Milan Museum
This sideboard was once in Milan's Eagle Tavern.
Milan Museum
Diorama of the Milan Canal Basin
This is a model of one of the warhouses used during Milan's canal days.
The schooner Our Son.
Johann Loetz
Iridescent Sweet Meat Jar Vase
Iridescent Sweet Meat Jar Vase
Doll from the Coulton collection.
Model of Sameul Winchester's hydrogen balloon.
Tiffany Lamp
Medicine Bottles
Clock with Candelabras
Victorian Dining Room
Chandelier in Gaplin Galleries
Harpsicord in the Newton Arts Gallery
Chinese Puzzle Box
Blacksmith Shop
Hoover Potato Digger
Milan is best known as the birthplace of Thomas Edison where you can visit the house in which he was born and lived for his first seven years. (You can read my travel log about it here.) A two minute walk from Edison’s birthplace house is the Milan Museum, which has a surprisingly large campus of buildings for a town that’s incorporated as a village. It consists of six buildings stuffed full of history, crafts and art. Art, I might add, that’s top quality. A tour guide takes you into the different places in which you’re allowed to look through them at your own pace.
I’d visited this museum once before many years ago in my pre-travel log days. I went back in part because I’m researching the Milan Canal for another project because I knew that the museum has an exhibit about it in the Sayles History Galleries. In the 1820s, Ohio built two major north-south canals, the Erie & Ohio in the east and the Miami and Erie Canals in the west. Canals made Ohio prosperous because it allowed farmers to ship their yields north and south. Both the canals were nonetheless quite far overland for farmers in Huron County (from which Erie County was carved in 1838), and with roads in those days being terrible at best and impassible at worst, the best thing to do was to take their grain to a Lake Erie port such as Sandusky from which it could be shipped to the East.
Enter Frederick W. Fowler. He moved from his home of state of Connecticut to Geauga County in 1799, and in 1812 he headed to the Huron River to work in at the Starr and Seymour gristmill. Settling in Avery, he helped to survey Huron County’s first wagon road. After that, he held a variety of occupations: bailiff, constable, deputy sheriff, justice of the peace, and Huron county judge. In 1820 he moved to Milan where he opened the Exchange Inn, which he ran until 1842.
I’d visited this museum once before many years ago in my pre-travel log days. I went back in part because I’m researching the Milan Canal for another project because I knew that the museum has an exhibit about it in the Sayles History Galleries. In the 1820s, Ohio built two major north-south canals, the Erie & Ohio in the east and the Miami and Erie Canals in the west. Canals made Ohio prosperous because it allowed farmers to ship their yields north and south. Both the canals were nonetheless quite far overland for farmers in Huron County (from which Erie County was carved in 1838), and with roads in those days being terrible at best and impassible at worst, the best thing to do was to take their grain to a Lake Erie port such as Sandusky from which it could be shipped to the East.
Enter Frederick W. Fowler. He moved from his home of state of Connecticut to Geauga County in 1799, and in 1812 he headed to the Huron River to work in at the Starr and Seymour gristmill. Settling in Avery, he helped to survey Huron County’s first wagon road. After that, he held a variety of occupations: bailiff, constable, deputy sheriff, justice of the peace, and Huron county judge. In 1820 he moved to Milan where he opened the Exchange Inn, which he ran until 1842.
It’s here where the idea for the Milan Canal was born. Ships could only go so far up the Huron River before it became too shallow, and the idea was to dig a canal from the point where ships could go no farther to Milan to allow them to come inland to give farmers somewhere to bring their grain without having to trek all the way to a Lake Erie port. Fowler became one of the canal’s original directors in 1831.
Digging the canal was just one issue that needed to be dealt with. The inlet of the Huron River had shoals, and those needed to be removed to allow schooners and sloops—smaller types of sailing vessels—to enter the river. It was decided that the canal would start at Abbott’s Bridge. Men dug the three-mile-long canal to Milan by hand because no time saving equipment such as steam shovels existed. The estimated cost was $5,800. Construction began in 1833 and it opened for business in 1839.
