Delaware State Park - History

History

The Lenape (later named Delaware Indians by Europeans) are organized bands of Native American peoples with shared cultural and linguistic characteristics. Delaware State Park is named for them. It is just one of many places in the United States bearing the name "Delaware".

They lived in what is now New Jersey and along the Delaware River in Pennsylvania, the northern shore of Delaware, in the northeastern corner of Maryland, the panhandle of Connecticut and the lower Hudson Valley and New York Harbor in New York, at the time of the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The Treaty of Easton, signed between the Lenape and the English in 1766, removed them westward, out of present-day New York and New Jersey and into Western Pennsylvania and Ohio and beyond. The Lenape continually were crowded out by European settlers and pressed to move in several stages over a period of 176 years, with the main body arriving in the northeast region of Oklahoma in the 1860s. Along the way many smaller groups left, or were told to stay where they were, but not in Ohio. Consequently today, the Lenape are spread from New Jersey to Wisconsin to southwest Oklahoma.

The Delaware did not leave Ohio without a fight. They joined a confederation of tribes led by Chief Pontiac and participated in what became known as Pontiac's Rebellion. They also joined Blue Jacket's confederation in the Northwest Indian War.

Anglo-American settlers moved into the area of Delaware State Park in the early 19th century. A wagon trail near what is now U.S. Route 23 brought settlers to the area. A tavern was constructed along the trail in 1810 on a small hill that is now part of the park. A palisade was built around the tavern in anticipation of the War of 1812. The tavern and palisade came to be known as Fort Morrow. The fort was never attacked but it did provide a sense of security for the settlers of the area. Today, the fort is an archaeological site; it is one of two such sites near the park that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The other site is the Ufferman Site, which was inhabited during the Late Woodland period of North American prehistory.

Delaware State Park was established in 1952 following the completion of Delaware Lake by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1951. The lake was built as part of the Flood Control Act of 1938. The dam on the Olentangy River is part of the Corps' Huntingdon district and helps control flooding along the Olentangy, Scioto and Ohio Rivers. It was built between 1947 and 1951 at a cost of $4,307,000.