General Rufus Putnam was born at Sutton, Mass. in 1738.General Rufus Putnam was born at Sutton, Mass. in 1738. He joined the army in 1757 during the French and Indian War and served around Lake Champlain. Nineteen years later, during the American Revolution, he was an engineering officer at Boston, New York and West Point. Under Horatio Gates, in the Saratoga campaign (1777), and Anthony Wayne, at Stony Point (1779), he served as a field officer. After the war's end, in 1783, he was made a brigadier general. In 1786, along with other veterans, he formed the Ohio Company of Associates. Putnam was instrumental in the passage of the Ordinance of 1787 and, by 1788, was supervising the building of Marietta, Ohio with Manasseh Cutler. In 1790 Putnam was appointed judge of the Northwest Territory and served as U.S. surveyor general from 1796-1803. He died at Marietta in 1824 and is buried in Mound Cemetery.



The home that belonged to Rufus Putnam at Campus Martius, one of the early fortifications the settlers built for protection, still stands on it's original spot. A museum, bearing the same name as the fort, was erected on this site and has enclosed the Putnam house, which was restored to it's original condition in 1972 by the Ohio Historical Society. It is the only surviving dwelling of the original Campus Martius which was built from 1788 and 1791.