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AMES
three years after this second marriage, leaving his affairs in such a condition that no apparent income for the support of his family was afforded. This seemed a matter of great surprise to his neighbors and relatives, as he was a good business man and very energetic, one who seemed to have ample resources for the comfortable maintenance of himself and family. He dealt in real estate considerably, and in the last two years of his life was associated with Leonard Case in acquiring town lots and farming property. His descendants claim that the lot upon which now stands the city hall buildings was once owned by him in conjunction with Mr. Case. The farm had been mortgaged for money to pay on recent investments. In the loss of husband and father the family, therefore, were made homeless. The children were scattered among relatives and friends.
Mrs. Baldwin returned to Grafton and lived with her sister, Mrs. Jonathan Rawson, taking with her the twins who remained there until the marriage of their oldest sister a few years later, when they made their home with her.
The children of Samuel Smith and Sarah Camp Baldwin:
Philander Baldwin, b. 1798; died young. Removed to Roscoe, Ill.
Lucretia Baldwin, b. 1805; m. Reuben I. Henry. They lived in Aurora, O.
Caroline Baldwin, b. 1806; m. Victor Cannon of Bedford.
Julia Baldwi n, m. Thomas North. They moved to Wisconsin.
Sarah Baldwin, m. Almeron Dodge.
Henry Baldwin, m. Amanda Risley
Edward Baldwin, m. Fanny Thompson. Aunt of the late Horace Benton
Emily Baldwin, twin of Edward, m. Francis Moran
Lucretia lived with her uncle, Harry Baldwin, for some years after her mother's death. She taught district school in Brandywine, riding a horse to and from her work. It is told of her that she was generous and kind-hearted, and even in those days of heroic women was no ordinary person.
Caroline was six years old when she went to live with an aunt in Aurora. She led a long, exemplary life, an interesting woman with keen mental and spiritual insight. Francis Moran, who married Emily, was a talented and brilliant young school-teacher.
1808
AMES
Ashley Ames, an early settler of Cleveland and Newburgh, came west from Virgennes, Vt., where he was born in 1795. His father, David Ames, was a native of Hollins, N. H., and a Revolutionary soldier, who was superintendent of the Springfield, Mass., armory, and the inventor of the Ames rifle. The family was also represented in the French and Indian War.
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Ashley Ames was apprenticed to a stone-mason in his home town. The man was rough and abusive in his cups, and the boy, then only 12 or 13 years of age, ran away from him. He had heard tales of the New Connecticut, and he started for it on foot, walking all the way from Vermont to Buffalo, N. Y. Here he fell in with some Indians who were going up the lakes on a raft, and they allowed him to accompany them as far as Cleveland.
The whole story of this adventure would be an interesting one, how the child secured food on the way, what he found awaiting him here, who gave him employment, and what the work was !
However, four or five years later, he is driving a team for some one. The War of 1812 is on, and one day a detachment of troops marching through town on some expedition west of it, seized the team for transportation purposes and compelled the lad to drive it. He was with the army about three weeks. His brother, Stephan Ames, who had previously joined him in Cleveland, enlisted as a gunner, and years afterward was awarded 200 acres of Michigan land by the Government, which he at once sold for $100.
Ashley Ames bought a farm on Miles Avenue in Newburgh, and in 1826, married Sarah
Willard, daughter of the late John O. Willard. Miss Willard's home had been on Euclid Road,
corner of what is now E. 55th Street, where her widowed mother resided on a hundred-acre
farm. The bride was but 16 years old on her wedding day. She was a gifted young woman
who, if she had been born into a later generation, probably would have developed into a
successful artist, for she had a rare sense of form and color, and often astonished her
neighbors by effects produced in her household furnishing, through simple decoration and
artistic arrangement. In connection with this gift an interesting story is related of her.
A room of her home needed papering, and in lacking the material to do it in conventional style she accomplished the job by using odds and ends of many kinds and colors of wall-paper donated by friends who had no use for them. They were all arranged so harmoniously that the effect instead of being incongruous, was like a mosaic, and most attractive.
Mrs. Ames was an accomplished needle-worker. She embroidered beautifully, and the bands of her husband's shirt-fronts were adorned with fancy stitching, and all of his underwear bore his embroidered initial. She spun silk thread from cocoons, and knitted a large silk shawl in which was a pattern of birds and flowers. Her family of ten children did not prevent her from adopting two motherless little ones, whom she raised as her own.
Miss May Ames, of 9315 Miles Avenue, an artist and a teacher in the Cleveland School of Art, inherits her talent from this gifted grandmother.
In early years of his life, Ashley Ames could have become owner of a valuable piece of property that, had he availed himself of the opportunity offered, would have made his grandchildren of today able to count their fortune in seven figures.
Jonathan Johnson, an early pioneer lake-captain, owned 60 acres on Euclid Road. It was located between what is now East 34th and East 40th Street, and ran back to Central Avenue. It was covered with scrub
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oaks and brush. Capt. Johnson was not farmer and wished to dispose of the property.
As Ashley Ames had once done him a great service, the Captain wanted to give him the first chance of buying it. Mr. Ames owned a gentle horse that Capt. Johnson coveted. So, he offered to trade the 60 acres for the horse and a promissory note for $400, payable in 15 years without interest.
Mr. Ames was afraid to accept of the offer, as the land was uncleared, and the soil poor.
Mr. Ames was somewhat eccentric, which took the form of reticence. He never answered a question promptly. Usually he showed no signs of having heard it. Then hours and perhaps days afterward he would reply casually as if at that moment addressed on the subject. He had a horror of debt, and after his death the liabilities against his estate were 35 cents for medicine used in the last days of his illness.
The children of Ashley and Sarah Williard Ames:
Henry C. Ames, b. 1827; m. Fanny Bell..
Charles Williard Ames, b. 1829; m. Mary Fitzhugh.
Harrison W. Ames, b. 1831; m.Charlotte Goodhue.
Edwin Ames, b. 1833; m. Caroline. Briggs.
Ashley Ames, Jr.; b. 1835; m. Jane Perkins.
John O. Ames, b. 1837; m. Helen Lewis
Freeland H. Ames, b. 1845; died 1888.
Sarah Williard Ames, b. 1848; m.1st, Robert Carren ; 2nd, Horace Beakle
Adelia A. Ames, b. 1851; m. George Lewis
Anson W. Ames, b. 1854; living in Los Angeles, Cal.
It will be observed that seven sons were born in this family before there were any daughters. Mrs. Ames, therefore, initiated the younger sons in the mysteries of housekeeping, teaching them all the things in which only girls were supposed to be proficient, cooking, knitting, dishwashing, etc. They never regretted this in after life. On the contrary they were proud of their unusual accomplishments.
1811
AMES
Stephen Ames, son of David Ames of Hollis, N. H., and elder brother of Ashley Ames, came to Cleveland some time between 1808 and 1811. He was a gunner in the War of 1812, and secured 200 acres of Government land for his military services at that time.
He married Demis Ferris of Monckton, Vt., and settled on a farm on Broadway Avenue, opposite the old Cataract House. He was a wagon
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maker by trade as well as a farmer. His family of three sons and seven daughters mostly left Newburgh for pioneer homes in Western states.
Children of Stephan and Demis Ames:
Abigail Ames, m. Harry Tuttle of. Independence, O..
Martha Ames, m. Chester Beakle.,
Alzina Ames, unmarried.
Carlinda Ames, m. Mr. Warden.
David Ames.
Wesley Ames, married in Nebraska
Easton Ames, lives in Iowa
Orinda Ames, m. Charles Thomas of Warrensville, Ohio.
Priscilla Ames, m. Jerry Craile
Urania Ames, m. David Trevitt.
Stephan Ames died aged 86 years. He was at the time residing with his daughter, Mrs. Orinda Ames Thomas.
1808
TAYLOR
Philo Taylor came from New England to Rocky River about 1808, and bought or built a log-tavern on the eastern bank near the mouth of the stream. Here, in 1809, his eighth child was born, Egbert Taylor, said to have been the first one born in the township. The exact year that Mr. Taylor sold out and removed to town has not been recorded by his descendants. But we find him in August, 1816, helping to organize the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie, the pioneer bank of the city. He was a Cleveland merchant at that time, having a store for general merchandise on the north side of Superior, below Bank Street. He is said to have been landlord of a tavern, also, in the same spot.
In 1823, his wife, Zerviah Davenport Taylor, whom he married in 1793, and who was the mother of his eleven children, died, and was buried in Erie Street Cemetery. Shortly afterward, Mr. Taylor removed to Newburgh, but continued to be identified with the business interests of this place. Three years after the death of his wife, Zerviah, he married Miss Rhoda Baldwin of Newburgh. Philo Taylor died in 1854, aged 81 years.
The children of Philo and Zerviah Davenport Taylor filled valuable and important positions in the commercial and social life of Cleveland and Newburgh. Nothing personal has been preserved of their mother, but judging by her daughters, who were noted for their many lovely characteristics, she must have been a most estimable woman.
The children were
Sophia Taylor, b. 1795; m. Gaius Burke..
Elisha Taylor, b. 1798; m. 1st, Delia Foot of Dover; 2nd, in 1825, Elisabeth Drury
Wealthy Taylor, m. James McKay.
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Amanda Taylor, b. 1800; m. James. Hyndman.
Prudency Taylor, b. 1802; m. Brazilla Burke.
John D. Taylor, b. 1805; m. Laura Foot of Dover.
Lovica Taylor, b. 1807; m. Morris Hartwell.
Egbert Taylor, b. 1809
Charles Taylor, b. 1811; m. Elisabeth Shepard
Harvey Taylor, b. 1813; m. Martha _______
Julia Ann Taylor, b. 1816; m. James Hartwell
1809
HICKOX
June 15, 1809, was an eventful day for the Hickox family of old Waterbury, Conn., for Eri and Abram, two sons of Capt. Abraham and Jemima Foote Hickox, started early that morning with their families for Ohio.
Everything in the way of livestock and household furniture that could not be taken on the long journey was sold or given away. Each family had a wagon packed, and filled to over-flowing with bedding, wearing apparel, cooking-utensils, dishes, and enough provisions to last through the first few weeks of travel, and the wagon was drawn by a yoke of oxen.
Abram and his wife Tamar Tuttle Hickox were both middle-aged when they abandoned their New England home, and started on this distant venture. They had five daughters, Ruth, Oriana, Lucy, Lucinda, and Dorcas. Ruth, the oldest, was 24 years old, and the youngest girl was about 15.
The father walked all the way to Cleveland, while the mother and daughters took turns, two at a time, in riding precariously on the wagon. It was well into August before their destination was reached, and, doubtless, the road between Buffalo and Cleveland seemed the longest part of the journey.
Abram Hickox was a blacksmith, and upon his arrival found awaiting him all the work he could do, as Nathaniel Doan, the first blacksmith, had been driven out of the hamlet by malaria, and was then living on the corner of Euclid Avenue and Fairmount Street.
Eri Hickox was a farmer, and when the party reached Cleveland, he was far from satisfied with the looks of its sandy soil, and decided to continue the journey for a few days longer, and search for a farm better suited to his purposes.
This he found ten miles away in Middleburg Township, Berea. The families were thus separated for the first time, but the cousins interchanged visits frequently, and two of Abram's daughters spent their last days with their Middleburg relatives and were buried there.
The first shop and dwelling of Abram Hickox was near the corner of Superior and Bank streets, the present site of the Rockefeller Building.
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HICKOX
Either it was moved across the street near Seneca Street, or he built there a few years later, and before his death the smithy stood on Euclid Avenue, and his residence directly back of it, No. 27 Prospect Street. A narrow lane connecting the two streets at this point bore his name until recently.
Mr. Hickox was a character, and his quaint sayings and unconventional doings furnished amusement for Cleveland as a hamlet, a village, and a city. He was familiarly known as "Uncle Abram."
The sign over his smithy read:
"UNCLE ABRAM WORKS HERE."
While celebrating the day, one Fourth of July, he met with a serious accident, which laid him up for many weeks. Upon his recovery he changed his sign to read
"UNCLE ABRAM STILL WORKS HERE."
He was a cousin of Hon. John A. Foote, the noted Cleveland lawyer, his mother and the latter's grandfather being sister and brother. Mr. Hickox was a member of Trinity Church and its sexton from its organization until his death. In that office he seemed "The Head and Front of Episcopacy."
There was a time when the Stone Church and Trinity, both homeless, used the only schoolhouse together. The former had services morning and afternoon ; Trinity in the evening.
One Christmas, falling on the Sabbath, Uncle Abram planned to decorate the edifice with evergreens, candles, etc., for the evening service. It could be done only in the short interval that succeeded the close of the second meeting of the Presbyterians. It is said that in his eagerness to begin the work, he begged Parson Bradstreet not to preach one of his "damned, long-winded sermons, this time."
He was tall, thin, and, within the memory of all, wore large bowed spectacles over a rather sharp-pointed nose. His portrait is preserved in the Western Reserve Historical Building. He was the village sexton, and laid away in the first cemetery nearly all who were interred there.
He was 80 years old at the time of his own death, having lived here 36 years, and his grave is in Erie Street Cemetery, near the front entrance.
Of Tamar Tuttle Hickox, his wife, naught can be learned save that she was a good woman, and the mother of his five daughters. As these daughters were exceptionally fine women, and universally respected, it will be inferred that not all of their good traits were inherited from their father.
Mrs. Hickox lived but six years after her arrival in Cleveland. A year after her death, 1816, Uncle Abram married Phebe Stone, widow of Elisha Dibble. She died in 1839, aged 70 years, and was buried in Erie Street Cemetery by the side of her first husband. Abram Hickox then went to live with his daughter, Lucinda Caldwell, and died six years later.
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The children of Abram and Tamar Tuttle Hickox:
Ruth Hickox, b. 1785; m. Chrystopher Gun, in 1810. See Gun sketch.
Oriana Hickox, b. 1788, m. Luther Scott; 2nd, Solomon Woodford.
Lucinda Hickox, m. Nathan Cummings ; 2nd, Asel Caldwell
Dorcas Hickox, m. Eliezar Waterman. See Waterman sketch.
Lucy Hickox, died at an advanced age unmarried.
Oriana Hickox, or "Aunt Ora," as she was best known, had two sons by her first marriage, Harvey and Abram Scott.
Lucinda Hickox was twice a widow while yet a young woman. She had a son, Samuel Cummings, who died in his teens, and by her second husband, Mr. Caldwell, a lovely daughter and two sons. She kept a private school for many years on Superior Street, and helped much in forming the character of the young people in those early days. She was remembered by gray-haired women of a past generation as one whom every one loved and admired. She was a consistent Christian, and a sweet singer, who used her gift in the services of her church, or for the pleasure of friends and social events. Her daughter, Mary Caldwell, was very like her mother. She married John Bailey, brother of Robert Bailey, and removed to Sandusky, where she died, leaving two young sons and a daughter, Mary Bailey Henderson, now residing with her relative, Mrs. W. A. Price, in this city.
1809
RUPLE
The following is incomplete data regarding an old and well-known family of East Cleveland.
Samuel Ruple of Pennsylvania, married Rebecca Croft. Came to East Cleveland about 1809.
MARRIAGES
Emma Ruple, m. Sargeant Currier, Jr..
Katherine Ruple, m. Austin Badger.
John Ruple, m. Pamelia Thomas..
Polly Ruple, m. Benjamin Houghton.
Louise Ruple, m. Richard McIlrath.
Tryphena Ruple, m. Charles Humphrey
In 1819 Cyrus Ruple m. Tryphena Beers
In 1818 Seth Ruple m. Jane Beers
Died, Abigail Ruple, 1840.
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John Johnson of Warren, Herkimer Co., N. Y., furnished to the hamlet of Cleveland five of his six children, all of the five arriving immediately following the War of 1812. His family consisted of
John Johnson, who settled in Buffalo, N. Y., and had several sons, all railroad engineers..
Levi Johnson, b. 1788; m. Margaret Montier..
Jonathan Johnson, b. 1788; m. Minerva Allen.
Benjamin Johnson, unmarried
Polly Johnson, m. Thomas Rummage
Phebe Johnson, m. Wm. White ; 2nd, John Post
Three children of another family of the same name, but not related to the above except through marriage, came to Cleveland about the same time. They were:
Capt. William Johnson, m. Grace O'Kane..
Capt. Harpin Johnson, m. Lucretia Allen.
Mary Johnson, m. Philip B. Andrews. She died young
1809
JOHNSON
Levi Johnson, so far as can be ascertained, was the first of the family on the ground, in 1809, and doubtless he was responsible for the arrival, within a few years, of his brothers and sisters. He had learned the carpenter's trade of an uncle, with whom he had worked for a time, and one account of his first journey west states that he made it with this relative, and that they came in the winter season, driving all the way with a horse and sleigh. Another version of the same story names his companion, Mr. Remington, who may have been the uncle in question.
An early family of Remingtons are buried in Erie Street Cemetery, who may have been relatives or possibly descendants of the above.
Levi Johnson found employment at his trade almost immediately through Judge John Walworth, who set him at work building a business office on Superior Street, where the American House now stands, and opposite the Rockefeller Building. It was the second frame-structure erected in the hamlet. The first one, the Carter house, built by Joel Thorpe, was burned to the ground after completion. As was the custom of the day, Levi boarded with the family of the Walworths while at work on the building, about 40 days. It was used for several years as a United States revenue office, and a post-office. Young Johnson's business success seems to have been commensurate with his energy. His services were in demand for miles around Cleveland. We find him as early as 1810, in Huron County, erecting a saw and grist-mill. During the War
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JOHNSON
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of 1812, in company with his brother-in-law, Thomas Rummage, he fitted up a frail craft, loaded it with supplies, and, keeping close to the shore, worked his way to Detroit, Mich., where the northern division of the United States Army was then stationed, and sold his cargo at a large profit. This success led to other like ventures, and the sum of profits accrued furnished capital for future investments, which took the form of vessel-building. His first effort in this line must have caused long sustained interest and curiosity in the town, for he built it a mile or more from the lake or river, and on the property of his brother-in-law, Thomas Rummage. The spot is now covered by the Euclid Avenue Opera House, corner of Sheriff, now East 4th Street.
Although a very small craft, judged by modern standards, it must have loomed up to big proportions when viewed by the onlookers of that day. Doubtless no one but Levi Johnson was at all optimistic as to the result of this venture. One can imagine how the idle stood about and even the busy passers-by paused to exchange opinions and voice the question in every mind, How was it going to be possible to get the vessel to the river and down the steep bank into the water? But on the morning of the day of the launch, every farmer for miles around came driving his team of horses or yoke of oxen, the latter predominating, hitched them to the boat, and, to ! she moved down and into the river "as slick as grease." He continued vessel-building, though in more convenient locations, and then, with his customary shrewdness, exchanged his interests in them for real estate, and thus founded a fortune.
Levi Johnson's marriage was, in a degree, romantic, for he found his future wife, Miss Margaret Montier, in Huron County, where he was temporarily working on a grist-mill. She was living with a Canadian French family, whether related to them or not has never been stated. But, as she was of French parentage herself, probably they were relations or former neighbors. She was born in Lancaster, Pa. Upon his return to Cleveland, the Walworths became interested in his love affair, and they sent for her and took her into their own home, and she was married there some months later, in 1811. Mr. Johnson was then 25 years old, the bride 19 years.
The first home of the Johnsons was a small, unpretentious framehouse, now covered by the west end of the Rockefeller Building. Here they lived many years, then removed to a fine stone residence that Mr. Johnson had erected, south-east corner of Water, now West 9th Street, and Lake Avenue.
Water Street was then lined with attractive homes, mostly built by men who became residents of the city after 1840. The Gordon mansion, the Walton home, Uncle Sam's solid residence for his Cleveland lighthouse keeper, and other pretentious structures gave the west side of the street much solidity and dignity. Water Street had at least two village taverns, standing on its east side, from the earliest days ; but business, until along in the '60s, was confined within a short block north of Superior Street. In after years, a second grading of Water and Bank streets left many residences propped on stilts, until an additional half-story or more could be built under them, and this led to the removal of many old families out to Prospect or Woodland Avenue localities.
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No more widely known man than Levi Johnson ever lived in Cleveland's infancy, but his wife took no part in public or social life. She was extremely domestic and confined all her interests to her own household.
The children of Levi and Margaret Montier Johnson:
Harriet Johnson, m. Alexander Sackett.
Capt. Periander Johnson, m. Harriet Butterfield.
Philander L. Johnson, b. 1823; m. Sarah M. Clark, daughter of Michail and Sarah Clark. She was born in Ireland, but lived in London,. Eng. Her sister----- married-------- Montpelier.
Children of Philander L. and Sarah Johnson:
Margaret Johnson, (twin) gym. Larimer Porter-
Mary Johnson, (twin)..
Harriet Johnson.
Levi A. Johnson.
Clara Johnson.
1809
JOHNSON
The Cleveland Herald of February 24, 1821, contained the following announcement
"Married in this village, on Saturday evening last, by Josiah Barber, Esq., Capt. Jonathan Johnson to Miss Minerva Allen."
The bride was one of three pretty sisters, daughters of Holden Allen, living in Black Rock, now a suburb of Buffalo, N. Y. He settled there before the War of 1812. The sisters were Lucretia, Minerva, and Sybel, all of whom married Cleveland men. Lucretia, the wife of Capt. Harpin Johnson of the other family of lake captains, had lived in Cleveland some time when her younger unmarried sister made her a visit, and two young and eligible Clevelanders saw that Black Rock should know them no more.
Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Johnson first lived on Euclid Avenue, near the present Opera House. He commanded a small vessel called "The Mercator," and late in the-fall of 1822 he arrived at Cleveland and anchored outside near the mouth of the river, while a storm was raging, the wind blowing fiercely and the waves rolling high.
Two other vessels were also anchored near by, the "Prudence" and the "Good Intent." There was no harbor in those days, as the river was too shallow to allow of the entrance of laden boats. They had to be loaded and unloaded by flat-bottomed lighters. The storm grew worse, and the "Prudence," true to her name, fled to seek shelter at the Islands, and soon the "Cood Intent" followed her example. But Capt. Johnson, either through his faith in his staunch little craft, or trust in her anchor,
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remained. His young wife, having learned his perilous situation, could neither rest nor sleep, and about midnight went all alone from her home on Euclid Avenue to the shore of the lake, and stood for hours watching the lights on the boat rise and sink out of sight in the water. Sometimes they would disappear for such a length of time that her agony of suspense would culminate in a certainty that the vessel had swamped and her husband had gone down with it. Her pretty fur cap was torn from her head by the wind,' and went sailing away, but in her anxiety she failed to notice the beating of the rain upon her head.
But as morning broke, the "Mercator" was still riding her anchor, and Mrs. Johnson returned home, hoping for the best. It was not the only time for her and other sailors' wives, of whom the village had many, to pace the lake bank, praying for the safety of loved ones tossing upon the waves outside.
The first child born to the couple was named Alexander M. Johnson.
It would have added immeasurably to the interest and value of this work had the writer been enabled to secure data and detail of other families from some surviving member of it, so intelligent and so willing to promote this undertaking as this first-born child of Jonathan and Minerva Johnson. Not only has he furnished material concerning his own father and family connections, but given clues concerning several other very early pioneers, that led to successful research.
The second time that the Johnsons became parents, twins arrived in the household. The proud father, upon his next return-trip from Buffalo, brought with him, on his vessel, a willow baby-carriage, the first one, it is claimed, seen upon the streets of Cleveland. It was designed for two children, with a canopy at each end. Mrs. Johnson trimmed it with yellow cloth, and the pretty baby-carriage with its twin occupants created much curiosity and interest.
The young couple were quite musical. He played the snare-drum, and, it is claimed, was the first drum-major elected by the local militia. She could play four instruments, the flute, fife, flageolet, and accordion. The last one, while a ridiculous squawking affair in the hands of an amateur, is capable of most musical notes if handled correctly, and in those days, when pianos, parlor-organs, and even the melodion, with its absurd limitations, were unknown, the accordion was much prized, and often was a successful accompaniment for the voice.
Mrs. Johnson was a beautiful singer, and for many years was a member of the Old Stone Church choir, and Mrs. T. P. Handy, who also possessed a fine voice, and herself were ever in demand for all social affairs, adding much to the simple pleasures of the day. Mrs. Johnson with her accordion, and Mrs. Handy were once the chief entertainers at a large tea-party given by Mrs. Peter Weddell in her home on the corner of Superior and Bank streets.
Alexander Johnson, then a very small boy, recalls playing with Horace Weddell on the floor of an adjoining room, and listening to the music in the parlor. His mother was also a fine dancer, and daintily holding up her skirts, taught her son, by example, the popular jigs of the day.
One other accomplishment proved most valuable to her in a financial
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way. She was an expert with the needle, and when the famous old steamboat "Columbus" was launched, she made its flag and received for the work $5, an amount equal to $15 of the present day.
The children of Jonathan and Minerva Johnson:
Alexander M. Johnson, b. 1822; m. Sarah E. Child of Barry, N. Y..
*Henry James Johnson, m. AnnaCampbell of Scotland..
*Helen Jane Johnson, m. J. Bazena of France
Henrietta Johnson, m. Charles Holsey; lived in Indiana
JOHNSON
Benjamin Johnson, or "Benhu," as he was called, the younger brother of Levi and Jonathan Johnson, served in the navy during the War of 1812, thereby losing a leg. He never married, and he lived with his widowed sister, Mrs. Phebe White, in her humble little home on Euclid Avenue, near Bond Street.
His misfortune and consequent poverty had no depressing effect on his jovial nature. His only capital was an old white horse and a wagon, and with these he picked up such odd jobs as the town people were able to offer.
Especially was he in demand on or before "washday." For several years there were but few, if any, private wells, and the only supply of rain-water was caught in shallow, wooden troughs. Therefore water had to be hauled from the river or from nearby springs. There were three of the latter that were most available. One under the bank near the foot of Superior Street, another upon the site of the present Opera House, and a third, and abundant, just north of the Public Square, and opposite the present post-office.
To this spot housewives would resort, bringing their soiled clothes, and, using a big iron kettle for heating purposes, do their washing and spread it out to dry on the grass of the vacant field upon which the spring stood, meanwhile keeping watchful eyes on their little ones playing about.
Mrs. George Merwin gives a pretty picture of such a scene in "recollections," furnished by her in a meeting of the Early Settlers' Association ; herself and her little companions playing with dolls and broken dishes in her childhood days.
But often it was inconvenient or impossible to wash at the spring, and then Benhu and his white horse would be kept busy indeed. He used to sing rollicking sailor songs, as he drove slowly along, which announced from afar his comings and his goings.
Phebe White, his sister, had two children, Julian and Loretta White. She married a second time, Mr. John Post of Cleveland.
*Twins.
