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146 HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
carawas trail to Fort Pitt and arrived in Philadelphia the 14th of February,
1761. The trail passed the head of Cold Creek and he remarks
in his autobiography: '' There is a remarkable spring at this place rising
out of the side of a small hill with such force that it boils out of
the ground in a column three feet high. I imagine it discharges ten
hogsheads of water a minute."
The Western Intelligencer and Gazette, published at Columbus in
1817, speaks of the now insignificant A'illage of Venice as a thriving
place, made important by Big Cold Creek. The pioneer miller of Big
Cold Creek was Dorcatus SnoAV, AVIIO Avas killed by the Indians in 1814.
The damaging of the creek and the back pressure caused thereby resulted
in the breaking out of a neAV spring some time after 1820. This spring
is the Blue Hole, which discharges 5,000 gallons of cold Avater every
minute. The spring is about 75 feet in diameter and 45 feet deep and
the water is blue in color and very clear. The upper springs discharge
20,000 gallons of water a minute into the trout streams.
Trout are not indigenous to the stream but the first eggs obtained in
the East in 1868 were hatched in a trough, and the fry planted in a
penned off portion of the stream. This AA'as done by a Castalia miller
at the suggestion of Dr. E., Sterling of Cleveland. The fish multiplied
and when their enclosure broke the creek was stocked Avith the blue
speckled trout of North America. Every year for many years the club's
preserve keeper, Andrew Englert, superintends the hatching of 400,000
to 800,000 fry, hatching 90 per cent of the eggs taken.
The stream was used indiscriminately until the Cold Creek Trout
Club Company was incorporated in 1879 by Cleveland fishermen, with a
capital stock of $1,275, divided into eighty-five shares of $15 each. The
stock was later increased to $30,000 and the name changed^to' Castalia
Trout Club Company, which purchased all the rights of the milling
company. A channel twenty feet Avide called the Blue Channel Avas
drained through the loAver pond, and in 1889 a 65-acre tract adjoining
the club property Avas purchased. A competent engineer Avas
employed and the crookcdest trout stream in the Avorld Avas laid out by
him, Avith the result that on the club's 104 acres of land there are six
miles of stream, across AA'hich plank bridges have been throAvn at convenient
points, so that from any part of the preserve one may Avalk in
a straight line to the club house. The property represents an investment
of $50,000.
A register of all fish is kept at the club house. During some seasons
about 6,000 trout have been taken, the average Aveight being tAvo pounds.
German broAvn trout weighing more than eight pounds have been caught,
but are no longer propagated artificially. The season extends from
Alarch 15 to September 15, but each member can only fish tAventy-six
days but cannot take from the stream more than ten pounds a day. The
club has never had but tAvo presidents, Jeremiah AtAvater of Castalia and
John C. Zollinger of Sandusky. The Castalia Sporting Club and the
RockAvell Springs Club also have trout streams in the vicinity.
In collecting material for his Avork on the "AVar of 1812" Benson