Sheldon, John Pitts, 1792-1871

John P. Sheldon was born in Rhode Island in 1792, and, after service in the War of 1812, with A.G. Dauby, establishing in Rochester, New York that city's first newspapers, the Gazette. A year later, in 1817, he sold his interests to Dauby, and headed towards the Northwest. While awaiting passage in Buffalo, he met Ebenezer Reed; the two young men decided to pool their resources, and together they began a newspaper in Detroit. The first issue of the Detroit Gazette appeared on July 25, 1817, and it lasted until the spring of 1830 when their office was destroyed by fire. While in Detroit, Sheldon had been a trustee of the city, 1923; county commissioner, 1922-1925; and alderman, 1828. He was editor of the Detroit Free Press in 1831. In 1833 Sheldon headed further west when Secretary of War Lewis Cass appointed him assistant superintendent of the lead mines in the Sauk and Fox Purchase near Dubuque, Iowa. From 1834 to 1840 he served as registrar of the U.S. Land Office in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, and later as clerk in the Third Auditor's Office in Washington. John P. Sheldon died in Winfield, Illinois on July 19, 1871.