Margaretta Township, Erie County

• Blue Hole of CastaliaThe Blue Hole in Castalia formed about 1820, when a cavern collapsed under a mill pond. The 45-foot-deep spring drew up to 165,000 visitors a year until 1990.

How Margaretta Township, Erie County began

Margaretta Township was named for the mother, sister and nieces -- all named Margaret -- of early settler Major Frederick Falley, and its northwest corner is the only part of Erie County to lie outside the Connecticut Western Reserve. Its center village, Castalia, was laid out in 1836 and named for the sacred spring of Greek mythology, a fitting choice for a township whose own karst spring, the Blue Hole, draws seven million gallons a day of 48-degree water from an underground river and drew as many as 165,000 visitors a year as a tourist attraction between the 1920s and 1990. The township's ground was Wyandot country a century before that: a village called Junundat, founded about 1740 by a faction under Nicholas Orontony and Angouirot, stood near the present site of Castalia until British troops destroyed it during Pontiac's War in July 1763.

Platted 1836 (Castalia), by settled in part by Major Frederick Falley, for whose family members the township is named.

Where the name comes from

The 1889 county history says the township was formerly called Patterson for Hugh Patterson, a British Indian trader whom the Wyandot head chief Crane asked the governor at Detroit to remove in 1805; in 1812 the Firelands settlers resolved that a township should not bear so infamous a man's name and left the choice to Major Frederick Falley, who held a contract to buy it. Because he had a mother, sister and several nieces named Margaret, he called it Margaretta.

Before the town

Rev. Joseph Badger, who worked among the Wyandot from 1805 to 1810, recorded that on July 28, 1805 the head chief Crane had him write to the governor at Detroit asking that Hugh Patterson and two others be removed from among them for troubling the Indians. The 1889 county history says forts and mounds found near Castalia show that Indians once made it a general headquarters, and that a fort near Venice, found by Major Falley overgrown with trees and showing a double entrenchment, has since been obliterated by cultivation. It adds that settlers stampeded when Hull surrendered in 1812, that a party of Indians took captives from the three houses at Cold Creek on June 2, 1813 and killed three children, and that two Ottawas were hanged in 1818 for killing trappers. It reports a story that the southeast corner's name Muscash came from Indians demanding cash for skins; that derivation is a folk tale. The Wyandot village of Junundat stood near Castalia (see below).

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

• Junundat (village) — near present-day Castalia (exact location uncertain), c. 1740-1763 (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. c. 1740 — A Wyandot faction led by Angouirot and Nicholas Orontony founded the village of Junundat near present Castalia.
2. 1747 — Orontony's faction burned Junundat and moved south to found the village of Conchake after plotting against French traders.
3. 1763-07 — British captain James Dayell destroyed Junundat during Pontiac's War; remaining Wyandot withdrew west to the Sandusky River valley.
4. 1810 — D. P. Snow built the first house and the first mill, a log corn mill at the head of Cold Creek, and cut the first tree; his son Robert was the first baby born in the township.
5. 1812 — The Firelands settlers resolved to drop the name Patterson and Major Frederick Falley chose Margaretta for his mother, sister and nieces; the township was organized in 1815 by the Huron County commissioners.
6. 1813-06-02 — A party of Indians who had landed at Pickerel Creek attacked the three houses at Cold Creek, now Castalia, carried off captives to Detroit and killed three small children and Mrs. Snow; the captives were returned in the fall, and the dead were the first buried in the township.
7. 1815 — Eli Hunt put the first sawmill in the western Firelands into operation at Venice, on a frame Major Falley had raised in 1811.
8. 1818 — Captain Andrus Parker and neighbors built the first schoolhouse, of logs, at the junction of the Venice and Cold Creek roads; Thomas McCullough taught twenty-five scholars at $15 a month.
9. 1819 — Joshua Pettingill built a mill with a screw wheel three quarters of a mile below the head of Cold Creek that ground most of the Firelands' grist, and a Presbyterian church was organized for Margaretta and Groton.
10. 1833 — Russell H. Heywood of Buffalo, who bought the Venice mill and Cold Creek in 1831, shipped the first Ohio merchant flour to Buffalo and New York, packed in vermilion-painted barrels.
11. 1835 — A Congregational church was organized by Rev. Hiram Smith, who served until 1865, absorbing the Baptists of a church begun in 1823.
12. 1836 — Castalia was laid out and named for the sacred spring of Greek mythology.
13. 1864 — John Hoyt organized the Castalia Paper Company at the old cotton factory of 1848-49 and flouring mill; it burned in 1874, and in 1875 local men incorporated the Castalia Milling Company, which bought the water power for $8,000.
14. 1866 — The Church of Our Redeemer at Venice was begun and consecrated June 3, 1867, a $12,000 stone church built by Russell H. Heywood as a memorial to his family.
15. 1873-01-30 — Margaretta Grange No. 488 was organized with twenty-seven charter members.
16. 1920s-1990 — The Blue Hole spring operated as a private tourist attraction, drawing an estimated 165,000 visitors a year at its peak.
17. 2020 — The census counted 5,640 residents in the township, which spans 32.6 square miles of land.

