Cuyahoga County, Ohio - Chapter 44: The First Four Years, 1870

The Beginning - First Streets - First Map - The Name - The Stiles Family - First Baildings - Boundaries - Description -Streets - The Original Lots - Civil Condition - Topography, Soil, etc. - Mouth of the Cuyahoga - Sale of Lots - The Residents the First Winter - Gifts to Settlers - First Funeral and Graveyard - Lorenzo Carter and Ezekiel Hawley - The Oldest Survivor - Pioneer House-building - First Wedding - Progress of Survey - Sickness - James Kingsbury - Primitive Grist-Mill - Nathaniel Doan - Elijah Gun - Fever and Ague - Dogwood instead of Quinine - Failure to obtain Flour - First Grist-Mill - The First Raising - Indian Quarrel - Game - A Thrilling Adventure.

The story of the various. Indian tribes which lived and fought in the vicinity of Cleveland, and of the military expeditions which passed along the southern shore of Lake Erie, on land and water, has already been told in the general history of the county. There, too, will be found asketch of the title of the Western Reserve, and of the survey of that tract in the years 1796 and 1797.

The separate history of Cleveland may fairly be said to begin on the sixteenth day of September, 1796, when Augustus Porter, the principal surveyor of the Connecticut Land Company, commenced laying out a few streets on the right hand side of the Cuyahoga river, at its junction with Lake Erie, for the purpose of establishing a village at that point, which it was hoped would one day become a city. Mr. Porter ran out the street lines, while his assistants, Messrs. Seth Pease, Amos Spafford and Richard Stoddard surveyed the "'city" lots, or at least a part of them.

By the first of October the work was completed (unless some of the lots were not marked off till the next year), and a rude map of the proposed city was made by Mr. Spafford, which is published in Col. Whittlesey's Early History of Cleveland. The work, of course, was under the general superintendence of Gen. Moses Cleaveland, the agent of the Connecticut Land Company, as well as one of its principal stockholders, who had charge of the operations in the field during that year.

It was at this time, too - that is, about the last of September, 1796 - that. the location in question received the name which, with the exception of asingle letter, it has ever since borne. been spoken of in the minutes of the surveyors as "* Cuyahoga," or sometimes as the mouth of the Cuyahoga.

The first mention of the name on record, so far as is known, is in the agreement drawn up by the employes of the company in regard to the settlement of Euclid, mentioned in the general history of the county. That agreement declares itself to have been entered into at a meeting ''held at the city of Cleveland on the 30th day of September, 1796." The name was occasionally spelled without the letter a, even in the old records, but this was through inadvertence. General Moses Cleaveland, who had bestowed his own name on the '"'city " he had founded, always spelled it with an a, and this example was followed in all written and printed records (except by occasional accident) for fifty years from the time in question.

'The ''city" at that time contained two log houses' one had been built the previous spring as the headquarters of the party which was surveying the Reserve, and was also occupied as the residence of Job P. Stiles and Tabitha Stiles, his wife, who " kept house" for those of the party who were from time to time at headquarters.

It was sometimes called '' Pease's hotel," from Seth Pease, who was Mr. Porter's principal assistant, and was situated on the low ground under the hill, between Main street and the river. The other, near the junetion of Main street and the river, was the storehouse of the surveyors, and had also been built by them during the same season. There was also on the territory now belonging to the city on the west side of the river, a dilapidated, unoccupied log house, which was supposed to have been erected ten years before by the agents of the Northwestern Fur Company, in which to receive provisions brought from Pittsburg, as narrated in the general history.

The map before mentioned, made by Mr. Spafford, is dated October 1, 1796. The area which had been surveyed for the proposed city and was delineated on the map was bounded north by the lake, west by the river, south by a line a little south of Ohio street, and east by a line a quarter of a mile east of Erie street, crossing the present Euclid avenue at the junction of Huron street.

The map shows the "' Public Square," now Monn-. mental Square, containing ten acres, with Superior street running through it parallel with the lake shore. It had first been named " Broad" street, and that name had been written on the map, but had been stricken out and Superior substituted. Parallel with Superior street, Lake street occupied its present course, but extended only from Water street to Erie. Huron street ran as now from the river to a point a quarter of a mile east of Erie, where the city then ended. Ohio street ran from Erie westward only to Miami street, which then extended thus far south. Another street was delineated on the map under the name of Federal street. It ran from Erie eastward to the eastern limits of the city plat; occupying the ground now embraced in that part of St. Clair street, but extending no farther west than Erie. Bath street ran from Water street westward along the margin of the lake to the mouth of the river, being some twelve rods wide at the eastern end, but gradually narrowing to five or six rods at the western extremity.

