Genoa Township Land Conservation Association

 Genoa Township

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History

Prehistoric Indian cultures established villages here as early as 3,500 BC and subsequently disappeared by 1600 AD. The Adena people, who were traders, cultivated native plants, such as raspberries, strawberries, grapes, hazelnuts, walnuts, butternuts, acorns and hickory nuts. The Hopewell people, besides being skilled artisans and builders, were farmers. They were the first to cultivate corn in Ohio, and they hunted, gathered, and fished in small villages along Ohio’s many river bottoms.

The Iroquois pushed most of the descendants of these prehistoric tribes out of the Ohio region to claim hunting grounds, a period referred to as the Beaver Wars. The Iroquois, in turn, eventually made way for other stronger tribes, including the Shawnee, Delaware, Wyandot, and Miami, which were among those encountered when the first European pioneers moved into Ohio. One local tale describes how members of some of the tribes would travel to an area near where Spruce Run emptied into Big Walnut Creek to unearth “almost pure lead” from a deposit there, but settlers were never able to discover the source.

The federal government in 1796 compensated American veterans with lands of the Unites States Military District, which included all of Genoa Township (Image from United States Digital Map Library).

 

In 1796, the federal government designated 2.6 million acres of the Northwest Territory (including Genoa Township and most of Delaware County) as the U.S. Military District, reserved by Congress to compensate Continental Army veterans of the American Revolution in lieu of pay or pensions. Congressional resolutions offered soldiers and officers the following land bounties: noncommissioned officer or soldier, 100 acres, ensign, 150 acres; lieutenant, 200 acres; captain, 300 acres; major, 400 acres; lieutenant colonel, 450 acres; colonel, 500 acres, brigadier general, 850 acres; and major general, 1,100 acres. Most of the veterans sold their lands to others, rather than move to the distant Ohio wilderness.

In 1806, Jeremiah Curtiss became the first settler in the township, building a sawmill, gristmill and still along Big Walnut Creek. Soon after, Marcus Curtiss, Jeremiah's younger brother, fired clay dug on his farm south of Galena along Yankee Street to build the township’s first brick home, which served as a post office and an inn. Most of Genoa Township’s earliest settlers were grain and livestock farmers, mostly of sheep.

Delaware County was established in 1808 from land partitioned from Franklin County, and its present-day boundaries were settled in 1848. Genoa Township was established in 1816, taking its western half from Berkshire Township, which now lies entirely to Genoa’s north, and its eastern half from the larger Sunbury Township, which no longer exists after being subdivided into multiple townships, to the east. Elisha Bennett, one of the township’s earliest residents, named Genoa Township after the town in Italy from which he had immigrated to the United States.

An 1829 treaty with the United States forced the resident Indian tribes to move once again, leaving central Ohio for lands west of the Mississippi. Farmers, clearing the land and plowing their Genoa Township fields in more recent years have found many artifacts – some of which are on display at the Westerville Public Library – of these and the earlier inhabitants.

Wagons carried merchandise through Genoa Township, following an early stage line between Columbus and Mount Vernon. In the 1800s, there were only two bridges in the township, both wooden, covered structures crossing Big Walnut Creek; one crossed near Maxwell Corners [Maxtown Road] and the other at Williams' Ford [Oxbow Road]. The State Road, referred to as the Galena and Westerville Road, was surveyed around 1821 and designated as State Route 3 in 1923. The Automobile clubs soon marketed the new route as the 3-C Highway, linking Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland. In the early 1950s, Route 3 was rerouted through Genoa Township alongside the rail line and west of the older highway, which is now known as Old 3-C Highway. Much of Interstate 71, opened in 1959-60, follows a route similar to Route 3 and crosses Genoa Township’s northwestern corner.

The Curtiss Inn, built just south of Galena near present-day Sunbury Road, served as the first post office in Genoa Township (Courtesy of Community Library, Sunbury, OH).

 

The Genoa Township post office operated at the Curtiss Inn from 1819-1849, followed by a post office at Genoa Crossroads from 1848-1865. Genoa Crossroads, also known as Genoa Cross Roads and Franklin Corners, sat along Big Walnut Road near the 3-C Highway and consisted several buildings, including a house and farm structures owned by Vernon and Amana Franklin, their sawmill, a township hall and the post office. Upon its closing, a new post office opened for a short time at Maxwell Corners (Maxtown and Sunbury Roads), but the Postal Service already listed another post office with the Maxwell name, so the Genoa Township facility was assigned the name Maxtown Post Office.

