On Chapel Street, in New Haven, Connecticut, opposite the Old Campus: from the time of glaciation, cultivated by the Quinnipiac; in 1614, charted by a Dutch explorer; in 1638, colonized by the Puritans; throughout the American Revolution, home of the signer, Roger Sherman, his second wife Rebecca Prescott-Sherman, their fifteen children, and the family store; in 1860, industrialist Gaius Fenn Warner's Italianate villa, by Henry Austin; in 1880, Marshal Peter R. Carll's Opera House; in 1884, the Republican League; in 1887, the Hyperion; in 1903, the Union League addition, by Richard Williams; in 1926, the Roger Sherman Theater; beginning in 1976, a tradition of French fine dining, that continues today. While the Roger Sherman house is no longer standing, it holds up all right.
"At some point after the lights go up tomorrow night at Elmwood Playhouse for the opening of the musical '1776,' Derek Sherman Tarson will appear on stage playing the role of Roger Sherman, delegate to the Second Continental Convention and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. For Tarson, it will be more than just another dramatic part. Because Roger Sherman is Tarson's great-great-great-great-grandfather."