USA > Vermont > Orange County > Newbury > History of Newbury, Vermont, from the discovery of the Coos country to present time > Part 12
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The only plan which promised any success with safety, was the one which he adopted. Bayley, with two of his sons, was plowing on the Ox-bow, near sunset, when Johnson gave his brother-in-law, Dudley Carleton, a slip of paper on which he had written, "Samson, the Philistines be upon Thee." Carleton rode into the meadow, crossed the field where the General was plowing, and dropped the paper at some distance from the team, near the furrow. Bayley picked up the paper, read it, plowed round once or twice, and directed his sons to turn out the team. He remained upon the Ox-bow until the danger was over, and then crossed to Haverhill.
Gen. Bayley lived at that time in a one-story wooden house, with a gambrel roof, which stood where Mr. Doe's brick house now stands, on the Ox-bow. The guard at the house, which had been kept there for some time during nights, consisted of Capt. Frye Bailey, Ezra Gates, Joshua and Jacob Bayley, Jr., and Samuel Torrey, two of the General's youngest sons, and Thomas Metcalf. It had become well known that danger was imminent, but from what source was not understood.
In that same week one Shem Kentfield was hanged as a spy at Albany, and in his dying confession revealed the plot to capture Gen. Bayley. An express was sent to Newbury from Albany to warn Bayley of his danger. This warning reached him a few hours before the intimation from Johnson, so that he was on his guard. The attack was made "at early candlelight," by eighteen men, of whom three, Joseph White and Joseph White, Jr., and Levi Sylvester were from Newbury, Henry and David Cross were from the Upper
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Coös. The rest, excepting Pritchard and Breckenridge, were unknown. Torrey was standing guard at the door, and the rest had stood their guns in a long hall which ran across the house from the front door, and opened into the ell part behind.
The attacking party rushed across the road from Cow Meadow and were not seen or heard until within a few feet of the house. Torrey was taken prisoner, and all the inmates of the house, save a young girl, Sarah Fowler, made their escape through doors and windows. * Ezra Gates was wounded in the arm as he was running from the house. This was the only occasion during the war, in which a hostile gun was fired, or blood shed, in Newbury.
The attacking party might easily have been cut off had the people showed any presence of mind, but the only persons at the Ox-bow who seem to have had their wits about them that evening were Mrs. Thomas Johnson, who loaded and fired several guns to give the alarm, and Sarah Fowler, who was the only person who remained in the house, and repeatedly blew out the candles which the soldiers had lighted to search for the General's papers. She was in charge of a young child of Mrs. Ephraim Bayley's. This young girl married Capt. Joseph Perkins, and they became early settlers of Shipton, P. Q., where she exemplified, during the privations of a frontier life, the same undaunted courage which she showed on that evening here in Newbury.
* Ezra Gates was a Connectieut soldier, who was left at Newbury siek, by one of the expeditions which was passing through. He settled in this town, and kept the toll bridge at Wells River for some years. He also lived a long time in Bath, where he is buried, although he died in this town, in 1844, aged 85. His right arm was always lame from the wound he received at General Bayley's. Many of his descendants live in towns near here.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE END OF THE WAR.
PRITCHARD'S RETREAT .- JAMES BAYLEY .- TRIAL OF JOHNSON AND CHAMBERLAIN .- JOHNSON'S JOURNEY TO HEADQUARTERS .- INTERVIEW WITH WASHINGTON .- PEACE .- SUMMING UP .- NEWBURY'S SERVICE IN THE REVOLUTION .- "GUARDING AND SCOUTING."- JOSEPH BRANT .- RESOLUTION AGAINST THE TORIES .- SIMILAR ACTION OF HAVERHILL .- REFLECTIONS .- FORTS AND BLOCKHOUSES .- FORT AT THE OX-BOW.
P PRITCHARD did not remain long in Newbury. He knew very well that an hour or two would bring a force together which could easily cut his men off, and began a retreat, taking with them Torrey and Pike, the latter being Bayley's hired man. A little south of the cemetery, the party met James Bayley returning from his father's sawmill, bare-headed and bare-footed. Him they took prisoner, and carried to Canada in that condition. They also took Peletiah Bliss, who, although an old soldier, had the adroitness to feign terror, and they let him go. They stopped at the house of Andrew Carter, who lived at or near the "old Buell place," at West Newbury, and drank up all the milk the old lady had, and ate all the bread they could find. In passing through Corinth, they forced the inhabitants to swear allegiance to the King.
