♂Henry Shearman

Henry Shearman (28 September 1730 – 22 January 1805) was a Dartmouth, Massachusetts man who moved his family to Cambridge, in Washington County, New York, after the Revolution. He was the fourth great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through his son Batchelder Sherman (1761–1828).

Early life and marriage

Henry was born at Dartmouth, in Bristol County, Massachusetts, a son of Jabez Sherman (1700–1774), a shipwright, and Jedidah Hawes (1709–1764). On 17 September 1749 he married Ruth Akin (1731–1821) at Dartmouth. When Jabez made his will in June 1774 he divided his land among a large family of sons: the homestead went to Henry’s elder brother Fortunatus, and Henry received about an acre and a half “where his dwelling house is”.

The couple’s children grew up at Dartmouth. The printed town records do not list their births, though a Massachusetts birth record gives Shubal’s, at Dartmouth on 15 October 1750, naming his parents as Henry and Ruth. Two of the Dartmouth marriages also record the children. Deborah married David Dewers in December 1770, and the marriage intention calls her the daughter of Henry. Shubal married Meribah Macomber in November 1773.

Cambridge, New York

During the war a Henry Sherman of Van Veghten’s regiment of Albany County militia was paid for his service in four certificates. That record gives no place or age, but lineage societies identify the soldier with this Henry, so the service is probable rather than proven. In the years after the Revolution the family, like several Dartmouth neighbors, moved west to Cambridge in Washington County, New York. His brother Fortunatus went too. A family history written by a descendant records that Henry returned to Dartmouth in 1782 to sell the home lot he had inherited, and that the deed describes him as already living in Cambridge. The 1790 census shows Henry and his sons John, Batchelder and Shubal as four neighboring households in Cambridge.

Henry made his will at Cambridge on 10 July 1801. It names his wife Ruth, four sons (Shubal, John, Henry and Batchelder) and three daughters: Almy, “Peters that was”; Deborah Duers; and Ruth Cook. Ruth had married Benjamin Cook in New York in 1779. Batchelder was left the use of the land he was already farming for as long as his mother lived. Deborah was provided with a house and lot for her lifetime, which then passed to her son William Duers. The four sons were to share their father’s clothes. The will even named three men who were to settle any dispute among the heirs.

Henry died at Cambridge on 22 January 1805 and was buried at Greenwich, the neighboring town. On 18 April 1805 two witnesses to the will swore before the county surrogate that they had seen him sign and seal it, and his son Shubal took the executor’s oath. Ruth survived him by about fifteen years and left a will of her own.

Notes

Earlier compilations treated Henry and his brother Fortunatus as possibly one man. Their father’s will gives each of them a separate legacy, and each is documented separately at Cambridge, so they were two brothers who made the same move. The Sons of the American Revolution lists a Henry Sherman of Dartmouth with the same death date as a private in New York service, married to a Chloe Mason. Whether that record belongs to this Henry, perhaps through a second marriage, has not been resolved.