The Marblehead Mile (Article 7) - Lorrie Halblaub

In this series we are taking an historical look at an area that covers approximately a mile of Main Street in downtown Marblehead. Heading east from the Village limits, we will discover the facts and the stories of how Marblehead became what it is today.

The next few streets we see as we head east on the Marblehead Mile have a nickname. They are called Jamestown. Jamestown is a small neighborhood that includes the streets of Stone, Perry, James, and Frances that run north and south, and Elliott, Barclay, Church, and Prairie Streets that run east and west. The reason it is called Jamestown is because the original developer of this area was Colonel John H. James.

To explain this, we need to go back to the Revolutionary War. After that war, in 1792, land in this part of Ohio was given to Americans whose homes had been burned by the British. Our peninsula was given to folks from Danbury, Connecticut. Each lot’s size was dependent upon how much each Connecticut family lost in the war. However, not everyone wanted to move west to claim this land, so land speculators bought tracts of land from the Fire Sufferers. Our peninsula was the northwest boundary of the Firelands and other towns in Ohio were named for the Connecticut towns where their people could claim land, like Norwalk, New London, and Groton. 

The Jamestown land was purchased by land speculator Oren Follett. You may have heard of the Follett House in Sandusky which is now a museum. Colonel James purchased this part of the peninsula from Follett, and he subdivided it for residential building. It was the James family that donated the land for James Park.

Local legend has it that over the years Marblehead has had 30 bars. Part of that reason was that each ethnic group who came to the area wanted three things - their own church, their own market that sold their ethnic food, and their own bar.

Jamestown Tavern, at 902 West Main Street, is named for the area but that wasn’t its original name. Originally it was the Ontko and Dorko Café and Bar, which opened around 1900. It was run by John Dorko and Frank Ontko.  This bar catered to the quarrymen by opening at 7 am so men getting off 3^rd shift had a place to have a drink and unwind before they went home to sleep. During Prohibition the bar was turned into a furniture store. After Prohibition, Andrew Dorko made it a bar again. In 1993, the Klacik family took over the bar and called it Kootz’s Village Inn until 2000. At that time, Mark Sauvey and Pat Fontana bought it and renamed it after the Jamestown Area. Today is serves great food, has live music, and even hosted a book club called Books and Brews.