The Tumultuous Creation of a Great Railroad

The invention of land transportation powered by the steam engine happened in the early 1800s but efficient railroads were slow to develop. It was the canal system that opened the Ohio interior but the railroads, far more efficient, had their day later in the century. Our Waterville Railroad, the “Cloverleaf,” is the subject of this story as researched by Randy Studer primarily from a 1903 Toledo Blade story.

It seems that by 1870 business between Maumee and Toledo (also Waterville) was strong but transportation was slow and problematic. In 1873 G.W. Reynolds formed the Toledo-Maumee Narrow Gage Railroad Company and set about building a railroad. Note that building a railroad takes a large amount of capital. The right of way must be surveyed and purchased, graded, rails and ballast purchased and laid then rolling stock purchased. This railroad ran into trouble right away. The Toledo City Council would not permit the locomotive into the city as it might frighten the horses, so they had to uncouple the cars at the city line and haul them into town with horses.

One year later in 1874 another company was incorporated to build a narrow gage railroad from Toledo to Grand Rapids, Ohio running through Maumee and Waterville. Our Waterville railroad was born. The owners and money behind this road were ex-governor James M. Ashley and D. Howard. Perhaps the ex-governor’s clout was enough to change the minds of the Toledo Council for they soon built a depot on Erie Street. These short rail lines and many more throughout the state were conceived primarily for passengers, as were the electric railways two decades later. Most of these railroads were deeply in debt and their assets in poor condition. By 1879, four of the Toledo area roads decided to, or were forced to, consolidate operations and extend their reach to Cincinnati and Indianapolis. There was of course much wrangling between parties and a third Toledo railway, The Toledo, Delphos and Burlington which had built track to Kokomo, Indiana with plans to extend to St. Louis. Then much was resolved when a Calvin S. Brice of Lima purchased two thirds of Mr. Ashley’s stock under terms favorable to Ashley and the Toledo, Cincinnati and St. Louis Narrow Gage Railroad was formed. However this road found itself over extended in debt and soon went into court ordered receivership and was sold. The new owners reorganized and decided to name the road the Toledo, Kokomo and St Louis” and promote it as “the Kokomo Route.” Their plan “went off the rails” when a Toledo “entrepreneur” caught wind of this plan, hurried to Columbus and filed articles of incorporation for that name, then offered to sell the name to the railroad owners for a considerable sum. The owners would have none of this nonsense and changed their plans. The railroad was named the “Toledo, St. Louis and Kansas City” and adopted the promotional name as “The Clover Leaf route.” The owners deemed it necessary to abandon the narrow gage track and converted the entire line to standard gage between 1880 and 1887 and purchased all new rolling stock and locomotives.  Narrow gage tracks are 3 to 3 ½ feet apart, cheaper to build and require lighter equipment. Standard gage tracks are 4 feet, 8.5 inches apart, standard for all railroads in the country and built for much heavier duty. Over extended in debt again, it was put in receivership. Litigation continued for seven - and one-half years in multiple courts and emerged in another sale in 1900 as “The Toledo, St. Louis and Western” which seemed to finally become a prosperous business. So it is the Toledo, St. Louis and Western on our Waterville maps as it was in our 1903 Toledo Blade article. We know that more changes were to come but that, as they say “is another story.”

A CLEAN CHRISTMAS STORY (FULL DISCLOSURE --THE ITEM OF INTEREST IN THIS STORY IS SOAP!

Nearly all of us harbor some Christmas traditions from our past. This one began in this writer’s childhood in the 1940s. My parents were searching for something to put on the Christmas tree to resemble snow and happened on the idea that our laundry soap (Ivory flakes at that time – Ivory Soap was a big item in the 1940s) mixed with a little water and whipped up with an egg beater made a perfect white frosting to coat the branches. A little sprinkle of mica flakes (no glitter in the 40s) made the “snow” sparkle. Then Mom with her artistic bent, decided she could make a model snowman with a paper core wrapped in upholstery or medical cotton tied with string in appropriate places, could be frosted with our soapy snow which, when dry, would last a long time. This was a project where we kids could help. We dressed our snowmen with features and hats made of black (or other colors) construction paper and added other features as our imagination might create. The result was so cute we made many of these over the years, giving them as gifts to relatives, teachers and friends.

