WALTER SHERMAN BOOTH author and publisher, was born on September 28, 1827, on his father’s farm on the banks of the Housatonic River, in Bridgewater, Connecticut. The family is an old and distinguished one, which traces its line back to the year 1200. Richard Booth, his first American ancestor, came from England and settled in Stratford, Connecticut, in 1640. Daniel Booth, his father, lived on the homestead near Newtown, Connecticut, which has been kept by the family since 1706. His mother was Sabra Sherman, who was descended from Samuel Sherman, one of the first settlers of Stratford, Connecticut, and an ancestor of Gen. W. T. Sherman and Senator John Sherman, as well as Honorable William Evarts and Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts.

Walter S. Booth was educated at Newtown Academy and Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, and stood high in his classes.  In 1848 he married Miss Catherine Eliza Peters, of Kent, Connecticut, who was also descendant of an old colonial family. Her father died in 1892 at the advanced age of ninety-five. After his marriage Mr. Booth taught classical schools in Connecticut, fitting young men for college, until 1855, when he removed to Fillmore County, Minnesota, and subsequently studied law with Hon. Thomas H. Armstrong, and was admitted to the bar at Austin in March, 1861. He removed to Rochester in October, 1862, taking charge of the Rochester City Post, then owned by Hon. David Blakely, secretary of state, and continued in charge till the close of the Civil War, in 1865. He then, with Maj. J. A. Leonard, just returned from military service in the South, purchased the City Post of Mr. Blakely, and the Republican of Shaver & Eaton, publishers, uniting the two papers under the name of the Rochester Post, which still continues, under Mr. Leonard.

Mr. Booth was also for many years court commissioner, and city and ward justice of Rochester. During his connection with the Post he wrote the Justice’s Manual and the Township Manual for Minnesota, which have since passed to the thirteenth editions and become standard for the use of officers throughout the state. In 1876 Mr. Booth sold his interest in the Rochester Post to Mr. Leonard to engage exclusively in the publication of township and law blanks, books and manuals, assisted by his son, Walter S., Jr. The new business of editing and publishing elementary works of instruction for township and other officers, and supplementing them with well-prepared blanks and record books, proved a great success, and during the succeeding eight years Booth’s publications became standard throughout the state. Needing larger facilities for publishing and a more central point for distributing their publications, Messrs. Booth & Son removed their establishment and families to Minneapolis in 1884 and extended their field to embrace the entire Territory of Dakota also. Their extensive establishment was entirely burned up in the disastrous Tribune fire of 1889, but they recovered from their unfortunate loss in a few years, and prepared and published Justices and Township and Notaries Manuals for each of the new states of North and South Dakota, as well as the same class of publications for use in Minnesota, so that in 1896 the house of Walter S. Booth & Son were the editors and publishers of twelve different standard law manuals and over twelve hundred different kinds of standard law and township blanks.

Mr. Booth is a member of the Episcopal church. His children were Harriet Gertrude, who died in Milwaukee in 1879, John Peters, Walter Sherman. Jr., Henry Whipple and William Hull. The last two died before reaching maturity.