USA > Vermont > Addison County > History of Addison county Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 7
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In the mean time, also, the English settlements were still gradually drawing nearer the Champlain Valley, that "gateway of the country " which the French were so insidiously fortifying and colonizing. As early as 1673 the settlement of Northfield, Mass., was commenced, followed soon after by that of Deerfield. As late as 1723 these towns were still the frontiers of Massachusetts in the vicinity of the Connecticut. On the 27th of December of that year, in order to more effectually secure the safety of the inhabitants here, the General Court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay voted that "it will be of great service to all the western frontiers, both in this and in the neighboring government of Connecticut, to build a block-house above Northfield, in the most convenient place on the lands called ' the equivalent lands,' and to post in it forty able men, English and Western Indians, to be employed in scouting at a good distance up the Connecticut River, West River, Otter Creek and sometimes eastwardly, above Great Monadnuck, for the discovery of the enemy coming toward any of the frontier towns, and so much of the said equivalent lands as shall be nec- essary for a block-house be taken up with the consent of the owners of the said land, together with five or six acres of their interval land, to be broken up or
1 Chimney Point was called by the French Point à la Chevelure. It is a curious fact that at this time there were two small islands just opposite the point, all traces of which have long since passed away. One of these islands lay directly west of the point, the other a little north, against Hospital Creek. They were called by the French Aux Boiteux.
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HISTORY OF ADDISON COUNTY.
plowed for the present use of the Western Indians, in case any of them shall think fit to bring their families hither."
To fulfill the conditions of this vote a site was chosen in the southeastern part of the present town of Brattleboro, just south of the village, upon what is now known as the Brooks farm. Colonel John Stoddard, of Northampton, was ordered by Governor Dummer to superintend the building of the block-house, the immediate oversight of the work being committed to Lieutenant Timothy Dwight, who, with a competent force, consisting of "four carpenters, twelve soldiers with narrow axes, and two teams," commenced operations on the 3d of February, 1724. Before summer had begun the fort was so near completed as to be habitable, and was named Fort Dummer, in honor of Sir William Dummer, then lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts. This was the embryo of the first permanent civilized settlement, and the first of any kind by Anglo- Saxons, in the territory now included within the limits of Vermont. In 1739 quite a settlement had been begun in the present town of Westminster, and, about this time, another in the present town of Putney.
The smothered flame of rivalry and jealousy in the Old World broke out anew in 1744, when war was again declared between England and France. In the autumn of the following year (1745) an expedition was fitted out at Mon- treal for the purpose of proceeding against the Connecticut River settlements. Having proceeded up the lake as far as Crown Point (or Fort St. Frederic), its commander, M. Marin, was met by Father Piquet, a French préfet apostolique, who induced him to change his purpose. Accordingly the expedition pro- ceeded on up the lake, then crossed over to the Hudson and destroyed Lydius's lumber establishment on the site of Fort Edward, and then passed on to the thriving settlement of Saratoga, which they utterly destroyed, only one family escaping massacre or imprisonment.
All through the summer of 1746 small detachments of French soldiers and their Indian allies were dispatched from Montreal, and, proceeding to Fort St. Frederic, halted long enough to make the necessary preparations, and then set out upon the trails leading to the scattered English settlements in the vicinity of Albany and westward along the Mohawk River. Terror and rapine reigned supreme. Still the English government displayed the same apathy and dila- toriness in coming to the aid of the distressed settlers that it had in allowing the French fortifications to be erected on Lake Champlain. In 1747 the same methods were employed by the French, only that each succeeding attack seemed to be actuated by a deeper intent of murder and rapine than the one preceding. The English settlers and their Iroquois allies displayed great brav- ery, but were too greatly outnumbered in concentrated forces to be even able to successfully protect their lives and property.
In October, 1748, however, the hatchet was once more buried. The Eu- ropean powers signed a new treaty of peace at Aix-la-Chapelle, which it was
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hoped would prove permanent. Quite the contrary was its reality, however, for hollow and insincere in the Old World, its tenure was scarcely observed at all in the New. Continued alarm and occasional attacks resulted in decided measures for protection in 1754, while two years later, May 18, 1756, England issued a formal declaration of war against France, a course made necessary for the protection of her American colonies, and which was reciprocated by France on the 9th of June.
