704 M. SANDUSKY, Pop. 22,897.
(Train 3 passes 1:35; No. 41, 6:12; No. 25, 4:44; No. 19, 9:55. Eastbound: No. 6 passes 5:38; No. 26, 7:13; No. 16, 9:45; No. 22, 1:16.)
English traders visited Sandusky Bay, upon which the city of Sandusky is situated, as early as 1748, and by 1763 a fort had been erected for protection against the French and Indians. On May 16th of that year, during the Pontiac rising, the Wyandot Indians burned the fort. A permanent settlement was established in 1817.
At the entrance to Sandusky Bay is Cedar Point, with a beach for bathing. This is an attractive summer resort. Outside Sandusky Bay are a number of islands, most of which belong to Ohio, but the largest, Point Pelee, is British. At the mouth of the harbour is Johnson's Island, where many Confederate prisoners were confined during the Civil War. There is a soldiers' and sailors' home here with accommodations for 1,600 persons. A few miles farther north are several fishing resorts, among them Lakeside and Put-in-Bay (South Bass Island), where the government maintains a fish hatchery. Out of this bay Oliver Hazard Perry and his fleet sailed on the morning of Sept. 10, 1813, for the battle of Lake Erie.
Having worked up in the U.S. Navy from midshipman to captain during which time he saw service against the Barbary pirates, Capt. Oliver Hazard Perry (1785-1819) was at the beginning of the War of 1812 placed in command of a flotilla at Newport, but soon transferred to the lakes. There, with the help of a strong detachment of officers and men from the Atlantic coast, he equipped a squadron of a brig, six schooners, and a sloop. In July 1813 he concentrated the Lake Erie fleet at Presque Isle (now Erie). In Aug. he took his squadron to Put-in-Bay, in South Bass Island.
On Sept. 10, Perry met the British squadron, under Capt. Barclay off Amherstburg, Ont., in the Battle of Lake Erie. Capt. Barclay, after a hot engagement in which Perry's flagship, the "Lawrence," was so severely shattered that he had to leave her, was completely defeated. "The important fact," says Theodore Roosevelt "was that though we had nine guns less [than the enemy] yet at a broadside, they threw half as much metal again as our antagonist. With such odds in our favor, it would have been a disgrace to have been beaten. The chief merit of the American Commander and his followers were indomitable courage and determination not to be beaten. This is no slight merit; but it may well be doubted if it would have insured victory had Barclay's force been as strong as Perry's.... It must always be remembered that when Perry fought this battle he was but 27 years old; and the commanders of his other vessels were younger still." Another distinction which Perry won on this occasion is that he enriched our diction when in writing to Gen. Harrison to announce his victory, he said, "We have met the enemy, and they are ours."
Perry commanded the "Java" in the Mediterranean expedition of 1815-16 and died of yellow fever at Trinidad in 1819.
An American Cartoon (1813)
Queen Charlotte is represented as saying, "Johnny, won't you take some more Perry?" while "Johnny Bull" replies: "Oh! Perry!!! Curse that Perry! One disaster after another. I have not half recovered of the Bloody Nose I got at the Boxing Match." In a ballad of the day the verse occurs:
"On Erie's wave, while Barclay brave,
With Charlotte making merry,
He chanced to take the belly-ache,
We drenched him so with Perry."
"Perry" was a kind of indigestible drink made from pear-juice. The "boxing-match" refers to the capture of the "Boxer" by the American schooner "Enterprise."
Sandusky had a spacious landlocked harbour, much improved by government works and its trade in coal, lumber, stone, cement, fish, ice, fruit and grape juice is extensive. Its manufactures include tools, iron and steel products, chemicals, paper, agricultural implements, lumber products, gasoline engines, dynamos, glass and cement, with a total value annually of some $20,000,000.