Finding aid for the Adella Prentiss Hughes Family Papers

Biography of Benjamin Rouse, Rebecca Cromwell Rouse, Loren Prentiss, Ellen Rouse Prentiss, and Adella Prentiss Hughes

Benjamin Rouse was born on March 23, 1795 in Boston, Massachusetts, to Joseph and Mahitable Corbet Rouse. His parents died in a Yellow Fever epidemic at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and he and his brothers and sisters were scattered among surviving relatives. For a time, Benjamin Rouse resided in Portland, Maine, with an aunt. He later returned to Boston to live with his maternal grandmother where he attended school. Subsequently he was indentured to Colonel Peter Osgood to learn the trade of a mason. He saw service in the War of 1812 with the American army at a garrison near his home. Rouse never engaged in combat during the war. At the end of the war, his term of apprenticeship expired, and he returned to his grandmother's home. He worked as a mason and had a part in organizing the first sabbath school in Boston.

Benjamin Rouse married Rebecca Elliot Cromwell in August 1821. Three years later the couple moved to New York City with their three children where Benjamin continued to work as a mason (the couple ultimately had eight children, three of whom died in infancy). He helped to distribute religious tracts and served as a deacon, choir director, and Sunday school instructor of the Delancey Street Baptist Church. He and his wife organized the Delancey Street Singing Society.

In October 1830, Benjamin Rouse came to the attention of the Board of the American Sunday School Union of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Eventually, he was induced to act as the agent of the Union in Cleveland, Ohio. He liquidated his New york interests and departed with his wife and family to Cleveland. The family acquired a home on the corner of Superior and Public Square in downtown Cleveland which served as a residence, religious book depository, and center for evangelistic activities. Benjamin revitalized Cleveland's only Sunday School, then part of the Presbyterian Church. He also traveled throughout Northern Ohio by horse and buggy, allegedly organizing over 200 Sunday schools.

In the early 1830s, Rouse had a part in organizing the first Baptist Society in Cleveland, and in founding of the First Baptist Church in Cleveland, putting his talents to work in supervising the construction of the church building. In 1835 he served as clerk of the State Baptist Association, resigned his commission with the Sunday School Union, and opened a store for the sale of general merchandise.

In April 1836, Rouse was elected judge for Cleveland's 2nd Ward, and in May he became General Street Commissioner for the City of Cleveland. He was a charter trustee of the Cleveland Female Seminary in April 1837. At that time, the health of his wife caused Benjamin Rouse to sell his business and move to a farm in Richfield, Ohio. Rouse became an insurance agent at this time. The family returned to Cleveland in 1842 where Rouse engaged in the coal business with Freeman Butts. He was elected treasurer of the State Baptist Association in 1843 and served in this capacity for 14 years. In 1852, he was part of a small group of people to form the Second Baptist Church in Cleveland.

In 1854, Benjamin Rouse erected the Rouse Block, said to be the finest office building in Cleveland at that time, on the northwest corner of Superior and Public Square (this building was replaced by the Marshall Building in 1913). From 1854-1856 he served as president of the New England Society of Cleveland (an organization founded in 1853). Rouse retired from active work in 1862, although he continued his involvement in religious and benevolent work. He accompanied his wife on her tours of military camps and battlefields during the American Civil War as part of Rebecca Cromwell Rouse's work with the United States Sanitary Commission. Benjamin Rouse died on July 5, 1871 in Cleveland, Ohio, and was survived by his wife, three sons (Benjamin Franklin, Edwin C. and George W.) and a daughter Ellen.

Benjamin Rouse served as president of the Association of the Survivors of 1812, helping to secure government pensions for the veterans of that war. He helped to found an institution for orphans in Cleveland, and for some years was city Poor master, erecting the first poor house in the eastern part of the Erie Street Cemetery. Benjamin and his wife resided on Cleveland's then fashionable Euclid Avenue, in a mansion later occupied by a grandson, Henry C. Rouse, a man active in many Cleveland business enterprises.

Rebecca Cromwell Rouse was born on October 30, 1799 to an old New England family in Salem, Massachusetts. Her father was John Cromwell, a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, and her mother was Rebecca Elliot. Although Rebecca's father died while she was a youth, she was well traveled and educated. She married Benjamin Rouse in August 1821, and remained in Boston for three years. She subsequently moved with her family to New York City, and in October 1830 moved to Cleveland, Ohio, with her husband in connection with his American Sunday School Union commission. Rebecca Rouse assisted her husband with his American Sunday School Union tasks, and in 1842 founded the Martha Washington Society. This society grew to become the protestant orphan Asylum in Cleveland, and for a number of years after its founding, Rebecca Rouse served as its president. Additionally, her husband served as an early trustee.

