Tupper visited General Putnam at his home in Rutland. After a night's conference they united in a call to all officers and soldiers of the late war who were entitled to lands in the Ohio Country, and to all persons who desired to become adventurers in that delightful region, to meet in their different counties and appoint delegates to a meeting to be held at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern in Boston, March 1, 1786, to form an association by the name of the Ohio Company. At this meeting articles of association were adopted. They state the design of the Association to be to raise a fund in continental specie certificates "for the sole purpose and entire use" of purchasing lands in the western territory. The fund was not to exceed one million dollars in continental specie certificates and one year's interest thereon. Each share was to be one thousand dollars, and each share was to contribute, in addition to one year's interest on the certificates, ten dollars in specie, as an expense fund. No person was permitted to hold over five shares.

In November, 1785, a detachment of troops under Major Doughty was sent to the mouth of the Muskingum river, and a fort, known thereafter as Fort Harmar, was established on its western bank. On January 31, 1786, the Delaware, Shawnee and Wyandot Indians by a treaty made at Fort Finney, ceded to the United States all their claims to the territory northwest of the Ohio river except certain reservations. Early in the summer of 1786 the surveyors commenced work on the seven ranges and finished in December following.

On March 8, 1787, a meeting of the Ohio Company was held in Boston. Two hundred and fifty shares only had been subscribed. The reason for the small subscription was the impossibility of securing a compact body of lands under the method of sale provided in the land ordinance of 1785. So certain were those present that all the shares would be quickly placed if a satisfactory purchase could be negotiated that General Rufus Putnam, General S. H. Parsons and Rev. Manasseh Cutler were chosen directors and were ordered to make immediate application to Congress "for a private purchase of lands and under such descriptions as they shall deem adequate to the purposes of the Company." The directors empowered General Parsons to

apply to Congress advising him that their preference was to go no farther west than a meridian line drawn through the western cape of the Great Kanawha river, but leaving him free to exercise his own judgment. General Parsons presented a petition in May. In conference with the committee, to which the petition was referred, he proposed a purchase of lands on the Scioto river. There was not a quorum present; no action could be taken then and General Parsons returned home. He reported his action by letter to other members of the board. It greatly alarmed General Putnam who had long been convinced that a location between the Muskingum and Big Kanawha rivers would comprise the best lands in the West. In 1773 he had met Thomas Hutchins, who had spent twenty years on the Ohio, the Mississippi and the waters of the great lakes, in the English service. He had seen his map before its publication and from his account, verified by subsequent inquiry, he had determined that this location comprised the best lands in the Western Territory, all things considered, for so large a tract as the Ohio Company required. His own engagements made it impossible for him to go on to New York where Congress was in session, and he insisted that Doctor Cutler should go and take charge of the negotiation. Putnam and Cutler united in a letter to Major Sargent, Secretary of the Ohio Company, who was then in New York, telling him that they could not on any account consent to the location proposed by General Parsons, and asking him to prevent any action by Congress until Doctor Cutler's arrival. Doctor Cutler started to New York June 24. He spent two days, en route, with General Parsons, at his home in Middletown, Connecticut, who made no objection to his mission but gave him every aid in his power. Doctor Cutler reached New York on the evening of July 5, and on the following day made formal application to Congress for the purchase of lands for the Ohio Company. He met the Committee to whom the petition was referred on July 6, 7 and 9, and on on the 10th had a long interview with Mr. Dane.

Congress was engaged in completing a form of government

* See letter General Putnam to M. Witham. Magazine American History, June, 1888.

for the Western Territory. Until that was finished no action was expected or desired upon the proposed purchase of lands.

The ordinance of 1784 had proved entirely inoperative. Many efforts had been made to devise a better one. The idea of a temporary government under direct control of congress did not take form until May 10, 1786, when an ordinance was reported by a committee, of which James Monroe was chairman, which provided for a governor, a council of five members and five judges, to be appointed by Congress, who were to select and enforce laws taken from an existing code until the population of a district reached twenty thousand, when it might be admitted as a State in the manner stated in the ordinance of 1784. No action was had upon this. Another ordinance in the same form, somewhat improved, was reported to Congress April 26, 1787. It had passed to a third reading May 10, but Congress adjourned without finally acting upon it. General Parsons had presented the petition of the Ohio Company for a purchase of lands on May 9. It may well be that it was at his request the vote on the ordinance was postponed until the principal men in the Ohio Company could have an opportunity to consider it.

