USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Annals of the Early Settlers Association of Cuyahoga County, number I > Part 21
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RESOLVED, That this Association will proceed to raise a fund for the purpose of erecting, at some suitable point within the city of Cleveland, a life size statne in marble or bronze, of Gen. Moses Cleaveland, who selected the site, and caused the village plat to be surveyed in 1796, and to this end, be it further
RESOLVED, That a standing committee of three discreet men be appointed by the president, immediately after each annual election, to receive contributions and care for the same, until said object be fully accomplised : this committee shall be known as "The Monumental Committee."
In connection with the resolutions I have a brief history of Moses Cleaveland, son of Colonel Aaron Cleaveland, and Thankful, his wife, whose maiden name was Thankful Paine.
Moses Cleaveland was born in the town of Canterbury, in the county of Windham, and state of Connecticut, in the year 1754. He graduated at Yale college in 1777, studied law and practiced his profession in his native town. In 1796 he was commissioned a Brigadier General in the militia of Connecticut. In the same year he was made agent of the Connectient Land Company, and came out with a company of surveyors to lay out their land east of the Cuyahoga river into townships and subdivision. The site of our beautiful city was in the autumn of 1796 selected by General
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Cleaveland as a town plat. which. in the course of time, as he himself predicted, might rival "Old Windham " in Connecticut, with its population of fifteen hundred. The men who surveyed the town plat called it " Cleaveland " in honor of their chief. General Cleaveland was highly respected in Connecticut, and held many civil offices therein. He was also at one time grandmaster of the masonic fraternity in that State. He died at Canterbury in 1806.
Mr. President, before the motion is put, I wish to state, that to test my sincerity - I don't know that I will be at another meeting of the Association ; I have outlived ordinary life-I wish to attest my appreciation by placing in your hands $25.00, to be appropriated towards the purchase of that monument. (Applause.)
The resolutions were unanimously adopted.
The President appointed as a monument committee Hon. R. P. Spalding, Dudley Baldwin, and Bolivar Butts, in compliance with the foregoing resolution.
In reference to the monument S. E. Adams, Esq., now arose and said : I have lived in Cleveland long enough to see nearly two generations pass away, and I think I speak safely when I say that there never has been a period in the history of these people since my acquaintance with them, but that when called upon to co-operate in a work of this kind, they did it cordially, cheerfully and freely, and to the best of their abilities.
Allow me to add, Mr. President, that I have an abiding con- fidence in the work of this committee. The gentleman who intro- duced this resolution in my absence accompanied the introduction of that resolution with a voluntary subscription of twenty-five dollars, paying the money into the hands of the secretary.
Let us emulate his example to the extent of our ability, and it will not be long before we will have a monument of General Cleaveland situated in near proximity to the lake, his eagle eye looking out again upon that expanse of waters as it did when he climbed the hill originally, and gazed upon the spot, where, accord- ing to history and my judgment, this monument should be built. (Applause.)
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EARLY SETTLERS ASSOCIATION.
ELECTION OF OFFICERS.
On motion of A. J. Williams, Esq., it was voted that the chair appoint a committee of five to report the names of suitable per- sons to serve as officers for the ensuing year -whereupon the chair appointed lIon. R. P. Spalding, Charles H. Babcock. A. C. Emerson, Dr. E. D. Burton and Norton Doan, such Committee.
After a brief consultation the Committee reported the names of the following persons to serve as officers :
For President, Harvey Rice.
Vice-Presidents, John W. Allen, Mrs. J. A. Harris.
Secretary, Thomas Jones, Jr.
Treasurer, Solon Burgess.
Executive Committee, George F. Marshall, R. T. Lyon, Darius Adams, John HI. Sargent, and M. M. Spangler.
Chaplain, Rev. Thomas Corlett.
On motion of Mr. Adams, the report of the Committee was adopted unanimously.
