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 actual settlers to the mouth of the Cuyahoga River.  The history of the next thirteen or fourteen years, down to the War of 1812, fills the mass of the book, details being here given that really have historical value.  The last forty pages are devoted to the history of the two or three following decades.  Nothing is told us about the actual development of a great city,—­the haps and mishaps, the successes and failures, in short, the growth, of the community.

This same Colonel Whittlesey, in a volume entitled Fugitive Essays, published a sketch of the history of Cleveland covering the same ground more concisely, and also giving a few extra details about the history between 1812 and 1840.

These constituted the sum total of works solely devoted to Cleveland which were accessible to a writer in the East.  The Ohio Historical Collections, by Henry Howe, a series of sketches of the counties, cities, and towns of the State, added a little to the meagre stock of information.  For further knowledge, the public must be thankful that the argus-eyed tourist has not left the place unnoticed, and that the mathematically-inclined gazetteer has told us from time to time the number of Cleveland’s churches, banks, and city councilmen, and other equally important facts!