Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/166

grown to 696 families, including 3252 persons. Thus the Czech immigration was from the first an immigration by families. Its industrial value may be judged by a selection from some statistics regarding the 3252 Czechs here in 1869. This number included 1949 men and their occupations were as follows: masons, 76; carpenters, 72, tailors, 56; shoemakers, 44; coopers, 39; locksmiths, 25; blacksmiths, 19; merchants, 15; professional musicians, 13, besides many others who had music as a side-line; harness makers, 9; weavers, 9; stonecutters, 8; wheelrights, 7; tanners, 6; tinsmiths, 6; bakers, 5; painters, 5; booksellers, 2; printers, 1; clockmaker, 1; while 90 men and 50 women were employed on nearby farms.

It is hard now to imagine what Cleveland was like in the 60’s and early 70’s, when everything east to East 30th street was farm land. A history of the location and growth of the Czech settlements in Cleveland is actually a history of the growth of the city. In the first years of the Czechs in Cleveland, they lived in the old district of Hill, Cross, and Commercial streets, but as soon as they had become assured of the means of subsistence, they began to reach toward their natural rural environment. The Czechs love the country. It is a saying among them here that when out early in the morning for a walk, for mushrooms, for a swim in the lake, or for fishing, you can speak in Bohemian to whomever you meet and he will answer.

It follows that the Czechs never live in congested districts if they can help it. On the contrary they are always to be found on the edge of the city, where town and country meet; when the city follows, they move on. The older Czech still loves his own fenced-in yard, here he can have a vegetable garden, some bright colored flowers, and a few ducks or geese. In settlements on the outskirts of the city, flocks of geese still roam vacant allotments and hiss viciously at the timid American.

As early as 1853, J. Capek and J. Doubrava bought farms and became the pioneer Bohemian farmers of the county. Their fellow contrymen built up two sections on what was the outskirts of the city. The first was “Brooklyn,” a term at that time applied quite loosely to the west bank of the river south of Ohio City. Land there was cheaper than in Cleveland, and from the very beginning there were some Czech families there. One of the pioneer women of that district is reported as saying that at first the Americans looked at them as if they were some strange kind of animal. They could not understand why this was so, but later learned that it was because of their strange dress, particularly the shawls on their heads. When they learned the reason, they began to dress like Americans.

On the east side of the river, many early Czech immigrants were employed as laborers on farms, and immediately began to buy from their employers plots for their own homes. Harvey Rice employed many on his farm in the neighborhood of what became Croton Street, and he sold them land on very easy terms, in some cases allowing them to work out the price. This was the beginning of the Croton street settlement, which was the Czech center of Cleveland from 1870 until the development of the Broadway district. Life here, we are told, was always gayer and brighter than in Brooklyn. The general merchandise store, steamship agency and public utility office, of Martin Krejci, at Croton and East 37th streets, was famous for the variety and multiplicity of its contents. A long flight of stairs led down the hill in front of this store, and many a new immigrant spent his first night in Cleveland sitting on those steps.

In the latter part of the 70’s the Standard Oil Company began to employ many Czechs. In those days barrels were all made by hand and the natural skill of the Czechs as hand workers found here a convenient and profitable field of employment. Almost every Czech man in the city at that period spent some time “making barrels for John D. Rockefeller.”

Convenience of access to this factory furnished the first motive for removal from Croton street across Kingsbury Run. In 1878 the farms along the south side of the Run were parceled into lots, and the district in the neighborhood of Trumbull and East 37th streets became a residence district known as “na vršku” (on the hill). Broadway, already in existence as a county road, formed the axis of the new settlement, and the development of the whole district from East 37th street to Union avenue took place very quickly and the 21th ward (now the 13th) a chronicler in-