Happy birthday Erie: From Cat Nation to Jon Bon Jovi's 1st love, here are 10 things to know about city
It’s Erie's birthday on April 14.
That’s because Erie was incorporated as a city on April 14, 1851.
But its roots go back farther. Erie was laid out in 1795 and was established as a borough by the state legislature in 1805.
In honor of the city’s founding and Erie Day, here are 10 things to know about Erie's past.
1. What’s in a name? Cats, or maybe raccoons
Erie got its name from the lake, which got its name from the American Indians who lived along its southern shore in the 17th century. They were known by various accounts as the Erie, Eries or Eriez, or the Cat Nation.
In Waterford: George Washington statue is 100 this year and will get gift of better backdrop
"... we call the Eries the Cat Nation, because there is in their country a prodigious number of wildcats, two or three times as large as our tame cats, but having a beautiful and precious fur," according to a French Jesuits’ report of their work in North America in 1653, cited in the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.
According to other early accounts, the "cats" were raccoons.
2. Erie, Pennsylvania ... or Massachusetts, New York or Connecticut
It could have been any of the above.
All four states initially claimed the triangle of land that today is most of Erie County, including the city of Erie. Congress settled the dispute in 1788 when it ratified an agreement to sell the land to Pennsylvania.
Adjusted for inflation, the sale price for 202,187 acres: $151,640.25, or 75 cents an acre, in 1791.
Marking time: Here's where you can find Pennsylvania historical markers in Erie County
3. City's most macabre relic: A fine kettle of history
Revolutionary War General "Mad" Anthony Wayne died and was buried at the small fort that he commanded in Erie in 1796.
Thirteen years later, Wayne's son came to dig up his father's body for reburial in the family plot near Philadelphia. But the body had barely decomposed and the son had only a small cart to carry what he had expected to be just bones.
The solution: Dismembering the corpse and boiling the pieces in a large kettle to separate the flesh from the bones. Wayne’s flesh was reburied in Erie. His bones rattled home to Radnor.
The kettle is at the Hagen History Center and in December 2018 was featured in television's "Mysteries at the Museum." As Curator Becky Weiser described it for the program:
"The artifact is black. It’s made of iron. It is almost 10 feet around in circumference. It kind of looks like a witch’s cauldron. You wouldn’t want to cook with it if you knew its history."
More: American history doesn't get much better than with 'Mad' Anthony Wayne
4. 'We have met the enemy,' in 6 Erie-made ships. 'And they are ours.'
Two-thirds of Oliver Hazard Perry's nine warships in the Battle of Lake Erie on Sept. 10, 1813, were built here under the direction of Erie mariner Daniel Dobbins.
Why Dobbins is central to our history: Perry's fleet, Battle of Lake Erie, Coast Guard
Besides the original Niagara, they were the Lawrence, Ariel, Scorpion, Tigress and Porcupine. The ships took just eight months to build.
Perry's victory near Put-in-Bay, Ohio, was the first-ever defeat of an entire British squadron.
5. Abraham Lincoln brings down the house
Erie Republicans invited President-elect Abraham Lincoln to stop in the city for lunch on his way to his inauguration in Washington, D.C.
Lincoln accepted, and on Feb. 16, 1861, was met by a large crowd craning for a look at their next president as he disembarked at the city's original railroad station on Peach Street.
From 2018: 10 U.S. presidents who came to Erie
"Quite a scene occurred," according to a New York Herald reporter traveling with Lincoln, "by the breaking down of a roof on which a large number of curious republicans (sic) had gathered. The sudden appearance of the whole group (at street level) and the scramble among the ruins, was most ludicrous. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt."
6. Son of enslaved molds the downtown
John Hicks made and sold ice cream at 1216 State Street after moving to Erie in 1878.
His factory was in the basement, his shop on the first floor and his home, an apartment where he lived with his wife and daughter, was on the second floor.
