THE PIONEERS - 125 was on foot. His horse had died. But Kingsbury did not die. He had to live and keep on going. No easy way out for him on a snowy night. He had to get to the family. So he did. It is not strange that Mrs. Kingsbury, after the first shock of joy, "relapsed into a fever." She had been through too much. A little rest was imperative for Kingsbury. But he could not take enough. Before he got anything like his accustomed strength back he had to return to Erie for food. "As there was no beaten track, it was impossible for the oxen to travel in so deep snow. He was obliged to drag a hand sled to Erie, and obtaining a bushel of wheat, to draw it himself to Conneaut. This they cracked and boiled." It was at this point that the cow died. Mrs. Kingsbury was too ill to have milk for the baby. Within a month of the time that Kingsbury had plowed home through the snow on that Christmas eve, the baby died, too. The baby could not eat cracked wheat. The gruel thereof was not enough. Babies must have milk or die. Kingsbury and the boy found a wooden box which had held supplies for the surveying party. They made a sort of coffin. The baby was put into it, the starved little body awkwardly but tenderly arranged. (The thirteen-year-old Cleveland boy of today is probably making a snow man in January, playing riotously with snowballs and forts. He goes to school, to the movies, to school basket-ball games. Hard work, hunger, fever, birth and death were in the great game this boy saw that winter—the eternal and terrible game of human will pitted against nature and fate). Mrs. Kingsbury, still sick in bed, raised herself to watch them carry the pitiful little box from the house to a rise of ground where they had dug through the snow and into the earth a place for it. Had Kingsbury set the boy to digging snow while he took care of the harder part, with the box, inside? No doubt. That was Kingsbury's way. Not much could be saved this strong little child-man who had so dependably done his part, but maybe a little. 126 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS "She fell backward and for two 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?' " From this time on things grew better. The journey to Erie was not so difficult in the warmer weather, though spring mud did not add much joy to the thirty-mile trek. Friendly Indians wandered through now and again, with dried meats which could be washed and soaked and cooked. The Guns had gone to Cleaveland. There was not food enough, and the Kingsburys were not able to travel, and the Guns were. There were still supplies in the warehouse cabin on the Cuyahoga. The little left behind at Conneaut might help the family with the children. (Could that boy be called a child? But he was only thirteen) . On May twenty-sixth, the surveyors came again, under Seth Pease, whose diary says : "Mr. Kingsbury, his wife and one child were in a low state of health, to whom we administered what relief we could. We found that Mr. Gun's family had removed to Cuyahoga. Phineas Barker has not THE PIONEERS - 127 been able to do much for seven days, on account of fever and ague." This last sentence marks the entrance of the worst enemy the Cleaveland settlers had to meet. Again and again it harasses them. What does the Kingsbury family do next? Go back, discouraged, to New Hampshire, to friends and cheer and comfort? Could you blame them? "When the surveyors under Mr. Pease returned to their work in the spring, the family came with them to Cleaveland, as their permanent home. On the west side of the river, at a point which cannot now be fixed with certainty, but probably near where Center and Main streets cross, there was a dilapidated house." This old log shelter had been built, possibly by French but more probably by English traders, along about 1786, as a storehouse to hold necessaries for their own use, goods for the Indian trade, and furs waiting transportation eastward. But ten years can do a lot of damage to a log house, especially with Indians coming by occasionally and taking pieces off to burn. It was leaky and the floor so rough it could not possibly be kept New England clean. It was sufficiently large, however, so that chintz partitions could be put up. Mrs. Kingsbury was glad enough to have a house with more rooms than one, even if the inside walls fluttered with every breeze, and it was spring now. Besides, the new cabin was going up, and that is always a hopeful doing. Can you see them, of a summer evening, the Colonel, Mrs. Kingsbury and the three small folk, ferrying over the river, climbing up the trail to the top, sauntering along the wooded lane to where the main post office now stands, looking over the new cabin? The children are finding bits of wood of entrancing shapes and fragrance, chips and little ends of fitted logs and scraps of planking. Mother looks it all over and thinks it would be better to have the kitchen window here rather than there, as the men had planned. Father turns up a flat end of log for her to sit on. She rests there a little while—oh blessed twilight hour of the pioneer woman who 128 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS works all day from a sunrise start—and looks into the western sky as the glow deepens and fades. She smiles as the children call to her to look at what they have made, she misses them a moment and counts their voices, one, two, three. A shadow crosses her face. There should have been a fourth, a wee son big enough to creep by now, perhaps, and reach out tiny hands for chips, with little rippling coos of laughter. She shakes herself and turns. That way madness lies. The other three are there, well and happy for the moment. That is enough to think about for tonight. It is almost dark; time they were in bed. "James ! Oh, James !" she calls. "Come, children, time to go. Yes, Abigail, we'll