USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > History of the city of Cleveland : its settlement, rise and progress > Part 3
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Sundry things were done; sundry hills and streets were graded, to the great satisfaction of some and dissatisfaction of others. Some six or eight thousand of inhabitants had come together from the four winds; some wished to do more things and some wished to do things better; and to effect all these objects, and a variety of others, no means seemed so proper as a city charter in due form and style.
City charters in due form and style were accordingly se- cured-one for Cleveland and one for Ohio City; the latter place, by some hook or crook, getting the precedence in point of time.
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
1441167
CHAPTER V.
THE TWO CHARTERS-DESCRIPTION OF CLEVELAND-VERSATILE MEN -- FIRST CITY ELECTION-A HOPEFUL OUTLOOK-PROSPERITY FROM THE CANAL-EARLY METHODS OF TRANSPORTATION-BEGINNING OF RAILROAD ENTERPRISE-THE VARIOUS SCHEMES -- LIBERAL CHARTERS -FINANCIAL DISASTER-BATTLE OF THE BRIDGE.
T HE charter of the city of Cleveland was obtained March 5, 1836; that of Ohio City two days earlier. The population of Cleveland was then nearly six thousand, while Ohio City had about one-third that number. Not- withstanding the great strides that had been made in the year immediately preceding, the two cities and the country adjacent bore all the marks and signs of a frontier situation. Everything was new, although to be sure, everything was aggressive and enterprising. Log houses had not entirely disappeared, but frame structures were plentiful. Brick buildings were scarce. Euclid street had, however, begun its career of splendor with a dwelling house of that material near the present site of the Union Club. The avenues that now stretch out in splendid vistas of lawn and mansion were then unbroken forest land, the haunt of wild animals. Indeed, for some years afterward the deer and the bear were frequently caught within what are now city limits.
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
At this time, of course, the business of the place was confined to shipping and exchange. It had been the depot of sale and supply for the sparse agricultural population of the neighboring country. Henceforth it was to perform a like function for the vast and fertile region stretching for hundreds of miles to the south, east and west. The change that was beginning to work was the change from a provincial town to a metropolis.
It is a remarkable fact that young communities, in the first flush of their vigorous development, have a wonderful faculty for turning out versatile and able men. Whether the men come of their own accord, or whether the environ- ment makes them, we need not stop to enquire; the im- portant fact is that they are on the ground. Cleveland, in her early days, was no exception to the rule. A gentleman, now living in the east, who was familiar with the place at this time, has given, in a letter published some years since in the Leader, an interesting account of the sociable and wide-awake Cleveland of early city charter days. There was small wealth and less formality, but there was an abundance of self-respect and invigorating converse. The Cleveland bar at that time numbered some of the ablest men of its entire history. Among them were Reuben Wood, John W. Allen, S. J. Andrews, Samuel Starkweather, Samuel Cowles, Leonard Case, Sr., John W. Willey and John M. Ster- ling. It must not besupposed that these men and their con- temporaries were confined in their activities to the special labor of a single profession or pursuit. They were all things to all men-or rather to all emergencies-if by any means they might accomplish something in the public behoof.
'ny I Samuel Sarlaw P'hui"
Lan
Pluto
1. 2
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
In accordance with a provision of the act incorporating the city of Cleveland, the first municipal election was held April 15, 1836, resulting in the choice of the following officers: John W. Willey, mayor; Richard Hilliard, Nich- olas Dockstader, Joshua Mills, aldermen; Morris Hepburn, John R. St. John, William V. Craw,* Sherlock J. Andrews, Henry L. Noble, Edward Baldwin, Aaron Strickland, Horace Canfield and Archibald M. T. Smith, councilmen.
