The Pioneers of Marietta, Ohio

The Pioneers by David McCullough was a pretty good book, but it wasn't what I expected. The title, along with the subtitle "The heroic story of the settlers who brought the American ideal west," sounds like a wide-ranging account covering a lot of territory. In fact, it's the story of one town and a few surroundings: Marietta, Ohio. The pioneering activity here took place during the last decades of the eighteenth century; many of the pioneering settlers were veterans of the American Revolution. Their goal was to create farms, towns, and a good life in the newly acquired territories -- the Northwest Territories. They succeeded quickly.

To quibble a bit: in my opinion, most of the book isn't about heroism or pioneering at all. By around 1800, Marietta was settled. The Indians were driven away. Rich farmland produced crops every year. Reliable supplies of food and other products arrived by boats on the Ohio River from Pittsburgh. Residents first lived in log cabins, but then built beautiful homes designed by the town architect. Working together, they established a social structure, governing by the emerging principles of American democracy.

After describing the town's pioneering years, McCullough describes a stable and not-so-adventurous life. Townspeople pursued both practical and intellectual activities; for example, a doctor who served 600 patients and in his spare time painted beautiful botanical illustrations about the local native plants. Citizens participated in national politics and Ohio state politics, supporting many new American ideals. In particular, local representatives to the legislature supported the invention of public education in a range of schools, from those that taught basic reading through Ohio University at nearby Athens, Ohio. The men and women of Marietta are vividly portrayed and individually interesting, but for most of the time covered, they just weren't pioneer heroes. The frontier had moved west, leaving them to lead calm and normal lives.

Reading during our current coronavirus lockdown, I found some of the descriptions of outbreaks of various diseases and fevers in the town to be compelling. For example, in 1789, after a period of starvation:

"That November came an outbreak of measles in Marietta that would take the lives of still more children. To add further to the miseries, a sick man and his family were put ashore from a boat heading downriver to Kentucky and his trouble proved to be the ever-dreaded smallpox, which had not made its appearance until then. 

"A town meeting was called at the stockade. A separate log cabin was quickly put up for the sick man, and nurse Mary Owen, the first woman to settle in Marietta, took up her duties, only to contract the disease herself.  

"When the sick man died, another town meeting was hurriedly called and more cabins went up farther off, in back of the big cornfield on the plain, where more people could be inoculated and cared for. ... 

"Six more died of the disease. Two of the hundred or more inoculated also died. Much to the relief of the many who knew her, Mary Owen recovered to live many more years, though with evidence of what she had been through marking her face." (p. 81)

The Pioneers also includes quite a few descriptions of the foods the townspeople ate, and where the author could find it, descriptions of the lives of the women of the town as well as of the men. The diaries and letters that McCullough found provide at least some detail about these topics. The diaries of Dr. Samuel Hildreth, who moved to Marietta in around 1807, provided some of this. For example, he described a gathering of settlers around 34 miles outside of town to see him -- the first doctor to visit their area. He described their clothing, and the cabin where they met, where a woman was preparing food:

"He went on to describe the cooking apparatus, the common cast iron 'bake oven,' a heavy black kettle with an iron cover. Filled with slices of fresh venison and salt pork, it went on top of a huge fire in the fireplace until sufficiently cooked, after which it was poured into a large brown earthen platter and set down on the hearth. The kettle was then refilled with the dough of Indian meal, put back on a bed of hot embers, and allowed to bake into 'pone bread.' That accomplished, the kettle was again employed to make a hot drink of spring water and maple sugar and the guests were invited to take seats or stand at the table. 

"'There were no plates,' Hildreth wrote, 'but each one had a fork or his hunting knife, with which he speared up pieces of meat from the platter, conveying them to his mouth, with occasional bites of nice pone bread, in the most natural and easy manner.'" (p. 175-176)

Other books by McCullough that I've read were more enjoyable than this one, though it's not at all a bad book once you realize that it has such a narrow focus!

This review by Mae Sander, © 2020 mae food dot blog spot dot com.