In 1755 a campaign was organized, the fourth division of which was to proceed against Crown Point. This effort was entrusted to General William Johnson, with a force of 2,850 men. To oppose him the French sent General Dieskau with 3,000 men to Crown Point At Lake George Johnson was met by the French, and though he defeated them and took their commander pris- oner, he made no attempt on the objective point.
In the following year (1756) the French began fortifications at Ticonderoga, and Crown Point became of secondary importance. All through the war one of the principal objects of the British was an effective descent on Canada, and hence each year an expedition was set on foot to proceed with a large force through Lake Champlain. Disgraceful failure attended them all, however, until the expedition under General Amherst in 1759. In 1758 more efficiency was given to the war by the appointment of William Pitt to the ministry of Eng- land. General Abercrombie was that year appointed to command the expe- dition against the French forts on Lake Champlain, and prosecuted the enter- prise with much more vigor than his predecessors. He advanced as far as Ticonderoga and made a violent assault on the fort, but meeting with utter defeat at the hands of the brave Montcalm, he retreated with heavy loss. In 1759 General Amherst, commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, took command of an expedition, reached Ticonderoga and without much oppo- sition captured the fort on the 27th of July. Before he reached Crown Point the French garrison had burned their forts on both sides of the lake and aban- doned them. This victory was followed, two months later, by the capture of Quebec, and England at once began the erection of those stupendous fortifi- cations on Crown Point described on a previous page.
In the spring of 1760 the French, descending from Montreal, tried to re- capture Quebec, but after winning a battle near the city, were driven off by a British squadron. Four months later (September, 1760) three English armies, advancing respectively from Oswego, Quebec and Crown Point, were concentrated before Montreal. Resistance to this overwhelming force was out of the question. The French governor at once surrendered, not only the city, but all of Canada. This practically ended the war, though the treaty of peace was not signed until February 10, 1763, at Paris; this ceded the whole prov- ince of Canada to King George III of Great Britain. Thus ended the French régime.
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HISTORY OF ADDISON COUNTY.
During the years that the French had nominally held the territory in the vicinity of Lake Champlain, the authorities had granted seigniories to favorite nobles and officers, and smaller tracts to others, including much of the land on both sides of the lake. In the present territory of Addison county, however, these grants were not so numerous as in the territory farther north. English and Indian grants to private parties also had been made, extending into the region under consideration.
On the 20th of July, 1764, the British government decided upon the forty- fifth degree of latitude as the boundary line between the provinces of New York and Quebec. And when the French grantees applied for a confirmation of their grants on the lake, it was decided that all such grants south of the said forty-fifth degree were null and void, having been made with no legal right.
The French village of Hocquart, established on the lake shore at Chimney Point, in 1730, had advanced to considerable proportions when its inhabitants fled before the victorious Amherst. In 1749 it was visited by Kalm, the Swed- ish naturalist, who subsequently says of it: "I found quite a settlement, a stone wind-mill and fort in one, with five or six small cannon mounted ; the whole enclosed by embankments. Within the enclosure was a neat church, and through the settlement well cultivated gardens, with some good fruit, as apples, plums, currants, etc." During the next ten years "these settlements were extended north on the lake some four miles; the remains of old cellars and gardens still to be seen show a more thickly settled street than occupies it now." 1 These buildings were burned by the Mohawks in 1760, and upon their site was begun the first permanent settlement in Addison county.
During these long years of war, detachments of both armies were often marched and counter-marched over the territory now included within the limits of Vermont. The rank and file of the American army, too, it must be remem- bered, were largely made up of those and their descendants who had come to America to woo a living from her virgin soil. With this fact in view it is not strange, then, that not a few, while on the weary march or solitary scout, should mentally mark localities in the charming valley of the Champlain or on the broad intervales of Otter Creek as a site for their future homes. Indeed, such is the preface to the unwritten history of hundreds of Vermont's most flourish- ing farms of to-day. It is little wonder, then, that with the dawn of peace, with the country to the north transformed from a hostile to a friendly neigh- bor, with the fear of the bloody tomahawk and scalping-knife removed, these lands should be eagerly sought by pioneers. But while anticipating the ad- vent of the pioneer settler and the mists that should enshroud the title to his land, let us retrace our steps and take up the thread of our narrative a few years back.
