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Gc 974.302 W72w 1233668
M.L
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01100 6233
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
KING CHARLES THE SECOND
From a painting by Sir Peter Lely, in the possession of the Duke of Richmond
THE C BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
A HISTORY OF WINDSOR TO 1781
BY HENRY STEELE WARDNER
Ce VERMONT GO FREEDOM,S MUNITY.
974.302 112 w
NEW YORK PRIVATELY PRINTED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1927
God gives all men all earth to love, But since man's heart is small, Ordains, for each, one spot shall prove Beloved over all. -KIPLING.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
THIS book is the work of evenings and holidays. The actual writing was begun as early as 1914. Evidences of this, though they mar the text, I have not thought it worth while to re- move. The story goes beyond the limits of a history of the town of Windsor, because I was not fully satisfied with any of the several printed histories of Vermont; was convinced that none of them had attached enough importance to Wind- sor's place in the history of the State, and because I wished to give to Windsor what I believed to be a truer historical setting.
While engaged in preparing this volume I encountered few people sufficiently learned in Vermont or Windsor history to be of assistance to me, but for valued suggestions and other help in the study of my subject I gladly make acknowledg- ment to Mr. Wilberforce Eames, head of the American His- tory Department of the New York Public Library; Mr. A. J. Wall, Librarian of the New York Historical Society; Mr. George B. Upham, of Claremont, N. H .; Mr. F. A. Howland, of Montpelier, Vt .; Mr. R. C. Myrick, Deputy Secretary of State of the State of Vermont; Mr. Otis G. Hammond, Super- intendent of the New Hampshire Historical Society; Mr. Herbert W. Denio, Librarian of the Vermont Historical So- ciety, and Mr. K. W. Perkins, Town Clerk of Windsor.
Of all books dealing with Vermont history, the work of Benjamin Homer Hall, entitled The History of Eastern Ver- mont, has been found one of the most useful. That work, cov- ering an immense amount of original research which saved from oblivion many important items, was compiled and pub- lished by Mr. Hall before he was thirty years old. It is a re- markable production. The Historical Address delivered by the Reverend Sewall Sylvester Cutting, D. D., at Windsor's Centennial celebration, July 4, 1876, is the choicest single article on Windsor history. To these works and to the in- valuable volumes of Mr. E. P. Walton's annotated Governor
ix
X
AUTHOR'S NOTE
and Council and Doctor E. B. O'Callaghan's Documentary History of New York a special debt of gratitude is due.
The titles of the authorities cited are usually abbreviated, but the reader can easily identify most of them. The abbre- viation "Lond. Doc." refers to those volumes of Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, which commonly go by the sub-title London Documents. "Doc. Hist." means the quarto edition of the Documentary History of New York. Slade's Vermont State Papers, published in 1823 and often referred to, must be distinguished from the manu- script volumes of State Papers in the office of Vermont's Sec- retary of State, and also from the recently published books of State Papers containing the index of material in the Surveyor- General's office at Montpelier, the Vermont Charters, and the early journals of Vermont's General Assembly-all of which publications, unfortunately, are labeled "State Papers."
June, 1927.
H. S. WARDNER.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
PAGE
I. THE BEGINNING 1
II. THE SETTLEMENT OF VERMONT
5
III. BENNING WENTWORTH
10
IV. CADWALLADER COLDEN
18
V. THE NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANT OF WINDSOR
23
VI. THE PROPRIETORS
35
VII. COLDEN PREVAILS
43
VIII. THE SETTLEMENT OF WINDSOR
49
IX. A VISIT TO NEW YORK CITY 56
X. SIR HARRY MOORE
64
XI. CUMBERLAND AND GLOUCESTER
81
XII. SETTLING THE GOSPEL IN WINDSOR
85
XIII.
JOHN WENTWORTH VISITS WINDSOR
97
XIV.
ORGANIZING A TOWN GOVERNMENT .