They were followed, about an hour later, by a force of thirty or forty men who had been called together by the alarm, and which went on their trail as far as Topsham, where they surrounded the house of Thomas Chamberlain, and brought him and his son Jacob prisoners to Newbury. About five o'clock on Monday morning, Johnson was arrested, in his own house, and taken before the Council of Safety at Haverhill, to answer to the charge made by Capt. John G. Bayley, that he had planned the attempt to capture Gen. Bayley. The latter appeared before the Council, and without revealing the fact that he had been warned by Johnson, contrived to get him off. Chamberlain, who had lately fallen under
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the influence of Col. John Taplin, was induced to tell what he knew, and was allowed to go home.
Capt. Absalom Peters, with a strong company, was ordered to Newbury, and remained in camp until the end of the war, himself acting as aid to Gen. Bayley. There were no further attempts to molest any men at Coös. But Johnson's troubles increased. He was reported to Canada by the tories, as having warned Bayley of his danger, and by certain patriots in Newbury was charged with being himself a tory and a spy. Some of the scouts who returned to Canada with his answers to communications from there were waylaid, and the contents of his letters made public.
It appears, also, that Gen. Bayley, to whom he had intrusted important secrets, was not as cautious as he should have been, and he was obliged to appear suspicious of Johnson in order to hide the facts, and to connive at the measures which were taken. A guard was posted around Col. Johnson's house for several weeks, day and night. This was made up of men who did not belong here, a piece of caution which averted much friction. Gen. Bayley drew up a letter to Washington in which he set forth the unfortunate position of Col. Johnson, which he sent by Capt. Frye Bayley. It was desired to effect his exchange, in order that he might be free to reveal the plots of Chittenden and the Allens. For, at that time, and for a year or two at least afterwards, both Bayley and Johnson were firmly persuaded that the dangers to which both were exposed, and from which they had suffered, were the work, not of the British in Canada, but of Ethan and Ira Allen, Thomas Chittenden, and Jonas Fay.
Bayley did not scruple to say that in his opinion Ethan Allen was as great a traitor as Benedict Arnold, and that there would be "no peace till five or six rascals were hanged." Johnson was threatened on both sides, and his life and property were in great danger. There still exist, in various libraries and archives, a great number of letters written by Bayley, Johnson, Gen. Moses Dow, Charles Johnston, Ebenezer Webster, father of Daniel Webster, and others, to various individuals in high positions, which set forth the unhappy state of the times. Almost every man of any consequence in Newbury seems to have been involved in the troubles of the time, with the single exception of Col. Jacob Kent, whose name is never mentioned in the correspondence. He was probably completely occupied with his own affairs, and in the faithful execution of the public offices which he held.
Johnson finally decided to lay his case before Washington in person, and on the 20th of November set out for Newburgh, going via Exeter to solicit the advice of the leading men in that region. On December 4th, he reached Newburgh, and had a very satisfactory interview with the commander-in-chief. Washington could not then directly aid him, but assured him of his sympathy, and
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THE END OF THE WAR.
acknowledged the value of his services. Johnson returned home on the 12th of December. Meanwhile the British in Canada were preparing an expedition to occupy Vermont, but it was too late, for the war was fast hastening to its close. Active hostilities had ceased more than a year before. It was only along the frontiers that any strife remained.
In a few months, peace was restored, the colonies became a nation, and the people of Newbury and the rest of Vermont, were at liberty to cultivate their farms, clear land, and build themselves houses without any danger of molestation from tories or Indians.
The question has been often asked, how it was that the Coös country, so exposed to attack, so tempting a prey to the rapacity of the British in Canada, the Indians and the tories, so often threatened during almost eight years, yet escaped all serious disaster ? With the slight exception of the attack on Gen. Bayley's house, not a hostile gun was fired in Newbury during the whole war, nor, so far as we know, was a dollar's worth of property destroyed. Yet at various times the danger was so grave that it seemed the country would have to be abandoned. We have no record of the number of alarms which were given here in Newbury, but at Lancaster, there were ten alarms in which the militia were called out.
