In 1920, a headline in the Rome Daily Sentinel noted the passing of George L Schillner. It read; “Was An Engineer Of Great Ability.” If the name sounds familiar, it might be because George Schillner will be forever tied to the 1896 New York State Canal Blue Line Maps, otherwise known as “The Schillner Maps.”
George was born in Rome, NY, in January 1862. He was one of ten children of John and Nancy (Miller) Schillner. John Schillner (John’s father) was born in Wurtemburg, Germany and immigrated with his parents and siblings around 1847. After landing in New York City, the family appears to have moved directly to Rome. Nancy Miller (George’s mother) was the daughter of Joseph and Catherine (Seigle or Seigel) Miller. The Seigle family also came from Germany, but Nancy was born in New London, Oneida County. There was a large and active German community in the Oneida area and it would have been easy for John and Nancy to meet. John and Nancy were married about 1856.
We know a little about what jobs the family took on when they reached Oneida county. Conradt Schillner (George’s Grandfather) was a tailor with a home on Canal Street in Rome. Like many immigrants, John would first find employment as a “laborer,” and later he purchased a saloon. John’s younger brother Michael appears to have found work on the canal, leaving it around 1862 to become a liquor wholesaler located in the Armstrong Block. John’s youngest brother George C (likely for Conrad) was the last in the family to be born in Germany. He would become a civil engineer and later the Rome City Engineer. The family is often mentioned for their musical talents. George C was noted for his talents and because he consolidated the Old Rome Band with the Rome Musical Association. These two groups were mostly made up of Germans.
It is a safe bet that George L was named for his uncle, George C. (Oddly, the ‘L’ of George’s middle name is never explained.) George L followed his uncle into the civil engineering profession, and both men served as civil engineers in Rome. (This can make searching them a bit nutty!) The younger George was noted for his artistic abilities, and often made sketches of others in the family. While George C listed himself as a Civil Engineer and Surveyor, and a Mechanical Draughtsman; George L called himself a Civil Engineer, Surveyor and Architect. The only mention I could find of his time in Rome was in 1885, when it was reported that both the George’s worked on plans for an addition to the Oneida County Asylum.
In 1891, George left Rome to take a job as the head draftsman on the Adirondack and St. Lawrence Railroad. In 1893, he moved to Herkimer, where as his obituary states, he took charge of the engineering department of the Mohawk and Malone railroad. At the same time, he joined with two other engineers to form the civil engineering firm of Roberts, Schillner and Evan.
In January 1896, the paper mentions that George has been appointed by State Engineer Adams to the office of the state engineer as a mapmaker and draftsman on the 1895 Improvement project. At work, George found himself in good company. Two of his co-workers were Charles Delvan Burrus, and Merritt Peckham, Jr. Charles Burrus had been an state employee as a draftsman and engineer since the mid-1860s.i He worked on the enlargement of the Champlain Canal in 1866 and was the draftsman for the 1869 “Richmond” maps of the Enlarged Erie between Albany and Rexford. He was noted for having drawn the best map ever seen of Lake George in 1883, as his five-foot-long map of the lake was so detailed that it showed every one of it’s 250 islands.ii Merritt Peckham, Jr., was from the Utica area and would later serve as the Assistant Engineer in Charge of Land Bureau. One gets the sense that he liked things to be in order as in 1908 he wrote; “There has been a usual amount of correspondence and answering of inquires from surveyors, lawyers, and others on matters pertaining to the original maps and descriptions of the Colonial and early State surveys filed in this office.”…”For better preserving these records they have been rearranged, placed in bound volumes and indexed for convenience of reference. That it is the proper method for the care of these valuable papers,,,” These two liked to set things straight.
In January 1898, George married Mary Ann Morgan of Rome.iii Mary broke the mold when it came to members of the family staying within the German community, as she had emigrated from Wales shortly after her birth in 1869.
The work on the canal improvement was ordered to stop on March 8, 1898. By way of legislative frugality, the lack of time to prepare and create proper estimates and plans, and the poor state of the canal, the state had run out of money. And yet, work on the maps continued, mostly likely because the state still needed a decent set of maps that showed ownership, mostly for the Board of Claims and legal issues that arose from the work. The annual reports show that Schillner and his team continued to be employed on the mapping project for years, even while working on other projects. The state passed continuing resolutions to keep paying for the map work, even when Governor Odell vetoed the payments saying that there “does not seem to me to be any necessity for this item.”iv However, the work continued up to 1908.v
Perhaps the slow down in work allowed George to have time to survey and draw a map of the Capitol Park grounds in Albany. This project was part of the efforts to complete the construction of the Capitol that had been going on for years. viHe was also credited for drafting the plans for the West McKinley Colony on the Isle of Pines in Cuba.vii His name is listed under payments for work on canal repairs, State Board of Claims, even the 1910 Blue Line Maps. George remained employed with the state until his death in 1920. His obituary says that he was an accomplished musician and played the violin in bands around the Rome and Utica area, and then later, in Albany. George and Mary never had children, and no one in the family has produced a genealogy of the Schillner group.viii
The Schillner name pops up in a curious bit of history although only by marriage. Michael Schillner’s wife, Mary Frances Miller (who was the sister of Nancy), was used a witness to history. In a short book about the digging of the first shovel of earth in the construction of the Erie Canal, the author states that Mary Schillner reported that; “her two uncles, Joseph Seigel and Michael Seigel, were owners and captains of boats used on the Inland Navigation Company’s Canal and she always understood from their conversation and especially by what she was told by Joseph Seigel that the first excavation for the Erie canal was started somewhere in the vicinity of Fort Bull.”ix Like a lot of history, this folklore was accepted as truth, and yet the dates don’t line up. If they were boaters on the canal, it was likely that they were on the first Erie.
So there you go. I don’t even have a picture of the man to share!
iNobel Whitford, Supplement to the Annual Report of the State Engineer and Surveyor, September 30, 1905, Brandow Printing Company, Albany, Vol. 2, 1906. A short bio on Charles D Burrus can be found on page 1151. His obituary says that he was the oldest active man in service of the state when he died in 1919.
iiThe Post-Star, Glens Falls, NY September 15, 1883, page 3. Column mention.
iiiSchillner-Morgan, Rome Semi-Weekly Citizen, January 18, 1898
ivPublic Papers of Governor Odell for 1902, J.B. Lyon Company, Albany, 1907. Page 162
vAnson Getman, Principles and Sources of Title To Real Property, Matthew Bender and Company, Albany, 1921. Page 53.
viNew York State Archives, A3185, New York State New Capitol Commission New Capitol Park
viiRare Cadastral and Promotional Map for the West McKinley Colony, on the Isle of Pines. Www.raremaps.com/gallery/detail/54017/west-mckinley-colony-isle-of-pines-cuba-schillner
viiiI have made a quick family tree on Ancestry.com.
ixRome Chamber of Commerce, Memorial Of Centennial Celebration of the First Shovelful Of Earth In The Construction Of The Erie Canal, Held At Rome, N.Y., July 4th, 1917. Page 79