USA > Vermont > Windham County > Brattleboro > Brattleboro, Windham County, Vermont; early history, with biographical sketches of some of its citizens > Part 14
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to be extant. It belonged to one of the original subscribers, manager of the Bos- ton Theatre, by him given to Joseph T. Buckingham, the editor, and by him given to Gen. John S. Tyler, the present owner.
Wignell, to whom the author gave the copyright, was a comic actor of some celebrity. He sustained the character of Jonathan, both in New York and Mary- land.
It has, as was then customary, a list of the subscribers. This is headed by the hon- ored name of George Washington, Presi- dent of the United States, followed by the names of most of the marked men of that epoch : Aaron Burr, H. Knox, Carroll, of Carrollton, Mifflin, President of the State of Pennsylvania, Chief Justice Mckean, Att'y Edmund Randolph, Baron Steuben and others.
The prologue, said to be written by a young gentleman of New York, opens:
" Exult each patriot heart! this night is shown A piece which we may fairly call our own ! Where the proud titles of "My Lord," "Your Grace,"
To humble " Mr " and plain " Sir,"give place, Our author pictures not from foreign climes, The fashions, or the follies of the times ; But has confined the subject of his work
To the gay scenes, the circles of New York. * * * * * *
Should rigid critics reprobate our play, At least the patriot heart will say: Glorious our fall, since in a noble cause, The bold attempt alone deserves applause."
[Following the prologue is a full report of the play from page 70 of memoir. ]
Mr. Tyler also wrote a farce under the title of "May Day in Town," which was brought out, at the same time, as an after- piece with unusual success. He was pet- ted, caressed, feasted and toasted, and no doubt lived too freely. After his return he rusticated with his mother again, a wid- ow living at Jamaica Plain, and after a few visits of condolence, we learn no more of him for four or five years. Why it was we could not discover, but his spirits seemed greatly depressed. In the spring of 1790, Mr. Palmer removed from Boston onto a farm in Framingham, Mass., and during the summer Mr. Tyler called upon them there, being on a horseback journey to Vermont, where, as he informed Miss
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Mary, he had determined to start anew in life, leaving his mother in the care of his brother, John, and relinquishing the Bos- ton property for her use and support.
It seems to us now rather difficult to con- ceive what sufficient motive could have in- duced Royall Tyler to leave Boston, where he had family and business connection and a wide reputation, both professional and literary, for the wilds of Vermont. There may have been matters of personal feeling, of which, in the entire absence of any let- ter, or other document of that date, we cannot judge, but the "new State" cer- tainly presented peculiar attractions at this time. During the war of independence it had maintained a double contest, against Great Britain and New York. It had paid its soldiers mostly 'in kind' and had not, like other States, contracted heavy debts.
Taxes promised to be light, land was cheap and much of it good. The difficul- ties which had beset the territory for nearly. half a century, were all removed by the act of Congress, "that on the 4th day of March, 1791, the said State of Vermont shall be re- ceived in this union as a new and entire member of the United States of America."
It had been manifest for several years that this must be the result, and there had been a large immigration, especially from Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Nor did this consist wholly of hard working farmers. Throughout the State were scattered many men of wealth, enter- prise and culture, with whom Mr. Tyler was already acquainted. Wherever he at- tended sessions of the courts, he was wel- comed, not only by able lawyers, but by a circle of wits and scholars, with whom his rare gifts of genius rendered him a univer- sal favorite.
In the summer of 1790, Mr. Tyler visited Vermont, probably for the first time since the Shay's affair. This time he ascended the valley of the Connecticut to Windsor, where the Supreme Court was in session. In January following, he established him- self in the middle of the town of Guilford, Windham County.
This township had had a singular history. Chartered in 1754, by New Hampshire, it afterwards threw off allegiance to that col- ony, and refusing submission to Vermont, became in effect an independent republic.
The liberty its citizens enjoyed proved so attractive to settlers, that it soon became the most populous town in the State. So it was when Mr. Tyler selected it as his res- idence. "Yet," says Thompson, in his Gazetteer of Vermont, "there was not a single village in the township, or rather the whole township was a village, all the hills and valleys were smoking with huts." At the centre, however, in 1791, a small ham- let with meeting-house, tavern, store and shops had sprung up. Rev. Mr. Woollage was the Congregational minister, Edward and James Houghton the merchants, with cultivated families, and here Royall Tyler established himself as the lawyer of the place.
