Norwich, Ohio

Norwich, Ohio was platted in eighteen twenty-seven by settlers who named it for Norwich in England, hometown of one of the early arrivals. The founders timed the town deliberately: the National Road was coming through Muskingum County, and a well-placed village could capture the stagecoach trade. By eighteen thirty-three Norwich had four stores, two churches, and two taverns.

The village incorporated that same year. The village still has the Ralph Hardesty Stone House of eighteen thirty-six, a sandstone survivor of the National Road era. Norwich is also home to the National Road and Zane Grey Museum, which tells the story of the old highway and of Ohio-born Western novelist Zane Grey, who grew up in nearby Zanesville.