This document provides a summary of the history of Brooklyn Centre from 1812 to 2012. It describes how Brooklyn was first settled in 1812 along an American Indian trail and how the Township of Brooklyn was established in 1818. By the mid-1800s, Brooklyn had become a self-sufficient village. In 1894, it was annexed by Cleveland and developed rapidly with new infrastructure improvements. The document highlights some of the early settlers and families, architectural styles of historic homes, and transportation routes that shaped the development of Brooklyn Centre over the past 200 years.

1. BROOKLYN CENTRE 1812-2012
Presented by the Brooklyn Centre Community Association with assistance
from Horizon Denison School-the former East Denison School.

2. Early Settlement
• Brooklyn was settled in 1812 along an American
Indian trail that broke off of the Lake Trail and followed
the current alignment of Pearl Road until reaching the
ridge edge of the prehistoric Lake Whittelsey.
• The Township of Brooklyn was established in
1818. By 1830, Brooklyn Centre was a small trading post
for the largely rural township and by a generation later, it
had grown into a hamlet with merchandising,
manufacturing, trade and a residential area for Cleveland
business people and industrialists.
• By the time the Civil War ended in 1865,
Brooklyn had become a self sufficient village with its own
school system, fire department and constable.
• In 1894, the village was annexed by the City of
Cleveland, after which the neighborhood developed
rapidly, spurred by new civic improvements such as paved
streets with utility lines, and the extension of police and
fire protection into Brooklyn Centre.
SEE: http://
www.nps.gov/nr/travel/ohioeriecanal/bro.htm

3. Resources
Many of the images and content for this slide presentation have been compiled
using collections found at Cleveland Public Library, the
Cleveland Memory Collection, the Brooklyn Centre Wiki, and the
National Park Service.

4. Brooklyn Centre Photos at Cleveland Public Library
The George Ketteringham Collection consists of materials that Ruth
Ketteringham collected over the many years that she researched Brooklyn-
Centre and other areas of Cleveland, Ohio.
Ruth Ketteringham (1906-2006), daughter of George
Ketteringham, was devoted to preserving the history of the area. Her
research was extensive and allowed her the ability to lecture on various
aspects of Brooklyn-Centre.
Ruth was the recipient of the Herrick Memorial Award in 1990.
An honor awarded by the Early Settler's Association to individuals who have
promoted and brought honor to Cleveland.
Upon Ruth's death at the age of 99 in 2006, her books were donated to
the Cleveland Public Library's History Department; four or five file cabinet's
worth of papers were donated to the Western Reserve Historical Society and
two boxes of material were saved from the trash by the Brooklyn Centre
Community Association.

5. Brooklyn Centre Historic District
The neighborhood achieved the status of Historic District on May 7, 1984,
with a formal dedication ceremony held on May 20, 1984 at Archwood
United Church of Christ.
The Brooklyn Centre neighborhood is home to many landmarks of historic
note including cemeteries, fire station, medical buildings, residences,
commercial buildings and churches.
The above photo shows Italianate Mallo House (1904), which is now the office
of the Donahue Foot Clinic on West 25th St.
It includes one of the oldest structures in the neighborhood with the back
portion of the house dating to 1857.

6. Masonic Hall - 3800 West 25th St., Cleveland, Ohio
(while under construction in 1932 Architect Daniel Farnum-EXTANT)
Fraternal Orders like the Free Masons and
Grand Army of the Republic were important to the early
settlement

7. Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Hall – community meeting
place and, for a time, the location of the public library.
3797-99 West 25th St., Cleveland Ohio - Brooklyn Post #368-demolished

8. Grand Army of the Republic Hall - 3797-99 West 25th St., Cleveland, Ohio
(appears in the background of this Masonic Hall dedication photo)

9. Lake at Riverside Cemetery —
Drained before 1918. The cemetery was founded in 1876 from land that was settled as a farmstead
by Titus Brainard.
(Source: http://csudigitalhumanities.org/exhibits/items/show/2502)

10. The two tributaries to the Cuyahoga River still flow under the cemetery buried
in culvert

11. Riverside Cemetery -2012
Lake has been drained-scenic valley remains.

12. Water and Transportation
--Lake Erie
Cuyahoga
River and tributaries
--Historic Indian
Trails
/Crossroads
/Pearl &
Denison
--Horse and
Buggy
/Railroad
/Canal
/Streetcars
--Auto/Bus
Highway
Note: this map shows neighborhood as Brooklyn Centre /Bikes
of Brooklyn Township

