Surveyors name Cleveland, Ohio
- When
- 1796–1797
- Where
- Cleveland, Ohio, near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River; Banks of the Cuyahoga River at Cleveland
- Episodes
- 2
On July 22, 1796, surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company laid out townships and a capital city in Connecticut's Western Reserve, naming the settlement Cleveland after General Moses Cleaveland, one of the company's largest shareholders who was in charge of conducting its first survey of the Western Reserve in 1796.
Episodes
- Surveyors name Cleveland
Connecticut Land Company surveyors established Cleveland on July 22, 1796, naming it after General Moses Cleaveland.
- Lorenzo Carter settles at Cleveland
Lorenzo Carter, the first permanent European settler, arrived in May 1797 and built a cabin on the Cuyahoga River banks.
Background and detail
Background. The Connecticut Land Company, formed in 1795 by private investors seeking profit from land sales, purchased three million acres of Connecticut's Western Reserve for $1.2 million. The Reserve was the portion of former Western land claims apportioned to Connecticut after the states ceded claims west of the Alleghenies to the federal government.
Naming of Cleveland. On July 22, 1796, surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company established the town while dividing the Western Reserve into townships and a capital city. The settlement near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River was named after General Moses Cleaveland, after whom the city was called. The town's name was often shortened to "Cleveland," including by Cleaveland's original surveyors.
Aftermath. The first permanent European settler in Cleveland, Lorenzo Carter, arrived in May 1797 and built a cabin on the banks of the Cuyahoga River, beginning sustained settlement at the newly named site.
People involved
- Moses Cleaveland · General and one of the company's first directors and largest shareholders, in charge of conducting the first company survey of the Western Reserve in 1796
- Seth Pease · Surveyor who planned the settlement on the banks of the Cuyahoga River with Cleaveland
- Lorenzo Carter · First permanent European settler of Cleveland
Sources
- Cleveland Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-19
- Connecticut Land Company Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-18
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.