About Tappan
Tappan was founded on March 4, 1837 by John Marshall who was a immigrant from Ireland. He never lived in Tappan. The town was originally called Franklin. It was renamed Tappan after Benjamin Tappan who was a Harrison County judge from 1816 - 1823 and then a U.S. Senator from 1839 - 1845. The town of Tappan only had 4 families in 1840 but grew to it's peak of 171 people in 1860. It was considered to be a post office town by the state. In 1875 Tappan had a steam powered grist and saw mill, hotel, a school, blacksmith, shoe shop, tannery, a doctor, two general stores, and two churches. In 1933 the Muskingum River Concervancy Project decided that a dam should be built on the Little Stillwater Creek that ran through Tappan. Construction began in 1935 and was completed in 1938. The people who lived in Tappan were paid small amounts of money to move and some didn't have enough time to move all of their belongings before it was flooded. A couple of other nearby towns were flooded too including Laceyville and another town that was founded by freed slaves after the Cival War. The Cemetery was moved just north of the lake. Residents are still probably buried in the old Cemetery beneath the Lake. People who scuba dive in the lake these days say that it's an extremely eerie experience and you can't go very far without almost running into a house, mailbox, tractor, or a barn.There's also a few old foundations and remnants from the old towns in the woods around the lake.