Hoffman Finger Protector

Around 1910 the Hoffman Manufacturing Company in Sandusky, Ohio sold a product called the Hoffman Finger Protector. In the 1910 Sandusky City Directory, Charles Hoffman was listed as the manager of the company, which was located at the northwest corner of Scott and Hancock Streets. The company made elevating trucks and clothesline reels. The Hoffman Coal and Milling Company was also at that location. A previous blog post discussed the Daniel Hoffman family, and mentions the patent issued to Charles Hoffman for an elevating truck.

Letterhead from the Hoffman Manufacturing Company.

The Hoffman Finger Protector was a thimble-like device that prevented the needle from harming the finger of a person who was doing sewing or embroidery. The price of the Hoffman Finger Protector ranged from five to fifteen cents (about $1.39 to $4 today). Notes on an advertisement indicate that the patent for the Hoffman Finger Protector had been applied for, but there is no evidence that it was ever actually patented.

An article in the May 9, 1917 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal reported that attorney R.B. Fisher had purchased the patents and equipment from the Hoffman Manufacturing Company, and he was going to continue to make the handy combination elevating trucks. Though we do not have a Hoffman Finger Protector in our collections, you can see the Hoffman Handy Combination Elevating Truck in the Industry Room of the Follett House Museum.

Sandusky City Schools Report Card from 1848-1849

This  report card from  the arithmetic class of Miss L. A. Barney  for the term that met December 4, 1848 to March 17, 1849 was given to the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center by the Dean family. Miss Barney was a teacher in the Grammar School department of Sandusky City Schools.  

Names of the boys in the class were: Samuel Belford, John Dean, Benjamin Gregg, Robert Matthews, John Monroe, Christopher Mores, Max Rhobacher, James Van Fleet, and Joshua Watson. The young ladies in the class were: Mary Clarkson, Eliza Fisher, Margaret Garvey, Sarah Jane Jenks, Sarah Stephens, Sarah Willston, and Sarah Withington. Beside each student’s name were “exceptions to morals” in several catagories, and  the number learned for preliminary defitions, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. At the bottom of the report card were the signatures of Miss L.A. Barney, teacher, and M.F. Cowdery, superintendent of schools. 

M.F. Cowdery was the first superintendent of schools in Sandusky, serving in that capacity until 1871. He wrote a history of Sandusky City Schools, entitled Local School history of the City of Sandusky, from 1838 to1871 Inclusive, published by the Journal Steam Printing House in February 1876. A copy of this brief history is found in the Schools Collection of the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center. In the early history of Sandusky Schools, Mr. Cowdery recalled that before school buildings were built, classrooms were rented in the Methodist Chapel, Presbyterian Church, Grace Church, and a brick building in the Western Liberties. 

In February of 1844, a committee consisting of Moors Farwell, Alexander Porter, and Zenas Barker, voted in favor of purchasing lots near the East and West Markets, and one in the Western Liberties as the sites of school buildings. A high school building was to be erected on the public square. The Academy building, pictured below, was originally built on the east public square as the high school, but was also used as an early Courthouse for Erie County prior to the construction of the new high school in 1869 and the Courthouse in 1874.

M.F. Cowdery was still serving as superintendent of Sandusky City Schools when the new high school building opened in 1869.

Drug Stores at Hancock and East Monroe Street

From about 1880 until shortly before his death in 1933, Lewis A. Biehl operated a drugstore at the northwest corner of Hancock and East Monroe Streets. In the 1920s, an ice cream parlor was in the drugstore, making it convenient for customers to have a soda while they waited for their prescriptions to be filled. The early customers of Mr. Biehl arrived on foot, or by horse and buggy. From the 1890s to the 1930s, they could visit his drug store via the streetcar. By 1920 a Pennzoil service station was located kitty-corner to the Biehl store, at the southeast corner of Hancock and East Monroe Streets.

The Biehl drugstore was included in the listing of Sandusky neighborhood drugstores in this advertisement from the September 23, 1928 issue of the Sandusky Register.

Just as in the case of grocery stores, there were drugstores in most Sandusky neighborhoods in the late 1800s and early 1900s, before it was the norm for most families to own an automobile. The ad from 1928 suggested that if a person had a cold, a quick visit to the neighborhood druggist could help prevent pneumonia. The Sandusky Star Journal of July 28, 1939 reported that Harry J. Fisher would soon be having the grand opening of his drugstore at the building formerly occupied by the Lewis A. Biehl drugstore. Mr. Fisher had  remodeled the building, and moved the entrance to the Hancock Street side of the building. (The Fisher drugstore had previously been on West Washington Street.) All vistors to the newly remodeled Fisher Drug store received a souvenir. Below is a picture of the Fisher Drug store in 1955.

