USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > The Old stone church; the story of a hundred years, 1820-1920 > Part 18
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At the formation of the Young Women's Christian Association Miss Sarah Fitch became president. It was an outgrowth of the Walnut Street Home. The Protestant Orphan Asylum, founded in 1852, had among its promoters Mrs. Sherlock J. Andrews, Elisha Taylor, Geo. A. Benedict, and Buckley Stedman. The Children's Aid Society, organized in 1853- 1854, depended upon Truman P. Handy and George Mygatt for leadership and for many years prior to
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his death Elder Samuel A. Raymond of the Stone Church was secretary.
The great Lakeside Hospital, organized in the par- lors of the Stone Church during the Civil War as a Home for the Friendless, was designed especially for the care of southern refugees. First in a private dwelling leased on Lake Street opposite the present Lakeside Hospital temporary help was given the sick and needy, mainly from the South. In 1866 the work, incorporated as the Cleveland City Hospital, was moved to Willson Avenue [East Fifty-fifth Street], near Davenport Street, and then brought back in 1875 to the Marine Hospital, an institution founded in the heart of the city by the Federal Government for the care of seamen. The present Lakeside Hos- pital buildings were dedicated in 1898, but plans are being perfected for a second removal eastward to the enlarged campus of Western Reserve University. Among the foremost contributors to the construction of the building existing on Lake Avenue were Charles W. Harkness, Mrs. Amasa Stone, Mrs. James F. Clark, Mrs. Mary H. Severance, Louis H. Severance, Mr. and Mrs. W. S. Tyler, J. L. Woods, and Mrs. Samuel Mather. Such a list of names emphasizes the generous spirit of Cleveland Presbyterians.
When the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was incorporated in 1880 its first president was Mrs. M. E. Rawson, who for so many years was a mem- ber of the Stone Church choir, and who died as a member of the church on June 24, 1920. The Float- ing Bethel, a unique mission to the lake seamen, was
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organized by Chaplain J. D. Jones, whose youth was in the Stone Church and who is a member of Cleve- land Presbytery. His work has been liberally sus- tained by members of Presbyterian churches.
The Bethel Associated Charities, formed in 1884, was superintended many years by Elder Henry N. Raymond, of the Stone Church.
In all the later movements of Christian associa- tions, friendly inns, kindergartens, nurseries, hospi- tals, care of the needy and rescue work, boys' clubs, and movements too numerous to be listed, money from Presbyterian sources has been freely given, and many times sister churches in their work of extension have gleaned the Presbyterian field. The Home for Aged Women and the Home and Chapel of the Chil- dren's Aid Society, the Lend-a-Hand Mission build- ing, and two day nurseries were exclusively the gifts of Presbyterians and their affiliations. The Eleanor B. Rainey Memorial Institute bears the honored name of one long a member of the Stone Church. The Goodrich House, opened in 1897, was primarily de- signed to add to the Stone Church facilities for in- stitutional work. Mrs. Samuel Mather generously established this institution and named it after the pastor of her earlier years, the Reverend William H. Goodrich, D.D. It seemed better, however, for the Goodrich House to undertake, apart from the Stone Church, the settlement work then becoming popular in large cities. To the Goodrich House was moved several special features of the work among the young, such as the Boys' Club, the Church League, the Sun-
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day Service Club, the Mothers' Meeting and the Students' Guild, all previously existing in the Stone Church, which also fostered an institution that has in later years greatly prospered, namely the Vacation Schools. This summer work, consisting of sewing classes, out-of-door excursions, summer work, and summer play for children, started in the Stone Church under the inspiration of the late Mr. E. W. Haines, son-in-law of Dr. Haydn. This line of juvenile help in which Mrs. E. W. Haines was also very helpful, was turned in 1900 to the care of the Board of Edu- cation, and out of it has grown the Summer Vacation School System. The kindergarten, sewing classes, weaving, fancy work, art and clay work, manual training, the playground system, and work in home gardening, are manifest and important results of the work in which the Stone Church took prominent initiative.
