Cambridge, Ohio: Named for an Island

Cambridge, Ohio was platted in eighteen oh six by Zaccheus Beatty and Jacob Gomber along Zane's Trace, the road from Wheeling to Maysville. Its unusual county name comes from the settlers who arrived around the same time: fifteen to twenty families from the island of Guernsey, off the coast of Normandy. When the county formed in eighteen ten, residents gave it the name of the island their neighbors had crossed an ocean to leave.

Cambridge became county seat and grew steadily on river traffic and road trade. Then natural gas was discovered beneath the hills in the late nineteenth century, and Cambridge became one of Ohio's leading glass towns. The Cambridge Glass Company made hand-crafted crystal here from nineteen oh two until nineteen fifty-eight, and the region still celebrates a glass festival each fall.