USA > Vermont > Early history of Vermont, Vol. I > Part 12
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Governor Clinton, on Sept. 27, 1782, addressed a letter to the New York adherents in Cumber- land County, in which he said, "there was every reason to believe that Congress will immediately interpose and exert their authority for your relief and protection." He also wrote to Jonathan Hunt, the Vermont sheriff, warning him of the dangerous consequences of his action. Some of the adherents of New York who had been released from their Vermont imprisonment, presented their petition to Congress and asked for aid in their impoverished and distressed condition, and for a
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restoration of their property that had been con- fiscated, but Congress gave them no aid.
On Oct. 4, 1782, when Timothy Church, Wil- liam Shattuck, Henry Evans and Timothy Phelps, four of the chief offenders against Vermont under sentence of banishment, were released from prison, they were taken across the line into New Hamp- shire by a deputy-sheriff, Samuel Avery, who warned them that they would incur the penalty of death if they ever returned to Vermont.
The General Assembly setting at Man- chester, on Oct. 17, 1782, chose Moses Robinson, Paul Spooner, Ira Allen and Jonas Fay agents to Congress, any two of them to be vested with pow- ers as plenipotentiaries to negotiate the admis- . sion of the State into the Federal Union, and to agree upon and ratify terms of confederation and perpetual union with them when opportunity should present ; and were commissioned as such agents.
The Legislature of New Jersey instructed their delegates in Congress to use their influence against the admission of the State, and to subdue the in- habitants of Vermont to the obedience and sub- jection of the State or States that claim their alle- giance. They disclaimed every idea of imbuing their hands in the blood of their fellow citizens, or entering into civil war among themselves, regard- ing such a step to be highly impolitic and danger- ous.
The Vermont affairs from time to time were before Congress down to January, 1783 ; and the discussion in Congress and the action of that body.
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were on the whole, unfriendly to. Vermont, but not decisive against her independence. The unfavor- able resolutions and action of Congress towards Vermont encouraged the New York adherents in Windham County, but Gov. Chittenden showed a firm purpose to maintain the authority of Ver- mont against all opposition and against the threatened hostility of Congress, as well as the insurrectionists in Windham County.
On January 9th, 1783, Governor Chittenden, by letter to the President of Congress, remon- strated against the unfriendly action of Congress, founded partly on the mutual agreement between Congress on the one part, and the State of Ver- mont on the other, that the latter should have been taken into the Union previous to the late ac- tion of Congress; and partly on the impropriety of the claim of Congress to interfere in the internal government of the State. The agreement referred to, the reader will remember, was the encourage- ment that Congress gave Vermont, that if she complied with certain resolutions of that body and relinquished all claim to the so-called East and West Unions, she should be admitted as one of the States of the Union of the United States of America.
And after Governor Chittenden received the letter heretofore referred to, from His Excellency George Washington, assuring him that if Vermont withdrew her jurisdiction to the confines of her old limits, Congress would admit Vermont as a State of the Union, Governor Chittenden and the people of Vermont confided in the faith and honor
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of Congress, that those assurances would be made good. Governor Chittenden in the remon- strance said, "How inconsistent then is it in Con- gress to assume the same arbitrary stretch of pre- rogative over Vermont, for which they waged war against Great Britain? Is the liberty and natural rights of mankind a mere bubble, and the sport of State politicians? What avails it to America to establish one arbitrary power on the ruins of another? Congress set up as patriots for liberty, they did well; but pray extend the liberty, for which they are contending, to others."
The remonstrance, in referring to the criminals that had been banished or fined, for which Gov. Clinton, the New York committee and Congress- men were so solicitous for their relief, continued, "The notorious Samuel Ely, who was ring leader of the late seditions in the State of Massachusetts, a fugitive from justice, was one of the banished ; he had left that State and was beginning insur- rections in this, when he was detected, and care- fully delivered to the sheriff of the County of Hampshire in the State of Massachusetts, who, as I have been since informed, has secured him in goal at Boston, to the great satisfaction and peace of that State. This Samuel Ely, Timothy Church and William Shattuck, who were three of the banished, had previously taken the oath of allegiance to the State of Vermont; and so had a greater part of those who were fined; and every one of the towns in which they resided, had for several sessions of the Assembly, previous to their insurrection, been represented in the Legislature of the State."
