USA > Ohio > Erie County > History of Erie County Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 55
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A narrow slip of land belonging to this township runs along Sandusky bay, which is marshy and wet on the western portion, and dry or timbered on the east. When the lake is high it is overflowed with water on the marshy side, and at other times produces a coarse kind of grass.
Cold Creek is the most important stream in the township, but beside this there is in the southwest corner a small stream known as Pike Creek, which runs in a northeasterly course into Perkins township and empties into San- dusky Bay. This drains a large area, and in former days had a force that run a couple of saw-mills. There are also two other small streams strongly im- pregnated with mineral substances, but the one stream of importance is Cold Creek that rises near the center of the township and finds its way to Sandusky Bay. It is scarcely over four miles long, and when it took its natural channel flowed over level land that became the paradise for musk-rats, otter, and mink. It now glories in an artificial channel or mill race, and has a power sufficient to run several mills. Where this stream rises it seems to boil up from a great depth in crevices of the limestone rock. Not over half a mile from this was at one time a narrow stream that had its rise in another spring. By artificial aids this was greatly enlarged, and it excavated for itself a large basin nearly fifty feet in diameter. Any one standing on its shore could see large trees lying on the bottom, but none could guess how they came there. This was called Lit- tle Cold Creek. That the two streams had a secret connection underground no one doubted, who watched the increase of the one when the other increased ; and therefore it was thought wise to connect the two. After much expense and trouble this was done, but the result was far from satisfactory, as the waters ran in an opposite direction to that desired. Cold Creek has a fall of fifty-seven feet.
The waters of these springs is so strongly impregnated by mineral sub-
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stances that whenever it drips on any substance it covers it with a coating which becomes hard and assumes the most fanciful forms. It was deemed wise to convert this water power into practical use, and the first mill was built near the head of Cold Creek in 1810 by D. P. Snow, to be used to grind corn. This was built of logs, and the stones were brought from the quarries or rocks near by, and Lewis Ensign, a citizen of Groton, did the work on them. This mill ground from ten to fifteen bushels of grain in twenty-four hours. It was only used two years, and in 1819 there was a mill built three quarters of a mile from the head of the stream, by Joshua Pettingil!, which had a screw- wheel and ground the most of the grinding for the entire fire lands for many years.
In 1811 Major Falley raised the frame of a saw-mill where the Venice mill-race is now found, but the war of 1812 coming on, the mill was left unfinished, and in 1815 it was purchased by Eli Hunt who put a saw-mill in operation, with a run of stone in one corner and an apparatus for bolting. This was the first saw-mill in the western part of the fire-lands, and from it the first lumber was procured.
At the same time that Major Falley began his mill, a tannery was started near the head of the Venice Mills. Two years later, in 1813, he removed to the tannery built by Major Falley, at the head of Cold Creek, and this industry became one of the most important to the early settlers, who were thus supplied with an article of importance.
Three years later Daniel Mack built a saw-mill near the mill that had been owned by Snow, and in the corner was a run of stone for grinding. In 1824 he built a good grist-mill with two run of stone, and this subsequently passed into the hands of a German named Weber in 1827. Mr. Mack had long years of litigation over certain mill-rights, with Pettingill and others, because of damages done them by flowing the back water upon them. This was only ended in 1832 by transfer of the entire property, and five hundred and ten acres of land to Burr Higgins. This gave him entire control of the water- power, and he at once began to improve his mill for custom work. This was the coldest year ever known in this latitude, and every stream was frozen except Cold Creek. Southern Michigan as well as Northern Ohio were depen- dent for grinding on this single stream. In 1835 Higgins sold his entire in- terest to Davidson, Hadley & Co.
The first flouring-mill in Venice was commenced in 1832 and finished in 1833, with three run of French burrs for merchants, and three run for custom work. The completion of this mill established the first permament cash mar- ket for wheat on the fire-lands.
The second mill, one and a half miles west of south of Venice, was begun in 1839, but not finished until 1841. It had eight run of stone, and cost fifty thousand dollars. This was built of timber and was destroyed by fire in 1848.
