Finding Aid of the James E. Shepherd Papers, 1806 - 1884, PC.1876

[Identification of item], PC.1876, James E. Shepherd Papers, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC, USA.

Divided into papers and photographs.

James Edward Shepherd (1847-1910), lawyer and jurist, was born at Mintonville, near Suffolk, Virginia, the son of Thomas Swepson Shepherd (1811-1860) and his first wife Ann Eliza Browne (1813-1852). Upon the death of his father, young Shepherd appears to have been put in the care of his much older brother, William Samuel Shepherd (1838-1862), who moved to Murfreesboro, North Carolina. Upon the opening of the Civil War, William S. Shepherd sent his younger brother James back to Suffolk to work as a clerk while he sought and obtained a commission as first lieutenant in Company F., 1st Regiment, North Carolina Infantry. At Suffolk, hating the job of clerk, the not quite fourteen-year-old James claimed to be aged eighteen and joined Company A (composed of Suffolk men), 16th Regiment, Virginia Infantry, as a private. At the end of summer in 1862, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved into Maryland during its first invasion of the North. During this campaign young Shepherd revealed the fact that he was aged only fifteen and was discharged from military service near Frederick, Maryland, on September 8. Nine days later his brother, William, was killed at the Battle of Sharpsburg, Maryland. Shepherd saw no further service as a soldier. Instead he spent the remainder of the war as a telegraph operator under contract with the C.S.A. War Department, first at the Narrows of New River in Giles County, Virginia, then at Wilson, N.C. In the meanwhile his sisters, Elizabeth Minton Shepherd and Frances S. Shepherd, who had been living with family members in the Suffolk area, moved to Forest Hill in the mountains of Virginia. The elder of the two, Elizabeth, earned an income by teaching school in both places.

At the war's end Shepherd visited his sisters and kinsmen in Virginia then returned to Wilson, N.C., where he sought employment as a telegrapher in the late summer of 1865. After studying law at the University of North Carolina in 1867 and 1868, Shepherd was admitted to the bar and opened a practice in Wilson in 1869. In 1872 Shepherd married Elizabeth Bowen Brown (1853-1929), daughter of Sylvester T. Brown, a lawyer of Washington, N.C., who had refugeed during the civil war years in Wilson, but who had returned home shortly after 1870. Upon his marriage Shepherd moved to Washington and joined his legal practice in partnership with that of an established local lawyer, Thomas Sparrow.

In 1875 Shepherd was elected delegate from Beaufort County to the Constitutional Convention of that year. The following year, 1876, he was elected judge of the Beaufort County Inferior Court, an office he held until 1882 when he was elected judge of the Superior Court. After six years on that bench Judge Shepherd was elected one of the justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court in 1888 and was appointed chief justice in 1892. Shepherd served as chief justice until 1895 when he was defeated for re-election to the high court. Having taught law at the University of North Carolina for eight summer terms, he was awarded an honorary LL.D. degree by the university in 1889. Upon his departure from the bench Shepherd was free to resume his practice of law and did so, entering into partnership with Charles M. Busbee of Raleigh. Having moved his family from Washington to Raleigh upon his election to the Supreme Court, Shepherd resided in the capital until his death.

1. Papers,1806-1884

2. Photographic Images

Seven family letters, eighteen photographic images, and seven miscellaneous items were given by Mrs. Sandra Johnson Walker of Raleigh in 1997. Sixty-two business and legal letters and documents were given by Mrs. Frances H. Myers of Raleigh in 1974.