard gale, and never heard of afterwards. The house and about an acre of ground which he owned in Middletown were in the possession of the family for 127 years. The house is still standing, being now about 170 years old. Mrs. Shaler's married life was short, lasting but eight years. No certain news of her lost sailor husband ever reached her. Day after
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day she is said to have sat in the doorway with her spinning wheel, waiting and watching for his return. Captain Reuben Shaler left two sons-Reuben, who died in 1765, and Nathaniel, the father of Mrs. Edwin F. Johnson and grandfather of Wm. Shaler Johnson.
(4) Nathaniel Shaler, son of Reuben, was born in 1747. "Curi- ously enough." as Mr. Macdonough says in his article on Mr. Shaler. "the only description we have of Mr. Shaler is left us by John Adams. second President of the United States. In June, 1771, Mr. Adams visited Middletown on his way through to New York and Washing- ton, and stayed at the house of Mrs. Shaler. Nathaniel's mother. He mentions that she 'has an only son, and she is very fond and very proud of him. He lives with a merchant; is now twenty-five or twenty-six and contents himself still to keep that merchant's books, without any inclination to set up for himself ; is a great proficient in music, plays upon the flute, fife, harpsichord, spinet, etc. ; associates with the young and the gay, and is a very fine Connecticut young gentleman.'"
In another place Mr. Adams notices the reserve of the Widow Shaler and her son. It is evident that he only saw one side of Mr. Shaler's character. Even then he had business interests of his own. and when he died he left. for those times, a fair fortune. He seems to have had military aspirations. In 1774 he was commissioned lieutenant in the Third Company, Sixth Regiment, Light Infantry of the Colony. and in May. 1776, was made captain. He was throughout his life, however, a stanch loyalist, and when his company was ordered to New York for active service against the King, flatly refused to go. For this he was arrested, taken before the general assembly, and after trial. deprived of his command, debarred from holding any civil or military position thereafter, and obliged to pay the cost of his trial. Then he gathered together his movable possessions, placed them and himself
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aboard a ship, and left the country, to which he did not return until after the Revolution. Of this incident he thus writes to a friend: "In the winter of 1777 I sailed in a Brigg from Brantford bound for St. Croix, but to my very great misfortune was taken and carried into St. Christopher, and my property in her lost, and I did not return to my native place. Middletown, until the fall of 1783. when I stayed but a few days, and have not from the time I left it in 1777 pretended to make it my place of residence. Until August. 1785. I hardly called on any person whatever among my numerous debtors for any kind of settle- ment. In that year I stayed about six weeks in Middletown on that business." From 1783 10 1790 he was in New York, where he entered into a business partnership with Jacob Sebor and Frederick W. Geyser. He married. in 1773. Hannah, daughter of Rowland Allen. She and her child died in 1775. He married (2d) Lucretia Ann, eldest daughter of William and Sarah ( Hawxhurst) Denning.
(The Dennings came probably from Devonshire, England: at least there are still a number of that name in the old country. Many of them seem to have emigrated to the Island of Antigua. William Denning came from that island to New York about 1760. He seems from his coming to have taken a prominent position in the infant city in business. politics and socially. He entered the mercantile house of which Wm. Hawxhurst was the head, but in 1765 seems to have been in business for himself. as he styles himself "merchant." Mr. Macdonough says that "his well known views on the rights of the colonies and his open sympathy with the principles advocated by them caused him to be iden- tified with the very first concerted movement in behalf of liberty." He was elected one of the committee of sixty to carry out the purpose of the association of 1774 as to non-importation and non-consumption of all articles supplied by English markets. In 1775 he was elected a mem-
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ber of the committee of one hundred which superseded the former, and was active on both committees. He was a member of the New York Provincial Congress in 1775. This year the city was divided into "beats." or districts, and a military company was formed for the pro- tection of each. Mr. Denning received a commission as second lieu- tenant of the 15th Beat Company of "Independents." He represented the city and county of New York in the second and third New York Provincial Congress and was a member of the committee of safety. He had acted as one of the auditors in the settlement of the accounts of New York and to make distinction between provincial and continental charges : was on the marine committee, and appointed by the Continental Congress one of the three commissioners to settle the accounts of the army under Washington in New York and New Jersey. 1776-1777 : was one of the four commissioners to meet. at the joint convention at New Haven. the commissioners from New Hampshire, Massachusetts. Rhode Island. Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. to consider and regulate the industrial interests of the country. the con- vention having been called at the suggestion of Congress, and was ap- pointed by Congress one of the commissioners of accounts of the board of treasury. 1778. The latter position he held until 1779. when Congress appointed him one of the commissioners of the board of treasury, which he held until September. 1781. when Mr. Morris took charge. In 1782 Mr. Denning was appointed commissioner of accounts of the quarter- master's department. These accounts had been allowed to accumulate for six years, and, with the fluctuations in the value of currency and other complications, required infinite patience and more than ordinary ability. In 1784. Mr. Morris resigning the control of the treasury, Con- gress re-established the board of treasury and elected Mr. Denning a member: which he declined. being at the time a member of the New
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York general assembly. Before the Revolution Mr. Denning resided in Wall street but at the breaking out of the war he moved his family to a house he had purchased a few miles back of Newburgh, which he called Salisburgh, and where General and Mrs. Washington. Lafayette and Alexander and Mrs. Hamilton were frequent and welcome visitors. After the war he returned to the city, residing at 341 Broadway, where in 1819 he died, and was buried in St. Paul churchyard. Mr. Denning married twice. ( Ist) Sarah, daughter of William and Annie Hawxhurst. in 1765: and (2) Amy, youngest sister of the above and widow of Phineas McIntosh, merchant. Lucretia Ann, the eldest child of his first wife. married Nathaniel Shaler. Another daughter married Will- iam Henderson, of New York. Of the children of his second wife. Amy married James Gillespie, merchant; Hannah married William Duer, son of Colonel William Duer. In one of his letters Mr. Denning writes : "In the gloomy part of our revolution. General Washington told myself and Judge Fell that all would end well: we should beat our enemy, but God only knew how." This trust was perhaps the great secret of Washington's serene confidence in the darkest hours.)
As Mr. Shaler was a Tory and Mr. Denning a stanch Whig, it would not have been strange had the "course of true love" run a little rough, especially as the wooing took place so soon after the Revolution, when the bitter feelings engendered by the war could not have subsided to any great extent. "Mr. Shaler's estimable qualities and the fact that his sentiments had not led him to take an active part in the war, removed whatever objection there might have been on Mr. Denning's part, and his letters to his daughter after her marriage contain many expressions of respect and esteem for her husband." It may be added that these same estimable qualities affected others, and Mr. Shaler was received very kindly on his return to this country, after the war, by his old Whig
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friends. He had many and varied business interests in Middletown. and held much real estate at the time of his death, and, as has been said, left a fair fortune. He died in 1817. two years before his father- in-law. Mr. Denning.
Of Mr. Shaler's children, Charles, born in 1789, who graduated at Union College in 1812, moved shortly after to Pittsburg, Pennsyl- vania, where he resided for over half a century. He was an eminent lawyer and jurist and a man of prominence in the state of his adoption and in national affairs. Ile died in 1869. Lucy, born in 1790, mar- ried Lieutenant (afterwards Commodore) McDonough, whose victory over a superior English fleet in the battle of Plattsburgh Bay. Lake Champlain. September 11. 1814, was the turning point in the war of 1812, and in its results probably the most important action of that war. October 9. 1814. Mr. William Denning wrote as follows: "Captain McDonough is probably with you at this moment. His country will bear him in respectful remembrance, and I most sincerely do. We have already been acquainted and he was on my list of modest, unassuming. worthy men. Tell him he has much to encounter in the universal ap- plause of his country, but he must submit because he has brought it upon himself." Aside from the fact that the victory on Lake Champlain not only destroyed the British control of the lake, and checked and turned back the march of a strong and well disciplined and well provided army by the only route of invasion from Canada, it had a direct effect upon the negotiations being carried on at the time at Ghent. "England had submitted a proposition which involved the acquisition of considerable new territory, containing several strategic points. This proposition was promptly rejected by the American commission, and the negotiations came to an abrupt halt." Then came the news of the victory of Mc- Donough. The English government wrote to the Duke of Wellington
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for advice, who in answer wrote "I confess that I think you have 110 right, from the state of the war, to demand any concession of territory from America * from particular circumstances, such as the avant of the naval superiority ou the lakes, you have not been able to carry it into the enemy's territory * * and have not even cleared your own territory on the point of attack. You cannot then, on any principle of equality in negotiation, claim accession of territory." The government took his advice.
