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- September 2001
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Collector of revenues for the Fifth District of Iowa. Is a native of Fairfield county, Ohio, and was born on the 13th day of October, 1821, and belongs to the Sherman family who have attained to a high civil and military fame. Being deprived of the care of a father early in life he went to Cincinnati when eight years of age and became a member of the family of Charles Hammond, Esg., by whom he was principally raised. He learned the trade of printing and followed it for many years.
In 1849 he came to Des Moines and was urged to enter journalism and inducements were offered in the way of a bonus and a promised list of subscribers, which were accepted, and he commenced the publication of the Fort Des Moines Weekly Gazette. The promises were easily broken, and there was almost an utter failure in the bonus and the subscription list fell far below the promised number. He was urged to continue his enterprise, and he accepted conditionally, that he should be paid one-half the cost of his material in Cincinnati, and have a business manager and an editor. The proposition met with favor, and P. Meyers became business manager and Judge Williamson editor. The name was changed to the State Journal, and after continuing under the new management for a few months Mr. Sherman was left to shoulder the responsibility, minus the promised aid, and at the end of the year sold the material, which was used in the office of the Star.
He then engaged in mercantile pursuits and afterward entered the employ of Hoyt Sherman & Co. In 1867 he was appointed to his present position, and as an official he is prompt, methodical, perfectly reliable and very efficient. He has been honored by his fellow citizens with the offices of mayor, recorder, treasurer, and member of the city council. He has been twice married. First to Miss Mary Getchell, of Ohio, in 1846. She died in 1849, leaving one son, Charles H., now connected with the United States Mint, in San Francisco. His second marriage occurred December 31, 1851, to Miss Susan R. Lawson, a native of Missouri. They have by this marriage three children: John, Minnie E., and L. P., Jr.
Among the early pioneer settlers who have watched the growth of this populous city, from a little hamlet of a few houses to its present population, and have seen it take its place as the metropolis of Iowa, is the name which heads this sketch. He is the son of Hon. Charles R. Sherman, Judge of the Supreme Court of Iowa, from 1825 until his death, which occurred in 1829, and brother of Hon. John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury, Gen. W. T. Sherman of the U. S. army, and of the late Hon. Chas. B. Sherman, Judge of the U. S. Court, for the Northern district of Ohio, and was born in Lancaster, Ohio, November 1, 1827, and until eighteen years of age divided his time between attending school and learning the trade of printer with his brothers Charles and John in Mansfield, Ohio.
He then followed a cherished plan to emigrate West, and early in the spring of 1848 he came to Iowa and settled in Des Moines, and in 1849 was admitted to the bar. His first business engagement was with Thomas McMullen, School Fund Commissioner. He became connected with Casady & Tidrick and served as deputy postmaster until 1849, when he was appointed postmaster by President Pierce, and held the office until 1853 when he resigned and recommended his successor, who was appointed. In 1849 he was elected clerk of the District Court.
Mr. Sherman was one of the organizers of the State Bank of Iowa, and was cashier of the same until 1861 when he was appointed a paymaster in the U. S. army with the rank of major. After his return from the army he engaged for a short time in mercantile pursuits. He was one of the incorporators of the Equitable Life Insurance Company, and in 1868 took the general management of the same and still holds this position. As a citizen he has always shown a worthy public spiritedness, and has heartily sympathized with all local improvements and enterprise. His career has been both honorable and successful, and as a man is appreciated most by those who know him best. He was married to Miss Sarah Moulton in 1855. She is a native of Ohio. Their family consists of five children: Frank A. (an attorney in his father's office), Addie M., Charles M., Arthur and Nellie T.
Earland entered the service of the United States, April 2nd, 1917 at Plymouth, MA as a private in the Fifth Inf., M.V.M. He was assigned to Co. D, 101st Inf., 26th Div., A. E. F., and went to France where he participated in the following battles: Aisne-Marne; Belleau Woods; Chateau Thierry; Meuse-Argonne; Seicheprey; Soissons; and St. Mihiel. He was in the defense sector at Toul and was wounded on July 25th, 1918.
