USA > New Hampshire > Sullivan County > Charlestown > History of Charlestown, New-Hampshire, the old No. 4 > Part 10
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In the early part of the season of 1760, a regiment of eight hun- dred troops was raised by the province of New-Hampshire and placed under command of Colonel John Goffe. This regiment, destined for that portion of the expedition for completing the conquest of Canada which was under the command of Colonel Haveland, was ordered to rendezvous at Litchfield, on the Merrimac ; from which place they were to march to Charlestown on the Connecticut ; whence they were to cut a military road to the Green Mountains and Crown Point, and thus open a nearer and better way to that fortress than the old route by Al- bany. This was a laborious and difficult undertaking, but the men who had it in charge were equal to the work imposed upon them. They arrived at Charlestown early in July, having opened their way from the Merrimac to the Connecticut, through the old town of Mon- son and the present townships of Peterborough and Keene. Potter, in his Military History of New-Hampshire, says. "They had to clear the road-a mere bridle path from Merrimac to Keene. They crossed the Connecticut at Charlestown, at Wentworth Ferry. On the west bank of the Connecticut, and near the mouth of Black River, they built a block house and enclosed the same with pickets, as a protection in case of disaster. They were forty-four days in cutting the road to the foot of the Green Mountains."
On this road mile posts were set up to mark the distance, of which, before reaching the mountains, there were twenty-six.
The road was opened on the right bank of Black River to the pres- ent township of Ludlow. Thence the route led over the mountains to Otter Creek, and down that Creek to a station opposite Crown Point, and thence across the country to that post. The baggage was con- veyed in wagons the first twenty-six miles, thence on pack-horses over the heights of land. From the mountains westward a road had been commenced and nearly completed the previous year. This it appears had been accomplished under the supervision of Lieutenant Colonel Zadok Hawks, and Captain John Stark-Hawks having superintend- ed the cutting of the path over the mountains, and Stark the road on
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the western portion of the route. The force employed under Stark, consisted of two hundred Rangers.
Such was the promptness and expedition with which Lieutenant Colonel Goffe accomplished his undertaking, that he arrived with his regiment at Crown Point, with all his baggage and a large drove of cattle, which he had conducted from Charlestown for the use of the army, twelve days before Colonel Haveland was prepared to start on the expedition to Montreal.
During the time Goffe had his head-quarters at Charlestown, and his regiment was employed in clearing the road between Charlestown and the mountains, the trails of the Indians were occasionally seen in the adjacent woods, but they were too few to make, under the circum- stances, any general attack. Before this regiment, however, had reached Charlestown. they had made an incursion and carried off Mr. Joseph Willard, with his wife and five children. They were taken at their homestead on the edge of the Great meadow, a short distance from the present residence of Mr. Peter A. Evans, on the 7th of June, 1760. Considering Samuel, the youngest, who was an infant, somewhat bur- densome to them, the Indians took him aside the next day and beat out his brains against a tree. The family were taken to Canada, their journey through the wilderness occupying fourteen days. They re- mained in captivity till the surrender of Montreal, into which city they had been taken a few days previous to its capitulation, when, with other prisoners, they were of course released. This was the last incur- sion of the Indians on the frontiers of New England, and the bloody scene which had so long been opened now closed. The eastern Indi- ans soon agreed on articles of peace, and acknowledged themselves subjects of the crown of England. Notwithstanding, the war still con- tinued in Europe, and a few provincial troops were raised in 1761-62, New-England was still exempted from further hostilities and, on the tenth of February, 1763, a general peace was signed at Paris, and soon after ratified by the belligerent powers of Europe,-by which Can- ada and all the other northern French settlements passed quietly un- der the jurisdiction of the British crowu.
CHAPTER VI.
THE RANGERS-THEIR CHARACTER, TRAINING, DUTIES AND HARDSHIPS. THEIR INDIAN ENEMIES-RESULTS OF THE CONQUEST OF CANADA .- DE- SIRE FOR IMMIGRATION-TOWN AFFAIRS FROM 1753-TOWN MEETINGS. PROGRESS OF POPULATION-NAMES OF SETTLERS BEFORE 1776.
