USA > Connecticut > The Connecticut River and the valley of the Connecticut, three hundred and fifty miles from mountain to sea; historical and descriptive > Part 19
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The Fight at Kilburn's was preceded by a demand for
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surrender and its scornful refusal. It was made by Philip the spy whom Kilburn had sheltered on his previous visit, and supplied with flour, flint, and other provisions. Com- ing forward to a protecting tree, Philip cried :
"Old John ! Young John ! I know ye ! Come out here. We give you good quarter."
"Quarter!" vociferated Kilburn "in a voice of thun- der." "You black rascals begone, or we'll quarter you !"
Upon this defiance Philip withdrew to the ambush, and ten minutes later the war-whoop rang out as if "all the devils in hell had been let loose." The assault was sig- nalled with a rush. Kilburn got the first fire, and believed that he saw Philip drop. A shower of bullets fell upon the house, and the roof became a "perfect riddle-sieve." While the main body was engaged in the assault others were butchering the cattle and destroying the grain. The little garrison kept up an almost incessant fire through the small portholes, picking off the savages as they appeared in' the open with the precision of sharpshooters. For greater convenience they poured their powder into their hats. The women loaded the guns. There was fortu- nately a spare set, so that when one got hot from frequent firing another was ready. The hot ones were cooled by the housewife in a trough of water in readiness to serve their turn again. After a while the stock of lead ran short. Then Hetty stretched blankets in the upper part of the roof to catch the enemy's balls which penetrated one side of it and fell short of the other. These the two Amazons immediately ran into new bullets, and before they were cool the men had fired them back to the enemy. At the height of the fight a few venturesome savages approached close to the house and attempted to batter down the front door; but the marksmen within cut them off at each
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attempt. Most of the time, however, the enemy fought from behind logs and stumps.
The siege continued through the afternoon and till sun- down. Then the assailants began gradually to withdraw, and by dusk all had departed carrying their wounded with them. It is supposed that they went directly back to Can- ada. At all events the campaign of extermination was abandoned, and this was the last raid of a large body of Indians in force in the Valley.
The Kilburn garrison marvellously weathered the Fight with only one member hurt. Peak, exposing himself at a port-hole, received a ball in his thigh. In spite of the wound he kept on fighting. But lacking surgical aid the poor fellow died on the fifth day after. Kilburn survived to a green old age, attaining his eighty-fifth year. Through and for some time after his day the homestead was re- tained on the same spot, and he lived to see his fourth generation here enjoying " the benefits of a high civil- ization." A century or so after his death professors and students of Amherst College frequenting Falls Mountain fittingly gave it the name of Kilburn Peak to perpetuate this brave man's memory. The site of the Fight is to-day one of beautiful Walpole's most notable landmarks.
While the assault upon Walpole was the last raid of the Indians in force, roving bands continued to infest the frontier River towns till close on to the end of the war, killing or capturing groups of settlers at their work and committing various depredations. As before, Charlestown was the main sufferer. On a summer day in 1756 a band swept into the settlement and waylaid Lieutenant Moses Willard, the father of Mrs. Johnson, and his son. Mr. Willard was killed, and the young man escaped, fleeing to
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View from Kilburn Peak, near Bellows Falls, looking South-Kilburn Peak Side at the Left.
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the fort with a spear which the Indians had flung at him sticking in his side. The same season, Winchester and Hinsdale below were visited. In the spring of the next year, 1757, a band of Indians and French soldiers again came upon Charlestown, and at a time when only a handful of men were in the fort. Three groups of settlers out for their day's occupations were attacked. It was the morn- ing of the 19th of April, historic date of after years. One group was going to the mill; another to a maple sugar camp in the woods ; the third was on a hunting trip. The men bound for the mill were first waylaid and the mill was burned. Next those at the sugar camp were intercept- ed, and lastly the hunters. Five were taken off to Canada and sold there as usual. One of them was Deacon Adams of the town church. Only two survived their captivity. These were David Farnsworth, another of the Farnsworth family of first settlers, who escaped, and Thomas Robbins, one of the hunting party. The next summer a band am- bushed Asahel Stebbins's house, killed him and captured his wife. With her they also took off Isaac Parker. The same season the lower Valley region about the Massachu- setts line was once more raided. At Hinsdale Captain Moore and his son were killed, the rest of his family cap- tured, and their house burned down. These were the last raids into the valley settlements.
