OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List Issue 97 ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgenwebarchives.org ************************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 06 : Issue 97 Today's Topics: #1 Fw: Tid-Bits - part 79 ["Maggie Stewart, OH Archives" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <02a801c69c56$6660fab0$0301a8c0@margaret> Subject: Fw: Tid-Bits - part 79 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darlene & Kathi kelley" To: Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 6:24 PM Subject: Tid-Bits - part 79 Contributed for use in U.S.GenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley June 28, 2006 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West Know Your Ohio Tid-Bits - part 79. notes by S. Kelly +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid-Bits - part 79. Immigration into Cleveland Immigrants from England, the Isle of Man, Scotland, and Wales were the earliest to arrive in Cleveland, and because American society was, and is, culturally and linguistically derived from Great Britain, they found in Cleveland a home that was familiar and into which many readily assimulated, leaving few traces such as neighborhoods, churches, and such. Americans of English descent, were the first to come to Cleveland and the Western Reserve, with the arrival of Moses Cleveland and his surveying party. Thus bringing people of English birth or background, who determined the city's cultural, business, and industrial growth. Early immigrants became pioneer farmers, most settling in the Newburgh area. English migration increased in the 1830s as the economic potential of the area grew. It is established that in 1830 over 1,200 Englishmen arrived in Cleveland, in which by 1848, 1,007 of the city's 13,696 inhabitants were English. Many opened small manufacturing establishments that grew into major commercial enterprises, initially in the area from E. 30th St. to E. 45th St. along Superior Ave., and also in parts of what became East Cleveland. Soon without barriers of custom or language, they moved into all areas of the city. Manx, immigrants from the Isle of Man, in the Irish Sea, a unique ethnic group, began to arrive in May 1826. In 1822 the Corlett family came to America and leased 50 acres of Newburgh land from the Connecticut Land Co., and became farmers, and encouraged their fellow Manxmen to follow. In May 1826, 3 more Manx families settled in Newburgh, each family purchasing a farm, thus establishing a Manx settlement that drew further immigrants. Another 70 Manx families settled in the Warrensville area on May 25, 1827. Eventually there were over 3,000 Manx and their descendants, bound by their own unique Gaelic language, which they used almost exclusively with each other and in their religious services. It today, fosters its culture and history of their closely knit communities. Scottish Immigrants first came to Cleveland around 1796; however the largest Scottish immigartions occurred around 1830 with many coming by way of Canada, Pennsylvania, Virginia, or the Carolinas. Later arrivals came directly from Scotland. They were stonemasons mostly and settled in the city. The farmers moved out to the farmland near Eddy Rd. The second wave of migration settled around Denison and Fulton Aves on the west side, and E. 70th St. and Superior on the east side. Soon they moved into all sections of greater Cleveland. Those who came after 1830 adjusted quickly and achieved distinction in many fields, becoming industrial pioneers, particularly in manufacturing iron. But this was not just the only field ; bicycles, automobiles, contractors, architects, and builders were credited to these industrious pioneers. Local interests in Scottish culture began to grow. [The Ohio Scotish games held annunally in nearby Oberlin, attract thousands of participants and spectators, most of whom are removed from their Scottish roots.]. Welsh immigrants were important in Cleveland's development as one of the nation's iron and steel centers. One of the first immigrants was Jas. J. Chard, who came from Wales in 1822, and settled on a farm in Euclid in 1830, and moved to Cleveland in 1832, opening a general leather business. Welsh arrivals in Cleveland in the 1840's often settled in Newburgh. In 1842, 62 families of Cleveland's population of 13,696 had been born in Wales. They soon came in larger groups, especially after David I and John Jones established an iron mill in Newburgh in 1856 and encouraged fellow Welshmen to come to Cleveland. The Welsh community grew rapidly around their mill and by 1870 over 2,000 Welsh lived in Newburgh. Another Welshman, David James, built a competitive rolling mill called " Crossing Mill " which became Empire Steel