USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > History of the city of Cleveland : its settlement, rise and progress > Part 13
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The chapter of disasters for the year 1880 was large. The region of Kingsbury Run has always been subject to fire. In the latter part of February the whole region was ablaze from floating oil. On the sixth of the following May the Worthington Block, on the corner of St. Clair and Ontario, burned to the ground. For a time it seemed impossible for the Fire Department to confine the fire to this one building. It was occupied by the Telegraph Sup- ply Company and several printing and electrotyping establishments, all of which were a total loss, amounting to one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. The Cooperative Stove Company on the Viaduct, together
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with four other buildings, was burned in December, the total loss amounting to about eighty thousand dollars. Four fires have occurred on this same site.
The beauty of our city has always been a matter of pride to her citizens. Among the most generous and public- spirited, J. H. Wade stands prominent. His munificent offer was as much a surprise as a gratification to the Council, as they read his proposition to donate to the city over a hundred acres, near the city limits, fronting on Euclid avenue. The first proposition was made on June 21, 1881. The conditions of the gift were the expenditure of from one hundred thousand to one hundred and seventy_ five thousand dollars on improvements within three years, naming it Wade Park, reserving eight acres for a building site, and other minor details. The City Solicitor was appointed to obtain the conditions and report. An ordi- nance accepting the gift and appropriating the necessary amount from the Sinking Fund passed to its second read- ing, but seems to have gone no farther.
In September of 1882 Mr. Wade made another proposi- tion increasing the size of the park five acres and reducing the amount to be expended on improvements to seventy- five thousand dollars, also reserving but three acres for the building site. On September 11 the new proposition was unanimously accepted, and the City Solicitor procured the deed. The Council accepted, the deed and the park passed into the hands of the city. On the suggestion of the Park Commissioners the following year, an assessment of half a mill on the dollar was made for park improve- ments. With a portion of this money Wade Park was
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laid out and bids fair to be the finest park in the city. As many effects in landscape gardening are only obtained with time, we need not be impatient of results.
The fatal news, daily hoped against but daily dreaded, flashed across the land on the night of September 19, 1881, that the beloved and honored President, James A. Garfield, after eighty anxious days of prolonged and wasting pain, after an heroic endurance that marked a truly noble life, had at last yielded up his great soul to the inscrutable Maker of all, the Nation's second martyr to the assassin's terrible bullet. Hisdeath, awful in the united grief of fifty millions of people, was peculiarly heartfelt to the people of the Western Reserve, and of Cleveland, its metropolis. Here was the place of his birth; here had transpired the scenes of his rising fame; here were his personal friends and associates, who had watched his career and known his conflicts from the first; here were developed the insti- tutions, the sentiments, which found in him their crown and glory; here was his home. Stricken down within seven months after the brilliant scene of his inauguration as the President of a great and free Republic, his loss was inexpressibly sad to those who had known him so inti- mately in his honored career.
Here in Cleveland was plainly the fitting place to receive the last of his mortal parts; and where could a spot more appropriately be chosen than that amidst the beautiful and majestic scenery of Lake View Cemetery, where he had expressed a desire to be laid to rest? A tender of burial ground being made to Mrs. Garfield and gratefully accepted, there fell upon the people of Cleveland the duty
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of honorably receiving the funeral cortege and conducting the body to its last resting place. A citizens' meeting was held in the Tabernacle, the necessary committees appointed, and the entire city became busy in preparing for the mournful ceremony. During night and day an army of workmen were constructing in the centre of the Square at the intersection of Superior and Ontario streets, the great pavilion that should cover the catafalque on which the remains of the President should lie in state. When com- pleted, this was pronounced by many of the noted visitors to be the finest temporary structure of the kind ever erected. It measured forty feet square at the base; the four fronts were spanned by arches thirty-six feet high and twenty-four feet wide at the base. The building was seventy-two feet high to the apex of the roof, on which was a beautiful gilt sphere supporting the figure of an angel twenty-four feet high. The columns, ornamented by shields of beautiful design, were shrouded by unfurled flags; and elevated platforms projecting from the angles of the base, were occupied by uniformed guards. Two car-loads of rare plants, choice flowers and exquisite floral designs added their appropriate beauties.
