During my practice thus far, I had been able to accumulate in property and money more than ten thousand dollars. I had, in addition to my practice, engaged in a profitable business with Jacob Emminger, a practical mechanic, in the manufacture of doors, blinds and other building materials. We acquired valuable pine- lands in Michigan and transported the lumber to our works at Mansfield. We continued this business until I was appointed Secretary of the Treasury, in March, 1877, when I sold out my interest and also abandoned the practice of the law. I spent the winter of 1847-8 at Columbus, where I made many acquaintances who were of great service to me in after life, and had a happy time also with the young ladies I met there. Columbus was then the headquarters of social life for Ohio. It had a population of about fifteen thousand, with few or no manufactures. It has now a population of more than one hundred thousand, the increase being largely caused by the great development of the numerous railroads centering there, and of the coal and iron mines of the Hocking Valley. It was also the natural headquarters of the legal profession, the Supreme Court of Ohio, then under the old constitution, and the District Court of the United States holding their sessions there. On the first day of August, 1848, my grandmother, Elizabeth Stoddard Sherman, died at Mansfield at the residence of her daughter, Mrs. Parker. Her history and characteristics have already been referred to. She was to our family the connecting link between the Revolutionary period and our times. She had a vivid recollection of the burning of the principal towns of Connecticut by the British and Tories, of the trials and poverty that followed the War of the Revolution, of the early political contests between the Federalists and Republicans, of the events of the War of 1812, and of her journey to Ohio in 1816. She maintained a masterly care of her children and grandchildren. She was the best type I have known of the strong-willed, religious Puritan of the Connecticut school, and was respected, not only by her numerous grandchildren, but by all who knew her. My brother-in-law, Thomas W. Bartley, was District Attorney of the United States during the administration of Mr. Polk, and, as he expected a change would be made by the incoming administration of Taylor, he advised me to become a candidate for his place, as that was in the line of my profession. I told him I doubted if my experience of the bar would justify me in making such an application, but he thought differently. I wrote to Mr. Ewing upon the subject and he answered as follows: "Washington, D. C., Dec. 31, 1848. "John Sherman, Esq., Mansfield, Ohio.