Cleveland and Its Environs

CHAPTER I

IN OLD CONNECTICUT

In 1631, an Indian sagamore went to Boston with the story of a delightful country in the valley of what is now known as the Connecticut River. For various reasons, some of the people of Massachusetts Bay soon began to think that their province was too crowded and to express a desire to emigrate westward. About that time the earl of Warwick assigned to Lord Say and Seale, Lord Brooke, and others his dubious title to the territory between the Narragansett and the Pacific, the bounds of which were stated with exasperating indefiniteness. The grantees planned the planting of a colony, but the New Netherland Dutch penetrated the Connecticut River valley, bought lands from the Indians as was their honest custom, built Fort Good Hope on the site of Hartford, and claimed the whole valley as their own. In 1633, the Pilgrims at New Plymouth sent a vessel to carry William Holmes and others thither, and the Dutch commander of Fort Good Hope threatened to fire if Holmes attempted to sail by. But Holmes understood English better than he did Dutch, obeyed his New Plymouth orders, sailed by the quiescent fort, and, six miles further up the river, began a settlement on the site of Windsor. Connecticut had been begun.

EARLY EVENTS IN SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND

The water route to the beautiful valley having been thus opened by Holmes, the overland route through Massachusetts was explored by John Oldham, whose "appetizing accounts of the upper Connecticut valley . . . seem to have suggested a way out of a serious difficulty which had come to a head in Massachusetts Bay." Five of the eight Massachusetts towns had limited suffrage and office-holding

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to church members. For this and perhaps other reasons, the three more democratic towns fell into opposition. In 1636, came a memorable migration, led by such men as Thomas Hooker and William Pynchon, and urged on by the restless pioneer spirit characteristic of our fathers, the desire for more fertile lands than those of eastern Massachusetts, a longing for less of political and ecclesiastical restriction than that imposed by the Puritan hierarchy, and, in some cases, no doubt, by a weariness of the overshadowing influence of Wilson, Cotton, Endicott, Dudley and the elder Winthrop. In March of that year (1636), the Massachusetts general court issued a commission to eight persons "to govern the people at Connecticut" for the ensuing year, but before the Massachusetts commission expired, Connecticut had a well-established government of its own. In 1637, Springfield withdrew from the association, but in January, 1638-39, the other towns on the river, Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor, took up the powers of self-government, a somewhat nebulous commonwealth with its authority derived chiefly from the democratic principles of its citizens; its constitution, known as "The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut," made no mention of king or parliament. There soon came a voluminous correspondence between Thomas Hooker and Governor Winthrop concerning the boundaries of the commonwealths

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and general principles of government. This correspondence shows clearly the ,uncompromising democracy of the Hartford Pastor who urged that "the foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people.” On the other hand, Governor Winthrop insisted that "the best part is always the least, and of that best part the wiser part is always the lesser." This disposition of the Connecticut freemen to make their democracy the chief cornerstone of commonwealth still persists in their descendants in New Connecticut.

In June, 1637, a band of English Calvinists landed at Boston. Their leader was their pastor,. John Davenport, after whom their leading man was Theophilus Eaton, a merchant. In proportion to their numbers, they formed the richest colony in America, and they were free from entangling alliances. Unwilling to subordinate themselves to others when they could constitute a commonwealth of their own, and without any patent from king or concessionaire, they sailed from Boston in March, 1638, and began a settlement at what is now New Haven. At first, as was the case at Plymouth, the town and the colony were identical, but, one after another, neighboring towns were planted and, in 1643, the deputies from several of these towns met as a general court and adopted a constitution for the commonwealth of New Haven.

In 1645, John Winthrop, Jr., son of the Massachusetts governor, began a plantation at the mouth of the Pequot River; the plantation became New London and the river became the Thames. In 1646, Winthrop received a commission from the Massachusetts general court, but, in the following year, the commissioners of the United Colonies concluded that "the jurisdiction of that plantation doth and ought to belong to Connecticut." Settlements were soon made at Stonington and elsewhere in eastern Connecticut. In 1658, the commissioners of the United Colonies awarded the territory west of the Mystic River to Connecticut and the country between the Mystic and the Pawcatuck to Massachusetts. In 1662, the long-sought Connecticut charter fixed the eastern boundary of the colony at the Pawcatuck River, Massachusetts acquiesced, and, in June of that year, Thomas Miner of Stonington wrote in his famous diary that "mr plaisted [and] ould Cheesbrough was going to norig [Norwich] To surrender the Towne to Coneticut."

In 1657, the younger Winthrop was elected governor of Connecticut, for a year. In 1659, he was again elected and held the office until 1676. Connecticut was tardy, but less tardy than the other members of the New England confederacy, in her acknowledgment of Charles II. as king of England. In 1661, her general court voted an address

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to the king "declaring and professing themselves, all the inhabitants of the colony, to be his Highness's lawful and faithful subjects." Governor Winthrop was sent to England with the address and instructions to seek a royal charter with provisions "licit inferior or short of what was granted to the Massachusetts." In England, he had the influential support of Lord' Sty and Seale and of the earl of Manchester. Winthrop's mission was successful, and, in. April, 1662, the monarch who has been fittingly described as "indolent, unambitious, and depraved in morals" granted a charter of extraordinary liberality.

The charter thus granted to Connecticut conveyed a belt of land reaching from the Massachusetts line to Long Island Sound and extending westward from Narragansett Bay "to the South Sea [Pacific Ocean] on the west part with the islands thereunto adjoining." It consolidated the Connecticut and the New Haven plantations, jumped half the claim of Rhode Island and the lately established claim of Massachusetts, and ignored the existence of the Dutch. New Haven liked it not and, under the lead of Davenport, resisted annexation until 1665, when she submitted. For years before and after this, the policy of Connecticut was what, in modern political parlance, is called a still hunt; or, in the words of Professor Johnston, "to say as little as possible, yield as little as possible, and evade as much as possible

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when open resistance was evident folly." Her statesmen never forgot their lack of a charter, and the importance of securing an increase of territory. Their success in carrying out this policy was remarkable.

ROYAL LAND GRANTS

But it was not in good form for kings in those days to be accurate in the matter of the title deeds they gave. In fact, their disregard of geography and equity was phenomenal. The grants overlapped alarmingly and bred conflicts that gave no end of trouble to American colonists and of exasperation to American historians. Subsequent grants to the duke of York and to William Penn cut sorry gashes in the domain granted by this charter of 1662. The northern boundary of Connecticut is the parallel of 42̊ 2' ; the western boundary happens to fall at the seashore on the forty-first parallel of north latitude. At the close of the war of independence, Connecticut still upheld her claim to the western territory lying between the parallels of 41̊ and of 42̊ 2' and extending from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi. By a resolution of her legislature in 1783, she affirmed "the undoubted and exclusive right of jurisdiction and preemption to all the lands lying west of the western limits of the state of Pennsylvania, and east of the Mississippi River, and extending throughout, from the latitude of the forty-first degree to the latitude of the forty-second degree and two minutes, north ; by virtue of the charter granted by King Charles II, to the late colony and now state of Connecticut, and being dated April 23, 1662, which claim and title to make known for the information of all, that they may conform themselves thereto:

Resolved, that his excellency, the governor, be desired to issue his proclamation, declaiming and asserting the right of this state to all the lands within the limits aforesaid, and strictly forbidding all persons to enter or settle thereon, without special license and authority first obtained from the general assembly of this state.

CONNECTICUT CEDES MOST OF HER WESTERN LANDS

A few years later, the claimant states of the old confederation ceded their western lands to the general government. On the fourteenth of September, 1786, by deed of cession, Connecticut released to the United States all right, title, jurisdiction, and claim that she had north of the forty-first parallel and west of a meridian to be run one hundred and twenty miles west of the west line of Pennsylvania. The deed made no disposition of the territory between this meridian

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and the Pennsylvania line and north of the forty-first parallel; in other words, the territory in the northeastern part of the Ohio of today, bounded on the north by the international line, on the east by Pennsylvania, on the south by the forty-first parallel, and on the west by a line parallel to the western boundary of Pennsylvania and a hundred and twenty miles from it was excluded from the release. Connecticut was said "to reserve" this territory, and the popular expression, "The Connecticut Western Reserve" soon worked its way into legal and historical documents. In October, 1786, the general assembly of Connecticut authorized the sale of the eastern part of her reservation. The resolution provided for the survey of six ranges of townships lying west of the Pennsylvania line. The townships were to be six miles square and numbered from Lake Erie southward; a plan of survey that was subsequently modified. The price per acre was limited to three shillings currency (half a dollar). In each township, 500 acres were to be reserved for the support of the gospel ministry,. and 500 more for the support of schools. The first minister who settled in a township was to be given 240 acres. Until local civil government could be established, the preservation of peace and good order was to devolve upon the general assembly. In the following year, congress enacted the famous Ordinance of 1787, thus establishing national authority over the Western Reserve. Although no attempt was made to execute the surveys authorized in 1786 by the general assembly, 24,000 acres, described by ranges and townships as though the lines had been run and marked upon the ground, and afterwards known as the "Salt Spring Tract" in Trumbull County, was sold in February, 1788, to Gen. Samuel H. Parsons of Middletown, Connecticut.

SALE OF WESTERN RESERVE TO CONNECTICUT LAND COMPANY

In May, 1792, the general assembly set apart 500,000 acres lying across the western end of the Reserve for the benefit of her citizens who had suffered losses by British incursions in the Revolution. In Connecticut history, these lands are known as "The Sufferer's Lands ;" in Ohio history, as "The Fire Lands." In May, 1795, the general assembly offered for sale the remaining part of its western lands, the proceeds thereof to constitute a perpetual. fund, the interest of which should be appropriated for the support of schools. The Connecticut school fund, which now amounts to more than $2,000,000, consists wholly of proceeds of the sale of these western lands and of the capitalized interest thereon. The

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time was propitious, for the triumphal march of Gen. Anthony Wayne through the Indian country from the Ohio River to Lake Erie in 1794 had added new zest to the speculation in western lands. In the following September (1795), a legislative committee sold these lands to the Connecticut Land Company which was organized for the purpose of the purchase. This company was not incorporated ; it was simply a "syndicate" of land speculators. The price agreed upon was $1,200,000; the sale was made on credit, the purchasers giving their bonds with personal security, and subsequently supplementing them by mortgages on the lands. The Reserve was sold without survey or measurement. The committee made as many deeds as there were purchasers and each deed granted all right, title and interest, juridical and territorial, to as many twelvehundred-thousandths of the land as the number of dollars that the purchasers had agreed to pay. "These deeds were quitclaims only, the State guaranteeing nothing as against such Indian titles as still remained unextinguished." Each purchaser was a tenant in common of the whole territory. The names of the purchasers and the amount of each one's subscription are as follows:

The deeds and subsequent drafts by which the lands were distributed were recorded in the office of the secretary of state at Hartford and subsequently transferred to the recorder's office at Warren. For convenience in the transaction of business, the holders of these deeds conveyed (September 5, 1795) their respective interests to three trustees, John Caldwell, John Morgan, and Jonathan Brace. The original of this deed of trust is in the archives of the Western Reserve Historical Society. Such was the largest sale of Ohio lands ever made. The deeds given by these trustees constitute the source of all land titles in the Western Reserve. The somewhat elaborate articles of association provided that annual meetings should be held at Hartford in October and that the proprietors were to draw by townships, receive their deeds, and make their own subdivisions. As a speculation, the purchase proved unfortunate ; the survey showed that instead of buying 4,000,000 acres as was supposed, the shareholders had bought not more than 3,000,000; instead of paying thirty cents per acre, they had paid more than forty. The expenses of the survey were heavier than had been anticipated and a jurisdictional question caused much vexation and pecuniary logs. "For a state to alienate the jurisdiction of half its territory to a company, of land speculators that never rose to the dignity of a body corporate' and politic was certainly a remarkable proceeding."

