USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume I > Part 22
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The commissioners proceeded forthwith to acquire Doan Brook valley, Edge- water park, Brooklyn park, Newburg park and Ambler park, issuing eight hun-
5 Report Director Public Works 1892, p. 160.
6 Report Park Commissioners, 1882.
7 Report, 1894.
WILLIAM J. GORDON
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dred thousand dollars in four per cent bonds, divided into three issues. They brought a premium of thirty-eight thousand, four hundred and seventy-one dollars.
Doan Brook valley was a wild ravine. It was acquired in over two hundred separate parcels at a cost of three hundred and forty-six thousand, two hundred and eight dollars and eighty-nine cents. The upper or high level drive was at once begun to provide an easy connection between Gordon and Wade parks. The noble bridges that afford a crossing for Wade Park, Superior and St. Clair avenues and the Lake Shore railway were begun as soon as the money was provided.
.
EDGEWATER PARK.
Edgewater park was acquired in 1894. It includes eighty-nine acres with a frontage of six thousand feet on the lake, affording a fine beach, with a graceful curve outlined with forest trees. The land cost two hundred and five thousand, nine hundred and fifty-eight dollars and seven cents. In 1896 work was com- menced on the boulevard that skirts the lake and connects this park with De- troit street near the viaduct. In 1902 a new bath house was completed and soon thereafter the large pavilion. The beach at Edgewater, like nearly all the beaches on the west side, is in danger of being washed away. Thirteen stone jetties have been built to save it from the onrush of the waves.
BROOKLYN PARK, CALLED BROOKSIDE SINCE 1897.
In the summer of 1894 eighty-one acres at a cost of nineteen thousand, four hundred and sixty-six dollars were purchased as a nucleus for this park. Later nine acres were added from the Barker farm, costing five thousand, two hundred and sixty dollars and twenty cents; fifty and sixty-two hundredths acres from the Poe farm, at a cost of twenty-five thousand, three hundred and eleven dollars ; and nine acres purchased of Thomas Quirk at eight thousand, two hundred and thirty- four dollars and thirty-nine cents. Since 1904 a shelter house has been built and a notable concrete arch bridge built over Big creek, said to be the flattest concrete arch of its length in the United States. It has a span of eighty-six feet, four and a half inches, and a rise in the center of only five feet, three inches. The large natural amphitheater has also been improved and can now be used for outdoor exhibitions. The new zoological garden is located in this park.
NEWBURGH PARK, GARFIELD PARK SINCE 1897.
It was easy to select the sites for all of the parks excepting the one in the extreme southern part of the city. There was a great diversity of opinion among the residents of this section where their park should be located. Finally in 1896 the commissioners purchased the Dunham, Rittberger and Carter farms, one hundred and fifty-six and seventy-five hundredths acres in all, for thirty-two thou- sand, two hundred and tenty-nine dollars and sixty-four cents. The park was a half mile from the city limits at that time. In 1896 nineteen acres of meadows were purchased from the State hospital, which had been used by them as pasture land. This park has unusual natural advantages.
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AMBLER PARKWAY.
In 1894 Mrs. Martha B. Ambler gave the city twenty-five acres lying between Cedar avenue and Ambler Heights, and the following year fifty-five acres were purchased from Mrs. Ambler and others for the completion of the parkway. This includes a deep ravine with some of the finest trees in the city.
SHAKER HEIGHTS PARK.
In 1895 the Shaker Heights Land Company donated two hundred seventy- eight and eighty-five hundredths acres to the city for a park. This was a vast level stretch of land, including the site of the old Shaker settlement. In 1823 a group of this communistic sect purchased section 23 in Warrensville township. Three "families" were established, east, north and middle family, each with its one large family house and outbuildings. The middle family also had a grist mill which did a thriving business in its earlier decades. About 1843 the colony was in the height of its religious fantasy. They believed Christ was dwelling among them. Artemus Ward has left a quaint record of their search for "affinities." After the war the colony began to decline. Its young people left, the grist mill no longer flourished and its resources dwindled to the making of maple sugar and syrup. In 1889 the depleted colony was ready to sell. In 1892 a purchaser was found willing to pay three hundred and sixteen thousand dollars for the land. Some years later the section was valued at one million, three hundred and sixty- five thousand dollars. It is now developing into a beautiful, fashionable residence district to the consternation of the shades of the austere communists that haunt the site of the ancient burial ground in the grove near the new made ponds.
