Cleveland Past and Present: Its Representative Men: Comprising Biographical Sketches of Pioneer Settlers and Prominent Citizens
History
Cleveland Past and Present: Its Representative Men: Comprising Biographical Sketches of Pioneer Settlers and Prominent Citizens
Cleveland (Ohio) -- Biography; Cleveland (Ohio) -- History
In the Ohio Educational Monthly for April, 1860, appeared a pretty full
biography of Hon. Harvey Rice, who has filled an important position in
connection with the educational interests of Ohio. From that account we
learn that Mr. Rice is a native of Massachusetts. He was born June 11th,
1800. In 1824, he graduated from Williams College, and the same year
removed to Cleveland. He came to Ohio a stranger and without influential
friends here or elsewhere to aid his efforts for advancement. When he
landed at Cleveland he owned nothing but the clothes he wore, and three
dollars in his pocket. At that time Cleveland contained but 400
inhabitants.
Making no disclosure as to the low state of his treasury and the rather
dull prospect for an immediate replenishing of the same, he took lodgings
at the best public house the town afforded, at the rate of two dollars and
a half per week. At the expiration of one week he paid his board bill and
removed to a private boarding-house, with but fifty cents left, and
commenced teaching a classical school in the old academy on St. Clair
street. About the same time he commenced the study of the law under the
direction of Reuben Wood, then a prominent member of the Cleveland Bar,
and at the expiration of two years was admitted to practice, and entered
into copartnership with his former instructor, which continued until Mr.
Wood was elected to the Bench.
In 1829, he was elected Justice of the Peace, and in 1830, elected to
represent his district in the State Legislature. Soon after, without
solicitation on his part, he was appointed an agent for the sale of the
Western Reserve school lands, a tract of fifty-six thousand acres,
situated in the Virginia Military District. He opened a land office at
Millersburgh, in Holmes county, for the sales, and in the course of three
years sold all the lands, and paid the avails, nearly one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, into the State Treasury, as a school fund for the
exclusive benefit of educating the children of the Western Reserve, the
interest of which is now annually paid by the State for that purpose.
In 1833, Mr. Rice returned to Cleveland, and was appointed Clerk of the
Common Pleas and Supreme Courts, an office in which he faithfully served
for seven years, and in 1834 and 1836, was nominated by the Democratic
Convention as a candidate for Congress, and received the united support of
the party, though without expectation of success, as the Democrats were
largely in the minority. He was the first Democrat ever sent to the
Legislature from Cuyahoga county, and, while serving in that body, was
considered one of its ablest and most influential members. He was
appointed by the House one of the select committee for revising the
statutes of the State, and while in that capacity, introduced and
advocated with acknowledged ability many new provisions, which still
retain their place upon our statute book.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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