The following is a guest post by Alexander Salopek, a collection development specialist in the Collection Services Division of the Law Library of Congress. He previously wrote posts on Fred Korematsu’s Drive for Justice, Fred Korematsu Winning Justice, Frances Glessner Lee and the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, Ibrahim Muteferrika, First Muslim Printer of the Ottoman Empire, and The Coroner’s Court, Westminster, London: Pic of the Week, among others.
After a recent meeting of the Northeast Foreign Law Libraries Cooperative Group (NEFLLCG), which was graciously hosted by Yale University Law School, I was able to visit the Grove Street Cemetery. The cemetery hosts many prominent past New Haven, Connecticut residents, including Roger Sherman.
Roger Sherman is one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, having signed the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. He served in the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate. Fascinatingly enough, he served as the Mayor of New Haven while serving in the House and later the Senate. What I found most fascinating about his grave is that every 4th of July, the Sons of the American Revolution have a ceremony marking his grave. This year, they are celebrating 74 years of laying a wreath in his memory.
July 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Keep an eye out for more posts like this one that celebrate the Declaration, the lives of its signers, and the world in which they lived.