Washington County, Ohio - Chapter 8: Progres of Settlement and Improvement, 1881

Chapter 8: Progres of Settlement and Improvement

The Farmers Delighted with their New Home. - Bright Prospects. - General Putnam to Dr, Cutler. - Washington's Opinion of the Colony. - Hopes Disappointed. - Combination of Adverse Circumstances. - Opposition to Emigration in New England from various motives. - Fear of Indian Hostility. - Derision of the West by Wits and Wags. - Parodies upon Panegyrics. - Caricatures Published. - "'T am going to Ohio' and ''I have been to Ohio.''" - Employment of the Settlers During the first Season Clearing Land, Planting and Surveying. - The Great Cornheld. - Uneasiness Regarding the Attitude of the Indians- - The Building of Campus Martius. - Dwelling- Houses. - New Arrivals in the Colony. - The first Families. - General Arthur St. Clair Governor of the Territory. - His Formal Reception at the ''Bowery.''- Opening of the first Court. - Proceedings of the Ohio Company. - Troubles Respecting Section Twenty-nine. - The '"City'' and the Ancient Works Named. - Measures for the Encouragement of Settlement - A Plan for Donating Lands Agreed Upon. - Lots of One Hundred Acres Each to be given Actual Settlers. - A Committee Appointed to Explore the Purchase and Select Locations for Settlements. - The first Offshoots of the Original Colony. - Belpre and Waterford. - Wolf Creek Mills. - Settlements at Big Bottom, Meigs' Creek, and the Forks of Duck Creek. - Measures for the Encouragement of Improvements. - Kindly and Protective Policy of the Ohio Company. - Loans Made to Needy Settlers. - General Putnam's Contract with the Scioto Company. - Houses Built at Gallipolis. - Arrival of Four Hundred French Emigrants. - Their Pitiable Condition. - Number of Men and Families in the Ohio Company's Territory. - Complete List of Arrivals During 1788, 1789, and 1790. THE members of the little pioneer company who landed from the Mayflower April 7th, and the few who followed them to the Muskingum during the early months of the season, found much to delight them, and were happy in the midst of their strange surroundings. Doubtless there were some who felt at times the comparative isolation and loneliness of their condition, and whose minds fondly and sadly reverted to the friends they had left behind them, and the old familiar scenes - the happy homes - in little New England villages. But such feelings were transitory. There was food for other thought in the busy bustling life of the new colony - the activity impelled by varied human interests. The forest was to be cleared away, the ground was to be titled, seed planted, houses built, preparations made for the reception of loved ones who could not immigrate with their husbands and fathers, and who were looking eagerly forward for a reunion with them in the land of their adoption. And so these pioneers labored with a zest and earnestness of purpose which doubled their accomplishment. To them the country seemed all that was desirable. There was a suggestion of New England in the rugged hills which surrounded them, and a fertility in the soil of the valleys which they had never seen equalled. Their new life, or the new chapter in life, had opened auspiciously, and the future appeared bright with promise.

Gen. Putnam wrote to Dr. Cutler, about the middle of May: 'The men are generally in good health, and I believe much pleased with the country; that I am so myself you may rest assured. I can only add, the situation of the city plat is the most delightful of any I ever saw." And another of the colonists said: "This country, for fertility of soil and pleasantness of situativn, not only exceeds my expectations, but exceeds any part of Europe or America I ever was in." friends could have wished. 'The aspect of its affairs appeared promising alike to those immediately interested and to those who were outsiders. George Washington wrote from Mt. Vernon on the nineteenth of June, 1788, to Richard Henderson, an inquirer in regard to western lands, the following eulogium of the Ohio company's settlement:

No colony in America was ever settled under such favorable auspices as that which has just commenced at the Muskingum. Information, property, 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. If I was a young man, ,just preparing to begin the world, or if in advanced life and had a family to make a provision for, 1 know of no country where I should rather fix my habitation than in some part of the region for which the writer of the queries seems to have a predilection. *

But notwithstanding the qualifications of these men of whom Washington wrote in glowing terms; in spite of the fair prospect which opened before the Ohio company, no one of the characteristics mentioned in the letter except "information" was soon to be possessed by the settlement began April 7, 1788, at the Muskingum. "Property and strength" were attained very slowly and only through a long, hard struggle. With its splendid organization, systematic methods and capable men, the Ohio company, there was every reason to believe, would rapidly develop its purchase and present every aspect of thrift and prosperity in its settlements. But there was a great disparity between the actual results achieved and the sanguine expectations which the pioneers indulged. The period of five years of Indian war, which closely followed the inauguration of the settlement, was the principal preventive of progress. Other causes conspired to retard the fulfilment of well grounded hopes. The failure of the Scioto company doubtless led some people to mistrust the ability of the Ohio company to carry out its plans, and the organization suffered in some degree from unwise elements in its own policy, from the failure of its treasurer and from the strong opposition to western settlement which was aroused in New England. When all of the unusual obstacles which lay in the way of the company are considered in addition to those which are common to pioneer life, the small advancement of the colony during fhe first ten or twenty years of its existence does not seem strange, but on the other hand there is cause for wonder that the New Englanders in Ohio were not completely and irretrievably overwhelmed.

Relegating to subsequent chapters the sad story of the Indian war, the cessation of improvement and the embarrassment of the Ohio company, which was caused by it, we shall endeavor to give an idea of the earlier impediments to progress and of what was accomplished anterior to 1791. And, that the reader may more thoroughly understand why the increase in population was so small, comparatively, during the earliest years of the settlement, before the Indian war had opened in earnest, let us turn again to glance at the condition of public feeling in Massachusetts. It is a question whether the worst results of the Indian war would not have been averted had not the undue fear of that war restrained emigration.

