In the year 1833, there was a family by the name of John McMillan who lived in Oneida, New York. They had six children, three girls and three boys. In those days people got the Ohio Fever. My father did not escape the malady. He went to Ohio, looked around and took up a piece of land in Ottawa County. He then came back home, sold off everything and started with his family for the "far west". We had seventeen miles to go to get to Rome, a station on the Erie Canal. There we shipped on board of a hacket boat and went to Buffalo, making the trip in five days. At Buffalo we took passage for Huron, Erie County, Ohio, on the Steamer Pennsylvania. The weather being rough, we were driven back to Buffalo three or four times, and it took us five days to get to Cleveland. There we boarded another boat and went through in one day. We steamed up the harbor and found Huron to be a small place one store, one blacksmith shop and one doctor, Haskins by name. The blacksmith was a brother of my father; he came on before us. There was also a man by the name of Flecharty who owned a warehouse and bought and sold wheat that came in big covered wagons from all parts of the state, drawn generally by two spans of horses with bells over their necks. Everybody was shaking with the ague.
In the Spring of 1834, we started for our new home in wagons. Our route took us through Lower Sandusky (Fremont) and on through the woods to our land one mile above where Oak Harbor now stands on the side of the Portage, then known as Carion River. There were no roads, nothing but the trees with the bark worn off to travel by. My Father put a log house with one door and two windows. A quilt was used for a door, to keep out the cold and wild animals. The cabin had a puncheon floor and a clapboard roof. Bear, wolves, deer and snakes were the nearest inhabitants. The river, especially, abounded with the latter. We lived there about two years. We were all sick all the time. Then my father's brother the blacksmith, and one of his boys got a small vessel and came up and took us back to Huron. There my mother died and the children were scattered.
As I grew up I became acquainted with James Caulkins. He learned his trade in Huron under Captain Church, he being a ship carpenter. There was quite a smart business carried on there then, building steamers, schooners and other vessels. In 1843 we were married and went to Cleveland to live, he working at his trade until 1851, when he got the California gold fever and he and six of their carpenters made the overland journey to that state. They were three months making the trip, and were gone three years and six months. When he returned in the fall of 1854, he did not come home rich, so he went to work in the shipyard again. We had five boys born to us and three lie in the cemetery on the west side of Cleveland.
Two years before we left, there my husband was an employee in Otis' Rolling Mill on the West side of the river, near the lake. The day of Lincoln's last election, we stayed over one day for my husband to vote for him, then we moved to Genoa, Ottawa County. One half mile east of tow in the woods. The trees were cut down and Mr. Caulkins rolled the logs together and I burned them.
About that time a three year old girl was missing in Sandusky City and a gypsy family came here to live. The man worked for Mr. Caulkins, and among their tawny children was a little white girl. The man and woman separated and the children were so neglected that the trustees interferred. We took the little girl and cared for her, clothed and schooled her. She was three years old then. She had been with the gypsies six months. There was no paper printed here then and we never found her parents until she was grown up. She lived with us about fourteen years and was about to be married when her family found her. They had moved form Sandusky to Hudson, Michigan. Her mother got trace of her and came down and identified her by a mark on her head; there was joy and some weeping. She is married and lives in Gibsonburg, Sandusky County.
At one time Mr. Caulkins and his brother Roderick carried on quite an extensive business in Cleveland building vessels. He built on Grand River and the Consoello. Two masted and the A Jacks and Mares Tiegsin in Cleveland. I also have one brother and one sister in Huron. Mr. Caulkins died four years ago. He left two sons and a wife to mourn his loss. One son is in Toledo and one here. My grandfather was in the war of 1812. He always kept his sword hanging by his bed.
Written by Mrs. Clara Edith Caulkins, mother of Birtha I. Calkins, Grandmother of Charline H. and Donna F. Armsden of Toledo. Ohio. I expect that this account is by Edith's mother-in-law and only transcribed by Edith. The dates would make more sense that way, and Edith was a Bowers, not a McMillan at birth. Also, the girl mentioned as being with the gypsy family was Edith's sister Lillian.
Note the change in spelling of the name Calkins after 1891.
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