All Presbyterian overflow in Cleveland has not come from the Stone Church, but many givers in other Presbyterian churches received early inspira- tion in the parent congregation, or they were de- scendants of pioneer stock that worshiped in "The Mother of us all." The names of Leonard Case, Amasa Stone, J. L. Woods, Mr. and Mrs. James F. Clark, George Mygatt, Mrs. Samuel Mather, Mrs. John Hay, Mrs. S. V. Harkness, Mr. and Mrs. F. T. Backus, Mr. and Mrs. W. S. Tyler, and many others whose names could be given, emphasize the overflow power of the Stone Church toward every local phi- lanthropy.
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Besides the Stone Church givers there were H. B. Hurlbut, patron of art, hospitals and education; E. I. Baldwin, Truman P. Handy, Dan P. Eells, T. D. Crocker, all at least in the later years of life of the Second Presbyterian Church; Joseph Perkins, H. R. Hatch (later in Calvary Church), and Miss Anne Walworth, of the Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church; Mrs. J. Livingstone Taylor, of the East Cleveland Presbyterian Church, and most prominent of all, the Severance family, whose benefactions have not ceased to flow through five generations of mem- bers connected with the First, Second, Woodland Avenue, and Calvary Presbyterian Churches.
At the seventy-fifth anniversary Dr. Haydn esti- mated that during the previous seventeen years al- most three million dollars had been given by Stone Church attendants for education; that Oberlin Col- lege had received one hundred fifty thousand dollars from Cleveland Presbyterians; while Lane and West- ern Theological Seminaries, Berea College, Hampton Institute and many southern institutions had been generously remembered. Since that summary of 1895 was made, what a stream of benefactions has flowed from Cleveland Presbyterians toward Western Re- serve University, the College of Wooster, Oberlin College, and other institutions of higher learning. Only a Dr. Haydn could give a correct estimate of the sum total of the gifts.
Although not a denominational institution West- ern Reserve University, embracing Adelbert College, owes much for its flourishing existence to the Presby-
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terian givers of Cleveland; while the part that the pas- tors of the Stone Church have taken in the evolution of this educational force presents an inspiring story.
The home missionaries who established the pioneer churches and academies dreamed very early of higher educational facilities for northern Ohio. Western Re- serve College, for over fifty years located at Hudson, Ohio, had its origin in the Erie Literary Society, chartered in 1803 and started at Burton, Ohio, at a time when there were only fifteen hundred settlers on the Western Reserve.
About 1822 the Grand River and Portage Presby- teries were "moved to aid in the education of indigent and pious young men for the ministry." Two years later Huron Presbytery joined in the educational project, but Burton having become known as an un- healthy place a more suitable location was sought. Hudson, Ohio, considered not only more healthy, but also more central in its relation to the three "Plan of Union Presbyteries," was selected after Mr. David Hudson had donated a campus of one hundred sixty acres. This choice was made in 1825 and in the following year a college charter was obtained. This was amended in 1844 in order to include the estab- lishment of the Medical College in Cleveland. Be- sides the gift of the campus seven thousand five hun- dred dollars had been subscribed. The Reverend Charles Backus Storrs was elected president, also professor of sacred theology, showing the early at- tempt to correlate theological studies with the college
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curriculum without a separate department. The first building, Middle College, was completed in 1827.
Reference has been made to the relation sustained by one of the early supplies of the Stone Church to the founding of Western Reserve College. The Rev- erend Stephen I. Bradstreet, who served the Stone Church almost seven years, not only delivered the formal address as a trustee of Western Reserve Col- lege, at the laying of the corner-stone of the first building, but he also spent much time raising early endowment funds.
From that time to later years a marked relation of influence has been sustained by the succession of Stone Church pastors, in behalf of Western Reserve College, which has now become a great university.
The first president of Western Reserve College was a Dartmouth graduate, and notwithstanding the pur- pose of the founders to create a "Yale of the West," Dartmouth at a later period had a greater represen- tation on the Western Reserve College faculty than had Yale College. President Storrs lived only three years after the inauguration of his college presidency, and he was followed in succession by three Yale graduates, Presidents George E. Pierce, Henry L. Hitchcock, and Carroll Cutler, Presbyterian minis- ters, whose combined service in the college extended over fifty-two years. A College Church organized July 13, 1831, continued its connection with Cleve- land Presbytery until the removal of the institution to Cleveland, when the church became extinct. For a number of years prior to the removal, however, the
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College Church had worshiped with the Congrega- tionalists of Hudson, holding only stated communion seasons in the college chapel.
