History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Part 14

Author: Johnson, Crisfield
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Number of Pages: 716

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Even in summer these rude highways were by no means easy to travel. It is narrated that in 1819 a resident of Hudson, Summit county, who had a fine team of which he was especially proud, drove up to the door of Noble H. Merwin's hotel in Cleveland. just as the guests of the latter were sitting down to supper.

"Ah!"' said the landlord, "are you just from Hud- son?"

"Yes," replied the traveler.

"How long have you been on the road?" queried Merwin.

"Oh, I came through to-day," responded the other with manifest pride.

"What!" exclaimed mine host. " came through from Hudson in one day-you don't say so?"

" Fact, upon honor," responded the owner of the team.

"Come out here; come out here," eried the excited landlord to the ocenpants of the supper table; " here is a man who has come through from Hudson to- day;" and forthwith all rushed out to gaze on this extraordinary phenomena. As the distance from Cleveland to Hudson was only twenty-four miles, it may be presumed that the roads must have been something terrible to make such a day's journey seem remarkable.

The second newspaper in the county, and the oldest one now surviving, was the Cleveland Herald, which was first published in 1819. In the carly tiles we have found many incidents bearing upon the history of the county at that period.

The militia was then an institution of much more consequence than at present, and the number of divisions, brigades and regiments, with their cor- responding major-generals, brigadier-generals and colonels was something almost tremendous. Among numerous other cases we notice that in June, 1820, Colonel Daniel Miles was elected brigadier-general in place of General Lewis R. Dille, of Euclid, resigned. The " general training " of those days was next to the 4th of July the great holiday of the summer season. When a regiment of four hundred or tive hundred men, dressed in sheep's gray and blue jeans, and many of them in their shirt sleeves, armed with ritles, muskets and fowling-pieces of every pattern, stood in irregular line m some convenient meadow, while the colonel, glorious in brass buttons, with epauleis as large as tea-plates, and a cocked hat of tremendous circumference, dashed up and down the lines on the best farm horse to be obtained for love or money-ah, then indeed the assembled boyhood of all the country round felt that, the acme of glory had been reached, and that with such defenders Columbia was safe from all her foes.

But the most dangerous foes of the people of Cuya- hoga at this time were not the embattled legions of

GENERAL HISTORY OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

Europe, but the wolves which devoured their sheep and the bears which ate up their hogs. To reduce the number of these enemies, to obtain their skins and to supply themselves with venison, as well as for the sport afforded, hundreds of young and middle- aged men made a specialty of hunting during the winter months.

But there were in some localities large tracts which, usually on account of their swampy nature, were the especial resort of wild animals. Occasionally, after the farmers' sheep had suffered severely from wolves which harbored in such a tract, the people would turn out from far and near to surround and clear ont the haunt of the marauders. The most celebrated of all these grand battues in this part of the State was the " Ilinekley hunt," which took place in December, 1818. The township of Hinckley, which was the scene of the great raid, was just outside of Cuyahoga county: lying immediately south of Royalton, and being now the northeasternmost township of Medina county-yet as huntsmen participated in it from all parts of Cuyahoga, even from as far as Euclid, we have chosen it as a specimen of the onslaughts occa- sionally made on the denizens of the forest by the pioneers of northern Ohio.

Notice having been given throughout Cuyahoga and Medina counties, including the present county of Summit, nearly five hundred hunters, all eager for the fray, assembled one cold morning in December on the borders of the wolf-haunted township. A com- mander in chief was chosen by universal suffrage, as well as four captains, one for each side of the area to be enclosed. Squire Ferris, of Royalton, was the captain on the northern side. Then the commander sent his companies to the right and left, and in due time the whole township was enclosed by what in mil- itary phrase would be called a skirmish line, with the men fifteen or twenty rods apart. There was at that time only one family living in Hinckley ; so that the assailants had a clear field.

Next, the word was started from the northeast cor- ner of the township, " All ready."

"All ready," repeated the men, one after another, and the word quickly went around the township and came back to the northeast corner.

" Forward march !" shouted the chief. "Forward march !" repeated the men in succession, and the four lines moved forward toward the center of the township. At intervals along the line good woods- men were placed, with special instructions to take a straight direction to the center of Hinckley, to whose movement the others were directed to conform, grad- ually closing up as they progressed. The venerable Abial Ilaynes, of Strongsville, though then but a youth, was one of the linesmen, or " guides," and has given us a description of the principal events of this exciting day.

