USA > Connecticut > The Connecticut River and the valley of the Connecticut, three hundred and fifty miles from mountain to sea; historical and descriptive > Part 20
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36
#
-- d
-
-
T
257
The War of the Grants
youthful wife, lowly but lovely Martha Hilton, the " Lady Wentworth " of Longfellow's poetic fiction), the New Hampshire Council determined that the reservation of five hundred acres for himself in each of his charter-grants did not convey the title to him. So these reserved portions were offered to private settlers who quickly took them up.
The settlers on the grants along the River emigrated for the most part up from the Connecticut Colony; the others were principally from Massachusetts. Those on the grants west of the Green Mountains were also largely from Connecticut, with a considerable number from Massachu- setts and a few from Rhode Island. Coming from these colonies and imbued with the spirit of local self-government, they had little in common with New Hampshire and its centralized system; less with New York. Accordingly, thus isolated in the wilderness, they set up their townships upon a system of local government which, although fash- ioned after that of the Connecticut and Massachusetts town, became in its development so much more democratic as prac- tically to convert each township into an independent republic.
The Green Mountains separated the grants into two distinct sections, and constituted a formidable barrier to mutual intercourse. Differences other than geographical also existed between the two sections, sufficient, ultimately, in the midst of the Revolution, to produce two separate and diverse schemes of state-making. These schemes came to be pressed by two parties, the Bennington and the Col- lege parties, so called respectively. The former were di- rected from the political centre west of the mountains in Bennington, the latter from the seat of Dartmouth College.
With the planting of the college, the College party shortly developed, forwarding their scheme for a state on the grants.
XIX
Dartmouth College and "New Connecticut "
Rival Schemes of State-Making - College Party versus Bennington Party - Germ of the College Party : Wheelock's Fixture of Dartmouth in the Upper Valley - Character of the Pioneer Settlements here - The College District the Political Centre - "Dresden " and College Hall - Secession of East Side Towns - Notable State Papers by the Dresden Statesmen - Erection of the State of New Connecticut at Westminster - Substitution of Vermont for New Connecticut - The Constitutional Convention at Windsor - Vermont Launched "amidst the Tumults of War" - Short- Lived Union with East-Side Towns.
T HE rival schemes of state-making ripened with the Revolution. That of the College party originally contemplated the union of all of the New Hampshire grants on both sides of the River and east of the Green Mountains, in the state of New Connecticut, with the seat of govern- ment at the college seat in Hanover or its neighborhood. The Bennington party's scheme comprised the establish- ment of the grants west of the River and on either side of the mountains, as an independent district. The Bennington party were animated primarily by the hostility to New York growing out of the bitter contest over the Wentworth charters, coupled with their aversion to the still existing system of centralization in that state, abhorrent to their democratic spirit. The College party reached their idea of a new state "through a calm and unimpassioned process of reasoning, in which apparently expediency played a leading part," as John L. Rice tersely puts it in his bro- chure on the movement. It was the contest so familiar in
258
+
Eleazar Wheelock (1711-1779), Founder of Dartmouth College. From an old painting.
حمـ
-
1
259
Dartmouth College and New Connecticut
our day between the practiced politicians and the " literary fellows," with the customary result. Although mighty with the pen, the " men of thought were no match for the men of action," as the event proved. Nevertheless they maintained a skillful warfare, produced some exceedingly able papers, and kept affairs astir in the Upper Valley for more than six years. They created a schism on both sides of the River, which baffled the other party, and moved bluff Ethan Allen to arraign them with more vigor than regard for the rules of orthography as " a Petulent, Pette- foging, Scribling sort of Gentry that will keep any govern- ment in hot water till they are thoroughly brought under the Exertions of Authority."
The germ of the College party was in Eleazer Whee- lock's final selection of the Upper Valley for the location of Dartmouth College, evolved from his "Moor Indian Charity School," begun fifteen years before (1754) upon its charter by the crown in 1769. On the grants then occu- pied in the region there were among the few settlers a num- ber of men of means and culture, several of them graduates of Yale and Harvard, who were zealous in public matters, and had been directly instrumental in leading Wheelock here. With or soon following him came more of similar stamp, and these united with the others in making the college almost immediately a centre of political influence.
