Moses Warren House
At an age that most men of his era did not reach, and when many men today are considering retirement, Revolutionary War veteran Moses Warren (1760-1851) left his native Connecticut for pioneer life in the Western Reserve. In 1815, at the age of 55, Warren, his wife, and their four children made the nearly 600 mile trip in seven weeks on a horse-drawn wagon. They stayed for a time with Moses' son Daniel, who had arrived in 1810, becoming the first settler in what became known as Warrensville Township. An earlier visit with Daniel had convinced Moses to take advantage of the cheap land and good soil in the wilderness of the Western Reserve.
In 1816, Moses Warren paid $456.00 for 154 acres of land. "Lot Number Fifty Three in Township Number seven in the Eleventh Range of Townships in the Connecticut Western Reserve," as the deed described it, sat just south of Kinsman (now Chagrin) Road, one of the area's earliest trails. After spending the first year in a log cabin, Warren built a frame house which still stands today.
Life on the frontier required men to use the land to fulfill nearly all of their needs. Warren used sandstone from a quarry near Palmerston Road for the house's foundation and lumber from the surrounding forests for its frame. He channeled a spring, rerouting it beneath his cellar to provide refrigeration. Warren grew corn and potatoes on his land, his orchards were loaded with fresh fruit, and he raised livestock that provided meat, milk, and labor.
In addition to farming, Warren served as an officer in Warrensville's town government in the 1830s and 1840s. He also served as postmaster and helped organize one of the area's first churches in 1831. He died in 1851 at the age of 91, having seen the wild frontier he helped settle some 35 years earlier turn into a prosperous farming region whose crops fed people across the United States.
Moses Warren's son sold the house to John Palmer in 1865. Palmer and his descendants worked the farm on the property until the 1920s, when the 154 acres were divided into smaller lots to take advantage of the real estate boom taking place in the fast-developing suburb of Shaker Heights. The house remains standing at 3535 Ingleside Road, however, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. It is the oldest existing house in Shaker Heights and became a City of Shaker Heights Landmark on August 29, 1977.
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