In 1825, Genoa Township organized a school district, building small, brick schoolhouses on property donated to the district by local landowners. In 1928, the last five one-room schoolhouses, serving 101 pupils, were closed when districts were centralized in Galena and Westerville.

Around 1930, Ralph H. Clark served as the telegrapher at the Columbus & Mount Vernon Railroad’s Franklin Station, located near a site once known as Genoa Crossroads (photo from Big Walnut Area Historical Society, courtesy of Florobel Carpenter Lachel).

The Genoa Trail bicycle trail and footpath, built on the same roadbed (most recently used by Conrail), follows alongside State Route 3 (GTLCA photo).

 

In 1873, the Cleveland, Mount Vernon and Delaware Railroad began operating a line over part of the old Springfield, Delaware & Mount Vernon roadbed. The railroad ran through Genoa Township in a generally north-south direction, with a depot located in Galena and a small trestle spanning Little Walnut Creek nearby. A flag station was built at Genoa Crossroads to accommodate passengers and freight, but eventually passengers had to travel to Westerville or Galena if they wanted to board a train. Several companies later owned and operated the line, including the Cleveland, Akron & Columbus Railway, the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Penn Central Company and Conrail. Passenger service ended in 1948, and the line was abandoned entirely in 1982. Today, approximately four miles of the rail bed has been reborn as a wood-lined, multi-purpose paved recreational trail maintained by the township. Just north of the township, two other sections of the same rail bed are used as trails: traversing the trestle in Galena and crossing the Old 3-C overpass in Sunbury.

The principal stream in Genoa Township is Big Walnut Creek, which generally runs from north to south through the eastern half of the township. At various times in early township history, the stream was known as Big Belly Creek, Big Lick Creek, Gahanna River, Hayes Ditch, Whingwy Mahoni Sepung and Menkwi Mhoani Siipunk. It finds its source in northern Morrow County, where several hundred acres of swampland known as Big Belly Swamp was covered in water year round. Oxbow Road, just off of Old 3-C Highway, was named for a nearby pair of drastic bends in Big Walnut Creek, which featured along its path some holes estimated at 60-70 feet in depth. While Alum Creek flows south in neighboring Orange Township, its watershed extends eastward into Genoa Township. Alum Creek was been known variously as Allum Creek, Elk Creek, Seckle Creek, Sepung Creek and Salt Creek. Alum Creek flows into Big Walnut Creek in Groveport, south of Columbus, and Big Walnut eventually reaches the Scioto River just west of Rickenbacker International Airport.

 

Construction of a dam in 1955 on Big Walnut Creek, just below Genoa Township, created Hoover Reservoir, which extends the entire length of the township.  (Courtesy of Westerville Public Library)

 

In 1955, Columbus officials dedicated Hoover Dam, which blocked the flow of Big Walnut Creek south of Genoa Township to supply water to Columbus residents. The dam created a Hoover Reservoir, which covers 3,500 to 8,000 acres and was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reduce seasonal flooding. The reservoir and lake were named for two brothers, Charles and Clarence Hoover, to honor their careers with the City of Columbus Waterworks.

In 1972-76, Alum Creek also was dammed by the Corps of Engineers to reduce flooding, creating 3,387-acre Alum Creek Lake. To provide a backup water supply for Columbus, a large pipeline was buried along Big Walnut Road in the 1970s to move water from Alum Creek Lake to Hoover Reservoir during times of drought. The 60-inch pipeline, used only a handful of times since its construction, can supply 35-70 million gallons of water per day for treatment at Columbus’ Hap Cramean Water Treatment Plant, located downstream of the reservoir.

In 1972, the Del-Co Water Company extended its service to Genoa Township, largely supplanting the wells that farmers and other landowners had dug and the hauling of potable water for those who did not have good wells. Two years later, the Delaware County Regional Sewer District expanded its wastewater service area to include the lower Alum Creek area. The availability of these two services played a significant role in the dramatic residential and commercial growth of the township over the next several decades.