USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > Centennial history of Cleveland > Part 4
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in 1844, having gone thither after several years' study at Oberlin. Previous to coming I had been a contributor to the Western Reserve Cab- inet and Visitor, published, I think, in Hudson, and to the Oberlin Evangelist. Earlier, I had contributed to some local papers East. When I came to Cleveland, The Herald, J. A. Harris, editor, was the chief daily in the city and in North- ern Ohio. The Plain Dealer, J. M. Gray, editor, had been recently started. I think there were some weeklies, but I do not recall the names.
"There were various contributors to these papers. Among them I recall Mr. Geo. Bene- dict, Richard L. Paysons, and very soon J. H. A. Bone. Mrs. Geo. Chapman, who I believe is still living on the West Side, wrote poems.
"There were many families who not only kept themselves in touch with the literature of the day, but who, by means of historical and authors' games, and the like, kept up among the younger members of the household an appreciative taste and a love of delving among the bright things of the past.
"One of these was the Woolson family, where father, mother and daughters enjoyed this mode of refreshing themselves among the treasures of the past. One of these daughters, at the time I mention, was a slip of a girl 8 or 9 years old, straight, slight, clear-eyed and silent, who would stand beside one or another of the players enjoy-
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ing every bright thing to the utmost, but show- ing it only by the lift of the eyelid, or the slight ripple of a smile across a quiet face. This was Constance Fenimore Woolson."
From the lady's letter it appears that Mr. Wool- son and one of his sisters were active in literary work, and that Mrs. Woolson was grand niece of the novelist, Fenimore Cooper. Also that "nearly all of this branch of the Woolson family lie buried in the different cemeteries in Cleve- land, one under the altar of Grace Church."
Frances and Metta Victoria Fuller were for a while contributors to the Cleveland papers. M. A. F .- Mrs. Freeman, of this city, was for a long while a favorite contributor to the Herald.
As early as 1845 I find contributions from the pen of H. M. Tracy, in the form of poems and essays. Mrs. H. M. Tracy Cutter was a gradu- ate of Oberlin, and a constant and always wel- come contributor to the city papers.
E. M. T., of Euclid, was another writer of es- says, and our own Mrs. H. E. G. Arey was, and is, a most acceptable contributor to the local and eastern papers. Her influence on the literary advance of Cleveland has been very great and beneficial, and it is to be regretted that she has been called to take up her residence elsewhere.
From the earliest settlement of Cleveland women have held a prominent place among its workers. By courtesy of the stronger sex they
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were early accorded privileges not bestowed upon them in every new place. Yet the law gave power to the men. A man was most certainly the head of the household, and his will was law. If he felt inclined to indulge in horsewhipping his wife she had no means of redress. She worked faithfully and well, but her husband owned the products of her labor.
The following portion of a will made in 1843 by an esteemed early settler is a curious example of a man's right to dispose of the household goods :
"I also give and bequeath to her (his wife) one feather bed, 4 pillows, with the underbed, with 6 sheets, 2 blankets, 6 pillow-cases, 9 bed-quilts, and her choice of the bedsteads, and in fact, she may take her choice in all the above articles of household furniture, together with the large rocking chair," etc.
Probably all but the bedstead and the frame of the rocking-chair were the work of her hands or else brought as her dowry, and were thus kindly willed to her by her devoted husband, her lord and master, to whom the early laws gave strange rights, as it seems to us of these later days.
The Plain Dealer of April 2d, 1846, published the following card to business men, which sounded the keynote of advancing improvements :
"The spring of 1846 opens a new era in the history of Western Commerce! That most won-
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derful invention of the age, the magnetic tele- graph, brings the commercial transactions of the seaboard almost instantaneously to our knowl- edge. It is announced that the telegraph lines at present connecting Washington, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York and Boston will be ex- tended through the cities of Lowell, Hartford, Troy, Albany, Utica, Rochester and other inter- mediate places to Buffalo, and be completed about the first of May next. Commercial and other important news brought by telegraph will reach us during the coming season Three Days in Ad- vance of The Mail."
Homes, churches, schools, the city and its var- ious industries were now well established and ready to be improved.
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CHAPTER III.
