Less than a quarter-mile north of the Village of Shawnee Hills, is a quiet community known as Lucy Depp Park, carrying rich, and sometimes little-known history.
At its peak, the Park, served as a residential community and resort-style vacation haven for Black folks. They could swim, fish, ride horses, row boats, celebrate and mingle, without fear of racial persecution.

Building a home
Abraham Depp spent most of his life as a slave, working as a blacksmith on a tobacco plantation owned by French settlers, John and Elizabeth Depp, near Richmond, Virginia, during the early 1800s.
Upon John’s death in 1831, Abraham was freed. He took the money he was gifted through John’s estate, as well as his blacksmithing and farming experience, north to central Ohio to avoid being resold into slavery.
At that time, it was rare for a Black man to be sold property. However, historians say, Joseph Sullivant, son of Franklinton founder Lucas Sullivant, was known to be a “friend of the colored race” and sold a nearly 300-acre plot to Depp.
Abraham returned to Virginia in 1835 to retrieve his mother, Lucinda Depp; his wife, Mary Goode; and their three children. Unfortunately, Mary Goode perished during the journey north.
After Goode’s passing, Abraham married China Ellis and had six more children, including Lucinda “Lucy.” Other members of the Depp family later followed the family, relocating to the settlement in 1836.
Growing the community
Over the years, Depp and his family continued to purchase and add land to the plot until the settlement spanned roughly 1,400-1,500 acres. They built homes for their families on the property as well as a Baptist church, which has since been torn down.
The settlement was established as a station on the Underground Railroad. Escaping slaves would travel through the limestone caves along the Scioto River, known as the Depp Caves, until 1925 when the construction of the O’Shaughnessy Reservoir flooded the caves. A barn that was once used for community gatherings carried a bell used as an “all clear” alert for escaping slaves. That bell is now preserved at Lucy Depp Park, identified with an Ohio Historical Marker.
Near the bell is a second historical marker bearing the name ‘Abraham Depp Freedom Station’ paying tribute to Abraham.
Depp passed in 1858 after only 27 years of freedom. At the time of his death, he was the wealthiest Black man in the county. The property was then transferred to China and later split between his children following her death. In the mid-1920s, Abraham’s daughter, Lucy Depp Whyte, sold her share of the property to her cousin, Robert Goode, who named the land Lucy Depp Park.
He envisioned the property as a beautiful, tranquil subdivision where Black folks and their families could buy plots and build homes to reside in full-time or visit when vacationing in the summers. He divided the 102-acre area into 720 lots and began promoting them to prospective families.
His vision was quickly actualized and Lucy Depp Park became not only a home for many, it also became a place to stay for well-to-do Black doctors, businessmen, educators and athletes, including professional boxer Joe Louis. The homes in the area were mostly, if not entirely, Black-owned.

What it looks like now
The area’s beauty and history are now protected by The Lucy Depp Park Civic Association.
One of the Lucy Depp Park Civic Association’s historians, Michael Hamilton, has family ties to the Park that go back decades. Robert Goode was his great-great-uncle and Hamilton still lives in the house his grandfather bought in the Park area in the ‘30s.
“(Lucy Depp Park) was a place for the well-to-do Black families in Columbus to come out,” he says. “White swimming pools were off limits to Black people, so this was probably one of the only areas they would come out and do everything that they wanted to do. They would have musicians come out, and have dances, picnics, get-togethers, all kinds of activities.”
Many of the homes in the area were originally built soon after Lucy Depp Park was established in the late ‘20s and ‘30s. Like Hamilton’s, some families are proud to have lived there for generations and don’t wish to leave anytime soon.
“I get things in the mail, phone messages (saying), ‘Do you want to sell your house?’ ‘You sell your house, we’ll buy it.’ ‘You don’t have to go through anything,’ and all this,” Hamilton says. “I said, ‘Did you see a for sale sign out front? Because I didn’t.’”
Since the park sits directly outside the Village of Shawnee Hills, the area is sometimes mistakenly grouped with or referred to as a part of the Village. However, Hamilton and other residents want to be differentiated and keep the community independent, believing the park’s name and unique history make it special and worth cherishing.

For more information on the Association go to www.lucydepppark.com.
Maisie Fitzmaurice is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at mfitzmaurice@cityscenemediagroup.com.