USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > The pioneer families of Cleveland 1796-1840 Vol. I > Part 14
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Soon after this, young Peet returned east to finish his education. He prepared for Yale with a famous clergyman of Lee, Mass., and after his graduation from that college in 1823, he studied theology under the Rev. Dr. Ralph Emerson of Litchfield, Conn. Therefore he was finely equipped for the ministry, when he returned to the little pioneer town of Newburgh and began his labors in its small Congregational church. He also had charge of one in Euclid, and after his marriage in 1826, took up his resi- dence in the latter place.
Some time in the '30s, he removed to Wisconsin and became a pioneer preacher of Milwaukee and Green Bay. Many of our pioneer clergymen distinguished themselves in later years in other localities, and the Rev. Stephen Peet was one of these. It is with local pride we note that he was one of the group of seven men who organized Beloit College, Wisconsin. He died in 1855.
Mrs. Stephen Peet, Martha Denison, was the young widow of the Rev. Henry Sherman, and the daughter of Amos and Hannah Williams Denison of Stonington, Conn. She was descended from Col. George Deni- son, the famous Indian fighter, from Anne Hutchinson, and from the Rev. James Noyse who drew the famous "Saybrook Platform," the first statement of the Congregational church.
The village of Cleveland, Newburgh, and Euclid, to which Mrs. Peet was introduced in 1826, were crude little centers of pioneer civilization, and one can conjecture how keenly the young bride realized the differ- ence in social life and manners of living in this western country, and that of the ultra-refined and highly educated community in which she had been bred. However, there were many delightful New England peo- ple already well established in this county, who spoke her language and could help her, first to understand and then to appreciate.
The children of Stephen and Martha Peet:
Martha Denison Peet, unmarried. Rev. Stephen Denison Peet, b. 1830 Harriet Peet, m. Henry H. Gray of Darlington, Wis. She is yet liv- ing at San Jose, Cal. in Euclid ; m. 1st, Catherine Mose- ley ; 2nd, Olive Walworth, dau. of Elijah Tisdale Cutler of Williams- field, O.
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(Rev. Peet graduated in the first class at Beloit College, 1851, and from Andover Theological Seminary, 1854. While having a pastorate most of his active life, Mr. Peet was an ardent student of the prehistoric remains in this country, and published a magazine, the "American Anti- quarian," for 30 years. He also wrote several books on these subjects. Mrs. Olive Cutler Peet was a graduate of Mt. Holyoke in 1863. Mr. and Mrs. S. D. Peet are both living.)
Joseph B. Peet, m. Louise Smith of Fellows of Geneva, Ill .; 2nd, Au-
Emerson W. Peet, m. 1st, Emma
Milan, Ohio. relia K. Eastman, a cousin of Gov. Eastman of Rochester, N. Y.
Mr. E. W. Peet died in 1902. He was a graduate of Amherst College. His widow resides in St. Paul, Minn.
Joseph and Emerson Peet were both successful business men.
1810
PEET
Elijah Peet was a Vermonter, born in Arlington of that state in 1793. Probably he was a near relative of the Rev. Stephen Peet, whose father, Elijah Peet, was a very early pioneer of Newburgh. The descendants of the latter have preserved merely their own direct line and have no rec- ord of other children than Stephen. The fact that the Cleveland Elijah Peet first lived in Newburgh after his arrival in this locality and the similarity of names, would lead to the supposition that he was either a son or a nephew of the elder one.
There are several early marriages of Newburgh Peets recorded. One of these was Minerva Peet, and it will be noticed that one of the daugh- ters of Elijah Peet and Martha Williams Peet was named Minerva. Eli- jah Peet was a good Christian man, greatly respected in any locality in which he lived. He married Martha Williams, daughter of W. W. and Ruth Granger Williams, early pioneers of Newburgh. Their home was about two miles east of Judge Kingsbury's residence.
