The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

By David McCullough

Simon & Schuster     2019

332 pages      History

Darn it! Reviewing McCullough’s most recent book, The Pioneers, is not going to be as easy a task as I assumed at the outset. My husband and I enjoyed so much reading it aloud to each other, discussing what we were learning, and plotting a visit to Marietta Ohio and surroundings, the setting for most of the book. Then I started reading reviews of the book and discovered that many reviewers were quite critical of the ways in which McCullough ignored Native American atrocities, land fraud, and racial problems in the Ohio Territory.

However, McCullough’s sub title is “The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West,” and to that end, McCullough’s book achieves its goals. Because indeed, he emphasizes that American ideal, as expressed through the life histories of the Rev. Manasseh Cutler and his son, Ephram Cutler, who played lead roles in the Ohio Company and the settling of the Ohio Territory. Others who carried that ideal were General Rufus Putnam, Joseph Barker, and Samuel Hildreth. Each of these men, their wives, and their families set out to make new lives for themselves—for a variety of reasons. McCullough plumbed these men’s diaries and letters for the information he shared throughout the book, and emphasized how important the river was to the settlers and how little by little the communities were settled and industry and businesses came to the area. These were the men who had the ideals McCullough explored, including their desire to have a public university, to educate all the children, and to have a slave-free state. 

The first settlers were Revolutionary War veterans who leveraged pay that Congress owed them to purchase 1.5 million acres which became Marietta and the rest of the Ohio territory. Critics say that McCullough did not explore in depth the settler’s relationship with the native peoples as well as the way the settlers decimated the forests they cleared for their farmland, their forts, and their homes. 

Among the interesting stories in the book is that of Harman and Margaret Blennerhassett. They were Irish aristocrats who came out to the territory because Harman was Margaret’s uncle, and their marriage had been frowned upon in polite society. Their palatial home on an island in the Ohio River is still open to the public. Aaron Burr, the notorious former Vice President came to visit them, and they joined him in some nefarious activities further West. President Thomas Jefferson finally interceded by sending a man named John Graham from Virginia to stop Burr from his conspiracies with the Blennerhassetts. This really caught my attention, because my sister had just discovered that we were related to the Virginia Grahams. Was this some great, great, great uncle of ours?

My husband and I really enjoyed this book. Something was constantly piquing our interest. We are planning a trip to meander down the Ohio River to Cincinnati, explore the Native American Mounds in Marietta, and take the ferry to Blennerhassett Island on the way to visit our family in West Virginia. Apparently, there is lots to see in do in Marietta as this article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette outlines.

The Washington Post concludes: "The Pioneers  presents American history as a grand civics lesson, in which the accomplishments of our principled forebears serve as inspirations. Rather than wrestle with the moral complexities of western settlement, McCullough simplifies that civics lesson into a tale of inexorable triumph.” That is what we will be exploring.

An interview with David McCullough on PBS.