These six streets (Bath, Lake, Federal, Superior, IIuron and Ghio) were all that were at first surveyed to run parallel with the lake shore, and generally called ''east and west streets."

The ''north and south" streets, or more accurately those at right angles with the lake, first surveyed, were Water, Ontario, Miami and Erie. The first still retains the same course and extent then given it, running from the foot of Superior street northward to the lake. Ontario ran from the lake southward through the Public Square to Huron street, occupying the same ground as now, except the extension frora Huron street to Central Market. Miami street began at Huron, followed its present brief course southward, and also extended on the same line to Ohio street. And finally Erie street, which was the longest in the city, ran from the lake southward over its present course to the line of the surveyed tract, which, as before stated, was a little south of Ohio street.

Besides these there were three streets, as they are termed on the map, but usually called lanes in the old records, designed to lead from the low ground along the river to the bluffs above. One running from the junction of Superior and Water streets northwestward to what was called the '' Lower Landing," was named Union street, or lane, and corresponded to the present southern part of Spring street. Mandrake street then as now extended from Water street southwesterly down the hill to the landing, while Vineyard street ran from the junction of Water and Superior street southwesterly to the '' Upper Landing," it being now called South Water street. Still another lane, called Maiden lane, was surveyed from the middle of Vineyard street in an easterly course up the hill and thence to Ontario street, which it reached at a point about half way between the square and Huron street, but this was soon entirely abandoned.

If is not certain exactly when the names of Broad and Court were changed respectively to Superior and Ontario, but it would appear as if it was done by General Cleaveland's orders bofore the map left Spafford's hands, as the chirography of the new names is seemingly the same as the rest of the writing on the map.

The same map showed a complete division of the city into lots, though it was not certain that they were all surveyed and marked that autumn. They were numbered from one to two hundred and twenty; the first extending from Lake street to the lake shore on the east side of Water street, and the last running from Miami street, nearly opposite the junction of Ohio, back to the Cuyahoga river. The greater portion of the lots were eight rods by forty, containing two acres, but many.were larger than that and some were smaller. Number two hundred and twenty, just mentioned, was over a hundred and twenty rods long, while numbers one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and thirty-three inclusive, lying south of Ohio street, were only about ten rods long. There were, however, only a few lots having less than two acres each, and it is perhaps largcly due to this liberal plan, devised by the projectors of Cleveland, that the city is to this day probably the ''roomiest"' one of its size in the United States.

While some of the surveyors were laying out the city proper, others were dividing the suburbs into out-lots. From Erie street east and from Ohio street south the nearest land was divided into lots of ten or twenty acres each, while the remainder of the surveytownship of Cleveland, comprising what was subsequently known as the civil townships of Oleveland and Newburg, was divided into lots of a hundred acres each. The tracts just mentioned (that is, the city lots, the ten and twenty acre lots and the hundred acre lots) together occupied all that part of the present city east of the Cuyahoga, all of the present township of Newburg and the eastern part of the present township of East Cleveland.

No civil township had yet been organized in this part of the county in the fall of 1796. The territory of the future city east of the river was nominally comprised in the county of Washington in the Northwest Territory, but no actual jurisdiction was exercised here by the Territorial authorities, and it was not yet quite certain whether the Connecticut Land Company was not vested with all the powers of government as well as the title to the land. The land on the west side of the Cuyahoga was nominally in the county of Wayne in the Northwest Territory, but though the pre-emption right to it had been purchased by the Land Company, the right of occupancy had not been bought from the Indians, who were in undisturbed possession of all that portion of the Reserve.

The surface of the embryo metropolis was moderately level on both sides of the river, except that on cach side a steep bluff, from fifty to eighty feet high, separated the low flats of the Cuyahoga from the table-land above. Near the present eastern bounds of the present city the ground rose into a high ridge which extended nearly north and south a distance of about four miles. From this ridge the stream now called Kingsbury run flowed westward into the Cuyahoga through a narrow hollow, bounded by bluffs, almost as lofty as those which enclose the river flats.

