Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 80

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 80

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SOUTH SIDE PARK is a fine, level piece of land, covered with native trees, but recently purchased by the city, and not yet developed and beautified to its utmost

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possibilities. It is, however, destined to delight the eye and grace the south side of the municipality.

One hundred years has sufficed to populate a dozen or more municipal ceme- teries, such as Erie, Woodlawn, Monroe, and the consecrated grounds of the Catholic church, all well kept.

Modern culture and taste, accompanied by individual and associated wealth, has largely removed the native dread of death, inspired by the lonely and neglected "graveyard " of primitive times, in the establishment independent of municipal authority, and often remote from eities, of cheerful and ornate cemetery grounds.

LAKE VIEW and RIVERSIDE represent the results of the wealth, forethought, and taste of J. H. Wade and J. M. Curtiss and their associates in the two enter- prises. The first of these cities of the dead overlooks the lake and comprises a tract of upwards of three hundred aeres of wooded hill and dale, of oak and other forest trees. The second overlooks the broad meadows and the winding river.

It has a little over one hundred aeres, with many richly wooded ravines, brooks, and springs utilized in fountains and ponds. It has romantie and shady drives through its numerous dells, aggregating more than five miles, and is one of the most attractive and beautiful resorts of the city's rural suburbs.

While hardly two decades have elapsed since Lake View and Riverside opened their portals, yet the vast number of elaborate monuments and tombs in every conceivable style of monumental art from the monoliths of the Pharaohs and the mausoleums of the Cæsars to modern days, indieates the mighty annual increase of the silent inhabitants of these beautiful cities of the dead.

In pursuance of the terms of annexation several swing bridges were built over the river. and in 1878 the great arched VIADUCT of stone and iron was completed, spanning, the wide valley from plateau to plateau, 3,211 feet in length, 68 feet high, and 64 feet wide, and costing $2,225,000. It has double street railway tronks, carriage ways, and walks on both sides.

THE BRUSH ELECTRIC LIGHT COMPANY'S WORKS.

There is now (1888) in process of construction by the government a harbor of refuge, to enable vessels to enter the port with safety. The anchorage room within the enelosure of the extended breakwater is ample for the entire marine of the lakes, and the water is deep enough to float the largest lake vessels. Estimated cost $2,000,000.

Among the number of manufacturing industries it should be remembered that here is the corporation and plant of the STANDARD OIL COMPANY, whose opera- tions are world-wide, and whose dealings surpass in millions any other known in- stitution in America or Europe. Here also is the BRUSH ELECTRIC LIGHT COMPANY, with its vast manufacturing plant and machinery, and the home of the famous inventor.

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CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

Of the dead, who by their life-deeds and testamentary provisions are canonized as noble benefactors, and as such held in reverent and honored memory, allusion must be here made to William and Leonard Case, Joseph Perkins, Henry Chis- holm, and Amasa Stone.

Of the many persons of great wealth still living, of whose noble and generous deeds it would be pleasant to here record, it would seem invidious to discriminate where space is not adequate to mention all. Suffice it to say, the millionaires of Cleveland are recognized as among its liberal public benefactors.

In addition to its excellent common school system and academical institutions, there may be now reckoned among the literary and scientific advantages of Cleve- land, the ADELBERT COLLEGE; the CASE SCHOOL OF APPLIED SCIENCE, at the head of which is Professor John N. Stockwell, well known to the savants of Europe as an Astronomical Mathematician ; the WESTERN RESERVE HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND MUSEUM, organized in 1867, by Col. Charles Whittlesey, its presi- dent from the first until his death in October, 1886; and Judge Charles C. Bald- win, its present president ; the KIRTLAND SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE, named in honor of the late Professor Jared P. Kirtland, who in his lifetime was called the " Agassiz of the West ;" the Case Library ; the Cleveland Public Library, and three medical colleges. An opera house and five theatres furnish adequate entertainment.

Eight street railroads furnish ample facilities for local passenger transport from the centre to any part of the city, and even into the rural regions beyond its corporate limits.

Hotel accommodations are among the advantages of the city. There are prob- ably more than twenty, all good, but of the famous old ones recently enlarged and refurnished may be noted the Weddell, American, and Forest City ; while of the great modern structures, the Stillman and the Hollenden are unsurpassed.

