Contents ▼▲
Front Matter Benjamin's Story The Ohio Company Rufus Putnam Colonel Putnam, Engineer The First Emigrants Building a Fleet Campus Martius Arrival of General Putnam Work of the First Emigrants Clearing the Land How Our Company was Formed Making Ready for the Journey Concerning Myself Setting Out Mistress Devoll's Outfit At Providence The Road to Blooming Grove Plans for the Future On the Water Once More Feasting on Honey Among the Moravians The Rope Ferry The Way Thru Pennsylvania The Shame of the Girls Meeting With Parson Cutler Ohio Cornfields The Governor and Judges The Name of the Town Campus Martius Independence Day Master Devoll's House The Indian Mounds At Harrisburg Isaac Barker's Sport Uncle Daniel Carter Uncle Daniel Joins Us Hard Traveling Mud and Water A Storm of Snow Across the Mountains A Friendly Dunkard Master Hiples's Kindness A Surly Landlord Isaac Flogs the Landlord A Much Needed Lesson A Time of Rest Pack Trains A Night Adventure Women and Children Descending The Mountains The Foot of the Hills Nearing Journey's End At Sumrill's Ferry Parting With Uncle Daniel Our Flatboat The Cattle Are Sent Away At Pittsburgh Too Much Water Escape of the Women Repairing Damages Our Pilot A Change Of Weather Noisy Fear A Real Feast Finding The Canoe Buffalo Creek A March Across Country At Marietta Plans for the Future Inspecting Marietta A Temporary Home Buying Land Visiting the Savages Captain Haskell's Advice A New Friend Fishing Through the Ice The Sabbath in Marietta A Regular Business A Visit from the Savages Building a Home A Great Project The Two Millers Savages on the Warpath

Benjamin of Ohio - James Otis




At Sumrill's Ferry

Here we learned of those people who went out from Danvers and Hartford. We saw where they built the Mayflower, and, in fact, we lodged at the very inn where some of them had lived while making ready for the journey down the river.

Sumrill's Ferry is not a large settlement, but a thriving one. Here were boat builders, ready to make any kind of craft needed.

[Illustration] from Benjamin of Ohio by James Otis

To hear them talk of what they believed must have been our experiences during the journey, one would have said they looked upon us as more than foolish to have ventured so much in order to make a settlement in the wild Ohio country.

Before we had been at this settlement an hour, Uncle Daniel came upon Benjamin Slocomb and his family, who had left Danvers nearly four weeks before we started from Mattapoisett. Master Slocomb had waited at the ferry nine days until a boat could be finished in a manner to please him, and was on the point of setting off when Uncle Daniel saw him.