Ira P. Scofield

Ira P. Scofield served as a Corporal in Company I of the 145th Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. At the time of his death in 1908, he was a resident of the Ohio Soldiers and Sailors Home, now known as the Ohio Veterans Home. Ira P. Scofield is buried in Venice Cemetery.

Sentimental Sunday: 1944 Trinity Lutheran Church Confirmation Class

Pictured above is the confirmation class of Trinity Lutheran Church from Spring of 1944, in Venice, Ohio. Seated in front: Elmer Wahl, Wayne Orshoski, Joyce Galloway, Betty Martin, Rev. John Braun, Joyce Gardner, Nancy Klafter, Donald Orshoski, and Rolland Orshoski. In the back row: Norm Oeder, Richard Quinn, Marilyn Martin, Albert Oeder, Paul R. Orshoski, Stan Perry and Curtis Miller.

A church member told me that the several young people from Bay Bridge were part of a mission outreach from Trinity. My dad, Paul Orshoski, Sr., is in the back row, third from the right. At the time of his confirmation, Dad, his brothers Donald and Wayne, and cousin Rolland Orshoski all resided in the small village of Bay Bridge, Ohio. Their fathers and great grandfather worked at the Medusa Cement Company.

Venice Cemetery

Venice Cemetery is located in the western portion of Erie County, on old Route 6,also known as Lima-Sandusky Road. Henry Howe wrote these words about Venice in his HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF OHIO:

The village of VENICE is on Sandusky bay, near the mouth of Cold Creek, and on the L.S.& M.S.R.R. In the summer of 1817 the village was founded and the mill-race was begun to bring Cold Creek to the present site of the Venice mills. The flouring mills here have performed a very important part in the development of the country. The Venice flouring mills, completed in 1833, established the first permanent cash market for wheat in the "Fire-lands." The first 100 barrels of flour in the merchant work was sent to New York. On its arrival hundreds of people went to see it, for it was the first shipment of extra flour from Ohio, and some even predicted that in time Ohio might furnish them with several thousand barrels of flour a year.


An historical marker was dedicated at Venice in the summer of 2008 by the Erie County Historical Society.The marker noted the significance of the early grain and winery industries of the small village.


Mr. and Mrs. Peter Altvater are buried in Venice Cemetery.

Peter Altvater was born in Prussia in 1850. He married Fredericka Sick on December 29, 1880 in Erie County, Ohio. Hewson Peeke’s STANDARD HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY contains the following paragraph about the daughter and son-in-law of Peter Altvater:

Mr. Englert married Miss Margaret Altvater, who was born in Castalia, Ohio, of which place her father, Peter Altvater, now deceased, was a well known and respected citizen. To him and his wife five children have been born, namely : George, now residing in Toronto, Ontario ; Ida M., the wife of James S. Van Norman, of Sandusky, Ohio ; Charles, who resides at Frankfort, Indiana ; Earl R., of Ironton, Ohio, and Carrie L., wife of E. M. Winters, of Castalia, Ohio. The phrase "a self-made man" is often used by biographers in describing one who has risen to a comfortable or enviable position in life by his own exertions and without extraneous advantages, and in the sense that "self-made" is often "best-made" it can be applied without reserve to Mr. Englert.

Peter Altvater died in 1909, and his wife died in 1943. Their tombstone in Venice Cemetery is in the shape of a tree stump to which is attached a scroll that is inscribed with the names of Mr. and Mrs. Altvater.