USA > Vermont > Early history of Vermont, Vol. II > Part 2
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that the tree may assume a level position. Others at the same time are cutting down small trees and saplings, from one to ten inches in diameter. These are cut into equal and convenient lengths ; some of the beavers drag these peices of wood to the side of the river, and others swim with them to the place where the dam is to be built; as many as can find room are engaged in sinking one end of these stakes, and as many more in raising, fixing and securing the other end. While many of the beavers are thus laboring upon the wood, others are equally engaged in carrying on the earth part of the work. The earth is brought on in their mouths, formed into a kind of mortar with their feet and tails, and spread over the vacancies be- tween the stakes. * * The better to preserve their dams the beavers always leave sluices, or passages near the middle, for the redundant wat- ers to pass off. * *
"The dam is no sooner completed than the beavers separate into small bodies, to build cabins or houses for themselves. These houses are built upon piles, along the borders of the pond. They are of an oval form, resembling the construction of a haycock; and they vary from four to ten feet in diameter, according to the number of families they are designed to accommodate. They are of two stories, generally of three, and sometimes they contain four. Their walls are from two to three feet in thickness at the bottom and are formed of the same materials as their dams. * * * Through each floor, there is a communication; and the upper floor is always above the level of
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EARLY HISTORY
the water when it is raised to its greatest height. Each of these huts have two doors; one on the land side to enable them to go out and procure provisions by land; another under the water and below where it freezes, to preserve their communi- cation with the pond. * * * The smallest of their cabins contain one family, consisting gener- ally of five or six beavers; and the largest of the buildings will contain from twenty to thirty.
"No society of animals can ever appear better regulated or more happy than the family of beav- ers. The male and female always pair. Their selection is not a matter of chance or accident, but appear to be derived from taste and mutual affec- tion. ** Nothing can exceed the peace and regularity which prevails in the families, through the whole commonwealth of these animals. No discord or contention ever appears in any of their families. Every beaver knows his own apart- ment, and storehouse, and there is no pilfering or robbing from one another. * * Different socie- ties of beavers never make war upon one another or upon any other animals. When they are at- tacked by their enimies, they instantly plunge into the water to escape pursuit. And when they cannot escape, they fall an easy sacrifice. The arts necessary for their safety are carried by the beaver to a great emenience. The situation, direction, form, solidity, beauty and durability of their dams are equal to anything of the kind, which has ever been performed by man."
The writer has seen one of these dams built by . the beaver in the town of Waterville, Vt. These
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animals are from three to four feet in length, and of the average weight of about forty pounds.
Most of the birds that inhabit in the United States are found in Vermont. The crow, hawk, owl, blue jay, snowbird, partridge, woodpecker, and sometimes the robin, blackbird, lark, snipe, bluebird, make their home in Vermont during the entire year. The wild goose, wild pigeon, swal- low, and the black martin, called birds of passage, go south to a warmer climate for the winter, and return in the spring. Among the singing birds are the robin, skylark, thrush, mocking-bird, bobo- link, yellowbird, bluebird, wren, red-winged black- bird, catbird, goldfinch, and hangbird; and those that resort much to water are the goose, duck, teal, heron, gull, schelldrake, crane, stork, loon and waterhen.
Among the list of others that are found here, though some of them are not very numerous, are the eagle, kingbird, cuckoo, kingfisher, woodcock, woodsnipe, quail, curlew, plover, wild turkey, tur- tle dove, whip-poor-will, night hawk, ground bird, English sparrow, and humming bird; the latter is the smallest of all birds.
Fishing in Vermont has been a pleasant pas- time for many, and at some portions of the year fishermen have made fishing a profitable employ- ment. In the lakes, ponds, rivers and brooks of Vermont we have the sturgeon, salmon, bass, pickerel, perch, shad, eel, pout, shiner, chub, min- ow, sucker, dace and trout.
Serpents are not very numerous in Vermont, owing doubtless to the severe cold climate. The
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black snake and the rattlesnake are said to be poisonous; the green snake, striped snake and ad- der are harmless. The black snake and the rattle- snake have the power of charming birds and small animals, toads and frogs. There are well authen- ticated instances of this kind. It is one way they obtain their prey.
CHAPTER III.
THE INDIANS OF VERMONT, THEIR DEPRE- DATIONS, CRUELTY, CHARACTER AND MANNER OF LIFE.
