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JOHN H SHEPPARD 1789-1873

Corresponding Grand Secretary, 1853-1856
Junior Grand Warden, 1857

• MM 1812, WM ?, Lincoln
• (member of) St. John's
• DDGM, District 12, 1859

NOTES

See MFM, pp. 242-244 for a biographical sketch.

MEMORIAL

From Proceedings, Page 1873-77:

The Grand Master announced the decease of R.W. Bro. John H. Sheppard, which occurred on the 25th day of June last.

His funeral was attended at Emmanuel Church in this city, on the 26th day of June. The following representatives of the Grand Lodge were present at the service, which was conducted by Rev. Bro. Thomas R. Lambert, D.D., rector of St. John's Church, Charlestown, and Past Grand Chaplain of this Grand Lodge:—

• R.W. PERCIVAL L. EVERETT, Deputy Grand Master.
• R.W. WINSLOW LEWIS, Past Grand Master.
• R.W. JOHN T. HEARD, Past Grand Master.
• R.W. WILLIAM S. GARDNER, Past Grand Master.
• R.W. LUCIUS R. PAIGE, Past Deputy Grand Master.
• R.W. MARSHALL P. WILDER, Past Deputy Grand Master.
• R.W. CHARLES W. MOORE, Past Deputy Grand Master.
• R.W. CHARLES H. TITUS, Recording Grand Secretary.
• W. WILLIAM H. CHESSMAN, Grand Marshal.
• BRO. FREDERICK A. PIERCE, Grand Tyler.

The Grand Master was absent from the city and could not attend.

The body of our Brother was taken to Wiscasset, Maine, for burial.

The Grand Master appointed R.W. Bros. Charles W. Moore, Winslow Lewis and Charles H. Titus, a committee to prepare a suitable memoir of Brother Sheppard, who subsequently submitted the following report, which was accepted: —

R.W. John H. Sheppard, a permanent and honored member of this Grand Lodge, died at his residence in this city on the 25th day of June last, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.

Brother Sheppard was born in Cirencester, England, March 17, 1789, and came to this country with his parents when but four years old. Landing.at Philadelphia, the family resided there for a short time, but soon after permanently located themselves at Hallowell, in the then district of Maine, where our Brother was educated and fitted for college. His father dying in 1807, he was under the necessity of abandoning his collegiate course of study, and entered the office of the eminent jurist, Hon. Samuel S. Wilde (afterwards Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts), as a student at law; and so rapid was his progress in his professional studies, that in 1810 he was admitted to the bar, and opened an office at Wiscasset, Maine, and was soon after elected Register of Probate for Lincoln County, which office he held for seventeen consecutive years. In 1842 he removed to Boston, where he continued to reside until his death.

Our Brother was an industrious student, of large intellectual capacity, and fine literary taste. As a classical and belles lettres scholar, he filled an enviable place in the walks of literature and learning. He was what is generally understood by the phrase, a "book-worm," and was never more at his ease, or, as he believed, more usefully employed, than when in his private study and among his books. Though a vigorous, clear, and ready writer, his literary productions consist mainly of a very excellent life of Commodore Tucker, occasional addresses, essays, and short poems. These, however, are ample to illustrate his extensive acquirements in the various fields of learning, and his cultivated taste and capacity as a public writer. His labors as the Librarian of the New England Historic- Genealogical Society, his written communications at its meetings, and his contributions to its periodical, are of permanent value, and place his name among the benefactors of that useful and respected Institution.

Brother Sheppard was initiated into Masonry in early life, by Lincoln Lodge, at Wiscasset, of which he was afterwards elected its Worshipful Master. He was made a Royal Arch Mason in St. Andrew's Royal Arch Chapter, of this city, and subsequently received the Orders of Knighthood in the Boston Encampment of Knights Templars. He was an honorary member of St. John's Lodge, of this city, and served this Grand Lodge, as its Corresponding Grand Secretary, from December 14, 1853, to December 10, 1856, when he was elected its Junior Grand Warden.

Such is a very brief and imperfect sketch of the public life, character and services of our deceased Brother. But no sketch of him would be perfect, or do justice to his memory, that should fail to make at least a brief mention of his other and higher life, — his Christian character, his Masonic fidelity, and the purity of heart which distinguished and marked all his social relations. He was a communicant of the Episcopal Church, and was for many years a Warden of St. Stephen's Chapel in this city, under the Rectorship of our venerable Brother, the Rev. Dr. E. M. P. Wells. In the faith of that church he lived, and in a firm belief of a future realization of the truth of its teachings, he died — a good, pure, and upright Christian Brother.

As a Mason, his life and eminent services, when the institution was on its severest trial, commend his memory to the gratitude and honor of his Brethren. Next to his religion, his Masonry was the idol of his affections, and the source of his moral and social enjoyments. Few Brethren were better versed in its mysteries, or learned in its history, and fewer still more accurately appreciated its beauties, or the magnitude of its influence in assuaging the asperities of the heart, and smoothing the rough ways of life. And it is right and proper, and a fraternal duty, to place this testimony to his uprightness and integrity, on the records of this Grand Lodge, not only as a tribute to his own worth, but as an encouragement and example to the living.

