History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Part 15

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

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This opens a new era in the history of the county, and we will, therefore, at this point begin a new chapter.

Euclid

Mayfield

GENERAL HISTORY OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

CHAPTER XIII.

PROGRESS, INFLATION AND "HARD TIMES."

Work begun on the Canal-Growth of Cleveland Completion of Erie Canal -First Appropriation for Harbor -The "Superior "-Increasing Business-"Black Salts" -Cleveland and Newburg Contest over Court-House-Cleveland Successful-Erecting New Court House- " The Blue Jug" Cuyahoga County Colonization Society -The Canal opened to Akron-Celebration under Difficulties-Trade with the Northwest -A County Wolf-Bounty- Horse Thieves aud Counter- feiters-Discount on Bank Bills -- Hard Times for Creditors-Rails at Ten Cents Each-Sale of Western Reserve School Lands -- Land begins to rise-Laying out of Ohio City-Modest Railroads-Others not so Modest-The Ohio Railroad -The Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus Road-The Cleveland, Warren and Pittsburg Road-The "Flush Times " Immense Increase of Paper Money-Intlation of Values- Special Speculation on the Cuyahoga-The Climax in 1830- The Great Crash in 1837- Failure of Banks and Individuals -Stoppage of Public Works-"Hard Times "-The Patriot War-Deer feeding with the Cows.

WORK was speedily commenced at various points along the route of the canal; ground being broken at Cleveland on the 4th of July, 1825. At that time begins the rapid growth of Cleveland. Though laid ont nearly thirty years before, it was in 1825 a mere village of five or six hundred inhabitants; but from the beginning of the Ohio canal to the present time its growth has been one of the marvels even of the marvelous West.

In the autumn of the same year the Erie canal was completed, and boats were set running between Albany and Buffalo. This opened a market for those agricultural productions of northern Ohio which could reach the lake, and a decided improvement in prices was the result. In this year, also, the first appropri- ation was made by the general government for a harbor at Cleveland. The circumstances connected with its construction are given in detail in the history of the city.

The " Walk-in-the-Water " had been wrecked, but a new steamer, the " Superior," had taken its place. In 1826 the " Henry Clay " came out, and from that time there was a very rapid growth of the steam marine on Lake Erie.

All these things greatly increased the travel over the roads of Cuyahoga county. Not only were the farmers of the county eager to reach a port where they could exchange their productions for imported articles, but the slow Pennsylvania Germans of northeastern Ohio, in large numbers, drove their big wagons, with enormously-wide tires, over the muddy roads through Orange, Solon, Warrensville, Bedford, Newburg, etc., to the mouth of the Cuyahoga; inquir- ing there for " de John Blair vat kips de vite fishes," a favorite dealer of the oklen time. There they unloaded their flour and wheat, and loaded up with fish, salt, etc. Sometimes three barrels of flour were given for one barrel of salt.

By this time the manufacture of "black salts," potash and pearlash had become an important indus- try. The clearing of the land of timber furnished an immense quantity of ashes on nearly every farm; for even those who had quite old locations were con- stantly clearing off new lots. The ashes being

leached, the ley was boiled down into a dark solid, known as "black salts." This was usually sold to the owner of a local ashery, frequently the village merchant, who made it into potash or pearlash and sent it east for sale. It could be transported at slight expense, and would always bring cash at some price: consequently many a farmer who could only trade his wheat or oats for "store-pay" of some kind, was obliged to depend on his " black salts" for the money to pay his taxes, and for a few other necessary ex- penses which must be met with eash.

By 1826 the people had become satisfied that a new court-house was indispensable for the rising business of the county. As on the erection of the first one in 1812, so again, there was a sharp dispute whether the new one should be located at Cleveland or Newburg. For a long time the latter had been superior to the former in population, business and prosperity. Cleve- land was now increasing much the more rapidly, and bade fair to be an important place, yet Newburg was more centrally located, and a large proportion of the inhabitants favored the removal of the county-seat to that point.

The power to make the location was vested in the county commissioners. One of these died, and of the two others, one favored Cleveland and one Newburg as the county seat. An election to fill the vacancy came off in 1826. It turned entirely on the county- seat question, one candidate being a friend of Cleve- land and one of Newburg, and a very hot contest was the result. The Cleveland man was elected by a small majority.

