USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Annals of the Early Settlers Association of Cuyahoga County, number I > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43
110
ANNALS OF THE
success of the Cuyahoga as a port of entry. Congress scat- tered her favors so munificently and carelessly that it became hard to tell where the work would do the most good.
Your progress toward improvement was a proverb. When you old settlers of forty-five years standing located in Cleve- land you could boast of the most miserable thoroughfares in the spring and autumn time that the wide west ever beheld. The ladies were necessarily restricted in appearing on the avenues arrayed in the latest style of dress for obvious reasons, dress was forced to conform to circumstances.
Among the people of my native state there appeared to be an indistinct idea of the condition of things in this far west portion of the unsettled territory, and when it got abroad that I was about to emigrate to these wilds I was regarded as wild myself. What! are you going to that unbroken wilderness where there are no schools nor churches and hardly any houses but log huts, and the ague so thick you can cut it?
My first visit to the home of my youth was bruited about the town among the boys, and they came to see me and hear me tell the. wonderful tales of the perils among the wild animals that everyone is said to encounter "out west." One notable citizen had been to see me ever so many times but failed to find me for a while, after patience and perseverence had crowned his efforts with success he appeared to be happy. He said a friend of his had gone out "to the Ohio" some years .
1
111
EARLY SETTLERS ASSOCIATION.
ago and he had heard nothing from him since he left and he was anxious to learn something of his whereabouts.
I asked him what part of the state he located in, but that he did not know, and upon careful inquiry, with a full deter- mination to give the gentleman all the information he sought if in my power, I learned that his friend had settled some- where in "the Ohio state," the county, town or village he did not know and moreover his name was SMITH, the given name he could not remember. If any of you know a man by that name in Ohio please report.
If one of the Cherubims or Seraphims had fallen in Superior street about thirty-five years ago, it would not have created much more wonder than the first liveried coachman, who drove down the avenue in regulation costume. It took us by surprise, we were not fully prepared for so much all at once , and few of our people had a knowledge of what they were gazing upon, only through the medium of books, of fiction, or memories of European times. We had all the elements of style-in fact there was a good deal of it put up in the human breast, and all it wanted was a little burst of æsthetic inde- pendence to bring it out. We had plenty of people who longed to do this thing, but it was dangerous to set sail in so open a sea without a guide.
We never knew the comforts and elegances of life until we had them. When we waded through the mud of an evening
112
ANNALS OF THE
with our pants rolled up, and a young lady on our arm headed towards a party or a prayer meeting, we knew nothing of the convenience of gas light and paved streets, or street cars, and were just as happy in our ignorance as to-day, provided the young lady was good looking by day light or candle light. Transportation was no difficult if the company was attractive while we never contemplated whether the old man was possessed of numerous shekels or none.
When James S. Clark imported a grand and elegant car- riage to our young city, and had it propelled about our streets by a span of lively mules, it became an epoch in our history worth recording for we were not familiar with such turnouts. It was a master stroke of Republican independence to send out the ladies of his household in an elegant landaulet, drawn by a pair of mules, driven by a man as black as Erebus. We had to stop and look as the establishment passed us in the muddy streets. To say that we had no cultivated style in those early days. would not be true. About all of us had studied up what was elegant and how bad we wanted such just as much as any other young and thriving city There were men who sent their measures for coats to New York, while they would consent to let Shelley make their pants and vests, and so it was in other things, a growing dis- position to outdo some one else; that was the era when æsthetics began to boom. One man squandered ten shilling,
113
EARLY SETTLERS ASSOCIATION.
six pence, two pence half penny, to get his coat of arms from England and had a crest painted on the pannel of his wagon. We all hankered to appear well in society, at church or on the streets.
