Ohio History Journal

THE WESTERN RESERVE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

 

 

By ELBERT J. BENTON

 

 

As the Western Reserve Historical Society has passed the

three score and ten commonly allotted as the span of human life,

having recently celebrated its seventy-fifth birthday, it would

seem to have attained a respectable age. The record, however,

shows that there are twenty-two historical societies in the United

States which were founded more than one hundred years ago.

One who is familiar with the cultural history of Ohio would

expect Cincinnati to have been ahead of Cleveland in this respect.

Again the record shows that the Historical and Philosophical

Society was thirty-six years of age when Cleveland's historical

society was organized (Cincinnati, 1831; Cleveland, 1867).

Clevelanders made what proved to be two false or prema-

ture, or perhaps better, badly-timed starts. In 1857, the Cuya-

hoga County Historical Society was started; the following year,

on February 15, the organization was completed. Leonard Case,

Sr., was chosen president and John Barr was selected as secre-

tary. The organization was county wide, a vice-president and

local committee for each township. Early settlers and township

officers were given special privileges on the expectation that such

persons could very effectively aid in the collection and preserva-

tion of historical materials. Colonel Charles Whittlesey, Ahaz

Merchant and George B. Merwin were trustees, all three being well

known in Cleveland's business and cultural history. Full accounts

of the Society's early activities were published in the newspapers.

Much information about the early history of the several town-

ships, gathered by the committees, was published in the Leader

during 1858. The Society held "grand county picnic pioneer cele-

brations" at Newburgh in June, 1858 and 1860. Like a county fair,

public speaking and the exhibition of relics, instead of pigs, cattle

and horses, marked the occasions. In 1860 Colonel Whittlesey was

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the chief speaker, and was undoubtedly one of the real leaders

of the movement. Of the picnic of 1860 the editor of the Leader

wrote that "all had a grand time," 5,000 or more, and that the

celebration had exceeded the previous one "in numbers, music,

speeches, relics and enthusiasm." A third picnic was planned for

June, 1861, at Doan's Corners, East Cleveland. But the Cuya-

hoga County Historical Society became a casualty of the Civil

War. Its program never passed beyond the gathering stage. Its

officers met in the County Court House in the Public Square.

The records were later turned over to the Western Reserve His-

torical Society. Several of the relics mentioned in the contempo-

rary newspapers may now be seen at the Society's museum: for

example Rudolphus Edwards' compass which he used in 1798

in surveying the first road from the Pennsylvania line to Cleve-

land; the millstones of the first Newburgh flour mill, recently in-

stalled at the museum by the county commissioners and the county

engineer's men; and Allen Gaylord's painting, representing Cleve-

land as he saw it in 1797.

In 1863, an attempt was made to found a Cleveland Histor-

ical Society. Officers were chosen. By whom is not apparent

from the newspaper record. The president and secretary bore

names of persons, strangers in the cultural records of the time

as well as to the Cleveland land directories, and the Society be-

came another casualty of the Civil War. The historical societies

of Cleveland were not the only Civil War victims. For example,

the Academy of Natural Science was another.

The Cleveland Library Association, chartered in 1848,

weathered the Civil War. In 1867, at a time when the majority

of northern people were thinking of repression and humiliation

for the southern whites, a group of Clevelanders turned to plans

for a revival of two of the city's cultural institutions. Active in

the group were Colonel Whittlesey and John Barr of Cuyahoga

County Historical Society fame. The move came from within

the Cleveland Library Association. It was a plan for specializa-

tion in the efforts of the library group. The trustees and other

officers seemed to think that history and natural science would

be advanced more rapidly if given their own quarters and organi-

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zations. In 1867 some of them organized the Western Reserve

Historical Society and two years later the Kirtland Society of

Natural History, both departments of the Library Association,

under its general auspices and administered by its supporters.

Colonel Whittlesey, a West Pointer by training and an explorer

by instinct and profession became president. The president of

the Library Association at the time, Martin B. Scott, an insurance

man and active promoter of welfare movements, became vice-

president of the historical department. A. T. Goodman, active in

the Library Association, also joined with the group and in 1868

became recording secretary. It is clear from the record that

Charles C. Baldwin, a graduate of Wesleyan University, of the

Harvard Law School, a Cleveland attorney, later a judge of the

circuit court of Ohio, and at the time a trustee and vice-president

of the Library Association was a moving spirit in founding the

Historical Society. He and Colonel Whittlesey had long been

active in their efforts to promote local history and local culture in

general. The services of Secretary Goodman, a young attorney

of dynamic personality, were terminated by an early death and

Judge Baldwin became secretary. On the death of Colonel Whit-

tlesey, in 1886, he became president.

