Fremont Ross Track Star Meets the Best of the Best

Pete Erchenbrecher

                                                           

From its earliest days, Fremont Ross High School has had a proud history of exceptional athletes. One of those was Ross track star Leland “Pete” Erchenbrecher Throughout his high school years, he nearly had done it all – the broad jump, high jump, hurdles, the 100-yard dash, and the 220. No doubt, it was a thrilling moment for the young athlete when he was named the 1938 Buckeye League Champion.

But perhaps the highlight of the celebrated track star’s career came on a warm Friday evening in July 1938. It was the night Jesse Owens, one of the greatest Olympians of all time, came to town. His stunning achievement of four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics held in Berlin’s Nazi Germany had brought him international fame. But like other Olympians of his day, Owens never benefited from product endorsements and advertising contracts enjoyed by today’s medal winners. To support his family, Owens accepted speaking engagements worked with Cleveland’s underprivileged youth, and on occasion took part in exhibitions.

Jesse Owens 1936 Olympics

That night more than 1500 excited spectators jammed Anderson Field to watch their star athletes compete against the best in the world. Sponsored by Tony Syzmanowski, owner of Tony’s Bakery, the event was organized by Fremont Ross’ track coach Whitey Althoff. Two other track standouts took part – Jim Spangler and Cy Reardon of Findlay College.

Although out of training for more than two years, Owens gave Erchenbrecher and Reardon a 5-yard handicap in the 100-yard dash. Owens flashed home two yards ahead of Erchenbrecher and four yards ahead of Reardon. Spangler then bested the Olympian by a yard over the same distance, but Owens ran over four hurdles while Spangler pounded down the straightaway. Next came the broad jump. Using a crude pit, Owens’ jump measured 24 feet 9 inches. Erchenbrecher turned in a stellar performance with a leap of 20 feet 7 inches.

Jesse Owens later moved to Chicago, where he continued his work with youth, established the Jesse Owens Foundation, and traveled throughout the world. In 1976, President Gerald Ford presented Owens with the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor awarded an American civilian.

With war clouds looming, Pete Erchenbrecher soon joined his brothers, serving in the U. S. Army during World War II. He eventually settled in Shelby, Ohio where he married, raised three sons, worked as a purchasing agent, and established the Erchenbrecher Shoe Store. While Pete Erchenbrecher led a full life, that moment on a hot July night at Anderson Field, competing with the best of the best most certainly lived long in his memory!

A version of this post appeared in Lifestyles2000.

George Gascoyne: Island Contractor

George Gascoyne surrounded by his wife Mary, relatives, and his Dog "Watch"

Dr. Thomas Langlois Collection

Like many others, George Gascoyne came to South Bass Island perhaps never intending to stay. George had grown up in New Providence, New Jersey, the son of a farmer who had emigrated from England.  At the age of 18, he enlisted in the 26th New Jersey Infantry, experiencing the horrors of the Civil War at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Maryes Heights. After the war, the 25-year-old Gascoyne accepted contracts to build the Beebe House and the first Put-in-Bay House. When the job was done, Gascoyne stayed on, making the island his home for the remainder of his long life.

An ambitious, creative individual, he served for a time as a Put-in-Bay councilman, island postmaster and the village’s first fire chief and funeral director. He owned and operated a livery service as well as a vineyard behind Perry’s Cave. He performed in island theatricals and enjoyed his whiskey and his gamecocks.   

But it was truly his skill and talent as a building contractor that set him apart. Gascoyne built the U.S. Fish Hatchery, the Oak Point House, and the Town Hall, one of the few brick buildings then on the island. Around 1875, dock master and storekeeper Clinton Idlor hired Gascoyne to build his new home. Featuring Italianate architecture, the Idlor House was considered one of the island’s finest homes. Perhaps Gascoyne’s masterpiece was the home he built in 1875 for railroad magnate James Monroe.  Designed by a Toledo architect, “Inselruhe” (meaning “island rest” in German) features a broad verandah, a corner tower, and long narrow windows. Decorative moldings, brackets, and woodwork adorn the interior. Even the outbuildings were ornate The architectural style was sometimes known as “Steamboat Gothic.” Today the home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Gascoyne’s own home, located near St. Paul’s Parish House, was simple and featured none of the elegance of the summer homes he designed for others.  The nearby picture shows Gascoyne sitting on the steps of that home beside his wife Mary, their relatives, and his dog “Watch.” When he died at the age of 93, as the oldest man in Ottawa County and the last surviving Civil War veteran, no one could say that the enterprising George Gascoyne had not lived life to the fullest!

