Board of Visitors minutes :: June 1, 1962 :: University of Virginia Library

The President announced the receipt of a gift of 4,291 shares of the capital stock of the First
City National Bank of Houston, in Houston, Texas, which has been made to the University of Virginia
by Mrs. M. W. Perkins (Mrs. Sallie Shepherd Perkins) of Asheville, North Carolina. This gift is to
be added to an earlier gift of $50,000 made in June 1947, and the income from the combined sum is to
be used to supplement the salary of a distinguished pediatrician to occupy a Chair to be known as the
Benjamin Armistead Shepherd Professorship of Pediatrics.

The gift has been made by Mrs. Perkins in honor of and as a memorial to her grandfather,
Benjamin Armistead Shepherd, and her brother, Benjamin Armistead Shepherd, II

Benjamin Armistead Shepherd was born on 14 May 1814 in Fluvanna County, Virginia, and moved to
Kentucky in 1833. He lived successively in Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans, from which he moved
to Galveston, Texas, where he was married on 28 October 1840 to Mary Hobson of Nashville. The exact
date of Mr. Shepherd's move to Houston is not known, but he was living there on 30 December 1847
when a bank was chartered, of which Mr. Shepherd was a Director. He opened a private bank in Houston
in 1854 and continued with that institution until January 1867 when it was merged with the First

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National Bank of Houston, now the First City National Bank of Houston, of which he became President
and held that position until his death in 1891. During the War Between the States, he and some
associates bought and operated a ship, which ran cotton through the Federal blockade. In 1867, he
purchased a residence on Park Street in Charlottesville, which he called "Meadeland" and which he
and his family used for a summer home for several years.

Mr. Shepherd is known as one of the great contributors to the growth and development of Houston,
and it was through his farsightedness and business acumen that many enterprises, including one of
the railroads entering the city in the early days, were brought to Houston. His name is still
revered as one of the pioneers in the development of Houston as a great commercial center

Benjamin Armistead Shepherd, II, who was named for his grandfather, was born in Fluvanna
County in December 1886. He entered the University of Virginia and graduated with a Master of
Arts degree in 1909. Following graduation, he studied law at Columbia University, but because of
failing health, was unable to complete the course. He died in Richmond, Virginia, in November 1916
at the age of 30.

In order to carry out the wishes of Mrs. Perkins, the President proposed and the Board adopted
the following resolution

RESOLVED by the Board of Visitors of The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia
that there is hereby established a Chair in the School of Medicine to be known as the Benjamin
Armistead Shepherd Professorship of Pediatrics