Earland was honorably discharge on July 17th, 1919, at which time he was with the Military Police on light duty with the 161st Regiment. He lived in Whitman and East Bridgwater, MA and Pawtucket, RI.
His g.g.g.grandfather was a soldier in the Revolution.
Ed: During this spring, I have had the pleasure to meet (via email) Karen Dowd, who is Earland’s maternal grandaughter.
Karen wrote:
"After the war he, his father, brothers and later his son, took to flying at Hyannis airport located in Hyannis, MA. He was 5' 6" tall, of medium complexion, with blue eyes and brown hair. I never knew him but his discharge papers describe him as a man of excellent character, ‘a kind-hearted and unassuming man’ is how he is remembered by my father, husband to his daughter."
During the great Civil War, the story of General W. T. Sherman, USA, descendant of Samuel, and his famous, conquering march from Tennessee, through Atlanta, on his way to the sea, is legendary. However, at the same time, there was another U.S.A. Sherman Officer, of lesser rank, a descendant of Philip, in another regiment of Union forces, also stationed in Tennessee.
Lt. Franklin Sherman, of Northern Virginia, was assigned to a regiment not far from Knoxville, in a small village known as Strawberry Plains-- along the railroad. The town got its name from strawberry fields nearby, which coated horses' bellies red as they lay in the pasture full of strawberries.
Lt. Franklin Sherman's grandmother was Ruth Brewster Sherman. Ruth was a direct descendant of William Brewster, The Elder, a passenger on the original ship Mayflower that landed of Cape Cod near Provincetown in November 1620. William Brewster, along with the other Pilgrims, wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact, basis of the U. S. Constitution. The document was the first ever signed by men seeking to live in democracy. Ruth married, James Sherman, descendant of Philip. The couple settled near Rome, New York, near her father and they had nine children. Every Sherman descendant from this marriage is a direct Descendant of the Mayflower.
James 2nd, the fourth child of Ruth and James married Fidelia Fairchild in 1821. In 1850 James 2nd and Fidelia bought a farm in Fairfax County, Virginia to which they moved their family. The house and property, a three-hundred acre farm, had belonged to Lord Fairfax. This farm was called Ash Grove. The couple had eight children, one of whom was Franklin born in 1843 in New York State.
Ash Grove farm was along the Leesburg Turnpike, twelve miles from Washington, DC. The area was classic Civil War-era mixture of Southern families and folks who had removed from the North living as neighbors. For eleven years prior to the outbreak of the war the Shermans had lived harmoniously with these neighbors.
Franklin Sherman was eighteen when the great Civil War started. He was present as his family entertained Union Officers in the parlor at Ash Grove. Regiments from Michigan frequently camped nearby. In 1863, when Franklin was twenty, an officer from Michigan told the family about a new regiment being formed in Grand Rapids. With his family's blessing he rode to Michigan and joined the 10th Michigan Cavalry. He rode all the way from his home in Fairfax County, Virginia to enlist and help defend the Union for the United States. His brother James Harvey was already in Baker's Secret Service and working for the Union. Later, James Harvey, was on duty at Ford's Theater the night President Lincoln was shot April 15, 1865. James Sherman, the father of Franklin, died the next day.
In the fall of 1863, The 10th Michigan proceeded by horseback to Tennessee with Franklin, a young Lieutenant in charge of Company M. Soon after arriving Lt. Sherman led his company in a raid on a Confederate railroad bridge at Carter's Station. Men were killed on both sides and Captain Weatherwax, after being shot, died in Franklin's arms near a redoubt.
On October 9th, Lt. Sherman was sent with twenty-five men to Thorn Hill gap, sixty miles north of camp on a reconnaissance mission to capture Rebel gorillas. However, Tennessee Rebels attacked Sherman's party killing three and wounding seven of his 10th Michigan men. Sherman and the seven were captured and sent by railroad to Wytheville Prison back in Virginia. However, after a month's confinement he and the seven others escaped and walked the two hundred-fifty miles, through enemy territory to join the 10th Michigan at Louisa Courthouse in Kentucky.
