USA > Vermont > Washington County > Montpelier > Addresses delivered before the Vermont Historical Society and the Vermont Historical and Antiquarian Society > Part 2
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" My exertions were such that I was watched and way-laid night and day, by the enemy from Canada-my house rifled, papers de- stroyed, son carried captive, and maltreated, only because he was my son, and would not discover to them how his father obtained intelli- gence of their movements. To the close of the war, I was employ- ed by Washington to keep friendship with the Indians, and gain in- telligence of the enemy in Canada."
It has lately transpired that President Wheelock interceded in our behalf, with his former pupil, Brandt, the Indian chief, and that not without success. Moreover, proof is not wanting that the British Colonel Johnson was taken prisoner by John Warner, but released on condition of the ludians being restrained from Vermont. But our frontier settlements, however safe, were by no means secure,- rather out of danger than free from apprehensions. One of our bis- torians narrates a panic in Windham County ; - he might have spoken of another in Windsor County, when the inhabitants along White River fled, many of them by night, lighted by brands of fire, down the river to Lebanon .; and of another in Orange County, (4.107), when, says an eye witness, families are this moment rushing into
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Newbury, and for sixty miles they are upon a doubt whether to re- move or not.
Women yet live who can testify of such days when they lived in fear of the fate of Miss McRea, the bride of Ft. Edward, that Ger- trude of Wyoming in real life,-when every rustle of a shaken leaf seemed an Indian tread ; every tree an Indian covert-every window a mark for his rifle, every hamlet fully assured that it wassingled out, above all others, as the victim of the savage.
The relation sustained by our fathers to Indians and tories, as well as their defensive measures having been slightly noticed, and their conflicts against the British so blended with those of the Continentals, by our historians-it is not too much to say that the part Vermont, took in the military exploits of the Revolution is yet to be written.
I cannot speak as I would of the negociations with the British in Canada, which turned the last two years of the war into diplomatic intrigues, but I must not pass them unnoticed.
The right of Vermont to adopt policy for power, when Massachu- setts and New Hampshire were plotting a Poland-like partition of her territory, -- when every continental soldier turned his back upon her,-when New York had no voice save to cry confiscation, -when an army as large as Burgoyne's was concentrating against her alone, can scarcely be doubted. But for such a course, the fate of Royal- ton would have been that of all her towns.
Vermont would have yielded to Britain sooner than to New York. Some have hence taken occasion to say that Vermont was inclined to yield to Britain, as if because one evil is greater than another the less evil is a good,-as if because Andre prefered being shot to being hung we should infer that he wished to be shot.
Our historians have not failed to refute this slander. They have also related how the negotiations with Canada drove Congress to ac- knowledge the Independence of Vermont, and how they kept an army as large as Burgoyne's inactive. It might have been added, that a few soft words rendered repeated invasions, full of sound and fury, though carried as far as Burgoyne's, so fruitless, as to rssemble oceans into tempests rocked to waft a feather, or to fulfil an old say- ing in a new sense-
" The King of France with forty thousand men,
Marched up a hill and then - marched down again."
The venerable Chipman, in the life of his yet more venerable brother, has broken a lance not without a wound, though in his old age, against the assailants of our leaders in their graves. From his reasoning it seems clear, that the Vermont diplomatists never, in all the
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armistice, professed loyalty to the crown, never lifted a finger to re- concile any man to it, and that nothing has been proved against them which is inconsistent with their avowed objects, namely, to keep the British army inactive, and to prevail upon Congress to vote the ad- mission of Vermont into the Union as a 14th State. This sort of negative defence of the Green Mountain Chiefs is enough for their acquital. Another may be made of a more positive character by means of documents to which our historians do not seem to have had access.
Years before, charges of toryism were brought against Vermont by those who were not authorized to cast the first stone, and whose principal reason for thinking her tory wasthat they had done so much to make her so.
