Part I, Chapter VIII -
SETTLEMENT AT MARIETTA
THE amount of General Putnam’s part in the first settlement in Ohio
will be given in his own words as recorded in his “memoir.”
It may not be amiss to supply here a few things left out in his journal.
We shall find him again and again called to take the helm, when storms arose and
the waters were troubled. When he went to Post Vincennes accompanied by the
devoted missionary, the Rev. John Heckewelder, he was met there by a large
gathering of the tribes, two hundred and forty-seven warriors and six hundred
men, women and children. The effort to make a treaty was successful so far as
the Wabash tribes were concerned. It was signed by thirty-one kings, chiefs and
warriors. This treaty was of great importance as it detached a large body of
warriors from the war-party. The inhabitants of Post Vincennes showed their
appreciation of what General Putnam had done by sending him a written address,
in which they say: “Your happy success in this arduous enterprise affords
another proof how much you merit the honors which government has conferred on
you, and will remain a memento of the justice of congress and of your integrity,
to the latest times.
In his journal General Putnam says:
With respect to the surveys
proposed to be executed this year in the western country, the hostile
disposition of the Indians prevented them altogether. A treaty had been made
with the Indians at Fort McIntosh January 21, 1785, but the terms dictated by
our commissioners were by no means satisfactory to the Indians, and the
surveyors dare not venture into the woods for the purpose of making any surveys
whatever. However, General Tupper and others brought a very favorable report of
the country northwest of the Ohio river, and having no expectation that anything
more favorable would be done by congress for the army than what was comprised in
the land ordinance of May 20, 1785, I concluded to join in setting on foot an
association for purchasing land in that country; and in pursuit of this idea,
General Tupper and myself, January 10, 1786, issued public information to all
officers and soldiers and other good citizens disposed to become adventurers in
the Ohio country, inviting those residing in Massachusetts to meet by delegates
chosen for the purpose of forming an association by the name of the Ohio
company.
March 1, 1786. Delegates from
eight counties of the state met at Boston agreeable to our request and proceeded
to form the articles of agreement. In March or April the surveyors were ordered
to proceed to the western country, but, as the last year General Tupper was a
great sufferer in expense and I had still business to attend respecting the
eastern lands, he again proceeded to the Ohio country as my substitute.
The business of the eastern lands
gave me considerable employment in Boston through the winter and fall of 1786,
and having been appointed, with General Lincoln and Judge Rice of Wiscasset, a
commissioner to treat with the Penobscot Indians and others, I remained there
from August 7 to September 22.
January 1787. I
joined General Lincoln at Worcester as a volunteer aid against the insurgents,
and continued with him until their dispersion at Petersham some time in
February.
April 27. I was appointed justice of the peace by Governor Bowdoin, and at the May
election I was elected a member of the general assembly for the town of Rutland.
I attended the spring and fall sessions of the general assembly and also to the
business of the eastern lands.
November 23, 1787.
The directors of the Ohio company this day appointed me superintendent of all
the business relating to the commencement of their lands in the territory
northwest of the river Ohio. The people to go forward in companies employed
under my direction, were to consist of four surveyors, twenty-two men to attend
them, six boat builders, four carpenters, one blacksmith and nine common bands,
with two wagons, etc., etc.
Major Hatfield White
conducted the first party, which started from Danvers the first of December. The
other party was appointed to rendezvous at Hartford, where I met them the first
day of January, 1788. From Hartford I was under the necessity of going to New
York and the party moved forward, conducted by Colonel Sproat.
January 24. I joined
the party at Lincoln’s Inn, near a creek which was hard frozen, but not
sufficient to bear the wagon, and a whole day was spent in cutting a passage. So
great a quantity of snow fell that day and the following night as to quite block
up the road. It was with much difficulty we got the wagon on as far as
Cooper’s, at the foot of Tuscarawas mountain, now Strasburgh, where we arrived
the twenty-ninth. Here we found that nothing had crossed the mountains since the
great snow above mentioned, and that in the old snow, which was about twelve
inches deep, the pack horses only had crossed the mountains. Our only resource
now build sleds and harness our horses one before the other, and in this manner,
with four sleds and the men in front to break the track, we set forward and
reached the Youghiogheny February 14, where we found Major White’s party,
which arrived January 23.
