John Garvin: U. S. Naval Academy Midshipman

John Garvin: U. S. Naval Academy

After helping defend Washington, D.C. during the last months of the Civil War, sixteen- year-old John Garvin of Fremont, Ohio, was certain he wanted a career in the United States Navy. Aided by his older brother Jacob, he received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis.

But aboard the frigate Santee, preparing for his first cruise, he was no longer sure. He wrote his brother, "The midshipmen play some pretty rough practical jokes on the green ones. The naval school is not such a fine thing as people at home think".

A week later, young John was convinced he was entirely unfitted for the Navy. He told Jacob, “My ardor for a military life is completely quenched." He wanted out! Knowing brother Jacob would be a tough sell, John wrote his brother, anticipating his every argument.

John claimed, "We are ordered around like dogs. A person might almost as well be in the States prison. As I do not like it here, I of course will not feel like applying myself much and will possibly fall behind and get expelled." And finally, if those weren't reasons enough to come home, he told Jacob, "The graduates from here are sadly corrupt in their morals and not only swear, chew & smoke, but drink to excess."

The following morning, John wrote again in desperation. This time he used a positive approach. He assured Jacob he would be happy in Fremont. Then, John must have wondered if Jacob might not want him at home? Well - that would be fine too! He pleaded, "IF I ONLY GET AWAY FROM HERE. Please send permission to leave …as I am sick and disgusted with the whole Navy and not merely the school."

Later that same day, desperate and angry, John fired off another letter. This time he issued an ultimatum. If Jacob didn't respond within one week, he would resign with or without his permission!

It must have been a relief to Jacob when the letters stopped coming. Whether the frigate put to sea or young John gave up trying to convince his brother, history does not record. But Garvin continued at the academy and became a fine naval officer, who loved life on the high seas. As he sailed the world, he wrote his brother delightful letters, filled with descriptions of exotic cities, dangerous hurricanes, and life aboard ship.

When not at sea, Garvin taught mathematics at Annapolis and inspected naval weaponry. He returned to Fremont and married Maude Edgerton in 1876. For the next eighteen years, whenever Garvin was stationed at U. S. ports, Maude and the couple’s children traveled there to be with him.

Martha Treat Canfield in the Civil War

Martha Treat Canfield

(General Ralph P. Buckland Collection)

"The ravages, the desolation, the misery, the horrors of war forced us to construct a religion of our own. If there was any heaven, a soldier who had endured the things we endured, would be very liable to go there, no matter if he had never heard of a creed or a catechism,” explained John Lemmon, captain of a company of northwest Ohio soldiers in the Civil War.

Shiloh had taught them harsh lessons: death did not discriminate between young and old, strong and weak, brave and cowardly, or righteous and sinner. Civil War soldiers, of whom 90 percent saw combat, became contemptuous of chaplains who, as Lemmon put it, “did not stay year. All went home long before the war ended.”

Others whom soldiers deemed more virtuous and selfless replaced them as religious counselors. For the 72nd Ohio, Martha Treat Canfield more than any other individual filled that role. She was the wife of Lt. Col. Herman Canfield, killed during the opening moments of the Battle of Shiloh. Despite her own grief, she comforted Julia Grant when her husband General Ulysses S. Grant came under severe criticism following the battle. That relationship gave Martha Canfield unique access to the 72nd and other Ohio regiments on the battlefield at a time when most thought women were “too delicate” for such work.

Intelligent, confident, and courageous, Martha Canfield acted as minister, nurse, and mother to thousands of Ohio soldiers. Captain Orin England of the 72nd claimed, “She did more good than all of the chaplains in the army. If we had one in every brigade, yes, one in every division, how much good they could do!”

With her young son in tow, she visited military hospitals in Memphis and Vicksburg where she found thousands dying for the lack of good food, clean water, and decent care. She sought help from Ohio’s governor and hundreds of aid societies. They responded with a continuous flow of medical supplies, nurses, and food to Union hospitals in the South. Ohioans funded her efforts to establish a hospital ship at Vicksburg and a waterworks system at the Memphis military hospital. “None excelled and few could equal the remarkable Martha Canfield on the battlefield or in the hospital,” claimed one admiring doctor.