T has been necessary, in this history, to speak frequently of " Rangers," and, as from the great changes which have been wrought in the condition of this portion of the country, similar bodies of men can never be employed hereafter, some further description of this peculiar class of partisans, showing what they did and suffered, can scarcely be without interest.
"Compared with the life of the Ranger," says B. H. Hall, in his His- tory of Eastern Vermont, " that of the frontier settler was merely the training school in hardship and endurance. In the ranging corps were perfected lessons, the rudiments of which are, at the present day, but seldom taught. Their duties were to scour the woods, and ascer- tain the force and position of the enemy ; to discover and prevent the effect of his own ambuscades, and to ambush him in turn ; to acquire information of his movements, by making prisoners of his sentinels, and to clear the way for the advance of regular troops. In marching, flankers preceded the main army, and their system of tactics was em- bodied in the quickness with which, at a given signal, they could form in file, either single or otherwise, as occasion demanded. In fighting, if the enemy was Indian, they adopted his mode of warfare, and were not inferior to him in artifice or finesse. To the use of all such weap- ons as were likely to be employed against them, they were well accus- tomed, and their antagonist, whoever he might be, was sure to find in them warriors whom he might hate, but could not despise. As marks- men none surpassed them." Nor was their training in other things less perfect. " With a sensitiveness to sound, approximating to that of instinct, they could detect the sly approach of the foe, or could mark, with an accuracy almost beyond belief, the place of his concealment. Their route was for the most part through a country thickly wooded,
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now over jagged hills and steep mountains, and anon across foaming rivers, or gravelly bedded brooks.
When an Indian track was discovered, a favorable point was cho- sen in its course, and there was formed an ambuscade, where they would lie in wait, day after day, for the approach of the enemy.
Nor were mountains, rivers, and foes, the only obstacles with which they were forced to contend. Loaded with provisions for a month's march, carrying a musket heavier by far than that of more modern make, with ammunition and appurtenances correspondent-thus equipped with the burden of a porter, did they do the duty of a soldier. At night the place of their encampment was always chosen with the utmost circumspection, and guards were ever on the alert to prevent a surprise. Were it summer, the ground sufficed for a bed, the clear sky or the outspreading branches of some giant oak, for a canopy. Were it winter, at the close of a weary march performed on snow-shoes, a few gathered twigs pointed the couch made hard by necessity, and a rude hut served as a miserable shelter from the inclemency of the weather. Were the nights very dark and cold, and no fear of discov- ery entertained, gathered around the blazing brush heap, they en- joyed a kind of satisfaction in watching the towering of its bright, forked flame, relieved by the dark back ground of the black forest; or encircling it in slumber dreamed that their heads were in Greenland, and their feet in Vesuvius. If a comrade were sick, the canteen or what herbs the forest offered, were usually the only medicines obtain- able; and, were he unable to proceed, a journey on a litter to the place whence his company started or to the point of their destination with the exposure consequent thereupon, was not always a certain warrant of recovery or the most gentle method of alleviating pain.
But the great object was unattained so long as they did not return with a string of scalps or a retinue of captives. When success attend- ed their efforts, the officers and soldiers shared alike in the bounty paid and strove to obtain equal proportions of praise and glory. The partisans of the valley of the Connecticut were mostly from Massachu- setts, Connecticut, and New-Hampshire. Some of them had borne for many years, the barbarities of the Indian, and were determined to hunt him like a beast in his own native woods. Not a few had seen father and mother tomahawked and scalped before their very eyes, and sone, after spending their youth as captives in the wigwam, had re- turned, bringing with them a knowledge of Indian modes of warfare and a burning desire to exert that knowledge for the destruction of
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their teachers. To men in this situation, a bounty such as was offered by the State of Massachusetts, was sufficient to change thought into ac- tion, and it did not require the eye of a prophet to foresee the result. Great were the dangers they encountered, arduous the labor they per- formed, pre-eminent the services they rendered " and to this we may add small was the reward which they received; and some modern histo- rians without any proper appreciaton of the true character of the Indian or the circumstances of the times which in the early settlements made such an order of men a necessity, would deprive them of the meed of praise. which is their due. But a due consideration of the barbarity of the enemy, by which was created an actual demand for such a class of partisans for the protection of the frontier settlements, will not only give us higher and better views of their character, but will lead us to a cordial acknowledgment of their magnanimity and bravery, and the importance and value of the services which they rendered.
