USA > Vermont > Early history of Vermont, Vol. II > Part 3
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Another party was sent up the river, took a young lad prisoner, plundered and set fire to the
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house of General Stevens, and as they passed along set fire to buildings. They then crossed the hills to Randolph and camped for the night on one of the branches of White River. In the course of that day they had killed two persons, taken twenty-five prisoners, burnt twenty-five houses and about the same number of barns, killed 150 head of cattle and many hogs and sheep.
The attack with such large numbers was so sudden the people took no measures for defense, but alarm was immediately given, and several hundred from towns on Connecticut River promptly marched to the rescue and organized under the command of Captain John House, who began his march in search of the savage army which were overtaken. The Indian sentries were placed half a mile in the rear of the main body, near the path, behind some trees, who fired upon the American party, wounding one man. The Americans returned the fire, killing one Indian and wounding several. The Indians were alarmed and sent an aged prisoner to inform the Ameri- cans that if they made an attack they would put to death all the prisoners in their hands. The Indians tomahawked two of the prisoners, one because he would not march, and the other to re- taliate for the death of the Indian who was slain by the Americans.
The Indians hastily retreated through Ran- dolph and the west side of Brookfield, and thence down Onion River, and the lake to St. Johns and Montreal. One party of them passed over through Jericho, taking the Brown family, before
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mentioned, on their way, captive. The Americans followed the Indians as far as Brookfield, and con- sidering that further pursuit would be fruitless, returned. Those whom the Indians had taken prisoners and who did not try to escape and the women and children were treated with more len- ity than the Indians had been accustomed to deal with them.
One woman had self-possession enough to ad- dress them in a bold and spirited manner. She told them, "that if they had the spirit and souls of men they would cross the stream, go to the fort and fight with the men." The Indians replied to her that "Squaw should not say too much." One woman, whose little boy the Indians had taken, followed them with her other children and en- treated them to return him. Rather than contend with her earnest solicitations the Indians released him with ten or twelve other children belonging to her neighbors. At last, wishing to get rid of her importunities, an Indian politely offered to carry her over the stream on his back. She with- out hesitation accepted and he carried her safely over to the opposite bank.
When the Indians arrived at Montreal with their prisoners, many of them were sold to the British Colonel at eight dollars a head. All of those who remained alive were liberated and re- turned to their homes and friends the next summer. In the town of Hyde Park there lived two aged and infirm Indians by the naine of Jo- seph and Molly who were treated as the wards of the State, and by an Act of the Legislature passed
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November 7, 1792, John McDonald, Esq., was ap- pointed their guardian and was directed to deliver to them "necessary supplies at such seasons of the year as they cannot supply themselves, not to ex- ceed three pounds." .
The Indians, the native of this land, called by some writers the man of America, differed in color, form, feature and language from any race of men on the face of the globe. What was the origin of this race? Did they arise from a lower state of being or organism in America, according to the princi- ples of evolution as is the teachings of Darwin? or were their ancestors created by the fiat of God, about six thousand years ago, in Asia, and mi- grated to this country at some remote period? One writer says they were of the same complexion with the most ancient nation in Asia, and says, "from authentic documents, we are able to trace the existence and national transactions of the Hindoos to a greater antiquity than we can find within any other nation. And those were the red men of Asia, and the Indians of both continents are marked with the same peculiarity of color, a reddish brown." Their origin, and how they came here, is shrouded in obscurity and uncertainty.
