Men of Vermont : an illustrated biographical history of Vermonters and sons of Vermont, Part 6

Author: Ullery, Jacob G., comp; Davenport, Charles H; Huse, Hiram Augustus, 1843-1902; Fuller, Levi Knight, 1841-1896
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Brattleboro, Vt. : Transcript Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 842

USA > Vermont > Men of Vermont : an illustrated biographical history of Vermonters and sons of Vermont > Part 6

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When called upon by Stark for an explan- ation of St. Leger's letter, expressing regret at the killing of an American citizen, he made it direct to Washington. This is another of the many pieces of circumstantial evidence that Washington was in the secret of the Vermont intrigue with Haldimand. On transmitting the resolution of Congress of August 7, 1778, preceding, requiring as an indispensable pre- liminary to her admission as a state, that Ver- mont give up the territory of New York and New Hampshire, which she had incorporated into her own lines under the name of the East and the West unions, Washington had inquired by verbal message if the people would be "satisfied with the basis of inde- pendence suggested, or whether the people seriously contemplated a British dependen- cy." Washington was certainly inclined to take the Vermont side. He wrote guardedly in transmitting the above message that he would not discuss the rights of Vermont's claim to independence but take it for granted that it

was good "because Congress by their resolve of Angust 7, imply it."

In one of his letters he asks : " Would it not be more prudent to refer this dispute to New York and Vermont than to embroil the whole confederacy of the United States therewith ? "

Even if Chittenden had in good faith at- tempted a British connection he would have been morally justified. For after the new state had been cheated by Congress-as all Ver- monters believed and as Washington prac- tically admitted in advance, in his letter about the resolve-into abandoning the unions on the broken promise, in effect, that it should then be admitted to the confeder- acy, and had ignored the offer of union and aid in the "protest" of 1780, the Governor did the utmost, as the "protest" suggested, to get the neighboring states to act in con- junction with Vermont against the British. He sent circulars to New Hampshire, Massa- chusetts, Connecticut and New York, pro- posing a union with the first three for pur- poses of defense against the invasion which would surely be made from Canada the next spring, demanding as the only condition that any claim of territory in Vermont should be relinquished. Massachusetts assented to this. Connecticut made no response, though understood to be favorable. New Hampshire paid no attention to it. The New York Legislature wanted to agree to it, recog- nizing the benefit the state had had from the military activity of the Green Mountain Boys and the likelihood that the plan would make Vermont instead of New York soil the scene of the next campaign, but Governor Clinton only prevented the passage of a resolution of assent by threatening to prorogue the Legislature. In such a situation, abandoned by both Congress and the other states to her own resources, believing, as there was every reason to do, that the purpose of it all was to crush her, what was there for Vermont to do? Absolutely nothing but to throw her- self into the arms of the British, or adopt the policy of tergiversation that was adopted. The fact that the latter was the course taken is of itself sufficient proof of the pa- triotic Americanism of the Vermonters.

One of Chittenden's letters, Nov. 14, 1781, after the British had returned to Canada, shows his purpose : "The enemy were man- œuvred out of their expectations and then re- turned into winter quarters with great safety, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet : 'I will put my hook in their nose to turn them by the way whence they came, and they shall not come into this city (alias Vermont) saith the Lord.' "

Another evidence of it was afforded by a circumstance in October of that year. The New York government, comparatively imbe-

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cile in a military sense, because of its large element of Toryism and its aristocratic con- stitution, never hesitated when in danger to call for help on the Green Mountain Boys, whom it persisted at all other times in regard- ing as "rebels" against its authority. So when Carlton made his raid from Canada and captured Forts Ann and George, Gov- ernor Clinton again appealed to Chittenden for aid. The latter replied that the state's militia was up north, but he would immedi- ately forward some he expected from Berk- shire. The fact is that at this time and on repeated other occasions, as Clinton officially acknowledged, the Vermont troops rendered prompt and valuable service to New York when she needed it, and New York's return was to procure Vermont's being left entirely undefended, when invasion was organized against her.

Governor Chittenden wrote to Washington, Nov. 14, 1782, that they would join the Brit- ish in Canada rather than submit to New York, though there were no people more at- tached to the cause of America.

