Martins Ferry is the most populous city in Belmont County, Ohio, United States. The population was 6,260 as of the 2020 census. Located along the Ohio River across from Wheeling, West Virginia, it is part of the Wheeling metropolitan area.
At a Glance
- County: Belmont County
- State: Ohio
History of Martins Ferry
Martins Ferry is the oldest European settlement in the state of Ohio, having been settled at least as early as 1779, almost a decade before Marietta. The settlement got its start as a consequence of a land grant to George Mercer of the Ohio Company in 1748 from the British Crown for 200,000 acres in the Ohio Country, a colloquial term for what is now much of Ohio, and western West Virginia and Pennsylvania. The grant called for among other things, establishment of a fort. The grant was for land south of the Ohio River in West Virginia (then Virginia). Settlement was hampered by the outbreak of the French and Indian War. The settlement was named Zanesburg (renamed Wheeling in 1795). The Ohio Company was dissolved in 1779, and claims issued by the Crown became moot after the Revolutionary War. The community across the river was a westward extension of Zanesburg, but at that time, settlement on the west bank of the Ohio River was prohibited by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, 1768. Through the years, it has been known as Hoglinstown, Mercertown, Norristown (1785), Jefferson (1795), Martinsville (1835), and Martin’s Ferry (1865).
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Martins Ferry, Ohio, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.