The larger stream which soon reccived the name of Mill creek ran in rapid cascades, between rocky and precipitous banks, through the extreme southeastern part of the present city, long known as Newburg, and then, curving southward, emptied into the river in the present township of Independence. Another brook, ere long known as Doan's creck, from one of the earliest of the pioneers, having begun its course in Warrensville, ran southwestward through the éxtreme eastern part of the present city to the lake, but was not distinguished by the very high banks which marked the other streams.

The soil of the whole tract was a sandy loam, sometimes almost pure sand, with occasional sections of clay or gravel. Ont of this arose.a heavy growth of chestnuts, oaks, elms, maples and beeches, their mighty trunks standing far apart, but their widespreading boughs shading all the earth with a dense mass of foliage.

The Cuyahoga river emptied into the lake a short distance west of its present mouth, and still farther west was to be seen the location of a still carlier bed, which was then a stagnant pond. Across the mouth of the river ran a bar of sand which in spring and fall wax torn open by the current* of the rushing river, but which in summer came so near the surface that even the light schooners, two or three in number, which then navigated Lake Eric, could not cross it. Once inside, there was a commodious harbor, with room and depth for vessels of the first class.

Such was the locality sclected by General Moses Cleaveland, acting in behalf of the Connecticut Land Jompany, for the principal city of the Western Reserve. The survey township in which it was situated had been selected as one of six, which were to be sold for the benefit of the company at large, and not to be divided among the stockholders, as was almost all the rest of the Reserve. It had accordingly been divided as before stated, the'part nearest the city into the ten and twenty acre lots, and the remainder into hundred acre lots. It was proposed to sell at first only a fourth of the townships, and Augustus Porter, the principal surveyor of the company, submitted a proposition as to the manner of making such sale.

In the first place city lots number fifty-eight to sixty-three inclusive, and eighty-one to eighty-seven inelusive, comprising all the lots bordering on the public square, and one more, were to be reserved for public purposes, as were also 'the point of land west of the town" (which we take to be the low peninsula southwest of the viaduct), and some other portions of the flats if thought advisable. Then Mr. Porter proposed to begin with lot number one, and offer for sale every fourth number in succession throughout the towns, on these terms.

Each person who would engage to become an actual settler in 1797, might purchase one town lot, one ten or twenty-acre lot, and one hundred-acre lot, or as niuch Jess as he might choose; settlement, however, to be imperative in every case. The price of town lots was to be fifty dollars; that of the ten-acre lots three dollars per acre; that of the twenty-acre lots two dollars per acre, and that of the hundred-acre lots a dollar and a half per acre. The town lots were to he paid for in ready cash; for the larger tracts twenty per cent. was to be paid down, and the rest. in three annual instalments, with annual interest.

It will be scen that even at that time the projectors of Cleveland had a pretty good opinion of its future; valuing the almost unbroken forest which constituted the city at twenty-five dollars per acre in cash, while equally good land outside its limits was to be sold for from three dollars down to a dollar and a half per acre, with three years' credit.

This program, which was dated on the 28th of September, 1796, seems to have been immediately confirmed, at least temporarily, by Gen. Cleaveland; for on the map before mentioned, dated September 30th, the names of six purchasers are written on the lots they had chosen, only every fourth lot being selected, and these around the square being left untaken, Stiles took or proposed to take 53, Baun 65, Shepard 69, Chapman 72, and Landon 77; all being on Superior street, and all except the last on the north side, extending all the way from Water strect to Erie street. Messrs. Shepard and Chapman must certainly have had a good deal of faith in Cleveland, if they gave twenty-five dollars an acre for Jand in the dense forest, over half a mile from the two log houses which then constituted the city.

By the cighteenth of October all the surveyors and their assistants left Cleveland for their homes in the East. hey left Mr. and Mrs. Stiles and Mr. Joseph Landon in possession of the city. The two former, as has been said, had previously been merely employees of the land company, but had now determined to become actual settlers. A cabin was built for them by the surveyors before they left, situated on the top of the hill, at the west end of Superior street.