The original purpose of all Presbyterians and Con- gregationalists under the Plan of Union was that of uniting the religious forces of the Western Reserve in the establishment and maintenance of one college and one theological seminary. Such was the purpose when the Erie Literary Society was formed, as ex- pressed in the phrase, "to preserve a unity of design and harmony of feeling." In 1828 a movement arose to start a theological seminary at Austinburgh, but the promoters were soon persuaded to abandon their purpose, in order "both to save time and money and to preserve the unity of design and harmony of feel- ing."
The same forces, however, that disrupted the "Plan . of Union" churches and formed separate Congrega- tional and Presbyterian denominations on the Re- serve, wrought like division in the case of higher edu- cation. On the Western Reserve there are today these two strong denominations working in harmony, and there are also two great educational institutions. Oberlin College has become a noted school of higher learning, famed for its pioneer coeducational policy, and perhaps through recent legacies the richest college (not university) in the United States. It is no longer a denominational institution, although the theological department is generally known as holding connection with the Congregational Church.
Western Reserve College on the other hand has
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become Adelbert College, the nucleus of Western Re- serve University, and working in practical coopera- tion with Case School of Applied Science has made Cleveland an important educational center.
Very natural was it then, after there had been a division of educational interests on the Western Re- serve, for the Reverend Samuel C. Aiken, D.D., the first installed pastor of the Stone Church, to give earnest support and counsel to Western Reserve Col- lege. For eighteen years he served as a trustee, thus continuing the interest of the Reverend Stephen I. Bradstreet. The Reverend William H. Goodrich, D.D., served five years as a trustee, and throughout his pastorate he was the warm personal friend of President Henry L. Hitchcock, D.D., and gave to the college not only generous counsel, but also finan- cial assistance.
The longest service rendered Western Reserve College and University by a Stone Church pastor was that of Dr. Haydn. Elected a trustee while settled at Painesville, Ohio, he served continuously, with the exception of the four years' connection with the American Board, until the time of his death, an official relation of forty-one years.
The influence of Dr. Haydn in having secured the removal of Western Reserve College to Cleveland has been portrayed. An important task, however, re- mained for him to perform before the change of loca- tion could be pronounced a success and Adelbert College made the nucleus of Western Reserve Uni- versity. Only three years of his second pastorate had
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passed when the Stone Church pastor, already a busy leader in the remarkable era of Presbyterian church extension in "Greater Cleveland," was literally drafted into the presidency of Western Reserve University.
A marked decrease of male students followed the removal of the college to Cleveland; while the number of woman students in attendance rapidly increased. Western Reserve College had always been consid- ered an institution for men, although a few young ladies residing in or near Hudson had been gradu- ated. As early as 1884 the faculty of Adelbert College advocated the formation of a separate school for women, either in the form of an annex or of a co- ordinate institution. Almost all colleges in Ohio had been, like Oberlin, coeducational from their begin- ning; while very few colleges for men had undergone the experiment of becoming coeducational.
After a two years' search for a successor to Presi- dent Carroll Cutler, who had advocated coeducation, the trustees turned to one of their number, as once before they had done in 1872, to solve the difficulties.
