John Jay Sheridan

John J. Sheridan was born December 8, 1846, on a farm just north of Rushville, Missouri, the son of Solomon Neill Sheridan and Anna Rose Byrne.

Solomon Neill Sheridan was born January 18, 1820, at Jeffersonville, Indiana, the son of Jesse Sheridan and Elizabeth Goodwin, and their ninth child. He was named for a Baptist preacher, Solomon Neill. The early records of Jefferson County, Kentucky, have been deposited with the Filson Club, Louisville, and include the original marriage bond of Jesse Sheridan and Elizabeth Goodwin, signed by her father, Amos Goodwin, and dated March 21, 1812. Jesse Sheridan was the son of Thomas Sheridan (1748-1780), a soldier in the Eleventh Virginia Regiment in the Revolutionary War. His family survived the Wyoming Valley Indian massacre in Pennsylvania in 1778, and then moved to the Pond Creek Settlement near Louisville, Kentucky. Amos Goodwin had been a colonel of a Virginia regiment in the Revolution; his mother was a Randolph of Roanoke.

Anna Rose Byrne was born October 18, 1828, in Oldham County, Kentucky, the daughter of John Byrne and Permelia Abbott. John Byrne's father and mother had come from the North of Ireland, by sailing ship from Londonderry to New York, and John was born on January 23, 1790, as the sailing ship entered New York harbor. The family traveled to Maryland, then to Norfolk, Virginia, where the older Byrne established himself as a ship-builder. On the completion of John's schooling, he was sent to Trinity College, Dublin. Finishing there in 1812 he began the return voyage to his home in Virginia. However, hostilities had begun between Great Britain and the United States; his ship was stopped and he was impressed into naval service aboard H.M.S. Guerriere. A naval engagement with the U.S.S. Constitution took place off the Grand Banks on August 19, 1812, and Byrne swam to the American ship, which was victorious. 'Old Ironsides' was brought into the port of Boston by Captain Isaac Hull, and John Byrne returned to his home in Virginia.

The Byrne family next moved to Kentucky, settling in Oldham County on the Ohio River, fourteen miles upstream from Louisville. In 1815 John married Permelia Abbott, the daughter of John Abbott and Hannah Berkeley. The Abbotts had come from Virginia and owned the farm next to the Byrnes' on the Ohio River. Hannah Berkeley was descended from the English family of that name. In 1826 John Byrne and a number of the Kentuckians responded to the offer of the Mexican government of extensive land grants to American settlers. The family traveled from Kentucky to take up his grant of five thousand acres. They lived there for about ten years, and Anna Rose Byrne remembered seeing Sam Houston. The increasing hostility of the Mexicans, however, caused Byrne to bring his family, his wife and four children, back to Kentucky in 1836. Sometime in the next few years, John Byrne moved to Buchanan County, Missouri, and purchased a farm just north of Rushville.

Solomon Neill Sheridan grew up in Kentucky, near Louisville, and was married to Anna Rose Byrne on November 21, 1843. Their first child, a daughter (later Permelia Newby), was born in Louisville in August 1844. They then proceeded to Missouri and their second child, John Jay Sheridan, was born at John Byrne's farm near Rushville on December 8, 1846. A year later, January 25, 1848, Solomon purchased from Joseph Robidoux a lot on the east side of Fifth Street, between Edmond and Charles, for $100. He sold it on March 7, 1849, for $250. Solomon was a brick and stone mason, eventually becoming a contractor. He was prominent in Masonic circles, and in 1856 was elected sheriff of Buchanan County. In 1857 he became collector of the state and county taxes. In 1859 he built the brick house on the west side of South Twelfth Street between Lafayette and Seneca Streets. This is now numbered 1014 South Twelfth Street. Two more daughters and three more sons survived, so that the family consisted of three girls and four boys, John J. Sheridan being the oldest son.

