The Ohio Company of Associates, also known as the Ohio Company, was a land company whose members are today credited with becoming the first non-Native American group to permanently settle west of the Allegheny mountains. In 1788 they established Marietta, Ohio, as the first permanent settlement of the new United States in the newly organized Northwest Territory. [1]
The company was formed between March 1 and March 3, 1786, by Rufus Putnam, Benjamin Tupper, Samuel Holden Parsons and Manasseh Cutler in Boston, Massachusetts. They had met at The Bunch-of-Grapes tavern, located on King Street, to discuss the settlement of the territory around the Ohio River. [2] On March 8, 1787, Parsons, Putnam, and Cutler were chosen as directors, and Winthrop Sargent was elected secretary. [3] On August 30, 1787, James Mitchell Varnum was elected as a director, and Richard Platt as treasurer. [4] Later directors included Griffin Greene upon the death of Varnum, [5] and Robert Oliver upon the death of Parsons. [6]
Cutler was sent to New York to negotiate with the Congress of the Confederation to help the company secure a claim on a portion of the land. While there, Cutler aligned himself with William Duer, secretary of the U.S. Treasury Board. Duer and his associates formed a group of New York speculators who were determined to see settlement of the area west of the Appalachians. [7] At this time, Congress desperately needed revenue. The prospect of sales of land helped settle controversy and secure the incorporation in the Northwest Ordinance of the paragraphs that prohibited slavery, provided for land for public education and for the support of the ministry. [1]
The Ohio Company's purchase was enabled first by the passage on July 13, 1787, of the "Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio," commonly known as the Northwest Ordinance, and second, by the Act of October 23, 1787, which authorized Congress to make contracts of public lands for not less than one million acres. On October 27, 1787, the Treasury Board under Secretary William Duer finalized the Ohio Company's purchase. Their first contract was for the Ohio Company to purchase 1,500,000 acres (6,000 km²) of land at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers, from a point near the site of present-day Marietta, to a point nearly opposite present-day Huntington, West Virginia, for a payment of $1 million in government securities, then worth about 12¢ specie to the dollar. [2] The contract also provided that one section of land in every township be devoted to the maintenance of public schools, another section be set apart for religious uses, and two entire townships be reserved for a university.
The second contract was an option to buy all the land between the Ohio and the Scioto rivers and the western boundary line of the Ohio Company's tract, extending north of the tenth survey township from the Ohio, this tract being preempted by Manasseh Cutler and Winthrop Sargent for themselves and others for the Scioto Company. Cutler's original intent was to buy only about 1,500,000 acres (6,000 km²) for the Ohio Company, but on the July 27, Congress authorized a grant of about 5,000,000 acres (20,000 km²) of land for $3,500,000; a reduction of one-third was allowed for bad tracts, and it was also provided that the lands could be paid for in United States securities. On the same day, Cutler and Sargent for themselves and associates transferred to William Duer, then Secretary of the Treasury Board, and his associates one equal moiety of the Scioto tract of land mentioned in the second contract. Both parties were to be equally interested in the sale of the land, and were to share equally any profit or loss. But the Scioto Company interest was speculative, and their contract lapsed before they purchased any land. In contrast, the Ohio Company had a genuine plan of settlement.[ citation needed ]
The company made its first installment of $500,000, but was unable to raise the second $500,000. It settled for a purchase of 750,000 acres (3,000 km2), plus the two townships for College Lands and the reserved School Lands and Ministerial Lands sections in each township, for a total area of 913,833 acres (3,698.15 km2), called the First Purchase. [8] The lands were privately surveyed, but on the same plan of townships, ranges, and sections as the adjacent Seven Ranges under the procedure of the Land Ordinance of 1785. [9] [10]
In 1788, General Rufus Putnam laid out the plans for Marietta, the first permanent settlement in the present state of Ohio. [1] 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 Native Americans 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. [11] The Second Purchase had no sections set aside for schools or ministry. The Second Purchase is also known as the Purchase on the Muskingum. [10]
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 |
Marietta is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Ohio, United States. It is located in southeastern Ohio at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers, 11 miles (18 km) northeast of Parkersburg, West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, Marietta has a population of 13,385 people. It is the principal city of the Marietta micropolitan area, which includes all of Washington County, and is the second-largest city in the Parkersburg–Marietta–Vienna combined statistical area.
The Northwest Ordinance, enacted July 13, 1787, was an organic act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States. It created the Northwest Territory, the new nation's first organized incorporated territory, from lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains, between British North America and the Great Lakes to the north and the Ohio River to the south. The upper Mississippi River formed the territory's western boundary. Pennsylvania was the eastern boundary.
The Northwest Territory, also known as the Old Northwest and formally known as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, was formed from unorganized western territory of the United States after the American Revolution. Established in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation through the Northwest Ordinance, it was the nation's first post-colonial organized incorporated territory.
