USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Annals of the Early Settlers Association of Cuyahoga County, number I > Part 22
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entire thing, sash, doors, and everything else, and in 1836, guess it was, I was running that tavern, and I got sick of it in about two months, concluded it was not adapted to my capacity, although it might fit my taste well enough. I rented the tavern, went to Warren sleigh riding with a young lady of Judge Ranney's acquaintance, and there I met a man that had staid over night with me when I kept tavern, and he says, "Yon would make a splendid tin peddler ; what are you doing?" "I am not doing anything." He says, "I will give you $18 a month, bear all expenses, and two dollars extra if you will peddle tin for me." " Well," says I, " when ?" He says "To-morrow." I got my brother to take my girl home, and I staid and took the load of tin, and soon after I had engaged I met Judge Ranney ; he was then practicing law in Warren, and I told him my situation, and he asked me to go and stay with him till my tin was ready, and I went and stopped at a tavern where he boarded, and I managed to put it off a day later just because I enjoyed Judge Ranney's society. Well, I went through that tin business. I tried to sell some to Judge Tilden once ; but he had nothing but hen's feathers and credit to buy it, and I would not let him have the tin. We did not make a rap.
I fell in with Judge Ranney afterwards, and was riding with him I remember from Ravenna to the north part of the county somewhere. He was going on to Ashtabula, and I was going to Garretsville, and says he, "Paine, why don't you read law ?" Says I, "Read law !" Says he, "You just go to reading law," and I thought about it after I left him, and was riding on alone home to Garretsville, and when I got there I went down three miles afoot to Judge Tilden and borrowed the first volume of Blackstone, and I got to reading law. If there is anybody to blame for it it is Judge Ranney.
Well, there is but little more of my history that is interesting, and so I may as well abandon it. But I want to say a word or two in reference to the manner of living of the early settlers. Now, I never had a pair of shoes. I don't think I had a pair of shoes till I was ten years old. We wore moccasins made of deer skin. Our house was a log house, of course ; the floor was made of split
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logs, and I have seen them try to dance on them ; danced myself on them. When you would jump on one end the other end would fly up in your face pretty near. The table was about as rude. and no child was supposed to sit down at a table; was supposed to stand at a table. I stood at the table until I got tall, and then they got me a bench. There were no dishes of any kind scarcely. There was an old fellow by the name of Luke Vokes, of Trumbull county, who made wooden dishes, and his advent into the neighbor- hood with a lot of wooden dishes would excite more interest than the establishment of another national bank in the city of Cleveland to-day. We all ate on what we called trenchers. They were wooden dishes like a plate, but would wear through after a while ; and the method of serving up meat in those days was to have a deep dish in the centre of the table. have the meat cut up into mouthfuls in the frying pan, and returned after being cut up to the. spider again and cooked a little more, and turned into this dish in the centre. and every guest at the table had a knife and fork, and if he wanted any meat he must dig it from that dish in the centre of the table : and I recolleet once when I was eating that way that I took a mouthful. We were all fond of the lean mouthful, and I saw my father was working for one ; he got it on his fork well out of the dish, and I got it off the fork. and he boxed me on the side of the head, and I had no more appetite. That was the rude way in which all lived. The neighbors, as far as I know, were all in the same condition. used wooden plates, wooden bowls, wooden every- thing, and it was years before we could get the dishes that were any harder than wood, and when we did they were made of this yellow elay.
Mr. President. I think I have occupied more than my portion of the time, I know there are others that would be glad to speak. and I will therefore sit down.
The song of the "Old Oaken Bucket" was then sung by the- Arion Quartette.
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EARLY SETTLERS' ASSOCIATION.
RESOLUTION AND REMARKS.
BY HON. R. P. RANNEY.
Mr. President, I beg leave at this time to offer a resolution which I think will be very cheerfully adopted by the society.