Probably at no period in its history have the residents of Cleveland been so sanguine of immediate and un- bounded prosperity as at the time of the city charter. The press abounded in glowing predictions-and the press hardly voiced the hopes of its patrons. Every man had the prospect of opulence in the advancing tide of immigration from the east, and he saw the measure of his coming greatness in the quantity of land which could be held in anticipation of enormous prices that must soon prevail. Indeed, the outlook was sufficiently cheering for any reasonable ambition. A great public work had been successfully carried through and the interior of a great State opened to commerce. Moreover, this commerce was al- ready a reality-something that could be seen and handled any day along the wharves and in the warehouses at the mouth of the river. During the decade that had elapsed since the first opening of the canal from Akron to Lake Erie, the exchange and shipping business of Cleveland had increased enormously, amounting in 1836 to nearly one- fourth of the entire products of the State. Not only was
* Mr. W. V. Craw is the only surviving member of the first city council.
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
Cleveland the medium and beneficiary of this extensive trade with the interior; she was also the metropolis and commercial center of the Western Reserve, a region which, since the war of 1812, had been steadily growing in wealth and population; the county of Cuyahoga alone-exclusive of Cleveland-numbering in 1836 upwards of fifteen thousand inhabitants. Communication with this neigh- boring region was, however, very unsatisfactory. High- ways were poor-little better in fact than in the early days of settlement-and the only means of transportation were huge primitive wagons, constructed with a view to all the exigencies of heavy loads and unfathomable mud. The opening of the canal, with its attendant prosperity, had suggested the desirableness of improved methods of communication between Cleveland and the adjoining towns. We accordingly find, in 1835, the first mention ยท of an enterprise, or series of enterprises, which were con- tinued, with various interruptions, till the railway system of Northern Ohio was well under way. This pioneer ven- ture, known as the Cleveland & Newburg railroad, has no place in our account of industries, as it was merely a pa- per enterprise and was never constructed. It is worthy of mention only as the precursor to numerous projects, suc- cessful and otherwise, of a like nature, and as being the occasion of an all-around discussion that did much to- wards clearing up public opinion on various questions re- lating to commerce and exchange.
The second railway of the Reserve-this time a reality- was a tramway of hewed timber connecting the stone quarries of East Cleveland with the city, its western ter-
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
minus being near the present site of the Forest City House. The motive power was, of course, furnished by horses, and the business of the road was confined to the hauling of freight. The road proved an expensive venture and was soon abandoned, but the old timbers remained an eye- sore along Euclid street for some years afterwards.
The same year another enterprise was begun-one of more pretensions than those just described. This was the famous Ohiorailroad, of unpropitious memory. For some years the need had been deeply felt of more trustworthy communication between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, the thriving metropolis of Western Pennsylvania. It was urged by those who advocated the enterprise that railway connection between these points would bring to the port of Cleveland a trade scarcely less important than that which reached it by way of the canal. About this time the Hudson Bay company purchased through Cleve- land dealers, for use in their northern settlements, a large proportion of the entire product of the State for that year. This incident was eagerly seized upon as indicating the growing importance of shipping interests, and the necessity of securing a wider area for supply. The pre- diction was confidently made that all the exports of the newly opened west would shortly find their outlet through the great lakes, shipped direct to Europe from the port of Cleveland-or from that port chiefly. In this connec- tion it should be borne in mind that no commercial per- spective, so to speak, was at that time possible. The industry of the west was agricultural, and this industry was confined to a limited region of lake shore and river
=
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
valley lying east of the Mississippi. The network of railways that now connects the vast and fertile stretches of the inland States was then unknown, and the States themselves, for the most part, unexplored; but they were rich enough in promise, and their situation and imagined fertility seemed clearly to indicate a great future for navi- gation on the lakes. The railway scheme, therefore, was one of no small popularity-especially when the plan was modified by the proposal to extend the road from the Penn- sylvania line to the western boundary of Ohio, where a terminus had been decided upon in the shape of an imaginary city, which was named Manhattan.
The enterprise was incorporated as the Ohio Railroad, the State being a purchaser of stock to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars. By virtue of a clause in its charter the corporation was empowered to issue notes on its own credit and conduct a general banking business. This function it proceeded to exercise, and that in a most liberal fashion. Work was at once begun at various points along the intended line, the company's scrip being taken in payment without the slightest demur. As if by uncon- scious forecast of failure, it was decided to dispense as far as possible with grading, substituting therefor an exten- sive line of trestle-work, which, it was believed, would furnish a sufficiently strong foundation. In 1837, in com- mon with many a scheme whose basis was more steadfast, the Ohio railroad was abandoned and its corporate rights transferred to other hands.
