were made, but the results proved unsatisfactory. Finding gas in the Clinton formation and little or none in the Trenton, a number of shallow wells were drilled; but for commercial or manufacturing purposes these also proved unprofitable. However, quite a number of shallow wells were drilled in Fremont and elsewhere, and used on the premises where the wells were located. Such wells are still being drilled in western parts of the county, some of them with tolerably fair results, for home use.

But for the last fifteen years and more drilling has been mainly done to the Trenton for oil exclusively. The principal producing oil territory lies in the western tier of townships extending eastward, into Washington, Jackson, Sandusky and Rice.

Woodville Township-Sections 8, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 and 35 produce oil. The first test was made in 1886. The Trenton was found at 1,184 feet, but without results. Two years later search was renewed for gas; and oil was found in paying quantities and the territory proved to be rich in oil.

Madison Township-This township has oil wells in every section excepting 15, 28 and 35. In 1887 a well was drilled at Gibsonburg for natural gas. The Trenton was struck at 1,237 feet, but flowed oil at the rate of fifty barrels per day. This is said to have been the first oil well drilled in Sandusky County. The first well drilled in this locality exclusively for oil was in 1888, which, after being shot, yielded 200 barrels per clay. Progress has been uninterrupted since that early day and the territory is now well drilled.

Scott Township-All sections are productive in whole or in part except 2, 11, 12, 13 and 24. Real progress began in this township about 1890 and has gone steadily on until there is but little territory left to develop.

Washington Township. The Woodville and Madison oil territory extends into Washington, occupying in whole or in part Sections 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 29, 30, 31, 32 and 33. Outside of this three smaller pools are found ; one in the junction of Sections 23, 24, 25 and 26. In the southern part of the township a small pool of oil has been found and another just outside of Lindsey.

Rice Township-A small pool is found in Sections 5, 6, 7, 8 and 18, sometimes called the Kingsway pool. The wells are small, the largest production reported was 70 barrels per day. In July, 1902, the wells averaged about 1 1/2 barrels per day.

Jackson Township-Sections 5, 6, 7, 8, 17, 18, 19, 20, 30. 31 and 32 and a small area in Sections 2 and 3 are oil-producing territory, some gas wells are found in Sections 31 and 32 ; these supply Burgoon and Kansas.

Sandusky Township-This township was developed later than the others named and oil found in paying quantities in Sections 7, 8, 9, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20. 29 and 30.

Size of Wells-By far the greater number of wells have been of ordinary size, that is, the initial production has ranged from 25 to 100 barrels per day.

May, 1892, Ohi0 Oil Company, No. 1, Myers farm, Woodville Township, 600 barrels per day ; July, 1892, Ohio Oil Company, No. 2, Hendricks farm, Woodville Township, 650 barrels; July, 1892, Ohio Oil Company, No. 7, Hendricks farm, Woodville Township, go0 barrels ; July, 1892, Ohio Oil Company, No. 2, Bajerfarm, Woodville Township, 500 barrels ; July, 1892, Finch & Co., No. 2, Mountler farm, Woodville Township, 600 barrels ; July, 1892, George W. Barnes, No. 2, Hille farm, Woodville Township, 900 barrels ; August, 1892, Ohio Oil Company, No. 4, Baker farm, Woodville Township, 2,50o barrels ; August, 1892, Ohio Oil Company, Woodville Township, Loop barrels; August, 1892, Woodville Oil Company, No. 9, Kuhlman farm, Woodville Township, 600 barrels ; September, 1892, Ohio Oil Company, No. 4. Myers farm, Woodville Township, 600 barrels ; September, 1892. Ohio Oil Company, No. 2. Spayde farm, Woodville Township, 900 barrels ; September, 1892, Woodville Oil Company, No. 3, Nieman farm, Woodville Township, 600 barrels ; September. 1892, Montler Brothers, No. 7, Montler farm, Woodville Township, 600 barrels ; September, 1892, G. W. Barnes, No. 1o, Hilde farm, Woodville Township, 700 barrels ; September. 1892. Hobart. Bowlus & Co., No. 1, Kuhlman farm, Woodville Township. 600 barrels ; October, 1892, Ohio Oil Company, No. 5, Burman farm.

Woodville Township, 900 barrels; October, 1892, Woodville Oil Company, No. 14, Kuhlman farm, Woodville Township, 60o barrels; June, 1893, Stausmyer & Hovis, No. 4, Molkenbur farm, Woodville Township, 55o barrels; April, 1894, Ohio Oil Company, No. 1o, Bruns farm, Woodville Township, 930 barrels; July, 1894, Black Brothers, No. 2, Blank farm, Woodville Township, 500 barrels ; October, 1894, Hardly-Able Oil C0mpany, N0. 4. Conningham farm, Madison Township. 1,000 barrels ; May, 1895, Ohio Oil Company, No. 2, Reese farm, Woodville Township, 2,000 barrels.

The great gusher of the field was struck on November 15, 1894, by T. E. & T. W. Kirkbride, on the Benjamin Jones farm, in Madison Township, four miles west and one mile south of Gibsonburg. This well is known as the second largest Well completed on the continent and started at 20,000 barrels. For the first thirty days the well averaged a production of better than 7,000 barrels a day, and during its existence made its owners a fortune.

There are now (July. 1909) in Sandusky County about 4,200 wells in operation, and the average production is less than one barrel per day.

Sandusky County's geological structure is composed of alternating bands of Niagara and water lime formations, passing from north to south with a patch of corniferous in the eastern end. There are three bands or patches of the water lime. The Niagara patches are two in number and of considerable area ; the corniferous cuts off a generous corner of the county, comprising about thirty square miles. Lime industry exist on quite a large scale in each formation. The Niagara area is exploited by quarries at Woodville and Gibsonburg.

Gottron. Brothers-The quarries of Gottron Brothers at Fremont, Ohio, include the former Noble quarries and contain thirty-five acres of quarry land, and are operated extensively in the production of lime. foundation building. stone and crushed stone for road and other purposes. From fifteen to thirty-five men are employed. The plant is well equipped with up-to-date machinery. The crusher capacity is 250

tons per day. The annual output in lime is 25,000 barrels; foundation stone about 10,000 tons and crushed stone about 20,000 tons. The composition is a good grade of dolomite.

The Belvue Stone Company—The corniferous area, so called because of its numerous seams of horn stone, is represented by the quarry of the Bellvue Stone Company, just inside the Sandusky County line.

This company has been doing business about ten years, and was organized by W. M. Halliday, C. R. Callaghan, T. E. Wyant and Sol M. Wolf. No lime is produced, but the company makes a specialty of getting out crushed stone for macadamizing and concrete work; also some building stone for foundation purposes. The last year the company's output was about 3,000 carloads, consisting of about 2,400 carloads of crushed stone, loo carloads of building stone, commonly called rubble, and about 50o carloads of heavy stone for government use in building a breakwater at Huron. Ohio. This breakwater stone runs from 100 pounds to ten tons, and is commonly known as quarry run.

The company owns about seyenty-five acres of land. located in York Township at the corporation line of Bellyue, sixty acres being in the corporation, the balance adjoining it just outside. The business has been gradually deyeloped from a small beginning until the output is up to 100,000 tons per year. The quarry is well equipped with modern machinery, consisting of crushers, screen. boiler and engine. air compresser. steam drills, locomotiye crane, seyeral miles of industrial track and has a sidetrack leading from the Wheeling & Lake Erie railroad.

The Ohio & Western Lime Company at Gibsonburg is the corporated successor of The Standard Lime Company, and is of recent construction and one of the best plants in the state. It is the evolution of the various plants which have spent much money in the last few years experimenting in methods and economics in lime manufacture. This is believed to be one of the finest power plants to be found in any lime plant in the country. The home office is at Huntington, Indiana. The company owns eighty acres of land, about twenty-seven of which are immediately connected with the plant and being worked. Fifty men are employed, working ten hours, except those on gas producers, who work twelve hours. The average daily output is from seventy-five to eighty tons of lime. One yard of the stone weighs 2,600 pounds and produces about thirteen hundred pounds of pure lime. The crushers are not run to the full capacity, but the average output is ten carloads daily.

The National Mortar and Supply Company of Gibsonburg, with home office at Pittsburg, Pa., is a large concern. The plant was established in 1907, and employs sixty-five men, dividing time into two twelve-hour shifts. The machinery and equipments are of the latest and most approved character. The productions are lime, crushed stone for road-beds and stone for foundations. The plant turns out every twenty-four hours Ioo tons of lime and 300 to 400 tons of crushed stone.

The Woodville White Lime Company—The plant of this company is one of recent development. The present management took hold of it six or seven years ago, and immediately began its reconstruction. The quality of the stone available had been well demonstrated, because this had been the site of small kilns for many years. which had been practically abandoned, not because of lack of material or its undesirable quality, but for lack of business aggressiveness. The present management has been aggressive in the way of plant improvements as well as in the development of side lines such as dry mortars ready for use, special white coat, which had dolomite lime as a base and things of the sort. This firm was also one of the earlier producers of hydrated lime.

Types of Diseases in Early Times—The Cholera—Erysipelas—Typhoid Fever and CauseMilk-Sickness or Trembles—Discoveries and Their Benefits—Physicians Past—Medical Society Organized—Physicians of Today—Dentists.

The prevailing diseases during the period of the early settlements were of miasmatic origin, and most prevalent in the autumnal months. Some seasons hardly an inhabitant escaped. Occasionally the fevers were especially malignant. The remittent form of fever was generally, however, amenable to treatment, but still always regarded as a serious, malady. When not of the pernicious or congestive type, the cases were usually promptly relieved by remedies. This was, however, by no means so with the chronic intermittent, or ague, which was also most prevalent in the fall, and yet had a fashion of staying around during the rest of the year. Whether the attack occurred daily, or every second or third day, its coming on was seldom a surprise. Its pale and sallow victims were often discouraged by the recurrence of the disease upon the slightest exposure. They wearied of the doctor's monotonously bitter doses, and themselves scoured the woods, plucking and digging after indigenous "sure cures." It was an open question among the people whether it were better to try any cure at all, or to bravely "wear it out."

As prevalent as miasmatic fevers were in those days, the improvement of the country gradually effected a decided change for the better, until now Sandusky County is as free from this class of disease as any part of northwestern Ohio. Within recent years this region has enjoyed a fair degree of exemption from epidemic diseases. The year 1834 was probably the most dreadful in the history of this locality, made so by a terrible cholera scourge. In August of that year a boat load of emigrants came from Buffalo, among whom was a traveling man. The traveler, upon the arrival of the boat at our landing, came up to the old Western House, then the leading hotel of northwestern Ohio. A man named Marsh was the landlord.

The emigrants encamped on the bottom near the landing. During the night, after his arrival, the stranger in the hotel was taken sick. He requested the presence of a brother Mason. Harvey J. Harmon was sent for and attended the stranger until he died the next morning. Drs. Brainard and Rawson pronounced cholera the cause of death. The village was panic stricken. Harmon in a couple of days died, and then Marsh, the landlord of the Western House, and his wife died. All who could get away left town, and with few exceptions, those who could not get away closed their houses and admitted no one. The Olmsteds went into the country, leaving their store and the postoffice in charge of Mr. Homer Everett. Dr. Brainard was himself attacked but recovered. At the beginning of the scourge death followed attack quickly. The emigrants' camp down by the landing was a place of indescribable suffering. Many of them died without attendance. and the living could scarce bury the dead. Joel Everett, a brother of Homer Everett, was one day passing this encampment on his way home from Lower Sandusky. He had not gone far before the dread disease compelled him to stop. The neighbors dared not take him into their homes. but built a tent over him by the roadside and provided a bed, on which he

The scourge lasted about three weeks, and the percentage of mortality was large. During the whole time Mr. Brown, Mr. Birchard, Judge Jaques Hulburd and Dr. Rawson made themselves eminently useful in caring for the sick and burying the dead. Homer Everett acted as a general commissary, having the keys of nearly all the stores, with instructions to take out whatever was needed. Most of the merchants left town. About one month elapsed before the disease was wholly eradicated.

In 1849 when the cholera visited Sandusky City with such frightful mortality, there were one or two deaths among those who had taken refuge here, but it did not spread. Almost every family forsook the town. There were also one or two deaths in 1854, and two cases, both fatal, in 1866. An epidemic of cerebrospinal meningitis, not affecting large numbers. but charteristically fatal, occurred in 1847-48 in Lower Sandusky, and vicinity. This disease has reappeared two or three times since, and was the cause of several deaths.

During the latter part of the winter of 1848-49 an exceedingly malignant type of erysipelas prevailed in the town. and throughout the county. It attacked many and was very fatal. Among those who fell victims were two physicians, Drs. A. H. Brown and B. F. Williams. In 1856 dysentery prevailed and caused many deaths. Fremont has enjoyed a remarkable exemption from diphtheria, for although since about 1857-58 this dreadful malady has carried off a small number during several consecutive years, the disease never at any time prevailed extensively in the town. It has, however, been in some seasons very destructive in various neighborhoods in different parts of the county. As miasmatic fevers grew less prevalent, typhoid fever seemed in some measure to take their place, and appears now to be firmly implanted. This fever is fully as prevalent, if not indeed more so, in the country than in towns, and appears to be traceable to local causes within the reach of practicable means of prevention. The first appearance of scarlet fever is believed to have been about the year 1852, when. it occurred in a malignant form, and since that year, although it has occurred on several occasions, the disease has been confined to a few families, and has not been very fatal. Cases of smallpox have now and then been witnessed, but the disease has never spread among our people to any great or alarming extent.

In parts of Green Creek, Riley and Townsend Townships, and perhaps in some other localities, in early times, when cattle ran at large for pasturage, the strange disease known as "milk sickness" or "the trembles," prevailed. It was often fatal, and where not it left the person attacked enfeebled in constitution. Its cause is not known, but is supposed to be from vegetation of some kind eaten by cattle, which in case of milch cows affects the milk and its products, butter, cheese, etc. The drinking of the milk or eating the butter or cheese, or the meat of the animal affected communicates the disease to man. The symptoms were in part, extreme languor and lassitude ; trembling and weakness of the limbs, especially the lower extremities ; impaired appetite, sickening sensation at the stomach with retching and vomiting; a peculiar offensive breath, great oppression of the heart and nerve depression. The disease disappeared with the clearing up of the country and the use of enclosed or tame pastures for cattle.

The pioneers of Sandusky County who endured great privations were, by the force of circumstances, unable to avoid miasmatic diseases which inevitably result where, in such a climate as this, the virgin soil, with its rank vegetation is first exposed to the rays of the sun by work done with the ax and the plow. Prolonged cultivation, however, diminishes, if it does not finally entirely remove the conditions favorable to the causation of such diseases. The case is far different, however, with many, of the diseases against which we are now called upon to contend, and which are produced by decaying matter supplied by living beings. In our cities, villages an.d country places not sufficient attention is paid to the prevention of contamination of wells and springs supplying water used for drinking. In many situations the water thus used is

rendered noxious by such sources of contamination ; and not until the importance of this condition. of affairs is fully realized in its relation to modern sanitary science, can we hope to wipe out those diseases, which are now regarded by the medical profession as practically preventable.

Since the early settlement of the county great progress has been made in the science and practice of medicine and surgery in many ways. Pain has been robbed, to a great extent, of its terrors by the use of ether and chloroform as anesthetics in surgery, something unknown in the profession prior to about 1845. By their use the patient now passes into a quiet sleep and awakes to find it all oyer, with a hopeful recovery, depending upon careful nursing. Hospitals for the sick with intelligent trained nurses to carry out the physician's instructions are at hand. The terrors of hydrophobia have been relieved by the Pasteur cure, discovered in 1865. The germ theory of many diseases has been demonstrated and with it their prevention or cure.

We now have improved forms for the administration of remedies, by which the disgust in taking them is oyercome. Gelatine capsules, sugar-coated pills and tablets and cod liver emulsions, make. their administration less disagreeable and much more likely to be faithfully followed according to the doctor's directions. The thermometer to register, the stages of temperature in fevers is a recent inyention. The use of carbolic acid, bichloride of mercury and formaldehyde as antiseptics and disinfectants is of recent origin. Cocaine in dentistry and minor surgery as a local anresthetic is also of recent use. Quinine was not discovered until 182o. The percentage of mortality in the dreaded diphtheria has been greatly reduced by the discovery and use of antitoxin.

The history of medicine would not be complete without reference to these discoveries, which have proved such inestimable boons to the sick and the suffering. On the tomb of Dr. Morton, of Boston, who first demonstrated the use of ether in surgery, appears the following inscription :

"Inventor. and revealer of the anesthetic inhalation. before whom in all time surgery was agony, and by whom pain in surgery was averted and annulled: since whom science has controlled pain."