The year 1896 was a jubilee year for the parks of Cleveland. At a great meeting on July 22, 1896, commemorating the centennial of the founding of the city, J. G. W. Cowles, president of the Chamber of Commerce, announced to the enthusiastic throng that John D. Rockefeller gave to the city for park purposes two hundred and seventy-six acres along Doan Brook, costing two hun- dred and seventy thousand dollars, also three hundred thousand dollars to replace in the treasury the amount paid out by the commissioners for lands in the same neighborhood, on condition that the money should be spent on improving the tract. By this gift the city secured a broad ribbon of parkway, including virtually . the whole of Doan brook from source to mouth seven miles in length. It embraced the "picnic grounds," "Doan Brookway," "Cedar Parkway," and "Eastern Park- way," uniting them into Rockefeller park and Rockefeller boulevard.
In order to complete the development of the boulevard near its junction with Euclid avenue, Case School of Applied Science gave one hundred and thirty- three and forty-one hundredths feet on Euclid, J. H. Wade gave five hundred and thirteen and seventy-two hundredths feet fronting on Doan street as an entrance to Wade park, and Patrick Colburn gave the land from Euclid avenue to Cedar avenue and along Cedar glen to Euclid Heights. "University Circle" was there- by made possible and in token of the college life that centers there, the "Circle" was planted with the traditional college elm. The commissioners, spurred by these gifts, recommended the extension of Prospect and East Prospect streets
From an old lithograph
RES OF DR. N. H AMBLER CLEVELAND 0
AMBLER HEIGHTS IN 1873 The brook is Doan Brook and its valley is now used as a parkway
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to the new boulevard and the converting of Euclid avenue from Brownell street to Wade park into a parkway. This remains to be done. In 1897 the Commission- ers changed the names of many of the parks.
WOODLAND HILLS PARK.
In 1900 the city purchased one hundred acres on Kinsman street and Wood- land Hills avenue. There are fifteen acres of splendid forest trees on this tract and Kingsbury run flows through the park. It is planned to connect this park with Ambler parkway, a mile and a half distant on the east; with Garfield park two and a half miles distant on the southeast; and with Brookside park two and a half miles to the west.
WASHINGTON PARK.
In 1899 twenty-six acres were purchased from the Forest City park in the valley near the intersection of Harvard street and Independence road. About forty acres were added in 1900 and nearly twenty acres have been added since. This is a very romantic site, though it is quite inaccessible. It is planned to connect it with Garfield park three miles distant. A concrete and steel bridge was built in 1908-9 across the deep ravine that traverses the park.
EDGEWATER-BROOKSIDE PARKWAY.
In 1904 surveys were made and the city began to acquire land for the boulevard that is to connect these two parks.
The scope and popularity of the park system increased with its extension. May 10, 1896, the first count was made to determine how many patronized the parks. The commissioners reported that forty-three thousand, seven hundred and fifteen people, five thousand, nine hundred and eighteen carriages, containing fourteen thousand, eight hundred and seventy-three occupants, fourteen thousand, six hundred and ninety bicycles and fourteen thousand, one hundred and fifty-two pedestrians passed along the upper drive of Doan parkway. In 1903 it was esti- mated that one million, five hundred thousand people visited the parks. Band con- certs have been held in the parks since 1896. They were at first paid for by private subscription but latterly the city has paid for them. These popular con- certs were started by the energetic and enthusiastic Conrad Mizer, whose memorial is appropriately placed in Edgewater park. The "keep of the grass" signs were removed. Children's playgrounds, football gridirons, base ball diamonds and ten- nis courts have been established, large shelter houses have been erected and every- thing done to make the green acres the play place of the multitudes. In 1903 a series of public athletic contests was inaugurated. These include all manner of athletics in summer and skating in winter. The system of summer playgrounds was inaugurated in 1904, when eight were in operation. Their number has been increased annually. There are now four band concerts weekly and many special park days, including May day, flag day, romping day, fall song festival and Tur- ner day.
The first public bath house in the city was built on Orange street in 1904 and was soon followed by one on Clark avenue.
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND
At first the parks were under control of the city council which acted through committees. In August, 1871, the board of park commissioners was created. Until 1891 they controlled the parks, when the director of public works assumed charge of them. In 1893 the legislature again created a board of park commis- sioners. Until 1900 this board supervised the vast extension of the park system. Since 1900 the department of public works of the city has been in charge of the parks.
