USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > The Old stone church; the story of a hundred years, 1820-1920 > Part 9
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In his memorial address Dr. Haydn gave this keen portrayal of Dr. Aiken's last days:
His stately form, bowed and shrunken with age; and worse yet, his clear and powerful mind losing not only its fire and energy, but also its hold on the living present; withdrawing from the recognition of his best friends into memories, broken and fading, of his early life. Since then he has been like a bough half-broken from the branch, drawing just enough vitality from it to continue life, but not enough for any useful purpose.
In such a condition, in the eighty-ninth year of his age, at one o'clock in the morning of January 1, 1879, the peaceful end came. The bell of the church that he had so dearly loved, and to which he had given so much self-sacrificing toil, had joined with
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the chimes of Old Trinity and of neighboring churches, in responding to Tennyson's exhortation :
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light; The year is dying in the night: Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is dying, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.
As the requiem of the Old was being tolled and the birth of the New Year joyously welcomed, the spirit winged its flight from the worn tabernacle of flesh into the "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
Having died Wednesday morning the funeral services would naturally have been held the follow- ing Friday afternoon, but a severe snowstorm had swept the country and Dr. Aiken's daughter, who was in Connecticut, was unable, on account of the snow-bound condition of the railroads, to reach Cleve- land until a week after the death of her father. The funeral was, therefore, postponed, and on Thursday morning, January 9, 1879, at eleven o'clock, the services were held in the Stone Church.
The Sunday following the death of his aged pred- ecessor, Dr. Haydn preached a memorial discourse, and later at the funeral service he used the text Psalm 97 : 2:
Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.
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Associated with Dr. Haydn in the funeral service were the Reverend Charles S. Pomeroy, D.D., of the Second Church; the Reverend J. Lovejoy Robertson, of the Euclid Avenue Church; the Reverend Francis A. Horton, of the Case Avenue Church; the Reverend H. R. Hoisington, of the North Church, and the Reverend S. L. Blake, of the Woodland Avenue Church.
Although retired from active service for eighteen years, this servant of God had not been forgotten by the city. The daily papers printed many articles, including Dr. Haydn's sermon in full; while the Cleveland Leader editorially extolled the life and char- acter of the minister who had not in his retirement been forgotten.
The pall-bearers were Messrs. Amasa Stone, George Mygatt, Samuel Williamson, John Proudfoot, James F. Clark, Sherlock J. Andrews, the Honorable John A. Foot, and Dr. H. Kirke Cushing. The interment was at Erie Street Cemetery.
At the close of Dr. Aiken's twenty-fifth anniver- sary sermon in 1860 the choir sang a hymn, the com- position of which was attributed to Dr. Goodrich. The lines express the love and honor in which this servant of Christ was held, and form a fitting close to the historical sketch of the pastorate of the Rev- erend Samuel Clark Aiken, D.D., in the First Pres- byterian Church of Cleveland :
Thanks be to God, the living God,
That through these bright, unbroken years,
Before us one loved form hath trod,
Our faithful guide in hopes and fears.
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Thanks for the strength bestowed from heaven, The wisdom granted from above; The faith, the zeal, the utterance given, The guileless life, the unwearied love.
Thanks for the fruit here garnered in, For wandering souls brought back to God, For saints cheered on, their crown to win, Or comforted beneath the rod.
Thanks, that beneath his fostering hand, New churches have gone forth to rear Fresh altars where thy servants stand, And full assemblies wait to hear.
Still with thy servant, Lord, abide, Gently sustain these waning years; Let it be,"Light at eventide,"
Scatter the shadows, wipe the tears.
Follow the labor he hath done, With blessings that shall never cease;
His was the toil, the hope, the crown, Thine only is the sure increase.
VI. PASTORATE OF THE REVEREND WILLIAM HENRY GOODRICH 1858-1874
Seventy-five years ago the Reverend Horace Bush- nell, D.D., the noted New England divine, published his Christian Nurture, a book that gave offence to those who placed undue stress upon the evangelism of their times, as almost the sole means of prop- agating the gospel. The value of revivals Dr. Bush- nell did not deny, but he did contend for a greater recognition of religious culture in the family, whereby one generation of Christians naturally produces a larger and better generation of believers. After many years Bushnell's Christian Nurture has received merited recognition, for it has been reprinted as a valuable textbook by the Religious Education Asso- ciation.
