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For centuries this area was used by Indian tribes as a hunting ground. Vast swamp forests of elm, ash, beech, pin oak, and maple lay on all sides. To the east, a large cranberry bog was covered by water most of the year. Indian hunting camps on the headwaters of Sycamore Creek were the scene of plentiful harvests both of game and cranberries. These wetlands produced abundant game after most sections of the country were settled and farmed. Today, extensive drainage has changed the area into productive farmland.
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Near this site, the Union army established two camps on either side of the Olentangy River during the Civil War. Both were known as Camp Delaware. The first camp, situated on the west side of the river in the summer of 1862, was where the white recruits of the 96th and 121st regiments of Ohio Volunteer Infantry were mustered into service. A second camp, on the east side of the Olentangy, was established in the summer of 1863 and became the rendezvous point for most African-American Ohioans joining the army. The 127th Regiment of Ohio Volunteer Infantry-later renamed the 5th Regiment United States Colored Troops, the 27th U.S. Colored Troops, and members of other African-American units were mustered into service at Camp Delaware.
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Maple-Dell was the home of John Butler, a Quaker who expressed his religious faith by working for humanitarian causes. An early Goshen Township teacher, Butler opened his home to orphans, the homeless, and runaway slaves, and devoted 20 years of his life to support the Freedman’s Camps for former slaves. One of the many individuals he sheltered was Edwin Coppock who was hung along with abolitionist, John Brown, after the raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859. Butler met with President Lincoln and Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton in 1862 to request exemption from military service for Quakers during the Civil War. In 1868, President Grant petitioned the churches to assist in organizing a peace policy for the Indians. Butler prepared and presented to Congress a proposal for treating the Indians humanely including providing them with scientific and industrial education.
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Early in the War of 1812, Gen. Wm. Hull, commander of Ohio troops, ordered Col. James Findlay to open a road from Ft. McArthur on the Scioto River to Blanchard’s Fork. Under Findlay, a stockade 50 yards square, with a blockhouse at each corner, was erected here and named in his honor. The fort was used as a supply depot.
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Born in Pennsylvania in 1791, Bishop John Seybert came to Ohio in 1822 and preached throughout the mid-west. Seybert served the faith for forty years as an itinerant preacher, a presiding elder, and the first bishop of the Evangelical Association, one of the original denominations that is now part of the United Methodist Church. As a circuit rider, he traveled on foot, horseback, and spring wagon a distance of 175,000 miles, preached 9,850 sermons, held 8,000 prayer and class meetings, and made about 46,000 pastoral calls and 10,000 calls on the sick. Seybert often paid his own expenses on the meager salary of $100 per year. He died in 1860 and is buried in the Bellevue – Flat Rock area.
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Camp No. 3 was located about six miles below Fort Winchester on the north side of the Maumee River. Militiamen from Kentucky, part of the forces led by War of 1812 Brig. Gen. James Winchester, occupied the camp from November 1812 until December 30, 1812. They had marched off to war in summer wearing their linen clothing; unaware they would end up in the heart of the Black Swamp in mid-winter. The suffering they endured was intense. Camp No. 3, thought to cover an area of about 40 acres, had picketed walls and an earthen bastion at each corner. The soldiers built small huts for shelter. In his diary, Pvt. Elias Darnell of Lewis’ Regiment of Kentucky volunteers referred to Camp No. 3 as “Fort Starvation.”
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In 1926, Ohio Governor Alvin Donahey approved setting aside 55 acres of the Roosevelt Game Refuge for a Boy Scout camp. Since that time Camp Oyo has served Boy Scouts and other groups from Ohio and Kentucky. The name ‘Oyo’ is from an Iroquois word meaning “great water or principal river.” During the peak of the Great Depression in 1933, local Scout executive Harry Wagner approached the Civil Works Administration for assistance in building eight log structures. These improvements encouraged year around camping, earning Camp Oyo the distinction as one of the nation’s foremost Boy Scout camps. (Continued on other side)
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Men from Franklin Township were among the first from Ohio to leave for the war and participated in many of the conflict’s great campaigns. Individual companies of the 1st Ohio (90 day), 2nd Ohio, 75th Ohio, and 79th Ohio infantry were raised locally. Other Franklin men served in the 60th (1 year), 69th Ohio, and 93rd Ohio Infantry Regiments, the 4th Ohio Cavalry Regiment, and the 2nd Ohio Heavy Artillery Regiment. The township’s regiments served from First Bull Run in 1861 to Bentonville in 1865, participating in the battles of Perrysville, Stone’s River, Chicamauga, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, among many others.
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