Washington County, Ohio - Chapter 7: From New England to Ohio, 1881

Preparations for Planting a Colony at the Mouth of the Muskingum. - Activity of Leaders in the Ohio Company. - Personal Pursuasion. - Dissemination of Information Concerning the West. - A Pamphlet on the Ohio Country Published by Dr. Cutler in 1787. - Prediction that in Fifty Years the Northwestern Territory would Contain More People than all New Ingland. - Prophecy that Western Rivers would be Navigated by Steamboats, Made Twenty Years before Fulton's Success on the Hudson. - Causes which Operated to Prevent Immigration. - Opposition Brought into Existence, and Taking the Form of Ridicule. - 't Putnam's Paradise'' and: ''Cutler's Indian Heaven." - Quotations from Cotemporaneous Correspondence of Hazard and Belknap. - Cutler and Sargent as Enthusiasts. - Various Inquiries in Regard to the West. - Anxiety Regarding the Attitude of the Indians. - Letter from Washington to Lafayette. - Preparations of the Ohio Company as an Organization. - Plan Agreed upon for a City at the Confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio. - Scheme for the Division of the Lands. - Surveyors Employed. - Boat Builders and Mechanics. - General Rufus Putnam Appointed Superintendent of the Colony. - Meeting of the Company at Providence, Rhode Island. - Measures Taken for Securing Education and Religious Instruction in the New Settlement. - Boat Builders and Mechanics Leave Danvers,, Massachusetts, December, 1787, for the Youghiogeny. - The Second Party Rendezvous at Hartford, Connecticut, January 1, 1788. - Putnam Detained by Business at New York.- - -He Overtakes the Party. - Crossing the Alleghanies in Winter. - Slow Progress and Privations of the Pioneers. - Arrival at the ''Yoh." - Boats Built, and Provisions Bought. - The '' Mayflower. '" - The Company Leaves Sumrill's Ferry April rst. - Extracts from the Journal of Joseph Buell. - Stopping by the Way. - Beauty of the Ohio. - Advancement of Vegetation. - Arrival at the Muskingum. - An Apochryphal Account of the Origin of the Term ''Buckeye State.'" - Names of the Forty-seven Pioneers.

THE year 1787 was one full of doing and rich in result. The constitution of the United States was adopted, the Ordinance of Freedom enacted, and the Ohio company's purchase negotiated - the first of a series of transactions by which a revenue was obtained from the public domains to lessen the National debt and restore prosperity.

The year was a busy one with the leading men of the Ohio company. Both before and after the passage of the ordinance and the negotiation of the purchase, they were actively engaged in securing subscriptions and in finding men to go out to the Ohio country. General Putnam, General Tupper, General Parsons, Winthrop Sargent, and Dr. Cutler were using all of their influence to promote the affairs of the company, and to induce emigration. The latter was a difficult work. Personal persuasion was resorted to, and the public prints were used to disseminate knowledge concerning the west and the scheme for its settlement. Dr. Cutler published at Salem a pamphlet (though anonymously), which had a large circulation. It gave the fullest information attainable in regard to the lands beyond the Ohio, especially the Muskingum region, and contained some prophecies which were probably regarded as the wildest kind of improbabilities born of an imaginative brain, and yet nearly all that was said in the sanguine prophecies of Dr. Cutler, came to pass. He asserted that in fifty years the Northwestern Territory would contain more people than all New England, and that many people then living would see the western rivers navigated by steam. We find the following passage, copied from the original pamphlet:

The current down the Ohio and Mississippi, for heavy articles that suit the Florida and West India markets, such as Indian corn, flour, beef, lumber, etc., will be more loaded than any streams on earth. The distance from the Muskingum to the Mississippi is one thousand miles, from thence to the sea is nine hundred miles. The whole course is run in eighteen days, and the passage up these rivers is not so difficult as has been represented. It is found by late experiments that sails are used to great advantage against the current of the Ohio; and it is worthy of observation, that in all probability, steamboats will be found to do infinite service in all our river navigation.

