Muskingum

The Muskingum River flows south through eastern Ohio to meet the Ohio River. Formed by the joining of the Tuscarawas and Walhonding, it passes through a country of wooded hills and river valleys. Indigenous towns stood along its branches, and the forks became a meeting place for diplomacy as British and Native powers contested control of the wider Ohio country.

In 1764 Colonel Henry Bouquet brought a British army of some 1,500 men to the forks, demanding the return of captives held by Indigenous communities. After American independence, settlers of the Ohio Company arrived at the river's mouth in 1788 and founded Marietta. Boats built there later carried goods down the Ohio and Mississippi, making the new settlement a gateway to the interior.