When all else failed, she sought out General Ulysses S. Grant. Grant held Martha Canfield in such high regard that on one occasion, on her word alone, he cut through military red tape and ordered several thousand of the sickest soldiers onto boats, sending them North for better care.

When peace finally came, Martha Canfield’s efforts to help the sick and dying did not end. For the remainder of her life, she assisted at the Bristol, Rhode Island, hospital established by her physician sons.

Tragedy Along the Washita

Clara Harrington Blinn

Despite dangers and hardships, thousands of Americans settled in the West in the decade after the Civil War. Among them were Richard and Clara Blinn.

Clara Isabel Harrington was born in Elmore, Ohio, October 21, 1847. She was the daughter of William and Harriet Bosley Harrington, who owned the Baird House in Perrysburg, Ohio. On August 12, 1865, in Sandusky County, she married Civil War veteran Richard Blinn of Perrysburg. The couple spent their wedding night at the Croghan House in Fremont.

The Blinns settled in Colorado Territory, but hard times forced them to join a wagon train returning east to Kansas where Clara's father lived.

On October 9, 1868, near Lamar, Colorado, Cheyenne warriors attacked the train, carrying off Clara and two-year-old Willie Blinn. The warriors left their captives at the winter camp of Chief Black Kettle on the Washita River.

Charge of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry on Black Kettle's Village

(Harper's Weekly, December 19, 1868)

General Philip Sheridan ordered George Armstrong Custer to destroy the village in retaliation for raids throughout the region. Black Kettle pleaded for protection for his people from General William Hazen stationed at Fort Cobb. When Hazen learned that Clara and Willie were in Black Kettle's camp, he began negotiations for their release. His superior was of little help; Sheridan believed that Clara had been "subjected to fearful bestiality of perhaps the whole tribe; it is mock humanity to secure what is left of her for the consideration of five ponies."

Clara's feelings were decidedly different than those of Sheridan! A month after her capture, she smuggled a note to Hazen. Clara pleaded desperately for help - if not for herself, then for her son. Believing that her husband had died in the Cheyenne raid, Clara begged that someone notify her father in Franklin, Kansas.

Custer's troops struck the sleeping village before dawn on November 7. Black Kettle, his wife and 100 other Cheyennes died during the short but vicious battle. Two weeks later, Custer, accompanied by Sheridan, returned to the site of the massacre. There among the dead lay Clara - scalped, a bullet hole in her forehead, and her skull crushed. Nearby the generals found the thin, little body of Willie, bearing evidence of bruises about the head. Soldiers buried them at Fort Arbuckle.

Outraged by the deaths of Clara and Willie, General Hazen criticized the generals for attacking during his negotiations. Without eyewitnesses, the official inquiry proved futile.

Richard Blinn survived the Cheyenne raid. He was found on the plains, still searching for his loved ones. In his letter of condolence to Blinn, Sheridan enclosed a piece of Clara's dress and a lock of Willie's hair - remnants of the tragic end of Clara and Willie Blinn.

Van Horn/Hummel/Gephart/Fisher

Van Horn- Hummel-Gephart- Fisher

Sandusky County, Ohio

"Iomes (?) Grove." Sandusky Co, July 1908

The above photograph belongs to J. Derald Morgan of Madison Alabama. His grandmother, Leafy Fern Van Horn was born in Bettsville, Ohio, December 1886. Leafy Fern is seated sixth from the left, holding a small child on her lap.

Leafy Fern was the daughter of Samuel Cornelius and Emma Elizabeth Hummel Van Horn. Samuel had migrated from Pennsylvania to Ohio. He married Emma in Fremont, Ohio. Emma died in Bettsville on January 4, 1887, only a few weeks after Leafy Fern's birth. Samuel then married Emma's sister, Jennie. Emma and Jennie were two of the 12 children of Chrisitan and Margaret Ann (Fisher) Hummel (spelled Hoomel, Hommel, Hurnel, Harnel, and finally Hummel). Jennie (Hummel) Van Horn in Dalhart, Texas, August 14, 1929

Mary Hummel, an older sister of Emma and Jennie, married a Gephart. Other Hummel sisters married Rossenberger, Dicken, Keefer, Kiser, Young, Ludwig, and Rumpler.