The summer temperature of Cleveland is delightful. The fresh cool air from the lake prevails throughout the heated term, and the evenings and nights are always pleasantly cool, making the city a delightful refuge from the sultry heat of the inland cities, and thousands from all parts of the country sojourn in the beautiful city during the summer.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

Cleveland has been strong from the beginning in its leading minds in every department of utility. A few representative characters are here brought under notice. First in order comes Gen. MOSES CLEAVELAND, its founder. The name is Saxon, and the family, before the Norman conquest, occupied an extensive landed estate in Yorkshire that was marked by open fissures, called by the Saxons as "clefts," or " cleves," hence the name, which has been variously spelled-Cleff- land, Cliffand, Cleiveland, Cleveland and Cleaveland, which is the way General Moses spelled it, and the place was so spelled until the Cleveland Advertiser was issued in 1830, when the editor, finding the type of his headline too large to extend across his page, dropped the first "a " and made it Cleveland.

All family names in the lapse of time, as is known to every genealogist, have undergone changes, and some so radical that many readers hereof would not know his own could he see it as written by his ancestors in the dim remote. A bit of humor will do no harm just here, the mention of a hypothetical change of a name, that of General Cornwallis, made by a colored man in the long ago, who said, "In de American Rebolution, Gin'ral Washington he shell all de corn ob Gin'ral Corn- wallis and make Gin'ral Cobwallis."

GENERAL MOSES CLEAVELAND was born in Canterbury, Conn., in 1754, graduated at Yale College in 1777, studied and practiced law in his native town. In 1779 he was ap-

pointed by Congress captain of a company of sappers and miners in the army of the United States. He was subsequently a member of the Connecticut Legislature and appointed a

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brigadier-general in the State militia-a posi- tion in that day deemed as one of distin- guished honor. He was also Grand Master of the Masonic Fraternity of the State. He married Esther Champion in 1794, by whom he had four children.

It is said that when he founded the city he

predicted the time would come when it would have as many people as Old Windham, in Connecticut, which was then about 1,500. After laying out the city he returned to Can- terbury, where he died in 1806 aged fifty- three years. He was a large, dignified man, of swarthy complexion, of sedate aspect, and

GENERAL MOSES CLEAVELAND.

often taken for a clergyman. He was very kindly in his nature and of excellent judg- ment.

On the 23d of July, 1888, being the anni- versary of the arrival of Gen. Cleaveland, a fine bronze statue to his memory was unveiled on the public square. It had been erected through the efforts of Mr. Harvey Rice, the venerable president of the Early Settlers' Association, who has done so much for edu- cational and patriotic purposes in a life now prolonged to eighty-nine years.

The work is a circular pedestal of polished granite 7} feet high, surmounted by a life- like statue of the general, 74 feet high, weighing 1,450 pounds, U. S. standard bronze, cut in one piece, representing him in the character of a surveyor in the field, with a Jacob's staff in his right hand and an old- time compass clasped in the elbow of his left arm. On its base is the inscription, "General Moses Cleaveland, Founder of the City, 1796."

JARED POTTER KIRTLAND was born in

Wallingford, Conn., in 1793, and died in Cleveland in 1877, aged eighty-four years. He graduated at the Yale Medical School, and at the age of thirty emigrated to Poland, Ohio, where he practiced his profession and, as before, devoted his leisure to natural science. When a mere yonth at school he had become an expert in the cultivation of fruits and flowers, made his first attempt of new varieties of fruit, and managed a large plantation of white mulberry trees for the rearing of silk worms.

After coming to Ohio he served three terms in the State Legislature, from 1837 to 1842 was medical professor at Willoughby, in 1837 was assistant on the first geological survey of Ohio and made a report on its zo- ology. About 1840 he removed to Rockport, just west of and near Cleveland, and became one of the founders of the Cleveland Medical College. In the civil war he was examining surgeon for recruits and devoted his pay to the Soldiers' Aid Society. He made many investigations in many departments of natural

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history which were published in scientific journals.

In 1845 he was one of the founders of the Cleveland Academy of Natural Science, which in 1865 became the Kirtland Society of Nat- ural History, and to which he gave his rich

collection of specimens. He was a man of great learning and personal magnetism and more than any one of his day was his influ- ence in improving agriculture and horticulture and diffusing a love of natural history through- out the entire Northwest.

Sears fe. N.y

DR. KIRTLAND.

