Founding Families
Ebenezer West |  Waite Carr West  |  Increase Jones |  Hannah Bowen Jones  |  William Hill | Elizabeth Hill 
Edward Talbot  |  Sarah "Sally" Martin Talbot  |  ​Absalom P Morse  | Lydia Tallman Morse 
Alfred P White | Huldah Symonds White  |  ​Robert Shaw  |  Jane Talbot Stiles Shaw

Robert Shaw - 1776 - 184

Early Life in Scotland

Robert Shaw — Weaver, immigrant, and early settler. This panel traces his journey from Scotland to Minerva and reflects on how loss, chance, and resilience shaped his life.
​Born in 1776 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Robert Shaw, like his future wife Jane Talbot Stiles, came to America grieving the loss of a spouse and searching for a new beginning, perhaps also hoping to place some distance between himself and the life he had lost.
Robert’s first wife died from what was then called “galloping consumption,” now known as tuberculosis, within a year of their marriage. The young couple had not yet started a family, leaving Robert somewhat freer than many men of his time to decide where his life might go from that point.
​Not only had he lost his young wife, the economic outlook in Scotland for working people had taken a decided downturn.
The Industrial Revolution was rapidly changing the landscape of the labor force. Mechanized textile mills with power looms and spinning machines were quickly replacing skilled hand weavers like Robert. Wages were falling while unemployment was rising.
The Highland Clearances, which had begun in the late eighteenth century, were still reshaping the countryside. Large landowners were forcing people off small tenant farms and converting them into vast sheep pastures to meet the growing demand for wool in the expanding mills.
On top of this, the Napoleonic Wars had begun in 1803. The long conflict brought additional economic instability to an already strained system, making life increasingly uncertain for working families across Scotland.

Opportunity in America

In stark contrast, America was growing and needed the skills of the very people Scotland seemed to no longer want or need. Land companies and shipping agents promoted opportunities in the United States, advertising in overseas newspapers and ports and distributing immigration pamphlets that described the possibilities of land and work in the new country.
At the same time, word of opportunity traveled through more personal channels. Families who had already emigrated wrote letters home describing their new lives, and conversations among travelers and immigrants helped spread news of places where land and opportunity could still be found. These exchanges gradually created the chain migration networks that brought people, skills, and entire families to America.
The timing for Robert to leave Scotland for America couldn’t have been better. The outlook for him to prosper in his home was grim. One can imagine the struggle between his heart and his mind during this time. Leaving his home would have been heartbreaking, but staying would have been out of the question. The outcome was for him to board a ship for America.

The Voyage to America

In a 1941 piece about Minerva’s history, Robert’s grandson Anson B. Shaw wrote the following about Robert’s time on the passage to America:
“…he made some friends aboard ship, some of whom were coming to Minerva, N.Y. to join their friends, so he thought that was as good a place as any. He simply tagged along.”
It seems Robert had no fixed plans; there was no job or housing waiting at the end of his journey, at least nothing firm enough to tie him to a particular destination. And so Robert eventually arrived in Minerva sometime in the early 1810s. Anson notes in that same writing that it was a miserable time to arrive in America, as there had been an early frost and it was near famine conditions.

Meeting Jane Talbot Stiles

​At that time Edward Talbot was running an inn and tavern out of his home on Irishtown Road. Coincidentally, Edward’s sister Jane, a young widow, was residing at the inn and probably helping out with the rooms and in the tavern.
Robert would have been looking for a place to stay while he sorted out his path forward. It isn’t unreasonable to think he would have taken a room at the local inn where he and Jane would have met.
And once again, we are treated to grandson Anson’s words as he writes about Robert and Jane meeting in that same 1941 piece:
“He met my grandmother, Jane Talbot Stiles. I assume they wept over the disasters they had each sustained, along marriage relation—at any rate they thought best to marry and face the world as one.”

Building a Life in Minerva

Robert and Jane were married in 1818 and settled in a log cabin that Robert built for her on the road to Pottersville.
Elizabeth (Bessie) Sullivan, their great-granddaughter, wrote about Robert and Jane’s home in a piece titled Some Memories of Elizabeth Talbot Sullivan at 97:
“He (Robert) built a log house about opposite where Nina Byrne now lives. He began to raise sheep and had a small building just below the Nina Byrne house as he owned land on both sides of the Olmstedville–Pottersville road. Here he set up a loom and wove woolen cloth for his family. My grandmother had a blanket of wool and flax that I remember. Also, when my father Edward Talbot was young his mother made him a suit of the cloth that my great grandfather wove.”
Grandson Anson also wrote about their home in a letter he sent to Jim and Julia Havron, who owned the property in 1945. The original log cabin was no longer standing at that time, but the original well still remained.
“My father, Thomas G. Shaw, was born in the log house his father built and it was just above the lilac bush that was near the well. That well was dug by my grandfather, Robert Shaw. In 1815 it was about 50 feet down but in 1876 it went dry. Father took up the stones, cleaned it all out (many pails and broken buckets were in the bottom) and David Meloch and I worked away at the hard pan and we went down nearly 15 feet until we struck a brook of clear cold water and Father hired Patrick Toomey (of Leonardsville) to restore it.”

