most straitened circumstances, and the young nation ushered into being by their heroism was unable to alleviate their condition. These were the times which tried men’s souls. Nowhere was the strain any more severe than in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The joy which peace brought after seven years of war was in most localities too deep to be voiced by noisy demonstration, and it was not unmingled with forebodings of the future. “The rejoicings,” says a local historian,[3] “were mostly expressed in religious solemnities.” There were still difficult problems to be solved—and there was the memory of husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, and lovers who would not return with the victorious patriots, and it may in many cases have been difficult “to discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people.” General Benjamin Tupper, in the early autumn of 1785, had gone to the Ohio country to engage in surveying under the ordinance passed by Congress May 20 of that year, but owing to the hostility of the Indians and consequent hazard of entering upon the work, he returned to New England. General Tupper was one of the men who had been most intently engaged in planning western settlements, and was undoubtedly a co-worker with his intimate old friend, General Putnam, advocating and agitating the scheme which had proved unsuccessful. He returned from the west filled with admiration of that portion of the country which he had seen, and made enthusiastic through the descriptions given by traders of the region farther down _la belle riviere_ than he had journeyed. Doubtless he pondered upon the idea of removing to the west, during the whole time spent there, and was chiefly occupied with the subject while making the tedious return to his home. Early in January he visited, at his house in Rutland, Worcester County, Massachusetts, General Putnam, and there these two men, who may be properly called the founders of the Ohio Company, earnestly talked of their experiences and their hopes in front of the great fire, while the night hours fast passed away. In the language of one whom it is fair to suppose had preserved the truthful tradition of that meeting: “A night of friendly offices and conference between them gave, at the dawn, a development—how important in its results!—to the cherished hope and purpose of the visit of General Tupper.”[4] As the result of that long conversation by a New England fireside, appeared the first mention in the public prints of the Ohio Company. The two men had thought so deeply and carefully upon the absorbing theme of colonization, were so thoroughly impressed with the feasibility of their plans as they had unfolded them, so impatient to put them to that test, that they felt impelled to take an immediate and definite step. They could no longer rest inactive. They joined in a brief address, setting forth their views to ascertain the opinion of the people.