Trending
When Washington County implemented a 911 system years ago there was a need to rename most of the roads in the county that had up to that point, simply had a number associated with it. Many also had box numbers that gave first responders very little information other than where a person was on a postal delivery route.
The new system assigned everyone a street address. The address is your distance from the end of the road, broken down to a thousandth of a mile. If your address is 500 for instance, you are exactly a half mile from the end of the road.
The county did a lot of research in naming the roads. Many were named because of where they went. Waterford Road, for instance, goes to, you guessed it, Waterford. Others were named for what was or is on them. Turkeyhen Road for instance once had the one-room Turkeyhen School on it, the school in turn, was named for a nearby creek. The creek was named by a group of Virginia hunters who ventured across the river to hunt in the early 1800s searching for game. All they managed to find in the area was a single turkey hen. You can still find turkey hens in the area. The photo on page 2 today was shot about a mile from Turkeyhen Road, Turkeyhen School and Turkeyhen Creek.
Many of the roads were named for the families that live there. In many parts of Washington County families have lived for a long time. Sometimes for a very long time.
I live on Klinger Road. I married into the Klinger family three decades ago. My wife Lori grew up on the road, as did her father Robert, and his father John, and his father John and his father John. The first John was a bit of a newcomer, because he moved here from Germany. He moved here like so many others with his family to find a better life. They came here in the middle part of the 1800s.
They gathered like many, in an area that felt like home. At first, they built a home in what the family would later call, the lower place. They later moved the house up the hill to where you find Klinger Road today by taking the house apart and dragging it up the hill with horses to be reassembled. The stone step that was part of that house is now part of mine.
Washington Countians have a history of naming things for those who blazed the trail before. The county and Washington Street, which ran next to the Campus Martius blockhouse, was named for the first president, who had not only supported the exploration of the west, but also had helped survey it as early as 1753.
Greene, Putnam, Cutler, Scammel, Warren and most of the early named streets in Marietta were named to honor people that had helped our young country during the Revolutionary War. Many of the communities in Washington County are also named for those early leaders. Capt. Jonathan Devol, who was one of the first to arrive in Marietta in 1788 and later built a mill on the Muskingum, likely would have enjoyed living near the river in current day Devola. Whipple is named for Abraham Whipple, a commodore in the Continental Navy who once surveyed the land around the community.
Some communities, such as Beverly and Lowell were named to honor the New England towns from which the early European residents here came. Clifton Road near Little Hocking, Braun Road near Belpre, Hayes Road near Barlow, Hutchinson Road near New Matamoras are not only highways, but also tributes to different families and people that have made impacts on an area.
A ride through the back roads of Washington County today is in many ways a trip along the family tree of Washington County. The roads in many ways match the families that have lived there for generations. Building new homes on the same grounds that in some cases great-great-great-great grandparents did.
Art Smith is the online manager of The Times. He can be reached at asmith@mariettatimes.com.