Columbus Delano was an American lawyer, rancher, banker, statesman, and a member of the prominent Delano family. Forced to live on his own at an early age, Delano struggled to become a self-made man. Delano was elected U.S. Congressman from Ohio, serving two full terms and one partial one. Prior to the American Civil War, Delano was a National Republican and then a Whig; as a Whig, he was identified with the faction of the party that opposed the spread of slavery into the Western territories. He became a Republican when the party was founded as the major anti-slavery party after the demise of the Whigs in the 1850s. During Reconstruction Delano advocated federal protection of African-Americans' civil rights, and argued that the former Confederate states should be administered by the federal government, but not as part of the United States until they met the requirements for readmission to the Union.

In the United States, members of the Delano family include U.S. presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant and Calvin Coolidge, astronaut Alan B. Shepard, and writer Laura Ingalls Wilder. Its progenitor is Philippe de Lannoy (1602–1681), a Pilgrim of Walloon descent, who arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the early 1620s. His descendants also include Eustachius De Lannoy, Frederic Adrian Delano, Robert Redfield, and Paul Delano. Delano family forebears include the Pilgrims who chartered the Mayflower, seven of its passengers, and three signers of the Mayflower Compact.