A Sunday in October - Marietta Ohio

It was a Sunday in October and we were on our road trip from eastern Tennessee to western Tennessee, across Kentucky from west to east, and then along the Ohio River to Marietta Ohio.  What to do on a Sunday?  Other than big box stores and chains, most smaller retailers tend to close on Sundays.  Some local attractions close as well.  A bit of research and I knew what our first stop after our 'yummy' breakfast at the Hampton would be.

Fortunately for me...and for Laurie...the Antique Mall of Marietta at 135 2nd Street was open for business!

This antique mall...made up of individual booths who lease the space...is huge and it was loaded with all kinds of antique, vintage and not-so-vintage items for us to browse through.  I'm pretty sure that we made a purchase or two...but I'm not sure what they might have been.  Learn more about this antique mall at https://www.facebook.com/AntiqueMallofMarietta/.

Our next stop was at the Ohio River Museum with the W.P. Snyder Jr. Towboat.  The museum is located at 601 Front Street in Marietta along the Muskingum River...a tributary of the nearby Ohio River.  We knew that it was closed but I wanted to see the old towboat and whatever else might be visible at the museum site. (The closed museum can be seen in the background of this photo as well as next 2 pictures)

Shown above is the Tell City pilothouse.  The steamboat Tell City was build in 1889.  She was named after Tell City Indiana and she carried passengers and freight on the Ohio River until she sank at Little Hocking Ohio in 1917.  The pilothouse was removed from the wreck and it served as a summer house on the front river lawn of a family in Little Hocking for many years.  Eventually, it was gifted to the Ohio Historical Society for inclusion among the historic displays at the Ohio River Museum here in Marietta.  It is the oldest surviving pilothouse from the era that Mark Twain wrote about.

I included this photo of the bicycle rack at the Ohio River Museum because I thought that the design was both creative and useful.

So why is the Ohio River Museum closed...and it apparently will be for some significant period of time.  The plan is that a new museum will be constructed on the site.  Partners in the project include several different historical groups based in Ohio.  From what I can determine, the museum has been closed since at least some time in 2022.  One article I ran across stated that the museum is scheduled to reopen in 2025.  That date is highly dubious... I didn't find any on-line updates for construction or a reopening, but perhaps I just didn't ask the right questions.

This is a restored "Shanty Boat" on display on dry land at the Ohio River Museum.  It may be the oldest and possibly the only surviving shanty boat along the Muskingum River.  Referred to as the Schoonover Shanty Boat, that family acquired the shanty boat from a family in Lowell Ohio back in 1968.  The Schoonover family used it as a cottage until it was donated to the Sons and Daughters of Pioneer Rivermen in 2010.  

It was believed that the boat was left high and dry during the 1936 Ohio River flood and that it had previously served as a fishing cottage.  Inside the refurbished shanty boat there is a small 'kitchen' area, a bit of storage, a bunk bed and other items from the 'shanty boat era'.  This shanty boat was built ca. 1920s.  These boats were small floating houses made out of salvaged materials.  They traveled the river system in the USA, allowing people to find new job opportunities by traveling from one river town to another.

This, in my opinion, is the "pièce de résistance" of the Ohio River Museum.  She is the W.P Snyder Jr., a historic towboat/pusher that is moored on the Muskingum River.  She is a National Historic Landmark and she is also the only intact, steam-driven sternwheel towboat remaining.  The towboat has a draft of only 5 feet 2 inches, she's 175 feet long and she's powered by twin compound steam engines developing 1,500 horsepower.

This towboat was originally built for the Carnegie Steel Company by Rees and Sons Company in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.  In 1945, she was sold to the Crucible Steel Company of Pittsburgh and she was renamed the W.P. Snyder Jr. in 1945.  She towed coal on the Monongahela River until she was laid up in 1953 at Crucible Pennsylvania.  In the summer of 1955 she was given to the Ohio River Museum.

As I looked down the Muskingum River toward its juncture with the Ohio River, I noticed that a more modern form of 'shantyboat' may still survive.  Certainly floating home exist around the USA.  The Portland Oregon floating home community consists of around 1,400 dwellings, making it the largest in the country.

This is the historic Mound Cemetery in Marietta Ohio.  This historic cemetery was developed around the base of a prehistoric 'Adena' or Hopewell burial mound which is know as the "Great Mound" or "Conus".  The city's founders preserved the Great Mound from destruction by establishing the city cemetery around it in 1801.  This cemetery has the highest number of burials of American Revolutionary War officers in the USA.

As we circled the cemetery we got a good look at the one of the two platform burial mounds in the Mound Cemetery.  I was a bit taken aback by the benches situated on top of the mound.  These 2 mounds are part of an Ohio Hopewell culture mound complex known as the Marietta Earthworks.  It's been estimated that the complex was built between 100 BC and 500 AD.  When the Earthworks were originally surveyed in 1838, the complex included a large square enclosure surrounding 4 flat-topped pyramidal mounds, another smaller square and a circular enclosure with a large burial mound at its center.

 

A prominent land speculator named Nahum Ward founded the Unitarian Society in Marietta back in the winter of 1855.  He served as Mayor of Marietta and he was quite the socialite.  He held a reception for the Marquis de Lafayette in 1925 and in 1843, John Quincy Adams was his guest of honor.  In January of 1855 he placed a notice in the Marietta Intelligencer asking 'all friends of liberal Christianity to assemble at the Court House for the purpose of establishing a Unitarian Society in the community.  

Construction of the Unitarian Universalist Church began later that year and in June of 1857, this church was consecrated.  Mr. Ward paid $25,000 for construction of the church and, when it was complete he sold it to the congregation for one dollar.  The Gothic design of the church was based on a chapel that Ward had admired on a visit to England.

This is the former Becker Lumber and Manufacturing Building at 121 Pike Street in Marietta.  Becker Lumber started business in 1888 and in 1901 they moved to this 4-story quasi-Dutch colonial brick behemoth.  Later the company became known as Croy-Marietta Hardwoods.  The structure is 64 feet wide and 112 feet long and its listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Today, this large structure has been repurposed into a modern apartment building providing homes for many.  It's called Marietta Mills Apartments and it still has the original drop ceilings from the roof top, original ceiling beams on the bottom floor...and all the exposed brick on the interior is original.  It houses about 50 residents in one and two bedroom apartments.

When we drove through the area where the Mound Cemetery was located, we noted a number of handsome old homes...and several of them had historical markers in front of them.  This particular home was built in 1852 for J.B. Shipman.  Then in 1877 it was purchased by Elizabeth and Marietta College Professor J.L. Mills.  Descendants of the Mills family lived in the home until 1961.  Although it doesn't seem to have endured for long, Professor Mills also established the Elizabeth College for Women in 1893.

That's all for now.  Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them...

Thanks for stopping by and spending some time sightseeing and shopping with us!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave