Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 79

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006

USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I > Part 79

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).

BANKS .- Broadway Savings and Loan Company, Joseph Turney, president, O. M. Stafford, treasurer ; Citizens' Savings and Loan Association, J. H. Wade, president, W. S. Jones, treasurer ; Cleveland National Bank, S. S. Warner, presi- dent, P. M. Spencer, cashier ; Commercial National Bank, Dan. P. Eells, presi- dent, David Z. Norton, cashier ; East End Savings Bank Company, J. H. MeBride, president, Charles A. Post, treasurer ; Euelid Avenue National Bank, John L. Woods, president, Solon L. Severance, cashier ; First National Bank, James Bar- nett, president, H. S. Whittlesey, cashier ; Mercantile National Bank, Truman P. Handy, president, Charles L. Murfey, cashier ; National Bank of Commerce, J.

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H. Wade, president, F. E. Rittman, cashier ; Ohio National Bank, John McCly- monds, president, Henry C. Ellison, cashier ; National City Bank, W. P. South- worth, president, J. F. Whitelaw, cashier ; People's Savings and Loan Association, Robert R. Rhodes, president, A. L. Withington, treasurer; Savings and Trust Company, C. G. King, president, H. R. Newcomb, treasurer ; Society for Savings, S. H. Mather, president, M. T. Herrick, treasurer ; South Cleveland Banking Company, Joseph Turney, president, James Walker, treasurer; Union National Bank, M. A. Hanna, president, E. H. Bonrne, cashier ; West Side Banking Com- pany, Lee McBride, president, Thomas M. Irvine, cashier ; Crumb & Baslington, E. B. Hale & Co., W. J. Hayes & Sons, Lamprecht Bros. & Co., Charles H. Pot- ter & Co., Henry Wick & Co., Cleveland Clearing House Association, Truman P. Handy, president, A. H. Wick, secretary.

Colleges and Scientific Institutions .- The Adelbert College of the Western Re- serve University ; Case School of Applied Sciences ; Kirtland Society of Natural Sciences ; Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society ; Medical De- partment of Western Reserve University ; Medical Department University of Wooster ; Homoeopathic College.

Charitable Institutions .- City Infirmary ; Charity Hospital; City Hospital ; Hospital for Women ; Asylum for Insane; Homoeopathic Hospital ; House of Maternity ; St. Alexis Hospital ; University Hospital ; Protestant Orphan Asylum ; Children's Home; House of the Good Shepherd ; Little Sisters of the Poor.

Public Libraries .- Cleveland, 51,000 volumes; Case, 21,000 volumes ; Law, 9,000 volumes.

Cleveland has in all 186 churches and missions. These are divided into many denominations, as 26 Roman Catholic, 14 Baptist, 4 Disciples, 15 Congregational, 9 Evangelical Association, 2 Evangelical, 1 Independent, 11 Evangelical Lutheran, 7 Evangelical Reformed, 1 Free Methodist, 1 Friends, 9 Hebrew, 21 Methodist Episcopal, 11 Presbyterian, 2 United Presbyterian, 14 Protestant Episcopal, 4 Reformed Dutch, 1 Spiritualist, 1 Swedenborgian, 1 Unitarian, 3 United Breth- ren, 1 Wesleyan Methodist, 1 Seventh Day Advent, 1 Church of God, 1 Floating Bethel, etc., etc. These are conducted by various nationalities : English, German, Hebrew, Welsh, Poles, Hungarian, Bohemian, Scandinavian, Italian, etc.