107
XV. THE DEAN BOYS ARE ARRESTED
117
XVI. THE DEANS ENGAGE EMINENT COUNSEL
125
XVII.
THE DEANS ARE CONVICTED
130
XVIII.
JOHN WENTWORTH EMBARRASSES COLDEN
140
XIX.
RIOTS BREAK OUT IN WINDSOR .
142
XX. COLONEL STONE'S RIOTERS INVADE CHESTER . 154
XXI.
THE ABDUCTION OF JOHN GROUT
159
XXII. THE EARL OF DUNMORE
167
XXIII. THE CENSUS OF 1771 .
183
XXIV. COLONEL STONE MAKES UP WITH NEW YORK
191
XXV. THE NEW YORK PATENT .
.
202
xi
xii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
PAGE
XXVI. LAWFUL TOWN GOVERNMENT 224
XXVII. A BREATHING SPACE 230
XXVIII. THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION 237
XXIX. ANY PORT IN A STORM .
253
XXX. EBENEZER HOISINGTON 271
XXXI. WITH WHOM, TO ASSOCIATE 285
XXXII. THE RANGERS
291
XXXIII.
WINDSOR'S DELEGATE AT DORSET
299
XXXIV. THE PHELPS LETTER MAKES TROUBLE 308
XXXV. THE REVOLT HANGS FIRE .
324
XXXVI. DECLARATIONS OF INDEPENDENCE 334
XXXVII. WINDSOR IN THE YEAR 1777 349
XXXVIII. THE JUNE CONVENTION 366
XXXIX. A STATE Is FORMED 376
XL. THE CONSTITUTION
386
XLI. THE FIRST DAYS OF STATEHOOD 396
XLII.
THE COUNCIL OF SAFETY
404
XLIII.
IN WINDSOR ON CHRISTMAS EVE .
414
XLIV.
THE FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL ELECTIONS
421
XLV. THE FIRST VERMONT LEGISLATURE
434
XLVI. PERMANENT STATE GOVERNMENT
444
XLVII.
THE NEW STATE TOTTERS .
460
XLVIII. ERRATIC DAYS
477
XLIX. WINDSOR GAINS SOME "NICE PEOPLE"
506
L. VERMONT BECOMES IMPERIALISTIC
527
APPENDIX: EARLY MANUSCRIPT RECORDS
.
545
INDEX
549
ILLUSTRATIONS
King Charles the Second . Frontispiece Benning Wentworth, Governor of the Province of New Hamp- FACING PAGE shire 12
Doctor Cadwallader Colden, Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of New York . 46
John Wentworth, Governor of the Province of New Hampshire 98 Frances Deering Wentworth, Wife of Governor John Went- worth 100
George Clinton, Governor of the State of New York 360
The Old Constitution House, at Windsor 382
Statue of Ethan Allen at the Entrance to the Capitol at Mont- pelier . 456
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNING
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." . . .
From the time referred to in that first entry in a standard work of history-an authority too little consulted and known in these days-the writer of this chapter takes the liberty of skipping over years of mighty importance and landing himself in England in the thirteenth century Anno Domini. There he pauses long enough to mark the first item of a coincidence, viz., that in the year of our Lord 1215 King John at Runny- mede near Windsor granted the Magna Charta. Four hundred and sixty-two years later, in the year 1777 and on the Conti- nent of North America, at a new Windsor famed afterwards for its own Runnemede,1 was executed and delivered another Magna Charta-the first Constitution definitely to prohibit human slavery. On the basis of the latter occurrence alone the history of the new Windsor is worthy of being written, and that history had its real beginning in a great grant, made in woefully indefinite terms, by King Charles the Second of England to James, Duke of York, in the year 1664. If the reader will proceed slowly through the following extract from that document he will catch the drift:
"Charles the Second By the grace of God King of England ffrance and Ireland Defender of the ffaith &c to All to whome these presents shall come Greeting Know Yee that wee for divers good Causes and Consideracons us thereunto moveing Have of our especiall grace certaine knowledge and meere