On motion of Charles H. Babcock, Esq .. it was voted that the Secretary notify each member by postal card of the time and place of holding the annual meetings. In this connection it was sug- gested that each member first send his address to the Secretary. The annual meetings are held on the 22d of July, as fixed by the Constitution, or following day. when the 22d falls on Sunday.
Several pieces of old-time Church music were then sung in Puritan style by volunteers, which was a surprise not in the pro- gramme and highly enjoyed by the audience, and for which a vote of thanks was tendered the singers, accompanied with an invitation to partake of the lunch.
On motion a recess was now taken until 2 o'clock P. M., and a lunch served inside the Hall, which was not only relished as a fine lunch of substantials and delicacies, but as a " feast of reason and a flow of soul."
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AFTERNOON SESSION.
The meeting was called to order by the President, and opened with prayer by the chaplain, Rev. Thomas Corlett.
The song Auld Lang Syne was finely rendered by the Arion Quartette.
THE PRESIDENT : I wish to inform the audience that we have a gentleman here of great age, over 90 years, Norman Wilcox ; he came to this county in 1829, and I present him by way of intro- duction to you.
MR. WILCOX then arose and stepped briskly forward on the platform, and said :
In the year 1829 I traveled through here from Suffolk, Portage county, stopped here over night ; I traveled through Elyria, and then went off up into Huntington, got chased by wolves there; I just got to a house and saved myself. I went up into Huntington, and I had a hundred acres of land offered to me there if I would go and settle. I went up to Chautauqua to live there, but did not stay long, and when I came back I met a man that was going down to Elyria to mill, and there was no mill there, no nothing in the town, and I got to thinking of it over, and I came and settled here in Warrensville, and I have been here ever since on the same spot of ground.
ANNUAL ADDRESS.
BY HON. R. F. PAINE.
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE "EARLY SETT- LERS' ASSOCIATION " :-
Once I was young, but now I am old. Yet have I never before attempted to discharge a duty like the one imposed upon me by the kind partiality of the officers of your Association, and I hold them responsible for the result of the experiment.
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I do not deem it necessary to go at length into a discussion of the propriety or object sought to be accomplished by the Associa- tion. It is enough that its records show a membership composed of the pioneers or their immediate descendants, who have in all the relations of life proved their integrity and worth.
I understand the object of the Association to be to assemble the early settlers of the "Western Reserve" once a year, and thus bring together the remaining veterans, male and female, who in early life had the spirit, enterprise, resolution and courage to leave comfortable homes and dear friends in far away New England and other sections of the east, and brave the dangers, welcome the hardships, and patiently and cheerfully endure the untold priva- tions of frontier life.
The object of the Association would be but poorly accomplished by simply assembling. I dare say that something more than this was contemplated by those who sought and perfected its organiza- tion. It was doubtless supposed that they who in early life were moved by a common purpose to face the dangers and endure the privations incident to and inseparable from a border life, would find it both interesting and profitable to commune together and re- count their trials, and together rejoice over the triumphant success, which has resulted in securing the accomplishment of their youth- ful purposes, and richly rewarded them for their sacrifices, made not only by themselves, but also by the dear ones they left behind.
There is no anguish deeper, no grief more bitter than rent the hearts of the parents of New England, as one after another they were compelled to bid farewell to their sons and daughters, who resolved to devote their lives and labor to the great work of sub- jugating this unbroken forest, and compel the soil to yield to the sustenance of man and beast.
It is difficult for us at this remote period, and especially those of us who had no personal knowledge of the state of things as they existed, and the history of events that were developed during the first few years of the settlement of the Western Reserve-to approximate even a just conception of the trials and privations of those brave and heroic men and women, who first entered this 2
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modern Canaan, and were really like John the Baptist crying in the wilderness. They had not the title to the soil or protection to the person, that the children of Israel had when they emigrated to the land of Canaan, for God had promised Joshua. "That every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you from the wilderness and Lebanon, even unto the Eu- phrates. and no man shall be able to stand before you."
