USA > Vermont > Washington County > Waitsfield > Historical address delivered August 7, 1889, at the centennial celebration : commemorating the first settlement of the town of Waitsfield, Vermont, by General Benjamin Wait > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
General Wait had, at one time, an interest in other town grants. The townships of Isle la Motte and the Two Heroes of Grand Islecounty were, in 1770, granted to General Ethan Allen, Col. Samuel Herrick, Col. Benjamin Wait and about ninety associates. What the
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General did with his rights in those fertile townships cannot now be explained. Their situation may have been unattractive to him, being a man more accustomed to the use of snow shoes than to the use of boat and oars, and the idea of connecting islands with each other and with mainland by bridges built with the aid of state appropriations was then too remote to be practicable. The grant of the township of Waitsfield was made by the governor and council at Bennington Feb. 25, 1782, with the following special stipulations : "Resolved, That the proprietors of the township of Waitsfield granted to Gen. Roger Enos, Col. Benjamin Wait and Company to the number of sixty-five, pay for each right eight pounds, lawful money in silver, to be paid by the first day of May next. To be settled in three years after the war will admit with safety."
The charter of the town, (which is still a well pre- served document, and is among the treasures carried in the little red trunk passed regularly from one board of selectmen to the next) bears a corresponding date, but includes the names of seventy grantees, besides five pub- lic rights for the benefit of a college, grammar school, town schools, support of the ministry and for the first settled minister. It confirms, then, seventy-five pro- prietary rights, each entitled to about 318 acres of land.
The charter defines a settlement of these individual rights to mean that cach proprietor should cause to be cultivated and planted five acres of land belonging to his right ; to build thereon a house at least cighteen feet square on the floor, and have one family on each re- spective right within the aforesaid three years. (Ifthese conditions were not complied with the land should revert to the statc.)
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Such a requirement appears to us quite impracticable, standing, as we do, in full view of so many mountain- ous sub-divisions of the town.
It was found in those days to be impracticable, but partly because of the stagnation and financial distress . that so generally prevailed in the years next following the Revolutionary war; and a few years later that con- dition was modified in the interest of the landholder.
Gen. Roger Enos, whose name heads the list on the charter of Waitsfield, was, at the time, at the head of the military department in Vermont and resided in Hartland, Windsor county. Enosburgh, in Franklin county, derived its name from him-he being an original proprietor of that town. Many other grantees of this town were residents of Windsor county, others of Cheshire county, N. H., lying on the other side of the Connecticut river, and others still were doubtless resi- dents of the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut.
It had been the policy of the leading men of Vermont for various reasons to secure among the grantees of the new townships a liberal number of citizens of adjoining states.
Gen. Wait and his two sons, Ezra and Gilbert, (who were minors and quite young when their father caused their names to be inserted in the charter) were the only persons of the seventy original proprietors who ever came to Waitsfield to reside. A few others furnished settlers in the persons of their sons; one, a resident of Claremont, N. H., sending three sons as soon as they respectively became of age.
The force of state surveyors did not reach the work of running out and establishing the boundary lines of Waitsfield until 1787.
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This was the signal of action to Gen. Wait and other leading proprietors of the new townships. Several business meetings of those original landholders were held in Windsor and Hartland in the summer and fall of 1788.
A survey of the town was ordered and made; a plan was drawn, dividing it into 150 lots of 150 acres each (as it was at first supposed), leaving a narrow strip of land on the east side of the town, and several small gores of land along the diagonal south line to be surveyed and divided several years later.
These lots were numbered from 1 to 150; and the drawing of lots by the proprietors then followed. Slips of paper containing all the numbers were then placed in a box; the names on the charter called over separate- ly; one number drawn to each name, and then again in like manner.
Let us see how General Wait and his two sons fared in that drawing.
The father drew a lot lying at the Warren line, east of the point where the highway now enters the town from East Warren. Ezra drew the adjoining lot in the same range, lying northeast of it. Gilbert drew a lot now well up in the pastures and woodlands southwest of "Palmer Hill." The father also drew lot 56, located on the northern slope of the mountain sometimes desig- nated as "Old Scrag, " and extending well over the sum- mit. Ezra further drew the lot on which Mr. Nathan Boyce now lives. Gilbert's other lot was on the river and is now occupied by the southerly section of our vil- lage, and a portion of the "Parker farm."