Writes Col. Chas. Whittlesey : "As a nat- uralist he was self-educated. Nature had formed him mentally and physically for that mission. In 1829, while studying the unios or fresh water mussels, he discovered that authors and teachers of conchology had made nearly double the number of species which are warrantable. Names had been given to species to what is only a difference of form, due to males and females of the same species. This conclusion was announced in " Silliman's Journal of Science."

"The fraternity of naturalists in the Uni- ted States and Europe were astonished be- cause of the value of the discovery and the source from whence it came. There were hundreds and probably thousands of profes-

sors who had observed the unios and enjoyed the pleasure of inventing new names for the varieties. A practicing physician in the backwoods of Ohio had shattered the entire nomenclature of the naides. At the Cincin- nati meeting of the American Association in 1852, Professor Kirtland produced specimens of unios of both sexes, from their conception through all stages to the perfect animal and its shell. Agassiz was present and sustained his views and said they were likewise sus- tained by the most eminent naturalists of Europe. It is difficult in a brief paper like this to do justice to the life and character of a man who lived so long laboring incessantly regardless of personal comfort, and did so much to extend the dominion of absolute

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knowledge. Like Cuvier, Agassiz and Tyn- dall, his work has shown that theory and dis- eussion do not settle anything worthy of a place in science, that it is only those who base their conclusions on observed nature whose reputations become permanent."

In person Dr. Kirtland was a large man, with a great heart and lungs and an untiring worker, to whom time was more precious than gold. One who knew him well said of him he possessed more good and useful traits of character than any person he ever knew- so unselfish, social, kind to all-beloved by both old and young he seemed to be happiest when making others happy. He cultivated the taste for the beautiful by distributing freely, at times almost robbing himself of rare fruit or costly plants to distribute to his neighbors. He was a hearty and sineere be- liever in the Christian religion, but adopting no particular religious creed. When near death he wrote: "My family all_attention. Every day growing weaker. The great change must soon occur. On the mercies of a kind Providence who created me, who has sustained and helped me through a long life, I rely with a firm faith and hope. We know not what is beyond the grave. Vast multi- tudes have gone there before us. Love to all. Farewell."

REUBEN WOOD, Governor of Ohio from 1851 to 1853, was born at Royalton, Ver- mont, in 1793, and died in 1864, at his farm

MOSSE

GOVERNOR REUBEN WOOD.

in Rockport. When the war of 1812 broke out he was temporarily living with an uncle in Canada, where he was studying the elas- sies and reading law. He was subjected to military service against his own country. To this he would not submit, and, though placed under guard, succeeded at the hazard of his life in effecting an escape in a small boat across the entire width of Lake On- tario to Saekett's Harbor. He then worked on the home farm to aid his widowed mother and studied law. In 1818 he emigrated to

Cleveland and engaged in the practice of his profession. He was three times elected to the State Senate; in 1830 was elected. President-Judge of the Third Judicial Dis- triet ; in 1833 became Judge of the Supreme Court by the unanimous vote of the Legis- lature ; in 1841 he was re-elected by the same vote, and for three years was the Chief-Justice. He was elected Governor by the Democratic party in 1850 by a ma- jority of 11,000, and re-elected under the new Constitution in 1851 by a majority of 26,000. He resigned to accept the position of consul at Valparaiso, Chili, and later be- came minister.

The elimate proved too delicious ; it seldom or never rained, little else than a continuous calm and sunshine, while humanity there in its stagnation of indolenee and ignorance offered nothing to interest him, In his quick disgust he was stricken with nostalgia as bad as any of our poor soldier boys in the war time, resigned, and came home that he might once again be a sharer in the activities of a wonderfully progressive intellectual people, and again enjoy the sight of a wild, howling storm on Lake Erie. Thus it was that he, whom in the political parlance of the day was called all through Ohio from his great height and residence "the tall chief of the Cuyahogas," returned home to pass the remainder of his days on his noble farm, "Evergreen Place," on the margin of the beautiful lake he loved so well.

Harvey Riee, from whose article in the "Magazine of Western History" we take some of the faets in this personal sketeh and in the two next to follow, writes of him: " Governor Wood was one of nature's no- blemen, large-hearted and generous to a fault. Nature gave him a slim tall figure over six feet in height and replete with brains and mother wit.

He was quiek in his perceptions, an ex- cellent elassical scholar, a man of the people and honored by the people. He possessed tact and shrewdness; his statesmanship ex- hibited to a high degree wisdom and fore- cast, while on the beneh his decisions showed a profound knowledge of law, and erowned his life-work as one of the ablest jurists of the State."

