USA > Vermont > Addison County > History of Addison county Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 62
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Physicians .- There is but one physician now in practice in town. Dr. O. L. Nimblet was born on the 16th of January, 1832, in Monkton, on the place still occupied by his mother, Althea (Williams) Nimblet. He studied medicine with Dr. P. C. Ballou, then of Monkton (who died October 1, 1884), after which he attended the medical department of Dartmouth College. He was afterward graduated from the University of Vermont, at Burlington, on the 5th of June, 1854. He came here at once to practice. In August, 1853, he married Sarah V. Mason, of Starksboro. He is now living with his second wife, formerly Mrs. E. C. Weller, of Monkton, whom he married on the 2d of January, 1886. His father, Hosea Nimblet, came to Monkton not long after 1820, and after working out a while by the month, located on the place now occupied by his widow. Hosea Nimblet died on the 8th of August, 1879, aged seventy-nine years and three months.
Post-offices .- One of the earliest postmasters in the village, or Borough, as we have been calling it, was Edmund Collins, who had the office a number of years. Charles Dean also had the office many years. Daniel Dean, T. C. Smith, Ira Ladd, and Harrison Smith brought the office down to 1879, when the present incumbent, F. H. Dean, was appointed. The first postmaster at Monkton Ridge was Dr. Philip C. Ballou, who held the office a few years, until his death in 1884. Fred Skiff followed him, but under the present administra- tion gave place to Arthur Bidwell, who holds it now.
Military .- At the outbreak of the Revolution John Bishop, with several sons, and Ebenezer Stearns, were captured by Tories and Indians and taken to Canada, and the settlement was broken up till after the war. Tradition says Bishop had some wheat-stacks to which the Indians were about to set fire, when Mrs. Bishop, knowing them to be her main dependence, appeared with hot water, which she threw so vigorously that the Indians, admiring her courage, spared the stacks. Bishop and his sons were again returned to their homes.
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TOWN OF MONKTON.
Bishop was noted for his eccentricities ; for instance, when any one came to the marsh, near where he lived, to pick cranberries, he always demanded a portion, for the reason that he brought the seed with him from New Milford. He also demanded a share of all the fish in an adjacent pond, as he had brought the original stock from the same place, in a leather bag, supplying fresh water from time to time, on his way. Barnabas Barnum met with a more tragic fate. On the alarm being given at the siege of Shelburne block-house, he repaired, with others, to the scene of action, and fell in the bloody skirmish of March 12, 1778.
Monkton, in common with the other towns in this part of the State, took vigorous and active measures to repel the invaders of the War of 1812, and it is not a pleasant reflection that the time has passed when the names and deeds of her heroes in that struggle could be inscribed on the pages of history. The great Rebellion, however, is too recent in the memory of men now living to admit of omission. The names of those who went from Monkton to this war in Vermont regiments are as follows :
Volunteers for three years credited previous to call for 300,000 volunteers of October 17, 1863 :
E. Barney, H. E. Barnum, J. P. Barnum, P. Begor, W. Boughton, A. J. Bull, G. E. Collins, M. Colt, A. L. Cox, C. D. Dean, M. Degree, T. R. Dunn, J. Elliott, jr., L. C. Finch, A. Freeman, H. J. Freeman, W. Freeman, W. W. Gage, F. Greenough, J. S. Hays, A. D. Hyer, G. Hill, W. Higby, L. Lapointe, A. C. Little, W. P. Morgan, A. Page, H. B. Potter, A. Rivers, J. P. Rosco, C. H. Sears, C. C. Sears, O. Shepherd, S. Shepherd, H. Sherman, S. Stebbins, J. Stillson, J. S. Tracy, W. H. Tracy, J. J. Weaver, G. W. Weller, S. A. Wright.
Credits under call of October 17, 1863, for 300,000 volunteers, and subse- quent calls :
Volunteers for three years .- J. N. Baldwin, E. T. Collins, E. S. Collins, O. Demmins, A. Derby, O. B. Hutchins, J. Kingsley, J. Lamson, J. Osier, P. Osier, P. Owen, P. Parents, E. Steady, F. Stone, H. C. Sweet, C. Van Steenburgh.
