The Civil War and Cleveland

The Civil War and Cleveland from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland

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The CIVIL WAR transformed Cleveland from a commercial village to a city dependent on manufacturing. Migrating Connecticut settlers, one historian holds, transplanted their religious, political, and social ideals to the WESTERN RESERVE, including the abhorrence of slavery. The way in which Clevelanders viewed the slaveholding South depended largely on political-party affiliation, however. Not all Clevelanders hated slavery, nor were they all convinced that a civil war would resolve the deep-seated ideological differences. As the country moved toward the election of 1860, and closer toward war, the rhetoric and emotional appeal of partisan editorializing in local newspapers clouded the issues. The Republican editors of the CLEVELAND LEADER and the CLEVELAND HERALD AND GAZETTE, for instance, maintained that southern actions had driven John Brown to raid Harpers Ferry in Oct. 1859. The Democratic PLAIN DEALER placed the blame on Brown as well as on abolitionist Republicans.

The victory of Abraham Lincoln for the U.S. presidency in 9 of 11 wards for a plurality of 58% in Cleveland, over Stephen A. Douglas and 2 southern candidates, did not necessarily indicate the local strength of ABOLITIONISM or the desire to halt the expansion of slavery into the western territories. Instead, recent research has suggested that the election of 1860 manifested a new trend in voting patterns that emerged with the formation of the Republican party (see CUYAHOGA COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY). Those who opposed the extension of slavery into the territories did so to protect white laboring settlers in the West rather than out of moral opposition. Furthermore, Republicans gained prominence over the Democratic party in Cleveland by forming a coalition of antislavery Free-Soilers, native and foreign-born Protestants, and German freethinkers. Protestants tended to vote Republican, expressing a nativist hostility toward Roman Catholics (see CATHOLICS, ROMAN) of immigrant status on state and local issues, who in turn voted the Democratic ticket (see CUYAHOGA COUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY).

Local newspapers continued the partisan rhetoric as the secession crisis loomed closer. The Leader’s editor lightly dismissed the threat of the withdrawal of southern states from the Union. The Herald proclaimed Lincoln’s victory as one of right over wrong, of Unionists over secession-minded southern Democrats, a repudiation of the commercial interests of northern Democrats. The Plain Dealer bemoaned the triumph of Lincoln and warned that the South would surely secede. When war finally broke out in April 1861, pro-war Democrats and Republicans did unite to form the Union party in Cleveland to support Lincoln’s war effort. The next 4 years severely tested this coalition.

The Civil War years brought economic prosperity to the city, prompting one historian to write, “Bloodshed and prosperity mixed well.” Although the Panic of 1857 had increased unemployment in Cleveland by 25%, the majority of banks and businesses survived into 1861. The city was completing the transition from a village to a manufacturing center. Business leveled off between the beginning of hostilities in April 1861 and September, when government contracts created an upswing. Compared to Columbus and Cincinnati, Cleveland had few firms contracted to manufacture actual military hardware, although limited amounts of ordnance were produced. Otis & Co. supplied railroad iron and gun-carriage axles for military use. Four caissons and gun carriages were produced for the 9th Ohio Independent Battery by the Cleveland Agricultural Works. The firm of Peck, Kirby, & Masters built 2 steam-powered revenue cutters for the federal government. The Cleveland Powder Co. plant, leased and then bought by the Austin Powder Works Co. of Akron in 1860, was capable of manufacturing blasting and gun powder, although sources fail to indicate any government contracting.

The young JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER†, in partnership with Maurice B. Clark, found the war years particularly profitable. Their consignment firm, dealing in grain, meat, and produce, made a $4,000 profit in 1860. By the end of 1861, after selling such commodities for government use, profits had risen to $17,000.

Since the tobacco trade with the South had ceased, the first tobacco factory in Cleveland, T. Maxfield & Co., opened in 1862. The GARMENT INDUSTRY also prospered. Wool had for years been sent to the East for manufacture and then reshipped to Cleveland for sale. In 1862 the German Woolen Factory became the first company to manufacture wool cloth in Cleveland. The firm of Davis, Peixotto & Co. filled at least 1 order for 2,000 uniforms for recruits and 500 officers’ uniforms by September 1861. The number of leather dealers increased from 9 to 16 by 1865, possibly due to government orders for military items. A number of local merchants bought military equipment for sale to soldiers. Newspapers advertised military headgear, tailored uniforms, army manuals, rubber blankets, tent blankets, drums, flags, fifes, bugles, swords, sashes, belts, and shoulder straps for sale. H. Hattersly sold revolvers and cavalry carbines. War claims agents offered a variety of services. Drugstores offered bottles of Porter’s Cure of Pain to rid soldiers of stomach ailments. The Cleveland Worsted Mill Co. advertised for 1,000 women to knit soldiers’ socks and paid $.75 for each pound. The construction and establishment of Camp Cleveland (see CIVIL WAR CAMPS IN CLEVELAND) and the U.S. GENERAL HOSPITAL AT CLEVELAND, both in what was called Univ. Hts. (now TREMONT), employed carpenters, washerwomen, cooks, and several physicians. Bids for cavalry horses and commissary supplies also stimulated the economy.

Because certain ironworks had been manufacturing rifle barrels for the Springfield (MA) Armory, local leaders felt that the central location of steel, lumber, and coal would make Cleveland an ideal location for a national armory. Although a citizens’ committee included CLEVELAND CITY COUNCIL representatives, the council quashed the plan in February 1862. Ordnance design remained in the hands of several inventors whose patents apparently never reached production. A Mr. Dickerson claimed to have designed a “centrifugal gun,” which, similar to a Gatling gun, could fire 100-500 rounds per minute. Dickerson, finding no interested manufacturers in Cleveland, reportedly tried to sell the gun to enemy authorities in Richmond, VA. A Mr. Hugunin claimed to have developed an artillery projectile that could be fired up to a range of over 4 miles in 25 seconds. W. H. Fargo experimented with a “faciliate” rifled cannon designed to fire all types of shot with greater ease than conventional cannon.

City leaders tried to establish a national military installation as a result of the threatened invasion from Canada by Confederate agents during the 1864 Johnson’s Island Lake Erie Conspiracy. City council felt that Pres. Lincoln should forgo the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817 with Great Britain, which limited the number and armament of naval ships on the Great Lakes. GEORGE B. SENTER† and RICHARD C. PARSONS† presented the case to the president and to the Congressional Committee on Naval Affairs, requesting that U.S. Navy ships be put on the Great Lakes to protect American shores and American commerce from foreign enemies. Furthermore, they wanted to establish a U.S. Navy yard at Cleveland to build, equip, and repair naval ships. State legislator RUFUS SPALDING†’s resolution to establish the yard received no further consideration outside of the Committee on Naval Affairs.

As the war continued, industrial production increased. A number of banks provided ample capital, loans, and cash for expansion of businesses. City banks held $2.25 million in capital and $3.7 million in deposits by 1865. The number of incorporated iron companies had increased from 3 to 12. Iron-producing firms had begun to increase and diversify their output from heavy castings and forgings to a variety of smaller items, creating a demand for more iron ore. During 1864-65, over half of the ore mined around Lake Superior was shipped into Cleveland, which spurred an increase in shipbuilding. In 1863 22% of all ships built for use on the Great Lakes were built in Cleveland. By 1865, the figure increased to 44%. Shipbuilding was aided by the local production of iron ship fittings, as well as steamboat engine shafts, engines, and screw propellers produced by firms such as the CUYAHOGA STEAM FURNACE CO. In addition, 4 lake steamer lines had local offices. Spurred by the oil refining industry, which had expanded to 30 refineries by 1865, railroad freight tonnage and receipts from passenger fares, mail expresses and rentals, and telegraph service increased dramatically. The number of railroad commission companies increased by 66%. Eight major RAILROADS located offices in the city. The Cleveland Board of Trade reported in 1865 that the value of locally produced products totaled $39,000,000, compared to $6,973,937 for Cuyahoga County in 1860. Prosperity produced an inflation rate of 100% between 1860-64. Wages increased only 50%, but despite 2 major strikes, workers fared relatively well compared to those in other sections of the state (see LABOR). Prosperity in the 18TH PROVOST MARSHAL DISTRICT OF OHIO, in which Cuyahoga County was included, allowed working men to avoid military service by paying a commutation fee of $300 before 4 July 1864. After commutation was amended to include only conscientious objectors, workers still avoided service by hiring substitutes at higher than the former $300 commutation fee. Working men of less prosperous districts who could not afford to hire substitutes had to submit to being drafted.

Cleveland citizens consistently supported the war policy of the Lincoln administration. This was expressed in 3 forms: election returns; positions of the editors of the Leader, the Herald, and, until 1862, the Plain Dealer; and the support that local government gave to military establishments and military-related activities, including the recruitment of volunteers. The Republican party had solid support in all counties of the Western Reserve except Huron by 1855. In 1859 Republican George B. Senter was elected mayor with a majority of Republican council members. City elections were dominated by the Union party (Republican) ticket in the years 1863-65. The greatest threat to Ohio Republicans and to the Lincoln administration occurred during the gubernatorial election of 1863. Copperhead or Peace Democrat Clement L. Vallandigham of Dayton ran against Cleveland Democrat JOHN BROUGH†, who ran on the statewide Union party ticket. Copperhead activity, although limited, found its major voice in Plain Dealer editorial policy, which supported Vallandigham’s candidacy and a platform of a negotiated peace with the Confederacy. Anti-Copperhead sentiment led to the creation of the Cleveland Union League, or Loyal League, on 31 March 1863, and later the formation of a national Union League in May 1863. League members took a secret oath of loyalty to the Lincoln administration’s prosecution of the war to counterbalance the Copperhead-oriented Knights of the Golden Circle.

