by Lynette Filips

     (Plain Press May 2024) This month we continue to look at the history of the northwest corner of Pearl Rd. and Memphis Ave. which the Old Brooklyn Community Development Corporation (OBCDC) is seeking to “revitalize” with a $31 million new construction project. It is the most historic section of Cleveland’s Old Brooklyn neighborhood and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2005. A picture of St. Luke’s United Church of Christ, one of the numerous historic commercial and institutional buildings on Pearl Rd. (and, also on Broadview Rd.) included in the Historic District designation, accompanies the online listing of the “South Brooklyn Commercial District”.

     While OBCDC pursues funding for a plan to tear down the major portion of this corner to erect a four-story building with commercial space on the first floor, residential space on the upper floors, and a brewery in the church proper portion of the former St. Luke’s, another group of people in the Old Brooklyn neighborhood is still hoping to “Save Our Historic District.”

     This fifth in a series of articles will shed additional light on the history of downtown Old Brooklyn in the hope that someone in authority will realize that adaptive reuse of the existing buildings is superior to tearing down most of them and replacing the demo-ed area with new construction. Adaptive reuse would accomplish the same goals of adding new residential space, updated commercial space, and new socialization space to downtown Old Brooklyn, but it would do so by using the existing historic structures. It is the method which has been employed in downtown Cleveland to put new residential, hotel, retail, and restaurant space in buildings which formerly housed department stores, banks, and other businesses.

     In the first of the four previous articles, I wrote about the legacy of three generations of the Gates family of Millers in Old Brooklyn.  Jeremiah, the patriarch, arrived in Brooklyn Township in 1816. He built the original portion of his brick home at 3506 Memphis Ave. in 1820.  It is the oldest home in Old Brooklyn and is a City of Cleveland Landmark. Jeremiah’s son Charles’ home has been demolished but his grandson Howard‘s home at 4248 W. 35th St. is still standing. Since they are residential rather than commercial buildings, they aren’t included in the National Register’s Commercial District, but they are important components of the area’s historical nature.

     In the second of the four previous articles, I wrote about the precursor of Pearl Road United Methodist Church. It was located on the north side of the Big Creek valley where, at approximately the same time, many settlers with the surnames Fish and Brainard (as well as other names) had been settling. In 1814, a group began meeting in each other’s homes for classes in Methodism and in 1818 they organized as Brooklyn Methodist Episcopal Church. It was the first official congregation in Brooklyn Township and the first Methodist congregation in the entire Cleveland area. 

     In the third of the four previous articles, I wrote about Brighton Methodist Episcopal Church, the initial name of the first Methodist Church south of the Big Creek valley. The Methodist settlers south of Big Creek wanted a church on their side of the Valley and in 1844 they purchased an existing building in the community and founded Brighton Methodist Episcopal Church. Their surnames included Brainard, Fish, Gates, Hinckley, and Chester. The Methodist Episcopals dedicated a new church building in the grassy area (in front of today’s Pearl Road United Methodist Church) in August of 1897. That space was remodeled in 1924, soon after a Department of Religious Education had been erected behind it. Everything was dedicated in November of 1924 but in February of 1925, the church was destroyed by fire. It was never rebuilt.

     In article three I also began to write about the (Old) Burying/Burial Ground which was located at the corner of Pearl Rd. and Memphis Ave just south of the Methodists’ property. A very early cemetery, it was referred to as an Indian Burial Ground in Kathryn Gasior Wilmer’s book, Old Brooklyn New, Book II, written in the early 1980s for the Old Brooklyn Community Development Corporation. (Perhaps the cemetery originally was an Indian burial ground, but we do not currently have any official documentation about that.) In April of 2022 Historical Society of Old Brooklyn president Constance “Connie” Ewazen contacted local historian William G. “Bill” Krejci because Buried beneath Cleveland; Lost Cemeteries of Cuyahoga Count is among the ten books he has authored/co-authored.

     In the fourth of the four previous articles, I wrote more specific information about the (Old) Burying/Burial Ground which I had had gleaned from Bill Krejci. He has been researching this former burial ground for another book he’s working on and is sharing his research with me for this series. Thanks to Bill I could report that the (Old) Burying/Burial Ground ran along today’s Memphis Ave. to the end of today’s Greenline Building; then behind today’s St. Luke’s Church building to the side wall of St. Luke’s educational annex; then along St. Luke’s sidewall to today’s Pearl Rd.; and then along Pearl Rd. back to Memphis Ave. Bill also supplied me with the names (and dates of transfers) of all the owners of the property on which this first public cemetery in Brighton was located, beginning with Warren Young on whose farm the cemetery land was originally, and ending with the Western Reserve Association of the United Church of Christ (in May of 2013). 

