10-15-1935 Lima News
Grizzled Canal Boat Skipper Relives Days Along Tow-Path
Ottoville's 87-Year-Old Resident Recalls Exciting Period When Packets Dotted Miami And Erie
Waterway From River To Lake
By TEX DE WEESE
OTTOVILLE. Oct. 15— Fourth of July in 1843 was a history maker in Ottoville, for it was on that date 90 years
ago that the first boat passed thru here on the Miami and Erie canal.
Ottoville was known then as "Lock Sixteen" and was nothing more than a stopping and transfer point on the
canal system. Lock Sixteen became known as Dog Creek in 1858 when the Monterey-twp post office by that name
was moved the farm now occupied by John Plescher, to this Putnam County center of activity along the canal.
The name Ottoville was not given to the community until 1880 and the town was not incorporated for ten years
after that. The village of today has a population of approximately 500 persons.
Ran Canal Boat
The canal gave Ottoville its start. When here I talked for a long time with Oliver Sellet, 87, the oldest man in
the town, who worked on the canal when a boy, and who later operated a state packet boat between Defiance
and the state dam and between Delphos and St. Mary’s.
The first boat that passed through here on Independence Day in ’45 was the Marshall, laden with furs and
pelts enroute from Piqua to Toledo. But it was not until 17 years later that Sellet was to play his first roll on the
canal.
He was born in Alsace Loraine in 1849 and came to America with his parents when he was five years of age.
The family first settled in Seneca County and moved here from Fostoria in 1861 at the outset of the Civil War.
When he was only 13, Sellet got a job working on the cabal as a laborer. His work was to help make repairs and
to do general work in keeping the canal in good shape through this district.
Sellet recalls a day in 1862 when there was a break in the lock here that held up canal traffic for a day. Just to
give a rough idea how busy the canal was, Sellet says that in just a few hours upwards of 50 boats were docked
up in Ottoville awaiting their turn to ship through the lock.
In later years Sellet was Captain of a state boat that patrolled the canal to keep it in repair. Boats, he said,
were towed by horses or mules, using two animals to tow a boat. At feeding time the animals were led across a
drawbridge into the boat where they were fed in quarters in the middle of the barges. The canal was from 60 to 70
feet wide and from six to eight feet deep.
Limit On Loading
Sellet said that there was a law which permitted boats to load only to a depth of three feet and any excess
loading was punishable by a fine. Lock lifts varied from six to 16 feet. In the days of horse power it required from
two to three days to make the trip from Ottoville to Piqua, a distance of about 60 miles. However the time was
reduced in the last days of the canal when steam packets plied the route.
An idea of the extensive canal operations in the early days is gained from from the fact that in the early
pioneer settlement of Delphos alone, various interests owned 14 canal boats and then smaller packets. Much
grain and lumber were chipped via the canal to lake ports and all manufacturers along the route used canal water
power to operate their plants.
Record Book Stolen
Sellet told me that for many years he had a priceless record of canal activities, which he had kept, but said
that in recent years it was stolen from him.
I would like to make another appeal to the fellow that took that book to bring it back to me,” Sellet said.
Every industry needed to supply pioneer demands could be found along the banks of the canal in its balmiest
days. Among them were stave factories, Saw mills, heading mills, cooperages, shipyards and dry docks,
packaging houses, shingle factories, distilleries, shoe peg factories, asheries, planning mills and lumber yards.
According to Sellet, the canal proved to be the main artery of commercial existence for the pioneer
industrialists. Even after the railroads came to supplant the canal, the route still was used many years by pleasure
packets. The last of these to operate through Ottoville was the Marguerite, after it went out of service, was owned
for many years by a Delphos stock company an lay moored in the canal there between First-st and the
Pennsylvania railroad bridge.
The Pirougues
The canal business must have been pretty interesting. In digging through some old records I have found that
in addition to the regular canal boats there also were operated by y individuals smaller craft known as pirougues.
A pirougue was something on the order of a narrow ferry boat – perhaps three to four feet wide and from 35 to 40
feet long.
