and owners in common of the Hall, furniture and fixtures; and all working together in harmony and peace.

Gordian Lodge, No. 205, was instituted at Groveport, on the eleventh of February, 1853. The petitioners for this Lodge were George McCormick, Edmund Gares, J. K. Low, George P. Champ, and G. S. Smith. It soon added to its numbers some of the best citizens of the village and neighborhood, and has increased to a respectable membership has a neat Hall, and about forty

members.

Ark Lodge, No. 270, was instituted in the village of Worthington, on the sixteenth of April, 1855. The petitioners for the Charter were James M. Fuson, Isaac Thompson, Isaac N. Case, Anson Mattoon, Wm. H. Skeels, and A. S. Wood; and it has since added many of the best citizens of Sharon township, and is in all respects what may be termed a good Lodge. It has at present about fifty members.

Rainbow Lodge, No. 270, was instituted in the village of Westerville, on the 7th of August, 1857. The petitioners were C. A. Vananda, J. W. Jameson, A. G. Stephenson, David Zeik, and Theophilus Jones. This is a new Lodge, but has increased in numbers until it now has about twenty-five members.

In addition to the Lodges, there are two Encampments of Odd Fellows, located at Columbus and Dublin.

Capitol Encampment, No. 6, was instituted in December, 1843, and has about one hundred and fifty members.

Johanan Encampment, No. 57, at Dublin, was instituted in August, 1853, and has about thirty members.

The Lodges and Encampments have a regular system of relief for sick and distressed members-not only of their own, but of other Lodges, and expend annually a large sum in relief of their members, and of widows and orphans. Of the latter class, there is now quite a number in the county that are well provided for by the Lodges.

CHAPTER XIII.

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP.

THIS is the oldest township in the county, and the only one of the four original townships that retains its name. It was laid out and organized when the county was, in 1803. It then contained about twice as much territory as the whole county now does. Its first settlement was the town of Franklinton and vicinity, which has been noticed in the first and subsequent Chapters of this work. Then the settlement extended down the river; and amongst the first families to settle there were those of Samuel White, John Huffman, Wm. Harrison, sr., and a few others. The township was not reduced to its present limits until after the creation of Jackson in 1815, and of Prairie in 1819. The town of Franklinton has not varied much in population and business for the last forty years. It has always been, to a great extent, a town of farmers and laborers, who lived in the town and worked Mr. Sullivant's extensive prairie fields, or were engaged in stone-quarrying,

hauling, etc. For the last ten or twelve years there has been an extensive business done in this township in the raising, curing and shipping of broom corn, by Captain P. N. White and C. L. Eaton, Esq. The town and township have been the theater for sportsmen. The race courses have always been in this township, generally in some of the large prairie fields adjacent to the town, but latterly at the Four-Mile House, so called, but still in the township, where a fine race course was fitted up some eight or ten years since, and still kept for sporting characters to practice their nags upon.

In the vicinity of the town is a large milling establishment, erected by Lucas Sullivant, Esq., in his life time, and now owned and worked by some half dozen men, under the name of the "Ohio Manufacturing Company." From one to two miles below Franklinton on the Scioto are Moler's mills and carding machine, erected by John Ransburgh, about the years 1813-14, and which were long known as "Ransburgh's mills."

On the bank of the river in the north vicinity of the town is the old Franklinton burying ground. It embraces a beautiful little locust grove, enclosed with a board fence. This, it was supposed, was to be the final resting place of the pioneers who led the way in the settlement of this once wilderness. But of late a number of removals have been made from thence

years

to Green Lawn, amongst whom were the remains of Lucas Sullivant and wife, Lyne Starling, and General Foos and wife. But still the Franklinton graveyard is rather a neat and handsome village cemetery, and is as well calculated to call up a train of solemn and interesting reflections as any other spot of ground in the county.

In 1840, the population of this township, including the town of Franklinton, was 1510. In 1850, it was 1827. In 1853, the township was divided into ten school districts, and contained an aggregate of 716 youth between the ages of five and twenty-one years. In 1857, the aggregate of such youth was, agreeably to the returns, 676.

FRANKLINTON POST OFFICE.- (Established in 1805.)

Adam Hosack, first Postmaster, appointed in 1805. Henry Brown, second

Joseph Grate, third

Jas. B. Gardiner, fourth

Jacob Kellar, fifth

Jos. McDowell, sixth

15

66

1811.

66

1813.

66

66

1815.

Wm. Lusk, seventh

W. Risley, eighth and last,"

Office discontinued a few years after.