USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio in three volumes ; an encyclopedia of the state : with notes of a tour over it in 1886 contrasting the Ohio of 1846 with 1886-90, Vol. III > Part 69
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."The emigrants, under the command of Gen. Rufus Putnam, landed their boats at the upper point of the Muskingum river, Marietta, on the 7th of April, 1788, where they unloaded their effects. The boards which they brought with them for the erection of temporary huts were landed and properly disposed of. A large tent was put up for the Governor of the colony, Gen. Putnam. And in this tent he trans- acted all the business of the colony. On the 9th of April, 1788, the Governor's chart of laws was read by his private secretary, Gen. Benj. Tupper, and approved by the members of the colony association.
" First-Be it ordained by the Officery and Council, that said territory be one, district, subject to be divided into five districts, as fu- ture circumstances may make it expedient.
"Second-Be it ordained that the Gov- ernor and his officery may make such laws, civil, criminal and military, for the colony, but not to conflict with the laws of the orig- inal re-established United States laws of 1787.
"Third-Bo it ordained that the Grand Council be composed of three Supreme Judges and three Territorial Association Judges, be- fore whom shall be tried and decided all the business of the colony, civil, criminal and military.
"Fourth-The Grand Council will hold their sessions 5th July, 7th, 9th of April and second Wednesday September, annually, where all claims against the association must be presented and canceled.
" Fifth-Be it ordained that the Governor receive at the rate of $40 per month for his services while performing the duties of his office. All other officery and Grand Council $I per day while in the performance of their duties, martial, military, musicians, chaplain, singers and teachers of schools.
"Sixth-Be it ordained that all permanent emigrants into the Territory shall be entitled
to 100 acres of land free, within the North- west purchase.
"Seventh-Be it ordained that all pioneers. and their descendants may become life and benefit members of the Emigrant Association, Northwest Territory, by paying $1 per annum to the Governor, for the use of the association.
"Eighth-Be it ordained that all members. must entertain emigrants, visit the sick, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, attend" funerals, cabin-raisings, log-rollings, husk- ings ; have their latch-strings always out.
" Ninth-Be it ordained that all members of the colony, from the ages of eighteen to forty-five, must perform four days of military duty per annum. All uniformed companies may drill once a month, dates and places. fixed by their officers. Officer drills once a year.
"Tenth-Be it ordained that all members .--- of the colony must celebrate 22d February, 7th April and 4th July, annually. Also in a proper manner observe the 28th November, 25th December and Ist day January, annu- ally.
Eleventh-Be it ordained that every member must keep the Sabbath by attending some place of religious worship agreeably to the dictates of his own conscience.
"Twelfth-Be it ordained that common schools should be established so soon as emi- gration to the Territory is sufficient.
"Thirteenth-Be it ordained that a library of historical and school-books be established at the Governor's headquarters, and that Gen. McIntosh, who is now engaged in writ ing a history of the colony, will serve as legal agent for that purpose ; also, Col. Timothy Flint act as an assistant. Also, that all offi- cial appointments be made by the Governor of the Colony and confirmed by the Grand Council. Be it further ordained that the (Metropolis) be named (Marietta), in honor of Queen Marie Antoinette, of France, who gave aid and influence during the darkest days of the Revolution. Ordered that three copies of this territorial chart of ordinances be copied and posted, as ordained : One at Fort Tlarmar, one at the East Point, and one at the Stockade. . These ordinances to take effect on the Ist day of May, 1788 (Queen Marie's birthday).
" By the Governor of the Northwest Ter- ritory, 9th of April, 1788.
" RUFUS PUTNAM.
"By his Private Secretary, N. W. T., "BENJAMIN TUPPER. "
"N. B .- Amendment April 7, 1802. The: title Governor erased and President insti- tuted. Also, the fee of $1 per ammmm to $1 for life. (Commissions to those entitled, $1.) True copy from original, price per copy, $1."
Gen. Putnam is the father of John Put- nam, who had a foreign appointment under the Cleveland Administration, and of Rufus Putnam, the editor of the Ross County Reg- ister.
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THE GARNER CASE.
The question as to what constitutes the southern boundary line of the State of Ohio has never been satisfactorily settled ; the Garner case had an important bear- ing on this question, which is treated more fully in our chapter on Vinton county.