By the turn of the century, Hicks made and sold 500 gallons of ice cream daily. In 1905, he was granted a patent for an ice cream mold he'd invented.
Hicks said, "My invention is an improved ice-cream mold for molding a brick of ice-cream with a figure of any desired form in the center thereof," according to the Hagen History Center.
Hicks not only was one of the first Black businessmen in Erie, he also installed the city's first gas lights and first concrete sidewalk, both in front of his building.
7. The Big Bambino hammers a homer
Babe Ruth and his traveling exhibition team came to Erie, took on the city championship Moose Club team, and conquered it 15-1 on Oct. 29, 1923.
"No one cared particularly about the score or what happened during the game except where Ruth was concerned," reported the Erie Daily Times.
Ruth gave baseball fans their money's worth with two singles, a walk and a towering seventh-inning home run over the fence at Ainsworth Field, then called Athletic Field.
Just how far Ruth hit the ball was a matter of debate. Some said it went all the way over adjacent Roosevelt School. Others said the ball dropped on the school's roof or went into its chimney.
That the ball cleared the school wasn't far fetched.
"In the practice session just before the game Ruth hit three balls over the Roosevelt school roof, one of them clearing the chimney on the school building," according to the Times.
8. Unsolved marriage mystery: Bob Hope
American icon Bob Hope was married in Erie, but maybe not to the woman he said he married here.
Asked in 1989 about his ties to western Pennsylvania, Hope told the Pittsburgh Press that he and his wife, Dolores, were married in Erie in 1934.
But maybe not.
Pittsburgh Magazine, with the help of Carnegie Library researchers, investigated the claim in 2015, and found no such marriage here that year.
They did find a marriage recorded in Erie in 1933 for Leslie T. Hope, which was the performer's real name, and Grace Troxell, who had been a partner in Hope's vaudeville act.
Hope never acknowledged a first marriage and repeatedly said that he married Dolores Reade in Erie.
9. Interstellar tourists?
A UFO sighting at Presque Isle State Park on July 31, 1966, was investigated by the Air Force's Project Blue Book, which famously concluded that a number of unidentified flying objects reported elsewhere that year were actually flares from burning swamp gas.
Not so the silvery, mushroom-shaped object reported near the Beach 6 parking lot. The object was said to have directed a beam of light along the ground as it landed. Left behind were diamond-shaped impressions in the sand and maybe, for a time, an occupant. Witnesses also reported a tall, gorilla-like creature near the object.
Here's the full story: Did a UFO land at Presque Isle State Park?
Fewer than 6% of the 12,618 UFOs reports investigated by Project Blue Book were unexplained by the Air Force. The Erie sighting was among them.
10. 'Paper girl' gives love a bad name
Jon Bon Jovi "came home" to perform before a packed house at Veterans Memorial Stadium on a sweltering summer day at the height of his career.
'I've rocked them all:' Bon Jovi's 1987 concert for 15,000 at Erie's Veterans Stadium
Raised in New Jersey, the rock star frequently visited his grandparents in Erie as a boy and returned to perform on July 25, 1987.
"I used to come here pretty often," Bon Jovi told the Erie audience between sets. "In fact, the first rock show I ever saw was on this field from about 60 yards back (from the stage) 13 years ago."
The Erie concert was requested by Bon Jovi's grandfather.
"He said, 'Are you going to come to Erie with that rock and roll show of yours?' I told him I didn't know if we could make it or not. I asked him, where would we play," Bon Jovi said. "He said, 'Get your ass down to the stadium.'"
Bon Jovi also told of his "first love," a girl who delivered the newspaper to his grandmother's home. Hoping to impress her, he offered to saddle up his Suzuki to help with her deliveries. The girl declined, said Bon Jovi, who then led his band in belting out, "You Give Love a Bad Name."
Contact Valerie Myers at vmyers@timesnews.com. Follow her on Twitter @ETNmyers.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: 10 things to know about Erie history, from Eriez to a UFO to Bon Jovi
