Description: The tomb of John Cleves Symmes (1742-1814). Symmes would come to be a prominent figure in the history of the early United States. He served some time in Congress and was also at one time a judge for the state of New Jersey. Symmes would eventually decide that it would be a good idea to start a settlement in what is today Ohio, pooling money together with others to acquire land out in the rugged frontier. Despite his good investment, there were glaring issues that soon cropped up and caused him trouble. Because of his disregard for policies about land ownership, there were cases where many people paid Symmes for land he didn't even own, which became a disaster for these settlers. Because of this disaster, private owners were no longer able to buy up land and then sell it. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06776
Subjects: Symmes, John Cleves, 1742-1814; Northwest Territory--History; Northwest Territory--Politics and government; Land settlement--Ohio
Places: Northwest Territory; North Bend (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)
 

Description: This color image shows a stone marker denoting Zane's Trace, a travel route, and Treber Inn, which provided lodging for travelers during the early 19th century. The marker, made of pinkish stone, reads: "Zane Trace, Ohio's first highway and mail route authorized by Congress in 1796 / Marked and cleared in 1797 by Col. Ebenezer Zane / A blazed trail, it became the route of the old stage line from Maysville to Wheeling used by noted statesmen to and from the Southwest and Washington. "Tremor Inn, Erected in 1797. Became "traveler's rest" in 1798 / Here, for over sixty years, distinguished guests and weary foot travelers found entertainment / Nearby, in 1793, Asahel Edgington was slain by Indians / the first white man killed in Adams County. "Erected by Adams County Historical Society 1933." Zane's Trace was an early road in the Northwest Territory that connected Wheeling, Virginia, to Limestone, Kentucky (present-day Maysville). It was a major road in early Ohio until well after the War of 1812. In 1796, Ebenezer Zane petitioned Congress for permission to build a road through the region, with the stipulation that the American government would grant him land where the road crossed the Muskingum, Hocking, and Scioto Rivers. The government agreed to his terms and required the road to be open by January 1, 1797. It was widely believed that a road would encourage increased trade and settlement in Ohio. Zane's Trace was more a trail than a road. Zane used existing Native American trails wherever possible and cut down trees to create a primitive path. Tomepomehala, an Indian guide, helped Zane plot the road. Prior to Ohio's statehood, Zane's Trace was not accessible by wagon. It was so narrow and rough that it was only passable on foot or on horseback. Zane built ferries at each of the river crossings and profited from the travel over the road. A small town began to develop where the ferry was located at the mouth of the Licking River. It came to be known as Zanesville. After Ohio became a state in 1803, the state legislature set aside money to improve the road. The goal was to make Zane's Trace accessible to wagons. By 1804, trees had been cut down to make the road twenty feet wide. Logs were laid across marshy areas to create corduroy roads, and several bridges were built. It was now possible to travel by wagon from Wheeling to Chillicothe, although many tree stumps were still standing in the middle of the road. People who traveled the road began to refer to it by a number of different names, including the Wheeling Road, the Wheeling-Limestone Road, or just the Limestone Road, rather than Zane's Trace. Zane's Trace encouraged significant economic and population growth in the Northwest Territory and the young state of Ohio. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06963
Subjects: Historical marker; Zane's Trace (Ohio); Zane, Ebenezer, 1747-1812; Transportation--Ohio--History; Northwest Territory; Adams County (Ohio); Muskingum County (Ohio)
Places: New Concord (Ohio); Muskingum County (Ohio); Adams County (Ohio)
 

Description: Portrait of Winthrop Sargent VII (August 18. 1853-March 29, 1932) of Haverford, Pennsylvania. He was a descendant of Winthrop Sargent II (1753-1820), who served in the Revolutionary War and as the first secretary of the Northwest Territory under Governor Arthur St. Clair. Winthrop Sargent VII wrote a family history of the Sargents titled "Early Sargents of New England" in 1922. The family was also related to John Singer Sargent, a notable American painter. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL07515
Subjects: Sargent, Winthrop, 1753-1820; Family history; Northwest Territory--Politics and government
Places: Haverford (Pennsylvania)
 

