Uncle Tom’s Cabin Performed at the Huron Playhouse in 1950

The play Uncle Tom’s Cabin was performed at the Huron Playhouse during its 1950 season, opening on July 26. The Huron Playhouse was founded in 1949 by Dr. Frederick G. Walsh of the Bowling Green State University’s Speech Department. Plays were performed at the McCormick Middle School in Huron, Ohio. William G. Bale directed Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Joann Herd played the character of Chloe, who opened the play with the singing of a Southern tune. Patricia Brewer played Eliza, who escapes slavery by crossing the icy river. Uncle Tom was portrayed by William Bale, who told the audience about the follies of slavery.

John Nagy was the technical director. He supervised the set construction, which included six different settings. The Sandusky Register Star News of July 27, 1950 reported that the audience was very appreciative of the actors, who gave two curtain calls. The play was based on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, which greatly educated the general public about the effect that slavery had upon families. The Huron Playhouse was Ohio’s oldest continuing summer theatre when it closed permanently in 2018.

Isaac Curtis Brewer III and IV

A portrait of Isaac Curtis Brewer III is among the many photographs taken by Willard A. Bishop of prominent Sandusky men from the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries. This Mr. Brewer was the husband of the former Sarah Morton, and was well known as a civil engineer. He was born in Massachusetts in 1824, but moved to Conneaut, Ohio by 1870. In 1872 he bought a home in Sandusky, at 519 Huron Avenue. From 1864 to 1887, he worked for the Lake Shore Railroad. Mr. Brewer died on June 5, 1896, and he was buried in Conneaut, Ohio following Masonic services. 

Isaac Curtis Brewer IV was born on January 29, 1868. The younger Mr. Brewer worked as an assistant engineer in the city engineer’s office, but by 1900, he was the superintendent of the Jarecki Chemical Company, which made fertilizer from the byproducts of fish. Isaac C. Brewer IV is pictured below, with other employees of the Jarecki Chemical Company, next to a load of fish. He is the second man from the right.

The first marriage of Isaac Curtis Brewer IV, to Annette Fitch, ended in divorce. Following the divorce, Annette Fitch Brewer left Sandusky with her young son, Isaac Curtis Brewer V. She wrote a book chronicling her cross country adventure, as well as the child custody dispute. By 1920 Isaac Curtis Brewer, IV had married Martha Anthony. 

On June 29, 1933, I.C. Brewer IV fell to his death in Sandusky Bay, near Battery Park. Dr. John Yochem reported that Mr. Brewer, who had a history of heart trouble, had either suffered a stroke and fell into the bay, or possibly he had slipped and fallen into the bay to his death. Funeral arrangements were handled by the Charles J. Andres Sons' Funeral Home, and burial was at Oakland Cemetery

A page from the Brewer family Bible, now in the collections of the Sandusky History Archives Research Center lists the birth of Isaac Curtis Brewer V as August 14, 1899 in Ashtabula, Ohio. He attended college at Kenyon College, and served in the U.S. Army during World War I, he later married and moved to Iowa.

A Wading Party at Bay Point

On October 1, 1916, a group of Sandusky residents had a picnic on the Sand Beach at Bay Point, in Ottawa County, Ohio. Below is a key which identifies the people in the picture.

Willard A. Bishop was a longtime Sandusky photographer. Phil Beery was a broker in Sandusky for over twenty years. Among the group were four sisters: Martha Anthony Brewer, Ida Anthony Woolsey, Jessie E. Anthony, and Minnie Sawyer, all daughters of pioneer Sandusky residents Mr. and Mrs. Lorenzo Dow Anthony. At the time of this gathering the Sandusky Bay Bridge had not yet been built, so it is likely that the group traveled from Sandusky to Bay Point aboard a steamer. Ferries traveled back and forth between Sandusky and Bay Point, where a rail connection to Toledo was available.

Elementary School Children in Sandusky, 1883

Walter Ritter donated this picture of an elementary school class taken on the steps of the old Sandusky High School (later Adams Junior High School) in 1883.  Martha Anthony (later Mrs. I.C. Brewer), number 16 in the picture, was the original owner of the photograph. 

Listed as number 40 is Allen Stroud, the son of Dr. C. Eugene Stroud. Allen Stroud became a mail carrier in Sandusky, and he also owned the Stroud Gardens that were adjacent to his home on Milan Road.

Edward W. Altstaetter, number 46 on the picture, once served as Sandusky’s Mayor. When he passed away in 1970 at the age of 91, he was the oldest insurance agent in the city of Sandusky. Young Mr. Altstaetter is the second boy from the left in the image below.

To view hundreds of historic images related to Sandusky and Erie County, see the Past Perfect Local History Archives online.