Mr. Landon had also been in the service of the company. He, however, remained but a few weeks, and went east before winter set in. Mr. Edward Paine, afterwards known as Gen. Paine, the founder of Painesville, Lake county, then took board with Mr. Stiles, and began trading in a small way with the Indians (Chippewas, Ottawas, etc.), who camped at various points on the west side of the Cuyahoga during the winter, and hunted and trapped on both sides. So far as known, Mr. Paine was the first trader in Cleveland, though it is quite probable that some Frenchman may have erected a rude cabin there long before, where beads, powder and whisky were exehanged with the Indian for bear-skins and beaverfur,

These three remained throughout the winter, alone save when some copper-colored warrior brought his store of furs to. Mr. Paine, or when his tawny squaws, with their bright-eyed pappooses on their backs, came to gaze with longing eyes on the sparkling beads and brilliant ealicoes of the young trader.

Meanwhile, after the surveyors returned home, Mr. Seth Pease made another map of the city, substantially the same as the one before described. The terms of sale proposed by Mr. Porter were in substance confirmed by the company. The directors and stockholders also donated to Mrs. Stiles one city lot, one ten-acre lot and one one hundred-acre lot in the city and township of Cleveland, doubtless because she was the first woman who became a resident there. . At the same time they gave a one-hundred-acre lot in the same township to Mrs. Anna, wife of Elijah Gun. Mr. and Mrs. Gun had had charge of the company's stores at Conneaut during the preceding summer, but intended to move to Cleveland. Another gift of a hundred-acre lot was made to James Kingsbury and wife, the first emigrants to the Western Reserve entirely unconnected with the company, who had first located at Conneaut, but also proposed to make Cleveland their home. Finally the directors and stockholders gave a city lot to Nathaniel Doan, who had acted as blacksmith for the company, shoeing the pack-horses of the surveyors the preceeding summer, on condition that he should reside and keep up a blacksmith shop upon it.

In the spring of 1797, Mr. Painé left Cleveland, and soon after made a permanent location at Painesville. In the month of May, Mr. and Mrs. Gun came from Conneaut, being the second family resident in Cleveland. It was not until the first day of June, that the advance guard of the surveying party for 1797 reached Cleveland. They were in charge of Mr. Pease, who had been employed as the principal surveyor for that year. On the third of June the remainder of the party arrived, with Rey. Seth Hart, the superintendent. One of the men, David Eldridge, was drowned in crossing Grand river, and the body brought to Cleveland. On the morning of the fourth the north parts of lots ninety-seven and ninety-eight was selected as a burial ground, a rude coffin was made and the first funeral in Cleveland was attended ' by the comrades of the deceased, while Mr. Hart read the appropriate service according to the-rites of the Episcopal church. The location of this original cemetery was on the east side of Ontario street, its north line being just north of Prospect street.

The lately lonesome wilderness now presented a busy scene. Knowing by experience the tediousness of living on meat and bread throughout the season, nearly all the men set to work and cleared a piece of land for a garden, on the top of the bank, near the west end of Superior street, fenced it, and planted it with various kinds of vegetables. 'Then there was a rapid outfitting of parties, under the several surveyors, who went forth to run the lines of townships in -

Soon after the arrival of the surveyors (or according to one account, a little before that event), Mr. Lorenzo Carter, well known to all the early settlers as Major

Carter, made his home in Cleveland with his family. He came from Rutland, Vermont, but had stayed during the previous winter in Canada. One of his sons was Alonzo Carter, then seven years old, who died but a few years since. Mr. Carter was an expert hunter and an energetic pioneer, with plenty of assurance, and over the Indians he soon gained an influence unequaled by any other white mah ih the vicinity. He built a log cabin on the flat, a few rods from the river, and near Union, now Spring street.

About the same time came Mr. Carter's brother-inlaw, Ezckiel Hawley, who also located in Cleveland with his family. His daughter Fanny, then five years old, now Mrs. Theodore Miles, of the eighteenth ward, is the oldest surviving resident of Cleveland.

The next family was that of James Kingsbury, who had resided at Conneaut during the winter, but who removed to Cleveland in June. They at first occupied the dilapidated log house west of the river, which had formerly been occupied by, agents of the Northwestern Fur Company as a store-house. Mr. Kingsbury, however, soon erected a cabin where the Case block now stands, into which he moved his family.

It did not take long to build a house in those days. A number of logs, sixteen or eighteen feet long, were cut in the forest. 'These were drawn together by a yoke of oxen, large notches were made near the ends, so that they would match together. The neighbors (in this case probably the surveyors) were invited to the raising; the logs were speedily placed on each other; a roof of split '' shakes" was placed on the top; a chimney of crossed sticks and mud was speedily built; a hole was cut for a door (the place of which was perhaps supplied by a blanket), and the mansion was considered complete. Some of the more aristocratic citizens might have a window with four lights of glass, and a ''puncheon" or split-log floor; but these were luxuries of pioneer life.

