Bibliography 85
School Contests 91
INTRODUCTION
The Northwest Territory Celebration Commission, created by Congress to
design and execute plans for commemorating the passage of the Ordinance
of 1787 and the establishment of the Northwest Territory, takes pleasure
in presenting this brief outline of the history involved, to the public,
and particularly to the schools, whose students of today will be our
citizens almost before we realize it.
Through the study of the thinking and the deeds of ordinary American
people during the formative—usually called “critical”—period of our
nation’s history, even though not so exciting or colorful as were battles
and heroes, we may find some understanding of how this nation attained
greatness, and provide inspiration to our own and future generations.
Through the years vast amounts of material and substantiating evidence
have come to light, and as historians have been able to view this
formative period in perspective, it has assumed an ever-increasing
importance in the foundation upon which our civilization rests.
As yet, that accumulating recognition is largely scattered through a vast
number of specialized studies and books, as various authorities have
unearthed important and vital related facts.
And so this commission has asked the state historians of the states of
the Northwest Territory, with Dr. Harlow Lindley as chairman, and with
such acceptable assistance as they might secure, to digest the available
material into this brief but coordinated summary.
It is impracticable and unnecessary, for the purposes of this book, to
go into further original research. There is ample accurate material
now available for these pages, the prime purpose of which is to give a
fundamental knowledge to all whom it may reach, and to inspire a further
study by those so inclined, to the end that America may know why America
is, and what it really rests upon, and what may be our surest and
soundest path for progress to the continued betterment of mankind through
government.
NORTHWEST TERRITORY CELEBRATION COMMISSION,
GEORGE WHITE, _Chairman_
E. M. HAWES, _Executive Director_
FOREWORD
This brief elementary textbook presenting the history of the Ordinance
of 1787 and the establishment of civil government in the old Northwest
Territory out of which was created later the states of Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and part of Minnesota, has been prepared
at the suggestion of the Northwest Territory Celebration Commission for
supplementary study in the schools.
Under the instructions of the commission, and according to our own
concepts of the purposes of this book, it has seemed impossible to
attempt original research or study into less substantiated phases of the
history covered. Rather, it has been our purpose to digest in correlated
form, and briefly, the fund of material which already has been developed
by countless individual studies and writings.
This available material, although now generous in amount and amply
authenticated, requires some explanation. It is to be remembered that the
people of our early westward movement and, to a great extent, of all our
early history, were _makers_ of history, rather than _writers_ of it.
There were settled communities of individuals who summarized the more
humble events of life, even though these events might be more substantial
and indicative than colorful armies and battles.
Resultantly, research into this history of necessity has been largely
confined to the casual and incidental records of the time—letters,
diaries, the meager public records and scarce newspapers and
publications. This has so far resulted in many specialized studies which
are available. The need now is that these be brought together into a
correlated record of an epoch, which will fit itself into the fabric of
our national history.
Hence this book.
Attention is called to the bibliography, which is included as an aid
to further study. Even this list of published material is necessarily
abridged from the more complete bibliography which is available.
Some repetition is experienced in the text, as is likely with subjects
involving many ramifications and treated by different writers.
Those immediately in charge of this work have consulted with
representatives of various historical agencies and a number of prominent
educators in each of the states concerned.
Harlow Lindley, secretary, editor and librarian of the Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Society, as chairman of the committee
appointed by the commission, has been responsible for collecting and
organizing the material. The executive director of the Northwest
Territory Celebration Commission prepared Chapter I and the latter part
of Chapter V. Mr. Norris F. Schneider of the Zanesville (Ohio) High
School, has written Chapter III. Dr. Milo M. Quaife, secretary and editor
of the Burton Historical Collection in the Detroit Public Library, not
only has represented the state of Michigan in making the plans for the
book, but also has contributed Chapter VII.
One unique feature of the project is the fact that most of the
illustrations are the work of students in the schools of the states which
evolved from the old Northwest Territory. These were made possible as a
result of an illustration contest sponsored by the commission.
The readers of this book are referred to the pictorial map of the
Northwest Territory issued by the Northwest Territory Celebration
Commission to which reference is made on page 4. This map tells the story
of the evolution of the old Northwest Territory and also contains a copy
of the Ordinance of 1787.
HARLOW LINDLEY, _Chairman_.
Columbus, Ohio
July 1, 1937
CHAPTER I
PRE-ORDINANCE SUMMARY
While much of the history of the American colonies has been ably
presented in other school history texts, and it is not the province of
this book to rehearse it, there is reason for a brief summary which will
place in the mind of the reader the background for the events of which
this book treats.
It is not easy to value or even to understand the forces which were at
work in America unless we consider what _types of people_ were involved.
While most of the colonies were settled by Englishmen, this did not mean
that they were always congenial. The Puritans of New England, radical
in their beliefs and zealous in their doctrines, had little in common,
even while they were in England, with their fellow countrymen who settled
Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. In between these discordant groups
were the Dutch of New York, the Swedes of Delaware, the Catholics of
Maryland, and the Quakers and Germans of Pennsylvania.
Beyond these national and social differences were the trends brought
about by their environments in this new land. The rocky and discouraging
soils of the northern colonies, even the climate itself, tended to widen
the gulf between these people and the pleasure-loving folk of the South,
with its broad fertile acres and mild climate. It was inevitable that
the New Englanders should turn to manufacture and trade, while the South
should remain agrarian, and equally inevitable that this should result in
jealousy and rivalry.
But a still more vital force was at work to encourage distrust and
dislike. People of that day took their religious beliefs very seriously.
Even those who fled from a state church could not escape the idea of
state and religion being inexorably related.
Although the Puritans of Massachusetts had fled England to gain
“religious freedom,” they might better have said to gain freedom for
their own sort of religion, for they were as intolerant of other
religious beliefs as had been the Church of England of theirs. Indeed,
Connecticut and Rhode Island were split off from the Massachusetts colony
because of religious disputes. The southern colonies, still clinging to
the state church of the mother country, were anathema to New England and
New England to them. With the Quakers in Pennsylvania, and the Catholics
in Maryland—and all zealous for their own religious contentions—the
tendency was even further from, rather than toward, the building of a
common nation.
And so, with diverse nationalities, religious and economic and moral
distinctions; with widely varying charters from the king and jealousies
between rival groups of European “owners,” we may well wonder that the
colonies got along together at all.
For a century and a half the population increased, and with it the
discordant feeling between at least many of the colonies. They had only
one thing in common—an increasing distrust of and rebellious spirit
toward the mother country and the king. This could result in the joining
of forces against a common and more powerful enemy. And so it did
finally. But in all this there had been no proposal for a new nation, or,
more particularly, for a new theory and plan of government. True enough,
there had been a convention called at Albany in 1754 for united effort
against the Indians, but the colonies were not strongly in favor of it,
and the king would not tolerate the union.
As lands along the coast became more occupied and therefore higher
priced, and the political uncertainties more acute, the more adventurous
colonists, perhaps irked by the restraint of individual freedom which any
government imposes, struck out for the wilderness westward.
[Illustration: MARQUETTE
_Drawn by Howard Petrey, Superior, Wisconsin_]
Also, because we are trying here to study what was in the minds of
men, _why_ they did this or that, it must be remembered that the world
was still looking for the Northwest Passage to Cathay. As late as the
outbreak of the Revolution, and even later, England was subsidizing
efforts to locate this short route to the fabled East. Thus the same urge
which had led Columbus to the discovery of America played a part in the
development of colonial plans.
From the seventeenth century onward, French missionaries and fur traders
had extended their explorations and their scattered posts, effecting
alliances with the Indians, and inciting violent resistance to English
and colonial approach. As late as 1749 Celoron led a considerable
expedition down the Ohio River, up the Great Miami and to the Lakes,
tacking notices on trees and planting leaden plates claiming possession
in the name of the king of France. This had an ominous meaning, in that
the French had done almost nothing in settling Ohio, whereas it was in
this very direction that English settlement pressed.
During this period, which culminated in the French and Indian War, the
colonies did not cooperate, although, as has already been said, the need
for united effort was first publicly urged at the Albany convention.
After the French and Indian war was over, and the title to the Northwest
had been ceded to England, she herself became suspicious of westward
American settlement, and forbade it, even to the extent of giving to the
province of Quebec the lands she had previously given to the American
colonies.
The rugged and fearless individualists who were most likely to settle
the West were the least inclined to conform to stabilized government,
especially if that government were objectionable in any of its phases.
And, removed beyond the Alleghany Mountains, they would be beyond hope
of subjection. Those who had already migrated to the West asked nothing
from the colonies except help in defense against the Indians—and of
this received very little. They were free men—perhaps the freest of any
considerable group of individuals in ages of history. Ahead of them lay
a wide continent, blessed with God’s bounties, and, as law and restraint
caught up with them, all that was necessary was to move farther westward
to seemingly endless lands and natural resources—and freedom.
[Illustration: ROBERT CAVALIER DE LA SALLE
_Drawn by Marie Kellogg, Superior, Wisconsin_]
In 1776 Virginia, in the fervor of her revolt, did give indication of the
trend of her people’s feelings through her “Bill of Rights,” and this
undoubtedly expressed the long restrained but culminating American idea.
When revolt mounted to the utterance of the Declaration of Independence,
that great document set forth in fervid terms the general principles
of the rights of man. But there was nothing discernible in it as to
what specific form or type of government should make those principles
effective.
The Articles of Confederation, which immediately followed, were but the
forced cooperation of the colonies for defensive purposes.
The soldiers, realizing fully that they probably never would be paid
in sound money, with their own meager fortunes ruined by their years
of struggle, and disgusted with the politics, the compromises, and
ineffectiveness of the Continental Congress, turned to the idea of
western lands. At least, their almost worthless pay certificates could be
used in buying land from the government which had issued such money. In
these far-off wildernesses they would find the freedom they craved and
escape from the seeming ineffectiveness of government under the Articles
of Confederation.
Congress had actually voted at the very beginning of the war, and long
before the nation owned a square foot of these lands, to give western
lands as bounties for military service. The separate colonies, especially
Virginia, had given such bounties for service in the earlier wars against
Indians and French. Washington had made a trip to the Ohio country in
1770 to select such bounty lands, and had been so impressed that he chose
some 40,000 acres of his own. As hero of the troops, and the greatest
single factor in preventing their mutinies, it seems certain that his
enthusiasm for these lands heightened that of the soldiers.
Washington, too, saw that a western frontier peopled by veterans whose
earnestness of purpose and abilities could not be questioned, would form
the safest bulwark against attack by the Indians, or by the British—who
if they gave up title at all, would do so unwillingly and with tongues in
their cheeks. But, as yet, there was no determination, or even clearly
defined suggestion as to the form of government which would apply to the
United States. The Articles of Confederation were unwieldy, undependable,
and, if anything, were working against the idea of representative
government.
In 1783, while the troops were in camp awaiting the signing of the Treaty
of Paris, and on the verge of being discharged to go to—they knew not
what—with no money, and with the rebuilding of their worlds yet before
them, they expressed in writing their hopes and aspirations for their own
and America’s future.
This humble document, recorded by Timothy Pickering as scribe, and signed
by 283 leaders of the men, set forth not only their desire for lands
in the West, but for certain principles of government as fundamental
to their hopes, ambitions and plans. This plan became known to history
variously as the Pickering Plan, the Newburgh Petition, and the Army Plan.
Essentially, it was the innermost determination of ordinary Americans
who had proved their sincerity of purpose. It was probably the first
crystallized expression from the men who had fought to establish the new
nation as to what its tenets of government should be. A study of this
document will disclose a striking similarity to the Ordinance of 1787,
when we get to that point in our history.
We must now go back to another phase of the nation’s development, which
was altogether human, and which is with us today. This was the element
of hope for riches and private profit. In those days it was specifically
called “land hunger.”
All of the earliest westward colonization schemes for America were what
we might call “land grabbing schemes” of various merits. To discourage
this tendency many plans were evolved for the development of the West.
