James Schoolcraft Sherman

Facing the von Steuben statue, across Genesee Street, is the statue of James Schoolcraft “Sunny Jim” Sherman (1923), the Utican who served as Vice President of the United States in the administration of William Howard Taft (1908-12). It is the creation of George Brewster, who also sculpted the statues of Thomas R. Proctor (located at the Elm Street intersection of the Parkway) and of Alexander Hamilton at Hamilton College (a gift of Thomas R. Proctor), as well as nearly 2 dozen sculptures in the Vicksburg National Military Park.

Sherman was a prominent member of the House of Representatives for several decades and a leading candidate for Speaker of the House in 1899. He became embroiled, as Vice President, in a battle with Theodore Roosevelt in 1910 over reform in the Republican Party; this inspired Roosevelt’s decision to run against his former protégé, President Taft, in 1912, which split the Republican Party and led to the election of the Democratic nominee, Woodrow Wilson. Sherman died shortly before the election of 1912, but not before he became the first person in the history of the Republican Party to be re-nominated to the vice presidency.