USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 1) > Part 30
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dent had $17, which his mother and brother Thomas had scraped together, when he started. He and the Boynton boys took along pro- visions and rented a room in an old unpainted house occupied by a poor widow. The room had two beds and a cook stove, and the widow agreed to cook their meals and do their washing for a very small compensation. The school at that time had about 100 pupils. The building was two- storied and in it was a library of 100 volumes, more books than James had ever seen before. Daniel Branch was the principal, and his wife was first assistant. The pupils were of both sexes. When the term was over, twelve weeks, Garfield went home to Orange, helped his brother build a barn for his mother, and then worked for day wages at haying and harvesting. With the money earned he settled with the doctor for the balance due from the attendance in his long sickness. He left no debts at the academy and more than that he came home with a silver sixpence in his pocket. The next day at church he dropped this in the contribution box, so that when he began work in the summer he started with a clean slate. The next term at the Chester Academy he contracted with Homan Woodworth, a carpenter, to live at his house, and he was to have lodging, board, washing, fuel, and light for $1.06 per week, and with this arrangement it was understood that he might earn something by helping the carpenter on Saturdays and at odd school hours. The carpenter was building a two-story house, and on the first Saturday, Garfield planed siding at two cents a board, and earned $1.02, the most money he ever got for a day's work, up to that time. This term he earned enough to pay for tuition, books, and other expenses, and came home with $8 in his pocket. After two years at the academy he felt qualified to teach, and started out to get a school. He tramped two days over Cuyahoga County and came home without success, and completely disheartened. In many of the schools the teachers were already engaged and in others the directors thought him too young. He met rebuffs and was greatly humiliated. It is said that he then made a resolve that he would never again ask for a position of any kind and that throughout his life that resolution was never broken, as all came to him, even the nomination for the presidency, unsolicited. Well, the next morning after his unsuccessful effort and return home, he heard a man call to his mother from the road, "Widow Garfield, where's your boy Jim?
I wonder if he wouldn't like to teach our school at the Ledge." James immediately made his presence known and found a neighbor from a dis- trict a mile away, where the school had been broken up for two winters by the rowdyism of the big boys. He said he would like to try the school, but before deciding definitely he must consult his uncle, Amos Boynton. That evening the two families got together and held a council. Uncle Amos was the leading mind in the conference and his opinions were con- sidered sound. He heard the proposition in full and then gave the subject deliberate silent consideration. Finally he said: "You go and try it. You will go into that school as the boy, 'Jim Garfield,' see that you come out as Mr. Garfield the schoolmaster." The school was mastered. Among the first efforts at discipline was a tussle with the bully of the school, who in the mèlee tried to brain the teacher with a stick of wood. The teacher won, and after that there was order and diligent and respectful pupils. The future President got $12 a month and his board. He boarded around and came out in the spring with more money than he had ever had before, $48. He had now clearly abandoned the idea of becoming a sailor. He and his cousin, Henry Boynton, went to the academy for a third time. They boarded themselves and kept a strict account and at the end of six weeks found that their expenses for food had averaged just 31 cents per
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week apiece. Henry argued that they were living too poorly, consistent with good health, and so they agreed to increase the weekly expense for food to 50 cents a week. With this necessity for strict economy even at the academy, James had looked upon a college course as entirely beyond his reach, but he met a graduate of a college, who told him that it was pos- sible, that it was a mistaken idea that only the sons of rich parents could go to college, that a poor boy could work his way through, but it might take a long time. He was now obsessed with the idea of going to college and at the academy began the study of Latin, philosophy, and botany. Again he is back on the farm at Orange, working through the summer at haying and carpentering. In the fall he went back to Chester for a fourth term at the academy and in the winter taught school at Warrens- ville. Here he received $16 a month and board. Returning to Orange he learned that the Disciples, his chosen denomination, had just founded a college at Hiram, Portage County, a cross roads village twelve miles from a town or a railroad. His religious preference called him to that college. He began his studies there in August, 1851. The college was a plain brick building standing in the midst of a corn field, with a few houses nearby as boarding places for students. He roomed with four other students and studied with intense application. In the winter he again taught school at Warrensville and this time he received $18 a month. In the spring he was back at Hiram, and during the summer vacation helped build a house there, planing all the siding and shingling the roof. At the beginning of