John C. Zollinger, Civil War Veteran, Businessman, Humanitarian

According to the October 28, 1924 issue of the Sandusky Register, John C. Zollinger was one of the oldest native born Sandusky residents at the time of his death at age 82 in 1924. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles W. Zollinger, both natives of Germany. 

As a young man, he worked in the dry goods business, first for Everett Cooke and Company, and later for C.E. and G.A. Cooke. When the Civil War broke out, Mr. Zollinger enlisted in Company G of the 65th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. During the war, he took part in many engagements, including battles at Shiloh, Perryville, Stone River, Missionary Ridge, as well as the siege of Atlanta. After the war’s end, Mr. Zollinger was reenlisted and served as an officer with a regiment that was sent to Texas. Hewson Peeke’s A Standard History of Erie County, Ohio stated that he achieved his commission as captain; the 1890 Census of United States Union Veterans lists his highest rank as Full Quartermaster. 

After the war, in September 1866, he married Paulina Lerch. 

Throughout his lifetime, Mr. Zollinger had many different occupations and civic interests. In 1880, the U.S. Census listed him as a merchant. Later he was in a partnership with Frederick Ohlemacher in the lime business. In the late 1890s, he was in the fish business with Louis Adolph. 

Both Mr. and Mrs. Zollinger were very active in the Erie County Humane Society. A resolution from the Erie County Humane Society, which appeared in the Sandusky Star Journal of January 22, 1925, read in part, about Mr. Zollinger, “Nothing stirred him so deeply as cruelty to either to persons or animals, and he was ever ready to help protect the defenseless and helpless. Mr. and Mrs. Zollinger not only devoted much of their lives to the work of the society, but gave in addition thereto thousands of dollars for its support, although they were in very moderate circumstances.” 

For several years, Mr. Zollinger served as president of the Castalia Trout Club. In 1893, he presented 44 adult brook trout from the Castalia Trout Club to J.J. Stranahan, superintendent of the United States Fish Commission at the Put in Bay station, for the purpose of being placed in the Fish and Fisheries Exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. 

In 1875, he was the master of the Science Lodge, No. 50, F.and A.M. When the Science Lodge celebrated its centennial, John C. Zollinger was the oldest living past master, and he gave reminiscences at the celebration.

Sandusky Star Journal, October 18, 1919

On October 26, 1924, John C. Zollinger died after a lengthy illness. The Sandusky Register published a lengthy obituary in the October 28, 1924 issue. He was survived three sisters and two brothers. Mrs. Paulina (Lerch) Zollinger had passed away in 1904. Funeral services for Mr. Zollinger were held at the Masonic Temple in Sandusky, and burial was in Oakland Cemetery.

Edward H. Marsh, Friend of William Howard Taft

Edward H. Marsh was born in Cincinnati in 1851, and came to Sandusky with his father in 1872. Edward Lockwood Marsh, the father, was a pioneer in the gypsum business. Both Marsh men were involved with a plaster business in Sandusky, and later developed a larger gypsum business in Ottawa County. Edward H. Marsh eventually became the sole owner of the gypsum business.

In 1879, he married Caroline Mackey Lea, the daughter of James Davis Lea, a Sandusky businessman. She was known as “Carrie.” The couple was married by Rev. Josiah Strong at the Congregational Church. A reception was held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Lea on Wayne Street, where the Great Western Orchestra provided musical entertainment. The couple left on the evening train for a trip touring the Southern United States. Upon their return, the newlyweds lived at a lovely home at the corner of Washington and Franklin Streets.

Sadly, on June 10. 1885, Carrie Lea Marsh died, leaving her husband a widower with two very young children, Edward Lea and Caroline Marsh. Mr. Marsh would never remarry. An article from the Grace Episcopal Church tells of Carrie Lea Marsh having been a Sunday School teacher at the St. Luke’s Chapel of Grace Episcopal Church for many years. The chapel did not have a bell, so after Mrs. Marsh’s death, a fund was designated for the purchase of a bell. This bell is now located just outside the side door of Grace Episcopal Church, in memory of Carrie Lea Marsh. The Marsh family also gave a processional cross and a window to Grace Episcopal Church.

