Description: Map of the Ohio Companys Purchase. The purchase contract was for approximately 1,500,000 acres along the Ohio River in south eastern Ohio. One section was to be set aside for public schools, one section for religious purposes and two townships were to be used for a university. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL07516
Subjects: Ohio Company (1786-1795); Maps--Ohio; Land settlement--Ohio
Places: Ohio
 

Description: Campus Martius, in Marietta, Ohio, was the fortified seat of The Ohio Company, established in 1788. It was the home of Rufus Putnam, Benjamin Tupper, Arthur St. Clair and others of the Ohio Company. Located on the east side of the Muskingum River and north of the Ohio River, it was started in 1788 and completed in 1791. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06551
Subjects: Campus Martius (Marietta, Ohio); Ohio Company (1786-1795); Marietta (Ohio); Washington County (Ohio)
Places: Marietta (Ohio); Washington County (Ohio)
 

Description: Campus Martius, in Marietta, was the fortified seat of The Ohio Company, established in 1788. The defense fortification was home to Rufus Putnam, Benjamin Tupper and Arthur St. Clair along with others of the Ohio Company. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06552
Subjects: Campus Martius (Marietta, Ohio); Ohio Company (1786-1795); Marietta (Ohio); Washington County (Ohio)
Places: Marietta (Ohio); Washington County (Ohio)
 

Description: The map illustrates the first tract of Ohio land to be sold by the Continental Congress. The Ohio Company of Associates, composed of former Revolutionary War officers and soldiers, acquired the land. The company established the first permanent settlement at Marietta in April 1788. Among the Ohio Company's first directors were Rufus Putnam, Manasseh Cutler, and Winthrop Sargent. The map is 13" x 19" (33.02 x 48.26 cm). View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: Om1413_1160662_001
Subjects: Ohio Government; Maps; Ohio Company (1786-1795)
Places: Marietta (Ohio); Washington County (Ohio); 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 image shows the Campus Martius House in Marietta, Ohio. This house was built 1788-1790 by General Rufus Putnam of the Ohio Company of Associates during the early settlement of Ohio. The Ohio Company was formed in Boston on March 3, 1786. The primary purpose was to settle the Northwest Territory. Rufus Putnam was an organizer of the Ohio Company. He had served as a General in the American Revolutionary War. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06438
Subjects: Campus Martius (Marietta, Ohio); Ohio Company (1786-1795); Putnam, Rufus, 1738-1824
Places: Marietta (Ohio); Washington County (Ohio)
 

Description: This image is a photographic reproduction of an engraved portrait of Manasseh Cutler (1742-1823). The artist portrays Cutler in his mature years: a clean-shaven man with slightly wavy hair and a serene expression. He wears a clergyman's collar with Geneva bands. The engraving includes Cutler's signature and a notation by the engraver: "Eng'd by J. C. [John Chester] Buttre, N.Y." Cutler was a major figure in the settling of Ohio in the years following the American Revolution. Born in Connecticut, he was descended from a long line of clergymen but entered Yale to become an attorney, thus breaking with family tradition. He graduated in 1765 but worked as a schoolteacher and store clerk before becoming an attorney. However, disenchanted by his current life, Cutler eventually pursued the clergy as his career choice. He became the minister of the Congregational Church in Ispwich, Massachusetts, in 1771 and held that post until his death. Although Cutler finally had settled on a career, he still pursued many outside interests. During the American Revolution, he was a committed patriot and served as a chaplain for several military units. The war caused serious economic problems in Massachusetts, and Cutler's parishioners faced great difficulty in paying their minister's salary. To supplement his income, Cutler studied medicine. When a smallpox epidemic struck Massachusetts in 1779, Cutler cared for as many as forty patients at a time. He also studied astronomy and was especially fond of determining the distance between the Earth and certain stars with a telescope and sextant. In a different field of study, he provided the first detailed account of plant life in New England, identifying roughly 350 different species. Because of these scientific endeavors, he was selected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He continued with his scientific interests until his death. In 1786, Cutler joined several other Revolutionary War veterans, including Rufus Putnam and Winthrop Sargent, in forming the Ohio Company of Associates. They hoped to secure from the Confederation Congress the right to develop land in the Ohio Country. After company representative Samuel Parsons failed to secure the land grant, Cutler entered negotiations with the Congress on behalf of the Ohio Company. Present while the Congress debated the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, Cutler played a vital role in that document's eventual adoption. Some scholars claim that Cutler was responsible for this document's anti-slavery provisions. He also secured from the Congress the Ohio Company's right to purchase up to 1.5 million acres of land in Ohio for roughly eight cents an acre. In December 1787, Putnam led the first group of settlers to Ohio. In April 1788, where the Muskingum River flows into the Ohio River, the Ohio Company established Marietta. Cutler visited the settlement later that year and actively investigated the area. His primary interest was in earth mounds that he believed had been created centuries earlier by a Native American civilization. He returned to Massachusetts in 1789 and played an active role in Massachusetts's government for the next two decades. In 1795, President George Washington offered him a position as judge in the Northwest Territory, but Cutler refused. He did not return to Ohio after his trip in 1788. He died in Hamilton, Massachusetts, on July 28, 1823. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL07015
Subjects: Cutler, Manasseh, 1742-1823; Clergy; Ohio Company (1786-1795); Portraits; United States. Ordinance of 1787; Northwest Territory--History