USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 1) > Part 29
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73
Among the financial institutions of the city are the Lakewood State Bank, corner of Detroit and Belle avenues, the Lakewood branch of the Cleveland Trust Company, of Cleveland, corner of Detroit and Highland avenues, the Colonial Savings and Loan Company, corner of Detroit and Belle avenues, and the Rocky River Savings and Banking Company, on Blount Street, Rocky River.
The clubs and fraternal orders include the Lakewood Tennis Club, the Lakewood Young Men's Business Club, the Cleveland Yacht Club, which owns the island at the mouth of the Rocky River, and has large clubhouses, docks, tennis and croquet grounds, gymnasium, swimming pools and sun parlors, its property valued at more than $50,000. The Lakewood Boat Club, the Lakewood Thimble Club, "to promote intel- lectual growth and social fellowship, and to aid philanthropic institutions," Current Events club, "an organization for the social enlightenment of its members and to provide literary and social recreation of a high order," the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Lakewood Division of the Woman's Suffrage Party, now out of a job, the Lakewood branch of the
194
CUYAHOGA COUNTY AND
Associated Charities of Cleveland, on Detroit Avenue near Fry, established to take over the charity work of the City of Lakewood. Of the secret and benevolent orders there is a lodge of the Knights of Pythias, and of the Pythian Sisters, three blue lodges of the Masonic Order, an Eastern Star Lodge, Lincoln No. 309, two Forester lodges, Lakewood and Com- panion, Independent Order of Foresters, Clifton Lodge, Knights of the Maccabees, Lakewood No. 490, and Ladies of the Maccabees, Lakewood No. 437, the Royal Protective League, and Catholic Order of Foresters.
Lakewood Hospital, established by the Lakewood Hospital Company, is located on Detroit Avenue, with a dispensary on Madison, and its his- tory is interesting. It was built by a company but not for profit and its maintenance has been at times difficult. The Lakewood Hospital Charitable Association, composed of ladies, has greatly aided in the maintenance. Among the trustees of the institution may be mentioned W. J. Hunkin, E. W. Fisher, Oscar Kroehle, Miss Alice M. Brooks, and Judge Willis Vickery. The Lakewood Sanatorium, founded by Dr. A. S. McClain, for the treatment of those afflicted with rheumatism and nervous dis- eases, is located at 18411 Detroit Avenue. This is classed as a public institution and its aim is to give treatment under home surroundings. Mention should be made of the parochial school in connection with Saint James Church. This was established in 1912 under the auspices of the Sisters of Humility and Mercy. The school structure, Saint James' Hall, has sixteen class rooms and is provided with a fine auditorium. Rev. Michael D. Leahy is at the head of the work. Saint Augustine Convent, located on Lake Avenue, is the only one in the city. It has an attractive home building and pretty surroundings. Among the structures that attract attention is the Rocky River bridge, built by the county. When it was built it contained the largest concrete arch in the United States. Since that time it has been exceeded by others. This affords a fine view of the river valley. It is built entirely of reinforced concrete, which "moth and rust doth not corrupt." The Masonic Temple, located on Detroit Avenue, is one of the fine structures of the city.
In 1915 the authorities published an illustrated pamphlet, a chrono- logical statement of facts concerning the City of Lakewood, which was sold for the benefit of the fire and police pension fund. In this are many pictures of residences and public buildings of the city, which are exceedingly attractive.
Lakewood has no industrial life to record. Like the original township, which was number 7 of range 14 in the original survey, afterwards Rock- port, it has never "been contaminated with the vices of manufacture." The nearest approach to industrial activity was in 1914 when the gas well boom was on. Some 200 wells were sunk and oil derricks loomed in the sky, but the boom was short lived and only a limited number were paying propositions.
"The City of Homes" is in every respect a residence section of Greater Cleveland. The only distinction is that it has its own municipal and school government. The question of annexation to Cleveland has been agitated from time to time. At a recent election the question was submitted to the voters and the proposition to annex voted down. At this election referred to, or rather at the general election held at this time, West Park voted otherwise and its territory is now a part of Cleveland. Just how the sentiment on this question will develop remains for the future historian to record. At present it is a beautiful city of 55,000 inhabitants, characterized by high ideals, intelligence, and progressive, vigorous life.
