Cuyahoga County, Ohio - Progress, Inflation and "hard Times., 1870

Progress, Inflation and "hard Times.

Work begun on the Canal - Growth of Cleveland - Completion of Erie Cana! - First Appropriation for Harbor--The '' Superior '' - Increasing Business - '* Black Salts' - Cleveland and Newburg--Contest over Court-House- - Cleveland Successful - Erecting New Court House - "The Blue Jug "' - Cuyahoga County Colonization Society - The Canal opened to Akron - Celebration under Difficulties - Trade with the Northwest - A County Wolf-Bounty - Horse Thieves and Counterfeiters - Discount on Bank Bills - Jiard Times for Creditors - Rails at Ten Cents Each - Sale of Western Reserve School Lands - Land begins to rise - Laying out of Ohio City - Modest Railroads - Others not so Modest - The Ohio Railroad - The Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus Road - The Cleveland, Warren and Pittsburg Road - The "Flush Times ' - Immense Increase of Paper Money - Inflation of Values - Special Speculation on the Cuyahoga - The Climax in 1830 - The Great Crash in 1837 - -Failure of Banks and Individuals - Stoppage of Public Works - ''Hard Times'' - The Patriot War - Deer feeding with the Cows.

WorRK was_speedily commenced at various points along the route of the canal; ground being broken at Cleveland on the 4th of July, 1825. At that time begins the rapid growth of Cleveland. ont nearly thirty years before, it was in 1825 a mere village of five or six hundred inhabitants; but from the beginning of the Ohio canal to the present time its growth has been one of the marvels even of the marvelous West.

In the autumn of the same year the Erie canal was completed, and boats were set running between Albany and Buffalo. This opened a market for those agricultural productions of northern Ohio which could reach the lake, and a decided improvemeut in prices was the result. In this year, also, the first appropriation was made by the general government for a harbor at Cleveland. 'The circumstances connected with its construction are given in detail in the history of the city.

The " Walk-in-the-Water" had been wrecked, but a new steamer, the '"'Superior," had taken its place. In 1826 the '*' Henry Clay" came out, and from that time there was a very rapid growth of the steam marine on Lake Hrie.

All these things greatly increased the travel over the roads of Cuyahoga county. Not only were the farmers of the county eager to reach a port where they could exchange their productions for imported articles, but the slow Pennsylvania Germans of northeastern Ohio, in large numbers, drove their big wagons, with enormously-wide tires, over the muddy roads through Orange, Solon, Warrensville, Bedford, Newburg, etc., to the mouth of the Cuyahoga; inquiring there for 'de John Blair vat kips de vite fishes," a favorite dealer of the olden time. There they unloaded their flour and wheat, and loaded up with fish, salt, etc. Sometimes three barrels of flour were given for one barrel of salt.

By this time the manufacture of "black salts," potash and pearlash had become an important industry. The clearing of the land of timber furnished an immense quantity of ashes on nearly every farm; for even those who had quite old locations were constantly clearing off new lots. The ashes being leached, the ley was boiled down into a dark solid, known as 'black salts." This was usually sold to the owner of a local ashery, frequently the village merchant, who made it into potash or pearlash and sent it cast for sale. It could be transported at slight expense, and would always bring cash at some price: consequently many a farmer who could only trade his wheat or oats for ''store-pay" of some kind, was obliged to depend on his '' black salts" for the money to pay his taxes, and for a few other necessary expenses which must be met with cash.

By 1826 the people had become satisfied that a new court-house was indispensable for the rising business of the county. As on the erection of the first one in 1812, so again, there was a sharp dispute whether the new one should be located at Cleveland or Newburg. For a long time the latter had been superior to the former in population, business and prosperity. Cleveland was now increasing much the more rapidly, and bade fair to be an important place, yet Newburg was more centrally located, and a large proportion of the inhabitants favored the removal of the county-seat to that point.

The power to make the location was vested in the county commissioners. One of these died, and of the two others, one favored Cleveland and one Newburg as the county seat. An election to fill the vacancy came off in 1826. It turned entirely on the countyseat question, one candidate being a friend of Cleveland and one of Newburg, and a very hot contest was the result. The Cleveland man was elected by a small majority.

The next year, 1827, a new, brick court-house was begun, situated in the southwest part of the public square at Cleveland, across the street from the front of the present Forest City House. It was completed in 1828, and the first court was held in-it on the 28th of October in that year. 'This was the scene of the administration of justice for Cuyahoga county for thirty years. It was a two-story brick building, with a wooden cupola, standing with its face toward the lake, and was considered a very elegant structure. The lower story was divided into rooms for the accommodation of the various county officers, while the upper story served as a court room.

Four years later a substantial stone jail was erected on the ground south of the southwest corner of the square; being in rear of the court-house and across the street from it. This was a gloomy-looking structure, and was commonly called '' The Blue Jug."

Among the events of fifty years ago, one which now seems.separated by an immense gulf from the ideas of the present day was the organization, in 1827, of the Cuyahoga County Colonization Society; a branch of the national institution of that name, designed to promote the removal of the colored people to Africa. able to their freedom, as it was supposed that many Southerners would be willing to emancipate their slaves if assured that they would not remain in the

At the meeting for the purpose of organization, in this county, an address was delivered by the Rev. William Stone, and a prayer by the Rev. 8. J. Bradstreet. Samuel Cowles, Esq., was chosen president; Rev. Randolph Stone, Hon. Nemiah Allen, Datus Kelley, Josiah Barber and Gen. Lewis R. Dille, vice presidents; A. W. Walworth, treasurer; James S. Clarke, secretary, and Mordecai Bartley, delegate to the national society.

On the Fourth of July in this year, (1827,) just two years after ground was broken on the Ohio canal at Cleveland, it was technically ''opened for navigation" from Cleveland to Akron with a grand celebration. It was opened under difficulties, however; for the two northernmost locks, which connected the canal with the Cuyahoga river at Cleveland, were not yet completed.

But Noble H. Merwin, of the last named place, was determined that there should be a big celebration, not only over the canal but on the canal, on the Fourth of July of that year. So he had the canalpacket '' Pioneer " brought from Buffalo, took it up the river above the locks, and hauled it with teams over the embankment into the canal. Thence a large party of the principal people of Cleveland went up the canal on the "Pioneer," till they met the boat " Allen Trimble," from Akron, having on board the person for whom it was named, who was then governor of Ohio, together with the canal commissioners and many others from the central parts of the S tate.

Flags fluttered gayly in the breeze, cannon thundered their boisterous welcome, speeches full of roseate prophesy were made, and all were intensely enthusiastic over the great event of the day. Such enthusiasm over such a cause may scem overstrained in these fast times, when railroads have absorbed nearly all the commerce of this region, and the canals are looked on as extremely old fogyish institutions. Nevertheless the Fourth day of July, 1827, was a great day for northern Ohio. An immense tract, previously almost entirely isolated, was provided with the means of transporting its produce to the markets of the East, and every kind of business showed an immediate and very marked improvement in consequence. It is doubtful if railroads would have been built as soon as they were, had not the wealth of the country first been largely increased by the construction of. canals.

The Ohio canal was completed through the State in five years afterward, and its increased business nearly all poured through Cuyahoga county to seek Lake Erie.

Besides the trade with the East, which was so rapidly being developed at this period, there was also a strong demand for breadstuffs and other articles to send to the distunt regions of the Northwest, which the farmers farther up the lakes were unable to supply. In 1827 the Hudson Bay Company advertised for a thousand bushels of white, flint corn, two hundred bushels of other corn, and two hundred barrels of flour, besides considerable quantities of salt, pork, tallow, tobacco, highwines, ete. Large quantities of produce were also sent to emigrants in Michigan and other Territories, who had not yet raised crops large enough for their own support.