On Saturday afternoon, September 25, the funeral train reached the Euclid Avenue station on the Cleveland & Pittsburgh road, and from there the coffin was conveyed to the catafalque. Here for two days the body rested in state, while sombre military guards paced before it and two hundred thousand people in almost endless ranks passed by it to get, if only they might, a glimpse at the portrait of the martyr, which hung above, for the closed
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coffin-lid, in melancholy sternness, refused a sight of the precious features it enclosed. How overpowering the scene was can never be felt except by the many thousands who, on this day, repeated the same sad offerings that six- teen years before they had laid on a like occasion and at this same spot before the earthly cerement of another mar- tyred President. How similar were the two occasions, and how was the grief of the present doubled by the memory of the former! Over the same route had come the inanimate dust of Lincoln, and over the same spot eighty thousand people, their hearts bursting with horror and indignation, had bowed before the noble victim, the martyr of the Republic. Yet there was a striking differ- ence between the two occasions. It was felt that Abra- ham Lincoln had lived to see his great mission accom- plished. The work of his hand had freed the slave and brought the Union safely through the struggle of death. His summons from duty had come after his life had blos- somed into fruition. But sadly otherwise was it with James A. Garfield. Though he had done much both in war and peace, yet his eyes had only just beheld his grandest vista of opportunity. A work, glorious if successful, he had set before himself-no less than the firm cementing of the bonds of National union and the healing of the wounds of war. He seemed to hosts of patriots to be the man thoroughly prepared and almost miraculously called for such a work. The sentiments that came from his lips were those which inspired faith and fraternal feeling. "We should do nothing inconsistent with the spirit and genius of our institutions. We should do nothing for revenge, but everything for secur-
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ity; nothing for the past, everything for the present and future." That such a man should be so brutally slaugh- tered in the very unfolding of his powers, seemed the essence of affliction. To these causes of universal grief that marked the funerals of both Lincoln and Garfield, was added on this occasion that sense of a personal, almost a family loss, that made the grief especially keen here at his home, where the patriot and statesman was the neighbor and friend.
The final funeral services took place on Monday, Sep- tember 26. It was estimated that one hundred thousand visitors were in the city, and that two hundred and fifty thousand people crowded the streets. The greatest men of the Nation in every sphere of life were there on that day, men whose faces were familiar even in the farthest limits of the country-justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, members of the President's Cabinet, gov- ernors of States, members of the Senate and House of Rep- resentatives, chiefs of the Army and Navy, classmates of the President, mayors of cities, councilmen and aldermen, societies of the Army of the Cumberland and of ex-Confed- erate soldiers, famous and eloquent divines, all bowed in grief before the peerless dead. The funeral address, deliv- ered by Rev. Isaac Errett, of Cincinnati, was an eloquent tribute to the character of Garfield; while to the dear old mother, four-score years of age, to whom the Nation owed the education and training that made her son what he was, and who from her humble home had shared with him the triumph and glory that came to him, step by step, as he mounted up from high to higher to receive the highest
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honor that the land could bestow, now left behind him, lingering on the shore where he had passed over; to the wife who began with him in young womanhood and bravely kept step with him right along through his won- drous career, his friend, his counselor, his ministering angel; to his children upon whom the Nation's eyes were turned, the consolations offered by the speaker were the ten thousand beautiful lessons of love, righteousness and truth that hallowed the lips of him-the son, husband and father. At the close of the address the Cleveland Vocal Society rendered in deeply moving tones Garfield's favor- ite hymn, a true epitome of his own life:
"Mount up the heights of wisdom And crush each error low ; Keep back no word of knowledge That human hearts should know. Be faithful to thy mission, In service of thy Lord, And then a golden chaplet Shall be thy just reward."
