The Beginner's American History Part 18

GENERAL RUFUS PUTNAM (1738-1824).

169. What General Putnam did for Was.h.i.+ngton, and what the British said of Putnam's work.--When the British had possession of Boston in the time of the Revolution, Was.h.i.+ngton asked Rufus Putnam,[1] who was a great builder of forts, to help him drive them out. Putnam set to work, one dark, stormy night, and built a fort on some high land[2]

overlooking Boston Harbor.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PUTNAM'S FORT. General Was.h.i.+ngton looking at the British s.h.i.+ps in Boston Harbor.]

When the British commander woke up the next morning, he saw the American cannon pointed at his s.h.i.+ps. He was so astonished that he could scarcely believe his eyes. "Why," said he, "the rebels have done more in one night than my whole army could have done in a week."

Another officer, who had command of the British vessels, said, "If the Americans hold that fort, I cannot keep a s.h.i.+p in the harbor."

Well, we know what happened. Our men did hold that fort, and the British had to leave Boston. Next to General Was.h.i.+ngton, General Rufus Putnam was the man who made them go; for not many officers in the American army could build such a fort as he could.

[Footnote 1: Rufus Putnam was born in Sutton, Ma.s.sachusetts.]

[Footnote 2: Dorchester Heights: now South Boston.]

170. General Putnam builds the _Mayflower_; goes down the Ohio River and makes the first settlement in Ohio.--After the war was over, General Putnam started with a company of people from New England, to make a settlement on the Ohio River. In the spring of 1788 he and his emigrants built a boat at a place just above Pittsburg.[3] They named this boat the _Mayflower_,[4] because they were Pilgrims going west to make their home there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EMIGRANTS IN THE _Mayflower_.]

At that time there was not a white settler in what is now the state of Ohio. Most of that country was covered with thick woods. There were no roads through those woods, and there was not a steamboat or a railroad either in America or in the world. If you look on the map[5]

and follow down the Ohio River from Pittsburg, you will come to a place where the Muskingum joins the Ohio. At that place the _Mayflower_ stopped, and the emigrants landed and began to build their settlement.

[Footnote 3: Pittsburg: see map in paragraph 140.]

[Footnote 4: _Mayflower_: see paragraph 64.]

[Footnote 5: See map in paragraph 140.]

171. What the settlers named their town; the first Fourth of July celebration; what Was.h.i.+ngton said of the settlers.--During the Revolutionary War the beautiful Queen Mary of France was our firm friend, and she was very kind and helpful to Dr. Franklin when he went to France for us. A number of the emigrants had fought in the Revolution, and so it was decided to name the town Marietta,[6] in honor of the queen.

When the Marietta settlers celebrated the Fourth of July, Major Denny, who commanded a fort just across the river, came to visit them. He said, "These people appear to be the happiest folks in the world."

President Was.h.i.+ngton said that he knew many of them and that he believed they were just the kind of men to succeed. He was right; for these people, with those who came later to build the city of Cincinnati, were the ones who laid the foundation of the great and rich state of Ohio.

[Footnote 6: The queen's full name in French was Marie Antoinette; the name Marietta is made up from the first and the last parts of her name.]

172. Fights with the Indians; how the settlers held their town; Indian Rock; the "Miami[7] Slaughter House."--But the people of Marietta had hardly begun to feel at home in their little settlement before a terrible Indian war broke out. The village of Marietta had a high palisade[8] built round it, and if a man ventured outside that palisade he went at the risk of his life; for the Indians were always hiding in the woods, ready to kill any white man they saw. When the settlers worked in the cornfield, they had to carry their guns as well as their hoes, and one man always stood on top of a high stump in the middle of the field, to keep a bright lookout.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INDIAN ROCK.]

There is a lofty rock on the Ohio River below Marietta, which is still called Indian Rock. It got its name because the Indians used to climb up to the top and watch for emigrants coming down the river in boats.

When they saw a boat, they would fire a shower of bullets at it, and perhaps leave it full of dead and wounded men to drift down the river.

In the western part of Ohio, on the Miami River, the Indians killed so many people that the settlers called that part of the country by the terrible name of the "Miami Slaughter House."

[Footnote 7: Miami (Mi-am'i).]

[Footnote 8: See picture of a palisade in paragraph 70.]

173. What General Wayne did.--But President Was.h.i.+ngton sent a man to Ohio who made the Indians beg for peace. This man was General Wayne; he had fought in the Revolution, and fought so furiously that he was called "Mad Anthony Wayne." The Indians said that he never slept, and named him "Black Snake," because that is the quickest and boldest snake there is in the woods, and in a fight with any other creature of his kind he is pretty sure to win the day. General Wayne won, and the Indians agreed to move off and give up a very large part of Ohio to the white settlers. After that there was not much trouble, and emigrants poured in by thousands.

174. Summary.--In 1788 General Rufus Putnam, with a company of emigrants, settled Marietta, Ohio. The town was named in honor of Queen Mary of France, who had helped us during the Revolution. It was the first town built in what is now the state of Ohio. After General Wayne conquered the Indians that part of the country rapidly increased in population.

What did General Rufus Putnam do for Was.h.i.+ngton? Where did General Putnam go in 1788? What is said of Ohio at that time? Where did the _Mayflower_ stop? What is said of Queen Mary of France? What did the settlers name their town? What did Was.h.i.+ngton say about the settlers?

What did these people do? What is said about the Indians? What about Indian Rock? What was the country on the Miami River called? What is said about General Wayne? What did the Indians call him? Why did they give him that name? What did the Indians agree to do? What happened after that?

ELI WHITNEY (1765-1825).

175. The name cut on a door.--Near Westboro', Ma.s.sachusetts,[1]

there is an old farm-house which was built before the war of the Revolution. Close to the house is a small wooden building; on the door you can read a boy's name, just as he cut it with his pocket-knife more than a hundred years ago.[2] Here is the door with the name.

If the boy had added the date of his birth, he would have cut the figures 1765; but perhaps, just as he got to that point, his father appeared and said rather sharply: Eli, don't be cutting that door.

No, sir, said Eli, with a start; and shutting his knife up with a snap, he hurried off to get the cows or to do his ch.o.r.es.[3]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WOODEN DOOR CARVED WITH "ELI WHITNEY."]

[Footnote 1: See map in paragraph 135.]

[Footnote 2: The house is no longer standing, and the door has disappeared.]

[Footnote 3: Ch.o.r.es: getting in wood, feeding cattle, etc.]

176. What Eli Whitney used to do in his father's little workshop; the fiddle.--Eli Whitney's father used that little wooden building as a kind of workshop, where he mended chairs and did many other small jobs. Eli liked to go to that workshop and make little things for himself, such as water-wheels and windmills; for it was as natural for him to use tools as it was to whistle.

Once when Eli's father was gone from home for several days, the boy was very busy all the while in the little shop. When Mr. Whitney came back he asked his housekeeper, "What has Eli been doing?" "Oh," she replied, "he has been making a fiddle." His father shook his head, and said that he was afraid Eli would never get on much in the world.

But Eli's fiddle, though it was rough-looking, was well made. It had music in it, and the neighbors liked to hear it: somehow it seemed to say through all the tunes played on it, "_Whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well._"

177. Eli Whitney begins making nails; he goes to college.--When Eli was fifteen, he began making nails. We have machines to-day which will make more than a hundred nails a minute; but Eli made his, one by one, by pounding them out of a long, slender bar of red-hot iron.

Whitney's hand-made nails were not handsome, but they were strong and tough, and as the Revolutionary War was then going on, he could sell all he could make.

After the war was over the demand for nails was not so good. Then Whitney threw down his hammer, and said, "I am going to college."

He had no money; but he worked his way through Yale College, partly by teaching and partly by doing little jobs with his tools. A carpenter who saw him at work one day, noticed how neatly and skilfully he used his tools, and said, "There was one good mechanic spoiled when you went to college."

178. Whitney goes to Georgia; he stops with Mrs. General Greene; the embroidery frame.--When the young man had completed his course of study he went to Georgia to teach in a gentleman's family. On the way to Savannah he became acquainted with Mrs. Greene, the widow of the famous General Greene[4] of Rhode Island. General Greene had done such excellent fighting in the south during the Revolution that, after the war was over, the state of Georgia gave him a large piece of land near Savannah.

Mrs. Greene invited young Whitney to her house; as he had been disappointed in getting the place to teach, he was very glad to accept her kind invitation. While he was there he made her an embroidery frame. It was much better than the old one that she had been using, and she thought the maker of it was wonderfully skilful.

[Footnote 4: General Greene: see paragraph 140.]