fatherless family, and snatching such crumbs of knowledge as could be
obtained in the winter days, when time could be spared for schooling. On
nearly reaching his sixteenth year, he went to Troy, N. Y., where he was
received as an apprentice to the drug business, and served seven years in
that capacity. As soon as his term of apprenticeship expired he set his
face westward in search of fortune, as so many hundreds had done before
him, and hundreds of thousands have done since.

In the year 1835, he reached Cleveland and at once started in trade as a
druggist on Detroit Street, then in Ohio City, but now the West Side of
Cleveland. At that time the West, generally, was enjoying seeming
prosperity; everything was inflated and everyone was growing rich, on
paper. Ohio City was then the city of the future, and fortune smiled on
all its residents, and particularly on those who held real estate within
its borders.

Four years later the commercial earthquake came and toppled over the whole
fabric of trade and commerce in the West, reducing it to ruins. The entire
West was devastated, and Ohio City received a blow from which, as a
separate municipality, it never recovered. Among the others who suffered
greatly by the disaster was Mr. Sheldon.

In 1842, he sold out his drug business, and went into the employ of
another firm as an accountant, continuing in that position about two
years. From this he went into business on his own account once more, this
time dealing in groceries and provisions, which he continued to trade in
until 1846, when he was attracted to the lumber trade, which he entered,
in partnership with S. H. Fox. Four years later he disposed of his
interest in the firm, and operated in lumber on his own account, not
keeping a yard, but buying and selling by the cargo. In 1852, the firm of