USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > Memorial record of the county of Cuyahoga and city of Cleveland, Ohio, pt 2 > Part 50
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F FRANCIS FORD, formerly a locomotive engineer, but now retired from active la- bor, was born at Covington, Massachu- setts, May 1, 1820, a son of Cyrus and Clarissa (Whitmarsh) Ford, natives also of that State. The father conducted a station on the under- ground railroad in Cleveland. Francis attended the comnon schools, the Shaw Academy, and the Grand River Instituto at Austinburg, Ash- tabula county, Ohio. After completing his edu- cation he taught school four winters. July 1, 1850, he began work on the Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati Railroad, spending ten years as assistant engineer, and from 1860 to 1880 was chief engineer. After the completion of the line to ludianapolis and Chicago, be began work on that branch of the road, was also ongi-
neer on the East Cleveland Road, and during that time was superintendent of the construc- tion of the Garfield Monument three years, from the time the foundation was laid until it was completed. Mr. Ford still resides on the farm on which his father located in October, 1841, which is now laid off into town lots, and is located in one of the most beautiful spots in the city.
September 18, 1851, Mr. Ford was united in marriage with Miss Merey A. Fuller, a dangh- ter of Edward and Maria Fuller. The father was a real-estate dealer, also served as justice of the peace twenty years, and was well known and respected in his community. His death oc- curred in 1879. Mrs. Fuller now resides with her daughter, Mrs. George A. Ingersoll, at 1374 Enelid avenue, Cleveland, and is eighty-four years of age. She is a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. and Mrs. Fuller had six children: Carlton A., of Toledo; Mercy A., now Mrs. Ford; Joanna M., wife of G. A. Ingersoll; Edwin, of Jersey City; Charles W., a elerk in the general ticket office of the Lake Shore Road in Cleveland; and Alvira M., who married a Mr. Beckwith, and died in 1890. Mr. and Mrs. Ford have had six children. The eldest, Frank L., is a graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnie school of Troy, New York, and is now State agent of the Worcester, Massachu- setts Mutual Life Insurance Company. He was married in 1877, to Eva Hurlburt, and they have four children: Florence, Elizabeth, Hurlburt and Deunison. Edwin L. is engaged in the general ticket office of the Lake Shore & Mich- igan Southern Railroad. He married Nellie, a daughter of M. R. Keith, and they had two children, Myron and Edwin L. The wife and mother died in March, 1889. Minnie was burned to death at the age of three years. She was alone in an adjoining room, when her screams revealed the terrible faet that her clothes were on lire. After hours of suffering death came to her relief. Charles L. is employed as salesman in the office of the Goff- Kirby Coal Company. Maria married Rev. W. H. Jones,
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rector of the St. John's Church on the West Side. He graduated in the theological course of the Cambridge Episcopal school in the Adel- line College. Fanny died in 1883, at the age of eleven years. Mrs. Ford and daughter are members of the Beekwith Presbyterian Church of Cleveland. In political matters, Mr. Ford affiliates with the Republican party.
W ILLIAM S. CORLETT, of Warrens- ville, Ohio, is one of the representative citizens of that place. Ile was born on the Isle of Man, July 7, 1835, son of William and Jane (Corlett) Corlett, and came with his parents and other members of the family to America in 1845. The father was twice mar- ried. By his first wife he had one child, Ellen, who was the wife of Robert Corlett, deceased. The children by his second marriage were as follows: William S .; John A .; Robert C., who was a member of the Forty-second Ohio Infan- try during the late war, and who is now a resi- dent of Newburg, Ohio; Mrs. Jane Stevenson, who has been twice widowed and who with her five children (Samantha J., Clara, Francis D., Moses, Belle A. and Jennie C. Stevenson) lives with the subject of this sketch; Thomas E., de- ceased was a member of Garfield's regiment, the Forty-second Ohio, his death having occurred while he was in camp and when he was only eighteen years old; Clara, wife of Charles Mur. fett, of Orange township, this county; and Syl- vanns J., also a resident of Orange township. The last two named are the only ones who are natives of this country. The father of our sub- jeet was born in 1803 and died in 1870, while the mother, born in 1810, died in 1889. The elder Mr. Corlett was engaged in agricultural pursuits all his life. Politically, he was a Re- publican; religiously, a member of the Metho- dist Episcopal Church.
