06/16/2026
A Brief History of Reynoldsburg
By: Cornelia M. Parkinson with Mary Turner Stoots
A BRIEF HISTORY OF REYNOLDSBURG
The first authentic history of Reynoldsburg goes back to 1805, when there were a few log cabins of pioneers along the streams. Game was plentiful. Hunting, trapping, and fishing yielded deer, bear, quail, doves, turkeys, wild hogs, woodchucks, skunks, raccoons, beaver, and all kinds of fish. Not much of an animal went to waste: the hides, for example, were used for clothing, shoes, hats, game bags, harness, furniture, and bed coverings.
Before vegetables and cereal grains could be planted, the dense virgin forest had to be cleared of gigantic timbers & underbrush. The pioneer felled trees one at a time with a felling axe. A man working alone might spend a month doing nothing but chop down the trees in a single acre of hardwood forest.
The brush was piled into heaps, trunks cut into logging lengths, and the land so cleared was sown with grain. The second year, some attempt was made to plow between the stumps and break off any roots that had rotted enough. Corn & potatoes could be planted, as well as beans, cabbage, beets, onions, parsnips and turnips.
After 15 or 20 acres had been cleared a tree at a time, a great amount could be cleared in a day by slashing. The slasher studied the forest to determine the prevailing winds, then began in 30-foot windrows, working toward the wind, to chop the trees near the bottom. As he neared the windward side of the tract, he cut deeper notches. The last tree, a large one selected for a starter, was felled. This tree fell against the tree next to it, and on down through the entire windrow with a deafening series of crashes, until the cut strip was covered with fallen trees. Two good slashers working together could slash 20 acres in nine days.
For the first quarter-century of the settlement, it was necessary to go to Chillicothe, Lancaster, or Zanesville to the mill, post office, or store. (There was a mill below the settlement of Hibernia until 1825, where those who knew about it could go.) Glass had to be obtained from Pittsburgh, so oiled paper served as a substitute for windows.
INDIANS THREATEN THE PIONEERS
Indians provided perils aplenty for the settlers. Shawnees had the strength of great numbers along the Scioto River valleys.
Intermixed were the Wyandot, Delaware, Mingo and Miami, all of whom hunted over the territory now called Franklin County. The red man was distinctly hostile to the whites, and many stories have been told of white children in this area being kidnapped by Indians and never seen again; or of being converted to Indian life and not wishing to return to their own parents.
A story which appears in at least four of the old souvenir booklets bears repeating here: When the whites first settled this neighborhood, the Indians had a large sugar camp near the present town site.
Once the Indians were boiling off the sap, when one of them, who had imbibed too freely of fire water, lost his equilibrium and fell into one of the kettles of boiling syrup and lost his life. He was buried near the sugar camp and his grave fenced in with poles, which stood for many years.
THE FIRST SETTLERS
One account states that James Crawford, a Nova Scotian who became an American soldier, was the first to settle in this area. During the Revolutionary War, many Canadians and Nova Scotians found life under the English unbearable, so they left their lands to join the American Colonists in the fight against English rule. After the war, the English labeled these people deserters, confiscated their properties, declared them rebels and outlaws, and set prices on their heads.
Under the circumstances, they could not return to claim their real estate, so they were stuck in a new land, penniless, and without property. In 1796 the U.S. Congress passed a law providing for 130,000 acres of Refugee Lands, to be given in tracts to these Canadian and Nova Scotian refugees for their military service.
James Crawford was granted a tract. He took possession in 1805 and built a log cabin near a stream (possibly the Little Jordan Run, as it was called by 1872) at the south end of Graham Road.
Over the next couple of decades, there was a fair building boom in homes. With land at $4 an acre, many decided to stay here. The first settler on the site of the town was a Mr. Daniel Dunihue. In 1816, he sold his land to John French.
