Circleville is a city in Pickaway County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. The city is situated along the Scioto River 25 miles (40 km) south of Columbus. The population was 13,927 at the 2020 census.
Circleville is named after its original layout created in 1810, which was based upon the circular Hopewell tradition earthwork within which the city was built. This earthwork measured 1,100 ft (340 m) in diameter, and was constructed in the early centuries of the Common Era. The county courthouse was built in the center of the innermost circle.
At a Glance
- County: Pickaway County
- County seat of Pickaway County
- State: Ohio
History of Circleville
By the mid 18th century, the Lenape (Delaware Indians) were pushed west from Pennsylvania by European settlers flowing into the colony. The Lenape were given permission by the Wyandot people to settle in the Ohio country. One of their settlements was Maguck, a small village built before 1750 on the banks of the Scioto River. Modern Circleville was built to the north of this site.
Frontier explorer Christopher Gist was the first recorded European explorer of the Circleville area. On January 20, 1751, Gist visited Maguck, which had a small population of about 10 families. He wrote in his journal that he had stayed in the town for four days. Between the time of the establishment of the United States and of the city’s settlement, the land was owned by the US federal government (As opposed to other land in the county, which was part of the Virginia Military District).
Circleville was founded by European American settlers in 1810, as people relocated westward after the American Revolutionary War.
One such settler was George Hitler Sr., who migrated to Circleville in 1799 with his wife and 4 children, with seven more being born in Circleville after they resettled. One of these children, Dr. Gay Hitler, used to be a dentist. Numerous features of the town are named after this family, these being two ‘Hitler’ roads, Hubert Hitler Road, Hitler Pond, Hitler Park, and Hitler Ludvig cemetery. There is no connection between the family and Adolf Hitler, whose surname was defined much later.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Circleville, Ohio, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.