In other words, if the progress of settlement had not been stayed by the dread of Indian hostilities, would not the Ohio company's colony have become strong enough by 1791 to have passed in perfect safety through the period of five years succeeding. The exact effect upon emigration of the few Indian depredations and hostilities prior to 1791 cannot be known, but the exaggerated stories of border barbarities circulated in New England must have served to keep many a would-be pioneer at home.

But the uncertainty in regard to the attitude of the Indians, at first, and the terror created by the appalling colors in which at a later day pictures of their incursions were painted, were by no means the only agencies operating against emigration.

One of the most potent of the causes tending to defeat the full accomplishment of the Ohio company's plans was the ridicule of western emigration in New England. Timothy Flint, a Massachusetts man, personally acquainted with many of the Ohio company settlers, in his little book on the west,* has the following paragraph describing the feeling which had an existence in the region in which he dwelt:

The first travellers to explore Ohio availed themselves of the full extent of the traveller's privilege in regard to the wonders of this new land of promise and the unparalleled fertility of the soil. These extravagant representations of the grandeur of the vegetation and the fertility of the land at first excited a great desire to emigrate to this new and wonderfulregion, But some returned with different accounts, in discouragement. A reaction took place in the public mind.

The wags of the day exercised their wit in circulating caricatured and exaggerated editions of the stories of the first adventurers, that there were springs of brandy, flax that bore little pieces of cloth on the stems, enormous pumpkins, and melons and the like. Accounts the most horrible were added of hoop snakes of such deadly malignity that a sting which they bore in their tails, when it punctured the bark of a green tree, instantly caused its leaves to become sear and the tree to die. Stories of Indian massacres and barbarities were related in all their horrors. The country was admitted to be fertile, but was pronounced excessively sickly, and poorly balancing by that advantage all these counterpoises of sickness, Indians, copper-headed and hoop snakes, bears, wofves and panthers.

Much of derision seems to have been directed against Dr. Cutler, no doubt because he was a leading man in the Ohio company and because he was an enthusiast. The author from whom we have already quoted, says:

Dr. Cutler, at the time of his being engaged in the speculation of the Ohio company's purchase, had a feud - it is not remembered whether literary, political or religious - with the late learned and eccentric Dr. Bently, of Salem, Massachusetts. Dr. Bently was the chief contributor to a paper, which he afterward edited. The writer still remembers, and can repeat doggerel verses by Dr. Bently upon the departure of Dr. Cutler on his first trip to explore his purchase on the Ohio.

One word said against the western country had doubtless more effect than ten said in its favor, and so the few people who returned from the settlement of the Muskingum may have done much to prevent others from journeying thither. One of them, Theophilus Knight, an adventurer to the west in the summer of 1788, saidthathimself and two companions returned because they did not think "it was so much better than any other country that it would pay a man for carrying a large family to such a

At a later period than that of which we have written the opposition to emigration was increased rather than diminished, and derision of the Government and _ its friends became more general, more outspoken and more broad. It assumed in fact the form of burlesque. One early resident* of Ohio has said:

The powerful engine of caricature was set in motion. I have a distinct recollection of a picture I saw in boyhood, prefixed to a penny anti-moving-to-Ohio pamphlet, in which a stout, ruddy, well-dressed man on a sleek, fat horse, with a label ''I am going to Ohio," meets a pale and ghastly skeleton of a man, scarcely half dressed, on the wreck of what was once a horse, already bespoken by the more politic crows, with a label ''I have been to Ohio,"

The attention of the little band of pioneers, who landed at the Muskingum the seventh of April, 1788, was first directed to the building of small cabins or huts for shelter. These were in part constructed of the poplar boards brought from Buffalo creek, and they were of the smallest and rudest kind which would afford any protection from the weather; for a more important work than building comfortable or commodious houses lay before the company. They had to make preparations for those whom they expected soon to arrive, and also to sow and plant that they might have a harvest for their maintenance in the autumn.

Colonel Ebenezer Sproat and John Mathews, with thirteen men, engaged in this work, but their progress was slow, as General Putnam wrote to a friend, "'because of rainy weather and their being obliged to survey so much more land than was expected in order to obtain lands suitable to the purpose. their work of laying off the necessary lots until the middle of May. At that time General Putnam wrote: "The city lots will be ready to draw by the first Wednesday of July, as proposed at the meeting in Providence, but the others will not."

While the surveyors were carrying on their work, the remainder of the men were engaged under the immediate supervision of General Putnam in clearing land and deadening timber. The first clearing was at the point, on the east side of the Muskingum, and it is there that the first houses were built. In six days as many acres were cleared, though of course roughly. The forest fell fast under the blows of a score of axes, and by the latter part of May the greater part of the land had been planted. Several small pieces of ground cleared by individual labor - by the several proprietors who were of the pioneer company, or who had arrived later in the spring - had been planted earlier. But the great cornfield, planted for the common good of the colony, cleared and made ready for a crop by the men in the employ of the Ohio company, was not seeded until the time designated. It included nearly or perhaps quite an hundred

*Judge Timothy Walker, in address delivered before the Ohio Historical and Philosophical society at Cincinnati in 1837, and published in the ''Transactions." and thirty acres, and the settlers were gratified at the richness of the soil which was exhibited by the rapid growth of this fine crop. One letter writer chronicled the fact that "the corn has grown nine inches in twentyfour hours, for two or three days past." It was of this cornfield of which Dr. Cutler, when visiting the colony in August, said: "It astonished me on account of its magnitude. I should be as soon lost in it on a cloudy day as in a cedar swamp." 'The field occupied a portion of the high plain back of the site of Campius Martius (which was not built until after the crop was planted) and extended southward towards the Ohio, so as to include in its limits the great mound. It must not be understood that all of this land was cleared. In a portion of it the trees were deadened by girdling, and the leaves remaining upon some of them so shaded the ground as to interfere with the growth of the crop. Only about one-third of the field was plowed or harrowed, the rest being broken up for planting with hoes. Very little besides corn was raised the first season.* The other crops planted were chiefly those of the garden, and were grown in-small quantity. Beans and potatoes were the principal of these.

During all the time that the labor of surveying, clearing and planting land was going on, we may imagine that the pioneers found much beside to interest them, and to form subjects for conversation. The ancient works with their far extending walls, the great mound, the graded way leading down to the Muskingum, and the huge platforms of earth, or truncated pyramids caused universal wonder alike among the educated and the unlearned, and were carefully examined. There was much to admire in the verduer-clad hills and the beautiful valleys of which the fertility was asserted by the most luxuriant growth of herbage and every variety of plant life which had a home in this latitude. Many strange forms of vegetation greeted the eyes of the curious and admiring. Game was abundant in the woods, and during the first few months richly furnished the rude but substantial larders of the pioneers. Later in the year the Indians drove away or killed off the larger game, but during the summer and early fall of 1788 nearly all varieties of animals and fowl known to the western country abounded in the woods. Hunting was engaged in with zest not alone for the sport which it afforded but for the value of the products of the chase. One of the pioneers writing home to New England, says: 'We have started twenty buffaloes in a drove. Deer are as plenty as sheep with you. Beaver and otter are abundant. I have known one man to catch twenty or thirty of them in two or three nights. Turkeys are innumerable."

A general feeling of content existed among the settlers. All were pleased with their surroundings, with the climate of the country, the prospect for the future, and the attainments of the first few months. They had reason to be thankful for the enjoyment of good health. As late as

* The first wheat sown in the Ohio company's purchrse, and in the State'of Ohio, was a small quantity sown near Campus Martius, late in the fall of 1788, by Captain Trueman Guthrie, who brought a small quantity of seed with him from Connecticut.

But one cause of uneasiness remained, though it was probably little thought of except by General Putnam and a few others who occupied stations of responsibility in the colony. Some precaution was deemed necessary to insure safety in case of the manifestations of Indian hostility. The fortification known as Campus Martius (military camp) arose as an expression of this fear, as an evidence of the isolation of the colony and a tangible reminder of its danger. Little did the builders of that defence apprehend the hardships, perils, and atrocities of which its picture reminds their descendants of to-day. General Putnam had suspended the survey about the middle of May, because of the uncertainty of the Indians remaining at peace, but it was resumed and carried on with little interruption - and that not because of hostilities - through the season and, in fact, through the year 1788. Preparations for a treaty had been made soon after the landing of the pioneers, but it was not finally negotiated until the beginning of 178g (as will be shown in the following chapter). Several times during the summer Captain Pipe of the Delaware tribe and other chiefs and warriors visited Fort Harmar and the little settlement on the east side of the Muskingum. They had dined with General Putnam in his marquee and made great professions of friendship, but had expressed displeasure at the building of houses and planting of crops before the making of a treaty.

Taking into consideration the feeling that existed among the Indians, the Ohio company decided to carry out a plan which should give the settlers protection in case it was needed. The first measure taken toward this work was the cutting of a road through the woods from "the point" where most of the houses were built, to the site which was selected for the stockade, which was a mile away, up the Muskingum. The ground was well chosen. It was the margin of the plain which had once been the bank of the Muskingum. On either side there were small ravines; in the rear stretched the smooth and gently rising plain, and in the front there was a somewhat abrupt descent to the lowest river terrace which, about one hundred and fifty yards distant, was washed by the Muskingum. The location is best described to those not familiar with it by the statement that it is bounded by Washington and Second streets, respectively upon the south and east. Here in the form of a parallelogram, the sides of which measured one hundred and aighty feet each, was built the stockade which for five years was to be the dwelling place and refuge of a large portion of the Ohio company's colony. 'The sides were formed of continuous lines of dwelling houses two stories in height. They were constructed of timber four inches thick, sawed by hand, and fitted together at the corners in the same manner as those of a hewed log house. At the corners were block-houses, solidly made and of quite imposing appearance. They were a trifle higher than the houses which formed the sides of the fort, were covered with shapely four square roofs, three of which were surmounted at their apexes with towers intended to be used as sentry boxes, large enough to accommodate four men each. On the fourth there was a tower very similar to the others, but capped with a cupola for the reception of a bell, '"'which," says a letter writer of the period, "we are told is Coming on as a present from a gentleman in Boston."*

The block-houses projected six feet beyond the sides of the stockade. They were twenty feet square at the ground, and the second story of each projected two feet over the lower. Heavy gates were hung at the entrances in the south and west fronts, and over that in the latter (toward the Muskingum) was a house of logs or hewed timber, projecting like the second floors of the corner block-houses. This was intended for the protection of the gate in case of an attack. The watch-towers were found inconvenient of access after the Indian war broke out, and small, square bastions were built at each angle of the stockade for the accommodation of the sentries. In those at the southwest and northeast angles small cannon were placed. In addition to the two rows of windows along the sides of the fort, the walls were pierced with loop-holes for musketry. The houses were nearly all provided with good brick chimneys, the bricks being made upon the ground and burned by men experienced in that line of industry. Gvuod shingle roofs afforded a protection from the weather. Shingle-making was then a difficult and slow work. 'They were split from blocks about two and a half feet long, and sloped with the axe, and at the end exposed to the weather were nearly or perhaps quite an inch thick. Several of the houses included in Campus Martius were built at private expense, and were finished in detail as the owner's fancy dictated, but all conformed in general design to the plan by the superintendent and considered most advantageous to the general good. 'There were seventy-two rooms of eighteen feet square and upwards, in this work of defence, and it was estimated that when necessity required nearly nine hundred people could be shielded from an enemy in the enclosure.

