USA > Vermont > A history of Vermont : with geological and geographical notes, bibliography, chronology, maps, and illustrations > Part 10
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HATCHELS AND WOOL CARD
century house boat they made their way leisurely down to the outlet of the lake, blown by the favoring winds. We can imagine a little excitement now and then at the falls as the huge, unwieldy craft went blundering along.
Lumber trade was not the only trade with Canada, and Quebec was not the only mart. The settlers found in Montreal a nearer market, and sailing craft of all kinds plied the lake picking up cargoes of wheat and
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potash, products of the Champlain Valley, and bringing in return merchandise that had come from over the seas. In the winter long trains of sledges made their annual trips to Montreal, just as from the other parts of the state they went to Boston or Portland, taking their loads of beef, pork, and other produce to exchange for goods and cash.
Before the War of 1812 some important changes had begun in the older portions of the state in the manner of cloth making. Before 1800 no very successful experi- ments had been made in making cotton or woolen T in large quantities by machinery. So far as this state was concerned cotton was hardly an article of com- merce at all. It was rarely used for domestic pur- FLAX OR WOOL REELS poses, nearly all the cloth being linen or woolen made by hand from flax and wool raised on the farm. The flax was rotted in the field and then made ready for further use by the hand brake and swingling knife. The tow was then separated from the finer flax by hatchels. The flax was then wound upon the distaff and spun on the little wheel turned by a footboard, and thus made into linen yarn. This yarn was then woven into cloth for sheets, pillowcases, towels, tablecloths, and undergarments.
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In 1810 there were nearly two million yards of it thus made. The tow was spun on a large wheel, like wool, and made into filling for linen warp or a coarse cloth for common uses.
Wool was carded by hand by the farmers' wives and daughters, and then was spun into yarn on the great wheel. Then it could be woven into SPINNING WHEEL flannel cloth. Such flannel as was not wanted for beds and undergarments was sent to the fulling mill to be prepared for outside clothing. That which was designed for men's wear was fulled, colored, and sheared by hand. Shearing was the shortening of the nap on the cloth. That designed for wo- men's wear was dyed and made glossy by pressing. It was then ready for winter dresses.
The improvements which were spoken of were, first, the introduction of the carding machine, which lessened the labor of preparing the wool for spinning. Carding mills were built, and then the wool could be taken to them to be carded FLAX WHEEL instead of being carded by hand at home. In 1801 such a mill was set up at New Ipswich, New Hampshire.
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Within nine years there were 139 carding machines run- ning in this state, whose capacity was 798,500 pounds of wool. Imagine the relief which the hand carders felt ! Fulling mills had already been in operation for a long time.
In 1793 Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, a device for removing the seeds from cotton. Cotton wool then
SWIFTS
came into more common use. It was made into cloth in the farmers' homes, at first, until machines were invented for making it into yarn in factories. The yarn was then put out to be woven on the common loom. In 1810 there were over 130,000 yards of cot- ton used in the state, but this was a very small amount compared with the 1,200,000 yards of woolen and
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nearly 2,000,000 yards of linen. In that year there were in Vermont 23 spinning jennies, equal to about Soo spin- dles ; but there were nearly 68,000 spinning wheels and 1500 looms. However, the change had begun and it was not long before the spinning machine and power loom revolutionized processes completely in both cotton and woolen manufacturing.
We see, therefore, that before the War of 1812 a few very important changes had begun which were to have far-reaching effects on the cloth-making business of this country. Some of these changes were to fix the indus- tries of the South and make slavery a harder thing than ever to uproot ; but so far as they concerned Vermont these changes were but slightly felt before the War of 1812, and only in the older portions of the state. Long after the war, as we shall see, these hand processes, which have now long been abandoned and have left us only picturesque relics of spinning wheels as their legacy, continued to prevail throughout the greater portion of the state.
C. Educational Conditions
In framing the constitution of the state the fathers made provision for the education of the children, and really laid the basis of the common-school system. They provided for different classes of schools, foresee- ing well the need of higher education as well as that given by the common schools. "One grammar school in cach county and one university in the state ought to be established by the direction of the General Assembly." Thus did the men whose own training
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had been in the hard school of adversity provide a way for their children to reap advantages which they had never known and never could know.
