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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01786 5749
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013
http://archive.org/details/statepapersofverv1verm
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State Papers of Vermont
Vil
VOLUME ONE
INDEX TO THE
Papers of the Surveyors-General
·1
Published by Authority of Number 221, Acts of 1906 -BY- THE SECRETARY OF STATE MONTPELIER
1918
THE TUTTLE COMPANY MARBLE CITY PRESS Rutland, Vermont 1918
3
SURVEYORS-GENERAL OF VERMONT
No. 221 .- AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR INDEXING THE SURVEYOR-GENERAL'S PAPERS.
It is hereby enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont :
SECTION 1. The Secretary of State is hereby authorized and empowered to have a suitable index of the Surveyor-Gen- eral's papers prepared and published.
SECTION 2. The Auditor of Accounts shall draw an order for the expense of such indexing when approved by the Secre- tary of State.
Approved December 6, 1906.
*No. 162 .- AN ACT RELATING TO THE PRESERVATION OF THE SURVEYOR-GENERAL'S PAPERS.
It is hereby enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont :
SECTION 1. All books, papers and records of the Surveyor- General which are now in the possession of the State, or may hereafter come into its possession, shall be placed permanently in the custody of the Secretary of State; and copies thereof duly certified by that officer shall be admitted in evidence in any court where they may be deemed material, and said evidence shall have the same force as would be given the original.
SECTION 2. This act shall take effect from its passage.
Approved November 4, 1902.
OFFICE OF SECRETARY OF STATE, MONTPELIER, VT. 1613351
Publication approved :
GUY W. BAILEY, Secretary of State.
August 25, 1917.
*Sce Section 3548 of the Public Statutes of 1906.
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SURVEYORS-GENERAL OF VERMONT
·
INTRODUCTORY.
It would seem scarcely right to launch the Papers of the Surveyors-General of Vermont without some account of their peculiar history.
The late Henry Stevens of Barnet is authority for the statement that the tenth volume was deposited in the State Department by James Whitelaw, 1806; and, agreeably to an Act of Assembly of 1809, was delivered to Joseph Beeman to be copied, but was not returned; was recovered by Henry Stevens in January, 1847, and again deposited in the State Department.
It was fortunate (if not intentional) that the tenth volume should have been the one to be returned, since it contains the gist of the most valuable work of the office in question, being a compilation, made by James Whitelaw while Surveyor-General, of all the surveys of town-lines made by the state.
For lack of more definite information we shall have to assume that the remaining volumes disappeared along with the tenth; in any case they first come to light again (after having been sold, according to the tradition, for waste paper to a junk- dealer) as a small part of the Stevens Collection of Vermon- tana, including the valuable files of ancient Vermont news- papers which had descended from the Whitelaw Land Office to Mr. Stevens, when offered to the Vermont Assembly about 1870; after negotiations looking to their return, which proved unavailing, they were sold to the State Library of New York.
Here they remained until, in pursuance of a Resolution of the Assembly of 1900, Governor Stickney and State Libra- rian Huse waited upon the New York Librarian and procured their return to the office of the Vermont Secretary, May 15, 1902.
As the papers thus returned included over forty volumes (being really a part of the "Stevens Collection," though labelled "Papers of the Surveyor-General of Vermont"), the task of the editor has been of a most delicate nature since it is quite probable that no more than Volumes 1-10, the one origin- ally number eleven but labelled and indexed as number forty- one, and the volume of plans, are Surveyor-General's Papers
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INDEX TO THE PAPERS OF THE
proper (and certain that not all of even these are), for papers clearly official and as clearly unofficial are bound, side by side, in even these volumes, mainly official.
To complicate matters further, the volumes named had been preserved by the expensive "Emery Process" which coats each leaf with fine transparent silk (the pages having been "cued" with fidelity before binding to preserve the order), so that it did not seem practicable to rebind, despite obvious dis- advantages resulting from the separation of kindred papers and the complicated system of paging thus forced upon the editor; hence, it has seemed best and fairest to index impar- tially all items found, leaving the objections to apply, as our legal brethren say, to the weight of the unofficial matter thus included, rather than to its admissibility.
The mingling of papers may easily have come from the fact that Ira Allen and even more James Whitelaw, the two · notable incumbents of the office, were both actively engaged in private surveys before, as well as during, and after, their offi- cial tenures, and so, for convenience, kept papers relating to the same lands together ; or it may have originated from Henry Stevens, who was indefatigable in collecting ancient and valu- able documents.
