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Notable people · Poet

Hart Crane

Modernist poet born in Garrettsville and raised in Cleveland, author of White Buildings (1926) and The Bridge (1930), a book-length poem built around the Brooklyn Bridge.

Born July 21, 1899, Garrettsville (Freedom Street at Highland Avenue)
Died April 27, 1932, at sea, from the steamship Orizaba between Havana and New York

At a glance

Born
July 21, 1899, Garrettsville (Freedom Street at Highland Avenue) (Portage County) source
Died
April 27, 1932, at sea, from the steamship Orizaba between Havana and New York source
Buried
Body never recovered; cenotaph on his father's gravestone, Park Cemetery, Garrettsville (Portage County) source
Also known as
Hart Crane, Harold Crane
Education
East High School, Cleveland, OH, 1913-1916, did not graduate
Known as
Poet

Life story

Hart Crane was born in Garrettsville in 1899, the son of Clarence Crane, a candy maker who held rights to Life Savers, and Grace Hart. The family moved to Cleveland in 1911.

He dropped out of East High School in 1916 and went to New York to write, supported at times by relatives.

White Buildings (1926) and his long poem The Bridge (1930) made his name. He wrote parts of The Bridge in Paris.

He died in 1932 by jumping from a ship off Florida. His father's family plot in Garrettsville carries a memorial inscription, 'lost at sea'.

Ohio ties

  • Garrettsville (1899-1902)
    birthplace on Freedom Street; lived there until he was three Portage County · source
  • Warren (1903-about 1909)
    childhood home while his father ran a maple sugar business there Trumbull County · source
  • Cleveland, 1709 East 115th Street (1909/1911-1916, and off and on to 1924)
    his grandparents' Victorian house with twin towers, where he had a tower room; Fairmount Elementary and East High School Cuyahoga County · source
  • Cleveland (1917-1924)
    worked in a munitions plant, his father's candy factory, advertising firms, and for seven weeks as a Plain Dealer cub reporter Cuyahoga County · source
  • Akron (one summer)
    worked at a soda fountain; the Akron paper wrote him up as a millionaire's son working in a drugstore Summit County · source
  • Chagrin Falls (1931)
    visited his father at Crane's Canary Cottage, the inn and restaurant Clarence Crane opened in 1927 Cuyahoga County · source
  • Kent (Kent State University) (since 1986)
    Hart Crane and Family Papers, Special Collections and Archives Portage County · source

Timeline

  1. 1899 Born July 21 in Garrettsville to Grace Hart Crane and Clarence A. Crane. source
  2. 1903 His father set up his own maple sugar business in Warren, which grew into the largest maple sugar producer in the world before he sold it in 1909. source
  3. 1909 After his parents separated, he and his mother moved to Cleveland (Wikipedia dates the move into the East 115th Street house to 1911). source
  4. 1912 His father, by then a Cleveland chocolate maker, created Life Savers as a candy that would not melt in summer. source
  5. 1913 Clarence Crane sold the Life Savers rights to Edward J. Noble for $2,900. source
  6. 1915 Published his first poem, in Bruno's Weekly, at 16. source
  7. 1916 Left East High School in December, during his junior year, for New York. source
  8. 1917 His parents' divorce became final in April; from 1917 to 1924 he moved back and forth between New York and Cleveland. source
  9. 1926 Liveright published White Buildings, his first collection. source
  10. 1927 Clarence Crane opened Crane's Canary Cottage, a restaurant and inn in Chagrin Falls. source
  11. 1930 The Bridge was published in January in Paris by the Black Sun Press and in April in New York by Boni & Liveright. source
  12. 1931 Went to Mexico on a Guggenheim fellowship; his father died July 6 and was buried in Park Cemetery, Garrettsville. source
  13. 1932 Jumped from the steamship Orizaba shortly before noon on April 27, the day after it left Havana for New York; his body was never recovered. source
  14. 1985 Sculptor William McVey made a bronze statue of Crane, moved in 1996 to the side of Case Western Reserve's new Kelvin Smith Library. source
  15. 1995 Cleveland dedicated Hart Crane Memorial Park on the Cuyahoga River, with sculptures by Gene Kangas pierced with words from his poems. source

What Hart is known for

  • The Bridge (1930)
  • White Buildings (1926)
  • The Bridge (1930)
  • The Broken Tower (1932, posthumous)

