A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume I, Part 5

Author: Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922; Clarke, S.J., publishing company
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago-Cleveland : The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1262

USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume I > Part 5

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In 1664, Charles II, in spite of previous grants to the Plymouth company and the London company, ceded to his brother, the Duke of York, the lands that had been occupied by the Dutch in New Netherlands from the Delaware river to the Connecticut river, and sundry other lands on the St. Croix, in Maine.

Finally, on March 4, 1681, Pennsylvania was granted to William Penn, These charters embracing the later states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia were made with a magnificent disregard for each other's claims, and their boundaries were described with great ambiguity. But they all extended across the continent to the mythological "South Sea," so that the peace of 1781, found all these states making vigorous claims to the Northwest territory.

In 1784 Congress asked all the states claiming territory in the northwest to cede their lands to the Confederacy, in order to aid in the payment of the war debt and to promote the general harmony of the Union.

To the claim of Virginia, under the colonial charter, was added the more substantial right by colonization. In spite of the fact that England, after the peace of 1760 had strenuously forbidden the settlement west of the Alleghenies, the news of the fertile valleys beyond the mountains, of the beautiful river, and of the equable climate, lured many a squatter.

The Ohio Land Company was organized in 1748. George Washington's brothers Lawrence and Augustine were among its members, and by the close of the Revolution there were many frontier huts in the western land. Virginia, however, ceded her rights to the territory on November 1, 1784. The claims of

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

New York were ceded to the Confederation, March I, 1781, after the deter- mining of her western boundary.

On April 18, 1785, Massachusetts ceded her rights west of the meridian that had been determined upon as the western boundary of New York. But when the western line of Pennsylvania was surveyed in 1785-86, a slight read- justment was necessary in this meridian. Pennsylvania ceded her claims in 1786, after her western boundary had been fixed.

Thus, all the vast pretenses that had survived the colonial epoch, were amicably settled, excepting only the claims of doughty Connecticut. Her charter of 1662, described her limits as "Bounded on the east by Narraganset river, commonly called Narragansett bay, where the said river flows into the sea ; and on the north by the line of Massachusetts plantation, on the south by the sea ; and in longitude as the line of the Massachusetts colony, running from east to west, that is to say, from the said Narragansett bay in the east, to the South sea on the west, with the islands thereto adjoining." The conflict which this generous grant engendered with New York, was settled by royal commission soon after the granting of the charter; the controversy with Pennsylvania, as to the lands be- tween 41 and 42 degrees of latitude, included in the charters of both states, was settled in favor of Pennsylvania, by a commission of Congress in 1782. But, deprived of her claims in New York and Pennsylvania, Connecticut did not relinquish her hold on the lands west of Pennsylvania. To these, she asserted her rights by a resolution of the legislature in 1783, claiming thereby "the un- doubted and exclusive right of jurisdiction and preemption to all the lands lying west from the western limits of the state of Pennsylvania, and east of the Mississippi river, and extending throughout, from the latitude of the forty- first degree to the latitude of the forty-second degree and two minutes, north; by virtue of the charter granted by King Charles II, to the late colony and now state of Connecticut, and being dated April 23, 1662, which claim and title to make known for the information of all, that they may conform themselves thereto :

"Resolved, that his excellency, the governor, be desired to issue his proclama- tion, declaiming and asserting the right of this state to all the lands within the limits aforesaid, and strictly forbidding all persons to enter or settle thereon, without special license and authority first obtained from the general assembly of this state."

The enterprising state finally complied with the request of Congress, and on the 14th of September, 1786, the congressional delegates from Congress, executed a deed of cession to the western lands, in accordance with instruc- tions given them by the state legislature. But there was a reservation in this deed. The language follows: "All the right, title, interest, jurisdiction and claim of the state of Connecticut, to certain western lands beginning at the completion of the forty-first degree of north latitude, one hundred and twenty-five miles west of the western boundary of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as now claimed by said commonwealth; and from thence by a line to be drawn parallel to, and one hundred and twenty miles west of said west line of Penn- sylvania, and to continue north until it comes to forty-second degree and two minutes, north latitude; whereby all the right, title, interest, jurisdiction and

-- --------

TRUMBULL COUNTY

EMBRACING ALL OF THE WESTERN RESERVE AND THE FIRE LANDS ESTABLISHED BY PROCLAMATION JULY 10 -1800.

