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 9
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The early hours of the morning were occupied with the reception of guests. In response to the invitation of the Centennial Commission, Governor Coffin, of Connecticut, accompanied by members of his staff, and a party of distinguished officials of that State and the city of Hart- ford, arrived to participate in the exercises of the day. They made the journey in a private car, reaching Cleveland at 4: 30 A. M. In the company were Governor and Mrs. Coffin, Adjutant General Charles P. Graham and Mrs. Graham, of Middletown; Assistant Adjutant General William E. F. Landers, New London; Quartermaster General William E. Disbrow, of Bridgeport; Assistant Quartermaster General Louis R.
. 53
FOUNDER'S DAY.
Cheney, of Hartford; Surgeon General George Austin Bowen, of Wood- stock; Commissary General Henry S. Peck, New Haven; Paymaster General James H. Jarman, of Hartford ; Judge Advocate General Leonard M. Daggett, of New Haven; Colonel Watson J. Miller, of Shelton; Colonel Henry W. Wessells, of Litchfield ; Colonel H. H. Adams, of Greenwich ; Mrs. Watson J. Miller and Mrs. Henry H. Adams; Inspector of Military Forces, Captain John Milton Thompson, United States Army, and Mr. F. D. Haines, private secretary of Gov- ernor Coffin.
The members of the party remained on board the car until 7: 30 o'clock, when they were greeted by a committee of Cleveland citizens and escorted to the Hollenden for breakfast. Afterwards a brief recep- tion was held in the parlors of the hotel, at which were present Hon. William McKinley, Governor Asa S. Bushnell, Senator John Sherman and Senator Joseph R. Hawley, of Connecticut, who were also honored guests of the day.
At 10 o'clock, carriages were taken by the party for the Central Armory, where the public exercises were held. The building was beautifully decorated, banners and streamers of the national colors being freely displayed. On the speakers' platform were seated two governors, two United States senators and a future president. On a slightly lower platform in front of this sat a prominent group of mili- tary and State officials and well-known citizens. Among the latter were Colonel and Mrs. J. J. Piatt, Hon. and Mrs. J. C. Covert, Hon. and Mrs. Stephen A. Northway, of Ashtabula; Hon. A. J. Williams, L. E. Holden, C. F. Brush, A. P. Winslow, Judge Darius Cadwell, M. B. Clark, J. G. W. Cowles, T. P. Handy, School Director H. Q. Sargent, Charles W. Chase, J. F. Pankhurst, J. H. McBride, Charles F. Olney, S. D. Dodge, Esq., Hon. William Monaghan, Orasmus Sherwood, H. M. Addison, C. A. Davidson, Lieutenant Governor Asa W. Jones, Corporation Counsel Miner G. Norton, Rev. Jabez Hall, John Eisenmann, Rev. C. S. Mills, Rev. Dr. S. P. Sprecher, Rev. HI. R. Cooley, Rev. Livingston L. Taylor, F. A. Emerson, Judge Voris, of Akron; Colonel Richard C. Parsons, Major W. W. Armstrong, N. P. Bowler, Colonel William Edwards, Alfred HI. Cowles, O. J. Campbell, Esq., Judge J. D. Cleveland, W. K. Ricksecker, D. A. Dangler.
The meeting was called to order by Mayor McKisson, who in a brief speech cordially welcomed the guests, extolled the city, and intro- duced Mr. James H. Hoyt as president of the day. The mayor spoke as follows:
To formally open this patriotic celebration and welcome to our beautiful city our distinguished guests is a great honor. I speak the pride of our citizens when I greet you to-day and extend to you our hospitality and the hand of fellowship. We are proud to have with us Governor Coffin, of Connecticut, who, with members of his staff, has traveled over mountains and rivers to be here.
We are glad to greet the kindly face of ex-Governor Bulkley, and to honor our distinguished orator, Senator Hawley. We are happy to have with us also to-day Mayor Preston, the chief executive of the historic city of Hartford, and other noted men from Connecticut and its capital.
It gives us great pleasure to have our neighbor and friend, Major MeKinley, and with equal cordiality we extend our greeting to his worthy successor, Governor Bush- nell. In giving you this welcome, I do not do it as a matter of form, but as one of the representatives of hundreds of thousands of our citizens, who gladly join me in the ex- pression. This day would surely be far from complete without your presence. To
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54
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE CITY OF CLEVELAND.
all of our guests, whether from the East or West, from far or near, we dedicate this day, our city, and all it has and is.