A committee of three to look out the direction of the first roads in Waitsfield was also chosen. It was ac-
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companied by Gen. Wait, who assisted in the work, and was also paid for his services. This was the report they carried back to the land owners, to which a few words of explanation are added.
"We have looked three ways that we were directed and . found the way through Warren Hollow (East Warren) will accommodate the settle of the town best.
"We find there may be a road to Northfield that will accommodate the settlement of the east part of the town." (About one-third of the township being orig- inally on the east side of the mountain range.)
"The road through Warren," they said, "will strike Waitsfield south line near the 5th range from Fayston," (or near where the road now enters from East Warren, ) "thence keeping on that line through said town to the north line," (just westerly from the base of the Bald Mountain,) "and turning down to the river."
"We find there will be another wanting to leave the above road on lot No. 90 or 88," (which would be in the vicinity of the south school-house, ) "and turn down to the river to strike what is called the 'Great Eddy,'" (where the old arch bridge now is, ) "thence down the river to Moretown line."
The important preliminaries were then completed by voting to petition the general assembly to lay a tax on the lands of the town raising a sum equal to about $550; one-half to be expended in cutting out roads, building bridges, and the balance to be used as an en- couragement to those willing to undertake the building of a grist and saw mill. Gen. Wait was first upon the committee to superintend the expenditure of money in behalf of the proprietors and settlers.
A belief appears to be current that the first settlers of
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our town, as well as of other towns in the hilly districts of the state, chose for various reasons the elevated lands for farming purposes in preference to those upon the streams. The history of the settlement of Waitsfield does not sufficiently warrant such a belief.
Very soon after the result of drawing lots was de- termined, Gen. Wait purchased of the original proprie- tors owning the same four lots of land in one body lying upon each side of the river bounded southerly, in part, by the Gilbert Wait lot, and northerly by the town school lot. This gave the family a connected tract of seven hundred and fifty acres, now occupied by and surrounding our little village.
It was near the center of this tract that Gen. Wait, and his men and boys, rolled up in the spring or sum- mer of 1789 the first building ever constructed in Mad River Valley, ten or twelve miles away from any other settlement. Its exact site is now a little in doubt. Some suppose it to have stood on the elevation at the little cemetery east of the school-house. Others have located it a little west of that place. As there are in- dications that the river then passed very near to this site, on the south and east, it is not improbable that the higher ground or hillock may have been chosen as a spot to build upon. A few years later the old log house was vacated by the removal of the family to a larger and pleasanter home, built on the natural terrace north of us and now in the pasture of Mr. L. R. Joslyn. The spot is still readily traced by the lines of former roads running past it, as well as by the half filled cellar and the well about four rods from the north- west corner; also by the relics of the orchard standing a little above it.
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An inspection of that spot, and a little survey of the prospect in front and southward, as well as to the east and west, will vindicate the good judgment of that old settler in selecting that site for his home in his de- clining years, and around which his children and grand- children clustered until they died or the spirit of emigra- tion drove them elsewhere.
It is not easy now to glean the history of the town from the date of its settlement to the date of its organ- ization in 1794. Clearings in the forests had been made, necessary roads cut out ; bridges of an inexpensive style had been constructed at the "Great Eddy," and across the river in the northerly part of the town. A saw mill and a grist mill were built by John Heaton, Jr., on the site long afterward known as "Green's mills," where the saw mill of Mr. M. L. Richardson now stands.
It must have been a day of happy rejoicings among the General's younger boys when the stones of the new grist mill began turning; for tradition has preserved the story that, prior to that event, they had furnished power to crush the corn in a hollowed stump, with a heavy pestle hung to a spring pole.
It is scarcely possible now to trace more than three or four families, besides that of General Wait, to Waits- field prior to the year 1791. This may even exceed the actual number.
The admission of Vermont into the Union that year, and the consequent settlement of all the long and bitter controversies concerning the validity of land titles, may have done more than we absolutely know to establish confidence and to encourage others (citizens of other states) to move hither in rapidly increasing numbers. At any rate, within the space of a very few
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years, we think eighteen or twenty families had moved here from Shelburne, Mass., and its vicinity, of whom probably three-fourths or four-fifths located upon the river lands.
