USA > Vermont > Washington County > Waitsfield > History of the town of Waitsfield, Vermont, 1782-1908, with family genealogies > Part 2
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9
SITUATION, NATURAL FEATURES, ETC.
Leaving the others to follow as best they could, Rogers, with three companions, pressed on, and after five days of almost incredible suffering reached No. Four (Charlestown, N. H.) and despatched provisions to the sufferers, many of whom soon returned to service on Lake Champlain.
Meanwhile Quebec had fallen, and in the summer of 1760 the British advanced upon Montreal from east, west and south. The rangers were with Haviland, who advanced down Champlain from Crown Point.
The French fell back upon the St. Lawrence, abandoning St. Johns, and Haviland followed with the rangers leading the way. The various English forces formed their junction at Montreal, and on September 8 Vaudreuil signed the capitulation by which Canada passed to the British Crown. Here Wait saw once more in British hands the colors of his regiment captured by the French at Oswego, four years before.
Four days later Amherst ordered Rogers to proceed west- ward with Capt. Wait's and Capt. Hazen's companies of rangers to take possession of Detroit, Michilimackinac and other forts in that district. The next day (September 13) they left Montreal in whaleboats, and Rogers' journal follows in detail the movements of the party. Reaching Detroit, Lieut. Butler and Ensign Wait with 20 men were sent westward to bring in the French troops at Forts Miami and Gatenois. This service, performed in dead of winter, made a lasting impression, and in later years Wait related how the men, becoming disheartened and benumbed with cold, would beg of him to shoot them. instead of which he switched their legs with sticks until aroused by, anger they resumed their march.
Not until the spring of 1761 did these troops reach New York and not until October were they disbanded, so that at the age of twenty-five, Wait found himself a veteran of six years of constant and exacting warfare, having participated in more than forty skirmishes and battles. Returning to Brookfield, he seems to have interested himself with his brother Joseph in urging forward settlers to the towns along the Connecticut River, but it was not until 1767 that he married and with his girl wife pushed out to the frontier to make himself a home. He chose a farm in Windsor West Parish, and here he remained for more than twenty years, marked from the beginning as one of the leading men of Eastern Vermont.
10
HISTORY OF WAITSFIELD.
Windsor was a hotbed of sympathy with the New Hampshire Grants, and her citizens, prominent among whom were Benjamin Wait and his brother Joseph, met the New York authorities with open defiance and not infrequently with actual violence. In May, 1770, Benjamin and his brother Joseph were arrested on a New York warrant but rescued by their friends. Before the end of the month, the New York sheriff, Daniel Whipple, had gathered a posse of some fifteen men and attempted a recap- ture, but the brothers, having collected a party of friends, gave battle and took the sheriff and his entire party prisoners and held them so for several hours, until better judgment prevailed and they turned the captives loose.
It occasions no surprise that a man of these characteristics was prompt to volunteer upon the outbreak of the Revolution. It has been said that Wait was with Allen at the capture of Ticonderoga but this at best is doubtful. Certain it is, however, that in June, 1775, in spite of his opposition to that colony, he joined with William Williams and Joab Hoisington in a letter to the New York authorities urging that a regiment of "good, active, enterprising soldiers" be raised for the defence of the section, and tendering his services as Lieutenant-Colonel. Two months later he was chosen Major of the upper regiment in Cumberland County, but confirmation was refused-presumably because of his former opposition to New York. Not until October, 1776, was he commissioned, and then received appointment as Captain of the first company of Joab Hoisington's Rangers raised for service on the northern frontiers with headquarters at Newbury. These troops performed a varied and somewhat uncertain service, sometimes acting under and sometimes in open defiance of the New York authorities. In fact the spirit of hostility to New York had become so great that not only were the rangers slow to act under her orders, but when in February, 1777, an attempt was made to enlist a regiment for service at Ticonderoga the recruiting officer was obliged to report "the men are averse to go out under the State of New York; neither do I think it possible for me to raise any more." It may be truly said that after the campaign of 1775 Vermont's position was defensive; she did not fight except to defend her own borders from invasion, and with good reason, for she was an outcast, strained to the utmost, and maintaining her existence as best she might by force or by diplomacy against the foreign enemy upon
II
SITUATION, NATURAL FEATURES, ETC.
the north and the still more bitter opponent on her western border.