Description: Map drawn ca. 1785 by Manasseh Cutler (1742-1823) entitled "A map of the Federal Territory from the Western Boundary of Pennsylvania to the Scioto River laid down from the latest Informations and divided into Townships and fractional parts of Townships agreeably to the Ordinance of the Hon[orab]le Congress passed in May 1785." Visible on the map is an inset of a plan for the city of Marietta, Ohio, which would be founded in April of 1788. This map was originally offered for sale with an accompanying pamphlet in 1788 to encourage immigrants to purchase lands from the Ohio Company in the newly-settled Northwest Territory. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: MAPVFM_0003_2
Subjects: Ohio History--Settlement and Early Statehood; Northwest Territory--History; Maps--Ohio; Surveying;
Places: Northwest Territory; Ohio;
 

Description: Domed building constructed for the centennial of the Northwest Territory at the Ohio State Fair, held in Columbus, Ohio, 1888. 1888 marked the centennial of an important event in Ohio's history--the creation of the Northwest Territory. Ohio became the first state formed from the Northwest Territory in 1803. Ohio cancelled the State Fair in 1888 and held a celebration of the centennial of the Northwest Territory in its place. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL04166
Subjects: Northwest Territory--History; Cultural Ohio--Popular Culture; Expositions and fairs
Places: Columbus (Ohio); Franklin County (Ohio)
 

Description: Portrait of Edward Tiffin (1766-1829), who became Ohio's first governor in 1803. He also served as senator in the United States Senate (1807), member of the House of Representatives (1809), chief commissioner of the United States General Land Office (1812), and Surveyor General of the Northwest (1814). Tiffin, Ohio, is named in Tiffin's honor. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL04045
Subjects: Governors--Ohio; Ohio History--State and Local Government; Northwest Territory--History
Places: Chillicothe (Ohio); Ross County (Ohio)
 

Description: Print showing a side profile of Rufus Putnam from "Harper's Magazine," 1886. Putnam (1738-1824) was a Revolutionary War veteran and member of the Ohio Company who helped to found Marietta, Ohio, and open the Northwest Territory for settlement. In 1796, he became the surveyor-general of the United States. President Thomas Jefferson removed him from the position, and he continued to play an important role in territorial government and participated in the Constitutional Convention of 1802. Putnam favored the Federalist Party and did succeed in preventing slavery from becoming legal in Ohio. He died on May 4, 1824, in Marietta. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL03451
Subjects: Ohio Company; Ohio History--Settlement and Early Statehood; Northwest Territory--History; Putnam, Rufus, 1738-1824
Places: Marietta (Ohio); Washington County (Ohio)
 

Description: Photograph showing a float of the United Spanish War Veterans in the Northwest Territory Sesquicentennial parade in Chillicothe, Ohio, May 9, 1938. The float was sponsored by the E.U. Weidler Camp #48 and the Captain G.W. Brandle Auxiliary #29 of the U.S.W.V. Identified left to right on the float are William A. Wolcott, Harry B. Ankrom, Mrs. Ruth Griesheimer, Claude Raynals, Mrs. Dorothy Nichols, William Drake, Elmer L. Valentine and Howard Strawser. Standing is Walter E. Owen. The United Spanish War Veterans was a fraternal organization that eventually included men who fought in the Spanish American War, the Philippine Insurrection and the China Relief Mission. It was organized into "Departments" by state, and then into smaller groups called "Camps." The organization lasted until 1992, when its last remaining member died at age 106. The Spanish American War was the shortest war in United States history, lasting less than four months. More than 15,000 Ohioans served in the militia and the volunteer army during the war during this time. Of those, few were involved in major action, although 230 died of disease. The Treaty of Paris, negotiated in part by Ohioan Whitelaw Reid, formally ended the war on December 10, 1898, and Spain relinquished to U.S. control the territories of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SC1279_13_01
Subjects: Spanish-American War, 1898; Veterans; Military Ohio; Parades--Ohio; Northwest Territory--History; Fraternal organizations;
Places: Chillicothe (Ohio); Ross County (Ohio)
 

Description: Photograph of the Executive Journal of the Northwest Territory, 1788-1803. This journal served as a record of all official actions and communications of the territorial government, as kept by secretaries Winthrop Sargent from July 9, 1788 to May 31, 1798; by William Henry Harrison from June 28, 1798 to October 1, 1799 and by Charles Willing Byrd from December 31, 1799 to January 15, 1803. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL02976
Subjects: Northwest Territory--Politics and government; Ohio History
Places: Northwest Territory
 