Fergurson's History of Coos County says, "the number of of days spent in guarding and scouting by men of Lancaster during the war was four hundred and fifty-seven. One man was carried away captive from Lancaster in 1780, and two in 1782. In 1775, there were eight families in Lancaster, comprising sixty-one people." We have no means of knowing precisely how much time was spent by Newbury men in guarding and scouting during those eight years, but we can form some estimate from the records which still remain of one or two of several companies which were employed in that work.
In Capt. John G. Bayley's company, "guarding and scouting," from April, 1777, to May, 1779, as appears from the records at Montpelier, there are enrolled the names of eighty-five men, whose entire time of service is given as 2,862 days, an average of thirty- four days each. The custom was that when an alarm was given, or when it was advisable to watch a pass or a ford, or guard a blockhouse, a number of men were called out for the purpose by the captain, and this was so arranged that each man should have about an equal share of the work.
It must be remembered that in the time mentioned, Burgoyne's expedition and capture occurred, and nearly all the men enrolled in Capt. Bayley's company saw actual service in that campaign in other companies, notably those of Capt. Thomas Johnson and Capt. Frye Bayley. But the campaign of Burgoyne was the only one when the militia of Newbury were all called to the field, at the
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time when the New Hampshire Grants arose as one man to hunt the enemy down.
Capt. Frye Bayley was in command of a company, also employed in guarding and scouting, from January, 1781, to the end of the war, in which about seventy men were enrolled, whose time of service was from fourteen to fifty days. Taking these two companies as a basis of calculation, it would seem that, on the average, four or five men were, taking one month and one year with another, on guard during the whole war, from this town. This leaves wholly out of account the service of Newbury men in the active campaigns, in which there were always several engaged. To their constant care, and close observation of what went on in the northern wilderness, the settlements owed much. The danger incurred by these rangers and guards was very great. They were often sent, two or three at a time, through the wilderness, to see what was going on along the St. Lawrence, to observe the Indians on the Richelieu, or to inspect the fortifications at Isle Aux Noix. Yet in that hazardous service it is believed that not more than two or three Newbury men perished.
The words, "guarding and scouting," cover the records of various service. Prisoners were often sent here, for safe keeping, or to await an exchange, and, in the latter case, men were detailed to escort these to the Canadian lines. Men were also employed in guarding the military stores deposited here, or in Haverhill, and, in case of alarms, to protect the houses of the more prominent citizens, or watch the roads.
There were no mails or post-offices in Vermont then, so that all dispatches had to be sent by special messengers.
Only the most hardy and discreet men were sent in the dangerous service of ranging the wilderness between here and the Canadian settlements.
But the great cause, under Providence, for the exemption of the Coös country from being the scene of such horrors as desolated Wyoming, was the powerful influence of Joseph Brant, the great chief of the Mohawks. He was educated by President Wheelock at his Indian school, and when the war broke out, Wheelock is said to have interceded with Brant for the protection of the Coös country, and that the latter threatened vengeance if the Connecticut valley was ravaged.
The last entry of the few in our town records which relate to the war, shows the feeling toward the tories. At a town-meeting held June 3rd, 1783, it was voted: "No person that hath joyned the Enemy shall have any abidence in this town and any person that shall harbor or feed them shall get the Displeasure of the town by so doing." It was also voted, "that Samuel Barnet, John Haseltine, Reuben Foster, Gideon Smith, Silvanus Heath, Frye Bayley and Joshua Bayley be a committee to deal with all such persons." Such
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actions on the part of towns seem to have been common, for the records of Haverhill give an article in the warning for town-meeting September 16, 1783, as follows: "To pass some votes as said inhabitants shall think fit concerning tories, absentees or persons who have left the United States of America, and voluntarily taken residences within the lines of the enemies of such states, and have returned or may return into this town." It was voted "That Jonathan Ring, Joseph Hutchins, Nathaniel Merrill, Thomas Miner and Ephraim Bayley be a committee to take care that no such persons mentioned be suffered to reside in this town."
Whether any action was ever taken against the tories by the Newbury resolution is not known. Significant, however, is the circumstance that certain families cease from our annals about that time. But many, perhaps most, of these men, settled quietly down under the new government, and by industry and kindly bearing soon won back the good will of their neighbors, and in a few years all bitterness passed away.
