Ohio Article referencing J. L. Weatherly from Philadelphia (1951), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Kathleen Berner Groll ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net *********************************************************************** An Ohio newspaper article from the PRESS of February 28, 1951... GRAVE FUNDS APPEAR, 50 YEARS LATE By George Davis Cleveland's Erie Street Cemetery finally received a fund, willed a half century ago, to keep the grass cut on the grave of J. L. Weatherly, founder and first president of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce's parent Board of Trade of Cleveland. Mary Weatherly, one of his descendants, left the money when she died in Philadelphia soon after 1900. It was slow getting here because when it was ready to be sent her own executor had died and his executors were told the cemetery soon would be abandoned. That was in 1907. While the executors still waited to hear when the graves were to be moved, the Chamber of Commerce set up a granite marker on the grave in 1940. Election had followed election. The proposal to abandon the cemetery had been crossed off and no one had remembered to tell them about it in Philadelphia. Provident Trust Co. in Philadelphia woke up a year or two ago and wrote Cleveland. Result of this inquiry is that the money finally has reached Director Arthur Munson of the Department of Public Properties at City Hall. PERPETUAL CARE It's $300, and an additional $22.50. Meanwhile, the value of the Philadelphia estate has increased and the directors have arranged for perpetual care of the grave in Cleveland. Actually, the grass had been kept cut without regard to funds or lack of them in Philadelphia. The grave is topped by a white stone crypt. It is so weathered no carving on it can be read, but its shape makes it notable. J.L. Weatherly was a produce merchant. He boarded at the Angier House and ate broiled snipe there when the Angier was known for its cooking, best west of New York. His office was at the dock where hotel buses met many small passenger ships. He opened a coffee depot there to sell coffee throughout all this lake region. But everybody preferred tea and the depot closed with tons of coffee beans unsold. Weatherly was a first chief of the fire department when volunteers ran on foot with engines they pumped by hand. Fire fighting was a sport and rival companies fought with their fists. The first local fire boat was named Weatherly. He was born in 1807 and came here in 1837. In 1863 he left to head an insurance company in Buffalo, died there in 1866.