USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume I > Part 30
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MR. SHAYS-Do you know if the petition drawn up at Worcester has been sent to the Governor or not?
PUTNAM-I am surprised to hear you enquire that of me. You certainly ought to know whether you have sent it or not. However, since you ask the question, I tell you I have been credibly informed that so late as last Friday, it had not been presented.
SHAYS-They promised to send it immediately and it was very wrong they did not, but I don't know that it will alter the case for I don't suppose the Governor and Council will take notice of it.
PUTNAM-You have no reason to expect they will grant the prayer of it.
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SHAYS-Why not?
PUTNAM-Because many things asked for is out of their power to grant : and besides that, since you and your party have once spurned at offered mercy, it is absurd to expect that another general petition should be ever granted.
SHAYS-No, then we must fight it out.
PUTNAM-That as you please but it's impossible you should succeed and the event will be that you must either run your Country, or Hang, unless you are fortunate enough to bleed.
SHAYS-By God, I'll never run my country.
PUTNAM-Why not? It's more honourable than to fight in a bad cause and be the means of involving your country in a civil war, and that it is a bad cause you have always owned to me; that is, you owned to me at Holden the week before you stopped Worcester Court that it was wrong in the people to take up arms as they had.
SHAYS-So I did and so I say now, and I told you then, and I tell you now that the sole motive with me in taking the command at Springfield was to prevent the shedding of blood, which would absolutely have been the case, if I had not. And I am so far from confessing of it as a crime that I look upon it that government are indebted to me for what I did there.
PUTNAM-If that was the case, how came you to pursue the matter? Why did you not stop there ?
SHAYS-I did not pursue the matter. It was noised about that warrants were out after me and I was determined not to be taken.
PUTNAM-This won't do. How came you to write letters to several towns in the County of Hampshire to choose officers and furnish themselves with arms and 60 rounds of ammunition.
SHAYS-I never did, it was a cursed falsehood.
PUTNAM-Some body did in your name, which it can never be presumed was done without your approbation.
SHAYS-I never had any hand in the matter. It was done by a Committee Doctor Hunt (Hart?) and some body else who I don't know put my name to the copy and sent it to the Governor and Court.
PUTNAM-But why did you not take the benefit of the act of indemnity, as soon as it passed? But instead of that you ordered the whole posse collected and marched as far as Shrewsbury in order to go and stop the Court at Cambridge.
SHAYS-I never ordered a man to march to Shrewsbury nor nowhere else except when I lay at Rutland I wrote to a few towns in the County of
Wor .- 18
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Worcester and Hampshire-You are deceived-I never had half so much to do with the matter as you think for, and the people did not know of the Act of Indemnity before they collected.
PUTNAM-If they did not, you did, for you told me at Holden that you knew everything that passed at Court and that when you talked with Gen- eral Ward at Shrewsbury you were able to correct him in several things, which he advanced.
SHAYS-I could tell you but,-
PUTNAM-I don't wish to know any of your secrets. But why did you not go home with the Hampshire people from Holden, as you told me in the eve- ning you would the next morning ?
SHAYS-I can tell you it would not have done. I have talked with Maj. Goodman. I told him what you said and he gave it as his opinion the act would not have taken us in.
PUTNAM-Suppose that to be the case. Yet the General Court might have extended it to you. The chance in your favor was much greater before than (sic) after you had stopped Worcester Court. Why did you not peti- tion before you added that crime to the score?
SHAYS-It would have been better, but I cannot see why stopping that court is such a crime that if I might have been pardoned before I would be exempted now.
PUTNAM-When offered mercy has been once refused and the crime repeated government never can with any kind of honour and safety to the community, pass it over without hanging somebody, and as you are at the head of the Insurgents and the person who directs all their movements. I cannot see you have any chance to escape.
SHAYS-I at their head, I am not.
PUTNAM-It is said you are first in command and it is supposed they have appointed you their general.
SHAYS-I never had any appointment but that in Springfield, nor did I ever take command of any men but those of the county of Hampshire. No, General Putnam, you are deceived. I never had half so much to do in the matter as you think for, nor did I ever order any men to march except when at Rutland as I told you before.