Men who had heretofore done their own chores about their home, as soon as trade would warrant, hired a man and many a hired man as he lay down on his pillow at night repeated to himself the hard days work he had to perform all for twelve dollars a month and board. There is so much to do that a fellow has no time to say his own prayers in comfort. In the morning there are three fires to make, cow to milk and in summer to take to pasture, two horses to take care of, the walks to sweep, the wood to saw, the coal to carry in, errands to do, the garden to weed, to be blowed up ten times a day by the old woman, black the old man's boots and clean the chil- dren's shoes, and of a Sunday there is more hard work to do than any day in the week. Have to take the family to church and hang round outside for the last amen of the minister, when we poor hostlers chant in chorus the "Gloria in Excel- sis," bring the team around to the curbstone and when we get home as hungry as a hyena after a three days fast are compelled to wait to see if there is anything left from the dining room that is suffered to come to the kitchen for Bridget and me to make a dinner from. Then hitch up again to take the children to Sunday School, and in the evening, storm or 8
114
ANNALS OF THIE
not, the team must come out for the final service, and I stand about or drive the team around to keep them in warm blood until the final benediction, when I get to the barn once more and work till ten o'clock to make the horses dry and fix their feed and bedding for the night.
Somewhere along in the forties I well remember my own "æsthetie" outburst in the way of an establishment. It is said of Thackeray when he essayed to keep a carriage and horses that he was not able to do so with the income the sale of his books afforded, the same may have been said of me in respect to my one horse harness shop, but I got an old steady animal and a second hand rockaway and paid for them in my line, picked up someone's old harness that had been left at my shop for repairs and so I got out as fine a rig as was suited to my grade and means as is usually seen on the streets, an animal entirely safe for my wife or anyone else to drive; then up and down these streets she wandered with those babies of ours, the envy of lots of old settlers who had no horse or wagon or babies to boast of. I call to mind one of the incidents connected with one of their airings. It was a habit of my wife to drive in the outskirts and note the new streets that were in those days being opened up, reporting progress to me at night ; one day after she was well out on her rounds a friend came in my shop and said that he saw my wife in a rockaway full of babies driving a black horse with a counter-
115
EARLY SETTLERS ASSOCIATION.
brush tail going through where they are opening Oregon street. "Well, said I, that's all right, let her go, there is no law against it yet."
Now I have never taken time to think whether that friend meant to throw any slur at either horse, rockaway, harness wife or babies, for any lack of æstheties on our part.
I took a look at this friend's rig the other day, it was all tip top, he has a fine pair of roadsters with copious tails, yet he seldom indulges in a ride himself, the ladies of his family adorn the establishment better than if he were present. Yet it pains mne to say that his coachman has the cockade in his hat on the wrong side, and that narrow banded affair of a hat too looks like the same old plug Paddock sold the head of the household in 1840, ironed over and made to fit the coachman by taking out a lot of cotton batting from under the lining. Such is the progress of the "æthetics" out in that part of the avenue of the world, and I don't blame my friend for his inde- pendence even if he fails to carry out the nicer points in the progress of æsthetics. He knows well enough that that word was not brought here by any of the old settlers, and we all like to be independent and do as we please in spite of what Mrs. Grundy dare say.
The wild and unbroken forests and plains that spread themselves to the north and west of us a half century ago have become the animated centers of the republic while the
116
ANNALS OF THE
unpeopled shores of the Pacific are now alive with the best blood of the Anglo Saxon race, and the almond eyed Mongo lians are coming in faster than many white people really desire.
When we came here the entire domain north and west of Ohio could barely boast of a million people; to-day one-third of our entire population has found permanent homes away off there where we had not the heart to face the untutored savages or contend against the wild beasts so vividly decribed in onr geographies. The greater part of that teeming west was an unpeopled wilderness and an unexplored waste on our maps.
Since you older settlers made your homes in this county many important events have been added to the history of our country, and it is a wonderful page to contemplate when the more notable ones are placed upon it. Some of you took part in or were contemporaneous with the last war with Great Britain. We have had a contest with Mexico and agreed to quit by taking a slice of her valuable domain. We have had wars innumerable with the aborigines and been continually compelling them to go west and give our people room to swing a cat and breathe. We have settled two important boundary questions with Great Britain that threatened badly for a time. We have acquired territory of other nations quite enough to make a dozen empires. We have added state upon state until
117
EARLY SETTLERS ASSOCIATION.
