USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 1) > Part 20
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ligious duties and for the first time in Middleburg there was regular preaching each Sunday. But the experiment was very brief. Farming under the direction of the twelve apostles did not succeed. All kinds of difficulties arose and intense bitterness was engendered. In a few months the whole scheme broke down and, as expressed by one, "went up in smoke." Most of the families who came to town as converts to the new civilization moved away, and the new era of Christian cooperation awaits the regeneration of mankind. Sheldon and Gilruth left one reminder of the "Community" that has not been disturbed, the postoffice. After the "Community" failed they remained and opened a high school which they called the Berea Lyceum and the village as originally laid out was called Lyceum Village. It retained that name as late as 1841. There was a Lyceum Village stock company which sold and gave deeds to lots in the village. As the postoffice was named Berea, a more convenient name than Lyceum Village, that gained ground and was finally adopted for the village. Alfred Holbrook was in charge of the Berea Lyceum school for a number of years, being secured by Mr. Sheldon, who was active in pro- moting the interests of the school. This school continued until about 1845. A singular institution or industry to be conducted in this locality, away out in the woods far from large centers of population, was a globe factory operated by Josiah Holbrook. He made globes, cubes, and cab- inets for school use and at one time employed ten or twelve men. This factory continued in operation until 1851.
By reason of the refuge of the swamp, wild animals remained later in Middleburg than in many other townships. In 1838 wolves would attack domestic animals but became more confined to the swamp region. In this year Mr. Doty shot the last bear. As late as 1842 three large tim- ber wolves came to the Middleburg swamp from the west and for a year and a half they would run out and kill sheep of the settlers and return to the swamp for cover. Lewis Fowls and Jerome Raymond undertook the strenuous task of dislodging the depredators and saving the stock. They had a double motive. The state and county together offered a bounty of $10 for each wolf scalp, and the farmers subscribed $10 more. The young men worked their way into the swamp and located the haunts of the big wolves. They baited steel traps with tempting morsels of mutton and beef and succeeded in catching all three of the wolves alive. These were the last wolves killed in the township. Deer were seen until after the Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati Railroad was built through the township. The whistle of the locomotive seemed more potent than the rifle of the settlers in driving them away. Mr. L. A. Fowls, a fine shot and very successful hunter, killed five deer the year after the railroad was built, but these were the last. The railroad was built in 1849. Wild turkeys were numerous and of large size. Young Fowls killed eighteen in one winter and they weighed from fifteen to twenty pounds each. Wildcats were numerous and ugly. The last one was killed in 1845.
The population did not keep pace with other townships notwithstand- ing the various enterprises started, from grindstones and scythe stones to "Community" and Lyceum. Mr. Baldwin said in 1845 there were but twelve families in Berea and half of them talked of moving away, and there were only a dozen houses in the village. A village store was kept by Mr. Case, the Holbrook school apparatus factory was running. There were two small woolen factories running, one operated by James Nortlı- rop and the other by John Baldwin. The Berea Lyceum had gone down. At this period in our history John Baldwin began the project that had haunted his waking hours and crept into his dreams since a boy of eighteen. He had wrested from the rocks under his land a modest fortune and
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other fortunes lay at his feet. He determined to establish an educational system in accordance with his lifelong desires, and Providence had aided him in the project. There was an institution at Norwalk under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church that conformed to his ideals but it was carrying on a feeble existence. Mr. Baldwin proposed to bring that to Berea. He offered fifty acres of land, including grindstone quar- ries and abundant water power, for the support of the institution. The offer was accepted and a brick building 36 by 72 feet was constructed on the southwest side of the river. In June of 1845 Mr. Baldwin made an additional gift of fifty quarter-acre lots for the benefit of the institution. A charter was obtained in December, 1845, and the school, named in the charter as The Baldwin Institute, was opened in April, 1846, with Rev. H. Dwight as principal. It began with 100 students, 61 males and 39 females. The success of the institute brought settlements to the town and throughout the township the farms, as the drainage improved, became more productive.
In 1848, more than forty years after the first settlement was made, Dr. Alexander McBride, the first physician, came as a permanent resident. He immediately began practice and continued until his death in 1876. From 1859 the growth of Berea was rapid. In this year Mr. Baldwin built a railroad from his quarry to the depot, a distance of about a mile. It was laid with the old fashioned flat rails and on this track he hauled grindstones to the railroad with ox teams, then pony engines were em- ployed. This continued in use for about ten years, when the railroad company built a switch to the quarry.