It is said of. Dr. Simpson, of Edinburgh, who in 1847 inaugurated the use of chloroform as an anæsthetic tested it upon himself in the presence of his family. Coming into the dining room he took from his pocket a vial and poured a few drops of its contents into a glass, held it up saying: "See, this will turn the world upside down." Then inhaling the liquid fell down insensible, greatly frightening the family.

Among the many objections he met with was one seriously presented that it was wicked to render one insensible to pain, as it was a curse pronounced on the race through Adam's fall. He met this by quoting the scripture where it is written that God in removing the rib from Adam to make a woman, "caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and Adam slept ; and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh thereof !"

Dr. Goodwin was probably the first physician to locate in the village of Lower Sandusky. He came soon after the garrison was removed. His meagre income was increased somewhat by teaching school. He was eccentric, and was especially noticeable on account of his frontier dress, which lie continued to wear for several years. He left here after about ten years.

Dr. Hastings came to Lower Sandusky about 1816. He was a man of refined manners and general scholarship. In his profession he was successful. and had considerable practice, but it was of a laborious and unprofitable character, not differing in this respect from the practice of all the pioneer physicians. He left here in 1828.

Dr. Holloway was another of the pioneer doctors, but we are unable to learn anything about him. He remained but a short time.

Dr. Daniel Brainard. a native of New York. began the practice of medicine in Lower Sandusky in 18I9. and continued for a period of about forty years. He ranked among the first practitioners in northwestern Ohio. and for many years his practice embraced the settlements included by a line running east of Bellevue. south ar far as Fort Seneca. west to Por-

tage River and north to the lake. Perhaps no man ever lived in the county who had a more varied experience in of pioneer life. He was here when the country east and west was a roadless expanse of dark, damp forests. Lower Sandusky was an expansion of this forest path, which Indian romance and military history had already celebrated. He was one of the first Free Masons in Lower Sandusky, and a member of the Fort Stephenson Lodge after the revival of Masonry. Brainard Lodge was named in his honor. His funeral was conducted with Masonic honors. Dr. Brainard died in 1859, just forty years after beginning his useful career in this county.

Drs. Brown and Anderson are two physicians of 'the earlier period. Both were at different times partners of Dr. Rawson. Dr. Anderson was a partner of Dr. Rawson during the cholera scourge of 1834. Dr. Brown was a merchant of that time and made himself conspicuously useful. He afterwards practiced medicine with a fair degree of success, but was all the time more or less interested in mercantile pursuits. He died of erysipelas during the epidemic of 1848-49.

Dr. B. F. Williams was born in Chautauqua County, New York, June 27, 1811, and came to Lower Sandusky in October, 1822. He attended school at the academy of Sangerfield, New York ; he returned to Lower Sandusky in 1879. He afterward went to Cincinnati, where he graduated in 1836, then returning- to Lower Sandusky, where he began the practice of medicine, continuing in the harness until his death, February 9, 1849, from erysipelas, contracted during the erysipelas epidemic.

Dr. La Q. Rawson was born at Irvington, Franklin County, Massachusetts, September 14. 1804. In 1824 he came to Ohio and studied medicine. In 1826 he was granted license to practice by the Ohio Medical Society. In 1827 he commenced practice in Lower Sandusky. where his life was spent. except during an interval of three years while he was absent further pursuing his medical education. He secured the degree of M. D. at the Ohio Medical College, 1834, and also the degree of M. D. ad eundem in the University of Pennsylvania. He continued to prac tice until 1855. During his career as a physician he secured complimentary diplomas of membership in the Cincinnati Medical Society, the Philadelphia Medical Society and in the Ohio Medical Lyceum of Cincinnati. The general territorial limits of Dr. Rawson's practice was west to the Portage River from the source of that stream to its entrance into the bay at Port Clinton ; on the east Hamer's Corners (now Clyde) ; and on the south Fort Seneca. None of the streams within this tract embracing a large part of the present counties of Sandusky, Ottawa, Wood and Seneca were bridged except the Sandusky River at Lower Sandusky. In 1855 he permanently retired from practice of medicine to engage in other pursuits. The wife of Dr. Rawson was Sophia Beaugrand, daughter of John B. Beaugrand, and sister of the present venerable Dr. Peter Beaugrand of the city of Fremont, whose sketch appears in this volume.

Thomas Stilwell, M. D., was born in Buffalo Valley, Union County, Pennsylvania, five or six miles west of Lewisburg in January, 1815. His father, Joseph Stilwell, for more than half a century an honored citizen of that county, died in 1851, aged 74 years. His mother, Anna Stilwell, died eleven years later, aged 84 years. After a full academic course at Milton, Pennsylvania, under the tuition of Rev. David Kirkpatrick, a distinguished teacher in that section of the state, and a brief course of selected studies at Layfayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, he entered upon the study of medicine with Dr. Joseph R. Lotz, at New Berlin, and graduated at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in March, 1839, and located the same year in Lower Sandusky. He died in Fremont, where he had lived a useful life as a physician and citizen for more than half a century. His nature was so genial and lovable that the term, "the beloved physician," could have been appropriately applied to Dr. Stilwell.

Dr. Tames W. Wilson was born in New Berlin, Union County, Pennsylvania, February I, 1816. He graduated at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, March 18, 1837. After practicing medicine in Pennsylvania two years, he emigrated to Lower Sandusky, where he

opened an office as a partner of Dr. Thomas Stilwell, in 1829, and they continued to practice as partners until 1862. He was president of the Sandusky County Medical Society until his death. (See biography.)

Dr. Louis Gessner was born April 6, 1804, in Hesse Darmstadt, Germany. His father died in 18o9 leaving a widow and four children. Although in moderate circumstances, she succeeded, through true motherly sacrifice and devotion, in securing for them a good education. Louis left home at the age of 15, and traveled on foot to the Danube, and thence went to Vienna, where he had relatives who kindly rendered him assistance in the completion of his education. After finishing his course of study in medicine lie left Vienna, traveling on foot to Switzerland. Arriving at the Canton of Berne in 1828, he commenced the practice of medicine, and in the same year was married to Miss Elizabeth F. Schwartz, daughter of a prominent physician of Thun. In 1833, with his family, he emigrated to America and located first near Tonawanda, but soon afterward in Buffalo. New York. In 1837 he removed to Williamsville, Erie County. Leaving his family in that place, he returned to Switzerland. and coming back in 1838. decided to move west. He accordingly settled in Lower Sandusky in that year.

Dr. Robert S. Rice was born in Ohio County, Virginia, May 28, 1805, and died in Fremont, Ohio, August 5, 1875. He was the father of Drs. J. B. and R. H. Rice.

Dr. John B. Rice was born in Lower Sandusky, June 23, 1832. He studied medicine ; graduating at Ann Arbor in the spring of 1857, and soon after associated himself with his father, Dr. Robert S. Rice, and made a beginning in practice. In 1859 he further prosecuted his medical studies at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, and Belleyue Hospital, New York. On returning home he resumed practice. On the breaking out of the Civil War he was appointed assistant surgeon of the Tenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He was promoted to surgeon and assigned to the Seventy-second Ohio, and served with this regiment over three years. (See biography.)

Dr. Robert H. Rice was born in Lower Sandusky, December 20, 1837, and attended medical lectures at the medical department of the University of Michigan, and graduated from that institution in March, 1863. He then returned to Fremont and began the practice of medicine with his father, Dr. Robert S. Rice, Dr. John, his brother, being at that time in the army. (See biography.)

Sardis B. Taylor, M. D., was born in Fremont, March 19, 1843. He commenced the practice of medicine in 1864, at Fremont, Ohio. He served as volunteer assistant surgeon of the One Hundred and Sixty-ninth Regiment Ohio National Guards, at Washington, District of Columbia, summer of 1865. Graduated at Starling Medical College, Columbia, Ohio, February 22, 1875.

Dr. George E. Smith., born June 27, 1832, at Lume, Huron County, Ohio. After several medical courses he attended the Ohio Medical College in the spring of 1862, and graduated with the degree of M. D. at the close of the session. He died in Oberlin, Ohio, after a successful career in medical practice.

Dr. O. E. 'Philips was born in St. Pierre, Canada, February 17, 1836, and after obtaining his medical education, located in Hessville in 1862, where he practiced until 1882, when he came to Fremont, where he continued the practice until his death, June 12, 1909.

Dr. Ezer Dillon came to Fremont in 1861, and practiced medicine until his death in 1892. Dr. Dillon was educated as a physician at Cincinnati Medical College while the celebrated Dr. S. D. Gross was professor of surgery in that college.

Dr. William Caldwell was born in 1S37 at Fremont, Ohio, and graduated from the University of Michigan in Charity Hospital Medical College and in Bellvue Hospital Medical College in New York. being admitted to practice in 1862. He was assistant surgeon of the Seventy-second Regiment O. V. I. and served from April. 1863, until t865. After a short period of practice in Michigan he returned to Fremont in 1880, where he enjoyed a large practice in his profession, until the time of his death. He was an able and successful physician.

trical Medical College of Cincinnati in I87 and located in Fremont in 1879, enjoying a large practice until recently, when he removed to Georgia, where he now is.

Dr. A. J. Hammer was born in Redford County, Pennsylvania, June 1, 1853. He graduated at Pults Medical College of Cincinnati; in the class of 1880, and commenced practice at Fremont in September, which he continued until moving to Toledo a few years ago.

Dr. S. P. Ecki was born in Holmes County, Ohio, in 1854. He graduated from the New York Homeopathic Medical College, from which institution he came to Fremont in 1881, continuing practice for many years.

Dr. J. W. Failing, a native of Wayne County, New York, was born in 1833. HE graduated at the Cleveland Homeopathic College and came to Fremont to practice in 1854, being then but 22 years old, and he continued to practice medicine in Fremont until the time of his death.

David H. Brinkerhoff, M. D., was born December 5, 1823, in the township of Owasea, Cayuga County, New York. He graduated from the Cincinnati College of Medical and Surgery in 1857, and practiced in Fremont, Ohio, until he entered the service of the United States in 1862 as assistant surgeon and was promoted to surgeon major in 1864. After being mustered out of service he again engaged in general practice in Fremont which he followed till his death.

Dr. John W. Groat graduated at the Cincinnati Eclectic Medical College and afterward attended lectures at Cleveland Medical College, beginning to practice medicine in Fremont in 1866. He left Fremont in 1877 for Aurora, Illinois.

Dr. H. F. Baker practiced in Fremont from 1865 to 1868. He removed from Fremont to Bellevue to take possession as proprietor and editor of the Bellevue Local News.

Dr. John M. Corey was born in Austintown, Trumbull County, Ohio, January 21, 1837. He attended medical lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, from which institution he received the degree of M. D. in the spring of 1859. He came to Fremont in December, 1859, and began the practice of his profession here which he pursued until his death.

Dr. F. S. Hilbish was born at McKees Falls Pennsylvania, July 6, 1843, studied medicine at Bellevue Hospital; graduated from Bellevue Hospital, and practiced at Bellevue, Ohio, Om years, then at Green Springs, Ohio; located ir. Fremont, Ohio, in 1883, and practiced there til his death, August 25, 1898.

Dr. Lamon G. Harkness was the first physician prominently identified with the history of Bellevue; he was born in Salem, Washington County, New York, April 11, 1801, and educated for his profession in his native state. HE came west in 1823 and located at first in Lyme Township, Huron County, and was there associated with Dr. Stevens. He afterward located in Bellevue, where he practiced for several years, but finally abandoned the practice of medicine for business pursuits.

Dr. Daniel A. Lathrop came in 1835 from Pennsylvania and succeeded Dr. Harkness in the practice, which was extensive. Thereafter in the earlier days came Drs. Gay, W. W. Stilson, Amos Woodward, John W. Goodson, Ralph A. Severance, J. J. Hartz, H. L. Harris, H. Richards and S. H. Burgner, and later Drs. Robinson, Or wig, Sandmeister and Lanterman.

The following are the present physicians : Irvin I. Good, C. C. Richards, M. R. Nichols, J. C. Morrow, C. L. Harding, F. M. Kent, H. R. Dewey, Charles Wehr, H. C. Aurand and George Rubard.

Dr. Niles located in 1833 in a log house where William Hamer afterward built his last residence, and practiced in Clyde until 1850, when he moved to a farm on the Portland Road south from Clyde, where he practiced till his death.

Drs. Seeley, Treadway, Judson and Cochrane located in 1840. Dr. Seeley practiced here for many years till his death ; the others moved away shortly after coming to Clyde.

Drs. Kishpaw, Charles G. Eaton. and George Eaton came in 1850. Kishpaw and George Eaton remained but a short time and moved away, Eaton going back to the south. Dr. C. G. Eaton practiced in Clyde till his death, October 13, 1875 ; from this is excepted the time he was in the Civil War.

Dr. S. D. Finch located in Clyde in 1869, and practiced there till his death October 20, 1871. He had practiced in Green Spring for many years before locating in Clyde.

Dr. W. B. Van Norman located in 1872, practiced a short time and moved to Fremont, where he died.

Dr. J. Howard Rabe was born in Clyde, graduated at Jefferson Medical College, located in Clyde, and practiced there until his death.

Physicians at Present Practicing in Clyde—Drs. J. W. Luse, F. J. Whittemore, C. L. Harnden, Corwin Griffin, F. J. Hunter, R. B. Metz, C. Beck, E. W. Baker, E. A. Baker and Wesley Van Natta.

Gibsonburg—N. B. Ervin, E. A. Johnson, A. T. Crossett, Luther T. Gill and A. G. Eyestone.

This society as auxiliary to the State Medical Society, was organized November 6, 1879, with the following physicians present, who are known as charter members : James W. Wilson, Thomas Stilwell, Robert H. Rice, Louis J. Gessner, John B. Rice, Sardis R. Taylor, John

James W. Wilson was chosen president ; Robert H. Rice, Secretary; L. S. J. Gessner, treasurer and Sardis B. Taylor, librarian.

Dr. M. Stamm is president and Dr. E. M. Ickes, secretary. Nearly all the physicians within the county are members of this medical. society, which appears to be in a successful condition.

Dr. Martin Stamm was born November 14, 1847, in Thaygan, Canton, Schauffhausen, Switzerland. He graduated from the University at Berne, Switzerland, March 12, 1872, then came to America, locating in Fremont, Ohio. In. 1899 he made a tour of Europe returning in about a year. In 1907 he made a tour of the world returning in one year, following. He is now, July, 1909, on a trip through Europe to be gone about four months. To Dr. Stamm is largely due the organization. and perfection of the Sandusky County Medical Association of which he is now the president. He is a member of several medical and surgical associations in the United States. He is the author of many valuable pamphlets and papers on important topics and phases of the medical profession, surgical and otherwise.

Dr. Stamm is a successful physician in general practice, but it is as a surgeon that he has attained special celebrity for his success in discovery and skill in operation, in surgical science and practice. He is original, inventive and progressive in his investigations and methods and has done much to advance the science and practice of the medical profession especially as it relates to surgery.

He was the first surgeon in the United States of whom we have any record, to perform the Caesarean section operation ; which he did in 1903 ; and he is the first to perform what is known as Stamm's poleligation of Graves' disease, which was done in 1908. In 1893 Dr. Stamm performed the first Kocher's operation in this country for hernia. In 1901 he performed the first operation in the United States, known as the Michulicz operation. for resection of the large bowels, removing at that

Dr. Stamm was for several years professor of operative surgery in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Cleveland, Ohio, formerly Wooster Medical College. He is the proprietor of Stamm's Hospital in Fremont, Ohio, the first institution of the kind established in the city.

Drs. Pierre Beaugrand, L. S. J. Gessner, G. A. Gessner, C. F. Reiff, James M. Steward, O. H. Thomas, C. R. Pontius, J. D. Bemis, Robert B. Meek, O. C. Vermilya, E. L. Vermilya, C. R. Truesdall, George Zimmerman, Mabel G. Dixey, W. L. Stierwalt, W. R. Deemer, E. M.

Ickes, S. C. Sackett, Louis Rochet, M. 0. Phillips, Clyde L. Smith, B. O. Kreilick, James Rice, F. L. Kinsey and S. McKenney.

Fremont—H. G. Edgerton, Geo. B. Smith, A. G. Thatcher, R. A. Hudson, G. A. Mochel,

Bellevue—H. N. Donaldson, H. F. Billmeyer, W. H. Albright, W. S. Kern and F. A. Higgins.

