USA > Vermont > Grand Isle County > History of Franklin and Grand Isle counties, Vermont : With illustrations and biographical sketches of some of the prominent men and pioneers. > Part 54
USA > Vermont > Franklin County > History of Franklin and Grand Isle counties, Vermont : With illustrations and biographical sketches of some of the prominent men and pioneers. > Part 54
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Until 1792 all town meetings and other public gatherings were held at the house of Colonel Benjamin Holmes. The accommodations were very insufficient, and the meetings a great annoyance to the patient family. The erection of some suitable building for the purpose had been frequently agitated by the more enterprising and public spirited of the citizens, who in view of the general prosperity of the people felt that it was due alike to the good name of the town and the general wel- fare of the people that a commodious and respectable public building should be built by the town. Accordingly in the "notification " for the town meeting in 1791 there appeared the following items, the former of which is quoted, not because of its bearing upon this subject, but be- cause both were voted down together without comment :
· " 3d. To see if the town will grant a tax to defray incidental charges for the year ensuing.
" 4th. To see if the town will take into consideration and propose some method for building a meeting-house."
The town had in like manner the year before disposed of a proposal to establish a burying ground. As a result of the adverse action of the town upon the question of building a meeting-house Colonel Holmes and " Esquire Bliss," as Frederic Bliss had come to be generally called, in 1792, with what little help their more immediate neighbors chose to volunteer, erected a small log building on the land of Bliss opposite the house of Colonel Holmes, and a few rods south of the present brick school-house. Here all public meetings were held until 1799, the "no- tifications" reading "at the school-house near Esq'r Blisses," or " near Colonel Holmes'." In 1799 a school-house was built on " lot No. 50," between the present house of the late Moses Wightman and that of William T. Newton, and that became the public building of the town at the September election of that year, and until after the completion of the meeting-house in 1802, under the designation of the "school-house near Captain Stephen Davis's."
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TOWN OF GEORGIA.
The annual town meeting for 1803 was warned as usual at the school- house near Stephen Davis's. (This Stephen Davis was the son and successor of Captain Stephen Davis, deceased.) The meeting was or- ganized and then adjourned to the meeting-house. It was then, " 4th. Voted, The meeting-house for the future shall be considered as the place where town meetings and freemen's meetings shall be warned and held." But the house so promptly appropriated by the town to its own use was wholly private property, and the town as such had not a dollar of interest in it. From the March meeting in 1791, when the subject was first formally brought before the town, till the second Mon- day in December, 1800, the subject of building a meeting-house by the town had been constantly agitated, and. there had been scarcely a year when it had not been brought before the town in regular or special town meeting once or more, only to be in some manner defeated. Numerous committees had been raised and schemes proposed, but all to no effect. Every committee and in fact all the people were in perfect accord as to where it should be located, and that was upon lot No. 50, on or near the center line running east from the main road, the site indicated by Allen when he and Frederic Bliss visited the town in 1784. But Captain Davis owned the lot and was opposed to the whole project, and like a good lawyer determined to yield no point of defense; he obstinately re- jected every overture in relation to the land, and had so far been able to defeat every attempt to vote a tax to build it anywhere. The follow- ing is the record of the last of about a score of town meetings held to take action on the question : "Met according to adjournment and voted that the meeting be dissolved." The people who were interested in the matter then built the house, one of the finest in the state, not on the un- purchasable land of Captain Davis, but on the next lot south of it, a generous portion of which, enough for the site of the house and as fine a park as there is in the state if it were fitted up, was most freely do- nated by Colonel Benjamin Holmes. And then, with a magnanimity worthy of all praise, the proprietors tendered the use of it to the town " for town and other meetings," on condition that it should be kept in condition for use. The cost of the house was a little less than $8,000.