The following account of the Garner case was published in June, 1868, in the Marietta Register :
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" In 1845 six slaves of John H. Harward, of Washington's Bottom, Virginia, just be- low Blennerhassett's Island, escaped into Ohio. At the river bank a party of Ohio men, unarmed, met them to assist, but some Virginians having obtained knowledge of the purpose of the negroes were there in advance concealed in the bushes, and fully armed. As the baggage was being taken from the boat, the Virginians rushed on them and se- cured five of the negroes and captured Peter M. Garner, Crayton J. Lorraine and Morde- cai Thomas, white citizens of Ohio. The Virginians claimed that these men, who had never set foot on Virginia soil, were felons, and amenable to the laws of that State for an alleged offence not known to the laws of Ohio. They were forcibly carried over into Virginia on the night of July 9, 1845, and lodged in jail in Parkersburg. No one in Virginia could be found to bail them, though Nahum Ward, A. T. Nye and William P. Cutler offered to indemnify any Virginians who would become their bondsmen. Inter- course with their friends from Ohio was de- nied them, and Marietta lawyers employed to defend them were rejected. Subsequently, the wives of the prisoners were permitted to visit them under guard.
"August 16th, a public meeting was held in the court-house in Marietta 'to take into consideration further measures for the liber- ation of Ohio citizens now in jail at Parkers- burg, and the vindication of the rights of Ohio.' September 2d, the prisoners, each collared by two men, were taken from the jail to the court-house in Parkersburg and there
pleaded ' not guilty' to the charge of ' en- tieing and assisting in the county of Wood, Virginia,' the six negroes to escape from sla- very. Bail was again refused except by a Virginia freeholder, and the prisoners went back to jail. The jury found a special ver- diet of guilty turning on 'jurisdiction ' in the case, to be tried by a higher court.
"'I'he question of jurisdiction or boundary between the two States was argued before the Court of Appeals at Rielmond, December 10-13, and the court divided equally on the question whether the State line was at low- water mark on the Ohio side of the river or above that. The men had been captured just above low water mark. At a special term of the Court of Appeals, held in Parkers- burg, Garner, Lorraine and Thomas were ad- mitted to bail in the sum of one hundred dol- lars each on their own recognizance, and were set at liberty January 10, 1846, "having been in jail six months. Hon. Samuel F. Vinton, of Gallipolis. argued the case for the prison- ers before the Superior Court of Virginia. It was never decided. Peter M. Garner died at Columbus, O., June 14, 1868, in his sixty- first year ; Mordecai Thomas removed to Belmont county, and Crayton J. Lorraine re- moved to Illinois. This case was regarded with the deepest interest, and was of far more than local importance. Sixteen years later many of the actors in this affair were living to see the State of Virginia turned into a battle-ground in which the same principle was fought for, and to see, a little later, the overthrow of slavery accomplished."
THE OHIO SYSTEM OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT.
The following paragraphs upon the above subject are from the Centennial His- torical address of President I. W. Andrews, delivered at Marietta, July 4, 1876, before the citizens of Washington county. He said: "In the matter of local government there are two very different systems in the United States. In New England the Town-answering to the 'township' of Ohio-is the political unit. In all the Southern States until recently, and in most of them now, the County is clothed with the chief political power. The town has no existence, or, if exist- "++ ing, it is devoid of all political significance.
" The divisions subordinate to the county are generally called Precincts in the South. In Mississippi whole counties have no other names for their subdivisions than those furnished by the ranges and townships ; as if we should know Law- rence only as Township 3, Range 7. In North Carolina the county seems to be divided numerically ; as if Belpre were merely No. 4."
The OHIO SYSTEM is not strictly the town system of New England, or the county sys- tem of the South. It is what is called the
"compromise " system in the census report for 1870, and is found in the great Middle States and in most of the Western. The
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political power is divided between the county and the town; the former has much more importance than in New England, and the latter has less.
In the incorporation of Marietta as a town in 1800 the features of the town system are seen. The establishment of the Court of Quarter Sessions with many of the powers now exercised by the county commissioners showed the influence of the other system. General Putnam and his associates from New England were able to incorporate into the new communities of the West some of the feat- ures of the town system, while Governor St. Clair, from Pennsylvania, and John Cleves Symmes, from New Jersey, introduced va- rious laws from those States.