County Infirmary—Agricultural Society—Pioneer and Historical Association—Birchard Library—Clyde and Bellevue Public Libraries.

Prior to 1831 there was no provisions in the laws of Ohio for the erection of county poor houses. Until 1845 the poor were provided for by two persons elected annually in each township called overseers of the poor, and relief through these officers was afforded at the expense of the township, for poor having a legal settlement therein; but, inhuman as it may now seem, all black and mulatto persons were denied by the law (Act of 1831) the right to become legal settlers in any township in the state. March 8, 1831, an act was passed providing for the purchase of sites and the erection of county poor houses, at the discretion of the county commissioners, but it did not supersede the poor laws. In 1845 the office of overseer of the poor was abolished and their duties imposed upon the township trustees. In 1845 the county commissioners, John, S. Gardner, Hiram Hurd and Eleazer Baldwin resolved to purchase a site and erect a county poor house; and for that purpose to raise by taxation the sum of $1,500.

On January 16, 1849, the county commissioners purchased of John P. Haynes 200 acres of land in Section 25, Sandusky Township, for $3,000. The buildings on this land were fitted up and converted into a poor house.

By an act of the General Assembly, March 23, 185o, the term; Poor House" was changed to that of "County Infirmary" and in 1853 the color line was abolished so far as to allow the admission of any black or mulatto person into the infirmary.

January 30, 1870, the county commissioners added, by purchase, seventy acres in Section 25, about eighty rods east of the main body of the infirmary farm, paying therefor $4,55o. The farm now contains 270 acres, all of which is practically under cultivation and is in an excellent state.

The central, or old, part of the building was erected in 1861. The two three-story wings on either side were built in 1885 at a cost of $20,000. The entire set of buildings is in excellent condition. There is a hospital and a strong ward, connected with the institution, built in 1906 at a cost of $10,000. A barn was built in 1906 at cost of $3,000.

The present board of directors are : D. E. Dieffenbach, president; John Hilt, vice-president and Peter Stepniak, clerk.

Superintendants—Owing to the imperfect manner of keeping the record, as to the superintendents, it is only possible to give the following incomplete roster of these officials : D. H. Cole, 1849-54 ; B. C. Winters, 1865 ; A. H. Ickes, 1866 ; Philip Short, 1867-72; Daniel Seaman, 1872 ; Jacob Sting, 1873 ; D. Rice, 1873-75; N. G. Rathbun, 1875-79 ; Samuel Zartman, 1879-80; Burr Huss, 1881; Jacob Ruth, 1882 ; Julius Diehr, 1884-85; William Murphy, 1886-88; D. E. Dieffenbach, 1889-94 ; Andrew Litz, 1894 ; Frank P. Smith, 1895-97 George W. Hess, 1879-98 ; Frank P. Smith, 1898-1909, incumbent.

From the directors' reports made from year to year for quite a number of years, it appears that the average number of inmates is about sixty-five.

From the county's financial report for the year ending August 31, 1908, we find the cost

The above expenditures were required over and above the products from the farm, the estimated value of which was $6,125.39, for the same year, and mostly consumed at the infirmary, as they are from year to year.

Cost of relief to the poor given outside of the infirmary, for the year ending August 31, 1908, amounted to $5.773.34. Thus it will appear that Sandusky County expended for the relief of her poor, both in and outside of the infirmary for the year ending August 31, 1908, $13,596.52, exclusive of income from the farm.

The first step toward the organization of a county agricultural society of which there is any record, appears on the journal of the commissioners of Sandusky County under date of June 3, 1833, and is an entry of the following words :

"The auditor is ordered to give notice of a meeting to be held at the court house on the last Friday in June for the purpose of organizing an agricultural society to be entitled 'The Sandusky County Agricultural Society.' "

The records do not disclose the results of this meeting but the Sandusky County Agricultural Society was not organized until nineteen years later.

At a meeting held at the court house in Fremont, Ohio, on the 31st day of August, 1852, for the organization of a county agricultural society, Hon. John Bell was chosen chairman and Daniel Capper, secretary, pro tem. Sardis Birchard and Jonas Smith were made a committee for the appointment of a board of directors for the ensuing year, who thereupon made their report as follows : LaQuinio Rawson, president of said board,. Samuel Hafford, vice-president, Stephen Buckland, treasurer, and Daniel Capper secretary. James Vallette, Isaac Glick, Samuel Skinner, Alvin Coles and D. Adams, directors. This board framed and adopted a constitution to govern the organization.

Following are the names of the members of the first organization, each of whom paid $1.00 as a membership fee, and are here recorded to be remembered with gratitude by the future patrons of husbandry in the county.

Matthew M. Coe, E. F. Dickinson, Samuel Hafford, C. Edgerton, Jas. Parks, S. Buckland, Edward Leppleman, J. P. Haynes, Daniel Capper, Jos. Mitchell, John Bell, J. L. Greene, F. I. Norton, W. Kessler, Jas. Vallette, H. E. Clark, Isaac Glick, F. Vandercook, Samuel Skinner, R. P. Buckland, Jonas Smith, G. M. Tillotson, J. F. R. Sebring, B. J. Bartlett, L. E. Brown, A. J. Dickinson. J. Lesher, C. O. Tillotson, D. Garvin, Geo. Engler, Jacob Bowlus, J. R. Pease, Peter Burgoon, D. Adams, La O. Rawson, J. S. Fouke, J. S. Olmsted, J. G. B. Downs, A. Coles, John S. Tyler, F. S. White. Homer Everett, Sardis Birchard, John Moore, C. D. Hall, Samuel Thompson, Geo. R. Haynes, Jesse Dorcus, L. B. Otis, Aaron Loveland, John Lefever, N. P. Birdseye, Daniel Tindall, Asam Jordan, Henry Nichols, Norton Russell, J. C. Wales, F. Lake, James Justice, Geo. Cogswell, Philip King, A. B. Taylor, Paul Tew, John Younker, Samuel Fennimore, W. C. Shutts, C. J. Orton, Hiram Haff, Dean 0. Ballard, Miles W. Plevin, James Moore, Jesse Emereson, William A. Hill, Martin Brunner, W. M. Stark, Sidney Forgerson, Isaac Knapp, Lyman Miller, Daniel S. Shutts, C. King, Jos. R. Clark, Orlin Sylva, Christ Doncyson, John Whitmore, H. Shively, Isaac Mower, Jas. H. Hafford, Henry Bowman, Jacob Kridler, Hiram Miller, Thos. L. Hawkins, A. J. Hayes,

W. B. Stevenson, Edwin Dowd, John Orwig, S. H. Tibbs, Seneca Hitt, F. M. Clayton, Jas. F. Smith.

On September 4, 1852, at a meeting of the board it was decided to hold the first fair October 13, 1852.

At the first annual fair of the society the following named persons were awarded premiums as follows :

Class A., Cattle—Isaac Glick, William Hill, Otho Lease, D. Seaman, Lyman Miller, James Vallette, John Lefever, John Morre, George Cogswill, Samuel Fennimore, William Kessler.

Class B., Horses—S: H. Tibballs, John Colvin, P. Burgoon, John Whitmore, J. C. Wales, Hiram Haff, J. Hale, B. J. Bartlett, Otho Lease, E. Dowd, William Tew, C. G. Greene, N. Bowlus, W. Shutts, John Whitmore, J. Gibbs, 'William Schrader, Joseph E. Clark.

Class F., Dairy and Kitchen—Mrs. S. Treat, Mrs. S. Buckland, Mrs. Paul Tew, Mrs. P. Brush.

Class G., Fruit—Lyman Miller, A. Loveland, H. Bowlus, William King, Mrs. L. B. Otis, Mrs. Russell Mrs. S. Treat, Mrs. R. P. Buckland.

Class H.—H. Haff, best acre of corn ; William Hyatt, second-best acre of corn ; Mrs. Dickinson, best variety garden corn; George Brim, best potatoes; George Hyatt, best turnips ; Miles W. Plain, best squashes; Mrs. Vallette, best beets; Mrs. S. A. Loveland, best honey.

Class I.—J. C. Wales, best farm wagon, M. Holderman, second best ; William Orr. best straw cutter ; Dickinson & Co., best dressed calf skin ; M. justice, best and second best side harness leather ; William Raymond, best buggy ; James Moore, best barrel flour ; M. W. Plain, best bacon ; James Kridler, best two-horse buggy harness ; J. A. Watrous, best lot fruit. trees ; Canfield & Co., best tin roof ; J. W. Stevenson, best and second best card table; F. Luke, best panel door ; M. W. Plains, best domestic carpet ; S. E. Edgarton, second best.

Class K., Embroidery and Needle Work—Mrs. Tew, Mr. Tyler, Mrs. Norton, Mrs. Hyatt„ Mrs. Zimmerman, Miss E. Knapp, Miss A. Kepler, Mrs. Thorndike, Miss E. Ball, Mrs. Parker, Mrs. Boren, Mrs. J. Nyce, Miss Taylor, Mrs. Momeny, Mrs. Younkman, Miss Justice, Miss S. E. Ball, Mrs. Treat, Miss A. Norton, Miss 0. Dickinson, Miss S. Dickinson, Mrs. J. W. Wilson, Miss Olmsted, Mrs. Orton, Mrs. C. King, Mrs. Wells, Miss Montgomery and Miss Raymond.

The first two annual fairs were held on the east side of the river where the Clauss and Her-brand factories are now located. In 1854 it was decided to hold the fair in the village or township offering the best inducement to secure it. Clyde made the best offer and it was held there that year.

In 1855 the association purchased the land between the old mill race and the west bank of the river and fitted it up for a fair ground where, for about ten years, the fair was held. Much trouble was encountered on account of floods. The last fair held there was in 1865.

The names of the committee for fitting up floral hall for the annual fair of 1861 are as follows: Messrs., J. W. Failing, O. W. Vallette, Henry Buckland, Williard Norton, L. Moorehouse and E. Simpkins ; Mesdames L. Q. Rawson, George Grant, G. Canfield, Nat Haynes and John Magee; Misses Eliza Simpkins, Becky Simpkins, Isabelle Nyce, M. Justice, Martha Raymond, Ellen Hafford, Jennie W. McLellan, S. Botefur, E. A. Morehouse, Mary Canfield, Amelia Norton, Sarah Jane Grant, H. Thompson, Myra Kesler, Emma Downs, A. Sharp, Sarah Wilson, Mary Durand, Eva Bartlett and Belle Maxwell.

"Owing to the unsettled state of the country on account of the Civil War and the fact that the draft in our county comes on the days appointed for our fair, it was decided by the officers of the society to postpone the fair for this year.

In 1866 there was no fair held on account of damage done to the grounds by floods.

Fairs were held at the driving park east of the river in 1867-68-69-7o. Some of the buildings were moved from the association grounds

to the driving park and the old grounds at the mill race were sold Janury 29, 1869, to Canfield & Co. for $1,605.

The oldest part of the present grounds was bought of L. Q. Rawson, twenty acres at $250 per acre. B. Amsdam made the plat and survey of the grounds and J. C. Johnson made the plans for buildings and plat for their location. The first fair held there was in 1871.

The addition on the west side of the original ground was purchased in 1885. It contained about seven and one-half acres and a dwelling-house, and cost the association $5,000. The dwelling was moved to its present location and has since served as a residence for the superintendent of grounds.

In 1905 the grounds were still further enlarged by the purchase of eleven acres of land from Mrs. Ball immediately north of the original ground and across North Street. The cost of this addition was $1,925. The society also purchased in the same year, from J. J. Lutz, two lots at the corner of Rawson Avenue and Haynes Street, across from the main entrance. These lots are used as a location for the ticket office and to place automobiles during the fair. They cost the society $750.00.

The Floral Hall was totally destroyed by fire on November 2, 1876. On October 2, 1877, the first clay of the fair, fire broke out in the race-horse barn, in the northeast corner of the ground and the barn was totally destroyed, and one horse and other contents burned.

Receipts:

Voluntary donations

Appropriation by County

Lumber sold after fair

Total

Disbursements:

Paid for lumber

Paid for labor

Paid for printing

Paid for brass band

Premiums awarded

Bal. in treasury

Total

$236.54 200.00 58.88

$495.42

$105.00 88.00

20.00

15.00

205.00

62.42

$495.42

THE LAST FAIR (1909)

Receipts:

Bal. on hand Jan. 24, 1908

Membership tickets sold

Single tickets sold

Child's tickets sold

Grand stand tickets sold

Privileges sold

Entry fees classes

Entry fees races

Subscription to purse

Pasture rent

Check room

Temporary loan

$ 1,105.80 1,881.00 3,674.25 44.50 705.50 820.00 228.65 783.50 466.00 97.65

4.75

1,000.00 700.00 500.00

216 - HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY

County allowance

Stall

Total

Disbursements:

Premiums—classes

Premiums—speed

Expert judges

Officers and Assts,' salaries

Police, gatemen and ticket sellers

Sundries, bands, special attractions, hay and straw, supplies, labor and expense accounts

Printing and advertising

Supt. labor acct

Permanent improvement

Loan paid

Int. on temporary and permanent loans

Bal. on hand Jan. 30, 1909

Total

1,000.00

686.22

$13,697.82

$ 3,170.29 2,362.50 203.15 486.50 308.80

1,473.10

617.17 285.75 860.17 400.00 1,000.00 500.00 1,200.00

457.66

372.73

$13,697.82

PRESENT OFFICERS AND BOARD OF DIRE

(1909.)

S. J. Hirt, president.

O. L. Smith, vice president.

T. A. Lang, treasurer.

A. W. Overmyer, secretary.

Ballville—S. J. Hirt.

Fremont—O. H. Thomas.

Rice—Jacob Darr.

Riley—Theo. Karbler.

Sandusky—Geo. H. Waggoner.

Washington—H. A. Bolen

York—Isaac M. Parker.

Green Creek—W. C. Gray.

Townsend—William Karbler.

Jackson—Louis Gabel.

Scott- O. L. Smith.

Madison—vacancy.

Woodville—J. J. Brim.

At large—M. W. Hunt, John Wolf.

VALUE OF PROPERTY NOW OWNED

Land, 46 acres

Buildings, improvements, etc.

Total

$13,800.00

10,000.00

$23,800.00

Pursuant to notices in the newspapers of Fremont there was held at Birchard Hall June 6, 1874, a meeting composed of the following persons : George Bixler, Henry Bowlus, Platt Brush, Ralph P. Buckland, Homer Everett, John L. Greene, Sr., Rutherford B. Hayes, Thomas Holcomb, Henry Lang, Isaac M. Keeler, C. R. McCulloch, La Q. Rawson, John B. Rice, Robert S. Rice, Orrin A. Roberts, Samuel Skinner, Edward Tindall and James W. Wilson, to consider the matter of the organization of a County Pioneer and Historical Society.

On motion of General Buckland, Homer Everett was appointed chairman and R. B. Hayes secretary of the meeting.

The meeting then proceeded to form a constitution and after consideration the following was adopted

ARTICLE I. This association shall be called the Sandusky County Pioneer 'and Historical Society, (afterwards Association).

ARTICLE 2. The objects of this society shall be to bring together at stated meetings the pioneer settlers of Sandusky County who still survive, to renew the friendship of the past, to perpetuate and cherish a remembrance of the persons and scenes connected with the first settlement of the country, and to collect and preserve interesting facts, traditions, anecdotes, printed and manuscript matter, relics, curiosities and in short whatever may tend to illustrate the history and condition of the Sandusky Valley before and since its settlement by the whites.

ARTICLE 3. Any resident of Sandusky County may become a member of this society by sign- ing the constitution and paying in to the treasury the sum of $1.00 provided that any per- son who resided in Sandusky County on or before the first of January, 1830, will be exempt from the payment of any membership, fees or dues.

ARTICLE 4. The officers of the society shall be a President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer and an executive committee consisting of the President, Secretary and five other members, who shall be elected annually, and who shall be elected by ballot, and continue in office until their successors are elected.

ARTICLE 5. The annual meeting of the society at which the election of officers shall take place, shall be held on the 2nd of August, at 2 p. m., in Fremont, except when the second falls on Sunday, in which case the annual meeting shall be held on the following Monday. The other stated meetings will be held on the first Tuesday of February and May. Other meetings may be called by the Executive Committee to be held at the time and place specified in the call.

ARTICLE 6. All moneys of the society shall be paid to the Secretary who shall keep a record thereof, and pay the same to the Treasurer taking his receipt therefor.

ARTICLE 7. Alterations or amendments of this constitution can be made only at regular meetings and with the consent of at least two-thirds of the members present.

