Roger Sherman
Roger Sherman was the great-grandson of Capt. John Sherman came from England to Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1635. Roger was the son of William Sherman, born in Newton, Massachusetts, on April 19; his father was a respectable farmer with means too limited to educate his son and bound him as an apprentice to a shoemaker.When Sherman was nineteen, he went to New Milford, Connecticut, where he followed his trade for three years, devoting every leisure moment to his books. He also supported his widowed mother with her family of small children. In June 1743, he moved his mother and children to New Milford and entered the mercantile business.
Fifteen Children
At twenty-eight, he married Elizabeth Hartwell of Staughton, Massachusetts, who died in 1780, leaving seven children. He married secondly, Rebecca Prescott, who had eight children.1754, Sherman was admitted to the bar, better prepared to enter this arduous profession and do justice to his clients. The following year, he was elected a member of the Colonial Assembly. He remained in that body during the remainder of his residence in New Milford, and in 1759, he was appointed a Judge of the County of Litchfield.
In 1761, he removed to New Haven, where he was appointed justice of the peace, and elected to the Assembly, and in 1765, was placed upon the judicial bench of the county court.
Judge Sherman was a member of the first Continental Congress and remained firm and unwavering in his post during the heart-rending scenes of the Revolution, the formation of the new government, and the adoption of the Federal Constitution.
He was elected New Haven, Connecticut's first mayor in 1784.
Judge Sherman was elected a member of the first Congress under the new Constitution and resigned his judicial station, which he had so long adorned with the ermine of impartiality and equal justice.
At the expiration of his representative term, he served in the United States Senate, of which he was a member when he died on 23, 1793.