Rebecca Rouse was a charter member of the Ladies Temperance Union in Cleveland in June 1850. She organized the ladies Aid Society in April 1861, an organization that later became the Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio of the United States Sanitary Commission (a forerunner of the American Red Cross). Rebecca served as its president. The Commission, as a whole, raised vast amounts of money through Sanitary Fairs by which it carried on charitable work among military men and their families. This important effort lasted for the duration of the war, and afterward. Rebecca Rouse is, perhaps, most remembered for her work with this organization. She died on December 23, 1887.

Loren Prentiss was born on August 12, 1822 in Warrensville, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. His grandfather was Moses Warren, a pioneer surveyor of the Western Reserve, and an associate of Moses Cleaveland. Three of the Moses Warren children married into the Prentiss family. The town of Warrensville (a few miles sough of Warren) was named after one of his sons, Daniel. Loren was educated in Cleveland public schools, and elsewhere. Desiring to be a lawyer, he eventually began legal training in the Cleveland office of Bishop & Backus. Loren had four brothers: perry and Chauncey of Cleveland; and Solon and George, later of Detroit, Michigan.

Loren Prentiss was admitted to the Cleveland bar in September 1846. His first law partner was Samuel Cowles. Loren Prentiss married Ellen Rebecca Rouse on July 26, 1849. The couple had five children: Willis L., Seymour C., Irving R., Halbert E. and Adella. Willis and Halbert died in their youth.

Loren Prentiss dissolved his professional partnership with Samuel Cowles in 1850. In 1851, he was one of a group of young men who met for informal prayer meetings in a Cleveland law office. This group later formed the Young Men's Christian Association in Cleveland. In 1854, he attended an organizational meeting of the YMCA, representing the Baptists. The next year, he became associated with Samuel B. Askell (formerly of Painesville, Ohio), a law partnership that terminated in 1859 when Askell died. From 1856-1858, Prentiss served as prosecuting attorney of Cuyahoga County. Prentiss entered into a law partnership with former student C. M. Vorce in 1867. Together they handled all manner of litigation, including patent and admiralty matters. Also in 1867, Prentiss supported the creation of the Cleveland Bethel Union, originally begun as a home for seamen, on Superior and Union Avenues in Cleveland. In January 1870, he contributed books to the newly organized Cleveland Law Library Association.

Loren Prentiss died on June 3, 1900. At the time of his death, he may have been the oldest and most prominent member of the Cleveland bar. In politics, he was a Republican from the time of the party's founding (prior to that, he was a Whig and Free Soiler). For fifty years, Prentiss was a member of the First Baptist Church of Cleveland.

Ellen Rouse Prentiss was born in January 1830 in New York city to Benjamin and Rebecca Cromwell Rouse. She married Loren Prentiss on July 26, 1849 in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1890-1891, she accompanied her daughter Adella Prentiss Hughes to Europe, during which time the latter completed her musical education. Ellen Rouse Prentiss died in April 1908.

Adella Prentiss Hughes was born on November 29, 1869 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Loren and Ellen Rouse Prentiss. She attended Rockwell, the city's first public school, near Public Square. He graduated from Vassar College in 1890 as a Phi Beta Kappa. Following graduation, she went to Berlin, Germany, to study piano. The returned to Cleveland to work as an accompanist, but soon pursued a career in professional concert management. She arranged a production entitled "In a Persian Garden" which sh took on tour with Cleveland musicians. This production brought much publicity for Adella Prentiss Hughes, and in 1898 she presented her first Cleveland concert as an impresario.

In 1901, Adella Prentiss Hughes served as chairman of public concerts for the First Biennial Festival of the National Federation of Music Clubs in Cleveland. From this work, the prepared the way for the establishment of the Cleveland Orchestra.

Adella Prentiss Hughes married Felix Hughes, a singer and music instructor, in 1904. They divorced in 1923. Felix Hughes was the brother of author Rupert Hughes and uncle to film producer Howard Hughes.