Thereupon the following persons having complied with the constitution, became members of the society—H. Everett, T. Holcomb, G. Bixler, E. Tindall, R. S. Rice, L. Q. Rawson, Platt Brush, O. A. Roberts, H. Bowlus, S. Skinner, John B. Rice, J. L. Greene, R. P. Buckland, J. \V. "Wilson, C. R. McCulloch, H. Lang, F. S. White and R. B. Hayes.

The following officers were chosen to serve until the regular annual election at the meeting to be held in August 1874, viz :—Homer Everett, president ; L. O. Rawson, vice-president; R. B. Hayes, Secretary ; J. W. Wilson, treasurer. Executive committee :—H. Everett, R. B. Hayes, H. Lang, Platt Brush, R. P. Buckland, J. L. Greene, Sr., and Edward Tindall.

R. B. Hayes presented to the society the following :—An engraved portrait framed, of S. Birchard. A letter from Postmaster General R. J. Meigs, appointing Morris A. Newman the first postmaster of Lower Sandusky, dated the 2d July, 1814. This letter was presented by Mrs. Julia Myers, daughter of Judge Newman. A copy of the petition to the Government of Ohio signed by the inhabitants of Lower Sandusky, sixteen in number, dated 21st Dec., 1813. A letter from Heman B. Ely to S. Birchard, on the building of the, first telegraph line through Lower Sandusky, dated 23d March, 1847. A report of James Justice, president, and L. O. Rawson, secretary, of the Fremont Plank Road Company. H. S. Knapp, History of the Maumee Valley. The Western Annals, by Jas. R. Albach. Two volumes of the Documentary History of New York.

The executive committe was instructed to endeavor to obtain a complete list of all the pioneer settlers of Sandusky County who survive, together with their residence, date of settlement, place and date of birth, and occupation, and to report the same to the regular meeting, August 2d.

The president and secretary were directed to furnish the proceedings of the meetings to the newspapers of Fremont.

The members of the Sandusky County Pioneer and Historical Society assembled in pursuance of the Constitution, the president, Homer Everett, in the chair The roll of the pioneers residing in the several townships of the county was read and additional names added to the list. The number of members belonging to the society at the close of the meeting was 203, of whom 180 settled in the county before 1830, and are classed as Pioneers."

After calling the roll, the society proceeded to the election of officers with the following result, viz :—President, Homer Everett ; vice-president, L. Q. Rawson ; secretary, Rutherford B. Hayes ; treasurer, James W. Wilson.

The constitution of the society was so amended that the executive committee of the society shall consist of the officers of the society and one member from each of the townships of the county. The following members were elected on the executive committee, viz :— Ballville, Edward Tindall ; Green Creek, Wm. E. Lay ; Jackson, David Overmire; Madison, Martin Klutz ; Rice, Grant Ferguson ; Riley, Thomas Holcomb ; Sandusky, Charles H. Bell ; Scott, Benjamin Inman ; Townsend, David Fuller ; Washington, John F. Bowman ; Woodville, Rev. C. Krowenwelt ; York, J. B. Mugg.

The Sandusky County Pioneer and Historical Society held a basket picnic Thursday, Sept. 3, 1874, of which the following account was published in the Journal :

"Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio, Friday, September 11, 1874—Sandusky County Pioneer and Historical Society Basket Picnic and Reunion.—"The establishment of pioneer and historical societies having become general throughout Ohio, and our own county affording a wide and inviting field for the antiquarian. geologist and historian to alike indulge their researches, it was recently agreed to form the present society. The idea first taking form

at the inauguration of the Birchard Library, when the right class of intelligent and influential gentlemen were assembled and ripe to entertain the subject; as a matter of course the undertaking quickly became a great success. The society formed, and "good men and true" elected to fill the offices in its management, the next idea was to inaugurate its formation by the gathering 'to which we are about to refer.

"The committe or directors of our county agricultural society generously placed the fair grounds at the disposal of the friends, and invitations were unsparingly extended, which, irrespective of the weather, were freely accepted. The day fixed for the gathering was Thursday of last week, and a more gratifying assembly of "ye old sort" we never remember witnessing. The care-worn countenances, silver locks, and in many cases tottering steps of the venerable participants in the re-union, afforded unmistakable evidence as 'to whom we are, in this day, so largely indebted for, our fields of waving, golden grain; each flowery mead and verdant plain, endeared to those who toil.

"After assembling in Floral Hall, where an organ had provided, ably presided over by Mr. Fred. Dorr, prayer was offered followed by some excellent singing from a competent choir under the efficient conduct of C. R. McCulloch and consisting of Mrs. J. P. Elderkin, Miss M. Brush, Miss J. McCulloch, Miss Colwell, Miss E. Bowman, Mrs. J. W. Fitch and Mr. M. W. Seibert.

"The song of the day, "Sixty Years Ago," by W. D. Gallagher, being so appropriate in its sentiment of that occasion, and so truly interesting, we reprint it :

"Governor Hayes, the secretary, next read 'the names of the members of the society, with their age and date of settlement in the county, at the conclusion of which there were quite a number fo fresh names added, and several letters read from prominent gentlemen invited, who were not present. The president, H. Everett, then congratulated the meeting on the large number present.

"Among those who spoke were Messrs. J. Bowlus, J. MMillious, Kimble, Judge Holilngshead, Mr. Amsden, Mr. Adams, General Buckland and Governor Hayes.

"It was resolved unanimously during the proceedings, that not only present residents in Sandusky County prior to 1830, should be honorary members, but also those who settled within the old county boundary prior to 1830."

Homer Everett

George Bixler

Edward Tindall

L. Q. Rawson.

Platt Brush

Henry Bowlus

Robert S. Rice

Thomas Holcomb

O. A. Roberts

John Shannon

Jacob Millious

Mrs. Samuel Thompson

Peter Burgoon

George Reed

John Moore

John G. Rhidout

William Rhidout

Mrs. D. C. Sherrard

Jacob Bruner

Daniel Dollison

Mrs. Harriet Moore

Mrs. Harriet Seager

Mrs. Elizabeth Smith

Mrs. Maria Reynolds

Mrs. Elizabeth Tindall

Isaac Tyler

Mrs. Lucinda Filson

Morton Russell

Sybil Russell

Mrs. Sophia Rawson

Julius Patterson

Jane McCormick Joseph

Jacob Bowlus

Amos Fenn

Hiram Hurd

Samuel Baker

James Cleveland

Mrs. Jenette Cleveland

Joseph Hawk

W. B. Lemon

James Lemmon

Joseph George

1815

1822

1827

1829

1828

1827

1820

1829

1818

1821

1826

1829

1826

1825 1825 1828 1824 1825 1818 1819 1827 1822 1829 1815 1826 1820 1820 1823

1818

1829

1822 1822 1824 1824 1818 1824 1823

1827

1823

Mrs. Salley George

J. G. Holbrook

S. A. Holbrook

John Lay

Mrs. C. Guninall

Poly Tuttle

Henry Shoup

S. S. Rathbun

Mrs. Barbara Rathbun

Mrs. Catherine Huss

1823

1824

1825

1824

182-

1829

1824

1825

Cynthia McPherson

Lyman Miller

Truman Grover.

Isaac Trask

Ellen Hawk

David Ramsey

Seba Wickwire

Mrs. Eliza Tuttle

William E. Lay

Harley Palmer

William Puller

Margaret Lay

William Tew

Mary Stebbins Comstock

David Fuller

Isaac May

Paul Tew

Mrs. Nancy May

Mrs. Emily M. Tew

Dan'l Overmyer

Grant Ferguson

Nancy Justice Wilson

Mathias Smith

Benj. Kimball

Samuel Hollingshead

Mary M. Herbster

Lamon G. Harkness

D. M. Harkness

Reuben Rice

Margaret McIntyre

Anna Rice

Charles Brush

Jemima Emerson

William Caldwell

Mrs. Lucinda Lockwood

Thomas McCune

Silas Frees

Mary Smith

Georg McGormly

Jonathan Harpster

Noah Young

Geo. B. Overmyer

1826 1819 1826

1824

1827

1826

1829

1828

1825

1820

1825

1820

1822

1824

1818

1821

1824

1829

1822

1828

1827

1820

1828

1824

1829

1823

1828

1817

1816 1822 1828 1823 1829

1821

1826

1829

1824

1825 1827

Mrs. Susan Mills

Elisha Moore

Nelson R. Tucker

Mrs. J. B. Stahl

William H. Tyler

Mrs. Henry Fry

Wesley Colby

Mrs. Jesse Eeager

Joel S. A. Gavitt

Edward F. Dickinson

Jeremiah Smith

Mrs. Frederick A. Chapman Mrs. J. W. Goodson

J. B. Mugg

Mrs. Susan Mugg

Hannah Walters

Mrs. Elizabeth Kinney

Mrs. J. S. Gardner

Mrs. Lydia Pitcher

George H. Stewart

James Chapman

Isaac Elihu Amsden

Margaret Graham Nyce

Nancy Cochran Frary

Julia Newman Myers

1828 1809 1823 1822 1826 1825 1823 1822

1826 1829 1822

1824 1821 1823 1823 1829 1829 1827 1828 1828 1824 1828 1816

1817

1814

222 - HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY

Elsie Newman Knapp

Margaret Strohl Schell

Sarah Bell Smith

Charles Henry Bell

Annie Williams

Nathan Phelps Birdseye

Mrs. Christy Birdseye

1814 1829 1826 1827 1822 1824 1817

At the annual meeting in 1874, it was resolved to admit to membership any who lived within the original boundary of the county prior to 1830.

Samuel Hollingshead, Augustus W. Luckey and Reuben Rice were thereupon enrolled.

At the annual meeting held August 3d, 1908, articles of incorporation were signed by Isa- dore H. Burgoon, Basil Meek, Jacob Burgner, James D. Hensel, N. R. Tucker, J. L. Parks, Joseph Waggoner, B. B. Overmyer, J. W. Short and W. A. Bowman, dated August 3, 1908, and filed in the office of the Secretary of State, August 5, 1908. The name adopted is The Sandusky Comity Pioneer and Historical Association. The Directors are as follows : I. H. Burgoon, Joseph Waggoner, Basil Meek and J. D. Hensel, three years ; N. R. Tucker, B. B. Overmyer, Jacob Burgner, Rev. W. A. Bowman, two years ; Jacob Rimelspach, J. L. Parks, J. W. Short and G. F. Aldrich, one year. The officers are : Isadore H. Burgoon, president ; J. L. Parks, vice-president ; Basil Meek, secretary ; J. D. Hensel, treasurer ; Jacob Burgner, stenographer ; Rev. W. A. Bowman, chaplain and M. T. Shackelford, Chorister.

The incorporation insures permanency to the Association, as originally organized, and takes over into it, the membership with all rights and privileges enjoyed in the original association, without additional fee. Any person young or old may become a member by the payment of a fee of $1.00. Annual dues of 25 cents are required of all members except "pioneers" (i. e.). settlers in the county prior to 1845, and such pioneers are not required to pay any membership fee or dues.

On the evening of July 4, 1873, a number of gentlemen, upon the invitation of Ex-Governor Rutherford B. Hayes, met at the office of the mayor of the city of Fremont, to take into consideration preliminary measures for the establishment of a free library in the city of Fremont.

Governor Hayes stated that Sardis Birchard contemplated setting aside a sum amounting to about fifty thousand dollars in real estate and cash, the proceeds of which were to be used for the establishment and support of a free library for the benefit of Fremont and Sandusky County, and that in furtherance of these

ends he had selected the following gentlemen to act as a board of trustees : R. B. Hayes, R. R Buckland, L. Q. Rawson, E. Bushnell, J. W. Wilson, William E. Haynes, Thomas Stilwell, the mayor of the city and the superintendent of the public schools. Governor Hayes was chosen chairman, and W. W. Ross, superintendent of public schools, secretary.

These trustees, at a meeting of the city council held Monday evening, July 7, 1873, presented the following memorial :

The undersigned respectfully represent that Sardis Birchard of said city has conveyed real estate and other property of the value of $50,000, in trust to establish in Fremont a library and a gallery for paintings, pioneer, Indian and war relics, and other objects of interest for the free use of the people of Sandusky County, and that your memorialists have been appointed and have accepted the appointment to carry out this trust.

"We also represent that in our judgment the Northwestern part of the site of Fort Stephenson, now owned by Lewis Lepplemann, is a fit and appropriate place to erect the Birchard Library Building, and that the remainder of the ground formerly occupied by Fort Stephenson ought also to he owned by the city of Fremont for a park or for other public use. Your memorialists therefore propose that if the city of Fremont purchase the site of Fort Stephenson for a park or other public purposes, the undersigned trustees of the Birchard Library will pay $5000 of the purchase money in consideration of the right to occupy the northwestern part of said ground with said library, and thus the whole of the site of the old fort made famous by the heroism of Colonel Croghan and his gallant comrades will he forever preserved as public property for the general benefit of the people of Fremont."

At a meeting of the trustees of Birchard Library, all being present, held at the residence of Governor Hayes in Speigel Grove, February 13, 1874, the organization of Birchard Library was perfected so as to make the same an incorporate institution by the adoption of articles of association signed by them all, the preamble of which only is here given and is as follows :

"Sardis Birchard, late of the city of Fremont, Ohio, having made in his lifetime gifts of property and money to constitute a fund for the establishment and maintenance of a free library in said city for the benefit of the people of said city and vicinity, and designated Ralph P. Buckland, Ebenezer Bushnell, L. Q. Rawson, James W. Wilson, Wm. E. Haynes, Thomas Stilwell, Rutherford B. Hayes, the Mayor of the City of Fremont, and the Superintendent of the Public Schools of said city of Fremont, to have control of sail fund and said library, the persons above named as trustee:, have formed themselves into a Library Benevolent Association under the name and style of The Birchard Library and adopted the following as permanent Articles and Conditions of their association."

On the evening of June 22, 1874, Birchard Library was ready for use in its temporary quarters, the old Birchard Hall, corner of State and Front Streets, and was then formally opened to the public.

The city council having acquired the title to the whole of the site of Fort Stephenson, accepted the offer of the library trustees, with reference to a site for the proposed library building. The library association having contributed, instead of $5,000, as first proposed, the sum of $9,000, toward the purchase price of the Fort Stephenson grounds consisting of about two acres, the Council of the City of Fremont on March 29, 1878, pursuant to an ordinance duly passed February 18,1879, conveyed by deed to Birchard Library Association the undivided one-third part and interest in and to said grounds. The deed contained the conditions prescribed in the ordinance which are as follows :

"That said Birchard Library Association are to have the right to have the right to erect, maintain and occupy a building for the Birchard Library on Lots Nos. 221 and 240, and that said city have the right to erect, maintain and occupy a building on said premises for a City Hall, where the same is now being erected on the corner of Croghan and Arch Streets, and that no other building, fence or structure of any kind shall hereafter be erected or put upon any part of said lots, nor shall the same ever be used for any purpose other than as a public park or any part thereof sold or conveyed without the consent of both the said City Council and the Birchard Library Association. The control and supervision of said Park shall be vested in the City Council and said Birchard Library Association jointly, but said City Council shall have the exclusive use and control of the building now on said Lots."

The library building was completed in 1879, the corner stone of which was laid July 18,

"I wish personally to take this occasion to say, that the bequests for this library were born in Mr. Birchard's heart, of the most kindly consideration for the people of Fremont and of Sandusky County. I know whereof I speak for this is not a mere inference. He first determined to devote a liberal sum of money to some public benefit which all might have opportunity to enjoy."

At the dedication of the City Hall in 1877, Prof. W. W. Ross, a library trustee, in an address on that occasion says :

"The erection of this building and that of Birchard Library forever secures the site of Fort Stephenson to public uses. It should not be forgotten in this connection that it is chiefly through the instrumentality and liberal benefactions of Sardis Birchard, that this desirable consummation was rendered possible. It was part of Mr. Birchard's plan in endowing a public library to secure the site of Fort Stephenson for the erection thereon of a library building for a park and for other public purposes. Our gratitude is also due to President Hayes for the untiring interest he has manifested in consummating Mr. Birchard's wishes."

In 1879 the library was transferred from Birchard Hall to the new library building. Mrs. Jessie E. McCulloch was the first librarian, serving from June I, 1874, to June I, 1876. Her sister, Miss Fanny G. McCulloch, succeeded her and served to June 1, 1879, when Mrs. Harriet A. Gast became librarian and has continuously held the position until the present, ( July, 1909) a period of thirty years, to the entire satisfaction of the library trustees and to the reading public.

