Wagon Train History

The westward expansion of the United States into the old Northwest Territory began in 1788 when pioneers began building a civilian fort on a bluff overlooking the Muskingum River, leading to the establishment of Marietta as the first permanent settlement in the territory. Within a short time other communities grew up in southern and central Ohio as veterans from the Revolutionary War and others from New England states, Pennsylvania and Virginia continued to move west and settle in the valleys of rivers flowing into the Ohio. Chillicothe became the capital of the Northwest Territory and later, when Congress accepted Ohio as the 17th state on March 1, 1803, served as Ohio’s capital.

Worthington was settled in 1803 by a group of families from the Farmington River Valley of Connecticut and Massachusetts under the leadership of Colonel James Kilbourne. These settlers traveled in flat-bottomed farm wagons with high sideboards and topped with wooden staves that supported a sailcloth or heavy linen covering. The wagons were drawn by teams of horses or oxen. The animals and wagons were the most expensive possessions these pioneers owned. Traveling from Pennsylvania, the settlers were ferried across the Ohio River at Martins Ferry, where they continued on Zane’s Trace to Zanesville. From there, the families cut their way through forest growth to the 16,000 acres of land they had purchased in central Ohio. Zane’s Trace was a precursor to the National Road, which later became an important link between East and West. The 600 mile trip from New England to the land that would become Worthington took six weeks to complete.

The Bicentennial Wagon Train recreated the journey of Ohio's and Worthington's settlers.