Marietta Township, Washington County

How Marietta Township, Washington County began

Marietta Township occupies the southern part of Washington County along the Ohio River and takes its name, uniquely among Ohio townships, from the county seat it surrounds; most of the city of Marietta itself lies within the township's boundaries. The township was established by the court of quarter sessions in 1790, thirteen years before Ohio statehood, and remained legally coextensive with the town of Marietta (incorporated in 1800) until the two were separated in 1825. South of the city, the small river community now called Reno was originally settled as Jericho and renamed in 1887, when its post office opened, to honor U.S. Army officer Jesse L. Reno. The 2020 census recorded 4,265 residents in the township outside the city proper.

Incorporated 1790 (as a township of the court of quarter sessions, coextensive with the city of Marietta until 1825), by the court of quarter sessions.

Where the name comes from

Named for the city of Marietta, the Washington County seat, which occupies most of the township; it is the only Marietta Township in Ohio.

Before the town

No Native village, mound or treaty site specific to Marietta Township outside the city of Marietta itself was found in the sources checked. The Hopewell earthworks, Fort Harmar, and the Treaty of Fort Harmar all sit within this township's boundaries at the mouth of the Muskingum River.

Timeline

1. 1790 — The court of quarter sessions establishes the township of Marietta; the town and the township remain coextensive under the first act.
2. 1795-11-26 — The Ohio Company resolves to make good house lots in the new town that fell within section 29, the lot Congress had set aside for the support of religion, by granting the proprietors replacement land elsewhere in the purchase.
3. 1800-09-01 — A citizens' meeting names Rufus Putnam, Return Jonathan Meigs Sr., Paul Fearing, Benjamin Ives Gilman and William Rufus Putnam to petition the territorial legislature at Chillicothe to incorporate the township's inhabitants.
4. 1800-11-27 — The territorial act authorizes the leasing of school and ministerial lands, including the part of Marietta and Harmar built on lot 29, through a corporation of trustees headed by Griffin Greene.
5. 1800-12-02 — Governor St. Clair approves the act incorporating Marietta, the first town incorporated in the Northwest Territory; Athens follows four days later.
6. 1807 — A wet summer brings intermittent and remittent fevers to the Marietta bottoms, as along the Ohio for hundreds of miles; the county history counts many ill but comparatively few deaths.
7. 1822 — A drought-year epidemic of fever, ague and dysentery strikes; four hundred of twelve hundred people in a single square mile are sick, and at least 95 people die in Marietta Township between June and October.
8. 1822-08-21 — Hon. Paul Fearing, one of the five men who petitioned for the town's incorporation, dies at Harmar during the epidemic, his wife Cynthia within six hours of him.
9. 1822-09-21 — After public meetings on September 15 and 18, the citizens observe a day of fasting and prayer at the Congregational church; hard frosts in November finally end the epidemic.
10. 1825 — The town incorporation of Marietta and the township of Marietta, coextensive since 1790, are separated.
11. 1887 — A post office opens at the river settlement then known as Jericho, and it is renamed Reno in honor of U.S. Army officer Jesse L. Reno.

Stories

From Jericho to Reno

South of Marietta along the Ohio River, a small settlement grew up under the name Jericho. When it finally secured its own post office in 1887, the community took a new name instead, honoring Jesse L. Reno, a U.S. Army officer -- a common pattern for small Ohio River towns of the era, whose postal names often had more to do with national figures than local history. Reno remains a modest riverside community within Marietta Township today, part of the Marietta City School District and still following State Route 7 along the water.

The sickly summer of 1822

The summer of 1822 was dry and hot, with the Ohio and Muskingum reduced to 'mere brooks' and a foul scum on the water. Dr. Samuel P. Hildreth blamed the fever on the sandbars and beaches laid bare by the drought; others blamed the almost constant south wind. The fever ran from mild ague to what he called genuine yellow fever, and in a single square mile holding about twelve hundred people, four hundred were sick. Hildreth himself had six hundred cases between July and the end of November. A public meeting on September 15 named committees to visit the sick, and another on the eighteenth proposed a day of fasting and prayer, observed on September 21 at the Congregational church. Among the dead in August were Paul Fearing, who had helped draft the town's 1800 incorporation petition, and his wife, six hours apart. The epidemic stopped only with hard frosts in November, after at least 95 deaths in Marietta Township.

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

Seven active wells drawing from the sand-and-gravel aquifer along the Ohio/Muskingum River valleys near Marietta The water here

• Marietta City66% of residentsOhio/Muskingum River valley sand-and-gravel aquifer (own wells)
• Putnam Community Water Association17% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Reno Water and Sewer 111% of residentsOhio/Muskingum River valley sand-and-gravel aquifer (own wells)
• Highland Ridge W and S Association Inc3% of residentsMuskingum River valley aquifer (Oak Grove wellfield)
• Warren Comm W and S Assn 21% of residentsMuskingum River valley aquifer (Oak Grove wellfield)
• Reno Water and Sewer 21% of residentsOhio/Muskingum River valley sand-and-gravel aquifer (own wells)
• Reno Water and Sewer - Kardex1% of residentsOhio/Muskingum River valley sand-and-gravel aquifer (own wells)

Dialysis centers (1)

Fire and EMS stations (2)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Shale and injection wells (1)

Superfund sites (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

Money issues on the ballot since 2018: 3 of 3 passed.

Ballot issues

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, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-08-25

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