USA > Ohio > History of Ohio; the rise and progress of an American state, Volume Two > Part 27
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THE RISE AND PROGRES
What would we give for a snap-shot of those tv nation-builders seated before that spacious old fir place in their wigs and knee breeches, smoking the pipes and no doubt refreshing their "inner man with draughts that cheered, as they consulted ma of the Ohio country and eagerly considered wat; and means? It was a dream of empire to be realizdl beyond the imagination of man. The result of th memorable conference was that the two promote; united in a publication which appeared in the publ: papers of New England on the 25th of January, 178, headed "Information," and dated January Iot, 1786, and signed Rufus Putnam, Benjamin Tuppe.
The "Information" was a public notice address to all officers and soldiers who served in the "lae war" and who were by ordinance of Congress (178 to receive certain tracts of land in the Ohio count and also "all other good citizens who wished to becore adventurers in that delightful region" to meet 1 certain towns specified in the different counties f the commonwealth of Massachusetts-and inhal- tants in other states as should be subsequently agre upon-to appoint delegates to a meeting to be hel in Boston, March 1, 1786, at the Bunch of Graps Tavern-in the Revolutionary days the resort and political headquarters of the ultra whigs-to form 1 association by the name of the Ohio Company. Te counties and towns for the respective meetings wee named in the notice. In accordance with the varios county and town meetings held, there met at te Bunch of Grapes Tavern on the date agreed (Mar) I), delegates chosen from eight counties. They wei:
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
Winthrop Sargent and John Mills, from Suffolk; Manasseh Cutler, from Essex; John Brooks and Thomas Cushing, from Middlesex; Benjamin Tupper, rom Hampshire; Crocker Sampson, from Plymouth; Rufus Putnam, from Worchester; John Patterson and ahlaliel Woodbridge, from Berkshire, and Abraham Villiams, from Barnstable. This meeting elected General Rufus Putnam chairman of the convention nd Major Winthrop Sargent, clerk. Putnam, Tupper nd others glowingly described the Ohio country and 's advantages as a place of settlement. A committee onsisting of Putnam, Cutler, Brooks, Sargent and Cushing, was named to draw up articles of association. The "convention" met again March 3d, to hear the eport of the committee. These articles of agreement or "constituting an association of the Ohio Company" rere lengthy and elaborate. The articles state the esign of the association to be to raise a fund in con- inental specie certificates "for the sole purpose and ntire use" of purchasing lands in the western territory. The fund was not to exceed one million dollars in ontinental specie certificates and one year's interest hereon. Each share to be one thousand dollars, nd each shareholder was to contribute, in addition ) one year's interest on the certificates, ten dollars 1 specie, as an expense fund. No person was per- mitted to hold over five shares. Five directors, a reasurer and a secretary were to be appointed. Busi- ess affairs moved slowly in those old days and the ext meeting of the proposed association, called by pecial advertisement, was held March 8, 1787, in oston at Bracket's Tavern-formerly "Cromwell's
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Head" Tavern. At this meeting it was reporte that two hundred and fifty-of the one thousan shares-had been subscribed. Of the five director provided by the articles of agreement, three were the elected: General Samuel H. Parsons, General Rufu Putnam and Rev. Manasseh Cutler; Major Winthro Sargent was chosen secretary and Colonel Richar Platt, treasurer of the company. The selection c the two other directors was postponed until the nex meeting, when General James Varnum was mad fourth director, the fifth one left unselected or i chosen was unrecorded. The directors appointe General Parsons, one of their number, to apply t Congress, then assembled in New York, for a purchas of lands. He made the application on the 9th of May but after the IIth of that month there was no quorur till the 4th of July. General Parsons having returne home, the directors appointed Manassseh Cutler a the special agent of the association, to make a contrac with the "Continental Congress" for a tract of land il the Great Western Territory "of the Union." An now the trend of events herein related, center in an( depend upon Manasseh Cutler-a man wonderfull- well equipped and endowed for the mission. Hi influence in the settlement of Ohio and the large movement of the political organization of the North west Territory can hardly be overestimated.