CONNEAUINO

LAKE

CLEVELAND

SANDUSKY

TRUMBULL

COUNTY

· WARREN

YOUNGSTOWNO

AKRON

1800-01

CLEVELAND

FIRE LANDS

TRUMBULL & COUNTY 1806/

WESTERN RESERVE.

WAYNE 1796

RESERVATION

INDIAN

TREATY LINE

ST. CLAIRSVILLA

FAIRFIELD 11800.

BELMONT 1801.

HAMILTON

1750.

1788 .~

MARIETTA

ROSS 1798.

CLERMONT

BATAVIA

ADAMS 1799

MANCHESTER

OHIO COUNTIES 1802.

1802

·CHARDON

GEAUGA COUNTY

CLEVELAND

1805

WESTERN

RESERVE

OHIO

MAP SHOWING GEAUGA COUNTY 1805.

1805

MAPS SHOWING COUNTIES IN WHICH CLEVELAND WAS LOCATED SINCE ADMISSION OF OHIO AS A STATE

·CHILLICOTHE

WASHINGTON

LANCASTER

JEFFERSON

ASTEUBENVILLE

7 ---

1797.

WARREN

ERIE

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

claim of the said state of Connecticut, to the lands lying west of the said line, to be drawn as before mentioned, one hundred and twenty miles west of the western boundary of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as now claimed by said commonwealth, shall be included, released and ceded to the United States in Congress assembled, for the common use and benefit of said states, Connec- ticut included."

This tract of land, one hundred and twenty miles long and of variable width, so reserved, is the famous "Connecticut Western Reserve," which became within a quarter of a century after its creation, the home of a transplanted New England.

Within a month after releasing her claims, Connecticut, by resolution of her legislature, proceeded to prepare for the sale of her Reserve. The resolu- tion provided a committee of three who were empowered to sell that portion of land lying east of the Cuyahoga river, and the old Portage path, the land to be surveyed into townships, six miles square, the price to be six shillings per acre, equal to about fifty cents federal money, and the surveys to begin at the Pennsylvania boundary, the townships to be numbered from Lake Erie south- ward, and in each township five hundred acres were to be reserved for the support of schools and five hundred acres for the support of gospel ministers.

No surveys were begun by this committee and only one sale was made. This was the famous "Salt Spring Tract" of twenty-four thousand acres in Trum- bull county, to General Samuel H. Parsons, of Middletown, Connecticut. His patent was recorded at Hartford, and in the newly established county seat of Washington county, Marietta, and later, because of conflicting claims to the jurisdiction in the Reserve, it was recorded also at Warren, the seat of Trum- bull county.

The second parcel disposed of by the state, was the grant made in 1792, to those of her citizens who had suffered through the burning of their homes by the British, during the Revolution. A half million acres were taken from the extreme western end of the Reserve for their benefit. This tract embraces the present site of the counties of Erie and Huron, and was at once called the "Fire Lands."

Indian hostilities and the fact that the purchaser was required to take all risk of title and possession retarded the sale of these lands. The legislature, in May, 1795, determined on a new way of disposing them. A committee of eight citizens, one from each county in the state, was authorized to sell three million acres immediately adjoining the Pennsylvania line, at not less than one million dollars, or one third of a dollar per acre.

The following comprised this committee : John Treadwell, Marvin Wait, Thomas Grosvenor, Elijah Hubbard, James Wadsworth, William Edmond, Aaron Austin, and Sylvester Gilbert. Some of these names have found their way into our local geography.