This was written twenty years before Fulton's successful application of steam to navigation. But Miller, in Scotland, the same year that Dr. Cutler wrote, had demonstrated the practicability of the employment of steam for propelling boats. Dr. Cutler was a scientific man, in every way abreast of the age in which he lived - in many ways ahead of it. He doubtless knew of Miller's encouraging experiments, and his prediction regarding steamboats on the western rivers may have been principally based upon the achievement of that genius toiling on the other side of the Atlantic. But the people generally in that time, more than now, regarded the success of almost all novel and wonderful undertakings as impossible. 'There were doubtless many good New Englanders who regarded as an impracticable visionary the man who predicted steam navigation on the Ohio, and he was doubtless derided for this prophecy (if the authorship of the pamphlet was discovered) as he was for his zeal in advocating immigration.

After the purchase had been made preparations for removal to the Muskingum were carried on more actively than before, and as the time for an actual emigration approached, adverse criticism became more outspoken than it had been before.

There were various incentives to combat the movement that was steadily gaining ground. Families were divided as to opinions upon western settlement, and arguments arose between friends upon personal grounds as well as differences between factions. It must often have been the case that a father opposed his sons in their desire to seek their fortune in a new land, that wives opposed their husbandss, and sweethearts their lovers. People who could not or would not emigrate, themselves very naturally disliked the idea of haying their relatives and friends venture into the far west to find permanent homes. Opposition often took the form of ridicule. The enthusiasm with which the chief characters of the Ohio company labored to develop their plans, and the roseate-hued accounts that were given of the country to which a colony was to be sent, provoked some merriment and some sneering. The Ohio valley was dubbed "Putnam's Paradise" and "Cutler's Indian Heaven," and these and other names came into quite common use even among the men who were friendly to the movement these phrases were intended to ridicule. From the prominence in negotiating the purchase and his subsequent devotion to the Ohio company's interest, Dr. Cutler's name seemed to have been oftener mentioned in connection with the colonization movement than any other. Ebenezer Hazard,* writing to the

*Hon. Ebenezer Hazard was at this time Postmaster General and Treasurer of Congress. The Rev. Jeremy Belknap was in 1787 pastor of a church in Boston. Both were quite eminent historians. 'Their correspondence has been published.

Rev. Jeremy Belknap in 1787, says: 'Cutler and Sargent are enthusiasts in the cause; and really, some degree of enthusiasm is necessary in all great undertakings." As the time drew nigh when the Ohio company was to send out the pioneers the people became more and more familiar with the subject of emigration, which was then a new one in Massachusetts and her sister states, and people began to make intelligent inquiries in regard to the country toward which the movement was directed, and the prospects of peace or war with the Indians. In a letter from Belknap to Hazard the writer after speaking of the lawlessness and vindictiveness of the Kentuckians, propounds the queries:

Whether the neighborhood of such a set of rascals will not be injurious to the Muskingum? Will the Indians make a distinction if the New England people should behave themselves differently towards them? Have they a good title from the Indians to the land? Or, if they have from some, will not others put in a claim?

Similar questions to these were doubtless asked by hundreds. Mr. Hazard writes that he "should not be fond of going there (to Muskingum) before the settlers had enjoyed one year's profouind peace." There were many who were of this way of thinking. But notwithstanding danger, there were a few who had decided to be of the first company of adventurers, many more who had determined to go later, after a beginning had been effected, and it appears that in September, 1787, at least two families were on their journey to the Ohio company's purchase, though they must have fallen by the way as they did not reach their destination. On the twentyninth of the month Mr. Hazard wrote to Mr. Belknap:

Two families from Cutler's parish, Sawyer and Porter, by name, passed through here yesterday on their way to this Indian Heaven, with two or three wagons, built in the western styles. Some people pitied them as sheep going to the slaughter; others wished themselves in company, so different are the opinions of men, and I might add, women on the subject.

