Roger SHERMAN, Congress, CT (1721-1793)

SHERMAN, Roger, (father-in-law of Samuel Hoar and Simeon Baldwin, grandfather of William Evarts, Roger Sherman Baldwin, George Frisbie Hoar and Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, great-grandfather of Rockwood Hoar and Sherman Hoar, great-great grandfather of Henry Sherman Boutell, great-great-uncle of Chauncey M. Depew), a Delegate, a Representative, and a Senator from Connecticut; born in Newton, Mass., April 19, 1721; moved with his parents to Stoughton (now Canton), Mass., in 1723; attended the public schools; learned the shoemaker’s trade; moved to New Milford, Conn., in 1743; surveyor of New Haven County in 1745; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1754 and practiced; member, Connecticut assembly 1755-1756, 1758-1761, 1764-1766; justice of the peace for Litchfield County 1755-1761, and of the quorum 1759-1761; moved to New Haven, Conn., in June 1761; justice of the peace and member of the court 1765-1766; member, State senate 1766-1785; judge of the superior court 1766-1767, 1773-1788; member of the council of safety 1777-1779; Member of the Continental Congress 1774-1781, and 1784; a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a member of the committee which drafted it; member of the committee to prepare the Articles of Confederation; the only Member of the Continental Congress who signed the Declaration of 1774, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Federal Constitution; mayor of New Haven from 1784 until his death; delegate to the Federal Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia in 1787; elected to the First Congress (March 4, 1789-March 3, 1791); elected to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of William S. Johnson and served from June 13, 1791, until his death in New Haven, Conn., July 23, 1793; interment in Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven (formerly known as New Haven City Burying Ground).

Bibliography

Dictionary of American Biography; Rommel, John G. Connecticut’s Yankee Patriot: Roger Sheman. Hartford: American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of Connecticut, 1980; Collier, Christopher. Roger Sherman’s Connecticut: Yankee Politics and the American Revolution. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1971; Gerbr, Scott D. “Roger Sherman and the Bill of Rights.” Polity 28 (Summer 1996): 521-540.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present