Accession of Judge Sherwin to the Supreme Bench; Notices, Etc.
Excerpted from The Courts and Legal Profession of Iowa
John C. Sherwin is a native of Ohio, but removed with his parents during his youth to [LaCrosse] Wisconsin, in the fall of the same year, where he acquired an excellent common school education and also a high school course at La Crosse. He then attended Beloit College for about one-half the college course, and then attended Ripon College for the remainder of the course. His full and thorough education was acquired under such circumstances as to make the same most profitable to him. For where a student is forced to supply the financial means for acquiring an education, such education and its opportunities are more fully and better appreciated. After concluded his preparatory and literary courses, he entered the law department of the Wisconsin State University, Madison, Wisconsin, from which he graduated in June of 1876 and was admitted to the bar.
He opened an office and entered upon the practice at Chippewa Falls, and after continuing there for a year or more, he removed to Mason City, Iowa, where he opened a law office and commenced the practice of the law. He continued the practice there until called by his fellow citizens for the discharge of public duties in the same line. Mr. Sherwin, as a practitioner of the law, has always been a most diligent student and hard worker, giving his cases all the time and study requisite to a complete knowledge of them and to acquiring the means of presenting them to the court in the most advantageous way. This uniform, close and exhaustive attention to and investigation of his cases gained for him a reputation, bringing to him much business, and aiding in his growth and development. His experience and success in these methods lend added verity to the expression that hard work is the only reliable genius; and this is doubtless true in every avenue of life's employment.
At the January term, 1900, the case of Zook v. Thompson was decided by the supreme court. The opinion therein was written by Sherwin, Justice.
Transcriber's Note: Justice Sherwin was born on Feb. 6, 1851 in Berlin, Ohio. After retiring from the court, he continued to reside in Mason City, where he died Feb. 3, 1919. He is buried at Elmwood-St. Joseph Cemetery.
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Source: Excerpts. Hon. Chester C. Cole, Historian; Hon. E. C. Ebersole, Editor. The Courts and Legal Profession of Iowa. H. C. Cooper, Jr., & Company. Chicago, Ill. 1907.
Transcribed by Sharon R. Becker (Nov 2017).