As the years rolled by, he served in many a hard-fought campaign against the enemies of his adopted country, earning promotion and fighting the soldiers of King George with as much enthusiasm as in other days he had served that fat-witted monarch. His devoted wife followed his fortune, traveling in the military train, and living at lonely frontier forts with as much content as she would had fortune strewn their paths with brighter flowers. This heroic woman had much to do in forming the character of the children born to their marriage, and her brave and gentle personality made a lasting impression on them. The Whistlers were good fighting stock, and when his sturdy boys were old enough, the fighting old major placed a sword in their hands and gave them to the land he loved, and true, loyal soldiers they were in every emergency. When age, disease and wounds stiffened the old warrior, and rendered him unfit for active service in the field, the government appointed him storekeeper at the military post at Newport, Ky., and later transferred him to Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, Mo., where he died in 1829, at the age of seventy-three.
The splendid old soldier had served the land of his adoption bravely, faithfully and loyally, and, dying, he bequeathed to his sons an unsullied reputation, and to the republic children who never failed her in the hour of need.
William Whistler, the major’s first-born, first saw the light of day in 1780 at Hagerstown, Md., and grew up with drums for his music and swords for his toys, and became a lieutenant in the army in 1801. He fought against Indians and British on the frontier with gallantry, and was badly wounded at the battle of Maguaga, Mich., in the year 1812. He passed through the various grades, fought in nearly every war the army was engaged in, and was retired with the rank of colonel of the Fourth United States infantry in 1861. Next to Gen. Winfield Scott, William Whistler was then the oldest soldier in the American army. William’s son, Joseph Nelson Garland Whistler, was, like his father, a soldier. He was graduated from the West Point Military Academy in 1846, served with distinction in the Mexican War and the Rebellion, and was colonel of the Fifteenth United States infantry, when he was placed on the retired list in 1886.
George Washington Whistler, the father of the artist and writer of “the gentle art of making enemies,” was the second son of Maj. John Whistler. He was born on the ragged edge of civilization, in the shabby frontier post of Fort Wayne, in the territory of Indiana, on May 19, 1800. He traveled up and down the rough trails of the Western wilderness with his father’s regiment, receiving what education he could from his mother until he was sent, while yet a boy, to West Point. He had a well-developed talent for draughtsmanship, and was a man of refined and artistic tastes; he was a charming companion, and withal a handsome, soldierly gentleman. One of the brightest men ever turned out of West Point, he was graduated high in his class, and commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States artillery corps; but his engineering talents were utilized by the government in topographical surveys while in the service, except for the brief period when he was an assistant professor at the academy. One of the burning questions of those days of the early twenties was the frontier between the republic and the British dominions, our government claiming much that is still a fishing and hunting-ground in the province of New Brunswick; John Bull, with unerring instinct, seeking to push his lines south to include the country that has blossomed into the commonwealths of Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas.
From 1822 to 1826 the young lieutenant was engaged in tracing and defining the boundary in the terrible wilderness that stretches from Lake Superior west to the Lake of the Woods, enduring cold, hunger and incredible hardships, and laying the seeds of disease that was to cut him off in the prime of manhood and the zenith of his success. When he came back to civilization from these arduous duties, he found the country agog with railroad excitement, caused by the work of the Stephensons in England. American capitalists were eager to build railroads, but they realized that the radically different conditions of the two countries necessitated essentially different systems of construction and operation.
Needing the best engineering skill in the country, they applied to the government, and Whistler was, with others, detailed to survey the routes, report on systems and supervise construction of the roads. He was engaged in this responsible work for years, but, knowing that such talents as his—and he was recognized as one of the ablest engineers in the country—found but slender rewards in the service of the republic, and were better appreciated in civil life, he resigned his commission in December, 1833. His services were secured at once by the railroads, and he was sent with Jonathan Knight, William Gibbs McNeill and Ross Winans to England to examine the system there, and returning he occupied himself with the affairs of the Baltimore & Ohio and Boston & Albany railroads.
It is not too much to say that, practically, George Washington Whistler laid down the lines upon which the American railroad system was built, and along which it has grown to be the most splendid and advanced in the world, the most potent agency in the progress and civilization of the republic.
In 1834 Whistler became the engineer of the proprietors of the Locks and Canals of Lowell, Mass., the corporation whose wisdom and shrewdness have been instrumental in changing the fields and pastures along the slopes of the Merrimack into the foremost and most prosperous manufacturing city devoted to textile industries on this continent. Besides looking keenly after their strictly local interests, he spent months in the corporation’s machine shops, drawing plans, evolving inventions and improvements and supervising the construction and remodeling of a Stephenson locomotive, in order to adapt it to the needs and peculiar requirements of American railroads. Those most familiar with railroads and their history in this country are best equipped to appreciate the work done in that little machine shop by Whistler and to understand its value.
Whistler lived in Lowell from 1834 to 1837, in a modest house on Worthen street, and there his famous son, James Abbot McNeill Whistler, was born, probably in 1834. The parish records of the old Episcopal church of St. Anne state “James Abbot Whistler, son of George W. and Anna M. Whistler,” was baptized there Nov. 9, 1834, by him who was long and reverently known to the people of Lowell as Father Edson. This is the artist who is alleged to have been born in Baltimore and Stonington, and who himself rather oddly claims Moscow in Russia as his birthplace; but this is the record, given under the signature of the present rector, the Rev. A. St. John. Chambre of Lowell.
In 1837, Mr. Whistler left Lowell for Stonington, Conn., where he took charge of the affairs of the Stonington railroad, and three years later he removed to Springfield, Mass., to take up the duties of chief engineer of the Boston & Albany road. His reputation had grown apace with his work and achievements and it was now thoroughly established as that of a wise, prudent, skilful engineer, masterful and resourceful in all emergencies. He had been engaged on the most difficult and puzzling engineering problems of the day and had successfully overcome them. His fame was commensurate with his success; he was patient, industrious, ingenious, bold, sagacious, tenacious and incorruptibly honest; he had the confidence, trust and affection of those with whom he labored, and his manly, scholarly, soldierly and tactful personality brought him a wide and well-earned esteem.