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Telescope February 41 Of all the lake vessel owners, W. 0. Ashley of Detroit has had the strange experience of having himself and his steamer captured by the confederates during the war of the rebellion. The story is well known. The steamer was the Philo Parsons, the captor was John Y. Beall, a confederate, who boarded the steamer at Sandwich, and the officer with whom he came more particularly in conflict with was Mr. Ashley. Speaking of the excursion business and the steamboat route between Detroit, Sandusky and the islands of Lake Erie, Mr. Ashley said that it began upwards of forty years ago when the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad was built into Sandusky. Passengers from Cincinnati and the region thereabout, as well as people from central Ohio, found their best route east was to Sandusky and thence by steamer to Detroit where favorable and speedy connections were made to all points. John Owen of Detroit was quick to take advantage of this opportunity, and built for the route the fest steamer Arrow, whose exploits still remain a tradition of old river men. After years of service the Arrow gave place to the Bay City, also owned by Mr. Owen. After a few seasons, the development of railroads interfered with the business to such an extent that the Bay City was withdrawn. The line was for a time kept open in tri-weekly trips by the T. Whitney, one of the shrill, puffing, slow-going, high-pressure craft, whose great waste of steam through the exhaust pipes waked the echoes in the woods for miles back. In 1863 the Philo Parsons made her One of the first notable steamers on the Detroit-Sandusky line was Arrow of 1849, seen here in part of an oil painting of 1853 by Robert Hopkin. DOSSIN MUSEUM COLLECTION, GIFTOFlvtfS. RICHARD P. JOY