A LETTER OF RUFUS PUTNAM'S TO NEHEMIAH
HUBBARD, ESQUIRE, A NON-RESIDENT PRO-
PRIETOR OF MARIETTA, OHIO
Contributed by FRANK ANKENBRAND,
JR.
This letter, written by Rufus Putnam,1
the founder of the
city of Marietta, Ohio, gives but an
inkling of the many petty
annoyances that beset a man of vision.
Here are all the little
irksome things, the exasperating delays
and hindrances, the mo-
squito bites of adversity, such as
irritated the men who hewed
from the vast American wilderness the
cities and civilization of
the New World. One can look, if he has
vision, beyond the
wiry lines of ink and see the man and
part of his every-day life.
The old faded letter with its descending
s's and quaint spelling
conveys the true spirit of the times in
which he lived.
The few facts I have garnered about the
man to whom the
letter is written also bears out the
tragic roles, some major and
others minor, that these pioneers have
played in our history. I
have no way of ascertaining whether the
letter was written to
Nehemiah, Sr., or to Nehemiah, Jr., but
one might reasonably
suppose it was written to Nehemiah, Jr.,
as he was a revolutionary
war veteran and president of a bank. It
is my supposition that
the father, enjoying the twilight of his
days, was too old to be
taking an active part in landed
investments.
Nehemiah Hubbard,2 son of
Nathaniel Hubbard, was born
at Middletown, Connecticut, July 22, 1721, and died there March
11, 1811. He
married about 1747, Sarah Sill, who was born
January 2, 1728, and who died the same year
as her husband.
According to local and family tradition,
she was the youngest
daughter of Joseph and Phebe (Lord)
Sill, of Lyme, Connecticut.
He was a soldier in the old French and
Indian War. Rufus
1 Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American
Biography (New York, 1888), V.
2 Record of Service of Connecticut Men War of
Revolution (Hartford, 1889).
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