USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume I > Part 71
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In 1891, Judge James D. Cleveland, a native of New York state, but a resident of Cleveland since boyhood, and a lifelong friend of the "Case boys," delivered the commencement address at Case school, which was entitled "A Biographical Sketch of the Founder of Case School of Applied Science, and His Kinsmen." This sketch is replete with facts and personal reminiscences of Leonard Case, Jr., his father and brother William and their early struggles and efforts for the up- building of Cleveland. This was a labor of love on the part of Judge Cleveland, and has not been published excepting the printing of a few copies in pamphlet form for distribution among his friends.
The facts concerning the elder Case are drawn mainly from an unpublished manuscript autobiography of the latter.
As a whole, this sketch written in Judge Cleveland's best style is well worthy of a place in a general history of the city and Western Reserve and the best evi- dence extant for the proper conception of the motives which inspired Leonard Case, Jr., to devote a portion of the fortune acquired by his father to the found- ing of an institution to further the needs of a community which he foresaw would develop into one of the nation's greatest manufacturing and industrial centers.
Most of what follows is from Judge Cleveland's sketch and when the pro- noun in the first person is found it is he who speaks.
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This sketch is intended to contribute some impressions of the personal char- acteristics of Leonard Case as he appeared to one who was a schoolmate in his boyhood, and although knowing him less intimately than some others did in his after life, always enjoyed his warm friendship and intercourse as a neighbor and fellow townsman.
It is the impression made by a man who dwelt in Cleveland from the begin- ning to the end of his career, leading an intense and thoughtful life, warmly at- tached to a few chosen friends ; unobtrusive, undemonstrative, avoiding publicity, denying himself participation in public affairs, yet concealing nothing of his pur- suits, his studies, his work in mathematics and in literature; with declared and open convictions on all political and social questions.
All was patent to those who knew him. He tried to conceal nothing but his benefactions and his charities.
The union of the peculiarities of a studious life with the qualities of a man of wide travel and a thorough and broad education, gave him many sides. Possibly the opinions of his contemporaries will be as varied as the sides he presented, and the different points from which they made the observation.
With these reminiscences, mingled with facts derived from authentic sources, it is hoped that those who come after us will be better able to understand what manner of man he was, who founded a school of science for the training of the youth of his native city, and what led him to devote so generous a portion of his estate to that object.
Those who did not know the elder Leonard Case can with difficulty understand the unusual closeness of the bond which united the father and sons in certain views and objects of their lives.
And no one can correctly estimate the mind and character of Leonard Case the younger-our Leonard Case-without some knowledge of the father and elder brother. An outline, therefore, of the career and character of these, his kinsmen, seems pertinent to our subject, and ought to be of interest to all who would know the beginnings of a great city, and of some of its noblest institutions.
You know the old saying that, "You can make anything of a boy that you wish, but-to do this, you must begin with his grandfather."
This quaint and somewhat complex way of stating what runs in an old man's head when he has known and survived several generations of a family stock, only expresses what the laws of heredity teach, that a man is really the sum of his an- cestors with all the modifications of his education and surrounding circumstances.
The lines of the Case family take us, on the paternal side, back to Holland, from which four brothers, Christopher, Theophilus, Reuben and Butler, migrated early in the last century.
We know little of them as individuals-only that they came from a nation which had fought the longest and bloodiest wars for religious and civil liberty against Spanish domination and the Spanish Inquisition, and had become the rival of Great Britain for the supremacy of the high seas, and in the planting of colo- nies in America, Africa and the East Indies.
The Hollanders who came to our shores, both in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were men of the strongest fiber, and left tokens of their superior quality.
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They were well educated, very practical, and strongly protestant, and have left indelible marks on the institutions of our common country.
These Holland Cases settled on Long Island and in Morris county, New Jer- sey-and one of them, Butler, moved into Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, in 1778, where his son Meshach Case, a young farmer, settled, and married Mag- dalene Eckstein in 1780.
