USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 13
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48
It is likely enough that the disorder which became rampant in Windsor this year caused the interruptions in the town and proprietors' meetings of 1770. What the initial outbreak was or just when it started is unknown, but it is clear that it be- came an uprising of serious moment and was so regarded throughout the New Hampshire Grants. Even Ira Allen's History of Vermont, which is inclined to ignore those incidents in which no member of the Allen family was concerned, records that "Mr. Nathan Stone, of Windsor, raised a large party to oppose the overbearing power of the Governor and Council of New York, . . . >> 2 Governor Hiland Hall also mentions the uprising briefly in his Early History of Vermont, but he inserts his notice of it apparently as an afterthought and not
1 No record of the building of this schoolhouse has been found. The "public yard" referred to in the minutes of the meeting was the property which now in- cludes the Old South graveyard and the green to the north and south sides of the church. Somewhere on these premises this first schoolhouse was built, if it was, in fact, erected. There was a schoolhouse on the Common-perhaps on the site of the present Windsor High School-as early as 1788.
2 Allen's History of Vermont, p. 22.
146
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
in its proper chronological place.1 This uprising caused great concern at New York for, although there had been previous brawls or altercations in various parts of the New Hampshire Grants, this was an insurrection of formidable proportions, was conducted with leadership and organization and seemed directed against the authority of the Provincial Government of New York rather than in defending some specific parcel of land. Of the latter character had been the earlier disturbances in Springfield, Pownal, and Bennington. In the first, the aggressors were the Benning Wentworth grantees who had found and evicted squatters in Springfield township.2 In the second, two alleged New Hampshire officials and some claim- ants under New Hampshire titles had evicted some old Dutch settlers in Pownal who held their titles under the ancient New York Hoosick Grant and thereupon the evictors were lodged in Albany jail.3 The last of these three clashes, whatever it amounted to, was in Bennington in the month of October, 1769, when commissioners in running partition lines for claimants under the New York Wallumschaak Grant had been frightened or pretended to have been frightened away from the Breaken- ridge farm by New Hampshire settlers.4 This Bennington occurence seems greatly to have startled the New York authorities and therefore has received an exaggerated place in some of the histories. If there was on that occasion any rioting or resistance of authority as claimed by the New York authorities5 then Breakenridge and Samuel Robinson, junior, in giving their sworn account of it were perjurers.6 All of these episodes were trivial compared with what now took place in Windsor.
The return of Benjamin Wait to Windsor from New York with his story of the trial of the Deans and of the attempts at interference on the part of John Grout and Judge Wells may have struck the Windsor settlers as ground for righteous wrath. Then the visit to Windsor by Deputy Marshal Whiting in the fruitless effort to levy the execution against Captain
1 Early Vermont History, p. 157.
2 B. H. Hall's History of Eastern Vermont, p. 117.
34 Doc. Hist., pp. 356-357. 4 H. Hall's Early Vermont History, p. 117.
5 4 Doc. Hist., p. 379. 6 Id., p. 380.
147
RIOTS BREAK OUT IN WINDSOR
Dean's goods and chattels, the knowledge that Judge Wells and Grout together had made the levy impossible, the realiza- tion of the fact that a judge and an attorney of a New York Provincial Court had partially circumvented Windsor's friend, Governor John Wentworth, of New Hampshire,-all these considerations may have been enough to stir the people of Windsor to resort to violence. Further to aggravate their in- dignation Captain Dean, on returning to Windsor after serving his term in prison, spread the story that he had been supported in affluence by the liberality of rich men in New York who con- sidered his cause theirs, and that he had lived well at little or no expense.1
It was towards the end of the year 1769 and near the time of Whiting's visit to Windsor with his writs of execution that Colonel Nathan Stone became resolved that no writs or pre- cepts out of the inferior court of Common Pleas or the court of General Sessions for the county should be served in Windsor. He announced that he had become convinced that the estab- lishment of Cumberland County was a sham and not a reality and that the patent or ordinance for erecting the county was a libel in reciting that the inhabitants had petitioned for it. All of these thoughts and conclusions he confided, some five months later, to Judge Samuel Wells as they were together riding horseback through Windsor. Colonel Stone further said that justice was not to be obtained in the county on account of the corruption of the judges, the justices, and the other court offi- cers. He mentioned particularly the sheriff, Daniel Whipple, who had recently been in Windsor to serve some precepts and who had been resisted and threatened by the citizens. The chief influence for evil, in Colonel Stone's opinion, was John Grout by whom the courts "were ruled entirely," and the colonel "was determined to oppose their authority while he had a drop of blood in his veins."