So ended, happily in the main, the great struggle for independence, and out of it Newbury had emerged almost uninjured. Of all its residents who had served in it, not more than five or six, so far as we know, lost their lives. The hardships of the campaigns seemed slight to these pioneers. Men accustomed , to the severe toil and exposure of those days, were already inured to the dangers of the wilderness. The hardest part of the war fell upon those who did not share its exciting scenes, but upon whom
fell the burden of waiting at home, the wives and the mothers. How fared they, these women of Newbury, when all the men in the settlement who could march, had gone to the army? Tradition says that at one time of danger, when all the able-bodied men of Newbury went after Burgoyne, there were but six men left in this town. We wonder how they lived through those scenes who remained at home. Perhaps people were less nervous then than now. When a man left home to go on a scout, his wife did not expect to hear from him again till he returned.
Mention has been frequently made of forts and blockhouses. It must not be supposed that regular fortifications were meant by the former term. They were, usually, no more than very strongly built houses, commonly of logs, which, when held by a few resolute and wary men, could resist the attacks of a considerable force. Such were farm houses which stood at some distance from any others, in new clearings. The log houses of those days were easily made secure from bullets. Frame houses were more open to attack, as the walls were not thick enough to stop bullets, and the windows were larger. For the defense of such, a stockade, so called, was constructed of posts a foot or more in size, and eight or ten feet long, standing on end close together, around the house, at a distance of ten or fifteen feet from it, secured by a strong gate. Such a stockade
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HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
was built around Col. Robert Johnston's house, which is now a barn, standing at the south end of the village, and some of the posts remained till after 1800. The house of Maj. Nathaniel Merrill, now owned by W. F. Eastman, next north of the cemetery at Horse Meadow, was surrounded by a stockade, as was that of Col. Charles Johnston, at Haverhill Corner, the older part of the house in which Mr. William Tarleton now lives.
In the records preserved at Montpelier, mention is made of sums of money and labor expended in building a "fort" at Piermont.
Blockhouses were not made for dwellings, but for defense, and were built very strongly of logs, and placed at strategic points. Some of these were small buildings which could shelter a few men, and several were built along the Hazen road in Peacham and Hardwick. Sometimes they were large enough to shelter a considerable garrison. There was one such on a hill near Corinth Centre, which was garrisoned by forty men at one time, and was a central point whence scouting parties were sent out.
Mention is found in old records of a fort at Newbury, and there has been some discussion as to where it stood. Mr. Frye Bayley, in 1836, pointed out to Dea. D. T. Wells, who died in 1899, the location and general plan of that building, which stood on the narrow summit of the ridge at the left hand, beyond the cemetery, going toward the Ox-bow. The traces of two parallel ditches may still be seen, and forty years ago a few brick and cinders remained on the spot. No mention is made of it in the town records, and it was probably built, not by the inhabitants, but by some of the many bodies of troops which were continually passing through the valley, and was large enough to furnish barracks for one or two companies. Capt. Absalom Peter's company, which was stationed here during the summer of 1782, was probably quartered in it. Miss Sally Bayley, who died in 1867, remembered the building, which was taken down when there was no further use for it.
CHAPTER XVIII.
NEWBURY IN THE VERMONT CONTROVERSY.
TROUBLES WITH NEW YORK .- COMMITTEES OF SAFETY .- THE FIRST CONVENTION .- THE DORSET CONVENTION .- THE WESTMINSTER CONVENTIONS .- "NEW CONNEC- TICUT."-GENERAL BAYLEY'S CHANGE OF HEART .- THE NEW YORK CON- STITUTION .- THE WINDSOR CONVENTION .- THE STATE OF VERMONT .- THE COUNCIL OF SAFETY .- THE FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY .- THE NEW HAMPSHIRE DELEGATION .- THE FIRST UNION .- SESSION AT BENNINGTON .- THE CORNISH CONVENTION .- THE UNION DISSOLVED .- FOUR PARTIES IN THE VALLEY.
T HE year 1777, is memorable as the "Bennington Year," and as also the year in which the country between Lake Champlain and Connecticut River was formed into a new state. But fourteen years were to pass, and many complications arose, before Vermont became a member of the Federal Union.