Adella Prentiss Hughes participated in the beginnings of the Cleveland Music School Settlement in 1912. In 1915, she took the leadership role in establishing the Musical Arts Association which brought visiting artists, choruses, and operas to Cleveland. This group then began to formally organize the Cleveland Orchestra. Continuing her work as an impresario, she presented Wagner's opera Siegfried at Cleveland's League Park. An audience of 1,500 people saw Ernestine Schumann-Heink in this performance.

In December 1918, the first performance of the new Cleveland Orchestra was presented at Grays' Armory, directed by Nikolai Sokoloff. On February 5, 1931, the orchestra moved to its permanent home in Severance Hall located in the University Circle neighborhood of Cleveland. In 1933, the Fortnightly Musical Club in Cleveland established a scholarship in honor of Adella Prentiss Hughes to recognize her management of the club's evening concerts.

Adella Prentiss Hughes retired from the board of the Musical Arts Association and the Cleveland Orchestra. Having served as manager of the orchestra for fifteen years, she continued as honorary vice president. In 1947 she published her autobiography, Music is My Life.

Adella Prentiss Hughes died in Cleveland on August 23, 1950. She had arranged for many musical "greats" the world over to perform in Cleveland. She was able to recruit such eminent residents of Cleveland as David Z. Norton, John L. Severance, and Dudley Blossom to take a financial interest in her work. She gave elaborate dinners and costume balls in her home. Apart from being known as the "Mother of the Cleveland Orchestra," she was an honorary member in the Ohio Federation of Clubs; member of the Fortnightly Musical Club, the Zonta Club, the New York organization known as the 'daughters of Ohio," the Vassar Alumnae Association, the Mid-Day Club, the College Club of Cleveland, and the Women's City Club. She was active in the Polish Relief Benefit and was decorated by the Polish government.

click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for Adella Prentiss Hughes

click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for Benjamin Rouse

click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for Rebecca Cromwell Rouse

click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for The Cleveland Orchestra

click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for the Musical Arts Association

click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for the Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio

Scope and Content

The Adella Prentiss Hughes Family Papers, 1801-1933 and undated, consist of manuscript genealogy, correspondence, manuscript poetry, legal and commercial documents, calling cards and social invitations, musical programs, religious tracts, records and papers, circulars, broadsides, European travel souvenirs, newspaper clippings, photographic items, and bounds volumes of records, letters, and diary entries.

This collection relates principally to the lives and activities of Addella Prentiss Hughes, a Cleveland musical impresario, founder and for many years manager of the Cleveland Orchestra; Adella's maternal grandfather Benjamin Rouse, Cleveland, Ohio agent for the American Sunday School Union and prominent real estate enterpriser; Adella's maternal grandmother Rebecca Cromwell Rouse, organizer of charitable institutions in Cleveland and president of the Cleveland Branch of the United States Sanitary Commission during the civil War period; Adella's father Loren Prentiss, eminent Cleveland attorney and public servant; and Adella's mother Ellen Rouse Prentiss.

The bulk of the manuscript material is centered upon the latter portion of the 1880s and 1890-1891, chiefly comprising correspondence, respectively, between Adella and her mother Ellen while the former was a student at Vassar College and, subsequently, between Ellen and her husband Loren while she and Adella sojourned in Europe after Adella's graduation. On the Continent, Adella further pursued her musical education. Regretfully, there is virtually nothing relating to the most significant portion of Adella's musical career in Cleveland for the first fifty years of the twentieth century. However, she authored a book, published in 1947, which covered her entire musical activities up to that time. Among the papers, the record volumes bearing on the religious activities of Benjamin Rouse in Cleveland and throughout Ohio are worthy of particular mention.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Access

None.

The researcher should also consult 3879 Adella Prentiss Hughes Autograph Book; PG 63 Adella Prentiss Hughes Family Photographs; PG 180 Adella Prentiss Hughes Autographed Photographs; MS 1012 United States Sanitary Commission, Cleveland Branch (Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio) Records; and MS 4140 First Baptist Church of Greater Cleveland Records;

All photographs originally retained with this collection at the time of its processing in 1964 have been removed to PG 63 Adella Prentiss Hughes Family Photographs.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

Preferred Citation

[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 2980 Adella Prentiss Hughes Family Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio

Acquisition Information

Gift of the Estate of Adella Prentiss Hughes in 1950.

Processing Information

Processed by John Large, Jr. in 1964.

Detailed Description of The Collection