USA > Vermont > Rutland County > Wallingford > People of Wallingford, a compilation > Part 8
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Whether Charles Button had secured his own grant in return for service as a soldier in the French and Indian War or whether he had bought it from Lydius of Albany, we do not, at present writing, know. Surely he must have had some previous training and service that fitted him for the important work of Constable of Charlotte Co. The Corporation formed in Albany that sold Durham land under the claim of Lydius, through Duane as agent, was not active until 1771-2. Charles had been in Vermont three years before that date.
The qualities of a soldier often reappear in succeeding genera- tions. Charles' great-grandfather was Capt. Matthias Button who came to Salem with Endicott in the ship Abigail, in 1628. His grandfather Peter, and his father Joseph, had lived on their own farms in Westerly, R. I. A desire for land and a desire for mili- tary service may thus have been inherent in Charles. His wife, Anne Wilcox, was also a Rhode Island woman. Her great-great- grandfather, Edward Wilcox, had been in Aquidneck, R. I. in 1638, where doubtless he felt the influence of Roger Williams and Mrs. Anne Hutchinson's religious views, and his descend- ants had lived in Rhode Island for succeeding generations.
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Little Charles must have been about four when he and his little brother, Joseph, fastened in a feather bed tied over a horse's back, started north with father Charles and mother Anne, mounted on their horses.
First north-westward, then west through settled lands, and then on westward across the mountains, following Indian trails, and rough roads, until they reached Bennington. (That they went to Bennington is assumed from the fact that settlements from Bennington northward would welcome them until they were al- most within sight of their future home. To have come up on the east side of the Green Mountains would have been more perilous -- the road over that trail was a lonely one, and with fewer settled communities in which they would have found friends. I find my- self wondering if they met at Bennington Seth Warner, who was to play so important a role in their future. Conant tells us that as early as 1765 a bridle path had been made from Bennington to Danby. Other authorities write as though there was an actual road at this time. Danby must have sheltered them willingly, but little Joseph did not know then that he would return as a young man and join these Quaker friends.
From their probable last stop, the Tinmouth settlement, they would have followed an Indian trail westward along the moun- tainous ridge that forms the western wall of Wallingford's nar- row valley. It seems possible that the logging road that continues beyond the rough mountain road passing the Finley Shepard and the Mooney farms, may be part of the Indian trail these brave pioneers followed. Sidling down the mountain side, perhaps often forced to stop and cut away underbrush, they would even- tually have come down into the Otter Valley.
Signs of Indian cultivation of the fertile intervale may have brought to Anne a happiness possible for her only with the thought that this land, now to be their land, had not been wrested from the Indians in battle, but had been bought from the Mo-
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JUDGE HARVEY BUTTON, 1800-1885
RESIDENCE AND OFFICE OF JUDGE BUTTON
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THE BUTTONS, THE JACKSONS AND THE MILLERS
hawks, and that the Indians had moved on to other hunting grounds without blood-shed. John Henry Lydius, an Indian trader, had bought the land from some Mohawk Indians in 1732. In 1744, through Gov. Shirley's influence*, Lydius secured a con- firmation of this Indian deed from the King. Anne's people, like most other families of Rhode Island, had first sought to avoid the Indian troubles, and then when the French and Indian Wars were forced upon them, gave their men for service.
Visioning, perhaps, the white bark canoes that in other years had floated gracefully on the stream, they followed the course of the Otter until they saw ahead of them two knolls. The one to the south is elongated, rocky, but the one farther north, rises con- spicuously to some height. It is beautifully rounded and to this day is wooded. According to my Aunt Ellen Button, this knoll was the site of their first temporary shelter. It must have been a hastily built home, probably made between boulders, with a rudely constructed chimney, a roof thatched with boughs, open on the front, facing to the south. When winter came, sod and pine boughs were doubtless arranged for greater shelter. The hill it- self would protect them from the cold blasts of the north wind.
While a real log cabin was being built on a site directly to the east and across the river, Anne must often have sat in her little shelter those first autumn days of 1767, looking down the valley to Dorset Mountain, thinking of the friends in Dorset and of those in her own home, now so far away. Did she feel the gran- deur of the outlines of noble Dorset, or did she think it a gate shut- ting off retreat southward? Did she tell Charles the story of Cap- tain Kidd and of his buried treasures at the foot of the mountain to the southeast, where the entire side is a rocky mass, conspicu- ous for miles to one coming from the north ? Often on horseback, she and the children must have forded the river those first weeks,
* Smith & Rann, History of Rutland County, dispute Lydius' claim, yet since Shirley in 1844 was a most popular, successful general, his securing a king's confirmation for Lydius is not at all improbable. (For an account of Gov. Shirley, see Williams' Natural and Civil History of Vermont.)
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to watch father cutting the logs for the cabin. Until recent years a pile of stones has marked its position, a few feet to the south of "The Homestead," on the main road to Rutland (the home of Roy Pratt, a great-great-great-grandson of Charles and Anne). The rear portion of his house is the later built and the first frame building on the land.
From the little clearing that Charles was making, the view to the north would have been shut off by the forests about them, but from the higher land they could see Killington, and its accom- panying range as it curves northward and seems to meet, ten miles away, the high hills of the western side of the valley. Today we have an unobstructed view of this beautiful stretch of country as we follow the road to Rutland. The log cabin, the first real home, is doubtless one of the "outhouses" referred to later in Charles Button's deposition of 1773, against the Green Mountain Boys. (See page 100.) They evidently moved into it February 8, 1768.
Upon her arrival, my grandmother found one family of neigh- bors, who we have been told were the Spragues. I wonder if they could see the smoke from one another's chimneys ? Even curling smoke would have been a symbol of companionship. By 1773, thirty-five families were living in the Clarendon section. Walling- ford, too, developed quickly after that date.
Almost from the first my grandparents and the Spencers and other New York grant settlers must have been troubled by the growing power of Allen, Baker, and Warner and their Green Mountain Boys. While the legal settlers in the developing Wall- ingford District were protected by the confirmation of their New Hampshire grants by the New York Council (1772), the earlier Clarendon settlers, especially those with New York grants, were counting on the very evident legality of their claims, under the Edict of 1764, in which the King declared that the territory of New York Province extended to the Connecticut River. On this Edict they staked their all. "Can Gov. Wentworth overthrow a King's decree?" they asked with justified indignation.
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A record of purchase of about 1600 acres of land by Charles Button in 1769 from Capt. Meade of Rutland, a strong follower of the New Hampshire men, indicates that within a year Charles and Anne were facing difficulties, brought about by New Hamp- shire men. The purchase may or may not have been a re-purchase, but the chances are it was the latter and was made as a safeguard against trouble from the developing New Hampshire granted set- tlements in Rutland, called Socialborough. The ability of Button to pay for this purchase while at the same time making improve- ments on his land, shows he must have had some successes before his start northward. From his father, Joseph, who had a large family, he probably inherited little. Anne may have put her share of her father's estate into this enterprise in the wilds of Vermont. Before November, 1773, according to Charles' own sworn state- ment, he had been offered for his lands and improvements, pay- ment in New York currency, 1,000 pounds, a princely sum. He speaks in his affidavit of his improvements.
These improvements could not have been made alone. It is probable that young men he had known in Rhode Island or in the neighboring Preston, Conn., where he had married Anne, came up to work for him. Communication with the settlements of Massachusetts were not so difficult as we have been led to believe. Droves of cattle were driven to Ticonderoga about 1760 over the road built through the effort of General Amherst soon after its completion, as a road connecting Fort No. 4 and Fort Crown Point. This road was within a mile of the spot chosen by Button as the site for his dwelling. I hope that a load of goods had fol- lowed Anne's departure from home. It was customary to wait for the winter snows and frozen ice that made the passage of a loaded cart easier. For themselves, the horseback trip in the autumn months would be easier and pleasanter.
Thanks to my grandfather's sworn statement, it is possible to picture my grandmother as enjoying after the first year, many
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of the comforts that anyone had in those early days. It was not an uncomfortable home, where perhaps by the glowing logs in the fireplace, she stood and watched with just resentment, Allen and his men sack her home. She had told them her husband was not present; they had doubted her word! Perhaps Warner knew his mistake and may have ever after remembered her attitude, a gentlewoman at his mercy.
It will be observed that I have assumed Allen was with the gang who came to Button's home. Would he have stayed behind and sent his followers when it was the York Constable he especially wished to put out of power?
I admire the restraint with which grandfather speaks of their treatment of himself and of his family. Read his affidavit and judge for yourself.
Copy of Charles Button's affidavit, made in November, 1773. "County of Cumberland ss .- Charles Button of a place called Durham on the bank of Otter Creek on the west side of the Green Mountains, in the County of Charlotte and Province of New York, of full age duly sworn on the holy evangelists of Almighty God deposeth and saith, that the deponent with others to the number of thirty-five families, seated themselves upon the said tract, and hold a title derived from the Province of New York, that the de- ponent has lived with family upon the same tract since the eighth day of February, 1768, has cleared and improved a large farm, built a good dwell- ing house with other outhouses, and was lately offered a thousand pounds current money of New York for his improvements. That about eleven o'clock at night on Saturday the 20th instant, as the deponent is informed and verily believes, Remember Baker, Ethan Allen, Robert Cochrane and a num- ber of other persons, armed with guns, cutlasses, etc., came to the house of Benjamin Spencer esq. of said Durham, who holds his farm under a title de- rived from the government of New York and brake open the said house, and took the said Spencer and carried him about two miles to the house of Thomas Green, of Kelso, and there kept him in custody until Monday morn- ing. The heads of the said rioters then asked the said Spencer, whether he would choose to be tried at the house of Joseph Smith in said Durham, or at his, the said Spencer's own door? To which Spencer replied, that he was guilty of no crime, but if he must be tried, he would choose to have his trial at his own door; the rioters thereupon carried the said Spencer to his own
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door and proceeded to his trial before Seth Warner of Bennington: the said Remember Baker, Ethan Allen and Robert Cochrane who sat as judges. That said rioters charge the said Spencer with being great friend to the govern- ment of New York, and had acted as a magistrate of the county of Charlotte, of which respective charges his said judges found him guilty and passed sentence that his, the said Spencer's, house should be burned to the ground, and that he should declare that he would not for the future act as a justice of the peace for the said county of Charlotte. Spencer thereupon urged that his wife and children would be ruined, and his store of dry goods and all his property wholly destroyed if his house was burned. Warner then declared Spencer's house should not be wholly destroyed, that only the roof should be taken off and put on again, provided Spencer would declare that it was put on under the New Hampshire title and purchased a right under the charter from the last mentioned government. These several conditions Spencer was obliged to comply with, upon which the rioters dismissed him.
"That a party of said rioters came to the deponent's house on the night of Saturday, the 20th instant, as the deponent is informed, and broke open the door and sacked the house for the deponent, which they did not find as he was gone to Crown Point, to take Stephen Weakly upon writs issued against him at the suit of Samuel Green and one Sprague. That upon the Deponent's return home with the said Weakly in custody, another party of the said rioters took the de ponent, obliged him to discharge the said Weakly, and one Smith and others of the said rioters the next day declared they would pull down Green's house and give him the beach seal, (meaning that they would flog him unless he consented thereto ) which he accordingly did.
"They then obliged this de ponent to give the said Weakly six shillings cur- rent money of New York, for taking him, the said Weakly into custody, and declaring for the debts due from him, the said Weakly to the said Green and Sprague as aforesaid, and afterwards made this deponent promise that he would never serve as an officer of justice or constable to execute any pre- cept under the province of New York, and then gave him a certificate in the words and figures following, to wit :-
"Pittsford, Nov 24, 1773
'These are to satisfy all the Green Mountain Boys that Charles Button had his trial at Stephen Mead's and this is his discharge from us.
Peleg Sunderling, Benj. Cooley
Which certificate they declared would be a sufficient permit or pass among the New Hampshire claimants, Green Mountain Boys and further the de- ponent saith not.
