Charles Henry Sheldon Biography


	This biography appears on pages 611-612 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. I (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	CHARLES HENRY SHELDON, second governor of the state of South Dakota 
was born in LaMoille county, Vermont, September 12, 1840, the son of 
Greshem and Mary (Brown) Sheldon, and was the third in a family of 
four, consisting of two sons and two daughters. Greshem Sheldon was a 
hatter by trade and for many years was a resident of Montreal where he 
owned an independent business, but, meeting with reverses, died in 
1844, a poor man, when Charles was but four years of age. Mrs. Sheldon 
lived to be eighty-six years of age, dying in 1890 at the home of 
Charles, whose constant are she had been throughout his life. The early 
life of Governor Sheldon was a hard struggle. His mother was very poor 
and he was compelled to work from his earliest recollection to eke out 
the family expenses. Until approaching manhood he found employment on 
farms and then for several years in small stores; nevertheless he 
managed to pick up a good deal of elementary learning and from his 
childhood was passionately fond of oratory, in which he constantly 
trained himself. His sympathetic nature made him a natural abolitionist 
and when the war broke out, when he was in his twenty-first year, he 
promptly offered his services, but upon his first enlistment he was, 
upon physical examination, for some reason rejected. He enlisted again 
on the 23d of November, 1861, and was duly mustered into service in 
Company E, Seventh Regiment Vermont Volunteer Infantry. His military 
service was highly creditable and at the close of the war he had won 
the position of second lieutenant of Company I of the Seventh Regiment. 
After the war he settled in Golconda, Pope county, Illinois, where he 
engaged in mercantile business, and later he was connected with a large 
tobacco commission house at Paducah, Kentucky.

	In 1880 Governor Sheldon removed to Dakota and settled upon 
government land near Pierpont, Day county where he opened a farm and 
built a home which he maintained until his death. In 1886 he was sent 
to the territorial legislature and in 1892 he was chosen governor of 
the state, which position he filled with credit for four years. There 
have been no more difficult years in the history of the west than the 
four during which Charles H. Sheldon held the governor's chair in South 
Dakota. Before he had been in office six months the great national 
panic of 1893 was on and the period of depression continued throughout 
his term. To add to the embarrassments of the period, came the almost 
total crop failure of 1894 and upon the heels of that the Taylor 
defalcation of January I, 1895, by which the state treasury was robbed 
of every dollar. Throughout all of these trying experiences the 
Governor labored unceasingly to maintain the state's credit and with 
results as good as could be hoped for when adverse conditions are 
considered. At the close of his second term he retired quietly to his 
farm and lived in simple comfort until the campaign of 1898 came on, 
when he responded to the call of his party to engage in a speaking 
campaign in the state and was assigned to a series of appointments in 
the Black Hills and made one of his most powerful speeches in the city 
of Deadwood on Saturday night October 15. Almost immediately following 
the close of his address he was taken with a chill. Pneumonia followed 
and he died at the Bullock Hotel on Thursday morning following, shortly 
after his wife and son reached his bedside.  

        Governor Sheldon was twice married. His first wife was Miss 
Mary Waters, of Pope county, Illinois, to whom he was married shortly 
after the war and whose death occurred in 1874. She left him no 
children. He was married in 1875 to Miss Martha Frizzell, of Johnson 
county, Illinois, and the union was blessed with three children James 
B., Ethel and Charles H. James died in 1894, while a student at 
Brookings College. Governor Sheldon was a man of marked ability, of 
good and strong impulses and his memory is cherished in South Dakota by 
a host of friends.