Voted, That a copy of the foregoing be transmitted to his surviving relatives, with the warmest sympathies of his Masonic Brethren in the great and irreparable loss they have sustained in his death.

CHARLES W. MOORE,
WINSLOW LEWIS,
CHARLES H. TITUS,
Committee.

SPEECHES

AT ST. JOHN'S DAY, FITCHBURG, JUNE 1846

From Moore's Freemason's Monthly, Vol. V, No. 10, August, 1846, p. 309:

In an Address I had the honor to deliver at die Anniversary of St. John, before the Grand Lodge of Maine, two years since, I traced our history through all the vicissitudes of fortune, to King Athelstane, grandson of Alfred the Great, A. D. 926. Nor did I stop there—but by a chain of evidence, the links of which were well rivetted together, I went back to a much earlier period. The investigation cost me the lucubrations of many days, proving that most of the Fathers of the Church were Masons; and the Discipline or the Secret was the result of this research and reading—a fact too little known to the Fraternity, and deserving the elucidation of some abler hand than mine. But it was not my intention, on this occasion, to renew the subject of our antiquity. The recollections of my intercourse with the Brethren, whether in the Lodge, Chapter or Encampment of Knights Templars, are among the happiest of a life somewhat chequered, and not unacquainted with grief. There is a halo around them, cheering and vivid as the purple light of spring, or the freshness and buoyancy of our boyish days. To share with my Brothers in those social meetings, where the light grew brighter and brighter, as we went on our winding way—to meet them in the Lodge and out of it—at home and abroad, with kindness and cordiality—to know that a warm hand and open heart were not yet lost in the cold selfishness of a money-getting, dollar-adoring world—and to realize that there were those who would drop a tear on my grave, when I am gone, was a source of pleasing reflection. They are sunny spots in the reminiscences of the past Yet these visions are now tinged with some shades of sorrow.

Brethren, my lot was cast in a once flourishing seaport, small in population, rich in refined society, and beautiful for land and water scenery, and the evergreen forests which shaded its distant hills. This spot was blessed with one of the oldest and most influential Lodges in the State. A Royal Arch Chapter, of bright reputation, was also there. The members of these societies, with scarcely an exception, were Masons, who did honor to the cause; some of whom wore men of high bearing in the country, and some of ripe scholarship and superior talents. But of all these Brethren, with whom I often went up to that retreat, where we took sweet counsel together, the far greater part have bid adieu to the scenes of this world! They have gone home. The silver cord has been loosened and the bowl broken at the fountain. If the roll of the workmen should be called, how many would be missing! But their memories, like the fir trees of the North, are fresh and green as ever. When I sometimes visit that romantic spot, and pause on the hill-tops or by the banks of the deep waters, which flow near the dwellings they once cheered, their living likenesses seem to rise before me, and their excellent characters touch my soul with a mournful impression that they are gone! By their lives, they verified the principles of Masonry—by their death, they bore testimony that they endured to the end, and died as they lived, in the faith of the Brotherhood, which holds fast to the resurrection of the dead! And yet, when I sometimes muse upon those days of Aidd long syne, I could say in the words of the original and picturesque Macaulay, "New forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all the burial places of the memory give up their dead."

LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OF THE BUNKER-HILL MONUMENT.

It is now more than twenty years, since the corner stone of that lofty monument, which looms up on the battle ground of Bunker Hill, was laid. It was on the 17th of June, 1825. The ceremony was performed by John Abbot, Esq. G. M. of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, assisted by our illustrious Brother Lafayette, in the midst of more than four thousand Masons, and escorted by some of the choicest soldiery of New England; while a vast multitude of spectators hung round the declivity—a mass represented in the papers of the day, as greatly exceeding one hundred thousand persons. The spectacle was imposing, magnificent, sublime. Fifty years had passed since the battle. It was the jubilee of Freedom. More than forty veterans, the survivors of Bunker Hill, with their sparse, silver locks, waving like a banner over the spot, were there—nearly two hundred soldiers of the Revolutionary army, were there—and our Fraternity was •there—seen and honored of all men. For an Almighty Providence, in the hiding of his power, had not then suffered innocence to be exposed to suspicion, falsehood and persecution. No stormy Petrel was then seen hovering in our sky—no hand breadth cloud, sign of the coming storm, then appeared in our horizon. We stood on elevated ground, in the pride of integrity, and in the sweet consciousness of meaning well and doing good. We looked on the face of Lafayette, and it seemed to shine, as it were, with the setting sunbeams of a glorious life. As we beheld him, we saw the living form of the days of Chivalry—a true picture of intrepid Masonry, ever ready to arm in the defence of humanity—a venerable and beauti¬ ful illustration of a great and good man, and our hearts burned within us. There were many, who met on that hallowed spot; for delegates came from all parts of the land. Brethren came from the lofty hills and valleys of Maine, where summer wears its deepest verdure, and where the white fields of winter delight in the splendor of the Aurora Borealis—they came from the granite fastnesses and sylvan villages of New Hampshire—from the Green Mountains and meandering streams of Vermont—from the sea-beat shores and fertile glebes of Rhode Island, small, but Eden-like in her domain—they came, too, from the shady banks of the Connecticut, of which Barlow wrote one of the finest strains of American minstrelsy—

