HISTORY: Families and People: R-S | SHEPHERD

Dr. Shepherd’s cabin was just upstream from Patterson’s cabin on the north side of Mission Creek and on the upstream side of the present Three Forks Park (District Lot 2182). Dr. Shepherd had purchased the property from Tom Smith in 1925. Tom Smith had bought it from Arthur Evans who had obtained it as a Crown Grant in 1921.

The cabin was built about 1920 and washed down Mission Creek in a flood in the spring of 1929. It was rebuilt between 1932 and 1934.

Marcia Aitkens was related to Dr. Shepherd and bought his cabin which her younger sister, Elizabeth Sager had inherited. Marcia had previously spent a lot of time in Joe Rich first as a child when she used to come up to Dr. Shepherd’s cabin, and later as an adult when she had a small A Frame cottage on Findlay’s property. After she retired, she enlarged the Shepherd cabin and lived there almost until her death in 2002.

Shortly before her death, while she was living in a care home in Rutland, a large part of the cabin, which was then empty, burned down.