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Making a Mark: History enthusiasts can find many signs of Belpre’s proud past

The Near Border War Ohio Historical Marker is one of many in Belpre. (Photo by Michele Newbanks)

BELPRE — Much has been said about Marietta’s historical past as the first settlement in the Northwest Territory, but just down the river in Belpre, there are markers from the city’s own history.

A monument for Farmers’ Castle is found in front of the Belpre Church of Christ on Washington Boulevard. It marks a site where, in the late 1700s, 13 block houses were built in two rows with a wide street between. It was built to protect 30 farming families from Indian attack.

Bill Reynolds, historian with Campus Martius Museum, said Farmers’ Castle was down near the Ohio River toward the middle of Blennerhassett Island, then called Backus’ Island.

He said he liked the name of the fortification.

“I like the name of the stockade. Farmers’ Castle. It truly was their defense,” Reynolds said. “What are castles for? They’re for defense. I don’t know who named it Farmers’ Castle. Maybe it was a nickname that caught on. It makes it sound very formidable.”

The Cedarville Cemetery is shown with its historical marker. (Photo by Michele Newbanks)

Another marker in Belpre, for Devol’s Floating Dam, is located in Civitan Park, but the actual mill was within eyesight of the stockade, he said.

About 220 people were housed at Farmers’ Castle, with 28 being heads of families, according to Cornelius Evarts Dickinson in his 1920 book “A History of Belpre, Washington County, Ohio.”

Other monuments and markers include:

* The First Universalist Society of Belpre — The marker notes the site of the oldest congregation of the Universalist Church of Ohio. It was founded May 25, 1823. The marker was dedicated to the everlasting honor of all whose lives and labors reveal God to man in 1948. It can be found in the 500 block of Middle Street.

* Bathsheba Rouse — Born on Sept. 28, 1769, in New Bedford, Mass., Bathsheba Rouse is recognized as the first woman to teach in the Northwest Territory. Rouse arrived in the region along with other pioneers in 1788. The following year, the Belpre community employed Rouse to teach young children in the Farmers’ Castle near the Ohio River. Instruction in reading, writing and sewing was reserved for the girls, while boys received lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic. Bathsheba Rouse Greene died on Feb. 27, 1843, at the age of 73 and is buried alongside her husband in Marietta’s Mound Cemetery.

Early Ohio Artists are honored with a historical marker. (Photo by Michele Newbanks)

The marker was erected in 1999 and can be found in Howes Grove Park.

* Belpre and the Ohio River — The inscription notes the history of Belpre and the Ohio River are inextricably linked. Settlers from New England, including farmers and Revolutionary War veterans, arrived via flatboats at “Belle-Prairie” (beautiful prairie) in 1789. Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery paid a visit in keelboats in 1803 as it began its epic journey to the Pacific.

Until around 1914, ferry boats in Belpre carried travelers across the river. By the mid-1900s, industry replaced agriculture in the area’s economy and Belpre became a center of polymer production. During this time, a system of river locks and dams placed Belpre in what became a 42-mile long Ohio River “lake” where towboats with barges of up to 1,200 feet long and loads of up to 300,000 tons sailed. Another 35 miles of navigable tributaries in the area drew those using the mighty Ohio River for fishing and water recreation.

The marker was erected in 2003 and can be found in Civitan Park, about 500 feet southeast of the bandstand.

* Cedarville Cemetery — According to the inscription, the Cedarville Cemetery contains graves of 14 Revolutionary War soldiers — some of the graves have washed over the Ohio River bank when the level rose and graves went underwater. The property is maintained by the Belpre Township trustees. Starting in the early 2000s, the Rotary Club of Belpre restored the property and re-marked the graves.

The Belpre Church of Christ is the site of a historic marker for where Farmer’s Castle once stood. (Photo by Michele Newbanks)

The marker can be found on Cemetery Drive, just east of West Street.

* Early Ohio Artists — the marker was erected in 2003 in honor of several artists who had their early start in the area.

Born in Massachusetts in 1805, Sala Bosworth spent all but 19 years of his 85 years in Washington County. After studying at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, he returned to the county to paint many full-size and miniature portraits of prominent Washington County citizens.

His historical drawings were used in Samuel P. Hildreth’s Pioneer History. He also is known for his mural in what is now the Unitarian Universalist Church in Marietta.

Charles Sullivan became a friend of Bosworth after coming to Washington County in 1833. While he also painted portraits, he excelled in landscapes, including views of Blennerhassett Island, the Blennerhassett mansion, and the mounds at Marietta. Sullivan died in Marietta in 1867.