Samuel Champlain was the first civilized man that discovered the lake bearing his name; he sailed up the Lake Champlain in the year 1609. At that time there were no European settlements in New England. The Indians held possession of the whole country. They cultivated but small portions of the land, and their agriculture was mainly limited to the raising of corn. The forests of this territory, in the valleys and on the hills and mountains, were the hunting grounds of the Indian tribes. The Mohicans, a minor tribe of the Iroquois, whose principal residence was at Al- bany, N. Y., claimed jurisdiction of this land and forest. Antiquities of an Indian character have been discovered in many parts of the State. On the island of South Hero they had a settlement near the Sand Bar that crosses the water into Milton; and another in Colchester. Arrows and other utensils have been frequently thrown up, on breaking the soil. The St. Francois Indians had a settlement of about fifty huts, and a consider- able quantity of cleared land on which they raised corn, in Swanton. They also had a station in Newbury that they occupied in passing from the
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EARLY HISTORY
tribes in New England to those upon the Lake Memphremagog.
Nathan Hoskins says in his history that, "The settlers of the town of Clarendon derived their title of lands from the Indians; and this was the only grant obtained from them in the State."
The Indians were well-formed, stood erect, and were of copper complexion, with long black hair and high cheek bones. Their women were treated more like brutes and servants than companions of human beings. The Indian disposition, created by long training and manners of life, was cruel and relentless. Tenderness and refined feeling in them were well nigh gone, and they did not look for pleasure in beauty, chastity and affection. They had no true system of language, no manu- scripts or books, and no written history. Their traditional history was meager and covered but a short period of the past. They were strangers to civilization, and manifested but little or no dis- position to learn and practice the ways of civilized life.
The Indians that inhabited New England and New York and rowed their barks over the surface of the adjacent lakes, delighted in hazardous and desperate undertakings, and sought their renown in their success. In his undertaking in his rude and destitute condition he exercised but little rea- son, and his ideas were few and narrow. When his life was not enlivened by the chase, or at war with the neighboring tribes, his time was spent in spiritless apathy and idleness. His political wants and regulations were but few; and he en-
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gaged in war not so much for the welfare of his tribe as for revenge. His military operations were different from those of civilized nations. The object of the true soldier is to win a victory and succeed in the campaign with the shedding of as little blood as possible, but to obtain success without blood was considered a disgrace to a vet- eran savage. With him insult and violence, which would shock the heart of depravity, were both offered and endured without a look of pity or thought of regret. A display of fortitude in so dreadful a situation was regarded as a triumph by the Indian warrior. He boasted of his freedom and would not be subject to another.
The Indians in this land made no advance towards the discovery of letters, but seemed de- sirous to record the deeds of their warriors and victories, and this was done by rough figures and imitations carved or painted upon trees and rocks. Hoskins says in his History of Ver- mont published in 1831, that, "Ten or twelve figures of a superior workmanship, are wrought into the surface of a rock, at Bellows Falls, in Rockingham. The heads of men, women, and children, and some animals, are represented by these inscriptions. The outline of these figures are awkward and badly executed."
Previous to the American Revolution Lake Champlain was a great highway for the various tribes of Indians engaged in wars between them- selves, and in the wars between the French in Can- ada and the English Colonies. At the time Cham- plain founded the Colony of Quebec, and circum-
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EARLY HISTORY
navigated the lake which now bears his name, the tribe of Algonquins inhabiting Canada were at war with the powerful nation of Iroquois. Cham- plain and two Frenchmen, with a party of Indians of the Huron tribe, who had suffered severely from the inroads of the Iroquois, went on an expedition through Lakes Champlain and George, to avenge themselves upon their enemies. They had a skir- mish with the Iroquois. The two Frenchmen were armed with muskets and obtained a com- plete victory over the Iroquois; this was the first time that that tribe had ever seen the effects of gun-powder. In this contest fifty of the Iroquois were killed and the remainder put to flight.
By the year of 1665, France had increased her. military strength in Canada, and in that year went on an expedition against the Mohawks, one of the Five Nations, with a force of about 1400 men. This detachment marched by the way of Lake Champlain, on snow-shoes, and after great suffering came to a settlement at Schenectady, and a general peace was concluded with the Indian tribes in 1667. But peace with the savages was of short duration, and the Governor of Canada built forts Chambly and Sorel to prevent the Ir- oquois entering his province by the way of Lake Champlain.
