PUTNAM, RUFUS (1738-1824), American soldier and pio neer, was born in Sutton, Mass., on April 9, 1738 (0.S.). He served in the French and Indian War in 1757-60; was a mill wright in New Braintree in 1761-68, during which time he studied surveying; and from 1769 until the American Revolution was a farmer and surveyor. He became lieutenant colonel in one of the first regiments raised after the battle of Lexington, and served before Boston. In 1777 he served in the Northern army under Gen. Horatio Gates, commanding two regiments in the sec ond battle of Saratoga. In 1778 he laid out fortifications, includ ing Ft. Putnam, at West Point, and in 1779 he served under Gen. Anthony Wayne after the capture of Stony Point. After the war he returned to Rutland, Mass., where he had bought a confiscated farm in 1780. In March, 1786, he founded, with other officers of the American Revolution, the Ohio Company of Associates for the purchase and settlement of Western lands. In Nov. 1787, he was appointed by the company superintendent of its proposed settlement on the Ohio, and in 1788 he led the small party which founded Marietta, Ohio. He was a brigadier-general in the army
and a commissioner to treat with the Indians in ; was surveyor general of the United States in 1796-1803 ; and in 1802 was a member of the Ohio State Constitutional convention. He died, in Marietta, May 4, 1824. He has been called "the father of Ohio," and greatly contributed to its development.
See John W. Campbell, Biographical Sketches (Columbus, 0., 1838) ; Sidney Crawford, "Rufus Putnam, and his Pioneer Life in the North-West," vol. xii., new series, pp. Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, 1899), and Rowena Buell (ed.), The Memoirs of Rufus Putnam (Boston, 1903), in which his autobiography, his journal and other papers, now in the library of Marietta College, are reprinted. His Journal, 1757-1760, dealing with his experiences in the French and Indian War, was edited with notes by E. C. Dawes (Albany, N.Y., 1886).