Orange Township

Book excerpt: Connecticut once claimed three million acres of unsurveyed land that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, between the 41st and 42nd parallels. The state ceded a 120-mile stretch of this land, west from Pennsylvania to the borders of Lake Erie, and sold it to a group of developers at 40 an acre. This land was subsequently purchased by the early settlers of Orange Township, who pushed their way through wilderness to the Chagrin River and established villages between the river and the wooded hills. Located in the eastern suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, Orange Township is comprised of the present-day communities of Gates Mills, Hunting Valley, Moreland Hills, Orange Village, Pepper Pike, Chagrin Falls, Mayfield, and Solon. Orange Township, Ohio recounts the history of this area from 1850 to 1950. Tremendous growth followed the primary settling of the area, as immigrants arrived by steamship and by train. Wealthy Clevelanders sought land suitable for "high quality residential living." These original settlers were described as landowners, scholars, and adventurers. Through family portraits, from the Burnets and James Abram Garfield, 20th president of the United States, to the Van Sweringen brothers, Orange Township unfolds in the pages of this book in intriguing detail.