I have thoughts of hiring a farm and retiring into the woods, where I may at least enjoy liberty, and that not without some hopes of independence, and Cutler's Indian Heaven (where I own a seat) has been more than half seriously in contemplation.

What Washington thought of the emigration scheme of some of his old officers and brother patriots is shown by a letter he wrote February 7, 1787, to Lafayette:

A spirit of emigration to the western country is very predominant. Congress has sold in the year past a pretty large quantity of lands on the Ohio for public securities, and thereby diminished the public debt considerably. Many of your military acquaintances, such as Generals Parsons, Varnum and Putnam, Colonels Tupper, Sproat and Sherman,

While individual efforts were being made to induce emigration, and with the result of producing a very general interest in the 'subject, the Ohio company as an organization was engaged in measures of practical preparation for the great work that lay before its members. On the thirtieth of August, 1787 (the day after Dr. Cutler had made his verbal report of the action of Congress in granting him the refusal of the lands), the company roughly mapped out upon paper the city near the conflu- ence of the Muskingum and Ohio, which was to be Marietta. Five thousand seven hundred and sixty acres were to be reserved for the city and common. It was resolved that "within the said tract and in the most eligible situation there be appropriated sixty squares, in an oblong form of ten squares in front and six deep, with streets one hundred feet in width; that four of the said squares be reserved for public use, and the remaining fifty-six divided into house lots, each to contain twelve of sixty feet front and one hundred feet depth, and six of fiftythree feet front by one hundred and fifty feet depth, amounting in the total to one thousand and eight lots." This plan was to be followed as nearly as the situation of the ground would permit. (It was afterwards changed considerably.) It was also decided that the lots should be drawn for, and that each one should become a part of each proprietary share. It was further resolved that one hundred houses should be built, thirty-six by sixteen feet in dimensions, on three sides of one of the oblong squares, and that for their protection they should be connected or surrounded by a stockade. (Here is the first suggestion of Campus Martius.) At this meeting General James M. Varnum was elected a director, and Richard Platt, of New York, treasurer. The meeting was continued to the first of September, and on November 21st (the contract having been closed October 27th), another meeting was held, at Cromwell's Head tavern, Boston, for the consideration of various important details in the arrangements. At this meeting the plan of the proposed city was altered by the insertion of a provision that the lots should be ninety feet front by one hundred and eighty in depth, and that the centre street should be one hundred and fifty feet in width. The following resolutions were adopted, a part of which never came into effect, because the lands to which they would have applied never came into the possession of the company:

Resolved. - That the lands of the Ohio company may be allotted and divided in the following manner, anything to the contrary in former resolutions notwithstanding, viz: Four thousand acres near the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers for a city and commonsand contiguous to this, one thousand lots of eight acres each, amounting to eight thousand acres.

Upon the Ohio in fractional townships, one thousand lots of one hundred and sixteen and forty-three one hundredths acres, amounting to one hundred and sixteen thousand four hundred and eighty acres.

In the townships on the navigable rivers, one thousand lots of three hundred and and twenty acres each, amounting to three hundred and twenty thousand acres.

And in the inland towns one thousand lots of nine hundred and ninety-two acres each, amounting to nine hundred and ninety-two thousand acres, to be divided and allotted as the agents shall hereafter direct. a ;

Resolved, further, That there be the following reservations, viz: One township at the falls of the Great Hockhocking river; one township at the mouth of the Great and Little river of that name, and one township opposite the mouth of the Great Kanawha river; which reservations may be allotted and decided as the directois and agents shall see fit.

Resolved. That the army bounty rights beconsidered in part payment of the shares of military associates in the ratio of one dollar to every acre to which they are entitled; and that this rule be observed by the agents of the subscribers in rendering their returns, and by the agents appointed by the directors for the several payments to the board of treasury.

esolved. That no further subscriptions be admitted after the first day of January next, and that all interest, arisigg on sums paid since the payment of the first half-million to the board of treasury, until the second payment be completed, shall accrue to the benefit of the com- pany's funds; and that the agents pay all the money they may have in their possession into the treasury of the company by the first day of March next.