Several families came at about the same time from Windsor; a few each from Cornish and Claremont, N. H., (places near by Windsor); and then, a little later, other towns in Windsor county and in New Hampshire, also some in the states of Connecticut and New York contributed liberally to the permanent popu- lation of the towns.
The principal lines of settlement of the early comers can be briefly indicated. They took lands very quickly along the river, occupying every available lot, and in some cases dividing original lots with their friends and old neighbors.
Very early also lands were taken upon one tier, and in some instances upon a second tier, of lots extending from the river near the Great Bridge, (as it was called) easterly to and including "Palmer Hill," where it was supposed by some that the best timbered and richest lands of the town were located. Furthermore, a road from that point had then been, or was soon after, cut out over the mountain to East Waitsfield (which had for many years no population or an exceedingly small one), and thence to Northfield.
Three or four families among the earliest settlers had, however, occupied lands both to the northeast and to the southwest of this line of settlers.
There were enough people here in 1794 so that it was deemed expedient to organize the town.
Gen. Wait, being a Justice of the Peace by appoint- ment of the Legislature, called the first meeting. It
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was held at his house and he was the moderator, a position to which he was called with exceeding frequency in after years. He was chosen first selectman, and to some minor offices. This was also a frequent occur- rence in later years. In 1795 he was sent as delegate, to establish a court house in the county of Chittenden, this town then being within the limits of that county, and the same year he was chosen as Waitsfield's first representative to the General Assembly of Vermont. In this position he had service for seven nearly success- ive terms (or ten in all, including the Windsor repre- sentation.) The old journals of these sessions contain frequent references to his name, in connection with the formation of committees for special business, and, often- er than otherwise, his name headed the list as chairman.
The ten or twelve years next following the organiza- tion of the town were years of intense interest and activ- ity in providing for the common needs of the new corpor- ation, including privileges of an educational and relig- ious character.
Numerous public highways, to accommodate the several settled districts of the town, were surveyed and laid out four rods wide, (in singular contrast to the contracted roadways of modern times.)
In 1796 land was secured on the "Common" (as it was afterwards termed) for a public burial yard; for a meeting house and town house, and for grounds to accommodate military trainings, etc. It was at that time uncleared, but was understood to represent the geographical center of the town as well as it could be represented, and the natural attractiveness of the loca- tion may have come to be recognized. The same year the first church organization was effected; and the fol-
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lowing year that part of the town lying west of the mountain was divided into four school districts which . were in 1798 fully organized, but some of them, at least for a time, were obliged to depend on accommodations in family dwellings or in barns until school houses could be located and built.
During the year 1797 a circumstance occurred that proved to be the beginning of a long and exciting con- troversy over the question of a site for the meeting house, which it was expected would be used for all public meetings of the town of a secular or religious nature.
Previously to this, all town meetings, regular and special, all freeman's meetings for the election of state officers and otherwise, and the religious meetings, had been held at Gen. Wait's house or barn. At about that time a motion was carried in the regular or annual town meeting (where such questions were for a few years decided), to hold the Sunday meetings for the cur- rent year at the house of William Palmer, then living south of the land already purchased for a "Common." Whereupon the old yeoman of "Dana Hill," Francis Dana, expostulated with the voters. They at once rescinded their former action; then voted to hold the meetings as "nigh the Center of the town as possible," and then voted to hold the religious meetings for that year in Gen. Wait's barn!
It is susceptible of demonstration that this place did, at that time, actually represent very nearly the center of population, although at the extreme western bound- ary of the town. The travel of the town passed very near to it, or by it, in going to the mills before mentioned ; there being an intersection of the roads near the house of his son Ezra, which stood on the knoll a little north
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of the now Methodist parsonage. The road from More- town to the mills and points south of them passed over the hill south of his son's house, and, at that house, intersected with the road crossing the river and leading in the direction of Roxbury. At this point of intersection the town had directed all public notifica- tions to be posted.
We have said that school districts were formed about this time.
An old settler of the town, Jennison Jones, whose name was connected with much early history of the town and its preservation in manuscript, has left for us a census of all the voters in town for the year 1797, arranged by himself, as it appears, with refer- ence to their location in school districts. The total number of names on the freeman's list was sixty-one and they were as follows:
N. W. DISTRICT.
1 Stephen Pierce.
2 John Barnard.
3 Elias Wells.
4 James Heaton.
5 Dunn Still.
6 Daniel Wilder.
7 Levi Wilder.
8 Phineas Rider.
9 Jared Skinner.
4 Thomas Sherman.
5 Thomas Sherman, Jr.
6 Daniel Sherman.
7 Elijah Sperry.
8 Jeduthan Wait.
[Half brother of Gen. Wait.]
