Source: History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio - Published by Biographical Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois - 1902 - Page 1357

Source: History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio - Published by Biographical Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois - 1902 - Page 1406

Source: History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio - Published by Biographical Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois - 1902 - Page 1359

Source: History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio - Published by Biographical Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois - 1902 - Page 1372

Source: History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio - Published by Biographical Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois - 1902 - Page 1441

     Since we have been in Nantes, we have lived twenty of us in one chamber, have had two very scanty means of victuals, one about 12 o'clock, the other at 8 in the evening, consisting of tripe, lights, a little veal, etc., all cooked after the French fashion, and a half pound bread per day, which we draw from the commissary store - for such fare the American consul pays 110 lives per day.

     He availed himself of the first opportunity to return to the United States, and landed in New York July 2, 1795.  On meeting an acquaintance, he was informed of the removal of his father's family (during his absence) from the home in Pomfret to the then distant Ohio, and says:  "It was unexpected, its surprised, and in some respect agitated my mind - my plans were disconcerted.  I returned on board, waked the deck, was pleased, disappointed and pleased again, was miserable, was alone, was happy.
     Mr. Putnam's brief experience abroad proved an effectual cure for a desire of mercantile life or foreign travel.
     He taught school in Brooklyn, Connecticut, during the winter of 1795, and during the following year made a brief visit to Ohio.  He then, for about two years, pursued the study of law with Hon. Calvin Goddard, of Plainfield, Connecticut.  On the 16th of September, 1798, he was married to Betsey Perkins, daughter, of Dr. Elisha Perkins, of Plainfield.  They came, immediately after, on horseback, to Marietta, where he commenced the practice of law.  He came the teacher of hte Muskingum Academy in Marietta, established about this time, the first institution of the kind in the Northwest Territory.  He was postmaster in Marietta from 1800 to 1802.  In 1805, he built the stone residence on Front street in Harmar (now occupied by a grandson), where he continued until his death in 1856.  He became cashier of the Bank of Marietta at its organization in or about 1807 (Gen. Rufus Putnam, Benjamin Ives Gilman, Paul Fearing, William Skinner and others, directors or stockholders), the business being done at his residence in Harmar until about the year 1815, when the bank was transferred to Marietta, and a new cashier appointed.
     He continued in the practice of law nearly 30 years, and then retired from it, to an extensive agency which had devolved on him in connection with the lands in the Ohio Company's Purchase.  This he continued until the year 1845, when at the age of 75 he relinquished it to his son.
     He was a faithful adherent, during his active life, of the First Religious Society of Marietta.  He donated the lots now occupied by the Congregational Church and parsonage in Harmar, and was a liberal contributor to the erection of their meeting-house.
     Mr. Putnam and no aspiration for public life or political distinction, but in his sphere of a private citizen, was known, recognized and honored as a firm, reliable and intelligent friend of order, morals, education and religion.  He died at his homestead in Harmar Mar. 31, 1856, aged eighty-seven.
Source: History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio - Published by Biographical Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois - 1902 - Page 889

Source: History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio - Published by Biographical Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois - 1902 - Page 1433

Source: History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio - Published by Biographical Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois - 1902 - Page 945 

Source: History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio - Published by Biographical Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois - 1902 - Page 502

CONSULTED BY WASHINGTON.