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1809
WALLACE
In 1809 Amos Spafford sold his tavern at the foot of Superior Street to George Wallace. The latter is said to have previously lived in or near Boston, Mass., and to have been a Cleveland correspondent of a Boston newspaper for many years, or while he lived here, 1809-1820. At the end of seven years, he sold out to Noble H. Merwin. Meanwhile, he had built another tavern on the other side of the street, about halfway between Seneca and Bank streets, now West 3rd and West 6th, which he named the "Commercial House," and occupied it for four years. It was a two-story frame-building, with a porch its whole width, and with wide steps leading up to it. This second tavern Mr. Wallace sold to Michael Spangler, and then, with his family, removed to Northfield, Summit Co., Ohio.
The little hamlet of Brandywine in that township rivalled the village of Cleveland, at that time, and Mr. Wallace and his brother, Robert Wallace, established a store, grist and saw-mill, also a woolen factory, all in operation at once.
Mrs. Wallace, Harriet Menough, was born in Pennsylvania. It is said that her marriage was the first one celebrated in Ohio. She was of a delicate organization, but was a woman of much executive ability, and a faithful wife and mother. She was living in town at the time of Hull's Surrender. Her mother, Mrs. Isabella Waugh Menough, was living with her. They were hourly expecting an attack by the British and Indians, and while many were fleeing to a place of safety, she courageously remained with her horse saddled in the stable, saying that she might be needed. True enough ! The house was soon filled with sick and wounded soldiers of our own army who had been exchanged. Many of them, long years afterward, acknowledged her kindness to them, and thanked her warmly.
Mr. Wallace seems to have been a public-spirited man. He took part in the organization of the village in 1814, and was one of its first assessors. With others he attempted to improve the mouth of the river, so that lake-craft could enter it, and he was a trustee of Cleveland's first bank.
Mr. and Mrs. Wallace had two sons, and a daughter, Emmeline, who married Thomas Wilson, Portage County's first sheriff.
In 1840, newspapers published Mrs. Wilson's death at the age of 26 years, showing that she was born in Cleveland in 1814.
1810
Population, 57.
The first session of court in Cleveland held June 5, in the store erected by Elisha and Harvey Murray. Benjamin Ruggles presiding judge.
Cuyahoga County organized. Nathan Sperry, Sr., Augustus Gilbert and Timothy Doan associate judges.
COUNTY OFFICES
Recorder, John Walworth.
Town Postmaster, John Walworth.
Treasurer, Asa Dille.
Town Collector of Customs, John Walworth
Sheriff, Samuel Smith Baldwin..
Surveyor, Samuel Smith Baldwin.
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WOODWORTH
The Luther Woodworth family came to East Cleveland from New Jersey. Mrs. Woodworth's maiden name was Clarissa Murray. As nearly correct as can be ascertained the children were as follows
Theron Woodworth, m. 1st, Cordelia Joclyn of Kirtland, O., who died
in Kirtland; m. 2nd, Rebecca Graham of Perry, O..
Julia Woodworth, m. William Henry
Eveline Woodworth, m. 1st, Levi Richmond ; d. in Randolph, O.
Clarissa Woodworth, m. David Terrill ; removed to Michigan
Caroline Woodworth, m. Jackson Converse. Perkins; removed to Wisconsin.
1810
WILLIAMSON
Samuel Williamson, 28 years old, living in Cumberland County, Pa., went to Crawford. County, that state, in 1800, the first year of the last century. There he met Miss Isabella McQueen, 18 years of age, and not long afterward they joined their mutual fortunes in matrimony.
Ten years later found them with their children, and accompanied by Mathew Williamson, a bachelor brother, traveling slowly in a northwesterly route in the wilderness to the hamlet of Cleveland, which they reached in May. Their arrival brought the population of the same up to 57, men, women and children.
They made their home on Water, now West 9th Street. It was on the west side of it, original lot 201, adjoining a narrow, crooked lane that led to the river. This lane eventually became the western end of St. Clair Street. The brothers built a tannery near the foot of this, and soon had all the business they could attend to. For, in addition to the pelts of domestic animals brought to them to convert into leather, there were quantities of skins of wild animals brought in by Indians and trappers to be cured for the market.
When the family settled on Water Street, that thoroughfare was as yet but partially defined. An ox-team bringing a supply of wood to the house would have to turn first to one side of the narrow road and then to the other, to avoid the big stumps yet standing there, and even this pretense of a passage was blocked just beyond the Williamsons by trees and underbrush.
When Mrs. Williamson looked across the way from her front door, she saw a rail-fence extending from Superior Street nearly to the lake bank. The grounds thus enclosed were pretty well cleared ; the northern end, Lorenzo Carter's 12-acre farm, much more so, and usually covered with growing grain, and on both sides of the street elder-bushes had sprung up after the trees were felled, making a thick underbrush. In short, it looked like any newly laid out country-road through the woods today, nothing more nor less. Behind the house the grounds were level for about 200 feet, then sloped unevenly to the river. This bank was
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covered in spring and summer with beautiful wild flowers, some of them now extinct in Northern Ohio. Wild grapes and bittersweet vines ran riot, filling the air with fragrance and color, and down near the water's edge grew fleur-de-lis and sweet-flag. The family lived on this spot many years, then removed to Euclid Avenue, where the Williamson Building now stands.
Samuel Williamson belonged to the first village official staff, one of the three trustees chosen in 1815, David Long and Nathan Perry, Jr., being the other two. He was associate judge of the Common Pleas Court in 1823.
In the Cleveland Herald of 1834 appeared this death-notice : "After a protracted illness, Hon. Samuel Williamson, much esteemed for his integrity and moral worth. His funeral was attended by a large concourse of citizens."
In 1821, the year following the organization of the Old Stone Church, Mrs. Isabella Williamson became a member of it. After the marriage of her son, she continued to live in a small frame-cottage east of his new residence. Her unmarried daughter shared her home. Nothing can be learned of her, and yet, how much ! except the testimony of a now aged resident who recalls her as a beloved friend of her mother's and a "dear old lady." She lived 25 years after her husband's death, her own taking place in 1859, at the age of 77.
Matthew Williamson, the brother, was one of the patriotic company of militia, who organized in the War of 1812 to protect the hamlet from invasion, to march out to attack an advancing enemy, or to respond to calls for other military services.
There were seven children in the Williamson family. They attended school in an old building back of the present site of the American House, and in the old Academy on St. Clair Street, that structure so tenacious in the memory of the youth of that day, and 20 years of other days to come, each and all loving to dwell upon, and talk over their experiences as pupils in the old Academy. Afterwards the Williamson children were given other and higher education than the town afforded, whenever thought desirable for them ; the boys, especially, attending colleges in eastern states.
The children of Samuel and Isabella Williamson:
Mary Williamson, m. Martin Bowen Scott..
Samuel Williamson, m. Mary E. Tisdale.
Sarah Williamson, died aged 63 years
Samuel Williamson, Jr., was two years old when his parents came to Cleveland, and he lived here 74 years. Into that 74 years was crowded an experience that few Cleveland men could boast. He was one of the 57 inhabitants of the hamlet in 1810, and one of the population of 200,000 that the city of Cleveland claimed in 1884.
Between that time, Mr. Williamson had been a practising lawyer, a legislator, a county officer, and the president of the largest savings-bank in the city.
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BALDWIN
Of all the traits of character attributed to him, that which seems to count most now is that he was the kindest of men, the tenderest and most considerate of friends, that he carried into his private life all that he publicly professed.
In 1843 he married Miss Mary E. Tisdale of Utica, N. Y., an eastern town that furnished to Cleveland in those early days many beautiful brides, and some of its most valued sons.
The children of Samuel and Mary Tisdale Williamson:
Judge Samuel E. Williamson, m. Miss Mary P. Marsh of New Haven, Conn. ; 2nd, Miss Harriet W. Brown of East Windsor, Ct.
George T. Williamson
Rev. James D. Williamson, m. Miss Ely of Elyria, Ohio.
1810
BALDWIN
There were several families of Baldwin who came to Cleveland, Doan's Corners, and Newburgh at a very early day. It has been found extremely difficult to secure accurate data regarding Newburgh's earliest settlers. Records are not to be obtained. If any were kept, they are buried in the tons of records stored in the basements of court-house and city hall. As near as can be ascertained, Philemon Baldwin and his sons were among the first to arrive, before the year 1810. They settled on farms in Newburgh.
Philemon Baldwin, Sr., came from Yates Co., N. Y. He had been a pioneer of that county, and to him is accorded the honor of naming Penn Yan, N. Y.
There was much strife among the residents of the place concerning the naming of the newly settled town. Settlers from Pennsylvania wished it called one way, and New England settlers another. It was Philemon Baldwin who satisfied all parties by suggesting Penn for one party, and finishing with the first syllable of Yankee for the other. He must have been over 50 years old when he made his second venture in pioneer life. He is said to have been an interesting man, shrewd, witty, and full of fun, a genial companion, more ready to see the bright side of life's shield than its darker one. He died in 1830.
There was a large family of children, the oldest members of which, possibly, did not accompany their parents to Newburgh. They were:
Asa, Philemon, Amos, George, Mary, Sally, Elisabeth, Esther, Caleb, and Runa Baldwin.
Philemon Baldwin, Jr., was born 1785, married Polly Rose of Norris Landing, Conn. They moved first to Niagara Falls, and then to Newburgh in 1810. The only personal record of this family is found in an advertisement in the Herald for the return or apprehension of a bound boy.
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LONG
The children of Philemon, Jr., and Polly Baldwin:
Calista Baldwin, b. 1810; m. H. A Graves in 1830, of East Cleveland. They both died in Bedford, Ohio.
Starr Baldwin, b. 1812; died in San Francisco, Cal.
Henry Baldwin, b. 1814
Martha Baldwin, b. 1822.
Lucette Baldwin, b. 1830.
Philemon Baldwin, Jr., died in Newburgh, 1831.
Caleb and Runa Baldwin, sons of Philemon, Sr., married the daughters of Judge James Kingsbury, the Cleveland pioneer. It was a double wedding on December 7, 1814, and it is reported that the affair was a big social success, participated in by nearly all Newburgh, and Cleveland as well, and we can imagine that the jovial father of the bridegrooms did his full share in making everybody feel happy on the occasion. Also, that certain young neighbors and friends of the couples made right merry, and that Samuel Jones and his violin beguiled their footsteps.
The residence of Judge Kingsbury was so much larger than the usual pioneer home that there was no necessity for setting the furniture of the house outside of it during the party, as was the custom in the log-cabins of that day in order to make room for the company. Horace Perry, Cleveland's justice of the peace, performed the ceremonies.
The children of Caleb and Nancy Kingsbury Baldwin:
Nancy Baldwin, m. ------Gardner..
Caleb Baldwin, went to Missouri and was in the government service.
James Baldwin
Waldo Baldwin.
Ellen Baldwin.
This branch of the Philemon Baldwin, Sr., family joined the Mormons in Utah.
The children of Runa and Calista Kingsbury Baldwin:
Albert and Sherman Baldwin, physicians of Toledo, Ohio.
Almon Baldwin, m. in Paulding Co., Ohio.
Sophrona Baldwin, m. Preston Burroughs. Lived in Chicago, Ill.
Martha Baldwin, m. Charles Lougee. Lived in Oakland, Cal.
1810
LONG
The year 1810 was epoch-making in the history of Cleveland through the arrival of Dr. David Long, the first resident physician of this locality. To be sure, he might have been considered rather young, 21 years, to be entrusted with surgical cases, for instance. But a community that for 14 years had managed its broken bones unaided would not be apt to demand
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age and experience when a full-fledged doctor appeared unheralded upon the scene.
Moreover, the young man probably had absorbed more medical lore before he had even opened a text-book than many an older man possessed after years of study ; for he was in the third generation of a family of physicians, and his profession an inheritance as well as a choice. His grandfather, Dr. John Long, was a noted practitioner of Shelbourne, Mass., whose two sons, Dr. Long, Jr., and Dr. David Long, followed closely in his footsteps, while their sister, Diana Long, kept the feminine side of the family in line by marrying Dr. Robert Severance.
Dr. David Long, Sr., and his wife, Margaret Harkness Long, removed to Hebron, N. Y., and there, in 1789, was born their son, David, Jr., who was destined to make the family name a household word and of historical value in this western city.
The young doctor did not expect that the first years of his practice would be adequate for his support, especially if he married, which he proceeded to do within a twelvemonth. Indeed, in scanning the pages of the earliest newspaper, his advertisements suggest merely a commercial life. He offers salt and other commodities for sale. He has a dry goods store. In connection with Levi Johnson, he builds a warehouse on the river.
He found time for civic duties, assisting in the promotion of the little hamlet to the dignity of a village, and, as county commissioner, his vote saved to Cleveland the county-seat and prevented its threatened removal to Newburgh.
In the cholera epidemics he served on the board of health, and was one of that quartet of medical heroes, who, with unsinking courage, fought the dread disease unarmed with adequate knowledge concerning its cause or its cure.
Dr. Long was loyal to his inheritance of religious belief. It was quite the fashion among the earliest local physicians to belittle the sacred Scriptures, and to claim that science had proven them false. At least three of Dr. Long's associates, preceding 1830, were openly free-thinkers, but when, in 1817, Old Trinity was organized, he was at hand to help the cause, even though raised in, and, at heart, of another orthodoxy. But in 1844 we find him an active member and the elder of the Second Presbyterian Church.
The professional life of Dr. Long for many years was strenuous and often perilous. When he arrived in Cleveland, there was no other physician west of Painesville or north of Hudson. Often he would be called out of his own bed to that of some patient whom it would take hours of weary horseback-riding to reach, through terrible roads or dense woods, and over swollen streams that his horse would have to swim. Frequently he would be caught in one of those electrical storms, the severity of which we have in these days no counterpart, and he would be drenched to the skin, with his destination yet many miles away.
In this era of exorbitant fees, it will be of interest to note that quite often the patient who was farthest away and most inaccessible was unable to pay the good doctor ; for money was scarce and pioneers very poor.
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LONG
So it will be readily seen why a physician of that day had to sell salt to eke out his income.
The toil, self-sacrifice, and generosity of the medical profession of the Western Reserve during the first half century of its history can never be adequately estimated. Some of those men kept no accounts, accepting whatever their patients could afford to pay, and that often, not in money, but in produce. The love and esteem of the people to whom they ministered seemed to them an adequate return for their services when nothing more material was at hand with which to be paid ; and the presence of a physician in the lonely little cabins of the- wilderness was that of counselor and friend, as well as medical adviser and healer.
The domestic life of Dr. David Long was ideal. In 1811, he married Juliana Walworth, daughter of John and Juliana Morgan Walworth, the Cleveland pioneers of 1806. Mrs. Long was eminently fitted to be the wife of such a man as was Dr. Long. Broad-minded, public-spirited, and generous to a degree. All her social duties were marked by simplicity and sincerity. Her roof continuously sheltered some homeless one in need of her pity and care. No one was ever turned from her door unassisted by what they claimed, whether it was food or sympathy. She was especially kind to young strangers in town, and their loneliness was often lessened through evenings spent in her hospitable home.
Mrs. Ellen R. Miller of this city relates an incident connected with the War of 1812, and of Mrs. Long, which is very characteristic of the latter. Mrs. Miller's grandfather, Dr. Coleman of Ashtabula, enlisted as a surgeon in that conflict. He was taken very ill, and as he lay in the little hospital on Superior Street near the Public Square, grave doubts were felt as to his recovery.
A messenger about to carry a dispatch to Erie was requested to stop at Ashtabula on his way, and acquaint Mrs. Coleman of her husband's condition. She at once began preparing to come on to Cleveland, and induced the nearest neighbor of her own sex to accompany her.
The two women started on horseback, Mrs. Coleman guiding her own animal with one hand, while with the other she held her infant close to her breast. Night overtook them in the forest, far from any pioneer log house, and they encamped in the lonely wilderness, trembling every moment and sleepless with apprehension whenever the howling of wolves seemed to draw nearer.
Morning dawned at last, and they renewed the journey. Alighting at the door of the hospital, they were met by Mrs. Long, who was assisting in the care of the sick soldiers. She insisted upon taking them to her own home for food and rest, then said to Mrs. Coleman
"You are to make this your headquarters while you remain. Furthermore, leave your babe with me while you are at the bedside of your husband. I will care for it tenderly whenever you are absent."
Which she proceeded to do. Contrary to all previous conclusions, Dr. Coleman recovered and returned to his home in Ashtabula. Dr. and Mrs. Long often exchanged visits in after years with the Colemans, and their names and memory have been cherished and revered to this day by the descendants of the latter.
The Longs lived in the log-house back of the present site of the Ameri
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can House, and at one time in a small frame-house on Water Street. In the early '30s, Dr. Long built a substantial stone-house on Superior Street, south-west corner of Seneca, which he occupied for two years, then removed to his farm on Woodland Avenue, on the north side of which he erected a fine Colonial residence. This, with 171/2 acres of land surrounding it, he sold in 1845 to Erastus Gaylord, and built himself another fine home west of it, in which he died in 1859. Long Street, parallel to Superior, cut through Dr. Long's pasture, whence its name ; and Longwood Avenue, once a- beautiful thoroughfare, running north from Woodland, received its name in honor of the family.
The children of David and Juliana Walworth Long:
Mary H. Long, m. Solomon Lewis Severance.
Horace Long, d. 1845, aged 12 years
Solon Long, d. 1850.
1810
ALFRED KELLEY
Alfred Kelley, the second son of Thomas and Jemima Stow Kelley, and 21 years of age, rode into Cleveland on horseback, having traveled all the way from Oneida Co., N. Y. It was in 1810, the year Cuyahoga County was organized, and as a lawyer, he became its first prosecuting attorney.
From that day until he took up his residence elsewhere he was loyal to the town and city of his adoption, and in return Cleveland was ever proud of her gifted son. He was a handsome young man, and possessed a brilliant mind, an inheritance from his mother's family.
When the little hamlet became a village in 1815, Alfred Kelley was made its president, and at 25 years of age, barely old enough to acquire the position, he was sent to represent this district in the Ohio Legislature.
August, 1817, he married Mary Seymour Welles, daughter of Melancthon Woolsey and Abigail Buel Welles of Stamford, Conn. The young couple accompanied by the bride's sister, Sarah Welles, traveled from Lowville, N. Y., to Cleveland in a carriage. Mrs. Kelley's letters to her former home describing the wedding-journey were exceedingly interesting and graphic.
"The first day after leaving Buffalo we traveled but 19 miles over the most terrible roads you can possibly conceive of. I had no idea that roads could be so intolerable.
"We stayed that night in a log-cabin crowded with movers who spread their beds so thickly upon the floor that you could scarcely move without stepping on some one. Alfred drove the carriage, the next day, on the beach around the jutting rocks into the water where the waves dashed over the backs of the horses. In this way, had the lake been calm, we could
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have avoided the miles of Cataraugus woods which are a terror to all travelers in this country.
"Sarah and I walked four miles that day. We saw wagons stuck in the mud, children crying and many discouraged mothers.
"We reached here just a week from the day we left Buffalo. The village looked much pleasanter than I had dared to expect. I was received very affectionately by all the family, particularly by the old gentleman,"-Daniel Kelley, Sr., her father-in-law.
Much of the early prosperity of the town was due to Alfred Kelley's keenness of vision. Had he not been a resident-of the -place, identified with its interests and present in person to suggest and to guide at crucial moments of its history, Cleveland might have seriously blundered or neglected to embrace opportunities that gave her the impetus from which she never retrograded. There were better harbors, by far, on the lake than the Cuyahoga River afforded. Huron but 50 miles west had a wide, deep river, never closed by sand-bars, and had that town possessed an Alfred Kelley it would in this day have been the leading Ohio city on Lake Erie. It was he who secured for Cleveland the northern terminus of the Erie Canal, and he it was who pushed and exploited for her the first railroads to enter the city.
Circumstances forced him to remove to Columbus, O., after a tenyears' residence on Water Street in the brick-cottage erected for his parents. He had a large family of children, seven daughters and four sons. The eldest born in Cleveland in 1818, the youngest in Columbus in 1841. Mrs. Kelley died 1882 in a beautiful home that her husband had erected in the latter city.
The children of Alfred and Mary Welles Kelley:
Maria Kelley, b. 1818; m. Judge Bates of Columbus..
Jane Kelley, b. 1820; m. William Collins of Lowville, N. Y., a lawyer. She lived most of her life in Cleveland, corner of Euclid Avenue and Collins Place.
Anna Kelley, b. 1836; m. Col. Carl G. Frendenburg, U. S. A., and lived in Washington, D. C.
Alfred Kelley, b. 1839; m. Mary Craig Dulevy
Helen Kelley, b. 1831; m. Francis Collins, a lawyer and brother of William
Katherine Kelley, b. 1841; m. Rev. William H. Dunning of Mobile, Ala.; 2nd, Rev. Edward Abbott, brother of Lyman Abbott.
Five of the Kelley children died in infancy.
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1810
MURRAY
Much locally historical interest is centered in the brothers Elias and Harvey Murray, who arrived in Cleveland early in the summer of 1810. Enoch Murray of East Cleveland, who died 1819 and left a widow, Katherine Smith Murray, and young children, may have been another brother, as there is a tradition to that effect preserved by the descendants of Harvey Murray, and Enoch is a name common to the family.
Elias Murray did not remain long in Cleveland, but went on to a more western state, in what year is not known. He wrote a long letter, in the 40's, to Col. Whittlesey from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, in which he gave his first impression of Cleveland, received from a sailing vessel anchored off shore, and how the town looked to him in a nearer view as he landed in a small row-boat.
This letter was published in a newspaper, then clipped from it and pasted in a book containing similar letters from other pioneers. It is preserved by the Western Reserve Historical Society.
The record kept in 1810 of books drawn from the first, small library of the hamlet contains frequently the names of Elias and Harvey Murray, and shows not only that they were fond of reading, but cared only for the best literature.
They built a store on the south side of Superior Street near the Public Square and adjoining the present site of the Forest City House. There is no evidence that they ever stocked it with merchandise, but it was used as a hospital during the War of 1812, even after a Government hospital was built on Water Street after Hull's Surrender. It became the property of Theodore Miles, and various uses were made of the building in the many years it stood on Superior Street, and at the time it was torn down, 1855, was pronounced the oldest one in town.
Harvey Murray brought a wife and one or two young children with him to Cleveland. He distinguished himself in the War of 1812 by commanding the company of militia organized to resist invasion from the British.
Capt. Harvey Murray had a grist-mill on a creek in East Cleveland, and probably was living there at the time of his death, which occurred about 1827. As his wife died then also, they were undoubtedly victims of the typhoid fever scourge of that year. Their children were left orphans at a tender age, and were cared for by sympathetic friends and neighbors.
The children of Capt. Harvey and Emily Murray:
Elias Murray, married, had two sons, left this locality in 1840.
Eli Murray, married, had two children, Mansfield and Mary Murray. The family also removed in, 1840.
Layman Murray, died young.
Emily Murray, b. 1814; m. Elisha Benjamin in 1830 at Warrensville. She died of consumption at Northfield, O., 1851, aged 37, leaving a large family of young children.
Eliza Murray, m. Russell Nugent She had three children : William, Emily and Gabriel Nugent. She died in 1842, at the age probably of 26 years, and at the home of her sister in Northfield.
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Mrs. Emily Murray Benjamin had nine children: David, Hester, Theresa, Lyman, Emily, Bianca, Frances, Enoch, and Cynthia Benjamin.
To Miss Frank E. Benjamin, daughter of Lyman Benjamin of this city and great-granddaughter of Capt. Harvey Murray, we are indebted for the family genealogy.
1810
TOWN
The earliest records of Newburgh contain mention of Dr. Town, who evidently practised medicine and entered into the public affairs of the village. He removed to Hudson, Ohio, where he was widely known as a physician, and where he died in 1859.
Dr. Israel Town was born in Granville, N. Y. He was the son of Joseph and Hannah Coleman Town. His wife was Lucy White Town, who shared in her husband's busy professional life both in Newburgh and in Hudson.
Their only child was: Mary Helen Town, m. Joseph Murray.
1810
PEET
Elijah Peet, born in 1765 in New Milford, Conn., was fifth in line from John Peet, the American ancestor of the family. Elijah Peet married Betsey Leavenworth of Woodbury, Conn. He lived in Vermont until of middle-age, and then about 1812, perhaps earlier, came with his family to Newburgh. He died in Lee, Mass., in 1814. Probably he had a family of children, but only one, Stephen Peet, has been found. In the records of the probate court of Cuyahoga County the name of the Rev. Stephen Peet occurs often in connection with marriage ceremonies between 1825 and 1836. The couples at whose weddings this clergyman officiated were mostly residents of Cleveland, Newburgh, and Euclid, Ohio.
Stephen Peet was the fourth child of Elijah and Betsey Peet, the very early pioneers of Newburgh. When but 17 years of age he taught the winter school of 1814 and 1815 in a little building in Broadway. Isham Morgan of Newburgh, then a small lad, was one of Mr. Peet's pupils, and he has handed down to the present generation a vivid picture of school life in those days.
"During the term, Mr. Peet got up an exhibition for the evening of
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the last day of school. On the road from Newburgh to Cleveland, now called Broadway, and where you first get a view of the river from the high land, stood the log-house of Samuel Dille. It was large for the time, and in it was a spacious upper room the length and breadth of the house.
"There the people of Cleveland and Newburgh assembled to witness our school exhibition. First on the program was "The Conjuror.' Then followed `The Dissipated Oxford Student' (both taken from a book called the `Columbia Orator.') The scene between Brutus and Cassius was rendered, besides other well-known pieces. The various parts were pronounced by critics present to have been performed in admirable style.
"My father, mother, two little sisters, and myself returned home, a - distance of a mile and a half, on the family horse, presenting a cavalcade somewhat uncouth on the streets of present Cleveland." The Morgans lived in the vicinity of Broadway and Willson, now East 55th St.
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 residence 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 Denison, 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 difference 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 people 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.
Harriet Peet, m. Henry H. Gray of
Darlington, Wis. She is yet living at San Jose, Cal.
Rev. Stephen Denison Peet, b. 1830 in Euclid; m. 1st, Catherine Moseley; 2nd, Olive Walworth, dau. of Elijah Tisdale Cutler of Williamsfield, 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 Antiquarian," 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 Milan, Ohio..
Emerson W. Peet, m. 1st, Emma Fellows of Geneva, Ill.; 2nd, Aurelia 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 record 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 daughters of Elijah Peet and Martha Williams Peet was named Minerva. Elijah 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 conference 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 Cemetery.
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 Cemetery. Descendants of Elijah and Martha Peet are prominent in Cleveland'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 another a senior partner of Pickands, Mather & Co.
The children of Elijah and Martha Williams Peet:
Minerva Peet, b. 1818; m. Jacob Lowman..
Mary Peet, m. Hamilton Hough.
Martha Peet, m. John Outwaite.
Ruth Peet, m. William Rose.
Marcia Peet, m. Rev. Ezra Jones
Caroline Peet, unmarried.
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 Pennsylvania. Their children:
Hannah Palmer, m. Elias Cozad..
Lydia Palmer, m. Leonard Massilliot.
