USA > Connecticut > The Connecticut River and the valley of the Connecticut, three hundred and fifty miles from mountain to sea; historical and descriptive > Part 22
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These moves naturally incensed the Bennington party and they were put to their mettle to offset them. At the same time other perils which threatened Vermont's exist- ence engaged the Benningtonians. Massachusetts had now joined Vermont's opponents with a claim to a part of her territory. In April and May lively events on the River border of Cumberland County added a new impulse to the controversy with New York.
In this quarter a strong minority party, in which were included some of the foremost men of means and influence in the towns, had steadfastly resisted the authority of Ver- mont, remaining loyal to New York. They had formed their own committees of safety and in the spring of this year (1779) a militia company had been organized among them with officers commissioned by Governor Clinton of New York. When, in April, the Vermont board of war directed a levy of men for service in guarding the frontier, certain of these townsmen, known to be active friends of New York, refused their quota. . Clashes followed between the recruiting officers and these "Yorkers." An act in Putney especially incensed the "Yorkers." A Vermont sergeant there levied upon some cows belonging to delin- quents and posted them for sale. Before the appointed day a rescue was affected by a band of a hundred men under a New York commissioned colonel. On the fourth of May representatives of the malcontents met in convention at Brattleborough to confer on the situation. Among other acts an appeal was forwarded to Governor Clinton for pro- tection in their persons and properties from the repeated assaults of the Vermont partisans. In the meantime the Vermont government had acted aggressively in directing Ethan Allen to march into the county to assist the sheriff in the execution of his orders.
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Promptly the doughty warrior appeared on the scene with his " Green Mountain Boys." Forty or more of the "Yorkers" against whom warrants, signed by Ira Allen, had been issued, charging " enemical conduct" in opposing the authority of Vermont, were arrested and taken to West- minster, where they were closely packed into the rough little jail. Among them were the militia officers in Brattle- borough, Putney, and Westminster, from colonel to cap- tains, who had received their commissions from New York. Their trial took place in the Westminster Court House, - tavern, jail, and court-house combined,- the same that was the scene of the first outbreak of an organized body of " liberty men " more than a month before Lexington and Concord ; and where the declaration of independence of the grants was first proclaimed : the site of which, on the old King's Highway in this pastoral town, overlooking the limpid River, is now marked by an inscribed bowlder. Ethan Allen's impetuous attempt to stampede the court was an enlivening incident of this affair. The prisoners were finally condemned as rioters and fined in various sums.
Governor Clinton replied to the Brattleborough peti- tioners with good assurances, and the recommendation that the authority of Vermont should in no instance be ac- knowledged "except in the alternative of submission or inevitable ruin." At the same time he wrote to the presi- dent of Congress, now John Jay, announcing that matters on the grants were fast approaching a serious crisis which " nothing but the interposition of Congress could probably prevent." Congress acted so far as to appoint a committee to visit the grants and endeavor to promote an amicable settlement of all differences. Only two of this committee, however, made the visit, - the Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon of New Jersey, president of Princeton, and Samuel J. Atlee,
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of Pennsylvania,- and their several conferences at Ben- nington were without result.
Such was the situation when the June session of the New Hampshire Assembly came in at Exeter, and the meas- ure reported in April was finally to be acted upon. Ira Allen again appeared for the interests of Vermont, while the Cornish committee were represented by Professor Wood- ward and Colonel Peter Olcott, Woodward's west side neighbor of Norwich. The Cornish men's canvass had been unsatisfactory, for only a few of the Vermont towns had made returns; but this failure was attributed to the work of "emissaries " of the Bennington party, who, it was charged, had intercepted and destroyed many of their cir- cular-letters. The April proposition went through, and thus formal claim was laid to the whole of Vermont con- ditionally. The measure was assumed to be aimed against New York and in fact friendly to Vermont, since it left her free to achieve her independence with the consent of Con- gress. But the Bennington party received it with suspicion as calculated sooner or later to vex Vermont, as it so proved, while the College party recognized in it virtually a defeat of their move.
