USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > The Old stone church; the story of a hundred years, 1820-1920 > Part 3
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Samuel Starkweather, a graduate of Brown Uni- versity, who came from Massachusetts in 1827, was a born orator, a judge, a collector of customs, and for five years mayor.
Constitution
First Presbyterian Society €1.5 =
Cleaveland ..
Whereas morality is essential to a free government, and is the foundation of civil liberty and social happines; and swee gemeint morality is the legitimate effect of the Christian Religion, and is best promove by the preaching of the Gospel; and especially since the frenching of the Gospel is the means which God has apprentie for the valuation of his creatures , it becomes the city of all who love their country to lande their aid in support. ing the institutions of Religion and maintaining the fout. lie and stated administration of truth; and since this' object is better accomplished by the united and systematic exertions of well organized societies, than by the occasional. efforts of individuals; He the subscribers form ourselves into a society and agree to be governed by the following Constitution:
Article 1st
This Society shall be known by the names of the First Presbyterian Society of Cleavelandf" Article 2º The object of this society shall be to promote the interest of morality and Religion , and to sufferat is frencher of the Year. byteriam denomination in this village. The effect the object the Society shall have power to collect subscriptions, and to holds and manage and expenses such friends or may la.
REDUCED FACSIMILE OF A PORTION OF A PAGE OF THE RECORD BOOK OF THE SOCIETY
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Samuel I. Hamlen was a highly respected car- penter, who came from Massachusetts in 1818.
Samuel Cowles, a graduate of Williams College, who came from Connecticut in 1819, was a lawyer of wide reputation, a judge, and very successful business man.
Jewett Prime, a young man from New England, became editor and publisher of the Cleveland Herald in 1826, but died two years later.
William Bliss was a jeweler who came from Con- necticut in 1816.
George Kirk came from Canal Fulton, Ohio, in 1820, and became Cleveland's first "City Marshal."
David H. Beardsley came from Connecticut in 1826. He was a school teacher, state senator, asso- ciate judge, for twenty-three years collector of the Ohio Canal, auditor and recorder of Cuyahoga County, who worked in the log court-house, and whose beautiful penmanship is preserved not only in the court records, but also in the Stone Church records, he having been the first secretary of the Church Society. His daughter became the wife of William Bingham.
James Douglass was a cabinet-maker who came about 1825 and who left the city in 1837.
Nathan Perry, Jr., could speak several Indian languages. He was a fur-trader, the founder of Perry estate on Euclid Avenue, corner of East Twenty- second Street. His daughter became the wife of Senator Henry B. Payne.
Herchel Foote, an enterprising young man, came
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from Utica, N. Y., in 1819, to establish a book- store on the site of the present Marshall Drug Com- pany, Superior Avenue and Public Square. He was a good singer, the leader of the Stone Church and other choirs. In later life he became justice of the peace and postmaster in East Cleveland.
Gurdon Fitch came in 1826 at the age of forty years. He was a tavern-keeper, active in city affairs, father of Miss Sarah Fitch, who was long associated with the work of the Stone Church.
Thomas Davis, a shoemaker, came from England in 1820. He had a shop on Erie Street, where the Cleveland Trust Company now is located. He be- came a worker in the Mayflower Mission and was a charter member of the Woodland Avenue Presby- terian Church. He was the father of one of the founders of the Davis and Hunt Hardware Company.
Thomas P. May came from New York State in 1825. He bought Elisha Taylor's dry goods store. His daughter married Burritt Horton of the Alcott and Horton wholesale dry goods firm.
Edmund Clark came from Buffalo in 1825, when twenty-six years of age. He became the partner of Peter M. Weddell. He was a merchant, railroad capi- talist, banker, and insurance company president.
Ziba Willis, a printer, came with his brother in 1819, at twenty-four years of age. He was the founder and editor of the Cleveland Herald, which existed for sixty-six years.
Philip B. Andrews came in 1820, when twenty-four years of age. He was a gunsmith, iron founder,
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engine builder, and the brother-in-law of Charles G. Finney, of Oberlin College.
James Belden was the proprietor of Merwin's tavern, afterwards the Mansion House.
