John Quincy Shepard was born in New York in 1822. He married Zipha McDonald in 1843. They came to Downers Grove in 1850 with their five children and settled on a farm here.
By 1868 three of their children (Edith, Sarah, Helen) had passed away and are buried here. John and Zipha divorced in 1773 and she moved to Oregon where she was still living in 1880.
