Probably the best known among the Sheldons in early Ohio was Reverend Henry Olcott Sheldon (S#5124). He moved from Genoa, in Cayuga County, New York, in 1819. He first settled on a 100-acre farm in Peru Township, six miles south of Norwalk. He moved from his Peru farm to a residence in Norwalk in 1833; to Berea in 1836; to Roscoe Village in Coshocton County in 1853; to Loudonville, in the southern part of Ashland County, in 1854; to Sidney in Shelby County in 1858; and to Oberlin, Ohio in 1867.
He married three times; first to Ruth Bradley, second to Mrs. Eleanor Robinson, and third to Mrs. Pamela Hall. He had seven sons and five daughters, all born to his first wife. Two sons and a daughter died young.
Rev. Henry O. Sheldon was a vigorous, driving man who made things happen. He kept a lifetime journal, and these leather-bound volumes are preserved in the Firelands Museum in Norwalk, Ohio.
He was an early advocate and promoter in the founding of Ohio-Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, the Baldwin Institute, forerunner of Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea (a town whose name he suggested), and Oberlin College College in Oberlin, Ohio.
Rev. Henry Olcott Sheldon was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on 15 September 1799 and died in Oberlin, Ohio, on 21 December 1882. He has been called the “Tom Paine of Ohio Education.” He is buried in the College Cemetery in Oberlin, Ohio.