The Year Robert Arrived

Timeline of
​Robert Shaw’s Life​​

  • Origins1776
  • Born in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Early 1800s
  • Marries in Scotland. His wife dies within a year from “galloping consumption” (tuberculosis).
Leaving ScotlandEarly 1810s
  • Facing personal loss and declining opportunities for hand weavers during the Industrial Revolution, Robert decides to emigrate to America.
c. 1815–1816
  • Crosses the Atlantic. During the voyage he meets travelers bound for Minerva, New York and decides to accompany them.
1816
  • Arrives in Minerva during a difficult year remembered for summer frosts and near famine conditions.
A New Life in Minerva
Early 1810s
  • Meets Jane Talbot Stiles, a young Irish widow living with her brother Edward Talbot at the Talbot Inn.
1818
  • Robert Shaw and Jane Talbot Stiles marry.
c. 1818–1820
  • Builds a log house along the Olmstedville–Pottersville Road and establishes a small farm.
Family and Work
1820–1836
  • Robert and Jane raise five children:
    • Phoebe Ann (1820)
    • Thomas George (1822)
    • Margaret (c.1825)
    • Jane (1830)
    • William (c.1836)
Early–mid 1800s
  • Raises sheep and operates a loom house, weaving woolen cloth for his family.
Later Years
​November 27, 1845
  • Robert Shaw dies in Minerva at age 69.
1868
  • Jane Talbot Stiles Shaw dies at age 81.
Burial
  • Both are buried in Federal Flats Cemetery.​

Robert’s Death and Legacy

Sadly, Robert died on November 27, 1845, at the age of sixty-nine, leaving Jane widowed for the second time. Their youngest child, William, was only nine years old at the time. Jane survived him by twenty years, passing away in 1868 at the age of eighty-one. Robert and Jane are both buried in Federal Flats Cemetery.
Robert Shaw left Scotland with little to no future prospects. He carried with him on that trip a dream, grief, and his skills as a weaver. The dream led him to Minerva, the grief to Jane, and the skills turned the dream into a reality. He became a husband, father, landowner, and businessman.
He and Jane’s children went on to play key civic and professional roles in Minerva and beyond. In fact, their descendants still reside in Minerva and continue to contribute to their community.
Author’s insight:  Robert Shaw was born in 1776; the very year the American colonies declared their independence. While many of Minerva’s earliest settlers had lived through that struggle, Robert belonged to the next generation, one that would eventually cross the Atlantic and help build the young nation whose birth ​coincided with his own.  ​

Sources

  1. Anson B. Shaw. History of Minerva (1941). Family history manuscript describing the early Shaw family in Minerva, including Robert Shaw’s emigration and marriage to Jane Talbot Stiles.
  2. Anson B. Shaw. Letter to Jim and Julia Havron, December 30, 1945. Describes the location of the Shaw homestead and the well dug by Robert Shaw.
  3. Elizabeth Talbot Sullivan. Some Memories of Elizabeth Talbot Sullivan at 97. Family recollections describing the Shaw homestead, sheep raising, and Robert Shaw’s weaving.
  4. Federal Flats Cemetery Records, Minerva, New York.
  5. Genealogical records and documentation can be viewed in the author's public research tree for Robert Shaw
  6. Historical context regarding the Industrial Revolution, the Highland Clearances, and early nineteenth-century Scottish emigration drawn from general historical sources on Scottish economic migration.
  7. Minerva Historical Society Archives. Family records and historical materials relating to the Shaw and Talbot families.
  8. Minerva Town Historian Archives
  9. PioneerProject1855. Weavers and the Industrial Revolution in Scotland. McCoid Blog. January 4, 2021. Accessed March 13, 2026. https://mccoidblog.wordpress.com/2021/01/04/weavers-and-the-industrial-revolution-in-scotland/
  10. Scottish History Society. The Highland Clearances. Scottish History Society. Accessed March 13, 2026. https://scottishhistorysociety.com/the-highland-clearances
  11. Wikipedia contributors. Radical War. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed March 13, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_War