Leicester and Juliet Walker, Pioneer Residents of the Firelands

Pictured above is the home of Leicester and Juliet Walker, in Perkins Township, Erie County, Ohio. The home was at what is now the intersection of Milan road and Hull Road, on the west side of Milan Road.

 The Firelands Pioneer of September, 1876 states that Leicester Walker was born in Herkimer County, New York in 1796, and he was orphaned as a child. He settled in Sandusky in 1818, and assisted in building the first frame homes in the Sandusky area. He married Juliet Andrews of Richland County, Ohio in 1825. It is said that both Leicester and Juliet Walker often attended to the needy and sick. Leicester was an abolitionist who was “an active supporter of the government in its efforts to crush the slaveholder’s rebellion.” (Three of the Walker sons served in the Union Army during Civil War.) In 1832, Leicester and Juliet Walker moved to Perkins Township, and they raised a large family of seven sons and two daughters.

On March 31, 1875, the Walkers celebrated their Golden Anniversary. Unfortunately, not long after, on May 6, 1875, Leicester Walker died at his home in Perkins Township. Mrs. Walker died at the home of her daughter in Michigan on September 13, 1875. The Walkers were interred at Oakland Cemetery in Sandusky, Ohio.

The pioneer settlers of the Firelands area worked the land, established churches and businesses, and formed governmental units to oversee the region where they lived. To learn more about the earliest residents of Erie and Huron Counties, see the Firelands Pioneer a multi-volume set of books housed in the Reference Services section of the Sandusky Library.

"This Was My Home"

 

In 1941, Sandusky High School student Eleanor Downing wrote an essay for the Fram entitled “This Was My Home.”

Eleanor wrote that she always loved living in the country, with its blue skies, sunshine, and starry, still nights. She enjoyed the sights and sounds of rural Erie County, Ohio, and war seemed far away from her happy home. In 1941, the United States War Department acquired 9,000 acres of farm land in Perkins Township, to make way for a munitions factory. 150 families had to find homes elsewhere. The Plum Brook Ordnance Works was named for a creek which ran through the land. Later the site was occupied by NASA for nuclear research. The Plum Brook Station is now called the NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at the Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility.

By doing a bit of research on Ancestry Library Edition, Rootsweb, and the Ohio Obituary Index, we were able to determine that Eleanor Downing was a descendant of the House family, who were among the early settlers in Perkins Township from Connecticut. The land was a vital resource to those pioneer residents, who had large farms on which they raised crops and livestock. Eleanor wrote a poignant article about how much she appreciated her home in the country, and how soon the things that she had “loved and looked forward to” would become things of the past. Visit the Sandusky Library to view the original article by Eleanor Downing in the April 1941 copy of the Fram.

Aerial View of Milan Road and Perkins Avenue from 1970

On May 18, 1970, photographer Thomas Root took this aerial picture of the intersection of Milan Road and Perkins Avenue. The Mr. Wiggs Food Mart was where Michael’s is now located, at 904 East Perkins Avenue. In the strip of stores just east of the Food Mart were a record store, a barber shop, beauty shop, Elaine Powers salon, the Medic Discount Center, the Top Value redemption center, and a laundromat. St. Stephens United Church of Christ can be seen just across the street from the shopping center, with its semi-circle drive in front of the church building. Lum’s Restaurant was at 2904 Milan Road, to the west of the Food Mart, where Little Caesar’s and Soba are now in business. The Sands Motel and Cocktail Lounge were across the street from Lum’s. The popular Ponderosa Steak House was at 2916 Milan Road, to the south of Lum’s Restaurant. Dan and Red’s Union 76 service station was at the southeast corner of Milan Road and Perkins Avenue, and a Sohio station was at the southwest corner of that intersection. To the north of the Food Mart was the Sandusky Monumental Company at 807 East Perkins Avenue. The Memorial Monumental Works, next door to the Sandusky Monumental Company, had an address of 2704 Milan Road. You can just barely see samples of tombstones on the lawns of both of the monument businesses.

In 1970 on Tuesdays after 4 p.m., you could buy a rib-eye steak dinner at Ponderosa Steak House for 99 cents.

This is an advertisement from Lum’s from the holiday season of 1970:

Visit the Sandusky Library to see decades of historical Sandusky city directories, which can help you to learn more about the past residents and businesses of Sandusky.

D. C. Richmond’s Justice of the Peace Docket, Perkins Township

Former Sandusky Library Board member, Mrs. Sakie Merz, donated her grandfather’s Justice of the Peace Docket to the historical collections of the Sandusky Library. The entries were recorded in the 1840s in Perkins Township of Erie County.