14 Joseph Barns.
15 Gaius Hitchcock.
16 Abram Marsh.
17 Samuel Barnard.
18 Moses Fisk.
19 Selah Smithi.
20 Elijah Smith,
21 Daniel Taylor.
22 Beriah Sherman.
23 Abel Spaulding.
S. W. DISTRICT.
1 Gen. Benjamin Wait.
2 Ezra Wait.
3 Benjamin Wait, Jr.
[Gilbert Wait had a family at that time, but was yet a mi- nor.]
10 David Symonds.
11 Elijah Freeman.
12 John Burdick.
13 Jonathan Seaver.
9 Joseph Trask.
10 Isaac Trask.
11 Silas Trask.
12 Simeon Stoddard, (Dr.)
13 Nathan Sterling.
14 Jesse Mix.
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15 Eli Abbott.
8 Nathaniel Bartlett.
16 Jonah Strickland.
17 Francis Dana.
10 William Joiner.
11 Harba Childs.
12 Joshua Pike.
13 William Wheeler.
14 Elijah Grandy.
1 Moses Chase.
2 Bissell Phelps, (soldier.)
3 David Phelps.
4 Eli Skinner.
1 Evan Clark.
2 Aaron Miner.
6 Jonathan Palmer.
3 Ezekiel Hawley.
7 Samuel S. Savage.
4 Samuel Bailey.
This shows a total of forty-two voters in what may be called the river districts, including four or five at most, living on the high ground and only nineteen in the other two.
MEMORANDUM.
Names of some who came a few years later.
Thomas Green.
John Campbell.
Job House.
Josiah Campbell.
Amasa Skinner.
Elias Taylor.
Ezra Jones.
William Salisbury.
Jennison Jones.
Edmund Rice. Ralph Turner.
Doud Bushnell. [A Revolutionary soldier.]
Dr. William Joslin.
Jonathan Wallis.
Cyrus Joslin.
Joseph Wallis.
Jason Carpenter.
Negro Sam.
John S. Poland.
Joseph Joslin, Sr.
Joseph Joslin, Jr.
William Chase.
Garinter Hastings.
Amariah Chandler.
Roswell Horr.
Nathaniel Joslin.
Dr. Frederick Richardson.
Roderick Richardson.
Capt. Ira Richardson.
Roswell Richardson.
9 William Palmer.
18 Henry Dana.
19 Foster Dana.
N. E. DISTRICT.
15 Joseph Hamilton.
S. E. DISTRICT.
5 Salma Rider.
, Matthias S. Jones.
Hooker Joslin.
Isaac Tewksbury.
Amasa Russ.
Moses Smith. James Joslin.
Simeon Pratt, (and others.)
William Wait.
[A Revolutionary soldier and half brother of Gen. Wait. One arm gone.]
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STATISTICS.
In 1802 a return of scholars between the ages of four years and eighteen years in the several school districts gave the following results :
N. W. District (North), - 62
S. W. - 57
S. E.
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N. E. 57
The number much increased in later years.
In this situation respecting the location of the fami- lies and their needs of school houses and a place to hold secular and religious meetings for all the town, it was in 1798 voted by the town to build a town house near the east side of the Common, 36 ft. x 18ft., with walls nine feet high; to be built in conjunction with the northeast school district if they should agree thereto. It was reported that the district would concur, and the contracts for putting up the frame, and enclosing it, were at once awarded. This action proved to be a little premature, for, although the contractor put up the frame, the school district was finally excused from entering the partnership and the work was suspended.
All further attempts to finish that structure failed, as the sentiment of the majority of the town reacted and stood adverse to any project for completing it. Two or three years afterwards the frame was taken down, moved to a spot a little north of Gen. Wait's house, finished up and used, for several years, for the purposes of a store, around which there very soon grew up other branches of industry, including a manu- factory of potash salts and ultimately a tannery and blacksmith shop, also a little later a public house near where Mr. David O. Joslyn's family now reside.