In 1906 by the bounty of Elizabeth Green Kelly, of Chicago, an additional reading-room 17x32 feet, with ceiling twenty feet from the floor, was added to the main. building on the south at a cost of $2,000. This addition is of the same architectural style, and in harmony, with the original building.

There are about 16,000 volumes in the library, besides magazines, pamphlets, newspapers and other unbound matter in great quantities of rare value. The books have been well chosen,' comprising as they do science, history, biography, fiction, literature, religion, philosophy, useful arts, fine arts, books of reference, dictionaries, encyclopedias and general works. The second story is devoted to use as a Museum, and contains relics of the war of the Revolution, War of 1812, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish American War, Philipino Insurrection and China Relief Expeditions, besides many rare and valuable curiosities ; Indian curios, autograph letters of Lincoln, Croghan, and others; historic medals, portraits, etc., etc. Present trustees—Win. E. Haynes, president; M. Stamm, vice president ; Chas. Thompson, Webb C. Hayes, R. P. Hayes, H. S. Dorr, H. S. Buckland, Mayor of Fremont, Superintendent of Public Schools .

This library originated with the Clyde Board of Education and is under its control. December I, 1903, the school library, then containing about 1,60o volumes was, by a resolution of the Board of Education, unanimously passed constituted a public library free to all the inhabitants of the district, on and after January I, 1904, under such reasonable regulations as the board should provide. After the purchase of books for 1904, it was found that the quarters then occupied were too small for library purposes, and that more space was required to make the project of a public library successful. The Board decided to make an effort to provide a larger and permanent home for the library. Mr. S. S. Richards of the Board suggested that the matter be presented to Mr. Carnegie. The suggestion was adopted by the Board. Accordingly a letter to Mr. Carnegie giving a description of the Clyde school district and surrounding country, naming the yarious resources and historical and patriotic features, of which the people are so justly proud. was delivered to him in person by Mr. Richards. Mr. Carnegie responded by offering to give $io,000 under the conditions that the people of Clyde furnish a site for the library building and equip the same ; that the Village Council and the Board of Education jointly agree to accept the gift, and that a sum equal to ten per cent of the amount of the gift be raised and

These conditions were accepted and the sum of $10,000 was accordingly placed by Mr. Carnegie to the credit of the Board of Education. The construction of the building was begun in May, 1905, and in due time finished, the completion of which gives to the people of Clyde a most beautiful structure. The walls are made of granite boulders, found near at hand, where they were deposited during the period known by geologists as the glacial or ice period. This unique building is therefore a monument, not only to the projectors for their enterprise and interest in. the uplift of their fellow people, but also to the fact of the great phenomenon dur1909,which these boulders were transported thither.

Total number of books in the library July, 1909, 4,525. The value of site, building and

Adults

Juveniles

Reference

General Works

Philosophy

Religion

Sociology

Language

Science

Useful arts

Fine arts

Literature

History

Travel

Biography

Fiction

Total

142

378

314

235

372

879

2651

124

121

137

103

707

1406

468

Grand total

Average daily circulation

Percentage of children's books circulated

Percentage of adult books circulated

Percentage of fiction circulated

Percentage of classed books :30culated

Number of registered borrowers

4525

1600

The library is open continuously froRichards.to 8 :3o p. m. Officers—F. M. Ginn, president ; W. G. Estill, secretary ; Miss Rena Richards. librarian.

The latter part of the year 1902 Mr. Andrew Carnegie. through Superintendent of Schools E. F. Warner, offered to furnish to the Bellevue Library Association the sum of $10,000 toward building a public library upon the conditions that the people of Bellevue would furnish the site. Mr. H. C. Stahl of Bellevue on May 2, 1903, offered to give to the association $5,000 to be used in purchasing books upon the condition that the association would accept Mr. Carnegie's offer and raise the necessary money to pay for the site. This offer was accepted. The t0llevue Board of Education pledged the sum of $1,000 each year for the support of the library to be raised by taxation as provided by law. The Village Council endorsed the action of 'the Board of Education. Mr. Carnegie subsequently added to his gift $3,000, making his total donation $13,000.

August 1, 1903, the association contracted with H. Kimmel & Son for the erection of the building at a cost of $10,368, the building to be of gray Norman pressed brick and cut stone. The building having been completed according to contract was on August 19, 1904, opened to the public with appropriate exercises.

The money donated by Mr. Stahl for the purchase of books was appropriated as follows : $50o for juvenile books, $2,500 for works of fiction, and6,800balance for historical works. works of reference and miscellaneous books. There are about 6,80o well selected volumes in the library, besides pamphlets, magazines and unbound matter. The total number of books circulated last year was 31,985.

The annual income of the association is $1,36o, and the value of the grounds and building is $20,000.

The library is under the control of the City Board of Education and is free to the public under the reasonable rules prescribed. The Library Board is appointed by the City Board of Education and is now composed of H. C. Stahl, president ; Hayes Wolf, secretary ; Dr. Irvin I. Good, Dr. H. R. Dewey, Jesse Vickery, F. A. Knapp, H. C. Bates an J. D. Cook. Librrian, Emma Suttor; assistant librarian, Hulda Bergman.

Eighty years ago the first printing press was brought to Lower Sandusky. It was a small hand-press introduced by David Smith; and the first paper printed on it was called the Lower Sandusky Gazette, edited, printed and published by himself alone. The first issue was in July, 1829. The exact size of the sheet was seventeen by twenty-one inches. The life of the paper was brief ; the enterprise did not pay, and after about eighteen months struggle for success its publication ceased. The late Reuben Rice of Ottawa County worked for Mr. Smith on the paper for a short time, while Smith was suffering from the ague, then prevalent as the common malady.

The Lower Sandusky Times was the next venture in the newspaper publication. The press for it was brought to Lower Sandusky by Alvin G. White in 1837, and the first number was issued early in July of that year. No. 8, Vol. 1, dated September 9, 1837, is now before the writer of this chapter.

The Lower Sandusky Whig. In 1839 the material of the Times passed into the hands of Clark Waggoner, who changed the name of the paper to The Lower Sandusky Whig. And the Times ceased to exist. The first number of the Whig, dated May 4, 1839, is also before the writer. This issue contains a notice of the installation of Rev. Ferris Fitch as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Lower Sandusky, to occur in the Methodist Chapel May 16 at 2 p. m.

The Whig was an ardent supporter of General Harrison for the presidency in 1840. The press on which the Whig was printed was called a "Ramage" and was similar in construction to the old Ben Franklin press now so carefully preserved as a historic relic. The press is understood to have been used in printing the Albany (N. Y.) Argus, during the War of 1812. It was taken from that office by David Campbell to Courtland County in 1818, and to Sandusky City in 1822, where it was used in printing the Sandusky Clarion until 1834, and brought to Lower Sandusky in 1837.

Nearly half a century later Clark Waggoner, at a meeting of the Sandusky County Pioneer and Historical Association said :

"The condition of my old 'Ramage' was such, that before using it, I found it necessary to brace it from the floor to hold it up, and to brace it from the ceiling to hold it down. Only one page of the paper was printed at an 'impression,' and that was found to be sufficient to take the muscular resources of the average pressman, as the weekly show of blisters on my hands abundantly testified. The type and other materials of the office, were in keeping with the press. After repeated repairs the veteran finally gave out, somewhat after the manner of the 'One Horse Shay,' and in 1841 was followed by a Washington iron press, purchased of Charles Scott, then proprietor of the Ohio State Journal. I had seen no happier day than was that on which this addition was made to my office, and the old press was inconsiderately stowed away in a back yard to become fuel for the inappreciative. I remained here until September, 1843, when, yielding to the pressure of hard times, I removed my office to Milan, and started the Milan Tribune. It is a pleasure here to state that my first apprentice, Mr. Isaac M. Keeled, entering the office of the Whig September 17, 1840, obtained so strong a hold on the printing business that now he does credit to his former preceptor in the

Of the carriers of the Whig earning their 18g cents per week the names of 0. A. Roberts, E. F. Dickinson and William E. Haynes may be mentioned.

The following in the handwriting of Clark Waggoner is pasted on the margin of the first issue of the Whig :

I deem it a high privilege to be permitted to write these dates, marking as they do the passage of time since at the early age of eighteen years I issued the first number of this newspaper. This is not the occasion for a review of the long line of activities and experiences which, with me followed that advent in business life. Sufficient now to say that throughout the intervening years God's providence never failed of wisdom and goodness which it is my privilege here to recognize.

"May 4, 1899, on this 60th anniversary of the Lower Sandusky Whig it is my high privilege again to look upon its pages.

Lower Sandusky Telegraph. John Shrenk succeeded Mr. Waggoner in the publication of the paper, but changed the name to the last above, which he published until March, 1849, when 'the same was purchased by James S. Fouke, who changed the name to the

Lower Sandusky Freeman, which was edited and published by Mr. Fouke till November, 1852, when the same was sold and transferred to J. M. Main, who shortly afterward sold the office and the publication of the Freeman was discontinued.

The Fremont Journal which was to have an interesting and successful career as an able public journal, made its first appearance as the Journal on the 27th day of January, 1853. Its publication was begun by Mr. I. W. Booth and continued until December 24, 1853, when Mr. John Mastin became the owner. The Journal was really the legitimate successor of all the earlier publications in Sandusky County.

On the 26th day of May, 1854, Isaac M. Keeler became the owner of a one-half interest in the press and paper. On December, I, 1854, Mr. Keeler bought out the interest of Mr. Mastin and became sole proprietor and editor. The Journal, like Mr. Keeler, its editor, was born a Whig, and did most valient service for the Whig party and later for its successor, the Republican party. It always stood for the best interests of the city and county, on the side of morality, law, and order.

On September 15, 1865, Mr. Keeler sold the establishment to Redway Bros., who on October 5, 1866, sold out to Wilson & Green. Mr. Wilson sold his interest to his partner May 22, 1868. After a few months Mr. Greene sold to A. H. Balsley who continued the publication of the Journal until November 12, 1875, when Hartford & Grove became its proprietors, and conducted the paper until December 22, 1877, when Isaac M. Keeler again became the owner of the Journal office. In 1882 he associated with him his son, Samuel P. Keeler, the firm being known as I. M. Keeler and Son. The father was editor in chief and the son associate editor. Later Miss Lucy Eliot Keeler, daughter of I. M. Keeler, became a contributor to its columns. Her interesting articles entitled "Pot-pourri" will be with pleasure recalled. In September, 1901, I. M. Keeler & Son disposed of the Journal to The Journal Publishing Co., which company after two years of its publication sold the same to the present owners and publishers, Wilson Hamilton & Thomas J. Maxwell, who under 'the firm name of Hamilton and Maxwell have continued its publication; but during the first year of their ownership, the Journal was changed to a semi-weekly newspaper, and is now being issued as such with T. J. Maxwell, editor. It is still Republican in politics and regarded as the central organ of the party.

Sandusky County Democrat. The first number of this paper was issued in the fall of 1837 by a company composed of John Bell and other prominent Democrats. In the fall of the year 1838, the owner transferred the Democrat office to Homer Everett, 'the then sheriff of the county elected on the Democrat ticket that fall, and William Davis, the printer who had been in charge for the company. Everett & Davis continued the publication of the Democrat till 1842, at which time Mr. Everett retired, having been admitted to the bar. Davis soon thereafter sold to Charles J. Orton, who afterwards sold an interest in the paper to Edward F. Dickinson. The firm of Orton & Dickinson published the paper until the establishment was

sold b3 them to John Flangher. Owing to political excitement and dissensions in the Democratic party over the Southern question, the paper lost patronage and finally in 1856 was was compelled to discontinue publication, and the press and material were sold to I. M. Keeler of the Journal.

The Democratic Messenger. This paper was started by J. D. Botefur in 1856, and has been under various ownerships continued till the present. He successfully conducted the paper for some years when it passed to the control of John B. Dickinson who after a successful management for some time sold out to John and Frank Fouke, under whose management the paper failed. The press with its materials was then transferred to Mordicai P. Bean, from whom it passed to J. S. Van Valkenburgh, who conducted it till about 1872 when the establishment was purchased by James M. Osborn, who had been associated with Van Valkenburgh in the publication of the Messenger. Osborn on January I, 1884, sold to George Kinney, L. A. Dickinson, Charles F. Pohlman, Jr., Geo. W. Lesher and A. V. Bauman, who incorporated The Messenger Printing Company. M. E. Tyler was editor and L. Q. Fletcher associate. On April 1, 1885, S. C. Lamberson & Co. purchased the Messenger office and conducted the paper for some years, and finally sold to David Fisher, and Fisher in turn sold to the present Messenger Printing Company, under whose control the paper had a varied existence, editorially, until about five years ago when T. A. Dean, the present editor, was placed in editorial control. Since then the paper has been ably managed and the circulation much increased. The Messenger since it was established has been generally accepted as the county organ of the Democratic party, but it is proper, in this reference to state, that early in the eighties there was dissatisfaction among the party leaders concerning its editorial management and in consequence The Weekly Herald was started as a more satisfactory advocate of the measures and methods of the county Democracy. The Herald was conducted with much ability by A. D. Hook and Godfrey Jaeger, and for a time with financial success, but the party differences which gave rise to the paper, disappeared and the publication of the Herald was discontinued, and the Messenger which had been published all the while, but lately, under changed management, regained its former prestige as the organ of the party in the county.

The Fremont Courier is published in the German language and was founded in 1859 by Dr. Ferdinand Wilmer and George Homan, the former the editor and the latter the printer of the paper. Homan after a year withdrew and Dr. Wilmer assumed sole control of the paper until August, 1862, when Paul Knerr took charge of the mechanical department of the office. Dr. Wilmer sold to George Homan, November 6, 1862. In July, 1863, Homan sold to Anthony Young and Paul Knerr. In 1867 Young sold his interest to Knerr. Dr. Wilmer had been all the time editor of the paper, and in 1870 became a partner with Knerr, and remained connected with the paper until his death in July, 1877. Mr. Knerr bought the interest of the estate of Dr. Wilmer and secured the services of Joseph Zimmerman as editor. In 1881 Zimmerman became the sole owner of the Courier and continued to edit and publish the same until 1897 when by reason of ill health he retired from the active management of the paper, but still retained ownership of the same until his death in 1902.

His personal representatives leased the Courrier to Welsh and Magrum, who before the expiration of their lease surrendered the same to the Zimmerman estate. The paper has since passed successively through the ownership of Worst & Walde, M. Latte, The Messenger Printing Company and finally to C. Vollmer, who is now conducting the same. The Courier is Democratic in politics.

The Fremont News. The Daily News was established by Harry E. Woods, and the first number issued May 2, 1887. About a year later a weekly edition was printed. Mr. Woods sold the News to James Taylor Petty about 189o, and the latter in time disposed of the property June 2, 1892, to Wrigley Bros. After some years the weekly edition of the News was changed to a semi-weekly. In January 1908, The Wrigley Brothers Printing Company was incorporated, which organization pur-

The Clyde Enterprise was established at Clyde, Ohio, by the late Henry F. Paden and J. C. Loveland, the first issue making its appearance on March 21, 1878. After five weeks Mr. Harkness . N. Lay purchased the interest of Mr. Loveland and the paper was run by Paden & Lay until May 1, 1880, when Mr. Paden purchased Mr. Lay's interest. At the same time A. D. Kinney purchased the Clyde Sentinel and the two papers were consolidated and run by Paden & Kinney under the. title of the Enterprise and Sentinel. Kinney sold his interest to Paden on July 1, 1881, and on September 1, 1881, Mr. Paden dropped the affix of Sentinel and the paper was continued under the name of the Enterprise, by which name it is still known. On July 1, 1884, the paper was purchased by the Jackson brothers, B. F. and Thos. E. Jackson. January 10, 1901, it was purchased by Mr. J. W. Flickinger. B. F. Jackson had purchased his brother's interest in July of 1885, and although he had several partners, some of whom were active and some of whom were silent. he controlled the policy of the paper. In September of the present year (1909) Mr. Flickinger sold the paper to B. F. Jackson. In politics the Enterprise has ever espoused the cause of the Republican party. The Enterprise has ever been regarded as an able and influential Republican organ in Sandusky County.

Besides the Sentinel consolidated with the Enterprise there were published at Clyde the Times in 1866, the News in 1868, the Independent in 1870 and the Review in 1873, all running only a brief carreer and then disappearing.

The Clyde Reporter is a weekly newspaper at Clyde, Ohio, published on Thursdays of each week by W. H. Blair, editor and proprietor. In politics the Reporter is Democratic. Though frequently requested. from its publishers, the writer has been unable to learn when or by whom this paper was founded.