After the spring of 1757 Number 4 was under the jurisdiction of the king's officers. The fort thereafter was the rendezvous of various colonial regiments, and a head- quarters of rangers. Shortly after the raid of April 19 a new regiment of New Hampshire men, raised to join in another Crown Point expedition, rendezvoused here. This was Colonel John Goffe's famous regiment which, placed at the rear of the troops leaving Fort Henry after the
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capitulation to Montcalm, was so seriously cut up in the treacherous massacre by Montcalm's Indian allies.
The closing performances in the Valley of this war were the cutting of the Crown Point Road from Number 4 to Crown Point, and the daring exploits of the companies of rangers principally under the brothers Stark, John and William, and the redoubtable Robert Rogers.
The cutting of the Crown Point Road was a remark- able achievement. The Road properly began on the west side of the River where is now Springfield, Vermont, start- ing at the landing-place of " Wentworth's Ferry," " near the mouth of Black River, whence it proceeded along the old Indian trail through the woods and over the mountains. Wentworth's Ferry, named for Governor Benning Went- worth, crossed the River from a point about two miles above Number 4 : or a little above the present bridge, over which the Charlestown and Springfield trolley line runs. It was used for the transportation of troops and supplies from the establishment of Number 4 through the Revolution. The Crown Point Road can to-day be traced in Springfield from the River bank. A monument set up by the townspeople some years ago marks the place where it crosses the present river road. Upon it, or close by, the first settlers of Spring- field established their homesteads. It followed the right bank of Black River to the present township of Ludlow, the route there taking to the mountains.
The project of building this Road originated with the Massachusetts government. So early as the spring of 1756 an order was passed in the General Court at Boston for an examination of a route by "the directest course " from Num- ber 4 to Crown Point, and Colonel Israel Williams of Hat- field was particularly charged with this duty. In the
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following summer Lord Loudon took similar steps for a military road from the Connecticut, and obtained from Colonel Williams a topographical sketch of the country, compiled mostly from reports of officers of scouting parties. But nothing further was done at this time owing to the numbers of hostile Indians infesting the region. The pro- ject was not renewed till 1759, when General Amherst had succeeded to the command and victories had come to the English side.
The first cutting was on the west side of the Green Mountains. This was made in the summer of 1759, under the direction of General John Stark and Major John Hawkes. The link between Number 4 and the mountains was built the following summer. This work was done by Colonel John Goffe and his renewed regiment of eight hundred New Hampshire men. They had first opened a road from the Merrimack to the Connecticut, clearing a mere bridle-path from their starting point as far as Keene, New Hampshire. They arrived at Number 4 in June. Crossing the River they first built a large blockhouse close by the ferry landing and enclosed it in palisades, as a pro- tection in case of trouble. They were forty-five days in cutting the Road to the foot of the mountains. At every mile they set up a post, and twenty-six of these mile-posts had been placed when the mountains were reached. Their baggage was carried as far as the mountains on ox-teams ; then pack-horses were employed. Along the way they occasionally saw the trails of Indians, but none dared molest them. Such was the speed with which the work was despatched that the Road was completed in ample season for the regiment to participate in the final expedition against Montreal.
Of the exploits of the rangers, that of Robert Rogers
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and his band in the destruction of St. Francis, the strong- hold of the St. Francis Indians, was the most difficult and perilous, and the greatest in importance and consequences. This sanguinary affair occurred in October, 1759, soon after the cutting of the upper part of the Crown Point Road. It was the most spectacular performance of the war in this region, and its story has served as the frame for many a tale of adventure.
Major Rogers was at Crown Point when he received his orders from Amherst to proceed to the attack. He was to remember "the barbarities committed by the enemy's Indian scoundrels on every occasion where they had had opportuni- ties of showing their infamous cruelties toward his Majes- ty's subjects." He was to take his revenge, but, " although the villians have promiscuously murdered women and child- ren of all ages," he was to kill or hurt no woman or child.
