John Sherman; 3rd in series

OHIO'S HISTORICAL MARKERS
in Richland County

Another marker on Mansfield's square stands on the west lawn of the county administration building.  It honors John Sherman, (1823 - 1900), who served as a US Senator, Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of State, the last under President William McKinley in 1897.

Sherman is best known as the author of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. 

This law basically encouraged business competition by controlling monopolies.  That law today still forms forms the basis for most antitrust litigation by the US.

One of his older brothers was General William Tecumseh Sherman of Civil War fame.

John Sherman was born in Lancaster, OH and early in life worked as an engineer on canal projects.  Later, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1844.  He moved to Mansfield that year and began practicing law with another older brother, Charles.

In his political career he was a delegate to the 1848 and 1852 Whig National Conventions and served as a US congressman beginning in 1854.  In 1877 president Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Sherman Secretary of the Treasury.

By 1878 Sherman succeeded in reducing the amount of currency in circulation to the exact amount of gold in the US Treasury. 

Imagine that kind of fiscal policy today.

Sherman ran unsuccessfully for US President in 1880 but lost to his campaign manager, James A. Garfield.  He ran twice more in 1884 and 1888, losing both those efforts too.

He served briefly in the office of US Secretary of State and was replaced in that office by President McKinley in 1898 after his disagreements with McKinley over the Spanish-American War.

Sherman died in Washington DC and is buried in the Mansfield cemetery.