Ohio History Journal


BOOK NOTES

BOOK NOTES.

LIFE, JOURNALS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF REV. MANASSEH CUTLER, LL.D.

By his Grandchildren, William Parker Cutler and Julia Perkins Cutler.

Two volumes. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co. 1888.

The diary, correspondence and papers of Dr. Cutler ought to throw a

flood of light upon many events in the early history of the Northwest, and

upon the policy of the old Congress in organizing and providing for the

settlement of the region beyond the Ohio river. Portions of his journals

were published years ago, and have been read and re-read by students of

Ohio's history. The subsequent disappearance of the original journal and

many other papers of Dr. Cutler, the negotiations for their surrender and

their final recovery by his grandchildren are matters known to many in

America. That these papers have finally been arranged, thrown into con-

nected form, and, accompanied by much other matter throwing light upon

his life and career, are now published in these two volumes is something for

which careful students of Western American history may well be thankful.

Space does not permit a close analysis of the volumes in this column, but

they are not a mere memoir, a record of personal merits and doings of the

energetic Doctor.  While his personal career and character receive full

attention, the services which he rendered America, the Massachusetts

soldiers and the Northwest form the main theme. "It will be seen," says

the introduction, "that Congress and the army were the principal factors

[in the Western movement]; that there was a concert of action if not of de-

sign; that Congress sought to prepare the way for the occupation of the

Western wilderness, to make 'rough places smooth, and the crooked places

straight'; while the army, with their Commander-in-Chief in full support,

sought to retrieve losses, heal wounds and find repose by encountering new

risks, new hardships, and new dangers in laying deep and broad the founda-

tions of Christian civilization in 'new States' ' Westward of the Ohio.'

"The service performed by Dr. Cutler was in bringing into harmonious

action the lines of policy that were marked out by one party and cordially

accepted by the other."

The above passage fairly outlines the aim of the writer's, and the vol-

umes expand and illustrate the whole of the movements leading to the

ordinance of 1787 and the Western settlements. The preliminary move-

ments in Massachusetts, the formation of the Ohio Company, the pressure

brought to bear upon Congress, the framing of the ordinance of 1787, and

the settlements in Ohio, all receive careful consideration, and the influence

of Dr. Cutler in all those movements is fully shown. That his share in

some of these measures seems slightly overestimated, does not materially

lessen the historical value of the work before us. On the whole, the

volumes will be welcomed as being a decided addition to our knowledge of

the early history of the Northwest, and of the parts which Manasseh Cutler

took in those events.

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