Mr. and Mrs. Peet belonged to the little band of Cleveland Methodists when it was struggling for membership and, in order to hold the society together, for funds with which to employ a minister at least twice a month. Mr. Peet supplied the necessary fuel for warming the room in which the society met, and every Sunday morning he and his wife would start very early from their Newburgh home and drive eight miles to Cleveland, over roads that were nearly impassable, in order to have a fire built, and the Sabbath School comfortable when it met at nine o'clock.
Methodist ministers coming into the city for the day or for confer- ence learned that the surest road to personal comfort led straight to the Peet home, ever open for their entertainment, and the small, struggling
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church leaned hard upon Elijah Peet's leadership and counsel. He was the first superintendent of the first Methodist Sunday School in the city.
In 1831, the Peet family moved to town from Newburgh. Their home was at 32 Bank Street. Mr. Peet kept a grocery store near by. He was the town marshal in 1835, and in 1845 he issued the second directory of the city, one much needed and considered, at the time, quite complete.
He died in 1845, aged 53 years, and was interred in Erie Street Ceme- tery.
Mrs. Martha Williams Peet is remembered in her later years as an attractive elderly lady, quiet, devoted to her husband and family, loved and admired in her circle of friends and relatives. She died in 1867, aged 73 years, and was placed beside her husband in Erie Street Ceme- tery. Descendants of Elijah and Martha Peet are prominent in Cleve- land's commercial, professional, and social circles of today. One of their grandsons is John Lowman, well-known physician and surgeon, another is one of the firm of Otis and Hough, bankers and brokers, and still an- other a senior partner of Pickands, Mather & Co.
The children of Elijah and Martha Williams Peet :
Minerva Peet, b. 1818; m. Jacob Lowman.
Ruth Peet, m. William Rose. Marcia Peet, m. Rev. Ezra Jones.
Mary Peet, m. Hamilton Hough. Caroline Peet, unmarried.
Martha Peet, m. John Outwaite. Eliza Peet, m. Henry Harwood.
1811
Joseph H. Day of New Jersey came to Cleveland in June of this year, and bought a lot corner of Superior and Seneca, now W. 3rd Street. He sold this lot to help pay for a farm of 300 acres in Euclid. His reason for selling the land was that the sand drifted in so at the mouth of the river that no one thought Cleveland lots would ever have commercial value.
1811 PALMER
Thomas and Sarah Fordyce came to East Cleveland from Pennsylva- nia. Their children :
Hannah Palmer, m. Elias Cozad. Jerusha Palmer, m. James Johnston. Lydia Palmer, m. Leonard Massil- James Palmer, m. Anna Bonnell. liot.
Thomas Palmer died in 1841, aged 81. Sarah Fordyce Palmer died in 1854, aged 87. The Palmer burial lot is in East Cleveland Cemetery.
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AKIN
George and Tamizen Akin came from Haddam, Conn., in 1811, set- tled in Brooklyn, where the city infirmary stood for many years. Mrs. Akin lived to be 91 years old. The children of George and Tamizen Akin:
Cyrel Akin, m. Mary Caroline Akin, m. Diodate Clark.
Irad Akin, m. Harriet Russell ; 2nd, India Brainard.
William Akin, m. Betsey Clark, dau. of Joseph and Hannah Cole Clark.
Julia Akin, m. a Rathbun; 2nd, Ab- ner Cochran.
Betsey Clark Akin grew old gracefully. She was a most worthy pio- neer and held in the highest respect.
1811
MERWIN
Noble H. Merwin was not yet 30 years of age when he came to Cleve- land, and only in his 47th year when he died of consumption in the Island of St. Thomas. He was a very tall, fine-looking man. Born in Milford, Conn., and married there in 1807 he came to Cleveland in 1811. The next year Mrs. Merwin drove all the way from Connecticut in a wagon the usual route, and in the usual time, six weeks. The two older children accomanying her.
Mr. Merwin bought out George Wallace, who owned the tavern on the south side of Superior Street, just as it turns to the left down the hill. The tavern stood a little back from the street, and there they lived for some years. The property containing two acres was valuable then in comparison with other locations, and in time became the nucleus of a fortune.