Colonel Stone could hardly have found a more interested listener than Judge Wells himself, for the latter was one of the three county judges of whose character the colonel had spoken so severely. Having counseled Colonel Stone to re- flect on the danger of resisting the officers of the law Judge
1 Letter, John Wentworth to Lord Hillsborough, Oct. 22, 1770.
148
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
Wells expressed the belief that if the people would offer no further resistance to lawful authority they, i. e., the colonel and the judge, could induce the "civil authority" to pass over the recent lawlessness "in the tenderest manner." Judge Wells further suggested that if Grout had done wrong there was doubtless some lawful way to punish him. Therefore he ex- pressed the hope that Colonel Stone might reconsider his rash resolutions. But it was of no avail. Colonel Stone asserted that his determination had not been formed "on a sudden" but was the result of mature reflection and had been fixed in his mind for at least five or six months, that while he had life he would oppose the sheriff of the county and that "the people of Windsor and some other places would join him and stand by him to the last drop of their blood." 1
This announcement of insurrection, coming as it did, from a colonel of the militia, a former sheriff of the county and a then assistant justice of the county court, boded seriously for the peace of the New Hampshire Grants. That there was a grievance against Grout and Judge Wells was hardly to be denied. Of the other two judges, Judge Chandler's integrity has been questioned,2 while Judge Joseph Lord, although spoken of highly by Mr. B. H. Hall, seems popularly to have been considered insane.3 Of the assistant justices, of whom there were seven, viz., Oliver Willard, Thomas Chandler, junior, John Chandler, Samuel Stevens, Nathan Stone, William Willard, and Thomas Bridgman, we know that John Chandler, as clerk of the court was subsequently removed for misconduct,4 and that Thomas Chandler, junior, was involved with his father in questionable real estate transactions.5- Whipple, the sheriff, was afterwards under charges of extortion and other misdemeanors in office.6 Very likely the court was not such as to inspire any degree of confidence and probably not a single judge or justice had the slightest education in the law. Perhaps the judge who had given most offence to the Windsor people was the one for whom Colonel Stone had the most regard, for even in the trying days of the American Revolution Judge
14 Doc. Hist., 394.
3 N. Chipman's Reports, p. 61.
5 N. Chipman's Reports, p. 61.
2 History of Eastern Vermont, pp. 636-637.
4 History of Eastern Vermont, p 638.
6 History of Eastern Vermont, p. 726.
149
RIOTS BREAK OUT IN WINDSOR
Wells's attractive qualities were enough to keep him on terms of friendship with the most noted Vermont leaders while he himself was consistently a Tory. Indeed on that day in May, 1770, as Colonel Stone and Judge Wells rode through Windsor township, the colonel assured his companion that it was friendship that induced him to keep the judge company through the town until most of the settlements had been passed, for, if the judge should ride alone through Windsor "he would be in danger of being assaulted by the people and have some violence done to him." 1
It is found by an examination of the records in the Docu- mentary History of New York that one of the first transactions leading to the Windsor riots concerned Joseph Wait, Benjamin Wait, Nathan Stone, and Samuel Stone. What these men had done or what they had been charged with doing is unknown. It is known that a little later Joseph Wait and some other per- sons were under indictment in the Court of General Sessions on the charge of rioting, but it is not clear when the offence is alleged to have occurred or who the co-defendants were. The four men whose names have just been mentioned were for some cause or other apprehended by Sheriff Daniel Whipple sometime in the spring of 1770 and were rescued and freed by "a number of armed men." Of this arrest and the rescue nothing else seems now discoverable. A little later,-sometime in the month of May-Sheriff Whipple gathered together in Chester and elsewhere a posse of fifteen or sixteen persons for the purpose of re-arresting these same four men. Of the mem- bers of the posse, besides Sheriff Whipple, no names have been found except those of John Grout and Judge Joseph Lord. Grout's account of this transaction, which is set forth in an affidavit before Chief Justice Horsmanden of the Supreme Court of New York as the basis of a civil action for damages, is very explicit.
