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An article in the November 15, 1924 Sandusky Star Journal gives an account of local resident Sophronia Jefferson. Sophronia was born in Kentucky in 1842 “under the bonds of slavery.” She and her family moved to Indiana after the Civil War, where she worked for the Patterson family. (Mrs. Patterson’s daughter married into the Van Camp family, which was well known for its canning business.) In 1868, Mrs. Jefferson moved to Margaretta Township where she was employed by a Dr. Gideon. Eventually she relocated to Sandusky with her daughter Ella Miller. The writer of the newspaper article reports that when Sophronia first came to Erie County, “Sandusky at that time seemed to her a big pen for poultry and hogs, for whenever she came to town the first thing that she had to do was to chase the hogs from the ford at Mills Creek and then make her way through flocks of chickens, ducks and turkeys.” At that time, Sandusky consisted mostly of small shacks and buildings.
Mrs. Jefferson discussed how during the Civil War slaves barely knew any of the events which were taking place in the free Northern states. News and rumors of news were brought by peddlers, mail carriers, and travelers. Sophronia states that Lincoln’s name was forbidden to be spoken to anyone of color. She said that the biggest event in her life was news of the emancipation in 1862. The second big event in her life was the news of Lee’s surrender in 1865. The picture (shown above) which appeared in the Star Journal was taken from a daguerreotype taken on Christmas Day in 1865 in Indianapolis, when she was about 13 years old.
Sophronia was widowed as a young woman. In 1910, she was living in Sandusky with her daughter, granddaughter, and her uncle Harrison Bartlett, who had fought in the Civil War with the Massachusetts 55th Infantry. She was active in the Second Baptist Church on Decatur Street. At the 1919 “May Festival” sponsored by the Autumn Leaf Sewing Circle of the Second Baptist Church, Sophronia’s daughter Ella Miller displayed a log cabin silk quilt which had been made by her grandmother on a plantation in Kentucky in the 1800’s. The Star Journal article ends with an account of Sophronia voting in the November 4 election, and add that she had been driven to her voting place in an automobile. On August 24, 1927, Sophronia Jefferson died in Good Samaritan Hospital. Her funeral was held at her residence on Tyler Street, and she was buried in the Castalia Cemetery. She had lived a rich life, having overcome incredible challenges.
Mrs. Jefferson discussed how during the Civil War slaves barely knew any of the events which were taking place in the free Northern states. News and rumors of news were brought by peddlers, mail carriers, and travelers. Sophronia states that Lincoln’s name was forbidden to be spoken to anyone of color. She said that the biggest event in her life was news of the emancipation in 1862. The second big event in her life was the news of Lee’s surrender in 1865. The picture (shown above) which appeared in the Star Journal was taken from a daguerreotype taken on Christmas Day in 1865 in Indianapolis, when she was about 13 years old.
Sophronia was widowed as a young woman. In 1910, she was living in Sandusky with her daughter, granddaughter, and her uncle Harrison Bartlett, who had fought in the Civil War with the Massachusetts 55th Infantry. She was active in the Second Baptist Church on Decatur Street. At the 1919 “May Festival” sponsored by the Autumn Leaf Sewing Circle of the Second Baptist Church, Sophronia’s daughter Ella Miller displayed a log cabin silk quilt which had been made by her grandmother on a plantation in Kentucky in the 1800’s. The Star Journal article ends with an account of Sophronia voting in the November 4 election, and add that she had been driven to her voting place in an automobile. On August 24, 1927, Sophronia Jefferson died in Good Samaritan Hospital. Her funeral was held at her residence on Tyler Street, and she was buried in the Castalia Cemetery. She had lived a rich life, having overcome incredible challenges.
Although the Sandusky Library does not have primary sources relating to Mrs. Jefferson or other former slaves, you can find several items in our book collections on the history of slavery in America and recollections of former slaves, including the book, Remembering Slavery, and its companion audio tapes, with recordings of oral histories of former slaves.
Charles F. Selkirk was the son of Clerk of Courts George O. Selkirk. When Charles passed away April 1931, his obituary was headlined with the words “Poet and Friend of Poets.” Charles F. Selkirk wrote many poems, some of which were published in the Sandusky Register by the pen name of “Solkirke.” You can read more about Charles F. Selkirk in Helen Hansen’s book AT HOME IN EARLY SANDUSKY, available at the Sandusky Library. 
Sarah Howard was the first African American female graduate of Sandusky High School. She was born in Perkins Township to John and Abby Howard. Sarah taught school in Kentucky and Texas for seventeen years. She married Thomas Lawson and they moved to Ontario, Canada. Sarah died in Windsor at the age of 54, survived by her husband Thomas and son Clarence. You can read Sarah Lawson’s obituary in the Sandusky Star Journal of September 26, 1917. 