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Possibly this may have been in part a business move- ment towards centering the commercial interests of the town near the river, at the expense of site on the Com- mon.
From 1798 till 1804 all town meetings were held at the dwelling house of Ezra Wait at the intersection of roads leading from the General's house respectively towards the Bridge and towards Green's Mills.
A little incident occurred at one of the annual meet- ings held at this place which may be of especial interest to the ladies. The town had never been accustomed to pay anything for the privileges of meeting at these private dwellings, but in 1802 the citizens voted "to pay Mrs. Wait, the wife of Mr. Ezra Wait, six dollars for the trouble caused by holding town meetings in their house." What that lady had said about having snow and mud tracked over the floor of that spacious and pleasant south kitchen by that crowd of men gathering three or four times a year can never be known. We are glad to know, however, in this gener ation, that those men of Waitsfield had sufficient re- spect for woman's rights to pay that money to Mrs. Wait.
In 1804 the town voted to hold its town meetings at a house near the Common. Since the former fruitless attempt to build a town house on the Common there had not been a long season of passiveness in respect to where the public buildings and business centre should be. The situation was now changed and changing. Families had come in and occupied nearly every avail- able or tillable tract on this west side of the mountain, and the two parties upon this question had become very evenly balanced. A share of the inhabitants on
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the river farms would be, as the roads then were, nearly or quite as well convenienced at the Common as else- where.
In that year,1804, there came a crisis which practi- cally settled the matter against the deliberate judg- ment of Gen. Wait.
At this time it was clearly apparent that the territory belonging to Waitsfield on the east of the mountain could never have an important place in the municipal, educational and religious affairs of Waitsfield. Many years prior to its being set to Northfield, it was con- ceded that it must go, or become a little township by itself.
On the other hand it was just as clear, we think, to Gen. Wait, and those in sympathy with him, that Fayston (of which Lynde Wait, his son-in-law, was the first settler, others having joined him on land near the eastern and central part of the town) must, from its natural conformation of surface, be in commercial mat- ters at least in close alliance with Waitsfield; and so he planned the last great effort of his life to make his favorite spot the center of a town.
He had tried two years before, to encourage the building of a house of worship by subscribing for pews (or pew ground) to an amount exceeding $600, at a time when it appeared that a sufficient amount could be raised without resorting to the offensive method of taxation, but the undertaking failed. The subject of location always divided the house, and was a con- tinuous cause of disagreement.
The people of Fayston were then agitating the sub- ject of organizing a town.
Therefore a meeting of the citizens of Waitsfield was
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called, "to see if town would join with the proprietors of Fayston in petitioning the General Assembly, next to be holden at Windsor, to have Fayston annexed to Waitsfield, and to enjoy the same privileges as though they were separate."
This meeting was held in the winter, at a private house, small in size, situated near the Common. There were no less than eighty voters present that day, that number representing the number of votes actually cast for and against the proposition. There is no record of more than sixty-one voters ever having assembled at any former meeting of the town.
They carried the motion in favor of annexation by a vote of forty-one for and thirty-nine against the propo- sition.
That continued to be a subject of exciting contro- versy throughout the year, and long afterwards, and naturally enough, under such a condition of things, when the matter was carried to the legislature the petitioners were defeated.
That was a grievous disappointment to Gen. Wait, and when, about two years later, the preliminaries of a final and successful movement to build the large, and for those days elegant house of worship, on the Common were begun, made keenly sensitive by former defeat, he withdrew from the ecclesiastical society, of which he was a member, and had no participation in its work.
Frailty of human nature, concurrent with the deepest interest in the town of his solicitude; concurrent with the exercise of a sound judgment upon which he had learned to rely-as others had so often relied; concur- rent with the force of a strong will, which had carried him so often to the front, but now for a little time, re- versed his position !
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It need not be said that the fathers differing from him made any mistake in thus shaping the early affairs of the town. But it may be remembered that the good judgment-possibly the foresight of this oldest father of the town, was, less than twenty-five years after- wards, approved by the most sagacious business men of that time by removing their business from the Com- mon and planting enterprises on the very land he had formerly owned, and where the village has since receiv- ed its growth.
What more of Benjamin Wait?
