1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Martins Ferry

MARTINS FERRY, a city of Belmont county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Ohio River, nearly opposite Wheeling, West Virginia. Pop. (1890), 6250; (1900), 7760, including 1033 foreign-born and 252 negroes; (1910), 9133. It is served by the Pennsylvania (Cleveland & Pittsburg Division), the Baltimore & Ohio, and the Wheeling & Lake Erie (Wabash System) railways, and by several steamboat lines. The city is situated on two plateaus; the lower is occupied chiefly by factories, the upper by dwellings. Coal mining and manufacturing are the principal industries; among factory products are iron, steel, tin, stoves, machinery and glassware. The municipality owns and operates the waterworks and an electric-lighting plant. A settlement was attempted here in 1785, but was abandoned on account of trouble with the Indians. In 1795 a town was laid out by Absalom Martin and was called Jefferson, but this, too, was abandoned, on account of its not being made the county-seat. The town was laid out again in 1835 by Ebenezer Martin (son of Absalom Martin) and was called Martinsville; the present name was substituted a few years later. The Martins and other pioneers are buried in Walnut Grove Cemetery within the city limits. Martins Ferry was incorporated as a town in 1865 and chartered as a city in 1885.