USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > The Old stone church; the story of a hundred years, 1820-1920 > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23
The Stone Church early received the support of Dr. David Long, the first physician to reside in Cleve- land, but in 1835 there came into the membership of the Stone Church Dr. Erasmus Cushing, who had received a very thorough medical training at Williams College, the University of Pennsylvania, and other eastern schools, and had practiced ten years at Lanes- boro, Mass. He practiced medicine in Cleveland until almost ninety-one years of age, the son, Dr. H. Kirke Cushing, having been associated with the father toward the end of the latter's life.
In 1840 a celebrated medical teacher, as well as practitioner, came to Cleveland and became a mem- ber of the Stone Church. Dr. John Delamater, having been prominently identified with medical schools in Massachusetts and New York State, finally came to
118
THE OLD STONE CHURCH
the medical college at Willoughby, Ohio, and thence to Cleveland, where in 1842 he became one of the founders of the Western Reserve Medical College, in which he lectured until 1860. At the same time he gave courses at Bowdoin and Dartmouth Colleges and in other medical institutions. He is said to have delivered seventy different courses of lectures, and that his command of pure Saxon speech was so re- markable that in classes and at court trials he never was misunderstood.
These are good examples of the young men whose warm interest in the work of the Stone Church Dr. Aiken was able to enlist. From 1833 to 1843 the Reverend Joseph Breck, a graduate of Yale College, was a helpful attendant at the Stone Church. He had been for seven years a home missionary at Brecks- ville, Ohio, prior to his having returned to Massa- chusetts for a bride. The couple then came to Cleve- land, where their home was on Superior Street, the later site of the J. F. Ryder Photograph Company. Active ministerial service having been relinquished on account of delicate health, this home missionary turned to the preparation of young men for college. His wife having died in 1835 he removed to a farm on Brecksville Road in Newburgh, where the rest of his life was spent. There he sustained the same help- ful relation to the Newburgh Presbyterian Church that he had maintained in connection with the Stone Church.
Toward the close of Dr. Aiken's second year in Cleveland the church had become too small to
119
SAMUEL CLARK AIKEN
accommodate attendance upon divine services, but the shape of the building prevented enlargement. The church society, furthermore, was still in debt, and disinclined to assume heavier responsibilities. A lack of sittings, the annual competition for "slips," and their high prices, not only tended to exclude the poor and thus occasion cavil and dissatisfaction, but also to drive away members to other churches. Under the cramped conditions "twenty of our best families" withdrew to form a Congregational Society, not on account, however, of any dissatisfaction with the Presbyterian polity. Owing either to the scarcity of Congregationalists, or to the financial panic of 1837, after a year's experiment the colonizing enterprise was abandoned and the building sold to pay debts. This new religious society had sought the care of Cleveland Presbytery, "Mr. Penfield having taken his seat as a ruling elder," again emphasizing the mixture of the modes of church government. This peaceful exodus having failed, the members returned to their former church home.
In his twenty-fifth anniversary sermon delivered in 1860, Dr. Aiken thus described the colonizing ten- dency of the Stone Church:
It may be proper to state here that during my pastorate five colonies have gone from this congregation. While some of them were small, others were large, and all took from us more or less valuable members. The loss was often depressing and painful, because it caused the loss of youthful and active communicants, whose help was needed in the Sunday School. Although urged to do so I never opposed these movements, and while for a time
120
THE OLD STONE CHURCH
they diminished our numbers, they added to the general strength and prosperity of religion. It can also be asserted that these colonies were dictated by no jealousy; by no dissatisfaction or unfriendly feeling on the part of any- one. I am happy to state that with every new church society that has grown out of the old one, and with all others of every name, we have maintained the unity of spirit in the bond of peace. Where we could not agree in principle or sympathize in feeling, we have agreed quietly to differ.
The year that Dr. Aiken came to Cleveland a street-railway was laid along Euclid Avenue as far as the East Cleveland stone quarries, and designed to be extended to Newburgh. Vehicles were drawn on wooden rails by horses driven tandem, carrying not only building material to a stone-yard on the Public Square, but also passengers who might wish to take advantage of the two trips per day.
