USA > Vermont > A history of Vermont : with geological and geographical notes, bibliography, chronology, maps, and illustrations > Part 14
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20
222
HISTORY OF VERMONT
1883 separate establishments devoted to manufactur- ing, and the total capitalization of these was less than $9,500,000. The population of the state was 315,098 ; but the manufacturing wage earners numbered only 10,497, that is, about one in every thirty of the population.
But if we compare now the figures for 1860 with those for 1850, we shall notice another fact which is quite as striking. In 1850 there were 1849 establish- ments, employing 8445 wage earners, and capitalized at almost exactly $5,000,000. The wages paid in 1850 were something over two million dollars ; in 1860 they were over three million. The value of the products made was over eight million five hundred thousand dollars in 1850; over fourteen million five hundred thousand dollars in 1860. That is to say, summing it all up, in ten years practically the same number of establishments employed twenty-five per cent more people, paid them over thirty-six per cent more wages, and made over seventy per cent more in value of products.
From this little study of figures we learn two things : There was a rapid increase in the value of manufactured goods just before the Civil War, but there was a com- paratively slight increase in the number of manufac- turing establishments. From this we may go on still further and draw an inference : There had been develop- ing a limited number of large and expanding industries instead of a large number of small and limited industries. This brings us to the heart of the whole matter ; for such a course of development is only possible when
223
FROM THE WAR OF 1812 TO THE CIVIL WAR
local markets are disregarded. This, then, is the transi- tion which has come to Vermont's manufacturing, - she has ceased to produce for herself alone and begun to produce for others.
This is a far different state of things from that of the earlier days when the blacksmith shop, the sawmill, the gristmill, the tannery, the carding mill, and the fulling mill composed the list of enterprises that could boast of being manufactories. It is true that many small estab- lishments lingered on, supplying local needs ; but the other side of the case becomes startlingly apparent when we notice that out of the total $14,637,837 produced in 1860 over one half was sent out by concerns dealing with the five products, wool, marble, lumber, leather, and grain.
A few illustrations will serve to show better this evolution of industry. In 1815 Joseph Fairbanks came into the Moose River Valley and set up a grist and saw mill at St. Johnsbury. His sons had a mechanical turn of mind and went into the wheelwright and foundry business. They manufactured hoes, pitchforks, cast- iron plows, and stoves. They gained a reputation for skill and reliability, and in 1830 were awarded a contract for making hemp-dressing machines, which were required for cleaning the hemp and preparing the fiber for market, -- a new industry then springing up. Some method of weighing rough hemp by the wagonload was sorely needed. This led to an investigation of the principle of levers as combined in weighing machines, and resulted in the invention and perfection of the platform scale by Thaddeus Fairbanks. What was started as a mere
224
HISTORY OF VERMONT
incident of a comparatively small business grew into an extensive commerce in an article that set the standard for the world.
An equally humble beginning was that made by Jacob Estey in 1846, when he commenced to make musical instruments, and drove about the country selling them from his own wagon. His business also grew into the largest one of its kind in the world, - the Estey Organ Works.
In this period our three great quarrying indus- tries were put on a firm foun- dation. The be- ginning of mar- ble quarrying has been men- tioned in an BIRTHPLACE OF CHESTER A. ARTHUR, 1830, AT FAIRFIELD carlier period ; it had an extensive growth before the Civil War. Granite quarrying was begun about the time of the War of 1812, but did not greatly develop until after the Civil War. The first slate quarry opened in the state was at Fairhaven, where work began in 1839. Some eight years later roofing slate began to be made, and the industry has maintained considerable magnitude ever since.
In this period Vermont enterprise extended into other fields of business. Some of the most honored fiduciary institutions of the state began their existence before
225
FROM THE WAR OF 1812 TO THE CIVIL WAR
the middle of the last century. Banks were incor- porated, and fire and life insurance companies were established. The Vermont Mutual dates from 1827, the National Life from 1848.