While in the service of the United States during the Civil War, the now Captain Sherman's father was abducted from his Ash Grove home by the famous Col. John Singleton Mosby, leader of the Confederate Mosby's Rangers. Neighbors wrote Mosby saying the "old man" was harmless. However, Mosby had taken Mr. Sherman in hopes he would reveal the whereabouts of his son, John Harvey, who was in the Secret Service for the Union. At the letter-request of Ash Grove neighbors, Mosby released Mr. Sherman and let him return home.
After the war Captain Sherman was appointed High Sheriff of Fairfax County. He married Caroline Matilda Clapp Alvord, a young schoolteacher from Greenfield, Massachusetts who was had moved to Fairfax County to teach the Freeman. They had eleven children, all born at Ash Grove. Later he was to become a member of the Fairfax County School Board, a position which lasted the rest of his life. Franklin Sherman Elementary School now stands in his memory in Vienna, Virginia. Franklin died in 1915 and Caroline in 1923. A Union Officer from the Civil War, Captain Franklin, with his wife Caroline, are buried with honor, at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 3, plot 2245.
Today, a corner of the Ash Grove property is covered by the freeway to Dulles Airport. The house and three acres are owned by the Fairfax County Park Authority. The home, built in 1790, is being preserved and restored as a historical site. The Sheraton Premier Hotel at Tyson's Corner, with two Presidential Suites, sits on what was the "onion patch" of the Ash Grove farm (about five acres). A bronze "Sherman" memorial plaque shines at the entrance to the grand and elegant hotel.
This, "Ash Grove" Sheraton, hotel is just across the Potomac and now only ten minutes from the White House in Washington, DC. Dignitaries from around the world, and many Shermans, have been guests in the twenty-four story hotel.
[Ed: Ed’s line is: Philip (imm), Peleg, Thomas, Benjamin, James, James, Franklin, Franklin, Joseph, (him).]
Daniel Sherman, son of Daniel Sherman, was born in Busti, Nov. 29, 1821. His early education was acquired in the district schools of his native town; it was pursued at Jamestown and Fredonia academies; and his school course was closed with the expiration of a three years' course of study at Burr Seminary at Manchester, Vt. In 1844, he commenced the study of law with Abner Hazeltine and Emory F. Warren, of Jamestown, and was admitted to practice July 4, 1848, and commenced practice at Forestville, and has continued it there until the present time.
He was elected district-attorney, and served for the constitutional term of three years. He was appointed by Gov. Clark attorney for the Indians, in which office he served under three different administrations for twelve years, and tendered his resignation in 1868. In June 1870, he was appointed, by the secretary of the interior, United States agent for the several tribes of Indians in the state of New York; to which agency he was reappointed by the president, who had, by a law of Congress, become vested with the power of appointment; which agency has been continued to the present time.
While attorney for the Seneca nation, he prosecuted an action in their favor, by which the boundary of the reservation was decided in the court of appeals to be in the center of the creek, instead of on the north line of the stream, where it had decided to be by the lower courts in their interpretation of the treaties with the Indians. He also prosecuted an action in which the Indians acquired a title to the Oil Spring reservation, near Cuba, Allegheny Co., the claim to which had been inadvertently omitted in the treaty of Big Tree, in 1798, between the Seneca nation and Robert Morris. By this omission the title had passed through Morris to the Holland Land Company and their grantees. In this case also, the Indian title was confirmed by the court of appeals.
He has been active in promoting the interests of education. He served for several years as town superintendent of schools. He participated in the successful effort to establish the Free Academy in Forestville. He has been a member of the board of education, and most of the time its president. And he aided, by his pen and otherwise, in obtaining the passage of a law appropriating $125,000 annually for distribution among the academies of the state.
Mr. Sherman was married, April 28, 1852, to Mary Colville, daughter of Wm. Colville, Jr., who was born Feb. 21, 1828. They had 5 children: Daniel; Elizabeth, who died at 18; Mary, William, and Julia D.
[Ed: Philip 1 (imm.), Peleg 2, Daniel 3, Seth 4, Humphrey 5, Daniel 6, Daniel 7(him)]