In 1791 the University of Vermont was incorporated and located at Burlington. In 1800 Middlebury Col- lege was incorporated. Before the War of 1812 the two institutions had graduated one hundred and sixty- six students. The operations of that war somewhat embarrassed the pursuit of education at the former college. In the summer of 1813 large quantities of United States arms were deposited in the university building and a guard of soldiers stationed there, which "very much interrupted the collegiate exercises," it is said. The next year collegiate exercises were en- tirely suspended and the building was rented to the government.
Grammar schools and academies increased in number, medical societies were formed, newspapers had begun to flourish, all before the War of 1812. Town libraries were not unknown, and the work of training teachers had begun. As early as 1785, J. Eddy, the Quaker town clerk of Danby, opened a select school expressly to train young men to teach. At Pawlet, in 1804, was organized one of the first educational societies in the United States.
It would be a mistake to suppose that the average of intelligence was low in the state. It was not. The facts just cited would be sufficient to indicate an excep- tionally keen interest in educational matters. The min- isters of the early churches were often men of keen minds and clear thought, as well as possessors of vivid
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imaginations. Dr. Williams of Rutland was a Doctor of Laws, a member of the Meteorological Society of Germany, of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, and of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Massa- chusetts. His reputation, at least, was international. Such men of course were an exception, but general intelligence was the rule.
E
At Westminster, in 1778, was established the first printing office in the state. At the session of the legislature fol- lowing this, state printers were appointed. The two preceding sessions had pro- mulgated their laws in manu- script. In Feb- ruary, 1781, the THE FIRST PRINTING PRESS IN AMERICA On this press the first newspaper in Vermont was printed in 1781, in the Westminster Courthouse first newspaper printed in the state was started at Westminster by the proprietors of the printing office mentioned above. It was called The Vermont Gasette, or Green Mountain Post Boy. It had an interesting couplet as its motto :
Pliant as reeds where streams of freedom glide, Firm as the hills to stem oppression's tide.
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It was not destined to be as enduring as the hills, for in about two years it was discontinued. Other papers were started, however, and before the year 1800 the state was the possessor of three enterprising journals, one at Bennington, one at Windsor, and one at Rutland.
D. Financial and Economic Legislation
In the period which we are now studying, Vermont issued paper money and established coinage. Before and during the Revolution the monetary conditions of the American colonies were in a fearful and wonder- ful state. The issues of paper money by the separate colonies and of Continental currency by the combined colonies went the way of all fictitious values. Depre- ciation went on until to say that a thing was not worth a Continental indicated a very low estimate of its worth.
To add to the disturbances caused by its own falling value, the colonial issues which were legally made had to cope with a tremendous output of counterfeit bills. Our present manufacture of paper money is so safe- guarded that it is a very difficult thing to counterfeit it successfully, and a comparatively easy thing to detect the fraud. But the situation was very different then.
The people of this state suffered so much from counterfeit money and the failure of banks that agita- tion began for the issue of currency by the state.1 So,
1 The returns from six counties in 1808 show sixty-one indictments for counterfeiting or passing counterfeit money. In November of that year the General Assembly requested the governor to secure the aid of the Canadian authorities to disperse the counterfeiters who infested the southern borders of Canada "preying upon the property of the good citizens of this and the United States." - Governor and Council, V', 502.
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in 1781, Vermont determined to follow at a safe dis- tance the example of Congress and the neighboring states. An issue of £25, 155 in paper money was author- ized. The bills were to be in denominations running from one shilling to £3. Notice that this was before the adoption of dollars and cents, or as it is commonly called, the decimal system of currency.
