h in his journey through America, in 1852, wrote in
her diary: "Cleveland is a neat, clean, and agreeable city, on Lake
Erie. Americans call it the 'Forest City,' though the original forests
have disappeared. Cleveland has a most lovely aspect; with the exception
of the business streets, every house is surrounded by a garden. It was
for the first time that I found love of nature in an American
population. On the journey, until here, I had always missed
pleasure-grounds and trees around the cottages."

The growth of Cleveland was steady and healthy. Although foreigners came
to it in large numbers, it has been and is a representative American
city. The spirit of public improvement early made itself felt here, as
has been intimated by the above quotations; wide avenues, beautiful
dwellings, pleasure-grounds, both public and private,--all the
attractions that a lavish expenditure of money can secure were bestowed
upon it. The oil discoveries of a quarter of a century ago made many of
its citizens wealthy, and their city was so pleasant to live in, that,
unlike most Western people who have gained sudden wealth, they stayed at
home to spend their money.

From the history of the rise of such a community, much might be learned.
Yet in the large libraries of the East we find only one book on the
subject, and Poole's mammoth Index--that "Open, sesame," of the literary
man--refers us to not a single magazine article of any sort on
Cleveland. The book referred to is entitled Early History of Cleveland,
with Biographical Notices of the Pioneers and Survivors; its author was
Colonel Charles Whittlesey. As is the case in almost all such histories,
the biographical notices form a very considerable portion of the book,
and, as usual, its value is diminished in an exactly equivalent degree;
for the biographies of Western pioneers are fully as tedious and
valueless as the catalogue of ships in the second book of Homer. And,
oh! the garrulity of the biographers, the minuteness of detail, the
petty incidents, the host of dates! With these we are inflicted because
some adventurous Yankee happened, by sheer luck, to build the first
shanty on what became the site of a great city, or chanced there to be a
pioneer victim of the "shakes" or the jaundice!

Whittlesey's book contains four hundred and eighty-seven pages. Of these
he uses up seventy-six before he gets a civilized man in what became
Cuyahoga County, and fifty more before he gets any