HAMILTON COUNTY OHIO - HISTORY: County History part 5 *********************************************************************** OHGENWEB NOTICE: All distribution rights to this electronic data are reserved by the submitter. Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted material will require the permission of the copyright owner. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. *********************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Submitted by: MRS GINA M REASONER Email: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com Date: August 22, 1999 *********************************************************************** History of Ohio By Henry Howe, LL.D., 1898 HAMILTON COUNTY PART 5 TRAVELLING NOTES A VISIT TO LAKESIDE AN OHIO CHAUTAUQUA -Lakeside is a peculiar place, a summer resort on the northeast shore of the Peninsula, about ten miles from Sandusky, with which there is constant communication by steamers passing to and from the islands. It is modelled after Chautauqua, and is owned by an association of gentlemen connected with the Methodist Episcopal church. It was founded in 1873 for the renovation of health and moral and religious instruction. The location is in a forest, on a level site, with an expansive lake view, the nearest prominent visible object being Kelley's Island, rising from the water four miles farther out in the lake. The grounds contain 175 acres, fronting the lake with a wharf. It is enclosed by a high barb fence, the entrance gates guarded, and it is under stringent police regulations. Neither tobacco nor liquors are allowed to be sold. The visitor is taxed for the use of the grounds; it is 25 cents for a single day, $1 for a week, and $2 for the season. I came here Saturday, by steamer, from Sandusky, to rest over the Sabbath. In the evening the police brought into the business office a neighboring farmer who had evaded paying entrance fee by crawling, snake-like, under the fence. The tongue-lashing he received from the gentleman in charge showed "the way of the transgressor is hard" -that is, when caught. A WHOLESOME COMMUNITY. -The place has a large hotel, a business office with a post-office, bathing houses on the shore, about 400 cottages, and an auditorium - a huge open shed with seats for 3,000. The cottages are scattered about in the woods, generally are mere shells, externally painted, internally not so; built usually at a cost of from $350 to $400 each; some, from $1,000 to $1,600. Then, tents are brought here and some go into camp. On rare occasions 6,000 have slept on the grounds. The visitors are largely school marms, mothers with children, and boys camping out. The cost of living and boarding is cheap. Some females hire cottage rooms and do their own cooking. I felt it good to pass a Sabbath in a place from whence unwholesome people were excluded, and the moral air was so good. The Methodists, from their eminently social nature, are the best of all religionists to manage such a retreat. On my trip over we passed Marblehead light-house, which is about two miles from Lakeside. Near that point are the famed Marblehead limestone quarries, which supply the best of limestone. The light-houses on the lakes are largely built with it, while a large portion of northern Ohio gets its lime from there. PREACHING TO THE WYANDOTS. -On the boat with me was an old gentleman, Rev. William Runness, a superannuated Methodist minister, who began his life in Portland, Maine, in 1802. He preached among the Wyandots once a quarter the last four years they remained in Ohio, he being the presiding elder in the district embracing them. As the Wyandots had no written language, he preached to them through an interpreter. This was Jonathan Pointer, a colored man, taken prisoner when a youth in the war of 1812 and adopted by them. The Wyandots were very emotional and excellent singers. Some of their members were prone to prolixity in speaking, and "sometimes," said he, "they had to choke them off. On one occasion I saw one of the sisters get very much excited during one of their meetings, when 'Between-the-Logs,' an ordained minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, a native Wyandot, struck up a tune and put her down. Then several speakers spoke and without interruption. 'Between-the-Logs' followed them, and had uttered but a few words, when the squelched sister, who had a loud, ringing, voice, began, at the top of her register, singing- "How happy are they Who their Saviour obey." 'Between-the-Logs' was fairly drowned out, and took his seat, as much overcome by the merriment as the music." SAVED ENOUGH TO BURY HIMSELF. -On the boat with us was an old gentleman whose talk was lugubrious. He was lamenting the degeneracy of the young men. "In old times," said he "boys were bound out to trades, and boarded with their employers, who looked after their habits, required them to keep good hours, and watched them with a father-like interest. With the introduction of machinery this is now all gone by. The young men are largely careless of money and dissolute. In my village of 1,000 people there are not three young men who do not drink and smoke; not one who has saved enough money to pay his funeral expenses, and yet there is not one who could not have saved enough to bury himself three times over." Considering the profession of my informant, his illustration was exactly in his line, and shows how prone mankind are, when they open their mouths, to introduce the shop -he was the village undertaker. When the old gentleman thus spoke, it was doubtless under a dreadful sense of great depression from the memory of unpaid bills. He had my sympathy. SOLDIERS REUNION. -At Lakeside was recently held one of those soldiers' reunions that have been so frequent since the war. These, with thinning, dissolving ranks of the old veterans -now fast getting into the sere and yellow leaf -will soon pass away and he held no more. Photography will preserve for posterity views of many of these meetings, and so help to keep alive and cherish the memory of those brave men who perilled all to save our