USA > New York > Essex County > Westport > Bessboro: A history of Westport, Essex Co., N.Y. > Part 9
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And when little Bess was a lass of six, and Willsboro had become a large aud thriving settlement, her father's plans for colonizing Bessboro began to be fulfilled, in the coming of Raymond.
IV.
Raymond and the Revohition.
The First Home in Westport was made by one Ed- ward Raymond, in the year 1770. Who this man was, whence he came, to what place he went after his sojourn on these shores, we cannot tell. We do know that he was one of Gilliland's colonists, and that the greater part of these were said to be Irish, like Gilliland bim- self. Raymond is a good Irish name, and one borne by a noble family. Most of the earliest settlers at Mill- town came from New York, but every party of emi- grants was joined by others all along the way, at Albany, or Skenesborough, or at any place where there
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was an opportunity. Gilliland advertised in the "Mer- cury," a New York paper, offering inducements to "Ili- dustrious Farmers" and others who would go to the promised land of Lake Champlain. But Raymond cal- not be ranked in the class of ordinary colonists, most of them so poor that they were obliged to work for the first few years for a bare maintenance, as it is plain that he must have been a man of means.
Raymond settled upon Gilliland's patent of Bess- boro, at the mouth of the stream which we now call the Raymond brook, building a saw mill and a grist mill upon the little fall. On all this vast froutier, there was hardly a more promising place of settlement than the one he chose. On one of the main waterways of the country, in a virgin land fast filling with eager settlers, he was in the direct line of all travel north and south, convenient to the settlements along the Vermont shore, and not far from the fort at Crown Point. There was at that time no better mill site on the shore of the lake. In those days of full streams, before the woodsman's axe had let in light and air to dry the face of the ground, the mouth of the brook was as wide as the little bay into which it flows, and deep enough for loaded boats to come almost to the foot_of the fall. Thus was af- forded a harbor safe from storms and passing enemies.
Here Raymond settled, and here he lived for six years, during the time of the greatest prosperity of the colony on the Boquet. These were the years which show forth once more the truth of that wise saying, "Happy is that land which has no history," for Gilliland's diary
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ceased to be regularly kept after June of 1767. Thus we find no mention of Raymond's settlement in the diary. The most direct testimony in regard to it is found in an affidavit discovered among the Land Papers of the Secretary of State by Mr. Henry Harmon Noble. This affidavit is referred to in Watson's "Pioneer His tory of the Champlain Valley," but has never before been in print.
Land Papers, Office of Secretary of State, Albany.
Vol. 39, page 125. Dated August 17th, 1785.
Affidavit of Udney Hay in relation to Edward Raymond's title under William Gilliland to lands in Bessborough. on the west side of Lake Champlain.
Udny Hay, being duly sworn, deposeth and saith that about the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy (1770) Edward Raymond was settled and Im- proving lands in Bessborough on the west side of Lake Champlain, about eight miles north of Crown Point and about three miles south of the Great West Bay, called the there "Bay de Rocher Fendu" is struck out in the original) West Bay. That the said Edward Raymond had there built a Dwelling house and a saw and grist mill. That the said Edward Raymond informed the deponent either that he was a tennant of or held under William Gilliland, who then lived on the west side of the Lake at a place called Willsborough. That this Deponent was also informed by the said William Gilli- land that the said Edward Raymond was a Teraut, or had purchased of him and Improved under bim.
And this Deponent further saith that the said Edward Raymond lived, cleared and cultivated land and Im- proved at the place above mentioned to have his resi- dence until the commencement of the late war, and notil some time in the year 1776, and farther Deponent saith not.
(Sigued) UDNY HAY.
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Sworn in New York the 17th of August, 1785, before
W. Wilson, Ald'r.
This Udney Hay is the Colonel Hay whose name often appears in the printed volumes of the Public Pa- pers of George Clinton. He had kuown Gilliland well from the beginning of the colony on the Boquet, his home being in Montreal before the Revolution.
