Cranberry Day

Cranberries were quite plentiful at one time on Presque Isle. They were abundant at one spot in particular at the center of the peninsula. Problems though soon arose over cranberry picking.

Cranberry Day was the beginning of the open season for cranberry picking on the peninsula. The act passed by the state legislature on March 27 in 1841 declared it to be contrary to the peace and dignity of the commonwealth and subversive of the good order of the community as well as of the great state of Pennsylvania for any person to pick cranberries on the peninsula of Presque Isle between the first of July and the first Tuesday in October of each year, and the first Tuesday of October was therefore a day of great rejoicing and a holiday to the dwellers in Erie: It was Cranberry Day.

Anyone violating this law had to pay a fine of 10 to 25 dollars, plus the estimated value of the cranberries that were poached. Half of the money collected was donated to the Erie County Poorhouse. For 25 years it was clear that the law was not working as poachers were depleting the marsh. They would enter by secret paths rather than the main entrance which consisted of wooden planks, poaching berries, and then disappearing.

The act of the legislature, however, proved inadequate and Erie's City Council, in 1865, passed an ordinance that allowed cranberries to be auctioned to the highest bidder. The bidder was not allowed to pick them before the first Tuesday of October and if they wanted the area protected from poachers they had to police it themselves. They were given the power to arrest anyone caught picking them. Anyone caught could be fined from 20 to 100 dollars and thrown into jail for 60 days. The hand written ordinance was 3 pages long, signed by Mayor F.F. Farrar, and is still preserved at City Hall.

In 1865, City Council passed the following is the ordinance:

“That it shall be the duty of the committee of councils on public grounds to sell at public auction at the market house in the city of Erie on the first Saturday of July in each year hereafter or on such other day as such sale may be adjourned to, to the highest and best responsible bidder or bidders the right to pick and gather and appropriate to his, her or their own use, all the cranberries growing or being upon the island or peninsula opposite to the City of Erie, and the person or persons who become the purchaser or purchasers of said right shall be invested with full property in the said cranberries for the year for which the same are sold and shall have the powers and authority of police officers of said city in and upon the said island or peninsula, with full power to arrest and bring forthwith before any magistrate of said city any person or persons guilty of taking or carrying away any of the cranberries growing or being upon said island, other than the purchaser or purchasers or those duly authorized by him, her or them to do so, and also with the power to arrest and bring before the proper authority any person or persons who shall violate any of the provisions of this ordinance or any of the ordinances of said city relating to said island or peninsula.”

The auction in 1865 was set for September 4th. It was held at the old Market House in Perry Square on the first Saturday of July. The law was heavily publicized in the Erie Weekly Gazette. The poachers were well aware of the consequences, realizing that they would need to work fast. So they devised wooden rakes with fingered scoops and long handles to quickly pick and scoop them and escape. It was clear that those who had bid and paid for the crop were being robbed. Two years later the ordinance was nullified, which abolished the auction.

There was strong objections to the ordinance's nullification and protests followed. In pursuance of this Mr. Phineas Crouch introduced in Select council the following resolution, which was adopted September 16, 1867:

“That the city solicitor shall be required to frame an ordinance that shall secure to all the right and opportunity to pick cranberries on the peninsula on the day appointed, and that shall make it unlawful for anyone to there use or have in possession with seeming purpose to use, any rake or other instrument for the purpose of gathering cranberries."

This ordinance gave Cranberry Day a new birth. Everyone was allowed to pick cranberries by hand. The use of scoops was not allowed.

The following year, in 1868, as the berries began to ripen, sailors from the Revenue Cutter Commodore Perry were sent to guard the marsh. People camped out on the beach and boats and tugs filled Misery Bay near the main path to the marsh. Everyone wanted to be there for the official opening of Cranberry Day. With the break of day they started to move in towards the marsh, but from the other side an increasing number of people were crowding in rapidly. Row boats, sail boats, fish boats, steam tug — every available craft in the bay pressed into service. Misery Bay was a sight to see with its collection of craft of every size, style and condition afloat on its surface or drawn up on the shore. There was a steady stream of people extending all the way from Misery bay to the utmost bounds of the cranberry marsh. And just as diversified as were the craft in which they were transported were the people who had been passengers. If any had gone over expecting to get a haul of cranberries they were disappointed. A handful was about all that anyone could get.

In the years that followed there were other celebrations, but none as big as the one in 1868. By the turn of the century, cottonwoods and willows began to appear and button-bush, ilex, and chokeberries began to create thickets. As the marsh aged the cranberries gradually disappeared and so did Cranberry Day. The last documented report of a cranberry bush on the peninsula was 1935, until in 1987 when a botanist from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History came across one in the peninsula's marsh while cataloguing the plants of Presque Isle. Cranberry Day is still on the books as a legal holiday; however, there is a heavy fine for picking anything on the peninsula.