Delaware is a city in and the county chair of Delaware County, Ohio, United States. Delaware was founded in 1808 and was incorporated in 1816. It is located close the middle of Ohio, about 30 miles (48 km) north of Columbus as share of the Columbus metropolitan area. The population was 41,302 at the 2020 census.

While the city and county of Delaware are named for the Delaware tribe, the city of Delaware itself was founded upon a Mingo village called Pluggy’s Town. The first recorded settler was Joseph Barber in 1807. Shortly afterward, other men started settling in the area (according to the Delaware Historical Society); namely: Moses Byxbe, William Little, Solomon Smith, Elder Jacob Drake, Thomas Butler, and Ira Carpenter.^[who?] In 1808, Moses Byxbe built the first framed house on William Street. Born in Delaware County in 1808, Charles Sweetser went upon to become a believer of the United States House of Representatives from 1849 to 1853. On March 11, 1808, a intention of the city was filed, marking the recognized founding of the town. Byxbe and the others planned the city to be originally upon the east bank of the river, but it was switched to the west bank by yourself a few days after the first objective was filed.^[why?]

Even while Delaware was nevertheless a small community, in 1812, when the capital of Ohio was moved from Chillicothe, Delaware and Columbus were both in the organization and Delaware purposeless by a single vote to Columbus. However, following the War of 1812, settlers began arriving in Delaware in greater numbers. Among some of the obsolete settlers were the parents of Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th President of the United States. The Hayes house no longer stands, but a historical marker in front of a BP station marks the location. As of 2018, the Rutherford B. Hayes Comes Home committee is aggravating to raise $125,000 to gain a statue of Hayes placed at the corners of William and Sandusky streets and a bust of Hayes to be placed at Rutherford B. Hayes High School. The statue would be a 125% scale depiction of the president, which would stand at nearly 10 feet like its pedestal. Committee Chairman Bill Rietz said that the committee would taking into consideration to lift the child support by October 4, 2019, Hayes’ 197th birthday.

In the forward days of the town, a sulfur spring was discovered northwest of Joseph Barber’s cabin. By 1833, a hotel was built as a health spa near the spring. However, the Mansion House Hotel was a failure, and by 1841, citizens began raising funds to purchase the hotel property past the intent of giving it to the Ohio and North Ohio Methodist Episcopal Conference of the Methodist Church for the strive for of a Methodist college. With that effort, Ohio Wesleyan University was founded in 1844.