History of Newbury, Vermont, from the discovery of the Coos country to present time, Part 11

Author: Wells, Frederic Palmer, 1850- ed
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: St. Johnsbury, Vt., The Caledonian company
Number of Pages: 935

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CHAPTER XV.

THE TROUBLOUS TIMES.

ALARMS .- BURNING OF PEACHAM .- THE "GREAT ALARM."- BENJAMIN WHITCOMB .- A NIGHT OF TERROR .- THE BURNING OF ROYALTON .- MR. POWER'S TORY SERMON. - ITS CONSEQUENCES. - "THE HALDIMAND CORRESPONDENCE."- AZARIAH PRITCHARD .- CAPTURE OF COL. THOMAS JOHNSON.

T HE change of plans which led to the abandonment of the expedition to Canada brought trouble upon the people at Coos, and the later years of the revolutionary war were full of alarms. There were certain men upon whose heads a price was set in Canada, and the hope of obtaining the offered rewards made some of the tories concert plans for the capture of these men, among whom were Gen. Bayley, Col. Thomas Johnson, Capt. Frye Bayley, Col. Robert Johnston, Capt. John G. Bayley, Robert Hunkins, and others. But all these were brave and resolute men whom it would be no easy matter to kidnap, and great danger attended any attempt at abduction, in a thickly-settled country, among people accustomed to alarms. In August, 1779, some children who had gone after blackberries in a clearing, back of where E. B. Chamberlain now lives, discovered several men lurking in the woods. The children ran to the houses and gave the alarm, upon which guns were fired to call in the men who were at work in the meadows. The smoke from clearing land in Ryegate and the shouts of the strong-voiced Scotchmen urging their oxen were seen and heard in Newbury, and were magnified by apprehension into a massacre of the inhabitants, and the burning of the settlement.

We, who live in these times of instant communication and rapid travel, can scarcely form any idea of the terrors of those days. People who lived near the river kept boats and rafts hidden where they could be quickly reached, by which they might escape into Haverhill, the east bank of the Connecticut being considered safest.

HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.

Several families moved over to Haverhill about that time for greater security.

In 1780, houses were burned in Peacham, along the Hazen road, and the inhabitants carried to Montreal. On the 9th of August, a party of twenty-one Indians came into Barnard and made prisoners of three men, whom they bore off to Canada. In October, came the "Great Alarm," the burning of Royalton by a party which had been sent from Canada to destroy Newbury, in revenge for the murder of Gen. Gordon of the British army.

In July, 1776, Benjamin Whitcomb, whose home then, and for some years after seems to have been at Newbury, and who was in command of a scout on the river Sorel, had mortally wounded Gen. Gordon, as he was riding between Chambly and St. Johns, and had taken from him his watch and sword. Several attempts had been made to capture Whitcomb, but without success, when it was learned, in 1780, that he was living here. Some months preceding the invasion, one Hamilton, who had been taken prisoner with Burgoyne, and had been released on parole came to Newbury and remained sometime. He made himself friendly with people, and learned all he could about the situation and resources of the settlement. Later, he went to Hanover and Royalton, and under pretence of surveying land in the northern part of the state, went directly to the enemy in Canada.

In October, Capt. Nehemiah Lovewell, of Newbury, who had been sent with a company of rangers to garrison the blockhouses in Peacham and Cabot, and guard the Hazen road, was, with a small scout, near the Lamoille river, when he discovered a party of armed Indians, nearly three hundred in number, making their way south through the woods." They were under the command of one Horton, a British lieutenant, with a Frenchman named La Motte as his assistant, and with Hamilton for their guide. Lovewell sent his fleetest men to warn the inhabitants. The alarm was sent to all the towns as far south as Charlestown. By the time the tidings reached Hanover, terror had magnified the invading force into an army. All the militia from Bath to Charlestown turned out. The people of Newbury, who lived below Harriman's brook, left their homes and fled to Haverhill. So many crowded upon a raft which left the Newbury side at Sleeper's meadow, that it began to sink, when Robert Hunkins and others lightened the frail craft by swimming ashore. The alarm reached Newbury after dark, and that night was one the like of which this town has never seen since. People left their homes as they were, the fires burning, their bread in the ovens, their suppers untasted, and fled for their lives. Some few retained presence of mind enough to secrete their most valuable possessions. The wife of Capt. John G. Bayley lowered all her

* Mrs. Lovewell's written statement in 1837, now in the N. H. Hist. Soc.

