Captain Richard Winslow Sherman

U.S. Vice President Direct Ancestor

Richard Sherman is an ancestor of a US President/Vice President

This person is an ancestor of James Schoolcraft Sherman 27th US Vice President

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sherman-3116

Richard Winslow Sherman (1797 - 1868)

Captain Richard Winslow Sherman

Born 14 Apr 1797 in Albany, Albany, New York

Son of Jahaziel Sherman and Nancy (Winslow) Sherman

[sibling%28s%29 unknown]

Husband of Frances Lucretia (Williams) Sherman — married 3 Jan 1821 in Utica, Oneida, New York

Father of Mary Frances Sherman

Died 22 Mar 1868 in Vergennes, Addison, Vermont

Profile last modified 11 Sep 2019 | Created 2 Nov 2014

Biography

Lake Champlain, Lake George, and Richelieu River HISTORY TIMELINE
September 4, 1819 "On Saturday at 11:00 P.M. the Phoenix left her dock at Burlington, in command of Capt. Richard W. Sherman, son of Capt. Jehaziel Sherman, the regular captain. It was a clear moonlight evening and the route lay near Rock and Appletree Points, between Colchester reefs, on the west of Stave and Providence Islands and east of Valcour and Crab Islands. Among the passengers were George Burnham, the Custom House Officer, and John Howard, on his way to Montreal with $8,000 as a special messenger of the Bank of Burlington."**

September 5 "About 1 o'clock in the morning the pantry of the Phoenix was discovered to be on fire by John Howard, occupying an adjoining room. The flames soon reaching the engine in the centre of the boat cut off all communication between the two ends. The starboard boat with 20 passengers made for Providence Island (the nearest land), but the larboard boat, the larger of the two, was cut loose with but 14 passengers leaving 11 to their fate. These sought escape on any floating material. Five found a watery grave, among them Mrs. Wilson of Charlotte, the stewardess, who had remained to save others, and Harvey Blush, a deck hand, whose parents erected a stone to his memory in Elmwood Cemetery, Burlington, to this day a pathetic reminder of the disaster. Captain Sherman was the last to leave the boat and was picked up near Stave Island insensible. He, with John Howard, Harry Thomas and Mrs. Wilson made heroic efforts to save others. Early morning brought help from Burlington, Captains Robert and Lavater White, Dan Lyon and Almas Truman, coming in their sloops."**

THREE CENTURIES IN THE CHAMPLAIN VALLEY: A COLLECTION OF HISTORICAL FACTS AND INCIDENTS- TERCENTENARY EDITION. 1909: Compiled and Edited by Mrs. George Fuller Tuttle. Saranac Chapter, D.A.R. Plattsburgh, NY.

Acknowledgements

Created by Laura Scott, Sunday, November 2, 2014.

In an era when steamboat captains were the equivalent of rock stars, Robert W. Sherman, who died at the age of 71 in 1868, was one of the most celebrated on Lake Champlain. The Plattsburgh Sentinel (3 April 1868) picks up the story:

"A New Yorker by birth, he was the eldest of three sons. Early embracing steamboat life, (his father being the third captain Robert Fulton employed), he in 1815, just after the war, took command of the "Champlain" and afterwards of the "Phoenix," with which vessel he remained until her memorable destruction by fire off Providence Island, when he played so heroic a part in saving the lives of his passengers. In 1824 he left our lake waters to take command of the "Chief Justice John Marshall," then one of the finest passenger steamboats on the North River. Returning to Lake Champlain in 1837, he was at once put in command of the "Franklin" and the trod the deck of the old "Burlington," until his retirement in 1846."

In the 1930 history of the Lake Champlain Transportation Company, The Steamboats of Lake Champlain, 1809-1930, its author writes about Sherman:

"It is a little difficult at this time to realize to what an extent a particular vessel and its commander stirred the public imagination and popular emotion. Steamboating had gradually become America's "Grand Passion," and for it, and to the men engaged in it, the public readily prepared a pedestal. Trained by his father, Captain Jahaziel Sherman, at this time a Director of The Champlain Transportation Company, young Richard W. Sherman had early won popular esteem for his coolness and courage on the night of the burning of the first Phoenix. Quick to see the advantages of system and order inaugurated by his father in handling a steamboat, R. W. Sherman carried them into greater detail and, having first become thoroughly familiar with every phase of his work, he established on the Burlington such a system of discipline and order as could not have been excelled on a man-of-war. Combined with the fine vessel he commanded, the result was to make the Burlington celebrated as the "paragon of steamers" both in America and Europe.

"There is no doubt but that Captain Sherman was a bit of an autocrat and that he catered largely to the "best people". In 1840, President Martin Van Buren was a passenger on the Burlington, and, on boarding the vessel, one of his staff asked him if he did not desire to meet this famous commander. The President replied, "No. I know Sherman. He thinks the world is a steamboat and he is the Captain". Later, however, the President did meet Captain Sherman and was a guest at his table. It is perhaps not out of place to remark here that Captain Sherman's grandson, James S. Sherman, became Vice President of the United States some sixty years later.