INFLUENCE OF A SINGLE FARM COMMUNITY. 13 



TRANSCRIPT OF MEMORIAL ILLUSTRATED ON 

 OPPOSITE PAGE. 



Norris M. Shepardson Rebecca Breed 



Son of Leonard and Daughter of Paul and 



Bernice Shepardson Betsy Breed. 



Born, Oct. 6, 1813. Born July 11, 1822. 



Married, 



September 21, 1843. 



Died, April 17, 1887. Died January 3, 1856. 



Endowed in 



Five-hundred Dollars by the Estate 



of Norris M. Shepardson. 



The Life of N. M. Shepardson was one of unostentatious Charity 

 in its broadest sense, a life of unselfishness rarely equalled among 

 us. He was a person of quiet unassuming manners yet one of 

 the manliest of men. Living for others, his first thought was for 

 the church, his second for the Academy, his last for himself and 

 knowing the right, there never was a man who could more stead- 

 fastly pursue it. 



For forty-four years he was a member of the Belleville Baptist 

 church and many years its clerk. He was for forty-three years a 

 member of the Board of Trustees of Union Academy and for six 

 years its efficient president. 



Deprived in his youth of the advantages of learning and culture, 

 he was never-the-less a man of rare intelligence and fine literary 

 tastes as his own poems will bear witness. 



Desiring that others "might not be deprived of the education 

 he had lacked in youth, he gave generously of his time and means 

 to promote the interests of the Academy and was especially desirous 

 that Christian teachers should impart its instruction and direct 

 its discipline. 



While the Academy continues to do faithfully the work for 

 which she was founded she will be his best monument. Always 

 thinking and planning for others it was his busy brain that con- 

 ceived and carried into execution the scheme of the Memorial 

 Endowment which has given not hundreds but thousands of 

 dollars to the Endowment fund of the Academy. The world at 

 large has an inheritance in the lives of such good men as N. M. 

 Shepardson, and when they are moved from it and the circle of 

 their influence is broken by death, whole communities suffer. In 

 his death the town lost one of its noblest citizens, one whose sym- 

 pathies and counsel were ever on the side of virtue and morality. 

 Who always labored to promote the best interests of the community 

 in which he lived. 



In times of darkness and discouragement he was a light, in 

 danger he was undismayed, in reverses never despondent, a real 

 and cheerful helper. N. M. Shepardson was an exemplification of 

 his own words, — 



" Men live not to themselves alone, 

 To themselves alone they do not die." 



