FIRST SETTLEMENT. 131 



acted at the period, which we have under consideration; which 

 strictly prohibited all the citizens from entertaining any Indi- 

 an or negro, without informing the military commandant in the 

 vicinity, of the fact of the stranger being in the citizen's house. 

 All the males capable of bearing arms, were ordered to con- 

 stantly carry them, or keep them near by, even while attend- 

 ing public worship. By neglecting, sometimes, to obey this 

 order, not a few men lost their lives. 



We return to the feeble settlement at the mouth of the Mus- 

 kingum. 



As we have already stated, the Ohio company, began their set- 

 tlement, at the mouth of the Muskingum, on the 7th day of 

 April 1788, and named their town Marietta, in honor of the 

 then queen of France, Maria Antoinette. The settlement 

 was commenced under the superintendence of General Rufus 

 Putnam, a son of the Revolutionary General Putnam. The 

 first settlers were forty seven in number, emigrants from the 

 states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. That 

 season, they planted fifty acres of corn, and erected a milita- 

 ry work of sufficient strength to protect them from the Indi- 

 ans. During the summer and autumn of that year, they 

 were joined by about twenty more families. The first settlers 

 were mostly military officers and soldiers of the revolution, in- 

 nured to fatigues and hardships, and habituated to dangers and 

 difficulties of all sorts. They always went to their work, with 

 their guns near them, and had sentinels posted also near them, 

 on some high stump of a tree. Such were their watch towers. 

 On the 11th April 1789, settlements were begun at Belpre, 

 and Newbury; the first was fifteen miles below Marietta, and 

 the latter, twenty-five miles below, on the Ohio river. Strong 

 garrison-houses were erected, in each settlement, to which, 

 the settlers fled for safety, when attacked by Indians. Con- 

 siderable numbers lived in these houses. There were three 

 such houses in Belpre, the largest one was called the Farmers' 

 castle. Other settlements were made on the Muskingum river 

 also. Here these first settlers of this state were, fifty years 

 since, few in number, far distant from any other settlers and 



