From Ohio History Central Reproduction of a portrait of General
Rufus Putnam (profile), ca. 1780-1789. He was a Revolutionary
War veteran and member of the Ohio Company who helped to found
Marietta, Ohio and open the Northwest Territory for settlement.
Rufus Putnam was a soldier and early settler of Ohio after the
American Revolution. Putnam was on April 9, 1738, in Sutton,
Massachusetts. His father died when Putnam was seven and his
mother apprenticed him to a millwright. In 1757, he fought for
the British in the French and Indian War. When the war was over,
Putnam returned home where he became a farmer and a miller. He
also lobbied the English government to provide veterans of the
French and Indian War with land bounties along the Mississippi
River. Fearing conflicts between its colonists and the Native
Americans residing west of the Appalachian Mountains, England
issued the Proclamation of 1763. It prohibited any of England's
colonists from living west of the mountains. The English
government denied Putnam