1 The country seat of William Maxwell Evarts.
1
2
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
mocon given and Graunted And by these presents for us our heires and Successors doe give and Graunt unto our dearest Brother James Duke of Yorke his heires and Assignes All that part of the Mayne land of New England begining att a certaine Place knowne by the name of St Croix next adioyne- ing to New Scotland in America and from thence extending along the Sea Coast unto a certaine Place called Petuaquine or Pemaquid and soe upp the River thereof to the furthest head of the same as it tendeth Northwards and extending from thence to the River Kinebequi, and soe upwards by the short- est course to the River Cannada Northward And alsoe all that Island or Islands comonly called by the severall name or names of Matowacks or Long Island scituate lyeing and being towards the west of Cape Codd and the Narro Higgansetts abutting upon the Mayne land betweene the two Rivers there called or known by the severall names of Conectecutte and Hudsons River Together with the said River called Hudsons River and all the land from the west side of Conectecutte River to the East side of De la Ware Bay and alsoe all those severall Islands called or known by the name of Martin Vinyards and Nan- tukes otherwise Nantukett 1) 1
Note the inclusion of "all the land from the west side of Conectecutte River to the east side of De la Ware Bay." Remember those words. They will occur again.
In this grant King Charles created a source of annoyance- sometimes mounting to agony-for the settlers who in the next century moved into the region now known as Vermont. Think not too harshly of him, for Vermonters owe him much. Bear in mind that in his reign knowledge of American geogra- phy was very limited and the maps of America were very in- accurate. It was never his intention to distress any "Green Mountain Boy." With many human failings and grave faults, King Charles the Second had kindness and he had other agree- able qualities that, had he lived in later times, might have made him welcome in that cultivated and convivial company of wits whose revelries "from Greenfield in Massachusetts to Windsor in Vermont" were deemed important enough for men-
1 N. Y. State Senate Reports for 1873, No. 108.
3
THE BEGINNING
tion by such serious American statesmen as Jeremiah Mason1 and Daniel Webster.2 Yes, King Charles had the making of a good fellow :
"Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King, Whose word no man relies on: He never said a foolish thing And never did a wise one." 3
King Charles's biography is worth persual and may be read with profit and impunity by Vermonters of mature years, in- cluding even such virtuous persons as Progressives or Progres- sive Republicans. Possibly it contains too much of substance to suit the taste of disciples of the New Freedom. Unregener- ate Vermont Tories are doubtless already familiar with it, but be this as it may and waiving such flippant reflections, it is safe to assert that had it not been for that royal gallant's grant to the Duke of York and the troubles that sprang therefrom Vermont might never have become the independent State it was and is, the new Windsor might never have given to the world the second Magna Charta,4 and-fate of fates-this chapter of history might never have been written for the edi- fication of the chosen few to whom its subject appeals. Ver- mont has done well, albeit willy-nilly and unconsciously, in preserving the town names of "Charleston," "Grafton," "Richmond," "St. Albans," and "Plymouth," thus keeping alive King Charles's name and the names of four of his sons.5
In thus ascribing to King Charles the paternity of Vermont the writer is aware that historians have hitherto failed to recognize that important truth, but the fact is sufficiently
1 Memoir of Jeremiah Mason, p. 28.
2 Id. p. 402.
3 Lives of the Rakes, vol. I, p. 202.
4 Perhaps, in deference to Sir William Blackstone, we should have said the "third" Magna Charta, for he regarded the passage of the Habeas Corpus act and the mitigation of the rigors of the feudal system (both of which reforms took place in the reign of Charles II) as having given to Anglo Saxons the "second" Magna Charta (Bl. Com. last chapter).
5 The Duke of Grafton, born of Barbara Villiers, Countess Castlemaine; the Duke of Richmond, born of Louise de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth; the Duke of St. Albans, born of the noted actress Nell Gwyn; the Earl of Plymouth, born of Catharine Peg.
