USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > The Old stone church; the story of a hundred years, 1820-1920 > Part 2
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BEGINNINGS
the leader. With the Public Square as the center, one square mile was surveyed into fourteen streets with a total of two hundred twenty lots.
The assertion has been made that Moses Cleave- land did not merit the honor that has come to his memory, by reason of anything that he did to found the city that bears his revised name. From what is known, however, of General Moses Cleaveland, the city ought not to be ashamed of its title. He was a man of few words, but prompt in action; so sedate in appearance that he was often taken for a clergy- man. A child of cultured parents, he was sent to Yale College, where he graduated in 1777. At the time of admission to the bar he was summoned to become captain of sappers and miners in the United States Army. After such military service the practice of law was resumed, and as a member of the Connecticut Legislature his record was honorable. As a member of the state militia he became in 1796 general of the Fifth Brigade, and died when only fifty-two years of age.
During the winter of 1796-1797 Cleveland had three inhabitants. During the summer of 1797 there was much sickness, and the first burial was made in the new cemetery on Ontario Street, at the corner of what is now Prospect Avenue. Ohio was admitted into the Union in 1803. By 1810 the population of Cleveland had grown to fifty-seven. The village was incorporated in 1815, when a charter was granted and Alfred Kelly elected president, only twelve votes having been cast at the polls.
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THE OLD STONE CHURCH
The steamboat "Walk-in-the-Water" appeared in 1818 outside the port which could not be entered, not only on account of a prolonged storm, but also by reason of the sand in the mouth of the river. This first steamboat on Lake Erie had been built on the Niagara River near Buffalo and named after an Indian chieftain, and not on account of her appear- ance on the lake. When completed the craft lacked steampower sufficient to stem the current of the Niagara River, and so to the horsepower of the engines there had to be added the towing strength of fourteen yoke of oxen. The fuel used was wood, and the boat was three hundred tons burden, with accommodations for sixty cabin and a number of steerage passengers. She was wrecked in 1821 near Buffalo.
By 1820 the village of Cleveland was estimated to have contained one hundred fifty inhabitants, and at such a time the Stone Church was founded. The crack of the rabbit hunter's rifle in the copse north of the log court-house occasionally disturbed the worshipers. Very few dreamed that the place would ever rank higher than a rural village. General Moses Cleaveland had "opined" that it might. become as large as Windham, Conn. Not until 1824, when it was selected as the northern terminal of the Ohio Canal, was there the slightest promise of any marked growth in population.
The soil was sandy and barren, and the atmosphere malarial; hence the surrounding country life first became more attractive than that of the unpromising
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BEGINNINGS
village. Newburgh's fertile soil, with the construc- tion there in 1799 of the first flouring-mill in northern Ohio, gave to Cleveland the geographical rating of a "small village six miles from Newburgh." One of the Newburgh millstones has long adorned the Public Square in front of the Stone Church; the other is a stepping-stone in front of the Caine residence on Broadway near Miles Avenue.
The value of Cleveland real estate for taxation in 1815 was only twenty-one thousand sixty-five dollars; while the entire village vote in 1829, almost a decade after the founding of the Stone Church, was but forty-seven. Methodism in Cleveland had slow growth. In 1823 a member of the Hudson Circuit formed a class consisting of five women and two men, but it was not until 1841 that a church edifice was dedicated at the corner of St. Clair and what is now East Third Street. The Baptists formed their first church in 1833. Roman Catholics of various nation- alities were in Cleveland between 1820 and 1835, but their formation into a parish came later.
Such were the religious forces working in Cleveland, from 1820 to 1835, during the decade and a half that the Stone Church depended upon the successive ministrations of six "Stated Supplies."
II. THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS 1820 - 1835
For many years the Egyptians viewed with deep religious awe the annual overflow of the River Nile, because the sources of that enriching stream were shrouded in mystery. Finally when explorers sought the very heart of the Dark Continent, their hazardous efforts enlisted the admiration of the world.
Five installed pastors have ministered during the last eighty-five years to the spiritual needs of the Old Stone Church, whose century of influence is valued, not only by Cleveland Presbyterians, but also by the adherents of other Christian denomina- tions. This deepening and enriching flow of spiritual power, however, came in great measure from sources little known; a fact that challenged the centennial historian to throw as much light as possible upon the first fifteen years of the century that has elapsed since the Old Stone Church was founded.
