Stop #17 | Address: 9878 E. Bayshore Rd, Lakeside Marblehead
The monument marks the first battle of the War of 1812 on Ohio soil, Danbury Peninsula, on September 29, 1812. Known as the Peninsula Battle, or Skirmish on the Peninsula, members of a small Connecticut militia that had arrived from Fort Avery near Milan, Ohio were attacked by Indians, thought to have been a combined force of Ottawa and Wyandot. Some soldiers held the Indians at bay from a nearby cabin while others escaped by boat to Cedar Point. Two days later reinforcements arrived, driving off the attackers. Eight soldiers were killed and about forty Wyandot or Ottawa.
As the war ensued, battles in which Tecumseh’s warriors backed the British soldiers against American troops were waged at many locations surrounding Ottawa County, including in and around Detroit, at Fort Meigs on the Maumee near Toledo, and at Fort Stephenson in Fremont (then known as Lower Sandusky).
Among the survivors of the Peninsula Battle was seventeen-year old Joshua Giddings, who later became an anti-slavery Congressman from Ohio. In 1858 he would have a monument placed with the names of three victims to mark the graves and battle site. The land on which the monument stands was deeded in 1911 by Kelley Island Lime & Transport Company to the National Society U.S. Daughters of 1812, State of Ohio, who in 1914 added a plaque to include five more names.
About “Tracking the Troops, Tippecanoe & Perry, Too!” This driving tour is a five-county collaborative project with Wyandot, Seneca, Sandusky, Wood and Ottawa counties that takes you on a self-guided driving tour following the military trail of General William Henry Harrison during the War of 1812. Harrison would later become the ninth president of the United States and has the shortest presidency, dying from pneumonia one month after having taken the oath of office.
