Attorney and carriage maker creates fund to assist older couples.
Sherman Day (1874-1944)
Sherman Day’s ancestral ties to the East Coast stretch back eight generations and include impressive figures in American history. In 1634, Robert Day and his wife, Mary, sailed from Ipswich, England, and were among the first European settlers in Hartford, Connecticut.
Sherman’s great uncle, Jeremiah Day, was president of Yale University from 1817 to 1846, and his grandfather, the Rev. Henry Noble Day was a founder of Western Reserve College in Ohio.
Sherman Day was born September 7, 1874, to Sarah and Henry Mills Day, a lawyer and member of the New York Stock Exchange. Henry and his partner, William Wilson Heaton, started Day & Heaton, one of the first securities trading firms on Wall Street.
Sherman attended the Cutler School in Manhattan, graduated from Yale in 1898, then became a clerk at Day & Heaton. When his brother, Henry V, joined their father’s firm, Sherman left to study at New York Law School. In 1908, Sherman and three partners formed the law firm Patterson, Eagle, Greenough & Day in Manhattan.
In 1924, Sherman served as counsel to Day & Heaton after one of the firm’s brokers vanished with about $2.4 million in cash and securities. The company filed for bankruptcy and the fugitive, George Christian, escaped capture for five years. Federal marshals nabbed him in a $6-a-night hotel in San Antonio. The missing money was never recovered.
Incredibly, Christian wasn’t prosecuted for the theft, but instead was charged with sending threatening handwritten letters to former associates, prosecutors, and his brother. He was released on $5,000 bail and died in an Omaha hotel room before his trial.
In 1938, when the Yale Class of 1898 secretary contacted Sherman to update his accomplishments, life, and works, he responded simply: “Nothing doing.”
“Although of a pleasing and engaging personality,” he wrote, “I am not married, and all indications are serene and tranquil.” He said he was chairman of the house committee at the New York Racquet and Tennis Club, frequently traveled abroad, and was president of Henry Hooker & Co., carriage makers in New Haven. Sherman Day died December 18, 1944. He was 70.
His memorial fund in The New York Community Trust helps low-income, older couples remain together.