Plaque Honoring Sandusky’s Pioneers

 You might have driven past this monument many times and not noticed it, but it deserves recognition. It is a tribute to the founders of Sandusky.

On June 25, 1937 members of the Martha Pitkin Chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution unveiled a plaque honoring several of Sandusky’s pioneer citizens at the triangular park located between Huron Avenue, Wayne, and East Adams Streets. The bronze plaque, created by A. J. Balconi, was placed on a three ton boulder at the park.

Names on the top portion of the plaque include the founders of Sandusky:  Zalmon Wildman, Isaac Mills, and George Hoadley. On the bottom portion are the names of the nine men who directed the incorporation of Sandusky as a city in 1824. They were: Dr. George Anderson, Aaron C. Corbet, Cyrus W. Marsh, Alexander Clemons, Eleutheros Cooke, John Wheeler, William Townsend, William Kelly, and Moors Farwell, who served as Sandusky’s first mayor. Several of these men were Masons; an article in a 1937 issue of the Sandusky Masonic Bulletin recognized them and the construction and dedication of the monument

Visit the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center to learn more about the pioneer residents of Sandusky, Ohio. And be sure to stop and visit the monument in the park sometime.

Early Report Cards from Sandusky City Schools

William Henry Nye taught grammar at the elementary level for Sandusky City Schools in 1848 and 1849. The grade card pictured above belonged to Martha E. Newton, who later became Mrs. Rollin M. Wilcox. Martha’s individual scores in grammar are listed on the right side of the report card. On the left portion of the report card are the names of all the girls in Mr. Nye’s grammar class, and the “exception to morals” for each student. Martha had no exceptions to morals, but Miss Rosabella Dewey received marks for exceptions to good lessons and good order. Several of the students’ surnames are well known for their parents’ early contributions to Sandusky and Erie County. Clara Beecher was the daughter of the abolitionist lawyer Lucas Beecher. Augusta Farwell was the daughter of Sandusky’s first Mayor, Moors Farwell. Julia Townsend’s father was pioneer Sandusky businessman William Townsend. The report card was signed by both the teacher, Mr. Nye, and the school superintendent, M.F. Cowdery.

We do not know the owner of the report card from Miss L.A. Barney’s arithmetic class. The names of young gentlemen and young ladies in Miss Barney’s class appear on the left side of the report card. It is clear that the boys in this class had several more “exceptions to morals” when compared to the marks of the young ladies in the class.

Platt's Cemetery Stereographs

An article appearing in the May 20, 1875 issue of the Sandusky Register read:

Those who neglect to have stereographs of their cemetery lots taken while Mr. Platt is on the grounds will regret it when they see the beautiful pictures he is taking. Notice at Mr. Platt’s gallery some taken last week of Mr. Pitt Cooke’s and Mrs. Judge Caldwell’s grounds.

In 1875 A.C. Platt operated a photographic studio at the northeast corner of Columbus Avenue and Water Street in downtown Sandusky. Mr. Platt created a series of stereographic images that featured tombstones at Oakland Cemetery. The image above is a stereograph taken of the Townsend family lot in Block 9 of the cemetery. During the cholera epidemic in Sandusky in 1849, pioneer Sanduskian William T. Townsend, his wife Maria Lamson Townsend, their daughter Sarah, and a sister of Mrs. Townsend, all died from cholera between July 23 and July 31, 1849.

Early Apartment Buildings in Sandusky

Though not all the apartment buildings are still in existence, many of the named apartments buildings listed in the 1941 Sandusky City Directory are still providing homes for Sandusky residents. Pictured above is the Ramsey Apartment building located at 335 Central Avenue.

The Erie Apartments at 1517 Columbus Avenue were built in 1919 for employees of the Erie Tire and Rubber Company. Though the company was only in Sandusky for a few years, the apartment building still stands.  The apartment building at 515 West Washington Street was once the home of the William T. Townsend family.

Mentions of apartment buildings often appeared in the society pages of the local newspapers. The Sandusky Star Journal of March 28, 1911 reported that Mrs. John Renner had recently been hostess to the Fortnightly Club in her apartment at the Feick Flats, and Mrs. W.H. Nolte served an elegant lunch when the L.G.A. met at her apartment at the Willdred. 

