Chapter VIII -
SETTLEMENT AT MARIETTA.
THE amount of General Putnam's part in the first settlement in Ohio will be given in his own words as recorded in his “memoir." It may not be amiss to supply here a few things left out in his journal. We shall find him again and again called to take the helm, when storms arose and the waters were troubled. When he went to Post Vincennes accompanied by the devoted missionary, the Rev. John Heckewelder, he was met there by a large gathering of the tribes, two hundred and forty-seven warriors and six hundred men, women and children. The effort to make a treaty was successful so far as the Wabash tribes were concerned. It was signed by thirty-one kings, chiefs and warriors. This treaty was of great importance as it detached a large body of warriors from the war-party. The inhabitants of Post Vincennes showed their appreciation of what General Putnam had done by sending him a written address, in which they say: “Your happy success in this arduous enterprise affords another proof how much you merit the honors which government has conferred on you, and will remain a memento of the justice of congress and of your integrity, to the latest times.
In his journal General Putnam says:
With respect to the surveys proposed to be executed this year in the western country, the hostile disposition of the Indians prevented them altogether. A treaty had been made with the Indians at Fort McIntosh January 21, 1785, but the terms dictated by our commissioners were by no means satisfactory to the Indians, and the surveyors dare not venture into the woods for the purpose of making any surveys whatever. However, General Tupper and others brought a very favorable report of the country northwest of the Ohio river, and having no expectation that anything more favorable would be done by congress for the army than what was comprised in the land ordinance of May 20, 1785, I concluded to join in setting on foot an association for purchasing land in that country; and in pursuit of this idea, General Tupper and myself, January 10, 1786, issued public information to all officers and soldiers and other good citizens disposed to become adventurers in the Ohio country, inviting those residing in Massachusetts to meet by delegates chosen for the purpose of forming an association by the name of the Ohio company.March 1, 1786. Delegates from eight counties of the state met at Boston agreeable to our request and proceeded to form the articles of agreement. In March or April the surveyors were ordered to proceed to the western country, but, as the last year General Tupper was a great sufferer in expense and I had still business to attend respecting the eastern lands, he again proceeded to the Ohio country as my substitute.
The business of the eastern lands gave me considerable employment in Boston through the winter and fall of 1786, and having been appointed, with General Lincoln and Judge Rice of Wiscasset, a commissioner to treat with the Penobscot Indians and others, I remained there from August 7 to September 22.
January 1787. I joined General Lincoln at Worcester as a volunteer aid against the insurgents, and continued with him until their dispersion at Petersham some time in February.
April 27 I was appointed justice of the peace by Governor Bowdoin, and at the May election I was elected a member of the general assembly for the town of Rutland. I attended the spring and fall sessions of the general assembly and also to the business of the eastern lands.
November 23, 1787. The directors of the Ohio company this day appointed me superintendent of all the business relating to the commencement of their lands in the territory northwest of the river Ohio. The people to go forward in companies employed under my direction, were to consist of four surveyors, twenty-two men to attend them, six boat builders, four carpenters, one blacksmith and nine common bands, with two wagons, etc., etc.
Major Hatfield White conducted the first party, which started from Danvers the first of December. The other party was appointed to rendezvous at Hartford, where I met them the first day of January, 1788. From Hartford I was under the necessity of going to New York and the party moved forward, conducted by Colonel Sproat.
January 24. I joined the party at Lincoln's Inn, near a creek which was hard frozen, but not sufficient to bear the wagon, and a whole day was spent in cutting a passage. So great a quantity of snow fell that day and the following night as to quite block up the road. It was with much difficulty we got the wagon on as far as Cooper's, at the foot of Tuscarawas mountain, now Strasburgh, where we arrived the twenty-ninth. Here we found that nothing had crossed the mountains since the great snow above mentioned, and that in the old snow, which was about twelve inches deep, the pack horses only had crossed the mountains. Our only resource now build sleds and harness our horses one before the other, and in this manner, with four sleds and the men in front to break the track, we set forward and reached the Youghiogheny February 14, where we found Major White's party, which arrived January 23.