We also find mention of a place called Raymond's Mills in two letters written from Lake Champlain in the summer of 1780, and described in detail on another page. That at least one house in this settlement stood until after the Revolution we know from a letter by Judge Charles Hatch, which he calls "a sketch of the early settlement of the county, but more particularly of the town of Westport." In it he says :
"Still there was also a small improv ment four miles south of the present Westport village, commenced by a man by the name of Raiment, which was the only im- provement commenced before the Revolution in the present Westport. At the last mentioned place Rai- ment erected a small mill, but it all was demolished when I moved into this place, (1802) except a shattered old house which was occupied by Benjamin Andrews."
Of course "Raiment" stands for Raymond in the Judge's spelling, which had its eccentricities. Another confirmatory document is an old deed, made out in 1807, endorsed on the outside, "Jared Pond to Ananias Rogers, Ore Bed, Raymond Farm & Mill Lot, N. W. Bay." inside, wrapped up in a tangle of law terms, we find these words: "Also that Tract of land com-
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monly called the Raymond farm, now in possession of Benjamin Andrews, containing two hundred aeres."
The Gazetteer of the State of New York, published 1860, says : "A small settlement was begun, and a mill built in the south part of the town before the Revolu- tion." This modest and perfectly correct statement is transferred to the Essex County History of 1885 in this form : "It is reported that a mill was built and a small settlement begun in the south part of the village (sic) prior to the Revolution, but all vestiges of these were · obliterated during that fierce, internecine struggle." Perhaps we could have spared at least one of the ad- jectives in exchange for a more careful investigation of facts.
And last of all, there still survives on the soil itself a legend, told by the first settlers after the Revolution and preserved by their descendants, of one Raymond who once had a mill near the mouth of the brook and who was driven from his home by Indians, fleeing in a small boat with his wife and child to the Vermont shore, while the savages burned his house. A grandson of James W. Coll, who settled at the place in 1808, told me this tale before the affidavit of Udney Hay was sent me from Albany, and I have no doubt myself that the additional details contained in this oral testimony are perfectly true.
Thus we have all the known facts about our earliest settlement, always such an interesting point in the his- tory of any town. We can imagine how Raymond built his log cabin, then bis saw mill, and a little later the grist
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mill, unless as was often the case, both mills were housed under one roof. The mill stones and the saw must have been brought a long way perhaps in boats from New York, like the machinery for Gilliland's mills on the Boquet. But who wanted the boards that Raymond sawed, and who brought corn and wheat for him to grind? Doubtless most of the produce of the mills was consumed in the settlement itself, but all along both shores of the lake were settlers glad of these modern improvements. The grist mill must have been especially welcome, since one can live in great comfort in a log house with a floor of hewed puucheons, but grinding corn by hand in an Indian mortar is very slow and laborious. This was no unpeopled wilder- ness, reckoning as an American frontiersman reckoned in 1770. And who were Raymond's nearest neighbors? The family of John Ferris, living on the opposite shore of the lake, only three miles away, at the place which we now call Arnold's bay. Seven miles to the south was another mill on the lake shore, probably built at nearly the same time as Raymond's, and eight miles away, on the peninsula of Crown Point, lay the metrop- olis of the region, in the village near the fort. There was always a garrison of soldiers in the big barracks that Amherst built, and there had been a thriving vil- lage ou the shore of the bay, with cleared farm lands stretching away to the south, ever since the early days of French occupation. Although most of the French inhabitants," if not all, may have returned to Canada when the country was given up to the British, they
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had been gone but seven years, and most of the houses must have been left when Raymond came, probably occupied by new settlers from the English colonies. Eighty years afterward, W. C. Watson retraced the line of the village street, with its door stones and cellars. There was a store, driving a brisk business with the soldiers and settlers. When supplies on the Boquet jan low, Gilliland had recourse to this store, and we may be sure that when Raymond wanted a new axe head, or Mistress Raymond had lost her darning needle, a small boat came out from the month of the Raymond brook and was rowed eight miles across blue water to the same place.
So much for next-door neighbors, east and south. To the north, the nearest were Gilliland's settlers below Split Rock, twelve miles away. To the west, the bound- less continent, unexplored, full of wild beasts and say- age men, the little settlement forming but a tiny notch eut out from the edge of a universe of unmeasured forest.
