Erie's History and Memorabilia

The Washington Sentinel, at the Borough of Waterford, is the the hemlock tree, from which it is reputed that George Washington stood looking into the French fort, “Fort Le Boeuf,” on December 11, 1753. The tree grew on the left bank of LeBoeuf Creek, just up from the lake. Seneca Indians once grew corn, beans, and pumpkins on the flats below her, while they camped and built temporary homes on the high ground near the base. The French had considered cutting the tree to get a better  fire pattern , in case of siege — their fort was four hundred feet to the North, on an even higher bank, but they decided against cutting it down. Robert Dinwiddie, the governor of Virginia, sent the 21-year-old George Washington to Fort Le Boeuf with seven escorts, in order to deliver a message to the French demanding that they leave the Ohio Country. Dinwiddie's initiative was in response to the French building forts in the Ohio Country. Washington took Christopher Gist along as his gui...

In 1615 Étienne Brulé met a group of Erie near Niagara Falls. So far as is known, this was their only encounter with Europeans. At the time the Erie were members of a three-way alliance ( Neutrals and Wenro ) against the Iroquois. Although it is is not known for certain, it is quite possible some of the Erie were allied with the Susquehannock and supported their wars with Iroquois. In any event, the Erie often traded with the Susquehannock and received European goods from them at an early date. It also appears that the Susquehannock were very careful to insure the Erie did not get any firearms and only a limited supply of metal weapons. Huron and Neutral traders apparently took similar precautions. The Erie needed beaver for this trade and probably encroached on other tribal territories to get it. The result was a war with an unknown Algonquin enemy in 1635 that forced the Erie to abandon some of their western villages. In 1639 the Erie and Neutrals withdrew their protection fro...

Michael Morrison born February 6, 1867, in Erie, was a right-handed professional baseball pitcher who played from 1887 to 1888, and in 1890 for the Cleveland Spiders, Syracuse Stars, and Baltimore Orioles. Not much is known about Morrison's career prior to the major leagues. He played for a team known as the Erie Jarecki Manufacturing Nine in 1884, and in 1885 he played with a team known as the Erie Olympics. Morrison was purchased from the New York Metropolitans for $500 in January, 1887, and he played in his first major league game on April 19, 1887. That season he went 12-25 with a 4.92 ERA in 316⅔ innings. In 40 games started, he had 35 complete games, 205 walks and 158 strikeouts. He led the league in home runs allowed (13) and walks allowed, he finished second in strikeouts per nine innings (4.49), fourth in hit batsmen (22), sixth in strikeouts and losses, and eighth in earned runs allowed. His 22 hit batsmen are tied for ninth most-all-time among rookie pitchers. He...

The Felgemaker Organ Company was a manufacturer of pipe organs based out of Erie, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The company was first founded at Buffalo, New York, in 1865 by Silas L. Derrick and Augustus B. Felgemaker. Specialties of the company included church organs and portable pipe organs for small churches, schools and residential parlors. Augustus Barnard Felgemaker was born on July 16, 1836, in Buffalo, New York. He first apprenticed with a piano builder and in 1858 began work with Garret House, a Buffalo organ builder. In 1865, Felgemaker and Silas Derrick became partners, forming the Derrick & Felgemaker Company. The company relocated to Erie in 1871 and a large building was erected on Twenty-fifth Street near Ash. Their building was a four-story brick structure, 40 feet wide by 200 fee long, built in 1871; with a frame wing, 20 feet wide by 100 feet long, erected in 1872. For the machinery necessary in the business, the steam power was suppli...

Kathleen Gretchen Williams was born on August 7, 1916, on a Peach Farm in Erie. Kathleen left the farm at seventeen to become a fashion model in New York. She rushed into an early marriage to an engineer named, Parker Capps, and by age twenty she was a divorcée . She appeared in many magazines and was lauded the most beautiful model of the year. Hollywood beckoned her and she signed a contract with MGM to join their roster of starlets. After appearing in a few bit parts she became disillusioned with movie-making. In 1941 she married Martin deAlzaga Unzue, a millionaire playboy from Argentina. He filed for an annulment after ten days but later dropped the suit. Kathleen filed for divorce eight months later, citing cruelty. They were finally divorced in 1942. In late 1942, now married to Adolph Bernard Spreckels II, Kathleen received a call from an MGM executive inviting her to the going-away party MGM was throwing for Clark Gable, then a WWII enlistee, before he headed ...

The 150 acres of Frontier Place was owned by William L. Scott (1828-1891) and was called Frontier Farm . As per Scott’s will, the Farm was held after his death by his Trustees until the Erie City limits expanded to include Frontier Farm (April 13, 1920) and then it was subdivided into single family residential lots per his instructions and sold to individual purchasers. Charles M. Reed (1803-1871), the grandson of Seth Reed who was Erie’s first settler, served in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives (1837-38), and was a successful shipping merchant on the great lakes between Buffalo and Chicago. Reed's son, Charles M. Reed, Jr., served as mayor of Erie from 1872 to 1873. While a congressman, Reed met Scott while Scott was working as a page in the National House of Representatives. In 1844 Scott (an orphan) moved to Erie at the urging of Reed who employed Scott at the age of 16 as a shipping clerk on his Erie wharves. Scott’s career as a businessman and poli...

According to local supposition: antedating Erie County’s native Indians, the Eries, by several hundred years, was another race of men that inhabited the county, of whom no history is extant. This race, for want of a better name, is known as the Mound Builders . This anthropological myth remains stubbornly popular today with some people, but since the 19th century, the prevailing scholarly consensus has been that the mounds were constructed by modern native Americans. The American continent has various historic, and pre-historic ages, as well as do the other lands upon the earth. We have the Paleolithic, or stone age, the very earliest period of human development, well established for North America. It therefore follows, and is also well substantiated by the evidences that the Neolithic, or later stone age, had a place in human development upon this continent; that modern man has evolved without this development. A combination of myths and facts has surrounded the nu...