Sherman Day

Sherman Day (1806–1884) was born in New Haven, Connecticut and died in Berkeley, California. He attended Phillips Academy, Andover and graduated from Yale College, A.B., 1826, receiving the degree from his father, Jeremiah Day (1773–1867), who was president of Yale from 1817–1846. He was also the grandson of the American founding father Roger Sherman.

Biography

After his graduation he lived in New York and Philadelphia for a time, as a merchant. For several years he was in Ohio and Indiana as an engineer. In 1843, he published Historical Collections of the State of Pennsylvania. He came to California in 1849, and engaged in civil and mining engineering at San Jose, New Almaden, Folsom and Oakland.

In 1855 he made for the state a survey of wagon-road routes across the Sierra Nevada; California State Senate, 1855–56; United States Surveyor General, California, 1868–71; original trustees, University of California, Professor, Mine Construction and Surveying.

Sherman Day's Historical Collections of Pennsylvania is considered one of the most important documentations of early histories of Pennsylvania, mostly because it included individual histories for all the counties within the Keystone State. As well, it contained a series of wonderful images (produced by Sherman as well) of all parts of the Keystone State.

"We are more familiar with the history of England, Rome or Greece' and with the career of Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon than with the events that have occurred in our own vicinity. Yes, even in the very fields that we ourselves are tilling."