Caroline S. Dunham-Welch’s Neighbors

Duncan A. Virostko, Museum Assistant

**Caroline S. Dunham-Welch’s slice of Dunhamsburgh, ca. 1898.**

The Dunhamsburgh story did not end with the death of Rufus Dunham in 1862, nor even with the passing of his eldest daughter, Lorretta Jane Dunham-Pier in 1891. In fact, the presence and influence of the Dunham family in the neighborhood they helped build continued all the way into the 20th century, thanks to Caroline Sarah Dunham-Welch, who remained in the area until her death in 1905.

Caroline Sarah Dunham-Welch lived in the home that her father Rufus Dunham had retired to in 1853, in the kitchen of which he had suddenly died in 1862. She had inherited it from her mother, Jane Dunham. The home was immediately adjacent to the old Tavern, which stood just to the east. Her next door neighbors therefore were the various tenants and relations of Dunham Tavern’s second owner George Williams, and later the final owners James A. Stephens and his wife Oriana Burwell-Stephens.

Her next door neighbor to the west in 1898 was local businessman: George H. Worthington (Jr.).

George was the son of George Worthington (Sr.) and his mother Maria C. Blackmar. The couple married in 1840, and at this time built a home along Euclid Ave to the west of Dunham Tavern. George Worthington (Sr.) had come to Cleveland in 1834 from Utica, NY, and thanks to a loan of $500 from his brother established a hardware store with his new business partner William Bingham in 1835, purchasing the stock of the defunct Cleveland, Sterling & Co. Bingham later sold his interests in the business to Worthington in 1841. This was not the end of Geroge Worthington (Sr.) & William Bingham’s collaborations, however, as they partnered again in 1863 to create the Cleveland Iron & Nail Works. Worthington would build his business up from a simple hardware store often forced to barter in order to sell inventory, into one of the largest hardware companies in the region, making annual sales of $1 million dollars.

George H. Worthington (Jr.) was born August 8th, 1854 as the seventh child of the Worthington family, and the last of three sons. As was typical of families in the period, his was both large and yet deeply touched by tragedy. His elder brother Ralph, born in 1841, and older sisters Abigail, born in 1843, and Mary, born in 1849, had proved to be healthy additions to the family. But neither his brother Charles C. Worthington, born in 1846, nor his sister Georgiana born in 1847 lived more than a year. When he was only two years old, his mother Maria would suffer a stillbirth. His final sibling was his younger sister Alice, who was born in 1857. Even the most well-to-do families in Cleveland could not escape the high infant mortality rates of the period.

Upon the passing of his father in 1871, George H. Worthington (Jr.) inherited the Geroge Worthington Co. . The company was at that time undergoing a massive expansion: sales had reached $1.5 million mark the preceding year. Then, in 1874 a fire completely destroyed the old building at 802 W. St. Clair Ave that his father had built in 1868. Rather than a setback, Worthington saw an opportunity for expansion. Working with Company President James Barnett (a long time employee of the company and formerly a Union General, the highest ranking officer from Cuyahoga County during the Civil War), the company rebuilt into a sprawling complex of 13 structures. This would be his lasting architectural legacy in Cleveland: following the decline and eventual collapse of the company in the 1990s, the abandoned facility would be restored as the present day Worthington Square & Worthington Yards apartment complex, a textbook example of historic preservation and adaptive reuse.

George H. Worthington (Jr.) passed away Aug 29, 1939, having lived long enough to witness the Tavern’s transformation into a museum, although he himself had moved away in the early 1900s.

**Worthington Yards Apartments Courtyard**

On the other side of what is now East 66th Street but was then Dunham Avenue, next door neighbors to the Worthingtons, lived Henry Sherwin and his wife Frances Mary Smith-Sherwin.

The present day site of the Mid Town Collaboration Center, at the corner of East 66th St. and Euclid Ave. was once the home of Henry Sherwin, one of the two founders of Sherwin-Williams, alongside Edwards Porter Williams. Together, these two men created the now iconic Cleveland paint company in 1870. Across the street, at the present day site of the Cleveland Foundation, lived Caroline Dunham-Welch, youngest daughter of Rufus Dunham who constructed Dunham’s Tavern.

Sherwin first came to Cleveland in 1860, working as a bookkeeper at the dry goods store Freeman & Kellogg, later working in the same role at the wholesale grocer George Sprague & Co.

Henry Sherwin married Frances Mary Smith-Sherwin in 1865. Needing to support his wife, in 1866 Sherwin sought a new job.

Truman Dunham, a very distant relation who lived next door to Caroline’s older sister, Loretta Jane Dunham-Pier near East 65th St. introduced Sherwin to the business of paints, hiring the young bookkeeper to work at the Truman Dunham & Co. . Using $2,000 of saved from his own salary, Sherwin became an investor in the company. At the time, Sherwin later admitted, he "did not realize what it would lead to", but it was the beginning of his rise to fame and fortune.

