Lakeside Chautauqua

At a glance

Overview

Lakeside is a private, gated summer community of about 0.7 square mile on the Lake Erie shore of the Marblehead Peninsula in Danbury Township, begun in August 1873 as a Methodist camp-meeting ground under the Central Ohio Conference. Tents gave way to wooden tent frames, then to cottages on leased lots, and in 1875 the first section of Hotel Lakeside was built beside the steamboat pier. Following the model of New York's Chautauqua Institution, founded in 1874, Lakeside added Sunday-school training in 1877 and by the 1890s ran a full summer program of religion, education, the arts and recreation that brought speakers from Susan B. Anthony to Eleanor Roosevelt, along with Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes and William McKinley. Fires in 1905 and 1929 reshaped the grounds, and the railroad and interurban that once carried visitors are gone, but the Lakeside Association still runs the community, its roads and its summer program. The whole community is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Lakeside Historic District.

Native American history

Nothing site-specific is recorded about Native people on the Lakeside grounds in published sources. The Marblehead Peninsula, organized as Danbury Township, was part of the Firelands, the western end of Connecticut's Western Reserve set aside in 1792 for Connecticut residents burned out during the Revolution. Native title to those Sufferers' Lands was ceded in the Treaty of Fort Industry, signed July 4, 1805 by Wyandot, Ottawa, Chippewa, Munsee, Delaware, Shawnee and Potawatomi leaders; the treaty paid an annuity for the Firelands and let the nations keep hunting and fishing on the ceded land while they remained at peace. On September 29, 1812, about 130 Native warriors ambushed some 60 American militiamen on the peninsula in the first War of 1812 battle on Ohio soil; about 40 Indians, including several chiefs, and 8 Americans were killed before the militia escaped by boat to Cedar Point. Among Lakeside's founders, the Rev. Richard P. Duvall had earlier done missionary work among the Sac and Fox people removed to Indian Territory.

• Treaty of Fort Industry cession of the Firelands (Sufferers' Land): treaty, Firelands, including Danbury Township on the Marblehead Peninsula, July 4, 1805
• War of 1812 battle on the Marblehead Peninsula: battle, East Bay Shore Road area, Danbury Township, near Marblehead, September 29, 1812

Stories

The camp meeting of 1873

On a warm August day in 1873 a group of Methodist preachers unloaded axes and shovels and began clearing a tract near what is now Central Park. They built a podium and plank benches and several stone platforms on which fires would light the evening meetings, and pitched tents for the preachers' families at the edge of the clearing. People from the surrounding countryside came on foot and in wagons to an old-fashioned revival of hymns and preaching. The venture ran under the Central Ohio Conference, backed by Alexander Clemons of a leading peninsula family, the Rev. Richard P. Duvall, B. H. Jacobs, a Danish-born Civil War veteran who kept a store in Port Clinton, and 27-year-old Samuel R. Gill. Revivals continued through that summer and the next, and the crowds grew. Early campers slept on straw covered with quilts and cooked outdoors, and the wooden tent frames they left standing slowly became Lakeside's cottages. (source)

From revival to Chautauqua

In 1874 Akron manufacturer Lewis Miller and Methodist minister John Heyl Vincent founded the Chautauqua Institution in western New York to train Sunday-school teachers, and it soon grew into a summer center for adult education and culture. The idea of a faith-based summer resort offering both religious and secular learning spread quickly; by the early 1900s more than 300 Chautauqua-style resorts existed from New Jersey to California. Lakeside held its first Sunday-school training in 1877 and by the 1890s ran a full program built on four pillars: religion, education, the arts and recreation. Most Chautauqua communities paid for their programs with donations and admission fees that entitled guests to most of the programming. The Ohio historical marker at Lakeside calls it a pioneer of the movement and one of the few Chautauqua communities still operating. (source)

Fire on Walnut Avenue

Lakeside's volunteer fire association was founded in 1905 after a fire destroyed the community's business district. Its worst test came on October 20, 1929, when an oil-burning stove set a cottage on Walnut Avenue alight and a strong wind carried the flames across the block. Departments from Fremont, Port Clinton, Marblehead and Sandusky were called in, and cottages were dynamited to open firebreaks. Dozens of cottages, the Methodist Episcopal church and the printing office of the Peninsula News burned, but no one was killed or seriously hurt. The association, which began answering medical calls in 1946 and served the peninsula for more than a century, passed its equipment to the new Danbury Township fire department in 2013. (source)

Voices in the auditorium

Before Hoover Auditorium, the lecture hall on Third Street was a wooden building called Central Auditorium, and there on July 25, 1895 Susan B. Anthony, 75, spoke as a last-minute substitute for Anna Howard Shaw. William Jennings Bryan, the most popular Chautauqua speaker of his era, came in August 1922, and Amelia Earhart spoke in 1934 and was invited back in 1935. Robert McFerrin sang there on August 10, 1954, a few months before he became the first Black man to sing on the Metropolitan Opera stage, and Marian Anderson on August 4, 1956, the year after she became the first Black singer in a Met production. Later decades brought Pat Boone, Ray Charles and Emmylou Harris. The Lakeside Heritage Society's archives, and the community newspaper, the Lakesider, record these visits. (source)