The Land Ordinance of 1785 was adopted by the United States Congress of the Confederation on May 20, 1785. It set up a standardized system whereby settlers could purchase title to farmland in the undeveloped west. Congress at the time did not have the power to raise revenue by direct taxation, so land sales provided an important revenue stream. The Ordinance set up a survey system that eventually covered over three-quarters of the area of the continental United States.
The Scioto Company was a company led by American colonel William Duer, a land speculator, that swindled prospective settlers to the United States by selling worthless deeds of land.
Rufus Putnam was an American military officer who fought during the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War. As an organizer of the Ohio Company of Associates, he was instrumental in the initial colonization by the United States of former Native American, English, and French lands in the Northwest Territory in present-day Ohio following the war.
Manasseh Cutler was an American Congregational clergyman involved in the American Revolutionary War. He was influential in the passage of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and wrote the section prohibiting slavery in the Northwest Territory. Cutler was also a member of the United States House of Representatives. Cutler is "rightly entitled to be called 'The Father of Ohio University.'"
The Big Bottom massacre was a mass killing perpetrated by Lenape and Wyandot warriors against American settlers on January 2, 1791. The massacre occurred near present-day Stockport, Ohio. It is considered part of the Northwest Indian Wars, in which native Americans in the Ohio Country clashed with American settlers, seeking to expel them from their territory.
Mound Cemetery in Marietta, Ohio, is a historic cemetery developed around the base of a prehistoric Adena burial mound known as the Great Mound or Conus. The city founders preserved the Great Mound from destruction by establishing the city cemetery around it in 1801.
Benjamin Tupper was an American soldier in the French and Indian War, and an officer of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, achieving the rank of brevet brigadier general. Subsequently, he served as a Massachusetts legislator, and he assisted Gen. William Shepard in stopping Shays' Rebellion. Benjamin Tupper was a co-founder of the Ohio Company of Associates, and was a pioneer to the Ohio Country, involved in establishing Marietta as the first permanent settlement in the Northwest Territory.
Campus Martius was a defensive fortification at the Marietta, Ohio settlement. It was home to Rufus Putnam, Benjamin Tupper, Arthur St. Clair, and other pioneers from the Ohio Company of Associates during the Northwest Indian War. Major Anselm Tupper was commander of the Campus Martius during the war. Construction began in 1788 and was fully completed in 1791. The Campus Martius was located on the east side of the Muskingum River and upriver from its confluence with the Ohio River. A firsthand description of the fort is provided in Hildreth's Pioneer History,
Campus Martius is the most handsome pile of buildings on this side of the Alleghany mountains, and in a few days, it will be the strongest fortification in the territory of the United States. It stands on the margin of the elevated plain on which are the remains of the ancient works [mounds], mentioned in my letter of May last, thirty feet above the high bank of the Muskingum, twenty-nine perches distant from the river, and two hundred and seventy-six from the Ohio. It consists of a regular square, with a block house at each angle, eighteen feet square on the ground, and two stories high; the upper story is on the outside or face, jutting over the lower one, eighteen inches. These blockhouses serve as bastions to a regular fortification of four sides. The curtains comprise dwelling houses two stories high, eighteen feet wide, and of different lengths.
The Seven Ranges was a land tract in eastern Ohio that was the first tract to be surveyed in what became the Public Land Survey System. The tract is 42 miles (68 km) across the northern edge, 91 miles (146 km) on the western edge, with the south and east sides along the Ohio River. It consists of all of Monroe, Harrison, Belmont and Jefferson, and portions of Carroll, Columbiana, Tuscarawas, Guernsey, Noble, and Washington County.
The Donation Tract was a land tract in southern Ohio that was established by the Congress in the late 18th century to buffer Ohio Company lands against local indigenous people. Congress gave 100-acre (0.40 km2) lots to men who settled on the land. This marked the first time that federal land was given without charge to specified settlers, predating the more famous Homestead Act of 1862 by seventy years.
The Congress Lands East of Scioto River was a land tract in southern Ohio that was established by the Congress late in the 18th century. It is located south of the United States Military District and Refugee Tract, west of the Old Seven Ranges, east of the Virginia Military District and north of the Ohio River, French Grant, and the Ohio Company of Associates.
The Purchase on the Muskingum also called Ohio Company's Second Purchase, was a tract of land in the Northwest Territory, later Ohio, that the Ohio Company of Associates purchased from the United States federal government in 1792.
The College Lands were a tract of land in the Northwest Territory, later Ohio, that the Congress donated for the support of a university. Ohio University became the first college northwest of the Ohio River as a beneficiary of this tract.
The Ministerial Lands were tracts of land in the Northwest Territory, later Ohio, that the Congress donated for the support of clergy.
Ephraim Cutler was an early Northwest Territory and Ohio political leader and jurist.
Robert Richard Oliver was a lieutenant colonel in the American Revolutionary War and a representative and president of the council of the Northwest Territory's first general assembly.
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