1 Hon. John Strong, in his His. Gaz., Vol. I, 3.
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CHAPTER V.
CIVIL DIVISIONS.
Controversy between Vermont and New Hampshire - Boundaries Established by Royal Decree - Early Settlements in the Territory of Addison County - The Controversy between the New Hampshire Grants and New York -Injustice of the Claims of New York - Details of the Controversy as they Relate to Addison County.
F OR a period of sixteen years there was a controversy between the authori- ties of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, relative to the boundary line between those provinces, and a contest kept up in regard to the control of the territory in the vicinity of Fort Dummer and that on the opposite side of the Connecticut River in Hinsdale. Finally, on the 5th of March, 1740, King George III decreed that the line between New Hampshire and Massachusetts should be surveyed in accordance with certain special instructions, and in 174I the line was run by Richard Hazen, and found to leave Hinsdale and Fort Dummer to the north thereof; whereupon the king recommended to the As- sembly of New Hampshire to care for and protect the settlers about Fort Dummer. During this year, also, Benning Wentworth was commissioned gov- ernor of New Hampshire, and from the above royal recommend naturally sup- posed that the king recognized the jurisdiction of New Hampshire as extend- ing to the same point west as Massachusetts; namely, a point twenty miles east of the Hudson River. Accordingly, on the application of William Will- iams and sixty-one others, January 3, 1749, he chartered a township six miles square, in what he conceived to be the southwestern corner of New Hampshire. This township was named Bennington, after the governor himself, the first town in Vermont to receive a royal charter.
The troublous times culminating in the last French war, as we have shown, precluded all idea of pioneer settlements, and, in 1754, resulted in driving off all those that had attempted such settlement. But at the close of hostilities the lands were sought so eagerly by adventurers, speculators and settlers, that in a single year subsequent to 1760, Governor Wentworth granted, in the name of King George III, not less than sixty townships of six miles square, and two years later the number of such grants amounted to one hundred and thirty- eight. In that year (1761) all the towns in the present territory of Addison county were chartered by him, except as follows: Ferrisburgh, Monkton and Pocock (now Bristol) were chartered in 1762; Orwell and Whiting in August, 1763 ; while Panton was rechartered on the 3d of November, 1764, being the last within the territory granted by the governor.
As we have previously stated, the site of the old French settlement on the shore of the lake in the towns of Addison and Panton became the site of the first English settlement. In the spring of 1765 Zadock Everest, David Val-
5
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HISTORY OF ADDISON COUNTY.
lance, and a Mr. Ward came on from Connecticut and began a clearing about three miles north of Chimney Point, and in the following September were joined by John Strong, who built a dwelling, selecting the foundation of an old French house for the site, being the first dwelling built by an English set- tler in the vicinity of Lake Champlain, and where Mr. Strong afterward lived and died. The party returned to Connecticut, and in February, 1766, Strong returned with his family, consisting of a wife and three children - Asa, Sally and Polly. In May Zadock Everest, David Vallance, John Chipman, and six others with their families, came on by the way of Otter Creek. Chipman lo- cated in Middlebury, while the others kept on, some locating in Addison and others in Panton.
As early as 1763, as we have stated, Governor Wentworth had granted as many as one hundred and thirty-eight townships of six miles square, lying west of the Connecticut, and the population in the territory, which had now come to be known as the New Hampshire Grants, had become quite large. This prosperity and growing power could not fail to attract the serious attention of the neighboring province of New York. Accordingly, during that year (1763) Lieutenant-Governor Tryon, of that province, laid claim to the territory by virtue of the grant made by Charles II to the Duke of York in 1664, which, as stated on a previous page, included " all the land from the west side of Con- necticut River to the east side of Delaware Bay." Finally, on the application of the government of New York, it was decided by George III, in council of July 10, 1764, that the "western bank of the Connecticut River should there- after be regarded as the boundary line between the province of New York and province of New Hampshire."