From about 1750 one plan followed another in rapid succession. Each
was an improvement over the one preceding it. One is particularly
significant—that of Peletiah Webster who proposed the surveying into
townships of the lands adjoining the colonies—now states—on the west,
and their sale _in small lots only_, and _one range at a time to the
westward_. This would have established a strong and well-settled
frontier, without large speculative holdings, and would have conserved
for orderly growth the great untold areas of the West.
[Illustration: GEORGE ROGERS CLARK WADING SWAMPS WITH TROOPS
_Drawn by Merle June Dehls, Vincennes, Ind._]
After the Revolutionary War was over, the United States had only in
effect a quitclaim deed from England to the lands north and west of the
Ohio.
But the colonies now asserted their individual claims more vociferously
than ever. There were now 13 states, in effect different and independent
nations, each with a desire for expansion westward. Virginia had, of
her own volition, sent George Rogers Clark into the West during the
Revolution to drive the British from what were ostensibly her lands in
the Illinois country. Clark had done a superb job—and claims are made
that he not only acquired these lands by conquest for Virginia, but
destroyed the budding Indian conspiracy that the British under Henry
Hamilton were fomenting, and which, by attack from the rear, would have
destroyed the entire American cause.
Connecticut and Massachusetts refurbished their charter claims and New
York, through its treaty with the Iroquois Indians, made indeterminate
but extensive demands to the territory.
And, lastly, there were the undeniable rights of the Indians to be
acquired by purchase or by conquest.
Under pressure of states whose colonial charter boundaries had been more
restricted, principally Maryland, the states with wide-flung claims
were urged to cede all their western lands to the nation at large. The
contention was that these lands had been won from the British by common
effort and should therefore be common property. Here, at last, was a
definite indication that development was to be toward one nation, rather
than an alliance of 13 smaller independent governments. How strong this
point really was is not certain, however, for one of the great objectives
was to lessen the common debt, and thus relieve each of the states of its
obligations.
However, the unified nation movement was gaining strength. Intermingling
of men in the army, common purposes in defense, and now, property held in
common were breaking down the old animosities.
[Illustration: GEORGE ROGERS CLARK
_Drawn by Sam Delaney, Marietta, Ohio_]
New York took the lead in ceding her claims in 1780. Virginia, richest,
most populous and with best substantiated claims, followed in 1784. This
was immediately followed by the Ordinance of 1784, the first plan to be
evolved for the West, that made _any_ reference to the principles of
government. This ordinance, although passed by Congress, never became
effective because it made no provisions for acquisition or ownership of
land, and, in fact, there still remained the necessity of Massachusetts
and Connecticut cessions and the acquisition of title from the Indians.
Massachusetts and Connecticut finally ceded their rights, but there
still were no clearly indicative signs of what American principles of
government were to become, beyond a broader right of franchise.
Later, Congress passed the Ordinance of 1785—commonly called the “Land
Ordinance.” This did provide for the survey and sale of lands. It
contained some of the proposals of wise old Peletiah Webster, made years
before, for township surveys, sale by succeeding western ranges, and in
plots small enough to prevent large speculation. But it said nothing
about laws to go with the land, and it, too, became largely ineffective
in its purpose.
And so was enacted the Ordinance of 1787 with all its portent for
government built primarily for man, rather than man for government.
As the ordinance was passed by the Continental Congress sitting in
New York, the Constitutional Convention was sitting in session at
Philadelphia. Two months later the United States Constitution was adopted
by that convention and submitted to the states for ratification. In that
great document as submitted to the states there were no provisions for
these rights of men.
But the people of the United States were not at all indefinite as
to their wishes and interests. Only by assurance that the bill of
rights would be included was it possible to obtain ratification of the
Constitution.
The Ordinance of 1787 was now in effect. America had started westward
under a law of highest hope and modern ideals.
[Illustration: INDIAN TREATY
_Drawn by William R. Willison, Marietta, Ohio_]
Most of the humanitarian provisions of the Ordinance of 1787 became part
of the United States Constitution in the first amendments made four years
later—1791—and one of the greatest found its way into our organic law 78
years afterward, when slavery was abolished by the thirteenth amendment.
This is not, however, the whole story of the Ordinance of 1787 and “How
this Nation?” As Abraham Lincoln later said,
“The Ordinance of 1787 was constantly looked to whenever a new Territory
was to become a State. Congress always traced their course by that
Ordinance.”
Every state constitution subsequently adopted as the nation marched
across the continent to the Pacific Ocean reflected the influence of that
great ordinance. Thus, the concepts of Americans, which perhaps were
planted with the first colonists but which bore fruit in the Ordinance of
1787, determined the most cherished fundamentals of this nation today.
CHAPTER II
HISTORY OF THE ORDINANCE OF 1787
A century and a half ago, on the thirteenth day of July, 1787, the
Congress of the United States, in session at New York, among its last
acts under the Articles of Confederation, enacted an ordinance for the
government of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio
River. We know of no legislative enactment, proposed and accomplished
in any country, in any age, by monarch, by representatives, or by the
peoples themselves, that has received praise so exalted, and at the same
time so richly deserved, as has this same Ordinance of 1787.
It has been lauded by our great statesmen, great jurists, great orators,
and great educators.
In his notable speech in reply to Robert Young Hayne, delivered in the
United States Senate in January, 1830, Daniel Webster said of it:
“We are accustomed to praise the law-givers of antiquity; we help to
perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt whether one single
law of any law-giver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more
distinct, marked, and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787. We
see its consequences at this moment, and we shall never cease to see
them, perhaps, while the Ohio shall flow.”
Judge Timothy Walker, in an address delivered in 1837 at Cincinnati,
spoke upon this subject in the following words:
“Upon the surpassing excellence of this ordinance no language of
panegyric would be extravagant. It approaches as nearly to absolute
perfection as anything to be found in the legislation of mankind; for
after the experience of fifty years, it would perhaps be impossible
to alter without marring it. In short, it is one of those matchless
specimens of sagacious forecast which even the reckless spirit of
innovation would not venture to assail. The emigrant knew beforehand that
this was a land of the highest political, as well as national, promise,
and, under the auspices of another Moses, he journeyed with confidence to
his new Canaan.”
Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase said of it:
“Never, probably, in the history of the world, did a measure of
legislation so accurately fulfill, and yet so mightily exceed, the
anticipations of the legislators. The Ordinance has well been described
as having been a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night in the
settlement and government of the Northwestern States.”
Peter Force, in 1847, in tracing its history, declared:
“It has been distinguished as one of the greatest monuments of civil
jurisprudence.”
George V. N. Lothrop, LL.D., in an address delivered at the annual
commencement of the University of Michigan, June 27, 1878, said
substantially:
“In advance of the coming millions, it had, as it were, shaped the
earth and the heavens of the sleeping empire. The Great Charter of the
Northwest had consecrated it irrevocably to human freedom, to religion,
learning, and free thought. This one act is the most dominant one in
our whole history, since the landing of the Pilgrims. It is the act
that became decisive in the Great Rebellion. Without it, so far as
human judgment can discover, the victory of free labor would have been
impossible.”
Notwithstanding the high praises that have been bestowed upon the
ordinance, and the many and great benefits that have flowed from it, its
authorship was, for nearly a century, a matter of dispute. No less than
four different persons have had claims to authorship advanced for them by
their friends.
Who, if any one man, was primarily the author of the ordinance, is
uncertain, and now of little moment. The long contention which was waged
as to its authorship serves its greatest purpose in emphasizing the
importance which was then and has since been attributed to the document.
Because of the geographic implications later involved it is worth while,
however, to consider briefly the various assertions of authorship.
Webster, in his famous two-day speech in reply to Hayne, gives to Nathan
Dane, of Massachusetts, the entire credit for devising the ordinance, and
such was the confidence in Webster’s statement, that many writers since
have accepted it as a demonstrated fact.
Thomas H. Benton, in the debate following Webster’s speech, replied:
“He [Webster] has brought before us a certain Nathan Dane, of Beverly,
Mass., and loaded him with such an exuberance of blushing honors as no
modern name has been known to merit or claim. So much glory was caused
by a single act, and that act the supposed authorship of the Ordinance
of 1787, and especially the clause in it which prohibits slavery and
involuntary servitude. So much encomium and such greatful consequences it
seems a pity to spoil, but spoilt it must be; for Mr. Dane was no more
the author of that Ordinance, sir, than you or I.... That Ordinance, and
especially the non-slavery clause, was not the work of Nathan Dane of
Massachusetts, but of Thomas Jefferson of Virginia.”
Charles King, president of Columbia College, in 1855 published a paper on
the Northwest Territory in which he claimed for his father, Rufus King,
the authorship of the non-slavery clause.
Ex-Governor Edward Coles, in a paper on the “History of the Ordinance of
1787,” prepared for the Pennsylvania Historical Society in 1850, disputed
Webster’s claim for Dane, and asserted the claim of Thomas Jefferson.
Force undertook to gather from the archives of Congress materials for
a complete history of this document, but he found nothing that settled
the question of authorship; and although he probably knew more of the
original documents pertaining to the Northwest Territory than any other
man since its adoption, he died in ignorance of the real author.
Hon. R. W. Thompson, in an eloquent address on “Education,” ascribed the
ordinance to the wise statesmanship and the unselfish and far-reaching
patriotism of Jefferson.
Lothrop, in his Ann Arbor address in 1878, on “Education as a Public
Duty,” said:
“It was a graduate of Harvard, who, in 1787, when framing the Great
Charter for the Northwest, had consecrated it irrevocably to Human
Freedom, to Religion, Learning, and Free Thought. It was the proud boast
of Themistocles, that he knew how to make of a small city a great state.
Greater than his was the wisdom and prescience of Nathan Dane, who knew
how to take pledges of the future, and to snatch from the wilderness an
inviolable Republic of Free Labor and Free Thought.”
In 1876, a year in which many buried historical facts were unearthed,
William Frederick Poole, in an admirable article published in the
_North American Review_, presented the history of the Ordinance in a
most scholarly manner. But discarding the absoluteness of the claims
heretofore set forth, he presents, as the chief actor in this mysterious
drama, Dr. Manasseh Cutler, of Massachusetts.
Following, in a general way, the line of argument laid down by Poole,
it is interesting to examine the foregoing claims in the light of the
known facts. In January, 1781, Thomas Jefferson, then Governor of
Virginia, acting under instructions from his state, ceded to the general
government Virginia’s claims to that magnificent tract of country known
as the Northwest Territory, which had been acquired by Virginia by
king’s charter and also as a result of its conquest by George Rogers
Clark in 1778-79. The Virginia cession, regarded as the most crucial
of the necessary relinquishments of state claims, was not completed in
form satisfactory to the United States until 1784. On the first of March
of the same year Jefferson, then a member of Congress and chairman of
a committee appointed for the purpose, presented an ordinance for the
government of all the territory lying westward of the 13 original states
to the Mississippi River. There were two notable features in this paper;
first, it provided for the exclusion of slavery and involuntary servitude
_after the year 1800_; second, it provided for _Articles of Compact_,
the non-slavery clause being one of them. By this provision there were
five articles that could never be set aside without the consent of both
Congress and the people of the territory. The non-slavery article was
rejected by Congress, and the rest was adopted with some unimportant
modifications, on the twenty-third of April, 1784. Whether even this
ordinance was actually drafted by Jefferson is disputed, because it
was an almost identical copy of the plan submitted by David Howell of
Rhode Island in the previous year. However, on the tenth of May, 17 days
after the Ordinance of 1784 was adopted, Jefferson resigned his seat in
Congress to assume the duties of United States Minister to France. As the
Ordinance of 1787 was not adopted until three years after Jefferson had
gone to France, and since he did not return until December, 1789, more
than two years after its passage, there is serious question as to his
possible influence upon it.
Moreover, careful comparison of the Ordinance of 1784 with that of 1787,
shows no similarity, except in the two points referred to above: the
anti-slavery provision, and the articles of compact. The Ordinance of
1784 contains none of those broad provisions found in the later document
concerning religious freedom, fostering of education, equal distribution
of estates of intestates, the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus,
trial by jury, moderation in fines and punishments, the taking of private
property for public use, and interference by law with the obligation of
private contracts. No provision was made for distribution or sale of
lands, and under this Ordinance of 1784 no settlements were ever made in
the territory.