On the maternal side there is more knowledge of its history. Leonard Eck- stein, the grandfather of the elder Leonard Case, was a native of Bavaria and born near the ancient city of Nuremburg, that old walled and castellated city of me- dieval times, about ninety miles north of Munich on the river Pegnitz. Melanc- thon founded a college there, and the people were of old, among the most inge- nious in Europe. It was the place where watches were first made, and known in all the marts of Europe as "Nuremburg Eggs." Some of the brothers of Leonard Eckstein were sculptors and carvers, and Johannes worked for Frederick the Great in Berlin and Potsdam, and others at The Hague in the Netherlands.
In 1750 this Leonard Eckstein was a fiery and disputatious youth of nineteen, and had a quarrel with the Catholic clergy of Nuremburg. He and all his family were protestant.
The quarrel resulted in his being thrown into prison, where, shut up in a high tower, he was treated with severity, and nearly starved. Fortunately his jailers allowed his sister to visit him and to carry him food and other comforts. These two conspired for his escape. One day she brought to him a cake in which she had baked a long and slender silken cord.
They had discovered that the small window in his cell gave out upon a perpen- dicular wall eighty feet above the ground.
Upon a dark night agreed upon, the silken cord was let down from the window, and a confederate below fastened to it a larger cord or rope which Eckstein drew up to the aperture, fastened, and slid down upon, to the earth below.
His father and family, fearing that this escape and his independent disposi- tion would bring him into greater trouble, furnished him with a little money and he fled toward Holland, where he took ship for America.
He landed in Philadelphia about 1750, a youth of nineteen, without a cent or an acquaintance in the country.
The story has a flavor of romance; but he bravely pushed his way into Vir- ginia, married in Winchester, and moved again into western Pennsylvania, where his daughter Magdalene married Meshach Case.
There he told the story to his grandchildren and showed his hands, scarred by the blisters which the cord had made as he slid down from the old Nuremburg tower window.
He lived till about 1799, and his grandson, Leonard Case, Sr., to whom he re- lated the story, has left us his testimony of it in his own narrative of early mem- ories.
Mr. Case, in his narrative says of Leonard Eckstein, his grandfather: "He was a man of more than ordinary mind; of strong convictions and fearless in his expression of his opinions. He had had a good education, was a good Latin scholar, and spoke English so perfectly that no one would have suspected his being a German. His difficulty with the Catholic priesthood made a deep and
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LEONARD CASE
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bitter impression on his mind, and it lasted as long as he lived. He had read the scriptures so much that he seemed to have them committed to memory. He was always ready for religious discussion when he met an antagonist of sufficient cali- ber, otherwise he would not engage."
As the fruit of this union of the German and Holland stocks, Leonard Case, Sr., was born July 29, 1786, in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, near the Monon- gahela river, and was the oldest son in a family of eight children.
For many years his father, Meshach Case, suffered from asthma to the extent of making him a partial invalid. He attributed this to the hardships he had suf- fered as a soldier in the revolutionary army. Hence, much of the management of his affairs devolved upon his wife, a woman of superior character, educated beyond the average of those days, energetic, having a good executive faculty, and blessed with robust health.
The oldest son had little opportunity for school learning. In the settlements only an occasional school was opened by an itinerant schoolmaster, and in one of these log schoolhouses, from his fourth to his eleventh year, the boy learned to read and the simplest beginnings of writing and arithmetic.
He was a robust and active boy, for at seven years he was cutting the wood for the fires, thrashing grain at ten years, and reaping in the harvest field at twelve. And he must have been equally strong in self-control, for at that time he made a solemn vow never again to drink spirituous liquor, and kept the pledge through life.
In 1799 his father and mother went on an exploring expedition into Ohio, and on horseback came into the Connecticut Western Reserve, buying two hundred acres of land in the township of Warren, Trumbull county. It had fifteen acres of Indian clearing, and before they returned they had raised a log cabin and cut away an acre of timber around it.
The family arrived on the spot the next spring, on April 26, 1800, and with them several of their Pennsylvania neighbors. On the Fourth of July they cele- brated the birth of independence when there were not fifty people besides them on the whole domain of the Connecticut Land Company.