Manasseh Cutler, a native (1742) of Killingly Conn., the descendant of James Cutler, the first o his family to emigrate (1734) from England to America had the advantage of such schooling as the neighboring country afforded and also the rarer care of private
MANASSEH CUTLER
Born, Killingly, Conn., 1742. Graduate of Yale, 1765. Teacher, preacher, physician, scientist. Served as chap- plain in American Revolution. Became interested in the Ohio Company of Associates and acted as its agent before Congress. One of the most interesting and influen- tial men of his day, and with Rufus Putnam brought about the success of the Ohio Company. He is buried at Ham- ilton in the cemetery near his home.
THE HOME OF MANASSEH CUTLER
Home of Cutler, known as "The Hamlet, " at Hamilton, formerly Ipswich, Mass. A spacious mansion in which Cutler lived during the time he was acting as agent of the Ohio Company of Associates.
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General Parsons, one of their number, to apy Congress, then assembled in New York, for a pun of lands. He made the application on the 9th o! but after the 11th of that month there was no qu till the 4th of July. General Parsons having retor home, the directors appointed Manassseh Curl the special agent of the association, to make a cor wwh the "Continental Congress" for a tract of L the Kiment Western Territory "of the Union." now the trend of events lerin related, center depend ajo Mon rh Culler-a man wonden well squigpol und imdowod for the mission influence in the inilement of Ohio and the movement of Ho political organization of the west Territory can hardly be overestimated.
Manasseb Cutler, a native (1742) of Ku Conn., the descendant of James Cutler, the Mel of his family to emigrate (1734) from England to Au mne had the advantage of auch schooling as the neigh on country afforded and also the rarer care of
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
tutors. His home was within short distance of New Haven, where he attended Yale College from which he graduated in 1765 with honor. He was a prodigy of intellectual progress and attainment. He taught school, studied law and engaged in its practice; entered the field of theology and was ordained pastor of the Congregational Church at Ipswich Hamlet (now Hamilton), Mass., in 1771. Says one biographer: "He was a man of unusual breadth and solidity of character; and while performing his pastoral duties with great fidelity and acceptance, he gave much time and thought to political and scientific investigation." No study in the then field of learning escaped his attention; he became an authority in botany, astronomy and many of the sciences ; wrote and published scholarly discourses on lines of study and investigation, natural, political, theological, literary; he was a voluminous writer; carried on correspondence with the leading scholars of Europe and America, and kept a journal in which the details of his daily labors, narrations of current events and his meditations were most entertainingly set down. He served as chaplain in the Revolution but on his return to his home in 1779, he wrote in his diary: "I have spent considerable of an estate in the support of my family and am now driven to the practice of physic," whereupon "he ead medicine assiduously, studied anatomy, prepared medicines and attended the sick, in addition to his isual pastoral duties." In 1782 he opened "in his ›wn house" a private boarding school which he con- inued for twenty-five years, instructing the youthful ›atrons in all subjects known to the pedagogue of those
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days. Many a distinguished contemporary sent hi son to the school of the learned Dr. Manasseh Cutler the paragon of industry and intelligence. The Ohi Company at once enlisted his interest and cooperation and now, say the annotators to his life and journals "At the age of forty-five, he enters upon one of thos peculiar episodes of human life that would seem lik detaching a well-regulated planet from its orbit, an sending it off on an errand fraught with immensel greater results than any that could have been accom plished in its ordinary course. He did not ignore o abandon his chosen profession, or slacken his pursui of the higher branches of knowledge. He rathe brought to bear upon his new enterprise all the ac quisitions, experience, sound judgment and elevate aspirations of his life hitherto. He therefore entered upon the Ohio business with a zeal and enthusiam tha called forth all his energies." Rufus Putnam was th protagonist and general of the Ohio Company, bu Manasseh Cutler was its sage, diplomat and statesman and it is not too much to say that but for the ability and practical shrewdness of this man, the project o the settlement of Ohio would have temporarily, a least, failed, and probably the course of early Ohi history would have been far different. We saw tha in accordance with the "Information" of Putnan and Tupper, Manasseh Cutler, represented his county at the first meeting at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern at the second meeting a year later after the failure o the mission to Congress of Mr. Parsons in May (1787) Mr. Cutler was made the agent to accomplish the tasl of securing the purchase of the lands. Dr. Cutle.
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relates the story, with great particularity in his journal.
