SHEPHERD, WILLIAM M. (?-?). William M. Shepherd, physician and early settler, a native of Virginia, moved to Texas before the revolution and settled in Washington Municipality, which he represented at the Consultation in 1835. He was appointed a surgeon in the Army of the Republic of Texas on May 10, 1837. Upon the removal of S. Rhoads Fisher, Shepherd became secretary of the Texas Navy, a post he held from December 5, 1837, to December 13, 1838. As a private in Company C on the Mier expedition in 1842, he was captured and confined in Perote Prison, where he acted as official physician for the prisoners. He was released on September 16, 1844, and returned to Texas. He was married to Mary Steptoe and became a land developer in Montgomery County. On February 13, 1858, he signed the warrant issued for his Mier service.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Pat Ireland Nixon, The Medical Story of Early Texas, 1528-1853 (Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Lupe Memorial Fund, 1946). Texas House of Representatives, Biographical Directory of the Texan Conventions and Congresses, 1832-1845 (Austin: Book Exchange, 1941).
