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No. 4393.23
ISTEES
PUBLIC LIBRARY
LYX
OMNIVM
CIVIVME
OF THE CITY OF BOSTON
1862.1848
Boston Public Library
Do not write in this book or mark it with pen or pencil. Penalties for so doing are imposed by the Revised Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
This book was issued to the borrower on the date last stamped below.
B.P.L. FORM NO. 609: 5.2.41: 500M.
A HISTORY
L
OF
COVENTRY,
ORLEANS COUNTY, VERMONT.
BY PLINY H. WHITE.
"posterity Delights in Details."
IRASBURGH : A. A. EARLE, BOOK PRINTER. 1859.
HISTORY OF COVENTRY.
CHAPTER I-
Introduction. Charter. Boundaries. Speculation in lands. Elias Bucl, the principal grantee. First settlement. The Cobbs. Feats of strength. Hard- ships of the settlers.
Until the very last year of the eighteenth century, the town- ship of Coventry was uninhabited by civilized man. An un- broken forest, luxuriant with the growth of centuries, crowned its hill-tops ; swamps, black and noisome, occupied its vallies ; and no foot-fall disturbed its solitudes, save that of the wild beast or of the wandering Indian. The lapse of sixty years has changed the whole aspect of nature. Where dense woods once shadowed a luxuriant but useless soil, the hand of industry has made broad clearings, where abundant harvests annually repay the labors of the husbandman; instead of the rank and gloomy verdure of the swamp are green and fertile meadows; and instead of the cry of wild beasts or the whoop of Indians are heard the cheery voices of honest toil, the laugh of happy children at their play, the morning prayer, and the evening hymn.
To review the successive stages of this transformation can be no other than a pleasing task. There are, indeed, no re- markable events to record. The town has been the theater of no extraordinary occurrences. Its soil has upheld no Plymouth Rock, has given birth to no Charter Oak, has fur- nished no field on which patriots have fought for liberty ; yet
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it cannot be uninteresting to trace the footsteps of those, who, though they may have but slightly affected the destinies of the State or Nation, have, nevertheless, converted the desert into a garden, and made the wilderness to rejoice and blossom as the rose. Posterity will wish to know by whom civilization was introduced here, and what was the progress of affairs, what household was first gladdened by the birth of a child, and into what family death first brought bereavement and sorrow. There is advantage too, as well as pleasure, in calling to remembrance and perpetuating such facts as these. To trace the mature oak back to the acorn, to follow the broad river up to its fountain-head, will suggest to the observant and thoughtful mind not a few profitable reflections.
The charter of Coventry was granted November 4th, 1780, to Maj. Elias Buel and fifty-nine others. Its boundaries, as defined by the charter, were as follows :- " beginning at a beech tree, marked ' Irasburgh Corner, September 26, 1778,' being the Northwesterly corner of Irasburgh, and running North 36° East, six miles and sixty-three chains, to Lake Memphremagog; then Southeasterly on the shore of said Lake, about twenty-seven chains, to a hemlock tree, marked ' Salem Line, 1778 ;' then South 45° West, two miles and two chains, to a great hemlock tree, marked ' Salem West Corner, September 30, 1778;' then South 45° East, six miles and twenty-one chains, in the Southerly line of Salem, to a stake five links North West from a cedar tree marked 'Coventry Corner ;' then South 36° West, four miles and four chains, to the North line of Irasburgh; then North 54° West, five miles and sixty chains, to the bounds begun at." Within . these limits were supposed to be contained 16,767 acres, or about 26 1-5 square miles. To make up the six miles square usually included in a township. there were granted two
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thousand acres of land directly South of Newport, called Coventry Gore, and four thousand two hundred and seventy- three acres in Chittenden County, East of Starksboro, called Buel's Gore. The North part of Buel's Gore was annexed to Huntington, in 1794.
