Vincent Nusly, Swiss Immigrant, Inventor

Vincent Nusly was born in 1817 in Switzerland. He came to the United States around 1847, where he settled in Sandusky, Ohio with his wife and children. Mr. Nusly operated a jewelry store in Sandusky, where he also sold tickets for the nearby Opera House.  

The first Mrs. Vincent Nusly died in 1851. Erie County Probate Court records indicate that he married Rigina Gramenshashen in 1852. She most likely passed away not long after she married, because in 1854, he married Dorothy Mueller/Miller. He and his wife Dorothy had several children together; in  the 1870 U.S. Census, there were eight children residing in the household, ranging in age from four to fifteen. 

In 1889, Vincent Nusly was issued a patent for a car coupling device to be used on railway cars:

In about 1902, Vincent Nusly moved to Canton, Ohio. He died on July 3, 1910,  at the home of his daughter, Mrs. A. A. VanSickle in Canton, at the age of 92. The funeral was held at the VanSickle home, and burial was at the Westlawn Cemetery in Canton. Mr. Nusly’s obituary appeared in the July 9, 1910 issue of the Sandusky Register.

Elmer C. Schacht, Inventor and Engineer

Elmer C. Schacht was born in Sandusky on July 24, 1896 to John and Lena (Bach) Schacht. He was a 1914 graduate of Sandusky High School, and graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in engineering. (In the picture above, Elmer C. Schacht is the fourth young man on the left in the back row.)

In 1920, Elmer C. Schacht, co-authored a book with Theodore W. Gandy, entitled Direct-Current Motor and Generator Troubles: Operation and Repair. He was issued several patents during his many years with the Behr-Manning Corporation, in New York State. An article in the January 14, 1936 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal reported that Mr. Schacht's patents would revolutionize the manufacturing methods of the sandpaper industry. The process invented was known as electro-coating, and it allowed for abrasives to be deposited on the surface of papers electrically. Eventually Mr. Schacht became the president of Behr-Manning. He retired in August of 1961, after forty one years of service to the company. Mr. Schacht donated the Schacht Fine Arts Theatre and memorial garden to Russell Sage College in Troy, New York, where he had served as a trustee of the college. The Schacht lecture series at the Athens Academy in Athens, Georgia was named in his honor.

On February 1, 1986, Elmer C. Schacht passed away in Athens, Georgia, after a lengthy illness. Inurnment was at Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery. You can read more about the life and career of Elmer C. Schacht in the February 6, 1896 and June 23, 1961 issues of the Sandusky Register, available on microfilm at the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center.

Jacob Buyer, Proprietor of the Sandusky File and Saw Works

From 1868 to the end of the 1890s, Jacob Buyer was the proprietor of the Sandusky File and Saw Works. The factory was located on the east side of Fulton Street, between Water and Market Streets. It was a small operation, not far from Barney & Kilby’s Machine Shop and Foundry, and J.C. Butler’s Planing Mill, Sash, Door and Blind Factory.

The company dealt in saws of every description, and old files could be re-cut, with a warranty that stated the file would be equal to new.  Jacob Buyer was the son of Nicholas Buyer and his wife, the former Ellen Kane. Nicholas Buyer was born in Germany, and Ellen Kane Buyer had been born in Ireland. In 1891 Jacob Buyer received patent number 462,075 for a file-cutting machine.

By the time of the 1900 Census, Jacob and Ellen Buyer were residing on Wade Park Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio, with several of their children. On May 15, 1912, Jacob Buyer died in Cleveland. His remains were returned to Sandusky, Ohio for burial at the St. Joseph Cemetery. A biographical sketch about Jacob Buyer is found in The History of Erie County, edited by Lewis Cass Aldrich, (D. Mason and Co., 1889.)  

Light’s Golden Jubilee in 1929

While Patent Number 223,898 was issued to Thomas A. Edison on January 27, 1880, the experiments done by Edison and his team in October of 1879 enabled the first practical commercial incandescent light bulb to become a reality. On October 21, 1929, Light’s Golden Jubilee was held in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Thomas A. Edison’s improvements to the incandescent light bulb.

