Annie Bartlett Shepard
{{Short description|American conservative activist (1861–1944)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}}{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| image = Annie Bartlett Shepard.png
| office = New Hampshire State Regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution
| term_start = 1907
| term_end = 1909
| predecessor =
| successor =
| president = Emily Nelson Ritchie McLean
| birth_date = February 18, 1861
| birth_place = Nottingham, Rockingham, New Hampshire, USA
| death_date = December 4, 1944 (aged 83)
| death_place = Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA
| resting_place = Forest Hill Cemetery, East Derry, New Hampshire, USA
| alma_mater = Lasell Seminary
| occupation = woman's club leader and anti-suffragist
| spouse = Col. Frederick Johnson Shepard (m. 1887)
| children = 3
| relatives = Alan Shepard (grandson)
}}
Annie Bartlett Shepard ({{Nee|Bartlett}}; February 18, 1861 – December 4, 1944) was an American conservative woman's club founder, anti women's suffrage activist and founder of a chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).{{Cite book |last=Leonard |first=John W. |url=https://archive.org/details/womanswhoswhoofa00leon/page/738/mode/2up |title=Woman's Who's Who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915 |date=1976 |publisher=New York, American Commonwealth Co. Detroit, Gale Research Co. |pages=739}} From 1907 to 1909, she served as the New Hampshire State Regent of the DAR.
Life
She was born in 1861 in Nottingham, New Hampshire. Her parents were Thomas Bradbury Bartlett and Victoria Bartlett {{Nee|Cilley}}.{{Cite web |title=Shepard, Annie Bartlett (1861-1944) |url=https://www.nhhistory.org/object/973135/shepard-annie-bartlett-1861-1944 |access-date=January 22, 2025 |website=New Hampshire Historical Society}} She was educated at public schools in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and Lasell Seminary, Auburndale, Massachusetts.
Before her marriage, she briefly worked as a teacher at the Derry Village School.{{Cite book |last=Frost |first=Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vpHzAgAAQBAJ&dq=Annie+Bartlett+Shepard&pg=PA111 |title=The Letters of Robert Frost |date=2014-02-25 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-72650-5 |pages=111 |language=en}} She married Colonel Frederick Johnson Shepard, president of the Derry National Bank, on September 27, 1887. Three pieces of white lace from her wedding dress are held in the Perry-Dudley Family Archive and Shepard collection of the New Hampshire Historical Society.{{Cite web |title=Cloth Fragment |url=https://www.nhhistory.org/object/940903/cloth-fragment |access-date=January 22, 2025 |website=New Hampshire Historical Society}} The Shepards had three sons.{{Cite web |title=Shepard Family Conservation Area |url=https://www.derrynh.org/conservation-commission/pages/shepard-family-conservation-area |access-date=January 22, 2025 |website=Town of Derry NH}}
Shepard was active in the civic life of Derry and was a member of many local committees and organizations. She sat on the Derry School Board for eight years, was a member of the East Derry Village Improvement Society, was a member of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, and was chairman of the East Derry Red Cross Auxiliary. She attended the First Parish Congregational Church in East Derry, sang in their choir, and donated artifacts to the church.Lindemann, Paul. (May 10, 2012) "[https://fpc-ucc.org/Wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/fpctmelinepl.pdf First Parish Church Timeline A summary of key events and facts from 1702 – 2012]". First Parish Congregational Church Derry, NH. Retrieved January 22, 2025.
Shepard was the founder and first regent of the Molly Reid Chapter of the DAR, established on October 27, 1894,{{Cite web |title=Molly Reid Chapter, New Hampshire State Organization Daughters of the American Revolution |url=http://mollyreid.nhsodar.org/ |access-date=January 22, 2025}} as the descendant of Joseph Cilley, Colonel Thomas Bartlett, Joseph Nealley, Abraham True, Benjamin True and Nathaniel Batchelder.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aZ0ziEzdS50C&dq=Annie+Bartlett+Shepard&pg=PA96 |title=Lineage Book |date=1898 |publisher=The Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution |pages=96 |language=en}} Two months before she died, she celebrated the 50th anniversary of the chapter.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wE4ammkwbKoC&q=Annie+Bartlett+Shepard |title=Molly Reid Chapter is 50 Years Old |date=1944 |publisher=Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine |pages=686 |language=en}} In 1905, she was elected state vice-regent of New Hampshire and then served as state regent between 1907 and 1909.{{Cite web |title=New Hampshire Daughters of the American Revolution State Regents |url=http://www.nhsodar.org/stateregent.html |access-date=January 22, 2025 |website=www.nhsodar.org}} She was also a member of the New Hampshire Society of Colonial Dames and the New England Historic Genealogical Society.
She was an anti women's suffrage activist,{{Cite web |last=Holmes |first=Rick |date=2011-10-05 |title=Column: The woman who wrote the book on the houses of Derry |url=https://www.derrynews.com/opinion/column-the-woman-who-wrote-the-book-on-the-houses-of-derry/article_1a2a3db5-c631-5162-b675-0d661482543d.html |access-date=January 22, 2025 |website=The Derry News |language=en}} and served as chairman of the Board of Directors of the New Hampshire Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. She was the first female chairman of the Rockingham County Woman's Republican Club of New Hampshire from 1920 and was a charter member of the Derry Women's Club.
She died in 1944 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Legacy
In 2000, the land surrounding the original Shepard family homestead was donated to East Derry as a "gift to the Town of Derry from members of the Shepard family in honor of four generations of the family and their contributions to the town." It is now a conservation area.
In 2019, members of Derry's Molly Reid Chapter of DAR hosted a 125th anniversary ceremony by Shepard's grave at Forest Hill Cemetery, East Derry.{{Cite web |last=Huss |first=Julie |date=2019-08-05 |title=Local DAR chapter honors Shepard legacy |url=https://www.derrynews.com/news/local_news/local-dar-chapter-honors-shepard-legacy/article_17be7597-80aa-5e94-b039-ad8aba7d4957.html |access-date=January 22, 2025 |website=The Derry News |language=en}}
Her grandson Alan Bartlett Shepard was the first astronaut from the United States in space,{{Cite book |last=Claghorn |first=Charles Eugene |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1Ol2AAAAMAAJ&q=Annie+Bartlett+Shepard |title=Women Patriots of the American Revolution: A Biographical Dictionary |date=1991 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=978-0-8108-2421-8 |pages=161–162 |language=en}} and her maiden name was his middle name.{{Cite book |last=Burgess |first=Colin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZVQFAQAAQBAJ&dq=Annie+Bartlett+Shepard&pg=PA69 |title=Freedom 7: The Historic Flight of Alan B. Shepard, Jr. |date=2013-09-27 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-3-319-01156-1 |pages=69 |language=en}}
References
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Category:19th-century American educators
Category:Activists from New Hampshire
Category:American anti-suffragists
Category:American Congregationalists
Category:American women founders
Category:Lasell College alumni
Category:Members of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America
Category:National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage people
Category:New England Historic Genealogical Society
Category:New Hampshire Republicans
Category:State Regents of the Daughters of the American Revolution