Now stone began to be used more and more for building purposes. In 1846 David E. Stearns began using a saw for cutting stone into build- ing blocks. The advent of this finished product on the market increased the demand and soon the building stone industry rivalled the grindstone output. In 1855 Baldwin Institute became Baldwin University. Then German Wallace College was established. Thus the educational center kept pace with business development. The people were insistent that the atmosphere of the town should be in keeping with the schools so that the problem of a quarry and a college town combined should work out with- out detriment to the educational interests. The temperance question was always in the forefront. The quarry men were inclined to be "wet" and the school men "dry." The precaution taken quite early of having a reservation in the deeds in regard to the manufacture and sale of spiritous liquors prevented the establishment of many places for the sale of liquor. From the day when Mr. Baldwin fastened his shaft to the water wheel of the Vaughn mill and turned the first grindstone, the business steadily increased until in the '70s we had in active operation The Berea Stone Company, formed by the consolidation of Lyman Baker and Company, F. M. Stearns, W. R. Wood and Company, George W. Whitney, and C. W. Stearns. This company was capitalized at $500,000, with Lyman Baker as president, F. M. Stearns as vice president, and a board of direct- ors consisting of Robert Wallace, George Nokes and C. W. Stearns, owning forty acres of quarries, employing 100 men, and besides manu- facturing building and scythe stones, shipping 3,000 tons of grindstones yearly to all parts of the world; there was The Baldwin Quarry Com- pany, capitalized at $160,000, owning ten acres of quarries, and employ- ing from forty to sixty men, John Baldwin, Jr., as president, J. Le Duke, secretary and treasurer, and these two with James Dunn and J. B. Krame forming the board of directors; Russell and Forche, who succeeded to the Diamond Quarries Company, owning four acres of quarries and em- ploying fifteen men; The Empire Stone Company, owning three acres
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of quarries and employing ten men, and last but not least, The J. McDer- mott Company, capitalized at $250,000, owning thirty or forty acres of quarries and employing 150 men, with William McDermott as president, E. C. Pope, secretary and treasurer, and M. McDermott, superintendent, shipping daily 400 tons of building stone and grindstones.
The agricultural interests of the township were keeping pace in some degree with the educational and industrial advancement. In 1876 the outlet of Lake Abram was enlarged and a large area of new land brought into cultivation. The soil is a black muck, extremely fertile, and the finest onion land in the world. Immense quantities were raised of that marketable product and the soil proved to be almost inexhaustible. It represents the accumulated mold of untold centuries. Eight hundred bushels per acre have been raised on this land and to facilitate shipping a railroad switch was extended into these onion fields and the onions loaded directly on the cars. From the days when John Baldwin carried the pat- tern of a mandrel on his shoulders to Cleveland to the time when blocks of stone weighing 1,000 tons have been moved in the quarries by modern appliances and sliced up by gang saws, great changes have taken place. All this has not been accomplished without some drawbacks. In the turn- ing of grindstones a fine grit arose that breathed into the lungs of many workmen caused death in a few years. Grindstone or grit consumption was a terrible scourge. This became more prevalent and distressing as steam power was applied and the wheels turned with lightning speed. It remained for John Baldwin, Jr., whose memory should be ever fragrant, to eliminate this danger and save the lives of workmen. He invented a patent blower by which the dust is carried away, and the disease has dis- appeared. Is it any wonder that the name of Baldwin is a sacred name in the annals of Middleburg and her child Berea ?