In 1689, three expeditions were fitted out in the dead of winter by France against the English, one of which was against New York, under the direction of D'Aillebout, who had under his com- mand about 200 Frenchmen and 50 Indians. They proceeded by the way of Lake Champlain
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and arrived in the month of January, 1690, at Schenectady, a village on the Mowhawk. This expedition entered the village in the night of Feb- ruary 8, 1690, while the inhabitants were asleep, and invested every house in small parties at the same time, and the inmates were treated with the most inhuman barbarities. Their houses were set on fire, men, women and children were dragged from their beds and murdered. Sixty persons fell by the hand of the enemy, twenty-seven were car- ried away into captivity, and the remainder fled to Albany, through deep snow, twenty-five of whom lost their limbs by the severity of the weather. The enemy retreated and were followed by a party of young men from Albany, who took twenty-five of their number prisoners.
Soon after, to retrieve this disaster and to keep alive hoslility towards the French, Major Schuyler of Albany placed himself at the head of a party of Mohawks, passed through Lake Champlain and made a vigorous attack upon the French Settle- ment on the river Sorel. In this encounter about 300 of the enemy were slain. This invasion of Canada excited the- veteran Frontenac to return the call of the Mohawks by the same route; and on January 15, 1695, attacked the Mohawk castle, losing thirty men, but carried the Indian fortress and captured 300 Mohawks.
In 1704, the French and Indians under the com- mand of DeRouville and his two brothers, with a force of 300 men, made an excursion against Deer- field, Mass. This force took their route by the way of Lake Champlain until they came to the
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EARLY HISTORY
i
French (now Onion) River, passed up that stream and over to Connecticut River, upon which they traveled upon the ice to Deerfield, and entered the town in the night on the 29th day of February, 1704, killed in the most barbarous manner forty- seven of the men, women and children, set fire to the village and departed the same day in great haste, and carried 112 of the inhabitants into cap- tivity.
The French in the year 1731, determined to make a nearer approach to Albany, and accord- ingly, in that year sailed through Lake Cham- plain with a considerable force and erected a fort at Crown Point. This fort was well calculated to serve their interests, as all attempts of the Indians of the Mohawk Valley, and of the English at the conquest of Canada, lay through the Lake Cham- plain route. The fort at this point secured the whole navigation of it, commanding a large por- tion of the English and Indian frontiers, furnish- ing a magazine of arms and ammunition to supply troops, providing an asylum for the Indians when retreating from their plundering and murdering expeditions against the English frontiers, and was of the highest importance to them.
The garrison was first stationed on the east side of the Lake, where the town of Addison now is, but afterwards established at Crown Point. During the war, declared by George the II., which continued four years from 1744, the Champlain Valley was frequented by scouting and navigating parties of French and Indians, who spread de- struction and dismay by plundering, murdering,
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and scalping wherever they could find defenceless individuals or settlements. In the summer of 1757, about six thousand Provincial troops under the command of Generals Johnson and Lyman, and a body of Indians under the directions of Hen- drick, a Mohawk Sachem, had a bloody battle near the south end of Lake George, with the In- dians and the French army under the command of Baron Dieskan, in which 700 of Dieskan's men were killed and 30 taken prisoners, and in which Baron Dieskan was slain. The loss of the Provin- cials was about two hundred.
It would be interesting to follow further the stirring events that took place along the western side of Lake Champlain and the eastern border of New York State, south of Lake Champlain, and recount the varying fortunes of the contending parties, though it would have but little to do with Vermont history. Suffice it to say, the En- glish concentrated the Provincial forces to proceed to Montreal in the last English campaign against the French in Canada, in 1760; the conduct of the campaign was committed to Colonel Haviland. To facilitate the undertaking, General Amherst directed that a road should be opened from Number Four, on Connecticut River, across the Green Mountains to the waters of Otter Creek and down that river to Lake Champlain. In constructing this road it was found, that part of the way, one had, some- time before, been cut down the Creek to the Lake.
On the 13th of August, 1760, Haviland took the forces under hiscommand and proceeded down the Lake and took the Isle Aux Nois, and the forts
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EARLY HISTORY
at St. Johns and Chambly also fell into his hands. He then crossed over to Montreal, which surren- dered on the 8th day of September, 1760, to- gether with all the French settlements in this part of America. Thus ended the six years of war that had waged without much regard to the rules of war between civilized nations.