As a basis of this estimate it is supposed that twelve persons should occupy a room. Campus Martius, however, never contained half as many people as the number mentioned. In the centre of the enclosure, which measured one hundred and forty-four feet each way, a well eighty feet deep (which still remains in use), was dug to supply water in the event of a siege. Near the well was placed a large sundialt made by Major Anselm Tupper, which marked the flight of time - slow albeit - through all the Indian war, and was kept for many years as an interesting relic of the pioneers.

Upon information from Colonel May that Mr. Joseph May, of Boston, had presented a bell to the Ohio company for the first public building to be erected in the territory of the company, and such building-ordered by the agents,

Resolved, That the thanks of the company be presented to that gentleman, and the directors be requested to take measures for transferring it from Boston to the Muskingum.

+This sundial was owned for many years by A. T. Nye, esq., and was consumed in his hardware store on the occasion of the great fire in Marietta in 1857.

of the settlement, and in fact much of it by August, the details of the defence were not completed until the Indian war broke out in earnest in 1791. The illustration represents it at that time in its finished state. Rows of palings were planted from corner to corner of the blockhouses, sloping outward at an angle of forty-five degrees, and supported by posts and railing. At a distance of twenty feet from these sharp raking pickets, and surrounding the entire work, was a line of heavy palings eight or ten feet in height; and again outside of this there was an abatis formed of the boughs of trees with the smaller limbs pointed and projecting outwards. The work thus perfected was almost absolutely impregnable. It is probable that the obvious strength of the defence discouraged attack, for during the whole period of Indian disturbance no attempt was made against it, and so far as is known no plan ever formed for an assault.

Campus Martius, judging from the picture of it (which is in all essential matters historically correct), must have presented a striking appearance with its background of fields and wooded hills, and really have merited the enthusiastic words of one of the pioneers, who, in writing home, said it was "the handsomest pile of buildings on this side of the Alleghany mountains."

Upon the shore of the Muskingum, directly in front of the stockaded fort, was constructed a substantial timber wharf at which lay moored the Mayflower, the lesser craft and canoes when not in use, plying back and forth between Campus Martius and Fort Harmar, or "the point."

We must now return to the narrajive of some important history of the year 1788 over which we have passed in chronicling the building of Campus Martius.

The first company of pioneers of the Ohio company's settlement were followed to the shores of the Muskingum during the summer of 1788 by many more, of whom some were adventurers, but the majority people seeking permanent homes.

In May came General Samuel Holden Parsons, a man already familiar with the western country, who was now under appointment as judge of theterritory. Also inthe same month there arrived Captain William Dana, Ebenezer Battelle, Major Jonathan Haskell, Colonel Israel Putnam, Aaron Waldo Putnam, Major Robert

Bradford, Jonathan Stone, Major Winthrop Sargent, Colonel William Stacey, and Colonel John May.* The latter came down the river from Pittsburgh with quite a party, not all of whom, however, were settlers. He has made note of the fact that on board of the boat forty-two feet long were "twenty-seven men, two cows, two calves, seven hogs and nine dogs, besides eight tons of baggage."

*Colonel John May, of Boston, kept a journal which has been published and is very interesting reading for the antiquarian and student of western history. We shall have frequent occasion to quote from it. It appears from this journal that Colonel May arrived at ''the delightful Muskingum" at three o'clock in the afternoon of Monday, May 26th. Colonel May was one of the agents of the Ohio company. He cherished the hope of settling permanently in the colony, but did not realize it. He died in Boston in 1812.

In the month of June there were many more arrivals, among them Hon. James M. Varnum, judge of the territory, Major Dean Tyler, Griffin and Charles Greene, Colonel Joseph Thompson, Dr. Jabez True and Paul Fearing. The two last named are known to have arrived on the sixteenth. Judge Varnum, as is shown by Colonel May's journal, came upon the fifth, "with about forty souls in company."

Judge Varnum, one of the ablest and noblest men in the Ohio company's colony, was an invalid when he came to the Muskingum. His wife was unable to accompany him. James Owen and wife were of his party, and Mrs. Owen acted as his nurse until death claimed him, early in 1789. She was the first woman who settled in the Ohio company's colony. There were, however, several at Fort Harmar, the wives of the officers, before the arrival of the forty-seven pioneers. They could not be called with propriety settlers. They were merely temporary sojourners at a United States military post. The Owen family did not remain in the country through the Indian war, but returned soon after, and were known as most estimable people. Some of their descendants now reside in Washington county. Mrs. Owen performed very valuable humane services during the prevalence of small-pox in Marietta in 1790, and from this fact, and also, perhaps, in consideration of her being the first woman inhabitant of Marietta, the Ohio company gave her one of the donation lots of one hundred acres in extent. The family emigrated from South Kingston, Rhode Island. Mrs. Owen died in 1800* and her husband ten years later.

No other families arrived in the settlement until August. +On the nineteenth of that month six families landed. They were those of General Benjamin Tupper, Colonel Ichabod Nye (son-in-law of the former) Major Nathaniel Cushing, Major Nathan Goodale, Major Asa Coburn, sr., and Andrew Webster, his son-in-law. The first four mentioned reached Wellsburgh (Buffalo creek), Virginia, in July, and waited there six weeks for Major Coburn and Andrew Weber. Colonel Ichabod Nye left them, and with two single men came down the river on the Virginia side, bringing the horses. He arrived August 9th. The ladies of the above families, within a day or two after their arrival, were called upon by the wives of the officers at the fort and soon invited them to partake of the hospitality that the garrison afforded. Other families came out later, but the dates of their arrival, with one or two exceptions, have not. been preserved. The family of Ebenezer Battelle undoubtedly landed in December. He had come out in May, with Colonel John May, but went to Baltimore to meet his