CHAPTER XVI
ORANGE
Go with us now to township 7 of range 10 of the survey of the West- ern Reserve. Except that the forests are changed to farms, and paved roads at intervals have replaced the trails, and the sound of the auto horn the war whoop, the changes of a century and more are easily recorded. This township has no cities or villages within its borders. A portion of its original territory was taken when Chagrin Falls was formed but that is all. It is strictly a farming community, quiet, orderly, apart from the wild rush of industry and trade. And yet it has a distinction that out- weighs all the rest. Here in the woods, in a log cabin, its walls of logs, its roof of shingles split with an axe, and its floor of rude thick planking split out of tree trunks with a wedge and maul, a pioneer mother cared for her household. The house had only a single room at one end of which was the big chimney and fireplace. Here the cooking was done. At the other end of the room was the bed. The younger children slept in a trundle bed, which was under the larger bed in the daytime to make room, as space was at a premium. The older ones climbed up in the loft under the steep roof to sleep. The father worked early and late clearing his farm, and it was said that he had few equals in wielding the axe. At least no man in the region around could equal him in the use of that pioneer necessity. A baby was born in this house November 19, 1831, another care for the faithful mother. Nearly fifty years later this mother, her boy, her youngest born, grown to manhood, and famous as soldier, orator, and statesman, turned to give her a kiss, as his first act after entering upon his duties as President of the United States, James A. Garfield. It is a proud distinction for the little township that the only President born on the soil of Cuyahoga County, and whose beautiful monument stands in Lake View Cemetery, at Cleveland, first saw the light and lived as a boy within her borders. His history and that of the wonderful mother belongs to the ages, but so much of it as pertains to their life in Orange may be given briefly in this recounting. In May, 1833, when the future President was eighteen months old, a serious fire broke out in the woods on the Garfield farm. Abram Garfield, the father, worked with his great strength and impetuosity in fighting the fire to keep it from the home, the fences and fields, and when it was checked, sat down to rest in a cool breeze. He was taken with a severe sore throat, and a country doctor aggravated the trouble by treatment that would now be discarded. Before he died he pointed to his children and said, "Eliza, I have planted four saplings in these woods. I leave them to your care." He was buried in the corner of a wheat field on his farm. The hardships of the pioneer mother left with her four children would have been more serious but for the assistance of Uncle Boynton, whose farm was next to theirs. Amos Boynton deserves a prominent place in history. His strong self reliant nature gave courage as his directing mind and material assistance aided the stricken family. He was a typical pioneer. The farms of the Gar- fields and the Boyntons were separated by a large forest on one side and a rocky ravine on the other from the settled country around. From the
Vol. 1-7
195
196
CUYAHOGA COUNTY AND
day, and for many years after, Abram Garfield and his half brother Boynton built their log cabins, the nearest house was seven miles distant. When the township became well settled, the rugged character of the sur- face around their farms kept neighbors at a distance too great for the children to find associates among them, except at the district school. The district school was located on a corner of the Garfield farm and it was there that James A. Garfield learned his A B c's, and began to leaf the pages of Noah Webster's Spelling Book at the age of four. The child- hood of James was spent in complete isolation from social influences except those that came from the district school, the home of his mother, and that of his uncle Boynton. James worked on the farm as soon as he was old enough to be of service and that is quite early, for there is much on the farm that a small boy can do.
He labors when the "dash" is in the churn, If the grindstone's called to action he must turn, And he brings in all the wood, and he goes to get the cow, And he helps to feed the sheep, And he treads the stack and mow. Then it's time to go to sleep.