PERSONNEL OF THE CONNECTICUT LAND COMPANY

The directors of the company were Oliver Phelps of Suffield ; Henry Champion, 2d, of Colchester; Moses Cleaveland of Canter- bury ; Samuel W. Johnson, Ephraim Kirby and Samuel Mather, Jr., of Lynn; and Roger Newberry of West Windsor. The articles of association authorized the directors "to procure an extinguishment of the Indian title to said Reserve" and "to survey the whole of said Reserve, and to lay the same out into townships containing

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16,000 acres each; to fix on a township in which the first settlement shall be made, to survey that township into small lots in such manner as they shall think proper, and to sell and dispose of said lots to actual settlers only; to erect in said township a saw-mill and grist-mill at the expense of said company, to lay out and sell five other townships of 16,000 acres each to actual settlers only." In the spring of 1796, the directors sent out a surveying party (fifty persons, all told) under the command of Gen. Moses Cleaveland, a man of few words and prompt action, a man of true courage and as shrewd in his tactics as he was courageous. This Moses Cleaveland was born at Canterbury in Windham County, Connecticut, on the twenty-ninth of January, 1754, the second son of Aaron and Thankful (Paine) Cleaveland. In the Memorial Record of Cuyahoga County published in 1894, it is recorded, on the authority of "an eminent antiquarian," (Harvey Rice) that the name Cleaveland or Cleveland appears to be "of Saxon origin and was given to a distinguished family in Yorkshire, England, prior to the Norman conquest. The family occupied a large landed estate which was peculiarly marked by open fissures in its rocky soil, styled 'cleft' or 'cleves' by the Saxons, and by reason of the peculiarity of the estate its occupants were called 'Clefflands,' which name was accepted by the family." It may be well, however, to remember that, while the art of patronymic derivation is interesting, some of its results are amazingly ingenious. On the same authority it is said that a William Cleaveland removed from York to Hinckley in Leicestershire, England, where he died in 1630. This William had a son, Thomas, who became vicar of Hinckley, and another son, Samuel. This Samuel Cleaveland had a son, Moses, who migrated to America in 1635 and became the ancestor of all the Cleavelands and Cleve-lands who are of New England origin. After living several years at Boston, he became one of the founders of Woburn, Massachusetts, where he died in 1701. By way of Chelmsford, some of his descendants moved to the town of Canterbury where Aaron Cleaveland, the fifth son and tenth child of Josiah Cleaveland, was born in 1727. In 1748, this Aaron Cleveland married Thankful Paine, and their second son was the Moses Cleaveland with whom we are the most directly concerned. Aaron and Thankful were persons of education and refinement and decided that their son should have a college education. After the usual preparation, he was sent to Yale where he was graduated in 1777. He then studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began the practice of his profession in his native town. In 1779, he became captain of a company of sappers

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and miners in the service of the United States, served as such for several years, and then returned to the practice of the law. He became a prominent member of the Masonic order and served several terms in the state legislature. In 1794, he married Esther, the daughter of Henry Champion; she is spoken of as "a young lady of rare accomplishments;" by her, he had two sons and two daughters. In 1796, he was commissioned as brigadier-general of the Connecticut militia and, in the same year, was chosen to lead the pioneers of the Connecticut Land Company to the Western Reserve. It is said that in his bearing he was manly and dignified. "He wore such a sedate look that strangers often took him for a clergyman. He had a somewhat swarthy complexion, which induced the Indians to believe him akin to their own race. He had black hair, quick and penetrating eyes. He was of medium height, erect, thick-set, and portly, and was of muscular limbs and his step was of a military air."

CHAPTER II

THE QUEST OF THE PROMISED LAND

He whose name our city bears was commissioned to superintend "the agents and men sent to survey and make locations on said land, and to enter into friendly negotiations with the natives who are on said land or contiguous thereto and may have any pretended claim to the same," and was " fully authorized to act and transact the above business in as full a manner as we ourselves could do." The journey from. Connecticut to the Reserve was toilsome and tedious, but there were some variations from the routine. For instance, the journal of Seth Pease contains the following: "I began my journey, Monday, May 9, 1796. Fare from Suffield to Hartford, six shillings; expenses, four shillings, six pence. . . . At breakfast, expense two shillings. Fare on my chest from Hartford to Middletown, one shilling, six pence." The trip to New York cost for "Passage and liquor, 4 dollars and three quarters." His recorded expenses for "seeing" the metropolis were "Ticket for play, 75c ; Liquor, 14c ; Show of elephants, 50c ; shaving and combing, 13c." On the nineteenth of May, General Cleaveland wrote from Albany to Oliver Phelps as follows : "I have in rain and bad roads arrived at this place. Mr. Porter left Schenectady on last Sunday, one man was drowned. I find it inconvenient and at present impossible to obtain a loan of money without sacrifice, as our credit as a company is not yet, sufficiently known.. It must then rest on drafts on Thos. Mather & Company, dependent on their early being supplied with money from Hartford. . . . Mr. Porter has proceeded, as I obtain information, with all the dispatch and attention possible,' but we shall all fall short, tho ' our exertions are ever so great, without pecuniary aid. I have concluded, without adequate supply, to proceed, and as my presence is much wanted to risque consequences, shall make drafts on Thos. Mather and Company, resting assured that you will immediately, if at the expense of a person on purpose send on the money immediately that can be procured, to Messrs. Mather, who will attend to all orders and directions you may please to give. A credit once established,

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the business can with great ease and less expense be transacted, but if we shall be obliged to draw orders, and once protested; I am apprehensive that consequences will be fatal, at least to the persons employed." The party was at Schenectady early in June. The horses and cattle were driven thence to Buffalo, while most of the men went in open boats, up the Mohawk River, across the "Great Carrying Place" near Fort Stanwix (Rome, New York), down the narrow, crooked Wood Creek, through Oneida Lake, down the Oswego River into Lake Ontario, and around Niagara to Buffalo, a journey of several heavy portages and through an unexplored wilderness. The boats were the batteaux common for the navigation of rivers and lakes in those days; each was supplied with oars and paddles and a movable mast and sail. As recorded by Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton in her History of the Western Reserve, the "batteaux filled with provisions, baggage, and men were heavy and most of the men were unused to river boating. One of them records that pulling up the Mohawk was as hard work as he ever did in his life. It was a relief when they began going down the Oswego." Fort Oswego and Fort Niagara were then held by the British, but were to be delivered to the United States in accordance with the provisions of the Jay treaty. Unfortunately, the old orders to the officers at Fort Oswego allowed no Americans to pass and the new orders had not yet arrived from Fort Niagara. But Commissary Stow was in a hurry and when, in disobedience of his instructions, he passed the fort with only one of his four boats, the British officers thought that he was simply going to Fort Niagara to get the needed permission for the party to go on. The other three boats passed the fort under cover of the night and the party reached Lake Ontario in safety. Then came a violent storm with attendant losses. In his journal, John Milton Holley, one of the surveyors, wrote that "on Saturday morning there sprang up in the northwest a storm, and blew most violently on the shore of the lake. This proved fatal to one of the boats, and damaged another very much, though we went a little forward to a safe harbor, and built several fires on the bank of the lake, as a beacon to those coming on. After the disaster had happened, the boat that was safe went on to the Gerundicut [Irondequoit] with a load, and left the other three, including the one that was stove, at Little Sodus, encamped near the lake. Among the passengers were two families, one of the women with a little child. All of these misfortunes happened in consequence of not having liberty to pass the fort at Oswego. Such are the effects of allowing the British government to exist on the continent of America."

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The party finally arrived at Irondequoit, the port for Rochester, and thence moved on to Canandaigua and were at Buffalo on the seventeenth of June. On Sunday (June 19), Mr. Holley "left Buffalo in Winney's boat, for Chippewa, had a fair wind down, and arrived about 1 o'clock at Chippewa, dined at Fanning's, found our goods were not at the Gore, in Chippewa, and was obliged to go to Queenstown after them, and as I could not get a horse was obliged to walk. I got to Queenstown before night, and lodged at Caleb Ingersoll's; next morning set out for Buffalo. On the way I stopped to look at Niagara Falls. That river a little above Fort Slusher, is two and a half miles wide. Soon after this the water is very rapid, and continuing on, is hurried with amazing impetuosity down the most stupendous precipice perhaps in nature. There is a fog continually arising, occasioned by the tumbling of the water, which, in a clear morning, is seen from Lake Erie, at the distance of thirty or forty miles, as is the noise also heard. As the hands were very dilatory in leaving Chippewa, we were obliged to encamp on the great island in the river. We struck a fire and cooked some squirrels and pigeons, and a young partridge. I slept very sound all night, between a large log and the bank of the river. The next day arrived at Buffalo."