And Judge Thurman, on " Lawyers' Day" Ohio Centennial, Columbus, Wednesday, September 19, 1888, after speaking of the greatness of Thomas Ewiog, thus expressed himself of Governor Wood : "And that un- surpassed nisi prius Judge Reuben Wood, who never left a jury when he charged it, but who was elcar-headed and brainy, and always to the point."

SHERLOCK JAMES ANDREWS, the son of a physician, was born in Wallingford, Conn., in 1801, graduated at Union College, for a time was assistant of Prof. Silliman at Yale, came to Cleveland in 1825, and was one of the long noted law firm of Andrews, Foot & Hoyt. In 1840 he was elected to Congress, in 1848 was elected Judge of the

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Superior Court of Cleveland ; was a mem- ber of the State Constitutional Convention, and died in 1880. He was one of the leaders of the Ohio bar-a man of pure principles and noble aspirations. Learned in the law and of persuasive and somewhat impas- sioned eloquence he was noted for good sense and an electric wit that would convulse alike the court and audience. A brother, also eminent in his profession, John W. Andrews, settled in Columbus, where he yet resides, and in his advanced age is an hon- ored member of the "State Board of Char- ities."

RUFUS P. RANNEY is of Scotch descent. He was born in Blanford, Mass., in 1813, and when a lad of eleven years came with his parents to Freedom, Portage county. He chopped wood at twenty-five cents a cord, and so earned money with which to enter Western Reserve College. Without gradu- ating he travelled on foot to Jefferson, Ash- tabula county, carrying all his worldly goods on his back with a single exception -- an extra shirt that went into his hat. He then entered the law office of Giddings & Wade. When Mr. Giddings was elected to Congress, he formed a partnership with Mr. Wade. At the age of thirty-two he opened a law office at Warren. He was twice put in nomination by the Democratic party for Congress. In 1851 he was a member of the Constitutional Convention, und, although a young man, was regarded s 'ts Hercules. He has been twice a Judge o\ the Supreme Bench, and was once the Den ocratic candi- date for Governor against Mr. Dennison just before the war, and when that ensned made speeches to secure enlistments.

As a lawyer he stands with scarcely an equal in the State. Harvey Rice wrote of him : "Judge Ranney is not only born a logician, but has so improved nature's gifts as to become a most learned if not match- less reasoner. His mental powers are gigantic. In a great case, knarled and knotted as it may be, he always proves himself equal to its clear exposition and logical solu- tion. And yet he is modest even to tim- idity. His presence is dignified, and he is a man who has ripened into a noble man- hood."

HENRY CHISHOLM, who was the founder and President of the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, the largest establishment of the kind in the world, was born in Lochgelly. Fifeshire, Scotland, in 1822. He was by trade a carpenter, and when twenty years old landed at Montreal an almost penniless youth. He became a master-builder, worked for a time on the Cleveland breakwater, and in 1857 founded, at Newburg, the iron manufacturing firm of Chisholm, Jones & Co., from which beginning arose " the great establishment, the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, which is the pride of Cleve- land and one of the marvels of modern times ; " employing in all 8,000 workmen. His brother, three years younger, WILLIAM CHISHOLM, the inventor, jomed him in

1857, and later engaged in the manufacture of spikes, bolts, and horse-shoes, and after demonstrating by experiments the practica- bility of the manufacture of screws from Bessemer steel, in 1871 organized the Union Steel Company of Cleveland. He after- wards devised new methods and machinery for manufacturing steel-shovels, spades and scoops, and established a factory for the new industry. In 1882 he began to make steam- engines of a new model, adapted for hoisting and pumping, and transmitters for carrying coal and ore between vessels and railroad cars.

CHARLES FRANCIS BRUSH, electric in- ventor, was born in Euclid, Cuyahoga

CHAS. F. BRUSH, ELECTRICIAN.

county, in 1840, the son of a farmer, and was educated at the University of Michigan. When a mere youth of fifteen he constructed microscopes and telescopes for himself and companions, and devised a plan for turning on gas in street-lamps and lighting and then extinguishing it. After returning from col- lege he fitted up a laboratory and obtained a fine reputation as an analytical chemist.