1773 Charles Button' "
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What would they have done to the York Constable had they found him at home? Was some one befriending him in bringing about the arrest of Weakly and thus getting him out of the way? Or did Allen himself so plan his time as to prevent bloodshed?
For the great-great-granddaughter of an Allen, who is also a great-great-granddaughter of a Button to try to treat impartially the struggle that came to a climax in November 1773, is not an easy task. To help me to try to be impartial, I have the Button dep- osition, the more or less prejudiced pages of Vermont history to read. I do not know anything of this great-great-grandfather Allen; I do know something of his daughter Elenor Allen and I cannot forget the strength of her personality. She was the daugh- ter of Elenor Jackson, and one of the Litchfield County, Conn. Allens. We have an album kept by her daughter, Irene, giving copies of sentiments and original expressions written by her mother, designed to encourage in Irene the development of beauty and strength of character. In her portrait, too, she appears as a woman of intelligence, gentle in thought and manner.
Anyone who recalls the bravely endured sorrows of Ira Allen and gives thought to the strength of his features, shown in his portrait, cannot make unqualified criticisms of the Allens. We re- call, too, how favorably Washington was impressed by Ethan Allen.
Yet "clan" is a fitting expression for them, and even as I write this, I churn with indignation at the injustices this Allen "clan" heaped upon my grandmother, Anne Wilcox Button.
On November 20th, 1773, the struggle of Allen and his men against the authority vested in the Justices of the Peace and the Constables of the counties in Western Vermont, came to a climax. In May, 1771, Willoughby, the Constable of Albany County to the south of Charlotte, had been driven away and threatened with a flogging if he ever returned.
From a day in June, 1770, when Allen turned from what he
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called a prejudiced decision of the courts in the case of Josiah Car- penter of Shaftsbury, he knew as he declared "the gods of the mountains are not the gods of the valley," that he would turn to the forming of a clan, drawn and held by the use of a pagan-like worship of the spirit of defiance, and that from then on, the peo- ple of the New Hampshire grants would turn from the authority of the King's Court and their appointed officers. It is right to note that the people of Bennington section did not disallow the legal- ity of that decision in the courts of June, 1770. They merely cried out against the injustice of the decision and longed for their king to purify the courts. Ethan Allen had no hope in anything of the kind. He had his own visions, and he believed if you want some- thing done and done well, trust force and your own relatives, who have self interests in the undertaking. By 1773, there was hardly a settlement in Western Vermont where there was not an Allen brother or an Allen cousin listed as a land owner in the section; wanting a relative, a reliable ally was chosen, so that a chain for correspondence was complete.
The Hartford Courant of June, 1773, ran this advertisement of Ethan Allen & Co. "Lately purchased by Allens and Baker, a large tract of land on both sides of the mouth of the Onion River and fronting westerly on Lake Champlain, containing 45,000 acres and sundry lesser parcels of land further up the river," etc.
While Remember Baker and Ira Allen were busy starting de- velopments in this section in April, 1773, they found New York Province officials and a surveyor at work. The Allens forced them off. What makes this Allen movement more regrettable is that this area, especially along Champlain, was land set aside for the use of non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the French and Indian Wars. (Crockett gives a map showing this reserved terri- tory opp. page 20, Vol. 1.) To deny the rights of such men was a complete disregarding of loyalty to those who had risked their lives to save the country from invasion and conquest. This stretch
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of territory along the Champlain shores was included in the County of Charlotte, over which Charles Button was made Con- stable in 1772. The County of Charlotte is thus defined:
"This county-beginning at the Green Mountains, extends along the north lines of Sunderland and Arlington, westward to the Hudson River, and included both sides of Lake Champlain as far as the Canadian border."
Surely Button made complaint for the insult of April, '73 to the New York Province officials in the Onion River section. Is it then at all improbable that that incident brought on the affair of November 20 in Durham? That stronghold of the York Con- stable must be cleaned up! The road to Ticonderoga must be ready for quick action, cleared of Tory sympathizers.