CLEAVELAND BUYS INDIAN LAND CLAIMS

At Buffalo, General Cleaveland bought the Indian claim to the lands east of the Cuyahoga River (June 23d) for 500 pounds (New York currency in trade), two beef cattle, and a hundred gallons of whiskey. The Connecticut pilgrims had been "confronted by representatives of the Mohawk and Seneca Indians, headed by the famous Red Jacket, and Joseph Brant otherwise known to fame by his Indian name of Thayendanega, who were determined to use force if necessary, to oppose the further progress of the expedition toward the West. In the skill and address with which he met this danger and averted it, the General showed himself a diplomat as well as a soldier." In his journal, Surveyor Holley wrote: "At two o'clock this afternoon, the council fire with the Six Nations was uncovered, and at evening was again covered until morning, when it was opened again, and after some considerable delay, Captain Brant gave General Cleaveland a speech in writing. The chiefs, after this, were determined to get drunk. No more business was done this day. In the evening the Indians had one of their old ceremonial dances, where one gets up and walks up and down between them, singing something, and those who sit around keep tune by grunting. Next

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morning, which was the 23rd, after several speeches back and forth, from Red Jacket to General Cleaveland, Captain Chapin, Brant, etc., General Cleaveland answered Brant's speech. In short, the business was concluded in this way. General Cleaveland offered Brant one thousand dollars as a present. Brant, in answer, told General Cleaveland that their minds were easily satisfied, but that they thought his offer was not enough, and added this to it, that if he would use his influence with the United States to procure an annuity of five hundred dollars par, and if this should fail that the Connecticut Land Company should, in a reasonable time, make an additional present of one thousand five hundred dollars, which was agreed to. The Mohawks are to give one hundred dollars to the Senecas, and Cleaveland gave two beef cattle and whiskey to make a feast for them." In consideration of payments and promises, the chiefs guaranteed that the settlers upon the Western Reserve should not be molested by their people, an agreement that was faithfully carried out. On the twenty-seventh of June, General Cleaveland and his party left Buffalo Creek in two divisions, one by land and one by lake. On Monday, the Fourth of July, they arrived at the place where the dividing line between Pennsylvania and their "Reserve" struck Lake Erie. Seth Pease wrote in his journal : 'We that came by land arrived at the confines of New Connecticut and gave three cheers precisely at 5 o'clock, p. in. We then proceeded to Conneaut [Creek] at five hours, thirty minutes ; our boats got on an hour after ; we pitched our tents on the east side," That evening, the pioneers celebrated the twentieth anniversary of American independence at the mouth of Conneaut Creek and christened the place the Port of Independence. In his journal, General Cleaveland wrote :

AT THE PORT OF INDEPENDENCE

On this creek ("Conneaught") in New Connecticut land, July 4th, 1796, under General Moses Cleaveland, the surveyors, and men sent by the Connecticut Land Company to survey and settle the Connecticut Reserve, and were the first English people who took possession of it. The day, memorable as the birthday of American independence, and freedom from British tyranny, and commemorated by all good freeborn sons of America, and memorable as the day on which the settlement of this new country was commenced, and in time may raise her head amongst the most enlightened and improved States. And after many difficulties perplexities and hardships were surmounted, and we were on the good and promised land, felt that a just tribute of respect to the day ought to be paid. There were in all including men, women and children, fifty in number. The men, under

1796] - AT CONNEAUT - 17

Captain Tinker ranged themselves on the beach, and fired a Federal salute of fifteen rounds, and then the sixteenth in honor of New Connecticut. We gave three cheers and christened the place Port Independence. Drank several toasts, viz.:

1st. The President of the United States.

2d. The State of New Connecticut.

3d. The Connecticut Land Company.

4th. May the Port of Independence and the fifty sons and daughters who have entered it this day be successful and prosperous.

5th. May these sons and daughters multiply in sixteen years sixteen times fifty.

6th. May every person have his bowsprit trimmed and ready to enter every port that opens.

Closed with three cheers. Drank several pails of grog, supped and retired in remarkable good order.

One of these toasts, thus drunk in "several pails of grog," "May these sons and daughters multiply in sixteen years sixteen times fifty," expressed a hope that was more than made good. Another toast, "The State of New Connecticut," hinted at a notion on the part of the proprietors that they might organize a state as William Penn had done, and govern it from Hartford as the Council of Plymouth had governed New England from old England. If such notions actually existed, the plans all went awry; the United States objected to that way of setting up a state, and, by the famous Ordinance of 1787, had included the Western Reserve in the Northwest Territory, an imperial domain bounded on the north by the Great Lakes, on the east by Pennsylvania and Virginia, on the south by the Ohio River, and on the west by the Mississippi.

The surveying party that had thus reached the Promised Land was made up as follows:

General Moses Cleaveland, Superintendent.

Augustus Porter, Principal Surveyor and Deputy Superintendent.

Seth Pease, Astronomer and Surveyor.

Amos Spafford, John Milton Holley, Richard M. Stoddard, and Moses Warren, Surveyors.

Joshua Stow, Commissary.

Theodore Shepard, Physician.

Employees of the Company

Joseph Tinker, Boatman.

George Proudfoot,

Samuel Forbes,

Stephen Benton,

Samuel Hungerford,

Samuel Davenport,

Joseph M'Intyre,

Francis Gray,

Amos Sawtel,

Amos Barber,

William B. Hall.

Asa Mason,

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Amzi Atwater,

Elisha Ayres,

Norman Wilcox,

George Gooding,

Samuel Agnew,

David Beard,

Titus V. Munson,

Charles Parker,

Nathaniel Doan,

James Halket,

Olney F. Rice,

Samuel Barnes,

Daniel Shulay,

Michael Coffin,

Thomas Harris,

Timothy Dunham,

Shadrach Benham,

Wareham Shepard,

John Briant,

Joseph Landon,

Ezekiel Morly,

Luke Hanchet,

James Hamilton,

John Lock,

Stephen Burbank.

As several of the old manuscripts state that there were fifty in the party, it seems necessary to add the names of Elijah Gun, who was to have charge of the stores at Conneaut; Job Stiles, who was to have a similar position at Cleveland ; Nathan Chapman and Nathan Perry, who were to furnish fresh meat and to trade with the Indians. In some of the old records, the names of the men are followed by the words, "and two females." The two women thus referred to; the first who made real homes on the Western Reserve, were Mrs. Anna Gun, later of Conneaut, and Mrs. Tabitha Stiles, later of Cleveland. The party had thirteen horses and some cattle. It is said that the organization of the surveyors and employees, "was of the military order, and they were enlisted the same as in the army, for two years, providing it took so long." This Augustus Porter, "principal surveyor and deputy superintendent," had been surveyor of the great "Holland Purchase" in western New York.

" STOW CASTLE"

On the fifth of July, laborers began the building of a log cabin, later known as "Stow Castle," on the east side of Conneaut Creek ; Harvey Rice tells us that its "style of architecture was entirely unique, and its uncouth appearance such as to provoke the laughter of the builders and the ridicule of the Indians." A second house was later built for the shelter of the surveyors. It was then supposed that Conneaut would be the headquarters of the party. On the same day, Captain Tinker was sent with two boats back to Fort Erie for supplies that had been left there and General Cleaveland "received a message from the Paqua chief of the Massasagoes residing in Conneaut that they wished a council held that day. I prepared to meet them and, after they were all seated,

took my seat in the

1796] - THE SURVEYORS AT WORK - 19

middle." The uneasy natives naturally wanted to know the plans of the white strangers and how they would be affected thereby. The wise superintendent gave them "a chain of wampum, silver trinkets, and other presents, and whiskey, to the amount of about twenty-five dollars," together with assurances of kind treatment and with good advice that "not only closed the business but checked their begging for more whiskey."

EXPLORATIONS OF THE NEW LAND

On the seventh of July, the surveyors set out to find the intersection of the forty-first parallel and the Pennsylvania line and thence to run a base line 120 miles westward. From this base line, they were to draw lines, five miles apart, due north to Lake Erie, thus creating twenty-four ranges that were to be numbered, counting from the Pennsylvania line. These meridian lines were to be crossed by east and west lines, five miles apart, thus dividing each range into survey townships five miles square to be numbered northward from the base line. Thus Cleveland, before it had a name as a township, was known at town No. 7 in range 12, it being seven townships north of the forty-first parallel and twelve townships west of the Pennsylvania line. The eastern end of the base line was fixed on the twenty-third of July and marked by a chestnut post.

About this time, General Cleaveland and a few of his party rowed and sailed westward in an open boat along the shore of Lake Erie until they came to a stream that they thought to be the Cuyahoga. After going as far up this stream as the sand-bars and fallen timber would permit, they found that they had made the mistake of entering a stream not shown on their map and had to retrace their way to the lake. There is a doubtful story to the effect that in his disappointment General Cleaveland called the stream the Chagrin River, the name by which it is known today. Still coasting westward, the party entered at the mouth of the Cuyahoga on the morning of the twenty-second of July, 1796, a date to be remembered by every student of the history of what now is the metropolis of Ohio. On an old map, printed in 1760, it is recorded that "Cayahoga, a creek that leads to Lake Erie, which is muddy and not very swift, and nowhere obstructed with falls or rifts, is the best portage between the Ohio and Lake Erie. The mouth is wide, and deep enough to receive large sloops from the lake, and will hereafter be of great importance." At the time of General Cleaveland's coming, the river flowed into the lake west of its present artificial mouth while, still

20 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. II

further west, a stagnant pool marked the location of a still earlier bed. Across the mouth of the river ran a sand-bar that, "in the spring and fall, was torn open by the floods, but in summer rose so high that even the small schooners of the day had difficulty in passing in and out. Once inside, a fairly good harborage was found." As already recorded, the Indian claims to the lands east of the river had been bought by General Cleaveland at Buffalo in June, but their claims to the lands west of the river had not yet been extinguished.

In his Pioneers of the Western Reserve, Harvey Rice tells us that after reaching the veritable Cuyahoga and advancing a little way up its channel, the party "attempted to land, but in their efforts to do so ran their boat into the marshy growth of wild vegetation which skirted the easterly bank of the river, and stranded her. Here `Moses,' like his ancient name's sake, found himself cradled in the bullrushes. This occurred near the foot of Union Lane (see map on Page 24), which was at that time the termination of an Indian trail. The party soon succeeded in effecting a safe landing. They then ascended the precipitous bluff, which overlooked the valley of the river, and were astonished to find a broad and beautiful plain of woodland stretching far away to the east, west and south of them, and lying at an elevation of some eighty feet above the dark blue waters of Lake Erie. The entire party became enamored of the scene."