take the nicest of the little woods, but only what you can carry in one hand and Father can put in his one big pocket, because he must carry Almon and you and Amos must each take one of Mother's hands." Father comes back from his little saunter and survey of the ground around the new home with pleasant news. There are going to be lots of hickory nuts this winter and butternuts and black walnuts, too. Across Mother's inward eye flashes a picture of her new kitchen. She is turning a big batch of hot hickory nut cookies off from a baking-board to cool on the table under the window, their fragrance mingling with that of the oak and maple wood used for the baking. They will not be dependent this winter on one bushel of wheat pulled thirty miles on a hand sled by a sick man. After all, God is good, though his ways seem sometimes mysterious ! So back they go through the gathering dusk, and across the river, sparkling darkly under the stars, and to sleep, well-earned. The nephew is no longer in the picture. Doubtless his uncle sent him back, when occasion served, to other relatives in the East, where he might grow according to his age among his peers, and be no longer forced by a necessity and responsibility beyond his proper powers and time of life. The Kingsburys did not, however, live in that new cabin long. Kingsbury had had enough of fevers, of one kind and THE PIONEERS - 129 another, and was unwilling to take chances for his family with the lowland "fever and ague." People in those days realized that the scourge rose from the marshes, but they did not, of course, know that mosquitoes were the carriers. They did not like mosquitoes, however, and some of them solved both problems by moving to higher ground. The tragic winter had not dampened the Kingsbury spirit; rather, it had inspired it to newer and harder undertakings. Once in the new cabin, Kingsbury began scouting around for a permanent location higher up. He found what he wanted on the ridge which runs from Doan's Corners to Newburgh, and built another cabin by a spring. Into this the family moved on the 11th of December, 1797. The first trail to it was blazed on the trees, out Kinsman way. The hickory nut cookies of that winter were not made with milled flour. There was plenty of wheat for them that year, but, "During the first winter on the ridge, they were obliged to pack their wheat from the city, pounding it by hand, and boiling it to a pudding." Notice the historian already referring to the tiny settlement on the Cuyahoga as "the city" ! The "pudding" was what the Scotch would call "porridge," or what we call "cereal" if we are speaking of the coarser kinds of breakfast food. The cookies were like those we make with oatmeal, or the coarse cracked wheat left over from breakfast—full of flavor and nutriment. The next step was a frame house, the first in the district. In the winter of 1799— This was the year in which George Washington died. And Franz Joseph Haydn. It was a far cry from chamber music quartets in the pleasant rooms of Prince Esterhazy in Vienna to cutting logs on the Newburgh ridge. It was a long way even from spacious Mount Vernon. In the winter of 1799, then, timbers for the new house were cut and sledded over the snow to Williams' sawmill at Newburgh. The frame of the house was erected early in 130 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS the spring. Then a spring flood came along and took the dam, and there was no sawing at that mill. The frame stood a year without sheathing. Did Kingsbury abandon the project? What a question! The reader knows him better than that by now. He built a sawmill of his own on Kingsbury's Run, and finished his house. A good house it was, long it stood, glorious was its hospitality. To fine manhood and womanhood grew its sons and daughters. In 1806, ten years after the bad winter at Conneaut, the family gathered a good crop of apples from its own trees. By this time Kingsbury had been judge in the Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the County of Trumbull—which took in, then, most of the Reserve—and later Justice of the Peace and Collector of Taxes. In 1805 he was elected to the Legislature and later reelected. He lived till 1847 in the old homestead, then set in prosperous farm and orchard. Mrs. Kingsbury died in 1843. These people had known what hunger was, and cold, illness, anxiety and grief. Many were their benevolences, generous their kindness, friendly and full of jollity was their home. An obituary of the Hon. James Kingsbury in the Cleveland Plain Dealer of December 15th, 1847, concludes : "Of the Judge, it may be said with propriety, that he was the patriarch of the land—among the last of the brave pioneers on the lake shore. He possessed a noble heart—a heart that overflowed with kindness like the gush of a fountain. His generosities were never stinted in a good cause, nor his charities bestowed ostentatiously to be blazoned abroad among men. He regarded all mankind as his brethren and kinsmen, belonging to the same common household." J. W. Biddle, Pittsburgh pioneer, commented in the Pittsburgh American: "We knew thee well, good old Patriarch, when we were five and thirty years younger, and the hospitality of thy mansion extended to us then, is still fresh in our memory." CHAPTER II THE SECOND SUMMER With the arrival of the surveyors at Cleaveland begins the second summer of the infant colony. Seven of the nine surveyors of this year had been in the party of the year before. Five of the fifty-two employees were of the last year's group. This time a clergyman, Rev. Seth Hart, is named as "superintendent" and there is a physician, Theodore Shepard. Moses Cleaveland does not return. Why? He had done a big, hard job the year before, and may have thought he had done enough. His growing law practice needed him. There is also the fact that the