April 1, 1788. Having
completed our boats and laid in stores, we left Sinoul’s Ferry, on the
Youghiogheny, for the mouth of the Muskingum, and arrived there on the seventh,
landing on the upper point, where we pitched our camp among the trees, and in a
few days commenced the survey of the town of Marietta, as well as the eight acre
lots, nor was the preparation for a plan of defense neglected. For, besides the
propriety of always guarding against savages, I had reason to be cautious. For,
from consulting the several treaties made with the Indians by our commissioners
(copies of which I had obtained at the war office as I had come on), and other
circumstances. I was fully persuaded that the Indians would not be peaceable
very long, hence the propriety of immediately erecting a cover for the emigrants
who were soon expected. Therefore, the hands not necessary to attend the surveys
were set to work in clearing the ground, etc., which I fixed on for erecting the
proposed works of defense.
Thus were all hands
employed until May 5,
when I proposed
to them that those who inclined should have the liberty of planting two acres
each on the plain within the town plat, and make up their time after the first
of July (the date to which they had been engaged in the company’s service.)
Most of them accepted the offer, and, with what was done by them and
others who came in about this time, we raised about one hundred and thirty acres
of good corn, yielding, on an average, about thirty bushels per acre. The season
was very favorable; we had no frost until winter. I had English beans blossom in
December.
Campus Martius was situated on
the margin of the first high ground, a plain sixty chains from the Ohio river
and eight chains from the Muskingum. It consisted of four block-houses of hewn
or sawed timber, two stories high, erected at the expense of the company. The
upper stories on two sides projected about two feet, with loop holes in the
projection to rake the sides of the lower stories; two of the block-houses had
two rooms on a floor, and the other two three rooms. The block-houses were so
planned as to form bastions of a regular square and flank the curtains of the
work, which was proposed to consist of private houses, also to be made of hewn
or sawed timber, and two stories high, leaving a clear area of one hundred and
forty-four feet square.
Before our arrival at the Muskingum as above mentioned, none of the directors or agents had any correct idea of the quality of the lands they had purchased, especially of the face of the country about the Muskingum at and near the confluence with the Ohio, where they determined to lay out their capital, to consist, including commons, of four thousand acres and contiguous to this, one thousand lots of eight acres each, amounting to eight thousands acres.
The survey of these
eight acre lots was first of all to be executed, and a plan of them to be
forwarded to the secretary of the company by the first Wednesday of March, 1788,
the day appointed for the agents to meet at Providence to draw the lots, and
where they actually did meet to draw the several lots, but had the prudence to
lodge the list of drafts with the secretary until the plan was sent on lathe
month of June, General Parsons and General Varnum, two directors of the company,
with so many of the agents arrived at this place as to enable them to hold a
meeting July 2, to
which place and
time it had been adjourned from Providence. But how disappointed were they to
find that not a director or agent had drawn an eight acre lot so near the town
as to be able to cultivate it without much hazard, Some remedy they determined
on and resolved on the foolish plan to divide three thousand acres of the
commons into three acre lots. This was done, but they were as unfortunate as
before, none of them was accommodated.
Another measure
adopted was to authorize the clearing the town lots and remaining commons. This
was but a partial relief even fur those already arrived and the number was daily
increasing.
The scheme of laying
out the lots of eight acres had always been opposed by me and also by some
others. Our opinion was that a small farm of not less than sixty-four acres
should be laid out to each share, bordering on the Ohio and other navigable
streams, of which the first actual settlers should take their choice. But we
were overruled. The eight acre lots having been drawn and become the property
of individuals, it was too late to adopt the other plan.
