Moses Cleaveland

Moses Cleaveland
General Moses Cleaveland
Born	(1754-01-29)January 29, 1754 Canterbury, Windham County, Connecticut Colony
Died	November 16, 1806(1806-11-16) (aged 52)
Known for	Founder of Cleveland, Ohio
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Moses Cleaveland (January 29, 1754 – November 16, 1806) was a lawyer, politician, soldier and surveyor, from Connecticut who founded the U.S. city of Cleveland, Ohio, while surveying the Western Reserve in 1796.

Cleaveland was born in Canterbury, Windham County, Connecticut. He studied law at Yale University, graduating in 1777. That same year, with the American Revolutionary War in progress, he was commissioned as an ensign in the 2nd Connecticut Regiment of the Continental Army. In 1779 he was promoted to captain of a company of "sappers and miners" (combat engineers) in the newly formed Corps of Engineers. He resigned from the army on June 7, 1781 and started a legal practice in Canterbury.

As a Freemason he was initiated in a military lodge and then he became W. Master of Moriah Lodge, Connecticut.

Cleaveland was known as a very energetic person with high ability. In 1788, he was a member of the Connecticut convention that ratified the United States Constitution. He was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly several times and in 1796 was commissioned brigadier general of militia. He was a shareholder in the Connecticut Land Company, which had purchased for $1,200,000 from the state government of Connecticut the land in northeastern Ohio reserved to Connecticut by Congress, known at its first settlement as New Connecticut, and in later times as the Western Reserve.