He did not cherish resentment long. There was tenderness and forgiveness in his nature-as in the strongest characters. In a little while he was the trust- ed counsellor and promoter of the religious society to which we have referred, and a little later in full and kindly Christian fellowship with the members of the church, continuing so to the last. His interest in the public questions and in the general concerns of the town continued as he advanced to a very great age, and he served the people in numerous ways.
As early as was practicable he divided a portion of his large tract of land among his older sons, and to a half brother, Jeduthan Wait, who occupied the section just southwest of the village.
The farm first occupied by the oldest son, Ezra Wait, consisted of ninety acres lying between the farms of his father on the north and his uncle on the south, and in- cluding the tract upon which the most central portions of our village now stand. This son was the first con- stable and collector for the town, holding that office for several years. Both he and his wife died during an epidemic of fever about the year 1809, leaving a large
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS
family of children, several of whom found homes with their grandfather for several years. Benjamin, Jr., occu- pied the farm next north of his father's farm, but re- moved to Chazy, N. Y., we think, considerably before 1810. He was town clerk for several years, and frequently held other offices. After the death of Ezra and the removal of Benjamin, Jr., the next younger brothers, Gilbert and Thomas, appear to have taken their places. Soon after, Thomas died, and four years later (in 1812) his wife, Lovina Phelps, daughter of the old settler, Bissell Phelps, also died, leaving a family of four children. Gilbert appears to have removed, after the death of Thomas, to the farm first owned by his brother, Benjamin, Jr. Joseph probably lived with the General until 1819, when the old homestead of 200 acres passed into the hands of the son-in-law, Lynde Wait; and Joseph and Gilbert evidently left the town. The youngest son is reported to have gone to sea at some early date and was not afterwards heard from. The family of the other daughter, Mrs. Phelps, lingered in the town until about 1819 or 1820 and then joined the moving crowd in search of other homes. Lynde Wait and his family moved to Northern New York more than fifty years ago. For more than forty years the late Mrs. Harriet Wait Carpenter (daughter of Gilbert Wait, granddaughter of Benjamin Wait) and her children and grandchildren remained the sole represent- atives of the family of Gen. Wait, resident in our town. Now none remain, yet, with this example of change in view, it is probably correct to say that members of no less than one-third of the families now resident here can trace their lineage to people who settled here before the year 1800. There are countless reminiscences that
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it would be appropriate to tell on this centennial occa- sion. There are hundreds of family histories it would be interesting to follow. It would be pleasant and in- structive to review the great and vital issues that have been met in the last century, in which our ancestors and those now living have participated in deciding. This must be left for others to do.
A little more concerning the subject of our sketch and we are done.
The mother of his children, as has been said, died in 1804. Subsequently he married again, but the speaker knows very little of the antecedents of Mrs. Mehitable Wait, or her life after the decease of her husband.
In 1816 the General, then eighty years old, made care- ful provision for surrendering worldly cares, by deeding to one and another of his children, or others in interest, such real estate as had not otherwise been disposed of.
He lived, however, to the age of eighty-six years and four months. On the morning of June 28, 1822, "feeling in better than usual health and spirits," he started out, as the story is told, with an attendant, announcing his intention of going to the Common on some matter of business and of returning by way of the lower bridge, wishing also to call at the house of John Burdick-adding the remark, "after that heshould be ready to go when called for." He accomplished the journey so far as to reach the house of Mr. Burdick, the old-time lawyer of the town, who lived on the river road about a mile and a half distant and northeast of the General's home.
Soon after his arrival he complained of illness, and before his family could be summoned he had passed away.
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS
The funeral service was held two days later and is re- membered by a few who are here to-day. Exercises were conducted in accordance with the ritual of the Masonic order, to which he had belonged.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
While Vermont was seeking of a reluctant congress admission as a state-more than a hundred years ago- a leading citizen, a man of remarkable insight into the character of its early settlers, in an address to that body, paid the following tribute to his fellow citizens and partners in the struggles of that time. He said:
"Though it is not common that men of so great learn- ing as some in the world should go to subdue the wilder- ness, yet I think we have men of as much virtue and as good talents as any in the world."
Responding to that sentiment to-day, standing as we do stand upon the foreground of another century of our little town's existence, reviewing the character of the peopling it has had-may we be ready to exclaim with reverence and with fervor: So let it be !
WALTER A. JONES.
1
HORec
5990H
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