In 1875 he turned his attention to electric lighting. "The probability of producing a dynamo machine that could produce the proper amount and kind of electrical current for operating several lamps was submitted to him, and in less than two months a ma- chine was built so perfect and complete that for ten years it has continued in regular use without change. A lamp that then could work successfully on a circuit with a large number of other lamps, so that all would burn uniformly, was then necessary, and this he produced in a few weeks. These two in- ventions were successfully introduced in the United States during 1876. Since then he has produced more than fifty patents, two- thirds of which are sources of revenue. They relate principally to details of his two leading inventions-the dynamo and the lamp-and to methods of their production. All of his patents, present and future, are

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the property of the Electric Brush Company of Cleveland, and his foreign patents are owned by the Anglo-American Brush Elec- tric Light of London. Pecuniary rewards and honors liave been awarded him; the French government decorated him "Cheva- lier of the Legion of Honor." Mr. Brush is of commanding presence, uncommonly fine physique, and his residenee is one of the palatial mansions for which Euelid Avenue is famed. He is yet a hard worker, his mind absorbed in invention and discovery. Such men are benefactors beyond the power of expression.

JOHN HENRY DEVEREUX, who died in Cleveland in 1886, at the age of fifty-four years, was one of the most efficient railroad managers and foremost railroad men in the country. He was born in Boston, and when sixteen years of age came to Northern Ohio, and eventually served as construction engi- neer on several railroads. When the eivil war arose he was in Tennessee oceupying a very prominent position in his profession, when he offered his services to the govern- ment and became Superintendent of the Military Railroads in Virginia. Here the . executive capacity he displayed in bringing order out of confusion, overcoming ap- parently insurmountable obstacles to move the armies and supply transportation, was the wonder and admiration of the highest officers of the government. In 1864 he re- turned to Cleveland, and in succession be- came President of the C. C. C. & I., the A. & G. W. and of the I. & St. L. By his personal courage in 1877 he prevented 800 of his men from joining in the railroad riots.

The name LEONARD CASE, father and son, each thus named alike, will long recall pleas- ant associations with Cleveland people. The elder, who died here in 1864, at the age of eighty, was a native of Pennsylvania. He came to Cleveland from Warren, Trumbull county, in 1816, and followed the business of a lawyer, banker, and land agent. He took a warm interest in the progress of Cleveland ; is said to have begun the work of planting the trees whose luxuriant foliage now so pleasantly adorns the "Forest City." He was the president of the village, the first county auditor, a great friend of the canals, and one of the projectors of the first railroad -the C. C. & C. With the great growth of 'nis fortunes he enlarged his benefaetions. His son, lately also deceased, inheriting his father's disposition and fortune, made a crowning gift of the Case Building, valued at $300,000, to the Cleveland Library Associa- tion, a gift seldom equalled in the annals of private munificenee.

EDWIN COWLES, one of the veteran editors and printers of Ohio, is of Puritan stock, born of Connecticut parents, in 1825, in Aus- tinburg, Ashtabula county. He learned the printing business in the office of the Cleve- land Herald, now the Leader, of which he is the editor. In the winter of 1854-55 he was one of those who, in the editorial room of his

paper, took the initiatory steps for the forma- tion of the Republican party of Ohio, whien was a consolidation of the Free Soil, Know- Nothing, and Whig parties, into one great party

EDWIN COWLES.

In 1861 he first suggested in his paper the nomination by the Republican party of David Tod, a war-Democrat, to unite all the loyal elements in the cause of the Union ; and, in 1863, in like manner suggested that of John Brough, both of which were acted upon, and with most excellent results. Immediately after the Union defeat at Bull Run he wrote an editorial headed, "Now is the Time to Abolish Slavery !"' Strong in his feelings, fearless, outspoken, and an untiring worker, he has been a living, aggressive force in Cleveland.

In 1870, perceiving the great peril to life from the various railroad crossings in the val- ley of the Cuyahoga, between the heights of the east and west sides of Cleveland, he con- ceived the idea of a high bridge, or viaduct as it is generally called, to span the valley and Cuyahoga river, connecting the two hill-tops. thus avoiding going up and down hill and crossing the "valley of death." He wrote an elaborate editorial favoring the city's build- ing the viaduct. His suggestion met with fierce opposition from the other city papers, it being considered by them utopian and un- necessary ; but it was submitted to the popular vote, and carried by an immense majority. This great work, costing nearly $3,000,000, is one of the wonders of Cleve- land.

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 80

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