In 1840 Dr. Aiken witnessed the first recorded industrial riot, that of canal diggers. The contractor had paid the men seventy-five cents a day, and the strikers stoned the "scabs" willing to work at that remuneration. When it is known, however, that chickens then sold for a dollar a dozen; butter at five cents a pound; the best cuts of meat at five cents a pound, the wages of the canal diggers were not as slavish as otherwise they might seem to have been.
Although the first burial-ground had been located at the southeastern corner of Ontario and Prospect Streets, the God's Acre where Dr. Aiken must have most frequently read the committal service was Erie Street Cemetery, consisting of ten and a quarter acres
121
SAMUEL CLARK AIKEN
given the village in 1808 by members of the Con- necticut Land Company. For some time this burial- place was not in favor, as it seemed to the early settlers to be too near the wooded outskirts. The Stone Church resolved December 7, 1843, to pur- chase
A square piece of ground in the City Cemetery to be used as a burial-place for the poor in the church, and for Christian strangers who may die among us.
Later an order was drawn for sixty dollars on the treasury for payment of the six lots which contained seven hundred sixty-eight square feet. This was in the Erie Street Cemetery, and three adult burials are recorded, the fourth having been that of a little girl. About 1882 the city desiring these central burial-lots for the site of a receiving vault removed the bodies of the adults to Woodland Cemetery to a plot of ground adjoining one owned by the Second Presbyterian Church. Two of the adults were the Reverend and Mrs. Tomlinson.
The burial of the little girl, Barbara Forman, was in connection with a tragedy. She was only eight years of age, and on the Erie Street Cemetery's book the cause of death is given as"Whipped by a teacher." For some reason her body was not removed to Wood- land Cemetery, but was changed at Erie Street Ceme- tery to a spot just west of the grave of Joc O. Sot, the Indian chieftain. The little girl's grave is marked by a small stone on one side of which is the inscription giving her name, the names of her parents and time of death, October 15, 1856. Upon the back
122
THE OLD STONE CHURCH
of the stone four lines, now almost effaced, were carved. They contain these words:
Little Barbara died from a whipping, a cruel punishment inflicted by a bigoted Teacher for her attendance upon the Ragged School.
The Ragged School was founded at the foot of Champlain Street by the St. Clair Street Methodist Episcopal Church. Some of the young men con- nected with the Young Men's Christian Association aided in the work, especially in the Sunday School. The community was mainly Irish Catholic, and the older children and parents stoned the building and attempted to destroy the meetings until a policeman was installed at the door of the building. With the serving of food and distribution of garments more good will was secured. The little girl buried by the Stone Church was a pupil in St. Mary's Parochial School, taught by Frederick Bowers, a German teacher about twenty-eight years of age. He was not a priest but a married man. At the coroner's inqu'est (after the death of Barbara Forman) children testified that the teacher placed the little girl across a chair compelling her to hold the rounds while he beat her with the handle of a thick cane. The child continued to attend school for eighteen days and then after eight days' illness she died. The postmortem re- vealed conditions showing that death was caused by the cruel whipping. The teacher was bound over to the Criminal Court under six thousand dollars bond, and the Stone Church people interested in the case
123
SAMUEL CLARK AIKEN
evidently buried the child upon the Erie Street Cemetery lot.
A series of revival meetings had been conducted in the Stone Church during the winter of 1841 by the Reverend J. T. Avery, a Congregational minister who came to Cleveland at thirty years of age, and resided here forty years. He had a very successful evangelistic career and was a warm friend of Presi- dent Finney. Particularly effective was this evan- gelist in college towns in bringing students to Christ and to the consecration of their lives to the ministry. To the end of life he remained a close friend of Dr. Aiken. The Reverend Frederick T. Avery, rector of St. John's Episcopal Church of this city, is a son of the evangelist.
At the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, April 5, 1840, following a series of evangelistic meetings, one hundred eighty-eight members were received into the Stone Church, twenty-five by letters from sister churches, and one hundred sixty-three on confession of their faith. The summary of the year's activities reported to Presbytery gave two hundred thirty-five as the total number of additions for the year, making a membership of five hundred one in April of 1840.
Pioneer revivals were marked by emotional effects, even when conducted by very conservative home missionaries, such as the Reverend Joseph Badger, in whose Austinburgh Church one of the first awaken- ings occurred. They usually commenced with serv- ices preparatory to the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and were attended by a variety of physical
124
THE OLD STONE CHURCH
movements, such as falling, jerking, rolling, running, dancing, barking and trance or vision experiences. So violent became some that the head jerked from side to side with such rapidity that the features could not be discerned; while there was actual danger of the neck being broken. People were seized when guarding against the influence and some cursed at every jerk. Travelers on a journey and men at work were affected, the scoffer as well as the devout seeker after a blessing.
