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Established as the county seat of Pickaway County in 1810, Circleville derives its name from the circular portion of a large Hopewell-era earthwork upon which it was built. The Circleville earthworks, described in 1772 by Rev. David Jones for a Boston magazine, comprised an 1,100 foot diameter circle connected to a 900 foot square. Town director Daniel Dreisbach platted the town directly atop the earthworks, integrating the town plan into the prehistoric landscape. An octagonal courthouse stood directly in the center.
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After the War of 1812, the United States Congress proposed two million acres of military bounty land for the Michigan Territory. To survey the land, the meridian had to first be established. U.S. Surveyor General Edward Tiffin created the meridian based on the western line of the Treaty of Detroit (1807). He contracted with Deputy Surveyor Benjamin Hough in April 1815 to begin the survey for $3 per mile. Taking a reading from Polaris (the North Star), Hough, Alexander Holmes, and 11 crew members surveyed the line due north from Fort Defiance. The difficult terrain they encountered temporarily halted all surveys in the territory and ultimately led to the bounty land being transferred to the Illinois and Missouri Territories.
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With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, England lost the American Revolution and ceded to its former colonies land from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. By this time, pioneer settlers had reached the eastern bank of the Ohio River, but the Ohio Country, located west and north of the river, was still considered Indian Territory. The Indian tribes desperately defended their hold on this land. On August 20, 1794, United States forces led by Major General Anthony Wayne defeated an Indian alliance at the Battle of Fallen Timbers fought near modern-day Toledo. One year later, on August 3, 1795, the largest assemblage of northwestern Indian representatives at a peace settlement signed the Treaty of Greene Ville, which effectively ceded all land south of the Greene Ville Treaty line to the Americans. The Fort Laurens site was a reference point in the Treaty line. The Ohio Country was then rapidly settled, and in 1808, Tuscarawas County was organized.
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Ephraim Root (1762-1825), a wealthy Connecticut lawyer, was one of 57 investors in the Connecticut Land Company and served as its secretary and agent. In 1795, this group purchased three million acres of land in the Western Reserve. Root held interest in 100,000 acres, including Township 2 in Range VIII, which he named Rootstown. In 1800, Root traveled by horseback with his helper Henry Davenport and surveyor Nathaniel Cook to divide the township into 48 sections, reserving Lot 6 for his own use.
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Dinsmore Township School District #4 was formed in 1865following a decision by the township’s board of education that a school would be built in the center of every four sections of land, or every four square miles. This placement of school buildings gave township children the opportunity to attend school close to home and the chance at receiving a public education up to the eighth grade, Nine districts were created for the children of white households, and an additional district was formed to educate the children of the African American families, for a total of ten districts in the township. On June 11, 1866, the Dinsmore Township School Board purchased land from George Wenger to build the District #4 school near the intersection of Ohio Route 274 and Wenger Road. (Continued on other side)
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Manasseh Cutler, Rufus Putnam, Winthrop Sargeant, and Benjamin Tupper of the Ohio Company conceived Ohio University, which was encouraged by the Ordinance of 1787 and the Northwest Territorial Legislature in 1799, incorporated as the American Western University in 1802, and chartered by the Ohio State Legislature on February 18, 1804. The university is the first institution of higher learning in the Northwest Territory, second west of the Allegheny Mountains, and the first in the United States to be endowed with land by the government with proceeds used to pay for its operations-revenue from two townships was set aside to support the university. Opened on June 1, 1809, as an academy with three students, Ohio University awarded its first undergraduate degrees in 1815.
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Frances Rappaport Horwich was born in Ottawa on July 16, 1907, the daughter of Sam Rappaport, an Austrian immigrant who operated a general store, and Rosa Gratz Rappaport, a Russian immigrant. The youngest of six children, she attended the Ottawa elementary school and graduated from Ottawa High School in 1924. After high school, she attended the University of Chicago where she earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and taught first grade for three years. “Miss Frances,” as she was called, then earned a master’s degree from Columbia University in 1933 and a Ph.D. in 1942 from Northwestern University. From 1942 to 1952, she was involved in teaching and education development. The basic education she received in the Ottawa schools enabled her to achieve great skills and abilities. [continued on other side]
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Heritage Farm is a typical mid-19th century farm of the Ohio Western Reserve and has been restored and preserved. The original parcel of land consisted of 325 acres, which was purchased by David Berdan in 1818. The farmstead has been home to Abram and Sarah Berdan, William and Rachel Pitkin, George and Julia Tibbitts, and Peter and Mary Groening. The Heritage Farm Museum site consists of 4 acres with a house, privy, carriage house, corncrib, granary, equipment shed, barn, milk house, and chicken house, and was open to the public on July 1, 2000.
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