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M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01096 3095
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/historyanniversa1913darl
THE 10 c A Copy. $1.00 A Year. VERMONTER
THE STATE MAGAZINE.
1763
1913
1
HART'S ISLAND AND ASCUTNEY MOUNTAIN FROM THE CONNECTICUT AT HARTLAND
H ISTORY AND
OF
HARTLAND
¿¿ 'ANNIVERSARY
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY CHAS. R. CUMMINGS, WHITE RIVER JUNCTION, VT. NOVEMBER, 1913
00-13 THE ТИОМЯЗА
ЭННБАЗАМ ВТАТА УНТ
RAH
1771788
Darling, Nancy.
1:
F 843403 .21 History and anniversary of Hartland ... [White River Junction, Vt. , 1913 ]
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Caption title. Extracts from the Vermonter, the state magazine, vol.18, 1913.
SHELF CARD
B 10543
NL. 31-2448_
1
221 -OK
F843403.21
History and Anniversary of Hartland BY NANCY DARLING
F ROM the day when Gov. Ben- ning Wentworth of New Hampshire granted the first char- ter to Hertford (now Hartland), Vt., July 10, 1761, until the ushering in of the twentieth century, the town had never offi- cially turned a retro- spective page. Its his- tory had been one con- tinuous tale of action -the pioneer's, the sol- dier's, the legislator's, the home-maker's.
But in 1901 Hartland voted to observe as an "old home week" August 11-17.
The Type of 1776 Hundreds returned to the beautiful old town and brought a key to the past that can never be lost. This year it was voted that another old home week be set apart for the special observance of the one-hundred-and- fiftieth anniversary of the town's settlement.
Before reviewing the literary progam, the exhibit, and the street parade arranged by a committee for the principal day, Aug. 16, 1913, it will make the reading clearer to note a few of the local events that have oc- curred during the past century and a half.
According to record, the first English name given to that territory west of the Con- necticut River of which Hartland formsa part was "Laconia," the charter name of Charles I's grant to Capt. John Mason and Sir Fer- dinando Gorges in 1622, under the jurisdic- tion of Massachusetts. Laconia, as Sir Fer- dinando dreamed it, was to be a great king- dom, and the glorious banner of his family was to gather beneath its folds, both Cava- liers of the Church of England and Puritan Dissenters. The second name was "New Hampshire," employed in the charter issued to Capt. Mason in 1629. This held until after 1749, when Benning Wentworth, Gov- ernor of the Province of New Hampshire, began to make concessions of lands west of the Connecticut River to persons wishing to settle there. Towns chartered by Gov.
Wentworth soon became known as "New Hampshire Grants," and these, repatented by New York almost immediately, were oft- en referred to as "The New York Claims."
Just when the first white man visited the region now called Hartland none can say ; but, in 1704, a band of French and Indians traversed it on their way to and from Deer- field, Mass. As the eastern limits of the territory bordered the Connecticut River, it was a natural thoroughfare for both red men and white previous to the time of highways.
Old residents of Hartland have told the author about the Indians who formerly vis- . ited the Waterquechee Falls, now called Sumner's, to listen to the roar of the waters and the sighing of the pines as the sounds echoed to them from Home Mt. in New Hampshire opposite, and how it was be- lieved that the Great Spirit dwelt upon that mountain, where they held their councils and signalled by fire in the days of their undisturbed possession. At the base of Home Mt., south of the falls and near the river, is an Indian burying-ground, some say, where arrow-heads were gathered by the pioneers. A descendant of one of the first settlers near these falls tells of the tricks one of the white men of Hartland played, as: When the Indians came to sell their furs, this man would say that his foot weighed a certain amount and then balance the furs with his foot as it pleased him, and that, on being asked by the Indians how he obtained gunpowder, he told them that he planted it, and they buying some and planting but re- ceiving no crops therefrom, became might- ily incensed against him-so much so that he fled for his life.