13. Farming and Homesteads
The first families to settle Brooklyn Township relied on neighbors and community for
food, wood and necessities-first families include the names FISH, FOSTER, and
BRAINARD.
Brooklyn Township, the land west of the Cuyahoga River,
was known as the Lord and Barber allotment.
– All settlers would have purchased their land from Samuel P. Lord and Josiah
Barber.
The first permanent white settler of Brooklyn was James Fish.
Brooklyn Centre consists of two of the main lots
, #65 and #74, as surveyed and marked
out for the Western Reserve.
Early settlers of Brooklyn Centre were brothers,
Ebenezer and Moses Fish
on lot #65
and Ozias Brainard on lot #74.
Stearns Farm in Parma Township (later City of Parma) provides a great present day window into the world o

14. First Families in Brooklyn Centre
Text from brass historic marker archived at
Cleveland Public Library-formerly on cornerstone
of Brooklyn Branch Library 3706 Pearl Rd.
Cleveland OH 44109:
Brooklyn Centre
James Fish arrived in this area with his
family from Connecticut in 1811, making
them Cleveland’s first white settlers west
of the Cuyahoga River. Fish built his
first home on this site, a log cabin of
hand-hewn logs in 1812. On May 9,
1814, his fifth child, Isaiah, was born
here. He was the first non-Indian child
to be born on the west side of the river.
The fish family’s first permanent frame
home was built just west of the log cabin.
It housed the first schoolroom in the
area.

15. Burial Grounds—Scranton, Riverside
and Denison Cemetery
As part of the Connecticut New Western Reserve, James Fish was the first
permanent white settler in the territory that became Brooklyn …William
Gannon Rose stated in the 1812 section of his book that the Fish Family
burial lot became the first public cemetery west of the Cuyahoga River.
James deeded it to the trustees of a school district. (This should have been
School District No. 2, and the deed was not found, but there is a deed from
Ebenezer Fish to the school district No. 9 which would be the old Brooklyn
Burial Ground, now Denison Cemetery, in 1835.) p.1
The plot in the rear of the vault was donated in the year 1819, by James Fish, to
the North Brooklyn Township, for the burial of indigent people of School
District #2.
Source: Scranton Road Cemetery, Cleveland, Ohio Introduction, Inscriptions
and Interments by Cynthia Turk (2004.)

16. Early Architectural Styles
Many of the first homes built in Brooklyn Centre can still be found on A
Annexed to Cleveland near the end of the 19th century, Brooklyn Centre underwent rapid
growth that continued through 1915. The Brooklyn Centre Historic District, which was
designated in 1984 includes many homes from the turn-of-the-century with most homes
constructed between 1910-1920.

17. Brooklyn Centre Historic District
Above walking tour was compiled by Historian Craig Bobby in 2004—see Brooklyn Centre Wiki and
Brooklyn Centre Community Association for more information on current streets and homes.

18. Color Schemes-
Many homes follow Victorian and Early American color palettes

19. There are a number of reminders of the past in
Brooklyn Centre—carriage house garages for
horse-drawn carriages. The Fire Station on
West 25th has a hayloft that can be seen on the
back side of the building. There are walk-up
churches like the above Good News Church
which started out as Ammaus Evangelical
Lutheran, and served German immigrants who
made up the neighborhood in 1912-when the
church was built.

20. Glazed brick house 3400 Mapledale
above was built by Snow family next
to location of their first house shown
at upper right (bric-brac is gone
today). Bliss-Fish family house also
on Mapledale was relocated from
original location at corner of Pearl
Rd. to accommodate construction of
the Third Church of Christ.

21. Origin of Brooklyn Center/Centre Neighborhood
designation?
This early Cleveland planning document shows entry to Brooklyn Township
settlement at intersection of Pearl and Broadview—which never materialized.
1874 Township maps show all centers of townships as “Centre”-see Dover Centre
etc.

22. Highway Construction
Construction of Interstate-71 and
I-176, the Jennings Freeway,
destroyed a number of historic
structures on the historically
German north side of
Brooklyn Centre and in the
Polish Catholic St. Barbara
parish neighborhood of
Brooklyn Centre, known as
Barbarowa. Photo left shows
Kohl house- which still exists
and has been restored on
Library Ave.

23. Brooklyn Centre-2012
Brooklyn Centre grew from a sleepy rural township to a bustling commercial crossroads with
the streetcar era. In the fifties, as highways accelerated the move to the suburbs, the
neighborhood declined and was rediscovered again in the nineties. Population shifts have
always made this a neighborhood of immigrants. After American Indians lost this
territory, immigrants from Connecticut and the Western Reserve settled here, followed by
waves of German immigrants during the Industrial Revolution and later Poles and other
Eastern European immigrants working in the steel mills and other industries along the
Cuyahoga River.
Today, you are more likely to hear Spanish or an African language as new residents
settle from Central America and African countries. But, Brooklyn Centre will
continue to welcome New Americans and will always be a neighborhood built
on memories that celebrate our blended cultural heritage.