Physicians who visited the scenes ready to attribute the phenomena to unnerved conditions were seized with the jerking; still Badger and other religious leaders placed no special emphasis upon the bodily exercises as the effect of God's spirit. This type of revival had ceased when the Stone Church experi- enced its first work of grace, yet the special meetings were deeply emotional. There was, however, an ethical influence in them. One man arose in a meet- ing, for example, and confessed that when he had sold a saddle for a man on commission he had falsi- fied in regard to the amount received when making settlement with the owner. Another confessor de- clared that when he had painted Deacon Whitaker's fence he had used whiting instead of white lead. A third man touched by the evangelist's appeal con- fessed that in the sale of cheese he had defrauded to the extent of fifty dollars. This confession may have brought peace to the soul, but the younger portion of the audience became so impressed by the
125
SAMUEL CLARK AIKEN
admission that whenever the man appeared on the streets, the lads would say "There goes old cheese."
The first manual of members issued by the Stone Church appeared in 1842, one thousand copies having been printed by a committee composed of Deacon Truman P. Handy, the Reverend Dr. S. C. Aiken, and Dr. David Long. There is this rather excep- tional record: "June 18, 1840, a Miss Amelia Bell, colored woman, was received." The first City Direc- tory of Cleveland, issued in 1837, contains the names of nine colored people, each one's name starred to distinguish the negro from the white population. Five of the nine negro citizens were hairdressers; one a cook, one a mason, and two mariners. The Miss Amelia Bell received into the Stone Church in 1840 probably was the daughter of a boatman named Bell.
The large increase in church membership prompted a secession of some dissatisfied with Dr. Aiken's con- servative position on the abolition question, for the purpose of forming a Congregational church. The band of separatists, however, was speedily disin- tegrated by "Second Adventism;" by the prevailing "Perfectionism," and kindred agitations. The spirit of extreme disputation did not tend to church growth, and bankruptcy finally forced the congregation to sell its edifice and to disband. A number returned to their former church home.
A second attempt was made June 12, 1844, and that successfully, to form a Second Presbyterian Church on the old charter of 1837. This was in the
126
THE OLD STONE CHURCH
spirit of utmost good feeling, although for a time the exodus was considered a serious crippling of the mother organization. The loss of Mr. and Mrs. T. P. Handy was especially felt. They had come to Cleve- land in 1832 from the First Presbyterian Church of Geneva, N. Y., and in the Stone Church Mr. Handy at once gave promise of what he afterwards became, as a Christian layman and leader, not only in the Stone Church, but also in the Second Presbyterian Church, and in the Presbyterian Union of which he was president for nineteen years, and then president emeritus until the time of his death. Equally valued and honored was he in Presbytery and the higher courts of the Presbyterian Church. In the Stone Church Mr. Handy was Sunday School superinten- dent from 1833 until he went to the Second Church in 1844. He and his wife sang in the choir and were musical favorites throughout the community.
Of the Stone Church music at the beginning of Dr. Aiken's pastorate, Mr. Handy said at the semi- centennial celebration in 1870,
There was never any trouble in securing good music for the church and Sunday School. There was a bass viol and flute accompaniment for the choir, whose members sang without pay, and with the spirit as well as with the understanding.
The Severance brothers were also lovers of music and valued members of the choir. These four brothers were the sons of Dr. Robert B. Severance, of Shel- burne, Massachusetts. Their mother was a cousin of Dr. David Long, and after her early death the
127
SAMUEL CLARK AIKEN
brothers came to Cleveland, where they were wel- comed into the Long family. The oldest brother, Solomon Louis Severance, who married Miss Mary Long, was a dry-goods merchant, but he died at twenty-six years of age at Red Sulphur Springs, Vir- ginia, where he had gone for his health, and there the burial took place. The second brother, Theodoric C. Severance, was a bank teller and cashier. He married and later went east, and finally on account of ill health to California, where he passed away in 1892. The widow, very prominent in social and club life of Los Angeles, died not long ago. The two other brothers, Erasmus D. and John Long Sever- ance, never married, and died in 1840 and 1859 re- spectively. They were also connected with Cleveland banks. The four brothers were musical, and not only strengthened the Stone Church choir, but also sup- ported enthusiastically every good work in the com- munity.
