USA > Vermont > Windsor County > History of Windsor County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 8
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Benjamin Emmons, the councillor from Woodstock, was supposed to be originally from Massachusetts, but after the close of the French and Indian war several brothers of the family settled in New Hampshire. In April, 1772, Benjamin Emmons with his family came to Woodstock, and settled in the township. He, too, was an active man in the affairs of the region, and held many offices and positions of trust, among them the following : Supervisor, chosen at the first town meeting in May,
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PROMINENT REPRESENTATIVES.
1773 ; member of the Committee of Safety of Cumberland county during the existence of that body ; was chosen as lieutenant, under New York, in August, 1775, of the upper regiment of the county ; chosen by the Westminster convention, October 30, 1776, as one of the committee to canvass Cumberland and Gloucester counties in the interests of a new State; chosen to the subsequent conventions at Westminster and Wood- stock, representing the town of Woodstock; a member of the Windsor convention that framed the constitution of Vermont ; chosen councillor in March, 1778, and re-elected in October, serving in that capacity sev- eral years ; appointed member of the Court of Confiscation in 1778. In 1781 Mr. Emmons was appointed assistant judge of the Windsor County Court, but in October following declined the office. From 1779 till 1786 he was annually elected councillor, and in the latter year was chosen to represent his town in the General Assembly, serving in that capacity eleven years. It was by his efforts that Woodstock was des- ignated as the shire town of the county of Windsor. In 1791 Mr. Em- mons was a member of the convention which adopted the constitution of the United States, and one of the Council of Censors for 1799. His public service ended with his last membership in the General Assembly in 1803. About the year 1806 Mr. Emmons was induced to join his children in the then far West, beyond the Mississippi; and there, after a brief residence of but six weeks, he ended his days, then being about eighty-six years of age.
Thomas Murdock and General Peter Olcutt were members of the first Council, and both lived in the town of Norwich. The former was a member of the Westminster convention of January 15, 1777, and of the Windsor convention held in June following. He was councillor and mem- ber of the Court of Confiscation in 1778, and until October, 1779; and judge of Windsor County Court from 1782 to 1787. He represented Norwich in 1780 and 1782. He died in Norwich in 1803.
General Peter Olcutt, the colleague in the Council of Thomas Mur- dock, and likewise his fellow townsman, was another of the eminent men of Norwich, and active both in civil and military affairs. In May, 1777, he served New York in the capacity of commissioner to receive the prop- erty of those who had joined the enemy; and in 1778 he performed like services for Vermont as a member of the Court of Confiscation for
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HISTORY OF WINDSOR COUNTY.
Eastern Vermont; was a member of the convention that adopted the State constitution. In 1777 he commanded a regiment in Gloucester county ; was councillor from the first session until October, 1779; again from 1781 to 1790; lieutenant-governor from 1790 to 1793; and judge of the Supreme Court from 1782 to 1784.
For the sketch of Paul Spooner the reader is referred to the closing pages of chapter four.
But these sketches would not be considered complete without some mention of the worthy secretary of state and secretary of the Council. This was Thomas Chandler, jr., of Chester, concerning whom the "Gov- ernor and Council " states : " Thomas Chandler, jr., secretary, seems to have filled that station by virtue of his election as Secretary of State, by the General Assembly, March 13, 1778. He was the son of Thomas Chandler, sr., who was the chief judge of the royal court at Westminster, which was captured and overthrown by the Whigs immediately after the Westminster massacre. Thomas Chandler, jr., was born September 23, 1740, and came to New Flamstead (now Chester) with his father in 1763. In March of that year he was appointed town clerk, and held that office until March, 1780. July 16, 1766, he was appointed (by New York) assistant justice of the Inferior Court of the Common Pleas for Cumber- land county, and he held the office until after the Westminster massacre. He was a delegate in the Westminster convention in October, 1776, and January, 1777. He was elected to the first General Assembly in March, 1778, also October, 1778-81, and in 1787. He was elected clerk of the first General Assembly (while representative), but abandoned both posts to be Secretary of State. He was speaker of the Assembly in October, 1778-80, resigning in the middle of the session of the last year on ac- count of charges affecting his character, for which he brought a libel suit and recovered damages. He was judge of the first Supreme Court, elected in October, 1778, and of Windsor County Court in 1786."