PERIOD OF IMPROVING-1846-1871.
T HE third quarter of the century of Cleve- land's history may be designated as that of improving, for it brought about marked improvements in homes, schools, churches, soci- ety, city streets, facilities of travel, and in various other ways.
The city resembled a quiet New England vil- lage at the beginning of the period. Log houses had given place to pretty cottages, generally painted white, with green blinds on the outside, and a neatly kept flower-garden at the side, in front, or in the rear of the houses. Two-story houses were the exception, not the rule then, and frequently two families dwelt beneath one roof. Apprentices usually boarded in the family of their master, and school teachers continued to be "boarded round."
The first great improvement of this period was that of establishing a department for girls in the High School in the spring of 1847, when 14 girls were admitted to the privilege of a higher educa- tion. This was looked upon with disfavor by many, and most of the men in power thought it very improbable that girls would be able to keep up with the classes, although throughout the
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New England States they had early been admitted to the High School System.
In 1825 girls had a separate school in Boston, and in various places in Massachusetts, Con- necticut, and other New England States the High Schools were co-educational from the start. They seem to have flourished from the first, and by the year 1838 there were 14 in Massachusetts. One organized in 1831 at Lowell, Mass., had the present bishop of Rhode Island for its principal, and had an enrollment in 1837 of 90 boys and 132 girls, which proves that girls were desirous of improving the opportunity afforded them.
In the autumn of 1848 an attractive, or at least a conspicuous, advertisement appeared in the newspapers, informing "the Citizens of Cleve- land" that Dr. Morris would open a "Female Sem- inary" in the Pavilion, corner of Prospect and Ontario Streets, where the Prospect House now stands, and that he would be assisted by "eight teachers" who were graduates of Eastern schools. On the 16th of October this Female Seminary was duly opened, and among Dr. Morris' boasted, but imaginary eight assistants, was one who was a veritable graduate of Mt. Holyoke, and who, after assisting for a while in this and other sim- ilar institutions, opened a school of her own, which became very popular.
Among this lady's twelve hundred and more
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pupils scattered over the world there is scarcely one who does not hold in loving remembrance the name of Linda T. Guilford. After 33 years of actual teaching, her helpful influence is still going forth toward hundreds of young people, from college maidens to daily newsboys.
There were several other very popular and well-conducted private schools under the instruc- tion of competent teachers, whose names have been associated with much of the good work of later years.
The Right Reverend Amedeus Rappe, who was a native of France, and for six years Chaplain of the Ursuline Convent at Boulogne-Sur-Mer, came to America in 1840, and soon became a force in the work of improving the morals and state of society among a certain portion of Cleveland's citizens. He was ordained bishop over the Dio- cese of Cleveland, instituted April 23, 1847, which had at that time 42 churches-one was in Cleve- land-21 priests and 10,000 Catholics.
In Bishop Rappe's first pastoral letter he wrote thus: "If the eloquence of an upright life does not convert our opponents, at least it silences the hostility of the unwise and imprudent," and again, "We beseech you also, beloved brethren, by the mercy of Jesus Christ, to live soberly. Drunkenness, and the debaucheries which attend it, degrade man, disgrace the faith and precipitate many into endless misfortunes."
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The little wooden structure, "St. Mary's" on the Flats, served as his cathedral until the one on the corner of Erie and Superior Streets was com- pleted. It was then out of town, quite in the suburbs of Cleveland.
In the Cleveland Herald of March, 1848, may be found the following notice of this enterprising man : "Bishop Rappe is just what every man who has important enterprises in hand should be, a real working man.
"His labors, too, are for the benefit of others, the present and future, the temporal, social and moral improvement of the people of his charge. Strict sobriety, industry and economy are virtues which he inculcates with hearty good will-the sure stepping-stones to individual, family and associated success. Temperance supports the superstructure, and now over five hundred cold- water men are enrolled in the Cleveland Catholic Temperance Society."
Bishop Rappe opened a seminary back of his residence on Bond Street, and in September, 1849, he sailed for France to secure the assistance of priests and nuns, as well as means to enable him to finish the Cathedral, which was begun in October, 1848. He returned to America in Au- gust, 1850, bringing with him 4 priests, 5 sem- inarists, together with 2 sisters of charity and 4 nuns, from the Ursuline Convent of Boulogne- Sur-Mer.