MANUFACTURES AND EMPLOYEES .- The manufactures of Cleveland are im- mense. Henry Dorn, Chief State Inspector of Workshops and Factories, in his report for 1887 gave a list of 462 establishments. Of these, one hundred and thirty-eight employed 50 hands or over; eighty-one, 100 hands or over ; thirty- two, 200 hands or over ; eleven, 400 hands or over ; six, 600 hands and over, of which one was the Standard Oil Company with 2,000 hands, and the other the Cleveland Rolling Mill with 4,150 hands, but which at times exceeds 5,000 hands. We annex a list of those with 100 hands or over, eighty-one in number :

American Wire Coy 465; Prospect Machine Co., engines and machinery, 220; Lake Erie Iron Co., forging bolts and nuts, 250; Cleveland Hardware Co., car- riage hardware, 178; H. P. Nail Co., wire and wire nails, 505; Cleveland City Forge, iron forgings, 425 ; Britton Iron and Steel Co., iron and steel plate, 215; Buckeye Bridge and Boiler Works, boilers and bridges, 106; Ohio Steel Works, steel, 625 ; King Iron Bridge Manufacturing Co., bridges, roofs, etc., 225; T. H. Brooks & Co., iron founders, 108; Cleveland and Pittsburg R. R. Co., car re- pairs, 125 ; Lake Shore Foundry Co., iron castings, 281; Lake Shore R. R. Car Shops, railroad repairs, 150 ; Standard Tobacco and Cigar Co., tobacco and cigars, 260; A. W. Sampliner, cloaks, 235; D. Black & Co., cloaks, 205; Landesman, Herscheimer & Co., cloaks, 255; Schneider and Treukamp Co., gasoline stoves, etc., 250 ; Cleveland Ship-building Co., engines and ships, 200; Theodore Kunetz, sewing-machine cabinet work, 335; Cleveland Burial Case Co., undertakers' sup- plies, 205 ; Globe Iron Works Co., iron steamships, etc., 275 ; Globe Iron Works Co.'s Ship-Yard, iron steamships, etc., 268; Powell Tool Co., edge tools, 100;

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Myers, Osborn & Co., stoves, 200; Garry Iron Roofing Co., iron roofing, 152; Gorham & Sargent, washboards, 115; C. C. C. & I. R. R. Shops, railroad repairs, 350; Palmer & Dellory, eastings, 115; Bowler & Co., car wheels and castings, 150; Sherwin & Williams, paints, etc., 250; Cleveland Provision Co., provision aud packing house, 225 ; Stafford & Son, soap, 600 ; Murphy & Co., varnishi, 182; Peck, Stow & Wilcox, hardware, 232; Taylor & Boggis Foundry Co., castings, 188 ; Sturtevant Lumber Co., planing-mill, 147; Variety Iron Works Co., ma- chinery and castings, 225 ; Lamson, Sessions & Co., butts and bolts, 300; Woods, Jenks & Co., planing-mill, 100 ; Maher & Brayton, castings, 160; Colwell & Col- lins, bolts and nuts, 150; The Upson Nut Co., nuts, bolts, etc., 122; Hotchkiss & Upson Co., bolts and screws, 350; Riverside Blast Furnace, pig iron, 150; Standard Oil Co., oils, 2,150; Frederick Hempy & Co., packing cases, etc., 180; Central Blast Furnace, pig iron, 175; Grasselli Chemical Co., chemicals, 100; Cleveland Paper Co., paper, 180; White Sewing Machine Co., sewing machines, 505 ; Comey & Johnston, straw goods, 105 ; Felsenheld Bros. & Co., ladies' wraps, 100 ; S. Kennard & Son, shoes, 102 ; The Walker Manufacturing Co., power trans- mitting machinery, 200; Chapin Bolt and Nut Co., bolts and nuts, 186; W. S. Tyler's Wire Works, wire goods, 164; Union Steel Screw Co., wood screws, 190; Standard Lighting Co., incandescent lamps, 106; Brush Electric Light Co., elec- tric machinery, 525 ; Taylor & Boggis Foundry Co., castings, 105; I. N. Topliff Manufacturing Co., carriage hardware, 105; Standard Sewing Machine Co., sew- ing machines, 230; Cleveland Malleable Iron Co., malleable iron, 550; Van Dorn Iron Works, iron specialties, 102; Eberhard Manufacturing Co., malleable iron, 615; Union Rolling Mill Co., iron, 335; American Lubricating Oil Co., oils, 187; F. Mulhauser, shoddies, 310; Beckman, Senior & Co., woolen goods, 100; Cleveland Rolling Mill Co., iron and steel, 4,150; Strong, Cobb & Co., druggists, 662; Publishing House Evangelical Association, publishers, 130; Dangler Stove Manufacturing Co., vapor stoves, etc., 130; H. B. Hunt, sheet iron work, 120.