Notwithstanding all this commercial activity, and notwithstanding the zeal of the pioneers with their rifles, wolves still glided through the forest in many townships, and made rapid slaughter upon any unguarded sheep they could discover. In 1827 the county commissioners offered a bounty of fifteen dollars for the scalp of every wolf slain in 'the county. Many of the townships also gave from five to ten dollars per scalp, so that wolf-hunting was sometimes quite a profitable business.

Crimes, too, were not unknown in those '' good old times," to which so many look back with fond regret as to an Elysian age. Perhaps there were not as many high-toned criminals - official defaulters and gentlemanly murderers - as there are now, but good, plain thieves were as plentiful as any reasonable person could desire. The more daring class devoted themselves largely to horse-stealing, and throughout the West the professors of that art were united in a great fraternity, members of which, of apparently respectable character, were to be found in nearly every township. Many a horse, which suddenly left its owner's pasture in the dark and was followed with hue and cry by himself and his neighbors, went no farther . than the next township, where it was quietly kept till the storm had blown over, in the stable of some respectable justice of the peace or venerable deacon of the church.

The less courageous or more skillful rascals usually devoted themselves to the manufacture of counterfeit money. 'The 'dollar of our fathers" was very apt to be a bogus article. There were reported to be places where bad money was coined in Brecksville, in Royalton, in Middleburg, and doubtless in other secluded localities. 'The machinery of the Middleburg institution was found, long after it had been abandoned, on a small island in the midst of a large swamp in that township. Counterfeit half-dollars were the favorite productions of these unlawful mints, though other silver coins were frequently imitated. It was said that large orders for bad silver came from Pennsylvania, where no bank-bills of less than five dollars were'allowed to circulate. Prosecutions were extremely difficult, as the criminals were frequently men of some local and political influence, and ' straw bail" was readily accepted by the officials.

We do not learn so much about counterfeiting bankbills in those days; partly, doubtless, because that business required more expense and skill than was avuilable in this region, and partly because Ohio bank bills were so poor that it was not very profitable to counterfeit them. The ordinary discount on them in

1830 was from twenty-five to thirty per cent., and in some cases it was much larger. A respectable rascal would naturally be ashamed to counterfeit such moncy as that.

Debts against individuals were frequently even less valuable than these heavily discounted bank-bills. We have noticed in a previous chapter that a representative from Cuyahoga county made the first movement ever made - so far as known - looking to the abolition of imprisonment for debt. By 1830 Ohio had gone to the extreme of liberality toward debtors, and by means of stay-laws and provisions for appraisals had made it almost impossible to collect an accowht under any circumstances.

A Cleveland merchant had a claim of seventyfive dollars against a resident of Middleburg. Being unable to collect it, he sued it, obtained a judgment and directed a Middleburg constable to sell the personal property of the defendant. At the time fixed for the sale the Clevelander went out on horseback to attend it. By law the constable was authorized to appraise the property at what he might consider a reasonable price, and below which it could not be sold. When the creditor arrived, he found that the complaisant official had appraised an old watch, worth about five dollars, at twenty dollars; a dog, probably worth five cents, at ten dollars; a lot of rails at ten cents each, and other things in proportion. Of course a sale was impossible, as no one would. bid half of the appraised value, and the unlucky creditor returned bome in disgust; the only result of the trip being that his horse had torn off, on the corduroy which formed a large portion of the road, three of the four new shoes which guarded his feet on starting.

Among the various cessions of land occurring in connection with the final settlement of the title to the Northwestern Territory, congress assigned fiftysix thousand acres in what was known as the Virginia Military District, for the benetit of the schools of the Western Reserve. In 1831, Harvey Rice, Esq., of Cleveland, was appointed an agent by the State to convert them into money. He opened an office at Millersburg, Holmes county, in the district in question, and in three years sold all the lands and paid into the treasury of the State abont a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, to be devoted to the exclusive purpose of educating the children of the Western Reserve.

By 1831, land began to rise throughout the eountry, in consequence of the stimulus supplied by internal improvements, especially canals, which were being constructed in numerous localities. The rise was city might be constructed, and the point at the mouth of the Cuyahoga was not neglected. An association of Buffalonians, known as the Buffalo Company, bought a tract on the west side of the river, and soon afterwards "Ohio City" was laid out at that point. Farmers, too, began to think that they were to become wealthy by the rise of their land, and at every little village, especially along the canals and rivers, people began to discuss the probability of the construction of a large town tliere.

'Erie to the Ohio river, and its commerce rapidly increased to large proportions. In two years after its completion the freight carried upon it amounted to half a million bushels of wheat, a hundred thousand barrels of flour, a million pounds of butter and near seventy thousand pounds of cheese, with other things in proportion. Even this would not be considered very remarkable now, but at that time it made the people stare with wonder and filled their minds with hopes of unlimited riches.

In 1834 a proposition was made to incorporate a city which should include both Cleveland and Ohio City, but the leading men on the two sides of the river were unable to agree on the terms of union or the boundaries, and the whole project fell through.

In 1835 the first railroad, the Cleveland and Newburg, was incorporated in the county. It was built soon afterwards, and was operated for several years, though only by horse power ; being used for hauling stone and Inmber, and occasionally for the carriage of passengers. The Cleveland and Bedford railroad was also incorporated the same year, but was never built.

It will be seen that the first beginnings of railroading in this region were very modest, and such were generally its characteristics throughout the country. People planned canals hundreds of miles in length, and constructed them according to the plans, but railroads were awe-inspiring undertakings, and men usually built them from one village to the next one ; if that operation worked well they extended the work to another village, andso on. But in this wide-uwake region they soon grew more enterprising; as will speedily be seen.

Another cautious attempt at railroading was made about the same time by constructing a tramway, with wooden rails and operated by horse-power, running from the public square at Cleveland up Euclid street, (avenues were then unknown,) and out on the Euclid road, four miles, to the '' Doan's Corners" of the early settlers, whieh '' high-toned" people then began to call '' East Cleveland."

But the tide of enterprise and even of reckless speculation was rapidly rising, and a much more ambitious project, rather an exception to the usual railroad enterprises of the day, was soon set on foot. This was the '' Ohio Railroad," designed to run from the Pennsylvania line to Toledo, cluse along the lake shore ; a large part of it being intended to be on piles. Considerable work was done on it, but no iron was laid, and it was abandoned at the time of the great crash which will be mentioned alittle fartheron. Its corporate rights were transferred to the Junction Railroad Company, and through it to the Cleveland and Toledo, and finally to the Lake Shore and Southern Michigan Company.

At the same prolific period a project was started for a railroad from Cleveland to Cincinnati. The late Ion. John Barr visiled Cincinnati, getting up petitions in favor of the road, and also spent considerable time at Columbus. The legislature of 1836 readily granted a charter for the proposed road, and also one for the Cleveland, Warren and Pittsburg road, and Mr. Barr brought the first copies of both charters to Cleveland. The last mentioned road was to run from Cleveland through Warren to the State line, connecting there with a road to Pittsburg, or to any other point on the Ohio river.

Its charter was extremely liberal, and 1s a good specimen of the kind of legislation prevalent in those halcyon days. It allowed the president and directors to create and sell stock as in their judgment the occasion might require; without limit as to amount, except that it must not execed the needs of the company. They had also full power to select a route, condemn land, occupy the road, and transport persons or property by steam, animal or other power. The projectors were as modest in the estimate of cost, however, as could well be desired. They calculated the expense at seven thousand dollars per mile, though in fact it was more likely to have been twenty thousand.