John Sheridan grew up in St. Joseph's Pateetown' and was thirteen years old when he and his younger brothers saw the start of the Pony Express from the Patee House, just two blocks from their home. The next year brought on the very difficult years of the Civil War in St. Joseph. John worked as a newsboy and sold papers to the Northern soldiers quartered in St. Joseph. S. N. Sheridan, John's father, had suffered financial reverses and his loyalty to his native South provoked feeling against him and he was constrained to leave home and seek temporary residence in the far West, for his own personal safety. Upon John fell the problem of caring for the family. His schooling was abandoned and he was apprenticed to Major John P. Bruce, publisher of the Daily journal then the only newspaper printed in St. Joseph. He was the only wage-earner in the family, so his mother opened a private school, and the two of them managed to keep the children together, and feed and clothe them. When the war ended in 1865, John had learned his trade. He went South and became a compositor in Memphis, Tennessee, first on the Appeal, later on the Avalanche and Ledger. The next year he went to St. Louis to join the staff of the Republican. Then he returned to St. Joseph and was at the Daily Gazette.

John Sheridan met Louisa Morgan Ashton at a party given by Kate Howard in 1872. He proposed to her in the parlor of her grandmother's (Ashton-Hutchinson) house at 507 South Eighth Street and was at first refused. However, they were married at Ashton Place on the evening of September 12, 1872. The newspaper account said:

"The guests were ushered into spacious halls, escorted to convenient dressing rooms, and then to elegant parlors where friendly recognitions and easy introductions prevailed. Presently Mr. Fred Van Waters seated himself at the piano and as his skillful fingers brought out the grand strains of the “Wedding March', down from the upper story and through the parlor marched Mr. John J. Sheridan with Miss Lutie M. Ashton on his arm. Accompanying them were Mr. Joseph A. Corby and Miss Kate R. Howard, Mr. William H. Eader and Miss Julia Sheridan.

“The bride is one of the fairest daughters of Buchanan County. She has a large circle of friends in this city, all of whom will congratulate her upon her good fortune, and join in wishing her the choicest of Heaven's gifts.

'Mr. Sheridan is known to most of our readers as an intelligent, gentlemanly, upright young man, who has already, through his unaided exertions, laid the base of his fortune. He relies upon himself, and will succeed in the future as he has in the past. He has the most cordial wishes of the “Gazette,' as well as hosts of warm friends, for success and happiness.'

In June of 1873, the young married couple left St. Joseph for California. The Union Pacific Railroad had been completed only four years before. From San Francisco, they took the coastal steamer for San Buenaventura, arriving on June 14. The Ventura Signal, a weekly newspaper, had been started by John Bradley in 1871, but his health was failing and he desired to sell. Just how John Sheridan in Missouri learned of this is not now known. Mr. Bradley was willing to take Sheridan's note for half interest in the paper, and the other half was sold to Mr. W. E. Shepherd, who left the mechanical production of the newspaper to John Sheridan. His mother, back in St. Joseph, could not bear the thought of being separated from the mainstay of her family, so on September 20, 1873, the Signal printed: 'Mrs. Sheridan, with her family of five sons and daughters from St. Joseph, Missouri arrived on the steamer “Constantine' and will make Ventura their future home. The Signal reported in August 1875: "BORN, Sheridan: On August 4, to the wife of J. J. Sheridan, a daughter.' That was Caroline Ashton Sheridan, their first child.

Louisa Ashton Sheridan was homesick for Missouri and the comforts of 'Ashton Place. John thought that perhaps a change from Ventura would solve the problem, so on December 8, 1877 (his thirty-first birthday), he dissolved his partnership with Shepherd. He had heard that a newspaper in the silver-producing town of Bodie, California-near the Nevada line-might possibly become available for purchase. So John, Louisa, and little Carrie, aged two and a half, went up to San Francisco by steamer, and then by stage to Carson City. There they spent the night with friends, and on the next day proceeded to Bodie by four-horse stage. Bodie was at the very peak of its boom, the population had jumped from a handful to twelve thousand. Main Street was filled with saloons and gambling halls. It was a wild, lawless, and violent place. The 'hotel where John first secured living quarters for Louisa and baby Carrie was above a saloon, and bullets once came up through the floor. John was able to secure a small house but Louisa had had enough of Bodie. Carrie was four years old and she remembered the night of The Explosion' of July 1879 when the powder magazine of the Standard Mine blew up.

