As glides the Oyo's solemn flood, Our veins are thrilling with their blood, Though storied tombs may not enshrine Ohio carves and consecrates In her own heart their every name; Their epitaph: immortal fame. The directors of the Ohio Company held a meeting at Bracket's tavern, Boston, November 23, 1787. They appointed General Rufus Putnam superintendent of their colony, and selected Ebenezer Sproat, Anselm Tupper, R. J. Meigs, and John Matthews surveyors of the newly purchased lands in the West. At the same meeting, a number of workmen, including carpenters, boat-builders, and blacksmiths, were employed to make suitable preparations for journeying to the Ohio Valley. Tools, wagons, and horses were procured, and, in December, the mechanics and others assembled at Danvers, Massachusetts, from which village they presently started for the Far West. They took their dreary way over the Alleghanies, and by the old Indian path, over Braddock's Road, and after about a month's journey reached the Youghiogheny at a point called Simrall's Ferry. General Putnam, with a smaller party made up of the surveyors and other leading men, left Hartford, in January, and pressed forward to the same place of rendezvous. And now the stalwart New England boat-builders plied their sharp axes, and keen saws, and sounding hammers in the construction of that renowned craft, "The Mayflower," which was to carry these new Pilgrims to a new New World. This boat was the largest that had ever descended the Ohio. In length it was forty-five feet, and in width twelve feet; and it was capable of bearing a burden of fifty tons. The "Mayflower" was rudely but strongly built, with sides proof against the bullets of the red savages. She was placed under command of Captain Duval, a brave commander, who helped build the first ship launched on the Ohio River. On the afternoon of April 2, 1788, the "Mayflower," accompanied by a flat-boat and several canoes, was unfastened from her moorings at Simrall's Ferry to float down the Youghiogheny to the waters of the Monongahela, and onward to the Ohio. On the morning of April 7th, the pioneers reached Kerr's Island, and at noon, the same day, they reached their destination and landed on the east bank of the Muskingum, about four hundred yards above its mouth and nearly opposite to Fort Harmar. The little company that disembarked on the bank of the Muskingum, on April 7, 1788, numbered fortyeight souls. It was not until July 1st that they were reinforced by other colonists. The first shelter erected on Ohio soil by the founders was a tent in which General Putnam had his office and transacted his business as superintendent. Above this tent floated the stars and stripes. On the 9th of April, the laws of the colony were read aloud by Benjamin Tupper, and a copy of these was posted on the trunk of a tree. The mouth of the Muskingum had been chosen as a point for the location of a frontier military post by 1785. Major Late in 1785, General Richard Butler as early as Doughty was instructed to build a fort. Major Doughty arrived at the mouth of the Muskingum with a detachment of soldiers, and began to erect Fort Harmar, a work which he completed in the spring of the next year. The following description of Fort Harmar as it was in 1788, when the settlers arrived, is from the pen of Alfred Mathews: "The fort stood very near the point on the western side of the Muskingum, and upon the second terrace above ordinary flood water. It was a regular pentagon in shape, with bastions on each side, and its walls enclosed but little more than three-quarters of an acre. The main walls of defense, technically called "curtains," were each one hundred and twenty feet long, and about twelve or fourteen feet high. They were constructed of logs laid horizontally. The bastions were of the same height as the other walls, but, unlike them, were formed of palings or timbers set upright in the ground. Large two-story log buildings were built in the bastions for the accommodation of officers and their families, and the barracks for the troops were erected along the curtains, the roofs sloping toward the center of the enclosure. They were divided into four rooms of thirty feet each, supplied with fire-places, and were sufficient for the accommodation of a regiment of men. From the roof of the barracks building toward the Ohio River there arose a watch tower, surmounted by the flag of the United States." The settlement begun on April 7, 1788, was not formally named until about three months old. It was at first known simply as the "Muskingum" settlement. But on the 2d of July, the day after the arrival of an accession of eighty-four colonists from the East, the directors and agents of the company met on the green banks of the Muskingum to give a name to their town and its squares. The town was christened Marietta, in honor of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, the friend of La Fayette, and of American liberty. We read with a smile, that our martial and classical forefathers named one of the squares of Marietta Campus Martius, another Capitolium, and a third Cecilia; and that they denominated the road through the covert-way Sacra Vica. Two days after the stately naming of Marietta and its squares, on the Fourth of July, the twelfth anniversary since independence was declared, the fifth since the declaration of peace, and the last under the old articles of confederation (for the constitution had not yet gone into operation, and Washington was not yet President)-the people of the new settlement, some one hundred and thirty, and the soldiers from Fort Harmar, held a memorable celebration. Judge J. M. Varnum delivered an address abounding in balanced sentences and rhetorical phrases. Anticipating the coming of His Excellency, Governor Arthur St. Clair, the orator exclaimed: "May he soon arrive! Thou gently flowing Ohio, whose surface, as conscious of thy unequaled majesty, reflecteth no images but the impending Heaven, bear him, oh! bear him safely to this anxious spot! And thou, beautiful, transparent Muskingum, swell at the moment of his approach, and reflect no objects but of pleasure and delight!" Having thus glowingly apostrophized the absent governor, the gallant general addressed his "fair auditors" in still more ornate style: "Gentle zephyrs and fanning breezes, wafting through the air, ambrosial odors, receive you here. Hope no longer flutters upon the wings of uncertainty. Amiable in yourselves, amiable in your tender connections, you will soon add to the felicity of others, who, emulous of following your bright example, and having formed their manners upon the elegance and simplicity of the refinements of virtue, will be happy in living with you in the bosom of friendship." Such was the fashion of sentence-making in the days of yore. According to Dr. Hildreth, Judge Varnum was distinguished for his "brilliant language and thundering eloquence." At the close of the oration a feast was served in a spacious bower, constructed on the point of land at the confluence of the Muskingum and the Ohio. From the fourteen toasts offered I select the following: "The United States," "The Congress," "His Most Christian |