The first community to be built up in the Northwest Territory was Ohio.
In 1788 a party of forty-eight New Englanders, the Pilgrim Fathers of
Ohio, landed at the mouth of the Muskingum in a bullet-proof barge
which bore the historic name of _Mayflower_. It was well that the
barge was bullet-proof, for white men passing down the Ohio in boats
were in constant danger of being shot by Indians lurking along the
shore. The _Mayflower_ party went ashore opposite Fort Harmar, where
there was a regiment of soldiers. In the winning of Ohio, soldiers and
settlers went hand in hand, for everywhere through the Northwest there
were Indians, and every acre of land won by the ax and plow had to be
guarded and defended by the rifle.
Under the protection of the soldiers, the New Englanders began to fell
trees and build houses, and to lay the foundation of Marietta, the
oldest of Ohio towns and a place that in the history of the West holds
a rank similar to that held by Jamestown and Plymouth in the history
of the East. At Marietta the wheels of territorial government for the
Northwest Territory were set in motion (July, 1788). General Arthur St.
Clair, who had climbed the rock of Quebec with Wolfe, and who was a
warm friend of Washington, had come out as governor of the Territory.
Cincinnati was founded about the same time as Marietta. In December,
1788, twenty-six settlers landed at the foot of what is now Sycamore
Street in Cincinnati, and began to build a town which they called
Losantiville, but which afterward received its present name. Other
settlements on the Ohio quickly followed those of Marietta and
Cincinnati. The towns of Gallipolis, Portsmouth, Manchester, and South
Bend all appeared within a few years after the founding of Marietta.
The Ohio settlers had to meet the Indians at every step, and as the
white men became more numerous the red men became more troublesome. In
1791 Governor St. Clair was compelled to march against the Indians,
but near the place where the city of Fort Wayne now stands he suffered
a terrible defeat. General Anthony Wayne--"Mad Anthony"--the hero of
Stony Point, was next sent against the red warriors, and at Fallen
Timbers (in 1794) he met them and dealt them a blow that broke their
power completely in Ohio and drove them from the country.
With the Indians out of the way, the settlement of Ohio could go on
much faster. Towns began to be built farther up the streams and farther
inland. In 1795 Dayton and Chillicothe were founded, and the next year
General Moses Cleveland, with a few companions, founded, at the mouth
of the Cuyahoga River, a town to which he gave his name. In 1800 the
original Northwest Territory was divided, and the eastern portion--the
portion that is now Ohio--was set off as the Territory Northwest of the
Ohio, and was given a territorial government of its own. The population
of this new Territory was more than 40,000, and its people were already
beginning to think of statehood.
[Illustration: Marietta, Ohio, in 1790.]