Franklin County, Ohio - Chapter 13: Franklin Township, 1858

Chapter 13: Franklin Township

This is the oldest township in the county, and the only one of the four original townships that retains its name. It was laid out and organized when the county was, in 1803. It then contained about twice as much territory as the whole county now does. Its first settlement was the tow^n of Franklinton and vicinity, which has been noticed in the first and subsequent Chapters of this w^ork. Then the settlement extended down the river ; and amongst the first families to settle there were those of Samuel White, John Huffinan, Wm. Harrison, sr., and a few others. The township was not reduced to its present limits until after the creation of Jackson in 1815, and of Prairie in 1819. The town of Franklinton has not varied much in population and business for the last forty years. It has always been, to a great extent, a town of farmers and laborers, who lived in the town and w^orked Mr. Sullivant's extensive prairie fields, or were engaged in stone-quarrying, hauling, etc. For the last ten or twelve years there has been an extensive business done in this township in the raising, curing and shipping of broom corn, by Captain P. N. White and C. L. Eaton, Esq. The town and township have been the theater for sportsmen. The race courses have always been in this township, generally in some of the large prairie fields adjacent to the town, but latterly at the Four-Mile House, so called, but still in the township, where a fine race course was fitted up some eight or ten years since, and still kept for sporting characters to practice their nags upon.

In the vicinity of the town is a large milling establishment, erected by Lucas SuUivant, Esq., in his life time, and now owned and worked by some half dozen men, under the name of the " Ohio Manufacturing Company." From one to two miles below Franklinton on the Scioto are Moler's mills and carding machine, erected by John Ransburgh, about the years 1813-14, and which were long known as " Ptansburgh's mills."

On the bank of the river in the north vicinity of the town is the old Franklinton burying ground. It embraces a beautiful little locust grove, enclosed with a board fence. This, it was supposed, was to be the final resting place of the pioneers who led the way in the settlement of this once wilderness. But of late years a number of removals have been made from thence to Green Lawn, amongst whom were the remains of Lucas Sullivant and Avife, Lyne Starling, and General Foos and wife. But still the Franklinton graveyard is rather a neat and handsome village cemetery, and is as well calculated to call up a train of solemn and interesting reflections as any other spot of ground in the county.

-In 1840, the population of this township, including the town of Franklinton, was 1510. In 1850, it was 1827. In 1853, the township was divided into ten school districts, and contained an aggregate of 716 youth between the ages of five and twenty-one years. In 1857, the aggregate of such youth was, agreeably to the returns, 676.

Successive Justices Of The Peace

1820. Robert W. Riley, elected in place of Grate, and Gorton and Kellar, both reelected again ; and same year, Jacob Grubb, to succeed Gorton, deceased.