Honoring Ohio’s Revolutionary War veterans starts with finding their graves

Approximately 7,000 Revolutionary War veterans are believed to be buried in Ohio, according to America 250-Ohio, the state commission responsible for spearheading Ohio’s observation of America’s semiquincentennial in 2026. But the final resting place for many of these veterans is a rapidly vanishing mystery.

To honor these 7,000 veterans and preserve their gravesites in digital perpetuity, America 250-Ohio is launching a statewide effort to locate, verify and document the final resting places of Revolutionary War veterans buried in the Buckeye State. The public is being asked to help identify, photograph and record these sites in a publicly accessible database.

“We suspect that few Ohioans are aware of how many Revolutionary War veterans settled in the state after the war ended,” said Todd Kleismit, executive director of America 250-Ohio. “Creating this database will help crystalize this connection and enhance our understanding of just how important Ohio was to the establishment of the United States.”

To help preserve the memories of these gravesites, you simply need a smartphone. Terracon Consultants built and monitors the public portal for this project and they’re using Survey 123 forms to allow for easy submission of records.

 “The beauty of this approach is that it empowers anyone who owns a smartphone to contribute meaningful data to the project,” said Joseph Snider, archaeological geophysicist at Terracon.

The goal of the project is to complete the database by July 2026, in time for the celebration of America’s 250th birthday.

Why were there so many Revolutionary War veterans in Ohio?

The Buckeye State was not one of the original 13 colonies. In fact, Ohio didn’t become a state until 1803. How then did approximately 7,000 Revolutionary War veterans end up living in our state? The answer is simple: Many veterans were paid for their service with land in the Buckeye State. Many of these veterans settled here, while others sold the land and journeyed further westward.

Not every veteran who served qualified for land, and even those that did often had their portion of property determined by their rank. One example of a successful Ohio settler was Nathaniel Massie, a private in the Virginia Militia, who would later establish the Ohio city of Chillicothe in 1796, according to America 250-Ohio.

“These are the very first veterans of the United States of America,” said Krista Horrocks, historian and cemetery preservationist with the Ohio History Connection. “This project is about reclaiming those stories and ensuring the stories of these Ohioans who directly contributed to the founding of our country are remembered for generations to come.”

While the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) and Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) have already helped identify 6,800 veterans buried throughout the state, this new project will build on that data and create a public map with detailed GPS data, photographs and historical records, the organizers said.

There’s urgency to the work, too. Enough time has passed that many gravesites from that era are deterioriating past the point of recognition.

“Gravestones won’t survive forever,” Horrocks said. “But if we can document their location and story today, that information will outlive all of us.”

To upload information on a Revolutionary War veteran’s gravesite, or see already entered data, you can access the public portal.