The Dorastus Snow Family and a Wartime Raid in Margaretta Township

 According to the September 1860 “Firelands Pioneer,” Dorastus P. Snow was the first white settler in Margaretta Township. He built a log house and also constructed a grist mill on Cold Creek. In 1813, there were three families living in the area of Cold Creek, those of Dorastus P. Snow, and the families of Mr. Butler and Mr. Putnam.

A copy of the map of Dorastus Snow's property along Cold Creek in 1823

In June of 1813, while the men were in the fields, the women and children of the families were attacked by sixteen Odawa (Ottawa) men allied with the British who controlled Fort Detroit during the War of 1812. The women were told they would be taken to Detroit. Mrs. Hannah Snow, however, was physically unable to travel due to an illness (or pregnancy), so she and three of the children were killed, while the rest of the group was taken to Detroit and given over to the British agent named Ironside. All the survivors were eventually returned to safety by the Fall of the same year, when United States forces established contact with the British in Detroit.

After life returned to normal at the end of the war, Dorastus Snow married Anna Faulk in 1818, and they had a son named Charles Snow. (After Mr. Snow’s death in 1824, Anna married Philip Cowell, and they had several children.) The Firelands Pioneer lists the children of Dorastus Snow from his first marriage as: Henry, Alanson, Willard, Electa, and Laura. 

Charles and Willard Snow are both buried in the Castalia Cemetery of Margaretta Township.  The inscription on Willard Snow's tombstone (pictured below) is in memory of his mother and brother who were murdered in 1813. (Though the stone reads 1812, all other sources indicate that the killings took place in 1813.) Willard Snow died on January 22, 1875. He was a Veteran of the Civil War, having served in the 40^th Illinois Volunteer Infantry.

 

There are several accounts of the Snow Massacre. You can read about it in Lewis Cass Aldrich’s A Standard History of Erie County, Ohio, as well as The History of the Firelands, by W. W. Williams, both available at the Archives Research Center of the Sandusky Library.

The Tragic Life and Death of George Scudder

 

According to an article in the August 11, 1884 issue of the Sandusky Register, George T. Scudder took his own life on August 9, 1884. The article states that George shot himself on Friday evening, and died early Saturday morning. He left a letter, but according to the Register, it was “too sacred to be published in full.” In the letter he left his property to his sisters and bid them good bye. 

In the 1880 U.S. Census, George was age 16, and lived with his widowed mother, and his older brother and sisters Sandusky, Ohio. The 1867 Sandusky City Directory listed the occupation of George's father, William H. Scudder, as a grape grower. William Scudder died in 1874; his wife Louise died in 1880. By 1884, with both parents deceased, George and his brother Arthur R. Scudder were working as clerks at the B & O Railroad freight office on Water Street. They resided at 1115 Washington Street with their sisters Minnie (Mary) and Kate (Katherine). 

This bill for the tombstone of George Scudder is on file in the historical collections of the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center. His sister Minnie Scudder bought the stone from A. Hornig of the Sandusky Steam Marble and Granite Works on Columbus Avenue and Campbell Street, at a total cost of $16.50 ($539 in present value).

The Scudder family monument is located at Block 26 at Sandusky's Oakland Cemetery.

The names of George's parents, William H. Scudder, who died on February 12, 1874 and Louise Russell Scudder, who died on December 28, 1880 appear together on the side of the monument that faces west. The names of George's sisters, Mary Louise Scudder and Katherine S. Scudder appear together on the side of the Scudder family monument which faces east. The name of a member of the Russell family, Mary A. Russell (1802-1883) is on the side of the monument which faces north. George T. Scudder’s name appears on the side of the monument which faces south (seen above). While we know that M. L. Scudder purchased a tombstone in 1885 in honor of George T. Scudder, it seems likely that the family monument presently at Oakland Cemetery, along with several separate stones in memory of individual Scudder and Russell family members, were purchased at a later date.

School Children 100+ Years Ago

 

Pictured above is a group of children from classes 3-A and 4-B at Sycamore School in 1919. Most of the young people look very serious. While the students have not been identified, we know that Polly Smith is among the children in the picture. Sycamore School was built in 1876, and hosted students for more than 100 years, until the building was repurposed into apartments in 1984.

The four young men above were on the second team of the Eagles basketball team in 1920. (We don't have information about the team, but it may have been in a recreational/intramural league.) The surnames of the boys were listed on the back of the original picture. From left to right are: Meinzer, Schemenaur, Stephens, and Pusateri.

The students above were in class 3-B from Campbell School in 1919. There are 45 children in the group, but only one person has been identified. Thomas Rotsinger, the donor of the photograph, is the fourth person from the left, second row from bottom.

The Eighth Ward School, later known as Campbell School, was built in 1885 by Adam Feick and brothers and designed by J.C. Johnson. The building is now home to Nehemiah Partners of Sandusky, a nonprofit group that serves area youth.

The students above were in the first grade class at Monroe School (Ninth Ward) in 1911. The Monroe School was built in 1894 to serve the students of what was then the Ninth Ward of Sandusky.