RESOLVED, That the members of this Association have heard with the deepest feelings of sorrow and regret of the recent and unexpected death of George C. Dodge, Esq., one of the original founders of this Association, and ever since its able and efficient treasurer ; that as a simple act of justice to his memory we take great pleasure in according our appreciation of his ceaseless and untiring efforts to promote the interests of the Association, and the comfort, enjoyment, and social intercourse of all its members. Born in this county nearly seventy years ago, when much of the largest part of it was a dense wilderness, and scarcely a hamlet existed on the site of this large city, which his means and energies have contributed in no small degree to build and adorn, he has been entrusted during many years of this long period with the pecuniary interests of many thousands of persons, without the slightest suspicion ever arising that they were not managed with marked ability and guarded with the most scrupulous fidelity. And while we deeply deplore his loss, we find much consolation in the fact that he was spared to nearly the age allotted to man, and by the uniform tenor of his life was enabled to impress upon his family and personal friends and the wide circle of his acquaintance, the most useful and endearing of all human lessons, that modesty, charity, honesty, and fidelity to friends and engagements are the qualities which most certainly promote true happiness in life, and surviving the tomb, most surely enable the just man, though dead, to speak words of comfort, consolation, and improvement to those who sueceed him.
In moving, Mr. President, the adoption of this resolution, I shall say but very few words. I could say very little to the members of this Association that would not be anticipated by those
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who were well acquainted with Mr. Dodge. He was so well known to you all, and his exertions in behalf of this Association for so many years have been so marked and efficient, that there probably is not a member of the Association that does not know his course, and would be as well qualified as I am to detail what it has been. It was with the most profound sorrow and grief that I heard of the death of Mr. Dodge. An esteemed personal friend for a quarter of a century, I had formed the very highest opinion of his judgment, good sense, candor and honesty, and still, beyond all that, of the admirable social qualities which he possessed to interest others and make them enjoy themselves. If I were to say now what most characterizes, what most contributed to the enjoyment of all his acquaintances, what most contributed to their happiness as well as his own. I would say that his wonderful powers, and taste for social enjoyment was the distinguishing trait of his character. Indeed, with us, who were so well acquainted with him, and who enjoyed these characteristics of his so often, his death has resulted in such a loss, that one of these gentleman said to me the other day that now George was gone, while a place remained for short journeys and social meetings, and all that sort of thing, there was nobody left to get them up, nobody to originate them, nobody to formulate and carry out what we all desire to accomplish. Immersed in business all of us, with little time to devote to such purposes, Mr. Dodge through years past, although always busy, always attentive to his business, never allowed himself to be crowded to such an extent as to interfere with his devoting such portion of his time as was necessary to the fortune of his friends, in a social way.
Mr. Dodge in all these respects was a perfectly model man. Added to all this, there never was a man living in the county that was more modest than he was, more unassuming ; never seeking promotion nor putting himself forward with a view to promoting his own personal interest, he appreciated very quick any exaggera- tion, and despised it. I could not stand here now thinking of my dead friend, and speak in exaggeration of him. It was so contrary to his tastes, his habits and feelings to speak in that way, or
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attempt to pass one off for more than he was worth. I could not forgive myself if I said one word that I did not believe to be strictly true in regard to his character or conduct. He has been a public man in a public sense ; that is to say, he has held many important trusts during his manhood life ; was for years treasurer of the county. During that time, amongst the numerous engage- ments and trusts that have been confided to him, he has been trustee of a savings' bank. There are thousands of small deposit- ors that could not lose what they had without utter distress, and carrying dismay into thousands of families. Those funds have all been intrusted to Mr. Dodge and his associates during these many years, and the fidelity and care with which they have been managed and taken care of is known to everybody. Now, I do not wish to detain the Association to speak of these things. Almost all of the old settlers knew Mr. Dodge. He has passed away. He was a pioneer of the pioneers, born on this soil when it was nothing but a wilderness, when there was no city here, scarcely a hamlet here ; and he has lived to see it populated, grow up -contributed his full share to the whole of it, and during all this time with industry, economy and care, he has been enabled to save and apply the ample means that he possessed in promoting the growth of the city and the prosperity of the place, and at the same time, divested of all that avarice and greed that some men possess, who gather together immense fortunes, has never neglected an opportunity, so far as I know, to make himself agreeable and useful to his friends and associates, and to scatter happiness all around him ; a man of most excellent temper, a word from Mr. Dodge would always allay any excitement. I never saw him angry in my life. He was the just man, that when he said anything, it was a just and considerate word, and was so received by all his friends and acquaintances. That such a man should pass away is an irreparable loss to his intimate friends who survive him, and should teach us the lesson that one by one we are traveling forward "to that bourne from whence no traveler returns." We go to him, and he does not come back to us, excepting that his memory remains with us, and an imitation of his virtues, an imitation of his eminent qualities-
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for I call business qualities eminent that bring happiness to men - these qualities are worth something while we live, and they are the qualities that will survive the tomb, and teach people that hap- piness is to be sought. not through greed and avarice, but through those virtues that will make our friends happy, and our friends happy with them.
