USA > Vermont > The Vermont lease lands > Part 7
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The physical manifestations of government itself provide a nice il- lustration of this primitivism and also offer another possible influence
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for an unclear status of such matters as the lease lands. Mention will be made of the way in which the state treasurer's records were han- dled.82 Few were the men who could devote more than spare time to their responsibilities as officers of the state. Indeed, the very seat of government was for a time itinerant. It was not until 1808 that a perma- nent location for the state capitol existed. Prior to that time the meet- ings of the legislature were convened at various places in the state.83 It needs no great effort of imagination to conjure a picture of what could happen to state records under such circumstances. William Slade, Jr., of Middlebury provided about the only fixed point and firm anchorage for the business of the state. As secretary of state (1815-1823) he maintained the files of legislation and other such records as the pro- ceedings of the governor and council and the censors. And in later years he made some compilations of these records. The student of the Ver- mont government of those days is heavily dependent on Slade's State Papers.
Two illustrations of the relatively poorly developed condition of state affairs may suffice to demonstrate the effects of such influences. It has been remarked earlier that in the present study it was found neces- sary to scan the legislative acts page by page.84 Slade, in his compilation of state papers of 1823, spoke urgently on this situation, and from his exhortation one can see that the somewhat willy-nilly process of legis- lation had by then assumed serious proportions.85 The second example comes from the experience of this research. In the work of identifying
82. Infra, pp. 85-86.
83. Windsor, Bennington, Westminster, Manchester, Norwich, Rutland, Charlestown, N. H., Newbury, Castleton, Vergennes, Middlebury, Burlington, Dan- ville, and Woodstock.
84. Supra, p. 4.
85. The early institutions of a government are peculiarly liable to be lost sight of, in the progress of improvement. Superceded by new systems, they are supposed to have lost their value, and are permitted to pass into ob- livion. This has been, in a peculiar sense, true of the original constitution and laws of Vermont. The circumstances under which the government was formed, were eminently calculated to give to its institutions an imperfect, unsettled character. At the expiration of seven years, the constitution was revised and altered; and at the end of the next septenary, was again re- vised, and adopted in the form which it still retains. In the year 1787, the whole system of laws was revised, and formed into a new code, and the statutes passed previous to that time-a few only excepted-were repealed. Thirty-five years only, have elapsed since that revision, and not a single entire copy of the laws passed previous to that time, is to be found. Even the office of the Secretary of State has not preserved the laws passed dur- ing the first year after the organization of the government.
Intro., pp. xv-xvi.
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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
and classifying the town charters for purposes of identifying the reser- vations of public shares, the charters issued by the State of Vermont were found to present infinitely more trouble than those earlier ones emanating from Wentworth's offices.
These are the principal aspects of the period of the independent re- public of Vermont which are considered as having had an influence on the nature of the development of the lease lands. The climactic event, of course, was the agreement arrived at in 1790 with New York which opened the way for the admission of Vermont to the Union, but for this study it is significant because it was the instrument by which the New York grants of land were extinguished and external influences on the lease lands ceased.
Established and recognized statehood commenced for Vermont in March of 1791 upon her admission to the Union as the fourteenth state. At that point questions of her lands and the source of rights thereto were at an end. From that point forward any problems arising would be domestic to the state, between individuals or between individuals and the state. Consequently, the century and a half since that event need not detain us long. No more is needed than that amount of infor- mation which will furnish a generalized picture of the course of develop- ment of the state and thereby provide an awareness of any actions or influences which might have played important parts in the development of the lease land system. Of some such elements, only mention will be made here in order to give cohesion to the story of the process of de- velopment ; they will be given more detailed and adequate treatment at various points in later chapters in which their values are better to be elucidated.
Essentially, one may say that with the admission to the Union we come to the close of the dramatic aspects of the development of Ver- mont. Since then the state has been without crises and has avoided any conditions of turmoil such as had afflicted it. The story of Vermont is one of quiet stability in which there has been a mild, slow, but steady, development. There have been periods of strain, as during the War of 1812, the Civil War, and the great depression of the 1930's, but these have not been of an intensity to be described as critical. There have been periods in which one or another part of the state has seen an upsurge of activity and prosperity; the period during which lumbering loomed large, the years of greatest prosperity in the marble and granite quar- ries, the Addison County boom in the raising of Merino sheep are ex-
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amples. Basically, however, it is a picture of farmers on relatively small farms, with villages as their community centers. In the long run pic- ture, the fluctuations in the price of milk and the consequent size of the monthly milk check are of more value as a prime influence in the state than have been the episodic economic incidents. Metropolitan develop- ment has been slight ; not more than some half-dozen communities have grown to the stature of small cities.86 Industrial development has been extremely limited. There are a few such activities of importance, but they are not of a size or influence in the state which might be expected by people from other sections. It has happened that the industries of Vermont have had a fame quite disproportionate in its extent to the actual size of the concerns.
There have been population changes in Vermont. But, again, they have had no dramatic quality; they have been reasonably slow and quietly absorbed so that they have had none of the shock force on social organization that has attended great and sudden influxes and departures of people in other regions. The census figures delineate sharply how mild have been the fluctuations.87 Internally, there has occurred a shift of population which has moved the center of gravity from the south half of the state to the north. There has been a gradual rise in the aver- age age level of the population which has largely resulted from a tend- ency of young people to emigrate, and this fact is sometimes given credit for the continuing conservatism of the state through the stresses of the twentieth century.88
Probably the most profound population change has been the arrival over a period of time of a significant number of people of non-anglo- saxon extraction.89 This movement has been composed of two distinct and unrelated elements. One was the influx of foreigners as industrial labor. This has essentially been limited to the granite and marble quar- ries, centering around Barre and Rutland respectively. The other ele- ment has been an infiltration of French-Canadians who have come in
86. The largest, Burlington, can claim little more than 30,000 as a population figure.
87. 1791-85,499; 1800-154,465; 1810-217,895; 1820-235,966; 1830-280,- 652; 1840-291,948; 1850-314,120; 1860-315,098; 1870-330,551; 1880-332,286; 1890-332,422; 1900-343,641; 1910-355,956; 1920-352,428 ; 1930-359,611; 1940- 359,231. Figures from the United States Census Reports.
88. Herbert E. Putnam, "Vermont Population Trends-1790 to 1930 as Re- vealed in the Census Reports," Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society, New Series, IX, No. 1 (1941), 25-26.
89. Ibid., pp. 14, 16, 17, 19, 21-22.
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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
from Quebec and settled on farms, in many instances farms which have been abandoned by the Yankees but are worked by the Frenchmen with their larger families and acceptance of a somewhat lower standard of living.90 The addition of these foreign elements, it should be remarked, has resulted in a rather important increase in the growth and influence of the Catholic Church. But, as with so much else in Vermont, the change has been so gradual and unattended by drama that the foreigners and the priests have been accommodated within the framework of the older anglo-saxon protestant community without great stress, and they have had no appreciable influence toward re-orienting established political and social customs.91
Of far more significance for the lease lands than the general demo- graphic developments are the moving about of individual families and the land acquisitions of lumber companies. Despite the stability displayed by over-all figures, there has been a surprisingly large amount of move- ment of individuals and families. Families sometimes have died out locally as the younger generation has forsaken Vermont or the family has failed to procreate. And families have moved away. The latter ac- tivity, as could be expected, has had a variety of cause and procedure. Relatively inefficient farms have been abandoned or have suffered mort- gage foreclosure. Moves have sometimes been made to what looked to be more desirable farm locations. Some families have moved from the farm into town, etc. Whatever the circumstance, it is such incidents which are pregnant with possibilities for effects on the lease lands. Radical changes in ownership are opportunities for loss of identity of lease lots. The forest industries-lumbering, and pulp for paper and plywood-have posed a special problem for the lease lands. The elements of this problem are the relative inaccessibility of the land in which the
90. One other isolated incursion of foreigners is worth notice. One town has a settlement of Finns who have maintained a relative degree of solidarity. This has an interest here because it involved a small crisis over the lease lands. The Finnish colony got together and decided not to pay any more rent on its S. P. G. lands be- cause they believed the Diocese was not sure of the location of the lots. Fortuitously, the land agent for the Diocese at that time could speak some Finnish, and he was able to convince the Finns that they had to pay the rent. Statement by J. F. Wilson.
