Samuel B. Sheldon Biography


	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 652-653

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SAMUEL B. SHELDON, cashier of the First National bank, and one of the 
substantial men of Watertown, Codington county, was born in Massena, St. 
Lawrence county, New York, May 7, 1843. 
 
		His father, Charles D. Sheldon, was a native of Vermont, and 
a merchant by occupation, but spent the latter part of his life on a 
farm. He moved from the state of his nativity to New York in about 1812, 
and died there in 1852. He was of English descent. The town of Sheldon, 
Vermont, was named in honor of the grandfather of our subject. Mr. 
Samuel Sheldon's mother, who bore the maiden name of Miss Olive 
Barnhart, was a native of New York, and of Pennsylvania Dutch descent. 
Her father, George Barnhart, was also a native of Pennsylvania, and of 
German descent. 
 
	Samuel B. Sheldon, the subject of this sketch, is the third child 
in the order of birth of a family of eight children, and grew to manhood 
in his native county. He attended school in the common schools of the 
county, the high school of Ogdensburg, New York, and the Watertown 
Commercial college, of Watertown, New York, from which he graduated in 
1864. He then clerked in a dry-goods store in Ogdensburg for two years, 
and, in 1866, went west and located in St. Paul, where he clerked in a 
dry-goods house until 1868. Mr. Sheldon then established a general store 
at Anoka, Minnesota, where he was also connected with the St. Paul 
Lumber Company. In 1880 he moved from thence to Watertown, South Dakota, 
after selling his interests at Anoka, and, in company with H. D. 
Walrath, he established the Codington County bank, of which he was 
appointed cashier, and continued as such until 1883, when the First 
National bank was established and Mr. Sheldon was appointed its cashier. 
The bank has a cap ital and surplus of eighty thousand dollars, and owns 
a large amount of real estate in Codington and adjoining counties. The 
president and vice-president are H. D. Walrath and J. I. Monks, resp 
ectively. 
 
	Mr. Sheldon was first married in 1882 to Miss Katherine Kosterman, 
who died in 1885. His second wife bore the maiden name of Miss 
Wilhelmina Stoker, and is a daughter of B. P. and M. J. (Gates) Stoker. 
Mrs. Sheldon's mother was a descendant of General Gates, of the 
Revolutionary war. She was born in New York, and when quite young moved 
with her parents to Winona county, Minnesota, and was educated in the 
Winona public schools. To this union have been born two children: 
Charles Samuel and Gertrude. The family resides in one of the fine 
residences of Watertown, which Mr. Sheldon erected for that purpose. 
Politically, he is a stanch Republican, and has taken an active interest 
in the strengthening and up-building of good government in the ~ity and 
county in which he lives. He has been for five years an alderman of the 
city and began that office when the corporation was on the verge of 
bankruptcy, and has been one of the leaders in putting the town again on 
a good business basis. He is a Mason, holding a membership in the Knight 
Templar lodge, and is a prominent member of the Episcopal church, and 
has been a vestryman in the same for twenty-five years.