Background
Myron Timothy Herrick was born in Huntington, Lorain Co., Ohio. He was the of Mary (Hulburt) Herrick and Timothy Robinson Herrick a local farmer.
Myron T. Herrick
Myron Timothy Herrick was born in Huntington, Lorain Co., Ohio. He was the of Mary (Hulburt) Herrick and Timothy Robinson Herrick a local farmer.
He attended schools in Huntington and Wellington, then became a teacher. Later he went to St. Louis where, by writing descriptive articles for a newspaper, he was able to save enough to study at Oberlin College and later at Ohio Wesleyan University.
Herrick moved in 1875 to Cleveland, where he studied law in a private office, and was admitted to the bar in 1878.
In 1886 he retired from law practice and entered banking, becoming an officer of the Society for Savings in Cleveland.
In 1901 Myron Herrick was elected president of the American Bankers' Association. Herrick became a close friend of Mark Hanna and William McKinley. After declining President McKinley's invitation to become secretary of the Treasury, Herrick was governor of Ohio from 1904 to 1906. From 1906 until 1912, he was concerned for the most part with reorganization of railroads.
On February 15, 1912, Myron Herrick accepted an appointment from President William Howard Taft as ambassador to France. In the early months of World War I Herrick made possible the expansion of the American Hospital in Paris and established the American Committee and the American Relief Clearing House for the care of war victims. Herrick stayed in Paris until December 1914 to protect his fellow citizens and on his departure was presented with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. Defeated as a senatorial candidate in 1916, Herrick was named by President Warren G. Harding, in April 1921, as ambassador to France again. With his own money he purchased the Grévy house, which became the American embassy's permanent home.
After vacationing in Ohio in 1927 and 1928, Herrick returned to Paris, where, following much mental and physical stress, he died on March 31, 1929. He was buried in Cleveland, Ohio.
Member City Council, Cleveland, 1895-1898.
He married Caroline Marina Parmely of Dayton, Ohio on June 30, 1880. They had one son, Parmely Webb Herrick (1881 – 1937).