Our truce with Canada was rather a help than a hindrance to the last great struggle of the war-the operations against Cornwallis. It was either unknown to Washington or understood by him to be a political manœuvre. In the midst of the armistice he wrote to Stark, commander in the northern department: "I doubt not that your requisitions to call forth the force of the Green Mountains will be attended with success." Requisitions, remember, to defend New York, their bitterest foe. Stark's reply was, that his requisitions were attended with success,-that upon a sudden alarm five hundred and fifty mounted men from Vermont joined his troops in a few hours. Near the beginning of the armistice Schuyler had written to Wash ington : " It is believed, that large offers have been made the Hamp- shire Grants, but that nothing will induce the bulk of them to desert the common cause."
Washington was privy to the secret policy of Vermont for some time-probably more than a month-before the surrender of Corn- wallis. This fact, stated but by one of our historians, seems to have been discredited by all the rest. It is established by a letter, long given up for lost, (but recently discovered, ) and so alluded to by our historians as to excite suspicions that they had never seen it. Wash- ington, therefore, does not appear to have been perplexed by a Brit- ish officer's apology for killing a Vermonter in a skirmish -- an apolo- gy which enraged Gen. Stark and filled Vermont itself from side to side, with a tempest of indignation.
The only evil suggested by Washington as resulting from our di_ plomatic intercourse with the British was encouraging them to over- rate the proportion of tories antong us. But what was this encour- agement to that they would have taken from the conquest of Ver- mont, which, but for being amused with hopes, they would have ac-
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complished ? The one wns shadow the other substance. The height of their expectation was not greater than the depth of their disap- pointnient.
The only remaining charge seems to be that our cabinet acted with .bad faith toward the British. But, as the British were the chief suf- ferers by our policy, they would have been first to ery treason had there been any treason. They seem to have viewed themselves as worsted by their own weapon, diplomatic finesse. The falsehoods told them were not palpable, and will be judged tenderly by those who hold stratagems are lawful in war, and that it cannot be wrong to deceive him whom it is right to kill. The Governor of Canada not discouraged by failures, continued this pen and ink warfare, more years than 'Troy was beseiged, and even sent to Burlington an envoy, who is plausibly supposed to have been bis late Majesty, George the Fourth.
Was it not then worth while for our leaders to make themselves of no repuation for a time, that without drawing a sword, without thwarting the plans of Washington, without injustice even to our ene- mies, they might avert the extremest peril? Luther's words were half battles, theirs were more.
In all our Histories there is a lack of characteristic minutice. We ask for face-to-face details, we receive far off generalties " where eve- ry something being blent together turns to a wild of. nothing."
Seemingly trifling particulars catch our eyes as we gaze at a land- scape ; they affect the eye-witnesses of events-they bring the light of other days around us as we listen to the narrative of old age ;-- they are the sparkiing fountains-abstractions are the vapid stream.
Some writers may have neglected such fragments, deeming it be- neath the dignity of history to stoop and gather them, as if history like the Pope was never to be seen except gorgeous with trailing robes, or were to represent nations, as some picture books represent kings wearing crowns and holding sceptres-even in bed. So far as the suppression of picture-like details has been a sin of ignorance, it is to be winked at, but not if it has proceeded from scorning them as nothing worth. Which of our historians might not profitably copy the following account of the evacuation of Ticonderoga, albeit it fell from the lips of a negro :-
" About 11 o'clock on Saturday night, orders were given by our Colonel to parade. We immediately obeyed. He then ordered our tents struck and carried to the battery. Ou doing this, the orders were to take up our packs and march, which we also did, passed the
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General's house on fire, marched 20 miles without a halt, and then had a brush with the enemy."
How shall history hold the mirror up to nature if not by giving us the very words of the actors in bye gone times? Things cannot in- deed be all described, then the world would not contain the books which would be written, but those parts, the least as well as the great- est, should be sought out, which most nearly produce the effect of the whole.
If the ballad writer be as influential as the legislator, why should our historians with one consent, refuse us, even in their notes and appendixes, a single specimen of the popular songs, the Marsailles hymns,-indicted by Rowley and others-sung at the crisis of our destiny.