Evelina Ball was the daughter of Katharine Follett Ball and Flamen Ball III, and the granddaughter of 
The Cable Family Collection (bulk 1895-1916) offers a description of the business activities of Laurence Cable and his sons Edward and Frank, including legal documents and correspondence, some relating to the Cable Park residential development in Sandusky.
The first burial at this Jewish cemetery was Max Teshner, a Civil War veteran who died December 9, 1864. Although his name is given as Max Teshner in the cemetery records, he is probably the person recorded in the Ancestry Library Edition database (a 
Another German newspaper began publication in Sandusky in 1856. Founded as the Baystadt Demokrat ("Bay City Democrat"), the newspaper later called the Sandusky Demokrat operated until 1919, when anti-German pressure as a result of World War I forced the paper out of business. (During the war, German-language publications were required to seek a government permit to publish; additionally, popular sentiment made it difficult to support German heritage at that time.)
These newspapers help us to understand a part of our culture that no longer exists. Unfortunately, the Sandusky Library has very few copies of these newspapers, and there does not appear to be a complete run of these newspapers in any public institution. Could there be copies of these newspapers in your attic, or in some other storage place? If you find any of these newspapers, please consider donating them to the Sandusky Library, or loaning them for microfilming, so that we might preserve our city's heritage. 
Sadly, Helen Fisher, who later married George Reynolds, died in 1922 at the age of 25.
Above is a photograph of a man driving a wagon from the Catawba Candy Company, which operated in Sandusky from 1905 until 1933.
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He was an advocate for veterans' welfare from his early days until his death in 1970. Beginning as the Veterans Service Officer for American Legion Post 83 in 1922, he was appointed the first 
Our thanks to Bob Daniel for gathering the information about "Reiny" Ausmus (seen here in his later years, with his famous checkered cap) and for sponsoring his nomination to the 
In 1936, Leonard J. Thom graduated from Sandusky High School, where he was a standout football player. He went on to play football at Heidelberg College, and Ohio State University. Thom was a guard for the Buckeyes. After playing semi-pro football for the Columbus Bulls, he coached high school football for a year in Columbus.
In 1892 
He was a Sergeant-Major in 1861, but he voluntarily surrendered his position and went back into the ranks as a Private so as to be in the line of promotion and was promoted to 2nd lieutenant company K.
In a letter written to his father from Camp Chase at Pawpaw VA, Feb. 15, 1862, he detailed his sheer exhaustion: “We returned here about ten to twelve o’clock last night, tired, worn out and half frozen; and a bed never felt so good to me as my blankets did after I swallowed a couple of eggs and a cup of coffee and jerked my boots off.”
In another letter to his father written in April, he wrote home simply so his family would know he was still alive, although his many near misses likely did little to quell his family’s concerns:
I have no other excuse for violating a military order from Genl. McClellan, prohibiting the writing of letters by the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac than this—that I know you and the family are all anxious to hear that I am alive and unwounded after the Strasburg Reconnaissance and the battle of Winchester. The particulars of these two important engagements will be known to you before you receive this and I will not render myself liable to a military punishment by dwelling upon them or stating details of our army. Suffice it to say that our officers and men behaved like heroes and fought like demons. Our regiment was in advance Saturday evening, all day Sunday and until noon Monday and elicited the praise of our generals by their coolness and bravery. The eight won golden opinions and showed themselves inferior to no other regiment in the field in the elements of good soldiers. We won the name of the “bloody eight” at the expense of the dead, forty wounded and three prisoners—one of which escaped from Mt. Jackson and has just arrived in camp. Col. Carroll was brave as a lion and cool and collected as a veteran on the right wing he jumped off his horse, snatched a “Mississippi Yager” from the hands of a wounded Secesh, and led his wing afoot to the bloodiest charge of the day. He had one bullet hole through his overcoat and Col. Carroll had ten through his coat and one ball glanced on his sword belt. I had many narrow escapes during the Winchester fight and the Strasburg skirmish last week. My hair was clipped twice by musket balls and one spent ball struck the leg of my boot, in the skirmish on the left flank, Sunday morning, and several times during the day shells struck and exploded within a few yards of where I stood. But, it seems almost miraculously, I escaped unhurt. The left wing skirmish Sunday morning was the only one I was in during the day. The right wing did all the fighting in the afternoon.
I am a little under the weather today and am excused from duty. My feet are very sore from marching and I feel worn out “intirely” but I think it is only fatigue. Within eight days we (the eighth) have marched nearly one hundred miles and fought more than our share of two battles one of which takes rank as one of the hardest fights on record during this century—and I think I have a perfect right to be tired.