     One evening in the winter of 1775-76, Putman was invited to dine at headquarters.  Washington detained him after the company had departed to consult him about an attack on Boston.  The general preferred an entrenchment of Dorchester Heights, which would compel Howe to attack him and risk another Bunker Hill engagement with a different result, to marching his own troops over the ice to storm the town.  But the ground was frozen to a great depth and resisted the pick-ax like solid rock.
     Putnam was ordered to consider the matter, and if he could find any way to execute Washington's plan to report at once.  He himself best tells the story of the accident - we may almost say the miracle - by which the deliverance of Massachusetts from the foreign invader, the veteran British army 11,000 strong, was wrought by the instrumentality of the millwright's apprentice:
     "I left headquarters in company with another gentleman, and on our way came to General Health's.  I had no thought of calling until I came against his door, and then I said, 'Let us call on General Health,' to which he agreed.  I had no other motive but to pay my respects to the general.  While there, I cast my eye on the book which lay on the table, lettered on the back 'Miller's Field Engineer.'  I immediately requested the general to lend it to me.  He denied me.  I repeated my request.  He again refused, and told me to never lent his books.
     "I then told him he must recollect that he was one, who, at Roxbury, in a measure compelled me to undertake a business which, at the time I confessed I had never read a word about, and that he must let me have the book.  After some more excuses on his part and close pressing to him.  He read carefully the description and saw its importance at a glance.  The chandeliers were made of stout timbers, 10 feet long, into which were framed posts five feet high and five feet apart, placed on the ground in parallel lines and the open spaces filled in with bundles of fascines, strongly picketed together, thus forming a movable parapet of wood instead of earth, as theretofore done.
     Putnam soon had his plan ready.  The men were immediately set to work in the adjacent apple orchard and woodlands, cutting and bundling up the fascines and carrying them with the chandeliers on to the ground selected for the work.  They were set up in their place in a single night.
     When the sun went down on  Boston on the 4th of March, Washington was at Cambridge and Dorchester Heights as nature or the husbandman had left them in the autumn.   When Sir William Howe rubbed his eyes on the morning of the 5th, he saw through the heavy mists the entrenchments, on which he said the rebels had done more work in a night than his whole army would have done in a month.  He wrote to Lord Dartmouth that it must have the employment of at least 12,000 men.  His own effective force, including seamen, was about 11,000.  Washington had but 14,000 fit for duty.
     "Some of our officers,"  said the Annual Register - Edmund Burke was the writer - "acknowledge that the expedition with which these works were thrown up, with their sudden and unexpected appearance, recalled to their minds the wonderful stories of enchantment and invisible agency which are so frequent in the Eastern romances."
     Howe was a man of spirit.  He took the prompt resolution to attempt to dislodge the Americans the next night, before the works were made impregnable.  Earl Percy, who had learned something of Yankee quality at Bunker Hill and Lexington, was to command the assault.  But the power that dispersed the armada baffled all the plans of the English general.  There came a "dreadful storm at night," which made it impossible to cross the bay until the Americans works were perfected.
     We take no leaf from the pure chaplet of Washington's fame when we say that the success of the first great military operation of the Revolution was due to Rufus Putnam.  The Americans under Israel Putnam marched into Boston, drums beating, and colors flying.  The veteran British Army aided by a strong naval force, soldier and sailor, Englishman and Tory, sick and well, bag and baggage, got out of Boston before the strategy of Washington, the engineering of  Putnam and the courage of the despised and untried yeomen, from whose leaders they withheld the usual titles of military respect.  "It resembled," said Burke, "More the emigration of a nation than the breaking of a camp."

THE OLD COMPANY LAND GRANT AND THE ORDINANCE SECURED.

