Ohio History Journal

Back to results

THE NAMING OF MARIETTA

By JOSEPHINE E. PHILLIPS

"Our city is called Mari-etta," was the brief postscript by

which General Samuel Holden Parsons informed his friend,

Manasseh Cutler, of the important event.¹On the following

day, in a letter to his wife, he explained more fully, "Our city's

name, in honor of the Queen of France, is composed of her two

Christian names--Marie Antoiniette."2

In the manuscript record book of the Ohio Company,³ the

announcement was made with flourishes and broad capital letters.

It would be interesting to know whether Winthrop Sargent, Sec-

retary, had a gleam of triumph in his eye or a frown of fore-

boding on his forehead, as he set forth thus the proceedings of

July 2, 1788:

RESOLVED, That the City near the confluence of the Ohio and Mus-

kingum, be called MARIETTA.--That the Directors write to his

Excellency the Compte Moustiers, informing him of their motives in naming

the City and requesting his opinion, whether it will be adviseable to present

to her Majesty of France, a public square--

If the Secretary were a man less noted for his ill humor, we

might suspect a quizzical, tongue-in-the-cheek smile--now that

cat's out of the bag, how about this one?--as he hastily sharp-

ened his quill and continued:

RESOLVED That the reserved public square in the City including the

buildings at the Blockhouses be called, Campus Martius The elevated

square N??11. QUADRANAOU--N?? 19. CAPITOLIUM and

the square N?? 61. CECELIA--. And the great road, through the Covert

way to Quadranaou, be called S A C R A V I A--.⁴

Some who participated in the decisions of that meeting must

have gone back to their wood-chopping and cabin-building with

a feeling of uncertainty and suspense. Others would have

1 In William Parker Cutler and Julia Perkins Cutler, Life, Journal and Correspond-

ence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler (Cincinnati, 1888), I, 391, the name is spelled, "Mari-

ette." Charles S. Hall, Life and Letters of General Samuel Holden Parsons (Bingham-

ton, N. Y., 1905), 530, is quoted here.

2 Ibid., 527.

3 The manuscript Ohio Company Records are in the Marietta College Library,

Marietta, O. Edited with Introduction and Notes by Archer B. Hulbert, The Records

of the Original Proceedings of the Ohio Company (Marietta, Ohio, 1917), I, 50-1.

4 Ibid.

106

NAMING OF MARIETTA 107

heaved a firm sigh of relief, confident that the official christening

of the little settlement and the naming of its public squares--

whatever the motives--was a compromise measure that would

bring to a definite conclusion the heated arguments of the past

few weeks.

The exact "motives" that the Directors presented in their

communication to Comte de Moustier, French Minister to the

United States, we do not know.⁵The simplest and probably the

only one to be set forth in such a letter would be that of trying

to do honor to Her Majesty, to express gratitude for her assist-

ance in sending men and money in the dark hours of the late War

for Independence.

Beyond this, however, there is no doubt that there were

other motives, more complex and better left unexpressed.⁶Sev-

eral members of the Ohio Company, including Sargent, Parsons

and Cutler, named above, and Generals Rufus Putnam and Ben-

jamin Tupper, were concerned also in the Scioto Company. Their

agent, Joel Barlow, was on his way to France, or might already

have arrived in Paris, prepared to negotiate for the sale of their

pre-emption rights to lands adjoining the Ohio Company's

Purchase. If Her Majesty was properly flattered by having the

new city named after her, might she not once again be of assist-

ance? At her word there might be a loosening of purse-strings,

among those in Paris who still held purse-strings.

At any rate, the naming of the settlement was a matter of

large importance. This, undoubtedly, was the city destined to

become the capital of the territory, and of the first state to be

5 Ibid., 51, n. 60: "No record of this matter exists in the archives of the French

embassy at Washington." The reason may be found in a letter in Winthrop Sargent

Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, from Richard Platt, Treasurer of the Ohio Com-

pany, to Sargent, Sept. 19, 1789: "I have not yet presented the Plan of Marietta to

Count Moustier because he has been absent the most of the time since it came. . . .

But I mean soon to present it, as he is going to France this fall."

That the French Minister looked with disfavor on the activities of the Scioto Com-

pany and other speculators who were enticing the citizens to emigrate, is shown in his

Lettre . . . a l'Assemblee Nationale Seance du 2 Aout 1790. Imprimee Par Ordre de

l'Assemblee [Paris, 1790] (Copies in N. Y. Public Library and William L. Clements

Library).

6 "Though I find no documentary evidence to the point . . . I am disposed to think

that the name was designed as an additional attraction to French immigrants." Andrew

P. Peabody, "Manasseh Cutler," New Englander and Yale Review (New Haven, Conn.),

April, 1887.

108 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

erected from the Territory North West of the River Ohio.⁷In

this vicinity, perhaps on this very spot, might be located the seat

of the new national government. The possibility had been dis-

cussed fully in a pamphlet prepared by Manasseh Cutler to be

used as a prospectus for the Ohio Company Associates.⁸

In the previous year, before the final contract for the Ohio

Purchase was made, while the ink was still drying on the Ordi-

nance of 1787, the Associates had drawn up detailed plans for

their city and begun casting about for an appropriate name for

it. Sargent himself had taken up the matter with a person of

well-known literary accomplishments who happened to be visiting

in Boston at the time.

Michel-Guillaume Saint-Jean de Cr&vecoeur, who fortunately

preferred to be known simply as "St. John," was consul of

France for New York. He was author of Lettres d'un Culti-

vateur Americaine, the second edition of which had just been

published in Paris. He had visited the western lands in 1784,

descending the Ohio River and viewing the Muskingum and Sci-

oto valleys. His glowing accounts of the region were exactly

suited to the advertising needs of the Ohio Company, and he was

genuinely interested in their plans. His biographer says, "Among

7 Hall, Samuel Holden Parsons, 527: "This will be the seat of Government the

Governor having given us pretty clear intimations of his views on that hand." Two

years later the Governor had changed his mind, in favor of Cincinnati. Clarence E.

Carter, ed., Territorial Papers of the United States (Washington, 1934-), II, Territory

Northwest of the River Ohio, 1787-1803, 312. It was, in fact, several years before a

definite territorial capital was established. Carl Wittke, ed., The History of the State

of Ohio (Columbus, 1941-44), I, Beverley W. Bond, Jr., The Foundations of Ohio

(1941), 424.

8 [Manasseh Cutler] An Explanation of the Map which Delineates that Part of the

Federal Lands, comprehended between Pennsylvania West Line, the Rivers Ohio and

Sioto, and Lake Erie; confirmed to the United States by Sundry Tribes of Indians, in

the Treaties of 1784 and 1786, and now ready for Settlement (Dabney and Cushing,

Salem, Mass., 1787).

The proper location for the national capital was still a much debated question at

this period. Many favored a situation west of the Alleghenies in order to quiet the

jealousies between the several Atlantic States, and to hold the western settlers who were

being tempted to give allegiance elsewhere. Even after the matter had been decided by

Congress, we find the following observations, of an anonymous traveler, in the Wor-

cester Massachusetts Spy, Dec. 16, 1790:

"The regions west of the Alleghany Mountains, which were, but twenty years ago,

uninhabited deserts are now peopled and infinitely more civilized than were those

within the district you have lately fixed for the seat of your Federal Government, less

than half a century ago; and from what I have seen of the population on the waters

of the Ohio I do not hesitate to say that your children will live to see that seat of

Government transferred to the conflux of the Alleghany and Monongahela where Pitts-

burg now stands -- situation which embraces every advantage for that purpose. . . . This

will be a country of milk and honey, corn, wine and oil and the most important pass

between the Atlantick and western States; from hence all Mexico and Peru will be at

your command, and the Atlantick Middle States protected by her hardy sons from all

power of foreign invaders."

