USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Annals of the Early Settlers Association of Cuyahoga County, number I > Part 5
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While some of the most sensitive among us may now be looking back with longing to the quiet days of sandy streets
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and grassy walks, and an atmosphere innocent of coal dust and vile smells of crude oils, slaughter houses, acid works and untrapped sewers, the veteran of that day will describe them as the dark days of "applied science.", For by that time the active minds of our "Case Institute" and of progress the world over, will have lighted our streets and dwellings with the lightning's from heaven, and warmed our homes with the vapor of water, while smoke and filth and vile smells will have become too precious to be wasted npon the desert air. Per chance electricity generated in the coal mines and brought to us on threads of metal, may furnish our busy half million with power and light and heat. At least this picture is good to look upon. The possibilities of this progressive age are almost boundless, and after all this would scarcely be more wonderful than the advancement to-day from the condition of things when I first set foot upon the shores of the sand blocked Cuyahoga. This is what I now propose to describe to you. 1
I hope my fellow members will not consider me egotistical if iny narative takes somewhat the form of an anto-biography- what is history but the recital of the acts and experiences of men ?- When a boy of four years, in 1818, we came to Cleve- land from the River Raisin, New Monroe, Michigan. The little schooner, in whose hold we were all huddled together, was forced to anchor off the mouth of "the creek." A lighter
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came out and took us over the bar, and landed us at the foot of Superior street, or rather Superior Lane, as it was then called. At the corner of South Water and Superior street stood the first-class Hotel of the village, kept by Noble II. Merwin.
Here we recovered from the sickness incident to rolling seas and bilge water. My father, a blacksmith, went into partnership with that well-known character "Uncle Abram Heacox," and worked and lived on the now celebrated Boule- vard, Enelid Avenne. "Unele Abram" was a historical character, and relies of him and his trade are now on exhibi- tion in the Historieal rooms. From Euclid street we dropped down into the little "red house" on Water street, near Frankfort.
The accumulated dust of these sixty years through which memory has to peer with all the intervening experiences. leaves upon the mind of the careless boy but a shadow of here and there a fact, important and trivial, strangely mixed. Farther down on Water street, near the lake, about that time, Wm. G. Taylor established himself, who afterwards in com- pany with "Jim Brown " became notorious sharpers, and fitted out a ship at New Orleans to send to China with counterfeit United States bank bills to exchange for tea. They were, however, detected and escaped punishment, I believe through some tricks of the law. Taylor, I believe, was sharp
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enough to ever after keep clear of prison bars; but Brown after various vicisitudes and escapes through a couragous daughter, was finally caged for good.
Near this point lived Dr. MacIntosh, a rough eccentric character, who made such free use of that early manufacture of the west side which gave its name to Whisky Island, that at last he fell from his horse and broke his neck some years later. Of his two wild sons-chips of the old block-Grove and Dan, some of you can doubtless tell some anecdotes.
In those days the correct people also had their physician, Doctor Long, an exemplary man and skilful M. D .; lived on Superior street, near where now stands E. I. Baldwin's store. His only daughter, Mrs. Mary L. Severance and her descendants, and his adopted daughter Cath arine Phelps, now Mrs. James Sears of Chestnut Ridge, Brooklyn, and their descendants are still among us.
Noble H. Merwin, " mine host," I remember as a promi- nent villager among us. His two sons and a daughter 1 remember well. The daughter Minerva broke to me the bottle upon the stern of the first water craft launched in Cleveland, and imparted to the schooner "Minerva" her name. Through her husband came the Atwater estate, now fronting upon South Water street and the Viaduct. I remember Gus, as a rather gay elerk, now gone to the "happy hunting grounds,"
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while George B. is still among us and well-known to most of us.
In these days Orlando Cutter, the later well-known auctio- neer, dispensed provisions, sugar and groceries, just where the Viaduct touches Superior street.
