Esau Decker walked to southeastern Franklin County from the Shenandoah Valley in 1805. Marking his Ohio property with a walking stick, Decker returned with his Virginia family the following year to discover that the willow cane had taken root and was growing. It is from this same fertile soil that farms, businesses and social groups grew to create the village of Groveport and the thriving farming community with which it is forever intertwined, Madison Township.Groveport and Madison Township, Ohio contains nearly two hundred vintage photographs that illustrate how the area grew from a nineteenth-century wilderness outpost to become the vibrant and successful place it is today. Featured here are the canal and railroad days that established the area as a local hub of transportation, the formation of the churches and school system that bind the village and township together, the region's spectacular architecture and some of the more notable people of the community, such as world-renowned horse trainer John S. Rarey of Groveport, who earned international fame as an original "horse whisperer."