Lake Commerce .- According to the Marine Record of Cleveland, the total num- ber of hulls and tonnage on the lakes at the close of 1887 was 3,537 vessels with a total tonnage of 905,277 tous.

The custom house report for the same year showed imports of the value of $43,884,336, exports, $34,988,095. Of the imports, iron ore leads, being valued $16,351,126 ; lumber, $9,945,040 ; merchandise, $12,701,200 ; copper, $627,000. Of the exports, merchandise, $12,531,200; coal, $3,540,011; iron (bar, etc.), $1,277,950 ; coal oil, 591,964. Vessels built at the port of Cleveland in 1887- tonnage, 19,000 tons.

The item, export of coal oil, only indicates the little that goes by vessels up the lakes in the sailing season, and in no sense indicates the magnitude of the oil refin- ing industry of Cleveland-the largest in the world.

The population of Cleveland in the year 1840 was 6,071; in 1880, 160,146 ; estimated 1888, 220,000. School census in 1886, 61,654; Burk A. Hinsdale, superintendent.

The following clear, concise outline sketch of Cleveland, its past and present, was written for this work by D. W. Manchester, Secretary of the Western Reserve Historical Society.

Cleveland stands on a broad plateau elevated about eighty feet above the surface of the lake and it is intersected by the Cuyahoga river, some five miles of which is broad, deep, and navigable for the largest steamers and sailing craft.

In the remote cycles of geological times this elevated plain was the bottom of the lake, which in the course of countless ages has receded to its present level, evi- denced by a series of ridges parallel therewith, many miles in length, and extend- ing back several miles to rocky elevations which were its original and primeval shores in the day when these northern waters met and mingled with those of the Gulf of Mexico.

The great plateau was formed during the glacial period and is more than 200

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feet in depth to the underlying rocky foundation. It is composed of alternate strata of Devonian shale, marl, clay, gravel, sand and alluvium, the disintegration of Arctic mountains of rocks, intermingled with boulders of various magnitudes and ancient driftwood, which grew in a once northern tropical climate.

In the sandy and alluvium strata of the cycles are found the bones of many ani- mals, characteristic of the drift period, and notably the tusks and grinders of the elephant, and the skeleton entire of both the elephant and mastodon of gigantic proportions, discovered in the sliding banks of the lake, river or ravines and some- times in excavating cellars. It was, moreover, the home, the cultivated field, the garden and the grave of the northern colony of that prehistoric people the remains of whose wonderful earthwork have given them the designation of Mound-builders. Then came the red man, known to the white man for nearly 400 years as the In- dian, but bringing with him neither knowledge nor tradition concerning the pre- ceding race, or of their mighty works which are an astonishment unto this day.

From 1535 to 1760, two hundred and twenty-five years, the region of the lakes and the territory north of the Ohio river to the Mississippi river, discovered and traversed by the Jesuit missionaries and fur traders, was under the dominion of the king of France, and was designated on the maps as New France, all of which by the fate of war and treaties of peace passed to the English in 1760. During that long period the land was occupied by the native races. There were two pow- erful empires of the aborigines, the East comprising the confederated Six Nations, and the West, of which, as late as 1763, Pontiac was the Napoleon, and the Cuya- hoga river was the boundary line of the two empires on the southerly side of Lake Erie. More than two hundred years ago, on the banks of this boundary stream, Christianity was taught the wild man by the French missionaries, and letters were written to Madame Maintenon, the wife of Louis XIV., now extant in the ar- chives of France, descriptive of the Indians, the lands, the forests and the rivers on the southerly border of Lake Erie, and containing the first description or men- tion on paper of the wonderful falls over which is discharged the blue waters of the magnificent chain of American lakes. When the English came into possession this part of Ohio became a province of Quebec. Immediately following the Rev- olution New York and Virginia ceded to the general government all right to this territory based on expressions in the early colonial charters signifying the exten- sion of the grant to the mythical South sea on the west.

