American History: Premier Auction

Cane, 36.5 in. overall length, with burl knob and heavy 1 in. iron ferrule. 3.5 x 1 in. plate affixed near the knob and engraved, "Cut on Tippecanoe Battleground/ at Whig meeting Oct 1840/ Johnathan Sherman C.B. Sherman 1888." A few things about this engraving are slightly off. There was a very large Whig Meeting held at the Tippecanoe Battleground in May of 1840 in support of William Henry Harrison, the Whig nominee for president, attended by an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 supporters. Another meeting was held in October of 1888 in support of Benjamin Harrison, the Republican nominee and William Henry's grandson. Benjamin Harrison had defeated John Sherman at the Republican convention on the eighth ballot, after Sherman had led the voting on the first six. John Sherman and his brothers, including General William Tecumseh Sherman and federal judge Charles Taylor Sherman, had been raised by a family friend Thomas Ewing, after the death of their father Charles Robert Sherman. Ewing was a prominent Whig, serving as US Secretary of the Treasury under William Henry Harrison, the first US Secretary of the Interior, and US Senator from Ohio. Though the inscription on the cane offered here clearly contains some errors, some Harrison-Sherman family connection seems likely.