It will be fitting here to give an account of the manner of life, habits and customs of the Indians. A true description of them will be as applicable to the tribes of other parts of the country as of those in Vermont. They subsisted upon berries and roots which the earth produced spontaneously, and cul- tivated in a quite limited extent Indian corn, 4
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beans, pumpkins and squashes; but their main re- liance for food was by fishing and hunting. Fish and game abounded in Vermont wilderness, but it was laborious business for the Indians to fish and hunt successfully as their weapons, the bow, arrow and club, and their fishing tackle, were of the most primitive kind, and had not the im- proved implements invented and made by civilized man. They were ingenious in devising means to take their game, and indefatigable and persevering in its pursuit, -the most dexterous hunter became the most distinguished savage of the tribe. When the season of the year was unfavorable for the taking their game, they were reduced to great want and their sufferings severe. He had a vora- cious appetite and was a great eater when food was abundant, and in times of famine he bore hunger with patience. His chief source of subsis- tence was hunting and fishing, consequently, a large territory became necessary for even a small tribe. Hostile tribes had to be kept at such a dis- tance as not to encroach upon the territory or the game of the adjoining tribe.
Their government was of a primitive nature and simple in form, the design and object of which was not mainly for the protection of the property or security of the individual members of the tribe. The idea fixed and clear in their mind was that the fish in the river, the game in the forest, and the berries and roots they gathered from the for- est for food, were not the product of his labor and therefore did not belong to him more than any other one of the tribe. But when anything was
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obtained by the exertion of any particular person, no other savage doubted that it was his exclusive property. To the Indian, the river and the forest were public property to which every member had an equal and common privilege, and as to those matters seldom any controversy arose. The right of redressing private injury was generally left in private hands. If injuries were inflicted, it be- longed to the friends and the family injured to seek redress. If the controversy or injury was not settled in a friendly way, the injured one sought his revenge and aimed at the destruction and death of the aggressor.
The whole tribe assembled together in their public councils. Having no writings, records or history to preserve the knowledge of their public transactions, therefore, the memory of the aged was relied on for early transactions. The mat- ters brought before their councils were taken into consideration slowly, solemnly, and deliberately. The force and power of their government was placed wholly in public sentiment. Williams, says, in his history, that, "the chief has no authority to enforce his councils or compel compliance with his measures. * * There is no appearance or mark of distinction; no ceremony or form of induction into office."
The tendency and effect of the savage govern- ment was equality, freedom and independence, among all the members of the tribe. As to their rights, the savages knew no superior, and had no idea of abasement, humiliation, dependence or ser- vitude; hence it was impossible to hold them in
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slavery, and where it has been attempted it has been a failure.
When the Indian prepared for war he took with him a bag of corn, his bow and arrow, club or tomahawk, which were his complete equipment for a campaign. While on the march they scat- tered into straggling companies, that they might better supply their needs by hunting, but when they drew near the enemy, they concentrated and proceeded with stratagem, and secrecy, and en- deavored to draw their enemy into ambuscade. They would find and follow the track of an enemy with great ingenuity, and surprise them, and wait for the moment when they could find them the least able to defend themselves, and then attack with great fury. They will not come out into the open field and fight a battle, but always endeavor to secure themselves behind trees and rocks. They will seldom if ever attack a superior or an equal number of disciplined troops. When they make an attack it is with a force superior to their en- emy,and commence the attack with a general out- cry, terminating in a universal yell.
It is said that an Indian warwhoop is an awful and horrid sound. If they are successful then it is a scene of fury, impetuosity, vengeance, outrage and death. Revenge, at such a time, takes poss- ession of the savage, and regardless of order, dis- cipline and danger, seek only to butcher, burn and destroy, strip and scalp the dead, and then make a sudden and swift retreat. When prisoners were taken they were treated variously, and often inhumanly, but not often tortured or burnt at the stake.
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The young men while in pursuit of food and on the chase were under the tutelage and direction of the most skillful and successful hunter, and in war followed the most brave and renowned. The edu- cation of the youth consiste'd in being trained as a dextrious hunter; to be patient, firm and persever- ing under great hardship and suffering, and to be . inveterate and fierce in the destruction of enemies. The refinement of manners, and the government of passions were not attended to nor desired. The youth were trained to take care of themselves and to look for food and obtain honor, independence and superiority by their own exertions. The par- ent aimed to have his son inured to hardship and danger, and to bear fatigue, famine and even tor- ture. The general appearance and demeanor of the Indians were grave and serious, even melan- choly and sad, probably. caused by the constant hardship and danger they pass through.