In a small account book, he kept during this year, the first entry is Jan. 15th; from the charges it appears his practice rapidly extended through the county. He attend- ed the courts not only of Windham, but the adjoining counties. In Bennington, during the summer, 1792, he renewed many of his former acquaintances, and after the adjournment of court, drove down into Berkshire County, Mass., to visit at Stock- bridge his friend Judge Sedgewick.
Another attraction doubtless led him in this direction, and induced him to continue his journey to New Lebanon, N. Y. His steadfast friend and devoted admirer, Mary Palmer, whom, not improbably, he already hoped to make his wife, was spending the year there with a brother of her mother. She was now seventeen, and unquestion- ably was a very lovely and beautiful girl. It required much explanation of bygone relationships to convince the uncle and aunt of the propriety of Miss Mary's warm greeting of a fashionable gallant.
Uncle Hunt had heard of Royall Tyler, as a gay young man and author of the "Contrast," a play in which he greatly de- lighted, and after the visit he seldom sat down at home without bringing out a print- ed copy and reading from it, till his wife de- clared she almost knew it by heart.
Mr. Tyler returned to Guilford and at- tended the fall sessions of the courts. The next winter he made his promised visit to his friends, the Palmers, in Fram- ingham, with a fine pair of black horses, which, with his accustomed facetiousness, he had named "Crock and Smut." He
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now acknowledged to Miss Mary, who had returned home, that since he saw her at her uncle's he had determined in his own mind that it was quite indispensable to his happiness that she should become his wife. He did not ask for any set time; he must prepare a cage before he took his bird, and he had a prospect of obtaining a house in the spring, but some time must elapse be- fore it could be finished and furnished.
No stage lines were as yet established, and all travel was by horseback in summer and sleighing in winter.
Mr. Tyler left his affianced bride and re- turned to his clients in Vermont. It ap- pears from his docket at the June term of 1793, he had 62 cases, 32 new entries. November term, 48 entries, 22 new ones. An extensive and growing practice, with a reputation for literary ability already es- tablished; gifted with remarkable powers as an orator, overflowing with wit and humor, genial and social, his acquaintance soon extended throughout the State. It is the universal testimony of his cotempo- raries, that no one ever acquired more rapidly the love and confidence of the peo- ple generally, or of the members of the bar.
1
The intercourse between the towns on the opposite sides of the Connecticut was constant and intimate, and Mr. Tyler's practice extended into New Hampshire. It chanced on one occasion about Christ- mas time, he was attending court at Charlestown, the Episcopal parish there was vacant, and some of the lawyers, hav- ing heard that he had written sermons for the Guilford people on one occasion of the minister's absence, he was strongly urged by bench and bar to conduct church ser- vice on the ensuing Sunday, and also on Christmas day. Both his reading of the service and the sermons were greatly ad- mired. In narrating this incident he was wont to say, "After this I was strongly urged to turn my thoughts to the Church and prepare to take orders, being assured that I had mistaken my vocation, that it was my bounden duty to turn my talents that way, etc., and it would have been rest to my soul, at that time, had I dared, but a consciousness of having lived too gay a life in my youth, made me tremble lest I should in some way bring disgrace upon the sacred cause."
It was at Charlestown that he formed the acquaintance of Joseph Dennie, [spicy letters in correspondence between Tyler and Dennie, on 90 to 92 pages of Memoir, ] who became his most intimate friend. Thomas and Carlisle had established a magazine at Walpole, which had now taken the name of "The Farmer's Weekly Museum, or the New Hampshire and Ver- mont Journal," on which Dennie was em- ployed, first as contributor and afterwards as editor. The success of this periodical was unprecedented. "Dennie," says Jos- eph T. Buckingham in his reminiscences, " was aided in his task as editor, by Royall Tyler, then a lawyer in Guilford, Vt., who furnished all those agreeable and hunor- ous articles, purporting to come from the shop of Messrs. Colon and Spondee. For three years succeeding this arrangement the Museum had no rival. Its circulation extended from Maine to Georgia, and it was more richly supplied with original communications of a literary character than any other paper that had then, or has since, been published in the United States." These contributions to the Museum were to Mr. Tyler a mere amusement of leisure moments, the outcome and overflow of an exuberance of wit and humor. He had however planned and was engaged upon works of a more serious import.
