Granville Historical Society Museum

The Granville Historical Society was created on March 9, 1885, by Charles Webster Bryant, Crayton Black, and Francis Shepardson. Its formation was in part a response to the realization, after the 75th anniversary of the founding of the town, that firsthand memories of the early days of Granville were vanishing. One of the Society’s first major acts, then, was to begin preserving and documenting the history of the community: Bryant produced invaluable genealogical records (including an inventory of the gravestones in the Old Colony Burying Ground, many of which have since eroded beyond recognition), and Bushnell wrote The History of Granville, Licking County, Ohio, in 1889. Some of the drawings produced for Bushnell’s book are still among the most reliable images we have of early Granville and have been used in subsequent histories of the town. Since those early days, the Granville Historical Society has continued to document the history of the community and its people. Highlights include Ellen Hayes’ 1915 memoir Wild Turkeys and Tallow Candles, William Utter’s 1955 Granville, the Story of an Ohio Village, and a collectively written and edited three-volume history for the town’s bicentennial in 2005, Granville, Ohio: A Study in Continuity and Change. The Society has also produced an annotated edition of an early history of Granville written as a series of newspaper columns by Rev. Jacob Little. Additionally, the GHS publishes the quarterly journal Historical Times with a wide range of stories on events and people from more than two centuries of Granville’s past. The Society recently launched a Pocket History series of brief and readable single-topic volumes, just the latest way that the Society continues to preserve and present the history of Granville, Ohio.