Sandusky Bay and Cedar Point 193 



ble land, including woods, from marsh. By inspecting this map 

 and making a rough estimate of the percentage of tillable land in 

 •each section, I conclude that in the sections, Nos. 21, 22, 23, 26, 

 27, 28, 34 and 35, the total amount is not more than half a sec- 

 tion. From the plat of Bourne's survey of 1820 it would appear 

 that these eight sections then contained about 5)^ sections of 

 land. Part of this is now open water, part of it marsh. In 

 several other sections of Bay township a good deal of marsh has 

 formed within the past century. Porter Wright who went there 

 in 1836 remembers that section 35, now nearly all marsh, used to 

 be dry land. In section 2 of Riley township he owns 200 acres 

 of marsh which formerly was dry land. Mulberry stumps are 

 still standing there where now the water stands half the time. 

 He estimates that more than a thousand acres of marsh south 

 of Graveyard Island used to be dry land except after heav}^ rain. 

 " Honey locust, elm and poplar used to grow over a good deal of 

 the land where the water now (1904) is 2^o feet deep. All the 

 way from the bay to Peach Island was good dry land, mostly 

 prairie ; there was a streak of timber half or three quarters of a 

 mile south of the river, some of it still standing on the highest 

 ground. All the marsh from Raccoon Creek to South Creek was 

 prairie land covered with blue joint and hoop pole grass (Spartina 

 cynosuroides), a grass seven or eight feet tall which does not 

 grow where it is wet. The region between South Creek and 

 Green Creek is now marsh, but when I came here it was mostly 

 dry land." 



The total amount of land west of Eagle Island converted 

 into marsh or open water since 1820 is probably six or eight 

 square miles. In Margaretta Township, Erie County, the recent 

 topographic map shows about 1?3 square miles of marsh. 

 Most of this was probably above lake level until after 1820. On 

 the north side of the bay the marshes are less extensive. 



At the east end of the ba}'- the marsh that extends from the 

 mouth of Pipe Creek to Rye Beach has spread over considerable 

 of the low land along its inner margin within the past century. 

 Two miles east of Perkins Township the late Albert Judson, 

 county surveyor, found the line originally run by Almon Ruggles 

 and supposed to mark the border of the land at the time of the 

 early survey, to cross the marsh about half a mile out from the 

 present margin of the land, the water and mud over the inter- 

 vening region being a foot to 18 inches deep. This was in 1887. 

 A lot, half a mile square, had been converted into marsh. 

 Between this and the Perkins Township line the recession of the 

 shore line he found to be very much less. Walter Devlin says, 

 cattle used to s:o out half a mile toward Cedar Point farther than 



