Marietta, Georgia

“ Then they were to cross the country on foot until they got to Chattanooga and were then to go back on their tracks by train and meet at a little town called Marietta in the middle of Georgia. No one would, of course, suspect men coming out of a Confederate city to be Union soldiers. If questioned they were to say that they were Kentuckians on their way to join the Southern army. At Marietta they were to take rooms at the Marietta Hotel and meet at the scout's room on the following Saturday morning at two o'clock. ”

“ King, of Marietta, are now going between Governor Brown and myself. I have said to them that some of the people of Georgia are engaged in rebellion, began in error and perpetuated in pride, but that Georgia can now save herself from the devastations of war preparing for her, only by withdrawing her quota out of the Confederate Army, and aiding me to expel Hood from the borders of the State; in which event, instead of desolating the land as we progress, I will keep our men to the high-roads and commons, and pay for the corn and meat we need and take. ”

“ Besides Augusta and Columbus, the largest manufacturing city of the State, there are cotton factories at Athens, Macon, West Point, Decatur, and Atlanta. The latter city also has large iron works. Thomasville, Dalton, Albany, Marietta, and Rome are also manufacturing points.
Commerce.—Large vessels can enter only four harbors, viz., Savannah, Darien, Brunswick, and St. Mary’s. The inlets or sounds which divide the coast islands from each other or from the mainland are generally only navigable for small craft. ”

“ In this mood Marietta entered the gondola and seated herself by her father on Sunday morning. She wore an embroidered gown of olive green, a little open at her dazzling throat, and a silk mantle of a darker tone hung from her shoulders, to protect her from the sun rather than from the air. Her russet hair was plaited in a thick flat braid, and brought round her head like a broad coronet of red gold, and a point lace veil, pinned upon it with stoat gold pins, hang down behind and was brought forward carelessly upon one shoulder. ”

“ Information, property, and strength will be its characteristics. I know many of the settlers personally, and there never were men better calculated to promote the welfare of such a community."
There was little need for Parson Cutler to try to strengthen us in the determination to continue the journey, for none of our party were weak-kneed; but it pleased us much to know that such a man as General Washington could praise so heartily those who had begun the building of Marietta. ”

“ As your president has well told you in eloquent words to-night, our friends in Marietta are celebrating a past of vast importance in the history of Ohio, and the United States, and of all mankind. One hundred years ago there landed at Marietta that little body whose influence was then felt and is now felt all over the earth's surface; an organized body of men with discipline, seeking to make homes for themselves and their families and to rear up a State, free, where all men could enjoy liberty and the pursuit of happiness in their own way and at their own time. ”

“ Heaven will not always be silent. The friends of the rights of human nature will in the end prevail.” They prevailed for the Northwest Territory with the achievement of Manasseh Cutler, Rufus Putnam and Nathan Dane.
Was it from Jefferson that Putnam and his men at Marietta caught their classical jargon? There was a great deal of pretentious classicism in America at that time, new towns everywhere being freighted with high-sounding Greek and Roman names. The founders of Marietta—so named in honor of Marie Antoinette—named one of their squares Capitolium ”

“ The streets are wide, and adorned with forest trees, and parks. The houses are solidly built, having each its ornamented court and garden. The exchange, court-house, college, churches, and other public buildings are handsome structures. It is principally settled by New Englanders, whose love of good order and morality has not been left behind, for the motto{254} upon the town seal pledges their ‘support of religion and learning.’ Marietta is upon the Muskingum, which is between two and three hundred yards wide, and navigable for one hundred miles with large boats. ”

“ Those were days of change and great confusion, and she disappeared from New Orleans and the knowledge of old friends without calling forth comment or question, and she was received into the social life of Marietta in the same way. It was not the time to sit in judgment on one's neighbors—to probe for secret motives or purposes. A common woe made all akin. From a merchant and planter who wished to sell out and go west to recuperate his broken fortunes, Agnese Capelle bought a house and lot on the northeast side of the town, and with her small family settled quietly down. ”

“ Although I have not advanced so far in the world as I had hoped might have been possible, I have not fallen in the race of life. I am no worse off than when I landed here at Marietta, and have laid up for myself some few dollars, in addition to the knowledge that I am of service in the settlement ”

“ It was no wonder that Marietta was sleepless at night, and spent long hours of the day sitting listless by her window without so much as threading a score of beads from the little basket that stood beside her. Nella came and went often, looked at her, and shook her head with a wise smile.
"It is the thought of marriage," said the woman of the people to herself. "She pines and grows pale now, because she is thinking that she must leave her father's house so soon, and she is afraid to go among strangers. But she will be happy by and by, like the swallows in spring." ”

“ The world and all that the inquisitive eye could gaze upon was beautiful, and bathed in a flood of moonlight, still retained something of its primal brightness.
"All heaven and earth were still—though not in sleep.
But breathless as we grow when feeling most.
And silent as we stand in thought too deep."
It was ten o'clock, and Marietta and Ada are seated by a window, as we have seen them once before. They are drinking in the mild loveliness of the evening, and its tranquilizing stillness stirs up a delicious rapture in their hearts. ”

“ From the time of our coming into this Ohio country, Marietta had steadily increased in size, the people coming, as it seemed to me, from every part of the eastern colonies, and just when Ben and I were congratulating each other that our lines had been cast in peaceful, pleasant places, even though we were settled in the wilderness, the Indians began their bloody work [154] which we now fear may result in wiping out this settlement.
The treaty which had been made by the savages just after we arrived was kept only by the white men. ”

