Among the able men of Jo Daviess County Dr. Daniel A. Sheffield occupies a position in the front ranks. He has been gifted by nature to more than an ordinary degree, possessing all the qualities which go to make up a complete manhood. Intellectually he has no superior in the State of Illinois, while all his tastes and likings are of the higher order—a man of refinement, cultivation, one who scorns a mean action, with a natural tendency to all the better things of life. As a citizen, he has been liberal and public-spirted, the friend of education, and foremost in the enterprises tending to elevate the people. His home life forms one of those pictures of domestic happiness seldom to be seen. Those who have a claim upon him are nearest in his thoughts, and his home surroundings reflect in a marked degree the general character of the man. He occupies a neat and tasteful dwelling, within which are all the evidences of refined modern life, music, paintings, books, and the embellishments naturally belonging to a home whose inmates are people of cultivated tastes and ample means. Outside, the stump, the school-ho use, the church, the Legislative halls, have often resounded with his ringing voice and fervid language, as he has sought to impress upon his fellow-men their duty to each other, and to society. Many have been the brilliant orations "which Dr. Sheffield has delivered before attentive and admiring audiences, and under his influence they have gone away to their homes better for having listened.

Dr. Sheffield came to this county and took up his abode in Apple River on the 9th of December, 1859, when a young man of twenty-three years. He is the oldest practicing physician of the township, and the second oldest in the county -, his senior being Dr. Benjamin F. Fowler. A native of New England, he was horn in Jewett City, New London Co., Conn., Aug. 29, 1836, and there spent his boyhood days. His first lessons were conned in the village school, and about 1845 he removed with his parents to Otsego County, N. V., where he developed into manhood on a farm. He kept steadily in view, however, the determination to obtain an education, and at the age of sixteen years became a student of the Academy at Gilbertsville, where he remained four years. In 1856 he accompanied his brother's family to Dixon, IL. His natural inclinations were toward the profession of law, but he was induced by one of his brothers to become the assistant of the latter in a drug-store at Dixon, and later, by the solicitations of Dr. N. T. Abbott, entered the office of the latter and began the study of medicine. He soon became greatly interested in this, and continued under the instruction of Dr. Abbott about three years. In 1859 our subject entered Rush Medical College at Chicago, where he attended a series of lectures, and later began the practice of his profession at Ogle, now Ashton, in Lee County IL. On the 1st of December, 1859, he was joined in wedlock with Miss Mary, daughter of Daniel Brookner, formerly of Dixon, 111. This lady was a native of Dixon, 111., and had become orphaned that year by the death of both parents, who fell victims to cholera. The young people began their wedded life in Apple River, and nothing of note occurred until after the outbreak of the Civil War.

On September 8, 1862, Dr. Sheffield enlisted in the 96th Illinois Infantry as Assistant Surgeon. The 96th regiment was made up of six companies from Jo Daviess County, and four companies from Lake County, 111. They proceeded to the South, and our subject pursued his duties in the hospitals at Danville and Harrodsburg, Ky. He was thus given an opportunity to become acquainted with nearly all of the boys of his regiment, and there sprang up between him and them a friendship more than usually warm and lasting. The Doctor was probably regarded by the soldiers with more genuine affection than the)- felt for any other commissioned officer in the regiment. He ever had a sympathetic word for them in their troubles and afflictions, their anxieties and apprehensions; and his kindly counsels were often as effective as the medicines he administered. lie was in the service nine months, and then, on account of ill health brought on by undue exposure, was obliged to tender his resignation, being unable to longer perform his arduous duties.

For three years afterward Dr. Sheffield suffered severely the effects of his army experience. He had also met with affliction in his family by the loss of a bright little daughter, Anna C, a babe of two years and four months, which greatly aggravated his illness, as he was most passionately attached to the child. He continued his residence in Apple River, and after a time began to slowly recover his former health. He began practice as soon as able, and as he became stronger built up a business which since that time has steadily increased. Of late years probably no other physician between Free port and Galena has enjoyed a practice as large and lucrative as that of Dr. Sheffield. During the winter of 1866-67 he took a course of lectures in the Chicago Medical College, and was graduated from the class of '67 in March of that year.

In the meantime, while greatly absorbed in the duties of his profession, Dr. Sheffield kept a vigilant eye to the advancement of his adopted town and county, with whose interests he unselfishly identified himself at the start. In 1869 he began the publication of the Apple River Index. the first and only paper established in the town. He made of it a bright and newsy sheet, entirely devoted to the interests of Apple River and vicinity, but he found that his time and strength would not permit the labor involved to conduct it successfully and in the manner he wished, and so abandoned his editorship in order to give his whole time to his profession.

The honorary degree of Rush -Medical College was conferred upon Dr. Sheffield in 1885, more particularly on account of his ability in pushing the Bill No. 73. Personally, he is a remarkably well-preserved man. muscular, energetic and hopeful, and although his hair is silvered, his heart beats with the warmth of youth. Although a man of decided views, he never arrives at a conclusion hastily, but endeavors to resolve every question with the temperance by which justice can only be arrived at. A man capable of making such warm friends can not naturally be without enemies, no more than can a man with any force of character.

The Doctor has invested his surplus capital in real-estate at Apple River, and owns the greater part of Stroekey's Addition, besides his residence property. The latter is situated in the northeastern part of the town, and his household is presided over by one of the most excellent ladies. His daughters are well-educated and accomplished, musicians and readers, and the home circle is replete with those little graces which add such a charm to domestic life. Sons and daughters to the number of ten came to bless the congenial union of our subject and his amiable partner, but they have met with great affliction in the death of seven of these, who were taken away in infancy. There are now living only three daughters—Mary M., Catherine E., and Helen M. Miss Mary was graduated from Apple River High School in the class of '88; Catherine in the class of '89, and Helen M. is a member of the class of "93. Politically, Dr. Sheffield is one of the brightest

Transcribed by Christine Walters - Portrait and Biographical Album of Jo Daviess and Carroll Counties, Illinois (1889)