USA > Vermont > Addison County > History of Addison county Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 78
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Justus Bellamy, long a conspicuous citizen of Vergennes, lived at the Sher- man wharf. For many years he was the proprietor of Bellamy's distillery, which stood near the brick store at the wharf. The late Elliott Sherril mar-
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ried one of his beautiful daughters. Edmund Smith married another. The Bellamy family at a later day moved to Canada.
Thomas Robinson, father of the late Rowland T. Robinson, who came from Newport, R. I., lived in Vergennes several years, a part of the time engaged in manufacturing, and at length bought a large tract of land, which proved to be the best farm in Ferrisburgh and a monument to his skill and judgment in the selection.
Jacob Redington, soon after coming here, opened a tavern in a building on the jail lot (C. B. Kidder's store).
Josias Smith, from Tinmouth, Vt., graduated from Dartmouth College in 1789; came to Vergennes in the spring of 1791, and was a practicing and suc- cessful lawyer in Vergennes to the time of his death in 1810. He was first city clerk under the charter election and was mayor at the time of his death.
Azariah Painter, who came here in 1789, was prominent in business circles and well known as keeping tavern here for many years. He bought of Jesse Hollister, in 1800, what is now the Stevens House. He had two sons, Lyman and Hiram. Two daughters of Hiram Painter are now living in Vergennes, Mrs. Keeler and Mrs. Sprague.
Azariah and Thomas Tousey were interested in mills and iron works. Aza- riah started the stilling-mill and resigned it to Thomas; they came from New- town, Conn., but left no known descendants here.
Enoch Woodbridge came from Manchester to Vergennes in the beginning of 1791, bought and moved on a farm near where Ezra Champion lives, and in a few years moved to the grounds now occupied by Mrs. Hawley. He was a highly educated man of talent, a graduate of Yale College; was in the army through the Revolutionary War, a part of the time as commissary. After the war he went to Bennington county, where he was register of probate five years, judge of probate one year, State's attorney two years, which office he resigned in the fall of 1790 to come to Vergennes, and was soon elected judge of the Supreme Court, and for seven years was chief justice. He was father of Enoch D. Woodbridge; of Mrs. Villee Lawrence and several other daughters. F. E. Woodbridge and the late Mrs. Pierpoint were his grandchildren. He died April 21, 1805, in his fifty-fifth year.
Dr. John W. Green purchased in 1790, for £40, the lot and buildings where F. E. Woodbridge now resides.
Abram Baldwin, David Booth, and Zalman Booth, all of Newtown, Conn., bought property in partnership, and did business on the west side of the creek for several years.
Roger Higby (or Higley) was a lumberman engaged in sending timber to Quebec, but failed in business. He lived where the Farmers' National Bank stands.
Samuel Davis, a blacksmith, raised a large family in Vergennes, one of
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whom, the Hon. Bliss N. Davis, who was born here in 1801, stated at the Ver- gennes Centennial that his "father made the axes that felled the trees to make room for the houses in Vergennes."
Robert and John Lewis built potash works a little above the mouth of Pot- ash Brook. A few years later they assigned a large amount of property for the benefit of their creditors.
Samuel Davis lived in the house north of the Congregational Church, and his shop was in what is now William E. Green's garden.
Thus we see that down to the time when the city government was formed a very large proportion of the few people here were active, energetic, and bold business men, actively engaged in converting timber and wood and ores of the neighborhood into merchantable condition.
The city officers were elected in July, 1794, agreeable to the law of incor- poration. (The time of annual meeting was changed in 1800 to the fourth Tuesday in March.) This first city meeting was held in a new school-house standing near the present town house. Enoch Woodbridge was elected mayor; Josias Smith, clerk; Roswell Hopkins, Samuel Strong, Phineas Brown, and Gideon Spencer, aldermen; Azariah Painter, sheriff; Samuel Chipman, Eli Ro- burds, Elkanah Brush, Ebenezer Huntington, Oliver Pier, and Jacob Reding- ton, common councilmen.