Among those who have served in the early years of the civil adminis- tration of the township have been: Trustees, Amos Briggs, David Har- rington, Abram Fowls, Richard Vaughn, Thaddeus Ball, Buel Peck, Silas Becket, Elias C. Frost, J. Vaughn, Valentine Gardner, Benjamin Colby, Patrick Humiston, Charles Green, Clark Goss, Libbeus Pomeroy, John Baldwin, Enoch C. Watrous, Moses Cousins, Sheldon J. Fuller, David Gardner, Lewis A. Fowls, J. Sheldon, A. Lovejoy, James Wallace, G. R. Whitney, C. C. Bennett, S. W. Smith, W. Sutton, James S. Smedley, William Newton, Conrad Stumpf, William Pritchard, T. J. Quayle, S. B. Gardner, Henry Bevares, Amos Fay, S. W. Perry, William Engles, John McCroden, William Lum, William Humiston, J. C. Nokes and John W. Landphair; clerks, Jared Hickox, Benjamin Tuttle, Eli Osborn, John Baldwin, Merritt Osborn, F. Humiston, Russell Gardner, Philemon Bar- ber, J. Melt Lewis, S. H. Wolsey, M. Hepburn, Harmon P. Hepburn, John Watson, George S. Clapp, William B. Rogers, A. S. Allen, J. P. Mills, E. C. Martin, S. S. Canniff, J. C. Nokes, C. W. Meley and Abner Hunt ; treasurers, Abram Fowls, Silas Gardner, Isaac Frost, Amos Gard- ner, Philo Fowls, Isaac Meacham, L. Pomeroy, G. R. Whitney, David Goss, J. Fuller, Jonathan Pickard, Silas Clapp, Robert Wallace, John S. Miller, J. S. Smedley, T. J. Quayle, W. W. Noble, E. J. Kennedy, T. C. Mattison, Joseph Nichols and E. Christian; justices of the peace, Ephraim Vaughn, Benjamin Colby, Jere Fuller, Henry R. Ferris, P. Barber and Jared Hickox.
The present officers of the township are: Trustees, C. F. Eckert, C. F. Sprague and W. R. Schrivens ; clerk, J. M. Patton, who has also served as justice of the peace, and is now solicitor of the Village of Berea ; treasurer, George C. Goette ; assessor, George F. Gray ; constables, E. W. Carman and Charles F. Poots. The original territory of Middleburg
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has been broken into by two villages, Berea, named from the postoffice and unofficial designation, and Brook Park Village in the north. Berea was organized as a village March 23, 1850. Naturally the first mayor was John Baldwin. Others who served in the early days are G. M. Barber, J. V. Baker, W. N. Watson, Joseph Jones, Silas Clapp, Jacob Rothweiler, James Smedley, John Baldwin, Jr., Alex McBride, S. S. Brown, Lyman Baker, D. R. Watson, George Nokes and Joseph Nichols. A town hall was erected in 1874. The present officers of the village are: Mayor, Carl J. Eckert; clerk, C. E. Fox; treasurer, J. B. Pomeroy ; assessor, George Gray; councilmen, E. C. Haag, C. M. Jordan, P. G. Mohler, D. Gilchrist, Harry Wismer and John Baesel. The former clerk was J. M. Patton. Brook Park Village has been more recently organized. It has its own school district and an efficient municipal government. The present officers are: Mayor, W. J. Sifleet; clerk, S. H. Pincombe; treasurer, G. J. Gage; assessor, Carl F. Rohde; councilmen, Louis Grosse, Y. C. Schmidt, Jacob Walter, J. T. Waddups, Ole Olsen and William Wensink. Many of these men who served in the township and village have served the county in a larger capacity, and others not included in the list. There is G. M. Barber, who served as common pleas judge; E. J. Kennedy, who served as state representative, county recorder and county commis- sioner ; John Asling and T. C. Mattison, who served as county commis- sioners; George Nokes, Robert Wallace and C. F. Lane, who served as state representatives, and M. A. Sprague, who served for a long time as county school examiner.
Middleburg was provided with the district schools scattered over the township to better accommodate the sparsely settled territory, but the educational development kept pace with the business advance. Shortly after the village of Berea was incorporated a union school was established there. This was the first graded school to be established outside of the city. Thus Berea can boast of having the first college in Cuyahoga County, and the only one for many years, and one of the first graded schools. It was governed by the township board of education and, like a sub-district, by a board of directors. James S. Smedley was the first teacher. After him came Goddard, Milton Baldwin, Israel Snyder, Bas- sett, Eastman, Goodrich, Kendall, Huckins, Pope, and Hoadley. These were teachers in the old frame building. The first school building was replaced by a brick building and the first principal in this building was B. B. Hall. He was succeeded by Mr. Millets, and he by M. A. Sprague, who was in charge for a long period, and brought the school up to a high grade of efficiency and more perfect classification. Efficient officers after the new building was in operation were: President of the board, E. Christian ; clerk, C. W. Sanborn ; treasurer, A. H. Pomeroy ; directors, T. C. Mattison, M. McDermott and E. G. Worcester. In the new build- ing in 1895 was held the County Teachers' Institute, an annual meeting provided by law, and due to the fact that it was held in a college town and to the active interest of Mr. Sprague and his corps of assistants, it was a great success. The public schools of Middleburg are now a part of the general system operated under the direction of the County Board of Education and the county superintendent, Mr. Yawberg. S. S. Dickey is township superintendent of schools. Besides the large and well equipped high school building at Berea, there are grade buildings includ- ing a school building for orphans, which is under the same general super- vision. There are thirty-one teachers employed and an enrollment of 888 pupils. Brook Park Village has its separate school district. In its schools are engaged seven teachers and there are 182 pupils enrolled. Mr. Frank Blair is superintendent.
