"If the sayings and doings at the festive evenings of the early Ohio bar could be collected, there would be materials in rich abundance from which a sympathetic and facile pen could compile a volume of equal piquancy and sentimental refinement of patriotic detail and humor, that alternate the pages of Sir Jonah Barrington, or any other winsome work of the kind. This will not be questioned for a moment when it is remembered that Henry Clay, Lewis Cass, Philip Doddridge, Willis Silliman, David K. Este, and Charles Hammond were frequent participants; that Philoman Beecher, William W. Irvin, Thomas Ewing, William Stanberry, Benjamin Tappan, John M. Goodenow, Jacob Parker, Orris Parrish, and Charles Goddard habitually contributed to their entertainment, and that these were often signalized with the hilarious fun of Creighton and the quaint drolleries of Douglas. At these symposiums of recreation, and they were held whenever the courts used to meet, Charles R. Sherman was always the most welcome of companions, and contributed his full share even to the ambrosial feasts,
'When all such clustering portions had
As made their frolic wild, not mad.'
"Thus endowed and so associated, he became a leading and a popular people's lawyer, from the Ohio River to our northern lake.
"In 1823 he was elected by the legislature to the bench of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and perhaps the only man in the state who doubted his ability for this high position was himself. He told the writer of these lines when speaking on the subject of his appointment, that he assumed its duties with great personal diffidence and apprehension. He feared that he lacked the ripe experience of years necessary to hear and determine cases of magnitude in a court of the last resort. His official associates were Calvin Pease, Jacob Burnet, and Peter Hitchcock, and these are names of renown in the judicial history of Ohio.
"Judge Sherman upon the bench fully realized the large expectations of his professional friends and the public.
"His written opinions, published in 'Hammond's Reports of the Supreme Court,' demonstrate a mind of the choicest legal capabilities. They are clear, compact, yet comprehensive, intuitive, logical, complete, and conclusive, and are respected by the bar and courts in this and other states as judicial dicta of the highest authority. He won upon the bench, as he did at the bar, the affection and confidence of his associates. They esteemed him for his gentle and genial nature, for the brilliant flashes of his mind and the solid strength of his judgment; above all, for the stainless integrity of his character, as a judge and as a man.
"Under the provisions of our old constitution, the Supreme Court was required to hold an annual term or sitting in each county of the state, two of the judges officiating. In every court-room in Ohio where Judge Sherman presided he made friends. His official robes were worn by him as the customary habiliments of the man. He was never distant, haughty, morose, austere, or overbearing on the bench. It was not in his nature to be so anywhere, and it was therefore always a personal pleasure to practice in his courts. The younger members of the profession idolized him in every part of the state; for them and their early efforts he systematically sympathized, and he uniformly bestowed upon them the most gracious compliment that any judge upon the bench can render to the oldest practitioner at the bar—he gave them his interested and undivided attention.
"He had entered upon the sixth year of his official term, was in his manly meridian of life, in the full fruition of his matured intellectual powers, in the plenitude of his public usefulness, and in the enjoyment of apparent robust physical health, out upon his circuit, and about to hold a session of the Supreme Court at Lebanon, in Warren county, when suddenly, without any premonition, he was struck down with a fatal malady, that was frightfully rapid in its termination. The best medical aid was summoned from Cincinnati; it was in vain. An express messenger was hurried to Lancaster for Mrs. Sherman, but before she reached him her lamented husband was dead.
"He died in Lebanon, June 24, 1829, in the 41st year of his age.
"I will not attempt to describe the outburst of public sorrow that prevailed over this event. It was general and sincere, touching and outspoken; but it was in Lancaster, it was here in his happy home, which he made the home always of genial and open-hearted hospitality—here among his neighbors and fellow-citizens of every class and description, all of whom knew him and all of whom loved him—that the intelligence of his death came with the most painful and startling abruptness. They could not comprehend it. But yesterday he was among them in perfect health, and now he is dead. Men wept in our public streets. I do not believe he had a single personal enemy on earth.