One hundred years ago to-day Moses Cleaveland, the founder, came and estab- lished the nucleus and laid out the plan for what has spread and developed into one of the greatest municipalities of the world. To one of the youngest of the thirteen colonies, that fought for independence, we owe this magnificent city. As we look back through the decades of time, we must certainly conclude that Moses Cleaveland was worthy of the great undertaking for which his life and name are now so widely famed.
I know how short the time is for the exercises of the morning, but were this not the case, how could you describe the progress of a city that has increased in population 2,000 per cent. in fifty years? The cities that were classed with ours, or surpassed it twenty-five years ago, now trail behind it in the shining wake of its development, and one by one are distanced, or ruled out by the collected judgment of the American people.
In this race for greatness, Detroit, Milwaukee, Pittsburg, Louisville, Buffalo and Cincinnati have all been outstripped by the transplanted talents of our Connecticut patriots. The growth of Cleveland has been like the speed of that splendid product of her shops and shipyards, the elegant steamer the North West, when compared with the slow-going freight vessel of our lakes to-day. In the last half century Cleveland has passed in the census list twenty-five cities which in 1850 surpassed her in popula- tion. No other city in America, not even that miracle of rapid growth, Chicago, can show such a remarkable record. We rejoice in the magnificent development which has blessed her. One hundred years ago a wilderness, to-day a city of 360,000 inhab- itants. A century ago the Cuyahoga River knew no craft more pretentious than the Indian canoe, wild water fowls peopled its shores and disported in the waters. To-day it rejoices in the proud title,-the Clyde of the United States.
A century ago forests crowned the bluffs and undergrowth filled the valley where mighty manufacturing plants now stand. Streets that echo with the tread of thou- sands of busy men and women to-day, then knew only the hoof-prints of the deer and the moccasined footsteps of the Indian.
The century would be incomplete, were we to fail to properly celebrate our splen- did achievements. To science, the Cleveland of 1896 gives the largest telescopes; to industry, she gives the largest cotton presses, and is the queen in manufacturing;'to learning, she gives the best public school system anywhere to be found, while to music, letters and art, she gives her share in comparison with other cities of the world.
Before closing, it would be unpatriotic for me to forget to mention that admirable educator of public opinion and untiring promoter of the city's welfare-the press. To the newspapers we owe much as a city for the advantages we all enjoy to-day.
My fellow citizens, we are satisfied with the inventory of century number one, and what shall century number two bring forth? It is now entrusted to us to start and carry forward to our successors. Shall it be as creditable as the last? If we follow the teachings of our forefathers, if we listen to the instructions of our present pioneers. if we do our part to transmit to future generations the civic pride, the patriotic lessons, the love of home and country that have come to us, then, and only then, will coming generations enjoy that unity and progress which blesses us to-day.
Let us dedicate the century with such patriotism, and christen it for our successors with the motto of our centennial, "Unity and Progress."
The mayor's personal references to MeKinley, Bushnell, Sherman and Coffin evoked hearty applause. At the conclusion of his address, Mr. Hoyt took charge of the meeting, first reading a telegram from President Cleveland, as follows:
BUZZARD'S BAY, MASS., July 22. 1896.
I congratulate the city of Cleveland upon the close of her first century, with the hope that it may be only the beginning of her greatness and prosperity.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
The Cleveland Vocal Society then sang "The Song of the Vikings." Mr. Hoyt introduced the speakers in his usual happy manner and cach was accorded a cordial reception. In his opening remarks, he said :
It was a simple act which was performed a hundred years ago, and which we here commemorate-the aet of merely stepping from a boat to the shore, that was all. Yet
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CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE CITY OF CLEVELAND.
the Fire Lands, and so was Daniel Sherman, their great-grandfather, long a member of the General Assembly, and during the Revolution a member of our Council of Safety. We like to remember that the great Chief Justice Waite was a native of Connecticut and the son of a Chief Justice of our State. The Reverend Dr. Horace Bushnell, of Hart- ford was one of the most eminent divines the country has furnished. David Bushnell, a Yale boy in the Revolution, was practically the inventor of submarine torpedoes. The late Cornelius S. Bushnell, of New Haven, was the man through whom the first monitor came to be built. And His Excellency, Governor Bushnell, was welcome among us, not alone upon his own merits, but because of the name he bears.