In the party were Commissary Stow and probably Mr. arid Mrs. Stiles. They were not the first white persons to visit that region; travelers, missionaries, soldiers, and traders had been there long before, but they were "transients," not settlers. The story of the men, Europeans and autochthones, who lived in what we have called New Connecticut or who had visited it before the coming of Moses Cleaveland and his companions, or of its prehistoric changes in geology and occupation, although intensely interesting, need not long detain us here; a few words will answer present needs. While the great ice sheet was receding northward as it slowly melted fit its southern margin at the close of the ice age (probably ten thousand years or so ago), and the passage of northward flowing streams was still blocked so that water from the melting glacier that had covered the greater part of Ohio could not escape by way of the closed St. Lawrence River, it gathered as a great lake, known to glacial geologists as Lake Iroquois. The site of Niagara was beneath the ice or the waters of the lake that bordered the ice; there was no river there. When the glacier withdrew far enough for these accumulated waters to flow out by way of the valley of the Mohawk, Lake Iroquois was largely drained and cut in twain ; the contracted sec-

1796] - AT CLEVELAND - 21

tions are now known as Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Then Niagara was born and began the work of cutting its famous gorge. When Lake Erie was thus expanded and stood far above its present level, it covered a large part of the site of Cleveland.* In gradually falling to its present limits, the lake stood, at several successive levels still plainly marked by former beach lines or ridges. As the Cuyahoga flowed from the south into the lake, it built up a delta by carrying down sand and silt and depositing it near the border of the water. This delta is roughly outlined as a triangle with a base extending from the present Gordon Park bn the east to Edgwater Park on the west and tapering to an apex in the valley of the Cuyahoga River. The surface of this delta is practically a smooth plain slightly sloping toward the lake but at a considerable elevation above it. The streams that cross what Professor Gregory has called this area of unconsolidated sand and clay have cut their channels down to the present level of the lake; thus the Cuyahoga River now divides Cleveland into "East Side" and "West Side," while Mill Creek, Big Creek, Morgan Run and Kingsbury Run form distinct physical boundaries that have had great influence in determining the location and direction of streets and the development of their sections of the city. Some of these gullies and their side ravines have long constituted dumping grounds and are now being rapidly filled. "On the smooth, sandy delta and lake plain with its ridges, excepting the gully regions of Big Creek and Newburg, there is every natural advantage offered for the development and growth of a modern city. The sandy soil offers a splendid natural drainage," and lessens the labor and cost of sewers, conduits, etc. "The floodplains or the fiats along the Cuyahoga river are the only lowlands in the city. They have an elevation of from ten to fifteen feet above the level of Lake Erie. These flats are the bottom lands in the narrow and steep sided Cuyahoga valley, which was formed by the rapid cutting of the loose delta material by the, river. The unusual erosive action of the river was due to the lake level falling, allowing the stream a steep slope upon which to erode the unconsolidated material of the lake plain. When the bed of the river was lowered to the lake level, the stream could no longer erode vertically, and then it began to meander or wind from side to side hack and forth across the valley, forming the great loops in the river in which the cutting is on the outer curve of the bends. This is the present condition of that part

* I desire gratefully to acknowledge my indebtedness to an able article on the Geography of Cleveland, by Professor W. M. Gregory, and printed in S. P. Orth 's history of the city.

22 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. II

of the river which lies within the city limits. The material carried by the river is deposited along the inner bank of these great bends and forms the river plain, which is the richest land of this region, and was the first cultivated by the early settlers. The Cuyahoga flats lie eighty feet below the general level of the old delta." The reader who is eager for fuller information concerning these matters will find them ably discussed in Whittlesey's Early History of Cleveland (pages 9-164), in Kennedy's History of Cleveland, 17961896 (pages 1-20), and in Professor George Frederick Wright's great work, The Ice Age. I yield, however, to the temptation to make a brief and solitary exception to this general elimination. After the ruthless massacre (March, 1782) at Gnadenhutten, the peaceful and prosperous village established in the Tuscarawas Valley in Ohio by Indians who had been Christianized by the Moravians, a new Moravian mission, called New Gnadenhutten, was begun in Michigan. But the new mission was ill placed and unprosperous. On the twentieth of April, 1786, the congregation met for the last time in their chapel at New Gnadenhutten, made their way through swamps and forests to Detroit, crossed Lake Erie in a vessel called the "Mackinaw," and, on the eighth of June, arrived at the mouth of the Cuyahoga. They went about ten miles up the river and settled in an abandoned village of the Ottawa tribe, within the present limits of Independence Township, and called their refuge "Pilgrim's Rest." They did not linger long and soon removed from the banks of the Cuyahoga River to those of the Huron River in what is now Erie County. The coming of the agent of the Connecticut Land Company inaugurated a new order ; since that July day there have been white men on the site of the city which, with a more compact orthography, bears the name Of the Puritan Moses who had the faith, the courage and the wisdom to lead the first colony into the Western Reserve and there to lay the foundations of this mighty, ever-growing monument to his memory.

THE FOUNDING OF CLEVELAND

General Cleaveland was back at Conneaut by the fifth of August and thence sent his first formal report to the company. After his return to the Cuyahoga, he made up his mind that that was the most desirable "place for the capital." The site of the city was chosen after due deliberation, and a survey, a mile square, was then made of the plateau at the junction of the river and the lake. The survey was begun on the sixteenth of September by Seth Pease and Amos Spafford under the superintendence of Augustus Porter.

1796] - THE FIRST MAPS - 23

On the twenty-second of September, Spafford was detailed for work on the survey of Cleveland Township, but he seems to have made the first map of the city. This map was drawn on sheets of foolscap paper pasted together and was endorsed in Spafford's handwriting as "Original Plan of the Town and Village of Cleveland, Ohio, October 1, 1796." The map is preserved in the archives of the Western Reserve Historical Society. The official report of the survey was compiled by Seth Pease and to accompany the report he made a map that he endorsed, "A Plan of the City of Cleaveland." The original of this map was long treasured by the Western Reserve Historical Society, but it cannot now (1918) be found. Both maps show the names of fourteen streets, the numbers of the 220 two-acre lots, and indicate the reservation of the Public Square by a blank space, like an enlargement of Superior and Ontario streets at their intersection. Spafford's map shows the changes in some of the street names, and indicates the location of the lots selected by half a dozen persons and later enumerated by Colonel Whittlesey as follows: "Stoddard, lot 49, northeast corner of Water [West Ninth] and Superior streets; Stiles, lot 53, northeast corner of Bank [West Sixth] and Superior streets; Landon, lot 77, directly opposite, on the south side of Superior street; Baum, lot 65, sixteen rods east of the Public Square ; Shepherd, lot 69, and Chapman, lot 72, all on the north side of the same street. 'Pease's Hotel,' as they styled the surveyor's cabin, is placed on the line between lots 202 and 203, between Union street and the river. Northwest of it, about ten rods, on lot 201, their store house is laid down. Vineyard, Union and Mandrake streets were laid out to secure access to the upper and lower landings on the river. Bath street provided a way of reaching the lake shore and the mouth of the river." One of the maps spells the name of the proposed city "Cleveland" and the other spells it "Cleaveland" and Pease's map was drawn up-side-down, i. e., the top of the map is south instead of north. Streets were laid out through the forest, certain of the two-acre lots were reserved for public use, and the rest were put up for sale at $50 each, with a condition of immediate settlement.

As these maps and minutes are historically very important and are of determinative legal effect in numerous possible cases, it seems worth while to make the following quotation from a monograph on The Corporate Birth and Growth of Cleveland, prepared by Judge Seneca 0. Griswold as the fifth annual address (July 22, 1884) before the Early Settlers' Association, and printed in the Annals of that organization :

1796] - THE FIRST MAPS - 25

In the old field map, the name of Superior street was first written "Broad", Ontario "Court", and Miami "Deer", but these words were crossed with ink, and the same names written as given in Pease's map and minutes. In Spafford's map, "Maiden Lane," which led from Ontario Street along the side of the hill to Vineyard Lane, was omitted, and the same was never worked or used. Spafford also laid out Superior Lane, which was not on the Pease map, which has since been widened, and become that portion of Superior street from Water down the hill to the river. "Bath street" is not described in the Pease minutes, but is laid out on the map, and is referred to in the minutes, and the boundaries and extent appear on the map. The Square also is not described in the Pease minutes, but is referred to in the description of Ontario and Superior streets, and is marked and laid out on the map. In Spafford's minutes the Square is thus described: "The Square is laid out at the intersection of Superior street and Ontario street, and contains ten acres. The center of the junction of the two roads is the exact center of the Square." These surveys, the laying out of the lots bounding on the Square, their adoption by the Land Company, the subsequent sale by said Company of the surrounding lots abutting upon it, make the "Square" as much land devoted to public use as the streets themselves, and forever forbids the same being given up to private uses. The easterly line of the city was the east line of one tier of lots, beyond Erie street, coinciding with the present line of Canfield [East Fourteenth] street. The east line began at the lake, and extended southerly one tier of lots south of Ohio street [Central Avenue]. The line then ran to the river, down the river skipping the lower bend of the river to Vineyard Lane, thence along Vineyard Lane to the junction of Water with Superior street, thence to the river, thence down the river to its mouth. Superior street, as the survey shows, was 132 feet in width, the other streets 99 feet. It is hardly possible to fully appreciate the sagacity and foresight of this leader of the surveying party. With full consciousness of what would arise in its future growth, he knew the city would have a suburban population, and he directed the immediate outlying land to be laid off in ten acre lots, and the rest of the township into 100 acre lots, instead of the larger tracts into which the other townships were divided. The next year, the ten acre lots were surveyed and laid out. They extended on the east to the line of what is now Wilson avenue [East Fifty-fifth Street], and on the south to the top of the brow of the ravine formed by Kingsbury Run, and extended westwardly to the river bank. Owing to the peculiar topography of the place, some of the two acre lots had more and others less than the named quantity of land, and the same occurred in the survey and laying out of the ten acre lots. The flats were not surveyed off into lots, and there was an unsurveyed strip between the west line of the ten acre lots and the river, above and below the mouth of the Kingsbury Run, running south to a point west of hundred acre lot 278. Three streets were laid out through the ten acre lots, each 99 feet in width to correspond with the city streets called the South, Middle and North Highway. The southerly one

26 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. II

becoming Kinsman street, the Middle, Euclid street at its intersection with Huron; the southerly one received its name from the fact that Kinsman, the east township of the seventh line of townships, was at a very early period distinguished for its wealth and population. The Middle was called Euclid, because that was the name of the next township east. The North Highway was a continuation of Federal street, but changed to St. Clair, after the name of the territorial governor, whose name, in the minds of his admirers, was a synonym of Federal.

In the summer, a cabin for Stiles was built, probably on the lot that he had selected, number 53. Other houses were also built, one for the surveyors, "Pease's Hotel," and another for the stores, on lots 202 and 203, near the river as appears on record on Spafford's map. We have only scant record of the labors of these pioneers that season, but we may be sure that theirs were not lives of ease and pleasure. Colonel Whittlesey tells us that the surveyors "were not always sure of supper at night, .nor of their drink of New England rum, which constituted an important part of their rations; their well provided clothing began to show rents, from so much clambering over logs and through thickets; their shoes gave out rapidly, as they were incessantly on foot, and were where no cobblers could be found to repair them ; every day was one of toil, and frequently of discomfort. The woods, and particularly the swamps, were filled with ravenous mosquitoes, which were never idle, day or night; in rainy weather the bushes were wet, and in clear weather the heat was oppressive." This first survey of Cleveland was finished in a month, for on the seventeenth of October Milton Holley wrote in his journal: "Finished surveying in New Connecticut, weather raining." On the following day he wrote: "We left Cuyahoga at 3 o'clock, seventeen minutes, for home. We left at Cuyahoga, Job Stiles and wife, and Joseph Landon, with provisions for the winter. William B. Hall, Titus V. Munson and Olney Rice, engaged to take all the pack horses to Geneva. Day pleasant and fair winds; about southeast; rowed about seven and a half miles, and encamped for the night on the beach. There were fourteen men on board the boat, and never, I presume, were fourteen men more anxious to pursue an object than we were to go forward. Names of men in the boat. Augustus Porter, Seth Pease, Richard Stoddard, Joseph Tinker, Charles Parker, Wareham Shepherd, Amzi Atwater, James Hacket [Halket?], Stephen Benton, George Proudfoot, James Hamilton, Nathan Chapman, Ralph Bacon, Milton Holley." The returning pilgrims hoisted sail at three o'clock on the following morning (October 19) and, continues our industrious journalist, "Just

1796] - HOMEWARD BOUND - 27

before sunrise we passed the first settlement (except those made by, ourselves) that is on the shore of the lake in New Connecticut. This is done by the Canandaigua Association Co., under the direction of Mayor Wells and Mr. Wildair." Because of a high wind, they went into camp about a mile east of the Chagrin River. They arrived at Conneaut about noon of the twenty-first and "took inventory of the articles left there, and about four o'clock in the morning, that

MAP OF THE CONNECTICUT WESTERN RESERVE, 1796

First reproduction from the original printed map of the Connecticut Western Reserve engraved by Amos Doolittle from the drawing of Seth Pease, by the courtesy of The Western Reserve Historical Society.

is, on Saturday the 22d, we hoisted sail for Presque Isle," (i. e., Erie, Pennsylvania). They were at Buffalo Creek on the twenty-third and at Canandaigua on the twenty-ninth. We here bid farewell to our faithful chronicler, John Milton Holley. In his sketches of his associates, Amzi Atwater says that Holley "was then a very young man, only about eighteen years of age, though he appeared to be older ; tall, stout, and handsomely built, with a fair and smiling face, and general good appearance." Mr. Holley settled at Salisbury, Connecticut, of which state his son, Alexander, became governor, 1857-58.