At a joint meeting of the Stone Church trustees and elders held on December 2, 1887, the senior pas- tor read a paper containing these excerpts:
It has come to pass that for the second time the attention of your pastor has been called to the merits of the colleges planted in our city, and for the second time he has been unanimously elected president. I cannot suppose that our citizens mean to be indifferent to the success of the institutions of learning planted amongst us. No one for a moment will assent to the conclusion that Adelbert College is now fulfilling its mission. Everybody must
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hope to see this and the sister institution growing in favor and into larger usefulness, until they are the pride of our city. Is there need of reminding you that the men, one of whom founded and endowed Case School, and the other of whom largely endowed the college and was the means of its removal to our city, were both identified with this congregation, the latter a trustee interested in everything that would promote the growth and pros- perity of this church? In the removal of this college the writer of this communication was interested and some- what influential as a trustee. These facts may reasonably be supposed to have some weight with our people in the present emergency. I find myself unable to dismiss this matter, therefore, without serious consideration. Allow me to define my own view. First, I have no idea of abandoning my pastorate for college cares. Secondly, I have no idea of putting our church second in my thought, much less permanently leaving it, or seeing its interests suffer. Thirdly, I have no thought of resigning my pulpit even temporarily. But fourthly, I have thought, I still think, if some arrangement can be made by which I can temporarily assume the leadership of the college in the emergency, in the hope and expecta- tion of preparing the way for a man who will give his whole time to the work of education, we ought to be willing to accede to it. I shall in such case be found in my pulpit and at the weekly devotional meetings. I shall need to be relieved of a considerable portion of parish and outside work. This can be met by a suitable assistant to both pastors, giving all time to parish work, and without additional expense to the congregation. The step proposed is not without precedent. Drs. Crosby and Hall have both held such relation to the University of the City of New York, bridging over an interim and using their influence until now a capable head has been found in Chancellor McCracken. Taking a broad view
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it seems to me that I ought to be free for a year to try the experiment, as I think and hope, without detriment to the interests of this church to which I am devoted, without qualification or reserve beyond any other in- terest on earth, and I should hope and pray, with some positive advantage to the college and cause of higher education in our city. I shall try as gracefully as I can to accept an adverse decision, if this shall be your ver- dict, much as I hope it may be otherwise. At all events we will hold together in harmony with all our precedents.
In his letter of acceptance to the trustees of the college Dr. Haydn wrote:
I formally accept the position whose duties I have already entered upon, with the full understanding that I am at liberty to retire as soon as the circumstances of the college permit, or the necessities of my work as pastor of the First Church require.
The Stone Church officials unanimously and cor- dially concurred in Dr. Haydn's request, and the Rev- erend Giles H. Dunning was employed to cooperate with the pastors in caring for the Stone Church. Serious problems awaited the new president of West- ern Reserve University, who doubtless hoped that within a year or two at the most the way could be cleared for the settlement of a more permanent college head.
There was not only the pressing necessity of de- ciding between the policy of coeducation and that of coordinate education of the sexes, but likewise an imperative need of creating a university spirit. Al- though the medical department had existed in Cleve- land since 1841, its connection with the college at
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Hudson had been very nominal, having been man- aged largely by the physicians who had freely given their teaching services. These medical men resented the authority of any university president. There arose also the problem of creating new departments such as those of music and art. Two academies were sustained, one at Hudson and the other at Green Springs, but neither contributed students in any pro- portion to the expense of maintenance.
The citizens of Cleveland as yet had no vital sense of responsibility either for Case School or Adelbert College, viewing them as the projects of two rich men whose estates would foster the institutions thus founded. It had occurred to no one that Adelbert College could make good use of a few thousand, or hundreds of dollars from more humble sources. The East End, in which the university was located, without giving any substantial assistance, neverthe- less claimed the colleges as a social asset, and that section of the city became extremely critical toward any who would depart from the coeducational policy.
The first effort put forth by President Haydn was the construction of a gymnasium, in size better than nothing, but as he well knew wholly inadequate to meet the permanent needs of an enlarged student body. The small brick gymnasium, however, has become the nucleus of the spacious armory-type ath- letic building constructed during the recent World War.
Then came the well-defined educational policy in the decision to found a college for women, coordi-
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nated with Adelbert College for men. The newspaper files of 1888-1889 still echo the invective against the president and trustees, who avoided any discussion of the merits or demerits of coeducation. In view of the number of coeducational colleges in Ohio, the Adelbert officials felt that there was room for a woman's college, especially when young women of Ohio were seeking entrance to Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, and other eastern colleges for women, only to be denied admission for lack of accommodation.