The resolution of Judge Ranney was unanimously adopted.
THE PIONEER MANXMEN. -
BY W. S. KERRUISH, ESQ.
MR. PRESIDENT :-
The fancy of the ancients had in their division of time marked its earlier period as the Golden age. the next as the Silver age ; and following next in order came the Brazen, and the Iron ages ; and modern times have added a new one, and called it the Wooden age. The demonstrations of modern science have established the fact that no less are there cycles and stages in the evolution and progressive development of animated nature and physical creation. No less also are there progressive steps in the advance of Ameri- can pioneer life, though I am not aware of any attempt of their classification.
Not long ago I happened upon one of Judge Tilden's speeches delivered on an occasion similar to this in which he gave a mirth- provoking account of the terror caused him on his first advent to Ohio by the " long howling of the wolves " as they surrounded his first night's lodging in the Buckeye state, and how gladly he would have deeded away, had he possessed it, the fee simple title to the whole Western Reserve for a foothold once more on the soil of old Connecticut. Were it not that the Judge is still with us - of the sprightliest of our Judiciary - with sure and certain prospect of attending to all our Probate matters for several terms to come, I should locate the "wolf episode" somewhere about the beginning of the century, which would be neither consistent with his present vigor
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nor strictly accurate, at any rate it was after our Indian-fighting- age had gone by.
My own earliest recollections are of a much later period-of an age of roads of bottomless mud, and of new fields covered with stumps-the mud and stump age. I well recollect coming into the city from Warrensville by the present Woodland avenue road- how we first came to the two principal landmarks - "The Cutter Mansion," and "Dr. Long's House," and what a weary stretch of quagmire and country there was yet to pass before we reached the " City " - and how we passed the tempting apple-orchard which then covered the now thickly populated space extending eastward from the present junction of Woodland and Broadway. Many reminiscences of Warrensville life might be recalled, but as they may be suspected to be of too modern a type to be interesting, in obedience to a suggestion of our Chairman, and for the purpose of throwing light on one phase of our pioneer life - though it might be done better by others-it is deemed not inappropriate to say something of the Manx immigration hither.
You are most of you aware that emigration from the Isle of Man to this locality commenced comparatively early and has been very large-large considering its source, for the Island is but thir- ty miles long by thirteen wide, and half of it mountains at that.
As indicative of the number of this class of our population, and the readiness with which they, as a general thing, identified themselves with the interests and advancement of their new home, I may say that upon an estimate made some time since, the sur- vivors of that emigration with their descendants, together with la- ter arrivals, number in this county alone between three and four thousand ; and as an instance of the way they rooted themselves in the land, it is, or was the fact, a short time ago, that if you took a southeasterly course from a point in Newburgh township, you might pass for five or six miles at least along the road with Manx- land-holders continuously on either side.
The tradition of the origin of this immigration is as follows : A native of the Island, who was something of a traveler, who had been on the medical staff of the British army abroad, and who among
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his wanderings had crossed the deserts of Arabia disguised as a Mus- sulman, came to America, visited the Falls of Niagara, passed along the southern shores of Lake Erie, going through this place, and returned to his island home. He was a man of education and superior judgment ; and though this must have been anterior to 1820, as I have heard it related, he foresaw and predicted that this region between the waters of "the beautiful river" and the south- ern shores of Lake Erie was destined to be the seat of a mighty people ; and evidently he had more faith in the future of this place than did Gen. Moses Cleaveland, according to Judge Spalding, for so graphic and enthusiastic was his account of it, that in the year 1824, or thereabouts, one Manx family came and settled near Painesville in mistake for this village. The Island then was not the renowned watering place it has since become, and the distance between the two points was, considering the three modes of travel, very great.