Besides keeping this public house Noble Merwin had a large ware- house at the foot of Superior Street, on the left hand side facing the river, and he bought produce, and was so fortunate as to receive Government patronage, furnishing it with supplies, etc. He also built vessels, very small ones of course, but they laid the foundations of the future ship- building industries of the city. Through these several activities, he be- came very well known, and was prominent in all the affairs of those days.
Mrs. Merwin, before her marriage, was a Miss Minerva Buckingham, the daughter of Nathan Botsford and Rebecca Hartwell Buckingham. Her grandmother, Rebecca Sherman, was a sister of Roger Sherman of Rhode Island, and her grandfather was a brother of Mrs. Roger Sherman. Mrs. Merwin joined her husband in Cleveland, in 1811, when her oldest child, George B., was but three years of age. It is said that she was a woman of great force of character, and strong religious feeling and senti- ment.
At the date of her settlement in Cleveland there were but 57 inhabit- ants, men, women and children.
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There were no religious services held here previous to that time, and one Sabbath she invited every one to meet her in the log courthouse on the Public Square, where she opened her Bible, and conducted services suitable to the time and circumstances. This she continued to do each following Sabbath, assisted by others, until a missionary was sent to re- lieve her of the duty.
After the Stone Church was organized in 1819, or rather the Sunday School, which was the infant of that church, she led the singing until her death in 1823, while yet a young woman. Her grave is in Erie Street Cemetery.
Noble H. and Minerva B. Merwin's children :
George B. Merwin, m. Loretta, daughter of Governor Wood.
Minerva Merwin, m. George M. At- water, and died in New York City, N. Y.
Augustas Merwin, the "Gus" of boyhood, m. Mrs. Eliza Eubanks ; died in New York.
James Merwin, a lad of twelve years when drowned in Cuyahoga
River.
Mary Merwin, a lovely and interest- ing girl, and betrothed of Richard Hilliard, died young of consump- tion.
Noble H. Merwin died six years after the death of his wife, Minerva, but, in the meanwhile, he married a second time, a young widow, Mrs. Jane Lyon, daughter of Richard and Prudence Smyth of Detroit, Mich. In 1812 she became the wife of Thomas Lyon, Paymaster of the American army, who was then stationed at that place. At the close of the war he started for St. Louis to prove some land warrants in his possession, his young wife accompanying him. They journeyed by way of the Maumee River and portaged from it to the Illinois River, where Mr. Lyon was taken suddenly ill, and died at Carlisle, Ind.
Here was born her son, Richard T. Lyon, who for over a half a century was prominent in the business interests of Cleveland, and one of the best known men in the city and surrounding country, for he was a commission merchant the most of the time.
As soon as the bereaved young mother could travel, her brother, after- ward William Smyth of this city, came for her and took her and her in- fant back to Detroit. She married Noble H. Merwin in 1825 and died eleven years later, not yet 40 years of age. She lived first in the old Mansion House, but soon Superior Street was graded, the tavern left high up from the sidewalks, and its foundations threatened.
Mr. Merwin had built a fine brick-house on the east side of Seneca Street, between Superior and Champlain St., in which Mrs. Merwin lived. When Noble H. Merwin died in 1829, his widow inherited as part of her dower interest the hotel with forty feet frontage of land on Superior Street, which she leased for 99 years, from February 1, 1836, to her step- children, George B., Augustus, and Minerva Merwin, at a rental for the full time of $1,350 per annum, which lease has yet 22 years to run. The hotel was destroyed by fire in 1835.
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MERWIN
Merwin Street, an old commercial thoroughfare, was named in honor of this pioneer family.
Mrs. Merwin's son, Richard T. Lyon, in 1841, married Ellen M. Stark- weather, daughter of James C. and Almira Starkweather of Pawtucket, R. I., and niece of Judge Starkweather of Cleveland.
The children of Richard and Ellen Starkweather Lyon:
Richard Lyon, m. Lena McCurley of Schenectady, N. Y .; 2nd, Lou- ise Schroder of Chicago, Ill.
