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, — 
11 Men live not to themselves alone, 
To themselves alone they do not die." 