A few years ago I decided to try to re-create this childhood memory. Directions for this creation are as follows: Find a cardboard tube – toilet paper, paper towel or other roller. Wrap the tube with a thick layer of cotton batting and tie a string around the center to create two “snowballs”. Make the head with a ball of cotton wrapped around with string to create the third ball and a strand of cotton for arms. The snow frosting is the hard part in our modern era as we had to find a solid (flake or granular) soap product. Granular Ivory Snow was found and whipped with the electric mixer. Although not as good as flakes, workable “frosting” was made and our cotton snowman was given a thick coating as was a cardboard cotton covered base. Our features were thumbtacks and a short piece of electric wire instead of paper and real buttons from our button box. The hat was premade (saved from a centerpiece years before) although we could have made a paper top hat, all added before the frosting dried. We gave him a walking stick instead of a broom (I remember boom as a kid). A photo of our “lost tradition” creation is included. Don’t you want to make one of these? What traditions do you remember – or still practice? Anyway all of us at W.H.S. wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Remember 2026 is the Nation’s 250th celebration. Much more about this will be posted later.

Gambling in Waterville?

Randy Studer, in his research on local businesses turned up a series of 1950 Toledo Blade articles about slot machines in Waterville. To be fair we must note that in the 1940s and earlier, nickel, dime and quarter slot machines could be found in most stores, restaurants and some gas stations in this area, and I would guess in all of Ohio. This writer can remember one in the small rural convenience store where I bought penny and nickel candy as a kid. I assume they were all placed by “the Mob” who controlled all gambling.

In our case it seems that in early April of 1950 a Toledo anti-gambling man saw kids playing slot machines in our local restaurants and swore out a complaint against five establishments. The case was brought to our township Justice of the Peace, George Pershing of Whitehouse, who issued search and seizure warrants for these businesses. Constable Ernest Longnecker was given responsibility for carrying out the order and deputized two men, Wilbur Baumgartner and James Smith to help. On April 20, 1950 our three heroes visited the River Road Grill, Jack’s Grill, The Village Kitchen and the Waffle Dog Restaurant in Waterville and removed three slot machines from each. The River Road Ranch was spared because the twelve seized slots filled up their truck. They took their contraband slots back to Whitehouse and stored them in a small garage building, owned by the township, behind the Fire Station and the story now gets more interesting. The next day someone noticed the garage door had been “forced” and sure enough the slot machines were gone. Mr. Longnecker notified the county Sheriff George Timinay and requested an investigation but got no response until the next day. Needless to say, those slots were never found. So it was that the youth of Waterville were saved from the evils of gambling by this action, Mr. Longnecker resigned from his part time occupation as constable over the theft of the seized slots and in 1951, the State of Ohio passed antigambling laws that ended uncontrolled slot machines (forever?)

THE DITCH BOOK

Much public discussion has appeared in the media recently about ditches and proper surface water drainage. These are not new problems. Much of Lucas County and Wood County are known to be “table flat” and the drainage of the Great Black Swamp by construction of a system of ditches is well documented. It seems water wants to accumulate where we want to grow something or build something, which affects the value of our land. We at the Wakeman Archives found, among the early Waterville Township records recently donated for our safe-keeping, a book simply called “the Ditch Journal”. This book documents the origin and upkeep of many of our local ditches created from the 1860s to about 1915. The process, probably about the same as it is today, is as follows:

A land owner (farmer) perceives a drainage problem. Perhaps his newly planted crop was washed out. Land owner checks with his neighbors and probably enlists some help to determine where a ditch could be placed to drain the excess water. Landowner then petitions the Township Trustees to cause a ditch to be constructed. Trustees appoint one or more of their members and usually an engineer and/or surveyor to visit the site or area and determine the need and proper placement of the proposed ditch. Township Trustees meet, approve the petition and location of the ditch (as a public benefit) and approve the engineer’s report regarding the size and profile of the ditch to ensure it is adequate to drain the land. The Trustees hire a crew to dig the ditch and the cost of Trustees time, the engineer’s time and the labor is assessed to the landowners as determined by the acres drained and the length of ditch across each property. Sometimes the acres drained were not crossed by any part of the ditch. An example of this process can be found on pages 4 and 5 (Engineer C.W Shoemaker’s report) and pages 70, 71, and 72 of the Trustees Journal for Township Ditch No. 12. John Dunkelberger petitioned the Waterville Twp. Trustees on June 7, 1877 to create a ditch in Twp. Section 24 (near Bailey and the river) signed by petitioners Dunkelberger, John Hertzfeld, Jacob Fancher, William Fancher , Levi Krotzer and Susan Wiles.  The Trustees met at the proposed location on June 14, 1877 to confirm the need and agreed to employ C.W. Shoemaker as engineer. The Trustees met in formal session to formalize the creation of proposed ditch as a public benefit. C.W. Shoemaker’s report was filed on June 26th, the ditch was ordered to be constructed at the next meeting and to be completed by October 1877. Fourteen landowners were assessed for this ditch. The layout for this ditch was simple as it followed the roads along the section lines. Many others required more complicated survey work.

