Marietta is a city in Washington County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is located in southeastern Ohio at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers, 11 miles (18 km) northeast of Parkersburg, West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, Marietta has a population of 13,385 people. It is the principal city of the Marietta micropolitan area, which includes all of Washington County, and is the second largest city in the Parkersburg, Marietta, Vienna combined statistical area.
At a Glance
- County: Washington County
- County seat of Washington County
- State: Ohio
History of Marietta
Succeeding Indigenous cultures lived along the Ohio River and its tributaries for thousands of years. Among them were more than one culture who built earthwork mounds, monuments which generally expressed their cosmology, often with links to astronomical events.
Between 100 BC and AD 500, the Hopewell culture built the multi earthwork complex on the terrace east of the Muskingum River near its mouth with the Ohio. It is now known as the Marietta Earthworks. Developed over many years, it had a large enclosed square, within which were four platform mounds, used for ceremonial purposes and elite residential; another square, and a larger conical mound used for burials. A walled, graded path led to the river’s edge.
The government of Canada sent Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville in a military expedition to this area in the 18th century, and in 1749 the expedition buried six leaden plates to mark their claim to the Ohio Country. They later ceded their territory east of the Mississippi to the British after the French and Indian War. In 1798, one plate was discovered in Marietta and another was discovered near the Kanawha River. The Marietta Plate was replicated for what is known as the French monument which was erected in the 20th century. Before the importance of the plate was recognized, it had been partially destroyed to make musket balls.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Marietta, Ohio, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.