USA > Ohio > Washington County > Marietta > The ninety-fifth anniversary of the settlement of Ohio, at Marietta. Historical address > Part 5
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Your President introduced me as a great-grand-son of Gen. Rufus Putnam. Marietta, in addition to its other hallowed associations as the first landing place of our Pilgrim Fathers, is a spot forever sacred to me as the birthplace of my sainted inother, to whom, more than to any one person-my father having died when I was quite young-I owe all that I am or ever hope to be. My mother was Catharine Putnam ; she was the youngest daughter of Judge Edwin Putnam, who
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with his forty-seven comrades, made the first permanent set- tlement of Ohio, on this spot, ninety-five years ago to-day. The house in which my mother was born, standing then in- side of the "old stockade," still stands here, a venerable relic of those early days, surrounded on every hand by the elegant edifices of this latter-day civilization. Since I have been here today, I have been endeavoring to determine the exact degree of my importance on this occasion ! Besides the especial occasions, like these, that may arise, I presume that there are at least two times in the life of every man when he becomes of more than ordinary importance-when he is mar- ried and when he is buried. Now, I have not had the pleas- ure of enjoying either of these experiences, especially the former, unfortunately for myself, no doubt ! So, to-day, if one of the immortal band of forty-eight first settlers was here, he would receive all honor ; a son would receive great, but less honor ; a grandson, still less ; and just how much consideration a great-grand-son is entitled to, in this descend- ing scale of importance, I leave to the mathematicians of this audience to determine !
Naturally and properly, much has been said to-day in eulo- gy of the hardy pioneer band, composed of forty-eight of New England's bravest and best, who turned from the victor- ious battle-fields of the Revolutionary War to found a new empire in the wild and trackless west. As I understand it, this meeting to-day is pre-eminently a pioneer celebration. It is to commemorate the actual settlement of the State of Ohio, and to render due and fitting honor to the little band of for- ty-eight pioneers who made that settlement. And, on this occasion, Mr. President, as on every other occasion, I believe that we should be governed by the time-honored maxim, "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's ;" that we should " Give honor to whom honor is due."
Who, then, of all others, are the men whom we should es- pecially honor to-day ? While an occasion like this should rise above all matters of merely a personal nature ; while there should be no ignoble strife over a band of such noble
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heroes, yet common justice demands that the highest honors of an occasion like this should be given to the men to whom they justly belong. In a word, to the pioneers of 17SS them- selves, who, on the 7th day of April, in that year, at this place, laid the foundations of this great State of Ohio, whose ninety-fifth birthday we celebrate to-day ! It is eminently fitting, too, in this connection and at this time, that proper credit should be given to the men who aided this great move- ment in other incidental and important ways, but who were not actually pioneers themselves. Such men as Dr. Manas- seh Cutler, and his associates, who performed so important a part, incidentally, in the negotiations for the land procured from the government for the Ohio Land Company, should not be forgotten on this occasion. The original deed dis- played here to-day recites that the land therein conveyed was granted by the Commissioners of the United States Treasury to Manasseh Cutler and Winthrop Sargeant, as agents for the Directors of the Ohio Land Company ; and, for the import- ant part that these men performed, in this capacity, in this transaction, they are entitled to due credit. Some time after this settlement was made, I believe, Dr. Cutler also did the infant colony at Marietta the honor of coming out from his New England home and paying it a visit of some five weeks, after which he returned to his home in the east, doubtless bearing good report of the rapid progress of the thriving young colony ..
But, I repeat, it is to the pioneers themselves ; to the men who actually made the settlement, and then staid there, that the highest honors of this day belong. The men like Put- nam and Tupper and Whipple and Sproat and Meigs and Nye and Cushing and Devol, and all the rest of that noble Spartan band, whose names blaze like stars on the pages of history ! The men in whose throbbing brains the first idea of the Ohio Land Company was born, and in whose warm hearts it was nourished into strength and power. The men who breathed the breath of life into this whole pioneer move- ment ; who identified themselves with it, body and soul, from
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first to last ; who gave to it their fortunes, their lives, and their all ; who left home and friends, a mere handful, to en- dure all the hardships and privations of frontier life and to face all dangers from wild beasts and still wilder red men. The men who subdued the wilderness and made it blossom like the rose ; who lived here and whose lives and characters molded the society of this community and of this state ; who died here and whose ashes consecrate this ground to-day- these are the men, preeminently, to whom the highest honors of a celebration like this should be accorded ! And, in rendering this fitting and exact justice, it is not necessary to pluck a single laurel from a single worthy brow ; it is not necessary to dim the real lustre of a single star, to add to the glory of another star, in all that glorious galaxy !
