Col. H. S. Sheid, farmer in Coffee County, was born January 27, 1827, in this county. His father, James Sheid, born May 22, 1776, in South Carolina, was a pioneer of Tennessee, in 1803 settling on the present farm of our subject, where he died April 18, 1856. The grandfather of Col. Sheid served with distinction in the Revolution, while other ancestors were the first settlers in Maryland. His mother, Sibyl (Robertson) Sheid, was born November 26, 1779, and died in 1868; she was of Irish, and her husband of Scotch descent.
At seventeen our subject left the farm, and after four years as salesman at Pelham, he began his career of farming and trading uninterruptedly, excepting a short service for the Louisville & Nashville Railway. As captain of his recruited company, he entered Confederate service in November 1861; he was soon elected lieutenant colonel of the Forty fourth Tennessee Infantry. After a disabling wound at Shiloh, he was honorary member of General Hardee’s staff for a while. He was state senator for two years. In 1848 he married Mary E., daughter of Gen. R. E. Patton of Grundy County. Their children are Mary C., Cara C., Ella C., Jessie L., Will F., James H. and Kittie W. A self-made man, Col. Sheid is a member of the Baptist Church and the Masonic order at Pelham, and politically is a democrat and advocate of the “Temperance Alliance”. His brother, Col. James M., of Alabama, was a prominent politician in Tennessee before the war.
