Erie County, Ohio - Chapter 36: Gossip, 1916

Chapter 36: Gossip

The earliest mention of Sandusky is in the autobiography of Rey. Jacob Young, an early Methodist preacher, who tells of paying a man $96 in 1820 to carry twenty barrels of flour from Zanesville to Sandusky.

The Clarion of August 21, 1833, advertises the Sandusky Jockey Club races on the 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th of September on the old race track which was located south of Jefferson Street. The next year the races were held on October 20th, 21st and 22d, and the committee advertised that the charge for roulette wheels will be $10 and for sweat cloths $5, which is some evidence that they began to skin the farmer at an early day. 2%

In 1832 the Clarion first mentions the cholera scare. On July 4th of that year the lot sale in Sandusky took place and was advertised by Zalmon Wildman; and the Clarion also advertised that no boat should land unless inspected by the board of health on account of the cholera.

The first milliners that came to Sandusky, according to the Clarion, were two sisters, Jane Ann and Elizabeth Davis, who advertised their goods on June 22, 1831.

In 1840 General Harrison, then running for president, came to Sandusky and the ladies of Sandusky made for him an elegant banner which is now on exhibition in the historical room in the Carnegie Library. It was presented to him on the front stoop of the house occupied for many years by Eugene Stroud, 412 Columbus Avenue, and old Judge E. B. Sadler made the presentation speech.

On January 9, 1846, there was a county election on the question of building a poorhouse. Ben Turner, B. Wood and Ezra Sprague were commissioners.

On January 27, 1848, the Clarion published the rates of postage, which for a letter was 5 cents for two ounces for 300 miles and 10 cents for a distance over 300 miles. The postoffice was then where the Commercial Bank is now, in a small building, and Perry Walker was deputy postmaster. . ;

The Sandusky Clarion of June 6, 1849, announces that the play, "The Lady of Lyons,'' will be presented with Mr. Powell as Claude Melnotte and Mrs. Powell as Pauline. In these days of the high cost of living it is pleasing to observe that the tickets were 25 cents to all parts of the house.

In 1850 Water Street was three or four feet lower than now and the bowsprits of the vessels projected nearly to the curb where the Wells Fargo Express Company now has its place of business. The streets were not lighted at night and when anyone went out in the evening they carried lanterns.

The old square brick house which stood until about 1912 on the premises at the corner of Jackson and Madison Street, where the two houses now owned by W. L. Lewis are situated was formerly a depot of the underground railroad, and was occupied by a colored man named McReynolds. There was a book case in one of the rooms that swung out from the wall uncovering a door to a room where he concealed runaway slaves.

The Register of March 15, 1852, discusses the destruction by Geo. Reber at that time of the Old White Store, in order to build the Reber Block. It states that this was one of the first stores erected in Northern Ohio of any pretensions to respectability of size and finish and for many years it gave character and name to the place. In the good old times people spoke of going to the White Store when about to visit Sandusky.

The fire of the 18th of January destroyed another of the ancients. The block known as the Clarion Building then destroyed was one of the oldest in the city, having been built in 1818, and was for many years known as the Portland House, by which name it was kept as a hotel by Col. C. F. Drake, the popular host of the Verandah Hotel.

The collection of Fred Frey, Jr., which together with that of his father is the most complete of antiques relating to Sandusky now known to the writer, contains a copy of the annual report made to the stockholders of the Mad River Road in October, 1847, from which it appears that the road from Sandusky to Bellefontaine was 134 miles long and cost $709,263.96 for construction ; that the road then operated 10 locomotives, 5 passenger cars, 3 bag geage cars, 145 freight cars; that it carried 22,036 passengers that year without injuring a passenger, receiving for their transportation $338,180.58; that it carried freight amounting to $79,587.98, with a total income of $117,848.61; that part of the freight was 849,897 bushels of wheat.

In the early '50s the collector of the port skipped the town with the wife of his deputy and $30,000 which had been collected on the rails of the Mad River Railroad. His bondsmen were indemnified before he skipped and he never was caught.

Op May 19, 1899, the corner stone of the Odd Fellows' Temple was laid and in it were placed a ritual, the constitution, local papers, list of officers and members, ete.

Previous to the erection of the West House its present site was covered by a row of old frame shanties that were all saloons. It took fire in the cholera year of 1852, and the fire department stood by and allowed them to burn down without making an effort to extinguish the fire with the general approval of the community.

