350 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS ness life in this neighborhood by keeping a store on Detroit Street, in what was then Ohio City. He sold out in 1842, but was afterward for a short time in the grocery line. Alexander Sackett, who had received a fine mercantile training in New York City, in 1835 opened a wholesale and retail drygoods store in Mr. Weddell's Block on Superior Street. He remained in that line until 1854, when he went into commercial business on the river. "Charles Bradburn commenced his long and honorable career in Cleveland in 1836, when he opened a wholesale and retail grocery store on Superior Street next to the old city buildings. The next year he enlarged his establishment, and in 1840 moved to his new warehouse at the foot of St. Clair Street, abandoning the retail branch. In 1854 he again moved to numbers 58 and 60 River Street, where he remained for a number of years. He was one of the most useful citizens Cleveland ever possessed, and a foremost spirit in all educational matters. About 1835 Samuel Raymond and Henry W. and Marvin Clark opened a drygoods store on the corner of Superior Street and the Public Square, where the Rouse Block now stands ( written in 1896) . They occupied a little wooden building and the location was about as far east as business then would dare venture. "Richard T. Lyon arrived here in 1823, and in 1838 became a forwarding clerk in the house of Griffith, Standart & Company, continuing there until 1841, when he formed a partnership with J. L. Hewitt, and carried on a forwarding and commission business on the river. "George Worthington's hardware store was opened in Cleveland in 1834, on the corner of Superior Street and Union Lane; three years later it was removed to the corner of Water and Superior streets, on the site of the National Bank Building of today, and there it remained for nearly thirty years. N. E. Crittenden came here in 1826 and opened the first jewelry store Cleveland possessed." Evidently it took thirty years of pioneering to develop a luxury demand of this sort. CIVIC GROWTH - 351 "E. P. Morgan's first venture was made here in 1841. Robert Hanna's wholesale grocery and forwarding establishment was opened in 1852. In 1845 S. F. Lester became a member of the old and well-known firm of Hubby, Hughes & Company, and when that partnership was dissolved in 1858, it was succeeded by the firm of Hughes & Lester, which continued until 1862. The connection of Hiram Garretson with the business circles of Cleveland commenced in 1852. A. G. Colwell came in the same year ; William Edwards in the same year; E. I. Baldwin in 1853, and Grove N. Abbey in 1858." Politics.—Business, as usual in American communities, was not allowed to interfere with politics. The most interesting and picturesque campaign of the mid-century period was that of 1840, when Gen. William Henry Harrison the Whig ran against Martin Van Buren the Democrat for the second time, this time successfully. Cleveland was strongly Whig; Democrats were scarcer here then than now. Log cabins and hard cider were the great campaign symbols, so the manner of celebration was obvious and pleasant. A distinguished citizen of the last century, 0. J. Hodge, has left a lively account of the proceedings. Log cabins for campaign headquarters and assembly halls were built on both sides of the river. Here was one form of public activity in which the rival communities could get along amicably. "The one on the west side, then Ohio City, was built first and on the 18th of March was dedicated. The evening of its dedication the Whigs of the east side met at the American House and, headed by the Cleveland Grays, marched across to the Cabin, which was built on the corner of Detroit and Pearl streets (the western end of the present High Level Bridge). It was constructed entirely of logs and had an oak roof. Within, on the walls, hung strips of dried pumpkin and strings of dried peppers; a rifle rested on hooks, while a pouch and powder horn hung near by. A split broom stood in one corner, and in another was seen a barrel of cider. At the meeting about 500 people were present. A number of 352 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS speeches were made by local orators, after which a glee club sang a campaign song, one verse of which was : "Old Tip's the boy to swing the flail, Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah ! And make the Locos all turn pale, Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah !" "The bee for raising the log cabin on the east side of the river—Cleveland—took place on March 30th, and the work was commenced at nine o'clock in the morning. The day was rainy, but a barrel of hard cider which had been contributed for the occasion kept up the spirits of the men, and the work went on with a will. The cabin was erected on a vacant lot on Superior Street, just east of the American House (on the south side, near