Sandusky Downtown Street Fair 1960

 

In 1960, the downtown merchants of Sandusky hosted a street fair, which was held on July 28, 29 and 30. A committee of thirteen men planned the details for the event.

Four blocks of the downtown area were closed to auto traffic from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day. Merchants were encouraged to dress in old fashioned clothing, and the stores offered sale prices throughout the 3-day event. The W.S. Frankel Company provided 10,000 balloons for the children. Mr. William Barratt from Joseph’s clothing store arranged for special insurance coverage and early truck deliveries. Nicholas Carter from Kresge’s was in charge of giveaway promotional items. Entertainment was provided during each day of the street fair.

Cleveland television personality and performer at Cedar Point Jungle Larry appeared in person on Friday during the Street Fair.

On Friday night, Marilee and Joe Santoro, from the Arthur Murray Dance Studios, gave a dancing exhibition at the intersection of Columbus Avenue and Market Street.

Saturday’s entertainment included a performance by the Perkins High School Dance Band, strolling clowns, and a square dance in the street, called by Jerome Gravenhorst.

An article in the July 30, 1960 issue of the Sandusky Register reported that an estimated 10,000 people attended the Street Fair on Friday night, and several merchants stated that “the crowds were larger Thursday and Friday then for any event they could recall in the past.”

Sandusky held several street fairs through the years. Your parents or grandparents could probably tell you stories about their experiences in downtown Sandusky at the Street Fairs.

Rosemary Schultz Riccardi, aka Xavora Pove

Rosemary Schultz became a talented pianist at a very young age. She was the daughter of Sandusky residents Frank and Mary Schultz. Her mother, the former Mary Walker, had been an opera singer. At the age of three, Rosemary studied piano with Paul Browne Patterson, who operated a music school in Sandusky and founded the Sandusky Choral Society. Later she studied under the popular Swiss musician, Rudoph Ganz. At the age of five, she appeared at the Masonic Auditorium in Cleveland before an audience of 4,000. 

Here she is (center) pictured below with local performer Bonnie Schwerer (left) and another unidentified woman:  

After graduating from St. Mary’s High School, Rosemary moved to New York, where she continued working as a pianist, and took up modeling. In the 1960s, she wrote an astrology column for Harper’s Bazaar, under the pen name Xavora Pove. The following article about Rosemary appeared in the Sandusky Register of January 14, 1967.

In 1968, she helped develop a television game show “Guess My Sign,” which aired in New York City. Through the years Rosemary entertained people throughout the Midwest., and eventually she moved back to Sandusky. She passed away on November 27, 2016, and was survived by her son David. Her husband Patsy Riccardi predeceased Rosemary and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Morris Platte: Baseball Star, Soldier in War, Victim of Influenza

 

On the left of this photograph of the Shamrocks baseball team is Morris "Baldy" Platte, star pitcher for the 1914 Sandusky city champions. He accomplished much in his tragically short life.

Born in Sandusky in 1891, the son of Adolph and Mary, Morris Platte married Elsie Ramm when they were both teenagers. The couple had their first child in 1911, before he had turned twenty years old, and they had three more children in quick succession. (Sadly, their second child died at birth.) He supported his family in jobs that included delivering ice for the City Ice Company in town. But life wasn't all work; he had a passion for baseball, and played for teams including the Sandusky Tool Company team (below) and the Shamrocks, where he helped lead the team from the mound to the city championship.

But after the United States entered the Great War, Morris Platte chose to serve his country and joined the Army. He went to Camp Sherman in Chillicothe for training in July 1918, and quickly advanced up the ranks to Sergeant. Later, he was transferred to Fort Benjamin Harrison for continued training. It was there that he faced the enemy that would defeat him.

During the First World War, nearly as many servicemen died from influenza as from war wounds. Approximately 45,000 died from the flu; 53,400 died in combat. Sadly, Morris Platte was one of the 45,000; he died on base in Indianapolis on October 9, 1918, about one month before the end of the war.

The Spirit of the Times

In the archives of the Sandusky Library is a bound volume of a newspaper called the Spirit of the Times. It was published in Batavia, New York, beginning in 1819. You might wonder why this library in Ohio is holding a newspaper from New York in its collections. if you look closely, you will find the answer on the newspaper's masthead: "Published every Friday by O. Follett." 

Oran Follett probably when he was around 45-50 years old

Oran Follett was a prominent resident of Sandusky for about sixty years, until his death in 1894, but he was born in New York state, and lived in Batavia and Buffalo in his younger days. He founded the newspaper in 1821, when he was 22 years old, and managed it until 1825, when he turned it over to his brother, Frederick Follett. He then moved to Buffalo to become a co-editor of the Buffalo Journal. Around 1834, Mr. Follett moved to Sandusky, where he had purchased land. He continued in publishing while in Ohio, as an owner of Follett, Foster, and Co. (publishers of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates) and as editor of the Ohio Journal, but he was involved in several other ventures as well. 