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It will be seen from the foregoing that matters were approaching, very fast, to a disagreeable and alarming issue. General Washington saw the necessity of bringing the controversy to a peaceful settlement; and on Feb. 11, 1783, he wrote Joseph Jones, a member of Congress, a long letter in which he said, "That the delegates of the New England States in Congress, or a majority of them, are willing to admit these people into the Federal Union as an independent and sovereign State; % * that they have a powerful inter- est in those States and have pursued very politic measures to strengthen and increase it long before I had any knowledge of the matter, and before the tendency was seen into or suspected, by granting, upon very advantageous terms, large tracts of land; in which, I am sorry to find, the army in some degree have participated. Let me next ask, by whom is this district of country principally settled? And of whom is your present army com- prised? The answers are evident,-New England men. It had been the opinion of some that the appearance of force would awe these people into submission. If the General Assembly ratify and confirm what Mr. Chittenden and his Council have done, I shall be of a very different sentiment ; and moreover, that it is not a trifling force that will subdue them, even supposing they derive no aid from the enemy in Canada; and that it would be a very arduous task indeed, if they should, to say nothing of a diversion which may and doubt- less would be made in their favor from New York by Carleton, if the war with Great Britain should
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continue. The country is very mountainous, full of defiles, and extremely strong. The inhabitants, for the most part, are a hardy race, composed of that kind of people who are best calculated for soldiers; who in truth are soldiers; for many, many hundreds of them are deserters from this army, who, having acquired property there, would be desperate in the defence of it, well know- ing that they were fighting with halters about their necks."
Joseph Jones, in his reply to General Washing- ton, said that, "If Vermont confines herself to the limits assigned her, and ceases to encroach upon and disturb the quiet of the adjoining States, and at the same time avoiding combinations, or arts, hostile to the United States, she may be at rest within her limits, and by patient waiting the convenient time, may ere long be admitted to the privileges of the Union." Vermont was accused of a want of sincerity and candor in her negotia- tions with Congress. That body had trifled so long with Vermont, her government and her peo- ple had but little respect for the Continental Con- gress.
Unquestionably the letter of General Washing- ton, though written in his private capacity to Mr. Jones, had much to do in bringing about a more favorable sentiment in the Confederacy for the ad- mission of Vermont. On Feb. 25, 1783, in a com- mittee of the whole of both Houses in Vermont, it was resolved that the citizens of the State had from the first attempt to form a State govern- ment uniformly shown their attachment to the
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common cause and a desire of being connected with the Federal Union, and that neither the Ex- ecutive or Legislative authority of the State had ever entered into any negotiation, truce, or com- bination with the enemy of the United States, ex- cept for the exchange of prisoners, and expressed their good intentions towards the United States. But notwithstanding that, Vermont, at all times, was determined that her existence as a State should not be swallowed by interested adjoining States by any action of those States or by Con- gress.
And in an address to Congress, made by a com- mittee of the Vermont Assembly appointed Feb. 26, 1783, in reply to the resolutions of Congress adopted Dec. 5, 1782, unfavorable to Vermont's separate existence, the committee said, "All and every act of Congress which interferes with the internal government of this State and tend to pre- vent a general exercise of our laws, are unjustifi- able in their nature and repugnant to every idea of freedom ; " we cannot express our sur- prise at the reception of the late resolutions of Congress of the 5th of Dec. 1782, obtained ex parte and at the special instance of an infamous person," referring to Charles Phelps of Marl- borough, a persistent opponent of Vermont. Phelps had been some of the time in favor of Ver- mont and at other times in favor of New York. Governor Chittenden, for the purpose of showing ยท to Congress what an unreliable and worthless character he was, sent to Congress the affidavit of Phineas Freeman and Jonathan Howard, taken on Jan. 15th, 1783. in which it was stated that Charles Phelps declared, "that he would as soon come under the Infernal Prince as under the State of New York."
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CHAPTER VIII.
THE ACTION OF NEW HAMPSHIRE AND NEW YORK.
