Columbian Session of the Ohio State Grange

 

On December 12, 13, and 14, 1893, the 21^st Annual Session of the Ohio State Grange, Patrons of Husbandry met in Sandusky. It was called the “Columbian Session” in reference to the World’s Columbian Exposition, which was held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400^th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World.

Sessions for the Grange members were held at Biemiller’s Opera House in downtown Sandusky. Chairman of the evening session on December 12 was James D. Parker. According to the December 13, 1893 issue of the Sandusky Register, the Opera House was decorated with palms and sheaves of wheat. Mr. Parker told the audience that he had drafted some of the children of Erie County Grange members to participate in the entertainment portion of the evening’s events. His son and daughter, Eva and Jay Parker performed a vocal solo. Another daughter, Jessie Parker, played instrumental duets with Nellie Taylor and Will Gurley. Several other solos and recitations were performed.  Joseph H. Brigham, Master of the National Grange, gave the main address. Other speakers of the evening were Rev. Mr. Hart, J.F. Greene, F.A. Derthick, and S.H. Ellis, Past Master Ohio State Grange. Miss Hattie White recited “The First Settler’s Story” and Mrs. Emma Rood Tuttle recited “Mother and Poet” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

The Columbian Session of the Ohio State Grange was the topic of a lengthy front page article in the December 13, 1893 issue of the Sandusky Register.  The Register extended hospitality to all the visiting Grange members, and the headline stated that “brilliant oratory” had graced the opening session. Pictured below is the Nielsen Opera House, which had originally opened as the Biemiller Opera House in 1877. The Opera House was the site of many of the sessions held by Ohio State Grange’s annual meeting in 1893.

Oxford Township Grange Hall in Bloomingville

Now a private residence, the Oxford Township Grange Hall was the center of community life for many years from the early 1900s until the 1980s. The building is located at the intersection of Taylor Road and Mason Road in Oxford Township of Erie County, Ohio.   Farming was the main occupation of residents of Oxford Township in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  In the picture above, from the 1910s, several individuals can be seen with their horses and buggies. 

Bloomingville is an unincorporated village in northern Oxford Township of Erie County. Hewson Peeke wrote in A Standard History of Erie County, Ohio, that the earliest settlers in Bloomingville arrived in 1810. Bloomingville was one of the largest towns in northern Ohio at that time, with a church, mill, school, inn, and post office established in that first decade. The Bank of Sandusky Bay was built in the village in 1816-1817, but it was not granted a charter.  The old brick bank building is pictured below.

Eleutheros Cooke and his family lived in the former bank building in 1819, and his son Pitt Cooke was born here. Andrew W. Prout lived here in the 1830s. (The building no longer stands.)  The Bloomingville Cemetery is located adjacent to the former Grange building, with burials dating back to the early 1800s.

You can read more about the history of Oxford Township in several histories of Erie County, Ohio, at the Sandusky Library. 

The historic marker at Bloomingville Cemetery gives a brief summary of the community's history