++ With the party who arrived on the nineteenth of August was one man who had a keen and curious interest in seeing the territory owned by the Ohio company. That man was the Rev. Manasseh Cutler, who had negotiated the purchase with Congress - a leading man in the counsels of the company from the first. He came not as a settler, but as an observer of the colony he had been so largely influential in planting upon the Ohio. He remained at Marietta until the ninth of September, and then went up the river with Colonel Vigo to Pittsburgh, from whence he returned to Massachusetts.

family in October. Colonel Robert Oliver's family arrived November 18th, as is shown by a letter written that day by Rowena Tupper. below? Colonel Oliver is now landing. I fly to meet them." Arrivals were, indeed, the cause of excitement and joy to a degree which can hardly be realized in this age of quick mail and telegraph facilities. Altogether, says General Putnam, fifteen families arrived during 1788. Hildreth says the same. But in a list made of settlers, General Putnam gives the names of mimefeen families who were in Marietta before the close of the year. There were sixteen at least whose names have been preserved, as follows: General Benjamin Tupper, Andrew Webster, Colonel Ichabod Nye, James Owen, Nathaniel Cushing, Asa Coburn, sr., Major Nathan Goodale, Asa Coburn jr., Benjamin Converse, Griffin Greene, Charles Greene, Benoni Hurlburt, Nathaniel Moody, Israel Pierce, Robert Oliver, and Ebenezer. Battelle. Commodore Abraham Whipple was a noted arrival of this year. Colonel Ichabod Nye says in his autobiography that "during the fall five or six other families arrived and other adventurers and workmen. Some had returned to New England for their families. The winter began with about a hundred or more in the settlement." Rufus Putnam states that in addition to the pioneer party eighty-four men came to the settlement during 1788, making in all one hundred and thirty-two.*

General Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory, arrived in Marietta on the ninth of July. He had been commissioned by Congress October 16, 1787, the commission to take effect on the first of February, 1788. At the time of his appoinment he was president of Congress, but prior to that had been a general in the Revolutionary war; had fought gallantly in the French and Indian war, and carried a standard at the storming of Quebec, in 1759. Like most of the Revolutionary officers, he was impoverished by the long struggle for independence.t He was undoubtedly in full sympathy with the worn-out veterans who were the leading men of the only English settlement in the territory he was to govern, and his appointment was certainly agreeable to their desires. His arrival was an event of importance to the little community. "This," says Colonel May, "is in a sense the birthday of this western world." Hitherto law had only a nominal existence. Now government was to be organized ; the governor was to dwell in the new settlement. It had already been foreseen by some of the leading men of the Ohio company that when other settlements were founded the governor might make one of them his residence. This they wished to prevent. Colonel May who, when on his way to the Muskingum, met St. Clair at Pittsburgh, and felt obliged to tarry and make him a visit, says:

For one I confess I am moved to the visit by two motives; one the respect due to the governor of the Western Territory; the other, a little selfish, as we wish him to make the Muskingum the seat of government and place of his residence. And we have no doubt if proper at-

*The subject of settlement 1s briefly treated here, as a full and correct list of the settlers of 1788, 1789 and 1790 is presented at the conclusion of this chapter.

The formal reception of the governor was postponed until the fifteenth, but "his landing was announced by the discharge of fourteen cannon, and all rejoiced at his coming."+ He was domiciled at Fort Harmar.

In the afternoon of the day set for the official welcoming, the governor came over to the Marietta side of the Muskingum in the barge belonging to Fort Harmar, on the oars of which, we are told, the word "Congress" was painted in bright letters. He was escorted by the garrison officers and by Major Winthrop Sargent, secretary of the territory, and was received, says Hildreth, "by General Putnam, the judges of the territory, and the principal inhabitants of the new colony." The formal inauguration of government in the Northwest Territory took place in the " Bowery," which was not as might be supposed one of Nature's shady temples but a structure reared with hands.{ The secretary read the Ordinance of Freedom, the commission of the governor, those of the judges, and his own; a short address of welcome was made to his excellency and 'three cheers closed the ceremonies of the day." The people generally were presented to Governor St. Clair and the utmost good feeling prevailed. One of the officers present wrote of the occasion "These people appear the most happy folks in the world, greatly satisfied with their new purchase, and they certainly are the best informed, most courteous and civil to strangers of any people I have yet met with."§ Shortly after this occasion, and within the month of July, the first laws of the territory were framed and published, and Washington county was established - but of these subjects we shall speak elsewhere.

Another interesting ceremonial which occurred not long after the governor's arrival in the colony was the opening of the first court in the Northwest Territory. The demonstration was simple from necessity; there was not much of pomp or splendor in the ceremony, but it must have been suggestive to the denizens of this isolated pioneer settlement of an idea that was majestic. The formal establishment of the institution which is at once the people's palladium and the organized exemplar of ciyilization's most distinctive force and characteristic quality, could not have been other than an absorbingly interesting incident in the lives of those who witnessed it. On Tuesday, the second of September, 1788, the people and the officers from Fort Harmar formed in procession at ''the point" and marched to Campus Martius, escorting the governor, territorial judges, and the judges of the court of common pleas. In front was the sheriff of the county of Washington, Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, tall, erect and of a fine military bearing, with his drawn sword and wand of office. The spectacle was a strange one to the few friendly Indians who were present, for it was the first ceremonial which they had seen the white men perform, and it doubtless had upon their minds an awing effect. Arrived at the garrison the procession filed into the northwest corner of the block-house, and the great hall was filled with people. The Rev. Manasseh Cutler opened the exercises of the day with solemn prayer. The commissions of the judges, the clerk, and the sheriff were then read, after which the court of common pleas of Washington county was opened for business by the proclamation of the sheriff, beginning in the old form with the monitory, "Oyez, oyez, oyez." 'Although this scene was exhibited thus early in the settlement of the State, few ever equalled it in the dignity and exalted character of its principal participators."* As there were no cases to be tried, the court was immediately adjourned. The first judges were General Rufus Putnam, General Benjamin Tupper, and Colonel Archibald Crary, the sheriff, as has been stated, Colonel Sproat, and the clerk, Colonel R.J. Meigs. Paul Fearing, esq., was admitted an attorney, and was the first in the territory.