As I have listened to-day to the various addresses and re- marks that have been made ; as I have heard again the old yet ever new and wondrous story of the birth and growth of the great state of which we are all proud to be citizens, told so eloquently by the distinguished gentleman from Massa- | ceusetts and by others who have followed him, I have felt with greater power than ever the meaning and force of the old paradox, " Truth is stranger than fiction." And, verily, when we think of what a wonderful transformation has taken place since ninety-five years ago to-day -- only a comparatively short time, after all-when the second May Flower of Ameri- can history floated down the solitary Ohio, laden with its precious crew and landed where Marietta now stands ; when we think of how the wild beast and the red men who then alone inhabited these trackless forests have disappeared for- ever ; how the wilderness has been subdued and transformed into a fitting home for civilized man ; how populous citics, with their vast interests and enterprises, now stand where the red man onced chased the deer and wooed his dusky bride ; how, where then the smoke ascended only from the rude wigwam and from the wild camp-fire, it now curls peacefully from myriads of happy homes, and where the fierce war-whoop of the savage onee resounded in unison with the
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cries of wild beasts alone, now "Drowsy tinklings lull the distant fold," and the peaceful tones of the church bell are heard, over hill and valley, calling the worshipers of God to- gether ; how, in a word, the little handful of forty-eight pio- neers has been the seed of a vast empire of over three mil- lions of free, prosperous, and happy people, foremost in all the arts and sciences, and in all the tender humanities of a Christian civilization-and all this in less than one brief century of time-it utterly transcends the wildest dream of the imagination of poet or romancer !
And yet, some utilitarian may raise the inevitable cui bono? May ask, What good is there in such celebrations as these, and what benefit is there to be derived from them ? I would answer, Much good, in every way ; but chiefly perhaps in this : It is good for us all to step aside from our every day routine, and to drop our every day harness, if only for this brief moment. It is good to forget, for the time being, that we are lawyers, doctors, ministers, Republicans, Democrats, or what not, and to remember only that there are better things in life than merely to buy and sell and get gain ; that we are men and brethren, members of the great family of humanity, meeting around the common family altar, to re- count the grand deeds and the giander virtues of our pioneer ancestors, to imitate their illustrious example, and thus to strengthen the ties that bind us together in our common ori- gin ! However widely apart our several paths may lie in the busy walks of life, our hearts will beat warmer and truer to- day, and our lives will be nobler for the future, when we "recall the former days," when we think of how our pioneer fathers and mothers sowed the seed of this great common- wealth in their very wounds and watered it with their blood and tears !
Much has been said to-day, and rightly too, of the material growth and prosperity of our great State. Our progress in material things forms a wonderful chapter, indeed, in Ohio's wonderful history. But, let us remember that there are higher and nobler elements in the life of a people than mere
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material prosperity ; clements upon which the very existence, as well as the highest happiness, of any people depends. It is in the intellectual and moral welfare of a people, after all, that their highest good is found. And this is the practical thought that impresses itself upon me on this occasion. As descendants of the pioneers of 178S, and as citizens of the great State that they founded, we meet on this historic ground to-day, to recount the glorious deeds of those brave men and women, and to tell their virtues o'er. We honor them for what they did for the world, and to-day we reap the rich fruit of their painful sowing. We love to emulate their sterling virtues and to imitate their grand examples. But, let us ever remember that we of to-day are also the pioneers, in turn, for those who shall come after us ! To-day we recount in song and story the glorious history of these pioneers who preceded us. But to-day, let us remember, we are also making his- tory ; history that shall be read by those who come after us, either with shame or joy, when we are gone. Shall we leave to our children and to our children's children as rich and honorable a heritage as these grand old pioneers of 17SS have left to us ? Shall we make a history that they shall be as happy in recalling ? Shall we leave an example that they shall be as blessed in imitating ?
