One of the great things about Cleveland Heights is that well over half
its residents can walk to a park in 15 minutes or less. Three of those
parks (Cain, Cumberland and Forest Hill) are all part of the same watershed:
Dugway Brook. A fourth—the Shaker Lakes system that straddles Cleveland
Heights and Shaker Heights—is part of the Doan Creek watershed.
Following is a brief historical overview of this local treasure which,
as many of us recall, almost became the infamous Clark Freeway in the
mid-1960s.
In 1799, three years after the first permanent white settlers arrived
in Cleveland, Nathaniel Doan and his family built a home and tavern beside
Doan Brook at what is now in Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street. Then
known as the Buffalo Road, Euclid Avenue was a primary artery connecting
Cleveland and Buffalo NY.
Thirteen years later, in 1812, Jacob Russell relocated his extended,
20-member family several miles upstream to a 1000-acre site near what
is currently the intersection of South Park Boulevard and Lee Road (Figure
1). In 1822, at Russell’s urging, this group became the “Center
Family”—the first members of the North Union Shaker Community.
Figure
1: Map of the Center Family at what is now
South Park Boulevard and Lee Roads,
c. 1880.
In addition to
numerous buildings, orchards, cemeteries, a tannery, a blacksmith shop
and an oil mill for making baked goods, the Shakers successfully dammed
Doan Brook in 1826. These efforts made it possible to construct a gristmill
and a sawmill near the intersection of what is now Coventry Road and North
Park Boulevard (Figure 2). These facilities (the remnants of which are
still visible) were operated by the Shakers’ second community: the
“Mill Family.” Soon after, another family unit, the Gathering
Family, was organized. Whole families often lived in one house, the men
sleeping on one side and the women on the opposite side, with separate
stairways for each.
Figure
2: Mill Family main house along what is now Coventry Road. 1
As the Shaker community grew,
additional water power was needed; so, in 1854, a second dam was created
further east. By that time, however, the community’s celibate lifestyle
and an inability to attract new recruits were beginning to take their
toll. In 1889, with membership down to only 27 members, the community
disbanded and 1366 acres were sold to O. P. and M. J. Van Sweringen for
$316,000. In 1892, 280 of those acres were donated to the City of Cleveland,
which owns them to this day.
Around the same time, Jephtha Wade, William Gordon, Mr.
and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Nathan Ambler and others donated downstream
Doan Brook land to make a continuous line of parks along the stream from
Lake Erie all the way to Horseshoe Lake in Shaker Heights. The Cleveland
Parks Commission then built roadways to connect the parks and commissioned
architect Charles Schweinfurth to design beautiful bridges to carry streetcar
lines across the lower park areas. By 1930, nearly all of the Doan Brook
watershed in Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights, and Cleveland was fully
developed. 2
Figure 3: Old stone
grist mill, near what is now Fairhill Boulevard, west of Coventry
Road
Today, public
access to the archeological site of the North Union Shaker community is
restricted to ensure its preservation and to allow further archeological
investigation. However, most of the parklands and Shaker Lakes are accessible
via walking trails both in Cleveland Heights on the north shore of Doan
Brook and Shaker Heights on the south shore of Doan Brook. Located on
land that was once the North Union apple orchard, the Shaker Historical
Museum interprets the history of the Shakers who once lived here, and
referred to the area spiritually as "The Valley of God's Pleasure."3