Lakewood Lore

What's in a name? For streets, there's a bit of history

If you've ever wondered where the names of Lakewood streets came from, don't miss a slide show on the subject, scheduled for 9 p.m. Wednesday evening in the new Women's Club pavilion at Lakewood Park.

The presentation, open to the public free of charge, will be the main feature of the spring general meeting of the Lakewood Historical Society. The meeting will begin with a cookie-and-punch social hour at 8 p.m., followed by the slide show at 9.

The show is a 79-slide photo account of our city's streets and how they received their names. Narrator will be Wayne Cahoon, photo file chairman of the historical society.

Most of Lakewood's streets were laid out near the turn of the 20th century. Many were given family names of early settlers, such as the Wagars, Nicholsons, Halls and Beaches.

In some cases, first names of descendants and relatives also were so honored.

For instance, while Wagar and Mars Avenues memorialize pioneer Mars Wagar, four other Lakewood streets—Margaret, Carabel, Olive, and Morrison—were the first names of some of his kin.

Margaret was the wife of Mars Wagar's oldest son Adam. Carabel and Olive were daughters of Margaret and Adam, and Morrison was the couple's grandson.

Mars Wagar, the family patriarch, bought land in the heart of Lakewood in 1820 for $7 an acre and later build a stone house on the southeast corner of Detroit and Warren roads, when locally quarried stone became plentiful enough to replace log cabins.

Nicholson Avenue took its name from James Nicholson, Lakewood's first permanent settler on Detroit, while the first names of two of his grandchildren are commemorated by Grace and Clarence avenues.

The grandchildren's father, Ezra Nicholson, was a prominent public-spirited entrepreneur who helped select the name Lakewood for our community when it became a hamlet in 1889.

Hall Avenue was a tribute to Joseph Hall, a prosperous pioneer farmer who came here from England in 1837. With a pair of adjacent streets, the first names of two of Hall's grandchildren—Ethel and Edward—were eternalized.

A third grandchild—Arthur Hall—provided another first-name namesake street in Arthur Avenue.

Grandson Arthur loved books, collecting during his lifetime 4,000 of them, including many rare editions. Aware of this, early residents of the street campaigned hard and pledged financial support to get the city's library erected at Detroit and Arthur.

It came to pass. They got their wish in 1916.

Furthermore, Mathews Avenue also is Hall-related. It perpetuates the name of Herbert Mathews, early real estate agent who was the husband of Arthur Hall's sister Laura.

The offspring and relatives of street-name honorees often lived in Lakewood and the environs for many years. Some still do. For instance, there is Colette Sheehan Townsend, who was born on Lakewood's Alameda Avenue 83 years ago and has lived on her family's Victorian estate, Lake Cliff, at Lake and Nicholson for the past 70 years.

In 1937, Colette married William Townsend, great-grandson of Henry Beach, for whom Beach Avenue was named. Colette's husband died in 1985.

Henry Beach was an affluent land developer and fruit grower. In 1870, he built a 10-unit terrace on northwest corner of Detroit and Beach avenues, which remains there today as one of Lakewood's earliest row houses.

His family home, known as The Hemlocks, was built in 1864 on the northeast corner of the intersection. It became a landmark that grew to 17 rooms before it was torn down in 1939.

He drilled three gas wells on his acreage, which once provided free heat for his home, the terrace and some apartments he owned in nearby Clifton Pardo.

A number of Lakewood streets are tributes to our presidents—Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. We have streets that observe Indian tribes—Delaware, Narragansett, Onondaga, Seneca, and Wyandotte.

Five streets clustered in the southeast section of Lakewood bear bird names—Lark, Plover, Quail, Robin and Thrush. These avian tributes came about after National Carbon Co. built its plant on Madison at West 117th Street about 1892 and bought nearby land to provide housing for its European-born workers.

The area originally was called the Pleasant Hill Allotment. Later, the bird appellations triggered nicknames for this pocket of immigrant newcomers, who were predominantly of Slovak heritage.

To this day, to many Lakewoodites, it remains somewhat nostalgically "Birdtown" or "Bird's-nest."

This article by Dan Chabek appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post May 19, 1994. Reprinted with permission.

[Note: Colette S. Townsend died in 1994. Her obituary appeared in the Plain Dealer July 27, 1994]

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