beautiful country. The reunion that was lately held here was that of the Twenty-third Ohio, Gen. Hayes' old regiment. I have recently seen a photograph of it by Mr. Oswald, photographer, of Toledo. In the background, near together, are Mrs. Hayes, Stanley Matthews, Gen. Comly and Gen. Hayes. And it is a sad reflection that the ex-president is the only one of the four named at this present writing living. MRS. HAYES' SYMPATHY FOR THE SOLDIER. -On their left is the drum-major, a very old man, then up in the eighties, having enlisted at the age of 60 years. Mr. Oswald himself is shown in the foreground, holding a child. The interest in this picture is greatly enhanced by the presence of Mrs. Hayes. Indeed, without her, it could not be the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Mr. Oswald tells me that when the regiment went into winter-quarters the general was wont to put his family into a hired house near by, when Mrs. Hayes became a sort of mother to the boys. Whenever any of them were sick her sympathies were keenly aroused and she was all attention. It is a precious time to the old soldiers -these reunions -the last of which, alas, is too near. The careless thinker, or observer, can have no conception of the sad joy of these men when they meet with more than brotherly affection and talk over their mutual experiences in that period of stupendous events -of bloody fields and agonizing hearts. The influence of these meetings upon these patriotic men, and the power of comradeship in the scenes through which they passed are beautifully delineated in a speech of Gen. Hayes at Cincinnati, August 10, 1889, before the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion. From it we make this extract: SPEECH OF GEN. HAYES. COMMANDER AND COMPANIONS: Among our most cherished associates we have come to know that comradeship in the Union Army holds a place in the very front rank. It has given us a host of army societies, great and small.....From us and those who are nearest and dearest to us, what an addition the war for the Union has contributed to the attractiveness of our American society! Strike out from each of our lives, since the grand review at Washington, in May, 1865, all entertainments whose chief satisfaction, happiness and glory can be fairly traced to the comradeship of the war, and who does not see how meagre and barren those years would become? MEMORY'S REVIEW. -The interest which the war has imparted to our lives is not to be measured by the contemplation merely of assemblages that are marked by the turmoil and blare of multitudes marching with banners and gathered by music and cannon; but we must reckon, also, the ever-recurring hours of domestic and other quiet scenes, when in narrow and noiseless circles the tremendous events of our recent history, with their countless incidents, sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic and pathetic, are recalled, and pass and repass before us in never ending review. The pictures on our walls, the books we read with most delight, the magazines and newspapers, the collections of mementos and relics gathered in those golden years, all do their part to keep in fresh remembrance the good old times when we were comrades, and almost all seemed and were, true and brave. SOLDIERS' FRIENDSHIPS. -It is often said that, outside of the family, no tie is stronger, more tender, and more lasting than that of comradeship. This is not the time nor the place to compare as critics or philosophers the various sorts of friendship which grow up between men according to occupation and other circumstances. The fact we do know, and rejoice to know is that to meet our old commander, or the brave, good men we commanded, or the trusted comrade of many a camp and march and battle, is always like good news from home, and fills the heart to overflowing with happiness which no words can fully tell. ELMORE is nineteen miles west of Port Clinton, seventeen miles southeast of Toledo, on the L.S. & M.S. Railroad and Portage river. Newspapers: Independent, Independent, W. L. Foulke & Co., editors and publishers; the Elmore Tribune, Independent, Bradrick Bros., publishers. Churches: 1 Presbyterian, 1 Disciples, 1 German Methodist, 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 United Brethren, 1 German Lutheran, 1 German Reformed, and 1 Catholic. Bank: Bank of Elmore, John H. McGee, president, Thomas E. Baynes, cashier. Population, 1880, 1,044. School census, 1888, 414. OAK HARBOR is ten miles west of Port Clinton, on the L.S. & M.S. Railroad and the W. & L.E. Railroad. Newspapers: Ottawa County Exponent, Democratic, J.H.Kraemer, editor; Press, Democratic, George Gosline, editor and publisher. Churches: 1 Disciples, 1 Methodist, 3 Lutheran, and 1 Catholic. MANUFACTURES AND EMPLOYEES. -Charles A. Leow, carriages, etc., 6 hands; H.H. Mylander, staves and headings, 33; J. Watts, planing mill, 5; Ampach Bros., saw mill and hoop factory, 55; Wash. Gordon, planing and saw mill, 25; C. Roose, staves and headings, 42; Portage Mills, flour, etc., 2. -State Report, 1887. Population, 1880, 987. School census, 1888, 551. Capital invested in manufacturing establishments, $127,000; value of annual product, $181,000. -Ohio Labor Statistics, 1888. Tile and brick are manufactured here of an excellent quality, and it is in a natural gas field. CARROLL, P.O. Lacarne, is six miles west of Port Clinton, on the L.S. & M.S. Railroad. School census, 1888, 227. GENOA is twenty-two miles west of Port Clinton, thirteen miles southeast of Toledo, on the L.S. & M.S. Railroad. It has six churches. Population, 1880, 930. School census 1888, 373; I.N. Sadler, school superintendent. PUT-IN-BAY is on an island in Lake Erie, twelve miles north of Port Clinton, twenty-two miles northwest of Sandusky. It is a famous summer resort, with daily steamers from Sandusky and Detroit during the summer season. Population, 1880, 381. School census, 1888, 231. LAKESIDE is a summer resort on Lake Erie, and on the L.S. & M.S. Railroad, ten miles north of Sandusky. *************OH-FOOTSEPS Mailing List***************************