After the death of Mrs. Marsh, Edward H. Marsh continued to live at 334 E. Washington Street. It was at this home that William Howard Taft visited Edward H. Marsh in 1908. The two were classmates in Cincinnati. Pictured below is William Howard Taft with Edward Lea Marsh in the front seat of an automobile. J. Warren Kiefer is sitting beside Edward H. Marsh in the back seat.

Edward H. Marsh died on December 17, 1921. On the day of his funeral, which was held at Grace Episcopal Church, the entire U.S. Gypsum Co. closed down, in respect of Mr. Marsh.

To read more about the Marsh and Lea families, see Helen Hansen’s book At Home in Early Sandusky at the Sandusky Library. This title is also available for purchase at the circulation desk at the library.

Sandusky Souvenir Letter Tablet

Around the turn of the twentieth century, the Alexander Manufacturing Company published a "Souvenir Letter Tablet," which featured scenes from Sandusky and the surrounding area. Since the Lake Erie Islands was such a popular vacation destination, it is likely that tourists bought the tablets to write letters home to their family and friends while they were on vacation. The cover of the tablet (above) had a picture of the Sandusky Yacht Club building (then between Wayne Street and Columbus Avenue) and nautical decorations. 

Another page showed the boat landing at the foot of Columbus Avenue:

This page shows the Erie County Courthouse prior to its renovation in the 1930s:

The Congregational Church was featured on this page of the Sandusky souvenir letter tablet:

In addition to the souvenir tablet, the Alexander Manufacturing Company published souvenir postcards of Sandusky, several of which are in the collections of the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center.

C.L. Alspach, Minister and Community Leader

Clement L. Alspach was born in 1867 in Van Wert, Ohio, to Mr. and Mrs. Charles Alspach. He attended Heidelberg University in Tiffin, graduating from the literary department in 1890 and from the theological department in 1893. After graduation, he became a Presbyterian minister. While serving at the Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh in the mid-1890s, Rev. C.L. Alspach secured a pipe organ for the church from Andrew Carnegie. Later he served in Akron and Zanesville, Ohio. During World War I, Rev. Alspach was the minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Sandusky, Ohio.

In 1919, Rev. Alspach left the ministry, and began working for the American City Bureau, to help boost memberships in a Chamber of Commerce membership drive in Steubenville, Ohio. Before he left Sandusky, Rev. Alspach was in a group photograph taken of the members of the Sandusky Chamber of Commerce. He is the man with the bow tie in the close-up view below. (See our previous blog post to view the full picture.)

By 1924, Rev. Alspach had returned to Sandusky. That year, he served on the Centennial Executive Committee for the city of Sandusky.

From 1934 to 1959, Rev. C.L. Alspach served as Jury Commissioner at the Erie County Courthouse. 

On May 15, 1959, Rev. Clement L. Alspach died at the age of 92. An obituary in the May 16, 1959 Sandusky Register said about Rev. Alspach, “An erect six-footer and immaculately dressed , the Rev. Mr. Alspach was a familiar figure as he walked about this city with a cane or umbrella, visiting the Courthouse almost daily.” 

Rev. Alspach, who had been predeceased by his wife, was survived by a daughter, Mrs. Karl Kugel; a son, Clement W. Alspach; two granddaughters, and several other relatives. The final resting place of Rev. and Mrs. Alspach is Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery. Mrs. Marjorie Owings, a granddaughter of Rev. C.L. Alspach, was associated with the Sandusky Library for over fifty years. Below is a picture of Sandusky Library staff members in the 1940s. Marjorie Owings is the third person from the left.

Helen Gallup Pyle

Helen Gallup was the daughter of Frank Gallup and the former Fannie Walker, born in Sandusky, Ohio in 1892. Both Helen’s father Frank and her paternal grandfather Mozart Gallup were associated with the Sandusky Tool Company. Above is a close-up from her third grade class picture at Monroe School about 1900. During her later years of high school, Helen attended Rogers Hall School for Girls in Lowell, Massachusetts, graduating in 1911.