After the benediction by the Rev. Dr. Charles S. Pomeroy, the procession was formed, the United States Marine band took its place northeast of the pavilion and played slowly, "Nearer My God to Thee," and then "In the Sweet Bye and Bye," while the artillerymen, five on each side, lifted the casket and bore it up into the catafalque, and the pall- bearers, Hon. W. S. Streator, Hon. C. B. Lockwood, J. H. Rhodes, Esq., H. C. White, Esq., Judge R. P. Ranney, Mr. Edwin Cowles, Mr. Dan. P. Eells, Hon. R. C. Par sons, Mr. Selah Chamberlain, William Robison, Esq.,
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Captain E. E. Henry, and Hon. H. B. Payne, emerged from the pavilion and took their places beside the funeral car. The latter was a large platform supported by four heavy truck wheels, with heavy drapery reaching to the ground and bordered with silver fringe, and overhead a broad canopy with a lofty dome capped by a large urn, with immortelles and beautiful black plumes, the whole upheld by six pillars. Twelve black horses, four abreast, caparisoned with heavy black cloth covers with silver fringe, carrying black white-tipped plumes, and led by six colored grooms, drew the magnificent vehicle with its quiet burden towards the cemetery. The procession was five miles in length. No such imposing pageant was ever before beheld in Cleveland. The scores of military and civic societies, the rich dress and trappings, the broad bands of crape, the funeral car, stately and mournful, the slow music of the Marine band, were supremely solemn. Every point along the entire length of Euclid avenue was occupied by spectators, and with bared heads and hushed voices they viewed the cortege. At the cemetery the exer- cises were brief. A short oration was delivered by Rev. J. H. Jones, chaplain of the Forty-second Regiment, and the casket was borne into the receiving tomb, while the Marine band began "Nearer My God to Thee," in notes whose tender pathos was doubly impressive under the solemn surroundings. Thus was the martyred President laid to rest.
JaGarfield
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CHAPTER XXI.
ORGANIZATION OF THE EARLY SETTLERS' ASSOCIATION - BUILDING OF MUSIC HALL-CONSTRUCTION OF THE FAIRMOUNT RESERVOIR -THE SMITH SUNDAY LAW-THE NEW YORK, CHICAGO & ST. LOUIS RAIL- ROAD-THE CASE SCHOOL OF APPLIED SCIENCE-BUILDING AND BURN- ING OF THE PARK THEATRE-THE FRESHET ON THE FLATS-INTRO- DUCTION OF A NEW PAVING MATERIAL-MEETING IN CLEVELAND OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION-STRIKE AT THE CLEVELAND ROLLING MILLS-THE CLEVELAND & CANTON RAILWAY.
T HE Early Settlers' Association of Cuyahoga county was organized on the nineteenth day of November, 1879, upon a call made at the instance of H. M. Addison, signed by about sixty-eight prominent citizens of Cleveland. Of those citizens about twenty have since gone to the grave. The meeting was held at the Probate Court room, officers elected and a constitution adopted. The officers were a president, two vice-presidents, a treasurer and secretary. The president, Hon. Harvey Rice, has been annually re- elected and is still its honored head. The vice-presidents, Hon. S. J. Andrews and Hon. John W. Allen, and the treas- urer and secretary, George C. Dodge, have passed away. The treasurer's report, rendered January 12, 1880, states that there were then 155 members. At the last meeting, July 22, 1887, the total number of persons having joined
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the organization was 683, of whom about 103 have died, leaving a surviving membership of 580. The Early Set- tlers' Association is one of the most useful and commenda- ble organizations in the city. The historical researches and pioneer reminiscences of its members are very valua- ble and interesting. The annual meetings are held July 22. A very praiseworthy project of the association is the erec- tion of a monument to the memory of General Moses Cleaveland. The idea originated some years ago, but it was not until the spring of 1887 that decisive steps were taken. The monument is under way, and will be formally placed and dedicated at the next annual meeting of the association July 22, 1888. Three-fourths of the cost of the entire work, base, pedestal and statue, four thousand dol- lars, has already been subscribed. On another page will be found a wood engraving from a photograph of the design of the statue. The following from the last report of chairman A. J. Williams, of the executive committee, will be read with interest :
The committee is gratified in being able to report great progress in the noble project of erecting a monument in honor of General Moses Cleave- land. The form and dimensions of the work as finally submitted to the Smith Granite Company, of Westerly, Rhode Island, have met the approval of the committee, and all the details of the structure have been agreed upon, and we are happy to report that we are very much encouraged by the citizens of our city in the way of contributions to the requisite monument fund.