NAMING OF MARIETTA 109

the many details with which his letters of the summer and au-

tumn of 1787 are crowded, are those which deal with the newly-

opened territories on the Ohio.^"9

One may assume that it was with St. John's permission that

the Ohio Associates translated certain pertinent "elegant extracts"

from his work, and used them in the publicity which they were

giving out to the local newspapers, and in their little pamphlets

for the enrollment of subscribers.¹⁰

It is probable that Sargent knew, in a general way, of St.

John's flair for town-naming, and was confident that so fertile a

mind could produce something suitable for the Muskingum settle-

ment. It'is not likely, however, that he was acquainted with the

specific details of St. John's correspondence with Ethan Allen, in

1785, regarding the naming of new villages in Vermont. If so,

he must have been a little startled when St. John offered to him

one of the very names proposed in his earlier list to Allen, but

this time derived in a different way, to have quite a different

meaning.

Writing from New York, May 31, 1785, St. John addressed

Governor Allen in part as follows:

I would propose that the new town to be laid out on the first fall of Otter

Creek be called the town of Vergennes, or. Vergennesburg. That which is

laid out on the first fall of Onion River, Castri Polis--after the name of

9 Julia Post Mitchell, St. Jean de Crevecoeur (New York, 1916), 267.

10 Salem (Massachusetts) Mercury, Nov. 27, 1787. Box 18, Winthrop Sargent Pa-

pers, Department of Documents, Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, con-

tains a clipping from an unidentified newspaper, Wednesday, Oct. --, 1787, with this

same excerpt. It appears also in Articles of an Association by the Name of the Ohio

Company (Samuel & John Loudon, New York, 1787).

Reprints of the rare 1787 (Dabney and Cushing, Salem, Mass.) edition of the

Cutler pamphlet (Note 8, supra), as in Old South Leaflet, No. 40, and Cutler, Manas-

seh Cutler, II, Appendix C, do not contain the St. John material. It is, however, found

in the Peter Edes imprint (Newport, R. I., 1788), and in the French version entitled:

Description du Sol, des Productions, &c. &c. de cette portion des Etats-Unis, situee entre

la Pensylvanie, les rivieres de l'Ohio & du Scioto, & le lac Erie. Traduite d'une brochure

imprimee a Salem, en Amerique, en 1787 (Paris, 1789).

This latter returns to us in an English translation, John H. James, Ohio in 1788, A

Description of the Soil, Productions, Etc. (Columbus, O., 1888); also found in John H.

James, "Contemporary Description of Ohio in 1788," Ohio Archaeological and Historical

Publications (Columbus, O.), III (1890), 82-108. Some of this same sales material

was used by another promoter, a generation later, to lure Scotch and Irish to the fertile

lands of the Ohio, [Nahum Ward] A Brief Sketch of Ohio (Glasgow, 1822) and (Lon-

don, 1823). Ward hoped for French emigrants, too, and according to Peter G. Thomson,

Bibliography of the State of Ohio (Cincinnati, 1880), 84, a French translation of the

Sketch appeared in Paris in 1829, thus completing a remarkable cycle.

Contemporary writers gave St. John's Lettres d'un Cultivateur Americaine much

credit--or blame--for enticing French settlers to the "wilderness." Denial is made by

Robert de Crevecoeur, St. Jean de Crevecoeur, sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris, 1883),

304-5.

110 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

the minister of the Marine who had a very great share in all the naval

expeditions by which final independence has been obtained.

I would propose that the New Towns to be laid out should be called

Gallipolis, Rochambeau, Noaillesburg; that some of the new Districts be

called Targetsfield, Fannysburg, Harcourt, Ludovici Polls, Condorcet.

Brothersfield, Danville, Sophysburg. . . I would observe that the name of

St. John being already given to many places in this Country, it might be

contrived by the appelation of St. Johnsbury, but the most flattering honor

the Citizens of Vermont could confer on me would be to be naturalized a

citizen of that State along with my three children.11

At the time of writing this, St. John was about to sail for

France, where he hoped by proving the freeman status of him-

self and his children in this country he might have them entered

as lawful citizens of France, where they would be allowed to

inherit his and his father's estates. From L'Orient, July 17, he

wrote again to Allen, repeating the suggestion of Vergennes and

Castri Polis, and adding Liancourt, Fayette's Grove, Segurnum.

"I say the sound of all those names agrees very well with the

American language."12

He had arrived back in the United States late in June, 1787,

and wrote to Sargent from Boston, 25 Sept., 1787, as follows:

Having reflected on what we said and mutually agreed upon the other

day, respecting the names to be given to the new City which is soon to be

erected on the Shores of the Muskingum, I shall make bold to submit the

following thoughts to your Judgement-We observe in the Grecian & Roman

Histories the particular attention of those People, in never giving names

either to their new Colonies, or newly founded Cities, but what had some

reference to the Soil, accidental Circumstances, or an immediate One to the

Founder's name, such as Pompeia, Ptolomeus, Caeserea, Adrianopolis,

Sebastopolis, Herculaneum, Constantinopolis, &ca. Now the Settlement of

the Muskingum, being principally carried on & having been thought of, by

the Members of the truly distinguished and deserving Order of the Cincin-

nati. The elevated spot which most probably will be chosen for the site of

the new City, being now covered with remains of Fortifications, erected by

a Warlike & Civilized nation, it should receive a name, which might transmit

to posterity, some records of this extraordinary Circumstance, in commem-

oration therefore of this singular fact, as well as of its being undertaken by

military men, would you think the name of Castrapolis^12a an improper one?

The town of the Camps, or the Town erected on the spot whereon stood

several Camps.

All the combinations of Burq, Ville, Bourough &ca being long since ex-

hausted, I think it becomes a Company as enlightened as is that of the Ohio,

to leave the old [tradition] trodden path, & seek in the copiousness of the

11 E. P. Walton, ed., Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont

(Montpelier, 1873-80), III, 386.

12 Ibid., 388-9.

12a Castripolis (in the margin, in another handwriting).

NAMING OF MARIETTA III

NAMING OF MARIETTA III

Greek language, some new names, which to agreable sounds unite the re-

membrance of a singular Circumstance.

I remain with great Respect & Esteem

Sir Your very humble Servant St John13

Sargent replied very promptly to this letter. He was cordial

to the suggested name, Castrapolis, which was no longer honor-

ing Marshal de Castries, Minister of Marine, but he was worried

over the matter of declension:

Morning of the 26th of Sept 1787 Boston

I am my Dear Sir honor'd & obliged by your communications of the

last Evg. & will take the liberty of laying them before the Directors of the

Ohio Company at their next meeting.

That it is sensible to apply to Cities etc. Names as replete as possible

with proper Expression & that it is incumbent on us to preserve inviolate the

memory of the "ancient Town or fortified Camps" must be universally

acknowledged.

Castrapolis seems well adapted to the purposes of commemorating them

--the Greek Termination has (in addition to ancient use) the Recommenda-

tion of more harmonious Sound.

Severe critics may perhaps deem it a heterogeneous compound &

unclassic--but those Objections are superable--If Castra was in the Gen.

Case Sin. perhaps it might be as well & strictly grammatical & there appear-

ing but one great Camp or Fortification is in Favor of this small Altera-

tion. . .