But while the meeting-house question had been under consideration another question, that of settling a minister under the statute of 1773,
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HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND GRAND ISLE COUNTIES.
had been constantly agitated. The people of New England had not yet cut loose from the old English idea that the government should support the religious institutions, and the state had made provision for such a course in the statute alluded to. A Congregational church was organ- ized in Georgia in 1793, and most of the inhabitants who had any relig- ious preference were members or adherents of that church and its relig- ious service. Back of all other influences affecting this question in this particular case was the provision in the grant or charter of the town that one of the equal or seventy shares into which the town was to be divided should be set apart for the "first settled minister of the gospel" in the town. While the majority of the people were unalterably op- posed to the support of preaching by a tax there were very many of them willing to do so for a short time, " on probation with a view to set- tlement," in the hope to drive a sharp bargain and induce the minister to accept one lot of land and deed the remainder back to the town. The church, if it chose to do so, could have settled a minister who would have held the land, and the town would have had no legal control of the matter whatever; but it very well knew that such a course would cre- ate discord in the town. A considerable number of probationers were hired between 1793 and 1803, six of whom received calls to settle, and either of whom, so far as appears, might have been settled but for the exaction in regard to the land. In one case the town voted to permit the minister, Rev. Josiah Prentiss, to retain 200 acres and deed to the town the remainder of the right, but being absent, before he had time to act upon the proposal, the vote was rescinded and the amount of land which he might retain again fixed at 100 acres. But after ten years of most bitter strife over this question a minister was found who accepted the terms of the town, as appears by the following extract from the re- cord of a town meeting held on the first Monday of April, 1803, the thirty-fifth in which it had been considered:
"Voted, To give Mr. Publius Virgilius Booge a call to settle in the gospel ministry, in and over the Congregational church and people of the town of Georgia-eighty-three voting in the affirmative and thirty- five neuters who would not oppose, but who wished for longer and more particular acquaintance with Mr. Booge.
"Voted, 5thly, To give Mr. Publius V. Booge seventy-five pounds the first year of his settlement as a salary, and that his salary rise yearly,
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TOWN OF GEORGIA.
as the grand list shall rise, to the sum of one hundred pounds, which shall ever be his yearly salary. Voted, also, that the said Mr. Booge shall have as a settlement one lot or one hundred acres of land, that is to say, lot No. 35, the lot in contemplation for a minister's lot, or if that should not fall to the minister's right, to make him up the value of said lot in other lands or pay-and that the yearly salary shall be paid as follows, viz .: One-quarter of the sum in cash; the other three-quarters in pro- duce, such as corn, beef, pork, and such articles as he shall want."
This arrangement was all fair on its face, and Mr. Booge accepted the conditions and executed the papers required by the town in relation to deeding to the town the residue of the minister's right, but he soon after discovered that no provision had been made for the assessment, collec- tion, and payment of his salary. The town had got what it wanted in the case, and it was painfully evident that the people would not vote a tax to carry out the provisions of the arrangement. It was now appar- ent that only the beginning of the end of the controversy had been reached. It was well understood that a town meeting to vote a tax for the support of preaching was quite a different thing from one to vote to settle a minister over the Congregational church and people of the town, however much obligation to pay something at some indefinite time in the future might be implied by the transaction. A crisis had been reached, the most important in the history of the town. The question which presented itself to the consideration of every true citizen was whether the re-opening of that controversy should be permitted, or whether by some heroic means the issue should be forever got out of the town's hands. The hopes of all those who saw peace only in the latter course all centered in the enlistment of Frederic Bliss in its be- half. Of him the following characterization was written after his death by one who knew him well: " He was of easy, quiet, unobtrusive hab- its, benevolent almost to a fault, beloved by all, and by all deferred to. He was the peacemaker of the town, the arbiter of all difficulties, and the promoter of every good cause. He was not ambitious of wealth or honors, yet both came to him to his heart's content." He had taken no active part in any of the bitter controversies of the people, and espe- cially those in opposition to taxation for any and all purposes of which his father-in-law, Captain Davis, with his large wealth and wide influ-
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HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND GRAND ISLE COUNTIES.
ence, had always been the active and persistent leader. At this juncture he undertook the rôle of peacemaker, and invited the more prominent men of the town to a private conference and proposed the settlement of the ministerial support upon the basis of the following subscription pa- per, which he had had drawn up by John White, jr. Coming as it did at this critical period, and from the most conservative and influential man of the town, it was at once accepted without amendment as the most practicable settlement of the long drawn out difficulty. Captain Davis was dead, but his influence had taken such root that like a pestif- erous weed it not only grew, but scattered seed and became a perpet- ual menace, obstructing progress, and finally proving the ruin of the hopes of those citizens who had expected to maintain the town's early prominence among the other towns of the state. These latter had be- come willing to accept anything or do anything to settle the contro- versy, and every well wisher of the town, except the few of other de- nominations, promptly signed the subscription :
"Subscription for the settlement of the Rev. Mr. P. V. Booge.