Vol. I-5
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Berea College has ever been under the auspices of the Northern Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. John Baldwin has been one of the large contributors. The buildings of Baldwin Institute were transferred to the college and each year Mr. Baldwin paid in the inter- est on $10,000. The first faculty consisted of Rev. John Wheeler, presi- dent, and professor of mental and moral science; Rev. Jeremiah Tingley, vice president and professor of natural sciences; Rev. William Barnes, professor of Latin and Greek; Gaylord H. Hartupee, professor of mathe- matics; Misses Rosanna Baldwin and Emily A. Covel completed the teaching force, to which, however, must be added the teacher of music, Eugenia A. Morrison, and of French, Sarah A. Storer. In 1858 a Ger- man department was added, under the tutelage of O. Henning, Ph. D. He was followed by Jacob Rothweiler, who was very successful in increas- ing the number of students, and building up the interest generally in this branch of study. In 1863 German Wallace College was established as a separate institution, but the relationship of the two schools was very close. Students entering the German Wallace College were privileged to attend classes in the other school and vice versa. Berea College was stronger in Latin, mathematics, and natural sciences, and German Wal- lace College in Greek, French, and music. In 1868 a college of pharmacy was added, but it was abandoned three years later for want of support, there not being enough prospective druggists to support the school by their attendance. But the colleges were growing generally and new build- ings added. In 1868 Hulet Hall was built. This building was named in honor of Fletcher Hulet, who was a large contributor. Ladies' Hall was built in 1879. Among the early presidents of the first named college were W. D. Godman, who followed President Wheeler; Aaron Schuyler, whose series of mathematical text books were introduced and largely used in multitudes of schools over the country for many years, and William C. Pierce, Doctor of Divinity. The history of this, the first college in the county, deserves more than a passing notice. It was in August, 1845, that John Baldwin appeared before the North Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in session at Marion, Ohio, and offered a fifty-acre campus, a large three-story building, thirty building lots, and fifty acres of additional land at Berea for the purpose of founding an institution of learning at that place. This gift was accepted and a board of commis- sioners appointed, who with Mr. Baldwin organized Baldwin Institute and obtained a charter for it in December of that year. In 1855 the institu- tion was reorganized and rechartered as Baldwin University. In 1856 a new department was organized to provide for the educational needs of the German Methodist Episcopal Church of Berea. The demand for the study of German increased to such an extent that it was deemed necessary to organize a separate institution under the control of its own board of directors. James Wallace donated the building and grounds for this departure, and in 1863 the new school was organized and chartered under the name of the German Wallace College. These two colleges continued as separate entities, but with the close relationship, already referred to, until August, 1913, when they were united under the name of Baldwin Wallace College. This action was endorsed by the Conference and Board of Education of the Methodist Church and by patrons of the two institu- tions. Various endowment funds have been given to the school, which have added to its interest and efficiency. Among these the name of Bald- win appears not infrequently. There is the Milton T. Baldwin fund of $3,000 to be used as prizes in the school, and the Gould Baldwin fund of $20,000 for the support of the school in the payment of salaries to professors, both given by Mr. and Mrs. John Baldwin; a fund of
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$20,980 for establishing a chair of modern languages, given by the Asso- ciation of Former Students, and the Nast fund of $25,000 for a chair of theology, given by Mrs. Fanny Nast Gamble. Twenty-five thousand dol- lars was given by Colonel and Mrs. H. A. Marting to establish the Henry and Isabella Marting chair of theology, and $20,000 by J. G. Kalmbach to establish the Mr. and Mrs. J. G. Kalmbach chair of theology. Another bequest by Fanny Nast Gamble of $25,000 was received to establish a president's chair, and one of $13,000 given by Sarah V. and C. V. Wheeler to establish a John Wheeler fund. Rev. and Mrs. John Marting gave $30,000 to establish the Henry and Louise Duis chair in the college. The largest single donation for the support of the school was the Philura Gould Baldwin memorial fund of $40,000 given by Mr. and Mrs. John Baldwin, Jr. Seventeen other smaller endowments have been received since the college was founded, not enumerated here.