The records of the Court of Common Council show a respect for a strict construction of the charter law, that has not always since been apparent. When, a few months later, Samuel Hitchcock moved from Burlington to Ver- gennes, and became associated with the picked men elected to fill the city offices, Vergennes could boast of as large a number of strong-minded and ac- complished men as ever graced a country village. Samuel Hitchcock, who had married a daughter of Ethan Allen, and was himself the peer of any lawyer in his day, lived for several years in a house standing on the ground now occupied by the Catholic Church.
In 1794 a minister was settled, and licenses were granted for six taverns. In 1795 a jail was provided.
Daniel Harmon became a citizen of Vergennes and lived where the Na- tional Bank is, and probably had a store in the lower corner of the same lot, apparently the best location in the city for a store. In 1796 Harmon conveyed a lot 22 by 40 feet, to Josiah and William Fitch, " traders in company." This was what was lately known as Pat Foster's store.
The First Newspaper .- In this year correspondence was held with An- thony Haswell, of Bennington, with a view to his establishing a printing press and publishing a weekly paper in Vergennes; and a committee was appointed to agree with some person to establish the printing business in this city, and give them the use of a public lot. Thompson's History of Vermont says that the Vergennes Gazette was founded at Vergennes by Samuel Chipman, August,
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1798. A copy of this paper is shown by Mr. Johnson (No. 74), dated Feb- ruary 5, 1800, "Printed for Samuel Chipman, jr., by Fessenden at Printing Office adjoining Court House." The Vergennes charter and by-laws were print- ed at Vergennes in 1801 by Chipman & Fessenden.
Public Buildings .- In April, 1797, a stock company was formed to build a court-house, with 124 shares at $25 a share, the city to give the use of a pub- lic lot on which to erect it, and to take as many shares as could be paid for with the avails of another public lot to be leased for the purpose. The pre- amble to the subscription reads: "From the central situation of this city it is contemplated that the time is not far distant when the Legislature of Vermont will be convened in said city, if suitable accommodations can be had. Among the many considerations which demand the attention of the citizens to prepare for such an event, that of erecting a convenient house in which they may assem- ble for the transaction of public business is of primary importance. An under- taking of such expense is of too great magnitude to be effected by the ordinary mode of taxation in our infant State. Other measures, therefore, must be adopted."
Tousey, Baldwin & Co. subscribe for 10 shares; Gideon Spencer, for 8 shares ; Zalman Booth, for 7 shares; Robert Hopkins, for 6 shares ; Jabez G. Fitch, for 6 shares ; Dibble & Sherrill, 6 shares ; Samuel Hitchcock, for 6 shares; Samuel Strong, for 6 shares; Daniel Harmon, for 4 shares; Jesse Hollister, for 3 shares ; twelve others, 2 each, 24; twenty others, I each, 20 shares, leaving for the city 18.
The building was completed in time for the meeting of the Legislature October II, 1798, and stood on the highest land in the city a little farther back from the street than the present town house. It was a building nearly square, with large windows; was two stories high and well arranged for the purpose for which it was built. The second story was used for a Masonic hall until anti-Masonry became dominant in the State, when it was converted into a school-room. To the lasting disgrace of the city the building was taken down in 1838.
At the time of the meeting of the Legislature Isaac Tichenor had just been re-elected governor ; Paul Brigham, lieutenant governor; Roswell Hopkins, then mayor of Vergennes, was secretary of State; Daniel Farrand, of New- bury, was speaker of the House; Daniel C. Saunders, who had been recently dismissed as minister in Vergennes and was then living in Burlington, preached the election sermon, in accordance with a custom that prevailed in Vermont until 1835. Vergennes was represented by Amos Marsh, who was the next year and several successive years elected speaker. John Strong, of Addison, was one of the twelve councilors. The session continued twenty-nine days.
