Sherman, Roger

Born: 1721-04-19 Newtown, Massachusetts

Died: 1793-07-23 New Haven, Connecticut

Flourished: New Haven, Connecticut

Roger Sherman was a shoemaker, surveyor, merchant, lawyer, colonial legislator, Revolutionary-era political leader, U.S. representative, U.S. senator, and founding father of the United States. Born into a family of farmers, Sherman attended public schools in his native Massachusetts. Upon his father's death, Sherman moved the family to Connecticut, buying a farm in New Fairfield. Sherman learned the craft of shoemaker, cobbling shoes and working the farm as he studied surveying. In 1745, he became surveyor of New Haven County. Sherman moved to New Milford, Connecticut, to go into partnership with his brother in a general store. Sherman self-taught enough law to pass the bar in 1754, and entered in the practice of law. His career in political service began in 1748--a career that would continue until his death. From 1748 to 1761, he served as selectman, justice of the peace, and New Milford's representative in the Connecticut General Assembly. Moving to New Haven in 1761, Sherman continued his political career, serving as justice of the peace and member of the court, judge of the Superior Court, and member of the Connecticut Senate. He also became the treasurer of Yale College in 1765.

In 1774, Connecticut sent Sherman as a delegate to the First Continental Congress. Continuing his tenure into the Second Continental Congress, Sherman served until 1781. Alongside Thomas Jefferson, he was appointed to the committee of five that drafted the Declaration of Independence. He also served on the committee that drew up the Articles of Confederation. In 1787, he was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Sherman’s signature appears on many of America’s founding documents and he is the only person to have signed the Articles of Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States of America. After working to secure ratification of the Constitution, Sherman represented Connecticut in the U.S. Representatives from 1789 until 1791 and in the U.S. Senate from 1791 until his death from typhoid fever.

Sherman married twice and fathered fifteen children.

Thomas Townsend Sherman, Sherman Genealogy Including Families of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, England, Some Descendants of the Immigrants Captain John Sherman, Reverend John Sherman, Edmund Sherman, and Samuel Sherman, and the Descendants of Honorable Roger Sherman and Honorable Charles R. Sherman (New York: Tobias A. Wright, 1920) 149-207; Julian P. Boyd, "Sherman, Roger," Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964), 9:88-91; Christopher Collier, "Sherman, Roger," American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 19: 816-19; Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 1815; Gravestone, Grove Street Cemetery, New Haven, CT.