Ere the lines had marched a mile toward the center a few deer were seen, a part of which were killed while others sped away in the opposite direction from

the crackling rifles. After the first mile bears began to be observed. Mr. Haynes and John Hilliard met one and both fired at once, at a distance of a few rods. Both balls struck him and he fell, but immediately scrambled up and "loped " back into the forest. Ile was soon killed, however, and was found to weigh six hundred pounds ; being almost as heavy as a small Ox.

The lines marched on and deer became extremely numerous, while bear were quite frequent. There was a continuous fusilade along the line as bucks, and does, and fawns fell in rapid succession before the rifles of the hunters. Those that did not fall gener- ally ran back from the line of death-dealing riflemen, but occasionally some brave old buck would fling his antlered head aloft, burst through the line of his foes, perchance escape their bullets, and dash away to seek a more healthy residence.

Turkies, too, flew up in enormous numbers; so that it was said in somewhat exaggerated phrase that every bullet fired that day killed a turkey. Turkies and deer were so numerous that their deaths caused no excitement, but when a bear curled up to die a tri- umphant shout was raised by his conquerors, which was echoed far along the line.

All this while not a wolf was to be seen ; the wary rascals snuffed danger from afar and retreated as fast as possible from the sound of the deadly ritles. As wolves were the very animals it was most desirable to kill, some disappointment was felt at their non-ap- pearance, but the old hunters were certain they had retreated toward the center and encouraged the others to press on.

When within abont two miles of the middle of the township the fun became fast and furious The men were now but four or five rods apart and it was very difficult for anything to escape between them. Never- theless, at one time fifty or sixty deer, in one fright- ened herd, made a dash at the line ; the antlered lead- ers bounding five or six feet from the ground, and all snorting with frantic terror. Most of them escaped, in spite of the rattling fusilade with which they were assailed on either side. Scarce a moment passed in which a deer was not seen bounding with all the speed of terror through the forest, or a bear lumbering along at his best pace, but far too slowly to escape the vengeance of his unsparing foes. Crack ! crack ! went the rifles with scarcely a moment's intermission; corpses strewed the ground on every side and the ex- cited hunters, with all the enthusiasm of victorious soldiers, pressed forward with flying feet.

Still no wolves.

When the last square mile in the center of the township was reached the deer had entirely disap- peared ; all were slain or had broken through the lines and escaped. The bears, too, had become scarce; only three or four being killed on the last square mile. The men were now within a few paces of each other, and eager as so many bloodhounds. At length a gaunt gray form was seen gliding among the trees.

FROM THE WAR TO THE CANAL.

"A wolf ! a wolf !" cried those who saw it. Half a dozen rifles were fired at once, and the enemy of the sheep-fold was numbered with the slain. Another and another were soon seen and dispatched. As the deadly lines, now closing into a circle, pressed forward to the center, the grisly prowlers were seen running hither and thither, as terrified as the lambs they had formerly pursued. Caution, was now necessary lest the bullets of the hunters should wound their friends on the other side of the circle, but caution was a dif- ficult virtue among such an excited and jubilant crowd. However, it must have been exercised to some extent ; for none of the hunters were killed or wounded,

At last the triumphant riflemen closed swiftly in together, the last wolf went down beneath their bullets, the circle became a band, and a succession of ringing cheers gave vent to their excited feelings.

On counting up their victims, eight wolves were found (all killed on the last square mile); a number which, though not large in comparison with that of the other animals, was sufficient to carry destruction into hundreds of flocks of sheep.

Twenty bears were also found " weltering in their gore " on the field of battle, eighteen of which were drawn together and fung into a shaggy heap. Of deer, no less than two hundred and sixty were drawn together in the same manner. The hunters certainly could not complain that this was " not a good day for deer." As we have before mentioned, many of these fleet-footed foresters escaped, but Mr. Haines stated that he believed that all of the bears and wolves in the township were killed. At all events the hunt completely broke up the haunt of wolves which had previously existed there, and for a time, at least, there was peace for the neighboring sheep.