stay-at-home directors and stockholders of the Company were not satisfied with what had been accomplished. He had written the year before, in a letter to Oliver Phelps from Conneaut in early August : "I should with great pleasure readily comply with what I suppose you have heretofore expected that I should leave this country about this time. I have not as yet been interrupted in a constant attention to business, more than I could have imagined or would have voluntarily entered into, and I see no prospect of its lessening at present. Those who are meanly envying the compensation and sitting at their ease and see their prosperity increasing at the loss of health, ease and comfort of others, I wish might experience the hardships for one month; if not then satisfied, their grumblings would give me no pain." The letter then goes on with description of territory and the statement that he must await "more information of the ceded lands and ye traverse of the lakes and rivers" before deciding on the place for the capital, but "I believe it will be on the Cuyahoga; it must command the greatest communi- - 131 - 132 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS cation, either by land or water of any place on the purchase or on any ceded lands west of the head of the Mohawk. I expect soon to leave this for the westward and shall make my residence there until I am ready to return to Connecticut." He concludes by saying "The men are remarkably healthy, though without sauce or vegetables, and in good spirits. I hope they will continue so." Like any man of strength who embarks upon a big job, he cared more about seeing the job through, more about the men under him, than he did about his own comfort. His satisfaction lay in the accomplishments of bits of the job as they worked out, one after another. Like any general in the field, he saw the difficulties concretely, and face to face. He was too much absorbed by them to bother with much argument with stay-at-home members of the company, but once in a while he voiced the fact, as in the letter quoted, that if they knew more they would complain less. It is quite likely that he needed money, had had a hard time getting anything out of the Company towards his compensation for the first year's work and foresaw a more severe stringency to follow. Like any man, too, who has done his part, and a hard part, in a big job, when he meets complaint and dissatisfaction on the part of those who do not understand the situation, his tendency is to tell them, with a good deal of firmness, but without rancor, that they had better get some one else to manage the venture next year, and to proceed calmly and straightforwardly to the next work awaiting him. That seems to have been what happened. General Moses Cleaveland came and did his year's work in the field, and a very good year's work it was, and then he moved into his law practice, content to let the Company choose another leader for the next year. He was always interested in his little namesake settlement and hoped some day to visit it again. Death, in 1806, intervened. There is no complete list of those who came in 1797, but Whittlesey digs up names from Pease's diary and accounts. These men certainly were here, and there may have been THE PIONEERS - 133 others not mentioned, as Whittlesey says men were employed and discharged during the season. His list is as follows : Rev. Seth Hart, Superintendent. Seth Pease, Principal Surveyor. Surveyors: Richard Stoddard, Moses Warren, Amzi Atwater, Joseph Landon, Amos Spafford, Warham Shepard, Phineas Barker, Nathan Redfield. Theodore Shepard (or Shepherd), Physician. Employees: Alexander Allen Chester Allen William Andrews (died) Jotham Atwater Phil Barker Josiah Barse (or Barze) David Beard James Berry Minor Bicknell (died) Eli Canfield Jacob Carlton E. Chapman Alpheus Choate David Clark Job Coe Oliver Culver John Doan Nathaniel Doan David Eldridge (drowned) Enoch Eldridge Samuel Forbes George Giddings Solomon Giddings Stephen Gilbert Matthew L. Gilgore Thomas Gun John Hine Daniel Holbrook (explorer) Eli Kellogg Hubbard T. Linsley Asa Mason Ezekiel Morley Berry Nye Joseph Nye Charles Parker Shubal Parker (or Park) Clark Reynolds Eli Rowley (deserted) Lot Sanford Solomon Shepard Maj. William Shepard Sylvester Smith Samuel Spafford (son of Amos) James Stoddard William Stoddard Joseph Tinker Thomas Tupper Col. Ezra Waite Peleg Waterman (or Washburn, died) 134 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS The accounts of the second summer read much like those of the first. Early in April Pease got to Schenectady. Here, on Thursday, April 14th, he writes : "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." The Mather mentioned is Thomas Mather of Albany, N. Y., who assisted Moses Cleaveland in this manner the year before. It was the Samuel Mather of this line, lately deceased, who, called in 1931 to assist a national commission on relief for the unemployed, told the President of the United States firmly, "Cleveland can take care of its own." The Mathers, apparently, have always had faith in the city of Cleveland, and have given generously of hard work as well as money to bring about the justification of that faith. "April 15th—Helves were put into the axes, and they were ground. Rations began to be issued, and the camp utensils, left there by General Cleaveland, were again brought into use. Delayed on account of the compasses not being ready, which were to be made at Ballstown, by Mr. F. Young. "April 20th—Six boats started up the Mohawk. Each mess of six men received for daily rations, chocolate, one pound; pork, five pounds; sugar, a small porringer ; one bottle of rum; one-half bottle of tea ; flour or bread, not limited." Eli Rowley, marked "deserted" on the list, left the party early in May before they were more than started. On the third of June, David