THE TROUBLOUS TIMES.

crockery and silver spoons into the well. Mrs. Ebenezer Eaton, who lived near where William U. Bailey has long resided, hid her spoons and her husband's knee-buckles so well that she was never able to find them again. In the morning the militia came in, the day passed without alarm, and people began to return. It was a day or two before the facts became known.

When the party under Horton came near the present site of Montpelier, they found Jacob Fowler of Newbury, and one or two others, who were hunting. Fowler was accounted a tory, and Horton acquainted him with their plans, but was informed by him that Newbury had received the alarm, and that the militia had gathered in considerable force. They next determined to assault Hanover, which had, since the establishment of Dartmouth College, become the largest place above Charlestown. But not daring to cross the river, at that time very high, they passed through Barre, Washington, and Chelsea, into Tunbridge, where they remained over Sunday, October 15th. On the following day they fell upon Royalton, killed several of the inhabitants and carried twenty-five persons to Canada .* They burned one house in Tunbridge, several in Randolph, twenty-one in Royalton; sixteen new barns filled with hay and grain, slaughtered about one hundred and fifty head of cattle, and all the sheep and swine they could find, and destroyed all the household furniture they could not carry away, taking about thirty horses laden with the spoil of the settlement. An untimely snow storm which fell that day, increased the dreariness of the situation. So fell upon Royalton the blow which had been intended for Newbury.

The troubles incident to life upon the frontier in time of war, were heightened by an act of indiscretion on the part of the minister, Mr. Powers. On the Sabbath, September 10, 1780, he preached two sermons from Judges v. 23, which were a scathing and intemperate review of the part which had been taken by the tories since the war began. The substance of these discourses was printed at Hanover, under the title "Tyranny and Toryism Exposed." Their deliverance gave mortal offense to the persons at whom it was directed, and tended to increase the hard feelings between the two parties at Coös. Mr. Powers' life was threatened by means of anonymous letters, and his name was added to those upon whose heads a reward had been placed. He became greatly alarmed for his safety, and moved with his family to Haverhill, into Col. Charles Johnston's house, leaving his son Stephen in his own at Newbury. This offended many of the whigs, as the patriots were called, especially some of the Bayleys and Col. Robert Johnston. They felt that they had endured much more

*Narrative of Zadoc Steele. Halls Eastern Vt.

HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.

for the cause of liberty, and had far more at stake than he had, and that, having by his utterances increased the ill will of the tories against them, he had left them to get out of the trouble as best they could. They succeeded in shutting up the meeting-house against him, and the rest of his preaching in Newbury was held in houses and barns, and in the open air.

In order to comprehend more fully the perplexities which beset the leaders at Coos during the last years of the revolutionary war, we must now advert to a phase of the history of Vermont which has been the perplexity of four generations of historians.

In October, 1780, certain men who had been prominent in the American cause, entered into negotiations with the Canadian authorities, which continued through nearly three years, and are known in history by the name of the commanding general in Canada, as the "Haldimand Correspondence." "This negotiation," says Dr. Williams, who wrote while the authors of it were still living, "consisted on the part of the British of constant attempts and endeavors to persuade the leading men of Vermont to renounce their allegiance to the states of America, and become a British province. On the part of the gentlemen of Vermont, the correspondence consisted of evasions, ambiguous, general answers and proposals, which had for its object a cessation of hostilities, at a time when the state of Vermont, deserted by the continent, and unable to defend herself, lay at the mercy of Canada."

It would be useless, in a town history, even to give a general idea of these negotiations which fill several thousand manuscript pages. There were only eight men in Vermont who were in the secret of this correspondence : Thomas Chittenden, Moses Robinson, Samuel Safford, Ethan Allen, Ira Allen, Timothy Brownson, John Fassett and Joseph Fay. They succeeded in making the British authorities in Canada believe that Vermont could be easily detached from its adherence to the American cause and annexed to Canada. They persuaded them to agree to a truce, by which the British troops were to be withdrawn from Vermont, while the militia of this state was disbanded. There is a great deal in this correspondence which has never been fully explained, and to read some of the letters of the Allens to the authorities in Canada, it would be believed that they were ready to sell Vermont to the British. How Gen. Haldimand and his officers allowed themselves to be thus duped, passes wonder. Indeed, it must be admitted that throughout the whole negotiation, Haldimand seems to have been actuated by a benevolent desire to avoid further bloodshed and bring the colonies, by kindly measures, back into the control of the crown.