Almira Lyon, m. Martin Hedges of
East Bloomfield, N. Y.
Jennie Lyon, m. Lucian Hall of Cleveland.
James Lyon, or "Jimmie," who was an infant when his mother died, never married.
Richard T. Lyon m. secondly, Julia M. Hedges, a sister of his son-in- law, Martin Hedges, and their only child
Nelly Lyon, m. Dr. Charles F. Booth of Canadaigua, N. Y.
1811
George Buckingham Merwin, eldest son of Noble and Minerva B. Merwin, was a young man of fine presence and noble bearing. He had ambition and opportunity, for his father became very prosperous in busi- ness and was able to give his son all the advantages he craved. He was sent to a celebrated military school, and afterward while in Detroit, Mich., boarding with a refined French family, he learned to speak their language fluently. He was naturally quiet in his tastes, but proved to have much business ability when the management of his father's prop- erty devolved upon him.
He built a fine brick-house at the head of Prospect Street, which was then west of Sterling, now East 30th Street. When Prospect Street was cut through Sterling, this home was moved to the south side of it. It is a fine type of the architecture of that day, and the high ceilings of its interior, the size of the rooms, and the fine finish of all woodwork evidence refined and dignified taste. It is at present the home of the Rowfant Club, a very appropriate one for book-lovers, as George Merwin was a student all his life. He bought the Kelley farm in Rockport, which adjoined the estate of Governor Reuben Wood, his father-in-law, and the two families lived an ideal life, side by side, in the midst of fruit, flowers, and birds. The windows of the two houses looked out upon the lake, whose waves lapped the shore but a few feet away. A fine plank- road led to the city, six miles distant, and there were horses of lineage, and conveyances of various construction and size that would take one to the center of business activities in a comparatively short time.
Mrs. Loretta Wood Merwin outlived her husband many years. She kept her interest in the best things of life to the last. While in California with her son, she urged the necessity and the value of preserving records of its pioneer days, and especially personal reminiscences, so photo-
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graphic of times and events. Her son's wife, Mrs. Noble H. Merwin, bears loving and enthusiastic testimony regarding the elder Mrs. Mer- win's personality, her charm of manner, her thorough womanliness. She died in 1890.
The children of George B. and Loretta Wood Merwin :
Noble H. Merwin, m. Miss Emma A. George Merwin, m. Minnie Wat- Shyrock. He died in 1885, in Cal. mough.
1811
MORGAN
In the summer of 1811, Youngs L. Morgan, his wife Betsey, daughter of Samuel Jones of Groton, Conn., and their five children, Julia, Mary, Youngs L., Jr., Caleb, and Isham Avery Morgan, left Groton to seek a new home in northern Ohio. All their earthly goods were packed in a large, covered wagon. Accompanying them on their journey were Major Spicer and family, who settled in Akron, and James Fish, his wife Mary Wilcox Fish, and their four children, Mary, James, Elisha, and Sally Fish.
Whatever may have been the regrets of the adults of the party, or their doubts and fears of what lay before them, those 36 days of steady picnicing must have seemed a great lark to the twelve or more children belonging to it.
They arrived here in September, and Mr. Morgan purchased direct from the Connecticut Land Company a large tract in Newburgh, which afterward was divided into three farms. One was on the corner of Broadway and Willson Avenues, one at the corner of Broadway and Aetna, and one on Union Street.
The family spent the following fall and winter with Mr. Morgan's sister, Mrs. John Wightman, who had preceded them by a few months, and was living in a log-house on Broadway. Mr. Morgan worked hard all winter cutting and rolling logs for his own home, which by spring was ready for occupancy. Meanwhile, and for many a year, his wife toiled early and late for her household, and like all women of her day, spun and wove everything in the way of clothing or bedding her family needed. Some of her weaving patterns are the wonder and pride of her great-grandchildren of today.
There was much sickness among the scattered neighbors, and Mrs. Morgan would mount her horse when sent for, any time of night or day, and go to the relief of the suffering; watching or nursing as occasion re- quired.