Yet these able and persistent statesmen took "heart of hope," and were soon again found playing a leading hand.
In September Congress was moved to another step to- ward a settlement of the differences. The three claimants - New York, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts - were advised to pass laws expressly authorizing Congress to determine the whole case ; and this done, they were invited, together with the people on the grants "who claimed to be a separate jurisdiction," to send agents to Philadelphia for a hearing on a specified date. New York and New Hampshire passed the enabling acts, but Massachusetts
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did not ; while Vermont appointed a committee empowered to vindicate her right to independence.
This was the College party's opportunity for another apparently shrewd move. Although the invitation to the people on the grants claiming to be a separate jurisdiction was intended definitely and only for Vermont, the College party cleverly construed it to include themselves. Accord- ingly, at a convention held in Dresden in November, they deputed Professor Woodward and Colonel Olcott to attend the hearing as agents for the " United Towns." They now claimed to represent "the greater part of the towns in the northern district " of the grants " on both sides of the Con- necticut River and between the heights of land on the two sides." At this stage the College party were prepared to join with New York in a plan to fix the boundary at the Green Mountains. If New Hampshire persisted in her course they might ultimately realize their hope of a sepa- rate state in the Valley.
On the first of February, 1780, the date appointed for the hearing, the several interests were all represented at Philadelphia. But the subject was not then moved be- cause of a deficiency in the Congressional representation. A succession of postponements followed till the latter part of September, when at length the constitutional quorum were present. While Vermont had steadily denied the authority of Congress to adjudicate upon the controversy, and had issued her ringing " Appeal to the Candid and Impartial World " with its announcement of her determina- tion not to surrender her liberties to the arbitrament of "any man, or body of men under Heaven," her agents - Ira Allen and Stephen Rowe Bradley, of Westminster, the author of the Appeal - were conspicuous at the fore. As prominent also were Bezaleel Woodward and Peter Olcott
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for the College party. Luke Knowlton of Newfane, west of Putney on the River, bearing credentials from Governor Clinton, was active for the Cumberland County party loyal to New York, with instructions to support all the claims of New York. Although Messrs. Woodward and Olcott were not accorded full official recognition, Congress per- mitted them to present a written argument against any division of the grants with separate jurisdictions by the line of the River.
The hearing continued through a week and then came to an abrupt end with indefinite postponement of further consideration of the subject. On the last day the Vermont agents, having "perceived that in attempting to decide upon the controversy between New York and New Hamp- shire, Congress was adjudicating upon the very existence of Vermont without condescending to consider her as a party, assuming that she did not in any sense possess the attributes of sovereignty," withdrew and filed a written remonstance. They could no longer " sit as idle specta- tors " and witness the efforts to "intrigue and baffle a brave and meritorious people out of their rights and liber- ties." After their withdrawal, General Sullivan, New Hampshire's agent, " proceeded to state evidence tending to prove " that the grants were all within that state, and that "therefore the people inhabiting them had no right to a separate and independent jurisdiction." The sudden termination of the hearing at this point was found to be due mainly to a disagreement in the New Hampshire delega- tion over their instructions from the Exeter government upon which General Sullivan had proceeded. Sullivan himself was really in accord with Colonel Olcott, and ap- parently with Luke Knowlton, on the plan for fixing the boundary at the Green Mountains.
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Although this unexpected turn once again disconcerted the College men's plans, they received it with complacency, and returned to the Valley prepared for new combinations. The Benningtonians, angered by the pertinacity exhibited by the claiming states, and hopeless of any immediate rec- ognition of Vermont, proceeded to develop a policy which would convince her opponents of the wisdom of yielding "" to power what had so long been denied to the claims of justice." So Slade in the Vermont State Papers phrases it, to indicate, in part, the secret negotiations now under way ostensibly to detach Vermont from the United States and annex her to the king's dominion in Canada, but really to force her recognition by the states ; and, in part, the adroit manœuverings of her astute leaders which shortly resulted in the expansion of her jurisdiction into the distant territory of the chief claimants.
