BUILDING A FLEET
Major Haffield White's party arrived at Sumrill's Ferry, after a long and tedious journey over the old Military Road, on the twenty-third day of January, in the year 1788, and immediately began building boats.
On the fourteenth of February, General Putnam's party, by which I mean those who set out from Hartford, joined those who were already at the ferry, and the two companies landed here on the bank of the Muskingum River the seventh day of April, in the year 1788.
All this is an old and familiar story; but it is well for me to remind you of it, so that you can the better understand how I, who had believed and hoped I was coming into a new country to do my full share in building up a town, found everything, as one might say, ready to hand.
Instead of cutting through the wilderness in order to build houses, we found the land so far cleared that we might get about the home making at once, and during the time the work was being carried on, the people lived in the fort, which General Putnam calls Campus Martius. It is situated near Fort Harmar, a fortification standing on the west bank of the Muskingum River near its mouth, and not far from this town of Marietta. It was built in 1785, and Colonel Josiah Harmar is now in command.
CAMPUS MARTIUS
What do I mean by Campus Martius, when I claim to be living in the town of Marietta? When General Putnam and his company arrived here, the first thing they did was to build a fort for the protection, not only of themselves, but of those who might come after; concerning this fort I will tell you later, but first you may be, and probably are, as curious as I was regarding the name.
I asked General Putnam, and he told me it was named after a certain lot of land in the city of Rome, which was used for popular assemblies and military exercises. However, the town itself is called Marietta, after Marie Antoinette of France, who was so brutally killed by her subjects during the Reign of Terror.