Scope and Content Note
The papers of Alexander Robey Shepherd (1835-1902) span the years 1776-1945, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the years 1868-1900. The collection consists primarily of correspondence and scrapbooks supplemented by diaries, notebooks, printed matter, newspaper clippings, and miscellaneous material organized in seven series: Diaries and Notebooks , Family Correspondence , General Correspondence , Scrapbooks , Miscellany , Artifact , and Oversize .
Shepherd's career as a public official in Washington, D.C., is the central theme of the General Correspondence and the Scrapbooks series for the years before 1875. Both sources provide useful, if limited, information concerning Shepherd's various programs to improve public facilities in the capital during the administration of Ulysses S. Grant. The correspondence includes one or more letters from several prominent political figures, including Orville E. Babcock, Simon Cameron, Salmon P. Chase, Roscoe Conkling, James A. Garfield, Justin S. Morrill, Levi P. Morton, and John Sherman. Shepherd's activities generated considerable public debate, and the scrapbooks help to elucidate the nature and source of the controversy. Biographical material, newspaper clippings, and memorial addresses in the Miscellany series also clarify Shepherd's crucial role in the physical renewal of the nation's capital in the late nineteenth century.
Shepherd's energies after 1880 in a silver mining enterprise in Mexico are amply documented in the collection. The Family Correspondence series, consisting primarily of letters written by Shepherd and his wife Mary to their daughters, is a particularly good source for descriptions of the daily routine at the busy mining site and for family matters, as are the diaries of Mary Shepherd and her daughter May Shepherd.
Other items of interest in the collection include a partial diary of Joseph Grice, Mary Shepherd's paternal great-grandfather, dealing mainly with his experiences in the Revolutionary War.