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194 HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
in one trench in the old cemetery, mostly of the poor people. Dr. Tilden
and Dr. Austin were here then and Dr. Elwood Stanley came here from
Cleveland to fight the cholera. They took the old High School building
for a hospital which stood south of the old Congregational Church on
the west side of Columbus Avenue. Just as soon as a person died theyr
took them to the cemetery in wagons or drays. There were no hearses.
Some were buried in boxes of unplaned boards, and some were buried
without coffins, and simply wrapped in sheets. After the worst of the
cholera was over Lathrop and his two daughters died. At that time
south of Jefferson Street Avas all hazel bushes. And the people used to
hunt rabbits there.''
John S. Rice says:
"I was born in 1838. I have ahvays lived in Sandusky. I remember
the old Cholera time. They buried them three deep in the trench which
contained seventy-five or eighty corpses and Avas about forty feet long and
as wide as the length of a coffin.
"South of the old Congregational Church on the Courthouse square
was the old High School. Then around the corner on Adams street
opposite the present residence of Dr. Parker Avas a small frame building
called the unclassified school. Then came a little German church. Then
on Jackson street was the old Methodist church with cupola and bell.
Then the Beatty church afterward the Lutheran church on the Northwest
corner.
"On the opposite square beginning at the Episcopal church next
South was the little church later used by the Baptists; then around on
Adams street the Albreit or Zollinger church; then the Blue Grammar
school; then Enszlin's church; then came the old Court House which
was originally built for an academy but was never used as such. Then
East of the old court house was a little German church facing North near
where the present High School stands."
Lorenzo D. Anthony says:
"I was born in 1827 and came^ to Sandusky in 1832. I was here all
through the cholera time. I remember asking the sexton how many were
buried in that trench before it was finished and he said about forty at
that time. I saw several buried. They were buried two or three deep
and not half of them had even boxes to cover them. We lived on Camp
Street then and I saw many of the funerals. The list given by the
Clarion was not complete. There Avere many strangers here then who
died shortly after their arrival and no record was kept. I think there
were at least a hundred deaths not given in that list. They began stealing
the gravestones about 1852 or 1853. There are many bodies still
out there that Avere never removed to Oakland Cemetery. No bodies were
ever taken from the trench and it was never opened to my knowledge.
I have lived here since 1832."
The Sandusky Clarion of December, 1849, quotes the following from
the New York Evangelist, under date of Sandusky City, October 24,1849:
"Sandusky is literally a city of the dead. My heart was fairly
sickened today at the recital of the aAvful havoc the cholera had made in