Electricity Rates in Westerville, OH

History of Westerville

Cultures have inhabited the Westerville area for several millennia. Paleo-Indians and their successor cultures inhabited the area between Big Walnut Creek and Alum Creek. The Wyandotte were the primary inhabitants by the time Europeans arrived, living along Alum Creek. They were forced out of Ohio in 1843.The land that is today Westerville was settled by those of European ancestry around 1810. Garrit Sharp and his family were the first to establish a residence in what is now Westerville city limits and the settlement was known as Sharp's Settlement. In 1818, Matthew, Peter, and William Westervelt, settlers of Dutch extraction, migrated to the area from New York. Matthew Westervelt donated land for the construction of a Methodist church in 1836, and the settlement was subsequently named in the family's honor. In 1839, the Blendon Young Men's Seminary was chartered in Westerville; Matthew Westervelt was one of its first trustees. The Church of the United Brethren in Christ bought the seminary in 1846, and the next year the seminary was reformed, and renamed Otterbein College after the church's founder Philip William Otterbein. It continues today in Westerville as the private Otterbein University.Westerville was platted by 1856, and officially incorporated in August 1858. The town's population in that year was 275.Throughout the Antebellum era, several homes in Westerville were stations on the Underground Railroad.