PUTNAM-Did you not muster the party to go to Springfield the other day ?
SHAYS-No, nor had I any hand in the matter except that I rode down in a Slay (Sleigh).
PUTNAM-But I saw your name to the request presented to the Justices, that you won't deny.
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SHAYS-I know it was there and Grover put it there without my knowl- edge. I wan't got into Springfield when it was done. The matter was all over before I got there, and I had no hand in it.
PUTNAM-But is it a truth that you did not order the men to march to Springfield the other day ?
SHAYS-Yes. I was sent to and refused and told them I would have nothing to do in the matter.
PUTNAM-But why?
SHAYS-I told them it was inconsistent, after we had agreed to petition as we did at Worcester and promised to remain quiet, to meddle with the courts any more till we knew whether we could git a pardon or not.
PUTNAM-Have you not ordered the men to march to Worcester the 23d of this month?
SHAYS-No, I was sent to from Worcester County to come down with the Hampshire men. But I told them I would not go myself nor order any men to march.
PUTNAM-Who has done it? Hampshire men are certainly ordered to march.
SHAYS-Upon my refusing to act, they have chose a Committee who have ordered the men to march.
PUTNAM-But how do you git along with these people, having been with them so long? How is it possible they will let you stay behind ?
SHAYS-Well enough. I tell them that I never will have anything more to do with stopping courts or anything else but to defend my self, till I know whether a pardon can be obtained or not.
PUTNAM-And what if you cannot git a pardon ?
SHAYS-Why then I will collect all the force I can and fight it out, and I swear so would you or anybody else, rather than be hanged.
PUTNAM-I will ask you one question more. You may answer it or not as you please ; it is this : Had you an opportunity, would you accept of a par- don, and leave these people to themselves?
SHAYS-Yes, in a moment.
PUTNAM-Then I advise you to set of this night to Boston and throw your self upon the mercy and under the protection of Government.
SHAYS-No, that is too great a risque unless I was first assured of a pardon.
PUTNAM-There is no risque in the matter. You never heard of a man who voluntarily did this whose submission was not accepted and if your sub- mission is refused I will venture to be hanged in your room.
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SHAYS-In the first place, I don't want you hanged and in the next place they would not accept of you-
The only observation I shall make is, that I fully believe he may be bought off, and no doubt he is able to inform government more of the Bottom of this plot then they know at present-
I have the honour to be Sir your Excellencys most obedient humble Servant
GOVERNOR BOWDOIN
RUFUS PUTNAM
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CHAPTER XXIV.
The Marietta Settlement
Two generals of the American Revolution sat before the fire in a Rutland farmhouse in deep deliberation through a January night in 1785. One was General Rufus Putnam, returned to civil life to till his farm and carry on his profession as a surveyor. The other was his trusted asso- ciate, General Tupper, just back from an expedition toward Ohio. When the day dawned, Putnam had conveyed to his friend his plan for the set- tlement of the Northwest.
That plan was the nucleus of the movement which culminated in the Ordinance of 1787-"the first human government," said the late George Frisbie Hoar of Worcester, United States Senator from Massachusetts, "under which absolute civil and religious liberty has always prevailed. Here no witch was ever hanged or burned. No heretic was ever molested. Here no slave was ever born or dwelt." This Northwestern Country is now the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. The Ordinance of 1787 replaced another ordinance under which these states would have been open to the establishment of slavery.
Rufus Putnam's life was associated with four Worcester County towns. He was born in Sutton. Much of his boyhood was passed in an Upton tavern. He served his apprenticeship as a millwright in North Brookfield, where he lived for twenty-seven years. He rounded out his New England career in Rutland. He never had even one day in school or under a teacher elsewhere. He taught himself the three R's and the higher mathematics necessary to a millwright and a surveyor. He served through three exhausting campaigns in the French and Indian War. A colonel in Washington's Army investing Boston, the most important tasks of military engineering were thrust upon him. His inspired idea of a movable fort for Dorchester Heights, which he erected in the dark of one night, drove the
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British out of Boston. Again a simply-living farmer, he had conceived, and was prepared to carry through a plan which was to change the destiny of a nation. To him is given full historical credit for that exodus of people which founded the Marietta Settlement on the Ohio River.
The farmhouse in which this fateful meeting was held is now an historic shrine-the General Rufus Putnam House, a mile west of Rutland Town Hall on the highway to Barre. The ancient dwelling, restored within and without as it was in the old days, together with the one hundred and fifty acres of farmland, is owned by the Rufus Putnam Memorial Association, which was organized in 1898 by a group of men under the leadership of Senator Hoar. It contains the furnishings of the period of the late eight- eenth century and many Revolutionary relics. Its great fireplace is as it was the night that Putnam and Tupper sat and planned, and, by candle light, drew up the call for the convention that organized the Ohio Company.
The story of Rufus Putnam's life reads like a highly colored fictional romance. He was born in Sutton in 1738. When he was seven his father died and two years later his mother married Captain John Saddler who kept a tavern in Upton. The captain did not believe in such frippery as schooling for a boy. Rufus did. He bought powder and shot with the pennies given him by tavern guests as tips as "bell-hop," killed grouse and other game with an old gun and sold them, and accumulated enough money to buy a primer and an arithmetic. With these, unassisted, he learned to read and spell and write and figure. At sixteen, he was apprenticed as millwright to a brother- in-law, Daniel Matthews of Brookfield, who likewise saw no useful purpose in book-learning. But he was more decent than the stepfather, for he did permit the lad to burn candles and study at night. At eighteen, Rufus, now a strapping, brawny fellow, six feet tall and noted for his strength and agility, was still doing his "home work." Among other things he learned some practical geometry in laying out the exact angles of the frame-work of a mill and in spacing the spokes of a wheel. Eventually he mastered the mysteries of land surveying.
In those years recruiting officers were drumming for enlistments in the villages, and young Putnam responded to join the English forces which were campaigning against the French. Twice he reënlisted, won a commission and remained with the troops until the fall of Quebec was followed by the ceding of Canada to England.
Washington's Engineering Officer-Quick to offer his services in the Revolution, we find him a lieutenant-colonel in the Patriot Army in front of Boston, stationed at Roxbury with his regiment. Shortly after the battle of Bunker Hill, the general and field officers of the Roxbury Division met in
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council to consider their defenceless position, exposed at any time to the attack of the enemy, with no better protection than a board fence. It was decided that earthworks should be thrown up for the defence of the town. The difficulty was to find an engineer capable of planning the lines, for such men were rare in the Colonies. At length it was mentioned to the general in command at Roxbury by friends of Putnam that he had seen some service of the kind in the recent French War, and he was asked to undertake the task. He hesitated, and frankly told his commander that he had never read a word of the science of military engineering, and all the knowledge he had was what he had absorbed from working under British officers. The general would take no denial, and the colonel reluctantly set about planning entrench- ments on the Boston front of the village, and at other places in the vicinity, especially Sewel's Point.
It so happened that while he was at the Point, Generals Washington and Lee rode over from Cambridge to inspect the situation on the side of the Charles River. The plan of the works met the approval of both officers, and they spoke of them in high terms, especially in their superiority over the defenses at Cambridge. All the forts at Roxbury, Dorchester and Brook- line, including that at Cobble Hill, were of Putnam's laying-out. The mill- wright soldier made a deep impression on Washington, who from time to time entrusted him with other important commissions.
In the winter of 1776 Washington was deeply engaged in planning an attack on the British Army in Boston by crossing the troops on the ice, or else to draw them out from their stronghold by erecting works on Dorchester Heights, which would not only harass the town, but would destroy the ship- ping lying in the harbor. Putnam, himself, in his diary, described what followed :
"As soon as the ice was thought to be sufficiently strong for the army to pass over, a council of general officers was convened on the subject. What their particular opinions were I never knew, but the brigadiers were directed to consult their field officers, and they to feel the temper of their captains and subalterns. While this was doing I was invited to dine at headquarters and while at dinner General Washington invited me to tarry after the com- pany had departed.