Richard Hilliard was a prominent merchant from 1824 to 1856. He was a member of the firm of Hilliard and Hayes, which handled at first retail and later wholesale dry goods. His home became in turn the residence of Governor Todd and then of the Grasselli family.
John Blair came from Maryland in 1819. His first home was on St. Clair Street, the present site of Engine Company No. 1. Later he moved to Pros- pect Street, corner of Blair Lane, now Fern Court. He was the owner of warehouses, was in the com- mission fur business, and had other interests.
Of E. C. Hickcox little is known.
Few pioneer churches were blessed with as in- fluential a body of incorporators as was the case of the Stone Church. At their first meeting, held the first Monday in April, 1827, Judge Samuel Cowles called the meeting to order, and Dr. David Long was chosen secretary pro tem. Judge Cowles became the first president of the society; David H. Beardsley the secretary, and Peter M. Weddell treasurer. The first board of trustees was composed of Samuel Williamson, Samuel I. Hamlen, Ashbel W. Wal- worth, Horace Perry, and Dr. David Long.
At this first meeting in 1827 the problem of securing a house of worship was discussed, but no definite action was taken until April 8, 1828, when subscrip-
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tions were solicited. A year later a committee was appointed to estimate the cost of a modest structure, but having failed to act, Samuel I. Hamlen, the car- penter, was requested to ascertain the expense of erecting a wooden building, forty-five by sixty feet, without basement and with steeple seventy-five feet high; also the expense of a building fifty by seventy feet, with a steeple one hundred feet in height. Mr. John M. Sterling, a prominent lawyer, and father of Dr. Elisha Sterling, one of the best known surgeons in Cleveland, was appointed to wait upon the sub- scribers, in order to obtain their consent to either plan for a wooden structure. He reported their ad- verse attitude to anything but a brick or stone edifice, as specified in the original subscription paper. The society then voted to circulate another paper for the construction of a wooden building forty-five by sixty-five feet in dimensions. Dr. David Long, who was given the task of securing signatures, reported no interest in the proposition.
Dr. Long then offered to rent, for one hundred dollars a year, the large room in the third story of his new brick block on Superior Street, where the American House now stands. The room was to be finished for the purpose, leaving the slips and pulpit to be constructed by the church society, and to remain its property. The trustees were granted power to sell all or part of the slips, as they deemed expedient, such sales to defray the cost of the equipment. This was the beginning of the sale of slips or pews, as a mode of church construction, as well as of support.
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Although the sale of pews continued in the construc- tion of later Stone Church buildings, it has generally disappeared as a practice among Christian churches.
In 1830 Shoemaker Thomas Davis became a trustee. When at twenty years of age he reached the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, concluding that the cluster of cabins could not be Cleveland, he walked to Newburgh before he discovered his mistake. His first customer came Sunday morning. "I never work on Sunday," he said, whereupon the customer re- plied, "There's no such day in this town." "Then I have brought it," said the shoemaker, who rain or shine walked each Sunday to the Euclid Church, now the First Presbyterian Church of East Cleveland. On April 4, 1831, the church society accepted subscrip- tions secured the previous April and decided to pro- ceed with the work of building. A minute shows that a lot had been given to the society by Mrs. Sophia L. Perry, probably for a church site. This lot was sold and the proceeds applied to the building fund.
No building enterprise, however, was inaugurated during the leadership of the Reverend Stephen I. Bradstreet, the close of whose important ministerial service in the Stone Church was thus recorded :
January 24, 1830. The Rev. Stephen I. Bradstreet, who has labored in this Church and congregation for some years past, closed his labors by preaching this day his farewell sermon.
In his twenty-fifth anniversary sermon Dr. Aiken had this to say of this minister:
Of the six clergymen who supplied this church the
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Rev. Stephen I. Bradstreet labored much the longest. Often have I heard him spoken of by the old inhabitants, as an able, self-denying and faithful minister, who re- ceived for his services more affection than money.