With respect to works
at Campus Martius, the four block-houses were all up, and the private houses of
the curtainshad been so far advanced in the course of the year as to render the
place very defensible.
By the timely arrival
of Governor St. Clair, with the territorial judges, viz., Parsons Symmes and
Varnum, a code of laws was adopted for the territory and officers, civil and
military, appointed for the county of Washington before the first of September,
in which month the court of common pleas and quarter session was opened at
Marietta, but happily for the credit of the people, there was no suit either
civil or criminal brought before the court.
The whole number of
men, including myself, who arrived at Marietta, April 7, 1788, as before
mentioned, was forty-eight, among whom were four surveyors, viz., Colonel Sproat,
Colonel Meiggs, Major Tupper and Mr. John Mathers. And in the course of the
year, in addition to the above number, there came eighty-four men, making one
hundred and thirty-two for the year 1788. There were fifteen families, eight of
whom came as early as the month of August, among whom were General Tupper, Major
Cushing, Major Lovedale and Major Coburn.
It must be remembered
that at the close of this year there was not a single white family within the
state of Ohio, besides those included in our settlement, for Colonel Harmar and
nearly all his officers were proprietors in the Ohio company. Judge Symmes with
a few families went down the river in the course of the summer, but they
wintered in Kentucky.
We had no
interruption from the Indians this year at Marietta, partly no doubt from the
hopes they entertained of the treaty which had been promised and which was
actually entered into at Fort Harmar, January 9, 1789. But the treaty gave us no
real security or reason to relax our precaution against surprise. The directors
and agents and all the proprietors that arrived were early convinced that some
new project must be adopted for accommodating emigrants with lands, or
settlements would come to nothing; and in the minds of some there were doubts as
to the agents having authority to effect what was necessary to remedy the
defects. The proprietors were, therefore, notified to meet at Marietta, the
first Wednesday of December, 1788, themselves, or by agents specially appointed
for the purpose.
But the proprietors neither came themselves nor sent agents in sufficient
numbers to authorize their transacting business. Wherefore the agents conceived
that under the circumstances they were warranted to proceed on the premises.
Therefore, February 6, 1789, the agents first repealed the resolutions
respecting the division of the remaining lands, passed at Boston, November 21,
1789, and then
after a preamble stating their reason proceeded as follows:
THEREFORE, Resolved, unanimously, that there shall be
granted to persons, who shall settle in such places within the purchase as the
agents may think most conducive to advance the general interests of proprietors,
and under such limitations and restrictions as they shall think proper, not
exceeding one hundred acres of each share in the fund of this company, and that
a committee be appointed to investigate the purchase, so far as in their opinion
may be necessary, in order to point out and fix upon proper plans or places for
settlement.
The general regulations respecting such settlers are, that no one
settlement should consist of less than twenty men able to bear arms and
ammunition, and to erect such works of defense as should be pointed out by the
committee.
In pursuance of these resolutions to grant donation lands, a number of
settlements were made in 1789 and 1790, of which we shall have occasion to say
more hereafter.
The number of emigrants who arrived in 1789, as far as we are able to
ascertain, was one hundred and fifty-two men, and among them fifty-seven
families. Among the emigrants this year was the Rev. Daniel Story. Early in the
spring Captain Zebulon Ring was killed at Belpre by the Indians, and four others
in the woods below Galliopolis. Mr. Mathews, the surveyor, and one man escaped.
John Gardner was taken at Wolf creek but escaped.
1790. In
the last and present year the following settlements commenced, in pursuance of
the donation system before mentioned, viz: Four settlements on the Ohio at
Belpre and Newberry, including sixty-eight lots on the Muskingum, and Wolf creek
two settlements.
At all these places very considerable settlements had been made during
the last and present year, and a saw-mill and corn-mill were erected at Wolf
creek and Duck creek. At Meigs creek a blockhouse was built for twenty settlers,
and another at Big Bottom for forty. Late in the fall of the present year a few
settlers were on the allotment at the falls of Duck creek.
April 3. Dr. Cutler and myself, in behalf of the directors, executed a
contract with William Duer and others at New York, for the sale of forty-eight
shares of land in the Ohio company’s purchase, which had been forfeited by
non-payment. The object of Duer and his associates was to provide for certain
French emigrants who had begun to arrive at New York. In pursuance of that
object, Major John Bureham, with his party, arrived at Galliopolis, in the month
of June. and immediately commenced their work. A number of the French emigrants
arrived at Galliopolis in the course of the summer and fall.
August 1790. Although our settlement had suffered nothing from the
Indians, yet knowing that General Harmar was going against some of their
settlements, and other circumstances, gave us apprehensions of mischief from
them, to guard against which detachments of militia, under the pay of the
company, were stationed at each settlement for the protection of the people
against surprise.
The number of emigrants this year, including Major Burnham’s party and
exclusive of the French emigrants, as near as we could ascertain, was one
hundred and thirty-one families. The number of French emigrants that arrived at
Galliopolis we never ascertained, but I find that thirty-five men and two
families remained some time at Marietta.
After General Harmar’s defeat at the St. Joseph, near the Miama towns,
at the head of the Miama of the lake, we were very apprehensive for some time of
an attack from our neighbors, the Delawares and Wyandotts, but as they made no
movement we began to flatter ourselves that they would not take part in the war
which the Shawnees and Miamas had provoked.
I have stated that in the year 1788 we had no frosts until some time in
December, but in the year 1789 it was far otherwise. A severe frost about the
fourth of October destroyed all the unripe corn throughout the western country,
and was particularly distressing to the settlers on the Ohio company’s lands.
I left Marietta in July,
1789, intending not to return again until I brought my family. But in the winter
of 1790, I was, with Dr. Cutler, detained in New York on the
company’s business, and while there, as before stated, we contracted with
William Duer and others for the sale of one hundred and forty-eight share of
forfeited rights, and not only so, but I undertook to engage a party to come
forward under Major Burnham for the purpose of erecting cabins at Chicamago, now
Gallipolis. I arrived at Marietta with Major Burnham’s party in May, with a
stock of provisions to last until December, to which time I had engaged their
service and made myself responsible for their pay. Other business, likewise of
the Ohio company, called my attention to Marietta at this time, which the
journals of the company wit in a measure explain.
I again left the settlement in the month of June and returned with my
family the fifth of November The crops of corn were very good this year, but the
increase in the number of inhabitants, with the scarcity in the early part of
the season, gave reason to apprehend that there would not be a supply for the
ensuing year.
January 2, 1791. This evening a new block-house called Big Bottom about forty miles up
the Muskingum, was surprised between sunsetting and dark, by the Indians. They
first decoyed and made prisoners four men at a hut a little distance from the
block-house. Finding the door unfastened, they fired upon the men about the
fire, and rushing in murdered every person except one lad. The persons killed
were John Stacey, Ezra Putnam, John Camp, Zebulon Groop; four from
Massachusetts, Jonathan Farwell and Couch; two from New Hampshire; William James
from Connecticut, Joseph Clark from Rhode Island, Isaac Meeks, wife and two
children from Virginia. In all, twelve killed. Francis Choat, Isaac Choat,
Thomas Shaw, Philip Stacey and James Patten were taken prisoners.
The Indians came down to
Wolfe creek the same night, but fortunately two men in another hut not far from
the block-house made their escape and coming down to Captain Rogers hunting
camp, arrived at the mills before the Indians and gave the alarm. The Indians
finding the people at the mills were on their guard, made no attack.
It was now evident that the war had become general, and that it was
necessary to prepare for the worst. Our situation was critical on many accounts.
The troops that were at Fort Harmar had all, except a few invalids, been called
down the river. General Harmar had been unfortunate and two detachments, one of
one hundred men, and the other of three hundred and sixty had severally been
beaten by the Indians. There were no settlements on the Ohio from Pittsburgh to
Kentucky that, were they disposed, could afford us assistance.
