It was 170 miles down the Ohio beyond the outpost of civilisation at
Pittsburg. Similar settlements were speedily founded on other purchases
and on the military lands.

[Illustration: DR. CUTLER'S CHURCH AND PARSONAGE AT IPSWICH HAMLET, 1787.
The rendezvous from which the first company started for the Ohio, December
3, 1787.]

The national governor and judges for the Northwest territory in due
time created a set of laws, established courts, and erected local
governments. The latter was effected by applying the county system,
familiar to the people of the Central and Southern States, to the land
survey county, and by giving to the township, a unit in the survey
system, some of the functions of the New England town. By this happy
combination, settlers from any part of the old States would find a
local government with whose forms they were to some extent familiar.
The Symmes purchase on the Ohio below the Ohio Company's grant was
opened to settlement, as was the Virginia Military tract lying between
the two. Through Pittsburg, "the gateway of the west," came a throng
of pioneers to float down the Ohio to the land of promise. The United
States forts protected them on the northern or "Indian side" of the
river. In 1786, no less than 117 boats were counted passing Fort Harmar.

So rapidly did the people take possession of this heritage of the
Revolutionary struggle that within fifteen years the eastern part was
ready to claim the promise of statehood. Eight years later, this new
State, Ohio, had passed in rank of population the older
trans-Alleghanian States of Kentucky and Tennessee. Blessed with
contiguous waterways lying in the line of travel, forming the gateway
into the West by the down-thrusting arm of Canada, the first State to