“ She had sold the adjoining meadows and also the woodland, because she said it was better to lessen care as you grew older, and she was a poor hand to keep up a farm. Marietta was of those who are perhaps not calm by inheritance, but who have attained serenity because life proves it to be desirable. To-night she saw Jerry coming and met him at the door, a plump, fresh-colored woman with sweet brows, thick white hair, and blue eyes full of a wistful sympathy. ”

“ Only think of sailing beyond the Mississippi, in a steamboat, still westward more than two thousand miles, and find your course at every step skirted with the most rich and fertile lands which stretch away interminably before you!
We passed this day some interesting towns. Marietta appears beautiful from the river, is neatly built, and bears the marks of thrift and enterprise. Point Pleasant and Guyandot in Virginia, Gallipolis and Burlington in Ohio, are interesting points. ”

“ Marietta had looked Contarini full in the face before she had time to draw her veil across her own. She stepped back and placed herself behind her father, protected as it were by their serving-man, who stood beside her with his staff. She understood instantly that the magnificent patrician was the man of whom her father had spoken as her future husband. ”

“ Marietta, Ga.—On the Sabbath, June 6th, the new church, which is also to be used as a school building, at Marietta, Ga., was dedicated. The sermon, by Superintendent Roy, was upon the rebuilding of the Temple by the ex-captives. A Presbyterian minister from Pennsylvania being present, offered the prayer of dedication. The house is 24×40 feet, well finished and painted, and furnished with desks that answer the double purpose of church and school use. The people [301] raised $200 toward the building. Prof. T. N. Chase gave the people a Sunday supply, reporting his visit to Africa. ”

“ Civilization had not as yet taken full hold along this rich valley. The old town of Marietta, the cities of Louisville and Cincinnati, the villages huddled at mouths of such rivers as came down from the Virginia hills, or the larger settlements marking points near the debouchments of slower streams like the Muskingum and Wabash, which crossed the flatter lands beyond, made the chief points of traffic and of interest in those days of west bound travel. ”

“ Marietta pointed towards the castle. “She owns all, all this country, all these houses—all, all.” Marietta joined her brown old hands together, and separated them, like a swimmer, in a gesture that swept the horizon. Her eyes snapped.
“All Lombardy?” said Peter, without emotion.
Marietta stared again.
“All Lombardy? Mache!” was her scornful remonstrance. “Nobody owns all Lombardy. All these lands, these houses.”
“Who is she?” Peter asked.
Marietta's eyes blinked, in stupefaction before such stupidity.
“But I have just told you,” she cried “She is the Duchessa di Santangiolo.” ”

“ From the first it had been the young travelers’ intention to sell their horse and cart at Fort Pitt and secure passage for themselves and goods on some flat-boat going down the river. They spoke of the settlement which General Putnam and others had made at a place they called Marietta (still known by that name) as their destination, and gave a general idea of their plans to the men who talked with them as they gathered about the big fire-place in the evening. ”

“ Surely it seems like a city of itself, when one attempts to go from end to end inside the broad passages, and sees the doors leading to rooms in which an entire family might contrive to live with more or less comfort.
Parson Cutler was twenty-nine days driving from Ipswich to Marietta in his sulky, so he told us; but do not understand that such a journey may always be made in so short a time. He took advantage of the best season of the year in which to make the trip, and returned before the snow came ”

“ The old persons took part with their children; criminations and strife spread from house to house; it was most deplorable.
Marietta is the cause of all, said the pious maidens first; then the mothers said it; next the fathers took it up; and finally all—even the young men. But Marietta, shielded by her modesty and innocence, like the petals of the rosebud in its dark-green calix, did not suspect the mischief of which she was the occasion, and continued courteous to everybody. This touched the young men, who said, “Why condemn the pure and harmless child—she is not guilty!” ”

“ He told us of the Fourth of July celebration, which was held in Marietta on that first Independence Day after the settlers arrived there. They set about making a feast, and verily it must have been one. There were venison barbecues,—meaning deer roasted whole,— [60] buffalo steaks broiled over the glowing coals, bear meat cooked in every manner that could be devised with the few cooking implements our people possessed, small pigs roasted whole, and, as the greatest delicacy of all, an enormous pike, more than six feet long, said to be the largest ever caught in the Ohio River. ”

“ I shall be alone, in my room, just awake and aching with a horrible longing for the impossible. You do not know what it is to dream of you, and wake in the grey dawn! You cannot guess what the emptiness is, the loneliness!"
"I know it well," said Marietta. "I have been perfectly happy, talking to you under the plane-tree, your hand in mine, and mine in yours, our eyes in each other's eyes, our hearts one heart! And then, all at once, there was Nella, standing at the foot of my bed with a big dish in her hands, laughing at me because I had been sleeping so soundly! ”

“ It would have seemed to her wonderful to be a poet herself. Ruth Bellair, waiting in unconscious sovereignty for Jerry to seek her out and lay lilies at her feet, was, she knew, the happiest woman in the spring world. Yet the soft air moved the pines to wavelike murmurings, and Marietta too was happy.
It was nearly three o'clock when Jerry came back, and before that Marietta had roused herself to open her basket and spread a napkin on the big flat stone that made the picnic-table. ”

“ The coming of the Ohio Company to Marietta meant many things to many men, but the one great fundamental fact is of most importance. The founding of Marietta by Rufus Putnam in reality made possible the Ordinance of 1787—of which Daniel Webster said, "I doubt whether one single law of [Pg 124] any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character."
The heroic movement which has justly given Rufus Putnam the title "Father of Ohio" has been one of the marvellous successes of the first century of our national expansion. ”