settled in Somerset County. Colonel George Robertson Den-
nis in early life was engaged in farming and in later years
was elected President of the Central National Bank of Fred-
erick. In protecting the property of the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad he became a warm personal friend of the late John W.
Garrett and was a director in the Baltimore and Ohio Rail-
road Company from 1862 until his death in 1902. The mother
of John M. Dennis is Fanny McPherson Dennis, whose mother
was a granddaughter of the late Governor Thomas Johnson,
the first Governor of Maryland in the year 1877.

John M. Dennis was educated in the public schools of
Frederick County and for two years attended Milton Academy
at Philopolis, Baltimore County, Maryland. At sixteen years
of age he left Maryland and was employed by the C. W. & B.
Railroad Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, and remained West in
different railroad positions until June, 1890, when he re-
turned to Baltimore and formed a connection with the firm
of Tate, Muller & Company, grain merchants, which was suc-
ceeded by the firm of Louis Muller & Company, of which Mr.
Dennis became President and remained President until Decem-
ber 1st, 1914, when he was elected President of the Union
Trust Company of Maryland, Baltimore.

In 1899 Mr. Dennis married Mary Chiles, of Independence,
Jackson County, Missouri. He has two children—John
McPherson Dennis) Jr., and Mary Frances Dennis.

Mr. Dennis is a large land owner in Frederick County and
also in Baltimore County, where he resides on his farm near
Lutherville. He was elected President of the Maryland State
Dairymen's Association in November, 1915, and, is an exten-
sive breeder of Holstein-Friesian cattle.

At the 1916 session of the General Assembly of Maryland,
Mr. Dennis was elected Treasurer of Maryland, serving for
two years. He was elected for the second time in 1920, suc-
ceeding William P. Jackson.