James Mitchell Varnum (December 17, 1748 – January 9, 1789) was an American legislator, lawyer, general[1] in the Continental Army, and a pioneer to the Ohio Country.

[2][3][4][5][6] Varnum resigned his commission in 1779, and was a delegate to the Continental and Confederation Congress, as well as one of two “supreme” judges appointed to the Northwest Territory.

Another member of the company was Private Nathanael Greene who would rise to become one of the most distinguished officers in the Continental Army and would soon be Varnum's immediate superior.

In early April the regiment marched to New York where it participated in several battles, including the Long Island and White Plains, in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the British from occupying the city.

Varnum advocated allowing freed African American slaves to enlist in the Continental Army, which resulted in the reorganization of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment as a racially integrated unit in 1778.

He led Rhode Island troops in the service of the United States in July and August 1780, under the Comte de Rochambeau who commanded the French army sent by King Louis XVI of France.

[9] In 1783, at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, along with General George Washington, Nathanael Greene, Henry Knox, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and numerous others, General Varnum became an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati and served as president of the Rhode Island Society, following the death of Nathanael Greene, from 1786 until his death in 1789.

This proved to be Varnum's only significant accomplishment in Ohio as he was overcome with consumption which was exacerbated by his long journey westward.

His college classmate the distinguished physician Solomon Drowne eulogized him during an oration at the one-year anniversary celebration of the founding of Marietta: But of these worthies who have most exerted themselves in promoting this settlement, one, alas!

is no more; one whose eloquence, like the music of Orpheus, attractive of the listening crowd, seemed designed to reconcile mankind to the closest bonds of society.

Slow through yon winding path his corse was borne, and on the steepy hill interred with funeral honors meet.

What bosom refuses the tribute of a sigh, on the recollection of that melancholy scene, when, unusual spectacle, the fathers of the land, the chiefs of the aboriginal nations, in solemn train attended; while the mournful dirge was rendered doubly mournful mid the gloomy nodding grove.