Soon, however, there arose a subject for thought which overshadowed all others. What men of shrewd foresight had long expected had come to pass. The colonies were arrayed against the mother country in a battle for independence. We shall not here attempt to follow Generals Putnam, Parsons, Varnum and Tupper, Major Winthrop Sargent, Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, and the many other brave soldiers who became Ohio Company emigrants through the perils of those seven dark years of the Revolution. But is it not natural to suppose that some of them who had been interested in the old colonization project talked of it around their camp fires? Is it not possible that the review of the past suggested the possibility of forming in the future another military colony, in which they should realize the bright hopes that had once been blasted? It seems natural that, in the long lulls between the periods of fierce activity, this topic should have come up frequently in conversation, or at least that it should have appeared as a vague but alluring element in many pictures of the future painted by hopeful imaginations. It is very likely that General Putnam had indulged the hope of emigration “to some remote land rich in possibilities” for many years before he led the little New England colony to the Muskingum. He had very likely cherished the hope unceasingly from the time when the military company of adventurers was organized, and doubtless the journey to that far away, strange and beautiful Mississippi had served as a stimulus to quicken his desire for the realization of a project which would employ so much of his energy and enterprise, and afford so fine an opportunity for the achievement of a life success. We know that Washington, during the darkest days of the Revolution, directed the attention of his companions at arms to the west, as a land in which they might take refuge should they be worsted in the struggle, but happily it was not to be that contingency which should cause the movement of emigration toward the Ohio. If, during the war, the western country was the subject of an occasional estray, light thought, the time was to come when it should be uppermost in the minds of many of the soldiers and practically considered, not as a land in which they must seek to take refuge from a victorious foe, but as one in which they might retrieve the losses they had sustained in repelling the enemy. It must be borne in mind that the independence of the American colonies was dearly bought, as indeed has been all the great good attained in the history of the world. The very men by whose long continued, self-sacrificing devotion and bravery the struggle against the tyrannical mother country had been won, found themselves, at the close of the war, reduced to the most straitened circumstances, and the young nation ushered into being by their heroism was unable to alleviate their condition. These were the times which tried men’s souls. Nowhere was the strain any more severe than in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The joy which peace brought after seven years of war was in most localities too deep to be voiced by noisy demonstration, and it was not unmingled with forebodings of the future. “The rejoicings,” says a local historian,[[3]] “were mostly expressed in religious solemnities.” There were still difficult problems to be solved—and there was the memory of husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, and lovers who would not return with the victorious patriots, and it may in many cases have been difficult “to discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people.”
General Benjamin Tupper, in the early autumn of 1785, had gone to the Ohio country to engage in surveying under the ordinance passed by Congress May 20 of that year, but owing to the hostility of the Indians and consequent hazard of entering upon the work, he returned to New England. General Tupper was one of the men who had been most intently engaged in planning western settlements, and was undoubtedly a co-worker with his intimate old friend, General Putnam, advocating and agitating the scheme which had proved unsuccessful. He returned from the west filled with admiration of that portion of the country which he had seen, and made enthusiastic through the descriptions given by traders of the region farther down la belle riviere than he had journeyed. Doubtless he pondered upon the idea of removing to the west, during the whole time spent there, and was chiefly occupied with the subject while making the tedious return to his home. Early in January he visited, at his house in Rutland, Worcester County, Massachusetts, General Putnam, and there these two men, who may be properly called the founders of the Ohio Company, earnestly talked of their experiences and their hopes in front of the great fire, while the night hours fast passed away. In the language of one whom it is fair to suppose had preserved the truthful tradition of that meeting: “A night of friendly offices and conference between them gave, at the dawn, a development—how important in its results!—to the cherished hope and purpose of the visit of General Tupper.”[[4]] As the result of that long conversation by a New England fireside, appeared the first mention in the public prints of the Ohio Company. The two men had thought so deeply and carefully upon the absorbing theme of colonization, were so thoroughly impressed with the feasibility of their plans as they had unfolded them, so impatient to put them to that test, that they felt impelled to take an immediate and definite step. They could no longer rest inactive. They joined in a brief address, setting forth their views to ascertain the opinion of the people. It appeared in the newspapers on the twenty-fifth of January, and read as follows:
INFORMATION.
The subscribers take this method to inform all officers and soldiers who have served in the late war, and who are by a late ordinance of the honorable Congress to receive certain tracts of land in the Ohio country, and also all other good citizens who wish to become adventurers in that delightful region, that from personal inspection, together with other incontestible evidences, they are fully satisfied that the lands in that quarter are of a much better quality than any other known to the New England people; that the climate, seasons, products, etc., are in fact equal to the most flattering accounts that have ever been published of them; that being determined to become purchasers and to prosecute a settlement in that country, and desirous of forming a general association with those who entertain the same ideas, they beg leave to propose the following plan, viz.: That an association by the name of The Ohio Company be formed of all such as wish to become purchasers, etc., in that country, who reside in the commonwealth of Massachusetts only, or to extend to the inhabitants of other States as shall be agreed on.
That in order to bring such a company into existence the subscribers propose that all persons who wish to promote the scheme, should meet within their respective counties, (except in two instances hereinafter mentioned) at 10 o’clock A. M. on Wednesday, the fifteenth day of February next, and that each county or meeting there assembled choose a delegate or delegates to meet at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern in Boston, on Wednesday, the first day of March next, at 10 o’clock A. M., then and there to consider and determine upon a general plan of association for said company; which plan, covenant, or agreement, being published, any person (under condition therein to be provided) may, by subscribing his name, become a member of the company.
Then follow the places of meeting:
At Captain Webb’s, in Salem, Middlesex; at Bradish’s, in Cambridge, Hampshire; at Pomeroy’s, in North Hampton, Plymouth; at Bartlett’s, in Plymouth, Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket Counties; at Howland’s, in Barnstable, Bristol; at Crocker’s, in Taunton, York; at Woodbridge’s, in York, Worcester; at Patch’s, in Worcester, Cumberland and Lincoln; at Shothick’s, in Falmouth, Berkshire; at Dibble’s, in Lenox.
Rufus Putnam,
Benjamin Tupper.
Rutland, January 10, 1786.