Records of the Library Company of Eldridge Township

In 1938 Mrs. James Douglas donated the Record Book of the Library Company of Eldridge Township: 1825-1830 to the Historic Room of the Sandusky Library. (Eldridge Township is now known as Berlin Township.) It appears that this early library was a subscription library, which unlike today’s public libraries, was supported by subscription fees assessed to individual users. Persons who had a membership in the Library Company of Eldridge Township had their names listed on separate pages, and columns indicated the date they checked books out, and also the amount of “shares” they used for each check-out. The Record Book also contains minutes of the meetings, and gives details of fines charged and transfers of memberships.

One of the members of the Library Company of Eldridge Township the great-grandfather of Mrs. James Douglas, Noah Hill.

By 1818 Noah Hill was a farmer in Berlin Township, after having been a shipbuilder in Connecticut, and living briefly in Pennsylvania. He married Sukey Butler, and they had ten children. Two of their sons became physicians, and another was an Ohio legislator. His son Dr. Benjamin Hill was appointed as U.S. Consul at Nicaragua under President Lincoln. Mr. Hill served as a Justice of the Peace for several years. His obituary in the June 1865 Firelands Pioneer states that “the qualities of his heart will ever be held in remembrance by his relatives and acquaintances. He was noted by his love of home, and his attention to the wants and needs of his family…” Noah Hill was considered one of the few remaining original pioneers of the Firelands at the time of his death.

Rev. True Pattee was an early Methodist preacher in Huron and Erie Counties. The History of Ohio Methodism indicates that in 1824 Rev. Pattee was preaching in Sandusky in a frame building on Columbus Avenue where the Sloane House was later located.

Rev. William Gurley in his memoir says that Rev. True Pattee was distinguished and dignified. He continues to say that Rev. Pattee would “throw before the audience some pleasing truth, strew around it some flowers of rhetoric, and leave his hearers delighted with both it and himself.” Rev. True Pattee and his family moved to Indiana. He died in Allen County, Indiana in 1867. Burial was in the Old Harlan Cemetery.

If you or your family members have old records of historic organizations or businesses from Sandusky or Erie County, consider donating them to the Archives Research Center of the Sandusky Library to be preserved for future generations.