The time of the appointment of this committee was propitious. Speculation in western lands had revived with the triumphal march of General Wayne through the Indian country, from the Ohio river to Lake Erie, in 1794.

By September 2, 1795, enough buyers had been found to take the entire tract from the committee, at a purchase price of one million, two hundred

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

thousand dollars. There were thirty-five parties (sometimes reported as thirty- six parties), and fifty-seven individuals (sometimes reported as forty-nine) in this list. 1 They pooled their interests, and deeds dated September 5, 1795, were at once made to them, each one buying as many twelve hundred thousandths as he had subscribed dollars to the fund. These deeds were recorded in Hartford and subsequently in Warren, and the original is in the archives of Western Re- serve Historical Society.

These purchasers formed the Connecticut Land Company, and they all joined in a deed of trust, September 5, 1795, to John Caldwell, Jonathan Brace, and John Morgan, and the original is in the archives of Western Reserve Historical Society. The deeds given by these trustees form the source of all land titles in the Reserve. All of the trustees were still living as late as 1836 and joined in transfers made in Cleveland.

The southern shore of Lake Erie was at that time supposed to run nearly due east and west, and therefore there should be a large acreage of land be- tween the lake and the Connecticut Land Company's purchase. This supposi- titious land was finally sold to "The Excess Company." The great southerly sweep of the lake wiped out all the claims of the Excess Company. It also dim- inished the Connecticut Land Company's purchase, for it was learned upon the completion of the surveys, that the entire area available was only two mil- lion, eight hundred and thirty-seven thousand, one hundred acres, including the islands in Sandusky bay.

CHAPTER V.

THE PLAN OF THE CITY. ANNEXATIONS AND BOUNDARIES.

The Connecticut Land Company determined at once, to survey its vast pur- chase into tracts five miles square, by running meridian lines every five miles west of the Pennsylvania boundary. These townships were described by "Ranges," the first "Range" being adjacent to the Pennsylvania line, and then numbered westward; and by "Tiers," the first "Tier" being on the forty-first parallel, which formed the southern boundary. The northernmost tiers touching the lake, formed irregular, or fractional townships.

The first surveying party was sent out in 1796, under the command of Gen- eral Moses Cleaveland, of Canterbury, Wyndham county, Connecticut. Augustus Porter, of Salisbury, Connecticut, who had been surveyor in western New York, in the great "Holland Purchase," was the principal surveyor, and Seth Pease of Sheffield, Connecticut, second surveyor, as well as astronomer and mathe- matician of the party. Under these men were the other surveyors, John Milton Holley, Richard M. Stoddard, and Moses Warren, Jr.

On the 4th of July, 1796, the party entered the Reserve by boat from Buffalo, at the western boundary of Pennsylvania, as fixed by the commission of 1785.

1 See Appendix for list.

REFERENCES

... DRIGINAL BOUNDARIES

ITTY WTt ANNEXATION OF JAN.25 -1811.

QWILL PART OF ELYRIA TP. DETACHED FEB 18 -1812.

Wwwwwww COLUMBIA. CATON, RIDGEVILLE, AVON, SHEFFIELD L W NALF

OLMSTED DETACHED APR 1- 1824 WITH ORGANIZATION OF LORAIN CO. WEST HALF OLMSTED RESTORED JAN 29-1827.

ANNEXEO JAN. 29-1841.

PRESENT BOUNDARIES

EUCLID

MAYFIELD

LAKE

ELAND

CLE

AVON

DOVER

ROCKPORT

ROCKY

BROOKLYN

NEWBURGH

CUYAHOGA

COUNTY

ELYRIA

RIDGEVILLE

OLMSTED

MIDDLEBURG

PARMA

BEDFORD

SOLON

BLACK

44447

EATON

COLUMBIA

STRONGSVILLEI

ROYALTON

BRECKSVILLE

MAP SHOWING CHANGES IN BOUNDARIES OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY

WILLOUGHBY

DETACHED MAR 20-1640.

