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34
HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
flourishing towns and villages, and were being rapidly settled by an industrious
and enterprising class of people. It was also represented that
the judicial business of Huron County required annually three terms of
the Court of Common Pleas, of from three to five weeks' duration, and
that there was every prospect of an increase in the same. The consequent
delay and inconvenience arising to suitors, and the great distance of
those residing on the peninsula and the islands from the seat of justice,
and the fact that a large amount of the legal business of Huron County
originated near the lake, were among the strongest reasons urged in
favor of erecting the new county.
The remonstrances were signed by 1,500 persons, "excluding the
names that were found appended more than once." Of these, 1,050
were represented as residing in Sandusky County, and 450 in the County
of Huron. More than 450 of those from Sandusky lived within the
territory which it was proposed in the bill to attach to the new county.
The reasons urged against the erection of Erie were various, and differed
according to the location of the remonstrants. From Sandusky it
would take several of the most fertile and densely settled townships,
by which the taxes of the people residing in other parts of the county
would be greatly increased; the seat of justice would be thrown near
the southeast corner of the county, and before many years would require
to be moved from its present location, causing difficulties and
embarrassments to the people. It Avas further represented that the inhabitants
of the peninsula were compelled to cross the bay when required
to visit the (then) present seat of justice, and that by the erection
of Erie County, as proposed, they would, though being nearer the seat
of justice, still be compelled to the inconvenience of crossing the bay,
which was sometimes both difficult and dangerous. Most of the remonstrances
were circulated after the bill had passed the Senate, the remonstrants
alleging that its passage caused their first knowledge of the
measure.
The committee closed its report with the recommendation that, as it
was by no means certain that the spirit of the act was in accordance
with the wishes of a majority of the people interested in the erection
of the new county, no action should be taken until there had been further
consideration of the matter.
The act, after having been sent back and forth from the House to
various committees, and being variously reported upon, was finally
passed March 15, 1838.
As this act fully describes the county as it was originally constituted,
we print the full text. It reads as folloAVS:
"AN ACT
"To erect the County of Erie
"Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of
Ohio. That such parts of the counties of Huron and Sandusky as are
embraced in the boundaries hereinafter described, be and the same are
hereby erected into a separate and distinct county, which shall be known