| War was a dominant factor in American life in the 1860s, and while Clevelanders shared with other Americans forebodings about a possible civil war, they took time to remember an earlier war by placing a memorial to Oliver Hazard Perry on Public Square in 1860. Commemorating the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812, this monument later gave way to the present Public Square edifice first erected to honor Cleveland’s Civil War soldiers and sailors. As the Civil War crept closer, Clevelanders’ opposition to slavery increased. An early 1861 incident resulted from the capture of a runaway slave in Cleveland and her return to bondage. |
Euclid Avenue northside looking east toward E. 9th Euclid Avenue Photograph, 1865 Courtesy of Cleveland Public Library Photograph Collection |
| A large crowd gathered around the county jail to protest both the capture and return, and their high emotions remained with the 30,000 Clevelanders who gathered a few weeks later to greet President-elect Lincoln on his way to assume office in Washington, D.C. With the declaration of war, Clevelanders were not hesitant to join the colors. Two-thirds of the eligible males in Cuyahoga County saw service in the Union Army, and clerks, merchants, bankers, and laborers used city streets for their military drills. April 1865 brought the end of the conflict, and 100,000 passed by Lincoln’s coffin on Public Square to pay their last respects to the assassinated President. | |
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Public Square looking east with Lincoln's funeral pavilion in background and Perry Monument in foreground  Lincoln's Funeral Pavilion Photograph, 1865 Courtesy of Cleveland Public Library Photograph Collection
Public Square looking east with Lincoln's funeral pavilion in background |
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| With the end of the war, Clevelanders discovered that their businesses were now more industrial than commercial. The city’s Board of Trade in 1866 issued a detailed statement emphasizing Cleveland’s continued growth as a manufacturing and distribution center. The Civil War’s economic demands helped push this industrial development, and later events carried it further. Oil, found in western Pennsylvania, had its first impact on Cleveland in 1861 when small refineries were organized. These pointed the way for much of Cleveland’s future industrial growth, and the opening of the Union Station in 1866 helped the city take a leading role in the circulation of goods and services. The reorganization of the Fire Department in 1863, the founding of a police force in 1866, and a historical society and tax-supported library in 1867 were public safety and cultural manifestations of the city’s industrial growth. The chartering of the Brooklyn Street Railway in 1869 helped link the various components of the growing city. Cleveland’s only surviving sacred landmark from the 1860s is St. Augustine Roman Catholic Church, built on West 14th Street in 1864 as a Congregational church. | |
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