West Sixth Street). The towns around Cleveland each contributed a quantity of logs for the building. Newburgh brought in a tree very straight, and 105 feet long. A pole fastened to it had a flag at the top, on which was inscribed 'Liberty.' On one of the logs brought in might have been seen this inscription : "With Tip and Tyler, We'll bust Van's biler !" "On another was a keg marked 'Hard Cider.' The cabin was 35 by 50 feet in dimensions and, it was claimed, would hold 700 people. (They packed them in closely in those days, standing up). On each side of the entrance was a flagstaff. Opposite the door, on the inside, was a large stump upon which the speakers addressing the meeting were expected to stand. A small black bear had been secured and fastened with a chain to a large cross-beam overhead. There was a rough drawing, representing an eagle holding in his talons a writhing fox—supposed to be Van Buren. Tin cups, spades, shovels and the inevitable barrel of hard cider were in the cabin. "The dedication occurred on April 3rd, and the crowd CIVIC GROWTH - 355 present was very large, and the enthusiasm great. There were a number of speeches, and several campaign songs enlivened the occasion. The following is a verse of the song at the close : "Come, Buckeye farmers, one and all, Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah ! Come Hoosiers and Corncrackers tall, Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah ! Come Wolverines and Suckers, too, And fight for him who fought for you! Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah !" The hard cider candidate himself came in June, arriving on a steamer and being escorted in state by the Grays to see the famous Cabin, and then to speak to the crowd from the balcony of the American House, before he left on the express canal-boat for Akron. Every hotel of importance used to have its balcony for such events, with audiences filling the streets. It was not so serious a matter to block traffic in the nineteenth century. Fraternalism.—The next year saw the entrance of secret societies, beginning with Masonry. Masonic meetings had been held in James Kingsbury's house on the ridge in the early days, but the first charter was granted in 1841 to Cleveland City Lodge, No. 15, Free and Accepted Masons. The officers were Clifford Belden, worshipful master; Andrew White, senior warden ; Willard Crawford, junior warden ; Edmund Clark, treasurer; Erastus Smith, secretary. Iris. Lodge was organized in 1852, with A. D. Bigelow, worshipful master. Bigelow Lodge was chartered two years later, with Gaston G. Allen, worshipful master. The Odd Fellows came only a year later than the Masons, with Cleveland Lodge in 1842, Erie Lodge in 1844, Phoenix Lodge in 1854 and Cataract Lodge in 1855. Paving.—About this time the city began serious consideration of the paving problem. The streets so far had been mere dirt roadways, dusty in dry weather and muddy in wet, and seldom decently passable except in the winter when 356 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS they were frozen. Paving was not unknown ; there had long been some rural highways in this western country, between important cities, paved with logs or planks, and even hard-surfaced with broken stone or gravel after the fashion of the Scotch Macadam roads. In the cities there were some spasmodic attempts at planking, but it was usually considered enough to do a little shaping up of the dirt roadbed once a year. Hogs wallowing in the street were a familiar sight. When Cleveland and Ohio City were united in 1854, it is recorded, "there was not a square yard of stone paving on either side of the river, except on Superior Street hill from Water Street to the public landing on the river. Superior Street from the Public Square to Water Street was a slushing,twisted and rotten plank road, and every other street in the city was a mud road of almost unfathomable depth in the rainy season." There were no sewers. During the cholera epidemic of 1832, when the city council bethought itself of sanitation and forbade the throwing of dirty water into the streets, there was a general protest. Citizens wanted to know what else they could do with their waste water, and said that if the administration wanted the streets kept clean it should cut temporary drain-ditches. Sanitarily, Cleveland remained medieval almost up to the middle of the nineteenth century. Neither were there sidewalks. James D. Campbell, describing the city in 1835, wrote : "On reaching the top (of the hill from the river), Superior Street, 132 feet wide, spread before you—the widest of unpaved streets, with not a foot of flag sidewalk except at the foot of Bank Street in front of a bank." About 1850, leading citizens, especially William Case, determined that something must be done to master the "swamps and puddling holes" and "fathomless depths of mud" on the main business thoroughfares. By that time there