[Illustration: MANASSEH CUTLER
_Drawn by Marie Kellogg, Superior, Wisconsin_]
In 1785, on motion of Rufus King, an attempt was made to re-insert
some sort of anti-slavery provision, but it was not carried. This, so
far as we can learn, is the extent of the grounds for King’s claims to
authorship.
In March, 1786, a report on the western territory was made by the grand
committee of the House, which, proving unsatisfactory, resulted in
the appointment of a new committee. It reported an ordinance that was
recommitted and discussed at intervals until September of the same year,
when another committee was appointed. Of this, Dane was a member. A
report was made which was under discussion for several months. In April,
1787, this same committee reported another ordinance which passed its
first and second readings, and the tenth of May was set for its third
reading, but for some reason final action was postponed. This paper came
down to the ninth of July without further change. Poole has given us the
full text as it appeared only four days before the final passage of the
great ordinance. This bears less likeness to the finally adopted version
than does the Ordinance of 1784.
Force, in gathering up the old papers, found this July 9 version in
its crude and unstatesmanlike condition, and wondered how such radical
changes could have been so suddenly effected; for in the brief space of
four days the new ordinance was drafted, passed its three readings, was
put upon its final passage, and was adopted by the unanimous vote of all
the states present.
This rapid and fundamental change in the ordinance tends to discredit all
of the foregoing claims.
Authorship of public documents which attain greatness is usually a matter
for later dispute.
Such documents have probably never been the work of any one author, but
are rather the coordinated expressions of thought which have developed
over long periods of time and in many men’s minds. Least of all entitled
to credit is the “Scribe” who merely recorded the thought propounded by
others, but whose name often becomes associated with the document.
At the close of the Revolutionary War, Congress, in adjusting the
claims of officers and soldiers, gave them interest-bearing continental
certificates. The United States Treasury was in a state of such depletion
and uncertainty, that these certificates were actually worth only
about one-sixth of their face value. At the close of the war many of
these officers were destitute, notwithstanding the fact that they held
thousands of dollars in these depreciated “promissory notes” of the
government.
On the eve of the disbandment of the army in 1783, 288 officers
petitioned Congress for a grant of land in the western territory. Their
petition went beyond a request for lands, however, and set forth certain
provisions of government as essential to their petition. In this humble
and little-known document known variously as the “Pickering” or “Army”
Plan, were contained many of the proposals which later found their way
into the Ordinance of 1787. Included for instance was the then radical
prohibition of slavery clause. This document bears a closer resemblance
in principles and in wording, to the Ordinance of 1787 when it was
adopted than does any other contemporary document. Among the petitioners
was General Rufus Putnam. It was his plan, if Congress should comply
with the petition, to form a colony and remove to the Ohio Valley.
On the sixteenth of June, 1783, Putnam addressed a letter to General
George Washington elaborating the soldiers’ plan and setting forth the
advantages that would arise if Congress should grant the petition, and
urged him to use his influence to secure favorable action upon it. This
letter is of great interest in the development of the history of the
Northwest. It is printed in full in Charles M. Walker’s _History of
Athens County, Ohio_, pp. 30-36.
The chief advantages of this project, as set forth by Putnam were,
the friendship of the Indians, secured through traffic with them; the
protection of the frontier; the promotion of land sales to other than
soldiers, thus aiding the treasury; and the prevention of the return of
said territory to any European power. There were, in the letter, other
suggestions of far-reaching interest; (1) That the territory should
be surveyed into six-mile townships, one of the first suggestions for
our present admirable system of government surveys; (2) that in the
proposed grant, a portion of land should be set apart for the support of
the ministry; and (3) that another portion should be reserved for the
maintenance of free schools.
One year later Washington wrote to Putnam that, although he had urged
upon Congress the necessity and the duty of complying with the petition,
no action had been taken. The failure of this plan led to the development
of another and better one. It is interesting to note, however, that the
men under whose sponsorship and virtual insistence the Ordinance of 1787
was finally evolved had been subscribers to the Pickering Plan of 1783.
In 1785, Congress adopted the system of surveys suggested by Putnam, and
tendered him the office of Government Surveyor. He declined, but through
his influence, his friend and fellow-soldier, General Benjamin Tupper,
was appointed. In the fall of 1785, and again in 1786, Tupper visited the
territory and in the latter year he completed the survey of the “seven
ranges” in eastern Ohio. In the winter of 1785-86 he held a conference
with Putnam at the home of the latter, in Rutland, Massachusetts. Here
they talked over the beauty and value of “the Ohio country” and devised
a new plan for “filling it with inhabitants.” They issued a call to all
officers, soldiers, and others, “who desire to become adventurers in that
delightful region” to meet in convention for the purpose of organizing
“an association by the name of _The Ohio Company of Associates_.” The
term “Ohio” as used here related to the “Ohio country” or the “Territory
north and west of the River Ohio,” as the present state of Ohio was then
of course non-existent.
Also the name, “Ohio Company of Associates,” is not to be confused with
the earlier “Ohio Company” of the 1750’s which had been one of the
earlier land schemes, operating south of the Ohio River. No man in the
“Ohio Company of Associates” had been a part of the former Ohio Company,
and there was no relation between the two companies.
Delegates from various New England counties met at Boston, March 1, 1786.
A committee, consisting of Putnam, Cutler, Colonel John Brooks, Major
Winthrop Sargent, and Captain Thomas H. Cushing was appointed to draft a
plan of association. Two days later they made a report, some of the most
important points of which were: (1) That a stock company should be formed
with a capital of one million dollars of the Continental Certificates
already mentioned; (2) that this fund should be devoted to the purchase
of lands northwest of the River Ohio; (3) that each share should consist
of one thousand dollars of certificates, and ten dollars of gold or
silver to be used in defraying expenses; (4) that directors and agents be
appointed to carry out the purposes of the company.
Subscription books were opened at different places, and at the end of
the year, a sufficient number of shares had been subscribed to justify
further proceedings. On the eighth of March, 1787, another meeting was
held in Boston, and General Samuel Holden Parsons, Putnam, Cutler and
General James M. Varnum were appointed directors, and were ordered to
make proposals to Congress for the purchase of lands in accordance with
the plans of the company. Later, the directors employed Cutler to act as
their agent and make a contract with Congress for a body of land in the
“Great Western Territory of the Union.”
To those who have studied this transaction of the Ohio Company of
Associates in its various bearings, there can be no doubt that through it
the Ordinance of 1787 came to be. The two were intimately related parts
of one whole. Either studied alone presents inexplicable difficulties;
studied together each explains the other. Through the agency of Cutler
the purchase of land was effected and those radical changes in the
ordinance were made between the ninth and thirteenth of July, 1787.
Cutler was born at Killingly, Connecticut, May 3, 1742. At the age of
twenty-three he graduated from Yale. The two years following were devoted
to the whaling business and to storekeeping at Edgartown, on Martha’s
Vineyard. He did not enjoy this occupation, however, and studied law
in his spare time. In 1767 he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar.
This profession proved little more congenial, and he determined to
study theology. In 1771 he was ordained at Ipswich, where he continued
preaching until the outbreak of the Revolution, when he entered the army
as a chaplain. In one engagement he took such an active and gallant part
that the colonel of his regiment presented him with a fine horse captured
from the enemy. Cutler returned to his parish before the war closed and
decided to study medicine. He received his M.D. degree, and for several
years served in the double capacity of minister and doctor. He was now
a graduate in all the so-called learned professions—law, divinity, and
medicine. In scientific pursuits he was probably the equal of any man
in America, excepting Benjamin Franklin, and perhaps Benjamin Rush. He
was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and several
other learned bodies. Two years before his journey to New York, he had
published four articles in the memoirs of the American Academy, dealing
with astronomy, meteorology and botany. The last mentioned was the first
attempt made by any one to describe scientifically the plants of New
England. Employing the Linnaean system, he classified 350 species of
plants found in his neighborhood. His articles brought him prominence
among learned groups throughout the country, and secured for him a
cordial welcome into the literary and scientific circles of New York
and Philadelphia. Cutler was well fitted, therefore, to become, as has
already been related, a leading spirit in the enterprise of the Ohio
Company. In 1795 Washington offered him the judgeship of the Supreme
Court of the Northwest Territory, which he declined. He became a member
of the Massachusetts Legislature, and from 1800 to 1804 served his
district as its Representative in Congress. He declined re-election and
returned to his pastorate. At the time of his death in 1820 he had served
there for nearly 50 years.
He was a man of commanding presence, “stately and elegant in
form, courtly in manners, and at the same time easy, affable, and
communicative. He was given to relating anecdotes and making himself
agreeable.” His character, attainments, manners and knowledge of men
fitted him admirably for the task of uniting the diverse elements of
Congress to promote the scheme he was sent there to represent. How he
accomplished this is an interesting story.
Cutler’s diary reveals that he left his home in Ipswich, 25 miles
northwest of Boston, on Sunday, June 24, 1787. He preached that day in
Lynn, and spent the night at Cambridge. He also stopped at Middletown to
confer with Parsons. Here the plan of operations was perfected, and he
pursued his journey, arriving at New York on the afternoon of July 5,
1787. He had armed himself with about 50 letters of introduction. One of
these he delivered immediately to a well-to-do merchant of the city, who
received him very cordially and insisted that Cutler stay with him as
long as he remained in the city.
The next morning Cutler was on the floor of Congress early, presenting
letters of introduction to the members. He was particularly anxious to
become acquainted with southern men, and they received him with much
warmth and politeness. He was so genteel in his manners, and so much more
like a southerner than a New England clergyman, that they took a fancy to
him at once.
During the morning he prepared his applications to Congress for the
proposed purchase of western land for the Ohio Company. He was introduced
to the House by Colonel Edward Carrington, after which he delivered his
petition, and proposed terms of the purchase. A committee was appointed
to discuss terms of negotiation.
It must be remembered that Cutler was employed not only to make a
purchase of land, but to see that the frame of government for the
territory was acceptable to his constituents. Thus he had a motive in
making himself agreeable to the southern men. Among the New England
members there existed some antagonism toward the Ohio Company’s scheme,
since its success would cause many enterprising citizens to leave that
section. Massachusetts had a large tract of land in Maine, and she
desired to turn the tide of emigration in that direction; for this reason
Massachusetts members stood in the way of the western movement. Cutler
felt, however, that their support of the company’s scheme might be relied
upon when brought to a test.
Cutler was invited to dinners and teas, where his engaging manner
made him the center of attraction. He used every occasion as a means
of setting before the members the great advantages that would follow
consummation of the proposed plan.
In the first place, Congress could thus pay a large amount of the
national debt to its most worthy creditors without money. Again, it
would open up the Northwest to settlement, thus insuring large sales of
land to civilians. Further, it would establish a barrier between older
settlements and the western Indians, thus furnishing protection without
expense to the government.
In three or four days he had so fully succeeded in enlisting the favor
of Congress that by July 9 a new committee was appointed to prepare a
frame of government for the territory. It was at this point that the
ordinance under consideration bore so little resemblance to the final
document which was adopted four days later. This committee was composed
of Carrington, Nathan Dane of Massachusetts, Richard Henry Lee and two
others. It is quite probable that the members of this committee were
selected in accordance with Cutler’s wishes.
The next morning after the committee was appointed, it called Cutler into
its councils, having previously sent him a copy of the ordinance, which
had already passed two readings. He was asked to make suggestions and
propose amendments, which he did, returning the paper to the committee
with his suggestions.
On July 10, he left for Philadelphia to visit his scientific
correspondents, Franklin and Rush, and also to look in upon the
Constitutional Convention, which was then in session.
The day following his departure, the committee presented to Congress a
new ordinance prepared in accordance with Cutler’s suggestions. If Force
could have had access to Cutler’s diary in writing up the history of
the Ordinance of 1787, the mystery of the radical changes that he found
between the ninth and the eleventh of July would have been solved.