April 1, 1788. Having completed our boats and laid in stores, we left Sinoul's Ferry, on the Youghiogheny, for the mouth of the Muskingum, and arrived there on the seventh, landing on the upper point, where we pitched our camp among the trees, and in a few days commenced the survey of the town of Marietta, as well as the eight acre lots, nor was the preparation for a plan of defense neglected. For, besides the propriety of always guarding against savages, I had reason to be cautious. For, from consulting the several treaties made with the Indians by our commissioners (copies of which I had obtained at the war office as I had come on), and other circumstances. I was fully persuaded that the Indians would not be peaceable very long, hence the propriety of immediately erecting a cover for the emigrants who were soon expected. Therefore, the hands not necessary to attend the surveys were set to work in clearing the ground, etc., which I fixed on for erecting the proposed works of defense.
Thus were all hands employed until May 5, when I proposed to them that those who inclined should have the liberty of planting two acres each on the plain within the town plat, and make up their time after the first of July (the date to which they had been engaged in the company's service.) Most of them accepted the offer, and, with what was done by them and others who came in about this time, we raised about one hundred and thirty acres of good corn, yielding, on an average, about thirty bushels per acre. The season was very favorable; we had no frost until winter. I had English beans blossom in December.
Campus Martius was situated on the margin of the first high ground, a plain sixty chains from the Ohio river and eight chains from the Muskingum. It consisted of four block-houses of hewn or sawed timber, two stories high, erected at the expense of the company. The upper stories on two sides projected about two feet, with loop holes in the projection to rake the sides of the lower stories; two of the block-houses had two rooms on a floor, and the other two three rooms. The block-houses were so planned as to form bastions of a regular square and flank the curtains of the work, which was proposed to consist of private houses, also to be made of hewn or sawed timber, and two stories high, leaving a clear area of one hundred and forty-four feet square.
Before our arrival at the Muskingum as above mentioned, none of the directors or agents had any correct idea of the quality of the lands they had purchased, especially of the face of the country about the Muskingum at and near the confluence with the Ohio, where they determined to lay out their capital, to consist, including commons, of four thousand acres and contiguous to this, one thousand lots of eight acres each, amounting to eight thousands acres.
The survey of these eight acre lots was first of all to be executed, and a plan of them to be forwarded to the secretary of the company by the first Wednesday of March, 1788, the day appointed for the agents to meet at Providence to draw the lots, and where they actually did meet to draw the several lots, but had the prudence to lodge the list of drafts with the secretary until the plan was sent on lathe month of June, General Parsons and General Varnum, two directors of the company, with so many of the agents arrived at this place as to enable them to hold a meeting July 2, to which place and time it had been adjourned from Providence. But how disappointed were they to find that not a director or agent had drawn an eight acre lot so near the town as to be able to cultivate it without much hazard, Some remedy they determined on and resolved on the foolish plan to divide three thousand acres of the commons into three acre lots. This was done, but they were as unfortunate as before, none of them was accommodated.
Another measure adopted was to authorize the clearing the town lots and remaining commons. This was but a partial relief even fur those already arrived and the number was daily increasing.
The scheme of laying out the lots of eight acres had always been opposed by me and also by some others. Our opinion was that a small farm of not less than sixty-four acres should be laid out to each share, bordering on the Ohio and other navigable streams, of which the first actual settlers should take their choice. But we were overruled. The eight acre lots having been drawn and become the property of individuals, it was too late to adopt the other plan.
With respect to works at Campus Martius, the four block-houses were all up, and the private houses of the curtainshad been so far advanced in the course of the year as to render the place very defensible.
By the timely arrival of Governor St. Clair, with the territorial judges, viz., Parsons Symmes and Varnum, a code of laws was adopted for the territory and officers, civil and military, appointed for the county of Washington before the first of September, in which month the court of common pleas and quarter session was opened at Marietta, but happily for the credit of the people, there was no suit either civil or criminal brought before the court.
The whole number of men, including myself, who arrived at Marietta, April 7, 1788, as before mentioned, was forty-eight, among whom were four surveyors, viz., Colonel Sproat, Colonel Meiggs, Major Tupper and Mr. John Mathers. And in the course of the year, in addition to the above number, there came eighty-four men, making one hundred and thirty-two for the year 1788. There were fifteen families, eight of whom came as early as the month of August, among whom were General Tupper, Major Cushing, Major Lovedale and Major Coburn.
It must be remembered that at the close of this year there was not a single white family within the state of Ohio, besides those included in our settlement, for Colonel Harmar and nearly all his officers were proprietors in the Ohio company. Judge Symmes with a few families went down the river in the course of the summer, but they wintered in Kentucky.
