Roger that - as in the Roger that did it all.

News

Nov 3

Blog by Emily Pierce, PLS, CFedS

I’m back to my excavation of our colonial past, this time looking at another signer of the Declaration of Independence – Roger Sherman. By all accounts, Roger wasn’t a flashy guy, but he sure delivered when it counted.

*Roger Sherman in a painting by Ralph Earl, 1751-1801.*

He was descended from the Shermans of Yaxley, in the county of Suffolk, England, who were landed gentry who had helped to frame the British Constitution. Born in 1721, the second of seven children of William and Mehatabel Sherman, Roger became farmer and a cordwainer (a person who makes shoes and other items from leather) like his Puritan father.

He spent most of his early years in Stoughton, Connecticut where he farmed and, due to his natural ability with numbers (and access to his father’s library), taught himself surveying. When Roger was 19, his father passed away, so Roger became head of the family and sold the place in Stoughton and moved the family to New Milford in 1743 to join his older brother William.

Just two years after that, Roger was appointed the surveyor of New Haven County, then later Litchfield County as well. Due to his position, and likely his talent for math, he quickly realized that land speculation was a good business and started building his portfolio that soon grew to include real estate, retail and publishing. Of course, he didn’t just own these enterprises, he did the work, including surveying the properties, selling the inventory and writing almanacs based on his own astronomical observations. He also included poetry, such as this gem:

“A faithful man in public is a Pillar in a Nation
Good Laws well executed, are the Bulwarks of Liberty and Property
He who by good Actions deserves well, needs not another’s praise.
Publick good is to be preferred before private Interest.”

— Paltsits, V. H. (1907). The Almanacs of Roger Sherman, 1750-1761. United States: Davis Press.

Makes me glad this person was instrumental in founding our country!

Sherman was a true leader, investing his time, energy and money into public works projects. When a flood washed away the only bridge in New Milford, he gathered a small group of town leaders and invested in building a new bridge. He also helped set up inoculation sites for small pox which at the time was seen as highly experimental and dangerous – this work undoubtedly saved many lives in the New Milford area.

Aside from everything else he was doing, during this period, he also married Elizabeth Hartwell and the family eventually grew to include seven children.

Wait, there’s more

One day, when he was going to visit a neighboring town, Sherman agreed to visit an attorney on the behalf of a friend. During the visit, he dutifully took notes, and after the consultation was done, the attorney had him surrender the notes, which the lawyer exclaimed were as good as any lawyer could produce. This experience inspired Sherman to pursue a legal career, which he did through his own self-study program. In 1754, he was admitted to the Connecticut Bar. This opened up the door to public service in a broader way, and he did three stints as member of the Connecticut Assembly, became the justice of the peace in several jurisdictions, was elected to the state Senate, became a judge of the superior court and member of the council of safety. After moving to New Haven in 1761, he became locally prominent, becoming mayor of New Haven from 1784 until 1793.

He was so prominent in Connecticut politics that he was elected to the First Continental Congress in 1774. Historian Julian P Boyd wrote:

As a prosperous merchant who objected to an external control over his trade, and as a Puritan who regarded the existing order as one that would retain its excellence only if kept intact, he naturally fell in with the Revolutionary movement. The enforcement of the Navigation Acts on the one hand, and the dubious prospect of an Anglican bishop in Connecticut on the other, struck at two of the main pillars in Sherman’s cosmos. He lacked the training in philosophy and jurisprudence that characterized the learned James Wilson and the radical Thomas Jefferson, but, surprising to relate, this orthodox and conservative Puritan stood with them in advance of his countrymen on the fringes of treason by declaring that Parliament had no right in any case to legislate for the colonies. He was one of the first to refer to the colonies as “distinct dominions” in the British Empire.*

Later, Sherman played a key role in the Constitutional Congress in Philadelphia. When the delegates were deadlocked about how to divide legislative representation among large states and small states, Sherman and his colleague Oliver Ellsworth introduced the Connecticut Compromise. Also called The Great Compromise, it established a bicameral legislature. Each state, regardless of size, would elect two members to the Senate. However, the number of members of the House of Representatives would depend on the population of the state.**

So we either can blame or credit Sherman for the structure of our legislature. At the time, he came up with a compromise that probably saved our infant country.

Sherman was also highly esteemed by his peers. Thomas Jefferson said that he was “a man who never said a foolish thing in his life,” and John Adams described him as “one of the most sensible men in the world.” He was also key to the founding of our country as the only person to have signed all four of the most significant documents in our country’s early history:

The continental Association from the first Continental Congress,
The Declaration of Independence
The Articles of Confederation
The US Constitution

It’s amazing, that for all of his contributions, Roger Sherman isn’t better known, like, why isn’t there a broadway show about him like there is for Alexander Hamilton?

It could be that his character was the antithesis of charismatic. He was a brilliant workhorse with incorruptible ethics – just the kind of person needed when laying out the blueprint of a new kind of country.

* Boyd, “Portrait of a Cordwainer Statesman,” 229.

** https://www.biography.com/political-figure/roger-sherman