We may be thankful that we have as much as we have of the town system. The opinion of Mr. Jefferson on the merits of this system,
Virginian though he was, was strongly ex- pressed at different times. He recommended the division of the counties of Virginia into wards of six miles square. "These wards, called townships in New England, are the vital principle of their governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the per- fect exercise of self-government, and for its" preservation." Again he says : " These little republics would be the main strength of the great one. We owe to them the vigor given to our revolution in its commencement in the Eastern States, and by them the East- ern States were enabled to repeal the em- bargo in opposition to the Middle, Southern and Western States, and their large and lub- berly divisions into counties which can never be assembled."
THE BLENNERHASSETTS.
There is no story in the annals of Ohio that has excited so much of human sympathy as that of the Blennerhassetts. The romance of it and its pathetic finale make an impress where events of greater historical importance fade from the memory.
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THE BLENNERHASSETT MANSION ON THE ISLAND, TWELVE MILES BELOW MARIETTA.
Harman Blennerhassett was born about the year 1767, of Irish parentage, in Hampshire, England, his mother at that date being there on a visit. He received a finislied education, graduating from Trinity College, Dublin, in the same class with Thomas Addis Emmet, the heroic Irish patriot. These two studied law to- gether and were admitted to practice on the same day in 1790. Blennerhassett rounded off his studies with a tour through Europe. In 1796 his father died, and Harman became the possessor of a fortune of $100,000. He married the beautiful and accomplished Margaret Agnew, daughter of the Governor of the Isle of Man.
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In the fall of 1797 Blennerhassett and his wife arrived in New York, where their rank, wealth and educational attainments brought them into association with the leading American families. In the winter they went to Marietta, and were treated with great distinction, while locating a site for a western home. They selected the island near Belpre, which had originally belonged to Gen. Washing- ton. The island was then in the possession of Elijah Backus, and of him they purchased the upper portion, comprising one hundred and seventy-four acres, for which, in March, 1798, they paid the sum of $4,500.
Soon after the Blenerhassetts moved into a block-house on the island, which they occupied until the year 1800, when the mansion was completed. "It was built," says Dr. Hildreth, " with great taste and beauty, no expense being spared in its construction that could add to its usefulness and beauty." The grounds about the house were laid out in a style befitting the elegant mansion.
Here for several years the Blennerhassetts lived an ideal life. - Harman Blen- nerhassett was fond of music, literature and scientific research ; his love for scien- tific investigation could be gratified through the possession of ample apparatus for chemical and other experiments ; his literary tastes found gratification in a large and well-selected library, while the superintending of the cultivation and beauti- fying of his island estate was his principal occupation.
Mrs. Blennerhassett was as cultured and refined as her husband. In person beautiful, well proportioned and agile as an athlete; an expert horsewoman, a charming conversationalist and a liberal hostess. Their home was the social centre for Belpre and Marietta.
Husband and wife were devoted to each other, and united in making their home attractive to the many guests that partook of their superabounding hospi- tality.
In April, 1805, Aaron Burr first visited this island Eden. He was accorded every distinction that might be bestowed on one who had been Vice-President of the United States. Very soon after his arrival he succeeded in interesting his host in his grand scheme for the establishment of a great western empire, and before his departure in October for the Eastern States Blennerhassett had fully embraced the plans of Burr as represented by the latter.
Early in September, 1806, Blennerhassett made a contract for the building of fifteen large boats, capable of transporting five hundred men. These were to carry the adventurers down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to their settlement. Arrangements were made for large supplies of provisions, Blennerhassett spend- ing his money freely and assuming responsibility for payment of all debts con- tracted, pledging more than the amount of his entire fortune.
Many friends endeavored to dissuade him from embarking on the reckless venture, but their efforts were unavailing.
In the meanwhile the United States government, suspecting that Burr was plotting secession and treason, took steps to prevent the consummation of his plans. Governor Tiffin of Ohio called out a company of militia under Captain Timothy Buell, and they were stationed on the bank of the Muskingum to cap- ture and detain any boats descending the Ohio or Muskingum under suspicious circumstances.