Dr. Cutler arrived in New York, with some fifty letters of introduction to leading congressmen and government officials, and immediately (July 6th) presented his petition for the purchase of lands for the Ohio Company with the proposed terms and conditions of purchase. The matter was immediately referred to a committee and the negotiations continued for three weeks, during which period Dr. Cutler had many hearings before the Congressional committees and exerted various influences upon the members to bring about the consummation of his efforts. The first week was mainly taken up with the disposal of the "Ordinance of 1787" in which, as we have seen, Dr. Cutler took a most important part; it was a pre- requisite that the Ordinance pass, for the Ohio Asso- ciates would hardly be persuaded to buy lands in a territory without the protective law and government of the United States.
Congress was not at first favorable to the conditions of the purchase as proposed by Cutler. The Govern- nent desired certain reservations, in certain localities, or schools, religion and future congressional dis- positions. These stipulations were not satisfactory o Dr. Cutler and in the midst of quibbles and delays e threatened to leave New York and abandon the nterprise, when other parties entered the negotiations nd changed the situation.
Colonel William Duer, an Englishman, resident 1 the United States since 1768, a colonel of Colonial militia, delegate to the Continental Congress (1777-8), ssisted Alexander Hamilton in organizing the Treasury
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Department in 1788-9, and a man of keen business instincts and wide experience in large transactions "came to me" says Cutler, "with proposals from a number of the principal characters of the city, to extend our contract and take in another company- but that it should be kept a profound secret. He explained the plan they had concerted and offered me generous conditions if I would accomplish the busines: for them. The plan struck me agreeably."
Duer had been quick to see the advantage the sale of lands by Congress to the Ohio Company would be to the public credit and the value that would thereby be given to the lands adjoining the purchase, "by : systematic settlement of such men as composed th Ohio Company." Duer had in mind the Scioto Company "speculation." Dr. Cutler continues ir his diary: "I spent the evening closeted with Colone Duer and agreed to purchase more land, if term can be obtained, for another company, which wil probably forward the negotiation." The next day he told members of Congress that if they would "accede to the terms I had proposed I would extend the purchase to the tenth township from the Ohio and to the Scioto inclusive, by which Congress could pay near four million dollars of the National debts." Th "lobbying"-for such it was by the astute Cutler- was vigorously renewed and pressure was brough to bear upon the opposing Congressmen. "In orde to get some of them," writes Cutler, "so as to work powerfully on their minds, we were obliged to engag three or four persons before we could get at them in some instances we engaged one person, who engager
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a second, he a third, and so on to the fourth before we could effect our purpose." Surely among the many other matters of which Cutler was master, the art of "persuasion" was not wanting. It had been the purpose to make General S. H. Parsons governor of the new territory, but finding General St. Clair, then president of Congress, would be more interested in the project of the purchase if the governorship should fall to him, Cutler shifted to St. Clair and embraced the opportunity to declare that he "heartily wished that His Excellency General St. Clair might be Governor and that I would solicit the eastern members [of Congress] to favor such an arrangement." Then "matters went on much better," and "we now entered into the true spirit of negotiations with great bodies; every machine in the city that it was possible :o set to work we now put in motion."
On July 27th, Congress passed the ordinance of purchase, by which "we obtained the grant of near ive million acres of land, amounting to three millions and a half of dollars, one million and a half acres or the Ohio Company, and the remainder for a private speculation, in which many of the prom- nent characters of America are concerned; without connecting this speculation, similar terms and advan- ages could not have been obtained for the Ohio Company."
The day the Ohio purchase bill passed Congress, )r. Cutler started for home which he reached in one veek after completing "one of the most interesting nd agreeable journeys I ever made in my life," a ourney, with its side detours, of nearly nine hundred
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miles, all in the "one-horse sulky." On August 29 he went to Boston and at a meeting in the Bunch o Grapes Tavern, made an extended report of his dealing with Congress, ending with the purchase. The con tract with the Government for this purchase, however was not consummated until October 27, (1787) whei Dr. Cutler wrote in his journal: "This day completed our contract with the Board of Treasury for near si: millions of acres of land, and Major Sargent and mysel signed the Indentured Agreement on parchment il two distinct contracts; one for the Ohio Company and the other for the Scioto Company; the greates private contract ever made in America."