Now nature and human nature being what it is a ditch once established will often become weed choked and silted to the point it can no longer serve its intended function.  The fix for this problem is much the same as construction. The affected land owner must petition the Trustees to have the ditch cleaned and repaired. Trustees meet and view the damaged ditch, agree that it must be cleaned and in a subsequent meeting direct the township clerk to notify the land owners whose land is drained by the faulty ditch and direct them to clean out their assigned sections of the ditch. An engineer is hired to make sure the ditch is restored to its original specification and see that repairs are made as needed. A final report is sent to the Trustees. These costs are assessed to the land owners of record which must be paid by a set date or the assessment is sent to the Lucas County Auditors to be added to their tax bill.

Many of these ditches created in the late 1800s are still there, functioning as they always have. Others have been replaced by drainage tile but still drain their intended area. Some have been swallowed by urban expansion where street drains and trunk lines have been established.

We take no position on any controversy regarding area drainage. This article is intended to explore the origin of our township drainage ditches. We must remind our readers, however, that all this drainage water ends up in Lake Erie.

The Neighborhood Women's Club of Waterville

Once in a while an item crosses our desks at the Wakeman Archives that is a complete surprise and we wonder why we never heard of this before. Such is the case with the following quoted news article from the Sunday May 3, 1964 Toledo Blade. We have records of several Waterville Women’s Clubs but had no knowledge of this one. We are hoping that some of our readers may know of, or had family who belonged to this group and can tell us more. Perhaps photographs or records exist? Contact us through our website or Facebook if you can help.

“The Neighborhood Women’s Club of Waterville which was organized in 1914 as the German Ave. Ladies Social Club, observed its 50th Anniversary. They had a luncheon at Howard’s Restaurant and a trip to Brun’s Greenhouse. In observance of the golden anniversary, members wore gold orchids and lunched at a table decorated with yellow flowers and gold centerpiece and vases. The group in the beginning had 12 women but had as many as 30 members. The meetings were held monthly in the homes of members. A program or discussion was held at each meeting. It was a purely social organization. Members have contributed to various charities and have enjoyed many social activities together. Many times they were entertained by men of the Thresher Club. Members of the club included: Mrs. Robert Sharp, Mrs. Floyd McVicker, Mrs. Robert Schwartz, Mrs. Erwin Fausz, Marie Mast, Mrs. Ernest Holliker, Mrs. Arthur Holliker, Marie Hahn, Mrs. John Canfield, Mrs. Everett Burkett, Mrs. Virgil Hanifan, Mrs. Chester Beis, Mrs. Herman Moser, Marion Moser, and Mrs. John Leonhard.” (During World War I German Ave was changed to Dutch Road) (Photo and article taken from “The Blade, Toledo, Ohio, Sunday, May 3, 1964)

SUPPORT FOR HISTORY!

March 14th is Pi Day

Hello fellow history buffs. It is Pi day, the 14th of March or 3-14. We celebrate that familiar little constant, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, which is 22 to 7. Theis divides out to 3.14…. to an infinite number of decimals, but 3.14 is adequate for most of us. We all learned this in school and sometimes actually use this little gem for some circular project. But why celebrate? Well it certainly is ancient, known to very early civilizations but mostly because Pi reminds us of pie, that delicious dessert that we all love and we can always use an excuse to celebrate that.

