My Genealogy Hound

IRVING V. SHERMAN, a well-known citizen and excellent business man, has for the past thirty years successfully engaged in the jewelry trade in Cassopolis, Cass County, Mich. He has also been the popular local agent of the American Express Co. for a period of twenty-one years, since 1891 has likewise represented the National Express Co., and for eleven years has been the Manager of the Western Union Telegraph office of Cassopolis. Sustaining the most pleasant and profitable relations with the several corporations, our subject has also through his prompt and courteous service given great satisfaction to the general public. Mr. Sherman has spent almost his entire life within the limits of Cass County, in which part of Michigan he was born October 6, 1840. I. V. was the fourth of seven children born unto Elias B. and Sarah (Silver) Sherman. The father, a native of New York State and born in 1803, was therefore in the prime of manhood when, in about 1830, he emigrated from his childhood home to Michigan and settled in Cassopolis, of which thriving village he was one of the early settlers, being counted among the most enterprising pioneer citizens.

The mother of our subject was a daughter of Jacob Silver, born amid the granite hills of New Hampshire. Mr. Sherman made his home in the West in 1830, and, a self-educated man with an ambitious desire to adopt a profession, decided to study law. He attended the State University at Ann Arbor, and was admitted to the Bar of Michigan in about 1828. He began the practice of his profession with Alexander Redfield, the partnership profitably continuing many years. Mr. Sherman, after a long life of busy usefulness, passed away in the fall of 1889, aged eighty-seven years. The venerable mother of Mr. Sherman, yet surviving, is eighty-six years old. I. V. Sherman received the benefit of a good common-school education, and when sixteen years of age began to learn his trade as a practical jeweler. In 1860 he bought a half-interest in a jewelry store in Elkhart, Ind., but after two years devoted to his trade there he returned to Cassopolis, and in 1863 went to California and there pursued his profession for two years. Later he returned to Cassopolis and engaged in the jewelry business, the cares of which he has shared with his work as express and telegraph agent.

Fraternally, our subject is prominently connected with the Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, and is a member of Backus Lodge No. 55. Since 1874 he has been associated with Kingsbury Chapter No. 78, and is also one of the twelve Knights Templar of Niles Commandery. Mr. Sherman has been one of the efficient members of the City Board of Trustees, and has given faithful service in behalf of local progress and improvements. Our subject was married in 1861 to Miss Diantha Allen, of Elkhart, Ind. The parents of Mrs. Sherman were residents of New York State, and there she was reared and educated. The estimable wife bore our subject a family, of whom two children survive to mourn their mother’s death, in 1879. The two daughters of Mr. Sherman are Ellen E., Mrs. C. W. Taylor, now a resident of Dallas, Tex.; and Mildred A. Sherman, pursuing her studies in the Normal College at Ypsilanti, Mich. No man in Cass County is better known or more highly regarded than I. V. Sherman, who justly commands the esteem and confidence of a host of friends.