USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > The Old stone church; the story of a hundred years, 1820-1920 > Part 12
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per acre. Ruin came to some investors; others were able to retain their holdings, which were sold many years later for half the purchase price; while a few after the lapse of half a century have recently allotted the property. This has been the case of a large tract of land on Warner Road purchased by Mr. John D. Rockefeller prior to the 1873 panic. Multitudes were swept into the feverish maelstrom of speculation and the panic hampered religious work.
As late as the close of Dr. Haydn's first pastorate in 1880 the nation was painfully recovering from this financial crash. During those years of stress, how- ever, Dr. Haydn in reports to Presbytery sounded a clarion note, like that of St. Paul to the Christians of Macedonia urging all "in a great trial of affliction to abound in their deep poverty unto the riches of their liberality." As chairman of the Foreign Mis- sions Committee in 1878, he exhorted the country churches within the bounds of Presbytery in these characteristic words:
The good times in the country do not seem to have helped the country churches to make up the deficits occasioned by hard times in city and town; on the contrary, by force of example or habit, they seem to have fallen under the impression that however bountiful God's harvests, there is no connection between them and the preaching of the Gospel upon the frontier, or in the more distant heathen regions.
The year following this panic there arose a remark- able moral movement known as the Woman's Tem- perance Crusade, whose educational effect can not be fully estimated, in the prolonged warfare against the
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liquor traffic. Prior to the Civil War the national contest for the prohibition of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic drinks had almost reached the goal of victory, ten states having obtained prohibitory laws. It seemed as if the land would soon abolish the evil of strong drink, but following the Civil War there came the heavy European emigration given to the use of alcoholic drinks. This was especially true of an increased consumption of beer, fostered by Teu- tonic emigration. That type of citizenship made itself pleasingly manifest by the erection in 1874 of the first Saengerfest building on Euclid Avenue, between what were then Case and Sterling Avenues. Love of good music was emphasized by those who also formed Sunday processions of marchers who bore kegs of beer upon their shoulders, along Garden Street [Cen- tral Avenue] to Willson Avenue [East Fifty-fifth Street], and thence to Haltnorth's Gardens, just be- yond the city's eastern limits, in order to make a public protest against Sabbath laws, as hampering personal liberty."
When this determination of newly welcomed citi- zens to annul "sumptuary laws" and to install the European Sabbath in the land of their adoption had become threatening, the native womanhood of the nation rose in one mighty protest. While lecturing at Hillsboro, Ohio, Dr. Dio Lewis of Boston expressed confidence that the liquor dealers of the land, whose saloons were beginning to occupy every prominent street corner in American cities, would heed the cry of outraged womanhood, become conscience stricken,
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and abandon the accursed business, if Christian women in the spirit of importunate prayer would plead for the moral safety of the rising generation.
Having started December 23, 1873, at Hillsboro, Ohio, the crusade spread rapidly through smaller Ohio cities. Cleveland women wondered whether or not this moral wave could possibly reach the larger centers of population. On March 13, 1874, a crusade league was formed in Cleveland. Miss Sarah Fitch, for many years a most devoted worker in the Stone Church, became president; while Mrs. W. A. Ingram served as secretary.
The ladies of the churches gathered daily for con- ference and prayer, either in the Stone Church or the old Y. M. C. A. Chapel. In the Newburgh district and in surrounding towns the crusade was already in full action. Definite rules were adopted for the Cleveland movement. No saloon was to be entered without the proprietor's consent. At the outset there was to be no marching without police protection, and reporters were invited to accompany the crusaders in order that the public might have accurate information re- garding the movement. Few excesses characterized the Cleveland crusade, which continued a number of weeks. Pulpits thundered against the liquor evil; women prayed, sang and spoke in billiard rooms, be- fore saloon bars and on the streets; while processions of temperance societies, including Roman Catholic organizations, at times filled the streets. Of the three thousand women banded together in the Cleveland crusade only a minority engaged in the street work,
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but all added to the impetus of the moral protest. "One gentle lady," runs an account of the movement, "Mrs. S. Williamson, by her potent influence closed seven of the worst saloons in Union Lane."
