My Genealogy Hound

James W. Shepherd, a well-to-do farmer and stock raiser, of Barry County, Mo., was born in 1844, in Yancey County, N. C., and is a son of Joseph and Rachel (Wilson) Shepherd, both of whom were natives of North Carolina, born in 1815. They were both descendants of the first settlers of America, and were married in their native State. Joseph Shepherd is a farmer by vocation. In 1850 he removed his family to Northern Georgia, where his first wife died in 1868. Some time later he married Alsie Neel, a native of Georgia, and in 1868 came with his family to Barry County, Mo., where he purchased a farm, upon which he still resides. Instead of coming to Missouri with his father, James W. Shepherd led somewhat of a wandering life, until his marriage, in Tennessee, with Ellen V. Barcroft, a sister of Rev. John Barcroft, a presiding elder in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, of the State of Mississippi. Mr. and Mrs. Shepherd have five children who are living: Noell, Edward, Leotie, Martha and Henry. In 1881 Mr. Shepherd, with his family, came to Missouri, locating in Barry County, where he now resides on a nice farm of 275 acres, situated in the fertile valley of Flat Creek. In politics Mr. Shepherd is a Democrat, and in religion he and family are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He is also a member of the A. F. & A. M.