The Cuyahoga County Union Central Committee polled the county before the election. In Brooklyn Twp., 650 voters counted as potential Union party Brough supporters, and 225 as Vallandigham “traitors and doubtful” supporters. The poll excluded convalescent soldiers at the U.S. General Hospital, but the officers there assured the Central Committee that the 200-300 patients were Brough men. Soldiers particularly opposed Vallandigham’s peace position. As early as July 1861, Clevelanders in an unidentified regiment threatened to ride Vallandigham out of their camp on a rail, calling him “secessionist” and “traitor” as he visited troops near Washington, DC. Officers extricated Vallandigham from the encampment and kept the peace. In March 1862, 75 men of the 2D OHIO VOLUNTEER CAVALRY, many of them Clevelanders, destroyed the office and presses of the anti-Lincoln newspaper Crisis while wintering in Columbus, OH. Brough beat Vallandigham soundly in the October election, with a majority of 6,850 votes in Cuyahoga County; he carried Cleveland by 2,400 votes. Of 1,141 soldiers’ votes in the county, only 8 were cast for Vallandigham. Support of the Lincoln administration continued to the 1864 presidential race. Lincoln won against Democrat George B. McClellan in Ohio by a majority of over 60,000. In Cuyahoga County, Lincoln’s majority was 3,200, and in the city, 1,416. The Union party received support from Democrats who backed the Lincoln administration. It found a voice in the Herald, a moderate newspaper, and the Leader, which took a radical stance but by the war’s end supported the Lincoln administration rather than congressional control of Reconstruction. The Plain Dealer, edited by Democrat JOSEPH W. GRAY†, supported Stephen Douglas’s presidential candidacy in 1860 and, like Douglas, backed Lincoln during the secession crisis of 1861. Gray’s death in 1862 led to the editorship of J. S. Stephenson, who turned the paper into an anti-Lincoln organ that supported Vallandigham for governor in 1863 and McClellan in 1864. Stephenson was replaced by WILLIAM W. ARMSTRONG† in March 1865, who again made the Plain Dealer a responsible opposition publication of the Democratic party.

The issue of emancipation proved to be one of the most emotional issues of the war in Cleveland. Of the proposed 1 Jan. 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, Herald editor JOSIAH A. HARRIS† wrote that emancipation was necessary to defeat the South. Leader editor EDWIN COWLES† held that the North was morally right in emancipating slaves and that Lincoln was to be commended “for the stalwart blow he struck for freedom and for the peace and future tranquility of the Union.” Democrats, however, condemned emancipation. The war, they felt, was being fought to preserve the Union, not for abolitionism. Stephenson of the Plain Dealer wrote that Democrats wanted the country with “the Constitution as it is and the Union as it was.” More caustically, he charged that emancipation would not be popularly accepted and decried that it would ruin the white race by making “citizens of the entire black population. . . .”

Despite such sentiments, emancipation was popularly accepted in Cuyahoga County and Cleveland. Clevelanders’ support of the war effort never faltered, except for a period in the winter of 1864, when volunteering waned. About 10,000 men from Cuyahoga County served in the military out of the 15,600 who were eligible for service. About 1,700 died during the war; 2,000 left the military disabled or crippled. During the 3 national drafts conducted, only in 1 instance did a crowd become unruly enough to delay conscription (3 Oct. 1862). Drafting resumed as usual the next day, in contrast to the New York draft riots, which raged for 3 days in July 1863. Because of exemptions, payment of commutation, or the hiring of substitutes, few county soldiers entered the service as draftees. The city, the county, and individual wards earmarked or raised funds for payment of enlistment bonuses called bounties, in addition to those offered by the federal government. Wards and townships also collected food, clothing, and fuel for distribution to families of volunteers and draftees. In 1864 ward committees formed mutual-protection associations, from which drafted members received money to pay the commutation fee or to hire a substitute.

Civilian aid to the military centered around establishment and maintenance of Camp Taylor (1861), Camp Cleveland (1862), the U.S. General Hospital (1862), the SOLDIERS’ AID SOCIETY OF NORTHERN OHIO (1861), and civic ceremonies and processions. Citizens provided food and blankets to recruits at both military camps until government stores and equipment could be distributed. Whenever regiments marched to UNION DEPOT for field service, citizens lined the route, bands played, and the SECESH CANNON boomed salutes. The city earmarked funds to welcome troops home after service in the field, treating them to a meal after detraining and a short welcoming ceremony on PUBLIC SQUARE before they marched to Camp Cleveland for payment and discharge from the army. Citizens supplemented army rations for holiday dinners at the hospital and transported dozens of wounded and sick soldiers in wagons and buggies from Union Depot to the hospital. When convalescing soldiers requested reading material, Clevelanders donated books, magazines, and newspapers.

The chief agency for civilian aid was the Soldiers Aid Society, organized as the Cleveland Soldiers Aid Society in April 1861. During the war, the populace contributed $982,481.25 in bedding and clothing, hospital furniture, medical supplies, foodstuffs and delicacies, and miscellaneous items to Ohio soldiers in the field through this agency, which acted as a branch of the U.S. Sanitary Commission. At the 1864 NORTHERN OHIO SANITARY FAIR, held on Public Square, the society raised $100,191.06. A SOLDIERS’ HOME opened near Union Depot in 1863 to house, feed, and care for furloughed and discharged soldiers, plus those awaiting pensions.

A less pleasant task was the honoring of war dead. On numerous occasions, the city’s military units and fraternal organizations assembled for the funerals of Cleveland men who had perished in the field. By the end of hostilities, 2 monuments had been planned for the WOODLAND CEMETERY to honor the dead of the 7TH OHIO VOLUNTEER INFANTRY REGIMENT and the 23D OHIO VOLUNTEER INFANTRY REGIMENT. With the war over, over 90,000 Clevelanders filed past the slain president’s body on Public Square on 28 April 1865 (see ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S FUNERAL). Five months later, Cleveland again responded to a war-related funeral–that of former governor John Brough, who died 29 Aug. and was buried in Woodland Cemetery.

The rapid increase in population during the war brought forth urban problems, such as the need for efficient police and fire protection, adequate housing, public education, health services, transportation, and an improved network of roads and streets, which continued to concern city planners into the next century (see CITY PLANNING). Cleveland’s population grew from 43,417 in 1860 to over 67,500 by 1866. By 1870, the city, with a population of 92,829, had entered the industrial age, owing to the prosperity experienced during the Civil War. Historian Crisfield Johnson has best summarized the war’s local impact: “. . . the war found Cleveland a commercial city and left it a manufacturing city. Not that it ceased to do a great deal of commercial business, but the predominant interests had become the manufacturing ones.”

William C. Stark

 

Feuchter, Clyde E. “The Press in the Western Reserve during the Civil War, 1861-1866” (Ph.D. diss., WRU, 1941).

Flower, Phyllis Anne. “Cleveland, Ohio During the Civil War” (Master’s thesis, Ohio State Univ., 1940).

See also POLITICS, PRINT JOURNALISM, individual regiments.

Ernest Bohn from Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

Ernest Bohn, who directed the Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority (CUYAHOGA METROPOLITAN HOUSING AUTHORITY) from its founding in 1933 until 1968. From the Encyclopedia of Cleveland 

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BOHN, ERNEST J. (1901-15 Dec. 1975), was a nationally known expert on PUBLIC HOUSING. Born in Hungary, the son of Frank J. and Juliana (Kiry) Bohn, he came to Cleveland with his father in 1911, graduating from Adelbert College in 1924 and Western Reserve Law School in 1926. In 1929 he was elected to the Ohio House as a Republican, then served as city councilman until 1940. Active in housing reform, he authored the first state housing legislation, passed in 1933. As president and organizer of the Natl. Assoc. for Housing & Redevelopment Officials, Bohn helped pass the U.S. Housing Act of 1937.

 

Bohn directed the Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority (CUYAHOGA METROPOLITAN HOUSING AUTHORITY) from its founding in 1933 until 1968, and chaired the City Planning Commission from its founding in 1942 until 1966. His work included slum clearance and redevelopment. Following WORLD WAR II he focused on housing for the elderly, building the Golden Age Ctr. at E. 30th St. and Central Ave., the first such housing development in the U.S. Deterioration of central-city housing in the mid-1960s led to charges that Bohn neglected meeting the needs of poorer people and promoted racial discrimination in filling CMHA units.

 

Following his retirement, Bohn lectured at CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY and was on the board of directors of the Natl. Housing Conference and the Ohio Commission on Aging. Bohn Tower and the Ernest J. Bohn Golden Age Ctr. were named in recognition of his contributions to Cleveland. Bohn never married. He died in Cleveland and was buried in CALVARY CEMETERY.


Timeline of Cleveland/NE Ohio

Cleveland Timeline

1796 – July 22. U.S. General Moses Cleaveland from the Connecticut Land Company surveys the Western Reserve. 3.3 million-acre piece of land on the shores of Lake Erie is called the “Western Reserve.”

1797 – May 2. Lorenzo Carter arrives at original town site as the city’s first permanent settler. Built a log cabin on the East Bank of the Cuyahoga River that also served as the village’s jail and inn.

1802 – First census of Cleaveland Township shows 76 males over the age of 21.

1814 – December 23. Cleaveland receives its charter as a village.

1820 – Population of Cleaveland is 606 people. The population of Cuyahoga County is 6,328.

1831 – January 6. The Cleveland Advertiser changes the spelling of the village’s name to Cleveland, dropping the first “a” in order to fit the General’s name upon the newspaper masthead.

1832 – Ohio and Erie Canal completed to the Ohio River.

1836 – Cleveland incorporated as an official city.

1850 – Population of Cleveland is 17,034 people. The population of Cuyahoga County is 48,099.

1866 – Sherwin Williams Company established.

1868 – September 6. First “blow” of Bessemer steel made at the Cleveland Rolling Mills.

1869 – First professional baseball game in Cleveland played by the Forest City team. Cleveland Public Library established. Lake View Cemetery opens.

1870 – January 10. Standard Oil Company established by John D. Rockefeller. February 3. Cleveland’s population – 92,829 (15th largest city in nation).

1879 – April 29. Arc light (forerunner to electric streetlight) installed on Public Square by Charles F. Brush. Forest City, Cleveland’s professional baseball team, joins the National League.

1888 – First electric streetcar runs in the city.

1890 – Cleveland is the 10th largest city in the nation with a population of 261,353 people. The Arcade, one of the nation’s first indoor shopping center, opens.

1901 – The Cleveland Blues, predecessor to the Cleveland Indians, are established as a charter member of the new American League.

1915 – Playhouse Settlement, forerunner to Karamu House, is found by Russell and Rowena Jelliffe.

1916 – Cleveland Museum of Art opens. First production by the Cleveland Play House.

1917 – Cleveland Metroparks created.

1918 – The world-renowned Cleveland Orchestra performs its first concert.

1920 – Cleveland is the 5th largest city in the nation with a population of 796, 841 people. The Cleveland Indians win their first World Series.

1921 – Cleveland Clinic founded.