One day fifteen hundred women gathered in the Stone Church, and after prayer and conference five hundred of them called upon the wholesale liquor dealers of Merwin and River Streets. Another large audience convened May 1, 1874, in the Stone Church, for the purpose of receiving reports. Praying bands had visited three distilleries, eight breweries, thirty drug stores, thirty-five hotels, ten of which had abol- ished bars; forty wholesale dealers and eleven hun- dred saloons. These bands had held many meetings in the open air, in halls, political wigwams and in a number of warehouses and offices, into which the ladies had been invited to pray for neighboring liquor sellers who had refused entrance to their places. The total number of dealers who signed the pledge had been seventy-five; property owners two hundred, and citizens ten thousand.
Among the valued adjuncts to this crusade were the noon meetings in the Stone Church parlors, and the assistance rendered by such pastors of down- town churches as the Reverend H. C. Haydn, the Reverend A. J. F. Behrends, the Reverend Charles S. Pomeroy and the Reverend S. W. Duncan. Pastors throughout the city also gave valued support.
While this type of temperance work failed to effect permanent transformation, and to many appeared like a futile attempt to dam the ever-increasing liquor
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stream with bulrushes, there was born an inspiration which produced abiding results. Powerful agencies for the ultimate overthrow of the liquor traffic were at once founded, especially the Women's Christian Temperance Union and many local charities.
One splendid outcome of the crusade was the erec- tion on Ontario Street, not far from the Stone Church, of the Peoples' Tabernacle. Mr. William H. Doan, eminent in Cleveland for his many philanthropies, built this for popular gatherings, and for years it con- tinued the center of reform movements and later it became the birthplace of educational work by means of popular concerts and lectures. This was also the building in which the Moody and Sankey evangelistic campaign was conducted in 1879.
If the Stone Church could speak what a story could it relate, not only of the events within its smoke- begrimed walls, but also in the Public Square which it has faced for so many years. There would be during the pastorate of Dr. Haydn the story of the Centen- nial Celebration of 1876. At daybreak July 4, 1876, the wooden flagstaff in the Public Square was dis- placed by a lofty one of steel, the gift of the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, and said to have been the first of its material ever fashioned. From a poet the event elicited a few verses such as :
The banner that a hundred years Has waved above our good ship's keel, Upheld by oak or mast of pine, Now proudly floats from staff of steel.
One feature of the National Centennial Celebra-
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tion was the singing of the public school children, led by Professor N. Coe Stewart and massed upon a rising series of seats in the center of the Public Square. The same year saw the solution of the problem of electric lighting by Charles F. Brush, a Cleveland citizen, who perfected the dynamo that is the founda- tion of the lighting system known by his name the world over. In the course of time the Stone Church and other down-town buildings were flooded during the night by light from clusters of Brush lamps, raised to a great height by means of iron masts.
The terrible Ashtabula railroad accident in 1876 shocked the world and deeply stirred Cleveland. Over one hundred passengers went suddenly into the valley of death, including Mr. and Mrs. P. P. Bliss, the evangelistic singers. Upon the Stone Church minutes are resolutions expressing sympathy with the bridge disaster sufferers, and expressing particular sym- pathy for the family of the Reverend Dr. A. H. Wash- burn, who after having been for eleven years rector of Grace Episcopal Church, then located at the corner of Huron Road and East Ninth Street, lost his life at Ashtabula.
Between 1872 and 1880 the Stone Church sent forth no colonies to form new churches. Although the North Presbyterian Church had become independent the mother church still gave fostering assistance. In 1879 Elder S. P. Fenn of the Stone Church became superintendent of the North Church Sunday School, and he served in that capacity over twenty-five years, at the same time retaining connection with the parent
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organization. In 1878 an opportunity came to main- tain a mission Sunday School, which ultimately be- came the splendid Calvary Presbyterian Church. Prior to 1878 a Union Sunday School had existed on Euclid Avenue east of Willson Avenue. Members of several churches, among whom were T. Dwight Eells and H. B. Tuttle, had been interested in the enter- prise. The growth of churches along the eastern boundary of the city, then Willson Avenue, or East Fifty-fifth Street, and the death of leading workers finally led to the mission's discontinuance. In Novem- ber of 1878 Dr. Haydn was invited to reopen the work as a Presbyterian enterprise. He gladly accepted the invitation, as a providential summons, and a weekly prayer-meeting was held in the wooden chapel, be- ginning the first Tuesday evening of December, 1879. The organization of the Sunday School followed January 1, 1880, with seventy-three persons present, Mr. L. W. Bingham serving as superintendent. The enrollment grew rapidly to two hundred fifty, and the old chapel having been transferred to the trustees of the Stone Church, there was the search for a site, with the expectation that by March the formation of an associate church would be consummated. The south- west corner of Euclid and Madison Avenues [the latter now East Seventy-ninth Street] was purchased by eight gentlemen interested in the new enterprise, to be held in trust until subscriptions could be secured sufficient to cover the purchase price.