Resolved. 'That the eight acre lots be surveyed and a plat or map thereof be made, with each lot numbered thereon, by the first Wednesday in March next, and that a copy thereof be immediately forwarded to the secretary and the original retained by the companys superintendent; that the agents meet on the first Wednesday in March next, at Rice's tavern, in Providence, State of Rhode Island, to draw for said lots in numbers, as the same shall be stated upon the plat; that a list of the drawings be transmitted by the secretary to the superintendent, and a copy thereof preserved in the secretary's office.

Resolved. That this meeting of the directors and agents of the Ohio company be and is hereby adjourned to the first Wednesday in March, 1788, to be then holden at Rice's tavern, in the town of Providence, and State of Rhode Island.

Although the company had adjourned to meet in March the directors and agents came together again only two days later, or upon the twenty-third of November, at Brackett's tavern, where the following decisions were agreed upon and placed on file in the company's records;

Ordered. That four surveyors be employed under the superintendent hereinafter named; that twenty-two men shall attend the surveyors; that there be added to this number twenty men, including six boat-builders, four house carpenters, one blacksmith, and nine common workmen.

That the boat-builders shall proceed on Monday next, and the surveyors shall rendezvous at Hartford the first day of January next, on their way to the Muskingum.

That the boat-builders and men, with the surveyors, be proprietors in the company; that their tools and one axe and one hoeto each man and thirty pounds weight of baggage shall be carried in the company's wagons, and the subsistence of the men on the journey be furnished by the company.

That upon their arrival at the places of destination, and entering on the business of their employment, the men shall be subsisted by the company and allowed wages at the rate of four dollars each per month until discharged.

That they be held in the company's service until the first day of July next, unless sooner discharged, and that if any of the persons employed shall leave the service, or wilfully injure the same, or disobey the orders of the superintendent, or others acting under him, the person so offending shall forfeit all claim to wages,

That their wages shall be paid the next autumn in cash, or lands, upon the same terms as the company purchased them. That each man furnish himself with a good small-arm bayonet, six flints, a powderhorn and pouch, priming wire and brush, half a pound of powder, one pound of balls, and one pound of buckshot. The men so engaged shall be subject to the orders of the superintendent. and those he may appoint, as aforesaid, in any kind of business they shall be employed in, as well for boat building and surveying, as for building houses, erecting defences, clearing lands, and planting, or otherwise, for promoting the settlement; and as there is a probability of interruption from enemies, they shall also be subject to orders as aforesaid in military command during the time of their employment.

That Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, from Rhode Island; Mr, Anselem Tupper, and Mr. John Mathews, from Massachusetts, and Colonel R. J. Meigs, from Connecticut, be the surveyors.

That General Rufus Putnam be the superintendent of all the business aforesaid, and he is to be obeyed and respected accordingly; that he be allowed for his services forty dollars a month and his expenses, to commence from the time of his leaving home.*

On March sth the directors and agents assembled pursuant to adjournment, at Rice's tavern, Providence, Rhode Island, General Parsons being chairman. On this occasion the lots of the city (on paper) at the mouth of the Muskingum, were drawn for in the names of the proprietors, each share being entitled to one. One thousand shares were represented, the agents and the number of proprietary shares they represented being as fol- lows: Edward Harris, forty; John May, thirty-five; Eliphalet Day, eighteen; Manasseh Cutler, one hundred and fifty-one; William Dodge, seventeen; Ephraim Cutler, nineteen; Winthrop Sargeant, one hundred and sixtysix; Benjamin Tupper, thirty-seven; Henry Jackson, thirteen; William Corliss, one hundred and twelve; Nathaniel Freeman, twelve; Rufus Putnam, sixty-two; S. H. Parsons, ninety-nine; Joel Barlow, twenty-seven; Archibald Crary, one hundred and two; Ebenezer Sproat, forty-three; Benjamin Tallmadge, forty-seven - one thousand.

