USA > Vermont > A history of Vermont : with geological and geographical notes, bibliography, chronology, maps, and illustrations > Part 6
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The first step in this work was the appointment and organization in the several towns of committees of safety to provide for the defense and security of property claimed by the New York litigants. And since the cause was a general one, in a far truer sense than the cause of Massachusetts was a general one among the American colonies at the beginning of the Revolu- tion, it would be the truest and most effective economy to provide general or cooperative protection. These town committees, therefore, met to provide means for
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it, and you have the next step beyond the town meeting in state building, and that is the convention.
Since protection involves defense, and defense involves the use of force if needed to repel attack, the next step for the combining towns to take was to provide a mili- tary force. To meet this requirement you find the Green Mountain Boys, a crude military force, perhaps, raw, undisciplined, irregular, but a military force never- theless, and one that acted for the common weal.
Now let us see what we have found thus far. It is nothing less than a government in embryo, - local government in town meeting, general government in convention, standing army in the Green Mountain Boys. We must admit that it was not a highly perfected form of government. It had no constitution; it had no judi- ciary; it had not a great many things which we consider indispensable adjuncts of government to-day. But it had the things it needed, and the important point to notice is that as fast as it needed more it was developing them.
When the war of the Revolution came, as it did before this contest with New York was settled, it found the New Hampshire Grants with this simple machinery of government in good running order. Of course the Revolution brought with it new needs. All the emer- gencies of that war could not be foreseen, but it was pretty certain that the British would operate from Canada through the Champlain Valley. That alone would involve the collecting and officering of troops, the defending of frontiers, and the raising of funds for gen- eral expenses. Then, too, this was a cause of colonies, not of towns merely. The New Hampshire Grants
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must act as a unit. They must be represented as a whole, their claims reviewed, summarized, formulated, and presented to Congress. Broad provision must be made for the broad needs imposed by a national war. In short, some new body was needed of a higher grade than these committees of safety, even when they assem- bled in .general conference. Out of this need arose that series of remarkable conventions which built up out of the scattered townships of the New Hampshire Grants a strong, solidified, and stable commonwealth, the independent state of Vermont.
The work of these conventions demands a separate chapter, but this much can be noted in passing: these committees, which temporarily took the case in hand when the separate townships first felt the need of com- bined effort, yielded to the more permanent organization of the state, just as in the separate colonies similar committees, which began and worked up the Revolution, yielded their organization to that of the United States. In both cases temporary bodies carried the work on through a transition period. In both cases independ- ence brought permanent burdens which such bodies could not well carry. In both cases the functions of these temporary bodies were then merged with the functions of a permanent government. The similarity is more than analogy ; it is identity of principle.
THE "WESTMINSTER MASSACRE"
If there is any one event which illuminates the state of affairs in the New Hampshire Grants as they passed over the border line between local and national politics,
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- that is, from their own conflict with New York into the larger conflict which the colonies as a whole waged against the mother country, - that event is the episode commonly known as the " Westminster Massacre." It is an event which stands on the dim boundary between local and national interests and throws light in both directions. It was an occurrence which unified the senti- ments of the grants, intensified their opposition to New York, and roused resentment against England, under the cover of whose authority New York was acting.
It is noticeable that up to this point the controversy with New York had involved only the western part of the state. Nothing had happened on the eastern side to indicate any great interest in the question which was the all-absorbing one west of the mountains. The set- tlers in the Connecticut Valley had shown no striking zeal in espousing the cause against New York ; neither had they been of assistance to that state in upholding its authority. They were remaining quiet, and for a
good reason. Many of the grantees along the Connecti- cut River had surrendered their original charters and taken out new grants under the scal of New York. The officers of that state, therefore, had little reason to make themselves obnoxious in that vicinity ; while there was, on the other hand, no object for the settlers to provoke or participate in a quarrel with an authority which they had already recognized.