EAST CLEVELAND

SHEFFIELD

WARRENSVILLE

ORANGE

CHAGRIN FALLS

INDEPENDENCE

RIVER

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

The first four range lines were run in 1796, and nearly all the townships north of the sixth tier, and east of the Cuyahoga river were surveyed. Porter, with a small party, traversed the lake shore westward, to fix the west line of the Reserve. General Cleaveland meanwhile proceeded to the mouth of the Cuyahoga river, reaching here July 22, 1796. He built a cabin on the hillside, south of St. Clair street, and west of Union Lane for the surveyors. Porter returned from his western survey to this cabin and other members of the party arrived at various intervals.

On the 16th of September, 1796, the first survey of the city of Cleveland was begun. On the 22d of September, Holley, Shepard and Spafford, began the survey of Cleveland township and its "hundred acre lots." This town- ship was one of six that the company had determined to allot and sell for the benefit of the shareholders.

Seth Pease made a map of the Reserve in 1797 (this map is now in the Western Reserve Historical Society). The township of Cleveland is there marked as a large and irregular tract consisting of twenty-five thousand, two hundred and forty-two acres. It is described as in range 12, tiers 7 and 8. Out of the original township of Cleveland, have been made parts of East Cleveland, Cleveland and Newburg townships.

The first survey of Cleveland was made by Seth Pease and Amos Spafford under the superintendence of Augustus Porter. Seth Pease probably did much of the work of this first survey, for Spafford was set to work on the survey of Cleveland township on the 22d of September. 1 The first map made of the city is, however, called "Spafford's Map." It was undoubtedly made here, as it is traced on sheets of foolscap paper pasted together. Whittlesey says the sketch was found among the papers of J. Milton Holley, by his son, Governor Alexander H. Holley, of Connecticut, and sent by him to Colonel Whittlesey. It is endorsed in the handwriting of Amos Spafford "Original Plan of the Town and Village of Cleveland, Ohio, October 1, 1796." 2

This "original plan" does not evince any originality. It might have been drawn for any other town planted on a plain in the wilderness. It makes no effort to conform to the contour lines of the river valley, and seems entirely oblivious to its magnificent site above the placid lake. Indeed, it is like the plans of other towns made by the same surveyors. They follow a common model, an open square or diamond in the center of a rectangular or square area, traversed by streets laid out in orderly precision, meeting at somber right angles. Nearly all the towns of the Reserve follow this plan.

In Spafford's plans, however, the streets are generously wide. Superior street was at first called Broad street, but the name is scratched out in the original map. Miami street was at first called Deer street, and Ontario street Court street. It is not known whether these changes were made here, or after the map had been taken east. The Public Square is shown as an expansion of Superior street, like a river expanding into a lake. All the town lots are numbered. There are two hundred and twenty of them, and these numbers are found on all titles flowing from this source.

I See Barker, "Original Surveys of old Cleaveland," page 223.

2 "Early History of Cleveland," p. 238.

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

The official report of the surveys was compiled by Seth Pease. He made a map of Cleveland to accompany this report; it is endorsed, "Plan of the City of Cleaveland, 1796." It follows Spafford's map with some slight changes. "The river bluffs are slightly different, and the land's point at the mouth is larger." 1

Pease was a fine draughtsman, as this map shows. Several copies of it were made, but it was not engraved. A faithful copy of this map is found on page I, volume I, of "Maps and Profiles," in the office of the city engineer, made in 1842, by I. N. Pillsbury, then city engineer. Pillsbury had access to the orig- inal. Leonard Case endorses his copy in the city records, "as neat a facsimile copy of the original as can usually be made by ordinary writers." Ralph Granger, of Fairport, Ohio, a nephew of Seth Pease, also endorsed this Pills- bury copy, after comparing it carefully with the original. These endorsements are all found on record with this map.