28 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. II

THE TOWNSHIP OF EUCLID

In July, at Conneaut, most of the surveyors and other employes had asked for compensation greater than that previously agreed upon, and the superintendent, acting for the company, made an "informal agreement" with them. The township next east of Cleveland, No. 8, Range 11, was named Euclid in honor of the patron saint of all surveyors, and this township was to be divided among what one of them called "the mutineers." On the thirtieth of September, a contract was made "at Cleaveland between Moses Cleaveland, agent of the Connecticut Land Company, and the employees of the Company, in reference to the sale and settlement of the township of Euclid." General Cleaveland signed for the company and forty-one of the men for themselves. Each of the forty-one was to have an equal share in the township at one dollar per acre and pledged himself to remain in the service of the company until the end of the year. These new proprietors of the township also agreed "to settle, in the year 1797, eleven families, build eleven houses, and sow two acres of wheat around each house—to be on different lots. In the year 1798 to settle eighteen more families, build eighteen more houses on different lots, and to clear and sow five acres of wheat on each. There must be also fifty acres in grass in the township. In the year 1799, there must be twelve more families occupying twelve more lots, (in all forty-one,) with eight acres in wheat. On all the other lots three acres additional in wheat for this year, and in all seventy acres to be in grass. There must be, in the year 1800, forty-one families resident in the township. In case of failure to perform any of the conditions, whatever had been done or paid was to be forfeited to the company. But the failure of other parties not to affect those who perform. If salt springs are discovered on a lot it is to be excepted from the agreement and other lands given instead." On the same day, the forty-one proprietors held a meeting, Seth Pease acting as chairman and Moses Warren as clerk. At this meeting, it was "determined by a lottery which of the said proprietors shall do the first, second, and third years the settling duties as required by our patent this day executed." Thus, for example, it was determined that Seth Pease and ten others were "to do said settling duties in 1797," Moses Warren and seventeen others in 1798, and Amos Spafford and eleven others in 1799. About the middle of October, as already stated, the surveyors set out for their homes in the East, leaving in the embryo Cleveland but three white persons, Mr. and Mrs. Stiles and Joseph

1796] - EXIT MOSES CLEAVELAND - 29

Landon. Landon soon disappeared and his place seems to have been taken by Edward Paine who began to trade with the Indians (Chippewas, Ottawas, etc.) "who, made their winter camps upon the west side of the river and trapped and hunted upon both sides." This Edward Paine subsequently became the founder of Painesville, Ohio, and is generally spoken of as "General" Paine. In camp, at the foot of the bluff that winter were some Seneca Indians, whose chief, "Old ,Seneca," was friendly to the whites. These Indians supplied their white neighbors in the cabin on the hill with game, and showed their friendship in various ways.

EXIT GENERAL CLEAVELAND

It is not known that General Cleaveland ever revisited the Reserve, but he wrote : "While I was in New Connecticut I laid out a town on the bank of Lake Erie, which was called by my name,*

* General Cleaveland generally (but not always) spelled his name with an "a" in the first syllable, and for more than thirty years the name of the town that he

30 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. II

and I believe the child is now born that may live to see that place as large as Old Windham." This Windham is the southwest town of Windham County, the northeast county of Connecticut. The next town eastward is Scotland which separates it from Canterbury. Windham Town was incorporated in 1692, and by 1796 was sometimes "affectionately called" Old Windham. At that time, the town had a population of about fifteen hundred. There were in the town four villages, Windham, North Windham, South Windham, and Willimantic. Years ago, the business of the town was transacted at Windham Village (Windham Green or Center) which had several stores, two churches, a hotel, and a court-house. Three of the villages are still villages, but Willimantic is an incorporated city within the territorial limits of Windham Town. In 1910, Windham Town, including the city, had a population of 12,604 ; Willimantic had 11,230; Cleveland's population was 560,663. In 1918, Willimantic claimed a population of 14,000, and Cleveland one of 720,000. After his return to Connecticut, General Cleaveland lived at Canterbury where he died in 1806. A century later, his burial place was appropriately marked as will be told in a later chapter. In 1896, the first centennial of the town that General Moses Cleaveland thus laid out in New Connecticut and on the bank of Lake Erie was celebrated with much pomp and circumstance.

As we have seen, the articles of association of the Connecticut Land Company authorized the directors "to fix on a township in which the first settlement shall be made, to survey that township into small lots in such manner as they may think proper, and to sell and dispose said lots to actual settlers only ; . .. to lay out and sell five other townships of sixteen thousand acres each to actual settlers only." These six townships were to be sold for the benefit of the land company and not divided among the stockholders. The plan was to sell, at first, only a quarter of each township, and

founded was generally (but not always) spelled in the same way in the local records. As if following the path of least resistance, outsiders in increasing numbers, geographies, gazetteers, sketches of tours and travels, etc., adopted the shorter spelling now in universal use. The village charter granted by the state legislature in 1814, and most of the legislative acts relating to the place used the shorter form but the townships and village records and the newspaper headings spelled it "Cleaveland" until about 1832. See facsimile reproduction of newspaper headings in Chapter XXXII. There are many varied statements as to when and why the local newspapers dropped the letter, but the important fact that they did so and that the rest of the world quickly followed suit is beyond question. For the sake of uniformity, the later usage will be followed in this volume except in quoted passages in which the longer form was used.

1797] - DISSATISFIED STOCKHOLDERS - 31

Chief-surveyor Porter's proposition for the method of carrying out that plan, as described in Crisfield Johnson's History of Cuyahoga County, was :

In the first place, city lots Number 58 to 63 inclusive, and 81 to 87 inclusive, comprising all the lots bordering on the Public Square, and one more, were to be reserved for public purposes, as were also "the point of land west of the town" (which we take to be the low peninsula southwest of the viaduct), and some other portions of the flats if thought advisable. Then Mr. Porter proposed to begin with lot number one, and offer for sale every fourth number in succession throughout the towns, on these terms. Each person who would engage to become an actual settler in 1797 might purchase one town lot, one ten or twenty-acre lot, and one hundred-acre lot, or as much less as he might choose ; settlement, however, to be imperative in every case. The price of town lots was to be fifty dollars ; that of ten-acre lots three dollars per acre ; that of twenty-acre lots two dollars per acre; and that of hundred-acre lots a dollar and a half per acre. The town lots were to be paid for in ready cash; for the larger tracts twenty per cent. was to be paid down, and the rest in three annual installments with annual interest.

At this time, the eastern part of the present Cuyahoga County belonged to Washington County of the Northwest Territory ; the part west of the Cuyahoga River belonged to Wayne County the seat of which was Detroit; and it was a mooted question whether the legal jurisdiction belonged to the territory or the Connecticut company. Cleveland was still only a survey township ; the civil township was not created until the year 1800.

SETH PEASE, PRINCIPAL SURVEYOR

At a meeting of the Connecticut Land Company held in January, 1797, "Moses Cleaveland's contract with Joseph Brant, Esq., in behalf of the Mohawks of Grand River, Canada," was ratified and a committee was appointed to investigate the causes of the "very great expense of the company during the first year; the causes which have prevented the completion of the survey; and why the surveyors and agents have not made their report." An assessment of five dollars per share of the company stock was ordered and Seth Pease, Amos Spafford, Daniel Holbrook, and Moses Warren, Jr., were constituted a committee on partition. Another committee was appointed to make inquiry into the conduct of the directors; in February, this committee made a report exonerating the directors in all respects. The official record does not show why General Cleaveland was not

32 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. II

again appointed as superintendent, but reading between the lines of these proceedings, it seems to be clear that the stockholders were in no amiable mood and far from being satisfied with what had been done. In the spring, the surveyors returned to the Reserve. The Rev. Seth Hart was now the superintendent and Seth Pease the principal surveyor. With them were several who had gone out the .year before, among them Amos Spafford, Richard M. Stoddard, Moses Warren, Theodore Shepard, Joseph Tinker, and Joseph Landon. The party assembled at Schenectady, with Mr. Pease in. charge of the funds and details of outfitting, and assisted by Thomas Mather of Albany. Under date of the fourteenth of April, 1797, Pease wrote in his journal: " Spent the week thus far in getting necessary supplies. The want of ready cash subjects me to considerable inconvenience. Mr. Mather purchases the greater part on his own credit; and takes my order on Mr. Ephraim Root, treasurer." On the twentieth of April, six boats moved up the Mohawk. They were similar to those used the year before. In August, 1850, Amzi Atwater, who had joined the party at Schenectady, made a statement relating to the surveys of 1797, in which he says :

We ascended the Mohawk river through the old locks at Little Falls, up to the carrying place at Rome. The canal there was in progress, but not ,completed. The boats and stores were got across into Wood creek. Down that narrow, crooked stream, we got along somewhat easier than up the Mohawk river, which I may say was a sore job for raw and inexperienced hands like myself. In passing

1797] - THE RETURN OF THE SURVEYORS - 33

down this stream, which had long been known by boatmen, we passed, in a small inlet stream, two large, formidable looking boats, or small vessels, which reminded us of a seaport harbor. We were told that they were the season before Conveyed from the Hudson river, partly by water and finally on wheels, and to be conveyed to Lake Ontario; that they were built of the lightest materials, and intended for no other use than to have it published in Europe that vessels of those dimensions had passed those waters, to aid land speculation. We passed down and across the Oneida lake, and past the Oswego Falls into lake Ontario. At Oswego Falls the boats were unloaded, and were run down a slide into a natural basin, and a pilot employed to steer them to the lower landing. The stream looked dreadful (in my eye) to run a boat. But I considered that as we had a pilot who followed the business at fifty cents a trip, I would risk myself for once. I belonged to the first boat, and took my station in the bow strictly attending to the pilot's orders. We went quick and safe, and I was cured of all my former fears. I went back to attend my own luggage. I met the pilot on his return from his second trip, who requested me to go down with the other boats, and I accordingly did. We passed down to the lake and stayed some time for fair weather, then went on as far as Gerundigut [Irondequoit] bay and up to the landing, where the boats took in provisions. This was a slow and tedious way of conveyance, but it was the way which some of the early settlers of this country moved here for want of a better. I was sent with a party of those men who could be best spared from the boats, to Canandaigua and its vicinity to collect' cattle and pack horses for the use of the company. In a few days I was ordered with those men to drive to Buffalo, and take care of them until Maj. Shepard of the exploring and equalizing committee came on. We drove there and across the creek for safe and convenient keeping. In a few days the Indian chiefs came and demanded of me three dollars for pasturing the cattle and horses. I thought it unreasonable as the land all lay open to the common as I considered it, but I went with them up to Capt. Johnson, the Interpreter, and plead my case as well as I could, but I was no match for them in pleas and arguments. I concluded to pay their demand with their consent that we might stay as long as we pleased.