Eldridge was drowned in the crossing of the Grand River. He had started to swim his horse across, but became unseated. An attempt was made to rescue him, but this failed, and he was almost an hour in the water. "Mr. Hart used every precaution to recover him, without effect." His body was brought to the Cuyahoga. Pease writes : "Sunday, June 4th—This morning selected a piece of land for a burying ground, the north parts of lots 97 and 98; and attended the funeral of the deceased with as much decency and solemnity as could possibly be expected. Mr. THE PIONEERS - 135 Hart read church service. The afternoon was devoted to washing." "Cleaveland, Monday June 5th — Began to clear land above the bank for a garden, and examined the stores to see if everything was in condition. "June 6th. Most of the men worked at the clearing, got it cleared and fenced." From Cleaveland, then, in early June, the surveying parties start out, three of them, under Major Shepard, Moses Warren and Amos Spafford, to proceed with the work started the year before. The articles delivered to each party were : Pork, flour, tea, chocolate, sugar, ginger, spirits, vinegar, cheese, pepper, empty bags, fire steel and punk, candles, a tent, axes and hatchets, pocket compass, measuring pins, salt, soap, horses. The surveying work was full of difficulties and hardships. The compasses showed strange variations. These may have been due to mineral deposits underground in some cases, and in others were almost certainly due to defects in the compasses themselves. Whatever the causes, the effects were troublesome, often requiring the doing over of a hard task thought to be already accomplished. Pease laments : "From observations made on the various compasses, I find I cannot reduce them to a common standard, being differently affected at different places. Of two compasses on the Cuyahoga River, twenty miles south of the lake, one needle was to the left of the other ten minutes. At Cleaveland the one which was to the left stood fifteen minutes to the right, though they were not compared precisely at the same hour of the day. The magnetic needle is not always parallel to itself at the same place, which renders the compass an inaccurate instrument for running long lines. The variation is so irregular that it admits of no calculation, and must be determined by observations upon the heavenly bodies." Food was not very appetizing on these long trips, and sometimes none too plentiful. Sometimes there was pleasant, high, dry ground to camp on. Often, however, the ground 136 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS was damp and always there were mosquitoes. Summer heat made the hard woods-walking almost intolerable. One of the incidents which have come down in clear and vivid story is that of the death of Minor Bicknell. Amzi Atwater, who had finished his lines, went out with Minor Bicknell to help Shepard finish his. He found Shepard sick with dysentery, and Minor Bicknell was soon seriously ill with fever. Ordinary "fever and ague" the men stood, working on the better day and lying low on the worse one. Dysentery was a matter of waiting a day or two and then going on with the work. But whatever ailed Bicknell was soon seen to be more than either. Probably it was typhoid. There they were in the woods, with no medicines, no comforts, no proper knowledge of what to do. The only thing they could see was to get him to Cleaveland where there were supplies and a doctor. They took two poles and fastened them together with bark, making a rude hammock-bed, with strips of the bark going along the sides of the horses, "like thills of a wagon, one horse following the other, so far apart as to admit a man to lie lengthwise between them." Atwater sent a man ahead, with orders to have a boat ready to take the sick man down the river. But when he got a good many miles on his way, he met the man returning to him along the trail, with the word that the camp at Upper Head Quarters had broken up and men and boats were gone. Atwater sent him ahead again, directing him to get a boat to meet him at another point. After five days of the jolting travel between the horses, the sick man with his protector was set down at the river—and died before they could get him aboard a boat. The boatmen were superstitious and would not take the lifeless body, so it was buried there, near the river. Atwater described this later as "the most affecting scene of his life." "My feelings I cannot attempt to describe. My fatigue was great during the whole distance. My anxiety stimulated THE PIONEERS - 137 every power I possessed of body or mind. I was in perfect health, and in the most active part of life, but when I had got through and the man was dead, and my extreme fatigue was at an end, it seemed as if every nerve was unstrung; and in ordinary circumstances, I should have thought myself entitled to a few days' rest. But we were obliged immediately to leave there, to return and find Mr. Shepard." There was a great deal of fever and ague that second summer, a great deal of dysentery—Peleg Washburn died of it in August—and a great deal of general misery. Nevertheless the lines were run through the territory of New Connecticut and the ten-acre and hundred-acre lots were marked off in Cleaveland. The final report of survey and partition was made on December 13th, 1797, to the directors of the Company at Hartford. At a stockholders meeting held in January, 1798, the directors were upheld by approving vote in the following gifts : To Tabitha Cumi Stiles, wife of Job P. Stiles, who spent that first winter in Cleaveland, one city lot, one ten-acre lot and one hundred-acre lot; To Anna Gun, wife of Elijah Gun, one hundred-acre lot. Mrs. Gun will be remembered as having spent that winter at Conneaut with her husband, and as having given Mrs. James Kingsbury such help as she could during those hard months, especially at the time of the birth of the Kingsbury baby, the first white child born in New Connecticut. To James Kingsbury and wife, one hundred-acre lot. The Kingsburys were the first settlers not connected with the Company to come to New Connecticut and stay there. To Nathaniel Doan one city lot, he being obliged to reside thereon as a blacksmith. All these assignments were "in the city and town of Cleaveland." Donations of land to other actual settlers were authorized. The Indians Red Jacket and Farmer's Brother "received a douceur of fifteen dollars each for expenses, ten dollars in cash and five dollars in goods." 