Nathan Perry's store on the corner, Merwin's tavern across the way, Walworth the hatter, and tailor White, are other dim recollections of those early days. Dovetailing into these I see Philo Scovill, and his wife Jemima, still of us, and her sisters Meriam and Rose; Ann Bixby looming up soon after in the Franklin House. Then follows "Ed" and "Ol," afterwards "Crocket" and Caroline. These shadows are bounded by Young and Scovill's saw mill out in "the thick woods," on Big Creek, Brooklyn, on the one hand and the Franklin House on the other. Mrs. Seovill and the children we have still with us; the others have gone where the good pioneers go.
These are the dim shadows that bound my vision east of the Cuyahoga, down to the end of the second decade in this momentous century.
Since then my lot has been cast on the much advertised "West Side," and with your indulgence I will continue my recollections there down to the real marriage of the two sides-the completion of the viaduct.
By no Viaduct, by no street cars, by no iron rails, by no
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pavements of solid stone or rotten wood, by only the Ferry boat could the great east communicate along the shore of Lake Erie, with the almost unbroken west.
Charon's duties were here performed by old father Gun and his boy, nick-named Pistol. We settled down on an aere of ground on Pearl street, near Franklin, for which we gave seventy-five dollars, a large sum in those days. Judge Josiah Barber, the patron of Brooklyn Township, then lived on the corner of Pearl and Franklin streets, in an unpretensious log house, and Alonzo Carter down by the ferry in a frame house, the only one then on the west side; but a half dozen more sprang up quite suddenly. Alonzo Carter was a character of the olden time, but long gone from among us. I imagine I see now the particular kink to his eye and jirk to his head as he starts out with his rifle on his shoulder, and his pack of hounds at his heels for a deer hunt. The flat about the old river bed was then a dense swampy thicket, bounded on the lake side by a narrow sandy beach. The hounds would drive the deer on to this beach, when thinking to escape their tor- menters they would take to the lake. But there was no escape, for the old hunter was there with his unerring rifle to brain them. His children, and I believe his widow, are still among us to connect the old with the new.
In those days there were too few children to support a school west of the River and the mysteries of Webster's spell-
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ing book were taught me in a two roomed frame building on St. Clair street, perhaps where the central station of the fire department now is. This single school was sufficient for the united vilages of some four hundred inhabitants.
Well I remember seeing the forest slowly driven back towards the setting sun. The first great want of the settlers a Distillery was soon supplied.
The Walworth run was then really a spring creek as it was called of pure clear water very different from the sluggish pool of blood and filth it now is. Its waters drove a paper mill near Mill street, and a planing mill near Willey Street and another near its mouth. The native forest trees were ent away on the top of Detroit street hill for the blacksmithshop, while shoemaker Smith went about " whipping the cat " and guzzling JJosiah's low wines, and at this early day a store was started on the corner of Franklin and Pearl-Trinity Church was there instituted about this time and Bishop Chase and Parson Searl lent an occasional helping hand to Judge Barber and others in conducting services and Sunday schools in private houses.
This progress had been made down to the close of the year 1822. The next ten years I spent in New Hampshire, imbib- ing Democracy from Isaac Hill and Levi Woodberry, and my liberal religions views from Hosea Ballon-and they, the views, stick to this day.
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I left the west side with the genus "Homo," disputing its possession with the bears, deers, black snakes and clouds of wild pigeons, and Pearl and Detroit streets in undis- puted possession of jimson weeds and sand hills.
Fellow Earlies-I must tell you that my trip to New Hamp shire was made in a two horse sleigh carrying most of our provisions with us. This was before the days of canned food, but JJack Frost came to our assistance and preserved our meats.
My ten years sojourn in the land of steady habits wrought some change in the means of locomotion. Steamboats had established themselves upon domestic waters; and even a rail- way fifteen miles in length had been built between Albany and Schenectady. A young locomotive drew the carriages over the level part of the Road, but the grades were operated by animals and gravity. Thence to Buffalo the " Line Road" dragged its slow length along, and from there the "Henry Clay" rushed us through in twenty-four hours. This was a decided improvement over the two horse sleigh, but how small! Compared with the accomplishments of the half century intervening since.