In 1917, Helen Gallup married Joseph Gilpin Pyle, Jr., an attorney. The marriage took place at Grace Church in Sandusky.

A copy of the wedding invitation is in a collection of historic invitations from Sandusky area events in the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center.

Mrs. Helen Gallup Pyle was very active in the Martha Pitkin Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. An article from the February 8, 1922 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal reported that both Mr. and Mrs. Pyle took part in a group of period dances at the D.A.R. Ball held at the Odd Fellows Hall in Sandusky. Helen served as both a teacher and a dancer for the special event. 

By 1927 Mr. and Mrs. Joseph G. Pyle, Jr. had moved to Pasadena, California with their two children, Joseph G. Pyle, III and Hermoine. Both of the Pyle children would later serve in the U.S. Military during World War II. Corporal Joseph G. Pyle, III was in an Infantry unit in the South Pacific in 1944, and Hermoine Pyle was with the Women’s Army Corps branch of the U.S. Army. 

A brief article in Sandusky Register of July 14, 1934 stated that Mr. and Mrs. Joseph G. Pyle, Jr. had divorced. Mr. Pyle passed away in 1940. Mrs. Helen Gallup Pyle died in York, Pennsylvania in 1965, and her remains were returned to Sandusky for burial in the Gallup family lot at Oakland Cemetery.

Painting by Charles H. Hubbell

The painting above was created by Charles H. Hubbell for Reinhardt N. Ausmus. (The library owns a photograph, but not the original painting.) The monoplane was designed, built, and flown by Ausmus in 1912. 

Reinhart Ausmus in 1920

Reinhardt N. Ausmus was only 16 years old when he built his first plane. Before serving in the U.S. Army as a flight instructor in World War I, Ausmus worked in Sandusky with another aviation pioneer, Thomas Benoist. Mr. Ausmus was an advocate for veterans' welfare throughout his life. He was appointed the first Erie County Veterans Service Officer in 1949, serving in that position until 1969.

Photo of Charles H. Hubbell, from the Smithsonian Institution Archives

Mr. Hubbell, who died in 1971, was one of the most well known commercial aviation artists of his time. Many of his paintings are now a part of the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum collection of the Western Reserve Historical Society.

James Ross, Educator and Author

From 1916 to 1933, James Ross was a history teacher at Sandusky High School. For several of those years, he also served as the faculty treasurer of the athletic department. Prior to moving to Sandusky, Ohio, Mr. Ross had been an educational administrator at West Chester Schools, Adams Township Schools in Champaign County, and Fort Recovery Schools in Mercer County, Ohio. An excerpt from History of Mercer County, Ohio (Biographical Publishing Co., 1907) had the following description:

Mr. Ross is not only a superintendent of marked executive ability and good judgment, but a teacher of force and power. He makes no radical change but lays a firm foundation and then progresses. Unassuming in his ways he has the ability, by his devoted, unselfish interest in his pupils, to inspire them with noble ideals and to keep them firmly as friends of the school, and through the pupils he seldom fails to reach the parent. He is an educator in the highest sense of the word.

An article in the December 21, 1940 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal stated that it was largely through the efforts of Mr. Ross that when Sandusky High played Findlay High School’s football team on Thanksgiving Day in 1925, it was the largest crowd that ever attended an SHS football game up to that point in the school’s history. 

In 1930, Mr. Ross wrote a book, The Heart of Democracy: The American Public Schools. An autographed copy of this title is now in the collections of the Follett House Museum.

The Sandusky Register of February 15, 1931 published excerpts of several positive reviews of the book, which had gained national attention. E.J. Jensen, field secretary of Adelbert College, said “It’s the first ‘meaty’ book on education that I have read with a feeling of intense enjoyment instead of from a sense of duty. Its style is so lucid and entertaining that it should have a very widespread appeal.” 

After his retirement in 1933, Mr. Ross and his wife Winnie moved to Brooklyn, New York, living with a son. Mr. Ross died on December 14, 1940. Funeral services were held at a Brooklyn crematory, and his ashes were taken to Fort Recovery, Ohio for burial.