View source for Elliott Shepard



'''Born: '''July 25, 1833

'''Died:''' March 24, 1893

'''Married:''' Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt (1845-1924)

'''Children:''' 5 daughters, 1 son

'''Colonel Elliott Fitch Shepard''' (variously spelled Eliot or Elliot; the spelling used here was taken from his obituary in the ''New York Times'') was a colonel in the Union army in the [[Civil%20War|Civil War]], and son-in-law of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Vanderbilt|William H. Vanderbilt]]. He was at various times a lawyer, and editor of The Mail and Express. When the [[First%20Presbyterian%20Church%20of%20Saranac%20Lake|First Presbyterian Church of Saranac Lake]] was being built, Shepard assumed the $900 church debt, paid for a manse, built a stable — later remodeled for the congregation's use and named [[Gurley%20Hall|Gurley Hall]], after Reverend [[Alvin%20B.%20Gurley|Alvin B. Gurley]] — and donated the church bell.

[[Shepard%20Avenue|Shepard Avenue]] is named for him. "When a man curing here named Shepard built a home for the minister out of appreciation and respect, they named a street 'Shepard' for him." <sup>1</sup> One speculation is that the "manse" and the "home for the minister" that the quotations above refer to was the house at [[24%20Front%20Street|24 Front Street]], labeled on a circa 1911 or later map as "Parsonage." Until more recent years, the Presbyterians provided the house at [[Presbyterian%20Parsonage|41 Church Street]], now in use as offices for a real estate company, as a parsonage. Both the [[St.%20Luke%27s%20Rectory|Episcopal]] and [[25%20St.%20Bernard%20Street|Methodist]] churches had early houses for their ministers, both of which are still in use for that purpose.

"Streetscapes," a column in the ''New York Times'' on October 26, 2014, discusses the Mail & Express Building, Shepard's skyscraper in Manhattan, designed by the firm of Carrere & Hastings. Shepard was such an avid Presbyterian that he bought control of the Fifth Avenue stage line to stop it from running on Sunday and violating the Sabbath.

 

See Wikipedia, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Fitch_Shepard|Elliott Fitch Shepard]]

## Footnotes

1. "Smoke gets in your eyes," ''Adirondack Daily Enterprise'', March 26, 1971, reprinted November 27, 2004.