Road signs
How the areas we call home got their names
• How schools got their names
• How counties got their names
What’s in a name?
The answer is plenty of history, tales of strength and victory and notable characters, if the stories behind some local municipalities are any example.
Here are just a few area places with an important part of history linked to their names.
Marietta
Marietta
When members of the Ohio Company reached the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers in April, 1788, the fledgling community that existed here was known as Adelphi, related to a Greek word meaning “brothers.”
“A number of the initial settlers here knew each other and some had served together in the Revolutionary War, so they felt a kinship in being part of the fight for independence,” said Bill Reynolds a historian with Marietta’s Campus Martius Museum.
But on July 2 that same year the town’s name was changed to “Marietta” in honor of Marie Antoinette, queen of France, who was apparently held in high regard by Revolutionary War veterans like Rufus Putnam and fellow members of the Ohio Company.
“They felt if it hadn’t been for assistance from the French, whose ships blocked the harbor (at Yorktown), preventing British ships from entering, as well as monetary support from France, we might not have won the war,” Reynolds said.
“So these Revolutionary War vets wanted to pay tribute to France by naming their town after Marie Antoinette—she was incredibly important to them,” he added.
A letter was also sent off to the queen, offering her a “public square” of Marietta property.
In his 1917 introduction to the first volume of “The Records of the Original Proceedings of the Ohio Company,” Marietta College professor Archer Butler Hulbert noted the city square intended for Marie Antoinette was Mound Cemetery.
The queen did not take up the offer but her Mound Cemetery square became the final resting place for many of those Ohio Company veterans.
“I find that a pretty interesting piece of history,” Reynolds said. “And sometimes I wonder, what if Marie Antoinette had actually accepted the offer and moved here? She would probably have lived longer.”
In October 1793, during the French Revolution, the queen was beheaded, as was her husband, King Louis XVI, who also met his end on the guillotine in January of that year.
Constitution
Constitution
Driving south along Ohio 7 it’s easy to miss the sign indicating you’re passing through Constitution — the only community in the U.S. bearing that name, according to an historical plaque erected nearby along Veto Road (County Road 3).
Constitution was once home to Ephraim Cutler, an early community leader and legislator who is most remembered for keeping slavery out of Ohio.
“He was the son of Manasseh Cutler, who wrote the Ordinance of 1787 that established the Northwest Territory and prohibited slavery,” said local historian Henry Burke.
“Parts of that ordinance were adopted into the U.S. Constitution,” he added.
In 1801 Ephraim Cutler was Washington County’s representative in the territorial legislature, according to his daughter, Julia Perkins Cutler, in her “Life and Times of Ephraim Cutler, Prepared from His Journals and Correspondence.”
She wrote that in 1802 her father served during Ohio’s first constitutional convention where he was the only member to vote against statehood on behalf of his constituents who believed the territory was not ready to become a state.
Julia noted that Ephraim’s most significant achievement was securing the adoption of a clause in the state constitution that prevented slavery in Ohio.
Ephraim challenged a motion to allow slavery with gradual emancipation, arguing the Ordinance of 1787 prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory. Later he submitted a statement outlawing slavery in the state. His proposal was approved by a narrow 5-4 vote and became part of the state constitution’s bill of rights.
“The legislation was adopted by one vote,” Burke noted. “Many years later the state decided to build a lake near Constitution and it was named ‘Veto Lake’ because Cutler vetoed slavery in Ohio.”
Linda Showalter, special collections associate for the Marietta College Library, is a native of Constitution.
“The area was always referred to as Warren until January 1842,” she said. “That’s when the post office was established and named Constitution in honor of Ephraim Cutler’s contribution to the Ohio Constitution.”
Ephraim is listed as Constitution’s first postmaster and served in the office, originally located in his home, until he died on July 8, 1853.
The Constitution postal facility closed in September, 1978.
“The community may be gone now, but we still hold a Constitution reunion every July,” Showalter said. “Former residents come from as far away as California to attend.”
Burke said Ephraim Cutler owned approximately 2,000 acres of land near Constitution, where he had several stone quarries.
