Rufus Putnam House | |
Campus Martius State Memorial | |
![]() 1903 photograph of the house [1] | |
Location | Campus Martius Museum, corner of 2nd and Washington Sts., Marietta, Ohio |
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Coordinates | 39°25′16.5″N81°27′40.0″W / 39.421250°N 81.461111°W Coordinates: 39°25′16.5″N81°27′40.0″W / 39.421250°N 81.461111°W |
Area | less than one acre |
Built | 1788 |
Part of | Marietta Historic District (ID74001646) |
NRHP reference No. | 70000524 [2] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | November 10, 1970 |
Designated CP | 1974 |
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]
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]
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.
West Point is the oldest continuously occupied military post in the United States. Located on the Hudson River in New York, West Point was identified by General George Washington as the most important strategic position in America during the American Revolution. Until January 1778, West Point was not occupied by the military. On January 27, 1778, Brigadier General Samuel Holden Parsons and his brigade crossed the ice on the Hudson River and climbed to the plain on West Point and from that day to the present, West Point has been occupied by the United States Army. It comprises approximately 16,000 acres (6,500 ha) including the campus of the United States Military Academy, which is commonly called "West Point".
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The Battle of Stony Point took place on July 16, 1779, during the American Revolutionary War. In a well-planned and -executed nighttime attack, a highly trained select group of George Washington's Continental Army troops under the command of Brigadier General "Mad Anthony" Wayne defeated British troops in a quick and daring assault on their outpost in Stony Point, New York, approximately 30 mi (48 km) north of New York City.
Fort Greene Park is a city-owned and -operated park in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York City. The 30.2-acre (12.2 ha) park was originally named after the fort formerly located there, Fort Putnam, which itself was named for Rufus Putnam, George Washington's Chief of Engineers in the Revolutionary War. Renamed in 1812 for Nathanael Greene, a hero of the American Revolutionary War, it was redesigned by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who also designed Central Park and Prospect Park, in 1867. The park contains the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument, which includes a crypt designed by Olmsted and Vaux.
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.
Brigadier-General Rufus Putnam was a colonial military officer during the French and Indian War, and a general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. As an organizer of the Ohio Company of Associates, he was instrumental in the initial settling of the Northwest Territory in present-day Ohio following the war.
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Marietta College (MC) is a private liberal arts college in Marietta, Ohio. It offers more than 50 undergraduate majors across the arts, sciences, and engineering, as well as Physician Assistant, Psychology, Clinical Mental Health Counseling, and Athletic training graduate programs. Its campus encompasses approximately three city blocks next to downtown Marietta and enrolls 1,200 full-time students.
The General Israel Putnam House in Danvers, Massachusetts, United States, is a historic First Period house recorded in the National Register of Historic Places. The house is also sometimes known as the Thomas Putnam House after Lt. Thomas Putnam (1615–1686), who built the home circa 1648. His grandson, Israel Putnam, the famous general of the American Revolution, was born in the house. Lt. Thomas Putnam was the father of Sgt. Thomas Putnam Jr.,, a notorious figure in the Salem witch trials. The Putnam House is now owned by the Emerson Family, the same owners of Putnam Pantry.
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The Putnam Farm is a historic farm on Spaulding Road in Brooklyn, Connecticut. The property, now just 9 acres (3.6 ha) of agricultural land with a house on it, was the centerpiece of a vast landholding in the mid-18th century by Major General Israel Putnam, a major colonial-era military figure who saw action in both the French and Indian War and in the American Revolutionary War. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
The Campus Martius Museum interprets Ohio history.
The Ohio Company Land Office is one of the original buildings of the city of Marietta, Ohio, United States. The Office is listed individually in the National Register of Historic Places and as a contributing property to the Marietta Historic District.
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 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.
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