(James McDonough, the ancestor of the Delaware line, was the son of Thomas and Jane ( Coyle) McDonough. He was born in the district known as Salmon Leap, on the river Liffey, county Kiklare. Ireland, and came to this country with his brother John, about 1730. He settled in St. George's Hundred, New Castle county, Delaware, at the place then called the Trap, but to which the name McDonough was afterward given. James was a man of considerable means and is said to have been a physician, a man of education and of importance in the county. When the Revolutionary war broke out he was sixty-four years old, but he armed his two sons. Thomas and James, and sent them to the front. James died in the service, but Thomas returned after a period of honorable service. James, the elder, died in 1792 at the age of eighty. Thomas, son of James, the father of the commodore, was born in 1747. He was educated as a physician. March 20, 1776, he was appointed major in the Delaware Battalion. He served actively until 1777, when the battalion was disbanded and he was honorably discharged. He was as once appointed colonel of the new battalion being raised, but for family and business reasons declined. He also served as one of the judges of the court of common pleas of the State of Delaware.)
Another daughter of Nathaniel Shaler married Lieutenant H. B. Sawyer, of the navy, and still another the Rev. Edward Rutledge, of
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South Carolina. His daughter Charlotte married the Hon. Edwin Ferry Johnson.
(V111) William Shaler Johnson, son of Edwin Ferry and Char. lotte (Shaler) Johnson, was born, as noted, in 1836. He received his early education in private schools and was fitted for college at the acad- emy in Burlington, Vermont. He was with his father in the survey of the Middletown and Berlin Branch Railroad in 1848. and the Rock River Valley Union Railroad in Wisconsin, in 1851. He entered the University of Vermont in 1854. in the class of '58, but left at the end of his sophomore year with the intention of entering Yale, an intention which, however. he did not carry out. From 1858 to 1862 he was in the employ of the Shaler and Hall Quarry Company. of Portland, Cornecti- cut, as clerk, bookkeeper and agent. In the latter year he made appli- cation for an appointment in the signal corps of the army, but at the time it was not a separate organization, its members being taken from the commissioned, non-commissioned and privates of the army. When it was organized as a separate corps he went to Washington and passed the necessary examinations successfully, but family reasons made his presence at home necessary and his name was withdrawn, greatly to his disappointment. He was assistant engineer on the Lake Ontario Shore Line Railroad in 1867-1868: assistant engineer Northern Pacific Railroad, 1868-1870; resident engineer Northern Pacific Railroad, 1870- 1872. His father's death at this time recalled him to his home. and from that time until 1876 he was employed in land-surveying and man- aging his father's estate. He was a teacher from 1876 to 1878; editorial writer, "Chester Evening News," 1877-1879: editor and reporter, etc .. same, 1879-1882: editor of "Hartford Herald" and other papers. 1883- 1885; superintendent Chester Water Works, 1885-1889: secretary and treasurer of the Steel Castings Manufacturers' Association .. 1893-1896.
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when it was dissolved by mutual consent; journalist, writer and ac- countant, 1896. He was a member of the Scientific Institute of Mid- dletown, Connecticut, and one of the founders of the Scientific Insti- tute of Chester, Pennsylvania : is one of the incorporators of the Ches- ter Free Library, and a charter member of the Delaware County His- torical Society. He has been a member and lay-reader of Saint Paul's church since he came to the city in 1876, and since 1888 its senior warden. He has at different times in his life been offered public posi- tion, but has declined, except in the case of the board of education, of which he was a member from 1896 to 1900. He has furnished many papers of interest and value to the organizations with which he has been associated, and has written largely on scientific, historical and hy- gienic subjects.