The contract for the sale by the government wał signed on the day just named, by Samuel Osgood and Arthur Lee of the Board of Treasury of the United States and by Manasseh Cutler and Winthrop Sargen for the Ohio Company. The contract stipulated that for the consideration of five hundred thousand dollar: "in specie, loan office certificates reduced to specie or certificates of the liquidated debt of the United States," paid to the treasurer and upon the further payment of a similar sum, when the exterior line of the contracts had been surveyed by the geographer or proper officer of the United States. The tract of land secured was bounded on the east by the seventh range of townships, south by the Ohio, west by the west boundary of the seventeenth range, extending so far north that an east and west line would embrace the number of acres, besides the reservations, which were section sixteen for schools, twenty-nine for religion, eight, eleven and twenty-six to be disposed
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of by Congress and two townships for a university. The land for the Scioto Company-the "private speculation"-lay between the north and west lines of the Ohio Company's purchase, and the north line of the tenth township of the seventh range and the west line of the seventeenth range and the Scioto River -in all about four million, five hundred thousand acres. The payments on the "private speculation" were to be two-thirds of a dollar per acre in public securities in four semi-annual installments, the first alling due six months after the exterior line of the ract had been surveyed by the government.
For the sake of continuity in its history, we antic- pate a few years as to the outcome of the Ohio Company purchase. The Company made its first equired payment, but failure of some of the share- holders to make good their obligations, "the expenses of the Indian War, the losses sustained through their reasurer,"-Colonel Richard Platt-so embarrassed he company that it was impossible for them to pay he remaining $500,000. Early in 1792 the directors of the company met in Philadelphia and memorialized Congress for relief. Congress finally modified the original contract by authorizing a conveyance for hat half of the tract already paid for (750,000 acres); inother conveyance for 214,285 acres (one seventh of the original purchase), to be paid for within six nonths by warrants-army vouchers-issued for ›ounty rights; and a third conveyance for one hundred housand acres which was to be transferred in tracts f one hundred acres as a bounty to each male person f eighteen years of age, becoming an actual settler-
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this was known as the Donation Tract. On May IO, 1792, President Washington issued to the Ohic Company, the three patents covering the above three transfers. The fortunes, or rather the mis- fortunes, of the Scioto Company purchase we wil follow later on.
Meetings of the directors and agents of the Ohio Company were held at Bracket's Tavern, Boston November 21, 1787, and at Rice's Tavern, Providence R. I., on March 5, 1788. At these meetings, detail: as to the surveying, dividing and allotting the land to be settled were arranged; four thousand acre! "near the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum' were designated for "a city and commons"; and contiguous to this, one thousand lots of eight acre each were to be surveyed and platted. Ebeneze Sproat, Anselm Tupper-son of Benjamin Tupper John Mathews, and R. J. Meigs were chosen surveyors and General Rufus Putnam "superintendent of al the business aforesaid" and "he is to be obeyed and respected accordingly."
At the last meeting, held at Bracket's Tavern, i was ordered that for the initial party of settlers, fou surveyors be employed; that twenty-two men should attend the surveyors; that there be added to thi number twenty men, including six boat builders, fou house carpenters, one blacksmith, and nine common workmen; their wages were to be four dollars a montl and "subsistence, "-except the superintendent-Rufu Putnam-who received forty dollars per month an the steward-Major Haffield White-and surveyor twenty-seven dollars; all these men were to be pro
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prietors in the Ohio Company. Each man was to furnish himself "with a good small arm, bayonet, six flints, a powder-horn and pouch, priming wire and brush, half pound of powder, one pound of balls and one pound of buckshot," in addition would be their tools and "one axe and one hoe to each man and thirty pounds weight of baggage."
By the advice of Thomas Hutchins, the geographer of the United States, the tract for the initial settlement of the Ohio Company was located on the Ohio and Muskingum rivers. Mr. Hutchins considered it "the best part of the whole western country," and he had visited the country from Pennsylvania to the Illinois. It was therefore decided at the Bracket's Tavern meeting that a tract of five thousand seven hundred and sixty acres of land near the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers be reserved for a city and commons; and it was resolved among other things that "the house lots shall consist of ninety feet front and one hundred and eighty feet in depth." Other details of the plan of the first settlement were agreed ipon. The name proposed for the settlement was 'Adelphia," which Mr. Cutler said,"strictly means brethren, and I wish it may ever be characteristic of the Ohio Company." The land secured and plans perfected, nothing remained but the execution.