There were other grand battues of the same descrip- tion in and near the county, but the Hinckley hunt was the most celebrated and most successful of them all, and its description will suffice for either of the others.

In 1820 a step farther in advance was made when a line of coaches was put on the route from Cleveland to Columbus, passing through the townships of Brook- lyn, Parma, the corner of Royalton, Strongsville, and so on through Medina county. Those were dire- ful times for travelers. In summer the big coaches bowled along with comparative ease, save when one of the wheels jolted over the root of an overshadowing vak, or collided with the stump of a lately felled beech. Even these disturbances did not prevent the closely packed passengers from beguiling their way with many a pleasant tale, until " stage-coach stories " have become renowned for their wit and jollity. In winter, too, by curling up in the bottom of the sleigh, surrounded with plenty of buffalo and bear skins, the travelers could generally manage to perform their journey with considerable rapidity, and without more discomfort than an occasional " frosted " car or nose.

But alas for the unfortunate man doomed to a stage-coach journey in the spring or fall. He was sure to be called on to go on foot a large portion of the time, and was often expected to shoulder a rail and carry it from mudhole to mudhole, to pry out the vehicle in which he was in theory supposed to be rid- ing. "To go on foot and carry a rail," and to pay a stage company for the privilege, was a mode of trav- eling very widely celebrated but extremely unpleasant. Not only were roads poor but bridges were scarce. There was not one across the Cuyahoga river in the county. A notice was published in April, 1820, by which " all having an interest in or wishes concerning the building of a bridge across the river at or near Cleveland are requested to meet at the court-house, to consult in relation thereto."

As a marked example of what must seem to our readers the extreme slowness with which the news was carried in those days, we may mention that while King George the Third, of England, died on the 29th day of January, 1820, the announcement of his death was not made in the Cleveland Herald until the 28th of March, (two months lacking a day after the event took place).

The commerce of the lake slowly but steadily in- creased. The Herald of April 25, 1820, reported the following clearances at the " port of Cuyahoga " in a single week: Cleared; schooner "Fairplay," Johnson master, loaded with pork, flour, whisky and passen- gers; schooner " Commodore Perry," Tayler master, for Detroit, loaded with flour, beef, cattle, etc .; schooner "American Eagle," Gaylord master, loaded with produce; schooner " Friendship," Kelly master, also loaded with produce. The arrival of some of the same vessels from Detroit was noted, but the nature of their cargoes was not mentioned.

It will be observed that flour is spoken of as going both up and down the lake. In the latter case it was doubtless used by the garrisons of the posts on the upper lakes, or by the settlers of Michigan who had not yet raised erops. This was about the beginning of the great trade in grain and breadstuffs along the upper lakes, which has already grown to such enor- mous proportions.

In this year (1820) the first legislative action was taken in regard to the construction of a canal from Lake Erie to the Ohio river. An act was passed by the legislature providing for the appointment of three canal commissioners, who were authorized to employ a competent engineer and assistants, for the purpose of making preliminary surveys of some of the routes considered most available for the proposed work.

In 1822 HIon. Alfred Kelly, of Cleveland, was ap- pointed one of the canal commissioners, and for many years thereafter was busily and zealously engaged in forwarding the construction of the canal, and in other public services. Hon. James Geddes, of New York, one of the principal engineers of the Erie canal, was employed to make a survey of the routes of the Ohio canal.

GENERAL HISTORY OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

Prices of all kinds of farm produce were exceeding- ly low: the following being a list of the prices paid in Cleveland in January, 1822: Flour, two dollars and a half per barrel; wheat, thirty-seven cents to fifty cents per bushel; rye, thirty-one cents; corn, twenty- five cents; oats, nineteen cents; beans, fifty cents; flax seed, fifty cents; peas, forty-four to fifty cents; rye, thirty-one cents; butter, eight to ten cents per pound; cheese, four to six cents; lard, four to five cents; pork, two to three and a half cents; beef, three to four cents; tallow, eight to ten cents; whisky, twenty to twenty-six cents per gallon; wood, thirty to fifty cents per eord; hay, six to seven dollars per ton.