I suppose that God had such confidence in the self-reliant power of our Western Reserve emigrants that he saw no necessity of giving them title to their land, or furnishing them quail or manna to eat while they were preparing it for crops. But the emigrants were adequate to the occasion. They generally, by the exchange of their property in New England secured evidence of title to a small portion of the wilderness on the Reserve, by mar- shaling the balance of their assets they generally possessed them- selves of a span of horses, or yoke of oxen and wagon, loaded in the wife and children, and such household goods as room could be found for in the wagon, and thus equipped the devoted husband and wife bade farewell to all the associations, and scenes of child- hood and youth. They had but little more idea of what awaited them than Paul had when he went bound to Jerusalem. Some- times a New England young man had coneluded the delightful business of courting a wife, and found himself without well settled plans for the future, and but little to support a wife and rear a family, consultation with her he loved would result in an agree- ment to postpone the marriage, and that the lover should go to New Connecticut, and if he thought best, secure a piece of land, and if possible clear off a patch and sow it to wheat, and returning make title to his wife, and with her visit his little farm on the Reserve, and enter upon the real substantial business of life. Some- times they came on horseback.
The early settlers, men and women, were honest, industrious and generous to a fault. The men felled and cleared off the tower- ing and thickly studded forest. The women came up fully to Solomon's description of a good wife, " She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff," and none went hungry
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from her door if there was anything within to eat. Is it any wonder that the entire population lived in constant fear for several years ? The wilderness was filled with Indians, bears, wolves, wild cats and rattle-snakes, which often united in making the forest vocal with music, such as it was.
Surely, such a reunion of the remnant of a much larger number of such brave and faithful men and women cannot fail to interest by refreshing the recollection of many important events of early life, while a faithful history of their privations, toil and sufferings would tax the credulity of those who have been so immensely benefitted by their sacrifices.
It seems to be a law of our being that when we suffer with others in a common cause, and for the accomplishment of a com- mon purpose, we beget unusually strong and lasting attachments for our associates. It is this that makes the occasion of the re- union of soldiers who have been exposed to the missiles of death, and endured the fatigue of long and forced marches and the priva- tions of camp life, so interesting.
If it be profitable to commemorate the dangers of the field and triumph over the victories of bloody war, it ought not surely to be less profitable to recount the sufferings of the unbroken forest and triumph' over the successful efforts made by the early settlers to make the wilderness blossom like the rose, and plant and foster institutions, which shall shower blessings upon their poster- ity to the latest generation.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have thus briefly and in a some- what disconnected manner given some suggestions as to the propriety and objects of our Association.
I have now read you all I have written, and will close my ad- dress by giving you, extemporaneously, some history within my own personal knowledge of the manners and customs of pioneer life. In doing so I hope you will pardon me if I find it necessary to call upon my own experience, and the experience of one or two other gentlemen whom I see present. I am not certain how profit- able I shall make myself in relating any portion of my own his- tory, but for want of anything better at hand, I propose to give you
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a little history of my own, and the state of things that has existed from my boyhood.
