Erie Street Cemetery, Cleveland (1/31/2016)

Sunday, January 31, 2016
It is the middle of winter, right? But once in a while we get these days with 50 degrees in temperature, and so we have to get outside. We "kidnapped" Bob W from the VA Hospital (he did have a pass!), and headed downtown to the Erie Street Cemetery.

The Gothic arch entrance (1870) to Erie Street Cemetery

The Erie Street Cemetery is the oldest existing cemetery in Cleveland, OH, being established in 1826 at what was then the edge of the city. It was built to replace the burial grounds on Ontario Street, south of Public Square. Many of the earliest pioneers and leaders were buried in Erie Street Cemetery, which was named for the original name of East 9th Street on which it is located.
During Mayor Tom L Johnson's term (1901-1909), many bodies were moved to the city-owned Highland Cemetery or others cemeteries, to make way for city streets. In 1915, the Pioneer Memorial Association was formed to advocate for Erie Street Cemetery. In 1925 they succeeded in having the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge road bypass the cemetery, rather than run straight through it.

The Erie Street Cemetery is across the street from Progressive Field,
home of the MLB Cleveland Indians

Memorial plaques and gravestone of Lorenzo Carter (1767-1814)
and his wife, Rebecca, the first permanent white settlers in Cleveland;
"When others fled [from fever and ague], the Carters stayed."

Gravestone being taken over by nature,
of Henry Clay Guptil who died at age 2

Monument for the Case family

Leonard Case, Sr (1786-1854) was a businessman and philanthropist who sold the land for $1 to city trustees for the Erie Street Cemetery. His son, Leonard Case, Jr (1820-1880) was also a philanthropist who left $1 million dollars to establish the Case School of Applied Sciences, now the Case Institute of technology. The Case family members were eventually moved to Lake View Cemetery.
The cemetery show signs of vandalism and neglect, despite the 2010 project by Cuyahoga County College and their honor students to clean the cemetery and research the 17,000 interments (now only 8,00 left); giving the information to John D Cimperman for his book "Erie Street Cemetery" (2011).

Broken memorial

Broken headstone of John C Sturges;
the clasped or in the midst of a handshake indicate
a) earthly goodbye, b) heavenly greeting, c) or matrimony

This headstone appears too new for 1837, and the
1775 inscription seems to indicate he participated
 in the Revolutionary War, although he seems a bit young!

There are reported to have been 169 burials of veterans of wars from the Revolutionary War through to the Spanish-American War. Of those, 98 were in the Civil War.

Some force set these stones askew

Monument for the Barnett family

General James Barnett (1821-1911) served during the Civil War, and he was on the commission for the building of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Public Square.

David Eldridge (birthdate unknown-1797), was the first person of
European descent to die in the Western Reserve

Jabez W Fitch (1832-1884) was a politician who served as
Lieutenant Governor of Ohio from 1878-1880;
earlier he was in charge of Camp Taylor and served
in the Civil War with the 19th Ohio Volunteer Infantry

Mausoleum of the Harris family

Josiah A Harris (1808-1876) served as Mayor of Cleveland in 1847.
We searched for his predecessor, George Hoadley (1781-1857, Mayor in 1846) and his successor, Lorenzo A Kelsey (1803-1908, Mayor in 1848), but later learned that Hoadley had been moved to Highland Cemetery, and Kelsey to Lake View Cemetery.

A unique memorial

There has been some digging going on, under
what Bob W thought may be a weeping mulberry tree

General view of the cemetery

Headstones with crosses

The cemetery was open to all faiths.

The cemetery is behind Grays Armory and its museum;
note also the cemetery wall that was built by the WPA
from the demolished Superior Avenue viaduct's sandstone

Kent points out that Dr Spencer Wright (1799-1880)
lived to be 101 years old, unusual for those times

Weatherworn relief

The south side of the cemetery had many Germans,
including this Father/Vater and maybe a child

Later we see Vater und Mutter/Father and Mother

A humdinger of a name!

Mausoleum of the Bradburn family

Charles Bradburn (1808-1872) was a merchant and leader in developing the Cleveland Public Schools. Having founded the first public high school (Central High School) in 1846, he is considered the "Father of Cleveland schools."

