♂Henry Sherman

Henry Sherman (about 1547 – buried 28 August 1610) was a clothier of Dedham, in Essex, England, whose father left him “my Shearmans crafte” “to hym and his heires for ever”. Shearmen finished woollen cloth, and the family took its name from the trade. He and his wife Susan Lawrance died within three weeks of each other in the late summer of 1610. He was most likely the tenth great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through his son Samuel Sherman (1573–1616).

Dedham

Henry was born about 1547, the son of Henry Sherman, a shearman of Dedham who later lived at Colchester, and probably of his first wife Agnes. While his father lived, Dedham knew the son as “the younger”. In 1571 William Littlebury of Dedham named father and son, with Henry’s brother Edmund, as feoffees^W of lands in his will.

Henry Sherman and Susan Lawrance married at Moze, in Essex, about ten miles from Dedham, on 14 June 1568. Their children were baptized at Dedham from Phebe in 1570 to Ezekiel in 1587, with Henry, Samuel, Anne, Nathaniel and John between them; Daniel and Edmund were born to them as well, and a first Nathaniel probably died as a baby in 1580. Wood’s study of the family counts a daughter Mary among their children, baptized at Dedham in 1592; she probably died young, as neither parent’s will of 1610 names her. Nine of the children lived to be named in their parents’ wills in 1610.

The clothier

Henry’s trade came to him from his father. In January 1589/90 his father left him the shearman’s craft, the household goods already in his house, and five pounds for each of eight of his children. By 1610 he held the house he lived in, with a woad^W house and two tenters^W, on about twenty acres of the manor of Dedham Hall that had come to him on his father’s surrender. He also owned a broad loom, worked by John Orris of Lawford, and land and a wood at Ardleigh.

His dealings ran among the clothiers of Dedham and Colchester. In 1583 he was one of the auditors of the accounts of John Lufkyn, a Dedham clothier, and in 1597 he and Richard Upcher sued three clothiers of Dedham and Colchester on bonds made at Manningtree. In October 1599 he and George Cole surrendered a third part of Pepers field to the use of his son Samuel. In 1600 he and Thomas Lawrence of Easthorpe, a yeoman, were sued together by Joan Carter, a widow, for twenty pounds each.

Death and will

Henry made his will on 21 August 1610 as “Henry Shereman thelder of Dedham in the County of Essex Clothier”, and he was buried at Dedham a week later, on 28 August. He left Susan the house and its lands for her life, on condition that she kept them in repair, with sixty pounds, eight of his best milch cows, his black ambling mare and half the household goods, and made her his sole executrix. After her the house and the tenters were to go to their eldest son Henry. The younger sons had land or money: Nathaniel a house called Scotts and the broad loom, John and Ezekiel fields and meadow in Dedham, Edmund lands in Ardleigh, and Daniel twenty pounds. Henry and Samuel were to sell eight acres in the Hallfield for the grandchildren.

He left his best cloak to “my brother Lawrence of Esthorpe”, forty shillings to the poor of Dedham, and eight pounds to “Mr. Rogers Preacher of Dedham”, most likely the Puritan lecturer John Rogers^W. Susan proved the will at Colchester on 8 September, but she was dead within days. On 12 September the goods she had not yet settled passed to their son Henry, and she was buried at Dedham on 13 September.

Notes

Birth and parentage

The year of birth is an estimate, not a record. Sherman Genealogy (1920) gives “about 1547” without a source. Michael Johnson Wood, “The Earliest Shermans of Dedham, Essex, and Their Wives,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register 166 (2012): 245–58, and 167 (2013): 35–54, gives “born say 1545” for Henry, who married Susan Lawrance at Moze on 14 June 1568 (167:43). The 1920 book calls him Henry “the elder” of Dedham, clothier, and makes him a son of Henry Sherman “the elder of Colchester, formerly of Dedham, shearman”, whose will of 20 January 1589/90 was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury on 25 July 1590 and names “Henrye Shearman my sonne” and eight of his children.

