What is the history of Marietta, Ohio?
The founding of Marietta began when a young Surveyor (surveying)surveyor began exploring large tracts of land west of his native Virginia in 1770. During the American Revolutionary WarRevolutionary War, this surveyor, George Washington, told his friend, General Rufus Putnam, of the beauty he had seen in his travels through the Ohio Valley and of his ideas for settling the territory. After the war, the newly formed country found itself with little money but blessed with natural resources. As a result of this cash deficit, men who had served in the revolution were paid, not with cash, but with Warrant (finance)warrants for land in the Northwest Territory. There was one problem with these warrants, however. The Federal Government of the United StatesFederal Government did not own the land it offered until the passage of the Northwest OrdinanceOrdinance of 1787 which ceded ownership of the Northwest Territory to the government. The Ohio Company of Associates planned to buy 1.5 million acre