Jerusha Palmer, m. James Johnston
James Palmer, m. Anna Bonnell.
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, settled 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------
Irad Akin, m. Harriet Russell ; 2nd, India Brainard.
Julia Akin, m. a Rathbun; 2nd, Abner Cochran.
Caroline Akin, m. Diodate Clark.
William Akin, m. Betsey Clark, dau. of Joseph and Hannah Cole Clark.
Betsey Clark Akin grew old gracefully. She was a most worthy pioneer and held in the highest respect.
1811
MERWIN
Noble H. Merwin was not yet 30 years of age when he came to Cleveland, 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 accompanying 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 warehouse 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 shipbuilding industries of the city. Through these several activities, he became 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 sentiment.
At the date of her settlement in Cleveland there were but 57 inhabitants, 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 relieve 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. Atwater, 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 interesting girl, and betrothed of Richard Hilliard, died young of consumption
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, afterward William Smyth of this city, came for her and took her and her infant 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 stepchildren, 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 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. Starkweather, 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, Louise 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-inlaw, 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 business 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 property 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 plankroad 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. Merwin'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. Shyrock. He died in 1885, in Cal.
George Merwin, m. Minnie Watmough.
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 required.
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 protruding 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 Broadway, not far from the Morgans, was either her father or brother, probably the latter.
Children of Youngs L. and Betsey Jones Morgan:
Julia Morgan, m. Henry Hand, and afterward lived in Dover.
Mary Morgan, m. Henry Parkman,son of the founder of Parkman..
Youngs L. Morgan, Jr., b. 1797; m.Caroline Thomas.
Caleb Morgan, b. 1795; m. Julia. Thomas, and Mary Drake, his step-sister.
Isham Avery Morgan, b. 1809; m.Juliette Meech
Ashbel Walworth Morgan, b. in Cleveland, 1815; m. Zerviah Burke
The writer has made great effort to connect Mrs. Betsey Jones Morgan with the early pioneer, Major Samuel Jones, who also came from Groton and lived in the neighborhood of the Morgan and Wightman families. 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 "Amaranth," 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 constant 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 second wife.
Capt. Sir Francis Drake, m. Antoinette Jones, daughter of Capt. Augustus and Saba Murdock. Jones of Saybrook, Conn. She was a sister of William, Frederick, 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. Sylvester 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. Morgan, 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.
Bates, daughter of Isaac and Elisabeth Bates.
Julia L. Morgan, m. Richard M. Choate, son of Thomas and Mary Wright Choate.
Walter Morgan
Reuben Morgan, m. Clarissa Hart, daughter of Geo. W. and Anna Beardsley Hart.
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 of Akron.
Ellen Morgan, who died when 16 years of age.
Sebert Morgan, who married Ida ______.
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 salary. 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
Clifford Morgan..
Mary Morgan, m. Anson Jackson.
Carrie Morgan, m. William Baxter
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1811
MOWREY
All property bordering on the Public Square is of local historic interest, but none more so than the south-west corner of it, now occupied by the Forest City House, previous to it by the Dunham House, the Cleveland House, and earliest of all by the Mowrey tavern. To this spot, before the War of 1812, came Pliny Mowrey, lured by the hopes and dreams of the future, and, with the courage that only youth possesses, he invested his little all in the purchase of this lot and in building upon it a small village tavern. It is sad to record, even a century later, that bitter disappointment, absolute defeat, and possible tragedy followed this venture.
Pliny Mowrey was . the eldest son of, Reuben Mowrey of Hartford, Conn., who in 1808 brought his family of ten children into the wilds of Gustavus, Trumbull Co. He also brought with them an old musket, upon the stock of which was carved his name, and which, tradition claims, had seen Revolutionary service. Mowrey's Tavern, a name that clung to it long after its first builder and owner had left the city, and perhaps this part of the country, stood upon the eastern part of the lot that is bounded by the Square, Superior Street, Seneca Street, now West 3rd, and extended south to Long Street.
It is on record that Mowrey borrowed $230.63 of Nathan Perry, Jr., doubtless to defray a part of the expenses of building. Nathan publicly demanded payment previous to or by a certain time. The obligation was met, the debt canceled, and Pliny Mowrey seems to have reached a fair plane of success, when, three years later, his brother, Hosea Mowrey, appeared upon the scene, and in time muddled affairs to such an extent as to leave Pliny a hopeless bankrupt.
Hosea bought a half interest in the property and then persuaded Pliny to unite with him in placing a mortgage upon it of $4,500. The loan was procured of Joseph Boyd, an eastern man, through Leonard Case. Why so large a sum, for those days, should have been sought, has not been stated. It may have been used in enlarging the tavern and in building to the rear of it an annex, part of which was used for public gatherings and called "Mowrey's Hall." Another part of this was used for stabling teams of travelers and guests. The Cleveland Herald of May, 1820, contains the following announcement
"At Mowrey's Hall, positively the last night of Mrs. Kittie Blanchard. Doors open at early candle-light, May 31. Admittance, 50c, children half price.
Play, `The Mountaineers,' and a farce, `The Village Lawyer."'
Back of the tavern and the hall was a large and usually an unoccupied space. Mrs. Mary Long Severance told the writer that in her early childhood all sorts of small traveling shows encamped upon it, and even after she was well in her teens, circus tents were spread upon it large enough to accommodate all the town's population who could afford the price of admission.
Mowrey's tavern did not lack a landlady; for in the marriage records of the county we find in the beautiful penmanship of Horace Perry that December 3, 1816, Pliny Mowrey and Rhoda Curtis were married by him in virtue of his office as justice of the peace.
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WIGHTMAN
It has been claimed that Rhoda Curtis was the daughter of a tanner living on Euclid Avenue, near Giddings, now East 71st Street. A little creek ran through his grounds, which in early days was called "Curtis Creek." The place was occupied for many years by the late ex-Sheriff Winslow, and a huge garage now covers the site of Winslow's picturesque cottage and his beautiful lawn.
In the following February, 1817, Horace Perry married James Bliss to Ruth Curtis, who may have been a sister of Rhoda Mowrey. In 1822, Leonard Case foreclosed the mortgage on the Mowrey Tavern, and it was sold to Dr. Donald McIntosh, who took possession of it at once. Previous to this event, Dr. McIntosh had kept a tavern on Water Street, now West 9th.
It is with reluctance that the writer relinquishes the long research made for the subsequent history of Pliny Mowrey and his family. His niece, whose father was a younger brother by many years, writes from Cincinnati, Ohio, that the family tradition is that, embittered by his financial loss, and furious at the parties who had caused it, he left Cleveland immediately afterward and went "up the river." Misfortune followed him, though in what guise is not stated, and he then disappeared. His brothers and sisters never knew whether he died or removed to some distant part of the state, for he failed to communicate with them, and his children, if he had any, never made themselves known to their relatives.
1811
WIGHTMAN
When John J. Wightman and his wife, Deborah Calistia Morgan, left Groton, Conn., in 1811, and traveled by ox-team to Cleveland, they brought with them a name that for a century had been peculiarly honored and revered in Groton, and continued to be so for 80 years longer.
The ancestor of the family, Valentine Wightman, had founded Groton Baptist Church in 1710, and from that date until 1890, a Wightman had stood in its pulpit. Valentine was its pastor for 37 years; his son, Timothy, for 49 years; his grandson, John Gamo Wightman, for 45 years, and so on for a period of 180 years.
Mrs. John J. Wightman and Mrs. John Walworth were sisters of Youngs L. Morgan, and their mother was a Ledyard, sister of Col. Chrystopher Ledyard, the Revolutionary hero, who was murdered at Fort Griswald by the British officer to whom he had surrendered. Religion and patriotism, therefore, came hand in hand with the Wightmans, Morgans, and Walworths as they journeyed to Cleveland so early in the last century.
Mr. Wightman bought 10 acres of land on Broadway near Woodland Hills Road, and soon afterward built a country tavern which became one of the most famous in this section of the Reserve. It stood on the south side of the street and opposite of what is now St. Alexis Hospital.
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1811
WIGHTMAN
As might be expected, considering her forebears, many accounts of Mrs. Wightman's fine manners and dignified presence have been handed down to her grandchildren. In one way she was most fortunate. Surrounded by her kin who had settled all about her, she did not have to suffer the loneliness that many a well-bred and refined pioneer woman had to endure when isolated from relatives and congenial friends. Two of her family of children came with her from Connecticut, Deborah, three years of age, and John G., an infant. The others were born in the old homestead in Broadway.
Children of John J. and Deborah Morgan Wightman:
Deborah Ledyard Wightman, b. 1808; m. 1828, William Herman Knapp, b. 1801. She died 1880.
John Griswald Wightman, b. 1810; died 24 years old..
Isaac Avery Wightman, b. 1812; died 1873, unmarried..
Lucy Adelaide Wightman, b. 1814; m. 1842, Lewis Pangburn, b. 1816; d. 1894..
David Long Wightman, b. 1818; d .1877; m. 1839, Adeline Johnson b. 1822; d. 1899.
Sherburn Henry Wightman. b.1819; d. 1904, the last of his family
Horace F. Wightman, b. 1821; d. 1868; m. Mary Burgess
Harriet Lucretia Wightman, b. 1825; d. 1878; m. William K. Nye
David Long Wightman was a most useful member of the community all through his long life. He was connected with the Humane Society for many years, and worked for the amelioration of suffering with heart and soul.
Mrs. Deborah C. Wightman died in 1827, 32 years of age. John J. Wightman died in 1837, aged 49 years.
Deborah Wightman, the oldest of the children, was but 17 years old when her mother died. Her husband was a civil engineer, and in that capacity he worked on the construction of the Ohio Canal. But, for some years after his marriage he taught school, and often in the long, cold winters the young couple were separated for months, his school being sometimes twelve or more miles away. When Deborah Wightman Knapp died, the text chosen for her funeral was, "And they shall be given a new name." The clergy who officiated said that her ceIestial name might aptly be "Burden-Bearer," for, in over forty years of his acquaintance with her, he had not known a time when some otherwise homeless creature was not having a home with "Aunty Knapp."
Lucy Wightman Pangburn removed to Akron after her marriage, and later lived in Massillon. Her house was known as the "Preachers' Home," so freely and openly were clergymen welcomed, and several times she took in the whole family of one until a house was found for it, or until household furniture had arrived. She and her husband were "Uncle Lew and Aunt Lucy" to the whole community, and they worked together for the good of humanity. Like her sister, Mrs. Pangburn sheltered many a waif, oId or young, until death furnished a heavenly one, or circumstances relieved her from further ministrations.
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1811
STRONG
A notable arrival of this year was John Harris Strong. He came to act as a land agent for Connecticut owners of big tracts of real estate in this vicinity. He settled in Euclid, but was so identified with the business interests of Cleveland, that he was considered a resident of the town. Some of his children settled on Euclid Avenue below E. 107th Street, within a few years of their arrival here.
John H. Strong was the son of Deacon Josiah and Mary Harris Strong, and was born in Middleton, Conn., in 1762. At 20 years of age he married Elisabeth Cary of Chatham, Conn., two years his junior. She was a sister of Mrs. Timothy Doan, a pioneer of .1802.
Mr. and Mrs. Strong brought a family of 8 children with them, the oldest of whom was a son 27 years old, and the youngest, also a son, four years of age.
Mr. Strong became a judge of the common pleas of this county in 1817, and served until 1823, the year he died, at 61 years of age. He was one of the incorporators of Cleveland's first bank in 1816.
Judge Strong owned much real estate in Euclid and East Cleveland. All the south side of Euclid Avenue, between E. 107th and E. 79th Street, at one time belonged to him. A part of this property is still in the possession of his grandchildren.
The children of John H. and Elisabeth Carey Strong:
(1) James Strong, b. 1784; m. Ann Eliza Baldwin, dau. of Seth C. Baldwin; 2nd, Laura Miles.
(2) Walter Strong, b. 1786; m. Betsey Smith.
(3) Esther Strong, b. 1788; m. Theron Freeman
(4) Rodney Strong, b. 1790; m. Mary Taylor.
(5) John Harris Strong, b. 1795; died 1809.
(6) Josiah Conklin Strong, b. 1800; died 1839; m. Rebecca Brown.
(7) Thomas Jefferson Strong, b. 1802; m. Laura Bishop.
(8) Mary Ann Strong, b. 1805; m. John Cone of Haddam, Conn
(9) James Madison Strong, b. 1807; m. Margaret Brush.
James Strong, oldest child of John H. Strong, was 35 years old when in 1819 he married Ann Eliza Baldwin, 16 years his junior. She died eight years later, leaving a young son and a daughter, James H. and Ann Olivia Strong.
Mr. Strong's second wife was the daughter of the famous pioneer, Lorenzo Carter, and the widow of Erastus Miles of Newburgh. By this marriage he had three daughters.
James Strong's life in Cleveland was mostly spent on Euclid Avenue, near East 107th Street. He was one of the early sheriffs of this county.
(2) Mrs. Walter Strong was the daughter of Samuel and Ruth Smith of East Cleveland. Her sister was the wife of Jarvis Clark, son of David the pioneer. The Walter Strongs, the Smiths and the Clarks removed in the 40s to Elkhart, Ind., where they became very important and valuable pioneers of that town.
(3) Esther Strong m. Theron Freeman, son of Nathan and Cynthia
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Freeman. Esther died in 1826, and Theron in 1830, leaving six young children. Two others had died in infancy.
The children were : Samuel, John, James, Josiah, Sarah, and Esther Freeman.
(4) A Rodney Strong was living in 1856 on Pittsburg Street (Broadway). His occupation that of farmer.
(5) John Harris Strong and his wife, Mary Taylor Strong, had five children. Mary died, and Rodney Strong married a second time and had two more children.
(6) Mr. Josiah Strong's wife was the daughter of Deliverance and Mary Brown. He died in 1829, leaving two little sons. She died in 1835, six years later. The children were : George Clark Strong, and Edwin Miles Strong.
(7) Thomas Jefferson Strong married a daughter of Abram and Anna Freeman Bishop. They had two sons and five daughters. Thomas J. Strong, Jr., the second son, was killed at Stone River, Tenn., in the Civil War.
(8) John Cone, the first husband of Mary Ann Strong, died in 1835, leaving four children. She married 2nd, in 1836, Hiram Brooks. She had four children by this marriage. She died in 1863.
(9) Mrs. James M. Strong was the daughter of Edward and Patty Brush of Willoughby, 0. Mr. and Mrs. Strong had nine children, two of whom died in infancy. The oldest, John Harris Strong, lived in Berea, O.
1811
RUMMAGE
Thomas Rummage, who came to Cleveland from Pennsylvania in 1811 and married "Polly" Johnson, a sister of Captains Levi and Jonathan Johnson, left a lasting impression on the town through his own strong personality and that of his sons, also long and prominent citizens and lake captains.
He owned two or more acres of land on the south side of Euclid Avenue, including the Opera House site, and extending nearly to the Taylor Arcade. He also possessed a large farm on the West Side along West 25th Street, and spent his time alternately between the two places.
He was one of the early builders of boats, and was associated with his brother-in-law, Capt. Levi Johnson, in the latter's first ventures in that line.
Capt. Rummage was one of the first victims of the cholera epidemic of 1832, dying in a few hours after being stricken with the disease, and was buried on his farm. His oldest son was but 13 years of age at the time. Capt. Rummage's widow lived some years after his death, at 27 Euclid Avenue.* Her grave is in Erie Street Cemetery.
* Corner of Sheriff. The lot was 40 feet front and 198 feet on Sheriff.
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The children of Capt. Thomas and Polly Johnson Rummage:
Sarah Rummage, m. William Van Norman..
Capt. Solon Rummage, m. Margaret Davis.
Capt. Harvey Rummage, m. Harriet Harbaugh.
Martha Rummage, m. Thomas Warburton
Mary Rummage, m. Louis Moreau of Plattsburg, N. Y.
Louise Moreau, daughter of Louis and Mary Moreau, married Merrick Johnson, son of Luke Johnson, another Cleveland pioneer, and resides on Kinsman Road, this city.
An amusing and unusual story is related of one of these Rummage captains. Which one is not told. The Canal Bank, an old Cleveland concern, failed in the early part of November, 1854. Only the day before, Rummage had deposited a thousand dollars, his profits from a lake season of hardship and danger. Upon hearing of the bank failure, he entered it and demanded his money, which, of course, was refused.
"It is all the money I have in the world. Hand it over quickly or I'll kill you!" he shouted.
The officers of the defunct institution took no chances on that, and he got what he came for. The assignees, afterward appointed, could have demanded its return, but probably, knowing the man, were not disposed to be too exacting.
1811
CROCKER
Jedediah Davis Crocker was one of the early large land-owners of East Cleveland. He was born in Lee, Mass., 1785, and died in Cleveland in 1843. He married Deborah Doan in 1813, two years after his arrival in Ohio.
Mr. Crocker was a farmer. He was the original owner of what is now Wade Park, and sold it to Samuel Cozad soon after the latter came to Cleveland.
The children of Jedediah and Deborah Crocker:
Sarah Crocker, b. 1816; m. Eli Adams. She died 1862.
Timothy Davis Crocker, b. 1819; m.Eliza Proctor Otis. He died 1898.
Davis J. Crocker, b. 1822.
Timothy D. Crocker was long a prominent citizen of Cleveland. In the Iatter years of his life he lived in a fine residence on Euclid Avenue, near Sterling, now East 30th Street. It adjoined the residence of his brother-in-law, Charles A. Otis.
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Mr. and Mrs. T. D. Crocker had several children who reached maturity, but only one survives, Laura Crocker. With her widowed mother she spends most of her life in eastern states or in traveling.
Samuel Crocker, who may have been a brother of Jedediah, was an early resident of Euclid. He married Sophrona Smith in 1814.
RESIDENTS OF THE HAMLET DURING THE WAR OF 1812
George Wallace
Horace Perry
James Root
Samuel Williamson
Horatio Perry
Mathew Williamson
Elias Murray
Widow Calahan
John Walworth
Harvey Murray
Levi Johnson
Dr. David Long
Richard Bailey
Major Samuel Jones
Alfred Kelley
Amasa Bailey
Hezekiah King
Pliny Mowrey
Abraham Hickox
Hiram Hanchett
Noble H. Merwin
Nathan Perry
David Henderson
Of the above all have been traced save Hezekiah King and Hiram Hanchett. James Root returned east soon after the war.
1812
BATES
Noble Bates, and his wife, Aurilla Booth, and two young daughters came to Newburgh in 1812 from Essex, Vt. Two more daughters were born in Newburgh.
Mr. Bates was a miller, and the family depended for bread upon the flour brought to his mill to be ground. For some reason, there was a time when the settlers had no wheat to grind, or were too busy to take it to the mill. Consequently, the Bates family were obliged to subsist entirely on corn-meal. One night, after all the children were in bed and asleep, Mr. Bates came home from the mill bearing a sack of flour. Mrs. Bates made a big pan of biscuits and baked them as soon as possible, then called up the children to partake, as they had gone to bed complaining of hunger. They had a very interesting family of four daughters.
Sophia Bates, m. Barnabas Laughton in 1830, and went to Chicago. Five years later, she returned a widow with two sons. Afterward she married Albert Lucy Bates, m. Benj. Wiggins of Kingsbury, and had one daughter. Newburgh, and had one daughter, and two sons. After Kingsbury's death, he married Thomas Garfield uncle of the President, and another son was added to her children. Sophia Bates Garfield was energetic and jolly
Elvira Bates, m. Stephen V. R. Forbes of Chicago.
Eunice Bates, m. Eden Miles, eldest son of Theodore and Lydia Clark Miles. She had two sons and two daughters.
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The four Bates sisters were very active workers in the Sanitary Commission during the Civil War, gathering hospital supplies, etc. They were beloved by all that knew them.
Mrs. Stephen Forbes had three daughters, Aurilla, Plina, and Paulina Forbes. All now living in the far west or south.
Sophia Bates' sons were David and Peter Laughton, and Thomas Garfield. Her daughter, Harriet Kingsbury, married John Hofste. David Laughton married Calista Garfield, his step-sister.
1812
INGERSOLL
In 1812 the Connecticut Land Company sold 900 acres in Newburgh to a Lee, Mass., man, who intended to occupy it with his family. He had eight children, and perhaps planned to give each of them a hundred-acre lot and retain one for himself. The purchase of so large a tract meant in that day about $1,400 cash or a very good credit. The land extended from Buckeye Road southward. Its western boundary adjoined the Edwards farm on Woodhill Road, and its eastern line stretched beyond Rice Avenue.
The man who invested so largely in Newburgh pioneer forest was Elijah Ingersoll, member of a family who had lived in Massachusetts for many generations, the first one of which was John Ingersoll, who with his brother Richard came from England in 1629, and settled in Salem. The mother of John Ingersoll's sons was Mary Hunt, a granddaughter of Gov. Webster of Connecticut. The parents of Elijah Ingersoll, the Newburgh pioneer, were David and Lydia Ingersoll Ingersoll. They were cousins.
Elijah's maternal grandfather, Moses Ingersoll, was a large landholder of Great Barrington, Mass., and the former may have inherited some of this property, thereby paving the way for his Newburgh investment. He was born. in 1766, which made him 46 years old, when he came here in 1812.
At the age of 20, he had married Polly Barlow. They had nine children. She died in 1807, when 44 years old, and was buried in the Lee, Mass., Cemetery.
Elijah Ingersoll married 2nd, Betsey Thomas, who accompanied him and his eight children to Newburgh. She lived here but four years. Six months after her death, Mr. Ingersoll married 3rd, Mrs. Rosanna Churchill Parker, a widow with children.
The Ingersoll farm-house was five miles east of the Public Square. It stood on the north side of Ingersoll Road, near its junction with Rice Avenue. It was a large frame-building, with a wing, and was occupied continuously by five generations of Ingersolls, the last three of whom were born in it.
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The children of Elijah and Polly Barlow Ingersoll:
Clarissa Ingersoll, b. 1787; m. Amos Kingsbury.
Bathsheba Ingersoll, b. 1789; m. Justin Battles..
Nathan Ingersoll, b. 1791; m. Polly Perry.
Laban Ingersoll, b. 1793; m. Polly Burke ; 2nd, Olive Ormsby, 1821.
Levi Ingersoll, b. 1795; m. Deideman Parker.
Isaac Ingersoll, b. 1797; m. Betsey Parker
Elisha Ingersoll, b. 1799; unmar- ried ; d. 17 years old.
Lucinda Ingersoll, b. 1802; unmarried ; d. 25. years old.
Three of their children, Clarissa, Bathsheba and Nathan, were married before coming west.
Polly Perry married Nathan Ingersoll when she was 22 years old, and came with him on her wedding journey to Ohio in a wagon containing their household goods. During the first years of her residence in the wilderness, she was very much afraid of the Indians, who were quite numerous in the locality at certain seasons of the year.
One night, when sitting alone in their cabin, holding in her lap her first babe, then six months old, there came a loud noise at the door, as if some one had thrown himself against it. She was greatly frightened. Her only thought was "Indians." She rushed to the bedstead and hid her infant under the feather-bed, then went slowly and apprehensively to the door which was still being thumped. Upon opening it, in bounded a large black dog who evidently had lost his master and had the intelligence to seek shelter in a house.
Mrs. Nathan Ingersoll proved in later years to be a woman of great force of character. All her endowments fitted her for the hardships of pioneer life. She would walk miles to succor some needy family, or to nurse the sick. She never once turned away any one asking for shelter, or empty-handed when hungry.
Upon her 90th birthday she gave a party to her kin and with her own hands made cake for the occasion. The next day she walked a mile to the home of a relative and insisted upon milking the cow when the time came for it that evening. She was the daughter of Abraham and Temperance Hatch Perry of Lee, Mass. In the 68 years that she lived in this locality she saw Cleveland grow from the little hamlet of five houses, to be a great city of thousands of homes.
The children of Nathan and Polly Perry Ingersoll:
Adaline Ingersoll, b. 1813; m.Thomas Crosby..
Samantha Ingersoll, m. Charles Hall.
Jane Ingersoll, unmarried..
Lucy Ingersoll, m. John Kelly.
Edwin P. Ingersoll, m. Elizabeth Walters
John Ingersoll, m. Hannah Abbey.
Barlow Ingersoll, m. Katherine Ford Higgins
Levi Ingersoll lived all his Cleveland life in the old homestead, of which he held a life-lease from his father. His wife was a daughter of his step-mother. The latter was very kind to her husband's children.
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The original deed of the Ingersoll property is still in the possession of the family, and in the division of land the latter was simply transferred to children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Many of the family are yet living on the property, and not far from the site of the old homestead.
The children of Levi and Diedema Parker Ingersoll:
Clarissa Ingersoll, m. W. P. Hudson. He was a grandson of Ammihaz. Sherwin.
Catherine Ingersoll, m. Martin Winegart
Rose Ann Ingersoll, m. E. B Wood.
The early death of Polly Burke, first wife of Laban Ingersoll, leaving young children, was a tragedy for the latter.
Florilla, the eldest daughter, was but six years of age at the time, and was taken to the home of an aunt who cared for her until she was eleven years old. Then, giving her as many pennies as her years counted, the aunt told her that henceforth she must take care of herself. Which she proceeded to do, but just how the story does not relate. The Ingersolls, like most every other family of the time, were land-poor, the taxes on it were hard to meet, with money so scarce that every cent counted for as much as dollars do at the present day. Florilla married Henry Marble in 1838 and had three sons and two daughters.
Eliza Ann Ingersoll, born in 1819, was but an infant at her mother's death. She married Rufus Ruggles, son of Cyrus and Anna Stilson Ruggles. She was a very industrious woman and devoted to her four sons and two daughters. In her recollections of pioneer days the poverty of the community was often her theme. Baked potatoes moistened with milk was sometimes the only fare for weeks at a time.
The Ingersoll family burial-lots are in the East Cleveland Cemetery and the Congregational Churchyard in East Cleveland.
1812
DIBBLE
Previous to the year 1811, Elisha Dibble and family were living in Aurelius, N. Y. Mrs. Dibble was Phebe Stone, the daughter of Ebenezer and Mary Stone, and she was married in 1791.
They had a large family of children, every year or two adding to the number, until, by September, 1810, there were nine in all, Samuel, the oldest, 18 years of age, and the youngest, Lyman, had just opened his eyes upon a world where babies were almost at a discount. However, Lyman may have been just as dear to the household as any that had preceded him. But the parents began to look the future in the face with dismay. They had ambitions for their young brood that they felt would never be realized by remaining where they were, and in seeking for some
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more favorable location, they were persuaded to remove to the River Raisin, or Monroe, Mich., as it was afterward called.
They were preceded or followed by other eastern people, so that the place was quite a settlement. The War of 1812 broke out within a year. Rumors of British troops and Indians advancing from Detroit upon them reached Monroe, and panic-stricken, every one began to flee, as they thought, for their lives, toward Fort Meigs or Cleveland.
