Ohio History Journal

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52 Ohio Arch

52         Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

The name Croghansville, for the village, was probably first suggested

by Josiah Meigs, Commissioner of the General Land Office, in a letter

from Washington City, April 12, 1816, in which, among other words

are these: "If it were left to me to name the town at Lower Sandusky

I should name it in honor of the gallant youth, Col. Croghan -and should

say it should be Croghansville.

The name is still preserved in that of the school on the hill on the

East Side, known as Croghansville School, as well as in the street

abutting on Fort Stephenson.

 

REMARKS OF J. P. MOORE.

I was born in Pennsylvania in 1829 and brought to the Black

Swamp in, 1834. All my older brothers attended the Croghan celebra-

tion at Lower Sandusky in 1839 and I have been

present at every celebration since that time.

My early associations in Lower Sandusky and

Fremont were with such men as Thomas L. Haw-

kins, dramatist, poet and preacher; David Gal-

lagher, a narrator of early history; David Deal,

a hotel keeper, who saw service at Fort Meigs, all

soldiers of the war of 1812. Also Israel Harring-

ton, a neighbor in Sandusky county. James Kirk

and a man named Figley, both of whom worked

on the old fort before the battle of August 2, 1813,

have visited me here in Fremont and while visiting

the fort and going over the ground in its vicinity

have graphically described to me the location and

construction of the fort and many incidents connected with its building

and its defense against the British and Indians.

The late David Deal, who was a member of Col. James Stephen-

son's regiment of Ohio militia, told me that Col. Stephenson left them

at Fort Meigs in January, 1813, to go to Lower Sandusky to build the

fort which has ever since been called Fort Stephenson.

I had always supposed that the first fort constructed on this site

was built by Col. Stephenson's soldiers in January, 1813, but Col. Hayes

has shown me a number of official records and a copy of an order

issued by Brig. General William Irvine dated at Fort Pitt (now Pitts-

burg) November 11, 1782, during the Revolutionary War, to Major Craig

as follows: "Sir. I have received intelligence through various channels

that the British have established a post at Lower Sandusky, etc., etc.,

also a copy of the treaty by which the reservation (present corporation

limits of Fremont), two miles square, of which Fort Stephenson is

about the center, was established by the treaty of Fort McIntosh as

early as 1785 and continued in all subsequent treaties. Also an order

from Governor Meigs of Ohio to Captain John Campbell dated Zanes-