The Memoirs of Rufus Putnam and Certain Official Papers and Correspondence
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Pioneer record and reminiscences of the early settlers and settlement of Ross County, Ohio
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Rufus Putnam was an American colonial military officer during the French and Indian War and general during the American Revolutionary War. He was known as "Father of the Northwest Territory".
Background
Rufus was born on April 9, 1738 at Sutton, Massachussets, United States, the descendant of John Putnam who emigrated from England to Salem, Massachussets, before 1641, and the son of Elisha and Susanna (Fuller) Putnam. His father, who, like his cousin Israel Putnam, represented the fourth generation in New England, died when Rufus was barely seven, and his mother soon married John Sadler, an inn-keeper. The boy was cared for by different relatives, and in 1754 he was apprenticed to a millwright.
Education
The greater part of his education Rufus Putnam obtained unaided, studying geography, history, and especially mathematics.
Career
Enlisting during the French and Indian War in 1757, Putnam saw service in the region of Lake Champlain, and his practical training came into play in the construction of defensive works.
In December 1760 he arrived home in New Braintree. He worked his farm, practised surveying, and built mills. In 1773 he served upon a committee to explore and survey lands on the Mississippi that were claimed as bounties for the veterans of the French and Indian War. Although this project failed, it aroused his interest in the possibilities of western lands for colonization and for military bounties.
Entering the Revolutionary army as a lieutenant-colonel, he soon took charge of the defensive works around Boston. During the winter of 1775-76, when the ground was frozen so deeply that ordinary breastworks could not be constructed, he proposed the use of chandeliers to screen the batteries on Dorchester Heights and force the British evacuation of Boston. Next he reconnoitered around New York, constructing defensive works in this same region.
On August 5, 1776, Congress appointed him engineer with the rank of colonel, but he insisted upon a distinct and properly organized engineering corps. As Congress took no definite action, he resigned his commission and accepted the command of a Massachusetts regiment. After serving under Gates in the campaign against Burgoyne, he was stationed in the Hudson Valley, where he rebuilt the fortifications at West Point and was in numerous engagements, notably at Stonypoint and Verplanck Point. In January 1783 Congress gave him the rank of a brigadier-general.
When Congress in 1785 appointed him a surveyor of western lands, he sent General Benjamin Tupper as a substitute. After Tupper's return with a favorable report of the western country, Putnam issued with him a joint call for a meeting at Boston on March 1, 1786, in order to consider a settlement in the Ohio country. The outcome was the organization of the Ohio Company, composed largely of Revolutionary veterans, which soon contracted for some 1, 500, 000 acres on the north bank of the Ohio. Putnam, who became superintendent of the new colony, left his home at Rutland and reached Marietta with the first party of settlers on April 7, 1788.
Later Washington appointed him a judge of the Northwest Territory and in May 1792 commissioned him also a brigadier-general in the regular army. In this latter capacity his first task was to treat with the hostile Indians on the Maumee. Induced by Indian hostility to alter the original plan of this mission, he finally made a treaty at Vincennes on September 27, 1792, with the lower Wabash tribes.
Resigning soon from the army, he took charge of important surveys in the neighborhood of Marietta, and on October 1, 1796, Washington appointed him surveyor-general of the United States. His first important task, the survey of the military tract, was inaccurately done, chiefly because of his deficiencies in mathematics, and it was necessary to adjust these errors in the Land Act of 1800. In 1803 Jefferson, in rather summary fashion, replaced him as surveyor-general with Jared Mansfield, an eminent mathematician.
In his declining years he continued his interest in the colony he had in so large a measure founded. Putnam died on May 4, 1824.
Achievements
Rufus Putnam has been listed as a noteworthy army officer, pioneer by Marquis Who's Who.
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Views
Putnam was a strong advocate of granting lands to veterans of the Revolution.
Personality
In person Rufus was almost six feet tall, with a sturdy figure and a face that had strong lines, clearcut features, and a peculiar oblique expression that was due to an injury to an eye in childhood.
As a soldier he was brave and resourceful, but he was neither a great strategist nor an eminent military engineer.
Washington aptly characterized Putnam, that he "possessed of a strong mind, discreet and firm, with nothing conspicuous in his character. "
Connections
On April 6, 1761 Putnam was married to Elizabeth Ayres of Brookfield, who died in November leaving an infant son to survive her only a year. On January 10, 1765, he was married to Persis Rice of Westborough, who died September 6, 1820. They had nine children.
