Henry Clay Strong, Soldier and Businessman

Henry Clay Strong was born on October 4, 1841 to Lyman and Calista (Nims) Strong. During the Civil War, he served for a three month term with Company B of the 88th Ohio Infantry. After that term was up, he joined Company D of Hoffman’s Battalion, later known as the 128th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, where he was appointed second sergeant. While serving in the 128th Infantry, he became commissary sergeant, and later served as first lieutenant and regimental quartermaster. For a time he was commander of Company G. 

He married Mary Harper, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Rice Harper, in 1865. Mr. and Mrs. Strong had a son named Harper Lyman Strong in 1880, but the child died in 1881. In 1909, Mr. and Mrs. Strong legally adopted William Henry Spencer, a son of Henry Strong’s sister; he went by the name William Henry Spencer-Strong after the adoption.

After the war ended, Mr. Strong was appointed paymaster for the Sandusky, Dayton & Cincinnati Railroad. In the late 1860s and 1870s, he was a salesman for a wholesale lumber house in Sandusky. By 1874, he had moved to Newark, Ohio, where he was in a partnership with John Fleck in the wholesale grocery business. 

In 1897, Mr. Strong moved back to Sandusky, where he was one of the organizers of the Ohio Motor Company, which did business at the southeast corner of East Water and Perry Streets. The company made small engines for stationary power purposes, from the end of the 1890s until 1920. 

On June 12, 1918, Henry Clay Strong passed away following complications from surgery. He was buried in the family lot in Oakland Cemetery. Both Henry and Mary Strong had family ties to pioneer residents of Erie and Huron Counties. Read more about the early residents of the Firelands area in books, historical journals and newspapers at the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center.

Rice Harper, Erie County Clerk of Courts

Rice Harper was born 1803 in Lake County, Ohio to John and Loraine (Miner) Rice. After studying law in the office of Wheeler and McClurg, he was admitted to the bar in 1827. He left the legal field due to health problems, and for a time he worked in the mercantile business. Mr. Harper was one of the original incorporators of the Ohio Railroad, a predecessor or the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. In about 1838, he moved with his wife, the former Susannah Montgomery, to Sandusky, Ohio.

Mr. Harper served as Erie County Clerk of Courts from 1839 to 1855. During his term of office, a cholera epidemic hit Sandusky. Oakland Cemetery opened shortly after the last major outbreak, and a monument was placed in the cemetery to honor three local ministers who died in the cholera of 1849; it was erected on the Rice Harper family lot. Most likely, Mr. Harper was among the members of the local Civic Committee who raised funds to provide a fitting monument to the three ministers: Rev. N.W. Fisher of the Congregational Church, Rev. H.P. Ward of the Methodist Church, and Rev. H.P. Ward, of the old Bethel Church.

During his years in Sandusky, Rice Harper fought vigorously for improvements in the city parks. At one time, the park in downtown Sandusky was an open space that allowed for people and animals to walk freely through the park. Mr. Harper pushed for the placement of post and rail fences to be placed around the park squares on each side of Columbus Avenue, that were later replaced by picket fences. The park squares stayed enclosed until 1875, when horses, cattle and other livestock were prohibited from running at large in the city, and the fences were removed. The beautiful park system in downtown Sandusky as we know it today, was helped immensely by Rice Harper’s leadership in the nineteenth century.

Mr. Harper was a member of Grace Church since 1839, and he served as a church warden for several years. Along with William G. Lane, he was instrumental in organizing the former Good Samaritan Hospital.

Rice Harper died from pneumonia on February 19, 1891. A lengthy obituary that appeared in the February 20, 1891 issue of the Sandusky Register read in part, “Mr. Harper was one of Sandusky’s most active citizens, serving in various official capacities and always taking a leading part in public affairs. He was one of those self-made men who laid sure the foundations of character and built well the superstructure of the intelligent honorable citizen.” Funeral services for Rice Harper were held at the family residence, and burial was at Oakland Cemetery. He was survived by his wife and a daughter.