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SPEECH OF GEN. R. R. DAWES.
At the darkest hour of the long and desperate struggle, when the discouragements of Valley Forge, like its snow, spread a chill over the spirit of the bravest in the Revolution, Washington was asked "What if England should prevail ?" He answered, "I would retire beyond the Alleghanies and in the Valley of the Ohio become independent and free." But England did not prevail. "The old continentals, in their ragged regimentals, faltered not." They tracked the snow with blood, and fought the battle through. As a fruit of their final triumph, not the Valley of the Ohio alone became in- dependent and free, but the whole broad expanse from the Atlantic to the Mississippi was included in their victory.
But while the officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary Army came out of the conflict rich in grand and glorious achievement, and in fame immortal, in personal estate they were left poor indeed. For seven years the war had dragged in length. It had become with them the business of their lives. Their private fortunes were ruined and their homes estranged. Peace found them stripped of property and of business prospects. For the pay due them as soldiers they received certificates of settlement. The new government, for which they had risked and suffered all, had no money and its struggle was not ended. It had yet to create a credit and establish standing among the nations. One resource, how- ever it had, a resource wrested from the enemy, together with our independence, by the valor and endurance of the patriot army. That resource was land-a mighty domain extending from the Alleghanies to the boundless west. By taking land in payment for their services these soldiers could help relieve the credit of the government. The dangers, trials and pri- vations attending a struggle to subdue a wilderness had no terrors to daunt veterans of the Revolution. And so the Ohio Company was formed, its capital the price of the service and the blood of soldiers of the Revolution, its objects and purposes inspired by some of the most distinguished and heroic of the officers of the army. Doubtless these men re-
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called the words of their revered commander when they de- termined to push beyond the Alleghanies and in the Valley of the Ohio become independent and free.
In recalling the officers who joined in originating the Ohio Company I can scarcely go beyond those who came out as pioneers. I find, as an original owner of shares, the gallant soldier and brilliant statesman Alexander Hamilton. I find General Arthur St. Clair, the last President of the Continen- tal Congress, and the first Governor of the Northwestern Ter- ritory. I find many officers of high distinction in the war and of honorable service in the peace that followed. The leader of the colony was Brigadier General Rufus Putnam. General Putnam was a veteran of the French wars before the Revolution. In 1775, as Lieutenant Colonel in the Massa- · chusetts line, he joined the army of General Washington in front of Boston. He strongly impressed Washington as a man of resource as well as of courage and good judgment. Lord Howe then occupied the city of Boston. Washington, after anxious consideration, determined to sieze and fortify Dorchester Heights and force the British to leave the city. The enemy's cannon commanded the position to be fortified, and in January the ground was frozen to the depth of 18 inches. How could works be thrown up without knowledge of the enemy ? In one night they sprung up as by magic. Lord Howe, recognizing that his position was rendered unten- able by the strong and commanding forts that frowned upon him from the heights, asked leave to retire from the city. It was none the less glorious because it was bloodless, but the victory was complete. The officer who planned these works, who devised the scheme for their silent execution, who com- manded the force that threw them up, and who was selected for this service by General Washington, was Rufus Putnam. I cannot follow in detail the long, arduous and distinguished service of this officer in the Revolutionary war. He became a Brigadier General. He was intimately associated with the Commander-in-Chief, General Washington, and had his full- est confidence and highest respect. This man of courage, of
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resource, of excellent judgment, of high character, and of noble purpose, was called for the great work he afterward so well accomplished as founder and leader of the colony.
There came also to Marietta in 17SS an officer of the Revolu- tionary army who had attained the rank of Major General. He was one of the originators of the Ohio Company. General Samuel H. Parsons was a man of the highest order of ability. He was a fine scholar, an able writer, and an experienced statesman. He was Chief Judge of the Territory. He was drowned in 1780. Had he been spared his character must have impressed the colony powerfully, and for good. Another general officer who had a brigade in the war, and who in civil life had served as a Representative in Congress, was General James M. Varnum. He too died in 1789. Par- sons and Varnum, two leading spirits, men of character and power, were cut off at the outset of their career.