"When we were alone he entered into a free conversation on the subject of storming the city of Boston. That it was much better to draw the enemy out to Dorchester than to attack him in Boston, no one doubted; for if we could maintain ourselves on that neck of land, our command of the town and harbor would be such as would probably compel them to leave the place. But the cold weather which had made a bridge of ice for our passage into Boston,
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had also frozen the earth to a great depth, especially in the open country, like the hills on Dorchester Neck, so that it was impossible to make a lodgement there in the usual way (that is of excavating the earth). However, the gen- eral directed me to consider the matter, and if I could think of any way by which it could be done, to make a report to him immediately.
"I left headquarters in company with another gentleman, and on the way came to those of General Heath. I had no thought of calling until I came against his door when I said, 'let us call on General Heath,' to which the gen- tleman agreed. I had no other motive than to pay my respects to the general.
"While there I cast my eye on a book which lay on the table, lettered on the back 'Muller's Field Engineer.' Immediately I requested the general to lend it to me. He denied me. I repeated my request. He again refused, saying he never lent his books. I then told him that he must recollect that he was one who, at Roxbury, in a manner compelled me to undertake a business on which, at the time, I confessed I had never read a word, and that he must let me have the book. After a few more excuses on his part, and pressing on mine, I obtained the loan of it."
Looking over the contents of the book Putnam came to the word "chan- delier," a new one to him, and he turned the pages to the subject. Reading it carefully, he solved the apparently insolvable problem of Dorchester Heights. His report was accepted by Washington and work was begun immediately.
The chandeliers were made of stout timbers, ten feet long, into which were framed posts five feet high and five feet apart. These were placed on the ground in parallel lines, and the spaces between them fitted with bundles of facines, strongly picketed together. They formed a movable parapet, of wood instead of earth. The men were quickly put to work in neighboring apple orchards and woods, cutting and bundling up facines. On the night of March 4, 1776, the breastwork was assembled on the selected line of defense, guns were hauled up, and by morning the city of Boston and the British Navy lay at the mercy of the Continentals.
When the sun set on Boston on March 4, Dorchester Heights were as nature and the farmer had left them with the approach of winter. When Sir William Howe rubbed his eyes on the morning of March 5 he saw thorough the heavy mists the entrenchments on which, he said, the rebels had done more work in a night than his whole army would have done in a month. He wrote to Lord Dartmouth that it must have been the employment of at least twelve thousand men. His own effective force, including the sailors of the fleet, was about eleven thousand. "Some of our officers," said the Annual Register, in an article supposed to be written by Edmund Burke, "acknowledged that
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the expedition with which these works were thrown up, with their sudden and unexpected appearance, recalled to their minds the wonderful stories of enchantment and invisible agency which are so frequent in the Eastern romances."
Lord Howe saw instantly that either the guns on the Heights must be taken or silenced or Boston must be evacuated and the English fleet moved out of range. He was a soldier of spirit. So he resolved to storm the works the next night before they could be made impregnable. Earl Percy, who had already met the Yankee farmers at Lexington and Bunker Hill, was assigned to the command. "But the Power that dispersed the Spanish Armada baffled all the plans of the British general." There came "a dreadful storm at night" which made it impossible to cross the bay until the works on the Heights had been perfected. "We take no leaf from the pure chaplet of Washington's fame," said Hoar, "when we say that the success of the first great military operation of the Revolution was due to Rufus Putnam. The Americans under Israel Putnam (Rufus Putnam's cousin), marched into Boston, drums beating and colors flying. The veteran British Army, aided by a strong naval force, soldier and sailor, Englishman and Tory, sick and well, bag and baggage, got out of Boston before the strategy of Washington, the engineering of Putnam, and the courage of the untried and despised yeo- man, from whose leaders they withheld the usual titles of military respect. 'It resembled,' said Burke, 'more the emigration of a nation than the breaking up of a camp.'"
Colonel Putnam's Revolutionary record is a long one. Washington regarded him as his ablest engineer. He clearly outclassed in this respect all others of the American officers, and was held to be much superior in this difficult military art to the French and other foreign officers who were serv- ing as volunteers in the Continental Army. Notable among the fortifications planned and built under his direction were those that made West Point on the Hudson an impregnable fortress. He also raised and commanded a regi- ment of infantry, and was with Washington's Army in the campaigns which had their culmination in the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.
