Dr. John Sherman

Notes:

He and his wife Abigail Stone "settled in Springfield, Mass., where he was a schoolmaster and physician; but about 1722 they removed to the region which in 1731 became the town of Brimfield, where he was a physician, town clerk for thirty successive years, representative three years, and captain of militia." They were married for nearly seventy years.

John married Abigail Stone on 9 Nov 1703 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts. Abigail (daughter of Daniel Stone and Mary Moore) was born on 13 Feb 1681 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts; died on 9 Mar 1772 in Brimfield, Hampden, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Jacobus (citation details below) gives this marriage a date of "9 Nov. 170(3?)". The published vital records of Sudbury (citation details below) say "SHEARMAN, John and Abigaill Ston, Nov. 9, 170[torn] [? 1703]".

We note, however, that Jacobus, Bartlett (citation details below), and the vital records of Brimfield (citation details below) all agree that John and Abigail's eldest child Bezaleel was born 31 Mar 1703, suggesting that this marriage may actually have taken place on 9 Nov 1702, or even 9 Nov 1701 — although John Sherman would have been eleven days short of 18 years old on that latter date.

1. Bezaleel Sherman was born on 31 Mar 1703 in Brimfield, Hampden, Massachusetts; died in 1779.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 1645

Notes:

Minister at Sudbury, Massachusetts, Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and Salem, Massachusetts.

James married Mary Walker on 13 May 1680 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts. Mary (daughter of Thomas Walker and Mary Stone) was born on 9 Aug 1661 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts; died after 11 Mar 1709. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 9 Aug 1661, Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts

Notes:

"Said by Cotton Mather to have come to New England in 1634, possibly the John Sherman, aged 20, enrolled on the Elizabeth of Ipswich, 30 April 1634, although Great Migration has assigned that record to his cousin of about the same age who became known as Captain JOHN SHERMAN (GM2, 6:287-94) of Watertown. Rev. John Sherman's parents and several siblings came to Watertown in 1635 and he removed with them to Wethersfield the same year. John moved on to Milford in 1640 and New Haven, Connecticut, before returning to Watertown in 1647." [Early New England Families Study Project, citation details below]

"He was dismissed from the Watertown, Mass. church, 29 May 1635, and came to Wethersfield, Connecticut with the early settlers. He represented Wethersfield as Committee (Deputy) in the Connecticut General Court, May 1637. He joined the Milford settlers, probably in 1640, and was the first minister of Branford, 1 Oct. 1644 to Jan. 1646/7. He was Deputy for Milford to the New Haven General Court, Oct 1643. In 1647 he was called to Watertown, Mass., to fill the pastorate there, and continued in this office until his death." [Donald Lines Jacobus, citation details below]

He was a Fellow of Harvard College, where he lectured for over thirty years. According to F. L. Weis's 1936 The Colonial Clergy and the Colonial Churches in New England, "his sermons were distinguished for beauty of style and language; he was a recognized authority in astronomy."

"Mather's [Magnalia Christi Americana says of the Rev. John Sherman that] 'His intellectual abilities, whether natural or acquired, were such as to render him a first-rate scholar, the skill of tongues and arts, beyond the common rate, adorned him. He was a great reader...he read with an unusual dispatch, and whatever he read became his own. From such a strength of invention and memory it was, that albeit he was a curious preacher, nevertheless, he could preach without any preparatory notes of what he was to utter...He was witty, and yet wise and grave, carrying a majesty in his very countenance; and much visited for council, in weighty cases; and when he delivered his judgment in any matter, there was little or nothing to be spoken by others after him.' His hobby was mathematics and Mather claimed that Sherman was one of the best mathematicians 'that ever lived in this hemisphere.' '...among other things very valuable to me, in the temper of this great man, one was a certain largeness of soul, which particularly disposed him to embrace the Congregational way of church-government, without those rigid and narrow principles of uncharitable separation, wherewith some good men have been learned.' 'And there was one thing in his preaching, which procured it a singular admiration: this was a natural and not affected loftiness of stile; which with an easie fluency bespangled his discourses....'" [Early New England Families Study Project, citation details below]

He was taken suddenly ill while delivering a guest sermon at Sudbury and died three days later in his house at Watertown. The Latin inscription on his tombstone there translates as "Sacred to the memory of John Sherman, a man distinguished for his piety, character, and truth; a profound theologian; as a preacher a veritable Chrysostom; unsurpassed in his knowledge of the liberal arts, particularly mathematics; a faithful pastor of the Church of Watertown in New England; an Overseer and Fellow of Harvard College."

