Today the town of Marietta is a charming, historic place. The downtown is large, quaint, and thriving; near the riverfront stands a proud old hotel named after General Lafayette, who visited the tiny settlement in 1825, on his grand U.S. Tour.

Up where the ancient earthen walls once stood, wide brick streets are now lined with huge trees, beautiful houses in many nineteenth-century styles, and monumental churches.

The oldest houses in Marietta are in the New England style familiar to the town’s founders, featuring wide fronts, deep sides with chimneys, and sometimes dormers. Several of the oldest houses, like that of David Putnam, are on the “Fort Harmar” side of the Muskingum, reached today by a re-purposed railroad bridge.

Most spectacular of Marietta’s grand houses is “The Castle” – a large, turreted, Gothic Revival mansion, built in 1838 and now open to the public.

Marietta, Muskingum

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