The next year, 1822, a new, brick court-house was begun, situated in the southwest part of the public square at Cleveland, across the street from the front of the present Forest City House. It was completed in 1828, and the first court was held in it on the 28th of October in that year. This was the scene of the administration of justice for Cuyahoga county for thirty years. It was a two-story brick building, with a wooden cupola, standing with its face toward the lake, and was considered a very elegant structure. The lower story was divided into rooms for the ac- commodation of the various county officers, while the upper story served as a court room.

Four years later a substantial stone jail was erected on the ground south of the southwest corner of the square; being in rear of the court-house and across the street from it. This was a gloomy-looking struc- ture, and was commonly called " The Blue Jug."

Among the events of fifty years ago, one which now seems separated by an immense gulf from the ideas of the present day was the organization, in 1822, of the Cuyahoga County Colonization Society; a branch of the national institution of that name, de- signed to promote the removal of the colored people to Africa. It was generally considered to be favor- able to their freedom, as it was supposed that many Southerners would be willing to emancipate their slaves if assured that they would not remain in the

PROGRESS, INFLATION AND "HARD TIMES."

country; yet the strong abolitionists were decidedly opposed to it.

At the meeting for the purpose of organization, in this county, an address was delivered by the Rev. William Stone, and a prayer by the Rev. S. J. Brad- street. Samuel Cowles, Esq., was chosen president: Rev. Randolph Stone, Hon. Nemiah Allen, Datus Kelley, Josiah Barber and Gen. Lewis R. Dille, vice presidents; A. W. Walworth, treasurer; James S. Clarke, secretary, and Mordecai Bartley, delegate to the national society.

On the Fourth of July in this year, (1822,) just two years after ground was broken on the Ohio canal at Cleveland, it was technically "opened for naviga- tion" from Cleveland to Akron with a grand celebra- tion. It was opened under difficulties, however; for the two northernmost loeks, which connected the canal with the Cuyahoga river at Cleveland, were not yet completed.

But Noble HI. Merwin, of the last named place, was determined that there should be a big celebration, not only over the canal but on the canal, on the Fourth of July of that year. So he had the canal- packet " Pioneer " brought from Buffalo, took it up the river above the loeks, and hauled it with teams over the embankment into the canal. Thence a large party of the principal people of Cleveland went up the canal on the " Pioneer," till they met the boat " Allen Trimble," from Akron, having on board the person for whom it was named, who was then gov- ernor of Ohio, together with the canal commission- ers and many others from the central parts of the State.

Flags fluttered gayly in the breeze, cannon thun- dered their boisterous welcome, speeches full of roseate prophesy were made, and all were intensely enthusi- astie over the great event of the day. Such enthusi- asm over such a canse may seem overstrained in these fast times, when railroads have absorbed nearly all the commerce of this region, and the canals are looked on as extremely old fogyish institutions. Nevertheless the Fourth day of July, 1822, was a great day for northern Ohio. An immense tract, previ- ously almost entirely isolated, was provided with the means of transporting its produce to the markets of the East, and every kind of business showed an im- mediate and very marked improvement in conse- quence. It is doubtful if railroads would have been built as soon as they were, had not the wealth of the country first been largely increased by the construc- tion of canals.

The Ohio canal was completed through the State in five years afterward, and its increased business nearly all poured through Cuyahoga county to seek Lake Erie.

Besides the trade with the East, which was so rap- idly being developed at this period, there was also a strong demand for breadstuffs and other articles to send to the distant regions of the Northwest, which the farmers farther up the lakes were unable to sup-

ply. In 1827 the Hudson Bay Company advertised for a thousand bushels of white, flint corn, two hun- dred bushels of other corn, and two hundred barrels of flour, besides considerable quantities of salt, pork, tallow. tobacco, highwines, etc. Large quantities of produce were also sent to emigrants in Michigan and other Territories, who had not yet raised crops large enough for their own support.

