Lucas Sullivant
Lucas Sullivant
1765 - 1824Lucas Sullivant was a surveyor, soldier and settler in central Ohio in the years after the American Revolution.
During the late 1790s, Sullivant was a surveyor in the Virginia Military District. He took his pay in some of the land he surveyed. In 1797, he laid out a town on the western bank of the Scioto River, near the place where the Whetstone River emptied into the Scioto. Today, the Whetstone River is called the Olentangy River.
Sullivant named the town Franklinton because he was an admirer of Benjamin Franklin. It quickly grew to become an important community in the northern part of the Virginia Military District.
Between 1803 and 1824, Franklinton served as the county seat for Franklin County. Franklinton became a major town during the War of 1812 when it served as a mobilization and training center for the army of General William Henry Harrison. Harrison held a major conference with Ohio's Native American leaders in 1813 under an elm tree in the back of Lucas Sullivant's home. In 1870, Franklinton was annexed to Columbus.
Lucas Sullivant died in 1824. He was fifty-eight years old. At the time of his death, he was one of the largest landowners in Ohio. In 1997, Franklinton celebrated its bicentennial with the dedication of a statue of Lucas Sullivant along the Scioto riverfront.