By 1957, Earl McGookey was the proprietor of the Fisher Drug Store. Eventually the drugstore became known as the Fisher-Buderer Drug Company. Today, the company is the Buderer Drug Company, a compounding pharmacy with locations in Sandusky, Avon and Perryburg. At GoogleMaps, you can see a recent picture of the intersection of Hancock and East Monroe Street.

The Rich History of the First Congregational Church

After having been organized in 1819, the First Congregational Church opened its first church building in Sandusky in 1835. This church stood in Washington Park until it was razed in 1896. An article in the January 1920 issue of the Firelands Pioneer stated that in the early years, the First Congregational Church was considered a social center for Sandusky. It was the site of a number of meetings dealing with temperance and antislavery issues. At a church meeting held on August 16, 1847, resolutions denouncing slavery were introduced by Moors Farwell, and passed unanimously. 

Rev. N.W. Fisher was minister of the First Congregational Church in 1849, when a cholera epidemic swept through Sandusky. Rev. Fisher died from cholera on July 30, 1849. He was buried at Oakland Cemetery along with two other local ministers who also fell victim to cholera, Rev. Thomas Cooper and Rev. Hibbard P. Ward.

             

Under the leadership of Rev. Clarence Vincent, a new church building was constructed at what is now 431 Columbus Avenue. The builder was by George Philip Feick. (He would later also build Zion Lutheran Church across the street from the Congregational Church.)

From May 25 to May 28, 1919, the First Congregational Church celebrated its centennial services. A copy of the program from the centennial celebration is located in the church collections of the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center.

Now known as the First Congregational United Church of Christ, this church continues to play a vital role in the spiritual life of many local residents. Visit the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center to learn more about the history of churches in Sandusky and Erie County.

Cholera Victims of 1849: in Sandusky, Erie County, Ohio

In the fall of 1986, Mrs. Katharyn L. Wunderley completed a project which resulted in a compilation of information about hundreds of individuals who lost their lives in Sandusky’s cholera epidemic of 1849. Mrs. Wunderley used these ten sources in her research.

Names are listed alphabetically, with the sources used indicated for each name.

Some entries provide very brief details, while others are lengthy, such as this listing for William Townsend:

About two hundred fifty victims of cholera were buried in the Harrison Street Cemetery, now known as the Cholera Cemetery.  A single column honors the memory of those who died. About one hundred twenty persons were buried in the St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery. After Oakland Cemetery was opened in 1850, at least thirty tombstones were put in place in memory of cholera victims who lost their lives in 1849.  Three ministers who died of cholera are buried side by side at Oakland Cemetery.

A marble monument bears the name of Rev. N.W. Fisher, former pastor of the Congregational Church; Rev. H.P. Ward, a Methodist minister; and Rev. T.C. Cooper of the Bethel Church. To learn more about the many individuals who died of cholera in Sandusky in 1849, see Katharyn Wunderley’s book Cholera Victims of 1849: in Sandusky, Erie County, Ohio, shelved with the genealogy and local history books in the Lower Level of the Sandusky Library. This resource is invaluable, as it covers a time in history prior to the publication of Sandusky City Directories. 

Three Aspiring Entertainers

Nettie Baumeister Buder, Heenan Elliott, and Helen Fisher are pictured below in front of a stage backdrop from a play in which they were performing at Cedar Point, around 1918.
Sadly, Helen Fisher, who later married George Reynolds, died in 1922 at the age of 25.

Nettie Baumeister married Edwin Buder, and was the mother of Dr. Joseph and Thomas Buder. She was a lifetime resident of Sandusky, and was involved in many local musicals and civic affairs. She was a 50-year member of Grace Junior League, volunteered at the Grace Church Thrift Shop, and was a member of the former Memorial Hospital Guild. Nettie lived until the age of 97.

Heenan Elliott was the husband of Freda Black Jenkins, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Black. Heenan Elliott appeared on television shows, and was in several movies. He also traveled as a speaker with the Chautauqua Circuit. In 1926 Heenan Elliott was the secretary of the Catawba Candy Co., where his father-in-law, Leslie Black, served as company president. Heenan and Freda eventually moved to California, where Heenan served as president of the San Fernando Valley Real Estate Board. The Elliotts lived in California until their deaths in the 1970s.
Above is a photograph of a man driving a wagon from the Catawba Candy Company, which operated in Sandusky from 1905 until 1933.