These were the celebrated 'flush times; " the period when speculation raged more fiereely - when every one got richer on paper - than was ever the case in the United States either before or since. John Law's Mississippi scheme and South Sea bubble, as exploited among the excitable French, could alone outdo the great land-speculation and business-speculation of 1835, °36 and 3%.

The closing of the United States Bank had been followed by the chartering of an immense number of State banks, some of which had a small amount of capital, more of which had a still smaller amount, and most of which had substantially no capital at all. In the West and South this was peculiarly the case, paper was accepted everywhere with the most sublime confidence; private credit was almost unlimited, business was going ahead at a tremendous rate, and everybody was getting rich - in imagination - with unparalleled speed. ras of inflation, somewhat similar in general character to that one, have been known since then, but none that approached it in the degree of expansion.

Of course any place marked out by nature for the site of » great city was, with its vicinity, the scene of an especial energy of speculation. The location at the moath of the Cuyahoga was not only thus designated by nature, but, by the construction of the canal, had been made in the eyes of the public the future great city of northern Ohio.

sult. Their own roseate hopes colored everything on which they looked, and they saw the few thousand people already there expanding to a hundred thousand with unspeakable rapidity; while stately churches, palatial residences and six-story business blocks should overshadow the turbid waters and adorn the rolling uplands of the Cuyahoga. Those of them who lived long did see all this, but not then.

The climax of the specnlation was in 1836. Not only in Cleveland, but to a less degree in every little village throughout the county, people expected to make their fortune by buying land, holding it a year or two, and selling it at ten or twenty times the purchase price; even the farmers were not free from the infection. Produce of every kind emulated the balloon-like tendency of real estate. The whole country, (and especially the tract on the main line of communication between the Hast and the West, which then as now ran along the southern shore of Lake Erie), was in a ferment of unlimited money-making on paper, and debt-making in fact.

In 1837 the crash came. The inflation by means of plentiful but baseless paper money had been carried as far as it could, and the bubble burst. Nearly all the banks in the country speedily went down under the storm. Private credit was found equally valucless. The whole country staggered under the blow, but of course it was felt with the greatest severity in the West, where there was but little accumulated capital to withstand such a shock, and where the enthusiastic nature of the people had caused them to plunge most deeply into the tide of speculation.

Nearly every business man in Cuyahoga county failed. All the great railroad enterprises of which we have spoken - the Ohio railroad, the Cleveland, Warren and Pittsburg road, and the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati road - stopped as if smitten with paralysis, and not a stroke of work was done upon them for years afterward. Numerous buildings in town and country, in yarious stages of progress, stayed their upward course when the financial collapse palsied their owners' hands, and long remained, abandoned and unfinished, "the moumful monuments of. their intended greatness."

The period was long afterward designated as par excellence **'The Hard Times," and no one ever disputed the propriety of the appellation. Other times have been '' hard," but no others have approached in adamantine solidity the dreadful period from 1837 to 1840.

During the winter of 1837-8 there was great excitement along the whole northern frontier in relation to what was known as the Patriot war - the effort of a small portion of the Canadians to sever the Canadas from the mother country. The few " patriots" depended principally on the assistance they received from sympathizers on this side. On both the Niagara and the Detroit frontiers there was a good deal of mustering and marching, and a very little fighting, and even in this vicinity, notwithstanding the inter- vention of the lake, there were a good many efforts to afford aid to those whom a majority of our people looked upon as battling in the cause of freedom. Ilenry H. Dodge, of Cleveland, was elected by the legislature major general of the ninth division of the Ohio militia, and especially charged with the maintenance of order along the frontier. Tis delicate, if not arduous, duties were discharged in a manner entirely satisfactory to both the governor of Ohio and the authorities of Canada. There being a sad lack of rebels in Canada, the rebellion was easily extinguished in 1838, and amid more exciting events soon almost passed from the memory of the busy people on this side.

and in fact from 1815, down to 1837, was one of rapid development throughout the country, yet evidences were frequently seen that the wilderness was not yet quite numbered among the things of the past. Capt. Lewis Dibble, of Cleveland, mentions seeing a deer near where Willson avenue now is, in 1837, or later. Discovering the presence of man, he bounded away, sailed gracefully over the fences and dashed away into the woods. Still later, Capt. Dibble mentions secing deer feeding among the cows in Euclid. In the more retired townships, such as Middleburg, Olmstead, Solon, etc., not only deer but bears and wolves were still occasionally slain by adroit hunters.

The Period From 1840 To 1861

Beginning to recover - Anger at the Party in Power - Formation of Lake County - Its Area - The Water Part of Cuyahoga County - Population in 184/0 - The Log-Cabin Campaign - A Fugitive Slave Case - Changes of Boundary on the Line of Orange - Alfred Kelley - Railroad Talk revived - A Vote of Aid - The C. C. & C. Road reorganized - The Junction Railroad - The Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland Road - Dark Prospects - The Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Road - Great Days for Steamboats - List of the Principal Steamers in 1850 - Later Steamers - Propellers - Stage Coaches - End of the Hunting and Log-House Period - Population in 1850 - Opening the First Railroad - Other Enterprises go forward - Direct Trade with Europe - A Fleet from Cnyahoga County - American Skill - The Panic of 1857 - The Census of 1860 - Origin of the Celebration of Periy's Victory - The Contract - The Sculptor - Invitations - Governors Sprague and Dennison - Immense Crowds - The Military Companies - The Orators of the Day - Distinguished Persons Present - The Monument and Statue - Masonie Ceremonies - The Mock Battle - The Military Review - The last great Peaceful Gathering - The Political Campaign - The Events of the Winter.

By the spring of the year 1840 the people began to recover, though only slowly, from the disastrous financial reverse of 1837. They were still sore and angry over the sudden collapse of the wind-inflated mountain of supposed wealth on which they had perched themselves, and were prepared to visit with condign punishment the Democratic party, under whose rule it had occurred; partly because that party was held responsible for the destruction of the old United States Bank and the chartering of so many worthless State banks, and partly because the party in

On the 20th day of March, 1840, the county of Lake was formed, principally from Geauga county, but including the township of Chagrin, (now Willoughby,) in this county. This was an extraordinary example of the eagerness of at least a portion of the people for new counties and new offices. The constitution of the State required that every county should have an area of at least four hundred square miles. To give the proposed county of Lake such an extent, it was necessary not only to take Willoughby from Cuyahoga, but to estimate as a part of the constitutional area that part of the surface of Lake Erie lying between the water-front of Geauga county and the boundary between the United States and Canada. This was decided to be technically a part of Geauga county, and by that method the area of the county was inflated to the desired amount.

So it will be remembered that Cuyahoga embraces, not only the tract of about four hundred and fifty square miles of land usually included within its limits, but another tract of not less than a thousand square miles of water, with all that hes above it and below it, as far as man can ascend or descend.

By the census of 1840 the population of Cuyahoga was twenty-five thousand, five hundred and forty-two, divided among the various townships as follows: Cleveland, 7037; Mayfield, 852; Orange, 1114; Solon, 774; Euclid, 1774; Warrensville, 1085; Bedford, 2021; Newburg, 1342; Independence, 754; Brecksville, 1124; Brooklyn, 1409; Parma, 965; Royalton, 1051; Rockport, 1151; Middleburg, 339; Strongsville, 1151; Dover, 960; Olmstead, 659.