were some sidewalks and crossings, but they were nearly all made of wood and seldom in repair. The first important paving—really a repaving job—in town was of the plank type. Superior Street in 1852 was laid with three-inch oak CIVIC GROWTH - 357 planking, so that it became passable all the year round. River Street followed, and in 1854 Union Street was so improved with grading and planking that "one team of horses could pull a load up the hill in muddy weather." From that time on, progress was rapid as regards linear extensions; but with neither durable material nor water-proof and frost-proof foundations, the pavements soon went to pieces. Cleveland was recognized as behind sister cities in this respect. The paving was done piecemeal, lacking system. After a few years there was a little stone pavement laid. It was costly, and the blocks soon worked out of place. Wooden block appeared in 1862, and was popular, so that in the next sixteen years 100 miles of it were laid. But it, too, proved flimsy and ephemeral. Real paving, smooth and durable, awaited the progress in brick, bitumen and cement that has come within the last half-century. CHAPTER III COLLEGES The establishment of an adequate public school system was followed immediately by institutions for higher education. Western Reserve College, started at the little suburb of Hudson, may be regarded as the beginning of this development. The thirst for higher learning really showed itself before the settlers had cleared the forests for their log cabins and primitive tillage, and long before the inception of elementary education. As early as 1801, before Ohio had become a state, residents of this part of the Western Reserve had petitioned the Territorial Assembly for a college charter. The appeal was evidently regarded as premature. Two years later, however, after admittance to the Union, the first General Assembly recognized the need by incorporating the Erie Literary Seminary, an educational body with broad powers. This corporation was composed of citizens of Trumbull County, which included the entire Western Reserve. Its first creative act was to establish an academy in Burton, in 1805. From it finally sprang Western Reserve College, which was granted a charter in 1826. So eager were its founders to get under way that building began immediately, and the first students were cared for temporarily in the neighboring academy at Tallmadge. The new building was occupied the following year, housing both a college of liberal arts and a preparatory department. In spirit and personnel it was an offshoot of Yale. Its ultimate hegira to Cleveland and vast expansion is a later story. The strictly local beginning of higher education came in 1843 with the inauguration of the Cleveland Medical College. This institution itself grew from suburban roots. One of the - 358 - CIVIC GROWTH - 359 surprising things about the early history of the Western Reserve is the importance and culture of scattered little communities later dwarfed by the growth of our metropolitan community. So frequently is this fact driven home that one is almost moved to regard Cleveland not so much as a metropolis, or "mother city," surrounded by her children, but rather as a "daughter city" made rich and great by inheritance from many mother-villages. Willoughby was the mother in this case. It shared with early Cleveland the distinction of a circulating library, and even anticipated this city with its prosperous lyceum and its zeal for study, public discussion, lectures and debates. There was special interest in science, particularly medical science. Physicians were badly needed in the West. Thus, when the lyceum grew into "The Willoughby University of Lake Erie," with a panoply of professors, trustees and executive officers, it began as a medical college. A substantial, three-story brick building was erected, and in the year 1836 it had twenty-three students and graduated five. There was able teaching talent, but the struggle for funds and students proved hard. It became plain that Willoughby could not support such an ambitious enterprise. When the decision was made to move the institution, in 1843, a majority of the faculty, comprising Drs. John Delamater, Jared P. Kirtland, John L. Cassells and Noah Worcester, favored Cleveland. But one member, Dr. Starling, who happened to own a controlling interest, voted for Columbus. The result was a split. Dr. Starling went to Columbus and established a medical college there in his own name. His associates moved to Cleveland and, in lieu of a charter, asked Western Reserve College to take them under its corporate wing as a medical department. Thus the Hudson institution began its expansion. A building was erected for the Medical College at the corner of St. Clair and Erie (East Ninth) streets, eventually replaced by a more modern and commodious "plant," and there the Cleveland Medical College pursued its honorable and useful career for three-quarters of a century, when it joined its university sisters in the great educational group at University Circle. 