The by-laws gave to the "department" the name that was to

hold--The Western Reserve Historical Society--and stated that

the principal object was "to discover, procure and preserve what-

ever relates to the history, biography, genealogy, antiquities and

statistics connected with the City of Cleveland and the Western

Reserve." In order to make sure that all historical interests of

Clevelanders would come within its field, the by-laws added,

"and generally what relates to the history of Ohio and the Great

West." A board of six curators with the president, treasurer and

chairman of the library committee of the parent society as ex-

officio members became the governing body. At the start the

Cleveland Library Association provided the two departments--

the Historical Society and the Kirtland Society--with quarters.

To the historical department it assigned "the splendid fire-

proof room 29 ft. by 80, on the third floor of the Savings

Bank."  The collections of the two departments or branches.

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WESTERN RESERVE HISTORICAL SOCIETY            99

 

the officers of the Library Association said, would constitute "a

valuable museum of history, mechanical arts, specimens of natural

history and natural science, maps, manuscripts, likenesses of the

pioneers, relics, engraved views, etc."--a comprehensive program

for the advancement of history and natural science. The annual

reports of those days were a record of small beginnings. Only a

few cases were available for the display of objects which came in.

But the reports exhibited no lack of optimism. The meetings of

the Society were nearly always at the home of some one of the

curators, and largely for social and literary discussions.

In 1892, the Historical Society passed from under the wings

of the parent organization, having secured a state charter and

purchased a home of its own, the old Society for Savings build-

ing on the Public Square, the one in which it had been a tenant

from the beginning. In the new charter the functions of the

Society were broadened. It was to have a wider outlook--Ohio

and the West, not Western Reserve and the West; it was to

maintain a museum and a library as coordinate agencies, and it was

to employ literary meetings, publications and "other proper

means" of fulfilling its educational mission.

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, Cleveland had

entered into a new period of its cultural history, with Western

Reserve University and Case School established four miles out

Euclid Avenue, in the country, in fact. In 1898, six years after

purchasing a home of its own on Memorial Park, the name of

the time for the Public Square, the Society sold its property to

the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and moved into a new build-

ing, designed better to meet its needs, located in the Wade Park

area, adjacent to Case School and Western Reserve University.

It was a significant change, from the business center to the so-

called University Circle.

In 1913 the Society advanced to a new stage when it ap-

pointed Wallace H. Cathcart director, its first, with the under-

standing that he would devote his entire time to its work. It rep-

resented a new era, one of very rapid growth. His skill as a

collector put new life into the Society. Within a few years the

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100 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

building the officers had thought the answer to all their needs

was greatly overcrowded. The assembly hall was taken over to

house the library, and without a hall, the lecture series and meet-

ings of members were abandoned. The museum was cramped al-

most to a point of extinction by the needs of the accumulating

books, pamphlets and newspapers. Much that the Society owned

was stored in rented warehouse rooms. The officers faced a dilem-

ma: without space for exhibits gifts were withheld; stagnation

meant declining confidence in the Society's objectives. A way

was found to break the deadlock.

Between 1938 and 1941 President Laurence H. Norton led

the trustees through the necessary steps in the acquisition and

occupation of a new home on East Boulevard, facing Wade Park

and still near the University, Severance Hall and the Museum of

Art. In 1944 two fifty-room residences house the Library and

the Museum. Together they constitute a unique setting for an

historical society.  In architectural form  they are Florentine

villas, set in enclosed, formal gardens, and constitute a beautiful

place for the treasures of a library and a museum. What is also

important in a large city, so far as the Society's needs can today be

foreseen, there is ample space for expansion with additional build-

ings.

The Society set out, as the name implies, to serve north-

eastern Ohio. It has sought to do this with a library of books,

pamphlets, maps and manuscripts that would encourage the study

of American history, with a museum that would vitalize and give

reality to innumerable aspects of history, and by annual lecture

series and publications that should make public the results of

studies in the museum library. The founders made much of fre-

quent meetings of the members of the Society in one another's

homes for a discussion of historical subjects--a sort of members'

forum. In 1944, all the services except the members' forum are

being continued. New services have taken its place. Lantern

and film projectors exhibit scenes of historic significance. The

settled opinion of historical scholars regarding controversial views

of the past are exhibited by charts and other graphic devices. The

use of certain rooms in the Museum by individuals and by so-

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WESTERN RESERVE HISTORICAL SOCIETY           101

 

cieties for the exhibition of significant private collections adds

variety and therefore interest to the Society's work. Loan ex-

hibits sent to the schools and other public buildings carry the

Society's influence into the community. The gardens are much

used for social affairs of cultural organizations--churches, pa-

triotic societies and clubs--with mutual advantages for the visitors

and for the Society.

In Cleveland, as elsewhere, the Museum attracts more visitors

than the Library. It is ever changing and offers exhibits that

attract the eye. The Library is the place where visitors go to work

on a variety of tasks. A description of the Museum's twenty-four

or five rooms of exhibits would in many cases not be true the fol-

lowing month. Half of the contents of the Museum are in storage,

to be drawn on for fresh exhibits as occasion arises.

