Sherman Booth, best known in Wisconsin history as an abolitionist agitator, was also a politician, lecturer, and publisher of prominence in Wisconsin between 1850 and 1865. Born in Davenport, New York in 1812, he graduated from Yale and taught for a short while. He soon learned that his imposing size and deep voice of oratorical quality made him an impressive figure on the lecture platform, and he spent several years in New York state lecturing on temperance and guiding the Liberty Party.
Moving to Waukesha, Wisconsin in 1848, he first helped publish the American Freeman there, changed its name to the Wisconsin Freeman and moved it to Milwaukee, and then published the Free Democrat. In 1848 he helped organize the Free Democrat, or Free Soil Party, and published the Barnburner during the election of that year. He played a part in the formation of the Republican Party from Whigs and Free Soilers, but although he was active in politics, Booth never held office.
His open opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act helped to precipitate the Glover incident of 1854, when his activities aided the escape of a former Negro slave from Federal custody. For his part in Glover's release, Booth was arrested. This started a long period of litigation, and although he was finally pardoned by President Buchanan, it is reported that Booth withstood “19 trials running through 13 years, was fined twice, imprisoned 3 times, and spent $35,000” for his defense.
During the Civil War he published Daily Life in Milwaukee, for which his wife, a poet and writer of children's stories then living in Switzerland, was a correspondent. In 1868 he went to Chicago to manage the Chicago Newspaper Union, represented the Union in Philadelphia from 1876 to 1879, and returned to Chicago in 1879. There he contributed to the Chicago Tribune, was Superintendent of House Removals for a time, served as U.S. Deputy Collector of Internal Revenue, and manufactured and sold fireplace grates.
Sherman Booth was first married to Margaret Tufts of New Haven, Connecticut; but she and their three children had died by 1849. In that year he married Mary Humphrey Corss of Hartford, Connecticut, while she was visiting in Wisconsin. To them were born three daughters, Mary Ella, Alice, and Lillian May. Alice died in infancy, but Mary Ella and Lillian May became school teachers in Connecticut, and between 1870 and 1897 were estranged from their father. Their mother had died in 1865, and two years later Booth had married Augusta A. Smith of Burnett, Wisconsin. Their children were Grace, Jessie, Sherman M. II, Blanch, and Laura.
In his later years Booth made his home in Chicago, but was also active on his farm at Burnett, Wisconsin. It was to this farm that his daughters, Mary Ella and Lillian May moved in 1900, penniless and ill, after their reconciliation with Booth.
