USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > Official report of the centennial celebration of the founding of the city of Cleveland and the settlement of the Western Reserve > Part 8
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A song by the Arion Quartette followed, and then came remarks by W. S. Kerruish, Esq. The speaker said :
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OPENING OF THE LOG CABIN.
I crossed the ocean once, in company with some four hundred others coming this way, homeward bound myself, but for the majority it was their first voyage, and they were all eager to get a glimpse of the new world and their future home.
On our ninth day out it was said to us: "To-morrow morning, if we have luck, you'll see land," and in the morning, long before the sun had risen, and whilst the stars were still twinkling in the East, and whilst darkness was still upon the face of the deep, we were on deck-hundreds of us-vainly trying to penetrate the gloom which enshrouded the west. And there was calm and an ominous silence, for the steam power which had throbbed and pulsated and impelled us by night and by day had sunk to rest, and the uneasy waves broke lazily in the dimness of the early morning against the sides of the sleeping leviathan which lay silent and motionless on the tide. We were in the neighborhood of land and were waiting for the pilot, but not long. There's a far off flash in the darkness, and it's gone; but it appears again-some sign language of the sea, perhaps, unknown to us-and presently there dimly emerges out of the night the likeness of a small boat moved by strong arms rapidly nearing us, and a lithe figure springs nimbly up the side, and the moment his foot strikes the deck he shouts, "All steam on, straight ahead!" and instantly there's the sound of hurrying feet and creaking cordage and rushing steam, and the jarring wheels revolve once more, and the stout ship, obedient to the new master, speeds onward, westward, as if endowed with reason and new life; and anon, the sun, hidden beneath the sea's con- vexity, flames on the rim of ocean; and, behold, the veil is suddenly lifted, and yonder is the low lying, far stretching shore of a new world.
From time immemorial there have been salient features of similitude and resem- blance between the ocean voyager and the establishment of a commonwealth, or the founding of a great city. The comparison has engaged the pen of the best writers of prose. Poets, so long ago as Horace, so recent as Longfellow, have not been in- sensible to its charms. You will surely all remember on this occasion the latter's "Building and Launching of the Ship," and his matchless apostrophe to the union, typified in its cloisng lines.
But comparisons and allusions aside for a moment. This has been called by some one the centennial century. If we reflect or consider for a moment, it will easily be seen that these celebrations, in which are garnered and commemorated the achieve- ments and memories of one hundred years, have been crowding on us of late; but in this locality, along the southern shores of Lake Erie, whatever civilizations may have flourished here and disappeared throughout the ages-if any there have been-this is our first centennial; indeed, in a double sense, it may fitly be called our pioneer cen- tennial; and if by reason of the fact that it has had no local predecessor to be in some sort a guide for us, we may seem to be somewhat at sea as to the exact appropriate thing to do or word to say on this our first attempt, our trial trip, so to speak; we have a compensation in this, that we are neither hampered nor embarrassed by either precedent, example, or tradition, and yet, though we have one hundred years of con- densed history behind us, there's an eternity of possibility before us, and we are standing in this year of grace 1896 on the dividing line between the two. * * *
And now, if on some old-time map of 1750 or earher there may be traced, down by the old river bed and near the mound or sand dune which has long since disap- peared, the words " French House"-words ambiguous at best, but indicative, it is said, of the early enterprise of some adventurous but nameless French trader, for you know they were the original commercial drummers of the great Northwest wilderness -if there's some dim reminiscence or fabulous belief of a British vessel with muni- tions of war and soldiers, westward bound, hugging the shore, and stranded and lost near the cliffs of Rocky River before the settlement of white men, and if kept at bay and away from the land by the savage Iroquois and other fierce tribes, inhabiting these river bottoms and wooded highlands, as believed or stated by Parkman -- and for that reason even the zealous missionary's keel vexed these southern waters only at inter- vals " few and far between "- if there be some dubious belief of all this, we know it, after all, only in the same uncertain way we know of the infancy of Romulus or the landing of the Northmen in New England; but when General Moses Cleaveland, he who stands yonder in bronze, with his old-fashioned theodolite-when General Moses Cleaveland and his argonauts, twenty five or thirty of them, pitched their tents by the river's mouth one hundred years ago, and immediately thereafter, in the fine July weather, built a log cabin or two in the oak woods about where the Mercantile Na- tional Bank and the Marine Bank now stand, at that moment our authentic history began. And what a history! How marvelous that neither the chisel of the sculptor nor the painter's brush has resented from decay the event, with its background and surroundings, and that, too, in a great city laying claim to be the patroness of litern-
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CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE CITY OF CLEVELAND.