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Four years after another mill of brick and stone with six run of stone was erected on the same site. The capacity of the two mills was sufficient to make seventy-five thousand barrels of flour during the season of navigation. The old mill at Venice, with Cold Creek and five hundred acres of land, had been purchased by Russell H. Heywood, of Buffalo, N. Y., in 1831, the year before the cold winter. At that time, 1833, one thousand barrels of flour were made before harvest. The first hundred barrels of flour in the merchant work was packed in new barrels painted with China vermillion, taken on a scow and shipped to Buffalo, and thence by canal to New York, where it arrived as clean as when it left the mill. It was considered a great curiosity, and crowds of people visited the dock to see the first shipment of flour from Ohio, and some were so enthusiastic as to predict that Ohio might sometime furnish sev- eral thousand barrels a year. This flour was bought by one hundred persons at prices quite in advance of the best Genesee flour. That year was a mem- orable one, because of the early harvest and the drought that extended over the new country, forcing people to carry their grist a hundred miles. An instance is related of two men from Hancock county, who left home Monday morning and reached Venice the following Sunday, just in time to attend reli- gious service in the mill. Mr. Heywood noticed the dusty travellers who took part in the services, and after they were over, entered into conversation with the strangers, and discovered that they were in urgent need of flour. They had left behind them sick families utterly destitute, and had journeyed all the week to find a mill that could grind. They had fifteen bushels apiece of wheat. Mr. Heywood was in a quandary. He appealed to the clergyman with "What shall I do ?" He replied, "Grind it as soon as possible," which he did, and the men went home rejoicing.
It is a singular fact that until after 1840, much of the flour made in Ohio was sent West. In 1836 five hundred 'barrels, at eight dollars a barrel, was sent to Chicago and sold for twenty dollars a barrel by Oliver Newbury. It was all the flour Chicago had that winter, and the people were grateful that he had not asked fifty instead of twenty dollars. Until the completion of the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad to Tiffin, the wheat was brought in large wagons, and often over such wretched roads and at such great distances as to bring but little profit to the owners. In one case a man came one hundred and fifty miles with a four-horse team, and twelve bushels of wheat. When he sold his wheat he took his nine dollars and went to the store, talking to himself thus : " My wheat was worthless at home"; then turning to the boy in the store he asked how much the sheeting was worth, and being told nine- pence, said to himself, " Yes, my wheat was worth something at home. I could have bought a yard of cloth like that for a bushel."
Russell Heywood operated these mills forty-eight years. In 1848-1849 a cotton factory was built at Castalia. In 1864 John Hoyt bought the mill
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property and organized a stock company for the manufacture of paper, under the name of the Castalia Paper Company, with Mr. Hoyt as manager and chief stockholder. He moved the old cotton factory down to the flouring mill, and built some additions, and in about a year had in operation a first-class paper mill. It had a capacity of a ton a day, and was run day and night until it was burned in 1874.
The following year, 1875, the water power was bought for eight thousand dollars, by some of the leading men in Margaretta, viz .: C. Caswell, J. B. Witter, J. G. Snowden, E. D. White, S. H. Rogers, Philip Erbe, T. C. Adams and J. D. Chamberlain. They incorporated the Castalia Milling Company, and proceeded to build a first-class flouring-mill. The building was a sub- stantial frame, built on the foundation of the old stone mill, three stories high, beside basement and attic. This mill had a capacity of one hundred and twenty-five barrels of flour per day. They kept it running night and day, and could not fill their orders even then. £ An elevator was also built, capable of storing twenty thousand bushels of wheat, with all modern appliances for con- venience in handling grain. This mill is now moved from its foundation to a site eighty rods west, where its present owner, T. C. Adams, proposes to run it by steam. The stream is now converted into a trout stream belonging to the clubs.
The mill at Venice, owned by Dwelle & Williams, was burned to the ground in 1888, and the water privileges were then sold.
Distilleries began to appear as other manufacturing establishments multi- plied, and in 1823, Dr. B. L. Carpenter, at the head of Cold Creek, erected a small distillery. His brother, S. C. Carpenter, assisted him. It afterwards was owned by Chapman & Andrews, of Bellevue, and from them passed into the hands of Japan Johnson. It was abandoned in 1830. There had been another distillery built at Venice in 1824, by one William Mason, of Milan. It was in operation eight years. After a few years it was again started by David Barber. It is now abandoned.