The relations between the sexes were not so . chaste and well regulated as in civilized life. The kind and just treatment of women, their beauty, refinment and intelligence depends upon the state of civilization that a nation has at- tained. With the Indian the women had no polit- ical rights, no voice with the tribe how they should be treated. They were treated as labor- ers and required to perform the most menial ser- vice, and were viewed by the male portion of the tribe as every way inferior : therefore they became degraded.
The clothing of the Indians consisted of skins and furs of animals, and they delighted in orna-
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ments, and all the finery and decorations were re- served to the men. The nose and ears were deco- rated with pieces of shining stones, shells and gold; the face painted with bright colors and fig- ures. They would anoint their bodies with some kind of grease or oil to protect them against in- sects to which they were exposed. The Indians outside of their favorite occupations of fishing, hunting and war, are inactive and indolent, spend- ing their time lounging, eating and sleeping ; have great aversion to labor ; digging, toiling and cultivating the earth are beneath their dignity and honor. Their bodies, food, cooking and manner of life generally were filthy.
Although indolent and lifeless when not en- gaged in their favorite pursuits, they were enthusi- astic and noisy in play, and delighted with music, but their songs are of a grave and serious nature. Songs for war, for victory and for death call forth their feelings and passions, and it is said that when burning at the stake their consolation is to sing the song of triumph and death. Dancing is a delightful recreation to them as it serves to excite their sensibility and calls forth their active powers, and with them is of great importance. With that ceremony war is declared, ambassadors are re- ceived and peace concluded. In the dance all of their actions, steps and expressions are expressive, and intended to represent the subject or business for which the dance is gotten up. If peace is made between hostile tribes, it is celebrated by a dance, the parties smoke the same pipe and join in the same dance, which is made to signify that the
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hatchet is buried. This is different than the dance in civilized life which means nothing at all.
The Indians wear no beard, and it is said it is their universal and constant practice to pluck it out by the roots by instruments made for the purpose. The savages of North America were and are addicted to drunkenness. Even before they came in contact with Europeans they made a liquor of an intoxicating nature from maize. The Indians were not accustomed to lay any re- straint upon their appetite, and after they came in contact with the white race and could procure liquor much more readily, and a larger supply than they had done among themselves, drunken- ness became widespread among them; the use of liquor was more demoralizing than with the Euro- peans. The cruelty and barbarity of the Indian, especially while under the influence of liquor, was but little removed from the ferocity of wild beasts of prey.
These considerations show the manner of life of the original men of America. But many of their habits and ways of life were favorable to vigour and health of body, activity and courage, and the endurance of hardship, suffering, fatigue and hun- ger, through extremes of heat and cold. He had some redeeming qualities; he was magnanimous, and generous to friends; he remembered a kind- ness ; the love of country was very strong with the savage, and therefore he desired to expand the na- tional fame and conquest of his race; he seldom betrayed the interests or councils of his people or turned traitor to his country and his tribe.
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There have been some Indian orators of no small ability ; when he spoke, his speech was short, and his meaning conveyed in bold and strong met- aphors and figures; he delivers himself with great force and propriety of gesture. None received promotion among them, unless they distinguished themselves for bravery and met with success. If he in his undertakings proved unfortunate and an un- successful leader, he lost all his influence and repu- tation.
They knew nothing of modern education; it is said they could count to only about twenty, and therefore they would have but little use for arith- metic; when they desired to give an idea of large numbers they referred to the trees of the forests, or the hairs upon their heads. They had no name for any of the sciences.
The religious ideas of the Indians were weak and obscure. They denominated the Deity the Great Spirit, and believed in the immortality of the soul, and were led to that view by the voice of Nature; had no private or puplic devotion, nor any mode of worship. Therefore they had no priests nor houses of worship. With the Indians the divine, social and human virtues do not find a congenial soil-such qualities with them are few and weak. .
