Rufus Putnam was born at Sutton, Mass. April 9, 1738. He was a man of great physical strength and endurance. At age nineteen he enlisted and served during the French and Indian War.
In 1761 he married to Elizabeth Ayers. who died within the year. Months later their infant son was laid to rest beside his mother. In January 1765 he married again, to Persis Rice, daughter of Zebulon Rice of Westborough, Massachusetts, to this union six daughters and two sons were born. He rejoined the army at the onset of the Revolutionary War, was commissioned a Lieutenant Colonel and was charged with building the fortifications about Boston and Charlestown, Mass., West Point, NY and Newport, RI. In 1776 General Washington gave him the assignment to drive the British from Boston. He was successful. Congress in 1782 commissioned him a Brigadier General.
General Putnam was frequently referred to as "The Father of the Northwest Territory". Under his leadership the Ohio Company of Associates (New England veterans of the Revolution) landed at the mouth of the Muskingum River on April 7, 1788 and founded the settlement of Marietta, the first permanent settlement within the limits of the Northwest Territory. MWB Putnam was made a Master Mason in American Union Lodge, an army Lodge in New York in 1779. He was one of ten Brethren who, on June 25, 1790, petitioned for the reorganization of American Union Lodge. At the first meeting held at Campus Martius on June 28, 1790, Rufus Putnam was elected Junior Warden. He later served as Master in 1794, 1798, 1800, the last half of 1801, and in 1804 and 1805.
On January 7, 1808 in Chillicothe, on the second day of the meeting called to organize the Grand Lodge of Ohio, Rufus Putnam was elected to the position of Right Worshipful Grand Master, thus becoming the first Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ohio. He died on May 4, 1824 and is buried in Mound Cemetery at Marietta, Ohio.
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