Rufus Putnam, born in Sutton, Massachusetts, on the 9th of April, 1738, after serving his apprenticeship as a millwright, enlisted as a common soldier in the Provincial army in 1757. At the close of the French and Indian War, he returned to Massachusetts, married, and settled in the town of New Braintree as a miller. Finding a knowledge of mathematics necessary to his success, he devoted much time to mastering that science. In 1773, having gone to Florida, he was appointed deputy-surveyor of the province by the governor. A rupture with Great Britain becoming imminent, he returned to Massachusetts in 1775, and was appointed lieutenant in one of the first regiments raised in that State after the battle of Lexington. His first service was the throwing up of defences in front of Roxbury. In 1776, he was ordered to New York and superintended the defences in that section of the country and the construction of the fortifications at West Point. In August, Congress appointed him engineer with the rank of colonel. He continued in active service, sometimes as engineer, sometimes as commander, and at others as commissioner for the adjustment of claims growing out of the war, until the disbanding of the army, being advanced to the rank of brigadier-general on the 7th of January, 1783.

After the close of the war, Putnam held various civil offices in his native State, acted as aid to General Lincoln during Shays’ Rebellion in 1786, was superintendent of the Ohio Company, founded the town of Marietta in 1788, was appointed in 1792 brigadier-general of the forces sent against the Indians of the Northwest, concluded an important treaty with them the same year, and resigned his commission on account of illness in 1793. During the succeeding ten years, he was Surveyor-General of the United States, when his increasing age compelled him to withdraw from active employment, and he retired to Marietta, where he died on the 1st of May, 1824.