Scioto County, OH
History
Among the first settlers of the upper part of Scioto County, lying on the Ohio River, was a colony of French, numbering nearly a hundred families and adult individuals without families, who immigrated from France in 1790. They crossed the mountains to the Ohio River and settled at Gallipolis.On March 24, 1803, the State of Ohio authorized the creation of Scioto County. Residents took the county's name from a Native American word referring to the deer that were plentiful in the area. Located at the intersection of the Ohio River and the Scioto River, the county grew quickly because of increasing river traffic. Scioto County continued to prosper with the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal during the 1820s and the 1830s.