What great changes have been wrought result- ant upon the termination of that contest between the French and the English, in favor of the latter. The contest having been settled in favor of the English, there followed a period of prosperity with the American Colonies, then the bloody Rev- olution of independence and the building of a great nation. Would this people have reached the high road of civilization, in which they stand to-day, if the fortunes of war had then favored the French nation? This may be a difficult ques- tion to answer. It is certain that our position as a people and a nation at the close of the ninteenth century, is the natural and inevitable result of the gathered past of its history. Our present condi- tion has been brought about by evolution and revolution,-the two forces and action cannot be separated.
The early settlers in the territory of Vermont, then called New Hampshire Grants, were annoyed by the Indians till the termination of the Revolu- tionary war. The northern hives of Indians re- siding upon the Canadian frontier poured in upon the wilderness of New England, all through the French and American wars, carrying many of the settlers and their families into captivity. To pro-
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OF VERMONT.
tect the inhabitants, places were fortified on the banks of Connecticut River. Fort Dummer was built at Brattleboro, Forts Bridgman and Sart- well at Hinsdale, now Vernon.
In 1746, a party of twenty Indians attacked the men at Bridgman Fort, killed and wounded four, and took two prisoners; and in 1747, killed and carried several into captivity. In the month of July in the year 1755, the Indians ambushed Caleb Howe, Hilkiah Grout and Benjamin Gaf- field. Howe was killed, Gaffield was drowned in attempting to escape across the river, and Grout escaped unhurt ; but their wives and children were carried away as prisoners into Canada by the way of Crown Point and the lake, and sold to the French or distributed amongst the Indians.
On August 13, 1754, they surprised Charles- ton, New Hampshire, and made prisoners Messrs. Labree, Farnsworth, and a man by the name of Johnson and his family, all of whom were taken through the wilderness, the distance of two hun- dred miles, and after enduring untold suffering were ransomed and returned to their friends. While on their way to Canada they were en- camped at Cavendish, where Mrs. Johnson had a daughter born, whom they named Captive.
A battle was fought at Newfane in 1756, be- tween a party of thirty soldiers who were on their way from Charleston and Fort Hoosac in Massa- chusetts, commanded by Captain Melvin, and a superior force of Indians. Melvin was overpow- ered and retreated to Fort Dummer, leaving two killed and one missing in the hands of the Indians.
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EARLY HISTORY
The settlers lived in a fearful state of apprehension for many years.
Before the Revolutionary war the Indians were incited to depredations and acts of bloodshed against the American settlements by the French- the French being at war with the English. Dur- ing the Revolution the Indians continued their sudden invasions and savage warfare upon the in- habitants of the territory now called Vermont, and the adjacent Colonies of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, though under different masters, the British. George and Aaron Robinson were killed by them in 1777, in the town of Brandon, and many of its inhabitants were taken prisoner and their dwellings burned. In November, 1778, Major Carleton, an English officer, captured 39 men and boys at Bridport and adjoining towns. and carried them away to Canada. Elijah Grandy and Thomas Hinkly were discharged to return with the women and children to the Amer- ican settlements, while the husbands and the elder sons were retained. The prisoners were taken to Quebec, arriving there the 6th day of Dec. 1778, and then detained till June, 1780, when they were taken down the St. Lawrence River ninety miles to work. A part of them made an effort to escape. Hoskins relates their experience to escape as follows :--
"On the night of the 13th of May, 1779, eight of them escaped and crossed the river, which here was 27 miles wide; by noon the next day they reached the opposite shore. They separated into two parties of four each. Messrs. Sturdifit, Ward,
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OF VERMONT.
and Smith, and one other, composed one com- pany, and proceeded up the river, for Sorell. Most of the people treated them with kindness, until the 20th, when nearly opposite Quebec, the river was so swollen that they dare not attempt to cross it, and therefore, requested the aid of a Frenchman, whom they saw in the field. He conducted them to his house, where they were made prisoners by a French officer. All of them effected an escape, ex- cept Sturdifit, who remained a prisoner until the close of the war. Ward was separated from the Smiths a week, when he accidentally fell in with. them. Two days after they came together, four Indians, with their guns and dogs, came upon them, whom they out-run through the night and the next day until noon, when they were taken by the Indians about six miles from Three Rivers, and imprisoned. One side of the prison, where they were committed, was wood, through which they cut a hole with an old jackknife, and in a week made an escape by a rope formed of their bed clothes, by which they let themselves down from a window, into a room adjacent to the prison. Fourteen days they eluded the search of the Indians by traveling in the woods, having crossed over from the north side of the St. Law- rence River. They reached the Sorell in the night, and the next day climbed the Chambly Mountains to take observations for directing their course through the forests of Vermont. They arrived at Missisquoi Bay, after four days travel through swamps and a dreary wilderness. During the whole route they subsisted entirely on what flesh
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EARLY HISTORY
they killed and cooked in the woods. At Panton, they fell in with a scout of three Americans."