The shipyards at Abbott’s Bridge moved to canal basin—the Milan end that was initially 300 feet wide and 1200 feet long. One of the most prosperous shipbuilders here was Ebenezer Merry & James P. Gray. When their yards burned in 1857, they moved their operation to Sandusky. The last ship built in the Milan Canal was the Mystic in 1866. After this shipbuilding moved back to the location of Abbott’s Bridge and Lockwood Landing, known then as Fries Landing.
Canal business peaked in 1847, when 650 wagons arrived in one day. Grain and other goods were stored in Milan’s eleven warehouses, which among them could hold up to 300,000 bushels. Farmers sold their grain to a commission or sales house that gave them chits they could use at one of Milan’s fourteen general stores, taverns, or distilleries. The grain was dumped into small railcars that took it to the warehouses, a system invented by George Lockwood.
That railroads took the canal’s business away can’t be disputed, but even had none of them gotten anywhere near it, the canals’ width and depth made it impossible for the larger Great Lakes then ships being built from entering it. By 1851 the amount of grain being brought to the canal was a fourth of what it’d been in 1847. The last commercial vessel departing from the basin did so in 1864 carrying hay bound for the POW camp on Johnson’s Island. The locks failed in 1866, closing the canal forever. Today little of it exists.
Digging the canal was just one issue that needed to be dealt with. The inlet of the Huron River had shoals, and those needed to be removed to allow schooners and sloops—smaller types of sailing vessels—to enter the river. It was decided that the canal would start at Abbott’s Bridge. Men dug the three-mile-long canal to Milan by hand because no time saving equipment such as steam shovels existed. The estimated cost was $5,800. Construction began in 1833 and it opened for business in 1839.
The shipyards at Abbott’s Bridge moved to canal basin—the Milan end that was initially 300 feet wide and 1200 feet long. One of the most prosperous shipbuilders here was Ebenezer Merry & James P. Gray. When their yards burned in 1857, they moved their operation to Sandusky. The last ship built in the Milan Canal was the Mystic in 1866. After this shipbuilding moved back to the location of Abbott’s Bridge and Lockwood Landing, known then as Fries Landing.
Canal business peaked in 1847, when 650 wagons arrived in one day. Grain and other goods were stored in Milan’s eleven warehouses, which among them could hold up to 300,000 bushels. Farmers sold their grain to a commission or sales house that gave them chits they could use at one of Milan’s fourteen general stores, taverns, or distilleries. The grain was dumped into small railcars that took it to the warehouses, a system invented by George Lockwood.
That railroads took the canal’s business away can’t be disputed, but even had none of them gotten anywhere near it, the canals’ width and depth made it impossible for the larger Great Lakes then ships being built from entering it. By 1851 the amount of grain being brought to the canal was a fourth of what it’d been in 1847. The last commercial vessel departing from the basin did so in 1864 carrying hay bound for the POW camp on Johnson’s Island. The locks failed in 1866, closing the canal forever. Today little of it exists.
In the nineteenth century diseases of all sorts prevailed that are now rare in Erie County: tuberculosis (one of the biggest killers) malaria, measles, smallpox, whooping cough, and others. Treatments were often worse than the diseases themselves. Many doctors like to bleed patients—that is, cut them open and let a measured quantity of blood run out with the idea that it balanced the four humors: black and yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. This idea for this quackery came from the ancient Greeks.
The few medicines available were often as dangerous as what they treated. Calomel, used to treat cholera, contained mercury. A lack of regulations meant the pharmacies could sell anything, including cocaine, morphine and opium. And while these substances could help people deal with pain or dysentery, those who took it too long often became addicts. Ohio didn’t require pharmacists to have a degree until 1905.
One item that caught my attention was a model ballon hanging from a sign that said, “Samuel Winchester: the Mad Miller of Milan.” A young Thomas Edison knew this fellow and may well have been inspired by him. Winchester and his brother Thomas ran the Star Mill, a steam-powered flour-making concern located in the canal basin.
