Ohio History Journal

ADDRESS OF HON. RUTHERFORD B. HAYES.

MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN - The good

fortune of the settlement at Marietta continues up to this

very hour. We can congratulate each other upon the priv-

ilege of having heard the eminent Senator from Massachu-

setts. We can congratulate him, that he has connected his

name for all the centuries to come with the most fortunate

colonization that ever occurred on earth. Whenever here-

after, century after century, this ceremony and celebration

shall be repeated, no one having anything to do, in a prom-

inent way, with it will fail to read and enjoy, as we have

enjoyed, the magnificent address of Senator Hoar. To be

sure it leaves the task of those who are to follow him a

a most difficult one. We can say that in all the annals of

the past no more fortunate history is to be found than that

which began at Marietta a hundred years ago to-day. We

can say that no body of men more fit by their origin, by

their ancestry, by their history, by their own experience,

and by their education can be found anywhere, ever have

been found, to establish in a new country new institutions

and make new States than those who did it here at Mari-

etta, a hundred years ago.

These last few days, Thursday evening and yesterday,

were almost entirely given up to Ohio. When anything

good is to be talked about it is very well understood that

the lion's share is likely to be claimed, at least, by the citi-

zens of Ohio. We have learned, and learned, I think,

with a peculiar pleasure, from Professor Putnam, of Harvard

College, that away back in the obscurity of the unknown

past that we can not penetrate, it was the long-headed

race that succeeded and captured Ohio; that it was the

short-headed race that were driven off from Ohio.

Of course, when we speak of the race who made this

first settlement we must remember that it was not merely

that magnificent district known now as Ohio, but it was the

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Address of Hon. Rutherford B. Hayes.     51

old Northwest Territory, extending from Lake Erie along

the boundary of Pennsylvania till it strikes the Ohio, passing

down the Ohio till it reaches the Mississippi, passing up the

left bank of the Mississippi, embracing the now beautiful

city of St. Paul, passing westward with the Mississippi

till it strikes Lake Itasca, away up and on to the Lake of

the Woods, due north to the forty-ninth parallel and so

following back by the course of the Great Lakes till it

reaches again the northwest boundary of Pennsylvania at

Lake Erie. This was the territory whose settlement began

at Marietta a century ago-thirteen degrees of latitude

down the Ohio to the Mississippi and up to Minnesota.

Five great States, and one-third at least of the sixth grand

State, Minnesota, belonged to the old Northwest Territory,

and look back to Marietta as the place where their founda-

tion began.

After all we have heard, I need not speak of its climate.

It is a place that embraces the best part of the temperate

zone in North America. In short, the best part of the best

continent of the globe belongs to the old Northwest Terri-

tory. A climate in which men and women in the coldest

weather of the winter and the warmest of the summer may

healthfully work all day; a climate in which, all the world

over, are to be found the most energetic people and greatest

institutions on the globe. My friend has left very little to be

said about it. He does not seem quite fully to have under-

stood one thing which has happened, but living where I live,

we understand it so very well that we begin talking about

it in the morning; we talk about it at noon; we go to sleep

talking about it, and we dream about it at night. There we

found, and I do not know where else they will not find in

the Northwest Territory, the best fuel the world ever saw.

The natural gas in the Northwest fully equals any other

gas. It makes the steam that carries the world along.

Then as to this people who settled Ohio, there is very

little more to be said about them. But there is one addition

I might make. Putnam and his followers were the best

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52   Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly.

educated men the world ever knew. For eight years, from

1775 to 1783, they went to school to George Washington.

He was the master; in his hands during all that period

were their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. All

who know anything of the education given to the soldier

understand that the character of the man who is leader dur-

ing years of danger and of trial impresses itself upon every

man, from the drummer boy up till in a few years they

come to have the voices, the character, and the very

virtues of the commander. Is it strange then that we

think of the people who settled Marietta as the best peo-

ple, for they were, indeed, but in miniature, George

Washingtons, all of them. But I am not here to speak

alone of the men--the women of that day had their

full share in all things. When I found that I was to be

one of those that were to follow the great speakers, using

the language of Mr. Lincoln, I began to browse in my

library to see what I could find that would not, perhaps,

be found by any one else, and I found a letter, a part of

which I will read to you. "Never," says one, "was the

energy of a genuine sympathy more nobly expressed than

by the matrons of the Quaker City in their relief of the

soldiers during the dreadful winter of 1780. Mrs. Esther

Reed, wife of General Joseph Reed, though feeble in

health, and surrounded by a numerous family, entered

with hearty zeal into the service, and was, by the united

voice of her associates, placed at the head of the society.

Mrs. Bache, daughter of Dr. Franklin, was also a conspic-

uous actor in the formation of the society, and in carrying

out its plans. All classes became interested, and the re-

sults were glorious. All descriptions of people joined in

the liberal effort, from Phillis, the colored woman, and

her seven shillings and sixpence, to the Marchioness De

La Fayette, who contributed one hundred guineas, and the

Countess De Luzerne, who gave six thousand dollars.

Those who had no money gave their labor, and in almost

every house the work went on. It was charity in its best

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Address of Hon. Rutherford B. Hayes.   53

form and from its purest source; the voluntary outpour-

ings of the heart. The women of all parts of the Colonies

emulated the patriotism and zeal of their sisters in Phila-

delphia." When we speak of the deeds of one hundred

years ago, we are speaking not merely of what Putnam

and his soldiers did, but of what the women of that day

did, who had to bear, as they always do, the greatest sor-

rows, the greatest afflictions and hardships of war.

Something has been said of the stock from which these

people came. My friend, the Professor from Cambridge,

taught us another idea on that subject in regard to himself,

that there are qualities in men and women that do not

always follow the direct line. The doctrine is substan-

tially this, that sometimes it will happen that when the

children's teeth are set on edge it is not merely because

the fathers and the mothers have eaten sour grapes, but

because the uncles and the aunts and cousins have eaten

sour grapes. So I have it to say that it is not the people

who settled here at that time that have done all this for

the Northwest Territory and for its noble institutions, any

more than the people of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Mary-

land, and, above all, Virginia, who have borne their part in

our settlement, and also the choice blood of Europe, the

German, the Scandinavian, and all the others who have

come into it. We have its population and prosperity, and

its institutions all nearer perfect than any community on

the globe ever had before.

It was my fortune, during what I must say were the

most honored, the happiest hours of my life, to serve very

largely with those nearest to me who were the descendants

of the men who settled Marietta. The counties of Gallia,

Meigs, Athens, and Washington furnished the larger num-

ber of the men with whom it was my fortune to touch

elbows during the great years from 1861 to 1865, and I

must testify to you that the men of the Second Virginia

Cavalry, and those of the Ninety-first Ohio, and above all,

the men of the Thirty-sixth Ohio, were in every respect

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54    Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly.

worthy of the men who settled Marietta. What did they

accomplish? My friends from Virginia, we return to you in

full the gift that you made to us in 1787. That liberty

which you secured to us by the Ordinance of 1787, we ex-

tended in the great conflict, from the Ohio clear to the

Gulf, as far as the flag of the Union waves, and over every

one of the fifteen States that for a hundred years and more

had been cursed by slavery.

Therefore, my friends, it is with great satisfaction that I

take part in this celebration, and I reverently thank God

that it was my fortune to be near the men, descendants of

the early settlers of Marietta, the early settlers of this part

of the Northwest, in the work not merely of administering

the ordinance in the country for which it was intended,

but of extending it over the whole of the United States,

and thereby making it the heritage forever of all repre-

sentatives of civilization throughout the world.

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