In 1786 Connecticut ceded her claim likewise to the United States, retaining: however, so much thereof as is now known as the Western Reserve.

In July, 1787, the Congress of the Confederation of States passed an act organ- izing the Northwest Territory, and the spring following the first white settlement was made at the month of the Muskingum, on the Ohio river, and in 1789 the first Congress under the Federal Constitution gave the Territory a permanent status among the States of the Republic. Indian wars succeeded, General St. Clair's army was defeated ; but in 1794 Mad Anthony Wayne, at the head of a well- appointed army, subdued the numerous hostile tribes.

Connecticut, in 1792, gave 500,000 acres of the west end of the " Reserve " for the benefit of her citizens who had suffered by the spoliations of the British, since known as the " Fire Lands."

In 1795 Connecticut sold the remainder of the Reserve lands east of the Cuya- hoga river, a little more than 3,000,000 acres, to a syndicate of her citizens, who organized themselves into an association under the name of the Connecticut Land Company, the interests of the company being managed by seven directors.

General Moses Cleaveland, a lawyer of Canterbury, Windham county, Conn., was appointed general agent of the company. In the spring of 1796 a large sur- veying party was organized, of which General Cleaveland was appointed superin- tendent. On the 4th of July of that year the party arrived on the territory of the Reserve. It having been determined by the company to lay out a capital town on an eligible site, the high and beautiful plateau at the mouth of the Cuya-

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hoga, on the east side thereof, was selected, and here in September, 1796, the then future city was surveyed, mapped, and named in honor of their chief by his asso- ciates. He was emphatically a gentleman of fine acquirements, polished manners and unquestioned integrity. When the surveying party returned to their homes in the East, only three white persons were left on the Reserve-Job Stiles and his wife and Joseph Landon. The last named soon left and was succeeded by Edward Paine, afterwards General Paine of Painesville, who boarded with the Stiles, and was an Indian trader.

General Cleaveland never afterwards returned to the infant settlement, but died at his native home in 1806, too soon to see the wonderful growth of the city to which he gave his name.

The year 1797 brought James Kingsbury and his family to Cleveland. He was born in Connecticut, but came to the Reserve front Alsted, New Hampshire. Also Lorenzo Carter and Ezekiel Hawley, his brother-in-law, with their families. This year occurred the birth of the first white child, that of Mr. Stiles. Daniel Eldridge, one of the old surveying party, coming back to the settlement, died and was buried in the first selected cemetery, long since abandoned, now in the heart of the busy city. The first wedding was that of Chloe Inches, a servant in the family of Mayor Carter, who married a Canadian, Mr. Clement, by the Rev. Seth Hart, who had been of the surveying party. In 1799 Rodolphus Edwards and Nathaniel Doan came to the then city on paper. There were a few other names which might be mentioned as being on the ground during the year above men- tioned, but Carter, Kingsbury, Edwards and Doane were the real primeval pioneers, whose names are best known to the present generation as men of gen- erous spirit, great endurance and noble deeds, the advance guard of civilization prior to the year 1800.

In 1801 SAMUEL HUNTINGTON, a nephew of Gov. Huntington, of Connecticut, a lawyer of the age of about thirty-five years, settled in Cleveland. He was a member of the first Constitutional Convention, the first State Senator of the county, then Trumbull, presided over that body, was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court in 1803, and elected Governor in 1808. He resided in a block house on Superior street, near where now stands the American Honse.