91. In illustration, the March, 1946, town meeting in Montpelier voted funds for the operation of school buses, including the provision that the parochial schools should be financed in their school buses on the same basis as the buses operated for the public schools. The interesting fact of the matter is that the action was taken without any of the public debate or excitment which has attended similar proposals elsewhere in the United States. See various issues of the Montpelier Argus during Feb. and March, 1946.
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lumber companies are interested, the issue of stripping versus harvesting timber, and the problem of a satisfactory mode of payment of lease rent. These are to be elaborated in Chapter VII when the lease lands come under immediate direct analysis.
As to the activities of the state government affecting lease lands, the period since the admission to the Union may be characterized as one of piece-meal fumbling and irresponsibility, induced by failure to rec- ognize the magnitude of the lease land system as a political institution. Once the program of chartering was rounded out, the state government appears to have lost sight of the reservations of land which were estab- lished in the Wentworth charters and extended in its own charters. That is to say, the lease land system has been lost sight of as an instru- ment of public policy for which the legislature, having established the system as a major phenomenon, might well have felt a continuing sense of responsibility respecting the development of the system and its utility.
Relatively early, the legislature assigned the college and grammar school shares, the direct control of which had been in its hands.92 The effort to confiscate the glebe and S. P. G. shares was likewise early in the period. With the exception of the report on lease lands rendered in 1878, these are the only major efforts of the state government up to legislation passed in 1935 and 1937.93 Otherwise, one encounters only an intricate mass of legislative acts, interspersed with judicial decisions, re- lating either directly or indirectly to localized situations. Land tax acts, acts changing town lines and specifying the disposition of lease lands involved, acts concerned with statutes of limitations, and other topics of legislation have attempted to handle particular problems surrounding lease lots, but no general legislation designed to maintain the lease lands as effective instruments of policy is found up to 1937. The courts like- wise have been particularistic in their treatment of the lease lands. Gradually, the lease lands have become more and more obscured in the eyes of the state officers.
This survey of the development of Vermont should be rounded out
92. The first grammar school which received definite grant of the grammar school lands was the Caledonia County Grammar School at Peacham. Laws of Ver- mont, 1794-1796, 1795, p. 29. The same year, the selectmen of each town were di- rected by the legislature to lease out for not more than ten years any lands not al- ready leased by the grammar school trustees. Ibid., pp. 14-15. The college lands were granted to the corporation of the University of Vermont by its charter in 1791. Laws of Vermont, 1791, pp. 29-30.
93. Infra, pp. 131-135.
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by a brief description of political organization in the state at the present time, as related to the lease lands.
State-local relationships must be considered briefly, as these have had their part in what has happened to the lease lands. Vermont has continued along the traditional path of New England governmental organization with the emphasis on decentralization and local determina- tion of affairs as far as is at all possible. The New England town form has continued largely undisturbed. Below the state there are fourteen counties organized. These are no more than the shadow of county gov- ernment as it exists elsewhere.9ª The chief function of the county is as a judicial area, being the jurisdictional unit for the session of the su- perior court. It is also the unit for election of the upper house of the legislature. Outside of the court records, it performs none of the func- tion of recording which is so important a use of the county elsewhere in New England. The only immediate concern of the county as to lease lands is that previously discussed wherein the county boards supervise and administer unorganized areas in some of which public shares were reserved, and the fact that the grammar schools for which lands were reserved were to be schools on a county basis.