Sandusky’s Division Manager of the Ohio Public Service Company, C. B. Wilcox, pictured above, announced in the July 23, 1929 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal, that Sandusky would pay tribute to the work of Thomas A. Edison by illuminating the fountain in Washington Park with a display of brightly colored lights. (This was before the Boy with the Boot made its home in Washington Park.) Employees of the Ohio Public Service Company were to install the special lighting display, which was to continue throughout the summer and fall months.

                            

A floral mound in the park also paid honor to Thomas A. Edison in 1929.

 

The Sandusky Star Journal of October 22, 1929 reported that hundreds of Sandusky residents sat at home by candle light or gas light, as they listened to the radio program in which Thomas A. Edison recreated his electric light over NBC Radio, at Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, where the Edison laboratory had been re-created. The reception during the program was exceptionally clear that October evening.

U.S. President and Mrs. Herbert Hoover as well as Henry Ford all took part in the Golden Jubilee of Light Celebration. Read more about Light’s Golden Jubilee at the websites of the Henry Ford Museum and the Library of Congress.

Carp Were Shipped Live From Sandusky to Philadelphia in 1911

An article in the May 18, 1911 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal reported that 4000 pounds of live carp from Oscar Zistel’s wholesale fish company, on Meigs Street in Sandusky, were recently shipped to Philadelphia. Mr. Zistel, the Adams Express Company, and government officials all worked together on the venture. At one time the fish, which were introduced in the U.S. from other countries, were despised,  known as “the hog of the waters,” but by the 1910s carp were considered a delicacy in some markets in the eastern U.S.

To ship the carp, first the fish were penned in floats on Sandusky Bay; then the floats were transported to the Pennsylvania freight house. The live fish were loaded onto a car on the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was refrigerated and had circulating water, to ensure the well being of the carp. The carp were taken out of the floats, placed into baskets, weighed, and put into the freshwater tanks on the railway car, where they traveled from Mansfield to Pittsburgh, and then on to Philadelphia.The trip to Philadelphia was over 500 miles, and an expert aboard the railroad monitored the refrigeration and air tanks in the fish tanks. The Star Journal article stated that the Jewish residents of Philadelphia were so eager to purchase the fresh fish that they bought it straight from the train car, where the fresh carp sold for eighteen to twenty cents per pound. 

In 1913 and 1914, Oscar Zistel received patents for fish transporting devices. Patent number 1,109,193 was for the improvement of an aerating device which could be useful in the transporting of live fish. Patent number 1,227,732, issued in 1917, was for an automobile which could be used to transport live fish.

Sadly, Oscar Zistel died in 1918, before his vehicle could be fully developed. Several patents issued between 1951 and 2011 cited technology that Zistel had patented. The Zistel family was quite entrepreneurial. Oscar’s father Louis Zistel carried passengers to Cedar Point in the 1870s, and was the proprietor of the Atlantic Pleasure Gardens, a saloon and entertainment center on Meigs Street.

The Combined Corrugator and Double Facer at Hinde and Dauch

The invention of the Combined Corrugator and Double Facer used by the Hinde and Dauch Paper Company was attributed to Solomon Sylvester Knisely, who was a mechanical engineer at the company. He began working at H&D in 1905, and retired in 1949 after 44 years of continuous service. Mr. Knisely is the man on the right in the picture below.

      

Two female employees of the Hinde and Dauch Paper Company are pictured at the Combined Corrugator and Double Facer in the 1920s or 1930s.

      

For most of the twentieth century, the Hinde and Dauch Paper Company was a leader in the manufacturing of corrugated paper boxes. Hinde & Dauch Paper Co. was incorporated April, 1900. At the helm of the company in the early years were James J. Hinde and Jacob J. Dauch.  In 1953, Hinde and Dauch was acquired by Westvaco. For most of the 1980s, the company operated as Displayco Midwest, which was bought out by Chesapeake in 1989. The factory closed in 1997. The former Hinde and Dauch building at 401 West Shoreline Drive is now home to Chesapeake Lofts. An article which provides the history of the development of Hinde and Dauch can be found online. Additionally, Tom Jackson wrote an excellent article for the Sandusky Register in May 2010 about Sandusky's Paper District.

