Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1901-12-18
DEATH OF VI. 4. SHELDON.
Another Of 0conee's H!shiyEsteemed Citizens
Passes Into tho Great Beyond.

Tugaloo, December 1e.--Mr. William
ii. Sheldon, a prominent citizen of this
place, died last Thursday morning at six
O'Clock, after painful illness OF several
weeks. Notwithstanding his intense
suffering he bore it uncomplainingly aud
without murmur. Mr.. Sheldon was
one of our oldest citizens. being Ia his
seventy-ninth year. He leaves mine
children (all grown), six daughters and
three sons, to mourn his death. His re-
mains were inferred In the Retreat Pres
byterian cemetery by the Masonic fra
ternity, composed of members of Fair
Play, Westminster and Seneca lodges.
Mr.. Sheldon had been q member of the
Presbyterian church for many years, and
q ruling elder for considerable period.
The funeral services were conducted by
Rev. t. O. Ligon in the presence of q
large and sorrowing congregation. L.
Sketch Of His Life.,
William Harris Sheldon was born on
Duncan's creek, in Laurens county,
South Caroline, some seven miles south.
east of the court house, in the year 1922
His father, William Daniel Sheldon, q
native of Rhode Island, had come South
some years previously, probably because
of the widespread unrest i'm New Eng
land in business and politics, growing
out of the conduct of the war of 1912
and established factory on Duncan's
creek for the manufacture! of cotton and
woolen yarns. He was accompanied
South by Mr.. James Hill, also of Rhode
Island, who built mill of like character
on Tiger river, below the confluence OF
it's constituent streams-North, Middle
and South Tiger. This mill was burned
some years after and the place is still
known as the Burnt Factory" Mr..
Hill rebuilt few lies farther up the
stream, and we believe cotton manu-
featuring has gone on there ever since.
These cotton factories were among the
very first in South Carolina. The ori-
ginal Sheldon's wife was close relative
of Mr.. Hill and the subject of this notice
was their third child. The elder Shell
don married % second time, his second
wife being the widow Dean, the mother
of the late Preston Dean, of Oconee
county. Mrs. G. X. Maxwell, of Wal
halla, is child of Mr.. Sheldon's union
with Mrs. Dean.
Mr.. Sheldon attended the schools OF
his neighborhood and was a student at
Erskine in 1880, when that institution
was in it's infancy, but was never gradu-
ated. AS / have said elsewhere, Mr..
Sheldon was all his life friend of higher
education and he always attended care
fully to the scholastic training of his
children, several of whom arc college
graduates.
When he was twenty-nine, or in 1851,
he married Margaret Elizabeth, a daugh-
ter of the late Alexander Glenn, who had
removed to Pickens District but short
her old home, for Mr.. Sheldon had
bought Mr.. Glenn's farm on the Spartan.
burg side of Enoree river, at Mus
groves mill, the farm including the
battle ground celebrated in Revolution
ary history for the brilliant victory
which the Americans won there over the
British in 1880.
The children of Mr.. Sheldon's first
marriage are Mr. John D. Sheldon, of
Play; Mrs. Marshall S. Stribling, of
Westminster, and Mrs. II. e. Todd, of
Newberry.
His first wife died about the year 1850,
and in 1868 he welded his deceased
wife's sister, Miss Jane Adeline Glenn.
To this union seven children were born
and five of these survive, namely: Mrs.
Jacob Fellers, of Newberry county; DR..
William Alex. Sheldon, of Liberty; Mrs.
John E. Kibler, of Newberry; Miss Veda
sheldon and Mr.. David Glenn Sheldon,
just past his majority, His second wife
predeceased him some fifteen years.
Mr.. Sheldon sold his farm on the
Enoree in 1878 and came in January,
1874, to South Union, where he had pur-
chased the plantation of the late Thos
X. Shelor, consisting of some 1900
acres, for $4,000.
Always possessed of means, Mr.. Shell
don, however, met with two financial
reverses during his life--first as a mer-
chant, Immediately after the war, when
he invested the proceeds of large
amount of cotton sold at the fabulous
prices ruling just after the war, and a
few years later an extensive venture in
the production of long staple cotton in
Florida resulted disastrously. His last
stroke of misfortune was the destruction
of his fine old ante-bellum residence at
South Union late in the fall of 1894, in
cluding nearly all his household effects.
This last disaster, although entailing a
smaller loss than had followed his other
reverses, came upon him in his old ago
and for time depressed his spirits.
But in few months he built another
elegant house and ere long his charac-
teristic equanimity resumed it's sway.
Not greatly advanced in years, endowed
with vigorous constitution upon which
disease had made little or no inroad, the
prospect seemed favorable that he would
go down to ripe old age. Indeed he
had about completed arrangements for a
removal to Newberry to reside near his
daughters there when the malady that
was to end his days seized upon him.
Mr.. Sheldon was in the military SER
vice of his State in the civil war, but of
the nature and extent of it am not in
formed. Although the best and freshest
New England blood coursed his veins he
was intensely Southern in his sympa-
thies and he was strong secessionist.
In politics he was Democrat without
taint and throughout the turmoil of
recent years, in which many men were
swept from the ancient mooring, his
anchor held fast.
In churchly allegiance he was thor
oughly Presbyterian, but there seemed
to be no trace of bigotry in his partiality
for his church and he was tolerant of
those not like-minded With himself.
L have not sought with minute par
ticularity to portray Mr.. Sheldon's char
acter in its many-sidedness. I have
meant rather t3 sketch his career and
impress the fact that no ordinary man
has gone to his reward.
w. A. Dickson
Broyles, s. G..