COLUMBUS — Ohioans can discover a piece of history hiding in plain sight — from rural churchyards to forgotten farm fields — this Fourth of July with the launch of a new interactive digital tool honoring the Revolutionary War veterans buried across the Buckeye State.
America 250-Ohio, in partnership with The Ohio History Connection, will debut the Revolutionary War Veterans Graves StoryMap at 2 p.m. on July 4 at the Ohio Theatre in Columbus. The tool will also be publicly accessible online at America250-Ohio.org beginning at 2 p.m. that day.
The StoryMap is an interactive, digital platform featuring an interactive map, timeline, photographs, and veteran stories documenting Revolutionary War veterans buried across Ohio. Users can explore the map by county, click through to individual grave sites, and view photographs and records documenting each veteran — a collection that now includes nearly 4,500 verified graves and more than 6,000 photographs.
“What this project reveals is that Ohio’s connection to the founding of this nation is far deeper than most people realize,” said Krista Horrocks, historian, cemetery preservationist, and project manager with the Ohio History Connection.
“These veterans didn’t just fight for independence, they helped build Ohio. Their stories are here, in our communities, waiting to be found, and now anyone can find them.”
87 counties, including Knox, has a Revolutionary War veteran grave
While Ohio was not one of the original 13 colonies, the state became the final resting place for more Revolutionary War veterans than states like Virginia and Pennsylvania because veterans were compensated for their service with land grants in the Ohio Territory.
Today, 87 of Ohio’s 88 counties are home to at least one documented Revolutionary War veteran grave. Van Wert County is the only exception, although the county itself was named for a Revolutionary War veteran.
The project launched on Memorial Day 2025 and was built with information from both Sons of the American Revolution and Daughters of the American Revolution, as well as a crowd-sourced information gathering model that made it possible for the public to upload information about graves they knew of or found.
A year later, approximately 570 volunteers had added information they found by traveling to grave sites across the state to photograph, document, and verify each veteran’s burial location. An estimated 7,000 Revolutionary War veterans are believed to be buried in Ohio; the current database lists about 4,500. The search for the remaining sites is ongoing.
“The Revolutionary War Veterans Graves project is a testament to what happens when Ohioans come together around something that matters,” said Megan Wood, CEO of The Ohio History Connection.
“On a day when we celebrate what this country was built on, we’re proud to shine a light on the men and women who built it and on the volunteers who made sure their stories won’t be forgotten.”
