For Cuyahoga River and its early history, see Croghan's Journals, in our volume i, p. 107, note 72.—Ed.
[172] Cleveland, the metropolis of the Western Reserve, was first surveyed in 1796, when the original log-cabin was built, and the site named in honor of Moses Cleaveland, agent for the Connecticut Land Company, then engaged in exploiting the reserve. During the early years, its growth was extremely slow, the total population in 1800 being but seven. After the War of 1812-15, settlers began to arrive with more frequency, the village being incorporated in 1814. The era of prosperity opened in Cleveland with the period of canal transportation. The inauguration of the Erie Canal (1825) gave impetus to the place, which increased with rapidity when made the terminus of the Erie and Ohio Canal. Cleveland was incorporated as a city in 1836; in 1900 it was the largest borough in Ohio, and the seventh city in size in the United States.—Ed.
[173] Lake Erie is 290 miles in length, and sixty-eight miles at its greatest breadth. Its depth is said nowhere to exceed 100 or 120 feet.—Maximilian.
[174] For the early history of this region, see Croghan's Journals, in our volume i, pp. 103-106, with accompanying notes.
Fairport, in Lake County, Ohio, was laid out in 1812 by Samuel Huntington and four partners at the mouth of Grand River, three miles from the earlier city of Painesville. The first villages were platted south of Lake Erie, on higher ground, the lake ports being neglected until commerce increased. Fairport has a good harbor, and had (1900) a population of 2,073.
Ashtabula, on a creek of the same name, gives its title to a county. The town is two miles from the mouth of the creek, and was incorporated in 1827.
Salem Crossroads was the early name for the village of Brocton, in Chautauqua County, New York. The first settlement was made about 1805. The nearest harbor, which is not a good roadstead, lies below Van Buren Point.
Dunkirk would not appear in the Ohio Gazetteer, being a town in New York State, first settled (1805) at the mouth of Canadaway Creek. In 1809 the harbor was known as Chadwick's Bay, from the first permanent settler on the coast. The name Dunkirk was given about 1817, in honor of the famous French port.—Ed.
[175] For the early history of Buffalo, see Buttrick's Voyages, in our volume viii, p. 42, note 4; upon its destruction in the raid of 1814, see Evans's Tour, in our volume viii, p. 182, note 40; also William Dorsheimer, "Buffalo during the War of 1812," in Buffalo Historical Society Publications, i, pp. 185-210; and S. C. Becker, Sketches of Early Buffalo (Buffalo, 1904), pp. 118-132.—Ed.
[176] For another account of this village, see Evans's Tour, in our volume viii, p. 183, note 41; on the mission, see H. R. Howland, "Seneca Mission at Buffalo Creek," in Buffalo Historical Society Publications, vi, pp. 125-164.—Ed.