BIO: Joseph SHERER, Dauphin County, PA

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Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County, 
Containing Sketches of Representative Citizens, and Many of the 
Early Scotch-Irish and German Settlers.  Chambersburg, Pa.: 
J. M. Runk & Company, 1896, page 175.
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  SHERER, JOSEPH, was born in 1730 in Ireland. His father, Samuel 
Sherer, was among the earliest of the Scotch-Irish emigrants. He came 
from near Londonderry, Ireland, to the Province of Pennsylvania in the 
autumn of 1734, and located in Paxtang township, Lancaster, now Dauphin 
county.  He was a man of means, was well educated, and became quite 
prominent in the Scotch-Irish settlement.  The son was about 4 years 
old when his parents came to America. He secured a fair English 
education and was brought up to the life of a frontiersman, that of a 
farmer.  During the French and Indian war he served as a non-
commissioned officer, and was in active service as a scout or ranger on 
the frontiers.  When the thunders of the Revolution reverberated along 
the valley of the Susquehanna, with all his Scotch-Irish and German 
neighbors, he entered into the contest for liberty.  In 1775 and 1776 
he was in command of one of the companies of Col. James Burd's 
battalion of associators, a roll of which is to be found in the recent 
history of Dauphin county. Colonel Burd's farm at Tinian joined the 
Sherer homestead, and the two patriots were intimate friends.  Captain 
Sherer was a member of the Committee of Observation for the county of 
Lancaster, and was chosen by the vote of the people a member of the 
first Constitutional Convention of the State of Pennsylvania, which met 
at Philadelphia on the 15th of July, 1776.  While in attendance on this 
representative body of the Revolutionary era he took ill, returned 
home, and died on the 1st or 2d of December following.  His remains 
were interred in the burial ground of old Paxtang church, of which he 
was a consistent member.  Captain Sherer married, first, February 6, 
1759, Mary McClure; subsequently married Mary McCracken, of 
Northumberland county, Pa.