A number of the agents mentioned were represented, as were of course the proprietors, by proxies. While this business was being transacted the pioneer party were on their way to the Muskingum country.

By far the most important measure acted upon at this meeting was that looking toward the establishment of schools and churches. 'The action was of importance in itself, and doubly interesting as showing the spirit of the men who formed the New England Ohio company. It was in exact accordance with the desires exhibited by Dr. Cutler in the ordinance and conditions of purchase. A committee was appointed "to consider the expediency of employing some suitable person as a public teacher at the settlement now making by the Ohio company." Its members were Dr. Cutler, General Varnum, and Colonel John May. They made a report in the following language:

That the directors be requested to pay as early attention as possible to the education of youth and the promotion of public worship among the first settlers; and that, for these important services, they employ, if practicable, an instructor eminent for literary accomplishments and the virtue of his character, who shall also superintend the first scholastic institutions, and direct the manner of instruction; and to enable the directors to carry into execution the intentions expressed in this resolution, the proprietors, and others of benevolent and liberal minds are earnestly requested to contribute, by voluntary donation, to the formation of a fund to be solely appropriated thereto.*

Prior to the later transactions we have chronicled the Ohio company's party of pioneers were on their way to the Muskingum. The first party, consisting of twentytwo men, and including the boat-builders and mechanics, started from Danvers, Massachusetts, on the first of December, 1787.+ They were under the command of Major Haffield White, who seems also to have been commissary, and were sent ahead to build boats on the Youghiogheny which, in western parlance, was commonly called the "Yoh." The advance company arrived at Sumrill's Ferry on this stream (about thirty miles above Pittsburgh), on the twenty-third ot January, after a wearisome journey.

The other party, including the surveyors and their assistants and a number of the proprietors of the Ohio company, rendezvoused at Hartford, Connecticut, on the first of January, 1788. They were met here by General Putnam who was to have commanded the march, but as he was under the necessity of going to New York, the

* It was under the provisions of this resolution that the Rey. Daniel Story was employed and sent to the Ohio company's settlement, as the first ordained minister in the Northwest Territory. His character and services are spoken of at length in the chapter on the churches of Marietta.

company went forward in command of Colonel Ebenezer Sproat. General Putnam dispatching his business at New York, pressed forward and overtook the company at Lincoln's inn on the Lanterdale creek, January 24th. In his autobiography General Putnam says that this creek "was hard frozen, but not sufficient to bear the wagon, and a whole day was spent in cutting a passage. So great a quanity of snow fell this day and night, as quite blocked up the road; it was with much difficulty we got the wagon so far as Coopers, at the foot of the Tuscarawas mountains (now Strawsburg), where we arrived the twenty-ninth." As serious an obstacle to the progress of the pioneers as the snow had been up to this time it was much worse in the mountains. General Putnam says that they "found nothing had crossed the mountains since the great snow and in the old snow, twelve inches deep, nothing but pack horses." But the march of these resolute, hardy men toward 'their destination was not to be stayed by storm or the almost impossible condition of the narrow winding mountain trails which were dangerous enough at any time. "Our only resource" reads the brief, and simple narrative, ''was to build sleds, and harness tandem, and in this manner with four sleds, and men marching in front, we set forward and reached "Yoh" the fourteenth of February.

For two weeks the little company consisting of a few more than a score of men, but all active, strong and hopeful, were winding slowly around the mountain passes, breaking a way through the deep snow for their jaded horses to draw along the cumbersome sledges with their heavy loads of baggage and provisions. Only a few miles were gained each day and that with the utmost toil. At night the men slept around huge blazing fires, which they often had difficulty in kindling. They suffered much from the arduousness of their labor by day and their exposure at night. General Putnam writing to Dr. Cutler some time after the arrival of the pioneers at the Muskingum said: "It would give you pain and me no pleasure to detail our march over the mountains or our delays afterwards on account of bad weather or other misfortunes."