Hoisington died early in 1777, and Wait, with rank of captain, took command of the battalion. In May the New York Council of Safety ordered the Rangers to Kingston, but as there were no funds to support the men on the march they refused to go. A month later (June 27), aroused by the advance of Burgoyne, the Council resolved that the Rangers be peremp- torily ordered to repair to Kingston, N. Y., and funds were sent to Wait to defray the expense. In obedience to orders he proceeded to Newbury, only to find that his men had marched to Ticon- deroga. A few days later the evacuation of that fort dispersed them, and on July 14th he ordered them to proceed to Kingston. The men refused to go, however, on the ground that their own frontiers and families must be protected. This situation Wait reported to the Council, who declared their satisfaction with his conduct, but declined action on the conduct of the Rangers.
Amidst all these activities Wait found time for civil service. Elected on the Standing Committee of Correspondence for the County at the Cumberland Convention at Westminster in February, 1775, he was now called to represent his town in the convention which met at Windsor to adopt a constitution for the new State. In the midst of its deliberations came the news of St. Clair's retreat, and at once confusion reigned, but after a short delay work was resumed and the draft under consideration adopted. Forthwith the newly-organized Council of the State voted to raise a regiment of rangers under Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Herrick. In this regiment many from the older com- panies of rangers seem to have enlisted and among them were Benjamin Wait and his younger brother Richard with rank of Major and Captain, respectively, Benjamin receiving his com- mission under date of September 3, 1777.
Three weeks later Col. Brown and Major Wait, with some 500 men, were ordered to the vicinity of Ticonderoga to cut Burgoyne's lines of communication-a service so efficiently performed that Wait was commended for "spiritted conduct" by the Council.
In February, 1778, an expedition into Canada was proposed, and Vermont was requested to furnish a regiment of rangers. Herrick and Wait were at once commissioned as Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel, respectively, but the project was abandoned,
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I 2
HISTORY OF WAITSFIELD.
and we know no more of Wait's activities until October 23, 1779, when the Council appointed him as Sheriff of Cumberland County, an office that was then little less than military, and which he continued to hold for seven years, except during his absence on 'the frontiers. In the same month he became a member of the State's Board of War, of which body he seems to have continued an active member until the close of the Revolution. In 1780 with rank of major, he was in the field at the time of the attacks on Royalton and Newbury, and in January, 1781, he was com- missioned Major of the First Regiment of Vermont Militia and immediately detailed for service on the frontiers.
Throughout the war disturbances continued between the partisans of New York, who were particularly numerous in Windham County, and those who sought to uphold the authority of Vermont. In 1783 these dissensions reached their height. Guilford was entirely in control of the New Yorkers, and their resistance to Vermont authority became so determined that Governor Chittenden was driven to adopt stringent measures. In October the Assembly provided for raising "one hundred able and effective men to assist the civil authority in carrying into effect the law in the southern part of the County of Windham," and to Wait was entrusted the command, with rank of colonel.
Negotiations having failed, Wait's regiment and other militia gathered at Brattleboro on January 20, 1784, but after a slight show of resistance the Yorkers fled and the authority of the State was upheld.
Early in November, 1786, a mob led by citizens of Barnard and Hartland gathered to prevent the sitting of the court at Windsor, an outbreak that was but a part of Shay's Rebellion. Wait, as sheriff, read the riot act and dispersed them, but one of the number being tried for riot on November 14, a second mob collected. Wait, acting not only as sheriff but as colonel of the Third Regiment, ordered a company of his men from Weathersfield to come to Windsor. With 40 of these men he set out before light on the 17th, and deceiving the guards by taking a circuitous route, attacked the house in Hartland at which the rioters were assembled. Twenty-seven of the leaders were captured, but not until Wait had received a wound that incapacitated him for nearly a month. This experience lingered in his memory, and in old age he used to lament the fact that after passing through many years of military service without a scratch, he was finally
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SITUATION, NATURAL FEATURES, ETC.
nearly killed by some of his old companions-in-arms while engaged in the enforcement of the laws.
March 1, 1787, he was elected Brigadier General in command of the Third Brigade of militia, and on the records of the Governor and Council for August 24, 1788, appears this minute:
"A letter received from General Wait resigning his office as Brigadier General being read, the Secretary is directed to inform the General that they are unwilling to discharge him until further consideration, and request his continuance in service."
Here ends a soldiery that covered a period of more than thirty years. It was an honorable service, and marked Wait as an efficient military leader. He was equally a leader in other things, as he was yet to demonstrate.
