English
The surname Shearman is of English origin. It was an occupational name for a sheep-shearer or someone who used shears to tream the surface of finished cloth and remove excess nap; derived from the Middle English 'shereman', shearer. It is also a Jewish occupational name for a tailor, from the Yiddish 'sher', scissors and 'man', man. Roger Sherman ( 1722-93 ), the only man to sign all four documents at the foundation of the American republic ( the Declaration of Independance, the Articles of Association and Confederation, and the Constitution itself ), was born in Newton, Massachusetts. A descendant of Captain John Sherman, who hah emigrated in about 1636 to Massachusetts from Dedham, Essex, where his father was a farmer, following his brother Edmund, who had emigrated two years previously. A descendant of Edmund Sherman William Tecumseh Sherman ( 1820-91 ), celebrated General in the Civil War, who suceeded General Grant as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armies,1869, led the Union March through Georgia. He was born in Lancaster, Ohio, the son of a judge; his middle name was bestowed in honour of a Shawnee chieftain. The name dates back to the twelfth century were a Roger sereman is recorded in historical archives. One of the first fore fathers to bring this name to America is that of Edmund Sherman, who settled at New Haven, Connecticut. This name is the three-hundredth and thirty-first most common surname in America.