USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Annals of the Early Settlers Association of Cuyahoga County, number I > Part 41
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ments, a kitchen, bed-room and jail. The first court ever held on the Reserve was organized and set in Ephraim Quinby's kitchen. The county was named after Governor Trumbull of Connecticut, widely known in the days of the Revolution as " Brother Jonathan." Geauga county was formed from Trumbull in 1805. The name signifies, in the Indian language, "raccoon," and was taken from the river, " Thcauga- Tepe," that is to say, " Raccoon River." The first settlement was at Burton in 1798, when the families arrived there from Connecticut.
Chardon, the county-seat, was named for Peter Chardon Brooks, of Boston, Mass., who owned the most of the land in that vicinity.
Cuyahoga county was formed from Geauga in 1807. Its name was derived from the river "Cuyahoga," and the term is said to mean, in the Indian language, "crooked." The first settlement within the bounds of the county was made at Cleveland in the autumn of 1796. In 1798, Rodolphus Edwards and Nathaniel Doane, with their families, settled in Cleveland. Mr. Doane was ninety-two days on his journey front Chatham, Connecticut. At this time the railroads will take peo- ple over the same route in twenty-four hours.
Lake county was formed March 6, 1840, from Geauga and Cuya- hoga. Mentor was the first place in which a settlement was made within the bounds of Lake county. In the summer of 1799, it is said, there were two families in Mentor.
Among the earliest settlers of Lake was the Hon. John Walworth, who, in the year 18co, purchased a large tract of land in the township of Painesville, and removed there with his family. Gen. Edward Paine came soon afterward. In 1805 Judge Walworth was appointed United States Collector of Customs for the district, and opened his office at Cleveland, where he continued to reside until his death in 1812. Painesville, the county-seat of Lake county, was laid out by Henry Champion in 1805, and was at first called by his name, " Champion." It was afterward changed to the name of the township which was called after the name of Gen. Edward Paine. It is not a little singular that the flourishing city of Cleveland, and the most beautiful village in northern Ohio, lying in close contiguity, should have been named after wo brothers-in-law, Gen. Moses Cleaveland and Judge Henry Cham- pion, living in the State of Connecticut.
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EARLY SETTLERS' ASSOCIATION.
A SKETCH OF THE DOANE FAMILY.
CONTRIBUTED BY JOHN DOANE.
At the close of the Eighteenth century the attention of the people in the east, especially in Connecticut, was attracted to the territory in eastern Ohio bordering on Lake Erie, which has since become so well known throughout the land as the " Western Reserve." This territory, owned by the state of Connecticut, was surveyed before the year 1800 by a party under the lead of General Moses Cleaveland, whose name is now borne by the city of Cleveland. In General Cleaveland's party was my uncle, Nathaniel Doane, of Middlehadam, Middlesex county, Conn. After spending two years, 1796 and 1797, in assisting to lay out roads and define county and township limits in the howling wilderness of that day, scarcely to berecognized in the fertile farms and busy towns of to-day, Nathaniel Doane decided to bring his family here and locate a home in the woods. He did so in 1798, building a log cabin near the Cuyahoga river, but the next year moving further east and building on a spot now covered by business blocks on the corner of Fairmount street and Euclid avenue, in what is now the Seventeenth ward of Cleveland, but is still known to old residents as Doane's corners. My father, Timothy Doane, who then lived in Herkimer county, N. Y., about seven miles from Utica, was soon seized with the western fever. Father had lived in New York state about seven years, having prior to 794 followed the seas, while his family lived in Middlehadam, Conn. But after nineteen years of sailing he returned from an especially dis- astrous voyage, resolved thereafter to seek his fortune upon the land. At the time Uncle Nathaniel came to Ohio, he brought with him my brother Seth, a lad thirteen years of age, and the rest of our family came three years later, starting from Herkimer county in 1801. The family at that time consisted of my father, Timothy Doane, his wife, Mary Cary Doane, and six children, Nancy, Seth, Timothy Jr., Mary, Deborah and myself, then but three years old. I am the only one of the family now
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living. The trip from Herkimer county to Buffalo was comparatively uneventful. We traveled with ox teams and one pair of horses. Father and Timothy pushed on ahead from Buffalo with ox teams, carry- ing part of the household goods, pursuing an overland route by the aid of Indian trails, the only roads there were. This style of road prevented their traveling with sleds or wagons, and it was necessary to carry their goods on the backs of horses and oxen. In 1799 a road had been sur- veyed from the Pennsylvania line to the Cuyahoga river, but no bridge had been built over the intervening streams. They pushed through to Uncle Nathaniel's house in East Cleveland, and were soon enjoying their first attack of ague.