Returning from this digression to the narrative of the events of the county of Cumberland, it is found that, in pursuance of an act of the General Assembly at Bennington in June previous, justices of the peace were chosen by many towns of the State, and those for that part of Cum- berland that is now Windsor county were as follows : Daniel Heald, for Chester; Thomas Cooper, for Windsor ; Elias Weld, Hartland; John W. Dana, Pomfret; Asa Whitcomb, Barnard; Joshua Hazen, Hartford.
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BOUNDARY LINES ESTABLISHED FOR CUMBERLAND COUNTY.
It was not until the year 1779 that the affairs of the several counties of the State began to assume deffinite form. In fact it appears that none of the acts of the Assembly for 1778 are found to be in existence. To be sure the laws of that year may have been declared to be temporary, but no sufficient explanation of their absence from the Assembly Journal is to be found among the records. And it is difficult indeed to glean from the minutes alone sufficient information to make any reliable statements. But in 1779 there seems to have been more method in the manner of transacting business, and the laws of that year, and those succeeding as well, are preserved in substantial form.
During this year, at the session of the Legislature at Bennington, in February, the General Assembly passed an act establishing the lines bounding the two counties of the State; and that part of the act that de- fined the lines of Cumberland county was as follows : " Be it further en- acted, by the authority, aforesaid, that the tract of land in the hereafter described limits, as well the lands that are, as those that are not, appro- priated, shall be and remain one entire county, and known by the name of the county of Cumberland, viz .: Beginning at the southeast corner of the county of Bennington, in the north line of the State of the Massa- chusetts-Bay ; thence east in said line, to Connecticut River, being the south line of this State; thence up said river as it tends, to the south line of the Province of Quebec, being the east line of this State; thence west in the south line of the Province of Quebec, to the northeast cor- ner of the county of Bennington, being the north line of this State; thence southerly in the east line of the county of Bennington, to the southeast corner thereof."
The east line of Bennington county, mentioned in the foregoing section, was particularly described in that part of the act that defined the bound- aries of that county: it commenced at a point in the south line of the Province of Quebec fifty miles east of the " deepest channel " of Lake Champlain, thence southerly to the northeast corner of Worcester, thence southerly on the easterly lines of the towns of Worcester, Middlesex and Berlin, to the southeast corner thereof; thence on a straight line to the northwest corner of Tunbridge ; thence on the westerly line of Tunbridge, to the southwest corner thereof; thence in a straight line to the north- westerly corner of Bradford; thence in the westerly line of Bradford and
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HISTORY OF WINDSOR COUNTY.
Bridgewater, to the southwesterly corner thereof; thence southerly in a straight line, to the northeast corner of Shrewsbury; thence on the east- erly line of Shrewsbury, to the southeasterly corner thereof; thence to the northeast corner of Wallingford; thence southerly on the easterly lines of Wallingford, Harwich, Bromley (Peru), Winhall and Stratton, to the southeasterly corner of the latter; thence southerly on the westerly line of Somerset, to the southwest corner thereof; thence southerly to the northwest corner of Draper ; thence in the west lines of Draper and Cumberland, to the north line of the Massachusetts-Bay. Thus were the lines of the county of Cumberland for the first time particularly de- scribed, and so did they remain until the Legislature of 1781 divided the old county, and in its place erected three entirely new ones-Windham, Windsor and Orange. During the same year Bennington county was also divided, and Rutland county formed. The acts of the Legislature by which this division was made are not to be found, although sufficient memoranda is preserved to ascertain with reasonable certainty the boundary lines of the counties then established. From that time to this there has been no material alteration of the boundaries of the county of Windsor, on the west side of the Connecticut.