On the old home farm William S. Corlett was reared. He attended the district school, later wont to Oberlin and Berea colleges, and
for several years was engaged in teaching. For two years -1866 and 1867-he had charge of the business department of Berea College. Ile also learned the trade of bricklayer, at which he worked for some years. At this writing he oc- enpies the homestead farm with his sister Jane and her children, the place being well improved with good buildings, orchard, etc. The two- story brick residence is surrounded with a pretty lawn, the whole premises being neat and at- tractive.
Politically, Mr. Corlett is identified with the Republican party, and is regarded as one of its most active workers in this vicinity. For six terms he has served as Justice of the Peace, dis- peusing justice to all before his court in a man- ner suited to a higher judge. He is a member, steward and trustee of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and is also Superintendent of the Sunday- school. In political, educational and religious matters he has ever taken an active interest, and is justly entitled to the high esteem in which he is held by all who know him.
D WIGIIT SMITII, deceased, formerly a farmer of Middleburg township, Ohio, Was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1819, and when he was a boy of seven years his parents moved to the State of New York, und four years afterward to Cuyahoga county, Ohio, settling in Middleburg township, where they passed the residue of their days.
Dwight Smith continued to reside in this township, and was married in Liverpool, Ohio, October 25, 1848, to Miss Sarah Lillie, who was born in Vermont, January 8, 1826. They com- menced housekeeping in Middleburg, which was then an unsettled country. Ile chopped down a few trees and erected a little frame house which was occupied for many years, having been destroyed by fire on the 4th of July, 1873; he then erected a commodious residence. lle was actively engaged in farming until his death, which occurred at his residence, August 22, 1881.
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He had eight children: Alice, who is the wife of Wesley Humphrey, a resident of Middle- burg; Solon D., deceased; Julia A., wife of Lonis Busse, a resident of Middleburg; George F., who died in infancy; Clara A., wife of Willis Smith, a resident of Middleburg; Sarah I ..; Burrett J., who married Gertrude Wing, is also a resident of Middleburg; and Minnie O.
Mr. Smith was very fond of music, and could play skillfully on the violin, tife and snare drum.
He was a member of the Methodist Church, and was a great worker in the church and Sab- bath-school.
The father of Mrs. Smith, Anson Lillie, was a soldier in the war of 1812, where he lost a leg. He died in Liverpool, Lorain county, Ohio. llis wife, whose name before marriage was Auna Dike, died in Middleburg township, Ohio.
H ARVEY RICE .- An eminent citizen of Cleveland, in the person of llarvey Rice, died on the 7th of November, 1891, having completed ninety-one years and four months of life. He was born at Conway, Massachusettes, in the last year of the eigh- teenth century, June 11, 1800. ITis father was a farmer and he was bereft of his mother when he was but four years of age.
One of the most precions literary legacies which Mr. Riee left to his family and friends is a manuscript volume, written in compliance with the earnest solicitation of a friend, entitled " Leaflets of a Life-time," and completed in his eighty-seventh year. It is a beautiful photo- graph of his life, his sentiments, his affections, his memory of childhood, his birth-place, and the remembrance of the sad sweet face and the dying kiss of his mother. A few extracts will illustrate this record.
" The old frame house in which I was born, though sadly weather beaten, still survives the assaults of time, of storm, and of tempest, for the simple reason, I suppose, that it is literally
founded upon a rock, -- a rock which, covered with a thin soil, projects from a hillside, and in its general appearance resembles the outlines of a giant's chair. When I last visited the old mansion it had assumed a lonely and forsaken aspect, a sadness of expression which touched the better feelings of my nature, and compelled me to turn away with a sorrowful heart and a tearful eye. The farm consists of about fifty acres of romantic hill and dale. The rocks, broad and black, crop out in almost every part of it and seem to contend with the small intervening space of arable land for the supremacy. The contrast, however, be- tween rock-plat and grass- plat presents to the eye an agreeable picture, or rather land. scape, penciled here and there with silver rills, whose waters are as pure and sweet as the nectar of the gods.