The day of small things should never be despised, a truth emphasized by Wordsworth when he wrote in a child's album, "Small service is true service while it lasts," and as Emerson asserted :
There is no great and no small To the Soul that maketh all; And when it cometh all things are; And it cometh everywhere.
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THE OLD STONE CHURCH
The five ministers and their assistants who have served the Old Stone Church during the last eighty- five years have never undervalued the pioneer work of the earlier "six stated supplies." Many pastors have enjoyed summer vacation trips to villages, where before their ordination they first "tried their wings" in flights of pulpit eloquence. What hearty greetings have been received by such visitors from the village worshipers who still recalled the "supply service" of earlier years!
Almost every historian who has described life on the Western Reserve, from 1800 to 1820, has laid stress upon the irreligious character of the pioneer settlements, and especially that of the village of Cleveland. The Reverend Samuel C. Aiken, D.D., in his twenty-fifth anniversary sermon delivered in 1860, gave one analysis of early conditions. Many of the first settlers were not friendly to religious insti- tutions. There was an absence of law and order, of comfortable homes, schools, organized churches, and the luxuries of their former life. A considerable number had fled from New England, not only to improve their material conditions, but also to escape puritanical restraints and taxes imposed in New England for the support of the "standing orders of the church."
The New England Sabbath, enforced by rigid authority, had become to many a "weariness." The sanctuary had little attractiveness to a portion of the rising generation in the northeastern states, while the rigid family discipline maintained in the community
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THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS
by the "constructors of public morals" had become irksome. In order to free themselves from such con- ditions many sought the new and cheap lands of Ohio, where they could believe anything or nothing to their hearts' content, without trouble from the civil authorities. For a number of years certain leaders in Cleveland were of this class; hence, accord- ing to Dr. Aiken, a majority of the first settlers either embraced infidelity, or were inclined in religious matters to a negative position. References have been made by writers to an effigy of Christ carried in ribald procession, and to a mock celebration of the Lord's Supper, but there is other testimony to the effect that too dark a picture of religious conditions on the Western Reserve, prior to 1820, ought not to be drawn.
Deacon Moses White, the Baptist layman who was elected secretary of the first Sunday School, organized in 1819, a year before the founding of the Old Stone Church, and who worshiped with the Presbyterians until 1833, when the First Baptist Church was established, was still an esteemed deacon in his church, when in 1870 the Reverend William H. Goodrich, D.D., delivered the semicentennial ser- mon. At the Sunday evening service held at that time, Deacon White spoke of the years prior to 1820, and asserted that the wickedness of the community had been exaggerated in many historical sketches.
According to the venerable Baptist authority, when the first ball was held in Cleveland the region had to be scoured for miles in order to secure young ladies
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THE OLD STONE CHURCH
sufficient in number to form dancing partners, and inasmuch as there were no fiddlers in Cleveland an appeal for musicians had to be sent to Newburgh. Excessive illness reigned in Cleveland, and when there were no ministers to conduct funerals laymen at times officiated. According to Deacon White the first ser- mon to which he listened after having reached Cleve- land was from the text, "One sinner destroyeth much good," but the preacher's influence over the com- munity had been greatly impaired, not by any flagrant sin on his part, but mainly on account of a lack of professional common sense. He had incurred the resentment of the community, because while con- ducting the funeral of a prominent citizen the soul of the departed had been consigned to an unpleasant destiny.
At the semicentennial celebration in the Stone Church, Deacon White presented a memorandum which he had kept in 1818, when an informal religious society had conducted during that year eight Sunday services. The Reverend Thomas Barr, of the Euclid Church, had preached three Sundays and had re- ceived for his compensation eight dollars ten cents, evidently the total offerings taken at the meetings. Other ministers had received three dollars per Sun- day; while the total amount raised during the year had been forty-three dollars twenty-nine cents, leav- ing a balance of one dollar thirty cents in the treasury. Deacon Moses White asserted that when the sub- scription list was passed for the support of the Reverend Randolph Stone, at the organization of the
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THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS
Stone Church, it had been signed by fifty-seven men, and that included almost every male inhabitant in the village. Poverty rather than unbelief may have had more to do with the slow development of re- ligious institutions on the Western Reserve. One thing is certain, and that is that many faithful Christians evinced a wholesome disposition to lay aside their shibboleths, and to unite most cordially in doing all that they could to lay foundations of churches, which slowly but surely extended a benefi- cent influence throughout the community.
