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 Historical Collections of Ohio

By Henry Howe

Vol. I.

© 1888

 

ERIE COUNTY

 

Page 364

ERIE COUNTY was formed in 1838 from Huron and Sandusky counties. The surface to the eve seems nearly level, while in fact it forms a gentle slope from the south line of the county, where it has an elevation of about 150 feet above the lake, to the lake level. It has inexhaustible quarries of limestone and freestone.

 

The soil is very fertile. The principal crops are wheat, corn, oats and potatoes. It is very prominent as a fruit-growing county, productive in apples, peaches and especially so in grapes. Its area is 290 square miles, being one of the smallest in territory in the State. In 1885 the acres cultivated were 78,912; in pasture, 20,638; woodland, 11,825; lying waste, 3,941; produced in wheat, 247,824 bushels; in oats, 294,676; corn, 564,863; potatoes, 301,306, wool, 144,992 pounds; grapes, 1,571,045. School census 1886, 10,929; teachers, 172. It has 90 miles of railroad.

 

 

The population in 1840 was 12,457; 1860, 24,474; 1880, 32,640, of whom 20,899 were Ohio-born; 1,651 New York; 534 Pennsylvania; 4,882 Germany; 1,196 Ireland; 702 England and Wales; and 287 British America.

 

The name of this county was originally applied to the Erie tribe of Indians. This nation is said to have had their residence at the east end of the lake, near where Buffalo now stands. They are represented to have been the most powerful and warlike of all the Indian tribes, and to have been extirpated by the Five Nations or Iroquois two or three centuries since.*

 

Father Lewis HENNEPIN, in his work published about 1684, in speaking of certain Catholic priests, thus alludes to the Eries: “These good fathers were great friends of the Hurons, who told them that the Iroquois went to war beyond Virginia, or New Sweden, near a lake which they called “Erige,” or “Erie,” which signifies “the cat,” or “nation of the cat”  and because these savages brought captives from the nation of the cat in returning to their cantons along this lake, the Hurons named it, in their language, “Erige,” or “Ericke.” “the lake of the cat,” and which our Canadians, in softening the word, have called “Lake Erie.”

 

Charleviox, writing in 1721, says respecting Lake Erie: “The name it bears is that of an Indian nation of the Huron [Wyandot] language, which was formerly seated on its banks, and who have been entirely destroyed by the Iroquois. Erie, in that language, signifies cat, and in some accounts this nation is called the cat nation. This name probably, comes from the large number of that animal formerly found in this country.”

 

The French established a small trading-post at the month of Huron river, and another on the shore of the bay on or near the site of Sandusky City, which were abandoned before the war of the revolution. The small map annexed is copied, from part of Evan’s map of the Middle British Colonies, published in 1755. The reader will perceive upon the east bank of Sandusky river, near the bay, a French

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* These facts are derived from the beautiful “tradition of the Eries,” published in the Buffalo Commercial, in the summer of 1845. That tradition (says the editor).” may be implicitly relied upon, every detail having been taken from the lips of Blacksnake and other venerable chiefs of the Senecas and Tonawandas, who still cherish the traditions of their fathers.”

 

 

W. A. Bishop, Photo, Sandusky, 1888

SANDUSKY FROM THE BAY.

 

Page 565

 

fort, there described as “Fort Junandat, built in 1754.”  The words Wandots are doubtless meant for Wyandot towns.

 

In 1764, while Pontiac was besieging Detroit, Gen. Bradstreet collected a force of 3,000 men, which embarked at Niagara in boats and proceeded up the lake to the relief of that post. Having burned the Indian corn-fields and villages at Sandusky and along the rich bottoms of the Maumee, and dispersed the Indians whom they there then found, he reached Detroit without opposition.* Having dispersed the Indians besieging Detroit he passed into the Wyandot country by way of Sandusky bay. He ascended the bay and river as far as it was. navigable for boats and there made a camp. A treaty of peace and friendship was signed by the chiefs and head men.

 

Erie, Huron and a small part of Ottawa county comprise that portion of the Western Reserve known as “the fire-lands,” being a tract of about 500,000 acres, granted by the State of Connecticut to the sufferers by fire from the British in their incursions into that State⁺ The history which follows of the fire-lands and the settlement of this county is from the MSS. history of the Fire-Lands, by C. B. Squier, and written about 1540.

 

The largest sufferers, and, consequently, those who held the largest interest m the fire-lands, purchased the rights of many who held smaller interests. The proprietors of the fire-lands, anxious that their new territory should be settled, offered strong inducements for persons to settle in this then unknown region. But, aside from the ordinary difficulties attending a new settlement, the Indian title to the western part of the reserve was not then extinguished; but by a treaty held at Fort Industry, on the Maumee, in July, 1805, this object was accomplished, and the east line of the Indian territory was established on the went line of the reserve.

 

The proprietors of the fire-lands were deeply interested in this treaty_” upon the result of which depended their ability to possess and settle their lands. Consequently, the Hon. Isaac MILLS, secretary of the company, with others interested, left Connecticut to be present at these negotiations. Cleveland was the point first designated for holding the treaty. But, upon their arrival, it was ascertained that the influence of the British agents among the Indians was so great as to occasion them to refuse to treat with the agents of the United States, unless they would come into their own territory, on the Miami of the Lakes, as the Maumee was then termed. Having arrived at the Maumee, they found several agents of the British government among the Indians, using every possible effort to prevent any negotiation whatever, and it was fifteen or twenty days before they could bring them to any reasonable terms. Soon after the conclusion of the treaty, the settlements commenced upon the fire-lands.

 

It is quite difficult to ascertain who the first settlers were upon the fire-lands. As early, if not prior to the organization of the State, several persons had squatted upon the lands, at the mouth of the streams and near the shore of the lake, led a hunter’s life and trafficked with the Indians. But they were a race of wanderers and gradually disappeared before the regular progress of the settlements. Those devoted missionaries, the Moravians, made a settlement, which they called New Salem, as early as 1790, on Huron river, about two miles below Milan, on the HATHAWAY farm. They afterwards settled at Milan.

 

The first regular settlers upon the fire-lands were Col. Jerard WARD, who came in the ring of 1808, and Almon RUGGLES and Jabez WRIGHT, in the autumn succeeding. Ere the close of the next year, quite a number of families had settled in the townships of Huron, Florence, Berlin, Oxford, Margaretta, Portland and Vermillion. These early settlers generally erected the ordinary log-cabin, but others of a wandering character built bark huts, which were made by driving a post at each of the four corners and one higher between each of the two end corners, in the middle, to support the roof, which

 

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*Lanman's Michigan.

†Whittlesey's address on Bouquet’s expedition.

+For some facts connected with the history of the fire-lands, see sketch of the Western Reserve, to be found elsewhere in this work.

 

Page 566

 

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