We may suspect that St. John's Latin was a little rusty and

that he did not take kindly to criticism, from his answer next

day:

Dear Sir

Your observations very Int. & had not I thought that there were three

distinct camps I should have wrote it in Singular, Castropolis--but as you

who have been on the spot have reason to think that those three inclosures

form but one Camp, I beg you'd scratch on my letter to you, a & insert o

I shall be glad to be informed by you of what the company will say &

what will its opinion be. . . .

I wish you very good morning

27th 7bre 1787 St. John

Word spread rapidly among the interested parties in Boston,

for two days later we find Jeremy Belknap writing to Cutler:

"Did you hear the name of your new city? Castrapolis; Anglice,

Camptown, in allusion to the ancient fortress."14

Sargent presented the name in the form which he preferred,

Castripolis.¹⁵Why it was rejected is not known. Possibly the

13 The four letters quoted of the St. John-Sargent Correspondence are in the Win-

throp Sargent Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

14 Cutler, Manasseh Gutler, I, 332.

15 T. Wallcut, cit. infra, footnote 96.

112 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

hybrid nature of the compound offended the ears of General

James Mitchell Varnum or others of the Directors who had re-

ceived the formal classical education of the period. St. John's

disappointment is poorly concealed in his letter to Sargent:

New York 9th Jany 1788

Dear Sir:

. . . to thank you for . . . your pamphlet descriptive of the Compagny's

Land on the Ohyo, your kindness will be compleat whenever you Indicate

to me when I can get the Map--

My proposing the name of Castripolis was Intended only to yourself.

I was very far from Pretending to wish that the Compagny should adopt it.

I shall be Glad however to hear by what other name they will replace it &

likewise that which is intended for this new State, for much propriety &

elegance is expected from such enlightened Settlers as you are.

Please to remember your Promise of bringing along with you every

scrap & paper you can procure concerning the original Idea which gave Rise

to the formation of the Ohyo Compagny. I feel anxious to describe one day

or another the first & primitive steps the earliest Rudiments of a State the

Rapid Improvement of which will I make no doubt be very great

I am with unfeigned Esteem & Respect Dear Sir

Your very H^e Servt

St. John

The name, Adelphia, was suggested in place of Castripolis

but it seems not to have been definitely chosen, judging from the

letter, Dec. 3, 1787, which Cutler wrote to General Rufus Put-

nam:

Saying so much about conveying letters reminds me of the necessity of

a name for the place where you will reside. I doubt not you will early

inquire the meaning of Muskingum or you may meet with some other name

that will be agreeable. At present I must confess I feel a partiality for the

name proposed at Boston, and think it preferable to any that has yet been

mentioned. I think that Adelphia will on the whole be the most eligible. It

strictly means brethren, and I wish it may ever be characteristic of the

Ohio Company.¹⁶

Cutler could write this with real feeling. Already, as he

well knew, there was considerable ferment amongst the "breth-

ren." On this day he bade God-speed to the first band of pio-

neers, who had come to take an early breakfast and parade in front

of his home in Ipswich, Massachusetts, before setting off for the

western lands. "He had prepared a large and well-built wagon

for their use, which preceded them with their baggage. This

wagon, as a protection from cold and storm, was covered with

16 Cutler, Manasseh Cutler, I, 376.

NAMING OF MARIETTA 113

black canvas, and on the sides was an inscription in white letters

. . . For the Ohio at the Muskingum, which Dr. Cutler painted

with his own hand."¹⁷

In Providence, the Rhode Island shareholders outfitted their

contingent of workmen and set them on their way to Hartford,

where the two parties were to join. They had a label on their

wagon, too. Varnum wrote to Putnam, explaining: "Upon re-

flection and looking into the composition of the Greek language,

I find that the final a in the proposed name of our City will not

apply. It must be written Adelphi, as on the waggon."18

It may not be out of place to note here, parenthetically, that

a few years later the founders of Cincinnati were similarly faced

with the vexatious problem of case and number of their place-

name ending. One writer says, regarding this:

Filson invented the name Losantiville, which has been much ridiculed,

but it is doubtful whether the word Cincinnati, which is either a genitive

singular or a nominative plural, is not as absurd as the euphonious name

compounded by the Lexington schoolmaster.¹⁹

John Cleves Symmes appealed to his friend, Jonathan Day-

ton, for information that would clear the air:

Having mentioned Cincinnati, I beg, sir, you will enquire of the literati

in Jersey whether Cincinnata or Cincinnati be most proper? The design I

had in giving that name to the place was in honor of the order of the Cin-

cinnati, & to denote the chief place of their residence--and as far as my

little acquaintance with cases and genders extends, I think the name of a

town should terminate in the feminine gender, where it is not perfectly

neuter. Cincinnati is the title of the order of knighthood, and cannot, I

think, be the place where the knights of the order dwell. I have frequent

combats in this country on the subject, because most men spell the place

with ti. when I always do with ta. Please to set me right if I am wrong,

You have your Witherspoons and Smiths, and indeed abound in characters

in whose decision I shall fully acquiesce.20

Deep snows awaited the pioneers bound for the Muskingum,

that winter of 1788. Soon after crossing the Susquehanna River

they were obliged to halt. All hands were employed making

"sleads" and "slays" to which their baggage was transferred, and

17 Ibid., 329-30.

18 Varnum to Putnam, Jan. 2, 1788. Rufus Putnam Papers, Marietta College

Library.

19 W. H. Venable, "Ohio Valley Travelers and Annalists," Ohio Archaeological and

Historical Publications (Columbus), I (1887), 230.

²⁰ Beverley W. Bond, Jr., ed., The Correspondence of John Cleves Symmes (New

York, 1926), 142.

114 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

the wagons were abandoned. Putnam, however, did not forget

the name on the Rhode Islanders' vehicle. A few weeks later,

after much labor over the saw-pits at Sumrill's Ferry, the boats

were completed that were to carry them the rest of their journey.

The superintendent records:

Sat. [March] 29th Launched our great boat named the Union Galley.

She was intended to carry 24 Tun but as her construction is new her burden

is uncertain. The same day we launched a large walnut canoe about 2 T

burthen called the Kattling Tender, having before put in the River two

other canoes one called the Allen of about one T. the other Vessel of about

800 Burthen this with the Adelphi Ferry Boat of about 3 Tun make up

our Fleet.²¹

The story of the flotilla's arrival at the mouth of the Mus-

kingum on April seventh and of the pioneers' activity in surveying

and clearing the land and planting corn, is familiar. There may

have been some confusion in the minds of the settlers themselves,

whether their city was Adelphi or Adelphia. An anonymous

letter entitled, News from Ohio, was published in the Massa-

chusetts Spy, June 19, 1788. It was dated May 16, from "Adel-

phi" and "City of Adelphi" appears in the body of the letter. On

this same date Putnam wrote to Cutler a long letter from "Adel-

phia." This spelling appears twice more in the text. It may be

an error on the part of the copyist or it may be that Putnam, with

an opportunist's point of view, used the version which he thought

would be most pleasing to his correspondent.²²

In less than two months the name Adelphi, or Adelphia, was

forsaken and Marietta adopted. It does not seem likely that

the change was due to somebody's sudden whim, or that it would

be countenanced as such. If the Muskingum settlement witnessed,

between the sixteenth of May and the second of July, some spe-

cific occurrence which made the honoring of Marie Antoinette

seem particularly desirable, the event has not been found on the

record. If, however, certain individual shareholders of the Ohio

Company were already fostering an undercurrent of sentiment

that was eager to find permanent expression in thus commem-

21 MS. Diary of Rufus Putnam, Marietta College Library.

22 Cutler, Manasseh Cutler, I, 376-80.

NAMING OF MARIETTA 115

NAMING OF MARIETTA 115

orating--and seeking?--the French Queen's aid, Fortune now

played boldly into their hands.

