Peculiarities of American Cities. Glazier Willard W.
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the lake, if not the best, well defended from storms, and easy of access, so that vessels entered it without difficulty when they could not make other ports. The water was deep enough for any large craft, and in the course of time the government expended a considerable sum of money in improving the harbor. A line of boats was speedily established between Fairport and Buffalo, which in those railroadless days were liberally patronized. Nearly all the lake steamers bound for other ports stopped there, and its business constantly increased. A lighthouse was built, and its future prosperity seemed assured.
During the great period of land speculation, between 1830 and 1840, the town of Richmond was laid out on the opposite bank of the Grand River, by wealthy eastern capitalists, who established their homes there, and transported to the infant city the wealth, magnificence and luxurious social customs of the east. During their brief reign, they gave entertainments such as were not equaled in that section of the country for many long years afterwards. A large village was built and a steamboat was owned there.
Meantime, a little town had been growing up on the banks of the Cuyahoga. The first permanent settlement had been made as early as 1796, and named Cleveland, in honor of General Moses Cleveland, of Canterbury, Connecticut. At that period the nearest white settlement was Conneaut, on the east, and another at the mouth of the River Raisin, to the west. Immigration at that period did not march steadily westward, each new settlement being in close proximity to an older one, but it took sudden jumps over wide extents of territory, so that for many years isolated families or small neighborhoods were far apart. Each little settlement had to be sufficient unto itself, since, to reach any other involved a long, difficult and often dangerous journey. Up to nearly 1800 each house in Cleveland had its own hand grist-mill standing in the chimney-corner, in which the flour or meal for the family consumption was slowly and laboriously ground each day. In the spring of 1799 Wheeler W. Williams and Major Wyatt erected the first grist and saw mill on the Reserve, at Newburg, a few miles above the mouth of the Cuyahoga.
The first ball ever given in Cleveland was on the Fourth of July, 1801, in a log cabin, the company numbering thirty, of both sexes. The first militia muster was held at Doane's Corners, on the sixteenth of June, 1806. The spot is now incorporated in the city of Cleveland. Never before had been so many whites collected together in this region as on this occasion, which was one of general excitement. The militia consisted of about fifty privates, with the usual complement of officers, but a surveying party and a number of strangers were present and added to the spectators.
In the beginning of the century the Indians were in the habit of meeting every autumn, at Cleveland, piling their canoes up at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, and scattering into the interior of the country, which constituted their great winter hunting ground. In the spring they returned, disposed of their furs, and entering their canoes, departed up the lake for their villages, in the region of Sandusky and Maumee, where they raised their crops of corn and potatoes. Many local names are of Indian origin; Cuyahoga means "crooked river." Geauga, the name of an adjoining county, signifies "raccoon." Their encampment on going and returning was usually on the west bank of the river, and in their drinking bouts, in which they occasionally indulged, they were sometimes quarrelsome and dangerous, but do not seem, on the whole, to have given the settlers much trouble. On the twenty-sixth of June, 1812, an Indian named McMic was hanged for murder, on the public square of Cleveland. There were fears that the Indians would rally to his rescue, and a large number of citizens from Cuyahoga and adjoining counties, armed themselves and attended the execution, prepared for any outbreak. The Indians remained peaceable, but the prisoner, at the last moment, refused to ascend the scaffold. Finally, his scruples were overcome by a pint of whisky, which he swallowed with satisfaction before yielding to the inevitable.
In 1813 Cleveland became a depot for supplies and troops during the war, and a permanent garrison was established here, a small stockade having been erected on the lake bank, at the foot of Ontario street. The return of peace was celebrated in true American style. The cannon which was fired in honor of the occasion was supplied with powder by one Uncle Abram, who carried an open pail of the explosive material on his arm. Another citizen bore a lighted stick with which to touch off the gun. In the excitement, the latter swung his stick in the air; a spark fell into Uncle Abram's powder, and that worthy, whether from astonishment or some other cause, suddenly sprang twenty feet into the air, his ascent being accompanied by a deafening report. When he came down again, his clothing was singed off, and he vociferously protested that he was dead. But the multitude refused to take his word for it, and it was not a great while before he had completely recovered from the accident.
The Ohio Canal, which connects Lake Erie at this point with the Ohio River at Portsmouth, was completed in 1834, and from that date her prosperity seems to have been established. She was incorporated a city in 1836. About this time the great western land bubble burst, and with it the hopes of Fairport and Richmond. The latter city speedily disappeared from the face of the earth, and its name from the map. Its houses were taken up bodily and removed to adjacent towns. Boats still continued to stop at Fairport, but they began to stop more frequently at Cleveland, and while the business of the former point was at a standstill, that of the latter continued to increase. In 1840 its population was over 6,000, and its supremacy fairly established. In 1850 Fairport was still a little hamlet, the boats passing her far out in the lake without giving her so much as a nod of recognition; while the wharves of Cleveland were lined with shipping, and her population did not fall far short of 20,000.
Besides the Cleveland and Portsmouth Canal, which opened up a line of traffic with the south and southwest, communication was also had with the East, by means of canal to Pittsburg and to New York, and the lakes were a highway, not only to the East but to the North and West. Cleveland became the great mart of the grain-growing country. Its harbor was extended and improved by the erection of piers each side of the mouth of the river, two hundred feet apart, and extending out several hundred feet into the lake, furnishing effective break-waters, and ample room for the loading and unloading of vessels. A lighthouse was erected at the end of each pier, and one already stood upon the cliff.
In 1845 the number of vessels which arrived by lake was 2,136; and of these 927 were steamers. The tonnage then owned at that port amounted to 13,493, and the number of vessels of all kinds eighty-five. The total value of exports and imports by the lake for that year was over $9,000,000. Cleveland occupied a small region on the cliff at the mouth of the Cuyahoga. Ontario street was filled with boarding-houses and private residences. Euclid avenue and Prospect street extended for a few squares, and were then lost in the country. The flats through which the river wound its devious way were occupied as pastures for the cows of persons living in the heart of the city. The business portion of the town was contained, for the most part, in the two squares on Superior street, west of Ontario. Ohio City was a separate corporation, a straggling, dilapidated town, looking like a country village, on the western bank of the Cuyahoga, connected with Cleveland by means of drawbridges.
In the fall of 1852 the first whistle of the locomotive was heard down by the river side, in the city of Cleveland. It started the city into new life, and woke all the farmers within the sound of its hoarse screech into renewed energy. That fall and winter there was a butter famine in all that region. The market being opened to New York, butter went suddenly up from eight and ten cents a pound, to twelve, sixteen, and then to twenty cents. Buyers could afford to pay no such fancy price for an article which might be dispensed with; and producers were equally unwilling to put upon their own tables anything which would yield them such a handsome profit on selling. And so many families, not only of mechanics, but of farmers as well, went without butter that winter; the latter happy in receiving, first twenty, then twenty-two, and finally twenty-five cents per pound for the products of their dairies.
This first railroad gave the city a fresh start, and presently others found their terminus here. Population and business have both steadily increased since then, until in 1880 the former was 160,142, and its commerce immense, especially with Canada and the mining regions of Lake Superior. Since 1860 the city has rapidly developed in the direction of manufacturing industries. The headquarters of the giant monopoly, known as the Standard Oil Company, Cleveland is the first city of the world in the production of refined petroleum. The old pasture grounds of the cows of 1850 are now completely occupied by oil refineries and manufacturing establishments; and the river, which but a generation ago flowed peaceful and placid through green fields, is now almost