Rutherford Birchard Hayes, noble both as statesman and citizen ; as a Rutherford, as a Birchard and as a Hayes, was a New Englander. The general's mother was a descendant of John Birchard, who settled in Connecticut in' 1640.
Rev. Manasseh Cutler, agent of the Massachusetts settlers of the Marietta Colony. was a distinguished graduate of Yale. So was his twin brother in enterprise, General Moses Cleaveland, of Connecticut.
Return Jonathan Meigs, of Middletown, Connecticut, a brave colonel of the Revo- lution, was the father of your Governor, Return Jonathan Meigs, a native of Middle- town and graduate of Yale.
Gideon Granger, of Connecticut, the Whittleseys, Benedict, Stow, John Walworth, of New London, General Edward Payne, were all claimed as sons of Connecticut, and a multitude more.
I forbear, and for further names I refer you to the excellent State and local histo- ries and biographies of Ohio and the records of honored legislators, soldiers and statesmen. And furthermore, I remind you that as compensation for losses suffered by the raids of Tryon and Arnold in the Revolution, Connecticut gave in the west ern portion of the Reserve five hundred thousand acres of fire lands, and the "Land .Laws of Ohio" in eighteen pages record the names and the precise loss of each sufferer.
I humbly accepted your very complimentary invitation to address you, but my courage weakened when I began to inspect the vast mass of interesting historical matter, more or less related to the occasion.
I forbear to touch upon the first intelligence of the existence of this vast region, and the story of the controversies between the English and the French, the Indians, the early settlers, and the civil and military officers of the United States. That which stands out most prominently in the mind of the historical student and the statesman is the great Ordinance of 1787 (July 13th), and that by which it is best remembered now in the popular mind, is the famous Sixth Seetion, which seems to have been placed there by direct inspiration of Heaven :
"There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."
Of the honorable share various persons had in securing the adoption of this clause it is not worth while to speak, but however much Manasseh Cutler and Nathan Dane did, it clearly stands out that almost precisely the same proposition was contained in a draft of the comprehensive measure for the government of the Northwestern Terri- tory, prepared by Thomas Jefferson in 1784. The provision was stricken out then, and the ordinance, though it passed, became a dead letter; but the material proviso reap- peared in the final and effective Ordinance of 1787. Important as the Sixth Section was, the Ordinance is remarkable for many other things. One of your historians, William W. Williams, truly says of it:
"The ordinance of 1787 was the product of the highest statesmanship. It ranks among the grandest bills of rights ever drafted for the government of any people. It secured for the inhabitants of the great States formed from the Northwest Territory, religious freedom, the inviolability of private contracts, the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus and trial by jury ; the operation of the common law in judicial proceedings; urged the maintenance of schools and the means of education ; declared that religion, morality and knowledge were essential to good government ; exacted a pledge of good faith toward the Indians, and proscribed slavery within the limits of the Territory. It pro- vided for the opening, development and government of the Territory and formed the basis of subsequent state legislation."
Williams might have further particularized that the ordinance established laws of descent and devise, of inheritance and conveyance, secured a proportionate representa- tion in the legislature, provided for bail except in the most extreme cases, and moder- ate fines. It forbade unusually cruel punishments, the deprivation of liberty or prop- erty except by the judgment of peers and the law of the land, and required compensa- tion for private property taken for public uses.
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CC
B. E.
HELMAN
JAMES DUNN
HENRY
W.S. WOOD
RD
LLIAMS
J. GLEASON
L.N. WEBER
M
ADAM
GRAH
CHAIRMEN OF SPECIAL, COMMITTEES
GROUP 11
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FOUNDER'S DAY.
Chief Justice Chase said of it:
"Never, probably, in the history of the world did a measure of legislation so ac- curately fulfill, and yet so mightily exceed, the anticipation of the legislators."
Daniel Webster said: "We are accustomed to praise the lawgivers of antiquity ; we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787. We see its consequences at this moment and we shall never cease to see them, perhaps, while the Ohio shall flow."
In short, the Ordinance, a constitution of itself, was indeed a very noble forerun- ner of the great Constitution of the United States.
