GEORGE W. SHEPARD, one of Lost Creek Township's representative citizens and leading business men, resides on his valuable farm of 156 acres, which is situated on the county line of Miami County. He was born in October, 1856, in Montgomery County, Ohio, and is a son of Ezra and Jane R. (Hufford) (Davidson) Shepard.

Ezra Shepard spent his whole life in Montgomery County, Ohio. The business he followed was the digging of wells. He married Mrs. Jane R. Davidson, widow of Francis Davidson and a daughter of John Hufford. The Huffords came to Ohio from Maryland. Mrs. Shepard lived into extreme old age, her death occurring in February, 1909, when within ten days of her ninety-fourth birthday. At that time she was the oldest woman in Lost Creek Township. Of the children born to her first marriage, two survive, Jacob and Daniel. One son died in the army and one at Camp Chase, during the Civil War, and another was drowned.

George Washington Shepard was the only child of his parents and he lived at home until his marriage. During the summer of 1874 he worked for Michael Leffel, south of Springfield, having come with his mother to Miami County, in 1871. In 1882 be bought forty acres of his present farm from John Wilson, seventy-five and one-half acres from Elijah Priest and the remainder from George Ralston. He owns an additional farm of twenty-eight acres situated in Champaign County. He carries on general farming and raises tobacco on twelve acres, and for some years he has been interested in the horse and hog business. He belongs to a horse company that owns Defiance, which is a French draft horse, three years old, weighing 1,850 pounds; and a registered Percheron, Rosier, a three-year-old, weighing 1500 pounds. The stables are on Mr. Shepard's farm. He also has a stable horse, Rube, a French and Belgian, weighing l,500 pounds. In addition to cultivating his own land he operates a part of the old Leffel farm. Formerly_ he was in partnership in a butcher shop at Addison, under the firm name of Breganier & Shepard and in the well drilling firm of Stephens & Shepard. He is a man of excellent business judgment and his advice is frequently asked by his less successful neighbors.

On December 6, 1886, Mr. Shepard was married to Miss Emma Leffel, a daughter of Martin S. and Catherine (Huffman) Leffel, and they have had five children, namely: Delores, who attended college at Columbus and is employed in that city as a bookkeeper; Sylvia, who graduated from the Christiansburg High School, attended the Miami University at Oxford, and is a popular teacher in the public schools; Otis, who is a graduate of the Addison High School, and a successful teacher in Champaigne County; and Ruth and Paul. Mr. Shepard's family is an unusually intellectual one and he has afforded his children every advantage he has been able. Politically he is a Democrat, but has always been too busy to accept public office. He is a member of the Odd Fellows at Addison and belongs also to the Encampment.