In 1815, when I was between four and five years old, my father moved from Richfield county, Connecticut, into Nelson, Portage county. I remember two or three incidents of the trip, and they are the earliest of my recollection. I recollect when we were at Albany, there were some experiments being made with the first steamboat, it was said, that had ever plied the waters, and there was some excitement ; it was the first application, I believe, of steam. I recollect one night of our sleeping on a bar-room floor in a country place, and father came in with a half bushel of clams ; we ate the clams before we went to bed. We left Connecticut with a one-horse wagon with hoops bent over it, and cloths spread over the hoops, and a provision chest and such bedding as could be- got at handily, and in coming from Connecticut to Nelson, Portage- county, we were 36 days on the road. I recollect another incident. In coming down this side of the Alleghany Mountains the wagon upset and turned us all out, and I was found with my head in the provision chest. The lid had opened and my head had got into the chest, and mother said that was the very place she should look for my head. We came on to Nelson in Portage county, and settled right on the top of Nelson ledge, which is now a great place of resort for a good many gentlemen and ladies, and was then the habitation of rattlesnakes, wild cats and wolves and every fero- cious animal conceivable, except personal devils. Nothing else ugly was wanting. Well, we lived there, I think, between four and five years, and whether I was a bright boy or stupid one, I don't know, but I spent about half the time in the hollows and crevices of the rocks in that ledge, and I venture to say that there is not a hollow there now, big enough for a wood-chuek to get into, that I have not been into with my hands and knees when I was a boy. Now no. conception can be formed of the privations and hardships that. those endured that came into the country even as late as that ; but several years before that, the country had been to some extent set- tled, and the Indians had been driven out from that part of the. country at that time. But they had left plenty of bears and
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wolves. I can remember when I no more dared to go out at night without a brand of fire than nothing. My mother would not per- mit, nor would my father. nor would I dare to do it if they would ; and it was quite an object to raise sheep. Every farmer had a little flock of sheep growing, and every farmer had a pen where he put them in at night and fastened them in, and the pen was built so high that the wolves could not get into them at all, and we had fourteen sheep. One night when the snow was very deep, the wolves came around the pen and scared the sheep so that eight jumped out, and every one of them lay there in the morning. and we had pelts and mutton plenty for sale, and that would be the case of every farmer who suffered his sheep to be exposed at night. And as far as personal safety was concerned, I can remember the daily charge of my mother to my father when he left home in the morning to be sure and come back before dark ; that she daren't stay home with two or three children, and daren't be away at night. I remember he went to the centre of Nelson, and he wanted to get a tap fixed for sap trees. Mother kept going to the door and listening, and at length we heard somebody halloo in that direction, and mother said. "Is that father's voice ?" Well, we were pretty well scared. In about three-fourths of an hour father came in leading a big dog by the ear, and the history of his adventure was that he had got belated within two miles from home. and was treed by two wolves. and kept up in the tree until he hallooed. and a dog that belonged to a man half a mile away on the other side came up and drove off the wolves, and father, to protect himself. took the dog by the ears and led him home. I recollect one day he came with a long forked stick with a rattlesnake on it which he had killed.
I beg pardon for giving notice of one of my adventures. I think I have no courage now ; I think the daring, resolution, fortitude, and all the elements of human character that go to give execution to a purpose were in vogue and in use in the early settlement of this county and Western Reserve. I was about five years old, there was a large log lying as far as across this street from our house-a very large, hollow chestnut log. The entrance to the
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butt of it was larger than a hogshead, I should think. There was a black snake lived in that log, and in the first warm days in the Spring, my brother older than I and one younger, and myself were in the habit of going up there and seeing if we could not kill the snake. He would lay on this rotten wood, but the instant he saw us would dart up into this log. We went up there one day, and I says, " I am going in after that snake." Brother plead with me not to do it. I told him I would -I'd have that snake ; and I crept in, and when I first began to enter the hole it was so large, it was comfortably light around me; but when I approached where it was smaller. it became as dark as night. I erept as long as I could. At length I saw two diamonds, which looked like two bright, glistening stars, and I put my hand up over them, and I made a grab, and I happened to get the black snake by the neck. It was six feet and four inches long, and it began to flounder, and I found he was gaining on the round of my arm, and began to wind around, and hurt some ; I wanted to get rid of him. If anybody would have helped me to get rid of him I should not have kept him. I backed ont, and the snake was wound clear to my shoulder, and there has not been an instant of my life, when I called atten- tion to it, that I could not feel the writhings of that snake. He was wound clear to my shoulder and hung on the ground three or four feet, and my brother ran and hallooed murder and everything. Mother saw me coming with that snake, and she hallooed and swung her bonnet, and my father was coming down with a yoke of cattle and a cart, and she hallooed for him for mercy sake to come. He upset the cart and came down. He threatened to whip me to start with ; he finally concluded to get the snake off. He took hold of him and tried to pull him off; you might as well have tried to dislocate my shoulder. Father tried at it and could not do anything. He then took his knife and unjointed him at the back, and the snake let go. That was one of the incidents that gave me reputation for great courage, and afterwards got me into a wild cat trap with a wild cat.