Let us refer to an attempt to divide Vermont between New Hampshire and New York after each of those States had failed in their efforts to absorb the whole. The proposition was for New Hamp- shire and New York to compromise the dispute and divide the State by the ridge of the Green Mountains, and New Hampshire take the Eastern and New York the Western part of Vermont. This scheme originated in 1779, and its proposal was made in Congress in March, 1782. Some of the towns on the east of the mountain favored such an object ; and resolutions of a convention of committees of Newbury, Bradford, Norwich and Hartford favored it and inquired of the General Court of New Hampshire if they were desirous to thus extend their jurisdiction. On July 2, 1782, President Weare of New Hampshire wrote to Governor Clinton that, "It is represented that an agreement between the States of New York and New Hampshire, respecting the boundaries might probably tend to bring the matters to an issue, and the people, in general, between Connecticut River and the height of land, would be better sat- isfied to belong to New Hampshire than to Ver- mont, if Vermont could be made a separate State."
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The House of Representatives of. New Hamp- shire took into consideration the representation of the four towns expressing a desire to be under the jurisdiction of New Hampshire, and resolved, in substance, that New Hampshire had a just title to the whole of Vermont, but, for the sake of peace and good harmony with New York, and to accommodate the inhabitants east of the height of land, she was willing to extend their jurisdic- tion to that part of Vermont that lies east of said height of land, if the generality of the people de- sired it, and provided, New York would settle the boundary on the said heighth of land; and sent the resolutions to Governor Clinton.
Alexander Hamilton wrote to Governor Clinton from Philadelphia Jan. 1, 1783, that the New York Legislature "should take up the affair of Vermont on the idea of a compromise with Massa- chusetts and New Hampshire," and said, I have little hope that we shall ever be able to engage Congress to act with decision upon the matter, or, that our State will ever recover any part of the revolted territory but upon a plan that will inter- est those two States." Gouverneur Morris, a dele- gate from New York in Congress, wrote to John Jay, that "Vermont is yet Vermont, and I think no wise man will pretend to say when it will cease to be so." And after he left Congress he wrote Governor Clinton that, "I wish the business of Vermont were settled. I fear we are pursuing a shadow. * * It is a mighty arduous business to compel the submission of men to a political or religious government. It appears to me very
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doubtful whether Vermont, if independent, would not be more useful to New York, than as the East- ern district. * * If we have not the means of conquering these people we must let them quite alone. We must continue our impotent threats or we must make a treaty. If we let them alone, they become independent de facto, at least. Hun- dreds will resort to them for different reasons. They will receive lands from them, and cultivate them under the powers which are. When the dis- pute is again renewed these cultivators will, I be- lieve, be better soldiers than logicians, and more inclined to defend their possessions, than examine their titles. If we, continue our threats, they will either hate or despise us, and perhaps both."
During the winter of 1783-4, the civil powers of the State, aided by the military posse, were rigorously and successfully used. On Nov. 16, 1783, a party of Yorkers assaulted the house of Luke Knowlton of Newfane, forcibly entered, and captured and conveyed him into Massachusetts, and a Vermont military force were sent in pursuit. Knowlton was released and returned to the State. The civil power was at once brought to bear, and three of the offenders were quickly arrested, but the attempted arrest of the leader at Brattleboro, Dec. 1, was forcibly prevented by the adherents to New York, and on the same day another party of Yorkers, among whom was Charles Phelps of Marlborough, captured and carried away Benja- min Carpenter, formerly Lieut .- Governor of the State.
These acts aroused the Vermonters, and they
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arrested William Shattuck and Charles Phelps, who were under the sentence of death for treason, and who had been permitted to be at large, and imprisoned them at Westminster. This so terri- fied the adherents of New York, they addressed a petition to Governor Chittenden asking that there might be some equitable and salutary measures taken to prevent all kinds of severity between the contending parties, and that Shattuck and Phelps might be released from their imprisonment. But Governor Chittenden left the civil and military authorities to deal with all offenders. Small de- tachments of militia were employed in searching and seizing the arms and persons of belligerent ad- herents of New York. Several leading New York adherents were arrested and imprisoned at West- minster.
