OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Tidbits of Ohio -- Part 21C ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information is included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgenwebarchives.org ************************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 March 23, 2005 ************************************************************************** Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West Know Your Ohio by Darlene E. Kelley Tid Bits - part 21 C +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ part 21 C One of the most entertaining first things is the carriage. Alfred Kelley married his fair lady in Lowville, N.Y., bought a carriage in Albany, and then they started out in style. in the year of 1817, for their new home in Ohio. They drove to Buffalo on difficult and muddy trails, so they decided there to take a ship the rest of the way, and to drive to Niagara Falls while waiting for the schooner to sail. While they were gone, the schooner sailed without them. So they had to fall back on the carriage. It took them seven days to drive to Cleaveland, and the roads were so bad they walked most of the way, but even so, they arrived before the schooner did. It may be noted that bad as the roads were, it was at least possible to get te carriage over them. Twenty years before, there was only a trail, impracticable for oxen yoked in a team. The carriage, needless to say, caused a great sensation, and was often borrowed for State occasons. Leonard Case brought his bride home in it. " In the midst of life, we are in death." The first burying ground was on Ontario Street, where Prospect now meets it. The Erie Street Cemetery was laid out later, and seemed then, in 1823, quite far from town. It was in 1820 that the first stage route was established. This ran to Columbus. In the fall of the same year another started to run to Norwalk, and wagon lines were soon running to Pittsburg. This was a " curious wagon with a canvas top, set solidly on a springless wagon, with three plain boards for seats." The passenger by stage-coach had a comparatively easy time in the summer, but in spring or fall he was sure to have to walk part of the way, and often had to " shoulder a rail and carry it from mudhole to mudhole to pry out the vehicle in which he was supposed to be riding." The hotel business, naturally, was one of the earliest. A period of horse transportation required stopping places near enough together to fit the strength of the team. Lorenzo Carter, it will be remembered, " kept tavern " as soon as he had a cabin up. Rudolphus Edwards made a business of keeping tavern out on Wodland Hills about where the road from Doans Corners to Newburgh met the one from Cleaveland to Kinsman and Hudson. In 1820, Michael Spangler came to town and opened his " Commercial House, " which was long a landmark. Peter Weddell came about the same time, but it was not until 1845 that the famous Weddell House was built, at the corner of Superior and Bank streets ( now West Sixth Street ). His first venture was in the dry goods firm of Peter M. Weddell and Co., Dudley Baldwin and Peter P. Weddell being other partners. In 1819 came Joel Scranton with a schooner load of leather, and John Blair of Maryland with three dollars saved to start his future fortune. Blair made a fortunate deal in pork, and was soon able to open a produce and commission store on the river. The same year Jabez Kelley opened a candle and water store nearby. The first shipment of flour from the Western Reserve has an interesting story back of it. It seems that William A. Otis, a native of Massachusetts, direct descendant of James Otis, came from Pittsburgh in 1818, worked in an " iron establishment" and put all his savings into the business, which failed. "He then walked westward to Bloomfield, Trumbull County, Ohio, where he cleared land, kept a tavern and established a primitive mercantile establishment, furnishing the settlers with goods in exchange for ashes, wheat, and other produce. The ashes were used in the manufacture of a crude potash, ' which was the only strict cash article in the country.' But it was difficult to get wheat, four or potash to the eastern market. Mr. Otis, therefore, selected an oak tree and had it cut, sawed and split into staves from which barrels were made. A few miles from Bloomfield was a custom grist mill. Mr. Otis bought wheat for twenty-five cents a bushel, had it ground into flour, teamed the barrel flour and potash, thirty five miles to Ashtabula Creek whence it was carried by schooner to Buffalo and thence by canal and river to New York-- the first such shipment of flour from the Western Reserve. He later added pork and wool to his shipments; his business prospered and he served two years in the state legislature. In 1835 he moved to Cleaveland where ' he was at once given rank with the foremost business men.' He still delt in flour, pork, and potash, but gradually concentrated his energies upon iron manufacture and thus became the pioneer iron-master of Cleveland. His increasing shipping interests naturally turned his attention to transportation facilities and he became an active advocate in railway building. He was also active in banking enterprises and served as president of the Comercial National Bank. He was a member of the State Board of Control, was one of the founders of the Cleveland Society for Savings and acted as its president for thirteen years. He was one of te originators of the Board of Trade from which was evolved the present Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. he died in 1868." The business adventures of Mr. Otis are quoted in detail, not because he was any more important in the history of the city than many of these early men dismissed with a line, and many left unmentioned, but because in his one person and one life the transition was made from the first shipment of flour to the iron trade which was the foundation of Ceaveland's wealth and high place, from the pioneering situation in which he had to pick out a tree to cut and make the barrels from, in order to ship his flour, to the definately commercial situation of the city with its banks, railways, ships and complicated business of the time of his death. One of the most interesting points about the early records of business beginnings is not a record at all, but the omission of one. The story of the fisheries is conspicuous by its absence. Only in 1892 was any effort made to prepare statistics as to the importance of the fish trade on the lakes. An old timer talking about the olden times of Ohio was asked about food of his first year, remarking it was always possble, of course, to catch fish. " Fish!" exclaimed the pioneer. " Not one of us so much as knew there was a fish in the whole Georgian Bay that summer. It was two years before we were far enough along with clearing the land so any man dared take a day off to go fishing !" Yet fishing is now the main industry in that region. Farming, as a money-making affair, is inconsequential beside it. Doubtless the first pioneers felt the same way. Fishing was lazy stuff-- it wasn't done in working time by grown men. It was alright for small boys or Indians. The lack of ice was an important factor in the absence of a fishing trade and salt was expensive. Fish caught had to be eaten that same day or thrown away. Commercial fishing was to come in later days --------. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ cont. in part 22.