On May 30, 1788, there arrived at the Muskingum a young

Frenchman named Antoine Saugrain. His stay was only eight

days, but during that brief time he may have laid an important

background of good-will and friendship, confiding high hopes for

the future of their colony, praise for their present accomplish-

ments, and recalling to the minds of the stocky veterans memo-

ries of a very pleasant event in which his Queen and his coun-

trymen had figured largely. Against such a background the

proposal to name their city Marietta would not startle; it might,

indeed, delight the pioneers.

Saugrain was a scientist sent out from France by his brother-

in-law, Joseph Ignace Guillotin, and others to look over the west-

ern country with a view to establishing a colony there.²3 He had

spent the winter in Pittsburgh, started down the Ohio on a re-

connoitring trip, been attacked by Indians and made a--literally--

hairbreadth escape to Louisville. He was now about to return

to his native land, to furnish an account of all he had seen and

done. He accepted General Harmar's invitation to dinner.

During the spring and summer of 1788 the little five-sided

fort, named for the general, seems to have been the scene of a

succession of dinner parties and entertainments. They won for

it more favorable renown, perhaps, than ever was accorded it on

account of the military accomplishments of its commandant or

soldiery.

The meal may have been as sumptuous as the one reported

a few days earlier by Colonel John May:

Had an elegant dinner. Amongst the variety was beef a la mode and

boiled fish, bear steaks, roast venison, and c. excellent succotash, salads, and

cranberry sauce. Grog and wine after dinner.24

A few days later the same gentleman speaks of the same

table as being as elegant "as any in Boston":

23 John Francis McDermott, "Guillotin Thinks of America," Ohio Archaeological

and Historical Quarterly (Columbus), XLVII (April, 1938), 129-58.

24 W. M. Darlington, ed., Journal and Letters of Colonel John May (Cincinnati,

1873), 59.

116 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Amongst the solids were bacon, gammon, venison tongues, roast and

boiled lamb, barbecued and a la mode, perch and fish, lobsters, and oysters.

Then, vegetables, green peas, radishes, and salads. Drinks, excellent wine,

spirits, and brandy and strong beer.²⁵

Saugrain does not furnish us with his menu, for May 31,

but he does say: "Intended going to see the ruin of an old fort

to be found a mile from here, but we remained too long at table.

The party is put over until tomorrow."26One may conjecture

that it was good talk as well as good wine that kept the guests

overlong at dinner. General Harmar was a genial as well as a

generous host. He seemed to Saugrain to be "an agreeable

man. He has been in France." We have here a clue to bonds

of common interest. The past, the present and the future, each

could furnish fruitful topics of conversation.

General Harmar's errand in Europe had been an important

one. He had been charged with carrying to France a triplicate

copy of the definitive treaty of peace between the United States

and Great Britain, following its ratification by the Continental

Congress.²⁷ There would have been Paris to talk about, then,

and the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

Saugrain, royalist in sympathies, had been away from home

nearly a year.²⁸Even before he left, there had been stirrings

of unrest that threatened trouble. Did Harmar, just down from

Pittsburgh, or Colonel Olney or Major Rice, newly arrived from

the seaboard, know how their Majesties were faring? What

news had the spring packet-boats brought from Europe?

Harmar and other veterans of the American Revolution

present at that table must have fallen to reminiscing, as they

talked of the King and Queen. One of them might well recall

that on that very day of the month, May 31, six years before,

there had occurred at Headquarters at West Point one of the

strangest celebrations that any army had ever indulged itself in.

25 Ibid., 63-5.

26 Eugene F. Bliss, tr., "Dr. Saugrain's Notebooks," American Antiquarian Society,

Proceedings (October, 1908), New Series, XIX, 22-38.

27 New York Independent Gazette & New York Journal Revived, Feb. 4 and Feb.

26, 1784.

28 Helene Foure-Selter, L'Odysee Americaine d'une Famille Francaise (Baltimore,

1936).

NAMING OF MARIETTA 117

It was not until April of 1782 that word, delayed by the

slow and wayward sailings of the ships that traversed the wintry

North Atlantic, had finally reached the New World concerning

the birth in October of a Dauphin to his Most Christian Majesty,

Louis XVI, and Marie Antoinette, and how in Paris the event

had brought forth great rejoicings and wild demonstrations:

Men stopped one another in the streets, spoke without being acquainted,

and those who were acquainted, embraced each other. . . . The artificers and

tradesmen of Paris spent considerable sums in order to go to Versailles in

a body with their various insignia. Their new and elegant dresses formed

a most agreeable sight. . . .

The chairmen carried a sedan highly gilt, in which were to be seen a

handsome nurse and a little dauphin. The butchers made their appearance

graced with good fat beef. Cooks, masons, blacksmiths, all trades were on

the alert. The smiths hammered away upon an anvil, the shoemakers fin-

ished off a little pair of boots for the dauphin, and the tailors a little suit

of the uniform of his regiment. The King remained a long time upon a

balcony to enjoy the sight.29

At West Point the officers felt that they must celebrate, too.

Camp life was becoming very tedious anyhow. Their War for

Independence was virtually over but the army had to be held to-

gether a while longer. Here was a project to which the officers

could devote their whole-hearted energies and best ingenuity.

Here was something they could understand. A little son had

been born. Many of them had little sons at home.

Appropriately, the army's French engineer, Major Ville-

franche, was named to take charge of preparations for the cele-

bration. That he was successful is attested by the warm letter

of congratulations which he received from his Commander-in-

Chief. Washington expressed "high satisfaction" over the "taste

and elegance" that had been displayed.³⁰Details of the brilliant

affair may be gleaned from private letters and the public press.

General William Heath described it in his Memoirs:

At least 1,000 men a day were employed, under the direction of the

engineers and other artists, in constructing a most superb arbor, decorated

with every emblem and device, descriptive of the occasion, and the alliance

between France and America, which ingenuity could invent; and perhaps for

any thing of the kind, constructed in the field, was never surpassed. . . . An

29 Jeanne Louise Henrietta Campan, Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie Antoi-

nette (New York, 1917), I, 193-5.

30 Elizabeth S. Kite, Brigadier-General Louis Lebegue Duportail (Baltimore and

Philadelphia, 1933), 242-3.

118 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

elegant dinner was provided, by order of the Commander in Chief; of which

the officers of the army, and a great number of ladies and gentlemen, in-

vited from the adjacent country, partook. Thirteen toasts were drank, an-

nounced by the discharge of cannon. At evening there was a grand feu-

de-joy, opened by the discharge of 13 cannon, three times repeated. The

feu-de-joy, being fired in the dusk, had a pleasing appearance to the eye, as

well as the ear; and was so ordered for the purpose. The army was not

formed in line, but each brigade was drawn up in front of its own canton-

ment, or camp, on both sides of the river; and thus were in a circle of

several miles circumference, in the centre of which, the Commander in

Chief, and the spectators were placed. After the feu-de-joy, there was an

exhibition of fire-works &c.³¹

Captain Jonathan Stone--who in 1788 was to become a settler

at Marietta--wrote with enthusiasm to his wife:

We have erected a building . . . that I believe is the greatest curiosity

in the United States. . . . We had the greatest public entertainment that

ever has been made in the field since we have had an army, Fully five hun-

dred people sat down at two tables all inclosed in the bowers. The elegance,

the good breeding and harmony and perfect good order of the numerous

guests was almost incredible. . . . In the evening a country dance was danced

in the bowers, and his Excellency opened the ball.³²

Joel Barlow, serving as an army chaplain but more actively

employed in completing his lengthy epic, The Vision of Columbus,

confessed in a letter to his wife that he enjoyed the camp's Grand

Dauphinade better than the Fourth of July celebration. He

claimed that it "exceeded all description" but suggested that she

read Colonel David Humphreys' account in the newspaper.³³

There we find that the dimensions of the outer bower were two

hundred and fourteen by seventy feet, and of the "interior saloon

of the Italian fashion," one hundred and ninety feet by fifty.