Arriving at the Youghiogheny in the middle of February, and expecting to find preparations so far advanced for the journey down the Ohio that they couia soon start, General Putnam and his associates were again disappointed. It is stated in the same letter from which we have quoted above, that there were 'no boats built, no boards or planks in readiness, or person capable of building a canoe, much less a boat, among the party - mill froze up and no boards to be had. He (Major White) had, however, three canoes such as they were, on the stocks; and five of his men were sick with the small-pox, which they took by inoculation."

The latter part of February and the whole of the month of March was consumed in building boats. The three canoes which Major White had on the stocks were completed, and lumber being brought from a considerable distance a galley was built, which had an estimated capacity of fifty tons, and a flatboat of about three tons burthen, designed to be used as a ferry boat by the settlers at the station, and was named the Adelphia. The canoes were hewn from logs. The large boat, which was called the Adventure Galley, and which General Putnam speaks of as the Union Galley, was afterwards appropriately named the Mayflower, in commemoration of the ship which brought across the ocean the Plymouth colony. Her bows were raking or curved; she was decked over and strongly built throughout. She was designed to pass and repass between Marietta and Buffalo creek or Cross creek, to carry letters and merchandise, but proving too large and unwieldy she was used only for a few trips.

In the afternoon of the first day* of April, which was a Tuesday, the little flotilla left Sumrill's ferry, on the Youghiogheny, and, floating down that stream to 'the Monongahela, was borne onward to the Ohio. Several stoppages were made to take on provisions, which had been bought the few weeks previous and brought to the river. Among other stores were "three thousand weight of flour, two thousand of which was at nine shillings a hundred, and one thousand at ten shillings, or one dollar sixty-six cents," bought of one man, and seven thousand pounds of another at the price last mentioned, also several bushels of beans. Many of the purchases were made by John Mathews, a nephew of General Putnam, who had been in the west since the summer of 1786 as a surveyor. Numerous extracts from his journal have been given in a former chapter of this work, and we now present several more, which, however unimportant, are interesting as contemporary jottings in regard to the journey of the colony:

Thursday, April 3rd. General Putnam arrived with coals at the mouth af Harman's creek before sunrise, and not being acquainted, fell some below the landing. Esquire Foster and myself attended to getting the provisions to the river, and a very disagreeable time we had of it, on account of the rain. Iam to take General Putnam's horse by land to Buffalo tomorrow.

Friday, 4th. I left Greathouse's in the morning. Found Colonel Sproat at McMahan's, and rode with him to Wells' mills, and hurried on the provisons to the landing. From thence we went to the mouth of Buffalo, where the boat had arrived. She will not be loaded to-day.

Saturday, sth. Our boats tarried all day in the mouth of the creek, and we have everything to put on board in the morning. They also took on here a quantity of poplar boards for the erection of temporary huts, until more substatial buildings could be built.

Sunday, 6th. Cloudy and rainy all day. At half past eight o'clock A. M. everything on board, and we started for Muskingum. . . . At four o'clock Pp. M. came to at '' Round Bottom" and proposed waiting until nine or ten o'clock in the evening, in order to arrive at Muskingum in the forenoon, At half-past nine got under way and run all night, without meeting with any accident.

