Rufus Putnam House

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Rufus Putnam House
Campus Martius State Memorial
Rufus Putnam House 1903.png
1903 photograph of the house [1]
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LocationCampus Martius Museum, corner of 2nd and Washington Sts., Marietta, Ohio
Coordinates 39°25′16.5″N81°27′40.0″W / 39.421250°N 81.461111°W / 39.421250; -81.461111 Coordinates: 39°25′16.5″N81°27′40.0″W / 39.421250°N 81.461111°W / 39.421250; -81.461111
Arealess than one acre
Built1788
Part of Marietta Historic District (ID74001646)
NRHP reference No. 70000524 [2]
Significant dates
Added to NRHPNovember 10, 1970
Designated CP1974

The Rufus Putnam House, also known as Campus Martius or Campus Martius Museum State Memorial, is a historic building in Marietta, Ohio. It was built as part of the Campus Martius fortification by General Rufus Putnam, during the early settlement of Ohio by the Ohio Company of Associates. [3]

Contents

The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places individually, and it is also a contributing property of the Marietta Historic District. The building is the only surviving part of the Campus Martius fortification and has been enclosed inside the Campus Martius Museum building. [4]

The house has been called "the most outstanding architectural combination of New England tradition and frontier necessity preserved in Ohio today." [5]

History

Construction began soon after Putnam arrived in 1788 using a building method known as post-and-plank or corner post construction. [6] Each wall of the building was built prefabricated. Four-inch-thick by foot-wide hewn oak timbers were mortised and tenoned, and fastened with wooden dowels into a diagonal braced frame. Random-width four-inch-thick planks were fitted to complete the wall lying on the ground. Each plank was numbered with Roman numerals, then removed so the frame could be raised, and then re-assembled. Eight by eight-inch oak floor joists with neither foundation nor basement were used, and tulip poplar floor boards were laid, but not fastened until seasoned. [5]

The building was completed late in 1790. The green planks used in original construction shrank, and it was necessary to wedge lath into the cracks, until clapboard was applied later. With the end of the Northwest Indian War, the Campus Martius fortification was no longer necessary, and Putnam bought the adjacent blockhouse, and used the lumber to add a four-room addition to the original four-room house in 1795. [5]

Putnam's wife died in 1820; he stayed in the house till he died in 1824. [7] After Putnam's daughter Elizabeth died in 1831, the house was sold to the Nye family, who occupied it for many years, followed by tenants late in the 19th century. The Marietta Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution leased the building starting in 1905. In 1917, the state bought the Campus Martius site, and placed it under the control of the Ohio Historical Society. Few Putnam pieces remain to decorate the interior, so other pioneer families donated items about 1927, including the Meigs, Fearing, Devol, Blennerhassett, Mason, Hildreth, and Sprague. [5] The building, which now has a basement, was enclosed in the south wing of the museum later.

A 1903 history says the building was commonly called The Old Block-House. [1]

An earlier home of General Putnam's, the General Rufus Putnam House in Rutland, Massachusetts, is also listed on the National Register.

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Campus Martius was a defensive fortification at the Marietta, Ohio settlement, and 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 handsomest pile of buildings on this side of the Alleghany mountains, and in a few days 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, having a block house at each angle, eighteen feet square on the ground, and two stories high; the upper story on the outside or face, jutting over the lower one, eighteen inches. These block houses serve as bastions to a regular fortification of four sides. The curtains are composed of dwelling houses two stories high, eighteen feet wide, and of different lengths.

Fort Putnam

Fort Putnam was a military garrison during the Revolutionary War at West Point, New York, United States. Built by a regiment of Colonel Rufus Putnam's 5th Massachusetts Regiment, it was completed in 1778 with the purpose of supporting Fort Clinton, which sat on the edge of the Hudson River about 3/4 of a mile away. The fort was rebuilt and enlarged in 1794 before falling into disuse and disrepair as the military garrison at West Point became obsolete in the early mid-19th century. It underwent a major preservation as a historical site in 1909, and has been continually in the process of preservation since. Sitting at an altitude of 500 feet above sea level, it was West Point's largest garrison during the Revolutionary War. The Fort is under the supervision of the West Point Museum Director, David M. Reel, and is operated by the United States Army Garrison, West Point. Access to the Fort is seasonal and as summer staff are available.

References

  1. 1 2 Summers, Thomas J. (1903). History of Marietta. Marietta, Ohio: The Leader Publishing Co. p.  312.
  2. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  3. Hubbard, Robert Ernest. General Rufus Putnam: George Washington's Chief Military Engineer and the "Father of Ohio," pp. 109-10, 117-18, 126, McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina. ISBN   978-1-4766-7862-7.
  4. Hubbard, Robert Ernest. General Rufus Putnam: George Washington's Chief Military Engineer and the "Father of Ohio," pp. 133, McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina. ISBN   978-1-4766-7862-7.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Porter, Daniel R. "COLLECTIONS AND EXHIBITS the RUFUS PUTNAM HOUSE at the Campus Martius Museum". Ohio History . 73: 183–187.
  6. Hubbard, Robert Ernest. General Rufus Putnam: George Washington's Chief Military Engineer and the "Father of Ohio," pp. 109-10, 117-18, 126, McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina. ISBN   978-1-4766-7862-7.
  7. Hubbard, Robert Ernest. General Rufus Putnam: George Washington's Chief Military Engineer and the "Father of Ohio," pp. 175-77, McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina. ISBN   978-1-4766-7862-7.

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