This was the general position of President Haydn and of the trustees and faculty of Adelbert College. Through the fires of bitter criticism, however, the experiment passed, and the climax of public scorn was attained when the old Ford homestead on Euclid Avenue, at the corner of Adelbert Road, was opened for the accommodation of the eleven regular and twenty-seven special students who assembled there in September of 1888. It did appear like a most in- significant annex to Adelbert's more stately equip- ment, but the founders discerned by faith better days than those in the old Ford homestead. They dreamed of a material as well as educational upbuilding, and their faith was not mocked by failure and disappoint- ment.
The faculty of Adelbert College unanimously - pledged themselves without remuneration to dupli- cate for three years in the new college their Adelbert instruction, and that was really the first great gift to the incipient College for Women. The beginning was somewhat like that of Case School of Applied
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Science in the old Leonard Case homestead, only the latter project had been fortified with wealth that guaranteed speedy development, but in case of the College for Women, aside from the pledge of the faculty members to give free instruction, the only certain financial support was eight thousand dollars, annually pledged by Stone Church adherents for three years, five thousand from the Honorable John Hay and three thousand from Mrs. Amasa Stone.
Aside from these assets all else was a matter of faith, but faith's venture was speedily rewarded. Mrs. James F. Clark, of the Stone Church, gave one hun- dred thousand dollars, half for endowment and half for the construction of Clark Hall. Then came Guil- ford House, the gift of Mrs. Samuel Mather of the Stone Church, who named the structure in honor of a pioneer woman teacher of Cleveland. Clark Hall was designed for recitations and Guilford House for dormitory purposes. On Easter Day of 1902 the beautiful Florence Harkness Memorial Chapel was dedicated, to which were transferred the daily worship, the Bible teaching and Biblical library of the college. The chapel was the gift of Mrs. S. V. Harkness of the Stone Church, and Elder Louis H. Severance, of the Woodland Avenue Presbyterian Church, and in addition thirty thousand dollars was given as en- dowment for the care of the chapel. This was fol- lowed by the gift of fifty thousand dollars to found the Chair of Biblical Literature, occupied first by President Haydn and then by his son, Professor Howell M. Haydn. The same year, 1902, witnessed
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the dedication of Haydn Hall, the gift of Mrs. Samuel Mather and named in honor of the pastor of her more mature years. About the same time Mrs. Mather endowed in Adelbert College the Haydn Chair of History, in honor of Dr. Haydn. As one passes through the Mary Chisholm Painter Memo- rial Gateway bearing the honored name of a Stone Church family, he not only approaches the above- named structures on the campus of the College for Women, but also a gymnasium, the Flora Mather House and the Mather Memorial Building. The campus and buildings are worth seven hundred ninety-three thousand dollars. There is equipment valued at over twenty-five thousand dollars; while the endowment funds have risen to six hundred twenty- four thousand dollars. This centennial year six hun- dred sixty young women are in attendance, exceeding slightly the number of young men at Adelbert Col- lege.
President Haydn also waged a contest for the sake of a university spirit in the case of the medical de- partment. One faculty member predicted that "Dr. Haydn had set back medical education a quarter of a century." Enlarged benefactions turned toward the medical department, beginning with the legacy of J. L. Woods, of the Stone Church. Voluntary in- struction gave way to endowed chairs; only college graduates were admitted to a four-year course, and in time this department of the university reached such a degree of excellence that it was placed by the Rockefeller Foundation very near the head of ac-
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credited schools for medicine. The real estate and equipment are valued at four hundred fifteen thou- sand dollars; while the endowment is one million, seven hundred eighty-four thousand dollars. A goodly portion of the endowment has come from Mr. H. M. Hanna and others not affiliated with Presbyterian churches, but along with the generosity of the mem- bers of that denomination is to be listed the benevo- lence of those in connection with the Protestant Epis- copal Church, of which Mr. Samuel Mather, a most generous patron of Western Reserve University, is a prominent communicant.
One of the earliest additions to Adelbert College, during the presidency of Dr. Haydn, was that of Eldred Hall, the Young Men's Christian Association building. Ten thousand dollars of the sixteen thou- sand spent in the construction represented the life savings of the Reverend and Mrs. Henry B. Eldred, the husband a member of Cleveland Presbytery whose pastorates had all been country charges.
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