4
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
obvious to justify both this addition to the list of King Charles's otherwise numerous progeny1 and a corresponding amendment to the written history of Vermont.
1 "It was said in jest of our Charles II," remarked Horace Walpole, "that he was the real father of his people, so many of them did he beget himself."-(Horace Walpole's Letters, vol. VII, p. 90).
CHAPTER II THE SETTLEMENT OF VERMONT
THE settlement of Vermont came far later than the early settlements in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, the Hudson valley region of New York, and the St. Lawrence region of Canada. Champlain, in 1609, had viewed Vermont from the west. In the autumn of 1677 the Indians took a band of miserable captives from Deerfield and Hatfield up the Connecticut River as far as the Suaro Maug or Squaro Maug1 River (perhaps the Wells River) and thence across Vermont to the Champlain Valley and into Canada. The pitiful story of the journey of these captives is preserved in the narrative of Quentin Stockwell, one of their number, which was published in Increase Mather's Essay for the Record- ing of Illustrious Providences in 1684, in Richard Blome's Pres- ent State of His Majestie's Isles and Territories in America in 1687 and in Bradford Club Series, No. 1 in 1859. This narra- tive is worth the while of Windsor people to read because, if for no other reason, it is the story of the first white persons who are known to have been within sight of Ascutney Moun- tain and the virgin forests of Windsor.
Early in the year 1704 the French officer, Major Hertel de Rouville, traversed Vermont from west to east, descended the Connecticut on the ice for an attack on Deerfield, and returned to Canada with captives by somewhat similar routes. Other subsequent attacks by the French and Indians on settlements in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and punitive or scout- ing expeditions from those colonies involved occasional cross- ings and recrossings of Vermont from 1704 to the date of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713; but, as our first Vermont historian, the Reverend Samuel Williams, relates, it was not until the year 1724 that the Provincial Government of Massachusetts, conceiving its own jurisdiction to extend further north than the present northern boundary of Massachusetts, built Fort
1 Possibly, also, "Squaw Maug."
5
6
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
Dummer within what is now the town1 of Brattleboro. Al- though this fort or block-house has long since disappeared, the settlement at and about it has been regarded as permanent; and it may be accepted that the immediate vicinity of Fort Dummer has been occupied by white inhabitants continuously since 1724.
On the other side of the Green Mountains, on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain, at Chimney Point, within what is now the town of Addison, the French established a trading- post in 1731; but the inhabitants abandoned it in 1759, before the advance of General Jeffery Amherst toward the close of the war between England and France. It is possible that there were a few settlers in Pownal as early as 1760. The settlement of Bennington began in 1761.
In the Connecticut valley, following the establishment of Fort Dummer, Sartwell's Fort and Bridgeman's Fort were built within the present town of Vernon-the former in 1737,2 the latter probably in the same year-and settlement also pro- gressed northward from Fort Dummer as far as Charlestown, then called Number Four, on the east bank of the river, and as far as Westminster on the west bank. Zadock Thompson, that mighty gatherer of Vermont traditions and historical items, got hold of a story that Westminster was settled in 1741. As a matter of fact, some buildings were erected there four years before that date; but the first settlers of Westminster, like their contemporaries at Number Four, were forced tem- porarily to vacate their homes because of the Indians. Put- ney and Fulham (Dummerston) are also among the oldest set- tlements in Vermont. There were squatters within the present limits of Springfield in 1752 or 1753.
For the welfare of Fort Dummer and its neighbors the Gen- eral Court of Massachusetts in 1724 voted that "Dr. Mather, Mr. Coleman, Mr. Sewall and Mr. Wadsworth be desired to procure a person of gravity, ability and prudence" to be sent as chaplain for the Fort and upon him was laid the injunction to "instruct the Indian nations residing thereabouts in the true Christian religion." In the same month a committee ap-
1 The word "town" is used here in the New England sense, meaning "township." 2 B. H. Hall's Eastern Vermont fixes this date as 1740.