These boats were used for lighter cargoes and were employed mostly by farmers as a means of conveying
surplus grain, pork, butter, eggs, etc., to market at Defiance.
They became a source of annoyance to the skippers of the canal boats when they first came into use, there
were numerous collisions between packets an pirougues on the canal. Many times some interesting free for alls
were conducted along the tow-path – probably much after the modern fashion of two autoists hopping out with
blood in their eyes to settle the blame for a “tie” at a crowded street intersection.
However, the individual owner of the smaller craft soon became expert mariners and the canal collisions were
fewer.
At times, tho, they had their ups and downs. A clipping from the Defiance Democrat, of April 1852, records
one such instance of a court victory for the purougue pilots. It says:
“J. P. Simon, of Putnam County, recovered a judgment of $10 and costs against the canal boat, Gold Digger,
before Squire Bouton, Wednesday, for damage done to his pirougue, through carelessness or inattention of the
hands on the Gold Digger. This settles the question that the pirougue drivers at our docks are entitled to some
protection and that canal boatmen must be more cautious.”
Hauled War Supplies
The Miami and Erie probably saw greatest activity when 14-year-old Oliver Sellet was employed on it during
the exciting days of the Civil War. Boats could be seen on the canal almost any day or night going to and from
Toledo and Cincinnati and other points, carrying war supplies.
Today Sellet looks back into that dim long ago and recalls his experiences – and it doesn’t seem so long to
him, either. Time just gets away from you, that’s all.
To get at the background of this great canal, now in disuse, which extended 247 miles from Cincinnati to
Toledo – joining the Ohio River and Lake Erie – one finds that the preliminary surveys and period of actual
construction consumed the years from 1817 to 1829 before the first canal boat moved from Cincinnati to Dayton.
And it was not until 1845 that the entire system from top to bottom of the state was completed.
The Mercer County reservoir, Lake St. Mary’s, was the canal feeder in this district. An army of nearly 2,000
men worked day and night on the construction.
Small Wages
Wages were small – about 30 cents a day – and the contractor who could supply his men with the largest
jiggers of whisky was considered the most successful employer. Dirt was taken from the canal bed by shovels and
wheeled to the banks. Oxen were used when practical, and according to Paul W. Cochrun, the Spencerville
editor, there was little law among the workers. It seemed to be a case of survival of the fittest. Difficulties were
settled with fists and sometimes with weapons. After completion of the canal, relatives of the men who were
unaccounted for searched for months for those who were lost.
Probably one of the biggest jobs of the entire project was the one which confronted the builders in the Lima
district – that of cutting the canal through the elevation at Deep Cut, two miles southwest of Spencerville. It took
hundreds of men two years to remove the dirt from one of the highest points of land in Ohio.
Anybody could get a job working on the canal. even women disguised themselves as men and went to work in
the diggings.
The first steam locomotive ever shipped into Allen County passed through Ottoville in 1854. It was shipped
from Toledo to Delphos on the canal to be used for construction work on the first railroad built through the county
– now the Pennsylvania.
Time moves backward in its flight for Oliver Sellet, Ottoville’s 87-year-old canal boat Captain, when you start
talking the “language of the locks”.
It makes his forget all about 1935 and borrowed time. As we sat in the kitchen of Sellet’s home here and
talked of those early days on the canal – there came over this aged man a great change. A smile spread across
his face, and once again he was a youthful captain of that state of Ohio packet, shouting orders to member of his
crew along the banks of the Miami and Erie.
10-16-1935 Lima News
Devout Pioneers Crossed Sea To Build New World Ottoville
Monterey-tp Village In Putnam-co Basks In Sunlight Of Religious Life And Peaceful Pursuits
Established By Early Settlers
By TEX DEWEESE
OTTOVILLE, Oct. 16—The original site of this village was platted in 1845 for the Rev. John Otto Brodeick, the
German Catholic priest who had come to America several years prior to this date and had established the town of
Delphos, seven miles south of here.