The first wedding in Cleveland, which was also the first in Cuyahoga county, has already been mentioned in the general history, but so pleasantly momentous an event will bear brief repetition. The parties were Miss Chloe Inches, Mrs. Carter's hired girl, and Mr. William Clements, who had followed his love from Canada, and who bore her back to His Majesty's dominions after the ceremony, which took place in the month of July.

Meanwhile the surveys were steadily progressing, notwithstanding sickness among the surveyors, which was much greater than the year before. On the 20th of August Surveyor Warren began to survey three highways into the country, and also to mark the lines of the ten acre lots before mentioned. First he began at the east end of Huron street on the east boundary of the city plat, and ran thence ''north eighty-two degrees east" (very near due east) to the west side of the hundred acre lots, setting a post every ten chains or forty rods. This showed the north bounds of a road, and the posts also designated the corners of the ten acre lots which were intended to be forty rods

This, it will be understood, was to be a road, not a street, being entirely outside the ''city" limits. At the time of survey it was designated as 'Central highway." But as it soon became the main means of communication with the settlements in Euclid it received the name of Euclid: road; then it was extended to the Public Square, as will be mentioned at the proper time, and became Euclid street, and at length, bordered with palatial residences, it has assumed the more sonorous title of Huclid avenue.

The next day Mr. Warren began at the south end of Erie street, on the south boundary of the city, and ran south, seventy-four degrees east, one hundred and thirty-one chains (a little over a mile and a half) to the west boundary of the hundred-acre lots; running back on a line due east, and marking the lot-corners on both sides as before. This road was then called the South highway. Later it was continued, bearing to the right, to the town of Kinsman, on the eastern border of the Reserve, and was then known as Kinsman street; still later that portion of the original 'South highway," this side of Willson avenue, has been extended in a straight line nearly to the city limits, and has received the appellation of Woodland avenue.

Finally Mr. Warren went to the end of Federal (now a part of St. Clair) street, and ran thence north fifty-eight degrees east to the hundred acre lots, making the road six rods wide, and marking the corners as before. This was to be the North highway, but has long been known as St. Clair street. Lines were then run midway between those roads to mark the back end of the lots. Though called ten-acre lots, there was really no uniformity. The frontage of the lots were all the same, twenty rods, but their depth increased as the roads diverged, so that those adjoining the city were less than ten acres, and the farthest ones were more. It was understood that this would make the value of these out-lots about equal.

We have spoken in the general history of the county, of the prevalence of fever and ague and bilious fever among the surveyors throughout the Reserve in 1797, These diseases were equally common wmong the citizens. ~ Nearly every person in the little settlement was stricken down. Mr. Kingsbury determined to find a more healthy location for his family. Following the South highway to the end, and thence continuing about two miles farther in nearly the same direction, he' reached the ridge before mentioned as running along the present border of the city. Finding there good soil and an apparently healthy location, he purchased a large tract of land, common with the pioneers throughout the Reserve - hollowed out by fire on top so as to hold a goodly allowance of corn, which was then pounded with a heavy oaken mortar, suspended by a spring-pole or Sweep above this simple ''mill." The stump was preserved by Mr. Kingsbury and his children until about twenty years ago, when, already rotted to a mere shell, it completely succumbed to the power of decay.

In the autumn of 1797 the surveyors completed their work so that the land could be divided among the stockholders of the company, and returned home. In January, 1798, the partition was accordingly made. Six survey-townships, of which Cleveland, then including Newburg, was one, were reserved for direct sale by the company.

Meanwhile Cleveland, with the rest of the Reserve east of the Cuyahoga, had in 1797 become nominally a part of Jefferson county, but no civil authorities were appointed for this almost unknown corner. The tract west of the river remained a portion of Wayne county, with the Indians still in actual possession.