138 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS Orth tells briefly and clearly about the city survey of this summer : "In 1797, the Second Party of surveyors arrived in Cleaveland under the leadership of Seth Pease as chief surveyor. They proceeded to survey the 'Cleaveland ten-acre lots' comprising the area now embraced between Brownell Street and Wilson Avenue. (Now East 14th and East 55th streets). The survey began August 20th, on Sunday. Three radiating roads were surveyed through the ten-acre lots; 'North Highway,' now St. Clair Avenue, 'Center Highway,' now Euclid Avenue, and 'South Highway,' now Woodland Avenue; each was ninety-nine feet wide, and their corners were respectively north 58 degrees east; north 82 degrees east, and south 74 degrees east. The North road connected with Federal Street of Pease's plan, the Center road with Huron Street, and the South road with Erie Street. "Inasmuch as these roads radiate, the lots become deeper as you travel from the city. The lots are all the same width; their area therefore varies from less than ten acres to forty acres, and one, number 166, has one hundred acres. The reason for this variation is to equalize the value of the lots on the theory that the farther they are from town the less valuable per front foot. Those on the south side of Woodland Avenue are all ten acres, however, because the rear lot line is parallel to Woodland owing to the irregularity of Kingsbury Run ravine, which prevented the expansion of the lots. The numbers begin with the southeast angle of Woodland and Erie streets, and run eastward consecutively, beginning again with the westward lot of the tier it connects with, and so on. Later, when these lots were wanted for city purposes, Payne Avenue was opened on the boundaries of the ten-acre lots between St. Clair and Euclid and Garden Street (Central Avenue) on the line between the Euclid and Woodland ten-acre lots. "Beyond Willson Avenue the land was divided into 100-acre lots." The surveys had been completed by the second fall, and the surveyors, as such, disappear. As they sail out of the THE PIONEERS - 139 river, homeward bound, they leave behind them not a haphazard colony, but a city planned. It took a long time to realize the fond dreams of the real estate speculators, dreams of a thickly and richly settled community, but when fulfilment came, it came with a rush and strength which beggared their wildest fancies. In all its vicissitudes, changes, lapses and new starts, Cleveland has never lost that sense of a community organized, a city with a plan. It has always had a consciousness, sometimes bright, sometimes dim, but never entirely lost, of being a unified whole, a living organism, a thing which hangs together. It has a sense of the obligation of cooperation, seldom so sharply felt in large cities. Something of this is due to the clear plan which was laid down in the beginning, to the idea of fairness which made the farther lots larger so that every buyer should have his compensation. Something is due to the knowledge each settler had that he was going to a place prepared, that he could choose his lot or farm according to landmarks already laid down and ready. Forgotten, these ideas? Yes, for long and often. Orth says if the radial development according to the original plan "had been properly guided by an enlightened public authority, we might now have a city with splendid vistas and orderly geography. But there was no guiding hand," and the land became "dissected into allotments with streets laid out to suit the greed of the owner and with a fine disregard for the unity of the city." But the spirit of the early plan has never been wholly lost. The conception of the beauty of order has never disappeared from the civic consciousness of Cleveland. And so, as the last sound of hoofbeats falls into silence along the trail of those who went by land, as the westering sun glints on the sails of those who went by lake, let this chapter close with the words of Amzi Atwater, Cleaveland surveyor, written to a friend in 1851: "I need not say much how I have run the line of life. I 140 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS have run through some of the swamps of adversity and over many of the plains of prosperity. My assistants have generally been cheerful and I may say faithful. My provisions hold out well, and perhaps I have enough to carry through to the end of my line, which I have good reason to believe will soon be completed." CHAPTER III CUTTING AND BUILDING The second winter passed more easily for the residents of Cleaveland City. There were more of them, for one thing, and they were better prepared. The complete roster is : Job and Tabitha Cumi Stiles. Lorenzo and Rebecca Aikin Carter, with their children, Alonzo, Henry, Laura, Mercy and Betsey. James Kingsbury and Eunice Waldo Kingsbury, with their children, Abigail, Amos S., and Almon. Ezekiel Hawley and Lucy Carter Hawley, with their one child. Elijah Gun and Anna Gun, with one child. Pierre Meloche. Peleg Washburne, who had intended to stay, died in August. Miss Chloe Inches, who had come to help Mrs. Carter with the children, and who was the first Cleaveland bride, married a