Matters of art and domestic affairs, such as are found in civilized life, were very little attended to among the Northern Indians; spinning, weav- ing and knitting were unknown to them; their clothing was derived from hunting; their huts or wigwams were of the simplest construction, cov-
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ered with limbs, leaves and bark, with a hole in the roof for the escape of smoke. Of the many and great uses of iron they were wholly ignorant, hence, the instruments for use to work the soil, or in wood, were of the most primitive nature; their axes were made of stone and their knives of shell or bone. Their instruments of war were the club made of hard wood, a lance pointed with a flint or bone, and the bow and arrow; their cookery hardly deserved the name; they baked their bread on coals; they boiled their meat and other food by filling a hollowed out log or stone with water, into which they put the raw article of food, and boiled it by throwing into it stones heated red hot.
They manifested considerable skill in construct- ing their canoe by hollowing out a tree, and from bark, and were equally dextrous in the manage- ment of them in passing through rough waters and over rapids and falls. Some of them had knowledge of medicines. Their medicines were made from wild plants and vegetables. Their knowledge of the curative qualities of their medi- cines was the result of such observation as exper- ience naturally produced, and their improvement in this line was almost nothing.
The population of the Indian was very sparse. On the whole it would not exceed but about one person to the square mile. The difference between their numbers in a given territory, and those in a civilized country, is very great, which leads us to look for the cause in the manner of life of the sav- age. It probably was owing to his great irreg-
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ularity of life, a want of suitable and nutritious food in sufficient quantities. From these causes they suffered; with them at one period it was gluttony and excess, and at another, deprivations, hunger and cold. Their life was made up of ex- tremes. Constant fatigue and distress are unfavor- able to increase of population. Their constant wars had also an unfavorable influence on the population ; it swept off their most vigorous men. From these considerations we are led to say that it is only in the highest state of civilization that the human race can find the greatest increase of their numbers, knowledge, safety and happiness.
CHAPTER IV.
THE DIVISION OF VERMONT INTO COUN- TIES AND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS AND THE NORTHERN LINE OF THE STATE.
The division of the territory of New Hampshire Grants, and afterwards the State of Vermont, in- to Counties will next claim our attention. That part of the territory of the Grants lying east of the range of mountains was first called Unity County, but it was afterwards changed to Cum- berland County in 1768, and later, Cumberland County was itself divided, the northern line of which was the south line of Thetford, Stratford and Tunbridge. It appears from the Documen- tary History of New York, that Gloucester Coun- ty was formed February 28th, 1770, and was de- scribed as all that certain tract or district of land situated lying and being to the northward of the County of Cumberland: beginning at the north- west corner of said County of Cumberland; and thence running north as the needle points fifty miles; thence east to Connecticut River; thence along the west bank of the same river as it runs to the northeast corner of said County of Cumber- land on the said river; and thence along the north bounds of the said County of Cumberland to the
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place of beginning; and that the township of Kingsland be declared and appointed the County Town.
The petitioners set forth in their petition for the establishing of said County, that such of the pe- titioners as live to the northward of Cumberland are exposed to rapine and plunder from a lawless banditti of felons and criminals who fly thither from other places. And that it is impossible to obtain justice while they remain a part of the County of Albany, as the magistrate can have no eye upon those distant parts. nor can the petition- ers procure officers to come thither, or they in their present state go to them; that there are up- wards of seven hundred souls to the northward of the County of Cumberland, and that such is the quality and situation of the land, that under proper encouragement, and by the help of the overflowing of the neighboring Colonies, the whole country may in a few years be under ac- tual cultivation. The County seat was after- wards fixed at Newbury,
The western part of the territory of the Newv Hampshire Grants, or so much of it as was claimed to be within the jurisdiction of New York, at an early day, was included within the bounda- ries of the New York Counties of Albany and Charlotte. It will be borne in mind that the County of Unity, the territory of which was after- wards called Cumberland and Gloucester, on the east side of the mountains, and the Counties of Al- bany and Charlotte on the west side of the moun- tains, were constituted and named by the New
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York authorities, as they claimed the entire terri- tory embraced within the limits of those Counties.