A township history presents many and varied features of interest, but as years pass those that formerly seemed all important sink into comparative ob- livion to give place to others abreast of the times. Then comes the time when old legends are revived, and bits of personal history are sought, and the very place, hitherto regarded as commonplace, is looked upon as historical, and becomes in a way sacred. It is always wise to give some space to first things and events. Here we discover that the first religious denomination in Margaretta was a Methodist class in Muscash, in the southeast corner. (The name Muscash is said to be of Indian derivation, and arose from the fact that the tribes brought their skins here for barter, and not being able to speak Eng- lish, and wanting money instead of produce, insisted on "Muscash," or must cash.)
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The first tree was cut down by Docartus Snow, in 1810, who was given a hundred acres of land because he had put up a grist-mill. He was the father of the first baby born in the township, Robert Snow.
The first marriage was that of Charles Butler and Clarissa Parker. The first deaths were those murdered by the Indians in 1813. The first house was built by D. Snow, of logs, in 1810, at the head of Cold Creek. The first mail from Sandusky City to Lower Sandusky, was carried on horseback, and estab- lished in 1825. It was taken once a week. The first postmaster of Marga- retta was Sam. B. Carpenter. In 1810 Cleveland was the nearest post-office. The first store in Margaretta was started by Major Fred. Falley, for trading with the Indians. He afterwards went into the service of the government to furnish army supplies. Saloons have had a thriving business in this township, and the history of their success can be read on the tombstones of their grave- yard.
The first change was made by cutting a silver dollar into ten, shilling pieces. Skins and furs were made commodities of exchange. Grain would not buy goods at any price, and the problem of clothing a family was the most per- plexing one that came to the early settler. None but nabobs had a whole suit of clothes made of cloth. Deer skins were used for men and boys. Ladies then could spin and weave, and were proud of their work. In 1821 Captain Andrus Parker put up twenty barrels of pork and shipped it to Montreal, for which he never received a single cent.
The first market for cash was known only at the opening of the Erie canal, and this brought a little money to the settlement.
The first school-house was built of logs, at the junction of the Venice and Cold Creek roads, in 1818, by Captain A. Parker, and some neighbors. This had the first teacher, Thomas Mccullough, who received fifteen dollars a month for his services, and had that first winter twenty-five scholars. After that Rev. Alvin Coe, who had been teaching Indian children in Greenfield, moved his school to Venice, and taught all the children in the vicinity. Some of the best district schools that have ever been taught in the township were taught in those days, and the early teachers deserve a most honorable mention in history. A few of them were A. W. O'Brien, of Maine; Jonathan Fuller, James F. Wilson and John W. Falley.
The first physician settled in this place was Dr. Hartshorn, in 1817. There are churches in this township, but history fails to record who preached the first sermon. In 1819 a Presbyterian Church was organized in Margaretta and Groton, by Rev. John Seward. Its members moved away and the organ- ization died. In 1823 a Baptist Church was started, having its members in Oxford, Groton and Margaretta. This was the only church that sustained regular services in the township for several years. Deacon R. Falley was the most prominent member, and owing to his efforts it was kept alive through
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those early years. In 1835 a Congregational Church was organized by Rev. Hiram Smith, from Westfield, Mass., who secured the love and respect of his parish and remained with them until 1865. The members of the Baptist Church having become scattered, and Deacon Falley's health failing, the members of the Baptist Church still remaining were identified with the new enterprise and became members of the Congregational Church. Two years after the present Congregational Church was built, in 1850, the Methodists built a frame church at Castalia, which flourished for a time, but since 1860 has had no regular services. It has since been sold for other purposes. Castalia Universalist Church was organized by Rev. George R. Brown, October 12 1862. Five years later the society built a neat building on land donated by William Graves, at a cost of four thousand two hundred dollars. Mr. Brown was pastor at this time until he died.
