Cleveland Past and Present | Page 2

was organized in 1795, and in the
month of May of the following year, it commissioned General Moses
Cleaveland to superintend the survey of their lands, with a staff of

forty-eight assistants. On the 22d of July, 1796, General Cleaveland,
accompanied by Augustus Porter, the principal of the surveying
department, and several others, entered the mouth of the Cuyahoga
from the lake. Job P. Stiles and his wife are supposed to have been with
the party. General Cleaveland continued his progress to Sandusky Bay,
leaving enough men to put up a storehouse for the supplies, and a cabin
for the accommodation of the surveyors. These were located a short
distance south of St. Clair street, west of Union lane, at a spring in the
side-hill, in rear of Scott's warehouse. During the season a cabin was
put up for Stiles, on lot 53, east side of Bank street, north of the Herald
Building, where Morgan & Root's block now stands. This was the first
building for permanent settlement erected on the site of the city,
although huts for temporary occupancy had been previously built in the
neighborhood.
Upon the return of the party from Sandusky, Mr. Porter prepared the
outlines of the city. He says: "I surveyed a piece of land designed for a
town--its dimensions I do not recollect--probably equal to about a mile
square, bounding west on the river, and north on the lake. I made a plot
of this ground, and laid it off into streets and lots. Most or all the streets
I surveyed myself, when I left it in charge of Mr. Holley to complete
the survey of the lots."
The survey of the city was commenced on the 16th of September, and
completed about the 1st of October, 1796. Holley's notes state that on
Monday, October 17th, he "finished surveying in New Connecticut;
weather rainy," and on the following day he records: "We left
Cuyahoga at 3 o'clock 17 minutes, for home. We left at Cuyahoga, Job
Stiles and wife, and Joseph Landon, with provisions for the Winter."
Landon soon abandoned the spot and his place was taken by Edward
Paine, who had arrived from the State of New York, for the purpose of
trading with the Indians, and who may be considered the first
mercantile man who transacted business in Cleveland. Thus, during the
Winter of 1796-7, the population of the city consisted of three
inhabitants. During the Winter a child is reputed to have been born in
the cabin, which had only squaws for nurses.
Early in the Spring of 1797, James Kingsbury and family, from New
England, with Elijah Gunn, one of the surveying party, all of whom had
continued during the Winter at Conneaut, where they had endured

incredible hardships, removed to Cleveland. His first cabin was put up
on the site of the Case Block, east of the Public Square, but he
subsequently removed to a point east of the present city limits,
somewhere on a line with Kinsman Street. Here he remained until his
death.
The next families who were attracted to this settlement were those of
Major Lorenzo Carter and Ezekiel Hawley, who came from Kirtland,
Vermont, the family of the Major being accompanied by Miss Cloe
Inches. In the Spring of the following year, (1798,) the former
gentleman sowed two acres of corn on the west side of Water street. He
was also the first person who erected a frame building in the city,
which he completed in 1802; but an unfortunate casualty proved fatal
to the enterprise, for when he was about to occupy the residence it was
totally destroyed by fire. In 1803, however, he erected another house on
the site of the destroyed building, but on this occasion he confined
himself to hewn logs.
The fourth addition of the season was that of Nathan Chapman and his
family, who, like the patriarchs of yore, traveled with his herd, and
marched into the Forest City at the head of two yoke of oxen and four
milch cows, which were the first neat stock that fed from the rich
pasturage on the banks of the Cuyahoga.
In the Summer of 1797, the surveying party returned to the Western
Reserve and resumed their labors, with Cleveland as a head-quarters. It
was a very sickly season and three of the number died, one of whom
was David Eldridge, whose remains were interred in a piece of ground
chosen as a cemetery, at the corner of Prospect and Ontario streets.
This funeral occurred on the 3d of June, 1797, and is the first recorded
in the city. Recently, while making some improvements to the
buildings now occupying that location, some human bones were
discovered.
Less than one month after the first funeral, occurred the first wedding.
On the 1st of