The Clyde Democrat is a Democratic weekly paper published by 'the Clyde Printing Company at Clyde, Ohio. Its motto is :

"Not all of the news part Of the time, nor part of the news all of the time, but all the news, all the time, that is news that is fit to print." Clark N. Wilder is the editor. The writer has made several unsuccessful efforts for further facts as to when and by whom established.

The Bellevue Gazette being the only newspaper now published in Bellevue, a large part of which city is in Sandusky County, and having a large circulation in Sandusky County, is therefore classed with the press of this county.

C. A. Willard, a former resident of Bellevue, who conducted a dry goods store in the room F. S. Hobart & Co. occupies, but who now resides in St. Louis, Missouri, in a recent letter to A. B. Viall, has the following to say of the beginning of the paper :

"I am very much obliged for the account you sent of the Squirrel Hunters published in the Bellevue Gazette. You may not remember it, but I established the Gazette there in Bellevue, first as an advertising sheet. Then you remember that a young man came and I assisted him to buy a press and type and start up in good shape. For two years or more I assisted in editing the paper, and we made quite a paper out of it. He afterward sold out and went to Cincinnati. Yours truly,

This is the inception of the Gazette, and the young man referred to was E. P. Brown, from Oberlin. Mr. Brown later gained national fame as the publisher and editor of the Ram's Horn. But back in 1873, a small Irish lad of some 13 years of age began heaving coal, washing rollers and making himself generally useful around the shop. This was C. R. Callaghan. With a perseverance worthy a better reward he stuck to his tasks, and in those days they were many, graduated from devil to a full-fledged "jour" and in 1881 was able to buy a half interest in the business, and the firm was Stoner & Callaghan. This continued for twelve years, or until the death of Mr. Stoner. In 1899 C. R. and M. J. Callaghan formed a partnership and continued the publication of the paper until February 1, 1906, when the Gazette Publishing Company was incorporated.

Within the past few years the Gazette has absorbed two other printing plants. In 1899 Hearson Brothers began the publication of the Daily Record, which they continued for seven

months, when the paper and printing outfit was bought by C. R. & M. J. Callaghan. The name of the paper was changed to The Daily Gazette and its publication has been since continued daily, except Sunday.

On January 1, 1906, C. R. & M. J. Callaghan bought the daily and weekly Bellevue News, together with all the appurtenances and real estate and in February the combined property was taken over by the Gazette Publishing Company.

The Woodville News entered the newspaper field of Sandusky County as an independent five-column weekly, November 9, 1894, with A. C. Gorsuch as founder and publisher and his wife in charge of the editorial department. Her son W. F. Warner was in charge of the mechanical department. At the close of the first year it was made a six-column sheet and during the year 1898 it appeared as a semiweekly. In September W. F. Warner became editor and publisher with his sister Nellie and Inez as assistants. In the meantime Mr. and Mrs. Gorsuch moved to Navarre, Ohio, where they published the Navarre News and where Mr. Gorsuch died. Mrs. Gorsuch then returned to Woodville, and the Navarre plant was consolidated with the News under the firm name of Warner & Gorsuch with W. F. Warner as editor. Mr. Warner resigned September, 1903, and Mrs. Gorsuch assumed full charge of the office until January, 1904, when V. E. Cchuh became managing editor, who is still in charge.

The Gibsonburg Derrick was established at Gibsonburg April 4, 1889, by J. L. Dunderman and W. H. Oswalt who published it until 1891, when Mr. Dunderman became the sole publisher. In 1892 W. J. Aleshire purchased the plant and he as editor and Mrs. Aleshire, his wife, as his associate, conducted the paper until his death in August, 1905, after which time Mrs. Aleshire alone continued its publication until October 1, 1908, when she disposed of 'the same to the present owners, Triffit & Triffit, who are still publishing the paper which is issued weekly and is Democratic in politics.

The Greenspring Echo is a sprightly weekly newspaper edited and published at Green-spring, Ohio, by J. W. Hahn. While the office is located on the Seneca County side of 'the county line between that county and Sandusky, dividing the village, yet the circulation of 'the Echo being about equal in both counties, it is here mentioned with the press of Sandusky County.

River Navigation—Early Roads Along IndianTrails—Harrison Trail—Colonel Rife's Road From the Portage to Lower Sandusky—Maumee and Western Reserve Road and Its Improvement—Bridges Over the Sandusky River—Other Improved Roads—Number of Miles of State and County Roads—Plank Roads of the Past.

The Sandusky River is the middle one of three large streams which flow into Lake Erie, the Maumee and the Cuyahoga being the others. Fremont is at the head of navigation and in the earlier days, after white settlers came and before the advent of railways, regular lines of boats went up and down bringing manufactures and carrying hence agricultural and other products.

As there were no sufficient roads in the earlier days of Lower Sandusky practically all shipments of merchandise and supplies were made by boat.

Along the banks of the river were fine oak forests and at Lower Sandusky as early as 1816 a vessel, the sloop Nautilus, was built, The newspaper, The Clarion, published at Sandusky City, of the date of June 5, 1830, says:

"The new steamboat, Ohio, intended for the river and lake trade was launched at Lower Sandusky on the 29th of May."

This industry grew so rapidly that ship building may be said to have been one of the earlier and thriving industries of Lower Sandusky.

Among the more important vessels built here were the schooners, Home, Cincinnati, Wyandot, Almina Meeker. Ben. Flint, Dan. Tindall, Cornelia Amsden and steamer Fremont: the last sailing vessel built in Fremont was the schooner N. C. West in 1867. The Flint and several others were built near the site of the L. E. W. Railroad Bridge. The Tindall was built at the mouth of Muscallonge Creek.

The principal exports in those early days were wheat, corn, oats, staves, ashes, lard, bacon, butter, walnut timber and leather, and the principal imports were salt, groceries and merchandise generally.

The first pork sent from this place east was by J. S. & G. G. Olmsted, about the year 1820, and was marketed at Montreal ; it consisted of 15o barrels. The cost here was $2,000, for the lot, and it was sold at considerable less.

The first wheat shipped east from Lower Sandusky was a lot of 600 bushels, sent forward by J. S. Olmsted in the year 183o. It cost 4o cents per bushel here, and was sold at Buffalo for 6o cents per bushel. Transportation was then so high that this difference of 20 cents per bushel was consumed in expenses, and the lot produced no profits worthy of attention.

The "Lower Sandusky Whig" of April 20, 1841, under the head of "Our Town" says :

"Its means of communication with Buffalo and other points on the lakes will be apparent, when we mention the facts that four schooners are now being laden with grain at our wharves."

As many as fourteen lake vessels have been in port here at one time loading and discharging freight. Some idea of the shipping on Sandusky River in early days may be had by the following clipping from the Fremont Journal of August 27, 1869, showing the marine news for that week :

"Marine News. Schooner H. D. Root, Captain Tyler, from Buffalo, arrived, 16th with merchandise, cleared 18th, for Buffalo, with lumber.

"Scow Vampyre, Captain Large, from Saginaw, arrived 18th, with pine lumber. Cleared for Buffalo, 21st, with 8,500 bushels wheat.

"Steamer Oliver H. Perry from Sandusky, arrived 22d, with excursionists, cleared same day.

"Schooner N. C. West, Captain Skinner, from Buffalo, 23d, cleared 24th, with 9,000 bushels wheat for Buffalo.

"Steamer Reindeer, Captain Orr, from Sandusky, arrived 24th, light, cleared, with excursionists for Put-in-Bay, 25th inst."

For many years the schooners H. D. Root and N. C. West with the barge Fostoria and others, traded between Fremont and Lake Erie ports, being towed up and down the river from 1866 to 1879 by the tug L. Q. Rawson.

Gradually the marine shipping grew less as the railroads were extended and the last of our river fleet, the schooners West and Root, were disposed of and Fremont ceased to be a regular port of entry except for an occasional cargo of lumber.

Among the first passenger and freight steamers trading at Lower Sandusky were the steamers Commerce and Jack Downing. The Commerce was running between Lower Sandusky and Venice in 1840.

In 1851 the steamer Islander began making regular trips between Fremont and Sandusky, stopping at local docks for passengers and freight. The Islander was succeeded on this route in 1855 by the new steamer Island Queen, Captain Orr, master. Later the steamers Bonnie Boat, General Grant, Evening Star, and Reindeer plied the river route and the steamer Young Reindeer in 1877 was the last passenger steamer to make weekly trips to Sandusky.

In 1866 the propeller City of Fremont was built by The Fremont Transportation Company and ran on the route from Fremont to Buffalo for two seasons.

Many excursions to Sandusky and the Islands were taken on 'the steamers Island Queen, Bonnie Boat, General Grant, Reindeer, Oliver H. Perry, Islander, and in later years on 'the steamers B. F. Ferris and R. B. Hayes.

Before the advent of the gasoline launch there were a number of small steamers on the river owned by Fremont parties.

In 1867, the Mary Sutor was running on the river and later the Young Reindeer, Fred, Gem, and several small steam launches formed the pleasure fleet. In 1886 John Smith built the steamer Colonel Bartlet on the east bank of the river and for the next nine years it was used in picnic excursions and fishing trips to the bay.

On the banks of the river and on Pickerel, Raccoon, South and Mud Creeks, many thousand cords of wood, hickory butts, stave bolts, piles and saw-logs were piled during the winter months to be freighted to Sandusky or lake ports at the opening of navigation. Gradually the streams began to fill up as the country began to be drained, so that at present none of these streams are navigable for commercial purposes.

The once thought-to-be-endless, but now fast failing supply of timber for shipping purposes gave out about 1890; and save an occasional cargo of lumber from some Michigan port for our local lumber yards in Fremont, there has been little or no freight traffic on 'the Sandusky River for the past twenty years.

From Fremont to the bay is a distance of 17 1/2 miles and about 19 miles from there to Sandusky City. The beauties of Sandusky River are of late beginning to be appreciated by the people along its course. Motor boats and launches, of which Fremont boasts of about one hundred and twenty, varying in length from 18 to 42 feet with power capable of speed from 8 to 12 miles an hour carry parties down the river to some of the beautiful spots along its course, which of late years have attracted a large number of persons, many of whom have built cottages or formed clubs at different points.

At one of the meetings of The Sandusky County Pioneer and Historic Association Gen. R. B. Hayes, in exhibiting a picture of the first steamer that came to Lower Sandusky, known as Walk-in-the-Water, read the following thrilling narrative :

"In 1818 George Anderson, M. D., came to Sandusky and settled there. Desiring his brother, Wesley Anderson, to study medicine with him he sent for him with that purpose in view, but instead of so doing Wesley purchased a schooner and devoted himself to carrying passengers between Sandusky and Buffalo. His continuance in this calling, however, was very short, for on his first trip, while returning from Buffalo, his vessel was totally wrecked at Long Point. There were thirty men, seven women and two children on board as passengers, besides the crew ; the weather was intensely cold, the night dark and a storm, phenomenal in its violence, was raging. The vessel was blown upon an island and lay there until morning when a cable was rigged from a mast to a tree on land, by means of which every soul except the two children escaped safe to land, one man only being injured. They were compelled to wait on the island for two days when they were removed to land and were transferred to Buffalo by parties procured from that place. One incident is worthy of special mention. In the early morning after the wreck Mr. Anderson saw a bed floating near the shore; drawing it to him, he and all with him were overjoyed to see on it, unharmed, the children whom all had given up as lost."

Before the organization of the county there were within its territory roads or traveled ways in different portions thereof, generally along the higher grounds and following Indian paths or trails to and from Lower Sandusky. Evidence of these roads may be found in the field notes of the early surveys of the land, references to a few of which are here given, as follows : 'to Lower Sandusky ;" "A trail probably to Wapokaneta :" "A trail of the Ottawa people :" "Road to Fort Meigs :" "Ottawa trail ;" "Road east and west from Bloomingville to Croghansville." This was a road as early as 1816. "An Indian path leading up and down the river on west side" and "A road up and down the river."

Some of these trails, as the country was being settled, became established roads, opened by order of the county commissioners. An illustration of which is found in the organization of Thompson Township, April 25, 1820. In defining the north boundary line, the record reads as follows : "Begin at the northeast corner of the Seneca reservation, thence north from the Seneca reservation to the present trailed road from Croghansville to Strong's settlement till it shall intersect the fire lands." It is reasonably certain that this "trailed road" included what is now called the Franks Road, running southwardly from the Maumee and Western Reserve Road to the bridge over Green Creek, near the residence of W. F. Huber in Section 19, Greencreek Township, and also the road from this bridge east through Sections 19 to 24, inclusive, of Greencreek Township, but from the last mentioned section the trail through York Township is not so easily traceable.

In April, 1820, when Townsend Township was organized, its south boundary line was made the "road leading from Strong's Settlement to Croghanville." Thus it appears that before 1820 there was a road from Lower Sandusky east to the west line of Huron County.

The first official record of a road ordered located by the county commissioners, of Sandusky County, is of the date of April 25, 1820, as follows :

"Ordered that a road be laid and surveyed commencing on 'the first rise of ground on the east side of Samuel Baker's house and running the nearest and best route toward Cold Creek Mills, and that Frederick Halley be appointed surveyor ; Abraham Townsend, Samuel Markham and Moses Wilson be appointed viewers to locate said road."

The road was accordingly located and designated in the report of the viewers and surveyor as "A road leading from Samuel Baker's in Townsend Township, Sandusky County, Ohio, in a direct course to the head of Cold Creek. commencing at Samuel Bakers." Commissioner's Journal Vol. I. pages 4 and 5.

Then follows the field notes and plan. Townsend then embraced the Samuel Baker residence, which subsequently was within Green Creek when the latter was organized.

The next record of a county road is found in same journal under date of June 4, 1821, page 28, and reads as follows :

"Ordered that there be a county road from Croghansville to Green Creek Bridge in Section No. 16, Range No. 16, East Township No. 5 North, at the expense of the petitioners and Reuben Bristol, Jeremiah Everett and Ruel Loomis be viewers to attend in the town of Croghansville on Friday the 18th inst., and proceed to view and lay out said road on the nearest and best ground from the town of Croghansville to the bridge on School Section on Green Creek."

On page 41, Journal 1, is entered at length the bond of Israel Harrington in the sum of $1,000 with Jaques Hulburd and Wiliam Andrews sureties, dated May 20, 1820, as commissioners to locate a State road from the north boundary of Delaware County to Croghansville, Sandusky County. The condition of the bond reads as follows :

"The condition of the above obligation is such that whereas the above bound Israel Harrington hath been appointed by the Legislature of the state of Ohio a commissioner in connection with Alexander Morrison to lay out and open a state road commencing near the house of William Drake at the northern boundary of Delaware County, from thence the nearest and best way to Croghansville to the head of ship navigation in the county of Sandusky. Now if the said Israel Harrington shall do and perform all and singular the duties required of him by law as commissioner aforesaid in laying out and opening the above named road, and also to expend upon the said road the sum of $1,000, which sum has been appropriated by the Legislature of this state out of the three per cent fund, in the best and most economical manner, and that the said Harrington shall on or before the 29th instant enter upon the duties of his appointment, then this obligation to be void, otherwise to remain in full force and virtue. The road was accordingly located.

On pages 44, 45 and 46 of this journal is recorded the report of Joseph Vance, surveyor, and Forest Meeker, commissioner, of a state road which reads in part as follows :

"The Board of Commissioners of Sandusky and Seneca Counties. Gentlemen : The undersigned commissioners appointed by a resolution of the Legislature of the state of Ohio to locate and survey a state road through the lands lately purchased by the United States of the Indians north of Delaware County, commencing at Capt. William S. Drake's on the United States military boundary line, making Upper Sandusky, Oakley and Lower Sandusky points to govern in the location of said road, have according to the provisions of the law completed the work assigned us and herewith given you a plat and the field notes thereof as the law requires."

Then follow the plat and field notes signed by Vance, surveyor and Meeker as commissioners. No date appears to the document but the last preceding date in the journal is December 5, 1821. This plan and the field notes show a starting point on the base line 41st parallel ; thence by courses and distances to "Lower Sandusky to the public square of the Town." The distance is marked at the Center of the two mile square tract as sixty-two miles and as entering the tract at the southwest corner.