Co. Another Welsh settlement was established near Otis Steel Mills along Lake Erie, smaller than that at Newburgh, which became known as the " Lakeshore Welsh." The Welsh were religious people and as soon as their arrival they held cottage prayer meetings and services in their homes, until they founded a Sunday school in 1850 on Broadway, and two years later a chapel on Wales St, with a church completed and dedicated in 1864. In the 1880's and 1890's, Polish immigrants settled in Newburgh, replacing the Welsh at the mills. As Welsh ownership of the mills became less dominent and Newburgh became part of Cleveland, the Welsh community gradually disintergrated. The Welsh moving into other communities within the Cleveland area. [ Rocky River opened a Welsh aged home for these immigrants.] Today 11,501 Cuyahoga County residents felt their primary ancestral backgound to be Welsh. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Evidence of Shipbuilding at Vermilion, Ohio As you sit and gaze toward the Vermilion River, you can imagine what it must have been like to see workman scurrying about a busy shipyard some many years ago. This shipyard today is long since gone, but the village and some of the old houses are still there. For seventy years, Vermilion produced wooden ships for the Great lakes trade. By present standards, they were small ships, ranging in everything from 40 foot tugs to 130 foot schooners and steamers. Even so, they were large for then and among the finest built anywhere. It is told that the largest of these built in the village was the Schooner "Negaunee" in 1867. She was 640 gross tons, 193 feet long, 34 feet in beam and 13 feet deep. The artfacts found aroung this area were things that men before us had left of remnants of their crafts, It is a imaginative stuff, such as a mizzen boom from a schooner which was massive. Its vestige of many schooners built in the harbor between 1810 and 1876. Of course, there were durable carpenter's tools and a few wooden pulley blocks lying around the countryside, but you had to be a schooner buff to spot them. On the whole, schooner parts were rare, and our mizzen boom was by far the largest. Another evidence of shipbuilding, is at the foot of Huron street was the launching slip for the hulls constructed at its head. There was a dock along the north side where a rowboat was docked in a nice quiet berth off the main stream. Across the river was a row of piles with their tops just clear of the surface. They appeared like a row of soldiers along the shallows of the marsh side of the stream. This pile fence was a barrier to prevent vessels from wandering off channel into the shallows of the marsh. You can envision schooners navigating the stream on their own power of sail or momentum alone, not having much maneuverability, so the fence was indeed useful and worth the cost of pile driving. Another trace of the schooner years was a disguised shoal on the west side of the lighthouse pier. In fact, it was storage ground for schooner ballast which provided the required bottom weight for sailing vessels coming in light -- convrniently sized and shaped flat stones that originated in the limestone of the Bass or Kelley's Islands. Just the stuff for hands to cary aboard and stow alongside the keelson and centerboard box. For years they say, the jagged bones of a schooner lay on the bank across the river just south of the lagoon. They had removed them when Mr. Wells developed the marsh into a real estate venture. After 1840 when the government pier was installed and the harbor entrance became deep and stable, shipbuilding took off in all its intensity during the clamour for ship bottoms. Vermilion became immersed in construction of schooners 50 to 150 feet on deck, the workhorses of the lakes. The town was making their living at the time of the building of these ships. In winter, farmers and shipbuilders supplimented their slack by hauling timber out of the forest, and skidding the long, heavy logs through town to the shipyard. Consequently, the townsfolk lived and breathed ships. The day of the launch and christening would bring the whole town together for homespun parties on nearby grounds. Every launch meant a great day in Vermilion. It has been years since the last schooner, " William Stone." moved down the ways at the Vermilion launching slip. Those fleeting years have left fond memories in the wake of those grand vessels, the sailing ships that hauled the cargoes before the steamers arrived. Just the place to relax and dream, and wonder with amazement --- a perfect spot to relax! ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid-Bits to continue in part 80 -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V06 Issue #97 ******************************************