Vermont inventiveness deserves a tribute all the more since it has not always exacted tribute or recognition. Morey's invention of the steamboat has already been mentioned. But the use of electricity as a moving principle in machinery was demonstrated by Thomas Davenport to be practicable half a century before the world was ready for the dis- covery. The electric motor, the electric tele- graph, the electric loco- motive, and the electric piano were products of his brain. Professor Alonzo Jackman of Nor- CHESTER A. ARTHUR wich University conceived the feasibility of the subma- rine cable in 1842. Phineas Bailey of Chelsea devised a phonetic method of shorthand in 1819 -eighteen years before Pitman's. The six-shooting revolver was invented at Brattleboro fourteen years before Colt's weapon was made. Last but not least in its beneficent influence comes the modern cook stove, the creation of P. P. Stewart of Pawlet.
These inventions, like the new order of manufacturing establishments, were not for local needs. They appealed
226
HISTORY OF VERMONT
for wider application. Thanks to developed transporta- tion and the rapid transmission of news, Vermont had got in touch with wider needs ; she had gone out to seek the markets of the world.
E. Education
The work of education in the state went on quietly, unobtrusively, attracting no great attention, heralding no startling results; yet there were men here who were in a sense educational prophets, for they laid the founda- tion in a humble, inconspicuous way for some of the most important developments of our American educational ideals. Transition in educational aims and methods con- sisted of development rather than change up to the time of the Civil War.
The results of this work may be briefly summed up as follows: The beginning of some educational system for the state, including supervision ; the training of teach- ers; the opening of special schools for women; and the growth of educational institutions, especially academies, colleges, and military schools. Not all these are due to public or state enterprise. Indeed, in such matters, the work of making a beginning, as well as the con- ception of the ideals, falls often to the lot of those who are full of service for others, whose vision pierces the future, and whose hopes are reenforced by invincible confidence. That is, they are teachers in the real sense of the word.
At first, although the fathers of the state laid the foundations for a broad, comprehensive educational sys- tem, there was little done to perfect such a system in
227
FROM THE WAR OF 1812 TO THE CIVIL WAR
its details. The separate districts had their own way, secured their own teachers, and paid them at the end of the term without supervision or oversight by town or state or any outside authority. The inevitable result of such a method, or lack of method, was that there were no guaranties of competent instruction, because there was no standard of requirements put upon the teachers; and no guaranties of equal advantages to the different schools, because there was no efficient supervision. Some schools might be good, others poor, others very poor.
A TYPE OF THE "OLD RED SCHOOLHOUSE "
The effort to inaugurate a system began to bear fruit about 1827, when it was proposed that a board of com- missioners be appointed to collect and disseminate edu- cational information, and that licenses be required of teachers. Both recommendations were adopted for a few years. Then, in 1845, another effort was made to put the teaching force of the state on a higher level. The plan of licenses was permanently adopted; schools
£
-
228
HISTORY OF VERMONT
were put under the supervision of town and county superintendents; and a state superintendent of educa- tion was annually appointed. In a few years the county superintendents were discontinued, and in 1851 the state superintendent ceased to be appointed. Five years later the state board of education was created.
-
7
INTERIOR OF THE "OLD RED SCHOOLHOUSE"
These efforts were tentative, and not altogether success- ful; yet a beginning had been made which was some approach to a system of state control.
In 1823 Samuel R. Hall, a home missionary and pastor of the Congregational Church at Concord, in Essex County, established a seminary for the training of teachers. It was incorporated by the legislature the same fall. In 1825 it was reincorporated under the name of the Essex County Grammar School. Teachers' classes
229
FROM THE WAR OF 1812 TO THE CIVIL WAR
were formed, and a special course of study was arranged. In 1829 " Father " Hall published a volume of lectures on school keeping, " the first attempt of the kind on the Western Continent." The work ran through several editions. Ten thousand copies were sold to the state of New York and distributed through the school districts of that state. Mr. Hall also introduced the use of the blackboard into schools, organized the American Insti- tute of Instruction, and was for a time principal of Andover Academy.