     This month I will continue to discuss the Old Burying/Burial Ground. It closed in 1836 when Brookmere Cemetery was established on August 23rd of the same year, and the deceased in the Old Burying Ground were to have been exhumed and reburied in Brookmere Cemetery. Based on his headstone research at Brookmere, Bill has given me the names of five people who’ve obviously been reinterred.  Because the dates of their deaths preceded the establishment of Brookmere Cemetery, we can conclude that: eighteen-year-old Sherrod Ross, who died in 1824;

six-month-old William Ozias Case, who died in 1830; fifty-one-year-old Thaddeus Ross, who died in 1830; seventy-four-year-old Amos Brainard, who died in 1832; and twenty-five-year-old Lucien Snow, who died in 1835 were reinterred at Brookmere from an earlier burial place which was probably the (Old) Burying/Burial Ground.  Amos Brainard was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. 

     Although no burial stones at Brookmere Cemetery have been located for them, by looking on the findagrave.com website, Bill has also learned about three other people whose deaths preceded the establishment of Brookmere Cemetery but who are recorded as being buried there. They are: Manoris Akin, who died in 1819; Martha Akins Brainard, who died in 1820; and Jabin Brainerd, who died in 1828.

All three were probably initially interred in the Old Burying/Burial Ground.

     The biggest question at this point, though, is – “After the establishment of Brookmere Cemetery, were any of the people interred in the Old Burying/Burial Ground left behind at the time of the transfer of bodies to Brookmere?”  Here’s how local cemetery researcher and author Bill Krejci responded to that question –

     Since being contacted by Lynette for the March article, I decided to take another look at deaths that occurred in and around South Brooklyn prior to 1836. After a few days, I had compiled a list of more than thirty individuals, whose names do not appear in any of the surrounding cemeteries. Their surnames include a preponderance of Brainards, plus Akin (Akins/Aiken), Beebe, Cooper, Cushman, Mason, Nason, Vaughn, Winfield and Young. There’s a very good likelihood that they were originally laid to rest in the Old Burying Ground on the northwest corner of Memphis and Pearl. It’s also possible they were moved to Brookmere, but it may also be that their graves remain undisturbed on that corner lot.

     Two years ago, while researching veterans of the Revolutionary War who were buried in Cuyahoga County, I stumbled upon one Richard Cooper, whose death notice in “The Cleveland Whig” newspaper stated that he died in Brooklyn on February 28, 1836, at the age of 91. According to his service record, Cooper enlisted on May 14, 1778, at Haverstraw, New York in the 5th Regiment of the New York Line. He was honorably discharged three years later at Jockey Hollow in Morristown, Morris County, New Jersey. He served at the Battle of Fort Montgomery and was in the Battle of Hogback in Tioga County, New York, while participating in General Sullivan’s expedition. He also fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, and was present at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia on October 19, 1781. Following the War, Richard Cooper settled in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, but in 1834, to be with his son James, he relocated in Brooklyn, Ohio, where he died two years later.

     As no specific area of Brooklyn Township was named in his death notice, establishing a place of burial seemed like an impossibility. But in taking a second look at his service record, I discovered a name on his pension papers that finally answered that question. When Cooper transferred his pension payments from Pennsylvania to Cuyahoga County, he had to swear a statement saying that he was the identical person named in the pension file. That statement was witnessed and signed by Richard Vaughn — Justice of the Peace, resident of South Brooklyn and owner of the lot that contained the Old Burying Ground. Since his death occurred six months before the establishment of Brookmere Cemetery, and he was apparently residing in South Brooklyn, it’s likely that Richard Cooper was laid to rest in that little patch of grass on the corner of Memphis and Pearl. And it’s possible that it remains his place of repose, as well as the final resting place of many other early inhabitants of South Brooklyn, who never made that final journey to Brookmere.

     The reason Bill Krejci thinks that it’s likely that Richard Cooper is still interred at the Old Burying/Burial Ground is that Richards’s son James moved West shortly after his father’s death and wouldn’t have been in town at the time arrangements were being made for bodies to be moved to Brookmere Cemetery.

     Next month I expect to be discussing the congregation which was the precursor of St. Luke’s United Church of Christ, followed by the other historical structures in the vicinity, before delving into more recent changes in ownership and plans for the corner.