He had secured and furnished a house in Guilford. Twice during the summer he visited his wife and boy. (Royall Tyler and Miss Palmer were married in Framing- ham.) The young husband at Guilford waited anxiously for the sleighing, then indispensible for the transportation of ladies, children and baggage.
The winter proved mild, nor was it till February that Master Hampden, (Mrs. Tyler's brother, H. Palmer, a law student with Tyler,) drove "Crock and Smut" once more into the farm-yard at Framing- ham. All was now hurry and bustle to start for home, in horrible dread of a thaw. which might postpone Vermont house- keeping for yet another year. All went well, with bright, cool weather and capital roads, they drove the first day 30 miles. the third brought them home in the eve- ning. They crossed the Connecticut on the ice near the site of old Fort Dummer, and stopped for supper at Squire Howe's. at Vernon. This man was a baby at the
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time of the massacre by the Indians, dur- ing the French war. His father was killed and the whole family carried captives to Canada. They were subsequently ran- somed. [See history of Vernon, to follow. ED. ] The mother, known in story as "the fair captive," who married Amos Tute, was now once more a widow, and residing with her son, the squire. She was, of course one of the celebrities of the country, and the travelers enjoyed not only a good fire and a substantial supper, but an ac- count from the heroine's own lips of the terrible sufferings of that march through the woods to Quebec. As they made their way over the Guilford hills, Mr. Tyler de- scribed to his wife the society to which he was about to introduce her. "Open, hos- pitable and friendly, they have no distinc- tion among them," he said. "If they have a social party the whole neighborhood are invited. We have two merchants, the Messrs. Houghtons, two physicians, Dr. Stevens and Dr. Hyde, one lawyer, your humble servant, all men of education, and their wives and families well-bred country people. There are several well-to do me- chanics who aim to treat company equally well. In fact, my dear, you will find it a truly primitive state of society and if you have any adequate idea of the heartless- ness of the world in general, you will re- joice in the friendly simplicity of these people, among whom I have spent three or four of the happiest years of my life, and I rely upon you to continue and even to add to the high opinion they have formed of me."
Mrs. Tyler was received with open- hearted kindness by the neighbors around her first Vermont home, forming devoted friendships which continued unbroken, till one by one they have all passed away.
It will be noticed that in his comic grammar, [we refer for explanation to the correspondence with Joseph Nancreed, in Memoir,] Mr. Tyler anticipated by more than half a century, the comic histories and comic Blackstones, with which we have been surfeited during the last twenty years.
" You are a thorough grammarian, but did you ever see an amusing, sportive, en- tertaining grammar? Did you ever laugh over a conjunction copulative, weep over
a gerund, and have all your best passions called forth by an interjection? I must tell you about this business.
In the beau pursuits of early life, it was necessary that I should teach grammar to a young lady. But the pretty Miss had contracted an aversion to everything that savored of study and science. She did not lack intellect, and to amuse her into reading was the great object. I accord- ingly wrote a grammar in usum puellæ, and being forwarded in twelve letters, folded as billet doux, she condescended to read. To give you some idea of the work-the fundamental rules were illustrated by ex- amples from the most approved and enter- taining English authors, and sometimes by stories of my own. A lover at the feet of his mistress, gave a passionate example of interjection; a lady crowned her favored lover's virtuous wishes in the passive voice, and dismissed an unsuccessful ad- mirer in the imperative mood. Thus every rule of syntax was associated with some pleasing anecdote, brilliant quotation, or quaint observation, which familiarized the stubborn rule to a mind open only to the amusing and pleasing; or, in the style of Fontaine, "thus the thorn of science was decorated with the roses of fancy."
Doubtless this work would need much emendation, but I believe it practicable to edit a grammar which shall be read."
· The first draught, retained by Mr. Tyler, from which this copy is made, thus sud- denly ends, and with it this entertaining if not important correspondence. With equal suddenness, Nancrede, either by death, or failure, (as tradition states) dis- appears from our view. . (Nancrede was a publisher of books in Boston. As the long correspondence of Tyler with him throws considerable light upon the doings of Mr. Tyler, we regret that we cannot give it entire.) After repeated volleys of wit and argument, some more or less satisfactory adjustment of the old quarrel of author and printer would probably have been reached, between the courteous knights of the pen and of the press.
