[2] Ephraim Cutler loved to read, but did not attend Yale College, as had his father, because the American Revolutionary War made such "impracticable," although he later often regretted his lack of formal education and would frequently misspell words in his letters.

[4] In that year his father Manasseh Cutler had helped convince the Congress of the Confederation to pass the Northwest Ordinance, which established a political framework for settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains.

[6] After hearing about General Anthony Wayne's victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in August 1794, and hoping that southern Ohio's climate could restore his wife's health, Ephraim Cutler decided to move his family from Killingly.

Thus, he sold the farm, and on June 15, 1795, set out with his wife, four children (aged 7 through 1 year old) and several members of the family of Revolutionary War general Israel Putnam for Ohio.

They traveled by foot (the Cutlers accompanied by a two horses, a cow and cart drawn by oxen) to the Monongahela River near Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where they had a Kentucky flat-boat built.

[7] Leah Cutler also fell and broke two ribs, and her husband contracted dysentery, but recovered in a rented room in the blockhouse of Campus Martius.

Cutler also settled company business in Marietta that autumn and Rufus Putnam paid him $100 to survey land in the Donation Tract.

Cutler also received commissions from Governor Arthur St. Clair, becoming captain of the militia, Justice of the Peace and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas.

[16] After adjournment, he visited his father in Washington, D.C., where he sat as a member of Congress from Massachusetts, and where Ephraim witnessed the passing of the Ohio Enabling Act.

[20][21] Cutler also tried, without success, to have the Constitution submitted to a referendum by the population, saying "I deem it of primary importance that the people of this territory should have some opportunity of declaring their assent to or dissent from this instrument before it became binding on them...By adopting the resolution to submit the constitution to a vote of the people the mouths of the clamorous would be stopped, and the minds of the judicious satisfied."

[28] On April 13, 1808, he married Sally Parker, a native of Newburyport, Massachusetts, with whom he had five more children, four of whom survived to adulthood, including William P. Cutler, who would serve as speaker of the Ohio House, and as a member of Congress.

He was an upright judge, an intelligent legislator, a good neighbor, a public-spirited citizen, an affectionate father, a sincere Christian, and an honest, true man.