Part 13 (1/2)

_West House_, SANDUSKY, OHIO, _July Thirteenth_

I was fortunate in having a comparatively short distance to travel between Huron and this city It is only nineht all the way

Along this shore o, General Bradstreet, with three thousand men, sailed to the relief of Fort Junandat, while Pontiac, the great Ottaarrior, was besieging Detroit Reaching Fort Sandusky he burned the Indian villages there and destroyed the cornfields; passed on up to Detroit to scatter the threatening savages, and returning went into the Wyandot country through Sandusky Bay To have attempted to ride alone on horseback in those days would have been a foolhardy, if not a fatal undertaking Now the screech of an engine-whistle announced the approach of a train on the Lake Shore Road, the great wheels thundered by, and _Paul_, alert and tre, was ready to dash away How different it would have been in those old pioneer times! The horseman would have been the one to tremble then, his hand reach for his rifle, his eyes strained towards the thicket froe was to co the first proprietors of this section were the Eries These were followed by the resistless Iroquois, and after theest impress upon the hills and valleys of Ohio One of these tribes, the Wyandots, called the bay near which they built their a ”Lake of the Cold Water,” and from this the present naontz, after a big chief of that name who lived there before the year 1812 All about were rich hunting-grounds, which accounts for its having been chosen by the Indians in tireatest fish-markets in America

The place was bound to be attractive to the white ht have safely prophesied that a city would rise here The ground slopes gradually down to the lake, the bay for off upon the boats and water, the eye rests upon a scene picturesque and striking

My attention was called to Johnson's Island, which was used for the confine the late war I learned that they were allowed the luxury of an occasional bath in the lake, under guard, of course, and in squads of a hundred men--a luxury which the boys in Libby and Charleston and Coluood to be true”

Under the city are the limestone quarries, which furnish an inexhaustible supply of building-ht little city of the lakes

On the evening of my arrival I spoke in Union Hall and was introduced by Captain Culver, who referred to my military record and the object of my lectures Captain Culver is a comrade in the G A R and was a fellow-prisoner at Libby and other prisons He did reeable

Sixty-fourth Day

_Fountain House_, CASTALIA, OHIO, _July Fourteenth_

My Sandusky friend, Captain Culver, called at the West House forabout the city I was shown the newly completed Court House, of which Sanduskians are very proud; met several of the officials and found much to admire Left at five o'clock in the afternoon and by six had reached Castalia, fiveto boast of back of its classic naer I was of course immediately told of the wonders of the ”waters,” which I learned form quite an attraction in summer and keep the little place in a flutter of excitement

Marshall Burton came in 1836 and laid out this prairie town at the head of Coal Creek Finding the source of the strea, non to be two hundred feet in diameter and sixty feet deep, named the place ”Castalia,” from the famed Greek fountain at the foot of Parnassus The waters of this spring are so pure that objects are plainly seen through the sixty liquid feet, and they say that when the sun reaches meridian, these objects reflect the colors of the rainbohich est to Castalians that the ancient sun-God, Apollo, favored the western namesake of his Delphian fount I met no poets here, but possibly inspiration is not one of the powers guaranteed Indeed if it should treat devotees of the Divine Art, as it does everything else that is plunged into it, we should have petrified poets

These petrifying qualities of the water, caused by the conesia and iron have made the mill-wheels which turn in Coal Creek incapable of decay

At a little distance froe di running into the opening in pursuit of a rabbit This cave I believe makes up the coe The chief attraction, the social life of the people, cannot be guessed at by the rapid glance of the traveller But even a short sojourn here is apt to be re and pleasantly Ohioans are notably hospitable

Sixty-fifth Day

_Ball House,_ FREMONT, OHIO, _July Fifteenth_

I akened at twelve P M the previous night at Castalia by two villainous imps, who seemed determined to make an impression Their evident object was ”more rum,” which to the credit of the landlord was not furnished them Exasperated by this temperancethe doors locked began a bombardment with fists and feet This novel performance was kept up until the object of their wrath and his shot-gun appeared Owing to thisas it ht of President Hayes, who is so closely identified with it Here he began the practice of law, and won such popularity, not only ahout the State, that in 1864, after a succession of honors, his friends were pushi+ng hiress In answer to a letter written fro that his presence there would secure his election, he said, ”An officer fit for duty, who at this crisis would abandon his post to electioneer for Congress, ought to be scalped You ,” and in a letter to his wife, written after he had heard of Lincoln's assassination, he expressed another sentireat office, his hold upon the confidence and affection of his countryton's We shall probably _feel_ and _think_ that they are not second even to his”

Fremont of course is justly proud of the name and fame of Rutherford B

Hayes Two years before he returned to his ho Grant's offer of an assistant Secretaryshi+p, but the people of Ohio were not satisfied with this Their feelings were probably voiced by the words of a personal friend of Hayes, who said: ”With your energies, talents, education, and address, you are green--verdant as grass--to stay in a country village” Soon afterwards, at the urgent and repeated requests of the people, he gave up his quiet life and once more entered the political arena, with results which the election of 1876 shows

There were apparently many ere dissatisfied with the Nation's choice, but in Ohio, and especially where he was known personally, he was much beloved and ado, leaving his property and fortune to his naiven a park and a fine library to Fremont

The town is on the Sandusky River, at the head of navigation, and has quite a brisk trade for a place clai only a little over five thousand inhabitants

Sixty-sixth Day