We had on our farm in a swamp a trap thirty feet long, built with logs, trap door at each end. It was to catch bears and
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wolves in. There was a very deep snow one night, and father said, " Boys, let us go down and set that trap." We did so. Two days afterwards he said, " We will go down and see if there is any- thing in the trap." We took along nothing but an ax and a carving knife that was pulled out of the handle. When we got there we found one of the biggest wild cats in the trap you ever saw, a regular old black and tan wild cat, as big as a dog, nothing to kill him with but the carving knife and the ax. Father took the pole, put the knife in it, jammed it through the bars, and the knife fell out, and the cat took possession of one end of the trap. I says, "Father, let me go in there ; you hoist up that door ; I will go in there and get the knife." He said, "Young man, you ought to be whipped for mentioning it." Finally he said, "You may go in ; I guess it will kill you, but you may go in." Finally I erept towards the door, and the eat assumed a perpendicular position pretty quick, squalled and threw the spittal. I kept trotting along towards the centre, got the knife and backed out with the knife, put the knife more firmly in the pole, and killed the cat. But they would not get me into that trap to-day very easily.
Well, I grew up. I was seven or eight years old, probably at that time, and about the next interesting incident that I remem- ber in my life, after those exploits down there at ,the ledge, was going to a general training. A general training in those days was a great institution in this country, and a boy that had got large enough to go to a general training looked forward to it with more interest than we now do to the centennial. I had got a promise to go to a general training in Shalersville, fifteen miles from our house. It came in the fall when the general training was to come off. and I had an unele who was attending a log mill in Garrets- ville, and the arrangement was that we would go to my uncle's and stay all night, and be much nearer the general training, and go on in the morning to the training. I got all ready to go, but father had no money ; there was not anybody who had money in those days hardly ; but he had, I guess, a peck of flints. They used to use guns with flint locks in those days. The flints were about as available as post-office stamps now. There was always a market
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for them. Ile had a peck I think of flints, and I filled both pockets with flints and started fifteen miles to the general training. We got on to my uncle's and staid there all night, and the next morning my brother and I started by the way of Mantua. There was a heavy frost that night. We had stood it tolerably well till we got there. My feet were pretty well frozen. I saw by the road a cow lying, I got her up, and where it was warm I warmed my feet and let the frost get out and went on again. We got to Shalers- ville, and got pretty hungry by that time, and I wanted something to eat, and I took my flints and went out, and there was a ginger peddler's wagon in the field, and I traded off some flints for a cake of ginger bread, took it under my arm and started for the tavern, and a train of boys got after me, and before I got there I had not two mouthfuls left. I could not purchase any more ginger bread for flints. There was a man there had pewter fifes. I thought I might trade flints for fifes. I finally made a rap with him and got a fife, and stood in front of the tavern to play my fife and show the people it would make a noise so as to sell it. And while I was standing there, a fellow knocked it out of my hand and stepped on it. That ended the fife business. Finally my brother and I made a kind of a syndicate of our capital. He had a good many more flints than I had. We finally bartered them off for something to eat, and got home the next day. That was general training in those days.
Now, from that time, when I was 12 years old, I went away from home to live ; I never lived any at home afterwards as a regular steady thing. I worked six months at three dollars a month for a cow ; that cow was in my father's family for nine years, and the only one they had, and my life was put in that way until I got to be old enough to hold a plough and dig a piece of land, and cultivate it, etc. At length I got up to the dignity of a stage driver. Judge Ranney carried the mail in his hat at the same time from Freedom to Hiram. I drove stage from Nelson to Hiram-used to meet the Judge occasionally. I then took a notion that tavern-keeping would be a good institution in that country. I got an acre of land and built a tavern myself, the
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