At the close of the French and Indian War, some of the red men returned to . Hartland to live with their families. There was a settlement of Indians at North Hart- land, according to the late Mr. Paul Rich- ardson, that was destroyed by the whites and whose chief turned and cursed the in- vaders of the place as he was fleeing. Evi- dences of a settlement exist in the vicinity of the John Webster farm, where arrowheads have been found and a spherical stone a foot in diameter supposed to have been used in grinding corn and in crushing paint from a bed that is near. Mr. Daniel Web- ster has the stone now.
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Indians formerly wintered near Fields- ville, and several persons living have heard the following tradition about one of them: Not long after the settlement of Hartland, an Indian used to pass annually through Fieldsville inquiring for a man by the name of Smith, and it was learned that "Capt." Samuel Smith, who was born in 1757 and who served as one of Washington's body- guard, had, as an unthinking youth, come upon an Indian papoose while out recon- noitering with other Minute Men near Bel- lows Falls. Carrying the babe up the river, they set it down near Waterquechee Falls, where it was found by the pursuing
64 Hartford
B. W.
N 33. 74 Miles
WaterQuechee Falls
26000 Acres Hertford
N. J5. W. 61/4 Miles by Windsor
Prov of New Hamp'e July 10th 1761 Recorded According to the Back of the Original Charter- THEODORE ATKINSON Sec NY
THE CHARTER MAP OF HARTLAND.
parents. The Indians learned that Smith was the culprit, and from that day sought to wreak their vengeance upon him. He made a home on "Smith Hill" in the "Weed District," raising a family there, and so far as known, was never molested.
Miss Clarine Gallup remembers that, when some Indians camped in the woods to the east, near the F. G. Spear place, a squaw named "Sophie Soisine" would come to her father's house to sell baskets and ask for salt, and Mrs. T. A. Kneen re- calls very vividly how, when she was a small child, a band of Indians dressed in buckskin filed into the great kitchen to the number of twelve or so and asked her father Mr. Benja- min Carey, who lived on what had been the George Marsh place at the western limits of the town, if they might stay over night, and how they arranged themselves on the floor in a semi-circle with their feet to the fire- place, while her father, when he went up
stairs to bed, placed an axe beside the door of his sleeping room. Until about the mid- dle of the last century, there lived, on that part of the Carey farm now known as the . "Eshqua Bog," a squaw and her papoose, in a bark wigwam covered with hemlock boughs. Mr. C. E. Darling of Hartland remembers her, and Dr. S. E. Darling of Hardwick, Vt., remembers hearing his father tell of seeing the brave who lived with her. She used to weave ash baskets to sell to the neighbors and was always pleased to have people say a good word for her little one. "Everyone love my baby" she would answer smilingly to the compliments.
Near the Burk schoolhouse at the Four Corners, an Indian hatchet was ploughed up by Mr. George Jenne; while Mr. A. J. Stevens has several arrow points, an iron needle made for sewing skins, some grind- ing stones, and other things picked up by the spring on the Isaac Stevens land. The Indians liked the water of this spring espec- ially well, and some of their families lived near it. Mr. Joseph Livermore, who came to Hartland with his father in 1797, used to tell of some Indians, two in particular, that would cross over near his home to a pine ridge and return with lead ore that was nearly pure from which they made bullets in those days.
On the Isaac Stevens plantation, which included at one time about 1800 acres, both silver and gold, as well as the lead which the Indians used, have been reported as found in small quantities.
In certain nearby towns refuge cellars were built in the fields to afford protection against the savages in cases of raids; but the author knows of only one cellar in Hartland that might have been used as such. It is firmly walled, roofed by a great stone slab, and would shelter half a dozen persons. This cellar is on the old James · Dennison or D. F. Morgan place, in "Dis- trict No. 9," and is very near "Sky Farm."
Hartland Minute Men were called upon several times to go the relief of places attacked by Indians - Barnard, Royalton, etc .; but, in those cases, the Indians were mostly from Canada. The local bands gave very little trouble, being remembered with friendliness rather than with fear. William Symes Ashley, Asa Wright, and Moses Webster are the soldiers that went to Bar- nard, and Hartland rewarded them in mon- ey, as is shown by an entry in the town
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clerk's book for 1780-Voted " * * that we will ensure to three Soldiers their pay of 2os pr month."