Sandusky Tool Company

The Sandusky Tool Company, pictured above in the book Sandusky of To-Day, was established in 1869 to succeed Allen, Dorsey and Tenner.  George Barney, Sr. was the company’s first president, and Stephen W. Dorsey was its first superintendent. The company was well known for its fine quality hand tools, including planes, hoes, axes and other small tools. A group picture of the company’s employees was taken about 1870. Note that some of the workers were quite young.

Here is a page from the 1886 Sanborn Map that shows the location of the Sandusky Tool Company on Meigs Street, adjacent to Sandusky Bay:

J.A.Montgomery, who was associated with the Sandusky Tool Company for many years, was considered a mechanical genius. He designed woodworking machinery that was in use at the tool company for as long as it was in existence. The innovation continued after his death in 1899. W.G. Schwer patented this plane the Sandusky Tool Company in 1928.

Mozart Gallup was director, treasurer, and assistant secretary of the Sandusky Tool Company in 1880, and on September 14, 1886, he became the president and general manager. Mr. Gallup held the office of president of the company until his death in 1923.

This picture of the Sandusky Tool Company was most likely taken in the 1920s.

In 1924, the Sandusky Tool Company was hit by a tornado, and within five years, the company closed.

                    

To read more about the of the Sandusky Tool Company see the publication The Sandusky Tool Company Story by Wilbert G. Schwer, housed with the local history and genealogical books in the Reference Services Area of the Sandusky Library. Five images of tools made by the Sandusky Tool Company can be seen online at the Ohio Memory Collection.  To view actual tools made by the Sandusky Tool Company, visit The Follett House Museum, where tools are displayed in a room on the attic level.

Adam J. Stoll, Inventor

Adam J. Stoll was born in Bucyrus, Ohio in 1844.  He moved to Sandusky in 1868. That same year, he married Sophia Burgdorf, the adopted daughter of Ferdinand Geiersdorf. He was part owner of the Cedar Point resort in its very early years. When Mr. Stoll first moved to Sandusky, he worked in the commercial fishery business with his father in law. Later he partnered with Lewis Adolph in the fish business. For a time he worked independently in the fish business, until he sold the business to Booth Fisheries.  In 1883, Adam J. Stoll was issued Patent Number 285,521 for an apparatus which mixed ice and salt for freezing fish.

The former home of the Adam J. Stoll family, at 531 Wayne Street, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Mrs. Sophia Stoll died in January, 1921. Adam J. Stoll passed away on July 17, 1930. He was survived by two daughters. His funeral services were held at the Stoll residence, and burial was at Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery. To read more about Adam J. Stoll and other former residents of Sandusky and Erie County, visit the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center.

Dr. Augustus J. Gawne, Inventor

Augustus James Gawne was born in 1843 to Charles and Alice Gawne. From about 1880 to 1910, Dr. A. J. Gawne was a physician in Sandusky, Ohio. He had his office at several different locations in Sandusky. In the late 1890s and early 1900s, his office was on the second floor of the Graham building at the southeast corner of Columbus Avenue and Water Street.

On January 12, 1897, A.J. Gawne was issued a patent for a medical device called a Static Generator.

In an 1898 news article, the Portsmouth Daily Times described the Gawne Static Electric Generator as "one of the greatest inventions of the age." The machine was sold to physicians, and was used for the treatment of acute and chronic aches. Dr. Gawne claimed to have success with the static generator in treating rheumatism, neuralgia, headaches, nervousness, and muscle spasms.

Dr. Gawne was married twice. His first wife, the former Ella Warden, died in 1887 when she was only 39 years of age. In 1893, A.J. Gawne married Sophia Louise Alvord, but according to his death record, that marriage ended in divorce. On June 1, 1910, Dr. Gawne died at Good Samaritan Hospital. Funeral services were held at his residence on Decatur Street, with the Rev. W. Ashton Thompson officiating.

