John J. Shipherd Papers, 1806-1855, undated | Oberlin College Archives

John J. Shipherd was born near Granville, New York, on March 28, 1802, the third son of Zebulon Rudd (d. 1841) and Nancy Elizabeth (Bull) Shipherd (d. 1858). Zebulon Shipherd was a lawyer. After being admitted to the bar, he was recognized as a person of some educational attainment and public standing. For many years, Zebulon Rudd served as a trustee of Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, 1819-41. He also held office, for one term (1813-15), as a Federalist member of the 13^th U.S. Congress. The Shipherds moved to Moriah, Essex County, Massachusetts, about 1830.

According to Oberlin historian, Robert S. Fletcher, “when John was seventeen ‘the Lord mercifully revealed Himself to his mind’ ” and the young man decided to become a minister. At the time of his calling to serve God, John attended Pawlet Academy, Pawlet, Vermont; before long, however, he decided to transfer to Cambridge Academy, Cambridge, New York, to further his studies. Although John’s long-term goal was to complete his education at Middlebury College, he had to abandon his educational plan when an accidental dose of poison undermined his general health. In particular the accident had weakened his eyes and voice.

After spending two years in unproductive business ventures in the marble and whetstone industries at Vergennes, Vermont, John J. Shipherd embarked upon preparation for ordination by entering the household of Rev. Josiah Hopkins of New Haven, Vermont. Hopkins was the author of a widely used textbook titled Christian Instructor… (1833). Here he devoted a year and a half to theological study, depending, for the most part, upon the eyes of others for his reading of divinity texts.

Following his ordination as an evangelist by the Congregational Council of Blanton, Vermont, on October 3, 1827, John J. Shipherd preached for a year at Shelbourne. During the fall of 1828 he accepted the appointment of general agent of the Vermont Sabbath School Union and moved to Middlebury. Over the next 24 months or so, he traveled around the state of Vermont, founding and inspecting Sunday schools. This led him to publish a semi-annual, The Sabbath School Guide, and a tiny juvenile religious magazine, The Youth’s Herald. For his several publication accomplishments, Middlebury College awarded John an honorary master’s degree in 1830.

By then, however, Shipherd had committed himself to become a home missionary in the Great Valley of the Mississippi River. After securing an appointment and before going to Cleveland, Ohio, he made a special stop at Rochester, New York, “to receive the advice and blessing” of Charles G. Finney (1792-1875). Once in Ohio, church leaders assigned Shipherd to the missionary pastorate of a Plan-of-Union Presbyterian Church in Elyria, Lorain County, Ohio, a village of 664 souls. Shipherd’s experience in this small town was in general a disappointment to him and his missionary pastorate. Then, in the summer of 1832, Shipherd joined his classmate of Pawlet days, Philo P. Stewart, to formulate a plan to evangelize the Western frontier through the establishment of a Christian colony and manual-labor school about nine miles southwest from the “sinful” community of Elyria, Ohio.

Oberlin became the site of the new enterprise, which the founders named after Jean Frédéric Oberlin (d. 1826) in honor of the Alsatian philanthropist and educator. (This story of creating a Christian colony at Oberlin is told in 1943 by Robert S. Fletcher in A History of Oberlin College… in chapters 1-3.) To make the venture in the wilderness successful, Shipherd traveled through New York State and New England to obtain funds, teachers, Christian settlers, and title to a tract of land from Titus Street and Samuel Hughes of New Haven, Connecticut. Stewart and several of his other associates planted the Colony about April 1833. Oberlin Collegiate Institute opened its preparatory school and several of its infant collegiate departments on December 3, 1833.

Shipherd played a pivotal role in the early years of the settlement in the frontier of Lorain County. Over a two-year span of time he approved the admission of the Lane Rebels from Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, Ohio in 1835, called for the enrollment of students “irrespective of color”; he assisted in securing the appointment of Charles G. Finney to teach theology at Oberlin; he approved leaving the internal administration of the “Collegiate Institute” exclusively to the faculty; and, he accepted the notion that Oberlin would become a center of reform and revival piety.

After 1835, when the leadership of the school passed to Charles G. Finney and Asa Mahan, Oberlin’s first president, Shipherd turned his attention to other matters including the founding of other colonies and schools. He conducted mission fieldwork at Grand River Seminary in Michigan (1836) and at Lagrange Collegiate Institute in Indiana. His Oberlin Institute-like ventures were unsuccessful. Then, in 1844, Shipherd organized a small group of Christian people to settle in Michigan to establish a colony and collegiate school at Olivet, in the southeastern part of the state. There, on September 11, 1844, he died before he could realize the full fruits of his mission work.

Shipherd had married Esther Raymond of Ballston Spa, New York. This union produced a daughter (Jane Elizabeth), who died in infancy and four sons (Henry Zebulon, John Jay, Edward Payson, and James Raymond). Esther R. Shipherd wrote an interesting life and times piece of her late husband, titled “A Sketch of the Life and Labours of John J. Shipherd” (published between 1859 and 1879).