The Pioneers: The Heroic Story Of The Settlers Who Brought The American Ideal West, McCullough - B

                                                The Treaty of Paris awarded the new nation all that Britain claimed east of the Mississippi. The territories north and west of the Ohio that would become the Northwest Territory had not a single road or settlement in 1787. New England war veterans to whom vague promises of land in Ohio had been made formed the Ohio Company to buy land from Congress and negotiate the terms governing the territory. Representing the company was the Rev. Manasseh Cutler. That summer, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, establishing the governance structure for the future  states in the territory, emphasizing the importance of freedom of religion and public education, and selling a million and a half acres of land for millions of dollars to the Ohio Company. Slavery and involuntary servitude were prohibited. Led by Rufus Putnam, forty-eight pioneers set out for the Ohio from Massachusetts in late 1787. In western Pennsylvania, they built a small flotilla and set off on the Youghiogheny River. In April, they arrived at the junction of the Ohio and the Muskingum, where they began clearing the land. Others joined them and soon Marietta was growing all around them. The initial peace with the local Indians faded as more and more settlers crowded the area. In early 1791, fourteen settlers were massacred 30 miles north of Marietta. Putnam requested help from President Washington, and General St. Clair was tasked with insuring the safety of the colony. He led a rag-tag group of miscreants into northern Ohio. St. Clair was so plagued by gout that he was carried on a litter and had no idea what to expect.  On the morning of Nov. 4, hundreds of Indians attacked St. Clair's camp and routed the Americans, who were soon in a panicked desperate retreat.  St. Clair's Defeat was comparable to Braddock's decades earlier and included 623 dead. A year later, a better trained, equipped and led army crushed the Indians in Ohio. As the new century approached, the settlements in the valley increased and Marietta became a ship building center. In 1803, Ohio was admitted to the union and by 1810, would have almost a quarter of a million population. After the War of 1812, the Ohio River became the American highway to the west. The commitment to education in the Ordinance was fulfilled by the creation of Ohio University,  the establishment of public schools throughout the state and the founding of Marietta College. By the middle of the century, the men and women who had founded the first settlement in the Territory were gone. They had fulfilled the charter's commitment to freedom of religion when an RC church and a Jewish synagogue opened in Marietta in the 1850's, and had left behind a state that then had 2 million citizens.