When St. Paul wrote to Timothy, "I call to remem- brance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice," he paid tribute to the power and beauty of religious heredity.
This law of Christian nurture was signally illus- trated in the case of the Reverend William Henry Goodrich, who was born January 19, 1823, in the classic city of New Haven, Conn. His father, the Reverend Chauncey A. Goodrich, was for forty years
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professor of rhetoric and oratory in Yale College, where the interests of Christ's kingdom formed the chief thought and care of this honored instructor, who wielded for four decades such a formative power over the ever-changing body of students. How enriching must have been his influence over his own household, and what satisfaction came to this inspirer of many pupils to choose the ministry, when his youngest son gave himself to that calling. The father, moreover, was not the only source of hereditary talent, for the son's paternal grandfather was the Honorable Elizur Goodrich, a lawyer of eminence and at one time pro- fessor of law at Yale College; and his great-grand- father was the Reverend Elizur Goodrich, D.D., an astronomer of ability, as well as an eminent clergy- man and educator. Upon his mother's side Dr. Wil- liam H. Goodrich also had the natural advantage of a noble ancestry, she having been the daughter of Noah Webster, the noted compiler of the dictionary that bears his name.
The boyhood of the second pastor of the Stone Church was spent under the lofty elms of Temple Street, New Haven, Conn., near his grandfather Webster's home, redolent with the lore to which his days were given, and in proximity to the homes of the Days, the Sillimans, the Hillhouses, the Whitneys, and Bacons, and of many others who made the New Haven of their times unsurpassed in this country, as the seat of scholarly grace and of social refinement. Nursed in the lap of culture, in a family circle made beautiful by a mother's consecrated spirit, and in a
WILLIAM H. GOODRICH
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home across whose threshold the most eminent people of the period were wont to pass, the youth of Dr. Goodrich was spent.
At New Haven he began and completed his educa- tion, passing through both collegiate and theological courses of study, after which he became a Yale tutor. All of this hereditary power, however, did not relieve the favored youth from the exercise of persevering industry which characterized his ministry.
He became in 1850 pastor of the Congregational Church at Bristol, Conn., after having traveled several months in Europe. To the First Presbyterian Church at Binghamton, N. Y., he was then called, and there he labored until in July of 1858 he was called to his last pastorate in the First Presbyterian Church of Cleveland, where he was installed August 12, 1858.
According to the minutes of Presbytery, the follow- ing was the order of installation:
Reading of Scripture, Rev. Frederick T. Brown, pastor of the [Old School] Westminster Presbyterian Church; sermon by Rev. Henry Kendall, D.D., of the Pittsburgh Presbytery, for many years thereafter the noted Secre- tary of the Board of Home Missions; constitutional ques- tions by the moderator, Rev. John B. Allen; installation prayer, Rev. J. H. Bittinger, D.D., pastor of the Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church; charge to the pastor, Rev. James Eells, D.D., pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church; right hand of fellowship, Rev. Samuel C. Aiken, D.D .; charge to the people, Rev. James Shaw, D.D., pastor of the Newburgh Presbyterian Church.
At the commencement of this associate pastorate, the
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church roll contained three hundred thirty-two members.
One of the historical sketches issued in 1896, Cleve- land's centennial year, divided the century of civic life into four periods: that of "settling," from 1796 to 1821; that of "establishing," from 1821 to 1846; that of "improving," from 1846 to 1871, and that of "enlarging," from 1871 to 1896. According to such divisions the pastorate of Dr. Goodrich extended through the latter half of the period of "improving." During the period, then, in which Cleveland was steadily gaining higher qualities of civic life, a clergy- man possessing the spirituality, culture, and business ability of Dr. Goodrich, occupying a pulpit in the heart of the city, certainly radiated an uplifting influence.
A sketch of some of the civic betterments at the beginning of Dr. Goodrich's pastorate in 1858 may give proper setting to the religious and social influence of this Stone Church pastor. In 1858 there was not a paved street in Cleveland. Several times cholera and fevers, due mainly to a lack of sanitary sewering and pure water supply, had scourged the community. The West Side reservoir, under construction, gave promise of displacing with purer lake water the questionable cistern and well supply.