Showalter said those quarries later became the Constitution Stone Company and Hall Grindstone Company.
New Matamoras
New Matamoras
Around 1850 three men, Stinson Burris, Adam Cline, and Henry Sheets, founded the town of Matamoras, now known as New Matamoras, along the Ohio River in eastern Washington County.
“They agreed to name the town Matamoras to commemorate a U.S. victory during the Mexican War (1846-1848),” said Janice Pringle, treasurer for the Washington County Historical Society.
“Zachary Taylor had driven the Mexican troops back into the Mexican town of Matamoros in the spring of 1846,” she said.
“It’s interesting that on the local town’s first plat the name was spelled ‘Mattamoras,’” Pringle added. “And in county records books it’s still known as the Village of Matamoras.”
Ernie Thode, manager of local history and genealogy at the Washington County Library, said Matamoras was laid out in 1847.
“Other names, voted down, included Buena Vista, Corpus Christi and Saltillo,” he said. “When the town post office was established in 1851, the
‘New’ prefix was added to avoid confusion with Metamora in Fulton County, Ohio.”
Lower Salem
Lower Salem
A member of the Ohio Company pioneers who landed at Marietta in April, 1788, Amos Porter moved a bit north of that location and settled in an area he named “Salem,” after Salem, Mass., near his native Danvers, Mass.
“Originally this area was known as Salem Township,” said Joe Stille, a resident who is completing a book on the township’s history.
“Later, around 1850, a group of township residents formed Lower Salem and set up a toll road between the town and Marietta,” Stille said.
“They built a ‘corduroy road’ by splitting logs in two and laying them in the mud (rounded side up). Then they put toll booths at each end of the road.”
Stille said the toll road venture apparently didn’t last long but the town of Lower Salem never existed until the corduroy road was built to Marietta.
“And the reason the town was named Lower Salem was because another Salem had already been established in Columbiana County and there was also a Salem in Coshocton County,” Stille explained.
He said Salem was apparently a popular name in the 1800s as one of his ancestors, Ebenezer Stille, Jr., who was born in Washington County, moved to another Salem in Henry County, Iowa, around 1855.
Cutler
Cutler
For lifelong Cutler resident Kevin Place, there’s a lot in a name —even if there’s some debate about how that name came to be, or how long it may be around.
“The name of this little town is important to me,” said Place, 59. “We lost our school out here...and I’m afraid we may eventually lose our post office. If we do, I figure we would get a Bartlett address but I’d want to keep the Cutler name alive.”
There are no immediate plans to close the post office or rename the area, although U.S. Postal Service officials have named the Cutler site as one being considered for closure.
Local historians say most local towns and villages were named —and many renamed — as post offices first opened.
“Many communities were renamed after they opened their own post offices and came to find other post offices had already been opened under the same name,” said Louise Zimmer, local historian and author.
Place said his grandfather owned a store in Cutler and was a postmaster there for 44 years.
“I believe this area was originally called Harshaville, named after someone who lived out here,” Place said. “At some point, it became Cutler but
I’m not exactly sure how or why.”
Place said he had always assumed Cutler was named after Ephriam Cutler, an early pioneer, political leader and judge.
Zimmer said the town was actually named after William P. Cutler, the first president of the Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad.
Cutler, born in Marietta in 1812, was the son of Ephriam Cutler, attended Ohio University in Athens and served as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives before running the railroad. He died in 1889.
“Dr. John Harsha was the first postmaster and in 1855, when the post office opened there it was named Harshaville,” Zimmer said. “In 1857, the area was rechristened Cutler, in honor of plans that brought the railroad through the area.”
Place said the names of small communities like Cutler give residents there a sense of identity —even without knowing the history behind the name.
“We’re just a tight-knit little community of about 100 to 125 people,” Place said. “My grandparents and my parents lived here until they died and I’ll be glad to do the same. It’s a great neighborhood.”
Bartlett
Bartlett
Founded in 1832, Bartlett was originally settled as Plymouth and Pleasanton, according to local historians.
