Yesterday Tom and I took a trip to see the Campus Martius Museum in Marietta, Ohio.  I have been wanting to go to Marietta ever since I read David McCullough‘s book, “The Pioneers.”  You can read my review of the book here.  I read the book in 2019 and was waiting to go until my parents could go with us.  I finally realized that Marietta is too long a trip for them to make, so Tom and I decided to go without them.

One of the nice things about living near Columbus is that we can drive to 90% of the places in Ohio in about two hours.  It took us 2.25 hours to drive to Marietta and it was easy to find Campus Martius Museum from I-77.  In fact, Marietta is pretty easy to navigate as long as you know what side of what river you are supposed to be on.  The city is built at the place where the Muskingum River flows into the Ohio River.

Campus Martius Museum is all about the “founding” of Ohio.  Although it touches on the Native Americans in the area, especially the Mound Builders, the displays in the museum are all about the pioneer settlement of the area.  Rufus Putnam, who led the first group of settlers down the Ohio to the area, is celebrated.  In fact, the museum was built around his house – literally.

When Tom and I went in to the museum and paid our entrance fee, we were asked if we wanted to tour the Putnam House.  Of course we said yes.  We were led down a hall to a place where our guide unlocked a door.  There, inside the museum was the Putnam House!  Some of it was original and some had been restored so that people could tour it.  A few items in the house were original but most were historically appropriate.

Rufus Putnam was from Massachusetts and served as a fortifications engineer during the Revolutionary War.  He worked his way up in rank and became a brigadier General, the title he would retain through the rest of his life.  Putnam pushed for an Army Corps of Engineers but Congress rejected his proposal.  After the war, Putnam worked with other veterans in supporting land grants in the Northwest Territory.

In partnership with other Revolutionary War veterans, Putnam formed the “Ohio Company” which purchased 1,000,000 acres of land north of the Ohio River and east of the Muskingum River.  In 1788 Putnam led a group of Revolutionary veterans to settle the land.  These pioneers arrived at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers on April 7, 1788.  There they established Marietta, Ohio, as the first European-American permanent United States settlement in the Northwest Territory.

In settling Marietta, the pioneers had to defend against attacks by the Native Americans who were living in the area.  They had not made a treaty or purchased the land from these natives.  The first residences in the area where built as a fort, with the homes on the outer walls and a large field inside the walls.  When the Native American threat passed, most of the settlers moved further away and took their homes with them.  Rufus Putnam decided to stay, so his house remained in its original location, although he did build an addition.

Over time the Putnam house became a run-down eyesore in Marietta.  The Daughters of the American Revolution leased it in 1905 and it was bought by the state of Ohio in 1917.  Eventually the museum was built up around the house.

It was very cool to stand in this second oldest building in Ohio.  The oldest building in Ohio is just outside the museum on the museum property.  The Ohio Company Land Office was the building where settlers could go to buy land in the territory.

The entire Campus Martius Museum was very interesting.  There was a big section on surveying and another section on the history of Marietta.  The Mound Builders were highlighted in one area.  In fact, Rufus Putnam spend a good bit of time in surveying the Marietta mounds and published the first detailed map of the mounds.

When we went into the museum, I noticed there was a passport book for Ohio Historical sites.  The Ohio History Passport has more than 50 pages describing different historical sites in Ohio.  You can get a stamp at each one!  After enjoying the Campus Martius Museum, I got the stamp on the appropriate page.  Then I noticed that the stamp was for the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail!  We were visiting a National Park site and I hadn’t even realized it!  I had to get another stamp for my National Parks book.

Tom and I visited some other places in Marietta.  I will save those to write about next week.