My Genealogy Hound

Charles Sherman, a well-to-do agriculturist and business man living on his farm of 95 acres in section 30, Oakland township, Oakland County, is one of the county’s oldest citizens, and is now retired from active agricultural work. He was born on a farm between Canandaigua and Rushville, Ontario County, New York, August 8, 1819, and is a son of Job and Elizabeth (McClave) Sherman, both natives of the Mohawk Valley, in New York State.

Job Sherman was born near Saratoga Springs, New York, and followed farming in the Empire State until 1831, when he removed with his family to Michigan by way of the Erie Canal to Buffalo and then by boat to Detroit, where they landed November 3rd. He then located in section 18, Oakland township, Oakland County, three miles north of where our subject now lives, and engaged in farming. He was a Quaker and his wife was an Episcopalian, but as no church of either denomination was established in Ontario County, New York, at the time they lived there, they joined the Methodist Church. The parents and oldest daughter organized the first Methodist Church in Oakland County, which was located about a mile and a half west of Rudd’s Mills. The father died about 15 months after settling here, aged 51 years, and the mother died at the age of 66. Five sons and two daughters were born to them, namely: William, who died in New York, at the age of 21; Cornelia, who married Samuel Eaton, of Ontario County, New York, and is now deceased; Jeremiah, now deceased, who came to Michigan with the family; Maria, who married Jerome Walton of Oakland County, both now deceased; Charles, our subject; James, deceased; and Hoffman, deceased.

Charles Sherman was about 12 years of age when he came to this county with his parents, and has lived here ever since, engaged in farming. He now rents his farm and is living a retired life.

Mr. Sherman was married June 18, 1846, to Mary Ann Hammond, who was born in New York and brought to Michigan by her parents when a child of one and a half years. Her father, Ira Hammond, located in Oakland township, Oakland County, in 1827, and died on the place where our subject now resides, in 1863, his wife dying one week earlier than he. Mrs. Sherman died April 4, 1900, at the age of 74 years. The subject of this sketch cast his first presidential vote for William Henry Harrison. He is a Republican in politics, and has served in several local offices. He is a member of the Baptist Church and has devoted a great deal of attention to Sunday-school work since his boyhood, and has served as a Sunday-school superintendent for a great many years.