There are other sources of information, however, that should exalt this servant of Christ in the esti- mation of this generation. After two attempts had been made to establish a Presbyterian family paper on the Western Reserve, the Reverend Stephen I. Bradstreet founded in 1834 the Observer, which, printed at Hudson, Ohio, continued an influential religious journal until it was finally absorbed by the New York Evangelist. When preparations were made to found Western Reserve College at Hudson, Ohio, each one of the three Presbyteries on the Reserve appointed two ministers and two laymen to consti- tute a board of managers, or trustees. Huron Pres- bytery selected the Reverend Stephen I. Bradstreet as one of its two ministerial representatives. The corner-stone of the first building erected on the campus of Western Reserve College was laid April 26, 1826, with elaborate ceremony in the presence of a large assembly.
A procession was formed at Mr. Hudson's home and moved to the meeting-house, where there was prayer and singing. The procession then moved to the college campus, where an address was delivered in Latin by Rev. Caleb Pitkin, and the stone was laid with Masonic ceremonies. The procession then returned to the meet- ing-house, where Mr. Bradstreet delivered an address on the principles which actuated the trustees in the work they had undertaken.
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The address was printed in the Cleveland Herald, May 5, 1826.
This home missionary, who supplied for six years the Stone Church, must have been held in high esteem by his brethren, in respect to both his minis- terial and to his educational ability. Afterwards he was instrumental in raising funds for Western Re- serve College, which early gained the name of "The Yale of the West." The life of the Reverend Stephen I. Bradstreet "burned out" in January of 1837, when only forty-three years of age. Mrs. Bradstreet was an accomplished writer, and contributed under the name "Sophronia" many articles to the religious press. She and her husband were long remembered in Cleveland for their work of caring for the sick and dying, in the great epidemic that attended the open- ing of the Ohio Canal. She survived her husband twenty years. The graves of the Reverend and Mrs. Stephen I. Bradstreet are, together with those of two children, at the right of the western entrance of Erie Street Cemetery. Only the inscription "Rev. Stephen I. Bradstreet" can be deciphered at the top of the modest slab of marble. A son graduated in 1850 from Western Reserve College and died in California. The only remaining son, Edward P. Bradstreet, Esq., is the oldest member of the Cincinnati Bar.
The shortest period of supply in the Stone Church was thus recorded :
On the second Sabbath of June, 1830, the Rev. John Sessions commenced his labors, as a minister of the Gospel in this Church and Congregation, having been employed to preach for one year.
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The following is the sequel :
August 2, 1830. After twelve weeks' labor, Rev. John Sessions was released from the contract formerly made with him.
The little group of Presbyterians in Cleveland then welcomed a theological student, when on July 10, 1831, Mr. Samuel Hutchings was employed for one year. In many records the name has often been spelled "Hutchins," but "Hutchings" was the correct form. Born in New York City, September 15, 1806, and prepared at Bloomfield, N. J., for Williams Col- lege, he was graduated from the latter institution in 1828, and three years later from Princeton Seminary.
The Presbytery of Cleveland was formed in 1830, and this young man was its first case of ordination, November 8, 1831, at Elyria, Ohio. In the fall of 1831 the Reverend Samuel Hutchings returned to New Haven, Conn., to marry Miss Elizabeth Coit Lathrop, who was a sister of Christopher Lathrop, one of the earliest deacons of the Stone Church, who came to Cleveland in 1831. This pioneer deacon had probably been drawn to the Western Reserve for the reason that the Reverend Daniel Lathrop, a brother, had previously settled at Elyria, Ohio, where he was pastor of the Presbyterian Church. Young Hutch- ings had evidently offered himself to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and was awaiting appointment to some field, when his brief missionary service on the Western Reserve was undertaken, for he was appointed a missionary to
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Ceylon, India, December 18, 1832, soon after leaving Cleveland.
Enthused over new movements, churches often act as though the schemes devised for advance work had never before been employed. A Student Volunteer Movement started at Williamstown, Mass., in 1806, long before the more modern one. "Surveys" and "Every Member Canvasses" appear novel methods of efficiency in churches, yet years ago the Stone Church parish was divided into districts for the house- to-house visitation of lay workers.
