OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: The Great Lake Erie [1]
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Darlene E. Kelley
http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374
June 16, 2000
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Historical Collections of Ohio
Diaries of S. J. Kelly
Plains Dealer
Know Your Ohio
by Darlene E. Kelley
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Schooner Tow Song, 1890.

[ The song recalls one of the vanished glories of the Lakes-- a line of
stately schooners following the huff and puff of a tiny steam tug
through the channel until they can lift their wings again and come alive
on the open Lake.  The date is about 1890.]

We leaves Detroit behind us,
We sets our canvas tight;
The tug slows up and casts us off,
Old Erie heaves in sight!

So we watch our tiller closer,
We keeps our sheet ropes clear;
There's no sich thing as stiddy wind
Along Lake Erie here.

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The Great Lake Erie -- part 1.

Fourth largest of the Great Lakes. it holds the record for being the
shallowest of the five Great Lakes and consequently has a history of
kicking up a fuss in the least time. A breath of wind is enough to make
her start doing somersaults and turning handsprings.

The busiest of all the lakes, it was the last of the upper lakes to be
discovered by white men, who took a short cut across country that lay
above Lake Ontario and the larger yellow Lake with the green rush shore.
They followed a navigator's straight line west along the 46th parallel,
historic paddle-and-portage route of Champlain and Nicolet, via the
Ottawa  River and across Lake Nipissing to Georgian Bay

Across Erie's quick-tempered waters sailed the first ship to travel the
upper lakes. LaSalle's Griffin, and later the first steamboat, the
Indian named Walk-in the Water, both destined to early ends. Aboard the
Griffin on her first, and last, trip up the Lakes was Father Hennepin,
the Baron Munchausen of the priesthood, whose love of exaggeration could
hardly begin to keep up with the sights he described.

" The great River of St Lawrence derives its source from the Lake
Ontario, which is likewise called in the Iroquese language, Skandaris,
that is to say, a pretty lake.

Lake Erie, or Erie-Tejocharontiong, as the Iroquese call it, encloses in
its Southern Bank a Tract of Land as large as the Kingdom of France.
Betwixt the Lake Erie and Huron there is a Straight, thirty leagues
long, which is of equal breadth almost all over, except in the middle,
that it enlarges itslf by help of another lake, which we gave the name
of Ste.Claire, through the Iroquese. who pass over it frequently when
they are upon Warlike Expeditions, call it Otsi Keta.

" The Lake Huron was so called by the People of Canada, because the
savage Hurons, who inhabited the adjacent country, us'd to have their
Hair so burn't that their heads resembled the heads of wild boars. The
savages themselves call'd it Lake Karegnondy.

" There is yet another Straight or narrow canal towards the Upper Lake (
that runs into this of Huron ) about Five Leagues broad and Fifteen
Leagues long, which is interrupted by several Islands, and becomes
narrower by degrees, till it comes at the Fall of St.Mary's. This fall
is call'd the Fall of St. Mary Missilimakinak.

" The Lake Illinois, in the Native's Language, signifies the Lake of
Men; for the word Illinois signifies a Man of Full Age in the vigor of
his years. It is call'd by the Miami's Mischigonong, that is The Great
Lake.

" The Upper Lake runs from East to West and may have more than a Hundred
and Fifty Leagues in length, Sixty in Breadth, and Five Hundred in
circuit. We never quite went over it as we did all the others I've
hitherto mention'd; but we sounded some of the great Depths, and it
resembles the Ocean, having neither bottom nor banks.

" I shall not mention the infinate numbers of Rivers that discharge
themselves into this prodigious Lake.  It were easie to build on the
sides of these great Lakes and infinate Number of Considerable Towns
which might have Communication one with another by Navigation for Five
Hundred Leagues together, and by an inconceivable Commerce which would
establish itself among 'em."

Called a cheerful liar, and worse, by stay-at-homes who preferred exact
figures to his grandiose round numbers, the gadabout priest acquired the
reputation of America's Munchausen but the verdict of history has proven
him to be a prophet.  Aboard a vessel doomed to become the first
shipwreck on the Great Lakes, he sailed across vast reaches of lonesome
waters surrounded by wilderness and he saw along their trackless shores
a dream of great cities--- " an infinate Number of Considerable
Towns,--- and an inconceivable Commerce---among 'em"--- that came true
in a bustle of navigation between Toronto, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit,
Milwaukee, Chicago-- on the aboriginal waterways from below
Erie-Tejocharontiong to Mischigonong and the 
" Ocean " beyond Missilimakinak.