Mr. Dibble and Mr. Kent secured a small boat, placed their families in it with such clothing, bedding, and food. as could be stored away, and started for Cleveland. The first night they encamped near Sandusky, the next one many miles eastward, and so, working their way close to shore until they reached the mouth of Rocky River, where they remained a day or two, while the women washed clothing, and the children stretched their cramped limbs.
When Cleveland was reached, there was found to be a scarcity of dwellings, causing much anxiety and delay in procuring shelter for such a big boat-load of adults and children. But the hospitable doors of Rudolphus Edwards' double log-house on Woodland Hills Road opened to the weary, discouraged refugees, and they here remained until one of their own was erected.
Elisha Dibble seems to have been a patriot ready to sacrifice for his country, for in spite of his large family and unsettled circumstances, he raised a local company of volunteers, of which he took command, and joined Gen. Perkins at Huron. He remained in service until taken very ill, returning home only in time to die. His family was so rejoiced to see him, and so overcome at his physical condition, that they all shed tears. A little daughter of Rudolphus Edwards, happening to be there at the time and seeing his sword and gun, and the excitement his arrival had created, thought something dreadful was about to happen, and ran home as fast as her little legs would carry her. Capt. Dibble was but 43 years of age when he died. Samuel Dibble, the oldest son, who had joined Capt. Dibble's company, remained in the army until the close of the war.
He then took his father's place in caring for his mother, brothers, and sisters. He bought 50 acres of farming land south of Doan's Corners, near Fairmount and Cedar Avenues, and placed the family upon it.
While living here, the wolves were very troublesome. They howled around the house at night, terrifying the children, and adding to the mother's worries and forebodings. But after a while, the whole family became so accustomed to their weird noise that they ceased to fear or to lose sleep by it.
Elisha Dibble's death occurred in 1813, and each succeeding year, for a time, Mrs. Dibble suffered bereavement in the loss of children. Her daughter, Polly Dibble, 18 years of age, died the following one. Hosea Dibble, 15 years old, died in 1815, in 1816 Lavina Dibble Williams, 23 years of age, in childbed, and later, Martin Dibble, who had gone south in search of fortune, died there.
The rest of the children were: Anson, Lovisa, Lewis, and Lyman Dibble. The latter died at 20 years of age.
Samuel married, 1st Miss Jewett of Newburgh, 2nd Miss Tibbitts, and moved to Elkhart, Ind. They had but one child, named Phebe for her
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DIBBLE
grandmother, who married Frank Dean, and still resides in Elkhart. Anson Dibble moved to Porter, Mich., married a Miss Lydia Odell, and two of their children are still living in that town. Lewis Dibble proved to be the one child in the large family who remained in Cleveland, and bequeathed the Dibble name to posterity. He sailed on the lakes for 17 years, and for a time had charge of the U. S. Marine Hospital, still standing on Lake Street. We find his name in connection with other public services, and in view of all his parents sacrificed in behalf of their children, it is a gratification to know that one of them left an honorable name and considerable property behind him.
In 1826, he purchased 50 feet of land on Euclid Avenue for $100. It was just east of the Opera House entrance, now worth $300,000. In 1839, he invested in 15 acres on Norwood Ave., off of Woodland Ave., which afterward justified his judgment of real estate. He married Mary Ammock, daughter of John Ammock, who came to Cleveland in 1830, and lived No. 49 Bolivar Street, when the directory of 1837 was compiled.
The children of Lewis and Mary Dibble:
Phebe Dibble, m. Samuel Thompson
Lewis L. Dibble, m. Josephine Cagan..
Charles E. Dibble, m. Belle Hildebrand.
Minerva Dibble, m. John J. Shepard
Florence Dibble, m. McKinney
Anson Dibble, m. Nelly Lines.
Dibble Ave., between Willson Ave. and Dunham Ave., was named for the family.
Lovisa Dibble, born 1804, daughter of Elisha and Phebe Dibble, married Capt. Ebenezer Stark. The family lived in the neighborhood of Fairmount and Cedar Aves., where Capt Stark owned 100 acres of land. Previously, he had a ten-acre lot on Euclid Ave., near Giddings, which he foolishly sold for $150. He owned several city lots down town. He had built for him a cottage on Prospect Street, corner of Huntington, and offered in payment a lot near the corner of Euclid and Sheriff. The offer was not accepted. Ready money was of more value, those days, more necessary to almost any resident of Cleveland than land. Most people were land-rich and pocket-poor.
Mrs. Stark had a retentive memory, and was fond of repeating the poems she read and loved. She was a pleasant-mannered, cheerful woman, though life had given her much that would have been brooded over by one of a more despondent temperament. She had to bring up her family alone, and she lost her only daughters. Her son, Henry Stark, married Abigail Thorp of Collamer. James Stark died a hero's death, was killed at Chattanooga in the Civil War, 124th Regiment. Louis Dibble Stark married Lorain J. Ferris.
Mrs. Lovisa Stark was a devout Episcopalian, a member of Trinity Church. For several years before her death she made her home with her son, Lewis Dibble Stark, and died aged 76 years.
For many years, before the names of streets were arbitrarily changed to numbers only, there was a Stark Avenue north of Euclid Ave., near
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CALAHAN
Fairmount Ave. It was named for this family who owned much property at that time in the vicinity. It probably was cut through their farm.
Mrs. Phebe Stone Dibble, widow of Elisha, in 1816 married Abram Hickox, the noted Cleveland blacksmith. She was his second wife, and when she died in 1839, aged 70 years, they were living at 27 Prospect Street. She is buried by the side of Elisha Dibble in Erie Street Cemetery, near the front entrance.
1813
CALAHAN
Among those who came to Cleveland during the War of 1812 was a young Irishman from Quebec, Canada, named Calahan, who had been in the British service and participated in the battle of the Thames River. He was subsequently taken prisoner by our forces. His wife and two little children followed him to camp, and they joined the American settlers who fled by boats to Cleveland after Hull's surrender.
When the war closed Calahan joined his family here for a time. For he was truly a soldier of fortune ; gay, attractive, irresponsible, leading a roving life ; returning to his family at irregular intervals, then off again, generally leaving another infant for his wife to support. Finally she steeled her heart sufficiently to drive him away altogether, and he never returned.
The life of this young woman was one that commands the greatest admiration and respect. She was of French origin, and her maiden name was either More or Moore. She was small, extremely neat, and very industrious and ambitious. The family occupied a log-cabin on the flats, now Calahan Basin, and this she kept exquisitely neat, continuously scrubbing it inside and out. With all the French woman's gift for making much of little, using every resource at hand, and constantly reaching out and adding to it, she succeeded, eventually, in supporting her little brood in comfort, and in giving them the limited educational advantages of that day.
Her little garden of vegetables and flowers was ever free from weeds; her flocks of ducks and geese, floating on the river by day and carefully housed at night, brought in many a dollar in cash or exchange. Her chickens, roaming the wide expanse of meadow and hillsides for food, were another source of income. Her pigs, leading lives of uncomfortable cleanliness, and later the family cow, were scrupulously tended and made to contribute to the family welfare.
The two sons born in Quebec, Thomas and Samuel, were but five and three years of age when brought to Cleveland, but soon, under the direction of their mother, began to assist her in many ways. They became adepts at hunting and fishing, and in season kept the table supplied with
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fish and game. An incident will show the degree of parental government she exercised over her children.
Samuel shot a wild turkey one New Year's day, not far from and east of the Public Square. While on his way home with it he was hailed by Nathan Perry, Jr., and urged to swap it for lead, which he did. Returning home he melted the lead and began running it into bullets. His mother noticed it, and knowing that there had been no lead in the house, she questioned him. Upon learning the facts she was greatly incensed.
"Here it is New Year's Day, with nothing in the house for dinner, and you have fairly given away the turkey we needed for our own use. Now you get yourself off, quick, and don't show your face again until you bring back something else eatable!"
Samuel started out much depressed in spirit and dubious of the outlook, but in a bend of the river free from ice he came upon a big flock of wild ducks, and at one shot secured enough for his purpose.
Samuel, Thomas, Alexander, James and Julian, Mrs. Calahan's sons, were very popular, and in all mention of the young people of that day they seemed to be leading spirits in all fun and frolic. Her cabin was the rendezvous for the best element of boyhood and young manhood, and her memory as "Mother Calahan" was revered for many a year after her own had closed, which happened in 1849.
Samuel Calahan married Harriet C. Hedges, born in Virginia in 1811, and died in 1887. They were married in Circleville, 0. She was thin, of medium height, and very good-looking, and her sons think no better mother ever lived.
Samuel was in commercial business for some years, and afterward dealt in real estate. He was associated closely with the big boom that created the "Center Allotment" in 1833, and in the crash that followed several estates were entrusted in his hands for settlement. His son, John Calahan, inherited some of this responsibility which has lasted nearly seventy years.
It has been repeatedly declared that James S. Clarke, who figured so prominently in city affairs and real estate deals, never married. Mr. John Calahan is ready to swear that Mr. Clarke, some years after his removal from the city, visited his father, Samuel Calahan, and was accompanied by his wife.
Tom Calahan was a tall, large, handsome man, universally admired and respected. He was a member of the city council, a prominent mason, and active in politics. During the cholera epidemics he was kind and helpful. In 1830 he married Miss Lavinia S. Elwell, an eastern lady, and his only daughter by this marriage, Harriet, became Mrs. H. P. Danks of Brooklyn, N. Y.
Tom Calahan died in 1862. He had previously lost all his property by signing a note for a friend and in going on a bail-bond.
Alexander Calahan married Orvilla Ball, daughter of James and Mary Ball of Stoddard, N. H. He lived near the corner of Lake and Water streets for some years, and afterward near the foot of Erie Street. His children were Mary, Martha, George and Edward Calahan.
James Calahan married a Miss Nicholson and lived on a farm in Lakewood.
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Isabella Calahan, the only daughter of the pioneers, married a Mr. Hendrick of Olmsted Falls. Her children were Frank, Louis, Albert, Jane, Julia, and Mary Hendrick.
Julian Calahan died unmarried.
1813
ROBINSON
Stephen Robinson of St. Lawrence County, N. Y., and his wife, Mary Benedict Robinson of Vermont, were among the earliest settlers of Newburgh. They came in 1813.
Mr. Robinson was a soldier of the War of 1812. He died in 1832, and his wife in 1854. Some of the family removed to Bedford, O., and became early settlers of that town.
The children of Stephen and Mary Robinson:
Daniel Robinson..
Isaac Robinson.
Nathan Robinson..
Maria Robinson..
Ezra Robinson
Ebenezer Robinson..
Nathaniel Robinson.
Sally Robinson
Anna Robinson..
John Robinson
Newman Robinson
Cornelia Robinson
1814
WALSWORTH
Silas Walsworth lived on Superior Street near the Stockwells and Deacon Moses White. He dealt in hides and leather, and his advertisement for the purchase and sale of them appears in earliest issues of the Cleveland Herald.
It is claimed that all of his children were born in this place. In that case he came here as early as 1814.
He was the son of Daniel and Mary Southworth Walsworth, and removed to Cleveland from Rome, N. Y. His wife was Miss Sophia Brown before her marriage. She was noted while living here for her skill as a housekeeper, and for the care she took of her six little children, whom she kept beautifully clean and neat. She made all their clothes, which were daintily fashioned and the envy and despair of other mothers.
Mr. and Mrs. Walsworth were members of the Old Stone Church, and their second son, in after years, became a noted Presbyterian clergy
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man of New York State. The family left Cleveland some time in the '30s, and made their home in Wisconsin, where Mr. Walsworth died in 1849.
The children of Silas and Sophia Walsworth:
Jared Stocking Walsworth, b. 1814; m. Mrs. Mary Forsyth.
Rev. Edward Brown Walsworth, b. 1817; m. Sarah A. Pearson.
Francis Minor Walsworth, died in Berkeley, Cal.
Maria L. Walsworth, b. 1822; died 1859; m. Hilo Howett, a missionary
Silas Walsworth, b. 1826; m.. Mary I. Livingston
Mary E. Walsworth, b. 1829; died
1832.
1814
GARLICK
Abel B. Garlick, born in Middleburg, on the Green Mountains of Vermont, was a stone-cutter by trade. He became a resident of Cleveland village in 1814. His shop was on Bank Street. The site is now occupied by Morgan & Root's wholesale dry-goods store.
Abel was joined, in 1819, by his 14-year-old brother, Thodatus Garlick, who served an apprenticeship with him in the marble-cutting trade. They worked together for a year or two. Abel would mark inscriptions on grave-stones with a pencil, and the younger brother would carve them with his chisel.
The latter evidently worked at the trade as a means rather than an end, for he studied medicine and became "Dr. Thodatus Garlick." He removed to Youngstown, 0., and for many years following was widely known as a practising physician in that locality. In 1853, he returned to Cleveland, and entered the Marine Hospital as a member of its staff.
Although highly regarded as a medical practitioner, Dr. Garlick's most valuable service to the city, and the whole country, was his scientific research, to which he was devoted. He joined the Cleveland Academy of Natural Science, founded by Dr. Kirtland, and thus became identified with the small but distinguished group of men who in their day compelled their contemporaries of the long-settled eastern states to listen and to pay reverence. Dr. Garlick was greatly interested in the artificial propagation of fish, and suggestions made to the national government regarding it and coldly rejected, were adopted within recent years.
Of Dr. Garlick's family nothing can be learned save that a son, Wilimont H. Garlick, M. D., resided in Youngstown.
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WATKINS
Timothy Watkins was 41, and his wife, Sophia Heard Watkins, 39 years of age when they came to Cleveland from East Haddam, Conn., in 1814, and their oldest child, Rosetta, had married and settled down in the east before her parents left for Ohio.
Mr. Watkins was not a man of much means, and after making the payment on his farm on Euclid Avenue, and building a log-house on the site of the present Calvary Church, he had but little left with which to buy comforts for his family, and for some years they suffered privation. The first winter of their arrival this log-house had but three sides, the fourth one -remaining open to wind and weather.
Their son, George Watkins, could not refer to those days and of his mother without deep feeling, for he loved her dearly and could not forget what she endured as a pioneer woman. The limitations of her wardrobe, for instance, was such that, for a long time, every Saturday, she had to wait for the family to be all in bed so that she could wash the underclothes she wore (there being no change of them), and hang them before the big fire-place to dry. And the memory of this, and his mother's patience and loyalty under all family conditions and circumstances was a poignant grief to him for the remainder of her son's life. She was born in Chatham, Conn., and married in 1795.
The children of Timothy and Sophia Watkins:
George Watkins, b. 1812; m. Louise Slaght ; 2nd, Elisabeth Harlow..
Rosetta Watkins, m. Michael Brooks of New York State.
Watson Watkins, b. 1796; d. 1855.
Timothy Watkins, b. 1804; m. Adeline Slaght. Both died in 1843, leaving Sophia, Sarah, and Hosmer Watkins
Sophia Watkins, b. 1806; m. Nicho las McIlrath, and died 25 years old.
Russell Watkins, d. 1841, aged 26.
George Watkins left a vivid and interesting description of the early country school-house with its rude, quaint arrangement and furnishings, which will be found in Kennedy's History of Cleveland, page 193.
George Watkins built a small tavern a few rods west of the loghomestead, and kept it for many years. He afterward owned a grocery store on Euclid between Fairmount and Doan, and lived to be a very old man. He married in his youth, Louisa Slaght, who died in 1841. She was a sister of Adeline Slaght Watkins, and both were daughters of Abram Slaght, who, after living some years on Euclid Ridge, moved to the corner of St. Clair Street and East Madison, now Addison Road. He had two sons and five .daughters. Sarah Slaght married a Brush. Martha Slaght married Henry Ford, and Elisabeth Slaght married Abram Nott, or Knott.
One evening, after his wife's death, George Watkins attended a singing school held in a little pioneer school-house on the corner of Euclid and Doan. This was replaced by a Congregational church, which in turn was torn down to make way for a big bank building. Here he met Miss Elizabeth Harlow, a daughter of Samuel, of Goshen, Orange Co., N. Y. She was on a visit to her sister Sarah, who had married Sears Decker.
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(He had a brother, Wilson Decker.) A mutual attraction led to a wedding, and she became the mother of his children, dying in 1899.
Children of George and Elisabeth Watkins:
George Watkins, m. Venia Lewis, and lived in Boston..
Adaline Watkins, m. George Stebbens.
Mary Watkins, m. Henry Gates.
Charles Watkins, m. Nelly Shannon
Watson Watkins, brother of Timothy, and his. wife,-Eliza Green. of Plymouth, Mass. (?), a daughter of Daniel Green, were also pioneers. The two brothers seem to have bought land and lived together, for Mrs. Eliza Watkins died in the house corner of Euclid and East 79th St., in 1836. She was but 38 years of age at her death, and her only daughter but 8 years. She was a Methodist, and belonged to the East End society of that faith.
The children of Watson and Eliza Green Watkins:
Edward Watkins, m. Chloe Goff of Geneva, Ohio..
Rosetta Watkins, m. John Banford.
George Watkins, m. Eliza Wardwell of Rhode Island
1814
STARK
Abel Stark, born in Colchester, Conn., in 1766, and Lydia Fletcher Stark, born in Salisbury, Conn., in 1770, came to Cleveland at a very early date, probably 1814. Their children were Henry, Hyde, Silas, Pamelia, and Ebenezer Stark.
The youngest, Ebenezer Fletcher Stark, born 1798 in Canaan, Conn., was a prominent and useful citizen of the East End until his life was suddenly ended at the age of 46 years. In an effort to save some sailors from a vessel wrecked on Lake Erie in a severe storm and ashore near the mouth of the river, he was drowned. He owned a farm south of Euclid Avenue, near Fairmount Street (East 107th), which proved to be very valuable property. Stark Avenue received its name from this family.
Capt. Ebenezer Stark married Mary Louise Dibble, born 1804, daughter of Elisha and Phebe Stone Dibble, pioneers of 1813.
The children of Ebenezer and Mary Dibble Stark:
Henry Stark, b. 1825; m. Abigail Thorp.
James Stark, b. 1833; m. Ann Clark..
Lewis Dibble Stark, b. 1837; m. Lorain H. U. Ferris, daughter of Lyman Ferris
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1814
AMOS BRAINARD
Mrs. Ebenezer Stark died in 1876 at the age of 72 years.
Pamelia Stark, daughter of Abel and Lydia Stark, married John McVene. The couple lived on the State Road south of Lake View Cemetery, and reared a large family of children. John McVene evidently died previous to 1856, as the Cleveland directory of that year states that his widow Pamelia is living at 367 Lake Street.
The children of John and Pamelia Stark McVene, as near as could be ascertained:
Catherine McVene, m. A. C. Curtis.
Pocahontas McVene, m. Dr. Luther Woodruff.
Jane McVene, m. Samuel LeBaron.
Daniel McVene, unmarried.
Jerusha McVene, m. Dr. Geo. Terrill.
Mary McVene, m. Charles Mathias.
Etta McVene, m. Byron Pope.
John McVene, removed to Texas.
1814
AMOS BRAINARD
Amos Brainard of Middlesex County, Conn., one of the earliest settlers of Newburgh, made his western venture when nearly 50 years of age. His wife was Rachel Brainard, daughter of Dudley and Mindwell Ackley Brainard of Haddam, Conn., and a cousin of Amos. Amos Brainard was a farmer and shoemaker, before coming to Newburgh, and lived on a farm in the latter place, toiling early and late to clear it of the timber and heavy undergrowth that covered it.
Mr. and Mrs. Brainard had 13 children, 11 of whom reached maturity and all but one of these married and had families of their own, most of them living in Newburgh. Mr. Brainard met with a sudden and violent death, one day, in 1823. He was in a- field at work with a yoke of oxen, when a furious storm of wind and rain broke upon him, and while hastening back to his dwelling, a falling tree crushed out his life. His wife, standing in the door of her home, and anxiously watching his return, witnessed the sad accident that left her a widow with four of her family of children still of a tender age. She was to undergo another shock and a grief of the same character five years later, when her son Timothy, aged 27, was killed by the caving in of a portion of the Erie Canal upon which he was working.
She was a very superior woman, of a fine heritage, which was passed on to several of her children. She died in 1848, aged 78 years.
The children of Amos and Rachel Brainard:
John R. Brainard, b. 1789; m. in 1812, Lucinda Goff, widow of Joshua Brainard.
Salinda Brainard, b. 1791; m. Richard Bailey, who died 1813. She married 2nd, Enos Cochran, died
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1823; and 3rd, Justus Hamilton Owen of Newburgh. of Newburgh, O. She died 1859, aged 68.
Nancy Brainard, b. 1793; m. in 1818, Demos Brainard, son of Amos and Martha Aiken Brainard of Brooklyn, O.
Amos Brainard, b. 1795; m. in 1826, Lydia Thompson, dau. of Adam and Lydia Thompson.
Demming Brainard, b. 1798; m. Esther Jones. He died 1860.
Julia Selden Brainard, m. Silas
Alvah H. Brainard, b. 1807; m. Melissa Owen, sister of Silas Owen d. 1865.
Timothy Brainard, b. 1801; died suddenly.
Hiram Brainard, b. 1808; m. Elizabeth Hotal.
Sylvester Brainard, b. 1809; removed to Michigan.
Emily Brainard, b. 1811; m. Syl vester Dudley Goff, son of Guernsey and Asenath Brainard Goff.
1814
PELTON
There is no more honored name in pioneer annals than that of Pelton, and it is chiefly due to Jonathan Pelton and his wife, who came to East Cleveland in 1814. Though well along in years to undertake such a change in their lives, 55 and 53 years, they lived long enough to be well known in Cuyahoga County, and influential in the church and society. Two, at least of their daughters, married prominent pioneers of Cleveland village, and their other children intermarried with those of old residents.
Deacon Jonathan Pelton was the son of Joseph Pelton, of Chatham, Conn. Elisabeth Pelton, his wife, was the sister of Timothy and Nathaniel Doan. Her parents were Seth and Mercy Parker Doan, and through her father, who was held prisoner by the British in 1776, all her descendants are eligible to the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution.
Deacon Pelton lived 16 years after making Cleveland his home, and his wife outlived him another 16 years, dying at the age of 85. They had a family of 10 children, four of whom were married when their parents left Chatham. One of these, at least, came west, but of the others it is uncertain.
Children of Jonathan and Elisabeth Doan Pelton:
Deborah Pelton, b. 1783; m. Samuel Cooper.
Jonathan Pelton, b. 1785; died at sea in 1802.
Elisabeth Pelton, b. 1787; m. John Wilcox in 1809.
Parker Pelton, b. 1789; m. Laura Warner in 1813, died in Montville, O.
Beulah Pelton, b. 1791; m. Dennis Cooper in 1810.
Joseph Pelton, b. 1793; m. Obedience Russell in 1818; 2nd, Sally Bidlake.
Seth D. Pelton, b. 1795; m. Mary Porter in 1821.
Mary Pelton, b. 1797; m. Silas Belden in 1821.
Sarah Pelton, b. 1799; m. William Treat in 1822.
Harriet Pelton, m. Milo Hickox
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1814
KELLEY
A mother's love stronger than the attractions of an established home, comforts, ease, and the close ties of neighbors and kin accounted for the arrival in Cleveland of Daniel and Jemima Kelley in the month of October, 1814. He was nearly 60 years of age, and his wife 51 years. They came from Lowville, Oneida Co., N. Y., a place they had helped to found 17 years previously. Mr. Kelley was the son of Daniel and Abigail Reynolds Kelley, and was born in Middletown, Conn., in 1755. His American ancestor, Joseph Kelley, was a ship-builder who settled in Norwich, about 1716.
Mr. Daniel Kelley was a conspicuous figure-in the business and social life of Lowville, and had acquired considerable real-estate and personal property. Mrs. Kelley was the daughter of Elihue and Jemima Paine Stow. Her father, a stern man, perverted the teaching of Jesus Christ, a disciple of whom he professed to be, into a theology that repelled rather than convinced or won. He thought that a woman's sole purpose in life was to rear a family, her only recourse, when each day's duties were performed, the Bible. It is not strange that his children's early training succeeded in estranging them from what was deemed in those days, religion.
Mrs. Kelley had two brothers, Joshua and Silas Stow, both brilliant men. Judge Joshua Stow was a large, landed proprietor, a pioneer of the Western Reserve, and a notable man in Ohio's early history.
The first break in the Kelley family of six sons was when Datus, then twenty-two years of age, became discontented with the severities of western New York winters, and started on foot for Cleveland in 1810. The same year, Alfred Kelley came on, and was soon followed by Irad and Reynolds. The younger boys, Thomas and Daniel, were the only children remaining in the homestead.
Doubtless, the older sons had become interested in Cleveland through the frequent letters of their uncle, Joshua Stow, one of the original members of the Connecticut Land Co. and one of the surveyors who in 1796 laid out the future city. Mrs. Kelley's yearning over her absent boys finds expression in letters written in 1811, in which she says, "It is a severe trial to part with children, to hear of their being sick and not to be able to be with them," and again, "I sometimes almost envy the days that are past when all my children were with me."
And so, in 1814, the household treasures were mostly sacrificed, for but little furniture could be carried in the long journey, and for the second time in their married lives, Mr. and Mrs. Kelley became pioneers of a new country, and voluntarily assumed all the privations that a home in the wilderness entails.
But financially, they were in much better circumstances than almost any other Cleveland settler of that day, as they were able to give each of their sons a thousand dollars to invest in land or business.
The ground-plan of an attractive, brick cottage had been planned by the mother, and she expected it to be in readiness for occupation when she reached Cleveland. But masons were not to be had in the little hamlet, and even the frame-house in which she began housekeeping was not erected until after her arrival.
Meantime, she visited Datus Kelley, her son, who had purchased a
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large farm on the lake shore a mile west of Rocky River. He had returned to LowviIle, N. Y., their former home, in 1811, and brought back a bride, Miss Sarah Dean, and established her in a commodious log-house. He was the oldest of the Kelley children and the first to marry. Daniel, the youngest son, accompanied his parents to Cleveland, while Thomas remained at school in the east.
December 14 finds Mrs. Kelley established in her new home, but unsatisfied because of her separation from Thomas, and she writes, "I almost feel as if I wanted to turn the wheel of time faster. I have seen my five children together, but the want of the other one renders it very incomplete." The desire of her heart was granted, but another three months found the united family circle again broken, not by the temporary absence of a child, but by the departure from earth of the devoted mother. She died September 15, 1815, of the prevalent malarial fever.
Mrs. Kelley was a reader and a student. She prepared herself for the vicissitudes of pioneer life by studying subjects that would be of use to her in the new conditions surrounding her life, especially medical lore. She was venerated by her family and friends for her goodness, wisdom, and usefulness. She had a keen sense of humor, and her sayings that often were epigrams in strength and conciseness were quoted long years after the dear mother had gone to her eternal rest.
The father and his sons, Alfred, Irad, and Thomas Kelley, made their home with Reynolds and his wife, after the death of Mrs. Kelley, but in 1817 Alfred married and began housekeeping in the brick cottage on Water Street, and his father accompanied him there.