On the eighteenth Cutler was again in New York. On the nineteenth he made
this entry in his diary:
“Called on members of Congress very early in the morning, and was
furnished with the ordinance establishing a government in the western
Federal territory. It is, in a degree, new modeled. The amendments I
proposed have all been made except one, and that is better qualified.”
The frame of government having been satisfactorily settled, Congress
proceeded to state the conditions on which the sale of lands should be
based. On the twentieth these terms were shown to Cutler, who rejected
them. He said:
“I informed the committee that I should not contract on the terms
proposed; that I should greatly prefer purchasing lands from some of the
states, who would give incomparably better terms; and therefore proposed
to leave the city immediately.”
Thus it appears quite certain that the distinctive flavor of the
ordinance and the provisions which have given it greatness among all the
credos of mankind were injected into it after July 9, and after Cutler
had been requested to make suggestions and amendments.
But that these vital changes were not original with Cutler is evidenced
by his later statement, “I only represented my principals, who would
accept nothing less.”
And so the real responsibility for authorship of the ordinance may be
traced to the men at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern, to the signers of the
Pickering Plan, to the sober-minded and unsung men who had fought and
thought a new nation into potential greatness.
At this time a number of other leading persons who held government
certificates proposed to make Cutler their agent for the purchase of
lands for themselves. This would give him control of some four millions
more of the debt with which to influence Congress. He agreed to act for
them, on the condition that the affair be conducted secretly. The next
day several members called on him. They found him unwilling to accept
their conditions, and proposing to leave immediately. They assured him
that Congress was disposed to give him better terms. He appeared very
indifferent, and they became more and more anxious. His ruse was working
admirably. He finally told them that if Congress would accede to his
terms, he would extend his proposed purchase. In this way, Congress could
pay more than four millions of the public debt. He explained that the
intention of his company was an immediate settlement by the most robust
and industrious people in America, which would instantly enhance the
value of federal lands. He proposed to renew the negotiations on his own
terms, if Congress was so disposed.
On the twenty-fourth he wrote out his terms and sent them to the Board of
Treasury, which had been empowered to complete the contract. These terms
specified that the general government should survey the tract at its
expense, stated the method of payment, number of payments, and the time
at which the deed should be given. The most striking provisions of the
contract set apart the sixteenth section of each township for the support
of free schools, the twenty-ninth section of each township for the
ministry; and two entire townships for the establishment and maintenance
of a university.
These terms called forth much opposition, and taxed Cutler’s lobbying
powers to their utmost. He said:
“Every machine in the city that it was possible to set to work, we now
set in motion. My friends made every exertion in private conversation
to bring over my opponents. In order to get at some of them so as to
work powerfully on their minds, we were obliged to engage three or four
persons before we could get at them. In some instances we engaged one
person, who engaged a second, and he a third, and soon to the fourth
before we could effect our purpose. In these maneuvers I am much beholden
to Col. Duer and Maj. Sargent.”
It had been the purpose of the company to secure the governorship of the
new territory for Parsons, but it became known that General Arthur St.
Clair, the president of the Continental Congress, wanted the position.
St. Clair was withholding his influence. Cutler sought an interview
with him. “After that,” said Cutler, “our matters went on much better.”
It will be remembered that St. Clair became the first Governor of the
Northwest Territory.
On the twenty-seventh, Congress directed the Board of Treasury “to take
order and close the contract.” That evening Cutler left New York for
his home, authorizing Sargent to act in his stead. On the twenty-ninth
of August he made a report to the directors and agents at a meeting in
Boston. A great number of proprietors attended, and all fully approved of
the proposed contract and it was finally executed October 27, 1787.
The Ordinance of 1787 undoubtedly represented the most advanced thought
of that time on the subject of free government.
This ordinance irrevocably fixed the character of the immigration, and
determined the social, political, industrial, educational, and religious
institutions of the territory.
As soon as it was adopted by Congress, it was sent to the Constitutional
Convention at Philadelphia, and some of its most important provisions
were embodied in the new Constitution. Notable among these was one in
the second Article of Compact, in the ordinance, stating that, “for the
just preservation of rights and property, no law ought ever to be made,
or have force in said Territory, that shall, in any manner whatever,
interfere with, or affect private contracts or engagements, bona fide,
and without fraud, previously formed.” This appears in Paragraph 1,
Section 10, Article 1 of the Constitution, prohibiting a state from
passing any “law impairing the obligation of contracts.” This is said to
be the first enactment of the kind in the history of constitutional law.
The fact that the Constitutional Convention included this one proviso in
the draft of the Constitution, indicates that consideration was given
the provisions of the ordinance, and thereby suggests their deliberate
omission from the Constitution, for reasons unknown, inasmuch as the
debates of that convention were, by agreement, not recorded.
However, after the Constitution was submitted to the states for
ratification it quickly became apparent that the people were determined
upon specific provision for the rights of men in their fundamental
law, and while ratification of the Constitution by nine states was
accomplished in 1789, it was only possible by assurance that such
provisions would be immediately added as amendments.
In some form, every one of the states admitted from the Northwest
Territory later embodied similar provisions in their fundamental law. The
adoption or rejection of these principles was not left to the discretion
of the states; being “Articles of Compact,” they could not be discarded
without the consent of Congress.
The sixth article of this compact prohibited slavery forever, within
the bounds of the Northwest Territory. But for this form of compact in
the ordinance, it is perhaps possible that Indiana and Illinois would
have entered the Union as slave states. In 1802 General William Henry
Harrison, then Governor of Indiana Territory, called a convention of
delegates to consider the means by which slavery could be introduced into
the territory, and he himself presided over its deliberations. In the
language of Poole,
“The Convention voted to give its consent to the suspension of the sixth
article of the compact, and to memorialize Congress for its consent to
the same. The memorial laid before Congress stated that the suspension
of the sixth article would be highly ‘advantageous to the Territory’
and ‘would meet with the approbation of at least nine-tenths of the
good citizens of the same.’ The subject was referred to a committee of
which John Randolph of Virginia was chairman, who reported adversely
as follows: ‘That the rapidly increasing population of the State of
Ohio evinces in the opinion of your committee, that the labor of slaves
is not necessary to promote the growth and settlement of colonies in
that region. That this labor, demonstrably the dearest of any, can only
be employed to advantage in the cultivation of products more valuable
than any known in that quarter of the United States; that the committee
deem it highly dangerous and inexpedient to impair a provision wisely
calculated to promote the happiness and prosperity of the northwestern
country, and to give strength and security to that extensive frontier. In
the salutary operation of this sagacious and salutary restraint, it is
believed that the inhabitants of the Territory will, at no very distant
day, find ample remuneration for a temporary privation of labor and of
emigration.’”
When Ohio was admitted to the Union, the advocates of slavery made
strenuous efforts to secure its introduction, but were defeated. Indiana
and Illinois territories later asked that the anti-slavery provision be
set aside. More than one committee reported in favor of repealing it, but
Congress firmly maintained the compact.
The enlightened provisions of the ordinance attracted the thrifty
Yankee from New England, the enterprising Dutchman from Pennsylvania,
the conscientious Quaker from Carolina and Virginia, and some of
the sturdiest pioneer stock from the frontier of Kentucky. Even the
light-hearted French contributed to this great melting pot.
Some historians refer to the spirit of the Northwest Territory as the
“first American civilization,” brought about by welding into a national
entity the diverse and imported civilizations of the earlier colonies.
[Illustration: Northwest Territory
_The FIRST COLONY of the UNITED STATES_]
It is at least an interesting speculation as to whether the newly
born United States would have prevailed as one nation, except for
the opportunity given by the Northwest Territory with its new lands,
common problems, and forward looking government for this merging of the
older states’ discordant traditional concepts of government and social
relations.
Comparison of the social, industrial, and educational conditions in the
states of the Old Northwest with those in neighboring states not born
under the influence of the ordinance creates further evidence of the
value of the principles enunciated by the ordinance.
If, in 1861, the principles and institutions of Kentucky and Missouri,
instead of those of the Ordinance of 1787, had prevailed in the five
states formed from the Northwest Territory, it would have required no
seer to predict another end for the great struggle between the states. As
Lothrop says, “It [the Ordinance of 1787] is the act that became decisive
in the Great Rebellion. Without it so far as human judgment can discover,
the victory of Free Labor would have been impossible.”
While it is not claimed that the ordinance was the source of all the
blessings that have crowned these states, still it is certain that it
was the germ from which many of them have been developed. Neither is it
claimed that all the ills of the Southern States arose from the absence
of similar provisions; however, their presence and influence on the one
hand, and their absence on the other, tended to widen the gulf between
North and South and, when the final struggle came, had a determining
influence on the result.
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT IN THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY UNDER THE ORDINANCE OF
1787
When George Washington said farewell to his officers at the end of the
Revolutionary War, he gave them this admonition:
“The extensive and fertile regions of the West will yield a most happy
asylum to those who, fond of domestic enjoyment, are seeking for personal
independence.”
While Washington did not become a shareholder in the Ohio Company of
Associates, several circumstances give evidence as to his having been
active in its planning.
Having personally visited the Ohio country in 1770 for the purpose of
studying and selecting lands, his selection of some 40,000 acres in
Virginia and Ohio for himself; and the comments in his journal of the
trip give ample evidence of his enthusiasm for this part of the West.
His repeated statement during the Revolution that in case of failure to
achieve independence the troops should “retire to the Ohio Country and
there be free”; his long and earnest efforts to open up routes to the
West by canal and by road; his great friendship and admiration for Rufus
Putnam; and his later decisive steps in sending Anthony Wayne to put a
final end to the question of Indian land titles and warfare; all these
indicate far more than a casual interest in the plans for and success of
this first western colony.
Washington had himself earlier attempted to establish a colony on the
Great Kanawha River south of the present town of Point Pleasant, West
Virginia. We can readily imagine that he may have deliberately refrained
from becoming an Ohio Company Associate because of the implications of
personal interest which might follow. But when, on April 7, 1788, a
group of his former officers made the first settlement in the Northwest
Territory, at Marietta, Washington exclaimed:
“No colony in America was ever settled under such favorable auspices as
that which has just commenced on the banks of the Muskingum. Information,
property, and strength will be its characteristics. I know many of the
settlers personally, and there never were men better calculated to
promote the welfare of such a community.”
The founders of Marietta settled in the West to regain the fortunes
they had lost in the Revolution. Some of them earned nothing from their
professions during the eight years of the war. They received little or no
pay for their military services, because Congress had no power to raise
money by levying taxes. Finally, they were paid with certificates issued
by the Continental Congress. Because these notes were worth only about
twelve cents on the dollar the expression, “not worth a Continental,”
became a by-word. In desperation the officers looked to the public land
of the West with its fertility, timber, fur, and game as a place to find
the necessities of life. They were not speculators; they were pioneers in
search of homes for themselves and their children.
Several unsuccessful attempts had been made by the soldiers to secure
land in the West before Congress finally granted them a place to settle.
As early as September, 1776, Congress tried to encourage enlistment by
offering bounties of land—five hundred acres to a colonel, 100 acres to
a private, and other ranks in proportion. At the time this offer was
made, the government owned no public land, nor did it until the winning
of the Northwest by George Rogers Clark, the cession of land claims by
the states, and Indian treaties had provided a public domain. In hope
of securing grants in this presumed domain Colonel Timothy Pickering in
1783 formulated “Propositions for Settling a New State by Such Officers
and Soldiers of the Federal Army as Shall Associate for that Purpose.” He
suggested that Congress purchase lands from the Indians and give tracts
to soldiers in fulfillment of the bounty promises of 1776. In the hands
of Putnam this suggestion became the “Newburgh Petition,” which was
forwarded to Congress with the signatures of about 288 officers in the
Continental Line of the Army. With this petition Putnam sent a letter
to Washington in which he asked support for the appeal of the signers
and outlined their plan. His letter included such wise suggestions as
the exchange of land for public securities, the adoption of the township
system of survey, and the advantage of settlements of soldiers in the
West as outposts against danger from the Indians or from the English in
Canada. In a belated response to these demands Congress enacted on May
20, 1785, “An Ordinance for ascertaining the mode of disposing of lands
in the Western Territory,” which applied to the lands won from England,
ceded by the states and now purchased from the Indians. This ordinance
made no provision for government in the West, and, although the “seven
ranges” just west of the Pennsylvania border were surveyed and offered
for sale according to its provisions, but little land was sold and this
attempt at westward settlement was a comparative failure.