Perhaps a summary description of the contents of the Library

may interest scholars outside Cleveland and should find a place

in this statement. Here again pictures, medals, coins, stamps and

maps, though in cases in the Library, serve the same purpose as

the museum objects. They illuminate history rather than serve

as the raw materials out of which history is made--as do manu-

scripts, newspapers, pamphlets and books. The collections of

pictures, medals, coins, stamps and maps, however, are a notable

part of the historical material in the Library building.

The Baldwin map collection deserves special mention.  It

contains I5th, 16th and 17th century world maps, and others of

the Americas in particular. The manuscript maps of the early

surveyors and agents of the Connecticut Land Company consti-

tute an invaluable record for the early history of Ohio. There are

more than four hundred atlases in the map division, including

many rare world atlases.

No one knows exactly how many manuscripts the Society

possesses. Wallace H. Cathcart, who as director did more than

anyone else to build up this division, estimated the number at

more than one million items.   Several sections are extensive

enough to be worthy of special mention:

(a) The records of the Connecticut Land Company, its sec-

retary, surveyors and agents, and those of the early land pro-

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102  OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

prietors of New Connecticut, as they preferred to call the West-

ern Reserve.

(b) William P. Palmer's great collection of letters, diaries

and other papers on slavery, the Civil War, Lincoln and recon-

struction.

(c) The Shaker collection, which includes diaries, journals,

correspondence, sermons and other papers from   the several

Shaker unions.

(d) There is a long file of personal correspondence--that of

Elisha Whittlesey, Whig Congressman from Ohio; of Theodore

E. Burton until the end of the session of Congress in 1915; and

that of Myron T. Herrick. That of Herrick, while ambassador

to France, is particulary valuable for students of history in the

1920's. The collection of business records is rapidly growing, as

might be expected of a Society located in a large industrial cen-

ter.

The newspaper division contains about 25,000 bound volumes

and thousands of unbound, fragmentary files. The Palmer col-

lection alone contains 22,000 issues of newspapers published in

the Confederate States. There are unbroken or nearly unbroken

files of all leading Cleveland newspapers and many of the short

lived class. This is also true of many cities of Ohio, particularly

of the Western Reserve area, of, for example, Warren and Elyria.

The Ohio State Journal is complete since 1826, the Scioto Gazette

for 1801-1857, and the Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette for

1801-1837. The Society has the National Intelligencer, tri-weekly,

1800-1861, daily 1813-1869, the Columbian Centinel, Boston, 1788-

1820, the New York Tribune, 1845-1896, and the Herald and the

Times, 1861-1896. Going farther afield there is the London

Chronicle, 1757-1799.

The Society has made no attempt to build up a general

periodical collection. That is a field it is content to leave to

Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Public Library.

Its major purpose is to maintain a collection of national, regional

and local or State historical periodicals. Files of many denomi-

national publications, however, cover a large portion of the nine-

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WESTERN RESERVE HISTORICAL SOCIETY           103

 

teenth century. For example, there is the Quaker Friend, 1828-

1903, and Bibliotheca Sacra, 1844-1921. Harper's Weekly is com-

plete, and that is true of Godey's Lady's Book and the Ladies' Re-

pository. Punch, interesting for cartoons, is complete for 1841-

1912 and for the World War I period. The National Geographic

Magazine and the Geographical Journal are complete from the be-

ginning to date. The same is true of Antiques, and the Cincin-

nati Lancet and Clinic.

As would be expected, two-thirds of the Library space is

occupied by books and pamphlets. There are about 400,000 books

and pamphlets. It is not practical to list more than a few signifi-

cant collections. The W. P. Palmer library of works on slavery,

Civil War, reconstruction and Abraham Lincoln is outstanding

in value for research students. The Lincoln section has been

supplemented by valuable additions, the gifts of Mrs. George R.

Lamb and the daughters of Stephen Wallis Tener. The D. Z.

Norton collection of works on Napoleon, though small, is unique

in the number that are not commonly found in American libraries.

The Judge Henry C. White gift covers an extensive field of

Arctic explorations; and there is the Charles G. King collection

on the history of costume, international in scope and of every age.

In the genealogy division are 15,000 individual family genealogies,

besides the general material in society publications and vital

records. There is a practically complete file of early Ohio laws

and of Congressional records and documents.  But this is in

danger of becoming a catalogue. The Society merely claims to

have a usable and extensive library of Americana, including both

popular works and rare early imprints. The Library is open

from 9:00 to 5:00 six days during the week and from 2:00 to

5:00 Sunday. The Museum is open to the public Tuesday to Sat-

urday inclusive from 10:00 to 5:00 and on Sunday from 2:00 to

5:00. Both are free of fees at any time.

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