Elliott Fitch Shepard

Shepard was born July 25, 1833, in Jamestown in Chautauqua County, New York. He was the second of three sons of Fitch Shepard and Delia Maria Dennis; the others were Burritt Hamilton and Augustus Dennis. Fitch, son of Noah Shepard, was a descendant of Thomas Shepard (a Puritan minister) and James Fitch (son-in-law of William Bradford). Delia Maria Dennis was a descendant of Robert Dennis, who emigrated from England in 1635. Elliott was described in 1897's Prominent Families of New York as "prominent by birth and ancestry, as well as for his personal qualities". He attended public schools in Jamestown, and moved with his father and brothers to New York City in 1845. He began attending the college-preparatory University Grammar School (then located in the University of the City of New York building), and graduated from the university in 1855. Shepard began reading law under Edwards Pierrepont, and was admitted to the bar in the city of Brooklyn in 1858. ==Military service==

From January 1861 through the outbreak of the American Civil War and until 1862 Shepard served as an aide-de-camp to Union Army General Edwin D. Morgan with the rank of colonel. During this time Shepard was placed in command of the department of volunteers in Elmira, and enlisted 47,000 men from the surrounding area. In 1862 he visited Jamestown to inspect, equip and provide uniforms for the Chautauqua regiment, his first return since infancy, ==Career==

townhouse (right), part of the Vanderbilt Triple Palace newspaper In 1864, Shepard was a member of the executive committee and chair of the Committee on Contributions from Without the City for the New York Metropolitan Fair. He chaired lawyers' committees for disaster relief, including those in Portland, Maine and Chicago after the 1866 Great Fire and the 1871 Great Chicago Fire respectively, and was a member of the municipal committee for victims of the 1889 Johnstown Flood. The others were the American Savings Bank and the Columbian National Bank, where he served as attorney. In 1881, US President Rutherford B. Hayes nominated him for United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. In 1884, Shepard led the effort to create an arbitration court for the New York Chamber of Commerce. On March 20, 1888, Shepard purchased the Mail and Express newspaper (founded in 1836, with an estimated value in 1888 of $200,000 ($ in ) from Cyrus W. Field for $425,000 ($ in ). Deeply religious, Shepard placed a verse from the Bible at the head of each edition's editorial page. As president of the newspaper company until his death, he approved every important decision or policy. In the same year, Shepard became the controlling stockholder of the Fifth Avenue Transportation Company to force it to halt work on Sundays (the Christian Sabbath). When Margaret's father died in 1885, she inherited $12 million ($ in ). The family lived at 2 West 52nd Street in Manhattan, one of three houses of the Vanderbilt Triple Palace which were built during the 1880s for William Henry Vanderbilt and his two daughters. After Elliott's death Margaret transferred the house to her sister's family, who combined their two houses into one. The houses were eventually demolished; the nine-story De Pinna Building was built there in 1928 and was demolished around 1969. 650 Fifth Avenue is the building currently on the site. Shepard and his family toured the world in 1884, visiting Asia, Africa, and Europe. He documented his 1887 trip from New York to Alaska in The Riva.: New York and Alaska taken by himself, his wife and daughter, six other family members, their maid, a chef, butler, porter and conductor. According to Shepard, the family traveled on 26 railroads and stayed at 38 hotels in nearly five months. After the 1884 trip, aware of the opportunity for church work in the territory, he founded a mission and maintained it with his wife for about $20,000 ($ in ) a year. For some time Shepard worshiped at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church under John Hall, and was a vice president of the Presbyterian Union of New-York. Shepard was president of the American Sabbath Union for five years, and he also served as the chairman of the Special Committee on Sabbath Observance. Briarcliff Manor developments During the early 1890s Shepard moved to Scarborough-on-Hudson in present-day Briarcliff Manor, purchasing a Victorian house from J. Butler Wright. He had a mansion (named Woodlea, after Wright's house) built south of the house, facing the Hudson River, and improved its grounds. Construction of the mansion began in 1892, and was completed three years later. Shepard died in 1893, leaving Margaret to oversee its completion. The finished house has between , making it one of the largest privately owned houses in the United States. After Shepard's death Margaret lived there in the spring and fall, with her visits becoming less frequent. By 1900 she began selling property to Frank A. Vanderlip and William Rockefeller, selling them the house in 1910. Vanderlip and Rockefeller assembled a board of directors to create a country club; they first met at Vanderlip's National City Bank Building office at 55 Wall Street (Vanderlip was president of the bank at the time). Sleepy Hollow Country Club was founded, with Woodlea becoming its clubhouse and the J. Butler Wright house as its golf house. Shepard established a small chapel on his Briarcliff Manor property, and founded the Scarborough Presbyterian Church in 1892. The church and its manse were donated by Margaret after his death. It was designed by Augustus Haydel (a nephew of Stanford White) and August D. Shepard Jr. (a nephew of Elliott Shepard and William Rutherford Mead). The church, dedicated on May 11, 1895, in Shepard's memory, was briefly known as Shepard Memorial Church. ==Family and personal life==

, depicting the Vanderbilt family; Margaret is in blue, with Elliott on her right. Shepard and Margaret had five daughters and one son: Florence (1869–1869), Maria Louise (1870–1948), Edith (1872–1954), Margaret (1873–1895), Alice (1874–1950) and Elliott Jr. (1876–1927). The children attended Sunday school and church, and were educated by private tutors and governesses. Shepard also employed a private chef for his family. the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the Century Association, the Congregational Club, the Lawyers' Club of New York, the Manhattan Athletic Club, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Academy of Design, the New England Society of New York, the New York Athletic Club, the New York Press Club, the New York State Bar Association, the New York Yacht Club, the Presbyterian Union of New York, the Republican Club of the City of New York, the Riding Club, the Sons of the American Revolution, the Twilight Club, the Union League Club of New York, and the Union League of Brooklyn. ==Later life, death, and legacy==

In 1892, the City University of New York gave Shepard a Master of Laws degree and the University of Omaha gave him a Doctor of Laws degree. From the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, Shepard was moved to the Battery and then onto a ferry to Staten Island. When the wife of Chicago publisher Horace O'Donoghue read him the news of Shepard's death four days after the event, he picked up a razor and slit his throat. Although his suicide was first thought to be an impulsive reaction, it was later learned that the likely cause was O'Donoghue's large debts to Chicago publishing houses. ==Selected works==