There are twenty-five acres of campus. The buildings are in two groups and there is the north campus and the south campus. The chief structures are of Berea sandstone. There is the fine Memorial Building on the south campus for the administrative offices. This contains the conservatory and the Fanny Nast Gamble Auditorium with seats for 2,000 people and one of the finest of pipe organs. The college chapel, the men's dormitory, Dietsch Hall, a residence for women students, and the gymnasium are here. At the north campus is located Wheeler Hall, Carnegie Science Hall, the Philura Gould Baldwin Memorial Library Building, erected as a gift of Mr. and Mrs. John Baldwin, Jr., in mem- ory of their daughter, Philura Gould Baldwin, who was a graduate of the college and its first librarian. Here is also the Home Economics Cot- tage, the Smith Observatory, and Hulet Hall, a residence hall for women, erected out of the stone of old Hulet Hall of 1868, which was the main building on the old Baldwin Campus. In this growth into a large insti- tution the original ideas of the founder have not been lost sight of, although in its diversity of studies and variety of modern appliances great changes have taken place. In the last college bulletin this statement is made: "It is the desire of the college to produce such an atmosphere as will make the Christian life the standard for the normal student. In the regular exercises of the college religious life finds both expression and cultivation."
John Baldwin attended a school in his youth where only reading and writing were taught, a school not up to the standard of the district school of the pioneers. We are giving something of the college he founded, which may be more interesting by comparison. The department of physics occupies six rooms in Carnegie Hall. In the basement are the electrical laboratories, and a photometer room. On the first floor is the general laboratory, the office, and a large lecture room with lantern and apparatus for its use. The Chemical Laboratories Department is fur- nished with apparatus such as electrically heated and controlled drying ovens, steam baths and electric furnaces for both crucible and combustion work, important in the analysis of iron, steel, and alloys; an outfit for determining molecular weights and conductivities, and Beckman thermom- eters for freezing point and boiling point determination. There is a laboratory with apparatus for courses in sanitary chemistry, with an auto- clave, steam sterilizers, electric incubators and microscopes, also used for bacteriological work. There are the Biological Laboratories with appa- ratus for the study of botany, zoology and physiology, in which are twenty-five dissecting microscopes, which are equipped with mechanical stage and oil immersion objectives, sliding microtomes, camera lucida, eyepiece micrometers, stains, and all usually found in a biological labora-
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tory. The college has a Home Economics Laboratory, a Textile and Clothing Laboratory, and a cottage where household management is taught as in an equipped household. There is the Herman Hertzer Museum, begun by Professor Hertzer, its first curator, of whom mention is made in a former chapter. His collection of fossils is there, with additions made by Dr. D. T. Gould and Dr. William Clark, whom we have also mentioned. In this museum we find the United States series of rocks, containing 150 specimens, and ethnological specimens from China, India, Egypt and Assyria, given by Revs. F. Ohlinger, C. F. Kupfer, G. Schaenzlin, F. Bankhardt and Prof. W. N. Stearns. In the biological department there is the Harry Hamilton collection, presented by Mrs. H. W. Inger- soll of Elyria, and the A. J. Brown collection, presented by the Brown family.
All freshmen and sophomores are required to take work in physical training under competent instructors and intercollegiate sports are fos- tered. Athletics in the college are conducted by an Athletic Board, and the physical director selected has as his assistant the football coach. Fra- ternities are not permitted, but there are in the college seven literary socie- ties. There are, however, honorary fraternities, the Pi Kappa Delta and Theta Alpha Phi. The first has a membership based on excellence in debate and oratory and including also intercollegiate debate and oratory, and the second based on dramatic work. There is maintained a Slavonic Literary Society for candidates for the Slavonic ministry wherein the members are trained in the language and literature for their work. There is a Chinese Students' Club, a branch of the Chinese Alliance of North America, a Home Economics Club, a Young Men's Christian Association, a Young Women's Christian Association, a Theological Society, for fel- lowship and practice preaching, and a Students' Volunteer Band, to awaken interest in foreign missions. There is a Choral Union for the study of oratorios and cantatas of the great masters, a Science Seminar Club for the study of mathematics, science and philosophy, to keep pace with the advancement of the world in these lines, and an Alumni Associa- tion, that meets yearly at commencement time.
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