Some records show East Plymouth as another settlement in the area.
“It’s amazing how often people researching the county or working on genealogy come across a name like Pleasanton and ask, ‘Where in the world is that?’” said Ken Finkel, president of the Washington County Historical Society.
County records show the three areas — first named after eastern U.S. towns — were combined and renamed in 1834 after the community’s first postmaster, Amos Bartlett.
Self-described as “the second-oldest person living in Bartlett,” Patty Shawd, 80, said she’s lived most of her life in the community, which is located at the intersection of Ohio 555 and Ohio 550 in western Washington County.
“It’s unbelievable to me that such a little place could have been divided up the way it was before the post office,” Shawd said. “Even today, we’re just a community of 100 people, counting cats and dogs.”
Shawd said her family has deep roots in Bartlett.
“My father ran the bank out here and eventually became a state representative,” she said.
Shawd said Bartlett is a community full of pride and spirit.
“Everyone knows everyone, and everyone’s business, which sometimes isn’t good,” Shawd joked. “But really, the people living out here are genuinely nice and care about each other and the community.”
Reno
The community of Reno was first known as Jericho, until it was renamed in 1887 when the first post office opened there.
Local historian Scott Britton said many of the early settlers in the area had served under Major Gen. Jesse L. Reno, who was killed during the Civil War at the Battle of South Mountain.
“One of those soldiers, James Hyler, who was a sergeant in the 25th Ohio Infantry had opened a store in what was Jericho and applied for a new post office for the community,” Britton said. “He found out the name was already being used, so he decided to honor Reno, who by all accounts was highly regarded by his men.”
Reno, Nev., founded in 1868, is also named after the general, Britton said.
Reno resident John Lankford, 65, said he’s lived most of his life in the community, but never known the history behind the name of the area.
“I’ve written it a thousand times and often wondered where the name came from,” he said.
Britton said there was little history he could track down on Jericho.
“Obviously there’s a religious connection, but beyond that, I couldn’t find a lot of information,” he said.
Jericho is a city located near the Jordan River in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories.
Beverly
Beverly-Waterford
Early pioneers, including John Dodge, settled in the Beverly and Waterford areas between 1837 and 1841 as they were working on Muskingum River improvements.
According to local historians, Dodge named Beverly after his hometown in Massachusetts.
Lifelong Waterford resident and Oliver Tucker Museum Trustee Francis Sampson, 86, said his community was once known as Plainfield.
“I’d guess it was because of the flat land we have around the river bottom,” he said. “How it came to be Waterford, I’m not sure, but I know before the locks and dams there was a water fording that connected Beverly and what is now Waterford.”
Local historian Dan Hinton, 56, of Palmer Township, said there was a fording, but the naming of Waterford was most likely similar to the naming of Beverly.
“There’s a Waterford, Mass.,” he said. “A lot of these early settlers named their new homes after their old ones.”
The yellow house in Yellow House
Yellow House
The historic yellow house at Yellow House is yellow again.
About three miles north of New Matamoras on Ohio 260, there’s little—not even a sign—to indicate the community of Yellow House once existed. But the 155-year-old house for which the community was named is still standing at the intersection with County Road 9.
“It was painted yellow in 1865 and the people we bought it from had put on white shingles. But the latest owners have painted it yellow again,” said June Mobberly, 85, of Devola.
Mobberly and her late husband, Chauncey, took up house in the home in 1947 and lived there until Chauncey’s death in 2009.
“We had it fixed up really nice, with a white picket fence in front. And it was always a local landmark,” Mobberly said.
New Matamoras clerk Patty Martin agreed.
“When people ask directions for that area, we tell them to turn right or left at the yellow house,” she said.
The yellow house, a smaller white residence next door and a large barn are the only structures left now, but in its heyday the community of
Yellow House included a general store, post office and cooper’s shop where barrels were made.
“A man named West lived in the house and ran the store,” Mobberly said.