Historically, Waterville, by 1900 was surrounded by orchards, mostly apples but also cherries, pears and peaches. Our earliest Waterville Festival was the Apple Blossom Festival, held in the spring when apple trees were in bloom.  Many other fruits were also grown locally. All of these could be turned into delicious pies, so there were many celebrated pie bakers in our area. No threshing gang would have been complete without a hearty meal followed by a choice of delicious pie for dessert. While threshing gangs are no more, our love of pie remains. The choices of types of pie are huge. Besides all kinds of fruit we can choose cream pies, custard pies, crumb pies, etc. and if sweets are not your choice, choose savory pies like chicken pot pie or pizza pie, etc. So many choices! So let’s celebrate Pi day with some pie. Just make sure it is round and make the first cut on the diameter. Happy Pi/pie day all.

Note: Pi day was founded in the U.S. in 1988 and officially recognized by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2009. UNESCO General Conference designated Pi Day as the International Day of Mathematics in November of 2019.

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All of us want to see our history preserved, especially our local history. There are a number of ways we can make this happen, most of which involve the donation of time, money or both. Here are some easy and painless ways to support local history.

1.      Donate part (or all) of your Ohio Income Tax refund to the Ohio History Fund. WHS has received three grants from this fund since 2021. Tax time is your time to support Ohio History! Did you know you can donate part of your Ohio income tax refund to the Ohio History Fund? It’s as simple as entering the donation amount on line 26 of Ohio Form IT1040. Line 26 asks “Amount of line 24 (refund) to be donated”. Choose “Ohio History Fund” from the six options presented and enter the amount there. In 2021 the Wakeman Building received $3867 for a new HVAC system from this fund. The Sargent House sill and beam project (2023-2024) was granted $18,000 toward this repair. The Wakeman Archives recently received $1150 to purchase scanning equipment for the glass and medium format negative digitization project. You can see these pictures on Ohio Memory at www.ohiomemory.org .

2.      Buy an Ohio History “Mastodon” license plate and $20 goes to the Ohio History Fund

3.      Become a member of the Waterville Historical Society. Your dues and donations support all of our preservation activities. You could also become a member and a volunteer. With four buildings to care for and maintain, lawn and garden work, and thousands of artifacts to care for, there is much work to do.

For more information about the Ohio History Fund, visit https://www.ohiohistory.org/preserving-ohio/ohio-history-fund-grant/.

A Grant Brings New Life to Old Negatives

Recently, thanks to a grant from the Ohio Local History Alliance, we have been able to buy a scanner to be able to scan glass negatives and other photograph negatives that then can produce images to be placed on the Ohio Memory site at https://www.ohiomemory.org/ under the collection of Waterville Historical Society. At present there are 13 of the negatives on the site from the Lester Lyon Glass Negatives that we own. Lester Lyon was one our early amateur photographers when light sensitive glass plates were the only “film” available. These images are of the Waterville area in the early 1900s. We will soon be adding more of these images. You can view these by going to Ohio Memory and under the donating society search for the Waterville Historical Society. Or you can just search for the word “Lyon, Lester” to see them. By using the WHS name in the search you will also see items photographed when the Ohio History Connection came out to the Robbins House several years ago and took pictures of the World War I Veterans and the Albert Graf Collection of World War I clothing, letters to the family from the war, etc. There are also the Welcome Pray’s (early Waterville doctor) son’s letters home from the Civil War. For those you have to search for “Pray” as these items were scanned by the Toledo Library and are listed under their organization but in the location as to where the original items are located they state Waterville Historical Society. There are 34 items. These originals are carefully preserved at the Wakeman Archives.

We also have items on the PastPerfectOnline Collection. At present we have over 320 items on there. You can find these by going to our website at www.watervillehistory.org and to the tab called “Online Collection” and click on this. In the statement about the program there is a link that takes you to our collection. At this time you can do a random search or search by Archives, Photograph or Object to see the items. We are constantly adding to each of our multimedia platforms.

Also on the website we have video collection under “WHS Video” which tells about the Robbins House and Sargent House museums, walking tours, Waterville School, Wakeman Archives, Interurban Bridge, etc. We are open every Wednesday for 10-2 weather permitting and the last Saturday of May, June, July, August and September from 10-2 for those that would like to  view original material, research their family, learn more about the area, military information, maps and atlases or just come up to see what we have.  Our staff is there to welcome and assist visitors.

