Sarah Boyd Logan Shepherd

Sarah Boyd Logan Shepherd was a great-great-granddaughter of Colonel James Patton, who was killed during the 1755 attack at Draper’s Meadows. She married John Dunbar Howe at age fifteen and brought to the marriage an inherited farm in Draper’s Valley, where the couple’s first children were born. She later moved with her family to Newbern and, around 1850, to Sunnyside on Back Creek.

Sarah’s daughters remembered her as “very pretty and vivacious,” but also emphasized the demanding responsibilities she carried. She managed a large household, sewed, wove, knitted, raised numerous children, and supervised enslaved workers and their daily tasks. Her home also served as a center of hospitality and community life, including a formal dancing party held at the Howe residence in Newbern in December 1847. Although the historical record preserves fewer details about Sarah than about her husband, history presents her as the energetic domestic and managerial center of a family whose movements connected Draper’s Valley, Newbern, Sunnyside, and the broader history of Southwest Virginia.

Image courtesy of Giles County Historical Association