The family was very poor, and the mother often worked in the fields with the boys. "She spun the yarn and wove the cloth for the children's clothes and her own, sewed for the neighbors, knit stockings, cooked the simple meals for the household in the big fireplace, over which hung an iron crane for the pot-hooks, helped plant and hoe the corn and gather the hay crop, and even assisted the oldest boy to clear and fence land. In the midst of this toilsome life the brave little woman found time to instill into the minds of her children the religious and moral maxims of her New England ancestry. Every day she read four chapters of the Bible, and this was never omitted except when sickness interfered. The children lived in an atmosphere of religious thought and discussion. Uncle Boynton, who was a second father to the Garfield family, flavored all his talk with Bible quotations. He carried a Testament in his pocket wherever he went and would sit on a plough-beam at the end of a furrow to take it out and read a chapter. It was a time of religious ferment in Northern Ohio. New sects filled the air with their doctrinal cries. The Disciples, a sect founded by the preaching of Alexander Campbell, an eloquent and devout man of Scotch descent, who ranged over Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, from his home at Bethany, in the 'Pan Handle,' had made great progress. They assailed all creeds as made by men and declared the Bible to be the only rule of life. Attacking all other denominations they were vigorously attacked in return. James' mind was filled at an early day with the controversies this new sect ex- cited. The guests at his mother's house were mostly traveling preachers, and the talk of the neighborhood, when not about the crops and farm labors, was usually on religious topics. At the district school James was known as a fighting boy. He found that the larger boys were disposed to insult and abuse a little fellow who had no father or big brother to protect him, and he resented such imposition with all the force of a sensitive nature backed by a hot temper, great physical courage, and a strength unusual for one of his age. His big brother Thomas had finished his schooling and was much away from home, working by the month or the day to earn money for the support of the family. Many stories went the rounds in Orange of the pluck shown by the future major-general in his encounters with the rough country lads in defense of his boyish
197
THE CITY OF CLEVELAND
rights and honor. It was said that he never began a fight and never cherished malice, but when enraged by taunts or insults would attack boys of twice his size with the fury and tenacity of a bull dog."
Immediately after the War of 1812 fifteen settlers moved into that territory which is now the greater part of Orange. The first settler was Serenus Burnett, who settled on Chagrin River in 1815. It was then a part of township 7, range 10, but is now included in Chagrin Falls. The old annals do not give us much of the families of these first settlers for to a greater extent than in most others the original pioneers are not repre- sented by descendants, as many have moved away and death has called as well. Thomas King of Orange Hill lived in the township to a ripe old age. He came in 1818. Then Jesse Kimball, Rufus Parsons, John White and Theron White had preceded him by one or two years. They all lived
ريتى
THE SURVIVORS
The few trees left of the orchard planted by Abram Garfield, father of President Garfield, in Orange Township. The cross at the left shows the site of the log house in which President Garfield was born. The trees of the orchard were each named by "Jim" Garfield after some historic character.
on the high ground in the north part of the township. The western part was the narrow valley of the Chagrin River, running due north across it. Separated from this valley is a broad highland known as Orange Hill. This tract comprises most of the northern part. From Orange Hill the surface gradually descends towards the south. The portion south of the central line is only of moderate height but is comparatively dry and has some broken ground. It has good natural drainage. The soil is a gravelly clay, and when the first settlers came it was covered with a growth of beech, maple, oak, elm and other forest trees. On account of its natural drainage and diversified forest it presented a more alluring appearance to pioneers than other more fertile sections, made unhealthy by swamps and wet ground. As all the first settlers located on the high ground it would appear that this consideration was first in mind and that they were seeking the most healthful location. The new comers imme- diately began clearing around their cabins, planting, sowing, and reaping grain, among the stumps, while yet the marks of the axe showed fresh
198
CUYAHOGA COUNTY AND
and new. Wild mutton from the deer, and woodland pork, from the bear, they got. Wild herds were abundant. Other settlers came in 1818 and in 1819, and an agitation began at once for the formation of a civil township. Law and order must prevail in the woods as well as in New England. An appeal was made to the county commissioners, the name Orange selected, and on June 7, 1820, a civil township was formed, but to contain townships 6 and 7 in range 10. This territory of the original civil township included all of the present townships of Solon and Orange and most of Chagrin Falls.