1925 – Cleveland Municipal Airport (now Cleveland Hopkins International Airport) opens. University Hospitals established.

1931 – Cleveland Municipal Stadium opens with the Schmeling-Stribling boxing match. Severance Hall dedicated.

1933 – Clevelanders Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster create the comic book character Superman.

1935 – Eliot Ness becomes Safety Director of Cleveland.

1936 – Clevelander Jesse Owens wins four gold medals at Berlin Olympics. Cleveland Barons hockey team established.

1937 – Cleveland Rams begin play in the National Football League (NFL).

1945 – Cleveland Rams win NFL championship then move to Los Angeles.

1946 – Cleveland Browns begin play in new All-American Football Conference (AAFC). Win all four championship titles in conference history. (1946-1949).

1948 – Cleveland Indians win their second World Series.

1950 – Cleveland Browns join the NFL and win the NFL championship. Browns also win titles in 1954-1955 and 1964 (their last NFL title). Cleveland’s population reaches 914,808 (highest ever).

1952 – Alan Freed, Cleveland radio deejay, coins the term “Rock n’ Roll.” First rock n’ roll concert, The Moondog Coronation Ball, is held in Cleveland.

1967 – Carl B. Stokes elected mayor of Cleveland. He is the first African American mayor of a major U.S. city.

1970 – Cleveland Cavaliers enter the National Basketball Association (NBA) as an expansion team.

Late 1970s – PlayhouseSquare renovation project complete.

1986 – Cleveland selected as site of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

1990 – March 29. The Avenue at Tower City Center opens.

1991 – Key Tower is completed on Public Square. At 948 feet, it is the tallest building between New York City and Chicago.

1993 – Cleveland named All-American City for fifth time. All-American City in 1949, 1982, 1984, 1986.

1994 – Gateway Sports Entertainment Complex (Jacobs Field and Gund Arena) opens.

1995 – Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum opens. Cleveland Indians win their first American League pennant in 41 years and make their 4th World Series appearance.

1996 – Cleveland celebrates its Bicentennial. Great Lakes Science Center opens.

1997 – Cleveland Indians win the American League pennant and return to the World Series. Cleveland hosts the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.

1999 – August 21. The new Cleveland Browns Stadium opens with the historic return of the Cleveland Browns.

Timeline adapted from http://www.positivelycleveland.com/visit/cleveland-history/

 

Timeline below is from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

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The History of Cleveland History Timeline

