SHEAFER, Peter Wenrick, mining engineer, born in Halifax, Pennsylvania, 31 March, 1819. He completed his education in the academy at Oxford, New York, in 1837, and was associated with Henry D. Rogers in the first geological survey of Pennsylvania in 1838. In this connection he was specially engaged in tracing the geological features of the range of mountains that extends from near Pottsville to beyond Shamokin and Tamaqua. In 1848 he settled in Pottsville and devoted his attention to mining engineering, and he has been specially active in the development of the coal and iron interests of that district. The management of the coal-mines of the Philadelphia and Reading coal and iron com-party, and of those that were bequeathed by Stephen Girard to Philadelphia, were for a long time con-tided to him. He has been consulted frequently in complicated questions of mining law, and has testified in court as an expert in these subjects. In 1849 he secured the passage of a bill for completing the first state survey, and in 1873 he was influential in securing the appointment of J. P. Lesley (q. v.) to undertake the charge of the second survey of Pennsylvania. Mr. Sheafer is a member of various societies, including the American institute of mining engineers, to whose transactions he has contributed professional papers. He issued in 1875, under the auspices of the Pennsylvania historical society, a map of Pennsylvania as it was in 1775.