Lucas Sullivant, a Virginia surveyor, made several surveying trips to the forks of the Scioto River. In 1797, at the age of 30, he founded and platted Franklinton with 220 lots, naming the settlement in honor of Benjamin Franklin. Later, he built a church, a courthouse, a school, and a land office for the young settlement. To encourage people to move to the new settlement, Sullivant offered free land for anyone willing to build a house along Gift Street, near the eastern edge of his plat.

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The 1795 Treaty of Greenville, signed with the territory's native Indians, had occurred only two years before, encouraging pioneers to feel safer settling in the new territory. The wagon roads that led into Franklinton originated from Lancaster, Newark, and Springfield, ultimately connecting to Worthington. The settlers brought horses, cows, and hogs, stock that could be taken to market. 

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Franklinton was then designated as the county seat of Franklin County in 1803, when the county was established from Ross County. The population and town grew during the War of 1812, as Franklinton was a staging point for General William Henry Harrison's Army of the Northwest. Following the war, the community continued to develop with the expansion of the country's railway system and the construction of a new state capital, Columbus, on the opposite high banks of the Scioto River. Columbus's growth eventually led to its designation as the county seat in 1824, and Franklinton was annexed by the city in 1859. If Lucas Sullivant had not founded Franklinton, the state's capital might not have been located where it is.