Mr. Case in his narrative gives a particular account of the celebration, when even the musical instruments were made on the spot; the drum from the trunk of a hollow pepperidge tree with a fawn's skin stretched across the ends, and a fife from a large strong stem of elder. Every settler, man and boy, had a gun.
From April, 1800, to October, 1801, this lad of fourteen, upon whom the whole family leaned for the heaviest work, the ploughing, harvesting, hunting the cattle through forest and stream, ranging the woods for game, deer and bear, exulted in robust and untiring strength.
Suddenly, with no premonition, he was prostrated with a fever in consequence of crossing the Mahoning river when overheated, in pursuit of the cattle, resulting in ulcers which made him a cripple for life, and oppressed with pains which never for a day, gave him relief, as long as he lived.
This sickness was prolonged, and it was not till the end of two years that he was so far convalescent as to be able to sit up.
It is a story which awakes our pity and admiration. How he determined not to be dependent upon charity or the labor of the others ; schooled himself in reading
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and writing; invented and made instruments for drafting, and in order to get books and clothes, bottomed all the chairs in the neighborhood, made riddles and sieves for the grain of the farmers, and finally found himself necessary to those around him.
Then his handwriting attracted the attention of the clerk of the court at War- ren, and in 1806 he was absorbing all that there was to know in the laws and land titles of the country.
He was appointed clerk of the Supreme court for Trumbull county in 1806, - and had an opportunity to study and copy the records of the Connecticut Land Company in the recorder's office, and when he was employed by General Simon Perkins, who was the land agent of the company in 1807, he was made his con- fidential clerk. From that time till 1844, when General Perkins died, they were bound together in strong and true friendship.
John D. Edwards, a lawyer holding the office of recorder of Trumbull county, then comprising all the Western Reserve, also proved a fast friend; advised him to study law and furnished him with books to prosecute his studies.
At this time he made an abstract of the drafts of the Connecticut Land Com- pany, showing from the records of that company all the original proprietors of the Reserve and the lands purchased by them, an abstract which was so correct that it became the standard beginning of all searches of land titles, and is still copied and used by all the abstracters and examiners of titles in all the counties of the Reserve.
The War of 1812 found Mr. Case at Warren, having among his other duties that of the collection of non-resident taxes on the Western Reserve. Having to go to Chillicothe to make his settlement, he prepared for his journey to the state capital by making a careful disposition of all official matters, so that in case of mis- fortune to him there would be no difficulty in settling his affairs and no loss to his bail.
The money belonging to the several townships was parceled out, enveloped and marked in readiness to hand over to the several trustees.
The parcels were then deposited with his friend Mr. Edwards, with directions to pay over to the proper parties should he not return in time.
The journey was made without mishap, but on his return he found that his friend had set out to join the army on the Maumee and had died suddenly on the way. To the gratification of Mr. Case, however, the money was found where he had left it, untouched.
In 1816 Mr. Case received the appointment of cashier of the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie, just organized in Cleveland. He immediately removed to Cleve- land and entered on the discharge of his duties.
These did not occupy the whole of his time, so to the avocations of a banker he coupled the practice of law and also the business of a land agent.
The bank, in common with most institutions of the kind, was compelled to sus- pend operations, but was revived in after years with Mr. Case as president.
With the close of active duty in the bank, he devoted himself more earnestly to the practice of law and the prosecution of his business as land agent.
He had a natural taste for the investigations of land titles, and the history of the earlier land transactions.
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His business as land agent gave him scope for the gratification of this taste, and his agency for the Connecticut Land Company from 1827 to 1855, enabled him still further to prosecute his researches.
His strong memory retained the facts acquired until he became complete master of the whole history of titles derived from the Connecticut Land Company.
From his earliest connections with Cleveland, Mr. Case took a lively interest in the affairs of the village, the improvement of the streets, maintenance and en- largement of the schools, and the extension of religious influences.
For all these he contributed liberally and spent much time and labor. To his thoughtfulness and public spirit are due the commencement of the work of plant- ing shade trees on the streets, which has added so much to the beauty of the city, and has won for it the cognomen of the Forest City.