1796 Moses Cleaveland and survey party arrive 22 July.
1797 First wedding held in the settlement of Cleaveland (as the village was known until 1831).
First white baby born to Tabitha Stiles.
Lorenzo Carter, prominent early settler, arrives.
1798 Nathaniel Doan settles what will become “Doan’s Corners.”
1800 Cleveland population–7.
David and Gilman Bryant open the community’s first distillery.
Trumbull County created, with Cleveland located in that county.
1801 A grand ball is held 4 July.
1802 First census of Cleveland Township shows 76 free male inhabitants over the age of 21.
1803 Ohio admitted to the Union.
Mail service extended to Cleveland.
1805 The community’s first postmaster, Elisha Norton, appointed.
Indian claims are cleared to the lands west of the Cuyahoga River.
Geauga County created, with Cleveland located in that county.
1806 Moses Cleaveland dies in Connecticut.
1807 First Presbyterian Church in what is now East Cleveland is founded; it is the second church in the entire Western Reserve.
1808 Lorenzo Carter builds the Zephyr, first ship to be launched in Cleveland.
Samuel Huntington elected governor of Ohio.
1809 George Peake arrives in what is now Lakewood/Rocky River, the area’s first African-American settler.
Euclid Township created.
1810 Cleveland population–57 (approximate).
Cuyahoga County organized; Cleveland selected as county seat.
David Long, the community’s first doctor, arrives.
1812 John O’Mic, a native American implicated in a murder, is first person to be executed in Cleveland.
1813 Oliver Hazard Perry wins the Battle of Lake Erie at Put-in-Bay.
Cleveland’s first courthouse completed.
1814 Cleveland receives its charter as a village 23 December.
Lorenzo Carter dies.
Newburgh Township created.
1815 Alfred Kelley elected first president of the village of Cleveland.
Euclid Avenue laid out.
1816 Commercial Bank of Lake Erie opens in Cleveland.
Trinity Episcopal Parish organized.
First divorce in the community granted.
1818 Walk-in-the-Water, first steamship on Lake Erie, serves Cleveland.
First newspaper, the Cleaveland Gazette and Commercial Register, published 31 July.
Royalton Township created.
1819 The Cleveland Herald and Gazette publishes its first issue 19 October.
1820 Cleveland population–606.
Cuyahoga County population–6,328.
First Presbyterian Church (Old Stone) organized.
The first theatrical performance held 23 May.
1822 North Union Shaker colony established in what is now Shaker Heights.
A free bridge is opened across the Cuyahoga River.
1825 Construction of Ohio and Erie Canal 
begins.
Federal funds received for river improvement.
1826 St. Mary’s, the community’s first Catholic church, is organized.
Land is purchased for Erie Street Cemetery.
1827 Ohio and Erie Canal opens between Akron and Cleveland 4 July.
Cuyahoga Steam Furnace Co. organized.
1828 Cleveland’s second courthouse opened.
1829 First public market opens on Ontario Street.
First lighthouse begins operation.
1830 Cleveland population–1,075.
Cuyahoga County population–10,373.
First temperance society, Cuyahoga County Temperance Society, organized.
Western Seaman’s Friend Society, an ancestor of today’s Center for Human Services, organized.
St. John’s African Methodist Episcopal Church organized.
1831 The Cleveland Advertiser “officially” changes the spelling of the community’s name to Cleveland.
James A. Garfield born in Orange Township.
1832 Ohio and Erie Canal completed to the Ohio River.
A free school for blacks organized.
Major cholera epidemic takes fifty lives.
Dunham Tavern opens.
1833 First Baptist Society organized.
1835 Benjamin Strickland, the community’s first dentist, arrives.
1836 Cleveland and City of Ohio (Ohio City) incorporated as official cities.
John Willey elected first mayor of Cleveland.
Josiah Barber elected first mayor of Ohio City.
“Bridge War” between Cleveland and Ohio City takes place.
1837 Cleveland Female Orphan Asylum opens.
Cleveland Grays organized.
Bedford Village incorporated.
Cuyahoga County Anti-Slavery Society organized.
1838 St. John’s Episcopal Church completed in Ohio City.
1839 First group of Jewish settlers comes to Cleveland under the leadership of Moses Alsbacher.
1840 Cleveland population–6,071 (45th largest city in nation).
Ohio City population–1,577.
Cuyahoga County population–26,506.
Globe Theater opens.
1842 Plain Dealer begins publication 7 January.
1843 Cleveland Medical College established.
1844 Steamship Empire built in Cleveland.
Village of Chagrin Falls incorporated.
1845 City Bank of Cleveland (forerunner of National City Corp.) founded.
Chagrin Falls Township created.
Cleveland Academy of Natural Science established.
1846 Anshe Chesed Congregation (today’s Fairmount Temple) erects city’s first synagogue.
Germania, the community’s first German language newspaper, published.
Central High School established 13 July.
1847 Catholic Diocese created in Cleveland 23 April.
The city’s most notable hotel, the Weddell House, opens 25 June.
First telegraph line–from Cleveland to Pittsburgh–completed.
1848 Cornerstone for St. John Cathedral laid 22 October.
Board of Trade, forerunner of the Growth Association, established.
Cleveland Library Association chartered.
1849 Society for Savings (forerunner of Society Corp.) founded.
Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad runs first train in the city.
First street light installed.
National Meeting of the Free Soil party held in Cleveland 13 July.
1850 Cleveland population–17,034.
Ohio City population–6,375.
Cuyahoga County population–48,099.
Organized harness racing begins.
Cleveland Ladies Temperance Union founded.
Berea incorporated as a village.
Cleveland Iron Mining Co. established.
1851 In Zion Lutheran Church, first Christmas tree displayed.
Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati Railroad completed.
1852 Louis Kossuth visits Cleveland.
1853 First African American newspaper, The Aliened-American, published 9 April.
The Cleveland Theater opens.
Federal District Court of the Northern District of Ohio established.
1854 Cleveland and Ohio City merge 5 June.
First formal opera, Lucia di Lammermoor, performed 25 July.
Cleveland Leader begins publication 16 March.
Cuyahoga County People’s (Republican) Party formed in September.
1855 Sault Canal opens.
Baldwin University founded in Berea.
1856 Water system begins operation.
1857 Omnibus service begins in the city.
Village of Olmsted Falls incorporated.
Public Square enclosed by fences.
1858 First sewer constructed.
Cleveland (Bank) Clearinghouse established.
1859 Oberlin-Wellington Rescuers’ trial held in Cleveland.
1860 Cleveland population–43,417.
Cuyahoga County population–178,033.
Horsecar service inaugurated.
Perry Monument on Public Square dedicated 10 September.
Typographical Workers Union, Local 53 (Cleveland’s oldest existing trade union in 1996) receives its charter.
1861 Bagby Fugitive Slave case heard in Cleveland Federal Court.
Abraham Lincoln visits Cleveland 15 February.
1863 German Wallace College established in Berea.
First home delivery of mail takes place in Cleveland 1 July.
Cleveland Republican John Brough elected governor of Ohio.
1865 Lincoln’s body lies in state on Public Square.
Charity Hospital opens.
Forest City amateur baseball club established.
1866 Union Depot opens on lakefront.
Cleveland Police Department established.
1867 Western Reserve Historical Society formed.
First history of Cleveland published, that of Charles Whittlesey.
Case Hall opens.
1868 First “blow” of Bessemer Steel made at the Cleveland Rolling Mills 6 September.
Jewish Orphan Asylum (predecessor of Bellefaire) opens.
1869 First professional baseball game played by the Forest City team.
Cleveland Public Library established.
Lake View Cemetery opens.
1870 Cleveland population–92,829 (15th largest city in nation).
Cuyahoga County population–132,010.
Standard Oil Co. created 10 January.
Sherwin-Williams Co. created 3 February.
Northern Ohio Fair Association established.
1871 Board of Park Commissioners created.
Cleveland Sunday Times, first successful Sunday paper, published 15 October.
1872 Horse epidemic, the Epizootic, takes place.
Union Club formed.
1873 Cleveland Bar Association established.
Newburgh annexed to Cleveland.
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers moves its national offices to Cleveland.
John P. Green installed as Justice of the Peace, first African-American to hold elective office in Cleveland.
1874 Woman’s Christian Temperance League established.
1875 Euclid Avenue Opera House opens.
The Greenback Party holds its organizing convention in Cleveland.
1876 Archibald Willard exhibits the “Spirit of 76.”
1877 General railroad strikes take place.
Troop A (“First Cleveland Cavalry”) formed to protect the city against strikers.
Cleveland branch of Socialist Labor Party organized.
1878 Superior Street Viaduct opens 28 December.
Penny Press, predecessor to the Cleveland Press, begins publication 2 November.
Women’s and Children’s Dispensary opens.
1879 Brush arc light installed on Public Square 29 April.
Early Settlers Association formed 19 November.
Cleveland’s professional baseball team joins the National League.
1880 Cleveland population–160,146 (12th largest city in nation).
Cuyahoga County population–196,943.
Cleveland Telephone Co. begins service.
Case School of Applied Sciences established.
Civil Engineers Club (later the Cleveland Engineering Society) formed.
The west breakwall completed.
1881 James Garfield lies in state on Public Square after being assassinated.
Cleveland stockyards open.
Hungarian Benevolent and Social Union (HBSU) formed.
1882 Western Reserve College moves to Cleveland.
Cleveland School of Art established, 13 November.
First Cleveland Rolling Mill strike takes place.
1884 First electric streetcar run in the city, 26 July.
Cleveland Electric Light Co. formed.
1885 Second Cleveland Rolling Mill strike takes place.
Hollenden Hotel opens 7 June.
Mary P. Spargo becomes first female lawyer in Cleveland.
1886 St. Ignatius College opens 6 September.
Board of Elections organized.
Altenheim opens.
Cleveland Athletic Club formed 6 February.
1887 American Institute of Architects, Cleveland Chapter, formed.
Cleveland Press Club established.
1888 Central Viaduct opens.
Statue of Moses Cleaveland dedicated on Public Square.
1889 First edition of Hebrew Observer published 5 July.
Cleveland World begins publication 29 August.
South Brooklyn (Brooklyn) Village incorporated.
1890 Cleveland population–261,353 (10th largest city in nation).
Cuyahoga County population–309,970.
Society for Savings Building opens 23 June.
The Arcade opens.
Garfield Monument dedicated in Lake View Cemetery.
First cable cars run in Cleveland.
Beeman’s Pepsin Gum introduced.
1891 National League Park (League Park) opens 1 May.
Hungarian-language newspaper, Szabadsag, published.
Halles Department Store opens.
Cleveland adopts the Federal Plan of municipal government.
The Cleveland Citizen, “American’s oldest labor paper” begins publishing 31 January.
Winton Bicycle Co. established.
1892 Central breakwall completed.
Rowfant Club established.
Tavern Club established.
1893 Cleveland and Buffalo line starts lake steamer service.
Grays Armory opens.
1894 Soldiers and Sailors Monument dedicated.
Polish Roman Catholic Union of the Sacred Heart of the Blessed Virgin (predecessor to Union of Poles) established.
1895 Alta House Kindergarten opens.
Euclid Beach opens.
First interurban, Akron, Bedford, and Cleveland, begins service.
Alliance of Transylvanian Saxons founded.
East Cleveland incorporated as a village.
Cleveland Spiders win Temple Cup in baseball.
1896 Cleveland celebrates its centennial.
Hiram House established.
1897 Winton Motor Carriage Co. started.
Bohemian National Hall opens.
1898 University Club opens 8 June.
1899 Streetcar strike.
1900 Cleveland population–381,768 (7th largest city in nation).
Cuyahoga County population–439,120.
Cleveland Automobile Club established.
First White steam car produced.
1901 The Cleveland Blues (predecessor to the Cleveland Indians) are established as one of the first teams in the new American League.
Tom Johnson elected mayor of Cleveland.
Cleveland resident Leon Czolgosz assassinates President William McKinley.
1902 First local Parent Teachers Association established.
Village of Linndale incorporated.
Date of municipal and county elections changed from first Tuesday in April to first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
1903 Group Plan unveiled.
Hanna-McCormick wedding takes place in Cleveland, President Theodore Roosevelt attends.
The Village of Bay (Bay Village) achieves village status.
Bratenahl Village incorporated.
Brooklyn Heights Village incorporated.
Cleveland Heights Village incorporated.
Euclid Village incorporated.
Lakewood Village incorporated.
Rocky River Village incorporated.
1904 Marcus A. Hanna dies.
First Italian-language newspaper, L’Italiano, established.
First official “nest” (No. 23) of the Sokol Polski formed in Cleveland.
Workmens Circle organization established.
A. M. McGregor Home established.
Newburgh Heights incorporated as a village.
Cleveland’s first building code written.
1905 First issue of the Cleveland News published 12 June.
Glenville City annexed to Cleveland.
South Brooklyn annexed to Cleveland.
1906 George Crile performs first successful human blood transfusion.
Cleveland street names and house numbers changed and standardized 1 December.
1907 Trinity Cathedral consecrated 24 September.
Hippodrome Theater opens.
Cleveland Zoo begins move from Wade Park to Brookside Park (completed 1914).
1908 Collinwood School Fire.
Village of North Olmsted incorporated.
North Randall Village incorporated.
Idlewood Village (University Heights) incorporated.
1909 Workers Gymnastic Union (a Czech organization) formed.
Tom L. Johnson loses mayoral race to Hermann Baehr.
Corlett Village annexed to Cleveland.
1910 Cleveland population–560,663 (6th largest city in nation).
Cuyahoga County population–637,425.
Cleveland annexes Collinwood.
Tayler Grant for the operation of Cleveland’s street railways goes into effect.
Village of Fairview (Fairview Park) incorporated.
Thomas W. Fleming becomes first African-American member of City Council.
Federal Building opens on Public Square as first Group Plan structure.
1911 Cleveland Music School Settlement opens.
Tom L. Johnson dies, 11 April.
Phillis Wheatley Association founded.
East Cleveland becomes a city.
Lakewood achieves city status.
Shaker Heights Village incorporated.
Dover Village (Westlake) incorporated.
1912 Cleveland City Club formed.
Junior League established.
Village of Nottingham annexed to Cleveland.
1913 Home Rule City Charter approved by Cleveland voters.
1914 Cleveland Foundation established.
Cleveland chosen as the Fourth District headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank.
Brook Park Village incorporated.
Independence Village incorporated.
Cleveland Municipal Light Plant goes into operation.
1915 Russell and Rowena Jelliffe found the “Playhouse Settlement,” forerunner of today’s Karamu House.
Beachwood Village incorporated.
Maple Heights Village incorporated.
1916 First production by the Cleveland Play House.
Cleveland Museum of Art opens.
Women’s City Club established.
Cleveland City Hall dedicated.
1917 Detroit-Superior (Veterans Memorial) High Level Bridge opens.
Cleveland Metroparks organized.
Euclidville (Lyndhurst) incorporated as a village.
Claribel (Richmond Heights) incorporated as a village.
Solon Village incorporated.
South Euclid Village incorporated.
Negro Welfare Association (forerunner of the Urban League) founded in December.
1918 First concert of the Cleveland Orchestra held 11 December.
Federal Court trial of Eugene Debs in Cleveland.
Cuyahoga Heights incorporated as a village.
1919 May Day Riots in Cleveland.
Voters approve placement of a new railroad terminal on Public Square.
Community Fund campaign inaugurated.
Women’s Advertising Club founded.
Valley View Village created.
1920 Cleveland population–796,841 (5th largest city in nation).
Cuyahoga County population–943,495.
Cleveland Indians win the World Series.
The Cleveland Call, forerunner of the Call & Post, established.
Cleveland Museum of Natural History established.
League of Women Voters founded 26 April.
Gates Mills Village incorporated.
Highland Heights Village incorporated.
1921 Mayfield Village incorporated.
State, Ohio, Allen, and Hanna theaters open.
Cleveland Clinic established.
Cleveland Heights becomes a city.
1922 WHK begins radio broadcasting in Cleveland.
Public Auditorium dedicated 15 April.
Palace Theater opens 6 November.
Brecksville Village incorporated.
Cleveland’s first sewage treatment plant built.
1923 Federal Reserve bank building completed.
WTAM (forerunner of WWWE) established.
1924 City Manager System of government goes into effect.
Republican National Convention held in Cleveland; nominates Calvin Coolidge as its presidential candidate.
Union Trust (Huntington Building) opens.
Metropolitan Opera of New York begins its annual series of visits to Cleveland.
Hunting Valley incorporated as a village.
Parma incorporated as a village.
Pepper Pike incorporated as a village.
1925 New Public Library building opens.
Cleveland airport (now Hopkins International) opens.
University Hospitals incorporated.
First buses used in Cleveland.
1926 Allen Memorial Medical Library opens.
Broadview Heights Village incorporated.
Riveredge Township created.
Constitutionality of local zoning laws upheld in the case of Village of Euclid vs. Ambler Realty.
1927 Ohio Bell Telephone Building opens on Huron Road.
Drury Theater opens.
North Royalton Village incorporated.
Seven Hills Village incorporated.
Strongsville Village incorporated.
Warrensville Heights Village incorporated.
1928 Brush Foundation established.
Maternal Health Association (now Planned Parenthood of Cleveland) established.
Village of Orange incorporated.
1929 Cleveland Clinic disaster occurs 15 May.
National Air Races first held in Cleveland.
Bentleyville Village incorporated.
Moreland Hills Village incorporated.
1930 Cleveland population–900,429 (5th largest city in nation).
Cuyahoga County population–1,201,455.
Cleveland Union Terminal dedicated.
WGAR starts broadcasting 15 December.
Bedford incorporated as a city.
Berea incorporated as a city.
Euclid achieves city status.
Garfield Heights achieves city status.
Rocky River achieves city status.
1931 Cleveland Municipal Stadium opens with the Schmeling-Stribling fight.
Severance Hall dedicated.
Samuel Mather dies.
Parma achieves city status.
Shaker Heights achieves city status.
1932 Real Property Inventory of Metropolitan Cleveland begun by Howard Whipple Green.
Maple Heights achieves city status.
City Manager plan replaced by Mayor/Council form of government.
Cosmopolitan Democratic League of Cuyahoga County formed in November.
1933 Depression-era unemployment peaks in Cleveland: nearly one-third of the city’s workers jobless.
Cleveland (now Cuyahoga) Metropolitan Housing Authority established.
1935 Shostakovich opera Lady Macbeth of Mzensk receives its American premiere at Severance Hall.
Eliot Ness becomes Safety Director of Cleveland.
Women’s Federal Savings and Loan established.
Future Outlook League established by John Holly.
Cleveland Torso Murder mystery begins.
1936 Jesse Owens wins four gold medals at Berlin Olympic Games.
Cleveland Barons hockey team established.
Great Lakes Exposition opens.
Republican National Convention nominates Alf Landon as its presidential candidate in Cleveland.
Fluorescent lighting introduced at NELA Park.
UAW Local 45 organized at General Motors’s Fisher Body Plant.
1937 Cleveland Arena opens.
Cleveland Rams begin to play professional football.
John D. Rockefeller dies.
Public housing projects open at Outhwaite, Cedar-Central, and Lakeview Terrace.
1938 Last interurban train (Lakeshore Electric) runs from Cleveland.
Shoreway opens between East 9th Street and Gordon Park.
WBOE, school radio station, begins broadcasting.
1939 Main Avenue Bridge opens 6 October.
First night baseball game played at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
First Festival of Freedom held.
35,000 attend mass dedication of Cultural Gardens (begun in 1916).
1940 Cleveland population–878,366 (6th largest city in nation).
Cuyahoga County population–1,217,250.
NACA, forerunner of NASA, established at the Cleveland airport.
Franklin D. Roosevelt campaigns in Cleveland 2 November.
University Heights achieves city status.
1941 Knights of Columbus Track Meet held in Cleveland for first time.
South Euclid achieves city status.
1942 Cleveland Transit System begins era of municipal operation of Cleveland’s public transit system 28 April.
Cleveland Bomber Plant (now the I-X Center) opens at Municipal Airport 2 November.
1944 East Ohio Gas Explosion claims 130 lives 20 October.
Woodmere Village incorporated.
1945 Cleveland Rams win NFL football title then move to Los Angeles.
Cleveland Community Relations Board formed to promote racial harmony.
1946 Cleveland Browns begin play in All-American Football Conference.
1947 Operations begin at the lakefront airport.
First successful defibrillation of a human heart by Dr. Claude S. Beck and colleagues at University Hospitals.
First telecast by WEWS, Ohio’s first television station.
Cuyahoga County Regional Planning Commission formed.
1948 Cleveland Indians win World Series.
1949 Cleveland named an All-America City for first time.
1950 Cleveland population–914,808 (highest ever, 7th largest city in nation).
Cuyahoga County population–1,389,532.
Browns enter the NFL and win the title.
Village of Bay (Bay Village) incorporated as a city.
Mayfield Heights incorporated as a city.
Cleveland City Council passes a Fair Employment Practices law, the first such city law in the United States.
1951 Bedford Heights incorporated as a village.
Fairview Park achieves city status.
Lyndhurst achieves city status.
Oakwood Village incorporated.
Walton Hills Village incorporated.
1953 Development of Southgate Shopping Center begins.
1954 Last streetcars run 24 January.
Marilyn Sheppard murdered in her Bay Village home.
1955 Rapid Transit begins operation.
1957 Westlake achieves city status.
1959 Parma Heights incorporated as a city.
St. Lawrence Seaway opens.
1960 Cleveland population–876,050 (8th largest city in nation).
Cuyahoga County population–1,647,895.
Erieview urban renewal plan unveiled 22 November.
Final issue of the Cleveland News published 23 January.
Brecksville achieves city status.
Broadview Heights achieves city status.
Independence achieves city status.
North Olmsted achieves city status.
Richmond Heights achieves city status.
Strongsville achieves city status.
Warrensville Heights achieves city status.
1961 William Taylor Son & Co. first major downtown department store to close.
Bedford Heights achieves city status.
Brook Park achieves city status.
Middleburg Heights incorporated as city.
North Royalton achieves city status.
Olmsted Falls achieves city status.
Seven Hills achieves city status.
Solon achieves city status.
1962 Innerbelt Freeway opens for its full length.
1963 Severance Center Mall opens.
1964 Cleveland State University established 18 December.
1965 WVIZ, educational television station, begins operation 7 February.
1966 Cuyahoga Community College opens its Metro Campus.
Hough Riots occur 18-24 July.
1967 First successful coronary artery bypass operation performed at the Cleveland Clinic by Dr. Rene Favaloro.
Carl B. Stokes elected as first black mayor of a major American city.
Highland Heights becomes a city.
1968 Northeast Ohio Area Coordinating Agency formed.
Glenville Shootout, 23-28 July.
1969 The Palace Theater, last operating movie house on Playhouse Square, closes 20 July.
A burning oil slick on the Cuyahoga River attracts national attention, 22 June.
Euclid Beach closes 28 September.
Cleveland American Indian Center founded.
1970 Cleveland population–750,879 (12th largest city in nation).
Cuyahoga County population–1,720,835.
Cleveland Cavaliers Basketball team organized.
Pepper Pike achieves city status.
Twenty-First District Caucus organized.
1971 Cleveland Landmarks Commission established.
1972 Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District formed from Cleveland’s sewer system and those of neighboring suburbs.
First issue of Cleveland Magazine published in April.
1973 Cleveland Barons play their last hockey game at the Arena 4 February.
1974 Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority established 30 December.
1976 Desegregation of the Cleveland Public Schools ordered by U.S. District Judge Frank J. Battisti.
First public performance by Cleveland Ballet.
1978 On 15 December Cleveland becomes first major American city to default on its obligations since the Depression.
1980  Cleveland population–573,822 (19th largest city in nation).
 Cuyahoga County population–1,498,400.
 Nationally televised Presidential Debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan held in Cleveland 28 October.
1981  City Council reduced from 33 to 21 members.
 Term of office for mayor and council members increased from 2 to 4 years.
1982   Ground broken for the Sohio (BP) Building on Public Square.
Last issue of Cleveland Press published 17 June.
 Cleveland named an All-America City for second time.
1983   United Food and Commercial Workers Local 880 formed through the merger of three locals.
1984  Cleveland named an All-America City for third time. 
 Cuyahoga Works of United States Steel closes.
1986  Cleveland named an All-America City for fourth time. 
 Cleveland selected as site for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
1987  Cleveland emerges from default.
1990  Cleveland population–505,616 (23rd largest city in the nation).
 Cuyahoga County population–1,412,140.
 Tower City Center formally opens 29 March.
1991  Society Center Building “topped off” at 948.7 feet.
1993  Cleveland Indians play their last game at Municipal Stadium 3 October.
 Church Square Shopping Center, centerpiece for inner-city revitalization, dedicated in April.
 Cleveland named an All-America City for fifth time.
1994  Gateway Sports Complex opens.
 Frederick C. Crawford dies 9 December.
1995  Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum opens.
 Indians win American League championship.
 Browns owner Art Modell announces he will move the team to Baltimore.
1996  Cleveland celebrates its Bicentennial.
1997  Cleveland Indians win American League pennant, but lose the World Series in seven games to the Florida Marlins.
1999  Expansion Cleveland Browns play their first game
2000  Cleveland population–478,403 (33rd largest city in the nation). 
 Cuyahoga County population–1,393,848 
 Cleveland murder total hits lowest mark in forty years.
2001  Jane Campbell is elected as Cleveland’s first female mayor.
2004  Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry holds election eve rally in Cleveland highlighting its importance to the 2004 election.
2006  State law is passed which prohibits cities like Cleveland from enforcing a residency requirement for municpal jobs.
2007  Cleveland Cavaliers reach the NBA Finals for the first time.
2010  Cleveland population–396,815 45th largest city in the nation)
 Cuyahoga County population–1,280,122
2011  Anthony Sowell convicted of murdering eleven women.
 Construction begins on downtown medical mart.