Right here let me say that though the fact that Cleveland was at first only "a small village six miles from Newburgh " has been so often stated that people grew tired of hearing it, the reason that so many set- tled at Newburgh, and my uncle and father located at East Cleveland, in preference to occupying land on the site of the present business por- tion of Cleveland, is not generally understood. True, the land near the mouth of the Cuyahoga is now worth many times that in the two other localities referred to, but at that time the neighborhood of the river was so infested with fever and ague that it was only at the risk of life that one could live nearer the spot where the viaduct now stands than at Newburgh or East Cleveland.
To return to my mother and the four children left with her at Buffalo- she started from Buffalo for her future home by water. Beside the four children she was accompanied by an Indian and several white men whom she had hired to assist us on the journey. When I say we came by water, one's mind naturally reverts to a steamboat or sailing vessel but it was in neither of these that we came. It was an ordinary row- boat propelled with oars part of the time, but more frequently by a tow- line in the hands of the Indian, who walked along on the bank. It was a slow method of traveling. Every evening at dark the boat was grounded and the party went into camp on shore for the night. The Indian was much disgusted at this way of traveling, especially when he had to tow the boat. Beside furniture and household utensils, they had a box of live geese on the boat, the first domesticated birds of the kind ever brought into Ohio, so far as known.
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At the mouth of Grand river, as the men were attempting to put in there with the boat, it overturned precipitating geese, goods, children and grown people into the water, which however was not deep and the children were easily carried ashore by the Indian, while mother and the white men saved the goods and furniture. The box of geese floated out into the lake, but in some way the geese escaped from their prison, came ashore were captured and again boxed up.
At this point we were met by Uncle Nathaniel and father, who had come to help us along, and anticipated no further, difficulty in reaching Cleveland by boat. But mother had had enough of the water and re- fused to continue her journey in that manner. As it was necessary to bring the goods by boat and none of the men could be spared to accompany mother on her overland trip, Uncle Nathaniel came with her. They came on horseback, having two horses and bringing three children. Polly and Deborah rode with Uncle Nathaniel on one, and mother riding the other carried me. The first clearing we reached was at Mentor, where there were two or three houses. The next break in the woods was at Willoughby where 'Squire Abbott, who had arrived in 1798, building the first mill in this section, lived. For another six miles we saw no houses. Then we passed the log residence of Joseph Burke, one of the earliest settlers on the Reserve who had a brother living in Newburgh, where some of his descendants still live. After traveling nine miles further west without passing or seeing a single house, we ar- rived at Uncle Nathaniel Doane's log cabin in April, 1801, which is the date of my first appearance in this county. It may be considered by some a rather remarkable fact that in the eighty odd years of my advent into East Cleveland, I have always lived within two and a half miles of the spot where Uncle Nathaniel's house then stood.
Father took up two one hundred and sixty acre sections of land, or rather purchased them, paying a trifle over a dollar an acre for the land. The lots were numbers four and five in Euclid township, all of the land comprising them being now in East Cleveland township. Cleveland, as then laid out, extended further east than at present. Father built a log house that summer under the hill south of Euclid street, six miles east of the spot where Perry's monument now stands. This was the only house in Euclid township except that of Joseph
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Burke six miles and a half further east. We moved into our new log house in November, 1801. The location, which was in the midst of a large hickory grove, proved very desirable that winter, for we were able to get little but hickorynuts to eat. There was a camp of Indians within forty rods of the house, and my only playmates for several years were Indian pappooses. We lived in this log cabin about six years, father and the older boys clearing away the timber and raising corn and potatoes among the stumps. They did not plow the ground but dragged it.
Among the early settlers who came in the next few years to Euclid were Benjamin Jones, Thomas McIlrath, John Shaw, William Coleman, John Ruple, David Dille and Asa Dille who came in 1844, these being the first who came after our arrival in 1801.