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With these came a young woman belonging to a fine old English family, who had become a Roman Catholic and been baptized by Father Rappe. She decided to come to America, and here to devote her life and such means as she possessed to teaching and doing missionary work in the West.
A house, formerly occupied by Judge Cowles on Euclid Street, was purchased and made ready for the sisters' occupancy. It was consecrated on the 7th of November, 1852, and in December of the same year this talented young English woman became an Ursuline nun, the first re- ceived into the church on the Western Reserve.
For years she served as one of the teachers in the Ursuline Academy, and has been a faithful member of the Convent, where she is now tenderly cared for in her old age. Mother Austin is well known to many of Cleveland's best families, whose daughters have been under her instruc- tion, and her name appears among the honorary Vice Presidents of the Woman's Department of the Centennial Commission.
The Ursuline Sisters at once opened a select school and an academy, many of their pupils be- ing from well-known Protestant families. In fact a large percentage of their pupils were Prot- estants during the first years of the school.
One of the grandest improvements of this period was that made in the methods of travel,
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Early as the year 1845 the project of railroads connecting Cleveland with various distant points began to be seriously considered. It was finally voted to loan the credit of the city to the amount of $200,000 for the construction of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad, and to the amount of $100,000 for the Cleveland and Pitts- burg Railroad.
The building of railroads was slower work in those times than it is at present, when they are constantly springing into existence, as though by magic, forming an iron network over the face of our country. Then there were terrible obstacles to be overcome; but in time this first railroad was completed, and on the morning of February 21, 1851, members of the Legislature, State officers, Councils of Cincinnati and of Columbus, together with many citizens of these two cities, in all 428 persons, took the first train over the road to visit Cleveland as its guests.
When the excursion train from the Capitol reached our city, the guests were greeted by dis- charges of artillery and the voices of thousands of the citizens who were on hand to welcome them.
On the following day, Saturday, February 22, a procession was formed, with General Sanford as chief marshal, to escort the guests to the Pub- lic Square in front of the Court House, where Mayor Case received them with an appropriate
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speech of welcome. He was followed by the Hon. C. C. Convers, Speaker of the Senate; Mr. Samuel Starkweather, orator of the people of Cleveland; Hon. Alfred Kelley, Hon. Henry B. Payne, Mr. Pugh, of Cincinnati, Gov. Wood, and Mr. Cyrus Prentiss, President of the Cleveland and Pittsburg R. R., 40 miles of which were formally opened to the public on that day, the city's guests taking a train to Hudson, the College City, and back, after which they were given a banquet at the Weddell House. In the evening there was a grand torchlight procession.
On Sunday the ministers discoursed upon the great event of the age, and on Monday the people from far and near gathered to see the guests de- part on board the wonderful train with its snorting iron monster of a horse. Just before running out of the station Mr. J. Greiner sang a song com- posed for the occasion to the tune of "O Carry Me Back," which is published in full in the Her- ald of February 24, 1851, and from which the fol- lowing stanzas are selected, without comment:
"We hail from the city-the Capitol City, We left in the storm and the rain; The cannons did thunder, the people did wonder, To see pious folks on a train.
The iron-horse snorted, he puffed when he started, At such a long tail as he bore;
And he put for the city that grows in the woods, The city upon the Lake Shore.
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Chorus-
The beautiful city, the forest-tree oity, The city upon the Lake Shore.
The mothers ran out, with their children about, From every log-cabin they hail;
The wood-chopper he, stood delighted to see The law-makers rode on a rail.
The horses and cattle, as onward we rattle, Were never so frightened before.
We're bound for the city that grows in the woods, The city upon the Lake Shore.
Chorus-
Great country for timber, this is, you remember, The planks that are planked in the mud.
All cities this beats, for not only the streets, But a Governor they've made out of Wood.
No dog wood, nor slippery elm governor he, But pop'lar Wood, seasoned and sure, And lives in the city that grows in the woods, The city upon the Lake Shore ..