These attacks and outrages on the part of New York sympathizers and Yorkers, and retaliatory measures on the part of the Vermonters, continued for some time. The New York adherents resisted the payment of taxes to the Vermont collector. And on the 16th of Dec. 1783, about twenty of them, armed, marched from Guilford to Brattle- boro and surrounded the house of Landlord Arms where the constable and tax collector, Waters, was stopping, fired a number of balls into the house, wounded two men, burst into the house and took and carried away the constable with a design, it was supposed, to take from him a quan- tity of money that he had collected on taxes.
On Dec. 19th, 1784, it was learned there was a body of Yorkers, who were determined to oppose
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the collecting of taxes, were assembled at Guilford. Stephen R. Bradley with the sheriff immediately marched the posse, about 200 men, to Guilford, in order to reduce them to the obedience of law. When the troops appeared in sight, the whole body of Yorkers fled without firing a gun. With- in two days some thirty of them came in and took the oath of allegiance and delivered up their arms. It was ascertained that there was another band of about forty Yorkers in Guilford near the Massachusetts line. Bradley and the sheriff took a detachment of 120 men and proceeded to dis- perse them. When the posse got within twenty rods of the Yonkers they fired one volley and re- treated into Massachusetts. One man of the posse was badly wounded.
The abductors of Luke Knowlton and Cyril Carpenter, before referred to, were tried at West- minister before Chief Justice Moses Robinson and convicted, and sentenced. Many others of the New York adherents were convicted and fined or imprisoned for the offences charged against them. Charles Phelps was tried and was adjudged at- tainted of treason and sentenced to forty days' imprisonment and a forfeiture of all his property to the State.
On March 6th, 1784, an act was passed giving the Governor and Council the power to pardon any of the inhabitants of Windham County who have heretofore professed themselves subjects of the State of New York. On March 2, 1784, an act was passed to punish persons for the crime of high treason and misprision of treason against the
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State. The penalty for the former was death, and the latter fine and imprisonment.
New York was powerless to effect anything by force. She could not reach the disturbed district without passing through Massachusetts, whose consent she probably could not obtain ; or through Western Vermont, where they had met defeat be- fore. Under these discouraging circumstances New York renewed the conflict in Congress. They set forth, anew, their complaints'against Vermont, and said if Congress should delay the decision of the controversy, it ought to be considered a denial of justice. And on March 2, 1782, the New York House resolved "that until the affairs with Ver- mont were adjudicated by Congress, they would furnish no further aid to Congress."
New York asked for Federal troops to be used on the frontier. The frontier might mean Western frontier; but the design of New York was to use them against Vermont to protect the New York adherents in Eastern Vermont. Congress refused to permit her to control any troops. Congress was again urged by New York to decide her con- troversy with Vermont, but New York was only willing to have the dispute settled to their mind and not otherwise. In the instructions given to the delegates of New York in Congress, by their Legislature, after complaining of the procrastina- tion of Congress in the settlement of their dispute with Vermont, it stated, "that if she (New York) must recur to force, for the preservation of her law- ful authority, the impartial world will pronounce that none of the blood-shed, disorder or disunion
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which may ensue, can be imputable to this Legis- lature."
Governor Chittenden in his long letter to the President of Congress bearing date April 26, 1784, referring to the above threat, said, "As to this bloody proposition, the Council of this State have only to remark, that Vermont does not wish to enter into a war with the State of New York, but she will act on the defensive, and expect that Con- gress and the twelve States will observe a strict neutrality, and let the two contending States set- tle their own controversy. And as to the allega- tion of the State of New York against the conduct of this State in bringing a few malcontents to jus- tice and obedience to government, whom they have inspired with sedition, I have only to ob- serve, that this matter has been managed by the wisdom of the Legislature of this State, who con- sider themselves herein amenable to no earthly tribunal." These sentiments show that the Ver- monters believed in the justice of their cause, and that they were able to cope with New York alone. In June, 1784, and again in April, 1785, Congress ordered a force of seven hundred men to be raised by all the posts in the United States, but they were not to be under the control of any State, thus defeating the ulterior purpose of New York to use the ;troops against Vermont. On May 29, 1784, the committee of Congress made their re- port to that body in favor of the admission of Vermont as a free, sovereign and independent State by the name of Vermont. No other direct action on the Vermont question was ever taken by the Continental Congress.
