to see the work going on so lively and in such able hands. The fact was demonstrated that the earth was willing if man would only keep the shovel, the pick and the wheelbarrow moving lively according to this beginning.

All that fall and winter one man was kept at work on the great enterprise, simply to hold the charter with a hope that something would turn up to enable the directors to push things with a greater show for ultimate success. During the winter that followed any one passing up Pittsburgh street near the bluff could see day by day the progress this one man power was making in his work. Foot by foot each day the brown earth could be seen gaining on the white snow on the line towards Columbus, and hope remained lively in the breast of everyone that saw the progress, that if the physical powers of that solitary laborer held out long enough, he would some day be able to go to state's prison by rail.

There was a serious hindrance in the progress of the work, which came in this wise. The laborer who had so great a job on his hands took a look and a thought at what he had to do --it was one hundred and forty miles to Columbus and it was best to hurry up or the road would not be ready for use for quite a spell to come, he set to work with renewed energy for a while, then threw himself quite out of breath on the ground for a brief rest when the rheumatism took hold of him and sciatica troubled his limbs so much that the great work was

brought to a stand still; he struck for his altars and his fires at home, while the next fall of snow obliterated the line of his progress towards the south, and the directors got together to devise ways and means to keep the work moving onward. It was said that the best thing they could do under this stress of circumstances was to devise a method for drying and warming the ground so that a like calamity would not occur to their workman, wishing to encourage every freak he had to work a little faster, provided he would do so at the same wages.

Soon after this calamity befel the laborer and the road, a meeting was called at Empire Hall and it was a jam. Alfred Kelley discoursed on the subject of the railway and telling us that if we did not take hold of this opportunity to make an iron way to the center of the state Cleveland would only be known in the Gazeteers as a small town on Lake Erie about, six miles from Newburgh where steamers sometimes stop to wood and water. By a sudden stroke of generalship the exit doors of the hall were locked and the audience were held until all were converted to the faith and pooled in enough to secure the road and add a few more men to the work, when, after a reasonable time, the solons of our legislature came up here on the 22d of February and celebrated the completion of the Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati Railroad, and the birthday of Washington all at once.

Previous to the memorable period of Cleveland's first advance step towards popular favor we have endeavored to carry our memory back, to note what manufacturing interests she was engaged in, and the only establishment that could truly be called a "factory" was a one story building where fine teeth combs were made by machinery, the old comb factory opposite the head of Bank street. Messrs. Bartram and Dean and Lowman made wagons and carriages, and it is further true that Lowman continues to make them to this day and to all appearances he will continue to do so till the crack of doom, and it is further true that Duty made coffins then to ship away and he is at it now. D. A. Shepherd made furniture and he is busy to-day in. a better appointed factory. O. A. Brooks sold crockery then and he is at the same business to-day. Dr. McKenzie sold pills and squills and febrifuge then and he is at it yet. C. C. Carlton was an active business man in our city forty-five years ago and he is now about as active and attentive to his calling as ever. W. T. Smith, the genial and always courteous and happy dealer in boots and shoes has been dispensing those pedal integuments to the third and fourth generation of them that loved him and he has kept at it it every day since, Sundays excepted. George Williams was then and is now in active life in the same line that found him engaged nearly fifty years ago, George Whitelaw fortyeight years ago thought there was nothing like leather to be

engaged in and he thinks so yet. John A. Vincent sold chairs, cradles and such like to the great grand parents of those he is dealing with to-day in the same line. T. P. Handy is as regular in his banking office to-day as forty-eight years ago. S. S. Lyon made tackling for horses and mules nearly a half century ago and he would not refuse to keep right on as he is doing now for another like term of years.

When the old comb factory had lived out its day and about everybody was in doubt whether Cleveland would boom to any considerable extent in the future, many of our nervous and eager citizens sought other fields for their genius and a sort of stillness set in and about our waters, and at one time it was proposed to fence the pond in for fear some one would fall in and get drowned. Something whispered in the ears of the inhabitants that they had better stay and weather it out, all that they heard of other places was but wild rumor and many who had bitten at the shining bait came wrigling back to our own waters for more substantial food. Something also told us to stick to it, get up another comb factory or some sort of a manufacturing shop and Cleveland would some day come to be quite a town. About this time a new set of inhabitants came among us, there appeared to be a spontaneous putting of shoulders to the wagon wheel, things moved more lively, and when our railway was opened up and people could

get here in winter as well as summer it was the opening period of Clevelands prosperity.

The new comers joined hands with the old settlers, our railroads were built, manufactories were planted in the valleys and on the hills. And when the fleecy vapors came up from the thousand steaming boilers and the black smoke from vastly more seething furnaces it swept every vestige of ague from the atmosphere and the chill from every bone of an animate body, it gave new life to the people and it became a well settled fact that the boom of 1836 was a well shaped boomerang in 1856, and so on to the present day. The enterprise of those who have been coming here since the days of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" have done wonders towards building up a city of no mean proportions. Yet you old settlers have not been materially eclipsed by those new comers except in their overpowering numbers, whom all were glad to receive with open arms.

The power of steam was just being applied to machinery in our midst. There was a steam flouring mill on River street entirely destroyed by fire in 1837. Younglove and Hoyt subsequently erected a paper mill on the canal near Pittsburgh street. About the year 1846 M. C. Younglove set up the first power press (Adams') in Cleveland which press was placed in the Merchants Exchange Buikling, directly over where Luetkemeyer's hardware store now is. It did all the work for the