That part of the town which bordered on Lake Mem- phremagog, being in the form of a slip, one hundred and eight rods wide on the Lake and two miles and four rods long, was annexed to Newport. It was called Coventry Leg, somewhat inappropriately, as it was narrowest where it joined the body of the town and widened as it extended North. This left the town in the form of an irregular quad- rangle, no two of its sides being of equal length. It is bounded North East (6 1-4 miles) by Newport and Salem, South-East (43-4 miles) by Brownington, South-West (5 3-4 miles) by Irasburgh, and North-West (4 1-2 miles) by Newport. Five rights were reserved by the charter, one for the benefit of a College in this State, one for the benefit of a County Gram- mar School, one for the benefit of schools in town, one for the first settled minister, and one for the support of the ministry as the inhabitants should direct. Buel, the principal agent in procuring the charter, was a native and resident of Coventry, Ct., and, in honor of his birth place, the same name was given to the new township .*
At the time of the chartering of Coventry and for many years after, Orleans County was destitute of inhabitants and inaccessible by roads, and lands were of no value except for speculative purposes. Buel purchased the rights of his as- · sociates, one by one, as he had opportunity ; paying from five to twenty pounds, and, in a few instances, as much as thirty
* In 1841 the Legislature changed the name to Orleans. About that time an attempt was made to constitute it the shire-town of Orleans County, but the-effort, was unsuccessful, and, in 1843, the original name was restored.
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pounds, for each right ; until, in 1788, the title to fifty-four of the sixty rights was vested in him. His deeds, however, were not put on record till 1801, and, in the mean time, sales for taxes and levies of executions against the original pro- prietors had created conflicting titles to much of the land. In 1791, all the lands in town were sold by Stephen Pearl, Sheriff of Chittenden County, to satisfy a land-tax of a half penny an acre levied by the Legislature of Vermont. Ira Allen purchased most of them, and forty-nine rights, which were not redeemed within the prescribed time, were deeded to him. Buel afterwards quitclaimed to Allen his interest in those rights, and appears to have had little or no more to do with the township .*
Allen made few, if any, sales of his Coventry lands till 1798. In March of that year he was in London, where he met Stephen Bayard of Philadelphia, and sold him the two thousand acres comprised in Coventry Gore for the round sum of sixteen hundred pounds sterling, ($7104.) There is something ludicrous in the minute particularity of English forms of conveyancing as exhibited in the deed, six pages long, by which Allen transferred these two thousand acres of woods and mountains, " together with all and singular houses, outhouses, edifices, buildings, paths, passages, commons, fishing places, hedges, ditches, gates, stiles, fences, ways, waters, water courses, lights, liberties, easements, privileges, profits,
* Concerning Elias Buel, the founder and principal original proprietor of Coven- try, it is suitable to put on record a few facts. He was a son of Captain Peter Bucl, one of the first settlers of Coventry, Ct., at which place he was born, October 8, 1737. He married, August 6th, 1758, Sarah Turner, by whom he had Ist. Anna, born January 12th, 1759; 2d, Solomon, born April 12th, 1760; 3d, Jesse, born January 4th, 1778. His first residence in Vermont was Rutland. He afterwards removed to Buel's Gore, and resided on that part of it which was annexed to Huntington. In 1798 and 1801, he was an Assistant Judge of Chittenden County Court ; in 1799, a member of the Council of Censors ; 1801, 1802, 1804 and 1814, the representative of Huntington in the General Assembly of Vermont; and in 1814, the delegate from that town to the Constitutional Convention. In 1819 he removed to Albany, N. Y., where he died May 17th, 1824, at the residence of his son Jesse.
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commodities, advantages, hereditaments, and appurtenances whatsoever." If Bayard paid the purchase money or any part of it, it was a dead loss to him, for in the following July a direct land tax was assessed by the Congress of the United States, to satisfy which, Coventry Gore was sold at auction, by James Paddock of Craftsbury, the col- lector, for $4,80, and was never redeemed. Jabez G. Fitch of Vergennes was the purchaser. He also made large pur- chases in the main town. William C. Harrington of Bur- lington had a color of title to eight rights, Reed Ferris of Pawlington, N. Y., to nine, Alexander Schist of Canada to fifteen, Thaddeus Tuttle of Burlington to fifteen, and James Seaman of the city of New York to sixteen. Fitch bought the interests of them, and on the 14th of December, 1801, he took a conveyance of Ira Allen's entire title. By these means he became the ostensible owner of the whole town- ship, and had a valid title to nearly all of it.
It was through Fitch's agency that the settlement of the town was effected. He offered lands at moderate prices to actual settlers, promised gifts of land to some, (which promises, however, were fulfilled in few, if any, instances,) and encouraged immigration as much as possible. Two dollars an acre was the current price of land, with a liberal credit, and cash was seldom required. Most of the early purchasers made their payments in "good clean wheat," or " merchantable neat cattle, (bulls and stags excepted) not exceeding eight years old." In many of the conveyances he reserved to himself "two thirds of the iron ore being and growing on the land," a reservation which never proved of any value. Notwithstanding the pains he took to purchase all outstanding claims, the titles to some of the lands afterwards proved defective, and subjected his grantees to serious loss.
