BENJAMIN IVES GILMAN
Washington County, Ohio Constitutional Convention Delegate
Henry Robert Burke
Benjamin Ives Gilman was well known in the fledgling
community of Marietta, Northwest Territory and the state of Ohio during the period 1789 through 1812. In 1802
Gilman was elected as one of Washington County’s four delegates to the Ohio Constitutional Convention held at Chillicothe,
Ross County, Ohio. Rufus Putnam, Ephraim Cutler and John McIntire were the other
three delegates. Rufus Putnam, Ephraim Cutler and Benjamin I. Gilman took strong stands against slavery and voted to veto
the proposal that would have legalized slavery in Ohio. John McIntire voted to legalize slavery in Ohio. Slavery in Ohio was
Vetoed by a single vote.
Benjamin was the only son of the Hon. and Mrs. Joseph
Gilman of Exeter, New Hampshire.
Please make note that in 1777 New Hampshire became the first State in the United States to abolished slavery. During
the Revolutionary War Joseph Gilman provided a large sum of money to outfit Continental troops from New Hampshire. Benjamin was very well educated in Exeter schools and also by his, the granddaughter of the Hon. Robert Hale. Joseph moved his wife and son to Ohio, in 1789, to a home at Point Harmar near the
established Fort. During the Indian War they stayed in the Fort.
In February 1790, Benjamin Ives traveled back to
New England and married Miss Hannah Robbins, daughter of Rev. Chandler Robbins, D.D. of Plymouth, Mass. The young couple managed to cross the mountains in western Virginia in winter on horseback and arrived
safely back to Harmar. In 1792. Gilman opened a store at Fort Harmar and in 1801
he employed James Whitney, Esq. of Harmar as his master shipbuilder builder. Between
1801 and 1812 the Gilman Shipyard at Harmar built seven vessels:
1801
ship
Muskingum
230 tons
1805
brig
Perseverance 160 tons
1806
ship
Rufus King
300 tons
1807
ship
Francis
350 tons
1807
ship
Robert Hale
300 tons
180[8] schooner Belle
100 tons
1812
schooner Maria
72 tons
The embargo of 1808, brought Gilman’s Shipyard
and many other businesses nationwide to a terrible end. It can be said about Gilman that he was a well-mannered gentlemen
with a fine intellect.
In 1813, Benjamin Ives Gilman
moved from Marietta to Philadelphia where he joined in partnership with Otis Ammidon and opened a new business under the name
of Gilman & Ammidon, wholesale dealers in domestic goods. While visiting
his son Winthrop Sargent Gilman in Alton, IL, Gilman developed a fever and died there in 1833.
His wife Hannah Robbins Gilman died in New York in
1836. Their marriage produced the following children: Jane, Joseph, Arthur, Chandler, Robert Hale, Benjamin Ives, Winthrop Sargent, Rebecca, and Eliza. Jane
married a Marietta man, Dudley Woolbridge, on November 28, 1807, but sadly died the following year at the age of seventeen.
Marietta Register.
Both Benjamin Ives Gilman and his son Winthrop
Sargent Gilman died at Alton, Illinois.
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