Dr. Gawne was buried next to his first wife in the North Ridge section of Oakland Cemetery.

Walter F. Rittman, Chemical Engineer

Walter F. Rittman was born in Sandusky in 1883 to Christ and Louisa Rittman. Walter was an excellent football player while at Sandusky High School. He worked his way through Ohio Northern University, and then went on to complete his Master’s Degree at Swarthmore College in 1909. At Columbia University, he earned his doctorate. Dr. Rittman was pioneer in the field of chemical engineering, and was considered one of the outstanding chemical engineers of his time. In 1915 he gained national attention for his invention of a process which increased the output of gasoline from crude oil. He also perfected several other processes used in the explosive and dyestuff industries, which were used by the U.S. government during World War I.  He wrote several articles about the application of chemistry to industrial processes. From 1921 to 1933, Dr. Rittman was connected with the engineering department of the Carnegie Institute of Technology. He also served as a trustee of the Ohio Northern University from 1928 to 1941. For a time, Dr. Rittman was an instructor in chemistry at Columbia University, and later he worked as a chemist in the U.S. Bureau of Mines. On September 26, 1954, Dr. Walter F. Rittman died in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He was survived by his wife Anna, two sons, a daughter, and a sister, Mrs. Elmer B. Otto of Sandusky, Ohio. Dr. Rittman was buried in Chautauqua, New York, where his family had a summer home.

J.A. Montgomery and the Sandusky Tool Company

Joseph Albert Montgomery was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts on April 1, 1820. After working for a few years in Boston, in 1847 he moved to Columbus, Ohio. From 1847 to 1861, Mr. Montgomery was associated with the Ohio Tool Company. In 1869, he came to Sandusky, Ohio to become the superintendent of the Sandusky Tool Company. He remained with the company for thirty years. Wilbert Schwer wrote in The Sandusky Tool Company Story that Joseph A. Montgomery designed woodworking machinery that was used throughout the life of the company. In 1890 Mr. Montgomery was issued several patents for machinery used in the manufacturing of planes.

On March 3, 1899, Joseph A. Montgomery passed away a lengthy illness. An obituary which appeared in the March 4, 1899 issue of the Sandusky Star stated that Mr. Montgomery was universally respected and loved. He was survived by his wife, four sons, and a daughter. Mr. Montgomery can be seen in the picture below, taken about 1870. He is sixth from the left in the front row.

Benjamin F. Lee, Civil War Veteran and Inventor

Benjamin F. Lee was born in 1835 in the state of New York. Mr. Lee graduated from Hobart College with the class of 1859. During the Civil War he rose to the rank of Captain with the 126th New York Infantry. Civil War records accessed at Ancestry Library Edition indicate that Benjamin F. Lee was wounded during the war at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Capt. Lee left military service in August, 1864. On January 12, 1869, a U.S. patent was issued to Benjamin F. Lee for "Improvement in the Manufacture of Yeast Cakes."




By 1871 Benjamin F. Lee and Augustus C. Means ran the Buckeye Yeast Company on the north side of Water Street, west of Wayne Street. The hop yeast made by Lee and Means was supposed to be “good at all times, quick, sure” and it was said that it was imperishable and never got wormy. The following advertisement appeared in Bailey’s Northern Ohio Gazetteer and Directory, 1871-1872.

In the mid-1880s, Benjamin F. Lee, with his brother Henry A. Lee, ran a flavoring extract business on Water Street near Jackson Street, and from 1872 to 1876, he served as Erie County Prosecutor. He was also one of the lawyers involved in the litigation that took place between Rush Sloane and the Cincinnati, Sandusky, and Cleveland Railroad in 1873-1874. Eventually  Lee left the field of law and moved to Portage County, where he was a leader in the Lake Brady Spiritualists’ Association. On April 21, 1898, Benjamin F. Lee died in a fire in a cabin at Brady Lake. Some thought that Lee had been murdered, though a perpetrator was never named. His remains were brought back to Sandusky for burial at Oakland Cemetery.