At the time when Gov. Wentworth gave the charter, Hartland was an unbroken wilderness. Probably no white man had then cultivated its soil, though two years later Timothy Lull found a log cabin on Lull Brook sufficiently livable for himself and family. The "Plantation" of Hertford was granted by the "Trusty and Well-be- loved Benning Wentworth" in the name of George the Third, "By the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc., etc." to "our Loving Subjects and Inhabitants of Our said Province of New Hampshire, etc."- to be divided to and amongst them into Seventy-one equal Shares." The names of the grantees of Hertford in the New Hampshire charter are:
Samuel Hunt, Ebenezer Harvey, Thomas Chamberlain, Benjamin Taylor, Andrew Gard- ner, Andrew Powers, Joseph Lord, Joseph Wil- lard, Enoch Hall, John Hunt, John Hubbard, Jacob Foul, Thomas Taylor, Aaron Hosmore, John Hastings Junr., Jonathan Hunt, William Symonds, William Nutting, Samuel Minot, Moses Wright, Wilder Willard, Caleb Strong, Sampson Willard, Phineas Waite, Lucius Dolit- tle, Zadock Wright, Thomas Chamberlain Junr. Michael Gellson, Levi Willard, Elisha Harding, William Willard, Amasa Wright, Daniel Shat- tuck, Amos Tute, Joseph Burt, Nathan Willard, Uriah Morse, John Harwood, Daniel Sargent, Willard Stevens, Fairbanks Moore, James Nev- in Esq., Wm. Moulton, Wm. Earle Treadwell, George March, Benning Wentworth, Timothy Nash, Solomon Emmons, John Sargent, Eleazer Porter, Oliver Willard, Howard Henderson, Samll Wentworth, Boston, Clement March Esq., George Waldron, John Tasker Esq., Ebenezr Hinsdale, Elisha Hunt, Nathaniel Foulsom, Jonathan Blanchard, Richard Wibird Esq., Ele- azr Russell, Henry Hilton, John Goffe Esq., Majr. John Wentworth.
The shares included two for "His Excel- lency," or 500 A .; one, for the "Incor- porated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts;" one, for a "Glebe for the Church of England;" one, for the "first Settled Minister of the Gospel," and one for the "Benefit of A School in Said Town."
The first town meeting, or meeting of the "Proprietors," provided for by the charter, was to be notified by Oliver Willard who should be moderator, and was to be held on the last Wednesday of August, 1761. The regular annual meetings were to be held on the second Tuesday of March. Every
grantee, of whom there were sixty-five, his heirs or assigns, was to cultivate five acres out of every fifty during the first five years. All pine trees fit for masting the royal navy . were to be preserved and none such cut without special license. A tract of land near the centre of the town was to be marked out for town lots, one acre to each grantee, and the rent was to be, for each lot, one ear of Indian corn paid each year on Christmas
1
LULL BROOK EMPTYING INTO THE SWIFTLY FLOWING CONNECTICUT. Part of Hart Island at the right.
day for ten years, if demanded. After ten years, one shilling was to be paid for every hundred acres owned, settled, or possessed "yearly and for every Year forever." As soon as there were fifty families, "resident and settled," the townspeople were to be allowed two fairs annually and a market "opened and kept one or more Days in each Week."
A drawing of the map which accompa- nied the charter shows that Benning Went- worth's lot was in the north-eastern corner of the town. Between the Connecticut Riv- er and the Ottaquechee, from the mouth of the latter to the Hartford line, was one-half of it; the other half, similar in size and shape, lay west of the Ottaquechee River, the whole
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forming a square. A part of this land is now in the possession of Mr. Howard Mil- ler of North Hartland and is always referred to as "The Governor's Meadow."
