History of Chittenden County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 49

Author: Rann, W. S. (William S.)
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 1054

USA > Vermont > Chittenden County > History of Chittenden County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 49

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In this year " Barty" Willard delivered himself of a rhyming witticism which, we believe, has never been published. He was a wheelwright and blacksmith, and from 1793 to the time of his death, in 1815, at the age of sixty- eight years, lived on the site of the large brick house, now unoccupied, west of the southwest corner of Pearl and Willard Streets. At some time during the year 1805 a company of lawyers, among whom were General Levi House, Thaddeus Rice, Elnathan Keyes, E. D. Woodbridge, John Fay and his brother, Moses Fay, who were engaged in gaming and drinking, according to the cus- tom of the times, invited Barty to take a seat at their table, and insisted on his asking a blessing, whereupon he improvised the following :

" Lord bless this clime, haste on the time When death makes lawyers civil ; O, stop their clack, and send them back Unto their master, Devil.

" Let not this band infest our land, Nor let these liars conquer ; O, may this club of Beelzebub Torment our world no longer.

" As bad, indeed, as the thistle-weed That chokes our fertile mowing, Compared, nigh, the Hessian fly, That kills onr wheat when growing.

" O, sollen death, now stop their breath, Refine them all in brimstone ; Let them repair to h -- ], and there They'll turn the devil's grindstone."

Burlington during the War of 1812. - During the first twelve years of the present century the town grew even more rapidly than before. The forests, which had hardly been cleared in 1800, were laid low, and in their place might be seen at the proper season fields of grain and orchards of young and promis- ing trees. Clusters of houses took the place of the evenly distributed dwell- ings of twenty years before, and the town was possessed of several hamlets. When war was declared, and the friends and the opponents of the national ad- ministration had laid aside their animosities to contribute equally to the com-

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TOWN AND CITY OF BURLINGTON.

mon defense, Burlington became a point of considerable interest. Troops were stationed here under command of Gen. Macomb, and in 1813 Gen. Wade Hamp- ton occupied the town with 1,400 men ; troops also encamped in the easterly part of the town. Colonel Clark went from Burlington with 102 men and at- tacked a British force at St. Armand, killed nine, wounded fourteen, and took IOI prisoners, whom he brought to Burlington. The military authorities took possession of the college buildings and used them for an arsenal and barracks. Meanwhile it was suspended as an institution of learning. In 1813 the enemy threatened Burlington, so that the public stores at Plattsburgh were brought hither. The British fleet came up the lake and fired a few shot at this town, but retired when cannon on our shores began playing upon them. They made their approach from around Juniper Island with two gun-boats and nine row- galleys. Notwithstanding the slight repulse with which they met at Burling- ton, they commanded the lake for some time, and took every craft that they could find. They entered Shelburne Harbor and took the schooner of Captain Robert White, replying to his remonstrances with the explanation that they had nothing against him and wished him no personal injury, but were under strict orders to take everything that floated on the lake, and destroy what could not be utilized.1

Embankments were thrown up on the lake shore north of the foot of Pearl street, now called the Battery, and barracks were built between Pearl street and Battery Place, and along the latter to the lake. These barracks were two stories high and were half surrounded by a piazza along the second story. Here were a store and medical and surgical departments complete. In 1813- 14 Captain Lyon, then a boy of ten years, was employed there as waiter for two officers. The fatal epidemic of 1813 was dreadfully effective at this camp. Captain Lyon, who lost his father and other relatives and friends by this dis- ease, describes its first symptom as being usually a pain in the left side, which would rapidly extend over the whole body, and in the brief space of a few hours cause a painful death. Women were little afflicted by it, but it was not uncommon for fifty men in this camp to die in one day.

Around the barracks was a camping ground about twice as large as the present Battery. Water street then extended from the Battery to Maple street, and during the war presented a scene of the greatest activity. The move- ment against the liquor traffic not having begun, soldier and civilian united in unconcealed successions of hilarious sprees. This thoroughfare was lined with little wooden buildings which had been converted into cheap boarding-houses,

1 About the beginning of the war, Mark Rice evinced the general uneasiness caused by the proxim- ity of the enemy, by erecting a dwelling on Main street, which at a moment's warning could be con- verted into a little fort and made almost impregnable. The basement of this house he made a perfect dome of heavy stone and cement, with small windows like port-holes. Mr. Rice was a cabinet-maker, and built a little shop just west of his house. The shop long ago disappeared, but the dwelling is still standing and is in a good state of preservation. It is occupied by Mr. W. H. S. Whitcomb.