One may imagine something of the feelings of those first adventurers to Ohio as they floated down /a belle riviere. 'The season was well advanced and there was a noticeable difference between the condition of the vegetation in the country passed on the last half of the journey and that of the upper Ohio. The forest which clad the hills was etherialized by the first touch of kindly spring and the virgin soil of the many beautiful islands was

*In Hildreth' Pioneer History and Charles M. Walker's History of Athens County, it is stated that the journey from the Youghiogheny was begun upon the second of April. General Putnam's autobiography is authority for the statement that it was upon the first.

mantled with the vernal green of scores of luxuriant shrubs and grasses and vines, strange to the eyes which now beheld them. The shores were for the most part devoid of the indications of human life. Only upon the Virginia side did the voyagers see an occasional cabin, and they lost even the slight sense of companionship that these afforded as they drew nearer to their destination, so that they looked with even more of joy than they otherwise would upon the rough log buildings and bristling stockade of Fort Harmar, and the little cabins of Isaac Williams and his fellow pioneers on the Virginia bank. As their boats swept around the curves and new landscapes were revealed how eagerly must those pioneers have watched for the first appearance of the place that was to be their home, the lands that some of them were individually to own, till, live and die upon. We can imagine groups of questioners gathered about John Mathews and Anselem Tupper, the only men in the company who had any personal knowledge of the "lands at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio," on which it had been decided far away in Massachusetts that a city should be built.

The morning of the seventh of April (which was Monday) was cloudy and during the greater part of the day rain fell. As the afternoon passed away the pioneers knew that the place of their destination could not be far away, and watched closely for some sign which would indicate it. Just as they had floated by the foot of Kerr's Island Captain Devol said to General Putnam, "I think it is time to take an observation; we must be near the mouth of the Muskingum." 'The current bore the boats onward at a good speed, and although many eyes were watching anxiously for the Muskingum they did not see it until too late to round into the harbor it afforded, The rain and fog and the huge sycamores upon the banks leaning over the outlet obscured it, undoubtedly, until they were quite near it. Fort Harmar was also unseen. The strong current of the Muskingum swerved the boats from their course, shot them way out into the Ohio, and before the pioneers were fully conscious of their whereabouts they had swept so far down the stream that they were unable to regain the place where they had intended to disembark. A landing was affected not far below the fort, and the commandant, Major Doughty

'sending some soldiers to their aid General Putnam's little band towed the boats up the stream, and, crossing the Muskingum, landed upon the site of Marietta (at the point) about noon.*

_ *It is traditionally asserted that in an episode which speedily followed the landing at Marietta originated the application to the early settlers which afterwards became a kind of genuine appellation for all the people of Ohio, and led in fact to the second christening of the first commonwealth of the Northwest Territory with the sobriquet of ''the Buckeye State."

It has been frequently related that two of the pioneers on springing ashore at the point, selected trees to be felled to the earth, and began a good-natured rivalry in chopping to see which one should first lay low a monarch of the forest. Strict regard for probability compels one to doubt whether either tree could with propriety be called a ''monarch." They were undoubtedly about the smallest trees discoverable which were still large enough to have passed the undignified age of saplings. But however this may have been does not effect the story. One man selected, according to the tradition, a hard wood tree - a gum tree - and

They were welcomed by a party of about seventy Wyandot and Delaware Indians, warriors, women, and children, of whom the famous Captain Pipe was the principal character. The pioneers undoubtedly looked upon this friendly greeting as an omen of peace and good-will and their vague fears were tranquillized. The work of landing a portion of their provisions and the boards brought from Buffalo creek for the erection of temporary places of shelter was begun immediately, and General Putnam's large tent, known as a marquee,* was soon riased.

The pioneers who arrived on the "Mayflower" at the site of Marietta, were forty-seven} in number, and their names are embraced in the following list:

*This marquee was a very large one, and was taken, with some other baggage, on board the store boats of Burgoyne's army, a few days before its surrender, by the intrepidity of Major Goodall, who was attached to General Putnam's regiment. It had probably belonged to some of the general officers of the enemy. In the division of the spoils it fell to Genera] Putnam, and now, eleven years after that event, was doing service on the banks of the Ohio, in the far wilderness of the Northwest Territory. New England Historical and Genealogical Register, October, 1860, Note to journal of Rev. Manasseh Cutler (Journey to Marietta, 1788), by Dr. S. P. Hildreth.