The summer and autumn of 1840 were long remembered as the time of the celebrated ''log-cabin " campaign in favor of General Harrison. The Western Reserve was one of the strongholds of Whiggery, and a very large majority of the voters of Cuyahoga county were enthusiastic supporters of Harrison. They joined with immense zest in the numerous jubilant demonstrations characteristic of that campaign, and when the great celebration was held on the battle field of Tippecanoe nearly half the men in the county turned out to attend it. So strong was the popular feeling, and so eager was the desire to see the celebration, that even the Democrats made the pilgrimage in organized bodies, sharing in the marches and maneuvers of their Whig brethren, but drawing aside and resuming their party fealty as they reapproached their homes. Cuyahoga gave a large majority of her votes for General Harrison, who, as is well known, was triumphantly elected.

The situation of Cleveland, as the principal port on the south shore of Lake Erie, made Cuyahoga county a natural resort for slaves seeking to escape from both Kentucky and Virginia. Down to 1841 slave owners were in the habit of sending their agents to Cleveland, who caused those they accused of being runaways to be arrested and taken before a magistrate, when a warrant was issued, almost as a matter of form, and they were taken to the State of the claimant.

In the spring of 1841 three negroes, supposed to have escaped from, New Orleans were found in Buffalo, whence they were kidnapped, brought to Cleveland, arrested under the old law of the United States, and thrown into jail. Edward Wade and John A. Foot, two of the few Abolitionists in the city, applied for admission to see them and were refused. Thomas Bolton, (afterwards Judge Bolton,) a prominent lawyer, indignant at this violation of justice, made the | same request, and, not being an Abolitionist, was at once admitted. He consulted with the negroes, and announced his intention of defending them. So strong was the fecling against anything that could be called Abolitionism that much indignation was expressed against Mr. Bolton in consequence, and there was even talk of tearing down his office.

With undaunted firmness, however, he persisted in his course, showed up the iniquity of the proceedings in relation to the kidnapping, and procured the discharge of the negroes. The event had a great effect in breaking up the habit of sending off negroes without an investigation, and for twenty years no more slaves were taken back to the South from Cuyahoga county.

On the 29th day of January, 1841, lots seventeen, eighteen and nineteen, in the southwest corner of the township of Russell, in Geauga county, were annexed to Orange, in this county; -the object being to inelude the whole of the rising village of Chagrin Falls, which had previously been cut in two, almost in the center, by the county Ime. At the same time a strip ninety rods wide, lying along the north half of the east line of Orange, was annexed to Russell as a compensation for the former transfer. On the 11th of January, 1843, the strip just mentioned was reannexed to Orange, this being the last change in the much-distorted boundaries of Cuyahoga county.

So heavy were the burdens caused by unwise speculation and financial disaster, and so eager were demagogues, then as now, to seek popularity by plundering the public creditor, that there was a strong fecling in the legislature of 1842 in favor of repudiating the debt of the State. Meanwhile an instalment of interest was coming due, and there was no money in the treasury to pay it with. Ion. Alfred Kelley, of Cleveland, who was then State fund-commissioner, went to New York and raised half a million dollars on his own security, to meet the payment.

For several years after the great crash of 1837 the people of Cuyahoga county were willing to plod along very quietly; only striving that if possible they might recover from that tremendous shock. But about 1844 they began to talk about railroads again. In that year Ion. John Barr wrote a sketch of Cleveland and a description of its trade, for the National Review, published in New York.

hundred thousand dollars, to aid in building a railroad to Cincinnati, and for one hundred thousand dollars to build one to Erie. The same year the charter of the Cleveland, Warren and Pittsburg read was revived; the directors being authorized to build it on the nearest and most practicable route from Cleveland to the Ohio river.

The old, lapsed charter of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati project was also revived, and a new company was organized, with Hon. J. W. Allen, of Cleveland, as president, and Richard Hillard, John M. Woolsey and HW. B. Payne as the other Cleveland directors. The act reviving the charter contained a clause permitting the city of Cleveland to subscribe two million dollars to the stock of the company. 'This was promptly done, but private subscriptions were slow and few, and the prospects of the enterprise were not at all brilliant.

In March, 1846, the Junction railroad company was incorporated, with an imaginary capital of three million dollars, and authorized to build a road from the Cleveland to the west line of the State, on such route as might be chosen.

About the same time the Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland railroad company was incorporated, with authority to build a road from Toledo by Norwalk to connect with the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati road in either Huron or Lorain county.

In 1847, so dark was the prospect that it was almost determined to abandon the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati road for a time. Its friends, however, made a desperate rally; 11. B. Payne and R. Hilliard volunteering to work three months for its interest. The late Leonard Case subscribed five hundred thousand dollars; sixty-five thousand dollars was obtained from other sources, and the friends of the road determined to stand by their colors. The next year a contract to build the road from Cleveland to Columbus was let to Harbeck, Stone and Witt; that being the largest contract which had then been made by any party or firm in the United States.

The next year, 1848, an act was passed incorporating the Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula company to build a road from Cleveland to the Pennsylvania line, and in 1849 it was surveyed.

Thus the county approaches the end of the first half of this century, with its inhabitants almost as excited as they were in the "flush times," though with a much more solid basis for their hopes. Four important railroads, intended to concentrate at Cleveland and to traverse all parts of the county, were in various stages of progress, but none were completed. This seems a proper time, therefore, to take a glance at the county as it was before the days of railroads.

These were the great days of steamboats on the water and of stage coaches on land. From the time the ice was out of the lake in the spring till the time it came back in the autumn there was hardly an hour in which two or three stately white steamers, with their trailing crests of smoke, were not to be seen crossing the watery portion of Cuyahoga county. From the East to the West they went loaded with passengers. From the West to the East they carried some passengers and some freight - though the time of carrying large quantities of grain and other freight by steamboat had not yet come. Western produce was generally carried east in sloops, schooners and brigs, the white sails of which were to be seen swelling gracefully before the wind, as the deeply laden hulls ploughed through the waters of the county.

Many of these steamers were of great size, and were fitted up with palatial magnificence. The following is a list of the principal ones which were on Lake Erie in 1850, with the tonnage, origin and fate of each, taken substantially from a pamphlet called Marine History of the Lake Ports, published at Detroit in 1877:

""G. P. Griffith," five hundred and seven tons; built at Buffalo in 1845; burned on Lake Erie in 1850, with a loss of two hundred and fifty lives.

We have included in the above list none of less than three hundred tons. Thus it will be seen that, aside from numerous smaller ones, there was in 1850 a fleet of thirty-nine steamers afloat on Lake Erie, ranging from those of three hundred tons up to the great leviathan '' Empire State," of seventeen hundred tons.

Gay times were those. The steamboat, in good weather, was as provocative of sociability as the stagecouch, and furnished a great deal more enjoyment. The lake steamer was devoid of the monotony of the ocean vessel, and a voyage of from two days to a week, through changing lakes, and rivers, and straits, with all the splendid accessories of the model lake steamer, by passengers excited with the hope of western fortunes, or joyous over their return to eastern homes, was an event long to be remembered on the calendar of pleasure. :

But there was another and much darker side to the picture. Out of the thirty-nine steamers above mentioned, no less than thirty closed their career by being burned or wrecked. 'To be sure many of them sailed ten or fifteen years, and made hundreds of voyages before being lost, but the disaster, when it came, was sometimes appalling. he two hundred and fifty lives lost on the "'G. P. Griffith," and the four hundred lost on the '* Lady Elgin," furnished the most terrible but not the only examples of the dangers of luke navigation.