In 1788 his town of Waitsfield was first surveyed and lotted, and the following spring he made preparation to begin its settlement. Let us consider for a moment his situation. He was fifty-three years old. He was leaving the first home his hands had made, and in which his children had all been born. Poverty did not drive him forth, for he ranked high among the well-to-do citizens of the thriving town of Windsor which then ranked tenth in population in the state. He was not seeking cheap land. His fortune in the drawings had been poor, and he · had purchased six hundred acres of the best land that lay within the limits of the town. He was at the head of the military affairs of Vermont, had represented his town for four years in the General Assembly, and was well and favorably known throughout the state. He could look forward with reasonable certainty to an honorable old age spent in such comfort as the times afforded.
Just what reasons urged him to take the step we cannot now know, but it is probable that the welfare of his children was the primary cause. The care with which he settled them around him and endowed them, with his lands would seem to show it. He may have been a pioneer by nature, as his children were pioneers after him, but whatever the reason, we may congratulate ourselves that he saw fit to stamp upon our town the impress of his character.
No sooner was he fairly settled here than he began to draw about him old neighbors and companions-in-arms, and one likes to think that his own strong character drew hither the men of sterling qualities so numerous among our early settlers.
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HISTORY OF WAITSFIELD.
In his former home he was a leader. Here he was the leader. At his call the town was organized. He was its first Selectman. He first represented it in the General Assembly of Vermont. In his barn the first church services were held, and in his home the voters of his district provided for the schools. For a full generation he lived and toiled among this people, honored by all who knew him.
To sketch minutely these years of his life is to write the early history of the town, and that shall be the work of other chapters. He rests within a few rods of where he made his first pitch, in the midst of fertile meadows that his own hands cleared and tilled.
For him there is no better epitaph than that spread upon the records of the old church by the hand of his beloved pastor, Amariah Chandler:
"June 28, 1822, General Benjamin Wait, from whom the town was named. He was a distinguished soldier in the last French War, and bore a Colonel's commission in the war of the Revolution. He was the first proprietor and first settler of this town. In early life he made a profession of the religion of Christ. But for many years was in a state of great backsliding. About ten years before his death his graces seemed to revive. His remaining years he lived lamenting his former lukewarmness, and died in the joyful hope and expectation of a happy resurrection through the abounding mercy of the Great Redeemer.
Obiet June 28, Buried with Masonic honors June 30, 1822, Aet 86 years and 4 months."
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CHAPTER II.
EARLY SETTLERS.
Kinship has always played a large part in migratory move- ments. Today, the solitary emigrant, finding the promised land, sends back for father, mother, brothers, sisters, cousins, neighbors. So it has ever been since that first band of neighbors landed on the bleak shores of Plymouth Bay.
Illustrations of this fact are to be found both in the early settlement of our little town and in the successive waves of emigration that have pushed out from her sheltering hills toward the ever receding frontier.
In less than twenty years from the advent of General Wait's family, Clinton and St. Lawrence Counties, New York, were taking toll of our early settlers. By 1818, these men were dis- appearing into the Western Reserve; 1835 saw Michigan drawing them away, and in 1845, another wave sent many pioneers into Illinois and Wisconsin, while but a few years later, Minnesota became the lodestone that has taken of our best. Whole families and groups of families that had established firm root in this soil, disappeared completely and any record of the early settlers of the town must deal with names that will be unfamiliar to many of the present day.
Two groups are early distinguishable among the pioneers. The first, from Windsor, Vermont, and Cornish, New Hampshire, and towns in their immediate vicinity, was attracted directly by Wait himself, and settled in the center and southerly portions of the town. The second, from Shelburne and Deerfield, Mass., settled in the old North District. Indeed there were few families in the latter group that were not united by ties of blood or marriage and a son of the town who attained prominence in his profession has said that one winter when he attended school there was but one among the sixty pupils to whom he was not in some degree a kinsman.
The settlement of New England began in 1620, and in the brief period to the cessation of English immigration in 1643 was planted a purely English colony of some twenty-six thousand
16
HISTORY OF WAITSFIELD.
souls, which, with slight infusions of Scotch and French Huguenot blood, continued to multiply within itself until the close of the Revolution.