his second year at Hiram he was made a tutor there, and from that time on he taught and studied at the same time. In three years' time he fitted himself to enter the junior class, thus crowding, in- cluding the preparatory, six years' study into three, and teaching for his support at the same time. His pupils at the Hiram school included Lucretia Rudolph, who recited to him two years, and later was a teacher in the Cleveland schools. The teacher and pupil became engaged while at Hiram, but the marriage awaited financial conditions. While the lady taught in Cleveland, the tutor planned a larger study, as both awaited the realization of their hopes. Garfield wrote to the presidents of Yale, Brown, and Williams colleges telling what books he had studied and ask- ing in what class he could enter if he passed the requisite examination. All answered that he could enter the junior year. President Hopkins of Williams said in his letter: "If you come here, we shall do what we can for you." This kindly postscript decided him in his choice, and he went to Williams, arriving there in June, 1854, with $300 dollars in his pocket, which he had saved as a tutor at Hiram. Although self taught, that is, having studied many of the prescribed books without a teacher, he passed the examination easily. After his examination and before the school opened he spent his time in the large library at Williams reading. He especially delighted in Shakespeare and Tennyson, authors that he had never read before except the small extracts found in school text books. He reveled in English history and poetry. He broke into the wide range of fiction, prescribed at that time by religious people generally as a waste of time and therefore sinful. When he entered Williams he studied Latin and Greek, and took up German as an elective study. During the winter vacation at the end of the fall term, he taught a writing school at North Pownal, Vermont. He wrote a fine hand but not one included in the systems taught in commercial schools. His writing was the envy, it is said, of the boys and girls who attended his school at North Pownal. A year or two before he taught his writing class there, Chester A. Arthur, who was elected Vice President with him and. succeeded to the presidency at his death, taught the district school in the same building. At the end
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of his first college year at Williams, Garfield visited his mother, who was then living with a daughter in Solon. His money was gone and he must either drop out a year and teach or borrow money to complete his college course. He decided to insure his life for the benefit of the lender and borrow. After his brother Thomas had tried to furnish the loan and failed, he succeeded in borrowing from a neighbor, Doctor Robinson. He gave his notes for the loan and said it was on a fair business basis, for if he lived he would pay it and if he died the lender would get his money. In the second winter vacation he again taught writing school, this time in Poestenkill, New York, a little town, six miles from Troy. This brought him in a little money to help out in his college expenses. It was in his last year at Williams that Garfield made a political speech in which he gave evidence of that gift of oratory that made him famous in later years. His mother was Eliza Ballou of Huguenot ancestry, and the fam- ily for generations back were a race of preachers. It may be supposed that President Garfield's wonderful gift of oratory was derived from the mother's side, the Ballous. The political speech referred to was in sup- port of John C. Freemont for President. He had never before taken any part in political meetings.
This speech was made before a gathering in one of the class rooms at the college. It is said that he was the first man nominated for the presi- dency whose "political convictions and activities began with the birth of the republican party." He graduated in August, 1856, but before that time he had been elected to a post at Hiram. It was not a professorship, for that institution was not a college and did not become one until after the Civil war. A year later Garfield was placed at the head of the school. He began to preach but was never ordained as a minister, for the Dis- ciples do not ordain, but anyone having the ability to preach is welcome to their pulpit. His fame as a preacher soon extended beyond the confines of Hiram. A year after coming to Hiram as a member of the faculty, and when he was at the head of the school, enjoying a living compensa- tion, he married Lucretia Rudolph, his former pupil, with whom he had been so long engaged. The marriage took place November 11, 1858. He began speaking in political campaigns first in small meetings about Hiram and then in larger gatherings, and in 1860 was elected to the State Senate. While in the Legislature he studied law, expecting to make that his life occupation. He entered his name as a law student in the office of Wil- liamson and Riddle, of Cleveland, and got from Mr. Riddle a list of books to be studied. In 1861 he applied to the Supreme Court at Colum- bus for admission to the bar, and was examined by Thomas M. Key, a distinguished lawyer of Cincinnati, and Robert Harrison, afterwards a member of the Supreme Court Commission, and was admitted. The subsequent career of this remarkable man, pioneer, and son of a pioneer of Orange Township, would fill volumes, but we cannot refrain from giving an instance in his military record which turns us back in thought to the days when he steered the canal boat on the Ohio canal, having risen from the position of driver on the towpath. The incident is taken from Whitelaw Reid's "Ohio in the War."