At least two of the buildings from the 1941 listing have been named to the National Register of Historic Places, the Willdred Flats and the Mertz apartments. The apartments at 310-303 East Washington Street were listed as the Converse-Mertz Apartments in the National Register.

According to the Ohio Historic Places Dictionary (Somerset Publishers Inc., 1999), the Greek Revival style apartment building was built by Charles Converse, an early dry goods merchant in Sandusky. Andrianna Van Deusen purchased the property about 1867, and ran it as a boarding house. Sandusky businessman John Mertz purchased the building in 1912 and remodeled it. The property remained in the Mertz family until the 1960s.

Of course today, there are many more choices in apartment living in Sandusky, including several high rise buildings, and the recently converted buildings such as the Cheapeake Lofts and the Rieger Loft. Visit the Sandusky Library, to view historic Sandusky City Directories, to learn more about the residents of our city in years gone by.

Mr. and Mrs. William Townsend

Now on display at the Follett House Museum, oil paintings of William Townsend and his wife, the former Maria Lamson, were donated to the museum by descendants of Mr. and Mrs. Townsend. William Townsend settled in Sandusky, Ohio between 1815 and 1819. He opened a dry goods store opposite the Colton House in Sandusky, and later went into the commission and forwarding business. Mr. Townsend was the first local merchant to advertise in the Sandusky Clarion. The advertisement below appeared in the Sandusky Clarion of May 15, 1822.

William Townsend was a Sandusky council member when the city was incorporated in 1824, and he also served as the city’s first recorder. He invested in the Mad River Railroad, and owned a line of steamers that ran between Buffalo and western lake ports, including the city of Sandusky. He married Maria Lamson (sometimes listed as Lampson) in 1824.

The Townsends had a large family of eight children, all of whom were girls except for one son named William Kneeland Dell Townsend. An article in At Home in Early Sandusky, by Helen Hansen, states that William Townsend’s employees celebrated the birth of the son in 1840 by firing off guns from the roof of the commission house.  

The former home of William and Maria Townsend was built in 1844, and it still stands on West Washington Street, now a multi-family unit.

Sadly, the happiness of this prosperous local family was shattered in 1849. William and Maria Townsend, their daughter Sarah, as well as a sister of Mrs. Townsend all died between July 27 and July 31, 1849 when a cholera epidemic swept through Sandusky. The oldest Townsend child was Mary Elizabeth Cooke, the wife of Pitt Cooke.  Mr. and Mrs. Pitt Cooke took in Mary’s orphaned siblings, and raised them. A lovely monument at Oakland Cemetery, which honors the memory of William and Maria Townsend, is pictured on this stereographic card created by photographer A.C. Platt.

    

Another beautiful memorial at Oakland Cemetery is connected to the Townsend family. William and Maria Townsend’s youngest daughter Louisa married Theodore Hosmer, the first Mayor of Tacoma, Washington. The final resting place of Louisa Townsend Hosmer, who died in 1885, and Theodore Hosmer, who died in 1900, is in Lot 25 in the North Ridge section of Oakland Cemetery.

Walking in the Footsteps of Mary Cooke

Though we do not have a photograph of Mary Elizabeth Cooke (1857-1951), her life has been well documented in resources available at the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center. She was the youngest daughter of Pitt Cooke and his wife, the former Mary Elizabeth Townsend.  She was the granddaughter of Sandusky’s first lawyer, Eleutheros Cooke, and a niece of Civil War financier Jay Cooke. Mary E. Cooke’s maternal grandparents, William and Mary Townsend, were pioneer residents of Sandusky. After the Townsends died in the cholera epidemic of 1849, Pitt and Mary (Townsend) Cooke took in the orphaned Townsend children and raised them with their own six children.

In the 1860s and 1870s, the Pitt Cooke family resided in New York, where Pitt worked with his brother Jay Cooke in the banking business. Helen Hansen wrote in At Home in Early Sandusky that the Pitt Cooke family kept the former Townsend home at 515 West Washington Street as a summer residence.

Mary E. Cooke was age 22 at the time of the 1880 U.S. Census and was living in the large family home on Washington Street, along with her mother, cousin, aunt, siblings and two servants. By this time, her father Pitt had died. From 1919 until her death in 1951, she lived at 904 Wayne Street. Locally, her home was known fondly as “the house of a hundred windows.”