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HISTORY OF CHITTENDEN COUNTY.

taverns and rum shops. One of the larger taverns, kept by one Chandonette, a Parisian, was a square, framed house, two stories high, painted white, and sur- mounted by a gambrel roof, and stood on the northeast corner of Main and Water streets, facing south. It was continually crowded with soldiers and camp-followers, who spent their time in drinking and carousing. Another tavern stood on the east side of Water street, fronting west, occupying the present site of the building owned by Drew & Conger. It was a long, low story-and-a-half building, with dormer windows projecting from the roof. About 1821 Russell Harrington, brother of William C. Harrington, was the proprietor of this house. Mayo's store stood directly opposite this resort.

This mercantile establishment was in the hands of two brothers, Nathaniel and Henry Mayo under the firm name of N. & H. Mayo, the father and uncle respectively of Henry Mayo, now residing in Burlington. It was the only store on the street. It was a brick building two stories high, about thirty feet north from the store that now stands in the vicinity. It presented its side to the street, and was entered by a door near the center on the Water street side. The proprietors did all the baking for the army and navy stationed at Burling- ton during the war. They had a bakehouse in the basement of the store and a wooden building for the same purpose a few feet southwest of it, down the bank. They also erected a building-the same one now occupied by Thomas Arbuckle as a dwelling - on Maple street and near its present site, in which they baked hard bread for the navy. During the first two years of the war Nathaniel Mayo occupied as a dwelling the house that now stands on the northwest corner of Main and Prospect streets, and was followed in the year 1814 by a Mr. Cushman. Opposite this residence, on Main street, was the store of Thaddeus Tuttle.

There were no manufacturing concerns on Water street nor on the lake shore. Indeed, there was little manufacturing of any kind here at that early date. Just west of Water street was a steep bank, verging directly to the water's edge. The principal thoroughfare to the lake, from the interior, was by way of Maple street. There was considerable travel, also, on Main street to Water, thence to Maple and the lake. Maple street was open only to St. Paul. Leaving what was then called Court-House Square, towards the lake on College street, the traveler was obliged to begin a descent about where E. T. Englesby then lived, into a ravine forty or fifty feet deep, as steep as he could safely descend, and cross on a plank a little brook that flowed south and west from Pearl street. This part of College street was then little more than a foot- path. It was a favorite coasting-place for the boys in winter. East of the square on College street, and between the present site of Howard National Bank and the store of A. N. Percy & Co., was a steep hollow, bridged, and east of that the street was almost impassable by reason of the ravine. This was not filled up for many years ; the site of the city market building being

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TOWN AND CITY OF BURLINGTON.

about the deepest part of this depression, and remaining impassable until the Vermont Central Railroad filled it up with the intention of passing over it to Main street. The boys who then attended school in the brick structure on the site of the present high-school, passed through this hollow on College street, crossing the bottom on a plank. Bank street extended to Water street, but was occupied only by dwelling-houses, most of them of small dimensions. No street extended west of Water street. Champlain and Pine streets were opened from Maple to Pearl, and occupied only by dwelling-houses. St. Paul, or Shelburne and Willard streets, were the only outlets of the town south. Wi- nooski avenne did not reach north of Pearl street, that entire region being covered by a heavy growth of pine. The avenue was afterward opened north of Pearl street by Wyllys Lyman and George P. Marsh, under an agreement with the town, they being evidently desirous of increasing the value of their possessions in that neighborhood. Union street, with the exception of a nar- row lane between Main and College streets, was pasture and meadow land. North Prospect street was a part of a large farm afterward owned by Governor Van Ness. There was no travel on South Prospect, though the thoroughfare in front of the College Park had very much the same appearance that it now presents-a number of the first houses still occupying the old sites. Colchester avenue, which then contained about one-tenth of the dwelling-houses that it now has, was considerably used by the wayfaring men between Burlington and Winooski Falls. The ravine on Pearl street was spanned by a bridge of about the same dimensions as the bridge across the same depression on St. Paul street, near King.