Notwithstanding this apparent absence of sympathy between the eastern and western grants on this issue in local politics, there were strong underlying ties suffi- cient to bind them closely in the greater emergency
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which was to confront the American colonies as a whole. These settlers in the Connecticut Valley had come, like the others, from Massachusetts and Connecticut. They were in close touch with their Massachusetts neighbors. They were of old Puritan stock, Protestant to the bone. When England by the " Quebec bill " legalized the Roman Catholic religion in Canada, the instincts of early Protestantism became manifest. Lieutenant Spaulding of Dummerston referred to the king as the pope of Can- ada, a remark uncomplimentary but harmless. The royal faction picked it up, however, and imprisoned Spaulding on a charge of treason, at Westminster, Oct. 28, 1774.
On the next day a majority of the excited inhabitants of Dummerston met and chose a committee of corre- spondence "to join with other towns and respectable bodies of people, the better to secure and protect the rights and privileges of themselves and fellow creatures from the ravages and embarrassments of the British tyrant and his New York and other emissaries." Notice the union of the two issues : the British tyrant and his New York emissaries are at last linked together in the public mind. The movement thus started gained such headway that a large body of men from Dummerston and the adjoining towns met, went to Westminster, opened the door of the jail, and released Spaulding from prisonment.
This brought matters to a crisis. If royal authority was to be maintained, perverters of his majesty's justice must be brought to punishment. But it so happened, opportunely for the settlers, that almost simultaneously with their action came news of that memorable meeting
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of the Continental Congress at Philadelphia on the 5th of September, which was followed by the closing of his majesty's courts throughout the land. In all the colonies except New York royal authority was almost universally suspended.
But several months were yet to elapse before the session of the Cumberland County Court at Westmin- ster, and the adherents to the royal cause were as deter- mined to hold that session as their opponents were that it should not be held. The intervening time was there- fore used by both parties in preparation. Efforts were made to dissuade the judges from holding the court, but they persisted that it should be done. Some of the people then took possession of the courthouse in order to forestall the royal party. This was on March 13, 1775.
About sunset of that day the sheriff came with the court party, armed with guns, swords, and pistols, and demanded entrance, at the same time ordering the crowd to disperse. This they refused to do unless the sheriff ordered his men to lay aside their arms. About ten o'clock that night the chief justice went into the crowd and assured them that they should hold undisputed pos- session of the building till morning, when the court would enter without arms and hear what they had to say. A considerable part of the crowd then withdrew, leaving some men on guard in the courthouse, armed with clubs.
Contrary to the declaration of the judge, the sheriff and his party approached about an hour later and again demanded entrance. When it was refused, they fired into the house. An assault was then made and the courthouse taken, with some twenty men in it who
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were not able to make their escape. These prisoners were thrown into the jail, and thither were dragged the bodies of the wounded men, among whom was a young man named William French, who was dying with five bullet holes in his body.
The men who succeeded in escaping from the court- house when the assault was made rapidly spread the news of the murder, and the next day the streets of Westminster swarmed with angry farmers. The court met in the morning, but adjourned until afternoon. That court never reassembled. The town was too hot to hold the members of the court party, and the wise ones left at once. A jury of inquest brought in a ver- dict that the man was murdered by the court party, and several officers implicated in the killing were lodged in jail at Northampton; Massachusetts. An application for their release was made by the chief justice of New York, and they were allowed to go.
These proceedings were sufficient to rouse once for all the spirit of opposition to New York on the eastern side of the mountains. In the month of April an assembly of people met at Westminster and renounced the administration of the New York government until such time as his majesty might settle the controversy and - so the petition ran - remove them from so "oppressive a jurisdiction." Eight days later the battle of Lexington was fought. His majesty had issued his last order that was ever observed by the American colonies.