No one on the east side of the state was admitted to the secret of these negotiations, but it was not long in coming to the knowledge of the leading men in the Connecticut valley, that

THE TROUBLOUS TIMES.

something suspicious was going on in the west part of the state. It was known to Gen. Bayley that certain men living near Bennington had been to Canada; that Canadian agents had visited Vermont, and that a correspondence was going on along Lake Champlain. It was not long before an attempt was made by the British to secure an emissary on this side of the state.

Azariah Pritchard, a Connecticut tory, who was ambitious to secure a commission in the British army, had visited Canada, and was given to understand that he could bring himself into favorable notice, by seizing some prominent man in the Connecticut valley, and taking him into Canada as a prisoner. He secured a list of the men upon whose heads a price was set, and engaging a small company of lawless men, he came down to Coös, and learned all he could about the principal citizens. But the serious risks involved in taking a man out of a populous locality, deterred his attempt. He learned that Col. Thomas Johnson, who had entered into a contract with James Bayley of Peacham, to build a gristmill in that town, had started with Josiah and Jacob Page, and two ox teams, for Peacham with the mill stones, on Monday, March 3d, 1781. On Wednesday night, while Johnson and Page were staying at the house of Dea. Jonathan Elkins in Peacham, Pritchard and his men surrounded the house, and carried Col. Johnson, Jacob Page, and Jonathan Elkins off to Canada. Rev. Grant Powers, with his usual inaccuracy, says that Page was sent down the river and never heard from afterwards. As a matter of fact, he was exchanged, and returned to Newbury, settling finally in Ryegate, where he is well remembered by old people.

Jonathan Elkins was sent to Quebec, where he suffered greatly from cold and hunger. In the fall, he was carried to England and confined in Mill prison, and was not exchanged for a year and a half from the time of his capture, when he was but nineteen years of age. Hon. Henry K. Elkins, a prominent business man of Chicago, is a son of Jonathan Elkins.

Johnson was, on the contrary, treated with a leniency and courtesy in marked contrast to the harsh treatment which was the lot of Elkins. He was well known, personally, to many of the British officers in Canada, and was considered by the authorities as a fitting man to represent Canadian interests on the east side of the Green Mountains, where, as yet, they had no partisan of influence or station.

To their inquiries respecting the views and feelings of the people upon the New Hampshire Grants, he affected indifference, and appeared to have grown lukewarm in the cause of the colonies.

They gradually made him acquainted with the negotiations which were going on between the Canadian authorities and the leaders in south-western Vermont, and he was informed that if he would serve their cause at home, he would be permitted to return

HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.

to Newbury. Accordingly, upon his promise to inform them of what was being said and done at Coös, which would be of value to them, he was given his parole, at St. Johns, October 5, 1781, and reached home on the 12th of the same month.

During his captivity, he kept a diary which, for the first time, is published in this volume.

CHAPTER XVI.

COL. THOMAS JOHNSON.

HIS UNFORTUNATE SITUATION .- TIDINGS OF HIS CAPTURE .- THE ALARM .- CAPT. WEBB .- RIOT AT COL. JOHNSON'S .- THE LAST TWO YEARS OF THE WAR .- BLOCKHOUSES .- BLISS AND SLEEPER KILLED BY THE INDIANS .- SHERWOOD AND SMYTHE .- THEIR REPORT .- PLANS TO CAPTURE GEN. JACOB BAYLEY .- ROBERT ROGERS AGAIN .- PRITCHARD'S ATTEMPT TO TAKE BAYLEY .- SHEM KENTFIELD .- THE ATTACK .- SARAH FOWLER.

W HETHER the capture of Col. Thomas Johnson was planned in Canada, or whether Pritchard's exploit had placed in the hands of the British a man whom they believed could be wrought upon to serve their purpose, cannot be determined.

The war which Great Britain had carried on with the colonies, had now been conducted nearly six years, yet with all their resources of men and money England had little to show in the way of results. A new policy was now to be inaugurated, and the troubles between Vermont and New York were used by the British to weaken the attachment of the former state to the federal union, and finally draw it back to the Crown. With a similar result in view, but byvarious means, they hoped to win the revolted colonies, one by one, back to their allegiance.