ture and art. And how stranger still that the account of the first beginnings of the city, the primordia urbis, as Livy calls them, should consist chiefly of a fragmentary diary and the dry field notes of a surveyor. But most wonderful of all is the change which time and industry have wrought in this region since our history began. Even the original topography has lost its character. Then there was a river, choked at the mouth with sand bars and uprooted trees, tearing its way along tortuous channels and silent bayous, amid rank vegetation and underbrush, a fit type of the "unlaborious earth and oarless sea," of which Tennyson tells us; now. the malodorous bearer of an immense commerce, stretching its arms not only throughout these vast inland seas, but to the uttermost parts of the earth; then, a vast extent of territory given over to dense, unbroken forests, the lair of wild beasts and wilder savages; now, the stately seat of a great metropolis thickly peopled with the busy marts of trade and the homes of nearly half a million of inhabitants, with the sure signs of their triumph over the forces of nature manifest on every side.
Colonel J. J. Elwell next spoke. He said :
A book, entitled " From the Cabin to the White House," shows what a barefooted boy has accomplished in this country within a hundred years. From the cabin to the building of the Society of Savings is an object lesson of what has been done in Cleve- land, more impressive and instructive than anything I can say. Look at them as they stand. The log cabin with no money -- not a cent. The bank with twenty or thirty millions belonging to the citizens of Cleveland and county. From poverty to wealth is the story they tell.
Our past has been glorious, but it will not compare with the glory of the future, if we follow the footsteps of righteousness that our forefathers set before us.
The Arions sang "Auld Lang Syne," and George F. Marshall, of Lakewood, who came to Cleveland in the thirties, made the closing speech of the day. His remarks were as follows:
We are under obligations to Father Addison for his perseverance in causing this model of the home of our pioneers to be erected, that the people of the present day may have some idea of the sort of palaces our forefathers occupied. The pioneers in Moses' time would never have been content with such a pinched up fireplace as that contains; they would have one at least three times as wide with capacity to hold a back log as large around as a barrel of New England rum, or even larger.
'The structure tells its silent story in its general outward and inward formation. We can only behold the thin surface of what has been, and compare it with what now is and soon will be. There is yet a large amount of illustration needed, in order to bring to the mind's eye parallels in the lives of those who have occupied these varied human habitations.
This modest model of what has been is given us for a reminder of the days not very long gone by. You can see that there are no minarets, no pilasters, no groined arches, no fluted columns, no bays, no plate glass windows, no gilded ornamentation or artistic display of brilliant pigments; nor was the skill of the architect displayed in any other manner than in an effort to imitate the style and stability which was ap- parent in this New Connecticut nearly a century ago. The builders of those palaces and castles did not care to build any better than they knew; they had neither time nor disposition to consult either Dorie, Ionic or composite Tuscan or Corinthian orders or styles. Without a disposition to deprecate the architecture of my adopted city, it was quite apparent in Cleveland until some thirty years ago that style and cultivated taste had not taken a very deep root among her people. It appeared from the outlook that when a person wanted a house or store or hotel built, he told the carpenter, joiner or mason the size he wished and the number of doors, chimneys and windows required, and then told him to go ahead and hurry up the work ; they wanted the tenant to come in at once, so that an income could come in also. It was not that substantial style and elegant appearance that was sought for so much as what could be made out of the investment. People had an eye to money then as now.
Since I made this city my home, sixty years ago, it appears to me that the bush- ness portion has put on an entirely new garb. I can scarcely recognize, on either Superior, Water, South Water or Bank streets a single business block that was the istence at the time of my advent. Some of those blocks have been renewed two of three times during the period named. There were but three church edifices wherein religious services were held. Two of those have been blotted out of existence, while their successors have gone farther out and built larger. The Old Stone Church stands,
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N. B.