According to an article in the June 17, 1875 Marietta Register, “The Yellow House is owned by Mr. George West, a jolly, fat, good-natured ‘king of the manor,’ and is situated on an elevation, overlooking all creation, and part of Monroe County ... Besides a fine mansion, Mr. West keeps a tip-top country store, grocery, tobacco packing house, cooper shop, blacksmith shop etc., and weighs 260. He ought to be active. We never felt our littleness—222 lbs.—so much as when in his presence.”
A 1975 story by Diana McMahan in The Parkersburg News said West was born in England and came to Matamoras in 1856. He and his family lived on a 210-acre farm and moved into the yellow house, opening a dry goods and general merchandise store in 1865.
“West’s home and business became the center of the community,” McMahan wrote. “A post office was established at Yellow House in 1881, according to (local historian) Jerry DeVol’s ‘Grandview Township and Its Post Offices.’ George West was the first postmaster and, appropriate enough, it was called West Post Office.”
In addition to the yellow house and other structures, Mobberly said an Indian mound is located on the property.
“But it’s hard to see because the trees have taken it over,” she said, adding that some locals had researched the structure and believed it to be a lookout mound.
Although there are no road signs marking the former location of the Yellow House community, the area is still listed on local maps.
Relief
Relief
Another tiny community with an odd name is Relief, located on Sparling Road (County 32) along the Muskingum River in the far northwest corner of Washington County.
Ken Finkel, president of the Washington County Historical Society, grew up in that area of Waterford Township.
“It was a stop on the Marietta-Zanesville Railroad that later became part of the B&O Railroad system,” Finkel said. “It was in an industrial area near the (Muskingum River) power plant.”
He said his father worked nearby at the Interlake Corp., now Globe Metallurgical, Inc.
“I was born and raised in that area,” Finkel said. “And according to information I found from Jerry DeVol, when a community post office opened there in 1889, people living in that area were relieved they didn’t have to row across the Muskingum to get their mail any longer. So the community was named Relief.”
There’s no longer a post office and the Relief community no longer exists as it did in 1889, but the Delong/Relief Cemetery is still there along Sparling Road. Twenty-one area residents were buried there between 1798 and 1857.
“The cemetery is located on Globe Metallurgical property and they have fenced it in and maintain it for us now,” said Waterford Township Trustee Matt Cavanaugh.
Rainbow
Finkel said the small community of Rainbow, off Muskingum River Road in Muskingum Township, was established in bottom lands along the river around 1795, and one of its most prominent residents was abolitionist Thomas Ridgeway.
Local historian Henry Burke said Rainbow was named for Rainbow Creek which begins in the Watertown area and makes a large, rainbow-like bend through the area, and several abolitionists lived there during the 1800s.
“Thomas Ridgeway was born in Nova Scotia and had worked in New Orleans before coming to this area,” he said. “In the 1820s he and his brother, John, bought a section of land in the Rainbow area. Ridgeway lived on property adjacent to the Rainbow Cemetery.”
Burke said Ridgeway was an important part of the local Underground Railroad and helped many slaves escape the south on their way to Canada.
“Ridgeway also had two or three sons who fought in the Civil War,” he said. “They’re all buried in Rainbow Cemetery. And there were other abolitionists from that area, too, including James Stowe and Joseph Stacy, who were anti-slavery.”
One of Burke’s ancestors, Harvey Martini, a freed slave from what’s now Roane County, W.Va., also lived in Rainbow, and was probably one of the first black men to live there.
“Several black families settled there after the war but I believe Martini was the first,” he said. “He established a successful blacksmith shop at Rainbow and ran a free ferry across the Muskingum. Burke said the ferry would transport workers across the river to truck farm fields near Devola. A ferry continued running there into the 1920s.”
Macksburg
The village now known as Macksburg, near the I-77 and Ohio 821 interchange in Aurelius Township, for example, has borne more than one name over the years.
“The first recorded name I’ve found was Rignor Mills in 1819, then in October 1856 the name was Portland,” said Dorothy Pack, a lifelong resident and former Macksburg mayor.
She said the community was later called Macksville, then Minksburg. By 1922 the village was finally known as Macksburg.
