George Washington Whistler, son of John and Ann (Bishop) Whistler, was born on May 19, 1800 in the military post at Fort Wayne, Ind. John Whistler, a native of Ireland, served under General Burgoyne in the British army during the American Revolution and after his discharge returned to settle in America; he became an officer in the United States Army and at the time of his son's birth was commandant at Fort Wayne. His wife was a woman of rare charm and force of character.
George Whistler was appointed in 1814 to the United States Military Academy, where he distinguished himself as a draftsman. He graduated in 1819.
He was commissioned second lieutenant of artillery and assigned to topographical duty. In the winter of 1821-22 he was assistant teacher of drawing at West Point, and then returned to topographical work, surveying the international boundary between Lake Superior and the Lakes of the Woods. In 1828 he was assigned by the government to assist in the location and construction of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and was sent by the railroad to England, in company with another West Pointer, William Gibbs McNeill, and a civilian engineer, Jonathan Knight, to examine railroads and railroad equipment. After supervising the construction of the first mile of track for the Baltimore & Ohio, he was assigned, with McNeill, to locate the Baltimore & Susquehanna Railroad, and was then engaged in similar work for the Paterson & Hudson Railroad (now part of the Erie system) and for the Providence & Stonington extension of the Boston & Providence Railroad. In 1833 he resigned from the army, with the rank of first lieutenant, and became engineer to the Proprietors of Locks and Canals at Lowell, Massachussets, where as director of the machine shop he built a number of railroad locomotives patterned after that of George Stephenson. In 1837 he resumed supervision of the Providence & Stonington Railroad, and in association with McNeill became consulting engineer for the Western Railroad of Massachusetts (now the Boston & Albany). In 1840-42, as chief engineer of this road, he did some of his most noted work, locating the section between Springfield and Pittsfield, through the Berkshires, in a narrow river valley, under especially difficult conditions. His remarkable capacity exhibited in the solution of this problem attracted the attention of Russian officials who were inspecting American railroads, and upon their advice the Czar invited him to become consulting engineer for the projected railroad between St. Petersburg and Moscow. In 1842 he began his work in Russia, where he displayed great ability and energy. The projected railroad was 420 miles long, with double track, and was to be built in seven years at a cost of $40, 000, 000. Construction was begun in 1844 and the road was opened for traffic in 1850. Whistler recommended and in the face of some opposition secured the adoption of a narrow gauge track - five feet - instead of the wider gauge later abandoned in America. The rolling stock and other machinery were furnished by an American firm, being manufactured in Russia under Whistler's general direction. Whistler also supervised the construction of fortifications and docks at Cronstadt and the iron bridge over the Neva. Before the completion of the railroad he was stricken with Asiatic cholera, and he died in St. Petersburg after a long illness. He was buried at Stonington, Connecticut, and a monument was erected to him in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, by his professional associates.
Whistler was twice married. By his first wife, Mary Roberdeau Swift, young sister of his friend Joseph Gardner Swift, he had a daughter, Deborah Delano ("Dasha"), who married Francis Seymour Haden, and two sons, one of whom, George William, was a railroad engineer and continued his father's work in Russia until his death in 1869. His second wife, whom he married November 3, 1831, was Anna Mathilda, daughter of Dr. Charles Donald McNeill of Wilmington, N. C. , and sister of his friend William Gibbs McNeill. They had five sons, including James Abbott McNeill Whistler and William Gibbs McNeill Whistler, a physician of London.