SHERWIN
GEO. H.WORTHINGTON
J.W.P
WALTON
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GEO.A.GARRETSON
F. H. MORRIS
C. F. THWING
J. E. CHEESMAN
CHAIRMEN OF SPECIAL COMMITTEES.
GROUP I
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OPENING OF THE LOG CABIN.
but has been renewed twice during those days. Trinity, once at the corner of Seneca and St. Clair, was adorned with four small pinnacles, each of which was surmounted by a weather vane, which was intended to indicate the course of the varying wind. They had been so long in service that they failed to do proper duty, and it was hardly possible for the fiercest gale to induce the entire four to point in the same direction at the same time. This could not change the opinion of any of its worshipers that the church itself was a true one.
History tells us that there was once a log jail on the ground near where we stand, and from that jail was taken the Indian chief, Omick, who had murdered a man, and Omick was executed in proper form by the sheriff. He had not as appreciative and numerous an audience as had the man later at Ravenna, in February, 1837, when about one-half of the Western Reserve's able-bodied men gathered to see the law ex- ecuted. It is said that in a new country great care is exercised to maintain its pro- spective as well as present usefulness and prosperity. A story goes out that at one time, and somewhere, a blacksmith had committed a murder, was tried and found guilty and sentenced to hang; but as he was the only mechanic of that sort, and it would be hard to build up an empire without a blacksmith, upon consultation it was found that the settlement had two lawyers and only one blacksmith, therefore it was thought best to save the State and execute one of the lawyers instead.
We are not entirely dependent upon tradition for the fact that the first menagerie and circus ever exhibited in Cleveland was upon the ground where we now are. It had but a single elephant, and in that day such a strange animal was regarded as the most valuable for exhibition of any in the collection; so all the impecunious boys re- garded it as well. . One night, while the watchman and keepers slept, some of the elder youth, by their skill, unloosed the chains that bound the animal and he came forth on the streets where all could have a view. The huge fellow wandered up and down the streets and finally made his way into Father Sked's garden, at that time on Ontario street, near St. Clair. One of the ladies of the family was awakened by his slashing among the vegetables and trumpeting in the delights of such rare opportunity. The entire family fled for safety from the back door in partial raiment, and were only restored to that peace and quiet of home life that came to them after the managers had succeeded in coaxing the wanderer back to his proper quarters.
Some people wonder why so many should leave the comfortable homes of the well improved sections of New England, New York and Pennsylvania to make a perma- nent home in a land so uncultivated as this was, near a century ago. Those early pioneers had not been schooled in the art of obtaining money in any other method than the old-time plan of earning it. Unearned money is either stolen, found or given, and they had none of that. If they had any at all, it came from the enforced sweat of the brow and the products of the soil. The Puritans came across the Atlantic to find new homes because they could do better for themselves on this side of the water. The Moravians came here simply for the purpose of doing good to the Indians. We are liable at times to put a considerable quantity of real sympathy in our thoughts for the hardy pioneer who opened up this new world. We had none for Adam and Eve when they set out for the same purpose in like manner. I have heard some of those real early settlers tell how happy they were when they came to this wild and wooded West, cutting a hole in the woods and beginning to raise a crop; how grand it was for them to hear the howling of wolves at night when they were secure in their impreg- nable fortresses; how delightful it was to hear the birds sing in the woods and to hear the notes of the bobolinks as they chanted their matins while waking from their morning sleep-a type of what they hope for in paradise. When they tell of what sport they often indulged in when they had slain a noble elk or deer, sometimes a bear and so down to smaller game; how also they could readily trap a bevy of wild turkey, or quail, or partridges, and at times bring down a wild goose in its flight across the con- tinent, how we regret that we were not there. Some of them say that they were often out of flour and salt pork and bacon, but they were inured to that privation, which occurred quite frequently; but to be out of tobacco and like necessaries of life was a burden too great to be withstood for any considerable length of time. But when sickness comes and the fever sets in and there is no one to alleviate it, and the mother over-anxious about the fate of her darling child, no neighbor near to sit by the bedside for comfort and consolation, and when one after another of the household dies, then the heart is liable to break into grief; then a thought comes up that there was once a hap- pier home than this, that was left behind them.