John Fiske well says "In all history, there has been no other instance of colonization so exclusively effected by picked and chosen men. The colonists knew this, and were proud of it, as well they might be. It was the simple truth that was spoken by William Stoughton when he said in his election sermon of 1688: 'God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain into the wilderness.' "
From this stock came the early settlers of Waitsfield. One glance at the family names reveals their origin from the earliest settlers of Massachusetts and Connecticut, whose fierce struggle for existence during more than a century and a half had left its impress upon their descendants. They "were ruder than their more favored brethren to the South, but they were also more persistent, more tenacious, and more adventurous. They were a vigorous, bold, unforgiving, fighting race, hard and stern even beyond the ordinary standard of Puritanism."*
Soon after 1800 came an admixture of Scotch blood from the north of Ireland, and finally a few Irish families that settled here between 1825 and 1850.
The comfortable log cabin that was rolled up in the summer of 1789 as a shelter for the family of General Wait was displaced after a brief interval by a house, commodious for the times, erected on the terrace just north of the village, near the northerly line of lot 134. The General owned a farm of six hundred acres, and Gilbert Wait, a son, had one hundred and fifty acres adjoining in lot 136. Ezra Wait, the eldest son, soon received from his father the southerly portion of lots 133 and 134, and built a house just north of the present Methodist parsonage. Benjamin Wait, jr., another son, was supplied with a farm from the northerly portion of lots 131 and 132, but after a few years he, disposed of his holdings to his brother Ezra, and went West, while the latter conveyed his first farm to his younger brother Gilbert, who occupied it until about 1818, when he also sought his fortune in the Western Reserve, and became an early settler in Ohio.
It seems probable that Benjamin Wait's half-brother Jeduthan, came with him in 1789. In any event, he was here
* Lodge's "Life of Webster," p. 4.
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EARLY SETTLERS.
in 1790. He purchased a part of lot 136 and lived there until his death in 1829, when his farm was divided between his sons.
The next in order of our early settlers was probably Francis Dana, born in Brighton, Mass., 1737. He had early moved to Cornish, N. H., but in 1788 purchased lots 143 and 144, lying well on top of "Dana Hill" and by the year 1790 had commenced his clearing. Here he lived until his death in 1813, although he early transferred substantial portions of the farm to his sons, Henry and Foster, who followed him to Waitsfield in 1793 and 1795 respectively.
In the spring and early summer of 1791, the first United States census was taken in Vermont and this reveals the fact that in less than two years from the first settlement of the town, there were sixty-one persons, divided into thirteen families, living within its borders. The names there given are as follows:
HEADS OF FAMILIES.
Free white males of 16 years and upward. including heads of families.
Free white males under 16.
Free white females, including heads of families
Gen. Benjamin Wait
5
4
3
Ezra Wait .
I
I
4
Thomas Sherman
2
2
3
Jeduthan Wait
I
-
I
Beriah Sherman
I
2
3
Francis Dana
3
2
2
William Bartlett
I
3
3
Phinias Rider
2
3
Isaac Palmater
I
2
2
Salma Rider
I
-
-
David Seamonds
I
-
Mr. Chase
I
-
-
Mr. Pike
I
Of the heads of families here listed, Samuel Pike came from Brookfield, Mass., the Waits' old home, and was followed soon by his sons, Jonas and Joshua. Doubtless he settled first on "Palmer Hill," although the family a few years later took up land in the southerly portion of the town, second division lots 53, 54, 55 and 56.
Thomas and Beriah Sherman were natives of Brimfield, Mass. Both were soldiers of the Revolution. Thomas dis- appeared early, having probably removed to New York. Beriah settled on lot 110, where his son, William, succeeded him in 1827. He was a currier and tanner and lived to the age of eighty-four. In 1832, he applied for a pension, and it is related .
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HISTORY OF WAITSFIELD.
that, as it became necessary for him to go to Montpelier to complete his papers, he walked the entire distance, both going and returning, but as the weather was inclement, sickness resulted from the exposure and he died within a few weeks.
Isaac Parmenter came probably from Oakham, Mass., but of him we find no record and only know that he had left the town certainly by 1794 and possibly as early as 1792.
Moses Chase was born in Salisbury, N. H., the son of a schoolmaster. As a child, he went to Cornish, from which town he enlisted in 1777 for three years. He was active in the organi- zation of the town of Waitsfield and a member of the first Board of Selectmen. His farm lay in lot 74 well up under Bald Moun- tain and he occupied it until 1813, when he conveyed it to his son, Moses, jr., and moved to a house on the northeast corner of the Common. Several members of the family found homes in western states, and no member of it now lives in Waitsfield.
A few years later (1802) a brother, William Chase, purchased and occupied the present Cassius Joslin farm, in lot 131. He removed later to Granville, New York, but returned in his old age, and died in Warren.
