Next Stop, Sylvania

inToledo | 09/15/2008

Travel Monroe Street into Sylvania and you won’t see it - just rows of shops and the trappings of modern day suburbia. However, if you turn left down Harroun, Road or, better yet, look from the eighth ﬂ oor of Flower Hospital, it’s all there. Think back many years and the whole picture becomes clear: Sylvania’s history is at your feet.

The conﬂ uence of two waterways, the Ottawa River and the Ten Mile Creek, brought Indians from the Chippewa, Huron, Ottawa and Miami tribes into this sylvan area during the summer hunting months. Today their campgrounds are used as the golf courses at Sylvania Country Club and Highland Meadows.

In 1833, the U.S. government granted General David White tracts of land in Port Lawrence Township, Monroe County, Michigan, as a result of his outstanding service during the War of 1812. Joining with Judge William Wilson, the two settlers owned the property that became Sylvania Township in 1835.

However, an argument between the two men occurred as a direct result of the dispute over land between the State of Ohio and the Michigan Territory. The original survey from 1787 drew the border between them from the southern-most tip of Lake Michigan to the northern-most point of Maumee Bay. Unfortunately, that particular map of Michigan positioned the lake too far north, placing 486 square miles in question. The line of demarcation went straight through the middle of the Sylvania community!

General White wanted his part of Sylvania, east of Division Street (now Main Street), called “Whiteford” and to be part of Michigan. Wilson favored “Sylvania” and Ohio for his portion west of Division. The states settled their quarrel in 1836, but Wilson and White never did. After their deaths, the two areas were rejoined, and in 1867 the Village of Sylvania, Ohio was established.

During this time, businesses began to spring up in the area. Verdant forests teeming with game surrounded the area (hence the name, “Sylvania,” meaning woods). General White established a sawmill in 1834. The drop in elevation of 66 feet to Lake Erie made it easy to ﬂ oat the timber downstream. Shipments of furs and other commodities soon followed.

Commerce beneﬁ ted from the intersection of two main trade routes: the Indiana Territorial Road, the main route west from Toledo, and the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad. Planks from the Caldwell Mill on 10 Mile Creek helped build Indiana Avenue (now Maplewood) towards Chicago and, by 1837, the trains transported everything from coopers’ barrels and shingles to timbers for ships’ masts in England.

The line, which ran from Toledo to Adrian, Michigan, was the ﬁ rst west of the Allegheny Mountains, the ﬁ rst interstate railway, the longest (31 miles) at the time and, possibly, the ﬁ rst to establish a contract to carry the US mail. The track connected to the Wabash line is still in use to this day.

Other established Sylvania businesses were gristmills, tanneries, quarried limestone and its sediment products. At the height of the stone business, there were 10 quarries and many related companies, such as the Medusa Portland Cement Company and Chandler Block, in the area. An interesting item indicates that by 1863, the Carol and Hubbard Co. were shipping so much silica - ﬁ ne glass sand - to Pittsburg and other areas, the community around the quarries changed its name from Glanville to Silica in its honor.

Sylvanians are an independent group and never more so than during the time leading up to the Civil War. Despite extreme punishment for disobeying the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the majority of the citizens sided with the abolitionists.

Two prominent families, the Harrouns and the Lathrops, were among many people instrumental in assisting slaves reach their “stations” on the Underground Railroad. David Harroun was a “conductor” who picked up the slaves after they had crossed the Maumee River. He brought them to his farm, the site of present-day Flower Hospital and Crestview Apartments, in hay wagons with false bottoms or under stacked hay.

Depending on the situation, slaves might also be sequestered in a g small, concealed room in the cellar of the Lathrop House on S. Main Street. Sylvania was the perfect stop because of its obscurity, as were many of the small farming communities on the way north. Slaves were less likely to be found there than in Toledo. (Today the home is undergoing complete restoration, thanks to the City of Sylvania and the Friends of the Lathrop House.)

Generally, slaves made it to Canada, using either the route through Bedford Township, with Deland “The Night Hawk” Hall or with French settlers on the Detroit River, who helped ferry the slaves across.

Sylvania has always maintained a strong interest in education. General White established the ﬁ rst school in 1834. By 1844 the village children were educated at the Stone Academy. Teachers in this limestone structure taught youngsters until the 1860’s when a new brick building, Sylvania Central High School, was built on the site.

In 1926, Sylvania patron, Henry Burnham, willed his Maplewood home and property to the Sylvania School Board so they could construct a new high school. This building, which still stands, was used until 1960 when a new high school was built across the street. Currently, the Sylvania Schools Administration ofﬁ ces, Sylvania Community Services and other forms of education are housed in the Burnham Building.

As Sylvania gained population, a question arose concerning the best way to educate its many children. High school classes increased to a point where a decision had to be made, and in the late l970’s the community was split into two parts, with a high school in each. Although the rivalry between Northview and Southview is still intense, each system’s ability to produce quality students remains a credit to the hard work the teachers, parents and administrations demonstrate. Graduates consistently enter top colleges and trade programs.

The Lourdes community of Franciscan Sisters added greatly to education in Sylvania, as well. During the Depression, they established the Guardian Angel Day School when, for temporary ﬁ nancial reasons, St. Joseph’s Parish School closed. Social work, education and health care always stood as the backbone of their mission, and the day school gave the children all of these.

The Sisterhood also created Lourdes Junior College, which operated from 1948 until the late 1960’s when the school’s program went to four years. The campus offers the Appold Planetarium, the Koester Greenhouse, the Lifelong Learning Center, Theater Vision, a Life Lab, the Franciscan Academy and the Franciscan Center, where scores of students from all over the Toledo area can come to enjoy everything from musicals and puppet shows to Shakespeare.

According to Gaye E. Ginty, whose books on Sylvania give a wonderful overview of its history, most of Sylvania’s development has been peaceful and without event except for a notable robbery, one murder and two disastrous ﬁ res. One ﬁ re destroyed the Victor Hotel in the early 1800’s. However, the other, which started at Dr. Hank’s Drugstore on ”the Black Night” of April 26, 1887, ruined nineteen businesses on the west side of North Main Street. They were replaced with brick structures, which stand today. A listing of the businesses, from general stores and barbers, to milliners and the post ofﬁ ce are a testament to the ﬁ re’s devastation to the community.

The robbery occurred while Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was staying at one of the hotels in the village. She was apparently robbed while just outside its front door. The murder, in 1857, is the subject of Ms. Ginty’s latest book and involves a rather gory domestic dispute.

Today, the casual visitor to Sylvania can stroll Main Street and relive the area’s history by stopping at the Historical Village, where the original train depot still stands sentinel for the Toledo and Western Baldwin Westinghouse Steeplecab electric locomotive and the Chesapeake and Ohio/Toledo Angola and Western Railroad caboose. A log cabin, a replica of the Stone Academy, and a blacksmith’s shop in a timber frame barn are well worth the look. Dr. Uriah Cooke’s residence at 5717 N. Main St. houses the Heritage Center Museum, where helpful volunteers, like Joy Armstrong, will tell you remarkable facts about the history of this community. Museum hours are Weds. 3 – 7 p.m. and Sat. and Sun 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. For more information call (419) 882 – 4865.