With Chipman and Lewis R. Morris, he was a commissioner in 1791 to negotiate the admission of the state into the Union.

He died, August 25, 1797, at the age of sixty-eight. For several months previous he had been unable to perform the duties of his office, and in July he had issued an address to the freemen announcing that he would not be a candidate for re-election, and invoking Heaven's blessings on the state and people to whom he had devoted so many years of service and whom he had seen increase from a band of a few hundred to a population of over 100,000 people. Many descendants have borne his honored name, and it is said that they all bear the stamp of his physiog- nomy, so strong has been the personality to show through generations. One son, Mar- tin, was congressman and Governor ; another, Truman, was councilor and repeatedly Dem- ocratic candidate for Lieutenant-Governor, and he and still another son, Noah, were judges of probate. One daughter was the wife of Gov. Jonas Galusha, another of Mat- thew Lyon, and another of Col. Isaac Clark : " Old Rifle" in the war of 1812.

The character of Governor Chittenden is best expressed by a statement of the work done by him. He was a genuine Yankee in his mental make-up, with its strength and activity, its practical rather than theoretic knowledge, its keen and quick perceptions, its great tact, its penetration of the designs and character of men, its " almost unerring foresight, unhesitating firmness and sound judgment," as Governor Hall says. But he was more. He had that quality and poise of mind that constituted so much of Washing- ton's greatness, that habit of hearing all the

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evidence and considerations before reaching a conclusion, of seeking a full view of all sub- jects however complex, of divesting himself of all influences except that of duty, which in- spired confidence even to the point of vener- ation, which inevitably evolved a dignified demeanor, and which made this plain, unlet- tered farmer who could hardly write a letter in straight English, one of the great men of his time. He grew in statesmanlike stature as his opportunities widened.

While so keen a judge of human nature that bad men could rarely deceive him, he did not fail to bestow his trust where it was worthy ; he did not make the mistake of smaller minds, because he saw so much of evil and littleness in the world, of losing faith in humanity in the aggregate. The crown- ing element of his success was that he knew and utilized the good in men.

He was plain and simple and kindly in manners and ways of living, his dignity be- ing that of moral and intellectual rectitude entirely, not of affectation, fitting him with his long residence and his close acquaintance with the work of the people, for the long popularity he enjoyed. There is a story told of a visit of some high-born dames from Albany to the chief executive's home at Ar- lington that gives a glimpse of the genuine democracy of those days in Vermont. When the hour for dinner arrived the Governor's wife went out to the piazza and blew the horn for the men at work in the fields. "Do you have your servants eat at the same table with you?" inquired the visitors, doubtless with some elevation of noses. "Yes," re- plied Mrs. Chittenden, " but I have been telling the Governor that we ought not to, that they have to work to much harder that they ought to eat first."

He was always of remarkably equable temper, and it is related of him that when a neighbor, Colonel Spofford, had induced the Legislature to appoint a man justice of the peace whom the Governor thought unfit and had opposed, and came to him to triumph over the success, the Governor replied plac- idly, "Well, well, Spofford, I am glad of it on the whole; Smith will make a better justice than I supposed, and I always hoped he would." The sure way to rouse his wrath to the depths was to abuse Ira Allen. It was his appreciation of and faith in Allen that brought him his only political defeat, in 1789. The Legislature in 1783 authorized the disposal at a specific price, of the " flying grant" of Woodbridge (apparently High- gate), which had been forfeited for non-pay- ment, and thirty-five rights in Carthage (Jay), to raise funds and provide supplies for the survey of town lines and cutting roads in the northern part of the state. No sales were effected under this resolution, but