About 1860 venturesome capitalists, believing that the omnibus had seen its best days, proposed horse- cars, but no one envied the dreamers or tried to pre- vent track laying, for there were no pavements to be disturbed, and popular skepticism was widespread
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regarding the number of fares that could be secured from people residing within one or two miles of the Public Square. Two simple laws were enacted to regulate the novel street-railway system for the pro- tection of both pedestrians and passengers. One ordi- nance compelled all horses and mules for motive power to walk around the track curves; while the second forbade cars going in the same direction approaching nearer than three hundred feet to one another.
A contractor named Southworth established a grocery in 1858, and astonished competitors by making wheelbarrow delivery of purchases. Cleve- land was credited in 1850 with a population of seven- teen thousand thirty-four; while the sister city across the river had three thousand nine hundred fifty inhabitants, so that in 1855, a year after annexation, there was a total population of forty-three thousand. Leonard Case, Sr., sold his residence in 1856 for thirty thousand dollars to the United States Govern- ment to become the site of the stone post office, which was later supplanted by the present federal building.
About the same time the four sections of the Public Square were fenced into an unbroken park. The closing of the intersecting streets was bitterly op- posed, but the heart of the city became a beauty spot, in whose towering trees a few bird-houses after- wards domiciled the few pair of "English sparrows," whose progeny has since defied all foes. After the dedication of Perry's Monument the enclosed Public
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Square bore the name of "Monumental Park." It was not until 1867, when Leonard Case and Henry B. Payne threatened the city with a lawsuit, that the surrounding fence was removed, and the "Great Central Park" [another name], again intersected by Superior and Ontario Streets.
The year that Dr. Goodrich came to Cleveland the city became hilarious over the completion of the Atlantic Cable, but after a message had been sent by the President of the United States to the Queen of England, the cable ceased to work and enthusiasm waned.
Cleveland became the center of national interest in 1860, on account of the unveiling of Perry's Monu- ment. From all parts of the land came a multitude of visitors, said to have been unsurpassed in num- bers, from that time until the Garfield funeral in 1881. September 10, 1860, the anniversary of the naval battle, was the day selected for the unveiling ceremony. This dedication deeply stirred the patri- otic feeling of the city on the verge of the Civil War. There were seventeen survivors of the Battle of Lake Erie, living forty-eight years after the bloody con- flict. Governor Sprague, of Rhode Island, Commo- dore Perry's native state, attended with an official retinue. The American historian, George Bancroft, and Dr. Usher Parsons, surgeon of Perry's fleet, were the orators of the day, while the famous Ossian E. Dodge sang. At five o'clock in the afternoon a sham battle raged on Lake Erie, the only casualty having been the drowning of a spectator who accidentally
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fell from the pier into the water. Many members of the Masonic Order took part in the ceremonies, Com- modore Perry having belonged to that fraternity.
The Sault Ste. Marie ship-canal, completed in 1855, opened to commerce one thousand additional miles of waterway, and gave an impetus to local ship- building. It also brought to Cleveland the wonderful advantage, ever since retained, of the coal and iron industries.
About the beginning of Dr. Goodrich's pastorate the Jones Brothers started the Newburgh Rolling Mills, and during that pastorate fourteen iron and steel mills developed in Cleveland. In 1868 the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, then owned by the Chisholm family, made Bessemer steel, when only two similar plants existed in the United States.
The formation of the Standard Oil Company brought to Cleveland one-third of the oil produced. The first iron steamer ploughed the waters of Lake Erie in 1867, and for fourteen years the "J. K. White" had no companion craft. The development of the telegraph system gave to Cleveland national distinc- tion. The wires of the Overland Telegraph Company, of which the late J. H. Wade was president, reached Salt Lake City in 1861, and from that place Brigham Young wired his congratulations. A week later the first message came from San Francisco. The Western Union Telegraph Company, with J. H. Wade as president, was formed in Cleveland, July 26, 1866, and the Government soon placed General Stager at
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the Head of the National Union Telegraph Company, both systems having their headquarters in Cleveland.
The year 1867 brought the first serious labor troubles, precipitated by the attempt to readjust values inflated by the Civil War. The resumption of specie payment cut wages, when the scarcity of laborers had been relieved by soldiers returning to their occupations. Strikes followed, and Cleveland became the headquarters of the principal inter- national labor unions.
