William Bird Sherrard Biography


	This biography appears on page 624 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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	WILLIAM BIRD SHERRARD is a native of the Emerald Isle and comes 
of staunch Scottish ancestry in the agnatic line and of English in the 
maternal line. He was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, on the 8th of 
June, 1837, and is a son of Joseph and Susan (Bird) Sherrard, both of 
whom were likewise born and reared in the Emerald Isle, where the 
respective families had been established for several generations 
previously, while our subject states that the chief heritage of the 
immediate family was pride and poverty. Although holding to the rigid 
faith of the Presbyterian church the family gave its influence to the 
Catholic church in Ireland, the representatives of this great body in 
the "most distressful country" representing an element which was 
earnestly striving to throw off the yoke of virtual bondage, and by 
reason of this attitude on the part of the family it met with 
persecution from the Tory faction, so that when leases of land expired 
the owners of the property in fee simple would not renew them, the 
result being severe financial losses to the family in common with many 
others.  

        Mr. Sherrard received his early educational discipline in the 
excellent national schools and at the age of fourteen years was, in 
accordance with the customs of the country, apprenticed to learn the 
dry-goods business. At the age of twenty-one years he engaged in 
business on his own responsibility, but his health became so seriously 
impaired that he was compelled to abandon the enterprise. In the spring 
of 1864, shortly before attaining the age of twenty-seven years, he 
came to America. After passing about six months in the national 
metropolis he came west and located in the city of Chicago, where he 
remained until 1877, having in the meanwhile gained a prominent 
position in a business house. In the meanwhile he was induced to take 
up a work in behalf of the newsboys and bootblacks of the city, and his 
abiding interest in the unfortunate waifs was of the most insistent 
order. He placed the Newsboys and Bootblacks' Association on a 
substantial and permanent footing and did much to make strong and 
useful citizens of the boys who came under his influence. In 1877 he 
removed to Kansas, where he was engaged in ranching until 1893. He then 
found himself once more drawn into a work which he loved and in which 
he has continued to labor with all of devotion and with most gratifying 
success. In that year he came to South Dakota and inaugurated the work 
of the Children's Home Society, and the general verdict is that in the 
line a more successful work has not been accomplished in any section of 
the Union, all things taken into consideration. Thus our subject finds 
his reward unstinted in the highest sense, while he asseverates that 
whatever of success he has made in life is to be attributed chiefly to 
his having a wife who is without an equal in the land for self-
sacrificing toil in behalf of others, coupled with "consecrated common 
sense." The society has cared for nearly nine hundred children and has 
assets amounting to forty thousand dollars, the headquarters of the 
institution being in the city of Sioux Falls, where Mr. and Mrs. 
Sherrard have maintained their home for more than a decade past, 
holding the high esteem and affectionate regard of all who know them. 
Both are devoted members of the Baptist church and Mr. Sherrard is an 
uncompromising Prohibitionist in his political allegiance, being an 
active and zealous worker in the cause.  

        On the 8th of October, 1869, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. 
Sherrard to Mrs. Elizabeth (Hazelton) Bixby, who was born in Madison 
county, New York, on the 5th of November, 1829 being a daughter of 
Squire and Catherine (Robertson) Hazelton. They have no children of 
their own but the subject states that through their association with 
work for children they have a "tax title to about two thousand."