On June 12, 1862, he wrote to his sister Rose:
The roads, during the time of our marching, have been pretty good, and we had no trouble about getting our knapsacks hauled by the wagons, so that our burden was not so heavy as it might have been—and now that we have rested a day, I feel as well as ever. You would hardly imagine what we become accustomed to in these marches. One day on the march between Front Royal and here, the sun shone most beautifully in the morning and it was very warm—in fact uncomfortably so—but we marched on cheerily and after making eight miles stopped for dinner by a beautiful stream. We had our coffee and hard bread and started on—but the sky became overcast with clouds and the remainder of the day we marched under the most sever rain and hail I ever experienced. Our wagon stuck in the mud, and after fording three creeks, one nearly waist deep, we had to sleep without tents—but I found my way into a little outbuilding that had been a spring house and took a position on a barrel in a corner, drew up my feet and wrapped my rubber poncho about me, put my musket in the corner and went to sleep with my head leaning against the stone wall and slept as sweetly as ever I did at home. In the morning I made a cup of coffee and breakfasted on that and a piece of bacon toasted before the fire on a bayonet, marched back two miles to the teams and helped them out of the mud, and made my ten miles to Luray at the head of the Company, and thought nothing at all of it for it is a very common occurrence.
The following is excerpted from a letter to his sister written September 7, 1862, ten days before he died at the battle of Antietam:
I will give you what idea I can of your brother’s quarters. Imprimis. A piece of canvas 5 feet by 4, supported at one side by a couple of pieces rail driven into the ground, and held down at the other side by a couple of pegs, forms my house, castle, tent or whatever you choose to call it, containing bedroom, kitchen, dining room, pantry, grret, cellar and parlor. Secundis: a rubber blanket spread upon the ground composeth the furniture of said elegant and extensive mansion, answering the purpose of chairs, table, bed, bureau and provision chest. Tertus. My baggage is at Alexandria and nary clean shirt or socks has [been] seen since he left there, ten days ago and he has been marching over dusty or through muddy roads all the time. But I will begin to complain if I don’t stop thinking of such things, or will dry up.
Earl Bill Jr., Horace Harper Bill’s father, received a letter from Lieutenant Colonel Sawyer giving the particulars of his son’s death:
I sent a dispatch to be telegraphed you conveying the sad intelligence of your son’s death on the 17th, and now avail myself of the earliest opportunity to write you more particularly of the facts.
French’s Division, in which is our Brigade, forded Antietam Creek early on the morning of the 17th and engaged the enemy about quarter before nine, when one of the most sanguinary battles of the world was fought, lasting, in our front, for over four hours.
Lieutenant Horace H. Bill was in command of company K, of the 8th regiment, it’s captain being absent, sick, and most gallantly led his company upon the enemy, and fell early in the engagement, pierced with three balls—one in the head, one in the body, passing through his sword belt, and one in the leg. He was not conscious after this, but life was not entirely extinct until near night. I made every effort to have the body sent to the rear, and to procure a coffin for it, but this was impossible. Capt. James. E. Gregg superintended his burial, on the field, and marked his grave, and has his memorandum book, and perhaps other things. He had no sword of his own yet, but wore Capt. Pierce’s (his Captain).
I can not refrain from mentioning to you the general esteem for Harper by all. With me he had always been a favorite. As Sergeant-Major, he was one of our field’s staff family for over a year, and his uniform good conduct, kind heart, cheerful spirits, and constant attention to his duties, won the affections of all. Since his promotion to the Lieutenancy he has been the only officer with his Company, the Captain being absent, sick, and there being no other lieutenant. During this period we have been in active service constantly; and, although he was assigned to a command in which he was comparatively a stranger yet he had won the good will of all his men. During this march it was the turn for his company to go on picket in face of the enemy’s pickets. He took his company forward, and when I visited them, found he had selected excellent positions and made the best possible use of his men.
It would seem from a memorandum, written the morning of the battle, that he had a presentment that he would not survive the day, and requested that the event be telegraphed to you. I saw him but once that morning to speak to him, and that, just as we were priming our pieces, and amid a storm of balls he said, “Colonel, our men are in fine spirits this morning, and will show a big fight.” Just then we were ordered forward and I did not see him again except as he marched up at the head of his company.
Thus early in life has passed away one of our brave and promising youth. I can not, I presume, fully appreciate the sorrow and grief of his father and family in their sad affliction, but sincerely extend my sympathies to all his bereaved friends.
Horace Harper Bill is buried in Oakland Cemetery.
Attendance was so good that the celebration, originally planned to end on Saturday, was extended to Sunday, July 19, with boat races and a concert performance by Ackley's Band concluding the events.
Leroy married Laura Lechler in 1921. They had no children. Around the beginning of World War II, the Weiers began buying property in Middle Harbor and West Harbor in Ottawa County. Leroy was an avid hunter and outdoorsman. An excerpt from a 1969 letter by Leroy Weier appeared in the April 22, 1974 Sandusky Register. Leroy wrote: “The marshes I have known have been the greatest source of pleasure and relaxation and hobby, that have filled my entire life; one must love the feel of cold wind in the face and hear the ripple of freezing water lapping the side of the hunting boat to absorb all the ingredients that nature puts into the thrill we call wildfowling…:”