John H. Williams, Hardware Merchant

In 1855 John H. Williams was the proprietor of a hardware store on Columbus Avenue in downtown Sandusky. He sold foreign and domestic hardware, and a variety of hardware, tools, safes, and bank vaults. In the 1860 U.S. Census, he, his wife Elizabeth, and their five children were residing on 109 Wayne Street in Sandusky, Ohio. Patent number 59,700 was issued to John H. Williams in 1866 for improvements to a cider and wine mill.

During the Civil War, John H. Williams, along with several other individuals, was arrested after a failed attempt by Southern sympathizers to release prisoners from the Johnson’s Island Prison Camp. After an investigation, Williams and the others were released.

An article in the September 25, 1864 issue of the New York Times discussed the conspiracy.

John H. Williams and his family left Sandusky in 1871, moving to New York City. Mr. Williams died on April 8, 1896. His remains were brought back to Sandusky by railroad, and burial was at Oakland Cemetery in the family lot. An obituary which appeared in the April 17, 1896 issue of the Sandusky Register stated that John H. Williams had many friends in Sandusky, and he had been an active leader in the Democratic Party. The article continued, “He was generous to a fault and always ready to aid those he could."

The Way Cleanse Company

The Way Cleanse Co. was listed at 327-331 West Water Street in the 1915 Sandusky City Directory. Bernard Kern was the manager of the factory. Bernard and his wife Barbara lived on Madison Street in Sandusky. The city directory lists the President of the Way Cleanse Co. as J. J. Dauch, who would go on to be a leader at the Hinde and Dauch Paper Company.

An article in volume 52 of the Public Works Journal reported that the Way Cleanse Co. manufactured gasoline-electric suction street sweepers “emphasizing the necessity of removing germs contained in dust from city streets.” The machines traveled at two to six miles per hour, and provided various speeds for the broom, blower, and auxiliary motors. One machine was reported to have removed 8,000 pounds of litter, sand and dust from 27,000 square yards of pavement, after that same had been cleaned with traditional street cleaning methods.

A photo of a Way Cleanse machine was featured in an early issue of Municipal Engineering.

Bernard Kern was issued a patent for a street sweeping machine on June 17, 1919, while he was residing in Sandusky, Ohio. Three patents which were issued to Mr. Kern are accessible at Google Patents.

An article in the April 26, 1917 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal reported that orders had been received for Way Cleanse street cleaners from Chicago and New Orleans. Branch operations had begun in Illinois and Chicago. An inquiry had been received from Bombay, India, and the government of Austria showed an interest in products from the Way Cleanse Co., but the outbreak of the world war caused them not to pursue a contract. In 1921, the Way Cleanse Co. moved its manufacturing facility to Syracuse, New York. Sadly, by 1922 there were local news reports that the Way Cleanse Co. had gone into receivership.

Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Kern moved to Syracuse, New York when the company moved there. A brief article which appeared in the August 18, 1937 issue of the Sandusky Register stated that Bernard Kern had passed away in Syracuse, and was to be buried at Calvary Cemetery in Toledo, Ohio.

Kelsey and Hosmer’s Fish Dressing Machine

The Hosmer, Bear and Company was a fish and pork packing house in Sandusky, at the foot of Wayne Street on Railroad Street (now known as Shoreline Drive) in the late 1800’s. An article from the October 6, 1873 issue of the Sandusky Register described the first operation of a fish dressing machine. The machine was invented and patented by Sandusky residents Frederick Kelsey and Frank H. Hosmer. Run by steam, the machine beheaded, opened and dressed from sixty to ninety fish per minute. The public was invited to view the machine which was set up at Hosmer, Bear and Co. The article concluded by stating about the machine that, “It is destined to mark a new and important era in the fish business of the world.”

Kelsey and Hosmer’s Fish Dressing Machine was on display at the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876. The Report from the International Exhibition indicated that the Kelsey and Hosmer Fish Dressing Machine was commended for facilitating the cleaning and dressing fish. It was worthy of mention as an ingenious mechanical device.

Image from Google Patents

You can read the full text of the patent for the Kelsey & Hosmer’s Fish Dressing Machine on Google Patents. Patent Number 142918 was issued on September 16, 1873.