Marietta is the first, really, community in Ohio.

Its founding was 1788.

We're going to visit the Campus Martius Museum, and I think we're going to find that it's a pretty interesting visit reaching way back into history, not just of Ohio, but of all of what was known as the Northwest Territory.

Hello!

How are you?

Good, how are you?

Welcome to Campus Martius Museum.

Thanks so much.

Thanks so much.

Well, that's the first question.

It's Campus Martius, not Martius.

And we're in the museum itself.

Now, this building was built when?

This building was built in 1928, but we do house the two oldest buildings in Ohio.

So, we're here in Marietta, a very important historic place in Ohio.

Yes.

Following the Revolutionary War, the United States, of course, was in a lot of debt and looking to expand the nation.

And one of the first ways they started that was claiming this area north and west of the Ohio River and the Appalachian Mountains as the Northwest Territory.

And the United states opened up some of that land for investors to purchase.

The Ohio Company of Associates purchased 1.5 million acres in this area.

And then the whole crew of 48 of them left Massachusetts in December.

Of 1787 and came across Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh, where they had some folks build a boat for them and they floated down the Ohio River until they came to the confluence of the Muskingum in Ohio.

And that's where Marietta was born.

Well, I know that a lot of people in Ohio don't know that story, and this is a museum ready to tell that story.

So let's go on.

Let's head to the wagon.

Okay.

Oh wow, talk about transportation, this is great.

Yeah, our visitors really love all of the great artifacts that we have here, but the Conestoga wagon is always a really great surprise.

Conestoga is a Pennsylvania name, is that correct?

That's where they were developed, but they were sort of the universal transport for people coming west in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

Absolutely.

Think about it.

You were living in a town in New England that probably had been in existence for over a hundred years, and suddenly you decide, all right, we're going to go ahead and we're gonna move west.

So you had to fit everything that you were going to need in a place that had conceivably nothing compared to your town.

Figure out what you're going to need, put it into the wagon, and then walk with your family.

People made it and they made it to Marietta, and this was the start of pretty much everything west of here.

Absolutely.

You know, the Northwest Ordinance really became a document how to live out the Declaration of Independence, right?

So we wrote the Declaration of independence, we have the Revolutionary War, and it's over.

And so now how are we going to grow our nation?

That Northwest Ordinace was so important for folks coming this direction because it laid out some programs of how not only there was to be no slavery, supports for education, supports for Women and Land Ownership.

But then also once you grew to a certain size, how then to become a state?

But people need to know the importance of Ohio, really, and much of the settlement of the United States.

I'm not sure everybody does, but certainly this place helps tell the story.

Absolutely.

We have a lot of really great historical areas, especially in southeastern Ohio, that we've been here since 1788.

However, Ohio did not become a state until 1803.

So really kind of joining together all of those stories to help people understand how our nation grew and how that impacted our nation, but then internationally.

And I believe hearing about the two oldest buildings in the state of Ohio, and they're around here somewhere.

They are here.

Can you lead me to them?

Absolutely.

Let's head out.

Great.

Welcome to the program, Hal.

This is getting good.

Yes, a lot of people know us as the museum with a house inside.

Heh, rightly so.

I'd like to introduce you to Maggie.

Well, Maggie, how are you?

I'm fine, how're you?

Good to meet you.

How are you, I'm Jeff.

Nice to meet ya.

Maggie's going to give you a tour of the Putnam House.

Well, thanks so much.

I really appreciate the tour you've given us and look forward to learning more.

So tell me about the Putnam House.

The Putnam house was built by General Rufus Putnam, who was the superintendent of the Ohio Company.

So, he was the big boss of the whole group, and his house was attached in the stockade of Campus Marshes.

So the house was both residential, but it was a fortification as well.

Yes, a civilian fortification.

I noticed, too, we're on an elevated site here above the Muskingum Rivers off that way, and I assume that was strategic.

Yes, it was built up here on this high plane.

It didn't flood here.

And also, it could be seen from miles around, and they could see out.

So tell me a little more about how this was built.

It's fascinating to look at.

These were built as plank houses.

They aren't log cabins.

They are actually plank houses, you can see that they designed them so they would be put together down on the ground first as a unit and then put up as a wall, sort of a prefab idea almost.

And you'll notice on the planks, there are some Roman numerals that are matched.

So that's the marriage of the structure.

You told you what piece went into what other piece.

That made a lot of sense.

Well, I'd love to see more.

It's a big house and there's a lot going on here.

Let's have a tour.

Sure, follow me.

Okay.

Oh, this just gets better and better.

Wow, I can't believe I'm up by a house this old.

It is pretty amazing.

It really is.

Now I noticed the windows all have heavy wood shutters.

That I assume was defensive, not weather.

Yip-bo.

And I notice there's, obviously there's a fair bit of iron work.

Did they bring hammers and... Part of the first 48 men who came, led by General Rufus Putnam, he had a selection of the Ohio Company prescribed that there would be so many blacksmiths, so many carpenters and so on.

And, yes, a lot of the hinges were actually brought from, at least for Putnam's house, from the east.

I would like you to keep in mind that this would have been the outside wall of the fortification.

Well, I can't imagine the ceilings are real high, but let's take a look inside.

Sure, come on in.

Come on into the kitchen.

Well, I was wrong.