"Fifty-four columns of the form of palm trees, sixteen feet high,"

supported this saloon, while the outer columns were of the Doric

order, garlanded with wreaths and flowers and inscriptions that

hailed the perpetual alliance of France and America, and rejoiced

in the birth of the Dauphin.³⁴

31 Rufus Rockwell Wilson, ed., Heath's Memoirs of the American War (New York,

1904), 362.

32 Captain Jonathan Stone at West Point on the Hudson to Susannah Stone, New

Braintree, Mass., May 20-June 1, 1782. The present whereabouts of the original letter

is not known. A typescript copy is in my hands.

33 Theodore Albert Zunder, The Early Days of Joel Barlow (New Haven, 1934),

151-3.

34 New York Packet, June 20, 1782. For a lively description of the Dauphinade as

celebrated in Philadelphia, see Rufus Wilmot Griswold, The Republican Court (New

York, 1855), 19-21.

NAMING OF MARIETTA 119

If it seems that too much attention has been given to the

Dauphinade of 1782, and to the possibility that it was a topic of

conversation for the gentlemen around General Harmar's dinner

table, it may be pointed out that within a few days a remarkable

document was circulated among the Muskingum settlers, and

signed by thirty-nine of them. It provided for an elaborate ob-

servance of the forthcoming Fourth of July. That celebration,

from the accounts that exist, was a veritable echo of the Grand

Dauphinade. There was the bower, with a table sixty feet long

extending beneath it. There was a gormandizing public banquet

with a succession of toasts and cannon fire. There were a feu-

de-joie and fireworks in the evening. Had there been a few more

of the fair sex to participate, there would undoubtedly have been

a country dance.35

When young Saugrain first passed down the river, the latter

part of March, the pioneers had not arrived; the site of the new

city had been a wilderness. Now, on the thirty-first of May, the

sound of the woodsmen's axes came ringing across the Mus-

kingum. One hundred acres of corn had been planted in the new

clearing. Houses were being built. Plans were drawn up for

an elaborate stockade defense. Friendly Indians had been down

for trading but were now gone up to plant their own cornfields

and await the treaty which would give permanence to the present

peaceful relations. Saugrain might well write, as he did:

The city will be charming, considering the number of inhabitants who

are to come to inhabit it. It is the finest situation I have thus far seen for

founding a city. . . . This place is superb and one day perhaps this will be

the largest city of America.³⁶

This was the pleasing picture he was to convey to his country-

men, and to communicate to Brissot de Warville, whom he met

before his return to France. Brissot quotes him as saying, "A

man in that country works scarcely two hours in a day, for the

support of himself and family; he passes most of his time in

idleness, hunting or drinking."³⁷This bore out very nicely the

35 Josephine E. Phillips, "James Backus: Citizen of Marietta, 1788-1791," Ohio

Archaeological and Historical Quarterly (Columbus), XLV (April, 1936), 168.

36 Bliss, tr., "Dr. Saugrain's Notebooks," American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings,

New Series, XIX.

37 Brissot de Warville, New Travels in the United States (London, 1792), 260.

120 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

extravagant statement of Michel-Guillaume Saint-Jean de Crev-

ecoeur, quoted in the French version of Cutler's pamphlet, men-

tioned above:

If a poor man, who had nothing but his hands, should ask me "Where

shall I go to establish myself in order to live with the most ease without the

help of horses or oxen?" I would say to him, "Go to the banks of one of

the creeks in the Scioto bottoms . . . scratch the surface of the earth and

deposit there your wheat, your corn, your potatoes . . . and leave the rest

to nature. In the meantime amuse yourself with fishing and the chase."38

Saugrain did not remain at Fort Harmar long enough to see

the official naming of Marietta, or have his share of the Inde-

pendence Day banquet. He saw the outward tranquillity and

progress; perhaps he was unaware of the storms that were already

brewing and that were to bring unrest to individuals and to

groups in the Ohio Company. Those who picture the early Mus-

kingum settlement as a blissful Utopia where all was gay and

harmonious camaraderie are either glossing over the facts or have

failed to examine the personal correspondence and journals of

the years 1786-1795.

Some of the clashes were due to mere differences of opinion

as to procedure. Some were due to deep-seated personal animos-

ities. Others were caused by the suspicions, rather well-founded,

entertained by the Rhode Island faction under the leadership of

Varnum, in respect to those men of Connecticut and Massa-

chusetts who were entangled in the Scioto speculation--that bit

of landjobbing which could not be called a branch of the Ohio

Company but without which the roots of the Ohio Company could

never have taken hold in the first place.³⁹Finally, all the New

Englanders were suspicious of the non-resident New York share-

holders, yet felt obliged at all points to placate them.

In the fall of 1787 Cutler wrote regarding Colonel Richard

Platt, a New Yorker, newly elected treasurer of the Ohio Com-

38 James, Ohio in 1788 (Columbus, 0., 1888), 63.

George Washington was writing from Mt. Vernon on June 19, 1788, regarding the

Ohio lands (John Pickell, New Chapter in the Life of George Washington and the

Potomac Company, New York, 1856), 151:

"If I was a young man just preparing to begin the world, or if advanced in life,

and had a family to make a living for, I know of no country where I should rather

fix my habitation."

39 Theodore T. Belote, The Scioto Speculation and the French Settlement at Galli-

polis (Cincinnati, 1907), presents a general discussion of the Scioto Company.

NAMING OF MARIETTA 121

pany, that he "held a large sum in public securities, had interested

himself much in the Company and might probably be prevailed

upon to loan some of them to the Company if we should fail of

collecting the whole of the first payment by the time proposed."

He was equally frank regarding the new director, Varnum, who

was appointed, he says, "against the inclinations even of the most

of those who voted for him."

But we were so circumstanced as to be under the necessity of choosing

him. He represented upward of one hundred shares from the State of

Rhode Island. Several gentlemen of respectable characters from that State

requested that he might be appointed. We wanted the money, and must not

only have failed of it, but given umbrage and excited a powerful opposition.40

Three weeks later Putnam had addressed a forceful, almost

frantic letter, to overtake "Major Winthrop Sargent on his way

from Boston to New York," urging him to complete the purchase

arrangements in two separate contracts with the Board of Treas-

ury, and explaining in a long, breathless sentence:

Jealousys already exist & when the contract comes to be known (and

known it must be as soon as you return) I presume such complaints will

take place as will opperate much to the prejudice of the company's affairs,

for I have heard it said already, that if Mr. Cutler & Major Sargent on the

credit of the Company, have negotiated a purches in which they (the Com-

pany) are not to participate, they are making to themselves an unreasonable

advantage of the Company's moneys & are guilty of a breach of trust, for

you were not with the Company's money or credit to purches lands but for

their benefit, & that such conduct is no better than converting the Company's

property to your own use--whether this reasoning be right or not, is

imeterial it will have the same efect on the mind & may produce conse-

quences which we ought to avoid--therefore for these among other reasons

I wish to have the Contracts drawn Seperately.41

Colonel William Duer was Secretary of the Board of Treas-

ury. He advanced funds, in the name of the Scioto Company,

which made possible the first payment of the Ohio Company for

their Purchase.⁴²During the winter of 1788 he found it neces-

sary to assure Sargent:

Whatever stir Gen'l Varnum may make, your contract is perfectly fair;

and I will resist every attempt which that gentleman or his Friends may

40 Cutler, Manasseh Cutler, I, 331. Cutler to Ebenezer Hazard, Sept. 18, 1787.

41 Putnam to Sargent, Oct. 8, 1787, Winthrop Sargent Papers, Massachusetts His-

torical Society. Putnam goes on to outline the contracts as he would like to have them

drawn up. They correspond, almost verbatim, except for vagaries of spelling, to the

final contracts, and would seem to prove that Putnam rather than Cutler deserves

credit for their authorship.

