HEARD, CHARLES WALLACE (1806-29 Aug. 1876), architect, was born in Onondaga, N.Y., the son of Enoch and Clarissa (Hopkins) Hurd. His family moved to Painesville, Ohio, 3 years later. In 1822 he was apprenticed to JONATHAN GOLDSMITH, marrying his daughter in 1830 and becoming Goldsmith's partner until 1847, working primarily in Cleveland beginning 1833. The Chas. M. Giddings house on Rockwell is attributed to Heard. Heard progressed from carpenter to master builder to architect, taking Warham J. Warner as his partner until 1859. They built Cleveland's first Gothic residence, the Henry B. Payne house. Heard's most important early Gothic Revival building was St. Paul's Episcopal Church (1851, demolished in 1874), for which SIMEON PORTER was master builder. Heard & Porter built the Second Presbyterian Church (1852, destroyed by fire in 1876), Old Stone Church (1855), Eagle St. School (1855), CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL (1856), Payne & Perry's Block (1855), the I. S. Converse Block (1859), the homes of Chas. Hickox and Hinman B. Hurlbut (1855), Lake Erie Female Seminary (Painesville, Ohio, 1859), and Cleveland Orphan Asylum (1859).
In 1863, Heard & Warner (Heard alone was the architect) built CASE HALL. By 1865, Heard was partners with his son-in-law, Walter Blythe (the firm would become known as Heard and Son in 1872). They designed First United Presbyterian Church (1867), Case Block (1875), EUCLID AVE. OPERA HOUSE (1875), the Geo. Merwin house (ROWFANT CLUB), most public schools of the 1860s, and the Arlington Block (1875). Heard & Sons, as his firm was then called, built the Ohio state building at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876, the only state building afterwards retained, and still standing for the Bicentennial.
Heard married Caroline Goldsmith and had 7 children: Regina, Imogene, Wallace, Allen, Lenora, Virginia, and Dallace. He was buried in LAKE VIEW CEMETERY.
Johannesen, Eric. Cleveland Architecture, 1876-1976 (1979).
Johannesen, Eric. "Charles Heard, Victorian Architect" Ohio History, Vol. 77, No. 4, pp. 130-142, 174-175.