"When the time came for appointing the officers for the Ohio troops, the Legislature was still in session. Garfield at once avowed his intention of entering the service. He was offered the lieutenant-colonelcy of the Forty-second Ohio Regiment, but it was not until the 14th of Decem- ber that orders for the field were received. The regiment was then sent to Catlettsburg, Kentucky, and Garfield, then made a colonel, was directed to report in person to General Buell. On the 17th of December he assigned Colonel Garfield to the command of the Seventeenth Brigade.
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and ordered him to drive the rebel forces under Humphrey Marshall out of Sandy Valley, in Eastern Kentucky. Up to this date no active opera- tions had been attempted in the great department that lay south of the Ohio River. The spell of Bull Run still hung over our armies. Save the campaigns in Western Virginia, and the unfortunate attack by Gen- eral Grant at Belmont, not a single engagement had occurred over all the region between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. General Buell was preparing to advance upon the rebel position at Bowling Green, when he suddenly found himself hampered by two cooperating forces skillfully planted within striking distance of his flank. General Zollicoffer was advancing from Cumberland Gap toward Mill Spring, and Humphrey Marshall, moving down the Sandy Valley, was threatening to overrun Eastern Kentucky. Till these could be driven back, an advance upon Bowling Green would be perilous, if not actually impossible. To General George H. Thomas, then just raised from his colonelcy of regulars to a brigadier-generalship of volunteers, was committed the task of repulsing Zollicoffer; to the untried colonel of the raw Forty-second Ohio, the task of repulsing Humphrey Marshall, and on their success the whole army of the department waited. Colonel Garfield thus found himself, before he had ever seen a gun fired in action, in command of four regi- ments of infantry, and some eight companies of cavalry, charged with the work of driving out of his native state the officer reputed the ablest of those not educated to war whom Kentucky had given to the rebellion. Marshall had under his command nearly 5,000 men stationed at the Vil- lage of Paintville, sixty miles up the Sandy Valley. He was expected by the rebel authorities to advance towards Lexington, unite with Zollicoffer, and establish the authority of the Provisional Government at the state capital. These hopes were fed by the recollection of his great intellectual abilities, and the soldierly reputation he had borne ever since he lead the famous charge of the Kentucky volunteers at Buena Vista. But Gar- field won the day. Marshall hastily abandoned his position, fired his camp equipage and stores, and began a retreat which was not ended till he reached Abington, Virginia. A fresh peril, however, now beset the little force. An unusually violent rainstorm broke out, the mountain gorges were all flooded, and the Sandy rose to such a height that steam boatmen pronounced it impossible to ascend the stream with supplies. The troops were almost out of rations, and the rough mountainous coun- try was incapable of supporting them. Colonel Garfield had gone down the river to its mouth. He ordered a small steamer which had been in the quartermaster's service to take on a load of supplies and start up. The captain declared it was impossible. Efforts were made to get other vessels, but without success. Finally Colonel Garfield ordered the cap- tain and crew on board, stationed a competent officer on deck to see that the captain did his duty, and himself took the wheel. The captain still protested that no boat could possibly stem the raging current, but Gar- field turned her head up the stream and began the perilous trip. The water in the usually shallow river was sixty feet deep, and the tree tops along the bank were almost submerged. The little vessel trembled from stem to stern at every motion of the engines; the waters whirled about her as if she were a skiff ; and the utmost speed that steam could give her was three miles an hour. When night fell the captain of the boat begged permission to tie up. To attempt ascending that flood in the dark, he declared, was madness. But Colonel Garfield kept his place at the wheel. Finally in one of the sudden bends of the river, they drove, with a full head of steam, into the quicksand of the bank. Every effort to back off was in vain. Garfield at last ordered a boat to be lowered to take a line
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across to the opposite bank. The crew protested against venturing out in the flood. The colonel leaped into the boat himself and steered it over. The force of the current carried them far below the point they sought to reach; but they finally succeeded in making fast to a tree and rigging a windlass with rails sufficiently powerful to draw the vessel off and get her once more afloat. It was on Saturday that the boat left the mouth of the Sandy. All night, all day Sunday, and all through Sunday night they kept up their struggle with the current, Garfield leaving the wheel only eight hours out of the whole time, and that during the day. By 9 o'clock Monday morning they reached the camp, and were received with tumultuous cheering. Garfield himself could scarcely escape from being borne to headquarters on the shoulders of the delighted men."
