FIVE BAYS AT CLEVELAND. 231 



For several years, in fact until the opening of the 

 Ohio Canal in 1834, the population of Cleveland in- 

 creased very slowly, A year after the survey, the 

 homes "under the hill " alonor the n^ht bank of the 

 Cuvaho^a had to be removed to the rid«;e, for even at 

 that time fever and atjue beo;an to trouble the settlers. 

 This disagreeable malady, wittily personified as " Ague- 

 agneshakershake,'' — the God of Lake Erie — was a 

 continual bugbear and made yearly attacks upon 

 the families. So widespread was the reputation it had 

 gained that a stranger stopping at Buffalo, then a rival 

 port, was told that if he went to Cleveland he '^ would 

 not live over night.'^ On the highlands the expo- 

 sure was much less, and soon all the cabins were built 

 there. Then they began to spread out along the ridge 

 toward the east, in tlie direction of Euclid, following 

 the line of the Euclid Road, which even then was a 

 popular place on which to have a section and build. 

 In 1801, the first well in Cleveland was dug on this 

 thorouo-hfare, and w^as walled in with stones which 

 the Indians had left from their wigwam fireplaces. 

 Two years later Connecticut ceded her Western Re- 

 serve, which she had held under an old charter, to the 

 General Government and the chief city transferred 

 her allegiance to the new State of Ohio. 



Gradually the settlement spread out into the sur- 

 rounding country, where ambitious hamlets, having 

 enjoyed their brief season of independence, ulti- 

 mately cast their fortune with the larger city, and be- 

 came a sharer in its triumphs. One of these, wiiich 

 had attained more importance than the rest, had 

 started up on the opposite bank of the Cuyahoga, and 

 assumed the bravado of a rival. Cleveland made 