In 186g, while connected with the Northern Pacific Railroad, he was detailed to assist in the general reconnaissance of the mountain passes, as geologist under Colonel W. Milnor Roberts, one of the most noted engineers of the day. At the close of the reconnaissance, Sep- tember 9. 1869. Colonel Roberts wrote to him as follows: " * Personally, my dear sir. you will carry with you my highest esteem and a friendship which I hope will continue through life. Our agree- able intimate intercourse of several months will always remain in my memory a very pleasant series of recollections."
Mr. Johnson married, in 1876, Charlotte Goodrich, daughter of the Rev. Dr. John J. and Julia Ann ( Henshaw ) Robertson.
(The Robertson family, from which Mrs. Johnson is descended on her father's side, is one of the oldest in Scotland and this country. The first of the family of whom we have historical knowledge was An- drew de Atholia. W. H. Skene, in his "History of Ancient Alban." (Vol. III, p. 288) says, "The reign of Alexander II (about 1200) wit-
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. nessed the termination of the line of Celtic carls of Atholl and Angus. * But while the carldom (of Atholl) passed into the hands of a succession of foreign earls, a family bearing the name of de Atholia continued to possess a great part of the earldom, and were probably the descendants of the okler Celtic carls. The Gaelic population of the whole of the northwestern portion of Atholl, bounded on the east by the river Garry and on the south by the Timmel, remained intact under them (the de Atholias)." Duncan, son of Andrew de Atholia and first baron of Strowan, was a loyal follower of "the Bruce" and received from him large additions to his inheritance. The clan was then called "Clan Donnochie," or sons of Duncan. Duncan was succeeded by his son Duncan, and he, in turn, by his son Robert. This Rob- ert Duncan, 3d. Baron Strowan, was a man of courage resolution. When King James I was murdered and a bloody civil war scemed inevitable. Robert pursued the murderers so quickly and with such vigor that he came up with them within two miles of Blair castle. the seat of the then carl of Athole, in whose favor the conspiracy had been planned. and seized not only the murderer. Robert Graham, but arrested the earl of Athole himself. The little stream near which Robert overtook and captured the conspirators is known to this day as "Graham's Burn." For this service he refused all reward except to have his large possessions confirmed to himself and his heirs. The King, however, added to Robert's armorial bearings, for crest, a dexter hand supporting an imperial crown, with the motto "I'irtutis gloria merces," and below the escutcheon a man in chains in place of a compartment. So from father to son in the old Strowan MSS. the line is traced to Alexander, thirteenth baron, when the male line of the barons of Strowan ended and the lands went to the de- F scendants of Duncan Robertson, of Drumachine, third son of Robert
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Robertson, tenth baron, and his wife, Agnes MacDonald, of Kippoch. " Duncan Robertson, great-grandson of Duncan, of Drumachine, succeeded Alexander as fourteenth baron of Strowan. He was succeeded by his son Alexander, who died unmarried in 1822. and the lands would have passed to the descendants of Patrick, the fourth son of Duncan of Drumachine, had they not been devisable by will. Patrick Robertson, son of the Patrick named above, came to this country in 1739. His son John, born about 1760, married first Maria Sperry and second Cath- erine Prentiss. The eldest son of John Robertson, by his first wife, was the Rev. Dr. Robertson, who was born in 1797. He graduated at Co- lumbia College at the age of nineteen, and after two trips abroad, during one of which he spent some time with the then Alexander of Strowan, he studied for the ministry and was ordained deacon in 1820 and priest in 1822. He was professor of languages in the University of Vermont in 1824 and in 1830 went to Greece as the first foreign missionary of the Church in the United States. In 1841 he returned to this country. . where he spent the remainder of a long life, by far the larger part of which was passed in two parishes, at Fishkill and at Saugerties, on the Hudson river. The Robertsons were noted in earlier days and in the old country for their stanch loyalty. They were devoted adherents of the Stuart family, with whom indeed they were allied by marriage. and suffered severely in the civil war, and in the risings of 1715 and 1745 for that ill-fated house. The story of Margaret Robertson equals in interest and exceeds in purpose and self-sacrific that of her cousin, Flora MacDonald. In this country they have been equally loyal to the land of their adoption, were represented in both army and navy dur- ing the Revolution and one, an officer under Paul Jones, fell in the action between the "Bon Homme Richard" and the "Serapis." One branch of the family, descendants of Patrick settled in Virginia. Will-
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