One source says the community grew up around a general store owned by a man named William Whiting McIntosh, and was once called “Mack’s Store,” which eventually evolved into Macksburg.
Whatever the name, the village has an interesting past.
“This was a big oil boom town with a lot of history,” Pack said. “At one time the community had three hardware stores, two churches, at least one livery stable and a train depot station with a huge machine shop. Macksburg once had its own local phone company, too.”
She said there were also reportedly 13 saloons and two houses of ill repute in the area during the boom days that began with Ohio’s first commercial oil well. It was drilled near Macksburg around 1860.
Crude oil was first discovered in 1814 at a salt works operated by Silas Thorla and Robert McKee, about 10 miles north of Macksburg, according to the Petroleum History Institute’s website, petroleumhistory.org.
While drilling for salt brine they also brought up oil and gas, which was skimmed off the top of the brine and initially sold as a medicinal rub for aches and pains.
By the mid-1800s their discovery led to the development of the Macksburg oil fields and the community’s prosperous boom years.
Dunbar and Qualey
The Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad played a large part in the growth and eventual decline of at least two Fairfield Township communities—Dunbar and Qualey.
Located along County Road 6 (Burnett Road) in the southern part of the township, Dunbar takes its name from the family of William Dunbar, one of the earliest settlers who came into the area from Virginia in 1814.
“Dunbar’s first dry goods and grocery store and railroad stop was operated by Shelton Dunbar, who partnered with David Dunbar,” said Julia Engle at the Washington County History and Genealogy Library.
She said David Dunbar became the community’s postmaster in 1890.
Qualey is located two or three miles south of Dunbar on County Road 6, named for a local landowner, Michael Qualey.
“Qualey was the location of a lot of freight business from what was originally the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad,” Engle said. “The Qualey Post Office was located across the road from the railroad at Hawk’s Hotel in 1891 and James A. Hawk was the first postmaster.”
Mike Brant, a Cutler-area resident and local railroad history buff, noted the railway’s importance to the growth of both Dunbar and Qualey.
“As the railroad developed, these communities developed, and when the railroad went out in the early 1900s, the communities also faded,” he said, adding that both Dunbar and Qualey were once thriving communities with dozens of homes, stores and even hotels and eateries.
Brant said Dunbar was originally called Little Hocking Station because all of the creeks in that area flowed into the Little Hocking River.
“In the mid-1800s the railroad through Dunbar and Qualey would have carried a lot of grindstones and other stones cut in area quarries,” he said, but noted there were also passenger trains that carried folks from the township into Marietta and back.
Standing like huge 87-foot-high sentinels along Walsh Road, less than a mile from where the community of Dunbar was once located, is a series of large stone piers, monumental reminders of the railroad trestle that once carried trainloads of freight and passengers across the valley floor.
“The superstructure of the bridge was originally wood, but in 1898 it was replaced by steel,” Brant said. “Irish and German immigrants built the arched stone abutments and piers.”
He noted that as the train approached the trestle an operator often had to keep a close eye on the fields and trees far below the structure to make sure no fires were caused by hot cinders emanating from the locomotive’s smokestack.
Another community that grew up around the railroad is Layman, located in the northeastern area of Fairfield Township on Ohio 550.
“It’s the oldest settlement in the township and was originally called Fishtown, after Daniel Fish,” Engle said. “But the Fishtown name later lost its significance and became known as Layman, named for Amos Layman, an 1848 graduate of Marietta College and delegate to the National Democratic Convention in 1856.”
She said the Layman post office was established in 1858.
According to an 1891 edition of the Marietta Daily Times, “The first and only grist mill in the township stood near the home of the late George W. Morris at Fishtown (Layman P. O.), and the mill was the common property of all the settlers around. To this mill the early settlers brought their grain and each one in turn ground his own meal.”
The article noted that ground “mush,” served with bear meat or venison, would have been a favorite dish of the first settlers in the Layman community.
Other communities
Signs marking places like Pinehurst, Unionville and Stanleyville may mean little to most folks, but continuing to identify the areas is an important tool for preserving the history of the area, according to some.