It was pretty hard to raise wheat and sell it for thirty-seven eents a bushel, but on the other hand with whisky only twenty cents a gallon the people were doubtless reasonably happy. For there is no use in evading the unquestionable fact - the sturdy pioneers who destroyed the wild beasts, leveled the forests and subdued the virgin soil of Cuyahoga county, were as a general rule decidedly fond of whisky. Every township had one or more distilleries, where the article was manufactured in the cheapest possible manner, and each had plenty of customers in its own vicinity. Whisky was an important item at every "raising" or " logging-bee," or other assem- blage of the people, and was in frequent use in the houses of the most reputable classes.

It should be remembered, however, that men who spent twelve hours a day chopping, logging, plowing, splitting rails, etc., could more easily "work off" the effect of frequent drams of liquor than could their degenerate descendants, who think eight hours consti- tutes a hard day's work, and many of whom do no hard work at all.

General training was one of the occasions at which a liberal use of whisky was considered to be the proper thing, notwithstanding the requirements of discipline. The officers couldn't keep whisky out of camp, although there was an abundant supply of those dig- nitaries. This was a part of the ninth division, Ohio militia. Among the numerous notices and orders which appeared within a few months, in 1822, we observe one direeting the members of the first com- pany of cavalry, second brigade, ninth division, Ohio militia, to hold an election for company officers at the court-house; signed by the brigadier-general, per Jolm W. Wiley, aide. Also one requiring the first artillery company of the first regiment, fourth brigade, ete., to meet to elect officers; signed by P. M. Wed- dell, captain. Another ordering the company officers of the first regiment, etc., to meet to elect a major; signed by P. Baldwin, colonel.

A short time afterwards the following staff and non-commissioned-staff officers of the first regiment were announced by II. Wellman, colonel: Donald McIntosh, surgeon; S. A. Henderson, surgeon's mate; Runey R. Baldwin, adjutant; John H. Camp, quartermaster; Horace Perry, paymaster; William

S. Chapman, sergeant-major; John O. Millard, fife- major; Barzilla B. Burk, drum-major.

Capital of all kinds was scarce, and this fact of course retarded the general progress of the county. Yet the absence of large amounts of capital encour- aged men with a little money to embark in various small industries, in different parts of the county, which have now passed away. If a man wanted to start a little business of any kind, and had barely enough to begin with, he could go ahead in compara- tive safety; there was no danger of any "bloated cap- italist" crushing out his enterprise by driving him into a hopeless competition.

Thus Leonard Marsilliott, of Euclid, for a long time maintained a stoneware factory in that township, which had a wide reputation for the excellence of its productions. A little later there was a ship and boat- building establishment in the same township, more fully described in the special history of Enelid. An- other industry of the period (1822, etc. )-a somewhat eurions one-was a castor-oil factory, situated in the township of Brooklyn, a mile from Cleveland, That fragrant business, we imagine, has entirely passed away from the county.

We now come to a material change in the western boundaries of Cuyahoga county. By a law passed on the 26th day of December, 1822, the county of Lorain was established. It embraced a large part of Huron county, and took from Cuyahoga the townships of Troy (now Avon), Ridgeville, Eaton, Columbia, and the west part of Lenox (now Olmstead). It will be observed that Troy (Avon) and Ridgeville then ex- tended to Black river, which was the western bound- ary of Cuyahoga county.

The new county was not organized at that time, and the townships named in the last paragraph re- tained temporarily attached to Cuyahoga county. A list of the civil townships of the latter county, which appeared in October, 1823, was as follows: Cleveland, Chagrin (now Willoughby), Brooklyn, Brecksville, Bedford, Columbia, Dover, Euclid, Eaton, Independ- ence, Mayfield, Newburg, Orange, Ridgeville, Royal- ton, Rockport, Strongsville, Troy (Avon), and War- rensville. Nineteen in all: the same number as there are at present (aside from Cleveland)-the number of those which have been detached having been made good by new formations.

On the first day of April, 1824, Lorain county was duly organized, and the territory above described was permanently detached from Cuyahoga county. The west half of Lenox (Olmstead) was then made a part of Ridgeville, Lorain county, while the east half was attached to Middleburg, Cuyahoga county.

