Beverly

How Beverly began

Beverly was established by the Ohio Company in 1789 and named for Beverly, Massachusetts, the native home of a first settler. It stands on the Muskingum River at the site of Fort Frye, the triangular blockhouse the settlers built in early 1791 after the Big Bottom massacre to defend Beverly and Waterford, its sister settlement across the river, through the Northwest Indian War. A post office opened in 1838, and the village later became a stop on the Muskingum River's chain of locks and dams. It is home to the Fort Frye Local School District, and the 2020 census recorded 1,233 residents.

Settled 1789, platted about 1837-1841, when the Muskingum River improvements brought laborers (the 1881 county history gives no exact date), incorporated February 18, 1845 (act of the legislature; first village election March 7, 1845), by John Dodge (laid out the town lots); Ohio Company settlers (settled 1789).

Where the name comes from

Named for Beverly, Massachusetts, the home town of one of the settlement's first pioneers.

Before the town

Beverly's ground is the site of Fort Frye, the fortified blockhouse the Ohio Company's settlers built in January and February 1791 after a Lenape (Delaware) and Wyandot war party destroyed the new Ohio Company settlement at Big Bottom, upriver in what is now Morgan County. The fort, an unusual triangular design with a two-story blockhouse at each corner, sheltered both Beverly and Waterford across the Muskingum through the Northwest Indian War until the 1795 Treaty of Greenville ended the fighting. No earlier Native village, mound or trail site specific to Beverly was found in the sources checked. The 1881 county history records that Abel Sherman of the Olive Green colony was killed on August 14, 1794, near a small stream a mile above Beverly that still bears the name Dead Man's Run, and repeats a tradition that the warrior Silver Heels, who lived near a ripple on the Muskingum called Silver Heels' ripple, boasted of the killing at a salt furnace in Muskingum County some four years after the peace and was found shot a few days later.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot.

• Dead Man's Run (other) — stream a mile above Beverly where Abel Sherman was killed, August 14, 1794, 1794 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1789 — Ohio Company pioneers settle Beverly on the Muskingum River, a year after Marietta's founding.
2. 1791 — Settlers build the triangular Fort Frye at the site, in response to the Big Bottom massacre, to defend Beverly and Waterford through the Northwest Indian War.
3. 1795 — The Treaty of Greenville ends the Northwest Indian War.
4. 1837 — Colonel E. S. McIntosh opens the first large store in the brick building he built on Canal Street, during the Muskingum River improvement.
5. 1837-1841 — The Muskingum River improvement brings laborers and water power, and John Dodge lays out part of his land in town lots, which starts the village.
6. 1838 — A post office opens at Beverly.
7. 1842 — Beverly Academy, founded on a bequest by Benjamin Dana, opens on November 1 under the Pennsylvania synod of the Cumberland Presbyterian church.
8. 1845 — Beverly is incorporated by act of the legislature on February 18; the first election on March 7 chooses Samuel Anderson mayor, Thomas Hodge recorder and five councilmen.
9. 1852 — The packet Buckeye Belle explodes its boilers as it enters the guard lock at Beverly, killing twenty-one men and fatally wounding eight; the ladies' cabin is untouched. The Beverly Gazette, the township's first newspaper, begins that spring.
10. 1855 — Oliver Tucker begins the hardware business that becomes the village's leading store.
11. 1878 — The Union Fair Association is organized at Beverly on July 6 by citizens of Washington, Morgan and Noble counties, with Col. E. S. McIntosh as president.
12. 1879 — The first issue of the Beverly Dispatch appears in December.
13. 1880 — The village has 834 people.
14. 1980 — Beverly's population peaks at 1,471 residents.
15. 2020 — The census counts 1,233 residents, down from a peak of 1,471 in 1980; Fort Frye High School is in Beverly.

Stories

Two towns, one fort

Beverly and Waterford grew up as twin Ohio Company settlements on opposite banks of the Muskingum River, both established in 1789. In January and February 1791, following the massacre at Big Bottom upriver and the start of the Northwest Indian War, the settlers built Fort Frye at Beverly. The fort was triangular, which is uncommon in military defenses, but the settlers were in a hurry and a triangle saved them one line of curtains while the blockhouses at the angles defended the sides just as well. It stood near the mouth of Wolf Creek, within the present village of Beverly.

The Buckeye Belle

The Buckeye Belle was one of the fastest packets on the Muskingum. On the day of her boiler explosion in 1852 her cabin was full of passengers, and the run from Lowell to Beverly was made, in the words of the 1881 county history, with unusual rapidity. As she entered the guard lock at Beverly a loud explosion brought the citizens running to a scene of disaster and suffering. Twenty-one men were killed and eight fatally wounded. A strange fact, the history says, was the entire escape of the occupants of the ladies' cabin. The boat's safe was not found until years afterward. A second boiler accident, aboard the L. C. McCormick in February 1879, two miles below Beverly, damaged property only.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org

Groundwater wells (4 wells) The water here

• Beverly Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)

Nursing homes (1)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (4)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Superfund sites (1)

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-11-13

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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