Notwithstanding all this commercial activity, and notwithstanding the zeal of the pioneers with their rifles, wolves still glided through the forest in many townships, and made rapid slaughter upon any un- guarded sheep they could discover. In 1827 the county commissioners offered a bounty of fifteen dol- lars for the scalp of every wolf slam in the county. Many of the townships also gave from five to ten dol- lars per scalp, so that wolf-hunting was sometimes quite a profitable business.

Crimes, too, were not unknown in those " good old times." to which so many look back with fond regret as to an Elysian age. Perhaps there were not as many high-toned criminals-official defaulters and gentlemanly murderers-as there are now, but good, plain thieves were as plentiful as any reasonable per- son could desire. The more daring class devoted themselves largely to horse-stealing, and throughout the West the professors of that art were united in a great fraternity, members of which, of apparently re- speetable character, were to be found in nearly every township. Many a horse, which suddenly left its owner's pasture in the dark and was followed with hue and ery by himself and his neighbors, went no farther than the next township, where it was quietly kept till the storm had blown over, in the stable of some re- spectable justice of the peace or venerable deacon of the church.

The less courageous or more skillful rascals usually devoted themselves to the manufacture of counterfeit money. The " dollar of our fathers" was very apt to be a bogus article. There were reported to be places where bad money was coined in Brecksville, in Royalton, in Middleburg, and doubtless in other secluded localities. The machinery of the Middle- burg institution was found, long after it had been abandoned, on a small island in the midst of a large swamp in that township. Counterfeit half-dollars were the favorite productions of these unlawful mints, though other silver coins were frequently imitated. It was said that large orders for bad silver came from Pennsylvania, where no bank-bills of less than five dollars were allowed to circulate. Prosecutions were extremely difficult, as the criminals were frequently men of some local and political influence, and " straw bait" was readily accepted by the officials.

We do not learn so much about counterfeiting bank- bills in those days; partly, doubtless, because that business required more expense and skill than was available in this region, and partly because Ohio bank bills were so poor that it was not very profitable to counterfeit them. The ordinary discount on them in

GENERAL HISTORY OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

1830 was from twenty-five to thirty per cent., and in some cases it was much larger. A respectable rascal wonk naturally be ashamed to counterfeit such money as that.

Debts against individuals were frequently even less valuable than these heavily discounted bank-bills. We have noticed in a previous chapter that a repre- sentative from Cuyahoga county made the first movement ever made-so far as known-looking to the abolition of imprisonment for debt. By 1830 Ohio had gone to the extreme of liberality toward debtors, and by means of stay-laws and provisions for appraisals had made it almost impossible to collect. an account under any circumstances.

A Cleveland merchant had a claim of seventy- five dollars against a resident of Middleburg. Being unable to collect it, he sued it, oblained a judgment and dirceted a Middleburg constable to sell the per- sonal property of the defendant. At the time fixed for the sale the Clevelander went out on horseback to attend it. By law the constable was authorized to appraise the property at what he might consider a reasonable price, and below which it could not be sold. When the ereditor arrived, he found that the complaisant official had appraised an old watch, worth about five dollars, at twenty dollars; a dog, probably worth five cents, at ten dollars; a lot of rails at ten cents each, and other things in proportion. Of course a sale was impossible, as no one would bid half of the appraised value, and the unlucky creditor returned home in disgust; the only result of the trip being that his horse had toru off, on the corduroy which formed a large portion of the road, three of the four new shoes which guarded his feet on starting.

Among the various cessions of land occurring in connection with the final settlement of the title to the Northwestern Territory, congress assigned lifty- six thousand acres in what was known as the Virginia Military District, for the benefit of the schools of the Western Reserve. In 1831, Harvey Rice, Esq., of Cleveland, was appointed an agent by the State to convert them into money. He opened an office at Millersburg, Holmes county, in the district in ques- tion, and in three years sold all the lands and paid into the treasury of the State about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, to be devoted to the exclusive purpose of edueating the children of the Western Re- serve.

By 1831, land began to rise throughout the country. in consequence of the stimulus supplied by internal improvements, especially canals, which were being constructed in numerous localities. The rise was especially noticeable wherever it was supposed that a city might be constructed, and the point at the mouth of the Cuyahoga was not neglected. An association of Buffalonians, known as the Buffalo Company, bought a tract on the west side of the river, and soon afterwards " Ohio City" was laid out at that point. Farmers, too, began to think that they were to be-

come wealthy by the rise of their land, and at every little village, especially along the canals and rivers, people began to discuss the probability of the con- struction of a large town there.