Samuel spent his spare time constructing a hydrogen balloon. In September 1855, he went for his inaugural flight. He reached a height of 20,416 feet where which the temperature was eight below zero, and the air was so thin that he nearly fell unconscious. He lived to tell the tale, but a few weeks later he went up once more. Taken away by a strong wind, he was never seen again.
The few medicines available were often as dangerous as what they treated. Calomel, used to treat cholera, contained mercury. A lack of regulations meant the pharmacies could sell anything, including cocaine, morphine and opium. And while these substances could help people deal with pain or dysentery, those who took it too long often became addicts. Ohio didn’t require pharmacists to have a degree until 1905.
One item that caught my attention was a model ballon hanging from a sign that said, “Samuel Winchester: the Mad Miller of Milan.” A young Thomas Edison knew this fellow and may well have been inspired by him. Winchester and his brother Thomas ran the Star Mill, a steam-powered flour-making concern located in the canal basin.
Samuel spent his spare time constructing a hydrogen balloon. In September 1855, he went for his inaugural flight. He reached a height of 20,416 feet where which the temperature was eight below zero, and the air was so thin that he nearly fell unconscious. He lived to tell the tale, but a few weeks later he went up once more. Taken away by a strong wind, he was never seen again.
Over the years Mildred Smith Coulton collected dolls. Knowing that her family didn’t want them when she passed, she donated them to the Milan Museum in 1955. Historical museums are often offered personal collections and in many cases they really aren’t worth accepting. Who, for example, needs a collection of used toothbrushes? In this case Coulton’s collection was one of those worth preserving, and now it’s displayed as the Coulton Doll Gallery.
These aren’t your modern plastic-based dolls. Made in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, their heads were made out of a variety of materials: papier-mâché, wax, glass, wood, rubber, and even celluloid. The majority of the dolls in this collection have porcelain heads. At present 350 of the dolls are on display. The earliest one, named Hebe, is a rag doll made around 1810. Wax was used to create more realistic faces. But it’s fragile and cracks in the cold. It also melts if the temperature is just right. As a result, few examples of wax-headed dolls have survived.
Gaplin Glass Galleries give the Toledo Museum of Art’s Glass Pavilion a run for its money. The oldest blown glass in the collection dates back to the Roman era, they being the inventors of glass blowing. American companies represented here include Tiffany & Company, Handel & Company, Pairpoint Glass Company, Kew Blas, and A. Douglas Nash, who bought Tiffany’s factory in Corona, New York in 1928 and renamed it after himself. He’d worked for both Tiffany and the Webb factory in England. Glass in the collection from Europe came from August Jean, Schneider, Vasart, and René Lalique. Ohio was once a powerhouse of glassmaking that included the Libbey Glass Company, Cambridge Glass Company, and Fostoria Shade & Lamp Company.
These aren’t your modern plastic-based dolls. Made in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, their heads were made out of a variety of materials: papier-mâché, wax, glass, wood, rubber, and even celluloid. The majority of the dolls in this collection have porcelain heads. At present 350 of the dolls are on display. The earliest one, named Hebe, is a rag doll made around 1810. Wax was used to create more realistic faces. But it’s fragile and cracks in the cold. It also melts if the temperature is just right. As a result, few examples of wax-headed dolls have survived.
Gaplin Glass Galleries give the Toledo Museum of Art’s Glass Pavilion a run for its money. The oldest blown glass in the collection dates back to the Roman era, they being the inventors of glass blowing. American companies represented here include Tiffany & Company, Handel & Company, Pairpoint Glass Company, Kew Blas, and A. Douglas Nash, who bought Tiffany’s factory in Corona, New York in 1928 and renamed it after himself. He’d worked for both Tiffany and the Webb factory in England. Glass in the collection from Europe came from August Jean, Schneider, Vasart, and René Lalique. Ohio was once a powerhouse of glassmaking that included the Libbey Glass Company, Cambridge Glass Company, and Fostoria Shade & Lamp Company.