General Benjamin Tupper, who commanded a regiment throughout the war, and served with distinction in many battles, reaching the rank of General, came to Marietta in 1788 and continued as leader in affairs of church and state until his death in 1792. He served as judge until he died.
The names of twelve Colonels, twelve Majors, and twenty- two Captains are found on the list of our pioneers. Their re- cord reaches nearly every campaign, and their heroism adorned every battle of the Revolution. When the list was read to Gen. Lafayette, when he was in Marietta, in 1825, he said, "I know them all. I saw them at Brandywine, York- town, and Rhode Island. They were the bravest of the brave."
Add to the list of officers the names of those who served in the ranks, and it will appear that a very large majority of the men who came to Marietta in 17SS, had done their country service in the war for its Independence. The names of those who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor; and shed their blood in the war for independence, are an honorable heritage of which our community may well feel proud. They illustrate upon the brighest page of our coun-
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try's history, patriotism, courage, and faithfulness to the end. I am proud to say that their blood has not run thin, for when the call of 1861 came to the descendants of the soldiers of the Revolution, these names again appear upon the muster roll of our country's defenders.
Let us recall one more name and I have done. The man who fired the first gun against England, on the sea, came here as a pioneer. Two days before the battle of Bunker Hill, Capt. Abraham Whipple, under orders, sailed his ship down Narragansett Bay and opened fire upon two vessels of England. One he captured the other he drove away. This was the birth of the American Navy-this was the first de- fiance offered England on the sea.
The unperishable record of their deeds alone remains. Let us preserve and complete that, and the memories of these heroes and patriots will remain for our children an inspira- tion to patriotism and noble manhood."
After Gen. Dawes' address Mr. Caldwell presented to the Association a paper in which Major, afterwards General, Tupper received the thanks of Gen. Washington for the part he took in an engagement in the Revo- lutionary war.
REMARKS OF JOSEPH WOOD,
On Early Farming in Ohio.
Although not as old as some of you here, I can recollect see- ing wooden mold-boards on plows, and ropes or raw hides for traces on harness.
We boys used to think it good sport to sit on the mows and see the men thresh on the barn floors with flails. All of the wheat in those days was threshed with flails, or trodden out by horses and oxen. Fanning mills were used to clean the grain by most farmers, but the old fashioned semi-circular hand fan was still used, tossing the wheat up in the air on a windy day, letting the chaff blow away.
I helped to thresh with the first threshing machine used in the county, and probably about as soon as any that were used
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in the State. It was owned by Reed and LaGrange, of Lowell. Reed, I think, is still living. My business was to carry bundles, which I did, going some fifteen or twenty feet to the bay, and returning carrying sometimes one or occasionally two bundles. Another boy unbound the bundles, for the machine would not thresh the band if cut, the knot clogging and stopping it. It was not much of a thresher, but still it was threshing by machinery, and had in it the promise of what has been accomplished since.
Afterward we had stronger machines, that would thresh cut bands ; then came the cleaner, and finally threshing by steam power as fast as two men can feed ; cleaning the wheat and carrying the straw to the top of the stack.
Nearly all grain was cut with the sickle. The greater num- ber of older farmers present have worked many a day with this very old fashioned tool, and I suppose a few of the younger ones have tried to use it long enough to cut their fingers.
The cradle was gradually coming into use, and considera- ble of the grain was cut by it. The older men objected be- cause it did not gather the grain as clean as the sickle.
Not many years ago came the attempt to cut with a ma- chine and horse power. It would only cut grain that stood up pretty well, letting it fall back on a platform. When enough was on the platform to make a bundle, it was pitched off on the ground by a person standing on the back end of the platform, and strapped by a stout leather string to an up- right pole. One improvement has succeeded another until now, as everybody knows, we can cut standing or lodged grain, binding it in compact bundles, and leave them on the ground ready to be shocked.
I recall to mind stalwart men who boasted how much grass they mowed on such a day, and that they cut the sixteenth of an acre more than some other man. The horse-power came, and their vocation was gone. With the mower a man of feeble strength, or one minus a leg or an arm, can do more than a dozen of the strongest men.