Between most of these new settlements there was a strong community of interests, for their settlers had largely come from neighboring towns in eastern Connecticut. The grantees of four of them - Lebanon, Hanover, Hartford, and Norwich, on either side of the River - were townsmen of the Connecticut Lebanon, where Wheelock's Indian School originated, and of its neighbors, Windham and Mansfield. These four grants were intentionally grouped
260
Connecticut River
together by their proprietors, and their charters were issued on the same day - July 4, 1761. They were the first of the new crop of Wentworth grants, and the first chartered in this part of the Valley. Their names were taken from the old Connecticut towns, with the single exception of Hanover, which was named for the parish of Hanover, then a part of the Connecticut Norwich. Lyme, chartered only four days after the first four, and named for old Lyme of the lower Valley, was also settled by eastern Connecti- cut folk. So were Hartland on the west side, granted two days after Lyme, Thetford, west side, granted the following August, and Orford, east side, in September. The other towns of the group, Cornish and Haverhill on the east side, granted respectively in June and May, 1763, and Newbury, west side, in August, were settled by Massachusetts stock; hence the names of Haverhill and Newbury for the old Essex towns of that colony.
Hanover was the geographical as well as the political centre of this group. That section of Hanover in which the college was placed was early set apart as the College District, and was put under the jurisdiction of President Wheelock, who was appointed a civil magistrate for its government. It comprised a territory three miles square immediately surrounding the college. After a few years the town sanctioned its incorporation under the name of Dresden, and as such it maintained a separate organization for some time. The significance, if any, of the name of Dresden does not appear. Here the College party centered in College Hall.
The initial tilt of the Dresden statesmen was against the New Hampshire Provincial Congress of 1775-1776, meeting at Exeter. The issue turned on the assumed right of each incorporated town to representation in that body
261
Dartmouth College and New Connecticut
and in the legislature that succeeded it. The basis of re- presentation which the congress had adopted was numerical, arrived at approximately by grouping the smaller towns in classes and assigning to each class a single representative. Thus Grafton County, which included the new settlements on the east side of the River, was accorded but six repre- sentatives in a body of eighty-nine members. Hanover was in a class with five other towns. Designated the chief town of its class, Hanover duly received a precept for an election to the congress to convene at Exeter in December, 1775. The selectmen refused to hold a meeting and sent the precept back with no return on it. The other classes, though dissatisfied, complied with their precepts and sent delegates. So the Hanover class was alone of Grafton County unrepresented.
At the session, however, President Wheelock's son John, then a young man of twenty-one, four years gradu- ated from the college, and already experienced in affairs, appeared as the agent of the unrepresented class with a petition for a change in the law by which its six towns should have for the present two representatives. This petition was urged especially on the ground that a proper representation was most necessary in " this unsettled, crit- ical, and interesting day." But the congress accorded it scant consideration, even treating it with " something like contempt." Naturally the dissatisfaction increased, and when in due course a second precept was received it was ignored more pointedly than the first one. The issue was brought to a crisis by the act of the last congress, that of January, 1776, perpetuating the objectionable basis of re- presentation in the frame of government, or "temporary constitution," adopted prior to the transformation of the body into a Council and House of Representatives.
262
Connecticut River
At once the College party asserted themselves. In April circular letters were sent out from " Dresden " to the com- mittees of safety of various towns, calling them together for conference and action. On the thirty-first of July a convention of them from eleven towns assembled at Dresden to take up the matters of grievance. They comprised repre- sentatives of the six towns in the Hanover class and of the east side River towns northward, - Lyme, Orford, Haver- hill and Bath. The result of their deliberations was practi- cally a declaration of independence of the Exeter government.
