Marietta

Big Bottom State Memorial

Monument · State Route 60, Macksburg, OH 45746

A state memorial approximately 20 miles upriver from Marietta at the site of the Big Bottom Massacre of January 2, 1791 — the deadliest Native attack on Ohio Company settlers. A party of Delaware and Wyandot warriors attacked a small settlement of Ohio Company settlers who had been unable to reach Campus Martius. Twelve settlers were killed and two taken captive. The massacre ended the Ohio Company's optimism about quick peaceful coexistence and forced a reevaluation of frontier defense strategy.

Campus Martius Museum

Museum · 601 Second St, Marietta, OH 45750

The Ohio History Connection museum at the site of the original Campus Martius fortification, the central stockade built by the Ohio Company settlers in 1788. The museum preserves the Rufus Putnam house — the only surviving structure from the original fortification — within its walls. Exhibits cover the Ohio Company, the Northwest Ordinance, the frontier conflict of 1790–1794, and the establishment of territorial government. The Campus Martius name — "Field of Mars" — reflected the military character of the founding group and the precariousness of their situation.

Ohio River Museum

Museum · 601 Front St, Marietta, OH 45750

The Ohio History Connection museum dedicated to the Ohio River and its role in American history. The river was everything to Marietta: the reason for the site's selection, the highway that brought settlers and supplies, the border between the United States and the disputed territory, and the boundary of the Northwest Ordinance's anti-slavery provisions. The museum includes the W.P. Snyder Jr., the last surviving steam-powered sternwheel towboat in the United States.

Mound Cemetery

Cemetery · 5th St, Marietta, OH 45750

An active cemetery containing one of the largest Adena burial mounds in Ohio — a conical earthwork approximately 30 feet high that the Ohio Company settlers deliberately preserved when they laid out Marietta in 1788. Mound Cemetery contains the graves of more signers of the original Ohio Land Company and more officers of the Continental Army than any other cemetery in the United States. Twenty-six members of the original Ohio Company are buried here. The deliberate preservation of the Native mound alongside the graves of the founding settlers was itself a statement about the new community.

Ohio and Muskingum River Confluence

Landmark · Confluence of Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, Marietta, OH 45750

The point where the Muskingum River empties into the Ohio River — the specific location chosen by Rufus Putnam and the Ohio Company as the site for their settlement. The confluence offered multiple advantages: two navigable rivers providing access to the interior, a defensible peninsula between the rivers, and visibility up and down the Ohio. The first American settlers landed near this point on April 7, 1788. Today the confluence is visible from the Harmar Village area and from the Ohio River waterfront.

Sacra Via (Sacred Way)

Trail · Marietta, OH 45750

A reconstructed segment of the ancient Hopewell ceremonial road that connected the Marietta earthworks — once one of the most elaborate ceremonial earthwork complexes in North America — to the Ohio River. The Ohio Company settlers recognized and named these earthworks, which they called Conus (the large burial mound), Quadranaou (a large square enclosure), and Capitolium (a smaller mound). The naming itself was significant: these Massachusetts veterans compared what they found to Rome. The Sacra Via segment that survives gives visitors a sense of the ancient landscape the settlers encountered.