There was still but one dock at the lake -a small affair covering a part of the area now occupied by the south wharf, and owned by Curtis Holgate, or Hulgate, who had built it several years before the period of which we are speaking. Owing to the shallowness of the water at the end of this alleged dock- the depth was not more than six feet - the larger craft on the lake could not reach it, and were obliged to unlade the merchandise which they brought from the upper end of the lake, and to lade the produce of the coun- try which they took south to exchange for merchandise, by means of lighters, while the lighters were filled and emptied by means of wagons driven a short distance into the water. Liquor casks and molasses barrels, the former more frequently than the latter, were thrown from the vessels into the water and floated ashore.

Burlington then presented a far less pleasing aspect to the sightseer on the lake than it now affords. The original forests, which had been cleared away, were not yet replaced by trees of growth sufficient to obstruct the view. The irregular terraces which have since been made beautiful by persistent grading, the rough ravine, and several monotonous groups of small old-fashioned dwell- ing houses, constructed with a view to affording protection from sun and storm,

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HISTORY OF CHITTENDEN COUNTY.

without a thought of the ulterior and beneficent uses of beauty - all relieved only by two or three splendid structures like that of Thaddeus Tuttle, were ex- posed to the sight. The pine grove, before mentioned, at that time concealed a considerable portion of the town north of Pearl street. South of Main street and embracing the site now occupied by the residence of J. D. Kings- land, was the famous and beautiful sugar grove of William C. Harrington. Lombardy poplars had been planted here and there for shade, mingled with an occasional locust, which not long after suffered extermination from borers.

At the lake, near the foot of King street, lived Captain Gideon Lathrop, afterward commander of the Congress. Captain Winans, the builder of the Vermont, lived in the same neighborhood, as did also Curtis Holgate, the builder and owner of the old wharf. Admiral Richard Fittock lived close to the water's edge, at what is now the foot of Maple street. The jail limits of the town were defined on the west by the water line, and Fittock was once disturbed when his house was invaded by the lake, lest the submerged portion should be guilty " of breaking the jail bonds." Joseph King, brother of the " Admiral," lived with him in the house formerly occupied by their father, who died in 1804. Hamlin Johnson had a slaughter-house on King street, on the site of the present Powers house. Consider Severance, a cooper, lived in a small house on the southeast corner of King and Pine streets, where John Brooks now lives. His shop was just south of his house on Pine street. He afterwards moved to the rear of the old white church on White street, now Winooski Avenue. Elias Nye lived across from him on the corner of Pine and King streets. Justus Warner occupied a little wooden building on the south side of King street, on the site of the house in which Miss Louisa How- ard recently died. George Robinson, a "witty, fun-loving, kind, generous- hearted lawyer," born at Taunton, Mass., on the 26th of August, 1775, who came to Burlington about the year 1800, began the study of law in the office of Elnathan Keyes and afterwards earned the title of " honest George Robin- son," lived at the time of which we are speaking on the northwest corner of King and St. Paul streets, in the house now occupied by William H. Lane, and at a later day moved to Pearl street. He held many important positions in the town and county- was town clerk and judge of probate for years. He went to Michigan about the year 1833, and died there on the 15th of Decem- ber, 1838.

Peter B. Smith, a tailor, lived on the southwest corner of King and St. Paul streets, and Silas Moulthrop was in company with him. Stephen Mix Mitchell, a lawyer, lived on the north side of Main street below the square. Dr. John Pomeroy occupied a brick building, still standing, on the east side of Battery street, about half way between Main and King. He was a leading physician, well known throughout the State, and always had eight or ten students in his office. About this time James Van Sicklen was one of his

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students. Samuel Collamer, father of Senator Jacob Collamer, was a carpenter and joiner, and lived in a house which stands to-day where it did then, on the northwest corner of Main and Battery streets. He had a large family and was poor. The story is told that one of his sons, afterward the famous senator, who was an early student at the college, was reproved by one of the professors for coming to college barefooted, and told that he must wear shoes. This the boy succeeded in doing ; but economized by carrying the shoes in his hand until he reached the college park, and there putting them on for the day. Elnathan Keyes occupied a house that stood on the northeast corner of Main and Pine streets. He was one of the first two lawyers to practice in the county, and was a man of very unusual ability. Shortly after this period he removed to New York, near Rochester, where he remained until his death. He was a brother of Mrs. Dr. John Peck.

