OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: The Battle of Marblehead Peninsula [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 4, 1999
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Historical Collections of Ohio
The Kelley Family Collections
Newspaper article, Plains Dealer
compiled by S.J. Kelley-- 1925
And Then They Went West
by Darlene E. Kelley  1998
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First of Series of four articles

The Peninsula

The Western Reserve extended 120 miles due west of the Pennsylvania
State line. Cleveland at the mouth of the Cuyahoga is a trifle more than
60 miles west from it.  The center of the river where Kingsbury Run
enters is exactly half the length of the Reserve.
The western border of this historic tract runs directly north and south.
>From its southwest corner due north, 7 miles west of Sandusky, it cuts
across Sandusky Bay and a peninsula and ends in Lake Erie.  This long
cape forms the bay's whole northern border and extends eastward nearly
seven miles into the Reserve.  From this distance its eastern end,
terminating into today's Marblehead Light, was part of the Reserve.  As
you drive from Port Clinton around the shores you see railroads, lime
whitened kilns and warehouses, pass the light and return along its
southern half through rural scenes of old Germansville, known as 
" The Peninsula " this five-mile wide headland with its forests and
trailing roads, its few farms and handful of inhabitants, in the war of
1812, saw the only military engagement of the Western Reserve.  It is
about 55 miles as the crow flies from Cleveland to the point of the
cape, and this makes this armed action the nearest that ever occured to
the city.

War--

Congress declared war June 18,1812, Gen. Hull surrendered Detroit to the
British, Aug 16.  Many paroled prisoners came here by boat.  Soon it was
rumored that the British and Indians had landed at Huron and were
marching toward Cleveland.  Two companies of local militia were called
out.  Women and children were sent to settlements east and southeast.  
A frontier line was established as far as the Huron River, Maj. Gen.
Elijah Wadsworth commanded the state militia with headquarters at
Canfield, Mahoning County.  Anticipating war, for a year he had
organized his three commands, commanded by Brig. Gens. Beall, Miller.
and Simon Perkins of Warren.  Cleveland became the rallying point for
military operations of the Northwest.  Gen. Wadsworth with a party of
horsemen arrived here Aug. 24th for conferences with military leaders
including Gen. Cass, Col. Samuel Huntington, Benjamin Tappen and Elisha
Whittlesey, Gen. Wadsworth's aids-de-camp.  On Aug 26th, Gen Simon
Perkins arrived with a large body of militia.  He was sent with 1,000
men to establish a fontier line at Huron and build block houses to
protect settlers.  He encamped on the right bank of the Huron River,
three miles below the present town known as Milan.  His brigade had
soldiers from Ashtabula, Geauga, Trumbull, Portage, and Cuyahoga
counties.

Rumors--

The main object was defense from invasion from the west and protection
of Cleveland, a village of less than 100 inhabitants.  Six miles west of
the mouth of the Huron, stretching northwest toward the peninsula, was
Cedar Point.  It was 10 miles in a straight line to the narrow entrance
of Sandusky Bay between them.  The shallow channel was then not more
than a 100 yards wide, and standing on the peninsula with a rifle you
could shoot geese on the point.  The inhabitants had fled  the few farms
on the outer cape and it was vaguely rumored that marauding Indians from
Detroit were ranging the peninsula.  A regiment of Gen. Perkins'
brigade, under Col. Richard Hayes of Hartford, Trumbull County,
established a camp on highground back from the Huron near the main
encampment. Called camp Avery and commanded by Maj. Sherman of
Youngstown, this was organized about Sept. 20th.  Among officers of the
entire brigade were Capt. Parker of Geauga, Capt. Doll of Portage and
Capt. Clark of Cuyahoga counties.  Maj Frazier with 150 men went forward
to a small fortification, at lower Sandusky, later famous as Fort
Stephenson.  There he dispatched Capt. Parker, with 20 men, across the
peninsula to the mouth of Portage River, which runs from the west and
empties into the Lake at Port Clinton. The object was to remove pork and
beef from a stockade left when the place was abandoned.  On Sept 26th,
the major loaded four boats with these stores for camp Avery and started
on the return voyage down the bay to the Huron River and the camp.
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