Party spirit ran high in Vermont at that time, and for the first time in her history the important civil officers to be elected by the Legislature were chosen
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from the dominant party exclusively, amid great excitement. The chief justice of the Supreme Court, Israel Smith, a man in high repute for his learning and virtue, was refused an election on party grounds merely, which roused a violent and bitter feeling, and gave rise to the epithet current for a long time, "The Vergennes slaughter-house."
A delegation of Indian chiefs from Canada came to Vergennes during the session to ask of the State compensation for their lands, as they claimed, from Ticonderoga to Canada line. Their claim was considered, but not granted. The Legislature, however, paid their expenses while here, and gave them a hundred dollars in token of friendship.
Mathew Lyon, the very able and prominent Irish politician of Fair Haven, who came to this country a poor boy at thirteen years of age, and was bound out in Connecticut to pay the cost of his passage, had been arrested for a trial under the alien and sedition law, and by the United States Circuit Court, sit- ting at Rutland, in October, 1798, was sentenced to four months' imprisonment and to pay a fine of one thousand dollars, with costs. He had been elected to Congress in 1796, and at the next election in September, 1798, there was no choice ; but in December following Lyon was elected while he was in jail. At the conclusion of his trial in October he expected to be confined in Rutland jail; but the United States marshal was a bitter political opponent of Lyon's, and it is said lived in Vergennes. He took Lyon to Vergennes jail, where he treated him with great rigor. Lyon's friends from Fair Haven sent him a stove for use in the jail. Lyon's term of imprisonment expired February 9, 1799, and it was expected that he would be re-arrested; but having been elected to Congress he, as soon as the door was opened, proclaimed himself on his way to Congress, and thus made it unlawful to arrest him. There was, however, intense excitement throughout the district as the time of his libera- tion approached. He was a man to have warm and devoted friends and bit- ter enemies, and the natural instincts of Vermonters for free speech and a free press had been outraged, and they seemed anxious to enter their protest against political persecution. The following contribution to the Rutland Herald is re- printed in Governor and Council, Vol. IV, and may be interesting to the people of Vergennes : " At the time of his [Lyon's] imprisonment in Vergennes under the odious sedition law, passed by Congress during the Federal administration of John Adams, when he had stayed out in prison the term of his commitment of four months, and nothing remained but the payment of his thousand dollars' fine to entitle him to his liberty, it was found that the marshal of the State, whose sympathies and preferences wers strongly with the Federal party and against Lyon, would stickle about receiving for the fine any other than money that was of legal tender, and in that case it might be difficult to procure the specie. Most of the gold then in circulation was of foreign coin which passed at an uncertain value according to its weight, which often varied by different
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weighers, and was therefore not a legal tender. It was known that Mr. Lyon while in prison had issued frequent publications, therein freely discussing and sometimes censuring the measures of the Federal administration, and that if any pretext could be made for continuing his imprisonment and thereby prevent his taking his seat in Congress, to which he had been re-elected while in prison, the marshal would not hesitate to resort to it. It was further ascertained that if the fine was paid, the marshal intended to re-arrest him for his subsequent publications. Therefore, to secure his liberty so that he could take his seat in Congress, which had already convened, Mr. Apollos Austin, a resident citizen of Orwell, and a man of wealth, at his own expense and trouble procured the thousand dollars in silver dollars, and on the day that Mr. Lyon's confinement expired, Mr. Austin with the entire body of Republicans in Orwell, nearly every man went to Vergennes, where a like spirit brought together some thou- sands of the Republicans from other parts of the district and State, in order, probably, to overcome the authorities from re-arresting. Mr. Austin, however,
was not permitted to pay the money he had brought. All claimed the privi- lege of bearing a part, and one dollar each was the maximum they would allow any one individual to pay. One gentleman from North Carolina, a staunch Republican, was so zealously anxious for the release of Mr. Lyon from prison, that he might take his seat in Congress, at that time nearly equally divided by the two great political parties, came all the way on horseback from North Car- olina with the thousand dollars in gold to pay the fine, supposing that as Ver- mont was then new and was comparatively poor, the resources of the people were not sufficiently ample to meet the exigency. Having paid the fine the friends of Mr. Lyon immediately took him into a sleigh, followed and preceded by a concourse of teams loaded with the political friends of Lyon, which reached from Vergennes as they traversed Otter Creek upon the ice, nearly to Middle- bury, from which place a large number continued to bear him company to the State line at Hampton, N. Y., where they took leave of him and wished him God speed on to Congress."