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Allen, as surveyor general, went ahead with the work, advancing some $4,000 for it, as it ultimately appeared, from his own funds. Governor Chittenden, at the meeting of the Governor and Council at Arlington, July 12, 1785, when unfortunately only half the Council were present, gave Allen a paper, signed by himself and seven members of the Council, stating it as their opinion that if Allen advanced the money he should have the lands " at the price mentioned." Allen was defeated for state treasurer the next year, and called on Governor Chittenden to deliver to him the charter of Woodbridge in pursuance of this paper, and it was done. The next year, in 1787, Jonathan Hunt, of Vernon, procured from the Legislature, by a vote of 36 to 13, against the protests of Allen, a grant of the same lands, and organ- ized a fight in the Legislature and secured an investigation. A committee, headed by Stephen R. Bradley, reported that the Gover- nor had converted the state seal to "private sinister views," and that the charter was fraudulent and ought to be declared void. A bill to this effect, modified somewhat, passed and went into effect, and such a storm was raised that Chittenden failed of a majority at the next election, and as a ma- jority of the Legislature was against him, Moses Robinson was chosen in his place. Allen got out a statement "To the Impartial Public " about the case, but it was published too late to save the election. But the report of the commission in 1790, to adjust the state's accounts with Allen, showed that he had actually advanced the money for the state, and the people were satisfied that though there had been technical irregularity there was no fraud or wrongful intent in the matter, and the Governor's old popularity returned to him with renewed strength.

Chittenden's bearing when the storm was at its height was one of admirable dignity. When the count was completed it was his duty to declare Robinson elected and after assurances that he had sought to discharge his duty " with simplicity and unremitted atten- tion " he said :

"Since I find that the election has not gone in my favor by the freemen, and that you, gentlemen, would prefer some other person to fill the chair, I can cheerfully resign to him the honors of the office I have long since sustained, and sincerely wish him a happy administration, for the advancement of which my utmost influence shall be exerted."

And the Legislature could not help re- sponding that the people "felt a grateful sense of the many and good services he had rendered them "'and wished for him on his re- tirement from arduous labors "all the blessings of domestic ease."

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His wise and foresighted benevolence twice had a chance to show itself in provid- ing food for the people, first at Arlington, where the disorders of the times and the leav- ing of their unharvested fields, had brought danger of a famine, and afterwards, after the war at Williston where carly frosts had done great harm. The Governor's granaries were full, and they were freely emptied for the bene- fit of his suffering neighbors. At Arlington he visited every family periodically, took an account of the provisions on hand, and by impartial and disinterested distribution saw to it that no one perished for want that hard winter. At Williston, so one historian says, men came from scores of miles away through the snow to draw food on hand-sleds for their suffering families. When they offered pay or security his reply was that he had no corn to sell to those who were hungry. The only re- striction was that they should leave enough for seed. And the tale has been handed clown in many a family how they would have starved that "cold winter," but for the corn of " Old Governor 'Tom."

The high quality of his statesmanship was shown in the "betterment" and "quieting" acts of 1781-86, legislation that was perfectly novel in character yet so clearly founded on the principles of natural justice that several other states have since imitated it. The idea was his in origin, and it cut the way with equity through difficulties that were simply inextricable in law procedure. And it was done after a long fight against the op- position of nearly all the lawyers of the state, who were unable to see beyond technicalities. When the state government was formed, land titles were in woeful shape, owing to the long time since the grants by New Hampshire the unsettlement and insecurity that had come from the controversy with New York, the lack of any office or place of record, and the general custom of not passing title deeds to

purchasers. There was pretty nearly noth- ing by which to determine ownership. Lands could be sold without the preliminary of pur- chase as well as with it, and there were many men who had practiced swindling of this kind extensively. The possessor, though he had cleared and improved his land and erected the best of buildings on it, was in law simply a trespasser if some one else could trace a title to it. Of course the greater the improvements the greater the ob- ject to dispossess, the thicker the speculators, like those of former times in New York, who sought farms that others had converted from forests for them. Litigation was multiplying on every side. Governor Chittenden's solu- tion, which he had the help of Nathaniel Chipman to put in its final shape, was first to give the settler, if a trespasser technically, the full value of his improvements and leave

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the courts to make further equitable division, then by the act of '84 to give him half the rise in the value of the land besides the im- provements, and finally to allow the legal owner only the original value before the im- provements and six per cent besides.

Governor Chittenden's readiness of re- source in an emergency was shown in Octo- ber, 1781, when the Legislature was in session at Charlestown in the East union, and an accident came near uncovering the whole Haldimand business. For the sake of ap- pearances the Vermonters had an army under Enos at Castleton to confront the British under St. Leger, who had come up the lake from Canada.

