Marietta to Point Pleasant
Around the Great Bend

This historic village will take you by the Henry Fearing House Museum, Ohio River Museum, Campus Martius Museum, and the Children’s Toy and Doll Museum. Over 200 of its buildings are included on the National Register of Historic Places, and as a bonus, there is a hidden Easter Egg: a bronze Lewis and Clark sign (Hint: it’s near the Muskingum River).

Hopefully, your departure from Marietta will be better than Lewis’s:

“Set out this morning at 11 oClock was prevented seting out earlyer in consequence of two of my men geting drunk and absenting themselves. I f[i]nally found them and had them brought on board, so drunk that they were unable to help themselves”
—Meriwether Lewis (September 14, 1803)

The Blennerhassett Museum of Regional History is a great place to start your visit to Blennerhassett Mansion on the Island. The three-story museum provides a great background on the Blennerhassett Family and history of the Mid-Ohio Valley region. Sternwheeler boat ride tickets to Blennerhassett Island can also be purchased at the museum.

Of the Hocking River, Lewis seemed most concerned about getting the heavy barge through the shallows of the Ohio River:

“passed the mouths of the little and big Hockhockin and the settlement of Bellpray—a yanke settlement passed several bad riffles over which we were obliged to lift the boat . . . .”
—Meriwether Lewis

River navigation here is not as challenging as in 1803, and there are three campgrounds a short distance up the Hocking River.

The Great Bend Museum tells the histories of Jackson County and the Ohio River’s Great Bend region using objects, photographs, and archives. The museum is in the former Lock 22 powerhouse in Ravenswood’s Riverfront Park.

Also in Riverfront Park is the Sayre Cabin furnished in the manner of an 1800s century homestead. The Cabin depicts the everyday lives of the Sayre family and other early pioneer families of Jackson County.

Scenic Overlook has one shelter with a picnic table and a great view of Ohio. The New Haven Roadside Park is nearby.

“we set out before sunrise and at nine in the morning passed Letart’s falls . . . . this rappid is the most considerable in the whole course of the Ohio . . . . the descent at Letart’s falls is a little more than 4 four feet in two hundred fifty yards.”
—Meriwether Lewis, September 18, 1803

With this entry, a large gap in Lewis’s journal begins the next day and ends at Fort Massac near the mouth of the Ohio. Modern engineering has eliminated the challenging rapids at Letart.

The name “Tu-Endie-Wei” is a Wyandotte word meaning point between two waters.” Tu-Endie-Wei is a historical park that is open year-round. The park’s Mansion House and facilities are open May 1 through the first weekend of October.

Camp Point Pleasant at the mouth of the Kanawha River was established by Colonel Andrew Lewis (1720–1781) after his Battle of Point Pleasant victory in 1774. Part of Lord Dunmore’s war, the battle pitted roughly equal forces of Virginia militiamen against Shawnee and Mingo warriors led by Shawnee Chieftain Cornstalk. The site continued as a military establishment of various types for many years.