- Letter from Samuel Sheppard to his children, 3 Feb 1792. "My Children, I sit this cold day thinking of the past and decide to put down some of the things I would have you remember. I begin now and will finish sometime when I feel less wearied than I now do. But I do not know whether I shall ever write much more. Time has run, the glass is emptied. I was born on the 3rd of February, 1730, and today is my birthday which set me thinking of the past. I would I had written long ago, there are many things to tell, and my eyes are poor. My mother was Miss Mary Kavanaugh, born in France, of the eminent old Irish family. Her father was Michael Kavanaugh, whose father was James Kavanaugh, married while in exile in Spain Senorita Delores Campamanes. Michael Kavanaugh married while visiting the Irish exiles in France [....] Mademoiselle Berthe Dumas, the daughter of a French gentleman, Rene Dumas and his wife Gertrude Strauss of Vienna, Austria. My father Samuel Sheppard married Miss Kavanaugh in Gloucester, where I and my sisters and brothers were reared. My brother and William moved to North Carolina and reared families. James went to Kentucky country of late, as he was the youngest child. My sisters married and scattered over the state long ago. I married Anne Burwell in Gloucester. The details of your kin you know, or can discover in the record. I would have you remember your origin and consider the words of the Book which lay down the rules of life. I read when a child the words of the Book and I have never learned anything contrary to them. I know they are true now that I have lived my own time. And when you rebel at the sayings of the old prophets, think my children, how knowing those old men were, how long their words have lived when even peoples have passed away and their place knoweth them not. I think no man can dispute the word of God, but many neglect it. Do you not so. May God make you what I desire you to be, is the prayer of your father, Samuel Sheppard."
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1730 - 