John then secured a post on the editorial staff of the San Francisco Chronicle, at that time the largest newspaper there. He was in the editorial room when Mr. DeYoung, owner of the paper, was assassinated. But Louisa's heart was set on Missouri so, in August 1880, the family returned to St. Joseph.

They set up housekeeping at 509 South Eighth Street, just next door to Louisa's grandmother, Mrs. Hutchinson. The second child in the family, Lucinda, was born on November 21, 1880. The next year, however, saw the death of Sarah Aspinall Ashton Hutchinson, on June 5, 1881. Her husband, William C. Hutchinson, then moved out to the home of his stepson, Thomas Ashton, to spend the rest of his years at Ashton Place, in the country.

John Sheridan opened a job printing shop at 311 Felix Street. The Gazette of September 1, 1881, carried the advertisement:

J. J. Sheridan

Commercial Printer

Second and Felix Streets

Ketchams Building

Three years later, on July 6, 1884, a son was born, John Howard Sheridan.

In October 1885, John Sheridan, Thomas Ashton, and Robert L. Beaumont decided to start a business. Sheridan knew about paper and printing; Beaumont had been a salesman for a firm of paper dealers; Ashton had money to invest and was disposed to help his son-in-law. Accordingly, on October 26, incorporation papers were signed for the Beaumont-Sheridan Paper & Printing Company. The capital stock was $10,000, all supplied by Ashton, who loaned one-third to each of the other two men. Quarters were established in the basement of 516-518 Francis Street, and thirteen people were employed. The arrangement was not entirely harmonious, and after a year Beaumont withdrew. Ashton took up his stock, and the name of the business was changed to Ashton-Sheridan Paper Company. Alvah P. Clayton was employed as a salesman, but after some time he left to join the R. T. Davis Milling Company. On August 2, 1888, the business was reorganized as the Sheridan-Clayton Paper Company, with J. J. Sheridan as president, Fred B. Griffin as treasurer, and Alvah P. Clayton as secretary.

The business was successful, and the borrowings from Thomas Ashton were paid off. A new location was then secured, a building at Second and Charles Streets, and the loan from Bartlett Brothers to purchase that was paid off. Finally, in 1902, that building was sold to the Douglas Candy Company, and the large building of Turner, Frazer & Company on the southwest corner of Third and Charles Streets was purchased for $48,000. The business had become well established in the wholesale trade of St. Joseph.

The family life at 509 South Eighth Street in the eighties and nineties was closely tied to Ashton Place. Carrie and Louie, the girls, attended Dr. Martin’s “Young Ladies Institute' at Fifth and Antoine Streets, as had their mother before them. But the happiest times were those visits to 'Grandma and Sally. Carrie wrote:

“Christmas at my Grandparents' was a gay and merry time. My Father and Mother and we three children journeyed by horse and buggy to Ashton Place every Christmas Eve, and all the family hung up their stockings, from my Grandmother to my little brother Howard, who was the baby. My Father would climb upon the roof, shake sleighbells over the chimney, and call down it: “All the little children will have to go to bed or Santa Claus won't come with the presents.' For years I thought that old Santa Claus himself stood up there waiting for us to go to sleep. Then Sally would herd us all up the back stairs and put us to bed while we hurled innumerable questions at her. We usually slept in the big square bedroom over the sitting room where there were two double beds. Early in the morning we would wake, and Sally would run upstairs after she had started breakfast to help us dress. Then there was a great race between us, for the one who got down stairs first got the “Chrismus Gif' of all the rest. This was a throw-back to the time when the slaves all rushed to the main house on Christmas morning for their gifts, the first one to reach it getting something special. We then explored our stockings and went the rounds of the family, thanking and kissing each one for their gifts. We received a quarter of a dollar each time we kissed our Grandfather. He wore a beard that covered his chin and mouth, and we did not like the feel of it, so we had to be bribed to kiss him. This mark of affection was so pleasing to him that he was more than glad to pay for it.'