Incorporated cities exist in Vermont on a small scale, there being a total of eight of them.95 This development has apparently been basically a matter of the same movement which in other sections of the country is referred to as city-county consolidation or separation; a move to divorce the "metropolitan" portion of the community from the sur- rounding rural area, in this case from the remainder of the town. Some changes of organization occur, including the substitution of a mayor and board of aldermen for the board of selectmen. But such changes are not of essential significance : even the town meeting continues to function. City incorporation has involved some of the lease lands because such separations have necessitated a distribution of either the lands or their avails between the city and the remainder of the town of which it had been a part. Many of the villages are incorporated and thus have a vil-
94. For example, Addison County, which is one of the more important coun- ties economically, with a comparatively large area (756 square miles) and a 1940 population of 17,944, had as its total receipts in 1946 the amount of $3,903.16. Its total disbursements were $3,968.54; it had on hand at the end of the year $434.62 and a debt of $500.00. The proposed tax for 1947 was 2¢ on the Grand List. Ver- mont Year Book, 1944-45, p. 21; Addison Independent, Feb. 28, 1947.
95. Barre, Burlington, Montpelier, Newport, Rutland, St. Albans, Vergennes, Winooski.
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lage meeting, village officials and village administration, including a village tax. But the distinction between the incorporated city and the incorporated village is that the latter remains a part of the town in which it lies and is subject to all the features of the town government-the village government just adds another layer of administration by which to conduct additional or intensified functions not needed by the more rural parts of the town.
The primary unit of government in Vermont is the town, and for our purposes we may include in this category the cities.96 And in most respects it is also the most important unit of government. Even though the state government has increased its functions and interests, it is still dominated by the towns by virtue of the organization of the lower house of the legislature, there being one member for each town or city. Thus the town government holds the spotlight in Vermont affairs and par- ticularly so in this study. Of the nine categories of lease lands, three are administered by private institutions, five have fully fallen to the towns for control and administration, and a sixth has, partially. The partial exception is the share reserved for the first settled minister, and it has undergone a variety of fates.
The state government is not significant in a study of the lease lands. It has to a remarkable degree abdicated any interest in them or control over them. Of the major state administrative divisions, only that of the Commissioner of Taxes has even the semblance of data on them, and this is neither adequate nor reliable. Three state departments have func- tions which tend to bring them into direct contact with the lease lands : the Water Conservation Board; the Highway Department; and the Forestry Service. All of these carry on activities which may result in state acquisition or utilization of lease lands.
As a sort of historical footnote, this chapter may well close by re- marking that once again an outside jurisdiction of government is inter- ested in the lease lands of Vermont. The federal government during recent years has developed a federal forestry service reservation in the state and in the process has acquired some lots of lease lands.
96. School district organization will be described in Chapters VI and VII during the explanation of lease lands reserved for educational benefit. The schools properly do not administer lease lands but depend on the towns for this.
