>>>>>>>>Poetry and Red Shoes<<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>> Our Guiler Ancestors<<<

This is the story of an ancestor who was known the rest of his life for a little mistake he made. He was the Great Grandfather of Isabelle (Wiggins) Shipley and Florence (Thornton) Shipley. His name was Bill Guiler but people called him Red Shoes. Here is the account of how he got that nickname as related and documented by at least three separate branches of the Guiler family.
The War of 1812 was raging on the high seas and impressment of Irishmen to serve in the British Royal Navy was common. William Guiler and his wife, Mary, were caught up in this conflict, as well as the religious conflict between the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. In the spring of 1812, William and Mary decided to pack their belongings, take their three-year-old daughter and sail for America. After spending a night in a barn, due to the conflict of the religious factions, they traveled to Dublin where they spent a night with relatives before leaving for America. The relatives (or friends) in Dublin had given William and Mary's daughter a pair of red shoes as a gift for her to keep and take to America.
After arriving at the dock, purchasing their passage to America and transferring their belongings to the ship sailing to New York, they discovered they had left the little pair of red shoes on the windowsill back at the home where they had spent the night. The father checked with the ship's staff to see if he would have time to return and get the red shoes. He was assured he had time to retrieve the shoes, which he did. However, upon returning to the dock a few hours later, he found the ship had already pulled anchor and was setting sail for America. He jumped into a rowboat in an effort to catch the ship, since his wife, daughter and all his possessions were on board, but it was in vain.
Upon returning to the dock, he was promptly arrested for stealing the rowboat. He protested saying that he had returned it. But the police pointed out that was only because he had not caught the ship. In those days, a nonviolent criminal was given a choice of prison or joining the Royal Navy. Either way they had you confined.
So he was impressed by the British and placed on a man-of-war vessel serving the British Navy in the War of 1812. He had no way of contacting his wife and daughter. After sailing the high seas during the summer and fall, the vessel put in at Newfoundland to take on coal and supplies during the winter of 1812. Bill Guiler, along with five or six others lowered themselves down the side of the ship and made their escape during the night while anchored in the bay. The British pursued them when the escape was discovered and tracked them for several miles through the bitter cold and snow of the Newfoundland landscape. During the escape, the men split up into pairs and some froze to death. Although nearly exhausted, Bill carried his nearly frozen partner through a blizzard during the night, but finally had to put him down. Finally, after many miles on foot through snow and bitter wind, Bill saw a wee light at a farmhouse in the distance. After a final effort and nearly frozen from exposure, he reached the farmhouse and collapsed on the front porch, completely exhausted. The people inside heard a thud on the porch and discovered a man half dead from exposure. They took him in and nursed him back to health. The third day he was able to tell them his story. They agreed to let him stay until he could travel south, toward New York, in the spring when the weather opened up. He, in return, worked on the farm and agreed to teach their daughter to play the violin for his keep.
Upon the arrival of spring, Bill "Red Shoes" Guiler bid his Newfoundland friends farewell and made his way to New York and try to locate his wife and family. Meanwhile Mary had been looking for her husband every day at the Port of Entry at New York. She had taken a job in a millinery shop and continued to search for her husband, never receiving any word to his whereabouts. William and Mary had been looking for each other for several months now and were discouraged with their loss and passage of time. During the fall of 1813 while walking along among the fallen leaves on the sidewalks of New York in the Irish sector, William Guiler passed by a lady who he did not notice until after they had passed each other. What a blessing and a reunion it was to find each other after nearly a year and a half of separation.

William Guiler JR. was born in New York on July 4, 1816. Shortly after the birth of little William the family moved from New York to a little Irish farm community called Bakerstown 19 miles northeast of Pittsburgh Penn. In 1829, our Great, Great, Great-grandfather, Samuel Franklin Guiler was born. Bill helped operate and administer the leasing of farmland owned by a kindred Irishman in the Bakerstown area and also worked in a steel foundry in Pittsburgh. In 1832 William Guiler bought 80 acres of land in Noble County, Ohio near Whigville from the U.S. Government for $1.25 an acre. He moved his family there after building a cabin which stood until the mid 1930s.