"No watery glades in richer valleys shine,
Nor drinks the sea a lovelier wave than thine,"—

and they came from other and distant States, on this memorable occasion. Masonry was then in the meridian of its greatness; and it was remarked by one of the R. A. cortege of Maine, who addressed the Grand Master in parting, that " there was a larger number of organized Fraternities on the first battle ground of American Independence, than had ever met together since the completion and dedication of King Solomon's Temple."

Never shall I forget the panorama of that august scene. The season of the year was propitious—a clear and cloudless sky—the sun at high meridian—the ocean air breathing wooingly upon us—the country around redolent of sweets and variegated with a depth of coloring peculiar to our Northern climate—the sky spreading its blue arch over land and water—the place, a spot consecrated to the manes of heroic men, eternized in the memory of millions—and an individual to address us, on whose mighty intellect, and commanding eloquence, both as a statesman and an orator, a nation looked with confidence and pride—all, all, united to give a deep interest and a kind of dramatic sublimity to the celebration. We stood on the ground, where, fifty years before, was first heard the key-note of that Declaration of Independence, whose murmuring echoes stole along the Atlantic shores, from mountain and glen, from city and village, until, reaching the day and the hour of July 4th, 1776, it sounded like the thunder of Heaven, when the Ruler of the world takes to himself his great power, and "the horse and his rider is cast into the sea!"

No, my Brethren, that day, that Olympian festival, cannot be forgotten. Beneath and alongjthe sides of Bunker Hill lay a widely extended town, which had risen like a Phoenix, from the ashes of a conflagration fifty years before,—in front of us were anchored war ships, the pride and bulwark of the country— across the winding waters of Charles river, our enterprising metropolis spread out its riches, as the spires of its churches pointed to Heaven—a wide bay, fleets of merchantmen, verdant islands, and the distant blue of the ocean, appeared in the east, as from " thence we looked toward England"—the land of our pilgrim fathers,—and an amphitheatre of hills, hanging over fields and villages, lined the western horizon—all these points of vision contributed to fill up the ideal painting of the mind, as the eye, revelling in the picturesque, was ravished as it wandered into distance over the heads of the immense crowd.

It was a time of peace, of health, of prosperity. Every circumstance seemed to give a brilliant hue to the imagery, which even now, in all its gorgeous display, rises like the reality, before me. There, sat a venerable band, the lion hearted men of other days, the survivors of the battle, and near them a host of revolution¬ ary patriarchs—here, were glittering rows of fashion and elegance, gathered from the roses and lilies of New England, beautiful as Venus when she rose into life from her native sea—not far off were citizens of rank, and soldiers in their military costume, densely filling the space—and near and around them, on semi-circular seats, sat the various Orders of Masonry, in their superb regalia—the Blue Lodges, the Crimson Chapters, the Red Cross Knights, and the sable Templars. In the rear hung thousands of spectators; and in front, was an elevated stage, where, in the midst of the dignitaries and choice spirits of the land, and with the venerable form of our illustrious visitor Lafayette, at his side, stood Daniel Webster, visible to all, and distinctly heard by the vast assembly which was before him, and even by a large part of that forest of human forms which shadowed the outskirts of the great gathering. With a voice which filled so much of this wide space with its clear and deep toned utterance, he held the breath of thousands, as of one man, while he portrayed the past struggles, the present glory, and the future prospects, of#our Republic. How ravishing were those bursts of eloquence as be spoke under the open sky. His mind embraced a world in its patriotism, and his imagination, touching the central fires of the globe, as it kindled, seemed to shake the firmament. To see him, to hear him, to feel the grasp of such an intellect, is to remember hint forever! He had drank deep of the spirit of 76, and he gave us to drink. Indeed, the whole was a splendid vision—a day of this world's glory—a white mark in the calendar of life. It was a dazzling con¬ trast to that dismal scene, when, June 17, 1775, the sun went down on that hill in blood, and the daughters of Masonry wept over the remains of the immortal Warren!

"Manibus date lilia plenis
Purpureos spargam flores."

Give me the earliest lilies of the spring,
And purple flowers in rich profusion bring.
O'er the green spot, let fragrant memory spread
Perennial blossoms to tbe honor'd dead,
And while this Stone, by Masons laid,
will tell Where Freedom triumph'd,
and where Warren fell, Its column,
towering up to Heaven, shall be
Th'eternal Landmark of the brave and free!

Distinguished Brothers