The Ohio company was actively engaged during the whole of the period that has been sketched. Consideration of the unforseen difficulties which arose occupied much of the time of the directors and agents. New plans had to be devised and put in operation, and in many cases measures which had been deemed adequate to the end in view had to be materially modified to meet existing circumstances. The progress of the company's affairs, although for the most part smooth enough, was not entirely without the halting and unevenness which indicated cross purposes on the part of some of the members. There was something in the way of internal strife, though it was not serious. Colonel May gives some intimation of this in an entry in his journal:

General Varnum and his party are making difficulties about the eight acre lots not being drawn contiguous to the city; also with respect to the Scioto purchase. General Putnam did not strictly adhere to orders given at Brackett's tavern at Boston and Rice's at Providence. +

The same writer found considerable fault with the slow progress that had been made in the company's colony, late in May, the day after his arrival, jotting down the following language:

As to our surveying, buildings, etc., they are in avery backward way. Little appears to be done and a great deal of time and money misspent.t

The first meeting of the Ohio company, west of the mountains, was held July znd, and continued by adjournment, until August 14th. There were present Samuel Holden Parsons, Rufus Putnam, and James M. Varnum, directors, and the following agents (each of whom represented the number of shares indicated): Colonel John May, 36; Major Winthrop Sargent, 166; Colonel Archibald Crary, 102; Major William Corliss, 112; Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs, 99; Captain Aaron Barlow, 25; Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, 43; Major Haffield White, 20; General Putnam, 66. Total shares represented, 669.

kingum was named Marietta. Among other business transacted the first day, was the action in regard to the three-acre lots. It was moved, as a measure looking toward the safety and well-being of the colony, 'that the lots 21, 30, and fractional parts of 35 and 36, of township number 2, in range 8, and numbers 19, 25, and 20, and fractional parts of 31 in the third township of range 8, the same being in commons laid out adjoining the city, be laid out in one thousand and five three-acre lots."

The mile square section No. 29, reserved out of every township for the support of religion, happening to be that on which the city was laid out, the company made a strenuous effort to have an exception made in this case. It was proposed to Congress that other lands should be reserved instead of this section, but the arrangement could not be effected. Hence it was given up, greatly to the disappointment of the proprietors, and other lots were laid out at the mouth of the great Hockhocking. Portions of the section, however, were leased for a term of years. Section No. 16, set apart for the use of schools, which fell near the mouth of Duck creek, was also leased in lots. The common lands, "between the highway and Muskingum and in Market square," it was decided might be assigned to individuals. for gardens for the term ot ten years (from March 1, 1788), on condition that they should be cleared within two months, fenced by March 1, 1792, and that within three years trees should be set out.

The ancient works received attention at this meeting. It was resolved that the elevated square, No. 11, be called Quadranaou; No. 19, Capitolium; No. 61, Cecelia; and that "the great road through the covert way" be named Sacra Via. It was further resolved that the reserved public square in the city, including the buildings at the block-house, be called Campus Martius.

The company took action on many matters intended to advance the interests of the colonists. and among the other resolutions which appear in their record* is the following, under date of August 13, 1788:

WHEREAS, It is necessary that mills be erected as soon as possible, it is ordered that any persons who shall build a wind-mill on the banks of the Ohio, and near the mouth of the Muskingum, by the first of December next, shall have right to occupy a tract of land one hundred and fifty feet east and west and two hundred feet north and south fora term of twenty years.

This tempting offer was not accepted, and it was not until sometime later that the colonists had the benefit of a mill within the limits of their purchase.

"It soon became evident," says General Putnam,t "that some new plan must be adopted to divide lands or the settlement would come to naught, and to remedy this the proprietors were notified to meet at Marietta the first Wednesday of December, 1788, and devise a plan. This they failed to do, and the agents, under the circumstances, conceiving that they had the authority to act in the matter, on February 6, 1789, repealed the resolutions for the division of lands passed at Boston November 21, 1787, and adopted the following:

Resolved, That there shall be granted to persons who shall settle in such places within the purchase as the agents may think most conducive to advance the general interest of the proprietors, and under such restrictions and limitations as they shall think proper, lands not exceeding one hundred acres, out of each share in the fund of the company, and that a committee be appointed to investigate the purchase so far as may, in their opinion, be necessary in order to point out and fix upon proper plans and places for settlements.

As early as July this matter had been under consideration. The inability of the directors to dispose of any lands within the purchase had prevented the growth of the settlement, for thousands of emigrants had passed down the Ohio, many of whom it was believed would have located in the Ohio company's purchase had they been able to buy lands. Most of them were on their way to Kentucky but were not the owners of any lands there. General Putnam, Samuel Parsons, and Colonel Archibald Crary, who were appointed a committee for the consideration of this matter, rehearsed the foregoing facts to the shareholders and made a report, in concluding which they said: 'We are of the opinion that giving a part of the lands to industrious people, on performing certain duties 'in settling, clearing, etc., will be very much for the interest of the proprietors." It was in accordance with this spirit that the action was taken by the agents which we have above indicated.