So we can see how the Raymonds lived, with the people who gathered around them. The men worked in the mills, hunted and fished, while the women spun before the rude fireplaces and the children played along the shore. In six years of the existence of the little community there must have been both births and deaths, and the dead were buried on the point which overlooks the island, with flat stones set up at the head and foot of each grave. Perhaps it was Raymond's settlers who called the island "Cherry Island," as it is
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named on the map made in 1785. Au Essiiss colony would hardly know the story of the torrese of Father Jogues, more than a hundred years before. Thus they spent five years in the rude and adventurous life of frontiersmen and their families, and then came a sud- den flash and upheaval at their very doors in the taking of Ticonderoga and Crown Point by Ethas Allen aul Benedict Arnold.
Perhaps there were men from Raymon 's Mill, in the little band that crossed the lake from Storeham to Ticonderoga that May morning of 1775, crept into the fort past the startled sentinel, and gave the cheer in front of the barracks which wakened Delaplace. For several days before the attack, the Green Mountain Boys had searched the shores of the lake from Skenes- boro to Panton for boats in which to transport the at- tacking force, and Raymond may have sent both meu and boats, or have joined in the enterprise himself. Or it may be that he stayed cautiously at home, and saw, looking out of his door, the two small boats which were sent by the British garrison at Crown Point, to carry to Canada the news of the loss of Fort Ti, with au urgent request for reinforcements. Down the lake they went with all speed, but before they were out of the Narrows they were captured by that one of the Green Mountain Boys who bore the unforgettable name of Remember Baker. Lying in wait inside the mouth of Otter Creek, he came out just in time to intercept them, and they and their dispatches were hustled back to swell the number of the captured and the general
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glory of the occasion. One can imagine their disgust with the strutting and crowing Continentals, engaged about that time, according to Allen's own account, in "tossing about the flowing bowl." When Seth Warner came to take possession of Crown Point he found there a garrison of one sergeant and eleven men. Did Warner pull down the banner of England from the flag- staff, or did he leave it flying in obedience to that tre- meudous fiction which so solemnly maintained that the colonists were not resisting the king, but only fighting a little provisionally while seeking to learn more fully his good pleasure in certain disputed matters ?
The next thing for Raymond to see from his door was the schooner of Major Philip Skene sailing past with a good south breeze. Many a time had he seen her before, for she had made regular trips from Skenesboro to St. John's ever since Skene built her, but now Skenesboro was in the hands of the Continental soldiers, and the schooner was commanded by Benedict Arnold. Fol- lowing came a number of batteaux loaded with men, and commanded by Ethan Allen. Two or three days, and the schooner is seen again, sailing south, trium- phant convoy of a captured sloop and four batteaux, which Arnold had taken at St. John's the day before. Now the colonists ruled the lake from end to end, and by this time Raymond must have declared himself for King of Congress. That he chose the latter seems most probable from the fact of his staying until the next year. A Tory miller living so near the fort would have been inclined to go away as soon as possible after
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the red-coats had given way to the Green Mountain Boys.
Late in August of that summer, General Richard Montgomery left Ticonderoga with an army of a thous- and men, followed closely by his chief, Major-General Schuyler. Both these men were familiar with Lake Champlain, from their service against the French in the last war. It was Philip Schuyler, as will be re- membered, who dined in Button bay when he was with the Boundary Commission in 1766, and afterwards took tea with the Gillilands at Milltown. His friend Sir Guy Carleton was still Governor of Canada, but Schuy- ler would not dine with him unless one of them should be taken prisoner. This was that romantic, disastrous invasion of Canada, the story of which is so full of names .of men who afterward became famous, and which is, as a whole, symbolized, for glory and for grief, by the one name of Richard Montgomery. On the last day of the year, leading an unsuccessful attack on Quebec, he was killed, and there buried. After forty-three years, his body was carried through the lake to its last burial in New York.
