The footsteps of a hundred years
Have echoed, since o’er Braddock’s Road
Bold Putnam and the Pioneers
Led History the way they strode.
On wild Monongahela stream
They launched the Mayflower of the West,
A perfect State their civic dream,
A new New World their pilgrim quest.
When April robed the Buckeye trees
Muskingum’s bosky shore they trod;
They pitched their tents and to the breeze
Flung freedom’s star-flag, thanking God.
As glides the Oyo’s solemn flood
So fleeted their eventful years;
Resurgent in their children’s blood,
They still live on—the Pioneers.
Their fame shrinks not to names and dates
On votive stone, the prey of time;—
Behold where monumental States
Immortalize their lives sublime!