Volunteers for one year .- H. Bostwick, I. Briggs, C. Comstock, H. J. Free- man, J. Greene 3d, A. E. Lamson, E. Sears.
Volunteers re-enlisted .- E. Barney, P. Begor, M. Colt, A. L. Cox, J. S. Hayes.
Enrolled men who furnished substitute .- L. E. Beers, O. W. Eaton, George F. Skiff, J. B. Smith, L. E. Smith, W. W. Wyman.
Not credited by name .- Three men.
Volunteers for nine months .- J. Baldwin, J. Cogue, M. Furlong, E. F. Hall, N. Hawley, jr., H. L. Hurlburt, K. Melainliff, J. C. Moulton, J. Rounds, H. H. Spooner, L. Steady, G. R. Toby.
Furnished under draft .- Paid commutation, T. Dillon, C. Hyer, O. Nimblet, F. B. Partch, S. Tracy. Procured substitute, D. B. Collins, E. Hill, B. S. Law- rence.
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HISTORY OF ADDISON COUNTY.
Present Officers .-- The town officers of Monkton, elected at the March meet- ing for 1885, are as follows: F. H. Dean, town clerk; treasurer and agent, L. E. Smith (since deceased); selectmen, John A. Palmer, L. E. Meech, Charles Thomas; constable, H. R. Baldwin; superintendent of schools, Dr. O. L. Nim- blet; listers, George W. Day, L. E. Beers, William M. Dean; overseer of the poor, L. E. Meech.
Population Statistics .- The population of this town has varied since the taking of the first census in 1791, as follows: 1791, 450; 1800, 880; 1810, 1,248; 1820, 1, 152; 1830, 1,384; 1840, 1,310; 1850, 1,246; 1860, 1, 123; 1870, 1,006; 1880, 1022.
ECCLESIASTICAL.
The first church organized in town was the Calvinistic Baptist, formed July 24, 1794, with a membership of twelve. The society, though limited in num- bers, still holds regular services, Rev. Ira Kellogg acting as pastor, and Albert Baldwin as Sabbath-school superintendent.
The Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1797 by Joseph Mitchell, the first pastor. There being no convenient center in the town, the society has three different places of worship: at the church in East Monkton, the town house at Monkton Ridge, and the church in Barnumtown, one service being held at each place on alternate Sabbaths, served by one pastor, Rev. Delano Perry. The first church at Barnumtown was erected in 1811, and rebuilt in 1854. Its original cost was $1,250, and now with seating capacity for two hundred and fifty persons, is valued at $4,500. The building at East Monk- ton, erected in 1867, will accommodate two hundred and fifty persons, cost $2,000, and is now valued, including grounds, at $2,500. The society is at present in a prosperous state, with many members.
The Friends' Society, located at Monkton Ridge, was organized by Joseph Hoag in 1798, he also acting as their first minister. Their first building was erected about the year 1800. The present house will seat two hundred and fifty persons, and was erected in 1878, at a cost of $1,200. It is now valued, including grounds, at $2,400. The society has about eighty members, with W. L. Dean, Fred Skiff, and Samuel Miles, elders.
CHAPTER XXVII.
HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF NEW HAVEN. 1
N EW HAVEN is situated in the central part of Addison county, in latitude 44° 6' and longitude 30° 53', between the Green Mountains on the east and Grand View and Buck Mountains on the west. Some parts of it are mod-
1 Prepared for this work, substantially, by the late Edward S. Dana, of New Haven.
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TOWN OF NEW HAVEN.