" In the distance are seen mountain ranges mantled in celestial blue seeming like a circular crowd of spectators lost in silent admiration of the scene. It was here within this charmed cirele that I first saw the light, and here in the fourth snminer of my childhood my mother died. At such an age the loss of a mother is irreparable. It was a loss which I did not then appreciate, but which I doubt not gave direc- tion of the future of my life. Being so young at the time of her death, I remember but little in relation to her. The most 1 can recollect is the expression of tenderness of which she took her final leave of me and the other members of the family at her bedside, and the subsequent appearance which her funeral procession pre- sented to my childish eye as it wound its way slowly over the hills to the rural graveyard in which her remains were deposited. It was said by those best acquainted with her, that she was not only an exemplary lady, but that she pos- sessed for those times unusual literary attain- ments, and for this reason was often solicited by her personal friends and neighbors to furn- ish, in matters of local interest, notices for the newspaper press, especially obituaries and elegiac verses."
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Five times in the course of his life Mr. Rice made a prilgrimage to the neglected old grave- yard in Conway where reposes the saered dust of his mother, the last time being in 1874. " It is," he writes, "a quiet rural spot on the hill- side. ller headstone is constructed of slate rock, primitive in design and humble in its pretension, yet it is now so overgrown with moss that I found it difficult to read the inscription, but finally succeeded in deciphering the words, . Died August 2, 1804; aged 38 years.' As if to guard the quiet of her slumbers, a native pine has grown up at her foot-stone and now breathes its pensive whispers, dirge-like, over her remains, Even her headstone, as if weary with watching, has assumed a leaning posture. From its crumbling edges I gathered a few frag- ments, and also enlled a few of the many wild flowers that had blossomed in its shadow. These I have carefully preserved in a picture-frame. The fragments and flowers are so aranged in the frame as to give the flowers the appearance of having sprung to life, naturally, out of broken ledge of slate rock. This picture, as inartistic as it may be, now adorns the walls of my library. Simple as this device may seem to others, it is and ever will be regarded by me as a relic of priceless value."
The genealogical record of the family indi- cates that the first American ancestor was Ed- mund Rice, who emigrated with his wife and seven children from Barkhamsted, England, to America, in 1638, and settled in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Barkhamsted, about twenty miles northwest of London, is a town of great historieal interest. Originally, from the first to the fourth century, it was the camp of the Roman Legions, whose vast earthworks are now visible and whose bastions are still green. It was also the first permanent camp of the Nor- man conqueror after the battle of Hastings in 1066, where he received the submission of Lon- don. A eastlo was here erected, which was a royal residence long before that of Windsor, and which is still visible in its ruins. It was the residence of the royal line of York, terminating
in the death of Richard III, last of the Plan- tagenets, seven years before the discovery of America. But above all kings and courtiers it is interesting as the birth-place of the poet Cowper, whose Father was rector of the church.
Mr. Rice's grandfather, Cyrus Rice, was the lineal descendant of Edmund. He emigrated from Worcester, Massachusetts, to Conway in 1762, being the first white man who settled in that town. His only neighbors at that time were the dusky sons of the forest. In his family was born the first white child of the town -- a daughter, whose name was Beulah, and in his family occurred the first death, that of his wife. He lived to see the town generally settled, was the father of seven sons and three daughters, and died at the age of ninety-two years. One of his sons, Stephen, was the father of Harvey Rice, and his mother's maiden name was Lucy Baker. They settled on the farm adjoining that of Cyrus, the primitive pioneer, and here Harvey Rice was born. The following record is extracted from "Leaflets of a Life-time;" " My father was a man of fine physical propor- tions, and of great physical strength. Though not highly educated he possessed a logical mind, and rarely met his equal in debating a theolog- ical question. As the grand object of life, he never sought wealth, nor did he obtain it. Yet he managed to live in comfortable circum- stances, and always sustained an irreproachable character. Ile died in 1850 in the eighty-third year of his age. For his memory I entertain a profound filial regard, and shall ever reeall with gratitude his parental kindness and solicitudo for my welfare."