In a Stone Church paper Dr. Haydn had this to state editorially :
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The trustees and original subscribers to the Union Chapel have turned the building over to us, and it will be moved to the new site at once and fitted for occupancy. The hope is that on the evening of the first Sunday in March the sacrament of the Lord's Supper will be administered in the chapel to such as form the nucleus of the associate church, and that, thereafter, morning and evening serv- ices will be regularly held; also the Sunday School and weekly meeting. It may be said that the school has steadily increased. To own the lot and its equipment will cost about $12,000. Of this amount $7,430 has been sub- scribed. We do not know where the rest is to come from. We walk by faith as to that, but we hope by September 1st, if not sooner, to be free from debt. It would be a great favor to the pastor, if such as can help in this work would do so without waiting to be called upon. What time is spent in raising money cannot be given to making sermons.
Thus toward the close of Dr. Haydn's first pastor- ate there came the inception of the mission, which in the second settlement he had the pleasure of guiding into the ultimate formation of the Calvary Presby- terian Church.
Military organizations in Cleveland revived in 1877, when the Fifteenth Regiment of Ohio National Guard, composed of ten companies, the Cleveland Gatling Gun Company, and the First City Troop were formed. That summer it looked as though these military com- panies would be needed, for the great railroad strike of that year was most destructive to property. The work of a Pittsburgh mob gave great apprehension in other cities, to which the trouble swiftly spread. For- tunately Cleveland escaped a reign of violence,
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although the strike reached the city July 22, 1877. In police stations, armories, and other places the police, militia, independent companies, and even veterans of the Civil War were held for days, prepared for the worst, but not making any public appearance upon the streets or near railroad property. The strike was finally settled, and Cleveland had neither reasons for regret nor damages to settle. A far more pleasing event stirred Cleveland in 1878, when there was the celebration of the completion of the Superior Viaduct, the first high-level bridge to span the Cuyahoga Val- ley and to bind in closer unity the east and west sides. This structure was opened to the public December 27, 1878, after more than four years had been consumed in building at a cost of two million one hundred seven- ty thousand dollars.
The first steps were taken in 1879 to form the Early Settlers' Association, an organization second only in influence to the Western Reserve Historical Society. "Father" Addison, a well-known pioneer, proposed the association, but at first he received no encourage- ment, until he went to the home of Elder George My- gatt of the Stone Church. His was the first signature to Father Addison's petition, whereupon Charles Whittlesey, John A. Foot, Samuel Williamson, Richard C. Parsons, Sherlock J. Andrews, William Bingham and other prominent Stone Church people signed the call for the first meeting, held November 19, 1879.
Prior to the fall of 1879 leading pastors and Chris- tian laymen of Cleveland had expressed a desire to inaugurate an evangelistic campaign, under the lead-
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ership of Moody and Sankey, whose fame had already become world-wide. Soon after the return of pastors in September from their summer vacations, a meeting of clergymen was held, and Dr. Haydn reported "for the committee appointed to negotiate with and arrange for a visit of Moody and Sankey to Cleve- land."
After strong persuasion the two evangelists, who evidently had received far more important invitations than they could accept, agreed to spend October in Cleveland. Dr. Haydn declined to serve as chairman of the executive committee on account of the extra burden that the Stone Church would have to bear in the series of meetings. Probably no church edifice in the city has welcomed within its walls as many popu- lar gatherings, interdenominational and undenomi- national, as well as denominational, as has the church on the Public Square.