Mr. Daniel Kelley served the county as its treasurer, and was the city's postmaster in 1816. He was a very kind, affectionate man, and his sons' wives all adored him. He died in 1831. Mr. and Mrs. Kelley were first laid away in the Ontario Street Cemetery and afterward removed to Erie Street Cemetery.
Irad Kelley was 22 years old when he came to Cleveland in 1813. He was not considered as brilliant a man as his younger brother Alfred, although, had he engaged in a professional rather than in a mercantile business he might have gained an equal reputation at the bar. He was a spare man of medium height ; had a Roman nose, blue eyes and a firm mouth. No man ever living in Cleveland was better known or more frequently quoted. "He was generous-hearted, high-spirited, full of fun, and utterly unconventional." He never cared whether people agreed or disagreed with him, and his opinions, always vigorously expressed, and quite different from those cherished by the majority of his associates, were adopted at a later day by the community as sound conclusions. He was far ahead of the time in which he lived.
In a controversy over fencing the Public Square, he argued earnestly against the measure, and when the majority ruled to enclose it, he would never walk around it but proceeded to climb over the fences, much to the amusement of the public. In time the fence was voted a nuisance, obstructing commerce, and detrimental to the best interests of the city. This instance is but one of the many occasions in which Mr. Irad Kelley was justified in his judgment of popular measures. He built a frame store and dwelling on Superior Street where South Bank Street now
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begins, and here with his brother lived for two years; then he built a brick store in front of it, the first brick store in town. He bought and sold general merchandise. Part of the time he had a partner, Prentice Dow, his wife's brother-in-law. The firm name was "Kelley & Dow." He was made the village postmaster in 1817, and served for 12 years, receiving $125 a year, out of which he had to pay expenses.
The wooing of his bride in 1819 was most characteristic. She was Miss Harriet Pease, 19 years of age, and daughter of George and Esther Thompson Pease. Her parents had removed from Hudson, Ohio, to Cleveland four years previously. She had given him little encouragement, and finally, in order to avoid his advances, or perchance to test through absence her own feelings, she went to Hudson to visit an uncle and other relatives living in that town. Irad Kelley laid siege to her parents, and gained their consent to his suit. Riding upon one horse and leading another he proceeded to Hudson, and informed Miss Pease that he had come for her, as her parents had accepted him, and now it was her turn to do the same. His bride was a beautiful girl, and remained most attractive all her life. She was a good mother, good neighbor, and kind friend. Her length of life was 68 years.
Mr. Irad Kelley was part-proprietor of Kelley's Island, and some of his descendants now reside on it. He built a fine residence on Euclid Avenue, where he lived until death. He had gone into the banking business, which proved to be unsuccessful, and he lost much money through this investment.
The children of Irad and Harriet Pease Kelley::
Gustavus Kelley, b. 1820; was drowned at four years of age; died 1894.
George Kelley, b. 1822; died on Kelley's Island ; 1894 married Martha J. Eastland, daughter of Col. James and Mary Swan Eastland of Virginia.
Dr. Edwin Kelley, b. 1826; m. Mary A. Beebe of Hudson, Ohio, who died 1876.
Charles Kelley, b. 1828; m. Ada Proeser of Marietta, Ohio. He lived on Kelley's Island. No children.
Franklin Kelley, b. 1836; m. Mattie Hanna of Detroit, Michigan. They lived at 6908 Euclid Ave
Martha Louise Kelley, b. 1833.
Laura Kelley, b. 1839; m. William Darwin Hills, son of Nathan and Sobrina Loomis Hills
William Henry Kelley, b. 1841; married Rose Spencer, daughter of Timothy and Mary Reeve Spencer.
Irad Kelley died of pleurisy in his 86th year. He had started for Brazil, at that time of life, and was taken suddenly ill at the beginning of the proposed journey.
Joseph Reynolds Kelley, or "Reynolds," as he was called, was the fourth son of Daniel and Jemima Stow Kelley, and came to Cleveland in the winter of 1814, aged 20 years. Although associated in business with his brothers, he was really a land-agent and real-estate dealer, but his life was short. He died aged 29 years. When only 20 years old he married
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Betsey Gould. The young couple made their home at the north-west corner of Bank and Lake streets. Their only child, Horace Kelley, was born in 1819 and was but four years old at his father's death.
Horace Kelley m. Fanny Miles of Elyria. They had no children. Horace inherited a large land-property from his father, and to it he added greatly by wise investments. This at his death in 1890 was left to the City of Cleveland for an art gallery, the nucleus for which was a private collection of valuable paintings and other work of art which had adorned his home.
The large sum of money he bequeathed to the city for art purposes and the care of his art treasures was left in charge of trustees of his own choosing. Twenty-three years have passed since his death, and no sign as yet of any art gallery open to the public.*
Thomas M. Kelley, fifth son of Daniel and Harriet Kelley, was 18 years old when he came to Cleveland. He was a merchant and a banker, and Iived here all the remaining years of his life, and passed away aged 81 years, the last member of his family. He married in 1833 Lucy Harris Latham of Thetford, Vt., eldest daughter of Wm. H. Latham and his wife Azuba Jenks Latham.
The first home of Thomas and Lucy Kelley was the one that Irad Kelley had occupied until 1833, and in which Daniel Kelley had died two years previously. It was back of the store on Superior Street, at the head of Bank Street. Three years later, he built a beautiful homestead on the north-west corner of Euclid Avenue and Huntington Street. It was of Colonial architecture, the front ornamented with four great two-storied pillars.
Mr. Kelley was a kind, jovial man, very much respected and liked in the community. Mrs. Lucy Kelley, a lovely woman, had hosts of admiring friends. The T. M. Kelley homestead was one of much hospitality and good cheer. It has been sad for those who once frequented that home and others that flanked it for a block or two on Euclid Avenue, to pass the spot and to note the radical changes time has made in a neighborhood once occupied by exceptionally beautiful, stately, private houses, in and out of which passed notable people of years long gone by. These homes were each a center of social life, the memories of which many people yet living love to recall with tender regret. Mr. Kelley died in 1874, aged 64 years.
The children of Thomas M. and Lucy Latham Kelley:
Lucy Kelley, b. 1836; m. George S Mygatt of Cleveland. She died 21 years of age, leaving no children.
Mary Alice Kelley, b. 1845; m. Chester T. Cole. They resided in the T. M. Kelley homestead.
Thomas Arthur Kelley, b. 1849; m. Eva Magrue.
* The building is now in process of erection in Wade Park.
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1815
POPULATION, ABOUT 100
CLEVELAND VILLAGE ORGANIZED
President, Alfred Kelly.
Treasurer, Alonzo Carter.
Trustees, David Long, Nathan Perry, Samuel Williamson
Marshal, John A. Ackley (half brother of Lorenzo Carter).
Recorder, Horace Perry. Postmaster, Ashbel Walworth.
COUNTY OFFICERS
Commissioners, Philo Taylor, Samuel Dodge.
Judge of Common Pleas, Erastus Miles.
Treasurer, David Long.
Clerk o f Common Pleas, Horace Perry.
Surveyor, Samuel S. Baldwin.
Sheriff, Eben Hosmer.
Only as yet three streets in town-Superior, Water, Bank.
1815
The sudden ending of the War of 1812 ruined many who had purchased supplies for the army. The war had destroyed commerce. The national debt was a hundred million dollars. Banks all over the country were obliged to suspend specie payment. Men in New England and Middle states were out of work. Land in Ohio was cheap, and a great western movement set in this year. The close of the Napoleonic wars in Europe also brought large immigration to this country from England.
Married-Isaac Fuller and Minerva Peet.
1815
A young merchant named Stephen Dudley had a store on the south side of Superior Street near Seneca. He remained in town until 1825, at least as he figured in an incident of that date. He was a gay, light hearted young man, a favorite in the small society of the hamlet. A Stephen Dudley died in Buffalo, N. Y., in 1856, who may have been the early Cleveland merchant. He was a native of New Hampshire, and married Miss Hannah Turner.
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1815
O'CONNER
Lawrence O'Conner and his wife Phebe Bostwick were natives of Ontario, Canada. The data furnished the writer leads to the supposition that they brought four children with them. They were:
Demilah O'Conner, m. Samuel White ; lived in Bedford, O..
Almira O'Conner, m. Joseph House.
Miranda O'Conner, m. Philip Cady.
Angeline O'Conner, m. Andrew McIlrath. She died in Bedford, O.
Avernon O'Conner, m. Clarissa Draper
Alanson O'Connor, m. Lucy Bishop.
Washington O'Conner, m. Elisabeth Dille.
1815
WELCH
Benjamin S. Welch was a soldier of the War of 1812, Indian agent, surveyor, sheriff, farmer, and tavern-keeper at different periods of his life; whether successful in each and all of these has not been stated. But one fact remains, both he and his good wife left memories that are pleasant to recall.
Mr. Welch married Miss Sophia Wilson in Troy, N. Y. She was but 16 years of age and yet attending school. Shortly after the event, he was appointed assistant Indian agent in Mackinac, Mich., and with his young bride made the journey thither. Alaska is much easier to reach in this day than Mackinac was in that one. They spent a year or more in the wilderness and among the Indians, then, in 1815, came to Cleveland, which, though a small hamlet, must have seemed to them, after their late experience, as quite a town.
Mr. Welch bought the farm on the corner of Euclid Avenue that now intersects with the east end of Superior Street. It ran back and up Euclid Heights. Here they remained until after two of their children were born. He then sold the farm and removed to Collinwood, where he served as its sheriff for several years. At one time, he was assistant for Ahaz Merchant, the surveyor, who for long years located county and township property lines. After that, or perhaps before, he ran the old Spangler Tavern on Superior Street between Seneca and Bank, and later the one on the corner of Ontario and Michigan streets, a tavern which, by that time, had shed its pioneer name and taken on that of "Coffee House."
Mr. Welch's services in the War of 1812 created an interest in military affairs that lasted through the remainder of his life. He was always connected with the local militia and an original member of the Cleveland Grays.
During all the strenuous years of their early and middle life, Mrs. Sophia Welch stood shoulder to shoulder with her husband. It began, when, little more than a child, she accompanied him to the wilds of Mackinac. There she found but two white women on the island besides
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herself, and she became very lonely and homesick. The beauty of the wilderness, however, appealed to her, and she daily took long walks, at first alone, and later with an Indian "Medicine Man" who, noticing her interest in the strange flora of the island, taught her the Indian name of all the weeds, roots, and herbs growing luxuriantly in the edges of the forest, also the medicinal properties of each. She was a natural healer, and had she been born of the other sex, she would have become, with study, a skillful physician. She was a fine nurse, however, and the knowledge of roots and herbs acquired in Mackinac proved most valuable to her friends and neighbors in time of sickness. She was fearless in exposing herself to contagious diseases, but avoided small-pox on account of her family.
An amusing story is told of her while landlady of the Spangler Tavern, as it was then called. It was in the first cholera epidemic, the summer of 1832, and several business men, who had shut up their homes, and sent their families out of town, were boarding with her. Every one had become uneasy, if not fearful, at the ravages of the terrible scourge. It had already claimed two victims at the Scovill Tavern farther down the street, and might any day appear at the one the Welches were conducting. Mrs. Welch prepared a concoction, known only to herself, and required all her boarders to march through the only entrance to the dining-room while she dealt out to each a teaspoonful of the medicine.
"I will not have cholera break out in this tavern," she declared, "and if you will not take the dose, you can leave, and go to the other one." Her husband, though in great fear of the scourge, was the only man who balked at her dose, and would not take it. He thought that abstinence from all fruit, vegetables, etc., would secure indemnity without the medicine. Strange to relate, he, and he only, was attacked by the disease. He lived through it, however, and concluding he had had enough of town life, bought a farm just this side of Warrensville and removed to it.
The children of Benjamin and Sophia Wilson Welch:
Oscar F. Welch, b. 1817; m. Eliza Caine. He died 1892..
James Welch, b. 1821; m. Caroline Dunham, dau. of Rufus Dunham.
Loretta Welch, b. 1826; m. James B. Wilbur, son of Eliam Wilbur.
Rosalia Welch, m. Henry Howes of Elyria
Catherine Welch, an adopted daughter, m. Andrew J. Aiken.
1815
WHITE
Wileman White of Lenox, Mass., a young carpenter who had gained some knowledge of bridge-building as well, set out for Cleveland in 1815, certain that in this region where rivers and streams abounded, his services would be in demand. Within the following two years, this reasoning was confirmed, and so assured seemed the future for himself that he re
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turned to his native state for a brief visit, and to persuade Miss Sabrina Williams of Stockbridge to make her nineteenth birthday also her wedding day, and to accompany him on his return trip to Ohio.
The wedding journey was a sleigh-ride of 500 miles. At the end of 19 days they reached East Cleveland, where they rested for ten days at the home of Seth and Lucy Clark Doan. Mr. White built a two-story frame-house on the corner of Bank and St. Clair streets, where the young couple made their first home. This building was standing until in very recent years. The little town, not having as yet attained to the dignity of a church edifice, Mr. and Mrs. White with other church-going people attended frequent services in the upper story of the jail, then situated on the north-west corner of the Public Square.
Mr. Wileman White's business took him often to Newburgh, and for the convenience of his family he removed out there some time in the late '30s. He died there in 1842, aged 49 years, and rests in Harvard Grove Cemetery, where his wife was laid beside him 33 years later, together with several children.
Mrs. White was a woman of steadfast character, of high aspirations, and much natural artistic ability. But the illness and death of her husband leaving her with a large family of young children, made life most strenuous for many following years. It is said that James A. Garfield, who became President of the United States, boarded with her while he was working on the tow-path of the Ohio Canal, and at that time she was a mother to him in the numberless little ways in which mothers look out for the comfort of their men-folks. Be that as it may, the future President in after years was a warm friend of Mrs. White and her children. She lived to be 77 years old, long enough to enjoy the social standing and business success of her family of boys and girls.
Henry C. White was the most prominent of her children in the community. He was a lawyer of unusual ability, a brilliant orator, and for many years one of the most popular citizens of Cleveland. His office as judge of the probate court brought him in contact with all classes of society, and his winning personality made him a friend of rich and poor alike. He possessed a warm heart and generous nature, so much so that though the recipient of a large salary extending over many years, he left but a modest property at his death in 1905. His income had melted away under the many and frequent calls made upon it by the poor and unfortunate.
Mr. and Mrs. White had a family of eight children, six of whom were born in Cleveland. Four died in childhood. They were:
Henry Williams White, b. 1818; died aged 16 years..
Adeline White, b. 1820; died aged 3 years.
Janette White, b. 1822; died aged 18 years
*Julia A. White, b. 1828; m. Gustavus Andrews; d. 1906.
*Jane S. White, b. 1828; m. William White ; died 1881
Henry Clay White, b. 1838 in Newburgh ; died in Cleveland 1905; m. Sabrina Capron
Adeline M. White, b. 1840; d. 1841.
* Twins.
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1815
BAILEY
At intervals, for twelve years, the writer endeavored to trace through court records or newspaper files the descendants of Amasa and Richard Bailey, Cleveland merchants in 1815. Amasa early disappeared from the history of the town, but Richard, in 1837, was still in active business. When all further quest seemed hopeless, it was learned accidentally that Joseph Bailey, a son of Richard, a lifelong resident of the city, and who, it is said, had its history, its early inhabitants, etc., at his fingers' ends, had died recently on Broadway Avenue at the advanced age of 89 years.
He was all alone, and had made his home for years with a personal friend. In view of the almost insurmountable difficulties attending research of this character, and the fact that Joseph Bailey would have been a mine of information regarding early residents whose life records prove most elusive, it seems strange that no old settler had the interest in this labor of love to acquaint the writer with his presence in the city. But, through his death, the address of a niece living in the west was obtained, and through her, other addresses were secured, until, at last, the long sought for data was at hand.
Amasa Bailey was born at Cummington, Mass., in 1792. When he was seven years of age, his mother died, leaving a family of young children. He was bound out to a farmer named Hazen, where he remained until old enough to learn the saddle and harness trade, which he carried on in Cleveland on lot 87, south-east corner of Superior Street and the Public Square. This he bought of Abram Hickox for $100. He also bought of Dr. Long, in 1821, a lot on Huron Street. His only living child, Amasa Bailey of Massillon, has possession of these deeds. His residence and shop was removed to make room for the famous Lemen cottage, which was superseded by the Hoffman Block, and today, 1910, the site is occupied by the Cuyahoga Building.
Amasa Bailey was married in April, 1814, in Suffield, Conn., to Sally Eaton. Mrs. Sally Eaton Bailey was born in Springfield, Mass., and at the time was 20 years of age. The same year they set out for Cleveland, accompanied by Mr. Bailey's sister, Mrs. Sophia Bailey Henderson, presumably a widow with children, and his brothers, Richard and James Bailey.
James lived in Buffalo for some years, but died in Cleveland. Mrs. Henderson moved, at an early day, to Fort Wayne. She had a son, Zenus Henderson, who traded and lived with the Indians and died wealthy. The Baileys' first child was born January, 1815, and died the same month. The next child, Mary Ann, was born- May, 1816, and at her death in August, 1905, at Massillon, Ohio, at the age of 89 years, the local papers gave lengthy accounts of her funeral, and full sketches of her life.
In 1824, Amasa Bailey removed to South Akron, and again, two years later, to Massillon, Ohio. That part of Massillon in which they settled was known as the Kendal Community, and the center of a thriving village, but the growth of the city in time embraced it, and the community was disbanded. Amasa Bailey assisted in settling up its affairs.
The children of Amasa Bailey who lived to maturity were:
Mary Anne Bailey, b. 1816; m. William Tinkler; 2nd, David Brown of Massillon, Ohio.
Cyrus B. Bailey, b. 1820; died 1840.
Fidelia Bailey, b. 1821; died 1841.
Horace Bailey, b. 1825; died 1841.
Amasa Bailey, b. 1830.
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1815
BAILEY
The last child, and the only one not born in Cleveland, is yet living in Massillon, Ohio. A very old picture, one of the first attempts in the art of daguerrotyping, of Amasa Bailey and his wife, is in the possession of Miss Hazen of Wabash, Ind.
Richard Bailey, brother of Amasa Bailey, was born in Cummington, Mass., in 1794. Therefore, he was about 20 years of age when he arrived in Cleveland. He married Polly White, daughter of Levi White, and one of that historic family who in 1804 came all the way from Vermont in an open row-boat. She was born in 1795, and at the time of her marriage, 1817, was living in Newburgh with her widowed mother.
Richard and Amasa Bailey kept a general store of merchandise, in 1825. After Amasa removed to Massillon, Richard had a grocery, and lived on Bolivar Street. He moved to Wabash, Ind., in 1853. Polly White Bailey, his wife, died in 1873, in her 78th year. Mr. Bailey died in Cleveland at the home of his son Joseph, on Cheshire Street, aged 89. He was buried in Wabash, Ind., beside his wife.
Their first two children died early. Those who reached maturity were:
Joseph Bailey, m. Mrs. Sophia Fox..
Sophia Bailey, m. Aaron B. Hazen.
Helen Bailey, m. James M. Furrow.
Richard Bailey.
George Bailey.
David Bailey, m. Levina Hazen
John Bailey.
Mary Bailey, m. Lewis B. Davis.
Gustavus Bailey, m. Mary Wingard.
These children were all born in Cleveland, the last one in 1835. All moved west but Joseph. He was a mason contractor, and accumulated considerable property. But his marriage was a most unfortunate one, and finally he turned over to his wife nearly everything he possessed, and for the rest of his days lived with a well-known physician on Broadway Avenue, where he died in 1908, aged 87 years, all of them spent in Cleveland. He had no children of his own, but adopted his wife's son by another marriage, also a young girl. Neither of them proved worthy of the care and affection he freely bestowed upon them.
Richard Bailey, son of Richard, died young and unmarried. George Bailey went to the far west, and he was supposed to have been killed by the Indians. Mrs. Sophia Hazen and Mrs. Helen Furrow were fine women, greatly attached to the home of their childhood, and loving to talk of it. They married soon after removing to Wabash, Ind. Richard Bailey, Sr., was a very kind-hearted, unselfish man, the writer has been told, since writing above. He was known to work all day in his grocery, and sit up all night with the sick, in one of Cleveland's epidemics, obtain a little sleep the following day, and again administer to his suffering neighbors through the long watches of the night.
164
1815
PEASE
George Pease, born in Enfield, Conn., and a direct descendant of Governor Bradford of Plymouth Colony, came to Cleveland about 1815, perhaps a year or two earlier. He was about 40 years of age at that time. His home had been for a few years in Hubbardtown, Vt., from thence he removed to Hudson, Ohio, in 1801, and joined a colony of Goshen, Conn., people, among whom were relatives, who settled Hudson in that year. His occupation while in this city has not been ascertained definitely, but his name appears in connection with other prominent men of the hamlet, who in January, 1818, publicly refused to accept scrip in lieu of money.
His family became very well known in the town, the sons as business men, and the daughters as wives of old citizens. George Pease died in New Orleans, La., in 1845, aged 69 years. His wife was Esther Thompson, born in Goshen, Conn., in 1777, so that she was about 38 years old when she first came to Cleveland. She was the daughter of Deacon Stephen and Mary Walters Thompson of Goshen. Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Thompson removed to Hudson, Ohio, in 1801, and with them were their grown sons and daughters. Mrs. Charles Miles, Sr., Ruth Thompson of Newburgh-was a sister of Mrs. George Pease. Mr. and Mrs. Pease were among the first members of the Old Stone Church.
After the death of her husband in 1845, Mrs. Esther Pease resided with her daughter, Mrs. Irad Kelley. She is remembered as a very sweet faced, motherly woman, whom it was always a pleasure to meet. She died aged 84 years.
Sylvester and Jesse Pease attended the old Academy on St. Clair Street, and were the chums in boyhood, and the close friends in maturer age of many of the old citizens who received their classical education in that school. They seem to have been popular young men. Harriet, Lucretia, and Huldah Pease were charming young women, and as the wives of Irad Kelley, Morris Hepburn, and Prentiss Dow, all prominent merchants of the town, they held a conspicuous place in the social life that drew men and women of kindred tastes together in those early days.
The children of George and Esther Thompson Pease:
Harriet Pease, b. 1800 in Hubbardstown, Vt.; died 1862; m. Irad Kelley of Cleveland
Sylvester Pease, b. 1803; m. Julia. ------------ She died in 1832, aged 25 years ; buried in Erie Street
Norman Pease, b. 1805.
Jesse Pease, b. 1808.
Hulda Pease, b. 1813; m. Morris Hepburn
Lucretia M. Pease, b. 1815 in Cleveland ; m. Prentiss Dow. Cemetery.
There was another family by the name of Pease living in Newburgh from 1820 on. The marriage of Samuel Pease to Octavia Ruggles was published in the Herald in 1830.
A Samuel Pease, b. 1805, came 1828 from Massachusetts ; d. 1892..
Melissa Pease, b. 1816.
Mary E. Pease, b. 1816, came to Cleveland 1823; died 1891
165
1815
MEEKER
The Meeker brothers, Smith, Enoch and Stephen, did not live within the limits of early Cleveland, but as their pioneer homes have long been a part of the present city and their children intermarried with old Cleveland families, the history and genealogy of the Meekers rightfully belongs in this work.
The American ancestor of the family came in 1639. Timothy Meeker, the grandfather of the three Cleveland pioneers, was a Revolutionary soldier, and the homestead of their parents built in 1758 yet stands near Newark, N. J., and is occupied by their descendants.
Smith Meeker married Abigail Oliver. They lived on Mayfield Ridge. Mrs. Smith Meeker died in 1867, and her husband soon followed her.
Their children:
Caroline Meeker, m. Alexander McIlrath, his second wife. She died. 90 years of age.
John O. Meeker, m. Mary Hendershott.
Norton Meeker, m. Ann Sherman ; 2nd, Mary Thomas
Byron Meeker, m. Mary Buckley; 2nd, Sarah Demeline.
Cummins Meeker, unmarried.
Enoch Meeker was a shoemaker, and he came to Ohio about 1816 with Paul Condit, also a shoemaker from Elizabeth, N. J. He purchased 15 acres of land on Euclid Road, now Euclid Avenue. Noble Road was laid out years afterward, to the west of his property, leaving the homestead on the south-east corner.
He discovered later that he had paid the highest price asked for land -in that locality, also that he had undertaken more than he could accomplish if he remained on the property. He could secure little work at his trade to help out in his payments, due each in following years, so he concluded not to work the land at present, but go where the country was more thickly settled, and where there was more demand for boots and shoes, then made stoutly and by hand.
He chose Painesville and its vicinity for this field of endeavor, a lucky one he ever afterward considered it, for there he met Susanna Hulburt, who was then teaching school in Mentor. Previously she had taught in Painesville, and was a member of the household of Governor Huntington while doing so.
She was born in Northampton, Mass. Her mother was an Eliot, and a relative of the Indian missionary of that name. Mr. and Mrs. Enoch Meeker were married by Judge Peter Hitchcock in 1816. They continued their residence in Painesville until after the birth of their first child, when Mr. Meeker concluded that he could pay the indebtedness upon his East Cleveland property and returned to live upon it. His old friend and chum Paul Condit was keeping a tavern in order to help pay for his own land, and this influenced Enoch Meeker to try the same thing on a smaller scale. He built a large and substantial frame-house, still standing on the corner of Euclid Avenue and Noble Road, and occupied by his son Samuel C. Meeker.*
Mrs. Meeker, although making no outward objection to the tavern scheme, felt certain that neither her husband nor herself was fitted for
* Now deceased.
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1815
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the work. It was the custom of the day to name a tavern and place it as a sign over the door. Mrs. Meeker laughingly suggested that they choose a horn for their emblem, and place the sign with the small end of the horn pointing toward the house.
The retail sale of liquor in that day was considered perfectly legitimate. No stigma was attached to the man who dealt it out over the counter of his grocery store or his tavern bar. The latter was considered a necessary adjunct of every country tavern. After a long, cold drive a hot drink proved most grateful to the weary traveler accustomed to the use of stimulants, and no tavern would receive patronage that failed to have whiskey on tap.
Travelers in some years were scarce, and many of the eastern families on their way to Ohio came fully equipped for camping out all the length of their journey, and taverns reaped no benefit from the emigration. Landlords became more and more dependent upon local patronage of their bar-rooms, until their taverns became, at last, little more than saloons. Mrs. Meeker was a very intelligent woman and anxious for the mental and spiritual development of her children. She did not wish her boys to be raised in a bar-room, and so the tavern project was abandoned. Mr. Meeker heeded to the advice of his good wife and remained a farmer and a shoemaker.
Mrs. Meeker was also very ambitious for her sons. She wanted them to be school teachers, as well as farmers, and prevailed upon Clinton, the third one, to apply for a school at the "North Woods," 4 miles away on the lake shore, afterward known as "Frizzells." Mr. Frizzelle lived in a log-house and was a school director of the district. Clinton Meeker taught there three months, walking two miles each way to his boarding place. Sixty-eight years afterward he visited the spot for the first time since he left it at the close of his school term.
