The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-06-18
JUDGE BALDWIN SPEAKS
 AT NEW MILFORD Address Delivered by Him on Roger Sherman at
 Bi-Centennial. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Career of the Man Who At tained Large Place in
 :, Early History.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

Judge Simeon E. Baldwin of this city was one of the principal speakers whC delivered addresses yesterday at tht celebration of the bi-centennial of the town of New Milford. Judge Baldwin's subject was Roger Sherman" a great son of the town now celebrating its 2Ooth birthday. The judges address ir full follows
 Tie rarest class of human beings is that of great men. Only those belong to it who have done a great work in a great way; The mute, inglorious Milton" is not to be reckoned among them. They number none, however great their natural gifts or acquired attainments, who have not made for themselves by their own merits, a place in the history of their times. It is from their lives, indeed, that his- tory gains its color and its insplra- ton.
 It was the good fortune of New Mil ford to be the home of such man in the middle of her first century of ex- istence.
 It was 1e4 years ago this very month that tall and well-set young fellow of two and twenty ended in this town tiresome journey, taken on foot from the neighborhood of Boston. He had come bringing on his back the tools of his trade-that of a shoemak- er--and with their aid he here gained for a year or two an honest livelihood,
 A shoemaker and the son of shoe maker, he had, and felt he had, capa- bilities for larger work. His mind was already set on that of a surveyor. For this too he fitted himself we'll but there was that before him of which he did not think. He was to fill long succession of official trusts, affecting all the colonies and the states which succeeded them, to be bestowed upon him at a time of great events, and to be so well discharged as to make him one of the great figures of American history
 When Connecticut, a few years ago, was called upon by the nation to choose the two of her sons whose statues should be set in the capitol at Washington, there could be no ques- ton as to one. The land, of steady hab- its must, at all events, be represented in that place by Jonathan Trumbull, the war governor of the Revolution the Brother Jonathan who typifed to the nation the rugged virtues and hard good sense of the New England char acter.
 The other statue also must belong to the same great era, the era which be- gan with the struggle for independence and closed with the attainment of set tied constitutional government. Our heroes must be taken from that which above all others was our heroic age. Should we thus commemorate the irn- petuous galantry of Putnam, the mo- ble death of Hale, the courtly elo- quence of Johnson, the judicial power of Ellsworth? All these were sons of Connecticut born upon her soil. No. She chose one born and bred to man. hood in another State; not trained at her college, nor at her schools; not at any schools. She sought to put the form and features of Roger Sherman into marble; to show to all time what qualities and achievements the people of Connecticut hold in most honor. This man, without eloquence, with no advantage of education, with no grace of manner, was her choice; taken from many, for solid qualities, not shining ones; for a life long love of liberty, but only as it was regulated by law for steadfast devotion to duty; for practical sagacity; for calm, and sound judgment in things both small and great Such a character wears we'll It is men of this stamp that have made Connecticut what she is S Roger Sherman was born to a great opportunity. So was every child born in the American colonies during the years between 1720 and 176O. Those colonies were then assuming propor- tions inconsistent with the long man- tenance of British dominion over territory so distant and a people so enterprising and intelligent, The day was soon to come when they would strike for liberty. Who were to be the leaders, then?
 Massachusetts was to furnish her full share and two of them grew up, in neighboring towns, to begin life as apprentices and end 1t as statesmen.
 Franklin was already at work in Boston printing office when Sher- man, in 1721 was born in Newton. Neither had any advantages of educa- tion. Franklin's schooling ended when he was about ten, and Sherman was apprenticed to a shoemaker and began to learn his trade at an age not much greater. He had hardly acquir- ed 1t when his father-a small farmer --then living at Stoughton, Massachu- setts, died, and he found, when only nineteen. that the main charge of a numerous family of younger brothers and sisters as well as of his mother must thenceforward rest upon his shoulders, Three years of struggle upon the farm satisfied him that to support this load he must seek some more remunerative employment,
 An elder brother had previously re- moved to New Milford, in this state, then frontier settlement Connec- ticut was the west of that day to the towns of Eastern Massachusetts, It was the place for more than century where many of the most active and en- terprising sons of the older colony had gone to found new homes and breathe freer air Connecticut, 1t will be recollected, had preserved her charter and elected her own governors. Mas sachusetts for half century had re- eeived hers from the crown,