Putnam Family Library / Belpre Farmers' Library
Belpre, Washington County, Ohio
Marker Inscription
As a shareholder of the United Library Association in Pomfret, Connecticut, General Israel Putnam amassed a large collection of books, which was called the Putnam Family Library.
Erected by Ohio History Connection
The Story
In the 1790s, veterans of the Ohio Company of Associates carved the frontier town of Belpre out of the wilderness along the Ohio River, part of the first organized American settlement in the Northwest Territory. Among the books they carried west was the collection tied to Revolutionary War hero General Israel Putnam, gathered years earlier through a shareholders' library association back in Pomfret, Connecticut. Books were precious on the frontier, and these shared volumes helped seed one of the earliest libraries west of the Alleghenies, a lamp of learning in a raw new country.
Why it matters
It shows how the settlers who pushed into the Ohio country brought not just axes and plows but books and the New England habit of shared learning, planting literacy and civic culture on the American frontier.
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Related people
- · General Israel Putnam
Related events
- · Settlement of Belpre and the Ohio Company
- · Founding of an early Northwest Territory library
Themes & tags
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