From 1821 to 1825 he was president of the village.
On the erection of Cuyahoga county he was its first auditor. He was subse- quently (1824 to 1827) sent to the legislature, where he distinguished himself by his persistent labors in behalf of the Ohio canals.
He originated and drafted the first bill providing for raising taxes on lands according to their value. They had been before that time taxed so much per acre without regard to value, and this change in the mode of raising taxes has been continued.
His great experience and practical sense enabled him to furnish a system of checks and guards against carelessness and peculation, and his plan for system- atic estimates and auditing of accounts on the great public works then set on foot, was adopted, and was a successful safeguard against frauds, jobbery and defal- cations.
He headed the subscription to the stock of the Cleveland, Columbus & Cincin- nati Railroad Company with the sum of five thousand dollars, and was influential in the organization and direction of this first railway project in the interest of the city.
One of the rules from which he never deviated was never to contract a debt beyond his ability to pay within two years, without depending on a sale of property.
His opportunities of buying in the early days were, of course, unlimited. He never refused to sell lands, nor place any obstacle to settlement and improvement by keeping large tracts out of market.
He was thus enabled to accumulate acre after acre in what has since proved to be valuable portions of the city, and to acquire a large estate, which, in his later years became steadily remunerative.
He married at Stow, Portage county, September 28, 1817, Miss Elizabeth Gay- lord, a native of Middletown, Connecticut.
Soon after this he bought a small house and lot on Superior east of Bank street, where a block of stores belonging to Joseph Perkins' estate now stands, and re- sided there till 1819. Here his son William was born August 10, 1818.
From 1819 to 1826 the family lived at the corner of Bank and Superior streets, in a frame house, which accommodated, also, the Commercial Bank, of which he was president, on the lot now occupied by the block of the Mercantile National Bank.
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Leonard Case, the second son, was born there June 27, 1820.
In 1826 Mr. Case had moved to the beautiful homestead on the east side of the public square, now occupied by the postoffice and Case library.
The dwelling faced the west and the business office fronted the square nearer Rockwell street.
Mr. Case had a broad German cast of features; a lofty head, covered with an abundance of light brown or sandy Saxon hair, and his kindly eyes looked out through half opened blinds, never forbidding, but always uniform in their wel- come to all without respect of person.
In those days, of the most conspicuous men in Cleveland, he seemed to stand for the solid landed interests of the Connecticut Land Company, of which he had so long been the resident agent.
There were other grand men, like Richard Winslow, from Maine and the Carolinas, owner of great square rigged vessels like the brig "Rock Mountain" and the steamer Bunker Hill-pioneer of the lake merchant marine, born to large en- terprises and capable of command ; and Richard Hilliard, the most important mer- chant west of New York, the soul of honor and integrity, with over six feet of stature and the complexion of an East Indian, full of public spirit and father of the first railway projects, a Corinthian column of grace and elegance; and Harvey Rice, the tall clerk of the courts, graduate of Williams college, advocate of culture, poetry, education, father of our present public school system.
But Leonard Case, the senior, among these, appeared like a pyramid, for, al- though feeble physically, he was a tower of strength, broad, square and lofty in wisdom, character and financial stability.
He was looked up to as the source of all wisdom on all Ohio land laws, most of which he had helped to mold, and all history of his state, of which he had been a part ; and there was not, probably, a man, woman or child in the town who did not feel at liberty to approach and shake his friendly hand as he sat in the carriage or in the arm chair of his office. There was a respect for his position as a broad based landed proprietor, but there was a profound regard for his wisdom which was freely given to all men, high and low; and there must have been a touch of sympathy for one who was seen to suffer daily; had always from his boyhood suffered physical pain, but was never known to complain of his affliction, ex- cept to his medical man and his family.
Both of the sons, William and Leonard, were quick and diligent in study, excelled in Greek, Latin and mathematics, and both were remarkable for their cheerful disposition and fondness for athletic sports.
They attached to themselves fellows of every class, and it was enough ever after to excuse either of them for any preference or generous kindness to any of the old school fellows, that they had "ploughed Greek together."