Cuyahoga county was created in 1810, Cleveland being the county-seat. The first Court of Record was held in a frame building on the north side of Superior street, June 5, 1810, Judge Ruggles presiding. John Walworth was Clerk of the Court and S. S. Baldwin the Sheriff. In 1812 the first court-house, of logs, was erected on the public square, and in the same year the first execution occurred, that of Omic, the Indian, being hanged for the murder of two white men near Sandusky.

Cleveland was granted a village charter at the winter legislative session of 1814-15. The next year " The Commercial Bank of Lake Erie" was established, with Leonard Case as president.

The Episcopal church was established in 1817, and ten years later was erected its house of worship, corner of St. Clair and Seneca streets.

In 1827 the Ohio canal was completed as far south as Akron, and in 1832 it was in operation from Lake Erie to the Ohio river, resulting in advancing the commercial prosperity of Cleveland and a rapid increase of population. In im- mediate connection with this great public work was the improvement of the har- bor, for which Congress had made an appropriation of $5,000. Small as the appropriation seems now, it sufficed, by honest management and the volunteer help of citizens, to cut a new channel for the river a few rods east of its natural bed and outlet into the lake and the building of piers.

In the same year of 1827 the Presbyterian congregation was incorporated. The society had been in existence sinee 1820, having been organized in the oid log court-house with fourteen members, and in 1834 the first stone church on the north side of the public square was dedicated. It was burnt in 1858, and the

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present noble structure immediately arose from its ashes. The Methodist Confer- ence, in 1830, established a station here, Rev. Plimpton holding the charge. In 1833 the First Baptist Society was organized with twenty-seven members, and erected a church edifice of brick on the corner of Seneca and Champlain streets, which remains there yet, although long since abandoned for religious purposes for . a more pleasant locality and a more elegant structure. The pioneer Roman Cath- olic church came in 1835 and built a house of worship in the valley on Columbus street. The same year the Bethel was built on Water street for the use of sailors ; and in 1839 the Hebrew congregation established their first synagogue, and built soon after a fine brick edifice on Eagle street. In less than fifty years all these religions societies, denominations, churches and synagogues have flourished and multiplied in numbers and increased in wealth and influence, and all have been blessed with the happiness resulting from the consciousness that each institution has been guided and instructed by its respective rector, minister, priest and rabbi, ever earnest and faithful in his clerical ministrations, and not a few of whom have been pre-eminent for scholarly attainments and elegance of discourse.

As early as 1786 there was a trading-post at the mouth of the Cuyahoga river to facilitate the transshipment of flour and bacon brought overland from Pitts- burg, destined thence by water to the military post at Detroit, being the first lake traffic at this point. The commercial marine of the lakes, now surpassing that of the Mediterranean, had its genesis in the " Griffin," a vessel of sixty tons, built on the Niagara river above the Falls, by La Salle, for exploring service, and sailed on its mission of discovery August 7, 1678. The first vessel launched at Cleve- land was a sloop of thirty tons, built in 1808 by the famous pioneer, Lorenzo Carter, and named the "Zepher." From the "Griffin " and the " Zepher " to the year 1887 the lake marine has developed into the enormous proportion of 3,502 vessels of all classes-steamers and sail-craft-with a total tonnage of 905,277.57 tons, according to the excellent authority of the editor of the Marine Record, of Cleveland.

For nearly twenty years ferocious wild beasts of the dense forests in and sur- rounding Cleveland annoyed and terrified the inhabitants. Bears entered their gardens and dwellings even in the daytime, and at night invaded the barnyards and pigsties, killing and carrying off young porkers, calves, and sheep; and wolves beset the night traveller on streets and avenues now lined with costly residences and palatial mansions.

In 1820 a stage line was established between Cleveland and Columbus, and coaches were run to Norwalk ; soon thereafter to Pittsburg and Buffalo. For thirty years this system of passenger travel flourished in all gayety, splendor, and excitement along the several routes, enlivening villages and awakening lone hamlets.

Cleveland was during that period a noted centre of the stage lines between the East and the West and South, until that system of travel was superseded by the railway system, about 1850, when the blast from the bugle and the crack of the stage-driver's whip was no more heard along the turnpike on the high and dry parallel ridges and ancient shores of Lake Erie.

