My Family Tree

Son of OTIS SHEPARDSON & LYDIA COLVIN
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Find A Grave Memorial# 34042976
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May 10, 1907, The Rockford Morning Star:
DR. SHEPARDSON DEAD
Former Resident of Rockford Passed Away in Ohio.

Dr. Noah M. Shepardson, formerly of Rockford, more recently of Ohio, passed away at the home of his son, Otis Shepardson at Fremont, Ohio, Wednesday, word being received here yesterday of his passing. Death came from the general breaking down of old age.

Decedent had lived in Rockford many years and had his home and office in Wall street. His wife died several years ago and he married again after some time. His wife survives and four sons are also left.

He was a Knight Templar and in his prime was active in Masonic circles. The remains will be interred at Fremont.
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Military: Civil War, Union Army, 23 NYLA
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Occupation: Laborer, carpenter, farmer, mechant, physician
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NOTES: "After divorcing Lydia, Noah moved at least seven times in his 38 years left on earth:
1870 census: 1st record found as a doctor
Office: 5th Court St. Kankakee, Illinois [home/office]
1879 Office: 30th Front St., Fremont, Ohio
1885 Office: 494 Grand River Ave., Detroit, Michigan
1886 Office: South Front St., Muncie, Indiana
1890 Office: 113 South Illinois St., Indianapolis, Indiana
1891 or 82 in Freeport, Illinois (near Rockford)
1892 purchased home in Rockford
1895 office/home 402 Wall St. & corner of S. Main.
1898 moved to 316 Wall St.

According to his military records: during the Civil War he went on detached duty from the 8th N.Y. Heavy Artillery. (His tombstone reads 23 NYLA-New York Light Art., but he never reported to it). He was assigned active duty in New Berne North Carolina as a street inspector. The war lasted seven more months after he enlisted.

Noah attended Bennett Medical College-Eclectic Coll. of Med. & Surg. in Chicago briefly in 1870, just prior to settling in Kankakee.

There is a book titled "County Physicians of Kankakee,"1878, that claims Noah had 22 years medical experience but that is highly unlikely—according to the evidence of numerous N.Y. censuses which title him as laborer, farmer, or carpenter prior to and during the war years.

Noah's second wife, Ollie or Olive, was 26 when he married her in 1882. At the time she was widowed. His dalliances with her ended his first marriage. However, he married wife #2 before getting a divorce. She died 6 months after he married her. Her death certificate only gives fever as the cause, but the county mortality records for the Detroit area where they lived recorded 6 or 7 victims of scarlet fever for the same time period. Her age at death was 28.

At the time of Olive's death, her parents (Mr. & Mrs. James C. Potter), lived in Monroe County, Michigan. She died July 22, 1882. She and Noah were living in Wyandotte, Wayne Co., Michigan, a small suburb near Detroit. Monroe Co. is the first county in Michigan just north of Toledo. She is probably buried in one of those two places.

His third wife, Mary, was age 31 at the time they married in 1884, also in Michigan, but they later moved to Rockford, Illinois. She would die a frightening death. Her chest cavity and internal organs began to harden to the consistency of "bone" and eventually she could no longer take in fluids or food. A modern term for something similar if not the same thing is scleroderma.

Wife #4, Mary L. Hare, was 30 at the time of their marriage which took place on Sept. 30th 1901, just 8 months after wife #3's death. They separated (at least he came home to his first family in Fremont, Ohio to die). Wife #4 later applied for and was granted his civil war pension."

Source: Walt Shreffler