The sheriff with his posse on entering the township of Windsor made for the home of Joseph Wait. There they learned that the man they sought was at Benjamin Wait's. Proceeding thence towards the house of Benjamin Wait they had gone but a short distance when they saw approaching
14 Doc. Hist., 394.
150
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
them in riotous manner a body of about forty persons armed with guns, swords, pistols and clubs. By what inspiration, accident, or premeditation this assemblage had formed itself just at that place and time no history tells. Grout mentions twenty-seven of those whom he remembers seeing in this band of rioters: first Colonel Nathan Stone, Joseph Wait, Benjamin Wait, and Samuel Stone, who, according to Grout, were the men whom the sheriff sought to re-arrest: then Peter Leavens, David Stone, Benjamin Thurston, Samuel Gridley, David Getchell, Jacob Getchell, Elisha Hawley, Ebenezer Hoising- ton, Ebenezer Hoisington, junior, Simeon Mills, Enoch Judd, Ebenezer Curtis, Solomon Emmons, John Benjamin, Andrew Norton, Jonathan Noble, John White, Samuel Whiston, Elnathan Strong, Joseph Thomson, Joseph King, Steel Smith, and Aaron Bartlett. Before this representative band of Wind- sor citizens and their allies marched, sword in hand, Colonel Stone. Nearly every family that is known to have lived in Windsor at that time is found identified with this particular body. The conspicuous absentees are Thomas Cooper, Israel Curtis, Andrew Blunt, Joab Hoisington, and the Deans. The absence of Zedekiah Stone, Hezekiah Thomson, and Caleb Benjamin could be accounted for by the dignity of age.
As the posse and the mob approached within earshot of each other Sheriff Whipple in due form of law made proclama- tion that the rioters disperse. This produced no effect and a moment later Joseph Wait with some of the others rushed upon the sheriff and the posse. Singling out John Grout as the par- ticular object of attack, Joseph Wait, who had a pistol in his left hand and a club in his right, struck at Grout twice with the club. Grout managed to avoid the blows whereupon Wait leveled the pistol. This seems to have frightened Grout into submission. The other rioters then made short work of over- powering the sheriff and the rest of the posse. Having won the fight Colonel Stone's men violently seized upon Grout and the sheriff and several other members of the posse whom they carried to Joseph Wait's house. There the victors dictated the following preposterous terms, namely, that Sheriff Whipple, Grout, and some of the other prisoners should give a bond in the sum of five hundred pounds conditioned, first, that there
151
RIOTS BREAK OUT IN WINDSOR
be no further prosecution of Nathan Stone, Joseph Wait, Benjamin Wait, or Samuel Stone; second, that no citizen of Windsor should be prosecuted for any crime whatsoever at the next term of court; third, that the sheriff should make return upon the warrants for the four men last named that not one of them could be found in the sheriff's bailiwick. Whether this or any bond was extracted from the prisoners Grout did not relate. After an imprisonment of seven hours Grout, Whipple, and the rest of the posse were set at liberty and suffered to depart.1
This singular exhibition of lawlessness took place in Windsor in May, 1770. In his Early History of Vermont Governor Hiland Hall, after admirably describing the successful resist- ance encountered by the sheriff of Albany County in attempt- ing to execute writs of possession on the Breakenridge farm in Bennington in the month of July, 1771, thus concludes: "Here, in fact, on the farm of James Breakenridge, was born the future state of Vermont, .. . " In view of what had hap- pened in Windsor fourteen months earlier we should be obliged on the mere point of time to dissent from Governor Hall's award of any such distinction to the Breakenridge farm or to Bennington; for the resistance of the sheriff of Cumberland County by the men of Windsor on the road from Joseph Wait's to Benjamin Wait's was actually the first violent blow in that long and bitter fight between the settlers on the New Hampshire Grants and the government of the Province of New York. But at neither spot nor at either moment was born the future State of Vermont. In spite of protracted labor pains and the early cries or declarations of independence that state did not have its birth until the month of July, 1777, and the place was not in Bennington but in a house on the town street in Windsor.
14 Doc. Hist., pp. 392-393.
NOTE: Since the foregoing account was written the writer has discovered among the Phelps Papers in the Brattleboro Public Library what purports to be the original or a contemporary copy of an indictment found by the Grand Jury of Cumberland County at the June, 1770, term of the Court of General Sessions. It charges the rescue of three prisoners from the custody of the sheriff at Wind- sor on May 21, 1770, by a mob of rioters. It is not clear whether the offence charged covers the first or the second of the affrays referred to in the foregoing
152
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
text. Nathan Stone, according to the indictment, was not one of those whom the sheriff sought to arrest in the first instance. This circumstance and the fact that the indictment alleges an actual arrest of three prisoners may indicate an error in the account contained in the Documentary History of New York and in B. H. Hall's History of Eastern Vermont, if, as a matter of fact, the indictment refers to the sheriff's second attempt to make the arrests. The indictment is very poorly drawn and the paper on which it is written is so badly mutilated that parts of it are undecipherable. For its curiosity as well as its historical value it is given herewith. Stars indicate the places where the paper is torn or where words or letters are illegible.