The History of Cleveland History Timeline

Cleveland and the War of 1812

From the Encyclopedia of Cleveland.

The link is here


WAR OF 1812. When Congress declared war against Great Britain on 18 June 1812, the village of Cleveland consisted of 100 or fewer souls huddled near the mouth of the CUYAHOGA RIVER. Except for their geographic location, they had no reason to be either especially interested or principal actors in the war. However, situated on a significant Lake Erie harbor and attuned to American ideas of possible acquisition of British lands on the lake’s northern shore, the villagers were affected in significant ways by the War of 1812. Cleveland served as a base for supplies, a rendezvous for military units, and the location of a military fort and hospital. The war also provoked alarms and invasion scares, which were quieted only with Perry’s naval victory on Lake Erie and the subsequent demolition of a British and Indian force by Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison at the Battle of the Thames in the autumn of 1813. American activities were centered on Lake Erie and its connecting waterways for 3 primary reasons: to inflict damage on British military units garrisoned in Upper Canada (today’s Ontario), to end the alleged British instigation of Indian depredations on American frontier settlements, and, if possible, to acquire Canadian lands by invasion and occupation. However, the early endeavors were disastrous for America, especially the humiliating surrender of Detroit by Gen. Wm. Hull in Aug. 1812, which opened the waterways for invasions of northern Ohio. After a report from the Sandusky-Huron area falsely informing Clevelanders of enemy boats proceeding down the lake, many residents abandoned their homes and sought refuge farther inland. The “hostile marauders” turned out to be Americans paroled from Hull’s disaster. New England Federalists might be antiwar, but transplanted Western Reserve Federalists recognized the need for defense. Their initial effort centered 2 militia companies at Cleveland, soon augmented by additional militiamen, all commanded by Gen. Elijah Wadsworth. Most of these troops moved out of the village within a short time, on their way westward to the Sandusky and Maumee valleys. In the spring of 1813, Capt. Stanton Sholes arrived with a company of regular army troops. Sholes put his men to work building a hospital, and then a small fort (FORT HUNTINGTON) and a breastworks of logs and brush near the bank of Lake Erie. From that vantage point, soldiers and civilians could view a part of the British fleet that appeared off the harbor on 19 June 1813. A period of calm beset the fleet a short distance from shore, until a thunderstorm drove the potential raiders from the Cleveland area.

