Although originally settled by people from Connecticut, Cleveland was not in its early days distinguished for its religious characteristics. Old inhabitants narrate how in the infancy of the settlement the whisky shop was more frequented than the preaching meeting, whenever that was held, and how, on one occasion, a party of scoffing unbelievers bore in mock triumph an effigy of the Saviour through the streets. A regular meeting of infidels was held, and burlesque celebrations of the Lord's Supper performed. Still later, when the business of slaughtering hogs became an important branch of industry, it was carried on regularly, on Sundays as well as on week-days, and as this was a leading feature in the year's doings the religious observance of the day was seriously interfered with during slaughtering season. Trade on the river, in the busy season, went on with but little regard for the Sundays, except that Mr. John Walworth invariably refused, although not a church member, to conform to the usage of his neighbors in doing business on that day. Unlike the modern emigrants from New England, the Cleveland pioneers did not carry the church with them.

The first regularly organized religious society in Cleveland was the Episcopal, which gathered together for religious worship in 1817, under the ministration of the Rev. Roger Searles. The meetings were held wherever a room could be obtained, the court-house, old academy building, and other public rooms being frequently used for the purpose. In 1828, Trinity Church was regularly incorporated, and the frame building which stood on the corner of Seneca and St. Clair streets until its destruction by fire in 1853, is remembered with affection by many Clevelanders as "Old Trinity."

The next religions organization was Presbyterian. In 1820, a few residents of Cleveland engaged, the Rev. Randolph Stone, pastor of a church at Morgan, Ashtabula county, to devote a third of his ministrations to Cleveland. In June of that year the first Sunday school was established with Elisha Taylor as superintendent, but it was only by the most persistent effort that it was enabled to combat the prejudices and overcome the indifference of the people. In September, 1820, the First Presbyterian church was formally organized, with fourteen members, in the old log court-house. In 1827, the society was regularly incorporated, and in 1834, the old stone church on the Public Square was opened for worship. During the whole of this time the congregation had no settled pastor, but was dependent on occasional visits of ministers from other places.

The first attempt at Methodist organization was somewhere between 1824 and 1827. Methodism was not in favor among the early settlers in Cleveland. The historian of the Erie Conference relates that a Methodist friend in New England, who owned land in Cleveland, sent on a deed for the lot on the northeast corner of Ontario and Rockwell street, where Mr. Crittenden afterwards built a large stone house, which lot would have been most suitable for a church, and that no person could be found willing to pay the trifling expense of recording, or take charge of the deed, and it was returned to the donor. In 1830, Cleveland became a station, with Rev. Mr. Plimpton, pastor.

The first Baptist meeting was held in the old academy, in 1832, the Rev. Richmond Taggart preaching to a handful of believers. In 1833, the First Baptist society was formally organized with twenty-seven members, Moses White and Benjamin Rouse, who still live in the city, being of the original deacons. In 1836, their first church, on the corner of Seneca and Champlain streets, was dedicated with a sermon by the Rev. Elisha Tucker, of Buffalo, who was afterwards called to the pastorate.

About the year 1835, the first Roman Catholic church was built on Columbus street on the flats, and was intended to supply the religious needs of the Roman Catholics of Cleveland and Ohio City, being situated almost midway between the settled portions of the two places. The first pastor was the Rev. Mr. Dillon.

In 1835, the first Bethel church, for the use of sailors, was built at the back of the site of Gorton, McMillan & Co.'s warehouse. It was a plain wooden structure, which remained there until the erection of the brick church on Water Street, when the wooden building was removed to make way for the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad.

In 1839, the first Hebrew synagogue was organized and a brick church was afterwards built on Eagle street.

From these feeble beginnings have grown up the present religious organizations of Cleveland, numbering about seventy churches, many of them of great beauty and costliness, with flourishing Sunday schools and wealthy congregations. The leading denominations have each several churches graded, from stately buildings for the older and wealthier congregations to the modest mission chapels. Nearly all the religious beliefs of the day are represented by organizations in the city, and all are in a flourishing, or at least a growing condition.