st. Later Conn. ceded the
Reserve itself, but not before she had sold much of it to the
Conn. Land Co., and the latter had begun the sale and disposition
of all the lands so acquired, east of the Cuyahoga River. Until
after 1815 no lands west of that river were open to entrance or
survey, and settlers ventured there at their own risk. This was
the Indian Boundary Line, established in 1795, and beyond it the
aborigines had exclusive right of occupancy.

It was for the purpose of surveying and developing these lands that
Capt. Cleaveland undertook his expeditions into the Western Reserve. The
first of these expeditions (1795) was composed of 50 men, women and
children who arrived at Ft. Independence (now Conneaut) on Lake Erie,
July 4, 1796. Pushing on further, they arrived at the present site of
Cleveland, and in a few days the first log cabin was erected at the
mouth of the Cuyahoga River.

To keep the commissary supplied was no easy problem in the new
settlement. Sometimes they ate boiled rattlesnake in default of
anything better. On one occasion, while the little band of
settlers was assembled in prayer in one of the log cabins,
someone espied a bear swimming across the Cuyahoga River. The
coming of the bear was looked upon as providential, and the
congregation suspended the prayer-meeting, killed the bear, and
then returned to their devotions.

Capt. Cleaveland's plans for his new settlement were ambitious, and he
built a number of substantial roads through the forests, usually
following the old Indian trails, now the right of way of the New York
Central and other lines. With the opening of the Ohio Canal to the Ohio
River (1832), Cleveland became the natural outlet on Lake Erie for
Ohio's extensive agricultural and mineral products. The discovery and
commercial exploitation (beginning about 1840) of large deposits of iron
ore in the Lake Superior region placed Cleveland in a strategic position
between these vast ore fields and the coal and oil resources of Ohio,
Pa., and W. Va., and it is from this time that the city's great
commercial importance really dates.

[Illustration: Moses Cleaveland

Moses Cleaveland (1754-1806) was born at Canterbury, Conn., and
graduated from Yale. After serving in the U.S. Army, where he
attained the rank of captain, he practiced law and entered the
Connecticut legislature. Later, he organized the Conn