The Greatest Highway in the World Part 13

704 M. SANDUSKY, Pop. 22,897. (Train 3 pa.s.ses 1:35a; No. 41, 6:12a; No.

25, 4:44a; No. 19, 9:55a. Eastbound: No. 6 pa.s.ses 5:38p; No. 26, 7:13p; No. 16, 9:45p; No. 22, 1:16a.)

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 Ba.s.s 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 Ba.s.s 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.

Sandusky had a s.p.a.cious 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, gla.s.s and cement, with a total value annually of some $20,000,000.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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."]

757 M. TOLEDO, Pop. 243,109. (Train 3 pa.s.ses 2:45a; No. 41, 7:25a; No.

25, 5:45a; No. 19, 11:05a. Eastbound: No. 6 pa.s.ses 3:35p; No. 26, 5:15p; No. 16, 7:30p; No. 22, 11:08p.)[2]

[2. Note that westbound trains here change to Central time; while eastbound trains change to Eastern time at next station (Sandusky).]

Toledo was built on the site of Ft. Industry, erected in 1800. It lies within an immense tract of land, const.i.tuting several reservations bought by the U.S. government from several Indian tribes in 1795. Upon that part of the tract farthest upstream the town of Port Lawrence was laid out in 1807. In 1832 a rival company laid out the town of Vistula immediately below and a year later the two united and were named Toledo.

This district was the storm-centre for the more or less ridiculous episodes of the "Toledo War" in 1835, a dispute over the boundary line between Ohio and Michigan. This boundary, named the "Harris Line" (1817) after its surveyor, left in dispute a strip of land from 5 to 8 M. wide, a rich agricultural region within which lay Toledo. Gov. Lucas of Ohio, by authority of the State Legislature (1835), sent three commissioners out to re-mark the Harris line so as to include the bone of contention.

When Gov. Mason, appointed by President Jackson as administrator of the territory of Michigan heard about this, he dispatched a division of militia to occupy Toledo.

Gov. Mason over-ran all the watermelon patches, stole the chickens, burst in the front door of a certain Maj. Stickney's house, and proudly carried him off as a prisoner of war, after demolishing his ice house.

Lucas responded by sending out the Ohio militia who occupied a post at Perrysburg, 10 M. to the south. No fighting took place in this most genteel of wars, although there were several arrests and much confusion.

A Dr. Russ, who was with Mason's forces on their march to Toledo gives a description of the soldiers' jumpy nerves. Various jokers had circulated dark stories of the number of sharp-shooting Buckeyes waiting for them at Toledo, which so alarmed this amateur legion that nearly one half of those who had marched boldly from Monroe availed themselves of the road-side bushes to withdraw from such a dangerous enterprise.

President Jackson put an end to the dispute by requesting Michigan to stop interfering with the re-marking of the boundary line, but slight outbreaks continued until he presently removed Gov. Mason from office, and until Congress in 1836 decided in favor of Ohio.

The city administration became famous for its efficient honesty after 1897, when Samuel Milton Jones (1846-1904) a manufacturer of oil machinery, was elected mayor by the Republican party. The Independent movement which he began was carried on by Brand Whitlock.

Mayor Jones was re-elected on the non-partisan ticket in 1(899?), 1901 and 1903, and introduced business methods into the city government. His integrity in business and politics gained him the nickname "Golden Rule Jones."

Brand Whitlock was born in Urbana, Ohio, in 1869. He began his career as a journalist, but decided to practice law instead.

After four years of study in Springfield, Ohio, he was admitted (to?) the bar in 1897, when he removed to Toledo. In 1905 he was elected mayor of that city as an Independent, running against four other candidates, and was re-elected in 1907-1909 and 1911 under similar conditions. President Wilson in 1913 sent him as minister to Belgium where he made a distinguished record during the War. In 1919 he was appointed amba.s.sador to that country. His _Memoires of Belgium under the German Occupation_, published in 1918, gives an excellent description of "frightfulness" in actual operation.

The park system includes about 1,000 acres, connected by a boulevard 18 M. long. Toledo University (2,100 students), which include Toledo Medical College, was founded in 1880.

The advantages of Toledo as a lake port have always been recognized, and its growth has been rapid. It is situated about 4 M. from Lake Erie, and is connected with it by a channel 400 ft. wide and 21 ft.

deep--sufficient to admit the largest vessels from the lake to the 25 M.

of docks. Toledo is a shipping point for the iron and copper ores and lumber of the Lake Superior and Michigan regions, and for petroleum, coal, fruit, grain and clover seed. There are factories for motor-cars, plate and cut-gla.s.s, tobacco, spices, and beverages, also lumber and planing-mills, flour and grist mills, etc., with products of an annual value of $200,000,000 or more. At Butler (367 M.) we enter Indiana.

880 M. GOSHEN, Pop. 9,525. (Train 3 pa.s.ses 4:4(9?); No. 41, 9:45a; No.

25, 2:07a; No. 19, 12:52p. Eastbound; No. 6 pa.s.ses 1:06p; No. 26, 2:59p; No. 16, 4:28p; No. 22, 8:32p.)

Situated on the Elkhart River, Goshen was first settled about 1828 by pioneers from New England. It is the seat of Goshen College, the only Mennonite inst.i.tution of higher education in the U.S. The college was founded as Elkhart Inst.i.tute in Elkhart in 1895, and was removed to Goshen in 1903.