In March, 1836, a charter was granted by the legisla- ture to the Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati railroad.
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
The financial crash of 1837 came on apace, and operations were suspended for nine years. In March, 1845, the orig- inal charter was amended and the work carried forward to a successful outcome.
At the same session of the legislature, in March, 1836, the Cleveland, Warren & Pittsburgh road was chartered, providing for the construction of a railroad between Cleve- land and the Pennsylvania line, where it might connect with any road already established in that State. Theact of incorporation vested in the directors discretionary powers of the most ample sort. They might issue stock to any amount, choose their own route, and determine what motive power should be employed. This enterprise, with some modifications in the original plan, was revived in the more prosperous days of the next decade and brought to a successful issue.
The hard times and panic of 1837, which brought to ruin nearly every business establishment in the Western Reserve, were occasioned by the financial innovations of President Jackson's administration. In July, 1836, the secretary of the treasury issued the famous specie circular, which directed that thenceforth all payments for public lands should bein specie or specie certificates. In the May following, conse- quent upon the influx of worthless paper from the west, the banks of New York were compelled to suspend specie pay- ments. The panic that followed was simply a reaction of nat- ural forces, the inevitable outcome of an unlimited and unse- cured paper circulation. We have seen what confusion fol- lowed on the Western Reserve, and especially at Cleveland, the metropolis of that thriving region. Enterprises of all
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
sorts were palsied. City lots owned by the land com- panies of Ohio City and Cleveland, which shortly before had sold for prices enormously above their actual value, could no longer be disposed of on any terms. It was a period of purging and of sobering, from which the city emerged to enter upon a career of substantial prosperity.
It may be that the misfortunes of the time, with their attendant anxieties and disappointments, tended to make the strained relations of an unreal competition still more strained between the rival cities at the mouth of the Cuy- ahoga. At all events, the autumn of 1837 saw the cul- mination of a long-standing feud in what is known to his- tory as the Battle of the Bridge.
This affair marked the culmination of a rivalry that had first become serious two years before, the occasion of which we have already alluded to. Mr. Clark and his associates, upon the completion of the Columbus Street bridge, had thrown it open to the public use, without let or hindrance and with noexaction of toll. The purpose of these gentle- men will readily appear when account is taken of the extensive interests possessed by them on the Cleveland side ; interests which would be enlarged in no small degree by the opening of a highway through the flats that should connect the city with the thriving settlements to the west and south. Just at this point the clash was felt. The advantage for Cleveland measured the disadvantage for Ohio City. There was here no community of interests, but a very real and very serious antagonism. Every cart- load of produce that went to Cleveland over the new bridge was so much lost to the enterprise of the Pearl
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
street shop keeper; and he felt very much too sore to make any abatement for the rights of competition. Self- interest soon appeared in the garb of public spirit. Meet- ings were held, and the high indignation mounted higher. The bridge was declared a nuisance, and the marshal of Ohio City was authorized by the council to abate it with- out delay. The order was carried out at great expense of gun-powder, but with small effect upon the integrity of the obnoxious structure. Nothing disheartened, the war went on, though for a time the efforts of both parties were confined to a vigorous expression of deep resentment through the medium of the public press. At length a point was reached where a more tangible utterance seemed unavoidable. The citizens of the west side were deter- mined that the bridge should go; the Clevelanders were equally determined that it should remain. Prepara- tions arranged, the belligerents assembled for the final tilt. The Reverend Dr. Pickands, who led the west-side patriots, offered a prayer for the triumph of justice and then conducted his forces to the attack. This attack, unfortu- nately for the dignity of our narrative, was not of an heroic type. An old field-piece, which had done good service for many years in patriotic celebrations, was posted at the Cleveland end of the bridge, where its grim suggestion might give due warning to the approaching enemy. The warning was sufficient ; for the attack was not maintained with much spirit, and the contestants soon withdrew, after a crazy volley of stones and bullets-while the bridge still stood to serve the purposes for which it had been erected.