The "public square" referred to then embraced the present public school grounds. excluding the Wilson property, bounded by Park Avenue and Croghan and Garrison Streets. Also the Fabing and Gusdorf homesteads on Park Avenue. This road evidently followed the "Indian path" marked on the map of Ewing, surveyor, 1817, elsewhere found in this volume ; and the "Indian path" became afterward known as the "Harrison Trail," by reason of its use by General Harrison as a military road in 1812-13. This military road

followed up the west bank of the Sandusky River, passing just west of the site of Tiffin and through Upper Sandusky and Marion and Delaware to Columbus. This was General Harrison's route ; and evidences of it can be traced in places to-day. The road was opened by him from 3o to 40 feet through the then unbroken forest. The land for this road from Lower Sandusky to the Greenville treaty line was ceded by the Indians to the United States by what is known as the Brownstown treaty of November 25, 1808, as before mentioned in this volume.

In 1813 a road was opened and bridged from the present site of Port Clinton to Lower Sandusky, by Col. Christopher Rife, of General Harrison's Army, while he was on the peninsula in charge of the army horses left 'there for keeping during the Canadian Campaign, which resulted in the defeat of the British at the Thames. This road was traveled by a part of the returning army via Lower Sandusky in 1813, after the Battle of the Thames.

The greater part of the present Port Clinton Road is substantially over the same ground. These two army roads formed a continuous route from the portage on the North 'to Columbus, then Franklinton, the chief headquarters of General Harrison.

This was the first road to traverse the entire county from east to west. Prior thereto communication between Lower Sandusky and the Maumee River was carried on by way of the military route opened by the army of General Harrison. We have seen that the land for this road was ceded to the United States by the Indian nations claiming title 'to the same, November 25, 1808, at the treaty of Brownstown. After the organization of the county, and when that portion of the same west of the. Sandusky River was becoming settled, it became evident to the people of Lower Sandusky, among whom were such men as Jesse S. Olmsted, Josiah Rumery, Nicholas Whitinger, Thomas L. Hawkins, Ami Williams, Ezra Williams, Charles B. Fitch, Jeremiah Everett, Jaques Hulburd, Elisha W. Howland, Morris A. Newman and Israel Harrington, that this road should be opened. Accordingly the sub- ject was agitated by these strong men, and with success as 'the sequel shows.

Passing over acts not necessary to be here mentioned, we come to the Act of Congress of February 28, 1823, which proyided for the laying out and making the road from the Lower Rapids of the Maumee to the western boundary of the Connecticut Western Reserve in the state of Ohio, agreeably to the provisions of the Brownstown treaty, and authorizing the state of Ohio to construct the same in such manner as the legislature of the state might by law provide—the road to remain forever a public highway. The mile of land on each side as provided in the treaty, was granted to the state to be sold and the proceeds to be used as a fund for making and keeping in repair the road. The state was required to complete the road withing four years.

The General Assembly of Ohio took the matter up, and by law of January 27, 1823, provided for surveying the line and laying out the road. Quintus F. Atkins was the surveyor, with Elijah Risdon as assistant, whose special duty was to run. and stake the line of the road. This was done in the fall of 1823. The line of this road from the Maumee to what is now Clyde, a distance about forty miles, ran through an almost unbroken forest of dense and heavy growth. The roadway was to be cleared 120 feet wide ; thirteen feet next to the outer line was to be cut with stumps as high as ordinary clearings ; the next inner seventeen feet was to be cut nearly or quite level with the surface, with a view to have it available for a side road; the inner sixty feet was to be grubbed up clean and thrown up in the form of a turnpike, and placed nearer to the south side of the outer line, leaving greater room for a side road on the north side, where the sun might shine on same to sooner dry it off. The timber from the clearing and grubbing was piled on the outer thirteen feet. The work was completed substantially within the required time of four years to the acceptance of Congress.

It was then simply a strip 120 feet wide cleared through the woods with a ridge of loose earth about forty feet in width between the side ditches. The trees outside skirting the

120 feet "stood thick and towering on either side, giving at a little distance the appearance of a huge wall about one hundred feet high, and when in foliage almost shutting out the sun's rays, except a little time in the forenoon." Homer Everett in his history says : "It was at least a guide through the Black Swamp which travelers could follow without fear of losing their way, and during the dry season of the year was a tolerable road for a few years. It soon became a stage route, and about 1830 a line of four-horse post coaches was established on the same. The attempt, however, to run passenger coaches with regularity was a failure, the road being impassable for coaches more than half the year. Occasionally in dry portions of the year the coaches would go through with some regularity. The contractors, however, endeavored to carry the mails through every day. As a conveyance for the mails the hind wheels of a wagon were furnished with a tongue, a large dry goods box made fast to the cart thus improvised, into which the mail pouches were stowed. To this four stout horses were harnessed to plunge and flounder through thirty-one miles of mud and water. If a passenger on this line would pay well for the ride and take his chances to get through he was permitted to mount this box and keep his seat—if , he could." Everett continuing : "The more the road was traveled the worse it became. Some attempts were made now and then by the superintendent to fill up an impassable mud hole with earth, but this only made it thicker and deeper. The condition of this road, traversed as it was by emigrants from all sections of 'the east gave it a National reputation as being, perhaps, the worst road on the continent. The distance from Lower Sandusky to Perrysburg was thirty-one miles. In 1834, 1835 and 1836 there were thirty-one taverns between Lower Sandusky and Perrysburg. These were mostly log houses erected on the borders of the road.

The landlords provided themselves with extra yokes of oxen to be used in relieving teams of emigrants, becoming stuck in mud holes. This grew to be such an important industry that the right of each landlord to the nearest mud hole became a franchise, by mutual consent. It was said that one of these landlords on disposing of his tavern, reserved his mud hole, a paricularly fine one, which it seems he had long cultivated with much care for the profit it yielded ; and he subsequently conveyed to a neighbor his "franchise" for a money consideration.

The bridge over the Sandusky River, connected with this road as originally made, was constructed by James Birdseye and finished in January, 1828, for the contract price of $3,000. It was built of heavy white oak timbers ; there were no stone piers or abutments, but instead strong double bents were used, boarded up with strong planks, and the space between the walls filled with stone to give weight and solidity to the structure and to resist high waters of the river. This bridge was carried away by the great flood of 1833, to be hereafter noticed. That it was well put together in its building was demonstrated by its tenacious resistance to the force brought against it at the time, for so many hours before it yielded. The bridge was not high enough, however, for such a flood.

The Maumee and Western Reserve Roadway was the first in the county to be improved by macadamizing.

In 1836 Rodolphus Dickinson, an able and prominent citizen of Lower Sandusky was chosen a member of the Board of Puolic Works of Ohio. Through his efforts, supplemented by the aid of the people interested in the improvement the General Assembly of the State, March 14, 1838, passed an act providing for the repairing and macadamizing the same, and appropriating for the purpose $40,000. The United States still having title to the 120 feet over which the road passed, but not to the mile on either side, having already ceded that, passed an act July 7, 1838, ceding to the state of.Ohio all right to the same. March 16, 1839, the state appropriated $100,000 to forward the macadamizing of the road. In 1840 the sum of $25,00o more was appropriated. Gen. John Patterson was appointed by the Board of Public Works to superintend the improvement.

wide, and located about ten feet nearer to south than. the north line of the road for the purpose of giving an ample side road on the north side. Twenty feet in width of the crown of the roadbed was covered with well broken stone. General Patterson laid the grade with the view to the best possible drainage and adjacent lands.

Capacious ditches were constructed along the sides of the road bed with frequent culverts by which the surface water was gathered and conducted under the road-way to natural or artificial channels into the streams running toward the lake. It was really the inauguration of land drainage in the Black Swamp region, and demonstrated that it could be drained and made one of the most productive regions of Ohio, which it now in fact is. It was not only the first, but perhaps the most important public improvement in the county in its results to the inhabitants as to their health and public welfare. The improvement was completed in 1842.

This bridge, connected with the improvement, was constructed in 1841-42, and was a wooden structure of the best materials and roofed with pine shingles ; the roof was renewed once during the thirty-five years of the bridge's existence. It was built under the supervision of Mr. Dickinson, and continued in use, though condemned in later years, until superseded by the present iron structure in 1877.

The road was managed by the Board of Publice Works until its management under Act of May 8, 1861, was transferred to lessees. In 1870 the state retook charge of the road and the same was thereafter managed by the Board of Public Works until 1888, when by Act of the Legislature complete control of the road was transferred to the counties through which it passed, whereby it became a free public highway within the county like all other improved roads, on and after April 14, -1888, the date of acceptance of the road by the Sandusky County commissioners.

Among the earlier county roads was one west from James Moore's mill on. the Sandusky

River in Ballville Township, by way of the present village of Millersville and Greensburg to the west line of the county, a distance of about fifteen miles. The greater portion of this road, for more than half the year round, was very muddy, and when the dry season came it was left cut into deep ruts, so that travel over it was at all times difficult.

On the petition of Martin Wright, and 128 other land owners along the road, dated March 6, 1867, the county commissioners took the first steps toward macadamizing the road. William E. Haynes, Charles G. Greene and Hiram Haff were appointed viewers, and Beaman Amsden, surveyor. June 4th, following, a favorable report was made recommending the improvement. The cost was estimated at $25,399.50. The road was to be graded twenty-two feet wide on top, twelve feet of which in width to be covered with stone one foot in thickness. There was no claim for drainages by reason of the road. The work was promptly commenced, and was finished during the year 1870, at a total cost of a little over $40,000.

Other roads were about this time improved after the same manner, among which were the Lay Road from Clyde south about four miles ; the Fremont and South Creek Road about four miles, and later the Fremont and Port Clinton Road for about four miles.

Roads continued to be opened and improved until now there are within the county about eight hundred and seventy-five miles of highway, exclusive of city and village streets, nearly one-half of which has been improved by graveling or stoning, mostly by the latter material, an abundant supply of which is near at hand in home quarries. The sum of $50,000 and more annually is being expended in road improvements within the county.

The Lower Sandusky Plank Road Company was organized in 1849 with James Justice, president, and L. Q. Rawson, secretary. Among the stockholders and promoters of the enterprise were such men as R. Dickinson, Sardis Birchard, James Justice, James W. Wilson, Platt Brush, John R. Pease, Chester Edgerton, James Moore, John Moore, James Vallette, Morgan & Downs, L. B. Otis, and

other prominent citizens. The plank road ran from the south termination of Front Street in Lower Sandusky southward along the Sandusky River to the south line of Edward Tindall's land; thence southwesterly to Bettsville, and thence to Fostoria, with a branch starting from Tindall's land to Tiffin, a total length of about thirty-one miles, and was completed in 1851, at a cost of about $50,000.00.

The form of the road was that of a turnpike, graded and ditched, with the top of the pike eighteen feet in width. Oak plank two inches thick and eight feet long were laid crosswise on firm stringers inbedded in the earth on one side of the pike, leaving a good earth road for use in dry weather, and for the use of teams in all weather which had to turn out for teams to pass that were entitled to the plank road. A line from Fremont to Greenspring was built about the same time. These roads while they lasted were a public benefit and greatly facilitated the moving of grain and other products, lessening the cost of transportation by the increased quantities that teams could haul fully fifty per cent. But the completion of the Fremont, Lima & Union Railroad from Fremont to Fostoria, by which the transportation of produce and merchandise was largely diverted from the plank roads, and the natural decay of the timber and planks composing the roads, and also the decline in toll receipts led to their final abandonment in the early sixties.

A Brief Reference to the Past—First Locomotives, Railroads, Telegraphs and Telephones— Steam and Electric Railroads in Sandusky County—The Telegraph, Telephone and Express Service—The Ohio Railroad Bubble—Early Mail Facilities and Service—Military Mail Carriers—Dangers Attending the First Mail Carriers—First Mail Routes Established —Present Mail Facilities—The Free Rural Delivery From Fremont.

When Sandusky County was first settled by the white man there was not a railroad, steamboat or telegraph in the world. When Major Croghan and his gallant comrades defended Fort Stephenson, there were no railroads nor telegraphs in existence, and the first steamboat for practical use was then only six years old. The only roads were Indian paths or trails through the wilderness to and from their village at Lower Sandusky, known as "the place of the hanging mist."

The locomotive, as we know, dates from 1814, and the first public steam railway in the world, the Stockton. and Darlington in England, a distance of thirty-eight miles, was opened by George Stephenson, September 27, 1825, being five years after Sandusky County was organized. The first in the United States successfully operated was the Baltimore and Ohio, opened in 1830, from Baltimore to Ellicotts Mills, a distance of fifteen miles. The first in Ohio was the Mad River and Lake Erie, built in 1832, and opened from Sandusky to Bellevue, fifteen miles in 1837.

The first practical use of the telegraph was not demonstrated until 1844, when the famous message, "What hath God Wrought," was transmitted by Morse over the Washington and Baltimore line. The telephone is of more recent discovery and use, the basis of which dates from the discovery by Page in 1837, supplemented by the discoveries of Reis, a German. teacher, and by Graham and Bell, about 1860. but not brought into practical use till about 1876, after its exhibition at the Centennial Exposition.

Sandusky County is now tranversed by seven lines of steam railways, aggregating about 120 miles of main track and about thirty-five of siding, with fifteen stations and offices. Every township in the county, except Scott, is traversed by some one or more of these lines. There are sixty miles of electric railway now being operated throughout the townships of York, Green Creek, Sandusky, Riley, Townsend, Washington, Madison. and Woodville, and the city and township of Fremont.

Over the steam roads there are passing daily in the aggregate, about thirty-five passenger trains, and about thirty trains, receiving and discharging freight at the various stations within the county. On the electric lines there are about one hundred and twenty daily trains or separate cars on trips, moving thereon, through the county carrying passengers.

The Mad River and Lake Erie, as before stated, was the first railroad built in Ohio. As at first constructed and operated, it did not touch Sandusky County, passing as it did through Bellevue on the ast side of the line dividing the counties of Sandusky and .Huron. It is an interesting fact that when the first ground was broken for the road at Sandusky, September 7, 1835, Gen. William Henry Harrison was present and cut the first sod. Governor Vance of Ohio was also present assist-

ing in the ceremonies of the occasion. The line was completed to Bellevue, fifteen miles, in 1837, and the first train run there. In 1841 it reached Tiffin and was completed to Dayton in 1851. The company in the meantime had passed through a number of changes before the road became located in Sandusky County, which was indirectly effected by the merging of the company with the Sandusky City and Indiana Railroad Company, which had been chartered in 1851, and whose line of road in 1852 was located through Sandusky County via Clyde; and thereafter the line through Bellevue was abandoned.

An episode of the travel on this road, when it extended to Tiffin only, was related to the writer by Mr. J. B. Higbee of Bellevue, who was among the first conductors on the same. While at Tiffin on one of his trips, he was informed by a messenger connected with the road that he must get ready a whole car for a passenger to Sandusky City. The messenger when asked who the passenger was that wanted a car all to himself, replied that he did not know who he was but "he was some big fellow they called by the name of Boz !"

Mr. Higbee described Charles Dickens as pleasant appearing 'roast beef eating" English gentleman, and felt honored in having a passenger of such distinction. This, of course, was while Mr. Dickens was on his first visit to this country.

A copper baggage check, No. 713, with the words "Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad Co." stamped thereon is in the possession of Mr. A. R. Corser of Ballville.

The company after passing through many changes, its road finally became and now is a part of the Big Four System. The first passeuger car through Sandusky County over this road was in 1852.

It passes through the townships of Townsend, York and Green Creek via Clyde to Greenspring, a distance of fourteen miles, in all.

The Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland Railroad. The Company to build this railroad was incorporated March 7, 1850. The Sandusky County members of the company were L. Q. Rawson, Frederick Chapman, L. B. Otis, Homer Everett, A. B. Taylor and Ralph P. Buckland. Sandusky County subscribed $50,000 to the capital stock of the company, and issued bonds upon which the amount was realized. The voters of the county, except those of Woodville and Townsend Townships in April, 1851, by a majority of 400 in a total of 1948 votes authorized the taking of this stock. Among the active and prominent supporters of the road, in addition to the members of the company before named, were Rodolphus Dickinson, Sardis Birchard, John R. Pease, N. P. Birdseye and James Moore. The road was completed and the first passenger train passed over the same on February 7, 1853. On September 1, 1853, the company was consolidated with the Junction Railroad Company (chartered in 1846,) after which the road was called the Cleveland Sr Toledo Railroad, and passed under that name until April 6, 1869, when it was consolidated with the Lake Shore. After other changes it became, and is now, a part of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad Company. After the consolidation with the Junction before mentioned, the stock increased in value; the amount subscribed by the county was sold and brought an amount sufficient to redeem the bonds mentioned, with a surplus over the amount, together with all expenses, of over fifteen hundred dollars.