Eleanor Roosevelt at Lakeside, 1940

In July 1940, with war under way in Europe, Eleanor Roosevelt took the night train from New York to speak at Lakeside, datelining her syndicated 'My Day' column from there and writing that she was preparing to lecture that night. In the next day's column she described Lakeside as very like Chautauqua in New York State, run by Methodist Church people, with a religious program alongside education and recreation, an auditorium seating about 4,000, and smaller halls given over to young people's meetings; it was, she noted, a favorite meeting place for the Epworth League. The Northern Ohio Federation of Women's Clubs was meeting there, and she worried in print that many of the women still talked of world peace in the old terms when, in her view, the situation had completely changed. She also noted strong local interest in taking in refugee children. Lakeside's own history puts the crowd at 4,000. (source)

Timeline

• 1792: Connecticut sets aside the Firelands, including the future Danbury Township on the Marblehead Peninsula, for residents whose homes the British burned during the Revolution. (source)
• 1805: On July 4 the Treaty of Fort Industry cedes Native title to the Firelands and adjoining lands east of a line 120 miles west of Pennsylvania. (source)
• 1812: On September 29 about 130 Native warriors ambush some 60 militiamen on the peninsula, the first War of 1812 battle on Ohio soil. (source)
• 1821: The Sandusky Bay Light, now the Marblehead Lighthouse, is built of local limestone east of the future Lakeside grounds; it is the oldest lighthouse in continuous operation on the Great Lakes. (source)
• 1873: In August Methodist preachers clear land near today's Central Park and hold the first camp-meeting revival, with a plank-bench podium lit by fires on stone platforms. (source)
• 1874: German-speaking Methodists join the camp meeting; they later build their own auditorium, which still stands as South Auditorium. (source)
• 1874: Lewis Miller and John Heyl Vincent found the Chautauqua Institution in New York, the model Lakeside will follow. (source)
• 1875: In May the first unit of Hotel Lakeside is built to house the growing summer crowds. (source)
• 1877: Lakeside holds its first Sunday-school training sessions, the start of its Chautauqua program. (source)
• 1870s: President Ulysses S. Grant attends an annual reunion of Civil War veterans at Lakeside. (source)
• 1884: A. J. Hare's bird's-eye view shows the 'Lakeside summer resort and camp ground' laid out on the shore. (source)
• 1887: The Lakeside and Marblehead Railroad opens passenger service in January between the Marblehead quarries, Lakeside and the main line at Danbury. (source)
• 1891: Former President Rutherford B. Hayes stays at Hotel Lakeside. (source)
• 1895: On July 25 Susan B. Anthony, age 75, speaks in the wooden Central Auditorium as a substitute for Anna Howard Shaw, who was ill with pneumonia. (source)
• 1904: Passenger traffic on the Lakeside and Marblehead Railroad peaks at roughly 19,000 riders a year. (source)
• 1905: After a fire destroys Lakeside's business district, the Lakeside Volunteer Fire Protective Association is founded. (source)
• 1922: In August William Jennings Bryan speaks at Lakeside, three years before the Scopes trial. (source)
• 1928: Shuffleboard arrives at Lakeside, which later hosts national shuffleboard tournaments. (source)
• 1929: On October 20 a fire from an oil stove in a Walnut Avenue cottage spreads on a strong wind; cottages are dynamited for firebreaks, and dozens of cottages, the Methodist Episcopal church and the Peninsula News office burn, with no one killed. (source)
• 1933: The Graf Zeppelin passes over Lakeside with its lights on, bound for the Chicago World's Fair. (source)
• 1934-1935: Amelia Earhart speaks at Lakeside two summers running, the second time by popular demand. (source)
• 1940: Eleanor Roosevelt lectures at Lakeside in July during a meeting of the Northern Ohio Federation of Women's Clubs, and describes the Methodist resort and its 4,000-seat auditorium in her newspaper column. (source)
• 1954: On August 10 baritone Robert McFerrin sings at Hoover Auditorium, months before he becomes the first Black man to sing on the Metropolitan Opera stage. (source)
• 1956: On August 4 contralto Marian Anderson performs at Hoover Auditorium. (source)
• 1963: The Lakeside Symphony Orchestra is established, a summer residency of professional musicians playing in Hoover Auditorium. (source)
• 1964: On July 31 the Lakeside and Marblehead Railroad is abandoned as a common carrier. (source)
• 1983: The Lakeside Historic District, roughly bounded by the lake, the railroad tracks and Poplar and Oak avenues, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 29. (source)
• 2013: The Lakeside Volunteer Fire Protective Association gives its assets to the new Danbury Township Volunteer Fire Department and disbands. (source)
• 2017: The Grindley Aquatic and Wellness Campus opens its new pool. (source)

Sources

• en.wikipedia.org: Lakeside, Ohio
• en.wikipedia.org: Lakeside and Marblehead Railroad
• en.wikipedia.org: Firelands
• en.wikipedia.org: National Register of Historic Places listings in Ottawa County, Ohio
• lakesideohio.com: about lakeside
• lakesideohio.com: hotel lakeside
• lakesideohio.com: symphony
• blog.lakesideohio.com: shining stars 9 of hoover auditoriums biggest names
• touringohio.com: lakeside
• remarkableohio.org: 15 62 lakeside the chautauqua of lake erie
• remarkableohio.org: 17 62 the lakeside volunteer fire protective association the fire of october 20 1929
• remarkableohio.org: 1 62 first battle site
• remarkableohio.org: 18 62 the light the keepers of the light
• treaties.okstate.edu: treaty with the wyandot etc 1805 0077
• www2.gwu.edu: displaydoc.cfm
• www2.gwu.edu: displaydoc.cfm
• commons.wikimedia.org: File:Lakeside summer resort and camp ground, near Sandusky, Ohio. LOC 75694920.jpg