To ease the grief of his parents over the loss of their son called Ephraim, M. Cutler named his own son after his brother and left him with them to raise. Growing up in Killingly, Connecticut, Ephraim was self-educated and had experience in farming. On June 15, 1795, he departed Connecticut with his wife, four children, and a number of Putnam’s relations for the Ohio territory. During the arduous trek to the Northwest territory, two of E. Cutler’s children died. The group arrived in Marietta with several of its members ill, but they approved of the settlement and the industriousness of its inhabitants.

E. Cutler moved his family to Waterford, a settlement with 32 families, 20 miles up the Muskingum River. While Putnam hired him to do some surveying, E. Cutler purchased land there and produced a healthy crop of corn. Governor St. Clair commissioned him as captain of the militia, justice of the peace, and judge of the first court of common pleas. Accepting these positions, E. Cutler fulfilled his duties diligently despite a lack of renumeration. Since farming was to be his vocation, he purchased 600 acres of land 20 miles northwest of Marietta.