U.S. History: Biographies

The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Further reading

Putnam, Rufus

The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military | 2001 | Copyright

Putnam, Rufus (1738–1824) American military engineer and frontier administrator. Born in Sutton, Massachusetts, Putnam was self-educated. He served with British forces in the French and Indian War (1755–1763) before settling in Braintree, Massachusetts. A patriot, he constructed defensive works around Boston and New York City and rebuilt the fortifications at West Point, rising to the rank of brigadier general in 1783. After the Revolutionary War, he helped to organize the Ohio Company which promoted settlement on the north bank of the Ohio River. In 1788, Putnam founded Marietta, Ohio, and in 1790, President George Washington appointed him a judge of the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territory. He negotiated a treaty with the Indians at Vincennes, and served as Surveyor-General of the United States (1796–1803). He served in the Ohio Constitutional Convention in 1802, arguing successfully against allowing slavery there.

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Rufus Putnam

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. | 2008 | Copyright

Rufus Putnam 1738-1824, American Revolutionary general, one of the founders of the Ohio Company of Associates , b. Sutton, Mass.; cousin of Israel Putnam . In the French and Indian War he joined (1757) the army and saw action around Lake Champlain. In the American Revolution , Putnam was an engineering officer at Boston, New York, and West Point; he also served as a field officer, most notably under Horatio Gates in the Saratoga campaign (1777) and under Anthony Wayne at Stony Point (1779). He was made a brigadier general in 1783, after the war's end. In 1786 he, with other veterans, formed the Ohio Company of Associates. Putnam helped the passage of the Ordinance of 1787, and in 1788 he and Manasseh Cutler supervised the building of Marietta, Ohio. Putnam was appointed (1790) judge of the Northwest Territory and later was (1796-1803) U.S. surveyor general.

Bibliography: See his memoirs, ed. by R. Buell (1903).

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