When Mr. Tyler's location in Guilford was made, it was the most populous town in the State; but already Brattleboro be- gan to give some faint promise of becom- ing the business place of the county. The following letter describes the new home:
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"BRATTLEBORO, March 18, 1801.
* **
Here we are in quiet and com- plete possession of our new farm,* after a most fatiguing fortnight of moving, and to add to our fatigue, the baby and little Mary have both been very sick. The lat- ter was so indisposed, when we removed, that it was thought to be accompanied by some risque, even by her physician; but the earnest wish of all the family, and the dread of the snow leaving us, over- came all apprehensions, and on the 3d inst. we came here bag and baggage. The children are now so far recovered as to al- low us, for the first time, to hunt up our writing materials and address a line to you, who, next to ourselves, we apprehend will enter most fully into our enjoyments. If I had Sophia's tongue, or Mary's enthu- siasm, I might give you a description of this farm in some measure equal to their ideas of it; but as the purchasing of a farm is entirely Mary's, and I have some fears of our success in yeomanry, I can- not write with the spirit, the subject, they suppose, merits; so you will look for the raptures and the beauties from them, while I detail you a little homespun fact. The farm we have purchased is in a retired spot, upon the brow of a large hill, about one mile, as the road goes, from the [West] Brattleboro meeting-house; though we have a shorter cut through our own grounds, which reduces the distance half. The farm consists of about 150 acres, the greatest part of which-indeed, upward of an hundred acres is well fenced and under good improvement. We have wheat and rye now in the ground, springing up as the snow leaves it, and promising a suf- ficiency of those grains for our bread and pies. We have two large orchards, and two smaller ones coming on, and expect to make some 50 or 60 barrels of cider; and, in a few years-as the orchards are young and thrifty-we may reasonably expect to make 100 barrels per year. We have plenty of good pasturing and expect to cut hay enough to winter 30 head of cattle. Our neighbor, Mr. Peck, takes the farm, at present, at halves, and, with
his family, has removed to our farm-house, about a quarter of a mile from us.
Mrs. Peck is an excellent dairywoman, 1 and he is a regular farmer. He has a hired man with him, and I have hired a young man, active and stout, who in busy sea- sons will assist Mr. Peck, so that without reckoning boys and extra help, we shall always have three stout men for farming work. With the farm, we purchased farm- ing tools, young cattle, hogs, poultry and 23 sheep, who have now increased the flock by 8 lambs; and it would amuse you to see Sophia and the children surrounded with sheep, lambs, geese, turkeys and hens, feeding them from their hands.
The house is entirely secluded from a view of any neighbors; though on the crown of a hill it is yet in a hollow. but the necessary buildings around it give it the air of being a little neighborhood: a large barn and shed, corn-barn, chaise- house, smoke-house, ash-house, etc.
The house is somewhat similar to Judge Jones, in Hinsdale, which I think you ob- served, an upright part with a handsome portico, two handsome front rooms, well finished, papered and painted; and two handsome chambers over them; back, is a sitting room and by the side of it a room for my office, which has a door into the sitting-room and another out of doors, so that ingress may be had independent of the house; back of the sitting-room a good kitchen, from whence you go into two bed- rooms, one for the boys, and the other for the maids, and overhead a meal granary; and over the sitting-room an apartment for our hired man and boy; back of the kitch- en is a long wood-house, about 20 feet of which makes a summer wash-room, and here stands the water-trough, constantly supplied with plenty of excellent water. In front of the house is a fruit garden, peaches, plums, etc., but the former will not bear until next year.
On one side of the house is a kitchen garden, with a good asparagus bed and plenty of currants, red, white and black, and large English gooseberries, on the other side is a flower garden.
Next the house runs a small brook, on the other side of which is a grass plot set out with young fruit trees, chiefly plums. We have on the place a plenty of common cherry trees and four fine blackheart cher-
*The place now owned (1878) and occu- pied by Gilbert Smith, Esq., on the hill where was built the first meeting-house in this town.
