Marietta was not merely the first American town in the Northwest Territory — it was an intentional argument about what the new nation could become. The men who founded it were Revolutionary War veterans, many of them officers, who had been paid in nearly worthless government land warrants and who understood that the promise of the Revolution could be redeemed only if the republic could actually govern and settle the territory it claimed. They lobbied Congress for the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, drafted largely by Manasseh Cutler of Massachusetts, which established that the lands north of the Ohio River would eventually become states equal to the originals — not colonies — and prohibited slavery throughout the territory. Then they organized the Ohio Company of Associates, purchased land at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, and arrived in April 1788 to prove the thing could be done.
PEOPLE
Ephraim Cutler
Ohio Legislator, Pioneer Settler, Anti-Slavery Advocate
Reverend Manasseh Cutler
Congregationalist Minister, Botanist, Ohio Company Lobbyist, Continental Congress Delegate
Winthrop Sargent
Continental Army Officer, Secretary of the Northwest Territory, Ohio Company Shareholder
General Arthur St. Clair
Continental Army General, First Governor of the Northwest Territory, President of the Continental Congress
KEY EVENTS
STORIES
HISTORICAL VOICE
The Field of Mars Holds
Rufus Putnam had spent the worst winter of the Revolution at Valley Forge and had built the fortifications at Dorchester Heights that forced the British to evacuate Boston. When he designed Campus Mar...
MODERN VOICE
What the Ordinance Promised
When students visit the Campus Martius Museum in Marietta today, they often arrive focused on the drama: the fort, the raids, the desperate years when the settlers sheltered behind Rufus Putnam's wall...