On October 18, 1852, Gen. Winfield Scott, then a candidate for the presidency, visited Sandusky and made a speech and was welcomed by a large crowd with a procession of militia, and was honored with a banquet at the Exchange Hotel. The toastmaster was Pitt Cooke, and there was a large triumphal arch at the foot of Columbus Avenue:

The Sandusky Gas Light Company was organized May 26, 1854. On July 8th of that year the Register mentions that the Hubbard Block was nearly finished, as well as the residence of Gen. W. H. Mills, on Washington Row, which stood about half way through the block and the walls of which were utilized in building the Mahala Block.

On December 8, 1854, the present postoffice was finished. It was built on a lot belonging to George Reber, who made most of his fortune out of the old suit between Wildman and Mills over the town site of Sandusky, and who also wrote a book of an infidel nature entitled ''Therapeutae,'' which was an attempt to prove that St. John was never in Asia Minor where the Book of Revelations was supposed to be written.

On December 13, 1853, the Register records the fact that the courthouse bell was rung at 6 A. M., at noon, and at 9 P. M., which was probably the origin of the ''curfew'' ordinance.

The Register of January 12, 1885, contains a description of the State Fair which was held at Sandusky in 1858. It was held on Hancock Street, this side of the property of Conrad Spaith and the Schoepfle quarries, on the farm known as the '""May Farm.'' W. T. West finished his hotel so as to be ready to entertain the visitors to the fair. The State Fair did not pay.

The Clarion of October 21, 1854, advertises for sale the pictures of Sandusky at $6.00, which were lithographs colored to show the actual color of the buildings.

During the war the town clock was put in the tower of the Congregational Church, which then stood on the northeast corner of the courthouse square. It was taken down and removed in the '70s at the time of the erection of the present courthouse, and the Register made a great protest at that time against selling the old clock for $75.00. What was finally done with the clock no one seems to know at the present time. :

The old town pump used to stand at the intersection of Market and . Columbus Avenue and was not taken down and the well filled in until during the war. There was also a well at the foot of Columbus Avenue which was filled up about the 13th of June, 1863, according to the Register.

In regard to the high cost of living the Register of June 2, 1864, says editorially the new copper cent was not much needed since prices advanced that they cannot now think of anything which costs less than half a dime.

On November 27, 1866, the corner stone of the high school was laid and in the corner stone was placed the school laws of that time, the record of the Board of Education, the list of the teachers and pupils and copies of the local papers.

The Clarion of June 26, 1822, contains the program of the first Fourth of July celebration in Sandusky. The Declaration of Independence was read by Col. S. M. Lockwood and Eleutheros Cooke was the orator. The committee was S. M. Lockwood, C. F. Drake, F. Graham, W. Anderson, W. Hartshorn and A. Root. The Clarion of July, 12, 1828, contains a description of the celebration of the Fourth of July with a public dinner at the Steamboat Hotel with toasts responded to by various citizens and one by <A. Root, ''The proprietors of our village. May the liberal policy they pursue conduce to the rapid growth of Sandusky.'? The Sandusky Light Guards drilled.

St. Peter and St. Paul's Total Abstinence Society. Young Men's Catholic Benevolent and Library Society. Guttenburg Grove Druids, No. 9, V. A. O. D.

Second Division

Delegations from Kelley's Island, Margaretta, Oxford, Groton, Perkins, Huron, Milan, Vermilion, Florence and all points outside of Erie County.

Third Division

1. Music. Ye Olden Times. Grand Centennial Fantasia - Great Western Band. 2. Hail Columbia - Full Chorus. 3. Prayer by Rev. Mr. Stroup, chaplain of the day. 4, Star-Spangled Banner - Full Chorus. 5. Address of Welcome by A. H. Moss, Esq., president of the day. 6. America - Full Chorus. 7. Reading of Declaration of Independence by F. W. Alvord, Esq. 8. What Is It? - Great Western Light Guard Band. 9. Oration by Hon. Samuel F. Hunt, of Cincinnati.

In 1878 suit was begun in the English courts for Hector Jennings against the estate of Lord Howe for $40,000,000, and the old man lived and died in the belief that he would win that ease, which he died without achieving.

The Register of June 23, 1879, contains a statement from F. D. Parish that Washington Street was never intended to run through the square. He says that when the Square was fenced he and D. K. Campbell were the only residents of the square east of Columbus Avenue and he was asked to consent to the fencing and did not object.

On July 13, 1879, occurred the heaviest tornado ever known here when the wind reached a velocity of seventy-five miles an hour and blew for five minutes at that rate. It tore away part of the roof of the Tool Company and 2.30 inches of rain fell in half an hour. The storm blew in the windows of the West House and damaged ceilings and carpets. It unroofed many buildings, blew down fences and gave the vessels on the bay and lake a lively shaking up.