A version of this post appeared in Lifestyles2000.

John Davenport: Revolutionary War Soldier

Gravesite of John Davenport, Sr.

Courtesy of Find A Grave

By the time Sandusky County, Ohio was established in 1820, those Revolutionary War soldiers who were still alive were elderly. The few who migrated to the county came with the families of their adult sons and daughters who were hoping to purchase the last of the federal lands for sale in Ohio. Although it lay in the heart of the Black Swamp, the land was cheap at $1.25 per acre. Because there were so few veterans of the Revolution in the county, the Croghan Chapter of the DAR, the Sandusky County Historical Society, residents, and county officials worked hard to honor their service. Well known to everyone were the heroic forbears of the Burkett and Wagner families, who had served as members of General George Washington’s Life Guard.


But there were others. Among them was John Davenport, Sr., identified in a Sandusky County Historical Society yearbook as a Revolutionary War soldier who died in York Township. He moved to York Twp. in 1819, where he purchased 40 acres of the newly surveyed lands.

Davenport was born in Petersham, Massachusetts in 1760. It was there, at the age of 17, that he volunteered for 3 months service with the local militia. Young John Davenport continued to serve for periods each year from 1778 to 1781. When he filed for a pension at age 72, he was nearly blind. Although aged, he vividly recalled how he had guarded British prisoners, served as an officer’s servant, built forts, and responded to Indian attacks as far away as Albany, New York.

He provided a detailed account of a night spent on sentry duty at General George Washington’s headquarters. Davenport served at West Point during the American Revolution’s most infamous act of treason. While in command, Benedict Arnold had ordered the fort’s defenders dispersed, sold supplies on the “black market,” and removed cannons. All in an effort to render West Point defenseless so that the British might more easily capture the site. Private Davenport retrieved one of the cannons displaced by Arnold and helped capture a “mysterious person” associated with the traitor.

Following the war, Davenport returned to Petersham and married Eunice Hawes. Five years later, he took his family and settled in Grand Isle, Vermont and later in St. Lawrence County, New York. At the age of 54 and the father of nine, John Davenport once again enlisted in the militia – no doubt for service in the War of 1812.

For at least two decades, he and several of his adult children lived in Sandusky County, where Davenport was appointed York’s first postmaster. However, the Revolutionary War veteran did not die in Ohio. He sold his land and made one last move with his son, John Jr. This time it was to Winamac, Indiana. And, there, a few months before his 80th birthday, the aged veteran who had fought so bravely for America’s freedom as a young teen, died. His gravesite is fittingly marked with a special plaque testifying to his service with the Massachusetts Militia during the Revolution.

Retired Naval Commander Donates Civil War Escutcheon of General Manning Force

Ken Juul and General Manning Force's Civil War Escutcheon

This past week, during a visit to the Hayes Presidential Center, retired Naval Commander Ken Juul and his wife Vicki donated the Civil War escutcheon of Juul's great grandfather General Manning Force to the institution. Because of the lifelong friendship that existed between General Force and President Rutherford B. Hayes, Juul felt that the Hayes Presidential Center was an appropriate repository for the escutcheon and other family materials. President Hayes and Lucy named their eighth child and the only one born at Spiegel Grove for General Manning Force. 

Done in oil most likely by the J. P. Reynolds Company of Massachusetts in the 1880s, the escutcheon provides a visual record of his ancestor's Civil War service.  Force, who commanded the 20th Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War, received the escutcheon as a gift from his comrades. The escutcheon is on display in the Center's Library Reading Room.



General Manning F. Force

Manning Force was born Dec. 17, 1824 in Washington, D.C. to Peter and Hannah Force, the fourth of ten children. He attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School. Upon graduation in 1848, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and entered the practice of law. Force joined the Literary Club of Cincinnati where he met fellow lawyer Rutherford B. Hayes with whom he would form a lifelong friendship

Prior to the Civil War, Manning Force served as a member of the Burnett Rifles.
On August 26, 1861, he was appointed major of the 20th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. The following month, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. The first battle for the 20th O.V.I. was at Fort Donelson in February 1862. Shortly after the battle of Shiloh, Force was promoted to colonel and placed in command of the regiment. During the 1863 siege of Vicksburg, he served as acting commander of the 2nd Brigade of Mortimer Leggett’s Division, 17th Corps, and was then promoted to brigadier general.

