Early Life
Putnam was born in Salem Village (now Danvers), Massachusetts, to Joseph and Elizabeth Putnam, a prosperous farming family. They had been involved in the Salem witch trials. His birthplace, Putnam House, has been preserved as an historic structure.
In 1740, at the age of 22, he moved west to Mortlake (now Pomfret) in northeastern Connecticut, where land was cheaper and easier for young men to buy. According to oral tradition, Putnam in his youth killed the last wolf in Connecticut with the help of a group of farmers from Mortlake. The tradition describes Putnam crawling into a den with a torch, a musket, and his feet secured with rope, in order to be quickly pulled out. While in the den, he allegedly killed the she-wolf. The farmers thought killing all the wolves was necessary to safeguard their sheep and early settlements typically offered bounties on such predators. A section of the Mashamoquet Brook State Park in modern-day Pomfret is named "Wolf Den" (which includes the 'den'). The name "Wolf Den Road" in Brooklyn, Connecticut also attests to the days of wolves.
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