The Indians were much
elated with their success, and threatened that there should not remain a smoke
of a white man’s cabin on the Ohio by the time the leaves put out.
Our own strength at this time, except at Galliopolis, I find by a return
of the militia made about this time, to be as follows: Rank and file, civil and
military, officers included, two hundred and eighty-seven. This included all at
Marietta, Belpre and Wolf Creek. This, it appears, was the whole force which,
under Providence, we had to rely on for our defense, except a few of Burnham’s
men, some of whom remained at Galliopolis.
The first measure taken was to call a special meeting of the agents and
proprietors within the purchase on the fifth of January, at which meeting it was
resolved that additional works were necessary to be erected for the defense of
Marietta, Belpre and Wolf Creek (Waterford); that Colonel Sproat be applied to
and requested to raise a body of militia to consist of six spies or expert
woodsmen. The directors immediately set about carrying the resolutions into
effect.
The four settlements at Belpre and Newberry were contracted into one.
Those at Wolf Creek, Meiggs Creek, indeed all through the Muskingum, were
collected into one, except those that came to Marietta. The people up Duck Creek
and in the neighborhood of Marietta were all called in and took shelter in
Campus Martius, Fort Harmar, and at the point on the upper side of the Muskingum
where a large space, including all the houses, were enclosed by a stockade
block-house. A strong work of blockhouses joined by stockade work was also
erected at Belpre, and another at the station up the Muskingum. Campus Martius
was also much improved by additional works.
During the winter,
while these works were being carried forward, few men left the settlements,
because they were receiving wages for services either on the works or as
militia. We heard nothing from the Indians until the month of March, when they
came on in considerable force to Waterford, but the people being apprised of
their approach, they effected nothing but the wounding of one man and taking
another prisoner, whom they caught at some distance from the fort. They did not
attempt the fort or any other of our stations, but dividing into small parties,
they harassed all the settlements on the Ohio through the summer and fall. At
Marietta they killed Captain Joseph Rogers, about half a mile from Campus
Martius, as lie was returning from a scout, and Mathew Reve at the mouth of Duck
Creek. At Belpre they killed Benoni Hurlburt (a spy) while out on duty. They
also killed and drove off a number of cattle from Belpre and Waterford. They
also killed one man at Galliopolis and James Rilly at Bellville, and took Joseph
Rilly, a small boy, prisoner. On the Virginia side four men were killed, one
wounded and three taken prisoners about seven miles from Marietta, on the road
to Clarksburgh. Finding the people on the Ohio company’s purchase posted, and
generally keeping a good lookout, it appears that the company that came out to
destroy us, root and branch, quite early in the year crossed over into Virginia,
and near the Ohio, and even as far east as the waters of the Mononagehla, did a
great deal of mischief in murdering and capturing people and carrying off horses
and cattle every year that the war continued. While we lost but few,
comparatively, after 1791,
Mr. Robert Worth
and a negro boy were killed at Marietta in 1792, and in 1793 Major Goodale was
killed in Belpre.
February, 1792. The directors of the Ohio company having notified a
meeting of special agents to be held in Philadelphia to take the affairs of the
company into consideration, I set out on the second of March, in company with
Colonel Robert Oliver, for that place. On our arrival we met with Dr. Cutler,
and together prepared a petition to congress. The great object of this petition
was to be released from the original contract for the purchase of one million
five hundred thousand acres of land, and for a reimbursement of the expenses of
the war, etc., etc. Our situation was critical. Colonel Duer and his associates
had altogether failed in respect to the one hundred and forty-eight shares they
had contracted to purchase. Duer was about this time shut up in jail, where he
died. He owed me $2,861.42 for building cabins, etc., in Galliopollis. Richard
Platt, the treasurer of the Ohio company, was also in jail and owed the company
about eighty thousand dollars, which they never recovered. We were bound to give
one hundred acres of land to each actual settler, who should continue in the
settlement and perform military duty during the war. Our ability to do this many
began to doubt. St. Clair had been defeated with great loss of men, all his
artillery and stores of every kind. The Indians began to believe themselves
invincible, and they truly had great cause for triumph.