Americans had come to realize that control of Lake Erie was requisite to any penetration of Upper Canada. In anticipation of challenging British control of the lake, Lt. Oliver Hazard Perry constructed a fleet at Erie, PA (small boats — bateau were constructed in the upper waters of the Cuyahoga River and would later be used in the invasion of Canada). On 10 Sept. 1813, Perry accomplished his objective in magnificent fashion. Moving from his flagship, the Lawrence, when it was destroyed, he continued command from the deck of the Niagara, reporting the destruction of the British fleet in unforgettable prose: “We have met the enemy and they are ours.” Americans, starved in this second year of warfare for words of cheer, had found a worthy naval hero. By virtue of the victory, the way now was cleared for Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison’s invasion of Upper Canada. He annihilated a British-Indian force on 5 Oct. 1813 at the Battle of the Thames, ending warfare on Lake Erie and its shores. Clevelanders long reported stories of having heard gunfire from the vessels engaged in Perry’s Battle of Lake Erie, adopting Perry as a civic hero and erecting a statue of him on PUBLIC SQUARE in 1860 (see PERRY MONUMENT). Less newsworthy, but no less significant in the life of the embryonic city, was the way in which supplies for troops, mustering of militia and regular army units, and medical and hospital care for sick and wounded soldiers came to be centered at Cleveland. By the time the war ended with the Treaty of Ghent (24 Dec. 1814), the residents of the village could congratulate themselves on their brave defense against invasion (that did not occur), their logistical contributions to the nation’s military and naval efforts, and the way in which their village’s natural resources of river and harbor had become recognized as advantages for regional supply and support.

Carl Ubbelohde

Case Western Reserve Univ.

A Bad End For a Good Guy. Did Cleveland Kill Eliot Ness?

Plain Dealer article written by Brian E. Albrecht and published on September 7, 1997

 

A BAD END FOR A GOOD GUY DID CLEVELAND KILL ELIOT NESS?

Author: BRIAN E. ALBRECHT PLAIN DEALER REPORTER

She leans against a walker in a small Cleveland apartment; frail and timeworn, but with eyes blazing as bright as the memories of her years as the housekeeper, cook and friend to a living legend. 

Others knew Eliot Ness as the two-fisted Prohibition-era crimefighter who dodged bullets and bribes to help put Chicago gangster Al Capone behind bars; then rode into Cleveland to clean up the town in the best Old West/Gary Cooper tradition. 

But to Corrine Lawson, 78, he was simply Mr. Ness – a hard-drinking, hard-partying guy; silky smooth with the ladies but also kind, decent, and soft-spoken, “one of the nicest men you’d ever want to meet.” 

Come Wednesday, however, when Ness is memorialized with full pomp and ceremony at Lakeview Cemetery, his cremated remains laid to rest 40 years after his death, Lawson won’t be there. Wouldn’t, even if she could. 

Because she and others who knew Ness, or looked beyond the legend, know the story that isn’t buffed to an invisible gloss by TV and movie distortions. 

And it’s a sad one. No happy ending in this final reel. 

Cleveland represented both the brightest and darkest hours of Eliot Ness. As Public Safety Director from 1935-42, he shot to the top, moving with the movers and shaking with the shakers; scandalizing the stuffed shirts, inspiring the hopeful, scrubbing the municipal dirty laundry, and all the while, busting the bad guys. 

It was here that Ness made the leap from leader of a small team of elite federal investigators, “The Untouchables” – smashing bootleg breweries in Chicago during the Roaring Twenties – to being handed, at the age of 32, the resources of an entire city to bring to bear against crime, corruption, and all the other ills of a town mired in its own squalor. 

But it was also here that Ness started a slippery slide to financial ruin and obscurity; rejected by the city that once hailed him as its knight in shining armor; stumbling through a succession of business failures to end up sipping scotch on a barstool in a small Pennsylvania town, recalling the old glory days with the faint hope that if those memories were ever published, they’d be good for one last ride. 

They were, but Ness wasn’t aboard to enjoy it. 

Some blamed his downfall on booze; a cruel irony, if true, for a legend born by slaying the gangster dragons of Prohibition. 

Some cite bad luck and worse timing; a natural-born lawman who left his element for business and politics, and couldn’t get back. 

Others speculate that Ness may have cracked under the pressure of his failure to capture Cleveland’s infamous “Torso Murderer,” who scattered amputated pieces of his handiwork around town for three years. 

Or perhaps the knight in shining armor simply ran out of dragons to slay … 

Except his own. 

“Anyone who goes in gets his head blown off!” came the shout from the Harvard Club, one of many area gambling clubs located just beyond the Cleveland border in 1936. 

Private detectives hired by assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Charles McNamee to raid the Newburgh Heights’ casino, hesitated as customers flew out the club’s doors and windows to escape. 

The county sheriff would send no help, citing his “home rule” policy of non-interference unless asked by the local mayor. Desperate, McNamee placed a call to Cleveland’s new safety director, who soon arrived with a posse of cops who’d volunteered to act as private citizens beyond the city limits. 

“All right, let’s go,” he simply said, and Eliot Ness led his small army into the casino without a shot being fired. 

Decisive, deliberate action became a Ness trademark in Cleveland, according to Jo Chamberlin, brother of Ness’s administrative assistant and close friend, Robert Chamberlin. 

“He was always on the go, never kept regular working hours,” says Chamberlin, of Pallisades, N.Y. “If something was happening, he’d say `We’d better go take a look,’ and the next thing you know he’d be across town, and whoever happened to be with him went sailing along, too.’ 

One such rider was Viktor Schreckengost, 91, of Cleveland Heights, who knew Ness’s second and third wives, both local artists. 

He recalls attending a party in Cleveland Heights where Ness, after receiving an urgent phone call, invited him along for a ride downtown. Next thing Schreckengost knew he was part of a convoy of cars roaring down Euclid Avenue at 80 mph; sirens screaming, hearts pounding. 

When they arrived at the scene, Schreckengost was told by Ness to stay in the car, and never did find out what the call was about. “He came out after 10 or 15 minutes and said `No problem. We got it solved.’ ‘ 

It was just one of many surprises about Ness, he adds. The first time they met, “I was looking for a big fellow, and here’s this quiet guy who never liked to brag, but would just sit back and listen. Not the kind of fellow you expected to be a gangbuster at all. In fact, he was the last person you’d think would ever have anything to do with Al Capone.” 

But a much stiffer challenge awaited him as safety director, and one of the stiffest was the corruption and inefficiency that crippled the police department. Many cops were on the payroll of local mobsters, or even running small rackets of their own. 

Mayor Harold H. Burton, who’d been elected promising reform, was sure he’d appointed the right man for the job. He remarked, “Eliot Ness works hard and he serves the public, no one else.” 

Ness quickly set the tone. Six days after taking office he fired two policemen for drinking on duty, saying, “I will not stand for this sort of thing in my department. It is that simple. Either we have decent law-abiding policemen to show us the way, or we don’t.” 

Others would soon discover how serious Ness was, as a wave of transfers and dismissals swept every precinct in the city. 

Those regarding Ness’s pursuit of corruption with an almost religious zeal – labeling the youthful safety director as a “Boy Scout” and “College Cop” – weren’t far wrong, according to Paul Heimel, author of the recent biography, “Eliot Ness: The Real Story.” 

Heimel notes, “In his writings, Ness clearly saw his job as a mission, as if he had been chosen to defend all that was good about America against all that was evil.” 

To aid his investigations, Ness re-created the old Untouchables concept with a hand-picked team of incorruptible lawmen called “The Unknowns,” who worked undercover to gather evidence against criminals and crooked cops alike. 

But rooting out corruption was only half the job. It’s the other equally enduring but less colorful half that often gets lost in the legend, says Rebecca McFarland, a local expert on Ness who has lectured about his life and times for the past nine years. 

“He not only solved problems at hand, but had the foresight to look beyond a problem to make sure it didn’t happen again,” she says. “He had a tremendous impact on the city, which endures to this day.” 

Ness established the city’s first police academy, created a police scientific investigation unit, and launched a new fleet of police vehicles painted a vivid red, white and blue to increase their visible presence around town. 

He equipped prowl cars, motorcycles and his newly created “Emergency Patrol Trucks” (forerunners of today’s ambulances) with two-way radios, linked to a central communications/dispatch center. 

When he took office, Cleveland was second in the nation in traffic-related deaths and injuries. Ness rejuvenated the city’s traffic division, imposed tougher vehicle inspections, cracked down on speeders and drunk drivers, and helped devise new traffic routing and an Accident Prevention Bureau to promote traffic safety through public awareness campaigns. 

In less than four years, traffic accidents were reduced to the point where Cleveland was honored by the National Safety Council as the nation’s safest city. 

Ness had similar success in reducing juvenile crime by 62 percent. “Keep them off the streets and keep them busy,” was his credo in organizing a citywide Boy Scout program (with scoutmasters recruited from the police and fire departments), founding a Cleveland Boy’s Town program, and establishing a special police bureau to handle juvenile cases. 

Ness overhauled the fire department, arranging for new equipment to replace an aging inventory that included leaky hoses and such antiquities as one hook-and-ladder so decrepit it could only climb hills in reverse. 

In battling crime, Ness’s early effort at the Harvard Club was repeated with greater success at gambling joints inside the city limits. 

But in one case involving a surgeon’s skill and a madman’s terror, Ness failed; perhaps opening the first chinks in his seemingly invincible armor and public personna. 

Newspapers dubbed him the Mad Butcher and Torso Murderer, for his technique of of severing the limbs and heads of 12 victims left scattered across Greater Cleveland from 1935-38. Ness responded with the largest manhunt in Cleveland history, but the killer was never apprehended. 

Jim Badal, Cuyahoga Community College English professor and an authority on the torso murders, says Ness may have been out of his depth. 

“It has always been my feeling that Ness didn’t particularly want any part of it. This was a man used to dealing with men like Al Capone who committed crimes for understandable reasons – greed, jealousy, power – and Ness was smart enough to realize this was something totally new in the annals of crime, and simply didn’t want to get involved in it.” 

Steven Nickel, author of the 1989 book, “Torso,” also believes the old Chicago dazzle just didn’t cut it with serial murders. 

“He didn’t know how to handle it. When you take on mobsters, you find out where the alcohol is, you break down the door and make the bust. But with this, he didn’t know how to approach it,” Nickel says. 

“In the end, Ness probably did what he could and just came up short,” he adds. “I know it bothered him, and I know it bothered the public and probably added to the disenchantment and the crumbling of his public image in Cleveland – which is unfair, really, because he did a lot of good for the city.” 