In Tuesday's article I wrote of Ottoville's growth with the old Miami and Erie canal. For it was at the time the
village was laid out that the first canal boat passed thru on the way from Dayton to Toledo. That was a red letter
day in the pioneer life of the community.
The first permanent settlers in Monterey township, in which this village is situated, were the families of Henry
Schroeder and Henry Upland, who came in 1845 – three years before the township was organized. They were
followed in 1846 by Joseph Gruber and in 1847 by John Livingston, Jonas Dash, Conrad Henry and Bernard
Esch. Mathias Schroeder came in 1849.
Monterey township held its first election on January 19, 1850. Henry Schroeder, Esch and Gruber were
named trustees, and Dash was elected clerk. Sparsity of the population is attested at that time is attested by the
fact that only 11 votes were cast. In March of that year the trustees organized the township into two road and two
school districts.
Present township trustees are Gerhard Utrup, Frank Ruen and Charles Weber. George Altenburger has been
justice of the peace for many years. A. F. Wannemacher is the Ottoville postmaster.
Growth of what now is the town of Ottoville was slow in the pioneer days. The fact that it was a canal shipping
point was about the only claim the community could hold as a center of township activity.
Father Otto Bredeick, after whom the town is named, stood out as the beacon light in the toiling group of
pioneers. He had come to the New World with a band of his followers from Osnabrueck, Hanover, Germany and
his devotion to his flock enabled them to fulfill their mission in America.
It was a dismal swampland into which they had come, they were industrious, god-fearing people and spurred
on by the counsel of their church leader they succeeded in hewing from the wilderness and creating from the
Black Swamp country an agricultural spot which today is one of the best in Ohio.
There lives here today a man who came in 1875 from the hometown of Father Bredeick in Germany to the
community now known as Ottoville. even at that time there was little here that could be called a town – not much
more than a general store and a few farm homes. This man is Ferdinand F. Vincke, now 84 years of age. When
he was 24 he landed in America with a letter of introduction to Gerhard H. Otte, this villages second storekeeper,
who had opened his mercantile establishment in 1860. W. H. Beckman was the first storekeeper in the village.
Vincke proceeded to Ottoville with his letter and was given a job, working in the store and on the farm of Otte.
Four years later Vincke bought a half interest in the store and a year later, in 1880, Otte sold his half and Vincke
took over the business to run it until his retirement from active business life in 1916.
Vincke was proprietor of the Ottoville general store for 41 years. Today he occupies himself between a
devotion to his church and to working around his home here and in the garden.
In the back yard of the Vincke residence there stands today what probably was the first public building
erected in the village. It is the two-story frame structure that served as the community's first church. It was built in
1850 thru the generosity of Father Bredeick. In 1863 the structure, 36 feet by 20 feet, was sold for $225. After
passing thru various hands, according to Mayor L. W. Heckman, it came into the possession of Vincke and stands
today as a mute reminder of an accomplishment of the community's pioneer church workers.
Today Ottoville has one of the finest churches in the Northwestern Ohio district—the church of the Immaculate
Conception which is inseparably linked with the growth of the village and Monterey- tp.
At the death of Father Bredeick in 1858, construction of the second Ottoville church was started by Father
Westerholt When the latter was transferred to Cleveland, the work was completed by Father Goebbels and a
parsonage was erected. This move resulted in Ottoville church being changed from a mission to a parish. The
Rev. A. J. Abel was the first resident pastor. There were several changes in pastors until 1868 when
the Rev. Michael Mueller assumed he pastorate and held it until his death in 1900.
So great was the parish growth under Father Mueller that a new church was built in 1885 at a cost of nearly
$60,000. The building, of pure Gothic design, is considered a masterpiece—and is said to be one of the two
finest examples of Gothic architecture in the United States.
The lofty double spires rear their heads in the midst of the Ottoville community today as a reverent reminder
of the memory of father Mueller. The Rev. J. B. Mertes became pastor in 1900 and served the parish for 20
years. The present parsonage was completed in 1903 at a cost of $10,000 and it was in this year that Father
Mertes engaged the Sisters of the Precious Blood to teach in the Ottoville grade schools. During his
pastorate a sisters' residence was built, a new pipe organ was installed, a community hall constructed, clocks
installed in the steeples and many other improvements were made. Father Mertes resigned in 1920 because of
illness and the Rev. J, S. Arnoldi, the present pastor, succeeded him.
