Benjamin Tappan Jr., founder of Ravenna Township in 1799, led a distinguished life of public service. Active in local politics, he served in the Ohio Senate from 1803 to 1805, as judge of the fifth circuit court of common pleas from 1816 to 1823, and as federal district judge from 1826 to 1833. After the surrender of Detroit in the War of 1812, he served as aide-de-camp to Major General Elijah Wadsworth, provisioning and arming local militia units defending the northwestern frontier against a possible British invasion. A proponent of internal improvements, he chaired the Ohio Canal Commission from 1822 to 1834 during its formative era. A Jacksonian Democrat of intractable disposition, anti-slavery but not an abolitionist like his brothers Arthur and Lewis, he was elected to the United States Senate in 1839, where he sponsored legislation in 1844 creating the Smithsonian Institution. He also served as the first president of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio in 1831.