Charles Taylor Sherman - Career

Career

Soon afterwards Sherman began a law practice at Mansfield, Ohio. His brother John later joined the firm. He continued in active practice in the area until 1861. Active in public and business affairs, Sherman contributed money, labor and personal influence to the location and building of the Sandusky, Mansfield and Newark Railroad and the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad becoming a director of both organizations. When the Civil War broke out he organized and was chairman of the military committee of his county, and was appointed as commandant of the military camp in Mansfield. Later he was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as one of the commissioners to settle war claims in St. Louis. In 1866, he was selected as one of the first government directors of the Union Pacific Railroad.

On March 2, 1867, President Andrew Johnson appointed Sherman to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio to succeed Judge Hiram V. Willson. He served until November 25, 1872 when he resigned and returned to private practice.

Judge Sherman married Eliza Williams of Dayton, Ohio, on February 2, 1841 and they became the parents of seven children: Mary Hoyt, who became the wife of Gen. Nelson A. Miles, U.S. Army; Henry Stoddard, who became a Cleveland attorney; John J., who became a U. S. Marshal in New Mexico; Charles F. Cook who died in infancy; Anna Wallace, who died at the age of 20 in 1870; Eliza A. Williams, who married Colgate Hoyt of Cleveland; and Elizabeth Bancroft, who married James D. Cameron, a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania.

After Judge Sherman retired from practicing law, he became interested in the organization of the agricultural society of Richland County, Ohio, and encouraged the "introduction of better modes for the larger production of better quality of fruits." He died at the age of 68 on January 1, 1879, in Cleveland, Ohio.