In doing so, he occasionally took an extra step and laid out a town at a place he thought might prosper. Like most frontier surveyors, Sullivant took his pay in land. Sullivant and his crew experienced hardships and danger in their work and more than a few of these men were lost to raging rivers, falling trees and occasional encounters with Native Americans who had not heard of the Greenville treaty.

Within weeks of the signing of the treaty, survey work was underway. Set aside to reward Virginia veterans of the American Revolution and to make some money for Virginia as well, the gigantic pie-shaped wedge of land stretched from the Miami River in the west to the Scioto River in the east.īut the land had not been settled until the long and bloody conflict with Ohio's Native Americans concluded with the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. In 1795, a frontiersman named Lucas Sullivant began to work as a surveyor in the Virginia Military District. But there is a lot more to this story, and it is a story closely linked to the founder of the place that would become Columbus. 1934.'Īs far as it goes, the marker is absolutely accurate.

The marker reads simply 'Joshua Ewing - 1765-1821 - First white settler in Union County - owned and cleared this land - placed by Hannah Emerson Dustin Chapter - D.A.R.

Route 42 from Plain City and across Big Darby Creek, the traveler might miss a small 1930s roadside park and a small stone marker within it. And if one does not look closely while driving north on U.S.

Darby township union county ohio