At the start Rogers's company consisted of two hundred men, but this number was reduced by various calamities to one hundred and forty-two before he reached his destination. From Crown Point they rowed in batteaux up Lake Cham- plain to Missisquoi Bay, - Gray Lock's old site. Here the boats and provisions were left with a guard, and the march into the lonely wilderness begun. After two days' march- ing the guard left at Missisquoi overtook them with the alarming report that a force of three hundred French and Indians had seized the boats and provisions and were on their trail. They only pressed on the more rapidly.
On the twenty-second day after leaving Crown Point they were within three miles of the village. It was sighted by a lookout who had climbed a tall tree. At dusk they halted in the forest on the outskirts of the village. When night had fallen Rogers with two of his men, each disguised as Indians, entered the village and passed through it undis-
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covered. They found the people at a festival celebrating a wedding, all unconscious of danger in their neighborhood.
Rogers determined to make the attack before daybreak when the village would be in slumber. He divided his force into three sections and posted each to advantage. At three o'clock the order was given to advance silently and quickly. The surprise was complete. As Rogers wrote in his journal, " the Rangers marched up to the very doors of the wigwams unobserved, and several squads made choice of the wigwams they would attack. There was little use of the musket. The Rangers leaped into the dwellings and made sure work with the hatchet and knife." Two- thirds of the Indian warriors were slain. When the day dawned a horrid sight met the gaze of the assailants which gave an "edge" to their fury. It was the spectacle of more than six hundred scalps of their countrymen, trophies of former barbarities, elevated on poles and waving in the air. They set fire to all the wigwams but three which they reserved for their own use as headquarters. Many women and children perished in the flames, although none was deliberately killed. Valuable spoil was taken, for the vil- lage had been enriched with the plunder of the frontiers and the profit of sales of captives. It also had a church, which some French Jesuits had erected, adorned with plate. Here were a silver image of the Virgin Mary weighing ten pounds, crosses and pictures, wax candles shedding their soft light over the altar; and in the belfry a bell brought from France. The invaders took off the silver image, and of the other treasures all that they could conveniently carry, together with quantities of wampum, mattings and cloth- ing, and two hundred guineas in gold. Only one of the invaders was killed,-an Indian of the friendly bands in Stockbridge, Massachusetts ; and seven were wounded, one of them an officer.
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The work of destruction complete, Rogers, without waiting for rest, reassembled his men and ordered the retreat, for attack from the pursuers in their rear was feared. With them were started on the march five Eng- lishmen whom they had found prisoners in the village, and about two hundred Indian captives. The route deter- mined upon was by way of Lake Memphremagog, the Coös country, and the Connecticut to Number 4. In an- ticipation of a return by this route, Amherst had ordered supplies sent up from Number 4 to the mouth of the lower Ammonoosuc at Barnet. It was a march of hardship from the start, and before long it became tragic.
They kept in a body for eight days, obliged meanwhile to let their prisoners go, for their provisions were almost exhausted. Then they divided into three parties and scattered, each party under an experienced leader, to make for the rendezvous at the Ammonoosuc's mouth as best they could. Rogers and the men with him were over- taken by the enemy and twice attacked. Several were killed, or taken captive. After much suffering from cold, footsore, and hunger, the remnant of his party first reached the rendezvous. But here to their horror were no provi- sions ; only the embers of a white man's fire indicating the recent presence of friends. It afterward appeared that supplies had been duly forwarded according to Amherst's order, but that the officer in charge, after waiting two days and fearing an attack, had hastened back to Number 4, taking them with him; an act for which he was de- servedly censured. Rogers's only hope now being to get to Number 4 for succor, he constructed a raft of dry pine trees, and with two companions embarked upon it to float down our River. Of this perilous voyage Rogers's own account is the most graphic :
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The current carried us down the stream in the middle of the river where we kept our miserable vessel with such paddles as could be split and hewn with small hatchets. The second day we reached White River falls, and very narrowly escaped running over them. The raft went over and was lost ; but our remaining strength enabled us to land and march by the falls. At the foot of them Captain Ogden and the Ranger killed some red squirrels and a partridge, while I constructed another raft. Not being able to cut the trees I burnt them down, and burnt them at proper lengths. This was our third day's work after leaving our companions. The next day we floated down to Watoquichie [Water-Queeche] falls. . .. Here we landed, and Captain Ogden held the raft by a withe of hazel bushes while we went below the falls to swim in, board and paddle it ashore ; this being our only hope of life, as we had not strength to make a new raft. I succeeded in securing it; and the next morning we floated down within a short distance of Number 4. Here we found several men cutting timber who relieved and assisted us to the fort.
