Eells family of Cleveland
The Eells mansion at 2321 was a stone Meade and Hamilton which would have fit well into a Fairmount Boulevard setting.
Kansas Rolling Mill Company 1879 - Signed by Dan Parmelee Eells
Beautifully engraved SCARCE certificate from the Kansas Rolling Mill Company issued
in 1879. This historic document has an
ornate border around it with a vignette of two allegorical woman and an eagle. There are also over 25 unused coupons attached on the bottom. This item is hand signed by the company�s president (A. B. Stone) and treasurer (Ira Harris) and is
over 181 years old. The certificate was also signed by the Trustees of Dan P. Eells (Cleveland, Ohio) and Wallace Pratt (Kansas City, Missouri). Dan Parmalee Eells was President of the Commercial National Bank of Cleveland from 1868 to 1897. He was also on the Board of many other companies.
From BRIDGES OF METROPOLITAN CLEVELAND
This construction marked the completion of the Nickel Plate Road between Buffalo and Chicago. The first passenger train, from Chicago, entered Cleveland at Rocky River on 31 August 1882. The Cleveland Herald described the event:
The depot was beautifully decorated with flags and bunting, and a large crowd awaited the train as it dashed up. Dan P. Eells met the party here and accompanied them into Cleveland. The entrance of the road into this latter city is by way of a wonderful system of bridges, viaducts, and grades, and evidence of the fact that a great triumph in engineering has been accomplished. The system of bridges embraces more than 3,000 feet, and carries the tracks through the heart of the "Flats" above all streets and roads."40
On 23 October, 1882, the first regular passenger train left in Chicago for Cleveland, and at the same time a train started westward from Cleveland.
The train started its journey by rumbling slowly across the great viaduct over the Cuyahoga Valley, passing first at Columbus Street. Having passed under Lake shore and Michigan Southern through an arch, the train ran almost in a beeline to Rocky River, pausing an instant on the east bank before crossing the "gigantic" bridge to the west side. Then it drew up in front of a neat little depot which has been christened River Bank, directly opposite the magnificent country home of Dan P. Eells."41
From the dustjacket: `When the New York, Chicago, and St. Louis Railway was incorporated in 1881, its builders did not suspect that their railroad was destined to become one of the best-know in American history . . . Through the pages of this story of high finance and big business stalk the titans of the Big Business Era: William H. Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, George Seney, Columbus Cummings, Governor Charles Foster, Calvin Brice, Dan Eells, O.P. and M.J. Van Seringen, George Ball, Robert R. Young. Here is information gathered from many sources including the private records of individuals as well as the private records of the railroad itself.`
Herringshaw's Encyclopedia of American Biography of the Nineteenth Century.
Herringshaw's Encyclopedia of American Biography
page 332
EELLS, DANIEL PARMELEE, banker, was born April 16, 1825, in Westmoreland, N.Y. He graduated from the Hamilton College in 1848. He is prominent in the business and public affairs of Cleveland, Ohio, where he has been president of the Commercial National bank since 1868; and his connection with this institution covers a period of half a century. He was one of the projectors of the Ohio Central railroad, and its first president. He was prominent in the construction of the St. Louis, Keokuk and Northwestern railway; the New York, Chicago and St. Louis railway; the Detroit, Mackinac and Marquette railroad; and the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia railroad. In connection with others, he has built and consolidated railroads, along whose lines villages sprang up, manufactories were started, and the whole country benefited
Historical Collections of Ohio
By Henry Howe
Vol. I
�1888
Commercial National Bank, Dan. P. EELLS, president
Miss Ida McFall, Mr. and Mrs. F.A. Riker(?) and Mrs. Edna Alton were visitors at the Dan Eells home in Lincoln Wednesday.
THE ELMWOOD LEADER-ECHO Friday, May 13, 1910 p4, vol. 19, no. 40
Mrs. S.D. Eells returned from her Kansas trip, now visiting Lincoln at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Dan Eells, after which she will go to Minnesota to join her daughter in Minneapolis.
THE ELMWOOD LEADER-ECHO Friday, May 27, 1910 p1 vol. 19 no. 42