the number is so great that it troubles our people to keep tally of the increase. We have put down the greatest rebellion since the days of the Peloponnesian war. We have wiped out slavery as with a sponge. We have struck oil in the hill sides and gold and silver and iron in the mountains. We have thrown a network of railways all over the land, and the meshes of wires above our heads are so interwoven that they form a sort of lace curtain against the rays of the sun. Steamships cross the Atlantic Ocean in a fraction over a week. The earth and sea are many times girded with stretched wires. So much has transpired which is worthy of mention since you settled here that the ennumeration becomes tiresome and the items widen so infinitely that it appears useless to attempt an ap- proximation towards a fair schedule of all that has come to pass since your early days in Cuyahoga County. At the rate things have been moving for the past fifty years, it bewilders the mind to attempt to comprehend what may take place in another fifty years. The city has been made over anew since we first set our feet emphatically down in Cleveland; our great avenne, Superior street, can scarcely show us a monument in the shape of a building that stood there when we came. The venerable town pump that graced the head of Bank street and supplied near half the town with water has been swept away; it is not the same town we saw any more than we are the same persons, for they tell us that we renew ourselves every seven
118
ANNALS OF THE
years. We have worn out two jails and are developing consid- erable friction on the third and fourth. The three lonely churches that were the only places for public worship have increased to hundreds, and yet we have a great share of wieked people among us.
The public schools as well as the public school houses of Cleveland have been a marked feature in our civilization. From the old and unambitions Academy on St. Clair street, which was the only school building in our earlier days, we have erected four or five HIGH SCHOOL BUILDINGS, the last of which is the wonder of modern times; it is elaimed to be quite high enough for practical use, from base to pinnacle it will measure fully one hundred and forty feet, Columbus College standard, where three barley corns make one inch, and it has innumerable gables as well. "Is not that pretty high?" Every tax payer says "UMPII." It is not every youth that ean boast of so much outside show in order to gain the inner adornments of the head, and you who had knowledge ingrafted at the old Academy or the schools which preceded it may be proud that "æsthetics" were invented so that your grand children could revel in the halls of our high schools; shall we wait to see what our high school house will be 40 years hence?
After that "old Academy" our public schools multiplied to a wonderful degree until every quarter of the city was adorned by one or more of those educators of the coming people.
119
EARLY SETTLERS ASSOCIATION.
During the winter of 1836-37 Mr. Upson, of Tallmadge, sent to the city for trial a wagon load of bituminous coal, a seam of which had cropped ont of a hillside on his farm and he was anxions to see if it could be made of use as a fuel. A gentleman then living where the Weddell Honse now stands- it may have been Mr. T. M. Weddell himself-ventured to make a trial of the coal; his neighbors got an idea of what was going on and they looked in apparent dread at the house when the black smoke curled out of the chimney, and when the sulphurous fumes came down to the ground they held their nostrils and made up their minds at once that such stuff would breed a pestilence and they would have none of it in theirs. This people had not been educated up to a coal stand- ard in those days; it is quite different now.
There is a sturdy member of your association who has been here over three score years, but is not the man he was in opinion forty years ago. When coal began to be used as fuel that man declared he never would consent to abandon the nse of wood and resort to filthy coal as long as he was able to pur- chase a supply of wood. To-day that " old settler " is able to purchase the native forests on either side of him, but every grate, range, stove and furnace in his stately mansion is sup- plied with coal.
We could not consent that the advances made in our time should be obliterated and we too be placed back to the condi-
120
ANNALS OF THE
tion of forty-five years ago, when we had no street lights, no water works, no sewers, no paved streets, no police, no steam fire department, no public library, no fountains, no city hall, no telegraph nor telephones, no railroads, no steam tugs, no anthracite coal, no propellers, no bridge across the river, no breakwater, no manufactories, no refineries, no viadnet, and no taxes to speak of.
Many people have wished to renew their lives by wander- ing among the scenes of their early youth; we are certain to get quite enough in a few days. How would you like to see our main avenue again afloat with its proverbial unfathomable . mud of olden times? How would you like to see those scanty wood wagons that used to adorn the lower end of the avenue again in place, then those stately "Wooster schooners" that plied on the pike between Wayne and Cuyahoga counties bring- ing flour and whisky and returning with ballast of nails, cod fish and cotton cloth, and finally as you passed down of a morn- ing and see three stage coaches waiting for Captain Sartwell's orders at the old Franklin House to go and gather passen- gers with the inevitable chunky "Henry " perched high atop of one with four in hand. All this would do you as a passing dream, but you would say give us the advance and not the retrograde.