7
THE SETTLEMENT OF VERMONT
pointed by the General Court reported as a further helpful in- fluence for Fort Dummer "That four barrels of rum be sent to Capt. Jona Wells, at Deerfield, to be lodged in his house, and to be delivered to the commanding officer at the Block- House as he sees occasion to send for it, so that he may be enabled to give out one gill a day to each Indian, and some to his other men as occasion may require." Thus early our Puritan ancestors, "those who profess and call themselves Christians," 1 saw to it that "rum and religion" should reach Vermont promptly and simultaneously.
Of the scouting parties from Fort Dummer, several of which proceeded as far as the Great Falls2 in the years 1724 and 1725, and one of which in 1730 reached the mouth of Wells River, it is not necessary to tell in this history. Nor is it within the scope of this work to give accounts of the struggles with the Indians and the frequent tragedies in the territory be- tween Fort Dummer and Number Four. That story, told piecemeal, by Zadock Thompson, may be found in his Thomp- son's Vermont. In a broader way and in livelier style, sup- ported by extensive and scholarly research, Benjamin Homer Hall, in his History of Eastern Vermont, has covered the same ground; and here we may also mention with respect A Wind- ham County Battlefield: The Ambush at the Salmon Hole, by John Elliot Bowman in the March, 1916, number of The Ver- monter.
The stones erected on the north bank of Knapp's Brook by the roadside on the way from Felchville to Downer's and within the present township limits of Reading, mark the trail of Indians returning to Canada with captives taken at Num- ber Four in the year 1754, and are the only monuments com- memorative of Indian warfare in the vicinity of Windsor. The legend on the larger stone is as follows:
This is near the spot that the Indians Encampd the Night after they took Mr. Johnson & Family Mr Laberee & Farnsworth
1 The Prayer-Book, by Evan Daniel, p. 220.
? Bellows Falls.
8
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
August 30th 1754 And Mrs
Johnson was Deliverd of her Child Half a mile up this Brook. When trouble near the Lord is kind He hears the Captives cry He can subdue the savage mind And Learn it sympathy.
The smaller stone was probably intended to be placed "Half a mile up this Brook," for the inscription reads:
On the 31st of August 1754 Capt James Johnson had
a Daughter born on this spot of Ground being
Captivated with
his whole Family by the Indians.
Many a modern reader of these inscriptions has smiled at the word "captivated," but it represents common eighteenth- century usage. It not only appears in the official report of the raid on Charlestown (Number Four), but the learned Doctor Williams, a graduate and former professor at Harvard College, who is described by Mr. E. P. Walton as the most learned man in Vermont, used the verb "captivate" in precisely the same sense.1
For convenient reference on the next page is a table of Con- necticut Valley towns on both sides of the river from the Massachusetts line as far north as Newbury and Haverhill, arranged in geographical order and giving the respective dates of settlement so far as the writer has succeeded in ascertaining them. When two dates are placed against one town name, two dates of settlement are indicated, the earlier settlement having been abandoned because of Indian attack. From the table it will appear that, except for the wilderness to the west, Wind- sor could hardly be called a frontier settlement at any time.