"Rev. Mather's account of the career of Rev. John Sherman states that he entered 'Immanuel' (Emmanuel) College in Cambridge but did not graduate. Later historians apparently matched the name John Sherman with records of a man who entered Emmanual College in 1638, but who could not be the same as Rev. John Sherman of New England, who was in Connecticut by then. Another attempt was made to match him with the John Sherman who graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, recciving his B.A. in 1629-30 and MA in 1633. The problem here is that this man was a tutor at Trinity from 1636 to 1644, received a B.D. in 1640, and a D.D., per Literas Regias, in 1660." [Early New England Families Study Project, citation details below]

John married Mary Launce about 1647. Mary (daughter of John Launce and Isabella Darcy) was born about 1625; died on 9 Mar 1710 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

One of AP's two proven gateway ancestors.

Cotton Mather, in Magnalia Christi Americana, called Mary Launce, second wife of the Rev. John Sherman, a "young gentlewoman [...] a Person of good Education, and Reputation, and honorably descended," whose mother was "daughter to the Lord Darcy, who was Earl of Rivers." She certainly was not, and in his pioneering 1860-64 Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, James Savage took delight at exercising his well-known animus against Mather, who "tells of this wife calling her mother daughter of Darcy, Earl Rivers, one of the Popish Counsellors of Charles I who had no daughter that married a Launce." Savage continues: "If [Mary Launce Sherman] did give [her husband] these myths of her noble descent [...] either she was insane, which he had not sanity enough to discover, or she was irreverently playing on his bottomless credulity." It was left to the great Donald Lines Jacobus, founder of the twentieth-century "Jacobus School" of skeptical, fact-based genealogy, to point out, in a 1944 article, "The Family of Rev. John Sherman" (citation details below), that Mary Launce's mother really was a Darcy, albeit one of the Darcy family of Kent. Isabella Darcy of London, daughter of Sir Edward Darcy, a confidant and ally of Elizabeth I, first married John Launce of Cornwall and, secondly, the Rev. Sydrach Simpson, master of Pembroke Hall at Cambridge University. Her 1668 will names, with others, her sons James Launce and Darcy Launce, and her daughter Mary Sherman. In a subsequent article, "The Darcy Ancestry of Mrs. John Sherman" (citation details below), Jacobus put forth further proofs of Mary Launce's parentage, calling it a "perfect chain of evidence" and remarking that "Few English lines of early colonists are so thoroughly proved."

Descendants of the Rev. John Sherman and Mary Launce include Norman Rockwell, Declaration of Independence signer Robert Treat Paine, and the 68th governor of Massachusetts, William Weld.

Regarding the date of her death, the Early New England Families Study Project (citation details below) states only that she "[d]ied probably at Watertown between 15 October 1705 and 24 December 1712. She was living on 20 October 1704, when she acknowledged a deed." But Watertown records (citation details below) clearly state "m^s Mary Sherman (widow of mr. John Sherman Late: R^d: pastor of the church in watertown) deceas^t march : 9 : 1709/10".

Thomas married Mary Stone before 1661. Mary (daughter of Dr. Daniel Stone and Mary) was born on 22 Mar 1644 in Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts; died in 1731. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Bef 1574, Dedham, Essex, England
• Alternate death: May 1641, New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut

Notes:

He and his wife emigrated to New England in 1635. First at Watertown, them Wethersfield by 1638, and New Haven by 1640.

Edmund Sherman (<1574-1641) = Grace Makin (d. 1643)
Hon. Samuel Sherman (1618-1700) = Sarah Mitchell
Deac. John Sherman (1651-1730) = Elizabeth
John Sherman (1687-1727) = Emm Preston
Hon. Daniel Sherman (1721-1799) = Mindwell Taylor
Hon. Taylor Sherman (1758-1815) = Betsey Stoddard
Charles R. Sherman (1788-1829) = Mary Hoyt
Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891)

Edmund married Grace Makin before 1599. Grace (daughter of Tobias Makin and Katherine Westbrome) was born about 1578; died after 14 Jun 1643. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

John Launce was described by Cotton Mather in Magnalia Christi Americana as "a Puritan gentleman [...] whose lands in Cornwall yielded him fourteen hundred pounds a year. He was a Parliament man, a Man learned and pious, and a notable Disputant; but once disputing against the English Episcopacy [...] he was worsted by such a way of maintaining the Argument, as was thought agreeable; that is, by a Wound in the Side, from his furious Antagonist; of which Wound at last he died."

John married Isabella Darcy about 1619. Isabella (daughter of Edward Darcy and Elizabeth Astley) was born about 1600; died between 29 May 1668 and 4 Aug 1669. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1669, London, England

Notes:

Her second husband was the Rev. Sydrach Simpson, Master of Pembroke Hall at the University of Cambridge.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Baptised: 15 Aug 1620, Nayland, Suffolk, England

Daniel married Mary about 1643. Mary died on 8 Aug 1658 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]