"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.