Edward J. Shanahan, former postmaster at Amsterdam and formerly and for years engaged as voucher clerk in the comptroller's office at Albany, now engaged in the ice business at Amsterdam, being president of the Amsterdam Hygeia Ice Company, is a native son of Montgomery county and has resided in that county the greater part of his life, a resident of Amsterdam for the past thirty years and more. He was born in the village of Tribes Hill, May 15, 1866, and is a son of James and Ellen (Maloy) Shanahan, the latter of whom was a daughter of James Maloy, who was one of the pioneers of Washtenaw county, Michigan, a settler in the vicinity of Ann Arbor back in the early '40s of the past century.
The late James Shanahan, a former superintendent of public works for the state of New York and in his generation one of the leading masonry contractors in New York, long engaged on canal and railroad construction work, and who in the late '60s served as assemblyman from the Montgomery county district, was a native of Ireland and was eight years of age when he came to this country with his parents in the late '30s of the past century, the family settling in Onondaga county, this state, as is set out elsewhere in this volume, together with an informative biography of the Hon. James Shanahan, who died in 1896.
Reared in Tribes Hill, where for many years his parents made their home, Edward J. Shanahan received his preliminary schooling in the schools of that village and at Fonda and then attended Georgetown University and completed his course at Eastman College. In 1894 he established his home in Amsterdam and has ever since resided there. For two years (1899-1901) he served as voucher clerk in the state comptroller's office at Albany and during a part of that period, under commission from President Cleveland, served for four years (1896-1900) as postmaster of the city of Amsterdam. Upon the completion of his term of public service Mr. Shanahan purchased the plant and the business of the Amsterdam Ice Company, which he reorganized as the Amsterdam Hygeia Ice Company, of which he became president and treasurer, and has since then been quite successfully engaged in the ice business at Amsterdam, his son, James E. Shanahan, being the vice president and secretary of the company.
On January 23, 1895, in Amsterdam, Edward J. Shanahan was united in marriage to Miss Ellen Kyne, daughter of Patrick and Catherine Kyne of that city. Mr. and Mrs. Shanahan have a son: James E. Shanahan, vice president and secretary of the Amsterdam Hygeia Ice Company, who was born in Amsterdam in 1897.
Mr. Shanahan is a democrat and has long been regarded as one of the leaders of that party in Montgomery county, even as his father in his generation was one of the acknowledged leaders of the party throughout this section of the state. He has lodge affiliation with the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks and is one of the active members of the Antlers County Club.