John L. Sheldon was a prolific nature photographer. After his death, his collection of slides came to his grandson from the family. There are approximately 40,000 slides in the collection spanning the early 1950's to 1985. John Sheldon and his wife made annual pilgrimages from their home in Corning, NY to California most always taking the same path through Shenandoah, The Smoky Mountains, the Outer Banks of NC and then quickly to the national parks area of the west.
John Sheldon became somewhat of a self-taught expert in many nature fields including wild flowers, birds, beavers, and the national parks. He assembled many slides into presentations on those topics, which he made to a variety of civic groups over the years.
These particular pictures from 1971 that his grandson sent to us are from one of the many trips to the Great Smoky Mountains and on their way across the country. John Sheldon was a great studier of his surroundings and I am sure that he would have been a surprising source of knowledge of your area despite only passing through. John Sheldon and his wife were avid explorers of nature and hikers well into their 70s. In many of the pictures, you will find his wife with her hiking stick, as she was not only a constant companion but nature "model" as well. It was nearly impossible to pry the camera away from John Sheldon and is unlikely that there would ever be pictures of him.