Preceding chapters have shown that the authorities of Vermont did, in the year 1781, extend the jurisdiction of the State so as to include a large tract of land on the east side of the Connecticut; and, for the proper exercise of her authority over those lands and the towns they comprised, it became necessary to either erect them into counties or an- nex them to the counties already in existence on the west side of the river. To this end the Vermont General Assembly, at the session at Windsor in April, 1781, passed an act that considerably extended the limits of Windsor county, by including within it the New Hampshire towns that lay to the eastward, and over which Vermont's jurisdictional claim had been declared. The part of the act that referred to these towns reads as follows: " Be it further enacted, that all the lands lying and being within this State, on the east side of Connecticut river, oppo- site to the county of Windsor, and northward of the northerly lines of the towns of Claremont, Newport, Unity and Wendal, be, and hereby are, for the time being, annexed to the county of Windsor."
The annexation of this territory was not approved of by all the towns
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COUNTY SEAT LOCATED.
that belonged to Windsor county as originally laid out, for, no sooner had the act that created the county become a law, than the question of locating the shire town began to be agitated. Of course, if the conven- ience of the greatest number of people should be a moving considera- tion in determining upon a site for the seat of justice, then one of the centrally located towns must necessarily be selected, and there was, per- haps, no town in the whole county that possessed all the essential pre- requisites except Woodstock. Its location among the towns of the county was not only central, but it was the most easily accessible of any. More than this, the town was well supplied with the necessary conven- iences that must be found at a county seat. And it was, moreover, one of the large towns of the county.
It is needless to state that the residents of Woodstock were greatly in favor of having their town selected for the county seat ; and it is equally true that a number of the surrounding towns shared in this sentiment, because it was out of the question for any of them to be designated for the purpose, and they therefore desired the county buildings to be located at a point best suited to their convenience, under the circum- stances. So, when the Legislature of Vermont extended her jurisdiction over the New Hampshire towns, and proposed to annex them to the counties adjoining on the west, there was considerable disturbance in the camp of the Woodstock people. By such an annexation, should it become permanent, the probabilities of that town being selected as the county seat were decidedly remote. This subject of annexation was made the order of the day at a meeting of the freemen of Woodstock, who voted to petition the Legislature not to have the county lines ex- tended across the Connecticut River. But justice to the pioneer resi- dents of Woodstock demands that it be stated that that town was not in favor of annexing the New Hampshire towns to the State of Ver- mont, to say nothing of having them attached to Windsor county. The truth of the matter is, that a number of the eastern towns of this State, and some on the west as well, were not only opposed to this, but to the first union with the towns east of the river. No good results came to the State by the first union, and many residents argued seriously against the second extension of jurisdiction. Subsequent events demonstrated that their reasoning upon the matter was truthful and logical.
12
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HISTORY OF WINDSOR COUNTY.
Fortunately, however, for the town of Woodstock, the union with the New Hampshire towns was dissolved by a resolution of the General Assembly of Vermont, passed February 23, 1782, and the people were at liberty consistently to press their claims for the county buildings. What might or what might not have happened had the union been a permanent one is hardly a fair subject for discussion here, but the disso- lution of the union with the eastern towns certainly gave much encour- agement to the hopes and ambitions of the people of Woodstock, and correspondingly lessened the chances of the town of Windsor and others to the north of it, the claims of which were strongly advocated by able and representative men.
But the one man who, above all others, labored zealously to have Woodstock made the shire town of Windsor county, was Benjamin Em- mons. He, as earlier pages of this chapter will show, was one of the Governor's Council from 1779 till 1786; and being there, was well in- formed concerning all that was taking place. He matured and carried out his plans successfully, but he did not succeed in accomplishing his cherished project until the year 1786, he then being in the Assembly on his first term. Mr. Emmons was regularly elected to the Assembly, from Woodstock, during that year. On the 14th of October, soon after the legislative bodies of the State were organized for business, Hon. Nathaniel Niles resigned his membership in the Council, whereupon Mr. Emmons was elected in his stead; but, holding the matter of locating the county buildings of his county to be of greater importance, he de- clined to accept the proffered position.
The laws passed by the Assembly at the Rutland session of 1786 do not contain the act by which Woodstock was designated as the shire town of this county; and the only record evidence to be found, showing that such an act was passed, is that contained in the proceedings of the Governor and Council, on the 27th of October, 1786, which reads as follows: "An act establishing Woodstock the Shire Town for the County of Windsor having passed the House was read and Concurred."