Nathan Meeker, the oldest son of Enoch, was a very intelligent, ambitious man. He drifted to New York where he became an editorial writer on the New York Tribune. Horace Greeley, the famous editor of that newspaper, wished to found a western colony, and Nathan Meeker invested his all in the project, and was appointed one of a committee to choose the location for the proposed colony.
A tract of land in Colorado was selected, and a town laid out to which the name of Greeley was given. Seventy families removed at once to the spot. Dissension arose with Evans, a town four miles distant, and in the heated controversy, Mr. Nathan Meeker was murdered. It made a great sensation all over the country, and every detail of the affair was dwelt upon by the press of that day. His photograph hangs in the old homestead on Euclid Avenue, and his two remaining brothers speak of him in terms of great admiration and affection.
Enoch Meeker built or gave a home to each of his sons. That of Nathan's stands back of the homestead and on Noble Road, and is occupied by Rufus Clinton Meeker, or "Clinton," as he is called. He never married, and now, 1911, is 87 years old.*
Samuel C. Meeker, 81 years of age, still youthful and active for his age, resides in the home his parents built 93 years ago.* The aged broth
* Now deceased.
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1816
THE NOTABLE SUMMER CALLED "THE COLD SUMMER"
ers have become strong Spiritualists and firm in the belief of another life beyond this one. Both dwell much upon the anticipation of again meeting their mother, whose memory to them is most precious. Enoch Meeker died in 1867, and his wife in 1874.
The children of Enoch and Susanna Meeker:
Nathan Cook Meeker, b. 1817; m. Arvilla Smith of Clairdon. He died in Greely, Cal..
Stephen Cary Meeker, b. 1819; m Adra Hendershott.
Rufus Clinton Meeker, b. 1824; unmarried ; d. 1812.
Samuel Cleveland Meeker, b. 1830; m. Lida Shaw.
Henry Clay Meeker, died young
Martha Meeker, the only daughter, died at 12 years of age to the life-long sorrow evidently of her brothers.
Stephen Meeker, the third of the pioneer brothers, settled on what is now the north-east corner of Mayfield and Taylor Roads, a site now occupied by Dr. Milliken. Nothing has been secured of this family save the names and marriages.
Stephen and Elizabeth Chips Meeker came to Cleveland about 1818. Their children were:
Ebline Meeker, b. 1820 in Cleveland; m. Oscar Brown. She died 1811.
Kate Meeker, m. Dr. Richard Houghton..
Ogden Meeker, m. Mary Bebee of Parma.
Naomi Meeker, m. Edwin Duty. She died 1860, leaving two children
Harriett Meeker, m. William Hart of Mt. Vernon, O.
Morris Meeker, went to Australia.
Elizabeth Meeker, m. Marion Minor
Charlotte Meeker, m. Asa Curtis of Wheeler, Ind.
Susan Meeker, m. William C. Brace
1816
THE NOTABLE SUMMER CALLED "THE COLD SUMMER"
There were severe frosts every month of this year all over New England. There was no corn raised, and very little hay or oats. All kinds of vegetables were cut down by frost when half grown. This caused great poverty and suffering in that section of the country. Horses and cattle had to be almost given away, or killed because of the lack of fodder.
"The winter of 1816-1817 was extremely severe, and the following spring was so backward that New England farmers were plunged in despair. In June the hills along the Connecticut Valley were almost as barren as an ordinary November. Cattle died by thousands, and many farmers' families came near perishing from starvation."
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1816
TAYLOR
This unprecedented weather was also experienced in Ohio, and caused much poverty and suffering.
1816
Cleveland's first bank was organized in this year, the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie. President, Alfred Kelley; Cashier, Leonard Case; Directors, John H. Strong, Samuel Williamson, Philo Taylor, George Wallace, David Long, Erastus Miles, Seth Doan.
(Sketches of all the above pioneers and their families will be found in this volume.)
Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church, Cleveland's first church, was organized November 9th. Timothy Doan, Moderator; Charles Gear, Clerk; Phineas Shephard, Abraham Scott, Wardens; Timothy Doan, Abraham Hickox, Jonathan Pelton, Vestrymen; Dennis Cooper, Reading Clerk.
The following year were added : John Wilcox, Alfred Kelley, Thomas M. Kelley, Irad Kelley, Noble H. Merwin, David Long, Darius C. Henderson, Philo Scovil.
Rev. Roger Searl of Plymouth, Conn., Rector.
Of the above names those of Gear, Cooper, and Henderson have not been located by the writer.
1816
TAYLOR
The first Superintendent of the first Cleveland Sabbath School and a charter member of the Old Stone Church cannot but be an interesting personage to every one to whom that organization is dear through ancestry, association, or membership.
Deacon Elisha Taylor was no ordinary man. He was very much alive in whatever community he lived, always working for its commercial, social, and moral uplift. He was a temperance man of the most ardent type, working and pleading with the council of the little hamlet and with individuals to stamp out an evil that had fastened itself upon the infant community, causing untold sorrow and misery. He was one of the very earliest of dry-goods merchants, those preceding him dealing more with Indians than white people, and trading mostly in furs.
His store and dwelling combined was on the south side of Superior Street, between Bank and Seneca, and into this from Cherry Valley, N. Y., he came in 1816, when about 32 years of age, bringing his small stock of goods, his household furniture, and his young wife and child.
Mrs. Elisha Taylor was Miss Anna Dunlap of Schenectady, N. Y., one of four sisters who lived here at a very early day. She was not strong,
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1816
TAYLOR
the climate was a terrible ordeal, even for those best fitted to resist its deadly malaria, and so at the birth of her fifth child, in 1824, she died, and was buried in Erie Street Cemetery.
Whether this sad event or the state of his own health influenced him, we have no record, but two years afterward he returned to Cherry Valley, retiring upon a farm where he remained about eight years, and in 1843, after a brief sojourn, in New York City, he came back to Cleveland.
It can be imagined what a reception he received from the church he had helped found, now well established and prosperous, and from the old neighbors yet surviving. Perhaps it was the dear associations of that earlier time that drew his feet westward again.
He had sold out to T. P. May, and his former store was now "May and Barnett," but he soon established another store, and continued the same line of business for a few years, then dealt in real-estate until his death, aged 75 years.
Only three children of Elisha and Anna Dunlap Taylor reached maturity. They were:
Alfred Taylor, b. 1820; m. 1st, Maria Dewey ; 2nd, Helen A. M. Leonard. Mrs. Helen Taylor had three children reach maturity, Rev. Frederick, Harry, and Bessie Taylor. Alfred Taylor was drowned in the Ohio River in 1864, while in the service of his country
John William Taylor, b. 1824, m.1st, Anna Sexton of Albany, who had one child, Anna Louise Taylor, now living in Washington, D. C.; 2nd, Clara Cushing of Springfield, Ohio, who had one child, Edith Taylor; 3rd, Sarah Bell Cushing, a niece of his second wife.
Louise Taylor, only sister of Alfred and John W. Taylor, married H. F. Waite, and died in 1849, in early womanhood.
Some time after the death of his wife, Anna Dunlap, Elisha Taylor married Elisabeth Ely, a daughter of Nathaniel Ely of Long Meadow, and of a distinguished Massachusetts family. She was about 35 years of age at her marriage, and well fitted to care for the very young children entrusted to her. She was a very calm, quiet woman, who never made remarks to be regretted or answered a question hastily. She had a little habit, peculiar to herself, of placing her finger to her lips, pondering over the subject, and then saying, "I think it was so and so," and one felt sure that her "think" outweighed the affirmative of several others combined.
She outlived her husband 13 years, dying in 1874. After Mr. Taylor's return from the east, he built a large stone cottage on what was once Vine Street off Woodland Ave.
The family rest in Erie Street Cemetery, not far from the Erie Street entrance.
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1816
WILLARD
In the year 1816, or near that date, the north side of Euclid Avenue, from the corner of Willson Avenue west to the corner of Case Avenue, now East 55th and 40th streets, came into the possession of one man. It was an original 100-acre lot, extending north to what is now Payne Avenue, and for 40 years or more was known as the "Willard Farm," because a family of that name owned and occupied it.
John Oliver Willard, of French descent in one line, was born in New Haven, Conn. In 1809 he married Selinda Lamb. They had two children born to them in New Haven, Sarah and Harrison Willard, and while their children were very- young the parents bought the Euclid Road Farm of the Connecticut Land Company.
The purchase price probably was $150, and on deferred payments, as land in the vicinity was offered several years later, for $2 an acre. What an almost incredible change of value has 100 years witnessed ! The tract was then covered with forest trees, save the little cleared space (a knoll), upon which stood the small farm-house.
Beautiful mansions have adorned it in the past years, some of which are still standing, others torn down. The Judge Andrews home, that of Judge Burke, the residence of the Masons, Zenos King, Bissells, Hales, and that of Sylvester Everett. But recently a shallow lot with but a frontage of 35 feet on Euclid Avenue was leased for a long term of years at many thousands of dollars' rental for each year. And yet the $150 proved a crushing debt to the poor pioneer of that early day. It was a hard struggle, in the midst of which he died of consumption. His heroic eldest daughter, Sarah Willard, when but a child, worked as a maid for neighboring farmers in order to help pay the balance due, and save the home.
Meanwhile, the Connecticut Land Company agents began to make trouble for the family. The latter's rights to the property had to be defended by the widow and children for many successive years, but they won at last. In this they were assisted by Ashley Ames of Newburgh, who had married Sarah Willard.
Euclid Avenue near E. 55th Street has been much graded and lowered from its early level. There was once a steep sand bank on the north-west corner, after Willson or E. 55th Street was cut through the property.
The children of John O. and Selinda Willard:
Sarah Willard, born 1810; married Eliot Willard, married Ruth Hudson
Ashley Ames of Newburgh. of East Cleveland.
Harrison Willard, married Wealthy Rufus Willard, married Mary Allen
Pierre of East Cleveland. of Olmsted Falls.
Adelia A. Willard, born in Cleve-
land ; married Mathew Howe.
Harrison Willard died comparatively young, leaving three children. They were:
Sarah Willard, married David Featherstone ; lived in Chicago, Ill.
Gertrude Willard, married George Carriff ; live in Washington, D. C.
Clara Willard, married Richardson, a Civil War soldier.
Adelia Willard Howe had one daughter, Mary Howe, who married John Baisch.
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1816
WHITE
Mr. Howe was a southern gentleman who died young.
Elliot Willard lived on the farm, and in 1856 was a market-gardener, raising fruit and vegetables. His children were:
Clistia Willard.
John Willard..
Adelia Willard.
Hudson Willard.
Thomas Willard
Mary Willard.
1816
WHITE
Deacon Moses White and his wife were for so many years associated in the mind and in the remembrance of Cleveland proper that it is difficult to write of one without more or less mention of the other. He was the son of Jacob and Penniman White, and in 1816, when twenty-five years of age, turned his back upon the old town of Mendon, Mass., where he was born, and started life anew in the little hamlet of Cleveland. He was a tailor, and the prospects for his line of work must at once have been flattering, for the following year he sought a business partner and a wife, finding both in the person of Miss Mary Andrews, a young tailoress living in Providence, R. I. They took the fashionable sixweeks' wedding journey of that day, one that led westward without any return road, and they traveled the usual way, in their own conveyance.
Superior Street was their first home, a small frame-house on the south side of it, and here they lived for some years, then moved into a fine new brick house on the north-west corner of St. Clair and Bank streets. It had a large side-yard filled with fruit-trees and shrubbery. Years afterward, they flitted to the north-east corner of Prospect and Brownell, where they both died.
Mrs. White was tall, spare, and dignified. She was a quiet, modest, blue-eyed woman, the mother of eight children, only two of whom reached maturity. The malarious air of early Cleveland was severe on childhood, and the young people who lived were indeed the survival of the fittest in physical strength and endurance. Little Minerva White's grave was the first one dug for a child in the Erie Street Cemetery, and after the funeral, Eliza, afterward Mrs. Jesse Bishop, exclaimed tearfully, "They buried little sister way out in the woods!"
Added to her family and household cares was the assistance Mrs. White rendered her husband in his business, often adding eight dollars a week to the mutual fund that insured financial independence in ,future years. Besides her skill as a tailoress, she was an exquisite needlewoman. A beautiful piece of embroidery on white satin bearing her maiden name and the year 1812, hangs framed, near to an oil-painting of herself, upon the wall of her son's home on Cedar .Avenue. Close by is the old clock that ticked faithfully year in and year out for the dear old Deacon and his wife, and still making correct time. Here, also, are the brass andirons, the first of their kind owned in Cleveland.
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1816
WATERMAN
Among other accomplishments, Mrs. White was a notable cook, but she often referred with quiet humor to the first pig possessed by the family. He was such an accommodating pig, disposing, with apparent relish, of all the culinary mistakes and failures, for she had been heretofore too busy with her needle to acquaint herself with the mysteries of frying-pan and bake-oven.
She was a model mother-in-law, never entering her son's home with empty hands. There was always an offering of interest and affection. Once in assisting her daughter-in-law in some culinary efforts and finding a necessary article conspicuous by its absence, she chided her. son, exclaiming, "What sort of a husband are you making, Charles, to let Emma get out of flour!" She died in, and the good Deacon survived her.
Children of Moses and Mary Andrews White:
Eliza White, m. Judge Jesse Bishop of Vergennes, Vt.
Charles White, m. Emma Monroe, daughter of Henry and Lucinda E. Dabny Monroe of Providence.
The Beldens lived west of the Whites on St. Clair Street, on a large adjoining lot.
1816
WATERMAN
The first courthouse and jail was built by Levi Johnson in 1812 and 1813. It stood on the north-west corner of the Public Square, faced the south, and was two stories high. There were two doors and two windows in the lower story front, and four windows in the upper story. A description of the north side of it has never been given, except that it contained a little grated window high up in the prison side of the building, to which little boys used to climb in awed curiosity and peek in at a prisoner confined there. The west half of the building was the jail, and the eastern half was the jailer's dwelling. The whole upper floor was devoted to court purposes.
Eleazar Watterman is the first jailer mentioned in any history of Cleveland. Watterman is a very early Rhode Island name, and Eleazar occurs frequently in the annals of that family. But the immediate ancestry of this pioneer Watterman cannot be learned. He married Dorcas Hickox, "Uncle Abram" Hickox's daughter, in 1817, and took her to live in the part of the courthouse assigned to the jailer. The accommodations consisted of but one room, but it was a large one, and doubtless was partitioned off, as were the log-cabins of the day, into smaller ones by screens made of quilts and blankets.
Afterward, Mr. Watterman was a justice of the peace, recorder, and from 1825 to 1828, he was president ex-officio of the village council. He
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1816
WOLCOTT
seems to have been a man who commanded the respect of his neighbors. He met with an accident in 1828 that resulted ultimately in his death. The only child of Eleazar and Dorcas Hickox Watterman was William Watterman. His mother, assisted by her sister, Lucinda Hickox, raised him to successful manhood. He married Sarah Stafford, and his home was on Woodland Avenue. For many years he was treasurer of Erie County.
The children of William and Sarah Stafford Watterman:
William Watterman.
Francis Watterman. .
Helen Watterman, m. James B. Worthington of Elyria ; 2nd, Mr. Rockefeller
Charles Watterman.
The Watterman family all lie in Woodland Cemetery.
1816
WOLCOTT
The social life of the hamlet received a notable addition about 1816, through the arrival of the Wolcott family from Windsor, Conn.
Mr. Albert Wolcott was the son of Brig. General Erastus Wolcott, who commanded a regiment under Gen. Washington at Boston, and the grandson of Governor Roger Wolcott of Connecticut, also the nephew of Gov. Mathew Griswald. He brought with him to Cleveland Gov. Wolcott's family Bible, which subsequently was deposited in the Hartford, Conn., museum by his grandson, Stoughton Bliss of Cleveland, and it is still on exhibition there. Albert Wolcott was 56 years old when he came to Ohio. His wife, Hannah Loomis Wolcott, had died in 1807, leaving him with a family of grown children. Soon after her death, he lost his only son. In making the change of residence, it was too late for him to hope for any pecuniary results, and yet he was at the time of life to keenly feel the severance of old ties. Moreover, existence at that day in Cleveland was one of hardship and self-denial.
The remaining children, all girls, accompanied him. They were Hannah, b. 1786, Cynthia, Laura, and Elisabeth Wolcott. Cynthia had previously been married to William Bliss. All of the sisters are recalled as gentle and very refined. How could they be otherwise, considering their forebears? And what cruel change of fortune could have driven them into the wilderness? for Cleveland was not much less in 1816.
Madam Mary Severance, the granddaughter of John Walworth, recalls the sisters in very pleasing fashion. As a very little girl, she was quite familiar with their personal appearance. Upon church and state occasions they wore merino shawls exactly alike, with pretty colored centers and gay borders. They were especially attractive to the child because there were none others like them in town. One bright Sabbath
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1816
SCOVIL
morning, when walking up Superior Street towards the Square, she noticed the Wolcott sisters ahead of her on their way to church, and hastened her steps so as to be near them. And as she gazed admiringly at the way they walked and carried themselves, she resolved that when she grew up she would be just like one of them, but which one she could not decide, as they were equally unusual and admirable. Two of them lived to be very aged.
The Wolcott family, father and daughters, were buried in Erie Street Cemetery.
1816
SCOVIL
A young man 25 years old, who came to town in 1816, evidently thought when he started west from his Connecticut home, that drugs and groceries were the things our village needed most, as he brought with him a supply of these commodities, and opened them up in a small way on the south side of Superior Street near Water. He gradually eliminated the groceries from his stock and sold drugs only, and then, after the lapse of a few years, realizing that there were more dealers in every sort of merchandise than the size of the place warranted, that he was not experienced in that line of business himself, having previously learned the carpenter's trade, and that carpenters, not merchants, were then most in demand, he discarded the drug business altogether, and returned to his legitimate and most useful occupation.
Among the buildings that Philo Scovil soon erected was a small frame-store and dwelling for Nathan Perry, Jr., on the corner of Superior and Water streets. It superseded a log one built in 1806 by Nathan Perry, Sr., and which had been in use by father and son about 20 years. In part payment for this work, Mr. Scovil took a 66-foot Superior Street lot just east of the building. It ran back to Frankfort Street, and today is worth a fortune. Yet he offered to sell it for $300. Not only the lot, but a quantity of building material he had hauled onto it and concluded not to use. Evidently no one jumped at the offer.
He built a large, three-story frame-structure on the lot for the purposes of a tavern, which was one of the needs of the town just then, the small taverns in use being inadequate for the traveling public. He named it the "Franklin House," and it was regarded as a magnificent structure. It had the regulation front platform extending its whole width, and reached by steps. Whether Mr. Scovil failed in a plan to rent it, or intended from the first to run it himself, no one can say. The fact remains that he kept the tavern for long years, and it became one of the city's oldest landmarks.
Philo Scovil was born in Salisbury, Conn., 1791, and died in Cleveland, 1875. His father was Timothy Scovil, a wheelwright, and a soldier of the American Revolution. He was fourth in descent from Samuel Scovill of Saybrook, Conn., the first American ancestor. Mrs. Philo Scovil was
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Jemima Bixby, one of the three daughters of Benjamin and Margaret Walker Bixby of Hartford, Conn., who were pioneers of Lisbon, Ohio, and afterward of Summit County. One of her parents died in Akron in 1821, the other in Tallmadge, Ohio, at the residence of a daughter, Mrs. Roxana Bixby.
Mrs. Jemima Scovil met her future husband while on a visit to the Merwins in their tavern at the foot of Superior Street, and married him in 1819. She entered into his tavern scheme with zeal, bringing into it all her New England habits of thrift, order, and neatness, of the best culinary skill, and of executive ability, so that in time it sustained an enviable reputation for clean beds and sumptuous fare.
No couple in northern Ohio was better and more widely known than were Philo and Mrs. Scovil. Not only were they prominent through their occupation, but by their various activities outside of their home. Mrs. Scovil was a member of Trinity Parish, one of the founders of its home for old ladies, also one of the members of the first board of the Protestant Orphan Asylum. Even in the last years of life, she spent her days in knitting women's and children's leggings, famous of their kind, for the various church and charitable bazars frequently held. She was old-fashioned in her movements and methods, very deliberate, never answering a question hastily, always pondered a moment over it, and one could be sure that her reply would be absolutely accurate, either she knew exactly or not at all. She had the best of her Bible by heart, and her wonderful memory in this respect was known, upon occasion, to not only trip the laity and clergy, but a bishop as well.
Her sister, Marian Bixby, who was but a year older than herself, never married, and made her home with Mrs. Scovil until her death in 1863, aged 64 years. She was closely associated with Mrs. Scovil in all her activities and widely known and loved. Roxanna Bixby, another sister, also lived for a time with Mrs. Scovil, then married and went to Tallmadge, Ohio, to reside.
In later years, Philo Scovil, realizing the opportunities offered in realestate, acquired a large property in the vicinity of Brownell Street, and through which Scovill Avenue was first laid out. He died in 1875. Mrs. Scovil survived him 13 years. The family burial lot is in the old Erie Street Cemetery.
The three children of the couple shared the acquaintances and popularity of their parents. They are frequently referred to in connection with the boys and girls who attended the old academy on St. Clair Street. They were
Edward A. Scovil, b. 1819; m. Catherine Shaw; he died 1890.
Oliver C. Scovil, b. 1823; m. Adeline ----------he died 1894.
Caroline Scovil, b. 1824; m. Elijah St. John Bemis; she died 1885.
Oliver C. Scovil, or "Crockett," as he was called, when 17 years of age, went off on a whaling expedition, and was gone three years. He continued the life of a sailor for a time, and then returned home and learned the printer's trade. The California gold furor made of him a
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"forty-niner," and again he was absent six years. Upon his return, he opened a cooper's shop on the flats.
Elijah St. John Bemis was a grandson of Gamaliel and Margaret St. John of Buffalo, N. Y., and therefore a nephew of Dr. and John R. St. John, and Mrs. Skinner. He was a paper manufacturer and book publisher, doing business under the firm name of Penniman and Bemis. His partner was Francis Penniman.
The marriage of Elijah J. Bemis and Caroline Scovil was an unfortunate one for herself. It was a runaway match disapproved of by her parents. There was a separation after the birth of two daughters, "and Mrs. Bemis resided with her widowed mother for many years before the latter's death. She removed to a western state, where she died. The daughters are living in Canada.
1816
SHEPARD
Phineas Shepard, the new landlord of the Carter Tavern, meant far more to the village of Cleveland in 1816, than any financial success he might make of his venture. Indeed it could not have been a flourishing business, since he relinquished it within three years' time. But his value to the community lay in his strict integrity and his high moral standards. He was a man of pronounced religious convictions, fearless in expressing them, and self-sacrificing in promulgating them. He was very nearly 60 years of age and the father of 10 children when he began his pioneer life in Cleveland.
He was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and when but 17 years of age enlisted in the Revolutionary Army. He served under Gen. Montgomery, and at the end of three years' service received an honorable discharge. At times he suffered much privation and hardship as a Revolutionary soldier. At White Plains he was afflicted with small-pox, but pulled through in spite of exposure and lack of proper nursing. In 1783, Phineas Shepard married Deliverance Smith, the daughter of Gen. Martin Smith, a Revolutionary hero, whose portrait now hangs on the walls of the Historical Society of New York City.
Mr. and Mrs. Shepard had six children born to them in Hartford. In 1800 they caught the western fever, and removed to Lucerne, Pa., from there to Pittsburgh, then to Akron, Ohio, called "Old Portage," and finally in 1816 to Cleveland, where they spent their remaining years of life.
Mr. Shepard was a fervent communicant of the Protestant Episcopal faith. Three of his children were confirmed by Bishop Chase before coming here. When he reached this town and found no church of any denomination, he at once proceeded to organize one of his own preference. On Nov. 9th, 1816, a little company met at the Carter Tavern for that
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purpose. It was composed of 17 representative men of the little community:
Phineas Shepard
Irad Wilcox
Timothy Doan
Noble H. Merwin
Charles Gear
Abraham Scott
Abraham Hickox
Jonathan Pelton
Dennis Cooper
D. C. Henderson
John Wilcox
Philo Scovil
Alfred Kelley
Dr. David Long
T. M. Kelley
This list is a roll of honor, and the descendants of every man whose name is inscribed upon it have reason to allude to the fact with pride. Not all who assisted in the organization lived within the town limits. Timothy Doan resided at Doan's Corners, Euclid and E. 107th Street, and Jonathan Pelton's home was in East Cleveland. Some of the others may have lived in East Cleveland, Newburgh, or Brooklyn. The Rev. Searl of Plymouth, Conn., presided at the meeting, and visited the little parish at intervals. When he could not be present a lay-reader selected from their number, conducted the Sunday services. The poverty of the community in that day can be realized by the following incident
The Rev. Searl, on one of his visits bewailed his need of an ax. The writer is under the impression that his home was in Norwalk, Ohio, but his itinerancy scattered. Phineas Shepard had no money to buy his friend and rector an ax, but he possessed two axes. One was a very old, scarred veteran of the forest and woodpile that had no further excuse for lying around in the way ; the other was a bright, sharp instrument, the lightest stroke of which cut deep. Mr. Shepard went out to his wood-house and looked long and thoughtfully at the two axes, then picked up the only useful one, and returning to the house handed it over to Mr. Searl.
After living in the tavern about three years, Mr. Shepard removed to the West Side and lived at 342 Pearl Street, near Franklin Avenue. He took his church with him. All services were discontinued in Cleveland village, and were thenceforth, for six years, held either at his residence or that of Josiah Barber, who was equally an enthusiastic church man. They took turns in reading the services whenever a clergyman was not present.
The children of Phineas and Deliverence Smith Shepard:
Miles Shepard, b. 1784.
Helen Shepard, b. 1787.
Maria Shepard, b. 1789.
Delia Shepard, b. 1791.
Matilda Shepard, b. 1794..
Amelia Shepard, b. 1796; m. Francis Graham..
Phineas Shepard, Jr., b. 1800; m. Cleantha Hinckley, daughter of Isaac Hinckley.
Elizabeth Shepard, b. 1803; m. Charles Taylor, Jr.
Flora Lavinia Shepard, b. 1805; m.Mr. Morgan ; 2nd, Morris Jackson
William Shepard, b. 1808; m. Ann Jeanett Pearson
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The oldest child of this family, it will be observed, was 24 years old when the youngest one was born. Miles left his home. early and struck out for himself. When William was about 12 years of age, his father sent him to a church school in or near Columbus, Ohio. On his way there in a stage-coach he stopped over night at an obscure country tavern. He got into conversation with a man who asked him his name. "Any relation of Phineas Shepard?" he inquired. "I am his son," was the reply. "You are ! Well, my partner who is now out in the barn is another son of Phineas Shepard." Thereupon William hastened to seek this brother, who proved to be Miles-whom he had never-met before, and never met again, as the latter went to the far west soon afterward.
