PDF (20 MB) - Virtual Library of the Public Library of Cincinnati

168 HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
inhabitants, but it is nevertheless a city in its corporate rights and officers.
It is surely a city in a forest, for the large stumps of the original
pines are still standing in the main street and over the spots that have
been cleared, the neAV Avood is springing up with amazing vigor as if to
defy the hand of man.
"We Avent to the best inn in the toAvn, which had been better had it
been cleaner. It was, hoAvever, welcome to me, as a heavy thunderstorm
Avas just beginning to put forth its tremendous power. I congratulated
myself on my safety, but my confidence was quickly shattered, for the
rain soon found its Avay into the house and came spattering in the rooms
in strange style and onto my portmanteau. FeAV things seemed water
proof here. A second time my baggage soaked through. I had placed
it in the upper deck of the officers cabin as a place of safety, but a heavy
rain came on during the night, the deck leaked and my baggage suffered.
HoAvever, I made up my mind that I Avould not be inconvenienced by
anything that might be injured, lost or stolen on the Avay—a precaution
that certainly had more Avisdom in than I Avas aAvare of, for without it
I might have had a pretty good share of disturbances. Already much
Avas injured and some AVIIS stolen.
"There were tAvo places of Avorship, one for the Presbyterians and
the other for the Methodists. The first is without a minister and neither
of them in a very flourishing state. They stand on the greensAvard,
they are about 30 feet square and for the Avant of paint have a Avorn and
dirty aspect. The people here reverse the Dutch proverb,—it is not
'paint costs nothing,' but 'wood costs nothing,' and they act accordingly.
They will, however, improve with the town and at presentChave
enough for their wants, but the adult population certainly go noAvhere.
Indeed the state of religious and moral feeling is evidently very IOAV
here and I heard more SAvearing and saAV more sabbath breaking than I
had before witnessed.
"There Avere many groceries, as they called themselves here, groggeries,
as their enemies call them, and they were all full.
"Manners Avhich are consequent on religion and morality were proportionately
affected."
Rev. Cyrus P. Bradley, who visited Sandusky in June, 1835, gives
the following description in his journal: "We had a IOAV prairie to
cross, worse than anything we had previously experienced. AVe left the
turnpike, for the aggravation of this miserable track, (a road it Avas
not) was greatly enhanced by the sight of a gate Avith the rates of toll
in glaring black paint, every ten miles, and took the old road, about a
mile longer, and our driver hoped, better. We proceeded, occasionally
getting out and pushing. When about half across, Ave espied before us
two heavy wagons, stalled, fast in the mire, the very tops of their wheels
concealed in the. mud and\the poor beasts standing Avith drooping countenances
and submissive ldok, before. We could not pass them—the
same hole would add our misfortune to theirs, and as if a warning to us,
across the prairie, we could see in the turnpike the indistinct form of