Background
Manasseh Cutler was born on May 13, 1742 in Windham County, Connecticut, United States. The son of Hezekiah and Susanna (Clark) Cutler.
Manasseh Cutler was born on May 13, 1742 in Windham County, Connecticut, United States. The son of Hezekiah and Susanna (Clark) Cutler.
In 1765, Manasseh Cutler graduated from Yale College and after being a school teacher in Dedham, Massachusetts and a merchant and occasionally appearing in court as a lawyer, he decided to enter the ministry.
For a few months in 1776, Manasseh Cutler was chaplain to the 11th Massachusetts Regiment commanded by Colonel Ebenezer Francis, raised for the defense of Boston. In 1778, he became chaplain to General Jonathan Titcomb's brigade and took part in General John Sullivan's expedition to Rhode Island. Soon after his return from this expedition he trained in medicine to supplement the scanty income of a minister.
In 1782, he established a private boarding school, directing it for nearly a quarter of a century. In 1786, Cutler became interested in the settlement of western lands by American pioneers to the Northwest Territory. The following year, as agent of the Ohio Company of Associates that he had been involved in creating, he organized a contract with Congress whereby his associates (former soldiers of the Revolutionary War) might purchase one and a half million acres (6,000 km²) of land at the mouth of the Muskingum River with their Certificate of Indebtedness.
Cutler also took a leading part in drafting the famous Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Northwest Territory, which was finally presented to Congress by Massachusetts delegate Nathan Dane. By changing the office of provisional governor from an elected to an appointed position, Cutler was able to offer the position to the president of Congress, Arthur St. Clair. From 1801 to 1805, Cutler was a Federalist representative in Congress.
Besides being proficient in the theology, law and medicine of his day, he conducted painstaking astronomical and meteorological investigations and was one of the first Americans to conduct significant botanical research. He received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Yale University in 1789. Cutler died in 1823 at Hamilton, Massachusetts.
Manasseh Cutler was married to Mary Balch.