This further reflects the determination of the American people to have an
acceptable and agreed-upon form of government upon which to build a new
country.
[Illustration: RUFUS PUTNAM
_Drawn by Herbert Krofft, Zanesville, Ohio_]
In these efforts of the officers to secure western lands, Putnam was
the leader. Putnam had been well taught in the school of experience.
After his father’s death, he had gone, at the age of nine, to live with
his stepfather, who made him work hard and would not permit him to go
to school. “For six years,” Putnam said, “I was made a ridecule of, and
otherwise abused for my attention to books, and attempting to write and
learn Arethmatic.” At the age of 16 he was bound as apprentice to a
millwright. Three years later he decided to escape from the severity of
his master and seek adventure by joining the English army in the French
and Indian War. He returned home from his second enlistment in disgust,
because he had been made to work in the mills when he wanted to fight the
French and Indians. After working seven years as a millwright, he turned
to farming and surveying. Soon after the outbreak of the Revolution he
was appointed military engineer. Later in the war he constructed the
fortifications at West Point and suggested that place for a military
school. He retired from the army a brigadier general and returned to
farming and surveying. Putnam was appointed by Congress surveyor on the
seven ranges of townships provided for by the Land Ordinance of 1785; but
he resigned to survey lands in Maine for his own state and recommended
Brigadier General Benjamin Tupper for the position in Ohio.
Tupper was so closely associated with Putnam in western plans that the
two men have been called twin brothers. It has been suggested that the
two men deliberately investigated land available for purchase in two
different regions to compare their advantages. Tupper was stopped at
Pittsburgh by Indian trouble, but he heard favorable reports of the
Ohio country, which made him enthusiastic for settlement. He hurried
eastward and arrived at Rutland on January 9, 1786. Before the blazing
fireplace in Putnam’s home the two men talked all night about their dream
of settlement in the West. When the morning light gleamed through the
windows of the kitchen, the ineffectual hopes of the army officers had
been forged into a practical plan of action by the enthusiasm of Putnam
and Tupper. On January 25, 1786, Massachusetts newspapers published an
invitation to officers and others interested in western settlement to
meet in their respective counties and appoint delegates to convene at the
Bunch of Grapes Tavern in Boston to form an organization for the purpose.
Although this call was sent out three years after the Newburgh Petition,
the prompt response of the officers showed that there had been no decline
in interest. The Ohio Company of Associates resulted from this meeting.
It has been pointed out that most of those attending were also
members of the military Society of the Cincinnati, so named because
the Revolutionary soldiers thought they resembled the Roman soldier
Cincinnatus in leaving their farms and work to save their country. No
doubt the hope of western migration had been kept alive by discussion
at the meetings of the Cincinnati. Most of those men also belonged to
the Masonic Lodge, and this association also unified and perpetuated the
ideas included in the Newburgh Petition of which most of them had been
signers.
At the meeting in Boston on March 1 the delegates elected Putnam chairman
and Major Winthrop Sargent clerk. One thousand “shares” were planned, and
no person was permitted to hold more than five shares or less than one
share, except that several persons could own one share in partnership.
To facilitate the transaction of business, one agent was elected by
each group of 20 shares to represent their interest at meetings of the
company. Putnam, Manasseh Cutler, and General Samuel Holden Parsons, were
appointed directors to manage the affairs of the company. Sargent was
elected secretary and later General James M. Varnum was made a director
and Colonel Richard Platt treasurer. All land was to be divided equally
among the shares by lot. One year after the organization of the company
25 shares had been subscribed, and Parsons, Putnam, and Cutler were
appointed to purchase a tract of land from Congress.
Although largely responsible for shaping the beginning of the new colony,
Cutler did not move to the tract he purchased; he later visited the
infant settlement, however, and his sons, Ephraim, Jervis, and Charles,
became pioneer residents of the Northwest Territory.
Cutler contracted to purchase for the Ohio Company a million and a half
acres at one dollar per acre, less one third of a dollar for bad lands
and the expenses of surveying. Because the public securities with which
payment was to be made were worth only twelve cents on the dollar, the
actual purchase price was eight or nine cents per acre. The tract was
bounded on the east by the Seven Ranges, which had been surveyed and
offered for sale under the Land Ordinance of 1785, on the south by the
Ohio River, and on the western side by the seventeenth Range; it extended
far enough north to include in addition to the purchase one section of
640 acres in each township for the support of religion, one section for
the support of schools, two entire townships for a university, and three
sections for the future disposition of Congress. An interesting phase of
this provision of the contract with the government was that the Ordinance
of 1787 itself made no specific provision for public school lands, lands
for support of religion, or for university purposes. The Land Ordinance
of 1785 had provided for the setting aside of one section in each
township for public schools, but for neither religion nor universities.
But, so earnest of purpose were the men who had written into the
Ordinance of 1787 “Religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to
good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of
education shall be forever encouraged,” that in their bargaining with the
land commissioners, insistence was made upon these specific reservations.
And so, perhaps outside the formal tenets of law, was furthered a public
land policy which has done much to make our public school and university
educational system an integral and distinctive feature of this government.
Five hundred thousand dollars was to be paid when the contract was signed
and the same amount when the United States completed the survey of the
boundary lines of the tract. The contract was signed on October 27,
1787, by Cutler and Sargent for the Ohio Company, and by Samuel Osgood
and Arthur Lee for the Treasury Board, as commissioners of public lands.
Because the company could not pay the second installment when it was
due, the tract was reduced in size from a million and a half acres to
1,064,285 acres when the patent was issued on May 20, 1792. By giving
100,000 acres for donation lands to actual settlers, Congress reduced the
final purchase to 964,285 acres.
In conformity with the Articles of Association the shareholders received
equal divisions of the purchase. Instead of the 1000 shares originally
expected, 822 were subscribed. When the final apportionment was made,
each share received a total of 1,173.37 acres in seven allotments of
eight acres, three acres, a house lot of .37 acres, 160 acres, 100 acres,
a 640 acre section, and 262 acres.
Had army pay certificates been worth par, the maximum holding for any
individual would have been about $5900, and from that amount down to a
fractional part of $1173. In such sized holdings there could be little
suggestion of either speculation or monopoly. The army certificates being
depreciated in value as they were, the real value of holdings, in hard
money, varied from about $700 down to a few dollars. On such vast capital
was America started across a continent!!
The Ohio Company purchase was located on the Muskingum River for several
reasons. Since the Associates of this Company expected to engage in
farming, and since they were the first settlers, many have wondered
why they did not choose a level tract rather than the hilly section of
the Muskingum. The answers are several: Although they were the first
settlers, they did not have first choice. Southern Ohio was the only
part of the territory to which the United States could give clear title.
Connecticut withheld her Western Reserve of three and a quarter million
acres east of the Fort McIntosh Treaty line. The western land lying
between the Scioto and Little Miami Rivers was under Virginia option.
Since a location west of the Little Miami would have been too far from
the settled part of the country, a tract of suitable size for the Ohio
Company could be found only in the southeast part of the present state
of Ohio. The southern location just west of the Seven Ranges was closer
to New England and was on the then greatest thoroughfare of western
travel, the Ohio River. Furthermore, the Muskingum region was as far
distant as possible from the Indian settlements farther west. Another
advantage was the protection afforded by Fort Harmar, which had been
constructed in 1785 by United States troops under command of Major John
Doughty for the purpose of stopping illegal occupation of the land. Also,
the settlers would have as neighbors 13 families on the patent of Isaac
Williams, which lay on the Virginia side of the Ohio, opposite the mouth
of the Muskingum. In making his choice of location, Cutler considered
all these factors as well as the advice of Thomas Hutchins, geographer
of the United States, who told him that the Muskingum Valley was, in his
opinion, “the best part of the whole of the western country.”
As soon as the purchase was assured, the Ohio Company started systematic
preparation for settlement. Putnam was elected superintendent. Plans
were made in Boston for a city of 4000 acres with wide streets and
public parks at the mouth of the Muskingum. One hundred houses were to
be constructed on three sides of a square for the reception of settlers.
For making surveys and preparing for immigrants, the superintendent was
ordered to employ four surveyors and 22 assistants, six boat builders,
four house carpenters, one blacksmith, and nine laborers. Each man was
required to furnish himself with rifle, bayonet, six flints, powder horn
and pouch, half a pound of powder, one pound of balls, and one pound of
buckshot. Surveyors were to receive $27 a month, and laborers $4 per
month and board. Although these plans were made when it was midwinter and
travel was difficult, no time was to be lost. These were men of action.
They had waited over three years for Congress to make it possible to
carry out their purposes. Putnam decided to lead an advance expedition to
the Muskingum to be ready for surveying and building and planting early
in the spring, and in _five weeks_ after the land contract was signed,
they were on their way.
There is a substantial lesson in this for us who today profess heartfelt
desires and intensities of purpose. Ahead of these men lay months of
winter, severe enough in the settled communities but far more to be
feared in the hazardous wilderness of the Alleghany Mountains. Travel by
foot, for 800 miles with a plodding ox team for part of their baggage,
over the roughest of roads and uncharted trails, and across swollen
streams was to be their lot. So severe was the risk that no women could
accompany the party. During the trip and at its end possible Indian
attacks endangered them. Such was their prospect which they faced
cheerfully, unflinchingly and enthusiastically.
[Illustration: PIONEER PARTY
_Drawn by Betty Kimmell, Vincennes, Ind._]
The company of 48 men was divided into two parties. The boat builders
and their assistants, 22 in number, met at Cutler’s home in Ipswich,
Massachusetts, on December 3, 1787. Cutler not only helped to fashion
the government for the Ohio Company of Associates; he also provided for
their migration a wagon covered with black canvas and lettered with his
own handwriting “For the Ohio Country.” At dawn the men paraded to hear
an address from Cutler, fired three volleys with their rifles, and went
to Danvers, Massachusetts, where Major Haffield White assumed command.
With their plodding ox team they took a route south and then southwest
over stage coach roads, mountain trails, or cutting their own path as
they went, to the old Glade Road westward through Pennsylvania. After a
toilsome journey, they reached Sumrill’s Ferry on the Youghiogheny River
30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh on January 23, nearly eight weeks after
leaving home. At this place (now West Newton, Pa.) they started to build
boats in readiness for the arrival of the other party.
Putnam assembled the second party of 26 surveyors and assistants at
Hartford, Connecticut, on January 1, 1788. But business at the war office
in New York required him to send the party ahead under the leadership of
Colonel Ebenezer Sproat and rejoin them at Swatara Creek between present
Harrisburg and Lebanon, Pennsylvania. When Putnam arrived, progress was
delayed because the ice on the creeks would not support wagons. With the
courage and energy developed by long military service, Putnam set the men
to work cutting an opening so that the stream could be forded. During
the day spent in cutting ice a heavy snow blocked the roads and made
travel difficult. At Cooper’s Tavern near the foot of Tuscarora Mountain
the snow was so deep that they were forced to abandon their wagons and
build sledges to carry baggage and tools. The horses were then hitched
to the sledges in single file, and the men walked ahead to break a path.
After two weeks of this slow travel, they arrived at Sumrill’s Ferry on
February 14.