The first railway charter was that of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, followed soon by the Cleveland and Pittsburg, Cleveland and Toledo, and the Cleveland and Ashtabula, or Lake Shore, connecting with the New York Central and New York and Erie. Thus, as early as 1852, a complete line was in opera- tion from the sea-coast to Chicago, and even to Rock Island, on the Mississippi river. This last great modern system of travel and transport had the immediate effect of sweeping from the chain of lakes, as it had the stages from the land, the line of splendid side-wheel steamers and floating palaces that for many years had plied between Buffalo and Chicago, each crowded with hundreds of passengers.

The railroads changed the order of business at Cleveland, and for a brief season the lake commerce at this port presented a gloomy aspect, and total ruin of the

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marine industry was prophesied. Fortunately, however, the Cleveland and Ma- honing Valley railroad was soon completed, extending into the great coal-fields, and opening up a new territory to trade, and laying the foundation and stimulat- ing manufacturing enterprises, resulting eventually in the creation here of an industrial and producing centre now pre-eminent among the cities of the lakes. Two other railroads within the last decade have been added to the railway system : the Valley railroad, along a portion of the line of the Ohio canal, and the Connot- ton Valley railroad, both leading into the great southern and eastern coal belt.

THE PERRY STATUE, MONUMENTAL PARK.

With these facilities and the simultaneous opening up of the vast iron and copper regions of Lake Superior, the wonderful and almost mysterious alliance of coal and iron and fire along the banks of the lake and river, within the limits of Cleveland, has resulted in vast iron furnaces, rolling mills, and many branches incident thereto, such as wire mills, nuts and bolts, screws, shovels, engines, and machinery, together with every conceivable branch of manufacturing industry, from the great tube and exquisitely adjustable mechanism of the Lick telescope to a shingle-nail. Here coal and iron meet, and in their resulting industries.

The central lowlands and broad meadows on either side of the wide navigable river for a distance of several miles are the sites of hundreds of great manufactur- ing plants, whose lofty smokestacks give daily and often nightly evidence of per- petual industry, while the broad and elevated plateaus for five miles distant on both sides are densely covered with mercantile houses, public buildings, mansions of the millionaires, and the more modest but goodly homes of 300,000 people.

Cleveland's municipal existence dates from 1836, with John W. Willey, an eminent lawyer, as its first mayor. At that date the west side of the river con- stituted Ohio City, but, in 1854, it was united with Cleveland, and William B. Castle was the first mayor after the union, the population being at the following census (1860) 44,000. The city had already been lighted with gas.

The first great public enterprise after the union was in supplying the city with water pumped from a great distance from the lake shore to a reservoir on the most el vated land, the height thereof being artificially increased about a hundred feet,

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and from thence distributed, and from time to time since extended until nearly every street, house, and building enjoys the blessing of pure lake water, bountifully supplied.

In the possession of parks and public grounds the city is pre-eminently for- tunate. In addition to the central park of ten acres laid out by the original sur- vey, and since the erection of the statue of Commodore Perry, in 1860, called Monumental Park, LAKE VIEW PARK has been created along the sloping bluff from Seneca street east to Erie street, and is adorned and embellished in the best style of the landscape-gardener's art. THE CIRCLE is a finely ornamented

GARFIELD'S MONUMENT, LAKE VIEW CEMETERY.

ground on Franklin avenue, west side, from which radiates several streets. It has a central rock structure in primitive style; moss and vine, covered with water jets, rivulets, and drinking fountains-a delightful summer evening resort. WADE PARK came to the city already laid out and adorned through the munifi- cence of Mr. J. H. Wade, of electrical fame. It has an area of some sixty-five acres of ravine and upland level, traversed by a bountiful and ever-living stream of pure water, fed by the not far distant hills; is shaded with abundant trees and profuse with native and cultivated shrubbery, and is almost limitless in its extent of walks and drives.

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 79

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 1006

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006