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The House of General Rufus Putnam, Marietta: Marie

Here the pioneers laid out the town of Marietta among the famous Indian mounds, naming it in honor of Marie Antoinette of France. The greatest mound of all was made the central feature of Marie Antoinette Square. This mound is thirty feet high, while the circular base is 375 feet in circumference. It is surrounded by a moat fifteen feet wide and five feet deep. Beyond the moat is a parapet twenty feet thick and 385 feet in circumference. This square was leased to General Putnam for twelve years, on condition that he "surround the whole square with mulberry trees with an elm at each corner." The base of the mound was to be encircled with weeping willows, and evergreens were to be placed on the mound. The parapet was to be surrounded with trees, the square was to be seeded down to grass, and the whole was to be enclosed with a post and rail fence. This effort to create a park at the very beginning was an unusual feature of this pioneer experience.

An enclosure of logs, with a log fort at each corner, was built for protection against the Indians. Between the corner forts were the cabins occupied by the various families. The forts and the enclosure were named the Campus Martius. One of the early houses built within this stockade became the home of General Putnam.

Marie Antoinette Square soon became known as Mound Square. General Putnam turned over his lease to the town, which set the property aside as a cemetery. Many of the settlers had died during two epidemics of smallpox, and there was need of a cemetery nearer the town than the ground set aside at the beginning.

It is claimed that more officers of the Revolution have been buried in the Mound Cemetery than in any other cemetery in the country. There were twelve colonels, twelve majors, and twenty-two captains among the ALL THE WAY BACK TO NEW ENGLAND Marietta pioneers. When General Lafayette was in Marietta in 1825, the list was read to him, and he said: "I knew them all. I saw them at Brandywine, Yorktown, and Rhode Island. They were the bravest of the brave."

Over Putnam's grave is the following inscription :

Gen. Rufus Putnam A Revolutionary Officer And the leader of the Colony which made the First settlement in the Territory of the Northwest.

Born April 9, 1738 Died May 4, 1824.

The house occupied by "the Father of Ohio," as he has been called, is preserved as a historical monument. In 1917 the Daughters of the American Revolution and Marietta succeeded in persuading the Ohio Legislature to pass a bill making provision for its repair and care. LXXXVII MONUMENT PLACE, ELM GROVE, WEST VIRGINIA THE PLANTATION HOME OF TWO MAKERS OF HISTORY At Shepherdstown, the oldest town in what is now West Virginia, Moses Shepherd was born on November 11, 1763. His grandfather had founded the town.