Samuel Holden Parsons, born in Lyme, Connecticut, on the 14th of May, 1737, graduated at Harvard College in 1756, studied law and began its practice in 1759, was a member of the General Assembly of his native State from 1762 to 1774, was chosen colonel of militia in 1775, and appointed brigadier-general by Congress on the 9th of August, 1776. In 1779, he succeeded Putnam as commander of the Connecticut line of the army, was promoted to the rank of major-general on the 23d of October, 1780, and served with distinction to the end of the war. In 1785, Congress appointed him one of the commissioners to treat with the Indians at Miami; in 1788, President Washington made him judge of the Northwest Territory; and in 1789, in behalf of Connecticut, he treated as commissioner with the Wyandots and other Indians on the borders of Lake Erie. Returning from this mission to his home in Marietta, Ohio, he was drowned by the capsizing of his boat while descending the rapids of Big Beaver River on the 17th of November, 1789.