Biography of Harman Blennerhassett, a collaborator with Aaron Burr and West Virginia land owner.

Biography of Harman Blennerhassett, a collaborator with Aaron Burr and West Virginia land owner.

Harman Blennerhassett (1765-1831) was an Englishman of means who came to America in 1796 and settled on an island in the Ohio River where he built an elaborate mansion. He met Aaron Burr in 1805, and his island home soon became a center for Burr's separatist plans to conquer the territory of the United States south of the Ohio River, to be financed with the backing of Blennerhassett. Nothing came of the conspiracy, and the suspicious Virginia militia raided and looted the island in December of 1806. Both men were eventually tried for treason. Never has an American trial produced such an impressive set of key players: The defendant - Aaron Burr, founding father, vice president, and slayer of Alexander Hamilton in their famous duel three years earlier; The trial judge - John Marshall, chief justice of the United States Supreme court (and the most important justice in history); The force behind the prosecution - Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and President of the United States; Defense attorneys - Edmund Randolph and Luther Martin, both delegates to the constitutional convention and among the most prominent men of the day; Prosecutors - Charles Lee, former attorney general, and William Wirt, future presidential candidate.

Reproduction of the original.

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.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1853 Edition.