My Genealogy Hound

ARCHIBALD CALHOUN is a canny Scotchman, who had had an experience in life which would form the foundation for a very interesting book. He was born in Ellensboro on the Clyde, October 25, 1828, and is a son of Peter and Ellen (McCauslan) Calhoun, a branch of the family of which John C. Calhoun, the famous southern statesman, was a member. James Calhoun (grandfather) was a native and life-long resident of Scotland and by occupation was a farmer. Humphrey McCauslan (maternal grandfather) was also a native of the same country, where he was a stock-raiser. Peter Calhoun (father) was born in Scotland in 1793, and early emigrated to the land of freedom, settling in Delaware county, New York, where he died in 1875, at the age of eighty-six years. By occupation he was a farmer, in religion he was a member of the Presbyterian church, and in politics was an active worker in the whig party. Peter Calhoun was married to Ellen McCauslan, by whom he had ten children, six sons and four daughters, all but two sons and one daughter being born in Scotland. Mrs. Calhoun died in 1883, aged eighty-three years.

Archibald Calhoun was educated in the common schools of Delaware county, this State, and in the spring of 1851, when he was twenty-one years of age, went to California, the El Dorado of the Occident, and engaged in gold mining, farming and stock raising. He then drove a flock of thirty-six hundred sheep from Nevada to Montana, himself riding horseback, and sold them at a good profit. On several occasions during his residence in California and Nevada he was surrounded by hostile Indians with arrows drawn to the head, but always succeeded in arguing them out of a desire to kill or harm him, and not infrequently he came in too close quarters with grizzly bears, but managed by desperate fighting to get off practically unharmed. He crossed the Isthmus of Panama four times and has been over the Rocky mountains thirteen times, twice in a stage-coach. In 1877 he came east and located in Sherman, where in 1878 he purchased a farm, which he still occupies. Afterward he bought the so-called “Old Israel Sheldon place” of two hundred and fifty-five acres and the “Henry Sheldon place” of two hundred and thirty-seven acres and has made a specialty of dairy farming. In October, 1883, in connection with W. P. Smallwood, Hiram Parker and James Vincent, he organized the Bank of Sherman, and was elected president, which office he has since held. It is the first organized of the two banks now in Sherman, but one bank, the Sheldon, preceded this, and, with the exception of Mr. Smallwood, who has retired from the board of directors, the same men who organized it still manage its business. Outside of his banking operations connected with the bank, Mr. Calhoun derives a good revenue by making independent loans on unquestionable securities. In religion he is a member as well as a trustee of the Presbyterian church; and in politics he is a stanch republican, taking an active interest in the success of his party, but always declining the many requests to use his name as a candidate for any office. His varied experience while on the Pacific Slope and his vast fund of reminiscences make him a very interesting companion, being, naturally, a genial gentleman.

Archibald Calhoun was married May 7, 1871, to Aleda Rose, a daughter of Ithamer Rose, a native of Schoharie county, this State, by whom he has four children, three sons and one daughter: Rose, Le Roy, John and Maxwell. Mrs. Calhoun is a member of the Presbyterian church.