The Middlebury Female Seminary, which had been established in 1800, the same year as the college, was taken charge of in 1807 by Miss Emma Hart, who later became Mrs. Willard, the founder of Troy Female Seminary, which set a high standard for the education of women. A few HON. GEORGE F. EDMUNDS years later, in 1814, she opened a school at her own home.
The State Teachers' Association was organized in 1850; endowed libraries began to appear; some of the schools of academic grade were founded which have lasted on, doing good work to the present time; the work of the colleges went on nobly. Among the gradu- ates of Middlebury College were young men who were destined to make educators, authors, scholars, statesmen, and college presidents. The University of Vermont
230
HISTORY OF VERMONT
began to send forth youth who were to fill offices of state, -judges of higher courts, members of Con- gress, governors of Vermont, and even one Vice-Presi- dent, - besides college presidents and many college and seminary instructors. Norwich University, the oldest military college in this country with the exception of . West Point, was established in 1820. Its graduates served in the second Seminole War, and have served in every subsequent war of the country. No less than two hundred and seventy-three commissioned officers from this institution served in the Mexican and Civil wars.
Two men who long honored their state and the nation in the Senate chamber at Washington put themselves on record as champions of the cause of edu- cation in no narrow or mean sense. George F. Edmunds was the great exponent of a national university at Washington; Justin S. Morrill successfully labored for the establishment of agricul- tural colleges in all the states. HON. JUSTIN S. MORRILL The congressional grant of 1860 to provide education in the agricultural and mechanical arts in every state in the Union was the most important single educational enactment ever passed in America. This act alone would be sufficient to perpetuate Senator Morrill's name as the author of what is destined to be the most practical, democratic, and beneficent educa- tional work of this country.
717
THE OLD SEMINARY AND METHODIST CHURCH AT NEWBURY The Seminary was built in 1833, the Church in 1829
23I
FROM THE WAR OF 1812 TO THE CIVIL WAR
THE IMPENDING CRISIS
While our state was thus passing through manifold and important changes, the United States had come to the worst experience that can ever face a government, - the storm and stress of a great civil war. When a country is attacked from without, its people flock together to support the common cause, and thus form a more com- pact and cohesive union within. But when a country begins to break up within, and envy, hatred, and strife fill the hearts of its people, woe be it! The saying is very old and very true that a house divided against itself shall not stand. This is the third time in the history of the state that we have had to stop in our study of its development to follow the consequences of war in which it has been involved by the course of national politics. The other two wars were wars to defend so- called rights from foreign aggression. This one is a war to preserve the Union from the disruptive forces which have long been acting within.
Since the early settlement of these American colonies the keeping of slaves had been a part of their history. There had been white slaves and black slaves, slaves in the North and slaves in the South. But white servi- tude had never been so prevalent as that of negroes, and the terms by which whites were bound to forced labor allowed them to work out their freedom in a given term of years. So white servitude outgrew itself in time. Not so with negro slavery. A black slave was a slave for life, and all his children. All children of the mother, too, were slaves, although the father might
232
HISTORY OF VERMONT
be white. A drop of negro blood was like the mark of Cain, - it tainted the man for life.
Negro slavery, therefore, was self-perpetuating. It would last as long as the negro race endured. In the North, for climatic and economic reasons, black slavery had but a slight hold; but in the South all the condi- tions were favorable for it, and it became so strongly rooted in the social and economic order of things that it was not easily dislodged. The men who formed the Constitution of the United States should have pre- vented this. They saw slavery as a cloud on the hori- zon of national politics. It was a little cloud then, no larger than a man's hand, but it certainly should have needed no prophet Elijah to tell them this cloud would brew a storm of blood. They had written in their own Declaration that all men were created free and equal ; they should have made that principle true to the very letter in their new State, if they believed it to be true for themselves.
