Grandview Township, Washington County

How Grandview Township, Washington County began

Grandview Township, the extreme northeast township of Washington County along the Ohio River, was struck off from Newport Township in 1803 and takes its name -- and that of its village, Grand View -- from the panoramic sweep of the Ohio River, the Virginia hills, and the Buckeye hills visible from a hilltop southwest of Matamoras, which so often drew the exclamation 'What a grand view!' from visitors that the phrase became the place's name. Settlement began by 1795 with Henry Jolly below Grand View village and about 1799 with James Riggs at the site of Matamoras; other early families included the Dickersons, who arrived by 1795-96 on land purchased from Virginia for eighty-five pounds. Farmers here grew wheat, corn, potatoes, and tobacco on the river bottoms and raised sheep and wool on the highlands, with cooperage and tanning as minor industries. The 2020 census recorded 1,396 residents.

Settled 1795-1799 (Henry Jolly, James Riggs, and the Dickerson family), incorporated struck off from Newport Township in 1803, by petition; first township officers elected the following April.

Where the name comes from

Visitors climbing the highest hill southwest of Matamoras and looking east saw the Ohio River traceable for twenty miles, the Virginia hills beyond, and the Buckeye hills on either side, with the villages of Matamoras and Grand View below -- a scene so often met with the exclamation 'What a grand view!' that the phrase naturally became the name of both the village and the township.

Before the town

No Native village, mound, trail or treaty site specific to Grandview Township was found in the sources checked. The 1881 county history notes that Kinsey Dickerson, an early hunter and settler, was frequently 'in active pursuit of thieving or hostile Indians that frequently visited the early settlements' in the 1790s, and that John Burris, another early settler, was chosen to carry dispatches from Cincinnati to Fort Duquesne during 'the Indian war' because of his physical endurance -- both incidental references rather than site-specific records.

Timeline

1. 1795 — Thomas Dickerson, a Revolutionary War veteran who had served in the 8th Pennsylvania, settles on the old Dickerson farm, the first land cleared in the township, in a log cabin built earlier by David Shepherd.
2. 1796 — Kinsey Dickerson's deed for David Shepherd's 170-acre fractional section 27, bought for eighty-five pounds Virginia currency, is recorded; Dickerson is remembered as a hunter who pursued 'thieving or hostile Indians.'
3. c. 1799 — James Riggs, a native of the Washington, D.C. area, makes the first settlement at the site of Matamoras, camping first on the West Virginia bank until his hewn-log cabin is finished; Henry Jolly settles half a mile below Grand View village.
4. c. 1800 — Prissa (Riggs) Sheets is the first person buried in the old burying-ground south of Matamoras, the first half-acre cleared in the locality.
5. 1803 — Grand View is struck off from Newport as its own township; the first election the following April chooses Samuel Williamson, Philip Witten and David Jackson trustees.
6. 1808 — Rufus Ellis floats down the Ohio on a lumber raft from New York and lands at Newell's Run.
7. 1829 — Isaac Rinard rebuilds the early 'Bucks Mill' on Mill Creek north of Matamoras, the only flour mill within twelve miles.
8. 1834 — Benjamin Pinney builds the first cabin in the Lease Run settlement, above White Oak spring; Thomas Flowers, John Hecathorn and others follow.
9. 1836 — Henry Sheets, who laid out the first lots at Matamoras, begins keeping store on its site; he opens the town's first store.
10. 1848-1849 — Hannibal Williamson annuls the early plat of Grand View village and lays out a new one with two rows of lots facing the Ohio.
11. 1849 — Matamoras reaches its full original dimensions with the second addition north of the first plat.
12. 1850-06-07 — The Presbyterian church of Grand View is organized by committee of the Presbytery of St. Clairsville; a church is dedicated October 2, 1852.
13. 1851 — Samuel Hutchison secures a post office at Matamoras and becomes its first postmaster; he is later elected to the legislature.
14. 1852 — The Methodist Episcopal congregation erects a church in Grand View village, with the dedication sermon by Pardon Cook; a two-room school is built at Matamoras about the same time.
15. 1854 — The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad begins a line along the river from Marietta to Bellaire through the township; bridges and grading are finished before the work is abandoned.
16. 1856-07-04 — A swivel gun fired for Independence Day on the hill behind Matamoras discharges early and takes both arms of Sylvester Martin; the evening before, Dr. Drake is killed by an exploding salute at the Grand View wharf.
17. 1861 — Matamoras is incorporated, with James McWilliams its first mayor; L. L. Harvey issues the Matamoras Herald on November 15, the only paper on the river between Marietta and Bellaire.
18. 1863 — Machetanz family buys the Matamoras tannery established by Samuel Hutchison in 1857; a new Grand View schoolhouse is also built.
19. 1864 — Hannibal Williamson builds the Grand View flour- and saw-mill north of the village.
20. 1867-10-16 — New Matamoras Lodge No. 374, Free and Accepted Masons, is chartered; its hall burns on August 17, 1874, and the lodge is rechartered.
21. 1872 — Matamoras Lodge No. 524, I.O.O.F., receives its charter; Greene Mountain Grange No. 1,040 is also organized about this year.
22. 1874 — A rail stop known as Ward's Station opens a post office in the township.
23. 1875 — The Machetanz brothers plant a two-acre vineyard behind Matamoras, taking the first crop in 1877.
24. 1880 — The census counts 2,664 residents in the township, including the incorporated town of Matamoras.

