Lakewood Lore

Today's prime land once laid an egg

First settlers in what today is Lakewood were Philo Taylor and his family.

After coming to Cleveland from New York early in 1808, they landed at the mouth of Rocky River in an open boat on April 10 of that same year.

Philo had given his word to two Cleveland land agents that he would first determine the place he liked, then later pay them for it. He found that spot on the east bank of the river in what is now Clifton Park Lagoon area. There he felled trees and built a log cabin.

One of the 11 Taylor children -- son Egbert (the eighth), who came along in November, 1809 -- had the distinction of being the first white child born the country.

After about a year in his cabin, Philo decided he would pay off the agents and settle down for good. Instead, they told him his mecca was on the proposed site for a town to be called Granger City and that he would have to give up the property.

Having no recourse, Philo, in a huff, announced he was putting a curse on the mouth of the river and he moved his family to Newburgh Township where he became active in politics and later helped found Cleveland’s first bank.

Barbara Baxter, a Taylor descendant who lives in North Carolina, informs us that the early settler also was a shipowner and sailed his own vessels carrying passengers and grain between Port Huron and Buffalo in the 1820s.

His first ship sank in a storm off Buffalo, and the newspaper declared he was lost, according to Baxter. The next day it corrected the story. Afterwards, Taylor built another ship and returned to the water. Then in the 1840s, he served as a lighthouse keeper for a spell.

Taylor’s curse on the mouth of Rocky River did seem effective because of some untoward happening that followed, most significant of which being the demise of Granger City after a short time.

Baxter reports that strange misfortunes befell the landowners and they began to die.

“Supposedly there were many estates tied up in court because the out-of-town heirs could be located. Taylor was named by the court as an administrator to settle these land claims. This became known as ‘Philo Taylor’s Revenge,’” she recounted.

Granger City, which became a geographic goose egg on the scoreboard of history, was named for Gedeon Granger, large landowner and postmaster general under Thomas Jefferson. It included part of Clifton Park and all of the Beach Cliff land immediately west of Rocky River. Its lots were widely advertised and some sold for $60 each, a tidy sum in those days.

Other information provided by Baxter describes her colorful ancestor as being “outspoken and possibly somewhat abrasive.” This may have been the reason he lost in an attempt to win the post of sheriff at one point.

“His descendants founded the Taylor-Boggis Foundry, were many of the city’s famous lawyers, and were involved in things like the ‘traction wars’ and early horse racing,” Baxter pointed out.

“His son, John D. Taylor, was a surveyor over much of the area, primarily on Cleveland’s West Side. One of the descendants was president of Canfield Oil and one owned the Buckeye Forging Co. They were active in all kinds of activities helping to make Cleveland the great city that it became.”

An earlier version of this article by Dan Chabek appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post January 18, 1990.

More Lakewood Lore