Our city stands upon a plane ranging from seventy-five to one hundred feet above the Lake: this gives us an eminence
121
EARLY SETTLERS ASSOCIATION.
above our neighboring cities of the Lakes that they would be glad to attain. You will remember that at one time in your early residence there was a steady, rapid encroachment of the Lake upon the heart of the city by the sliding away of the bluff bank above the beach. The quick sands which underlie the city were fast carrying away the surface, and at the rate the land was leaving ns it was easy to calenlate when the little city we found as we settled here would be entirely swept away. I have seen the time when many acres had taken their depar ture in one night, but the railroads saved our city in more ways than one, they put a stop to the further ineroachments of the Lake.
The elegant in architecture had not developed itself to any extent up to 1840. Men who built had so little regard for comeliness that it appears as if they told the builders the height, length and breadth they wanted their honse or block or shop and the number of windows and doors needed, then allowed them to be placed at random as was most convenient to the mechanics. Men of taste who have visited us have made a note of these things to our disadvantage. We took conrage and thanked God that after a time a better order of things was instituted, and after the second and third series of build- ings went up we had something more comely to look upon, and to-day old settler or not, a citizen need not be ashamed to wander about these streets with the best men of the proudest
122
ANNALS OF THE
city in our land and point to hundreds of blocks and churches, hospitals, asylums, schools, manufactories and dwellings that will rank with any in the wide world.
There may be a wide diversity in the hopes and realiza- tions of all you " old settlers." Some may have accomplished all they aimed for, and some may have come far short even if their aim had been ever so unpretending. Whatever that fate chances to be, it is rather too late to try and mend it now. We had better philosophically accept the situation and con- tinue striving to the end.
You who have hung on so long through thick and thin never flinched in the hour of panie or epidemic, never grunted too much over the cold Lake winds, nor stuck np your nose when the black smokes and crude oil smells hung round your nostrils. You who have brought up a family in knowledge and virtue and have maintained among your fellows as upright a character as the times would warrant, can rest assured that you have done far more for the honor, glory and majesty of Cleveland than Cleveland could possibly do for you.
There are two important domestic pictures. I would have you carefully contemplate and view in every light you can see the best. One is Cleveland as you saw her forty years ago. and Cleveland as you can'see her to-day.
123
EARLY SETTLERS ASSOCIATION
There are artists enough among yon to paint these scenes to the life, and the sooner you practice with your brush, your canvas and your pigments on those of the past, your friends will think the more of you, while you will be likely to renew your life in the operation.
A SUMMARY
OF THE
Records of the Association.
,
ORIGIN OF THE ASSOCIATION.
HE first step which led to the organization of the "EARLY SETTLERS ASSOCIATION OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY," was taken by H. M. Addison, who was "father of the thought," and who published in the fall of 1879 several articles in the Cleveland newspapers relative to the project. These articles having created a favor- able impression, so encouraged him that he circulated a written call for a public meeting of the pioneers and early settlers of Cleveland, for the purpose of consultation and effecting a permanent organization of such an association. The call was signed by a goodly number of Cleveland's prominent citizens, among whom were the following:
John Crowell,
S. L. Blake,
Ahimaz Sherwin,
George Mygatt,
Wm. H. Stanley,
M. Barnett,
Erastus Smith,
Elijah Smithı,
John W. Allen,
Daniel R. Tilden,
J. P. Bishop,
William Fuller,
128
ANNALS OF THE
H. B. Payne.
L. Dow Cottrell,
John A. Foot.
Elijah Bingham,
Homer Strong.
Moses White,
Milo Bosworth,
Geo. C. Dodge,
John Wicken,
J. A. Vincent,
Harvey Rice.
J. C. Saxton,
James A. Bolles,
J. J. Elwell,
W. S. Rulison.
Elias Cozad.