So the parties shifted and the situation shaped itself for the next move, one of large consequence, in which the su- perior skill of the practiced politician over that of the literary statesman was demonstrated with dramatic and with dazing effect.
This move at its inception had for its ultimate object the union in one political body of all the inhabitants on both sides of the River between Mason's Grant on the east side and the Green Mountains on the west, - the original scheme of New Connecticut contemplated by the College Hall convention of 1776. It made its start from Cumber- land County, the party there, so long adhering to New York, wearied with their experiences, being now ready to withdraw from her. The initiative was taken on the thirty-first of October, when a convention met at Brattle- borough and named delegates to join others to be appointed from Gloucester County and the east side Grafton County,
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and devise measures to bring about such a union. A week later the delegates for these three counties met on the east side, at Charlestown, and decided before going any further with the scheme to take means for ascertaining more fully the sentiment of the several towns upon it. In another week a convention of delegates from the east side towns south of Charlestown, which comprised the New Hamp- shire Chester County, together with committees from the three counties previously moving, assembled at Walpole and took definite action in perfecting a plan for a general convention of representatives of all the grants at Charles- town in the following January (1781). While the Che- shire County men were loyal to New Hampshire they had the same repugnance as the upper River leaders to a boun- dary at the River, and were impatient with the halting course of the Exeter government. Their hope was strong that the movement now begun would bring the issue to a conclusion, with the establishment of New Hampshire's ju- risdiction definitely across the River.
The Charlestown assembly was the largest and most im- portant of the series of state-making, or state-attempting, conventions in the Valley. And here the play of the poli- ticians was the shrewdest and boldest, beautiful in its audacity.
Upon the appointed day, January 16, forty-three towns on both sides of the River appeared by their delegates in the Charlestown meeting-house. The College party had the organization. At the opening of the game the parti- sans of three of the four interests - the College party, the Exeter government, and New York - were practically united for present purposes upon the scheme of a boundary at the Green Mountains, with all the grants east of the ridge in the jurisdiction of New Hampshire and all west
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of it attached to New York. Vermont was not yet repre- sented, and she was counted out of the reckoning. But Ira Allen was on the way, post haste, under appointment from the governor and council with carte blanche to take whatever measures in its interest his "prudence should dictate." He had also provided himself with credentials as a member from one of the towns. When he arrived the convention had been in session two days, and every- thing was going the way of the combined interests. He did not take his seat or produce his credentials. Instead, he put in his work among the members in the lobby with energy and tact, to undo what had been so far accomplished and to bring the convention to his side. A committee assigned to shape the business had reported for the union with New Hampshire, and their report had been adopted by a strong majority. Allen and his aids secured a recom- mitment of the report over night, ostensibly for verbal corrections and to be "fitted for the press." The next morning Vermont was found to be at the fore, with the game in her hands. A majority of the committee had been induced to reverse the report, which now provided for the union with Vermont of all the territory lying west of the Mason line; and the delegates had been so turned about that the revised report was adopted by an almost unanimous vote.
How Allen with his few Benningtonian aids performed this legerdemain history does not tell. Allen's own secret report narrates that he informed some " confidential per- sons " that the governor and council and other " leading characters " on the west side of the mountains were now for extending Vermont's claim of jurisdiction to the Mason line, and that "if the convention would take proper mea- sures " he was authorized to give assurance that the
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Assembly would extend such claim at their approaching session in February, notwithstanding the dissolution of the union with the sixteen towns three years before. He made note of the fact that an influential number of the delegates were members of the New Hampshire Council and Assembly; and he was pardonably jubilant in his observation that "the friends of New Hampshire were much pleased with their work and well enjoyed the night " during which he was engaged in working his scheme.