The commanders and leading officers only were in the secret of the negotiation, and when an affair between scouting parties re- sulted in the death of a Vermont sergeant (Tupper by name), General St. Leger sent back the man's clothes with a letter of apology and regret to General Enos, which when delivered, caused a good deal of dis- turbance among the Vermont troops. A messenger, who was sent soon afterward with dispatches to the Governor, made loud proclamations all along the route, of the ex- traordinary occurrence, fanning into flame the suspicion with which the air was sur- charged, and creating great excitement in the Legislature when Charleston was reached. The Governor saw what must come, so he called a meeting of the board of war, sum- moning to their aid Chipman, then a young lawyer and leader of the party opposed to Chittenden, and in a few moments while Ira Allen was bluffing in the Legislature by getting up a row with an inquisitive mem- ber, Major Rounds, the Governor and his assistants concocted some new letters from General Enos and Colonels Walbridge and Fletcher, who were at the front with him, including all they reported about military matters that did not bear on the negotiation. After Allen had kept up his disputation long enough, he appealed to the dispatches as evidence that there was nothing wrong, the new ones were brought in and read for the originals. Chipman followed with a speech reminding the people that they were doubt- ing the good faith of Thomas Chittenden, a man whom he though of the opposing party, knew to be honest and true, and would trust against a whole army of St. Legers. And before long the crowd that started in so ugly was dispersing with cheers for Chitten- den and Chipman.

His remarkable qualities of character were well summarized by Ethan Allen, who wrote of him : " He was the only man I ever knew who was sure to be right in all, even the most difficult and complex cases, and yet could not tell or seem to know why it was so."

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Thompson says : " He had a rare combi- nation of moral and intellectual qualities- good sense, great discretion, honesty of pur- pose and an unvarying equanimity of tem- per, united with a modest and pleasing address."

E. P. Walton says : "He did not tower like an ornate and graceful Corinthian col- umn, but was rather like the solid Roman arch that no convulsion could overturn and no weight could crush." And another bi- ographer concludes : " Mosses and lichens have covered the stone which marks his grave, but that stone will crumble into dust long before Vermonters will cease to respect the memory of Thomas Chittenden."

ALLEN, IRA, the " Metternich of Ver- mont," as he has sometimes been called ; its first secretary and its first treasur- erer ; the one great diplomat- ist of the little republic, and its guide through its greatest diffi- culties, has had meagre justice done him by history. While we properly re- gard Chittenden as the "Wash- ington of Vermont," Ira Allen may be well called its Hamilton. Indeed, the likeness is striking between these two men in their dif- ferent fields. The wonderful intellectual precocity of Hamilton, a mind versatile, clear, and penetrating, with its intense, prac- tical and logical cast, its perceptions quick as light, its fertility of original ideas, its bold and foresighted conceptions, and its master- ful handling of the problems of administra- tion, had its counterpart in Allen. Like Hamilton, Ira Allen was a statesman before he was twenty-five. Like Hamilton, he was one of the handsomest men of his time, with his intellectual countenance, his flashing black eyes, his imposing presence, and pleas- ing address. As with Hamilton, there was at times a dash of unscrupulousness in his pub- lic or political work, coupled with the utmost personal honor-a sort of misdirection of an over-generous nature in sacrifice for others. It has been truly said of Ira Allen that he was secretly or openly the originator of more important political measures for Vermont and the Revolution than any other man in the state, and it might truly be added than hardly any other in the country. Still other projects of vast utility from his teeming

AIJ.J.N.

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bram were prevented from fruition only by the misfortunes of his later years.