“These signs are a connection to the past,” said Dan Hinton, 56, a local historian from Palmer Township. “It marks the roots of an area and except for those signs, I think a lot of these places would cease to exist ... People would simply forget them.”
Washington County Engineer Bob Badger, who has 40 years experience maintaining area roads and road signs, said continuing to mark the areas is necessary.
“It does help people find places,” he said. “And even if they’re not fully incorporated, I think there is some historical value to maintaining these signs.”
For the past five years, Kerry Yeager, 54, has lived just inside an area known as Pinehurst, located on Ohio 550 just south of Marietta.
“I know it’s sad to say but I really don’t know why it’s called Pinehurst,” he said. “I know it’s a great landmark for when I’m having something delivered. I just tell them to look for the sign ... They find it every time.”
Ernie Thode, manager of Local History and Genealogy at the Washington County Public Library in Marietta, said Pinehurst was once known as Upper Mile Run and Lower Mile Run.
“It appears at some point a Christian church minister there decided they communities should have an identity all their own,” he said.
The exact date of the renaming was not listed in the archives, but it appeared it was before 1950, Thode said.
It’s far from the only sign in the area that makes note of a community that’s significantly shrunk or completely disappeared.
Also known as Pinchtown, Unionville was founded around 1833 and was a thriving community until most of the area was destroyed by the flood of 1913.
“One of the early settlers there described the area as having the appearance of being pinched between the hills and the Muskingum River,” said Louise Zimmer, local historian and author. “So a lot of folks came to know the area as Pinchtown but there are other stories about the name, too.”
One popular tale alleges police would hide behind a sign located in the center of the town at the intersection of Ohio 60 and Ohio 821, just north of Marietta, and “pinch” motorists who were speeding.
Over the years the community has dwindled to just a handful of homes. As recently as 30 years ago the area was home to a popular diner. The rundown building remains, but not much else, although a sign along Ohio 60 still reads “Unionville.”
Longtime Unionville resident June Rose, 80, said she’s heard tales of bootleggers who would sell their hooch from a nearby tunnel.
“You never know what to believe,” she said.
As for Unionville, the name was likely selected to recognize the area’s support during the Civil War, said Scott Britton, local historian.
Stanleyville, in Fearing Township, is another area still marked but no longer a busy community.
Zimmer, who grew up in Stanleyville, said the name was changed in 1878 to honor Thomas Stanley, who settled there in 1800.
“Stanley built the mill there, and back then that was extremely important to a community,” Zimmer said. “Stanleyville was a once-booming area with a school, church, general store and a post office ... Now it’s mostly farms and a few homes that are scattered about.”
The community is located between the communities of Caywood and Whipple, just north of Marietta.
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Counties
Washington County, Ohio, is among 30 counties across the U.S. that were named for George Washington, Revolutionary War general and the nation’s first president.
“That could be a problem and given this age of the Internet I’m surprised there’s not more confusion, but in all the time I’ve been here my office has maybe received a handful of emails that had to be redirected to another Washington County,” said county auditor Bill McFarland.
County recorder Tracey Wright said the name can also create confusion with similarly-named places within the state.
“People seem to have a lot of confusion between Washington County and the town of Washington Courthouse, Ohio,” she said. “We often receive mail that has to be sent back because it was for Washington Courthouse.”
Reading from “Ohio Lands, A Short History,” by former Ohio Auditor Thomas Ferguson, McFarland said at the time Washington County was formed, George Washington would have been serving as president of the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787-88.
According to online encyclopedia Ohio History Central, Washington County was the first of 88 counties to be created in what would eventually become the state of Ohio, and Washington County originally covered nearly half of the state as it exists today.
Washington’s name also graces a community across the Ohio River, Washington, W.Va., according to local history buff and Wood County Administrator Marty Seufer.
“I’m amazed at the number of people who don’t realize how often George Washington came through this area,” he said.
Wood County
Washington had just completed his term as the nation’s first president when Wood County, W.Va.— then part of Virgina— was created.