" We, whose names are hereunto subscribed, believing that the foun- dation of the happiness of society rests on a constant cultivation of those moral virtues denominated religion, and the most effectual mode of ob- taining and continuing such valuable objects is to procure a public teacher of morality, do each for ourselves voluntarily agree to abide by the following articles and conditions, viz .:
" Ist. That each subscriber shall pay, in a mode hereinafter to be made, his equal proportion, according to his list and ratable estate, of the sum of Two Hundred and fifty dollars to be appropriated to the spe- cial purpose of the first year's salary, to be paid in the manner here- after directed, to Mr. Publius V. Booge ; and after the first year the said Mr. Booge's salary shall rise sixteen dollars and sixty-seven cents a year till it amounts to three hundred and thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents ; which last sum shall be his yearly salary so long as he shall con- tinue to be the settled minister of the Congregational church and peo- ple of the town of Georgia, and shall continue to preach regularly to the inhabitants of said town ; and that three-fourths of said salary shall be paid in country produce and one-fourth in cash.
" 2d. That the subscribers agree to meet at the Meeting-House in Georgia, on Tuesday, the third day of May, 1803, at two o'clock in the
ORRIS BALLARD.
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TOWN OF GEORGIA.
afternoon, to choose some suitable persons for a clerk and treasurer of the subscribers, and likewise a committee of three persons to take charge of the prudential concerns of the subscribers, as hereinafter pointed out.
"3d. That immediately on the settlement of the said Mr. Booge to the Gospel Ministry, in and over the church and people of the town of Georgia as aforesaid, the committee appointed as hereinbefore directed shall make out a list of the names of subscribers, and deliver the same to the clerk chosen as aforesaid, and it shall be the duty of the clerk ap- pointed as aforesaid, and of all other succeeding clerks, to furnish him- self with the list of the polls and ratable estates of the subscribers an- nually by the first day of November.
" 4th. That the committee appointed as hereinbefore directed, and all committees hereafter to be appointed, shall some time in the month of December, annually, meet and make out from the list of the subscribers a Rate-Bill, and deliver the same to the collector with a warrant signed by proper authorities for the collection of the same, and also a duplicate rate-bill and deliver it to the said Mr. Booge, so that any subscriber if he chooses may pay his rate, or tax, or proportion to him; and the said minister's receipt shall be good accounting with such collector for his, her, or their rate.
" 5th. That no person shall be holden to this subscription after he shall have actually removed from the town of Georgia, in case he has paid all taxes previous to his removal.
" 6th. That any person becoming a subscriber, who shall at the time of subscribing be a member of any church different from the Congrega- tional church in Georgia, or shall hereafter become a member of any other church, shall have the privilege to withdraw his or her name from the subscription on previously paying all taxes that have arisen.
" 7th. That all future meetings shall be warned by the clerk chosen by the subscribers, on the application of seven of the subscribers, giving twelve days' notice in said warnings, and shall be governed by two- thirds of the members present.
" 8th. That this subscription shall not be binding on the subscribers unless there shall be sufficient subscribed, so that the tax on each sub- scriber shall not exceed three cents on the dollar as his proportion.
73
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HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND GRAND ISLE COUNTIES.