Divine services were occasionally held in homes, whenever an itinerant preacher paid the settlement a visit. If a pioneer had been carried to the tomb without religious ceremony, upon the later arrival of a preacher a memorial discourse was wont to be delivered.
1204349
Thirteen years before the Stone Church was organ- ized, a Presbyterian church had been founded at Euclid, afterwards known as Collamer, but now East Cleveland. This was the beginning of the present First Presbyterian Church of East Cleveland, organ- ized August 27, 1807, by five families from Washing- ton, Pa., who had constructed rude homes in the unbroken forest. The missionary in charge of the founding of this "Church of Christ in Euclid" was the Reverend William Wick, of Youngstown, Ohio. One tradition has it that the first service was held in the barn of Andrew McIlrath; another that the charter members gathered in the home of Nathaniel
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THE OLD STONE CHURCH
Doan, the blacksmith at Doan's Corners, his name having been first on the church roll.
On March 15, 1810, this church was placed under the care of the Hartford Presbytery, which included the Western Reserve, without a western boundary, and was connected with the Synod of Pittsburgh. The first pastor was the Reverend Thomas Barr, who served from 1810 to 1820. He was the most pro- nounced Presbyterian minister in northern Ohio. Occasionally he preached in Cleveland and at New- burgh, while earnest Christians frequently drove from the two villages on the Sabbath to worship in the log church at Euclid. During the term of its use that crude sanctuary was said to have been the only church building on the Reserve. The first burial in the cemetery which still adjoins the modern stone edifice, in which the East Cleveland Presbyterian Church now worships, was that of the Reverend Thomas Barr's wife, who died in 1812. If the Stone Church is affectionately termed by Cleveland Pres- byterians "The Mother of us all," the First Presby- terian Church of East Cleveland may be called "The Grandmother of us all."
The first of the "Stated Supplies" to serve the Stone Church during the first fifteen years of its existence was the Reverend Randolph Stone, one of the two representatives delegated by Portage Presby- tery to effect the organization. Born at Bristol, Conn., in 1790, he was left an orphan in early life. A friendly minister prepared him for the sophomore class at Yale College, from which he graduated in 1817. He
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THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS
was appointed at that time "butler," the last person to hold that office in Yale College. After teaching at Hopkins Grammar School, his theological training was received under the tutelage of Dr. Timothy Dwight. Licensure was received September 9, 1817, at the hands of the New Haven West Association, and the young minister at once set out for the West- ern Reserve as a home missionary. There had come the opportunity of succeeding the Reverend Dr. Ben- jamin Trumbull at North Haven, Conn., and likewise a call from Warren, Ohio, but the pastorate at Mor- gan, Ashtabula County, Ohio, was accepted. This was an offshoot of the Austinburgh Church founded by the Reverend Joseph Badger. Ordained and installed May 19, 1819, at thirty years of age he served the Stone Church in addition to his work at the Morgan Church. This was made possible on account of the "part-time" pastoral settlements then in vogue. Having assisted in organizing the Old Stone Church he was able to give the new enterprise "one-third part-time" until April, 1821.
After nine years' residence at Morgan, Ashtabula County, the Reverend Randolph Stone edited The Observer, the only Presbyterian paper published on the Western Reserve. In 1830 he returned east, and for five years supplied churches. Records show that he was again on the Reserve at the Willoughby Church in 1836. At the Ohio State University, Athens, Ohio, a year was spent in the chair of history and English literature. He probably died about 1843 at Parma, Ohio, when fifty-five years of age.
