USA > Ohio > Erie County > History of the Fire lands, comprising Huron and Erie Counties, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of the prominent men and pioneers > Part 122
USA > Ohio > Huron County > History of the Fire lands, comprising Huron and Erie Counties, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of the prominent men and pioneers > Part 122
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121 | Part 122
I expected to give the statistics of the fisheries, but owing to the dealers failing to furnish the necessary figures, as they agreed to, we will not be able to. In 1854, five pounds were all that was used ; now, in 1879, fifty-five pounds are annually fished in this township. Mr. A. J. Stoll, of Sandusky, sent to me the number of pounds of fish handled by him from this township in 1828, amounting to one hundred and forty-four thousand five. hundred and fifteen pounds. The five or six other dealers failed to send
figures. Messrs. Idler & Webster have a very fine store, dry goods and groceries, crockery, &c .; Mr. Chris. Dollar a shoe store ; Clinton Idler, Esq., Cus- tom-House officer. So, you see, Uncle Sam has not left us entirely out in the cold.
Ballast Isle is owned by the Cleveland Club; they have a fine club house, and the island is pretty well covered with cottages, where their owners from the Forest City go, and while away an idle hour on their
BEAUTIFUL ISLE OF THE SEA.
Floral Isle, alias Middle Bass Isle .- The first land purchased by actual settlers on this island, was made by Mr. John Lutes and William Rehberg, Esq., in 1857. William Rehberg bought fifty acres on the west point, and John Lutes purchased one hundred acres on the east point of the island, both to secure fishings, not knowing then the intrinsic value of the land. On the 17th of October, 1859, Andrew Wehrle, Esq., Joseph Miller, George Caldwell and William Rehberg purchased the balance of the island, six hundred acres, for which they paid twelve thousand dollars, and immediately commenced improving their lands, and selling to actual settlers. All of the above named party commenced the cultivation of the vine, and each set small vineyards. The pioneers, with their small beginnings, did not fully realize the im- portance of their work; the two or three acres set in 1860, is now, 1879, represented by four hundred aud fifteen acres of vineyard, viz. : two hundred and sixty- one acres of Catawba; Delaware, seventy-two acres; Concord, sixty-one acres; balance-Ives, Norton, Clinton, etc. ; number of pounds of grapes in 1878, one million three hundred and thirty-eight thousand.
In 1863, Andrew Wehrle, Esq., pressed the first wine; on New Year eve his neighbors called in to sample his wine, and occasionally through the even- ing, repeated the course, when, lo, there was left none to sample; the experiment proved a stimulant, resulting in all hands going into the culture of the vine, which has grown to vast proportions above the most sanguine expectations of all parties. The first barrel sampled is now represented by the pressing of 1878-three hundred thousand gallons. Andrew Wehrle, Esq., commenced the manufacture of wine in 1865, in his cellar under his dwelling house. He pressed five thousand gallons; his business rapidly increasing, made it necessary to build a cellar. In 1870, he built a solid arched cellar of thirty thousand gallons' capacity; business still increasing. Mr. Wehrle took as partners M. Werk & Sous, under the firm of Wehrle, Werk & Sons. In 1871, the new firm built four new arched cellars, and up to the present time (1829) three additional cellars, which give a storage capacity of over three hundred thousand gallons, and no room to spare in; addition to above, the firm are now having built in Cincinnati two casks of the storage capacity of twenty-five thousand gal- lons, which casks will be set up in the cellar now be- ing prepared for them at the firm's Golden Eagle
66
.
522
HISTORY OF HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES, OHIO.
Wine cellars on Middle Bass Isle. There is located on the land of William Rehberg, Esq., west point of Floral Isle, the Toledo and Lake Erie Boating and Fishing Association. They have a commodious club surrounded by cottages owned by the members, where they come and spend the summer with their families. Post office established in 1864; Andrew Wehrle, Esq., postmaster.
Isle St. George, alias North Bass, is four miles north of Put-in-Bay, one and one half miles north of Middle Bass, and lies directly in route of steamers plying to and from Detroit and Sandusky. Roswold Nichols, Esq., was the first permanent settler on the Island. In 1844 he moved to the island. In 1845 he took a lease of the island. Dr. C. DeKay Town- send made his first trip to the islands for that purpose. It took a plump week to make the round trip. No steamboats in those days. A Mr. Demmon, of Roch- ester, New York, owned the island and sold it, includ- ing Rattlesnake Isle, to Horace Kelley, for twenty- eight hundred dollars. 1849, George W. Wires, Esq., purchased of Mr. Kelley one hundred and thir- ty-two acres, at five dollars an acre. Same year, Ros- wold Nichols bought of Kelly one hundred and four- teen acres, at five dollars per acre. 1853, Simon Fox and Peter Fox purchased the balance of the island, five hundred acres, for which they paid three thousand dollars. 1858 and 1859, they set the first grapes, about one acre, which proved a perfect success. Still the island moved slow until 1860, when the interest in the fruit business induced Dr. Townsend, J. K. Drake, E. Kinney, George H. Smith, W. D. Lindsly, Charles K. Minor, Davis Smith, Esq., H. G. Fox, Esq., to invest largely, and go to work with the earlier inhabitants to develope the latent wealth of the island. The result is four hundred and five acres of vineyard, viz: two hundred and five acres of Ca- tawba; one hundred and thirteen acres of Delaware; thirty-four acres of Concord; ten acres of Schraidt's seedling; ten acres Norton's Virginia; fifteen acres Clintons; ten acres Ives' Seedling, Wilder, Salem and Iona. In 1878, one million pounds of grapes were gathered. In 1859, Captam H. G. Fox purchased Rattlesnake Isle, containing sixty acres, for one thous- and dollars. He planted one acre of Catawba grapes. Afterward he sold the island to David Hammond, Esq., who resides on the island-the only family.
