Samuel C. Wheeler, Sandusky Attorney

 

When Samuel C. Wheeler died at age 79 on February 21, 1908, he was the oldest member of the Erie County Bar Association. For many years, he practiced law in the Cooke Block in downtown Sandusky.

Before the Civil War, Mr. Wheeler was a member of Bay City Guards, a local militia company. During the Civil War, he enlisted in Company E of the 7^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and he rose to the rank of Sergeant. 

On the occasion of Mr. Wheeler’s seventy-seventh birthday, several of his friends had a celebration. Cyrus B. Winters gave a speech, and a special poster was presented to him. On a large piece of cardboard was a picture of Samuel C. Wheeler and on each side of the poster was a numeral seven, made from the tags of Battle Ax plug tobacco.  

Mr. Wheeler suffered an injury when he fell on the icy sidewalk as he left his office two months prior to his death, and his health failed after the accident. Funeral services were held at his home on Madison Street in Sandusky, under the auspices of Science Lodge, No. 50, F. & A.M. He was buried in Oakland Cemetery. In an obituary which appeared in the February 22, 1908 issue of the Sandusky Register, it was reported that no man “was better known throughout the city and county than he was.”

Sandusky Has Loved Parades

With Sandusky's Bicentennial Parade soon to become part of history, it's a good time to share the stories of other parades in our history.

Pictured above is a scene from downtown Sandusky when Company B of the Sixth Ohio Regiment returned from the Spanish American War in May of 1899. Here is another view of the parade:

Parades have been held in Sandusky since the early days of the city. According to History of Erie County, edited by Lewis Cass Aldrich, (D. Mason and Co., 1889), Washington Square was originally appropriated as a “public ground, parade and walk.” In the 1840s, members of the local militia drilled on Washington Square, accompanied by fife and drums. On Saint Patrick’s Day in 1844, a joint parade was sponsored by the Sons of the Emerald Isle and Washington Total Abstinence Society, "in celebration of the principles of temperance."

The Sandusky Library Archives Research Center has pictures of several parades in Sandusky's history. On April 30, 1938, thousands of people celebrated the 150th anniversary of the passage of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which established the territory that included the future state of Ohio.  In the picture below, parade participants are seen proceeding north on Columbus Avenue.

      

At that time a Walgreen drugstore was located in the Cooke Block at the northeast corner of Columbus Avenue and East Market Street, and the S.S. Kresge store was on the southeast corner. 

A parade held in conjunction with the Buckeye League Band and Orchestra Festival took place in Sandusky on May 6, 1938. A band marched down Jackson Street; the Hotel Rieger is to the east and the Plaza Theater to the west.

A double feature was playing at the Plaza that day: I Was a Spy and Accidents Will Happen, starring future U.S. President Ronald Reagan. In 1938, our grandparents would probably never have guessed that Reagan would one day be the President.

Many local residents will recall when Gray Drugs was a busy store in downtown Sandusky, where the parking garage is now located. The Armed Forces Day parade was held on May 16, 1959.

Some of you may have attended this parade, which honored Jackie Mayer, Miss America of 1963.

   

Photographer Thomas Root took an aerial view of the Miss America Homecoming Parade held in November 1962. Providence Hospital was under construction at this time, seen on the right side of the picture above. 

Visit the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center to learn more about the history of Sandusky and Erie County. You may also browse through our historical photograph collection online.

Early Twentieth Century Postcard of Sandusky

This postcard was created by noted photographer Louis James Pesha in the early 1900s. The eastern side of Columbus Avenue is pictured in Sandusky’s busy downtown district.   The Cooke building, with a flagpole atop a decorative tower, can be seen at the northeast corner of Columbus Avenue and Market Street. Stone’s Block, which housed the general offices of the Lake Shore Electric Railway, is at the southeast corner of Columbus Avenue and Market Street. At this time N.E. Marshall ran a bookstore at 210 Columbus Avenue. The S.H. Knox and Co. 5 and 10 Cent Store was in business at 214 and 216 Columbus Avenue. The Dietz and Mischler cigar store, at 224 Columbus Avenue, was known for selling Siesta cigars for five cents each. Puck, a cast zinc statue, stood in the front window of the store from the late 1800s until about 1915. Puck now can be seen at the Follett House Museum.

The Bauman Brothers sold wallpaper at 226 Columbus Avenue, and the Melville Brothers drugstore was located at 228 Columbus Avenue. Also in the 200 block of Columbus Avenue was William Seitz Sons, merchant tailor and the American Banking and Trust Company. O.S. Alcott ran a men’s furnishing store at the northeast corner of Columbus Avenue and Washington Row. You can read a portion of the sign of the O.S. Alcott store in the close up view of the postcard below.