In 1832, the Ohio canal was finished from Lake Erie to the Ohio river, and its commerce rapidly in- creased to large proportions. In two years after its completion the freight carried upon it amounted to half a million bushels of wheat, a hundred thousand barrels of flour, a million pounds of butter and near seventy thousand pounds of cheese, with other things m proportion. Even this would not be considered very remarkable now, but at that time it made the people stare with wonder and filled their minds with hopes of unlimited riches.

In 1834 a proposition was made to incorporate a city which should include both Cleveland and Ohio City, but the leading men on the two sides of the river were unable to agree on the terms of union or the boundaries, and the whole project fell through.

In 1835 the first railroad, the Cleveland and New- burg, was incorporated in the county. It was built soon afterwards, and was operated for several years, though only by horse power ; being used for hauling stone and Inmber, and occasionally for the carriage of passengers. The Cleveland and Bedford railroad was also incorporated the same year, but was never built.

It will be seen that the first beginnings of railroad- ing in this region were very modest, and such were generally its characteristics throughout the country. People planned canals hundreds of miles in length, and constructed them according to the plans, but railroads were awe-inspiring undertakings, and men usually built them from one village to the next one ; if that operation worked well they extended the work to another village, and so on. But in this wide-awake region they soon grew more enterprising ; as will speedily be seen.

Another cautions attempt at railroading was made about the same time by constructing a tramway, with wooden rails and operated by horse-power, running from the public square at Cleveland up Euchd street, (avenues were then unknown, ) and out on the Enclid road, four miles, to the " Doan's Corners" of the early settlers, which " high-toned " people then began to call " East Cleveland."

But the tide of enterprise and even of reckless speculation was rapidly rising, and a much more am- bitions project, rather an exception to the usual rail- road enterprises of the day, was soon set on foot. This was the " Ohio Railroad," designed to run from the Pennsylvania line to Toledo, close along the lake shore : a large part of it being intended to be on piles. Considerable work was done on it, but no iron was laid, and it was abandoned at the time of the great crash which will be mentioned a little farther on. Its corporate rights were transferred to the Junetion Rail- road Company, and through it to the Cleveland and Toledo, and finally to the Lake Shore and Southern Michigan Company.

PROGRESS, INFLATION AND " HARD TIMES."

At the same prolific period a project was started for a railroad from Cleveland to Cincinnati. The late Hon. John Barr visited Cincinnati, getting up peti- tions in favor of the road, and also spent considerable time at Columbus. The legislature of 1836 readily granted a charter for the proposed road, and also one for the Cleveland, Warren and Pittsburg road, and Mr. Barr brought the first copies of both charters to Cleveland. The last mentioned road was to run from Cleveland through Warren to the State line, connect- ing there with a road to Pittsburg, or to any other point on the Ohio river.

Its charter was extremely liberal, and is a good specimen of the kind of legislation prevalent in those halcyon days. It allowed the president and directors to create and sell stock as in their judgment the occa- sion might require, without limit as to amount, except that it must not exceed the needs of the company. They had also full power to select a route, condemn land, occupy the road, and transport persons or prop- erty by steam, animal or other power. The projectors were as modest in the estimate of cost, however, as could well be desired. They calculated the expense at seven thousand dollars per mile, though in fact it was more likely to have been twenty thousand.

These were the celebrated "flush times; " the period when speculation raged more fiercely-when every one got richer on paper-than was ever the case in the United States either before or since. John Law's Mississippi scheme and South Sea bubble, as exploit- ed among the excitable French, could alone outdo the great land-speculation and business-speculation of 1835, '36 and '37.

The closing of the United States Bank had been followed by the chartering of an immense number of State banks, some of which had a small amount of capital, more of which had a still smaller amount, and most of which had substantially no capital at all. In the West and South this was peculiarly the case, though the East was by no means free from it. The poorer a region was the more banks it had. Their paper was accepted everywhere with the most sublime confidence; private credit was almost unlimited, busi- ness was going ahead at a tremendous rate, and every- body was getting rich-in imagination-with unpar- alleled speed. Eras of inflation, somewhat similar in general character to that one, have been known since then, but none that approached it in the degree of expansion.