Since his coming the various parish sodalities were canonically established, the Association of Holy Children
was formed, and a Council of the Knights of Columbus was organized.
His crowning work resulted in the movement, which consolidated the many school units in the Ottoville school
district which now are housed in a new an modern school building here. The Rev. Fr. Arnoldi is assisted in the
pastorate duties by the Rev. Ralph Mueller, and the parish consists of approximately 500 families.
Ottoville is proud of its schools. F. J. Uhrich has been superintendent since 1909, and L. W. Heckman has been
principal of the high school since 1911. Frederick Kaiser and Miss Helen Coyle are the other high school
teachers, and the grade pupils are taught by the parish Sisters. More than 500 pupils are enrolled in the village
schools which are under the supervision of the Monterey township public school board comprised of George
Rieger, Joseph Hoersten, Walter Wannemacher, Anton Koester and William Dickman, Felix Hoersten is clerk of
the board.
In addition to being principal of the high school, Heckman is the village mayor. Other village officers are,
Gerald Kromer, treasrer; J. L. Wannemacher, clerk, and Henry Perrin, marshal. Councilmen are Louis F. Weber,
Frank King, J. P. Wurst, Joseph Schwerter, Adolph Miller and George Rieger.
Among the business and professional establishments in town are Miller Bros. clay works, Odenweller Milling
Co., Ottoville Produce Clement C. Metz, manager; Dixon-Peterson Lumber Co., August Eickholt, manager; J. J.
Miler, general store; L. F. Weber, general store; Nick Bedink, cobler; George Vincke, cobbler; W. Remlinger,
drugstore; George Rieger, tinner; George Smith, cream station; Miss Alvira Otte, cream station; Klima Bros.,
saddelry; King and Sons, groceries and meats; Gilbert Bendele, hardware; George Wannemacher, farm
implements.
Restaurants are operated by G. H. Otte, Frank Miller, Ralph Siler, Millie Neidecken, John Thines, and H. J.
Thidof. The town has three garages run by Sanders and company, John Pittner, and Hoehn and Allmeier.
Alex Miller is president of the Ottoville Bank Co., and Rudolph Maag is cashier. Ralph Kramer the town's barber
and undertaker. C. B. Wannemacher has a jewelry store, and a photo studio is conducted by H. J. Niedecken, Dr.
O. J. Fatum is the village physician.
Among older residents of the town are Oliver Sellet, 87; Frank Thessing, 83; Henry Kemper, 80; Mrs.
Margaret Perrin, 80; Frank Brokamp, 80; Mrs. Catherine Hazelman, 79; Ferdinand F. Vincke, 84, and Andrew
Kehres, 81.
Mr. and Mrs. John A. Sanders, living three miles west of town: will celebrate their 63rd wedding anniversary
Oct. 29. He is 88, and she is 86. Mrs. Mary Eberle, who resides a mile and a half northwest of the village, is 88
years of age.
Three state highways meet in Ottoville—224, 66 and 329—making the town an active rural trading community
with live-wire merchants whose civic spirit generates the village commercial life.
Ottoville is a comparative youngster as far as incorporated towns go. It did not enter that class until 1890.
Joseph Wannemacher was the first mayor. Today the village boasts fine streets with towering shade trees, a
modern fire department, good light and power services and a system of schools second to none.
Even the farm community surrounding the village bespeaks the industrious trend of the rural residents of
Monterey. As I drove out of town onto the highway in the autumal splendor of an Indian summer afternoon, there
rolled away from me on either side the splendid well-kept farms of Old-World descendants whose ancestors came
her to pioneer with the good Father Bredeick.
His heavenly spirit must approve of what it surveys here below – he must feel a deep sense of gratification at
that manner in which the children of his flock have nurtured the seeds of a new civilization, scattered by him
nearly a century ago.