Thanks to Mr. Pesha, we can take a peek into our community’s past. Sadly, L.J. Pesha was killed in an automobile accident in 1912.

Wagenet & Davis, Insurance Agents

In the 1886 Sandusky City Directory, H. W. Wagenet and Josh B. Davis were listed as agents for over twenty five different insurance companies. Their offices were on the upper floors of the Cooke Block.  Their advertisement stated that they offered the lowest going rates, and that they offered insurance protection for fire, marine, accident, lightning, cyclone and plate glass damages. H.W. Wagenet had previously been in the insurance business with Bryon Gager at the same location. In the 1880 City Directory, Mr. Wagenet’s name was listed as H.W. Wagenknecht, but by 1886 he had changed the spelling of his name to Wagenet. 

The September 8, 1888 issue of the Sandusky Register reported that H.W. Wagnet was leaving Wagnet & Davis. His interests were taken over by his brother, John H. Wagenet, with the new partnership being known as Davis & Wagenet. You can see a sign for Davis & Wagenet, barely visible above the main front door in this image: 

    

The Cooke Block has been home to many different businesses in Sandusky throughout the years. Visit the Sandusky Library to view historic city directories to learn about the many different residents and businesses of our city.

A Cough Remedy from 1795

Mary Melville donated this 1795 recipe for a cough remedy to the Sandusky Library’s former historical museum many years ago. Mary was the sister of Charles and William Melville who operated a drugstore in the Cooke block in downtown Sandusky in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

A transcription of the recipe for the remedy reads:

Receipt by Dr. James Malone ; take two tea cupfuls of best linseed; four pence worth ____ licorice and half a pound of sun raisens, put all three in two Scott’s pints of water and boil them slowly till the quantity is reduced to a little more than one pint, then add half a pound of sugar candy and strain the whole through a clean cloth and when cold put in half a gill of old rum and as much best vinegar and cork it up in clean bottles. For use, take a large cupful at going to bed and little when the cough is troublesome, this receipt cures the worst of colds in three of four days and is a most balsomich cordial for the lungs without the least danger in the application, and also the best remedy in all consumptions.

July 11, 1795

It is not known exactly how Mary Melville came to be in possession of this vintage cough remedy, but it is interesting to read  a remedy that some of our ancestors may have used to help cure coughs and colds. 

Here is a picture of downtown Sandusky in 1899, when Sandusky’s soldiers were returning from the Spanish American War. The Melville Brothers drugstore was in business in street level of the Cooke block (the building at the corner in the background) at that time.

When the Cooke House was on Washington Row

A local resident, Leroy Hinkey donated several historical photographs to the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center. Because of his generosity, we can get an idea of what Sandusky looked like in days gone by. This stereographic image, created by Sandusky photographer A.C. Platt, was made in the 1870s as part of the Isles of Lake Erie series. In an enlarged view, you can see several buildings that were important to the daily lives of Sandusky residents for many years. The Cooke Block, at the northeast corner of Columbus Avenue and Market Street, was constructed in the 1850s. It was built by Wildman Mills, who sold it to Charles E. and George A. Cooke in 1866, and still stands today. Many local residents will recall when Holzaepfel’s was in business in the Cooke building.

The West House hotel was owned by brothers W.T. and A.K. West. It opened in 1858, in time for the Ohio State Fair, which was held in Sandusky that year. It was five stories high, and was located at the northwest corner of Columbus Avenue and Water Street. Now the State Theatre occupies the site. The old Post Office and Customs House was at the southwest corner of Columbus Avenue and West Market Street from 1857 until 1927. This location is now a parking garage. Gray Drugs was in this spot for many years.  The home of Eleutheros Cooke was built in 1843-1844, at the southwest corner of Washington Row and Columbus Avenue. (Note: Eleutheros Cooke and Geoge and Charles Cooke were not related, to the best of our knowledge.) After Eleutheros Cooke died, Sandusky attorney  Rush Sloane purchased the home. In 1878, he had the house dismantled, brick by brick, and was reassembled at what is now 1415 Columbus Avenue. Mr. Sloane gave the home to his newlywed son Thomas and his wife Sarah, who was a granddaughter of Eleutheros Cooke. Below is a picture of the Cooke home about 1890.

The original site of the Cooke house later became the location of the Sloane House hotel in 1881, followed by the Lasalle’s store in 1949; it is now occupied by Erie County governmental offices. 

