Putnam, Rufus, 1738–1824, American Revolutionary general, one of the founders of the Ohio Company of Associates Ohio Company of Associates, organization for the purchase and settlement of lands on the Ohio River, founded at Boston in 1786. Its organizers were a group of New England men, most of them former American Revolutionary army officers.
..... Click the link for more information. , 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 American Revolution, 1775–83, struggle by which the Thirteen Colonies on the Atlantic seaboard of North America won independence from Great Britain and became the United States. It is also called the American War of Independence.
..... Click the link for more information. , 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).

Putnam, Rufus

(born April 9, 1738, Sutton, Mass.—died May 4, 1824, Marietta, Ohio, U.S.) American Revolutionary army officer. A cousin of Israel Putnam, he fought in the French and Indian War. Entering the Continental Army in 1775, he organized fortifications in Boston and New York (1776–77) and at West Point (1778), and he fought at the Battle of Saratoga. In 1783 he was promoted to brigadier general. After the war he helped found the Ohio Company of Associates to obtain a land grant for settlement by war veterans; he led the group that founded Marietta, Ohio (1788). From 1796 to 1803 he was U.S. surveyor general.

Putnam, Rufus (1738–1824) soldier, Ohio pioneer; born in Sutton, Mass. After serving in the French and Indian War and the American Revolution, he became superintendent of the Ohio Company. He was surveyor general of the U.S.A. (1796–1803) and an influential figure in Ohio until his death.