NEW DONATION TO THE WAKEMAN ARCHIVES!

One of the recent donations to the Waterville Historical Archives is this Patriotic 1942 Calendar from Gustavus A. Dedrich Insurance….. Gustavus Adolphus Dedrich (1875-1956) was born in Germany to William and Henrietta Dedrich. They came to the America when Gus was five, settling in New Bremen, Ohio. Gus married Ethel Belle Brown (1881-1954) in Weston, Ohio in 1900. They moved to Waterville in 1901 where Gus went to work as a general store clerk. He served as cashier in the Waterville State Savings Bank for 31 years, retiring in 1944 to focus on his private insurance business. Gus was very involved in the community, serving on the Lucas County Board of Education, Waterville Village Council, and the Village Planning Commission. Gus also served as a member of the Waterville Rotary Club, Wakeman Lodge, F&AM of Scottish Rite Valley of Toledo. He served as director to both the Otis Avery Browning Masonic Memorial Trust Fund and Waterville State Savings Bank. At the time of Gus’s death they lived at 911 Michigan Ave in Waterville and had one daughter named Gertrude Yetta Dedrich Sweeney.  Mr. and Mrs. Dedrich are buried in Wakeman Cemetery in Waterville.

Authored by Kelly Putnam

LION COFFEE TRADING CARDS

Today we find coffee roasters and specialty coffee shops everywhere. It was not always so. Originally coffee beans were sold raw or green and the “lady of the house” would have to roast her own in frying pans. In 1864 the LION Coffee Co. was in Toledo where they were in the business of roasting and blending the beans for different flavors. After the beans were roasted they were placed in 1# bags with a LION Trademark, creating their own trademark and sold to grocery stores. The packaged roasted beans were either ground by the store or with an “at home” coffee grinder. Later in 1882 LION Coffee was owned by Woolson Spice Company located on North Summit Street in Toledo. Mr. Alvin Woolson started putting trade cards with each coffee purchase. The advent of improved color printing techniques in the late 1800s allowed the merchant to print an advertising card with an attractive color picture on one side and an ad for the product on the back. The pretty picture was an incentive to buy the product. Mr. Woolson also devise the idea of having the purchaser of Lion Coffee cut out and save the lion’s head logo from the coffee bags and mail a given number of these to the company for a premium. With collectable trade cards and premiums, along with quality coffee, Woolson Spice was roasting a million pounds a week and was by 1895 perhaps the second largest coffee company in the world. The lions head premium idea brought such an overwhelming response, with daily sacks of mail arriving, it nearly bankrupted the company.

The Waterville Historical Society was pleased to have Jimmy Blouch of Littleton, Co. donate his collection of trade cards. They were collected by Fannie Catherine Merifield (1844-1934) of Waterville, Jimmy Blouch’s great-grandmother. We have now put some of the Lion Trade Cards on our PastPerfectOnline site at https://watervillehistory.pastperfectonline.com/Search?search_criteria=Lion&onlyimages=false or come up to the Wakeman Archives to view all of the Lion Trade Cards we have in the collection.

To learn more about the “Amazing Story of Lion coffee” check out the website: https://www.lioncoffee.com/amazing-true-history-lion-coffee/

Waterville Haunted Heritage

Don’t forget to buy your tickets for Haunted Waterville by going to the banner. When you click on this it will take you to the place to buy your tickets. Enjoy the ride and there are several new places on the tour this year!

Memorial Day 2024

May 30, 1966 Howard E. Krause took this picture of the Waterville American Legion Auxiliary Juniors getting ready to march up the hill with the Memorial Day parade. The America Legion participated in the festivals every year. The girls identified are Karen Linn, Kathy Hess, Yvonne Blauvelt and Dorothy Hess, a member of the Waterville American Legion Auxiliary. Can anyone help to identify the others?

