Business Stands

Marietta Intelligencer, December 22, 1852

Probably most of the merchants on Front, Greene, and Ohio streets are of opinion that "the point," is always to be the principal goods-selling part of the town. They know that now and then a new grocery is started "above the run," but have no idea that any Dry Goods houses will ever be established off from the three or four squares now mainly occupied by stores.

It may be so: but we think that in ten years from this time there will not be as many Retail Dry Goods stores on the point as there now are. We believe that the best locations for fine and fashionable sale stores will be in the Second Ward.

The manufacturing business will much of it be at "the point." The business necessarily connected with the river and the railroad will be in the lower ward. The warehouses will be there, and the heavy grocery and hardware stores - wholesale and retail. But fancy and domestic dry goods business will not be done where the manufacturing and wholesale grocery business is, where drays are constantly moving, and where there is so much "noise and confusion" as we hope there will be at the point in the course of two or three years.

Not all the world, not even all of this Marietta world, lives "down town." A large majority of the population of the place is even now in the second ward; and the custom from the Muskingum and from Duck Creek must all come through there.

The general idea is that, as time past, all business must center at the point; but let a good store-room (and a really good sales-room is a rare thing in Marietta) be built on a good site in the Second Ward, and a good assortment of fancy and domestic goods to be opened there, & - "we shall see what we shall see."

 

New Record Hung Up at Post Office

The Marietta Daily Times, Tuesday, December 23, 1924

Fifty Thousand Letters and Cards Cancelled on Monday.

Receive Nearly 2,000 Parcels.

Fourteen Truck Loads of Packages Delivered in City.

Fifty thousand letters and cards were sent through the cancelling machine at the post office on Monday, which was in all respects the largest single day the Marietta office has ever had. This new record for the number of letters and cards stamped makes the previous high record of 38,100 hung up during the Christmas rush of 1923, seem like the usual Monday rush.

Thirty-nine employees at the Marietta office and eight rural carriers working out of this office were pushed to the limit on Monday.

Parcel post packages to the number 18,025 were delivered. In addition, 150 C.O.D. packages were delivered and the money collected. It took 14 large truckloads to get out the parcels on Monday afternoon and the boys and men handling this mail were kept on the jump.

Postmen starting on their regular routes from the office had all the appearance of so many Santa Clauses except they were minus grey whiskers and red and white uniforms. Their pouches were loaded to the guards and they were backed up and forced to make several trips.

The large work room is the scene of intense activity. The parcel post packages were piled half way to the ceiling during the morning, letters and cards were packed here and there in masses and the clerks were working swiftly to again see light.

During the morning the letters and cards were coming through the slots so fast that it was necessary to keep two men at the counter in order to sort them. The stamp cancelling machine was kept running at capacity for a time, but because it takes longer to sort and place them to cancel, the machine was never going at its best.

Post office officials stated that it is impossible to tell yet just what the receipts for Monday were, but it is evident that they were larger than they had ever been before.

Tuesday started out like another record breaker. The indications are that this will be another big day and may surpass Monday.

While everything was being handled in an orderly and systematic manner, a good way to cause a riot on Tuesday morning would have been to stick your head in a door leading to the large work room and yell a "Merry Christmas."

Property Transferred

The Marietta Daily Times, February 3, 1912

Marietta Township gets part of old Muskingum

Formal transfer of an irregular strip of territory, formerly in Muskingum Township, to Marietta Township, was made in the office of County Auditor Burton this morning, and hereafter the property will be taxed as a part of Marietta Township.

The boundary line was changed when it was found some time ago that Muskingum Township had never been legally constituted, and steps were taken to remedy this condition. The property affected is on the edge of Marietta city and consists of 43 parcels of land. The people living there will now vote at Mile Run and Fultonburg instead of in Muskingum as they have done heretofore.

 

The Stockade - Campus Martius

 The Marietta Leader, August 30, 1890

To the Marietta Leader:

The size and location of the "Stockade" built by the Ohio Company at Marietta and called by them "Campus Martius" is thus defined by Dudley S. Nye, Esq., in presenting the Woman's Centennial Association with a section of one of the picketts which were placed around the fort for its greater protection during the Indian War.

Mr. Nye writes, "The 'Butt' or piece of wood now in possession of your Society presented by me for preservation through you, is the butt or lower end of one of the picketts in the outer wall, or protection around the 'Stockade' or 'Campus Martius', (so called by the Ohio Company), situated between Second and Front, and Washington and St. Clair streets in Marietta, Ohio.

The 'Stockade' or Fort was about 200 feet square. Outside of Corner Block Houses (and settlers houses between), there was around all a row of 'picketts,' made of trunks of trees set in the ground, close together, upright, and about 12 to 14 feet high and from 12 to 15 feet from the buildings.

When Washington Street was being widened and graded, or the wagon way widened by digging down the hill, 1843-44, I saw distinctly in the face of the cut the line of the picketts, the butts of which had been left in the ground (when cut down at the close of the Indian War) all so decayed that they would not hold together, except this butt which I took from the earth nearly opposite the Ohio Company's Land Office (on the opposite side of the street, owned and occupied by my father, Arius Nye, as a Law Office) and near the middle of the Southeast front of the Stockade. The butt has been in my possession ever since."

Mr. Nye lived from childhood to manhood in the General Rufus Putnam house, corner of Second and Washington streets, owned by his father. He is perfectly familiar with all the ancient landmarks of Campus Martius, now nearly all obliterated, and is probably the only person in Marietta who can define them from personal observation.

A.