CHARLES JOHN McMASTER.
Charles John McMaster, oldest of a family of three daughters and two sons, born to John Sylvester McMaster, Scotch American, and Elvira Phillips McMaster, English American, was born at Pownal, Bennington County. Vermont, July 24, l841. His father being a founder followed the iron industry through Canaan Ct., Cheshire, Massachusetts, into New York State, leaving Pownal in 1845, arriving at Copake Iron Works. New York, in 1854. situated on the New York & Harlem Railroad, where he remained as founder until his death in 1876. His mother continued to live in the same place until the time of her death in 1893.
During the year 1854, Charles John became much interested about the foundry, and while yet attending district school, from which he obtained his education, he secured the position of errand boy, acting before and after school hours and during vacations, and followed along in this way until he worked into the position of caretaker of machinery under the Chief Engineer. This he followed until 1858 when he accepted a place in the shops of the New York & Harlem R. R. Co., then located at the corner of Thirty-second street and Fourth avenue, New York city. He remained there only a short time when the Chief Engineer under whom he had worked at the Copake Foundry died and he was given that position, which he rilled until 1860, and then went back to the Harlem Railroad shops, working as machinist and as fireman on the road until 1863, when he returned to his former position as Chief Engineer at the Copake Furnaces. In 1864 he married Caroline Elizabeth Thompson of Old Chatham, New York, remaining at Copake until 1865, when he resigned to accept a position as locomotive engineer on the New York & Harlem R. R.. where he remained until 1867 when he took service with the Long Island R. R. as engineer, remaining until 1869, then coming back to the Harlem Extension R. R., located at Chatham, New York, as engineer, then to the Bennington & Rutland R. R. as engineer, located at Bennington, Vermont, only two miles from where he was born. In 1885 he was made Master .Mechanic of the Bennington & Rutland R. R. In 1895 he was made Superintendent of Motive Power and Way, same road. In 1902 he was made Master Car Builder for the Rutland Railroad System. In 1903 made General Foreman of Motive Power and Rolling Stock of the O. & L. C. Division of the Rutland Railroad. In 1914 he was made Chief Mechanical Inspector for the entire Rutland Railroad System, and on the 17th day of November died in his office at Rutland, Vermont, in his seventy-third year. His wife having died seven months before, and having lost one son and one daughter, he was survived by two sisters, three daughters and two sons, all members of a railroad family. His brother, who died in early life, was an engineer. His two sisters married railroad men. His two sons are engineers, and his three daughters, with one exception, married railroad men.
He was a life member of the B. & L. E. Div. 145, New York city. A life member of the F. & A. M., Lodge 586, Long Island City. A member of the New England Railroad Club, member of the Master Mechanic;.' and Master Car Builders' Associations, and having a broad acquaintance was often consulted in reference to men and ways and works in connection with the old days of the Harlem and other railroads about New York city.
-Hugh Montgomery.
Source: Source: Report of Proceedings of the Forty-Eighth Annual Convention of the Master Mechanics' Association, held at Atlantic City, New Jersey, June 8, 10, and 11, 1915; Pg. 713
