♀Mary Sherman

Mary Sherman was a daughter of Philip Sherman, an early settler and recorder of Portsmouth, Rhode Island. She was the seventh great-grand-aunt of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), the sister of John Sherman (1644–1734), Roger’s seventh great-grandfather.

Family

A compiled genealogy gives her birth as about 1645, so the year is an estimate, and names her parents as Philip Sherman (died 1687) and Sarah Odding. Those are the same parents given for her brother John. Her father had left Roxbury in Massachusetts with the dissenters of 1638, signed the Portsmouth Compact^W and kept the records of the town and the colony. Her mother, Sarah Odding, was the stepdaughter of John Porter, and Philip followed Porter’s party from Roxbury to the island.

Her father’s will

Mary is named in her father’s will, made on 31 July 1681. It lists four daughters, Sarah, Mary, Hannah and Philip, who received sheep or money, and seven sons. The will was proved on 22 March 1686/7. It is the only record seen here that names her: it gives no marriage, no home of her own and no death, and the records do not say whether she was living when it was proved.

Notes

Other women called Mary Sherman appear in the records of the region. A compiled account makes one of them, born in 1664, a daughter of Peleg Sherman, Mary’s brother, and the wife of Lot Strange of Portsmouth; she would be Mary’s niece, not Mary herself.