360 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS The allopathic college was supplemented in 1849 by a second medical school, the Homeopathic Hospital College, with a faculty headed by Dean Charles D. Williams, and a board of trustees consisting of John Wheeler, Joel Tiffany, Dudley Baldwin, A. H. Brainard, Edward Wade, Thomas Brown, R. F. Paine, Amos Hutchinson, George King, Benjamin Bissell, Samuel Raymond, Richard Hilliard, L. M. Hubby, Thomas Miller and A. 0. Blair. It was housed at the corner of Prospect and Ontario streets. Its third year was enlivened by a riot precipitated by stories of stolen bodies in the dissecting room. Several thousand indignant citizens stormed the place and much damage was done. Whatever justification there may have been for that demonstration, the college lived clown the incident by long years of useful education and hospital service. It removed later to an old Congregational Church building on Prospect Street near East Ninth, conveniently associated with the Homeopathic Hospital near by on Huron Road, and in 1890 split into two institutions, the Cleveland University of Medicine and Surgery and the Cleveland Medical College, located respectively on Huron Road and Bolivar Street. ( The original college of this name had now become the Western Reserve Medical College). CHAPTER IV CHURCHES Protestant.—This period of solid, steady growth was as good for organized religion as for education. It might be characterized as the Age of Churches. The first regular house of worship in Cleveland had been "Old Trinity," the Episcopal Church built at the corner of St. Clair and Seneca (West Third) streets at a cost of $3,000 and consecrated in 1829 by Bishop Chase. This house of worship was said to have been "taken from Brooklyn," because up to that time the Episcopal meeting-place had been on the west side of the river, in Ohio City. The east side parishioners justified their action by insisting that they should no longer be expected to cross the river on a floating bridge every time they wished to go to church, especially a bridge that frequently "floated into the lake." The West Siders were placated by the construction of a fine stone church at the corner of Church and Wall (West 26th) streets in 1836. This was St. John's, said to be the oldest church remaining in Cleveland. By the year 1845 the Trinity congregation had grown to such size that a new Episcopal parish was organized and the first Grace Church was built at the corner of Erie and Huron streets. Its first rector was Rev. Alexander Varian. Trinity consecrated a big stone edifice on Superior Avenue near East Sixth Street in 1855. This became the cathedral. Later it gave place to the magnificent Trinity Cathedral at the corner of Euclid Avenue and East Twenty-second Street. St. Paul's was organized in 1846 with a membership of 45. Eventually it removed to the home at Euclid Avenue and - 361 - 362 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS East Fortieth Street which remains as a lovely relic of the older city. The First Presbyterian Church, later known as "Old Stone," whose membership was incorporated as early as 1827, opened on the north side of the Public Square in 1833, the first resident pastor being Rev. Samuel C. Aiken. The Second Presbyterian Church was born in 1844, with the unusually large roll of 58 members, of whom 53 were derived from the First. It met in a building on Rockwell Street until 1851, when it occupied a home of its own on Superior Avenue east of the Public Square. Its first pastor was Rev. Sherman B. Canfield. There are well known names in its first list of officers. The elders were David Long, Henry Sexton, Jeremiah Holt, Eli P. Morgan, Jesse F. Taintor and Samuel H. Mather. The deacons were William A. Otis, T. P. Handy and S. H. Fox. The building was burned down in 1876 and a new one erected farther east, on Prospect Avenue, in 1878. In 1850 came the Third Presbyterian, organized with 30 members. But two years later it joined the Congregationalists and took the name, "Plymouth Church of Cleveland." The First Congregational Church was an offshoot of Old Stone Church, for West Side worshippers, established in 1834. The Euclid Avenue Congregational Church began as the First Presbyterian Church of East Cleveland, but in 1852 changed its name to Congregational because it objected to the Presbyterian attitude toward slavery. It "met around" for half a dozen years, then erected at Euclid Avenue and Doan Street (East 105th) a charming little meeting-house which was a landmark until it was swept away, within a few years, by business "progress." Eleven members formed the pioneer United Presbyterian Church in the Hancock Block at Superior and Seneca (West Third) streets. Three years later they had gained numbers and resources