On December 26, 1887, the Circuit Court decided the Baptist Church case against the city, giving the church the right to build an addition - to this building, which was then located south of the Episcopal Church.

On December 1, 1886, the Nes Silicon Steel Company was sold for scrap for $11,000. This was one of the costly experiments which cost' the City of Sandusky over $200,000. They quit doing business November 16, 1882.

The Register of May 7, 1888, gives the death of James Hollister at Buffalo. He was a commission merchant in Sandusky in 1827 in the Marsh Block, where the Wells, Fargo & Co. now have their express office. On February 3 and 4, 1883, occurred the most disastrous storm of rain and sleet ever known up to that time. On Market Street, west of Columbus Avenue, it prostrated all the telephone poles for four blocks. It swept away Abbott's bridge, near Milan, made the railway bridge at Huron unsafe, and caused the Sandusky River at Fremont to overflow to at least two miles in width.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1915 sd&ys of Dickens' visit: ''A local reader sends us this: 'I have read in ''Forster's Life of Charles Dickens'' this letter of the great.novelist: ''Tuesday, April 26, 1842: We lay all Sunday night at a town (and a beautiful town, too) called Cleveland, on Lake Erie. The people poured on board in crowds by 6 on Monday morning to see me, and a party of gentlemen actually planted themselves before our little cabin and stared in at the doors and windows while I was washing and Kate lay in bed. I was so incensed at this and at a certain newspaper published in that town which I had accidentally seen in Sandusky, advocating war with England to the death, saying that Britain must be whipped again, and promising all true | Americans that within the year they should sing 'Yankee Doodle' within Hyde Park and 'Hail Columbia' in the courts of Westminster, that when the mayor came on board to present himself to me according to custom, I refused to see him and bade M. Q. tell him why and wherefore. His honor took it very coolly, and retired to the top of the wharf, with a big stick and a whittling knife, with which he worked so lustily (staring at the closed door of our cabin all the time) that long before the boat left the big stick was no bigger than a cribbage peg."' '

''The mayor of Cleveland at the time mentioned in the Dickens letter was Dr. Joshua Mills, a practicing physician and partner of Dr. J. M. Ackley, who was looked upon as the head of his profession in the young city. It was Dr. Mills' second term in the mayor's office. He had been chosen to succeed George W. Willey, and after the administrations of Nicholas Dockstader and John W. Allen, had been chosen again, a strong proof of the confidence of the public in his integrity and fitness for the office.

"Tt is quite possible that Dickens, who seems on that famous tour to have persisted in regarding everything American with a jaundiced eye, Vol. I - 29 entirely misunderstood the mayor's well meant attentions, and with his inborn love of caricature exaggerated all the details of the incident. The attention he received in the little city of 6,000 souls, a city just emerging from the wilderness, should have gratified the young author. The fact that his fame as a writer - a fame largely based at that time on the 'Pickwick Papers' - should have penetrated to the remote settlement on the Cuyahoga, might have been expected to gratify him. On the contrary, he saw in the attentions given him - awkward, perhaps, and yet flattering - nothing except the grotesque side.

'When Dickens came back to Cleveland twenty-five years later, the little group on the steamboat dock had grown to an audience that overcrowded the city's largest hall.

'"The newspaper referred to by our correspondent was the Cleveland Plain Dealer, published by A. N. and J. W. Gray, then entering on its second year. It was a common thing at that time for Democratic editors to twist the British lion's tail. The Democrats charged that the Whigs were in full sympathy with the British leaders, and attacks on the allies of the Whig was a part of the bitter partisan campaign. Gray excelled in satire and anathema and his favorite editorial pastime was badgering the Whigs. No doubt the article that incensed the British author was designedly a piece of sublimated buncombe.

In the early '80s John McSweeney, then a leading jury lawyer of Ohio, came here to try three cases. The first was the malpractice case of the heirs of Edward Rice against Doctor Donahue for malpractice which went to the Supreme Court on a question of practice and was then settled. The second was the contest over the will of Casper Bough, where J. McSweeney obtained a verdict sustaining the will. The third case was the case in which Doctor Fan, then living at Kelleys Island, was indicted for rape and was defended by Mr. McSweeney and acquitted.

The Erie County Humane Society was organized in 1882 with George . Marsh as president; I. F. Mack, A. E. Merrill, J. C. Hauser and John C. Zollinger as directors.

In the presidential campaign of 1884 James G. Blaine visited Sandusky and he and William C. Windom both made speeches from the pagoda in the east park on Columbus Avenue.