Max Collins, author of four novels about Ness, believes the crimefighter may have actually solved the case, but at a crippling cost to his honor. 

A popular theory has Ness discovering that the killer was a member of a prominent local family. Lacking sufficient evidence to prosecute the man, Ness supposedly cut a deal in which the suspect was committed to a mental institution for life. 

Collins says Ness may have been forced into the deal by the same local movers and shakers who funded his undercover anti-corruption campaign. “When they presented the bill, when Ness had to cover-up the identity of the Butcher because he came from a well-to-do family, it would have been a staggering blow.” 

Without drawing a single drop of blood, the Mad Butcher may have claimed his 13th victim in Cleveland. 

But for Ness, who’d already spent most of his life atop a pedestal, there would soon be other ways of falling off. 

Such a good boy, this Eliot Ness. His mother once said, “He was so terribly good that he never got a spanking.” 

This son of Norwegian immigrants, raised largely by his mother and sisters because his father spent long hours at their Chicago bakery, grew up a shy loner; “Elegant Mess” his classmates taunted, for Ness’s carefully groomed appearance and aloofness. 

But he blossomed into a dashing lady’s man in high school and college, and still had the charm when he came to Cleveland with his first wife, Edna, his college sweetheart. 

Ness was divorced twice, and married three times during his 20-year tenure in Cleveland. 

“He was handsome and charming, very quiet and witty, just as nice as anyone could possibly be,” says Marjorie Mutersbaugh, 93, of Rocky River, who became a close acquaintance of Ness and his third wife, Elisabeth 

“They were so congenial,” Mutersbaugh recalls. “Betty said one time she had never been so happy in her life as when she was married to him.” 

Ness also was social whirlwind. By day, he’d hit the downtown hot spots with big-name bands, like the Lotus Gardens and Golden Pheasant; by night, dining and dancing at the Cleveland Hotel or Hollenden House, or making the rounds of private parties. 

When the badge came off, people discovered the safety director actually had a mischievous sense of humor. 

“He loved practical jokes,” says Dan T. Moore, 89, of Cleveland Heights, a friend and business associate of Ness. He recalled that Ness would invite a seven-foot-tall woman to his parties, then pair her up with the shortest man in the room, just for laughs. 

They were fun times, says housekeeper Corrine Lawson. “We used to have nice parties, and they always had a crowd. He was a party man, a party man, and all the women were just crazy about him.” 

Not that he didn’t have a few quirks. Lawson says Ness was strictly a meat-and-potatoes man. Strictly. Couldn’t stand vegetables or spices. 

“I once asked him, “How about a tossed salad?’ And he said, `Well, you go ahead and mix it up, and I’ll toss it out the window.’ 

She remembers Ness’s nervous habit of biting his fingernails to the quick, or constantly flipping his “lucky” coin in the air. 

Ness rarely carried a gun, and only kept a .22-caliber rifle in a closet at home. But some of the old habits died hard. Lawson says that whenever Ness entered a room, “he always kept his back to the wall.” 

Otherwise, there was never a hint of scandal, never even an argument or raised voice in the Ness household. 

But Ness drank. And drank heavily, Lawson says. “He always had scotch and soda. He loved his Cutty Sark.” 

In his defense, McFarland points out that back then, drinking wasn’t quite the taboo it is today; considered, after the debacle of Prohibition, “not only proper but socially acceptable.” 

It might not have even mattered until that night in 1942 when Ness skidded on an icy street, and never stopped sliding. 

Ness and his second wife, Evaline, had been out partying downtown until 4:30 a.m. when they finally hit the road … and Robert Sims. 

No one was seriously injured and Ness went home, unaware that Sims had identified the safety director’s distinctive license plate, EN-1, to police. The next day, it was headline news. 

As public criticism mounted, Cleveland’s newly elected Mayor Frank Lausche summoned the safety director to his office. 

The following morning, April 30, 1942, Ness resigned; ostensibly to assume new duties as director of the Federal Social Protection Program, but some suspected the scandal was just too much for even Lausche’s largesse. 

With America embroiled in World War II, it became Ness’s job to stamp out prostitution and venereal disease at military installations across the country. Mother Ness’s good boy would be saving other good boys for Uncle Sam. 

As the war entered its final years and the Social Protection Program disbanded, Ness launched the second phase of his career aboard a slowly sinking ship. 

Through social contacts in Cleveland, Ness met the daughter of the majority shareholder of the Diebold Safe & Lock Co. in Canton, and was subsequently installed as chairman of the company’s board of directors. 

For a time, it was smooth sailing. 

On the business front, Ness reorganized, diversified and expanded Diebold’s product line. He also joined Dan Moore in an import-export business, the Middle East Co. 

On the homefront, Ness’s second marriage, which fell apart during his term in Washington, ended in divorce. A year later he wed Elisabeth, and the couple soon adopted a 3-year-old boy, Robert; Ness’s first and only child. 

Life should have been full, but it wasn’t. Not for the old dragon-slayer. “Ness felt a growing restlesssness and an unshakable desire to return to public life,” wrote biographer Paul Heimel. 

So he ran for mayor in 1947, to the stunned shock of friends and family. 

Moore says Ness was no politician. “His idea of campaigning was to stand at the corner of E. 9th St. and Euclid Ave. and shake people’s hands … He thought he could make it work by sheer force of personality.” 

George Condon , former Plain Dealer columnist and author, covered Ness’s campaign and recently said it was a foregone conclusion, even to the candidate. 

“He knew he didn’t have a chance. His timing was terrible. He should’ve run back in ’41, but he waited too long. His name had slipped out of the public’s memory. A lot of the old glamor had faded away, and he was running against a very successful mayor (Thomas Burke) with a great personality.” 

Ness was soundly drubbed, 168,412 to 85,990, but his troubles had only just begun. Diebold executives, still resentful of Ness’s sudden appointment years earlier, took advantage of his absence while campaigning to oust him from the firm. 

The import-export business fell apart, and even Moore had to admit that if Ness was a poor politician, he was an even worse businessman. 

“He was no businessman at all. He had no instinct for it. He was completely out of his element, and it was so obvious to everybody but Eliot.” 

“He used to constantly say, when things weren’t going well, `What we need here is a break.’ Well, he sure didn’t get too many breaks.’ 

Suddenly Ness was scrambling for work; selling electronic parts, personal security alarms, and burger patties to restaurants. Nothing panned out. 

Ness finally landed a job with the Guaranty Paper and Fidelty Check Corporations, whose watermarking process showed promise of thwarting counterfeiters, and moved with the firm to Coudersport, Pa., where most of the investors lived. 

What he needed here was a break. He didn’t get one. 

The check-printing company unraveled, and the only dim light at the end of the tunnel seemed to be the manuscript that he and wire service reporter Oscar Fraley were working on, recounting Ness’s days as a Prohibition agent in Chicago. 

The book, “The Untouchables,” was due to be published just a few months from that hot afternoon of May 16, 1957, when Ness brought home a bottle of scotch, went to the kitchen sink for a glass of water and suddenly fell to the floor, dead of a heart attack at age 54. 

There were the expected, posthumous accolades. 

“A courageous, competent public official with the utmost integrity, completely devoted to duty,” said his former boss, Harold Burton. 

But perhaps the most telling testament was revealed when it was found that Ness died with only $900 in assets, including $275 in his checking account and a rusty ’52 Ford, and $8,000 in debts … no surer proof that the famed Untouchable had remained just that, to the very end. 

Elisabeth Ness and her son moved back to Cleveland where she worked as a sculptor and store clerk, while living with her former housekeeper, Corrine Lawson. 

Elisabeth Ness died of cancer in 1977, a year after her son, Robert, who had stayed in Cleveland and became an electronics technician, died of leukemia. 

There never was a marker or statue erected to honor Cleveland’s most famous safety director … until now. 

Perhaps because none was needed – at least not to those who knew the real story of Eliot Ness. 

It was, as Corrine Lawson says, “a sad story, a real sad story.” 

Biographer Paul Heimel agrees. “His life was a sad story, and I think the sadness continues today with the legend and myth so distorted at the expense of the real story.

“He always seemed not to get the credit he deserved, yet so continually sought.” 

But to Rebecca McFarland, this is the lesson to be learned beyond the tragic end, and shortcomings, usually omitted from the legend of Eliot Ness. 

It’s a lesson that lies in his accomplishments in Cleveland; in the workings of today’s police, fire and public safety departments that Ness set in motion 50 years ago. 

As McFarland notes, “When you start learning the real truth behind the man, in this case, fact is more fascinating than fiction.”

Perry Drives British From Lake Erie

Plain Dealer article written by Bob Rich and published on August 13, 1995


PERRY DRIVES BRITISH FROM LAKE ERIE

Author: BOB RICH

The War of 1812 is one of those half-forgotten wars in American history. The results were inconclusive and left the raw young country with very little to cheer about.


But for the little log-cabin village of Cleveland, it was a life-or-death matter. Villagers weren’t concerned about an invasion of British troops. The fear was of a British-inspired Indian attack on this thinly settled, undefended part of the western frontier. 

There might have been a collective guilty conscience operating here, also. Just a few weeks before the war broke out, a boisterous crowd had watched the hanging in Public Square of an Indian convicted of murdering white trappers. 

Congress declared war on Great Britain June 18, 1812; 10 days later, an express rider galloped into Cleveland with the news from Washington. Cleveland’s and Newburgh’s militias promptly formed – 50 men each – every man in his own “citizen suit,” and with his own rifle or shotgun. 

By August, the whole linchpin of America’s western frontier defense collapsed when Gen. William Hull surrendered Detroit to the British. Cleveland panicked. Rumors of British warships on Lake Erie and British offers inciting Indians to the warpath sent the citizens running for the hills of rival villages. 

But 30 Clevelanders swore they would die rather than give up their tiny Fort Huntington, on the bluff where W. 3rd St. and Lakeside Ave. meet. Julianna Long, Dr. David Long’s wife, and two other women wouldn’t abandon the garrison. She “could nurse the sick and wounded, encourage and comfort those who could fight; at any rate, she would not by her example, encourage disgraceful flight.” 

By June 1813, it began to look like the garrison might have to live up to its vow when two British warships appeared off the mouth of the Cuyahoga to bombard the shipworks along the shore. Cleveland shipbuilders had been cutting down the dense forests around the village for lake schooners and had supplied the Navy with the 60-ton brig “Ohio,” a strong addition to Commodore Perry’s Lake Erie fleet. 