As a matter of course courts were held in Windsor county prior to the designation of Woodstock as the county seat, most of them, all the reg ularly appointed terms, at Windsor, while special terms or sessions were held at various places to suit the convenience of the justices or the liti-
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JUDGES OF THE COURTS.
gating parties. The judges of the courts were chosen in pursuance of an act passed at the February session of the General Assembly, held at Windsor, in 1781, which act provided that the freemen of the respective towns meet at the usual place for holding town meetings, on the last Tuesday of March thereafter, and, after due organization be perfected, " give in their ballot for whom they would have for chief judge, for the county court." Likewise they were directed to choose four assistant judges ; also for a sheriff, one judge of probate for each probate district, and for two justices of the peace " in each town wherein is one hundred taxable inhabitants." As to the successful aspirants for judicial honors the records of the Governor and Council say : "The following gentlemen were nominated and are hereby appointed for the time being Justices of the Peace and Judges of the County Court for the county of Windsor, viz. : Elisha Payne, esq., (of Lebanon, N. H.,) Chief Judge; Joseph Marsh, esq., Benjamin Emmons, esq., Beza Woodward, esq., (of Dresden now Hanover, N. H.,) and John Weld, esq., Side Judges. Samuel Chase, William Ripley, (of Cornish, N. H.,) Moses Whipple, (of Croydon, N. H.,) John Stevens, (of Plainfield, N. H.,) Abel Stevens, (of New Grantham, N. H.,) John Wheatley, (of Lebanon, N. H ,) Elihu Hyde, (of Lebanon, N. H.,) Aaron Barney, Bezaleel Woodward, (of Dresden, now Hanover, N. H.,) and Jonathan Freeman, (of Hanover, N. H.,) Esquires, Justices of the Peace for said County."
It appears, by an act passed during the year 1787, that the county of Windsor partook of the character of a two-shire county, provision being made therein for the holding of courts at both Woodstock and Windsor; and to the act just referred to was the following contingency: "Provided always, and this grant is upon this express condition, that the court- house in said Woodstock, and the court-house in said Windsor, shall be furnished by the respective towns, free of any expense to said county, and furnished with good iron stoves, to the acceptance of the judges of the Supreme Court before the next stated term of that court in said county." "In 1791," says the authority from which the foregoing paragraph is taken, "it was enacted that the act making said two shires should remain in force for three years after the passing of the same, after which Wood- stock should be and remain as the shire town of said county."
It was not an unusual or surprising thing, nor was it a condition single
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HISTORY OF WINDSOR COUNTY.
to this county, that it was required of the town in which was to be located the county buildings that the same should be erected without expense to the county. The same condition was imposed regarding the erection of the county buildings at Manchester, the north shire town of Benning- ton county But unlike this county, Bennington has remained a two- shire county to the present day, although an effort was made some time ago, but without success, to consolidate the shires. In this respect the county just named is the only one of its kind in Vermont.
The first term of the County Court for Windsor county was held at Windsor in May, 1781, at which Hon. Elisha Payne presided in the capacity of chief judge, while Joseph Marsh and Bezaleel Woodward were assistant judges. James Wheelock was appointed clerk of the court.
Briant Brown was the first sheriff of Windsor county, after the act of February, 1771, but he resigned the office soon after his election. The Council then appointed Captain Ebenezer Brewster to that position. His sureties were Colonel Elisha Payne and Major Thomas Murdock. Of the subsequent officers of Windsor county mention will be found on the closing pages of this chapter.
The fact that the Windsor half shire of the county was but temporary gave very little encouragement to the people of that locality in the build- ing of a court-house; and as for that matter the town of Woodstock failed to take the prompt action that might naturally be expected on it, being selected for a permanent seat of justice of a new county. And it was not until the latter part of 1787 that the people began any deci- sive work in that direction. In March of that year the Assembly had passed an act directing that terms of court should continue to be held at Windsor until the town of Woodstock had provided a suitable court- house building ; but later on in the same year another act directed that all writs and processes be made returnable at Woodstock, from which it may be inferred that the people were induced to bestir themselves, and the building was made ready for occupancy during that year. It is un- derstood at all events that the first court-house in Woodstock was built, or nearly completed, during the summer and fall of 1787, although it is not certain that it was occupied until the following spring.