Probably our country, in all her wars and conflicts, has never nour- ished up a more fearless and determined set of men than were brought out by the circumstances and duties of the times, in the old French and Indian wars, from 1745 to 1760. In the first French war, (the Cape Breton, as it was called) Captain Phineas Stevens, in the ranger service, was the commanding spirit of the times. Dearly did the Indians pay for their raid on Rutland, Massachusetts, when they killed two of his little brothers, and took him, then a youth of sixteen, prisoner, and car- ried him to Canada to learn their habits and mode of warfare. They got the better of him in that transaction, but never afterwards, for in all his battles and skirmishes with them, which in number were many, he was never in a single instance overcome; and in this service he was the exemplar and teacher of all that followed. In the subsequent war which followed the peace of Aix la Chapelle, this class of partisan lead- ers was more numerous, and their commands embraced forces raised ou a larger scale. I need not name them here, as their names will be found elsewhere, in this work. But the characteristics of the service, in its dangers and hardships, and its requirements of unflinching courage, were, in all, the same.
The Indians of whom mention has been frequently made, who caused, by their incursions, so much evil to the inhabitants of Charlestown and other frontier townships of New-Hampshire, were a branch of the Ab- enaqui tribe, whose chief location was at the village of St. Francis, sit- uated at the mouth of the river of the same name, in Canada. The Ab- enaquis were the original possessors of the territory lying east of Lake
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Champlain, as the Iroquois were of the lands extending westward from that lake. In modern times the tribe appears to have been divided and subdivided and to have been called by different names, according to the different localities which they were most accustomed to frequent. These divisions of the tribe also claimed for themselves particular portions of territory which they regarded as theirs by right, and on which they did not allow any others, whether Indian or white men, to intrude. Thus the Algonquins claimed the territory north of the St. Lawrence; the St. Francis tribe the territory now occupied by Vermont and a portion of Massachusetts, and that section of New-Hampshire which lies on, and west of the Merrimac River. To the St. Francis tribe also belonged the Coossucks, who were the Indians claiming two sections of land on the Connecticut River ; one above the fifteen mile falls, about Lunenburg and the other below, about Newbury. Their name was intended to be de- scriptive of the territory they possessed, the word "Coos " it is said meaning pines, and "Suck " a river. The St. Francis tribe regarded the lands on the Connecticut River as among their most valuable pos- sessions, and affirmed, as the reason for their hostility to the English that they had settled down upon them without purchase. However this may have been, they pertinaciously refused to give up their claim to the lands on that river, and, till the conquest of Canada by the English, still appear to have entertained the hope of again possessing them ; and in the contest for that possession they became the most blood thirsty and cruel enemies which the frontier settlements on the Connecticut in New- Hampshire and Massachusetts ever had to encounter. Some of them settled at Newbury and continued to live there after the close of the war, but most of them retired into Canada. The war had greatly diminish- ed their numbers, and especially had they received a severe blow from the expedition of Major Rogers, from which, had the war continued, they could never have recovered. But peace proved to them more fatal than war, for emigration, which had found its greatest obstacle in the contentions of the rival nations, set in immediately, in a broad and full current, the moment it was considered that the contest was closed-and colonization, which has always proved so destructive to the red man, soon swept away not only the warriors of the St. Francis tribe, who had battled for France, but the Iroquois as well, who had been the allies of England.
