Martins Ferry

City in Belmont County, in the far east of Ohio; population (1990) 8,000. Martins Ferry lies 31 km/19 mi south of Steubenville, on the Ohio River opposite Wheeling, West Virginia.

Martins Ferry was established in the 1780s, one of Ohio's oldest settlements. The city is situated in a coalmining district. Local manufactures include steel and steel products, furniture, and glass. Early settlers Betty and Ebenezer Zane are buried in the Walnut Grove Cemetery. Martins Ferry has a number of literary connections; it was the birthplace of novelist William Dean Howells in 1837, and features in the works of the author Zane Grey and of the poet James Wright, who was born here in 1927.