The park police force was inaugurated in 1894. In 1903 the system was re- organized and Joe Goldsoll was made the first chief of park police.
Cleveland was for many years known as the Forest City. It deserved the title. Its broad avenues were shaded by rows of stately maples and graceful elms. With the crowding of the buildings, the laying of gas and sewer pipe, the paving of streets and the increased combustion of soft coal, the trees found the competition with civilization too severe. In 1891 the city retained J. C. Arthur, professor of botany in Purdue university, to examine the trees and to ascertain why they were dying so rapidly. The great elms, then the largest trees in the central part of the city were "greatly enfeebled and slowly but surely dying." Along Woodland avenue the elms a foot and a half in diameter were being removed and the large elms in the Square were cut down. Maples were similarly affected. The report laid the destruction to the gases-carbon monoxide, sulphurous acid and arsenious acid -- that are emitted in large quantities from the factory chimneys. In 1900 new enemies made their appearance. The Tussock moth (Orgya leucostigma), the oyster shell bark louse (Mytilaspis pomorum), the cottony maple scale (Pulvi- naria innumerabalis) and the San Jose scale (Aspidiotis perniciosus).
These deadly pests made necessary the spraying and scraping of trees. Private enterprise failing the city began to do this work. In 1905 over fifteen thousand trees were sprayed. In 1909 every tree in the streets and the parks was sprayed and treated for these diseased conditions.
In 1897 the department of forestry and nurseries was established and M. H. Horvath was appointed forester. He resigned in 1905 and John Boddy was appointed.
The latest development in the park system is the establishing of small play- grounds for the children in congested districts. When the proceeds of the old sinking fund created from the city's investment in railroad stock became available for the first seven wards, several bath houses were erected and playgrounds es- tablished near the Orange street bath house and near Marion and Waring schools.
CHAPTER XVII.
MEDICAL CLEVELAND. By H. E. Handerson, M. D.
"Theodore Shepard, physician"-such is the modest title under which we are introduced to the earliest representative of the medical profession in Cleveland. He was probably not an M. D. ( few of his American colleagues of that day enjoyed
Dr. John Delamater 1787-1867
Dr. H. A. Ackley 1791-1859
Dr. David Long 1787-1851 Cleveland's First Physician
Dr. Proctor Thayer 1823-1890
PIONEER PHYSICIANS
Dr. J. II. Salisbury
1
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND
a medical degree), and we know of him very little, save that he was the medical officer of the surveying party, which, under the lead of Moses Cleaveland, laid out the streets of our city in the summer and autumn of 1796. Dr. Shepard re- turned to the east with the surveying party in October of the same year, but re- visited Cleveland in 1797 with the second party under the direction of the Rev. Seth Hart. He seems, however, never to have settled in the infant town, and while, therefore, he may claim the honor of having been the first physician in Cleveland, he was not, and never became a physician of Cleveland.
Of the succeeding thirteen years of our little hamlet we may say (as Pliny affirms of the first six hundred years of ancient Rome) they were "not, indeed, without physic, but they were without physicians."
Doubtless the homely skill and care of the mothers and wives of the pioneers, combined with their own hardy constitutions, sufficed, in the majority of cases, to restore the health of those who suffered from the ordinary diseases of fron- tier life. Of these diseases, agues and dysenteries were the most troublesome, the former due to the myriad mosquitoes of the flat lands along the river, the latter to impure water, improper food and the unavoidable exposures of a fickle climate and a rude life. Cinchona bark was scarce, bulky and expensive, quinine yet undiscovered, and the poor sufferers from ague were compelled to make shift with the anti-periodic virtues of dogwood bark or other simples, to retire to the hills for recuperation, or like pale and chattering ghosts to wrestle with the plas- modium on its own ground, until the vitality of the parasite or the patient yielded in the struggle. In the most severe and dubious cases of disease, a doctor might be summoned from Painesville, Hudson, Wooster or Monroe-the nearest vil- lages available for medical advice.
Under such circumstances, the arrival in 1810 of our first resident physician marks a genuine epoch in the history of Cleveland. This welcome settler was Dr. David Long, a young man of twenty-three years, active, energetic and pos- sessed of a character which impressed its mark upon much of the early history of our city.