We had no interruption from the Indians this year at Marietta, partly no doubt from the hopes they entertained of the treaty which had been promised and which was actually entered into at Fort Harmar, January 9, 1789. But the treaty gave us no real security or reason to relax our precaution against surprise. The directors and agents and all the proprietors that arrived were early convinced that some new project must be adopted for accommodating emigrants with lands, or settlements would come to nothing; and in the minds of some there were doubts as to the agents having authority to effect what was necessary to remedy the defects. The proprietors were, therefore, notified to meet at Marietta, the first Wednesday of December, 1788, themselves, or by agents specially appointed for the purpose.
But the proprietors neither came themselves nor sent agents in sufficient numbers to authorize their transacting business. Wherefore the agents conceived that under the circumstances they were warranted to proceed on the premises. Therefore, February 6, 1789, the agents first repealed the resolutions respecting the division of the remaining lands, passed at Boston, November 1789, and then after a preamble stating their reason proceeded as follows:
THEREFORE, Resolved, unanimously, that there shall be granted to persons, who shall settle in such places within the purchase as the agents may think most conducive to advance the general interests of proprietors, and under such limitations and restrictions as they shall think proper, not exceeding one hundred acres of each share in the fund of this company, and that a committee be appointed to investigate the purchase, so far as in their opinion may be necessary, in order to point out and fix upon proper plans or places for settlement.
The general regulations respecting such settlers are, that no one settlement should consist of less than twenty men able to bear arms and ammunition, and to erect such works of defense as should be pointed out by the committee.
In pursuance of these resolutions to grant donation lands, a number of settlements were made in 1789 and 1790, of which we shall have occasion to say more hereafter.
The number of emigrants who arrived in 1789, as far as we are able to ascertain, was one hundred and fifty-two men, and among them fifty-seven families. Among the emigrants this year was the Rev. Daniel Story. Early in the spring Captain Zebulon Ring was killed at Belpre by the Indians, and four others in the woods below Galliopolis. Mr. Mathews, the surveyor, and one man escaped. John Gardner was taken at Wolf creek but escaped.
1790.
In the last and present year the following settlements commenced, in pursuance of the donation system before mentioned, viz: Four settlements on the Ohio at Belpre and Newberry, including sixty-eight lots on the Muskingum, and Wolf creek two settlements.
At all these places very considerable settlements had been made during the last and present year, and a saw-mill and corn-mill were erected at Wolf creek and Duck creek. At Meigs creek a blockhouse was built for twenty settlers, and another at Big Bottom for forty. Late in the fall of the present year a few settlers were on the allotment at the falls of Duck creek.
April 3. Dr. Cutler and myself, in behalf of the directors, executed a contract with William Duer and others at New York, for the sale of forty-eight shares of land in the Ohio company's purchase, which had been forfeited by non-payment. The object of Duer and his associates was to provide for certain French emigrants who had begun to arrive at New York. In pursuance of that object, Major John Bureham, with his party, arrived at Galliopolis, in the month of June. and immediately commenced their work. A number of the French emigrants arrived at Galliopolis in the course of the summer and fall.
August 1790. Although our settlement had suffered nothing from the Indians, yet knowing that General Harmar was going against some of their settlements, and other circumstances, gave us apprehensions of mischief from them, to guard against which detachments of militia, under the pay of the company, were stationed at each settlement for the protection of the people against surprise.
The number of emigrants this year, including Major Burnham's party and exclusive of the French emigrants, as near as we could ascertain, was one hundred and thirty-one families. The number of French emigrants that arrived at Galliopolis we never ascertained, but I find that thirty-five men and two families remained some time at Marietta.
After General Harmar's defeat at the St. Joseph, near the Miama towns, at the head of the Miama of the lake, we were very apprehensive for some time of an attack from our neighbors, the Delawares and Wyandotts, but as they made no movement we began to flatter ourselves that they would not take part in the war which the Shawnees and Miamas had provoked.
I have stated that in the year 1788 we had no frosts until some time in December, but in the year 1789 it was far otherwise. A severe frost about the fourth of October destroyed all the unripe corn throughout the western country, and was particularly distressing to the settlers on the Ohio company's lands.
I left Marietta in July, 1789, intending not to return again until I brought my family. But in the winter of 1790, I was, with Dr. Cutler, detained in New York on the company's business, and while there, as before stated, we contracted with William Duer and others for the sale of one hundred and forty-eight share of forfeited rights, and not only so, but I undertook to engage a party to come forward under Major Burnham for the purpose of erecting cabins at Chicamago, now Gallipolis. I arrived at Marietta with Major Burnham's party in May, with a stock of provisions to last until December, to which time I had engaged their service and made myself responsible for their pay. Other business, likewise of the Ohio company, called my attention to Marietta at this time, which the journals of the company wit in a measure explain.