ARRIVAL OF JUDGE KINGSBURY

A month after the beginning of their voyage, the boats were at Buffalo where they waited until the twenty-fifth of May for the party that had come by land. On the night of the twenty-sixth of May, they were at Port Independence where "we found that Mr. Gun's family had removed to Cuyahoga. Mr. Kingsbury, his wife and one child were in a low state of health, to whom we administered what relief we could." Elijah Gun and his wife had left Conneaut in May, the second family to make a home in Cleveland. Colonel Whittlesey calls Mr. Kingsbury "the first adventurer on

Vol. I-3

34 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. II

his own account who arrived on the company's purchase." With his wife and three children, one of them an infant, he had come from New Hampshire to Conneaut soon after the arrival of the surveyors in 1796. After the return of the surveyors in the fall, he made a journey back to his old New England home, going on horseback and expecting to complete his journey in a few weeks. He made the trip eastward without accident or special delay, but at his old home he was attacked by fever. What next happened may well be told in the words of Mr. Kennedy :

As soon as he dared mount a horse he set out for home, filled with anxiety for those who were awaiting his return. He reached Buffalo in a state of exhaustion, on December 3rd, and on the following day pushed forward into the snowy wilderness. He was accompanied by an Indian guard. For three weeks the snow fell without intermission, until at places it was up to the chin. Weak in body, and full of trouble for his loved ones, he pushed on and on, although it was December 24th before his cabin was reached. His horse had died from exhaustion, and he was not in a much better condition. Meanwhile the wife and children subsisted as best they could. The Indians supplied her with meat until the real weather of winter came on. She had for company a nephew of her husband's, a boy of thirteen, whose especial charge was a yoke of oxen and a cow. Day after day went by, and still her husband did not come; and as if cold and loneliness were not enough, the supreme pain of motherhood was added, and the first white native son of the Reserve became a member of the household. She had regained sufficient strength to move about the house, and had about decided to remove to Erie, when towards evening she looked up, and her husband was at the door. Mrs. Kingsbury was then taken with fever ; the food left by the surveyors was about exhausted ; and the snow prevented calls upon their Indian friends. Before his strength had fully returned, Mr. Kingsbury was forced to make a journey to Erie, to procure food. He could not take the oxen, because of the lack of a path through the snow, and so he set forth hauling a hand sled. He reached Erie, obtained a bushel of wheat, and hauled it back to Conneaut, where it was cracked and boiled and eaten. The cow died from the effects of eating the browse of oak trees, and with it gone, the chances of life for the little one were meagre indeed. In a month it died. Mr. Kingsbury and the boy made a rude coffin from a pine box which the surveyors had left.

The rest of the story is quoted from that indispensable repository of useful knowledge, Colonel Whittlesey's Early History of Cleveland:

As they carried the remains from the house, the sick mother raised herself in bed, following with her eyes the lonely party to a rise of ground where they had dug a grave. She fell backward and for two

1797] - THE KINGSBURY FAMILY - 35

weeks was scarcely conscious of what was passing or of what had passed. Late in February or early in March, Mr. Kingsbury, who was still feeble, made an effort to obtain something which his wife cOuld eat, for it was evident that nutriment was her principal necessity. The severest rigors of winter began to relax. Instead of fierce northern blasts sweeping over the frozen surface of the lake, there were southern breezes which softened the snow and moderated the atmosphere. Scarcely able to walk, he loaded an old "Queen's Arm" which his uncle had carried in the war of the revolution and which is still in the keeping of the family. He succeeded in reaching the woods and sat down upon a log. A solitary pigeon came, and perched upon the highest branches of a tree. It was not only high, but distant. The chances of hitting the bird were few indeed, but a human life seemed to depend upon those chances. A single shot found its way to the mark, and the bird fell. It was well cooked and the broth given to his wife, who was immediately revived. For the first time in two weeks she spoke in a natural and rational way, saying, "James, where did you get this?"

When the surveying party of 1797 moved on from Conneaut to Cleveland, the Kingsbury family accompanied them. They found a temporary shelter in a dilapidated log house on the west side of the river, said to have been left by some of the early traders with the Indians. There stands today (1918) on Vermont Avenue and Hanover Court a house that is said to be the oldest one in Cleveland and that is claimed to be the one in which, for a time, the Kingsbury family dwelt. "Tradition states that it was built by agents of the Northwestern Fur Company, at the head of the old river bed, for a trading house, many years before the arrival of Moses Cleaveland ; that it was moved from place to place, and finally found a resting-place in its present location. It was originally covered with hewn timbers, but as it stands today it has a modern planed covering. It is further claimed that between 1783 and 1800 it was used as a blockhouse. It was once owned by Joel Scranton, but was purchased, near 1844, by Robert Sanderson, who moved it to its present location."

CHAPTER III

IN NEW CONNECTICUT

Some of the boats from Conneaut arrived at Cleveland on the first of June. The land party and the other boats arrived a few days later. On the way, David Eldridge was drowned in trying to cross Grand River. The body was brought to Cleveland and buried in its first cemetery on the east side of Ontario Street just north of Prospect Avenue, i. e., on the north parts of lots 97 and 98. (See the Seth Pease map on page 24.) In Pease's journal, under date of Sunday, June 4, it is written : "Attended the funeral of the deceased with as much decency and solemnity as could possibly be expected. Mr. Hart 'read [the Episcopal] church service." In his "statement," from which I have already quoted, Amzi Atwater says:

I was ordered with a party of men to take the horses and cattle to Cleveland. We got along very well until we got to Grand river ; we had no boat or other means of conveyance across, except we found an old Indian bark canoe which was very leaky—we had one horse which I knew was a good swimmer. I mounted him and directed the men to drive the others after me. I had got perhaps half way when I heard the men on shore scream—I looked back and saw two men, with horses in the water but had parted from them—one of them got ashore, and the other, David Eldridge made poor progress. I turned my horse as quick as I could and guided him up within reach of him, when I very inconsiderately took hold of his hand, as soon as I could. This turned the horse over, and we were both under the water an instant; but we separated and I again mounted the horse, and looked back and saw him just raise his head above the water, but he sunk to rise no more—this was June 3d. We built a raft of flood-wood, lashed together with barks, and placing on it three men who were good swimmers, they with hooks drew up the body, but this took some time—perhaps two hours. We took some pains to restore the body to life, but in vain. Two of our boats came up soon after with a large portion of the men. They took the body to Cleveland and buried it in the then newly, laid out burying-ground.

LORENZO CARTER ARRIVES

Lorenzo Carter, "quite a Nimrod," a native of Vermont who had spent the preceding winter in Canada, had come in May and soon

- 36 -

1796] - AT CLEVELAND AGAIN - 37

made himself a conspicuous figure in the pioneer community. About the same time came Ezekiel Hawley, his brother-in-law. On lot 199, near the river (See the Seth Pease map on page 24) he built a log cabin "more pretentious than the rude affairs constructed by the surveyors, having two apartments on the ground floor and a spacious garret." He soon built a boat, established a ferry at the foot of Superior Street, and kept a small stock of goods for trade with the Indians. His cabin served as a hotel for strangers and general headquarters for the early Clevelanders, and was the scene of many of their social festivities. The first Cleveland wedding. was held there on the Fourth of July, 1797, with Superintendent Seth Hart as the officiating clergyman; the high contracting parties were Miss Chloe Inches, who was in Carter's employ, and a Canadian by the name of Clement. In 1804, as we shall soon see, Lorenzo Carter was elected to office in the state militia and, after that, was generally referred to as Major Carter or "the Major." He is described as being six feet tall, of swarthy complexion, with long black hair, and the muscular power of a giant. "He was brave to the edge of daring, but amiable in temper and spirit; and while he never picked a quarrel; he saw the end of any upon which he entered." It was a common saying that Major Carter was all the law Cleveland had and he had unbounded influence with the Indians who came to believe that he was a favorite of the Great Spirit and could

38 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. III

not be killed. The records of early Cleveland have many stories of his dealings with white men and red men, and the following pages will record many of his doings.

Another recruit of that year was Rodolphus Edwards. There is a tradition among his descendants that he was one of the surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company and that the land that he soon received was wholly or in part in payment for services rendered. His surveyor's compass is preserved in the collections of the Western Reserve Historical Society. But I have found no definite or circumstantial account of when, how, or why he came. In a letter to which further reference will be made, Gilman Bryant says that "in the fall of 1797, I found Mr. Rodolphus Edwards in a cabin under the hill, at the west end of Superior Street." He soon secured a tract of 300 acres of land on Butternut Ridge, later known as Woodland Hills, and built a cabin just east of the "fever and ague line," on what is now Steinway Avenue and about four hundred feet west of Woodhill

1797] - RODOLPHUS EDWARDS - 39

Road. He soon built, at what is now the intersection of Woodhill and Buckeye roads, a much larger and more elaborate house, the timbers of which were hewed and the boards of which were sawed by hand, the long-famous Buckeye Tavern (later called the Pig eer) and favor- ite resort for the dances of two generations of Clevelan society. Here, keeping public inn and managing his farm, "Dolph" Edwards, rough, ready, and popular, lived until his death in 1836. In 1873, the old inn gave way for public improvements. Kingsbury and his family soon moved to a new cabin near the Public Square, and, in December, settled on a tract of 500 acres on the ridge a short distance south of Edwards and near what is Woodland Hills Park. Elijah Gun went to the same section. Joseph Landon, who had come back, and Stephen Gilbert "cleared a piece of ground which they sowed to wheat, while a couple of acres given to corn on Water street [now West Ninth] showed the agricultural activity of Lorenzo Carter."

