Uriah Old Jack Shepherd

Uriah was born sometime between 1780 and 1786 in North Carolina, the son of William Shepherd and Elizabeth, aka "Betsy." He spent his entire life in the frontier regions of the country, moving from the NC border to southwest Virginia, and then to Kentucky for a short stay, followed by another move to the Cherokee Lands in the Mississippi Territory (which would later become Jackson Co., Alabama), and then finally in 1828 to the wilds of the Arkansas Territory. It would seem he was ever looking for new land and new opportunities where he could rely on his frontier skills to build a home and cut a farm in the wilderness without the interference of a large population nearby. However, he was often allied with relatives who seem to have made their moves together and depended on each other for mutual support. It is then not unexpected that his wife would be part Cherokee since Natives Americans were usually living near him and their cultural must have been one he knew fairly well.