USA > Vermont > Records of the Council of Safety and Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, to which are prefixed the records of the General Conventions from July 1775 to December 1777, Vol. I > Part 26
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By order of Council, THOS. CHITTENDEN, Pres't.
Attest, JOSEPHI FAY, Sec'y.
STATE OF VERMONT. Bennington 9 March 1778.
Sir,-You are hereby directed to March the men already enlisted by virtue of Commission or Warrant from Lt. Colo. Herrick for the Intended Expedition into Canada, & you & the other officers (who have enlisted any such Soldier) may be hereby assured that any reasonable encourage- ment heretofore offered shall be paid by [to] them. The Council Present are of opinion that a Surgeon ought to be allowed for your use & the Corps who are to serve under you, but as there is but few of the Council (at present) Together they think it advizeable for them to report their Opinion in that Matter to the General Assembly & Let you know their Resolution thereon Next Week. You will be supplied from time to Time with Everything necessary for the Comfort of your Camp that is in the Power of this Council to afford you.
By order of Conncil, THOS. CHITTENDEN, Pre't. To Capt. Eben" Allen & Commissd. officers under him.
Voted in the House of Assembly that in Lieu of D. D. [double daily] rations 10 Dollars as bounty. Attest,
M. LYON, D. Sec'y. 2
1 The " fort" mentioned is supposed to have been the block-fort, built by Ethan Allen and others in 1773, in New Haven, on the falls of Otter Creek.
2 This vote of the General Assembly was added here on the record to indicate that notice had been given to Capt Allen and other officers ; of
Council of Safety-Aug. 15, 1777, to March 12, 1778. 229
STATE OF VERMONT. IN COUNCIL. Windsor 12 March 1778.
This Council do recommend to the Several Gentlemen appointed by the freemen of the Several Towns within this State to represent them in General Assembly, to Assemble at the Town house in this place immedi- ately & to form a house of Assembly by choosing a Speaker & Clerk, and make Report of your proceedings hereon as soon as may be to this Council. By order of Council, THOS. CHITTENDEN, P.
STATE OF VERMONT. IN COUNCIL, Windsor 12 March 1778. To John Benjamin, Gentleman:
Whereas a number of the Inhabitants of this State are now met To- gether in this place, appointed by the freemen of the Several Towns within the Same in order to form a house of Assembly; And Whereas it is found Necessary that some person be appointed to act in the Capa- city of a Sheriff, you are therefore hereby appointed, authorized and im- powered in the Capacity of Sheriff during the Session of this present Assembly (unless sooner discharged,) and to Subject yourself to such rules and orders as you shall from time to Time [receive] from this or a future Council of this State. for which this shall be your Sufficient War- rant. By order of Council, THOS. CHITTENDEN, Pr't.
Attest, JOSEPH FAY, Sec'y.
[End of the record of the Council of Safety.]
course added at a later date, as the action of the General Assembly was on the 20th of March following, when a surgeon was also appointed. The votes of the Assembly, Friday, March 20, 1778, were as follows :
Voted, to provide a surgeon for Captains Allen and Clark's companies. Voted, that Doct. Jacob Ruback be the surgeon for the purpose afore- said.
Voted, that those men that enlisted under Captains Allen and Clark should have ten dollars as a bounty, in lieu of double rations .- See Ms. Journal of the General Assembly, March 20, 1778 ; also Slade's State Pa- pers, p. 262.
The fact may as well be stated here that the journals of the three sessions of 1778 are in Slade, but those of the sessions of 1779, 1780, 1781. 1782, and 1783 are in manuscript only, having never been printed.
RECORD
OF THE
GOVERNOR AND COUNCIL
FOR THE
STATE OF VERMONT.
MARCH 12, 1778, TO NOV. 11, 1835.
Fofinh Marsh
INTRODUCTION.
FOR a few years the record of the Governor and Council, like that of the Council of Safety, was not made in the form of a regular journal, but embraced only matters the preservation of which was thought to be necessary. In many instances the action of the Council is merely noted, with references to the Assembly journal for further information. When- ever deemed advisable, the editor has, in notes, quoted from the Assem- bly journal in such cases, or briefly stated the essence of the record; and has also quoted or briefly stated other matters in the Assembly journal touching the Council-otherwise no just conception could be obtained of the work and value of that body.
For a short time the Governor and Council was the Board of War, and afterward that Board was constituted largely of Councillors, and there- fore it has been deemed advisable to publish the record of the Board of War in connection with the Council record.