Our second payment to congress of fifty thousand dollars was now due, and
on the non-payment of which it was a question whether the land we had paid for
might not be forfeited. Besides, we had already expended more than nine thousand
dollars in erecting works, paying militia, etc.
Under the circumstances it was absolutely impossible to fulfill our
contract with congress, and there was the utmost danger of the settlement being
broken up. But in this mount of difficulties Divine Providence so over-ruled the
minds of men that congress passed an act authorizing the President to issue a
patent for the 75,000 acres for which we had paid in final settlement certificates, and
another patent for a tract of 214,285 acres, and which we paid for in military land
warrants, valued at the rate of one acre equal to one dollar in certificates.
Congress also granted to the directors 100,000 acres in trust, to be granted in
lots of one hundred acres to each settler, by which means the directors were
able to fulfill their engagements to settlers without any sacrifice of the
company’s lands. We also obtained a reimbursement of money paid for wages and
substitutes of militia—$2,614.
The expense of the war to the Ohio company was $11,350. These
expenses were incurred during the years 1791 and 1792. After the first six
months of the year 1791, the Ohio company were at no expense on account of
militia who were called into service. They were paid and subsisted by the United
States.
I have said that, in May, 1792, I was appointed brigadier in the army. With
what reluctance I accepted that appointment will be seen by the following letter
written to the secretary of war on the occasion:
PHILADELPHIA, May 7, 1792
SIR: I
have been this day honored with your letter of the fifth instant, notifying me
that the President of the United States, with the advice and consent of the
senate, has appointed me a brigadier-general. The respect I owe to the President
of the United States, and the distressed situation of the country I now call
mine, oblige me to accept the honor of the appointment, provided, however, that
I hold my rank from my commission in the state army; that I consider it a
temporary appointment, which I propose to resign as soon as the service will
permit, and, in the meantime, I retain my office in the civil department. In
justice to myself I must observe that I have not the remotest wish to enter
again into the military line; my private affairs and the situation of my family
forbid it; and my advanced age, as well as the state of my health, I fear will
render me unable to perform the duties of a soldier with honor to myself or
advantage to the service,
I am, etc.
In a few days
after I received this appointment I received instructions from the secretary of
war, the first object of which was “to attempt to be present at the general
council of hostile Indians about to be held on the Miami river of Lake Erie, in
order to convince said Indians of the humane disposition of the United States,
and then to make a truce or peace with them.”
I arrived at Pittsburgh on the second of June, and on the fifth I sent a speech to the hostile tribes, by two Munsee Indians, who had been taken prisoners and released for that purpose. The object of this speech was to notify them of the object of my mission and to request them to open a path to Fort Jefferson, where I expected to be in twenty days, and that they should send some of their young men with Captain Hendrick to conduct me, with a few friends, to the place they should fix on for our meeting. However, I did not arrive at Fort Washington till July 2, when I learned that the very day I had sent word to the Indians that I proposed to be at Fort Jefferson, about one hundred Indians, with new white shirts and their chief with a scarlet cloak, fell on a party making way in the neighborhood of the fort and killed or carried off sixteen men. From the extraordinary dress of these Indians, there was reason to suspect that they were sent out, or at least furnished with their new shirts, by the British agents, for the purpose of taking me off; and the suspicion was further confirmed soon after by the information of the murder of Colonel Hardy and Major Truman, as well as some others, who had not long since been sent to them with flags. From information that could be depended on, I was soon convinced that the Indians who met at the great council were determined on war, and that it was in vain to make any further attempt to bring them to treat of peace at present. But from information from Major Hamtranck, the commanding officer at Fort Vincent, there was reason to believe that something might be done with the Wabash and other more western Indians. Accordingly, on the twenty-fourth of July, I sent a speech to all the western tribes, inviting them to meet me in council at Fort Vincent the twentieth of September, assuring them that I should bring their friends and relations with me (meaning the Indian prisoners at Fort Washington).
