Myron T. Herrick
Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox officeholder Myron Timothy Herrick (October 9, 1854Template:Spaced ndashMarch 31, 1929) was an American banker, diplomat and Republican politician from Ohio. He served as the 42nd governor of Ohio and United States Ambassador to France on two occasions.
Biography
Herrick was born in Huntington, Lorain County, Ohio, the son of Mary (Hulburt) Herrick and Colonel Timothy Robinson Herrick, a local farmer and businessman.<ref>TIM HERRICK Died last night at his home in Wellington. A leading businessman, The Daily Chronicle, July 9, 1901.</ref> He studied at Oberlin College and Ohio Wesleyan University, but graduated from neither.<ref name=wright>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=upton>Template:Cite book</ref> He married Caroline Marina Parmely of Dayton, Ohio, on June 30, 1880. They had one son, Parmely Webb Herrick (1881–1937).<ref name=upton/>
Career
Admitted to practice law in Cleveland in 1878, Herrick joined the bank Society for Savings as secretary and treasurer in 1886, and became the bank's president in 1894.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
From 1885 to 1888, Herrick was a member of the Cleveland City Council.<ref name=wright/><ref name=upton/> In 1886, in Cleveland, he helped to finance the founding of The National Carbon Company, along with W. H. Lawrence, James Parmelee, and James Webb Cook Hayes, son of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes.<ref name="rbhayesBattery">Eveready Battery Company Records Collection at Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center</ref> This company, a predecessor of Union Carbide, Energizer, and Eveready, would come to figure prominently in the history of the consumer battery and the flashlight.
Herrick was a Presidential elector in 1892 for Harrison/Reid.<ref>Taylor 1899 : vol. 2, 136</ref>
While governor-elect in 1902, Herrick gave $20,000 to the village of Wellington, Ohio, to build the library now known as the Herrick Memorial Library. Herrick later bequeathed $70,000 for an addition.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Herrick served as the governor of Ohio from 1904 to 1906; (future United States President) Warren G. Harding served as his lieutenant governor. He had been a protégé of political boss Mark Hanna, but in 1906 was defeated by the efforts of Wayne Wheeler and the Anti-Saloon League after he refused to support their plan for the prohibition of alcohol in Ohio.
Herrick contributed to French-American amity before and during World War I.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> He was United States Ambassador to France from 1912 to 1914 and again from 1921 to 1929. He is the only American ambassador to France with a street named after him in Paris, in the 8th arrondissement. As ambassador, Herrick hosted Charles Lindbergh in Paris after his successful New York-to-Paris Atlantic crossing in 1927.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Upon his return to the United States in 1914, Herrick's prominent role in helping Americans stranded by the outbreak of World War I led to discussion within the Republican Party of Herrick as a possible nominee in the upcoming 1916 presidential election. Herrick believed that his business background would prove a liability, and when his candidacy failed to gain traction, he tried and failed to defeat incumbent Democratic Senator Atlee Pomerene in 1916.<ref>Lewis L. Gould, The First Modern Clash Over Federal Power: Wilson versus Hughes in the Presidential Election of 1916 (2016) pp 38-40.</ref>
Death
Herrick was serving as United States Ambassador to France at the time of his death on March 31, 1929. He died from a heart attack.
He was interred at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
References
Further reading
- Template:Cite book
- Myron T. Herrick, Friend of France: An Autobiographical Biography by Col. Thomas Bentley Mott
External links
- National Governors Association
- Ambassador Herrick, right, with Charles Lindbergh and Louis Bleriot; May 1927
- Myron T. Herrick Residence, formerly in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, was demolished in 1969.
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- Pages with broken file links
- 1854 births
- 1929 deaths
- Republican Party governors of Ohio
- Ambassadors of the United States to France
- Burials at Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland
- Ohio University trustees
- 1892 United States presidential electors
- Oberlin College alumni
- Ohio Wesleyan University alumni
- Cleveland City Council members
- Trust Company of America people
- 20th-century American diplomats
- 20th-century Ohio politicians