The Reverend J. Lovejoy Robertson of the Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church served as chairman of the committee on arrangements, and prominently associated with the three down-town pastors, Drs. H. C. Haydn, Chas. S. Pomeroy, and J. L. Robertson, were the Reverend Dr. J. E. Twitchell, of the Euclid Avenue Congregational Church; the Reverend Phil- lip Moxom, of the First Baptist Church; and the Reverend Charles Terry Collins, D.D., of the Plym- outh Congregational Church.
The Reverend S. E. Wishard, D.D., a professional evangelist, and Professor William Johnson, a gospel singer, were already laboring in parts of the city. At
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a meeting of pastors held October 3, 1879, for con- ference and prayer, Dr. H. C. Haydn delivered an address upon "The Necessity of the Holy Spirit's Work in a True Revival of Religion." Wishard and Johnson conducted noon meetings in the Stone Church until the opening of the campaign.
The first Sunday in October afternoon and evening meetings were held in the Peoples' Tabernacle on Ontario Street. Mr. Moody introduced his musical assistant by saying :
I will now ask Mr. Sankey to sing, "The Ninety and Nine." He might as well begin with that at once and keep it up. It is a hymn that will never wear out. It is the 15th chapter of Luke put into song.
Overflow meetings were held that Sunday in the Stone Church. The afternoon service was conducted by local pastors and by Mr. Sankey, who returned to the Tabernacle for his part in song. At the evening overflow meeting the famous Joseph Cook of Boston and Mr. Sankey spoke.
During the whole campaign noonday meetings, of an hour's duration, were held in the Stone Church, and there each afternoon Mr. Moody gave Bible lectures. Even after the weekday evening meetings, workers from the Tabernacle sought the church for seasons of prayer. Services for men were also held occasionally in the church, so that it was used several times daily and frequently packed to its utmost capacity.
The Cleveland papers gave full accounts of the evangelistic efforts. Mr. Moody was a very rapid
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speaker, often compared in this respect with Phillips Brooks of Boston. Minute transcript of their sermons had long been the despair of stenographers, but in Cleveland Moody's discourses were taken in short- hand by Henry J. Davies, in later years prominently connected with the traction system of Cleveland. A volume of the discourses was published by The Bur- rows Brothers Company.
Marked is the difference between the Moody and Sankey evangelistic campaigns and those of recent years. Absolutely nothing was heralded, for example, regarding the financial side of the Moody and Sankey meetings, all business arrangements having been quietly made by those in charge, while no emphasis was given to the number of converts. Mr. Moody drew the net carefully, without summoning members and non-communicants alike "to hit the sawdust trail," or to sign cards. Into "inquiry rooms" con- nected with the auditorium those who had been moved by the evangelist's appeals were invited to retire, there to hold conferences with earnest Chris- tian workers.
Throughout the month the meetings waxed in in- terest, hundreds coming by train from neighboring places, and at the close of the four weeks the crowds would have continued both in the Tabernacle and the Stone Church. Mr. Moody and his associate agreed to remain an extra week, but instead of con- tinuing in the centralized places various parts of the city were selected for closing efforts. After a rally in the Stone Church, the First M. E. Church, the Frank-
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lin Avenue M. E. Church on the West Side, and the Woodland Avenue Presbyterian Church were visited, and then the farewell services were held Sunday in the Euclid Avenue Congregational Church. This plan was the inverse of the later Mills evangelistic meet- ings, which commenced in the East End; were then transferred to the West Side and finally sought a climax in the center of the city.
Which of the two evangelists was the more effec- tive, Moody in his preaching, or Sankey with his songs, it was difficult to decide. They were remark- ably united in exerting wholesome influences over audiences. God's love revealed to the world through Christ was the central theme of both preacher and singer. One evening Mr. Sankey sang a hymn which had been found in the trunk of Mr. P. P. Bliss, whose life went out in the Ashtabula disaster. Probably "The Ninety and Nine" and "Where is my Wandering Boy Tonight?" were as effective as any of Sankey's songs.
