Roger Sherman was one of five members of the drafting committee of the Declaration of Independence. The other members of The Committee of Five were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert Livingston. Roger Sherman is the only person to have signed all four great state papers of the United States: the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. He is the subject of one of the two statues from Connecticut in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol.
Born in 1721, in Newton, Massachusetts, Roger Sherman moved with his family to Stoughton, Massachusetts in 1723. He did not receive a formal education, but that does not mean he didn’t gain a lot of knowledge. His father had an extensive library from which he learned a great deal. He did attend a “common” school and apprenticed as a cobbler. As fate would have it, the parish minister, Reverend Samuel Dunbar, was Harvard-educated and was instrumental in Roger Sherman’s informal education.
When Roger Sherman’s father died, the nineteen year old young man took on the big responsibility of caring for his mother, younger siblings and the small farm. In 1744, the farm was sold and the family moved to New Milford in Connecticut where an older, married brother lived. Roger Sherman is said to have journeyed on foot, carrying his shoemaker’s tools with him.
In New Milford, Roger and his brother partnered up in a mercantile business. Roger Sherman loved learning and his studious behavior gained him knowledge of mathematics and the law. He was admitted to the bar in 1754. A few years earlier, at age 27, his astronomical calculations were published in a New York almanac.
In 1749, Roger returned to Stoughton, where he grew up, to marry Elizabeth Hartwell, the daughter of Deacon Joseph Hartwell. The couple returned to New Milford, where they had seven children. Sadly in 1760, Elizabeth died at the age of 34.
Roger Sherman moved to New Haven, Connecticut in 1761. In 1763, he married Rebecca Prescott. They had eight children. In 1764, Roger Sherman was elected to the General Assembly of Connecticut
On October 20, 1774, the First Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Association, which was a ban on trade with Britain. It was a hope that the boycott of British goods would make the British government reconsider the “Intolerable Acts” that had been imposed on the colonists and repeal them. Roger Sherman was among the signers of the Articles of Association.
The British did not repeal the “Intolerable Acts” which they called the “Coercive Acts”. Eventually this led to the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. Roger Sherman was a member of the Committee of Five, that wrote the Declaration. He also signed that document, and later signed the Articles of Confederation.
In 1784, he was elected as the first mayor of New Haven, Connecticut. Under the pseudonym “A Countryman”, Sherman wrote a series of newspaper letters to the people of Connecticut supporting the Constitution. Roger Sherman was well respected by those at the Constitutional Convention and many of his suggestions were part of the final product, that he would sign.
A major suggestion, Sherman proposed, that was adopted, was one that was acceptable to both large and small states, and was necessary to the final passage of the constitution. It was that the people would be represented proportionally in one branch of the legislature, called the House of Representatives, and the states would be represented in another house called the Senate. In the House, each state had a representative for every one delegate, and in the Senate each state was guaranteed two senators, regardless of its size.
Roger Sherman, aged 66 was the second oldest member of the Constitutional Convention. Ben Franklin, at age 81, was the oldest. Roger Sherman was not an eloquent speaker, and was described by some as even awkward at times, however his ideas were welcomed, respected and necessary to the end result.
He was well-liked, but known to be on the serious side, according to a book “The Life of Roger Sherman” by Lewis Henry Boutell (1896) that I came across, in which there were many anecdotes and original letters published.
This joke, credited to Roger Sherman is a peek at his humorous side. It was told that when the messenger who brought the news that Fort Ticonderoga had been taken, took much longer to arrive than was expedient, Roger Sherman dryly said that perhaps the messenger should be provided with spurs, for the next time.
In 1784 Roger Sherman was elected Mayor of New Haven. He held that office until his death in July 23, 1793 when he died in his sleep after a few months of illness.
The statue of Roger Sherman, that is one of the two statues from Connecticut in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol is attired in an outfit I see as having a Roman flair. I prefer the statue of Roger Sherman that stands in the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, where visitors can walk among the signers of the U.S. Constitution who met on September 17, 1787. These life-sized, bronze statues in Signers’ Hall were created by artists who used numerous historical sources, including portraits and written descriptions, to create the most accurate likenesses possible. In this exhibit, Roger Sherman is standing alone, with his hands folded in front of him, dressed in clothing of his time. I did read a description of how Roger Sherman often stood with his hands folded in front of him in the book I previously mentioned in this post.
Diana Erbio is a freelance writer and author of “Coming to America: A Girl Struggles to Find her Way in a New World”. Read more in her series Statues: The People They Salute visit The Table of Contents and the Facebook Page. (I’ll be adding to the Substack Table of Contents as I transfer the Blog Posts. Please subscribe to this Substack 😊🇺🇸🤓)
Sherman’s idea of representation came at a time where the Consitutional Convention was very contentious and at high risk for breaking up. Benjamin Franklin’s call to prayer helped calmed the waters so that Sherman’s wonderful idea could be accepted!
I learned so much from this article. Another American hero!