42 Certificate, Richard Platt to Whom it May Concern, Nov. 13, 1788, Winthrop

Sargent Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

122 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

122 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

desire to affect it. It is however eligible in all great Transactions to make

some sacrifice to preserve Peace: when it is certain that it can be effected--

I have therefore no objection for myself and Friends, to vest you with the

authority of disposing of one thirtieth of the Share held under my direction

for that Person and his friends, should you after mature consideration judge

it necessary.

I must however again impress on you what I think I have often men-

tioned that G:V: is one of the last men I would wish in any manner to

commit myself to; though therefore for the good of the Concern I am dis-

posed to make a sacrifice of interest, the Relation I stand, in this affair.

must not be known to him.⁴³

It does not seem likely that Varnum accepted a share in the

Scioto concern, even if it was offered to him. An important

meeting of the Ohio Company was held the following week in

Providence, right in the enemy's territory, as it were. Cutler

reported later that he had given Varnum an explanation there, of

how much the Ohio Company had benefited from its connection

with the Scioto.44 Varnum may have been convinced, or at least

pacified, for the time being, but he would find other things to

be disturbed about.

When the Providence meeting broke up, the agents went

their several ways: Barlow went to Boston first, for further in-

structions on Scioto matters, then to New York, whence he would

set sail for France. Parsons, May and Sargent headed for the

Muskingum, by way of New York, and arrived May 26.45 Var-

num went as far as Baltimore by sea, so was longer en route.

May reported Varnum's arrival on June 5, "with about forty

souls in company." Two days later General Varnum and his

party were "making difficulties about the 8 acre lots, not being

drawn contiguous to the city; also with respect to the Scioto

purchase," and the commentator foresaw difficulties.⁴6

The 8-acre lots had been drawn for with much ceremony at

an all-day session of the Providence meeting.47 The surveys for

43 Duer to Sargent, Feb. 27, 1788, ibid.

44 Cutler to Sargent, Nov. 19, 1788, cit. infra, footnote 91. The highlights of the

Ohio Company's activities, financial and otherwise, are presented in Charles Swain Hall,

Benjamin Tallmadge, Revolutionary Soldier and American Businessman (New York,

1943), 119-51.

45 MS. Journal of James Backus, Woodbridge-Gallaher Collection, Department of

Documents, Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society.

46 Darlington, ed., Journal and Letters of Colonel John May, 63.

47 Hulbert, ed., Records of the Ohio Company, I, 38-9.

NAMING OF MARIETTA 123

them were not completed for several weeks. Putnam explains

the situation that arose:

Before our arrivel at the Muskingum . . . none of the Directors or

agents had any correct Idea of the quality of the Lands they had purchased

especially of the face of the country about the Muskingum at & neer its

confluence withe the ohio, where they ditermined to Lay out there Capital,

to consist, including commons, of four thousand acres "and contiguous to

this, one thousand Lots of eight acres each, amounting to eight thousand

acres"--

. . . How disappointed were thay to find that not a Director or agent had

drawn an 8 acre lot so neer the town as to be able to cultivate it without

much hazard. some remedy they ditermined on & resolved on the foolish plan

to divide three thousand acres of the commons into three Acre Lots.⁴⁸

"Warm debates," another diarist calls the discussions--on

the very day, as it happens, that Saugrain was resuming his

journey up-river. He continues with the details of a meeting

held June 9, "by order of 2 directors." This seems to have been

an unofficial meeting, called in haste, whose deliberations were

immediately acted upon. They are recorded as of July 2, the

date to which the Providence meeting had been adjourned.⁴⁹

The agents' "foolish plan" was to appropriate "the parsonage lot,

to enlarge the town lots to the original plan of 180 by 90 feet, to

lay out the commons & above lot 1000 three Acre Lots to be

drawn for as quickly as possible for the convenience of settlers

come & coming on."⁵⁰On Friday, the thirteenth, the same

diarist reports: "Completed drawing for 3 acre lotts about half

after eight this evening. Assisted constantly since Tuesday."

Putnam remarks that, from this new and laborious attempt

to equalize the division of land, "they were as unfortunate as

before, none of them were accommedated."⁵¹

The naming of Marietta is set against this background of

quarreling and complaint. It is Varnum, the trouble-maker, who

48 Rowena Buell, ed., Memoirs of Rufus Putnam (Boston and New York, 1903),

106.

49 Hulbert, ed., Records of the Ohio Company, I, 45-54.

50 MS. Journal of James Backus, Woodbridge-Gallaher Collection, Department of

Documents, Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society.

51 Buell, ed., Rufus Putnam, 106.

124 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

seems everywhere to be given the credit for proposing the name.⁵²

It is hard to reconcile this with Varnum's known hostility to the

Scioto Company and the evident intention that the naming should

forward the interests of that company, unless, as has been hinted

earlier in this article, a compromise was involved.

One must take into account the strength of the Order of

Cincinnati at this time, and remember the classical allusions in

which it delighted. It is said that seventy-nine shareholders of

the Ohio Company were members of this organization. Many

of them were at Muskingum at this time.⁵³Perhaps Varnum

was willing to sponsor Marietta as the name of the city if his

colleagues would accept his ideas about the public squares. Let

them carry into perpetuity the glorious Roman names, Campus

Martius, Sacra Via, Quadranaou, Capitolium!

Granted, then, that Varnum actually proposed the name, it

does not necessarily follow that it originated with him. Whose

idea was it, in the first place?

It is circumstantial evidence and proof of nothing, but Colonel

May immediately began to use the name. It seemed to come

naturally to him, to employ it. Not so, with the most of the

others. When on July 16 the inhabitants made formal reply

to the welcoming speech of their newly arrived Governor, Arthur

St. Clair, they dated it, not from Marietta, but from "East bank

of Muskingum."⁵⁴Muskingum was the favorite name. As late

as November, 1789, St. Clair writes of starting for "Muskingham,"

and later on in the same letter uses Muskingham, then crosses it

out and puts in Marietta.⁵⁵Cutler's journal of the autumn of

52 In Catholic Historical Review (Washington, D. C.), II, (1916-17), Rev. Dr.

Guilday, "A Vanished Bishopric of Ohio," in a footnote says:

"Marietta received its name from General Farnum [sic] who planned the future

French city on the Ohio in July 1788 in honor of Marie Antoinette.

"[Brissot] De Warville says of Farnum (Nouveau Voyages dans les Stats Unis 1788

in 3 volumes) vol. II, p. 423: 'Il portait si loin sa haine contre les Anglais, qu'il

voulait qu'on ne parlat plus que grec dans les Etats Unis!'"

Elkanah Watson, Men and Times of the Revolution (New York, 1856), 335;

Platt to Sargent, Nov. 13, 1788, cit. infra, footnote 92; Thomas Wallcut Papers, cit.

infra, footnote 96.

53 Mrs. L. A. Alderman, The Identification of the Society of the Cincinnati with the

First Authorized Settlement of the North West Territory at Marietta (Marietta, O.,

1888), 6-14.

54 Signed Document, Sargent Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society; Carter, ed.,

Territorial Papers, Northwest Territory, II, 133.