I again left the settlement in the month of June and returned with my family the fifth of November The crops of corn were very good this year, but the increase in the number of inhabitants, with the scarcity in the early part of the season, gave reason to apprehend that there would not be a supply for the ensuing year.
January 2, 1791. This evening a new block-house called Big Bottom about forty miles up the Muskingum, was surprised between sunsetting and dark, by the Indians. They first decoyed and made prisoners four men at a hut a little distance from the block-house. Finding the door unfastened, they fired upon the men about the fire, and rushing in murdered every person except one lad. The persons killed were John Stacey, Ezra Putnam, John Camp, Zebulon Groop; four from Massachusetts, Jonathan Farwell and Couch; two from New Hampshire; William James from Connecticut, Joseph Clark from Rhode Island, Isaac Meeks, wife and two children from Virginia. In all, twelve killed. Francis Choat, Isaac Choat, Thomas Shaw, Philip Stacey and James Patten were taken prisoners.
The Indians came down to Wolfe creek the same night, but fortunately two men in another hut not far from the block-house made their escape and coming down to Captain Rogers hunting camp, arrived at the mills before the Indians and gave the alarm. The Indians finding the people at the mills were on their guard, made no attack.
It was now evident that the war had become general, and that it was necessary to prepare for the worst. Our situation was critical on many accounts. The troops that were at Fort Harmar had all, except a few invalids, been called down the river. General Harmar had been unfortunate and two detachments, one of one hundred men, and the other of three hundred and sixty had severally been beaten by the Indians. There were no settlements on the Ohio from Pittsburgh to Kentucky that, were they disposed, could afford us assistance.
The Indians were much elated with their success, and threatened that there should not remain a smoke of a white man's cabin on the Ohio by the time the leaves put out.
Our own strength at this time, except at Galliopolis, I find by a return of the militia made about this time, to be as follows: Rank and file, civil and military, officers included, two hundred and eighty-seven. This included all at Marietta, Belpre and Wolf Creek. This, it appears, was the whole force which, under Providence, we had to rely on for our defense, except a few of Burnham's men, some of whom remained at Galliopolis.
The first measure taken was to call a special meeting of the agents and proprietors within the purchase on the fifth of January, at which meeting it was resolved that additional works were necessary to be erected for the defense of Marietta, Belpre and Wolf Creek (Waterford); that Colonel Sproat be applied to and requested to raise a body of militia to consist of six spies or expert woodsmen. The directors immediately set about carrying the resolutions into effect.
The four settlements at Belpre and Newberry were contracted into one. Those at Wolf Creek, Meiggs Creek, indeed all through the Muskingum, were collected into one, except those that came to Marietta. The people up Duck Creek and in the neighborhood of Marietta were all called in and took shelter in Campus Martius, Fort Harmar, and at the point on the upper side of the Muskingum where a large space, including all the houses, were enclosed by a stockade block-house. A strong work of blockhouses joined by stockade work was also erected at Belpre, and another at the station up the Muskingum. Campus Martius was also much improved by additional works.
During the winter,while these works were being carried forward, few men left the settlements, because they were receiving wages for services either on the works or as militia. We heard nothing from the Indians until the month of March, when they came on in considerable force to Waterford, but the people being apprised of their approach, they effected nothing but the wounding of one man and taking another prisoner, whom they caught at some distance from the fort. They did not attempt the fort or any other of our stations, but dividing into small parties, they harassed all the settlements on the Ohio through the summer and fall. At Marietta they killed Captain Joseph Rogers, about half a mile from Campus Martius, as lie was returning from a scout, and Mathew Reve at the mouth of Duck Creek. At Belpre they killed Benoni Hurlburt (a spy) while out on duty. They also killed and drove off a number of cattle from Belpre and Waterford. They also killed one man at Galliopolis and James Rilly at Bellville, and took Joseph Rilly, a small boy, prisoner. On the Virginia side four men were killed, one wounded and three taken prisoners about seven miles from Marietta, on the road to Clarksburgh. Finding the people on the Ohio company's purchase posted, and generally keeping a good lookout, it appears that the company that came out to destroy us, root and branch, quite early in the year crossed over into Virginia, and near the Ohio, and even as far east as the waters of the Mononagehla, did a great deal of mischief in murdering and capturing people and carrying off horses and cattle every year that the war continued. While we lost but few, comparatively, after 1791, Mr. Robert Worth and a negro boy were killed at Marietta in 1792, and in 1793 Major Goodale was killed in Belpre.