erately rolling, and there are pleasant valleys and fine streams. The greater part of the rocks underlying the soil are limestone and red sandrock, the for- mer cropping out in ledges and furnishing materials for lime and building pur- poses. There are also quarries of fine marble. The soil consists of clay and loam, with alluvial deposits; along the several streams in many places are bowlders and pebbles, deposited here during the drift period. The town was originally covered with a heavy growth of timber, consisting principally of maple, beech, birch, elm, basswood, walnut, pine, oak, hemlock, etc. In the central and northeastern parts were low, swampy tracts, covered with a heavy growth of cedar. Springs of pure, cold water are abundant, and the town is well supplied with streams. New Haven River enters the town near the southeast corner, washing the whole southern portion, and flows into Otter Creek near the southwest corner. Otter Creek, which flows to the north, forms a part of the southwestern boundary of the town. Little Otter Creek rises in the central part of the town, flows northwesterly into Ferrisburgh, and thence into Lake Champlain. The Central Vermont Railroad extends through the entire western portion of the town, having two mail stations, at Brooksville and New Haven Depot. The town is bounded on the north by Ferrisburgh, Monk- ton, and Bristol; east by Bristol; south by Middlebury and Weybridge, and west by Weybridge and Waltham.
On November 2, 1761, Governor Benning Wentworth granted to John Evarts and sixty-one associates, in sixty-eight shares, and according to the charter to contain 25,040 acres, an area of a little more than six miles square. This John Evarts, of Salisbury, Conn., was that year deputed to repair to Portsmouth, N. H., and obtain charters of two townships. He first designed to locate them on the sites of Clarendon and Rutland ; but learning that char- ters already covered that region, and the territory north of Leicester had not been granted, and having some knowledge of the lower falls on Otter Creek (now Vergennes), he began at these falls, laying off his townships south of that place, and bounded on the west by the creek. Finding a sufficient extent of territory between Leicester and the falls named for three townships, he ob- tained that number of charters, having redistributed the names of the appli- cants in such a manner as to secure the grants of three instead of two. This town he named New Haven, after the capital of his own State. To designate the starting point more permanently than " a tree marked," a cannon was in- serted in a hole in a rock, with the muzzle upward. This cannon has ever since been the guiding landmark not only of New Haven and Salisbury, but of Middlebury, inasmuch as Middlebury took its boundaries from the south line of New Haven, and Salisbury from the south line of Middlebury. In process of years this cannon became hidden from view by the accumulation of soil, and which, from repeated additions, now covers it to the depth of several feet ; but a bar of iron seasonably inserted in the muzzle can now be seen protrud- ing above the superincumbent material.
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HISTORY OF ADDISON COUNTY.
In the charter Governor Wentworth reserved to himself five hundred acres in the northwest corner of the town, considered equivalent to two shares; as- signed for the gospel and schools four other shares, and one to each of the other grantees.
Although chartered in 1761, the town remained an unbroken wilderness until 1769. A few families that year removed from Salisbury, Conn., and set- tled near the creek in what is now Waltham and Vergennes. Among them were John Griswold and family of five sons, and twelve other settlers, among whom were Phineas Brown and Joshua Hyde. Here were made considerable improvements ; a saw-mill was erected by Griswold and others at the falls in Vergennes, then called New Haven Falls; but they were surprised from their quiet labor by the advent of Colonel Reid, of New York, with a body of armed dependents, who claimed the land on both sides of Otter Creek for a distance of two miles on each shore, from its mouth to Sutherland Falls, by right of a patent from the governor of his State. The settlers were forcibly ejected and tenants of his own put into possession, who built more houses and a grist-mill. These were in turn dispossessed by Ethan Allen and his brave men, their houses and grist-mill destroyed, and the rightful owners put in possession of their property. In July, 1773, Colonel Reid again came on with a number of Scotch emigrants and again expelled the first settlers, and repaired the mill. When this became known at Bennington, Allen and his followers proceeded immediately to New Haven Falls and forcibly reinstated their friends. They broke the mill-stones and threw them over the falls. They also erected a fort a short distance above the falls and garrisoned it with a small party under com- mand of Ebenezer Allen, and after this received no further molestation from the " Yorkers." 1 But the settlers had scarcely begun to feel safe from raids from this quarter, before the settlement was again broken up and the records destroyed by the noted Jacob Sherwood, a Tory and " Yorker " of Revolu- tionary memory.
