Sandusky Register Monument at Oakland Cemetery

In Lot 1 of Block 87 is a monument dedicated to the employees of the Sandusky Register. The November 28, 1885 issue of the Register reports that the proprietors of the newspaper, I.F. and John T. Mack, along with C. C. Keech (the Register’s “Moral Editor”) purchased a lot in Oakland Cemetery. It was adjacent to the G.A.R. lot, in which many Erie County veterans are buried.  The article stated “This lot is a part and parcel of The Register plant, to be handed down to each successive proprietorship with the presses and type and machinery of the office.” The future monument at this cemetery plot was to be “a befitting stone to mark the spot of The Register dead in the long, long future.”

Officers of the “Register Monumental Association” were: President, I.J.P. Tessier; Secretary, W. I. Jackson, and Treasurer, C. C. Hand.  Register employees were to set aside 10 cents from each week’s paycheck, until enough funds were collected to purchase a suitable monument. An article in the November 18, 1959 Sandusky Register tells us that the marble monument was erected in 1887.  The carved likeness of a printer’s mallet and composing stick appear on the monument, above the inscription:  “The dead who lie here toiled for the world’s enlightenment. Erected 1887 by the Sandusky Register Monumental Association in memory of Register employees.”

The first burial in the Sandusky Register lot was Clarence M. Brockway, the former city editor of the Sandusky Register, who died of typhoid. He was buried in Oakland Cemetery on November 7, 1885. Several former employees are buried at this site. The monument, having been in Oakland Cemetery for over one hundred years, truly remains a lovely stone which honors the memory of many Sandusky Register employees.