Immediately upon their arrival a canoe was despatched up the River with provisions for those left at the rendez- vous ; and two days later Rogers returned with two more canoes laden with supplies for the other parties if they should appear. The few survivors subsequently arrived in a pitiable condition. They had subsisted on such small animals as they could kill, with roots, nuts, birch-bark, their leather straps, and their moccasins.
The war ended with the Valley at last freed from its traditional foe. Number 4 remained through the Revolu- tion a frontier fort of importance. To-day its site is marked by a boulder erected by the town. And "Number 4" traced in the green of the neat park opposite the rail- way station greets the eye of the traveller as he alights from the train.
XVIII
The War of the Grants
Land-Fever following the Conquest of Canada - Prospecting in the rich Upper Valley - Winter Surveys for Tiers of Towns on both Sides of the River- Great Activity of Wentworth's Grants-Mill - Wholesale Issue of Charters - Form of these Instruments - The Gauntlet again Thrown Down to New York - Sharp Tilts between the Governors -The King's Order declaring the River the Boundary Line - Conflicts with New York Officers and Courts over West Side Titles -Rise of the " Green Mountain Boys."
U PON the assurance of tranquillity following the con- quest of Canada and the scattering of the Indian tribes, schemes for the occupation of the Valley's upper reaches were immediately renewed. Northward beyond the English outposts - Charlestown on the Connecticut and Salisbury on the Merrimack -still lay the unbroken wilderness, save a few spots of cleared land and the cuttings in the woods made for military purposes.
Soon speculators, adventurers, and prospective settlers were pressing for footholds in this vast rich region, and a veritable land-fever set in. By spring of 1761 Governor Benning Wentworth was prepared to start up his opera- tions in New Hampshire grants on a larger and bolder scale than before. Now his project embraced three tiers of townships on either side of the Connecticut. Upon the completion of a new survey he was issuing his charters with astonishing rapidity. This survey had begun in the spring of 1760, but was not finished till the next year. Joseph Blanchard of Dunstable, working on the ice in the bleak month of March, carried it from Charlestown as far
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The Bend-Two Miles North of Hanover.
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as the Lower Coos. Hubartes Neal finished it to the Upper Coös, above the Fifteen-Miles Falls. Stones or stakes were set up or trees marked on the River's banks, six miles apart, to indicate the corners of the proposed townships, each to be six miles square. From the plan of this survey, deposited in the land office at Portsmouth, then the seat of the New Hampshire government, Governor Wentworth took the courses and distances for his charters. These often indefinite and inaccurate marks led to various heated disputes over boundaries between townships.
Sixty township grants were turned out during the summer and autumn of 1761. Before the close of 1763 the impressive total of one hundred and thirty eight had been reached. These grants extended up the Valley on the east side of the River as far north as Northumberland, and on the west side to Maidstone. They also reached across the present Vermont westward to an imaginary line assumed to be twenty miles east of the Hudson, and above the Hudson to Lake Champlain. Thus the gauntlet was again thrown down to the province of New York.
Wentworth's charters were all of one form. Each township was divided into shares, generally sixty-eight in number. One share was reserved for the first settled minister, - the orthodox one; one for a glebe for the Church of England; one for the Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, established in England ; and one for a school; while five hundred acres, accounted as two shares, Wentworth reserved for himself. As soon as fifty families were become actual residents on a grant the township was to have liberty of holding a weekly mar- ket and town fairs semi-monthly. All pine trees within a township fit for masts in the royal navy were to be pre- served for the king, and none of them was to be cut or
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felled without a royal license. One shilling " proclama- tion money " for every hundred acres settled or possessed was to be paid yearly after the expiration of ten years from the date of the charter.