The Mennonites are a religious body who nominally follow the teaching of Menno Simons (born in Friesland, a province of Holland, 1492; died 1559), a religious leader, who insisted that true Christianity can recognize no authority outside of the Bible and an enlightened conscience. There are Mennonite colonies in Holland, France, Russia and Germany, as well as in the U.S. The American Mennonites have been largely emigrants from Holland and Prussia. The princ.i.p.al American colony is at Germantown, Pa.

(first settled 1683).

There is a Carnegie library, a city hospital and a fine high school building in the town. Goshen is an important agricultural and lumber market. Its manufactures include flour, lumber goods, ladders, iron, wagons, steel tanks, underwear, machinery, furniture and farm implements.

900 M. ELKHART, Pop. 24,277. (Train 3 pa.s.ses 5:00a; No. 41, 10:05a; No.

25, 7:21a; No. 19, 1:10p. Eastbound: No. 6 pa.s.ses at 12:50p; No. 26, 2:45p; No. 16, 4:10p; No. 22, 8:15p.)

Elkhart, originally "Elkheart" (the translation of an Indian word), is so named by the Indians from the shape of an island, near the centre of the city, formed by the junction of the two rivers, the St. Joe and the Elkhart, which make many turns and windings here. There are several parks, in one of which, McNaughton Park, a Chautauqua a.s.sembly is held annually.

[Ill.u.s.tration: La Salle (1643-1687)

Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was born at Rouen, France, and began his explorations from Montreal in 1669.

Discovering the Ohio River, he travelled down possibly as far as (its?) junction with the Mississippi and then returned. The winter of 1679 La Salle pa.s.sed at a post above Niagra Falls, where he built his famous (ship?), the "Griffin," in which he sailed the Great Lakes to Lake Michigan, (and?) which he sent back laden with (furs?) in the hope of satisfying the loans of his creditors, while he himself proceeded westward. In 1682, (after?) many adventures, he floated down (to?) the mouth of the Mississippi, where he erected a monument and cross, took possession of the region in the name of Louis XIV and named it Louisiana. When he returned there two years (later?) with four vessels he mistook the waters of Matagorda Bay, in the present state of Texas, for the mouth of a branch of the Mississippi and landed there. Fruitlessly wandering through the wilderness in search of the Mississippi River, the Illinois country and Canada, he was killed by his followers in March, 1687.]

Elkhart is a city of factories. Band instruments, furniture, telephone supplies, drugs, carriages, and many other products are included among its manufactures, which have an annual value of more than $15,000,000.

Two Mennonite papers are published here.

915 M. SOUTH BEND, Pop. 70,983. (Train 3 pa.s.ses 5:30a; No. 41, 10:38a; No. 25, 7:45a; No. 19, 1:43p. Eastbound: No. 6 pa.s.ses 12:20p; No. 26, 2:22p; No. 16, 3:32p; No. 22, 7:45p.)

South Bend is situated on the St. Joseph River. Just north of the city is the portage between the St. Joseph and the Kankakee Rivers, by means of which Pere Marquette in 1675 and La Salle in 1679 made their way into what is now the state of Illinois.

This portage was part of the long land and water highway by which the mound-builders in pre-historic times conveyed copper from the Lake Superior to points as distant as Mexico and South America.

As there is no place in the U.S. but the south sh.o.r.e of Lake Superior where native copper can be mined, its presence in the mounds, at remote points is an infallible guide in tracing the commercial intercourse of the Mound-builders. Copper boulders are also found on the sh.o.r.e, and even as far south as Indiana and Illinois. That the whole extent of the copper-bearing region was mined in remote times by a race of whom the Indians preserve no tradition there is abundant evidence, such as numerous excavations in the solid rock, heaps of rubble and dirt along the courses of the veins, copper utensils such as knives, chisels, spears, arrowheads, stone hammers creased for the attachment of withes, wooden bowls for boiling water from the mines, wooden shovels, ladders, and levers for raising and supporting ma.s.ses of copper. The high antiquity of this mining is inferred from these facts: that the trenches and pits were filled level with the surrounding surface so that their existence was not suspected; that on the piles of rubbish were found growing trees of great age, such as hemlock trees having annual rings showing that they began before the coming of Columbus. Copper wrought into utensils is found in the mounds all the way from Wisconsin to the Gulf Coast, and the supply is too abundant to authorize the supposition that it was derived from boulder drift. So expert were these miners that on the site of the Minnesota mine they lifted a copper ma.s.s weighing 6 tons, supporting on a frame of wood 5 ft. high.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Jacques Marquette

Jacques Marquette was born at Laon, France, and as a Jesuit priest went to Canada in 1666, where he was chosen to explore the Mississippi River with Joliet, a young Canadian explorer, in 1673, the French having begun to gain knowledge of the prairies from the Indians. Following a route through Green Bay and up the Fox River to a point where they made a portage to the Wisconsin, Marquette and Joliet finally reached the Mississippi. On their return to Michigan, Marquette fell ill, and his attempt in the following year to found a mission among the Indians of the Illinois River proved too much for his broken strength. On the way home he died beside a little stream which enters Marquette Bay on Lake Michigan.]

The earliest white settler was Pierre Navarre, one of the fraternity of the _coureurs de bois_--a wild, rascally, fearless crew of half-breeds and renegade whites, who were the first to invade this famous hunting country. The succession of sheltered prairies, rounded sand-hills, and reedy marches cut by sluggish streams widening into lakes, made a good haunt for all game, especially beaver. Now the water is mostly drained away and the land reclaimed, but at one time much of the region could be pa.s.sed over in canoes.