This biography is from "Memorial and biographical record; an illustrated
 	compendium of biography, containing a compendium of local biography,
	including biographical sketches of prominent old settlers and 
	representative citizens of South Dakota..." Published by G. A. Ogle & 
	Co., Chicago, 1898. Pages 242-243.

	Scan and OCR by Joy Fisher, 1997. This file may be copied for non-profit 
	purposes. All other rights reserved. 


COLONEL MARK WENTWORTH SHEAFE, the subject of this sketch, is at the 
time of writing the same, president of the Dakota Loan & Trust Company, 
of Watertown, South Dakota, a corporation composed almost entirely of 
New England stockholders, and which has in the past done a large 
business in North and South Dakota and Nebraska. He also holds the 
position of register of the United States land office, being an 
appointee of President Cleveland during his second term.

	Colonel Sheafe was born in Brooklyn, New York, on May 18, 1844; 
his father, Mark Wentworth Sheafe, was born in Portsmouth, New 
Hampshire, in the year 1793. His occupation was that of a sea captain 
and merchant, and was for twenty-six years engaged in the South 
American shipping trade. He resided for many years in Buenos Ayres, 
South America, where he conducted a large business. During the war of 
1812 with England, he served as a volunteer in a New Hampshire 
regiment. In 1861, by the advice of his physician, owing to ill health 
in the east, he came westward, and located at Janesville, Rock county, 
Wisconsin, at which place he died in the year 1881.

	The paternal grandfather of Colonel Sheafe was William Sheafe, 
who was born at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in the year 1758, at which 
place he was engaged as merchant in the shipping business for many 
years. He died in the year 1839.

	Colonel Sheafe's great-grandfather was also a native of 
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, at which place he was born in the year 1715 
and died in the year 1773. The family record on this side dates back to 
the year 1559, the first of the name of record being Edmund Sheafe, who 
was born and lived at Cranbrooke, England.

	The history of the city of Boston furnishes the fact that one 
Jacob Sheafe, who came to that place in 1658, owned the first carriage 
that was used in that then small village.

	Our subject's mother was Mary A. Cook, daughter of Enoch Cook, a 
native of Charlestown, Massachusetts. She was born in the year 1810. 
Her ancestors came to America from England at a very early day in the 
history of the country and located at Charlestown, Massachusetts, being 
now one of the suburbs of the city of Boston. Bunker Hill, at which 
place the battle of that name was intended to have been fought, was 
owned in part by this family, and even as late as 1860 in excavating 
for building, many relics of the Revolutionary war in the shape of 
cannon balls were discovered.

	Enoch Cook, the maternal great-grandfather of Colonel Sheafe, was 
a captain in the Revolutionary war. He had charge of the stores and 
munitions of war that were collected by the Americans and stored at 
Concord, Massachusetts. He took part in the engagement at Lexington and 
Bunker Hill and remained in the service until the close of the war, 
doing his duty at the battle of Saratoga, where Burgoyne, the British 
commander, surrendered his army to General Gates.

Our subject's paternal grandmother was Ann Wentworth, a 
descendant of an old family of that name in England. She was the 
daughter of Governor Benning Wentworth, who was appointed by the 
English government as governor of the province of New Hampshire, 
December 13, 1741, which position he held until 1767. He was a lineal 
descendant of Sir Thomas Wentworth, of England, whose unfortunate, 
though honorable, career is well known to the readers of English 
history. The family history of the Wentworths dates back to the year 
910. The Hon. John Wentworth, the famous mayor of Chicago, Illinois, 
commonly called "Long John," was a cousin of Colonel Sheafe's father.

Colonel Mark W. Sheafe, the subject of this sketch, is the only 
son of a family of two children; his sister, Ann Wentworth, is the wife 
of Dr. J. M. Miller, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Colonel Sheafe was 
reared in Boston until sixteen years of age. He graduated from the high 
school of that city and passed an examination which made him eligible 
to a course in Harvard college. He accompanied his parents to 
Janesville, Wisconsin, in 1861 . The following year he returned to 
Boston and enlisted in Company H, Forty-fourth Massachusetts 
Volunteers, serving his term of enlistment in the Eighteenth Army Corps 
in North and South Carolina. After the close of the hostilities, he 
returned to Janesville, Wisconsin, and made that his home until 1872, 
when he moved to Elk Point, Union county, Dakota territory, at the time 
when it embraced what is now North and South Dakota, and contained at 
that time a total population of but forty thousand inhabitants. He 
there engaged in the lumber and milling business. In 1874 he was 
elected to the territorial senate and in 1877 he was detailed by the 
territorial governor to accompany Colonel Fred D. Grant in locating a 
highway between the Missouri river and the Black Hills, across the then 
Sioux Indian reservation, as the latter place was then being opened for 
settlement. In 1885 Colonel Sheafe was appointed register of the United 
States land office at Watertown, by President Cleveland, and served a 
term of four years, when he was superseded by a Republican nominee, but 
in 1893 was re-appointed by President Cleveland and is still performing 
the duties of that office. In 1891 he was elected to the senate of the 
second state legislature, as a member from Codington county, and in 
that body proved himself an able and efficient officer and a fair and 
unbiased representative of the people. While in Elk Point he was four 
times elected mayor of that city. Politically he is a stanch and 
enthusiastic Democrat, and firmly believes that the principles of his 
party, as established by Jefferson and perpetuated by Jackson and 
Cleveland, are best adapted to the needs of the people and the better 
interests of the Republic, and that the old party will never cease to 
exist, either in name or principle, while the Republic survives.

In 1866 Mr. Sheafe married Miss Cassa A. Hall, of Evansville, 
Wisconsin. By this marriage two children were born: Annie Wentworth, 
now the wife of Byron Terry, of Chicago, Illinois; and William 
Wentworth, who resides in Beloit, Wisconsin.

June 22, 1882, Mr. Sheafe was a second time married, to Miss 
Agnes Spark, a native of Edinburgh, Scotland, and a daughter of John 
and Agnes Spark, of that city. Mrs. Sheafe came to America when about 
six years of age. To this union have been born two children, a son and 
a daughter, Mark Wentworth and Mary Agnes.

Colonel Sheafe is a member of the Masonic order, in which he has 
attained to the higher degrees, and at the date of this sketch is 
colonel of the First Regiment, South Dakota National Guard, having held 
that position, with the exception of two years, since 1885.