Only the marriages of the five younger children can be secured. Whether the older ones died or removed to western states, is not known. The younger daughters of the family were very attractive women. Amelia was unusually intelligent and quite a belle. Elizabeth and Flora Lavinia Shepard were both beautiful girls and greatly admired.
Mrs. Deliverance Shepard died and was buried in Cleveland. She was noted for her kind, neighborly acts, and for her wonderful skill as a nurse. Her services were freely given and always gratuitous. Consequently, she was much beloved in the community.
In 1833 Phineas Shepard, Sr., married 2nd, Mrs. Flora MacIntyre. He died in 1842 at the home of his daughter, Flora L. Jackson, and at the age of 85, after a life replete with good works.
1816
CASE
Leonard Case was the son of Meshack and Magdalene Eckstein Case, a poor German couple living on a farm in Westmoreland Co., Pa. About the year 1800, with their family of eight children, of whom Leonard was the oldest, they removed to Warren, Trumbull County, 0., with a view, probably, of bettering their condition.
Here, at the age of fourteen, Leonard was stricken with what may have been infantile paralysis, a disease at that time not recognized as such. The symptoms, now so familiar, were quite pronounced in his case, the burning fever followed by crippled limbs.* This illness left him lame and unable to do active work.
He studied surveying with no purpose of following that occupation, as events proved. Then he secured a position in the courthouse of Trumbull County and, in the Recorder's office, made himself familiar with the records of the Connecticut Land Company. During the War of 1812 he was engaged in collecting delinquent taxes.
When the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie was organized in 1816 the question of a cashier was under discussion, and Judge Kingsbury was asked to recommend a suitable person for that office. "I know a young
* It was always attributed, however, to a severe cold.
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man in Warren named `Case' who writes a plain hand and is quick at figures," he replied. And Leonard Case, Sr., became the first cashier of the first Cleveland bank, the first county auditor, and between 1821 and 1825, president of the village council. Meantime he had studied law and entered the bar. When the bank failed in 1820 he practised law, and dealt in real-estate the remainder of his business life.
In 1817 Leonard Case, Sr., married, in Stow, O., Elizabeth Gaylord of Middletown, Conn. He bought a small house on Superior Street near the corner of Bank Street, originally the Stiles lot. Here the couple began housekeeping, and here they remained for nine years. - The first bank of which Mr. Case was cashier and afterward president occupied the front of this house. Both their sons were born there.
In 1829 the family removed to a small frame-house standing on the present site of the post-office. It faced the Public Square and its length, which was greater in proportion than its width, stood close to the sidewalk of Superior Street. The windows of the house were small and the lower sashes of them were always hung with short curtains of red calico or unbleached cotton. In all the succeeding years of increasing prosperity, from 1829 to 1856, the family continued to live in this house.
It has been told the writer that Mrs. Case was very domestic in her tastes and seldom left her home except on errands for her household. She rarely called upon her neighbors, and was never in any sense a frequenter of society.
In 1856 Mr. Case moved into a double brick house on Rockwell Street at the corner of Wood, East 3rd Street, a residence he had owned for some years. He had sold the other site to the government for a postoffice and custom-house. Mr. Case died within the following year.
It is curious to note that Leonard Case yearly acquired real-estate but did not sell it. In 1833 he advertises ten-year leaseholds on four-rod lots fronting Superior, Bank, St. Clair and Lake streets, the last one ten rods in depth.
There were several periods of great financial depression between 1812 and 1860, when business men in desperate straits were obliged d to offer very valuable real-estate as security for comparatively small loans, and in numerous cases were unable to lift the debt. The bank or individual who held the mortgage came into possession of the property.
In the terrible panic of 1837 the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie, recently reorganized with Leonard Case as its president, acquired a large amount of real-estate in this manner.
Whole pages of local newspapers during the early '40s were filled with sheriff's notices of delinquent tax-sales, to be held on the steps of the courthouse. It is interesting to note how many well-known citizens of that day were unable to pay their taxes. At those sheriff-sales there were few bidders, but the man who had money could secure valuable real-estate for a song. Of course, it could be redeemed, and sometimes Was, but more often it was so many years before the owners were in a position to pay back taxes, interest and charges that no effort was made to reclaim it.
It has been stated to the writer that much of the immense fortune
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made by Mr. Case in real-estate was founded upon the opportunities above mentioned.
The children of Leonard and Elizabeth Case:
William Case, b. 1818; died, unmarried, 1862.
Leonard Case, Jr., b. 1820; died, un married, 1880.
Neither of these sons was robust. Although much of William's life was spent in outdoor sports and recreation he died of consumption at the age of forty-two. He possessed much of his father's business ability, and relinquished his desire to attend college in order to assist his father in the management of his property. He also had railroad interests that made demands upon his time. He was fond of natural history and of hunting. His father's law-office that stood for so many years north of the homestead was converted by him into what would now be called a "den," but which he dubbed the "Ark." Here he kept his treasured specimens and the trophies of hunting expeditions. Here, with his brother, he welcomed congenial friends and organized them into a club, only one member of which now survives.
William Case was mayor of the city in 1850 and '51.
Leonard Case, Jr., was born delicate, and for sixty years struggled with continuous ill-health. He is said to have been a lovable man, kindhearted and generous-minded. His instincts were scholarly, and, perhaps because he was barred from close study, he placed great value upon liberal education. His own well-equipped library and that of his brother formed the nucleus of the Case Library, which he richly endowed.
Four years previous to his death Leonard Case, Jr., placed a million dollars to the credit of an institution to be called "The Case School of Applied Science." It was housed at first in the Case homestead on Rockwell Street, where he and his brother had lived, but long since has occupied stately buildings on Euclid Avenue beyond East 107th Street.
1816
BLISS
Two prominent families in early days were Jonathan and William Bliss who came here about 1816. They were the sons of Stoughton and Zerviah White Bliss of East Windsor, Conn. Another brother, Pelethiah Bliss, also came to Ohio, but settled in Parma.
William and Jonathan both lived on the south side of Superior Street below Seneca. The latter's house came first, then Abram Hickox' blacksmith shop, then the shop of S. S. Dudley, a young bachelor, after that the residence and jewelry shop of William Bliss.
Mrs. William Bliss was Cynthia Wolcott, daughter of Albert and
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Hanna Loomis Wolcott of Windsor, Conn. She was married in 1813, when 24 years of age, and four years later came to Cleveland.
They had three sons and two daughters:
Albert Wolcott Bliss, their oldest child, died at the age of 35, leaving no posterity.
Nancy Eliza Bliss, died unmarried at the age of 25.
Louise Bliss was born blind, and after the death of both parents was tenderly cared for by a cousin living in Michigan, Nancy Warner, afterward Mrs. Proctor Pease.
Stoughton Bliss married Miss Maria Sweet of Buffalo, who died the following year, 1850. He remained a widower until his death. For many years previous to it he boarded at the Kennard House. He was thought to strongly resemble Oliver Wolcott, the signer of the Declaration of Independence.
William S. Bliss, the youngest child of William and Cynthia Bliss, born 1827, married Lucy Gurley. At her death he married secondly, Annie M. Johnston of Columbus, Tenn. He was a newspaper publisher, and lived away from the city a number of years, but returned and died, 1881, in Glenville, on the site of the present Roadside Club house. They had two children born in Columbia, Harry A. and Maria Louise Bliss. These two children are now the only representatives of the Wolcott and Bliss families who once lived in the city. The former has an office in the Superior Arcade, and the latter married Charles Hoor of La Grange, Ill., and resides in that place.
William Bliss, Sr., died in 1828 of malarial fever, aged 38 years. His widow was living at 90 Superior Street in 1845. She died three years later.
The family rest in Erie Street Cemetery.
William Bliss, at his death, owned valuable Cleveland property which if kept in his family would have netted half a million, years ago. May 3, 1831, this property was advertised by John W. Allen, administrator, to be sold at the courthouse, probably by auction. It consisted of part of lot 77, situated on the south side of Superior Street just east of Bank Street, West 6th, running through to Champlain, with a frame-house upon it. Six lots of ten acres each, and one containing five acres, situated on the north side of Lake Street, between Ontario and Erie streets, and 50 acres of lot 279, half of one of the 100-acre lots then outside the village limits, but now looked upon as "down town."
Jonathan Bliss lived but seven years after coming to Cleveland. He died of malaria fever in 1823, aged 43 years, and was buried in Ontario Street Cemetery, and afterward removed to Erie Street Cemetery. After much research, the writer has been unable to learn the maiden name of Mrs. Bliss, save that it was Hannah. The marriage of Jonathan Bliss to Hannah Kent is recorded in Connecticut, but there is a discrepancy between the ages of that Mrs. Bliss and the Cleveland one of the same name. It is possible that the latter may have been older than her friends supposed. Mr. Bliss was her third husband.
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From all that can be Iearned, she had led a checkered life, one full of ups and downs in circumstance. At one time she was mistress of a fashionable boarding house in Washington, D. C., where many prominent statesmen were her guests, among them Daniel Webster, and she had lived in Saratoga Springs and mingled there in high society. Her manner bore evidence of this, as she was cultured and refined, and very interesting in conversation.
Jonathan and Mrs. Bliss had no children of their own, but brought with them to Cleveland a little girl named Pamelia Townsend who had been left an orphan in infancy, and whom- Jonathan Bliss adopted.
Pamelia Townsend Bliss was married in 1831 to Herschel Foote of Cleveland and lived in East Cleveland for many years. The Footes removed to Saratoga Springs, N. Y., where Mrs. Bliss died in 1859, aged 81 years. She was buried there, but 15 years later her remains were disinterred and taken to Larchmont Manor, a later residence of the Foote family.
1816
BELDEN
Silas and Sarah Andrews Belden lived in Canaan, Conn., and probably were married soon after the close of the Revolutionary War. They had two sons and two daughters. Silas, the second son, was born in 1795. He left home quite young, and went to Lenox, Mass. He was a carpenter, and probably hoped to secure work in that town and was disappointed, for he came to Cleveland in 1816 when he was but 21 years old. Five years later he married Mary Pelton of Pelton's Corners, East Cleveland. She was a daughter of the pioneer Deacon Jonathan Pelton and his wife Elisabeth.
The home of the Beldens was on St. Clair Street, directly opposite the residence of the Hilliards and Cutters, and they remained there long after those families had forsaken that neighborhood for the more fashionable and attractive Woodland Avenue. Very little can be learned of Mr. Belden's life in Cleveland, but that little indicates much the measure of esteem in which he was held in the community. Whenever his name is mentioned in connection with city affairs we find him in excellent company.
The threatened visitation of cholera in 1831 hastened the organization of the first, local, board of health, the members of which were three wellknown physicians : Edwin Cowies, Dr. St. John, Dr. Joshua Mills, with Silas Belden and Charles Dennison.
In 1836 we find him as one of three election judges in the incorporation of the city, his associates being John Blair and Daniel Worley, with John A. Vincent and Dudley Baldwin as clerks. But best of all, the following year he heads the names of three members of the board of education, Henry Sexton and Henry H. Dodge being the other two.
Mrs. Belden belonged to a fine family of New England stock, who
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gave its name to a well-known locality of East Cleveland. During most of her life she lived neighbor to her sister Mary Pelton, Mrs. Milo Hickox, and they are both spoken very kindly of by the people yet living who recall them.
Of her six children, two died young in the same year. Her own death occurred in 1838 when her oldest child was 16, and the youngest but six years of age. They Were:
Caroline Belden, born 1832; married Albert B. Northrup.
Emily Belden, born 1824; unmarried ; died 71 years old.
Harrison Belden, born 1825; unmar ried ; died 63 years old.
Sarah Belden, born 1829; married L. O. King of Mansfield, O.
Albert and Caroline Belden Northrup lived in Cleveland and Willoughby, O., for some years and then moved to Kansas City, Mo. She was one of the earliest public school teachers of the city.
Harrison was purser for many years on a line of steamboats. In the last years of his life he was book-keeper for the King Iron Works of Buffalo, N. Y. He never married.
L. O and Sarah Belden King removed to Prairie du Chien, Wis., in 1857.
Nearly three years after the death of his wife, Silas Belden married (2) Cornelia E. Northrup, dau. of Abijah and Betsey Northrup. The children of this marriage were : Charles M. Belden, who died at five years of age, and Albert Belden, who married Hattie E. Blodgett. They both died in Willoughby, O.
Silas Belden died in 1872. His mother, Sarah Andrews Belden, came from Canaan, Conn., to live with him and Mrs. Ebelone Southworth her daughter after the death of her husband. She died in 1843 of old age, and with her son and his family is buried in Erie Cemetery.
1817
"Thousands of New England families this year sacrificed their homes and furniture for whatever it could obtain and started westward. The past two years had been so cold and bleak in New England that it caused a stampede to Ohio. Pitiful scenes were common all along the route. Families that had left their homes in haste and extreme depressions of spirit struggled westward, suffering from lack of provisions and comforts of all kinds. In some instances the long, hard_ journey was attempted on foot, the father and his boys taking turns in dragging along an improvised hand-wagon loaded with remnants of household goods, and occasionally giving the baby and mother a ride. Many of these people were in extreme poverty, and begged food as they toiled wearily on. Not a few perished on their arrival in Ohio from fatigue and privation, and others fell victims to fever and ague, almost certain, at that time, to attack new settlers."
If you were on foot and wished to cross the Cuyahoga River, Christopher Gunn would take you over in his skiff for sixpence. If you were
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driving a team, Mr. Gunn would use a big flat scow for the purpose, and the charge would be a shilling.
1817
SHERMAN
Ephraim Sherman, Jr., and his family came to town in 1817. His father, Ephraim Sherman, Sr., accompanied them, but his mother Mary Sherman remained east, expecting to join the family when it was well established in the new home. The Shermans were originally from Grafton, Mass., but in 1803 removed to Walpole, N. H., where they resided 14 years and again sold out and came to Ohio. The family were descendants of Roger Sherman, and were very proud of the fact. Mrs. Sherman, Remember Cooke, was born in Rhode Island, but married in Grafton, Mass.
Ephraim Sherman, Sr., and his son settled on Broadway, but seemed to be disappointed or dissatisfied with the conditions they encountered and the two men and older grandsons went to Vermilion, and built a large cabin of hewn logs, intending to make it the family home. The women, left alone, were in constant fear of Indians and wild animals which abounded in the vicinity. The former would frequently ask to stay all night by the Sherman fire-place, rolling themselves in their blankets and lying with their heads nearest the fire. At such times Mrs. Sherman and her daughters were too timid to sleep and kept vigil until dawn. The weird howling of wolves close to the cabin also was a sleep-destroyer. The early settlers kept a big bonfire going near by their homes in order to intimidate wild animals.
Once, Clarissa Sherman went to a spring for water, when an Indian sprang up from the thicket, and she ran for her life, screaming all the way home. But the red men meant no harm and doubtless understood that the Sherman household of women were afraid of them, and took advantage of it to have some fun with them.
Mary Sherman never came to Ohio, for her husband died in Vermilion in 1818. The following year, the whole family, who, meanwhile had moved to that town, were all very ill with malaria, and Ephraim, Jr., also died. He was buried in a cemetery that eventually was washed into the lake, and the bones of both father and son were carried away by the waves.
Mrs. Remember Cook Sherman, and all but three of her large family of children returned to Walpole. One of her daughters, Harriet Sherman Staffard, married and lived in a beautiful home in Lowell, Mass. Here the mother was tenderly cared for in her old age, and in every way possible, encouraged to forget the long years of change, trial and sore bereavement. She died in 1841, aged 78.
The three Sherman children remaining in Cleveland were Nancy, Clarissa and Remember. Nancy had become the second wife of Capt.
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W. W. Williams, Jr., of Newburgh. Clarissa and Remember lived with her a year or two, then Clarissa married Arial Harris, son of Calvin and Susannah Bullock Harris, and Remember married Frederick Onstine of Amherst, Ohio.
1817
STEWART
Samuel Stewart came to Newburgh in 1817, and located on land now occupied by the Kinsman Street Reservoir. He married Cherry Edwards, daughter of Rudolphus Edwards. He kept a country tavern and roadhouse many years.
Samuel and Cherry Stewart had four sons:
Jehiel Stewart, m. Sophia Thomas..
Noble Stewart, removed to Marion County and married there.
Calvin Stewart
Rudolphus Stewart, m. Margaret Sayles.
1817
SARGEANT
Levi Sargeant was born in Vermont in 1777. He married in 1804, Rosamond Harris of Connecticut, but the wedding took place in Plainfield, N. H. Their first children were born in Vermont. He evidently moved to Plainfield, N. H., for their third child was born there. He lived in Carthage, near Rochester, N. Y., about 1813, and four years later left that place for Monroe, Mich. The prospects there proved unfavorable, and again he made a change, this time a permanent one. He reached Cleveland in 1818, and lived in a small red house on the west side of Water Street, the same house probably, in which David Clark lived and died.
Mr. Sargeant entered into partnership with Abram Hickox, whose blacksmith shop stood on the south side of Superior Street near Seneca Street. Mr. Sargeant evidently retained his shop here long after taking up residence on the West Side. In the early '30s, he calls for helpers in his work, stipulating that men must be of good moral character. This last was the key-note of Levi Sargeant's character, making of him a most unusual man. Probably there never lived in Cleveland one who maintained higher ideals of morality and honesty.
Mrs. Sargeant was a strong character. She was a famous nurse ready to respond to the call for help whenever needed. And in those days, that meant almost continuously, for the hamlet was scourged with malarial fever, year after year. Mr. Sargeant built the second house
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erected on Detroit Street, West Side, where they died, he in 1862, and Mrs. Sargeant in 1866.
The children of Levi and Rosamond Sargeant:
Jerusha Tracey Sargeant, b. 1804 m. Epaphras Lord Barber, son of Judge Josiah Barber..
Elisabeth Harris Sargeant, b. 1805; m. George Lord Chapman of East Haddam, Conn..
Julia Ann Sargeant, b. 1808; m. Robert Seldon of East Haddam, Conn.
John Harris Sargeant, b. 1814; m. Julia Jackson Hull, daughter of Morris Jackson
Charles H. Sargeant, b. 1819, in Cleveland; m. Hannah Lawson of Cincinnati
A fine pen picture of the daughters of this family, written by Mrs. Stella T. Hatch, will be found on pages 199 and 200 of the Memorial to the Pioneer Women of the Western Reserve.
The following quaint advertisement appeared in a Cleveland Herald of an early day
"Notice is hereby given that the subscriber has released to his son John H. Sargeant the use of his time. He is therefore authorized to trade on his own account and on his own responsibility and for his own benefit.
LEVI SARGEANT,
Feb. 16, 1834."
1817
YOUNG
Ansel Young of Tolland, Conn., who came to Cleveland in 1817 at the age of 29, was a tanner and a fuller. He had a tannery and factory on Doan Brook, near Wade Park Avenue.
But, though well trained in two trades, and a man who supported his family, he was ever above mere dollars and cents. His mind dwelt naturally on higher things. For many years in succession he made the astronomical calculations of local almanacs. He was an intimate friend of several well-known eastern scholars, among them Jared Sparks, and his love of books was a passion. His mother was a Miss Thankful Jenne, for whom he named his daughter. The Youngs lived on Ansel Avenue, and when Wade Park Avenue was cut through that street, their house stood facing the west and directly in the way. Ansel Avenue was named in honor of Ansel Young.
His wife was Sarah Hollister, and they were of the same age. She was a short, plump woman, very even-tempered, never known to scold or to say an unkind word of the absent. She was a direct descendant of John Carver of the Mayflower.
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1817
OWEN
The children of Ansel and Sarah Young:
Minerva Young, who died unmarried at 87 years of age.
Thankful Jenne Young, m. Benj. T. Blackwell
Martha Young, m. Isaac A. Pillsbury, a civil engineer.
They all died in Cleveland.:
The Blackwells and Pillsburys were well known in the community. One of the old families who settled in the East End were the Blackwells. They bought, on what is now Ansel Avenue, a seven-acre lot at $6 an acre. It extended from the park, taking in part of the Boulevard to East 93rd Street. They built a home upon Ansel Avenue in 1831, which has stood until recently, and is now being torn down to make room for the erection of the new Homeopathic Hospital, which for many years was called the Huron Street Hospital.
Benjamin Titus Blackwell was the son of Andrew and Rebecca Titus Blackwell of Hopewell, N. Y. His mother died when he was a year old, and his parental grandparents took him into their keeping until he was 19 years old. His grandfather kept a hotel in Hopewell. He married Thankful Jenne Young, daughter of Ansel Young the East End pioneer. She was an exceptional character in many respects, cheerful, always in the same mood, with a kind word for and of every one.
Their first son was named for Jared Sparks the celebrated college professor, who gave the child a library.
Jared Sparks Blackwell, married Abby Morgan, daughter of William Morgan, and they lived for 25 years on a hundred acre lot adjoining Shaker Lakes, bought by Blackwell, Sr., for $6 an acre.
Jane Maria Blackwell, the only daughter of Benjamin, married Robert S. Avery of Groton, Conn.
Titus Blackwell, a cousin of Benjamin, bought an acre of ground on the corner of St. Clair and Wood Street in 1831. He made one payment on it. When the cholera plague broke out in the city, he was seized with a panic and abandoning the property to its original owner, he fled back to Albion, N. Y., his former home.
1817
OWEN
Mr. and Mrs. Silas Owen lived in Sundersfield, Conn. Mrs. Owen was Miss Lucy Maches, born 1770. In 1817, they converted their farm and stock into money and started for Newburgh, Ohio, in a sleigh. When the snow failed them they traveled on the ice of Lake Erie. Mr. Owen
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1817
GUPTIL
was killed on the Ohio Canal by a cave-in of soil, and Mrs. Lucy Owen was left with her four children. They were:
Betsey Owen, who remained unmarried..
Silas Owen, m. Julia Brainard.
Lydia Owen, m. James Williams.
Lucy Owen, m. Alvah Brainard
Grandma Owen lived in her old age with her daughter Lucy Owen Brainard. This last daughter was married in 1829, and at the time of the Cleveland Centennial was still living at the age of 86. She had a bright intellect, was usually in good health, and loved to talk of the early days when she came from Connecticut. She spun yarn when so young that she had to walk on a thick plank in order to reach the big spinningwheel.
Mrs. Lucy Owen Brainard not only raised her own family, but took into it and cared for her brother Silas' daughter Lydia Owen. She was thin and spare, but quick as lightning, a very smart woman in many directions. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Alvah Brainard
Harriet Brainard, m. Fayette Gleason. mer.
Eunice Brainard, m. Henry Adams of Olmstead.
Demming Brainard, m. Lurinda Pal
Addison and George Brainard never married.
1817
GUPTIL
John H. Guptil, who had a shoe "shop" on Water Street, and later a shoe "store" 79 Superior Street, was a native of Maine, who in childhood was taken into Vermont, and, when only 16 years of age, took part in the. Battle of Plattsburg. Three years after the close of the war, 1817, he came to the village of Cleveland, and married Lucy White, daughter of Levi and Sabrina Kinney White. Sixty years afterward the couple were alive and well with their daughter Mrs. Roberts in Hayes City, Kansas. Mr. Guptil was an industrious, intelligent man, who stood well in the community. He was fond of fun, and considered quite a wag through his dry, funny speeches on the characteristics of his associates and on local events. As for Mrs. Guptil, the fact of her being one of the White family ensured to her own family a faithful wife and conscientious mother who instilled into her children all the old-fashioned virtues that conduce to right living and thinking.
The children married and became widely separated. They were:
Caroline Guptil, b. 1822; m. Mervin Clark ; removed to Dakota..
James S. Clarke Guptil, b. 1824.
Edwin A. Guptil, removed to Oakland, Cal.
George Guptil, removed to Minnesota
Wheeler S. Guptil, removed to Grin nell, Kansas
Minerva Guptil, m. Z. Roberts of Hayes City, Kansas.
189
1817
SKINNER-BROWER
James Skinner and his sister Sarah were from Foxborough, Mass. They settled in Newburgh in 1817. James married Lydia Warner, and his daughter Laura Skinner became the wife of William Belden of Cleveland.
Sarah Skinner, sister of James, married David Brower of Newburgh. They began housekeeping on the smallest scale possible, were very poor for several years, and often were hungry. Upon several occasions there was nothing to eat for breakfast, and Mr. Brower would arise early, take his gun, and start on a long tramp after game. Usually he was successful in the hunt, and return home with meat enough to last several days. Future years brought comforts and ease, but the family were proud of having acquired it, and openly referred to their privation of earlier years. There was a daughter, Pulcherry Brower, in this household; no son has been recorded.
1817
BALDWIN
Seth Cogswell Baldwin of Ballston Springs, N. Y., who came to Cleveland in 1817, was a soldier of the American Revolution. He was with Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga, and subsequently served under Col. Grosvenor in other campaigns of that war. He was twice a prisoner, having been one of the founders of Ballston Springs, where he attained large property and business interests. But reverses overtook him, and with magnificent courage for one at his time of life, 55 years, he started out to begin all over again, to create a home and recruit his fortunes in an Ohio wilderness. He was the son of Daniel Baldwin of Connecticut, and married in young manhood Ruth White. Mr. and Mrs. Seth Baldwin had eight children, when, at the birth of the youngest, in 1805, Mrs. Baldwin died. The motherless infant received her name as a legacy, Ruth White Baldwin.
The children who accompanied their father to Cleveland intermarried with well-known pioneer families, and Seth C. Baldwin's descendants are some of the finest people residing in this city. Mr. Baldwin married, secondly, Miss Abigail Kellogg, who died the year following her arrival here. Mr. Baldwin settled on a farm located in Newburgh, now Woodhill Road, and, at one time lived in the Doan Tavern at Doan's Corners.
The contrast between their luxurious home in Ballston Springs, which had been the center of hospitality, and the frontier tavern whose isolation was almost complete, its loneliness seldom broken save by the passing of pioneers westward, must have been a most disheartening contrast. That the young wife and mother succumbed to the situation within a year is not surprising. She left a son nine years of age, a little daughter, and the family of children whose care she assumed at her marriage.
With her death Mr. Baldwin's misfortunes seemed to culminate. Sorrow seemed to be his only portion. But he struggled on a few years
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1817
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longer, keeping a brave front, and making himself as useful as possible to the little scattered community in which he had cast his lot.
He had a knowledge of surveying, and many a farm in the township and county was staked out by him. He became interested, at once, in local military affairs, as a regimental notice signed by him appeared in the small weekly newspaper of 1819.
The children of Seth Cogswell and Ruth White Baldwin:
Thomas Palmer Baldwin.
Seth Cogswell Baldwin. son of Timothy Doan.
Samuel W. Baldwin.
Charles N. Baldwin.
Edward Baldwin, m. Mercy Doan, daughter of Nathaniel Doan.
Ann Olivia Baldwin, m. John Doan,
Ann Eliza Baldwin, m. James Strong.
Ruth Baldwin, m. Henry Camp; 2nd, Robert Marsh.
