Norwalk
Norwalk is the county seat for Huron County and it was named for Norwalk Connecticut, which is not surprising since many of the early residents to this particular area were from Connecticut. During the Revolutionary War some combatants tried desperate measures in their efforts to quell the uprising. Although much of New England actually supported the British, there were enclaves of New Englanders that supported the revolution. As the war dragged on, the British tried to clear out these areas by setting fire to entire villages. The folks living in those towns lost everything. After the war, efforts were sought to compensate these victims. The Connecticut General Assembly estimate the loses to be over $116,000.
The new federal government of the United States was broke, it didn't have enough money to pay the army that had won the war, much less pay a claim from a bunch of angry citizens. What the government did have was title to a lot of land that actually was already inhabited by Native Americans that had sided with the losing side in hopes of driving away the Americans. So the government claimed the land, paid the Native Americans some more money, and gave plots of land to residents of Connecticut that had lost their homes during the war. However, most of these folks were for the most part too old to make the arduous journey into the Ohio Territory, too old to start over, and too old to risk their lives against the reports that the land had plenty of unhappy Native Americans looking for any reason to strike back at the Americans, so they took title to the land but didn't actually take possession of the land.
By the early 1800s, before the War of 1812 erupted in northwest Ohio, many of the original title holders sold their claims to either relatives or land management companies. Between 1806 and 1810, a number of these title holders made the pilgrimage to the new state of Ohio. When the war broke out in 1812, most of the folks in this area either went back to New England or headed south to safer areas.
With the conclusion of the war, the area immediately became a safer place to raise a family, to start a business, to build a farm. In 1817 the first house was built in the area called Norwalk. Platt Benedict had visited the site in 1815. When he returned to Danbury Connecticut, he bought some 1300 acres where Norwalk would eventually be built. It wasn't until the summer of 1817 that Platt and his family returned to become the first permanent residents of the new village of Norwalk.
Firelands Museum
For more than 50 years the museum of the Firelands Historical Society has held its collections in one of Norwalk's oldest homes known as the Preston-Wickham House. The Firelands Historical Society is one of the oldest continuing historical societies in Ohio. Founded in 1857, the society began assembling a collection of items which now form the foundation of the museum's collection.
Firelands Museum
4 Case Avenue
Norwalk
(419) 663-0392
Norwalk Theatre
Built in 1941, the Norwalk Theatre has seating for 700 on the main floor and another 224 seats in the balcony. There is a theatre organ on a lift, and an orchestra pit. It also has a stage set-up for shows. The theater has all of its original art and fixtures intact and working. The theater has been constructed in a Greek-Deco style and has one of the largest marquees in the state. Originally built as part of the Schine Theater chain, today the Norwalk shows both first run movies as live shows and concerts.
Norwalk Main Street Theatre
57 East Main Street
Body by Fisher
Up until the 1990s, each General Motors auto carried a small oval nameplate on the sill of each door frame that read: "Body by Fisher". This emblem was in recognition of the of the horse-drawn carriage company that was formed by two brothers from Norwalk.
The Fisher brothers were from a large family that grew up in Norwalk Their father, Lawrence Fisher, had his own carriage company in Norwalk and most of his seven sons worked in the shop as they were growing up. In the early 1900s, the two oldest brothers, Fred and Charles, moved to Detroit, where they started working for another carriage company that was just then beginning to expand into supplying the automobile industry with high-quality carriages that could be placed on the new auto frames and engines. By 1910, the Fishers brothers had formed their own company, Fisher Body Company, and they brought their other 5 brothers to Detroit to help run the growing business. By 1914 the new company had become the world's largest manufacturer of automobile bodies.
