Dorchester Historical Society

Dorchester Illustration no. 2463       Martha Dana Shepard

On one of our walking tours of the Harrison Square Historic District, we passed the house at 15 Ashland Street, and our guide mentioned that it was once home to Martha Dana Shepard, a 19th-century pianist, well known in the New England region.  She excelled as a teacher, as a concert performer, and as an accompanist.  She lived later in life at 10 Alpha Road.

Many of our Dorchester neighbors are people of achievement, and we are hoping to provide biographies of some of them, including people still living.  If you look around at your neighbors, perhaps you can suggest people to be interviewed.

The following is a transcription of the Martha (Dana) Shepard biography from New Hampshire Women: A Collection of Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Daughters and Residents of the Granite State, Who are Worthy Representatives of their Sex in the Various Walks and Conditions of Life. (Concord: The New Hampshire Publishing Co., 1895), 19.

Mrs. Shepard very early in her life realized in just what direction her talent lay and developed it in that direction. Her home was in the town of Ashland, N. H., and she lived there some years after her marriage. She had gradually won a good local reputation as an accompanist for choruses and festivals, until through the instrumentality of someone who knew of her work, there came a chance for her to go to Keene, N. H., to play at a festival there at which Carl Zerrahn, already the most famous director in New England, was to conduct. This was the first opportunity which she had had to play at so large a festival and under so experienced a conductor. Mrs. Shepard tells the story herself as follows:

“I was a young woman then, almost unused to the world outside my own country town, and when I came to consider the proposition found myself frightened at the thought of coming before so large an audience and so able a conductor. Mr. Zerrahn even then had the reputation of being a keen critic, and not very favorably disposed toward women pianists. I was determined I would succeed, though, in the line of work which I had chosen, and this seemed to be the first beginning to be made. I accepted the offer and made my plans to go. My baby then was only six months old, and this in itself seemed reason enough to make me give up, but when the time came I took my baby and my girl and went to Keene. The girl stayed at the hotel and minded the baby and I went to the hall. To say that I was frightened wouldn’t begin to express the situation, but I watched Mr. Zerrahn’s baton, and when that came down I came down on the piano. I did the very best I could, and I succeeded.”

Mr. Zerrahn was quick to recognize the merits of his new-found accompanist. even if she was a woman. From that time until her retirement from her field of work in 1897, thirty-two years, Mrs. Shepard played every year at a great many festivals, all over New England, New York and Canada. After a few years she moved to Boston, and added the position of a church organist and director of a choir to her other work. During the thirty-five years that Mrs. Shepard was constantly before the public she had the rare record of having failed to meet only one engagement, and that only on account of the illness of her husband. In this time it is probable that no one else but Mr. Zerrahn did so much for the cause of music in New England outside the large cities as did Mrs. Shepard. Her success was largely due to her possessing, in addition to her musical ability, the talent to inspire a country chorus of inexperienced singers with confidence and enthusiasm. Added to this she was gifted with perfect health and a physique so strong as to enable her to do a prodigious amount of hard work. Week after week she has played at her church in Boston on Sunday, taken an early Monday train for perhaps extreme northern New England or Canada, reached her destination on Monday evening, and played the same evening at a rehearsal, played the next four days at forenoon and afternoon rehearsals and evening concerts, and come home on Saturday to conduct her church rehearsal on Saturday evening. Mrs. Shepard’s own explanation of her success is simple: “I have always worked hard, and always tried to do my best.” The young woman who is willing to really do those two things, given any reasonable amount of ability to begin with may hope to be just as successful.

The following is from www.findagrave.com

Martha Dana Shepard was born in New Hampton in 1842, daughter of Dr John A. and Sarah J. Dana. Her father and mother were both musical, the latter being her first instructor. When she was eleven years of age her father decided that it would be to the advantage of his daughter to give her a broader education in music than the village afforded, and she was placed under the instruction of B. F. Leavens of Boston, organist of St Paul’s Church, and a pianist of note.

Mrs, Shepard’s debut as a soloist was made in Concord at a concert given in Phenix Hall in Concord in the early sixties under the direction of George Wood of Ashland, who was one of the most successful of the New Hampshire singing school teachers. This was followed the next week by a concert in Manchester under the auspices of Dignum’s Band at which Mrs Shepard appeared as soloist and accompanist.
She was the first soloist to appear at a musical festival given in Concord under the direction of Messrs Morey and Davis in 1865, at which the chorus numbered 1,000 voices. Mr L. O. Emerson was the conductor and Miss Minnie Little the Soloist. Among other conductors under whom she appeared in Concord were W. O. Perkins, Carl Zerrahn, B. F. Baker and L. H. Southard. Mrs Shepard also appeared many times with Blaisdell’s Orchestra.

Of late years Mrs Sheppard had been very prominent in club circles in Boston and vicinity. She was organist and leader of the choral class of the Dorchester Woman’s Club and was similarly connected with the Melrose Woman’s Club. She was a member of the New Hampshire Daughters and for many years was the organist of the First Unitarian Church in Milton.

She died in 1914.