Following this evangelistic campaign all the churches received large additions. The "Narrative of Religion" read at the spring meeting of Cleveland Presbytery, April, 1880, had this optimistic record relative to the Stone Church:
The First Church of Cleveland, the mother of so many of us, declares the year to have been one of unusual pros- perity. One hundred and forty-six have been added to her communion list, ninety-four on confession of their faith. There have been 900 under Bible teaching at various hours of the week. Prayer-meetings at the church and cottage prayer-meetings have been full and interest- ing; mission bands organized and working; the life of
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piety in many deepened and quickened. Every old center of activity is held and a new one maintained on Euclid Avenue, the first recognition in Presbytery of an enter- prise that shall at no distant day have a name and stand- ing among us.
As Dr. Haydn's first Cleveland pastorate was draw- ing to a close two exceedingly important educational movements were inaugurated, in one of which at least Dr. Haydn wielded great influence. It is not claimed that Leonard Case, Jr., the founder of Case School of Applied Science, was a Presbyterian. Leonard Case, Sr., had been identified with the early fostering of the Stone Church, and the son had been a warm personal friend of Dr. Goodrich. Until the day of his death Leonard Case, Jr., was a pewholder in the Stone Church. Leonard Case, Sr., born in Pennsylvania, resided in early manhood at Warren, Ohio. Admitted to the bar in 1814 he came to Cleveland in 1816 to become cashier of the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie. His two sons were William and Leonard Case, Jr. The former held public offices and was mayor of Cleveland from 1850 to 1852. Leonard Case, Jr., graduated from Yale College in 1842 and was admitted to the bar, but as a semi-recluse compared with the public activities of his father and brother, he became espe- cially interested in mathematical studies.
Never having married, the bulk of his estate, largely inherited, went at the time of his death, January 6, 1880, to the founding of a scientific school. Property like the City Hall and site on Superior Street, the old Case residence nearby, and "Case Commons," sup-
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posed for some time to be the destined site of the Case School of Applied Science, were given for the estab- lishing of that institution. The school commenced operations in the old Leonard Case homestead on Rockwell Street near the Public Square, and there remained until transferred in 1885 to the joint cam- pus now occupied by Case School and Adelbert Col- lege of Western Reserve University.
After the resignation in 1871 of the Reverend Henry L. Hitchcock, D.D., president of Western Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio, Professor Carroll Cutler of the faculty reluctantly accepted the presi- dency, but in 1874 he insisted upon the acceptance of his resignation. The position was then tendered to one of the trustees, the Reverend Hiram Collins Haydn, D.D., pastor of the Stone Church. This proffer was declined and Professor Cutler consented to continue in charge until 1876, when unable to secure the president which the trustees thought the college ought to obtain, Professor Carroll Cutler, after a year's absence in Europe, again became presi- dent.
The Honorable Richard C. Parsons, a prominent member of the Stone Church, having purchased the Cleveland Herald, strongly urged, in an editorial of December 13, 1877, the removal of Western Reserve College to Cleveland, suggesting that wealthy citi- zens should embrace the opportunity of refounding the old college in a city, destined to become the seat of a great university. There was also the persistent rumor that John D. Rockefeller might found in Cleve-
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land the university which afterwards he established in Chicago.
In 1878 Dr. Haydn read a paper before the Board of Trustees of Western Reserve College, regarding the possibility of removing the institution from Hud- son to Cleveland. A committee was appointed to study carefully the problem and to report later to the board. For two years this committee held sessions, but not until March 3, 1880, was any definite headway made. Then was it that Dr. Haydn in the capacity of a trustee sought to ascertain for some unknown party, whether or not the board of trustees would favor the removal of the college, in case the necessary funds were forthcoming; and in addition what amount the board would deem sufficient. For two years Dr. Haydn had evidently placed before Mr. Amasa Stone, a Cleveland citizen of large influence in practical affairs, a civil engineer by education, and a pioneer in the construction of railroads and tele- graph systems, the founding of a college in Cleveland which would become the worthy memorial of an only and gifted son, drowned a few years before while attending Yale University.
Mr. Amasa Stone was a trustee of the Stone Church; his daughter, Mrs. Samuel Mather, was throughout life a consecrated member of that church; while another daughter was the wife of the late Honorable John Hay. It had now become a question either of founding an entirely new university in Cleveland, or of the removal of the historic Western Reserve
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