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THE OLD STONE CHURCH
Comparatively little is known of the Reverend William McLean, the second stated supply. Evi- dently the first Judge Samuel Williamson had in- duced this minister to come to Cleveland from Mead- ville, Pa., to teach in the community, as well as to preach. He was one of the first teachers in the Academy, and there is a tradition that when the rumbling of an approaching thunderstorm was heard he would raise his hands and say with great solem- nity, "Silence! This is the voice of God," and there was silence that could be felt. While teaching, this minister must have supplied churches, among which was the Brooklyn Church, afterwards the Ohio City congregation, his agreement with the Stone Church having bound him to "three-fourths time for one year." In March of 1821 he was married to Abigail Clark, of Newburgh, Ohio.
Although this supply service was brief, the record of the congregational activities is interesting. When the church met "to examine the state of personal religion and to devise the best means to prosper Zion's Kingdom," men and women constituted the assembly, but whenever ecclesiastical business was to be transacted, only the "Male Members" were in- vited, as shown by this minute :
May 6, 1822 - The Male Members of the Church [only four of them] met to decide what form of govern- ment this Church would adopt, and time when it is expedient to celebrate the Lord's Supper.
Both propositions were postponed to a later meeting, when the brethren adopted the following:
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THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS
Resolved, that this Church would prefer the Presby- terian mode of church government, but under existing circumstances it does not think it prudent to act upon the subject.
Such discretion on the part of the "brethren" could not have been prompted by any fear of the "sisters," but the statement reveals a peculiar vacillation during the first fifteen years, on the part of the "Male Members," between the Presbyterian and Congre- gational modes of church government.
Under the care of the Portage Presbytery the church sent a delegate to a stated meeting as early as 1822. The next year the "Male Members" tarried after a Sabbath service to resolve:
That we esteem it both a privilege and duty to send a delegate to the first meeting of the Huron Presbytery to be held at Brownhelm.
Elisha Taylor was appointed to serve.
The Reverend William McLean ministered until January, 1823, when he was succeeded by the Rev- erend Stephen I. Bradstreet, who was employed for "one year at half time," and this minister served from September, 1823, to January 24, 1830, a period of over six years.
The Reverend Stephen Ingalls Bradstreet was a direct descendant from Governor Simon Bradstreet, of the Massachusetts Colony, and his famous wife, Anna Dudley Bradstreet, the colonial poetess. Born at Greenfield, New Hampshire, in 1794, and gradu- ated from Dartmouth College in 1819, he studied theology at Andover Seminary. Delicate health
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THE OLD STONE CHURCH
having precluded his entering upon foreign missionary work, the only satisfactory alternative was that of seeking destitute home missionary fields. He was first sent to Lynchburg and Staunton, Virginia, but convinced that the experience was too easy a west- ward preaching itineracy was undertaken, until Cleveland was attained. One reason for this course was that Mr. John W. Willey, the fifth lawyer to locate in Cleveland, and elected in 1836 the city's first mayor, had been a classmate at Dartmouth College of the earnest home missionary. Lawyer Willey had come to Cleveland in 1822, and the college chums were about thirty years of age when thus re- united. Cleveland had a population of five hundred, and when the Reverend Stephen I. Bradstreet closed his supply of the Stone Church in 1830, the city was credited with one thousand seventy-five inhabitants.
The opening of the Ohio Canal from Akron to Cleveland boomed the lake city, and a few tons of coal were shipped by canal from Akron to Cleveland, whose citizens disdained giving the doubtful fuel market, as long as there was abundance of wood. The primitive log court-house was displaced in 1828 by a new court of justice on the southwestern section of the Public Square. Four years later a new jail was located on Champlain Street, directly in rear of the second court-house.
During the years of the Bradstreet supply the Stone Church exhibited more comprehensive congrega- tional activities. At each communion an offering was taken "to aid the General Assembly's Commis-
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THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS
sioner's Fund." The "Male Members" convened April 14, 1825, to resolve:
That this Church and Society will ask the assistance of the United Domestick Missionary Society of New York, in order to settle or retain a minister in this place, and that a meeting of the Society be held to make arrangements for accomplishing the object.
According to this record the "Male Members" welcomed the women to joint responsibility whenever financial affairs were to be discussed. The appeal forwarded to New York was "for aid to the Reverend Stephen I. Bradstreet for Missionary Labour in the towns adjoining, in consideration of his preaching one-half time amongst us in Cleveland." There evi- dently was no self-interest in this application, since it was for the support of a home missionary in needy fields near Cleveland, whose pioneer Presbyterian church paid for its own half-time claim upon the missionary's service. The spirit of self-support, as well as of missionary endeavor, so characteristic of the whole life of the Stone Church, was thus early manifested.