This railroad enters the county in Section Twenty-nine, Township Six, Washington, and runs eastwardly through Lindsey, Fremont and Clyde to Bellevue, a distance of twenty-seven miles.

The Fremont & Indiana Railroad. The Fremont and Indiana Railroad Company, was incorporated April 25, 1853, with L. Q. Rawson, Sardis Birchard, James Justice, John R. Pease and Charles W. Foster, incorporators. The route was to be from Fremont through Fostoria, Findlay, and on through the counties of Hancock, Allen, Auglaize and Darke to the west line of the State of Ohio. Directors were duly chosen, who in turn elected L. Q. Rawson president, Andrew J. Hale secretary and Squire Carlin treasurer of the company.

The track was constructed to Fostoria, then known as Rome. and cars for passengers and freight commenced running February 1, 1859.

In 1860 the road was completed to Findlay, but was then overtaken by insolvency, and such proceedings followed as resulted in the sale of the road with its franchises, fixtures and other property, to its creditors, in 1862, for $2o,000; which sum was not sufficient to pay the debts of the company. A new company was incorporated January 21, 1862, under the name of the Fremont, Lima & Union Railroad Company. L. Q. Rawson was made president and R. W. B. McLellan secretary and treasurer of the new company.

In 1865 this company and the Lake Erie & Pacific Railroad Company of Indiana were consolidated under the new name of the Lake Erie & Louisville Railroad Company, whose purpose was a through line from Louisville to Fremont, the head of navigation on the Sandusky River, so that heavy freight could be conveyed by water, thence, to Buffalo and New York, and passengers and light freight could pass east and west from Fremont over the Lake Shore railroad. This road was, however, on the 4th day of April, 1871, placed in the hands of L. Q. Rawson, receiver appointed by the U. S. Circuit Court, pending foreclosure proceedings against the same, and on October 18, 1871, was sold to trustees of the holders of the bonds against the company.

The Ohio part of this road was reorganized November 4, 1871, under the name of the Fremont, Lima & Union Railway Company. The Indiana part was organized on November 18, 1871, under the name of Lake Erie & Louisville Railway Company, under which name the two companies were consolidated April 12, 1872. This road as consolidated was placed in the hands of Isadore H. Burgoon, receiver, under foreclosure proceedings, on the 25th day of April, 1874, and managed by him until finally sold at judicial sale in 1877. Mr. Burgoon was superintendant of the road under the management that followed this sale until September, 1879. The road was then. consolidated with other Western roads, and the consolidation became the Lake Erie and Western Railway.

Under an act of the Ohio Legislature, the City of Sandusky voted sixty thousand dollars of bonds to extend this road from Fremont to that city, and formed the Sandusky and Fremont Railway Company, for that purpose. Work on the road was begun about July I, 188o, and the same was made ready for the passage of trains in February, 1881. This was practically an extension of the Lake Erie & Western Railway to Sandusky, which in connection with the L. S. & M. S. Railroad Company is now a part of the Vanderbilt system. This road traverses Sandusky County, through the Townships of Jackson, Ballville, Fremont, Sandusky, Riley and Townsend, a distance of twenty five miles.

Besides the steam railroads before mentioned, that touch Sandusky County, are the following : Toledo, Walhonding Valley and Ohio, a distance of nineteen miles ; Wheeling and Lake Erie, twenty-four miles ; New York, Chicago and St. Louis, nine miles ; and the Columbus and Sandusky Short Line, a distance of three-fourths of a mile.

The Interurban Electric Railroads are, The Lake Shore Electric, a distance of thirty-three miles ; the Sandusky, Fremont and Southern, fourteen miles, and the L. E. B. G. and Napoleon, three miles; and the Fremont Electric Line, running from State Street along Front and Tiffin Streets to Ballville and thence to Oakwood, two miles.

There are five different express companies doing business in Sandusky County over, the several lines of steam railways from the different railroad stations ; and The Lake Shore Electric Railway has a package express in connection with its passenger service.

The Western Union Telegraph and Cable Company .furnishes facilities for telegraphic communications from every town or place where there is a railroad station in the county, to all parts of the world; and the Postal Telegraph and Cable Company, furnishes like facilities from Fremont and Woodville.

There are telephone lines with stations and exchanges at Fremont, Bellevue, Clyde, Gibsonburg, Woodville, Greenspring, Lindsey and Helena, serving at this time in the aggregate over 8,000 subscribers, in city, village and

country places and farms throughout the county, all connecting with long distance lines reaching in every direction to all parts of the Union.

The beginning of this wonderful telephone service in Sandusky County was in 1881, when W. L. Butman and Frank Heim of Fremont, with some Tiffin parties, organized the Fremont Telephone Company, and located in that year the first telephone, in the office of Mr. Butman, the operator, in the Western. Union Telegraph Company in Fremont. During the first year fifty-eight telephones were installed. The wires were strung on common poles procured from woods in the country, and along roofs of buildings in the city, as permission could be obtained for the purpose. The office and exchange of the company was on the third floor of the First National Bank Building. In about one year after starting it, the company sold out to the Midland Telephone Company. This company finally sold to the Central Union Telephone Company, which last named company has ever since owned and is now operating the exchange at Fremont.

A brief history of this affair is thought proper here. The General Assembly of the State of Ohio, March 24, 1837, passed an Act, which became known as the "Plunder Law," a name well deserved. It in substance provided, that every railroad company to the capital stock of which there was subscribed an amount equal to two-thirds of the estimated cost of the road and fixtures, should be entitled to a loan of credit from the State equal to one-third of such estimated cost, to be delivered to the company in negotiable scrip or transferrable certificates of stock of the State of Ohio, bearing interest not exceeding six per cent, and redeemable at periods not exceeding twenty years; and the State should then receive certificates of stock in the company for the amount so paid. The Ohio Railroad Company was chartered in 1836, and authorized to build a road on piles driven in the ground from a suitable point in Ashtabula County through that county and the counties of Cuyahoga, Lorain, Huron, Sandusky, Wood and Lucas, and thence to some point on the Wabash and Erie Canal. The commissioners named for Sandusky County were Jesse S. Olmsted, Jacques Hulburd and Sardis Birchard. The road was to be on piles driven into the ground by a pile-driving machine worked by steam and connected with it, was a horizontal buzz-saw to cut off the piles, when thoroughly pounded down to the grade line of the road. On these piles were to be placed the cross ties and timbers for the strap rails of iron. Stock was rapidly subscribed and soon the State issued negotiable scrip to the amount of thirty three and one third thousand dollars. The building of the road was commenced in 1839, and the first pile was driven at a point near the present L .S. & M. S. Railway Station at Fremont, June 19th. The contractors and laborers were paid off in this scrip which was largely issued in fractions of a dollar. It soon became the money or circulating medium of the country along the line of the proposed road. The Lower Sandusky Whig of Judy 11, 1840, says :

"From Lower Sandusky the pile driver has advanced into the very heart of the famed Black Swamps, to the distance of nine miles and is driving from 500 to 600 feet daily.

"The company is receiving proposals for the timber and mason work of the immense bridge across the Sandusky River and Valley ; immense it is—being near a half mile in length from bank to bank, and about forty feet in height."

The site of this bridge was about 100 rods below the present State Street bridge. The main work of pile driving was begun at Brooklyn on the west side of the Cuyahoga River, to work westward, and at Manhattan on the Maumee River to work eastward. The work went bravely on with the expectation of soon meeting at Huron. The work was nearing that place from the east and had reached a point between Castalia and Venice from the west about the year 1840, when the crash came, and the whole project utterly collapsed never to be revived, leaving the people with a large amount of worthless railroad money in their pockets, the amount of which is not known, but almost every man in this part of the State had some and many had large amounts of it. The blow came after the repeal of the "Plunder Law" in 1840.

Lower Sandusky would, in the nature of things, be the first place within the region which was to become Sandusky County to be supplied with mail service. A post office was first established here in 18o6; but correspondence was carried on between Lower Sandusky and Detroit and perhaps other points, through the medium of letters as early as 1772, and later on during the War of the Revolution. Some of the originals of which letters the writer has seen and perused and copies of which appear in Chapter V of this volume. These letters were probably conveyed by messengers by way of the river and lake to and from this place, in those early days. They were folded in letter form, sealed with red wax and superscribed with the names of the persons to whom, and the place where, directed. Lower Sandusky was then and until the close of the Revolutionary War a trading post, occupied by British traders. As early as 1811, there seems to have been a horseback mail service to Lower Sandusky from southward, for, Judge Lang in his history of Seneca County relates the murder near Fort Seneca on the Sandusky River in 1811, of a mail carrier by the name of Urich Drake on his way on horseback with mail for this place. The murderer or mail robber mounted the horse behind Drake, ostensibly it appears, to be carried across the river ; on reaching the opposite bank he drew his knife, and reaching around, with one stroke cut Drake nearly in twain. At first it was thought that the murderer was an Indian, but afterwards it was ascertained that he was a white man. Drake was buried at Lower Sandusky at a spot, in the yard of the present St. John's Lutheran parsonage (1832-1844, the Court House) where a small stone slab, eighteen inches high with the inscription : "1811 U. Drake" marks the grave.

Judge Israel Harrington an early prominent citizen of Lower Sandusky, a prior resident of Huron County, in a newspaper communication in 1840 writes : "Sometime in the winter of 1812, Jacob B. Varnum, Jr., Indian agent at Lower Sandusky, came to 'my house (at Bloomingville) to be sworn in as postmaster at that place (Lower Sandusky) myself being the near- est justice of the peace." There is no record, however, at the Postoffice Department to be found of such appointment.

About the time of and during the War of 1812, mail service was provided by military express through Lower Sandusky to Fort Meigs and to army headquarters.

Calvin Pease in a letter from Lower Sandusky to Major Tod (at Fort Meigs), March 8, 1813, writes :

"I am ordered by the Postmaster General to run the express mail twice a week from Pittsburg to the Head-Quarters of the N. W. Army. * * * I wish you to urge to General Harrison the necessity of establishing a small post at the Portage or Carrying River with a supply of forage for an express horse to be stationed there. It will be necessary for the safety of the mail to assist it in passing the river in difficult times. and by having a change of horses at that place, the mail can go with more speed. * * * Wherever General Harrison removes or is about to remove his Head Quarters, I should be glad to receive the earliest information of it, that I may send on more horses, if necessary, that the mail may always go to his head quarters, and until I get such information I wish the mail to be carried on in some way or other" (W. R. Hist, Society).

The first appointment of a postmaster of which a record appears was that of Morris A. Newman, July 2, 1814. There was a mail route then from Lower Sandusky down the river by the Whitaker place to Muscallonge Creek ; thence up the creek about two miles ; thence to Portage River, where Elmore now stands, and thence to Fort Meigs. Indians then still prowled through the woods. About this time a mail carrier by the name of Munger had been attacked by them and seriously wounded near Fort Meigs. There was not then an inhabitant on the route after leaving Mrs. Whitaker.

In the fall of 1814 Isaac Knapp and his son Walter carried the mail on this route. In 1818 Jeremiah Everett carried the mail on the same route. From two to three days and often four were required to perform the trip, and then he had to camp out between the Portage River and the Maumee, at night and alone. He told of a fallen hollow sycamore tree which he used as a protection on these occasions, when the state of the roads, or accident prevented him from reaching Portage River on his return trip, which frequently happened. If on foot, the mail, and a blanket made. into a pack, were slung upon his shoulders, with

bread and meat for the journey, and with a hatchet and knife in his belt, he would set out. If on horseback, which the roads permitted only a part of the year, a more ample out-fit was carried, and grain, for the animal. At the sycamore tree, the axe, steel and flint aided to build him a good fire in front, which kept off cold and wolves. The wolf's howl near by was familiar music, and he was waked in the morning, and found a path beaten in the snow around him by the feet of these prowlers. He was always anxious to have a good road from Lower Sandusky to Fort Meigs, and lived to be eminently useful and influential in having one made.

About this time other routes were established, one of which was from Lower Sandusky east by the way of York Cross Roads, now Bellevue, thence along Strong's Ridge to Norwalk. No records can be found showing the receipts of the post office in those early days nor where a building which may have been known as "the post office" was located at Lower Sandusky.

How many years Mr. Newman served as postmaster does not appear. but the next postmaster of whom we have an account was Harvey J. Harmon in 1834. He was followed by Grant F. Forgerson, and Forgerson by Jesse S. Olmsted. In 1837 Olmsted was succeeded by Homer Everett, who being elected to the office of sheriff resigned, and in 1838 John Bell was appointed postmaster. Following John Bell and in order of appointments and dates of same to the present are the following :—Benjamin Meeker, 1841; Wilson M. Stark, 1843; Isaac M. Keeler, 1850; Levi E. Boren, 1852; Lucius Caul, 1853; S. M. Ellenwood, 1857; H. R. Shomo, 1861; H. W. Buckland, 1867 ;. Henry Lesher, 1869 ; Samuel J. Snyder, 1873; George J. Krebs, 1877; David Betts, 1883; Basil Meek, 1886; Edward Loudensleger, 1891; Louis A. Dickinson, 1895 ; Gustavus A. Gessner, 1899, reappointed twice and now in office.

The daily arrival and departure of mails from this office are as follows : Arrivals from the west five mails ; from the east three mails; from the north two mails and from the south two mails. Departures for the east four mails; for the west four mails ; for the south two mails and for the north two mails ;. The first money order at this office was issued by H. R. Shomo, July 4. 1865. The Free City Deliyery was inaugurated by Basil Meek. January 1, 1889. The Free Rural Delivery from Fremont was inaugurated by G. A. Gessner in 1899. There are now ten daily rural routes from this office, with 1,000 service mail boes, accommodating in the aggregate a rural population of inhabitants of 4,300 in an area of 124 square miles, including the whole of Sandusky Townships, the greater portions of Ballville and Rice, and large parts of Riley, Washington. Jackson and Green Creek Townships. The mail service as to villages will be presented with village history.

Memorials take many forms, and the gift to the State of Ohio, for the Ohio Archeological and Historical Society of that portion of Spiegel Grove, the beautiful homestead of President Hayes, through which runs for a half mile the old Harrison Trail of the War of 1812, is one of the most interesting, commendable and generous gifts of recent years.

Spiegel Grove, the beautiful twenty-five acre grove of native American trees is a portion of the historic site of the free city of the Neutral Nation of the Eries, who three centuries ago built two fortified towns on opposite sides of the Sandusky Riyera The site of this free city where later the Wyandots or Hurons made a village, was on the great natural runway of the earliest French explorers and missionaries and their Indian allies, in passing from the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes to the Ohio and the Mississippi. This old French and Indian trail was along the westerly bank of the Sandusky-Scioto water course from Lake Erie to the Ohio Riyer. Both passed through the old free city at the lower falls of the Sandusky, the trail extending for over one half mile through the present Spiegel Grove. This trail was 'trayersed by the early Frenchmen and by French war parties with their Indian allies from Detroit, in their endeavor to expel the British from the Ohio country. and was the common meeting-ground of the war parties and exploring parties of both the French from Detroit and the British from Fort Pitt.

Knowledge of Lower Sandusky also comes from Captain Samuel Brady, the scout, whom Washington sent out for information upon the movements of the Indians of this region, and who, concealed on the island in the river, ever since called Brady's island, watched the Indians race their horses along the shore.

Washington's interest in this locality was great and in 1782 his friend, General William Irvine, commandant at Fort Pitt, noted that a British post had been established at Lower Sandusky, giving this place its claim for Revolutionary honors

In General Harrison's advance to repel the invading British and Indians, he established forts and depots and constructed a military road following the line of the old French and Indian trail and the heavy wheels of his wagons have left a clearly defined course which is still easily distinguished in its meanderings through Spiegel Grove, although nearly one hundred years have elapsed since the present State road was laid out on a direct course, crossing and recrossing the old trail.

In the campaign of 1813, owing to the insecurity of Fort Stephenson, General Harrison selected as his headquarters Fort Seneca, nine miles up the river, whence he could make swift trips to Fort Stephenson, to Fort Meigs on the Maumee; to Huron and Cleveland. During this campaign, all the noted officers of the War of 1812 with the single exception of Andrew Jackson, traveled over this trail. General William Henry Harrison the victorious commander-in-chief, was inaugurated President of the United States in 1841 ; Colonel Richard M. Johnson of the Kentucky Mounted Riflemen, "the man who killed Tecumseh," was inaugurated as Vice President of the United States in 1837; Brigadier-General Lewis Cass who commanded a brigade served as Secretary of State in the cabinet of Buchanan ; Governor Meigs of Ohio became Postmaster General in the cabinets of Madison and Monroe ; and the 'vener-