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About the year 1800, settlements were commenced almost simultaneously in several towns in Orleans County. With the exception of Craftsbury and Greensboro, no towns in the county had made any progress in population, and several of them were entirely uninhabited. In that year, beginnings were made in Brownington, Morgan, Newport, Troy, and Westmore. In March of the same year the first settlement of Coventry took place. The pioneer settlers were Samuel Cobb and Tisdale Cobb, father and son : Samuel accompanied by his children, Samuel, Jr., Nathaniel, and Silence; and Tisdale by his wife. They came from Westmoreland, N. H., traveling on horseback as far as Brownington, which being the end of the road, they left their horses there, and made their way on foot through the dense woods, marking the trees as they went, till they reached the East part of Coventry. Samuel Cobb pitched on lot No. 11, now owned by Martin W. Davis, and built a log cabin directly opposite the present site of Mr. Davis's house. Tisdale Cobb pitched on lot No. 12, now occupied by Jesse Miller, and built a cabin just East of the present grave-yard. Samuel Cobb, Jr. made an open- ing on lot No. 6, now occupied by Dennis Sabin, but, being disappointed in some of Fitch's promises, he did not locate permanently. The cabins of these first settlers were exceed- ingly rude in appearance ; built of spruce logs hewn only on the inside, and pointed with mud and moss, roofed with bark, having one door and one or two small windows, and enclosing only a single room, which was made to answer all the purpo- ses of kitchen, dining-room, bed-room, and parlor. Boards were not to be procured nearer than Barton, where Gen. Wm. Barton, the founder of that town, had, in 1796, built a saw-mill. From that mill, boards sufficient to floor the cabins were drawn a distance of ten miles through the path-
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less woods. In the following June, Samuel Cobb's wife, (Silence Barney, b. Feb. 21, 1756,) and his younger children, who had remained in Westmoreland while preparations were making for their reception, joined their husband and father in the wilderness, and the first settlement of Coventry was made complete. Tisdale Cobb's family consisted only of himself and wife (Sarah Pierce;) and Samuel's of himself, his wife, three sons, and four daughters .*
These fathers of the town were noteworthy men, and it will be amiss not to give some detailed account of them .. Samuel Cobb was a native of Taunton, Mass., born Sept. 3d, 1753. He learned the blacksmith's trade, in which he became an ingenious and skilful workman. In early life he removed to Westmoreland, N. H., where he was one of the pioneer settlers. On the breaking out of the revolutionary war, he enlisted in the army of independence, and rendered efficient service as a soldier and a gunsmith. While in the army he acquired much distinction for his prodigious strength and his great skill in wrestling, an exercise in which our athletic ancestors very freely indulged. Tradition says that on one occasion when a wrestling match was held to determine the championship of that division of the army to which he belonged, he was victorious over all competitors. He was connected with Stark's army at the battle of Bennington, but did not engage in the fight, being occupied in repairing the disabled guns of the other soldiers. At one time, he and his brother Simeon were enrolled as minute men, and Simcon having been summoned to the field, had prepared his knap-
* The sons were Samuel Jr., Hanover, and Nathaniel; the daughters were Silence, Lattice C., Arabella, and Sabrina. After the lapse of nearly sixty years; eight of the eleven persons constituting these two pioneer families still survive; Samuel Cobb, his wife, and Samuel Cobb, Jr. having, in the mean time, deceased., Two of them, Mrs. Isaac Parker, (Arabella Cobb,) and widow (Luke) Day, (Lattice Carlisle Cobb,) reside in Coventry.
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sack and gun and was about to start, when Samuel thought he discovered some hesitation in his brother, and asked him if he would rather stay at home, to which he frankly replied that he would. Samuel caught up the equipments and started instantly, not even stopping to bid good-bye to his newly married wife, who from the window watched his departure. Inquiry was afterwards made of her how she felt to see her husband going on such a dangerous expedition. Her reply was in the spirit of a Spartan woman-"I didn't cry a bit : let him do his duty." He continued in the army till nearly or quite the close of the war. When he emigrated to Coventry, he was the very model of a pioneer-in the prime of life, with an iron constitution, inured to all sorts of hard- ships, fatigue, and exposure, and endowed with strength, activity, and energy, adequate to any emergency. His hands made the first inroads upon the forest and raised the first dwelling-house of civilized man in this town. He lived to see his infant settlement become a populous and thriving community ; and, having lived a long and useful life, he died Dec. 19th, 1839, at the ripe old age of eighty-six. His remains rest in the grave-yard near where he lived, and by his side reposes his wife, who died April 6th, 1814.