Post office established on Isle St. George, in 1873; Peter Fox, postmaster.
In 1871, the people of the island built a solid, dou- ble arched wine cellar, fifty by one hundred feet. In- cluding the structure over the cellars, this will store one hundred and twenty-five thousand gallons of wine. At the present time grape buyers from abroad purchase all the grapes raised, principally for wine. The grapes raised on this island command a better price than those raised elsewhere, because of their superior quality. The perfect drainage, fine elevation above the lake, and properties in the soil, gives this island a decided advantage over all other localities.
The educational privileges are represented by our public school system. The first school teacher was Miss Marion Dutcher, in 1857.
Isle St. George is set off by the legislature into a separate precinct, some forty votes. The steamboat accommodation is perfect. The steamboat "Jay Cooke," G. A. Brown, master, makes daily trips between Sandusky and the Islands, lying at Put-in- Bay nights; steamboat "Alaska," L. B. Goldsmith, master, daily trips from Detroit to Sandusky, touch- ing at the Islands each way; steamboat " Chief Justice Waite," E. McNelley, master, through the business season, daily from Toledo to Put-in-Bay. We must not slight the "Golden Eagle," Fred. Magle, master. She is the early bird, and late, always on the wing; and the steamboat "B. B. Ferris, Captain Freyensee, from Put-in-Bay, via the Peninsula route to Sandusky, daily.
There is not another rural district in any State, or country, that will compare with the improvements here, that depends on the product of the soil for a business. Put-in-Bay township, as a summer resort, take it all in all, has no equal. The sanitary condi- tions are very fine. Of one thing there remains no doubt, and that is, although there is nothing striking or grand in the scenery of these islands, yet, taken altogether, they form a scene of surpassing loveliness and beauty. There is always a quiet, dream-like stillness resting on the calm water, in the shade of the trees and vines, so much in contrast with the bustle and excitement of city life, that it comes to the excited brain like a sweet rest to the traveler, at the close of a long and toilsome journey.
But here, on this Peninsula shore of Lake Erie, and upon its islands, the grape flourishes in unri- valed luxuriance, and even the banks of the Ohio, the first stronghold of the Catawba, have been forced to yield a precedence to its northern rival. Many crops are useful, but few, in. themselves, beautiful. Digging potatoes, for example, can never figure on the poet's page. But everything connected with a vineyard is full of beauty, whether it be the green leaves and twining tendrils of the spring, the bunches slowly turning in the hot midsummer sun, the first picking in early fall, when the long aisles are filled with young girls, making merry over their work, or the last in-gathering of the Indian summer, when the late ripening bunches, hanging on the trellises, shine through the vineyards in red-purple gleams, as far as the eye can reach. Nothing can be more lovely than the islands in this golden season. Dionysius himself would have loved them. The water is blue and tran- quil, for even in a gale the fury does not enter here among the land-locked harbors. On all sides stand the islets, some large, some small, some vine-clad and inhabited, others rocky and wild. The trees glow with color, and sweeping down to the water's edge, send a brilliant reflection far out from shore. And . over all is spread the dreamy haze of Indian summer,
HISTORY OF HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES, OHIO.
523
more beautiful when resting on the water, or deepen- ing here and there upon an island, than it ever can be upon the level main land.
Gibraltar island, a rock in the water, the key to the bay, where Commodore Perry placed his sentinel, is crowned by a villa, whose tower forms a picturesque point in the landscape, and upon its summit is a memorial of the immortal Perry, placed there by Jay
Cooke, Esq., overlooking the scene of the battle of Lake Erie.
"Where the great Lake's sunny smiles, Dimple round its hundred isles, And Gibraltar's granite ledge, Cleaves the water like a wedge; Ringed about with smooth, gray stones,
Over waters, island strown,
Over silver sanded beach, Leaf-locked bay and misty reach, Watch and ward Gibraltar keeps."
HAUG, GENERI
INGREMENTĄFIDES.
REA
Cohas, Dr. Kay, Journal, Mary, Sherman Tomsend .
