In the business circles of Fort Plain there are probably no better known nor more highly respected men than Arthur G. and Manley Shults, brothers, who have been identified with the Red Mills and other local enterprises for a number of years. A biographical sketch of Manley Shults, the older of the two men, appears on another page of this volume. Arthur G. Shults was born in Palatine, Montgomery county, on the 1st of August, 1880. His parents, Martin and Mary (Snell) Shults, were also natives of that place and lived in Montgomery county all of their long and useful lives. Until a few years before his death Martin Shults engaged in agricultural pursuits, taking up his residence in Fort Plain following his retirement from active life. He died at the ripe old age of fourscore and one, on January 9, 1922, surviving his wife for several years. Mrs. Shults passed away July 30, 1916.
Arthur G. Shults' boyhood was not unlike that of other lads born and bred on the farms of central New York. At the district school near his father's farm he learned to read and write and as he grew older was initiated into the mysteries of arithmetic, geography, history and the other subjects considered essential to a modern education. He lived on the paternal farm until he reached the age of twenty, when he went to work for his brother Manley, who was operating a farm in the vicinity. The close association of these two brothers, begun at home as little boys, was thus continued in young manhood and has been a delightful feature of their life to the present day. Mr. Shults was employed on his brother's farm for nine years. In 1914 he took over the management of the Red Mills, a flour-milling concern of Fort Plain that his brother had purchased a few years before, and operated it until January 1, 1924, when Manley Shults resumed the active direction of the business. Arthur G. Shults has continued with the Red Mills, however, in the employ of his brother, assisting him substantially in conducting the establishment.
On the 22d of December, 1909, Mr. Shults was married to Miss Nannie M. Saltsman, daughter of Harrison and Mary (Walrath) Saltsman, and a sister of Mrs. Manley Shults. She comes from one of the old Montgomery county families, tracing her ancestry back to a soldier of the Revolution, by virtue of which she has become a member of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Her parents were born in Palatine, Montgomery county, where the father followed the occupation of an agriculturist for a great many years. He came to Fort Plain to reside about two years before his death, making his home with Mr. and Mrs. Shults, and passed away in December, 1922, leaving a widow who survives him. Mr. Shults belongs to the Fort Plain Club and is active in the Reformed church. He votes regularly with the republican party. In his adopted village he has a wide acquaintance and with his brother shares the respect and confidence of all, not only those whom they have met in a business way, but those with whom they have social relations. The two brothers represent a family that has been connected with Montgomery county for three generations and they, in their turn, have contributed to its development and prosperity as did their father and grandfather.