Harriet Sheldon

WOMEN OF WESTPORT POINT

Harriet Hutchinson Sheldon (1838 – 1915) 

Owned many homes in Westport Point and along lower Drift Road, including the William Wood Homestead Farm and the Valentine House

Harriet Hutchinson Sheldon was born in Brooklyn, New York, died in Westport Point and was buried in the Sheldon family plot in Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn near three of her sons who died young and her husband who died before her in 1908.  Lucius Sheldon, her husband, was a very successful merchant in New York. She maintained her home in Brooklyn but began to spend more and more time in Westport after 1890 on the “William Wood homestead farm” and at the Point at the Valentine House, which was described as Harriet Sheldon’s “Country House.”  In 1910 she is head of the family in her home in Brooklyn on Montague Street, with her son Henry k, her daughter in law Alice and her granddaughter, Gladys, and 5 servants and a nurse. Her son was living in Westport Point at the time of her sudden death.

Harriet and Lucius Sheldon really discovered Westport Point by a fluke, but once here they never looked back.  Their son, Clarence Sheldon, born in 1864, developed consumption.  As was done in the day, his parents put him on a schooner to “get the air.”  He was not helped by the voyage, but when he returned Harriet and Lucius asked which harbor he liked best and he promptly replied “Westport Point.”  The parents with two of their sons, Clarence and Henry K, came to Westport and they too were “captivated.”  That was about 1886.  In 1887 Lucius and Harriet bought the William Wood homestead from Simeon Macomber.  That was the beginning of many purchases of land in Westport Point, lower Drift Road, and elsewhere in Westport. In 1887 Lucius M. Sheldon bought land from Simeon Macomber “William Wood’s homestead and burial ground on southside of Drift Road.” That was the beginning of a long list of land and building acquisitions, land at the wharf, Masquesatch, and along both sides of lower Drift Road. In 1895 he got a permit to building a dam and bridge to connect some of his properties.  When Lucius died in 1908 all of his properties were transferred to Harriet.

The Sheldon family invited Rev Charles Cuthbert Hall and his wife Jeanie, as well as the Southard family, to Westport Point about the same time that they came.  Rev. Hall was the minister to both families.  The Halls and the Southards also were fascinated by Westport Point and built summer homes which eventually  became the homes to some of them and their families in later life.  The Halls, prolific writers, refer to the Sheldons and Southards often as neighbors and friends.

Harriet’s surviving son, Henry King Sheldon, married Alice Wing in 1909. Alice’s parents had a boarding house which summer people stayed in, so probably the Sheldons might have done the same.  Henry and Alice had two children, the first did not survive, but the second Gladys Sheldon eventually married Henry Eleazar Plante and had two children.  Henry Plante, in later years of its existence, ran Plante’s Pavillion and its successor, the Spindrift off Bridge Road on Westport Horseneck Beach.  It was taken over by the State.