SHEEHAN, WILLIAM PATTON, proprietor of the Hotel Wabash, located on the corner of Tenth and Washington Streets, Springfield, Ill., is a well-known and popular citizen and successful in business. He was born in Ashland County, Ohio, December 25, 1853, and through his father is of Irish descent. He is a son of William and Mary (Patton) Sheehan, and grandson of John Sheehan, a farmer of Covington, Ky., who married Mary Putnam. The great-grandfather, John Sheehan, was a Revolutionary soldier.

William Sheehan was a native of Tuscarawas County, Ohio, and became a Captain in the Mexican War. He located at Perrysville, Ashland County, where he died at the age of sixty-four years. His wife, who was a native of Lexington, Ky., died in Perrysville, in 1907, at the age of ninety-two years. She was a daughter of John Patton, who was a native of New England and a soldier in the Revolution, participating in the Battles of Lexington, Concord, Cambridge and others. He was wounded at Lexington by two bullets which penetrated his left shoulder, and he carried them to his grave. John Patton moved from Massachusetts to Ohio, and later went to Kentucky with Daniel Boone, locating in Lexington, where his death occurred.

William Patton Sheehan spent his childhood at Perrysville, Ohio, and when fifteen years old volunteered his services as a soldier in the Civil War, being refused on account of his extreme youth. When sixteen years of age he became a water boy on the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago railroad, became a brakeman, later a fireman, and eventually a locomotive engineer. After being hurt in a railroad wreck he became a conductor, in 1881, on the Wabash Railroad, and filled this position until the strike of 1894, when he became freight conductor for the Chicago, Peoria & St. Louis road, working for this company until 1905, when he accepted a position as passenger conductor on the Gulf Coast road. He was at Brownsville, Tex., at the time of the trouble with the negroes, whom he hauled in and out. After working two and one-half years for this road he resigned his position and returned to Springfield. He was appointed as Inspector for the Board of Health, and served in this office until December, 1909, when he resigned and took hold of his present business. He is enterprising and progressive in his methods and has established a good patronage. His parents were members of the Episcopal Church, but he is not connected with any church. In politics he is a Democrat, and he is affiliated with the Order of Railway Conductors of America, and is a charter member of Camp No. 454, Modern Woodmen of America, and Massasoite Tribe of Red Men.

Mr. Sheehan was married (first) in Steubenville, Ohio, in 1870, to Miss Jennie Parr, who died in Fort Wayne, Ind., in 1884. He married (second) in Fostoria, to Miss Ada Herald, daughter of William Herald. Her father and brother William were both killed in the Civil War. Mr. Sheehan had one child by his first marriage, Lillian, Mrs. Victor Wise, of Los Angeles, Cal. By his second marriage he had no children. Since his marriage Mr. Sheehan has made his home at different times at Crestline, Ohio; Fort Wayne, Ind.; and Springfield, Ill. He is well known in railway circles and is Secretary of Lincoln Division No. 206, O.R.C.