Chapter III GENERAL CIRCUMSTANCES AFFECTING THE LEASE LANDS
During the earlier stages of this study, it had been the hope to pre- sent a relatively clear and complete picture of the contemporary situa- tion of the several grants of lands and the status of the particular lots or parcels. As the study proceeded, it became apparent that such a pro- gram would be quite beyond the realm of possibilities. Finally, fuller acquaintance with the whole problem made it apparent that the proper scope of the present study should be to present the existence of the lands as a political and administrative phenomenon and, as a part of such presentation, to indicate the confusion in which they exist, together with the impossibility of any short or easy road to clarifying their status. Mr. Erwin M. Harvey, for many years Commissioner of Taxes of the State of Vermont, made a statement pertinent to the latter aim. He said that he had been approached, a few years previously, by two mem- bers of the legislature. They felt some concern about the lease lands and asked his opinion of the situation. He told them that he agreed entirely with them that the lands needed a thorough study and that he would be agreeable to their introducing a bill to the effect that the Commissioner of Taxes should conduct such an investigation. But only on condition that they specify in the bill that he should have at least five years for the job and a budget of at least $5,000.00 a year for it, so that he could hire experts as a staff, to include a land title attorney, a surveyor, etc. At that time, the writer was somewhat skeptical of this extremely pessi- mistic attitude, particularly so because of the general conservatism of thinking which Mr. Harvey had exhibited in previous conversations. However, he has become converted to this position through greater familiarity with the situation.1
1. It is of interest to note that Mr. Harvey was well acquainted with the prob- lem of the lands, both generally and particularly. He was in the office of the Com- missioner of Taxes for twenty years. Furthermore, he was for forty years a member of the Trustees of the Washington County Grammar School, being the President of
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Mr. Harvey had attempted to bring together and make available to the state government some information respecting the lands. Vermont law provides for a quadrennial report from the towns to the state on assessed property values in the state.2 He was dissatisfied because the town listers were not listing exempted lands as required by the law. He revised the form of the quadrennial appraisal report, adding first a Schedule B and later a Schedule C to the form. These schedules re- spectively called for a listing of all lands sequestered for public, pious and charitable uses and paying an annual rent, and those so sequestered and not paying an annual rent. He stated to the writer that the results of this form of report had not been to his satisfaction at all. Additional information has been brought out, but it is fragmentary and not trust- worthy as to accuracy.3
The writer added to Mr. Harvey's dissatisfaction by pointing out to him that the form itself involved some confusion. As it is worded, it does not segregate the lands under consideration in this study from other land devoted to "public, pious and charitable uses." This had not previously occurred to him and thus forms a nice example of the need for a clearer understanding in Vermont of the lands now under study. The distinction between lands sequestered from taxation for "public, pious and charitable uses" by virtue of the grants in the town charters, and other such sequestered lands, as for example, those donated by in- dividual benefactors, is of considerable consequence to the Commis- sioner of Taxes and other agencies of the state. The latter type of se- questered lands is not a responsibility of town officials so long as their use is for the specified purpose. On the other hand, town officials are charged with very definite administrative and fiscal responsibilities for several classes of the lands provided for in the town charters.4
The existing confusion concerning the lease lands can be attributed to the combination of a variety of influences. First, in point of time, was the set of circumstances under which the lands came into being as grants to the several beneficiaries, as was described in the previous chapter. In the case of the four reservations contained in the charters
the board for seven years. In this capacity he was directly concerned with the ad- ministration of one group of lease lands.
2. P. L., ch. 33, sec. 592; ch. 35, sec. 638.
3. In the Quadrennial Abstract of 1942, for example, 71 towns failed to fill out Schedule B, and 91 towns either failed to fill out Schedule B or C, or both, or made entries so defective as to be beyond exact interpretation.
4. P. L., ch. 146, secs. 3536, 3537, 3538 and 3539.
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GENERAL CIRCUMSTANCES
issued by Benning Wentworth, there is to be recognized immediately the contest between the governments of the Provinces of New Hamp- shire and New York respecting jurisdiction over the area lying between the Connecticut River and Lake Champlain. During this period of con- tention one finds conflicting land grants being made ; others being made which were thought, or claimed, to be conflicting, although not so in fact; further confusion due to redesignations, upon New York con- firmations of Wentworth grants; confusion in cases of re-grants by Wentworth of earlier grants in which the passage of time or commer- cial transactions led to new lists of proprietors.5 All of this produced uncertain status of the shares originally reserved for public purposes. It should be noted, too, that the Wentworth charters fell into two time groups, one occurring in the early 1750's and the other not until the 1760's, and this likewise allowed of confusion as to locations.
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