Gallipolis, meaning "City of the French," began as a speculation project of the Scioto Company. Joel Barlow spent approximently ten months in the streeets of Paris trying to sell tracts of the territorry. During this period , he unknowingly went into business with a corrupt Englishman named William Playfair. Playfair circulated pamphelets and maps all over Paris describing the tracts of land as being rich and bountiful. 600 hundred Frenchmen invested money hoping to find prosperity in America. Upon arriving, however, the French found the deeds worthless. The reason the deeds were worhlesss is because William Playfair vanished with the investor's money that he collected under a bogus company (Compagnie de Scioto).
The disillusioned settlers petitioned for economic aid. As a result, the Ohio Company under the direction of Colonel Duer sent a group of axmen from Marietta to build a few huts for the swindled Frenchmen. A few of the French settlers relocated to a 24,000 acre "French Grant" given to the settlers by Congress in 1795, most of them remained at Gallipolis to live in a state of poverty. Shortly thereafter they established a thriving river trade on the Ohio River.
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