Presbyterial Ladies' Missionary Societies were con- sidered new forty years ago, but a Ladies' Missionary Society was perfected in the Stone Church almost ninety years ago, when in 1831 a dozen young ladies formed such an organization. Miss Sarah C. Van Tyne (also spelled Van Tine) was directress of the society, and Mrs. Charlotte Hutchings the first secre- tary. These women went later to foreign fields, the one as Mrs. Sarah Adams to the Zulus of South Africa, and the other as the wife of the Reverend Samuel Hutchings to Ceylon. The late Mrs. Mary H. Severance served for twenty years, or as long as her membership continued in the Stone Church, as secretary of this Ladies' Missionary Society. Fort- nightly and then again monthly meetings were held for forty-two years, before ladies' missionary societies became the rule in the churches of Cleveland Pres- bytery.
Toward the close of the year's service rendered by the Reverend Samuel Hutchings, or September 9,
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1832, the following action was taken on the ever- recurring problem of church government:
Whereas some of the members of the Church prefer the Congregational mode of church government and some the Presbyterian mode, therefore, resolved, that the Officers of this Church be to all members who prefer the Congregational mode only as a Standing Committee or Deacons, and that such members shall be entitled to all privileges in this Church, which they could enjoy were there only a Standing Committee or Deacons for its officers. But all members professing to be governed by the Presbyterian mode may be governed by Ruling Elders.
Such a mixture of Presbyterian and Congregational ecclesiastical practices can be understood only by a study of the "Plan of Union" to be described.
The subsequent career of the Reverend Samuel Hutchings, for a year a stated supply of the Stone Church, is interesting. He and his wife sailed in 1833 for Ceylon, India, where ten years were given to the revision of the Tamil Bible, and to the compilation of the Tamil-English Dictionary. On account of ill health the Reverend Mr. Hutchings returned to the United States and was released in 1847. He served at Brookfield, Mass., 1847-1851; was principal of a female seminary, New Haven, Conn., 1851-1856; of a similar school at Wilkesbarre, Pa., 1856-1857. After supply and educational work he removed to Orange, N. J., where he devoted himself to literary service until his death, September 1, 1895, at eighty- nine years of age, having contributed over one thousand articles to Chambers' Encyclopedia. In addi-
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tion almost all the biographical sketches in the Encyclopedia of Missions were prepared by him. Williams College in 1888 conferred upon him the honorary degree of doctor of divinity.
Toward the close of the Hutchings period of supply in the Old Stone Church, agitation again arose over the possibility of erecting a permanent church home. While plans were being matured an effort was made to secure a suitable leader, and as a result the Rev- erend John Keep, of Homer, N. Y., came to the Stone Church December 1, 1833. Before his arrival there had arisen one more discussion over the mooted problem of church government, precipitated this time by the Congregational element, which mustered an extra showing of strength, according to the follow- ing minute:
Resolved, that whereas more than twenty of the Male Members of this Church have publicly expressed their preference for the Congregational mode of Church Government, and but three their preference for the Presbyterian mode, and, whereas there have been five regularly notified meetings of the Church to consider the subject of change and each one invited to attend and to give his opinion, Therefore it is Resolved, unanimously, that this Church will for the future be Congregational in the mode of government.
Soon after the arrival of the Reverend John Keep, thirty persons were received by letter into the church, and five upon confession of their faith. With this inspiring ingathering, however, the pendulum of church government swung toward the Presbyterian polity of sessional control, according to this minute:
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Resolved, that the executive business of this church in- cluding cases of discipline, the examination of candidates for admiss on into the church, and their dismission be for the period of one year from this date committed to seven brethren.
An additional proviso was adopted in the matter of discipline giving the liberty of an appeal from the "Executive Committee," either to the whole church or to the Presbytery.
It is likewise striking that at the time the congre- gation resolutely assumed the task of providing a permanent house of worship, the missionary spirit which has so signally marked the whole history of the Stone Church increased. Monthly concerts for the study of missions and for prayer in their behalf were inaugurated, and at the close of 1832 an offering of one hundred dollars, a large sum for benevolence in those days, was remitted to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, supported alike by the Congregational and Presbyterian churches.
The construction of the first "Old Stone Church" was attended by many difficulties, due chiefly to the scarcity of money. Donations were made of stone, lumber, and other building materials; some in store pay, but not until a loan had been secured did the work hasten to completion. In 1832 Samuel I. Hamlen, the carpenter-sexton-sermon-reader, was appointed to oversee the work at two dollars a day. Dr. David Long was authorized to purchase supplies, while a committee composed of P. M. Weddell, T. P. Handy, and A. W. Walworth appealed for funds.