Before 1820, Joseph McIntyre, William Ashton, Richard Rhoads, William Graham, David Graham, John & Charles Medford from PA., Thomas Palmer from ME., John Edgar, John Lynch, Benjamin Cornell, Matthew Long £ran Nova Scotia, William McIntire, Zacharia Paul, William Thompson, William McComb, Captain John Hanson, Col. James Livingston, Robert Taylor of Truro, Nova Scotia, Daniel Ross, George Graham, John Cambridge, Elias Chester, Jeremiah Nay, George & Archibald Powell, David Pugh, Thomas Enlows, David Taylor, and others with their families had settled in the immediate area. By that year, Truro Township had a population of 693.
THE NATIONAL ROAD BUILDS A TOWN
In the mid-1820s, the National Road (Cumberland Road) was begun at Cumberland, MD, and, after many years, extended as far west as East St. Louis, IL. The Road came through here in the early 1830s and was finished to Columbus by 1836.
With the advent of the Road came workmen and their families (who lived in tents), as well as stagecoach and Pony Express service.
In November 1831, John French, who owned land bounded by Black Lick Creek & Jackson Avenue, Main Street & South Street, had his land surveyed by Jesse McLane and divided it into 55 lots for a town. Old histories state that he named it Frenchtown and that Abiather Vinton Taylor of Truro Township was the surveyor. This may be correct even though the county Plat Book map is titled ‘’Reynoldsburgh Town Plat‘’ and lists McLane as surveyor. At the completion of the survey, a public sale of lots was held.
Later came:
* Crawfords Addition, 1832, 14 lots
* the Town of Franfort or Frankfort, 1834, 7 lots
* Samuel Osborn's Addition, 1846, 6 lots
* a large annexation south of Main St. in 1882 including Silent
Home-Cemetery
* the Radabaugh Addition, 1892, 20 lots
* and Highland Terrace, 1907, 119 lots
Over 100 years later, beginning in the mid-1950s, housing developments started to spring up all over Reynoldsburg:
1955 - Brookside came first
1955 - Marabar
1956 - Briarcliff
1957 - Huber Homes
1957 - Rose Hill Heights
1959 - Brice Estates
1964 - Red Fox Hollow
1968 - Blacklick Heights
1972 - Cobblestone Run
There were many others not mentioned here.
BUSINESS GROWS BETTER THAN EVER
The first hotel (called a tavern in those days) was built in 1832 by Michael Demorest. He sold to Benjamin Sells of Columbus, who ran the tavern for some time. In 1833, Mr. Demorest built a tavern which was run by the McEwen family for over 35 years. Emanuel Rhoads built a third tavern in 1835, on Main Street across from the United Presbyterian Church. Demorest's two hotels were known as the upper and lower taverns. The upper tavern stood on the site of the firehouse just vacated on Main Street and was connected to the building now housing Don Foltz Jewelers.
The lower tavern occupied the site of the Marathon Station at Lancaster Avenue & Main Street. The needs of the settlers and the road builders were met by James C. Reynolds, from Zanesville, who lived with the French family.
Reynolds ran the first store in the settlement, a sutler's store, selling to***co, salt, overalls, work shoes, whisky, and other grocery staples. His store was located in a hewed log cabin on the southeast corner of Jackson & Main. Reynolds built a steam grist mill on Black Lick Creek in the southern part of the town.
In 1833 Sylvanus Baldwin bought 100 acres in the township, with a sawmill on it, at Livingston Avenue & Big Walnut Creek. He then erected ,a grist mill there. In Reynoldsburg proper, Joseph McIntyre operated a sawmill on Black Lick Creek for many years.
About 1830, the stone quarry on Waggoner Rd. was opened by Henry Bessey. The stone was first quarried for bridging and fill on the National Road. In about 1846, William Forrester bought the quarry and erected a mill. In 1874, Hyram Dysart & Company established a tile factory at Reynoldsburg, later operated by Dysart and Henderlick.
READING, WRITING, AND ARITHMETIC
The first school in Truro Township was kept in a log cabin on the east bank of Big Walnut Creek, just south of Livingston Avenue. The first teacher, a Mr. McAfferty, taught about 1820. The first public school was Madison Twp. No. 8, formed in 1828.
Reynoldsburg's first school was held in 1834 in a log house across from the Baptist Church. A frame school was built in 1845, then a two-story brick building was built in 1858. In 1868, the building which became the nucleus of the present Hannah J. Ashton School Building was completed.