Civitan Park is the site of one of Belpre’s Ohio Historical Markers. (Photo by Michele Newbanks)

Lily Martin Spencer came to Washington County with her parents at the age of 11 in 1833. Her artistic talent already was recognized and she decorated the walls of her new home with charcoal sketches. A student of Bosworth and Sullivan, she began to work with oils and had her first exhibition in the county in 1841.

Most of her paintings showed life from the woman’s domestic point of view, while aiming at moral improvement. She was one of the leading genre artists of the time. She died in New York in 1902.

The marker can be found about 50 feet southeast of the boat ramp at River Access Park, off Blennerhassett Avenue, just west of Civitan Park

* Putnam Family Library/Belpre Farmers’ Library — The inscription notes as a shareholder of the United Library Association in Pomfret, Conn., Gen. Israel Putnam amassed a large collection of books, which was called the Putnam Family Library. The collection was divided among his heirs after his death in 1790.

His son, Col. Israel Putnam, brought part of that collection with him to Washington County in 1795. Education was a foremost concern to settlers in the Ohio Country and was reinforced in Article 3 of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

The Belpre Library is one of the many Ohio Historical Marker sites around the city. (Photo by Michele Newbanks)

Accordingly, the Putnam family’s collection circulated among neighbors and provided the means of education for the people of Belpre and surrounding communities. By 1796, a group of subscribers, paying $10 a share, fully organized a public library. Later known as the Belpre Farmers’ Library, it was the first library established in the Northwest Territory. The library operated under the management of the shareholders until 1815.

The marker can be found in front of the Belpre Public Library on Washington Boulevard.

* Underground Railroad Crossings/Near Border War — Erected in 2008 in front of the Belpre Historical Society, 509 Ridge St., one side of the marker has an inscription of the Underground Railroad, while the other describes a near border war.

Underground Railroad crossings, agents, and conductors were common along the Ohio River between Washington County and Wood County. At Constitution, 6 miles upriver from Belpre, Judge Ephraim Cutler listened for hoot owl calls that signaled when a boatload of runaway slaves was crossing from Virginia to the Ohio shore. “Aunt Jenny,” a slave woman in Virginia, used a horn signal to alert abolitionist John Stone in Belpre when fugitive slaves were crossing.

At Little Hocking, 8 miles downriver from Belpre, slaves crossing from Virginia looked for a lantern signal to guide them to the Horace Curtis Station on the Ohio River shore. Runaway slaves also were assisted by Thomas Vickers at Twin Bridges, James Lawton at Barlow, and others as they traveled northward by various routes through Morgan County to Putnam in Muskingum County where the Underground Railroad merged with the Muskingum River Corridor.

The border war inscription notes an incident in July 1845 at Belpre nearly led to war between Ohio and Virginia when armed Virginia slave catchers intercepted six fugitive slaves getting out of a boat on the Ohio shore.

Ohio citizens Peter M. Garner, Crayton J. Lorraine, and Mordicai Thomas were arrested by the Virginians, jailed in Parkersburg and held without bail on charges of violating Virginia’s fugitive slave laws, laws not applicable in Ohio where slavery was illegal.

Jurisdictional issues regarding the states’ boundary lines were raised. The question was whether the prisoners had been apprehended in Ohio or Virginia. Tensions increased when the governor of Ohio threatened to use militia to enter Virginia and free the prisoners.

After six months, Virginia courts finally released the prisoners on their own recognizance with the question of jurisdiction never resolved.

* Devol’s Floating Mill — According to the inscription, in 1791 Capt. Jonathan Devol, upon a proposal from Griffin Greene, designed and built a floating grain mill, which was erected on two boats and anchored within several yards of the Ohio River shore near this marker. Oak planks fastened the boats together and formed a deck, upon which sat a frame building that enclosed the mill’s running gears and millstones.

The mill’s position in a rapid portion of the river and its proximity to Farmers’ Castle, a fortification of 13 blockhouses, built by local farmers at the beginning of the Indian Wars, shielded it from Indian raids.

The river’s current revolved the wheel of the mill, and depending on the strength of the current, between 25 and 50 bushels of grain were processed in 24 hours. Devol’s floating mill replaced the hand mill, which had become too laborious to operate. The mill supplied meal to settlers along the Ohio River for a distance of nearly 30 miles.

The marker was erected in 2002 and can be found in Civitan Park, about 150 feet southwest of the bandstand gazebo.

Michele Newbanks can be reached at mnewbanks@mariettatimes.com.

The Ohio River has a historic marker in Civitan Park. (Photo by Michele Newbanks)

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