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170 HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
insalubrity of its climate, rendering it almost impossible for a stranger
to live there, is Avithout doubt the principal obstacle in its way. As a
gentleman very significantly observed to me, ' A great part of the inhabitants
are over the other side of the hill,' for there is their cemetery.
Other settlements, such as Cleveland, etc., have been at first nearly as
unhealthy, but have improved in process of time. The fever and ague
formerly infested the center of NCAV York, much as it IIOAV does Ohio,
and AA-as not uncommon in the valley of Connecticut, Avithin the memory
of the present generation. But in this respect, Sandusky does not improve.
The village is not quarter so large or populous as Concord, but
Avas full of business, for the Sabbath day. There is, in fact, to a majority
of the inhabitants, no Sabbath. I Avas struck with one singularity—
the air was filled and every sunny Avail or building AVIIS covered with
myriads of a disgusting fly, about an inch long, with large Avings and
feelers. They are sluggish in their movements and perfectly harmless
—nobody seemed to notice them. When flying, if they strike an object,
they either cling to it or fall, and 24 hours is the extent of their brief
existence. Like mosquitoes, they breed on the Avater and generation
daily MIOAVS generation in inconceivable numbers. The inhabitants did
not appear to notice them, and gentlemen and ladies as they passed the
streets were covered with these reptiles. They find their Avay into the
houses and infest everything; even the table Avhere Ave dined swarmed
with them. A gentleman assured me, that he Avas on board a steamboat
last Aveek which ran aground at the mouth of the Detroit river in
the night, and they AA'ere obliged to remain till daylight. In the morning,
vast heaps of these vermin Avere found on deck, particularly congregated
about the funnels, being either dead or nearly so, and that the
quantity shoveled overboard was variously estimated by the passengers
at from 6 to 8 bushels. Similar accounts have been given me by others,
and £rom what I myself have seen, I do not doubt their truth. They
are considered as certain forerunners of the cholera, and Avere unknoAvn
here till just before the arrival of that disease. They are called, improperly,
gallinippers, that being the name of a fly which, in common
AA'ith other species, oddly enough called pontiacs, from the old chief of
that name, are exceedingly troublesome to horses. We ate our dinner
in haste and hurried on board a steamboat Avhich had just touched on
her way from Buffalo to take in Avood and passengers.''
The Register of June 9, 1875, quotes from the Chicago Tribune an
article on the lake A'essels, and says:
"There,are yet living those who can extend.their vision back to the
clays of the birch bark canoe, noAV displaced by a fleet equal if not
superior to anything in the Avorld. This has been brought about with
such astonishing rapidity that at this juncture the supply exceeds the
demand, and never before have vessel men found themselves so greatly
embarrassed. From four to five months in the year the navigation is
almost closed by ice and in tAvo instances even that time has been
exceeded, the first in 1807 when the lake did not open at Buffalo until