Marietta College is a private liberal arts college in Marietta, Ohio. Its campus encompasses approximately six city blocks next to downtown Marietta and enrolls 1,200 full-time students. Marietta College began as the Muskingum Academy in 1797, which was the birth of higher education in Ohio. In April 1797, which was only nine years after Ohio had bee…Marietta College is a private liberal arts college in Marietta, Ohio. Its campus encompasses approximately six city blocks next to downtown Marietta and enrolls 1,200 full-time students. Marietta College began as the Muskingum Academy in 1797, which was the birth of higher education in Ohio. In April 1797, which was only nine years after Ohio had been settled, a committee of Marietta citizens, led by General Rufus Putnam, met to establish a college. The Muskingum Academy, completed late that year, became the first institution of its kind in the Northwest Territory, providing “classical instruction... in the higher branches of an English education.” Its first instructor was David Putnam, a 1793 Yale graduate.