With the steam engine to bring ore, lumber, and the produce of the soil to the lake shore, Cleveland awakened to a new business activity. It had been looked upon as a pretty residence place, with its shady streets and broad fields, but few of its citizens ever dreamed, much less ex- pressed, the idea of its ever becoming a great manufacturing city.
The work of improving the streets was actively carried on in 1850, when some of the principal ones were accepted by the city. On the 12th of
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November an ordinance was passed accepting Case Street, which was ordered to be 3 rods wide. On the 10th of December Cedar Street, 66 feet wide, was accepted, and on the 4th of February, 1851, Wilson Street, 50 feet wide, was accepted. Cedar Street, which is now one of the busy thor- oughfares leading east through the city, was then only a cart-path winding among the stumps left standing on the rear lots of the Euclid road farms. There were probably less than a dozen houses on its entire length, from Perry Street to Wilson Street, and they were nearly all small, one-story houses containing one or two rooms beside a bedroom. The north side of the street was de- voted principally to market-gardens and hay- fields, except what remained a forest, wherein the men delighted to go hunting, and where the neighbors frequently went picnicing during the summer. Raspberries, gooseberries, blackberries, and wild grape-vines bordered this winding, rough way, and many a good dinner of potted pigeons was obtained by spreading nets over the berry bushes to entrap them. The street was often so muddy that the few pedestrians were forced to climb the rail-fences and walk along on them. Neighbors, meant more than simply the occupants of adjoining residences in early times. They constituted a circle of friends bound to- gether by indissoluble ties.
The busy young housekeepers, after tidying
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up their own homes, would occasionally meet at one another's houses for a day's visit. With ba- bies and knitting-work they would wend their way through woods and over fields to a neighbor's, returning home in season to get supper for the "men-folks" before candle light.
In winter several families residing within a mile or so of one another would join in a "bob- sled" ride out to McIlraith's tavern. Dressed in their best "go-to-meeting" calicos or delaines, and wrapped in a "Job's-comfort" or "Rising- sun" bedquilt, or in a blanket for extra warmth, the women would arrange themselves within a crockery-crate secured upon the sled, knowing full well that in all probability they would be spilled out by running against a stump before they had gone any distance, but the prospect of a dance to the music of a flute, a fiddle and a trum- pet, and a supper of hot-biscuits, corn-pones, pork, ham, pickles and cheese, kept their spirits up in spite of the biting cold atmosphere and the protruding stumps.
In the early part of 1851 a few of the down- town sidewalks were flagged and the streets lighted with sperm-oil lamps. Boys were al- lowed to coast on the Square from Euclid to Su- perior Streets along by the side of the Forest City House, and on one occasion a young woman, wearing heelless shoes with steel-toes, slipped and fell as she turned to go down the hill,
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making the entire trip over the glassy surface on her back.
In about 1854 Superior Street hill, from Water Street to the public landing on the river, was paved with stone, but the rest of the streets re- mained generally slushy, muddy or dusty, accord- ing to the season, and pigs meandered through them or wallowed in their mud, in blissful ignor- ance of the final banishment of their kind from within the city limits.
In 1859 horse-railroads began to supersede omnibuses. The East Cleveland Company and the Kinsman Street Company were organized that year, and the West Side Company in Septem- ber, 1863.
The cars were small ones drawn by mules or horses, and according to an ordinance of the city these animals were not to be driven faster than a walk while turning the corners of streets, and cars drawn in the same direction shall not ap- proach each other within a distance of 300 feet, which must have been a relief to nervous trav- elers.
For many years the subject of supplying Cleveland with "good and wholesome water" had been under consideration. In January, 1833, The Cleveland Water Company was incor- porated, but it was not until 1850 that a chartered company came into power and began raising a subscription of $27,000 to the capital stock.
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In 1852 William Case, Esq., chairman of com- mittee on Water Works, received from W. W. Mathers a report on the composition of the waters of Cleveland, in which he stated that "the follow- ing waters have been examined:
"No. 1 .- Well water, from a well about 50 yards west of the theater between Superior and Center Streets, from the oldest part of the city.
No. 2 .- Well water, from Prof. Cassels' well, on the ridge of Euclid Street, two miles from the city.
"No. 8 .- Water from Mr. Perry's well on Eu- clid Street."