The lot for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts was in the south-western part of the town near Hon. Henry Walker's farm at South Woodstock. The following list shows the names of those taxed by the Episcopal Church in early days and in the present year on lands leased them by the "Propagation Society:"
Alfred Bell novo Mrs. Oliver Kingsley Oliver Bailey novo Mrs. Oliver Kingsley Samuel Weeden novo Mrs. Oliver Kingsley Amos Ralph novo Ralph Jaquith Oliver Bailey novo Mrs. A. P. Dinsmore Holt. Ralph H. Slayton novo Julius Gramling Henry Rood novo M. J. Holt
The taxes are paid to Mr. Frederick Chap- man of Woodstock. The glebe is leased in sections for school purposes, and the fol- lowing Hartland persons pay school taxes on them this year to the town treasurer: Mrs. A. L. Dunsmoor, John D. Rogers, Martha Crandall, O. C. Watson. E. A. Kinsley, and Frank Sawyer.
No church was built in accordance with the plans of the N. H. charter. The pro- prietor's map shows that school land was to be reserved on " The Plain," and there a schoolhouse may have been built; for, in 1789, the town clerk used this phrase, " at the notch of the road in the south part of the town where the old schoolhouse was formerly built."
It is probable that Oliver Willard notified the proprietors of the first meeting in Au- gust, 1761, as provided by the charter; for his warning of a similar meeting in 1763, the oldest document, except perhaps the map, among the records of Hartland, im- plies previous meetings.
·
The warning reads: "Province of New Hampshire, february ye 21st, 1763- Whereas aplication hath this Day been made to me the Subscriber Clerk of the Proprietors of Hertford By more than one · Sixteenth part of the Proprietors of the Said township Desiring me to notify and call a meeting of the aforesaid proprietors to meet at the Dwelling house of Capt. Oli- ver Willard In Hertford In the aforesaid province on the fifteenth day of march next which day Is our annual meeting and to meet at one O'clock In the afternoon To act and vote on the following articles-viz. -Ist to chose a moderator 2ly to chose a
Proprietor's Clerk 3dly to Se Iff the pro- prietors will Raise a sum of money for to defray the charge of making of Roads and other contingent charges that Shall or may arise In said town 4thly to chuse assessors to assess the Same 5thly to chuse a col- lector 6thly to chuse a treasurer 7thly to chuse a committee to Settle accounts with the Clark treasurer and Collector and pass accounts . 8thly to Se If they will buy a proprietor's Book 9thly to chuse a com- mittey to lay out roads In said town and to git them made. This is to notify the Pro- prietors of Hertford To meet at time and place above mentioned.
Ovr Willard propr Clerk "
On the back of the paper is the title --- "Notification Hertford, February 21, 1763."
The law then requiring that there be set- tlers owning land in a town sufficient to equal one-sixteenth of the number of shares
ONE OF THE KING'S PINES.
Still standing on the Daniel Webster Farm, (Hart- land) near an old fashioned stump fruct.
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granted before a meeting of the proprietors be held in that town, it follows from the above warning that there were in February, 1763, at least four actual settlers within the limits of Hertford. Oliver Willard himself is known to have come to Hartland to live in 1763. He had a house at North Hartland where a meeting could be held as early as the date of the notification, -all of which dis- turbs the ordinary statement that Timothy Lull, the first settler, came to Hartland in May, 1763. It has always been said that he came with his family in May, ₹763, and the tradition is persistent that he was the first settler. The conclusion is therefore that he came a year or two earlier, without his fam- ily, and waited for witnesses to the christ- ening of Lull Brook and the breaking of the famous flask as they entered the mouth of the stream in a canoe. Mr. B. P. Rug- gles, the antiquarian, has copied a state- ment that illuminates this question, from Timothy Lull's tombstone in the cemetery on "The Plain." It is contained in the inscription and reads, "He was the first settler on Connecticut River above Charles- town No. 4."
Another quotation, sent by Mr. H. G. Rugg of Hanover, N. H., confirms this. It is taken from The Washingtonian (Wind- sor, Vt. )
Monday, September 16, 1811.