The Church of our Redeemer, at Venice, was organized by an election of wardens and vestrymen, in June, 1866. In July of the same year Rev. Charles Ogden was invited to take charge of the parish, and on the 17th of July, in the same year, the ground was broken for the present attractive stone edifice. The corner stone was laid by Rev. Charles Ogden, August 21, 1866. The parish was incorporated on the 13th day of October, and admitted in the union with the diocese of Ohio. It was consecrated June 3, 1867, by the Right Reverend Bishop McIlvaine. The church was erected by Russell H. Heywood, as a memorial to the departed members of his own family. Its cost, including the iron fence that encloses it, was $12,000, and it was deeded to the wardens and vestry on the day of its consecration, in connection with a glebe of fifteen acres. This church has been open on all Sundays since its erection, either by clergyman or lay readers, until 1878. It has had the fol- lowing clergymen for its pastors, viz. : Rev. Charles Ogden, from 1866 until July, 1867; Rev. George S. Chase, from September, 1867, until November, 1868; Rev. George Bosley, from October, 1874, until 1876. It is now under the charge of Grace Church, Sandusky.
About the year 1832 a temperance society was organized; since that time several others have arisen, until now the majority of the people of the township are friends of temperance.
Margaretta Grange, No. 488, P. of H., was organized January 30, 1873, with twenty-seven charter members. This institution is still flourishing, with the following officers : J. B. Witter, M .; G. Ray, O .; F. Nelson Prentice, L. ; J. C. Rogers, S .; W. H. Neill, A. S .; Mrs. H. Meyraugh, C .; O. Ransom, treasurer ; J. Atwater, secretary ; D. Witter, G. K.
Sporting Clubs .- A visit to the trout streams of Castalia is one of the great attractions of visitors to all neighboring towns. On a summer's day the road between Sandusky and Castalia is alive with equipages on their way to the headwaters of Cold Creek to see the club houses and enjoy the beautiful views.
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The roads are fine, the air clear, and six miles seem as nought. The little village of Castalia comes in sight, with ornate school building and rustic church and simple homes. The bubbling springs from beneath form a pond of no mean size, and like a miniature lake lie the headwaters of the stream that originally flowed across a bit of prairie, but was diverted into an artificial channel or mill-race, when the first mill was built.
In the year 1870 John Hoyt, proprietor of the Castalia Paper Mills (since burned), conceived the idea of trying a few thousand eggs of the brook trout, and proceeded to make troughs for hatching them. A severe thunder storm killed the trout, and in his second attempt he was equally unsuccessful, for the brood of spawn is said to have been killed by the keeper, who poisoned them. The third were turned loose in the pond, and multiplied, and the venture was at last a success. In May, 1878, a statute was passed by the State of Ohio to corporate a company, which should be known as the Cold Creek Trout Club, for the purpose of fishing, hunting and pleasuring ; of propagating fish, and pro- tecting game on lands leased from the Castalia Milling Company. The capital stock of said company should be $1,275, to be divided into eighty-five shares of fifteen dollars a share. When the club was organized there were seventy- four members. The incorporators were J. Atwater, B. F. Ferris, R. F. Fow- ler, B. H. Rogers and D. S. Worthington. This company leased the prop- erty for twenty years for fifty dollars per year, having use and right to the headwaters, and including branches and tail race for two miles. In 1883 they built a house, and in 1887 bought the property with buildings and forty acres of land for $20,000. The shares are now valued at $300 each, and whenever a member dies or becomes dissociated with the club, his stock is bought up and the membership thus decreased. At the present time there are seventy-one members. In 1887 the name was changed to that of the Cold Creek Sporting Club. They also dug a new race at a cost of two or three thousand dollars, and the coming season will see still greater improvements in grounds artistically arranged and added conveniences for members. The old mill has been moved away, and the whole place has become an ideal sporting man's paradise. The club-house is on the lower bank of the stream, connected by a bridge with the keeper's house on the opposite shore. The latter con- tains a public dining-room and extra sleeping apartments, while in a building in the rear of the club-house is a cottage devoted to ladies and children, con- taining many sleeping-rooms. To stand on the bridge and look down into the crystal waters beneath, where the emerald shimmer of the water-cresses, as the sunbeams play over them, make brilliant background for the speckled beauties to dart and play against, then turning look down the arch of cottonwood and sycamores that line the stream, spanned every few rods by foot-bridges; or, turning to look up to the mill-dam with the hatchery, where are sleeping forty thousand baby trout to be thrown into the stream by and by. All this is a
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dream of beauty one never forgets, having once enjoyed it, and every year will make it more beautiful and more valuable. The stream is stocked from this club, assisted by the neighboring club farther down toward the bay. The lar- gest trout ever caught here weighed three pounds and five ounces, and was caught by a Cleveland member, Mr. Yale, in 1887.