“The county was named for James Wood, governor of Virginia from 1796 to 1799,” Seufer said. “At that time Parkersburg (the county seat) was known as Newport.”
One curiosity about James Wood is that there seems to have been no portrait ever made of the governor.
“Nobody can find a picture of Wood,” Seufer said. “We’ve looked high and low, contacted museums, libraries and even the statehouse, but no one has a portrait of him.”
According to information from the National Governors Association, Wood was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1775, served as a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1776 and was elected to the Virginia Council in 1784 to succeed John Marshall.
Wood was then elected by the state legislature to serve as governor for three one-year terms. He was an active member of the Virginia Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and served as its vice president in 1797 and its president in 1801.
Noble County
To this day it’s still not clear who was Noble County, Ohio’s namesake.
“There are two thoughts about that,” said Joy Flood, manager of the Noble County Historic Jail Museum and Noble County Information Center.
“This area was already called Noble Township in 1819 and was a subdivision of Morgan County,” she said. “Noble County was formed in 1851.”
Flood said John Noble, Sr., had moved into the area in 1811 from Lancaster, Pa., and had a homestead along the west fork of Duck Creek.
Noble and his family moved into a log cabin there a year later.
“It’s clear that the township was named for him,” Flood said. “But whether Noble County was also named for John Noble is not known.”
She said Warren Noble was chairman of new counties in the Ohio General Assembly when the petition was submitted to form Noble County.
“He always felt the county was named for him,” Flood said. “And it appears the county officials may have allowed him to believe that in order to gain some support in the state legislature from Warren Noble.”
Athens and Morgan Counties
Athens County takes its name from Athens, Greece, according to John Cunningham, a volunteer with the Athens County Historical Society and Museum.
“Athens, Greece was a classical center of education and culture,” he said, noting that the land in Athens County, Ohio, was also originally dedicated for a center of education when the county was formed in 1805. Ohio University was established there in 1804.
Athens County’s neighbor, Morgan County, was named in honor of Daniel Morgan, a leader of the American Revolution.
Morgan served with the colonial forces during the French and Indian War and Revolutionary War. In 1780 he became brigadier general in the Continental Army. He also served in the 5th U.S. Congress from 1797 to 1799.
Monroe County
Monroe County, located along the Ohio River north of Washington County, was named in honor of James Monroe, the nation’s fifth president, and the last of the nation’s founding fathers to become president.
The Ohio legislature formed Monroe County on Jan. 29, 1813, from parts of Washington, Guernsey and Belmont counties.
Settlers had established the county’s first permanent community, now known as Fly, in 1791 and in 1804 a ferry began crossing the Ohio River from there to Sistersville, Va. (now West Virginia).
The county was originally settled by German and Swiss immigrants who later gave it the nickname, “Switzerland of Ohio” due to the county’s rugged, hilly terrain.
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Schools
Named after obvious geographic areas still in use today, the names of the Belpre, Marietta, Warren and Wolf Creek school districts don’t hold a lot of mystery.
But the namesake of the Fort Frye Local school district isn’t as well known, and might have been even more obscure had the moniker not been chosen back when the Lowell and Beverly school districts combined.
“The name Fort Frye would’ve almost been lost to history if it were not for the consolidated school district using that name starting in 1956,” said Waterford resident Phillip L. Crane, a retired history teacher and local historian. “If you’d have asked people here back in the 1950s, hardly anybody would’ve known about Fort Frye.”
Fort Frye was constructed along the Muskingum River, not far from where Fort Frye High School stands today, in 1791. According to research Crane has done, it appears Joseph Frye, one of the original 39 settlers of the Wolf Creek area, had advocated the construction of a fort for some time, but it wasn’t until the killing of 12 Ohio Company settlers at Big Bottom in Morgan County that his advice was heeded.
Frye designed the fort that would later bear his name. Unlike other fortifications in the area, this one only had three sides.
“They made it in the shape of a triangle because that was quickest,” said local historian Louise Zimmer, of Marietta.
Starting construction in the winter of January 1791 added other challenges.
“They said they built bonfires wherever they wanted the posts to be so it would thaw the ground and they could work 24/7,” Zimmer said.
