california history - California Historical Society

Following the completion of the Ohio & Erie Canal in 1832, Cleveland was transformed into a bustling mercantile city. Its mostprosperous citizens built new homes away from downtown in a section of Euclid Street called Millionaire’s Row (above). T.C.and Caroline also set up housekeeping on Euclid after their marriage in 1840, but in the less desirable business district. Carolineexperienced Cleveland as “a frontier town, with schools and churches galore, and with a Library Association, but with fewintellectual resources beyond these.” She satisfied her longing for a life of the mind by writing book reviews for the local papersand covering lectures by New England reformers.Cleveland Public Libraryhim marry!” In truth, she had broken off theirfirst engagement in 1836, the year after shegraduated from a “female seminary” (as academiesfor women were then called) in Geneva,New York, about twenty miles from Auburn. Thevaledictorian of her class, she had given only her“half-hearted consent” to T.C.’s proposal of marriage,and later realized that she must “revoltagainst such ties, unless under the compulsion ofan unconquerable love.” 10Miss Seymour thought that she had experiencedsuch passion. As a schoolgirl, she had fallen inlove with a classmate. The young woman hadunexpectedly died, and Caroline, distraught thatso much beauty had senselessly been removedfrom the world, visited her classmate’s grave severaltimes to pour out her grief. Her unresolvedfeelings may have been the reason that she endedher engagement to Theodoric, but they were notnecessarily a sign of homosexuality, and morelikely a same-sex crush that can be a normal partof the development of one’s identity. Caroline’sdecision to end the relationship constitutedthe first evidence of the independent thinkingfor which she would become well known andshowed a remarkable degree of self-awareness fora sixteen-year-old.T.C. returned to Cleveland to work, but couldnot forget the earnest Miss Seymour, who hadaccepted a teaching position at Mrs. LutherHalsey’s boarding school for girls in Pennsylvania,where she had moved with her mother. Per-California History • volume 88 number 1 2010