The opening of the railroad to Columbus in 1851 marked the second step in the business history of the city. The canals brought business from the south-east, and by a slow and uncertain route from Cincinnati. The completion of the railroad gave direct and speedy connection with Cincinnati, with the rich valleys of the Miami, and with lands hitherto undeveloped or seeking other markets for their produce. Other railroads were rapidly built, and developed new avenues of commerce and new sources of wealth. The population increased rapidly. The streets were extended and lined with new buildings. Additional stores were opened and all departments felt the rush of new life. The lake commerce of the port, in spite of the business drawn off by competing railroads, increased in 1853 to a total of eighty-seven million dollars, more than four times the amount reached nine years before, after the canal System had been completed and was in full operation. The grain trade which once was the foundation of the commerce of the city, had fallen away owing the gradual removal of the wheat producing territory westward. It was asserted, and generally believed, that the canals had done all they could for the prosperity of the city, and that unless something new turned up for its benefit, Cleveland would remain at a stand-still, or increase only by very slow degrees. Business was extremely dull, the prospect looked dubious, many business men moved to other cities and more were preparing to follow. Just then two things occurred. The war broke out, and the Atlantic and Great Western railway was extended to Cleveland. The latter event opened a new market for trade in north-western Pennsylvania, and soon after, by sending a large proportion of the product of the oil regions to this point for refining or shipment, built up an immense and lucrative department of manufacture and commerce, whose effect was felt in all classes of business. The war stimulated manufactures, and by a sudden bound Cleveland set out on the path of permanent prosperity long pointed out by some far-seeing men, but until the time referred to strangely neglected. In a very few years the population more than doubled the existing facilities for business were found totally inadequate for the suddenly increased demands, and the most strenuous exertions of the builders failed to meet the call for new stores. Manufactory after manufactory came into existence, and with each there was an influx of population and a consequent increase in all departments of trade. And the work still goes on, every manufactory started creating some need hitherto unfelt, and thus rendering other manufactories necessary to supply the need.
A careful census of population and business, made towards the close of 1868, in compliance with a request from one department of the Government at Washington, showed that the population had increased to ninety thousand; the value of real estate was valued at fifty millions of dollars, and of personal property at thirty millions. The commerce, including receipts and shipments by lake, canal, and railroad, was taken at eight hundred and sixty-five millions of dollars; the value of manufactures for the year at nearly fifty millions; the lake arrivals and clearances at ten thousand, with an aggregate tonnage of over three millions of tons; and the number of vessels and canal boats owned here at nearly four hundred. Seventy years ago Major Carter resided here in lonely state with his family, being the only white family in the limits of what is now the city of Cleveland. The cash value of the entire trade of Cleveland at that time would not pay a very cheap clerk's salary now-a-days.
Levi Johnson
The biography of Levi Johnson is, in effect, the history of Cleveland, and a sketch of the more active period of his life involves the narrative of life in Cleveland during the earlier years of its existence. It is, therefore, of more than ordinary interest.
Mr. Johnson is a native of Herkimer county, New York, having been born in that county April 25th, 1786. He commenced life in a time and place that admitted of no idlers, young or old, and in his tenth year it was his weekly task to make and dip out a barrel of potash, he being too young to be employed with the others in wood-chopping. Until his fourteenth year he lived with an uncle, working on a farm, and laboring hard. At that age he determined to be a carpenter and joiner, and entered the shop of Ephraim Derrick, with whom he remained four years. At eighteen, he changed masters and worked with Laflet Remington, and at twenty-one changed again to Stephen Remington, with whom he worked at barn building one year.
It was whilst he was with Stephen Remington that an event occurred that shaped Levi Johnson's future life. Considerable interest had been excited in regard to Ohio, towards which emigrants were frequently seen taking their way. A brother of Stephen Remington was sent west to spy out the land and report on its desirableness as a home. This committee of one, on lands, came to Newburgh, and was so strongly impressed with the advantages of the place from which Cleveland was afterwards said to be but six miles distant, that he allowed his imagination to run away with his veracity. He wrote back that he had struck the richest country in the world; that the soil was marvelously fertile, and that corn grew so tall and strong that the raccoons ran up the stems and lodged on the ears out of the way of the dogs. Great was the excitement in Herkimer county when this report was received. Such wonderful growth of corn was never known in York State, but Ohio was a terra incognita, and Munchausen himself would have had a chance of being believed had he located his adventures in what was then the Far West. Stephen Remington quit barn-building, shut up his shop, packed up his tools and started in the Fall of 1807 for the new Eden, on Lake Erie. In the succeeding Spring, Johnson followed in his footsteps as far as East Bloomfield, near Canandaigua, where he worked during that Summer, building a meeting-house.
In the Fall of 1808, he shouldered his pack and set out on foot for the West. At Buffalo he found work and wintered there until February, when his uncle came along, bound also for the land of promise. There was room in the sleigh for Levi, and he was not loth to avail himself of the opportunity of making his journey quicker and easier than on foot. On the 10th of March, 1809, the sleigh and its load entered Cleveland.
By that time it had come to be hard sledding, so the sleigh was abandoned and the two travelers, determining to put farther west, mounted the horses and continued their journey to Huron county. Here they fell in with Judge Wright and Ruggles, who were surveying the Fire Lands. They wanted a saw-mill, and Johnson's uncle contracted to build one at the town of Jessup, now known as Wakeman. Levi turned back to Cleveland, and was fortunate in finding a home in the family of Judge Walworth. The Judge wanted an office built, and Johnson undertook to make it. Hitherto, all the houses were of logs; but the Judge, having a carpenter boarding in his family, aspired to something more pretentions. The building was to be frame. At that time Euclid was a flourishing settlement, and rejoiced in that important feature--a saw-mill. The lumber was brought from Euclid, the frame set up on Superior street, about where the American House now stands, and every day the gossips of the little settlement gathered to watch and discuss the progress of the first frame building in Cleveland. The work occupied forty days, and when it was completed, there was great pride in this new feature of Cleveland architecture. The erection of the first frame building marked the commencement of a new era.
That job done, Levi turned back to Huron to fulfill the contract made by his uncle for the erection of a saw-mill. This was a heavy job for so small a force, and between three and four months were spent in it. Slinging his kit of tools on his back, he then turned once more towards Cleveland, in which he settled down for the remainder of his life, the next two or three years being spent in building houses and barns in Cleveland, and in the more flourishing village of Newburgh. A saw-mill also was put up on Tinker's creek.
When Mr. Johnson was building the saw-mill at Jessup, he fell in with a young lady, Miss Montier, who enjoyed the distinction of being the first white girl that landed in Huron, where she lived with a family named Hawley. The young carpenter fell in love with the only pretty girl to be found in the neighborhood, and she was not unkindly disposed to the young man. When he returned to Cleveland she was induced to come also, and lived with Judge Walworth, at that time the great landed owner, and consequently prominent man in the thriving village of sixty inhabitants. In 1811, the couple were married.