Places on the Peninsula - Lorrie Halblaub

The Story of Johnson’s Island- Part 7

May 13, 1865 the Civil War officially ended. 

After 40 months of operation, the prison camp on Johnson’s Island was closed. Over that time, it had seen an estimated 10,000 prisoners pass through.  By Sept. 5, [1865] the island was free of Confederates. Johnson’s Island was now silent.  No more roll call or the sounds of men’s voices.  No more guns, soldiers, prisoners, or rat hunts. However, not all the prisoners returned to the South.  At least one stayed on as a worker for early Danbury settler, Adam Kenne. His great-grandson, Bob Klinow had in his possession a chain of carved wooden links made from one piece of wood that the prisoner created.  Maybe this man had nothing in the South to return to.

Most of the buildings were auctioned off, except for a few buildings outside the stockade.  Some were towed on the ice to Marblehead and used for housing.  The island returned to the possession of Leonard Johnson who started to farm it, planting corn and raising pigs. After Johnson’s death in 1898, others found use for the island.

In the early 1900’s, quarrying began on the island. Between 1902 and 1916, quarried limestone was sent to ports like Cleveland, Lorain, and Conneaut.  At its peak, the quarry employed over 300 workers who were paid less than $2.00 a day. The island soon filled with housing for their families, a store, a U.S. Post Office, and school for their children from 1881-1917. The quarry forever changed the landscape of the island which was still only accessible by boat.

The only sign that a prison camp had existed on Johnson’s Island were the graves of the 206 men who died there. The cemetery was initially surrounded by a wire fence which was replaced by an Iron fence in 1890. Wooden grave markers were replaced with Georgian Marble markers, including 52 who to this day are labeled “unknown”.  Funds for this upgrade were raised by a group of Georgia officials and newspaper editors. In 1904, the Daughters of the Confederacy purchased the 100’ x 485’ cemetery and in 1910 placed a bronze statue of a Confederate Private on a marble base facing Canada. It was titled “The Lookout” and was sculpted by Moses Ezekiel.

Many immigrant quarry workers lived in rude shacks on the island.  One night in late March, after visiting a bar in Marblehead, an Italian worker Nichola Rocci and a friend were caught in a powerful wind and rain storm.  They were afraid to return to the shacks for fear they would blow down, so they took refuge in the cemetery on the lee side of the Confederate Soldier Monument.  Growing numb with cold, suddenly, they heard the sound of a bugle.  The quarrymen jumped to their feet and were certain that felt the statue move! The bronze soldier turned on its axis so that it was now facing the dead Confederates. Next the hysterical workers heard clanking and rustling in the grass. They saw a body appear, then more.  Men in gray uniforms with muskets on their shoulders rose from their graves.  Slowly the phantom regiment marched across the cemetery and vanished from sight. When the storm let up, two days later, the quarry workers grabbed the first boat to Sandusky and never returned to Johnson’s Island.

                                                                         Believe it or not.