James S. Sherman

James Schoolcraft Sherman (October 24, 1855 – October 30, 1912) was an American politician who was a United States Representative from New York and the 27th Vice President of the United States (1909–12), under President William Howard Taft. He was a member of the inter-related Baldwin, Hoar, and Sherman families, prominent lawyers and politicians of New England.

Although not a high-powered administrator, he made a natural committee chairman, and his genial personality eased the workings of the House, so that he was known all his life as 'Sunny Jim'. He was the first Vice President to fly in a plane (New York, 1911), and also the first to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game.

To date, Sherman is the last Vice President to have died in office.

Youth, education and law career

Sherman was born in Utica, New York, the son of Richard Updike Sherman and his distant cousin, Mary Frances Sherman. According to Facts on File, "Sherman was of the ninth generation of descendants from Henry Sherman, a line also connected to Roger Sherman, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and William Tecumseh Sherman, the Union general during the Civil War".