Page "Joseph Gurney Cannon" Paragraph 3

Asked by Terre Haute politician and lawyer John Palmer Usher, future Secretary of the Interior under President Abraham Lincoln, to testify in a slander case, Cannon became fascinated with the law.

Eventually, he asked Usher if he could study law under him and moved to Terre Haute.

At age 19 he traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio to attend a semester of law school at the University of Cincinnati law school.