Getting to Know Rev. Edward R. Jewitt

Rev. Edward Rogers Jewitt (sometimes spelled Jewett) was born in Connecticut in 1811. He married Elizabeth Camp in 1834. In 1835 the young couple settled in Elyria, Ohio. By 1840 E.R. Jewitt was admitted to the North Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Rev. Jewitt ministered in the Methodist Episcopal Church for over twenty years. Rev. Jewitt addressed the crowd that gathered on July 4^th in Milan, Ohio for a Celebration and “PicNic.” He was the pastor of the Sandusky Methodist Episcopal Church from 1845 to 1847. In the 1850s, he was the minister of the Bethel Church, which was an outreach of the Methodist Episcopal Church to improve the moral and religious condition of seamen in waters west of New York State.

Rev. Jewitt preached a sermon on July 4, 1852 at Put in Bay, when five companies of the Volunteer Militia of Ohio met at Put in Bay to celebrate Independence Day, as well as to discuss the erection of a monument to commemorate Perry’s victory at the Battle of Lake Erie.

In 1860 and 1861, Rev. Jewitt was the Presiding Elder of the Methodist Episcopal Society of Sandusky. On January 13, 1860, under his leadership, the following anti-slavery resolution was passed at the Quarterly Meeting of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Sandusky:

 According to the obituary of Mrs. Elizabeth Jewitt, in 1863 Rev. Jewitt was injured and had to retire from active ministry. However, Rev. Jewitt remained involved in the community and in Methodist religious circles in Erie County, Ohio.

This advertisement from the Sandusky Register of May 11, 1864, states that Rev. Jewitt had opened a bookstore on Columbus Avenue. He sold Bibles and hymn books, as well as stationery, toys, and writing supplies.

When the Convention of the Erie County Sunday School Union met on May 11, 1872, the president of the organization was absent, so Rev. E.R. Jewitt stepped in to run the convention. Several in attendance felt that there was a significant correlation between children who attended Sunday School and secular school. There was a feeling that learning at Sunday School could reinforce the skills of school children who also attended public school. 

Rev. Jewitt attended the 42^nd Annual Session of the North Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church held in Ashland in September of 1888, and reported on the events which took place.

By 1880, Rev. and Mrs. Jewitt retired to a farm in Margaretta Township. Rev. Jewitt died on August 22, 1892, and he was buried at Oakland Cemetery. Mrs. Jewitt survived until 1904.

This obituary appeared in the Sandusky Register of August 23, 1892:

Leonard B. Gurley, Pioneer Poet

In honor of National Poetry Month, a story about Sandusky's pioneer poet:

Leonard Beatty Gurley was born in Connecticut to Rev. William Gurley and Susannah Beatty. His uncle, John Beatty, was the Mayor of Sandusky from 1833-1836, and his cousin, also named John Beatty, was a Brigadier General in the Civil War.  The Gurley family moved to the Firelands in the early 1800’s. Both Leonard B. Gurley and his father were Methodist preachers.  In the earliest days, they were “circuit riders,” riding on horseback to preach to the settlers. Rev. Leonard B. Gurley served as pastor of Sandusky’s Trinity Methodist Church from 1867 through 1869. Rev. Gurley was well known in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana.

Though he is not credited in the newspaper, L.B. Gurley wrote what some consider to be the first poem published in Northwestern Ohio. Rev. Nathaniel B. C. Love wrote an article about Leonard B. Gurley in volume 10 of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Publication.  The poem Thy Plains Sandusky begins:

Thy Plains Sandusky, and thy green retreats,

Thy perfum’d flowers, & they op’ning sweets,

How bright the scene to fancy’s richer glow,

True colors  deepen’d, void of airy show.

Dr. Love says of Leonard B. Gurley, “His imagery is so true to nature that one continually recognizes it as something seen, heard, felt in the observations and experiences of life.” Besides writing many poems and sermons, Rev. Gurley also wrote a biography of his father, The Memoir of  Rev. William Gurley, which is available for reading full-text at Google Books.

Rev. Leonard B. Gurley was a minister for over fifty years. His obituary in the March 29, 1880 Sandusky Register states that Rev. Gurley was “full of kindness for his neighbors, he was an excellent citizen, a faithful friend and brother adviser.” Though beloved by his family and friends, there is another side of Rev. Gurley.  A young woman named Mary Monnett came under the guidance of Rev. Leonard B. Gurley. Though she was in love with a male seminarian at Ohio Wesleyan University, Rev. Gurley convinced Mary that she should not pursue the romance. The story, which is available online, ends with Mary losing her money and living in an asylum.