"New York Cumberland County
"At a Court of General Sessions of the Peace Holden at Chester within and for the County of Cumberland on the first Tuesday of June In the Tenth Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Third King of Great Britain France and Ireland Defender of the Faith &c
"The Grand Jurors of our Said Lord the King for the Body of the County upon their Oaths do Present that one John Chandler Esq Clerk of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace as Well as one of his Maj *** Justices assigned to keep the peace for the *** aforesaid and one of the Quorum, Issued his *** under his hand and Seal as Clerk, to the Highsh *** of the County aforesaid in his Majestys Name *** Apprehend the body of Samuel Stone of Windsor in Said County Esq as pr the Warrant Dated *** Fifteenth Day of November Last past the Said Clerk of the Peace also Issuing one other Warrant under his hand and Seal as Clerk as Aforesaid Dated In the Tenth Year of his Majestys Reign D ***
The said Sheriff to take the Bodies of Joseph *** and Benjamin Wait Gent Both of Said Windsor, the Said Sheriff on the Twenty First Day of May in the Said Tenth Year of his Majestys Reign, went with his Assistance to Windsor Afore- said in the County Af *** and by Virtue of the Warrant Abovesaid Arrested the Bodys of the Said Samuel Stone Joseph Wait and Benjamin Wait and having so Done, Nathan Stone Joseph Wait and Samuel Stone Esq Benjamin Wait Ben- jamin Thustin Enoch Judd Solomon Emmons John White and David Gitchel Yeomen, all of Said Windsor being ill Designing and Disorderly Persons, not Having the fear of God before their Eyes, and not Regarding the Laws and Statutes of this Realmn, nor the *** and Penalties therein Contained but Wick- edly malicil ** ly and Unlawfully Assembled Together in an Armed, Highhanded Riotous way and Manner and with force a ** Violence as Aforesaid in Windsor Aforesaid on *** T ** First Day of May Aforesaid Nathan Stone Benjamin Wait Steal Smith Benjamin Thustin Enoch Judd Solomon Emmons John White and David Gitchel and Many other Persons not known, with Clubs and Armes Res- cued the Said Prisoners from the Hands of the Said High sheriff and with Many Oaths and Imprecations Protested that they would spend all the Blood in their Vains before they would suffer the Sheriff to Touch the Said *** Stone Joseph Wait & Benjamin Wait to Carry *** away as Prisoners from Windsor aforesaid, where the said Highsheriff Daniel Whipple Esq had the Said Samuel Stone, Joseph Wait and Benjamin Wait In his Custody by Virtue of Said Warrant and for the Cause Mentioned in the Warrant as Aforesaid, In the Peace of God and our Said Lord the King and In Due Execution of his Said office, and the Said Nathan Stone Joseph Wait Samuel Stone Benjamin Wait Steal Smith Benjamin Thustin Enoch Judd Solomon Emmons John White and David *** and many
153
RIOTS BREAK OUT IN WINDSOR
others as Aforesaid Against the Will of the Said Daniel Whipple the Highsheriff as Aforesaid with Force and Armes Unlawfully Forceably & Felnoiously did Res- cue and put at Large to go where they would; viz The Said Samuel Stone Joseph & Benjamin Wait to the Great Hindrance of Justice in Contempt of our Said Lord the King and his Laws to the Evil Example of all Others in the Like Case offending Against the Form of the Statute in Such case made and Provided and against the Peace of our Said Lord the King his Crown and Dignity all which was Done Committed and Parpetrated after the Highsheriff had made the Following Proclamation in the hearing of the Said Nathan Stone Benjamin Wait Steal Smith Benjamin Thustin Enoch Judd Solomon Emmons John White David Gitchel and Others as Aforesaid at Windsor Aforesaid Just upon the Rescue Aforesaid our Sovereign Lord the King Chargeth and Commandeth all Persons Being Assembled, Immediately to Disperce themselves and Peaceably to Depart to their habitations, or to their Lawfull Business Upon the pains Contained in the Act Made in the first Year of King George for Preventing Tumults and Riotous assemblies and Notwithstanding the Aforesaid Proclamation being Made as Aforesaid the Said Nathan Stone Benjamin Wait Steal Smith Benja Thustin Enoch Judd Solomon Emmons John White David Gitchel and others Continued together in a Riotous and Tumultuous Manner in Windsor Aforesaid for the Space of More than six hours and st *** k Sheriffs Assistants; held Several Prison- ers and *** to *** Some of Said Assistants with Ropes.