            

On the occasion of her 93^rd birthday, Sandusky Register Star News reporter, Harry Van Stack, recalled that Miss Cooke delighted telling others of how she once shook hands with President Grant. An article in the June 21, 1929 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal stated that Mary Cooke recalled seeing the Gibraltar Island home of her uncle Jay Cooke being built.

           

Miss Cooke was an active member of Grace Episcopal Church. In March of 1934, she held a Recital-Tea at her home during the Lenten season. Wesley Hartung was the accompanist for several sacred musical numbers that were presented at the program. 

On August 15, 1951, Mary E. Cooke passed away at the age of 93. Funeral services were held at Grace Episcopal Church, with her nephew, the Rev. Rush R. Sloane officiating. Burial was at Oakland Cemetery. An article in the October 12, 1951 Sandusky Register Star News which reported on her estate sale declared that Miss Cooke was “the last link between early Sandusky and present Sandusky.”  During the nine decades of her life, Miss Cooke saw the development of many technological advances and changes in her hometown.

Pitt Cooke

Pitt Cooke was the son of Sandusky’s first lawyer, Eleutheros Cooke, and his wife, the former Martha Carswell. He was born on July 23, 1819 in Bloomingville, Ohio, in a building that had formerly served as the Bank of Sandusky Bay.  (The bank was never chartered.)

Pitt Cooke was educated at the Norwalk Academy, and he attended college at Kenyon College, where he studied law. After passing the bar, he practiced law in Sandusky, Ohio with Lucas Beecher. Later he was in the forwarding and commission business with William Townsend, until 1849 when Mr. Townsend died in the cholera epidemic. After the Civil War began, he moved east to assist his brother Jay Cooke a banker was a significant financier of the financier of the Union military effort during the Civil War. Pitt continued to work at the banking house of Jay Cooke and Company in New York until 1873, when he moved back to Sandusky, Ohio. An article in volume 17 of the Firelands Pioneer stated about Pitt Cooke, “Few men were more competent or active in business than Mr. Cooke, and as a companion and friend he was always genial and pleasant. He was a man of large heart and warm, generous impulses, and ever ready to assist to the extent of his ability those who were in need.”    After the death of both Mr. and Mrs. William Townsend in 1849, Mr. and Mrs. Pitt Cooke took in their orphaned children, who were the younger siblings of Mrs. Cooke, the former Mary Townsend.

On December 13, 1879, Pitt Cooke died at his residence on West Washington Street in Sandusky. He left behind his wife and six children. Funeral services for Pitt Cooke were held at the family residence with several members of the Episcopal clergy present, including Rev. L. S. Osborn and Rev. A. Nicholas of Sandusky; Dr. S.A. Bronson of Mansfield; and Rev. Samuel Marks of Huron. Pallbearers were: Judge E.B. Sadler, Judge Rush Sloane, R.B. Hubbard, A.H. Moss, C.C. Keech, W.T. West, W.A. Simpson, and S.S. Hosmer. He was buried in the family lot at Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery. 

The William T. Townsend House

The large stone house at 515 West Washington Street was once home to early Sandusky businessman William T. Townsend and his family. The house was built of native limestone in 1844, with the two story porch added later. William Townsend operated a dry goods store in Sandusky in the early part of the nineteenth century. He and his brother Kneeland Townsend owned several parcels of land in the Firelands. Helen Hansen wrote in At Home in Early Sandusky that William Townsend was the first merchant to advertise in the Sandusky Clarion in 1822. He also served as Sandusky’s first recorder, and he was president of the fist Sandusky bank in 1834. William T. Townsend and his wife, the former Maria Lamson, had six daughters and a son.

Sadly, during the cholera epidemic of 1849, within a period of four days, William Townsend, Mrs. Townsend, their daughter Sarah, and a sister of Mrs. Townsend all died of cholera. At the time of the tragic deaths of the Townsend family members, Mary Townsend had already married. She was the wife of Pitt Cooke, a son of Eleutheros Cooke, and a brother to Jay Cooke, the Civil War financier. Mary and Pitt Cooke took in the orphaned Townsend children, and raised them with their own six children. The Pitt Cooke family lived in Brooklyn, New York from 1866 to 1873, but they kept this home as their summer home. Elmer B. Otto, owner of Esmond Dairy, purchased this house in 1907. Through the years this house has had several other owners, and it was used as apartments during most of the twentieth century. To read more about the William T. Townsend house, see Article 13 in At Home in Early Sandusky, as well as page 20 of Ellie Damm’s book Treasure by the Bay.