enough to build a church a little farther south in the same neighborhood. By 1853 the congregation had a more ample building on Erie Street near Bolivar. Contribu- CIVIC GROWTH - 363 tions by this Scottish congregation consisted less of cash than of labor, lumber, stone and other building materials. If we consider a log meeting-house a "church," we must grant that the Methodists were really first in the field. The First Methodist Church had a congregation in Brooklyn as early as 1818, and in 1827 was holding services regularly in a log building at Denison Avenue and West Twenty-seventh Street. Its second home was built in the same place in 1849, a frame structure 25 by 50 feet. When it held its 100th anniversary at Euclid Avenue and East Thirtieth Street, 53 Methodist churches participated. The Miles Park Methodist Church was established in 1832 and the Franklin Avenue Church in 1833. Epworth Memorial Church, originally called Erie Street Church, was formed by splitting from the First in 1850. Before it assumed its present name, on moving to Prospect Avenue and East Fifty-fifth Street, it was known also as Christ Church and then Central Church. The Miles Avenue Church of Christ was established in Newburgh in 1842. On the West Side the Franklin Circle Church of Christ was organized in the same year and built four years later. The Euclid Avenue Church of Christ started in 1843, and in 1849 occupied a handsome frame chapel on Euclid Avenue near East 105th Street. The Independent Lutheran movement in Cleveland began with the organization of the Schifflein Christi, or "Ship of Christ" congregation in 1835. They met at the corner of Hamilton and Erie streets, and by 1842 had provided themselves with a church building. The Evangelical Lutherans, seceding from the Schifflein Christi congregation, organized Zion Church in 1843, with the Rev. David Schuh pastor. It had numerous offshoots. The first of them, for West Side Germans, was Trinity Church, organized in 1853 with Rev. J. C. W. Linderman as pastor. The United German Evangelical Protestant Church of the West Side was founded in 1853, St. Paul's in 1858 and Zion in 1867. The oldest church of the Evangelical Association is Salem Church on East Thirty-third Street, 364 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS founded as a mission in 1841. The Superior Street Church was organized in 1854 and the Jennings Avenue Church in 1863. With the Unitarians this present account has little to do, because, although there was occasional preaching to Clevelanders of this faith before the Civil war, indeed as early as the '30s no congregation was established. The Christian Science movement has come entirely in the last half-century. Y. M. C. A.—In this same middle period of the century appeared the great undenominational organization that has flourished so greatly among the Protestant churches, the Young Men's Christian Association. The movement had started in London in 1844 and reached Boston in 1851, then spread rapidly westward. Its first appearance in Cleveland was in the form of prayer meetings held on Wednesday evenings by a group of young men, mostly store clerks. An interesting light on the business life of that era is given by the fact that the meetings were held after nine o'clock at night because the stores did not close until that hour, or later. There were names well known to later generations in that serious little group. Among them were Solon L. Severance, Loren Prentiss, Joseph B. Merriam, E. F. Young, L. F. Mellen, S. P. Churchill, L. M. H. Battey, E. P. Cook, William Gribben and Dan P. Eells, whose family name remains in the "Eells' Point" of his old Rocky River estate. Along with their devotions, these young men did much work for the poor and maintained for some years a fine little educational philanthropy known as the "Ragged School." They took the name of Young Men's Christian Association in 1854 at a meeting in the First Baptist Church on Seneca Street. A constitution was drafted by a committee headed by Samuel H. Mather, with Messrs. Prentiss, Battey, Roby and Young. The first president was Dr. John S. Newberry. In his absence his place was frequently taken by James M. Hoyt. Headquarters were established, with library and reading rooms, in Spangler and Northrup's Block at the corner of Superior and Seneca streets. The Association remained in that neighborhood for several years. It supported CIVIC GROWTH - 365 a yearly course of lectures which brought many famous speakers to the city. There was some dissatisfaction over its varied activities of a non-devotional sort. But the leaders maintained that they were living up to the purpose of their organization as defined in its constitution—"the improvement of the religious, moral, intellectual and social condition of the young men,by means appropriate and in unison with the spirit of the Gospel." During the Civil war the Association was weakened by most of