July, 2010 Summer Institute Workshop
Beverly Historical Society, Beverly, Mass

Documents for the Leaving Our Mark – Migration from Essex County to Ohio and California(.pdf) Lesson

Not all Essex County residents wished to stay in their community, or even in New England. Some people have a need to go forth and seek out new territories. Some wish to escape the old, some wish to find the new, and some wish to leave the mark of the old on the new.

This lesson looks at two distinct times in American history when a large number of New Englanders left their homes and created new ones. In the years following the American Revolution, the new country had little hard cash to pay her former soldiers – what she did have was an abundance of land beyond the Appalachian Mountains. This Northwest Territory could be sold cheaply and many were ready to leave the somewhat crowded conditions of New England farms and create new towns. Manasseh Cutler, a minister and politician, who had lived in Ipswich worked with other Essex County people to create the Ohio Company and led many adventurous folks from Salem, Gloucester, Ipswich, Danvers and Newburyport to create the new city of Marietta in Ohio.

Similarly in the late 1840s new frontiers were opening in the far off land of California. Once gold was discovered there, it seemed that towns sprung up overnight. And towns needed more than just people to thrive. Enterprising men from Beverly formed the Beverly Joint Stock Company to ship building materials as well as other goods for the miners. Some succumbed to “gold fever,” but often a fortune was to be made more from selling goods to miners than by mining yourself. Papers from a voyage to San Francisco on the Barque of the same name, shows what life was like on that voyage.

Primary Sources from copyright free internet sources

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• Excerpts from the Life, Journals and Correspondence of Mannasseh Cutler
• The journey from Ipswich to Ohio in 1788 - This two volume set published in 1888 includes the papers of the Reverend Mannasseh Cutler who was ordained a minister in Ipswich and helped form the Ohio Company of Associates. This company of Essex County people lobbied Congress to be able to buy lands in the Northwest Territory. They then travelled to Ohio and founded the town of Marietta. Cutler later went on the become a U.S. Congressman. see more info in web links below.

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• Excerpts from the Benjamin of Ohio
• Benjamin of Ohio by James Kaler is a 1912 fictionalized account of the journey to the Ohio Territory and the founding of Marietta. It may be useful as a secondary source to give a simplified version of the same story that Cutler relates in his writings. This excerpt also includes a map.

Primary Sources ...from the Beverly Historical Society, Beverly, MA

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• Sea Journal of the Barque, San Francisco
• In 1849, the Barque, San Francisco, sailed from Beverly, MA to San Francisco The excerpts from this log describe some of the journey and the arrival
• transcript of journal
  
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• Image of the Barque, San Francisco
• This print of the vessel, San Francisco, is included in the book, the Argonauts of '49. The original painting is in the collections of the Beverly Historical Society

Primary Sources ...from the National Archives and Records Administration, Waltham, MA

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• Transcript (pdf)
• Coasting Manifest for the Barque, San Francisco, 1849
• This document shows the goods being transported to San Francisco by Thomas Remmonds and his crew in 1849. The items mentioned include materials for constructing houses, boots, soap, hats, salt, overalls, tobacco & iron. Isaac Baker was aboard this ship.

Primary Sources ...from the PBS History Detectives site

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• Baker's Gold - aired July, 2010
• A viewer from Colorado thinks he may have discovered a gem of Gold Rush memorabilia when he found an unusual drawing. The investigation brings the team to California and they are able to trace the drawings to Isaac Baker who travelled there in the 1840s and 1850s. the same Isaac baker who went to San Francisco from Beverly in the barque named above. Check out the transcript and drawings - as well as the early image of Baker .

...Web links for Related Subjects - web links current as of March 2011

Cobblestone magazine; The California Gold Rush --(1997) Children's magazine focusing on the Gold Rush of 1849

Marietta College; Ohio Company -- Manuscripts and documents of the Ohio Company of Associates who explored and settled the Ohio frontier. Currculum resources available

Manasseh Cutler - Ohio History biography --short biography of Cutler

Manasseh Cutler; Congressional biography --Biographical dictionary of the U.S. Congress page for Cutler

Marietta, Ohio -Ohio history site for a description of the founding of Marietta, Ohio

Winthrop Sargent -- wikipedia site for Winthrop Sargent. He worked with Cutler in forming the Ohio Company and was the first Secretary of the Northwest Territory. He was also the first governor of the Mississippi territory. Originally from Gloucester, he is the brother of Judith Sargent Murray ( see lesson on separation of church and state in July 2009)