In order to know what life is and what life can be, it is quite necessary to have all its variations, its successes and its failures, its sicknesses and its health. To live at ease, with all the necessities, luxuries and comforts within reach, would make a person
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CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE CITY OF CLEVELAND.
unfit to associate with his fellowmen. If a person never had the headache or tooth- ache and never had recovered from those ailings, he would have lost one or both of the blessings of living-not in the aches themselves, but in the recovery therefrom. Not to be mournful and sad under apparent affliction is liable to tax rather severely the philosophy of the bravest stoic.
The spirit of the true born Yankee is to keep pegging away and make the most and the best of all his opportunities. Those pioneers who occupied that sort of palace came here for a purpose, and were neither paupers nor plutocrats; they came to work their own salvation out of labor and the soil. The cunning speculator followed them in quick succession.
Some people have a chronic habit whereby they are enabled to find the cause for every effect and are enabled to come at once to a satisfactory conclusion on any phil- osophic subject. A wicked sinner by the name of Joe Bindell was bitten by a rattle- snake and died in great agony. Before his death he became converted, leaving off all his sinful ways. At the funeral the clergyman in his prayer took a philosophic view of the case and thanked the Lord for rattlesnakes, and he asked that one might be sent to bite his brother Tom, and he made a special plea that an extremely venomous one be sent to convert the old man, for he was the greatest sinner in the family.
And now, my friends, to bring these anomalies and my disjointed essay to a close, it would appear that this Western Reserve and these fine lands would not now be peopled with this race of noble pioneers and early settlers, becoming a New Connecti- cut, had it not been for the work of the British during the revolution, in placing the torch to so many farm houses in the State of Connecticut. It was not a natural con- sequence, falling to the lot of every pioneer who came to make their living from the soil of the Reserve, that they were driven here by untoward circumstances, with scanty means, forced through poverty to find other fields to gain a livelihood. About all of them were endowed with a spirit of enterprise the like of which was then, as now, gradually fading away; they were more anxious to test the possibilities of this wild and wooded West.
Need we devote much of our time in bewailing the misfortune of those pioneers because they had not afforded to them the modern methods of piling fortunes in single hands? They appeared to know nothing, and care less, for more than the right to earn their living from the opportunities vouchsafed them to worship God and keep his commandments.
If the sons and daughters of those pioneers were deprived of necessities, comforts and apphances which the modern youth is now supplied with, it is too late to add our sorrow to theirs, if they had any sorrow to speak of. Think of a generation, so short a time back, that had not the necessary appliances of bicycles to take a spin up the road after milking time, or a sixteen or thirty-two page newspaper to read before breakfast, or a vast number of elegantly illustrated fashion magazines, or a first-class opera, nor even a chance to see a game of professional baseball, nor an idea of divorce, nor yet the least conception of a prize fight, nor did they know of gas or electric lights. How sad their condition must have been not to have these luxuries, and vastly more inasmuch as that the present generation is now overwhelmed with them.
I can call to mind the names of some of the early pioneers who came to make their homes on farms in this section of Cuyahoga County, who came not long after Moses Cleaveland spied out the land. I find the names of Atwell, Alger, Allen, Adams, Ackley, Alvord, Addison, Blinn, Billings, Beers, Burton, Burke, Brainard, Buell, Baldwin, Bennett, Burnett, Benedict, Crawford, Bell, Clark, Carter, Crosier, Cady, Coleman, Cable, Culver, Carver, Cahoon, Conduit, Cole, Cook, Dillie, Dunham, Emerson, Gleason, Goodspeed, Giddings, Holly, Hand, Hubbell, Hubbard, Hasmer, Hamilton, Janes, Irwin, Jenett, Kelley, Kingsbury, Kidney, Kellig, Lester, Lee, Long, Mellrath, Morgan, Miles, Moore, Norton, O'Connor, Pettibone, Prentiss, Ruple, Ruggles, Riddle, Richmond, Ransom, Reese, Sexton, Shumway, Spangler, Seldon, Sheldon, Sherwin, Smellie, Slaght, Solloway, Sherman, Shepherd, Stiles, Sadler, Stark, Tole, Treat, Truscott, Thorp, Tashell, Townsend, Upson, Warren, Woodruff, Willis, Whitney, White, Wrightman, Walworth, Wilhams, Ansel Young. These men have long since passed away and with each name, with scarce an exception, was a woman, who shared the joys and sorrows of that noble catalogue that has helped to make the far tamed Western Reserve one of the proudest districts of modern times. Such log huts or palaces or castles did not satisfy for a lifetime, and you can find dotted all over these hills and valleys fully as much evidence of advanced taste, refinement and stability in all the elements that mark a people of progress, as can be seen in any New England State.
