speaker. For many years he held the office of Judge of the
Court of Appeals and was a Whig Presidential elector for
five elections—from 1801 to 1829.

His son, Lyttleton Upshur Dennis, married Sarah Waters.
He died at his estate in Somerset, known as "Essex," aged
29 years. Two children, George Robertson Dennis and Eliza-
beth Upshur Dennis, who married Mr. Murray Rush of
Philadelphia, survived him.

Colonel George Robertson Dennis married Fanny McPher-
son of Frederick County. He removed from the Eastern
Shore to Frederick County after his marriage, where he
engaged in farming, and in later years was elected president
of the Central National Bank of Frederick, 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 Railroad Company from
1862 until his death in 1902.

On his mother's side, the ancestors of John McPherson
Dennis were equally prominent in the early history of the
country. Governor Thomas Johnson, the first Governor of
Maryland, 1777-79, was his great-great-grandfather. Colo-
nel Robert McPherson took an active part in establishing the
independence of the Colonies and in the Revolution.

From the above record it is not difficult to see from whence
John M. Dennis derived his love of statesmanship and inter-
est in public affairs.

John M. Dennis was educated in the public schools of
Frederick County and for two years attended Milton Acad-
emy at Philopolis, Baltimore County, Maryland. At sixteen
years of age he left Maryland and was employed by the C.
W. & B. Railroad Co. in Cincinnati, Ohio and remained
West in different railroad positions until June, 1890, when
he returned to Baltimore and formed a connection with the
firm of Tate, Muller & Company, grain merchants, which was
succeeded by the firm of Louis Muller & Company, of which
Mr. Dennis became president and remained president until
December 1, 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 Mc-
Pherson Dennis, Jr., and Mrs. Theodore Gould.

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