Willard A. Bishop, A Popular Sandusky Photographer

Willard A. Bishop was born in Shelby County, Indiana in 1856. In 1880, he moved to Sandusky, Ohio, where he opened a photographic studio. The 1882 Sandusky City Directory listed his studio at the northeast corner of Water Street and Columbus Avenue, with his residence at the West House hotel. By 1884, Mr. Bishop had a partnership with James H. Veitch in a photography studio in Stone’s block, on the corner of Columbus Avenue and Market Street. Besides taking photographs, Bishop and Veitch also created crayon drawings and ink portraits for their customers. Frank S. Barker was a partner with W.A. Bishop in 1886, and by then the studio had moved to 725 Washington Row, which is now in the 200 block of West Washington Row.  By 1888, W.A. Bishop was the sole proprietor of the studio, which can be seen in the picture below, taken in the first decade of the 1900s. Mr. Bishop remained in this location until 1941.

On the back of a cabinet card, Bishop advertised as a “photographic artist,” whose studio was all on the ground floor.

Bishop took pictures of individuals, families, businesses, and local government offices. This 1908 picture shows Sandusky’s downtown after a sleet storm.

Here is a composite picture of the Sandusky High School graduates of 1911:

In 1908 Mr. Bishop gave the history room at the Sandusky Library three frames containing 149 pictures of business and professional men of Sandusky whose portraits he had taken prior to this time. These portraits are now in the collections of the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center. 

More than just a photographer, Mr. Bishop was active in many local community activities. In 1903, he was in the cast of “The New Dominion”, a play which was performed at the Nielsen Theater. He can be seen here with fellow cast member Annette Fitch Brewer.

In 1917 Willard A. Bishop was the chairman of the building committee of the Good Samaritan Hospital. He is the second individual on the left in the picture of the ground breaking for the new hospital building on Van Buren Street which was built in 1918-1919.

Late in 1941, Willard A. Bishop’s health began to fail. He passed away on January 31, 1942. A lengthy obituary for Mr. Bishop is found in the 1942 Obituary Notebook at the Sandusky Library. It read in part, “Few men were better known or highly respected in Sandusky than Mr. Bishop…his camera recorded the history of Sandusky in pictures in the thousands of negatives on file in his studio here.”  The article pointed out that Bishop’s pictures told the story of the surrender of the horse to the automobile, and portrayed the transformation of the hoop-circled American girl to the modern athletic person of the 1940s. Funeral services for Willard A. Bishop were held at the Keller Funeral Home, and graveside services at Oakland Cemetery were held under the auspices of Erie Commandery, Knights Templar. Mrs. Bishop, the former Mary Mathews, had predeceased her husband in 1925.

Annette Fitch Brewer Nelson, Historian and Author

Annette Fitch Brewer was born in Ashtabula, Ohio in 1870 to a pioneer Ashtabula County family. She was widely known as an author and historian and was considered an authority on the early history of the Western Reserve. In the late 1930’s Annette broadcast historical radio programs on Radio Station WICA. She was a founding member of the Martha Pitkin Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of Washington. Later she was active in the Mary Stanley Chapter of the D.A.R. in Ashtabula.

After graduating from Lake Erie Seminary in 1890, Annette Fitch was active in the women’s suffrage movement. In 1893 Annette Fitch married I. C. Brewer, a prosperous Sandusky business man. In April 1903, Annette Fitch Brewer played “Mrs. Josephine Dulaney” in the local production of the play “The New Dominion.” The play was given at the Nielsen Theater, and received favorable reviews in the local newspaper. Cast members included local photographer W. A. Bishop, as well as. A.J. Peters, J.W. Andrews, E.L. Marsh, G.E. Wilder, Leontine Woolsey and Adah C. Kunz. Annette is pictured below with W. A. Bishop. (A set of photographs of the entire cast of “The New Dominion” is held by the Archives Research Center of the Sandusky Library.)
In 1905, following her divorce from I. C. Brewer, Annette Fitch Brewer fled Sandusky with her young son, I. C. Brewer, Jr. They went to Canada and the western United States using aliases to avoid being found by Mr. Brewer. Annette wrote a book entitled The Story of a Mother-Love chronicling her adventures. Newspaper editor I. F. Mack carried a serialized version of Annette’s book in the Sandusky Register. In April of 1910, Annette Fitch Brewer and her son were located in Washington, under assumed names. I.C. Brewer, Jr. was returned to the custody of his father, though his mother received visitation privileges.

Later both Annette Fitch Brewer and I. C. Brewer each married again. Annette Fitch Brewer married Adolph Nelson. She continued writing historical feature articles in the Jefferson Gazette. Annette Fitch Brewer Nelson lived in Ashtabula County until she died in 1960 at the age of 90.