Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Ordinance of 1787

(Encyclopedia)Ordinance of 1787, adopted by the Congress of Confederation for the government of the Western territories ceded to the United States by the states. It created the Northwest Territory and is frequently...

Northwest Ordinance

(Encyclopedia)Northwest Ordinance: see Ordinance of 1787. ...

Ohio Company of Associates

(Encyclopedia)Ohio Company of Associates, organization for the purchase and settlement of lands on the Ohio River, founded at Boston in 1786. Its organizers were a group of New England men, most of them former Amer...

Cutler, Manasseh

(Encyclopedia)Cutler, Manasseh mənăsˈə [key], 1742–1823, American clergyman, scientist, and one of the organizers of the Ohio Company of Associates, b. Killingly, Conn. A student of both law and theology, he ...

Westminster, Statutes of

(Encyclopedia)Westminster, Statutes of, in medieval English history, legislative promulgations made by Edward I in Parliament at Westminster. Westminster I (1275) practically constitutes a code of law; it covers a ...

Confederation, Articles of

(Encyclopedia)Confederation, Articles of, in U.S. history, ratified in 1781 and superseded by the Constitution of the United States in 1789. The imperative need for unity among the new states created by the America...

Pittsburgh, University of

(Encyclopedia)Pittsburgh, University of, main campus at Pittsburgh; private with some state support; coeducational; chartered and opened as an academy 1787, called Western Univ. of Pennsylvania 1819–1908. It oper...

King, Rufus

(Encyclopedia)King, Rufus, 1755–1827, American political leader, b. Scarboro, Maine (then a district of Massachusetts). He served briefly in the American Revolution and practiced law in Massachusetts before servi...

Merchants of the Staple

(Encyclopedia)Merchants of the Staple or Merchant Staplers, English trading company that controlled the export of English raw wool. The first wool staple (i.e., a place designated by royal ordinance as a special ce...

Putnam, Rufus

(Encyclopedia)Putnam, Rufus, 1738–1824, American Revolutionary general, one of the founders of the Ohio Company of Associates, b. Sutton, Mass.; cousin of Israel Putnam. In the French and Indian War he joined (17...