NeGenWeb Project
Resource Center
On-Line Library

      B. W. Reynolds, Senator from the Tenth District, composed of Dodge and Washington counties, was born in Fremont, Nebraska, November 11, 1860, the son of Nebraska pioneers, and has been a resident of that city and vicinity, with the exception of a short period during his boyhood, for the forty-two years of his life. He obtained his education is the public schools of Fremont, completing the prescribed course of study. He afterwards took four years of college work at Nebraska City and in the State University at Lincoln.

      He engaged in business for himself at nineteen, at which time he drove a band of sheep from New Mexico to Nebraska and laid from this venture the foundation of his successful buisness (sic) career. He has ever since been engaged in farming and stock feeding and growing.

      He is secretary, treasurer and general manager of the Interstate Live Stock Co., which has a capital of $50,000, and of which he is principal holder. This company owns a fine thousand acre farm near Fremont.

      Mr. Reynolds never held but one public office before being elected Senator. That was membership of the hoard of supervisors of Dodge county for two terms, during both of which he was chairman. He was married in 1883 to Miss Mary A. Davies, of Fremont, and has three children.

      Charles L. Saunders, Senator from the Sixth District, Douglas county, has been a resident of Nebraska for forty-one years of the forty-five years he has been on earth. His birthplace is Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, and when he was four years of age in 1861, his parents moved to Nebraska, and his father, Alvin Saunders, was the War Governor of Nebraska Territory, appointed by President Lincoln, and served in 1861-67. Governor Saunders was in the United States Senate from Nebraska from 1877 to 1883 and his son Charles was his private secretary. Charles L. Saunders acquired his early education in the public schools of Omaha and finished his studies in Cornell University and the Columbia Law School. Early in the eighties he was interested in the cattle business in Montana with his brother-in-law, Russell B. Harrison, and for some time held an official position in the United States Assay Office at Helena, finally being advanced to chief clerk and manager. In 1886 he resigned this position and returned to Omaha, where he was one of the incorporators of the Omaha Real Estate and Trust Co., of which he is now president and general manager. He is a member of the Omaha Real Estate Exchange, the Commercial Club, the Omaha Club and the Elks Lodge of Omaha. For four years ending March, 1900, he was deputy city treasurer of the City of Omaha. Mr. Saunders is one of the bachelor members of the Senate.

     George L. Sheldon, Senator from the Fourth District, Cass county, was born in Nehawka, Nebraska, May 31, 1870, and is one of the few native born as well as one of the youngest members of the Nebraska Senate, 28th Session. He is the son of pioneer settlers in Cass county, his father, Hon. Lawson Sheldon, and mother, Julia A. (Pollard) Sheldon, both being natives of Vermont, the former settling at what is now Nehawka in 1856, and his mother settling there after her marriage in 1857. Senator Sheldon was born on a farm and reared as a farmer lad. He attended the district school where he acquired an elementary education, then entered the University of Nebraska, from which he received the degree of Bachelor of Literature in 1892, then entered Harvard, from which he received the degree of A. B . in 1893. That he should early become interested in politics is natural, as his father was a member of the Fourth Territorial Assembly of Nebraska Territory in 1858; was a member of the State Senate during the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 8th Sessions, and always took an active part in the early affairs of Nebraska. Senator Sheldon was a member of the State Republican committee in 1894 and 1895; chairman of the Cass County Central Republican committee, 1897-98, and in 1892, was captain of Co. A, University Cadets, which

55

---

© 2002 for the NEGenWeb Project by Pam Rietsch, Ted & Carrole Miller.