Seven years before there was a Franklinton and 22 years before Columbus was created, a vast section of the Northwest Territory was carved out for Revolutionary War veterans.
On Aug. 16, 1790, Congress created the Virginia Military District, a 4.2-million-acre tract that was roughly bounded by the Scioto, Little Miami and Ohio rivers. It included all of what is now Columbus west of the Scioto River.
The land was intended as a payment to Virginians who served in the War of Independence. Veterans essentially picked the land they wanted on a map and hired surveyors to mark it off.
Lucas Sullivant was selected as a deputy surveyor and started working in the Ohio wilderness in 1793. Surveyors were paid for their work, were allowed to claim some of the land they surveyed as their own and frequently bought out land claims from veterans who did not want to move.
Territory that is now part of Columbus was given to Lt. Robert Vance and Col. Hugh Stephenson.
Vance was awarded the Franklinton area. Stephenson’s grant included much of what is now the Hilltop. Vance and Richard Stephenson, the colonel’s heir, assigned their land to Sullivant, founder of Franklinton.
Vance and Stephenson had distinguished themselves in the Revolutionary War.
By some accounts, Vance enlisted in 1776, marched to Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-78 and was present at the surrender of Gen. Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781.
In 1775, Col. Stephenson led his men 600 miles — in 24 days — to join George Washington’s Continental Army at Cambridge, Mass. He also was a half brother to Col. William Crawford, who was tortured and burned at the stake by Indians in 1782.
Sullivant laid out Franklinton, the first settlement in what is now Columbus, in 1797.
Suggestions for Mileposts that will run this bicentennial year can be sent to: Gerald Tebben, Box 82125, Columbus, OH 43202, or email firstname.lastname@example.org.