DISCOVERIES ON THE MUSKINGUM. 23 



general officer, but better known as the pioneer of settlements in Ohio, went with 

 one or two more to the southwest, and spent some months in exploring and locating 

 townships on the Big Black river near its junction with the Mississippi, about 

 latitude 33° north. Several hundred families are said to have left Massachusetts 

 and Connecticut to make the settlement ; but the grant was revoked by the king, 

 many of the emigrants sickened and died, and war breaking out soon after, the 

 enterprise was abandoned. 1 It would be a matter of curious speculation to deter- 

 mine what might have been the results if a New England colony had then been 

 planted so far to the southwest. We may at least suppose that one of the Putnams 

 would have been lost to the army of the revolution, and the other have given 

 priority in prominence to the antiquities of the Yazoo country, instead of to those 

 of the Muskingum. 



It was not till April 7, 1788, that the company organized by General Rufus 

 Putnam, after the Revolution, arrived at the mouth of the Muskingum to take 

 possession of lands they had purchased of the United States Government. That 

 day is commemorated by the Historical Society of Ohio, as introducing the first 

 organized white settlement in the region northwest of the Ohio river. 



The remarkable earthworks of Marietta are doubtless the first that were care- 

 fully surveyed, and of which drawings were presented to the consideration of 

 scientific men. Dr. Mannasseh Cutler, and General Rufus Putnam, are usually 

 cited as original observers of the remains among which the new village was located. 

 The precedence of discovery and description is, however, due to other persons, as a 

 comparison of dates will show. 2 During the years 1785 and 1786, letters from 

 officers in the army to their friends at home, containing allusions to Indian antiqui- 

 ties, were published in the newspapers of the day. The accounts were often 

 highly exaggerated, and gave rise to burlesque descriptions of wonderful adventures 

 and discoveries that affected the credit of well-founded narratives. General 

 Samuel H. Parsons, an officer of standing and character, from Connecticut, gave 

 to these observations an authentic character, in a communication addressed to 

 President Willard, of Harvard College. In his letter, dated Oct. 2, 1786, the 

 mound at Grave creek is described, and the works at Marietta are referred 

 to, and mention is made of a plan of the latter, which the writer had previously 

 sent to President Stiles, of New Haven. This communication was afterwards 

 published in the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. II, 

 1793, but without the plan. There is good reason to believe that the plan for- 

 warded by General Parsons to President Stiles is the same that may be found in 

 the Columbian Magazine of May, 1787. This was drawn by Captain, afterwards 

 Major Heart, and is accompanied by an elaborate description. In the winter of 

 1786, President Stiles had written to Dr. Franklin, requesting his opinion of the 

 fortifications at Muskingum, &c, described by General Parsons and others. It may 



1 MS. Autobiography of Gen. Rufus Putnam. 



3 Dr. Cutler, who with Winthrop Sargent had negotiated the purchase of the land for the Ohio 

 company, did not arrive at Marietta till August, 1788. — Historical Disc, of Rev. Thomas Wickes, 

 at Marietta, Dec. 6, 1846. 