[Illustration: PIONEER SETTLERS BUILDING ADVENTURE GALLEY ON THE
YOUGHIOGHENY]
On account of the severe cold and deep snow little progress had been
made by White’s men in building boats; but with the arrival of the
superintendent and more laborers the work went ahead rapidly under the
direction of Jonathan Devol, a ship builder. The largest boat was a
galley constructed of heavy timber to deflect bullets and covered with
a deck-roof high enough for a man to walk upright under the beams. It
was 50 feet long and 13 feet wide with an estimated carrying capacity of
21 tons, although, as Putnam records it, it was of green timber and its
real capacity, therefore, uncertain. The _Adventure Galley_ is the name
commonly ascribed to this boat, although as an afterthought some called
it the _American Mayflower_. Rufus Putnam in his diary written at the
time calls it “Union Galley.” Since one boat would not transport the 48
men with their horses, tools, baggage, and food to support them until
their crops matured, a large flatboat, 28’ x 8’, and three canoes were
also constructed. It will be interesting to know something of what these
“canoes” were like. They were not the hollowed-out log Indian canoes, nor
were they of birch bark. Putnam describes them as of two tons, one ton,
and 800 pounds burthen, respectively.
The popular small boat of the Ohio River, large enough to carry more than
would the log canoe, was called a pirogue. It was a log canoe split in
half lengthwise and with a wide flat section inserted between the two
halves. This made a substantial and safer boat, with greatly increased
carrying capacity, yet easy to handle, and, of course, easy for the
pioneers to build with the primitive materials at hand.
And, speaking of boats and pioneers, Cutler records in his diary that
on August 15, 1788, Tupper, who had been among the original party of
settlers, took him down the river to see his new “mode for propelling
a boat instead of oars.” This consisted of a “machine in the form of a
screw with short blades, and placed in the stern of a boat, which we
turned with a crank. It succeeded to admiration, and I think it a very
useful discovery.” Thus, in the wilderness of Northwest Territory and 50
years before it came into general use, the screw propeller was invented
and successfully demonstrated.
On April 1, 1788, the 48 pioneer settlers of the Northwest Territory
launched their boats out into the Youghiogheny and pushed down that
river to the Monongahela. At Pittsburgh they swung out into the current
of the broad Ohio. John Mathews had been working since February 27 to
collect provisions for the expedition at the mouth of Buffalo Creek (now
Wellsburg, West Virginia). The horses, oxen and wagons had been sent
overland to this point. After stopping the entire day of April 5 to load
these provisions, and their equipment, the little flotilla floated on
and arrived at the mouth of the Muskingum on the morning of April 7. The
banks of the Muskingum at that time were lined with tall sycamores, which
leaned out over the water, and so narrowed the mouth that the pioneers
could not see it through the rain. Consequently the current carried them
past the mouth of the Muskingum and below Fort Harmar. With ropes and
the help of soldiers from the fort, the boats were towed back into the
Muskingum. Then the pioneers rowed across and landed at noon above the
upper point.
In what sense were these 48 founders of Marietta the first settlers in
the Northwest Territory? Certainly they were not the first white men
to live in the Ohio country. Sault Ste. Marie was planted by Marquette
in 1668, 120 years before the founding of Marietta. Burke A. Hinsdale
has said that the French posts—Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and many
others—in the old Northwest contained a population of 2500 people in
1766. Wisconsin, northern Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois had been
major scenes of French exploration and settlement for a hundred years.
But the French made no attempt to colonize their settlements; they
preferred to keep the wilderness a vast, unbroken game preserve for
trapping furs and Indian trading.
When the English secured possession of the country northwest of the Ohio
River at the end of the French and Indian War, the British government
angered the colonies, first by the decree of 1763 forbidding settlement,
and later by ignoring the colonial charters which had granted the
colonies territory “from sea to sea” and passing the Quebec Act of 1774,
in which representative government was abolished.
It is not possible, a hundred and fifty years later, even if it were
possible at the time, to interpret the working of the minds of the
English king and council. It is a fair surmise, however, supported by
considerable evidence, that the crown then saw the threat of American
independence, if the American people could establish themselves in this
vast and fertile empire beyond the mountains where physical geography
alone would make it impossible for the mother country to hold the
colonies in subjection or enforce her decrees upon them.
[Illustration: LANDING OF PIONEER SETTLERS IN NORTHWEST TERRITORY AT
MARIETTA]
As early as 1761 Frederick Post from Pennsylvania, a Moravian missionary
to the Indians, built perhaps the first “American’s” house in Ohio on
the Tuscarawas River. On May 3, 1772, David Zeisberger and a company
of Christian Indians established Moravian villages at Schoenbrunn,
Gnadenhutten, and Lichtenau (near present New Philadelphia). Clarksville,
now a suburb of Jeffersonville, Indiana, had been established by George
Rogers Clark in 1784. Wiseman’s Bottom, four miles above the mouth of the
Muskingum, was named after a man who made a clearing as entry right to
400 acres while Virginia still claimed the land north of the Ohio. During
the Revolutionary War squatters began to settle northwest of the Ohio.
Since these squatters were trespassing on lands reserved by treaty for
the Indians, Congress attempted to drive them out. Ensign John Armstrong
reported in 1785 that “there are at the falls of the Hawk Hawkin [Hocking
River] upwards of 300 families, and at the Muskingum a number equal.” The
squatters even elected one William Hogland, governor. These temporary
and unlawful settlements would defeat orderly settlement, and deprive
the new nation of the income from sale of the lands. To prevent such
illegal occupation Fort Harmar was erected on the Ohio at the mouth of
the Muskingum.
Marietta was the first legal American settlement northwest of the Ohio
River under the Ordinance of 1787.
The Ohio Company of Associates spoke so enthusiastically in praise of
their land that other New Englanders jokingly referred to the purchase
as “Putnam’s Paradise” and “Cutler’s Indian Heaven.” Aside from the fact
that the land was hilly in some sections, it came up to the expectations
of the settlers. In contrast to the cold weather they had experienced
in Pennsylvania, the pioneers found that the trees were in leaf at the
Muskingum and grass was high enough for pasturing their horses. Over
the entire region stretched an almost unbroken forest of great poplar,
sycamore, maple, oak, hickory, elm, and other trees. Cutler records that
on his visit to Marietta he saw a hollow tree forty-one and a half feet
in circumference that would hold 84 men or afford room inside for six
horsemen to ride abreast. The circles counted in one tree indicated that
it was at least 463 years old. In boasting of the fertility of the land
one settler wrote that “the corn has grown nine inches in twenty-four
hours, for two or three days past.” Buffalo and elk were found in the
woods when the pioneers arrived. A hunter could kill 20 deer in one day
near Marietta. Wild turkeys weighing from 16 to 30 pounds were caught
in pens and clubbed to death. The woods were alive with foxes, opossum,
raccoon, beaver, otter, squirrels, rabbits and other small game. Bears,
panthers, wild cats, and wolves were a menace to stock. Schools of fish
made so much noise with their flopping against the boats that the men
could not sleep on board. The largest fish caught were a black catfish
weighing 96 pounds and a pike six feet long, weighing almost a hundred
pounds.
When the pioneers arrived on April 7, 1788, they were welcomed by
approximately 70 Delaware Indians, who were camping at the mouth of
the Muskingum to trade furs at Fort Harmar. Their chief, Captain Pipe,
assured the white settlers that his people would live at their home
on the head waters of the river in peace with their new neighbors.
Encouraged by this reception, the men unloaded the boards for their
houses the first day and set up a large tent in which Putnam had his
headquarters.
On the next day the laborers began clearing land, and on April 9 the
surveyors started laying off the eight-acre lots. By April 12 four acres
of land had been cleared at “The Point,” and work proceeded rapidly in
building cabins and planting seed.
At first the pioneers called their settlement Muskingum. This name was a
form of the Delaware word Mooskingung, meaning Elk Eye River in reference
to the large herds of elk that ranged in the valley. Cutler’s choice for
a name was the Greek word Adelphia, which means brethren. But on July 2,
at the first meeting of the directors and agents in the new settlement,
it was “resolved, That the City near the confluence of the Ohio and
Muskingum, be called Marietta.” History generally records that this name
was a word formed from the first and last syllables of the name of Queen
Marie Antoinette of France, chosen by the veterans of the Revolution as
a gallant tribute to the nation which aided them in throwing off the
shackles of English rule. Why the final a is uncertain.
Marietta was only the first of the settlements in the Northwest Territory
under the ordinance. Many others were to follow rapidly, some destined
to become great or small cities, and others to remain as villages. It is
worthwhile, however, to follow briefly the history of this first official
settlement for its depiction of the type of immigration into the new
country and to illustrate the problems settlers faced in pushing America
westward.
[Illustration: SETTLERS RECEIVING DEEDS FROM OHIO COMPANY’S LAND OFFICE
AT MARIETTA]
For instance, in surveying the city the directors of the Ohio Company
provided for wide streets and public parks. The principal streets of 90
feet in width ran parallel to the Muskingum River and were designated by
numbers. They were intersected by cross streets named after Washington,
Putnam and other Revolutionary generals. The bank of the Muskingum was
set aside as a “commons” and dedicated forever to public use. It was
called “The Bouery” and is today a public park. Within the city limits
the surveyors found extensive earthworks and mounds which supplied
mysterious evidence of a prehistoric race, which had sometime constructed
a city on the same site. Colonel John May described the cutting of a
tree that had grown for 443 years on one of the earthworks. The larger
elevated square was named Capitolium, the smaller was called Quadranaou,
and the road with high embankments from the river to the “Forty acre
fort” was officially designated as Sacra Via. These were all dedicated
as public property and are so today. A creek which emptied into the
Muskingum below Campus Martius was called the Tiber, after the river near
Rome. This use of classical names indicates that the cultured founders of
Marietta were familiar with Latin and Greek literature.
The first cabins had been built at “the point” and a stockade erected
enclosing some four and a half acres. The Indians told the settlers of
the flood danger, showing them driftwood and laconically pointed out that
“where water has been water will be again.”
In platting the city-to-be the pioneers, therefore, laid out an extremely
broad street on high ground as the intended main street of the town, and
named it for Washington. The complete dependence of the time upon river
transportation and the distance of Washington Street from the Ohio River
prevented its attaining its designed purpose and the business district of
the city has never since realized the expectation of those first settlers.
Early in May, when the crops had been planted in the clearing and cabins
had been constructed at “Picketed Point,” Putnam decided from his study
of treaties at the war office in New York that the tribes would not
permit their lands to be occupied without a struggle. May wrote in his
Journal: “At Boston we have frequent alarms of fire, and innundations
of the tide; here the Indians answer the same purpose.” On account of
the danger of Indian attack all men not needed in the survey were put to
work at the construction of an impregnable fort. This defense was called
Campus Martius, after a name applied to a grassy plain along the Tiber
in ancient Rome where military drills and elections had been held. The
phrase literally means “a field dedicated to Mars, the god of war.”
The fortress was located on Washington Street, three quarters of a mile
above the Ohio River. It consisted of 14 two-story houses arranged in
the form of a hollow square, which measured 180 feet on a side. At each
corner of the square stood a blockhouse with projecting upper story.
Loopholes were cut in the projecting floor for showering bullets on
Indian attackers. The entire fort was constructed of poplar planks four
inches thick and 18 to 20 inches wide, which men hewed and whipsawed
from the huge poplar trees that grew along the Muskingum. In one of
the fort’s houses, which became Rufus Putnam’s home after the fort was
dismantled, and which is now part of Campus Martius Museum, can still be
seen the original timbers and form of construction. In the timbers, hewn
in pre-determined shapes, were stamped Roman numerals, and by matching
corresponding numbers, the artisans of that day were able to assemble the
timbers into complete and substantial structures.
The blockhouses and part of the dwellings were built at the expense of
the Ohio Company. On July 21, 1788, the directors ordered that carpenters
be employed at half a dollar a day and one ration to complete the
blockhouses, and that laborers be paid seven dollars per month and one
ration per day. It was provided
“That a Ration consists of 1½ [lbs.] of Bread or Flour.
“1 lb. of Pork or Beef, Venison or other meat equivalent.
“1 Gill of Whisky.
“Vegetables.”
The complete structure contained 72 rooms. When the Indians finally went
on the war path, the inhabitants constructed three lines of defense
outside the fortress. A row of palisades sloped outward to rest on
rails, a line of pickets stood upright in the earth 20 feet beyond the
palisades, and a barrier of trees with sharpened boughs formed the first
defense. Ammunition, cannon, and spears were stored in convenient
places. The northeast blockhouse was used for religious meetings and
sessions of the courts. At the outbreak of the Indian Wars in 1791,
Campus Martius became the principal refuge of the people in Marietta. Of
it, Putnam, who had built West Point and many other Revolutionary War
fortifications, wrote that it was the finest fort in the United States.