It was estimated that as many as 200 local militia members occupied the fort, which did successfully repel an Indian attack at one point.
“It was never attacked again,” Crane said.
After the Treaty of Greenville in 1795 brought an end to the Indian Wars, Fort Frye was no longer needed.
“The story was that they tore it down and it was used to build other buildings in the area,” Crane said.
Historical records indicate the fort likely stood on land behind the high school where the baseball field sits on one side and the Beverly water treatment plant on the other. But Crane said there are still questions surrounding the precise location.
For example, one record indicates the fort was half a mile from the Waterford ferry, which was near where the Waterford Bridge is today.
“Trouble with that is there’s a tremendous bend in the river, so you don’t know if they meant go with the river or just go straight,” Crane said.
Crane is leading an effort by the Lower Muskingum Historical Society to determine the exact location. He asked that anyone with source materials that might help in this effort contact him at ptd2@frontier.com .
Frontier Local
Crane said Fort Frye was chosen for the new district instead of using the name of one of the districts consolidated over another. That was also likely a concern when the Frontier Local school district was formed in 1968, said Pat Peoples, a retired local educator who researched the formation of area school districts for a graduate dissertation.
She noted that there were hard feelings when multiple districts consolidated under the banner of Warren Local Schools, named for Warren Township.
“That was not very popular with all the other townships and all the other schools that consolidated to make that district,” Peoples said. “To this day, you can still find pockets of resentment about that.”
In the case of Frontier, “I think they were trying to give it its own name,” she said.
Newport Elementary Principal Greg Morus said he spoke with a longtime resident who told him the name “Frontier” was actually the choice of students in the schools being consolidated.
“The kids from Lawrence, Ludlow, New Matamoras and Newport all voted on the name of the district,” he said, adding that the new district’s mascot and colors were also determined by student vote.
It was not immediately clear why the name Frontier was among the choices, but Zimmer said it makes sense for the area.
“Since this is the frontier, we have ‘frontier’ everything,” she said. When people in the 18th century talked about going west, “they were talking about the Ohio Valley.”
Putnam Elementary
It’s not surprising that there’s a school bearing the Putnam name in the Marietta City school district, but it isn’t very clear which Putnam is the namesake.
Some might guess it was Col. Rufus Putnam, who led the first group of settlers in Marietta. Others would say Col. Israel Putnam, the son of Rufus’ cousin, Revolutionary War Maj. Gen. Israel Putnam (the elder Israel Putnam is credited with saying “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes” at the Battle of Bunker Hill).
But a plaque at the school and “Williams’ History of Washington County” indicate the namesake is Israel Putnam III, on whose land the first school in the Devola area was constructed. The school is also not far from the Putnam Cemetery, where many members of the Putnam family are buried, according to Scott Britton, executive director of The Castle.
A Marietta City Board of Education history written by Allen E. Rupp calls Putnam an exception to the common naming of Marietta schools after the areas, communities or streets where they were located. It notes both the Putnam and Devol families were prominent in the area.
“When the new community was formed, the name Devola won out in a vote over Putnam,” it says. “It is reported that newcomers favored Devola, although many old-timers voted for Putnam. So, the school remains Putnam in the suburb named Devola.”
Phillips Elementary
Marietta’s Phillips Elementary is located near Phillips Street, but it seems to have been named after the same person as the street, rather than the road itself.
Ernie Thode, manager of local history and genealogy at the Washington County Public Library in Marietta, said the school was established in 1953 and named for John Dean Phillips. According to excerpts from the April 25, 1926, edition of The Marietta Sunday Times, Phillips was a principal at the Greene Street School, superintendent of Marietta schools and head of Harmar schools starting in 1870. The article describes him as a man with “a kind disposition, unassuming manner and sterling integrity.”
Some suggested naming the new Greene Street School, built at Fourth and Greene streets, after Phillips in the 1890s. According to Rupp’s history, the lone female member of the board was asked to name it and she called it Willard, after Mrs. Frances T. Willard, founder of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
