“Sherman began to read law, in consequence of the incident to which I have alluded, when he was about thirty years of age, and was admitted to the bar in Litchfield County in 1754. There were then few lawyers in the colony who gained the whole of their livelihood from their profession. Many were also farmers. Sherman retained his interest in the New Milford store. “Meanwhile he had been sent to the General Assembly, and made first a justice of the peace, and then a side judge of the County Court. “The record of one of the early justice suits tried before him well illustrates the difference in political ideas between those times and ours. It shows the conviction and fine of one of his fellow-townsmen for a violation of the Colony statute in not attending public worship in any congregation allowed by law on January 29, 1758, nor on any Sunday in the month next preceding. “‘Squire’ Sherman, as he was now called, brought to his new profession the strong common sense and good business judgment which had served to advance him in his previous employments, and which, if added to sound learning, will always assure success at the bar. “The late President Porter, who, in early life, was settled as a minister at New Milford, once told me of a story which he heard here of some wise words uttered by Sherman at this period in his history. ‘Squire Sherman,’ said one of his neighbors to him, one day, ‘tell me, are most controversies that come before Judges in lawsuits decided justly or unjustly?’ ‘Sir,’ was the reply, ‘it’s not the point whether they are decided justly or unjustly: they are decided, and made an end of.’ And in truth it is perhaps the best office of courts of justice that, however often they may err in their processes, they certainly bring every human controversy that is within their reach to a final stop. The conclusion may be right or wrong; but a conclusion it is. “Sherman was a deacon of the New Milford Church, the clerk and treasurer of the society, and one of the school committee. At the age of forty, he removed to New Haven, and connected himself with the White Haven Church, one of the two original bodies out of which grew the United Society and the United Church. Here again the records show his faithful work on committees and as collector of the rates imposed by the society. “Five years later he was appointed a Judge of the Superior Court, a position which he continued to hold for nearly a quarter of a century. “The British legislation culminating in the Stamp Act had now begun to arouse the spirit of independence in the American colonies. Sherman was one of those who took the most advanced ground. He maintained that Parliament had no jurisdiction over them whatever.