On the southwest corner of Main and Pine streets, just west of the Van Ness house, lived Nathan B. Haswell, in the house which he built, and which stands there yet. Mr. Haswell was a prominent man in Burlington for many years, and deserves more than a passing mention. He was born in Benning- ton on the 20th of January, 1786. His father, Anthony Haswell, a native of Portsmouth, England, established the Vermont Gazette at Bennington, in 1783. After having had experience in a printing office and as a student of law, young Haswell came to Burlington with the object of finishing his education in the University ; but the loss of his father's newspaper and press by fire determined him to engage in active business at once. In 1805 he received from Dr. Jabez Penniman, collector of customs, the office of inspector, which he retained until 1809, and then resigned. In 1812-13 he was the issuing commissary for the distribution of army rations. He was also a part of the time the public store- keeper, and superintended the taking of an inventory of the public property of Burlington. In 1814 he actively assisted in forwarding troops to Platts- burgh. From 1818 to 1836 he was respectively county clerk, clerk of the Supreme Court, notary public, master in chancery, etc. In 1836-7 he repre- sented Burlington in the Legislature, and in the same year was appointed by the United States government agent to build the breakwater and to superin- tend the cleaning of the channel between North and South Hero. For more than forty years he was an active member of the Masonic order, and held the highest offices within its gift. He died at Quincy, Ill., on the 6th of June, 1855, while there on a business visit. His remains were buried in Burlington. " Amiability and kindness were his characteristics." In personal appearance he much resembled Martin Van Buren. For many years he carried on an auction store on the north side of City Hall Park, near the site of the Com- mercial Bank building. David Russell, whose influence was instrumental in bringing Mr. Haswell to Burlington, lived on the ground now occupied by the dwelling house of Joel H. Gates.

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HISTORY OF CHITTENDEN COUNTY.

Opposite David Russell's, on the southwest corner of Main and Pine streets, lived another prominent man in Burlington, Samuel Hitchcock. He came to Burlington in 1786, and began the practice of law. He died before the war was over - November 30, 1813, aged fifty-eight years. He held all the highest offices which the town could bestow upon him, and ever acquitted himself to the satisfaction of his constituents.

A small private house, occupied either then or a little later by a musician named Harvey Milliken, stood on the site of the Van Ness house. Moses Jewett, a saddler, had erected what now forms the west end of the American Hotel, where he lived. He plied his trade in the upper story of a building which occupied the site of the Merchants' National Bank, on the north side of the square. Da- vid A. Smalley, a brief sketch of whom appears in the chapter devoted to the history of the legal profession, was one of Mr. Jewett's apprentices in the sad- dlery trade. Jewett afterwards sold his dwelling house to C. P. Van Ness. East of this house was Mills' Row, from which the Northern Centinel was issued for years. This was a long row of two- story buildings facing Main street, white, wooden and surrounded by a balcony. Here many of the soldiers and officers were quartered during the war. The site of the court-house and post- office buildings was occupied by Seth Pomeroy, who shortly afterwards sold the place to his brother, Dr. John Pomeroy. The house was a small cottage building facing Main street, from which it was separated by a neat yard. Be- hind it was a large garden and an orchard. It was after this time that the Mills brothers (Samuel and Ephraim) built the house now standing on the cor- ner of King and Church streets. The ravine at this place had not been filled with earth. William C. Harrington resided some distance back from Seth Pomeroy's in a large building still standing, which was afterwards the middle seminary building on Church street. As Church street was not then open south of Main, Mr. Harrington was obliged to reach Main street by the way of Shelburne or St. Paul street.