1 Williams, History of Vermont, 2d ed., vol. II, pp. 158, 235.
9
THE SETTLEMENT OF VERMONT
1762 Newbury 1765 Mooretown (Bradford)
Haverhill
1764
Piermont 1770
1766 Fairlee
Orford 1765
1764 Thetford
Lyme 1764
1763 Norwich
Hanover
1763
1764 Hartford
Lebanon
1763
Plainfield
1764
Woodstock 1768
1763 Hertford (Hartland)
1764 Windsor
Cornish
1765
Reading 1772 Cavendish 1769
1766 Weathersfield 1753, 1761 Springfield
Claremont 1762
Chester 1763
1753, 1760 Rockingham
1739, 1751 Westminster
Walpole 1749
1744, 1752 Putney
1752 Fulham
Westmoreland 1752
(Dummerston)
1724 Brattleboro
Chesterfield 1761
1724 Hinsdale (Vernon)
Hinsdale 1724
Massachusetts Line
Charlestown 1740, 1747
CHAPTER III BENNING WENTWORTH
IN the year 1740 the boundary between the provinces of Massachusetts and New Hampshire had been fixed and its line may be determined by the following extract from the Commission which King George the Second issued to Benning Wentworth, of New Hampshire, on July 3, 1741 :
"George the Second by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith &c
"To our Trusty and Well beloved Benning Wentworth Esqr Greeting: Know You that We reposing especial Trust and Confidence in the prudence, Courage and Loyalty of you the said Benning Wentworth Out of our Especial Grace, Certain knowledge and Meer Motion, have thought fit, to Constitute and appoint and by these presents do constitute and appoint you the said Benning Wentworth to be our Governor and Commander in Chief of our Province of New Hampshire within Our Dominions of New England in America, bounded on the south side by a similar curve line pursuing the Course of Mer- rimac River, at three miles distance, on the north side thereof, beginning at the Atlantick Ocean & ending at a point due north of a place called pautucket Falls, and by a Straight Line drawn from thence due West Cross the said River 'till it meets with our other Governments, and bounded on the North side by a line passing up through the Mouth of Piscataqua Harbour, and up the Middle of the River, to the River of Newich Wan- nock, part of which is now called Salmon Fall, and through the Middle of the same to the Furthest head thereof, and from thence North two degrees Westerly, untill one hundred and twenty miles be finished from the Mouth of Piscataqua Har- bor aforesaid, or untill it meets with our Other Governments."
What and where were "our other governments" that bounded Governor Benning Wentworth's jurisdiction on the west? The eastern limits of the Province of New York had
10
11
BENNING WENTWORTH
never been publicly proclaimed in exact terms by the Crown or by other authority,1 nor, as a matter of fact, had there been a definite settlement of the western boundary of the Province of Massachusetts. How was Wentworth to interpret his commis- sion ? Other royal governors in Benning Wentworth's place might have asked instructions from their sovereign, but Ben- ning Wentworth undertook to determine the question for him- self.
American born, of good family, of such education as went with graduation at Harvard in the class of 1715, Benning Wentworth had had nearly twenty-five years of experience as a man of business in the town of Portsmouth. He had traveled in Europe, he had been in public office, he knew men, and he had engaged in large transactions. Prospering in a worldly way, he accumulated immense wealth. Fond of possessions and display, he maintained a great mansion at Little Harbor in Portsmouth that has found its place in story, while the splendor of his coach and horses dazzled the good people of the New Hampshire countryside. Having been a widower since the year 1755, he married in 1760 Martha Hilton, a young woman of obscure parentage who had been brought up in the Wentworth home. Longfellow's Lady Wentworth takes for its subject this wedding and forms a pleasant historical chapter which all who dwell on the former New Hampshire Grants should know.
Benning Wentworth is rated by the historian Jeremy Belk- nap as honorable in business, hospitable and kindly to his friends but sometimes crusty to others, especially when feeling the twinges of gout from which he suffered and which he had doubtless earned. Belknap thought it worth while to ascribe to Benning Wentworth an austerity of manner and to venture the opinion that it was acquired in Spain.
To Dartmouth College Benning Wentworth gave five hun- dred acres of land on which the college buildings now stand:
1 Timothy Walker, in an address to the inhabitants of the New Hampshire Grants under date of July 18, 1778, made an excellent statement of the situation as follows: "The King had never told his Governor of New Hampshire, in express terms, how far west he should go, and there stop, nor his Governor of New York how far east he should go and then cease, .. . " (5 Gov. & Coun. 523.)
12
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
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