Lakewood Lore

Street Names

Street names tell a tale

Streets comprise a city. Yet in conversation, we speak their names perhaps hundreds of times a year--with little or no knowledge of the "who" and "why" of their origins.

Most Lakewood streets were established around the turn of the century and perpetuate names of early settlers, forming for us a link with the past.

Take Nicholson Avenue, for instance. It comes from James Nicholson, first permanent settler on Detroit Road. He paid $1,336 for 142 acres here in 1818 when Lakewood was known only as Township 7, Range 14 of the Western Reserve.

In 1835 he built a white colonial house on a parcel of the land on Detroit at Nicholson which, through the years, was occupied by four generations of his family.

The quaint homestead remains as one of our better examples of New England architecture, and today is being restored in a joint project by the Lakewood Historical Society and the city of Lakewood, after which it will be used for community activities.

James Nicholson was a sincere, industrious man imbued with community spirit. He is credited with organizing the area's earliest church at Detroit and Andrew Avenue, known as "The First New Jerusalem Church of Rockport," and with helping to build their first schoolhouse, which was a log cabin situated on Detroit opposite the Nicholson home.

This article by Dan Chabek appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post September 29, 1988. Reprinted with permission.

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