     It remained only to get the grant of lands.  There had been various schemes in Congress from Mar. 1, 1784, for the organization of the Northwest Territory.  Jefferson reported one on the first day of March in that year, which contained a provision excluding slavery after 1800.  The subsequent history proves beyond a question that a toleration of slavery until that time would have ended in making the whole territory slaveholding.
     But even that limited and ineffective prohibition was stricken out by Congress.  Mar. 16, 1785, Rufus King, of Massachusetts, offered a resolve that there should be no slavery in this Territory.  It was sent to a committee, of which he was chairman, and amended by postponing the prohibition of slavery until 1800, and with a clause providing for the surrender of fugitive slaves.  That was never acted upon and died in committee.
     In 1786 a new committee was raised to propose a plan for the government of the Territory.  They made a report which contained no prohibition of slavery whatever.  That report also remained without action until he end of Congress.
     When Putnam had got his plan for the company ready and secured his associates, he sent General Parsons to Congress to secure the grant of lands and the passage of an ordinance for the government of the Territory. But Parsons returned, having accomplished absolutely nothing.
     Putnam was not discouraged. He met Manasseh Cutler, the other director in Boston, June 25, 1787. and it was agreed that Cutler should renew the attempt in which Jefferson and Rufus King and Parsons and Washington and several committees of the Continental Congress had so conspicuously failed.
     Manasseh Cutler records in his diary : "I conversed with General Putnam and settled the principles on which I am to contract with Congress for lands on account of the Ohio Company."
     Cutler reached New York, where Congress was in session on the 6th of July and was introduced into their chamber.  HE explained his scheme to the members of Congress.  In three days a new committee was appointed, the ordinance which had expired with the last session brought forward and committed.  A copy of the ordinance was sent to Cutler, that he might makes remarks and prepare amendments.  The next day, the 10th, the ordinance was newly modeled.  It was reported to Congress on the 11th.  But it did not include the clause prohibiting slavery because, as Nathan Dane, who reported it, said, he had no idea the States would agree to it.  But Dane moved it as an amendment.  IT was inserted and passed unanimously to save the single vote of Abram Yates.
     During the two or three days that this ordinance was pending, the committee proposed to reject some of Cutler's amendments; he does not specify which.  "Thereupon he paid his respects to all the members of Congress in the city, informed them of his intention to depart that day, and if his terms were not acceded to turn his attention to some other part of the country."
     They urged him, as he says, to "tarry till the next day, and they would put by all other business to complete the contract."  He records further in his diary that "Congress came to the terms stated in our letter without the least variation."
     Why was it that Congress came in three  days to terms which the influence of Washington and of Jefferson had failed to accomplish for more than four years?  Putnam and Cutler were masters of the situation.  The Ohio Company might well dictate its own terms, even in dealing with the farsighted statesmen of 1787.

PUTNAM'S FORESIGHT

     Washington said of Rufus Putnam that he was the best engineer in the army, whether French or American.  AT the end of the war he directed Putnam to report a comprehensive plan for fortifying the whole country.  I have seen General Putnam's elaborate scheme.  I think among his papers at Marietta College, or in the archives at Washington.  It was never executed, in spite of earnest appeals of some of our ablest statesmen in every generation from Washington to Jackson and Tilden and Eugene Hale.
     It remains a monument of that national improvident of which we have shown so many conspicuous examples, especially in the matter of preparation for defense and for war and which, during the last few months, has even dimmed the glories of Manila and Santiago.
     To be a great engineer is to be a great soldier.  To be a great engineer with only such advantages of education as Rufus Putnam  enjoyed is to be a man of consummate genius.  But to have been the trusted friend of Washington, to have conceived as by a flash of inspiration the works which with an inferior force compelled England to evacuate a fortified town and to quit Massachusetts forever; to have constructed the very fortress and citadel of our strength and defense in the War of the Revolution __ have been in Lord Bacon's front rank of sovereign honor; to have founded a mighty State, herself the mother of mighty States; to have planned, constructed and made impregnable the very citadel and fortress of liberty on this continent; to have turned the mighty stream of current and empire from the channel of slavery into the channel of freedom, there to flow forever and forever - if this be not greatness, then there is no greatness among the living or the dead.
     During the years he lived in Rutland, he was representative to the General Court, Selectman, constable, tax collector, on a committee to lay out school lands, committee to make repairs of school house, State Surveyor, commissioner to treat with the Penobscot Indians, volunteer in putting down the Shays rebellion, on committee to settle with Jabe Fairbanks.  He was one of the founders and first trustees of the Leicester academy, and, with his family of eight children, gave from his slender means £100 toward its endowment.  The rest of his life is in large part, the history of Marietta for more than 30 years.  "The impression of his character, says the historian, "is strongly marked in the history of Marietta, in their buildings, institutions and manners."
     Now this seems to me to be a good, honest, old-fashioned American story.  It is a Massachusetts story.  It is a Worcester County story; although we by no means pretend to a monopoly of such things in Massachusetts or in Worcester County.  We have got over wondering at them.  The boy went to school but three days after he was nine years old.  That has happened before to many a boy who became a great man, from Ulysses to Abraham Lincoln.
     A Worcester County farm in those days was a pretty good school.  It was a pretty good school, both for the intellect and the heart.  The boy learned the secrets of the forest and the field, the names and habits of bird and beast.  He could take care of himself anywhere.  HE became an expert woodsman and sharpshooter.
     He heard the high topics discussed in the church - I beg your pardon - in the meeting-house.  The talk by the blacksmith's forge and the tavern fire, and the rude drafting board of the millwright, when the great political contest with England was pending, was of the true boundary between liberty and authority in the government of the State and between men's free will and God's foreknowledge and omnipotence in the government of the universe.