The surveys upon which these maps are based, were completed by October, for, on the 17th of October, Milton Holley writes in his journal, "Finished surveying in New Connecticut, weather raining," and on the following day, "We left Cuyahoga at 3 o'clock, seventeen minutes, for home. We left at Cuya- hoga, Job Stiles and wife, and Joseph Landon, with provisions for the winter. William B. Hall, Titus V. Munson and Olney Rice, engaged to take all the pack horses to Geneva. Day pleasant and fair winds; about southeast; rowed about seven and a half miles, and encamped for the night on the beach. There were fourteen men on board the boat, and never, I presume, were fourteen men more anxious to pursue an object than we were to go forward. Names of men in the boat. Augustus Porter, Seth Pease, Richard Stoddard, Joseph Tinker, Charles Parker, Wareham Shepherd, Amzi 'Atwater, James Hacket, Stephen Benton, George Proudfoot, James Hamilton, Nathan Chapman, Ralph Bacon, Milton Holley."

These, then are the men who in the mellow Indian summer of 1796, ran the lines through the forests of chestnut and oak, that were to be, within a few decades, the busy thoroughfares of the metropolis of Ohio.

In 1801, Amos Spafford returned and resurveyed the street and lot lines. He fixed the principal corners by driving fifty-four oak posts about eighteen inches square. He charged fifty cents each for these posts, and also charged fifty cents for grubbing out a tree that stood in the northeast corner of the Square. He made a new map of the town following his original plat, but omitted Maiden Lane and Federal street, and added Superior Lane. Ohio street also embraced Miami street. This map with its accompanying descriptions of streets was recorded in Warren. Ohio, February 15, 1802, in volume A, page 100. The record, however, is not endorsed by either Spafford or the Land Company. Such irregularities and informalities were not regarded seriously in early days.

This map was copied by Alfred Kelley, one of the first attorneys of Cleve- land, and recorded in Cuyahoga county records, volume A, page 482, on No- vember 22, 1814; and on December 26, 1856, it was transcribed into volume 2, page 24, of maps. It was also transcribed into the city engineer's record, by I. N. Pillsbury.

1 Whittlesey's "Early History," p. 241.

Bath St

186

192

187,188,189,190

193

184

194

7:8 9 10 11.12

13:14: 15 16

2:23:24

195

Street

196

181

197

Water

Ontario

37,38 39,40 41,42 43;44 45146;47.48

Federal Street

201

Street

3: Haddon

59,60

61,62'

Erie

/72

171

170

205

49,50151.52

SI56157:58

636

Brott Superior

Street

73 74, 75176 77, 78,79 ,80,81 .82

87.88, 89,90 31 92.93.94.95,96

167

206

Lander

83.84 G

85,86

165

164

163

54155115611571158459/60/61.162

1208

209

1210

Huron

Street

COPY OF

109, 10,11,12, 13, 14,16, 17

212

195,146147,148145,150,151 ;152153

214

215

417.18 119 /20 121 122, 123,124

144

2/7

142

E18

141. .--

219

140

220

Onio

Street

139

25 /26127 |28129 13013132

138

FIRST MAP OF CLEVELAND

Original in Western Reserve Historical Society. On the original in Spafford's handwriting are the words "Original plan of the town and village of Cleveland, Ohio, October 1, 1796." References-A, lower landing; B, upper landing; C, public square; D, mouth of the river; EE, Lake Erie.

179

198 Mandrake's

199

200

25126, 27:28:29;30131 :32,33134135.36

173

174,175,176; 17

202

203

204

/69

/68

Vineyard St

.73 74, 75:76. 77:78.79

97 98 199 , 100101 102,103 104 /05/06 /07/08

1207

Street

166

Please Hotel

Baum

Shepard

Chapman

178

191

185

183

182

180

SPAFFORD'S MAP OF OCT. IST 1796.

213

Deerst Miami St.

216

143

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

This Kelly copy of the Spafford map is virtually our official land map to which are referred the early titles of Cleveland and which has been constantly consulted for the determining of the original lots and streets.