Another brother, Thomas, progenitor of those members of the family who now live in the town, settled early (1808) on lots 145 and 146.
Nathaniel Bartlett came, probably, from Alexandria, N. H. He is doubtless the man whose name appears as "William" on the census list. Of him we know but little. He was on the committee to lay out the second division of lots, and had a farm in lot 104, of which he owned about one-third. He left town in 1807, and it is said that the family removed to New York State.
David Symonds was from Hillsborough, N. H., and lived on lots 125 and 126, the present Wallis farm. He stayed until 1835, when he removed with his family to Moriah, New York.
Phineas and Salma Rider were first of the large colony from Shelburne, Mass. Phineas bought a farm comprising the northern half of lots 123 and 124.
Salma owned lot 107, which cornered on the Common. Both lived in town until their death, but no member of either family is now resident here.
After 1791 the town built up rapidly with sterling families, and the old assessment rolls or grand lists enable us to determine with some accuracy the order of their coming.
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EARLY SETTLERS.
In the spring of 1795 the following were rated for poll taxes:
Eli Abbott
Samuel Pike
John Barnard
Phineas Rider
Samuel Barnard
Salma Rider
Joseph Barns
Samuel Stow Savage
Nathaniel Bartlett
Beriah Sherman
Moses Chase
Thomas Sherman
Francis Dana
David Symonds
Henry Dana
Eli Skinner
Moses Fisk
Elijah Smith
Alpheus Freeman
Salah Smith
Elijah Freeman
Abel Spaulding
Elijah Grandey
Elijah Sperry
Joseph Hamilton
Nathan Sterling
Ezekiel Hawley
Simeon Stoddard
James Heaton
Jonah Strickland
Moses Heaton
Daniel Taylor
Moses Heaton, jr.
Silas Trask
Gaius Hitchcock
Benjamin Wait
William Joiner
Benjamin Wait, jr.
Abram Marsh
Ezra Wait
Aaron Minor
Jeduthan Wait
Jesse Mix
Elias Wells
Benjamin Palmer
John Weston
Jonathan Palmer
Daniel Wilder
Joshua Pike
Levi Wilder
During the succeeding years others followed in about the order given.
1795
Samuel Bayley
Stephen Pierce
Jonathan Seaver
Jared Skinner
*1796
John Burdick Harba Child
Bissell Phelps David Phelps Durin Still
Evan Clark William Palmer
1797
William Allen
James Joslin Roswell Lee
Stephen Butterfield
John Lamb
David Chamberlain Job House
Moses Smith
Lemuel Savage
Ezra Jones Jennison Jones Joseph Joslin
Nathan Stowell Job Tyler
* See Appendix A
Isaac Trask Joseph Trask William Wheeler
Calvin Chamberlain
John McCloud
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HISTORY OF WAITSFIELD.
1798
Shubel Burdick
Doud Bushnell Matthias Stone Jones Joseph Merrill Peleg Moore
Amasa Skinner Jonas Spalding Moses Stewart Elias Taylor
I799
John Goss
Vespasian Hoisington
Isaac Tuxbury John Wells
1800
Thomas Green
Josiah Lee
1801
Joseph Wallis
1802
Erastus Allen
William Chase
John Campbell
Frederick Richardson Josiah Willis Seaver William Williams
1803
William Cochran Caleb Colton
Daniel Parker Edmund Rice
1804
Christopher Avery Eliphalet Bates
.
Philip Gustin Aaron Quimby
1805
Benjamin Butterfield Jonas Holden Ralph Turner
Nathan Thayer Oliver Wood Benjamin Wood
1807
Thomas Chase Roderick Richardson
John French Jirah Wing
Rufus Childs Jonathan Campbell Stephen Durkee Constant Freeman
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Silas Royce Ira Richardson Amasa Russ
1810
John English, jr.
John English
1809
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சாத்தும்வகை. எம் 一
ஐ. ஐ நகர்த்திகைவை- அனுர் வாழ்வைத் 4: 3 3.5 -.- களும்விஷயங்கள்
EARLY SETTLERS.
2 I
ISII
William Burgess Jesse Carpenter
Joseph Whitcomb
1
1812
Julian Dumas Ebenezer Cutler
Samuel Bowman Thomas Heald
1813
Richard Colby James Baldwin
Suel Willis
1814
John Leach Anson Hand
Thomas Piper Erastus Woodward
1815
Guy C. Nichols
1816
Roswell Horr
1818
Jason Carpenter Robert Leach
Moses Willard Rice Rufus Barrett
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