CHARLES SHALER succeeded Wm. Wilkins as Judge of the county courts. He was born in Connecticut in 1788, and educated at Yale. His father was one of the commissioners to lay off the Western Reserve in Ohio, and purchased a large tract of land, known as Shalersville, near Ravenna, Ohio. His son, Charles Shaler, went to Ravenna in 1809 to attend to the lands, and was admitted to the bar there. He moved to Pittsburgh, and was admitted to the bar here in 1813. He was Recorder of the Mayor's Court of Pittsburgh from 1818 to 1821. June 5, 1824, he was commissioned Judge of Common Pleas; occupied the bench eleven years, resigning May 4, 1835. He was appointed Associate Judge of the District Court of the county May 6, 1841, and held that office three years, resigning May 20, 1844. In 1853, he was appointed by President Pierce U. S. District Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. 

In early life Judge Shaler was a Federalist, but for the last fifty years of his life was a staunch Democrat, taking an active part in politics, always willing to enter the contest, and be the standard bearer of his party, notwithstanding the prospect was certain defeat. He was never elected to a political office, and perhaps never desired one. Politics were to him merely as an excitement and relaxation from the laborious duties of his profession. He had fine legal abilities, was an able advocate, close student, and most industrious lawyer. He was an early riser, and nearly every morning could be seen on the streets, taking his morning walk, long before the shops and stores were opened. He had a quick, fiery temper, which frequently flashed forth in sudden out bursts of passion; but, like the outbursts in all men of impulsive natures, they soon passed away. Within that impassioned breast was one of the warmest, tenderest, and most generous hearts that ever beat in sympathy with human frailties or misfortunes. 

And Charles Shaler was the very soul of honor. The sense of honor is absolutely essential to true manhood. Without it man is a brute or hypocrite. It is quite distinct from the moral or religious sense. Many a man leads a moral life from selfish considerations, the fear of the law, or public opinion. Many a church member is exemplary in all his religious duties, but at heart excessively mean. He does not hesitate to prevaricate, or do a mean act, to escape from a hard bargain. The man of a high sense of honor scorns to do a mean act or indulge a mean thought; he knows no prevarication; his word shall stand, though the heavens fall. Such a man was Charles Shaler. He never attempted to deceive the Court. His plighted word to a brother of the bar was as sacred and inviolable as the decree of Olympic Jove. As an illustration of his sense of honor, two incidents may be mentioned. He applied for a cadetship for his son at West Point, but, learning that a friend desired the appointment for his son, he withdrew his application. In 1846 he went to Washington City, to urge the appointment of Robert C. Grier to the U.S. Supreme Court. He was offered the appointment himself, but refused it because he had gone on as the friend of Judge Grier. Although Judge Shaler for many years had perhaps the most extensive and lucrative practice at the Pittsburgh bar, his generous habits were such that he acquired but little property, and he died comparatively poor. He died at the residence of his son-in-law, Rev. D. H. Hodges, at Newark, N.J., March 5, 1869, in the 81st year of his age. He was twice married. His first wife was a daughter of Major Kirkpatrick, by whom he had two sons and three daughters. One of his daughters, a beautiful and accomplished young lady, while out riding with Samuel W. Black, was thrown from her horse and killed. His second wife was a daughter of James Riddle, Associate Judge of the county from 1818 to 1838, by whom he had several children.

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The following is a word-for-word extract from The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XIII, Pages 48-50.

CHARLES SHALER

Connecticut has given to the bar of Allegheny County several talented and loyal sons. One of these was Charles Shaler, born in that State in 1788, and graduated from Yale. He went to Ravenna, Ohio, in the year 1809, to attend to lands owned by his father, who was one of the commissioners to lay off the Connecticut Reserve, generally known as the Western Reserve. There he studied law, and was admitted to the bar. In 1813 he came to Pittsburgh and was admitted here. He soon obtained practice and became prominent in politics, first as a Federalist, and next as a National Republican. His first office was as judge of the Recorder's Court of Pittsburgh, presiding from 1818 until 1821. He next was commissioned, June 5, 1824, following Judge Wilkins, as president judge of the courts in the Fifth Judicial District, composed of the counties of Allegheny, Beaver, and Butler, resigning May 4, 1835, and returning to practice. 

