SHERMAN, MOSES H.,
railroad builder and banker, Los Angeles, Cal., was born in West
Rupert, Bennington County, Vt., Dec. 3, 1853, of sturdy New
England stock which dates back far into the colonial days in
America and originally came from England. He married in 1885,
Harriet E. Pratt, daughter of R. H. Pratt, one of the
distinguished builders of the Central Pacific Railway. They have
three children, Robert, Hazeltine and Lucy Sherman.
He graduated from the Oswego (N. Y.) Normal
School Then, long before he was out of his teens, he taught
district school in New York State, leaving before he was twenty
to go to Los Angeles.
He did not stay long in Los Angeles, but
went into the sparsely settled territory of Arizona, to the then
remote mining town of Prescott. There he continued his calling
of teaching until 1876, when he first came to public notice.
Although only twenty-three, he impressed
Governor A. F. K. Stafford of Arizona as the suitable man to
represent Arizona at the Philadelphia Exposition or World's Fair
in 1876, the first of the series of America's great world
displays. His duties kept him at Philadelphia the one summer,
after which he started on his return to the Pacific Coast. He
took back with him his sister, now the wife of the Hon. E. P.
Clark, of Los Angeles. They started the journey by way of the
1sthmus of Panama, taking a Pacific Mail steamship at New York.
While in the Windward passage, near the island of Cuba, the
steamer was wrecked. For three days the disabled vessel was kept
afloat, drifting helplessly about, when finally the passengers
and crew were rescued by a steamer running from South America to
LiverpooL After various vicissitudes the two reached Los Angeles
in safety.
Upon
the return of young Sherman to Arizona, Governor John C. Fremont
of Arizona appointed him Superintendent of Public lnstruction
for the Territory. Arizona had at the time of his accession to
office practically no public school system, but he created and
organized one so complete that even the most isolated
communities could enjoy the benefits of education, a remarkable
situation in the West of those early days. When his appointive
term was over the office became elective. He was nominated on
the Republican ticket and was elected by a large majority.
Arizona was strongly Democratic at the time, and he had the
added distinction of being the only Republican to be elected to
office. During this term the Legislature asked him to rewrite
the school laws of Arizona. His draft was adopted unanimously
without change, and remains the school law of Arizona to this
day, after more than thirty years.
Still less than thirty years of age, he was
a conspicuous public figure in Arizona at the expiration of his
second term as school superintendent. He was then immediately
appointed Adjutant General of the Territory by Governor F. A.
Tritle. He found the National Guard situation as he had found
that of the public schools. There was no organization and
everything had to be done from the beginning. He was reappolnted
Adjutant General by Governor C. Meyer Zulic, and during this
term of office he put the National Guard on a solid basis.
While he was yet a public official he began
the foundation of his business career. 1n 1884, at the age of
thirty-one, he started the Valley Bank of Phoenix, Phoenix,
Arizona. He was its first president. This bank has now the
largest resources of any in the State. He remained actively
interested in its affairs, which prospered, until 1889, when he
happened to make a visit to Los Angeles.
There he discovered a new opportunity. Los
Angeles was then just well started on its career of great
growth. A syndicate of Chicago men had just completed a costly
cable tramway system. The cable system was frequently paralyzed
by the winter rains, which washed sand into the cable slots,
causing delay for days at a time. General Sherman knew that in a
couple of the Eastern cities electric street railway systems had
been successfully started. 1t occurred to him that the failure
of the cable system left an opening for the electric. He acted
at once on the idea, enlisted his brother- in-law, E. P. Clark,
raised capital, secured a franchise, and built the first tracks
of the Los Angeles Railway. General Sherman was the President of
the system and Mr. Clark vice president and general manager.
Soon thereafter the electric system absorbed the cable railway.
The success of the first electric venture
was such that the Los Angeles and Pasadena Electric Railway was
organized and built to Pasadena and Altadena by Goneml Sherman
and Mr. Clark. Later this property, as well as the Los Angeles
railway system, was sold to H. E. Huntington.
The next venture in the electric railway
field was the construction by the brothers-in- law of the Los
Angeles Pacific Railway to Hollywood, Soldiers' Home, Santa
Monica, Ocean Park, Redondo and other points. They covered with
a close network all the territory between Los Angeles and the
Santa Monica bay beaches. They sold this system to the late E.
H. Harriman, not long before his death, for a very large sum of
money.
Mr. Sherman
and Mr. Clark were the pioneer electric railway builders of the
Pacific Coast, and have the credit of building the greatest
interurban system in the world. The systems, now consolidated,
all of which they started, make Los Angeles an interurban center
greater than any half dozen cities in America combined. Mr.
Sherman is still a director in all the "Harriman" electric
railways in Southern California.
He did not confine his railroad
construction to Los Angeles. As early as 1884 he Ouilt the
Phoenix Railway. This line he still owns. He extended it in 1910
to Glendale, Arizona, to connect with the Santa Fe system.
He is a stockholder in the Farmers and
Merchants' National Bank and the Southern Trust Company of Los
Angeles, and has very extensive oil interests. He is a director
in many companies and is one of the large property owners of
California and Arizona.
He is a member of the California Club, the
Jonathan Club, Country Club, Bolsa Chica Gun Club and others of
Los Angeles, and of the Chamber of Commerce. He is also a member
of the Bohemian Club of San Francisco.
Being the Portraits and Biographies of
Progressive Men of the Southwest ... Published by The Los
Angeles Examiner, 1912 SUBMITTED BY BARB Z.