Since those pioneers have long ago passed away, the generations which followed
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OPENING OF THE LOG CABIN.
them would like mighty well to be rated as "pioneers," but they have encountered none of that wrestling with nature which the men were engaged in eighty or ninety years ago. Precious few who are here to-day may be regarded as pioneers. We are all too young to claim such honor. The first cabins were of the earth earthy; the last ones try to reach the sky.
At the conclusion of the exercises a totem pole was raised by mem- bers of the Improved Order of Red Men, who took possession of the yard . around the log cabin and proceeded with ceremonies unique and start- ling. The yells of the "aborigines" resounded for blocks, and when the pole was finally erected, the braves and squaws gathered around it and joined in the ghost dance.
An exhibition of art which attracted considerable attention was opened Tuesday afternoon, being the Centennial Exhibition of the Cleveland School of Art, on Willson avenue. Nine rooms, filled with specimens of the best work of the year, were thrown open to inspection. Water colors, oil paintings, examples of design and other exhibits of rare merit were displayed. This exhibition continued daily between the hours of 2 o'clock and 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
On Tuesday evening a centennial concert was given by Conterno's famous Ninth Regiment Band, of New York, in the Central Armory. The audience was large, and was well entertained by the following programme :
I. March, " American Guard," Dr. G. E. Conterno (dedicated to the American Guard of the U. S.)
2. Overture, "William Tell," Rossini.
3. Descriptive Fantasia, "A Hunting Scene," Bucalossi.
4. "Reminiscences from the Works of Verdi," Arr. Godfrey.
Grand Historical Musical Spectacle, "Battles of our Nation, " by Dr. E. G. Conterno. Ninth Regiment Band and Soloists, Cleveland City Guard, Cleveland Singers. Tableau No. 1 .- Battle of Bunker Hill. No. 2 .- Washington Crossing the Delaware. No. 3 .- Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. No. 4 .- Naval Battle, U. S. Frigate Constitu- tion and the Guerre, 1812. No. 5 .- Capture of the City of Mexico, 1848. No. 6 .- Life on the Plantation, 1848-1861. No. 7 .-- Bombardment of Fort Sumter, 1861. No. 8 .- Surrender of General Lee, 1864. No. 9 .- Review of the Army in Washington, 1865.
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CHAPTER VII.
FOUNDER'S DAY.
JULY 22, 1896.
At midnight on July 21st the booming of cannon, shrieking of whistles and ringing of bells announced to the inhabitants of Cleveland the ushering in of the second century of the city's history. As the hands of the clock passed the hour of twelve, bringing the ever-to-be- remembered July twenty-second, a centennial salute of one hundred guns made the hills and valleys reverberate with its exultant roar. No sooner had the first volley escaped than a discordant medley of whistles, bells and horns broke forth throughout the city. Hundreds of men and boys had remained up to "watch out the old and welcome the new," and immediately upon the shifting of time they began a demonstration which kept the balance of the population awake for hours.
Thus opened Founder's Day, the day of days in the Centennial calendar. It marked the completion of one hundred years from the founding of the city by Moses Cleaveland, a day rich in sentiment and ; patriotic emotions. The programme for its observance was elaborate and com- plete, comprising a mass meeting in the morning, addressed by men of national prom- inence; a great civic and military parade in the afternoon; a gorgeous historical pageant in the evening; the whole being concluded by the Centennial ball.
The day dawned cloudy, and rain fell at intervals until the middle of the after- GEN. MOSES CLEAVELAND. noon. The various events were neverthe- less carried out with enthusiasm. Excur- sion trains were run on all the railroads entering the city. Large crowds early took possession of the principal streets, jostling to and fro under a moving canopy of umbrellas.
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