Various letters written home by this single settler and passed from hand to hand produced great excitement in that small and far- off community. It was afterwards said that the marvelous accounts of deer and turkeys running at large, and forest trees distilling sugar, and land to be got for the asking, were not sufficiently ex- plained. and that the more sober colors of the picture were left out.
In 1826 there came another family. one William Kelly and wife, who settled in Newburgh township, and about the same time, but preceding his family, one William Caine came to the same place. It had been discovered that as between Painesville and Cleveland the latter village was the more promising of the two. In the ear- ly summer of 1827 there came here about seventy families, and in the following year about an equal number. There have been ac- cessions ever since. In this exodus of 1827 were numbered my parents, our worthy chaplain here (Rev. Thos. Corlett), then a youth, with his parents, and brothers, and sisters, and another youth whom I see on the stage here, whose hair has however begun to assume an iron gray hue (Mr. Thos. Quayle), who has done more perhaps for our inland mercantile marine in this country than any other person on the chain of lakes.
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The immigrants of to-day can have no adequate notion of the manifold hardships of those early times. Not a few of them were unacquainted with the English language, most of them were poor, and almost without exception they encountered the agne and fevers incident to a new country. In some instances the heads of fami- lies were taken away. Nothwithstanding these drawbacks the colony flourished ; nor would it be accounted immodest perhaps for me to say - though I think I am giving no information - that among them are some of our worthiest citizens. In my earlier years these settlers spoke Gælic almost exclusively in there inter- course with each other, and I well remember that in Warrensville, which was largely settled by them, public religious services were conducted by them in their native tongue. This feature, however, together with other foreign characteristics, is fast fading out ; and in another half century, it is safe to say that, except in name, the Manxman will be lost in the New Englander.
The history of the emigration of the Manx people to this sec- tion of Ohio would not be complete, however, without some mention of Patrick Cannell - to whose good practical sense and Chris- tian influence the Manx people owe no small part of their success in their adopted country, and the high tone of Christian morals which they have maintained.
Mr. Cannell was 73 years of age when he emigrated to this country, and the oldest man of the Manx colony of forty families, who emigrated from the Isle of Man to northern Ohio in 1827. He was a local preacher in the Methodist society -a society which was then, in the Island, a society in the established Church and not a separate Church as it afterwards became - hence he taught and maintained the doctrines and worship of the Protestant Epis- copal Church.
In the passage from Liverpool of 37 days, he held divine ser- vices on every Lord's-day, and when he arrived here in his future home, his first care was to call the Manx people together on each Lord's-day and instruet them in the things of God - at first in his own log-house, and then in the log-school-house which was erected on the old Corlett farm in Newburgh.
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Nor were the children overlooked-they were soon, through the efforts of Deacon Benjamin Ronse, of this city, and father Can- nell's co-operation, provided with a good superintendent and faith_ ful teachers, who taught them out of God's Word and to sing his praise-as for Library books there were none then.
Not only was father Cannell a true friend to the Manx people, but also a good shepherd and counselor. admonishing them when they did wrong, encouraging them in doing good. writing letters for many of them to their old friends in the Island, and advising them to become, as soon as possible, citizens of their new country. He lived after his arrival here 12 years, and died peaceful in his 85th year, honored and respected by all who knew him.
WIIAT EARLY PIONEERS DID.
REMARKS BY HON. JOIIN HUTCHINS.
