One incident of his boyhood life deserves to be recorded. In 1834 he was large and strong for his age, and fond of labor and adventure. Canal construction was then being greatly pushed in Ohio, and it was planned to build one from the great Ohio Canal at Carroll, eight miles from Lancaster, and run down the Hocking Valley to Athens and thence to the Ohio River. A Mr. Carpenter, of Lancaster, had charge of the preliminary surveys, and recruited his force of assistants from among the youth of that town. Young Sherman was delighted at the opportunity for serious work and adventure, and rejoiced when he was chosen together with three other boys from his school. He was appointed a rod-man. They worked during the fall of 1834 and spring of 1835, laying out two experimental lines for the canal, and each boy received half a dollar in silver for each day's work. This was the first money young Sherman ever earned. Mr. Ewing was now United States Senator, and had within his gift an appointment to a cadetship at West Point. During the fall of 1835 and spring of 1836, Sherman devoted himself chiefly to grammar, geography and mathematics, in which studies he would have to be examined to enter the Military Academy. In the spring of 1836 he received his appointment. Mrs. Ewing provided him with a liberal outfit of clothes, etc., and on May 20th he left Lancaster in a stage coach for Zanesville. There he took passage on a coach on the Great National Road. Three days later he reached Frederick, Maryland, whence there was a steam railroad to Washington. But he was afraid of this strange device, and continued his journey by coach. When he got to Washington he put up for the night at Gadsby's Hotel, and next morning hunted up Senator Ewing. The latter lived in a boarding house, and to that house young Sherman removed at once, for the week which he was to spend at the Capitol. He saw more of Washington in that week than he ever saw in his many subsequent visits. "Old Hickory" Jackson was then President, and at the height of his fame. Sherman spent a full hour gazing at him with boyish awe through the picket fence that surrounded the White House grounds. Jackson was pacing up and down the gravel walks within. "He wore a cap," says Sherman, "and an overcoat so full that his form seemed smaller than I had expected. I also remember Postmaster-General Amos Kendall, Vice President Van Buren, Messrs. Calhoun, Webster, Clay, Cass, Silas Wright," etc.