Marblehead Lighthouse

Edited: I was criticized at work because technically this was not on my bike. I drove here and then walked around. So I will call it Mike Driving and then Hiking. Jerks....

While waiting to finish my two part post about the city of Vermilion (because I forgot to take ONE picture!) I decided to write a post about the Marblehead Lighthouse located in Ottawa County, Ohio. I'm not sure if this still qualifies as Northeast Ohio, but it is a place that my wife and I visit frequently in the summer and has a pretty cool history.

The Marblehead Lighthouse

Satellite view provided by Google Maps of the Marblehead Lighthouse State Park. The lighthouse is at the top right.

Marblehead Lighthouse as it stands today in 2014 along with the Lifesaving Station.

Lighthouse in 1859 along with the old Keeper's House. (Lighthouse Friends)

Lighthouse in 1885 with the current house. (Lighthouse Friends)

Same angle as above taken on our camping trip in 2013 (they expanded the fence ha ha).

Construction on the lighthouse began in 1819 after Congress decided that the Great Lakes required navigational aids. $5,000 was set aside and the lighthouse was completed and put into service in 1822. It was built using the Marblehead Peninsula's native limestone (Marble is made from limestone, hence the name Marblehead). The tower is 50 feet tall and 25 feet in diameter. The walls are 5 feet thick. There have been 15 lighthouse keepers for this lighthouse from 1822 up until the U.S. Coastguard took over operation in 1946. The lighthouse is the oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the Great Lakes and has been operating for 192 years. (Ohio Department of Natural Resources)

The First Lighthouse Keeper

The first lighthouse keeper was Benajah Wolcott in 1822. He was also one of the first settlers on the peninsula. Wolcott was a Revolutionary War veteran and moved into the area after surveying it for the government in 1809. Benajah Wolcott purchased 114 acres of land with his wife and three kids. Later during the War of 1812 the family had to flee, only to return in 1814 after Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British at Put-in-Bay. In 1822 he was remarried (his first wife Elizabeth passed during the war) to Rachel Miller and later that year he was appointed the Marblehead Lighthouse Keeper. In 1832 Benajah died succumbed to Cholera and his wife Rachel was appointed as the second lighthouse keeper. Rachel Miller Wolcott was the first female lighthouse keeper on the Great Lakes. Benajah and Rachel's home still stands today about 2.5 miles Southwest of the lighthouse. (The Keeper's House)

Bottom left is the Wolcott home. Top right is the lighthouse. The land in between was Wolcott's farmland at the time.
(Talk about a long walk every night, yeesh!)(Also the map has the house labeled wrong) (Google Maps)
(More parenthesis)

The Keeper's House 2013

Same house in 1900 (I could not find anything older). (Touring Ohio)

It wasn't until around 1859 when the house next to the lighthouse was constructed. I personally would have done that much sooner.

Mystery in the Woods

After a quick walk around the lighthouse my wife and I decided to take a stroll on the trail that leads into the woods to the South, making sure to take a "selfie" here and there.

Obligatory "Selfie".

My wife Sarah.

Okay okay, now I'm getting off track. As we were walking through the woods we noticed things we didn't notice last summer when we walked back there, likely do to the current bareness of the foliage.

Cool rock formation.

An old ladder possibly?

....but then I found the historic treasure. I know this because I Google searched it and nothing returned.

Some sort of an old stone walkway? Maybe there was a creek here at one point?

Then I looked at it closer and the history nerd inside me got all excited.

The was wider on the other side and the rest of the stone had crumbled.

Check out the indentations.

They run the whole length of the bridge. Two lines cut into the stone running parallel. An old railway perhaps?

These holes ran the length of the bridge on either side of the indentation. Railroad spikes would be my guess.
(Ignore the wiener butt)

Another view with both sides of the bridge.

So what is this mystery railroad? Is it even a railroad at all? I would like to believe so and I think I may have a pretty good idea as to what it was. The mapping is slightly off, but I believe it to be part of the Toledo, Port Clinton and Lakeside Railway. This was another electric interurban system much like the Lake Shore Electric Railway.

The solid black line is the railway and the red circle is where I took the above photographs (Columbus Railroads)

I have my doubts due to this map. It places the rail line to the West of where I was. I will keep trying to research into this and let you know if this is in fact the same railway in my pictures. It was still a cool find!

Thanks for reading!