Benjamin Henry Jesse Francis Shepard (September 18, 1848 – May 29, 1927) was a composer and pianist, who also wrote under the pen name of Francis Grierson.

He was born in Birkenhead

Birkenhead

Birkenhead is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, England. It is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite the city of Liverpool...

, England, but his family migrated to Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, United States while Jesse was still a baby. Shepard traveled in Europe, finding audiences even among royalty. Shepard impressed the French novelist Alexandre Dumas, fils

Alexandre Dumas, fils

Alexandre Dumas, fils was a French author and dramatist. He was the son of Alexandre Dumas, père, also a writer and playwright.-Biography:...

. Shepard was involved with Spiritualism; he stated that many of his musical performances were the result of the spirits of famous composers channeling through him. Shepard traveled through California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 in 1876 performing at several of the old religious missions

Spanish missions in California

The Spanish missions in California comprise a series of religious and military outposts established by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order between 1769 and 1823 to spread the Christian faith among the local Native Americans. The missions represented the first major effort by Europeans to...

 founded by the Spanish. He was invited to live in San Diego by a pair of real-estate developers, the High brothers, who enticed him by promising to build a mansion to his specifications. The result was the Villa Montezuma (named after the ocean liner which brought Shepard to America).

Shepard died on May 29, 1927 while giving a piano performance.

Partial List of Works

• The Valley of Shadows
• Illusions and Realities of the War
• The Invincible Alliance and Other Essays (1913)
• Parisian Portraits
• The Humour of the Underman
• The Valley of Shadows
• La Vie et les hommes
• Lincoln, the Practical Mystic (1919)
• Modern Mysticism (1899)
• The Celtic Temperament (1901)

External links

• San Diego Historical Society: “Jesse Shepard and the Spark of Genius”
• The Villa Montezuma at Haunted Houses.com
• Francis Grierson: Beyond the Valley of Shadows to the halls of the Villa Montezuma
• The Death of Francis Grierson at time travel blog 1947project