OHIO COMPANY'S PURCHASE: A HISTORY OF THE EVENT

Submitted by: Sharon M. Kouns

Ironton Register, Thursday, April 19, 1883

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  At Marietta's Natal day, last Saturday, Hon. Geo. B. Loring,
Commissioner of Agriculture, was present and addressed the assemblage of
people. Regarding the Ohio Company's purchase, he said:

  We are assembled at the gateway through which American
civilization, after more than a century and a half of struggle and
development along the Atlantic seaboard, passed in to occupy the vast and
luxuriant territory lying northwest of the Ohio River.

 With the exception of the landing of the pilgrims at Plymouth,
there is no event in history which so strongly marks the power of man's
independent spirit, his devotion to human right, and his faith in a
government based on the consent of the governed, as does this planting of
the sons of the pilgrims on the soil of Ohio.

 At the close of the revolutionary war this territory, although
largely unoccupied, passed into the possession of Virginia, and was
confirmed by the treaty of 1783, owing to the sagacity and foresight of
General George Rogers Clark, who, under a commission of the governor of
Virginia in 1778, captured the military posts of the British in the
Northwest, and secured the support of the French inhabitants there to the
American cause. The State of Virginia, therefore, included the territory
northwest of the Ohio River, as recognized by the treaty and by the house of
Burgesses, who in 1879 had declared that "All the citizens of the
Commonwealth of Virginia who are already settled there, or shall hereafter
be settled on the west side of the Ohio, shall be included in the district
of Kentucky, which shall be called Illinois County." The dispositions of
this territory of the State of Virginia, which on the 1st of March, 1784,
ceded it to the United States, withholding only some small reservations to
fulfill obligations already made, constitutes one of the most princely gifts
recorded in the annals of history.

  Hardly had the war for American independence ended when
Washington, with that broad comprehension and that wise foresight which made
him the controlling statesman of his age, urged upon congress the
establishment of a temporary government for the "Western territory whose
inhabitants were one day to be received into the union under republican
institutions of their own choice." Jefferson having presented to congress at
once provided that the states formed out of these territories "shall remain
forever a part of the United States of America: they shall have the same
relation to the confederation as the original states; they shall pay their
apportionment of the federal debts; they shall in their government uphold
republican forms."

 As an illustration of the simplicity and economical traffic of the
times we this day celebrate, and of the people to whose institutions I have
called your attention, I present to you extracts from a letter placed in my
hands by Chief Justice Waite, and written January 1, 1789, by Dr. Joseph
Spencer, of St. Cority, now probably Vienna, in West Virginia, about halfway
between Parkersburgh and Marietta, whose wife was grand aunt to the chief
justice. The letter is addressed to Richard E. Selden, Lynn, Conn. After
stating he desires to sell a parcel of land belonging to him in Lynn, he
says: "I will propose to you and the rest of my friends that if they will
take the land and let me have a yoke of oxen next spring, and so a yoke
annually till it amounts to the sum you suppose proper, you shall have it
free of any interest. It will oblige me very much."

  In 1774 Jefferson introduced a bill to organize the territory of
the Northwest, at the time of its cession to Virginia, but the bill failed
in congress. In it was included a provision "that after the year 1800 of the
Christian era there shall be neither slavery or involuntary servitude in any
of the said states, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the
party shall have been duty convicted to have been personally guilty." In
1785 Timothy Pickering, whose career in the continental army, in cabinet, in
house, and in senate stands among the foremost of his time for ability,
integrity, and courage, induced Rufus King, then in congress, to propose
once more the exclusion of slavery from the territories. Mr. King's
resolution, offered March 16, 1785, went to the committee of the whole and
was never heard of afterward. On April 26, 1787, a committee, consisting of
Mr. Johnson, of Connecticut: Mr. Pickney, of South Carolina; Mr. Smith, of
New York; Mr. Dana, of Massachusetts, and Mr. Henry, of Maryland, reported
an ordinance which was never voted on, and which contained none of the
sanctity of contracts; none of the sacredness of private property; none of
the provisions for education, religion and morality; none of the principles
of freedom to be found in the ordinance as it now stands in all its immortal
glory. Meanwhile the Ohio Company had been organized in Boston. In January,
1786, Rufus Putnam and Benjamin Tupper issued a call for a meeting of
organization, and the association commenced its work. The proposition to
purchase 1,500,000 acres of land at one dollar an acre was in those days of
bankruptcy and poverty startling. That it should not have been entirely
successful is not surprising. But half the sum proposed was raised , and
congress from time to time passed acts relieving the embarrassed company,
which secured in the end nearly a million acres of land in three patents
issued to Manassah Cutler, Robert Oliver, and Griffin Green in trust for the
Ohio Company.

  In securing the contract for 1,500,000 acres of land in the
Northwest, which was provided for by act of congress, July 27, 1787, and in
the passage of the ordinance of the territory of the 13th of the same month,
the controlling mind was evidently that of Manassah Cutler.

  The ordinance which satisfied him and his associates secures
religious freedom to all; prohibits legislative interference with private
contracts, secures the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus, trial by jury,
and of common law in judicial proceedings; forbids the infliction of cruel
and unnecessary punishments; declares that as religion and morality and
knowledge are necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind,
schools and means of instruction shall ever be encouraged; provides that the
territories shall remain forever part of the United States; makes the
navigable waters free forever to all citizens of the United States; provides
for the division of the territory into states and their admission into the
union with republican governments, and declares neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude shall exist within the territory. Many of the
provisions were drafted from the constitution of Massachusetts of 1780. That
the views contained in this ordinance occupied the mind of Cutter at this
time there can be no doubt.

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                    Compiled by Sharon Milich Kouns.


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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Sharon Milich Kouns
historical@wwd.net
October 11, 1998
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