Slave trading from Africa ceased to be legal ; but smuggling of slaves began, and but one conviction ever occurred in the history of the country. When the importation from Africa fell off, the matter was in no wise helped; for in the northern tier of slaveholding states negroes were bred, taken to the South like droves of cattle, and like cattle sold at the auction block. So the thing went on, till men had vast estates in slaves Ind little else. A plantation was worth nothing without slaves to work it. Skilled slaves were worth hundreds of dollars each ; and a Southern man could not see why his slaves - his sole support - should be taken from
233
FROM THE WAR OF 1812 TO THE CIVIL WAR
him any more than a Northern man could have seen the justice of taking away his less valuable horses or cattle or sheep.
The larger the country grew the larger grew this question with it. It got into politics and saturated every public measure. Instead of settling it, the poli- ticians temporized, procrastinated, and compromised. The issue grew and grew until it passed the point of any more compromises, and then war came.
CHAPTER XI
THE CIVIL WAR
I am desirous to learn your views as to the expediency of legisla- tion in the Free States at the present time touching the affairs of the General Government and the action of certain Southern States. . . . Should the plans of the Secessionists in South Carolina and the cotton States be persevered in and culminate in the design to seize upon the National Capital, will it be prudent to delay a demonstration on the part of the Free States assuring the General Government of their united cooperation in putting down rebellion and sustaining the Con- stitution and the dignity of the United States Government ? - Extract from a letter of Governor Erastus Fairbanks to the governor of Con- necticut in 1861.
VERMONT'S STATUS ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION
The position of Vermont on the question of human slavery has never been equivocal. Her official expres- sion on the matter was made in the very first article of her constitution in the following words:
No male person born in this country, or brought from over sea, ought to be holden by law to. serve any person as a servant, slave, or apprentice, after he arrives to the age of twenty-one years, nor female in like manner, after she arrives to the age of eighteen years, unless they are bound by their own consent, after they arrive to such age, or bound by law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, costs, or the like.
Before the constitution had been distributed the officers of the new state began to interpret the spirit of this article; and from the time when Ebenezer Allen in 1778 freed the slave Dinah Mattis, who had been
234
235
THE CIVIL WAR
taken among the prisoners of a raid near Ticonderoga, and gave her a certificate of her emancipation duly recorded in the office of the town clerk at Benning- ton, down to the President's call for troops, Vermont had stood stanchly for the freedom of man. In 1803 Judge Harrington of the Supreme Court said that a bill of sale from Almighty God was the necessary proof that one man could hold another as his slave.
In 1828 the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison was at Bennington, editing the Journal of the Times, which, although run primarily for campaign purposes in the political race of John Quincy Adams against Andrew Jackson for the presidency, showed unmistakably the trend of its editor's views on the slavery question. Garrison announced as one of the great objects of his life the emancipation of slaves. Clear and vehement were his utterances. "We are resolved to agitate this subject to the utmost," said Garrison; and he sent to Congress a petition signed by twenty-three hundred and fifty-two citizens of this state requesting Con- gress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. The government of that district rested with Congress, and it was literally true that negroes were driven to market past the doors of the national capitol wherein sat the chosen apostles of American liberty ; but the appeal was ahead of the times.
Public men in the state kept an anxious eye on the great lurid cloud of national politics. Time passed with- out bringing war, until in 1861 the governor of the state wrote to the governor of one of the neighboring states on the duty of the North in this issue. This
236
HISTORY OF VERMONT
action of the chief executive of the state shows that he was fully abreast of the times and aware of the signifi- cance of the action of the South in this great crisis.
VERMONT'S PREPARATION FOR THE WAR
When President Lincoln issued his call for troops, Vermont presented no exception to the other Northern states in lack of adequate preparation for even the slightest military service. It seemed as if the entire North lay in a state of lethargy. Federal forts and arsenals had been appropriated by Southern militiamen; state after state had passed ordinances of secession; they even invaded the North and transferred one hun- dred and thirty thousand stand of arms from the heart of New England 1 to Southern depots, and no one lifted a finger to stop it.
After the War of 1812 military drills had been kept up for a time, after a fashion ; but the martial spirit flagged before the tasks of peaceful industry, and after 1845 there was hardly a semblance of military organi- zation left within the state. The state had given up making appropriations for the support of the militia. One by one the uniformed companies had disbanded, and June trainings became a jest and sport for the countryside.
