The Pioneers

by David McCullough

  What a wonderful moment! To think that a young physician struggling with all he had to contend with there in the wilderness was also capable of doing works of art so superb.

  I must include as well the legendary highway west, the Ohio River, which played such an important role in our history, the presence of which so nearby evokes at different times of day, different seasons and light so very much of the setting in times past. To get up early in the morning and step out of a hotel by the river, close by the very spot where the pioneers first landed, and watch the sun rise and the gray mist on the water, the geese and ducks, has also been for me an important and most pleasurable part of the work.

  I wish to thank Douglas Anderson, director of the Legacy Library, Georgene Johnson and Ann Anderson, who helped with numerous requests and particularly with the Hildreth papers; Sally Norton, who transcribed the Lucy Backus Woodbridge letters; Barbara Binegar, Jeanne Catalano, Angela Burdiss, Joe Straw, Jeffrey Cottrell, and Peter Thayer, whose help was greatly appreciated.

  Student interns Carly Matheny, Madison McCormick, and Maria Stickrath were also most helpful, and especially with the historic Marietta newspaper collection. So, too, was Professor Matt Young of the Marietta College history department, who generously volunteered his time and skills creating a map of Marietta, its surroundings and landmarks.

  To William Ruud, president of the college, I am particularly grateful for the warm welcome to the campus he gave me at the very start.

  And I am highly indebted to two leading specialists in the Marietta story. Bill Reynolds of the Campus Martius and Ohio River Museum, knows so much about the realities of pioneer life it is as if he had taken part himself. His walking tours of the museum exhibits and particularly of the Rufus Putnam house were outstanding; and Dr. Ray Swick, who knows more than anyone about the Blennerhassetts and led a private tour of Blennerhassett Island not once but twice, enlivening every hour with both insight and wit. My thanks, too, to Miles Evenson, superintendent of Blennerhassett Island Historical State Park, who made the visits possible.

  Scott Britton and archaeologist Wes Clarke of the Castle Historical Museum in Marietta took time to give a most interesting tour of the Mound Cemetery, and Scott further provided a tour of the First Congregational Church in Marietta, along with the Reverend Linda N. Steelman, minister of the church.

  Then there is my old friend Andy Masich, president of the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, who gave my manuscript a close reading and contributed valuable observations on Ohio River history and the native tribes of the area, and in addition provided a copy of the original Ebenezer Denny journal.

  My thanks to William Kimok, archivist for special collections at Ohio University; to Marc Kibbey, associate curator of fishes, Museum of Biological Diversity, Ohio State University; to the ever helpful Peter Drummey of the Massachusetts Historical Society; to Deirdre Anderson and the staff at the Hingham Historical Society.

  Thanks also to Louise C. Pempek, who provided a guided tour of the Cutler family neighborhood at Killingly, Connecticut, and Meredith and Al Konesni, owners of the old Cutler homestead, who opened the door of their house for my visit there.

  And to Chris and Marcia Warrington of Rutland, Massachusetts, owners of the Rufus Putnam house there; and Cece Gough, Dr. David Horn, and Linda Coonrod, who welcomed me and my wife, Rosalee, on a first visit to Manasseh Cutler’s First Congregational Church and rectory in Hamilton, Massachusetts, where so much of the story began; and Hampton Carey, who provided copies of the original Benjamin Silliman–Samuel Hildreth letters at Yale’s Sterling Library.

  Most helpful all the way has been the incomparable Mike Hill, whom I have had the good fortune to work with for more than thirty-five years. Ever resourceful, energetic, ever cheerful and tireless, he has been indispensable. We made the expeditions to Marietta together many times over, always enjoying the work.

  Linda Gudgel Konkel has typed and retyped my many drafts of every chapter, made valuable suggestions as to content, and worked closely with Mike on source notes. And thank you also to David Konkel for his help with the illustrations.

  To my daughter Dorie McCullough Lawson I am again immensely indebted. She has read the manuscript in all its stages, offering important suggestions, and kept me on my toes the whole way. My daughter Melissa McCullough McDonald, too, read and commented on the manuscript, as did sons Geoffrey, who also contributed to some of the research, and David Jr., a teacher of English, who tactfully offered some further suggestions. Son Bill accompanied me on trips to Marietta and the Cutler home at Killingly, and lent a hand with the research at both.

  I salute, too, my dear friend and literary agent, Morton Janklow, who loved the idea for the book from the start and on his first reading responded with such fervent praise and for all the reasons I could have hoped for.

  And still again there have been the highly gifted, longtime friends at Simon & Schuster with whom it is a joy to work—Carolyn Reidy, Jonathan Karp, Julia Prosser, Johanna Li, and above all, Bob Bender, who came up with the title for the book the day I first explained what it was to be about and has since read with a keen editorial eye every line twice over and made a number of apt and much appreciated suggestions.

  My sincere thanks as well to copy editor Fred Chase for his part and to Joy O’Meara for her design of the book.

  Most important by far, most helpful, wise, and inspiriting, has, once again, been my editor-in-chief, my dearest friend of all, my beloved wife, Rosalee, to whom the book is dedicated.

