l settler count for
less in the scale. The founders and managers of the Ohio Company and the
statesmen of the Federal Congress deserve much of the praise that in the
Southwest would have fallen to the individual settlers only. The credit
to be given to the nation in its collective capacity was greatly
increased, and that due to the individual was correspondingly
diminished.

Rufus Putnam and his fellow New Englanders built their new town under
the guns of a Federal fort, only just beyond the existing boundary of
settlement, and on land guaranteed them by the Federal Government. The
dangers they ran and the hardships they suffered in no wise approached
those undergone and overcome by the iron-willed, iron-limbed hunters who
first built their lonely cabins on the Cumberland and Kentucky. The
founders of Marietta trusted largely to the Federal troops for
protection, and were within easy reach of the settled country; but the
wild wood-wanderers who first roamed through the fair lands south of the
Ohio built their little towns in the heart of the wilderness, many
scores of leagues from all assistance, and trusted solely to their own
long rifles in time of trouble. The settler of 1788 journeyed at ease
over paths worn smooth by the feet of many thousands of predecessors;
but the early pioneers cut their own trails in the untrodden wilderness,
and warred single-handed against wild nature and wild man.

Cutler Visits Marietta.

In the summer of 1788 Dr. Manasseh Cutler visited the colony he had
helped to found, and kept a diary of his journey. His trip through
Pennsylvania was marked merely by such incidents as were common at that
time on every journey in the United States away from the larger towns.
He travelled with various companions, stopping at taverns and private
houses; and both guests and hosts were fond of trying their skill with
the rifle, either at a mark or at squirrels. In mid-August he reached
Coxe's fort, on the Ohio, and came for the first time to the frontier
proper. Here he embarked on a big flat boat, with on board forty-eight
souls all told, besides cattle. They drifted and paddled down stream,
and on the evening of the second day reached the Muskingum. Here and
there along the Virginian shore the boat passed settlements, with grain
fields and orchards; the houses were sometimes squalid cabins, and
sometimes roomy, comfortable buildings. When he reached the newly built
town he was greeted by General P