The Weddell House Hotel

The Weddell House was recognized as "The best hotel west of the Alleghenies. It offered hospitality to many of the world's truly great people, among whom were Abraham Lincoln, Jenny Lind, and Baron Rothschild. Elaborate banquets and balls made the Weddell House the center of midwinter gaiety in early Cleveland. Here holiday festivities enlivened the long winter nights in the Forest City 112 years ago."

Carved above the great fireplace in the lobby was this inscription:

"When Pilgrims on their weary way
Put off their shoon and choose to stay
Beneath this roof for food and rest
They'll later pass with quickened Zest"

The inscription in the dining room was this:

"Man's life is like a Winter's day;
Some only breakfast and away;
Others to dinner stay and are well fed;
The oldest but sups and goes to bed,
Long is his life who lingers out the day,
Who goest soonest has the least to pay."

Another one in the lobby:

"As wearied Pilgnms once possest
Of longed-for lodging go to rest,
So I,' having rid my way,
Fix here my battoned staff and stay"

President-elect Lincoln, on his way to Washington, stayed over night in February 1861 and addressed a large crowd from the balcony of the Weddell House.

The hotel finally came into the possession of the Rockefellers who tore it down in 1903 to make room for the present American Steel and Wire Company skyscraper, also known as the Rockefeller Building, at the corner of West Sixth and Superior. A plaque in the lobby is the only reminder.

There is a painting of The Weddell House Hotel done by Paul Kucharyson in the collection of the Case Western Reserve University Library, part of their WPA preservation works. It can be viewed on-line: