The Ohio Company

The history of the United States is largely the story of clearing forests, planting farms, building homes, constructing roads, inventing machinery, building railroads and developing towns and cities.
The development of the Ohio River Valley was no different.   The Ohio River had been the recognized boundary between the whites and the Indians prior to the Revolutionary War.  Popular opinion was that the Northwest had not been won for the purpose of an Indian reserve, so the original boundary needed a new arrangement.

In 1785 the United States acquired the southeastern half of the present state of Ohio.  Even though attempts were made to keep settlers out of the forbidden Indian territory, within the next 30 years the whole of the Northwest was transferred to the United States from Indian hands. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 mapped out a government based of the principles of democracy as well as allowing changes as the territories developed.  At the time there was practically no white population within the Northwest territory, nor did it yet belong to the United States officially, yet the basic principles in the Northwest Ordinance were the same used in future Florida and Alaska. 

The area just west of Pennsylvania was called the "Seven Ranges" and in 1786, General Rufus Putnam and other Continental officers met at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern in Boston to discuss acquiring land in the new territories.  The Ohio Company was formed and awarded 1.5 million acres as a reward for military service. Putnam founded the first legal white settlement in the present state of Ohio, naming the town, Marietta after Marie Antoinette, Queen of France. 

The new Governor of the Ohio region was General Arthur St. Clair.  Within a year three towns were settled, one by a schoolmaster and named Lo-sant-i-ville, which meant "the town opposite the mouth of the Licking."  In 1790 it got a new name, Cincinnati, and the capitol was moved from Marietta to Cincinnati. 

Next Time...Trouble Over the Horizon
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Today in Pioneer History: "On March 8, 1893, Emmet  Dalton, the only survivor of the Dalton Gang's attempt to rob Kansas banks, begins serving a life sentence in the Kansas State Penitentiary.