55 St. Clair to Sargent, Winthrop Sargent Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

NAMING OF MARIETTA 125

1788, even after he had visited Marietta, calls the place Mus-

kingum.⁵⁶Putnam is still using Muskingum in the summer of

1790.57 James Backus' correspondence of 1788 and 1789 shows

the same preference.⁵8

The fact that Colonel May accepted the new name so readily

led the writer to a re-examination of his Journal for a possible

clue to the originator of the name. May was in New York, on

April 21, concluding some business with the treasurer of the Ohio

Company. On the 22nd he wrote:

This day having a little more leisure, took a ramble about the city.

Went to the Congress Chamber. The greatest curiosity I saw was

pictures of their Majesties, the Royal King and Queen of France, -- their

appearance truly elegant and noble. No painting can excel them. . . . Then

I visited M St. John. Mr. Temple, General Knox, and went hence to my

quarters.⁵⁹

Here is a familiar name, St. John! Is it not conceivable

that the man who invented Gallipolis in 1785, and re-invented

Castripolis in 1787, was well able to contrive Mari-etta in 1788?

It would be interesting to know what other visitors St. John had

that spring, from among the Ohio Associates, and whether in

their eagerness to soothe his feelings, wounded by the rejection of

Castripolis, they may have assured him that a new suggestion from

him would be pushed to adoption.60

There is, as it happens, yet another thread of evidence that

plans for naming the city after Marie Antoinette were well-

formulated long before the July 2 meeting. That thread is held

by Joel Barlow, already mentioned as agent of the Scioto Com-

pany, and it is logical to believe that it, too, leads to St. John's

doorstep. Barlow was almost certainly a caller at the French

consulate, obtaining all the information he could about Paris,

seeking letters of introduction and asking advice on more per-

sonal matters.

56 Cutler, Manasseh Cutler, I, 434.

57 Ibid., 464.

58 James Backus MSS. in Woodbridge-Gallaher Collection, Department of Docu-

ments, Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society.

59 Darlington, ed., Journal and Letters of Colonel John May.

60 There are collections of St. Jean de Crevecoeur's letters in the Franklin Papers

at the American Philosophical Society, and in the Jefferson Papers and William Short

Papers in the Library of Congress. An examination of these might yield information

on this topic.

126 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

126 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Those who are puzzled that Joel Barlow, a poet, should

have been chosen to go to France to sell lands, overlook the fact

that Joel Barlow, the poet, had a poem which he was very eager

to publish and sell in France. In 1785, with a good eye for

business, he wrote a long and flowery letter dedicating his Vision

of Columbus to His Most Christian Majesty, Louis XVI.61

Nearly two years elapsed before he was rewarded by the King's

acceptance of the dedication--to the gracious accompaniment of

money for twenty-five copies of the poem--so that he could

actually put the book to press, in the United States.⁶²

Meanwhile Barlow had submitted the manuscript to a friend

in England who promptly discouraged him from expecting a wel-

come for it there. Not only the dedication but other "encomiums

on France and the American army, and the censures of this

country" were such that no bookseller would want to take a

chance on it. He suggested, instead, that it might be published

in Paris.⁶³It was hardly a new idea to the poet.

Barlow's ship was held up several days in New York Harbor,

waiting for a favorable wind, but by the day young Saugrain

was dining so bountifully at Fort Harmar, it was well out to

sea.⁶⁴ By that time, "all food alike was indifferent" to Barlow.

He was suffering exceedingly from seasickness, bedbugs and

fleas, all of which remained with him all the way to Havre.⁶⁵

Under these circumstances he probably had slight interest

in the Vision of Columbus which he carried in his portfolio, or

even in the "²⁵⁰ pounds Sterly in Purse, and all the necessary

papers,"⁶⁶that had been presented to him by the Scioto Company.

Among these papers was the Cutler pamphlet⁶⁷which was to be

translated into French and appear as a prospectus, entitled De-

61 With the MS. copy of the Vision of Columbus, in New York Historical Society

Library.

62 Zunder, Joel Barlow, 161, 186, 191.

63 The poem did appear in a London edition, late in 1787 (ibid., 230); and in

1793 it was brought out in Paris (ibid., 307).

64 Letter, Barlow to his wife, May 24, 1788, in Harvard College Library, Barlow

MSS., AM 507, Box 1.

65 Charles Burr Todd, Life and Letters of Joel Barlow (New York, 1886), 65-8;

Theodore Albert Zunder, "Joel Barlow and Seasickness," Yale Journal of Biology and

Medicine (New Haven, Conn., July 1929), I, 385-90.

66 Platt to Sargent, June 14, 1788, Winthrop Sargent Papers, Massachusetts His-

torical Society.

67 Footnote 8, supra.

NAMING OF MARIETTA 127

scription du Sol, des Productions &c. &c. de cette portion des

Etats-Unis, situee entre la Pensylvanie, les rivieres de l'Ohio & du

Scioto, & le lac Erie.⁶⁸ He had also Thomas Hutchins' map of the

upper Ohio region, and this, too, was to be translated for the use

of prospective emigrants.

The map was especially important. At least two forms of it

were circulated in France, and these give evidence about the

naming of the city. One version of the map shows the Seven

Ranges, the Ohio Company's Purchase and the Scioto lands.

Locations of coal, salt, lead mines, etc., are given as on the Hutch-

ins map.⁶⁹No cities are shown on it. The other version shows

the divisions of land, with the townships numbered in the section

devoted to the Scioto acquisition. Three settlements are also

marked: Premiere Ville, directly opposite the mouth of the Great

Kanawha; Village, at the mouth of the Hockhocking, and V. de

Mariana at the mouth of the Muskingum. A third form of the

map may have appeared, for there is a sketch of one which seems

identical to the second version, just described, except that it has

Marianne, in the place of Mariana.⁷⁰This may have been a

copyist's error.

Upon first thought one would consider that the map without

cities was of earlier date. The sites shown on the other exactly

correspond, however, with the projected cities mentioned in the

Cutler pamphlet: "The centre of this State will be between the

Scioto and Hochocking. The seat of government of one of these

States will very probably be at the mouth of one of these two

rivers."⁷¹

It seems possible that the unnamed map may have come

later, perhaps in 1790, when Barlow was selling to the Company

of the Twenty-four or their successors. By that time he might

have found that correction would be necessary regarding the

Premiere Ville location⁷²and that the Hockhocking Village was

68 Thomson, Bibliography of the State of Ohio.

69 A copy of the Thomas Hutchins map, published in London, 1778, is in the

Marietta College Library.

70 Belote, Scioto Speculation.

71 James, Ohio in 1788, 55.

72 Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio (Columbus, 1908), 1, 672.

128 OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

NAMING OF MARIETTA 129

130 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

130 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

imaginary. As to the Muskingum settlement, he had better play

safe. Marie Antoinette was not looked upon with favor by some

of his prospective purchasers, and a town named in her honor

might not help sales, now.

There is another reason for attributing priority to the Mar-

iana map. Its title reads: Plan des Achats des Compagnies de

l'Ohio et du Scioto, the last six words corresponding to those in

the title of the pamphlet, mentioned above. On the plain map

the heading has "de l'Ohio et de la Scioto," a correction in the

gender of the river.

