Toledo, Ohio

“ Toledo (131) , capital of Lucas County, Ohio, on the Maumee River, 80 m. W. of Lake Erie; is a busy centre of iron manufactures, and does a large trade in grain, flour, lumber, &c., facilitated by a fine harbour, canal, and railway systems.
Toleration Act, a statute passed in 1689 to relieve all Dissenters from certain penalties, except Roman Catholics and Unitarians. ”

“ In 1832 a rival company laid out the town of Vistula on the tract immediately below Port Lawrence, in the following year these towns were united and were named Toledo, and in 1837 the city was incorporated. The “Toledo War” was a dispute over the boundary between Ohio and Michigan. When Ohio Territory was organized in 1800 its northern boundary was described as a line drawn from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan due east to the Pennsylvania line, and the official map of the time placed the southern end of Lake Michigan at 42° 20' N. lat. ”

“ He said it was found necessary in some places in Ohio and Indiana to change the routes, as slave-holders had traced and followed them so closely that they had made trouble in many places, and suggested a change in Michigan, as there were five slave-holders in Toledo, Ohio, when he came through, in search of escaped slaves. ”

“ Toketee is the Chinook jargon word for pretty, or graceful. The word is pronounced Tuck-et-tee, with the accent on the first syllable.
TOLEDO, Lincoln County. Toledo is on the homestead of John Graham, a pioneer resident, who emigrated from Ohio. It is said that when the post office was established in 1868, Joseph D. Graham, a son, was told that he could name the place. He said: "I am homesick for Ohio. We will call the place Toledo." Toledo post office was established on July 14, 1868, with William Mackey first postmaster. ”

“ Cleveland, Ohio, has important steamboat and railroad traffic, with large oil refineries, iron and steel manufactories.
Toledo, on Lake Erie, has a fine harbor with important commerce.
I pass through the manufacturing town of South Bend, Indiana, on to Chicago, having a very pleasant trip over the New York Central, and Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroads, where the finest equipped Pullman sleeping and parlor cars, the most delicious and appetizing meals were served in the dining cars, and the employes devote their entire time, giving every attention and comfort to its many passengers. ”

“ The cause, however, received a new impetus through the exertions of General Voris, to whom, second to no other person in Ohio, should the thanks of the women be rendered. During the contest the Toledo society was constantly on the alert. On three occasions it sent its delegates to the convention; but it has not limited its work to Ohio alone; it has given freely of its means whenever it could to aid the struggle in other States, and has rolled up large petitions to congress asking for a sixteenth amendment. ”

“ Ward was named Arthur Wells. He awaited us at Toledo. The city of Toledo stands at the western end of Lake Erie. Our train sped during the night across West Virginia and Ohio. There was no delay; and before noon the next day the locomotive stopped in the Toledo depot.
John Hart, Nab Walker and I stepped out with traveling bags in our hands, and revolvers in our pockets. Perhaps we should need weapons for an attack, or even to defend ourselves. ”

“ Toledo did some business in the slacker raids, having examined some 2,000 men in one drive.
Youngstown, Ohio, reflects a very sensitive social condition which existed during the war in every community which owned a considerable foreign born population. The Chief comments on this quite frankly:
A feature of our work was the demand, made by people in all stations, that the Federal Government, of which we were supposed to be a direct agency, should look after the enforcement of laws concerning health, morals and even family relations. ”

“ We also learned that Governor Lucas, of Ohio, with General Bell and staff, with an army of volunteers, all equipped ready for war, had advanced as far as Fort Miami. But Governor Mason was too quick for the Ohio Governor. He called upon General Brown to raise the Michigan militia, and said that his bones might bleach at Toledo before he would give up one foot of the territory of Michigan; said he would accompany the soldiers himself, to the disputed ground. He, with General Brown, soon raised a force of about a thousand men and took possession of Toledo ”

“ Imagination leaps at sight of a cheering bit of verdure, not for the beauty of it, though beauty is not altogether absent, but for the old familiar eloquence of trees and grassy spaces, the twinkling brightness of rills and flashing water and wooded fringes, with a hint of shadow along the horizon. Between the poplared banks of the river, yellow and waveless as befits a river of dead romance, the eye lingers on glimpses of emerald islets, with reedy edges against the fuller foliage of elm. Above, exposed on a rocky throne, belted by the sombre Tagus, sits Toledo. ”

