Sheldon
Sheldon was the first town on the east side of the river. The village grew up around the farm of Albert and Sarah Spaid Sheldon which was located on a rise of ground (just north of the present junction of Highway 35 and Lake Blaine Road). It became an official town on January 31, 1887 when the post office was established on the Sheldon farm with Sarah Sheldon as the postmaster. The post office served everyone on the east side of the river…. (Muscles, Grit and Big Dreams, Carle F. O’Neil)
The Sheldons arrived before William J. Egan had constructed the first ferry for crossing the river. Sadie Sheldon Anderson told about getting to the homestead.
“To get to the east side of the river, where the Sheldons decided was the most desirable place to establish homes, they swam their horses across—a very risky undertaking—but they made it…. People crossed in many ways, in Indian dug-outs, in tiny boats, canoes and anything that seemed to occur to them. The Sheldon boys and the Eckelberry boys and a few others helped to establish a bridle path…. Gradually roads for cutters and buggies were made but all this took time and hard work.”
Charles A. Sheldon recalled the village’s first burial, a boy, Johnny Jones, who was accidentally killed by a gunshot from his own rifle.
“I shall never forget that scene at the top of Graveyard Hill that warm day in early May…. The silent crowd gathered around the rude coffin which had been made from a dissembled wagon box and had been painstakingly lined with pieces of material contributed by the neighbor women. [The mother called out] ‘Isn’t there someone here who can say a few words over the body of my boy before he is buried?’
“From out of the crowd stepped a big, burly, buckskin-clad man, Tom Stanton, better known as Bad Rock Tom. And from out of a strange past no one knew, that big, rough man…speaking slowly and distinctly…recited Thanatopsis.”
(Memoirs of Ethyl Sheldon Baker, Courtesy of John Sheldon)
History courtesy of Northwest Montana Historical Society in Kalispell, MT. Text and photos are from a newly installed History of the Flathead Valley exhibition at the Museum at Central School, 124 2nd Ave E, Kalispell, MT
The Sheldons arrived before William J. Egan had constructed the first ferry for crossing the river. Sadie Sheldon Anderson told about getting to the homestead.
“To get to the east side of the river, where the Sheldons decided was the most desirable place to establish homes, they swam their horses across—a very risky undertaking—but they made it…. People crossed in many ways, in Indian dug-outs, in tiny boats, canoes and anything that seemed to occur to them. The Sheldon boys and the Eckelberry boys and a few others helped to establish a bridle path…. Gradually roads for cutters and buggies were made but all this took time and hard work.”
Charles A. Sheldon recalled the village’s first burial, a boy, Johnny Jones, who was accidentally killed by a gunshot from his own rifle.
“I shall never forget that scene at the top of Graveyard Hill that warm day in early May…. The silent crowd gathered around the rude coffin which had been made from a dissembled wagon box and had been painstakingly lined with pieces of material contributed by the neighbor women. [The mother called out] ‘Isn’t there someone here who can say a few words over the body of my boy before he is buried?’
“From out of the crowd stepped a big, burly, buckskin-clad man, Tom Stanton, better known as Bad Rock Tom. And from out of a strange past no one knew, that big, rough man…speaking slowly and distinctly…recited Thanatopsis.”
(Memoirs of Ethyl Sheldon Baker, Courtesy of John Sheldon)
History courtesy of Northwest Montana Historical Society in Kalispell, MT. Text and photos are from a newly installed History of the Flathead Valley exhibition at the Museum at Central School, 124 2nd Ave E, Kalispell, MT