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DAVID McCULLOUGH has twice won the Pulitzer Prize and twice won the National Book Award. He has also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award.

  His most recent book, The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For, a collection of his speeches, was a New York Times bestseller. His previous book, The Wright Brothers, was a #1 New York Times bestseller.

  Mr. McCullough’s other books include The Johnstown Flood, The Great Bridge, The Path Between the Seas, Mornings on Horseback, Brave Companions, Truman, John Adams, 1776, and The Greater Journey. His books have been published in nineteen languages. He has received fifty-six honorary degrees, and as may be said of few writers, none of his books has ever been out of print.

  In a crowded, productive career, he has been an editor, teacher, lecturer, and familiar presence on public television—as host of Smithsonian World, The American Experience, and narrator of numerous documentaries including Ken Burns’s The Civil War. “John Adams,” the seven-part miniseries on HBO produced by Tom Hanks, was one of the most acclaimed television events of recent years.

  In 2013 the city of Pittsburgh, his hometown, renamed its landmark 16th Street Bridge over the Allegheny River the David McCullough Bridge.

  Mr. McCullough is a graduate of Yale University. He and his wife, Rosalee Barnes McCullough, have five children, nineteen grandchildren, and one great-grandson.

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  ALSO BY DAVID McCULLOUGH

  The American Spirit

  The Wright Brothers

  The Greater Journey

  1776

  John Adams

  Truman

  Brave Companions

  Mornings on Horseback

  The Path Between the Seas

  The Great Bridge

  The Johnstown Flood

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  NOTES

  1. The Ohio Country

  “The Ohio is the grand artery”: Crèvecoeur, “Letters from an American Farmer,” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, Vol. 3, 1900, 96–98.

  Manasseh Cutler: For biographical information on Reverend Cutler, see Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, LL.D, Vol. 1, 1–37; Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. 3, Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1946, 12–14.

  “diligence and proficiency”: Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals, Vol. 1, 6.

  “Prosecuted my study”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, November 1768, ibid., 19.

  “exceedingly”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, September 11, 1771, ibid., 35.

  “the old style, country type”: Ibid., Vol. 2, 358.

  “of great and varied excellence”: Wadsworth, “Discourse at Manasseh Cutler’s Interment,” The Hesperian, No. 1, Vol. 2, 1838, 431.

  third floor to the rectory: Author tour of the First Congregational Church and the rectory, Hamilton, Massachusetts.

  “prepared for usefulness in the world”: Cutler, Life and Times of Ephraim Cutler: Prepared from His Journals and Correspondence, 5.

  “Engaged in the study of botany”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, March 10, 1780, Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals, Vol. 1, 77.

  “This morning endeavored”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, May 18, 1780, ibid.

  “Studied”: For numerous references to Cutler’s study regimen, see Manasseh Cutler Journal, August 31, 1770, December 21–23, 1773, July 25, 1772, ibid., 25, 44, 39.

  “Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas”: Ibid., 7.

  meeting at Bunch of Grapes tavern: Ibid., 180.

  “No! Rather than relinquish our claim”: Cone, “The First Settlement in Ohio,” Magazine of American History, Vol. 6, No. 4, April 1881, 244; Cone, Life of Rufus Putnam, With Extracts from His Journal and an Account of the First Settlement in Ohio, 92.

  265,878 square miles: Hinsdale, The Old Northwest: The Beginnings of Our Colonial System, 280.

  La Belle Rivière: Hulbert, Waterways of Westward Expansion: The Ohio River and Its Tributaries, Historic Highways of America series, Vol. 9, Arthur Clark Company, Cleveland, OH, 1903.

  “the back country”: Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals, Vol. 1, 145.

  “the howling wilderness”: Cutler, Life and Times of Ephraim Cutler, 42.

  “the fair domain beyond the Ohio”: Cone, Life of Rufus Putnam, 85.

  “the Ohio country”: Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals, Vol. 1, 179.

  “squatters”: Banta, The Ohio, 273.

  “Indian menace”: Shetrone, “The Indian in Ohio,” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, Vol. 27, 1919, 417.

  The story of Crawford’s Fate: See Butterfield, An Historical Account of the Expedition Against Sandusky Under Colonel William Crawford in 1782, 379–92; Heard, Handbook of the American Frontier: Four Centuries of Indian-White Relationships, Vol. 1, 118; James H. O’Donnell III, “William Crawford,” American National Biography, Vol. 5, John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., 1999, 710–11.

  “no end to the beauty and plenty”: See Josiah Butler Journal in Taylor, History of the State of Ohio, 1650–1787, 447.

  “As time progressed”: Ichabod Nye quoted in Williams, History of Washington County, Ohio, 29–30.

  “The spirit of immigration”: Manasseh Cutler to Nathan Dane, March 16, 1787, Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals, Vol. 1, 195.

  Rufus Putnam: See Hildreth, Biographical and Historical Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio: With Narratives of Incidents and Occurrences in 1775, 13–119; Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. 8, Dumas Malone, ed., New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1963, 284.

  “gave it an outward, oblique cast”: Hildreth, Biographical and Historical Memoirs, 118.