No one else had the direct personal interest in it that they had. There was no quorum in Congress until July 4. Doctor Cutler again presented the petition of the Ohio Company July 6. It was referred to a committee consisting of Edward Carrington, Nathan Dane, Egbert Penson, Rufus King and James Madison. The ordinance for the government of the territory was at once called up and on the same day was referred to a committee consisting of Edward Carrington, Nathan Dane, R. H. Lee, Smith, of New York, and Kean, of South Carolina. King and Madison were in Philadelphia attending the constitutional convention, of which they were members. It will be noted that whenever the representative of the Ohio Company met the committee appointed to consider his petition for the purchase of lands he also met Mr. Carrington and Mr. Dane, two of the most influential members of the committee who were considering the governmental ordinance. A copy of the bill, which had passed to a third reading May 10, was submitted to Dr. Cutler "with leave to make remarks and propose amendments." On July 10

he returned it with his observations and proposed amendments and set out for a short visit to Philadelphia. On July 19 he returned to New York, and writes in his journal that he was furnished with the "ordinance establishing a government in Western federal territory. The amendments I proposed have all been made except one, and that is better qualified." It related to taxation. The principal change made in remodeling the ordinance was the addition of the articles of compact, six in number. Exactly what amendments Dr. Cutler proposed is nowhere recorded. That the remodeling was to accord with the wishes and interests of the Ohio Company* there can be no question. They alone were proposing a settlement. The original proposition of Colonel Timothy Pickering, which was the foundation of the company, provided that the settlers of the proposed new State should form for its government before removing to it a completed constitution, an essential part of which should be the total and irrevocable prohibition of slavery. They were asking for a "private purchase of lands" in violation of the existing law, and in preservation of their rights and their property they required that no law "ought ever to be made. or have force in the said territory" to interfere with or in any manner affect "private contract or engagements bona fide and without fraud, previously formed." The grants of land they asked for the support of ministry, of school and the establish

* That the Ohio Company was the moving power in securing the passage of the ordinance of 1787 sufficiently appears in the following contemporary testimony:

Nathan Dane to Rufus King, July 16, 1787: "The Ohio Company appeared to purchase a large tract west of the federal lands—about six or seven millions of acres - and we wanted to abolish the old system and get a better one for the government of the country."

R. H. Lee to General Washington, July 15, 1787: "I have the honor to enclose to you an ordinance that we have just passed in Congress for establishing a temporary government beyond the Ohio, as a measure preparatory to the sale of lands."

It is worth noting also that of the five territorial officials appointed by Congress under the ordinance of 1787 four were members of the Ohio Company. Governor St. Clair was a shareholder, Major Winthrop Sargent, the secretary of the territory, was secretary of the Ohio Company, and Judges Parsons and Varnum were members of its board of directors.

ment of a university, required to become effective, the mandate, to the legislature to foster religion and encourage the means of education. Good faith to the Indians, their only neighbors, was essential to friendly relations with them. The free use of the navigable waters of the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence was in the highest degree necessary to them.*

The governmental ordinance passed, Doctor Cutler pressed Congress for immediate action on the position of the Ohio Company. Much to his chagrin he found a considerable opposition. Colonel Duer, Secretary of the Board of Treasury came to him with a proposition from some of the leading characters in the city to extend the purchase and take in another company. Major Sargent strongly advocated it. After carefully considering the plan, Doctor Cutler assented. By diligent work on the part of all who were interested, Congress was induced to pass an ordinance July 23, empowering the Board of Treasury to contract with any person or persons for a grant of a tract of land bounded by the seventh range of townships on the east; the Ohio river on the south; the Scioto river on the west and a line drawn from the northern boundery of the tenth township from the Ohio, due west to the Scioto river on the north. Reservations were made of one section in each township for schools, one for the purposes of religion and three for future sale by Congress. Two entire townships were given for a university. The price was one dollar per acre cash or public securities at par subject to an allowance of one third for bad lands. Land warrants were admitted, acre for acre, in payment of not over one seventh the amount of the purchase. A payment of five hundred thousand dollars was to be made on closing the contract and the remainder when the exterior line of the whole tract was run by the Geographer or other officer of the United States. No deed was to be given until all payments were made. The Board of Treasury was authorized to give a right to entry upon a portion of the tract. This ordinance though in many respects stating terms more favorable than the friends of the grant expected, did not permit

* For a thorough and exhaustive discussion of Dr. Cutler's agency in forming the ordinance of 1787 see article in North American Review, April, 1876, by Wm. F. Poole, L.L. D.