other,
accepted a clerkship in a store in Cincinnati, and from that time
paid his own way, becoming a merchant, first in Lancaster, and
later in Des Moines, Iowa. William Tecumseh was adopted into the
family of Hon. Thomas Ewing, who lived in the same square with us
in Lancaster. The two families were bound by ties and mutual aid
which were highly creditable to both. My father, Judge Sherman,
had been able to help Mr. Ewing in the beginning of his professional
career, and Mr. Ewing gratefully and generously responded. They
maintained the most intimate and cordial relations during their
lives and their families have since continued them, the bond being
strengthened by the marriage of William Tecumseh to Mr. Ewing's
daughter, Ellen. Lampson P., the fourth son, was adopted into the
family of Charles Hammond, of Cincinnati, a distinguished lawyer
of marked ability, the reporter of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and
editor and chief proprietor of the "Gazette," the leading newspaper
published in his day in Cincinnati.

While the reduction of our family was thus taking place I was kept
at school at Lancaster, where I made considerable advance in such
studies as a lad from six to eight years of age can pursue. I have
forgotten the names of my tutors. The present admirable system of
common schools in Ohio had not then been adopted, but the private
schools in Lancaster were considered very good, and most of the
boys of school age were able at little cost to get the rudiments
of an education.

In the spring of 1831, my father's cousin, John Sherman, a prosperous
merchant of Mt. Vernon, Ohio, accompanied by his bride, visited my
mother, and proposed to take me into his family and to keep me at
school until I was prepared to enter Kenyon College, five miles
from Mt. Vernon. This was a kindly offer and was gratefully
accepted. But I remember well the sadness I felt, and the tears
I shed, over the departure from home into the midst of strangers.
The old-fashioned stage coach was then the only medium of travel
and the fifty miles between Lancaster and Mt. Vernon were to me a
wearisome journey. For days after I arrived at Mt. Vernon I was
moping either at the house or at the store, but ere long became
accustomed to the change, and commenced my studies in the schools,
which, as I remember them, were admirably conducted by teachers of
marked ability, among whom were some who became distinguished in
professional and business lif