Though the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and Council formed a very important branch of the government for more than fifty-seven years, the records of their action have never been printed. The pro- ceedings of that body given in this volume have been copied therefore from the original manuscript records, as the volumes that may succeed it must be.
For the constitution and powers of the Governor, Lieutenant-Gover- nor, and Council, see chapter II of the Constitution, (ante, pp. 95-101,) sections I, III, XIV, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, and XXVII. Powers were oc- casionally given to the Governor and Council by special votes of the General Assembly, certified copies of which were sent to the Council and are entered in its record.
ORGANIZATION, FROM MARCH 12 UNTIL OCTOBER 9, 1778.
THOMAS CHITTENDEN of Williston,1 Governor. JOSEPH MARSH of Hartford, Lieutenant-Governor.2
1 Gov. Chittenden's residence was then in Arlington, but his home was in Williston.
2 The report of the committee which canvassed the votes was, that no election of lieutenant-governor had been made by the people, when Col. Marsh was elected by the General Assembly. Afterward fifteen votes were brought in for Col. M., which gave him a majority of the votes cast by the people .- Assembly Journal, in Slade's State Papers, p. 257.
17
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Governor and Council-Introduction.
COUNCILLORS:
IRA ALLEN of Colchester, 1 JACOB BAYLEY of Newbury, JOSEPH BOWKER of Rutland, TIMOTHY BROWNSON of Sunder- land,
BENJAMIN CARPENTER of Guilford, JEREMIAII CLARK of Shaftsbury,
BENJAMIN EMMONS of Woodstoek, JONAS FAY of Bennington, THOMAS MOREDOCK 2 of Norwich, PETER OLCOTT of Norwich, PAUL SPOONER of Hartland,
MOSES ROBINSON of Bennington.3
THOMAS CHANDLER, jr., of Chester, Secretary.
MATTHEW LYON of Arlington, Deputy Secretary from April 9 to June 4, and from July 17 to Oct. 9.
1 Ira Allen's residence was in Sunderland, but his home was in Col- chester.
2 Thomas Murdock.
3 This list is from Slade's State Papers, with the exception that here the name of MOSES ROBINSON is inserted in lieu of JOHN THROOP. This change is not warranted by any preceding printed list-that is, not by Ira Allen's, or Slade's, or Deming's, or the lists copied from either. It is not warranted by the list in the official record, as it stands on the book : and yet that MOSES ROBINSON was a member of that Council, and JOHN THROOP was not, are facts abundantly proved by the official record, in spite of the erroneous list which has been interpolated into it in re- cent times. The introduction to the canvassing committee's report of the first Council is all that was entered on the original minutes, and all that Secretary FAY ( JOSEPH) found there when he recorded them in the present official record-book in 1788. He left a blank for the names of the Councillors, and that blank was never filled until a comparatively re- cent date, when it was filled from Slade's list. This is shown by other entries from Slade in the margin, or references to his work, which are in the same handwriting as that of the incorrect list. The entry was made in good faith, but nevertheless it is wrong. The proofs that MOSES ROB- INSON was a member of the first Council are : 1st, an official letter of the Council, dated March 14, 1778, addressed to him, notifying him of his election and requiring his attendance ; 2d. the fact that he took the oath of office April 24, 1778-seeming not to have attended the March session ; and 3d, his name appears on the only three debenture-rolls of that Coun- cil that are recorded. being in April and May 1778. This is incontro- vertible evidence.
The proof that JOHN THROOP was not a Councillor at that time is less direct but nevertheless quite satisfactory. March 26. 1778, the General Assembly by vote empowered the Council to dispose of tory estates ; and under this act and on the same day, the Governor, Deputy-Governor, and
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Governor and Council-Introduction.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
For notices of Messrs. Allen. Bayley, Carpenter, Chittenden, Clark, Fay, Lyon, Robinson, and Spooner, see ante, pp. 115-129; and for notice of Mr. Bowker, see note, ante, p. 190.
Col. JOSEPHI MARSH was descended from John Marsh, who came from England to Massachusetts in 1633, and removed with Rev. Thomas
Council constituted themselves arbiters in the premises, and divided the body into two courts, as follows :
Court for Cumberland County .- [Eastern Vermont, at that date.] Lieut. Gov. MARSH,
1. Jacob Bayley,
4. Benjamin Emmons,
2 Thomas Murdock,
5. Paul Spooner,
3. Peter Olcott, 6. Benjamin Carpenter.
Here, then, are the six Councillors residing on the east side of the mountain, and JOHN THIROOP of Pomfret is not among them.
Court for Bennington County.