From this time Garfield took high rank in the estimate of those in the army and out. General Buell gave unstinted praise and a special com- mendation was made by the officials at Washington. Our history must be confined largely to his early struggles from the boy on the farm in Orange to the time when he became a national figure, orator, soldier, statesman, President of the United States. His subsequent history and that of his family belong to the nation and are a part of the larger annals that form most interesting reading. Of Amos Boynton, Uncle Boynton, the half brother of his father, we will speak more fully than we have done, before the close of this chapter.
The first store in Orange was opened near the site of the "Bible Christian" Church in 1835, the name of the storekeeper who first began we cannot give, but about the same time or a little later a Mr. Bymont opened a store on the town line in Warrensville. The second store con- tinued for three or four years, and until the Village of Chagrin Falls, attracted the trade. In '1845 the Township of Chagrin Falls was formed and included in its boundaries was all that part of Orange in the first division of tract 3 except lots 1, 2 and 3. The area taken from Orange was nearly two and one-half square miles, leaving twenty-two and one- half square miles in the township, its present area. In marked contrast to Rockport on the other side of the county, Orange has not the sem- blance of a village within its borders. There is a postoffice at the Center and another at North Solon, but notwithstanding the fact that the latter is called North Solon postoffice it is in Orange. Its change from the pioneer, the log house era, to the frame house, the farming era, came about with the same rapidity as other parts of the county. By 1850 there was only one or two log houses in the township. The Civil war came and the sons of Orange went to the front and their names are recorded in the soldiers' monument on the public square at Cleveland. The hardy farmer boys made good soldiers. After the war dairying came to be the principal line of the farmers, and cheese factories sprung up to manu- facture the product of the dairies. At one time there were three in the township, one operated by J. P. Whitlam at Orange Center, another by M. A. Lander, two miles southwest of the Center, and a third by David Sheldon on the Chagrin River, two miles east of the Center. The only manufacturing industries that have found their way into the township have been the sawmills. The mills of David Sheldon, on or near the Chagrin River, two miles east of the Center; of James Graham, on the river, close to the township line of Chagrin Falls, and of John Stoneman, one mile west of the Center, are associated with the early history. Near the North Solon postoffice a store was opened by Eldridge Morse in 1860, and three years later it was sold to G. C. Arnold, a son of Ralph Arnold, whose home on the farm was nearby. As elsewhere in the county, churches were organized early in the township and they with the schools
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in the districts constituted the social centers as well as educational and religious centers of the township. Without exception this has been the rule in the settlement and development of all the townships, this not ex- cepted.
A Methodist Episcopal Church was organized at Orange Center in 1839. The first members were P. C. Gordon, Mary Gordon, Henry Gor- don, Alanson Smith, Henrietta Smith, Jesse Luce, Sophia H. Luce, Sophia Weller, Reese Bowell, William Case, William Ansel, Mary A. Ansel, Caroline Ansel, Abigail Lander, Clarissa Hennessy, William Hen- nessy. The first class leader was Henry Gordon. The pastor was Rev. Mr. Halleck. They met at schoolhouses and residences until 1868, when a frame church was built. Following this first minister there is a long line as the policy of government in this denomination requires fre- quent changes. We will only name a few of the earlier. They were denominated circuit preachers because serving other charges on a partic- ular circuit. Revs. William F. Wilson, Hiram Kellogg, Timothy Good- win, Lorenzo Rogers, S. C. Freer, R. H. Hurlbut, E. Lattamore, A. Fouts, Benjamin Excell, William Patterson, William Lunn, J. B. Hammond and Thomas Gray were among the number. Meetings were held on Orange Hill as early as 1830, but no church was organized until 1847. This small Methodist organization was on the Orange Center and Warrensville cir- cuit. A Bible Christian Church, Protestant Methodist, was organized in 1840. It started under the first name, and then finding no particular difference in creeds, it was organized under the second name of Protestant Methodists, or rather it was reorganized. It then came into the Warrens- ville circuit. Rev. George Pippin was the first Bible Christian preacher, and then followed Revs. Hodge, Roach, Pinch, Hooper, Colwell, Wicket, Chapel, and Tethna. The North Orange Disciple Church was organized July 28, 1845, with fifteen members. The first elders were William T. Hutchinson and Ira Rutherford. By changes in the population its membership dwindled to a handful. In the same year the South Orange Disciple Church was organized. Amos Boynton and Z. Smith were the first overseers. Its history is similar to that of the same denomination in North Orange. The Free Will Baptist Church was organized in 1868. Rev. W. Whitacre was the first minister, and John Wentmore and Joseph A. Burns, the first deacons, and William Mills and John Wentmore the first trustees. In 1870 a church was built by the congregation, east of the North Solon postoffice.