These ten years had wrought great changes in Cleveland. The government Piers had been constructed and the "Ohio Canal" with its produce laden boats and gay Packets, made things lively, Still that great cause of future contention be- tween the east and west, and between land and Water com- 6
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merce-beginning with the Columbus street Bridge and ending with the Viaduct, had not yet arisen. A single raft of logs- a " float bridge " spanned the river at Center street and this was succeeded by a pontoon bridge, these when the freshets came it made sundry excursions to the lake. Our present great interest, the Iron industry had already made a beginning. The "Cuyahoga Steam Furnace " was standing on its present site, and Blast Furnaces were making pig iron at Dover and Middleburgh, from charcoal and bog ore.
About this time arose that sectional strife known as " the bridge war"-a chasm but just bridged by the completion of the Viaduct.
A Buffalo company uniting with local spirits bought up the Carter and Charles Taylor farms, and these with the Patroons of Brooklyn, sought to overshadow the pretensions of their eastern neighbors. Then arose those enterprising spirits. James S. and Edmund Clark, who buying up Cleveland Center and Willeyville opened up Columbus street straight south from Superior street, and erected the Columbus street draw-bridge. This they donated to the then city of Cleveland which uniting with certain marine interests sought to prevent the construc- tion of any bridge below Columbus street; while Brooklyn, new incorporated under the specious name of " The City of Ohio" determined that there should be more bridges or none.
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This war continued to rage until the bridge interests have seen the travail of their souls and are satisfied.
About that time another of Cleveland's great interests received its first " Boom ". Elijah F. Willey, a Baptist clergy- man put in operation on the Walworth run near Willey street a Brewery, so the introduction among us of this wicked beverage cannot be laid at the door of the immigrant Tueton.
These events, thus rapidly sketched, occurred, to use round numbers, between 1820 and 1840.
In the year 1840 the first movements in the direction of Railways were made in what is new Cleveland. But they were made by men with more brains and enterprise than money, and it was ten years before the locomotive whistle was sounded in Cleveland.
Since then, Ladies and Gentlemen, you have all been citizens of Cuyahoga county, and I will not tire your patience longer. When all the members of this Association shall have as minutely related their experiences as I have, they will be in possession of the history of Cuyahoga County.
J. H. SARGENT.
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A sketch of Early Times in Cleveland, received from Geo. F. Marshall.
MR. PRESIDENT:
The comparatively recent date in which Cuyahoga county was peopled, makes this effort of the early settlers to keep alive its history, one of interest to yourselves and may become of greater importance to those who follow. Most of you have lived here fully one half the time since the first settler made his home in this part of the Reserve, and if you are disposed to brighten up your memory respecting the past and the traditions of a generation or two that preceeded you, we may gather a tolerably correct history of the region round about and make a safer record to rely upon than those of which we read respecting cities and countries away back ever so far in the past.
This association appears to have taken a broader and more liberal ground than any with which I was ever connected. It requires no standard of morals or education, it has no article of faith in religion or politics, no restriction in hight or breadth, weight, health, wealth, color, physical forces, or pre- vious condition of the purse, has no abstemious clause or other restrictive policy, and the tenure of membership is that we have been hanging about Cuyahoga Co. two score years or more all told. The object of the organization, although not
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fully defined in the constitution, I take it is that we shall get together now and then and look each other in the face to see how the Lake winds have affected us, and tell pitiful and pleasing stories adont how things appeared to us when we were born into this new western world. Some of you older settlers may propose for entertainment passtimes of athletic contests, such as running, jumping, climbing greased poles, chopping, plowing, turning summersets, building log cabins, chasing foxes or other early passtimes, just to show the younger settlers how well you can do it in your old days.
