Charles H. Sheldon was born at Johnson, Vermont, on Sept. 12, 1840. His father died when he was 4, and at 6 he was bound out to work on a farm. He had 3 months of schooling per year until 14, when he took a store job for room, board, and $20.00 per year to gain better educational opportunity. After first being rejected, he enlisted on Sept. 23, 1861, in Co. "E" 7th Vermont Infantry and was mustered out in 1865 as a captain. Resourceful and capable, he made his mark in the Army. He later became a storekeeper in Illinois. He married Martha Frizzel in 1875, and they had two children, Ethel, born in 1878, and Charles H. Sheldon, Jr., born in 1881. He came to Dakota Territory in 1880 and homesteaded near Pierpont in 1882. Active in G.A.R. affairs, he was a member of the Council of 1886, where he was an able legislator. At the Republican Convention in 1890, he made an impromptu speech "with such eloquence and power as to raise the convention to a high pitch of enthusiasm." Nominated for Governor in 1892 and again in 1894, he won by a wider margin, showing that the people approved his administration. He retired to private life, but during the campaign of 1898 he went to the Black Hills on a speaking tour, where exposure to bad weather made him sick, and he died at Deadwood on October 20, 1898. He was buried at Pierpont.