Of the fifty-eight persons who became charter mem- bers of the Second Presbyterian Church, fifty-three were dismissed from the parent organization. The meeting called to form this new Presbyterian Church was held in the session room of the Stone Church, and Dr. Aiken presided. In addition to the loss of Mr. and Mrs. T. P. Handy there was also the dis- missal of Dr. and Mrs. David Long, Mrs. Mary H. Severance and John L. Severance, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel H. Mather, and others who, for many years, were prominent in Presbyterian circles.
Six years after the colony formed the Second Pres-
128
THE OLD STONE CHURCH
byterian Church, partly on account of strenuous anti- slavery agitation, another church of thirty members was formed March 25, 1850, and known for two years as the "Free Presbyterian Church," and then the Plymouth Congregational Church, whose valuable property was recently sold. Part of the proceeds of this sale has been set aside for denominational church extension, and the rest devoted to the building of a Congregational church on Shaker Heights. Still another colony departed January 25, 1853, a peaceful exodus due wholly to the overcrowded condition of the mother congregation. The Euclid Street, after- wards known as the Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church, first located on Euclid Avenue, corner of what was Brownell Street, now East Fourteenth Street, was organized with thirteen members, in- cluding the veteran, Elisha Taylor. Instead of crippling the parent organization, all of the colonies given forth by the Stone Church only illustrated the great law that "losing one's life in order to save it" applies to the prosperous existence of churches as well as to their individual members.
The great Hungarian patriot, Louis Kossuth, in whose memory a few years ago the Hungarian So- cieties of Cleveland unveiled a monument at Uni- versity Circle, visited Cleveland January 31, 1852. At eleven o'clock in the morning he addressed a throng of citizens from the balcony of the American House, and at three o'clock in the afternoon he delivered an address at Melodeon Hall, upon which occasion the Honorable Samuel Starkweather, of the
129
SAMUEL CLARK AIKEN
Stone Church, delivered an address of welcome, and Dr. Aiken spoke words of welcome in behalf of the city's clergy.
During January of 1853, as the last colony to form the Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church was depart- ing, Dr. Aiken launched the project of constructing a new house of worship upon the site where the primitive stone edifice had for nineteen years served the congregation, whose affection for the original sanctuary inspired some bard to pen for an anni- versary occasion these lines :
It was very plain in its outward form, And had little of sculptured grace, But the heirs of a rich inheritance Came oft to that hallowed place.
It had high-backed pews with paneled doors, That opened with willing hands;
For saint and sinner welcome found Alike in that Christian band.
With marked alacrity and liberality the people re- sponded to Dr. Aiken's appeal, and two years later the edifice was completed, at a cost of sixty thousand dollars. A large audience attended August 12, 1855, the dedication of what was then a notable structure for Cleveland. Dr. Aiken delivered the dedicatory sermon, and was assisted by the Reverend Frederick T. Brown, D.D., pastor of the [Old School] West- minster Presbyterian Church; the Reverend Joseph B. Bittinger, D.D., pastor of the Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church; the Reverend James Shaw, D.D., pastor of the Newburgh Presbyterian Church,
130
THE OLD STONE CHURCH
and by President Henry L. Hitchcock, D.D., of Western Reserve College. Thanks were given that during the two years of construction no toiler on the edifice had been injured. Of the furniture installed the rosewood pulpit elicited the greatest admiration.
Just when the First Presbyterian Church of Cleve- land began to be popularly known as the Old Stone Church is uncertain, but it was also frequently called "Dr. Aiken's Church."
