Rufus Putnam, born in Sutton, Massachusetts, on the 9th of April, 1738,
after serving his apprenticeship as a millwright, enlisted as a common
soldier in the Provincial army in 1757. At the close of the French
and Indian War, he returned to Massachusetts, married, and settled
in the town of New Braintree as a miller. Finding a knowledge of
mathematics necessary to his success, he devoted much time to mastering
that science. In 1773, having gone to Florida, he was appointed
deputy-surveyor of the province by the governor. A rupture with Great
Britain becoming imminent, he returned to Massachusetts in 1775, and
was appointed lieutenant in one of the first regiments raised in that
State after the battle of Lexington. His first service was the throwing
up of defences in front of Roxbury. In 1776, he was ordered to New York
and superintended the defences in that section of the country and the
construction of the fortifications at West Point. In August, Congress
appointed him engineer with the rank of colonel. He continued in
active service, sometimes as engineer, sometimes as commander, and at
others as commissioner for the adjustment of claims growing out of the
war, until the disbanding of the army, being advanced to the rank of
brigadier-general on the 7th of January, 1783.
After the close of the war, Putnam held various civil offices in his
native State, acted as aid to General Lincoln during Shays’ Rebellion
in 1786, was superintendent of the Ohio Company, founded the town
of Marietta in 1788, was appointed in 1792 brigadier-general of
the forces sent against the Indians of the Northwest, concluded an
important treaty with them the same year, and resigned his commission
on account of illness in 1793. During the succeeding ten years, he
was Surveyor-General of the United States, when his increasing age
compelled him to withdraw from active employment, and he retired to
Marietta, where he died on the 1st of May, 1824.