The night or so before there would be a great gathering of members at the American Legion hall where freshly cut branches of evergreens would be laid on the table and along with the paper poppies to be made into corsages to be placed later at the cemetery. The next day there would be a procession of cars and marchers from the American Legion Hall on Mechanic Street with the American Legion men in front carrying the flag. They would stop at the bridge where they would place a wreath in the river to honor those unknown or known service members “lost at sea.” Then on along the River Road to Farnsworth Road and up to Wakeman Cemetery followed by the AW band.  Many people followed along walking to the cemetery to hear the devotions and the military salute. At earlier times they stopped at the Civil War Monument to have the service at that location and place a wreath on the monument

Today we continue on to the new American Legion monument that was placed there after the closing of the Waterville American Legion where many will gather to hear a talk by a local person or distinctive person. The Boy Scout Troop 101 will be included in the ceremony. What an impressive site to see the AW band march in from the street as they do every year. The traditional ceremony to honor the dead will be held. Flags have been placed at all of the veterans markers. Our sexton likes to see the flags there year round to keep their memory alive.  People will visit each other after the services and walk the cemetery to see where their loved ones are buried. Today the Whitehouse American Legion puts on the Memorial Day program of remembrance at both the Whitehouse and Wakeman Cemetery beginning at 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. respectively on Monday May 27th.

WHERE, Oh WHERE DID THE MAUMEE INDIAN MISSION MARKER MOVE?

Many have asked us what happened to the sign for the Maumee Indian Mission. It used to be located about 2 -2 ½ miles from Miltonville on a curve with a stone in front. Did it get hit by a careless motorist, or become too dangerous to leave it there? It was directly across from the Missionary Island on the site of the mission building.

There used to be a stone that stated “on this ground was established in the year 1822 The First Presbyterian Mission in the Maumee Valley. Rev. Joseph Badger Missionary 1802-1812, Rev. Isaac Van Tassel the First Superintendent 1822-1834.” The Missionary Island was purchased by the American Missionary Association in the early 1800 to provide religious teaching to Native Americans. They also purchased 372 acres of land in Wood County southeast of the river and established a mission to educate and Christianize the Indians. A large building was built on the banks of the river next to the island which was called the Indian Missionary Station which led to the various names given to the island.

The Mission house was at the mouth of Tontogany Creek in Wood County. It was two stories with a large cellar under the main building. It was said it caused echoing and sepulchral sounds (per Olde Waterville by June Huffman) which caused many strange tales to be told of the place. The building is no longer standing.

In 1834 the Mission was closed, and the Indians moved west. Later all that remained was the Indian Mission sign on the original site reminding everyone that a Presbyterian idea was started here.

The marker was originally put up in 1930 by the Ohio Revolution Memorial Commission (Marker # C608) We have found that the sign has been re-located 3 miles upriver to the Otsego Park on West River Road (Rt. 65), 0.2 miles north of the Otsego Pike (Route 235), which is no place near the old mission site but perhaps a much safer place to pull in and view the sign. The problem is that there is no notice that the sign has been moved from the original location. The next time you visit Otsego Park check out this marker and remember this important part of our local history.

Long School ----- No Longer Standing

The Long School was on the corner of Neowash at Heller Road. Local one room schools were about 2 miles apart so no student had to walk much more than a mile to school. This one took care of the students in the area of the Neowash, Schadel and Heller Roads, etc. In 1918 the school joined the Whitehouse Centralized School system.

In 1995 the Anthony Wayne Music director received a music composition that was written by Scott Sorenson from a visual inspiration by a watercolor of this old school painted by his friend and colleague Russell Danburg. Russell was the husband of Grace Boyer and a former local area resident. Mrs. Danburg was a former 2nd grade teacher in Whitehouse. Mr. Danburg had painted the watercolor in 1949. These friends both served as music professors at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. It was the composers wish that the composition would first be played locally, where the school which inspired his work and his friends’ painting was located. Both were titled “The Old Knowledge Box”

The Anthony Wayne Band was able to meet and work with the man that composed the music. They played their concert at the Zion Lutheran Church in 1995. The Waterville Historical Society was pleased to have received the piece and per Dr. Sorenson request was played for the local audience. Maybe some of our readers remember being in the band, meeting the composer and playing in the band at the concert. A tape recording of this music resides in the Wakeman Archives.