The first election was held at the home of Daniel R. Smith June 27, 1820, and the following officers chosen: Trustees, Eber M. Waldo, Caleb Litch, and Edmund Mallett; clerk, David Sayler ; treasurer, D. R. Smith ; lister, Eber M. Waldo; appraiser, Lawrence Huff ; overseers of the poor, Thomas King and Serenus Burnet; fence viewers, William Weston and Seruyn Cleaveland; superintendents of the highways, E. Mallett, Rufus Parsons, Caleb Litch and Thomas Robinson. These officers were all res- idents of number 6, as number 7 was not then settled, with the excep- tion of Burnet. That is they were residents of the present Township of Orange. In 1822, two years later, the election was held on May 20th, and there were thirty-six who voted. The poll books do not show the entire voting population of the township as a few did not vote. As we estimate from the voters the poll books for 1822 would indicate a popu- lation in the township of about 300 at that time. There were some settle- ments in the south part of Solon at that time but they did not take the trouble to come so far through the woods to vote. The names of those who voted are Peter Gardinier, Jonathan Covey, Edward Corey, Jess Kimball, Jacob Gardinier, Isaac Saffler, Sylvanus L. Simpson, William Weston, Caleb Alvord, Nathaniel Goodspeed, Thomas King, Seruyn Cleaveland, Lewis Northrup, Clarimond Herriman, Benjamin Jenks, Nathaniel Sherman, Joseph Watson, Amaziah Northrop, Daniel R. Smith, Jacob Hutchins, Jedediah Buxton, Daniel S. Taylor, Asa Wood- worth, Silas T. Dean, Ansel Jerome, Luman Griswold, Serenus Burnet, Ephraim Towne, Benjamin Hardy, Cornelius Millspaugh, Abel Stafford, Caleb Litch, John G. White and James Fisher. After this the settle- ment of the township must have been slow or the voters recreant to their duties of citizenship for in 1828, six years later, only twenty-eight were registered as voting at the township election. Seth Mapes came as a settler in 1827. His son, John Mapes, was long prominent in township affairs. Amos Boynton, whom we have mentioned in connection with the Garfields, was an early settler in Newburg, where he had lived since 1818. Moving to Orange he settled one mile and a half south of the center. Some time after his death the farm was occupied by his widow and son, H. B. Boynton. When the Boyntons came it was a wilderness. There was a north and south road laid out, but it had not been worked. Doctor Witter was a practicing physician at Orange Center. It is more than likely that he was the doctor called to attend Abram Garfield in his last sickness. H. B. Boynton was long prominent in township and county affairs. In 1829 there was no store, hotel or mill in Orange. A gristmill was built on the Chagrin River within the present limits of Orange, but it was soon abandoned. Settlers took their grists to Chagrin Falls or to a mill in the present limits of that township and village. Here as else- where the wolves were destructive and killed many sheep that strayed outside of the fenced enclosures. Abram Garfield, as soon as he had a clearing sufficient, planted a fine orchard, as did Amos Boynton. A few of the trees planted by the father of the martyred President are still ·standing. James had a name in later years, while a boy on the farm, for
199
THE CITY OF CLEVELAND
each tree. The trees were named after some historic character. Appropriate names suggested by the quality of the fruit were given, and we can imagine the interest attached and the appropriateness of the des- ignations in view of the high literary attainments of the future President in later years. We have said the log cabin of the Garfields was a one-room house. When the log schoolhouse, which was on a corner of the Gar- field farm, was abandoned for a new frame building, the old log building was bought by Thomas Garfield for a trifle and he and James with the help of the Boynton boys pulled it down and moved it over and put it up again a few steps to the rear of their cabin. The family then had two rooms and counted themselves quite comfortable so far as household accommodations were concerned. In these two log buildings the family lived until James was fourteen, when the boys, with the assistance of Uncle Boynton, built a frame house for their mother. In the location of the log houses by the pioneers a spot if possible near a spring was selected. The convenience of the water supply was important and wells came later. The log house in the orchard was near a spring, but of a rather indiffer- ent kind, located in a swale. When the new frame house was built it was at the point where they had located a clear running spring of cold water, a distance west of the old home site. This spring is much in evidence today.
"Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips."
