Erie, Pa., shire town of Erie co. On the shore of Lake Erie, 272 miles N. W. from Harrisburg, 90 miles, on the lake, S. W. from Buffalo, N. Y., and 94 N. E. from Cleveland, O. Erie is built upon a bluff pleasantly overlooking Presque Isle Bay, the peninsula of which forms it, and the broad expanse of the lake beyond. The site is level, and the town is regularly laid out with broad and handsome streets. The public buildings are generally fine specimens of architecture, and many of the private residences are elegant, making this one of the pleasantest places in Pennsylvania. The Reed Hotel, after the plan of the Astor House, in New York, is a splendid establishment. The town contains the usual county buildings; a splendid Doric temple, of marble, formerly used by a branch of the U. S. Bank of Pa., now by the Erie Bank; an academy; and several churches of different denominations.
This place has good commercial advantages, being on one of the best harbors of Lake Erie, which is generally free from ice a month earlier than that of Buffalo; and being connected, by a canal, with the Ohio River, at the mouth of the Beaver, and thence by the river with Pittsburg, and, by the Pennsylvania Canal, with Philadelphia. The canal basin, connected with the harbor at Erie, is 2000 feet long by 1000 feet wide. It is connected by railroad with Buffalo on the E., and with Cleveland on the W.
John Hayward, Gazetteer of the United States of America… (Philadelphia: James L. Gihon, 1854), 364.