its membership going to the front. Those who remained performed various services for the soldiers, in cooperation with the Ladies' Christian Union, notably the sending of books, magazines and newspapers. After the war it was reorganized and immediately entered upon a vigorous and expansive career, its first president being H. J. Herrick. It lived for a time in a frame dwelling on the north side of the Public Square. Its first general secretary was Lang Sheaff, who assumed his duties in 1871. It moved later to larger quarters on Euclid Avenue and East Fourth Street, then to an adequate building of its own at the southeast corner of Prospect Avenue and East Ninth Street, and finally to its present spacious quarters farther out on Prospect. Catholic.—Before the white man's era there had been some early religious work among the Indians by Jesuits in this section, centering in Sandusky. As the whites began to filter in, missionaries were sent to them from Quebec. The last priest from that diocese, Rev. Edmund Burke, left Ohio, for Halifax, just about the time that Moses Cleaveland's surveying party came to the Western Reserve. After that, there was no Catholic ministry hereabouts until 1817, when Father Edward Fenwick, a Dominican, was sent to Northeastern Ohio. Cleveland saw little of him. The real beginning of the local Catholic Church came with the inception of the Ohio Canal, when large numbers of Irish workmen came to labor on that waterway. In 1826 the bishop at Cincinnati instructed the Dominican Fathers in Perry County to send a visiting priest to Cleveland. Accordingly 366 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS the Rev. Thomas Martin appeared periodically to minister to communicants. He was succeeded by the Very Rev. Stephen Badin, said to have been the first priest ordained in the United States. The first resident pastor was the Rev. John Dillon, who came in 1835 and, like his predecessors, said mass in private homes. The following year there were services in a room known as "Shakespeare Hall." The untimely death of Father Dillon left the new parish once more without a resident priest. Occasionally Rev. H. D. Juncker came from Canton for a brief visit. In 1837 came another resident pastor, the Rev. Patrick O'Dwyer from Quebec. The newcomer immediately took up a building project started by Father Dillon and laid the foundations for a church at the corner of Columbus and Girard streets. Construction lagged for lack of funds. Father O'Dwyer was obliged to leave the city, and there was another hiatus in the work until the fall of 1839, when Bishop Purcell arrived, finished the edifice and said mass in it. This church bore the title, both religious and poetic, of "Our Lady of the Lake," but in popular parlance it was known prosaically as "St. Mary's on the Flats." Rev. Peter McLaughlin, who succeded to the pastorate in 1840, signalized his arrival by a notable step. Surveying the trend of population and the available real estate, he promptly purchased a block of four building lots on the northeast corner of Superior and Erie (East Ninth) streets, and held them as a site for a cathedral. Ohio was now growing too populous for one diocese, and Bishop Purcell at Cincinnati asked for a division. Northern Ohio was designated as a separate diocese in 1847 and Father Amadeus Rappe, who had been a missionary on the Maumee, was selected as the first bishop. He established his residence in a brick building at the corner of St. Clair and Bond ( East Sixth) streets in 1848. There were at that time 10,000 Catholics in the new diocese. A period of great expansion now began. Bishop Rappe promptly opened a seminary in a little frame building behind his residence, with Father De Goesbriand as its first superior. CIVIC GROWTH - 367 Increasing population made it necessary to build a second church almost immediately. The bishop decided that it might as well be made a cathedral and serve a double purpose. So the cornerstone was laid on the property at the corner of Superior and Erie streets, and the completed structure was consecrated three years later. The vigor with which the work of the new diocese was carried on, and the rapid growth which made it possible, may be realized from the fact that from 1848 to 1857 there were 26 new churches built in the "Diocese of Cleveland." A heavy German immigration had now set in. The original church in the Flats was turned over to the Germans and occupied until 1865. In 1854 the Germans west of the river organized St. Mary's of the Assumption, and those east of the river, St. Peter's parish. From "Old St. Mary's" sprang several well known churches. Bishop Rappe established St. Patrick's Church for the Irish residents of Ohio City in 1854, and two years later the Church of the Immaculate Conception for the east-side Irish. St. Bridget's parish was organized in 1858, St. Augustine's in 1860 and Holy Name, for the English-speaking Catholics of Newburgh, in 1862. The old home of Judge Cowles on Euclid Avenue was bought in 1850 and adapted for use as a convent for the Ursuline Sisters. This was the "mother house" for over forty years. It opened at once a select school and academy. "Spring Cottage" on Lake Street was acquired in the same year and made into a seminary. In 1851 was established St. Mary's Orphan Asylum for Girls, by the Ladies of the Sacred Heart. The first building was on St. Clair Street, near Bond Street, in the heart of the present Group Plan, about where the present school administration building stands. Likewise in that year Bishop Rappe opened St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum on Monroe Street. Hebrew.