When Moses was about seven years old his father, Colonel Shepherd, removed his large family to his plantation between Big Wheeling and Little Creek, which is now included within the limits of Elm Grove. On the banks of the creek he built Fort Shepherd, that the settlers for miles around might have a place of refuge from the Indians. Of this fort Colonel Shepherd was in command till it was destroyed by the Indians in 1777. The family was hastily removed to Fort Henry, nearer the present site of Wheeling. There they were hard pressed by the Indians. Moses, along with other children, assisted in the defence by moulding bullets and carrying ammunition. Word went out to the neighboring strongholds of the endangered settlers at Fort Henry. Captain John Boggs, then at Catfish Camp (now Washington, Pennsylvania), hurried to the assistance of Colonel Shepherd with forty armed men. With him was his daughter, Lydia, who took her place with Moses and the other young people as an assistant to the defenders. She was there when Molly Scott made her sally from the fort in search of shot, and she saw the heroine bring it in in her apron. She witnessed also the attempt of Major Samuel McColloch to enter the fort at the head of a squad of men which he had brought from Fort Van Meter, a few miles away. With joy she saw the men enter the gate of the fort, and her heart was in her mouth when she saw that McColloch, who was her cousin, was unable to follow because the Indians had managed to get between him and the gate. At last the gate was closed, lest the Indians gain entrance, and the gallant Major was left to his fate. The Indians thought they could capture him easily. They hemmed him on Wheeling Hill, on three sides. On the fourth side was a rocky precipice almost sheer, covered with growth of trees and bushes. But the savages were not to have such an easy victory after all, for Major McColloch urged his horse over the brow of the steep hill, and, to the astonishment of all, slipped, slid, and fell to the bottom, where the way across the creek and to safety was comparatively easy. The Indians were finally driven away, but not until Moses Shepherd had made the acquaintance of Lydia Boggs, his companion in service at the fort. They were married later. In 1798, after the death of Colonel David Shepherd, Colonel Moses Shepherd took her to the palatial new home built on the site of the second Fort Shepherd, near the banks of Wheeling Creek. This house, which was called at first the Shepherd Mansion or the Stone House, later became known as the Monument Place.