Written on the back of the photo is the word "Iomes." However, it is difficult to read. If you know WHERE this picture was taken or WHO any of the individuals are, Dr. Morgan would appreciate your help. (DeraldM@knology.net)

Lake Erie's Ballast Island

The Cochran Cottage on Ballast Island, 1888

Lying a mile northeast of Put-in-Bay is Ballast, one of Lake Erie’s twenty islands. According to legend, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry used rocks from the island to provide ballast for his ships before sailing out to meet the British fleet during the War of 1812. A shallow reef connects the 13-acre island to a sliver of land known as Lost Ballast.

Life on Ballast was shaped by one of its earliest owners, commercial shipping magnate and two-time Cleveland mayor George W. Gardner. At age nine, he ran away from home to sail aboard a lake schooner bound for Buffalo. While still a teenager, Gardner became head clerk of the Northern Transportation Company, managing the accounts and cargoes of the firm’s Great Lakes vessels. After a 5-year stint in the banking business, Gardner purchased two tugs that plied the Cuyahoga River. In partnership with John Rockefeller and others, he shipped grain throughout the Great Lakes, making Cleveland one of the largest grain markets on the Great Lakes.

Cottage on Ballast's North Cliffs, 1888

Few men loved the water more than Gardner. Well before the Civil War, he founded the Ivanhoe Boat Club, bringing rowing to the Cuyahoga River. He later founded the Cleveland Yacht Club and organized the Inter-Lake Yachting Association. He canoed the Mississippi River from Cincinnati to New Orleans.

In 1874, Gardner purchased Ballast Island and a short time later sold undivided interests to his friends who enjoyed sailing nearly as much as he. Eventually, the cooperative association of wealthy friends built nine cottages along the east and west shores of the island. The Gardners’ cabin was built of logs from hackberry trees found on the island. A hotel and dining hall were constructed on the cliffs to the north. The families planted vineyards and fruit trees. At the invitation of Commodore Gardner, the Western Canoe Association transported its boat house from Ross Lake, Michigan to Ballast.

Lost Ballast Island, 1888

Those at Ballast formed their own canoe association, naming it the Longworth Canoe Club after the father-in-law of Alice Roosevelt Longworth. According to Commodore Gardner’s great granddaughter, Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, McKinley, Garfield, and Cleveland all visited at Ballast. And, each summer the resident canoe club and other canoe associations held their annual races in the sheltered waters surrounding Ballast.

Eventually, an ice house, caretaker's home, and work shed were added. All were protected by a curving breakwall made of log cribs filled with stone. Passing steamers and Ballast's proximity to South Bass Island made travel to and from the island convenient. Good friends, good conversation, and great sailing made summering on Ballast in these early years an idyllic time.

Henry Pletscher and Lake Erie's Buckeye Island

Henry Pletscher

Buckeye Island is a small outcropping of glacial rock lying on the northeast tip of South Bass Island. For Henry Pletscher is was much more than rock and reef; it was his retreat –a place of peace and quiet where he spent long summer days tending his garden and fishing with friends and family.

Born in Cleveland in 1842, Henry served with the 13th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in some of the Civil War’s fiercest battles. After 3 years’ service, he returned home to marry his childhood sweetheart. Following the death of their two-year-old son from diphtheria, Henry headed West in search of his brother. Gone for nearly two years, Henry discovered upon his arrival back in Ohio that his wife, believing him dead, had married again. Heartbroken, Henry set out for the West once more. He re-enlisted, serving in the U. S. Cavalry in the Dakotas and the Arizona Territory with famed Indian fighter General George Crook.

It was Henry’s stories of high adventure fighting the Apaches that held his nieces spellbound. In a 1991 article in the Put-in-Bay Gazette, niece Elsa Watters shared her childhood memories of summer afternoons with Uncle Henry, listening to his tales as they picked raspberries, caught crayfish, and searched for seagulls’ nests.