General Benjamin Bellows, of Walpole, who as head of the committee had made the first report, and ten others of Cheshire County, entered a remonstrance against the final action and withdrew from the convention. They were ready, they said, either to join New Hampshire or set up a new sta e between the heights of land on both sides of the River; but they could not join Vermont. After their withdrawal the convention appointed a com- mittee to confer with the Vermont Assembly at the Feb- ruary session, and then adjourned, next to assemble in the meeting-house at Cornish, on the day of the Assembly's meeting across the River at Windsor.
Thus again, as in 1778, at Cornish and Windsor, nego- tiations for the union of the east and west side grants in one political body were successfully carried out ; now, however, on a larger scale than before and under differing conditions.
First, a committee from the Convention at Cornish crossed over to the Assembly at Windsor and formally presented their proposition. This committee the College party dominated with Colonel Payne of Lebanon as chair- man, and Professor Woodward as a member. At the same time the Assembly received a petition from eleven towns in the northeast part of New York, near the Hudson,
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also for admission to Vermont. Both communications were met with a resolve laying jurisdictional claims over all of the territory east and west of the River to the Mason line on the one side and the Hudson on the other ; with this proviso, however: that jurisdiction be not exer- cised "for the time being." Subsequently the articles of union were agreed to, and mutually confirmed by Assembly and Convention, to take effect when ratified by two-thirds of the interested towns. Then both bodies adjourned to await the action of their respective constituencies.
Upon reassembling in April, again at Windsor and Cornish, the return showed a ratification of the union by a requisite number of towns. Accordingly it was imme- diately consummated by the admission to seats in the Assembly of representatives of thirty-four towns east of the River. Among these new members appeared Professor Woodward and most of the other leaders of the College party.
Thus the original sixteen east-side towns controlled by the College party, with eighteen others in their company, became again constitutional members of the State of Ver- mont. And for a time things went on swimmingly. At the April session of the Assembly new counties were created in the place of the old ones, courts established, militia organized east of the River, and other measures taken to cement the new union. At the next session, held in June at Bennington, the eleven seceding New York towns toward the Hudson were admitted on similar terms to those east of the Connecticut. These annexed districts were designated respectively the Western Union and the Eastern Union. At this session Professor Woodward, and Jonas Fay and Ira Allen of the Benningtonians, were named as a committee to attend upon Congress and make
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a new application for the admission of Vermont, with authority, in the event of success, to take seats as delegates from the state. In September or October Colonel Payne was chosen lieutenant governor of the state. In October the Assembly met for the first and only time on the east side of the River, - at Charlestown, - with the College party now in full swing.
While the Bennington party had kept to the letter of Ira Allen's promises at the Charlestown convention in January, still they had so manœuvred as to retain the power in their hands. They had fostered the union as a necessity to preserve and maintain the life and independ- ence of Vermont, but the right of dissolving it remained with the state. The extension of her jurisdiction east and west over the whole of the grants was, in fact, only a claim or claims not to be exercised if disapproved by Con- gress. The Benningtonians were prepared to relinquish both claims if opportunity should come in that way to attain their great desire -the recognition of the sove- reignty of their state at all hazards. So they " bided their time " and observed with satisfaction the rising tumult against the combination.
New Hampshire, now roused, was pressing her delegates in Congress to secure her claim to Vermont's territory, while at home she was taking measures for the defence of her invaded jurisdiction. In many of the east-side towns an active minority were resisting the authority of Vermont, and collisions were frequent between the officers and par- tisans of the two governments. These conflicts were most serious in Cheshire County. At one time the New Hamp- shire county sheriff, Colonel Enoch Hale of Walpole, when attempting to release from the jail in Charlestown some townsmen of Chesterfield who had been taken for resisting
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a constable, was himself seized and incarcerated; and his case became a cause célèbre in the Upper Valley. In retali- ation, a Vermont county sheriff, Dr. William Page of Charlestown, was clapped into jail at Exeter, by order of the New Hampshire legislature, upon his appearance there as one of three commissioners sent over by the Vermont government to endeavor to settle local disputes. During the controversies threats of raising the militia were made by both states, and civil war in the border towns was imminent. At a critical stage orders for marching the militia of Vermont into the warring district were actually issued, but fortunately were countermanded when peaceful negotiations intervened.