While Campus Martius was being constructed, the survey was continued, the
crops were planted and cabins erected and new settlers arrived. When John
May arrived with a party of 11 men on May 26 and was invited to dinner by
General Josiah Harmar, he was served, according to his diary, “beef a la
mode, boiled fish, bear-steaks, roast venison, etc., excellent succotash,
salads, and cranberry sauce.” Venison sold for two cents a pound and bear
meat at three cents. May was surprised to see in Doughty’s garden an
orchard of apple and peach trees and “cotton growing in perfection.”
Varnum arrived with a company of 40 settlers on June 5. Among them were
James Owen and his wife, Mary Owen, the first woman who settled in the
community. The settlers were so industrious that by June 20, 132 acres
had been planted in corn in addition to large fields in potatoes, beans,
and other vegetables.
As soon as the pioneers had provided shelter for themselves, they
organized a temporary government to insure order and safety until the
arrival of the officers of the Northwest Territory. On June 13 at an
informal meeting of the directors and agents of the Ohio Company, it was
decided that the directors present should act as a board of police to
draw up a set of laws for the community. Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs
was appointed to administer them. At the first official meeting of the
directors the board of police was confirmed. The regulations provided for
cleanliness, health, decency, safety, and moral conduct. Military guard
was established. If any persons arrived who were not stockholders in the
Ohio Company, the board of police was empowered to decide whether or not
they should be permitted to stay. Settlers were required to carry arms
during their work in the fields. No one was allowed to trade with the
Indians without permission from the board or from Fort Harmar. Punishment
for violation of the laws was to consist of either labor for the public,
or expulsion. As evidence of the orderly conduct of the settlers it has
been pointed out that in three months there was only one difference,
and that was compromised. On July 4 the board of police nailed these
temporary laws to the smooth trunk of a large beech tree near the mouth
of the Muskingum.
On July 4 all work was suspended to celebrate the anniversary of the
Declaration of Independence. Since most of the settlers had served in
the Revolutionary Army, they observed the occasion with feelings of
intense patriotism. A federal salute of 13 guns from Fort Harmar opened
the celebration at dawn. At “The Point” on the east bank of the Muskingum
a table 60 feet long was spread with wild meat, fish, vegetables, grog,
punch, and wine. Harmar arrived with his lady and officers from the
fort at one o’clock. Varnum, one of the judges of the territory, then
delivered a flowery oration.
After the oration, the guests were twice driven from the table by
thunderstorms before they finally finished dinner. The patriotic event
continued with the drinking of the following toasts which illustrate the
topics of general interest of the time:
1. The United States.
2. The Congress.
3. His Most Christian Majesty, the King of France.
4. The United Netherlands.
5. The Friendly Powers throughout the World.
6. The New Federal Constitution.
7. His Excellency General Washington, and the Society of Cincinnati.
8. His Excellency Governor St. Clair, and the Western Territory.
9. The memory of Those Who Have Nobly Fallen in Defense of American
Freedom.
10. Patriots, and Heroes.
11. Captain Pipe, Chief of the Delawares, and a Happy Treaty with the
Natives.
12. Agriculture and Commerce, Arts and Sciences.
13. The Amiable Partners of Our Delicate Pleasures.
14. The Glorious Fourth of July.
The Celebration closed with another salute of 13 guns and a “beautiful
illumination” at Fort Harmar.
CHAPTER IV
THE BEGINNINGS OF GOVERNMENT
The Northwest Territory at the time of its organization included all of
the region comprising the present states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Michigan, Wisconsin, and a portion of Minnesota. The ordinance for its
government was framed and ordained at the last session of the Continental
Congress in 1787.
This ordinance vested the governing authority in four men, a governor
and three judges. Two years later, by act of Congress, “the Secretary of
the Territory, in case of the death, removal, resignation or necessary
absence of the Governor, became the acting Governor.”
The first governor of the Northwest Territory was Arthur St. Clair, who
arrived at the new settlement, July 9, 1788. He landed at Fort Harmar,
which was garrisoned with United States troops. Sergeant Joseph Buell,
who was stationed at Fort Harmar, wrote in his Journal on the day of the
governor’s arrival:
“On landing he was saluted with thirteen rounds from the field piece.
On entering the garrison the music played a salute; the troops paraded
and presented their arms. He was also saluted by a clap of thunder and
a heavy shower of rain as he entered the fort: and thus we received our
governor of the western frontiers.”
St. Clair was educated at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, came to
America, joined the Colonial Army, and rose to the rank of major general.
He served as president of the Continental Congress and stood high in the
confidence of George Washington. His military reputation, however, later
lost much of its luster in his terrible defeat by the Indians on November
4, 1791, in what is now Mercer County, Ohio. He still owned a large tract
of land in the Ligonier Valley in Pennsylvania and returned there for his
last years. He died in 1818 and was buried at Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
The secretary of the Northwest Territory was Winthrop Sargent, a graduate
of Harvard, a Revolutionary soldier with a fine record, and the scion
of an American family whose representatives have risen to fame in
literature, science and art. Judge James Mitchell Varnum, Samuel Holden
Parsons and John Cleves Symmes, who constituted the first members of the
Supreme Court of the territory, had all risen to high rank as officers
of the Colonial Army in the Revolutionary War. Varnum was a graduate of
Brown University and Parsons of Harvard. All were able lawyers, and
Symmes had been chief justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey. Under
the ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory, St. Clair,
Varnum, Parsons, and Symmes constituted the legislature.
Their law-making power, however, was limited in the ordinance, which
declared:
“The governor and judges, or a majority of them, shall adopt and publish
in the district, such laws of the original states,—as may be necessary
and best suited to the circumstances of the district.”
This seems perfectly clear. This little legislature of the governor and
three judges could only _adopt_ such laws as were already in force in
the original states. This lucid statement, however, was made somewhat
obscure by the following language in another clause of the ordinance:
“The laws to be adopted or made, shall be in force in all parts of the
district.” At least that appears to have been the practical conclusion of
this legislature, with the exception of St. Clair, who somewhat mildly
warned his fellow members against enacting laws not drawn from the
statutes of the states. After sounding the warning, however, he joined
the other members in enacting laws with small regard to the statutes of
the original states.
[Illustration: GOVERNOR ARTHUR ST. CLAIR
_Drawn by Jane Cory, Frankfort, Ohio_]
The first law enacted by the governor and judges provided for a
territorial militia in which all men over 16 years of age were to be
enlisted. Each man was required to provide himself with musket and
cartridge box. Murder and treason were punishable by death according to
another law, and flogging was prescribed for theft and minor offenses. A
fine of ten dimes was imposed for drunkenness; and, if the guilty person
did not pay the fine, he served an hour in stocks. Other laws regulated
marriage, set aside Sunday as a day of rest, and urged all citizens to
avoid swearing and “idle, vain, and obscene conversations.” On July 27,
1788, St. Clair established Washington County, which originally included
almost half of the present state of Ohio.
After a number of laws had been enacted by this territorial legislature
and had been published by Congress in two small volumes called “Laws
of the Governor and Judges,” the House passed a bill declaring all the
laws of the territory thus enacted null and void. While the bill did not
pass the Senate, it was stated that the members of that body were in
agreement with the House, but that they did not pass the bill because
they felt that these laws of the territory were null without any action
by Congress. The governor and judges found themselves without laws with
which to govern. The legal structure which they had been industriously
building was about to tumble down to ruin. The last of these worthless
laws that they enacted bore the date of August 1, 1792.
St. Clair wished to assemble the legislature, which it will be
remembered, was composed of himself and the three judges, to _adopt_ laws
_in accordance with_ the requirements of the ordinance, in order that the
territorial government might be administered by constitutional authority.
On July 25, 1793, he called the legislature of the territory to convene
in Cincinnati on September 1 of the same year. Due to the difficulties
of communication and transportation it was found impossible, however, to
meet on September 1, 1793, and it was not until the twenty-ninth day of
May, 1795, that a majority of the members of the legislature were able
to assemble in Cincinnati. In other words, it took about 20 months to
assemble to meet this emergency and adopt a new code of laws to take the
place of those which had been nullified by Congress.
Finally, St. Clair, Symmes and George Turner, who had been appointed to
take the place of Varnum, deceased, met in Cincinnati on May 29, 1795,
to adopt a code of laws. The remaining judge, Rufus Putnam, was not in
attendance.
This is the first _recorded_ meeting of a legislative body within the
present limits of Ohio and the territory northwest of the Ohio River.
This legislature chose its officers and assembled in regular session
until it concluded its labors and provided for the publication, in the
Maxwell code, of the laws it adopted, the very first published in the
Northwest Territory.
Governor Arthur St. Clair presided. Judges John Cleves Symmes and George
Turner were the floor members. Accordingly, there were just enough
members present to conduct the legislative proceedings—one member to
make a motion, another to second it, the presiding governor to put
it to a vote. Armstead Churchill was chosen and commissioned clerk
of the legislature. He appears not only to have kept a record of the
proceedings, but to have prepared drafts of bills for consideration. He
received eight cents for every one hundred words that he wrote.
St. Clair read a lengthy address to the two judges. In the opening
sentences one can gather some knowledge of the difficulties with which
these pioneer legislators had to contend. There were no roads, no
steamboats, no coaches, no telegraph. The mails were uncertain, few and
far between. Prowling Indians had not ceased to be a menace. Rivers often
could not be forded and there were few ferries. The “highways” of travel
were the “low ways”—the rivers winding through the unbroken solitudes of
the primeval forests.
The Ohio was often difficult to navigate. In February, 1795, Judge Symmes
made an effort to meet St. Clair at Marietta. We quote the result from
one of his letters:
“On the 20th of February, therefore, I set out from Cincinnati on my
passage up the river, and was buffeted by high waters, drifting ice,
heavy storms of wind and rain, frost and snow for twenty-three days and
nights, without sleeping once in all that time in any house after leaving
Columbia. I waited in vain twelve days at Marietta for the coming of the
Governor, and, he not appearing, I returned home.”
Travel in these times was not only inconvenient and difficult, but
dangerous. Parsons, one of the first judges of the Northwest Territory,
lost his life by drowning, on his return journey from the Western Reserve
in 1789 down the Big Beaver.
After St. Clair’s message, a resolution was adopted opening the meetings
of the legislature to the public. After inviting the public to the
sessions, the legislature adjourned to meet the following day. At the
second meeting the two judges wrote a dignified reply to the message from
the governor.
The record of their proceedings rested securely in an iron box for about
130 years, after which they came into the possession of the Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Society. This record shows that the members
of this legislature took themselves and their work seriously. What they
lacked in numbers they made up in dignity and decorum. This legislature
was in session from May 29 to August 25, 1795. It completed the work for
which it had been called and gave to the Northwest Territory a code of
laws framed in strict accord with the Ordinance of 1787.
[Illustration: WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON
_Drawn by William Olson, Downers Grove, Ill._]
While these legislative meetings were in session at Cincinnati, General
Anthony Wayne was concluding the treaty with the Indians at Greenville,
opening the Northwest to peaceful settlement. The subsequent rapid
increase in population soon entitled the territory to the second stage of
government provided by the ordinance—a legislature chosen by its people
to enact laws as soon as there were 5000 free male inhabitants of full
age in the territory. This first elected legislature met in September,
1799, and re-affirmed the earlier laws of the governor and judges.
The next year Congress divided the Northwest Territory into two parts,
the eastern part, comprising approximately present Ohio and eastern
Michigan, remaining as the Northwest Territory; and the western part,
comprising the balance of the previous territory, becoming Indiana
Territory. At this time the territorial capitals were first definitely
located, one at Chillicothe, Ohio, and the other at Vincennes, Indiana.
Thus, Chillicothe became the first capital of the Northwest Territory and
remained so until the state of Ohio was admitted to the Union in 1803.