On the 9th of December Blennerhassett, learning that he was to be arrested, fled surreptitiously, and when Colonel Phelps, in command of the Virginia militia, took possession of Blennerhassett's island, he found the owners were absent. Mrs. Blennerhassett, who was at Marietta, returned to the island and found it in the possession of drunken and riotous soldiers, whom their commander had been unable to prevent from ransacking the house, ruining the furniture, and despoiling the grounds. With her children she left her ruined home, and after a trying voyage down the ice-blocked river in a small cabin flat-boat, she joined her husband on January 15th at Bayou Pierre. Blennerhassett was arrested, but after a few weeks' imprisonment was discharged. He returned to his island, but
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did not remain there. The house was never occupied again, and in 1811 was destroyed by fire. Removing to Mississippi, he settled on a cotton plantation in the vain endeavor to retrieve his ruined fortunes, but after a ten years' struggle was obliged to sell the plantation to pay his debts. He then wandered from place to place trying to earn a bare living for himself and family, but only sink- ing deeper and deeper into the depths of poverty. In 1831 he died at the home of a charitable sister in the Isle of Guernsey.
Mrs. Blennerhassett died in 1842 in a tenement house in New York city, after having for eleven years waited in vain for Congress to pay a claim of $10,000 for damage to their island property by the Virginia militia.
Of the three children of the Blennerhassetts, Dominick, the eldest, a shiftless drunkard, disappeared from St. Louis after a drunken debauch, and was never after heard from. Harman, a half-witted man, in 1854 was found dying of star- vation in a New York attic. Joseph, the youngest, was killed while fighting in the rebel army.
BIOGRAPHY.
RUFUS PUTNAM, a cousin of General Israel Putnam, was born April 8, 1738, O. S., at Sutton, Massachusetts. At the age of 15 he was apprenticed to a mill- wright, with whom he served four years, and then enlisted as a common soldier in the French and Indian war. He served faithfully three years, was engaged in several actions, and was at the time the army disbanded, in 1761, serving as ensign, to which office his good conduct had promoted him. After this, he re- sumed the business of millwright, at which he continued seven or eight years, employing his leisure in studying mathematics and surveying.
He was among the first to take up arms in the revolutionary contest, and as an evidence of the estimation in which he was held was appointed lieutenant-colonel. He was afterwards appointed, by Congress, military engineer. He served throughout the war with honor, and was often consulted and held in high esti- mation by Washington. On the 8th of January, 1783, he was honored with the commission of brigadier-general, having some time previously served as colonel. He was appointed by the Ohio Company superintendent of all business relating to their contemplated settlement ; and in April, 1788, commenced the first settle- ment at Marietta. In 1789 he was appointed by Washington a judge of the Supreme Court of the Territory. On the 5th of May, 1792, he was appointed brigadier-general in the army of the United States, destined to act against the Indians ; but resigned the next year in consequence of ill health. In October, 1796, he was appointed surveyor-general of the United States, in which office he continued until 1803. He was a member, from this county, of the convention which formed the State constitution. From this time his advanced age led him to deeline all business of a public nature, and he sought the quiet of private life. He died at Marietta, May 1, 1824, at the age of 86.
General Putnam was a man of strong, good sense, modest, benevolent and. tv. 13 .. serupulous to fulfil the duties which he owed to God and man. In person he was tall, of commanding appearance, and possessed a frame eminently fitted for the hardships and trials of war. His mind, though not brilliant, was solid, peue --- trating and comprehensive, seldom erring in conclusions.
RETURN JONATHAN MEIGS was born at Middletown, Ct., in 1765, graduated at Yale, studied law and was admitted to the bar in his native town. He was among the first settlers of Marietta. In the winter of 1802-3 he was elected chief justice of the Supreme Court of the State. The next year he resigned this office, having received from JJefferson the appointment of commandant of the United States troops and militia in the upper district of Louisiana, and shortly after was appointed one of the judges of the Territory of Louisiana. In April, 1807, he was commissioned a judge of Michigan Territory ; resigned the commis- sion in October, and becoming a candidate for governor of Ohio, was elected, in a
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GEN. RUFUS PUTNAM.