We said the territory in question was "perma- nently " detached from Cuyahoga county. That is to say, the detachment was intended to be permanent, but in regard to the west half of Lenox it was not so. The residents of Lenox were much dissatisfied with the decree which had eut their thriving young town- ship in twain, and had placed the severed halves in

FROM THE WAR TO THE CANAL.

two different counties, and three years later they pro- enred the passage of an act, dated January 29, 1827, by which the west half of the township in question was set back into Cuyahoga, where the two portions, once more united, became the township of Olmstead. as narrated in its special history. The facts men- tioned in this paragraph are a little in advance of the period allotted to the present chapter, but we want to close the account in regard to the western boundary of the county. No changes have been made in it from the reannexation of the west half of Lenox to the present time.

From a easnal record we learn that the white males, over twenty-one years of age, resident in Cuyahoga county in 1823, numbered sixteen hundred and fifty- five; an average of eighty-seven to each of the nine- teen townships.

Another record of the same year mentions that the State had directed the laying out of a " free road " from Cleveland through Newburg, Bedford and Solon, and so on sontheast, striking the Ohio river in Columbiana county. Samuel Cowles, Esq., of Cleve- land, was one of the commissioners to lay it out.

The first movement was also made this year to turnpike the stage road running from Cleveland southwest through Brooklyn, Parma and Strongsville: and thenee through Medina to Wooster, the county seat of Wayne county. A company was formed. called the Wayne, Medina and Cuyahoga Turnpike Company, and in April, 1823, the books were opened to receive subscriptions to the stock. The move- ment was a snecess, and the turnpike in question became one of the great highways of the State.

By this time, thirteen years after the advent of Dr. David Long, the first physician in the county, the doctors of this and Medina counties (which, by a law of the State, constituted the nineteenth medical dis- triet of Ohio) had become sufficiently mimerous to organize a medical society, and did so in May, 1823. Dr. Long was the first president.

In the antumn of 1824 took place the great quad- rangular contest for the presidency between llenry Clay, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun. The last named gentleman received no votes in this county. Of the others, strange as it may seem, Jackson received very few votes; the strength of the county being divided between Clay and Adams, with the former as a decided favorite. The following table shows the vote by townships. The township of Chagrin (now Willoughby) was included in the list, casting ninety-eight votes, but we have omitted it in order to show the number east in the territory now constituitng Cuyahoga county, except the west half of Olmstead, then attached to Lorain county, and containing but very few voters.

TOWNSHIPS,

CLAY.

ADAMS. JACKSON.

TOTAL.

Bedford

Brooklyn

Brecksville

Cleveland

112

Dover

191

Independence

Middleburg

Newburg

100

Orange

Rockport

Royalton

Strongsville

Warrensville

Aggregate

142

218

It will, perhaps, surprise some of our readers to learn that as late as 1824 the township of Euclid cast seventeen votes (about fifteen per cent.) more than Cleveland, but such was the fact. While the agri- cultural townships made steady progress after the war of 1812, the growth of Cleveland was extremely slow down to the year 1825. It should be remembered, however, that Euclid at that time included the greater part of the present township of East Cleve- land.

In this year (1824) an act was passed directing the laying out of another State road; running from Cleveland through Warrensville and Orange, and thence nearly due east to Kinsman, on the eastern line of the State. It was called the Kinsman road, and the westernmost part of it is now known as Kinsman street, in the city of Cleveland.

The winter of 1824-5 was celebrated for its mildt- ness, and the Cleveland Herald of December 8th re- cords that violets, pinks and marigolds were then in bloom, that pea vines had pods half-grown upon them, and most remarkable of all that ripe strawberries, grown in the open air, had lately been brought into the office.

During the previous tive years engineers had been at work, more or less, making preliminary surveys for the great Ohio canal. Public opinion, too, had been steadily growing more favorable to the proposed enterprise, and at length, on the 4th of February, 1825, a law was passed anthorizing the canal com- missioners to build a canal along the Scioto and Musk- ingum valleys, and thence north to Lake Erie. The commissioners were left free to choose, as to the northern part, between the route by the Cuyahoga valley to Cleveland, and that through Wooster, and down the valley of Black river to its mouth. The seven commissioners (of whom Alfred Kelley, of Cleveland, was one of the most influential), reported in favor of the superior cheapness and convenience of the Cuyahoga route, and it was formally adopted.

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History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Part 14

Author: Johnson, Crisfield Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Johnson, Crisfield
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Number of Pages: 716