♂Allen Sherman

Allen Sherman (born 7 March 1811) was a son of Batchelder Sherman (1761–1828) and Waite Allen (1766–1850), one of the sixteen children listed for them on a Sherman family card file compiled in 1913, which gives his birth date. He was the second great-grand-uncle of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), the brother of Salena Sherman (1806–1842), Roger’s second great-grandmother.

The family was at Cambridge, in Washington County, New York, at the census of 1810, and his father was on a Chenango County land assessment by 1818, so the move to New Berlin came between the 1810 census and 1818. His father made his will “of New Berlin” on 2 January 1828, when Allen was sixteen, and left one dollar to each of six sons, Allen among them. The remainder of the personal estate was to go to Waite for her lifetime and afterwards to the four daughters. Batchelder Sherman died on 26 February 1828, and the will was proved on 15 October 1828.

The one later record attached to Allen is the 1850 census, where an index lists “Allen F Sherman”, aged 39 and born in New York, at New Berlin, Chenango, New York. He is in the household of Wait Sherman, aged 83, with Prudence Sherman, aged 50, who match his mother and his sister Prudence, both named in the will. Waite Allen died there on 22 August 1850. No marriage, death or burial is recorded for Allen.

Notes

The 1850 household

The 1850 census had no column for relationship, so the household is taken to be a mother with two of her children from the names, the ages and the will. The ages agree with the card file: a man of 39 in 1850 was born about 1811. The census alone does not exclude a grandson of the same name, but the will names a son Allen, which makes a son the more likely reading. The index alone gives the middle initial F.