Under the leadership of Rufus Putnam, 48 men, departed New England during the severe winter of 1787/88 and made their way west through the mountains to Sumrill’s Ferry on the Youghiogheny River. There they spent the winter building two huge flatboats and three canoes to take them down the Youghiogheny to the Monongahela River and then down the Ohio River to their destination, a point of land at the mouth of the Muskingum River. Here, these pioneers would establish the first settlement in the territory northwest of the Ohio River and name it Marietta. Among these early pioneers, who opened the door to western settlement of the United States, were many heroic men and officers of the American Revolution.This book contains the true stories of these great men and other pioneers who withstood Indian Warfare, starvation, sickness, death and deprivation to establish themselves in the wilderness of the early American frontier and begin the westward expansion of the greatest nation on earth.
