Author: Winthrop Sargent

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

Description: The correspondence and other papers in this folder cover Sargent's search for a government appointment; his two surveying trips to Ohio; his part in the formation and promotion of the Ohio Company; and his appointment as secretary of the Northwest Territory. Correspondence includes letters from Jeremy Belknap, expressing curiosity about the western country; Edward Carrington , on his purchase of Ohio Company shares; Crevecoeur, suggesting a name for the proposed company town on the Muskingum River; Major John Hamtramck, on military conditions in the Northwest Territory; Elnathan Haskell, on the Ohio Company venture; Thomas Hutchins, on Sargent's work as a surveyor; Rufus King and Henry Knox, relating to Sargent's pursuit of a government job; Robert Morris, criticizing schemes to encourage western settlement; George Turner, expressing his opinions of government, the Constitution, and the Ohio Company; and James Winthrop, enclosed with a report of barometrical observations made at Lake Champlain in 1786. The collection also contains a number of letters on the formation of the Ohio Company, its negotiations for land, and its sales promotions. In this correspondence are letters from Manasseh Cutler, Sargent's associate in negotiations with the Board of Treasury; William Duer, referring to the relationship between the Ohio Company and the Scioto group; Samuel Holden Parsons, including his estimation of the West as a possible "Safe Retreat" from the confusion and folly of government in the eastern states; Richard Platt, on Sargent's private finances, as well as Ohio Company business; and Rufus Putnam, on rumours that Sargent and Cutler were seeking private profit in their land negotiations. Among the Cutler letters is one to Jeremy Belknap recounting an expedition to the White Mountains. Scattered throughout the collection are papers related to the purchase of government land, as well as lists of Ohio Company receipts and shareholders. Among the latter is Sargent's stitched copy of the Articles of an Association by the Name of the Ohio Company (1786, 13 pages), with notations of the names of subscribers for whom he was agent. Sargent's own correspondence includes letters to Crevecoeur; to Ebenezer Hazard, defending his and Cutler's financial negotiations; to Thomas Hutchins; and a letter to Richard Platt on the possibility of obtaining European investment in the Ohio Company. Sargent's copy of the Northwest Ordinance, signed by Charles Thomson, appears in this collection under the date July 13, 1787. Also in this collection are maps and survey reports related to land holdings in Mississippi in the early 1780s, as well as two orderly books (20 Feb.-12 June 1779 and 6 Aug.-23 Sep. 1780) kept for General St. Clair's Pennsylvania Division.