A committee, consisting of General Rufus Putnam, John Dodge, Griffin Greene, Alexander Oliver, Jonathan Devol, Colonel Robert Oliver, R. J. Meigs, Captain Dana, and Major Nathan Goodale, was appointed to explore the purchase and select suitable locations for settlements. It was decided to grant lands in one hundred acre parcels as contemplated by the resolution, and it was further provided that 'no settlement should consist of less than twenty men able to bear arms, they to be well provided with arms and ammunition, and to erect such works of defense as should be appointed by the committee. The company made the following further requirements, viz: Each settler to furnish lands for highways when needed; to build, within five years, a dwelling house to be at least eighteen by twenty-four feet in dimensions; to plant not less than fifty apple and twenty peach trees within three years; to clear and put in meadow or pasture fifteen acres and into tillage not less than five acres within five years; to be constantly provided with arms and be subject to military duty.

The time had now arrived'when Marietta should put forth her first off-shoot. Among the locations favorably mentioned by the exploring 'committee was the tract of land extending along the Ohio, a short distance above and four or five miles below the Little Kanawha, terminating two miles above the Little Hocking, and the broad alluvial bottom below the latter stream. During the winter of 1788-89 lots were surveyed and platted in these localities, and a company of about forty associates (as they were called) was organized to make a settlement. In reality there were four settlements (the lower being usually called Newbury), and they included sixty-eight lots. The lots being drawn the settlers began moving onto them early in April, 1789. Here the same slow, hard processes were repeated, which had resulted in the attainment of the improved condition of things at the mouth of the Muskingum. The settlers built little cabins along the river bank, clearing away the forest around them. The community was made up of men of sterling character - most of them schooled in the long struggle of the Revolutionary war for the future that was before them. They began hopefully and toiled on in privation, patiently enduring the many hardships of their lot, and endeavoring to see in the future a reward for their labors. They did not know how soon they should suffer other ills than those which they already encountered, but the time was fast approaching when the fortitude of every man should be put to the severest test. This group of settlements was called Belle Prairie, which term became contracted to Belleprie, and finally to the present form - Belpre.

What was called the "second association" was formed also in the winter of 1788-89, for the purpose of making a settlement about twenty miles up the Muskingum on an allotment of donation lands, and also upon Wolf creek. The association numbered thirty-nine members and being afterward increased by the addition of one new member, took forty lots of one hundred acres each. A village, now Beverly, was laid out on the "peninsula," on the west side of the Muskingum and in a bend of Wolf

April, 1789, by nineteen men, who leaving Campus Martius rowed up the Muskingum in canoes to the place of their destination. By the middle of May cabins were built for each family and gardens made. By the middle of July corn was growing among the girdled trees and upon the fertile plain, which had probably been tilled by the Indians, as when the settlement was made it was covered only with bushes and small saplings. A blockhouse was also erected during the summer. As the Wolf creek settlement was made simultaneously with that on the Muskingum (and, in fact, depending upon it) Colonel Robert Oliver, Major Haffield White, and Captain John Dodge, with a company of laborers erected what was known as the Wolf Creek mills, the first mill in the State of Ohio. This name was applied not alone to the building but to the settlement - the little cluster of houses which were also erected at this point, one mile from the mouth of the creek, though the term Millersburgh was also often used. These two settlements (that upon the Muskingum and that upon Wolf creek) were covered by one name, Plainfield, which, however, remained in use but a short time, being superseded by Waterford. The mill was of great service to the settlers in the immediate vicinity and also to the people of Marietta, both before and during the war. We have now mentioned briefly the two principal offshoots of the Marietta colony.*

There were several other small settlements made prior to the war. Inthe fall of 1790 an association of thirtysix members founded the ill-fated settlement at Big Bottom, which is fully described in the following chapter.

*For a full account of the early affairs of Belpre and Waterford the reader should see the chapters devoted respectively to them, and for the occurrences during the Indian war, the two chapters which follow this. 7

The same season a block-house was built for twenty men at Meigs creek, and a few settlers took up hundred acre donation lots at the forks of Duck creek, and in the meantime a few cabins appeared along the Ohio from the Muskingum to Duck creek.

Lands had been granted Captain Enoch Shepherd early in 1789, for the erection of mills on Duck creek, but the project did not result successfully, and Shepherd and his partners, Colonel Ebenezer Sproat atid Thomas Stanley, lost all of the time and money they had expended. This saw-mill was completed in September, 1789, but a flood so injured it and the dam that they could not easily be repaired, and as the Indian war soon afterwards came on, the enterprise was abandoned.

In the year 1790 one hundred and twenty acres of land was granted Dudley Woodbridge in section three, township number four, range eleven, on condition that he should build a good horse-mill, and at the same time Robert Potts, from New London, Connecticut, was given permission to build a mill, and land was granted him for that purpose on Mill creek, two miles north of Marietta. Neither of. these projects was realized, because of the more frequent occurrence of Indian hostilities which indicated an increased hazard in following any occupation, which necessitated removal from the immediate vicinity of the garrisons. The Robert Potts mill building was nearly completed when the danger became so great as to cause the workmen to abandon the building, and it was soon after destroyed by the Indians.

It must be borne in mind that during the years 1789 and 1790 the settlers were almost constantly harassed by the savage neighbors, and several murders were committed, but we have reserved for full consideration in subsequent chapters the topics of Indian affairs and the period of war.