In order to make this CURRENCY money worth what it claimed to be on its face, TWENTY SHILLINGS. provision was made to T THE Pof for of this BILL Shall be paid by the Treafurer of the State of. Vermont, TWENTY SHIL- LINGS, in Spanish milled . Dollers, at Site Shillings euch or Guld ar Silrer Coins cquiraient . hy thủ firft Day Af June, A. D 1752. By Order of Affen lay taxes to redeem it. It was to be redeemed by the treasurer of the state by June 1, 1782, with specie at the rate February. 1751. Qporter of six shillings to the Spanish milled dollar. It is to the credit of the state that it was re- deemed and for that reason its value was FACSIMILE OF VERMONT BILL OF CREDIT maintained. Notice that Spanish money was the prevailing coin current at that time. It came to the colonies by way of the West India trade.
Not content with this experiment, some of the people began agitation for the establishment of banks a few years later. The bank measure was voted down in 1787, but came up again in 1803, when application was made for the establishment of banks at Windsor
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and Burlington. Again the proposition was turned aside, thanks to the governor and council. Since the bill had passed the house, the governor and council deemed it expedient to give their reasons for vetoing it. These reasons stand to-day as a witness of the sound common sense of these men. The first one really cov- ered the case and is as follows :
Because bank bills being regarded as money, and money like water always seeking its level, the bills put into circulation in this state must displace nearly the same sum of money now in circula- tion among us, and by driving it into the seaports, facilitate its exportation to foreign countries ; which, as bank bills cannot be made a legal tender, must prove a calamity to the citizens generally, and especially to those who dwell at a distance from the proposed bank.
However, the subject was revived again, and in 1806 a state bank was chartered. It became insolvent like all the rest, and was within a few years wound up and its bills burned as fast as they were received for taxes.
You may have heard of that experiment in coining money in Massachusetts which gave rise to the " pine- tree shilling." About a century later than that Ver- mont undertook to supply her needs for a current coin in something the same fashion. It was in 1785 that the Vermont legislature granted to Reuben Harmon of Rupert the right of coining copper money for two years. The same privilege was then extended for eight years. Harmon gave bonds of £5000 that he would do the work faithfully. No coin was to be made of less than one third of an ounce Troy weight.
Harmon had to build a place to conduct the business in, make a furnace for smelting, and get machinery for
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rolling the bars and cutting and stamping the coins. The latter process was done by hand with a powerful iron screw attached to a heavy beam overhead. It was said that a speed of sixty coins a minute could be made with this contrivance, but in actual practice they never averaged over thirty.
ERMON
AUG
ORI.
JUNI
ETLIB
1798
RES.
QUARTA
TIS.
PUBLIC
STELLA.
DECIM
17
EARLY VERMONT COINS
These first coins are de- scribed as follows : Ob- verse, a sun rising from behind the hills and a plow in the foreground ; legend VER- MONTIS RES PUBLICA
1785.1 Reverse, a radiated eye, surrounded by thirteen stars; legend QUARTA DECIMA STELLA. 2 The prophecy came true. Another coin was made later, after Harmon's time had been extended. He apparently did not make any profit on his first venture, so applied for the extension, which was granted. The weight of the coin was also diminished from one third ounce Troy weight to " pieces weighing not less than 4 pennyweights, 15 grains each." Harmon then secured partners from New York for the
1 " The Republic of Vermont."
2 " The Fourteenth Star," i.e., the fourteenth state in the Union.
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remainder of the term. They brought dies which made coins like the following : on one side a head with AUCTORI VERMON.1 On the reverse was a figure of a woman, with the legend INDE ET LIB, 1788.2
We do not know how long this firm continued to coin money or how much it coined in all. There is some reason to suppose that the mint ceased to operate in 1788. After three years the firm was to pay for its privilege by giving to the treasury of the state two and a half per cent of all the money coined. It is said that about the year 1800 considerable counterfeiting was done in this vicinity, and a little detective work by the people disclosed the fact that three brothers by the name of Crane were making counterfeit silver coins in the woods cast of Rupert, in a secluded glen at the base of Mount Anthony. Upon discovery they fled to parts unknown, and their machinery was destroyed.