One room in the gallery contains more contemporary glass made by Dominick Labino, the founder of American Studio Glass. About him an information sign says, “he developed pure silica fibers that were used to insulate NASA spacecraft, making it possible for Apollo astronauts to reach the moon.… As an artist, Labino strove to create new colors and to develop forms that express the fluid quality of glass.” Of the American Studio Glass pieces on display, I especially liked the chandelier.
The Newton Arts Gallery looks like a house from the outside but when built by Bert Persing Newton, its sole purpose was to hold the collection of his wife, Edna Row Newton. Here you’ll find items from around the world including a Chinese puzzle ball carved by three generations of a single family. It contains balls within balls within balls.
An information sign says the figure at the top is “Guan Yin, the Chinese Bodhisattva of Compassion”—a Buddhist religious figurine. The sign goes on to say that “she is considered the protector of women and children and by association a fertility goddess able to grant children. Many also consider her the Goddess of Luck and Fortune.” The sign makes no mention if anyone ever “solved” this puzzle and what happens when you do.
The Newton Arts Gallery looks like a house from the outside but when built by Bert Persing Newton, its sole purpose was to hold the collection of his wife, Edna Row Newton. Here you’ll find items from around the world including a Chinese puzzle ball carved by three generations of a single family. It contains balls within balls within balls.
An information sign says the figure at the top is “Guan Yin, the Chinese Bodhisattva of Compassion”—a Buddhist religious figurine. The sign goes on to say that “she is considered the protector of women and children and by association a fertility goddess able to grant children. Many also consider her the Goddess of Luck and Fortune.” The sign makes no mention if anyone ever “solved” this puzzle and what happens when you do.
The Hoover Innovation Gallery & Sisty Blacksmith Shop contains a blacksmith’s shop saved from some place or another that’s filled with enough horseshoes to supply a nineteenth century calvary regiment. Also in this building is some firefighting equipment and, in one corner, a Hoover potato digger. This caught my eye mainly because it’s photogenic.
It was invented by Isaac W. Hoover (no relation the vacuum cleaner guy) and patented on May 19, 1885. The old cliché “necessity is the mother of invention” applies here. Hoover, born on January 3, 1845 was the son of a prominent Erie County stonemason. Choosing not to follow his father’s profession, in 1875 he bought seventy-five acres of land in Milan Township, which over the years he expanded to 700 acres. He grew potatoes, which are not as easy to harvest as, say, wheat or corn, and he wanted to make the process easier.
It was invented by Isaac W. Hoover (no relation the vacuum cleaner guy) and patented on May 19, 1885. The old cliché “necessity is the mother of invention” applies here. Hoover, born on January 3, 1845 was the son of a prominent Erie County stonemason. Choosing not to follow his father’s profession, in 1875 he bought seventy-five acres of land in Milan Township, which over the years he expanded to 700 acres. He grew potatoes, which are not as easy to harvest as, say, wheat or corn, and he wanted to make the process easier.
An information signs says that “during the winter of 1884–1885 he designed and constructed a potato digger to harvest his 1885 crop.” It worked really well, and soon he’d built ten more for neighbors. The next year he and his brother-in-law, Albert Prout, founded the Hoover & Prout Co. to make these machines. It continued to do so until 1926 when John Deere bought it out.
I ended my tour where I began: the Lockwood Smith & Co. General Store where you buy your ticket for the museum. It’s also one of the best museum giftshops I’ve ever seen. It’s jampacked with all sorts of interesting things. I bought the perfect book for my Milan Canal research: Charles E. Frohman’s Milan and the Milan Canal. It’s a short little hardcover that, when I asked the price, was amazed that it cost a just $4. Now that’s a bargain!🕜
I ended my tour where I began: the Lockwood Smith & Co. General Store where you buy your ticket for the museum. It’s also one of the best museum giftshops I’ve ever seen. It’s jampacked with all sorts of interesting things. I bought the perfect book for my Milan Canal research: Charles E. Frohman’s Milan and the Milan Canal. It’s a short little hardcover that, when I asked the price, was amazed that it cost a just $4. Now that’s a bargain!🕜