The first entry, dated November 18, 1844 was an assault and battery case. Horace J. Bell took an oath and stated that Thomas McGee unlawfully assaulted him. At first Mr. McGee pleaded Not Guilty, but later he pleaded Guilty and was fined six dollars.

The docket contains several other assault and battery cases, as well as cases dealing with perjury, attempted rape, and cases involving goods and chattel. Many lists of witnesses and bail payments are also on record in the Docket.

Half of the Mr. Richmond’s ledger contains the Minutes of the Proceedings of the 4^th Regiment, 2^nd Brigade, 11^th Division of the Ohio Militia, from 1838 through 1843.

Below is a page from the Militia Minutes which shows that William D. Lindsley was chosen to be the Colonel of the Militia, and H. J. Carpender selected as Lieutenant Colonel, on January 12, 1839.

David Chester Richmond was born in Connecticut on January 21, 1815. He moved to Erie County, Ohio in 1837, and married Sarah Burr in 1838. He died on February 17, 1888. Mr. Richmond was active in the Ohio State Board of Agriculture and the State Horticultural Society. He served in the Ohio General Assembly from 1872-1876. The Cyclopedia of American Horticulture concludes its biographical sketch about D. C. Richmond with this statement:  “Colonel Richmond was a conspicuous example of the influence which a man of ability and enthusiasm may exert in the uplifting of agricultural conditions in his neighborhood and in the states.”

Teacher and Students of a One Room Schoolhouse in Perkins Township

In about 1899, Miss Gertrude Taylor was the teacher at a one room schoolhouse in Perkins Township, on Columbus Avenue, south of Taylor Road. The picture was taken by Pascoe’s Gallery of Sandusky, Ohio.

Pictured in the photograph are: back row, Miss Gertrude Taylor, Mary Michel, Marie Strickfaden, John Von Eitzen, Morris Hills, Ethel House, Byron House, Henry Merriam, Vincent Morris, Ollie Merriam, Willie Michel; front row, Annabel House, Carl Oswald, Susanna Strickfaden, Edith Michel, Lloyd Hills, Beulah Taylor, August Von Eitzen, and Pauline Von Eitzen. The 1896 Erie County Atlas shows that the Taylor, House, and Hills families all lived very close to the school, so the children did not have far to walk to get to the schoolhouse.

Ethel House would go on to become very active in the Daughters of the American Revolution, serving as Regent of the organization for a time. Her first husband was former prosecuting attorney and judge, Claude J. Minor. Following his death, Ethel became the wife of Bowling Green State University president, Dr. Frank Prout. When Lloyd Hills had completed his school years, he became the owner and operator of the Hills’ Supply Company, which dealt in paints and automobile accessories. Susanna and Marie Strickfaden were the sisters of Joseph Strickfaden, who operated a garden center in Perkins Township for fifty years. Visit the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center to view this and hundreds of other archival photographs relating to Sandusky and Erie County, Ohio.

The Stone House on East Perkins Avenue

The old stone house at 1338 East Perkins Avenue has a very rich and interesting history. An undated paper in the historical files at the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center provides many details about this structure. In Sheila Gockstetter's paper, “The Stone House: Ever a Refuge,” the author explains that Aaron Whipple and his nephew Allen Remington designed and built this limestone home around the shell of a small log cabin that was near the site of the former settlement of African Americans known as Africa. For many months, the men dug out huge limestone blocks from the quarry in Perkins Township. They used buggies and sleds, drawn by horses to transport the stones to the intersection of what is now East Perkins Avenue and Remington Avenue, on a plot of land that was twelve acres. 

In this closer view, you can see details of how some of the stones were assembled to build the house

By 1863, Allen Remington had purchased the land and stone house from his uncle. He brought his bride, the former Quintrilla Hand, to live at the stone house with him. You can see the name A. Remington on this portion of a historic map of Section 2 of Perkins Township, dated about 1900.

Map courtesy Erie County Auditor’s Office

Allen Remington was known for the excellent cider that he pressed in an outbuilding located east of the main stone house. Farmers from all around Erie County brought him apples, and he made the apples into cider and vinegar. 

Allen and Quintrilla Remington had seven children. After Cora Belle Remington Anthony lost her husband, McDowell Anthony, at a young age, she moved back to the stone house as a widow with her two young children. Besides making cider at the stone house, Allen Remington had an interest in a line of fishing boats, along with Lorenzo Dow Anthony, Cora Belle’s father-in-law. It is believed that in the days of the Underground Railroad, Mr. Remington and Mr. Anthony harbored slaves in the fruit cellars of the stone house, and saw that they got transported to fishing boats headed to Canada in the darkness of the night. 