The vote of the Council on the same day was in these words :
Voted that his Excellency the Governor & Council that Live in the County of Bennington be a Court to Confiscate the Estate of those per- sons that are Enemies, in the Same form as those in the County of Cum- berland are.
This court then was thus constituted :
Gov. CHITTENDEN,
7. Ira Allen,
8. Timothy Brownson,
9. Jeremiah Clark,
10. Jonas Fay,
11. Moses Robinson,
12. Joseph Bowker.
March 17, 1778, nine days before these courts were created, the whole of western Vermont was named "Bennington County." Above, then, in courts constituted exclusively of the Governor, Lieut .- Governor, and Council, there are the twelve Councillors, and JOHN THROOP is not among them. He was not Councillor until 1779.
The fact that the report of the canvassing committee for the first Coun- cillors was left blank ought to have put investigators on their guard. Had it done so, the conclusive facts here stated, which lie patent on the rec- ord, would have excluded error. There doubtless was a reason for leav- ing the report blank temporarily. The same committee had reported that there had been no election of Deputy-Governor by the people, Joseph Marsh lacking eleven votes. Mr. Marsh was then elected by the General Assembly : but, speedily, fifteen more votes for Mr. Marsh were "brought in" and he was elected by the people. Thus warned, the com-
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236
Governor and Council-Introduction.
Hooker to Hartford, Conn., in 1635. John Marsh married Anne, daugh- ter of Deputy-Governor John Webster; and after her death he married the widow of Richard Lyman, of Northampton, Mass. Joseph Marsh, who settled in Lebanon, Conn., in 1697, was grandson of John Marsh; and a grandson ot Joseph was the father of Vermont's first lieutenant-governor, Col. JOSEPH MARSH of Hartford, Vt. Col. Marsh was born in Lebanon, Conn., Jan. 12, 1726, O. S., and Jan. 10 1750 married Dorothy Mason, who was a descendant from Major John Mason, (afterward Major-General of all the Connecticut forces,) who in 1630 came from England to Dor- chester, Mass., being one of the first settlers. Maj. Mason removed to Windsor, Conn., in 1634, became very famous as commander of the English in the Pequot Indian War, (of which he wrote a history,) and was deputy governor from May 1660 to May 1670, when he voluntarily retired and removed to Norwich, Conn., where he died about 1672. The wife of Col. Marsh was a sister of Col. Jeremiah Mason of Lebanon, Conn., who was father of the late very distinguished jurist, Hon. Jere- miah Mason of Boston. The high expectations from such an ancestry have been remarkably fulfilled in lieut .- gov. Marsh and his descendants, among whom are the late Hon. Charles Marsh of Woodstock, the late professor and president James Marsh of the University of Vermont, the
mittee may have waited for more votes for Councillors to be "brought in," and so did not complete the report.
The date of the Council's letter to Robinson, notifying him of his election, was March 14, 1778, being the third day of the session, which shows that the completion of the counting of votes for Councillors had been for some reason delayed. It is certain that Mr. Slade was too easily misled. He was Secretary of State and had the records in his possession. If, therefore, he had printed the Council journals for 1778 with the Assembly journals which he did put into the State Papers, he would inevitably have discovered the error that is now, the edi- tor believes, corrected for the first time. Mr. Slade was probably mis- led by the list in Ira Allen's History .- See Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. I, p. 392. Allen wrote his history in England, twenty years after the election of 1778, and wrote it, as he declared, from memory. If Mr. Throop had been at first supposed to be elected, though the fact turned out to be oth- erwise, Allen's memory would have retained the name ; and with a good degree of confidence also, as the facts were that Mr. Robinson did not at- tend the first (March) session, but the subsequent ones, and Allen himself did not attend the April and May sessions, when Robinson did-the de- benture-rolls proving both facts. Moreover, Allen's name does not ap- pear in the only other session of that first Council-June, 1778-except as having been designated on two committees for work to be done in the then future. These appointments probably were made in his absence. In any event, the record amply disproves the accuracy of Allen's men- ory.
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Governor and Council-Introduction.
late Dr. Leonard Marsh of Burlington, and the Hon. George P. Marsh of Burlington, who yet lives to command, through his great attainments. the homage of the best scholars in Europe and America. The descend- ants of Col. Marsh, specially those just named. possessed in a remarka- ble degree the intellectual qualities ascribed to the colonel by his grand- son Roswell Marsh, as hereinafter noticed.