In August of 1789, Barlow wrote, "I have not rec'd a Syl-

lable since I have been in Europe on the subject of my Mission."73

Later he claimed that for two years he had not heard from his

principals in the United States and did not know, "indeed whether

the little settlement began by the Ohio Company . . . still existed

or not.^"74

This silence from across the water may account for Mariana

in place of Marietta, if we follow the hypothesis that Barlow

knew before he set sail on May 25 that the city was to be named

for the Queen. Mariana may have seemed to him the logical

compounding of syllables, or it may have been the name first

agreed upon--to be changed, perhaps in one of those "heated

disputes" along the Muskingum, after he had embarked. On

the other hand, he may simply have been misinformed, possibly

by Brissot or Saugrain, or other returned traveller, proof of which

has not yet come to light.⁷⁵

Mariana was used elsewhere than on the map. In an agree-

ment with one of the Society of the 24, "Mr. Barlow binds him-

self in the names of his co-partners, Generals Parsons, Putnam,

and Tupper, and Major Sargent, living at Marianna."76 The

73 Barlow to Sargent, August 25, 1789, Winthrop Sargent Papers, Massachusetts

Historical Society.

74 Barlow to Col. Benjamin Walker, Paris, 21 Dec. 1790, in Theodore T. Belote,

"Gallipolis Papers," Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, Quarterly Publication

(Cincinnati, 1907), 71-81.

75 Brissot was back in Paris by Jan. 31, 1789, on which date he wrote to Duer

(Scioto Papers, New York Historical Society). Saugrain was in France by Feb. 21,

1789 (McDermott, "Guillotin Thinks of America," 157). Announcement had been

made in the press before they left America; e.g. Massachusetts Centinel, Oct. 1, 1788.

76 Cutler, Manasseh Cutler, 1, 504.

NAMING OF MARIETTA 131

NAMING OF MARIETTA 131

name is used twice more in this document, with the editors ex-

plaining in a footnote: "He meant Marietta."

In several of the French letters which have been preserved,

Mariana is used.⁷⁷It is complained about, too. An unsigned

letter from some of the acquerirs, waiting at Alexandria, urge

"hastening our arrival at Mariana, which is called in this country

Marietta." It was just another thing that hadn't turned out as

they expected.

It was well that the name Adelphi had been given up, but

if the adoption of Marietta was in the nature of a compromise,

to restore harmony, its effects were as short-lived as is often the

case with compromises. Mind was soon arrayed against mind,

and group against group. Varnum was still in the forefront of

the disagreements.

It is easy to think of Varnum as a crabbed old man. But he

was not old. He was not yet forty. Some of his intractability

may be forgiven on the basis that his brilliant law career was

being interrupted by a lung complaint, the dread "consumption."

He had, in fact, only six months to live. From his pen came one

of the most poignant love letters of all time, addressed to his wife

shortly before his death.⁷⁸

Varnum and Parsons did get together enough to oppose Gov-

ernor St. Clair jointly, immediately upon the latter's arrival in the

Territory.⁷⁹They both signed a Memorial to Congress regarding

payment of their salaries, too.⁸⁰On many points, however, they

failed of agreement. Concerning a proposed new law in which

their office as judges was to figure, "Brother Varnum refuses his

assent," says Parsons,

. . . unless I agree to a clause expressly declaring that there is no pri-

ority between him and me (being appointed in one day) and that in con-

ducting the Court and in every exercise of authority there is a rotation

between him and me. This I shall never agree to. I suppose myself primus

inter pares, and have no right to cede this priority to any man.⁸¹

77 Scioto Papers and Duer Papers, New York Historical Society.

78 Samuel P. Hildreth, Biographical and Historical Memoirs of the Early Pioneer

Settlers of Ohio (Cincinnati, 1852), 180-3. Also in Watson, Men and Times of the

Revolution, 335-6, and in contemporary newspapers and periodicals.

79 William Henry Smith, Life and Public Services of Arthur St. Clair (Cincinnati,

1882), II, 64-78.

80 Carter, ed., Territorial Papers, Northwest Territory, II, 124-5.

81 Hall, Parsons, Parsons to William S. Johnson, Nov. 24, 1788, p. 535.

132 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Parsons himself came in for nearly as much enmity, and more

suspicion, from his brethren. He was known to be largely inter-

ested in Connecticut's Western Reserve land, the early develop-

ment of which might slow emigration to the Muskingum.⁸²Platt

refers to his "Rascallities . . . about certain Sales of Lotss &c."⁸³

In the same letter he encloses to Sargent a letter just received

from Barlow, "but, for your eye only. Damn Parsons, give him

no kind of information about it." Evidently Parsons was being

excluded from some of the Scioto secrets, as he had been from

the Ohio Company's; this in spite of the fact that he had in gen-

eral been cooperative and offered both groups much sound ad-

vice.⁸⁴ It should be remembered that Parsons was one of the few

who had visited the Ohio Country prior to 1786; that much of

the groundwork for establishing military and civil government of

the territory had been plotted out by him;85 also, that in the early

plans of the Ohio Company he had been slated for Governor of

the Northwest Territory, but had graciously withdrawn after

Cutler felt obliged to make other arrangements.86

On Aug. 14, 1788, the date to which the July 2 meeting had

been adjourned, there was an amusing, almost farcical, occurrence

in the newly-named city. It appears that two Rhode Islanders,

agents of the Ohio Company, arrived promptly--and alone--at

the stated hour, conducted their business which involved simply

the matter of voting adjournment to the first Wednesday in De-

cember, and dismissed themselves. Somewhat tardily, but still

"within the hour," the other agents appeared, learned what had

happened and were chagrined and nonplussed, not to mention

angry. They decided to adjourn until afternoon. At that time

they reassembled, called in Colonel Crary and Major Corliss, and

with only those two voices dissenting, they passed a motion that

82 Cutler and Putnam to Sargent, May 30, 1787, Winthrop Sargent Papers, Massa-

chusetts Historical Society; Carter, ed., Territorial Papers, Northwest Territory, II, 212.

83 Platt to Sargent, Nov. 15, 1789, Winthrop Sargent Papers, Massachusetts His-

torical Society.

84 Parsons to Sargent, August 24, 1787, ibid.

85 William Samuel Johnson Papers, Library of Congress.

86 Cutler, Manasseh Cutler, I, 298, 313. See also, Putnam to Cutler, Aug. 18,

1788, cit. infra, footnote 88.

NAMING OF MARIETTA 133

the next meeting should be held on the first Wednesday of No-

vember.⁸⁷

Putnam was obliged to write urgently to Cutler:

Marietta August ye 18th 1788

My dear Frind

in my last letter I mentioned the necessity of your being here at the

meeting of the proprietors & agents on the First Wed. of December next

especially called as you will see by the proceedings of the agents here and

which are forwarded by Colo. Crary in order for publication. but I must

now request you by all means to be here by the first Wednesday of Novem-

ber to which time our agents meeting stand adjourned that if possible you

procure some person here or to someone by that time authorized to represent

Mr. Harriss agency and Gen Jacksons, my reason for pressing you in this

matter are these, it is the avowed design of Genl. Varnum, Col Crary &

Major Corlis to oversett the Sioto Company somehow or other and you

may rest assured they will leve no stone un turned to effect their purposes

and althoe I have no great apprehensions of their effecting their schemes

yet unless they are guarded against they may give us a good deal of trouble.

it is our duty therefore to counter act them, the first step Majr. Sargent

and myself conceive is to chuse a nother director (who is interested in that

company) and of this they are well aware and will therefore do what they

can to prevent it. Now sir and which cannot be don without your weight in

the scale. We had much dificulty to git the meeting adjourned to november,

they were for December, but we are now fixed to November and if we have

the pleasure of your company I believe we shall succeed. but remember all

these matters are a Secret with Major Sargent and myself, we dare not

even mention our intentions to Genl. Parsons -- at present. I again repeat.

my request that you will not fail us. . . .

P.S. It may be well if you are not moving your family that your coming

on may not be publicly known least it should set Rhode Island people the