We have called especial attention to the fleet afloat in 1850, because that was the most brilliant period of lake navigation, which began to decline soon after the completion of railroad communication between the Kast and the West; but there was a large number of steamers (not usually very large ones) which had gone out of service before that time, besides many, both large and splendid, which were put in commission at a later period.

Among the most important of the latter were the "Arctic," of eight hundred and fifty-seven tons; the '« Buckeye State," of twelve hundred and seventy-four tons; the '' Northerner," of five hundred and fourteen tons; the "' Minnesota," of seven hundred and fortynine tons; the '' Lady Elgin," of a thousand and thirty-seven tons; the ''Iowa," of nine hundred and eighty-one tons; the '' Cleveland," (second) of five hundred and seventy-four tons; the '' Golden Gate," of seven hundred and seventy-one tons; the " Traveler," of six hundred and three tons; the '"'Michigan," (second) of six hundred and forty-three tons; the "Crescent City," of seventeen hundred and forty tons; the '' Queen of the West," of eighteen hundred and forty-one tons; the "St. Lawrence," of eighteen hundred and forty-four tons; the '' HE. H. Collins," of nine hundred and fifty tons; the "Northern Indiana," of fourteen hundred and seventy tons; the '' Southern Michigan," of fourteen hundred and seventy tons; the '' Forester," of five hundred and four tons; the "'Plymouth Rock." of nineteen hundred and ninetyone tons; the '' Western World " of a thousand tons; the '* North Star" of eleven hundred and six tons; the " Illinois " (second) of eight hundred and twenty-six tons; the '' Planet" of eleven hundred and sixty-four tons; the '' Western Metropolis" of eighteen hundred and sixty tons; the 'City of Buffalo " of two thousand tons; the '' City of Cleveland " of seven hundred and eighty-eight tons; the ''Sea Bird" of six hundred and thirty-eight tons; the '' Detroit" of eleven hundred and thirteen tons; the '' Milwaukee" of eleven hundred and thirteen tons.

This list includes the steamers of over five hundred tons put in commission before 1861. The large size of many of them does not contradict, but rather corroborates, our previous statement that stcamboating began to decline soon after the completion of railroad communication between the Hast and West; for, of the very large ones, all which were not destroyed were dismantled, or changed into vessels of other descriptions, after only a few years' service.

Propellers had come into use on the lakes as carly as 1842, but for several years they made but little display in comparison with the magnificent side-wheel steamers. As the latter, however, were superseded by the railroads as carriers of passengers, the propellers came to the front as carriers of grain; taking the lead of the steamers in that occupation, and rivaling both the sail vessels and the railroad.

Returning to the land part of Cuyahoga county in 1850, we find the people all alive with business and confident of future greatness. When the steamboats were not running, the stages on the lake shore road were loaded and doubly loaded with passengers; three, four, and even five coaches often pussing over the route each way in a single day. The vehicles of the line running over the great turnpike through Brooklyn, Parma and Strongsville to Columbus were similarly crowded in both summer and winter, while those on other routes through the country were only less heavily loaded.

The close of the last half of this century may be regarded 2s marking the distinction between the old and the new in this county. The wolves und the bears had already become extinct, and about this period the last of the deer disappeared before the advance of civilization. Certainly they did not wait to hear more than one or two shricks of the locomotive. To an old pioneer, with a taste for hunting, Cuyahoga county with no deer in 1t must have seemed like a new and undesirable world.

At this period, too, nearly the last of the log houses which had sheltered the pioncers gave way to the more comfortable frame residences of the farmers and the brick mansions of the thriving citizens. 'Twenty yeurs before, in at least half of the townships, log houses had been the rule aud framed ones the exception. The former had gradually been given up, and in 1850 could only be found in some very secluded locality. In such places, even yet, one may now and then be seen, a striking memento of the pioneer days of sixty years ago. :

On the very threshold of the second half of the century, Cuyahoga county received the benefits, more or less, of railway communication; being one of the very first counties in the West to be invaded of the iron conqueror. On the Ist day of February, 1851, a train came through from Columbus over the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati road, bearing the State authorities and the members of the legislature, when of course a grand jollification was held. On the 22nd of the same month the road was formally opened for business. The Cleveland and Pittsburg road was completed forty miles the same month, taking it outside the bounds of the county.

The other enterprises before mentioned went forward as rapidly as could be expected. The Cleveland and Pittsburg road, and the Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula road (from Cleveland to Erie) were opened for through business in 1852. The Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland railroad was completed in January, 1853; forming the last link in the chain of railways between Boston and Chicago. The Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula road was at first run in connection with the Cleveland, Columbus and Jincinnati road, but in 1855 its management was separated from that of the latter, and the former muturally fell into close relations with the other roads forming the great line along the lake shore communication from the Hust to the West.

In the latter part of this decade a new communication was opened between Cuyahoga county and the outer world, It originated in a schooner called the "Dean," built by Quayle and Murtin, of Cleveland, for C. J. Kershaw, of Chieago. It was loaded at the latter post and sent direct to Liverpool (by way of the Welland canal and the St. Luwrenee river) where this stranger from the Far West naturally created much surprise. It was sold there. The next year the barque "C. J. Kershaw" was constructed by the sume builders, and sent to Liverpool by D. C. Pierce, loaded with staves and lumber; coming back with oceekery and iron.

Direct trade between Chicago and Liverpool soon failed, but in 1858 a fleet of no less than ten vessels was sent fiom Cleveland to Europe. It consisted of the 1). C. Pierce," sent to Liverpool by Pierce & Barney; the '' Kershaw," 'Chieftain " and ' Black Hawk," sent to London by the same parties; the ' R. Mf. Harmon," sent to Liverpool by TT. P. Handy; the '*D. W. Sexton," sent to London, and the "J. F. Warner" to Glasgow, both by Mr. Handy; the "ff. E. Howe," to Liverpool, by H. E. Howe; the "Correspondent," to Liverpool, by N. M. Standart; and the ''HHarvest," to Hamburg, by C. Reis. All were loaded with staves and lumber; their total capacity being three thousand six hundred tons. The cargoes of all were sold to good advantage, and six

Some of these vessels attracted especial attention when thrown among a lot of English ships which were wind-bound at Land's End. 'The latter were entirely unable to beat around the point, but the American vessels, by their superior sailing qualities, were able to run close to the wind, unload, reload, and sail on another voyage before one of the others could make its way around the '' End."

Direct trade with Europe promised to be an important part of the commerce of the country, but it was driven by the rebellion into English hands.

In 1858 it was found that the brick court-house, built thirty years before, was entirely inadequate to the rising business of the county, and it was not thought desirable any longer to incumber the public square of Cleveland with county buildings. Accordingly, in that year, a substantial stone edifice, of two storics, was erected on ground on the north side of Rockwell street, facing the northwest corner of the square.

The panic of 1857 had had a depressing influence upon Cuyahoga county, as upon the rest of the country, but it was so light in comparison with the financial earthquake of 1837 that old stagers did not consider it as a very serious matter. By 1860 all business interests were in the way of rapid recovery.

By the census of that year the population of the county was seventy-seven thousand two hundred and six, of whom forty-three thousand four hundred and seventeen were in the city of Cleveland, while the remainder occupied the various townships in the following numbers: Bedford, 1,098; Brecksville, 1,024; Brooklyn, 5,358; Chagrin Falls, 1,479; Dover, 1,284; Kast Cleveland, 3,011; Euclid, 1,769; Independence, 1,663; Mayfield, 1,079; Middleburg, 2,592; Newburg, 2.810; Olmstead, 1,410; Orange, 1,095; Parma, 1,480; Rockport, 1,793; Royalton, 1,297; Solon, 1,009; Strongsville, 958; Warrensville, 1,554.

