William Sheppard was born at Québec in 1783. He made a fortune in the timber trade. He was a member of the Executive Council of Lower Canada from 1837 to 1841. Sheppard contributed articles on Canadian botany to the Transactions of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec and to the Annals of the Botanical Society of Canada.

Francis John Shepherd was born in Como, Quebec, and took his medical degree from McGill University in 1873. After further studies in Britain and in Europe, he returned to McGill in 1875 as Demonstrator in Anatomy. In 1879, he joined the staff of the Montreal General Hospital. Shepherd also served as Professor of Dermatology from 1908 to 1913, and as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine from 1908 to 1914. He retired as Emeritus Dean and Professor in 1919. He studied with William Osler who became a lifelong friend. He had three children: a son Ernest who died during WW1 and two daughters, Dorothy and Cecil. Cecil married the architect Percy E. Nobbs.

Elijah E. Shelton, Esq., was a Montreal lawyer and merchant, active in the 19th century (The Montreal Merchants Exchange, Merchants' Bank of Canada). In 1857, he was elected a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a member of the Council of the Natural History Society of Montreal (1873) and its treasurer (1881).