524
HISTORY OF HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES, OHIO.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
CHARLES DEKAY TOWNSEND, M. D.
Born in the city of Albany, State of New York, February 13, 1820; first son of Solomon DeKay Townsend, born in New York City, May 25, 1784, and Esther Mary Cannon, his wife, born in Norwalk, Con- necticut, December 7. 1793; married August 28, 1814, to whom four children were born, viz .: Sarah Cannon Townsend. first daughter, born July 27, 1815, depart- ed this life August 11, 1815, aged sixteen days; Sarah Cannon Townsend, second daughter, born June 27, 1817, departed this life October 29, 1841, aged twen- ty-four years and four months; Charles DeKay Town- send, first son, born February 13, 1820; Absalom Cannon Townsend, second son, born December 8, 1822.
Solomon DeKay Townsend, fourth son of Absalom Townsend, born November 21, 1743, and Helen De- Kay, his wife, born August 23, 1846. Solomon De- Kay Townsend died 1834, aged fifty-one years and eleven months. Esther Mary Cannon Townsend died 1853, aged sixty years and ten months.
The subject of this sketch, having received a fair education, commenced the study of medicine and surgery under the tuition of his uncle, Charles D. Townsend, M. D., at Albany, New York; attended lectures at the Albany Medical College, and graduated A. D. 1842. While a student he made a trip to Nor- walk, Huron county, Ohio, year 1840, for the purpose of looking after his mother's estate (Charles L. Boalt, Esq., of Norwalk, and George Reber, Esq .. of San- dusky City, our attorneys),-his mother, in common with others, seeking relief by an equal distribution of the Fire-lands, as represented in the annexation on Sandusky bay. Business all satisfactory, he pur- chased a horse, saddle and bridle, and started for his eastern home, six hundred miles, on horseback.
1840-Who, that saw the log cabin in the woods, log cabins on wheels, log cabins everywhere, with Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, would be likely to forget the political crusade to Fort Meigs. He met them on their winding way. Messrs. Boalt and Reber made a request of the eastern claimants, to select a suitable person and send him to Ohio to assist them, and to attend to outside office work pertaining to their law suits. Dr. C. D. K. Townsend was chosen, and immediately went west in 1842, with his horse and
sulky. He drove to Sandusky City, where he re- mained nearly two years, when the case was ready for a hearing. Sandusky not suiting the Doctor for a field of practice, he went, in the year 1844, to the city of Rochester, New York, and opened an office on Exchange street. To attend to his mother's estate, the Doctor moved back to Sandusky City in 1846. The year 1849 was a memorable one for Sandusky, and all concerned. The first case of cholera in San- dusky, July 1st, was Mrs. Allen. Dr. Tilden attend- ed and the patient died. The second case was Mrs. Hiram Allen's daughter-in-law: Dr. Townsend was called and the patient recovered. The cholera be- came very bad, and the inhabitants, panic stricken, left by every available means and in every direction. Doctor Townsend stood at his post of duty and made his headquarters at the mayor's office. John M. Brown, Esq., was mayor of the city. He stood at his post while thousands fled; watched over and cared for the stricken city and its inhabitants. Several physi- cians left the city, others became exhausted. Dr. Townsend waited no longer to be sent for, but sought after and attended the afflicted wherever found, until relieveu by volunteer physicians from abroad. His brother, A. C. Townsend, also rendered valuable as- sistance.
On the 3d of July, 1854, Charles DeKay Townsend, M. D., and Mrs. Mary Sherman Combes, widow of W. W. Combes, M. D., second daughter of John Sher- man, Esq., and Margaret Hinchman, his wife, were united in marriage at Ridgeville, Lorain county, Ohio. To them were born three children, viz. : Hel- ena, first daughter, born June 6, 1855; Virginia, sec- ond daughter, born February 14, 1857; Orion DeKay, first son, born February 2, 1859.
The Doctor continued in the active duties of his profession till the year 1865, when failing health caused him to change his business, and with his fam- ily he moved to Put-in-Bay township, Ottawa county, Ohio, and purchased land on Isle St. George, where he may be found, unless absent on professional busi- ness, engaged in the culture of the vine and other . fruits.
"I looked: aside the dust cloud rolled; The Master seemed the builder, too: Up-springing from the ruined old I saw the new,"
ERRATUM.
Page 113-Total for Wheatsborough "$111,60," instead of $2.80. Page 126-First birth was December 12, 1812. Page 128-Read 15th of "May," instead of April. Page 133-Read " Dr. John Wood," instead of John McLean. Page 137-Read "forty-five times." instead of forty.
Page 147-Read Huron Royal Arch Chapter No. "7," instead of 1.
Page 148-Charter returned "1845," instead of 1848.
Page 180-To children of William Gallup (5th) add, after Mrs. Lyttle, "Eliza (Mrs. Frederick Hunt), now of Orodelfan, Colorado."
2990
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.