Formation of the Ohio Company

The Marietta Intelligencer, April 9, 1859

Colonel Joseph Barker, in a note to Dr. Hildreth, says: In responding to your questions relative to the first settlement of this County, I shall have to state many occurrences not coming under my immediate notice, but which, from information on the spot, attended by such corroborating circumstances as were sufficient to produce in my mind a conviction of their correctness and truth.

In pursuance of a notice in the public prints of an address from Generals Putnam and Tupper to the officers and soldiers of the American Army, dated January 25, 1786, a meeting was held in Boston, March 1, 1786, who formed an association by the name of the Ohio Company, who appointed five Directors, a Treasurer and Secretary. Another meeting was held the 29th of August, which adjourned to the 21st of November, at which time they met at Brackett's Tavern in Boston. At this meeting the Directors and agents of the Company 

Resolved, that they would send out to the Muskingum four Surveyors and twenty-two men, six boat builders, four house carpenters, one blacksmith, and nine common workmen.

That the boat builders and men with the Surveyors be proprietors of the company; that their tools, one axe and one hoe to each man, and thirty pounds weight of baggage, be carried in the company's wagons, and their subsistence on the journey be furnished by the company.

That each furnish himself with a good small arm, bayonet, 6 flints, a powder horn and pouch, priming wipe and brush, half a pound of powder, one pound of balls and one pound of buckshot, be subject to the orders of the Superintendent, and in case of interruption from an enemy, to military command or forfeit their wages.

That Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, from Rhode Island, Anselm Tupper and John Mathews, from Massachusetts, and Colonel R. J. Meigs, from Connecticut, be Surveyors, and General Rufus Putnam be the Superintendent of all the business aforesaid, and he is to be obeyed and respected accordingly.

That the boat builders shall proceed next Monday, and the Surveyors rendezvous at Hartford the first day of January 1788, on their way to the Muskingum.

That this meeting of Directors and agents of the Ohio Company be hereby adjourned to the first Monday of March, 1788, to be held at Rives' tavern in the town of Providence, State of Rhode Island.

When the men and materials were collected, General Putnam moved on for the Muskingum. When near the mountains he sent Major White forward to Sumrill's Ferry, thirty miles above Pittsburgh, on the Youghiogeny with some boat builders to procure timber and commence building a boat. The company arrived about three weeks afterwards, but found nothing in forwardness for the boat. General Putnam employed Captain Jonathan Devol, who had been engaged in ship building in Rhode Island, to take the charge of constructing a boat forty-five feet long and twelve feet wide. The bow was curved, strongly knee'd at the corners, and otherwise substantially built and covered with a roof-like house.

On the 7th of April, 1788, as the boat was floating down alongside of Kerr's Island in the morning, Captain Devol said to General Putnam, "I think it time to take an observation; we must be not far from the mouth of the Muskingum, and directly they came in sight of Fort Harmar, but as the banks were thickly covered with trees, the mouth of the river was but dimly seen; they were too far advanced to make the upper point, so they floated on and landed a little below Fort Harmar, and sent the boat back across the river and raised their markee and tents off the uppwer point.