1. Moses Cleaveland was an American lawyer, politician, soldier, and surveyor from Connecticut who founded the city of Cleveland, Ohio, while surveying the Connecticut Western Reserve in 1796.
15 Facts About Moses Cleaveland
1. 2.
Moses Cleaveland studied law at Yale College, where he was a member of Brothers in Unity, graduating in 1777.
3.
Moses Cleaveland was commissioned as an ensign in the 2nd Connecticut Regiment of the Continental Army in 1777 during the American Revolution.
4.
Moses Cleaveland was a member of the Connecticut convention that ratified the United States Constitution.
5.
Moses Cleaveland was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly several times and was commissioned brigadier general of militia in 1796.
6.
Moses Cleaveland was a shareholder in the Connecticut Land Company which had purchased land from Connecticut located in northeastern Ohio for $1,200,000.
7.
Moses Cleaveland was responsible for the negotiations with the Native Americans living on the land.
8.
Moses Cleaveland's party was composed of 50 people, including six surveyors, a physician, a chaplain, a boatman, 37 employees, a few emigrants, and two women who accompanied their husbands.
9.
Moses Cleaveland ascended the bank and determined that the spot was a favorable site for a city, with the river on the west and Lake Erie on the north.
10.
Moses Cleaveland had it surveyed into town lots, and the employees named the place Cleaveland in his honor.
11.
Moses Cleaveland went home to Connecticut after the 1796 expedition and never returned to Ohio or the city that bears his name.
12.
Moses Cleaveland died in Canterbury, Connecticut, where he is buried, but a statue of him stands in the Cleveland Public Square.
13.
One theory is that Moses Cleaveland's surveying party misspelled the name on their original map.
14.
Moses Cleaveland is not only remembered through the city's name but through living monuments in the form of trees throughout the Greater Cleveland area.
15.
Each tree's age was verified, and the list of Moses Cleaveland Trees was reduced to 150 trees that were accessible to the public.