  “He was not brilliant”: Cone, Life of Rufus Putnam, 72.

  “I am, sir”: Rufus Putnam to George Washington, June 16, 1783, ibid., 89.

  “not the least doubt”: Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals, Vol. 1, 172.

  “Matters, as far as they have come to my knowledge”: George Washington to Rufus Putnam, June 2, 1784, Cone, Life of Rufus Putnam, 95.

  “engrosses many of my thoughts”: Rufus Putnam to George Washington, April 5, 1784, ibid., 93.

  “Ohio Fever”: Poole, The Ordinance of 1787 and Dr. Manasseh Cutler as an Agent in Its Formation, 30.

  “the Ohio cause”: Putnam, The Memoirs of Rufus Putnam and Certain Official Papers and Correspondence, 225.

  “That after the year 1800”: Poole, The Ordinance of 1787, 12.

  “usefulness”: Meacham, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, 174.

  “very pleasing description”: Hildreth, Pioneer History: Being an Account of the First Examinations of the Ohio Valley, and the Early Settlement of the Northwest Territory, 195.

  “It is without doubt the most fertile country”: Crèvecoeur, “A Voyage Down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to Louisville in 1787,” in Crammer, History of the Upper Ohio Valley, 303.

  “the most beautiful river on earth”: Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1832, 8.

  “What would homes be worth to New England”: Hulbert, The Ohio River: A Course of Empire, 168.

  “lobbyist”: Banta, The Ohio, 175.

  “agent”: Cutler, Life and Times of Ephraim Cutler, 6.

  “The more I contemplate the prospect”: Mannasseh Cutler to Winthrop Sargent, April 20, 1786, Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals, Vol. 1, 190.

  “Lord’s Day”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, March 3, 1876, ibid., 54.

  Cutler visits Ezra Stiles: Ibid., 217.

  “I sent for my trunk”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 3, 1787, ibid., 220.

  “very bad” and “excessively bad”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 5, 1787, ibid., 223–25.

  “miserable, dirty”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 4, 1787, ibid., 223.

  “small, very narrow, and badly built”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 5, 1787, ibid., 227.

  Plow and Harrow: Ibid., 228.

  “a duty”: Poole, The Ordinance of 1787, 24.

  “petition”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 6, 1787, Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals, Vol. 1, 230.

  “gross”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 7, 1787, ibid., 231.

  “the greatest beauty”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 8, 1787, ibid., 234.

  “debated on terms”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 9, 1787, ibid., 237.

  “infinitely exceeds anything of the kind”: Ibid., 238.

  Thomas Hutchins: Knepper, Ohio and Its People, 59–60.

  “He gave me the fullest information”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 9, 1787, Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals, Vol. 1, 236.

  “For we must consider”: Winthrop, Winthrop Papers, Vol. 2, 295.

  “I presume he had not less”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 10, 1787, Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals, Vol. 1, 241.

  “a little fatigued”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 13, 1787, ibid., 253.

  Manasseh Cutler’s activities in Philadelphia, July 14–15, 1787, are detailed in Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals, Vol. 1, 253–85.

  “This had the desired effect”: Ibid.

  “very large and fine”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 13, 1787, ibid., 257.

  Cutler’s visit with Charles Willson Peale: Ibid., July 13, 1787, 259–62.

  Cutler’s visit to the State House: Ibid., 262.

  “its unsavory contents”: Ibid., 263.

  Cutler’s visit with Benjamin Franklin: Ibid., 267–70.

  “of every rank and condition of life”: Ibid., 272.

  Cutler’s visit with William Bartram: I
bid., 272–74.

  “At every end”: Ibid., 275.

  “This would have been a melancholy scene”: Ibid., 281.

  “the most marked attentions”: Ibid., footnote, 203.

  “Called on members of Congress”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 19, 1787, ibid., 293.

  “decidedly opposed”: Ibid.

  “Dane must be carefully watched”: Ibid., 294.

  “If they can be brought over, I shall succeed”: Ibid.

  “I told them I saw no prospect of a contract”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 20, 1787, ibid., 294–95.

  “extend our contract”: Ibid., 295.

  “He is a gentleman of the most sprightly abilities”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 27, 1787, ibid., 306.

  “mortified”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 20, 1787, ibid., 295.

  “discovered a much more”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 21, 1787, ibid., 296.

  “made every exertion”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 23, 1787, ibid., 297.

  “men who were so much used to solicit”: Ibid., 298.

  “such is the intrigue”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 25, 1787, ibid., 300.

  “highly approved”: Ibid.

  “To suffer a wide-extended country”: George Washington to James Duane, September 7, 1783, ibid., 132.

  “If we were able to establish”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 25, 1787, ibid., 300.

  “so warmly engaged”: Manasseh Cutler Journal, July 26, 1787, ibid., 302.

  “Friday, July 27”: Ibid., 303.

  “without the least variation”: Ibid., 305.

  “We are beholden to the Scioto Company”: Manasseh Cutler to John May, December 15, 1788, “Sidelights on the Ohio Company of Associates from the John May Papers,” The Western Reserve Historical Society, Tract No. 97, 1917, 137.