MR. PRESIDENT :-
Short speeches are only in order now .- I will give a brief illus- tration of the character and habits of the early settlers which oc- cured under my own observation. In August, 1822, my father's barn in Vienna, Trumbull County, was struck by lightning, and . the barn and its contents were consumed. I was a small boy then, but I remember well the sad countenances of my father and mother, as all their hay. oats and grain, which their hard summer's work had stored in that barn, was being burnt up. They had rea- son to be sad, for they had a family of eight children to care for. and a large stock of cattle, horses and sheep to feed. The pluck of the pioneers carried them through and over misfortunes, which a majority of the present generation would stagger under. With hard work and economy my father and mother set about mitigat- ing the evils resulting from their great loss. They had the active sympathy of their neighbors and acquaintances, more valuable than mere words, and the citizens of four townships, Vienna, Brookfield. Fowler and Hartford concluded to aid in putting up for
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us a new barn and to do it in double quick time, to wit in one day, and they did it, and had the barn completed and a load of hay in it, before sundown of the day on which it was commenced. The timber for that barn was growing in the woods at 12 o'clock of the night previous to commencement of the work of building it. The matrons and maidens of those four townships with their cheerful and friendly faces were on hand early that morning with stacks of provisions to feed the men during the hard work of that day. To me it was a grand pic-nic, and in my boyish freak I thought it would be a good thing to have father's barn burnt every year, if it would result in having such a good time.
The load of hay which was put into that barn before sundown, was drawn in on an old fashioned ox-cart, then in general use among farmers. This cart was used for farm-work and carried loads to meeting and to mill. Clean bundles of straw were the spring seats of that day. We have carts now-a-days, but they are lighter and more stylishly built, than the ox-cart. I have seen as valuable loads drawn on those old ox-carts, as the dog-carts of the city now carry. If a man's barn is burnt now-a-days, the first inquiry among his neighbors is, was it insured - if not, they are sorry and pass him by on the other side. The kindly feelings of the early settlers would not permit this-and the incident I have given, illustrates the pluck, energy and friendly feeling of the ear- ly settlers.
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OBITUARY NOTICES.
READ BY REV. THOS. CORLETT. CHAPLAIN.
The following are the names of members of the Association who have been removed from us by death since our last annual meeting :
MR. JOEL B. CAHOON, who was born in 1793 in New York and died in 1882. at the age of 90, was one of the earliest and most highly respected of the pioneers of Cuyahoga County. After helping to clear the farm on Rose Hill, in Dover. and erecting mills there and in Ridgeville. he entered the army under Major Croghan in the war of 1812. Later in life he took contracts upon the second railroad constructed in 1830 in the United States. He also became a contractor in building canals in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Indiana. Forty years ago he returned to his Rose Hill home. where he lived his remaining years. Mr. Cahoon was an upright and honorable citizen, and well deserved the respect which was al- ways shown to him by all who knew him.
MR. W. K. ADAMS was born in 1812, in New York, and died 1882. He was regarded by all, who knew him. as an upright and honorable man-and for many years kept a livery stable in Cleve- land.
MR. GEORGE C. DODGE, who was born in Ohio in 1813. and died June 6th, 1883. was at the time of his death the Treasurer of our society. He took a deep interest in the Early Settlers' Association, and to his untiring efforts to promote its prosperity and welfare and his genial spirit is due much of its success. Mr. Dodge was trained from early childhood in the school of pioneer life, and witli increasing years he displayed those qualities of mind and heart which made him a good citizen, a wise and kind hearted husband and father, and well fitted for the positions of trust and responsi- bilities which he so honorably filled in public life ; in his death our Association has met with a great loss, and the community a man of great social worth.
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MR. AUGUSTUS E. Foor was born in Connectient in 1811, and died October 8th, 1882. He was a brother of honorable and ven- erable John A. Foot and of Commodore Foot, whose character is of national reputation, was universally respected as one of Cleve- land's enterprising business men. Before coming to Cleveland, he lived in Twinsburg, Summit County, where he served his country both in the capacity of Commissioner and in the Ohio Legislature. And here in Cleveland he was at one time assistant Cashier of the Second National Bank, and still later, Cashier of the Merchant's Bank. He was called by the Master from labor to rest in October last, from his residence, 48 Ontario street, full of well earned honors and universally respected.
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