American aphorist · compiler of Salt from My Attic (1928) · life dates not established
John A. Shedd is one of the quieter figures in quotation history: the author of one of the most repeated sentences in English, and a man about whom almost nothing is recorded. In 1928 the Mosher Press of Portland, Maine printed his slim collection Salt from My Attic; three years later the syndicated columnist Ed Howe reprinted several of its lines and described him simply as an amateur. The Yale Book of Quotations credits him with the ship adage. We could not find birth or death dates for him in any reference we were able to reach, and we would rather say so than guess.