"Subscribed by us : William Post, Daniel Lay, Elijah Dee, Nathan Murray, Jesse Post, Joseph Stannard, Frederic Cushman, Ira Hinckley, Asa Stannard, Walter Colton, Jared Watkins, John Shaw, Ansell Mer- ritt, Nathaniel Merritt, Justus Styles, Titus Trall, George Lamb, Jariah Lewis, Hezekiah Keeler, Francis Davis, Bohan Shepard, James Evarts, John Judd, Samuel Laflin, Elisha Bartlett, Abraham Laflin, Edmund Lamb, Joseph Doane, Ebenezer Booge, Abel Blair, Frederic Bliss, Francis Eldred, Luman Graves, Samuel C. Booge, Martin Merritt, Janna Churchill, Phillip Ellis, Obadiah Wright, Noah Lomis, Samuel Winten, Silas Robinson, jr., Abner B. Nichols, John Lomis, William Hubbard, Abel Post, Janna Churchill, jr., Elisha Bartlett, jr., Roger Lomis, Henry Chapman, Moses Barber, Israel Joslin, Henry Gibbs, Uriah Rogers, John White, Nathaniel Lay, Stephen Goodman, Daniel Stannard, Obadiah Gilbert, Joseph Dinsmore, James Hotchkiss, Holley Witters, Jonathan Danforth, Hira Hill, David Clark, Nathaniel B. Tor- rey, Silas Smith, William Post, jr., Ebenezer Goodrich, Elijah Dee, jr., Simon Ellsworth, Levi Barber, Ethiel Scott, Nathan Perry, Elijah Hunt, Roswell Lomis, David Stevens, Asahel Johnson, Elisha Cleveland, Obadiah Hills, Edward Hall, Joseph Barron, Loammi Pattee, John St. John, Darius Blatchley, Andrew Gilder, Hezekiah Winchell, J. D. W. Kip, Titus Bushnell, Joel Fairchild, Enos Pease, Elisha Hale, Joshua Smedley, Elijah Baker, jr., William Ballard, Chester Andrews, Noble Clark, William Sanders, jr., Washington Dee, Shiveric Weeks, Abner Bliss, Eben Boyden, Oliver Thayer, Samuel Stannard, jr., Eben Bishop, Levi Goodrich, William Wright, Lomy Blair, Luther Bishop, Richard Davidson, William Powers, Elijah W. Wood, Matthew Blair, Isaac Chamberlain, Richard Sylvester, Jesse Goodrich, Seymour Eggleston, William Wright, jr., John White, jr., Nathan Stevens, Jonah Lomis, Samuel Sanborn, Josiah Hale, Oliver Blatchley, Heman Newton, Major Post, John Hart, Joseph Dinsmore, jr., Tim W. Osborne, Peter Dewey."
But notwithstanding all this acrimonious strife the people individu- ally were greatly prospered in all their undertakings. Saw-mills were early built and a considerable lumber trade established, the surplus going to Quebec. True, the business was not largely remunerative, but it gave employment to men and teams, and brought cash returns. From the very beginning the manufacture of potash was carried on in
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TOWN OF GEORGIA.
several parts of the town, making a market for all the ashes made in clearing up the lands, and this was a great help to the settlers. But the manufacture of potash implied the manufacture of casks in which to ship it, and cooper shops gave employment to a number of men. These in - dustries led to the building of a wharf, a considerable storehouse, and a store at the lake. Here Nathaniel B. Torrey, an experienced and suc- cessful merchant from Lanesborough, Mass., conducted a profitable business for several years. The burning of lime at several points along the lake shore, for which there grew up a considerable demand from the towns farther east, even as far as Derby, gave employment to a few men. Lake navigation gave summer employment to several, and "the lakers" made up quite a little colony by themselves upon and near the shore. The policy inaugurated by Captain Davis when he removed here, of letting cattle and sheep on shares, had been very helpful to the poor settlers and those who came from so far that they could not bring stock with them. It has been looked upon as providential that the peculiar circum- stances under which Captain Davis removed here forced that business upon him. He came here in 1786 to look after his land purchase, made by Frederic Bliss, but appearances all indicate that at that time he had no intention of removing here. During the summer of 1787 he became involved in the insurrection against taxation called "Shay's rebellion," was arrested, put in irons, and having escaped came here, and at once began to make preparations to remove his family and effects here. He was the owner of a large stock upon his farm at Will- iamstown, Mass., but such was his resentment against the government of Massachusetts that he determined to remove everything movable as soon as the ice on the lake would permit, and he sent Abner Bliss there to aid and direct the removal. He had no fodder here, but many of the settlers were glad to accept his offer to let cattle for a term of years to double, and he had no difficulty in placing most of the lot. He was the wealthiest man in the town for several years, and an active business man, employed much help, and contributed much toward the material wealth of the town. Every kind of mill, machine, and shop common to the period and the necessities of the people had sprung up like magic.
The land was rich and productive and yielded abundant crops, and numerous orchards were already bearing fruit. The population during
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HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND GRAND ISLE COUNTIES.
the nine years between the censuses of 1791 and 1800 had increased more than 200 per cent., and had reached 1,068 against 815 in Burling- ton and 901 in St. Albans. Although there had been and still was some anxiety among the people about the validity of their land titles , there was little lacking to make them contented and prosperous, except an intelligent and enterprising public spirit in relation to the public in- stitutions required by the progressive spirit of the period.
