Manasseh Cutler Collection, 1762-1820

Manasseh Cutler was born May 3, 1742 in Killingly, Connecticut, and died July 28, 1823 in Hamilton, Massachusetts. In 1765 he graduated from Yale College with high honors and commenced the study of law. In 1767 he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar and for some time practiced his profession in Edgartown. Finding the profession uncongenial, he gave it up and removed to Dedham where he studied theology under the direction of the Rev. Thomas Balch, whose daughter he had married. In 1770 he was licensed and preached for six months as a candidate at Hamlet parish, then a part of Ipswich. He was ordained a minister of the Congregational society and installed as pastor in Hamlet parish on September 11, 1771, and remained with this association until his death.

Soon after the battle of Lexington he addressed the minute-men then mustering in Ipswich and accompanied them to Cambridge where he saw the British as they retreated into Boston. In September he was commissioned a chaplain in the Continental army and served under Colonel Ebenezer Francis of the 11th Massachusetts regiment. He was presented with a fine horse by his commander for gallantry in action in Rhode Island on August 28, 1778.

Toward the close of the war, the physician of Hamlet parish being with the army, Mr. Cutler studied medicine, soon mastering the science, and for a number of years attended to both the physical and spiritual wants of his people. He was the first to examine the flora of New England, inspecting and classifying over 350 species according to the Linnaean system. His published papers on this subject were the first attempts at scientific description of the plants of New England. In 1781 he was elected a member of the American Academy and contributed to its proceedings among others the following papers: “On the Transit of Mercury over the Sun, November 12, 1782;” “On the Eclipse of the Moon, March 29, 1782, and of the Sun in the following April;” “Meteorological Observations 1781-82-83;” “An Account of Some of the Vegetable Productions Naturally Growing in this Part of America,” etc.

In 1784 Dr. Cutler with six others ascended the White Mountains. They were the first to reach the summit. Dr. Cutler carried instruments with him and made the first computation of the height of the mountains.

In 1787 Dr. Cutler became associated with a number of Revolutionary officers who had determined to settle in the west, with a view to having their bounty lands located together.

At a meeting held at Brackett’s Tavern, Boston, March 8, 1787, by these officers who had formed a company to be known as the Ohio Company, General Samuel H. Parsons, General Rufus Putnam and the Rev. Manasseh Cutler were unanimously chosen as directors for the company, “and that it should be their duty, immediately, to make application to the honorable congress for a private purchase of lands and under such descriptions as they shall deem adequate to the purposes of the company.”

Dr. Manasseh Cutler, owing to sickness, was not present when elected a director, but on March 16, 1787, as soon as so notified, he wrote Major Winthrop Sargent: “I entirely approve of the proposition which General Putnam proposes should be made to Congress, and join with him in requesting General Parsons to make application to that honorable body as soon as possible.”

General Parsons appeared before Congress, but was not successful, and thereupon Dr. Cutler, under the authority conferred, on June 24, 1787, set out on horseback to present the Ohio Company’s request to Congress. On July 5th, he arrived in New York and commenced his work, and on July 13, 1787, the ordinance since known as the Ordinance of 1787 was passed.

All previous ordinances relating to the Northwest Territory were silent on the question of slavery, none breathed of education or of the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, those great principles which have since distinguished the ordinance as “one of the greatest monuments of civil jurisprudence.”

Four days after Dr. Cutler’s advent before Congress, that body on July 9th appointed a new committee to consider the Western Territory. Edward Carrington of Virginia was appointed chairman; Nathan Dane and Mr. Smith had been on the old committee, but a new man was now made leader. Dr. Cutler appeared before the committee and his work and that of Edward Carrington was not a revision of the old ordinances. An inspection of the new ordinance compared with the old, shows that “they prepared and reported the great bill of rights for the territory northwest of the Ohio.”

In 1795, Dr. Cutler was appointed a judge of the United States court for Ohio by President George Washington, but declined. He was afterwards a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and was elected from that state to the seventh and eighth Congresses of the United States as a federalist.

His Journals and Papers

Beginning in 1762 while at Yale College, Dr. Cutler kept a diary and a journal. Each day he wrote what happened. Many of his journals are in the Almanack, common at that day, and for many years thereafter. These portray events and conditions not generally set out in our early histories.

Through the efforts of Colonel Ephraim C. Dawes, now deceased, a descendant, most of Dr. Cutler’s papers have been collected. Some are still missing. It is hoped that when found they will be sent to Mr. Charles G. Dawes of Chicago, the owner, who has had these old journals, aged letters and parchments carefully cared for, and through the skill and art of Ernest Hertzberg & Sons, binders of Chicago, they have been made practically as good as new.

The chief features of this collection are: 1. From 1762 until 1819, all of the Journals are in the handwriting of one man, Dr. Manasseh Cutler. 2. The most absorbing interest is that they deal with the formulative and creative period of that great “American Charter” of which Daniel Webster said: “We are accustomed to praise the lawgivers of antiquity; we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus, but I doubt that one single law, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked and lasting character than the ordinance of 1787.”

(ca 1950)