David McCullough repeatedly emphasizes the ideals of the early settlers. From the very formation of the Ohio Company, its leader and advocates sought to establish communities in the Northwest Territory similar to those in Massachusetts. Committed to education and religious freedom and opposed to slavery, the settlers sought to bring these ideals to fruition in the wilderness beyond the Ohio River. Subsequent generations of settlers in Marietta and other communities in Ohio remained committed to these ideals and the founding vision.

Led by Putnam, the newly formed group of advocates for settlement tasked M. Cutler with getting the US Congress to pass the Northwest Ordinance in accordance with this vision. M. Cutler succeeded, even persuading Southern members of Congress to allow the Northwest Territory to prohibit slavery. The bill “specified that a section in each township be reserved for common schools and be ‘given perpetually to the use of an university’” (29). McCullough argues that this emphasis on education in such a vast wilderness was “extraordinary” (29). Religious rights were guaranteed, e.g., Catholic immigrants coming to Marietta and establishing a place of worship in the 1830s.