The report then states that "It will be seen from the above table that the Cleveland water is far purer than the Croton water, and fully an average of the other streams used to supply cities in the East, while the water of Lake Erie is purer far than any of them except Cochrinate, and is more than the average of even that water, so cele- brated."
On the 1st of September, 1854, the job of build- ing the Reservoir on Franklin Street was begun, and in 1856 the city was supplied with water from the lake.
A business directory of 1852-3 states that "The travel through our city has become immense; the old lumbering stage-coaches have been so en- tirely driven from our thoroughfares that they are already looked upon as objects of curiosity,
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and will, doubtless, soon be sought for, to grace the cabinets of the curious, and be given a place, side by side, with the inquisitorial instruments of torture.
"Our numerous and excellent hotels are con- stantly filled to overflowing, and scarce one of all these arriving and departing crowds that does not bear irrepressible testimony to the business and beauty of our city."
Among the hotels referred to was "Stillman's," on the corner of Ontario and Michigan Streets. The best hotels were all west of the Square, as were the few business blocks, the halls and the public buildings.
In 1853, E. I. Baldwin opened his remarkably fine store on Superior Street, on the site of that now occupied by Hower & Higbee. It was the first large dry goods store, being 100 feet deep by 19 wide. In 1868 the firm, of which Mr. H. R. Hatch, of Grand Isle, Vt., became a member dur- ing its first years, removed to a larger building a few rods farther west.
Another great business venture was that of W. P. Southworth, the grocer, who had been a contractor for building materials, and in several kinds of business previous to starting his great store on the north corner of Ontario and C'ham- plain Streets in 1858, where it is said this enter- prising man sent out his goods in a wheelbarrow. The people stood aghast at the audacity of such
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business ventures, while the men in charge con- tented themselves with the rich incomes re- ceived, striving always to merit the patronage of the public.
In April, 1854, Ohio City was annexed to Cleveland, and on Saturday, the 7th of October following, a fire was discovered in a plumbing establishment at No. 81 Public Square, which spread rapidly, consuming or damaging most of the buildings on the Square, on Champlain and on Seneca Streets. The stricken community had scarcely recovered from the stupor caused by this calamity before a worse one befell them, for on Friday, the 27th of October, at 11 o'clock P. M., a fire broke out in the stable of the New England House, destroying the hotel, the Corn Exchange, St. Charles Hotel, General Oviatt's brick block, finishing the work of destruction along Superior Street, down Merwin Street and along the river side, causing a total loss of $155,- 600, and nearly crippling the city for awhile.
Although these losses fell heavily upon the business community the fires resulted in the gen- eral improvement of that part of the city, for bet- ter buildings were raised on the burned district, and the busy little city by the lake went steadily on improving in every quarter, when there came premonitions of rebellion in the Southern States. Early in 1861 the newspapers contained om- inous headlines, such as "Two War Steamers un-
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der orders for Charleston," "Mississippi going out of the Union this week." "Southern States after Arms. Virginia going to Secede. More troops sent to Harper's Ferry," and others of a like nature.
Though many of the people laughed at the idea of war between the North and South, others felt that danger was imminent, and wherever men congregated the subject came under discussion. Mothers looked anxiously on husbands and sons, fearing the approach of that day when they should be called to sacrifice one or both in behalf of their country.
On the 13th of April came the announce- ment that the War was begun, and the Plain Dealer closed an editorial thus: "Still later. Fighting along the whole line. War vessels en- gaged. Fort Sumpter on fire. Watch and Pray."
On the 13th of April President Lincoln became alarmed for the safety of Washington, D. C., and on Sunday, the 14th, issued a call for 75,000 troops to the field at once, as the Confederate Congress had declared war against the United States.
Then the patriotic citizens of Cleveland, as else- where, were thoroughly aroused, and the streets became alive with people. Flags were hung in churches, to which men marched to the tune of Yankee Doodle. Leland's Band was stationed
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on the balcony of the Weddell House, playing patriotic airs and soul-stirring music, and, while many still persisted in the belief that the fuss would soon blow over, that it was just a little Southern fire that would soon be quelled by a mere handful of armed men, all were excited over the news that continued to come from the Capi- tol.
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