+ The number is commonly stated as forty-eight. Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs, however, who is usually included in the list and who was really with the pioneer party on the upper Ohio, is shown by Joseph Buell in his journal, and by other authorities, to have arrived on the twelfth of April.

the other, a buckeye, the wood of which is very soft. Very naturally the buckeye fell first to the ground, and from this circumstance its name is said to have been given to the settlers and to the State. The successful man is said to have been Captain Daniel Davis, of Killingly, Connecticut.. The chief champion of the story has been a New England clergyman of the Reformed Episcopal church, J. P. Davis, by name, who had been engaged in compiling a genealogy of the Davis family, and who, when in Ohio in 1879, made several contributions to the newspapers upon this subject. He accounts for the fact that Ohio is called ''the Buckeye State," and its people '' Buckeyes" by the result of the chopping competition, and supports the authenticity of the story handed down from one generation to another by the statement that "during ninety years it has not been contradicted by any history or denied by any counter-statement."

In this the reverend writer was mistaken, not only has a counterstatement been made, but it was published many years ago, and by a most excellent authority, Dr. S. P. Hildreth. In his biography of Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, he says that his ''tall commanding person, soon attracted their (the Indians) attention, and they gave him the name of /etuck, or Big Buckeye. From this, no doubt, originated the name of buckeye, now applied to the natives of Ohio, as the phrase was familiar to all the early settlers at Marietta. The name was commonly used at as early a date as 1791. Thus it appeared that Dr. Hildreth, himself a resident of Macietta, early in the present cen* tury, writing many years ago - prior at least to 1852 - when he had exceptionally good advantages for gleaning items of pioneer history, either knew nothing of the Davis story or regarded it so doubtful as not to be entitled toa place in either of his two volumes made up of the minutiae of early local occurrences. Still the Davis story may be true.

Standing against its plausibility, however, is the common trend of evidence, afforded by a number of early pioneers who have left accounts of the application of the term Buckeye. Some of them seem to have had knowledge of the Davis tradition, bu: their explanations agree with, rather than contradict, Dr. Hildreth's statement. Briefly to summarize what has been given as the opinion of many of the pioneers and their descendants, we may say that the company of forty-seven, the first settlers of Marietta, arrived early in a well-advanced spring; that the flowers of the Buckeye were the first that met their sight, and from this circumstance they may have called the country in which they had taken up their residence Buckeye land or Buckeye settlement, or alluded to themselves as Buckeyes, from the fact that they appeared simultaneously with the blossoms of these trees. Again, it has been suggested by some that because of the tall, erect forms, and the soldierly bearing

These men, on Monday, the seventh of April, 1788, made the first lawful, organized English settlement within the limits of the great Northwest Territory.

of many of those pioneers of 1788, the Indians may have called them Buckeyes, or given them the appellation in their language equivalent to that term, after that species of tree, which is notably tall and perfectly straight. Or, the name might have been given by the Indians on account of the time of their advent. Either of these motives for the bestowal of the name would have been in entire accordance with the poetical and descriptive system of Indian nomenclature. The name having once been applied in a general way, it followed naturally that Colonel Sproat, who ''towered like a Saul, a full head above the height of other men," should have been dubbed by the Indians as Dr. Hildreth says, the Big Buckeye.

There is another possibility. Muskingum (originally Mooskingom) means Elks Eye river. May it not also have been called Bucks Eye or Buckeye river, and the name have been either adopted by the settlers at its mouth, or applied to them by the Indians?

It has been very generally believed that Jervis Cutler, son of Dr. Manasseh Cutler, was the first one of the forty-seven to jump ashore at the mouth of the Muskingum, but upon the west or Fort Harmar side. He there cut down a small tree with a small axe which he drew from his coat.

When the boat reached the east or Marietta side of the Muskingum, it is said Allen Putnam and Amos Porter had a race, and both made desperate leaps to see who should have the honor of first putting foot on the shore. Putnam won, springing on to the bank five seconds ahead of Porter, and so was the first pioneer who landed at Marietta.