rn in his absence, already dead for want of
the nourishment which the poor mother could not give it.

XVII. THE FIRST GREAT SETTLEMENTS.

General Rufus Putnam, a brave officer of the Revolutionary war, was the
first to call the attention of the Eastern States to the rich territory
opened to settlement west of the Ohio by the peace with Great Britain,
and he was one of the earliest band of pioneers which landed on the
shores of the Muskingum. In 1787 Rev. Manasseh Cutler of Ipswich,
Massachusetts, published a description of the Ohio country, which left
little to the liveliest imagination. If anything was naturally lacking
for the wants of man in a land abounding in wild fruits, "herds of deer,
elk, buffalo, and bear," and flocks of "turkeys, geese, ducks, swans,
teal, pheasants, partridges, etc.,... in greater plenty than the tame
poultry are in any part of the old settlements of America," and in
rivers "stored with fish, especially catfish, the largest, and of a
delicious flavor," which "weighs from thirty to eighty pounds," it could
be easily supplied by art. "The advantages of every climate," Dr.
Cutler told his readers, "are here blended together," and the rich soil,
everywhere underlain with valuable minerals, and covered with timber
waiting to be built into ships and floated down the rivers to the
sea, would produce not only "wheat, rye, Indian corn, buckwheat, oats,
barley, flax, hemp, tobacco," but even "indigo, silk, wine, and cotton."

It is no wonder that the Ohio Company found the New Englanders eager
to come out and possess this goodly heritage, and that the first band
should have started from Dr. Cutler's own village. At dawn, on the
30th of December, 1787, they paraded before his church and parsonage,
twenty-two men with their families. After listening to a short speech
from him, they fired a salute, and set off, as the lettering on their
leading wagon made known, "For the Ohio Country." It was eight weeks
before they reached the headwaters of the Beautiful River, and began to
build boats to float down its current to the mouth of the Muskingum.
In the meantime, on the 1st of January, 1788, another company left
Hartford, Connecticut, and in four weeks joined the first. They could
not embark on their voyage together until April 2d, but in five days
they arrived at Fort Harmar, beside the Muskingum, and were at their
journey's end. They did not find the shores waving with indigo, silk,
and cotton, but