August 16. I
left Fort Washington with the Indian prisoners and arrived at Fort Vincent
September 13, and the same day restored the prisoners, about sixty in number, to
their friends.
The council
assembled on the twenty-fifth and continued to the twenty-seventh, when the
treaty was signed.
How far my
conduct met the approbation of the President the following letter will show:
War Department, Feb. 15, 1793.
SIR: Your
letter of yesterday has been submitted to the President of the United States.
While he accepts your resignation, he regrets that your ill health compels you
to leave the army as he had anticipated much good to the troops from your
experience as an officer.
He has commanded me to tender you his thanks for the zeal and judgment
manifest in your negotiation with the Wabash Indians, and your further endeavor
toward general pacification.
I am, sir, with great esteem, your obedient servant,
S. Knox, Secretary of War.
Brigadier-general
Rufus Putnam.
I might with propriety mention a number of instances in the course of
this war, of God’s evidently appearing by His Providence to interfere for the
preservation of our inhabitants, but, suffice it to remark that, notwithstanding
the very frequent passing both by land and water from one settlement to another,
and various excursions abroad, particularly to Wolf creek mill for grinding, yet
on none of these occasions were any lives lost or other injury received from the
enemy. For myself, I have great reason to acknowledge the Providence of God in
my own preservation, in that, while much mischief was done on the Ohio,
especially near the mouth of the Scioto river, I made three trips to Cincinnati
without being molested by the Indians, although sometimes alarmed.
In 1794 Colonel Pickering, postmaster general, proposed the plan of
carrying the mail from Wheeling to Limestown (Maysville) by water, I was
consulted; the plan I proposed was adopted, and the business planned under my
direction.
June 14, 1796. Mr. Wolcott, secretary of the treasury, said in a letter
to me: “The President of the United States has been pleased to confide to you
the business of carrying into effect an act of congress entitled ‘an act to
authorize Ebenezer Zane to locate certain lands in the territory of the United
States, northwest of the Ohio.’”
But the last and best gift from President Washington was announced in a
letter from Mr. Secretary Pickering, enclosing a commission of surveyor-general
of the United States, bearing date October 1, 1796.
In what manner I have fulfilled the duties of this office, I shall leave
for those employed under me, and were best informed on the subject, to
determine. Indeed, I might appeal to my correspondence with the secretaries of
the treasury, or even to Mr. Gallatin personally, that no want of ability,
integrity or industry was the cause of my removal from office. No! It was done
because I did not subscribe to the measures of him whom I have called the
arch-enemy of Washington’s administration.
Mr. Jefferson, in his reply to the remonstrance of the merchants of New
Haven, asks, “How are vacancies to he obtained? those by death are few, by
resignation none. Can any other mode than removal be proposed? I shall proceed
with deliberation, that it may be thrown as much as possible on delinquency
oppression, intolerance and anti-Revolutionary adherence to our enemies,”
How consistent with this declaration was his appointment of Mr.
Mansfield, well known to be an active Tory.
Mr. Gallatin’s letter announcing Mr. Mansfield’s appointment to the
office of surveyor-general, bears, date September 21. 1903. Mr. Joseph Nourse,
registrar of the treasury department, in a letter to me, dated January 7, 1804,
observed: “I have heard it reported that you were no longer in office, but as
it has not been announced, I was in hopes that it was erroneous until you
mentioned it in your letter.” This, I think, looks a little like political
martyrdom, which it was wished to conceal from public notoriety, that my friends
might not have so fair an opportunity of doing public justice to my character.
But, be that as it may, I am happy in having my name enrolled with many
others who have suffered the like political death for adherence to those correct
principles and measures in pursuance of which our country rose from a state of
weakness and poverty to strength, honor and credit.