Raymond and Gilliland must have heard of Mont- gomery's death, of Arnold's wound, and of the army in winter quarters at Montreal. At the very beginning of the campaign Schuyler had been obliged to go back to Albany on account of sickness. All that winter the lake was full of messengers, troops sent as reinforce- ments, sick and furlonghed men returning to their homes, and all the bustle and contusion incident to the
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rear of an army of invasion. Snowshoes and sledges served for the winter's travel, and when the ice broke up in the spring almost the first boats that went through carried the Commission of Congress to Canada.
If Raymond stood in his door on the twenty-fourth of April, 1776, looking out upon the water, where cakes of ice still floated, grinding and crushing against the shore, he might have seen two boats go by, making their way northward. The boats were large and heavy, thirty-six feet in length and eight feet wide, furnished with a rude square sail and rowed by armed men who wore a uniform of brown with buff facings. There were thirty to forty soldiers in each boat, and the whole formed an escort for four men, sent by Congress to Can- ada to try the temper of the Canadians and induce them, if possible, to join the thirteen colonies in rebel- lion against Great Britain. There were three Commis- sioners, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase aad Charles Carroll of Carrollton, accompanied by John Carroll, a Jesuit priest, aud afterward the first Roman Catholic Arch-bishopof the United States. They had had a weary journey from Philadelphia, stopping for a welcome rest at the house of Philip Schuyler, and had now left Ti- conderoga at eleven o'clock, reaching Crown Point a little after three and stopping there to examine the defences. Charles Carroll wrote in his diary that they found them "in ruins," which seems very surprising when one considers that it was only seventeen years since Amberst built the fort and the barracks at great expense, and in the most substantial manner, but Car-
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roll explains : "By some accident the fort took fire, the flames communicated to the powder magazine, contain- · ing at that time ninety-six barrels. The shock was so great as to throw down the barracks-at least the upper stories. The explosion was distinctly heard ten miles off, and the earth shook at that distance as if there had been an earthquake. This intelligence I received from one Faris, who lives ten miles down the lake, and at whose house we lay this night."
Carroll came from Maryland, and was not familiar with New England names, but of course "Faris" means Ferris, who lived on the eastern shore, just opposite Raymond's Mills, having settled there the year preced- ing the coming of Raymond. The explosion at the fort must have formed one of the most startling experiences of the Raymond settlement.
If Raymond saw the boats of the Commissioners drawn up on the shore at Ferris's, (we now call the place Arnold's bay,) and the party making preparations for camping for the night, he may have had the curi- osity to row across and obtain a nearer view of the strangers. At five the next morning they were again on their way, but as they went through the Narrows there came up a gale from the north, and they were forced to stop at the house of one of Gilliland's colonists, on the present site of Essex. The Commis- siouers do not seem to have known of the existence of Gilliland, whose hospitality was so eagerly extended to the Boundary Commission ten years before.
Carroll's journal continues the account of the journey
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to Montreal, which they reached April 20, being re- ceived by General Benedict Arnold, then in command, with much courtesy. On May 11 Carroll writes : "Dr. Franklin left Montreal to-day to go to St. John's, aud from thenee to Congress. The doctor's declining state of health, and the bad prospect of our affairs in Canada, made him take this resolution." A man of seventy years was indeed ill-fitted to endure the hardships of such a journey, in open boats and over rough roads, sleeping under the awning of the boat or a rude shelter of bushes in the raw winds of our northern April. Franklin was accompanied on his return by the Rev. John Carroll, the other two Commissioners remaining in Canada until they left it with the Continental army in full retreat, the last of May. They rowed all day aud all night, passing Raymonds Mills the evening of the third of June. One month after, the army of Sullivan passed by, hastening to shelter in the fortifications at Crown Point. The next day Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence and three of the men who camped on the shore of the lake opposite Raymond's Mills that April night were Signers of that famous in- strument.
