Harmar is a historic neighborhood in the city of Marietta,

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

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. Located at the western side of the confluence of the Muskingum and

Rivers, it grew up around the early

Fort Harmar Fort Harmar was an early United States frontier military fort, built in pentagonal shape during 1785 at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers, on the west side of the mouth of the Muskingum River. It was built under the orders of Colone ...

in the 1780s, being settled in conjunction with Marietta. After a period of forming part of Marietta, it existed separately beginning in 1837 before rejoining the mother city in 1890. Connected by bridge to the rest of the city, it retains much of its nineteenth-century architecture and landscape, and most of the neighborhood is now a historic district on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

History

The first pioneers of Marietta landed in April 1788, beginning by building cabins and planting crops along the river. They generally lived on the eastern side of the Muskingum, across from Fort Harmar,Andrews, Martin R., ed. ''History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio and Representative Citizens''.

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: Biographical, 1902. but their farms were close enough to the fort that garrison troops routinely watched their farming activities, and their ventures across the river were not always peaceful, as pioneer Robert Warth was murdered by Indians just west of the fort on the flat land that later became occupied by the neighborhood. Until 1800, neither side of the river had an official legal status, but an act of the Northwest Territory legislature incorporated the settled areas of both sides as the town of Marietta, effective January 1, 1801. Decades later, disagreements with city leaders prompted Harmar residents to request separation from the rest of the city, and on January 5, 1837, the

General Assembly A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company. Specific examples of general assembly include: Churches * General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of presb ...

passed an act incorporating Point Harmar separately from Marietta,
Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Ohio: Being the First Session of the Thirty-fifth General Assembly
'.

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: State of Ohio, 1837. which itself was reincorporated by an act of March 13, 1837. Believing the bill's provisions to be in accord with the desires of the residents, a legislative committee found itself to have been deceived after residents resolved almost unanimously to reject many of the provisions, and five days after Marietta's incorporation bill passed, the first act was repealed and replaced by a new act drafted to reflect the resolution of Harmar's electorate. This status continued until 1890, when the two municipalities were re-merged. The same year marked the end of Harmar's own legal school district, separate from the districts of Marietta and Marietta Township, which had been formed in 1866. On January 9, 1970, the neighborhood was the site of fire at the Harmar House Center nursing home, which ultimately killed 32 of the 46 residents."17 Reportedly Killed In Rest Home Blaze— Marietta, Ohio, Facility Burns With 42 Inside", ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', January 10, 1970, p1

Landscape

Architecturally, Harmar is a good example of Ohio communities planned in the nineteenth century. Its grid plan begins at Fort Harmar and proceeds along both rivers away from their confluence, with the wide tree-lined streets being oriented north-south and east-west rather than paralleling the rivers.Owen, Lorrie K., ed. ''Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places''. Vol. 2.

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: Somerset, 1999, 1382. Houses in the neighborhood include examples of various nineteenth-century architectural styles; the

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Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but a ...

, and Gothic Revival styles are most significant, and the

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archit ...

and

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

styles are also common. Since 1880, Harmar has been connected by bridge to Putnam Street in Marietta proper; the first bridge was destroyed in the

Great Flood of 1913 The Great Flood of 1913 occurred between March 23 and March 26, after major rivers in the central and eastern United States flooded from runoff and several days of heavy rain. Related deaths and damage in the United States were widespread and ext ...

and a

swing bridge A swing bridge (or swing span bridge) is a movable bridge that has as its primary structural support a vertical locating pin and support ring, usually at or near to its center of gravity, about which the swing span (turning span) can then pi ...

constructed in its place,Hoehn, Howard R.
Putnam Street Bridge (Marietta Bridge)

Historic American Engineering Record Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) responsible for administering the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes ...

, 1997-12. although the bridge has since been replaced by a newer span that opened in September 2000.Biennial Transportation Improvement Program
Wood-Washington-Wirt Interstate Planning Commission, n.d, 9. Accessed 2016-01-04. State Route 7 formerly traversed the neighborhood, although the opening of the nearby Washington Street Bridge facilitated its rerouting away from the Putnam Street Bridge.

Historic district

In 1974, of Harmar was designated the Harmar Historic District and listed on the

. Forty-two buildings, plus the fort site and one

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, were included in the district as

contributing properties In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distri ...

. In 1993, the district was expanded by the addition of more than two hundred contributing properties over an area of approximately ; the original district protected areas closer to the fort, while the later designation expanded the district to the base of the bluff at the far edges of the neighborhood. Not all of the contributing properties are still in existence, as the destroyed Putnam Street Bridge was included in the district, but the replacement span was designed to be compatible with the architecture of Harmar to the west and the larger Marietta Historic District at its eastern end.

References

{{authority control 1801 establishments in the Northwest Territory 1837 establishments in Ohio Populated places established in 1837 1890 disestablishments in Ohio Former municipalities in Ohio Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Marietta, Ohio Muskingum River National Register of Historic Places in Washington County, Ohio Neighborhoods in Ohio Ohio populated places on the Ohio River