SHELDON, Alexander, physician, born in Suffield, Connecticut, 23 October, 1766 ; died in Montgomery county. New York, 10 September, 1836. He was graduated at Yale in 1787, settled in Montgomery county, New York, took an active part in politics, was speaker of the New York assembly in 1804, 1806, and 1812, and a judge of the county court. He was graduated at the New York college of physicians and surgeons in 1812, and became eminent in his profession. He was a regent of the University of New York state, a member of the convention that framed the State constitution in 1820, and chairman of the committee on the executive departments. In the presidential contest between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson he warmly espoused the cause of the latter. He was the last of the speakers of the New York assembly that wore the cocked hat, the badge of that office.--His son, Smith, publisher, born in Montgomery county, New York. 13 September, 1811 ; died in Nyack, New York, 30 August, 1884, was educated at Albany academy, acquired a fortune in the dry-goods trade in that city, and, removing to New York in 1854, established the publishing-house of Sheldon and Co., of which his son, Isaac E. Sheldon, is now (1888) the head. His latter life was devoted to benevolent enterprises, especially to the education of the colored population of the south, to which cause he gave liberally and for which he collected large sums of money. He was an original corporator of Vassar college and chairman of the executive committee, a trustee of Rochester, and an incorporator of Madison university.