“ It is less a town, a noisy affair yielding to the commodities of life, than a significant spot for the soul. Beneath a crude illumination, which gives to each line of its ruins a vigour, a clearness by which the least energetic characters acquire backbone, at the same time it is mysterious, with its cathedral springing towards the sky, its alcázars and palaces that only take sight from their invisible patios. Thus secret and inflexible, in this harsh overheated land, Toledo appears like an image of exaltation in solitude, a cry in the desert. ”

“ Where will you match such a corner as that of the old palace of the Cardinal D. Pascual de Aragon, now a convent? Words are useless to convey an idea of its quaintness, the effect of pink and green, of iron balcony, of wrought stone, of broken façade and charming variety of line. These are things that even a painter can hardly hope to reproduce. And such corners abound in Toledo. The foot treads the very pavement of romance and legend, where everything is a gratification for the eye, and the dream of the mourner of departed centuries is remorselessly realised. ”

“ I was particularly elated by the natural aspects of this region, for the Maumee River, beginning at Fort Wayne, Indiana, and flowing northeastward, makes a peculiarly attractive scenic diversion. It is a beautiful stream, with gently sloping banks on either hand, and in places rapids and even slight falls. At Grand Rapids and farther along it broadened out into something essentially romantic to look upon, and Toledo itself, when I reached it, was so clean and new and industrious—without all the depressing areas of factory and tenement life which lowers the charm of some cities. ”

“ VIEW OF THE REMAINS OF A MOORISH FORTRESS ON THE RIVER. THE situation of Toledo is most romantic, and presents as many charms from its beauty to the architect, as the site for a commanding city, as no doubt it offered from, its great natural strength, to the "man of war" who must needs have regarded it as an almost heaven-born fortress. It owes much, both of its beauty and its strength, to the clear and abundant current of the Tagus, which more than half surrounds it. This river has, as we shall have occasion to observe, been nobly spanned by Roman, Moor, and Christian ”

“ Toledo’s finest hour is at sunset, especially in the month of October. Nowhere have I seen the setting sun cast such a rich and lovely flush over the earth. The brown visage of the town for one intense moment is made radiant by the deep crimson flames, and the red light sheds a glorious beauty upon empty hill-sides and river-washed plains. Magic enfolds city and land, and space is so abridged by the matchless purity of the atmosphere that the eye is tricked into the belief that distant objects are quite close. ”

“ The aspect of the city is hardly beautiful. It is too stern, too sombre, even in sunlight, and it lacks the colour and gaiety of the Andalusian towns. And yet Toledo is one of the most fascinating cities in Europe, holding you with a strong spell, a grim, irresistible invitation to remain within its gates. There is so much to behold, so much to think upon, in this old Moorish place. The cathedral alone claims long days of your sojourn, for it is a great monument, haunted with memories, and richly stored with treasures of art. ”

“ The rock has grown into Toledo and Toledo into the rock.
In a land where all is old, men marvel at the antiquity of this city. And when it was younger by centuries, the chroniclers, groping amid legends and fables the wildest and most extravagant, strove to penetrate the darkness of the ages and to discern the pale glimmerings of Toledo’s dawn. ”

“ I have never found its wonderful charm diminished by familiarity; on the contrary, the coloured rays of light from above, striking upon the brown shade of stone, seem ever more and more witching; the delicate tones of shadow more and more mysterious, and the unrivalled grandeur of long forested perspectives of aisles and of spacious naves, with the multiplicity of arches and windows, ever a greater testimony of Toledo’s departed glory.
Space forbids anything like a detailed account of the chapels and cloisters of the Cathedral. ”

“ The very buildings, placed upon the crags beneath the great hulk of the Alcazar, repeat this impression, they rise in sharp upward and downward lines like an arrangement of swords, and make their appeal by the strange strength of their aspect. The streets are a tortuous net of steep-rising passage-ways. A city strongly itself that has suffered no change, fantastic as a city seen in a dream.{149}
Yes, to those who know Toledo, the impression of the character of the city upon El Greco will bring no surprise. ”