Born in 1787 in the little town of Hebron, Washington county, New York, Dr. Long is said to have received his medical education in New York city. Soon after his arrival in Cleveland he opened an office in a small frame building on the site of the present American house, and in 1811 married Miss Julianna, the daughter of John Walworth, at that time both the postmaster of Cleveland and the collector of the revenue district of which Cleveland was the headquarters.
It is one of the peculiarities of the character of Dr. Long, that, while he early assumed, and for many years held, the position of head of the medical profession in Cuyahoga county, he is even better known and remembered as a versatile "man of affairs," active in all movements designed to benefit the com- munity in which he lived, and to promote the best interests of the village of Cleve- land. Accordingly, in 1815, when Cleveland organized under its village charter, Dr. Long was elected one of the village trustees, and in the following year was one of the incorporators of the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie, the pioneer banking institution of the village. In the same year too he took part in the incorporation of the Cleveland Pier Company, an organization designed to improve the facil- ities for the landing of the steamboats plying upon the Great Lakes, and, though
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND
a Presbyterian by conviction, assisted in the organization of the Episcopal parish of Trinity church (now Trinity cathedral), the first religious body organized in our city. In 1826 he was elected one of the county commissioners of Cuyahoga county and by his vote determined the erection of the courthouse in Cleveland, in opposition to the claims of Newburg, then an important rival of our village, and in 1829 he was chosen president of the village corporation. In 1832, when Cleveland experienced its first visitation by the cholera, Dr. Long was again one of the village trustees, and aided in the adoption of prompt measures for the pro- tection of the village and the care of the unfortunate victims of the scourge. He was deeply interested in the building of the Ohio canal, the public improvement which furnished the foundation for the future growth of Cleveland, and is even said to have taken a contract for the excavation of a certain section of this canal on terms anything but remunerative. The presidency of the Cleveland Anti- Slavery society in 1837 bears witness also to the humanitarian instincts of this indefatigable citizen, who died generally lamented September 1, 1851.
The conditions under which the early practitioner of medicine on the Western Reserve was placed are well set forth in the following extract from a letter writ- ten in 1809 by the Hon. Stanley Griswold to a friend who had written to him asking for information. He says :
"I have consulted the principal characters, particularly Judge Walworth, who concurs with me, that Cleveland would be an excellent place for a young physician, and cannot long remain unoccupied. This is based more on what the place is expected to be, than what it is. Even now a physician of eminence would com- mand great practice, from being called to ride over a large country, say fifty miles each way. There is now none of eminent or ordinary character in that ex- tent. But settlements are scattered and roads new and bad, which would make it a painful practice. Within a few weeks Cleveland has been fixed upon by a committee of the legislature as the seat of justice for Cuyahoga county. Several respectable characters will remove to that town. The country around bids fair to increase rapidly in population. A young physician of the qualifications de- scribed by you will be certain to succeed, but for a short time, if without means; must keep school, for which there is a good chance in winter, till a piece of ground, bring on a few goods ( for which it is a good stand), or do something else in connection with his practice."
The inquiries which suggested the above letter were made in the interest of Dr. Elijah Coleman, who subsequently settled in 'Ashtabula, but the advice con- tained in the last sentence seems to have been appreciated by Dr. Long, who for a number of years had a store of general merchandise on the site of the present American house, and advertised his goods freely in the local newspapers. For example :
"SALT, PLASTER, ETC.
"The subscriber has on hand for sale, which he will sell low for cash or most kinds of country produce :
800 bls. Salt IO tons Plaster
Bar Iron
179
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND
And an excellent assortment of
Castings also
50 Buffalo Robes of superior quality.
Cleaveland, October 19, 1819.
DAVID LONG."
That the doctor was not in business entirely for his health may also be inferred from the following,
"Last Notice.
Those persons who are indebted and do not call and settle their accounts by the Ioth day of January next, may expect to pay costs.
Cleaveland, December 28, 1819.
DAVID LONG."
Nothing derogatory to the character of Dr. Long must be inferred, however, from these advertisements, which are entirely in accordance with the customs and medical ethics of the period. Indeed, at the very time of their publication there is reason to believe that Dr. Long was one of the censors of the District Medical society of the Cleveland district.
The story of the execution in 1812 of the Indian O'Mic on the Public Square, has been elsewhere related, and is noticed here only to call attention to one of the medical sequelae of the spectacle.
