A SKETCH OF THE SUPREME COURT OF OHIO.
III
By Edgar B. Kinkead, of the Columbus Bar.
Charles R. Sherman, father of Senator Sherman, was born May 26, 1778, in Norwalk, Conn. He was the son of Taylor and Elizabeth Sherman. Judge Sherman the elder was a man of ability and learning, and the subject of this sketch received the best education that the times afforded. He read law in the office of his father and Judge Chapman. Admitted to the bar in 1810; was married the same year to Mary Hoyt of his native town. In 1811 he came to Lancaster, Ohio, bringing his wife with him. Ohio was at the time a frontier state, and much of its territory remained a wilderness. It was a long and weary journey from that New England home to this then wild west, and a great portion of the journey was traveled on horseback, carrying their infant child in their arms. He soon established himself in practice, in this adopted home, and his rise was very rapid indeed. With a well-cultivated mind and one stored with the very best information, it was no wonder that his reputation was soon established. His was a mind which could not be kept within any prescribed limits, but was constantly going out into that wider field of knowledge which is so well calculated to broaden and improve the best qualities both of mind and heart. In 1823 he was elected by the Legislature to the bench of the Supreme Court of Ohio; he was associated with Judge Pease, Burnett, and Judge Hitchcock, all names of renown in the judicial history of Ohio. Under the Constitution of 1802, the Supreme Court was compelled to hold an annual term in each county in the state, two of the judges officiating. Judge Sherman, it was said, made friends in every court-room in which he presided. He died at Lebanon, June 24, 1829, at the age of forty-one years. He had gone to Lebanon to hold court, and nothing seemed more certain than that there was a long and successful life ahead of him; in fact he had not yet reached the middle plain of his career when disease overtook him, and in a few days he was numbered among the dead. Public sorrow was great, as all had come to love Judge Sherman for those noble traits of character which made him stand like a god among men. There is no doubt that had he lived, still higher honors still awaited him.
Elijah Hayward was elected a member of the Supreme Court from Cincinnati. He was one of the lawyers of the old court house at Cincinnati in 1825, and once a partner of David Wade. He was at one time a member of the Legislature of Ohio. He was said to be a good man and a good lawyer.
John M. Goodenow was born in New Hampshire in 1782; was admitted to the bar at Canton, Ohio, in 1811, and practised at Steubenville; was elected to Congress in 1829, and while filling that position was appointed upon the supreme bench of Ohio, but soon resigned because of ill health. He removed to Cincinnati, where in 1833 he became president judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He died July 20, 1838. It was said of Judge Goodenow that the paradox that victory is sometimes more fatal and ruinous than defeat was particularly applicable to his life; that he could not bear prosperity; that the breath of popular applause and the sunshine of prosperity seemed to paralyze him. Upon one occasion Judge Goodenow, while in practice, argued a habeas corpus case involving questions of great importance, discussing them