Few of the original grantees of the town ever became actual settlers. A few were represented among the latter by their children, but most of them sold their shares to the actual settlers at a nominal value. But little is known of the proceedings of the proprietors previous to the settlement of the town, ow- ing to the loss of records ; but it is evident from the records of other towns that they did business up to 1774. The earliest record at our command is dated Salisbury, March 23, 1774, which reads as follows: " Then the proprie- tors of the township of New Haven (a township lately granted under the great seal of the Province of New Hampshire, now in the Province of New York) met according to a legal warning in the Connecticut Current, at the dwelling house of Capt. Samuel More, Innholder in Salisbury in Litchfield County and Colony of Connecticut in New England. Firstly Voted." (No proceedings registered.)
1 See history of Vergennes in this work.
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TOWN OF NEW HAVEN.
The next record is as follows: "New Haven, October 10, 1774. Then the proprietors of this town met according to the adjournment of a legal meet- ing of said proprietors of the 23 of March last. First voted Andrew Barton moderator for said meeting, in the room of the old moderator he being absent. 2ond, voted Justus Sheerwood Proprietors Clerk. 3rd, voted to adjourn said meeting to Stewards in said town for the space of half an hour. 4th, voted that a certain parcel of land be given to the further and more speedy settling of the town. Whereas the settlement of the township of New Haven has been much hindered, by repeated encroachments from noxious claimants, and by reason of the small number of settlers, those which were actual residents have been great sufferers, and several times by force expelled from the prem- ises. For the future to prevent the like illegal intrusion, and for the more speedy settlement of this town, the proprietors do therefore 5th, vote to give 60 acres of land out of each right or share of land throughout this Town, which land shall be given to as many of the undernamed, as shall settle the same by the first day of June, 1775. 150 acres to each man that erects a
house, and actually resides and improves on his lot for the space of five years, or brings a man in his room to do said duty, and on his so settling by the first of June, he shall have a conditional deed, to secure him in doing the above duty. And that, on any man's failure of so doing the duty, his land shall re- vert back to those that gave it. Likewise voted, Seth Warner, Ethan Allen, Noah Lee, Committee to procure deeds for the adventurers. 6th, Voted that Robert Cockran, Ethan Allen, Seth Warner, Peleg Sunderland, Samuel Her- rick, Elnathan Hubbell, Jesse Sawyer, shall have two years time to settle their part of the land given by the proprietors."
The adventurers' names are as follows : Ethan Allen, Seth Warner, Robert Cochran, Samuel Herrick, Peleg Sunderland, Jesse Sawyer, Elnathan Hubbell, Eben Wallis, Noah Lee, Phineas Brown, John Steward, Andrew Barton, Jus- tus Sherwood, John Grizel, Eli Robert, Eleazer Baxter, Justus Webster, Asa- hel Blanchard, - Sturtevant, William Lomas, William Smith, Mathew Ma- cure, Isaac Buck, John Rowly, John Tuff, John Stearns, Amos Weller, Jona- than Williams, William Steward, Peletiah Soper, David Torry, Joseph Baker, John Morrill, George Saxton, Josiah Sanborn.
The first three divisions of land were lost; the fourth was made in June, 1775, each proprietor to receive 100 acres to be laid parallel with the town line, not to exceed 200 rods in length per lot, said division to begin after the above sequestered lands are laid to the above adventurers. "Voted, that Eli Roberts, Andrew Barton and Justus Sherwood be committee to make the fourth division. William Steward, Luther Evarts, Justus Sherwood, commit- tee to lay out highways." "Voted, Luther Everts to make a plan of the town." It was voted that on each adventurer's lot of one hundred acres, five were given for highways. Justus Webster drew No. 12, on which he settled. At 34
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HISTORY OF ADDISON COUNTY.
a proprietors' meeting of March 6, 1776, held at John Griswold's house, pro- prietors were taxed two dollars or four days' work for "rectifying highways," or for making a plan of the town; forty acre division made afterward at this meeting as mentioned. The last proprietors' meeting of which record exists was on January II, 1793.
