Putnam, ISRAEL, a general of the American Revolution, was born in what is now Danvers, Massachusetts, 7th January 1718. In 1739 he bought a farm between Pomfret and Brooklyn, Connecticut, and for many years devoted himself to its cultivation, gaining meanwhile a high reputation for courage by such personal exploits as following a she-wolf into her lair and killing her single-handed. In 1755 he left as a captain in a contingent of 1000 men which Connecticut sent to repel a threatened French invasion of New York, and was present at the battle of Lake George. In 1758 he was captured by the savages, tortured, and then bound to a tree, and was about to be burned to death when a French officer scattered the firebrands and rescued him. In 1759 he received a regiment, in 1762 he went on the dreadful West India campaign which resulted in the capture of Havanna, and in 1764 he helped to relieve Detroit, then besieged by Pontiac (q.v.). Ten years of quiet at home succeeded, during which he made his farmhouse into an inn, and was conspicuous among the 'Sons of Liberty.' In 1775, after Concord, he was given the command of the forces of Connecticut, and was ranking officer on the day of Bunker Hill, though not in actual command at either the redoubt or the rail-fence. He was next appointed by congress one of the four major-generals, and held the command at New York and in August 1776 at Brooklyn Heights, where he was defeated by General Howe on the 27th. He afterwards held various commands, and in 1777 was appointed to the defence of the Highlands of the Hudson. While at Peekskill a lieutenant in a loyalist regiment was captured as a spy and condemned to death; and, on Sir Henry Clinton's sending a flag of truce threatening vengeance if the sentence should be carried out, Putnam wrote a brief and characteristic reply: 'Headquarters, 7th August 1777.—Edmund Palmer, an officer in the enemy's service, was taken as a spy lurking within our lines; he has been tried as a spy, condemned as a spy, and shall be executed as a spy, and the flag is ordered to depart immediately.—Israel Putnam.—P.S.—He has accordingly been executed.' In 1778, in western Connecticut, Putnam made his famous escape from Governor Tryon's dragoons by riding down the stone steps at Horseshoe. The next year he had a stroke of paralysis, and the rest of his life was spent at home. He died 19th May 1790. See Life by Increase N. Tarbox (1876), and article by Professor John Fiske in Appleton's Cyclopædia of Amer. Biog. (1888).
His cousin, RUFUS PUTNAM, born 9th April 1738, served against the French from 1757 to 1760, and then settled as a farmer and millwright. On the outbreak of the war he received a lieutenant-colonel's commission, and rendered good service as an engineer. In 1778 he helped his cousin to fortify West Point. Afterwards he commanded a regiment till the end of the war, and in 1783 he was promoted to brigadier-general. In 1788 he founded Marietta, Ohio; in 1789 he was appointed a judge of the supreme court of the North-west Territory; and from 1793 to 1803 he was surveyor-general of the United States. He died in Marietta, 1st May 1824.—Israel's grand-nephew, GEORGE
PALMER PUTNAM, born in Brunswick, Maine, 7th February 1814, in 1840 became partner in the book-firm of Wiley & Putnam, New York, established a branch in London in 1841, and in 1848 returned to the United States and started business alone. In 1852 he founded Putnam's Magazine. In 1863 he retired from business, but in 1866 he established the firm of G. P. Putnam & Sons (now G. P. Putnam's Sons). He died 20th December 1872. He wrote and compiled several books, and was the author of the first Plca for International Copyright (1837) printed in America.