Thus the settlers on the east side of the mountains were driven to make common cause with their brethren on the west against New York; thus the killing of
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William French at Westminster was the event that united the sentiments of the New Hampshire Grants and merged their issue of local politics into that of national politics ; thus the war of the Revolution was begun. The key to the whole situation lies in the fact that the royal officers who so violently took matters into their own hands at Westminster were New York officers, and that of all the northern colonies New York was the most loyal to the crown and the most lukewarm in its sympathy for the American cause.
An anonymous ballad published in 1779 shows that the affair at Westminster was worked up along with other events into popular airs to infuse a more martial spirit into the vox populi. One stanza runs :
But Vengeance let us Wreak, my Boys, For Matron, Maid and Spinster ; Whose joys are fled, whose Homes are sad, For the Youth of Red Westminster.
Above the grave of William French at Westminster was placed a stone with an inscription which reflects both the spirit and the literature of the times.
In Memory of William French Son to Mr. Nathaniel French Who Was Shot at Westminster March ye 13th 1775 by the hands of Cruel Ministerial tools of Georg ye 3d in the Corthouse at a II a Clock at Night in the 22d year of his Age.
Here William French his Body lies For Murder his blood for Vengeance cries King Georg the third his Tory crew tha with a bawl his head Shot threw For Liberty and his Countrys Good Ile Lost his Life his Dearest blood.
CHAPTER V
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
SARATOGA, August 20, 1777.
The Hampshire Grants in particular, a country unpeopled and almost unknown in the last war, now abounds in the most active and most rebellious race on the continent, and hangs like a gathering storm on my left. - Burgoyne in a private letter to Lord Germaine.
THE TAKING OF TICONDEROGA
While Vermont was fighting her way along toward independent statehood, the thirteen American colonies, joined together, fought out a quarrel with England which left them an independent nation so far as nations can be independent. This misunderstanding in the Anglo-Saxon family, which goes by the name of the American Revolution, was so much larger than the little wrangle which the New Hampshire Grants were having with New York that it completely obscured the latter for the time being. . We have come to a point, there- fore, where we shall have to turn from local politics to notice that larger question of national politics. Into the causes of the Revolution we cannot go; of its progress we can only note such parts as touch the history of our state.
After the expulsion of the French from the Cham- plain Valley, the military posts on the lake were left in the hands of the English. The situation, then, at the opening of the Revolution was this: the forts were
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garrisoned by British soldiers ; the British government possessed Canada and its resources. This military advan- tage would be used to operate upon the northern border in quelling the rebellious colonies. Along the old war route the British possessed the same facilities for bring- ing their forces into action as the French had possessed years before in operating against the English.
In New England it appeared to the leading spirits of the Revolution that the danger of a British invasion from Canada would be greatly lessened if these military posts were taken away from the British at the start, before they had been strengthened by additions to the garrison and preparations for defense. The idea was conceived in several quarters. An agent who passed through the grants on a secret mission to Canada wrote to the Boston Committee of Correspondence that such a move would be desirable, and that the Green Moun- tain Boys would undertake it. Parties in Connecticut also matured the same project and entered at once upon its execution.
After raising funds to defray the expenses of the expedition, the Connecticut patriots hastened to Ben- nington to confer with Ethan Allen. They found him enthusiastic, and preparations for the enterprise were immediately begun. In a few days Allen had at Castle- ton nearly two hundred volunteers. The Connecticut contingent had picked up some fifty men on their way to Castleton. The total number was sufficient to warrant the attempt. Presently Benedict Arnold arrived from Massachusetts, authorized by the Massachusetts Com- mittee of Safety to take charge of the expedition.
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The Green Mountain Boys preferred their own leaders, Ethan Allen and Seth Warner ; and although Arnold accompanied the expedition he was not put in command.