Prior to the Revolution and during that war, settlements were made in va- rious parts of the town. Justus Sherwood came in 1774, and settled in June on lot 31, the farm since owned by the late Judge Elias Bottum, and erected his dwelling exactly where Judge Bottum's family graveyard now is. He was proprietors' clerk from the first meeting held in town, October 10, 1774, until probably the latter part of 1776, when he left on account of the war. On a visit to Bennington, being no longer able to disguise his true sentiments, he gave utterance to remarks that denoted sympathy with the royal cause, at which the Whigs of that place, taking offense, tried him before "Judge Lynch," and sentenced him to a punishment of twenty lashes, familiarly known as the "beech seal," which, if not seriously wounding to the body, was humiliating to the feelings of the culprit and but amusing to the spectators. While in New Haven Sherwood was in fact a secret agent of a company of New York land-jobbers, in their pay, and himself engaged at the same time in speculating in the patents issued by the governor of New Hampshire; and that he might be effectually secured from the hostility of the settlers and maintain with them a free and unsuspected intercourse, he located in a part of the set- tlement where he could most effectually subserve their interests. Exasperated at his exposure, he raised a company of Royalists, conducted them to Canada, and entered the British service. After the war he received a pension of a crown a day during life and the grant of 1,200 acres of land in Upper Canada, opposite Ogdensburgh. Before leaving New Haven, having in his hands, as proprietors' clerk, their records, he buried nearly all of them in an iron pot, having a potash-kettle turned over it, near his house, marking the place ; but they were never afterward found.
This town has undergone several changes. October 29, 1789, a tract of land on the north called New Haven Gore was annexed to it, and October 29, 1791, a part of the town was annexed to Weybridge. October 23, 1783, a corner was taken to aid in the incorporation of the city of Vergennes, a por- tion of which, together with a part of Addison and this town, were in No- vember, 1796, taken to form the town of Waltham.
Amongst the first permanent settlers, except those already mentioned, were Cook and Andrew Barton in the Waltham part, Justus Sturdevant and David Stowe in the Weybridge part, and Captain Miles Bradley, Enos Peck, Elijah Foot, Elisha Fuller, Bazadeel Rudd, William Eno and others, in the New Haven part.
March 20, 1787, the town was organized, with Ebenezer Field, moderator,
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TOWN OF NEW HAVEN.
and Elijah Foot, town clerk and treasurer ; Ebenezer Field, Eli Roberts, and Enos Peck, selectmen ; Bazadeel Rudd, William Eno, Asa Wheeler, listers ; Ed. Wright, William Woodbridge, grand jurors ; Nathan Griswold, leather in- spector ; Wait Hoyt, Truman Wheeler, Andrew Barton, John Hayward, David Griswold, Robert Wood, Reuben Grenell, Enos Peck, fence viewers.
There were eight school districts in 1799. In 1803 there were ten, with 399 scholars in attendance. In 1828 there were 629 scholars in attendance, and upward of 500 for a period of thirty years, since which the number has yearly lessened. In 1886 there are twelve whole districts and two fractions, with 260 school children in attendance.
The first birth on record is that of Hannah, daughter of Amos P. Sher- man, July 20, 1786, in what was at that time New Haven (now Waltham). Martin Eno was born in 1786 or '87. There is little doubt but that others were born in the vicinity of the fort near Vergennes Falls before either of those mentioned. The first school-house was built in district No. I, upon the site occupied by the present building. This house, it is related, was quite small, so much so as to be considered by the female portion of the community wholly unfit for the purpose for which it was intended. Accordingly, while the men were all away upon a wolf hunt one day, the women repaired to the building with axes, and soon razed it to the ground. A more pretentious affair soon after took its place.
The first representative of the town was Phinehas Brown - 1786.