It is singular that such an enthusiastic and excited gathering of people from all parts, with teams enough to fill every vacant cleared space in Vergennes (for there were no public conveyances as exist to-day), could have taken place and no one in Vergennes to preserve a record of the proceedings, or even to hand down to the next generation the tradition of the great excitement. The writer well remembers the stories of his grandparents, then neighbors of Lyon, the excited crowd which attended Lyon's passage through Fair Haven, with music and banners and the wildest enthusiasm; but the leading men of Ver- gennes were of the Federal party, and had no sympathy for their political op- ponents. The words of censure of the government for which Lyon was impris- oned seem mild in comparison with the political abuse of the present age.
However much the citizens of Vergennes may have been interested in pub-
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lic affairs, they were not indifferent to business matters, which seem at that time to have been in a prosperous condition. In August, 1798, Spencer leases to Azariah Tousey a site for a slitting-mill and the privilege of erecting a dam at the foot of the falls, from the hole in the rocks on the island (now visible) to the west shore.
In January, 1799, Josiah and William Fitch sold their store (on the bank lot) to Curtis & Sawyer for $800. Sawyer married a daughter of Roswell Hop- kins and continued in trade here for several years. Argalus Harmon bought the lease of the public lot in front of the green.
Among recent settlers of that time appear the names of Amos Marsh, who lived on the Franklin house lot; Luke Strong, another lawyer, who built the Thompson house and died there in 1807, aged thirty-nine years ; Luther E. Hall, who first lived where Kidder's store is and then in a house now occupied by F. C. Strong (he lived to a good old age in Vergennes) ; Belden Seymour, from Connecticut, whose trade was that of a hatter (accumulated property, and he and his sons were long identified with the business of Vergennes) ; Henry Cronk, long sheriff and constable, and tavern-keeper (married a sister of Roswell Hopkins ; at length removed to a farm in West Ferrisburgh) ; Wm. Burritt (for many years an active and prosperous business man in Vergennes) ; Bissell Case, a tavern-keeper; Asa and Abraham Dibble, the latter assistant judge of County Court.
The grand list of 1798 shows seventy-eight names. Fifty-four houses are entered in the list at from one dollar to eighteen dollars: average, five dollars forty cents; two hundred and forty acres improved land. The total list was $6,709.25, but property, except houses, was entered at about five times the amount of our one per cent. General Strong enters fifty acres improved land ; Donald McIntosh fifty acres; Roswell Hopkins forty acres, leaving only 100 acres for all the others.
From 1791 for about ten years the Newtown Company, as it was called, was active in manufacturing, in buying and selling real estate, and in loaning money. The company consisted of Abram Baldwin, several of the name of Tousey, and several of the name of Booth. Baldwin and the Touseys did not 1
long remain here; they were probably rich, but they were not popular.
Dr. David Fitch was a popular physician; he was born in 1795, was a dea- con in the Congregational Church, but his history is not well known.
Belden Seymour, from Newtown, Conn., came here about 1796 and estab- lished the business of making hats; not exactly the style used to-day, but sat- isfactory to the wearers. He first bought a lot with a store on it in the block between Elbow and Green streets, and eventually owned a large part of the square. Belden Seymour was successful in business, and at length retired with a competence to his farm on Comfort Hill, where he died in 1841. His wife, who was Abigail Beers, lived one hundred years wanting a few weeks. She was sister of Mrs. Green, the mother of William E. Green.