The colonists of the grants were surprised and displeased at this decision, but peaceably submitted to it, supposing that it merely effected a change of the jurisdiction to which they were subject; and the government of New Hamp- shire, which at first remonstrated, soon acquiesced in the decision. But on the Ioth of April, 1765, Governor Colden issued a proclamation, giving a copy of the order of the king changing the boundary of the territory, and notifying " his majesty's subjects to govern themselves accordingly." He also at once proceeded to grant the lands to other than the New Hampshire claimants, and when the latter applied to the New York government for a confirmation of the grants they already held, such enormous patent fees were demanded as to make it impossible for them to comply.
It was well known in New York that these lands had long been granted by New Hampshire ; that they were actually occupied under such grants, and that the new patents were procured in utter disregard of the rights and claims of the settlers. It was also well known by them that the king, in commissioning Benning Wentworth governor of New Hampshire, had described his province as reaching westward " until it met his other governments; " thus bounding it
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westerly by New York; and that the easterly boundary of New York was a line twenty miles easterly from the Hudson River, extending from Lake Cham- plain south to the western line of Massachusetts, was proved by statements in the charter of the Duke of York, upon his accession to the throne of England in 1685. But notwithstanding all this, New York insisted that not only was the jurisdiction changed thenceforward, but also that the grants made were vacated, and that the titles acquired under them were made void. The settlers were required to repurchase their lands, which some of them did, though the major- ity of them peremptorily refused. The lands of such were granted to others, who brought actions of ejectment in the New York courts, where they invari- ably obtained judgments against the original proprietors.
In 1769 the king prohibited the governor of New York from issuing any more grants "until his majesty's further pleasure should be made known." Meanwhile civil disturbances and open defiance to the New York authorities continued to such an extent that, in 1774, a law was passed by that province, ordering the surrender of all offenders, under the penalty of death. In reply, the people of the grants returned a public letter, threatening death to any who should aid in arresting any of her citizens. About this time a plan was made for the formation of a royal province; but the Revolutionary War soon joined the two provinces in a common cause, and their personal quarrel was gradually swallowed up by the greater trouble.
The personal encounters in the county's territory brought about by this controversy were few but vigorous. As their history is concisely stated in the sketch of the county prefixed to Samuel Swift's History of Middlebury, we quote his version as follows :
" Colonel Reid, of a Royal Highland regiment, had received from the gov- ernment of New York a grant of land, as a reduced or half-pay officer, on Otter Creek, including the falls at Vergennes, whose tenants had been dispossessed in August, 1772, by Ira Allen and others. This occurred while the agents, who had been appointed by the inhabitants of Bennington, at the request of Governor Tryon, were in a negotiation with the Governor and Council, which resulted in the conciliatory measures by them adopted. This proceeding, when it came to the knowledge of Governor Tryon, so irritated him that he wrote a severe letter to the 'inhabitants of Bennington and the adjacent country,' charging them with a 'breach of faith and honor made by a body of your people, in dispossessing several settlers on Otter Creek,' at the very time the negotiations were going on and requiring their 'assistance in putting forthwith those families who have been dispossessed into repossession of the lands and tenements.'
"The following is the substance of the answer of the committee of 'Ben- nington and adjacent country' to this letter, signed by Ethan Allen, clerk, on the 25th of August, 1772, in explanation of the proceedings complained of.
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HISTORY OF ADDISON COUNTY.