Allen Remington died in 1911. His son, named Allen Hand Remington, lived in the stone house with his wife and children after the death of his father. The younger Allen Remington passed away in 1944.

From the late 1940s through the late 1980s, the Stone House became a popular restaurant with several different proprietors, including Frank Mulheran, Gil Rossman and Bud Linton.  From 1977 through the 1980s, the Baxter family owned the Stone House. Since about 1990, the historic building at 1338 East Perkins Avenue has been commercial property, having been home to a variety of businesses. In the spring of 2017, a financial office, legal office and Piccolo’s Wine Cellar are all housed in the historic Stone House building.

A Locale in Erie County Known as Union Corners

If you have ever passed by St. John’s Lutheran Church on Route 250, traveling from Sandusky to Norwalk, then you have traveled through an area of Erie County that has long been known as Union Corners. This rural area is located in the very southwestern corner of Huron Township, close to the intersection of Huron, Milan, Oxford and Perkins Townships. There was a stop at Union Corners on the old Lake Shore Electric Railway.

St. John’s Lutheran Church was founded in 1865, after Rev. J.G. Lehrer of Zion Lutheran Church in Sandusky did a survey to determine where another Lutheran church would prove beneficial. Since residents out in the countryside found it difficult to travel to Sandusky for church services, Union Corners was selected as the site of the new church. Services at St. John’s were conducted in the German language until the early 1940s. A cemetery associated with the church is found just to the south of the church. Many surnames of German descent are found on the tombstones at St. John’s Cemetery, sometimes known as Union Corners Cemetery. 

Faith and family seemed to be the cornerstone of the early twentieth century residents of Union Corners. A small column of neighborhood news appeared in the Sandusky Register.  The columnist known as “Billy Boy” told of weddings, births, church events,  and activties going on at area farms.

From the late 1800s until the 1930s, there was an elementary school in Union Corners. Local newspaper articles indicated that the Perkins Board of Education sold the former Union Corners school building in 1940. There was a ladies organization known as  Union Corners Club, formed on April 14, 1921. When the club celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, Viola Fritz Wonnell wrote a history of the organization, now preserved in the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center.  The Union Corners Club was a social and literary club, which intended to promote good fellowship in the community. One of the earliest activities of the club was to join with the Erie County Federation of Women’s Clubs in protesting indecent dress of women and girls. The women asked proprietors of public dancing places to prohibit indecent dressing and suggestive dancing. The Union Corners Club, later shortened to U.C. Club,  raised money for victims of tuberculosis, for playground equipment for the local school, and refreshments served at  the U.S.O. during World War II. The group also had many social events, like card and theater parties. 

You can learn more about Union Corners by reading the neighborhood news columns in the Sandusky Register, now available on microfilm at the Sandusky Library Archives Center. St. John’s Lutheran Church records, including a hundred year history of the church are also on microfilm at the Library.

Erie County Farmers’ Institute in 1912

Farmers’ Institutes were modeled after the popular Teachers’ Institutes in the mid-1800s for the purpose of disseminating information to farmers about the latest developments in farm management. Dr. Norton S. Townshend former secretary of the Ohio Board of Agriculture, promoted Farmers’ Institutes in Ohio. In an address at the annual meeting of the State Board of Agriculture in 1874, Dr. Townshend said, "What we want is to abandon the old idea that farming has no higher aim than getting a living, and instead of it to adopt the better one that the chief end of farming is the culture and improvement of the farmer and his family; and while it does this, it should, as a secondary result, give support and pay expenses. Farming needs a new departure, or to take a new start, and with a higher aim and purpose, so that it may secure to the farmer the same improvement in intellectual and social position that men expect to secure through the professions of law or medicine. These professions educate men by their daily work, and so will farming when taken hold of in earnest and in the right way."  The Farmers’ Institutes were held in most Ohio counties during the winter months, for two or three days. Lectures were presented by state agricultural leaders, followed by open discussions among the local farmers. On January 1 and 2, 1912, the Erie County Farmer’s Institute was held at the Perkins Methodist Church.

 Ross D.L. Ransom was the president of the Institute, with Charles F. Steen as vice president, Harry E. Storrs as treasurer, and L.J. Parker serving as secretary.

 Several lectures were given, covering topics such as soil needs, the consumers’ dollar, use and value of lime, corn growing, and pruning of nursery stock. Interspersed among the lectures and discussions were musical numbers by area residents. The Ladies’ Aid Society of the Perkins Methodist Church provided dinner in the church basement for twenty five cents. Clifford King donated four programs from Erie County Farmers’ Institutes, from 1911 to 1914. 

