Under the protection of the soldiers, the New Englanders began to fell trees and build houses, and to lay the foundation of Marietta, the oldest of Ohio towns and a place that in the history of the West holds a rank similar to that held by Jamestown and Plymouth in the history of the East. At Marietta the wheels of territorial government for the Northwest Territory were set in motion (July, 1788). General Arthur St. Clair, who had climbed the rock of Quebec with Wolfe, and who was a warm friend of Washington, had come out as governor of the Territory. Cincinnati was founded about the same time as Marietta. In December, 1788, twenty-six settlers landed at the foot of what is now Sycamore Street in Cincinnati, and began to build a town which they called Losantiville, but which afterward received its present name. Other settlements on the Ohio quickly followed those of Marietta and Cincinnati. The towns of Gallipolis, Portsmouth, Manchester, and South Bend all appeared within a few years after the founding of Marietta. The Ohio settlers had to meet the Indians at every step, and as the white men became more numerous the red men became more troublesome. In 1791 Governor St. Clair was compelled to march against the Indians, but near the place where the city of Fort Wayne now stands he suffered a terrible defeat. General Anthony Wayne--"Mad Anthony"--the hero of Stony Point, was next sent against the red warriors, and at Fallen Timbers (in 1794) he met them and dealt them a blow that broke their power completely in Ohio and drove them from the country. With the Indians out of the way, the settlement of Ohio could go on much faster. Towns began to be built farther up the streams and farther inland. In 1795 Dayton and Chillicothe were founded, and the next year General Moses Cleveland, with a few companions, founded, at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, a town to which he gave his name. In 1800 the original Northwest Territory was divided, and the eastern portion--the portion that is now Ohio--was set off as the Territory Northwest of the Ohio, and was given a territorial government of its own. The population of this new Territory was more than 40,000, and its people were already beginning to think of statehood. [Illustration: Marietta, Ohio, in 1790.] THE SETTLEMENT OF THE WEST BY EMERSON HOUGH I. THE PATHWAY OF THE WATERS It is pleasant to dwell upon the independent character of Western life, and to go back to the glories of that land and day when a man who had a rifle and a saddle-blanket was sure of a living, and need ask neither advice nor permission of any living soul. These days, vivid, adventurous, heroic, will have no counterpart upon the earth again. These early Americans, who raged and roared across the West, how unspeakably swift was the play in which they had their part!