The journal of Col. Johnson, while in Canada, shows that he was treated with a consideration greatly disproportioned to his rank as lieutenant-colonel in the colonial militia. But if the British expected much from him, they were disappointed, while at the same time his connection with them drew many troubles upon his head, here in Newbury. He had been very prosperous since he came to. Coös, and as, by 1781, financial difficulties had overtaken Gen. Bayley, Johnson was probably much the wealthiest man in Newbury, and his fine house still attests the style in which he lived.

This prosperity had its drawbacks. He had made a few enemies, and as the worst charge which could be made against a

HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.

man in those days was that of toryism, there were those who had not scrupled to say that he was at heart a tory, and had underhand dealings with Canada. There had not been, for some time, the best of feeling between him and Gen. Bayley, which arose out of some transactions, between Johnson, and two of the latter's sons. Probably no man in Coös was placed in a more difficult situation during the later years of the war. His enemies averred that his capture in Peacham was arranged beforehand, and that he had gone there expressly to be thus taken, and when the tidings of his capture reached Newbury, there was quite a riot at his house.

Mrs. Johnson had gone with her children to spend the day with her sister, Mrs. Wallace, when, about ten o'clock, a messenger came from Peacham, with the news of her husband's capture. It was supposed that his captors were but the advanced guard of an invading army, and the alarm was sent out to all the towns as far south as Hanover. The first officer to arrive was Capt. Webb with a few men. Between Webb and Johnson there had been trouble, in some long forgotten manner, and the former took possession of the house with his men.

At that time there was a considerable quantity of rum, brandy, and other stores in the south-west front room, and the chamber above it. Webb demanded the keys of Ebenezer Whitaker, the hired man, and on his refusal, broke open the doors, and helped himself and his men liberally to the spirits, using abusive language toward Johnson. The men were becoming dangerous, when Capt. Jeremiah Hutchins came over from Haverhill with his company, and restored order.

When Johnson returned home, he found trouble awaiting him. There were men who had returned from the Canadian prisons, in which they had suffered from cold and hunger, who reported that at a time when they were allowed only enough to keep soul and body together, Johnson seemed perfectly at liberty, walking about at his leisure, dining with the officers, and having a good time, apparently. These rumors were seized upon by his enemies, and colored to suit their purposes, and Johnson was exposed to no small danger. But it does not appear that his loyalty was doubted by Gen. Bayley, Col. Kent, or the more considerate men on both sides of the river.

The last two years of the war were the most trying of all to the people at Newbury. There was a constant succession of alarms, and considerable bodies of troops were employed in guarding the frontier. A blockhouse was built in Corinth, another in Cabot, and a third in Barnet. There were several blockhouses along the Hazen road, and others were built at Upper Coös, and during some months of 1781, and 1782, a daily patrol was kept up between these posts. Capts. Nehemiah Lovewell, of Newbury, and James Ladd, of Haverhill, were stationed at Peacham. In the

COL. THOMAS JOHNSON.

summer of the former year, Constant Bliss, of Thetford, Moses Sleeper, of Newbury, Nathaniel Martin, of Bradford, and a fourth whose name is not preserved, were sent to take possession of a blockhouse on the west side of Caspian lake, in the town of Greensboro. In an unguarded moment, when at a distance from the house, they were attacked by a party of Indians. Bliss and Sleeper were killed and scalped, the others were carried to Quebec, and confined as prisoners.

People in these days who suppose that the revolutionary war ended with the surrender of Cornwallis in October, 1781, will be surprised to know that at no period in the war did the patriot cause seem more hopeless to the people in Coös, or their own situation more dangerous, than in the two years mentioned.

Col. Thomas Johnson had learned enough of the negotiations that were going on between the leaders on the west side of the state and the Canadian authorities, to make him anxious for the result. He took Gen. Bayley into his confidence, and laid before him what he had learned. The latter was not long in finding out much more, and, not being in the secret of their plans, they believed that Ethan Allen, and Ira Allen, Thomas Chittenden, and Jonas Fav, were engaged in a conspiracy to hand Vermont over to the British. It could not long escape observation that while the eastern part of the state was kept in constant alarm, there was peace and quiet west of the mountains. There were others besides Bayley and Johnson who knew that something mysterious was going on, and there were those on both sides of the river who entered into correspondence with Canada, in order to secure to themselves some share in whatever might be in the future.

Both Bayley and Johnson addressed themselves to Washington, laying before him such information as they had obtained. Some of their letters are given in this volume.