This new house was painted red and had three rooms below and two under the roof. Today it is painted white and surrounded by shade trees planted by the builders of the new home, but grown to large proportions. James Garfield often got employment in the haying and harvesting season from the farmers of Orange. When he was sixteen he walked ten miles to Aurora, in company with a boy older than himself, looking for work. They offered their services to a farmer who had a good deal of hay to cut. Negotiations were on and the boys demanded $1 a day, men's wages. The Aurora farmer demurred, not being willing to pay men's wages to boys. They then proposed to cut the hay by the acre, and sug- gested the going price of 50 cents. This offer was accepted and when night came the four acres were cut and the boys got their dollar each. It should be recorded that they finished by 4 o'clock. Then the farmer engaged them for several weeks. The future President got his first reg- ular wages from a merchant who ran an ashery where he leached ashes and made black salts, which were shipped by lake and canal to New York. He got $9 a month and his board, and stuck to the business for two months. When he quit work at the ashery his hair was bleached by the fumes to a bright red hue except that portion of his head which was protected by his cap. Afterwards he went to his uncle's in Newburgh, near Independence, and cleared land. His contract was to cut 100 cords of wood at 50 cents a cord. He boarded with one of his sisters, who was married and lived nearby. He, like his father, was a good chopper and easily cut two cords a day. Like many a country lad who lived in view of the water he had a great aspiration to be a sailor. He had seen the white sails on Lake Erie and had read stories of the sea. He made up his mind to be a sailor and to start on the lakes with a view, no doubt, eventually to sail on the ocean. With this in mind he walked to Cleve- land, boarded a schooner, at anchor at the wharf, and finding the captain, told him that he wanted to hire out as a sailor. The captain, much im- pressed with his own importance and half drunk, desired to astonish the
THE SECOND HOME OF PRESIDENT JAMES A. GARFIELD ON THE GARFIELD FARM, ORANGE TOWNSHIP, AS IT APPEARS TODAY Garfield, when a boy of fourteen, worked in building this home into which the family moved from the log house where the President was born.
201
THE CITY OF CLEVELAND
green country lad and answered him with a volley of profanity and coarse language. James escaped as quickly as he could and walked up the river along the docks in search of opportunity. While on his way he heard himself called by name from the deck of a canal boat. The speaker was a cousin, Amos Letcher. Letcher was captain of a canal boat, and learn- ing his quest, proposed to hire him to drive mules or horses on the tow- path. The future President was taken with this offer as being primary navigation and something that might lead up to his dream of "a life on the ocean wave, a home on the rolling deep." He accepted the offer and the wages agreed upon were $10 a month and "found," the last word indicating board, lodging, and washing. The next day he began his labors. The boat was called the Evening Star and was loaded with copper ore for Pittsburg. It was open amidships and had a cabin on the bow for horses, and one in the stern for the men. On the return trip the Evening Star stopped at Brier Hill and here took on a cargo of coal from the mines of David Tod, afterward governor of Ohio and a warm personal friend of Garfield, the major general and congressman. Governor Tod died in 1868, long before Garfield became President. The future states- man continued his work on the canal through the season of 1848. After the first trip the Evening Star plied back and forth between Brier Hill and Cleveland with cargoes of coal and iron. The mule driver rose to be steersman on the boat. As the season closed he was taken with that malady that afflicted so many, who worked on or lived near the canal, fever and ague. This kept him home and in bed most of the following winter and the money he had earned in the summer went for doctors' bills and medicine. This was Providential, for it gave the mother, who had never approved of his idea of being a sailor, and disapproved accord- ingly of the canal adventure, her opportunity. When he got well the mother sought to arouse in him a desire for learning as a counter prop- osition. The passion for the sea she knew was real and she reasoned that it could only be cured by a counter passion. She brought to her aid the district school teacher, Samuel D. Bates. Bates was a man of fine parts and an attractive and interesting character. He stirred up the boy with a desire for an education, and he and the faithful mother changed the course of the would-be sailor to one marked on the log book of his- tory. James went to the Geauga Academy, at Chester, a few miles distant, and began his studies. We have spoken of the intense religious feeling in the neighborhood and the devotion of his mother and Uncle Boynton. He refused time and again to join the church as he was urged to do, and when the urgency became too marked he stayed away from meetings for several Sundays. He wished to arrive at his own conclusions on the sub- ject in his own way. After two years at the Geauga Academy he joined his uncle's congregation, and was baptized in a little stream in Orange, a tributary of the Chagrin River. This occurred while a series of meetings were being held in a schoolhouse near the Garfield home. It is said he was greatly interested in the reading of Pollok's "Course of Time," which impressed him deeply and started him in the study of religious matters. But more of the beginning of the new departure from a life of adventure as a sailor to the student. Mrs. Garfield, the mother, was tact- ful and wonderful. She knew the boy mind and how fixed might be the cherished ideas there entertained. She used the argument that if he attended school and became able to teach, he could teach winters and sail summers and then be sure of employment the year round. It was in March of 1849 that James with his cousins, William and Henry Boynton, started at the Geauga Academy at Chester, a Free Will Baptist school. It was ten miles from the Garfield home in Orange. The future Presi-
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.