The contemporaneous historical events sur- rounding the period of one's birth and boy hood are no less interesting to recall than those more commonly noted at the period of death. When light first gladdened the infant eyes of Harvey Rice, John Adams was president; George III still lived; Washington had been entombed at Mt. Vernon but six months; Napoleon had but re- cently fought the battle of the Pyramids; the then future city of his ultimate adoption hal
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existed, on paper only, for four years; Europe then and for twenty years thereafter, was in the throes of the French Revolution, and the eur- rent foreign news read by the youth of New England was of battles by land and sea-of Nelson and the Nile, of Trafalgar and Copen- hagen, of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Lodi's fatal bridge, of Wellington and Waterloo. Poetry then more than now was read by old and young alike. While Plutarch and Gibbon were read and revered, poetry had more delight- ful faseination, especially for youth. Milton was associated with Isaiah; the Paradise Lost was regarded of confirmatory of and proof of Holy Writ; Pollock and Young were in every household; Cowper and Goldsmith were deemed standard poets; Gray's Elegy was in every school reader; Shakespeare suggested the sin- ful theater and therefore was not so generally read and appreciated as in later years; Bryant and Scott were the most popular authors; the grace of the " Lady of the Lake" and the grandenr of the Ilebrew Melodies were the literary themes of New England social life. In such historical and literary atmosphere was awakened and de. veloped the bright and reflective mind in the springtime of the life of Harvey Rice. But above all wore his youth and early manhood in- fluenced and inspired by his older contemporary, the poet Bryant, whose birth-place was the neighboring town of Cummington, and whose "Thanatopsis " was the foundation of his sub- sequent, pre-eminent, poetie and scholarly fame. Such were the influences that surrounded his youth and ultimately directed his foot-steps and lighted his pathway to Williams College at which he graduated in 1824. From the elose of the Revolution the course of empire from the Atlantic States has ever been westward, first to Holland Purchase, next to New Connecticut or the Western Reserve, then onward still, until now, aftor a lapse of a hundred years, there is no more West. Immediately on leaving college Mr. Rice enme directly to the Reserve, -- the stage coach, Erie canal boat, and schooner from Buffalo, being in that day the most expeditions
means of eonveyanee,-arriving at Cleveland on the 24th day of September, 1824, then only a village of 400 inhabitants. The most imposing brick structure then erected was the Cleveland Academy on St. Clair street, now (1894) occu- pied as headquarters by the fire department of the city. Here the accomplished young grad- nate immediately secured a position of classical teacher and principal. In the meantime he entered his name as student in the office of Reuben Wood, Esq., and employed his leisure hours in study. In the spring of 1826 he re- signed his position in the academy and went to Cincinnati, where he continued his legal studies with Bellamy Storer, Esq. Returning to Cleve- land he was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in partnership with his early friend, Reuben Wood, who afterward became Chief Justice and then Governor of the State.
In 1828 he united in marriage with Miss Fannie Rice at the home of his law partner. She died in 1837. Three years later, in 1840, he married Emma Maria Wood, who was his beloved companion nearly fifty years, preceding him in death a little less than three years, in 1889. He was the happy father of sons and daughters. In 1830 he was elected represent- ative to the legislature. Though one of the youngest members, he was honored with a place on the joint committee appointed to revise the statutes of the State, the revision of 1830 being the first ever undertaken of the Ohio statutes. In the course of this revision, many new provisions were incorporated into the laws, some of which were prepared by Mr. Rice and are still retained on the statute-book. Near the close of the session he was appointed by that body, agent to sell the Western Reserve school lands, some 50,000 acres in Holmes and Tuscarawas counties. To that end he opened an office in Millersburg. This important publie service having been accomplished, in 1833 he returned to Cleveland and was appointed Clerk of the county courts, which position he held for for seven years. Within that period he was twice nominated by his party for Congress. In
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1851 he was elected to the State Senate and was made chairman on the committee on schools. This proved to be the occasion of his winning an honorable and lasting fame, it being no less to the end of his life than his publie recogni- tion as " Father of the Common School System of Ohio."