Lieutenant Benjamin Everest, during the first settlement of Vermont in 1769, was engaged with Col. Ethan Allen in suppressing Yorkers in their intrusion upon the inhabitants of Panton and New Haven; he received a commission from the Continental Congress, and was engaged in the battle of Hubberton in Col. Warner's regiment, and in the battle of Bennington, in the regiment commanded by Col. Herrick. Everest had the command of, Fort Vengeance, at Rutland, and af- ter, was taken by the British as a spy, and con- fined nine days in prison, and then taken to Can- ada in a prison ship. Believing his doom was cer- . tain if he could not escape, he by entreaties got his irons taken off and himself placed upon the quar- ter-deck, and there he got his guards intoxicated, and made his escape from the vessel by swimming ashore. He passed through the Indian encamp- ment as a British officer and traveled in the night over the mountains west of Lake Champlain to Westport, and then crossed the Lake and made his way through the wilderness to Castleton. Af- terwards, while on a scouting expedition, he was surprised by seven Indians and taken prisoner, and delivered to General Powers, who confined him in irons. He escaped and the whole encamp- ment were out in search of him, but he eluded their grasp by concealment.
On August 9th, 1780, twenty-one Indians en- tered the township of Barnard and made prison- ers of several persons as related in Vol. 1, on page
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OF VERMONT.
136 of this History. On October 16th, 1781, five men, who were on their way from the fort in Cor- inth on a scout down Onion River, were fired upon in the town of Jericho by a company of six- teen Tories. Three of the scouts were mortally wounded and died soon after, and were buried in Colchester, and the other two were taken to Que- bec and there detained till the spring of 1782, when they were permitted to return.
A scouting party under command of Major Breckenridge annoyed the settlers of Newbury, killed one man and took others prisoners, then marched to Corinth where they obliged the inhab- itants to take the oath of allegiance to the King of Great Britain. The settlement at Peacham, on the Hazen military road, was invaded by a party of French and Indians, who took Col. Elkins and several others prisoners. One hundred and fifty- one, in all, were sent to England and confined in prison, but in 1782, they were exchanged for the troops of Cornwallis.
During the war of the American Revolution the New Hampshire Grants were exposed to the dep- redations of the Indians and Tories and had their property burned or destroyed, and many were killed and tortured, and the people of many settle- ments lived in constant fear of being brought into a like situation.
The battle at Shelburne with the Indians, and the capture of the Brown family, are referred to . in the first Volume on pages 115 and 302. The burning of Royalton is also referred to in the first Volume, but some additional facts as to that pil-
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EARLY HISTORY
lage and massacre are here given. In 1780, Roy- alton, on White River, contained 300 inhabitants, and in October of that year 203 Indians and seven white men under command of Lieut. Horton, pro- ceeded by way of Lake Champlain and Onion River, on an expedition against Newbury, for the purpose of capturing Lieut. Whitcomb, who, as they claimed, had wantonly shot General Gordon, an English officer, in July, 1776. This party be- came aware that Newbury had learned of their in- tentions and had prepared for defense; they there- fore abandoned their contemplated attack on Newbury, and turned their attention towards Royalton and proceeded to Tunbridge, where they lay in their encampment during the Sabbath. On Monday, the 10th of October, they commenced their depredations at the house of John Hutchin- son, taking him and his brother prisoners; then proceeded to Robert Haven's, where they killed Messrs. Button and Pember; from thence to Jo- seph Keeland's, and took him, his father, Simeon Belknap, Giles Gibbs and Jonathan Brown prison- ers. They then went to the home of Elias Curtis and took him, John Kent and Peter Mason pris- oners. When they arrived at the mouth of the stream called the Branch, they made a stand and sent out small parties from their body in different directions to plunder and bring in prisoners; they extended their ravages down the river into Sharon, taking two prisoners there and burnt sev- eral houses and barns.
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