The F L T in chain links at the top of the Greuloch
memorial stand for Friendship, Love, and Truth,
a hallmark of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows

Flooring stones of the Erie Street Chapel (c. 1880)

Memorial to Veterans with an older marker
and one dedicated in 2014

Chief Thunderwater, born Oghema Niagara (1865-1950),
monument and headstone

Chief Thunderwater was of the band Pishqua, tribe Osauckee of the Algonquin nation, who grew up in Cleveland. As Head of the Supreme Council of Indian tribes here and in Canada, he advocated for Indian Affairs and worked to preserve his culture. He also toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. It is said when the Cleveland Indians were facing the Boston Braves in the 1948 World's Series, Chief Thunderwater came out in full regalia and said "May the best warriors win, as long as they are Cleveland's." (They did.) For this reason he is considered to be the original Cleveland Indian, and legend has it that he is the inspiration for Chief Wahoo, the Indians' mascot. Chief Thunderwater also was a member of the Pioneer Memorial Association and felt that if Joc-O-Sot's grave was disturbed, Cleveland would experience a terrible disaster.

Joc-O-Sot/Walking Bear (1810-1844)
gravestone

Joc-O-Sot Monument

Stones left by visitors, a Jewish tradition

Joc-O-Sot was of the band Bear, tribe Osauckee of the Algonquin nation, according to the memorial marker, but was he a Sauk? Perhaps a Sauk is of the Osauckee. But was he the chief of the Meskwaki/Fox tribe? The Sauks and Meskwaki were closely allied and fought together in the Black Hawk War of 1831/1832, where Joc-O-Sot was wounded. After the war he came to Cleveland, working as a fishing and hunting guide. He later toured with a theatrical troupe run by Dan Marble, which supposedly showed Native American life. Traveling in England, he performed for Queen Victoria, who was impressed enough to commission a portrait of him. Joc-O-Sot became ill and returned to the United States, apparently wanting to return to his homeland (he was born in Iowa, but his people may have been buried in Wisconsin of Minnesota). He made it to Cleveland before he died, and was buried in the Erie Street Cemetery.
It is reported that vandals damaged his headstone in 1907, but legend says Joc-O-Sot was angry with being buried here, and broke it himself. It is also said that his spirit crosses the street to haunt what is now Progressive Field, either because it was built on an old Indian burial site, or because he is insulted by Chief Wahoo.

A memorial to Gamaliel Fenton (1763-1849),
a Revolutionary War veteran

A "peeling" headstone

Bob W pointed out the inscription on the Stockwell monument

Monument to the Unknown Early Settlers (1939)
to commemorate those who were first buried
at Ontario Street and later were moved here

An arch on a double grave represents
being reunited in heaven

We walked across the street to Progressive Field (born in 1994 as Jacobs Field, named after the Cleveland Indians owners). In 2008, the locally based Progressive Insurance Company bought the naming rights.

Progressive Field (1994)

Here we were to see a different kind of memorial.

Kent stands in reverence before the statue
(2015 by David Deming) of Larry Doby (1923-2003)

Larry Doby was the first black player in the American League of Major League Baseball, when he joined the Cleveland Indians in 1947. He was also the second black manager in MLB in 1978, after Frank Robinson, who himself was a player-manager of the Cleveland Indians starting in 1975. Larry Doby was inducted in the MLB Hall of Fame in 1998.

Statue (1994 by Gary Ross) of Bob Feller (1918-2010)
with Brynne and Gus

Bob Feller was a pitcher for the Cleveland Indians from 1936-1941, then after four years in the Navy, he returned to play from 1945-1956. He was inducted in the MLB Hall of Fame in 1962 for a long list of pitching records.

Bob W poses with the statue (2014)
of Jim Thome (1970- )

Jim Thome hit a franchise record of 337 or 348 home runs as a Cleveland Indian (612 in his career). In 1996 he hit a 511' home run, the longest ever in Cleveland. He won't even be eligible for the MLB Hall of Fame nomination until 2017.

Note Bob's awesome ushanka/Russian hat,
an NBA Cleveland Cavalier game giveaway
in honor of player Timofey Mozgov

These stone seats spell out W H O ' S

O N

F I R S T ? (1994 by Nancy Dwyer)