Mr. Clement of Canada in July and moved off the Cleave-land stage. Rev. Seth Hart performed the ceremony. The Stileses have stayed, one observes, and the Guns, who have added a child, Philena. The Kingsburys were on the ridge, and this year marks the entrance of that picturesque adventurer Lorenzo Carter. The new settlers of 1798 are Nathaniel Doan (who went back the fall before and now returns with his family) his wife Sarah Adams Doan and their children, a son, Job, and three daughters who became afterwards Mrs. R. H. Blin, Mrs. Eddy and Mrs. Baldwin; Samuel Dodge, Rodolphus Edwards, Nathan Chapman, Stephen Gilbert and Joseph Landon. - 141 - 142 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS Landon, who has been here and departed twice before, now seems to have decided to remain permanently. Stephen Gilbert, coming now to stay, was also of the 1797 surveying party. Nathan Chapman will be remembered as having come with cattle on the first expedition. The next year, 1799, sees the advent of Richard H. Blin, William Wheeler Williams, Mr. Gallup and Major Wyatt. In 1800, Amos Spafford comes back with his family; Alexander Campbell arrives; David Clark and his wife, with their children, Mason, Martin, James, Margaret and Lucy; David Bryant comes, also his son, Gilman Bryant and Samuel Jones. In the year 1801 comes Samuel Huntington, with his wife and sons, Julius C. and Colburn. Mrs. Huntington brings Miss Margaret Cobb as friend, companion and governess. Timothy Doan arrives with his wife Mary Carey Doan, their children Timothy Jr., Seth, John, Deborah, Nancy; Mrs. Samuel Dodge comes this year to join her husband, with a Mrs. Bronson and her children; Elisha Norton and his family arrive this year. The pioneers of those first five years make a settlement big enough and varied enough for real village life. How do they live? With a good deal of difficulty. The whole region was covered with forest. Cutting and building were the first steps. Trees had to be cut down before anything else was done. A site was chosen, and enough trees chopped out to make a place for the cabin. Some of these logs were used in the building. The rest, with the brush, branches and saplings, were piled to use for kindling and firewood. If haste were imperative, logs were used round, with bark on. Bark was removed in the evenings, then [the logs] were hewn into something near flatness. If the family could be housed otherwise for a little while, time was taken to square the logs before erecting the cabin. This gave a flatter wall, inside and out, easier to keep clean, and with fewer and less deep crannies for the wee people of the forest to lodge in. It is easy to see the big hardships, but few people realize that keeping ants and other small folk out of food, THE PIONEERS - 143 clothing and bedding was one of the most vexing and wearing problems the housewife had to face. Sometimes logs were split in half and used thus. Norton S. Townshend writing on the "History of Agriculture" for Howe's Historical Collections of Ohio says most of the schoolhouses of early Ohio were so built. Floors were made of split logs—this was the "Puncheon" floor. When the logs were squared the construction was called a "blockhouse." Thin strips of wood calked the round logs inside of a log house, and mortar was used for the outside. When mortar cement was unavailable, clay mud helped keep the cracks tight. Where there were no nails, the log houses were covered with long split oak shingles held in place by small logs or poles. Log cabins are picturesque and romantic to modern eyes. When new they are sweet-smelling and altogether delightful for summer use. But the housewife who had to get three meals a day, bear and take care of children with all the washing and hard work that required, was very glad to get sawed and fitted lumber with planed surfaces and square corners as soon as sawmills made it possible. When the pioneer had his walls up and roof on, his puncheon floor "hewn smooth" with ax and adze, the family moved in. Families wise enough to bring with them a good supply of chintz or some such fabric used it to partition a bedroom or two off from the living room. Those who were not so foresighted had the bed in full sight, with perhaps a trundle bed rolled under it during the day. Sometimes the loft was floored, with a ladder to reach it by. Older children could sleep there and the loft space helped with the always vexatious problem of stowage. There were no stoves at first. All cooking was done in the fireplace of stone which sometimes made one wall.. One house, about which there is something known, was eighteen by eighteen, the floor covering only half of it with no chimney, but merely a stone wall built up five feet to keep the fire off the logs. Greased paper made the windows, and "we hung up a quilt, and that, with a big bull-dog, constituted the door." 144 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS Beds were made of round poles, with elm bark for cords ! "Seats, tables, and chairs," says Kennedy, "were made as time would allow, and according to the skill of the occupants occasionally some of these articles had been saved from the breaking up of the old home in the east. The domestic economy within this family temple was of the most primitive character. A Dutch oven, a couple of kettles and a spider were considered essentials, although many an outfit fell far short of this idyl of completeness." The Dutch oven was not an oven at all, but a large kettle with a tightly fitting concave cover. The kettle was set in hot embers and burning coals of hardwood were put in the hollow of the lid. Some of these kettles stood on legs. Most of them were very large. There are two stories of children hiding in them. One is of a small girl, Miranda Sackett, missing after a noon rest on the journey. She was found, finally, after much