There are four lanes and ten streets in this map. The streets are six rods, wide, excepting Bath, which is narrower and irregular, and Superior, which is eight rods wide. There are two hundred and twenty lots, all excepting those that border on the lake and on the river, are two chains wide by ten chains deep, con- taining two acres. The Public Square contains nine and one-half acres, instead of ten as usually represented.

In 1797, the "Second Party" of surveyors arrived in Cleveland under the leadership of Seth Pease as chief surveyor. They proceeded to survey the "Cleveland ten acre lots," comprising the area now embraced between Brownell street and Willson avenue. The survey began August 20th, on Sunday. Three radiating roads were surveyed through the ten acre lots; "North Highway," now St. Clair avenue, "Center Highway," now Euclid avenue, and "South Highway," now Woodland avenue; each was ninety-nine feet wide, and their corners were respectively, north 58 degrees east; north 82 degrees east, and south 74 degrees east. The "North" road connected with Federal street of Pease's plan, the "Center" road with Huron street, and the "South" road with Erie street.

Inasmuch as these roads radiate, the lots become deeper as you travel from the city. The lots are all the same width; their area therefore varies from less than ten acres to forty acres, and one, number 166, has one hundred acres. The reason for this variation is to equalize the value of the lots on the theory that the further they are from town the less valuable per foot front. Those on the south side of Woodland avenue are all ten acres, however, because the rear lot line is parallel to Woodland owing to the irregularity of Kingsbury Run ravine, which prevented the expansion of the lots. The numbers begin with the southeast angle of Woodland and Erie streets, and run eastward consecu- tively, beginning again with the westward lot of the tier it connects with, and so on. Later, when these lots were wanted for city purposes, Payne avenue was opened on the boundaries of the ten acre lots between St. Clair and Euclid, and Garden street (Central avenue) on the line between the Euclid and Woodland ten acre lots.

The survey of these lots was made almost entirely by Moses Warren, Jr., and a copy of his notes was made into the records of the city engineer's office endorsed : "Drawn from the original notes, January 27, 1855. I. N. Pillsbury, C. E." But no map accompanies these notes. In November 22, 1879, John L. Culley, C. E., entered in volume II, page 32, of the county recorder's maps, a map and notes endorsed: "The above map and field notes of 'Cleveland ten acre lots,' are a correct copy of the same as they are to be found in the office of Leonard Case of this city; the map and notes in said Case's possession are supposed to be the only authentic ones in existence." In the collection of the Western Reserve Historical Society, is a copy of the original Warren notes, entitled, "Traverse of the Portage from Cuyahoga to Tuskarawas, part of the second parallel, and survey of the ten acre lots in the town of Cleveland, by Moses Warren, Jr." Colonel Whittlesey has written on this copy, "Transcribed

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

by the late General S. D. Harris, surveyor, Ravenna, Ohio, for me," and General Harris endorsed at the bottom, "I certify the foregoing to be a correct copy of the original on file in my office." (Signed) "Samuel D. Harris, county surveyor, Portage county, August 16, A. D. 1845."

Beyond Willson avenue, the land was divided, in Cleveland township, into one hundred acre lots. These lots nearly all became allotments, and the titles to all city lots beyond Willson avenue go back to these "original one hundred acre lots."

The early surveys were made with the chain. These wore a little at the links, and consequently there is an excess of land over the recorded frontage. "Con- sidering, however, that these early surveys were made with the primitive com- pass and iron chain, and through a thickly wooded country, it must be conceded that the measurements both of the ten acre and the two acre lots, show a not- able uniformity of surplus, showing that they were taken with considerable care." * This surplusage is slight and varies with the different streets.

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A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume I, Part 5

Author: Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922; Clarke, S.J., publishing company Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Chicago-Cleveland : The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1262

Author: Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922; Clarke, S.J., publishing company
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago-Cleveland : The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1262