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spirited canvass, over his competitor, General Massie ; but not having the consti- tutional qualification of the four years' residence in the State, prior to the election, his election was contested and decided against him. In the session of 1807-8 he was appointed Senator in Congress, which office he afterwards resigned, and was elected Governor of Ohio in 181Q, In the war with Great Britain, while holding the gubernatorial office, he acted with great promptness and energy. In March, 1814,. having been appointed Postmaster-General of the United States, he resigned that office, and continued in his new vocation until 1823, during which he managed its arduous duties to the satisfaction of Presidents Madison and Monroe. He died at Marietta, March 29, 1825. In person he was tall and finely formed, with a high retreating forehead, black eyes, and aquiline and prominent nose. His features indicated RETURN JONATHAN MEIGS. his character, and were remarkably strik- ing, expressive of mildness, intelligence, promptness and stability of purpose. His moral character was free from reproach, and he was benevolent, unambitious, dignified, but easy of access. He was named from his father, Return Jonathan Meigs, a colonel of the revolutionary army, and one of the surveyors for the Ohio Company and of the first settlers at Marietta. In his early life he was called Return Jonathan, Jr.
REV. DANIEL STORY, the earliest Protestant preacher of the gospel in the ter- ritory northwest of the Ohio, except the Moravian missionaries, was a native of Boston, and graduated at Dartmouth in 1780. The directors and agents of the Ohio Company having passed a resolution in 1788, for the support of the gospel and the teaching of youth, Rev. Manasseh Cutler, one of the company's directors, in the course of that year engaged Mr. Story, then preaching at Worcester, to go to the West as a chaplain to the new settlement at Marietta. In the spring of 1789 he commenced his ministerial labors as an evangelist, visiting the settle- ments in rotation. During the Indian war from 1791 to 1795 he preached, during most of the time, in the northwest block-house of Campus Martius. The Ohio Company at the same time raised a sum of money for the education of youth, and : employed teachers. These testimonials sufficiently prove that the company felt for the spiritual as well as the temporal affairs of the colonists.
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When the war was over Mr. Story preached at the different settlements ; but as there were no roads, he made these pastoral visits by water, in a log canoe, pro -... pelled by stout arms and willing hearts. In 1796 he established a Congrega- tional church, composed of persons residing at Marietta, Belpre, Waterford and Vienna, in Virginia. Mr. Story died December 30, 1804, at the age of 49 years .- He was a remarkable man, and peculiarly fitted for the station he held.
The preceding biographical sketches are abridged from Hildreth's Pioneer Sketches. It is stated above that Mr. Story was the earliest Protestant preacher at Marietta. He was the first employed as a clergyman, but prior to his emigra- tion, in 1788, Rev. Manasseh Cutler, agent of the Ohio Company, had voluntarily delivered several sermons at Marietta.
MANASSEH CUTLER was born in Killingly, Conn., May 3, 1742; died in Hamilton, Mass., July 28, 1823. He worked on his father's farm, and prepared for college under the Rev. Aaron Brown, of Killingly, entering Yale, from which. he graduated with high honor in 1765. The following year he married Mary,
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daughter of Rev. Thomas Baleh, of Dedham, Mass. Studying law, he was ad- mitted to practice in the Massachusetts courts in 1767. In 1769 he commenced the study of theology under the direction of his father-in-law. The next year he was licensed, and commenced preaching at Hamlet parish (then a part of Ipswich, afterward Hamilton). He was ordained pastor Sept. 11, 1771, and continued his pastorate here until his death in 1823.
He served as chaplain under Col. Ebenezer Francis in the 11th Massachusetts Regiment in the Revolutionary war, taking a gallant part in the action in Rhode Island in 1778. Returning to Hamlet parish before the close of the war, he studied medicine, and began with much success to minister to the physical as well as the spiritual welfare of his people. He continued the habits of study acquired in youth, and, notwithstanding the many duties of his active life, found time to make extended researches into astronomy, meteorology, botany and kindred sei- ences, to which he had been attracted during his college course. . He was the first to examine the flora of New England. Over 350 species were examined by him, and classified according to the Linnaan system. As a scientist, his reputation was second* only to that of Franklin. Honorary degrees were conferred upon him by Yale, Harvard and other institu- tions, and he was elected to honorary membership in many scientific, phi- losophical and literary societies.
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