The first justice was Elijah Foot-1787. Others following were Jonathan Hoyt, thirty-five years; Elias Bottum, thirty-two years; Daniel Twitchell, thirty years ; Othniel Jewett, twenty-eight years ; William Nash, twenty years ; Jabez Langdon, eighteen years; Samuel Chalker, eighteen years; Calvin Squier, six- teen years ; Alfred Roscoe, twelve years ; James Saxton, fifteen years ; Horace Plumley, twelve years; Horace P. Birge, twelve years.
At a town meeting, April 28, 1795, a committee was appointed to unite with the proprietors' committee to "complete the business by making out a plan of the whole and petition the General Assembly to tax all the land in said town to defray the expenses thereof; also to petition to pitch the undivided lands, and to establish the first, second, and third divisions as they were origin- ally laid, and also the fourth and fifth and other pitches as they are surveyed." The committee was Reuben Field, Andrew Mills, Seth Langdon, Giles Doud, Andrew Squier, and William Eno. Lots drawn under these divisions cannot be given.
1798, Voted "to divide the town if a dividing line can be agreed upon." 1802, agitation over " center of town," and site of meeting-house. In 1794 the Legislature passed an act appropriating to the use of common schools in the Hampshire Grants the shares of the " Society for the Propagation of the Gos- pel." But that society, instead of abandoning their claim, transferred it to the
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HISTORY OF ADDISON COUNTY.
Episcopal Church. That church contested the constitutionality of the above mentioned law in the United States Court. After protracted litigation the mat- ter was decided in favor of the church. The suit, which was to test the validity of the church's title throughout the State, was brought against the town of New Haven. The share in New Haven for the first settled minister, after an attempt made by the Universalists to obtain it, was, by a vote of the town, ap- propriated to the use of common schools.
Solomon Brown, an old Revolutionary hero, came to New Haven in 1787, locating upon the farm now owned by his son Ira, and built the first house of logs on that farm. Mr. Brown was not only one of the heroes of the memor- able 19th of April, 1775, but he was also the first to shed British blood in that engagement. He was also the first to bring the intelligence into Lexington that a number of British officers were on their way thither from Boston; and when the officers reached Lexington he was one of those who volunteered to follow them and watch their movements, and was taken prisoner by them, together with his companions, Thaddeus Harrington and Elijah Sanderson, though they were detained but a few hours. Solomon was in the army five years, and held the office of sergeant. He was also appointed " conductor of supplies " at Fort Schuyler, now Utica, N. Y. After leaving the army he remained in Nine Part- ners, N. Y., two years, then came to this town in 1787, as previously men- tioned. Mr. Brown was twice married and had a family of seventeen children. Honored and respected, he died at a ripe old age, one of the true, tried spirits that made our country what it is.
The Grinnell family was among the early settlers coming from Salisbury, Conn., and settling on land opposite the Spragues, and north of the Andrew Squier land, on Lanesboro street. There were among the children of this Grin- nell family two sons, who lived and died in the two houses (for many years, and now, the home of Elisha H. and his son Mills Landon). Myron Grinnell was a highly esteemed citizen. His son, Josiah B., was born December 22, 1821 ; he left home at the age of eighteen years, made his way to Oneida In- stitute, graduated there, and then prepared for entering into the ministry ; was first pastor over a church in Union Village, Greenwich, N. Y. His very de- cided anti-slavery views led him to leave all else and seek for funds among the willing-hearted philanthropists of Massachusetts for the purpose of founding in Washington, D. C., a Congregational Church. In this he succeeded. He then took a pastorate in New York city, marrying meantime a Miss Chapin, of Springfield, Mass., whose father had been a benefactor to the Washington church enterprise, and dying soon after left landed property in the slave State of Missouri. It became Mr. Grinnell's duty to go there and see about it, and this led to his making a change to the new State of Iowa in 1855. Falling in, while on this journey, with the men who were then locating the Central Pacific Railroad, they made known to him where would be important points, and from
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