Foreman
Noah Sabin."
CHAPTER XX
COLONEL STONE'S RIOTERS INVADE CHESTER
IT will be perceived that in method the Windsor insurgents resembled those later marauders whose escapades under the leadership of Ethan Allen have formed such a large and fascinating part of Vermont's popular histories. There was the same boasting of intent and undying purpose, although not announced in Ethan Allen's oracular style. We perceive also the same sort of fantastic demands or exactions imposed on the lawful authorities. In brutality-for brutality was in- separable from the execution of the plans-the operations under Colonel Stone hardly equaled the Ethan Allen standard. In the quality of followers there was probably little to choose between the rioters on the east side of the Green Mountains and those on the west. Doubtless in the minds of some of the insurgents-perhaps in the case of Colonel Nathan Stone as conspicuously as in anybody else-personal advantage and love of adventure were subordinated to a belief that they were rendering a public service to the community.
Following the rout of the sheriff's posse in the month of May, Colonel Stone next planned to carry the war into enemy terri- tory by launching an offensive in Chester, the county seat. That township was under the control of Judge Thomas Chand- ler and his family who were well supplied with New York government offices and of course were strong for upholding the government of New York. In Chester the courts held their sessions and Colonel Stone scheduled his attack for the open- ing day of the next coming session on Tuesday, June 5. Char- acteristically, he gave notice of his intended advance.
A letter, written by Israel Curtis to one Webb of West- minster, declared that Colonel Nathan Stone with Curtis and other followers intended "to assemble in a Tumultious manner at Court." Webb permitted Bildad Andross to have a copy of this letter and Andross showed the copy to Judge Samuel Wells at Brattleborough the Sunday before the opening day of
154
COLONEL STONE'S RIOTERS INVADE CHESTER 155
the session. With such warning Judge Wells at once started for Chester so as to be there on time and he arrived Monday evening, having picked up on the way at Putney Judge Joseph Lord. For detailed information of what occurred at Chester we have the affidavits of Judge Wells and John Grout which are printed in full in the Documentary History of New York. We are again indebted to the research of Mr. B. H. Hall for his notes from an earlier manuscript affidavit by John Grout. A report of the affair by the county magistrates, mentioned in the minutes of the New York Provincial Council, seems to be lost. From the three available sources the following account is drawn.
Although nowhere so stated it is a reasonable inference that Colonel Stone and his band left Windsor very early on Monday, June 4, by boats and canoes on the Connecticut River and pro- ceeded to a point opposite or a short distance above Charles- town on the Vermont side where a trail led to the west. Thence they proceeded on foot to Chester. Wherever they passed the night, whether at Chester or on the road, they probably slept in the open. Chester was then, in spite of being the county seat, scarcely more than a camp. Even a year later Judge Chandler related that most of those who had attented court at Chester had never seen more than the four or five habitations located near the county buildings and had chosen, being used to camp duty, to stay where they obtained their food and pre- ferred the ground to a good bed.1 Colonel Stone and his men were on hand bright and early in Chester Tuesday morning before the opening of court.
Judge Wells relates that outside the cabin in which the court was to sit he saw on that morning Nathan Stone, Joseph Wait, Benjamin Wait, Israel Curtis, Joseph King, Steel Smith, and a number of others assembled in a "Riotous and Tumulti- ous manner." He thinks there were about thirty in the com- pany. Colonel Stone carried a sword, Joseph Wait a dagger or hanger and the rest were armed with staves or clubs. Judge Wells states the case very conservatively when he asserts that "it was feared by the Judges they designed mischief." Acting on that fear Judge Chandler, the first or presiding judge,
History of Eastern Vermont, p. 178.
156
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
"mildly" asked of Colonel Stone the reason of his being thus armed, at the same time requesting the colonel not to carry his sword into court. Stone's reply was uttered in so low a voice that Judge Wells could not hear. Presently the judges went into the court-room and opened court.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.