Settlement At Marietta, Ohio
In 1788, General Rufus Putnam laid out the plans for Marietta, the first permanent settlement in the present state of Ohio. The Ohio Company sent pioneers from New England to the Northwest Territory. Their first purchase was in Washington, Meigs, Gallia, Lawrence and Athens counties.
Difficulties with Indians during the Northwest Indian War, including the Big Bottom Massacre, led Congress in 1792 to donate 100,000 acres (400 km2) on the north edge of the first purchase as a buffer against incursion. The Donation Tract incorporated much of present-day Washington and Morgan counties. Many associates of the company held army bounty warrants, which they could exchange for federal land, totaling 142,900 acres (578 km2).
Later in 1792, the Ohio Company purchased another 214,285 acres (867.18 km2) in Morgan, Hocking, Vinton and Athens counties, using these bounties, with the 1/3 discount for bad lands, as in the first purchase. The Second Purchase had no sections set aside for schools or ministry. The Second Purchase is also known as the Purchase on the Muskingum.
In 1796, the Ohio Company divided its shares and ceased to be a genuine land company.
| TRACT | AREA (acres) |
AREA (Hectares) |
|---|---|---|
| First Purchase |
913833 | 369816 |
| Second Purchase |
214285 | 86718 |
| Donation Tract |
100000 | 40469 |
| Total | 1228118 | 497002 |
Read more about this topic: Ohio Company Of Associates
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“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“This fair homestead has fallen to us, and how little have we done to improve it, how little have we cleared and hedged and ditched! We are too inclined to go hence to a “better land,” without lifting a finger, as our farmers are moving to the Ohio soil; but would it not be more heroic and faithful to till and redeem this New England soil of the world?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)