A. R. Chapman.
W. H. Doan,
Jabez Hall,
W. H. Hayward,
J. E. Twitchell.
T. P. Handy.
R. R. Herrick.
John C. Covert.
N. B. Sherwin.
O. H. Mather,
S. Williamson.
Jas. D. Cleveland.
John C. Grannis.
S. J. Andrews.
H. P. Weddell,
W. Bingham.
James Barnett.
J. H. Wade.
E. B. Hale & Co.,
A. Everett.
P. R. Everett,
E. S. Root,
Win. Perry Fogg.
R. R. Root,
Moses Warren.
R. C. Parsons.
(). F. Welch,
George O'Conner.
T. J. Clapp.
J- C. Brewer,
E. S. Flint.
Edmund P. Morgan,
John Welch. Henry H. Dodge.
129
EARLY SETTLERS ASSOCIATION.
Geo. B. Merwin, Henry Wick, W. S. Streator, Charles Whittlesey, M. S. Castle. Daniel W. Duty.
In response to this call a large number of pioncers and early settlers convened at the Probate Court Room, on the evening of Nov. 19th, 1879, organized the meeting by appoint- ing Hon. John W. Allen chairman, and H. M. Addison secretary, and after a free discussion and interchange of views relative to the object of the meeting, adopted the follow- ing constitution :
ARTICLE I.
This association shall be known as the "Early Settlers Association of Cuyahoga County," and its members shall consist of such persons as have resided forty years in the same, and who shall subscribe to this constitution and pay a membership fee of one dollar, but shall not be subject to further liability.
ARTICLE II.
The officers of the association shall consist of a president, two vice presidents, secretary and treasurer, with the addition of an executive committee of not less than five persons, all of which officers shall be members of the association and hold their offices during its pleasure, and until their succes- sors are duly appointed and they accept their appointments.
1
9
130
ANNALS OF THE
ARTICLE III.
The object of the association shall be to meet in conven- tion annually, with the view of bringing its members into more intimate social relations and collecting all such interest- ing facts, incidents, relies and personal reminiscences relative to the early history and settlement of the city and county, as may be regarded of permanent value, and transferring the same to the "Western Reserve Historical Society" for preserva- tion, and for the benefit of the present and future generations.
ARTICLE IV.
It shall be the duty of the president to preside at public meetings of the association, and in his absence the like duty shall devolve upon one of the vice presidents. The secretary shall record in a book for the purpose the proceedings of the association, the names of the members in alphabetical order with the ages and time of residence at the date of becoming members, and conduct the necessary correspondence of the association. He shall also be regarded as an additional member, ex-officio, of the executive committee, and may con- sult with them but have no vote. The treasurer shall receive and pay out all the moneys belonging to the association, but no moneys shall be paid out except on the joint order of the chairman of the executive committee and secretary of the association. No debt shall be incurred against the association by any officer or member beyond its ready means of payment.
131
EARLY SETTLERS ASSOCIATON.
ARTICLE V.
The executive committee shall have the general super- vision and direction of the affairs of the association, designate the time and place of holding its meetings, and publish due notice thereof with a programme of exercises. The committee shall also have power to fill vacancies that may occur in their own body or in any other office of the association, until the association at a regular meeting shall till the same, and may appoint such number of subordinate committees as they may deem expedient. It shall also be their duty to report to the association at its regular annual meeting the condition of its affairs, its success and prospects, with such other matter as they may deem important, the same to be published in pamphlet and distributed to members of the association, if approved and so ordered by the association.
ARTICLE VI.
The annual meeting of this association for the election of officers shall be held on the second Monday of January of each year.
ARTICLE VII.
The constitution may be altered or amended at any regular meeting of the association on a two-thirds vote of the members present, and it shall take effect from the date of its adoption.
i
132.
ANNALS OF THE
And thereupon the meeting proceeded to the election of officers to serve until the annual meeting to be held on the second Monday of January, 1880, as provided in the consti- tution, to wit:
IION. HARVEY RICE, President.
HON. SHERLOCK J. ANDREWS, IlON. JOHN W. ALLEN, Vice Presidents. GEORGE C. DODGE, Secretary and Treasurer.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.