Breaking News

Local Columns

Before there was Marietta, there was Fort Harmar

The unique Marietta neighborhood of Harmar celebrates Harmar Days this weekend. The community has deep roots, deeper in fact than the city of Marietta. Before there was Harmar the community, there was Fort Harmar and before there was Fort Harmar there was Josiah Harmar for which the area, and the large hill next to it are named. Josiah Harmar was born in Philadelphia in 1753 and became a captain in the Continental Army in 1776. Promoted several times throughout the Revolutionary War, by 1784 he was the lieutenant colonel commandant of the first American Regiment and was the senior ...

LaRose must provide guidance

Ohio’s elections officials — at all levels — take pride in safeguarding our elections process. They know their responsibilities and handle the job well. It seems some advocacy groups believe they need a little help, and that’s a problem. According to a report by the Ohio Capital Journal, the Ohio Election Integrity Network has been approaching officials in multiple Ohio counties with lists of hundreds of voters THEY say should be deemed ineligible to vote and removed from the rolls. Voting rights advocates are asking Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose to do something about it ...

Your exercise program starts now

In less than a month, hundreds of runners and walkers will take to the streets of Parkersburg for the News and Sentinel Half Marathon and The News and Sentinel Two-Mile Race on Aug. 17. If you are a person that takes exercise seriously, you might want to give the half marathon a try. I will not sugar coat it and say that it is easy, it is after all 13.1 miles. It is doable if you are moderately fit. Runners and walkers come in all shapes and sizes. The idea is to have fun, and spending a morning with hundreds of like-minded people is sure to carry you up and over the hills of the ...

His path for a run at the White house started in Marietta

The upcoming presidential race is certain to be hotly contested as Joe Biden and Donald Trump duke it out to see who will lead the country for the next four years. A century ago, our area played a role twice by having men on the major party tickets twice in a span of eight years. Charles Gates Dawes, was from Marietta and was vice-president under Calvin Coolidge from 1925 until 1929. Less than a decade later Alf Landon would become the Republican nominee for president in 1936. Alf Landon moved here as a small child. His dad, John Landon worked for the Union Oil Company and ...

Saltonstall: “No it wasn’t me, it was the other guy”

Of all the historical tombstones in Mound Cemetery, none is stranger than that of Capt. Nathaniel Saltonstall. The Revolutionary War veteran’s marker does not hype what he accomplished during his career so much as it makes it clear what he did not do. The historical cemetery in the 300 block of Fifth Street is filled with patriots that had significant roles in the war before moving west in 1788 and later to form Marietta. At the start of the war, Nathaniel Saltonstall was in command of Fort Trumbull in New London, Conn. Saltonstall was then captain of privateer ships for ...

State roads developed from earlier paths

Washington County has a network of state roads spanning out from Marietta like spokes of a wheel. The history of many of them are rooted in how early residents of the area moved from one location to the next. The major roads of Washington County started off as paths that connected the early communities that sprung up in the county as it grew from the early settlement of Marietta. At first, they were merely paths on which people either walked or rode horses. As transportation methods changed, the paths were widened to accommodate wagons. The rivers of course provided the ...