hunting and distress, in the big kettle hanging under the covered wagon, into which she had climbed and where she then went to sleep. Brick ovens, built into the chimney or outside the house, were often, later, called "Dutch ovens." Those who brought a few dishes were lucky. The others had to make crude wooden ones. Judge Robert F. Paine said there was a man in Trumbull County skilled in making wooden dishes, and when he came around "his advent into a neighborhood would cause more excitement than the establishment of another national bank in Cleveland today. We ate on what we called trenchers, a wooden affair in shape something like a plate. Our neighbors were in the same condition as we, using wooden plates, wooden bowls, wooden everything, and it was years before we could secure dishes harder than wood, and when we did they were made of yellow clay." There was a later story of a young woman who was married by her uncle, a justice of the peace. He gave the wedding fee back to the bride, who treasured it until her husband could take the necessary long journey to buy dishes. He got them, packed them most carefully in a bag and started THE PIONEERS - 145 back. When nearly home the horse stumbled and fell. Every dish was broken. This may sound funny. It may even have looked funny when it was happening. But it was high tragedy for the bride. Mrs. Adam Wagar, who was Margaret Kyle of Kilbridge, Scotland, walked all the way from New England to Cleaveland beside the ox cart which bore their possessions, carrying her best Scotch china in her own hands. What did they eat from the wooden dishes? At first, game, wild fruits, cornbread. Game was roasted on a spit in the fireplace, or stewed in the Dutch oven set among the embers. The cornmeal was mixed with water into a thick paste and the paste spread on a board. The board was set against the wall of the fireplace where the dough would bake without the board burning. One of the children was set to watch it and when it seemed done on one side it was turned and baked on the other. The next step after getting into the cabin was making garden. A space would be cleared of trees to let in the sun, and vegetables were planted in among the stumps. The brush was used for rude and hurried fencing to keep rabbits, coons and their various cousins and competitors from getting the vegetables before the family could. As soon as a rough garden of this sort was started, the real clearing of the land began. Mr. Townshend lists the trees of which the forest was composed : Oak, elm, ash, beech, maple, hickory, chestnut, butternut, black walnut, wild cherry, sycamore, tulip-tree, basswood, locust, sweet-gum, poplar, willow, mulberry, cucumber, box elder, buckeye. The native fruits, he says, were cranberry, huckleberry, blackberry, pawpaw, persimmon, plum, wild grapes and cherries. Beech nuts and acorns fattened the hogs. This list, however, is for the state of Ohio, and not all these trees were found in this vicinity. Among the inhabitants of the forest were found deer, bears, wolves, foxes, raccoons, woodchucks, opossums, skunks, squirrels, wild turkeys, wild geese, wild ducks, partridges, quails and pigeons. Eagles, turkey-buzzards, owls and hawks were among the troublesome marauders. 146 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS The process of clearing land for farming purposes was not so quick or simple as it sounds. It is described by Mr. Townshend "For clearing away the forest, the chopping was usually done in the winter months. First the underbrush was cut and piled, the logs already down were cut into lengths, which permitted them to be drawn together; occasionally these dead logs were burned into pieces by small fires kept up until the logs were burned through. The timber suitable for rails was next cut down and into suitable lengths, and drawn to the lines where fences were to be built; the balance of the timber was then cut down, and chopped into convenient lengths for logging. When the brushwood and timber on a tract was all cut it was left through the summer, and called a summer-fallow, the timber in the meanwhile becoming dry. In the fall the brush-heaps were burned, then the logs were drawn together by oxen, and rolled into log-heaps and burned. Next the rail-cuts were split into rails, and the worm-fence built, after which came the wheat-sowing. In some sections or upon some farms, the timber was not all cut down, many of the larger trees being notched around or girdled, so that they died. This process of deadening the large trees was a great saving of labor in the first instance; but as dead limbs and trees were liable to fall, and perhaps do mischief, it was not generally approved. "After clearing and fencing, wheat was sown broadcast among the stumps. With a rude harrow called a drag, it was scratched under the surface. For many years the wheat when ripe was cut with a sickle ; in some parts of the State the grain-cradle was introduced as early as 1830, or perhaps earlier, and this gradually superseded the older implement. After being cut, the wheat was allowed to stand some days in shock, in order to dry before it was hauled to the barn or stack. It was usually thrashed with the flail, though the more expeditious method of treading out the grain by horses was sometimes employed. After thrashing, the wheat was separated from the chaff by throwing it up before the wind ; or a fan, with revolving frame, to which pieces of canvas THE PIONEERS - 147 were attached, was used to raise the wind; finally the fanning mill came into use some years before the horsepower thrashing machine." This quotation anticipates a bit, for our pioneer was many years getting around to such a convenience as a fanning mill. Grass was sown among the wheat, and got a start while the wheat was ripening. After the wheat was cut, it grew fast, and hay was later cut from