OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: The Great Lake Erie [6]
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Darlene E. Kelley
http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374
October 5, 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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The Great Lake Erie -- part 6.
Winter Crossings / mailmen / Islands

Considering Black Friday, whose weather created such havoic on the Great
Lakes, we salute all the brave Captains who continued to plunder the
hazarous conditions. So many wrecks and deaths occured as Lake Erie
continued with her course of distruction. 

However, she can be as calm and peaceful and beautiful with her
magnificent sunsets and sunrises. She contains a bountiful supply of
fish to be harvested and the serinity of surrounding herself around land
of men who have conquored her.

Winter time with coldness approaching, many have learned how to live
with her. No one who has passed a winter on one of the islands in Lake
Erie can realize the anxiety that filled every breast, when the mail
carrier and his party were seen to be having trouble delivering his
mails and cargo. Some one breaks through the ice and great care must be
exercised in extricating him lest his rescurers also break through.

When rescued, the man is fortunate if his dripping outer garmets are
quickly frozen stiff. for this keeps out the the cold wind, which
otherwise penetrates to his very soul itself and unless he is wrapped in
many blankets, he would perish if far from shore when accident occurs.
Another case of anxiety, is if the mailboat was caught in slush ice.

When this happens. it may take many hours of exhausting labor to work
through a narrow strip of it. In such cases, night often falls and the
men are lost from view. In this case, or when a snow storm rages or a
sudden fog descends, the anxious ones, on the island or land would build
great fires as beacons to guide the struggling men in the right
direction, for it was easy to lose one's sense of direction in the dark.
If the storm or fog occured during the daytime they would ring bells,
fire guns, and blow the quarries steam whistles to guide them to safety.

Many an anxious hour was passed on the islands, who patroled the beaches
from end to end in an endeavor to locate the missing ones. For the
benefit of those who are unfamiliar with geography of the district and
the travel routes followed, it is necessary to say that there are
several routes taken in winter and this depends strictly upon wind and
ice conditions.

The Sandusky bay usually freezes across. When it is frozen sufficiently,
one can walk across the bay on ice from Sandusky to Marblehead
peninsula. When this is not possible, he can take the train from
Sandusky to Danbury and go across the Peninsula to Marblehead. From
Marblehead to the islands is the more difficult and uncertain passage.
If the ice is solid, one can go by automobile or if not quite strong
enough for so heavy a conveyance, then by horse and sleigh. If the ice
is treacherous, thin or broken, then the mail boat which can sail in
water or run over ice as a sled is used. Sometimes one can go to
Sandusky from the islands all the way on the ice, avoiding crossing the
Peninsula.

The conduct of horses when crossing the ice is interesting. They are
usaually in great fear and once started, are eager to get across. The
slowest horse on land, becomes a fast and spirited animal on ice. Sweat
pours from him and the steam rises in clouds from his wet body. Horses
are never taken on ice unless sharp shod and rarely slip or fall.

Should a horse break through the ice, he is immediately choked into
quietness by a rope which has been previously put around his neck by his
driver. Otherwise the horse would struggle until exhausted and then
drowns.

No driver of experience, fails to adjust a rope-noose about the horses
neck before taking or driving him out upon the ice.  When the horse that
has broken through has been quieted in this way, his harness is loosened
and a long plank is pushed under him. The plank is also an indispensible
part of the equipment of the expedition.

The plank forms an incline up with which the animal is pulled and in a
manner brought out of the water onto solid ice.

The noose is removed or loosend and the horse quickly regains his feet
after he gets his breath.

Notwithstanding all these precautions, horses are occasionally lost.

In Vol. # 6 of the Islander, 1865-66 of Kelley's Island we find the
following;  " Not long since a man, while attempting to cross the
Peninsula to Put-in-Bay, on the ice, was carried down the lake by the
ice separating from the shore  and drifting down the lake. He finally
succeeded in reaching the shore at or near Black River 
[ Lorain ] after being on the ice for two days and nights without
anything to eat. He reached the shore in almost frozen condition.
" Also S.S. Dwelle started for Sandusky the same day and barely reached
the shore of the Peninsula before the ice began to go down the lake.
These cases ought to make a person a little more cautious when crossing
over our 
"Wintery Bridge."

Mr. Jerry Dean, who was one of the island's mailman,  kept a diary for
over two years starting January 2nd, 1871 thru December 31,1872, of
conditions existing during the winter months. Most of the winter months
mail was delivered under most unusual conditions. The diary would be to
long to be quoted here word for word. It tells of the icy conditions and
thaws that occured as well as the windy conditions and swells which
caused a lot of trials and adventures of getting mail as well as
doctors, and passengers to the islands during those two years.

The mail boat was flat bottomed with sled runners beneath so that on ice
it could be dragged or pushed easily. To draw it out of the water onto
the ice, to drag it over rough ice, to force it through slush ice, to
break way through ice too thin to bear its weight, required men of
strength and endurance. To break through the ice was a common occurance.
To battle against howling wind as it swept across the frozen expanse of
many miles, when temperatures were about or below zero, required courage
of no low order.

Even steamboats have been delayed for many hours by running ice. On one
occasion, the steamer Olcott was all day going from Kelley's Island to
Sandusky, less than an hour's run usually, because the moving ice closed
up the channel she had made on her outbound passage,and she had
difficulty on her return trip in butting her way through the heavy ice,
and lost so much time hunting for openings, between the heavy ice floes,
through which to pass.

Lake Erie has in its Archipelage twelve Islands.
Kelley's Island, formally called Cunningham's Island. Mouse Island,
Catawba Island, South Bass or Put-in-Bay, Green Island, Ballast Island,
Rattlesnake Island, Middle Bass Island, St George Island or North Bass,
Middle Island, Pelee Island, and Johnson Island.

Kelley's Island is one of the most famous Island of the chain for its
glacerial finds. It also has  become famous for its quarries of
limestone, which has supplied many stones of vast quanities to be used
in building of Cleveland.
Grapes were cultivated there and was used for not only table grapes ,
but for many wines.

As I have before noted, Lake Erie is the lake of great exchanges,
greetings and goodbyes; Good morning, Detroit; Good night, Buffalo; so
long Amherstburg, Hello Sandusky. She is also a lake of lone wives, the
unfortunate or black-hearted vessels, the Flying Dutchman of the shoals,
and of much more that only the heart understands beyond words. 

For old time Lakeman, taking leave of Lake Erie, is much the same as
parting from friends and family, from scenes of birth and childhood,
from generations of auld lang syne that came into the world within the
sight and sound of western Erie water, the perpetual five-o'clock rush
hour highway on the inland seas. Parting can be hard.----

We leaves Ohio 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 is no sich thing as stiddy wind
Along Lake Erie here.

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