Not only from the picture my grandfather gives of the wild scene at Durham, but also from a deposition made by Spencer who describes men dressed as Indians, and red capped men yell- ing wildly, and also from a sworn statement of a corporal in a Highland Regiment, Charles Hutchinson, who had attempted a settlement in Pawlet, do we learn of the lawless attitude of Allen's men, worshippers in form if not in truth, of pagan gods. The Highland soldier in his affidavit, describes how nine men refused to leave his premises at his earnest request, how they set four fires about the log cabin, saying "they would burn it, for that morning they had resolved to burn a burnt sacrifice to the gods of the world in the burning logs of that house." He names the men as Allen, Baker, one Sevil, and Cochran, and five unknown. Allen and Baker held clubs over his head, compelling him to depart, and promising him brutal treatment if he should return. The Al- lens had considerable land holdings in Pawlet and Rupert. (The Allen of this affair may not have been Ethan-more likely a cousin.)
There is no evidence that Charles Button ever failed after 1773 to keep his word to cease activities against the Green Mountain
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Boys. He speaks of no bodily injuries. What was said or done to him in Pittsford that day will ever be a mystery. With his signing of that paper witnessed by Sunderling and Cooley, the last visible resistance of authorized law against mob rule in Western Ver- mont died out.
Not until I picture myself standing with Anne and her two boys in late February or early March, 1775, watching father drive his oxen down across the Mill River to be ready for the many sleds that would soon appear carrying the cannon from Ticonderoga to the waiting Washington in Boston, can I understand why a God of Direction allowed the years of pagan worship of the gods of defiance. Once organized resistance to his plan was quelled, Allen had turned to creating companies of militia, much like the "Min- ute-Men" drilling in Connecticut and in Massachusetts. Thus he was making true his dream, leadership in rebellion against the Crown.
Charles Button would have had no choice about the use of his oxen. But I believe that by this time they were not unwillingly given for service. Letters must have brought news that Anne's brother Samuel had fought at Bunker Hill, and confidence must have been growing with the appointment of Washington as Com- mander-in-Chief. Yet Charles, doubtless, had hoped that England would offer conciliation.
So I fancy that Anne, with her children, wistfully watched the cavalcade turn to climb the hill road, on, on to Boston. Fifty cannon that unheard in sound of thunder, were to scare Howe from that city!
In less than a year, the body of Anne Wilcox Button was laid away in the spot which is still known as the Button family ceme- tery, now one of the largest of these family cemeteries in the state. Her grandson, Frederick Button, placed the stones that mark the graves of our grandparents.
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Anne's reads
ANNE WILCOX wife of CHARLES BUTTON died Feb 17, 1777 age 37 years (She was the second white woman who came to this town, then called Durham)
The age 37 should be, we believe, 34, a mistake due perhaps to the copying of the old style 4, which very much resembles our 7.
With the Declaration of Independence, Charles Button in July, 1776 joined the company of Capt. Hickok, Vermont Militia and saw service, as a scout, probably warning mountain cabin dwell- ers of the approaching Burgoyne.
Before Charles Button died in 1790, he knew that the proposed state of Vermont would pay to New York the sum of $30,000 to avoid any further disputes over questions of ownership of Ver- mont territory. Thus, through a legal settlement, demanded by Congress, Charles Button saw his claims regarding the legality of grants given by New York, acknowledged. It is interesting to note that as late as 1780 the Smiths of Rutland, a strong, New Hampshire settled township felt safer when making a family transfer of land to have it fixed legally. From the History of Rutland County (Smith & Rann) we learn that the Smiths had come from Salisbury, Conn. There Allen influence was strong. It was there that the Allens had the iron ore mine that we are told brought them money in the Revolutionary War, and in the war of 1812. Notwithstanding the seemingly established power of the New Hampshire claim, the family transfer of land, 1780, of 1020 acres for sixty-four pounds, read "in the township of Rutland on Otter Creek, in the Province of New York" (p. 317).
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Again I am prompted to ask would the Allens, minus their land holdings and minus iron ore mining interests, have tried methods of conciliation rather than hastening to defiant force?
Never at any time did New York Province give up its claim to land set aside for the use of survivors of the French & Indian Wars, part of the country over which Charles Button took the .. duties of Constable in 1772.
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