The Waterville Story

This article is about the booklet, the “Waterville Story” which was written in 1956 by the Waterville Elementary School seventh grade social studies teacher, Mrs. Estelle Wreede. As a class project for extra credit, the students were to visit neighbors and business owners who could tell them stories and information about the historic small town of Waterville, Ohio. They would then turn in their reports and photos to Mrs. Wreede, which she then in turn wrote the stories for the booklet. Mrs. Wreede and several of the parents drove the students to the homes and various historic sites. Some of the places visited were: Miltonville, the abandoned settlement directly across the river; the Fallen Timbers Monument; Turkey Foot Rock; Rupp Canal Store on Third Street; Roche de Boeuf Rock, and the Cincinnati and Lake Erie Railroad Bridge (The Interurban Bridge). One very interesting visit was to an old Spanish Villa overlooking Roche de Boeuf. It was built in 1923 by George Stevens, the first director of the Toledo Museum of Art. The students reported that they had never seen anything like it and it was so beautiful and it looked like a castle. Later it became a nursing home.

The location  of the clock tower at the corner of Farnsworth and the A.W. Trail was once a home, an ice cream shop and a couple of restaurants. At the end of Farnsworth at River Road is the location of the famous Columbian House. It was built by the founder of Waterville, John Pray, in 1828. It was first a hotel where Henry Ford and his wife once stayed. Also, it once housed a tavern, a jail, post office and school. In later years, it was the home of a famous restaurant, a doctor’s office, an insurance office and antique store. It is now owned by the Parker family.

Across from the Columbian House is now Parker Square which at one time was the location of the Waterville School since 1885. There were many re-builds, additions and in 1953, when Waterville, Whitehouse, Monclova and Neapolis schools consolidated into Anthony Wayne High School, located in Whitehouse, Ohio, this school became grades K thru 8th grades. The building was demolished in 2017 and the school was moved to the new Waterville Primary School on Sycamore. Several longtime residents that the students visited in their homes to hear stories of old time Waterville were Florence Starkweather, Ernest Hook, Clarence Shoemaker and Herman Rupp.

In 1973, a re-print of the ”Waterville Story” was produced by members of the Waterville Mother’s Club. Included in that booklet are articles and photos of that time and a photo of the class of 1956 (including author of this article). These booklets are no longer in print, but if you would like to read them, you can visit the Wakeman Archives Center on the second floor of the old Masonic building at 401 Farnsworth Road. It is open 10 to 2 every Wednesday and the last Saturday of the month May through October.

Editor’s note: Estelle Wreede, in 1964 was both a founding member and vocal supporter of the Waterville Historical Society.

CELEBRATING US ----- AGAIN!

This is the year of the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the Waterville Historical Society. The actual organizational meeting, including the first election of officers, was held March 15, 1964 with 34 people present. There were 58 charter members by the end of the year. We have come a long way since then. Our founding and our continued success was, and is due to the support of the citizens of Waterville and surrounding area and their continued interest in our unique history.

Those fifty-eight original founding members started with nothing except optimism, enthusiasm and a lot of friends. They put out a call for historic artifacts and the citizens responded, finding items that may have belonged to grandparents or great-grandparents or things just found in attics, basements, old cedar chests, etc. Soon the fledgling society needed a place to both store and display these artifacts. Members, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Swope stepped up to donate the use of an upstairs apartment on Third Street and a museum was born. When the society celebrated their founding with the first Founders Day in 1965 and in subsequent years the entire village was invited to celebrate our local history with displays of historic artifacts, open houses in historic homes, lectures, dinners and dances, and people turned out in great numbers. So, from the very beginning the interaction between the citizens and the society has been vital in our existence.

W.H.S. has seen a steady growth over these years, but always with the same goal – to collect and preserve artifacts relevant to the history of Waterville and surrounding area and make this history available to the public. In 1980 we were able to purchase the 1838 Robbins House and renovate that building into our very own museum. About 10 years later the house next door was available and we bought that property thinking the little house could be demolished for a parking lot for Robbins. Upon finding the Sargent House was also a historic property, it was saved and became an additional display area and museum. When it was found that a little shed located on the alley behind a Second Street property had been the local Cobbler Shop, that building was donated and moved to our River Road properties along with a millstone that had been in the Pekin Mill. Then in 1997 the 1881 Wakeman Masonic Lodge building, vacated when the Masons moved out to Browning, was nearly purchased for demolition by a drug store chain. We were able to purchase that property thanks to a legacy fund from the estate of Marion Swope and a loan from the Village. We were then able to renovate the building into a much needed archives in the upstairs to properly house and maintain our large and growing collection of photographs and paper records. The lower level became a meeting room, complete with kitchen. By 2014, our 50th anniversary year, we owned three properties with four buildings to maintain, had computerized our records of our still expanding collections of historic artifacts, photographs and documents and have properly stored items not on display in archival containers.