His children inherited their father's strength and activity and their mother's spirit. Samuel, Jr., even surpassed his father in physical power, and was possessed of. a strength truly gigantic. He was six feet and two inches tall, weighed 230 pounds, was perfectly proportioned, and had not an ounce of surplus flesh. Tradition tells of many of his feats and some of them are not unworthy of a more permanent record. At the raising of Jotham Pierce's barn, young Cobb, then only eighteen years old, took one of the corner posts, a green beech stick, twelve feet long, fourteen inches
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by nine at one end and slightly tapering, which he shouldered, carried to its place, and setting the foot tenon in its mortise, raised the post to its proper position. On another occasion, several persons were testing their strength by lifting fifty-six pound weights strung on an iron bar. The strongest of them was able, by using both hands and exerting all his power, to raise eight of these weights a very slight distance from the floor. At this moment, Cobb came in, and seeing what was going on, took hold of the bar, and, making some preliminary trials, that he might get it well balanced, raised it with one hand and carried it about the room, "as easily," to use the words of an eye-witness, "as a common man would carry a pail of water." The whole weight was not much less than 475 pounds. In wrestling, no man could stand before him. It is said that he was never thrown but once. A Montreal wrestler came a long distance to try a grapple with the Yankee champion. Cobb underrated his antagonist, and, hand- ling himself carelessly, was thrown, to his infinite chagrin and the equal elation of his adversary. He soon, however, took ample redress for his temporary defeat. The Canadian, confi- dent of winning new laurels, said to him, "The trip that I threw you with was a new one, that you probably never saw before. If you're a mind to take hold again, I'll show you how I do it." This was just what Cobb wanted. Planting himself squarely on the ground, he stood up, straight and immoveable, while his opponent tripped, and twitched, and jerked, all to no purpose, except to show his own incompetency. "That's the way you do it, is it ?" said Cobb at length, " now I will show you how I do it;" and, suiting the action to the word, with a single touch of his foot he hurled the Canadian to the earth, and repeated the operation as often as the prostrate man arose, till the crest-fallen wrestler was glad to cry "enough."
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Silence Cobb, the oldest daughter, was also of extraor- dinary strength. She lived for a while with Hon. Elijah Strong of Brownington. One day, William Baxter, Esq., then a young lawyer, boarding at Mr. Strong's, attempted to roll into the house one of those huge back-logs, with which our ancestors were wont to lay the foundation of their fires, but he was not equal to the task. Silence laughed at him for his weakness, and said " If I was a man, I'd pick up that stick, and bring it in." Somewhat nettled by her jeers, he replied, "If you'll carry it in, I will give you a new silk dress." She took him at his word, seized the stick, easily carried it in, and deposited it in the fire-place. The dress, however, was not forthcoming for many years. After she had married and removed from Coventry, she returned for a visit and was invited to Mr. Baxter's. As she was about to leave the house, he put in her hand a slip of paper, which proved to be an order on the Brownington merchant for the best dress pattern to be found in his store.
The other children of Samuel Cobb, though of less remark- able strength, were of more than ordinary physical ability, and, being of @ thletic frames and rugged constitutions, were admirably qualified to encounter the hardships of a settle- ment in the wilderness. Hardships |they had to endure, and those neither few nor small. It was no light task to conquer the primeval forest, nor was it easy even to procure needful food for themselves and their animals while the work of clearing was going on. There were no roads, no neighbors within two miles, no gristmill nearer than West Derby, and facilities for procuring the most ordinary necessaries, not to say comforts, of life were scanty indeed. By most diligent toil, in which all members of the families bore their parts, each man made a small clearing, in the season of 1800, and
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raised grain and potatoes enough to secure them from fear of actual want. Each family had a cow, which gained its living as best it could in the forest. It was the work of the younger girls to find the cows at night and drive them home, oftentimes a laborious task, requiring them to search the woods for miles around. To provide for the cows during the winter was a problem of no easy solution. No hay was raised, but a scanty supply was brought from Barton, and with the help of browse, which was abundant and close at hand they were comfortably wintercd. So ended the first years of the infant settlement.
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CHAPTER II.