William T. Townsend played an important role in the early development of the city of Sandusky. Mr. Townsend and his wife and daughter are buried in Block 9 of Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery. The Townsend lot at Oakland Cemetery is pictured on a stereographic image by A.C. Platt.

Teacher’s Institute in Sandusky, 1845

The first Teachers’ Institute in Ohio met in Sandusky on September 2, 1845. Hewson L. Peeke wrote in his book, A Standard History of Erie County, that Ebenezer Lane, Rev. Leverett Hull, and C. B. Squires were active in securing lecturers for the Institute. The purpose of the Teachers’ Institute was for the improvement of common schools. Any Ohio teacher was invited to attend the Institute. Those who attended the Institute were not charged any fees, except for their own paper and paying board while in Sandusky. Private homes were opened to the teachers for a fee of not over $2.00 a week.

The main speakers of the Teachers’ Institute were Salem Lord, a teacher from New York State, Asa Lord, and M.F. Cowdery, who would later serve as Superintendent of Sandusky’s school system. Asa Lord was a teacher of mathematics, while M.F. Cowdery specialized in geography. Over ninety Ohio teachers attended the Teacher’s Institute. The Catalogue of the Instructors and Students of the Teachers’ Institute held in Sandusky, Ohio in 1845 was printed by W. S. Mills and Sylvester Ross. Sessions continued for two weeks, with instruction during the day, and lectures and general discussion held during the evening hours.

The names of the teachers who attended the Teachers’ Institute were listed in the Catalogue. Usually known as Rush R. Sloane, Mr. Sloane’s name was given as Richard Rush Sloane in the catalogue. Rush Sloane became well known as an abolitionist and served as Mayor of Sandusky from 1879 to 1880. Daughters of another Sandusky Mayor, Foster M. Follett, also attended the Teacher’s Institute. Helen and Sarah Follett worked along side their parents in attending to the sick during the 1849 cholera epidemic in Sandusky. Sarah and Emily Townsend were daughters of pioneer Sandusky resident, William Townsend. Sadly, Sarah Townsend and both her parents died in the cholera epidemic in 1849.

Several resolutions were adopted at the closing of the Institute. One encouraged the continuation of Teachers’ Institutes so that teachers could obtain practical instruction on subjects connected with teaching and governing schools. Another resolution demanded that the business of teaching be made a distinct profession. A significant resolution recommended “the introduction of vocal music into the Common Schools of this state, as an aid in mental and moral improvement, and an agreeable relaxation from study.” Paul D. Sanders wrote about this early support of vocal music education in Ohio in an article in the October 2001 issue of the Journal of Historical Research in Music Education. (subscription required)

Mrs. Pitt Cooke, Wife and Mother

Mary Elizabeth Townsend was the oldest child of William Townsend and his wife Maria (Lamson) Townsend. William Townsend was Sandusky’s first Recorder, and he had many business interests in Sandusky. He was the owner of the Townsend House, operated a line of steamers, and was president of the first bank in Sandusky in 1834. During the cholera epidemic of 1849, both of Mary’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Townsend, died of cholera, along with Mary’s sister and aunt.

Pitt Cooke and Mary E. Townsend were married in 1844. (Pitt was the brother of Civil War financier Jay Cooke.) At the time of the cholera epidemic, Mr. and Mrs. Pitt Cooke were already the parents of two children, Townsend Pitt Cooke and Eleutheros Jay Cooke. In 1849 Pitt and Mary took in Mary’s orphaned siblings, and raised them along with their own growing family.

Pitt Cooke practiced law with Lucas Beecher, but had also worked for a time with Mary’s father, and later assisted his brother Jay Cooke in the banking business. The Pitt Cooke family lived in New York from 1866 to 1873, but kept their Sandusky residence at 515 West Washington Street as a summer home.

Helen Hansen wrote about the Townsend and Cooke families in Article 13 of At Home in Early Sandusky. In the article, Helen tells of the marriages of the children of both Mr. and Mrs. William Townsend and Mr. and Mrs. Pitt Cooke. The home at 515 West Washington Street, which was first occupied by the Townsend family and later the Cooke family, is now an apartment building.
This home is also described in Ellie Damm’s book Treasure by the Bay, available at the Archives Research Center of the Sandusky Library.