American Pioneers To The Northwest Territory - The First Forty-eight Pioneers, April 1788

The First Forty-eight Pioneers, April 1788

The footsteps of a hundred years
Have echoed, since o’er Braddock’s Road
Bold Putnam and the Pioneers
Led History the way they strode.

On wild Monongahela stream
They launched the Mayflower of the West,
A perfect State their civic dream,
A new New World their pilgrim quest.

When April robed the Buckeye trees
Muskingum’s bosky shore they trod;
They pitched their tents and to the breeze
Flung freedom’s star-flag, thanking God.

As glides the Oyo’s solemn flood
So fleeted their eventful years;
Resurgent in their children’s blood,
They still live on – the Pioneers.

Their fame shrinks not to names and dates
On votive stone, the prey of time; -
Behold where monumental States
Immortalize their lives sublime!

The first forty-eight pioneers included the following men. This group of pioneers arrived on April 7, 1788, except for Col. Meigs, who arrived several days later on April 12, 1788, and Anselm Tupper, who arrived on April 25, according to Rufus Putnam's journal.

1. General Rufus Putnam, superintendent of the settlement, co-founder of the Ohio Company of Associates
2. Colonel Return J. Meigs, Sr., surveyor
3. Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, surveyor (married to daughter of Commodore Abraham Whipple)
4. Major Anselm Tupper, surveyor (son of General Benjamin Tupper)
5. John Mathews, surveyor
6. Major Haffield White, quartermaster
7. Captain Ezekiel Cooper
8. Captain Daniel Davis
9. Captain Jonathan Devoll (Devol)
10. Captain Peregrine Foster
11. Captain William Gray
12. Captain Josiah Munroe (Munro)
13. Captain Jethro Putnam
14. Jabez Barlow
15. Daniel Bushnell
16. Phineas Coburn
17. Ebenezer Corey (Cory)
18. Samuel Cushing
19. Jarvis (Jervis) Cutler (son of Manasseh Cutler)
20. Israel Danton
21. Jonas Davis
22. Allen Devoll
23. Gilbert Devoll, Jr.
24. Isaac Dodge
25. Oliver Dodge
26. Samuel Felshaw
27. Hezekiah Flint
28. Hezekiah Flint, Jr.
29. John Gardner
30. Benjamin Griswold
31. Elizur (Elisur) Kirtland
32. Theophilus Leonard (Learned)
33. Joseph Lincoln
34. Simeon Martin
35. Henry Maxom
36. William Maxom (Mason)
37. William Miller
38. William Moulton
39. Edmond (Edmund) Moulton
40. Amos Porter, Jr.
41. Allen Putnam
42. Benjamin Shaw
43. Earl Sproat
44. David Wallace (Wallis)
45. Joseph Wells
46. Josiah White
47. Peletiah White
48. Josiah Whitridge

• Rufus Putnam

• Return J. Meigs, Sr.

• Ebenezer Sproat

• Anselm Tupper