The Shepherd and Crandall Families and the Great Journey from East Coast to West Coast

This post is originally from May 19, 2008. I have been updating it with a lot of new information.

Here's the updated version.

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I realized that I didn't have Samuel's third wife listed in his biographical information. Her name was Sarah Whitney Crandall. Her first husband was Simeon Crandall. 

Here is some information about the Crandall and Shepherd families.

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Simeon and Sarah Whitney Crandall were originally from New Paltz, New York.

They moved to Ohio by 1818 and according to their family records lived in Chagrin, the same town as Samuel and Roxie Shepherd.

Actually, the 1830 Ohio census places them in the little town of Mayfield (population 333) with several other families named Crandall. Both towns are close to Kirtland.

The Crandalls joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1830, and the Shepherds in 1832. Simeon and Sarah Crandall had ten children; Samuel and Roxie Shepherd had eight children. On the way to Missouri, Roxie died. Later, Samuel married widow Charity Bates Swarthout. Besides Charity’s seven children, Samuel and Charity had one additional daughter.

After settling in Utah, Samuel and Charity Shepherd and Simeon and Sarah Crandall moved to San Bernardino and ended up spending most of the rest of their lives there.

In 1870 Samuel and Charity were baptized into the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (now Community of Christ) by J.W. Gillen. Simeon and Sarah Crandall had joined the RLDS church in July 1864.

In 1871 the United States government granted pensions to war veterans. On 28 March 1871 Samuel appeared before the clerk of the district court to record his service in the War of 1812 and receive a pension.

Simeon Crandall died April 23, 1872.

Charity Shepherd died in 1877 at the age of 83. One month afterward, the Reverend A. Whitlock [probably Alma Whitlock, the son of Harvey G. and Minerva Abbott Whitlock] joined Samuel Shepherd and and Sarah Whitney Crandall in marriage.

After Samuel died a few months later, Sarah filed for a pension in Samuel’s name.

Sarah had previously filed for a pension due to Simeon's service in the War of 1812. I assume this is noted in the coding to the left of the pension record above.

I don't know when Sarah died. Some family records say it was 1870, but that is not the case. Sarah Shepherd shows up in the 1880 United States Census living with her son Charles Crandall.

Some of the Shepherd and Crandall children stayed in the Church. At least one of the Crandall children is buried in the private Kimball-Whitney Cemetery in downtown Salt Lake City and Crandall descendants have names like Kimball, Young, and (of course) Crandall.

Samuel and Roxy have thousands of descendants in the church, mostly in the Marcus deLafayette Shepherd and Julia Ann Shepherd Tanner lines.

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I found enough interesting information about Samuel Shepherd's service in the War of 1812 that I'll put it in a subsequent post.

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The picture of the Joshua tree is from Wikipedia. Tradition says that Mormon pioneers (meaning our ancestors) crossing the Mojave desert between Utah and California gave Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia) their common name because the plants reminded them of the Bible story where Joshua lifts up his hands to stop the sun.