Roger Sherman

Roger Sherman was born in 1721 in Newton, Massachusetts, worked as a shoemaker and surveyor, and taught himself law after moving to Connecticut. He became a respected attorney, a judge, and mayor of New Haven, and was known for plain speech and patience in argument. In the Continental Congress he served on the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence, together with Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and Robert R. Livingston, and he signed the finished document. He also signed the Articles of Confederation and, at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, helped shape the compromise between large and small states. He is the only person who signed all four of the principal American founding documents: the Continental Association of 1774, the Declaration, the Articles, and the Constitution. A serious Congregationalist, he lived modestly and ended his career as a United States senator from Connecticut. He died in 1793.

See also: Signers of the Declaration · Samuel Huntington · William Williams · Oliver Wolcott · John Adams · Thomas Jefferson · Benjamin Franklin