S. A. Sheppard

Judge S. A. Sheppard was born May 22, 1824, in the District of Columbia. His ancestry on the paternal side were English and Scotch, and on his mother's side Scotch and Irish.  His ancestors were Colonial settlers of Virginia and Maryland. His father, a native of Annapolis, Maryland, in early days was a farmer, and afterward resided in Baltimore city and the District of Columbia, and owned both city and country property. Judge Sheppard completed his school life in a classical academy in Georgetown, District of Columbia; commenced to study law in 1844, in Cincinnati, in the law office of William T. Forrest, and removed to Baltimore in December of the same year, where he continued his law studies and was admitted to the bar in the city of Baltimore, in January, 1847. He practiced his profession there and in the United States courts in Washington city until February 3, 1849, when he started for California. He came around by way of Cape Horn, and landed in San Francisco September 9, and went to the mines with a party of seven friends who had come to the coast with him. They went to the Shasta Diggings, Redding's Bar, and after prospecting there for a while they went to the Feather River, locating at Bidwell's Bar. Soon after the rains set in, the mines became inundated, and he, with others, returned to San Francisco, where he opened a law office, December 10, 1849. He soon had a paying practice and he continued his profession there successfully ten years. He then removed with his family to Tulare County and opened an office at Visalia, and practiced law there seventeen years, namely, until April, 1876; and since that time he, with his family, has been a resident of San Buenaventura, engaged in the practice of law. In San Francisco he was Public Administrator; in Tulare County he was District Attorney two terms; was also Mayor of Visalia; was appointed by Governor Haight Judge of the County Court to fill a vacancy, and was afterward elected to a full term. While residing in San Buenaventura he was elected County Judge of Ventura County, and since a member of the Board of Town Library and President of the Board. Politically, he sympathizes with the old Jeffersonian Democratic principles. He was initiated in Washington Lodge, No. 1, I. O. O. F., it being the first lodge organized in the United States. 

    In 1848 Judge Sheppard married Miss Margaret L. Armstrong, a native of Baltimore and a daughter of James Armstrong, a wholesale leather merchant and manufacturer of that city, and they have now living two sons and three daughters, viz.: Isabella, nor the wife of George E. Stewart, of Nordhoff; Margaret, now Mrs. Horace Stevens, residing in Batavia, this State; Summerfield D., residing at Hueneme, Ventura County; Thomas A., who is also there, in the drug business, and Annie R., the youngest, is at home. Mrs. Sheppard is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and the Judge's father was an Episcopalian. Judge Sheppard has built a nice home in the beautiful and healthful village of Nordhoff, where, with his children near him, and also his many friends whom he has know so long, he will spend the ev4ening of his long and eventful life in peace.

Back to Biographies Page