British firepower was about to put an end to this war industry when Lake Erie came through with one of its notorious summer squalls. Crashing waves pounded the hulls of the British ships, rattled their masts, and probably their morale, too. The next morning, when a thick fog lifted off the lake, the British were gone. 

They were next heard from Sept. 10, 1813, when Oliver Hazard Perry’s fleet, with heavier guns, took them on in Put-in-Bay off Sandusky in the famous Battle of Lake Erie. Clevelanders swore afterward they could hear the cannon fire 60 miles away. His message to Gen. William Henry Harrison, commander in chief of the northwestern army, reflects his pride and exuberance: “We have met the enemy and they are ours, two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop.” 

The battle became legend, and the victory lifted the British threat from the Great Lakes. 

When peace came in 1814, Cleveland went wild. Public Square was packed with an excited, drunken, noisy crowd. 

Another era ended that same year. Lorenzo Carter, Cleveland’s real founder, frontiersman, trader and adventurer, would die, and one of those dynamic Connecticut Yankees, Alfred Kelly, would lead Cleveland into a new, exciting future. 

It certainly didn’t look that way at the time. Kelly had come to the village in 1810, became the first practicing attorney, and was elected to the state legislature in 1814. He quickly saw to it that Cleveland was incorporated as a village, which at the time extended from Erie (E. 9th St.) west to the Cuyahoga, and Huron St. north to the lake. 

It still looked like a transplanted New England village with its frame houses set around Public Square, no more or less important than say, Lorain or Sandusky. In fact, the rivers in the latter two towns worked a lot better than the Cuyahoga. A sandbar reached out from the eastern shore of Lake Erie, blocked the harbor and forced ships to unload their cargoes offshore. The water at the river mouth was 3 to 4 feet, motionless, filled with trash and garbage – a breeding ground for typhoid fever, cholera and malaria. 

Here’s what the future great educator Harvey Rice would say about his arrival in September 1824, on a schooner from Buffalo: “A sand-bar prevented the schooner from entering the river … The jolly boat was let down … and we were rowed over the sandbar into the placid waters of the river, and landed on the end of a row of planks that stood on stilts and bridged the marshy brink of the river, to the foot of Union Lane. Here we were left standing with our trunks on the wharf-end of a plank at midnight, strangers in a strange land.” 

Rice describes Public Square as “begemmed with stumps, while near its center glowed its crowning jewel, a log courthouse. The eastern border of the Square was skirted by the native forest, which abounded in rabbits and squirrels, and afforded the villagers a `happy hunting-ground.’ The entire population at that time didn’t exceed 400 souls. The town, even at that time, was proud of itself, and called itself, the `Gem of the West.’ 

A year later, in 1825, Congress would vote funds for clearing the river and harbor, which would make a phenomenal difference, but it would be awhile before Cleveland would become a gem of the West.

When Cleveland Almost Went a Bridge Too Far

Plain Dealer article written by Bob Rich and published on September 17, 1995

 

WHEN CLEVELAND ALMOST WENT A BRIDGE TOO FAR

Author: Bob Rich

 

Like two Balkan nations, Cleveland and Ohio City existed in a state of uneasy truce in 1837; but there was big trouble brewing, and it was coming to a head over a bridge. 

In 1822, when the Cuyahoga River could only be crossed by boat, the towns jointly built a float bridge from the foot of Detroit Ave. to the foot of Superior St. That was the end of their cooperation, however. 

A few years later, the Ohio Canal opened and created a boom for both communities. The river banks were lined with forwarding and commission houses, ship chandlers, merchants and artisans. Hundreds of wagons of produce from the south and west would run along Pearl Rd. and pass through Ohio City before crossing over the jointly owned float bridge at the foot of Detroit to ship their goods out of the port of Cleveland. 

West Side merchants and saloons prospered as much as their East Side counterparts when more than 1,900 sailing vessels and steamboats would weigh in at Cleveland Harbor in a year’s time. 

Cleveland grew to a population of 6,000 by 1836, with little Ohio City at 2,000, but when both communities raced to become the first city incorporated in Cuyahoga County, the West Side won the title by a few days. All the old bitterness emerged. 

There were other needles under East Siders’ skins: West Side developers were planning an 80-acre development in the Flats and were talking of digging another channel from the river so they could have their own harbor. They built a fine five-story hotel, the Ohio City Exchange, which came to dominate the whole area socially. The hotel’s dome lights were kept lighted all night, serving as a landmark and a guide for ships coming into Cleveland Harbor. 

Some East Siders, with an appalling lack of civic loyalty, were scheduling banquets and balls in the great new edifice. New arrivals in the Western Reserve were bypassing the East Side and buying desirable West Side lots just like in the old pioneer days. 

Then two buccaneering real estate speculators brought things to an explosive head. James Clark and his partner, Cleveland’s first city mayor, John Willey, bought up land ringing Ohio City to the south and west, built improvements on it, and extended Columbus St. from the West Side to the Cuyahoga River south of the Detroit Ave. float bridge. 

There, for $15,000, they built a roofed, enclosed drawbridge. The city director proclaimed, “This splendid bridge was presented to the corporation of Cleveland by the owners with the express stipulation that it should remain forever free for the accommodation of the public …” 

Traffic from the south could now be led up to Ontario and Prospect streets, where the partners had built commercial properties called Cleveland Centre. This may have had something to do with their high-minded community spirit. 

To encourage the traffic bypass even more, Cleveland City Council (remember, Willey was the mayor) directed the removal of the Cleveland half of the Detroit Ave. float bridge. 

“This act was performed one night while the Ohio citizens lay dreaming of future municipal greatness,” historian James Kennedy wrote 100 years ago. “And when the morning mists arose from over the valley of the Cuyahoga, they saw their direct communication gone, and realized that to reach the courthouse and other points of interest in Cleveland, they would be compelled to travel southward, and make use of the hated Columbus St. bridge.” 

At dawn the first morning the bridge section was gone, horse-drawn wagons from the West Side had to be desperately reined in before they plunged into the river. 

Now the dogs of war were let loose. “Two bridges or none!” became the West Side war cry. The Ohio City marshal and his deputies tried to dynamite their end of the Columbus St. bridge; when that fizzled, 1,000 West Siders descended on it with picks, axes, clubs and muskets, and were busily ripping up planks when the Cleveland militia arrived to join the melee. 

Shots were fired, heavy blows exchanged. Fortunately, the Cuyahoga County sheriff called a halt to the battle before anyone was killed. 

The courts eventually settled the matter in favor of two bridges, and both towns have mixed freely ever since.

Hanna Was At The Forefront of U.S., City Politics

Plain Dealer article written by Bob Rich and published on March 17, 1996

 

HANNA WAS AT THE FOREFRONT OF U.S., CITY POLITICS

Author: BOB RICH
You can’t talk about the political history of the United States or Cleveland in the late 19th century without taking Mark Hanna’s career and times into account. 

He was more than just Tom Johnson’s chief antagonist during the early years of the street railway wars. He was the Boss of Bosses of the Republican Party, the man who could make a president, tough, brilliant and ruthless. 

And Mark Hanna was nobody’s hired puppet; he firmly believed that if Big Business was left alone to make big profits, it would employ more workers, pay them better wages, and they in turn would buy more American goods, keeping the wheels turning in a beautiful circle. Later generations would call this the “trickle-down theory.” 

Hanna was born to prosperous New Lisbon, Ohio, parents, Dr. Leonard and Samantha Hanna, who moved to Cleveland in 1852 when the Ohio Canal bypassed their town. Mark was 16 years old when he attended Central High School, where his classmates included the Rockefeller brothers, William and John D., and the latter’s future bride, Laura Spelman. 

Young Hanna enrolled at Western Reserve College in Hudson in 1857, and departed after only four months to his and the college’s mutual relief; apparently, the college didn’t appreciate his practical jokes. 

Mark got a job in his family’s wholesale grocery and commission house business in the Flats, where he kept the books, acted as purser on their lake steamers, and was a traveling salesman through Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. 

Mark Hanna cast his first Republican vote in 1860 for Abraham Lincoln, and wanted to enlist a year later when the Civil War broke out. But he was the only one who knew the family business inside out; he stayed, and brother Howard joined the army. 

Mark met Charlotte Augusta Rhodes of Franklin Circle at a bazaar about a year later, and she returned his affections. But she was the daughter of Dan Rhodes, the richest coal-and-iron merchant in town and the town’s leading Democrat, and he didn’t want his daughter to marry any “damned black Republican.” True love and Cleveland society, who wanted this match, persevered; Mark and Charlotte were married at St. John’s Episcopal church in September 1864. 

Now Hanna set to work building a business empire: lake steamers, iron ore, his father-in-law’s coal mines, oil refining – and Cleveland politics. But here he found that he couldn’t interest his friends in, say, a Republican caucus, and he bored them by pushing them to attend political meetings or give up their duck-hunting and go to the polls on Election Day. Years later, he would say, “Your newspapers used to gas about the great excitement of some election … and then we had to hire livery hacks to get the voters to come and vote!” 

Local Republican machine politics infuriated him with their buying and selling of immigrant votes, so much so, in fact, that he and some fellow Republicans bolted the party in 1873 to help elect a reputable Democratic mayor. 

That was the year that the worst financial panic in America’s history – up to that point – broke out. Hundreds of thousands were thrown out of work as banks and stock markets collapsed, and businesses, mines and railroads failed. The price of coal, along with everything else, plummeted. When mine owners cut wages, a new coal miners union was organized and sent delegates to beg the owners for living wages. Only Mark Hanna even listened to them, and offered to help them. He had formed a coal operators association and believed in what would now be called collective bargaining. Hanna also believed, his son said in later years, “that some corporations and large industrial concerns were deliberately bleeding their workmen as a matter of selfish economy.” 

When operators reduced wages again in 1876 – against Hanna’s advice – the union couldn’t keep the men from striking. Two of Hanna’s mines were set on fire, the militia was called out, and a company employee shot. Hanna found himself, as head of the operators association, with the responsibility of seeing that 23 half-starved miners were punished by law. 

No reputable lawyer from the mine counties would touch the case except one: Major William McKinley of Canton, a staunch Republican who was being mentioned as a congressional candidate. McKinley would win his clients’ freedom – and he would win something much more that would change his life forever: the respect and admiration of his courtroom opponent, Marcus Alonzo Hanna.


Teaching Cleveland Digital