The city owes the construction of the beautiful new Music Hall to the benevolence of Mr. Doan and the enter- prise of the prominent business men. Early in 1881 Mr.
Outo ENECO
GENERAL MOSES CLEAVELAND.
(From a photograph of a design of a statue to be erected in the Public Square by the Early Settlers' Association.) 203
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Doan donated for this purpose a lot, southwest of the confluence of Superior and Erie, valued at fifty thousand dollars, and added thereto a gift of ten thousand dollars. The new building was to contain all modern improvements. and to be known as the Cleveland Music Hall and Taber- nacle. The stipulations of the transfer were simple and easily fulfilled. The right and title is vested in five trust- . ees, three of whom are to be chosen by Mr. Doan or his heirs and two by the Cleveland Vocal Society, all vacan- cies to be filled by the same parties who chose the prede- cessors. This board superintended the construction and now regulates all its affairs. The hall under the building was reserved, as also the control over all religious meet- ings held in the building, the Vocal Society regulating all use for musical purposes. The main hall is on the ground floor, arranged on the amphitheatre plan, with a seating capacity of four thousand three hundred, the largest in in the city. The total cost was $51,333.50.
It became evident as the city increased in size that a new low service reservoir would have to be built. The first meeting of the Water Works and Finance Committees to decide on a site, was held in June, 1882. Options were held on two lots of land, one on Kinsman street and one on Fairmount. Strong claims were presented for each, upon which the Council was not able to decide for a long time, as personal interests seemed to control some votes. Fair- mount was finally chosen, and J. D. Cleveland, J. M. Hoyt and F. W. Pelton were made the committee on appraise- ment of land. This immense supply-lake was put in use in November, 1885.
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The Smith Sunday Law was the expression of the sen- timent of all sound minded people in Cleveland. It dis- pleased a class which was not sensitive on the question of sanctity nor inclined to accept the judgment of their betters. Against this class the Law and Order Society was organized, on the twenty-fifth of April, 1882. The society was intended from the first to be permanent. General Ed. S. Meyer was the first president. Under this beneficial law it soon transpired that instead of having one Sabbath in thirty years, the citizens had one every week.
The charter for the New York, Chicago & St. Louis rail- road, commonly called the "Nickel Plate," from Buffalo to Chicago via Cleveland and Fort Wayne, was issued under the general railroad law of New York, April 13, 1881, and the construction was commenced the same year. The road was opened for traffic October 23, 1882. Its rapid building and the remarkable circumstances attending its inception and completion at the hands of the Seney syn- dicate, and the sale of the controlling interests in it by Judge Stephenson Burke, representing the owners, to William H. Vanderbilt, representing the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern railroad, are of such recent date as to be still fresh in the public memory. This control was obtained by the purchase of fourteen million and fifty thousand dollars of its common stock, and twelve million four hundred and eighty thousand dollars of its preferred. Manager D. W. Caldwell was recently appointed as receiver of theroad, and its interests are still safely lodged in his hands. Its headquarters are in Cleveland.
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The Cleveland & Canton Railway Company, whose road was constructed to Cleveland in 1882, began its cor- porate history in Carroll county in the year 1850, in the character of a strap-iron road, operated by horse-power, and running from Carrollton to Oneida, a distance of twelve miles. It underwent the usual vicissitudes of small railways until, in 1873, it passed into the hands of the Ohio & Toledo Railroad Company by whom it was ex- tended northerly towards Youngstown and on the south towards some point of connection with the Pan Handle. But before completing this work the Ohio & Toledo Com- pany failed and the road was bought by George L. Ingersoll, of Cleveland, and sold by him to eastern parties. A new company was then formed under the name of the Youngs- town & Connotton Valley Railroad Company, but later changed to the Connotton Valley railroad, and Canton fixed upon as its northern terminus, to which place the road was completed in 1880. In the same year the Con- notton Northern Railway Company was incorporated to build a line from Canton to Fairport. After construct- ing the road as far north as Portage county it was de- termined to change the terminus, and in 1882 it was com- pleted through to Cleveland. The Connotton Northern and the Connotton Valley Railway Companies were con- solidated under the name of the Connotton Valley Rail- way Company, which purchased the Connotton Valley & Straitsville railroad, a line running from Canton through Coshocton and Zanesville to the Straitsville coal regions. On May 9, 1885, the road was sold under order of the court and was purchased by a combination of the bond-
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holders and stockholders who reorganized it under the name of the Cleveland & Canton Railroad Company.