The County of Charlotte was formed in the year 1772. When the Green Mountain Boys de- clared the New Hampshire Grants an independent State, and as patriots pledged their property, hon- or and lives to maintain that declaration, and adopted the Constitution of the State in 1778, the names of Albany and Charlotte Counties were dropped, and all Western Vermont was included in Bennington County. It was this year that the west bank of Connecticut River was fixed as the eastern boundary of Vermont. While the County of Charlotte, lying north of the County of Albany, included a part of what now is the State of Ver- mont, Skeensborough (now Whitehall) of New York was its shire town.
By an Act passed by the State of Vermont in February, 1779, all Western Vermont to the south line of the Province of Quebec was included within the County of Bennington, and all Eastern Ver- mont to the south line of the Province of Quebec was embraced within the County of Cumberland, and the particular boundaries of the two Counties were given in said Act. At a session of the Gen- eral Assembly held at Windsor in February, 1781, an Act was passed by which Bennington County was divided and its bounds limited to the terri- tory of that County lying south of a line, begin- ning at the northwest corner of Rupert, running easterly on the north line of Rupert, Dorset and Bromley (now Peru), to the line of Cumberland County, with Bennington and Manchester estab-
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lished as half shires, and all territory north of said line was constituted a separate County and named Rutland, with Tinmouth as its shire. By the same Act of the General Assembly of that year, Cumberland County and the entire eastern part of the State was incorporated into three Counties : viz. Windham, Windsor and Orange, and thus dropping the names of Cumberland and Gloucester. Windham embraced by the Act all that part of Cumberland County lying south of a line commencing at the southeast corner of Springfield, running westerly to the east line of Bennington County. Windsor embraced all terri- tory lying north of Windham County and south of a line running from the north-east corner of Norwich, westerly on the north line of Norwich, Sharon, Royalton and Bethel, to the Bennington County line, and all remaining territory lying north of Windsor County, south of Canada line in Eastern Vermont, was established as a County by the name of Orange, with Thetford and New- bury as half shires.
Where half shires were established, the courts were set and held in those half shires alternately. While a union of a part of New Hampshire west of the Mason line, with Vermont, continued, the General Assembly of Vermont, at a session held in April, at Windsor, passed the following Act, viz :
"Be it enacted, etc., that all the lands within this State, on the east side of Connecticut River lying and being opposite the County of Orange, be, and hereby are, for the time being, annexed to the said County of Orange.
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"Be it further enacted, that all the land lying and being within this State, on the east side of Connecticut River, opposite to the County of Windsor, and northward of the northerly lines of Claremont, Newport, Unity and Wendal, be, and hereby are, for the time being, annexed to the County of Windsor.
"And be it further enacted, that all the lands within this State, on the east side of Connecticut River southwardly of the northwardly lines of the towns of Claremont, Newport, Unity and Wendal, be, and hereby are, for the time being, erected into one entire and distinct County, by the name of Washington County." The territory claimed by Vermont on the east side of Connecti- cut River, was by an Act passed at the same ses- sion divided into four probate districts, viz .: the districts of Keene, Claremont, Dresden and Hav- erill. While the union of a part of New Hamp- shire west of the Mason line remained with Ver- mont, the towns east of Connecticut River lying and being opposite of the Counties of Windsor and Orange, were, by an Act of the General Assem- bly, annexed to the County opposite on the west of said river.
On the 27th day of February, 1787, the Gen- eral Assembly passed an Act defining the bound- aries and limits of the several Counties of Benning- ton, Windham, Windsor, Rutland and Orange and constituting the County of Addison, leaving Rut- land County substantially as it now is. The boundary lines of Addison County began at the north-west corner of Rutland County, thence
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