On the subjugation of Canada, by the English, in 1760, the circum- stances of Charlestown, as well as of the frontier towns generally, were greatly changed. For though the war between France and England
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still continued, all incursions and depredations which had been so har- rassing, and often so fatal, to the settlers, were at an end. For fifteen years, almost without a cessation, the minds of the inhabitants had been held in a state of apprehension. For though during several of these years there had been between the belligerent nations a nominal peace, it was not of a nature to inspire confidence, as the impression was general in the English American Provinces, that the negotiations on the part of France were entered into only with the design of taking advantage of the time that would be gained for making better prepa- rations for the renewal of hostilities. It is true that, for a short period, during the spring and summer of 1753, the prospect seemed favorable for a continued peace; and the inhabitants were so well assured of safety that they no longer felt under the necessity of relying for pro- tection upon the fort ; but went boldly forth to reside and pursue their avocations outside of its walls. But this lull in their apprehensions was only for a short time, and they were soon again destined to a dis- appointment in their expectations. But the conquest of Canada made an entire change in the circumstances of their situation, and they felt, at length, that their trials were over, as it was not probable that the power of France, which it had cost so much blood and treasure to over- throw, would ever be re-established ; and the Indians, whatever might be their disposition if deprived of the aid of their French allies, could be speedily disposed of, as they were neither numerous nor powerful enough to sustain a contest alone. The frontier settlements were, therefore, not only relieved from all the fearful apprehensions which had so long harrassed them, but the cause which had for many years prevented the progress of emigration was also removed; the conse- quence of which was an almost furor of excitement for obtaining the new lands, which had been thrown open for settlement.
During the continuance of the wars no permanent settlement had been made north and west of Charlestown beyond the Connecticut river. On the 3d of January, 1749, Governor Wentworth had char- tered the township of Bennington, now in the State of Vermont, but which was then supposed to be included in the territory of New-Hamp- shire; and between that time and the 6th of April, 1754, had made grants of fourteen other townships, west of the Connecticut. But hos- tilities being resumed, no further grants were asked for nor made. A few settlements had been made west of the river and immediately border- ing upon it, which had been only temporary, as they had been broken up during the war. Among these were Rockingham and Westminster.
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The settlement which had first been made, in 1744, in the present town of Putney, and which had been renewed after the peace of Aix la Chap- elle, was also nearly if not quite abandoned. A small settlement, moreover opposite Charlestown, on unchartered lands, in the present township of Springfield, made in 1753, was given up .* On the conquest of Canada,
* I find the following in Hall 's History of Eastern Vermont, page 116.
" In the year 1753, before the commencement of the French war and eight years previous to the date of the Charter of the town of Springfield, Daniel Sawtell, Jacob Sawtell, Oliver Sawtell, Combs House, Samuel Douglass, Oliver Farnsworth, Joseph Douglass, Noah Potter, Nathaniel Powers, Simeon Powers, and Simeon Powers Jr., 'being poor and indigent and unable to purchase lands in any of the inhabited towns of his Majesty's provinces,' while the lands in said Spring- field lay in the open wilderness, waste and untilled, without yielding any revenue to his Majesty, or profits to his subjects did for his Majesty's profit, as well as for the support of themselves, their wives and their children, enter upon, till and im- prove part of the lands in said Springfield. During the war they defended their possessions at the peril of their own lives, and by the loss of the lives of some of their 'friends and neighbors' and were as a guard to those places located further down the river, which were exposed to the rage of an heathen and savage foe. After the reduction of Canada, and the defeat of their Popish enemies they re- newed their labors with greater energy, and succeeded in establishing a prosper- ous and attractive settlement. The first Charter of the town was issued under the seal of New-Hampshire, on the 20th of August, 1761."
"At the conclusion of the war, Daniel Sawtell, and his associates petitioned Governor Wentworth for a patent of the lands, which they had improved, or for such part thereof as he should think fit." From some unaccountable reason, the Gover- nor refused to assent to their request and on the 20th of August, 1761, gave a Charter of the whole township to Gideon Lyman and sixty-one associates. Not one of the original settlers was named in this instrument, and thus they were placed entirely at the mercy of men, who were at liberty to dictate whatever terms they might deem most subservient to their own interests.
" Without any regard to the great dangers, and hard labor which the early set- tlers had undergone in maintaining possession of, and preparing for cultivation, the lands which they had so long considered their own, the New-Hampshire grantees sued out writs of ejectment and obtained judgments against them. Ex- ecutions were then issued, their possessions were taken, they themselves were threatened with imprisonment, in default of payment of the costs and charges of the suits which had been decided against them, and their families were thereby brought to distress and want. Subsequently Nathaniel Powers and twenty nine others, of whom a portion were the original settlers, applied to Lieutenant Gover- nor Cadwallader Colden of New York, asking a recognition of their right; but like the former it met with a similar reception, and New York also finally gave a Charter to Gideon Lyman, and his associates." (B. H. Hall.)