This is way roomier than I expected.

And it has much more domestic feel than you might expect in what essentially was built as a fort.

Yes.

Everything's here that you need to have a successful kitchen.

This is a typical kitchen fireplace.

Would've had a couple of small fires burning most of the time depending on what was being cooked.

It's a real blend of sort of the frontier but domestic life as they knew back in New England.

It's an interesting contrast.

Exactly.

Well I know this isn't the only room, there's probably more to see.

Let's go to the parlor.

All right.

Again, a nicely finished room.

So a couple of things I'd like to point out.

One of them is this liquor cabinet or field box.

It was actually owned by a cousin of Rufus Putnam's and that was a very important box filled probably with whiskey, the drink of the day.

Something else in this room is the oldest piece of furniture built in Marietta.

It was built by a man named Jonathan Sprague.

China cabinet.

Wow.

And he was also a carpenter in the shipyards where they made ocean going vessels.

The other interesting thing in here are the silhouettes.

That's a silhouette of General Rufus Putnam.

So I know there's a second floor, I'd love to see what's up there.

Come follow me to the bedrooms.

Well, this is very roomy.

It is, it's very, very nice.

All of the beds in the house have the rope support.

So you can see.

Oh, this was not a mattress-type bed.

And in fact, once you slept on that for a while, it would get loose.

They had a technique to tighten it.

And that's one of the theories where we get that expression, sleep tight, because you've tightened up the ropes.

This tick might have been filled with straw or bark or grass, whatever they could find.

To give it a little softer, spread out the way kind of thing.

The other item in this room is this wash stand.

Oh, I didn't notice that.

That was actually owned by returned Jonathan Meggs Jr.

Who was the fourth governor of Ohio.

He was a Marietta native.

So this is one bedroom, there were others, and I noticed there actually was a fireplace and one of them I suppose provided some heat.

That must have been where Rufus was.

Possibly.

Rufous and the Mrs.

Yeah.

Let's see more.

Alright, follow me.

So this is a model of campus marshes, the fortification or stockade.

This was Rufus Putnam's house.

Okay, this one right here.

Right here.

Right here on the corner there, and there it still stands today.

There it is.

It's not been moved off the foundation, although it has been conserved and so on.

Now this was the addition he built from the wood from the southeast block house.

So the block houses came down after the threat of an attack was lessened or gone and of course they salvaged the wood.

You wouldn't throw it away.

And throw it away.

Oh no, no.

If you look at this beam right above you, you can see hand hewn, how much work that would have taken.

Fascinating.

Well, I know there's another building.

We've been promised two.

Yes.

So I'm ready to tour a little bit more.

Okay, we can go out to the land.

Office.

Okay, let's do it.

I'll follow.

Okay.

Jeff, come on into the land office.

Oh, it is an old building.

Yes it is.

I'd like to introduce you to Christy who is the director of education and engagement.

Oh, good to meet you.

Thank you.

Very nice to meet you.

So tell me about the land office, what happened here?

So a lot happened here.

This was the first building that was built in the northwest territory and it is where Rufus Putnam gave out all of his land deeds to people that were coming here to buy property in the newly settled Marietta.

So did this pre-date the Rufus Putnam House and the fortification, or were they at the same time?

So it was finished first, and it is where Rufus would have slept while he was waiting for his portion of the stockade to be finished.

So he was here before his family came down as well.

So Rufus was a surveyor.

He had a transit, he had things to measure, he laid out lines, that sort of thing.

That had to be a challenge in a land full of trees.

And swamps, and cliffs, and rivers.

It had to really hard work.

Absolutely.

And on top of that, there are mounds in this area.

So he had a lot of obstacles, but I think he really enjoyed that part of it.

And he started working on maps of Marietta immediately.

Now when you mention mounds, you're referring to the earthworks built by the indigenous tribes.

Yeah, absolutely.

And of course there's a famous one here in the cemetery in Marietta.

Corners manned.

But there were many more in the area, I assume, some of which exist, others probably destroyed by development over time.

The mounds themselves are still around, the walls have come down over time.

Oh, so they had walls around them.

Yes.

Were they stockade kind of walls or dirt walls?

Or don't we know for sure?

They were dirt.

Those ended up being used for clay and a lot of the bricks that are in the homes of Marietta.

So they were quarried by the settlers because they didn't see a value in preservation.

Actually, the settlers really respected the mounds and they worked to preserve them.

It would have been their descendants that decided it was really good for bricks in the area.

Well, this is fascinating.

I know you explained the whole process of getting recorded in the book as to what you purchased and what the prices were.

The prices were remarkable.

I saw something like $1.64 an acre, big cash on the barrel head, just something that just wouldn't happen today, that's for sure.

For sure, yes.

So this is not on its original site, is that correct?

The land office is not.

That is correct.

It has moved at least twice.

We know that it moved in 1791 to be within range of the guns of campus marshes to protect it from any possible attacks.

It never was attacked, but they wanted to move it closer just in case.

And then in 1953, it was purchased by the Ohio Historical Society and it was moved to its location that we are in now.

Well, thank you very much.

We've learned a lot about the whole surveying process.

And thank you for the tour.

This is an important part of the history of Ohio, and I hope more people appreciate it, come here to Marietta to enjoy Campus Martius.

You're very welcome.

Glad you could come.