Ohio Company of Associates

In 1788 they established Marietta, Ohio, as the first permanent settlement of the new United States in the newly organized Northwest Territory.

They had met at The Bunch-of-Grapes tavern, located on King Street, to discuss the settlement of the territory around the Ohio River.

[1] The Ohio Company's purchase was enabled first by the passage on July 13, 1787, of the "Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio," commonly known as the Northwest Ordinance, and second, by the Act of October 23, 1787, which authorized Congress to make contracts of public lands for not less than one million acres.

Their first contract was for the Ohio Company to purchase 1,500,000 acres (6,000 km²) of land at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers, from a point near the site of present-day Marietta, to a point nearly opposite present-day Huntington, West Virginia, for a payment of $1 million in government securities, then worth about 12¢ specie to the dollar.

[9][10] In 1788, General Rufus Putnam laid out the plans for Marietta, the first permanent settlement in the present state of Ohio.

Difficulties with Native Americans during the Northwest Indian War, including the Big Bottom Massacre, led Congress in 1792 to donate 100,000 acres (400 km2) on the north edge of the first purchase as a buffer against incursion.

Many associates of the company held army bounty warrants, which they could exchange for federal land, totaling 142,900 acres (578 km2).