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Refugee Road is a pretty typical busy city street, with heavy traffic driving past chain restaurants, houses and schools.
An anonymous tipper how Refugee Road came to be. As it turns out, the road got its name from a group of people who took a unique path to Central Ohio.
Emmy Beach, of the Ohio History Connection, says it wasn't always a road.
鈥淲hat we know today as Refugee Road originally rose from the Refugee Tract,鈥� Beach says.
Canadian Revolution
During the Revolutionary War, the American cause resonated outside of the 13 colonies. Canadians, and Nova Scotians in particular, pitched in - sometimes at great cost to themselves.
鈥淭hey either joined the colonists in their fight against Great Britain, or they provided monetary support," Beach says. "For that reason, Great Britain took that land away, and it was considered a treasonous act."
After the war ended in 1783, a number of Canadians who participated were essentially left homeless.
, the Continental Congress of the United States proposed compensating Canadian sympathizers with land, about 103,000 acres in total. In 1801, Congress establishing Refugee Tract, drawings its boundaries and naming the claimants.
Located in parts of Franklin, Fairfield, Licking and Perry counties, Refugee Tract encompassed over 58,000 acres.
鈥淭he soldiers that wanted to claim it only claimed about half of that,鈥� says Dick Barrett, president of the Reynoldsburg Historical Society.
鈥淎nd the lot of them weren鈥檛 even interested in moving out to this wilderness that was still inhabited by Indians and wild animals.鈥�
By 鈥渨ilderness,鈥� of course, Barrett means Ohio circa 1800.
鈥淭hey would sell their land to people interested in kind of speculating,鈥� Barrett says. 鈥淪ome of them were speculators and moved on. Some of them bought land and stayed.鈥�
Whether the people who settled there had much of a say is up for debate.
鈥淭he way we think of refugees today, they didn鈥檛 have a choice,鈥� Beach says. 鈥淭hey had to come and flee their home country. There鈥檚 questionable history there.鈥�
Claims ended in 1816, Beach says, with 67 people ending up making their homes in the Refugee Tract.
The road that we know today as State Route 104 cuts through the southern part of that tract. Though it's not known when the road was first constructed, it first appeared as "Refugee Road" in the Columbus City directory in 1904.
Along The Road
The legacies of those settlers remain today in bits and pieces.
Truro Township near Reynoldsburg got its name from the first Canadian refugees.
鈥淧eople from Nova Scotia were basically Scottish," Barrett says. "They went to Canada and founded a town there, which they named Truro."
Nova Scotians who fled to Ohio brought the name with them.
Later on, the man responsible for one of America鈥檚 popular fruits himself lived in Reynoldsburg, right in the Refugee Tract area: Alexander Livingston.
鈥淟ivingston developed the tomato,鈥� Barrett says. 鈥淗e domesticated the tomato, made it tasty and attractive and became famous.鈥�
And now, a Central Ohio couple - Tara and Stu Rase - are bringing Refugee Road to a brand new space: Comics.
Rase spent some of her formative years in a house on Refugee Road, and the couple's four-part comic series by that name puts her experience into ink. Part one has been released already, and the couple is working on the second installment.
But for the Canadian refugees, that story is getting harder to tell.
鈥淭o my knowledge, there are no historic structures remaining on Refugee Road,鈥� Barrett says.
A plaque outside the LeVeque Tower in downtown Columbus memorializes the Refugee Tract. Beach says Refugee Road is an important - and rare - bridge to the past.
鈥淲hen we think of Ohio, we don鈥檛 necessarily think of Ohio鈥檚 connection to the Revolutionary War,鈥� Beach says. 鈥淪o Refugee Road and its genesis from the Refugee Tract really illustrates that in a great way for Ohioans.鈥�
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