RUFUS PUTNAM'S HOME IN MARIETTA
(Written by Hon. George M. Woodbridge)

     There seems to be a good reason to believe that the house was the one now known as the Rufus Putnam house at the corner of Second and Washington streets.  I quote the opinion of a life-long resident of Marieta and one well acquainted with all the facts relating to its early history with regard to this matter.  She says: "Upon examination of General Putnam's letter of 1790, and by comparing it with papers  and charts descriptive of the Campus Martius from 1788 to 1795, I am satisfied that the orders given to Colonel Meigs in regard to building and the lumber supplied relate to the house built for him in the Campus Martius, 1788 to 1790, which covered ground not less than 30 by 18 feet and which stood next to the S. E. Blockhouse, which was at the N. W. corner of Second and Washington streets.
     "General Putnam brought his family to Marietta in 1790, arriving November 5th.  He took them to his house in the Campus Martius and they resided there during the Indian war, 1791 to 1795.  (This is shown by historical record.)
     "It is a matter of local knowledge that for many years previous to and until his death in 1824.  General Putnam resided in the house now standing at the corner of Washington and Second streets, which covers the same ground (and more) than the Campus Martius house of 1788-1795 stood upon.  I think that the present structure which I have always known as 'The General Rufus Putnam house,' was erected with the original house as a nucleus.  I am satisfied that a careful examination by competent house builders would proved this beyond a question."
     For 85 years I have been a resident of Marietta and have paid more than ordinary attention to the residences of its citizens, especially those of olden times.  I have read with interest the conclusion of the above writer and in conversation with the person, and after extensive examination, I am of the impression that General Putnam had but the one house in Marietta, at the corner of Second and Washington streets.  I well remember, though only a boy, the day of his death.  By the order of the proper authorities, the tolling of the bee at the time of the death and funeral of residents had been omitted, on account of the general sickness in the town.  On the occasion of the death of General Putnam, this order was suspended and on the day of his death the bell tolled to the number of his hears, and on the day of his burial the tolling of the bell commenced at the time of the procession leaving his house and continued till the return to the same spot.  With my father and elder brother, I attended the funeral.  It was particularly impressed, as my father was called on to be a bearer and we two boys fell into the procession alone.  The death of General Putnam and his funeral took place at his home at the corner of Washington and Second streets.
     A granite monument erected by his grandson, Col. W. R. Putnam, marks the place of his rest.  It has this inscription:

     The children of Gen. Rufus Putnam were:  Ayres, born 1761, died 1762;  Elizabeth, born 1765, died 1830; Persis, born 1767, died ____;  Susanna, born 1768, died 1840; Abigail, born 1770, died 1805; William Rufus, born 1771, died 1855; Franklin, born 1774, died 1776; Edwin, born 1776, died 1843; Patty, born 1777, died 1842, and Catharine, born 1780, died 1808.  William Rufus married, in 1803, Jerusha Guitteau.  Their son, William Rufus Putnam, Jr., was born June 13, 1812.  Edwin Putnam married a Miss Safford and had a family of five children, three sons and two daughters.  Susanna married Christopher Burlingame.  Abigail married William Browning, of Belpre.  Martha married Benjamin Tupper, of Putnam (now Zanesville).  Catharine married Ebenezer Buckingham.
Source: History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio - Published by Biographical Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois - 1902 - Page 867