Can we learn as much in regard to common schools at an early day from any of our histories, as from a single remark made to me by a woman, who had no thought of telling any great thing, that in the winter of 1780, her brother kept a school in one of the two rooms in his fathers log house in Sharon, there being then twenty-eight fami- lies in town and that there was no school for five winters afterwards! Only two of the sixty-eight settlers in Bennington made their mark ; all of the 1006 petitioners to King George wrote their names, and Elkins, a boy from Peacham, when a prisoner in England, receiving a shilling a week from Dr. Franklin, paid out four coppers of it for tuition ..
Do not facts like these throw light upon the popular intelligence and desire of knowledge?
What incident in our histories shows the inspiriting effect of the Bennington battle so strikingly as a trifle they all omit,-a rumor which straight way ran through New Hampshire, that Burgoyne himself was taken at Stillwater,-coming events cast their shadows before.
I would not willingly be ignorant that in 1764 there were only about 100 families between the mountains and the river-that a post-boat from Canada was taken soon after the seizure of Ticonderoga-that an express could be sent from Newbury to Boston in three days, can- non from Lake George to the same place in seventeen days-that the Vermont uniform was green with red facings-that rum even when it rose to $96, continental money, a gallon, was dealt out in the ra- tions,-that Allen gave Warner 400 acres of land for cutting off the ear of a Yorker-that each Vermonter after the Bennington battle received $5 plunder money. Each of these trifles is a little window through which we can look into the distant past.
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The little said in our historie, in relation to religion, tends to dis- prove the assertion of Dr. Dwight, that "our first settlers were chiefly universalists and infidels." There is much to disprove it in the fol- lowing details. Orthodox ministers were carly settled ju most towns; sermons longer than we can bear, and as searching were preached at the opening of every State Convention and As anbly ;-- requests for prayers abound in letters,-pamphlets then printed have beyond alli comparison more allusions to the bible tima to all other books togeth- er. When one would put General Bailey on his guard against tory liers-in-wait, he dropped in his path a paper with these words on it, " The Philistines he upon thee Samson."
The word of God was the law-book for all cases falling under no statute, and sentences were given according to its enactments. Where there was no church or preacher, meetings were held under trees and in private houses: such an assemblage delayed one day the burning of Royalton. My grand mother used to tell mne that during the battle of Bennington, she and many others were met for prayer within the sound of cannon.
Our writers have not enough availed themselves of vivid particulars by way of indirect description.
What can give us a better idea what a long struggle was expected when hostilities began, or how our people rushed to the war, than these words, written one week after the bloodshed at Lexington from that quarter to this. " For heaven's sake, pay the closest attention to sowing and planting ; do as much of it as possible, not for your own families merely. Do not think of coming down country to fight." What can draw and color more to the life the want of all things use- ful in war, during Burgoyne's invasion than those words of Stark, written at his quarters on the Connecticut :
" I am informed that the enemy have left Castleton and have an in- tent to march to Benaington. We are detained here a good deal for bullet moulds, as there is but one pair in town, and the few balls sent on by the State go but a little way iu supplying the whole."
One pair of bullet moulds! a light visible result significant of how many things not so visible.
Such incidents, like the rude strokes in charcoal-sketches, produce more effect than many elaborate line engravings.
The impressiveness of our history is weakened because a thousand petty circumstances are scattered here and there through a Gazetteer or through voluminous documents -- sometimes in widely sundered ar- chives, like the elementary constituents of Mosaic work instead of
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being filly framed together into a life-like picture, as those of the French Revolution have been by Carlyle.
The heroic deeds of our forefathers seem not to have been apprecia- ted; sometimes they are mentioned as things of course, or unmention. ed by our writers, though they are not a whit behind the chiefist deeds mian can boast.
Luther when the Pope burned his books, burned the Pope's bull. In what did he surpass Allen's retorting the setting a price on his head by New York, with setting a price on the head of a New York dignitary ?
At Bennington, a Green Mountain Boy struck a Hessian officer's sword from his hand with a stick, and forced him to make his file of men lay down their arms. How few know that hero's name !
