Matamoras

How Matamoras began

Matamoras was first settled about 1797-99 by James Riggs, a Maryland-born Revolutionary War-era pioneer, on land along the Ohio River that passed to his son-in-law Martin Sheets; Martin's descendant Henry Sheets laid out the town's first lots and ran its early store from 1836 to 1852. The village was formally platted in 1846 by Stinson Burris and Henry Sheets and named for the Battle of Matamoros, fought that year in the Mexican-American War; it incorporated in 1861. A river shipping boomtown in the nineteenth century, with its own newspaper from 1861, a steam flour mill, and a tannery, its economy shifted to farming and oil in the twentieth. The 2020 census recorded 702 residents, down from a 1980 peak of 1,172.

Settled about 1797-1799 (James Riggs), platted 1846, incorporated 1861, by James Riggs (settlement); Henry Sheets laid out the first lots and ran the early store (1836-1852); Stinson Burris and Henry Sheets (formal 1846 platting).

Where the name comes from

Named for the Battle of Matamoros, fought in 1846 during the Mexican-American War; the post office was later renamed New Matamoras to avoid confusion with Metamora, Ohio, in Fulton County. The 1881 county history explains that the township itself, Grand View, was named for the panoramic view of the Ohio River and the Virginia hills visible from the hills southwest of Matamoras -- visitors' exclamations of 'What a grand view!' gave the locality and township their name.

Before the town

No village, mound, trail or treaty site specific to Matamoras was found in the sources checked. The settlement's founding, about 1797-99, came a few years after the 1795 Treaty of Greenville had cleared the way for the Ohio Company's outlying settlements to expand beyond their original stockades.

Timeline

1. about 1799 — James Riggs, born in what is now Washington, D.C., makes the first settlement in what is now Matamoras, building a hewn-log cabin on what is now First Street; he and his son-in-law Martin Sheets together enter two hundred acres of land along the river, with the land on which Matamoras was later founded passing to Sheets.
2. 1836-1852 — Henry Sheets, who laid out the first lots in the town of Matamoras and is credited in the 1881 county history as its originator, runs a mercantile business on the town site; he also erects a steam mill on the spot later occupied by Samuel Shannon's steam mill.
3. 1846 — Stinson Burris and Henry Sheets formally plat the village and name it for the Battle of Matamoros.
4. 1856-07-04 — A premature discharge while firing a Fourth of July salute on the hill above town tears off both arms of Sylvester Martin, who survives; the night before, at a similar salute at Grand View, a young physician, Dr. Drake, is killed instantly when an explosion tears off his head as he tries to light a stubborn fuse with a cigar.
5. 1861 — Matamoras incorporates as a village; the same year, on November 15, L. L. Harvey begins publishing the Matamoras Herald, the first newspaper in the township, advertised as the only paper on the Ohio River between Marietta and Bellaire.
6. 1878 — A Presbyterian church building, begun in 1877 for the congregation formerly at Grand View, is completed on First Street, an eighty-five-foot-spired frame building overlooking the river.
7. 1880 — W. T. Powell begins publishing the New Matamoras Herald on August 5, a twenty-four-column paper.
8. 1980 — The village's population peaks at 1,172 residents.

Stories

A river town named for a battle its founders never saw

Matamoras had already been settled for half a century by Revolutionary War veterans' families before it took the name it carries today. When Stinson Burris and Henry Sheets formally platted the village in 1846, the Mexican-American War's opening battle at Matamoros, across the border in Mexico, was fresh news, and the founders borrowed the name for their own Ohio River town -- a common practice of the era, hanging current events on new settlements regardless of any direct connection. The postal service later had to rename the local office New Matamoras to keep it from being confused with Metamora, a similarly spelled village up in Fulton County, though the village itself kept its original name. For much of the nineteenth century Matamoras thrived as a shipping boomtown on the river, before the twentieth century economy shifted the community toward farming and, eventually, oil.

Petticoat Ford

Below Grand View village, a shallow place in the Ohio once bore a name that says as much about riverboat humor as about hydrology. A man on the Virginia shore had a large family of daughters who often crossed to visit neighbors on the Ohio side, and to do it they had to wade the river, which meant exposing the era's colorful undergarments to view. Boatmen passing up and down the Ohio did not fail to notice, and their jesting remarks about the display gave the crossing its lasting name: Petticoat Ford.

Two salutes, two tragedies

The Fourth of July, 1856, brought a grim pair of accidents to the neighborhood in the space of two days. On the evening of July 3, a crowd gathered at the wharf at Grand View to fire salutes ahead of the next day's celebration, using a fifty-six-pound weight with a powder-filled hole drilled into it. When the fuse failed to catch, a young physician named Dr. Drake proposed lighting it with a cigar; the resulting explosion tore his head from his shoulders, killing him instantly. The next morning, at Matamoras, William Ellis, Isaac Cline, Amos Ridgway, and Sylvester Martin were firing salutes from a small swivel gun on the hill above town when a premature discharge tore off both of Martin's arms -- and blew one of his severed thumbs into the arm of Joseph Cline, where it lodged near his elbow until a physician could extract it. Martin endured the amputation with dark humor, asking his doctors what they intended to make of him and observing that they could never 'fix him up for a fiddler.' He recovered and went on to a long life in trade elsewhere.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Matamoras Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (1)

Public libraries (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2023: 0 of 1 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 0 of 1.

Ballot issues

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2026-03-19

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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