Henry Pletscher at his cabin on Buckeye Island

According to his niece, Henry purchased the island in 1909. There he built a cabin, tool shed, and dock for his fishing boat and those of the many relatives he invited to Buckeye. Sharing his special place was Henry’s way of repaying family members with whom he stayed each winter.

But Henry’s days on that idyllic island came to an end on his 76th birthday. After stopping for a drink, Henry mistakenly signed papers agreeing to sell Buckeye. The following day, after realizing what he had done, Henry was nearly overcome by the loss. But he knew his little retreat was gone forever. Elsa recalled that “after that day, he seemed to shrink in stature.” It wasn’t long after that he left his beloved island for the Sandusky Soldier’s and Sailor’s Home.

On their visits to Put-in-Bay, his nieces would often stop at Sandusky to see Uncle Henry. They thought he seemed content enough, but life was never the same for Hnery. As Elsa put it, “his sparkle was gone with his island.” Henry Pletscher died there in the spring of 1922.

Without Henry, the winds and waves of Lake Erie began to take their toll on the little island. The garden, cabin, and dock soon were gone. But for Elsa Watters and her sister, their childhood memories of summer days on Buckeye Island with Uncle Henry would remain forever.

That Magical Place: The Blue Hole

Blue Hole by Ernst Niebergall

If you grew up in northern Ohio during the 40s and 50s, chances are you made a trip to the Blue Hole near Castalia. I know I did. In fact, I recall passing through the impressive tufa rock entrance many times as we made our way to that fascinating natural phenomenon.

In my mind’s eye, I can still see myself as a child, bending over the rail of the rustic foot bridge. Mesmerized by the encrusted stumps and vegetation, I would peer deeply into the quiet blue-green waters of that “spring without a bottom.” With the vivid imagination of a child, I often wondered if it went all the way to China. What would happen if I fell in? Would I disappear forever like the farmer with his wagon and team of horses? Even though I later learned that the story was the stuff of legend, I am still certain that one time I saw a wagon wheel far below the Blue Hole’s quiet surface!

Blue Hole by Ernst Niebergall

I wasn’t the only one who found the Blue Hole a magical place. Long before Ohio was Ohio, the Wyandots believed the clear, cold waters held curative powers. And in 1761, when Major Robert Rogers first recorded the discovery of springs surrounding the Blue Hole, he called it a “remarkable fine spring.”

Years passed before I discovered that my mysterious Blue Hole was in fact a funnel-shaped sink hole created when pioneer Dorastus Snow built a grist mill and dam on Cold Creek in 1810. Water pooled, causing the collapse of strata in the area of the Blue Hole, allowing water to “spring” through to the opening.

The spring puts forth an estimated 450,000 gallons of water every hour! The water’s constant temperature of 48 degrees prevents the Blue Hole from ever freezing. Its color comes from its mineral content - potassium, magnesium, lime, soda and iron. Without oxygen, nothing grows in the enchanting pool of water that today measures 75 feet in diameter.

Owned by the Castalia Trout Club, the Blue Hole opened as a tourist attraction in 1925. Improved with fences, footbridges, walkways, and benches, “Ohio’s Greatest Natural Wonder” attracted an estimated 150,000 visitors annually during its heyday. On sunny days, visitors could see to a depth of 50 to 60 feet below the surface. The sun illuminated the openings through which water surged from the underground streams. After more than six decades, interest in the Blue Hole began to wane. In 1990, the Castalia Trout Club closed it to the public.

Whenever I grow nostalgic for those long-ago visits to the Blue Hole, I look at the photographs Ernst Niebergall took around 1910. They are now preserved in the Charles E. Frohman Collection at the Hayes Presidential Center. I see the Blue Hole in its natural setting, but it is one that I never knew. Now thanks to Glenn Kuebeler, I can enjoy Niebergall’s photos and many others that do depict the Blue Hole just as I remember it. Pick up Glenn’s book, “Castalia, Cold Creek, and the Blue Hole.” You will enjoy a memorable journey back to that magical Blue Hole of our past!

[This post was first published in "History Notebook" in Lifestyles2000]