When the appeal was forwarded to the New York Society, relative to the wider usefulness of the Rev- erend Stephen I. Bradstreet, an offering was taken for the "Maumee Mission," established for the benefit of the Indians of northwestern Ohio. In 1828 another offering was taken for the support of a chap- lain in the Ohio Penitentiary. The Reverend Stephen I. Bradstreet received one hundred dollars annually for the part-time service given the Stone Church. He
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THE OLD STONE CHURCH
was ably assisted not only by Mr. Elisha Taylor, but also by Deacon Samuel I. Hamlen, both "dyed-in-the wool" Presbyterians. Samuel I. Hamlen, a carpenter by trade, also served as janitor of the church, in which he performed many arduous duties. Not only was there the tedious care of wood fires, but likewise the keeping of the room lighted by means of tallow candles, some of which weighed a pound. These were hung in high-back candlesticks upon the walls, and needed frequent snuffing. Occasionally this periodic attention left the worshipers in darkness. Without the convenience of matches, the candles had to be relighted from one in the sexton's lantern. Deacon Hamlen was a good singer, and when no minister was available he read sermons very acceptably. A con- scientious man, strict in religious duties and highly exemplary in life, he held the sincere respect of the community.
The reception of members into church fellowship was delegated to the pastor and "Male Members," and for a number of years those received by certi- ficate were examined, both as to doctrinal and experi- mental knowledge of Christianity, as were those who came upon confession of their faith, while both classes were "propounded as candidates." An ex- ample of the scrupulous care exercised in this matter was the case of Francis Williamson, who presented a letter from a Presbyterian church in Belfast, Ireland. On January 13, 1825, this individual
Came forward and requested to be admitted into this Church. No member of the Church being acquainted
.
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with the religious character of F. Williamson it was voted to defer his admission until the next communion, and to invite him in the meantime to commune with the Church on the validity of the Church in Belfast.
How this Scotch-Irish Presbyterian accepted the pro- posed scrutiny of his religious status was not re- corded, but before the time for final action came he had removed to another place.
That the law and the gospel were not in conflict during the Bradstreet period of supply is shown in the minute of April 14, 1823 :
Resolved, that Judge Kelley be requested to preside in the religious meetings of this Society on the Sabbath when we are destitute of preaching.
The church was formally incorporated January 5, 1827, when "twenty-eight gentlemen were created a body corporate and politic, under the name of the 'First Presbyterian Church of Cleveland.'" The names of the incorporators present a remarkable list of men influential in the earliest years of Cleveland. The applicants for the charter are worthy of a brief description of their professional and business careers :
Samuel Williamson came in 1810 from Pennsyl- vania, proprietor of a tanning business, one of the first trustees of the city, judge of Common Pleas Court and founder of a family long identified with the city and the Stone Church.
John W. Willey, a young New Hampshire lawyer, graduate of Dartmouth College, who came to the city in 1822, was a judge, state senator, and Cleve- land's first mayor.
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THE OLD STONE CHURCH
Horace Perry, for thirty years better known than his father, Nathan Perry, who came with the first party of surveyors to Lake County and then to Cleveland in 1806, was a large land owner.
Ashbel W. Walworth, son of Judge John Wal- worth, who came from Connecticut to Fairport, Ohio, in 1800 and to Cleveland in 1806, held many offices in the early days of the latter city, and for seventeen years was a collector of customs.
Dr. David Long came at twenty-three years of age from Hebron, N. Y., and settled as Cleveland's first physician in 1810. For a while he also conducted a dry-goods business on Superior Street, until the in- crease of population demanded his full professional attention.
Jarvis F. Hanks, not only a sign painter, but also a portrait painter, was first superintendent of the Euclid Avenue Congregational Church Sunday School. His last residence was on Euclid Avenue, corner of East Ninety-third Street, at the present site of the Wason home.
Peter M. Weddell, a merchant whose store on Superior Street, corner of Bank Street, was first sup- planted by the Weddell House and then by the Rockefeller Building, came from Pennsylvania in 1820.
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