DIED,-At Hartland, on Tuesday last, Capt. Timothy Lull, aged 81. He was an industrious, enterprising, worthv citizen, and the first settler on Connecticut River, between Charlestown (No. 4) and the upper Coos. He has left a numerous and respectable family of children, grand-children, and great - grand - children, amounting in all to 103, to lament his loss.
If tombstones may be believed, there was another settler in Hartland in 1762. Mr. George M. Rood, one of the selectmen of Woodstock and a relative of the pioneer, sends the following inscription from his tombstone: "In memory of Mr. Thomas Park Rood, who died October Ioth A. D. 1795 Aged 63 years. He moved to Hart- land in 1762, one of the first settlers, bore the brunt of a new, uncultivated wilderness, lived to see five of his tender offspring taken by death, one only left to set this stone.
Behold and see as you pass by, As you are now so once was I, As I am now so you must be; Prepare yourself to follow me.
Mr. G. M. Rood adds this note, "The house now standing on the Old Thomas
Park Rood farm was built by Thomas, son of Henry Rood, in 1797. The barn was built by Thomas Park Rood, is 44x44 feet square and all Red Elm timber and not a spliced stick in it. The first house on the farm was a log one built on the south side of the road that runs through the land and built by Thomas Park Rood, probably the same year he came to Hartland."
Col. Oliver ·Willard's name does honor to the list of Hartland's pioneers, for he was a lawyer of distinguished abilities, a large land-owner, and a man of influence among the statesmen of his day. He was descended from celebrated ancestors, his grandfather having been Major Simon Wil- lard, the "Indian Fighter," who came to New England in 1634, and his father, Col. Josiah Willard of Fort Dummer.
On the original proprietors' map are some lots marked near the North Hartland section with the names-Spooner, Hunt, Richardson, Lee, and Taylor, and it may be that some of these men took up land as soon as the charter was granted in 1761. On the map copied from the aforesaid by Caleb Willard in 1789, four lots are marked in the North Hartland section and named -"No. I, Uriah Morss;" "No. 2, William Willard;" "No. 3, -Wait." and "No. 4, Nathll Fulsom."
The King's pines in Hartland were of great value, covering as they did "The Plains" and a large portion of North Hart- land. One of them is still standing behind Mr. Daniel Webster's house. A timber in this house made from one of the royal pines is 8 in. square and 55 ft. long, and it was 62 ft. long before being cut off. Mr. C.C. Spalding says that on the Frank Whit- taker place at North Hartland are red pine rails, still sound, that were split on the day of the Battle of Bunker Hill.
It is probable that the "Centre of the Town" was never marked out for one acre lots; and, as to the paying a yearly rent of Indian corn at Christmas and having "two fairs and a market," no one living in Hart- land ever heard so much as a suggestion of them.
The long controversy that arose respect- ing the "New York Claims" is admirably set forth in an address by the Hon. Gilbert A. Davis given at Hartland's recent cele- bration and published at Windsor, Vt., in a pamphlet styled "Hartland Anniversary, Aug. 16, 1913," and is therefore omitted
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from this sketch, which aims to include unpublished matter mainly.