In the summer of 1864, Leggett’s Division joined William T. Sherman’s drive on Atlanta. While leading his brigade in the defense of Bald Hill, Force was struck by a Minie ball. The ball struck him on the left side of his face and exited the upper right side of his skull. Believing the wound fatal, Force was sent home to die. Instead, he recovered and rejoined Sherman’s Army, taking part in the March to the Sea. For his actions at Atlanta, Force was promoted to major general and, in 1892, awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Following the Civil War, he was appointed military commander of the District of Mississippi, a position he held until January 1866 when he was mustered out.

Manning Force returned to his law practice in Cincinnati, Ohio. From 1866 to 1875 he served as judge of the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. He married Frances Dabney Horton of Pomeroy, Ohio, on May 13, 1874. They had one son, Horton Caumont Force

In 1876, Manning Force was defeated in his bid for the U.S. House of Representatives. He later joined the faculty of the Cincinnati Law School and was also elected judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati. Suffering from overwork, Force resigned his seat on the bench. He spent time with his good friend Rutherford B. Hayes at Spiegel Grove in Fremont, Ohio. After his stay in Fremont and a month long vacation in Europe, Force returned to Cincinnati. In 1888, he was appointed Commandant of the Ohio Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home in Sandusky, Ohio, a position he held until his death May 8, 1899.
Force wrote papers and books on Native Americans and the Civil War and contributed to legal publications. His interest in music led to his affiliation with the Cincinnati Musical Festival Association. He was a member of numerous archaeological and historical societies.

Remembering the Fallen: Vietnam Combat Veterans Moving Wall at Elmore, Ohio

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Vietnam Combat Veterans Moving Wall at Elmore, Ohio

August 11, 2012

 

Ron Distel, who served in Vietnam and is the commissioner of the Ottawa County Veteran’s Service Commission coordinated the effort to host the Vietnam Combat Veterans Moving Wall in Elmore, Ohio from August 9 - August 13.  Deepest thanks go out to volunteers and donors for  a nearly  three-year effort to bring the "Moving Wall" to Elmore, Ohio.

On an overcast Saturday, many walked quietly, respectfully, looking for a name - touching a name of a fallen hero who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country and their comrades.  Mr.  Distel says that the Wall has an amazing effect on those who see it. "It's a healing experience...hallowed ground. A piece of our life that we left over there. All of us have buddies whose names are on that wall."

And so it is. We remember. We pay tribute.

2nd Lt. George W. Coleman, U. S. Marine Corps

December 5, 1942 - March 17, 1968

Silver, Star Citation
Silver Star, Awarded posthumously, for actions during, the Vietnam War: The President of the United States of America takes pride, in presenting the Silver Star, (Posthumously) to Second, Lieutenant, George W. Coleman, (MCSN: 0-103411) United States, Marine Corps, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity, in action, while serving as a Platoon, Commander, with Company D, First, Battalion, Seventh, Marines, FIRST, Marine Division, (Rein.) FMF., in connection with combat operations, against the enemy, in the Republic, of Vietnam, from 4, January, to 17, March 1968. Participating, in several major, combat operations and numerous small, unit operations, Lieutenant, Coleman displayed, outstanding leadership and professional ability, while leading his men against, the enemy. Working tirelessly and with faultless, attention, to detail, he skillfully trained and instructed, his men, in general, military subjects and small, unit tactics, which greatly enhanced the combat, effectiveness, of his unit. On 17, March 1968, during Operation WORTH, Lieutenant, Coleman's platoon made contact, with a well-entrenched, North, Vietnamese, Army force and sustained, several casualties. He fearlessly moved, about the hazardous area deploying, his men and directing their fire upon, the hostile positions. Observing several wounded men lying, in an area dangerously exposed, to the enemy, fire, he courageously maneuvered, across, the fire-swept, terrain and on two separate occasions, carried casualties, to positions, of relative safety. Ignoring the hostile rounds impacting near him, he began moving toward another injured man and was mortally wounded by enemy automatic weapons fire. His bold initiative and sincere concern for the welfare of his comrades inspired all who served with him and were instrumental in saving the lives of several Marines. By his courageous and efficient leadership and unwavering devotion to duty in the face of overwhelming odds, Lieutenant Coleman upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country. Action Date: January 4 - March 17, 1968 Service: Marine Corps Rank: Second Lieutenant Company: Company D Battalion: 1st Battalion Regiment: 7th Marines Division: 1st Marine Division (Rein.), FMF
Mar 17, 2010