Two generations in the wake of Father Hennepin, Thomas McKenny, and
agent of the Indian Deprtment. embarked on a trip up the Lakes in the
summer of 1826 to negotiaite a treaty with the Chippewas at Fond du Lac
on Lake Superior. Arriving at Detroit, he lost no time in writing a
letter back home about the Lake he had just crossed:

" A word about Lake Erie. I knew its length, its breadth and depth, and
yet I must confess I had no more correct conceptions of the lake as it
appeared to me than if I had never had the slightest acquaintance with
its dimensions. All my previous conception of a lake fell so far short
of its actual vastnss and ocean like appearance, as to be wholly
absorbed in the veiw of it. I could but wonder what my opinion of lakes
will be, after I shall have seen and navigated Huron and Superior. Lake
Erie, though considerably smaller than either, is a vast sea, and often
more stormy, and even dangerous, than the ocean itself."

After completeing his errand in Lake Superior, 
McKenny came down Lake Huron and back to Lake Erie aboard a revenue
cutter, Captain Knapp, which furnished him another item to write home
about from Detroit:

" The deck of this little cutter is made of the masts of the Lawrence,
Perry's ship.  In one of the planks immediately under the tiller is the
bruise of a shot.  Whatever can be made into convenince and fitness for
the duties of a cutter for the lake service, Captain Knapp has most
ingeniously effected in this, now ten year old boat.  But, after all,
the thing is to small. These lakes and their commerce demand a vessel of
other dimensions."
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The Real Battle of Lake Erie--

Thirteen years before Indian Agent McKenny rode down Lake Huron on a
boat whose deck was made of the masts of Perry's flagship, on the
morning of September 10, 1813, the cry of 
" Sail ho! " rang out from lookouts in the mastheads of the American
squadron riding 
Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie. With dawn making a brave show on the British
fleet several miles distant, Perry cleared the island  and stood out on
the open Lake to meet the enemy and, ultimately, to provide another
chapter in Heroic Deeds of American Sailors.

The sound of cannon had hardly died away nor the smoke cleared on Lake
Erie whena ballad called " Perry's Victory " was printed in thousands of
broadslides, sung by wayside peddlers, and sold for a penny on street
corners throughout the Northwest. Towns in Ohio went wild with
excitement. Patriots roared in chorus:

Columbian tars are the true sons of Mars
Who rake fore and aft when they fight on the deep;
On the bed of Lake Erie commanded by Perrey
They caused many Brittons to take their last sleep.

On the tenth of September let us all remember
As long as the globe on its axis reels round;
Soon our tars and marines on Lake Erie were seen
To make the red flag of proud Britton come down.

The van of our fleet was brought up complete;
Commanded by Perrey and Lawrence bore down;
Our guns they did roar with such terrifick power
That savages trembled at the dreadful sound.

The sound of the guns as the two fleets engaged at close quarters was
actualy heard 160 miles from the scene, at Erie, Pennsylvania, in a low
rumbling that echoed like distant thunder.  Anxious towns along the
shore, on both the American and Canadian sides, waited for news of the
final outcome. At Cleveland was enacted one of thoses scenes that typify
the intimate relationship between the Lake and the land:

A Mr. Levi Johnson and his hired hands were building a house, according
to the Cleveland Chronicle, when they heard a noise in the west which at
first they supposed to be faraway thunder.  But there were no clouds on
the horizon.

All at once Johnson exclaimed, " Boys, its Perry's guns; he's fighting
the British."

With one accord all the workmen threw down their hammers and nails and
raced for the waterfront, but their employer beat them to it.
In a few minutes everybody in Cleveland had joined them on the beach,
listening to the sounds of the battle.  Although seventy miles away,
they not only could hear the roll of the broadsides, but when the fire
slackened from time to time, they could distinquish between the heavier
and the lighter guns.  Finally, in the Cleveland Chronicle's report:

" At length, there was only a dropping fire; one fleet had evidently
sucumbed to the other. Heavy shots were heard at very end, then all was
silence. " Perry has the heaviest guns," exclaimed Johnson; " those are
Perry's shots----
he has won the day--- three cheers for Perry!"
"Hip, hip, hurrah!" promptly responed the crowd, willing to believe the
ascertion;  but yet separating with anxious hearts, uncertain what might
be the result.  In fact, the English had some as heavy guns as the
Americans, but not so many of that class."
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to be continued in part 2--