At the general alarm in 1812 of invading British and Indians, causing needless excitement, as the news was false, Mr. Morgan placed his wife and small children in an ox-cart, and sent his eldest son, Youngs L. Mor-
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gan, Jr., about 15 years of age, to drive them to a place of greater safety, remaining with another son, Caleb, to hide in brush-piles and under logs what few treasures the family possessed.
Then Mr. Morgan began to worry over the lack of comforts his wife and children were enduring, and if they remained away long, how much they would need milk, and so, placing a feather-bed across his horse, he mounted, and with Caleb started to drive two cows in the direction his family had taken. All went well until the approach of night, when the cows decided that it was milking time and they must return home. And away they started back with Mr. Morgan and Caleb after them helter- skelter through the woods, tearing holes in the feather-bed on the pro- truding brush, which sent the feathers flying in every direction. Tying knots in the tick, they hastened on. But with the morning light came the news that the terrifying rumors were false, and every one returned home much relieved.
Mrs. Morgan only lived 16 years after her arrival here, dying in 1827, the year so fatal to the community in widespread sickness and death. The writer thinks that Major Samuel Jones, who lived on Broad- way, not far from the Morgans, was either her father or brother, proba- bly the latter.
Children of Youngs L. and Betsey Jones Morgan :
Julia Morgan, m. Henry Hand, and Thomas, and Mary Drake, his
afterward lived in Dover. step-sister.
Mary Morgan, m. Henry Parkman, son of the founder of Parkman.
Isham Avery Morgan, b. 1809; m. Juliette Meech.
Youngs L. Morgan, Jr., b. 1797; m.
Ashbel Walworth Morgan, b. in Cleveland, 1815; m. Zerviah Caroline Thomas.
Caleb Morgan, b. 1795; m. Julia Burke.
The writer has made great effort to connect Mrs. Betsey Jones Mor- gan with the early pioneer, Major Samuel Jones, who also came from Groton and lived in the neighborhood of the Morgan and Wightman fam- ilies. Although the research has proved fruitless, she feels sure that this man was either the father or brother of Mrs. Morgan. His home on Broadway was just at the west turn of the road, and it is said that it afterward became the residence of Capt. Allen Gaylord. Major Samuel Jones commanded the early militia. He also played the violin, and one of the frolics of early days was a sleigh-ride out to his house, followed by a dance for which he played.
After the death of Mrs. Betsey Morgan, Mr. Morgan married again. His second wife was a young widow with four children. She was Ruth Jackson, a daughter of Morris and Lucina Sheldon Jackson, born in Providence, R. I., and moved with her parents to Broome, N. Y. Here she married Reuben Drake, who died fifteen years later.
She came to Cleveland in 1830, taking passage on the steamer "Ama- ranth," Capt. Aaron Root, from Buffalo to Lorain, bringing her two youngest children with her. In 1831 she was married to Mr. Morgan at the home of her sister, Mrs. Alphonso Hawley. Her death occurred thir-
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teen years afterward, at her home on Aetna Street. Although not one of the earliest settlers of Cleveland, she experienced many of the hardships of pioneer life. Ambitious, energetic, and capable, the amount of work she could accomplish was a marvel to those who knew her. She also was an excellent and willing nurse, and her advice and assistance was in con- stant demand. Generous to a fault, no worthy person was ever turned away from her door lacking sympathy or material aid. She loved to read, and kept herself posted in current events. She died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Swaine, on Prospect Street.
The Drake children were:
Mary Drake, m. her step-brother, Caleb Morgan. She was his sec- ond wife.
Capt. Sir Francis Drake, m. An- toinette Jones, daughter of Capt.
Augustus and Saba Murdock Jones of Saybrook, Conn. She was a sister of William, Fred- erick, and Buel B. Jones, the Cleveland and Black River ship-
builders of an early day. Buel B. Jones married Nancy Jackson, sister of Mrs. Ruth Morgan, Sr. Lucinda Drake, m. Valentine Swaine, son of Shubel and Sarah Turner Swaine.