The Castalia Sporting Club was organized September 18, 1878, and leased the use of the waters for twenty years for three hundred dollars a year. There were five incorporators, viz .: Kelly Bolton, F. H. Mason, Lee McBride, Fay- ette Brown, and H. L. Terrill. Mr. Mason is editor of Cleveland Leader and consul to Geneva; Mr. McBride is, and ever has been, secretary and treasurer ; Mr. Brown has been president from the first. The club is limited to twenty- five members. In 1882 they built a club-house which cost them nearly two thousand dollars, and March 10, 1888, they bought of Messrs. Dwelle and Williams the right to the lower waters of the stream, extending four miles to the bay, and embracing on either side of the stream thirteen rods. For this they paid $24,000. August Miller has charge of the house and property. As the fish of the stream are in reality as much here as above, this club assists in stocking the upper waters with young, and in return will profit equally by the fifty thousand fish just donated by the government, known as rainbow trout. There is still another club four miles west at Rockwell's Mills, whose history is not so accessible as the two more prominent ones. Among the recent improvements of Margaretta township, the most conspicuous is that of the residence of her well-known citizen, Mr. Calvin Caswell, who lives a couple of miles from Castalia. He has been called the largest wheat raiser in the county, and for many years has been an active member of the Erie County Agricultural Society. His farm stretches its broad acres in perfect cultivation and during the last year he has remodeled his spacious home, until it has be- come a palatial residence. With towers and immense piazzas, it seems more like a Saratoga hotel than a private residence. He has six hundred acres of land, and the finest apple and peach orchards in the county.
Major Falley deserves more than a passing mention, for his name has been linked with the history of this township from its earliest settlement, and through his influence and activity Venice was laid out into town lots in 1816. He had accompanied his father to North Cambridge when but eleven years of age, as fifer, and was in the battle of Bunker Hill. After General Washington assumed command of the army, the boy returned home, and his father was employed by the government in the manufacture of firearms. In the adventures of pioneer life, Major Falley found agreeable vent to the bold spirit within, and died at the age of sixty-four in Margaretta in 1828.
There are two villages in the township-Venice and Castalia. Venice was laid out in 1816 by Major Falley, and improvements went rapidly forward. Two large warehouses, two public houses, stores, shops and dwellings were
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rapidly erected, until several hundred inhabitants had collected here. In 1818 the summer was very sickly and the town ceased to grow, and the growth since has been merely the natural increase of the first settlers.
Castalia was laid out in 1836, at the head of Cold Creek, by Davidson, Hadley & Co., and for twenty years had a slow growth, after which it has retrograded until now it has but a small business, and in 1887 a fire destroyed several buildings and cast a gloom over its inhabitants. It has a railway station on the Lake Erie and Western Railroad, also the C. S. and C. R. R. With its railway advantages, its attractions for sporting men, and its quiet health, it should once more put on signs of new life.
CHAPTER XXVII.
HISTORY OF MILAN TOWNSHIP AND VILLAGE.
L YING in the southern part of Erie, adjoining Huron county, and crossed diagonally from southwest to northeast by the Huron River, Milan town- ship is one of the most thoroughly drained and richest agricultural sections in Northern Ohio. The eastern and southern portions are sandy in a greater or less degree, and the northern part is a rich black prairie loam. The timber was never as heavy as that in Huron county, but excellent ship timber has been obtained from the woodlands in the vicinity of and far below Milan vil- lage. Even the prairie section is interspersed with groves of small oak trees. Chestnut, hickory, walnut, butternut, elm, sycamore, sassafras, various varieties of oak, and scattering maples comprise the native forest trees, but they are now mainly the second growth of timber.
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