From 1858 to 1860 public interest in the militia began to be aroused. By the close of the latter year there were several organized companies again in existence, nominally forming a brigade of four regiments. They
1 From the United States Arsenal at Springfield, Massachusetts.
237
THE CIVIL WAR
had as arms smooth-bore percussion and flintlock mus- kets! On New Year's day, 1861, the state possessed less than a thousand stand of arms, seven six-pound fieldpieces, five hundred and three Colt's pistols of no use whatever, and about a hundred tents. One regi- ment could be equipped with superannuated stuff.
On the 12th of April, that same year, the booming of cannon sounded through Charleston Harbor. Fort Sumter, one of the three or four military posts in the South which remained in federal possession, was fired upon. In two days the garrison surrendered. President Lincoln's call for troops was sent broadcast through the North, and war was on.
Now witness a change. No longer the North was sleep- ing. Mass meetings and flag raisings were so numerous that the newspapers could not find space to tell of them. From every public building flew the stars and stripes, and from private buildings, too, so long as flags could be obtained, or red, white, and blue bunting could be had for love or money. A public meeting was held at Burlington on the 18th of April, in the town hall ; but hundreds were turned away from the doors, unable to find room within. Hon. George. P. Marsh, then on the eve of his departure as United States minister to Italy, was the principal speaker. As he addressed the crowded hall, from one of the galleries were flung the broad folds of the stars and stripes ; in an instant the audience were on their feet, in a contagion of enthusiasm and emotion, cheering, shouting, and crying like children.
Meantime men and money were offered all over the state. Private persons offered to the state sums ranging
238
HISTORY OF VERMONT
all the way from one thousand to twenty thousand dol- lars each. Towns voted to raise money on their grand list, and subscribed to equip the militia and support the families of volunteers. Banks at Montpelier placed twenty-five thousand dollars each at the disposal of the governor to equip the troops ; at Burlington and St. Albans they offered ten per cent of their capital, and more if needed. The students of the University of Vermont and Middlebury College organized into com- panies and began to drill. Railroad and transportation companies offered their lines and boats for the gratuitous transportation of troops and munitions of war. Wherever companies were forming, the women labored to make uni- forms for the recruits.
So much for public opinion. ERASTUS FAIRBANKS The First "War Governor " of Vermont The officers of the state had not been idle. When the President called for troops Governor Fairbanks at once issued a proclamation announcing the outbreak of armed rebellion, called for a special session of the legislature, and for a regiment for immediate service.
We have seen that there was not a regiment in the state ready to march. But when the field officers of the militia met at Burlington on the 19th of the month to select the companies which should make up the first
239
THE CIVIL WAR
regiment of Vermont volunteers it was reported that eight companies-from Bradford, Brandon, Burlington, Northfield, Rutland, St. Albans, Swanton, and Wood- stock - were substantially filled and in efficient condi- tion. Other companies were in partial readiness, and preparations were everywhere being made.
The special session of the legislature had been called for the 25th of April. The members were greeted at the capitol with the roar of the two brass field- pieces which Stark had taken from the Hessians at the battle of Bennington pouring out the national salute of thirty-four guns. Within twenty-four hours both houses had passed by unanimous vote an appro- priation of one million dollars for war expenses. In forty-two hours from the time it met the legislature adjourned, with its work completed. It had passed acts providing for the organizing, arming, and equip- ping of six more regiments for two years' service - the government had called for only three months' troops - and had voted seven dollars per month pay in addition to the thirteen dollars offered by the government ; had provided for the relief of the fam- ilies of volunteers in cases of destitution, and had laid the first war tax, -ten cents on the dollar of the grand list.
This work was without precedent, and was equalled by the records of but few states. Vermont had voted for the war an appropriation of a larger sum than had been voted by any other state in proportion to the popu- lation, and had made provision for her sons and their families, which took from first to last four millions from
240
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.