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
CHAPTER VI.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE COUNCIL-FIRST SCHOOL BOARD -TEMPERANCE REFORM-INAUGURATION OF NEW CONDITIONS-MAYOR DOCKSTADER'S ADDRESS-RETRENCHMENT OF MUNICIPAL EXPENDITURE- COMMON SCHOOLS-ORGANIZATION OF A LYCEUM-PRO-SLAVERY LAW OF OHIO -THE INCIDENT OF 1841-THE YOUNG MEN'S LITERARY ASSOCIATION -FIRST HIGH SCHOOL.
T HE interval from the panic to 1840 was one of com- plete exhaustion. The city made no increase in population. Spent energies were being recovered, but they were not yet fit for action. There was still the trade with the interior, which no financial depression could have checked entirely; and the neighboring townships, with their fertile soil and industrious population, still looked to Cleveland as the center of sale and exchange. The prevail- ing conditions are reflected in the local legislation. A view is taken to the needs of a provincial community without the old-time hankering for remote and dubious advantages.
On July 7, 1837, the council resolved to borrow fifty thousand dollars on the credit of the city, for the erection of markets and school-houses-"to defray the expenses of which it would not be good policy to tax the citizens." Soon after a market was built on Michigan street, for the
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
management of which an elaborate set of regulations was adopted. This same session the city engineer was directed to prepare a map of the city, showing the division into lots, etc. A board of school managers was organized, the first appointees being John W. Willey, Anson Haydon and Daniel Worley. This board was empowered to appropri- ate a specified sum annually for the common schools, to provide buildings and apparatus, and to secure suitable instructors. On August 7, a resolution was adopted di- recting the board of school managers to purchase the Acad- emy at the corner of St. Clair and Academy streets. This year a petition was presented which anticipated a reform of recent years. The petitioners prayed that the granting of licenses be restricted, and that the sale of liquors on Sundays be entirely prohibited. This movement, as we shall see, was followed up vigorously in succeeding years .*
The year 1840 opened with a brighter outlook for the city. Not that years of disaster had left behind them no traces in public and private indebtedness, and in the burden of increasing taxation; but the time was one of recovery and advance, following upon a long period of retrogres- sion. In his opening address to the city council, Mayor Dockstader, referring to the somewhat delicate financial status of the city, urged the necessity of economy in public expenditure, and advised immediate retrenchment of official
* In 1830 the whole number of vessels owned at the port of Cleveland was fifteen; in 1831, nineteen; in 1832, twenty-seven; in 1833, twenty-seven; in 1834, thirty-three; in 1835, thirty-eight; in 1836, forty ; in 1837, sixty-three; in 1838, sixty-seven; in 1839, sixty- six ; in 1840, sixty-six.
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
salaries. Acting under this advice, the council, in February of the following year, moved that an amendment be se- cured to the city charter forbidding the payment to any city official of a larger compensation than two hundred dollars per annum. A suggestive incident may be men- tioned in this connection-the payment from the public treasury of upwards of four thousand dollars for expenses incurred at an elaborate official reception. This sort of outlay is not, seemingly, of so modern an origin as some have supposed.
We have seen that in 1837 a board of school managers had been appointed, with general supervisory functions. Public schools were at once organized in the old Academy building, which had been rented for that purpose. Two years later, July, 1839, the city purchased the building and lot for six thousand dollars. This building, and others that had been provided, not sufficing for immediate needs, the council determined to erect two additional buildings at a cost of three thousand dollars, five hundred dollars each. The new quarters were ready for occupation at the opening of the winter session of 1840. During this session nine hundred pupils were in attendance under sixteen in- structors .*
* Following is the order of exercises in the Prospect Street school: Forenoon : Scripture Reading, Class in English Reader, Porter's Rhetor- ical Reader, Historical Reader, Angell's No. 2 Reader, First Class in Smith's Geography, Second Class in Smith's Geography, Parley's History of the United States, Smith's Grammar, Class in Spelling, Third Class in Spelling. Afternoon: Historical Reader, Angell's No. 2 Reader, Kirk- ham's Grammar, Adams' Arithmetic, Smith's Arithmetic, Second Class
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
The reorganized school system was followed, in 1840, by a lyceum and debating club, supported by the young men of the place. During the winter lectures and musical en- tertainments were given, which called forth the best of local talent. Additional zest was sometimes given by the pres- ence of a distinguished speaker from abroad. The lectures of that day were not such as would please a more modern audience. They were very long-and they were very prosy. This was not the fault of the audience or of the speaker. The speaker was intelligent and the audience was appre- ciative. It was rather the misfortune-or perhaps the good fortune-of the time. Winter evenings in the western town of forty years ago were not crowded with intellect- ual variety. There may well have been an abundance of intellectual vigor, but the matter for its exercise was lim- ited. There was sufficient time and energy for the thorough handling of a deep subject. The lecturers of the day were expected to do this, and they usually did it.
