How Leavitt Road Got Its Name – Revisited

Leavitt Road has been a recurring topic on this blog over the years, with several posts pertaining to the highway's widening and repaving in the mid-1960s. 

And back on this post, there was an interesting discussion as to how the road got its name. I had seen it repeatedly referred to in the Journal as 'the Leavitt Road' since as early as the 1920s. But as regular blog contributor and author Don Hilton observed, it had been used even earlier than that, in the late 1800s, to describe property boundaries in real estate sales.  

Since there didn't appear to be any Leavitt farm on any of the vintage plat maps, the only possible theory was that the name referred to Col. John Leavitt, an early settler of Ohio's Western Reserve.

Longtime blog contributor and historian Rick Kurish had done research with findings that make a pretty strong argument to support the idea that the road is named for that family.

Rick wrote, "I read with interest your blog post regarding Leavitt Road. Since I was a youngster growing up in Amherst I have wondered about how the Leavitt Road came to be named. Like you I searched for someone with the surname Leavitt living on the road — without success. Then about 30 years ago I ran across a book published by the Western Reserve Historical society titled A Tour to New Connecticut in 1811: The Narrative of Henry Leavitt Ellsworth.

"After reading the narrative, I arrived at the same tenuous conclusion as Dan Hilton posted in his comment on your blog, namely that John Leavitt, an early settler of Warren Ohio, was probably involved somehow. The research that I did many years ago led me to a couple of prominent extended families living in Suffield, Connecticut in the 1790s. Their surnames were Leavitt and Ellsworth. When Connecticut put the Western Reserve lands up for sale in 1796, the very wealthy and accomplished Leavitt and Ellsworth families, among others, purchased tens of thousands of acres. John Leavitt purchased land in the Warren, Ohio area, and Oliver Ellsworth purchased land further west.

"John Leavitt became one of the early settlers of the Warren area. One of his business interests was opening a hotel in Warren. Oliver Ellsworth seemed to be more of a speculator. As far as I know, he never set foot in Ohio and died in 1807. In 1811 his son Henry Leavitt Ellsworth set out to inspect the family’s lands with an eye toward their development. 

"So, you ask, how may this be related to Leavitt Road?

"First, a little genealogy. The Leavitt and Ellsworth families were related by marriage. Henry Leavitt Ellsworth’s grandparents were David Ellsworth and Jemima Leavitt, hence his middle name. 

"In his narrative, he also describes stops at his cousin John Leavitt’s hotel in Warren and at his family’s land in Sullivan and Nova. Since Route 58 (Leavitt Road) originates/terminates in the Sullivan/Nova area, it may be significant that the land had a Leavitt connection.

"Is any of this proof of how Leavitt road came to be named? 

"It’s all just speculation on my part, but I’ll keep it under consideration until a better explanation comes along.

"I am enclosing a couple of scans from the Henry Leavitt Narrative that show the lands owned by the Ellsworth family in 1811. The map of the Western Reserve shows the route covered by Henry Leavitt Ellsworth during his tour.

"The second scan details the lands by acreage owned by his father Oliver Ellsworth at the time of his death. 

"As you can see he owned 15,829 acres in Range 18, which would later become the Sullivan area and 2,800 acres in Range 19 which is now the Nova area (see note 27).

"It would appear that the genesis of Leavitt road may have been in the Sullivan area or the Western Reserve. Who knew?"

I sincerely appreciate Rick's hard work in researching this. He has me convinced. Besides, we have a sign from above that he's correct. Check out the page number on the page from the book with the map: 58. Most appropriate for Leavitt Road – State Route 58!

Journal Front Pages – January Blizzards of '77 & '78

My younger brother and I, circa January 1977.
That's one of the trademark Brady green Cutlasses behind us.

Each year when January comes around again, I can't help but remember the two consecutive years – 1977 and 1978 – when we experienced real blizzards in that month.

Although today's TV weather reporting makes a big deal out of an inch or two of snow, there's no comparison with what took place back in '77 and '78. Anyone who lived through those years won't forget it.

I remember them pretty well, as I was in my senior year at Admiral King High School in January 1977, and away at Ohio State in Columbus in January 1978.

We'll start with 1977.

January 1977 wasn't going all that well before the storm, with an ongoing energy emergency. Here's the front page of the January 24, 1977 Journal.

Then a few days later on Friday, January 28, 1977, the blizzard hit. (I remember being annoyed that the Admiral King vs Marion basketball game was cancelled, because I had been planning on going to the game with a girl from the band that I was interested in.)