In 1869, the company opened a new plant to produce boiled linseed oil, a key component of paints at the time, and shifted it’s concentration from paint sales to paint production. This shift in business resulted in a reorganization, into the Sherwin-Williams Co., in 1870. In 1875, the new company would introduce the first widely produced and marketed ready-mixed paints, a revolution over previously separately sold paint components that consumers would have to mix themselves. As a result, they would become one of the largest paint manufacturers in the nation, officially incorporating in 1884. It would continue to grow exponentially, and by the turn of the century had an annual revenue of $2.3 million. Sherwin was president of the company during this period, and remained as in that position until 1909. He would still be the Chairman of the board in 1916, when he passed away.

By the 1890s, Sherwin’s house was in his wife, Frances’ name. Together, the couple would raise their first and only daughter, Belle Sherwin, who would go on to become a prominent women’s rights activist in her own right.

Two doors west of the Sherwins at 1421 Euclid Ave. in 1898, was the mansion of Phenas M. Spencer, an early Cleveland banker then enjoying a peaceful retirement. Spencer had been born at Fort Ann, Washington County, New York, March 1st, 1844 to parents Lyman M. and Phoebe J. Spencer. He was the brother of Albert Kingsley Spencer, born Dec 15th, 1844, who was also a banker and a member of the Cleveland City Council. A. K. Spencer lived at 1253 Euclid Ave, on the south side of the street in the Penn Square area. During the Civil War, he had served as a Captain commanding Company B of the 103rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, the same unit as Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Monument sculptor Levi T. Schofield. Phineas had also served in the Civil War, serving with the 123rd New York Volunteer Infantry, Co. D from 1861 in the Army of the Potomac. While his brother fought in the Western Theater of the war, Phineas saw action at many of the major battles in the Eastern Theater including Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsburg and Gettysburg. Following the Battle of Gettysburg, Phineas contracted a severe fever, and received a medical discharge from the Army. After the war, his older brother A.K. Spencer would subsequently invite him to join him at his new job in Cleveland: working for the First National Bank. Albert was working at the bank as a cashier, and Phineas joined him, working first as a lowly messenger and eventually rising to the position of assistant cashier. A. K. Spencer would go on to become one of the founding members, along with Charles Whittlesey, another prominent Dunhamsburgh resident, of the Western Reserve Historical Society, serving as its first treasurer. His death at home of “fatty degeneration of the heart” at only age 51 on 12:15 PM, February 24th 1881 must have come as a great shock to his younger brother.

**$10 Bank Note of First National Bank of Cleveland, signed by P.M. Spencer, ca. 1882**

The First National Bank of Cleveland had been established during the Civil War, on May 23rd, 1863, being chartered under the newly passed National Banking Act which aimed to help finance the war. The bank’s first president was none other than George Worthington (Sr.). The bank’s original charter expired in 1882 not long after A.K. Spencer’s death, and Phineas Spencer assisted with its reorganization into the Cleveland National Bank, serving as its Vice President, finally surpassing his brother’s achievements. In addition to this P.M. Spencer acted as director for the Leader Sewing Machine Co., and as a trustee of the Cleveland Homeopathic College. Politically a Republican, he would also serve for six years on the Cleveland City Council, principally addressing the city’s finances.

The Dunahm family’s legacy has now stretched over 201 years. Previous scholarship has rightly focused on the influence of Rufus Dunham on the neighborhood which briefly bore his name: Dunhamsburgh. However, the influence of the Dunham family extended long after Rufus’ death in 1862. Caroline Sarah Dunham-Welch, the youngest daughter of the Dunham family, remained a neighborhood fixture until her death in 1905, living through the evolution of the neighborhood from its earliest days into Millionaire’s row, and beyond. The Dunham sisters rubbed shoulders with many prominent Clevelanders in their day. Their illustrious neighbors included the Henry Sherwin of Sherwin-Williams Co. fame, George H. Worthington (Jr.) the son of prominent businessman George Worthington (Sr.), whose eponymous company created the building complex now known as Worthington Square & Worthington Yards, and banker and Civil War veteran Phineas M. Spencer. These men were largely of a second generation, to which Caroline belonged, of Clevelanders who had an important role in transforming Cleveland of a small but prosperous city on Lake Erie into one of the richest cities in the nation. By selecting Euclid Ave as their abode, sometimes simply out of fashion but other times (as in the case of the Worthingtons) because of a greater sense of history, these new residents of the neighborhood transformed the once isolated Dunhamsburgh area into part of the greater and much lauded Millionaire’s Row. Yet, the heyday of the neighborhood was quite brief. Only coming to exist in the 1870s amidst the vast economic transformation its residents were fueling, Millionaire’s Row in the vicinity of Dunham Tavern had already reached its peak by 1898. By 1912, only seven years after the death of Caroline Dunham-Welch, the neighborhood was unrecognizable, and indeed largely no longer extant. The area had begun to shift from a residential to a business-retail district. The next step of that evolution would see the former neighborhood of Dunhamsburgh transformed into an area dominated by the automobile and light industry, followed by neglect and decay. Only Dunham Tavern has ultimately managed to survive the many changes its eponymous neighborhood has endured over the past 200 years. Now, it serves as the point of continuity and an inspiration for the future in the midst of yet another transformation of the Midtown area which surrounds it. Thus, the legacy of the Dunham family continues, as their Tavern serves its original purpose of being a center of community life and hospitality.