Moses Sheppard

Who was Moses Sheppard?

Moses Sheppard was a Baltimore businessman, a Friend, a philanthropist, and founder of the now Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1771, Sheppard's family, loyal to England, lost a great majority of its property during the Revolutionary War, and Sheppard had to fend for himself at a young age. He began working as an errand boy and clerk for a merchant, John Mitchell. Within a few years he became a partner with Mitchell, eventually taking over the business upon Mitchell’s death, a business he retired from in 1832.

Like many Quakers of the time, he was active in the abolitionism movement and an active supporter of the Protective Society of Maryland to Protect Free Negroes, the American Antislavery Society, and the Society of Friends Indian Affairs Committee. He also helped in the payment for the education of several colored men that became important in founding of Liberia, among them Dr Samuel McGill. Sheppard lobbied the Maryland General Assembly, stopping legislation that would have banished free African-Americans from the state.

In Baltimore, as well as being a prominent merchant, Sheppard was also commissioner of the prison. Through this activity Sheppard became aware of the inhumane treatment accorded persons with mental illnesses, or "lunatics" as they were then called. Appalled by this treatment, and in accordance with the ideas of the Society of Friends, Sheppard sought to improve conditions for those suffering from mental illness. In 1851, he was visited by prominent social reformer Dorothea Lynde Dix, who enlisted Sheppard in her effort to establish a state institution for the humane care of the insane. Sheppard approached and obtained a charter from the Maryland General Assembly for the construction of an asylum to be located on a 340 acre farm in Towson, Maryland, just north of Baltimore. This facility, though, would be private, and not a state run institution.