In 1990, I discovered a 1907 newspaper obituary of my great, great, grandfather, Henry Stark, that my grandmother had tucked into a photo album. As interesting as that was, it was the mention of Henry’s father, Captain Ebenezer Fletcher Stark, that really got me excited. The clipping said Captain Stark was a steamboat captain on the Ohio River. Wow, that would have been during the steamboat’s glory years. I immediately started reading everything I could find on the subject and made several visits to steamboat museums. The terms roustabouts, snags, stern-wheelers, groundings, and steamboat disasters were fascinating subjects of my study. I began to feel like a steamboat expert.
When honoring a Middle School Teacher of the Year at our Rotary Club, I spoke with her about my steamboat interest and she asked if I would share that information with her class. That led to other middle school presentations.
Sometime later, I learned Ebenezer, traveling with his family as a 16-year-old, moved by wagon from their home in Connecticut and became early settlers in the village of Cleveland in 1814. Cleveland, located in the heart of the Western Reserve territory, was first surveyed by a team of men led by General Moses Cleaveland in 1796. The General had an extra “a” in his name and the village first used that spelling. However, when the Cleveland Herald began publishing its newspaper, it couldn’t quite get all the letters into its masthead, so dropped the “a.” All other Cleveland spellings then followed suit.
There were probably no more than 100 people living in Cleveland when the Starks arrived. Learning more about Eben’s life, I discovered the 1907 newspaper obituary was wrong. Captain Stark wasn’t a steamboat captain on the rivers, he was a steamship captain on the Great Lakes.
I had been on a steamboat wild goose chase but enjoyed the history nevertheless.