In 1780 he bought the farm in Rutland, which had been owned by Colonel John Murray, a Royalist so obnoxious to the Patriots that his property was confiscated, and moved his family there from North Brookfield. When the war ended he joined them, and, his worth and ability being well known, he was called upon to fill many offices, which he accepted as a good citizen, though some of them were petty. The distinguished soldier even served as constable.
In this period, the plan which his brain had formulated of establishing a settlement in the rich country of the Ohio Valley remained constantly in his
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mind. The town constable was planning an empire. His chief confidant and counsellor was his old commander and friend, George Washington, who was deeply interested in the project which Putnam had put before him as far back as 1782. For the Father of his Country believed the settlement of the Northwest was of vital importance, and from his young manhood, when he became more familiar with it than was any other Englishman, he had dreamed of connecting up the vast territory with the Atlantic coast by land and water, to form a homogeneous, closely knitted country. And he was himself a large landowner on the Ohio and Kanawha rivers.
Before the army had broken up, Putnam promoted a petition of two hundred and eighty-eight officers, which was forwarded to Washington, and by him presented to Congress, for a grant of lands north and northwest of the Ohio River to the veterans of the army in redemption of the pledges of Congress ; and further, for sales to such officers and soldiers as might choose to become purchasers on a system which would effectually prevent the monop- oly of large tracts. A year later the Rutland farmer renewed his urgent application to Washington for his aid in the project, to which he said he had given much time since he left the army. The President's answer was that he had exerted every power that he was master of with Congress, and had dwelt upon Putnam's argument for a speedy decision, but Congress had adjourned without action.
In 1785, however, Congress appointed General Putnam one of the sur- veyors of the Northwestern lands. In a letter accepting the office he wrote that "a wish to promote emigration from among my friends into that coun- try, and not the wages stipulated is my principal motive." He was com- pelled by engagements with the State to devolve the duty upon General Tupper as a substitute. Tupper could not get below Pittsburg in the season of 1785. But he returned to Massachusetts in the winter with such knowl- edge of the country as he had gained, and reported to Putnam at Rutland on January 9, 1786. Thereupon they completed the call for a convention to form a company-to all officers and soldiers of the late war and all other good citizens residing in Massachusetts who might wish to become purchasers of lands in the Ohio Country.
The convention was held in the Bunch of Grapes Tavern, Boston, March I, 1786. A committee was chosen with Putnam as chairman to draft a plan of organization, and so the Ohio company was begun. In 1787, the directors made Putnam superintendent. In the winter everything was ready.
Meanwhile Congress had enacted a law which was fraught with mischief. In 1784 Thomas Jefferson of Virginia reported an ordinance dividing the Northwestern Territory into ten states. His thought was, as he declared to Monroe, that if great states were established beyond the mountains they might separate themselves from the confederacy and become its enemies. His
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ordinance, as he reported it, permitted slavery but contained a provision excluding it after 1800. This was stricken out by the Congress. His pro- posal, as amended, became law April 24, 1784.
From subsequent events it is probable that under this ordinance the territory would have been occupied by settlers from the South, with their slaves. It might have been impossible to exclude the institution of slavery if it had once got a footing. The result would have been ten slave-holding states, with their twenty votes in the Senate. It has been maintained that the American republic would have been a "great slave-holding empire," had not Rufus Putnam's Ohio Company stood in the way.
General Putnam and Manasseh Cutler of Ipswich met in Boston in the early summer of 1787. To quote Dr. Cutler's diary : "I conversed with Gen- eral Putnam, and settled the principles on which I am to contract with Con- gress for lands on account of the Ohio Company." On July 6 he was at Washington, presenting his case. Three days later an ordinance was intro- duced in Congress, and was submitted to him for remarks and amendments. The clause prohibiting slavery had been omitted, but an amendment includ- ing it was adopted unanimously by northern and southern members, save for one vote.
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