The schools of Orange are still in the school buildings of one room and located in various parts of the township for the accommodation of the pupils as in pioneer days, but a large central building for the central- ization of the schools is in process of construction. There are now eight district school buildings in use, most of them of one room. The prin- cipal of the Orange schools is B. E. Stevens. There are twelve teachers employed and the total enrollment of pupils in the township is 298. The new building will accommodate all the pupils of the township and trans- portation will be furnished as in other townships for getting the pupils to and from school. At present it approaches more nearly to the original district school system than any that we find in the county.
As we have said, the township was organized and a government estab- lished in 1830. Among those who have served in the earlier days of the official life of the township are: Trustees, Eber M. Waldo, Caleb Litch, Edmund Mallett, Caleb Alvord, Benjamin Hardy, Thomas King, Seruyn Cleaveland, N. Goodspeed, James Fisher, S. Burnett, Samuel Bull, E. Covey, Jonathan Cole, Lawrence Huff, Isaac Eames, Wm. Luce, J. Witter, D. R. Smith, Frederick Mallett, William Smith, Amos Boyn-
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ton, Saxton R. Rathbun, Cyrus Phelps, Joseph Cline, M. G. Hickey, Cotton J. Pratt, Samuel Nettleton, H. Abell, Howard S. Allen, H. Church, E. Waite, Zadock Bowell, Elestus Arnold, J. D. Mapes, Benjamin Sheldon, Abram Tibbits, H. Deloff, Zenas Smith, E. Arnold, C. Gates, C. Cole, John McLane, Jason H. Luce, T. Willett, A. McVeigh, A. Jerome, R. Lewis, H. Baster, John Whitlock, J. Bray, P. Farr, Henry Price, Horace Rudd, F. Judd, E. B. Pike, William Lander, L. Sawyer, Alonzo Cathan, J. Burton, H. B. Boynton, Edwin Mapes, F. Rowe, D. C. Kim- ball, William Stoneman, L. Underwood, J. M. Burgess, Jedediah Burton, John Whitlaw, J. Baster, H. W. Gordon, J. Q. Lander, A. Stevens, C. L. Jackson, and Charles Thomas. Among the clerks have been: David Lafler, James Fisher, C. Alvord, Ansel Young, Samuel G. Harger, Michael G. Hickey, Henry W. Gordon, Elbridge Smith, C. J. Pratt, Cyrus Phelps, L. D. Williams, C. T. Blakeslee, J. Cole, C. Alvord, Thompson Willett, H. B. Boynton, H. W. Gordon, Charles Jackson, and Edwin Mapes. Treasurers, D. R. Smith, Edward Covey, Seruyn Cleaveland, Thomas King, William Luce, William Lander, Stephen Burnett, T. King, John Whitlaw, H. S. Allen, J. H. Luce, William Stoneman, Richmond Barber, H. B. Boynton, and H. Price. M. A. Lander served for many years as assessor of the township. The present officers of the township are: Jus- tice of the peace, Joseph Zoul; trustees, U. G. Teare, A. A. Ayers and H. G. Strick; clerk, T. W. Taylor; treasurer, Henry Miller ; assessor, H. W. Lander ; constable, Milton Kidd.
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