Here's the Saturday, January 29th Journal with the tragic aftermath of the storm. As you can see, lives were lost.

Then almost exactly a year later, it was the same thing all over again. Here's the front page of the January 26, 1978 Journal.

And here's the next day, with the report that the Ohio National Guardsmen were coming to help.

And then the eerie look back on the storm, again with a death toll in the area.

I remember at Ohio State how the dormitory administrators consolidated students in the larger dining halls to save energy during those few days of the storm. Our Stadium Scholarship dining room was closed, and we had to trudge across the snowy wasteland over to Morrill Tower by the Olentangy River. Ugh. It was an anxious few days before things returned to normal.

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I wrote about these storms before (back in 2010), with slightly poorer reproductions of Journal front pages. Here's my post on the 1977 Blizzard, and here's my series on the Blizzard of '78 Parts 1, 2 and 3).

Lorain Journal Front Page – 100 Years Ago Today

I've been jumping around in time the last couple of days, seeing what the front page of the Lorain Journal looked like on that day – eighty and ninety years ago. 

Today, leave us turn back the hands of time to exactly 100 years ago today to see what was going on in my hometown. So above you see the front page of the Lorain Journal of January 25, 1924.

I'm sure you're probably wondering if that's a typo in the headline: KIDNAPED CHILDREN LOCATED. But it's correct. Several dictionary websites point out that 'kidnaped' is the American spelling, while those crumpet-eating, tea-drinking chaps across the Big Pond use two P's.

The story about the kidnaped children is a sad one. Their parents had been having 'domestic difficulties,' and two of the children (both boys) had been living with their mother in Lorain at the home of the gentleman for whom she was a housekeeper. The boys' 16-year-old sister, who had been living with their father in Kendallville, Indiana was the one who 'whisked' them away from their mother. The article notes that they were being returned to Lorain and that the court would decide where they should live.

Elsewhere on the front page: at the Lake Shore Electric crossing at Kansas Avenue, a group of boys were tricking cars into stopping (making them believe an LSE car was coming ) and then tying their sleds on the back of the stopped cars to hitch a ride; several fires caused havoc in town, including an entire house and its contents destroyed on E. 23rd street; a restaurant on E. 28th Street was robbed of $12 worth of nickels; and the superintendent in charge of operation, traffic and purchases of the Lorain, Ashland & Southern railroad was preparing to retire after a career of more than 46 years.

One handy feature at the bottom of the page – SAFE TO SKATE – noted that while Highland Park, the marsh near the viaduct, and the pond behind Fairhome school were all safe, the river was not.

And let's not overlook the popular comic panel featuring cartoon philosopher Abe Martin. (Read about it here and here.)

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Longtime blog contributor and local historian Dennis Thompson left a comment on this post in which he was wondering where the 'marsh near the viaduct' was located. I'm guessing it's the one shown in the early map of Lorain shown below, as it is specifically tagged for skating.

Lorain Journal Front Page – Jan. 24, 1944

Fast forward ten years from the front page of the Lorain Journal that I posted yesterday, and you have the newspaper page shown above, from January 24, 1944 – eighty years ago today. I've posted page 2 as well.

World War II and the daily progress of the Allies against the enemy were still grabbing most of the headlines. It's hard to imagine watching a war play out every day in the pages of a newspaper, along with radio broadcasts and the occasional newsreel at the movies. 

But as you can see, the War, and stories related to it, dominated the front page as well as page 2. One of the most interesting stories is the account written by war correspondent Lowell Bennett, about being shot down in a night raid over Berlin and taken prisoner. It formed the basis of his book Parachute to Berlin. It's pretty exciting and well-written, especially the details of his jump from the plane and his subsequent rescue, before being turned over to authorities as a prisoner.

The continuation of Lowell Bennett's story from page 1 is on page 3 below.

As usual, there are several small items from other Ohio cities of a tragic nature: children dying in a home fire, a baby poisoned after ingesting medicine tablets resembling candy. There's also a reminder of African Americans facing continued discrimination during the War, with an item about six men from Lorain being accepted in the January colored quota.

Lorain Journal Front Page – Jan. 23, 1934

 

Ninety years ago today, this is what greeted readers of the Lorain Journal on January 23, 1934.

Now that's a front page. It has two headlines and each one is a humdinger: a daylight robbery at gunpoint that took place at the Hotel Antlers, and the tragic death of Earl R. Morris, the mayor of Oberlin, due to pneumonia.