Previous to the Presidential election of 1832, he had been a National Republican; but anti-masonry, having reached the western counties of Pennsylvania from Buffalo, New York, about 1830, continued to make progress, and in 1832 had drawn in a large number of votes in the three counties in which he presided. During this time the Statesman was edited by John B. Butler, a friend and fellow Freemason of Shaler. Butler was a violent anti-Jackson man in the campaign of 1828, and had brought out the coffin hand-bills, first printed by John Binns, of Philadelphia, and posted them on the front of the Statesman's office, a small one or one-and-a-half story frame building on the corner of Wood and Fourth Streets. These hand-bills represented the deaths and coffins of John Woods, and the six Tennessee militia men, shot by the order of General Jackson. Butler circulated these largely. At this time Charles Shaler and other Adams men stood beside John B. Butler, strong, indeed violent, in their opposition to Jackson. But in 1832, anti- masonry having acquired strength in this region, Moses Sullivan, of Butler County, being elected to the Senate of Pennsylvania on that ticket, the anti-masons voted for William Wirt for the Presidency. Henry Clay was the candidate of the National Republicans. But owing to the number of candidates opposing Jackson in 1832, many counties were scarce of electoral tickets. They were scarce in Beaver County, many National Republicans there voting for William Wirt in consequence. Presumably Butler, Shaler, and other Adams men voted for Clay, but they voted for George Wolf in opposition to Joseph Ritner, the anti-masonic candidate. The election of Joseph Ritner, in 1835, and the crusade of Thaddeus Stevens against masonry settled the matter with many masons; and Shaler, Butler, and some other Adams and Clay masons in the West, became Democrats, voting for David R. Porter, in 1838, against Ritner. 

Shaler ever remained a Democrat. Butler was rewarded by an appointment at the United States Arsenal in Lawrenceville. Shaler never sought political elevation, but he took an active part, and became an acknowledged leader of the Democracy in Allegheny County. In 1841, Charles Shaler was appointed, May 6, associate judge of the District Court of Allegheny County, and held the office until May 20, 1844, when he resigned and returned to the practice of his profession, in which he continued until his eyesight failed. 

He retired, esteemed and respected by his fellow-citizens as a gentleman and a lawyer and advocate of high character, unstained integrity, and unblemished honor. As a lawyer and judge he was brilliant rather than solid. His mind was quick and subtle, his language chaste and exuberant, and his elocution pleasing, though slightly broken by a partial stutter, a quality making his racy humor often times more effective. In his earlier days on the bench, the litigation in Beaver and Butler Counties was largely between the warrantees and the settlers, involving land-titles and questions of survey. The latter he professed not to understand. Indeed, his mind did not take cordially to the dry details of courses, distances, corners, blazes, blocks, and variation of the compass. In regard to land-titles of the peculiar kind in these western counties his decisions were not always affirmed by the Supreme Court. 

I remember a case in Butler County in 1830, a settlement on warranted and surveyed land, in which he ran so strongly to the settler's side he pledged his reputation as a lawyer that the settlement would be supported on a view he took, somewhat novel and contrary to the current of decision. Unfortunately for his pledge, he was reversed. On the creation of the Seventeenth Judicial District, in the winter of 1831, Beaver and Butler Counties were withdrawn from the Fifth District, leaving Allegheny County remaining the Fifth alone. During the War of 1812-15, and while he continued in Ohio, some disloyal expressions were attributed to him, which were repeated against him after he came to Pittsburgh. But they were doubtless the foolish ebullitions of youth, or of hasty rashness. They never lost him favor in the city of his adoption. 

Judge Shaler was twice married; the first time to a daughter of Major Abraham Kirkpatrick. The issue of this marriage was two sons and three daughters. His second wife was Miss Mary Ann Riddle, a daughter of James Riddle, long time an associate judge of Allegheny County, and in his day a noted local politician. His courtship of this lady being known in Beaver caused occasional amusement at the judge's expense; it being observed that in his haste to return to Pittsburgh he often ended the court on Wednesday or Thursday on the plea of an important engagement at home. This was true, and his engagement ended in marriage. Judge Shaler, after the loss of his eyesight, went to reside in Bellefonte, Centre County, but being called by the illness of his daughter, the wife of the Rev. Mr. Hodges, to Newark, New Jersey, in the winter season, he took a violent cold, became ill, and died there, March 5, 1869.