The year 1841 was an eventful one for the colored resi- dents of the Western Reserve. This region had never been backward in displaying substantial sympathy towards the fugitives who made it their sanctuary and point of depart- ure; although no steady and effectual means of relief could often be ventured on in face of existing State and National legislation. Ohio at that time had a Code de Noir as stringent as the most jealous slave-owner could reasonably have demanded. Among others was a statute which prohibited any negro or mulatto from becoming a
in Arithmetic, Third Class in Arithmetic, Algebra, Natural Philosophy, Spelling .- ' Freeze's History of the Cleveland Schools.'
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
citizen of the State without first presenting a certificate, signed by the judge and clerk of a circuit court, certifying that the holder was legally entitled to his freedom. Al- though the public sentiment of the State-and more espec- ially was it true of the Western Reserve-denied the obliga- tion of these laws, they nevertheless served a purpose in preventing active measures for the relief of captured fugi- tives. Up to 1841 it had been the custom in Cleveland to arrest fugitive slaves upon the application of the owner, who then proceeded homeward with his property without molestation. To the majority of law-abiding citizens their duty of non-resistance in such cases seemed very clear ; especially in view of the desperate and treasonable meth- ods that were coming into vogue among the extremists of the Abolitionist party.
About this time it is probably true that the number of calm-minded and reasonable men, capable of considering a fugitive slave case on its merits, was lamentably small. There seemed to be no average or mean opinion. In a given case men ranged themselves furiously for a fugitive or furiously against him. Public feeling was of this sort when the following illustrative incident occurred. Three ne- gro slaves had made their way from New Orleans to Buffalo. The agent of their owner, finding serious difficulty in making good his claim at the latter place, induced them to accompany him to Cleveland, whence it was thought they might easily be secured and transported beyond the state boundaries. Once in Cleveland the negroes were ar- rested under the law of Congress, and lodged in the county jail. Hon. Edward Wade and Hon. John A. Foot, two Ab-
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
olitionist lawyers of Cleveland, proposed to conduct the defence, but were refused admittance to the prisoners. At this juncture Mr. Thomas Bolton, prosecuting attorney of the county, was asked to interfere in the interests of fair play. In his official capacity he gained admittance to the jail, learned from the prisoners the circumstances of their seizure, and engaged to conduct their defence. Through much opposition, and regardless of threats that were freely made of personal violence, Mr. Bolton persevered; succeeding after a long delay in obtaining the discharge of his clients. Henceforth for twenty years no slave was remanded to captivity from the courts of Cuyahoga county.
In 1845 the literary spirit of the place found for itself a substantial expression. The Young Men's Literary asso- ciation was formed, and at once began the work of collect- ing a library. Former efforts in this line, of which there had been a considerable number, had proved unsuccessful; and even at this time fears were expressed that the asso- ciation would prove unequal to the task proposed. Hap- pily, however, the enterprise throve, and the collection of books rapidly increased. In 1848 the society was in- corporated under the name of the Cleveland Library asso- ciation. The stock consisted of two hundred shares of ten dollars each. The subsequent history of this association will appear in our account of the Case Library.
Up to 1846 there was no free high school in the State of Ohio. The movement which was in that year successfully inaugurated at Cleveland for the establishment of a high school system is, therefore, an event of more than local
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