They attended such schools as the town afforded, among them the academic school of the Rev. Colley Foster at the corner of Ontario and St. Clair streets, and afterward, 1836 to 1838, the preparatory school of Franklin T. Backus, who was a graduate of Yale college and preparing for the profession of the law. He was fresh from the class studies, most thorough in his methods, and exact- ing in his requirements of students. He had also a talent for stimulating and elevating the efforts and aims of young men, and I do not believe that one of his
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pupils was not indebted to him for hints and training calculated to form and fortify high and manly character.
His subsequent career at the bar of Cuyahoga county evidenced great abilities, and its record is not marred by a single act unbecoming a man of the most scrupulous integrity.
Among the students, beside the Cases, were Rufus K. Winslow, John Wil- liamson, Captain John Klasgye, Horace and George Kelley, George Hoadley (since governor of the state), Nicholas Bartlett (treasurer of the Lake Shore railway), Benjamin Bartlett, Steven Whitaker, Henry C. Gaylord, Horace Wed- dell, the Cutters, Herman Canfield, William Sholl, John Coon, Edward Mc- Gaughy, Al. Norton, Jabez W. Fitch, H. Kirk Cushing, James D. and Thomas G. Cleveland, William and John Walworth.
In the fall of 1838 Mr. Backus used all his powers to encourage both William and Leonard Case to enter Yale. It was finally determined that William must supplement his father's strength and devote himself to active business duties, and on account of slender health avail himself of an outdoor nonsedentary life; but Leonard, who disliked business, entered Yale and was of the class which graduated in 1842.
William Case possessed qualities of mind of the highest order. He was re- markable for his activity, energy, elasticity, and grace of carriage.
His fondness for hunting and natural history attached to him all the hunters of the town and of the west.
This coterie of naturalists included Professor Jared P. Kirtland, of Rock- port, Captain Ben Stanard, Oliver H. Perry, William D. Cushing, son of Dr. Erastus Cushing, Rufus K. Winslow, L. M. Hubby, D. W. Cross, John Wills, Fayette Brown, Stoughton Bliss, Dr. Elisha Sterling and many others, all ardent lovers of natural history and the sports incident to it.
There were no birds or animals in Ohio or Michigan unknown to these men, and John J. Audubon, the great naturalist, gladly acknowledged his obligations to William Case for original contributions to his list of newly named and discovered birds, and for valuable knowledge of their habits and homes.
The office on the square was abandoned to the sportmen, and a wing built to accommodate a thousand specimens of birds and beasts which they had collected, stuffed and mounted.
This collection, in time, gave origin to the names "The Ark," and the "Arkites," by which the place and its coterie became known.
Among the excursions he made in 1842 or 1843, with guides and comrades, was a voyage to and through Lake Superior, Lake of the Woods and the Red River of the North, thence down the Upper Mississippi in pursuit of new and undescribed birds and animals; thence he returned home by St. Louis and Cin- cinnati.
In 1844 I met William Case in Philadelphia, and spent the day with him in the splendid collection of natural history in the galleries of the Franklin Institute. You can easily appreciate the delight he evinced as he examined the grand exhibits in a field in which he was enthusiastic. "One day," said he, "Cleveland must have something like this; we will have an Academy of Natural Science, and a Library
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Association which shall be grand and worthy of the city; Cleveland is a chrysalis now; one of these days she shall be a butterfly !"
He had refined taste, cultivated the fine arts, indulged in pictures, and with his friend and schoolmate Rufus K. Winslow, executed very excellent specimens of watercolor painting, in which branch they were pupils of Stevenson, the artist. This facility of drawing and painting enabled him to convey to Audubon and others the colors and forms of newly discovered birds and other specimens of natural history.
In 1850 to 1852 he was mayor of the city, having been councilman with Henry B. Payne, L. M. Hubby and others for several years. His efforts were most suc- cessful in placing the municipality on a firm and sound financial basis, and in maintaining the city's safety through the most serious popular riot which ever menaced its peace, the Homeopathic College riot in 1851.
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