To gain intelligence of the conditions at the fort a spy was sent into the works. In the guise of an awk- ward farmer who wanted to be shaved, Noah Phelps passed unsuspected in and out and gained the needed information. The march was made in two detachments from Castleton to the lake. One party was sent under Major Beach through Rutland, Pittsford, Brandon, Middlebury, and Whiting, a circuit of about sixty miles, in which they gathered recruits, to Shoreham. Allen meantime marched thither the remainder of the men, going north till they struck the old military road which John Stark had worked on sixteen years before and following that toward the lake. On the evening of the 9th of May the detachments gathered by the lake oppo- site Ticonderoga, and the garrison at the old fort had not heard a whisper of the design. Two hundred and seventy men were at the water waiting to cross.
During the night, by stratagem and stealth, boats were obtained to serve as transports. Under cover of the fleeting darkness Allen embarked with about eighty men, all that the boats would carry. They landed near the fort and sent back the boats for the others. But while they waited the day began to dawn, and Allen dared to delay no longer. He called on those who would follow him to raise their muskets, and every gun went up. He turned toward the fort, guided by a young lad who had played with the boys at the garrison until he had grown familiar with every nook and corner of the
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place. Thus in the gray of the morning the little company silently advanced.
The sentry at the gate snapped his fusee at Allen, but it missed fire ; and the first warning which came to the garrison was the sound of the huzzas as the Green Mountain Boys formed in line on the parade ground within the fort, while their leader was demanding of Delaplace, the British commander, who stood half-clad at the door of his chamber, the immediate surrender of the works, " in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." 1
So in early morning on the 10th of May, 1775, without the firing of a gun or the loss of a life, Ticon- deroga was taken with its garrison and stores by the Green Mountain Boys. One writer has thus pictured the situation : " Before the members of the second Continental Congress had breakfasted the first day of their session, the key to Lake Champlain and the guns at whose bidding General Howe was to evacuate Boston the next spring had been captured by a band of back- woodsmen under the command of New York outlaws." Crown Point was taken on the same day by Seth Warner, and with it over a hundred pieces of cannon. A fleet fitted up by Arnold and Allen presently sailed down the lake and captured an armed sloop lying at St. John's. The mastery of Lake Champlain was complete.
Congress voted to pay the Green Mountain Boys for their services at Ticonderoga and recommended that a regiment be formed on the New Hampshire Grants.
1 This is the language which Allen says he used. Tradition reports another version of his words, less elegant but equally forceful.
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A convention met at Dorset in July and chose officers ; Seth Warner was made commander. Ethan Allen was taken in a premature attempt to capture Montreal and was sent in irons to England. He was later returned to New York and exchanged in 1778. Warner's regi- ment assisted in the military operations which led to the taking of Montreal after its defender, Carleton, abandoning the city to its fate, had escaped down the river by night in a canoc.
At Quebec, whither Carleton had fled, the American troops met with disaster. Then began a long retreat of the broken army back to Ticonderoga. The commander, Wooster, wrote to Warner as the army, defeated, sick with smallpox, and in the midst of a hostile country, began to withdraw :
You and the valiant Green Mountain Corps are in our neigh- borhood. . . . You all have arms and ever stand ready to lend a helping hand to your brother in distress. . . . Let the men set out at once, by tens, twenties, thirties or fifties. I am confident that I shall see you here with your men in a very short time.
He did. Warner's regiment did good service in pro- tecting the rear of the defeated and retreating army and bringing it safe to Ticonderoga.
It would be easy to overestimate the importance of the capture of Ticonderoga. About a hundred pieces of cannon, one thirteen-inch mortar, and a number of swivels were captured there, and a quantity of military stores ; but the strategic advantage which would have been gained by retaining the fort was entirely lost two years later when the American forces abandoned it on the approach of Burgoyne's army. The important fact
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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
is that the efforts of the Green Mountain Boys placed it at the disposal of the American cause to use for better or worse. The part they took in the affair proved their ability, their intrepidity, and that they were as true patriots as could be found on the continent.