Stories

The candy maker's son

Clarence Crane worked in his father's maple sugar trade in Garrettsville until 1903, then built his own maple sugar company in Warren into the largest in the world before selling it in 1909. By 1911 he was making chocolate in Cleveland as the Queen Victoria Chocolate Company. In 1912, looking for a candy that would sell in summer when chocolate melted, he pressed peppermints on a pharmacist's pill machine and punched a hole in the middle so they looked like life preservers, selling them as Pep-O-Mint Life Savers "for that stormy breath." He sold the rights in 1913 to Edward J. Noble for $2,900, and Noble made millions selling them through saloons. Clarence kept making chocolates, formed the Crane Chocolate Company in 1916, and in 1927 opened Crane's Canary Cottage in Chagrin Falls, a bright yellow restaurant where Will Rogers and Duncan Hines ate and Charles Lindbergh stayed. He died on July 6, 1931, and was buried in Park Cemetery in Garrettsville, the town where his son was born.

Source

The tower room on East 115th Street

In Cleveland, Crane lived in his grandparents' Victorian house on East 115th Street, which had two towers; he kept a room in one of them through much of his childhood and his returns as an adult. He went to Fairmount Elementary and, irregularly, East High School, and left for New York at 17. Back in Cleveland he worked at a munitions plant, as a riveter, as a camp counselor, and for seven weeks as a cub reporter at the Plain Dealer, which printed his poem on the armistice. The house is gone; the Case School of Dental Medicine took its place. When writer Anne Trubek asked about twenty people at Cleveland's Hart Crane Memorial Park in 2012 whether they knew who he was, two said yes.

Source

Lost at sea

In April 1932 Crane left Mexico on the steamship Orizaba to deal with his late father's affairs. The ship called at Havana on April 26 and sailed for New York. Shortly before noon the next day, about 300 miles out, witnesses saw him go over the side; some reported that he called out "Goodbye, everybody!" No note was found, and his body was never recovered. Clarence Crane had been buried the year before in Park Cemetery in Garrettsville, and his gravestone carries a line for his son: Harold Hart Crane, 1899-1932, lost at sea.

Source

Honors and things named for them

  • Praised by Harold Bloom, Robert Lowell, Derek Walcott

Named for Hart Crane

Family

  • father: Clarence A. Crane
  • mother: Grace Edna Hart Crane

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

12
  • 1 Ohio Historical Marker 5-67, Hart Crane, American Poet (marks his birth site)
    Garrettsville, 10688 Freedom Street at Highland Avenue Portage County · source
  • 2 Cenotaph on Clarence Crane's gravestone, Park Cemetery ("lost at sea"; coordinates are for the cemetery)
    Garrettsville, Center Street and Brosius Road Portage County · source
  • Site of the Crane-Hart family house, 1709 East 115th Street (demolished; now Case School of Dental Medicine) (demolished)
    Cleveland Cuyahoga County · source
  • Hart Crane Memorial Park and Gene Kangas's 65-foot Hart Crane Memorial Sculpture (Canalway Partners)
    Cleveland, the Flats, Columbus Road along the Cuyahoga River Cuyahoga County · source
  • Hart Crane statue by William McVey (1985), beside Kelvin Smith Library, Case Western Reserve University
    Cleveland, University Circle Cuyahoga County · source
  • Crane's Canary Cottage, his father's restaurant and inn (now the Inn of Chagrin Falls)
    Chagrin Falls Cuyahoga County · source
  • Hart Crane and Family Papers, Kent State University Special Collections and Archives
    Kent Portage County · source

Places in Ohio to see

Ohio places

Where Hart Crane was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Myths and corrections

Things often said about Hart Crane, and what the record shows.

Often said Hart Crane died on April 26, 1932 (the date on the Garrettsville state marker).

The record The Orizaba stopped at Havana on April 26; Crane went overboard shortly before noon on April 27, the date given by Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History and Find a Grave. source

Often said Crane jumped into the Gulf of Mexico.

The record Unproven and probably wrong. Many accounts, including Kent State's finding aid, say the Gulf, but the ship had already left Havana for New York and was about 300 miles from Cuba; Wikipedia places it in the Atlantic east of Palm Beach and Find a Grave says off the Florida coast. source

  • His father is often credited with inventing Life Savers, but he sold the idea for $2,900 before it became profitable.

Documents

Primary records: patents, letters, court and government files, nominations and old county histories, each at the archive that holds it.

Further reading

Sources

Confidence. Medium: the main facts were confirmed, but some details (often an address or ZIP code) were not.

Every link goes to the original source. Profile researched 2026-10-15.

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