Visit the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center if you would like to view this historical items, which are housed in archival box E-6, folder 5. A chapter about Ohio’s Farmers’ Institutes is found in the Farmer's Centennial History of Ohio, online at the InternetArchive. Agriculture continues to be an important component of Ohio’s economy, with one in seven Ohioans employed in agriculture or an agricultural related business. 

Residence of Simeon Galloway in Perkins Township

This is the residence of Simeon Galloway in Perkins Township from the latter part of the nineteenth century. A description of early homes in Perkins Township was provided in the chapter on Perkins Township in History of Erie County, Ohio, edited by Lewis Cass Aldrich. These early residences were made of logs, and usually consisted of just one room with an open fireplace. Windows were made of greased paper, the floor and door were made from a simple slab, and no nails were used. In the 1860 U.S. Census for Perkins Township of Erie County, Ohio, Simeon Galloway was listed as age 42, occupation farmer, and his birthplace was Pennsylvania. His wife Amelia, age 38, was born in Ohio. Simeon and Amelia had a son and six daughters, ranging in age from infancy to 19. Simeon Galloway died in 1890, and his wife Amelia died in 1900. Both are buried in Perkins Cemetery.

By viewing the Agricultural Schedules for Erie County, Ohio from 1860, we learn that Simeon Galloway’s farm was on ten acres of improved land. He had a milk cow, and two other cattle, and the crops on his farm included wheat, corn, oats and sweet potatoes. Mr. Galloway also produced one hundred pounds of butter between June 1, 1859 and June 1, 1860. The Sandusky Library Archives Research Center has the Agricultural Schedules for Erie County for 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880. Usually several counties are contained on one roll of microfilm. While there is no surname index to the Agricultural Schedules, a little time spent browsing in the township where one’s ancestor resided can yield interesting details about that ancestor’s farm. Information is provided about acreage crops, and livestock. To learn more about the Nonpopulation Census Records compiled by the United States Government, see the website of the National Archives and Records Administration.

Connecticut Yankees in Perkins Township

Truman B. Taylor was a pioneer Erie County citizen, farmer, and financier. For many years he was the president of Citizens National Bank. He was born on February 10, 1846 to Dennis and Phoebe Wright Taylor. His grandfather Jesse Taylor was an early settler from Connecticut. Truman B. Taylor married Mary Jane Eddy in 1872, and to them were born three children, Carrie, Burt, and Nelle, who became Mrs. C. W. Hord. Mrs. Taylor died on April 6, 1914. Truman Taylor died on May 28, 1930 and is buried in Oakland Cemetery.

In the Firelands Pioneer of June, 1865, Truman Taylor tells of his grandmother’s reminiscences of the settlement of Perkins Township. John Beatty had inspected the land in Ohio in 1814, and came back with a favorable report. In the fall of 1815, fourteen families from Glastonbury, Connecticut loaded their goods into “Yankee wagons” and headed west. Oxen and horses pulled the wagons. The journey was begun on September 5, the trip taking forty-nine days of traveling along seven hundred miles of unbroken roads. Along the way they had to buy provisions. When clothing was laundered, they had to dry the clothes on piles of brush if no fence was to be found. One youngster accidentally fell out of the wagon, and though the wheels passed over his body, he survived to live a long life.

Truman’s great-uncle Julius House was so sick with fever, that they had to leave him with relatives in Pennsylvania for a time. When they reached Cleveland there were only a few frame buildings and some log cabins. The settlers were all Methodist and they formed a “Methodist class,” later building a church where circuit riders would preach.

Once in Perkins Township, which was part of the “Firelands” of the Connecticut Western Reserve, the settlers had to clear the woodland. The prairie grass was so high that a man could sit on a horse and tie the grass over the top of his head. Fires often threatened their homes, and the sod proved difficult to break up. Through hard work and perseverance the settlers built homes, raised families, started business ventures, and eventually had thriving farms.

Most of the settlers were buried in Perkins Township. In 1941 when the government purchased 9000 acres of township land to build a munitions plant, the cemetery had to be relocated. In 2002 the Ohio Historical Society placed a marker telling the story of the Perkins Cemetery.

Hewson Peeke says in his 1916 HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY, ”The Taylors and their associates in pioneer settlement were all people of substantial New England stock, moral and upright and thrifty, and in many ways the influences and results of their lives can be traced in the history of Erie County.”

You can read many narratives of the early settlers of Erie and Huron Counties in the Firelands Pioneer at the Archives Research Center of the Sandusky Library.