Among the events of the year the most interesting was the celebration of the anniversary of Perry's victory, and the erection of a monument to that hero. The idea originated with Hon. Harvey Rice, who introduced a series of resolutions to that effect in June, 1857, into the City Council of Cleveland, which unanimously adopted them. A committee of five members of the Council was authorized to contract for the erection of the monument, and to solicit subseriptions to mect the expense; it consisted of Harvey Rice, chairman; O. M. Oviatt, J. M. Coffinberry, J. Kirkpatrick, and C. D. Williams.

In the autumn the committee contracted with T. Jones and Sons, proprietors of marble works at Cleveland, who agreed to provide all materials and erect a monument surmounted with a statue of Perry, in the best style of the sculptor's art, subject to the approval of the committee, in time for the celebration on the tenth of September, 1860. The price was to be six thousand dollars, if so much could be obtained by

After corresponding with various artists, Messrs. Jones and Sons procured the services of Mr. William Waleutt as the sculptor of the statue. A block of rough Carrara marble was imported from Italy, and the entire work of shaping the statue was performed in the studio of Messrs. Jones and Sons at Cleveland, On account of the increased cost of the monument, as finally approved, the contract price was increased to eight thousand dollars - always provided it could he obtained by subscription.

The work went forward, and in the forepart of 1860 the council sent out a larger number of invitations to the approaching fete. These included the son, daughter and other relatives of Commodore Perry; all the survivors of the battle, the governor, State officers, cte., of Ohio, the governor, State officers and legislature of Rhode Island (the State of Perry's residence), and numerous distinguished individuals throughout the country. It was determined to locate the monument in the center of the public square, at Cleveland.

The celebration was fixed for Monday, the 10th of September, 1860, On Saturday, the 8th, Governor Sprague, of Rhode Island, with his staff, the State officers and many members of the legislature of that State, and the Providence Light Infantry, arrived at Cleveland; being received with a speech of welcome by Governor Dennison, of Ohio, who was already in the city. Immense crowds of people also came by all the railroads, so as to be ready for the celebration on Monday. Thousands upon thousands also came by terms on Saturday and Sunday, from all the country round.

During Monday forenoon every railroad brought an almost continuous succession of trains; all the cars being loaded with people, inside and ont. After careful computation it was estimated by cautious and experienced men that at least one hundred thousand visitors were in the city during the afternoon of Monday.

The procession was of great length; General J. W. Fitch being marshal of the day. It was headed by eighteen companies of uniformed militia, of which the folowing were of this county: Cleveland Light Artillery regiment, under Colonel James Barnett and Lieutenant Colonel 8. B. Sturges, consisting of companies A, B, D and K, commanded respectively by Captains Simmons, Mack, Rice and Heckman; the Brooklyn Light Artillery under Captain Pelton; the Cleveland Light Dragoons, under Captain Haltnorth; the Cleveland Grays, under Captain Paddock; the Cleveland Light Guards, under Captain Sanford.

The military was followed by Govs. Dennison and Sprague and their staffs ; the guests from Rhode Island; the mayor and common council of Cleveland; Messrs. Jones and Sons, contractors; officers and soldiers of the war of 1812; survivors of the battle of Lake Erie; descendants and relatives of Commodore

Perry; William Walcutt, the sculptor; George Bancroft and Dr. Usher Parsons (surgeon in the battle, ) orators of the day; and the judges and clergy of the vicinity. Following these came a very large number of the Masons of northern Ohio and neighboring States, marshaled by their respective officers; the Independent Order of Odd Fellows; and a long array of citizens and strangers.

Among the distinguished persons present, besides those already named, were Oliver Hazard Perry, the son of the Commodore; Rev. Dr. G. B. Perry, a relative of the commodore, and chaplain of the day; Commodore Stephen Champlin, a cousin of Perry, and commander of the '* Scorpion" in the battle; and Capt. Thomas Brownell, pilot of the '"* Ariel."

The monument and statue had been set up in the publie square, which since that time, and in honor of the occasion, has been called Monumental Park.* The services were held there; the statue being unveiled by the sculptor. he pedestal is of Rhode Island granite, twelve feet high, while the statue, of Italian marble, is eight feet two inches in hight. Of course it faces the lake which was the scene of the great victory. On the lake front of the monument is a representation, in alto relievo, of the celebrated scene when the hero passed amid a shower of bullets from the deck of the stricken " Lawrence" to that of the ' Niagava." 'he statue itself is very spirited in design and execution, and, while we do not feel competent to speak of those technical points which a sculptor would observe, yet we can truly say that not only was it highly satisfactory to those who knew the commodore, asa piece of life-like portraiture, but it is in exact harmony with all American traditions regarding the brave, handsome, dashing, high-spirited victor of the battle of Lake Erie. Since the celebration two smuller figures by the same artist, a "Sailor Boy " and a *¢ Midshipman," have been placed on the monument, on either side of the chieftain.

George Bancroft, the distinguished historian, delivered the principal address, and Dr, Usher Parsons narrated the events of the battle, as they came under his observation. 'Che proceedings at the sqiare were closed by the impressive ceremonies of the Masonic order.

One of the most interesting events of the day, to the people at large, was the mock battle on the lake, which followed the ceremonies at the square, in which the two fleets which had met in deadly combat fortyseven years before, were faithfully reproduced by vessels of similar size, and in which, after a furious cannonade and the representation of the principal incidents of the real combat, the British ships, one after the other, struck their colors to the victorious Americans,

* As most of our readers are probably aware, the monument has been moved during the present season to a point nearer the southeast corner of the park.

We have described it at considerable length, for it was not only a brilliant event of itself but it was the most striking occurrence in this county, during the last year of peace. The patriotic memories of the past were insufficient to restrain the madness of the of the slave-propagandists, and when next the streets of Cleveland resounded with the tread of hurrying crowds, there was no mock battle in prospect.

The political campaign, which was in progress when the great cclebration took place, resulted, as is well known, in the triumph of the Republican party, and the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. It is needless here to recount at length how this manifestation of the people's will was made an excuse for rebellion by the slave-holders of the South; how State after State abandoned its allegiance, and how the coming of spring found a Southern Confederacy already organized and armed, in defiance of the authority of the republic for which Perry fought.

Ifere, as elsewhere throughout the North, men looked on in amazement at this disloyal madness, and it was not until the blow actually fell upon the walls of Sumter that they could bring themselves to believe in the reality of such senseless infamy.

During And Since The War

'The Uprising of the People - Camp Taylor - Our Plan of Showing Services of Soldiers - Lists of Soldiers - The Ladies' Meeting - Permanent Organization - Co-operation with other Societies - Dr. Newberry - The Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio - Numerous Subordinates - ¥ort Donelson - Pittsburg Landing - The Territory Tributary to the Society - No State Lines - Pressed for Means - A Gift of Ten Thousand Dollars - "' Soldiers' Acres" and '"'Onion Leagues '' - The Northern Ohio Sanitary Fair - Its Success - Immense Returns - Other Labors - A Threatened Draft Riot--Dispersal of the Mob - The ''Squirrel Hunters" - Cuyahoga Governors - Tcd and Brough - Brough's Exertions in 1861 - The Cleveland and Mahoning Railroad - The Soldiers become Men of Peace - Prof. Newberry - The Census of 1870 - The Crisis of 1873 - The Fourth Court-House - The Jail - Conclusion.