This ancient structure was located on what now would be called the
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THE FIRST COURT-HOUSE AT WOODSTOCK.
south or perhaps the southeast side of the park, on the site now occupied by the large brick residence of Mrs. Allen, a few rods west from the Eagle Hotel. It was erected under the supervision of a committee, con- sisting of William Perry, Captain Israel Richardson, Elias Thomas and others, and on lands that had been donated for the purpose by Captain Richardson. A short distance further to the west was located the jail, a small, rather unpretentious structure, built partly of wood and part stone, and is generally understood to have been the handiwork of Phineas Will- iams and John Strong, the former constructing that part commonly known as the "dungeon," while to Mr. Strong was credited the carpen- ter work.
Within the walls of this first named primitive structure were the courts conducted for the space of something like four years, but on the night of October 24th, 1791, it was destroyed by fire. The fire was believed to have been started by a negro, an employee in the family of one of the leading physicians of the town. He was arrested and indicted for the offense, but on the trial, for want of evidence sufficient to convict, was acquitted.
After the unfortunate and untimely destruction of the first court-house provision was at once made for the erection of another, though not on the same location. For the new building more land was desired, and again was the generosity of Captain Richardson levied upon by Charles Marsh, who had been selected as the superintendent of construction. But the worthy captain and Agent Marsh fell into a disagreement over the extent of lands that the latter thought ought to be donated to the public use, whereupon Mr. Marsh made arrangements to have the court- house erected on his own lands at a point some distance from the " green " or common, where it formerly stood. This threatened removal had the effect of overcoming Mr. Richardson's objections, and he do- nated the entire tract now covered by " Woodstock Park " to the public use, and also furnished the land for the desired buildings, the latter being the tract on the north side of the park, on the corner that became known in later years as the Philo Hatch property. Here the second court- house was erected in 1793 ; but that, too, in course of time fell a victim to the fiery element, the result of the carelessness of some enthusiastic patriot, who, on the 4th of July, 1854, threw a lighted fire-cracker on the shingle roof, which ignited and burned the building to the ground.
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HISTORY OF WINDSOR COUNTY.
The second building is said to have been as much of an improvement on the original as the present one over its predecessor. Its internal ar- rangement was peculiar, but none the less convenient. Reaching to a considerable heighth above the roof on the extreme front was a belfry in which was placed a bell of fair size ; the first court-house in the State it is claimed to be so provided. In 1836 extensive repairs and alterations were made, entailing an expense of two thousand dollars, which was paid in part by the town and the balance by voluntary contributions from individuals.
The next, the present court-house building, was erected during the years 1854-55, on lands purchased from Harriet Myrick, situated a few rods east from the Eagle Hotel, and on the south side of the park. The site was purchased by a fund raised by subscription amounting to twelve hundred dollars. For the building the town was taxed to the extent of five thousand dollars, which, with the insurance received upon the old court-house, together with the other means provided by the county, a fund of fourteen thousand dollars was created, with which the structure was built. This court-house, it appears, is the joint property of the town and county. About the time of its erection the town was in need of a hall for such gatherings as were generally assembled each year, and the contemplated erection of the new court-house opened to the town a way to secure the desired building by joining with the county in its construc- tion, sharing the expense, and so arranging the interior as to serve the double purpose of a court-house and town hall combined. Upon such an understanding the building was erected, the town hall occupying the lower floor, while that above is designed for court uses. The building is of brick, of good proportions, and substantially constructed, comfort and convenience seeming to have been more desirable than architectural display ; still, the building is by no means devoid of ornamentation, and with its adjoining building, the library, as a companion, presents a de- cidedly attractive appearance. Its distance from the street is such as to admit of a lawn, while the small park between the premises proper and the street lends an additional attraction to the whole scene.
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