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Finally a loan was secured from the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie. Evidently Dr. David Long, T. P. Handy, A. W. Walworth, Samuel Cowles, and John Blair assumed responsibility for the loan, for in 1835 the fire insurance policy of five thousand dollars was assigned to these members. This debt was not paid as late as 1841, when Orlando Cutter, F. W. Bingham, and Dr. David Long were appointed to submit three plans for payment of debt; permanent sale of the slips, subject to an annual tax; the creation of a stock company with five thousand dollars capital, at six per cent., and the attempt to raise the debt by sub- scription. The records do not reveal the method adopted whereby the debt was raised, but the men- tion of new stock certificates in place of lost ones intimates that stock was sold. The debt April 3, 1848, or fourteen years after the dedication of the church edifice, amounted to three thousand six hundred dollars, and then arrangements were made for its payment.
The dedicatory sermon was delivered by the Rev- erend John Keep on February 26, 1834. The text was Psalm 5 :7.
But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multi- tude of thy mercy; and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.
The building site, which cost four hundred dollars, is the one still occupied on the north side of the Public Square, at the intersection of Ontario Street. It was purchased by ten citizens, namely Samuel William- son, Samuel Cowles, John M. Sterling, Leonard Case,
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Harmon Kingsbury, Nathan Perry, Peter M. Wed- dell, Samuel Starkweather, Ashbel W. Walworth, and Edmund Clark. This remarkable list contains three names not included among the incorporators, John M. Sterling, Leonard Case, and Harmon Kingsbury. John M. Sterling came from Connecticut and became one of the leading lawyers of Cleveland. He was the father of Dr. Elisha Sterling, who practiced medicine and surgery many years in the city of his birth. Leonard Case was the son of a poor German couple living in Pennsylvania. They moved in 1800 to Warren, Ohio, where Leonard at fourteen years of age was stricken with infantile paralysis which seriously crippled him. He secured a position in the recorder's office at Warren, and became very familiar with the records of the Connecticut Land Company. He then became cashier of the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie in Cleveland, studied law and dealt in real estate the rest of his life. His home was at first a small frame house, standing upon the present site of the post office. His children, William and Leonard Case, Jr., became very prominent and influential men in the community.
Harmon Kingsbury, one of the donors of the church site, served as a trustee of Western Reserve College from 1824 to 1844, and was described as a resident of Lorain County, but in the later forties Cleveland directories gave him as a resident living on Prospect Street, and his occupation that of a farmer.
The site upon which the Stone Church stands was sold by Joel Scranton to Samuel Cowles, provided
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that within three years the latter sold the property to the First Presbyterian Society at the price of four hundred dollars, for the purpose of the erection of a meeting-house thereon. The four hundred dollars was contributed as follows: Samuel Williamson, Samuel Cowles, Leonard Case, Peter M. Weddell, Nathan Perry, and Harmon Kingsbury each gave fifty dollars; while twenty-five dollars each was contributed by John M. Sterling, Samuel Starkweather, A. W. Wal- worth, and Edmund Clark. No deed was ever found conveying this property from Samuel Cowles to the Stone Church. So great was the confidence placed in this early judge, the first president of the Church Society, that the land stood in his name for many years after his death. Not long before he died Judge Samuel E. Williamson gave his opinion that the pres- ent owners have a clear title to it. Written releases had been obtained from all the heirs of the ten donors, with the exception of two whose heirs could not be found.
For primitive times the edifice dedicated was con- sidered fine, substantially constructed of gray sand- stone, rough hammered. It was fifty-five by eighty feet, finished in the Tuscan order of architecture, with bell section and dome. The front was divided with pilasters composed of cut stone, with a flight of spa- cious steps leading to the main entrance. The entablature was plain, yet tasteful and commanding. The interior was finished on the first floor with eighty-four pews, and a full gallery suspended from the ceiling by iron rods. The ceiling was elliptical
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and the finish plain. The total cost of the edifice was nine thousand five hundred dollars. In the afternoon of the day of dedication the "slips" were rented for one year, assuring an income of two thousand dollars, out of which the incidental expenses and salary of the pastor were to be paid first, and then the surplus applied to the payment of the debt.
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