Views of Market Street Looking East from Jackson

                 

This postcard of Market Street, looking east from Jackson Street, was created in the 1920s. E.B. Ackley’s billiard parlor is on the north side of West Market Street, adjacent to Jackson. You can see the marquee of the Schade Theatre, which later became the Ohio Theatre. In the distance, the Cooke building is visible at the northeast corner of Columbus Avenue and Market Street. The Hotel Rieger building (which recently opened as an apartment building, the Rieger Lofts) is on the south side of West Market Street, just opposite the Star Journal building, which now is home to the Sandusky Register. Going east down Market Street, the Third National Bank is next to the Hotel Rieger. A sign advertising an auto supply store is visible, just west of the old city building, with its two towers. In the distance you can see the Feick building, a tall structure on the south side of East Market Street. A variety of offices and small businesses are found all along Market Street, on the street level as well as on upper floors. The Hotel Rieger featured some businesses which were below street level. Below is a view of Market Street in a picture that was taken between 1890 and 1910.

The Manhattan clothing store is located where Mr. Ackley later had his billiards parlor. Dr. Nicholson had his dental office above the Manhattan store. The Hotel Rieger and Star Journal buildings had not yet been constructed, but the Cooke building and former city hall can still be seen. Street cars and horse drawn vehicles were the mode of transportation at this time, instead of the autmobiles seen in the postcard above. You can see several other images of Market Street at the Sandusky History blog by clicking on this link.

Charles E. and George A. Cooke

Charles Eddy Cooke was born about 1828, in Milan, Ohio to Augustus and Mary (Eddy) Cooke. After the death of his father, he lived with his maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Roswell Eddy, who were pioneer settlers of Erie County. Charles E. Cooke studied medicine briefly with Dr. Tilden. Not finding himself suited to the practice of medicine, he became a clerk in the dry goods store of Edward Everett. After learning about the dry goods business, Charle E. Cooke saved enough money to start his own dry goods store. By the mid 1860s, Charles E. Cooke and his younger brother George A. Cooke were operating a dry goods store at the northwest corner of Water Street and Columbus Avenue.

In 1866, the large building known as the Cooke Block, at the northeast corner of Columbus Avenue and Market, was purchased by the Cooke brothers. After a time, the Cooke brothers got out of the dry goods business, and devoted their time to looking after their property interests.

George A. Cooke died on May 21, 1894 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, at the age of 62. Charles E. Cooke lived to be 83 years of age. He died in Sandusky on November 6, 1909. Mr. Charles E. Cooke was known as a philanthropist, and a man “of kindly spirit.” During the funeral of Charles E. Cooke, all the businesses within the Cooke block were closed for one hour. Both George A. Cooke and Charles E. Cooke were buried in Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery.

Cooke Block

Sandusky’s Cooke Block, at the northeast corner of Columbus Avenue and Market Street, has been in existence since the 1850s. Ellie Damm wrote in Treasure by the Bay that the north section, known as the Union Building, was built first, along Columbus Avenue. Wildman Mills erected a large building at the corner of Columbus Avenue & Market Street, and he sold the building to Charles E. and George A. Cooke in 1866. In about 1876 the Cooke Block and the former Union Building were consolidated. Sandusky city officials met in the Union Building and the Cooke Block in the early days of the city’s history. From 1882 until 1899, the Melville Brothers ran a wholesale and retail drug business in the main corner building of the Cooke Block. Josh B. Davis and J. H. Wagenet were insurance agents in the upper levels of the building. When the men of Company B returned home from the Spanish American War, a huge parade in downtown Sandusky welcomed them home.

By 1908 the Commercial National Bank was the main business in the corner building of the Cooke Block. A variety of other businesses were located in the Cooke Block, including insurance and real estate agents, lawyers, doctors, restaurants, and retail stores.

From about 1923 and into the 1930s, Fred A. Martin operated a wholesale and retail confectionery business in the Cooke Block. In the picture below, you can just barely read the name Martin’s under the Dining Room sign. By the time Martin’s Confectionery was in the Cooke Block, streetcars and automobiles had replaced horse drawn vehicles.

At the time of the Northwest Territory Celebration Parade in 1938, Walgreen’s Drugstore was located at 172 Columbus Avenue, where Martin’s had formerly been in business.

Holzaepfel Brothers Sporting Goods was at the northeast corner of Columbus Avenue and Market Street from the 1960s to the 1980s. More recently, antique shops have been located at this address. The street numbers have varied slightly through the years on Columbus Avenue and Market Street, and businesses have changed hands numerous times. Check the historical Sandusky City directories for the names and addresses of specific businesses that have been located in the Cooke Block through the years. Article 51 of From the Widow's Walk, Volume II, by Helen Hansen and Virginia Steinemann provides a concise history of the east side of the first block of Sandusky’s Columbus Avenue.