Francis Cornwall Sherman


Francis Cornwall Sherman served as Mayor of Chicago, Illinois, for three terms for the Democratic Party.

Early life

Sherman was born September 17, 1805 in Newtown, Connecticut. He married Electa Towbridge of Danbury, Connecticut.

Career in Chicago

Sherman arrived in Chicago in April 1834. He worked in brick manufacturing and construction. In July 1835, he was elected a village trustee, serving for a year. In 1837, he opened the City Hotel,
a luxury hotel that was later renamed the Sherman House. Also in 1837, he was elected an alderman from the 2nd Ward on the Chicago Common Council, and served for one year.
Sherman served as Mayor of Chicago for a total of three terms, as City Treasurer of Chicago Sherman also served as the Chairman of the Cook County Board of Commissioners and in the Illinois House of Representatives.
He as a delegate to the 1847 Illinois constitutional convention.
He unsuccessfully ran for the United States House of Representatives in 1862, losing the Illinois 1st congressional district race to Republican Isaac N. Arnold.

Mayoralties

First mayoralty

Sherman was elected mayor of Chicago in 1841.
Sherman was sworn-in on March 4, 1841.
Sherman's first mayoralty ended on March 7, 1842 when he was succeeded by Whig Benjamin Wright Raymond.

Second mayoralty

Sherman was again elected mayor in the 1862 Chicago mayoral election, defeating Republican nominee Charles C. P. Holden.
Sherman was sworn-in as mayor on May 5, 1862.
Sherman was reelected in 1863, very narrowly defeating Republican nominee Thomas Barbour Bryan. This election was the city's first election to a newly-extended term of two years.
Sherman lost reelection in 1865, in a race that was won by Republican John Blake Rice after the race heavily turned in the Republican Party's favor with sentiments shifting following the assassination of Republican president Abraham Lincoln days earlier. Sherman's second mayoralty ended on May 3, 1865, when he was succeeded in office by Rice.

Death

Sherman died November 7, 1870. He was buried at Graceland Cemetery.

Personal life

Sherman and this wife Electa had seven children together. Four of these children survived to adulthood.
Sherman's son, Francis Trowbridge Sherman, was a brigadier general in the Union Army during the Civil War.