Shields, Alexander

Born: 1797 Franklin County, Pennsylvania

Died: 1882-09-05 Sangamon County, Illinois

Flourished: Sangamon County, Illinois

Shields graduated from the Western University of Pennsylvania at Pittsburgh and in 1832, he received a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He practiced medicine in Pennsylvania before moving to Springfield, Illinois, in May 1835. In 1837, he married Ann Capps Salisch in Springfield, and together they had four children. Shields practiced medicine in Springfield until 1845, when he moved his family to rural southern Sangamon County, where he began farming in addition to continuing his medical practice. By 1860, Shields had amassed $12,000 in real estate.

U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Sangamon County, IL, 69; John Carroll Power and S. A. Power, History of the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois (Springfield, IL: Edwin A. Wilson, 1876), 185-86, 649-50; Gravestone, Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, IL.