In accordance with all the preliminaries, twenty- :wo of the number who were boat-builders and mechan- cs, assembled at Danvers, Mass., on December I, 787 under command of Major Haffield White; the remainder of the company gathered at Hartford, Conn., early in January (1788). Those who met at
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Danvers were the first to start for their new possessions called by many who derided and ridiculed this scheme "Putnam's Paradise" and "Cutler's Indian Heaven.' Some of the party started from Dr. Cutler's home a Ipswich. He prepared a large, well-built wagor for their use, covered with black canvas, on which he himself had painted in large white letters "For the Ohio." Dr. Cutler personally accompanied the com- pany to Danvers, where he bade them a farewell or their departure, November 30, 1787. Dr. Cutler never went to Marietta as a resident, but visited the settlement in the summer of 1788. His son, Jervis Cutler, was one of the Danvers' party and it is said, was the first to leap ashore at the landing of the "Mayflower." Two other sons-Ephraim and Temple -of Manasseh Cutler later joined the Marietta colony. The route of Major White's party was along the old military road across Pennsylvania and over the Alleghenies. After a journey of nearly eight weeks, they arrived at Sumrill's Ferry, now West Newton, Pa., on January 23, 1788, where they remained till April Ist, engaged in the building of the boats that were to carry them down the Ohio to their destination. The second division of the company rendezvoused at Hartford, Connecticut, on the first of January, 1788. They were there met by General Rufus Putnam who was personally to have commanded their journey, but as he says in his journal, "was under the necessity of going by New York, so the company went forward in command of Colonel Ebenezer Sproat."
Dispatching his business at New York, Rufus Putnam pressed forward and overtook the Sproat
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division at "Lincoln's Run near Sweetterret (Swatara) Creek" foot of the Tuscarawas Mountains. They eached Sumrill's Ferry, where they found the White arty, February 14, 1788. After the arrival of Put- tam's party the work of boat building was redoubled. The largest convoy built was at first named the 'Adventure Galley" afterwards called the "May- lower" in remembrance of the vessel that landed it Plymouth (1620), and had among her famous assengers, ancestors of some of the Ohio Company. The second "Mayflower," forty-five feet long and welve feet wide, with a burden of fifty tons, was uilt with stout timbers and knees like a galley, with he bottom raking fore and aft, and decked over all rith planks. The deck was sufficiently high for a han to walk upright under the beams and the sides o thick as to resist a rifle bullet. The steersman and owers were thus safely sheltered from the attack f enemies on the banks. But the "Mayflower" "as not ample enough to carry the "forty-eighters" ith all their horses, wagons, baggage, tools and pro- isions, so an additional large flat boat called the Adelphia" and three small canoes were constructed. this little fleet the advance corps of the Ohio Com- any "set sail," April 1, 1788, under command of ufus Putnam. There were forty-seven men in the spedition according to the list of names given by ildreth in his "Pioneer History of the Ohio Valley"; le number forty-eight is usually given by the thorities, but that number includes the name of ol. R. J. Meigs who did not arrive until the 12th April. There were no women or children accom-
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panying this advance contingent. The families wer brought on later, many of them not arriving unt: the spring of the following year.
It was an illustrious band; they were men of ex ceptional character, talents and attainments; the were the best of New England culture; they wer Revolutionary heroes; said Senator George F. Hoar i: his magnificent oration at the hundredth anniversar of the Marietta settlement: "Never did the grea Husbandman choose his seed more carefully then whe he planted Ohio; I do not believe the same numbe of persons fitted for the highest duties and respon sibilities of war and peace could ever have been found in a community of the same size as were among th men who founded Marietta in the spring of 1788 or who joined them within twelve months thereafter. "No colony in America," said Washington, "wa settled under such favorable auspices as that whic. has just commenced at the Muskingum; information property, and strength will be its characteristics ; I know many of the settlers personally, and there never wer men better calculated to promote the welfare of a com munity." "I knew them all," said Lafayette, "I knev them all; I saw them at Brandywine, Yorktown an Rhode Island; they were the bravest of the brave."
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