February, 1792. The directors of the Ohio company having notified a meeting of special agents to be held in Philadelphia to take the affairs of the company into consideration, I set out on the second of March, in company with Colonel Robert Oliver, for that place. On our arrival we met with Dr. Cutler, and together prepared a petition to congress. The great object of this petition was to be released from the original contract for the purchase of one million five hundred thousand acres of land, and for a reimbursement of the expenses of the war, etc., etc. Our situation was critical. Colonel Duer and his associates had altogether failed in respect to the one hundred and forty-eight shares they had contracted to purchase. Duer was about this time shut up in jail, where he died. He owed me $2,861.42 for building cabins, etc., in Galliopollis. Richard Platt, the treasurer of the Ohio company, was also in jail and owed the company about eighty thousand dollars, which they never recovered. We were bound to give one hundred acres of land to each actual settler, who should continue in the settlement and perform military duty during the war. Our ability to do this many began to doubt. St. Clair had been defeated with great loss of men, all his artillery and stores of every kind. The Indians began to believe themselves invincible, and they truly had great cause for triumph.
Our second payment to congress of fifty thousand dollars was now due, and on the non-payment of which it was a question whether the land we had paid for might not be forfeited. Besides, we had already expended more than nine thousand dollars in erecting works, paying militia, etc.
Under the circumstances it was absolutely impossible to fulfill our contract with congress, and there was the utmost danger of the settlement being broken up. But in this mount of difficulties Divine Providence so over-ruled the minds of men that congress passed an act authorizing the President to issue a patent for the acres for which we had paid in final settlement certificates, and another patent for a tract of 214,285 acres, and which we paid for in military land warrants, valued at the rate of one acre equal to one dollar in certificates. Congress also granted to the directors 100,000 acres in trust, to be granted in lots of one hundred acres to each settler, by which means the directors were able to fulfill their engagements to settlers without any sacrifice of the company's lands. We also obtained a reimbursement of money paid for wages and substitutes of militia—$2,614.
The expense of the war to the Ohio company was $11,350. These expenses were incurred during the years 1791 and 1792. After the first six months of the year 1791, the Ohio company were at no expense on account of militia who were called into service. They were paid and subsisted by the United States.
I have said that, in May, 1792, I was appointed brigadier in the army. With what reluctance I accepted that appointment will be seen by the following letter written to the secretary of war on the occasion:
PHILADELPHIA, May 7, 1792
I have been this day honored with your letter of the fifth instant, notifying me that the President of the United States, with the advice and consent of the senate, has appointed me a brigadier-general. The respect I owe to the President of the United States, and the distressed situation of the country I now call mine, oblige me to accept the honor of the appointment, provided, however, that I hold my rank from my commission in the state army; that I consider it a temporary appointment, which I propose to resign as soon as the service will permit, and, in the meantime, I retain my office in the civil department. In justice to myself I must observe that I have not the remotest wish to enter again into the military line; my private affairs and the situation of my family forbid it; and my advanced age, as well as the state of my health, I fear will render me unable to perform the duties of a soldier with honor to myself or advantage to the service,
I am, etc.In a few days after I received this appointment I received instructions from the secretary of war, the first object of which was “to attempt to be present at the general council of hostile Indians about to be held on the Miami river of Lake Erie, in order to convince said Indians of the humane disposition of the United States, and then to make a truce or peace with them."