Another grist-mill was projected by some of the Belpre settlers, among whom were Griffin Greene and Robert Bradford. The mouth of the Little Hocking was chosen as the location and the Ohio company donated to the builders a tract of one hundred and sixty acres of land. Work was begun in 1790 under the supervision of two experienced millwrights from Redstone, Pennsylvania, and very gratifying progress made, but the opening of the Indian war in January, 1791, put a stop to operations, and no mill was erected at this locality until after the restoration of peace. 'The people returned to the laborious method of grinding their corn by hand or pounding it in mortars until the completion of the famous floating mill, at Belpre, built by Captain Jonathan Devol, an ingenious mechanic, at the suggestion of Griffin Greene, who had seen one in Holland a number of years before. This mill was built upon two boats, one a large canoe made from a sycamore tree trunk, and the other a flat boat forty-five feet in length and ten feet wide. The grinding stones were placed upon the largest boat and the water wheel between this and the smaller. A small frame house was erected over the machinery. When the mill was in readiness for use it was towed to a point not far from Farmers Castle, and abreast of the middle of Backus' (afterward Blannerhassett's) island, where it was anchored in a strong current. This mill was owned by seven persons, and the capital of the stock company which they formed was divided into twelve shares. The cost of construction was fifty-one pounds and eight shillings in Massachusetts currency. 'This was quite a large sum of money to be expended at that time, but it proved a good investment. The situation of the mill rendered it safe from destruction at the hands of the Indians, and it was of immense service during the whole period of the war, not alone to the people of Belpre, but to the residents of Marietta as well. It is said that from twentyfive to fifty bushels of grain could be ground per day at this mill, according to the swiftness of the current.

Turning backward chronologically to the year 1789, we see in Marietta a continuation of the work of improvement carried on so diligently in 1788. 'The settlement felt severely the loss of those men who had gone out to Belpre and Waterford, for although quite a large number of accessions were made to the population, not many of the late comers were men to be compared in character with those who had taken their departure.

The results accomplished showed plainly the loss, for although the best was done under the circumstances, no more corn was planted than during the first season, and comparatively little building or other improvement was carried on.

General Varnum died in January of this year, and his place as director of the Ohio company was filled by the election of Griffin Greene. 'The company in February passed a resolution ordering that "the seventh of April should forever be considered as a day of public festival in the territory of the company." The Rey. Daniel Story, of Massachusetts, employed by Dr. Cutler for the Ohio company as preacher and teacher, arrived in the spring and began his labors as chaplain of the new settlement. He preached not only at Campus Martius and the Point, but made pastoral visits to Belpre and. Waterford, using on those occasions a log canoe. His visits were made quite regularly through the years 1789 and 1790, and only suspended when the danger from Indian attacks was considered too great.

The Ohio company continued in the exercise of its wise and kindly policy toward the people in its settlements. The surveys were continued when the attitude of the Indians would permit, and donation allotments were surveyed in several localities, amounting in all to fifty-seven thousand acres.

The condition of healthfulness among the settlers, which has been remarked upon as existing through the summer of 1788 did not prevail during the two years following, and a dearth of food became an additional and serious evil. Under these circumstances the Ohio company humanely came to the assistance of its people and made small loans without interest to those among them who were sick or destitute, supplying a total of about three thousand dollars. Much of this sum was lost, as when the Indian war came on many of the settlers were unable to carry on their avocations by which they otherwise would have obtained money with which to discharge their indebtedness.

In the summer of 1790 General Putnam, who had contracted with William Duer, of the Scioto company, to erect houses at Gallipolis for the expected French emigrants, employed, at his own expense, Captain William Burnham and forty men, to perform the work. General Putnam expended two thousand dollars, which was a total loss. The Scioto company had been premature in selling lands and inducing emigration before they had completed their purchase of Congress. The company failed, and Duer became a bankrupt. The poor duped Frenchmen arrived in this country in the summer, and on the sixteenth of October were at Marietta on their way to the village which Putnam's men had built for them. They came to Marietta in six Kentucky flatboats, and numbered four hundred souls. The odd dress, wooden shoes, and strange tongue of the emigrants made them the subject of much curious observation, and awakened a general interest among the settlers. There was no little pity for these unfortunate foreigners among those at Marietta who knew the probabilities in regard to their losing the lands which they expected to settle upon, and the almost penniless condition of the majority made their situation doubly deplorable. All that was possible was done to make their condition bearable, and a few of the French who remained permanently at Marietta were cared for until able to provide for their own wants. The greater proportion of the four hundred tarried briefly and went on to Gallipolis, and, owing to the troubles which soon after beset the Ohio company settlers, the woes of the French were less thought of than would otherwise have been the case. The Ohio company was obliged to exert every power to provide for its own emigrants. The total number of men in the company's territory was now upwards of three thousand. The total number arrived was about five hundred, but fully two-fifths had come as adventurers, or if emigrating with the intention of making a permanent settlement, had either returned to New England, or sought homes in Pennsylvania, Virginia, or Kentucky. During the first year the number of males who came to the colony was one hundred and thirty-three; during 1789 the number was one hundred and fifty-two, and during 1790, one hundred and sixty-five. Nearly one hundred families had come to the settlement during the three years.

* Among the papers of General Putnam there appears a list of the settlers in the Ohio company's purchase during the years 1788, 1789 and 1790, or to the opening of the Indian war. This list, which is undoubtedly reliable, forms the only complete record of the settlement of Washington county, and has never heretofore appeared in print. It includes all who came to the county during the years above mentioned, except those men who were hired by the Ohio company, most of whom had no intention of remaining permanently in the colony. Many of those whose names are given did not continue in the Ohio company's lands, but either removed to other settlements in Ohio, Virginia or Kentucky or returned to New England. Those who remained through the Indian war (or fell victims to it) are indicated by a star. The French settlers, and those who removed to Gallipolis (quite a large class) are designated by General Putnam, and as we have thought that part of the record might be of interest to many readers, it is copied with the original indications or notes opposite the names. The whole is a literal transcript of the original document by the painstaking and careful superintendent of the colony.

A List Of The Emigrants Of 1788, 1789 And 1790 Seventeen Hundred And Eighty-Eight

[In all eighty-five men, making with the first party forty-eight, a total of one hundred and thirty-three arrivals of males during the year. |

Seventeen Hundred And Eighty-Nine Seventeen Hundred And Ninety

{The total number of arrivals (men) in 1790, was two hundred; inclusive of French one hundred and sixty-five - number of families thirty-one. Of the whole number of French people, thirty-five men and two families remained some time at Marietta. |