TO THE
Hon. RUFUS PUTNAM, Esq.
GENERAL IN THE ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE LATE REVOLUTIONARY
WAR, AND SINCE SURVEYOR GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES, &C. &C.[1]
Permit me, dear Sir, to inscribe to you the following pages, in grateful acknowledgment of the hospitality and kindness you showed me while at Marietta, and of the readiness with which you answered my inquiries respecting the State of Ohio.
I am sensible that the geographical sketches I have given of that Territory will appear very imperfect to you, who have so intimate an acquaintance with every part of it; but to others they may convey information more particular and correct than has been hitherto published.
As the founder and father of the State, you will feel interested in the details I have given; and, I hope, will not be wholly disappointed {iv} with my attempt to describe a part of our country so rapidly increasing in population and importance.
Relying on your candor, and encouraged by the very flattering manner in which you have seconded my pro-*
- ↑ General Rufus Putnam (born in Massachusetts, 1738) served in the French and Indian War, and later with distinction in the Revolution. He is best known to history as the superintendent of the Ohio Company and the founder of the soldier-colony at Marietta. Self-educated, and rising to prominence by force of will and character, his accomplishments in engineering and surveying, and his services to Western development, were valuable. Washington appointed him surveyor-general for the United States (1793), which position he held for ten years, when removed as a Federalist by Jefferson. His interests during all the later years of his life were bound up with those of Ohio and the Marietta settlement. At his death (1824) he was (with the exception of Lafayette) the last surviving general officer of the Revolutionary army.—Ed.