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For many years after the city organization, taxation was light; in one year the expense for the care of the city poor amounted to $15. The bridge was the great burden, but with the help from the adjoining towns and the aid of the lottery authorized by the Legislature they managed to keep up a bridge. In 1800 they bargained with General Strong to put four trestles under the bridge, put in one new string piece and 800 feet of plank for $13; and in 1805 he of- fered to build a new bridge for $500.
Many roads in Vergennes and vicinity had been opened, but frequent changes in their location are recorded.
In 1795 the new school-house mentioned stood near where the town hall is; a few years later it was moved on to the present school-house grounds on South street and used until the large one, now Mrs. Julia Adams's residence, was built.
Strong & Chipman built a grist-mill on the island, which they afterward sold to Ephraim Hubbell, and Hubbell to Francis Bradbury February, 1810. The largest island was then much larger than it now is. One survey says it extended up stream six rods above the bridge. It was bordered by trees and wild grape vines, and some one had a garden on it. A gentleman now living told the writer that the first grave he remembers was on that island: a stranger was buried there. In low water there was a dry passage from one island to the other, until channels were blasted out to secure water for the mills. The trees were cut and portions of the large island were dug away for the same purpose. Owing to this cause a mill on the island for dressing cloth was un- dermined and fell into the stream.
Within the next few years the names of many new residents appear, in- creasing the population to 516 in 1800, and to 835 in 1810. About 1797 John H. Sherrill, grandfather of William A. Sherrill and Mrs. William E. Green, brought his young wife on horseback with Elliott Sherrill, then an infant in her arms, and came into Vergennes on a dark, rainy evening. In Swift's history it is said that he had a store in Middlebury in 1798. He lived here in 1800. He first lived where the Baptist Church stands, but soon moved to the house on the west side, belonging to Dr. Ingham's estate, and about 1830 he built the brick front where he lived until his death. He was an honored and respected citizen. Another citizen of this date was Abraham Dibble, who was assistant judge of Addison County Court in 1801-04.
Benajah Webster, a native of New Hampshire, who had learned the gun- smith's trade in New York city, came to Vergennes about 1806, and began and continued for many years the business of blacksmithing. He first lived in the house vacated by Samuel Davis, next north of the Congregational Church, but afterwards built the brick house now the property of William E. Green, and converted his old house into a shop. The bricks for his house were made at the yard of Dr. Griswold, on the farm now occupied by Carleton Bristol. Mr.
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Beers, the father of Ransom Beers, was at first associated with Webster. Mr. Webster had a large family of children; in later years he moved on to the farm in Ferrisburgh now owned by his grandson, William W. Bard. Warren Web- ster, a son of Benajah, followed the trade of blacksmith in Vergennes a while and moved West. One daughter, Delia Webster, achieved distinction and was known throughout the United States for her successful efforts as an abolitionist and her consequent imprisonment in Kentucky, and a trial which aroused the sympathy of every abolitionist in the land.
The Harmon family was prominent in Vergennes during the first quarter of the present century. Daniel Harmon came from Bennington county about 1795. Calvin and Argalus came two or three years later. They were known principally as merchants and distillers. They traded in the stone store now standing on Main street north of East street.
Edward Sutton came to Vergennes about 1803, and until his death in 1827 was a successful merchant, leaving a large estate for those days. He lived in the house previously owned by Amos Marsh, and his store has since been re- modeled to form the dwelling house of J. B. Husted. At the time of his death he was in partnership with Edward J. Sutton, who died the same year, and the business was closed, and the store building was rented and used as a store for several years by many different parties-William F. Parker, Bixby & Black- man, Cyrus Smith, and others. The estate of Mr. Sutton was divided in 1828 between his two daughters, Caroline and Jane Sutton. The death of Jane Sut- ton, in 1832, from cholera, followed next day by the death of Edmund Parker, caused an intense excitement in Vergennes.
