78 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [VoL. XXXII. 
host and parasite quite free from that air of marvelousness 
which still pervades popular accounts of similar phenomena. 
In July, 1787, Cutler went to New York to visit the expiring 
Continental Congress, and succeeded, largely by his personal 
influence, in securing favorable action on the proposed grant of 
land beyond the Alleghanies for settlement to a company in 
which he was interested. The evidence seems conclusive that 
his ‘hand drafted at least that clause of the “Ordinance of 
1787,” for the government of the Northwest Territory, which 
forever excluded slavery from its limits, and which has been 
regarded as, in its effects, the most far-reaching single piece of 
legislation in the history of the country. Thence he went on 
to Philadelphia, where the constitutional convention was in 
session. While there he visited Dr. Franklin, then eighty-one 
years old. His embarrassment on meeting so famous a man 
and the way in which he was put at ease by Franklin’s sim- 
plicity and cordiality, as well as the ill behavior of the great 
man’s grandchildren, are all delightfully described in his 
journals. His accounts of this visit and of that to Carpenter’s 
Hall mention especially the botanical books he saw. One 
morning he went with friends out to see Bartram’s garden, on 
the Schuylkill, already falling into neglect. On the return 
journey to his home he stopped at Bordentown, N. J., to call 
on Michaux at his nursery there. He failed to find the owner, 
but saw his garden and recorded his impressions thus: ‘“ What 
could induce Mechard to fix down in this awful, gloomy, lonely, 
miserable spot is beyond my power to conceive. I was never 
more disappointed, and regretted the pains I had taken to see 
the ill taste and judgment of this botanical Frenchman.” 
In December of the same year a party left Mr. Cutler’s 
house in Ipswich Hamlet with an ox-wagon bound for “ Mari- 
etta on the Muskingum,”—the first settlers of the Northwest 
Territory. In the party were two of Mr. Cutler's sons. They 
arrived at their destination in the following April, and a few 
months later were visited by their father, who may fairly be 
called the father of the settlement. He had driven across the 
country in a chaise from his home, and returned in the same 
way after a stay of a few months. He prepared the charter of 
