by William Krause
29737 Lake Road, c. 1835
The seventh in a series of articles to be published as a walking tour of Lake Road by the Bay Village Historical Society in 2025.
Christopher Saddler, born in Germany in 1756, first came to America in 1777 as a private in the British Army. He was taken prisoner and in 1778 he switched sides. He served with the patriots under General Count Pulaski.
William Saddler, his son, was a sharpshooter who participated in the War of 1812’s Battle of Lake Erie which brought him through Dover. Their home in New York was burned down during the war, so the son convinced the father to move to Dover. They arrived in 1814 or 1815. Their wives Sophia and Elizabeth later joined them.
Tax records and deeds indicate that it was a Christopher Saddler who owned this land from 1820 through the early 1850s during which time this modest Greek Revival home was probably built, though Christopher, the father, died in 1839 according to a pension application. It stayed in the Saddler family until 1997.
The home, with an added porch and folk Victorian elements, was demolished in about 2008. The front entrance and sidelights were preserved and are being incorporated into a building in Gates Mills, Ohio.