That the pastorate of Dr. Goodrich was in a period of peculiar internal improvements is to be seen in the reorganization of the Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation, which having started in 1854 had been dis- rupted by the war; in the turning of the Cleveland Library Association of 1848 into the endowed Case Library; in the formation of the Western Reserve Historical Society, and in the completion of the Union Passenger Station, at the time the finest structure of its kind in the country, but now sadly dismantled.
Dr. Aiken had assured his younger associate, and that entirely of his own volition, that by reason of increasing inability to serve actively he would retire within three years, and thus leave the younger minister in sole charge. In his tenth anniversary sermon Dr. Goodrich said:
To me belonged especially the ministry of the Word; while Dr. Aiken still cared for the pastoral service, but gradually that care grew upon me.
In her paper read at the seventy-fifth anniversary
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celebration in 1895, Mrs. H. K. Cushing thus de- scribed the beginning of the associate pastorate:
Dr. Goodrich came to us nominally as our assistant pastor, but he virtually assumed control of church affairs, and never did a finer or nobler nature adjust itself to the peculiar circumstances. With tender reverence he honored the dear old man who still held his seat in the pulpit chair; while he took up the work of the pastorate, not as though he had assumed a charge, but rather carried out and fulfilled what another had begun. With his advent came a new impetus to our work.
True to his promise Dr. Aiken retired March 13, 1861, to become pastor emeritus, and Dr. Goodrich remained active pastor. It was at the beginning of the Civil War, a conflict destined to try the souls of all men. On Friday, February 15, 1861, Abraham Lincoln, president-elect of the United States, visited Cleveland on his way to Washington. He had come from Pittsburgh in the afternoon, and was escorted from Euclid Avenue Station to the Weddell House by city officials, by various military organizations, and by a body of workmen from shops and furnaces.
The address of welcome was delivered from the Weddell House balcony, by Judge Sherlock J. An- drews, a trustee of the Stone Church, and then Lin- coln addressed the assembled throng. It was a day of rain and mud, but the largest crowd that greeted him en route to his inaugural and ultimate martyrdom was that in Cleveland. A few words from Lincoln's address show the great statesman in his spirit of true humility, coupled with a characteristic vein of humor:
Your numbers testify that you are in earnest about some-
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thing. Do you desire that I should think this extreme earnestness is about me? I should be exceedingly sorry to see such devotion, if that is the case. But I know that it is something worth more than any one man, a devotion to the Constitution; to the Union and law; to the per- petual liberty of the people of the country.
Then he added :
We differ in opinions somewhat. Some of you did not vote for him who now addresses you. Although quite a sufficient number of you did vote for all practical purposes.
This sally brought forth cheers and laughter. A pub- lic reception was held in the Weddell House during the evening.
Soon after the inaugural at Washington ominous headlines appeared in the daily papers, but the North was wholly unconscious of the impending baptism of fire. After the bombardment of Fort Sumter Dr. Goodrich preached on April 21, 1861, upon "The Christian Necessity of War," a sermon printed in full in the local papers, and afterwards issued in pam- phlet form. There was no uncertain sound at the time of national crisis in these words of the Stone Church pastor :
We have believed that in civilized nations the law of progress would call for no conflict but that of free dis- cussion; but how it would be in a nation, where side by side with every liberty that is precious to man, has stood and grown mightier every day a system whose perpetuity requires that those liberties should be restricted and de- nied; this we had not taken into account. And now the question has come squarely upon us, whether we will relinquish these hard-earned liberties, or whether we will hold them in battle and cement them, if need be, with
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blood. We cannot fight the battles of our country against treason, without at the same time fighting a battle of freedom for mankind. We have a great task on hand. We are to prove in the face of all nations, that a popular government is strong enough to punish treason. God will never suffer, in this age, a government based on the doctrine of liberty to the strong and servitude to the weak.
Dr. Goodrich's words: "We cannot fight the battles of our country against treason, without at the same time fighting a battle of freedom for mankind," bring to mind the more modern slogan of "Making the world safe for democracy." Surely the enduring liberties of mankind were as truly endangered during the Civil War period as they have been in the Euro- pean War that has just come to a close.
