Frank Dempster Sherman

Poet, architect, genealogist, and mathematician Frank Dempster Sherman was born in Peekskill, New York, on May 6, 1860. He attended Peekskill Military Academy. He studied architecture at Columbia University, where he earned a PhB in 1884. He then studied classical literature at Harvard University as a postgraduate for a year. 

Sherman published six collections of poetry during his lifetime: A Southern Flight (G. W. Browning, 1906), co-written with Clinton Scollard, with whom Sherman studied at Harvard; Lyrics of Joy (Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1904); Little-Folk Lyrics (Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1892); Lyrics for a Lute (Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1890); Madrigals and Catches (White Stokes & Allen, 1887); and New Waggings of Old Tales (Ticknor & Company, 1887), co-written with John Kendrick Bangs. Sherman also wrote light verse for children under the pseudonym “Felix Carmen.” His poems “The Sky Ship” and “Clouds” were set to music. Sherman also wrote musical compositions, but never published them.

Sherman returned to Columbia in 1887 and became an instructor in mathematics. He was then promoted in 1904 to professor of mathematics, teaching graphics, a position that he held until his death. He spent his final years researching the genealogy of the Sherman family. 

Frank Dempster Sherman died in New York City on September 19, 1916. The following year, Clinton Scollard published Elegy in Autumn: In Memory of Frank Dempster Sherman (Frederic Fairchild Sherman, 1917).