Persis (Rice) Putnam (1737 - 1820)

Born 19 Nov 1737 in Westborough, Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Ancestors

Wife of Rufus Putnam — married 10 Jan 1765 in Westborough, Worcester, Massachusetts

Descendants

Died 6 Sep 1820 at age 82 in Marietta, Washington, Ohio, United States

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Biography

Persis Rice was born on November 19, 1737. She was the daughter of Zebulon Rice and Abigail Forbush.^[1]

On January 10, 1765, she married Rufus Putnam in Westborough.^[2] She was his second wife. His first wife and infant son had died a short time after childbirth.^[3]

Rufus often left the management of their Brookfield farm in her capable hands. In 1772, he was gone for eight months to explore grant lands in West Florida.^[4] She and Rufus had six children by the time he joined the Continental Army in 1775. They had another three children during the Revolutionary War years.

Their family moved to Rutland, Massachusetts in 1781 after Rufus purchased a confiscated house from the government.^[5]

Rufus again left her to manage their children and affairs in their comfortable, settled Rutland home in early 1788 when he traveled to the Northwest Territory to start a new settlement. She and their children joined him in Marietta, Ohio in November of 1790.^[4]

When she arrived in the frontier, their family lived in a block house which was inside a fort named Campus Martius. After the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, Rufus expanded their log home by adding dismantled wood from another block house. This building is the only structure of this fort still in existence.^[6]

She died on September 6, 1820 and is buried in Mound Cemetery, Marietta, Ohio.^[7]

Persis was born in 1737. She was the daughter of Zebulon Rice and Abigail Forbush. She passed away in 1820.

Sources

1. ↑ Page 89 of Vital Records of Westborough, Massachusetts.
2. ↑ Page 201 of Vital Records of Westborough, Massachusetts.
3. ↑ The Memoirs of Rufus Putnam
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Biography of Rufus Putnam by Dr. Irene Neu [1]
5. ↑ General Rufus Putnam House in Rutland [2]
6. ↑ Campus Martius Museum [3]
7. ↑ "Find A Grave Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVVW-VDWP : 11 July 2016), Persis Rice Putnam, 1820; Burial, Marietta, Washington, Ohio, United States of America, Mound Cemetery; citing record ID 5892488, Find a Grave, http://www.findagrave.com.

• Rice Family. 1858. Ward. 1427.1, p. 107.