ON the 14th of April, 1861, the storm burst. The Cleveland papers of the next morning contained a full account of the assanlt upon Sumter. As the Highlanders of three centuries ago sprang to arms when the ficry cross was sent among them by their chieftains, thus, and almost as swiftly, responded the men of the North when the daily newspapers told the story of their country's danger. The sons of Cuyahoga county were ready with the foremost. From the stores und offices of the city, from the shops of the villages, from the farms of the country, they came forward to do battle for the integrity of the nation. The Cleveland Grays and Company D of the Cleveland Light Artillery were two of the very first companies to take the field for three months, to give an opportunity for the organization of a permanent force.

of the same month several thousand men were in camp, coming from nearly all the counties of the section named. Cuyahoga county furnished three companies, and parts of several others, who became members of the Seventh infantry.

In order to give even an idea of the services of the soldiers of Cuyahoga county during the war, we find it necessary to furnish a separate sketch of each regiment and battery in which it were represented. As Cuyahoga had soldiers in no less than sixty-two regiments of infantry and cavalry, and seventeen batteries of artillery, many of these sketches must of necessity be exceedingly brief. Their size is made proportionate, so far as possible, to the number of men from this county in each organization, and to the amount of service rendered.

Hach sketch of a regiment or battery is followed by a list of the soldiers serving in it who were residents of this county at the time of the war, with a statement of their respective enlistments, promotions, discharges, ete. These have been compiled with great care from the records in the adjutant-general's office at Columbus, and are perfect transcripts from then. It is possible that there may be defects in the rolls in the adjutant-general's office, either from the soldier's giving the wrong residence, or from accidental causes, but this we cannot avoid.

So far as the historical sketches are concerned, we have depended largely on Reid's '' Ohio in the War," the correctness of which we find to be endorsed by all the Ohio soldiers who have examined it and whom we have talked with on the subject. In regard, however, to those regiments which are largely represented from this county, we have taken pains to consult with surviving members and obtain from them an account, not only of the principal-services of each command, but of some of the numerous incidents which lend variety to the story of life in the field. When regimental or buttery histories have been published, these have been the principal sources of information.

These historical sketches, each with its accompanying list of soldiers from Cuyahoga county, follow immediately after this chapter; being arranged according to the regimental or battery number in, successively, the aie y, cavalry and artillery arms of the service.

The people warmly sustained the efforts of their gallant soidiers, and the ladies were especially zealous in doing so. On the 20th of April, five days after the Presideut's first call for troops, the ladies of Cleveland assembled for the purpose of offering whatever aid they could give, though as to what it would | came the head of the various movements in northern Ohio in aid of the soldiers, and in six or seven months assumed the name of the Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio, it should properly be considered as an institution of a general character, and some of its acts should be narrated in the general history of the county. The first permanent officers were Mrs. B. Rouse, president; Mrs. John Shelley and Mrs. Wm. Melheich, vice presidents; Mary Clark Brayton, secretary; and Ellen F. Terry, treasurer. In the spring of 1863, Mrs. Lewis Burton became vice president; Mrs. Shelley having removed from the county. The seeretary and treasurer served faithfully throughout the war, and have since published a handsome and interesting book on the workings of the society, entitled <'Our Acre and its Harvest," from which we have derived the items given here.

The leaders of the Cleveland society speedily invited the co-operation of the smaller places, sending out an immense number of circulars to clergymen, prominent citizens, ladies, etc. Numerous societies were soon organized in nearly all the townships of this county and the adjoining counties; some being started independently and some on account of the suggestions of the Cleveland organization, but almost all being soon drawn into affiliation with it; being convinced that they could best attain their object by acting in subordination to it.

In September, 1861, Dr. J. 8. Newberry, of Cleveland, was made secretary of the-Western department of the United States Sanitary Commission, and thenceforth had general supervision of the affairs of that association in the valley of the Mississippi. In the following month the Cleveland Aid Society was made a corresponding branch of the United States Sanitary Commission. On the 80th of November, 1861, its name was changed to the Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio, as already mentioned. Thenecforth its acts and fame were national rather than local. Its benevolence was not even bounded by State lines, but extended to all who wore the Union blue.

At the time of the change of name just noted, the 'society was receiving contributions from two hundred and forty-three towns of northern Ohio, of which a hundred and: twenty had branch organizations. Finding that steady contributions were necessary, rather than spasmodic efforts, the Aid Society prevailed on a large number of citizens to make pledges of small, regular amounts weekly, on which the officers could rely to supply increasing needs.

After the capture of Fort Donelson, a thousand sets of hospitat clothing and a hundred and sixty boxes of supplies were sent forward. But it was after the battle of Pittsburg Landing that the greatest excitement prevailed. Nearly every regiment from the Western Reserve was present, hundreds of men from Cuyahoga county were among the killed and wounded, and the whole community felt the shock. Thousands of contributions of every descrintion flowed in

By the first of July, 1862, there were three hundred and twenty-five societies organized as branches of the Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio. These associations collected funds and supplies in their own way, receiving suggestions from the Northern Ohio Society as to what was best to be done. 'The supplies were then forwarded to the latter association which sent them to whatever points they were most needed. The officers of the Northern Ohio Society refused to receive money from any of the subordinate organizations; thinking it better that it should be invested in material, prepared for use by the members of the various associations at home, and then forwarded by means of the facilities which the Northern Ohio Society could furnish. There were tributary to it at this period, and during the latter part of the wasr, nearly all the societies in the counties of 'Trambull, Ashtabula, Mahoning, Columbiana, Carroll, Stark, Tusacarawas, Portage, Geauga, Lake, Summit, Wayne, Holmes, Ashland, Lorain, Ituron, Erie, Medina and Cnyahoga; besides a small part of Northwestern Pennsylvania.

A list of contributions was published weekly in the Cleveland Herald. The ladies also availed themselves of the offer made by Mr. Edwin Cowles of the use of two columns weekly of the Cleveland Leader, for such use as they might find necessary. It will be remembered that the society was not only a sort of general agency for all northern Ohio, but was also the direct agent for all Cleveland contributions. It were impossible to tell the story of a hundredth part of the services performed by it; of delicacies of all kinds sent to the wounded and the sick; of clothing and bed furniture supplied to hospitals; of friends furnished with information; these and hundreds of similar services were performed day after day, month after month, year after year, from the beginning to the end of the war, for soldiers of every State from Maine to Kansas; alike for the stalwart heroes of Minnesota and the persecuted Unionists of Tennessee.

In the winter of 1862-3 'the society had over four hundred branches. Yet money and contributions then came in slowly,-for taxes were heavy, priees of all kinds were high, and the exertions of the last. two years had told seriously on the resources of the people. It was aided by lectures by the celebrated Klihu Burritt, and by the scarcely less celebrated Artemus Ward (whilom a resident of Cleveland under the name of Charles F. Brown), and ere long it received a gift of ten thousand dollars, part of a large donation from California, This seemed then like a very large amount, being accepted only in instalments, and previous efforts to secure a permanent supply being steadily continued.

At this time.there was a cry for more vegetables, on the ground that scurvy was appearing in the army. The Northern Ohio Society promptly forwarded large quantities of potatoes and onions, and at the same time endeavored to enlist the people within its influence in providing for a permanent supply of those and similar articles. Many farmers set aside a '* soldier's acre" for this purpose in the spring, and even the children parodied the '' Union leagues " of the day with ' Onion leagues," which cultivated beds of that useful vegetable for the benefit of the nation's defenders.