No record of this assembly remains beyond the printed Address "to the people of the several towns throughout the Colony." The College Hall in which the proceedings were held was the rude structure built up from Eleazer Wheelock's first one-story dwelling, and used in part for commons, and in part jointly by the college and the towns- people for chapel, meetinghouse and public hall. It is only conjectured who constituted the leading factors. Presum- ably chief among them were Bezaleel Woodward, Eleazer Wheelock's brother-in-law, at the time a tutor in the col- lege, afterward the professor of mathematics, and Colonel Elisha Payne of Cardigan (now Orange, east of Lebanon), a trustee of the college, just appointed by the Exeter gov- ernment a judge of the New Hampshire court of appeals, at a later period chief-justice of Vermont. Probably among the dignitaries occupying the platform, that rostrum " of bass-wood .planks hewn with an axe" from which great thoughts were uttered in the brave youth of Dartmouth, was Eleazer Wheelock. And doubtless young John Whee- lock was an active participant. Woodward is generally assumed to have been the author of the Address ; though Rice intimates that the hands of both Woodward and Payne were in its composition.
t
d b
C
f
it
1
263
Dartmouth College and New Connecticut
It was indeed a remarkable document coming out of the wilderness. Disregarding what had been done at Exeter, it opened with the bold declaration that "the important crisis is now commenced wherein the providence of God, the Grand Continental Congress, and our necessitous cir- cumstances call upon us to assume our natural right of laying a foundation of civil government within and for this Colony." The Exeter scheme of representation was skilfully discussed with this virile conclusion :
" Our assertion holds good : (viz.) That no person or body corpo- rate can be deprived of any natural or acquired right without forfeit- ure or voluntary surrender, neither of which can be pretended in this case : Therefore they who espouse the argument are necessarily driven to adopt this principle: (viz.) That one part of the Colony hath a right to curtail or deprive the other part of their natural and acquired rights and privileges, even the most essential, without their consent. .. . "
Summing up the case it was asserted that since there was " no legal power subsisting in the Colony for the purpose for which it is now necessary there should be : it is still in the hands of the people." Accordingly the people were called upon "to exercise the rights and privileges they have to erect a supreme legislative court for the Colony in order to lay a foundation and plan a government in this critical juncture of affairs." As for the issuers of the address :
"we are determined not to spend our blood and treasure in de- fending against the chains and fetters that are forged and prepared for us abroad, in order to purchase some of the like kind of our own manufacturing ; but mean to hold them alike detestable."
Towns concurring in the sentiments of the Address were asked to communicate with Bezaleel Woodward, as " clerk of the United-Committees." How generally they
264
Connecticut River
responded is indicated by a letter of President Meshech Weare of the Council of New Hampshire to the state's delegates in the Continental Congress. Writing from Exe- ter under date of December 16, 1776, he refers to the Ad- dress "fabricated, I suppose, at Dartmouth College," as having had, " with the assiduity of the College Gentlemen," such an effect "that almost the whole county of Grafton, if not the whole, have refused to send members to the new Assembly which is to meet next Wednesday."
Meanwhile the Bennington party on the west side of the River and west of the Green Mountains had been an- tagonizing New York and were now pushing their scheme of an independent state.
In January, 1775, several towns west of the mountains had organized in opposition to New York at a convention held in Manchester, twenty-five miles north of Bennington. Three months after, in April, the committees of safety of towns east of the mountains convened at Westminster on the River and took similar and more definite action. The latter body voted a petition to the king "to be taken out of so offensive a jurisdiction and either annexed to some other government or erected and incorporated into a new one." The towns represented in this convention were all of Cumberland county, one of two counties into which New York had divided her claimed territory between the moun- tains and the River ; Cumberland embracing the country south of a line touching the River above Windsor, the other county, Gloucester, taking in the towns north of that line.
The affair at Lexington and the Concord Fight eight days after the Westminster convention " rendered any pe- tition to the king inexpedient," as the chroniclers of the time with unconscious humor record. No further definite move was made till the opening of 1776, when in January,
--.
John Wheelock (1754-1817), Son of Eleazar Wheelock, Second President of Dartmouth College.
