Wilhelm: Keeler shared anecdotes about the town
Last week’s column featured some community recreation information from “Main Street,” an historical paper written by famous local historian Lucy Keeler. Today, we share some enlightening and occasionally humorous anecdotes about life in Sandusky County in the 19th century according to Miss Keeler’s historic paper about what is now Park Avenue.
“To this old Eddy-Pease house my mother came on her first visit to Fremont and her brother Mr. Pease. The wagon bearing herself and her trunk, pulling up from the boat landing, got stuck in the mud in front of my home on Birchard Avenue; the trunk was thrown out on a bit of grass hummock, and she finished her journey on foot.”
John Pease, by the way, might be the most unappreciated of the key pioneers of Fremont. Pease bought the Eddy home on what was then Main Street and about 100 acres of land which extended south from Birchard Avenue to the river and west to Wayne Street. Pease, who later built a new home near the southwest corner of what is now Hayes and Park, was a successful businessman, one of the two largest subscribers to the Plank Road, a promoter of the first steam railroad locally, councilman and mayor, and a charter member of the Sandusky County Agriculture Society.
Peace’s new home, it’s interesting to note, was later moved so that it faced Clover Street.
Some businesses did not welcome the railroad
More from Miss Keeler’s paper:
The coming of the railroad promoted by Sardis Birchard, Ralph Buckland, Homer Everett and Pease was not easy. “Many and curious were the objections raised. Hotel keepers along the turnpike argued that the occupation of hauling by wagon would be destroyed, all emigration by road diverted, travel on the pike would cease, no tolls come in, and the road on which the state had spent so much could grow up to grass. One school house was refused them as a meeting place because the trustees would not consent to advocate a scheme to swindle the tax payers.”
Sadly, Miss Keeler added that “Many fatalities have occurred at the crossing, one being the death in 1868 of the popular lad Louis Brush, aged 15 years, 8 months, who with other boys was engaged in the thrilling new sport of jumping trains.”
Miss Keeler’s paper includes considerable information about the schools which were located in the block that now houses Birchard Public Library’s impressive addition.
High School added a 4,300-pound bell
The stories included this: “In May, 1854, a school bell weighing 4300 pounds arrived for the new high school building. It bore the inscription, ‘To learning’s font the youth I call.’ A local newspaper added: ‘A brass town clock is to be put in this tower which is to strike the hours upon this ponderous bell.’” To which Miss Keeler added more than a half century later “We still, alas, lack one that goes.”
It’s worth noting that in November in 1839, the Lower Sandusky Literary institute debated whether parents should “be compelled to send their children in school for a certain number of months each year during their minority.”
Roy Wilhelm started a 40-year career at The News-Messenger in 1965 as a reporter. Now retired, he writes a column for both The News-Messenger and News Herald.
This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: Wilhelm: Keeler shared anecdotes about town
