Souvenir Book of the Cleveland Industrial Exposition

JUNE 7- 19, 1909

Issued by the Exposition Committee, The Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, 1909

A CENTURY OF INDUSTRY

MIDWAY between the river and that reserved square of land which has become the heart of Cleveland, on the south side of what is now Superior avenue, stood the original manufacturing plant of the future metropolis of Ohio. It was the blacksmith shop of Pioneer Nathaniel Doan, and its site was given the worthy smith by the Connecticut Land Company in acknowledgment of the value of his services. The shop, a rude log structure, was built in the summer of 1798, the year Pioneer Doan arrived in Cleveland, and there the sturdy artisan shod infrequent pack horses, and fashioned such handy tools as his skill and materials would permit. The blacksmith was a popular man in that limited community, and the pleasant clink of his hammer and the dull glow of his forge, made the modest smithy a pleasant loitering place for local gossips and passing wayfarers.

In 1800, Pioneer Wheeler W. Williams built a grist and saw mill on what was later called Mill creek, in the town of Newburgh, and the building of this establishment developed still another form of industrial production when Pioneer David Bryant, and his son Gilman, cut and shaped the mill stones in a rude and laborious fashion. A little later this mill passed into the hands of Judge Samuel Huntington, a pioneer of much more than local fame.

In 1801, David Bryant set up in a log building under the hill, near the foot of Lakeside avenue, a diminutive copper still which he brought with him from Virginia. This tiny distillery had a daily capacity of two quarts of raw spirits, and it is credited in the early annals with adding a zest to the social gatherings, and with exerting a mollifying influence over the uneasy Indians of the neighborhood.

In 1808, Cleveland's original ship-builder, that fearless foreloper, Lorenzo Carter, built the schooner "Zephyr," of thirty tons, and a little later Joel Thorpe launched the "Sally," and Alexander Simpson the " Dove," tiny boats of equal tonnage. These vessels were the white winged couriers of the mighty Cleveland fleet that was to follow. In 1814, another stalwart pioneer, Levi Johnson, built the " Pilot-," a pretentious schooner of sixty tons, of which it is related that twelve yoke of oxen were required to drag the reluctant craft from the Johnson boatyard to the river, a half mile away. With the construction of the " Pilot" shipbuilding assumed and held the paramount place among Cleveland industries for a half century to come.

These industrial beginnings in the new foothold in the Reserve wilderness present in an interesting sequence the necessities and resources of a primitive settlement. The artisan in iron, the maker of tools, led the way. Then came the grinder of grain and the worker in wood. They were followed by the alchemist who could charm from the bearded wheat the fiery liquid that was both used and abused. After these came the builder of boats.