Editing Martins Ferry, Ohio (section)

==History==
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[[File:Martin's Ferry, Ohio 1899 LOC gm71005336.tif|thumb|left|Aerial view of Martins Ferry in 1899]]
Martins Ferry is the oldest European settlement in the state of [[Ohio]], having been settled at least as early as 1779, almost a decade before [[Marietta, Ohio|Marietta]]. The settlement got its start as a consequence of a land grant to [[George Mercer (military officer)|George Mercer]] of the [[Ohio Company]] in 1748 from the British Crown for 200,000 acres in the [[Ohio Country]], a colloquial term for what is now much of Ohio, and western West Virginia and Pennsylvania. The grant called for among other things, establishment of a fort. The grant was for land south of the Ohio River in West Virginia (then Virginia). Settlement was hampered by the outbreak of the French and Indian War. The settlement was named Zanesburg (renamed Wheeling in 1795). The Ohio Company was dissolved in 1779, and claims issued by the Crown became moot after the Revolutionary War. The community across the river was a westward extension of Zanesburg, but at that time, settlement on the west bank of the Ohio River was prohibited by the [[Treaty of Fort Stanwix]], 1768. Through the years, it has been known as Hoglinstown, Mercertown, Norristown (1785), Jefferson (1795), Martinsville (1835), and Martin's Ferry (1865).

Squatters from across the Ohio were the earliest settlers. The settlement formed in the shadow of Virginia's Fort Fincastle, later renamed Fort Henry on the Virginia side of the Ohio, built in 1774. The town was disbanded a couple of times before becoming established as Norristown in 1785.{{citation needed|date=January 2019}} In 1795, the town of Jefferson was platted by Absalom Martin, one of the city's earliest settlers, who operated a ferry there. In 1801, he abandoned his plat when [[St. Clairsville, Ohio|St. Clairsville]] was selected as the county seat of the newly organized county of [[Belmont County, Ohio|Belmont]], one of the founding territories of the [[Northwest Territory]].

In 1835, Ebenezer Martin, the son of Absalom Martin, redesigned the town, which he called '''Martinsville''', with a grid system of streets, much of which survives to this day. Martinsville remained an unincorporated settlement for a relatively long time. It was eventually incorporated as a village in 1865 and renamed Martin's Ferry for Ebenezer's father's ferry. It was chartered as a city in 1885, and sometime later the apostrophe was dropped from the city's name.

The city developed as an important industrial center during the late 19th century and early 20th century. It became an important rail hub and river port. Over the past 50 years, the town's population has decreased significantly as industries have closed or moved elsewhere. Today, the city's population is less than half of what it once was.<ref name="wwwcensusgov" />