As I mentioned last week, Tom and I made a scavenger hunt of finding all the Delaware County historical markers.  We found all but one of the 22 markers in five hours on a blustery Saturday.  It took us five hours with driving and reading time.  This doesn’t include the hour that we took in laying out the map.  We wanted to get to all the makers using as little gasoline as possible, so we laid out a route before we left home.

The interactive map on the website isn’t the best.  As you zoom in to the map, the historical markers keep moving.  So a marker that looks like it is several miles north of Sunbury ends up being on Sunbury square.  The interactive map gave us a general sense of where the Delaware County historical markers were located, but we looked at each individual description to find the exact location.  We made a list of the order we wanted to go, then went to the Delaware County page to find directions.

On the whole, this worked really well with just a little bit of backtracking.  We had been to two of the places before, during our Delaware County township scavenger hunt in the Covid winter of 2021.  You can read more about that search here.

I’m not sure how to write about the Delaware County historical markers.  Tom and I love history, so it was really fun to find them and read about them.  We learned lots of little tidbits about our county and saw some new places.  I think I will just list them in the order we visited, with a picture and a link to the marker.  Then, if you are interested, you can read more about a particular place.

1. 9-21 Sunbury Town Hall 1868 / Sunbury, Ohio “An Ohio Stagecoach Town from 1820-1873”
2. 19-21 Major General William Starke Rosecrans / Glacial Erratics
3. 21-21 Field Musician Richard W. Thompson
4. 18-21 Benajah Cook Sawmill and Farmstead
5. 3-21 Sharp Family Homes
6. 6-21 Africa Community
7. 7-21 First Jain Temple in Central Ohio / History of Jainism in Ohio
8. 17-21 The Gooding House and Tavern / Rural Taverns in Early Ohio History
9. 10-21 Anson Williams and The Village of Williamsville / James Kilbourne and The Columbus and Sandusky Turnpike
10. 14-21 The Union Land Company and the Case Family / The Olentangy River Road
11. 15-21 Liberty Presbyterian Church Founded in 1810 / Nathan Carpenter, The First Colonial Settler in Delaware County
12. 4-21 Grand Carousel – we did not find this marker.  It is located inside the Columbus Zoo and we didn’t want to pay the admission price if we couldn’t enjoy the zoo all day.
13. 20-21 Lucy Depp Park & The Depp Settlement
14. 12-21 Bharatiya Hindu Temple
15. 16-21 Bellpoint Buccaneers / Bellpoint High School
16. 11-21 Radnor Cemetery Lych Gate
17. 5-21 George W. Campbell Home
18. 8-21 Elliott Hall
19. 13-21 Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church
20. 2-21 Camp Delaware 1862-1864
21. 1-21 Pioneer Radio Telescope / Big Ear Radio Telescope

Tom and I had a great day learning more about the history of Delaware County.  Tom objected to very recent events being on signs (the Jain Temple) but I thought the signs told the stories of the diverse groups that have called Delaware County home.  We are now planning on doing some more of these scavenger hunts further afield.