In those days we ground corn in little hand mills. There were two stones about two and a half feet in diameter, one above the other, the upper one being turned with a pole. The corn was poured in through a hole in the upper stone. When a larger quantity of meal than could be ground in one of the hand mills was wanted, I used to be sent to Willoughby to mill. I began when but eight years old. I would carry three bushels of corn at a time, in a bag strapped to the horse which I rode. I could start early in the morning and get back late the same night. It was a long ride through the lonesome woods.
The first school I ever attended was at Newburgh, in 1805. The wolves howled around the house where I boarded, and I became very homesick. The first school in Euclid was started in 1807, with Polly Pritchard as teacher. The first fulling mill was in father's house, and was of a primitive nature. Two barefoot men would sit down facing a plank on which the cloth was placed, and while a third poured on soap- suds, the two would kick the cloth until it was fulled. Then it was colored with a decoction made from butternut bark, and was ready to be made up into clothing. They used to have pumpkin paring bees in those days, at which the people enjoyed themselves greatly.
The first wedding in Euclid township was that of Nancy Doane, my sister, who was married to Samuel Dodge in June, 1803. General H. H. Dodge was the oldest son of Samuel and Nancy Dodge. Samuel Dodge had lived in Detroit for some time, but coming to Cleveland
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he built a barn for Governor Huntington, receiving in payment there- for one hundred acres of land lying between Euclid and St. Clair street, in Cleveland. The marriage ceremony was performed by 'Squire Spaf- ford. Mr. Dodge had met Nancy first in Newburgh, where she began teaching school the summer after we came. In those days " everybody knew everybody else," and it was nothing uncommon to go twelve or even twenty miles for an ordinary visit. Mr. and Mrs. Dodge lived in Euclid for a while, then moved to Cleveland and afterward returned to Euclid. Among the other early weddings in this vicinity were those of my sister Polly, who was married to Daniel Bronson by Nathaniel Doane, Seth Doane's marriage to Lucy Clark in 1808, and Timothy Doane's marriage to Polly Pritchard in 1809, and sister Deborah's marriage to Davis Crocker in 1813 ; myself in 1820.
The first doctor I remember seeing here was Dr. Long, who came in 18II. Old Mr. Badger, a Presbyterian missionary from Connecticut, was the first minister to preach in Euclid. He preached there in 1805 or 1806 for the first time.
In 1809, after having built and lived in two log houses, father erected the first frame barn in Euclid township. Although but eleven years old, I helped draw the lumber from Newburgh. One day while we were drawing lumber on a sled, with three yoke of cattle and a horse for leader, the leading horse which I was riding threw me over its head. As I lay on the ground the horse and three yoke of oxen walked over me without touching me, and my brother Timothy snatched me out from under the heels of the last yoke just in time to prevent the sled with its heavy load from passing over me. If he had not, I would not now be one of the living old settlers. In 1815 father built a frame house, which is still standing, though materially altered, and is now occupied by Mr. D. H. Patterson.
Among my recollections of our early guests, none is more vivid than that of. three girls who used to ride from Painesville to Cleveland on horseback and stop at father's tavern for bread and milk. They were very lively girls and had a habit of surprising people by standing up on their horses as they rode, and performing other similar daring feats which young ladies of to-day would hardly attempt. These three girls were Miss Paulina Skinner, Miss Huntington and Miss Walworth.
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Miss Skinner afterward became Mrs. Perry, and is still living in the city with her son-in-law, Hon. H. B. Payne.
Among my recollections are those of crossing the Cuyahoga river in 1809 to visit my brother Timothy, who had moved to Columbia. I used to cross in a scow and go through the woods. There were no houses then on the west side of the river, and after leaving its bank it was twelve miles through the woods to the first house which was in Berea, then known as Watertown. Mr. Hickox was the first settler in Berea. He froze to death one day while returning home from the city. Then it was eight miles to the next house at Columbia Center.