CHAPTER IX.
EARLY HISTORY AND ADMISSION OF VER- MONT AS A STATE CONTINUED.
The people of New York sought opportunities to annoy Vermonters. On July 10, 1784, Hon. Micah Townshend, a citizen of Vermont, was ar- rested in the city of New York in an action of tres- pass at the suit of Seth Smith of the State of New York, for officiating in the line of his duty as the Clerk of the County Court of Windham County. Townshend petitioned the Legislature of Vermont that they would interfere in his behalf and indem- nify him against loss and damage. Although the suit was aimed at Townshend, still it concerned the State at large and every officer and subject of the State.
A retaliatory act was passed by the Assembly appointing three commissioners to seize and sell so much of the lands in Vermont belonging to citi- zens of New York as would raise fifteen hundred pounds in specie, and directed them to pay to Townshend, as soon as the New York Court should render judgement against him, the amount of the judgement, cost and expenses of defending the suit, and a proper recompense for being un- justly sued. The suit however, was not pressed in the New York court, but discontinued.
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Several acts were passed by the Vermont Assembly granting full pardon to many of the ad- herents of New York who were offenders against the laws of Vermont, and in many cases their con- fiscated property was restored. The Assembly in October, 1783, enacted a retaliatory statute de- claring that, no person residing in New York shall commence any suit at law within the jurisdiction of the State against any inhabitant or resident thereof, for any civil matter or contract, until the Legislature of New York shall allow the inhabi- tants of this State full liberty to commence a like suit within their jurisdiction.
In 1784, the Revolutionary war had come to an end. The treaty of peace had been signed. The war with Great Britain had been greatly dis- tressing to every part of the United States. The end of the war put an end to many embarrass- ments of Congress and to all fears of the people of Vermont. The people, weary of the long and dis- tressing war, wished for repose and were heartily desirous of dropping all occasions of controversy and debate. The Confederacy was in an exhaust- ed condition ; their revenue was small and their currency had failed; their Continental money nearly valueless; their armies were dissatisfied and unpaid; and the public affairs of the Union were becoming more embarrassed with disorder. want of wisdom, credit and power.
Such being the case, an admission into the Union of the States, ceased to be an object of im- portance or desire. The evasive, irresolute, and what the Vermonters called contradictory acts of
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Congress, had greatly destroyed the confidence that the people of Vermont had reposed in that body, and it was thought by many it would not be best to have any connection with them. Ver- mont as a separate jurisdiction stood in a better situation than the Confederation. Vermont was not subject to thecalls of Congress for money ; her Legislature had acquired wisdom and experience in governing the people; she had not contracted large debts, nor was it necessary to impose heavy taxes upon the people. The State had a large quantity of valuable lands to dispose of, and pur- chasers and settlers were constantly coming into it from all the New England States, so that the condition and prospect of the people became easy and more flattering than those of her neighbors.
At this time there was a general inclination not to be connected with the Union if they could fairly avoid it. This situation remained until the adop- tion of the Constitution of the United States. The adoption of the Constitution, and the wisdom and justice that soon marked the action of Congress, served to create a sentiment favorable to the Con- federacy, but Vermont took no further pains to join it, further than to appoint delegates to Con- gress.
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CHAPTER X.
LAND TITLES, BETTERMENT ACTS AND HARD TIMES.
It will be well here to consider the condition of the land titles in Vermont, and what is termed the Betterment Acts. It has been seen that when an independent Constitutional government was or- ganized in Vermont in 1778, a large portion of its territory had been granted to citizens of the con- tending States. The same territory that had been granted by one of the contending States to pro- prietors was also granted by the other ; hence. arose conflicting titles and rights between the proprietors as well as between States; that in 1777, the Governor and Council entered upon the work of sequestering personal property of persons who had joined the enemy, and in 1778, the Gen- eral Assembly established a board of confiscation with power to seize and sell the real estate, and at that time Vermont began to grant lands; and the grants from the State were greatly and speedily multiplied.
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