In August Messrs. Woodward, Fay, and Allen were in Philadelphia on their mission pressing Vermont's renewed claims upon Congress. On the twentieth, Congress acted to the extent of a declaration making conditions as an indis- pensable preliminary to the state's recognition. These conditions were the relinquishment by Vermont of all demands to lands or jurisdiction on the east side of the west bank of the Connecticut, and west of a line twenty miles east of the Hudson : in other words, her abandonment of the Eastern and Western Unions. With this definite proposition the committee appeared at the Assembly that convened at Charlestown on the eleventh of October.
One hundred and two towns were represented at this sitting, thirty-six of them east of the River. The members assembled under disquieting circumstances, for reports were abroad that New Hampshire troops would attempt to prevent the meeting. In fact a regiment had marched into Charlestown a few days before and quartered at the fort. Shortly after there arrived three hundredweight of powder, six hundredweight of balls, and a thousand flints.
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Meanwhile, at Cornish, Colonel Chase of the Vermont militia had ordered his captains to muster their companies in readiness for any emergency. All this had an ominous look. No trouble, however, arose, although the soldiery remained in the town for some time. Probably the gath- ering of Colonel Reynolds and his men here at this juncture was quite independent of the Assembly's meeting. They had been enlisted under a requisition for recruiting the Continental army, and were on their way to service; but their presence may have served to influence the Assembly's leaders to prompt and uncompromising action on the questions at issue which marked this sitting.
The report of the Philadelphia mission was the subject of discussion for four days. The offer of definite terms by Congress as an "indispensable preliminary" was consid- ered, and so treated, as a virtual engagement to admit the state to the national confederation upon her acceptance of the terms. Notwithstanding the alluring inducement, the Assembly determined to hold fast to the Eastern and Western Unions, and to decline to submit the question of the independence of Vermont to the "arbitrament of any power whatever." On the last day of the session the members were cheered by the arrival of an express with great news. The announcement was made and duly recorded, " That on the 19th inst. the proud Cornwallis had unconditionally surrendered with his whole army to the illustrious Washington."
With the engineering of this Charlestown session the College party's leadership ended. Their star was about to fall and forever.
In the interim between the adjournment at Charles- town and the next sitting of the Assembly, called for January 31 (1782) at Bennington, various forces were
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diligently at work, and the Bennington party were shrewdly manœuvering. When the time for this mid- winter meeting came great plans had matured. The gathering of representatives was comparatively small, few if any from the River region having arrived ; for it was the worst season for travel in that primitive day of rough roads, or of no roads at all in the passes through the hills. Before the close of February the work at Charlestown had been undone with the adoption of a resolution accepting the terms of Congress. All claims to territory without the bounds named in the terms were now formally relin- quished, and the Eastern and Western Unions completely dissolved. This accomplished, agents were hurried off to Philadelphia, under secret instructions, confident of at last gaining the coveted recognition, the assumed stipulated price having been fully met. How they failed even to receive consideration of the matter at this time, how nine more years elapsed before the state was admitted, and how Vermont bravely developed during this period as an inde- pendent republic - all this is another story.
The College party, however, did not tamely pass from the stage.
Only two days after the final vote dissolving the Unions, leading members of the Assembly from east of the River reached Bennington. Immediately they pre- pared and sent out a call for a convention of the excluded River towns to meet at Dresden in March, and devise measures "relative to the settlement of animosities in order for an honorable union with New Hampshire." This convention duly met at Colonel Brewster's Hanover inn, and named a committee to apply to the New Hamp- shire Assembly for the re-admission of the seceders upon certain terms covered by fifteen articles carefully drawn
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