James Lyle photograph

This photograph shows James Lyle riding a white horse during the Northwest Territory Celebration trek. The 1937-1938 Northwest Territory Sesquicentennial Celebration was a federally funded yearlong celebration which commemorated the journey of the Ohio Company of Associates of 48 men who traveled westward from Ipswich, Massachusetts to Marietta, Ohio in 1787. A main feature of the celebration was to recruit a caravan of 38 men to re-create the journey. At each stop along the 52 day trek, the pioneers presented a pageant called “Freedom on the March.” In West Newton, Pennsylvania, the participants were given tools of the 1700s to build a flat boat and canoes to travel to Marietta, Ohio. The men stayed in touch with reunions over the years, and Carl Givler and four other men had a final reunion reenactment of the 1937 trek in 1987