Lucasville Cemetery began as the Lucas family burying ground, with Susannah Lucas as the first recorded burial on May 4, 1809, and by 1816 it was serving as a public burying ground. Captain William Lucas, a Revolutionary War veteran, is buried there, along with Eliza "Betsy" Brown Lucas, the first wife of Governor Robert Lucas. Its old section contains hand carved monuments inscribed with poetry, and it is recognized as one of the oldest cemeteries in southern Ohio, holding the graves of veterans of the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, Korea, and Vietnam. John Lucas, born in 1788, was the son of William and Susannah Barnes Lucas and came from Virginia to present-day Scioto County around 1802. He volunteered for service and commanded a regiment during the War of 1812, and after his father died in 1814 he inherited much of the family property in Scioto County. On part of that land he established the town of Lucasville on August 7, 1819. His brother Robert Lucas was a War of 1812 hero, a two-term governor of Ohio from 1832 to 1836, and the first territorial governor of Iowa. John Lucas and his wife Mary ran a tavern in Lucasville until his death in 1825, and he is buried in Lucasville Cemetery.