In the latter part of this season (1797), there was much sickness in the little community, two of the men died- of dysentery, and boat, loads of the sick were sent off early in the fall. In relating the experiences of that year, Amzi Atwater says:

I was taken sick with the ague and fever. Sickness prevailed the latter part of the season to an alarming degree, and but a few escaped entirely. William Andrews, one of our men, and Peleg Washburn, an apprentice to Mr. Nathaniel Doan, died of dysentery at Cleveland, in August or September. All those that died that season were of my party who came on with me, with the cattle and horses, in the spring, and were much endeared to me as companions, except Tinker, our principal boatman, who was drowned on his return in the fall. At Cleveland I was confined for several weeks, with several others much in the same situation as myself, with little or no help, except what we could do for ourselves. The inhabitants there were not much better off than we were, and all our men were required in the woods. My fits came on generally every night, and long nights they appeared to me ; in day-time, I made out to get to the spring and get some water, but it was a hard task to get back again. My fits became lighter and not so frequent, until the boats went down the lake as far as the township of Perry, which they were then lotting out. The cold night winds and fatigue to which I was exposed brought on the fits faster and harder. I considered that I had a long journey before me to get home, and no means but my exertions, a large portion of the way. I procured a portion of Peruvian bark and took it, it broke up my fits and gave me an extra appetite, but very fortunately for me we were short of provisions and on short allowance. My strength gained, and I did not spoil my appetite by over-eating, as people are in danger of in such cases. I soon began to recover my health, but soon after Maj. Spafford started with a boat down the lake, with a sufficient number of well hands, and a load of us invalids to the number of fourteen in

40 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS [Chap. III

all. We passed on tolerable well down beyond Erie, opposite the, rocky shore ; there arose a dreadful looking cloud with a threatening, windy appearance; the wind was rather high, but some in our favor. Maj. Spafford was a good hand to steer and manage a boat, they double manned the oars on the land side to keep off shore, and we went fast till we got past the rocky shore; few or no words spoken, but immediately the wind came very heavy so that no boat could have stood it. There we staid three days without being able to get away. We got out in the evening, went below Cataraugus where we were driven ashore again, where we lay about two days, still on short allowance of provision. The next time we had a tolerable calm lake and safely arrived at Buffalo. By that time I had so recovered as to feel tolerably comfortable, and pursued my journey home on foot to Connecticut.

CLEVELAND A GENERAL HOSPITAL

The headquarters at Cleveland took on the character of a general hospital and the well-written journal of Seth Pease for this period (August-November, 1797), is an almost continuous record of sickness. But there were snakes as well as "shakes"; in 1883, Colonel Whittlesey told the members of the Early Settlers' Association that, "in its forest condition this region was very prolific in snakes. The notes of the survey contain frequent mention of them, particularly the great yellow rattlesnake. In times of drouth they seek streams and moist places, and were frequently seen with their brilliant black and orange spots crossing the lake beach to find water. Joshua Stow, the commissary of the survey, had a positive liking for snake meat. Holly could endure it when provisions were short. General Cleveland was disgusted with snakes, living or cooked, and with those who cooked them. They were more numerous because the Indians had an affection or a superstitious reverence for them, and did not kill them." In the summer and fall, "the equalizing committee was very busy exploring and surveying, comparing notes and arranging the parcels for a draft; fully determined that the work should be closed that season. Cleveland was the central point of all operations, and particularly as a general hospital." The survey of the Reserve east of the Cuyahoga having been completed, Captain Tinker, the principal boatman, was discharged. In going down the lake, his boat was capsized near the mouth of Chautauqua Creek, and Tinker and two of the other men were drowned (October 3). On the twelfth of October, Surveyor Pease left Cleveland by boat; he was at Conneaut on the twenty-second. On the twenty-third he had a fit of ague and fever; on the twenty-fourth he "sold the roan mare and saddle to Nathaniel Doan and took his note for thirty-two dollars." The Pease journal

1797] - END OF THE SECOND SEASON - 41

for the twenty-fifth records that : "We are short of pork, not having more than three-quarters of a barrel, and receiving none by Mr. Hart's boat, must send one boat over to Chippewa. Accordingly fitted out one under Major Spafford. She took on board all the men, sick and well, except Mr. Hart, Wm. Barker and myself. They were Colonel Ezra Wait, Amzi Atwater, Doctor Shepard, George Giddings, Samuel Spafford, David Clark, Eli Kellogg, Alexander and Chester Allen, H. F. Linsley, James Berry and Asa Mason. Major Spafford to wait at Queenstown for the other boat. Major Shepard started by land, for Buffalo creek, with Warham Shepard and Thomas Tupper. Parker agreed with, Mr. Hart to take the Stow horse to Buffalo creek." The journal for the thirty-first says : "Mr. Hart and myself started from Conneaut, after sunset. Our hands were Landon, Goodsel, Smith, Kenney (Keeny), Forbes, Chapman and James and Richard Stoddard, with a land breeze and our oars, gat within two miles of Presque Isle." On the afternoon of the third of November they arrived at Buffalo Creek, where they found Major Spafford, who had gotten there the day before; the rear guard came on the sixth. Mr. Pease, the surveyors, and the committeemen seem to have lingered at Canandaigua "to finish the partition and make up their reports; a work which the stockholders expected would have been concluded a year sooner."

Recognizing the needs of the coming suburban population, General Cleaveland had directed that the land immediately outlying the surveyed tract should be laid off in 10-acre lots and the rest of the township in 100-acre lots instead of the larger tracts into which the other townships were to be divided. While the price of the 2-acre town lots was to be $50 each, that of the 10-acre lots was fixed at $3 per acre, and that of the 100-acre lots at $1.50 per acre. According to Crisfield Johnson's History of Cuyahoga County, "the town lots were to be paid for in ready cash ; for the larger tracts, twenty per cent was to be paid down, and the rest in three annual installments with annual interest. It will be seen that even at that time the projectors of Cleveland had a pretty good opinion of its future ; valuing the almost unbroken forest which constituted the city at twenty-five dollars per acre in cash, while equally good land outside its limits was to be sold for from three dollars down to a dollar and a half per acre, with three years' credit." The 10-acre lots were now surveyed ; they extended eastward to the line of East Fifty-fifth Street (formerly called Willson Avenue), and southward "to the top of the brow of the ravine formed by Kingsbury Run and extended westwardly to the river bank." By August, three streets had been laid out through the 10-acre lots, the South, Middle (or Central) and North highways.

42 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. III

South Street became Kinsman Street, the part of the present Woodland Avenue that lies west of East Fifty-fifth Street. Middle Street became Euclid Avenue ; in 1816, it was extended from its junction with Huron at what is now East Ninth Street westward to the Public Square, as is indicated on Spafford's map. North Street was a continuation of Federal Street and is now known as St. Clair Avenue.

In the minutes of the Connecticut Land Company it is recorded that : "Whereas, The Directors have given to Tabitha Cumi Stiles, wife of Job P. Stiles, one city lot, one ten-acre lot, and one onehundred-acre lot; to Anna Gun, wife of Elijah Gun, one one-hundredacre lot; to James Kingsbury and wife, one one-hundred-acre lot ; to Nathaniel Doan, one city lot, he being obliged to reside thereon as a blacksmith, and all in the city and town of Cleaveland. Voted, that these grants be approved." Nathaniel Doan was one of the original surveying party and one of the proprietors of Euclid township. Induced probably by this gift of a city lot, he brought his family to Cleveland in 1798, and built a cabin in the woods near the river. "The fire of his forge was soon seen arising from a little shop on Superior Street near the corner of Bank [now West Sixth Street] and the ring of his anvil was heard as he sharpened the tools and shod the horses of the little community." In January of 1799, he moved eastward to the vicinity of Euclid Avenue and East One Hundred and Seventh Street, a locality long known as Doan's Corners. Here he lived "both beloved and respected until his decease in 1815."

In 1798, the fever and ague scourge, common to new western lands, came with virulence. "At one time nearly every member of the settlement became a victim to its power and the burden of providing food and the necessaries of life fell upon the few who were equal to it. A mainstay in many close places was the redoubtable Carter, whose gun and dogs enabled him to obtain wild game when nothing else was to be had." The nine members of Nathaniel Doan's family were sick at the same time, which fact had not a little to do with his removal to Doan's Corners, as already recorded. The numerous removals eastward reduced the population of Cleveland "to two families, those of Carter and Spafford. The major and the ex-surveyor kept tavern, dickered with the Indians, and cultivated the soil of their city lots." In this year, Turhand Kirtland made his first visit to the Reserve, apparently as agent of the Connecticut Land Company.

INDUSTRIAL BIRTH

In 1799, Wheeler W. Williams and Major Wyatt, two newcomers, built at the falls of Mill Creek the first grist mill in that neighbor-

1798-99] - THE FIRST MILL - 43

hood and probably the third on the Reserve. The millstones were made by David Bryant and his son Whitman. In 1857, this Whitman Bryant wrote a letter from which I freely quote, because of its description of this mill and the light that it throws on other matters relating to the history of those days on the Reserve :

My father, David Bryant, and myself, landed at Cleveland in June, 1797. There was but one family there at that time, viz.: Lorenzo Carter, who lived in a log cabin, under the high sand bank, near the Cuyahoga river, and about thirty rods below the bend of the river, at the west end of Superior street. I went up the hill to view the town. I found one log cabin erected by the surveyors, on the south side of. Superior street, near the place where the old Mansion house formerly stood. There was no cleared land, only where the logs were cut to erect the cabin, and for fire-wood. I saw the stakes at the corners of the lots, among the logs and large oak and chestnut trees. We were on our way to a grindstone quarry, near Vermillion river. We made two trips that summer, and stopped at Mr. Carter's each time. In the fall of 1797, I found Mr. Rodolphus Edwards in a cabin under the hill, at the west end of Superior street. We made two trips in the summer of 1798. I found Major Spafford in the old surveyors' cabin. The same fall Mr. David Clark erected a cabin on the other side of the street, and about five rods northwest of Spafford's. We made two trips in the summer of 1799, and in the fall, father and myself returned to Cleveland, to make a pair of millstones for Mr. Williams, about five miles east of Cleveland, near the trail to Hudson. We made the millstones on the right hand side of the stream as you go up, fifteen or twenty feet from the stream, and about half a mile from the mill, which was under a high bank, and near a fall in said stream of forty or fifty feet The water was conveyed to the mill in a dugout trough, to an under-shot wheel about twelve feet over, with one set of arms, and buckets fifteen inches long, to run inside of the trough, which went down the bank at an angle of forty-five degrees, perhaps. The dam was about four rods above the fall; the millstones were three and a half feet in diameter, of gray rock. On my way from the town to Mr. Williams' mill, I found the cabin of Mr. R. Edwards, who had left the town, about three miles out ; the next cabin was Judge Kingsbury's, and the next old Mr. Gunn, thence half a mile to Mr. Williams' mill.