In the spring of 1798 Nathaniel Doan, the blacksmith, moved to Cleveland with his family and built a blacksmith shop on the south side of Superior street, a little west of the present end of Bank street, doubtless on the lot given him by the company. He at first occupied as a residence the cabin built by Job P. Stiles, who about this time moved out on the ridge near Kingsbury's. lijah Gun also moved to the ridge south of Kingsbury's, and Rudolphus Edwards, of Chenango county, New York, settled farther north near the present intersection of Woodland avenue and Woodland Hills avenue. In the city proper, Doan's, Carter's and Hawley's were the only families, but Joseph Landon, who had returned from the East, and Stephen Gilbert were there, and cleared some ground which they sowed to wheat. Mr. Carter also planted two acres of corn on Water street, near the lake,

Nearly every man, woman and child in the settlement was sick with the fever and ague. There were not enough well persons to take care of the sick, much less to provide food and the other necessaries of life. In the intervals of the chills Carter and his hounds often secured a deer, which was liberally divided among his less expert neighbors. Nathanic] Doan's family of nine members were all sick at once. The only one who was able to do anything was his nephew Seth, an active boy of thirteen. Although he had the shakes every day himself, the boy not only managed to collect wood and bring water, but frequently made a trip to Kingsbury's to obtain corn.

That industrious pioneer, as well as his neighbors, Gun and Stiles, had found health in their homes on the ridge, and had raised good crops of corn on the newly-cleared land. Kingsbury, energetic and inyentive, determined to have something better than a stump mortar to grind his food. He accordingly obtained two large stones from the banks of Kingsbury run, : shaped them into the semblance of mill-stones, placed one on the ground and the other above it, fastened a handle to the upper one, and by working the latter back and forth produced flour and meal, not indeed of the finest, yet superior to any but the imported article.

There was not only no physician but no quinine, the great specific for ague, and the settlers got along as best they could with decoctions of dogwood bark. As the cold weather approached the chills disappeared, but the settlers had had a fearful lesson, which newcomers were quick to learn from them, and which long retarded the progress of Cleveland.

Near the middle of November four of the men, still weak from the effects of the ague, started in a boat for Walnut Creek, Pennsylvania, to obtain flour. Between Euclid creek and Chagrin river their boat was wrecked, and they returned by land emptyhanded. So throughout the winter all the people, both in the city and on the ridge, depended on Kingsbury's hand-mill for their breadstuff, which was coarse enough to have suited the palate of the renowned Graham himself.

In the spring of 1799 Mr. Doan, entirely satisfied with his city experience, abandoned the lot given him by the company, and moved four mileg east to a point where the ridge road from Kingsbury's struck the "Central highway," where he established his home and his shop. The locality was long known as ''Doan's Corners," and afterwards as East Cleveland, but for twelve years has been a portion of the city.

Mr. Hawley also left the apparently doomed place at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, and located in the Kingsbury neighborhood. Carter's and Spafford's were the only families left. They had begun to feel acclimated, and determined to stay at-all hazards. They kept a kind of a tavern, and Mr. Carter also traded some with the Indians, as indeed almost every one did who could obtain some salt and whisky as capital, these being considered the two great necessities of life. Money was scarce beyond the imagination of the present day; furs were almost legal tender, and were frequently used to pay debts and ''make change," even by the whites.

Superior lane was at this time a high, sharp ridge impassable in ascent or descent. The travel up and down the hill was obliquely along Union street- - now Spring street. The first named roadway, however, began to be worked about this time.

In this year two newcomers, Wheeler W. Williams and Major Wyatt built the first grist mill on the Reserve at the falls of Mill creek, at what was long known as Newburg, but is now the eighteenth ward of the city. The irons were furnished by the land company. The task was a very serious one and was not completed till fall, when David Bryant and his son Gilman, who had been quarrying grindstones near Vermillion river, went to the Newburg settlement and made a pair of mill-stones. They were ob-

'tained and made about half a mile north of the mill, which was near the main fall. 'The water was conveyed down the hill to the wheel at an angle of fortyfive degrees.

When the mill was all completed and ready for grinding, invitations were sent out to all the people round about for a grand celebration. The number was not large; no one lived west of the Cuyahoga, norup the valley of that river, above the mill. Within the limits of the present city there were as near as can be ascertained ten families - Carter's, Spafford's, Doan's, Edwards', Kingsbury's, Gun's, Stiles', Hawley's, Hamilton's and Williams' - (all but the two first on the outer borders) and a few single men. There was, however, a small settlement in Euclid, whose members doubtless helped to swell the number, and it is quite probable that there was a delegation from the more populous region east of the Chagrin; for a distance of fifteen or twenty miles was little regarded by the sturdy pioneer, and this was the first gristmill on the Western Reserve.