This is a pitiful story. But the statement that during the war they defended
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Walpole, on the east side of the river, had only two families resident in it ; viz. those of John Kilburn and Colonel Benjamin Bellows ; and dur- ing the war the township of Westmoreland had been entirely deserted. But as soon as, by the reduction of Canada, it was conceived that actual hostilities were over, most of the original settlers immediately returned, bringing with them large accessions to their numbers; and the forests, amid which the sounds of war only so long had been heard, began once more to resound with the echoes of civilized life.
While the wars continued with the French and Indians, numerous bodies of troops passed and repassed through the country now known as the State of Vermont. The soldiers perceived the fertility of the soil, and immediately upon the cessation of hostilities a great crowd of ad- venturers and speculators became eager for the possession of those lands, and numerous applications for charters of them were made to Governor Wentworth. The applications were so numerous and the surveys were extended so rapidly that, during the year 1761, not less than sixty town- ships were granted on the west, and eighteen on the east side of the Connecticut River. As the Governor reserved five hundred acres in every township for his own especial use, and often, in addition, received no inconsiderable gratuities from the grantees, he was not less eager, on account of his personal profits in the matter, to bestow grants than the people were to obtain them. Therefore, scarcely two years more had elapsed, before the number of townships on the west side of the river, amounted, in all, to one hundred and thirty-eight ; when, it having been decided by the King, "That the western bank of the Connecticut river from where it enters the Province of Massachusetts Bay, as far north as the forty-fifth degree of latitude to be the boundary line between the two provinces of New-Hampshire and New-York " no more charters were given of townships in that region.
With the cessation of hostilities, Charlestown commenced a new era, and, under the new circumstances, its situation became most advanta- geous. The settlement had become widely known, on account of its suf- ferings from Indian incursions, and its brave defences from their attacks ; and when these incursions had become things of the past, which, owing to the happy change in affairs, were never to be renewed, No. 4 almost
their possessions at the peril of their own lives, and were as "a guard to those places located further down the river, which were exposed to the rage of an heath- en and savage foe," is entirely without foundation ; for no settlement was contin- ued in Springfield, during the war, and this Governor Wentworth, probably well knew."
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immediately, in the minds of the people, assumed an aspect of such im- portance that no place in New-England, for those who were seeking new homes, attracted so much attention. Many, therefore, when assured that the dangers which had so long retarded emigration, were indeed no more to be renewed, left their residences and turned their faces toward it ; some to take up upon its hills and savannas a permanent abode, and many ultimately to pass on to new settlements beyond.
New England was awake to emigration and the greatest excitement and activity every where prevailed. Charlestown was thronged with compa- nies who had come there to take an outlook upon the lands on the up- per Connecticut, or which lay west of the river, of which they had heard marvellous tales from the rangers and soldiers who had traversed the region. The Crown Point road, which had been cut for purposes of war, became, when war was no more, equally desirable for the purposes of peace. It made the vast wilderness, which is now the State of Ver- mont, more easily accessible, and was an inducement to great numbers to make settlements upon or near it, who, otherwise, could not have been prevailed upon to leave the vicinity of the river. Charlestown greatly profited by this spirit of emigration. It created an immediate and profit- able business for all who were so fortunate as to be among its inhabitants. For not only its Inns (as houses of entertainment were then called) were filled to overflowing, but every private family had as many of those who were seeking homes in the wilderness beyond " to victual and lodge" as they could accommodate. The place became, moreover, a general depot of supply for provisions and articles of every kind demanded by the settlers. The lands of the proprietors were also in great requisition, but, as is usual in such cases, were, by many of the owners, held so high as to place them beyond the limited means of the emigrants, who were therefore under the necessity of passing on to a region where they could be obtained at a cheaper rate. Another thing favorable for the inhabi- tants was that the drought, which in most parts of New-England almost immediately succeeded the discontinuance of hostilities with such se- verity as to cut short many of the crops, scarcely affected the region of Charlestown.
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