“ The shepherd-boys are usually attended by shepherd-dogs so enormous in size that the traveller often mistakes them for donkeys. They are sagacious, and do most of the herding, their masters devoting themselves to the guitar, the siesta, the cigarette, and the garlic pudding.
Toledo, more than any other Spanish city, abounds with interesting bits and noble examples of the old Moorish architecture, for the reason that it has not been rebuilt at all, and that few of its ruins have been restored, or even retouched. Color alone has changed. ”

“ Twenty years ago, this device appeared, in the eyes of Barrès, to declare the secret of the city. They are singular words to adorn a Christian tomb: Hic jacet pulvis, cinis, et nihil.
But see how differently in 1910 our traveller will read the secret of Toledo! Now, as of old, the city on its sun-baked height, with the tawny semicircle of the Tagus at its feet, seems less a dwelling for men than a dreary highplace of the soul, a sanctuary set apart for spiritual exaltation. The dry orange tone of the soil and buildings ”

“ The feet of the people through the influence of centuries, no doubt, appear to be impervious to the lacerating effect of pointed stones, and you have nothing to do but rise superior to the sensation of pain if you can; if not, to groan in private. But you are so well repaid by every step you take, that you have no claim upon sympathy.
Was ever city so strongly placed, so superbly fortressed as Toledo must have been in Roman, Gothic and Moorish days? ”

“ Fear lent me wings to escape from the governors of the foundling hospital, whither I was absolutely resolved never to return, having formed principles of taste diametrically opposite to their method of teaching the classics. I went into Toledo with as light a heart as if I had known where to get my daily bread. To be sure, it is a town of ways and means, where a man who can live by his wits need never die of hunger. ”

“ It has undergone so many vicissitudes, so many reconstructions, that the name, as we have employed it, must be understood to represent a site rather than the actual palace. A stronghold of some sort has always been here—possibly, in Roman times, the Arx, where tradition avers the martyr Leocadia suffered death. The Arabian geographer, Jerif al Edris, writing in 1154, describes Toledo as “a town great in extent and population, extremely strong, with fine ramparts, and an Alcazaba, fortified and impregnable.” ”

“ The heavy Gothic pillars are richly wrought in an incredible variety of reliefs, and we have no difficulty in believing that this was once one of the architectural gems of the Gothic capital. But what is still more impressive, as unique as the great staircase, is the immense empty patio, with its long galleries and pillars of Italian marble, its reliefs and armorial bearings. I know nothing in Toledo that seizes the imagination so vividly with the tragic sensation of vanished magnificence as this great courtyard. ”

“ During the hundred and ten years that elapsed between the death of Reccared (601) and the rout of the Guadelete (711) , no fewer than fifteen sovereigns sat on the throne of Spain. Toledo was the theatre of their barbaric triumphings, their violent entrances and tragic exits. Now the city would resound with the savage, exultant yells of the townsmen, as they dragged the body of the usurper Witeric up and down the steep, uneven streets—to cast the bleeding, shapeless thing that had so lately been a king, upon a dunghill. ”

“ And his third stage was a fevered expression of his imaginative vision. We have entered a new world of extraordinary restlessness, the restlessness that must exist when spirit struggles from the bonds of the flesh. Toledo, the ardent arid city, burnt fiercely in El Greco’s blood, and, more and more, he seems to have felt that it was not enough to record facts; to have cared less to give æsthetic pleasure; but that the object of his art should be to clothe abstract ideas with life. It is something of all this that we find in his later pictures. ”

“ Towns, like men, stamp themselves with marked traits. Toledo had an individuality which showed itself from the start. Its leading men clubbed together and borrowed money as early as 1832 to build one of the first railroads constructed west of the Alleghanies—the Erie and Kalamazoo, to connect Toledo and Adrian. When, in 1845, the steamboats on the lakes formed a combination, and discriminated against Toledo, the city through its council refused to submit, and appropriated $10,000 to get an independent boat to Buffalo. ”