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| Campus Martius Museum (click to enlarge) |
They say that it's all about location, location, location. Marietta, Ohio, has that down. Or so you would think. Nestled between the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, Marietta (
map,
wiki) is at a junction that was historically significant with implications for future greatness.
If only... history had chartered a different course.
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Model of original stockade inside
footprint of Rufus Putnam House
(click to enlarge) |
In 1788, George Washington's friend
Rufus Putnam led 48 men of the
Ohio Company Associates to Ohio to begin surveying and settling lands in the Northwest Territory formed out of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. They named the fort built at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers Campus Martius and from here Ohio grew with the influx of New Englanders and later Virginians and Kentuckians. Today
Campus Martius is a museum of the same name on the same ground of that first stockade.
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Left is original home, right the
reconstructed (click to enlarge) |
Originally settlers had a home inside the stockade walls, which were never attacked by natives, and a plot of land on the outskirts of town (where natives were known to attack). Rufus Putnam's original house is uniquely housed in the museum.
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Original Putnam home
(click to enlarge) |
Weather and insects began to detoriate the structure and when the house shifted several feet while visitors were present it was time to preserve and reconstruct. The museum was built over and around the original structure. Some of the original house has been saved but much of the frame has been reconstructed next to the original and the items moved inside the newer built structure.
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| Conestoga wagon (click to enlarge) |
The museum has three levels of exhibits, with the first level showcasing the time around the 1800's when Marietta was the entry point for many settlers into southern Ohio and the hub of surveying the Ohio territory. The main lobby has a
Conestoga wagon packed with exemplary items for a journey to Ohio. The second level, a balcony overlooking the lobby, has many artifacts from Marietta history beyond its roots in the 1790s. The lower level displays a broader history of Marietta, focusing on its place as a transportation conduit and the natural resources found in the Ohio River Valley.
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| original Campus Martius well (click to enlarge) |
The museum is part of the Ohio Historical Society and is two museums separated by a long block. The second museum is the Ohio River Museum located on the Muskingum River just west of Campus Martius. Walking south from Campus Martius, one can pass the old public well that was used originally in the stockade and then was a public work for nearly another century.
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1891 marker of Campus Martius
(click to enlarge) |
Continue south, then around the block walking west of Campus Martius takes one past homes that are a bit outdated and in need of a little attention, bypassed by a bridge that takes the main road across the Muskingum River. But walking this route takes a visitor right by one of Ohio's earliest historical markers noting in 1891 the location of the original Campus Martius stockade. Ivy has grown around and partially over the marker and it is easy to miss if one is not looking for it.
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Flood markings at Ohio
River Museum (click to enlarge) |
The Ohio River Museum serves many purposes along its riverfront property. There are about a half-dozen state historical markers from many different eras in history, from colonial settlement to the Underground Railroad. The main museum is elevated on posts, a nod to the power of the rivers to flood the area. Several telephone poles have been sunk on the property at heights that denote the level of floods over the past 200 years -- a very vivid reminder of the dangers that "location, location, location" can bring.
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| replica flatboat (click to enlarge) |
Scattered below the main building and around the property are different boats of historical nature. A steamboat pilot house and a full-scale replica of a flatboat show two different ways of navigating the rivers. The
flatboat, a cheap and unpowered source for rafting your family and possessions down the river, is akin to a low-slung cottage house that floats. The pilot house displays an architectural style unique to American history and iconic of the steamboat era.
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Large scale steamboat model
(click to enlarge) |
This museum is not a particularly large museum and if the only museum in town not worth the visit. But partnered with Campus Martius, the two together make for a good visit. Greeting the visitor inside the main building of the Ohio River Museum is a large-scale model of a riverboat, approximately 20 feet long with a picture of the builder sitting on it as it floats in the river.
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| Steamboat artifacts (click to enlarge) |
The model provides a great insight to the river's place as a transportation and commerce avenue for the midwest. Two other buildings are separated by covered walkways and have artifacts from the era of the steamboat, including a two-story pilot's wheel.
At the junction of two rivers, with one that directly links the east to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico, Marietta had the opportunity to become the queen city of the midwest. But much like how a river runs its course in unpredictable ways, Marietta was soon to be bypassed by political and technological circumstances. Territorial Governor Arthur St. Clair had a plan for dividing the Northwest Territory that would have been favorable to the long-term growth of Marietta. But his plan was not adopted.
By the 1830s, Ohio's government had built canals connecting Lake Erie to the Ohio River -- but west of Marietta at Portsmouth. By the mid 1850s the railroad too had transversed Ohio but well north of Marietta. Today Marietta is essentially bypassed yet again, as I-77 moves travelers over the Ohio River at the eastern edge of the town several miles from the downtown area.
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view from top of Mound
Cemetery (click to enlarge) |
Marietta never managed to become the size of Cincinnati at its peak but still today enjoys a better situation than many southeast Ohio towns. The history, tourism and recreation of the area has allowed it to stay somewhat afloat compared to the region. Barely 2,000 people inhabited Marietta by 1840 (contrasting with Cincinnati being the largest city west of the Appalachians at the
same time at 46,000), rising to about 5,000 after the Civil War and the 2000 Census claiming just under 15,000.
The town had the foresight to leave many of the
ancient Indian mounds that predated white settlers, with the main mound not far from Campus Martius becoming
Mound Cemetery. Buried side by side and spanning several hundred years, are natives and settlers, notable early Ohioans and Revolutionary War veterans.
The downtown area of Marietta works hard to maintain viability with
events throughout the year. There are several nice restaurants in the central business district, with some being in historic properties. The
Lafayette Hotel harkens from 1918 as one of the last riverboat hotels along the river.
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Historic Marietta property
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At one time the Becky Thatcher Steamboat served as a docked restuarant and dinner theater, but went out of business due to flooding and low interest in the 1980s, was towed to Pittsburg in 2009 and
subsequently sank in February of 2010. But each fall there
is a sternwheeler festival in town that draws thousands to the riverfront in what is billed as the "granddaddy" of the sternwheeler gatherings.
And so goes Marietta, a town that continues to fight the currents of history and economics. Such are the ebbing and flowing of a town that started Ohio on the road to prominence and still today beckons to remind us of how we got started and how we moved on.
-J.
