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180 HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
Colonel Colt, as the Mirror of December 25,1854, speaks of her presiding
over the cookery of the hotel.
In his article on "Early Sandusky," Judge T. M. Sloane states that
Dickens stopped at Colt's Exchange.
Clarke Rude, formerly collector of customs at this point, states that
his father, Charles Rude, kept the Steamboat Hotel across from Colt's
Exchange at the time of Dickens' visit, and in the years 1842 and 1843.
In this he is corroborated by the Clarion, which advertises Charles Rude
as the keeper of the Steamboat Hotel in 1843.
In the Clarion of May 25,1844, appears the first advertisement showing
A. M. Porter as proprietor of the Steamboat Hotel, the advertisement
stating that the Steamboat Hotel has just been renovated and repaired
and will be opened by A. M. Porter. Shortly after 1844 Porter
ran the Verandah in front of the Steamboat Hotel and it was called for
many years the Verandah Hotel. At that time the Steamboat Hotel Avas
still not more than sixty feet from low water.