Theodore Pierce Sheldon (1810-1893)

Kalamazoo’s First Banker

White Pigeon Prairie Land Office

Theodore Pierce Sheldon (1810-1893) was born 15 April 1810 in the town of Remsen, Oneida County, New York. In 1831, he followed the westward expansion to Michigan and settled for a brief time in Detroit before volunteering during the Black Hawk War in 1832. Sheldon was honorably discharged at White Pigeon, Michigan, where he went to work as chief clerk and deputy receiver for his uncle, Thomas C. Sheldon (1794-1854), who was the receiver in charge of the government land office there. Sheldon earned just $16 per month at the time, but the lessons he learned provided a firm foundation for his future career in business and finance.

Bronson Village

When the government land office was moved from White Pigeon to Bronson Village (Kalamazoo) in 1834, Theodore Sheldon followed with it, along with his uncle and co-workers Major Abram Edwards, register, and Alexander Edwards, his deputy. The land office in Kalamazoo stood on the south side of Main Street, just west of Portage Street. While his businesses were becoming established, Sheldon boarded across the street at the Kalamazoo House, the first hotel in the village.

In September 1834, T.P. Sheldon traveled to the town of Lima in LaGrange County, Indiana, where he married Miss Hannah Chase (1812-1857), an apparent cousin of Bishop Philander Chase (1775-1852), Ohio’s first Episcopal Bishop and founder of Kenyon College. The couple returned immediately to Kalamazoo. A resident at the time remembered her as “beautiful… a tall, graceful lady (who) never once frowned” (Gazette).

Soon after his arrival, Sheldon opened a brokerage office on Main Street and served as Kalamazoo County treasurer for a time. He became a prominent member of the Democratic committee and was elected Kalamazoo Township Supervisor in April 1838. That same year Sheldon was appointed treasurer of the Kalamazoo Branch of the University of Michigan, which later became Kalamazoo College.

T.P. Sheldon’s Bank

Theodore Sheldon carefully managed the money he earned. While continuing to oversee the government land office in Kalamazoo, Sheldon invested heavily in real estate around the Kalamazoo area and loaned what money he could to worthy borrowers. While serving as township treasurer in 1844, Sheldon established the first private bank in the area. He purchased a safe (one of the first in the area) where he kept money and other valuables for his associates. As his banking services expanded, Sheldon quickly gained the confidence of his customers, who used the expression “as good as T.P. Sheldon’s bank” (Gazette) to describe anything that was safe and secure. Sheldon was said to be the only banker in Michigan at the time who never failed.

By 1850, Sheldon had become the village treasurer while serving as a charter member of the Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids Plank Road Company (1850) and the Kalamazoo and Three Rivers Plank Road Company (1851). Sheldon continued to grow his banking business, at first on his own, then partnering with Horace Mower, and later with Henry Breese. By then, Sheldon’s office was in the upper level of Sweetland’s Block, 97 Main Street, on the south side of the street where the land office had stood. The same rooms there would later house the initial volumes that were to become the beginnings of Kalamazoo’s public library. Sheldon’s private bank did extremely well and in 1884, it was reorganized as the Kalamazoo Savings Bank. A series of mergers followed that eventually created the Bank of Kalamazoo in 1930, the only Kalamazoo bank to fail during the Great Depression.

The Sheldon Family

In April 1838, T.P. Sheldon purchased two lots (nos. 25 and 26) at the northeast corner of Main and Park streets in Kalamazoo, where he erected a small home, “…a little story and a half house, its gable end toward the street, its front door and windows placed after the irregular fashion of the day, and its little square half windows opening out from under the eaves on the side” (Telegraph). During the years that followed, Hannah and Theodore Sheldon raised four daughters; Martha Bull Sheldon (abt.1835-1845), Sarah Sheldon Cornell (1840-1893), Mary J. Sheldon Fletcher (1847-1917), and Eliza “Lizzie” F. Sheldon White (1851-1873). About 1850, Sheldon replaced the older home on the property with a stately two-story Italianate-style brick home.

“When we were yet a little settlement, and many felt the want of the necessaries of life and luxuries were almost unknown, the kind hand of Mrs. Sheldon seemed to find its way, unasked, where a good deed was to be done; and among the sick, especially she was like an angel of mercy.”

—Kalamazoo Gazette, 18 December 1857

Hannah Chase Sheldon passed away in December 1857 after a lengthy illness. In December 1859, T.P. Sheldon traveled to Chicago where he married Cornelia Russell Stockbridge (1827-1896) of Allegan, a sister to Senator Frances Stockbridge. The marriage to Cornelia saw the arrival of a fifth daughter, Cornelia S. Sheldon (born October 1860).

The Sheldon family occupied the home until about 1870, when they took up residence at Rose Terrace (Sill Terrace), a luxury apartment building on the corner of Rose and Lovell streets. The Main Street home was then turned over to Bessie F. Patrick and used as her “Boarding and Day School,” a private school for young women. The home later saw use as a popular men’s social club until it was torn down at the turn of the 20th century to make way for the Henderson-Ames Company’s new factory and office building.

Theodore Pierce Sheldon passed away peacefully at the Oak Grove Sanitarium in Flint, Michigan, on 8 July 1893. Cornelia Stockbridge Sheldon served as president and a director of the Ladies Library Association for many years until her death in May 1896.

Written by Keith Howard, Kalamazoo Public Library staff, May 2024.