Edward A. Kendall, in Travels through the Northern Part of the United States in 1807 and 1808, says: "Still lower on the Otter Creek, and only five miles short of its entrance into the lake, is a cataract which ranks among the most beautiful in New England. On its banks are seated the town and village of Vergennes, a name intended to honor M. De Vergennes, sometime minister of the court of France. Sloops ascend from the lake to the foot of the cata- ract; and, from this and other circumstances, Vergennes is well seated for iron works ; bog ore abounds in all the adjacent country, and stone ore is brought from Crown Point, on the opposite side of the lake. A furnace, and other ex- tensive works, in addition to those which have been long established, are at this time erecting. There are bridges across the Otter Creek, both at Middlebury and Vergennes; and each of these villages exhibits a busy and thriving ap- pearance.
" Roads both from New York and Boston meet in Vergennes, whence there is a road due north to Burlington, distant twenty-two miles, a commercial vil- lage and port of entry on the lake, and by which there is a constant communi- cation, either by land or water, with Montreal, in Lower Canada."
In 1809 an important lawsuit was decided in regard to the falls. Silas
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Wright, of Weybridge, sued Strong & Spencer, of Vergennes, for damages, claiming that the building of a dam at Vergennes, and the changes made at the falls, caused such a rise of water that the lands on the creek and on Lemon Fair, were overflowed, to the great injury of the owners; but after a long trial, with many witnesses, the jury brought in a verdict for the defendants.
The query that has always been most pressing for an answer in regard to Vergennes-Why does not Vergennes grow faster in numbers, wealth, and business ? was just as unanswerable in 1800 to 1805 as it ever has been. It was admitted everywhere that her situation was in the midst of a fertile and pro- ductive country ; that her water power was unrivaled ; that the whole body of water in Otter Creek, with a fall of thirty-seven feet, was available for any pur- pose for which water power could be used; that the locations for mills were peculiarly free from danger by reason of freshets ; that her means of communi- cation by water with the northern markets were all that could be desired ; that her people were intelligent, numbering among them some of the brightest minds in the State; and yet her population was constantly changing ; men did not come to stay ; the returns from capital invested in her business, except in rare instances, were not satisfactory. But in the fall of 1807 and the year follow- ing it was thought that this question would not be asked again; that a bright future awaited the little city. A strong company of wealthy gentlemen of Boston proposed to embark in the iron business in Vergennes on a large scale. Captain Francis Bradbury came on here and in October, 1807, secured a per- petual lease of water power, and about seven acres of land on the west side of the creek, from Gideon and Stephen Spencer, for the consideration of $3,000 and an annual rent of $300, and very soon assigned three-fourths of it to Stephen Higginson, William Parsons, James Perkins, and Benjamin Wells, all of Boston. There was at that time on the ground leased a forge and slitting- mill, a shop for making nails, and near by a "steel-factory." On the east side was a small forge; on the island a grist-mill, and also one on the west side, and a number of saw-mills. In January, 1808, this company advertised that they would purchase charcoal in large quantities, and built large coal barns for storing it; at one time they had fifteen such barns. Spencer's grist-mill stood in the little hollow eight or ten rods below the bridge. A low shed for the use of his customers extended toward the present dry houses, and at the end of that a large gate, closing the road to the wharf. A flume ran from the present dam by the side of the rocks in the bank on a level to carry water for the ma- chinery below. The large yellow house (so called) was soon built, and in 1809 Thomas H. Perkins leased, on a perpetual lease for $5,000 and an annual rent of $500, the remainder of the falls and mills and the land to Panton road on the south and city line on the west, with some reservations of small lots pre- viously leased. The small leases were bought in by the company and their business enlarged. Their forge had nine fires; they bought the Monkton ore
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