The true standard by which an "OLD SETTLER" is regarded in a community, is not so well defined as that of an old sinner, (although the two qualifications may be embraced in the same person. ) Whether it be that he has managed to live here forty years and more and means to stick it out, or that he left his early home for its good, or that he was unable to gain a living where he was, or that his father told him to go somewhere and do something for himself, or that he came here out of choice and was determined to make it pay; it matters but little as long as we are here and have gained a residence and claim the title. The chances or mischances which fell in our path to make this our home do not enter into the condi- tions by which we gain the title, neither need these things be recorded by the secretary with our birth place and the time we landed for good in this Lake shore region.
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If there be any settler who came here single handed in early manhood that ean put his hand npon his heart and say that he never longed to see his former home in less than six months,-in other words if his heart was so tongh that he did not feel the peculiar sensation of homesickness now and then -that he did not go down on the bank of the Lake in the winter time and long for spring to come, and the ice to melt, and the boats to run-if that sort of an old settler still lives, Rider wants his photograph. He has mine, but it hangs on the opposite side of his gallery.
At the battle of Cherubusco a guard of our soldiers heard a moan coming out of a near wood and upon following up the sound. they discovered a big, stout, healthy soldier on a cactus stump, swaying too and fro, all alone, moaning pitifully: they came to a halt and waited, undiscovered, to see what would develop.
"O my God," shonted the lone soldier, "I do want to go home and see our FOLKS." He appeared to be in the agony of prayer and homesickness.
You see a brave hearted soldier, even on the (con )tented field, thinks of his home and his mother, and perhaps the pumpkin pies she used to make, but nevertheless there may have been a young lady in the case; there is no certain method to account for human sympathies and mental suffering.
It is possible that there are three or more sorts of early
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settlers among us; one who came in early manhood to work his way single handed, another who came in early youth, led by the hand of his parents, and another who hy good Inck was born here. It is easy to guess that the former had more yearning to go and see "our folks" than either of the latter, but what one class gains the other loses.
A man's start out in life to earn his own bread and butter is the next most important event to his birth. You will remember that Shakespeare said something about man's coming and his going, and about the parts he plays, but he said not a word about the play in Cuyahoga county. The world, we thought, was pretty large when we started out in it. and we thought we had reached about as far west as it was safe to go. Do you remember how men and things. houses and lands, the moon and the stars dwindled in comparison to those you left behind ? You made new discoveries every time you went back home and returned; after a time your eye teeth were well cut and you began to see things in their true light and became a "settler" in stubborn facts and in the uneritable.
A neighbor of mine who came from Great Britain and settled in this county some fifty odd years ago, made a visit to his native heath after forty odd years of absence, and although he found the identical fields, the orchards, the houses, the barns and hedges, he declares that if he had
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waited another ten years before making his first visit, he fears all England would be dwindled to such small proportions that it would not be worth while to take a look at it. He further contends that one of two things has taken place, either his ideas he brought with him have changed, or the country he left has terribly shrunk up. It can scarcely be said that forty years ago any man came here to be a bona fide "settler" and make no sign-there were no retired men of wealth, living on a laid up fortune -- about every one had his fortune to make and his bread to earn; if we should exact an accurate account of the moneys and valuables you were in possession of when yon became "settled," I think the column would not be a hard one to foot. If a man was known to have as much as two or three hundred dollars in good current money, or as much as would sell for that in "wild cat" or "red dog," he was looked upon with suspicion, and most people could not help but think that he came by it in some mysterious and improper way. Money being rather scarce in those early days, there were now and then some public spirited people who were anxions to supply the needs and necessities of community by establishing private mints and banks of issue, and dupli- rating those bits of paper that passed current for all the necessaries of life. And these were banks of early profits some after fare, and the proverbial maxim that "man hath songht out many inventions," was manifest wherever you
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chanced to investigate. Currency, or the want of it, was a source of happiness or misery as well in those days as in these.
I have not enmnerated in my list the most emphatic and noteworthy "old settler" that is entitled to the widest field and the highest honor; I mean the one who, in early man- hood, living not far from the 74th meridian, packed his wife and children in a covered wagon, yoked his faithful oxen to the front, bidding good-by to New England, or New York, and in spite of all opposing elements, came through the Cattar- augus woods and planted himself here, root and branch, to live or die, survive or perish, in spite of whatever may prevail to discourage so bold an enterprise.