We have not slowed down in the past decade from 2014 until now. We were gifted the historic (ca1827) R.G. Stitt (Gas Company) building on River Road by the Black family as they moved their Waterville Gas Company to a new building. That property included the little house next door so the property was split, the house sold and the Stitt Building is currently providing some rental income for the society. The Archives has added shelf space to house our ever expanding collection of photographs, documents and reference works, and finally achieved a long term goal of sharing parts of our collection on-line. The Sargent House Museum is finally being restored by replacing the rotting sills, repairing the stacked stone foundation and replacing some bad siding,. The Cobbler Shop has been renovated and we are working on making our museums more handicapped accessible. (And that is only some of the major things happening recently.).

Through our six decades of growth we have remained true to the original goals of our founders. We still are dependent on the good will and generosity of the community to support our endeavors. We depend on memberships and donations plus our own fund raising efforts to finance all of our wants and needs and we remain an all-volunteer organization.

THE FLOOD OF 1904

What a different a century makes from one December to the next. Up until this week the Maumee River was low, no ice in the river and the temperatures are unseasonably warm. In 1903-1904 it was unusually cold and the lake and bay, plus much of the Maumee River were incased in a thick layer of ice. There was no indication of the disaster that was soon to happen. It started with a sudden January thaw. About the 25th of January the upriver ice began to break up and move down river. The result was a number of ice gorges (piles of huge blocks of ice) to the riverbed blocking the water flow. Water levels would fluctuate for the next three to four weeks, backing up floodwaters then releasing it. The residents were worried about the river flooding.  People were actually talking about moving their furniture to the 2nd story or moving out until the weather or ice broke. It was one of the coldest winters from news reports. Lake Erie was frozen over and there was no place for the river to empty into, so the water and the ice backed up. There were several ice gorges between Waterville and Maumee which kept the water from escaping. Even across the river the Vollmar Club house was surrounded. The Village of Providence was under water but was improving according to the February Toledo and Perrysburg newspapers. At Napoleon the water went down six feet and the river was free of ice.

The Toledo, Waterville and Southern Electric Railroad (Interurban) track ran along the river near Waterville. The tracks near Turkey Foot Rock (Jerome Road) at one point were under water and 25 poles down. Men were out clearing the tracks from ice. The highest gorge was opposite this site. Here the news accounts stated the river was packed to the bottom. This put the electric railroad out of service for several months.

There was an ice gorge a short distance from the old Wagon Bridge. The pressure of the ice battered the 1888 iron Wagon Bridge and its supporting piers but it held. When one of the last upriver ice gorges broke on March 4th, slabs of ice took out two spans of the battered old Wagon Bridge, severing the connections between Waterville and Wood county. This relieved further damage of the flooding. Two spans from the center were gone while the south side was badly damaged. The iron trusses were deposited a half-mile downstream where an enterprising William Witte salvaged the iron to support a second story on his Waterville Hardware store. His store was on 3rd Street but later burned and now the current Waterville Hardware is located in this spot. The cost to repair the bridge was $16,600.

Most of our readers know that ice jams and high water are almost routine for Waterville and the downriver communities but after 120 years the flood of 1904 was by far the worst and most memorable.

Author’s note: The 1904 flood was local along the Maumee caused by ice. The later flood of 1913 was much worse, and was caused by a huge rain event that affected the entire State of Ohio.

Sargent House Museum Foundation and Sill Beam Restoration

Restoration work on the 1838 Sargent House Museum revealed how deteriorated the original 8x8-inch sill beams were.  It also revealed the floor joists - logs with the bark still on!   WHS' contractor W.R. Meyers is halfway done removing the old sills and installing new ones.  This project is funded in part by the Ohio History Fund, a grant program of the Ohio History Connection.  Your donations to the Ohio History Fund make this program possible (www.ohiohistory.org/historyfund).  If you would like to support WHS restoration efforts, please visit our website and click on "Join and Give."   Thanks to everyone who donated to the WHS Capital Campaign.  The work you made possible should set the Sargent House up for the next 180 years!