Sawmill and Gristmill built. First child born. Increase of population in 1801 and 1802. Locations of the immigrants. John Ide, Jr. Organization of the town. First school. Another sawmill. First Freeman's Meeting.
In 1801, Samuel Smith of Brownington built a sawmill on the Day brook, near the site of the present mill. This was a great convenience to the settlers, as it obviated the neces- sity of going to Barton for boards and planks, or of using planks roughly split from logs, which was a not unusual kind of flooring in the early days. A grist-mill was lacking for some years longer, and, in the mean time most of the grain was sent to Arnold's mill at West Derby, being floated down Barton river and through South Bay in canoes. At length, David Kendall built a small gristmill on the Day brook. The stones for this mill were made of the nearest granite, and as there was no bolt in the mill, the meal which it made was of the very coarsest kind. Pudding and milk was the principal food of the settlers, and this mill, which furnished the more solid part of their fare, was called "the pudding-mill," a name by which its site is known to this day. The ruins of this ancient mill are still traceable, a little Westerly of where the road running North by Benjamin Thrasher's crosses the Day brook. As soon as the Cobbs had fairly established themselves, they built a log shop, in which they carried on the business of blacksmithing. They were the only men of
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that trade in the Northern part of Orleans County, and they had customers from all the region round about.
The first birth in Coventry took place in July, 1801, when a daughter, Betsey, was born to Tisdale Cobb.
Many of the former townsmen of the Cobbs soon came to visit them and their new settlement, and several families were added to the little colony in 1801 and 1802. Among those who immigrated from Westmoreland were Jotham Pierce, Asa Pierce, William Esty, Simon B. Huestis, John Farnsworth, and John Mitchell. All the settlers prior to 1803 were, in the strictest sense of the phrase, "squatter sovereigns," having no deed of any land, but taking posses- sion where they pleased and procuring deeds when they could. Deeds were executed to them early in 1803. Jotham Pierce pitched on lot No. 15, on which William B. Flanders now lives; William Esty on lot No. 13, now owned by the Day estate; Simon B. Huestis on lot No. 50, where Lewis Nye lives ; John Mitchell on lot No. 51, still owned by him; and John Farnsworth on lot No. 52, where J. W. Mitchell lives. Farnsworth brought with him the first oxcart ever seen in town. Previous to that time, all teaming had been done on sleds or drags. Jotham Pierce was a man of great energy, and became an influential citizen of the town. He was the first captain of militia, and magnified his office not a little, as it was suitable he should in those days when a captain was of more consequence than a brigadier-general now is. Daniel B. Smith came in the fall of 1802, and made an opening on lot No. 53, which was the first clearing West of Barton river. He took an active part in town affairs, but remained only till 1805, when he sold to Samuel Boynton, and removed.
About 1802, Joseph Marsh and Timothy Goodrich, both
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from Addison County, made the first opening in the West part of the town. A log cabin was built by Jabez G. Fitch, a few rods South of the present residence of George Heer- man, near the Upper Falls, and in this cabin Goodrich resided, having as boarders Marsh and his family, and some other persons who like himself, were employed by Fitch in clearing and building. Fitch also made Goodrich's house his home during his occasional visits. Marsh was a man of more intel- lectual ability than any other of the early settlers. He was a native of New Milford, Ct., and studied law with his uncle, Amos Marsh of Vergennes, a lawyer and politician of some eminence, but did not enter into practice. He was Fitch's agent for the sale of lands and had a general supervision of his affairs in Coventry. Marsh had respectable literary attainments, but was no financier, and though he became owner of some lands he was obliged to transfer them in payment of old debts, and at length he removed to Brown- ington. Timothy Woodbridge, from Waltham, Vt., came in the fall of 1802, and purchased lots No. 23, 24, and 47, near where R. W. Peabody now lives. Woodbridge was the gentleman of the little colony. He was a son of Hon. Enoch Woodbridge of Vergennes, Judge of Supreme Court of Ver- mont, and married a niece of Hon. Nathaniel Chipman, another . Judge. He held himself in good esteem, as became one so respectably connected, and he was always ready to occupy any place of which the position was honorable and the duties light. After a few years he sold his first purchase, and bought a part of lot No. 156, on which he made a clearing and built a cabin; but in 1807 he sold out and left town. His last clearing is included within the grave-yard near the village. Amherst Stewart pitched on lot No. 3, now owned by Albert Day, and resided there a few years, after which he
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