The details of the campaign in the Champlain Valley for the next year we need not follow. For several months of the year 1776 there was a navy yard at each end of the lake ; the British at St. John's, the Americans at Skenesboro, each trying to outstrip the other in pre- paring a fleet which would command its waters. It was hard business building a navy on inland waters from green timber freshly cut in the forest and dragged by hand to the lake side, with no ship stores except such as could be brought from long distances over almost impass- able roads. The ship carpenters of New England were busy at the ports; naval construction without skilled help was no easy task. In this respect the British had an advantage. Six armed vessels were sent from Eng- land, brought by water to the Falls of Chambly, and those which were too large to be hauled over the rapids were taken apart and put together again above. The smaller ones were dragged up entire.
Arnold took command of the homemade American flotilla, sailed boldly down the lake toward Isle la Motte to meet the foe in October, and having met him sailed back again as fast as possible in the darkness of night, thoroughly convinced of the hopelessness of fighting a force of twice his strength. He sailed directly through the enemy's lines, in the darkness and fog, without being discovered, and the next morning was entirely out of
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sight of the British. They set out in full chase and, the wind being favorable, overtook the American fleet about noon on October 13, a few leagues from Crown Point. Finding escape as impossible as victory, with the British at his heels, Arnold ran his fleet aground at the mouth of the Otter Creek and burned the ships to the water's edge.
Delayed by the south winds, the British tardily took Crown Point, to find it only a dismantled fortress from which the Americans had moved, bag and baggage. The British commander, Carleton, then threatened Ticon- deroga. But the south wind which had so long held him back had proved a daily blessing to the fortress. The works were strengthened, and day by day reën- forcements came trooping through the forest to its defense. Two regiments were temporarily furnished by the New Hampshire Grants. After a month of recon- noitering and contemplation Carleton reembarked his army at Crown Point and sailed back to Canada.
We can sum up the whole campaign thus far by saying that in 1775 the Americans drove the British from the lake, took. Montreal, and invaded Canada as far as Quebec; while in 1776 the British drove the Americans out of Canada and as far back on the lake as Ticonderoga.
THE BATTLES OF HUBBARDTON AND BENNINGTON
In 1777 the British began a plan of campaign one part of which was to consist of gaining and occupying the two valleys of Lake Champlain and the Hudson River. By doing this they would hold an unbroken military line
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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
from Canada to New York harbor and cut off the New England colonies from the rest of the country.
This particular feature of the plan was not one which the settlers of Vermont could anticipate with any pleas- ure. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness might be seriously interfered with along the western border. The settlers of Vermont began to feel a greater common
THE SAN CROIRE MILL (LONG SINCE BURNED)) AND THE BRIDGE OVER WIIICH IIESSIANS MARCHED TO THE BATTLE OF BENNINGTON
interest with the American colonies. Their homes were again at stake. They had come from Connecticut, from Massachusetts, from Rhode Island to the grants, and had left behind them ties of blood and friendship. They possessed the same hardy traits as their kinsmen, for they were bred in the same conditions. They knew what it meant to have their independence threatened. They were essentially part and parcel of the American colonies in this cause.
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The command of that section of the British army which was to move south from Canada was given to General Burgoyne. He met with only slight opposition on Lake Champlain and took Ticonderoga without a blow. He secured there one hundred and twenty-eight pieces of cannon, besides shipping and bateaux, provisions and military stores. It is said that over seventeen hundred barrels of flour and seventy tons of salt provisions fell into the hands of the British, besides a large drove of cattle. It looked as though Burgoyne was equipped for a triumphant march through the woods to the Hudson River and so on to New York.
But on the portage from Lake George to the Hudson River luck began to turn. General Schuyler, unable to meet him on equal terms in open fighting, used every resource possible to retard his progress. He cut trees of the forest across his path ; he filled up the creeks ; he broke down the bridges; he put every conceivable obstacle in his way. It took Burgoyne fifty days to march his army seventy-five miles. The delay gave New England militiamen time to gather along the line of advance.
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