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Historical Collections of Ohio

By Henry Howe

Vol. I

©1888

 

CUYAHOGA COUNTY

 

Page 494

 

CUYAHOGA was formed from Geauga county, June 7, 1807, and organized in May, 1810.  The name was derived from the river, and is said to signify, in the Indian language, “crooked,” a term significant of the river, which is very winding,’ and has its sources farther north than its mouth.  The surface is level or gently undulating.  Near the lake the soil is sandy, elsewhere generally a clayey loam.  The valleys of the streams are highly productive in corn and oats; in other parts the principal crops are wheat, barley and hay.  The county produces a great variety and amount of excellent fruit; also cheese, butter, etc.  Excellent grindstone quarries are worked, and grindstones largely exported.  The sandstone from these quarries is a great article of commerce.

 

Area, 470 square miles.  In 1885 the acres cultivated were 100,462; pasture, 73,790; woodland, 24,634; lying waste, 8,937; produced in wheat, 184,680 bushels; oats, 550,108; corn, 360,664; apples, 297,497; butter, 847,183 pounds; cheese, 46,397; milk, 3,598,729 quarts; cows, 12,486; pounds of grapes, 3,290,363, being more than double that of any other county.  School census 1886 74,027; teachers, 932.  It has 395 miles of railroad track.

 

 

 

 

 

Page 495

 

194,735, of whom 101,980 were Ohio-born; 4,728 Pennsylvania; 10,059 New York; 27,051 born in the German Empire; 13,203 in Ireland; 10,839 in England and Wales; 4,884 British America; 1,705 Scotland; 506 France; 248 Sweden and Norway.

 

As early as 1755 there was a French station within the present limits of Cuyahoga.  On Lewis EVANS’ map of the middle British colonies, published that year, there is marked upon the west bank of the Cuyahoga, the words “French house,” which was doubtless the station of a French trader.  The ruins of a house, supposed to be those of the one alluded to, have been discovered on FOOT’S farm, in Brooklyn township, about five miles from the mouth of the Cuyahoga.  The small engraving annexed is from the map of Evans, and delineates the geography as in the original.

 

 

In 1786 the Moravian missionary, ZEISBERGER, with his Indian converts, left Detroit, and arrived at the mouth of the Cuyahoga in a vessel called the Mackinaw.  From thence they proceeded up the river about ten miles from the site of Cleveland, and settled in an abandoned village of the Ottawas, within the present limits of Independence, which they called Pilgerruh, i.e., Pilgrim’s Rest.  Their stay was brief, for in the April following they left for Huron river, and settled near the site of Milan, Erie county, at a locality they named New Salem.

 

The British, who, after the Revolutionary war, refused to yield possession of the lake country west of the Cuyahoga, occupied to its shores until 1790.  Their traders had a house in Ohio City, north of the Detroit road on the point of the hill near the river, when the surveyors first arrived here in 1796.  From an early day WASHINGTON, JEFFERSON and other leading Virginia statesmen regarded the mouth of the Cuyahoga as an important commercial position.

 

The First Permanent Settlement within the limits of Cuyahoga was made at CLEVELAND in the autumn of 1796.  On the 4^th of July previous, the first surveying party of the Reserve landed at Conneaut.  In September and October the corps laid out the city, which was named in honor of the land company’s agent, Gen. Moses CLEVELAND.  By the 18^th of October, the surveyors quitted the place, leaving Mr. Job V. STILES and his family and Mr. Edward PAINE, who were the only persons that passed the winter of 1796-97 within the limits of the town.  Their lonely residence was a log-cabin, which stood near the site of the Commercial bank.  The nearest white settlement west was at the mouth of the Raisin; south or east at Fort M’Intosh, at the mouth of Big Beaver; and northeast at Conneaut.  Those families that wintered at Conneaut suffered severely from want of food.

 

The Surveying Party, on reaching the Reserve the succeeding season, again made Cleveland their headquarters.  Early this season, Elijah GUNN and Judge KINGSBURY removed here from Conneaut with their families, and in the fall the latter removed to Newburg, where he still (1846) resides at an advanced age.  The little colony was increased also by the arrival of Major Lorenzo CARTER and Ezekiel HAWLEY, with their families.