Col. Marsh settled in Hartford, Vt., in 1772, and soon was engaged actively and influentially in public affairs. He was then, of course, a resi- dent of Cumberland county and under the jurisdiction of New York. IIe was lieutenant-colonel of the upper regiment of that county in August 1775, colonel in January 1776, and a member of the provincial Congress of New York for the sessions commencing in February, May 14, and July 9, 1776. He was absent during the whole of the February and part of the July session. In Feb. 1777 he received an order from Maj .- Gen. Schuyler to enlist every fifth man in his regiment for the purpose of reinforcing the continental army at Ticonderoga, which he executed promptly. In July of that year his regiment came under the jurisdiction of Vermont, and August 13th he was ordered by the Council of Safety to march one half of it at once to Bennington. A family tradition is that he was in the battle of Bennington, which Gov. Hall doubts, but adds that he may have been subsequently in service on the Hudson. The Hon. Roswell Marsh of Steubenville, Ohio, grandson of the lieut .- governor, in whose family he lived until he was eighteen, is certain that leading public men and members of the family spoke of his having a share at Bennington, and of camp life while the regiment guarded the river to prevent Bur- goyne's retreat and cut off supplies from Canada. He added that Rev. Lyman Potter, (formerly of Norwich, Vt., and afterward a resident of Ohio, near Steubenville.) was chaplain of lieut .- gov. Marsh's regiment, and was at Bennington [after the battle, most probably,] and in camp at Whitehall, Fort Ann. Fort Edward, and Sandy Hill. Gov. Hall is undoubtedly correct, since the order dated at Bennington Aug. : 3 could not possibly reach Col Marsh at Hartford in time for him to get his men into the battle at Bennington on the 16th : but the order confirms the remainder of Roswell Marsh's statement. Col. Marsh's regiment, (half at least.) having gone into the field under orders, could not leave it until a discharge had been granted.
Col. Marsh was a member of the Windsor Convention of June 4; also July 2, and Dec. 24. 1777. being vice president ; and by the July con- vention he was appointed chairman of the committee raised to secure arms to supply the state. In March 1778 he was elected lieutenant- Governor, to which office he was re-elected in 1779 and annually from 1787 to 1790. In the same month he was designated member and chair- man of the court of confiscation for eastern Vermont. He was chair- man of a Committee of Safety for a section of Vermont, and apparently of New Hampshire also, with head-quarters at Dresden, which was that part of the territory of Hanover that was then owned by the corporation
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Governor and Council-Introduction.
of Dartmouth College. He represented Hartford in the General Assembly of 1781 and '82. He was one of the first Council of Censors, in 1785. From 1787 to 1795, nine years, he was chief judge of Windsor county court, his last public office.
Col. Marsh (said Roswell Marsh) went to school but a single month. and his advantages from books were limited; but what he read he fully mastered and then held it with a tenacious memory. He excelled in acquiring knowledge from conversation; and his own was exceedingly interesting. His knowledge, however acquired, was utilized by a close logical mind. His temper was equable, and children loved him. In politics nothing, save remarks disrespectful to President Washington, ever disturbed him, for he was of the pure Washingtonian school, and trained his children in it. He was an earnest Christian, but free from bigotry. In person he was of large stature and well proportioned- broad shouldered, large boned, lean, and of great muscular power; in weight over two hundred. His dress was of the Washington pattern- small clothes and the triangular hat. He was a bold and graceful horse- man, kept a chaise, but never used it for himself alone. Col. Marsh died February 9, 1811.1-See Blake's Biographical Dictionary; Eastern Vermont; Vt. Historical Society Collections, vol. 1: Hon. James Barrett's Memorial Address on Hon. Charles Marsh, 1870, specially the letter of Roswell Marsh appended, from which this sketch of the personal traits of Col. Marsh has been drawn; and Drake's Dictionary of Amer- ican Biography.
Col. TIMOTHY BROWNSON was among the first permanent settlers of Sunderland, in 1766, but in 1764 he had been one of the committee appointed to settle with the collector of the grantees, superintend the allotments, and survey and lay out the roads in that town. He was from New Framing- ham, Conn. He was a prominent man in the civil affairs of the State, one of the most trusted and confidential advisers of gov. Chittenden, a delegate in the Conventions of Jan. 16 and Sept. 25. 1776, and was of the twelve advizers appointed to attend the next Convention. He was also a member of the Convention which adopted the Constitution, and council- lor 1778-'84 and 1787-'94. He was one of the eight persons named by gov. Chittenden as having been cognizant of the Haldimand negotiation, and a member of the Convention of 1791 which adopted the Constitution of the United States .- See Vt. Hist. Mag., vol. I, p. 239; Early History, p. 458; and Deming's Catalogue, 1778 to 1851.
