“No colony in America was ever settled under such favorable auspices as that which has just commenced on the banks of the Muskingum. Information, property, and strength will be its characteristics. I know many of the settlers personally, and there never were men better calculated to promote the welfare of such a community.”
The founders of Marietta settled in the West to regain the fortunes they had lost in the Revolution. Some of them earned nothing from their professions during the eight years of the war. They received little or no pay for their military services, because Congress had no power to raise money by levying taxes. Finally, they were paid with certificates issued by the Continental Congress. Because these notes were worth only about twelve cents on the dollar the expression, “not worth a Continental,” became a by-word. In desperation the officers looked to the public land of the West with its fertility, timber, fur, and game as a place to find the necessities of life. They were not speculators; they were pioneers in search of homes for themselves and their children.
Several unsuccessful attempts had been made by the soldiers to secure land in the West before Congress finally granted them a place to settle. As early as September, 1776, Congress tried to encourage enlistment by offering bounties of land—five hundred acres to a colonel, 100 acres to a private, and other ranks in proportion. At the time this offer was made, the government owned no public land, nor did it until the winning of the Northwest by George Rogers Clark, the cession of land claims by the states, and Indian treaties had provided a public domain. In hope of securing grants in this presumed domain Colonel Timothy Pickering in 1783 formulated “Propositions for Settling a New State by Such Officers and Soldiers of the Federal Army as Shall Associate for that Purpose.” He suggested that Congress purchase lands from the Indians and give tracts to soldiers in fulfillment of the bounty promises of 1776. In the hands of Putnam this suggestion became the “Newburgh Petition,” which was forwarded to Congress with the signatures of about 288 officers in the Continental Line of the Army. With this petition Putnam sent a letter to Washington in which he asked support for the appeal of the signers and outlined their plan. His letter included such wise suggestions as the exchange of land for public securities, the adoption of the township system of survey, and the advantage of settlements of soldiers in the West as outposts against danger from the Indians or from the English in Canada. In a belated response to these demands Congress enacted on May 20, 1785, “An Ordinance for ascertaining the mode of disposing of lands in the Western Territory,” which applied to the lands won from England, ceded by the states and now purchased from the Indians. This ordinance made no provision for government in the West, and, although the “seven ranges” just west of the Pennsylvania border were surveyed and offered for sale according to its provisions, but little land was sold and this attempt at westward settlement was a comparative failure.
This further reflects the determination of the American people to have an acceptable and agreed-upon form of government upon which to build a new country.
RUFUS PUTNAM
Drawn by Herbert Krofft, Zanesville, Ohio
In these efforts of the officers to secure western lands, Putnam was the leader. Putnam had been well taught in the school of experience. After his father’s death, he had gone, at the age of nine, to live with his stepfather, who made him work hard and would not permit him to go to school. “For six years,” Putnam said, “I was made a ridecule of, and otherwise abused for my attention to books, and attempting to write and learn Arethmatic.” At the age of 16 he was bound as apprentice to a millwright. Three years later he decided to escape from the severity of his master and seek adventure by joining the English army in the French and Indian War. He returned home from his second enlistment in disgust, because he had been made to work in the mills when he wanted to fight the French and Indians. After working seven years as a millwright, he turned to farming and surveying. Soon after the outbreak of the Revolution he was appointed military engineer. Later in the war he constructed the fortifications at West Point and suggested that place for a military school. He retired from the army a brigadier general and returned to farming and surveying. Putnam was appointed by Congress surveyor on the seven ranges of townships provided for by the Land Ordinance of 1785; but he resigned to survey lands in Maine for his own state and recommended Brigadier General Benjamin Tupper for the position in Ohio.
Tupper was so closely associated with Putnam in western plans that the two men have been called twin brothers. It has been suggested that the two men deliberately investigated land available for purchase in two different regions to compare their advantages. Tupper was stopped at Pittsburgh by Indian trouble, but he heard favorable reports of the Ohio country, which made him enthusiastic for settlement. He hurried eastward and arrived at Rutland on January 9, 1786. Before the blazing fireplace in Putnam’s home the two men talked all night about their dream of settlement in the West. When the morning light gleamed through the windows of the kitchen, the ineffectual hopes of the army officers had been forged into a practical plan of action by the enthusiasm of Putnam and Tupper. On January 25, 1786, Massachusetts newspapers published an invitation to officers and others interested in western settlement to meet in their respective counties and appoint delegates to convene at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern in Boston to form an organization for the purpose.