The Severance Family of Cleveland, Ohio, descends from John Walworth and his wife Juliana (Morgan) Walworth who migrated to Painesville, Ohio, from Aurora, New York, in 1800, and then moved to Cleveland in 1806. John Walworth was a civil engineer who was employed by the state of Connecticut. He was later appointed by President Thomas Jefferson to the post of Custom Collector for the District of Erie. The Walworths' daughter, also named Juliana, served as a nurse during the War of 1812, tending wounded soldiers who were brought to Cleveland. In 1811, she married David Long, who arrived in Cleveland from Hebron, New York, in 1810. Long was the first physician to practice in Cleveland and also served as a surgeon during the War of 1812. David and Juliana Long had three children, but only one, Mary Helen Long, lived to maturity. She was a charter member of the Young Ladies' Missionary Society of Cleveland's First Presbyterian Church, an association continued throughout her life. In 1833, she married Solomon Severance, who had recently arrived in Cleveland from Shelburne, Massachusetts. Mary and Solomon became the progenitors of one of Cleveland's most prominent families of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They had two sons, Solon and Louis. Solomon Severance died in 1838, less than a month before Louis was born, leaving his wife to raise their two young sons by herself. Louis Severance had four children with his first wife, Fannie Benedict. Their son John L. Severance was a patron of the arts; Severance Music Hall (home of the Cleveland Orchestra) is named after him, because he provided most of the funds for its construction (the rest was provided by members of the Bingham family). Daughter Elisabeth (called Bessie as a child) is remembered for the Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Foundation, which supports medical research. Robert Bruce Severance died in infancy and Annie Belle Severance died unmarried at the age of 28. Fannie Benedict Severance died in 1874 and Louis remarried to Florence Harkness, with whom he had no children. The family of Solon Severance, however, is the one most prominently featured in this collection. Solon was a prominent Cleveland banker. In 1860, he married Emily Allen who, like his mother, came from a family of physicians. Emily Allen's grandfather, Peter Allen, was an early doctor in Kinsman, Ohio, and her father, Dudley Allen, practiced medicine in Kinsman and in Oberlin, Ohio. Her brother, Dudley P. Allen, was a prominent Cleveland surgeon and was also the first husband of the aforementioned Elisabeth Severance (she married Francis Prentiss after Allen's death). Solon and Emily Severance had four children: Julia Walworth Severance, Allen Dudley Severance, Mary Helen Severance, and Paul Frame Severance (died in infancy). Julia Severance, the oldest child of Solon and Emily Severance, was born in 1862. In the early 1880s she attended Wells College in Aurora, New York, graduating in 1885. She later served on the college's board of trustees, a post she held from 1912 until her resignation in 1934. After her graduation, she travelled extensively, touring Europe in 1888 and 1889. In 1891, she married Benjamin Millikin, a noted Cleveland ophthalmologist who worked closely with her uncle, Dudley P. Allen. The Millikins had five children: Helen, Severance, Marianne, Dudley, and Louise. All of the daughters attended Wells College; Helen followed in her mother's footsteps when she was elected to the board in 1936. Helen Millikin was married in 1923 to Richard Preston Nash, whose father, John Nash, had been the proprietor of a meat packing house in Cleveland. The Nashes had three children: Julia, Richard Preston, Jr., and Louise.
The Severance Family Papers, 1826-1843, consist of seven volumes of autographs, poetry, and notes.
This collection will be useful to researchers studying the history of Cleveland, Ohio, in the nineteenth century and members of the Severance Family, including Mary Long Severance, Dudley Peter Allen, and Solon Lewis Severance.
The collection is arranged chronologically.
The researcher should also consult MS 4558 Severance Family Papers, Series II; and PG 440 Severance Family Photographs.
None.
[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 805 Severance Family Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
Autograph albums were a gift of Mrs. Severance.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.