Excerpt from Biographical and Historical Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio: With Narratives of Incidents and Occurrences in 1775 There is nothing more noble than to feel a deep interest in the honor of our country, our state, or the community in which we mingle. The history of these men belongs to the United States their breasts were often the bulwarks, which, in the time of trial, saved us from the enslaving power of Great Britain, and we are endeavoring to preserve their names and their characters from oblivion, by erecting this Izzstorzcal monument to their memory. For the materials on which it is founded, the author is indebted to many kind friends, generally the relatives of the persons, but in an especial manner to W. R. Putnam, Esq., Hon. Judge Cutler, Col. Joseph Barker, and William Slocomb: for Corn. Whipple, to his grandson, Dr. Com stock, of Boston, John Howland, Esq., of Providence, Rhode Island, and P. G. Robbins, M. D., of Roxbury, Massachusetts. The names of many other prominent men are omitted from a lack of the facts on which to found a written biography and the larger number of those here given were obtained with much laborious search, amongst old letters, volumes of history, oral tradition, and numer ous letters of inquiry written to the relatives of the deceased, in various and distant parts of the country. A full and well written biog raphy of the late Gov. Meigs, who was one of the early settlers of Marietta, has been published in a posthumous volume of Sketches of the early Settlers of Ohio, by the late Alexander Campbell, Esq., and is not given here.* The present work has many imperfections, but may be the means of preserving some facts not generally known, for the use of a future and more able historian. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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The #1 New York Times bestseller by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David McCullough rediscovers an important chapter in the American story that’s “as resonant today as ever” (The Wall Street Journal)—the settling of the Northwest Territory by courageous pioneers who overcame incredible hardships to build a community based on ideals that would define our country. As part of the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain recognized the new United States of America, Britain ceded the land that comprised the immense Northwest Territory, a wilderness empire northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. A Massachusetts minister named Manasseh Cutler was instrumental in opening this vast territory to veterans of the Revolutionary War and their families for settlement. Included in the Northwest Ordinance were three remarkable conditions: freedom of religion, free universal education, and most importantly, the prohibition of slavery. In 1788 the first band of pioneers set out from New England for the Northwest Territory under the leadership of Revolutionary War veteran General Rufus Putnam. They settled in what is now Marietta on the banks of the Ohio River. McCullough tells the story through five major characters: Cutler and Putnam; Cutler’s son Ephraim; and two other men, one a carpenter turned architect, and the other a physician who became a prominent pioneer in American science. They and their families created a town in a primeval wilderness, while coping with such frontier realities as floods, fires, wolves and bears, no roads or bridges, no guarantees of any sort, all the while negotiating a contentious and sometimes hostile relationship with the native people. Like so many of McCullough’s subjects, they let no obstacle deter or defeat them. Drawn in great part from a rare and all-but-unknown collection of diaries and letters by the key figures, The Pioneers is a uniquely American story of people whose ambition and courage led them to remarkable accomplishments. This is a revelatory and quintessentially American story, written with David McCullough’s signature narrative energy.