265
Dartmouth College and New Connecticut
a convention of the committees of a majority of the towns west of the mountains met at Dorset, the next town north of Manchester, and advanced matters a point or two. The weightiest act of this body was the preparation of an ad- dress to the Continental Congress remonstrating against further submission to New York, with a petition that the people on the grants be permitted to do duty in the Con- tinental service as a district by themselves. In May Con- gress offset the petition with a recommendation that the protestors remain under New York till the end of the war with assurance that their case would not be prejudiced by such action.
This rebuff acted as a stimulus rather than a check to the leaders. In June all the towns on the grants west of the River were called to another Dorset convention for July, and this body, assembling only a few days before the meet- ing of the College party at Dresden, resolved that "appli- cation be made to the inhabitants of said grants to form the same into a separate district." Since only one dele- gate was present from the east side of the mountains a committee was appointed to visit the Cumberland and Gloucester county towns and endeavor to secure their co- operation. During the summer this committee came into the Valley and met the various town committees at confer- ences at Windsor, Thetford, and Norwich. At the Nor- wich conference John Wheelock appeared from Hanover and surprised the Dorset committee with the proposition that the east side towns which the College party represented be included in the movement. The conference broke up without action on the proposition. Nevertheless the wedge had been inserted.
The result of the committee's canvass was the appear- ance of ten delegates from the towns between the mountains
266
Connecticut River
and the River at the next convention, also held at Dorset, in September. But none appeared from the Glouces- ter county towns. Accordingly, another adjournment was taken to October, to allow for further missionary work. In order more effectually to conciliate the Gloucester towns, it was arranged that the October sitting should be at West- minster on the River. When, however, the day arrived the people of the territory were too agitated over war preparations, the defeat of the American naval force on Lake Champlain, and the apprehended attack on Ticon- deroga, to give attention to civic projects. Consequently only a few delegates appeared, and, without action on the vital question, the body again adjourned.
At the next session, January 15, 1777, held in the Westminster Court House, the scheme was finally carried through, and the declaration of independence of New York was at length proclaimed with the formal setting up of the new state. Gloucester county was now represented, and of the committee of five named to draft the declaration, two were River men - Ebenezer Hoisington of Windsor, and Jacob Burton of Norwich. The entire territory of the grants on the west side of the River was declared by unanimous vote to be "a separate, free, and independent jurisdiction or state," and the College party's name of "New Connecticut " was chosen for it.
By this time the College party nad succeeded in detach- ing upward of forty New Hampshire towns from the Exeter government, and the "United-Committees " were industriously disseminating their doctrine. The Exeter government had made repeated attempts to allay the spirit of discontent, but to no purpose. On the third of January, 1777, the Assembly named a committee, with President Weare at the head, to visit Grafton county and " entreat
267
Dartmouth College and New Connecticut
the people to consider the consequences of such internal discords and divisions among ourselves" at this critical time. The move was met by a new circular letter emanat- ing from the United-Committees, presenting a plan of campaign to the freeholders. "We proceed to observe," ran this spirited document, " that the declaration of inde- pendency [by the American colonies] made the antecedent form of government of necessity null and void; and by that act the people of the different Colonies slid back into a state of nature, and in that condition they were to begin anew." Therefore the freeholders and inhabitants were enjoined to adhere to these two important points :
" (1) That you give not up an ace of the right that the smallest town has to a distinct representation if incorporated.
" (2) That as the present Assembly is unconstitutional, being the same virtually as before the declaration of independency, they do dissolve themselves, after having notified each corporate town to form a new body that may fix on a plan of government which can be the only proper seal of your concurrence in independency. Thus you will act a consistent part, and secure your palace from being pil- fered within while you are filling up the breaches that are made without."
The local committees met President Weare and his com- mittee at Ordway's tavern in Lebanon, on the thirteenth of February. It was a notable assembly with twelve towns represented, and Eleazer Wheelock present as a spectator. But the discussion was fruitless. The very next day the United-Committees met and the plan of union with "New Connecticut " was advanced. Still the scheme was pru- dently kept in abeyance till after the adoption of the plan of government for the new state.
