On April 1, 1788, the 48 pioneer settlers of the Northwest Territory launched their boats out into the Youghiogheny and pushed down that river to the Monongahela. At Pittsburgh they swung out into the current of the broad Ohio. John Mathews had been working since February 27 to collect provisions for the expedition at the mouth of Buffalo Creek (now Wellsburg, West Virginia). The horses, oxen and wagons had been sent overland to this point. After stopping the entire day of April 5 to load these provisions, and their equipment, the little flotilla floated on and arrived at the mouth of the Muskingum on the morning of April 7. The banks of the Muskingum at that time were lined with tall sycamores, which leaned out over the water, and so narrowed the mouth that the pioneers could not see it through the rain. Consequently the current carried them past the mouth of the Muskingum and below Fort Harmar. With ropes and the help of soldiers from the fort, the boats were towed back into the Muskingum. Then the pioneers rowed across and landed at noon above the upper point. In what sense were these 48 founders of Marietta the first settlers in the Northwest Territory? Certainly they were not the first white men to live in the Ohio country. Sault Ste. Marie was planted by Marquette in 1668, 120 years before the founding of Marietta. Burke A. Hinsdale has said that the French posts—Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and many others—in the old Northwest contained a population of 2500 people in 1766. Wisconsin, northern Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois had been major scenes of French exploration and settlement for a hundred years. But the French made no attempt to colonize their settlements; they preferred to keep the wilderness a vast, unbroken game preserve for trapping furs and Indian trading. When the English secured possession of the country northwest of the Ohio River at the end of the French and Indian War, the British government angered the colonies, first by the decree of 1763 forbidding settlement, and later by ignoring the colonial charters which had granted the colonies territory “from sea to sea” and passing the Quebec Act of 1774, in which representative government was abolished. It is not possible, a hundred and fifty years later, even if it were possible at the time, to interpret the working of the minds of the English king and council. It is a fair surmise, however, supported by considerable evidence, that the crown then saw the threat of American independence, if the American people could establish themselves in this vast and fertile empire beyond the mountains where physical geography alone would make it impossible for the mother country to hold the colonies in subjection or enforce her decrees upon them. [Illustration: LANDING OF PIONEER SETTLERS IN NORTHWEST TERRITORY AT MARIETTA]