He who brought his perpendicular, honesty and unflinch- ing determination to win, together with his bible, his religion, his rifle, his axe, his plow, his politics and a good sized chunk of Poley White's sticking salve, was the man for this country. You who were born here. or came here in your mothers arms, or ran away from home out of shire eussedness, or dropped in by chance and could get no further, are all worthy of an honorable place among "Old Settlers," nevertheless it would be a mark of respect you owe to that stalwart sort of which I speak, if you would but raise your hat when one of them passes you on the street. He is entitled to the double merit of Pioneer as well as "Old Settler."
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It was easy enough for a young man, forty-five years ago, with only a little grain of enterprise, to start out for the west, riding by stage coach or canal boat, steam boat, or even foot it away from New England clear to Ohio. He had no cares on his mind to trouble him, except to cat and sleep and move on when the day was pleasant enough, even after he gets here some trifling matter may cross his path, or he hears that times are booming some other where, and off he goes like any rolling stone. Don't you see that such a fickle settler has nothing substantial to tie to like the man of family of the ox team and the covered wagon, and the children growing up Not a few of that former sort of boys have found their way back to Watertown or Taunton, or Groton, in order to get under the old familiar roof tree once more; failing to bring out any faculty of perserverance or pluck he feels assured that his mother will receive him with open arms, whatever the old man may say or think about it. The poor fellow can casier withstand the taunts of the boys in his neighborhood rather than suffer that intolerable nostalgia that made him feel so bad under his jacket.
After passing through all you have and rejoicing in your preserverance, while you may be reveling in the luxury of all the modern appliances of the aeshetics, you should hear no ill will towards your unfortunate neighbors who neither had the pluck nor the disposition to pull out and stay out,
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abandoning the hills and the valleys of their youth for an uncertain tenure in this unbroken wilderness, when we were told that every newly turned ferrow brought a streak of chill along the spine and an agne in every bone that would bring our red hair with janndice to the grave. New England people have been known to fumigate and disinfect the letters received from here, before reading them, in order to be secure against contagion and infection. We had a reputation among the people in the east for a considerable ague, and perhaps were worthy of it.
A little beyond Bedford on the old Pittsburg road is a heavy strip of swale and in muddy seasons was well nigh impassable for wagons; the mail and stage coaches would manage to work their way by making detours through the woods and fields. In the spring of 1837, Philetns Francis, a man who is yet among us, wrestling with men and horses: while driving an open mud wagon in place of the covered coach through this swale, had a full load of passengers, includ- ing a man from Boston. The Boston man was disgusted with Ohio and expressed himself to that effect in unmistak- able terms; he had never seen a log cabin until that day in all his life. When they came to the bad bit of road, " Fleet " politely told his passengers of the state of things asking them to walk across the dangerous path as a matter of safety for themselves and the horse. The Boston traveler declared he
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would "do no such thing." proclaiming that he had paid his fare and the stage company was under an obligation to carry him to Pittsburgh: he would not budge, although all the others, including two ladies, took the chances on foot. Com- ing to an unfortunate pitch-hole in the road, the wagon gave a heavy lurch and the Boston man was thrown completely out and landed on his ruffled shirt front in the soft mud, becom- ing one of the "first settlers" of Bedford; he went back to Boston and his mother with clearer ideas of the west, but dirtier linen, than if he had not unexpectedly settled in Bed- ford. They sometimes print books in Boston and it may be this man has published his experiences in Ohio, if so, it would be well that this society place his volume on file among its archives for future reference as part of our history.
Some of you, no doubt, came here under the most favor able auspices-had a friend to live on, had good luck, health and happiness all through, and no serious impediment to your ultimate success, for all this you have reason to kick up your heels, thank God and rejoice. There were those who were perplexed with all the hindrances a human being could well be surrounded with. In either case you can sit by the fire- side and tell over your experiences to your grand-children, but 't is well that you be careful not to magnify the incidents too much.
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