A rare copy of the original plat of Lucasville from 1819 has been donated to the Lucasville Area Historical Society.

“We are thrilled to receive this gift,” said Dianne Mefford Smith, president of the historical society. “To have our founding document housed at Heritage House is an amazing thing.”

The plat map, drawn up in August 1819 by town founding father John Lucas, was kept by descendants of the Lucas family. It is likely other copies were made at that time, one being filed at the Scioto County courthouse. However, no other surviving copy is known to exist.

“Keep in mind, in 1819 there were not photocopiers,” Smith said. “So, multiple hand-drawn plats would have been made.”

Historical society member Tom Adkins is well-versed in the history of this plat.

“The document was found in an old secretary in a chicken coop at the Thomas family farm in Lucasville by Eva Thomas McConnell in 1935,” Adkins said. “The old desk was being used as nesting boxes. Mrs. McConnell, a descendant through John Lucas’s sister, Abigail Lucas Cramer, realized the importance of the document and saved it from certain destruction.”

The plat survived lifetimes in the McDonnell family home on Fairground Road, then moved.

“The plat was later framed and displayed in the McConnell dining room on Fairground Road. Following the death of Eva McConnell in 1968, the plat transferred to her daughter, Dorothy, and following Dorothy’s death in 1989, it traveled to Chicago.”

When Jack McConnell died at 94 in 2023, his family members gifted the plat to the Lucasville Area Historical Society. In addition to the map, they donated a framed 1935 painting of Methodist bishop Francis McConnell, husband of Eva Thomas McConnell, and a framed 1898 plat of Thomas’s second addition to Lucasville.

The plat will soon be on permanent display at Heritage House, 291 West St., Lucasville. Hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays.