The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

A self-educated Revolutionary hero, Rufus Putnam was the leading advocate of the settlement of the Northwest Territory. He led the efforts for the signing of the Newburgh Petition, which provided land grants to veterans of the Revolutionary War in the Northwest Territory. He helped to form, and then chaired, the Ohio Company and was among the first group of settlers to arrive at Marietta. There, he insisted on the building of a stockade, called Camp Martius, which would protect the settlers during Conflict with Indigenous Peoples. Putnam wrote to President Washington to make the case for more troops when tensions with Indigenous tribes became intense, and he had additional fortifications to defend the settlement built.

In 1790, Putnam was named territorial judge and returned to Massachusetts to move his family to Ohio. McCullough emphasizes Putnam’s commitment to An Idealistic Vision for the Northwest Territory. He not only led the efforts to establish a state university in Ohio but was also credited with establishing the first school in Marietta. Ensuring that E. Cutler came from his sickbed to cast the deciding vote against allowing slavery in Ohio, Putnam was committed to the free state.

Putnam’s leadership was instrumental to the defense of the pioneers and to the American way of life that they established in Marietta and Ohio. When he died on May 4, 1824, there was an outpouring of grief and many tributes to him. For McCullough, Putnam is the embodiment of the capable pioneer motivated via the highest ideals.

A pastor from Ipswich, Massachusetts, M. Cutler grew up in Killingly, Connecticut. McCullough describes him as a man of great intellectual curiosity and strong ideals. He shared the commitment to religious freedom, anti-slavery, and education with the founding pioneers. M. Cutler negotiated the purchase of lands in the Northwest Territory on terms favorable to these ideals. Traveling to New York City, the seat of the federal government at the time, M. Cutler did an outstanding job lobbying. He was able to charm Southerners enough to get the Territory approved with no slavery. The law passed on favorable terms for the Ohio Company on July 27, 1787. With that law in place, plans could be made for the first settlers to travel to Ohio.

M. Cutler remained in Massachusetts and continued his pastoral duties. However, he sent his son Jervis with the early settlers and later his sons Charles, who died in Ohio, and Ephraim. In the early days of the settlement, M. Cutler visited Marietta and gave a powerful sermon reminding the pioneers of their founding ideals. When E. Cutler moved to Marietta later with his family, McCullough remarks that his presence “did much to lift the spirits of the earliest of the settlers” (126), given his connection to M. Cutler. M. Cutler corresponded regularly with Putnam and encouraged people to go west to the settlement.

During Jefferson’s administration, M. Cutler was elected to Congress as a Federalist. He attended one of Jefferson’s famous dinners at the White House and recorded the menu. He regularly corresponded with his son Ephraim who was involved in Ohio state politics. Retaining his support of education and his opposition to slavery, M. Cutler had hoped a building at Ohio University would be named for him, although that did not occur until well after his death on July 28, 1823. McCullough depicts M. Cutler as yet another idealistic supporter of settlement.

The son of M. Cutler, E. Cutler departed Killingly, Connecticut, for the Ohio Territory in June 1795 with his wife Leah and their four children. He lost two of his children on the trip to illness. E. Cutler had been raised by his grandparents and had overseen the farm. Naming E. Cutler after his deceased brother, M. Cutler left the boy with his grandparents to ease their grief. E. Cutler became an exemplary pioneer: hard-working, committed to public service, and an advocate of the Territory’s founding ideals.

Purchasing land outside of Marietta, E. Cutler ultimately established a new settlement in Ames and moved his family there in 1799. Given his experience in farming, he cultivated successful crops. Named the captain of the militia, justice of the peace, and judge of the first court of common pleas soon after he arrived, E. Cutler served in all these roles dutifully. He was elected to the Territory’s legislature and cast the decisive vote against allowing slavery in the territory. While self-educated, E. Cutler was an ardent advocate of education and led the efforts to establish a state university in Ohio. When his first wife died, E. Cutler married Sally Parker in April 1808. They would have five children together and the family was very close-knit.

When he returned to the state legislature, first as a representative and then as a state senator, E. Cutler made the necessary deal to get an education bill passed, ensuring tax funding for common schools. He delivered the inaugural address at Ohio University. What is more, McCullough provides some evidence that he assisted runaway enslaved people via the Underground Railroad. E. Cutler died on July 8, 1853. He spent his last years actively reading and writing his story with the help of his daughter Julia.

Arriving in Marietta from his hometown of Metheun, Massachusetts, in 1806, physician Samuel Hildreth exhibited all the positive qualities of the pioneers. He was welcomed by the first physician among the pioneers, Jabez True. When yellow fever arrived the following year, Hildreth treated approximately one hundred patients, losing only two or three. His reputation as an excellent physician was established and he built a lucrative frontier practice. Traveling miles to care for patients, Hildreth recorded his observations of pioneer life and took notice of nature as well.

He married Rhoda Cook and the couple had six children together. Serving two terms in the state legislature, he managed to pass a bill regulating medicine in Ohio. His main interests were science and history. He not only published several articles in medical journals but developed an accurate theory about the formation of the Ohio River. McCullough depicts Hildreth as another pioneer committed to the advancement of knowledge and education as well as public service.

Once established, Hildreth purchased 1,500 acres of land in Ohio from his father. He commissioned Barker to build a mansion for him in Marietta. In his later years, he traveled back east with his wife. McCullough chronicles that trip to highlight the advancements in technology that made travel so much easier in the 1830s. Whereas the original settlers came to Marietta on foot, the Hildreths traveled by steamboats and via canals and railroads. Importantly, Hildreth published two books about the pioneers’ experience, Pioneer History and Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers in Ohio. Hildreth died on July 24, 1863.

McCullough points to Barker as another exemplary pioneer, who was a “highly skilled worker and a dutiful citizen” (83). Among the early settlers, Barker was an independent thinker who had achieved an important role by 1795. He was an orderly sergeant in the militia and received a grant of 100 acres of land for his services in the Conflict with Indigenous Peoples. Barker built a home at Wiseman’s Bottom and had an orchard with 200 peach trees. He and his wife Elizabeth had nine children.

Barker was most known for his skill as a builder. He was the first architect in the Northwest Territory and was responsible for the construction of several beautiful buildings in Marietta. Blennerhassett, and later Hildreth, commissioned him to design and build mansions, which he did to their satisfaction. When shipping became an industry on the western rivers, Barker established a shipyard and built boats of high quality. While he built some of the boats for Burr’s expedition, McCullough exonerates him completely, claiming Burr told him that his expedition had the secret approval of the national government.

Elected to the state legislature, Barker supported E. Cutler’s efforts to pass a bill establishing and funding common schools. Like the other pioneers, Barker was committed to the advancement of knowledge. Barker wrote up his own life story and gave it to Hildreth for inclusion in the book about the pioneers. He died on September 21, 1843, at the age of 78.