Marietta

Marietta, Ohio, is small in comparison to the larger Ohio cities, and of course is not a city, but a town of a little more than 14,000 people, but it has an interesting, and an old history. It had its beginnings when George Washington was a lad and was employed by the English to survey their holdings in the new world. Of course, at that time, the territory was part of Virginia.

It was due to Washington's talking of the beauty of the area during the Revolutionary War to friend General Rufas Putnam that inadvertantely started the settlement. He was thinking of settling there after the war. He did not, but a group of forty-eight men did, a group made up of previous soldiers who had land grant holdings as part of their army payments. They settled in the area that is now known as Marietta, named after Marie Antoinette who had aided them in their freedom fight from England.

Therefore, Marietta, Ohio, has the distinction of being the oldest American settlement in the Northwest Territory. Who was the leader of the group? None other than General Rufus Putnam. This was not good news to the Native Americans already living there. To protect themselves, they immediately began building fortifications. One them was named Campus Martius, today a museum by that same name is at the same historical site.

What was George Washington's response to this community? "No colony in America was ever settled under such favorable auspices as that which has just commenced at the Muskingum...If I was a young man, just preparing to begin the world, or if advanced in life and had a family to make provision for, I know of no country where I should rather fix my habitation...". (Wikipedia)