county. Here he has continued the breeding of standard-bred horses, and has proven himself a man of superior management and rare business ability and efficiency. Coining to Story County in 1877, he settled on his farm adjoining the limits of the town of Ames, and there resided until the fall of 1882, when he removed to his present residence on Douglas Street in Ames. He has since continued the management of this farm, which consists of 335 acres. In May, 1890, he purchased the Story County Bank, which was organized on the 1st of November, 1888, by the firm of Armstrong & Robinson. In his political preferences, Mr. Sheldon is a Democrat, and in 1883 was elected a member of the Ames council for a term of three years. In 1884 and 1885 he was mayor of the town. On the 19th of October, 1885, he was appointed postmaster at Ames by President Cleveland, and held the office until February 13, 1890, filling that position to the entire satisfaction of all, and being one of the best postmasters the town ever had. On the 4th of March, 1890, he was again elected mayor of Ames. He is a representative citizen of the county, respected and esteemed for his sterling integrity, sober, sound judgment and progressive ideas. He was married in September, 1865, to Miss Frances A. Judd, a native of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, born in April, 1845, and two children are the result of this union: Bernice J. and Harriett E.
Mark D. Sheldon, M. D., retired physician, Iowa Centre, Iowa. Among the people of Story County, as well as the surrounding counties, the name that heads this sketch is by no means an unfamiliar one; for for many years he was actively and successfully occupied in the prosecution of his chosen profession, and during this time his career as a practitioner and thorough student of medicine, won for him no less a reputation than did his personal characteristics, as a citizen and neighbor. Of recent years he has endeavored to avoid, as far as possible, the practice of medicine, preferring to give his entire attention to the management of his large farming interests. The Doctor came originally from New York State, his birth occurring in Monroe County, on the 7th of May, 1816, and is the son of William and Polly (De La Dernier) Sheldon, both natives of the Empire State. The Sheldon family is of English descent, and the ancestors settled in Massachusetts prior to the Revolution. William Sheldon was reared in New York State, and followed agricultural pursuits all his life. He moved to Ohio in 1835, settled in Ashtabula County, and there resided until his death in August, 1852. He was a 'soldier in the War of 1812, and was on the Northern frontier. His wife survived him until 1859. Dr. Mark Sheldon, the youngest of four sons and four daughters, passed his boyhood and youth in Ashtabula County, received a good education in the high schools and academies, and commenced the study of medicine at the age of twenty-one under the supervision of Dr. John E. Cleveland, a physician of considerable local note. Dr. Sheldon took his first course of lectures at the Western Reserve Medical College at Cleveland, in the winter of 1845, and the following year located in Lawrence County, Ind., where he practiced his profession for about three years. In the winter of 1849 he returned to Cleveland and completed his course, graduating in the spring of 1850. He afterward took a supplementary course at Cleveland, in the winter of 1850-51, and also a course at Louisville in the winter of 1848-49. After this; in 1850, he located in Waukesha County, Wis., where he had a large practice, and where he remained for three years. In 1854 he moved to Iowa, settled in Iowa Centre, and practiced over a large extent of country, thirty miles