It had been agreed by Johnson, as one of the conditions of his parole, that he should give the British information of the movements of the Americans, with shelter and provisions to the British scouts, and that he should repair at once to any place to which he should be called. Early in 1782, he received a letter from Canada by the hand of Levi Sylvester. After that the correspondence became quite frequent, and he was closely pressed concerning the movements of Gen. Bayley and others. But the British in Canada were not long in finding out that their scheme for detaching Vermont from the American cause was making no progress, and having no apparent suspicion that they were being deceived by the Allens and their associates, sent, in September, 1781, Mr. George Smythe and Capt. Sherwood into Vermont to find out the cause of the delay.

These commissioners reported at Quebec on the 30th," that they

* Haldimand Papers.

HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.

were "fully of the opinion that Messrs. Chittenden, Allen and Fay, with a number of the leading men in Vermont, are making every exertion in their power to endeavor to bring about a re-union with government, and that at heart one-third part of the people sincerely wish for such a change. But Congress are much alarmed, and have lately at great expense employed a number of emissaries in Vermont to counteract underhand whatever is doing for government. The principal of these are General Bayley, Colonel Chas. Johnston, Morey, Brewster, and Major Childs, on Connecticut river. This junto, of which General Bayley is the soul, are endeavoring to set the populace against the present leaders by insinuating that they are tories, and intend to sell Vermont to the British," etc. Gen. Bayley being the chief obstacle to their schemes, it was desirable to get him out of the way, and several plans were contrived for his capture.

Long after the war, a man confessed to Bayley that he with others lay in wait for him all one day, beside the road into the Ox-bow, and that he came near them several times, but each time turned back before they could seize him .*

Later, one Abel Davis, who lived in Peacham, and worked on either the British or the American side, as he found it to his advantage, came down to the home of Er Chamberlin, who lived at the mouth of Wells river, and feigning to be lame engaged Chamberlin to go to Gen Bayley and tell him that he had important intelligence to communicate. The General was about mounting his horse, when Capt. John G. Bayley came in and advised as a precaution, that he should accompany him, and that they should cross the river, and go up on the Haverhill side. Arriving opposite Chamberlin's house, they hailed Davis, and directed him to come over to them, which he did, but had nothing important to tell. Davis returned, and as his boat touched the Vermont shore, several armed men sprang out of the bushes and seized upon a man who chanced to be in the boat with him, supposing him to be Bayley. So he escaped their hands .;

In May, 1782,* Major Robert Rogers came into Coös with a strong force, and encamped among the hills back of where Bradford village now stands, and held communication with certain men of doubtful loyalty to the American cause, Col. Bedell, Davenport Phelps, Col. Taplin, Isaac Patterson, and others, sending for Johnson to come to him, but he contrived not to do so. Gen. Bayley obtained information of this, and a strong guard was stationed at his house every night for some time.

* Exeter News Letter.

+ Johnson Papers.

Johnson Papers.

THE COL. THOMAS JOHNSON HOUSE. 1775.

THE "DAVID JOHNSON HOUSE," NOW THE RESIDENCE OF MRS. L. F. WHEELER.

COL. THOMAS JOHNSON.

In June, another attempt was made, which is related at some length by Grant Powers, whose account differs in many particulars from those which still exist in the handwritings of Johnson, Bayley, Dow, Johnston, and others. Powers states that the date was June 17, 1782, while those who were engaged in the affair give it as the 15th, which was Saturday. Johnson's own account is, that on Friday, June 14th, Col. John Taplin came in from Corinth, and told him that there was a party in from Canada to take off some of his neighbors, but he replied that they must take care of them- selves. The next morning Levi Sylvester came, and told Johnson that Capt. Pritchard, and Capt. Breckenridge, were in with a party of men and were encamped about two miles back from the Ox-bow. Johnson went with Sylvester, and held a long conversation with them upon the plans of the British respecting Vermont, now fully matured. These were, that Vermont should become a province of Canada, and all who opposed their plans were to be distressed and destroyed as fast as possible. They informed him that Gen. Bayley was the man who was thwarting the plans which promised so much, and that they had come to take him prisoner. Johnson left the men, and returned home by a circuitous route, determining at all hazards to give Bayley some warning.

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History of Newbury, Vermont, from the discovery of the Coos country to present time, Part 11

Author: Wells, Frederic Palmer, 1850- ed Publication date: 1902 Publisher: St. Johnsbury, Vt., The Caledonian company Number of Pages: 935

Author: Wells, Frederic Palmer, 1850- ed
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: St. Johnsbury, Vt., The Caledonian company
Number of Pages: 935