The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Putnam, Rufus

PUTNAM, Rufus, American Revolutionary soldier: b. Sutton, Mass., 9 April 1738; d. Marietta, Ohio, 1 May 1824. He was apprenticed in 1754 to a millwright, but acquired some knowledge of surveying and later found employment in that profession. In March 1757 he enlisted as a private for service in the French and Indian War, and re-enlisted yearly until 1761, being made ensign in 1760. His story of the campaigns in which he served may be read in the ‘Journal’ which he kept throughout. He was a farmer successively at New Braintree, Mass. (1761), Brookfield, Mass. (1765) and Rutland, Mass. (1780). In 1773 he went to Florida as one of an investigating committee appointed to examine lands granted by the Crown to Colonial soldiers and officers who had fought in provincial regiments during the French and Indian War. Putnam was made deputy-surveyor of Florida by the governor of the province and accompanied the expedition up the Mississippi to the Yazoo, up the Yazoo to Haines' Bluff, back to the Big Black and thence in return down the Mississippi. He planned and directed the construction of the Continental lines of defense at Roxbury and for the excellence of his work was detailed by Washington as acting chief engineer of the army. On 11 Aug. 1776 he was appointed by Congress chief engineer of the army, with colonel's rank; but preferring service in the field, he resigned in December and took command of the 5th Massachusetts Regiment. With the northern army in 1777 he did conspicuous service, particularly at Stillwater, where he headed the 4th and Sth regiments of Nixon's brigade. On 7 Jan. 1783 he was promoted brigadier-general. He was for several years a member of the Massachusetts legislature and during Shays' rebellion (q.v.) (1786-87) was a very efficient aide on the staff of Gen. Benjamin Lincoln. In March 1787 he was chosen (with Gen. S. H. Parsons and Rev. Manasseh Cutler) a director of the Ohio company, organized (1 March 1786) with a capital of $1,000,000 in public securities, to be expended in the purchase of land in the Northwest Territory. In July a contract was made with Congress for one and a half million of acres and soon afterward an ordinance, familiarly known as the “Ordinance of 1787,” was passed, providing for the government of the Territory. On 7 April 1788 Putnam, meanwhile made superintendent of the company, landed with a party of emigrants at the mouth of the Muskingum and on the present site of Marietta commenced the first organized settlement in the Northwest Territory. He concluded in 1792 at Yincennes a treaty with eight tribes of the Wabash Indians and in 1793 resigned his commission in the army. He was one of the judges of the United States court in the Territory, 1790-96, and from 1796 until his removal by Jefferson for political reasons in 1803 was surveyor-general of the United States. He was the founder of the first Bible society west of the Alleghanies (1812), a sturdy Federalist in politics and with the exception of Lafayette the last survivor of the general officers of the Continental army. Consult his ‘Journal,’ edited, with sketch by Dawes (1886). Putnam's papers, including the manuscript ‘Journal’ and correspondence with Fisher Ames, Trumbull, Washington and others are preserved at Marietta in the library of the college there; they were edited by Rowena Buell (1904) under the title ‘The Memoirs of Rufus Putnam and Certain Official Papers and Correspondence.’