the wheat fields. It was mowed with a scythe. Corn was planted "by hand," and painfully, it would seem to the present generation. The farmer tied the bag of seed-corn around his waist. He lifted the soil with a sharp hoe and dropped a few kernels in, then tamped the soil down again with the hoe or with his foot. Sometimes an old ax was used to make the hole. The corn was either husked standing, or shocked and left for a later husking. The latter was apt to happen when the farmer had fever and ague. Later the neighbors would gather and help him husk. In cultivating where the land was clear enough, and the clearing old enough so that roots were decayed, a plow with oxen was drawn between the rows, the oxen muzzled so they would not crop the young corn. The first money-making crop from forest land was lye made from the ashes of the burned logs. This was boiled down into black salts, and traded in at stores. The black salts were used to make potash or pearl-ash for eastern markets. This was where there were country stores. It was one of the grievances of the early Cleaveland settlers that no such trading marts were available to them. Our pioneer, then, built his cabin, started his garden of root vegetables for winter use, and began clearing land for wheat. The children gathered nuts and hoarded them, like the squirrels around them, for winter cracking and eating —in cookies or out. Small game made the autumn meat supply, but as soon as it was really cold enough, deer were sought, and a carcass was hung in a neighboring tree. Hunks of the frozen meat were hacked off with an ax to cook when needed. 148 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS Early in the spring—or late in the winter—maple sugar had to be made. The boiling down was a great lark for the children. In the second summer, fruits—wild strawberries, blueberries, plums, crabapples and grapes—could be preserved with maple sugar for the following winter, if the housewife had any containers she could spare so long. The crocks of our grandmothers were not chosen in preference to the jelly glass of today but were used because there were no glasses. Fruits were often dried, too, and hung on strings from the rafters. Corn bread and milk were the usual winter supper. When a bit of jelly, a dried-fruit pie or a nut cake could be added, that was a gala night. Meat was served at noon, and vegetables when they had them. One man later said that the first mince-pie he ate on the Reserve was "composed of pumpkin instead of apple, vinegar in place of wine or cider, and bear's meat instead of beef. The whole was sweetened with wild honey, and seasoned with domestic pepper pulverized instead of cloves, cinnamon and allspice, and never did I taste pastry with a better relish." Salt was the difficult thing to get. It came at first from the old salt spring near Youngstown. Later it came from Onondaga, N. Y., to Buffalo by lake, then over the trail by ox team. It cost about twenty dollars a barrel by the time it got here. It was sometimes brought from Pittsburgh on pack-horses. The salt deposits beneath Cleaveland lay too deep in the ground for the pioneers to find or use. Clothing presented another hard problem. The clothes brought from the old home soon wore out. There was no money to buy expensive materials from the east. The first expedient was to use up the chintz. The chintz walls were breached into breeches for the little chaps and dresses for little girls. But sturdy as this fabric was, it was not strong enough for out-door living in a new country. Skins came next. Many a strong man wore buckskin jacket and breeches with a pink flowered shirt. As soon as flax could be planted and grown, cleaned, pulled, rotted, broken, swingled, hatch- THE PIONEERS - 149 eled, spun and woven, homespun linens became available, and soon home-grown wool was added. There was a time when flax was an important Ohio crop. Later, in 1869, Ohio produced eighty million pounds of flax fibre and had ninety flax mills in operation. In 1870, says Townshend, the tariff on gunny cloth grown in the East Indies was removed and as a result every flax mill in Ohio was stopped and by 1886 the amount of fibre was reduced to less than two million pounds. The buckskin clothes were inclined to grow stiff through wear, and had to be removed at times, and pounded to soften them up again. Coonskins were often used, and the hair removed was sometimes spun into a rough yarn and used for mittens and stockings. Getting grain grown was serious matter enough; getting it ground was another exigent labor. "A hollow in an oak stump," says Kennedy, "and a rude stone pestle dependent from a spring pole, was the simplest machine employed. Then came the rude hand-mills that most of the settlers used prior to 1800, which took two hours of steady grinding to supply one person with food enough for the day. In a sketch of the Doan family, it is reported that for two or three months all their food was supplied by the young son, John, who had two attacks of fever and ague daily. He walked to the house of a neighbor five miles distant, with a peck of corn, ground it in a hand-mill, and then carried it home. He adjusted his labors and his shakings to a system. In the morning, on the ending of his first attack, he would start on his journey, grind his grist, wait until his second spell was over, and then set out on his return." Another story, told in old age by a child of that day, runs : "The only flour we could get had become musty and could not be eaten unless one were driven by extreme hunger. I was eight years old, and not sick, and was therefore compelled to satisfy my hunger with it, and give to those of the family who were suffering a better chance at the corn-meal rations. The bread made from this flour was hard as well as unpalatable. I could only eat it by crumbling it into pellets and