UNION ACADEMY FIRST PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL
The first public high school in the State of Ohio was established here in 1868. It was called the Reynoldsburg Union Academy.
(Later, for a short time, it was called Truro Township High School.)
Academy enrollment was 40 pupils from 4 districts combined into one. A graded school was established, then quite a rarity. Pupils came here from great distances and boarded with local families, going home only for long holidays and summer vacations. In 1871, six students graduated.
RELIGION IN REYNOLDSBURG
Reynoldsburg's first church congregation called themselves Seceders. (Later they became United Presbyterian.) The congregation was formed about 1818, in the home of James Graham with the Reverend Mr. Armstrong officiating. Their first pastor was Rev. Donaldson. They built their church approximately at the same time, at Lancaster and Hebron Roads. (Hebron Rd. is now called Palmer, and apparently then extended to Lancaster Avenue.)
There was regular preaching in this church for about 40 years, then the congregation built a frame building at Jackson & Main Streets. This church burned in December 1946 and was rebuilt.
The Baptist Church, called Friendship Church, was organized by Elder Hanover at the home of John C***s in 1823. In 1834 they built the first church in town, the little brick church which, with remodelings in 1843 and later, still stands with its burying ground at the point of State Route 256 and Jackson Avenue.
The Reynoldsburg Methodist Church was organized in 1835 as a class, with a Mr. Lee as leader. About 1836 they built a frame church near Jackson & Broadwyn. In 1871 the congregation built the brick church in the 7400 block of East Main Street.
The First Presbyterian Church (now Parkview) was formed in 1836 with the Reverend James Hoge, pastor of Franklinton Presbyterian Church, Reverend Elias Vandeman (who agreed to serve as the first minister for $175 per year for half time) and Elder John Long of the Truro Presbyterian Church officiating. The first meeting house was erected in 1840. In 1861 this church burned; but the same year the building was rebuilt.
The building has been in continuous use. Today it is owned by the Knights of Columbus.
THE BURG GETS POSTAL SERVICE
The Post Office was established here in 1833. James C. Reynolds was appointed Postmaster. He evidently served 7 years as the next postmaster was Hiram Sibel, appointed in 1840. In the meantime, the people of Franklin County elected Reynolds a member of the Legislature of Ohio. He was allowed to occupy the seat his father had occupied as a legislator several years earlier.
Reynolds was influential in getting the town incorporated. In 1839 the Legislature chartered Reynoldsburg as a village. Its corporation government was organized in 1840,
the first mayor being Abraham Johnston. The citizens of the town and vicinity held a public meeting and resolved to honor Reynolds (later Brigadier General Reynolds) by naming the town for him. The h at the end of ...burgh was dropped long ago.
JOHN FRENCH’S LITTLE TOWN PROSPERS
The town grew rapidly, with its greatest period of prosperity in 1846-1847. It remained of considerable importance as a trade center until the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was built three miles to the north in 1853. With the railroad a faster means of travel and shipping, the stages were discontinued on the National Road. Trade that our village had enjoyed went in part to the new little station village of Black Lick.
The town character changed again in 1902, with the advent of the Ohio Electric Railway through the town. Reynoldsburg thus regained much of its former prestige and in 1910 was described as “one of the best thriving towns in the county.”
The National Highway was rebuilt in 1910, and again in 1938. By 1940 there were about 600 inhabitants of the Burg.
Several major corporations and iconic American brands were founded in Columbus, Ohio, during the post-war economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s. The city emerged as a major hub for retail, technology, manufacturing, and food service:
1950-Industrial Nucleonics Corporation
1950-Plaskolite
1950-North American Rockwell
1954-Cardinal Industries
1958-Western Electric
1958-Timken Roller Bearing
1962-Defense Construction and Supply Center
1963-Limited Brands
1964-Lane Aviation
1967-Big Lots
1967-Gold Circle
1969-Wendy’s
1969-Compuserve
During the 10 years from 1950 to 1960 when the large housing developments began, Reynoldsburg’s population increased 976.38%. It went from 724 people in 1950, to 7,793 people in 1960. By 1970, the population was up to 13,921
Today's population is 18,000.