He it was, who after the fall of Ticon- deroga, when the settlements seemed help less before the on-coming army of Burgoyne, conceived the scheme of confiscating the estates of the Tories to raise money to equip and support troops, and as a result within a week a regiment of mien was in the fickl. It was the first act of the kind in the country, but it was one which all the other states, on the urging of Congress, had to adopt later. It was the measure that put the new state on its feet as a self-reliant, self-supporting entity. He was a leader in the formation of the constitution. He did inestimable service as secretary of the com- mittee of safety, which was given the work of defending the state, because the members of the Constitutional Convention at Windsor when Ticonderoga fell had to leave for their homes and families and had no time to com- plete the organization of a state government. He sent expresses at his own expense in every direction with news of the disaster, and appeals for prompt forwarding of troops. In the terror of the time no one else, even among the military commanders, attended to this, and it may not be too much to say that the victory at Bennington was due to the energy and the wise provision of Ira Allen. He organized scouting parties that gathered full information of the enemy's movements and forwarded it by express in all directions, with such encouragements as it warranted that the enemy could be met and repulsed. He sent timely warnings of the expedition to Bennington, so that it was by no accident that Stark and the New Hamp- shire troops and the Berkshire militia ar- rived in season to repulse and crush it. He helped to concert the measures for the cap- ture of Ticonderoga, Crown Point and the strong posts in his rear that helped so much towards the ruin of Burgoyne. He did all this when the new state was without funds or credit, as well as without organization, when near three-fourths of the people of the west side of the mountain had fled from their homes, and a large part of those of the east side were disposed to favor New York's claims, when weak nerved and weak prin- cipled men were flocking to Burgoyne and taking the oath of allegiance to the Crown, and when, besides the danger of invasion from the British and the savages, the late proceedings of Congress had shown par- tiality towards New York and the embryonic state had every reason to expect hostile action. He staked not only large amounts of his money, but his life on the chance of winning victory out of this seemingly des- perate situation. He was nearly always the agent of the state, either alone or with others

in dealing with Congress and with New Hampshire and New York. He was the principal manager of the Hlaldimand nego- tiations and Metternich never handled his difficult tasks with more skill or with a tech- nical frankness that was more profoundly deceptive.

lle was the author of many publications in pamphlet and newspaper form in defense of the state in the New York controversy. One in 1777, reviewing the constitution of New York, with all its features of aristocracy, was especially strong. He was a clear and forcible writer always, and most of the offi- cial correspondence of the state in its carly years, particularly Governor Chittenden's orders, was done through him.

He was the father of the University of Vermont. October 14, 1789, he presented a memorial to the Legislature for the estab- lishment of the college with subscriptions amounting to £5643, of which he contribu- ted £4000, and the charter was granted Nov. 3, 1791.

Ira was the youngest of the Allen brothers and was born at Cornwall, Conn., April 21, 1751, so that he was barely twenty-two when he was acting as secretary of the Vermont committee of safety, only twenty-six when he was taking the lead in our Constitutional Convention, a little over thirty when the state had been piloted, so largely by his efforts, as an independent little republic into a safety and prosperity that were the envy of the states surrounding, and still in the early thirties when, by his remarkable judgment and nerve in business operations, he had come to be recognized as one of the wealth- iest men of the country. He received a good English education, and was a practical sur- veyor very young. He came to Vermont before he was twenty, and he was scarcely twenty-one when he became an extensive proprietor of land in Burlington and Col- chester. He had the eye to see the future of this location, but at the time had to en- dure mnuch ridicule for his selection. He entered with zeal into various land specula- tions, first as a member of the "Onion River Land Company," which consisted besides himself, of his brothers, Ethan, Heman, and Zirmi, with Remember Baker, and which became the most extensive proprietor of land in the state, with a corresponding in- tensification of zeal, of course, against the New York claims.

He was appointed secretary of the com- mittee of safety as soon as it was formed and served until its labors closed. He was a lieutenant in Warner's regiment in the Can- ada campaign in the fall of 1775, and was selected by Montgomery as one of the two officers for the confidential trust of attacking Cape Diamond and throwing rockets as a

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signal for three other detachments to attack Quebec on the night of Montgomery's at- tempt on the city. For the next two years he was a member from Colchester of all the conventions.

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Men of Vermont : an illustrated biographical history of Vermonters and sons of Vermont, Part 6

Author: Ullery, Jacob G., comp; Davenport, Charles H; Huse, Hiram Augustus, 1843-1902; Fuller, Levi Knight, 1841-1896 Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Brattleboro, Vt. : Transcript Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 842

Author: Ullery, Jacob G., comp; Davenport, Charles H; Huse, Hiram Augustus, 1843-1902; Fuller, Levi Knight, 1841-1896
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Brattleboro, Vt. : Transcript Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 842