Reflection on The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers who Brought the American Ideal West by David McCullough

               The Pioneers was not the book I expected it to be. I thought it was going to be a historical study of the American settlement of the west, but it is actually totally focused on the town of Marietta, Ohio from 1787 to 1863. It is a good book, though I’m not sure what I would use this information for. It is mainly a colorful illustration of what life was like for the first generations of American settlers in what would become the state of Ohio. Marietta is found on the Ohio River and was the first town settled in Ohio, temporarily serving as the capital until it was moved to Cincinnati and then Columbus.

               I really liked the egalitarian aspects of the Ohio Company as set up by Rufus Putnam for the settlement of the region. For example, no one could purchase less than one share or more than five. That created a region of smallholders, not one powerful landowner ruling over the rest. They also banned slavery. Each settler got a small lot in the town and a larger lot to grow crops outside of the central township, copying the New England model of settlement. McCullough alleges that the people of Ohio were also pioneering what would be called the American way of life, though I think that America is too diverse to have one group claim that.

Miscellaneous Facts:

• Ohio is home to large mounds, which confounded American settlers. Even the natives of the area did not know who made them. It was later revealed that they are the work of the Ohio Hopewell culture and the Great Mound was built between 100 BC and 500 AD.
• The term “bushwhacking” comes from settlers on the Ohio River having to grab hold of bushes and trees on the river’s banks to pull the boat upstream.
• In 1791, the Ohio governor, St. Clair, met a huge defeat against Indians where he lost 623 military men and 200 women and children, the worst military disaster for American forces to that point. It was also the source of the very first congressional investigation.
• There was a weird plot at one point hatched by Aaron Burr after he killed Hamilton to start a new country in the west, though he was arrested by Jefferson and then tried for treason, but found innocent. He spent the rest of his life in Europe.