The people having noticed that 'Mr. Cockburn, a noted surveyor,' had taken ' a tour through the northerly parts of the New Hampshire grants' (on Onion River) 'to survey and make locations on lands' which had been granted by New Hampshire, 'rallied a small party and pursued and overtook him and his party, and in their pursuit passed the towns of Panton and New Haven, near the mouth of Otter Creek, dispossessed Colonel Reid of a saw-mill in said Panton, which by force,' and without right 'he had taken from the original owners more than three years before, and did, at the same time, extend his force, ter- rors and threats into the town of New Haven,' ' who so terrified the inhabitants (which were about twelve in number) that they left their possessions and farms to the conqueror and escaped with the skin of their teeth.' 'Colonel Reid, at the same time, and with the same force, did take possession of one hundred and thirty saw logs and fourteen thousand feet of pine boards,' and converted them to their own use. In 1769 a man by the name of Pangborn built a saw- mill, and a few claimants under the New Hampshire Grants were in possession of the land in that year. After they were driven off Reid's men built a grist- mill. The committees also deny that there was any breach of faith, as the re- sult of the negotiations between Governor Tryon and the delegates from Ben- nington was not known at the time, and the agents were not authorized to complete any arrangements, so as to be binding on the people of the grants, until ratified by them. They also promptly refused to obey the governor's requisition to afford assistance in restoring Colonel Reid's men to the posses- sion of the lands ; and thus ended the result of the negotiations for conciliatory measures between the parties in 1772.
" The latter part of June, or the fore part of July, 1773, Colonel Reid en- gaged several Scotch emigrants, lately arrived at New York, to settle on his lands, of which he had been dispossessed, as above mentioned, and went with them to Otter Creek. On entering upon the lands they found several persons settled on them claiming title under the New Hampshire charters; one of them was Joshua Hyde, who afterwards removed to Middlebury and settled in the south part of that town. Colonel Reid, in some way, got rid of these tenants and entered into possession of the mills and lands claimed by him. The Green Mountain Boys learning this fact, Allen, Warner and Baker, with a strong force, consisting, as represented by the Scotch tenants, of more than one hun- dred men well armed, marched for Otter Creek, and on the IIth day of Au- gust appeared on the ground, drove off the Scotchmen, burned their houses and other buildings, tore down the mill, which, it was said, Colonel Reid had lately built, broke the mill-stones in pieces and threw them down the falls. John Cameron, one of the Scotch tenants, in his affidavit as to the manner in which they went into possession under Colonel Reid, states ' that the persons' (the tenants in possession) 'did agree voluntarily to remove from Colonel Reid's land till the king's pleasure should be known, provided Colonel Reid
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CIVIL DIVISIONS.
would purchase their whole crops then on the ground, that they might not lose their labor, which Colonel Reid consented to do, and paid them the full value for it accordingly.' The affidavit also states 'that the deponent was much surprised to see among the rioters, Joshua Hyde, one of the three men who had entered into a written obligation with Colonel Reid not to return again, and to whom Colonel Reid, on that account, had paid a sum of money for crops.'
" A tract of 'three thousand acres of land on the east bank of Lake Cham- plain, within a mile and a quarter of the fort there,' was granted under the great seal of the Province of New York, 'to David Wooster, of New Haven, in the colony of Connecticut, esquire, being a captain on half pay, reduced from his majesty's fifty-first regiment.' This tract was in the north part of Addison and probably extended into a part of Panton. In his deposition laid before the Governor and Council, dated February 20, 1773, he states, among other things, that 'on visiting these lands' (in 1767 or 1768) 'he found five families which had been lately settled ;' 'some of them, pretending to have no right at all, promised to leave his lands. The others the deponent then served ejectments on, which issued out of the inferior Courts of Common Pleas of Al- bany. Whereupon they also submitted, and desired the deponent to give them leases of part of said lands, which this deponent consented to do; gave them permission to remain on the lands, acknowledging him to be their landlord, until it was convenient for him to return and give them leases in form.' He states, also, 'that in the month of September preceding, he went to his lands in order to give leases to the settlers,' and ' that upon the deponent's arrival on his lands the settlers thereon and others, collected in a body about thirteen in number, when the deponent offered those who had settled on his lands leases, which they absolutely refused to accept on any terms whatever, but declared that they would support themselves there by force of arms, and that they would spill their blood before they would leave the said lands.' Whereupon, ' being well armed with pistols,' he 'proceeded to serve two declarations in ejectment on two principal ring-leaders,' 'notwithstanding they continued their fire-locks presented against him during the whole time ; that after the deponent had served the said ejectments, they declared with one voice that they would not attend any court in the Province of New York, nor would be concluded by any law in New York respecting their lands.'"
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