Doubtless the reason for Hertford's hav- ing so little serious trouble with New York lay in the fact that Col. Oliver Willard was. in great favor with that state; therefore the New Hampshire charter, in which he had been a grantee and been appointed modera- tor for the proprietors' first meeting, was readily confirmed by New York and was re- corded in the auditor-general's office July 25, 1766. The New York charter was granted by Gov. Cadwallader Colden to Oliver Willard and his associates-Samuel Hunt, Joseph Willard, Zur Evans, William Syms, Zadock Wright, Amasa Wright, Lu- cius Dolittle, Jonathan Hunt, John Laiton, Experience Davis, Thankfull Willard, Dan- iel Goldsmith, Obadiah Wells, George Hop- son, Henry Beekman, John De Peyster, Junior, John Stout, Benjamin Stout, James Wessek, Joel Matthews, James Harwood, Thomas Taylor, John Hastings, Junior, and John Stevens. "All this aforesaid large Tract or parcel of Land set out, abutted, bounded, and described by our said Com- missioners in Manner and form as above mentioned. Except the said Tract of Land (100 A. from the southern end of Hart Island north, etc. ) granted to the said
(Lieut. ) Thomas Etherington as aforesaid, but including all the afore mentioned sev- eral smaller Tracts or Lots of Land set out and described by our said Commissioners as parts and parcels thereof containing in the whole Twenty-four Thousand two Hun- dred Acres of Land besides the usual Al- lowance for Highways." Further excep- tions were made of "All Mines of Gold and Silver;" but, in the main, the grant was much like that of Gov. Wentworth. The number of acres mentioned in the first char- ter is 26,000; but surveys and the setting off of a portion to Hartford in running the line has reduced the acreage.
In the Hartland records, which are full and perfectly legible from the earliest days to the present, Oliver Willard appears as moderator of the first town meeting, March II, 1767, and as the first formally elected town clerk March 19, 1769. This is a list of the town clerks up to the present: Oliver Willard, 1769; William Symes, 1770; Joel Matthews, 1771-72; Zadock Wright, 1773 -76; Paul Spooner, 1777-80; Elias Weld, 1781-89; Oliver Gallup, 1790-96; Stephen Maine, 1797; Marston Cabot, 1798; Daniel Breck, 1799-1812; Eliakim Spooner, 1813 -16; Daniel Ashley, 1817-19; Ira Person, 1820-21; Daniel Ashley, 1822-27; Sylves-
HOTEL BUILDING AND CROSS-ROADS, HARTLAND VILLAGE.
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ter Marcy, 1828-30; Theophilus Hait, 1831; John S. Marcy, 1832-35; David W. Wells, 1836; Dustin Bates, 1837; Eben M. Stock- er, 1838-54; Henry Shedd, 1855; John Colby, 1856-57; Albert B. Burk, 1858-77; Wilbur R. Sturtevant, 1878-1913.
Early town meetings were held at various places, at William Gallup's in the northern part of the town, Isaac Steven's hotel at what is now Hartland, Joseph Grow's house at the centre of the town, the old union meet- ing house, etc. Later meetings were held in the basement of the Methodist church and finally in the arsenal at the Four Cor- ners, where they are still held. The town clerk's office has generally been either at his home or at his place of business.
Mr. Sturtevant, the present clerk, has in- dexed the books, including the land records.
Oliver Willard having secured Hertford's rights temporarily, proceeded to buy out the grantees by two separate transactions, which conveyed the whole town practically to him. He then continued the settlers in their holdings and deeded a tract of 8,200 acres in the south-western part of the town to William Smith, Jr., Thomas Smith, Whitehead Hicks, and Nicholas William Stuyvesant, all prominent in New York City, for £800 or about $4,000. These four men purchased for speculation simply ; but the lands of Whitehead Hicks and Nich- olas William Stuyvesant were confiscated "for treasonable conduct in joining with our enemies." William Smith, who be-
came Chief Justice of Quebec and who had deeded lands to the pioneers, transferred his share of 2,000 acres to Benajah Child of Pomfret, who, in turn, made a satisfac- tory agreement with the following settlers in 1789: Samuel Healey, Ebenezer. Hol- brook, Samuel Williams, Timothy Grow, Ebenezer Allen, Jesse Peek, Joseph Marsh, and Melvin Cotton. The Smiths are al- ways referred to with respect.
The years following immediately upon Vermont's declaration of independence, in 1777, were years of settlement in Hertford, 1778 being the date of the first deeds re- corded in the "First Book of Deeds." Meantime the town was contributing an active share in resisting the invasion of sav- ages, in applying the laws of the new state, and in drilling, arming and fighting against New York presumption and British tyr- anny. In 1778 the "Green Mountain Boys" were organized, and probably nearly all of Hertford's able-bodied men were among them, beside those already officers.
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