What will eventually be one of the greatest schools of science in the West was established by the munificent bequest of Leonard Case, of real estate worth one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, on January 9, 1880, when a deed was filed which placed this value in trust, the income of which was to defray the expenses of the school "in which shall be taught by competent professors and teachers, mathematics, physics, engineering, mechanical and natural drawing, metallurgy and modern languages." The property conveyed in the deed consists of the home- stead on Rockwell street, the City Hall and other estate. A more complete account of this institution will be found in the chapter on education.
The first life of the Park Theatre was short and glorious. The final contracts were let in January, 1883, but the work was not begun until April. There was an eighty- foot frontage on the Square; and the building was five stories high with fire-proof offices. The theatre was fitted up in the finest style and was opened to the public by Rhea . on the twenty-second of October. On the fifth of the fol- lowing January a terrific explosion of gas set the whole interior of the building on fire, and it was a total wreck in a few hours. The loss was great, amounting to one hun- dred and seventy-five thousand dollars. In connection with it, the Stone church adjacent was burned at a loss of twenty thousand dollars. The theatre was rebuilt in 1885, and is now conducted by Mr. John A. Ellsler.
Cleveland suffered heavily from the floods so common
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in February, 1883. The heavy rains of February 2 and 3 swelled Kingsbury Run and the Cuyahoga to twenty times their ordinary size, and great damage was being done in the lumber yards, when fire broke out in the Great Western Oil Works. One tank of 5,000 barrels blew up, and the burning oil spread over the boiling waters and formed a literal lake of fire. Below the Great Western's tanks were the paraffine works of Meriam & Morgan, which were fired by the burning oil. The culverts gorged with lumber and the water rose with wonderful rapidity, threatening everything within reach with immediate de- struction, either by fire or water. All fires at the Standard works were extinguished, but in spite of that precaution four stills, three tanks and many smaller buildings took fire, and the whole surface of the water, which had now be- come a lake, was ablaze. It was a wonderful scene, with the dozen fire engines working under a full head of steam, in torrents of rain, the whole valley ablaze, watched by thousands on both banks of the river. The gorge proved the salvation of the rest of the Standard's plant, which could by no human power have been saved if fire had been communicated to the naptha works. As it was, the loss was immense-eight tanks and four stills, together with coal shoots and tressle work.
The loss to lumber men was great, as the rapid rise of the river ten feet in twenty-four hours precluded any attempt to save it. Overtwo million feet was carried out into the lake, involving a loss of three hundred thousand dollars. The loss to property owners was very large, for all lower stories were flooded; Scranton avenue was four or five
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feet in water from Seneca street to Jennings avenue hill. The people were rescued from a house on Stone's Levee just in time to save them from drowning in the upper story. The flats were almost desolated-railroad embankments washed away, and bridges off their abutments; lumber piled up in promiscuous masses or on the lake; steam tugs and other boats shoved up on dry land or smashed into splinters, and everywhere the charred ruins of oil tanks and stills. Never has such a combination of elements united for the destruction of property. The loss was five hundred thousand dollars to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Although street improvement has been constant, the work of these two years is worthy of special mention because of the long controversy that preceded the letting of the contracts. Nicholson had proven unendurable and asphalt was not any better, and finally Medina block stone won the day. Over thirteen miles of this block were laid on the following streets: Broadway, Bank, Erie, Euclid, Park, Prospect, Superior, Seneca, Woodland, Perry, Frankfort, Lorain, Pearl and Payne avenue. The improvement to the streets justified the expenditure in- volved, in all $723,310.59.
Judged by the interest taken by our citizens, the Ameri- can Medical Association, which met on June 5, 1883, was of absorbing interest. There were undoubtedly more educated, scientific men in the city at that time than ever before or since. Among the number were Dr. Wm. B. Atkinson, Dr. John L. Atlee, Dr. Richard J. Dunglison, Dr. Eugene Grisson, Dr. Samuel D. Gross, Dr. Robert Murray.
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