Accounts of Rev. William Gurley, Rev. L. B. Gurley, and many other early settlers of Erie and Huron counties can be read in the Firelands Pioneer, available at the Archives Research Center of the Sandusky Library. 

When the Methodist Church was on Washington Street

The church now known as Trinity Methodist Church had several locations in Sandusky before it occupied the building (shown above still under construction) on Washington Street, between Jackson and Decatur Streets in downtown Sandusky in 1874, where the Merry-Go-Round Museum is currently located. This stereograph image was created by Sandusky photographer A.C. Platt in the 1870s or 1880s.

Here is a picture of Washington Park in 1894, which features several Sandusky churches:

The Congregational Church can be seen at the left. Zion Lutheran’s congregation worshipped in the former Beatty Church, a small two story building just northwest of the Congregational Church. The tall steeple of the Methodist Church can be seen on the south side of Washington Street, while the First Presbyterian Church can be seen on the north side of Washington Street. The First Presbyterian Church was built in Sandusky in 1853, and it remains in that location today.

By 1915 the steeple of Trinity Methodist Church had changed significantly.

Because the United States Government wanted to build a post office in Sandusky at the site of the Methodist Church, around 1917 the Methodists stopped meeting at their building on Washington Street. Services were held at various locations for a few years. Construction was begun on the new building for Trinity Methodist Church in 1922, at the corner of Wayne and East Jefferson Streets.

Methodism in Sandusky and Erie County has a rich and interesting history. If you would like to learn more about the history of churches in Sandusky, the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center has five archival boxes which all pertain to the history of area churches. Inquire at the Reference Services desk for more information.

Bethel Church

Bethel Church was begun as an outreach of the Methodist Episcopal Church to support the effort of the Western Seaman’s  Friend Society to improve the moral and religious condition of seaman and boatmen in waters west of New York State. Rev. Thomas Cooper was the first minister of the Bethel Church in Sandusky in 1847. Early church services were held in the building occupied by the Custom House in Sandusky in the 1850s. In January of 1853 the Bethel Church on Water Street was dedicated.  The architect for the church was H. White from Cleveland, Ohio. The church featured two towers which were 57 feet tall. Rev. E. R. Jewett was the minister of Bethel Church from 1855 through 1858. Bethel Church can be seen in the picture below. The location of the church on Water Street was very close to the harbor of Sandusky, making it easy for men aboard the lake vessels to attend Bethel Church.

Beatty Church on Washington Square

John Beatty, the Mayor of Sandusky from 1833 to 1836, founded a church in Sandusky in 1835, after the Methodist Church voted against hosting an antislavery speaker. He withdrew his membership from the existing Methodist Church and formed a new Methodist church, commonly known as the “Beatty Church.” It was located at the west end of Washington Square, along Jackson Street, facing Washington Street. After Beatty’s death, most of the membership of the Beatty Church returned to the parent church.

During the Cholera Epidemic of 1849, the building formerly known as the Beatty Church housed a cholera hospital. Hewson Peeke wrote in The History of Erie County that the city of Sandusky had seized the building for use as a hospital. Charles E. Frohman devoted an entire chapter of his book, Sandusky's Yesterdays, to the “Cholera Days” of Sandusky.

In 1855 the Baptist Church purchased this building. Rev. Justin D. Fulton was the minister of the Baptist Church in Sandusky from 1855 to 1859. Former Sandusky dentist Frank Sage wrote in the January 19, 1923 Sandusky Register that Rev. Fulton was “fearless in attacking with fiery zeal, public wrong, abuse of all descriptions.” Rev. Fulton later pastored churches in Boston and New York. He wrote several books, many of them expressing his anti-Catholic sentiment. Justin D. Fulton married a Sandusky girl named Sarah Norcross after he had moved to Boston.

The German Lutherans of Sandusky purchased the building in 1862. (The Lutherans actually traded buildings with the Baptists, paying an additional $2,000 in cash.) Rev. J. G. Lehrer was the Lutheran minister in 1862. The History of Zions Lutheran Church tells of Rev. Lehrer’s direction of the congregation toward order and progress. Members who failed to live up to their calling were disciplined, and sometimes excluded from the congregation. The Lutheran church held services here until November 12, 1899, moving to the building they still use today, at Columbus Avenue and Jefferson Street. Eventually the building on the courthouse square was demolished.

The old stone church in the Courthouse Square hosted many different groups of Sanduskians, with some very strong-willed men in leadership positions. Several church histories, historical files, and microfilmed church records are available at the Archives Research Center of the Sandusky Library for further research.
View of the Beatty Church and Erie County Courthouse from Washington Row, circa 1890.