The Indians were frequently to be seen in all parts of the city and the surrounding country, but they seem to have becn very friendly and never to have had any serious difficulty with the whites. There was an old camp, where they often met, near Mr. Kingsbury's residence, and about where he afterwards built his frame-house, now occupied by his son, James Kingsbury.

One day a young squaw came running into the house, declaring that one of the Indians had badly hurt his squaw; '' - most kill her." Mr. K. hurried out and found the camp in great commotion, the injured woman leaning against a tree apparently fainting, and the Indian standing sullen and defiant in front of her. The white man began to scold him for hurting the woman. He defended himself zealously in the Indian tongue, with occasional words of broken English, asserting that she was ''heap bad squaw," and gesticulating with great energy to make up for his lack of language.

In the course of his motioning he brought his hand quite close to the squaw's face. She suddenly came out of- her faint and seized one of his fingers between her teeth. He yelled with pain but she clung with all her might, and the white peace-maker was obliged to choke her pretty smartly to make her let go.

Kingsbury's house. Here the deer frequently came to enjoy the luxury, and patient watching would almost always reward the hunter with a fat buck or a timid doe. In time, however, the frequently falling of the death-bolt at that particular place warned away the survivors from the dangerous locality.

Bears were less frequent, but were sometimes seen. Wolves, too, occasionally made their appearance. Mr. Kingsbury brought a sow and a number of pigs from Pennsylvania, which he carefully penned up at night, but allowed to run loose among the plentiful acorns and nuts during the day. One day, while he was absent, the family heard a noise near the house, and looking out saw the old sow in a state of great excitement, alternately pushing her young toward the house, and turning to grunt at two gaunt gray wolves, which were slowly following her, apparently hesitating about attacking an antagonist of a species they had never before seen. An outcry from the family quickly drove them away, but as there was no one to handle the old ''queen's arm" which Mr. Kingsbury's brother had borne at the battle of Bennington, they escaped unharmed.

Among the illustrations of early frontier life, we will advert to one more occurring in the neighborhood on the ridge. On Christmas day, 1799, Mr. Kingsbury's oldest daughter Abigail, seven years old, with her two younger brothers Amos and Almon, together with Fanny Hawley (now Mrs. Miles), nearly eight, and her younger brother, all went to visit the children of Job Stiles, who lived about a quarter of a milefarther south. There was a woods-road, considerably traveled, along the ridge, and no one supposed there was any danger.

Unfortunately they stayed late, and it was beginning to be dusk when they started home. They soon lost their way, and began wandering back and forth in the strange way in which many older persons do when once they lose their latitude in the woods. Many times they must have come near the residences of one or the other family, but somehow never saw the light of either. The smallest children soon became very weary. Fanny carried her brother and Abigail picked up her youngest brother Almon. The venerable Mrs. Miles related to us how she and Abigail - themselves the merest children - staggered to and fro under their burdens in the darkness and the growing cold, while Amos Kingsbury, only five years old, appeared to be perfectly frantic at the terrible prospect. At length the two girls gave up in despair. They laid the two youngest boys down together, spread Abigail's broadcloth cloak over them, beneath which they soon went to sleep - and then waited, not knowing whether they were to be devoured by wolves or frozen by the cold.

Meanwhile their families had discovered that the children were lost, and all the three or four men of the neighborhood were out in search of them, Luckily too, Fanny's uncle, Lorenzo Carter, had been out on a hunt, and stopped at her father's with his rifle and hound. He, of course, joined in the search. In the road the children's tracks were not distinguishable, and even in the woods they had crossed each other so often that the hound could hardly follow them, After ranging to and froa long time, however, he at length struck a distinct trail, which he and his master quickly followed. Ere long the dog reached the hollow where the children were. Little Amos saw him, and screamed to his sister Abigail: '* Nabby, Nabby, here's a wolf!" them not to be scared. He fired his rifle, the universal signal of success in such cases, 'and the searchers quickly assembled. The overjoyed fathers and friends caught up the babes in the woods, and soon bore them to their frightened mothers, when they were put to bed with a better chance of a sound sleep than that offered by a Christmas night in the forest, with the wolves as possible performers in the play.

Nothwithstanding the season, however, it does not seem to have been very cold, and in fact all the old accounts speak of the remarkable mildness of the winters during the last two or three years of the eighteenth century.