There is one curious feature of colonial lawgiving which perhaps deserves a word here, since in this period we see its vanishing traces. That is the custom of granting lotteries for the aid of enterprises of various sorts both public and private. It seems to us an almost shocking ethical laxity in an age which we have become accustomed to regard as especially strict and puri- tanical. Perhaps if we were to look at the age a little more sharply we would modify our views of it some- what. This practice of granting lotteries, at any rate, was quite a universal custom throughout the colonies, and was employed to secure money to build a church or
1 " By the Authority of Vermont."
2 " Independence and Liberty."
1
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help a college or do any similar work of religious and educational uplifting.
In this state the object of the lotteries seems to have run more to internal improvements. Of the total num- ber of twenty-four lotteries granted between 1783 and 1804, when the last grant was made, nine were either for repairing or building bridges, and five were for repairing or building roads. Two were made to help men erect breweries, and one to assist in building the courthouse at Rutland. Bridges were to be built over the White River, the Black EE River, the Otta Quechee River, the Otter Creek, the Lamoille and the Deerfield THE GOVERNOR PALMER HOUSE, DAN- VILLE, WHERE THE LEGISLATURE MET IN 1805 rivers from the proceeds of such speculation. Oc- casionally a lottery was granted to help a man recover from losses sustained by fire. Fire-insurance compa- nies had not yet been established in the state, and the method of lottery was doubtless thought to be as equitable a way as any to distribute losses.
Under the stimulus of lotteries turnpike companies were incorporated, and for some years following 1796 a turnpike craze swept the state. Fifty companies were incorporated within a few years. They were rarely
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a success, and as public highways multiplied it became evident that the tollgate was doomed. Most of the companies surrendered their charters, and their roads became public highways.
One or two other matters deserve to be mentioned, although perhaps they do not, strictly speaking, come under the caption of financial or economic legislation.
THE PRESENT STATE HOUSE AT MONTPELIER
The first of these is the permanent location of legisla- tive sessions and the erection of a state house. In 1805 Montpelier was made the capital of the state. There can be no doubt that the dignity of the state was enhanced greatly by having a fixed capital instead of an itinerant legislature. The other thing to be noted is the rapid formation of counties. Seven were established before 1791, and four more in the following year. After this
!
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the work went on more slowly, the last county, Lamoille, not being formed until 1835.
LIFE IN THE NEWER PORTIONS OF THE STATE
After the close of the Revolution population rapidly increased, and a fair share of it sought the newer por- tions of northern Vermont and the " Y" of the Green Mountains. The Hazen road became famous as a means of transit for settlers across country into the new land. Peacham, which for a time had been the terminus of the road, had a period of prosperity, and was of some importance for a few years as a point of Indian trade. In 1805 the Passumpsic Turnpike Company was incor- porated and did something in road construction.
The writer of the gossipy letters which we have quoted says that for six years previous to his account Caledonia County had a rapid growth. Orleans County remained an almost unbroken wilderness until after the Revolution, inhabited by Indians and visited by an occasional white hunter. After the Revolution the southwestern portion of this county was made accessible by the Hazen road.
Returning for a little to the settlement of Caledonia County, we find there a new element among the incom- ing settlers. Hitherto we have noticed only settlers who had come from southern New England. Now we have immigrants from abroad. Certain companies formed in Scotland sent agents to America to find where good farming land lay and to make purchases of tracts in favorable sections. It happened that the president
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of Princeton College, Rev. John Witherspoon, owned a large tract of land in Ryegate, and as the agent of one of these companies went to him for information, he sold to him the southern half of that town in 1773.
This company was called the Scots American Com- pany, and was composed of about one hundred and forty farmers of Renfrewshire. So we have the nucleus of one Scotch settlement in the town of Ryegate. In the following year an agent of another company, the Farmers' Company of Perth and Stirlingshire, bought seven thousand acres in the southern part of Barnet. As the result of these two purchases, large and flourish- ing settlements of Scotch immigrants were formed, and in their honor the county was given the old Roman name of Scotland, - Caledonia. These settlers were intelligent, industrious, patriotic, honest, and religious, and formed a valuable addition to the population of this part of the state ..