A Monday morning paper had this news item: "Stars and stripes were raised upon the tower an hour before the commencement of the morning service at the Stone Church." Another paper had an article entitled "The Stars and Stripes," running as follows :
Our glorious banner waved from the front of the First Presbyterian Church yesterday, and was regarded with much enthusiasm by the populace. There is just now a great demand for Union bunting, and the national colors are flying from a large number of our public buildings.
John A. Foot, Jr., when he wrote from Switzer- land his regret for not having been able to attend the seventy-fifth anniversary celebration in 1895, mentioned the flag raising:
I well remember at the storming of Fort Sumter, how Dr. Goodrich, Mr. Cogswell and I hoisted the American flag
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on the east steeple, which was not as high as the one torn down.
A military spirit had been fostered in Cleveland prior to the year of the war, not only by the unveiling or Perry's Monument in 1860, but also by the visit of Ellsworth's Zouaves from Chicago. At Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand men, the Cleveland Grays, seventy-five strong, or eight more than quota, at once responded. It was the first company in Ohio to reach Columbus, and one of the first to arrive in Washington.
Cleveland sent about seven thousand soldiers into the bloody struggle, led by such officers as Generals Elwell and Barnett, and Colonels O. H. Payne, Creighton, and Crane. On April 23, 1861, almost as soon as any soldier had left to defend his country, the women of Cleveland, including many from the Stone Church, organized the Soldiers' Aid Society. This accomplished much in war relief work, and at the great Sanitary Fair held in 1864 the women raised one hundred thousand dollars. It was this war work of the women that prompted Bishop Rappe of the Roman Catholic Church to plead for the founding of Charity, or St. Vincent's Hospital, and ever since that institution of mercy has been given most generous Protestant professional and financial assistance.
In an anniversary sermon Dr. Haydn stated that he was not sure that the record of the Stone Church, in connection with the Civil War, had ever been written, but he mentioned Dr. H. K. Cushing re-
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sponding as surgeon of the Ohio 7th at the first call; Colonel Charles Whittlesey, 30th Infantry; Lieuten- ant-Colonel Geo. S. Mygatt, 41st Infantry; Colonel Oliver H. Payne, 124th Infantry; Dr. Gustave C. E. Weber, surgeon 125th Infantry; Colonel Creighton and Lieutenant-Colonel Crane, of the 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, both killed at Ringgold, Georgia, at the Battle of Mission Ridge, November 27, 1863, and buried from the Stone Church. The remains of these officers were interred in Woodland Cemetery east of the Woodland Avenue entrance.
A little over four years after Abraham Lincoln had visited Cleveland, his remains were brought to the city, on the way to their final resting-place at Spring- field, Ill. The city had scarcely joined with the whole North in jubilation over the surrender of Lee, when there came the stunning news that the president had been assassinated. This dastardly deed was per- petrated on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, and Easter Sunday morning Dr. Goodrich delivered again a clear, ringing sermon characterized by mental poise, not incompatible with depth of indignant feeling, a discourse that was in favorable contrast with patri- otic sermons delivered not only in Cleveland, but throughout the nation, at that time of crisis.
The text was Isaiah 2 : 22: "Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils." During his discourse Dr. Goodrich said :
We thought yesterday that we had touched the end of our trials as a nation. We thought the Rebellion had reached its limit and had struck its last blow, but there
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was a lower depth of crime. There was yet the dregs of infamy to be drunk by these conspirators. Treason having failed there was assassination. Though all was lost to the revolt, something was left for hate to do. It could plunge a nation into sorrow. It could wreak its revenge upon two strong souls [Lincoln and Seward] who were the pillars and hope of the Republic. It is of no consequence whether this deed can be traced to the leaders of the Rebellion, how many treasonable minds were cognizant of it, or whether the actors were in open allegiance with the Confederacy, or plotted under the rule of a free government. The act was done in the in- terests of treason, and was inspired by the same spirit that organized the revolt. It is useless to speculate upon the consequences of this crime. It did not belong to per- sonal malice, but was prepared for public ends. It was the last desperate stroke of men who had failed in every other effort, and who had nothing to lose and something possibly to gain by chance and chaos. But in this also they have failed. They have gained nothing but revenge. They have made for the Chief Magistrate they have slain an eternal memory of honor and sacrifice while the world shall stand. The first duty of the hour is to put our trust afresh in God, and confidence in and support of the new president.
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