At the time of Ira Allen's departure for Europe questions as to the validity of his land titles had begun to be raised by various interested parties, causing not a little anxiety among the people. Although pos- sessed of considerable interest their discussion at length would occupy unwarranted space in this place. It is sufficient to say that by frequent sales by auction for state taxes whatever of legal claim others may at some time have had was debarred so far as Allen and those holding un- der him were concerned, and it is not known that any title coming from or through him was ever set aside. The last effort in that direction was to procure a new division of the lands, on the claim that by the original survey the allowance for roads, rocks, rivers, etc., as provided in the charter, was excessive, and that certain of the original grantees had by the means been defrauded of their rights. A proprietors' meeting was called under the laws of the state, a new survey ordered, and the two most prominent surveyors in the state appointed a committee to conduct the survey. Every lot was accurately surveyed by tracing the old lines, and the surplus, over 104 acres, was set off at the ends of two adjoining lots, and laid out in lots of forty-nine acres each, and called the fourth division of the town. The cost of the survey was $854.80, which the proprie- tors paid by a tax of three cents and eight mills on each acre of land, exclusive of public lands, on the final withdrawal of the claims of the contestants, and the agreement on their part that "nothing shall be construed to operate against the right of the settlers to hold the whole of the land included in the original lines of each lot in consequence of the lines separating the lands in each over 104 acres, as marked on said survey." Allen's transactions with the people of Georgia were fully vindicated, although the surveyors found land enough in excess of the 104 acres to a lot to make sixty-eight lots of forty-nine acres each, which had been allowed for the various kinds of waste land alluded to. This settlement was effected April 10, 1806.
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TOWN OF GEORGIA.
The condition of the roads of the town was the cause of much dis- content. The route from Burlington to the north had hitherto followed Allen's original "road," which entered the town at the foot of Mount Pisgah, thence to the Gilder place on the north bow of the river, thence across the river and by the most feasible but quite crooked route to Georgia and St. Albans. This was the original stage or post road from Burlington to St. Albans. In 1798 a court committee, consisting of Elisha Sheldon, Jonathan Spafford, and Joshua Stanton, with James Herrick as surveyor, laid a post or stage road six rods wide across the town substantially as it still exists, and the town was assessed $57 as its share of the cost of the commission. This the town refused to pay, which was the beginning of a long and. bitter contest over appropria- tions for laying and building roads. The repressive element was in the majority, and voted down every question involving any tax except that imposed by statute. The interests of the business men of the town were suffering, but their protests were in vain. Captain Torrey's wharf, store- house, and store at the lake were burned, and he refused to rebuild, but subsequently sold out to his son, Milton B. Torrey, who in a more lim- ited way afterwards did quite a large amount of business, which reached as far east as Johnson, but which was not nearly as large as would have been the case with better roads, and most of the transportation business was finally diverted to Burlington.
The cause of education was under the same ban. In 1806, the ear- liest record at hand, there were 602 scholars between the ages of four and eighteen in the eleven district schools of the town. In 1807 626 were reported. Not one of these schools was supported or aided by a property tax beyond the public money provided by law. The merest rudiments were taught in them, and all beyond that must be obtained at private cost, and outside of the public schools. The direct and not unnatural effect of this spirit of repression of every effort to upbuild the town and society was to extrude the better and more progressive element of the population. One by one those who came here with high hopes and ardent expectations gathered their garments about them, shook off the dust of the town, and departed. It has been said on apparently good authority that more than half of the men who took an active part in building the meeting-house left town within seven years, and that not
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HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND GRAND ISLE COUNTIES.
half of those whose names were on the subscription list were represented in person or by descendants at the end of fifteen years. But notwith- standing this hegira, if such it may be properly called, the population increased about sixty-four per cent. between 1800 and 1810, or to 1,760, and it was still the most populous town of the county, St. Albans at that time having a population of 1,609. During the next decade there was a falling off to 1,703. But in 1830 it was 1,897; in 1840, 2, 106; in 1850, 2,686; in 1860, 1,547 ; in 1870, 1,603 ; 1880, 1,504; in 1890, 1,282. The apparent increase between 1840 and 1850 was due to the circumstance that a considerable number of laborers were engaged in building the railroad across the town at the time the enumeration of 1850 was made, and the population reported was abnormal.
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