We shall always remember two men that swam the ifellespont,- the one from vanity, the other for personal gratification of another sort. We are in danger of forgetting a citizen of our own who swam as broad a strait at Ticonderoga, at midnight, threading his way through a hostile fleet, not for himself but for his country, -Richard Wallace-worthy to bear the name of him of Scotland, and to be equalled with him in renown.
I have sometimes thought our writers partienlarly oblivious of fe- male heroism as displayed in our history.
A French maid of honor who lost her arm by foolishly thrusting it in place of a door-bar to protect her queen, is culogised. A woman of Vermont suffered the same loss, defending her husband, with the first weapon that offered against midnight kidnappers, and is passed over in silence.
French women are praised for digging and trundling barrows to rear a monument of national fickleness. The similar labors of Ver- mont women striving to take the places of their husbands who were dying in battle are more than half forgotten.
It is recorded in Scottish history that Knox's daughter would rath- er see him beheaded and catch her head in her apron, than have him turn papist. It is not recorded in our history what Vermont mother used her apron to staunch the blood of her wounded son, when both of them still every moment were expese.l to be scalped.
None of our histories mention the name of Hannah Handy, whose entreaties rescued not only her own children but seven of her neigh- bor's children from going into captivity, after they had been already taken over White River, and who dared to cross that river on the back of an Indian, that she might bring back her jewels. . Yet was she a heroine before finding a parallel for whom we shall search long.
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But as anneelotes of Allen were eagerly coveted in his life time by distinguished Frenchmen, as we are learning that our enrled maple and walnut may compare with mahogany, and that our marbles may vie with those of Carrara, which some have crossed an ocean to vis. it, so let us believe that heroes and heraires may not always be withoat honor in their own country, and in ours. Such seem speci- meus of the cardinal deficiencies in our histories as to our part in our histories of the Revolution, including our conflicts and our negocia- tions with the British, as to miunte details, and as to our heroes and heroines.
These deficiences, and countless others in relation to topics on which I have no time to touch, have not only been clearly detected by our President, but his thors have aceninlated materials for supplying very mmy of them. He has gathered together fragments from lake to river, from Massachusetts to Canada, -he has spent three months together in the collections of sister states, or of the general govern- ment ; he has secured correspondeds in Canada, and in the person of his son, he has broken through the Chinese wall of English exclu- siveness, -he has found laws and journed, of the Legislature that had been given up for last-he has doubled Thompson's list of Ver- mont books before its admission to the Union,- - he has saved letter. by thousands that were ready to perish, and that east each its ray vil the dark past. He has recently al led a third to the ponderous tomes obtained of him by the State two years ago-he has collected anto- graphs, not to see which with more pleasure man Napoleon's world cast unittous conjecture du your patriotism, written in such a hand as was to be expected fon pioagers, bat shoo would look on letters of gold with half the pleasure?
Are all desiderata then supplied by the collections of our President ? By no means. Properly speaking he has had to do with only one de- partment-military operations -- and that during the Revolution. We ought to be thankful that he has magalited in office, yet not forget- ful that he has exhausted none of the mines of investigation. A bar- rel full of papers left by the most interesting millitary characteter in our annals lies beaded up and unexamined to this day.
The collections of other societies and public offices, whether state, national or foreign, remain to be examined or re-examined. The papers of every man mentioned in our history are to be sought for, and in this search the name of every such man may prove a guide useful as a clue in a labyrinth. We must suck for sermons, histories, and biographics, hoards of newspapers, of those thrown away like autumnal leaves, journals in manuscript, letters sent out of the State
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to those from whom the settlers came forth. A rich mine of these is doubtless still unopened, for, among hundreds I have examined, I have discovered only two addressed to women, and none-no not one -written by a woman. But were not woman in those days ready writers even as now? Proverbially the best letter-writers in all oth- er countries, were they found wanting here ? Did not their letters paint the lights and shades of life in this new State, as they have since portrayed western clearing's, as those of busy men, less keen-eyed for the picturesque and trivint could not, or did not?
Other sources of historical thets will also be opened to us by lueky accidents, too various to be described or to strange to be predicted. The gems of sister societies were sometimes found where least looked for. The original of the world-famed ( English) Magna Charta was found in the hands of a tailor, who was just ready to ent it up for patterns. One of the most ancient and valuable maps of New Hampshire, when it extended to the lake, was discovered in a store- house where a pedler had hit it when he removed his rags, either through accident, or judging it not worth taking away.
What has been will be.
If such a list of questions as that prepared by the Massachusetts society were circulated throughout Vermont, township by township, beyond a doubt many early laws and journals of the Legislature, long ago given up as irrecoverably lost, as well as much equally valuable and more curious information concerning Town Committees and Committees of Safety, those cradles of our independance, lacking links of every sort in the chains of our annals, might be rescued from oblivion.
No doubt the drag-net of our research will gather of every kind. Criticism must therefore have its perfeet work, in separating the pre- cious from the vile. The mass of material ranst also be classified according to their nature, the time to which they relate, the place where they were found, or the purposes for which they may be em- ployedl.
Many explanatory notes must be appended to the collections made hy our President, or what is a plain path to him will appear to those who shall come after, " a mighty maze and all without a plan."
'The fruits of our historical harvests and gleanings ought also to be garnered up in a chief place of concourse, instead of the corner where they are now secluded,-even as the treasures of other states are honored with archives in Boston, Hartford, Concord, New York and Washington.
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How beautiful thus to have a section of the past brought safe into the present and set down before our eyes !
Arrangements are making for publishing the earliest annals of our fathers. I trust such a publication will soon take away our reproach of being the only State which has had a Society for a series of years and yet published nothing, as if our investigations were labor lost, or were to be hidden in the chaos of a Museum.
The " Historical readings," published in the State Banner, were well received. Let us have more of them, a hundred fold. Let our printers whose types preserve knowledge, bring forth things old us well as new.
What is of more interest than a town history-to each man that of his own town? No where in Europe did I seek without finding one. How long shall we desire such histories in vain? What true patriot loves not his own village?
Who can doubt the capacity of our primitive period to furnish an anthology of incidents suited for a reading book in connnon schools! Such a book would have a greater charm for children than things far off and long ago. It might develope a spirit of research which must otherwise perish in cuibryo. Many an unique document which now appears to them as worthless as the jewel seemed to the barn-yard fowl, it might lead them to appreciate so that they would say, destroy it not, for a blessing is it.
The only incident relating to our history, I remember in my school books, is Howe's captivity, and that was in a book long since anti- quated. Is there nothing, theu, in our history such that we may fitly tell in the ears of our sons, and teach it dilligently to our sons sons!
As a means of securing the ends now suggested we may rejoice that we have a State Society, albeit as some think, it has but a name to live. Should we dispise its low estate, knowing that all beggin- nings are small? Will it not be a rallying point, way a magnet at- tracting to itself and binding in union all congenial spirits however scattered abroad? Is it not suited to be their organ of communica- tion with those like minded elsewhere? Will it not increase their zeal, by kindling mutual emulation and by so dividing labors that each man shall have an octhe in keeping with his taste and opportu- nities. What better expedient can be devised to keep historical in- quiries before the people, as well as to secure the cooperation and contributions of their thousand hands?
Is it not a nucleus, a resevoir into which rivulets without number, invaluable for its purposes though valuless as to all others, will natu- rally flow?
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Is it not a company for mutual insurance-not against fire-but against a loss which can never, by any possibility be repared ?
An association, of such a nature and of such aims, should coul- mend itself to us all.
Statesmen! Among your motives to scorn delights and live labo- rions days is the hope to leave a name that men shall not willingly let die-can you be indifferent to what concerns the memory of your predecessor ? Do to them as ye would that posterity should do to you.
Politicians! Will you not welcome our Society, as a little sanetua- ry where no war-whoop of party can be heard, -where the interests of all parties are one. Ifyou look to dollars auml cents, are research- es to be sneered at, which by the papers of a single family have oh- rained nine pensions, and which may yet substantiate our claim to millions from the national treasury ?
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