There was a terrible time here when Hull surrendered. After the landing of troops at Sandusky following his surrender, the impression got abroad that the British and Indians had landed at Sandusky and were about to make a clean sweep of this section. A messenger was sent flying eastward with this intelligence, and everybody started in wild haste to get away from the invaders. Our family packed up and started eastward with the rest, leaving father with the other men to fight the enemy. We met a company of militia under Captain Parker coming westward to repel the supposed foe, and the whole cavalcade was at first thrown into alarm because Parker's militiamen were supposed to be Indians. We reached Willoughby by daylight the next morning, and were then overtaken by a second messenger who relieved our fears and apprehensions by informing us that the troops which had landed were our own and not the enemy's. This cavalcade then turned about and started back to the homes which had been deserted the day before. Mother would not believe the news at first, but went on to Painesville before she recovered from her alarm and was willing to again turn her face homeward.
CLEVELAND IN 1816.
The following statement is substantially given as it fell from the lips of Mrs. Philo Scovill, the widow of the late Philo Scovill of Cleveland. Mrs. Scovill is well known to the citizens of Cleveland as a lady of great moral worth. She was born December, 27, 1800, and came to Cleveland in 1816. Her maiden name was Jemima Bixbe. She met
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Mr. Scovill for the first time in Cleveland, and married him February 19, 1816. Mr. Scovill was a druggist, and one of the leading and most enterprising citizens of Cleveland. He was born at Salisbury, Ct., Nov. 30, 1791. His father was a millwright and had taught him the use of tools. He soon sold out his drug store and adopted the vocation of a master builder. At the date of his marriage Cleveland contained less than 150 inhabitants.
Mrs. Scovill, who is now nearly eighty-five years old, has a vivid recollection of the little village of Cleveland as it appeared in 1816, and remembers the localities of most of its citizens. When she came, many stumps and uncut bushes disfigured the public square, as it was called. Its only decoration, in the way of artistic taste, was the log jail, the upper story of which was used for the county court room. The land south of Superior street to the river was used for a cow pasture and was thought to be of little value. Alonzo Carter, the son of the brave pioneer Lorenzo Carter, occupied a farm on the west bank of the river nearly opposite the foot of Superior street, and kept a ferry boat for the accommodation of passengers crossing the river. Noble H. Mer- win, who was a tall man, over six feet in height and of fine proportions, kept a hotel on the southwest corner of Superior street and Vineyard lane. Nathan Perry, the father-in-law of our Senator Payne, kept a drygoods store on the opposite corner of Superior and Water streets, where the great stone bank building is now located. Among those few who occupied the south side of Superior street, east of Merwin's hotel, were Joseph Webb, baker ; Peckham & White, tailors ; Gear & Wal- worth, hatters ; Hackett & Ackley, carpenters ; Philo Scovill, druggist ; Doctor David Long, who lived in a log house built for Governor Hun- tington ; Ashbel Walworth, a man well known in early times; Deacon Daniel Kelley, the father of Alfred, Irad and Judge Thomas Kelly, and Stephen A. Dudley, a merchant. A log hut, known as the " barracks," in which a family by the name of Kent lived, displayed its attractions where E. I. Baldwin's store now stands. A man by the name of Morey kept a hotel on the corner of Superior street and the park, where the Forest City House now is. Horace Perry, the county clerk, lived on the corner of the park and Ontario street. The carriage shop of Widow Dewey and son, occupied the south side of Euclid avenue, where
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the convent is now located. On the north side of Superior street, going west from the park, about midway, was located a hotel kept by George Wallace, afterwards owned and occupied as a hotel by Michael Spangler. On the east corner of Superior and Bank streets, where the Mercantile National Bank now is, stood the old Commercial Bank of Lake Erie, Leonard Case, cashier. This was the first bank established in Cleveland. On the opposite corner stood Uncle Abram Hickox' blacksmith shop, with the sign " Uncle Abram works here." On Water street, resided the widow Carter, wife of the pioneer ; Judge Samuel Williamson, Doctor Donald McIntosh, Captain Levi Johnston, Phineas Shepard and Captain John Burtiss, with a few others. Alfred Kelley, the lawyer, occupied a brick house at the foot of Water street, near the bank of the lake.