Our limits forbid, and the scope of this history does not require a full account of these complications, but as the town itself, and some of its citizens by themselves, took a small part in these operations, it is necessary to give some account of them. We have seen that Newbury was settled under a charter granted by the governor of New Hampshire, but that in 1764, by the King's order in Council, what had been known as the New Hampshire Grants, was declared to be part of the territory of New York.
Now it did not make very much difference to the settlers which government they were under, if they were not molested in their lands, if the results of their toil were secured to them, and the laws were faithfully administered. But in 1770, the New York courts repudiated these New Hampshire charters, and declared all proceedings under them to be of no effect. The governor of New York proceeded to make new grants of lands which had been settled and cultivated for a number of years, to persons from that colony, and many of the settlers along the western side of the state, were driven from their homes, and strangers reaped what they had sown.
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The inhabitants of several towns west of the Green Mountains, chose Committees of Safety, "whose business it was to attend to their security and defense against the New York claimants." We have also seen that the proprietors of Newbury secured themselves from molestation by procuring a new charter from the governor of New York.
The committees of towns which lay near each other, met from time to time to devise measures for their protection, and when the revolutionary war broke out, all these committees were called to convene at the inn of Cephas Kent, in Dorset, on the 26th of July, 1775, to devise measures for the common safety. This convention accordingly met, and took action concerning the raising of troops for the invasion of Canada, and appointed a committee, with authority to call another convention when it should seem necessary. This second convention met at the same place as the first, on January 16, 1776, transacted some business, and appointed a committee of three, with power to call a general meeting of all the committees in the Grants.
A third convention met at Dorset, July 24, 1776, which was attended by delegates from thirty-one towns, all west of the mountains. This body devised means, both offensive and defensive, against the British in Canada, and measures of common protection against the authorities of New York. This convention, having adjourned to the 26th of September, met at the same place, and was attended by delegates from twenty-five towns west of the mountains, and from eight on the east side, Windsor being the most northerly. In this convention were fifty-six delegates, representing thirty-six towns on the Grants, who took measures for separation from New York, and for defense against the British in Canada. They also voted that Col. Jacob Bayley, and Col. Jacob Kent, should be, with Capt. Abner Seeley, a committee to lay the proceedings of the convention before the inhabitants of the County of Gloucester.
At that time both Bayley and Kent were holding offices under New York. Kent was assistant judge of the inferior court of common pleas, while Bayley had been, as previously stated, elected a deputy from Newbury for the session of the New York Congress in 1775, but did not take his seat. This convention remained in session four days, and adjourned to the 30th of October, at Westminster. At this last mentioned session, no delegate appeared from any town above Norwich, and it does not appear that any one from Newbury was present, as Solomon Phelps was instructed to write a letter to General Bayley, asking his assistance. Adjourned to the 15th of January, 1777, this convention mct again at Westminster, adopted a Declaration of Independence, and chose a committee of five to present the proceedings of the meeting to the Continental Congress. Of this committee Gen. Bailey was to be
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one, and Col. Thomas Johnson was made one of a Committee of War. This convention declared the New Hampshire Grants to be an independent state under the name of "New Connecticut."
It would seem that the convention felt some anxiety as to the course Newbury would take, this town having no special reason to separate from New York. Indeed at that time, General Bayley was attached to New York, and on the 19th of February, 1777, addressed the New York Convention, in a letter* which he probably intended should represent the state of affairs, and the sentiments of the people in Gloucester County, but which instead, faithfully indicates his own mental perplexity as to what ought to be done. This was written while Burgoyne's invading army was getting ready in Canada, and displays his fears at the impending danger, and his solicitude that the setting up of Vermont as an independent state at that time, would make it easy to be conquered from Canada. He therefore opposed any separation, until the public safety was more assumed. His letter, is in some particulars very obscure and perplexing, although his general meaning is clear. But in the course of the next four months Bayley changed his mind, and on the 14th of June again addressed the New York authorities, and informed them that whereas before the people of Gloucester were opposed to any separation, they were now to a man, violent for the change. This sudden action on Bayley's part laid him open to the charge of inconsistency, but was due to the fact that those who were working for the new state took care to circulate copies of the New York constitution throughout the Grants.
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