The completion of the mill was celebrated with joy and festivity by the ten or more families on the ridge and, "during the following winter, our citizens enjoyed the luxury of bolted flour, made in their own mills, from wheat raised by themselves." The rivalry between Newburg and Cleveland had been fairly begun. By virtue of her situation on the shore of the lake, Cleveland had an importance that could not be denied, but the town on the higher land farther east took the lead in population. It was not long before Cleveland was

44 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. III

described as "a small' village on the shore of Lake Erie, six miles from Newburg."

In those days, it took courage of several kinds to make the westward venture. In itself, the journey was a very serious thing. The springless wagon or the sled, drawn by horses or oxen and loaded with household goods, farming implements, weapons of defense, and food, with wife and children stowed in corners, were the chief vehicles of transportation; the road was a mere path through the woods or a trail along which room for passage must be cut through the trees. Of course, there were no bridges, and streams had to be crossed by fording if the water was not too deep, or on the ice or on rafts, etc., if it was. The way to the promised land was long and tedious, and sickness and suffering were common experiences. In his Pioneers of the Western Reserve, Harvey Rice tells us that the only highways in this part of the country at that time were narrow paths, "which had existed from time immemorial, leading from one distant point of the country to another. One led from Buffalo along the lake shore to Detroit. Another from the Ohio River by way of the portage, as it was called, to the mouth of the Cuyahoga River. They concentrated at Cleveland, where the river was crossed by a ferry established by the Indians. In this way the principal trading posts erected by the French and English were made accessible, and furnished the early pioneers with the facilities of securing an important commercial intercourse with those distant points of trade." Goods and needed provisions were transported by boat or on pack horses. In February, 1797, the Connecticut Land Company appointed a committee to "enquire into the expediency of laying and cutting out roads on the Reserve." In the following January, they recommended the building of a road from Pennsylvania to the Cuyahoga. The road was cut out and the timber girdled according to the recommendation of the committee and at the expense of the company.

CLEVELAND AND OHIO IN 1800

At this time, the territory that had been marked out as the City of Cleveland had a population numbering a score or so, including, of course, the families of the persistent Carter and Spafford, "while some sixty or seventy made up the population of the immediate neighborhood. Affairs were not progressing, in a material sense, with the successful push which the managers of the Connecticut Land Company had probably looked for." Turhand Kirtland made his third annual visit to the Reserve. In a letter dated " Cleaveland, Ohio, 17th

1800] - PRICES FOR LAND - 45

July, 1800," and superscribed "Gen. M. Cleaveland, Canterbury Conn., to be left at Norwich, Post Office," he said:

Dear Sir :—On my arrival at this place, I found Major Spafford, Mr. Lorenzo Carter and Mr. David Clark, who are the only inhabitants residing in the city, have been anxiously waiting with expectations of purchasing a number of lots, but when I produced my instructions, they were greatly disappointed, both as to price and terms. They assured me, that they had encouragement last year, from Col. Thomas Sheldon ; that they would have lands at ten dollars per acre, and from Major Austin at twelve dollars at most; which they think would be a generous price, for such a quantity as they wish to purchase. You will please excuse me, for giving my opinion, but it really seems to me good policy to sell the city lots, at a less price than twenty-five dollars, (two acres) or I shall never expect to see it settled. Mr. Carter was an early adventurer, has been of essential advantage to the inhabitants here, in helping them to provisions in times of danger and scarcity,, has never experienced any gratuity from the company, but complains of being hardly dealt by, in sundry instances. He has money to pay for about thirty acres, which he expected to have taken, if the price had met his expectation ; but he now declares that he will leave the purchase, and never own an acre in New Connecticut. Major Spafford has stated his wishes to the company, in his letter of January last, and I am not authorized to add any thing. He says he has no idea of giving the present price, for sixteen or eighteen lots. He contemplated building a house, and making large improvements this season, which he thinks would indemnify the company fully, in case he should fail to fulfill his contract; and he is determined to remove to some other part of the purchase immediately, unless he can obtain better terms than I am authorized to give. Mr. Clark is to be included in the same contract, with Major Spafford, but his circumstances will not admit of his making any advances. I have requested the settlers not to leave the place, until I can obtain further information from the Board, and request you to consult General Champion, to whom I have written, and favor me with despatches by first mail. . . . I have given a sketch of these circumstances, in order that you may understand my embarrassments, and expect you will give me particular directions how to proceed, and also, whether I shall make new contracts with the settlers, whose old ones are forfeited. They seem unwilling to rely on the generosity of the company, and want new writings. . . . I have the pleasure of your brother's company at this time. He held his first talk with the Smooth Nation, at Mr. Carter's this morning. Appearances are very promising. I flatter myself he will do no discredit to his elder brother, in his negotiations with the aborigines.

I am dear, sir, with much esteem, yours, &c.,

TURHAND KIRTLAND.

Before long, "city lots which had been held for fifty dollars with down payment were offered for twenty-five dollars with time given.

1800] - THE FIRST DISTILLERY - 47

The treasury was replenished by assessments upon the stockholders instead of from proceeds of sales." In fact, the prospects of the venture were rather gloomy. Colonel Whittlesey tells us that by individual exertion, some of the "private owners under the previous drafts had disposed of limited amounts of lands, on terms which did not create very brilliant expectations of the speculation. In truth, the most fortunate of the adventurers realized a very meagre profit, and more of them were losers than gainers. Those who were able to make their payments and keep the property for their children, made a fair and safe investment. It was not until the next generation came to maturity, that lands on the Reserve began to command good prices. Taxes, trouble and interest, had been long accumulating. Such of the proprietors as became settlers secured an excellent home at a cheap rate, and left as a legacy to their heirs a cheerful future."

Early in the spring of 1800, "David Hudson passed here in company with Thaddeus Lacy and David Kellog and their families to settle in Hudson." It is pleasant to note the fact that "a schoolhouse was built this season, near Kingsbury's, on the ridge road, and Miss Sarah Doan, daughter of Nathaniel Doan, was the teacher." In spite of their dissatisfaction with the terms offered by Turhand Kirtland, as recorded in his letter of July, Amos Spafford and David Clark seem to have brought their wives and children to Cleveland before the end of the year. In the fall, David Bryant and his son, who, in the previous year, had played an important part in building the grist-mill at Newburg, came to Cleveland with the purpose of making it their permanent home. In a letter from which I have already quoted, the son, Gilman, tells us that his father brought a still that had seen service in Virginia "and built a still-house under the sand bank, about twenty rods above L. Carter's and fifteen feet from the river. The house was made of hewed logs, twenty by twenty-. six, one and a half stories high. We took the water in a trough, out of some small springs which came out of the bank, into the second story of the house, and made the whiskey out of wheat. My father purchased ten acres of land about one-fourth of a mile from the town plat, on the bank of the river, east of the town. In the winter of 1800 and spring of 1801, I helped my father to clear five acres on said lot, which was planted with corn in the spring. Said ten acres was sold by my father in the spring of 1802, at the rate of two dollars and fifty cents per acre. Mr. Samuel Huntington came to Cleveland in the spring of 1801, and built a hewed log house near the bank of the Cuyahoga river, about fifteen rods south-east of the old surveyor's cabin, occupied by Mr. Spafford." By way of illustration

48 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. III

of customs and costumes of that day, and at the risk of being thought somewhat flippant, I quote, from the same letter, Gilman Bryant's account of the Fourth of July ball :

I waited on Miss Doan, who had just arrived at the Corners, four miles east of town. I was then about seventeen years of age, and Miss Doan about fourteen. I was dressed in the then style—a gingham suit—my hair queued with one and a half yards of black ribbon, about as long and as thick as a corncob, with a little tuft at the lower end ; and for the want of pomatum, I had a piece of candle rubbed on my hair, and then as much flour sprinkled on as could stay without falling off. I had a good wool hat, and a pair of brogans that would help to play "Fisher's Hornpipe," or "High Bettie Martin," when I danced. When I went for Miss Doan I took an old horse ; when she was ready I rode up to a stump near the cabin, she mounted the stump and spread her under petticoat on "Old Tib" behind me, secured her calico dress to keep it clean, and then mounted on behind me. I had a fine time!

In this same summer of 1800, Mr. Samuel Huntington, of Norwich, Connecticut, visited the Reserve. In July, he was at Youngstown (the whole of which township had previously been bought by John Young), and, in October, left David Abbott's mill at Willoughby and came to Cleveland and "stayed at Carter's at night. Day pleas-.. ant and cool." For the next few days, his diary records the following: "Friday, 3d.—Explored the city and town ; land high and flat, covered with white oak. On the west side of the river is a long, deep stagnant pond of water, which produces fever and ague, among those who settle near the river. There are only three families near the point, and they have the fever. Saturday, 4th.—Sailed out of the Cuyahoga, along the coast, to explore the land west of the river. Channel at the mouth about five feet deep. On the west side is a prairie, where one hundred tons of hay might be cut each year. A little way back is a ridge, from which the land descends to the lake, affording a prospect indescribably beautiful. In the afternoon went to Williams' grist and saw mill (Newburg,) which are nearly completed. Sunday, 5th—Stayed at Williams'. Monday, 6th.—Went through Towns 7, 6 and 5, of Range 11, to Hudson." He returned to Connecticut in the fall and, early in the summer of the following year, moved with his family to Youngstown and, soon after that, moved to Cleveland, a notable addition' to the little community. We shall hear of him again.

Ohio was not yet a state. Marietta had been settled on the Ohio Company's purchase in 1787 ; Losantiville (later rechristened Cincinnati) and one or two other colonies had been planted in the Symmes

1800] - IN WHAT COUNTY - 49

purchase in 1788; and in 1796, the year of General Cleaveland's expedition to the Cuyahoga, General Nathaniel Massie and Duncan McArthur founded Chillicothe on the Scioto River in the Virginia military lands; it was to become the first capital of the state that was to be. By 1800, Ohio had a population of a little more than 45,000 and there were twenty or thirty settlements on the Reserve with a total population of about 1,300. But there was no government; there were no laws or records ; no magistrates or police. The people were orderly and fully competent to govern themselves and yet, in those three or four years, the need of civil institutions began to be severely felt. In 1788, General Arthur St. Clair, the somewhat arbitrary governor of the Northwest Territory, by proclamation, had established Washington County, including all of the present state east of a meridian line drawn from the mouth of the Cuyahoga to the Ohio River; the county seat was Marietta. In 1796, he included the part of the Reserve that lies west of the Cuyahoga in Wayne County, the seat of which was Detroit. In 1797, he included the eastern part of the Reserve in Jefferson County, with Steubenville as the county seat. It is not certain whether the relation of the Western Reserve to the Northwest Terri-

Vol. I-4