Stories

The spring named for a Greek oracle

When Castalia was laid out in 1836, its founders reached for Greek mythology, naming the village for the sacred spring at Delphi said to give poetic inspiration to those who drank from it. The choice fit an unusual piece of ground: a postcard advertising "The Famous Blue Hole, Castalia, Ohio," printed by the Curt Teich Company of Chicago sometime in the 1930s or 1940s, described a spring of unknown true depth (visible to 50 or 60 feet) flowing at seven million gallons a day from an underground river, holding a constant 48 degrees winter and summer. Operators built a park, a log cabin entrance and a trout club around the spring, and by the mid-20th century the Blue Hole was pulling in as many as 165,000 visitors a year, a striking number for a small Erie County township. It closed to the public in 1990, and today feeds the state's Castalia fish hatchery rather than a gate of paying tourists -- a quieter fate for water that a wide-eyed postcard once called marvelous.

The township nobody wanted to be named for

Margaretta Township was first known as Patterson, for Hugh Patterson, a British Indian trader who talked loudly of buying the whole township and whose influence over the Indians, the county historian says, was exceedingly pernicious. In 1805 the Wyandot head chief Crane had the missionary Joseph Badger write to the governor at Detroit asking that Patterson and two other men be removed from among them, as they were contriving mischief. The name stuck until 1812, when the settlers of the Firelands, meeting at Huron, resolved unanimously that a township should not bear so infamous a man's name. The choice was left to Major Frederick Falley, who held the contract to buy it. Because he had a mother, a sister and several nieces all named Margaret, he named his new property Margaretta, and the township was organized in 1815.

The first Ohio flour in New York

In 1831 Russell H. Heywood of Buffalo bought the old mill at Venice, with Cold Creek and about five hundred acres, and in 1833 the mill turned out a thousand barrels of flour before harvest. The first hundred barrels were packed in new barrels painted with Chinese vermilion, taken by scow to Buffalo and by canal to New York, where the flour arrived as clean as when it left the mill. Crowds came to the dock to see the first shipment of flour from Ohio, and some predicted Ohio might one day furnish several thousand barrels a year. It sold at prices above the best Genesee flour. That drought year two men from Hancock County walked in a week to reach Venice on a Sunday, and when Heywood saw their need he had the preacher's blessing to grind their wheat at once.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · archive.org

Lake Erie, drawn through a 42-inch gravity pipe about three-quarters of a mile offshore near Cedar Point Chaussee, with a Sandusky Bay intake used as backup The water here

• Erie Co. Margaretta District66% of residentsLake Erie (Sandusky Bay backup intake)
• Sandusky City22% of residentsLake Erie (Sandusky Bay backup intake)
• Erie Co. Perkins District12% of residentsLake Erie (Sandusky Bay backup intake)

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Public schools (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Stations and terminals (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 4 of 4 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-08-07

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