Scarcely had the congregation become settled in the enjoyment and profit of the new church home when what seemed at the time to have been an appall- ing calamity fell upon the parish. Saturday morning, March 7, 1857, about half-past eleven o'clock, smoke appeared at the northwest corner of the church roof, and the fire beneath began to spread with great rapidity. All that the fire department and volunteer assistance could do was to carry out of the audi- torium cushions, chairs and books. Several persons attempting to save the beautiful rosewood pulpit barely escaped with their lives, for the burning roof began to give way while the hazard was being made. The roof of the chapel was crushed. Within twenty minutes the stately steeple, two hundred thirty feet high, was turned into a flaming torch. Beginning to sway the spire finally crashed in fragments diagonally across Ontario Street. Only eighty feet of the wood- work fell, there having been one hundred fifty feet of stone foundation which still reared its blackened walls high above surrounding objects, a sad wreck of the finest edifice in the city, which in external and in-
131
SAMUEL CLARK AIKEN
ternal adornment was surpassed by few churches west of New York City. The interior of the chapel was not injured to any great extent, and the stone walls of the church stood as strong as ever, having been well protected from the fierce heat by the inside lining of brick.
The destruction of this fine church building was considered a great disaster, not only by the church members, but also by citizenship in general, for the edifice with its high towers and graceful, lofty spire was regarded by everyone as useful and highly orna- mental to the park on which it stood.
The Stone Church congregation secured Chapin's, later known as Garrett's Hall, as a place of worship during the period of rebuilding. The gathering the following Sunday morning was like that in the "upper chamber," and the text taken by Dr. Aiken was Isaiah 64 : 11.
Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire, and all our pleasant things are laid waste.
The discourse was one long to be remembered by those who heard it. The preacher's heart was full, but not too full for utterance, and he spoke as one submissive in spirit to a great personal calamity. The disaster, however, was more apparent than real. Churches of various denominations vied with one another in seeking to share their sanctuaries with the churchless Presbyterians. First the Baptists and then the Second and Euclid Avenue Presbyterians pressed their invitations.
132
THE OLD STONE CHURCH
The seeming disaster, however, not only cemented the rapidly growing congregation into the spirit of abiding unity, but it likewise revealed a pecuniary strength hitherto unsuspected. Fortunately fire in- surance had been carried to the extent of thirty thousand dollars, so that the rebuilding was imme- diately undertaken. Mr. Amasa Stone gave his serv- ices freely toward the supervision of the work of reconstruction. On January 17, 1858, or within ten months after the conflagration, the restored edifice with the exception of the galleries and the spire was dedicated. Dr. Aiken conducted the morning serv- ice, and in the afternoon the dedicatory sermon was delivered by the Reverend Mr. Carrier, whose iden- tity has not been discovered. The restored building had been thoroughly furnished and presented a fine appearance, according to the account of the dedica- tory exercises reported in the Plain Dealer the following Monday morning.
A notice in the same issue of this Cleveland paper may give a better conception of the times in which the above church history was enacted:
Horace Greeley will lecture on the "Poets" at the Melo- deon this evening. He edits the Tribune, a daily paper in New York City. He is a pretty sharp writer, but is principally distinguished for wearing a dilapidated drab coat and decayed wool hat. With the exception of an occasional game of euchre and ten-pins with Henry Ward Beecher, Mr. Greeley takes no amusement whatever. Many persons think him a great man, and he rather in- clines to that opinion himself. Success to him. Long may he wave.
133
SAMUEL CLARK AIKEN
The author of this news item ought to be identified even before the reader scans at the head of the edi- torial page, "Chas. F. Browne, Assoc. Editor," a writer better known as "Artemus Ward."
Just prior to the fire of 1857 fifty women of the congregation formed the "Ladies' Society," for the work of general benevolence without regard to nationality or creed, and likewise to render financial assistance to the Stone Church. Until then the busi- ness interests of the congregation had remained almost exclusively the prerogative of the men, but finally a determination seized the women to assert an influence beyond the home, the female prayer- meeting, and sewing-circle. In the sick-room of Mrs. Henrietta Aiken, the pastor's wife, who seldom was able to leave her home, conferences had been held between Mrs. Aiken and Mrs. Emma Mason, result- ing in a notice from the pulpit summoning a meeting of all the ladies of the congregation. The first officers of this Ladies' Society were Mrs. Fanny Parsons, president; Mrs. Julia Starkweather, vice-president; Mrs. John E. Lyon, secretary, and Mrs. J. B. Waring, treasurer. During the first twenty-five years of its existence over forty thousand dollars was credited to woman's work in the Stone Church. To this society Dr. Aiken attributed in good measure, not only the gift of furniture to the rebuilt sanctuary, but also the fact that there was freedom from debt, after the congregation in the face of a financial panic had re- stored the house of worship.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.