Peter Short, born in 1773, was the son of Joseph and Abigail Short, who had ten children. Mrs. Peter Short was Minerva Mallory of Milford, Conn. She was a daughter of Moses Mallory, a Revolutionary soldier, of whom mention will be made later. Mr. and Mrs. Short had 13 children, only seven of whom accompanied or followed their parents to Cleveland. Charles Short, one of the older children, remained in Connecticut, married there and died in 1878. His grandchildren still reside in Bethel, Conn., and in Brooklyn, N. Y.

"Mr. and Mrs. Peter Short stood on the sand beach at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River one early summer day in 1827. They had just been landed by small boats from a vessel, for the river was too shallow for large craft to enter. Their young children stood with them, and piled about were the household goods brought all the way from Derby, Conn. The family came the whole journey by water. First, a little schooner took them down the Housatonic River and Long Island Sound to New York City. Another boat conveyed them up the Hudson River to Albany. A canal-boat carried them to Buffalo and finally they were brought on Lake Erie to Cleveland.
With so many changes it would not have been surprising if some of their belongings hadd spilled out or been lost overboard on the way. So Mrs. Short had good reason to exclaim:
"Thank goodness! Here were are at last, and everything belonging to us, save the warming pan!"
But wintry nights and cold sheets were months ahead, and the articles yet at hand were more necessary or comforting just then than the bed-warmer. The family found temporary shelter in a log-house on Lake Street, probably one built and occupied years previously by the Thorpes. 1827 was a year of great sickness and many deaths in the village, and the Shorts took refuge on Woodland Hills. Four years later, Mr. Short bought a farm on Woodland Avenue., corner of Case, and extending back to the ravine.
The log house on it was occupied for a time, but soon a new frame one took its place and, for 70 years was the family homestead.


"Moses Mallory, the Revolutionary soldier and the father of Mrs. Peter Short, was distinctly remembered by the older children of her family. He sat in a corner by the huge fireplace in the old Milford, Conn., home and delighted his grandchildren with stories of the Revolution, and often of events of which he was an eye-witness.
At one period of this service in the army he was ill and was given a furlough. He had to make his way home far north and leading through a tract of country occupied by the British. He found it extremely difficult to obtain food and often suffered the pangs of hunger. One day, when almost famished, he approached a modest home near the edge of the woods in which he was hiding, and entered into conversation with the woman of the house. He did not ask for food, but presently inquired if she ever made stone soup. At her amazed negative, he assured her that she missed much in not knowing how to make a very delicious dish. But the stones must be of a particular kind having paculiar qualities. If he could find some of these rare stones would she like to have him show her how the soup was prepared?
She surely would. He went to the brook, gathered three or four large pebbles, and bringing them back to the house deposited them in a kettle of water, and set it over the fire. After it had boiled a few minutes, he called for salt, and presently for some cornmeal to thicken the soup. The result was a nourishing porridge of which he partook ravenously, and which the woman shared with him without once suspecting the trick." 1827 Starkweather