F
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ry trees near the front windows. We have also, pear trees and peach trees which bear, and quince bushes. On the place we may gather cartloads of chestnuts, no wal- nuts, but a sufficiency of butternuts. In a word, if one can love a retired farmer's life, here you may have it to perfection.
For all we live down, or rather up a lane, you will scarcely see three persons pass in as many days. We cannot see a single house, even from our chamber win- dows, not even our farm-house, but that is prettily situated; there you may see perhaps 30 houses, and if we climb our orchard we can see the country 30 miles around.
I think this place may be made com- fortable and even pleasing, but the house can never be made to look handsome, that is, on the outside, within, to be sure, if we shut the windows, or look into the garden, it does tolerably, but the house is in a hol- low, and a house in a hole cannot look well from abroad, but then it is a home and has a thousand pleasant things, fruitful fields, and delicious fruits about, thrown together higgledy, piggledy."
By this removal his ten years residence in Guilford ended. They had now four children, Royall, about six years old, John S., four. Mary, two, and Edward, an in- fant.
Mrs. Tyler's brother, John Hamden Pal- mer, had been, until now, a member of the family, but was about this time admitted to the bar and settled at Woodstock. Her youngest sister, Sophia, aged 14, had been virtually adopted as a daughter. For a year or more, John Tyler, his nephew, had been a student in his office, but had aban- doned the law for what proved a very suc- cessful business in Boston. He had also, although secretly, as a student, the Rev. Mr. Wollage, whose temper he had former- ly ruffled by invading his pulpit. This gentleman was admitted to practice, and afterwards oscillated once or twice between the two professions, sacred and profane.
Three new judges were appointed for the Supreme Court, October 1801, but they were not selected on account of their polit- ical opinions, but on account of their sup- posed qualifications for the office. Those thus elected by ån adverse Legislature were Jonathan Robinson, Royall Tyler and Stephen Jacob-Robinson being the Chief Justice.
As District Attorney for Windham County, Mr. Tyler had been obliged to at- tend the Legislature, and had thus extend- ed his acquaintance through the State. His practice also had taken him to the courts of nearly every county. His legal reputation and the peculiar charm of his manners no doubt led to this result.
The same judges were re-elected in the fall of 1802. The constant intercourse of a year had already induced between them a remarkable degree of intimacy and per- sonal regard. There seems to be some- thing in the brotherhood of the bench singularly conducive to such sentiments, and in their case there was much previous antagonism and preconceived distrust to be overcome. Jacob, indeed, had long been a friend of Judge Tyler, having often en- tertained him as a guest when attending courts at Windsor. With the Chief Jus- tice, on the contrary, he had had, before they met upon the bench, but a slight ac- quaintance, and they were for different reasons, more or less unfavorably prepos- sessed in regard to each other. Mr. Tyler, probably, shared the prejudices of his friend, Gov. Tichenor. They had, more- over, belonged to the opposing political parties at a time when party spirit ran so high as to be a serious bar to social inter- course and to a just mutual appreciation. Robinson had long known of him as the writer in "The Farmer's Museum," of sat_ irical poems, pointed epigrams and polit- ical squibs against the Republicans; but more than all this, being himself a strict religionist of the Calvanistic and Hopkin- sian school, he had been led to regard Mr. Tyler as a man of the world, unregenerate, and in short, "little better than one of the wicked." When brought together, how- ever, in their present close relations, they found each other as good men often do in such cases, so far from antipathetic, that they coalesced at once, forming a friend- ship for life. The Chief Justice retained his office until, in 1807, he was elected to the Senate of the United States. While he was in Washington they corresponded con- stantly, and in one of his letters the Sena- tor refers to their early prejudices against each other, how soon they passed away, and related an incident of the religious discussions into which they fell during their early intimacy. One of the points of
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Hopkinsianism that had been much de- bated between them, was the alleged neces- sity, as evidence of regeneration, that one should be willing to be lost eternally if it were for the glory of God.
Judge Tyler, detained from court on one occasion, wrote to Judge Jacob and re- quested him to inform the Chief Justice " that he really began to hope that he had made some little spiritual progress; for, although he could not honestly say that he was willing to be damned himself, even if it were needful for the glory of the Al- mighty, yet he believed that by great ef- fort he had nearly or quite attained to a sincere willingness that in such an exigency Bro. Robinson should be damned."
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