Whatever the reason, here are found numerous field-books and plans of surveys made in allotments into severalty for original proprietors of towns conformably to charters (a class of work extensively done-and well done-by Whitelaw under contract) bound in with these papers.
The Ira Allen private survey-bills are usually of less value, being mostly made for the benefit of himself or his Onion River Company. Some of his surveys, however, notably of mill-site pitches made under deeds from the notorious Vendues of Abra- ham Ives, Sheriff of Rutland County, which finally gained the attention of the *Assembly, continue to this day to afford the original and legal description of valuable properties (for if any- one has preceded Colonel Allen in recognizing and staking out valuable mill-sites in northern Vermont, the fact has entirely
*Compare Ms. Laws of Vt. 1: 442. Act directing Abraham Ives, Sheriff of Rutland County, to suspend sales under Vendue of Oct. 21, 1783, etc.
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SURVEYORS-GENERAL OF VERMONT
escaped notice), but as for the frequent surveys by him or his deputies for the Onion River Company of "a boddy of lots," it has usually developed after painstaking study of his field-notes that his lottings have been subsequently altered in either their numbers or lines, probably in the resentment of the proprietors at his holding back the Proprietors' Records in his custody as Clerk.t
Hence, the greater part of the lotting done by Allen or under his direction, dating from 1772 down to the close of the Revolution, though historically helpful as affording the basis from which relotting was made-often with but slight altera- tion-has slight value as record. Such objections have, natur- ally, less force with respect to his numerous "traverses" of river and lake shores, looking to the identification of old, or the establishment of new, town corners fixed thereon by char- ter. Since Col. Allen acted with full knowledge of extant char- ters and of the surveys made precedent to issuing the New Hampshire charters, his work of this nature is not only of interest to the antiquarian but also of great practical import- ance as well, since he appears to have made these base-line sur- veys with care. It may be remarked, in passing, that the aberrations of several towns adjacent to the lake from their bounds as set out in charters are to be explained by the do- ings of the Assembly, to which the Surveyor-General was com- pelled to resort for instructions in the interpretation of bounds inconsistent with physical features of the grants.
The nebulous trail of Allen's constant satellite, Caleb Hen- derson, in his surveys "for Colo : Allen" or "Allen & Baker in Company" may contain some grains of gold, but as he custo- marily with great delicacy waives all clues as to which of the twenty-odd towns of the Onion River domain has for the nonce attracted his needle, we have not determined his orbit
tCompare A. J. 1802:259. The Com. to whom was referred the peti- tion of Silas Hathaway, stating that he is a large proprietor of lands in the towns of Burlington, Colchester, Shelburne, Essex and Georgia, by purchase originating in a title from Gen. Ira Allen, who has refused, and still does neglect to deliver up the records of said towns to the proper officers, etc. * *
* and praying for relief: Reported, That the law entitled "An Act making it the duty of proprietors' clerks to deliver over the records of the said towns to the proper officer" is competent to all the purposes intended by said act.
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INDEX TO THE PAPERS OF THE
(from the voluminous field-notes, usually unpaged and out-of- order, from a hand in which the Jacob Staff was more familiar than the pen) with mathematical precision .;
Another source of blended papers was the famous Land Office which Gen. Whitelaw maintained at Ryegate for the care of lands in this state.
It is not strange that the game of "Vendues," arising from the levying of direct taxes upon the land by the nation, the state and the proprietors in turn, should baffle most modern title-searchers when we see that many intelligent contempor- aries, familiar with local conditions, gave up the attempt to keep in mind the rules of the game with its complicated ques- tions of what constituted lawful advertisement, proper notice to proprietors, and safe title, under the shower of Collectors' sales, but usually entrusted their landed interests to the cus- tody of the expert in the Land Office. Hence the Whitelaw Land Office (in great part, doubtless, from the high official standing of its organizer) had great prestige and volume of business, as is abundantly testified by the Letter-Books still preserved. It would, then, seem most natural for Surveyor- General Whitelaw, when called upon to certify to the State Treasurer the number of acres in a town to be assessed under a levy of one cent per acre or to furnish the Collector the names of original proprietors and the acreage allotted to each, to have turned to his Land Office Registers, for the efficiency of the latter office depended upon keeping there in convenient form just such data. For reasons not apparent now, the la- borious task of making a digest of all conveyances in the towns in northern Vermont down to the year 1803 was undertaken not only by Whitelaw for the Ryegate Office but also by Dr. Eben W. Judd for the rival office at Middlebury, with the result that these papers from the old competitors (merged in the Stevens Collection probably) are here indexed to guide us through the most misty and difficult stage of conveyancing.