The northern part of this county remained for some years the habitat of moose and deer. The early settlers of Burke would go on snowshoes to the north of that town, where the animals yarded in winter, and bring back on their shoulders or on rudely made hand sleds - " moose sleds " they called them - the proceeds of the hunt, great packs of hides and meat. The skins were sometimes made to serve the purpose of beds in the earliest homes.
Great quantities of "salts " were made here and mar- keted at St. Johnsbury for three or four dollars a hundred pounds. At length an ashery was built in Burke, and the proprietor took his potash to Portland through the
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Crawford Notch in the White Mountains. Mails came into the county through Danville from St. Albans. They were carried on horseback across the country, the carrier heralding his approach by means of a tin horn, and distributing the mail from his saddlebags as he went along. This peripatetic post office was a truly rural delivery. Our latest improvement in the mail service is not such a new thing after all.
Of course the southern part of the state had estab- lished routes before this. The governor and council established a weekly post between Bennington and Albany, New York, as early as 1783, and the next year the legislature created five post offices, with mails going once a week each way between them. These were at Bennington, Rutland, Windsor, Brattleboro, and New- bury. The rates of postage were the same as those of the United States; they depended upon how far the letters were carried. They ran as high as twenty- five cents for letters that had been brought several hundred miles. Postage was paid by the one who received the letter, not by the sender. The post riders were allowed two pence or three pence a mile for travel, and had in addition the exclusive right to carry letters and packages on their routes. When Vermont became a state of course her mail service became a part of the government system.
Settlers pushed up the Passumpsic Valley from Cale- donia County, without roads save those of their own making, following the trail which Rogers's party of rangers had taken nearly half a century before on their return from Canada. Here and there were found
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marks on the trees, thought to have been made by the rangers ; at one place was found a coat of mail, and at another remnants of an old iron spider. By this old route settlers now came into the county of Orleans.
Four or five settlers planted potatoes at Barton in 1793. They found them growing the next season and used them as food, with lunge from Crystal Lake. It had been but few years since the Indians had pitched their wigwams here on their favorite camping ground at the outlet of the lake. Early inhabitants saw their numerous half-decayed cabins. An old Indian, Foosah by name, told of killing twenty-seven moose and many beaver in this vicinity in the winter of 1783-1784. In 1796 General Barton, for whom the town was named, built a sawmill at the foot of the meadows, but for gristmilling and for groceries the settlers had to go to Lyndon or St. Johnsbury. They had no road save the spotted trees to guide them, and no carriage but their own strong legs and sinewy arms and backs. In the spring of 1809 wolves became especially troublesome among the sheep. In one year four bears were killed in John May's cornfield and the woods near by. There were still moose in the woods eastward, a day's tramp toward the Connecticut River.
From Barton settlers moved into Charleston in 1802. Having settled, they found that their best way of com- municating with the outside world lay through Burke, which they could reach by crossing the mountain and the "ten-mile woods." It was fortunate that these settlers found the Clyde River stocked with trout, Echo Pond "our meat barrel," and partridges plenty in the
L
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woods, else they might have fared worse than they did in the cold season of 1813. Wheat, rye, and barley all failed, and the people went to the woods for leeks and groundnuts as well as for game.
By way of the Barton River early settlers in Cov- entry vended their salts, made by boiling down the lye of hard-wood ashes, to manufacturers of pearlash, and got in return salt, flour, and leather. In the year of the famine they had to live for days on suckers, the stream having been depleted of its trout.
Parties from Danville and Peacham cut a road through Irasburg to Troy in the fall of 1807 and transported hundreds of tons of salts and pearlashes to Canada. In the days of the embargo much of this trade went to Montreal through the wilderness in winter. In the spring of 1808 a great deal of pearlash was still left in the country, and the Barton River was cleared out so that rafts and barges loaded with pearlash could be taken to Quebec. "The Landing " became the name of the place where it was put on the boats. The channel of the river being thus cleared and intercourse once begun, it was easy to keep up trade relations after the war began, and we have in consequence the smuggling of the following years.
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