[Illustration: OLD INDIANA TERRITORIAL HALL
_Drawn by Robert Osterhag, Vincennes, Ind._]
While the governor and some of the judges lived at Marietta, and they had
enacted laws at meetings there, those laws had been invalidated. There
was then no officially designated capital of the territory, the judges
meeting and promulgating laws wherever might be convenient. In 1790, St.
Clair had removed to Cincinnati in preparation for his campaign against
the Indians, which proved so disastrous in 1791.
[Illustration: OX TEAM AND COVERED WAGON PARTY
_Drawn by Earl Laweck, Roger City, Michigan_]
CHAPTER V
GROWTH OF SETTLEMENTS
The arrival of Governor Arthur St. Clair and the territorial judges
encouraged immigration by assuring settlers of the institution of law and
order. When the Reverend Daniel Breck delivered a sermon in the present
state of Ohio, on Sunday, July 20, 1788, he addressed an audience of 300
people from Marietta and the settlement of Isaac Williams on the Virginia
side of the river. After Manasseh Cutler returned home from his visit in
1788, General Samuel Holden Parsons wrote to him on December 11 that “we
have had an addition of about one hundred within two weeks.... Between
forty and fifty houses are so far done as to receive families.”
By the end of the year, 1788, the settlement contained 132 men and 15
families, making a total of nearly 200. James Backus wrote to his parents
that their stock consisted of “one hundred and fifty horses, sixty cows,
and seven yoke of oxen.”
In August of 1787 Judge John Cleves Symmes, an influential man and member
of Congress from Trenton, New Jersey, petitioned Congress for a grant of
land between the two Miami Rivers at the mouth of the Little Miami River,
which became known to history as “The Symmes purchase.” In November of
1788 Benjamin Stites and about 20 others settled Columbia and in late
December of the same year Matthias Denman, Colonel Robert Patterson and
Israel Ludlow with a party of 26 men established Losantiville about
five miles west of Columbia in the Symmes tract and in the very center
of present Cincinnati. These two communities became Cincinnati in 1790
at the request of St. Clair. North Bend was the third of the Symmes
settlements and was settled in February, 1789.
All the settlements suffered a hard winter. At Marietta the Ohio was
frozen over from December until March and the settlers could not get to
Pittsburgh for provisions. Their crops were not large the first year, and
the Indians had driven the game away. Many lived on meat and boiled corn
or coarse meal ground in a hand mill. Here again was demonstrated the
heroism of peace.
Isaac and Rebecca Williams, living in Virginia, directly across the Ohio
River from Marietta, had raised a goodly supply of corn, which, because
of scarcity, had reached two dollars a bushel in the markets. Yet they
chose to sell it to the hungry settlers at fifty cents per bushel, and
proportioned it out according to the number of members of each family.
In order to raise larger crops to provide adequate food supply for the
future, two branch settlements were made early in the spring. Fifteen
miles below Marietta a farming community called Belpre was formed by
40 associates who had spent the winter in Marietta. Extending for five
miles along the Ohio, the settlement consisted of upper, middle and lower
divisions called respectively Stone’s Fort, Farmers’ Castle, and Newbury.
Farmers’ Castle was a fortification containing 13 cabins built for safety
during the Indian War. Soon after Belpre was settled, 39 associates moved
20 miles up the Muskingum to establish themselves at Plainfield, later
called Waterford. Fort Frye was constructed as a place of refuge when
the Indian War started. About a mile away a mill was built on Wolf Creek
by some families who lived in the vicinity. Hearing of the growth of the
Ohio Company settlement, the Virginia House of Burgesses appropriated
money for a road from Alexandria to the Ohio River opposite Marietta.
Merchandise was hauled over this road for many years.
[Illustration: FORT WASHINGTON, CINCINNATI
_Drawn by Junior Vahle, Quincy, Illinois_]
The Ohio Company assisted settlers in establishing themselves. Surveyors
went out to lay off the lots at times when it was necessary to maintain a
guard of soldiers against Indian attacks. The Ohio Company’s Land Office
in which the surveys were recorded, is now the oldest building in Ohio.
Liberal grants of land were made to persons who constructed mills for
the convenience of settlers. The first flour mill in Ohio was erected
about a mile from the mouth of Wolf Creek in 1789 by Major Haffield
White, Colonel Robert Oliver, and Captain John Dodge. In 1797 a brickyard
and tannery were established on land provided by the Ohio Company. In
December of the same year Peletiah White started a small earthenware
pottery, which according to Samuel P. Hildreth “was probably the first
establishment of the kind north of the Ohio.” The directors provided for
the fencing and ornamentation of the public squares in Marietta. For
example, Marie Antoinette Square was leased to Rufus Putnam on condition
that he plant mulberry, elm, honey locust, and evergreen trees in a
specified design.
Near the end of the year 1788 the directors of the Ohio Company had
become worried over the fact that thousands of immigrants floated past
Marietta to settle in Kentucky. To attract some of these people to remain
in the Ohio Company purchase the directors offered 100 acres to men who
would agree to build a dwelling house 24 by 18 feet within five years,
plant 50 apple or pear trees and 20 peach trees within three years,
cultivate five acres, and provide themselves with arms and ammunition for
defense. Settlements on donation lands were expected to serve as outposts
of defense against Indian attack. After granting some free tracts, the
Ohio Company found the practice too expensive and successfully petitioned
Congress in 1792 for a tract of 100,000 acres for donation purposes.
Located in the northeastern part of the Ohio Company Purchase, the
donation tract was approximately 22 miles long and seven miles wide. In
the autumn of 1790 a group of 36 men established a settlement on donation
land 30 miles up the Muskingum from Marietta, at a place called Big
Bottom.
The first town meeting in the territory was held in Marietta on February
4, 1789. Colonel Archibald Crary presided as chairman, and Ebenezer
Battelle was elected clerk. A committee was appointed to draft an
address to St. Clair, and report a plan for a police system. The police
board appointed under this plan consisted of Putnam, Oliver, Griffin
Green, and Nathaniel Goodale. In addition to their police duties, these
men appointed a sealer of weights and measures, fence viewers, and a
registrar of births and deaths. Laws were passed for the government of
the community. Many of the regulations provided for defense against the
Indians by completing Campus Martius and by securely bolting the gates
at sunset. It was ordered “that the main Street leading from Campus
Martius to Corey’s bridge, so called, should be cleared of logs and other
woods that may obstruct it.” Residents of Campus Martius were ordered to
construct walks of hewn logs along their cabins and to provide troughs
or gutters to drain water from the eaves. Wagons, horses, cattle, and
swine were not permitted inside the fort. One resolution prohibited the
purchase of wild meats for the purpose of monopolizing the supply and
charging extravagant prices.
[Illustration: TECUMSEH
_Drawn by Robert Eggebrecht, Vincennes, Ind._]
Food was scarce at the Miami settlements also, and the Indians were
showing increasing signs of resistance to the whites. Several community
blockhouses had been built and small parties of troops sent there to
guard the settlements and their all-essential crops.
In January, 1790, St. Clair removed to Cincinnati, and Major John Doughty
with his troops from Fort Harmar started construction of Fort Washington
as headquarters for increasingly necessary western troops. General Josiah
Harmar arrived in the fall of that year and took charge of the garrison
then comprising 70 men.
Casual readers of history at times marvel at the small size of garrisons
and armies used in these hazardous campaigns against the Indians, and
thereby incline to minimize the severity of the conflicts. To understand
this, it is necessary to realize how few people relatively were in the
entire empire of the Northwest; that transportation and communication
were so difficult as to make the movements of large bodies of men
impossible, even if men had been available; that provisions and supplies
could not be moved in quantity and, beyond two or three days’ supply the
men could carry, the troops had to live on game and what the wilderness
provided; and, lastly, that the Indians were usually small tribes and
attacked in relatively small groups.
The protection normally needed was that of small detachments of hardy and
fearless men trained to the ways of the woods and the Indians. One of the
great problems of the period, as will be seen later, was the militia or
volunteers, who, though eager to fight the Indians, were too impetuous,
too unfamiliar with discipline, and too likely to decide to return to
their homes upon their own initiative.
In October, 1790, a party of immigrants from France—anxious to escape the
impending French Revolution—bought lands and settled in the lower part
of the Ohio Company Purchase at a village called Gallipolis, or the city
of the French. They had been deceived by representatives of the Scioto
Purchase, and believed that they were buying a Garden of Eden, where
nature provided the necessities of life without labor. For instance, they
had been told by agents of the Scioto Company, which will be described
later, that candles grew in swamps on their lands (cat tails), and that
custard grew on trees (paw paws).
Here it seems proper to digress for a moment as to the Scioto Company—or
more particularly to discuss the fact that in those days not all public
men were heroes, and some were not even honest. Then, as now, the
forward-looking forces of progress had to contend with selfishness,
politics, chicanery and downright dishonesty.
It has been before pointed out that when Cutler was negotiating with
Congress for purchase of Ohio Company lands, a group had approached him
with a proposal to make another purchase at the same time for another
company, and that he used this larger purchase to secure passage of the
Ordinance of 1787. This other company was the Scioto Company, whose
membership is not known beyond a small group. Its negotiations with the
Ohio Company were carried on by one man, a public official. Cutler and
Putnam did not permit the Ohio Company of Associates to become entangled
with this other company—beyond the fact that the two purchases were to be
made at the same time.
The Scioto Company was to purchase some 3,500,000 acres in the valley
of the Scioto River. They sent Joel Barlow, a fair poet perhaps, but
of questionable business sagacity, to France to dispose of these lands
to fear-worn French. Barlow employed one William Playfair to sell
the lands, and it was in the booklet the latter prepared that the
fantastic statements as to candles, custard, etc., appeared. The sale
was highly successful. Middle-class French in such jeopardy between the
revolutionists and the aristocracy, hastened to emigrate to the new land
of dreams. What became of the moneys they paid for their new homes has
never been proved. Someone absconded and when they landed at Alexandria,
Virginia, they learned that the Scioto Company had never acquired title
to the lands sold to them.
One interesting incident of this skullduggery is worth mention. Among
the French settlers was François D’Hebecourt, a close boyhood friend
of Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte had originally considered joining
the party, but remained behind to follow if his friend’s reports
substantiated the claims made. In case the new country did come up to
expectations, he was to follow D’Hebecourt, and establish a new empire
somewhere in western America. Of course, D’Hebecourt’s reports of the
villainy of the Scioto Company, the hovels they found for homes and the
ensuing famine which the French settlers endured changed Bonaparte’s
intentions, and he remained in France to leave his mark later on all
Europe.
There are two very interesting suppositions suggested. Suppose the Scioto
Company had kept its word, what might have been the subsequent history
of the world? And suppose, as is altogether possible, that Bonaparte’s
revulsion at the treatment of his countrymen had influenced him 13 years
later in selling Louisiana Territory to the United States. The portent
of such possibilities has no direct connection with our story, except to
show what small affairs of men may affect all history and the millions
of people who live afterward, and, an indication that the world is not
worse, morally or ethically, now than it was then.
[Illustration: SPINNING
_Drawn by Lloyd Hune, Marietta, Ohio_]
Through the intervention of President George Washington, Colonel William
Duer of the Scioto Company agreed to transport the emigrants to their
lands, opposite the mouth of the Big Kanawha. In the meantime, surveyors
discovered that this village site lay within the Ohio Company Purchase,
and not, as supposed, within the Scioto Purchase. Duer contracted
with Putnam to erect buildings for the settlers. Accordingly, Major
John Burnham, with 40 men, erected four rows of 20 cabins each, with
blockhouses at the corners and a small breastwork in front. To these
crude dwellings came the artisans, lawyers, jewelers, physicians, and
servants, the exiled nobility of France. They were so ignorant of
pioneer ways that some were killed beneath the fall of the trees they
chopped down. When the Ohio Company adjusted its affairs in December,
1795, the French settlers paid for their land a second time by buying
it for a dollar and a quarter per acre. At a later time the United
States government granted these unfortunate French a tract of land near
Portsmouth, Ohio, but few of them ever moved there.