In the settlement of the country north of the Ohio, one man, a veteran of the Revolution, was foremost. His name was Rufus Putnam, and he was a cousin of that Israel Putnam, some of whose exploits we will soon relate. He has been well called the "Father of Ohio," for he was the founder of the first permanent white settlement made within the borders of the state. He was born in 1738, at Sutton, Massachusetts, and his early life was a hard and rough one. Left an orphan while still a child, he was put to work as soon as he was big enough to be of any use, and received practically no education, although he managed to teach himself to read and write. He earned a few pennies by watering horses for travelers, and with this money purchased a spelling-book and arithmetic.
He served through the French war and the Revolution, rendering distinguished service and retiring with the rank of brigadier-general; and at its close, finding that Congress would be unable for a long time to pay many of the soldiers for their services, he became interested in the suggestion that payment be made in land along the Ohio river, and offered to lead a band of settlers to their new homes. In March, 1786, in Boston, he and some others formed the Ohio Company, and one of their directors, Manasseh Cutler, a preacher of more than usual ability, was selected to lay the company's plan before Congress. The result was the famous ordinance of 1787, providing for the establishment and government of the Northwest Territory, of which Arthur St. Clair was named governor. Cutler also secured a large land grant for the new company, and in the following year, Putnam started across the mountains with the first band of emigrants.
They reached the vicinity of Pittsburg after a weary journey, and there built a boat which they named the Mayflower, and in it floated down the river, until they reached the mouth of the Muskingum. On April 17, 1788, they began the erection of a blockhouse, which was to be the nucleus of the new settlement, and a place of defense in case of Indian attack. The settlement was named Marietta, in honor of Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France; it prospered from the first, and in a few years was a lively little village. There were Indian alarms at first, but General Wayne's victory secured a lasting peace. Putnam served as a brigadier-general in Wayne's campaign, and was one of the commissioners who negotiated the peace treaty.
He lived for many years thereafter, and remained to the last the leading man of the settlement. He was interested in every project for the betterment of the new Commonwealth, helped to found the Ohio University at Athens, was one of the drafters of the state constitution, and founded the first Bible school west of the mountains. A venerable figure, he died in 1824, having lived to see the valley which he had entered a wilderness settled by hundreds of thousands, and the state which he had helped to found become one of the greatest in the Union.
By the end of the eighteenth century, the country between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi was fairly well known, first through the explorations of such pioneers as Boone and Clark and Kenton, and, later on, through the steady advance of civilization, forever throwing new outposts westward. But beyond the great river stretched a mighty wilderness whose character and extent were only guessed at. The United States, of course, had little interest in it, since it belonged to France, and since, east of the river, there were millions of acres as yet unsettled; but when, in 1803, President Jefferson purchased it of Napoleon Bonaparte for the sum of fifteen million dollars, all that was changed. By that purchase, the area of the United States was more than doubled; but there were many people at the time who opposed the purchase on the ground that the country east of the river would never be thoroughly settled and that there would be no use whatever for the great territory west of it. So mistaken, sometimes, is human foresight!
The President determined that this great addition to the Nation should be explored without delay, and, securing from Congress the necessary powers, he appointed his private secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to head an expedition to the Pacific.
Lewis was at that time twenty-nine years of age. He seems to have been of an adventurous disposition for, despite the fact that he inherited a fortune, he enlisted in the army as a private as soon as he was of age. Five years later, he had risen to the rank of captain, and, attracting the attention of President Jefferson, he was appointed his secretary. He proved to be so capable and enterprising that the President selected him for this dangerous and arduous task of exploration. With him was associated Lieutenant William Clark, a brother of that hardy adventurer, George Rogers Clark.
William Clark, who was eighteen years younger than his famous brother, had joined him in Kentucky in 1784, at the age of fourteen, and soon became acquainted with the perils of Indian warfare. He was appointed ensign in the army four years later, and rose to the rank of adjutant, but was compelled to resign, from the service in 1796, on account of ill-health. He settled at the half-Spanish town of St. Louis, and in March, 1804, was appointed by President Jefferson a second lieutenant of artillery, with orders to join Captain Lewis in his journey to the Pacific. Clark was really the military director of the expedition, and his knowledge of Indian life and character had much to do with its success.
The party consisted of twenty-eight men, and in the spring of 1804, started up the Missouri, following it until late in October, when they camped for the winter near the present site of Bismarck, North. Dakota. They resumed the journey early in the spring, and in May, caught their first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains. Reaching the headwaters of the Columbia, at last, they floated down its current, and on the morning of November 7, 1806, after a journey of a year and a half, full of every sort of hardship and adventure, they saw ahead of them the blue expanse of the Pacific. They spent the winter on the coast, and reached St. Louis again in September, 1807, having traversed over nine thousand miles of unbroken wilderness where no white man had ever before set foot. It was largely because of this expedition that our government was able, forty years later, to claim and maintain a title to the state of Oregon.