Decorative Arts Center of Ohio -- Reese-Peters House
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Cutler Home

1/28/2022

 
Cutler Home 
Ephraim Cutler (1767-1853) was an early Ohio politician and judge. He was the son of Manasseh Cutler (1742-1823), who was one of the founders of the Ohio Company of Associates, the land company responsible for establishing Marietta in 1788. He served in the territorial legislature and was a delegate at the Ohio Constitutional Convention. He was anti-slavery, pro-education, and the first librarian of the famed Coonskin Library.  
Cutler was also, like his father, greatly interested in plants and gardening. Manasseh Cutler was well-known in his day for his study of plants, and while his son was, perhaps, not as well known for his botanical interests, this “portrait” of his home, painted by Marietta artist Sala Bosworth (1805-1890) about 1840, clearly shows his interest was strong. 

 Numerous “portraits” of early American homes exist, but most are from the expected perspective of the front, showing off the home’s grandeur. Here, however, Cutler’s home is shown from the side, a view which not only allows you to see the Ohio River, but more importantly, places his lush and orderly garden in the foreground. Such prominent placement of the garden would have been Cutler’s idea, and suggests that it was his plants, and not his pioneering politics, that he wanted people to remember. 

It is fortunate that this portrait survives because Cutler’s beautiful home does not. It was located in Constitution, a crossroads in western Washington County, along State Route 7. The home’s site today is an industrial river terminal.  


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Decorative Arts Center of Ohio
145 E. Main St.
Lancaster, Ohio 43130
Phone: 740-681-1423