1 The dates of his birth and death are given about a year earlier in Thompson's Gazetteer, 1824. The dates of birth and marriage above are from the official records; and the date of death is from the tomb-stone at his grave.
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Governor and Council-Introduction.
For the following biographical notice of BENJAMIN EMMONS, of Wood- stock, the editor is indebted to HENRY S. DANA, Esq.
The family to which Benjamin Emmons belonged, lived originally in Massachusetts, but soon after the close of the French and Indian war eight brothers of the family had settled in the region of Hinsdale and Chesterfield, N. H. These brothers were all remarkable for vigorous frames, great muscular strength, and active spirits. Several of them had seen service in the last war, and had made themselves noted throughout all the borders for courage and for deeds of daring. In April. 1772, Ben- jamin Emmons left Chesterfield and settled with his family in the town- ship of Woodstock. He took at once an active part in organizing the new settlement, and at the first town meeting held in May. 1773, he was chosen supervisor. The duties of this office, which he filled for two years, made him familiar with the civil affairs of Cumberland county and with all the political movements of the day, over which his good judg- ment and his faculty for business must soon have begun to exercise an influence. At the annual town meeting in Woodstock, May 1775, he was chosen a member of the Committee of Safety, and he remained on this Committee as long as it existed. In Angust of the same year he was a lieutenant, under New York, of the upper regiment of Cumberland County, and in June 1776 a member of the County Committee of Safety.
From the outset Emmons' own political sentiments seem to have been clear and pronounced. He was for the independence of the colonies as against the mother country, and when in the New Hampshire Grants the break with New York was fairly begun, he was for the independence of the Grants. Though not enrolled among the members of the Dorset Convention, at the adjourned session of this Convention, held in West- minster Oct. 30, 1776. he was placed on a committee to canvass Cumber- land and Gloucester counties, for the purpose of making the people acquainted with the objects of the Convention and of stirring up their minds to favor a separation from New York. At the next two sessions of this Convention, held the first in Westminster and the second in Wind- sor, he was present as delegate from Woodstock. All this active service prepared the way for his being returned to the Convention which assem- bled at Windsor on the 2d of July, 1777, and framed a constitution for the new State of Vermont.1 The people were not unmindful of his ser- vices thus far in securing the independence of Vermont, and at the first election held under the constitution elected him one of the twelve coun- cilors. Furthermore, when it seemed good to establish a court of con- fiscation, soon after the General Assembly met in March. 1778, Emmons was appointed one of its members. His sound judgment and well-known patriotism were sufficient reasons why he might be made a member of
1 That Emmons sat in this Convention may be accepted as a fact on the express testimony of Dr. Joseph A. Gallup, formerly of Woodstock, and of Dr. Lewis Emmons, now living in Hartland.
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Governor and Council-Introduction.
this court, but with some minds it may have added to his fitness for the post that he could show in his own town seven thousand acres of land to be confiscated, formerly the property of Charles Ward Apthrop of New York.
After serving as councillor several years, Emmons in 1781 was ap- pointed assistant judge of Windsor county court, his commission bear- ing date the 16th of April. For some reason he declined the office at the October session of the legislature in the same year. From 1779 he was elected each year to the council till 1786. In that year he was chosen to represent Woodstock in the General Assembly, and it is a good proof of the high regard his fellow citizens had for him that he was called to serve as their representative eleven years in all, receiving his last election 1803. Likewise that he was a leading member of the House, is well known from the ample testimony of such men as Luce of Hartland, and Perry of Pomfret, and others who were members with him. For one act at least the people of his own town can credit him. After Windsor connty was incorporated in 1781, with his usual sagacity he planned and arranged that as soon as possible Woodstock should become the shire town of the county. He accomplished his object finally by the passage of an act to that effect the first year he was a member of the House. and the opponents of the measure did not submit with good grace to the easy manner in which he had overcome them by his superior tactics.
To conclude, Emmons was chosen in 1791 a member of the conven- tion which adopted the constitution of the United States, and one of the council of censors for 1799. With his election to the House in 1803 his career as a public man ended. He had now nearly reached his fourscore years. For a period of thirty years he had devoted his best energies to public affairs, and had exercised a large influence over the political move- ments in which he had been involved. Nor had he been a less active and useful man in the town where he lived, with wisdom and good will doing his part in matters of merely local interest. The affairs of the school district received his careful attention : as a justice of the peace his judgment and equity made his work abundant and his name famous. As money was scarce in those days and neat stock was used largely in payment of debts, "Squire Emmons" was the man to whom every body went, for years, to fix the price at which stock should be received.
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