Lake Erie
European exploration and settlement

In 1669, Frenchman Louis Jolliet was the first documented European to sight Lake Erie, although there is speculation that Étienne Brûlé may have come across it in 1615. Lake Erie was the last of the Great Lakes to be explored by Europeans, since the Iroquois who occupied the Niagara River area were in conflict with the French, and they did not allow explorers or traders to pass through; explorers followed rivers out of Lake Ontario and portaged to Lake Huron. British authorities in Canada were nervous about possible expansion by American settlers across Lake Erie, so Colonel Thomas Talbot developed the Talbot Trail in 1809 as a way to stimulate settlement to the area; Talbot recruited settlers from Ireland and Scotland, and there are numerous places named after him in southern Ontario, such as Port Talbot, the Talbot River, and Talbotville.

During the War of 1812, Oliver Hazard Perry captured an entire British fleet in 1813 near Put-in-Bay, Ohio, despite having inferior numbers. American soldiers swept through the Ontario area around Port Rowan burning towns and villages. Generally, however, with the exceptions of the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812—which involved conflicts between the U.S. and the United Kingdom —relations between the U.S. and Canada have been remarkably friendly with an "unfortified boundary" and an agreement "that has kept all fleets of war off the Great Lakes."

In 1837, rebellions broke about between Canadian settlers and the British Colonial government. These primarily concerned political reforms and land allocation issues. Some of the rebels stationed themselves in the U.S. and crossed the ice from Sandusky Bay to Pelee Island wearing "tattered overcoats and worn-out boots", and carrying muskets, pitchforks, and swords, but the islanders had already fled. Later, there was a battle on the ice with the Royal 32nd Regiment, with the rebels being driven to retreat.

Settlers established commercial fisheries on the north coast of the lake around the 1850s. An important business was fishing. In the pre-Civil War years, railways sprouted everywhere, and around 1852 there were railways circling the lake. Maritime traffic picked up, although the lake was usually closed because of ice from December to early April, and ships had to wait for the ice to clear before proceeding. Since slavery had been abolished in Canada in 1833 but was still legal in southern U.S., a Lake Erie crossing was sometimes required for fugitive slaves seeking freedom:

When Kentucky fugitive Lewis Clarke arrived in Cleveland, he had no idea how to find Canada. "I went out to the shore of the lake again and again, to try and see the other side, but I could see no hill, mountain, nor city of the asylum I sought," he once told an interviewer. "I was afraid to inquire where (Canada) was, lest it would betray such a degree of ignorance as to excite suspicion at once." Many fugitives also had to overcome fears instilled by their former masters...

Prior to modern radar and weather forecasting, merchant ships were often caught up in intense gales:

A violent gale is blowing on Lake Erie... The schooner Stranger came in this morning and reports seeing a vessel about 12 miles up, 2 miles from the Canada shore, with three men clinging to the masts, which alone were visible above the water–heard their cries and screams...

There were reports of disasters usually from sea captains passing information to reporters; in 1868, the captain of the Grace Whitney saw a sunken vessel with "three men clinging to the masthead," but he could not help because of the gale and high seas.

A balloonist named John Steiner of Philadelphia made an ambitious trip across the lake in 1857. His voyage was described in The New York Times:

He arose to the height of about three miles, and started off at a slow but steady rate... The lake could be seen from one end to the other nearly... At one time Mr. Steiner counted 38 sail vessels, all in sight, and far below him. The hands on board several of the vessels saw him, and rightly apprehending that he was an aeronaut, cheered him heartily... He neared the Canada shore a little below Long Point... he was accordingly driven towards Buffalo... Night was drawing on and it became apparent that he could not, with this current, get away from the water before dark, and after nightfall it would not be safe to come down. Seeing a propeller (powered boat)... the Mary Stewart... He first struck the water about 25 miles below Long Point... During this time Mr. Steiner says he thinks his balloon bounded from the water at least twenty times. It would strike and then rebound, like a ball, going into the air from twenty to fifty feet, and still rushing down the lake at railroad speed... Mr. Steiner then abandoned the balloon, leaping into the water and swimming towards the boat, which speedily reached him...

In 1885, lake winds were so strong that water levels dropped substantially, sometimes by as much as two feet, so that at ports such as Toledo, watercraft could not load coal or depart the port. During the history of the lake as a fishery, there has been marked battling by opposing interest groups:

The preservation of the fisheries of Lake Erie has become a serious problem to all who have given it close attention... the fisheries are being exhausted by the wasteful methods which are now in vogue... it is still the custom of the pound fishermen about Sandusky to take fish of all sizes, and if they are too small to be marketable they are turned over to a fertilizer factory. If left undisturbed for two or three years more, these little fish would be a very valuable product...

Predictions of the lake being over-fished in 1895 were premature, since the fishery has survived commercial and sport fishing, pollution in the middle of the 20th century, invasive species and other ailments, but state and provincial governments, as well as national governments, have played a greater role as time went by. Business boomed; in 1901, the Carnegie Company proposed building a new harbor near Erie, Pennsylvania, in Elk Creek to accommodate shipments from its tube-plant site nearby. In 1913, a memorial to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry was built on Put-in-Bay island featuring a Doric column.

Steamships have operated on Lake Erie since the early 1800s. Large, opulent cruise liners carried passengers between Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo and other cities on the lake until the rise of the automobile in the 1950s drastically cut demand for their services. The Detroit and Cleveland Navigation company was one of the largest and most renowned of these companies.

During the Prohibition years from 1919 to 1933, a "great deal of alcohol crossed Erie" along with "mobster corpses" dumped into the Detroit River which sometimes washed up on the beaches of Pelee Island. Notable rum runners included Thomas Joseph McGinty and the Purple Gang. The Coast Guard attempted to interdict the Canadian liquor with its Rum Patrol, and a casino operated on Middle Island.

During the 20th century, commercial fishing was prevalent but so was the boom in manufacturing industry around the lake, and often rivers and streams were used as sewers to flush untreated sewage which ended up in the lake. Sometimes poorly constructed sanitary systems meant that when old pipes broke, raw sewage would spill directly into the Cuyahoga River and into the lake. A report in Time magazine in 1969 described the lake as a "gigantic cesspool" since only three of 62 beaches were rated "completely safe for swimming".

By 1975 the popular commercial fish blue pike had been declared extinct, although the declaration may have been premature. By the 1980s, there were about 130 fishing vessels with about 3,000 workers, but commercial fishing was declining rapidly, particularly from the American side.
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