The Seven Ranges of Townships in the Northwest Territory, surveyed by the national government in 1785-87, were the first use of the rectangular system in surveying national lands. A full township of the ranges, 36 square miles, was granted by Congress to Arnold Henry Dohrman in 1801, and this park lies in the northeast corner of that grant. Dohrman, a Dutch-Portuguese merchant, received the land as partial compensation for losses he suffered while supporting the American cause in the War for Independence. A village platted in 1837 once stood east of and near this point. The community was named Franklin but became most commonly known as Tappan, its postal designation, commemorating Benjamin Tappan (1773-1857), an eminent jurist and statesman of early eastern Ohio.