Not even the legal profession can be much interested in discussing the intermin- able wrangles and tangles involving titles to the regions west of Pennsylvania and New York. Whatever Connecticut had claimed under royal charter, she limited by a deed, September 4, 1786, to a grant in the northeastern part of Ohio, sometimes called "New Connecticut," but better known as the Western Reserve. In May, 1792, she granted half a million acres of the western portion of that Reserve to the sufferers in Connecti- cut by the devastations of Tryon and Arnold in the Revolution. In 1800 Connecticut relinquished all claims of political jurisdiction over the Reserve, and the United States confirmed her title to the soil. In May, 1795, the General Assembly author- ized eight citizens, one for each county, all bearing names well known and honored in the State, to sell three million acres of the land. The deed was executed Sep- tember 3, 1795, transferring the said tract to thirty-five or thirty-six citizens of Connecticut, some of whom represented associates. The price was $1,200,000, afterwards the basis of the school fund of that State. The Connecticut Land Company was immediately formed, seven directors were appointed, and a deed of trust of the entire purchase given to John Caldwell, Jonathan Brace and John Morgan. The deeds of these trustees are the sources of all titles on the Reserve. All the trustees were living as late as 1836, and joined in deeds of land within the city of Cleveland.
General Moses Cleaveland, the founder of the Forest City, was a man of superior character and ability. He was born in Canterbury, Connecticut, and graduated at Yale College in 1777. He was a captain of sappers and miners in the United States Army in 1779, and distinguished himself at the capture of Stony Point. He was a member of the State Legislature, a brigadier general of militia, a gentleman of pol- ished manners and unquestioned integrity, enjoying the entire confidence of the Re- public. He was cool, brave and courageous, a man of few words and serious thought. One of your own historians says that the city of Cleveland will always refer with pride to her inheritance of his name. He was the chosen agent of the trustees of the Connecticut Land Company, and was sent out to survey the lands. With him were Augustus Porter and Seth Pease, surveyors; Moses Warren, Amos Spafford, John M. Holley (father of Governor Holley of Connecticut), and Richard Stoddard as assistant surveyors; Joshua Stow, commissary; Theodore Shepard, physician; thirty-seven employes and a few emigrants, making a company of fifty persons. The party crossed the line into New Connecticut at 5 P. M., July 4, 1796, and reached Conneaut at 5:30. Cleaveland's diary says that " the day memorable as the birthday of Ameri- can independence and freedom from British tyranny, and commemorated by all good free-born sons of America, and memorable as the day on which the settlement of this new country was commenced, and in time may raise her head among the most enlight- ened and improved States."
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The party of fifty felt that "a just tribute of respect to the day ought to be paid." They fired a Federal salute of fifteen guns and gave a sixteenth in honor of old Con- necticut They gave three cheers and christened the place Port Independence. They drank six toasts, beginning with the President of the United States, and the journal says "closed with three cheers, drank several pails of grog, supped and retired in re- markably good order."
General Cleaveland, taking a division of his survey party, sought the mouth of the Cuyahoga and landed there one hundred years ago this day. From the precipitous bluff which overlooked the valley of the river he had a full view of the beautiful table lands stretching far to the east, west and south, eighty feet above the dark blue wa- ters of Lake Erie. The modern Moses instinctively made a survey of town lots, and the first map of Cleveland bears date, October 1, 1796.
The city commenced her career in 1796 with a population of four persons, in- creased in 1797 to fifteen, reduced in 1800 to seven. In 18to it numbered fifty-seven. Colonel Whittlesey gives the population as follows.
..
58
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE CITY OF CLEVELAND.
1820, :
150
1830, .
1,075
1840,
7,648 1845,
13,035, including Ohio City.
1860, . 43,838, with the two cities included.
The official United States Census gives the population :
In 1870,
92,829
1880, .
160, 146
1800, 261,353
Ohio has become the fourth State of the Union in population. She is second in the manufacture of iron and steel, to which position Cleveland largely contributes by reason of the enterprise of her people and her fortunate situation. It will surprise many to learn that, not counting warships, Cleveland is the second greatest shipbuild- ing port in the world, the Clyde being first. According to the last census the value of the product of shipbuilding in four leading cities is as follows:
Cleveland, $2,973,300
Baltimore, Md., 1, 640,317
. New York, N. Y.,
1,322,305
Philadelphia, Pa., 942,428
The total commerce of Cleveland, foreign and coastwise, is ten million net tons, and that of New York but two millions more.
.More than a million persons born in Ohio reside in the States west of it, and 96,000 of Ohio's children live in Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
One-eighth of all the Federal Army of the great war came from Ohio, and Cleve- land gave her full share.
Your brethren of New England continue to be attracted to you. Nine thousand natives of Massachusetts and six thousand of Connecticut are among the citizens of Ohio; 440,000 of Ohio's people have come to her from other States.
It is said that a qualified observer can trace in Northern Ohio the Southern line of the Western Reserve. In it he is in New England. Indeed, fellow citizens, I am afraid that the Western Reserve is more truly Connecticut than Connecticut itself. The census informs us that but 31 per cent. of the people of Ohio are of foreign birth, or the children of one or both foreign parents; while 51 per cent. of Connecticut people are in that category.
Bancroft said of the Western Reserve that the average grade of intelligence ex- ceeded that of any other equal number of people on the globe.
But we have not come here to deal with the past alone. I think it was Emerson who said: "The present is not the best the world will have had, we are only at the very cockerow and morning dawn of civilization." This philosophical optimism is most agreeable; but who knows through what tribulations and sorrows, temporary re- actions, perhaps disasters, the world may struggle to reach the better future. When the soldiers of the Republic, struggling in the awful war as through a dark forest, be- gan to see the light of the open fields of peace, did not many of them come nearer be- ing cowards than ever before, and feel if they did not say. " () God, spare me, that I may not die in the last battle, but may live to see the glory of the coming of the Lord." A distinguished general said to me as we sat by a slowly dying camp fire, at a time when we had come to be very confident, "When we win this war, when the rebel- lion shall have been suppressed, when we shall have reorganized all the discordant elements, when we shall have resumed the ways of peace and shall begin to rapidly discharge the great debt, it seems to me that there cannot be hereafter any trouble that shall give us much pain or sorrow."
But the end is not yet. "Peace hath its victories no less than war." but peace hath its anxieties and struggles also. Great nations, like great seas, have great waves. Under the tremendous stress of the question " shall the Republic die?" the very foun- dations of humanity were stirred. We discovered that we had a nation and a great people and an unlimited power of self-sacrifice. War is said to be the supreme wick- edness of humanity, but it develops some of the noblest qualities of mankind Minor differences went away Like a morning fog. When all was over, though we saw im- mediately in front no great questions threatening the foundations of our institutions, the inevitable unrest of mankind became manifest. There is in human nature a hunger for excitement and strife. We felt not alone the wholesome and generous discontent that will continue to disturb the best and bravest souls, but lower passions that, for a time shut up in dungeons, came out into the light. Aspirations that started
59
FOUNDER'S DAY.
in wholesome hope developed unreasonable jealousies, proposed impossible schemes, questioned everything human and divine. Men changed from desiring government to stand clear and leave men as free as possible, consistent with law and justice, to de- manding that government do all things, that the legislative fiat settle all questions, abolish all forms of crime and injustice, effect by statute all moral reforms, and estab- lish equalities not only of opportunity but of condition and enjoyment. If there be anything that is assumed to be clear of doubt, what is it? It is not in religion or politics or social organization. Yet there are some things that cannot be changed or abolished - law, liberty, honor, justice, truth, are the same and eternal. There are standards of judgment as little subject to the storms of popular passion as the laws of gravitation, or the sun and the stars. By these all propositions will ultimately be judged.
Our government is founded up- on the theory that the American people make a good jury.
If that be not so, if after brief, uneasy and even dangerous fluctua- tions the conclusion is not in accord- ance with general right and justice, then the great Repubhe will after all be a failure. There are many ques- tions upon which it remains for the people to be tested. Concerning the nation it is impossible to assert any generality that will not be challenged by somebody. I must speak freely, but I shall put forth in substance of thought and even sometimes in phrase, ideas that have been accept- ably received from me by men of all ecclesiastical and pohtical classes. Listen to some of the demands that are made upon this nation. After defaming without limit the executive, judicial and legislative branches of our government, men will turn shortly upon us and demand that the labors and duties and responsibilities of the thing called government be amazingly and indefinitely enlarged. It is de- manded of us that the national gov- ernment shall assume the charge of the enormous railway system of the country, because it is a matter of uni- versal interest and importance and its labors cannot be conducted without concentrated organization. Yet the railway system of the country stretch- es 180, 000 miles and represents not less than eleven thousand millions of obli- gation in varied forms. Shall this vast property be confiscated and taken into national control and management ?
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