On June 4, the Westminster convention reassembled by adjournment in the Upper Valley, at Windsor, with an
268
Connecticut River
increased representation from the River towns, and made provision for a constitution for the new state. The drafting of the instrument was assigned to a committee instructed to report at a " constitutional convention " composed of newly elected delegates, to meet also at Windsor, on the second of July. At the June meeting another act, en- gineered through by the Bennington party, was of greater significance in the game between the parties. This was the substitution of Vermont for New Connecticut as the name of the new state. The reason given for dropping the name of New Connecticut was its previous application to a district on the Susquehanna River, and the incon- veniences that might arise from "two separate districts on this continent " bearing the same name. The real motive was evidently the desire of the Bennington party now to rid themselves of the symbol of a union with the College party's venture and consequent conflict with New Hampshire.
However, undismayed by this check, the Dresden states- men moved onward with their plans. A week after the June Windsor convention the United-Committees met at the house of Captain Aaron Storrs in Hanover and adopted an Address to the Exeter Assembly embodying their ultimatum. The disaffected towns were willing to unite with New Hampshire on these principles only : liberty to the inhabit- ants of every town to elect at least one representative ; the fixing of the seat of government as near the center of the state as conveniently might be; and the submission of the matter of further establishing a permanent plan of government to an Assembly " convened as aforesaid, and for that purpose only." A committee was appointed to present the Address at Exeter, but the pressure of war affairs prevented their doing so at this time.
269
Dartmouth College and New Connecticut
The new Vermont " constitutional convention," called for July 2, assembled at Windsor on that date in the heat of Burgoyne's advance, several of the delegates coming direct from service with the militia in the field The busi- ness, therefore, was of necessity hurriedly despatched, yet with no lack of formality and deliberation. The attendance was small but influential. Many of the delegates had been members of the June convention. The proceedings began in the meeting-house, where that convention had sat, but a removal was soon made to the village tavern. Here all the important acts of the little body were performed, and in commemoration of them and of subsequent sittings of the General Assembly in its "large room," the building came to be called "Constitution Hall." It yet stands, or a remnant of it - off the street leading up from the present railroad station - but long ago shorn of its glory and re- duced to humble service as a wheelwright's shop.
The story of this convention, which so fairly launched Vermont " amidst the tumults of war," is one of the most animated of the many romances of the beautiful Valley.
Before opening their business the delegates gathered in the meeting-house and listened to a " convention sermon." The preacher was the Rev. Aaron Hutchinson of Pomfret, adjoining the Vermont Hartford on the River, a man of unique distinction in the community. He was a classical scholar of high rank, a preparer of youth for college, and it was his custom to teach Latin and Greek while at work in the fields, his pupils being required to follow him as he followed the plow. With other remarkable talents he pos- sessed a prodigious memory. It was said of him that he " often went through the whole pulpit service without opening a book of any kind, appointing and reciting the hymns, as well as quoting the scriptures, with entire reliance
270
Connecticut River
on his memory, and without mistake." The theme of his convention sermon was " A well-tempered self-love a rule of conduct toward others." It was delivered extem- poraneously, after a horseback ride from his distant home on the hot July morning. It was afterward put into type, and a copy of it is treasured by the Vermont Historical Society. Following the sermon came a prayer. Then a Watts hymn, "The Universal Law of Equity," was sung ; and then the assembly arose and all blended their stalwart voices in the Doxology.
The proceedings in the tavern hall had barely started when an "express " broke in upon them with an alarming message from Colonel Seth Warner at Rutland. It an- nounced the advance of Burgoyne upon Ticonderoga and called for assistance. "I am at this moment," the despatch wound up, " a going to mount my horse in company with Colonel Bellows for Ticonderoga." The business in hand was instantly dropped and measures put in operation for hur- rying forward men and provisions to the beleaguered post. Orders went out to start on the march what remained of the militia not already with the officer commanding the Continental Army there. A fresh express was hastened off to Exeter with a copy of Warner's message to the New Hampshire Assembly, then also in session, and a letter from the convention detailing what they were doing in the emergency, with the suggestive observation that "every prudent step ought to be taken for the relief of our friends " at the front.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.