Mrs. Long, with whom the Indian O'Mic- had been a playmate in childhood, adds the following story to the usual account of the execution :
"All the people from the Western Reserve seemed to be there, particularly the doctors. I remember several of those who stayed at our house. Among them was Dr. (Peter) Allen, who recently died in Trumbull county, Dr. (Eli- jah) Coleman, of Ashtabula county, Dr. Johnson, of Conneaut, and Dr. Hawley, of Austintown (Austinburg). When O'Mic was swung off, the rope broke, and they were not sure that he was dead, but there was a storm coming on and he was hurried into the grave near the gallows. The public square was only partly cleared then, and had many stumps and bushes on it. At night, the doctors went for the body, with the tacit consent of the sheriff. O'Mic was about twenty-one years of age, and was very fat and heavy. Dr. Long did not think one man could carry him, but Dr. 'Allen, who was very stout, thought he could. He was put upon Dr. Allen's back, who soon fell over a stump and O'Mic on the top of him. The doctors dare not laugh aloud, for fear they might be discovered; but some of them were obliged to lie down on the ground and roll around there, before they came to the relief of Dr. Allen."
The corpse of the unfortunate Indian was deposited upon the banks of the lake for some time, until decomposition had removed most of the soft parts, when the bones were collected and articulated by Dr. Long, and the skeleton was preserved in his office for a number of years. From his hands it passed into those of Dr. Israel Town, who took it to Hudson on his removal to that place, and from Dr. Town is passed to his son in law, a Dr. Murray, after which its history can be no longer traced. We shall have occasion, however, to see the skeleton of O'Mic, like the ghost of Banquo, rise once more to rebuke the levity of his executioners.
The outbreak of the War of 1812 awakened the little hamlet of Cleveland to new relations and new responsibilities. From an insignificant inland town, un-
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND
known to the outside world, she found herself transformed, at a word, into a fron- tier post of no little possible importance, a rendezvous for troops and a depot for the supplies and munitions of war. Several bodies of militia encamped along the banks of the Cuyahoga river in 1812, and in May, 1813, Captain Stanton Sholes, United States Army, arrived in command of a company of regular troops, and built not only a stockade or fort, but also the first hospital erected within the limits of our present city. Of the latter building Captain Sholes writes as fol- lows :
"At my arrival I found a number of sick and wounded, who were of Hull's surrender, sent here from Detroit, and more coming. They were crowded into a log cabin, and no one to care for them. I sent one or two of my soldiers to take care of them, as they had no friends. I had two or three good carpenters in my company, and set them to work to build a hospital. I very soon got up a good one, thirty by twenty feet, smoothly and tightly covered and floored with chest- nut bark, with two tiers of bunks around the walls, with doors and windows, and not a nail or screw, or iron latch or hinge about the building. Its cost to the government was a few extra rations. In a short time I had all the bunks well strawed, and the sick and wounded good and clean, to their great joy and com- fort, but some had fallen asleep."
The stockade or fort erected by Captain Sholes, and dignified with the title of Fort Huntington, was located upon original lot No. 8, at a point corresponding to the present western side of Third street, northwest (Seneca street), a few rods from the bank of the lake. The precise position of his hospital is not determined.
While stationed in Cleveland Captain Sholes himself fell a victim to the re- lentless mosquitoes of the Cuyahoga valley, and his sufferings led to the curious encounter described in his own words below.
"Some time in July I was attacked 1 with the fever, and as Dr. Long lived in a small house about halfway from Major Carter's to the point, near my camp, I stepped to the doctor's ; he was not at home, and Mrs. Long, seeing me shake, requested me to lie down. I was soon up the stairs, slipped off my coat and boots, and fell on the bed. When I awoke and came a little to myself, I smelt something very sickening. Turning my face to the wall, my face partly on the bed, I was struck almost senseless by an object on the floor between me and the wall, my face partly over it. It was a human skeleton, every bone in its place, the flesh mostly gone. I gazed at the bones till I verily thought I was dead, and that they had buried me by the side of someone that had gone before me. I felt very sick, which roused me from my lethargy, and I found that I was alive, and had been sleeping alongside a dead man. As soon as I recalled where I was, I reached the lower floor in quickstep, giving Mrs. Long a fright to see me come down in such haste. She very politely apologized for her forgetfulness. The season before there had been an Indian hung for the murder of a white man, and I had the luck to sleep side by side with his frame, not fully cleaned."
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