The article above, from the Spirit of the Times, reports on the wreck of the Walk-in-the-Water, the first steamboat on the Great Lakes.

Esther Rose Miller, Educator and World Traveler

 Around 1912, Willard A. Bishop took this picture of Robert and Esther Rose Miller, who were the children of former city commissioner Charles  F. Miller and his wife Rose.  Robert C. Miller, about 15 years old in the picture, was an office supply salesman for the Denzer Company in Sandusky in adulthood. Esther R. Miller, about five years old here, became a teacher for Sandusky City Schools. In her later years of teaching,  she taught English and geography at Adams Junior High School. 

Miss Miller traveled extensively. Here is a travel document from Esther Miller’s trip to South America in 1961, retrieved from Ancestry Library Edition.

In 1963 she traveled to Greece and Turkey. In an article in the January 25, 1965 issue of the Sandusky Register, Miss Miller described her recent trip to Scandinavia, France and Germany. In the late 1960s, she traveled to Eastern Europe, Russia and Spain. On several occasions she gave presentations to the Sandusky Travel Club about her travels. After her retirement from Adams Junior High School, Esther Rose Miller worked as an assistant librarian at the Sandusky Library.  

A Visit from Sandusky's First Shopkeeper

 

On April 10, 1861, a special visitor checked into the West House hotel in downtown Sandusky; he was special enough that the desk clerk wrote a note in the guest register. After fifty years, John Garrison, at nearly 90 years old, paid a visit to his old homestead that became the city of Sandusky. 

John Jay Garrison was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1772, but like many easterners of his time, the lure of plentiful land in the west led him eventually to Ohio. In 1810 he bought four thousand acres of land in what was then Huron County, at ninety cents an acre (about $22 an acre in today's money). But when he arrived to claim his land, much of it was underwater, and it was twelve miles from Lake Erie. So he set out to find better land nearby along the shore. 

He settled on a spot along Sandusky Bay that he thought would develop into a significant place for business, but was then occupied by camps of native people, most likely Wyandot and/or Ottawa. It was known by many settlers as Ogontz Village (seen here on a map from 1808). He set up a shop there and conducted most of his business with the native people and settlers traveling through the area.

But within the year, with war brewing between the Americans and the British and their native allies, Garrison decided it would be unwise to stay along what was then the frontier between combatants. On the advice of a Native man named Semo whom he befriended, he left the Sandusky bay area, not to return until his visit fifty years later. 

Image from Find a Grave

In his later life, Mr. Garrison spent time in Michigan and Illinois, until ultimately settling in Cedar Falls, Iowa, where he died on January 18, 1865.

Doctors Edwin Gillard, Sr. and Jr.

The pencil sketch pictured above was done by Edwin Eugene Gillard in 1889 at around age 16, when he was a student in the Sandusky Public Schools. The son of Dr. Edwin and Ida (Stroud) Gillard, Edwin Eugene Gillard also became a physician. In the 1917 Sandusky City Directory, father and son, both named Dr. Edwin Gillard, shared a medical practice in Sandusky at 503 West Washington Street. Sadly, the elder Dr. Edwin Gillard died in 1917, and the younger Dr. Edwin Gillard died in 1918, at the age of 43.

This photograph of the elder Dr. Edwin Gillard was taken by Sandusky photographer Willard A. Bishop.

The elder Edwin Gillard was born in Venice, Ohio (now the western end of Sandusky) in 1845. He graduated from the Cleveland Homeopathic College in 1872. Dr. Gillard was a physician in Sandusky for many years, and served as Erie County Coroner from 1879 through 1881. Dr. Gillard married Miss Ida Stroud in 1869; her father was area dentist Dr. Charles Stroud. They were the parents of three children, Cora, Edwin, and John Gillard.

In 1884, Dr. Gillard opened the Electro-Medical and Surgical Sanitarium on Washington Street. The January 1, 1884 issue of the Sandusky Daily Register describes the Sanitarium in detail. 

The Sanitarium was “made as complete in all the appointments for a Sanitarium as money and skill could effect.”  Each room and hallway was heated with steam, and the floors were insulated from noise by layers of concrete. The facility featured an electro-thermal bath, and the “Holtz Toepler” electric machine for administering electrotherapeutic treatment for nervous diseases, rheumatism, and neuralgia.

The Electro-Medical and Surgical Sanitarium ceased operating in 1886, though Dr. Gillard continued his practice as a physician. On October 2. 1912, the New York Times featured an article about the doctor and his brave efforts to treat Mrs. Charles Barney, the daughter of Jay Cooke. Dr. Gillard and Mr. C. B. Lockwood took a small motor boat to Gibraltar Island during gale winds. Mrs. Barney did indeed recover. 

In 1896, the building at 609 West Washington Street served as the Lake Erie Sanitarium, and later it was occupied by a boarding house. Helen Hansen tells us in the book At Home in Early Sandusky that for many years the building was known as “The Gillard Hotel.”