In February, 1864, the Northern Ohio Sanitary Fair was organized under the management of the association; an immense frame structure being built in the center of Monumental Park, at Cleveland, over Perry's statue, at a cost of ten thousand dollars. As this was half as much ae the gross receipts of any sanitary fair-yet organized, it was deemed a very hazurdous expenditure. The fair was inaugurated on the twenty-second of February, and after a most brilliant display and numerous successful entertainments it was found that the gross receipts were a trifle over a hundred thousand dollars, while the expenses were but about twenty-one thousand dollars. The substantial surplus thus acquired enabled the ladies of the association to extend their operations, and to supply a much larger number of sick and wounded soldiers than before with comforts and delicacies, which in some degree mitigated their suftcrings.

The labors of the association were continued to the end of the war, and even after its close thousands of invalid soldiers received its aid, while the families of the dead were assisted in the procurement of pensions, and in numerous other ways.

We have spoken at some length (considering the many subjects requiring mention in such a book as this) of the association and its work; for during those fateful years it was really one of the great institutions of Cuyahoga county, and was also a faithful exponent of the feclings of the people.

Nearly all the quotas called for from the county were filled by volunteering. A draft was ordered, however, in September, 1862, to fill some vacancies, and at one time serious trouble seemed imminent. A mob of five hundred or six hundred persons, armed with clubs, pistols, etc., surrounded the office of Hon. IIarvey Rice, commissioner of the draft, on account of imaginary unfairness in its management. Meeting them firmly, he sent to Camp Cleveland, on Woodland Ilights, for military aid. Shields' Nineteenth battery, just organized, was there, awaiting orders to go to the front. They were armed with venerable Austrian muskets, and with an old six-pounder used to fire salutes with.

They came hastily down; their muskets being loaded with ball cartridge, and their solitary cannon half filled with a miscellaneous assortment of nails, scrap iron, bullets and other death-dealing missiles. When the mob made some extra violent demonstrations, the command, acting as infantry, charged bayonet and drove them from the square, but, fortunately for both parties, was not called on to fire the miscellaneous load out of the cannon. Mr. Rice then permitted the people to send in a committee to examine the operations of the office, who found that every thing was conducted with the utmost fairness. This was the only serious attempt at rioting, or opposition to the-law, made during the.war, in Cuyahoga county.

Besides the numerous organizations mentioned in the following chapters, when the State was threatened with invasion by Bragg in 1862, anda large number of 'squirrel hunters" were called on to help defend it, acompany marched to the front, from Berea and vicinity, armed with their "'squirrel rifles," and ready to aid in repelling the enemy if necessary. They were not called on to do so, however, and some returned homo. ;

It was not strange that Cuyahoga county manifested so much energy and zeal in the Union canse; for two of the war governors of Ohio resided wholly or partially within its limits. Hon. David Tod, who was elected governor by the Union. Republican party in the autumn of 1861, taking his seat on the 1st of January following, had a residence at Cleveland, and also one outside of the county. Hon. John Brough, the leonine statesman who was elected by the Republicans over Vallandigham in the autumn of 1863 by a hundred thousand majority, was also a resident of Cleveland, and president of the Bellefontaine railroad company. In the spring of 1864 he consulted with other western governors and proposed that they call out a hundred thousand men for a hundred days, to guard posts and otherwise aid in achieving success in the campaign of that year. All agreed, as did the war department at Washington. The latter telegraphed for thirty thousand Ohio militia in ten days. Thirty-eight thousand responded within the time. This sturdiest of Unionists and most energetic of governors died in the office he had done so much to dignify and make useful.

During the war business was active, on account of the great mmcrease of paper money in volume and depreciation in value; yet there were few permanent improvements made; both because people's minds were absorbed in the war, and because they were unwilling in the disturbed state of the finances to make large government investments. The principal public enterprise which was carried out at this period in northern Ohio was the Atlantic and Great Western railroad, which was built principally with foreign capital. In 1863, it leased the Cleveland and Mahoning railroad for ninety-nine years, and immediately supplied it with an extra track; so it could be used for broad or narrow gauge cars. It has been employed especially for the transportation of coal from the beds of Mahoning county, immense amounts of which have put off their military habits and resumed the avocations of civil life. Less than six months saw the transformation complete, and all the energy lately given to the arts of destruction employed in those of construction. But the latter, though more pleasant, and in the long run more important, than the former, do not by any means make so brilliant a mark on the page of history. The current of events flows broadly, swiftly and beneficently onward in peace, but it is the rapids and cataracts of war which strike the eye.

In 1869, Professor Newberry, before mentioned in connection with the Sanitary Commission, was appointed chief geologist of the State of Ohio. As such, with a corps of assistants, he made an exhaustive geological survey of the State, embodied in several valuable volumes.

By the census of 1870 the population of the county, notwithstanding the war, had reached the number of one hundred and thirty-two thousand nine hundred and three. Of these ninety-two thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight were in Cleveland, while the remainder were to be found in the respective townships as follows: Bedford, 1,788; Brecksville, 1,007; Brooklyn, 3,712; Chagrin Falls, 1,321 ; Dover, 1,145; Hast Cleveland, 5,044; Euclid, 2,188; Independence, 1,761; Mayfield, 892; Middleburg, 3,662; Newburg, 6,227; Olmstead, 1,570; Orange, 1,802; Parma, 1,482; Rockport, 2,001;. Royaton, 1,089; Solon, 899; Strongsville, 896; Warrensville, 1,426. It will be scen that, while the agricultural township had increased very little, and some of them had decreased, since the previous census, the population of Cleveland had more than doubled, besides the large number who had located in the adjoining towns, so as to become in fact suburban residents of the city.

In 1873 the same causes, inflation and speculation, which had brought about the financial crash of 1837, produced another, far less violent than the one mentioned but more injurious than that which occurred in 1857. Business and improvements of all kinds received a severe check, five years saw but slight

In 1875 the fourth court-house of Cuyahoga county was begun, and so far completed in 1876 as to be used by the courts and for other public purposes. The court-house erected in 1858 is also stillin use. It is somewhat difficult to describe the new one; for one hardly knows whether to give its dimensions and appearance as it is, or as itis to be. Probably the former is the safer method, with a brief reference to what it- may be.

The present building, then, is of stone, and fronts on Seneca street, extending back nearly to the courthouse of 1858. Its width is seventy-five feet and its depth ninety-two feet. There is a high basement story, occupied by some of the county officers and for other purposes. On the first story above this is a wide hall, with the rcoms of the probate judge and sheriff on either side. On the second. floor is the criminal conrt room, sixty-eight feet long, sixty feet wide and thirty-five feet high, and very elaborately finished. On the third, or Mansard, floor are rooms for the use of juries and for other purposes.

The proposed north wing is te be thirty-four feet front and eighty-four feet deep. The south wing is to be forty-nine feet front and eighty four feet deep, and it is expected that in due time it will. be surmounted by a tower a hundred and twenty feet high. The wings, when completed, are to be occupied by the various courts and county officers who are now located in the building of 1858.

A very large and strong jail was also built in 1875, on the same ground (north of the court house), formerly occupied by the jail of 1851, which was removed to give place to its successor. The new jail, very substantially built of stone, has three departments, respectively for men, women and boys. The men's department is sixty feet wide by a hundred and thirty feet long, with one hundred and twenty cells.

The boys' department is twenty feet by twenty-four, with sixteen eells. The women's department is in the same building as the sheriff's residence, and likewise has sixteen cells. The whole building last mentioned is ninety feet by thirty-seven, and three stories high.

Notwithstanding the financial closeness since 1873, numerous local improvements have been made throughout the county, which are noticed under their appropriate heads. We now close the consecutive record of Cuyahoga county for the purpose of presenting our readers with sketches of various organizations pertaining to it, beginning with the regiments and batteries representing that county in the war for the Union.