Guide to the John H. Sheppard Collection, 1797-1917, undated

John Hannibal Sheppard was born on March 17th, 1789 in Cirencester, England. In 1791 his family moved to United States and lived in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia before settling in Hallowell, Maine, where he enrolled in Hallowell Academy. He received his A.B. from Harvard in 1808, and an A.M. from Bowdoin in 1820, he later received an additional A.M. from Harvard in 1871. He served as an overseer for Bowdoin from 1830 to 1854. Sheppard passed the Bar and opened a law office in Wiscasset in 1810. In 1817 he was appointed the register probate for Lincoln County, and held the office until 1834. In 1842 he left Wiscasset and settled in Boston where he practiced as a councellor and conveyancer. In 1861 he was appointed librarian of the New England Genealogical Society, a position he held for eigth years. He also authored several works, including Masonic and antiquarian addresses, occasional poems, and "Reminicences of the Vaughn Family" as well as "The Life of Samuel Tucker". He was married twice: first to Helen Wood of Wiscasset (m. 1819) who died June 26, 183 and then to Orissa Foster of Georgetown, MA (m. 1846) who died May 4, 1864. By his first wife he had three children, a daughter nad two sons. the second with Orissa Forster.

Contains correspondence (mostly family), including several 1803 letters referring to "the new college at Brunswick" and its first president; financial & genealogical material; ephemera (printed & mss); and clippings (including Littell).

Arranged alphabetically and chronologically.