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Men used to tell in how many minutes they pitched a load of hay off of the wagon. Horse power and a hay fork will take a load off and carry it to a distant mow in the highest barn in a small portion of the time.
The tools we used were made by the local blacksmiths .- They answered their purpose, but were costly and clumsy, compared with what we have now. I have at home a pitch- fork made at Pittsburgh a hundred years ago. The boys of to-day wouldn't want to use it. The hoes were as heavy as the plantation hoes of the South, used in slave days. The spades, shovels and manure forks were a load of themselves. The common chopping axe was about the only tool that came near the perfection since attained.
There is no time to more than fairly allude to the many changes that have taken place.
Poets and novelists are credited with having vivid imagin- ations , and some newspaper men now-a-days can tell pretty extravagant stories-Eli Perkins, for example. But really do their wildest imaginings much surpass the sober realities I have just been detailing to you of the changes and happen- ings of the last fifty years ?
We had then few or no newspapers devoted entirely to farming topics, and only occasionally, in a few of the counties, a county fair. Now we have county fairs, state fairs, and na- tional fairs ; besides conventions of every specialty relating to the different branches of agricultural industry ; State ag- ricultural colleges, State boards of agriculture, and a Nation- al board of the same, whose representative we have had the pleasure of listening to to-day, wielding a great influence- the representative of a great and growing power, and whose achievements, let us hope, will in the next fifty years surpass those of the past fifty.
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WILD ANIMALS, GAME AND THE EARLY HUNTERS. A Paper Prepared for the Anniversary by Maj. L. J. P. Putnam.
WILD ANIMALS.
The pestiferous wild animals of early days were panthers, bears, wolves, catamounts, wild cats, coons, foxes, opossums and pole-cats.
The game consisted of deer, wild turkeys, partridge, quail, bear and coons, and were considered good game, and those lucky enough to capture a good fat one had a good haul.
Panthers had become scarce by the time I was old enough to be a hunter.
John Pritchard killed one on Russell's Island, in sight of our house, about 1820-21 or near that time. In early days they were a great terror to the early settlers as they sometimes carried off small children.
Bears were also scarce at that time. The only one I ever saw running wild came into my father's orchard, one Sunday, when there were a lot of boys after apples ; and one of them, (Henry McFarland) had his uncle Frank Devol's bull dog with him. All of a sudden his bull and our dog, Lion, put towards the barn, and the first thing we knew the bear, bull, and Lion came right by us boys-and such fun ! you never saw the beat in your young days. When they got to the up- per end of the orchard the bear put up on the fence and on to a peach tree out of the reach of the dogs. We happened to have a little half length smooth-bore rifle that I traded a sheep for, and Henry McFarland, to make a sure shot, climbed the fence and held the muzzle of the little gun with- in ten feet of the bear's head and fired the whole load of shot into his brain, but he gave the dogs a pretty good fight after he fell to the ground.
The supposition was that he was after a pig, as there was a fine litter, under the shed adjoining the barn, where the dogs espied him.
Wolves. O, the sneaking, night-rambling, sheep-killing. lamb-stealing. calf-murdering wolves ! They were the great- ests pests of the early settlers except Indians.
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There was a gang of eight prowling around the county be- tween the Big and Little Muskingum for a number of years, committing terrible depredations on flocks and herds of the inhabitants. One night this gang killed 50 fine fat wethers for my father out of a flock of 60, and wounded three or four of the ten left. Soon after that they killed three and ate them nearly all up but the skins and bones ; and Moses Var- num piled these in a fence corner, set a trap and in the morn- ing he had one of this gang in a tight place, just the end of his toes being between the jaws of his wolf trap. Not long after that Frank Devol hauled a dead horse out on my father's back farm, and set his wolf trap near by ; and soon after Sam- uel Gates, Eben Gates and their three sisters, Mary, Fanny and Arsly, were up to his house sleigh-riding and stayed all night, and while they were at breakfast, next morning, Frank says, "Eb., I dreamed I had a wolf in my trap, let's go out and see." They went and, sure enough, they had old club foot, as one of the gang was called. This old fellow had been caught in a trap before, and gnawed his toes off below the jaws of the trap, released his foot from the trap less three toes, which left him with one club foot, hence this name.
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