On May 9, 1890, John M. Boalt died. He was a man of sterling integrity with some prominent faults. He went through bankruptcy in 1873 and paid only a small amount to apply-on his debts. He sueceeded commercially and many years afterward, when the legal lability for any part of his debts had long ceased, he invited his former creditors to dinner and under the plate of each was a check for the full amount of the balance he owed them and interest to that time.

The first street paved in Sandusky was Market Street, between Jackson and Wayne, for which the ordinance was passed June 6, 1892, and the property was assessed on December 3, 1894.

On January 27, 1911, J. O. Moss died. He became president of the Sandusky, Misasticld & Newark Railroad in the early '70s, and in his later years was president of the Moss National Bank. He died possessed of a large fortune accumulated by his own sagacity and was naturally possessed of the brightest mind that the author ever met during his residence in Sandusky.

In 1877 the signal service was established in Sandusky and had its station on top of the West House, but was moved to its present location April 1, 1888.

The Register of August 8, 1878, first discusses a.plan for a street railroad to run from the Big Four Railroad, past the Baltimore & Ohio, to the cemetery.

On September 21, 1890, a man who was known as Spot Barker died in Sandusky. He was a democrat of the fierce and unterrifying kind. When Lincoln was elected in 1860 he painted his house black and it remained black for some years after his death because of his vow that he would not paint it any other color until a democratic president was elected, and he died before that result was accomplished.

On May 7, 1885, the Sandusky Railway, which ran from the West House out to the Lake Shore Depot by the way of Hayes Avenue, was bought by J. O. Moss. Its superintendent was L. D. Alcott, who built it, and this was the first street railroad in Sandusky.

On April 29, 1890, a company to run a street railroad to the Soldiers' Home was organized and was sold on May 23 to C. E. Cook of Chicago, C. W. Foot and Christy Brothers of Cleveland.

On August 8, 1890, the Register mentions that there are four street railroads in Sandusky. On September 7, 1890, the street railway was bought to make an electric line. J. O. Moss was its president, C. H. Moss its vice president, Clark Rude its manager, and its directors were J. O. Moss, A. J. Stoll, James Flynn and George H. DeWitt.

On January 2, 1892, the electric line was built from the Soldiers' Home to the cemetery. On May 24, 1893, the first car ran from Sandusky to Norwalk.

On January 23, 1897, Clark Rude was made receiver of the Sandusky Street Railway Company, which was sold on July 9, 1898, to a syndicate managed by Thomas Wood for $60,024.

On December 28, 1900, the Sandusky, Norwalk & Southern Railway bought the White Line to Norwalk and the Sandusky, Mansfield & Norwalk Railroad.Company, all of which were later purchased by Samuel Bullock, who later went broke.

In 1902 the Everett Moore syndicate made an assignment, who had purchased the street railways, and later their rights were acquired by the - Lake Shore Electric, the present owners.

On January 9, 1894, the remaining tombstones were taken from the old cholera cemetery, much to the indignation of many of the people, and the proceeding was condemned by the Register.

On the 27th day of April, 1892, the contest over the will of J. C. Lockwood, of Milan, was concluded. The estate involved $1,000,000; the case occupied eight weeks and required a special act of the Legislature to extend the winter term so it could be finished before the end of the term. '

On May 3, 1891, the dedication of the monument to the Moore sisters, representing a large book which now stands at the left of the entrance of Oakland Cemetery, took place. They were two sisters who taught in the old unclassified school that stood on the courthouse square.

On July 21, 1895, the corner stone of the Congregational Church was laid. In it was placed a Bible, a list of the members, the year book of 1895 and copies of local papers. ~

In March, 1901, the historic elm of Sandusky was removed. It stood a couple of rods south of the Columbus Avenue entrance to the courthouse. It was planted by M. F. Cowdry to commemorate the passage of a law favoring free schools some time in the early '50s, and shortly after the erection of the old blue stone high school, which stood facing Columbus Avenue directly across the present walk to the courthouse. The building was two stories high and 60 feet front by 40 deep, and had a school room on each story. There was a board sidewalk from the elm to the rear stairway of the high school.

On February 14, 1909, oceurred the greatest storm in the history of the city. It broke down trees and telephone poles and telegraph poles by the weight of ice and put business out of commission for a week and obstructed streets with wreckage.

On September 8, 1913, the Perry celebration began, and on September 9, 19138, Admiral Dewey, Ex-President Taft and General Keifer made speeches at the foot of Jackson Street.

On September 15, 1912, the Oliver revival meetings opened and were preceded on the 7th of September by the first dry Sunday under the license law. :