#Proper and charitable feeling for a fellow-craftsman may justify the supposition that Mr. Henderson purposed to rewrite and clarify these field-notes but was probably precluded by the Act of 1794, which took official cognizance of his change of residence to Quebec with other Loyalists to the neglect of his duties as Collector, which office was thereby declared vacant.
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SURVEYORS-GENERAL OF VERMONT
It is safe to say that, with the data here afforded, most if not all Vermont land-titles can be carried back to the charter.
Scattered through volume two, the book of plans, and else- where, are found outline plans of towns, showing usually also roads, streams and public buildings.
Crude though the draughting be in some cases, these sketches are of great value since they embody the best know- ledge of the time from official sources, in regard to town-lines, measures, bounds, etc. As unfortunately the accompanying letter has, in most instances, been bound apart from the plan, it may be helpful to state that these were sent to the Surveyor- General, looking to the construction of a State Plan, agreeably to a §Resolution of Assembly, by the Proprietor's Clerk or Town Clerk (as the case then was) or the Selectmen, under penalty of fine if delayed after March 1, 1794, and formed the skeleton of the Whitelaw Map of Vermont, copyrighted in 1796.
Since there has been, for reasons above given, an enforced noting of some items of small worth or not really germane to the work in hand, as an offset thereto, under a free construction of the act authorizing this publication, pains have been taken
§Resolution of 1790.
Whereas it is absolutely necessary as well for the good as for the dignity of this State that some proper method be adopted to furnish a proper map thereof,
Therefore, Resolved that the selectmen of the several towns in this State make out and send to the surveyor-general before the first day of August next a proper plan of their several towns exhibiting the courses and lengths of their lines and what towns they are bounded on, also the courses of the several streams with their names, public roads and where they lead to, the situation of meeting-houses, mills and other public buildings, also the situation and names of ponds, mountains and everything necessary to make a complete map; and where towns are not organized it is hereby declared to be the duty of the proprietors' clerks or other persons who may have plans of said towns to forward copies of them in manner aforesaid.
Resolved also, That the surveyor-general be and he is hereby directed to return copies of the field-books of the several towns that have been surveyed under his direction or under the direction of the former surveyor-general to the several town clerks of the respective towns, whose duty it shall be to record the same; and when the towns are not organized, to the county clerks of the several counties in which such towns lie.
And it shall be the duty of said county clerks to record the same, and the secretary is hereby directed to cause the above resolution to be published immediately in both newspapers printed in this State.
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INDEX TO THE PAPERS OF THE
to incorporate some of the more important references to legis- lation affecting town-bounds, in Assembly Journals, State Papers, Governor and Council, etc., on topics which they illum- inate: it should be remembered, however, that this vein is not worked to its capacity, but exposes only the main features.
Having learned that Captain Albert M. Whitelaw of East Ryegate had many plans and papers which had descended from his great-grandfather, General James Whitelaw, these papers, freely donated to the state, have been bound and indexed, thus preserving additional official files, as well as many original plans of the allotment of towns, etc., of which no duplicate is known to exist.
In like spirit, the set of plans made by Hon. Samuel C. Crafts, and now deposited in Craftsbury Academy Library by his descendant, have been included under the index. Not merely from their beauty, but chiefly from their quasi-official character (coming from a man skilled in practical surveys, which he made for proprietors; who was also collector under Vendues and consequently compelled to have official knowledge of the lotting, acreage, etc .; not to dwell upon his eminent scholar- ship, and standing as a citizen upon whom was heaped almost every honorable office of his day), they seem well worthy of recognition : they will surely prove helpful, and under the Resolution guiding the use of the papers in court can do no possible harm. A volume labelled "Crafts' Plans" containing copies of these maps is on file in the Secretary of State's office.
The admirable compend of facts relating to the granting, changing of lines and names, etc., of Vermont towns, compiled by the late Hiram A. Huse, has been freely drawn upon ; being, like all that came from his pen, reliable and well done, to have duplicated this would have been work of supererogation, and full credit is given to the source.