Dudley Baldwin, b. 1809; m. Henrietta Hine.
Abigail C. Baldwin, m. Rev. M. Wood.
The marriages of Edward, Anna Eliza, and Ann Olivia Baldwin were celebrated not long after the family arrived in Cleveland. That of Edward and Ann Olivia was a double wedding, occurring in January, 1820, four months later than that of the older sister.
Dudley Baldwin was yet a lad when left an orphan by the death of his father. He began to clerk for Peter M. Weddell in his store on the Superior Street corner now occupied by the Rockefeller Building. Mr. Weddell took great interest in him, and at length young Baldwin became a partner in the concern.
Other interests developed as the years passed, banking and the promotion of railroads leading to and from the city, all of which hastened its growth and increased the value of property.
Physically, Mr. Baldwin was slight and rather frail, his appearance much at variance with his indomitable will and energy. Had his earlier life been less pressing, he would have chosen to become a scholar, and his latter years of ease were spent in indulgence of his love for literature.
In 1833 he married Henrietta Hine of Youngstown, Ohio, daughter of Homer and Mary Skinner Hine. Her grandparents were Col. Noble Hine of Milford, Conn., and Capt. Abraham Skinner of Painesville. The first home of the young couple was on Bank Street adjoining the store, and here the groom, 24 years and the bride 23 years of age, set up housekeeping in a story-and-a-half frame-cottage with a little garden around it, including an arbor in which to sit during long summer evenings. We may be certain that Mrs. Weddell took great interest in the planning and furnishing of that little house, and that from her own pretty garden of native and rare flowers she helped to stock the new one, and that the bride in moments of perplexity over culinary mysteries, often slipped over to the older home so near and convenient to ask advice and secure help.
Here they lived for ten years, then built a small home on the west
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1817
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side of North Perry Street, a short walk from Euclid, Ave., which from time to time received additions and improvements until it became one of the most picturesque houses in Cleveland; one so unusual and homely looking that no passer-by with an eye for the beautiful could but pause to admire. In addition to this, Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin in their love of nature adorned the ample grounds surrounding it with a rare collection of shrubs, vines, and ..flowers.
Mrs. Baldwin's aunt, Pauline Skinner, wife of Nathan Perry, Jr., lived in a large rambling house set back in the grounds opposite, and closer to the street resided the latter's daughter Mrs. H. B. Payne, in a modern stone edifice. The Perry Street home of the Dudley Baldwin family lasted 53 years-over half a century. One can but muse over the scenes witnessed within the residence still standing intact with undiminished attractiveness. The hundreds of Cleveland people who enjoyed the hospitality it ever extended, now lying in Woodland and Lake View; 53 years of Christmas and Thanksgiving occasions when relatives gathered, and near friends bidden ! Who would have believed that business and death could make such a clean sweep of the neighborhood in that vicinity, in so short a time ! The Perry home occupied by strangers, that of the Paynes standing unoccupied and desolate, the commerce crowding and threatening the two sisters remaining in the old Baldwin homestead !
The children of Dudley and Henrietta Hine Baldwin:
Mary Baldwin.
Homer Baldwin, a soldier of the Civil War. He was in many great battles of that conflict ; d. 1870.
Anne Weddell Baldwin, m. Lieut. I. A. Shultz, U. S. A.
Peter Weddell Baldwin.
Henrietta Baldwin, m. Gouverneur Morris, Jr., of New York.
Dudley Baldwin, Jr.
Sherman Frick Baldwin, d. 1875.
1817
RATHBUN
Edmund Rathbun, the Revolutionary soldier buried in Harvard Grove Cemetery, and a Newburgh pioneer, must have had several sons. Edmund Rathbun, Junior, was one of them and Zebulon another. The complete list of his children cannot be obtained. The above son, Zebulon Rathbun, had a family of children born and raised in Newburgh. Their records are but partially given and the mother's maiden name not furnished.
Ambrose Rathbun, married Hannah _______..
Jane Rathbun, m. Isaac Leach
Eunice Rathbun, m. Uz Hendee.
Rachel Rathbun, m. Kapple.
Isabella Rathbun, m. Boardman Pearse
George Rathbun, m. Catherine Greenleese.
Marietta Rathbun, m. Amaziah Rodway.
192
1817
PEARSE
Jonathan Pearse and his wife Lucy Scoville Pearse were married 1808, in Sudley, Vt. They removed to Newburgh hamlet in 1817. Newburgh was being settled by New England people, many of them from Vermont, who had made the long journey in ox-teams, driving or leading a cow all the way.
Mr. Pearse paid less than four dollars an acre for his farm which was purchased of the Lord and Barber Land Co. In 1910, his son sold less than an acre of it for $3,300. The first home of the Pearse family was a log-house near the corner of the present Harvard and Independence streets. In 1821, the taxes on the 10 acres was $13.65, an amount not difficult to raise, it would seem, from a stand-point of nearly a century afterward. But at that early day, it was a hard pull to be able to meet even so small an obligation in dollars and cents, as the above sum. The "land-poor" farmers no sooner paid one year's taxes before planning and saving, sixpence at a time, so as to be ready for the next one.
The wolves were very numerous and troublesome for years following the arrival of the family in Newburgh, and their howling terrified the children until its frequency inured them to the sound and to its possible danger. During the digging of the Ohio Canal, Jonathan Pearse and the father of the late President James Garfield were associated in a contract to excavate part of its channel.
Mr. and Mrs. Pearse had a family of seven children to reach maturity, most of whom were born in Newburgh. They were:
Franklin Pearse, m. Theresa Wakefield.
Mary A. Pearse, m. Jesse Jennings Removed to Indiana.
Boardman Pearse, m. Isabella Rathbun.
Roxana Pearse, m. 1st, Daniel Terry; 2nd, Henry Tuttle
Emily Pearse, m. Richard Wright ; lived in Madison, Ohio.
Boardman Pearse lived to be 90 years of age. At this date, 1913, his wife still survives him.' They lived in the old homestead on Harvard Street. Roxanna Pearse removed to Illinois soon after her first marriage. At the death of Mr. Terrill, Boardman Pearse drove all the way to the place she was living and brought her and her two children back to her father's home.
1817
JEWETT
Moses Jewett a farmer, and also a cooper by trade, was born in Hollis, New Hampshire.
In 1812, he married Eunice Andrews, 20 years of age, and in the year 1817 they came to Cleveland. Mr. Jewett bought a small farm on Water street, below St. Clair street, and south of Lake street. Mr. Jewett may
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1817
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have built the old log-house that stood in that vicinity after all the other pioneer landmarks had disappeared. One authority states that the family remained there nine years, and then removed to a farm in Newburgh. It was situated on Miles Ave., and a member of the family yet resides within a short distance of the old homestead site.
Moses Jewett was a prominent man in both Cleveland and Newburgh. His children intermarried with other pioneer families. The sons were well-known business 'men, and both sons and daughters held enviable social positions. One of the granddaughters, Miss Carrie Jewett, is a member of the Western Reserve Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution.
Moses Jewett died in 1850.
The children of Moses and Eunice Andrews Jewett:
Esther A. Jewett, b. 1813; m. Danforth Ruggles..
George A. Jewett, b. 1816; m. a Southern lady. He died 1843.
Lydia A. Jewett, b. 1818; died in 1823, buried in Erie Street Cemetery.
Alvah Jewett, b. 1821; m. Cynthia Rhodes, daughter of Oliver and Cynthia Rhodes.
Charles Porter Jewett, b. 1825; m. Adeline Adams, his step-sister
Eunice Jewett, b. 1828; m. C. Bastion.
Mary Jane Jewett, b. 1830; in. John M. Burk
Julia Towsley Jewett, b. 1833; m. Charles Davis
1817
SHUMWAY
Jeremiah Shumway and his wife Helen Simmons from Roe, Mass., settled in East Cleveland in 1817, and the family became very prominent in that locality. The children
Lucy Shumway, m. Samuel Bond, Elkhart, Ind.
Alvira Shumway, b. 1824; m._____ Eliott..
Helen Shumway, b. 1828; m. J. Loyd.
Mary Shumway, b. 1832; m. M. H. Nelson.
Loudama Shumway, b. 1838; m. Charles Foljambe
Dewey Shumway, m. Fanny Cranney.
Patience Shumway.
1817
JACKSON
Morris and Lucinda Sheldon Jackson of Ludlow, N. Y., arrived in Cleveland in 1817. They were 22 days coming by way of horses and a wagon. The family eventually settled on a farm in Newburgh, but Morris Jackson, from time to time, engaged in other pursuits than farm-
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1817
RATHBUN
ing. His children were all men and women of strong personality, mentally and physically, and made their presence felt in the community in which they lived. Their two sons lived to be very aged, and one of the daughters was over 90 years of age at her death. The family resided in Newburgh several years, but although all the daughters married in that burg, but two of them remained there afterwards.
The children of Morris and Lucinda Sheldon Jackson:
Tower Jackson, m. Sarah Clock of Monroeville, O.; 2nd, Lucy Button.
Morris Jackson, Jr., m. 1st, Alice Brown of Black River; 2nd, Lucy Miles ; 3rd, Flora Shepard.
Ruth Jackson, m. 1st, Reuben Drake; 2nd, Youngs L. Morgan, Jr.
Juliette Jackson, m. Alphonso Holly, son of the pioneers Ezekiel and Lucy Carter Holly or Hawley
Nancy Jackson, m. Buell Jones, a ship-builder, who removed to Buffalo, N. Y.
Harriet Jackson, m. Elijah Clock of Monroeville, O., brother of Sarah Clock Jackson.
Chloe Jackson, m. Ely Colt of New York City. Ely Colt lived in Cleveland in the '30s.
Morris Jackson, Jr., lived on a farm on Detroit street some years previous to his death; a farm now of great value as building property. Tower Jackson lived in Huron, Ohio, and died there at a great age. Juliette Jackson Hawley lived all her life on Broadway near the city limits. She died aged 90, at the residence of her son in the East End.
1817
RATHBUN
There were several families of Rathbun in Cuyahoga Co. in the very early days of its organization. They were all related, the heads of each family being either brother or cousin of the others.
Edmund Rathbun was originally from Rhode Island. His parents moved to Massachusetts, and a little later to Livingston Co., N. Y. In 1817, he came to the city, settling on Harvard Street. It cannot be learned if the parents came also. But, two years later, Edmund married Julia Hamilton.
Four children were born to them, Alvin, Caroline, Melinda, and Lydia Rathbun.
Edmund Rathbun and his wife both died in 1881 at the age of 87 years.
George and Jonathan Rathbun, brothers of Edmund, also came to Newburgh, but later moved with their families to Euclid and Orange.
Mrs. George Rathbun was Miss Harriet Warren before her marriage. They came to Newburgh in 1817, and settled on Harvard street, where, in time, there were eight families of the name.
George Rathbun had three daughters and a son.
195
(Page 196 - STREET MAP OF EUCLID ROAD)
1818
SPRAGUE
In January of this year, the leading merchants in town refused to accept any individual script and a notice to that effect was printed in the first issue of the first Cleveland newspaper.
The names signed to it are of interest, as it establishes a date when each was a resident of the village.
J. I and Irad Kelley,
Nathan Perry,
Luther Chapin,
Daniel Kelley,
Phineas Shepard,
William Garford,
Thomas Rummage,
Henry Mowry,
George Pease,
George Wallace,
S. Nechley,
David James,
Amasa Bailey,
Cullen Richmond,
Leonard Case,
George G. Hill,
Cyrus Prentice,
George Perkham,
James Hyndman.
Population of Cleveland village, 74.
Superior Street yet not much more than a lane.
Caleb Eddy of East Cleveland died this year aged 64 years. His wife Nancy Blinn Eddy died in 1838 aged 77. Eddy Road was named for this family.
1818
SPRAGUE.
When Ara Sprague entered the village of Cleveland on an April day in 1818, he found its population had just been counted. Men, women, and children, all told, numbered but 172 souls.
His first impression of the town, according to his testimony given years afterward, was far from favorable. He found every family in it poor and struggling to make a living. Only a few acres of ground had been cleared of the scrub oaks that had covered them, and the forest pressed closely in upon these. Rail fences enclosed the few houses that straggled along Superior street from Bank street to the river. There was no St. Clair street then. Lake street possessed but one house-a log one and there were perhaps half a dozen on Water street.
The nickels and pennies that in the present day are so plentiful and convenient would have been hailed with delight in that early one when small change was entirely lacking, and shin-plasters, issued by the small corporation, the only means of exchange.
Mr. Sprague tells us that passage from Buffalo to Cleveland when taken on a vessel was $10, but to the traveler who came by steamboat "Walk-in-the-Water," it cost twice that sum. There was a land route, however, one very popular with the impecunious, and those who traveled its weary length were often conveyed by "Shank's Mare."
Ara Sprague was one of a family of four sons and five daughters, all
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1818
SPRAGUE
Massachusetts born, some in Spencer, and others in Worcester. The parents were Ara and Martha Wilson Sprague. Ara was 28 years old when he came west. Ten years previous, he was at Ogdensburg; a youthful corporal shouldering his musket in the War of 1812. He belonged to a company similar to our present "Ohio National Guards," and one morning, the alarm-gun notified Ogdensburg that the British were marching toward it on the ice of the St. Lawrence River. The young militia was caught unaware. It was Sunday morning, and most of them were making their toilets, some bathing, others shaving, etc. Those who had just donned clean shirts did not stop to tuck them in, and the barefooted ones slipped on their shoes without stockings and rushed out in the snow, guns in hand, to meet the invaders. Many were bareheaded.
Whether the sight of this motley crew was over much for British courage, or that the enemy had not any of the time included Ogdensburg in its marching plans, is not stated. But the redcoats landed on the opposite side on Canadian shores. But the militia had proven its valor.
Otis Sprague, a younger brother, was also an Ohio pioneer. He settled in Erie County, where he died after a long and honorable life. He was the father of Gen. John W. Sprague, a Civil War veteran and railroad president. He lived in Huron, Ohio, and Tacoma, Washington.
Ara Sprague seems to have made himself useful to Cleveland village from the start. He set out the elms that grew to such stateliness in the Public Square, and which only in late years succumbed to coal-smoke and disease. In 1819, he married Almira Burgess, daughter of Almon Burgess, the well-known pioneer, and sister of Leonard and Solon Burgess the wholesale grocers. She was, like her mother, a most estimable woman, devoted to her family. She died comparatively young, leaving two children.
George Sprague, m. Minerva Fauts.
Martha Sprague, m. W. W. Dingley.
For many years a large commission and wholesale grocery store on Merwin street, the river side, bore the sign "George Sprague." His son William Sprague resides in the city with his family of five children.
During the epidemic of typhoid fever that followed the opening of the canal in 1827, Ara Sprague seems to have been a ministering angel in the homes visited by sickness and death. For two months he gave himself and his services to those afflicted with the disease. Almost every one in town was ill. Sometimes a whole household stricken with no one to nurse them or give even a drink of water to the sufferers. The scourge was not confined to the village. Doan's Corners, Newburgh, and even as far as Euclid, were visited by it, and many were the deaths that followed. Seventeen died in Cleveland within the two months that the fever raged.
In some cases there were babes whose mothers were too ill to nurse them, and these Mr. Sprague carried to and fro from their homes to those of women who could furnish sustenance to the little ones. Mr. Sprague's untiring administrations to the stricken town won the affection and gratitude of that generation, and the admiration and appreciation of all succeeding ones.
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Some time after the death of his wife, he married secondly, Miss Dinah Munger, a remarkable woman who lived to be 101 years of age. When she died in Chicago, Ill., June 6, 1910, the local papers gave much space in notices of the event and detail of her long and eventful life. Her patriotic line of ancestry included every struggle her country engaged in from the French and Indian War until peace was declared at the close of the Civil War, and a grandson served in Cuba.
She was an enthusiastic member of Forest City Post, G. A. R. Relief Corps, and upon her removal to Chicago was tendered a reception in her honor at the residence of the late Dr. H. W. Kitchen, at which time her photograph was taken, surrounded by floral offerings of affection and respect.
She had one daughter, the late Mrs. Almira Gill, a lovely woman whose death was mourned by many friends.
1818
JANES
No family of the East End, except perhaps the Doans and Strongs, has been so long identified with that part of Cleveland as the Janes family. The founder of this western branch was Obidiah Janes, born 1759. His parents were Deacon Ebenezer and Sarah Field Janes of Northfield, Vt.
Obidiah Janes came to Ohio in 1818, and purchased a farm on Euclid Road west of Doan Street, now East 105th. He brought with him a large family of children. He had been married twice. His first wife was Polly Oliver, daughter of John Oliver. His second wife was Harmony Bingham.. She accompanied him to Cleveland and died five years later.
Mr. Janes was nearly 60 years old when he left his old home in Vermont and settled in a wilderness at the East End. The venture, doubtless, was for the future and material welfare of his children, rather than for his own possible benefit. He was a short, stocky man, of sturdy physique. It is claimed that shortly after coming here he walked every foot of the way back to his former home in Vermont, and returned in the same manner.
The children of Obidiah Janes and of his wives Polly Oliver and Harmony Bingham Janes:
Polly Janes, b. 1787; m. Joel Doolittle.
Jabez Janes, died 24 years of age.
Malinda Janes, m. Otis Munn; 2nd,. Samuel Chapin.
Oliver Janes, m. Hannah Clement.
Harmony Janes, m. Adolphus Harley.
Naomi Janes, m. William Mitchell.
Laura Janes, died aged 34; unmarried.
Lucretia Janes, m. Solomon Dunton
Alonzo Janes, m. Ann Disbro ; 2nd, Harriet Converse
Sophia Janes, m. Asbury Sabine.
Harris Janes, m. Julia King.
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1818
TURNER
Oliver Janes was in the nursery business for many years, and his sons continued it after his death. His nurseries were situated near East Madison Ave., now East 79th Street. He had nine children, but only three lived to maturity.
They were:
Lorenzo Janes, b. 1822 m. Abigail Nichols.
Mary Janes, m. Isaac C. Warren.
Harris Janes, m. Celia De Wolf.
Harmony Janes, m. Ira Bristol.
1818
SHAFFER
Died, Betsey Shaffer, wife of Abraham Williams, March 18, aged 18 years. (Erie Street Cemetery.)
Elizabeth Wickham, wife of Abner or Asher Wickham. (Stone near main entrance of Erie Street Cemetery. Inscription nearly obliterated.)
1818
TURNER
Abraham Turner of Hebron, N. Y., was 35 years old when he removed to Newburgh and became one of its earliest settlers. His wife, whom he married in 1808, was Susannah Gibbs, daughter of Hiram Gibbs a Continental soldier of 1776. Several of Hiram Gibbs' brothers also served in the Revolutionary army.
Abraham Turner was a farmer of Newburgh and of Independence Township, and well known throughout the county. Besides his own family of children, he is said to have adopted and tenderly cared for several orphans, which speaks well for him and his good wife. But a list of his sons and daughters cannot be secured from any of their descendants, although several are said to live in the county.
1818
SHERWIN
On the morning of a bitter winter day in February, 1818, a large sleigh drawn by two farm horses moved briskly in a south-western direction from Middlebury, Vermont, a town but a few miles east of the New York state line, and about half-way between lakes Champlain and George.
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1818
SHERWIN
The seat of this sleigh was occupied by Ahimaz Sherwin, Jr., 26 years of age, his young wife Hannah Swan Sherwin, and their little daughter Lucy but a few months old. The back of the sleigh was piled high with household furniture, bedding, and clothing. The family had started in mid-winter on a ride of 500 miles, at least half of which led through a trackless wilderness. But, aside from the weather, traveling at this time of year was far easier than through the summer months. A sleigh moved over the snow more smoothly and with less jolting than a wagon, also over ice-bound lakes and rivers that otherwise would have to be forded or avoided.
The sleighing was excellent all the way, but the weather very severe ; the thermometer for ten days of the trip was below zero. Their food and shelter for the night was ever uncertain, and a source of anxiety, for it depended upon little country taverns, or upon the hospitality of isolated farm-houses. It is ever a mystery to the woman of today how a mother managed to care for a babe and keep it warm on such a long, cold journey. The case of little Lucy Sherwin was not exceptional. Hundreds of very young children accompanied their parents to the wilds of Ohio when the journey was undertaken in the winter or early spring with the frost yet in the air, and snow still covering the ground. Furthermore, instances have been given where the pioneer party waited for an expected addition of a little stranger in a family, and then started on a trip two weeks after its arrival.
The Sherwins made the distance between Buffalo and Dunkirk on the frozen shores of Lake Erie, and, early in the evening of one day, their sleigh broke through the ice, thoroughly drenching its occupants. With their clothes frozen upon them, they had to continue their journey until a place was reached in which they could spend the night.
The deep-seated cold that resulted from this mishap eventually undermined the constitution of the intrepid wife and mother, and although she lived several years after reaching Cleveland she never was again well, and died leaving three young children.
The journey ended March 1st-18 days from the time it was started. No accommodation for them and their horses could be secured in the small village of Cleveland, and they had to turn around again and go back as far as Job Doan's tavern at Doan's Corners.
Luckily for Mr. Sherwin, Richard Blinn had begun to build a new house on his farm south of Doan's Corners, and on the road to Newburgh. He hired Mr. Sherwin to do the carpenter work on it, the Sherwins, meanwhile, living with the Blinn family. By the last of August, the house was finished, and the wages due Mr. Sherwin enabled him to return to Vermont and bring on his parents to share his pioneer home. They were Ahimaaz Sherwin, Sr., who had served his country in the War of the American Revolution, and Ruth Day Sherwin, his wife. They had been married 38 years, had had a family of ten children, and were both nearly 60 years of age when they left their Vermont home to seek another in the woods east of Fairmount Street. Ahimaaz and Ruth Sherwin were married in 1780.
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1818
SHERWIN
Their children:
Asa Sherwin, b. 1781; married, had two children. He died 1817..
Sarah Sherwin, b. 1783; m. Henry Sumner. She died 1827.
Ruth Sherwin, b. 1785; m. Levi Billings. She died 1830. He married 2nd, Sophia Cody
Betsey Sherwin, b. 1787; m. 1st, ______Nutting; 2nd, ______
Achsa Sherwin, b. 1789; m. John Gardner
Ahimaaz Sherwin, Jr., b. 1792; m. 1st, Hannah Swan ; 2nd, Sarah M. King
Poplin Sherwin, b. 1794; m. Jesse Harris. She died 1830.
Delphia Sherwin, b. 1796; m. William Hudson. She died 1880
Phila Sherwin, b. 1798; m. Andrew Logan, editor of "Davenport, Iowa, News."
Benjamin Sherwin, b, 1801; died young.
It will be noticed, by the above, that there were seven married daughters in the family. Some of these were wives before coming to Ohio, others were married in Cleveland, but all lived here, and three of them died within 12 years of their arrival and were buried here, Sarah in 1827, Ruth and Poplin in 1830. Achsa Sherwin, as the wife of John Gardner, a well-known Cleveland merchant, spent the rest of a long life in Cleveland. Ahimaaz Sherwin, Jr., his parents, and two of his sisters made the trip from Vermont to Cleveland in the early autumn of 1818, with two horses and a wagon. When the party reached Buffalo, it divided, the elderly couple continuing their journey by team, and the son and daughters by the lake. They took passage on the sloop Huntington, commanded by Capt. Day of Black River. Storms made it a long and perilous trip that lasted a week, and they were very glad to climb down out of the vessel into a lighter that came out from Cleveland to take them into the river. It landed them at the foot of Superior Street hill.
It is said that they took the "Foot & Walker" line to reach Doan's Corners, their objective point, over four miles distant. But it was an interesting walk that led through woods ablaze with autumnal tints, and the air filled with the sound of dropping nuts. They reached Doan's Corners just as their parents drove in from the east.
Ahimaaz Sherwin, Jr., purchased 15 acres of Judge John H. Strong on the corner of Euclid Ave. and East 96th Street, the site of the present Congregational Church, where he built a house in which his parents lived until their death. He also built a home for himself on the Blinn farm, and afterward one on Fairmount street. He was a skilled carpenter, and in the course of his long and useful life in the city, finished the interiors of many fine houses and hotels, within the former boundaries of Cleveland.
The year 1827 was one of great sorrow to the Sherwin family. A malignant fever raged in Cleveland and the surrounding countryside. Whole families were ill in bed unattended, and there was great mortality in consequence. Mrs. Sherwin, Jr., Sarah Sherwin Sumner, and Jesse Harris, husband of Poplin Sherwin, died within a few days of each other. Ahimaaz Sherwin, Sr., in writing to Vermont relatives soon afterward, said----.
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1818
SAXTON
"Every one of our family was sick, and no one to care for them. For the whole neighborhood was in the same situation. I had 16 children and grandchildren all sick at once."
The children of Ahimaaz, Jr., and Hannah Swan Sherwin:
Lucy Sherwin, b. 1818; m. David Carleton; removed to Elkhart, Ind.
Harriet Sherwin, b. 1820; m. Philip Cody of Cleveland.
Franklin Tyler Sherwin, m. 1st, Fanny Riddle, a widow; 2nd, Elisabeth Arnold.
In 1828, Ahimaaz Sherwin, Jr., married 2nd, Sarah M. King of Livingston Co., N. Y., and daughter of Joseph King, a pioneer. The children of Ahimaaz, Jr., and Sarah King Sherwin
Caroline M. Sherwin, m. Benjamin Burke ; 2nd, her cousin Sherwin Logan..
Mary Sherwin, m. John Handley, son of Jonathan Handley.
Sarah P. Sherwin, m. Edwin G. Rose, formerly of Norwalk, Ohio.
Ruth Day Sherwin, m. Eugene Coleman. She died in Cleveland. A daughter resides in Denver, Col
Ida A. Sherwin, m. 1st, C. L. Beck with ; 2nd, Elisha Nichols.
Ahimaaz Sherwin, Jr., died 1881, and Sarah M. King Sherwin five years later, at the residence of her daughter, Mrs. John Handley. Mrs. Sarah Sherwin was an earnest worker in the East End Methodist Church.
A costly cathedral-glass window adorns the western wall of the beautiful Euclid Avenue Christian Church. It was erected in memory of Delphia Sherwin, wife of William Hudson, and daughter of Ahimaaz and Ruth Day Sherwin. She died at the age of 84 years, and for many years had been a prominent and active worker in this church society.
1818
SAXTON
Jehial Saxton, - 36 years of age, settled in Newburgh in the fall of 1818. His farm was five miles from the Public Square on Kinsman Road, corner of Rice Ave. He brought his family with him from Bristol, Vt. They were six weeks making the journey of 600 miles. Mr. Saxton hastened to clear a spot from trees and brush upon which to erect his log-cabin, and although its windows lacked any glass we may be sure that Mrs. Saxton and her five children spent their first night under its sheltering roof in deep content. One has but to sleep six weeks under the stars to be enabled to appreciate a stationary bed and one that was dry. Besides there had been very strange, blood-curdling noises in the
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