The Martinsville and Henry County area was originally inhabited by Native Americans who traveled the “Great Warrior Path” and created seasonal villages within the valleys and along the creeks and rivers of the region. The path, which would later be termed the “Wilderness Road” and the “Great Carolina Road,” roughly followed the current route of Highway 220 and was used as a hunting and trading route by the Native Americans. Although historians do not know which tribe originally settled in this area, archaeological evidence suggest that later tribes were likely of the Siouan linguistic group, including the Saura, Tutelo, Saponi, and Occaneechi.

The initial European settlement of this area was in the early 1700s and consisted of a diverse group of settlers including Germans, Welsh, Scots-Irish, and English, as well as Africans and coincided primarily along the road. The first documented accounts of the area were by William Byrd, who surveyed the border between North Carolina and Virginia in 1728. Beginning in the 1740s, thousands of settlers traveled through Henry County on their way to the Moravian Wachovia Tract (currently Winston-Salem, North Carolina) from Pennsylvania.

In 1756, Fort Trial was built along the Smith River in order to provide protection for frontier settlers during the French and Indian War.  The fort would later be visited by George Washington in 1757 during his time as the State Militia Commander. In the following years, settlements in the area increased greatly, and the region soon became known for its tobacco production.

Henry County was officially established in 1776 after its population reached a size that warranted the development of a new judicial seat and the separation from Pittsylvania County. Previously named Patrick Henry County after Patrick Henry, who lived in the area from 1780 to 1784 and was then serving as the Governor of Virginia, the county was separated into the two counties of Patrick and Henry in 1790.

Originally known as Henry County Court House, the City of Martinsville was later named after American Revolutionary War General Joseph Martin, who built Scuffle Hill Estate on the Smith River within the city’s southern limits. The city was incorporated as a town in 1873 and reached city status in 1929. As the county seat, Martinsville quickly grew as the cultural and social hub of the county, especially for the African American community, which centered around Fayette Street.

Originally an agricultural community producing mainly tobacco, Henry County and Martinsville soon became one of the world’s foremost producers of furniture and textile items. The earliest manufacturing in Martinsville were tobacco factories including; The Penn & Watson and J.S. Townes Tobacco factories, the Spencer Brothers Plug & Twist Tobacco Factory, and the Wm. Semple & Co. Leaf Tobacco Factory in the 1800s. Due in part to these early factories, the construction of the Danville and Western Railroad; and the relocation of Freed Men following the Civil War, the fifty years from 1900 to 1950 led to rapid growth within Martinsville, from a population of 3,000 people to one of 17,000. This population boom supported the additional industries of furniture and textiles, which helped the community survive the great depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Shortly after World War I, DuPont built a chemical manufacturing plant in Martinsville. The subsequent booming chemical industry played a critical role in Martinsville declaring itself an independent city in 1929. Later DuPont would play another significant part in the development of Martinsville, by establishing a large manufacturing plant for nylon and jump-starting the growth of the textiles industry in the area. Once known as the “Sweatshirt Capital of the World,” Martinsville would later lose the majority of its textile industry due to the changing global economic conditions in the early 1990s.

Over the past twenty years, the community of Martinsville and Henry County has completely transformed its economy from a predominately furniture, textile, and agricultural economy to a more diversified economy that includes plastics manufacturers, food processing facilities, and high-tech metal productions. The County’s homegrown companies of Bassett Furniture, Stanley Furniture, Hooker Furniture, and American of Martinsville still remain today and have been joined by new technology businesses, including Arrington Manufacturing, Drake Extrusion, and Mehler Engineered Products.

Additional efforts to revitalize the Uptown district and preserve the history of the community have taken place with the development of the Martinsville Uptown Revitalization Association, The Fayette Area Historical Initiative, the Martinsville-Henry County Historical Society, and assistance from the National Trust of Historic Preservation and the Virginia Foundation of the Humanities.