Kelleys Island 1810-1861 – The courageous, poignant & often quirky lives of Island pioneers

Kelleys Island 1810-1861
328 Pages
ISBN 978-0-9819612-1-7

This is the first in a series of history books about Kelleys Island Ohio. The book is a comprehensive, richly detailed, and surprisingly entertaining history of Kelleys Island, a small remote island in Lake Erie. Its history is told by the islanders, in their own words, gently blended with narrative text. You can read correspondence and letters to newspapers, as well as articles found in an incredible handwritten newspaper-The Islander. The island is now a resort, but 175 years ago it was the wilderness. There are stories of the early squatters who occupied this wild, unsettled, and remote part of Ohio as well as first-hand accounts of the building of the Johnson's Island prison and a visit to the soldiers of the 38th Ohio stationed at Somerset Tennessee during the early days of the Civil War. Covering the period 1810-1861, the book contains 328 pages, 160 illustrations, and an extensive index and bibliography published in 2009.

In total there are 6 books in the series, ending in 1893.

Leslie Korenko

About Leslie Korenko (Cleveland, Ohio Author)

Leslie Korenko

Leslie Korenko is the author of six books about the history of Kelleys Island (in Lake Erie) with each book focusing on a specific period of time. She has written historical columns for the Black Swamp Trader & Gazette, and articles for the Ohio Genealogical Society Quarterly, Inland Seas, Anchor News (Wisconsin Maritime Museum) and Heart of Ohio, among others. She also writes the Kelleys Island News column in the Put-in-Bay Gazette. Her stories of Island soldiers during the Civil War have appeared in the Ohio Civil War Genealogy Journal and the Sandusky Register. Leslie received the Henry Howe Award for outstanding Ohio history books at the Ohio Genealogical Society annual convention in Cleveland in April 2012. She lives on Kelleys Island, but is a Clevelander at heart.