To several of the earlier townships Wentworth gave the names of the ducal house of Lancaster; and that of the family manor of the Wentworths in England - Bretton ! Hall, at Bretton, County York - subsequently appeared in Bretton Woods, which became the town of Carroll, at the base of the White Mountains. In these acts, and in other circumstances, local historians see evidence of an intention to erect an American baronage in this fair region.
The grants-mill ran on merrily without check, and with accumulating profits to the thrifty governor, till the close of 1763. Then New York again took action. Lieut. Gov- ernor Cadwallader Colden issued his proclamation (Decem- ber 28, 1763) reasserting the validity of the claim of New York to the territory west of the river; formally assuming jurisdiction over it ; and commanding the sheriff of Albany County to make returns of the names of all persons who had taken possession therein under New Hampshire titles. Governor Wentworth responded with a counter proclama- tion (March 13, 1764), pronouncing the Duke-of-York grants to be obsolete ; justifying the claim of New Hamp- shire to a bound as far westward as the bounds of Massa- chusetts and Connecticut; assuring the settlers that the crown would confirm his grants as issued should the juris- diction be altered ; exhorting them not to be intimidated ; and ordering the civil officers to exercise jurisdiction as far westward as the grants had been established and to " prosecute all disturbers of the peace."
Meanwhile New York had made two shrewder moves, and these ultimately gave her the game. One was the
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quiet despatching of a "representation " of the matter from her point of view to the Lords of Trade and Plantations in England ; the other, an express application to the crown for a declaration of the boundary line. The king acted accordingly, and under date of July 20, 1764, he declared " the western banks of the River Connecticut to be the boundary line between the said two provinces."
The settlers on Wentworth's west side grants at first accepted the king's decision with equanimity, for they as- sumed that their titles were confirmed, as Wentworth's proclamation had assured them they would be were the jurisdiction changed. But the term "to be " in the deci- sion proved a stumbling-block by which they were wofully tripped. New Hampshire interpreted this phrase as " de- signed to express the future and not to refer to the past." New York construed it as " a declaration not only of what was to be for the time to come, but of what was and always had been " that province's eastern limit. In accordance with this construction New York declared all the west side New Hampshire grants illegal, and ordered the settlers to surrender their charters and take out new titles from her.
Thus the War of the Grants began. The west side settlers were thrown into much distress. Obtaining the new grants involved more fees and other expenses which they could ill bear. Some, however, complied with the demand without friction. Others protested, but finally bought their lands a second time. More refused, and de- fied the New York officers. Actions of ejectment were begun in two counties which New York set up, one on each side of the Green Mountains. The actions were of course decided in favor of New York. Associations were formed among the resisting settlers against the New York officers and courts. So arose the "Green Mountain Boys."
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The settlers also appealed their case to the crown, and at length, in 1767, the tables were turned on New York, when a royal order was obtained forbidding her governor to regrant lands covered by the New Hampshire title until the king's further pleasure in the matter should be made known. Notwithstanding this inhibition, however, Lieu- tenant-Governor Colden persisted in his policy of aggres- sion, and the settlers continued their resistance. At the same time Governor Wentworth was keeping up the issue of his grants, confining them, however, since the king's order of 1764, to the east side of the River. Such was the situation when the Revolution came.
Benning Wentworth withdrew from the governorship in 1766, - virtually superseded though permitted to resign, for in the latter years of his administration of a quarter of a century he had succeeded in pleasing neither king nor people, - and then began the reign of his broader, abler and courtlier nephew, John Wentworth, last of the royal New Hampshire governors. Governor John continued the issue of grants on the line of Governor Benning's opera- tions, but with far less speculative energy, and with an eye more to the prosperous establishing of plantations than to his own emolument. It was Governor John whose persua- sion and generous aid brought the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock to the Upper Valley and established Dartmouth College on the Beautiful River's bank. By him the subject of the college was first introduced to the Earl of Dartmouth, his intimate friend ; and Dartmouth's patronage in the venture was due directly to his influence. But Governor Benning, while in office, gave the land, the tract of five hundred acres, upon which the college was erected. After the death of Benning, in 1771 (leaving the bulk of his estate to his
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