—The first Israelitic society in Cleveland was formed in 1839, when there were less than a dozen Jewish families in the community. The next year it bought a burial 368 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS ground in Ohio City. The Anshe Chesed congregation was organized in 1842. The two were united four years later, constituting the Israelitic Anshe Chesed Society of Cleveland, the oldest existing Jewish congregation. Soon a synagogue was built on Eagle Street, enlarged in 1860. Tifereth Israel congregation began in the early '50s with temporary quarters on Lake Street and elsewhere, and in 1855 moved into a temple on Huron Street, to remain there for forty years. The oldest orthodox Jewish congregation is the Hungarian Bene Jeshurun, organized in 1865. CHAPTER V MISCELLANEOUS Perry's Monument.—We now come to an incident that seems quaint to this jaded generation. To Councilman Harvey Rice, now remembered as an educator rather than a legislator, it seemed proper in 1857 that the city should erect a monument to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, in grateful appreciation of his services in winning the battle of Lake Erie. It had taken forty-four years for that idea to arise anywhere in the Great Lakes region which had profited so largely from Perry's victory. He persuaded the city council and a committee was appointed to raise funds by private subscription and procure and erect the monument. Naturally Mr. Rice was asked to head the movement. The committee raised $5,000 and the city council added $3,000 from the public treasury. William Walcutt was authorized to design the statue. The contract was placed with T. Jones and Sons, a local firm. The marble came from Italy, the pedestal granite from Rhode Island which was Perry's state. The result, as all Cleveland agreed, was a noble and heroic figure worthy of the event it commemorated. The statue was unveiled on September 10, 1860, the forty-seventh anniversary of the famous battle. Official dignitaries of Ohio and Rhode Island were present. At daybreak there were bells rung and cannon fired. One hundred thousand people turned out from Cleveland and surrounding towns. There was an enormous procession, headed by the visiting notables and local celebrities, escorted by the Cleveland Grays and enlivened by brass bands and countless banners. At one o'clock in the afternoon the procession arrived at the Public Square. The statue, veiled with a huge American flag, had been placed in the midst of a great, open space, on a green mound, with an iron - 369 - 370 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS railing around it, at the center of the interesection of Superior and Ontario streets. To the west was a big platform with space for several hundred invited guests, and in front was a raised platform for the speakers. There were prayers and much oratory. When the flag was removed by the sculptor, there was a shout that might have made the walls of Jericho fall down. Harvey Rice made the presentation speech and Mayor Senter responded. The orator of the day was the great historian, George Bancroft, whose eloquence moved all to fervent patriotism. There were reminiscences by veterans who had been in the battle. Oliver Hazard Perry, the Commodore's son, spoke. The dedication was made by the Masons. There was an ode recited by Ossian E. Dodge, "the celebrated vocalist." A mock battle on the lake followed, with a big banquet in the evening at the Weddell House, a reception given by the two governors and a great farewell dinner. Oliver Hazard (meaning the marble figure) has had an adventurous career since that glorious day in 1860. Irreverent critics have dared to insinuate that he may be heroic, but he isn't art. He has been kicked about the city until probably not one citizen in 100 can tell a visitor his present abode. He was moved to the southeast corner of the Square, and later, to make room for the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, was exiled for many years near the old "monkey house" in Wade Park, almost on the site of the present Museum of Art. The erection of that noble edifice sent him into more distant exile, yet nearer the scene of his glorious exploit. He may be found now in Gordon Park, looking at the lake. Libraries.