Mr. Scovill erected, in 1826, a hotel on the north side of Superior street, a little west of the present Johnson House. It was a large three story frame building and was regarded in those days as a magnificent structure. It was kept as a hotel by Mr. Scovill and wife, for many years, and was especially famous for its neatness, good order, and sumptuous fare. Its enviable reputation was largely due to the care and skill of Mrs. Scovill, the landlady. Mr. Scovill accumulated a handsome property. He died June 5, 1876. The fruit of the mar- riage was two sons and one daughter, who still survive him. Mrs. Scovill has accomplished a great work in her day. She is a practical lady of the old school ; believes in works as well as in othodoxy, and has led an exemplary life. She and her husband were active in secur- ing the establishment of the Cleveland Protestant Orphan asylum and in promoting its welfare. It was the influence of Mrs. Scovill, mainly, that founded and endowed the Trinity Home, for aged and destitute ladies. She has ever been liberal and considerate in bestowing charities on the deserving poor. She has seen great changes in the city of Cleveland since 1816, a change from log cabins to palaces, a change from one hundred and fifty souls to nearly two hundred and fifty thousand. She now awaits with Christian hope and patience a change from this wearisome earth-life to a life of serenity and spiritu- ality beneath a holier sky.
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.
HOW IT WAS.
BY GEORGE WATKINS.
I was born in the town of Chatham, Middlesex county, Ct., in 1812. My recollections of Cleveland date back to 1818, when my father Tim- othy Watkins, moved into a log house on Euclid avenue. Five other families came at the same time. Four settled on the west side. These were the families of Josiah Barber, Seth Branch, Martin Kellogg and Thomas O. Young. We came with ox teams, and it took five weeks to make the trip. It was sixty-seven years the 23rd of July, 1885, since we arrived in Cleveland. There were but seventy-five persons all told in Cleveland in 1818.
I was then nearly 7 years old. The appearance of Cleveland at that time is as indelibly fixed upon my mind as though I had seen it yesterday ; but when I call to mind the members of each family of pioneers, I find that I am the only one living of that little western-bound caravan and almost the only living representative of this part of the town at that time. Then I realize that a great many years have passed and that my eyes do indeed behold a great city, with scores of churches and schools and great marts of trade, where as a child I only saw rude homes and an al- most unbroken forest.
My first recollection of a school-house was of one on Fairmount street, and a second, a block log house on Giddings avenue. This was built in 1822 and I began to attend there the same year. The building was about 15x20 feet. It was called a block house because the logs were hewn on both sides. It was lighted by five windows. The old stone fireplace was six feet across. On three sides of the room was a platform seven or eight feet wide and about one foot high. An upright board was placed a foot or so from the edge of this platform. Here the little children sat, the board serving for the back of their seats. On the plat- form and against the walls at the proper height was the writing desk of the older pupils. This desk was continuous around three sides of the
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room. The seats, like the desk, were of unplaned slabs, which ran par- allel with the desk. When it was writing time the boys and girls had to swing their feet over and proceed to business. We wrote with a goose quill, and every morning the master set our copies and mended our pens. Theodore G. Wallace was my first man teacher and Margaret Kidd my first woman teacher.
We had school but three months in the year, in the winter, and it was no small labor to get ready for this comparatively short time. Every- body was poor, there was no money in the country.
Mother spun the yarn and then wove the cloth for our clothes; then it was taken to Newburgh and fulled and colored, and brought home and made up for us. Each year father killed a beast. The skin was taken to the tanner's, and put in the vats, where it lay one year. It was dressed in November, and then our shoes were made. Everybody in- tended to have the children ready for school about the first Monday in December.
This opening day was a great event in the backwoods of Cleveland in 1822. The organization of the school would seem a little strange now. The teacher was chosen not so much from his knowledge of books as because he had no other business. He was paid the enormous sum of $10 a month and boarded himself. It was often a hard thing to raise even this $10 to pay him.
On the first morning, just at 9 o'clock, the new teacher stepped to the door and shouted, "Boys and girls come into school." We obeyed promptly. The next command was issued, "Now take your seats," which we proceeded to do. Then we were classed. The first class were those in the English Reader, the second in the American Preceptor, the third in the New Testament, the fourth in Webster's spelling-book. We read all around, class by class, before recess ; and after, we read again and spelled, standing on the floor. It was a great honor to be at the head and keep there three or four days running. We had neither grammar nor geography in any school I ever attended. The arithmetics were Daboll's, Adams' or Pike's, just as the children happened to have. Such a thing as an arithmetic class was unknown. Each scholar who studied that branch worked in his or her seat; when he could not do a sum help was asked from the teacher, who was often puzzled. No one went farther
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