Of course any place marked out by nature for the site of a great city was, with its vicinity, the scene of an especial energy of speculation. The location at the mouth of the Cuyahoga was not only thus desig- nated by nature, but, by the construction of the canal, had been made in the eyes of the public the future great city of northern Ohio.

This was enough. It made no difference to the speculators that northern Ohio could not then sustain a large city; that there was neither agriculture, man- nfactures nor even commerce to produce such a re-

sult. Their own roseate hopes colored everything on which they looked, and they saw the few thou- sand people already there expanding to a hundred thousand with unspeakable rapidity; while stately churches, palatial residences and six-story business blocks should overshadow the turbid waters and adorn the rolling uplands of the Cuyahoga. Those of them who lived long did see all this, but not then.

The climax of the speculation was in 1836. Not only in Cleveland, but to a less degree in every little village throughout the county, people expected to make their fortune by buying land, holding it a year or two, and selling it at ten or twenty times the pur- chase price; even the farmers were not free from the infection. Produce of every kind emulated the bal- loon-like tendency of real estate. The whole coun- try, (and especially the tract on the main line of com- munication between the East and the West, which then as now ran along the southern shore of Lake Erie), was in a ferment of unlimited money-making on paper, and debt-making in fact.

In 1837 the crash came. The inflation by means of plentiful but baseless paper money had been carried as far as it could, and the bubble burst. Nearly all the banks in the country speedily went down under the storm. Private credit was found equally valueless. The whole country staggered under the blow, but of course it was felt with the greatest severity in the West, where there was but little accumulated capital to withstand such a shock, and where the enthusiastic nature of the people had caused them to plunge most deeply into the tide of speculation.

Nearly every business man in Cuyahoga county failed. All the great railroad enterprises of which we have spoken-the Ohio railroad. the Cleveland, Warren and Pittsburg road, and the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati road-stopped as if smitten with paralysis, and not a stroke of work was done npon them for years afterward. Numerous buildings in town and country, in various stages of progress. stayed their upward course when the financial col- lapse palsied their owners' hands, and long remained, abandoned and unfinished, "the mournful monu- ments of their intended greatness."

The period was long afterward designated as par excellence " The Hard Times," and no one ever dis- puted the propriety of the appellation. Other times have been " hard," but no others have approached in adamantine solidity the dreadful period from 1837 to 1840.

During the winter of 1837-8 there was great excite- ment along the whole northern frontier in relation to what was known as the Patriot war-the effort of a small portion of the Canadians to sever the Canadas from the mother country. The few "patriots " depended principally on the assistance they received from sympathizers on this side. On both the Niagara and the Detroit frontiers there was a good deal of mustering and marching, and a very little fighting, and even in this vicinity, notwithstanding the inter-

GENERAL HISTORY OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

vention of the lake, there were a good many efforts to afford aid to those whom a majority of our people looked upon as battling in the cause of freedom. Henry H. Dodge, of Cleveland, was elected by the legislature major general of the ninth division of the Ohio militia, and especially charged with the main- tenance of order along the frontier. Ils delicate, if not ardnous, duties were discharged in a manner en- tirely satisfactory to both the governor of Ohio and the authorities of Canada. There being a sad lack of rebels in Canada, the rebellion was easily extin- guished in 1838, and amid more exciting events soon almost passed from the memory of the busy people on this side.

Although, as before stated, the period from 1825, and in faet from 1815, down to 1837, was one of rapid development throughout the country, yet evi- dences were frequently seen that the wilderness was not yet quite numbered among the things of the past. Capt. Lewis Dibble, of Cleveland, mentions seeing a deer near where Willson avenue now is, in 1837, or later. Discovering the presence of man, he bounded away, sailed gracefully over the fences and dashed away into the woods. Still later, Capt. Dibble men- tions seeing deer feeding among the cows in Euclid. In the more retired townships, such as Middleburg, Olmstead, Solon, etc., not only deer but bears and wolves were still occasionally slain by adroit hunters.

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History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Part 15

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