—The city's public library system may be said to have originated in this fruitful period. There had been attempts to start a circulating library as far back as 1811. The seventeen studious young men in the original enterprise got no further than a short-lived reading room. Their failure was attributed to the War of 1812. Discussion and debate flourished in succeeding decades, but reading remained almost wholly a private matter. The Cleveland Reading Room CIVIC GROWTH - 373 Association, organized in 1835 with two hundred members, conducted a reading room with papers and magazines for its own membership. The Young Men's Literary Association was organized the following year under good auspices; its first president was Charles Whittlesey, the historian and scientist, Cleveland's first literary man. It was ambitious to create a good circulating library, and acquired the respectable number of 800 volumes in one year. But it fell upon hard times and appears to have passsed out of existence a few years later. An organization of the same name, probably a revival of the same group, got under way in 1545. A little later it was incorporated under the name Cleveland Library Association, with two hundred shares of stock at ten dollars a share. With this financing it began accumulating a library and inaugurated a lecture course. There was nothing showy about the institution. Its first quarters were in a small room on Superior Street. Later it moved into the Herald Building, then in 1856 to another location on Superior Street, and in 1862 gained a fixed home in the Case Building, with a perpetual lease of a suite of rooms from the heirs of William Case. By 1870 it had become a thriving institution. At that time its control passed into the hands of a board of five directors elected for life. The first members were Samuel Williamson, James Barnett, H. M. Chapin, William Bingham and B. A. Stanard. Leonard Case donated $25,000 to the institution in 1876, and subsequently added Case Block. It came naturally to be known as "Case Library." It was a private library serving a public purpose. It has retained its identity up to the present time, but has gradually changed its character from that of a general library to a reference library. After considerable peregrination, it is established at University Circle in the Western Reserve group, for the special convenience of the colleges. The "Public Library," which has so greatly dwarfed the "Case Library," absorbing most of its original functions and adding many others, was established definitely as a public institution, backed by the taxing power. It was authorized by the Board of Education, as an adjunct of the public school 374 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS system, under a state law enacted in 1867, which permitted the levy of a tax of one-tenth of a mill for the purpose. The library was started with 2,000 books which belonged to the public schools and had been kept in the Central High School building. A suitable room was obtained on the third floor of the Northrop and Harrington Block on Superior Street, and in February, 1869, the library was formally opened under Librarian L. M. Oviatt. Books were issued immediately, and in six months the library had 4,000 members. It changed quarters several times, steadily growing in size, circulation and influence. In 1878 its control, except for salaries, passed from the Board of Education to a special Library Committee. Five years later its name was shortened from "Public School Library" to "Public Library," and the "Committee" became the "Public Library Board," with full authority. Its modern growth and present status, in its magnificent new home in the Group Plan, belong to a later part of this history. Euclid Avenue.—With prosperity came fine homes. Cleveland was reaching out "to the east and south, and its most attractive expansion was along "Euclid Road" which, as Clevelanders have almost forgotten, was the road to Euclid. This thoroughfare had been laid out along the natural ridge left by a prehistoric shore line of Lake Erie. Its utilization for residential purposes, and the reasons therefor, have been given as follows by Crisfield Johnson in his "History of Cuyahoga County" : "The land rose from the lake to within a short distance from the street, then fell as far as the line of the street, and then rose gently to the southward. Somewhat singularly, both the ridge and the depression occupied by the street ran almost due east from the Public Square for two miles, and then, with small variation, ran two miles farther to Doan's Corners. The wealthy residents of the city early found that they could make extremely pleasant homes by taking ample ground on the ridge in question, and building their houses on its summit, leaving a space of from ten to twenty rods between them and the street. The fashion, once adopted by