This week I continue to ride out Covid by working on our new website, and by exploring the many back issues of the Tallow Lights held in our Archives. In Volume 1, No. 4, from February 1967 I found a good article about the Bartlett area, especially concerning the Bartlett Academy.

The Marietta Register published the following article on August 6, 1874 from Bartlett. It was attributed to Dr. Alex H. Brill:

“There is a quiet village in the western part of Washington County, bearing the name of Plymouth. It is situated 6 miles north of Cutler Station (to which place the hack goes and returns each day), and twenty miles west of Marietta. The reason that I am so particular in locating he place is, because we have not seen a notice of the place for some time past, in public print.

Plymouth is situated in a very healthy locality, in fact, distressingly healthy for doctors.

We are not cursed with a saloon, or any place for public resort whereby the morals of the citizens may be impaired. In the fall of ‘73 and winter of ‘74, the citizens of this place and vicinity were fortunate in procuring the services of Mr. William J. Cook and Miss (Mary Elizabeth) Devol (now Mrs. Cook), as teachers in Bartlett Academy. Under their judicious management, the satisfactory manner in which the school was governed and their mode of teaching, the numbers increased to such extent that it was found necessary to enlarge the school building…The first term of the school year ‘74-’75 will be commenced on the first of September. Mr. and Mrs. Cook have not been idle during the vacation. They have been receiving instructions and taking notes for the benefit of those who may give them their patronage. In the past, they acquitted themselves well, As for the future of Bartlett Academy, under their administration we expect such a school that not only they, but that the people will also be proud to own and patronize.”

The article goes on to describe updates to the school building, the Bartlett Reunion, which was the school newspaper, courses offered, and eventually the closing of the Academy when the new High School opened.

The issue also includes articles on Belpre and its Post Offices and a continuation of listing for the Riverview Cemetery in Warren Township.

Do you know more about the Bartlett Academy and would like to share it with us? Are you interested in searching the Archives to learn more, maybe write a Tallow Light article? We would love to hear from you.

Meanwhile, in Newport Ohio:

“About the 4th Inst., A party of five or six men, mostly of the Virginia side of the river, went by night to the dwelling of Widow Samuel Smith, on Reynold’s Run, about three miles above Newport Village, drove out the inmates, threw out or destroyed the furniture, battered the dwelling, and ended with burning it. The usual occupants were Mrs. Smith, who was absent at the time, her daughter, a child of that daughter, and a man of the name of John Ofield, or Oldfield”. Marietta Register, 21 Feb, 1867.

I don’t know what went on that night, but it sounds like someone was plenty upset……

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Let's Talk about Plymouth.