Ceylon, Ohio

Ceylon is a small unincorporated community north of Berlin Heights in Erie County, Ohio, along Route 61 and just east of Old Woman Creek. It was a stop for the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad, and later was a station on the Lake Shore Electric Railway route. A small refreshment stand served both automobile and interurban customers. Aldrich’s History of Erie County stated that in 1889 Ceylon had “two stores, two saloons, a hotel, a post office and a sawmill.”  The May 6, 1881 Sandusky Daily Register reported that Ceylon was “one of the leading shipping points on the Northern division of the Lake Shore Road.”  In the fall of 1880, twenty five thousand bushels of wheat were shipped out of Ceylon. There was a Post Office in Ceylon until September 14, 1904. (It was established as the Berlin Station Post Office in 1858, and the name was changed to the Ceylon Post Office on Oct. 2, 1871.)   Mail was delivered by stage coach for many years.

The Peake Cemetery is located just east of the intersection of Ceylon Road and Route 2. The cemetery was named after the Peake (sometimes spelled Peak) family which resided in the Ceylon area in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. An obituary for Oliver Peak, one of Ceylon’s earliest settlers, is found in the July 1878 issue of the Firelands Pioneer.

The final line of Mr. Peak’s obituary says that “The deceased was an industrious farmer for many years, a man of sterling qualities, genial spirits, and went down before the Great Reaper as a shock of corn ripe for the harvest.”