In 1893 John Sheridan took the entire family to the World's Fair in Chicago, and, in the fall of that year, they again journeyed to California to attend the golden wedding anniversary of John's parents, Solomon Neill and Anna Byrne Sheridan, in Ventura. The next spring on April 21, 1894, Solomon was drowned. Living in Ventura, he had planned a visit to two of his sons who were living in San Francisco, and working for newspapers there. He embarked on the steamship Los Angeles which ran on the rocks off Point Sur and sank. Space in the lifeboats was not adequate, so Solomon set out with confidence to swim the two miles to shore. He made it to the beach near the lighthouse, but the strain (he was seventy-four) was too great and he collapsed and died in the arms of the lighthouse keeper.

John and Louisa's oldest daughter, Caroline Ashton Sheridan, reached her twenty-fourth birthday on August 4, 1899, and on November 20 she was married to John Sublett Logan, Jr., at the Francis Street Methodist Church, South, on the northwest corner of Seventh and Francis Streets, by the Reverend W. F. Packard. John Logan was thirty years old and had started in the real estate business. After John Sheridan retired as president of the Sheridan-Clayton Paper Company in 1903, he joined his son-in-law in the real estate business as Sheridan & Logan.

In 1905 John and Louisa Sheridan purchased seven acres of land on a hill on the east side of Twenty-second Street, between Commercial and Garfield Avenue in South Park. There they built their home, calling the place Hawthorne Hill. The well-wooded eminence was an ideal place for birds, and John, a member of the Audubon Society, put out a hundred birdhouses. For the next ten years, the household of four, with Louie and Howard, was the scene of many happy family gatherings.

On October 12, 1915, John Howard Sheridan married Mary Belle Vandeventer, and on December 15, 1915, Lucinda Small Sheridan married Dr. Collis I. Roundy.John Sheridan then saw all his children married, and knew his grandchildren. In the summer of 1917 he required surgery and, after considerable suffering, he died on August 17. A friend wrote of him: John Sheridan had one of those countenances that “spoke no creature wrong.” You needed no profession of creed from him to know that he was a good man. Benignity was in every expression of his mobile face. He could afford the luxury of integrity.’

The blow of the death of John Sheridan was the culmination of a year of tragedy for the close-knit family group. Within that twelve months, Louisa Ashton Sheridan had lost her mother, two brothers, one grandson, and her husband. Ashton Place,' her family home for as long as she could remember, was empty. She was alone at Hawthorne Hill. She sold the place and moved to California to be near her son, Howard Sheridan. She died in Los Angeles on May 20, 1920.

When the family of John J. Sheridan followed him from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Ventura, California, in September 1873 it was a wrench for the younger children to leave the only home they had known. Edwin M. Sheridan was nineteen years old. Many years later, in California, he wrote this poem for Lucy Locket, the girl he had left behind.

PATEETOWN, 1873.

(To L.L.)

Once on a time, long, long ago,

I knew a girl with curls of brown

In Old Saint Jo, so long ago--

In Old Saint Jo, in Pateetown.

 

When life was young and dreams were long--

In winter, Summer, spring or fall,

The sun shone bright for love was strong--

And night brought music over all.

 

And birds sang sweet the whole year through;

And elfins danced the hours away;

And winds came soft from west and south

In Old Saint Jo in that old day.

 

But that was long, so long ago,

And barefoot children at their play,

In Old Saint Jo, in Pateetown,

Flock now as in that other day.

 

And sweethearts, too, with curls of brown,

Are there as in the days of yore,

In Old Saint Jo, in Pateetown,

Comes one in memory once more.

 

When time was younger than today,

When sun was brighter, moon more fair,

“Twas sweet to be in Old Saint Jo,

In Pateetown, for life was rare.

Ventura, Cal. --E. M. Sheridan