Della Barber: Teacher for the Freedmen

Della Barber

(Colonel Seth M. Barber Collection)

When Della Barber passed away in Norwalk, Ohio in 1928, her obituary stated that she was a “teacher” and “highly respected.” No truer words were ever spoken. But they did not begin to tell her story. Born shortly before the Civil War into a well-educated and deeply religious family, Della Barber committed her life to teaching the children of former slaves. She chose to leave Ohio at the age of 25 and travel alone to Concord, North Carolina where she began her career at Scotia Seminary

Established in 1867 by the Presbyterian Board of Missions for Freedmen, Scotia educated young African American girls in “religion and in the arts and sciences usually taught in seminaries of a high order.” In fact, the board modeled the school after New England’s Mount Holyoke. New students were astounded to see their teachers - white and African American, dining and socializing together. The board believed that whether its students became Christian teachers, social workers, nurses, wives, or mothers, Scotia graduates would pass on their knowledge to the next generation. Della Barber was one of the six teachers responsible for educating more than 200 young women at Scotia.

Unidentified Photograph from Della Barber's Album

North Carolina, dtd.1883

Four years later, the Board of Missions sent Della to Point Coupee, Louisiana to open a new school. It was a rude awakening for the young Ohio missionary teacher. Northern congregations sent books, clothing, and money, but it was not enough. Della labored, often alone against poverty and growing racial tensions. Even though the school was strongly supported by prominent Creole families, intimidation and threats on Della’s life forced the Board of Missions to give up its efforts at Point Coupee in 1892.

Unidentified Photograph from Della Barber's Album

North Carolina, no date

Della found safe haven at the church’s Mary Holmes Seminary in West Point, Mississippi. Ever the devoted teacher, she worked to secure funds so that of some of her Point Coupee students could join her or board at other Presbyterian schools.

Finally, Della was appointed to the Mary Allen Seminary in Crockett, Texas. The town of Crockett donated land. The Board of Missions funded the seminary’s construction. The curriculum prepared young women for teaching. Later, courses for elementary and secondary students were added. Eight teachers conducted classes for more than 200 students. The death of the school’s president in 1910 and a devastating fire a short time later sent the seminary into decline.

After more than 30 years, Della Barber retired and returned to Norwalk, where she lived with her brother. She continued to keep in touch with her colleagues and former students. Many became the educators she had envisioned.

Some criticized the Presbyterian Board of Missions for Freedmen for not challenging the segregation that increased as Jim Crow laws took hold in the Deep South. Others believed the opposite: by ignoring racial tensions around them, efforts to educate the first generation of young African American women grew and flourished in the first critical decades after the Civil War.

Civil War Battle of South Mountain Subject of Lecture by Brian Jordan August 19th at the Hayes Presidential Center

Brian Matthew Jordan

The Battle of South Mountain (Sept. 14, 1862) was the precursor to Antietam. It also was the conflict in which Rutherford B. Hayes suffered the most serious of his five Civil War wounds. Yet, most histories of the war devote little time and attention to South Mountain ... until now.

Brian Matthew Jordan, a cultural historian of the American Civil War, has released Unholy Sabbath: The Battle of South Mountain in History and Memory . The book relies on extensive research with primary sources to show that the Battle of South Mountain not only was a decisive Federal victory, but also a turning point in the campaign.

Jordan made use of the Manuscripts Collections at the Hayes Presidential Center in his research. He now returns to the Center to discuss his findings during a free lecture at 3 p.m. Sunday, August 19 in the Hayes Museum. A book signing follows the talk. Copies of Unholy Sabbath can be purchased in the Museum Store.

Unholy Sabbath: The Battle of South Mountain in History and Memory

In his third year of the history Ph.D. program at Yale University, Jordan is a native of Tallmadge, Ohio. He received a bachelor’s degree (summa cum laude, valedictorian) in history with a minor Civil War Era Studies from Gettysburg College in 2009. He is a frequent speaker at Civil War Round Tables nationwide, delivers tours for Gettysburg College’s Civil War Institute, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. He also conducts seminars for various Teaching American History programs. His published works have appeared in Civil War History and the Pennsylvania Magazine of History & Biography .