With the large number of detailed and intricate references involved, it is to be suspected that some typographical and other errors will have crept into a performance dependent upon human limitations, but it is hoped that, with the aid of the special indexes to the more important volumes, the sub- titles freely inserted in the volumes, and the digest of each
11
SURVEYORS-GENERAL OF VERMONT
volume, following, the contents have been made accessible to the reader.
The precautionary suggestion may not be amiss that in view of the frequent changes of town-lines and names, pains should be taken to scan under all aliases or cross-references, when in search of full information.
A complete statement of such changes is not possible until further data have been sent in to the Secretary's Office, since the majority of acts to authorize changes in town-lines are pro- visional, and no return has been made to show the result in most cases.
Respectfully,
FRANKLIN H. DEWART,
Burlington, Vt., August 25, 1917.
+
12
INDEX TO THE PAPERS OF THE
ABBREVIATIONS EMPLOYED.
The colon, to separate number of volume cited from pages therein.
A., for Acres.
A. J., for Assembly Journal.
C. R., for Connecticut River.
C-S, for County-Surveyor.
D-S-G, for Deputy-Surveyor-General.
G & C, for Governor and Council of Vermont.
H. J., for House Journal.
I. A., for Ira Allen, first Surveyor-General of Vermont.
J. W., for James Whitelaw, second Surveyor-General of Ver- mont.
L. C., for Lake Champlain.
N., S., E., W., for the cardinal points of the compass.
O. R., for Onion River, now called Winooski.
S-G, for Surveyor-General.
S. P., for State Papers of Vermont or of New Hampshire. 1 .
Wh., for Whitelaw in the phrases, "Whitelaw Plans" and "Whitelaw Papers."
PREFATORY NOTE.
The subject-matter is intended to be arranged under the following topics, uniformly; the typical classification then follows :
Town Name, Source and Date of Charter, History of Changes of Name and Lines.
Charter-
Proprietors-
Bounds-
Area- Surveys-
Lines established-
Plans-
Vendues-Including Advertisements of Vendues and Turn- pikes. Miscellaneous-
·
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SURVEYORS-GENERAL OF VERMONT
DIGEST, SHOWING THE MAIN FEATURES OF EACH VOLUME.
VOLUME ONE-Miscellaneous.
Charters-Several copies; Resolutions granting; List of Vt. Grants.
Proprietors-Names of, for several towns; Doings of, Pro- , prietors' Meetings.
Bounds-For many N. H., N. Y. and Vt. Grants.
Areas-By towns, distinguishing taxable and "public, pious and charitable."
Surveys-Made, and to be made, of Town Lines, Rivers, Lottings, Pitches.
Plans-Outlines of most Towns, with letters from Town Clerk or Props.' Clerk, furnishing data from which to make State Plan-in response to Resolution of 1790, which finally allowed extension of time till March 1, 1794.
Vendues-Showing taxes, vendues, pitches thereunder, etc.
Miscellaneous-Commissions as S-G, D-S-G, Census Commr .; Instructions from S-G to Deputies, and let- ters in reply; Doings of Road Commrs .; Distances from the several towns to Newbury, Bennington and Montpelier compared.
VOLUME TWO-Miscellaneous.
Charters-Copies of several; Secretary's attested copies of Resolutions to grant.
Proprietors-Names for several towns.
Bounds-Certified for several; Changes in bounds and names recorded.
Surveys-A few only, of Lots and Conn. River.
Plans-Outlines of Towns, and letters from Town Clerk or Props.' Clerk (conformably to Resolution of 1790 as noted under Volume 1) ; Lottings, and Onion River.
14
INDEX TO THE PAPERS OF THE
VOLUME THREE-Field-Books.
Surveys only, being parts of Field-Books-
By Ira Allen-Onion River opposite Burlington, Col- chester and Williston; Lake Shore opposite Shel- burne and Burlington; Town Line between Will- iston and New Huntington.
By Caleb Henderson-A body of 105 Lots in Georgia (the abandoned survey).
