Rufus Putnam was an American military officer who fought during the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War. As an organizer of the Ohio Company of Associates, he was instrumental in the initial colonization by the United States of former Native American, English, and French lands in the Northwest Territory in present-day Ohio following the war.
Portrait by James Sharples (Independence National Historical Park)
Gen. Rufus Putnam at center-rear
View of the West Point area from Fort Putnam.
Putnam's home in Rutland, Massachusetts, still stands and is now a B&B.
Ohio Company of Associates
The Ohio Company of Associates, also known as the Ohio Company, was a land company whose members are today credited with becoming the first non-Native American group to permanently settle west of the Allegheny mountains. In 1788 they established Marietta, Ohio, as the first permanent settlement of the new United States in the newly organized Northwest Territory.
Rufus Putnam
Pioneer wagon