July 2, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

This will be our last letter while we are on the road. We will let you know via another letter when we arrive home. That target date is July 17th.

Quite un-expectantly we finished up the third phase of our trip yesterday. This phase has been to fill-in holes that we have in communities’ history along the road from western New York through Ohio. It’s the small places where we were generally lacking.

We are currently in northwestern Ohio just south of Fayette, about 10-12 miles below the Michigan state line. It is the largest town (2,100 people) west of Toledo to the Indiana border – around 55 miles. This is where the Great Black Swamp used to be.

We had never heard of the Great Black Swamp until we traveled through this area 13 years ago. Seems the swamp began about 12-15 miles south of Toledo, and spread a bit north and a great distance west and southwest, as far as Fort Wayne, Indiana. In order to travel from Toledo to Detroit, one would have to circumnavigate around the swamp, which made a 50-60 mile trip, 200+ miles.

It was impossible to build roads through the swamp. They tried various methods, but they all sunk. To develop the area, the government gave away land within the swamp. People came and tried to cultivate the land within the swamp, but usually got flooded out or got malaria. A railroad company said they could build a railroad through the swamp. They did – only to have it sink two years later.

Finally, some enterprising individual (whose name escapes us at the moment) developed a method for draining the water from the swamp into Lake Erie. After which, the forest was cleared away. Today, some of the country’s richest farm land runs through this area, which is why there aren’t many towns of any size along U.S. 20.

Yesterday, we went down to Wauseon, the county seat of Fulton County, to see if we could expand the historical material we had collected on Assumption, Oak Shade and Fayette. We had pretty good stuff on Assumption, primarily the history of the Catholic Church and school. We needed more 20th century history on Fayette – and anything we could find on Oak Shade. We were successful on both scores. The 1920 history of Chesterfield Township where Oak Shade is located said, “The are three communities in Chesterfield, . . . and Oak Shade; however, calling them communities is using the term very loosely. In 1920 there are 1,021 people living in the township that encompasses 40 square miles.” There probably aren’t any more than that today.

Today, we were planning to go to Bryan, the county seat of Williams County in order to expand our historical material on Alvordton and Columbia. As I was putting things away after writing up our notes for yesterday, I glanced at our notes for 1999. We had gone to

Bryan in 1999. That’s where we had gotten what historical material we have for those two towns. Therefore, it seemed that a trip there today would be fruitless.

However, we are staying in a beautiful state campground two-three miles south of Fayette. It is very nicely laid out around a man-made lake. The sites are well shaded with nice conifers (had to have been planted) and deciduous trees. Since we did not have to go out to complete our research, we decided to sleep in – ah-h-h! We’ve also used the day to get things in order for the trip back to Oregon and to pack for our trip up to the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area.

Later this afternoon, we plan to go to dinner at the restaurant at Sauder Farm. It is a visitor attraction that depicts life in 1850-75 farm communities. They have costumed craftsmen/women that illustrated how things had to be done in those days. It’s interesting, and since we haven’t eaten at their restaurant since 1995, and since we are recommending it in the Ohio book, we thought it would be wise to check it out once again –just to make sure it’s still as good as it was then.

We will pull the fifth-wheel over to Elkhart, Indiana, tomorrow morning and store it there for the week. Then we will travel up to Grand Rapids tomorrow afternoon. Mary’s sister and husband live about 15-20 miles east of Grand Rapids.

We will be staying with Mary’s niece and family in Wyoming, a suburb of Grand Rapids. They have just returned from Southern Sudan where they have been building a hospital for Closed Door Missions. They returned because of the rainy season, when it’s impossible to work for four or five months.

Seven or eight years ago, a woman from their sending church built a wonderful house to accommodate missionary’s and their families while they are on leave. We stayed with them six or seven years ago when they were on leave and are looking forward to getting out of the RV for a few days.

We will leave Grand Rapids on the 10th and head for Bend. If everything goes right, we should arrive home on the 17th.

We still look forward to hearing from you and covet your prayers.

Our love and prayers,

Bill and Mary