Wood’s account of the elder Henry’s marriages puts his first wife, whom he married about 1539, as “probably identical with” Agnes, the wife of Henry Sherman the elder who was buried at Dedham on 14 October 1580, and lists the children under that first wife (NEHGR 166:256–57). Wood allows that Agnes may instead have been a second wife, in which case she could have been the mother of at least one of the youngest children. The father’s later wives were Marion, whom he married in 1581, and Margery.

“The younger” and “the elder”

The Dedham register as transcribed for FreeREG calls the father of Phebe (1570), Henry (1571) and Nathaniel (1582) “Henry Sharman the younger” and the father of John (1585) “Henry Sharman junior”, and a 1583 lawsuit names him “Henry Sherman, Junior”. His own will of 1610 calls him “thelder”, and the same register marks his burial on 28 August 1610 “The elder”; by then his son Henry was himself a grown clothier of Dedham.

The marriage

The marriage and Susan’s maiden name come from the Moze parish register, whose entry Bertha L. Stratton quotes from Crisp’s printed edition (p. 27): “Henry sherma[n] & susan Lawrence were Maryed ye 14 of Junij 1568” (Transatlantic Shermans, 1969, p. 88; the year is garbled in the scan of Stratton’s typescript). Sherman Genealogy gives the same marriage, citing the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 67, p. 154, and Wood gives the same date (NEHGR 167:43). The register itself has not been seen here.

The children

The Dedham register as transcribed for FreeREG has the baptisms of Phebe (1 May 1570), Henry (26 August 1571), Samuel (11 January 1572/3), Nathaniel (11 July 1582), John (17 August 1585) and Ezekiel (25 July 1587), each a child of Henry. A child of Henry baptized on 7 September 1575 is entered as Susan; Sherman Genealogy, which prints the date as 7 August 1575, takes it for Anne, who is named in her grandfather’s will of 1589/90 and in both wills of 1610, while no Susan is. Wood gives the same 7 August date for Anne (NEHGR 167:44–45). Daniel, born about 1578 by the book’s estimate, and Edmund, later of Colchester, have no baptism in the register. The first Nathaniel, baptized on 19 June 1580 and buried two days later, is given in Sherman Genealogy. The book also counts a Mary as a daughter of Henry. The Dedham register as transcribed for FreeREG gives her baptism on 27 July 1592, and Wood gives 25 July (NEHGR 167:44–45). Wood says she died “evidently before her parents as she was not mentioned in either’s will.” Neither will of 1610 names her.

The wills and the lawsuits

Henry’s will, Susan’s will and the grant of 12 September 1610 are printed in full in Sherman Genealogy, pp. 73–79, from the Consistory Court of London register “Hamer”; the probate clause of Henry’s will places its proof at Colchester on 8 September 1610, sworn by George Cole, notary public, as proctor for Susan. The grant of 12 September, made at Chelmsford, calls Susan “jam etiam defuncta”, now also dead, and names her son Henry the younger, eldest son of the deceased and executor of her will. The 1571 Littlebury will, the 1583 audit, the suits of 1597 and 1600 and the Dedham manor court of 1599 are given in the same book from published abstracts and the court rolls. In wills of the period “brother” often meant a brother-in-law, so “my brother Lawrence of Esthorpe” most likely points to Susan’s own family.

The line of descent

Henry and Susan are joined to Samuel by his baptism at Dedham as a son of Henry Sharman, by both wills of 1610, which name “Samuel Sherman my Sonne”, and by Susan’s legacy to “Mary Sherman my Sonne Samuels Daughter”, which fits Samuel’s daughter Mary, baptized at Dedham in 1599. The line from Samuel to Roger runs through Samuel’s son Philip, the settler of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and Philip’s son John Sherman (1644–1734), links that are themselves probable rather than proven.