The journals of the Ohio Senate furnish a complete record of the inception, draft, report, aud advocacy of the school bill by Senator Rice, and the vote, almost unanimons, twenty-two to two, by which it passed that body, and ulti- mately the house, and thus became alike a law and a blessing to a generation of the children of the State. The leading journals of the State, with- out distinction of party, were nnanimous in their friendly greeting of the new school law, and published his speech with editorial com- ments on its clearness of statement and happy illustration, and awarded the meed of approval and praise to Senator Rice for his great and benefieent work. And now after forty years it reads like a prophecy fulfilled. The following aro its concluding paragraphs:
"By the provisions of this bill, it is intended to make our common schools what they ought to be,-the colleges of the people,-cheap enough for the poorest and good enough for the richest. With but a slight increase of taxation, schools of different grades can be established and maintained in any township of the State, and the sons and daughters of our farmers and mechanies have an opportunity of acquiring a finished education, equal with the more favored of the land. In this day, the elements of mind now slumbering among the masses, like a fine unwrought marble in the quarry, will be aronsed and brought out to challenge the admiration of the world. Philosophers and sages will abound everywhere, on the farm and in the workshops, and many a man of genius will stand among the masses and exhibit a brilliancy of intellect which will be recognized in the circling years of the future as . A light, a land-mark on the cliff's of time.' It is only the educated man who is compotent to interrogate nature and com-
prehend her relations. Though I would not break down the aristocracy of knowledge of the present age, yet, sir, I would level up and equalizo and thus create, if I may be allowed the expression, a democracy of knowledge. In this way, and in this way only, can men be made equal in fact, equal in their social and political relations, equal in mental refinement, and in a just appreciation of what constitutes man the brother of his fellow man.
" In conclusion, sir, allow me to express my belief that the day is not far distant when Ohio, in the noble eance of popular education and of human rights, will lead the column and become what she is capable of becoming, -a star of the first magnitude, the brightest in the galaxy of our American Union."
In the antuinn of 1852, Mr. Rice made a fly- ing trip through most of the Southern States accompanied by his wife and son. They pro- ceeded from Cleveland by the way of New York, Washington, Richmond, Wilmington, Charles- ton and Savannah; and returned home by the way of Mobile, New Orleans, the Mississippi river and Cincinnati, having made a cirenit of nearly 5,000 miles. A very interesting account of the journey was given in a series of letters by Mr. Rice, in a New York magazine. Later in life, after the opening of the trans-continental railroad, he visited California, and coasted along its pleasant shores, and delighted the publie, through his home journal, with a charming description of the country of the Golden Gate.
Mr. Rice onjoyed a serene, placid, domestic, social and literary life. In 1871, Williams Col- lege conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. Ile often participated in the . reunions of the alumni in the halls of his alma mater, and as often delivered a poem, or a more formal address. Ile was very industrious. Be- sides the almost constant and gratuitous local publie service, in the council, and on boards of finance and of penal and charitable institutions, his daily life work was in his library, among the hundreds of standard volumes of science, philosophy, literature and law. His pou wa,
Mr. It. Wheelock
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never idle, and the product thereof consists of several volumes of history, biography, poems and essays, -- philosophical and scientific, - em- bracing many subjects of modern thought from women's rights to the glacial period.
In the development and preservation of local history, the industrious researches of Mr. Rice are among the most valuable and precious treasures of our historical institutions. He was the early friend and ever cherished the Western Reserve Historical Society, now holding within its noble structure the richest collection of the historical and antique in the State. The his- torical inspirations of his sonl embraced national no less than local themes, early manifested in the erection of the colossal statue of Commodore Perry, the first suggestion of which was made by him while a member of the city council in 1857. lle was made a chairman of the eom- mittee charged with the execution of the enter- prise. In 1867 he erected at his own expense, in the domain of Williams College, a beautiful grove called " Mission Park," a noble monu- ment commemorative of the pious students' service of prayer in 1806, when and where was first announced the inspired thought that led to the organization of the American Board of Foreign Missions. From its organization in 1879 until his death, he was the president and inspiring spirit of the Early Settlers' Associa- tion, and in that capacity he annually delivered a discourse, pertinent and attractive, largely his- torical, touching incidents and events in the lives of the oldest and most noted pioneers. Under the authority and parentage of the as- sociation he caused to be erceted in the Publie Square the statue of Moses Cleaveland, the founder of the city, the same being dedicated July 22, 1888. On each of those several oc- casions of dedications and unveiling of monu- ments and statues, Mr. Rice was called upon to deliver a memorial historical address. Annually during the last decade, the birthday of Mr. Riee was observed by his neighbors and many of the oldest citizens, by calls and joyful greetings; and for the last five years of his happily pro-
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