Gilliland's settlement at Milltown had now had a prosperous existence of ten years. In this time there had gathered there a population of upwards of one hundred souls, with twenty-eight dwelling houses, forty other buildings, two grist mills, two saw mills, and a large extent of cleared and cultivated land. All this the colonists were forced to abandon by the orders of
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Sullivan, commander of the retreating army, strongly seconded by their own fears of the army of Carleton, which was in close pursuit. Gilliland buried the heavy machinery of the mills in the woods, and taking his family and what furniture he was able to carry, fled to Crown Point. Here the army was spread out in one vast hospital. Sullivan remained there ten days and when he moved on to the south he left behind him three hundred new made graves of soldiers who had died of small-pox. Shelter for army or for fugitives there was none. This was a scene for a man to enter with a fam- ily of motherless little children,-for Gilliland's wife had died before this time. The oldest of the children was Elizabeth, now twelve years old. Her grandmoth- er and the household slaves had the care of the family. So little Bess looked once more upon Bessboro, as they hurried ap the lake in confusion and distress.
Gilliland sold his cattle and crops to Sullivan's army, which stood in sore need of milk, beef and vegetables. The commissary was that Major Hay who afterward gave his affidavit in regard to Gilliland's ownership of Bessboro. Gilliland complained most bitterly that he was cheated in the price of his cattle, and robbed and plundered by the soldiers of Arnold. When he laid these complaints before Gates, the Commander-in-Chief, Arnold's defense was a contemptuous denial, and a charge that Gilliland was at beart a loyalist, and guilty of attempts to convey information to the enemy. "Gil- liland," said he, "is a most plausible and artful villain." In the light of subsequent history, it would seem that
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Arnold might have been a good judge of that kind of thing, but there is no real evidence that Gilliland was ever inclined to play such a part. It is probably true that he called Arnold and his men "a parcel of damned robbers," as one witness gave evidence, but we shall not find it difficult to forgive him for that.
Gilliland seems to have taken his family to Albauy in the wake of the army, and did not return to Lake Champlain until after peace was proclaimed. In all this we bave no hint of how things went with Raymond and his settlement. He was, of course, in a much safer position than the settlers of Milltown, being able to reach the fort in a short time after an alarm should be given. It would seem that it might have been profita- ble for him to keep his mills going while the soldiers were at the fort. There was no shelter there for such an army, and the boards from the saw-mill would fur- nish material for rude huts, while the grist-mill would grind corn to feed the men. Well they knew that Carleton was straining every nerve to follow the re- treating army, but absolute safety was nowhere, and the miller was not timid,-timid men did not under- take to settle on Lake Champlain before the Revolu- tion.
After the patriot army left Crown Point, the soldiers stationed there were active in the building of the little feet of Benedict Arnold. If Raymond went often to the fort, he saw there the galleys and gondolas building in Bulwagga bay, while others were fashioned at Skenes- borough and Ti, all under the restless, driving domina-
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tion of the ruling spirit of these northern waters, Arnold himself. The whole summer was spent in ship-building, Arnold at the southern end of the lake, Carletou at the northern. In October both were ready to fight. Ou the eleventh they came together, fighting a fierce naval battle near Valcour, in which Carleton gained all the advantage and Arnold all the glory, from the fact that Arnold was fighting an enemy twice his size and more than holding his own. On the morning after the battle, before daylight, Arnold slipped away, silently and suc- cessfully, favored by his own knowledge of the lake, and fine spirit of his men, and their perfect and intelli- gent discipline. Not until they were well out of his reach did Carleton discover their escape, and he gave chase at once. Winds wore adverse, and it was not until the thirteenth that the running fight between pur- suer and pursued reached Split Rock and the waters of Westport. Arnold was intent upon escaping to the protection of the guns at Crown Point, and Carleton was eager to bring him to another engagement in which the great superiority of the British fleet in ships, in men, in guns and in previous drill might be brought fully to bear and effect a decisive victory. For "five glasses," says Arnold's report, (two hours and a half,; the fight went on in the upper Narrows and in North- west Bay. Arnold's fleet had numbered fifteen vessels. His best ship, the Royal Sacage, was lost in the first day's fight. The schooner Rerenge and the sloop Eu- terprise, with the galley Trumbull, escaped to Crown Point. while the galley Washington was taken near Split
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Rock. Other galleys and gon lolas had been sunk or disable 1, until Arnold's galley, the Congress, with four gondolas, carried on the fight with Carleton's Inflexi- ble and his two schooners, the Maria and the Carleton.
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