190 Onto STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
Some of the sand dunes near the south end of Peninsula 
Point were nearly as high, Mr. Lyman said, as the highest on 
Cedar Point. Three other persons recall their height as twenty 
feet or considerably more. Along the west side was clay covered 
with black soil several inches deep. The trees were not willows 
and cottonwoods alone, as on Marblehead bar which has since 
formed farther west, but white oak 214 feet in diameter, red oak, 
shell bark hickory, ash, elm, buttonwood, basswood and red 
cedar. Mr. Lyman wrote me: “quite as large timber on it as 
there is on Cedar Point, viz., sycamore and oak.”’ At one time 
there was an orchard. 
Before 1834 the lake had made an opening through the 
northern end, after which it was known as Spit Island. The 
government spent ‘$40,000’ in trying to save it. A large 
boarding house was erected for the workmen who built a crib 
along the whole length of the lake side. But in spite of efforts 
to protect 1t from the waves, it was worn away at both ends and 
the last remnant disappeared in the high water of about 1860. 
EAGLE ISLAND AND SQUAW ISLAND. 
In 1820, when the first survey was made Eagle Island in the 
western part of the bay (see Map II) contained 134.42 acres. 
There are now, 1904, two remnants which together contain 
less than two acres. The western one of these as seen from the 
Steamer Hayes Aug. 30, 1904, appeared to be entirely marsh. 
The island being located where the waves of the bay attain con- 
siderable force has suffered from every northeast storm, those of 
1858—’62 dealing it some severe blows. 
Miles Pearson told me that his mother, who was born in 
1809, when a girl used to walk to the island from the south, 
crossing a channel on a plank, or in dry times stepping across. 
At that time the cattle used to go there to graze. Porter Wright 
told me that he walked to the Island and could have ridden a 
horse all the way; there was no danger of miring. He remem- 
bers when it had more than a hundred eagles’ nests and it was 
unsafe, after the eaglets were out of the nests and on the ground, 
for a man to cross the island without carrying a club. Eagles’ 
nests were also numerous on the neighboring mainland. 
Squaw Island at the mouth of the Sandusky River, through- 
out the early part of the century was connected with the penin- 
sula to the west, which was much wider than now. As late as 
1855 it was separated merely by a channel for small boats. In 
1873 the channel had widened to 230 feet, and in 1904 it was 
about 600 feet. It is said that the Indians used to swim their 
ponies from Peach Island to Squaw Island and then ride along 
the north bank of the river to Fremont. 