By James Whitelaw, 1785-6-Field-Book of Lotting of Barnet, Cabot, Leavenworth's Gore, Walden Gore; Setting corners and lines for the Upper Coos Towns, Averill, Brownington, Brunswick, Caldersburgh, Derby, Ferdinand, Granby, Guild- hall, Holland, Lemington, Lewis, Maidstone, Mine- head, Navy, Norton, Random, Salem, Sheffield, Warner's Grant, Warren, Wenlock; Traverse of Conn. River from Guildhall to parallel of 45 de- grees; Whitelaw Lumber Mill accounts, 1777-8, 1780; Accounts of the Surveyor-General, 1787-9; Land Office Blotter, 1798-9, 1801-2.
VOLUME FOUR-Field-Books.
Surveys-
By Timothy Rogers, John Bishop, Jr., and John For- guson, 1788, of 117 Lots, pitched under the Ives Vendue, Act of 1783, in St. Albans, comprising 39 original Rights.
Unsigned surveys at Berlin, Essex, Middlesex, Missis- que Bay, Moretown.
By James Whitelaw, Lake Memphremagog; Lines of Berlin, Bethel, Braintree, Brookfield, Burke Tongue, Cabot, Concord, Dewey's Gore, East Haven, Granby, Greensborough, Hancock, Hop- kintonia, Kingston, Lunenburgh, Lyndon, New- ark, Orange, Peacham, Randolph, Rochester, Rox- bury, Royalton, Ryegate, St. Johnsbury, Sheffield, Sutton, Topsham, Turnersburgh, Vershire, Vic- tory, Warren, Washington, Westmore, Wheelock, Williamstown.
-
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SURVEYORS-GENERAL OF VERMONT
Field-Book of Lotting of St. Johnsbury with a transcript of Major Willard's notes.
Accounts of the Surveyor-General, 1784-9.
VOLUME FIVE-Field-Books.
Surveys, by James Whitelaw-
Lake Champlain, from Charlotte to Quebec Line, in- cluding St. Albans Point, Maquam Bay and Creek, all completed before Feb. 2, 1784.
Field-books of Lotting of Billymead, Lyndon and Navy.
Lot on and near south line of St. Johnsbury, in Rye- gate.
Accounts of the Surveyor-General, 1781-8.
Town-Lines of 1783-7, Avery's Gore (Franklin Co.), Avery's Grant, Barnet, Bethel, Bradford, Car- thage, Chelsea, Corinth, Coventry Gore, Danville, . Duncansborough, Enosburgh, Fairfield, Fairlee, Hungerford, Irasburgh, Kellysburgh, Kelly's Grant, Knoulton's Gore, Littleton, Memphrema- gog (West Shore), Montgomery, Mooretown Gore, Newbury, Peacham, Randolph, Royalton, Ryegate, Sharon, Smithfield, Topsham Gore, Tunbridge, Vershire, Washington, Westfield, Williamsburgh.
VOLUME SIX-Field-Books.
Surveys-By Caleb Henderson, of Lots in Burlington, Charlotte, Colchester, Essex, Georgia, Hinesburgh, Jericho, Moretown, New Huntington for Col. Allen.
Lines of Essex, Georgia, Milton, St. Albans, Swanton, Westford, in 1775.
By Ira Allen, for himself or The Onion River Com- pany-Rough gauges for the River corners of Colchester and Williston.
Minutes of River corners of Burlington, Colchester, Essex, Williston.
Field-Book of 8 Lots in Jericho and of 8 in Bolton. New Huntington-Williston Line.
16
INDEX TO THE PAPERS OF THE
Traverse of Lake Champlain, from Onion River to Leplote River.
By James Whitelaw-Journal of reconnaisance of Road from Newbury down the Lamoille River to St. John's, Quebec.
VOLUME SEVEN-Field-book of Surveys by Ira Allen (being the first of his surveys in 1772-3).
Lines of Benson, Bolton, Burlington, Castleton, Hub- bardton, New Huntington, Poultney, Sudbury, Williston, with Traverses of Onion River and Lake Champlain (from opposite Jericho, down the River to Lake, then southerly).
Lots in Bolton, Burlington, Castleton, Colchester, Essex, Hubbardton, Jericho, Poultney.
VOLUME EIGHT-"Salisbury, March 23, 1775. Ira Allen, His Book,
Containing the most Usefull Rules in Surveying. Wrote with my own Hand and Agreable to my Invention.
Test, Ira Allen, Surveyor, Finis."
(The title-page, quoted, shows a "Hand" and "Inven- tion" uncommonly good.)
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