Muskingum Township, Washington County

How Muskingum Township, Washington County began

Muskingum Township sits in the central part of Washington County along the Muskingum River just north of Marietta, and takes its name from the river itself. The township holds the 1811 brick house of Colonel Joseph Barker, an early Ohio shipbuilder and judge, and the mill hamlet of Devol's Dam -- now the census-designated place of Devola -- founded when Captain Jonathan Devol built a dam and mill on the Muskingum in 1807. The county seat, Marietta, extends into the township's southern edge. The 2020 census recorded 4,424 residents.

Settled by 1795 (Joseph Barker's settlement on the Muskingum), incorporated 1861 (act of the Ohio legislature, from parts of Marietta, Union and Fearing townships), by Rainbow settlers from Marietta (April 29, 1795) and Wiseman's Bottom settlers.

Where the name comes from

Named for the Muskingum River, whose own name is of Native origin: one account traces it to a Shawnee word for 'swampy ground,' another to a Lenape (Delaware) term involving thorns, and a folk etymology -- documented by Moravian missionary David Zeisberger -- holds it meant 'Elk's Eye,' for the elk that once fed along its banks.

Before the town

No village, mound or treaty site specific to Muskingum Township is recorded. The township's own name preserves a piece of that history: it comes from the Muskingum River's Native name, and sources disagree on the exact origin -- a Shawnee root meaning 'swampy ground,' a Lenape (Delaware) word involving thorns, or the 'Elk's Eye' folk etymology recorded by the Moravian missionary David Zeisberger, who wrote that the river was so named 'because of the numbers of elk that formerly fed on its banks.' The 1881 county history adds only that before the settlers arrived the Indians, passing up and down the river, would turn aside to hunt, that the buffalo were gone by the time of settlement, and that the last beavers in the area were seen in the winter of 1795 near Judge Barker's place, in lodges about a mile below it and at the mouth of Rainbow Creek.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware).

Timeline

1. 1795 — Joseph Barker, a New Hampshire-born carpenter and militia veteran of the Northwest Indian War, settles along the Muskingum River at Wiseman's Bottom after fire destroys an earlier property.
2. 1795 — On April 29 a company of families from Marietta lands on the west bank of the Muskingum at Rainbow and starts the Rainbow settlement, with a block-house on the later Aurelius Stacy land; Israel Stone and his family are among the first.
3. 1796 — Captain Jonathan Devol moves up from Belpre and builds a floating mill on two boats, the settlers' first effective mill, which draws customers from fifty miles around; he builds a larger one in 1803.
4. 1801 — Devol builds a 400-ton walnut sloop, the Muskingum, for B. J. Gilman of Marietta, and builds two brigs in 1802; in 1802 Joseph Barker builds the brig Dominic for Blennerhassett and Woodbridge and the schooner Indiana.
5. 1806 — Colonel Joseph Barker is employed by Harman Blennerhassett to build fifteen large bateaux for Aaron Burr's expedition.
6. 1807 — Captain Jonathan Devol builds a mill and dam on the Muskingum River, founding the hamlet later known as Devol's Dam.
7. 1807 — The undershot wheel of Devol's large frame flouring mill is said to have been more than forty feet across, the largest mill wheel seen in the west; the Embargo Act of 1807 ends the Muskingum shipbuilding.
8. 1811 — Colonel Joseph Barker builds his brick house on the Muskingum; it survives with minimal later alteration.
9. 1820 — A new cemetery is laid out half a mile northeast of Devol's dam, to which most of the burials from the old Wiseman's Bottom graveyard on Israel Putnam's farm are moved.
10. 1830-1842 — Joseph Barker serves as a judge of the Washington County court of common pleas.
11. 1861 — The Ohio legislature erects Muskingum Township from parts of Marietta, Union and Fearing townships.
12. 1866 — Major L. J. P. Putnam builds a mill with three run of buhrs at Devol's dam, soon called the Union mills.
13. 1867 — The county Children's Home, the first in the state under the March 20, 1866 law, opens on a bluff above the Muskingum about a mile from Marietta on April 1 with thirty children, and gets a second brick building in January 1875.
14. 1874 — The Muskingum Farmers' Club is organized on January 1 for the agricultural and social interests of the community; it awards a silver medal for the best acre of corn.
15. 1881 — A post office named Devols Dam opens at the mill hamlet, operating until 1890.
16. 1978 — The Col. Joseph Barker House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
17. 2020 — The census counts 4,424 people in Muskingum Township.

Stories

The shipwright of Wiseman's Bottom

Joseph Barker came to Ohio from New Hampshire in 1789 and, after serving in the militia during the Northwest Indian War and losing an earlier property to fire, settled permanently on the Muskingum River at Wiseman's Bottom around 1795. He proved a man of many trades: a capable architect and shipbuilder who helped build vessels for Aaron Burr's ill-fated western expedition, a militia colonel, a justice of the peace as early as 1799, and later a judge of the county's court of common pleas from 1830 to 1842. In 1811 he built himself a brick house on the river, two stories with a fanlight over the front door, that stands today with barely any alteration -- one of the best-preserved early houses in Ohio and a rare physical link to the founding generation of Washington County. His daughter, Frances Dana Barker Gage, went on to become a well-known writer and abolitionist.

A dam that gave a hamlet its name, twice over

In 1807, Captain Jonathan Devol built a dam and gristmill on the Muskingum River in what became Muskingum Township, and the mill hamlet that grew up around it took the working name Devol's Dam. A post office of that name opened in 1881 and ran until 1890, serving the river community through the last decades of the nineteenth century. The hamlet's name later softened to Devola, and it survives today as a census-designated place occupying much of the township's center -- a quiet river suburb of Marietta that still carries, in slightly worn-down form, the name of the family whose dam once powered it.

Boats for Burr's expedition

Colonel Joseph Barker and Captain Jonathan Devol were two men of marked mechanical skill in Wiseman's Bottom, one a house-builder and the other a shipwright, and about 1800, when shipbuilding became an important industry at Marietta, they turned their skills to boats. In 1801 Devol built a four-hundred-ton sloop of black walnut named the Muskingum for B. J. Gilman, a Marietta merchant, and brigs followed in 1802. Barker's yard on the east bank built the brig Dominic, named for Harman Blennerhassett's eldest son, and the schooner Indiana in 1802. In the fall of 1806, he was employed by Blennerhassett to build fifteen large bateaux for the expedition of Aaron Burr to Mexico, whose fate the county history describes elsewhere. The passage of the embargo act in 1807 suspended all further ship building, and Devol put up his giant frame mill instead; its undershot wheel, said to have been over forty feet across, was the largest ever seen in the west.

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

Every historic place in Washington County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Marietta City63% of residentsOhio/Muskingum River valley sand-and-gravel aquifer (own wells)
• Putnam Community Water Association17% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Reno Water and Sewer 110% of residentsOhio/Muskingum River valley sand-and-gravel aquifer (own wells)
• Lowell Village5% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Highland Ridge W and S Association Inc2% 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)
• Tri-county Rural W and S District0% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Nursing homes (1)

Fire and EMS stations (2)

Private schools (1)

Bridges rated poor (2)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (3)

Spills reported since 2021 (5)

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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-06-23
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-07-16

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