Ohio Company of Associates

The Ohio Company of Associates, also known as the Ohio Company, was a land company whose members are today credited with becoming the first non-Native American group to settle in the present-day state of Ohio. In 1788 they established Marietta, Ohio as the first permanent settlement of the new United States in the newly organized Northwest Territory.

The company was formed on March 1, 1786, by Rufus Putnam, Benjamin Tupper, Samuel Holden Parsons and Manasseh Cutler in Boston, Massachusetts. They had met at The Bunch-of-Grapes tavern, located on King Street, to discuss the settlement of the territory around the Ohio River. On March 8, 1787, Parsons, Putnam, and Cutler were chosen as directors, and Winthrop Sargent was elected secretary. On August 30, 1787, James Mitchell Varnum was elected as a director, and Richard Platt as treasurer. Later directors included Griffin Greene upon the death of Varnum, and Robert Oliver upon the death of Parsons.

Cutler was sent to New York to negotiate with the Congress of the Confederation to help the company secure a claim on a portion of the land. While there, Cutler aligned himself with William Duer, secretary of the U.S. Treasury Board. Duer and his associates formed a group of New York speculators who were determined to see settlement of the area west of the Appalachians. At this time, Congress desperately needed revenue. The prospect of sales of land helped settle controversy and secure the incorporation in the Northwest Ordinance of the paragraphs that prohibited slavery, provided for land for public education and for the support of the ministry.

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