Stories

What a grand view

The township took its name from an unplanned moment of tourism. Climbing the highest hill immediately southwest of Matamoras and looking east, a visitor's eye is first drawn to the great sweep of the Ohio River, traceable for a full twenty miles, with the Virginia hills rolling away beyond into blue sky; on either side stand the Buckeye hills, their sandstone brows outlined among oak and evergreen pine. Below lie the town of Matamoras to the north and the village of Grand View to the south, their church spires and school bells mingling with the sounds of farms, teamsters, and river steamers. So many visitors responded to the scene with some version of the same exclamation -- 'What a grand view!' -- that the phrase became, by general and appropriate consent, the name of the locality and, in 1803, of the township itself.

The Fourth of July that went wrong

Matamoras and Grand View were preparing grand celebrations for the Fourth of July in 1856. Early that morning William Ellis, Isaac Cline, Amos Ridgway and Sylvester Martin took a small swivel gun to the hill behind the town to fire salutes. While Martin was loading, it went off prematurely and carried away both his arms; one of his thumbs struck Joseph Cline's arm above the elbow and stayed lodged in the muscle until a physician cut it out. Martin bore the amputation with humor, asking the doctors what they meant to make of him, since they could never fix him up for a fiddler, and he lived to leave the neighborhood and succeed in trade. The night before, at the Grand View wharf, a crowd had fired salutes from a fifty-six-pound weight drilled out and plugged with powder; when the fuse failed, a young physician, Dr. Drake, lit it with a cigar and the explosion killed him instantly.

Lloyd Biddle at Tyler

Lloyd Biddle, born in the township in 1844, enlisted in 1861 in Company C of the Seventy-seventh Ohio Infantry and served through the entire war, fighting at Pittsburg Landing, Little Rock and Marks' Mills. At Marks' Mills, Arkansas, he was captured with a large body of Union troops, and held for ten months at Tyler, Texas, in a prison where the captives were stripped of everything but shirt and drawers in an open stockade where the prisoners dug caves for shelter and lived on a pint of meal and three-quarters of a pound of beef a day. Some three hundred men escaped one by one hidden in loads of dirt hauled out by a prisoner with a mule cart, until guards began prodding the loads with bayonets just before Biddle's turn. A tunnel that took from June to October to dig was opened at the wrong time and found. Joseph M. Mitchell, a lieutenant who was captured in the same battle, shared the ten months at Tyler and later became a Matamoras merchant.

Petticoat Ford

Below Grand View village the Ohio River once had a shallow place known as Petticoat Ford. A man on the Virginia side had a large family of girls who often visited neighbours on the Ohio side, and to do so they had to wade the river, lifting their skirts so that the bright petticoats showed. Boatmen passing up and down the river noticed the colors and made jesting remarks, and the name stuck to the crossing.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Matamoras Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Public schools (2)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Elections for office

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

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