There's an interesting article about the decision to delay widening Oberlin Avenue. It reveals that at that point, the street had four different widths: 33 feet wide from West Erie to the Nickel Plate railroad tracks; 28 feet from the tracks to 19th Street; 21 feet from 19th to 22nd Street; and 18 feet from 23rd to the city limits (at Meister Road). The same article notes an intention by the county to extend Oakdale Ave. from the city limits to North Ridge Road. (That never happened.)

As was often the case, there's a juicy story with pictures on the front page: "Another Woman Doctor on Trial." The story asks, "Did Dr. Sara Ruth Dean, comely 33-year-old specialist, knowingly serve Dr. John Preston Kennedy, her former medical associate, a poisoned highball while he was a midnight guest in her home last July?" Dr. Dean was going on trial for murder that week. It would take five weeks to finally convict her. Her sentence, however, was commuted years later by the governor.

From Virginia, there's a sensationalized story of a 'gas man,' so called because he supposedly attacked homes in this region by unleashing clouds of deadly chlorine. You can read more about these gas attacks – which eventually were determined to be a classic example of epidermic hysteria – here, here and here.

Lorain was experiencing some sharp lake winds, after a weekend with spring-like weather. The thermometer dropped 20 degrees in less than 24 hours.

And from Cleveland came the story of a taxicab driver who received a ten-cent tip from the father of a baby born in his cab while they were rushing to the hospital.

Lorain Sunday News Front Page – Jan. 24, 1954

Yesterday was Sunday, so that's as good a reason as any to post yet another front page from the Lorain Sunday News. This one is from January 24, 1954.

A photo at the top of the page reveals that the new home of the Lorain Sunday News was a building at 1895 East 28th Street. An accompanying article notes that it was the first time that the newspaper had its own home since it began publishing in 1932.

Here's the Lorain Sunday News building as it looks today.

It's interesting that the article notes that the new home of the Lorain Sunday News was located "just west of the old car barns," referring to where the Lorain Street Railway cars were stored. (I did a 'Then and Now' of the car barns back here.)

Also on the LSN front page is a photo depicting the current controversy in town: whether to abandon Ashland Avenue where it ran north to Harmon's Beach.

The issue stirred up strong feelings in Lorain's daily paper as well. In a letter published in the Lorain Journal's "Voice of the People" column of January 20, 1954, a reader noted, "This issue is no more than a quick land grab by those people who now own property adjacent to the street concerned.

"First of all, this issue not only concerns Ashland Avenue, but, all of the now dead-end streets bordering the lake from Leavitt Road to Root Road.

"If Ashland Avenue is closed, I know for a fact that Brownell Avenue will be closed a short time after. Undoubtedly the east side streets will follow in quick succession.

"If the present lakefront property owners close the city streets, how will the majority, and I should say the vast majority, get to the lake."

The letter writer, William Parker (who would eventually be elected Mayor of Lorain in 1979), recommended that the city improve the street for greater accessibility to the lake. And that is what the city decided to do, judging from this article which appeared in the Lorain Journal on Feb. 6, 1954.

Unfortunately, in 1970 the city of Lorain finally did close Harmon's Beach, and barricade the portion of Ashland Avenue leading to it (which I wrote about here).

Vogt Oldsmobile Ad – Jan. 19, 1954

I'm a big Oldsmobile fan, so naturally this ad for Vogt Oldsmobile from the January 19, 1954 Lorain Journal caught my eye. The dealership was celebrating its move to the building at 2950 Broadway that resembles an airplane hangar. As noted on this 2011 post (as well as this one from 2018), Kunick Motor Sales was at that location before Vogt moved in, and Kaminski Oldsmobile became the tenant as the 1950s drew to a close.

I like the fact that the ad features photos of the entire staff of Vogt Oldsmobile. Imagine my surprise when I recognized one of my mother's floor-mates from Kingston of Vermilion! The gentleman (whose identity I'll keep to myself out of respect for his privacy) sat with Mom and me at dinner many times, and I enjoyed his company and good humor very much. Even in his late 80s, his mind was sharp as a tack.

Strangely enough, while doing some blog research I discovered that in the mid-1960s, the gentleman was involved in a traffic accident right where the Big V is located at West Erie and Fifth Street. When I mentioned it to him, he correctly told me the date it happened and the names of the others involved in the accident! However, he wasn't sure about whether the Big V had been hit, and the report of the accident in the Journal doesn't say anything about it.

Anyway, I'm not sure if the gentleman is still on this Earthly plane, but either way, I wish him well.

A 2023 view