I arrived at Pittsburgh on the second of June, and on the fifth I sent a speech to the hostile tribes, by two Munsee Indians, who had been taken prisoners and released for that purpose. The object of this speech was to notify them of the object of my mission and to request them to open a path to Fort Jefferson, where I expected to be in twenty days, and that they should send some of their young men with Captain Hendrick to conduct me, with a few friends, to the place they should fix on for our meeting. However, I did not arrive at Fort Washington till July 2, when I learned that the very day I had sent word to the Indians that I proposed to be at Fort Jefferson, about one hundred Indians, with new white shirts and their chief with a scarlet cloak, fell on a party making way in the neighborhood of the fort and killed or carried off sixteen men. From the extraordinary dress of these Indians, there was reason to suspect that they were sent out, or at least furnished with their new shirts, by the British agents, for the purpose of taking me off; and the suspicion was further confirmed soon after by the information of the murder of Colonel Hardy and Major Truman, as well as some others, who had not long since been sent to them with flags. From information that could be depended on, I was soon convinced that the Indians who met at the great council were determined on war, and that it was in vain to make any further attempt to bring them to treat of peace at present. But from information from Major Hamtranck, the commanding officer at Fort Vincent, there was reason to believe that something might be done with the Wabash and other more western Indians. Accordingly, on the twenty-fourth of July, I sent a speech to all the western tribes, inviting them to meet me in council at Fort Vincent the twentieth of September, assuring them that I should bring their friends and relations with me (meaning the Indian prisoners at Fort Washington).
August 16. I left Fort Washington with the Indian prisoners and arrived at Fort Vincent September 13, and the same day restored the prisoners, about sixty in number, to their friends.
The council assembled on the twenty-fifth and continued to the twenty-seventh, when the treaty was signed.
How far my conduct met the approbation of the President the following letter will show:
War Department, Feb. 15, 1793.
Your letter of yesterday has been submitted to the President of the United States. While he accepts your resignation, he regrets that your ill health compels you to leave the army as he had anticipated much good to the troops from your experience as an officer.
He has commanded me to tender you his thanks for the zeal and judgment manifest in your negotiation with the Wabash Indians, and your further endeavor toward general pacification.
I am, sir, with great esteem, your obedient servant,
S. Knox, Secretary of War.Brigadier-general Rufus Putnam.
I might with propriety mention a number of instances in the course of this war, of God's evidently appearing by His Providence to interfere for the preservation of our inhabitants, but, suffice it to remark that, notwithstanding the very frequent passing both by land and water from one settlement to another, and various excursions abroad, particularly to Wolf creek mill for grinding, yet on none of these occasions were any lives lost or other injury received from the enemy. For myself, I have great reason to acknowledge the Providence of God in my own preservation, in that, while much mischief was done on the Ohio, especially near the mouth of the Scioto river, I made three trips to Cincinnati without being molested by the Indians, although sometimes alarmed.
In 1794 Colonel Pickering, postmaster general, proposed the plan of carrying the mail from Wheeling to Limestown (Maysville) by water, I was consulted; the plan I proposed was adopted, and the business planned under my direction.
June 14, 1796. Mr. Wolcott, secretary of the treasury, said in a letter to me: “The President of the United States has been pleased to confide to you the business of carrying into effect an act of congress entitled ‘an act to authorize Ebenezer Zane to locate certain lands in the territory of the United States, northwest of the Ohio.'"
But the last and best gift from President Washington was announced in a letter from Mr. Secretary Pickering, enclosing a commission of surveyor-general of the United States, bearing date October 1, 1796.
In what manner I have fulfilled the duties of this office, I shall leave for those employed under me, and were best informed on the subject, to determine. Indeed, I might appeal to my correspondence with the secretaries of the treasury, or even to Mr. Gallatin personally, that no want of ability, integrity or industry was the cause of my removal from office. No! It was done because I did not subscribe to the measures of him whom I have called the arch-enemy of Washington's administration.
Mr. Jefferson, in his reply to the remonstrance of the merchants of New Haven, asks, “How are vacancies to he obtained? those by death are few, by resignation none. Can any other mode than removal be proposed? I shall proceed with deliberation, that it may be thrown as much as possible on delinquency oppression, intolerance and anti-Revolutionary adherence to our enemies,"
How consistent with this declaration was his appointment of Mr. Mansfield, well known to be an active Tory.
Mr. Gallatin's letter announcing Mr. Mansfield's appointment to the office of surveyor-general, bears, date September 21. 1903. Mr. Joseph Nourse, registrar of the treasury department, in a letter to me, dated January 7, 1804, observed: “I have heard it reported that you were no longer in office, but as it has not been announced, I was in hopes that it was erroneous until you mentioned it in your letter." This, I think, looks a little like political martyrdom, which it was wished to conceal from public notoriety, that my friends might not have so fair an opportunity of doing public justice to my character.
But, be that as it may, I am happy in having my name enrolled with many others who have suffered the like political death for adherence to those correct principles and measures in pursuance of which our country rose from a state of weakness and poverty to strength, honor and credit.