Where the Exchange block now is was then a small story-and-a-half, un- painted, wooden, dwelling house. It occupied a knoll eight or ten feet high, faced Main street, and stood forty or fifty feet away from it. North of it was a garden, and a little south of the corner on the site now occupied by the store of A. N. Percy & Co., were the barns for the tavern kept then by Major Abram Brinsmaid, and afterwards by Captain Henry Thomas. Abbott & Wood were the first to build there after this, their building still standing on the same site. This inn stood on the ground now covered by the Strong block, and was a little, square, wooden, white, two-story house. The old framed court-house was where the Fletcher Library building now stands, fronting west, and was remarkably well suited to the purposes of its construction. South of the court- house, near the southeast corner of the city hall, was a small pond or marsh about a hundred feet long, filled in summer with willows and cat-tails and in winter affording a place on which the boys could skate.

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TOWN AND CITY OF BURLINGTON.

Church street was far from being the main business street of the village. There were no blocks and few dwelling houses, only five or six stores and tin- shops. The more substantial business of the place was transacted around the square and at the head of Pearl street, though considerable mercantile business was done along the western part of Pearl street, as it was then counted, viz., in the vicinity of the present residence of Edward C. Loomis. Although the square was the liveliest portion of the place, it presented to the stranger an al- together different appearance from what it now has. The most popular resort for strangers and those who loved not the life of the soldier was the comfort- able hostelry of " Uncle John Howard." John Howard came here from Ad- dison in 1812, and exchanged his Addison farm for the tavern with Arza Crane, the preceding proprietor. This building was already an old structure and could hardly be entitled to a more dignified appellation than that of a country tavern. Although three stories in height, it was not so high as many buildings now are at a two story altitude. Being very old it was of course a framed house. It occupied about the site now covered by the store of B. Turk & Brother, next east from what was then the shoe shop of Lemuel Page. In the rear of the main building extended two wings, one behind the other. The principal en- trance was reached from College street by an ascent of several steps ; but on the west side was a smaller entrance, which could not, in those days of respect- able reveries, have much significance. There was a broad covered piazza in front of the second story, and the summit of the roof was surmounted the whole length by a platform surrounded by a balustrade. Immediately east of the main building was a covered driveway, separating the tavern from a little two- story building just beyond. As early as 1825 a dancing-hall was built over this driveway. The spacious tavern yards and barns were reached by this opening. What anecdotes were related and side-splitting jokes played in that old inn; what comedies of real life were enacted there ; what laughter at the keen witticisms of Barty Willard came from the lips of the old-time guests who arrived by the latest stage from Boston, Troy, Montpelier, or perhaps Can- ada, we can never know; but from the hearty, genial nature of John Howard, and the smiles that illumine the faces of the " old settlers " whenever they hear or tell of the place, we are safe in assuming that a Boswell's life of Uncle John would be well worth the reading. The back yard of the inn took up nearly an acre of ground. The shoe shop of Lemuel Page, before mentioned, which was on the corner west of the tavern, was only one of several shops situated in a square hip-roofed building, erected years before by James Simmons.

On St. Paul street west of the park was a brick building, still standing, next north from the site of the Evarts House, erected and then owned by Gideon King, who used the upper story for a sail-loft. This room was afterward oc- cupied as a Masonic lodge room. The buildng now occupied by N. K. Brown, still farther north, was the store of Samuel Hickok, who dwelt in a two-story

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HISTORY OF CHITTENDEN COUNTY.

framed house built many years earlier by Moses Catlin, on the site now covered with the ruins of the Evarts House. Mr. Hickok was born in Sheffield, Berk- shire county, Mass., on the 4th of September, 1774, and at the age of eighteen years came to Burlington from Lansingburgh, N. Y. After the death of his brother and partner, William, he succeeded to a trade carried on in a little store that stood near the site afterward occupied by the Rutland depot. His second store stood on the site of the present dwelling house of Hon. Daniel Roberts. He soon after erected the large brick building next east from Mr. Roberts's, where he resided for some time and until his removal to the corner. At the same time he built the brick store now occupied by Mr. Brown, which by good authorities is said to be the oldest brick building now in the city. He was al- ways one of the foremost in every undertaking for the public good, and was highly and justly esteemed by his townsmen. He died on the 4th of June, 1 849.

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History of Chittenden County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 49

Author: Rann, W. S. (William S.) Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co. Number of Pages: 1054

Author: Rann, W. S. (William S.)
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 1054