Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

Martinsville, Ohio

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1907 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Clark Township. It lies in ZIP code area 45146. The Survey maps it on the Martinsville quadrangle. 416 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,086 feet above sea level.

Martinsville within Clinton County

Population over time

2 figures

Martinsville fell from 463 to 416 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

Year	People	Change
2010	463
2020	416	-47 (-10%)

Then and now

1907 to 1986

The same ground, surveyed 79 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Martinsville, surveyed 1986

Topographic sheet of Martinsville, surveyed 1907

Topographic sheets covering this place

11 sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

1907 USGS Blanchester quadrangle1:62500
1907 USGS Blanchester quadrangle1:62500
1907 USGS Blanchester quadrangle1:62500
1947 USGS Columbus quadrangle1:250000
1960 USGS Martinsville quadrangle1:24000
1961 USGS Columbus quadrangle1:250000
1962 USGS Columbus quadrangle1:250000
1967 USGS Columbus quadrangle1:250000
1967 USGS Columbus quadrangle1:250000
1986 USGS Hillsboro quadrangle1:100000
1986 USGS Hillsboro quadrangle1:100000

In the county-history sources

7,004 words on this township

The History of Clinton County, Ohio : Containing a History of the County; Its Townships, Cities, Towns ... General and Local Statistics; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; History of the Northwest Territory; History of Ohio .., published 1915 names this settlement in its chapter on Clark Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Clark township la bounded on the east by Greene township, of Clinton county ; on the southeast and south by Highland county; on the west by Brown county and Jefferson township, of Clinton county, and on the northwest and north by Washington township. It Is located In the southern part of the county and extends further south than any other portion of the county. It is very irregular In shape. A line drawn between the extrcmest points north nnd south would extend about nine miles and such a line across the center, east and west, would measure about six and a half miles. Its area Includes about twenty-three thousand Are hundred acres of land. This section was part of the Virginia military district and, prior to the organization of Clinton county in 1810. the eastern portion was Included In Illghland county and the western portion was embraced In Warren county, the line between the two being about one-half mile west of the present site of Martinsville. From 1810 to 1817, the portion east of this line was included In Crcen township, that west of the line. In Vernon. A petition, signed by many citizens of this section of the county, was presented to the codnty commissioners on July 14. 1S10, asking that a new township be organized with the boundaries as they are at present, except that it extended northward to Cowan's creek, thus including nil the eastern portion of Washington township. It was reduced to Its present confines by the establishment of Washington township in 1835.

Passage source: The History of Clinton County, Ohio : Containing a History of the County; Its Townships, Cities, Towns ... General and Local Statistics; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; History of the Northwest Territory; History of Ohio .., published 1915.

Tradition has It thnt Thomas Johns was the first to settle within the present bounds of Clark township. He is said to have located on the Bast fork, about three miles southenHt of the present site of Martinsville. Nothing about the place of bis birth or of the date of his settlement can be ascertained. However, it Is known that Isaac Miller settled about three miles east of Martinsville. The story is told that Mr. Miller, needing a hoe. Journeyed sixteen miles on foot through the forests to New Market In Highland county to make his purchase. Joseph McKibben also settled about the same time In the same neighborhood. In 1806. John Wright came from North Carolina, bought the present site of Martinsville, for two dollars an acre, and settled there. He was mainly Instrumental in the laylng-out of that village and erected the first bouse within Its limits. A daughter of bis was the first person to be Interred In the Friend's graveyard at Martinsville. By the year 1808, Samuel McCulloch had settled on East fork, four miles southeast of Martinsville, and Isaac Van Meter and John Jones near the present site of Lynchburg.

In 1810. John Beales. of North Carolina, Christopher Hlatt, of Virginia, and James Puckett and Daniel Puckett. both from North Carolina, settled In the neighborhood about Martinsville. Daniel Puckett was a minister in the Friends church and was one of the first to preach the gospel In the new settlement. He afterwards moved to Indiana. William West settled one-half a mile north of Martinsville In 1811. He is the ancestor of the great family of Wests, of Clark township. Joseph Mills. Sr., of North Carolina, settled to the northeast of Martinsville In 1814. In the same year. David Hockett. Sr.. settled In that neighborhood. He died In 1R42. at the ripe age of seventy-seven. Jonathan Hockett. a brother of David, settled one-half mile west of Martinsville in 1816.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Clark Township - it names this place 23 more 23 times.

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 410 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 410 specimens collected within 10 miles of Martinsville between 1892 and 1974: 338 Animalia, 50 Fungi, 22 Plantae. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. R. Gaufin, A.R. Gaufin, H.H. Ross, Allen, A. (Avery) and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Guepinia spathularia (Schwein.) Fr.	1923	Taylor, C.L.	Wilmington
Boletellus chrysenteroides (Snell) Snell	1935	Cooke, William Bridge	Cowan's Creek
Boletus bicolor Raddi	1935	Cooke, William Bridge	Cowan's Creek
Desmodium pauciflorum (Nutt.) DC.	1892	J. S. Vanderwort	New Antioch
Cicada sayi Smith & Grossbeck, 1907	1906	W. Templin	Blanchester
Ditrichum pallidum (Hedw.) Hampe	1913	Braun, E. Lucy
Claviceps purpurea (Fr.) Tul.	1919	Lewis H. L.	Wilmington
Cladonia coniocraea (Flörke) Spreng.	1923	Braun, E. Lucy	Klock's Crossing
Cladonia fimbriata (L.) Fr.	1923	Taylor, C.J.	Wilmington
Parmelia Acharius, 1803	1924	Taylor, L.	Wilmington
Peltigera praetextata (Flörke ex Sommerf.) Zopf	1924	Taylor, C.L.	Wilmington
Mustela frenata Lichtenstein, 1831	1927	Hazard, F. O.	Reesville, Clinton Co., Ohio, USA

All 410 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Storms near this place

15 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Martinsville in 15 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 7 thunderstorm wind, 6 hail, 2 tornado. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
June 2008	Tornado (EF0)	Martinsville	$15,000	A brief tornado touchdown occurred along Jonesboro Road just southwest of Martinsville. A barn and a shed sustained damage, along with a few trees and numerous large limbs. The estimated wind speed was 65 mph.
April 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Martinsville	$10,000	Several buildings sustained roof damage. A few trees were also downed.
April 2007	Hail	Martinsville	$10,000	no account filed
April 2002	Hail	Martinsville	$7,000	no account filed
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Martinsville	$5,000	A horse shelter was destroyed due to damaging thunderstorm winds.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Martinsville	$5,000	Several large tree limbs and portions of trees were downed. Three-quarter inch hail also occurred.
February 2002	Hail	Martinsville	$5,000	no account filed
May 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Martinsville	$2,000	A tree was reported down and damage occurred to a garage roof due to thunderstorm winds.
May 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Martinsville	$2,000	Two power poles were knocked down.
March 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Martinsville	$1,200	A power pole was downed.
July 2006	Tornado (F0)	Martinsville	-	A tornado briefly touched down.
July 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Martinsville	-	An observer reported a gust to 60 mph.
May 2014	Hail	Martinsville	-	no account filed
March 2011	Hail	Martinsville	-	no account filed
June 1998	Hail	Martinsville	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Clinton County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Jonesboro	1.6 miles	11
Morrisville	2.3 miles	11
Farmers	2.7 miles	11
Wallopsburg	3.6 miles	11
Cuba	3.6 miles	11
Klocks Crossing	4.8 miles	11
Midland	5.2 miles	14
Snow Hill	5.3 miles	11

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on Martinsville	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2672511	The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1043032. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.