Category Archives: Cahoon

Rose Hill Museum

Cahoon Memorial Park – 1818. Joseph Cahoon, wife Lydia and family came to Bay Village, the place that he called, “the most beautiful spot in all of America” in October, 1810. He and his sons built a solid log cabin in four days on the east bank of a creek. By 1818, the family was doing so well that Cahoon and his sons built a large, five-bedroom frame house on the hillside above the creek and overlooking the lake. They cut the lumber at their own sawmill. Doors and window frames were made by hand. Any nails used had to come by wagon 350 miles from Pittsburgh, so they used as few as possible. They cut the boards to fit together perfectly with wooden pegs. Cahoon built the new house to look like a New England farmhouse, like the ones he had grown up in in Connecticut and Vermont.

The house was called “Rose Hill,” named by son Joel’s wife, Margaret Van Allen Cahoon, because of the many rose bushes surrounding it that were planted by Lydia Cahoon. The Cahoons also planted a wisteria tree that has bloomed every spring for more than a century. Today, the Bay Village Historical Society looks after the Cahoon homestead, and maintains it as a museum and library.

Cahoon Memorial Park

“This is the most beautiful place on earth,” declared Margaret Cahoon taking in the beauty of her farm nestled on the south shore of Lake Erie. And so it was.

In 1810, Lydia Cahoon found room in their crowded wagon for a rose bush. The story is told that it thrived and many rose bushes around the area were shoots off this rose. Thus, Margaret gave the farm it’s name, Rose Hill.

“As this house has been in possession of the family for three generations, I hope it will continue for many more but if it should be there is no longer one of the name to inherit it, I hope it may have founded upon it a benevolent institution bearing the name of Cahoon,” wrote Margaret in her autobiography.

Today, Cahoon Memorial Park in Bay Village is the site of two hidden treasures, Rose Hill Museum and The Osborn Learning Center.

Joseph built the homestead house in 1818 on the west hill overlooking the creek. As you walk through the door of Rose Hill you are immediately transported back to 1818 with the original fireplace, the hand-planed doors and Norfolk hardware. Joel Cahoon’s flintlock rifle leans against the fireplace next to William Saddler’s powder box from the War of 1812.

An 1810 Bennington, Vermont, pottery jar sits on a table and Henry Winsor’s 1800 cherry desk highlight the room.

Moving on, your eyes explore the Empire/Victorian Room and you immediately notice that success from hard work was enjoyed by these early families. The beauty of this room is only surpassed by the view of the valley out the windows. This room contains Cahoon furniture plus keepsakes from early settlers.

In the library is the collection of Cahoon books, plate maps, and children’s books. Early settler’s papers are housed in acid-free folders in a Genealogy Room.

Downstairs in the cellar, the Wischmeyer hand-carved boats, early farm tools, crockery, and tin ware tell the story of life on the farm.

The original cooking fireplace, poplar floors and green tree plugs from 1818 are visible.

On the second floor is a portrait gallery, period bedrooms, a millinery, and children’s room. You will notice the contrast between the rope bed in the 1818 bedroom and the Victorian, carved walnut, feather bed. A 1900 bear named Teddy and the Wischmeyer buggy are displayed along with an assortment of toys, games, books and dolls.

Also in the park is the 1814 Reuben Osborn House. Inside you learn who we are and where we come from. Sit and watch a video telling stories of life in Dover Township. Enjoy the displays of picture boards laid out by Ward, or with the plastic plate maps of 1854 and 1880, guide yourself to your 2010 house and street. Make a picture to take home. You will realize that a melting pot of people made up Dover Township.

Today, Rose Hill Museum and the Reuben Osborn Learning Center are open to the public from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Sunday afternoons, April through December. Talking boxes guide you through the displays in Rose Hill and docents are on hand to greet you at the door.

If you have never been to visit this beautiful house, now is the time. Come and see us!

The Cahoon family

On the morning of October 10, 1810, the Joseph and Lydia Cahoon family wagon stopped at the mouth of a creek on the southern shore of Lake Erie in Ohio country. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the family thanked the Lord for their safe journey.

They were in their new home, Lot #95 in Dover Township #7, Range #15, in the State of Connecticut’s Western Reserve after six weeks of wilderness travel from Vergennes, Vermont. They immediately began building a cabin and within the next eight years constructed the first grist mill west of the Cuyahoga River, a sawmill and a house on the west hill. This would become the family home for the next 117 years.

Joseph’s children, who stayed in the area, were Samuel and Mary in North Ridgeville, William and Benjamin in Elyria, Rebecca in Cleveland, Abigail in Westlake, and Franklin in Norwalk, Ohio. Wilber, a half brother, made his home in Avon. The Lot#95 farm and mills were left to Joel Cahoon, the third son.

Joel married a young widow named Margaret Dickson Van Allen in Frederick City, Maryland, in 1831. Her father was a congressional leader in Washington, D.C., and Margaret grew up in a house across the street from the Capital. Margaret started attending school when she was 4 years old. During the War of 1812, her father took her to the senate chambers to see the fire damage and the burned White House.

She grew up listening to famous orators like Daniel Webster. The chief justices of the Supreme Court visited her parents and Senator Buchannan delivered the family mail to Maryland on trips to Pennsylvania. Margaret’s extensive education and strong religious beliefs along with Joel’s good work ethic were instilled in their children.

In 1842, Joel brought Margaret and their growing family of 11 to Dover Township. The six boys and five girls grew to be far-sighted entrepreneurs and successful businessmen and women. Thomas was a Cleveland councilman and had a lumber business. Joseph invented a cotton compactor which helped transform the cotton industry in Memphis, Tennesee. Leverett and John Marshal became successful businessmen in the area, building and operating a grocery store and boat house. Leverett became an expert in the viticulture industry in the State of Ohio. Lydia, Laura, Martha and Ida became school teachers in the Cleveland School System, often teaching immigrant children their first English words.

Lydia started the Ladies Aid Society at the Methodist church. Ida was on the township school board and helped procure the Easterly School House for the Presbyterian church. The family books became the Dover on the Lake Library in the Cahoon house.

Land for City Hall was donated to the city. The family permitted train tracks to be laid on their property in exchange for the Dover train station being located on Dover Center Road. Parkview School was built on Cahoon land purchased from the city. The farm, left to the citizens of the Village of Bay in the 1917 Cahoon Will, became Cahoon Memorial Park.

The Cahoons left us more than a park. They left the legacy that a good education, along with a good work ethic, produces results and success.