Morris Jackson Drake, m. Caroline Matson, daughter of Dr. Sylves- ter and Sophia Tracy Matson.
Youngs L. Morgan, Jr., made a visit to New York State in 1828, and brought back with him a young and beautiful bride, Miss Caroline Thomas, daughter of Anthony and Mary Buckley Thomas of Lebanon, Conn. The young people began housekeeping in a log-cabin on the Union Street farm, and Caroline found living in the woods vastly different from her town life in the east. Scrubbing floors, and cooking over the fire-place were new experiences for her. But she bravely swallowed the big lump that often came in her throat, for the childhood home was far away, and money too scarce to be used on the long return journey. It took great courage to face all the trials that befell her, but she braved them all, and lived to see prosperous days. Also, to see the little town of Cleveland, with less than a thousand people, including Newburgh, grow to a city of 330,000.
She died in 1895, leaving two sons:
Herman L. Morgan, who married Sarah H. Smith, granddaughter of Major Spicer of Akron, and daughter of Warren and Lydia Spicer Smith.
Charles C. Morgan, m. Emma Shaf-
fer, daughter of Andrew and Nancy Shaffer. After her death, he married Georgia Warner.
Caleb Morgan married Julia Thomas, sister of Mrs. Youngs L. Mor- gan, Jr. She died young, leaving a son and daughter, Henry Morgan, who married Lucretia J. Pierce, and Eliza Juliette Morgan, who married James Tenney, and removed to Monroe, Mich.
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Eliza was one of the pioneer school teachers who taught for $1.25 a week, and boarded around with families supplying pupils.
Caleb Morgan married secondly, in 1838, Mary Drake, his step-sister. Her life was that of a faithful wife, devoted mother, and loyal friend. It was full of household activity, yet she maintained the keenest interest in all that transpired in her social circle, in her church, and in political affairs. She believed that the latter should be influenced through the home. Her New England conscience allowed no overruling of anything that seemed to be the right, and between herself and her step-children
existed the warmest relations. She was born in Dryden, N. Y., and came with her brother, Sir Francis Drake, in 1832, arriving on the steamer "Enterprise." Sympathetic and generous to the last, she died at the old homestead, corner of Broadway and Willson Avenue, in 1895.
Though business and traffic destroyed its former quiet, nothing could persuade her to leave it. Mr. Caleb Morgan died in 1885.
The children of Caleb and Mary Drake Morgan:
Austin L. Morgan, m. Laura Dell Walter Morgan. Reuben Morgan, m. Clarissa Hart,
Bates, daughter of Isaac and Elis- abeth Bates. daughter of Geo. W. and Anna Beardsley Hart.
Julia L. Morgan, m. Richard M.
Choate, son of Thomas and Mary Wright Choate.
In 1833 Isham Morgan married Juliette Meech, daughter of Gurdon and Lucy Swan Meech of Bozrah, Conn. She was a sister of Mrs. O. M. Burke. Coming from such a family as the Meeches, she undoubtedly was worthy of as much space in this history as her sisters-in-law have been accorded, but unfortunately, the writer has been unable to learn anything more definite than that she had children, who were:
Ann Eliza Morgan, m. John Allen Sebert Morgan, who married Ida of Akron.
Ellen Morgan, who died when 16 years of age.
Mrs. Morgan died in 1895.
Ashbel Walworth Morgan married Zerviah Burke, daughter of B. B. and Prudency Taylor Burke, who was born in Newburgh. She had been a school teacher when the demand for her services was much greater than the means to require them, for money was very scarce. She taught in East Cleveland for a dollar a week and her board, and felt highly elated and well paid when promoted to a Warrensville school at double the sal- ary. She was one of the earliest disciples of Miles Avenue Disciple Church, and for years its most active adherent. The Aetna Mission was built mainly through her efforts, her husband giving the land, and she raising the funds for its erection. She died in 1890. The home of Ashbel and Zerviah Morgan was on Aetna Street. The children were:
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