Description: Map of the Ohio Company Purchase. This plan illustrates the first tract of Ohio land to be sold by the Continental Congress to the Ohio Company of Associates, also known as the Ohio Company. The company was formed on March 1, 1786, by former Revolutionary War officers and soldiers, Rufus Putnam, Benjamin Tupper, Samuel Holden Parsons and Manasseh Cutler in Boston, Massachusetts. Parsons, Putnam, and Cutler were chosen as directors while Winthrop Sargent became the secretary. The company established the first permanent settlement at Marietta in April 1788 and sent pioneers from New England to settle the Northwest Territory. In 1796, the Ohio Company divided its shares and ceased to exist as a land company. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL07517
Subjects: Ohio History--Settlement and Early Statehood; Ohio Company (1786-1796); Marietta (Ohio); Northwest Territory--History; United States. Continental Congress
Places: Ohio
 

Description: Portrait of Winthrop Sargent by Gilbert Stuart. Winthrop Sargent (May 1, 1753 – June 3, 1820) was a United States politician, soldier and writer. He was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard University in 1771. With the outbreak of the American Revolution, he joined the Continental Army and attained the rank of major by the war's end. In 1786, Sargent helped survey the Seven Ranges of townships in what is now eastern Ohio. Using the knowledge that he had attained while surveying parts of the Ohio Country, he helped organize the Ohio Company and Associates. He also was one of the principal shareholders of the Scioto Company. He became secretary of the Ohio Company in 1787 and assisted Manasseh Cutler in securing land from the Confederation Congress. That same year, the Congress appointed Sargent as the secretary of the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio. He accompanied some of the first Ohio Company settlers to Marietta in 1788. During the late 1780s and early 1790s, Sargent played a major role in the governance of the Northwest Territory. Governor Arthur St. Clair was commonly away from his position, and Sargent served as de facto governor in his absence. He also served under St. Clair in his expedition against the American Indians living in western Ohio in 1791. At St. Clair's Defeat on November 4, 1791, Sargent was twice wounded but survived. In 1798, Winthrop Sargent resigned as secretary of the Northwest Territory to accept an appointment as the first governor of the Mississippi Territory. Sargent was a devoted member of the Federalist Party. In 1801, Thomas Jefferson, founder of the Democratic-Republican Party, became President of the United States. Jefferson removed Sargent from the governor's seat due to their differing political views. Sargent then retired from public life. He died in 1820 in New Orleans or aboard a steamboat on the Mississippi Rivers at Natchez, according to varying accounts. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL07518
Subjects: Ohio History--Military Ohio; American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783; Ohio Company (1786-1795); Northwest Territory--History; Ohio--Politics and government
 

Description: This title page reads "Journal of the Convention, of the Territory of the United States North-west of the Ohio, Begun and Held at Chillicothe, on Monday the First Day of November, A. D. One Thousand Eight Hundred and Two, and of the Independence of the United States the Twenty-Seventh." In November 1802, thirty-five delegates of the Ohio Constitutional Convention convened to draft an Ohio state constitution. In order for Ohio to become a state, representatives of the territory had to submit a constitution to the United States Congress for approval. This was the final requirement under the Northwest Ordinance that Ohio had to meet before becoming a state. Twenty six of the delegates favored the platform of the Democratic-Republican Party. Among these men was Edward Tiffin, the president of the convention. Democratic-Republicans favored a small government with limited powers, in which the legislative branch should hold the few powers that the government actually possessed. Seven delegates to the convention were Federalists. Federalists believed in a much stronger government. The remaining two delegates were independents. Since the Democratic-Republicans controlled the convention, Ohio's first state constitution established a relatively weak government with the legislative branch holding most of the power. The convention approved the Constitution on November 29, 1802, and adjourned, and Ohio's Constitution of 1803 remained in effect until the Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1851 adopted a new one. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06905
Subjects: Northwest Territory--Politics and government; Ohio History--Settlement and Early Statehood; Constitutional conventions; History of the State of Ohio
Places: Chillicothe (Ohio); Ross County (Ohio)