4 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



the fifth generation from John Putnam, the founder of the family in 

 America, who settled in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1634. Gideon's 

 ancestors for more than twenty generations had been landowners in 

 England and New England. He was the nephew of General Rufus 

 Putnam, the distinguished chief engineer officer of the American Army 

 through the Revolution, who in 1788, about the time that his nephew 

 was founding Saratoga, led a band of former officers of the Continental 

 Army and their families across the mountains and down the Ohio 

 River to establish at Marietta the first settlement made by Americans 

 in the new Northwest Territory, thus laying the corner-stone of that 

 vast structure of prosperous states which in the present century has 

 covered the entire Mississippi Valley with its teeming millions. He 

 was one of the Justices of the first Supreme Court of the Northwest 

 Territory, and was afterwards appointed by President Washington a 

 commissioner to negotiate treaties with the Indians, and later the first 

 Surveyor-General of the United States, a position he held for ten years, 

 during which he originated our present simplified system of govern- 

 ment land surveys. He filled many other positions of honor and 

 trust, and at his death in 1824 was, with the single exception of 

 La Fayette, the last survivor of the general officers of the Revolution- 

 ary Army. General Rufus Putnam was a cousin of General Israel 

 Putnam, "Old Put," the beau ideal of American soldiers, hero of 

 the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars, and one of the clarion 

 names in history. 



It may be of interest to add that among the English ancestors of 

 this family was Sir George Puttenham, who in 1589 published "The 

 Art of English Poesie, " one of the first and most important works in 

 English liteiary criticism. Modern representatives of the family in 

 the field of literature include George P. Putnam, the author and pub- 

 lisher, George Haven Putnam, Professor Frederick W. Putnam, and 

 others, and among jurists, Judges James Putnam and Samuel Putnam 

 of Massachusetts, and William L. Putnam of Maine. 



Charles E. Putnam thus started in life with the heritage of an hon- 

 orable ancestry. Delicate in constitution, studious by habit, genial 

 and social in disposition, gifted with a mind of the highest order, he 

 grew to manhood under the refining and broadening influences of an 

 unusually intellectual and social community. For Saratoga, though 

 but a village, was then for a portion of every year the home, as per- 

 hai)S no other American community has since been, of most of the 

 men lamous in our literature, politics, art, and commerce, with many 



