USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 15
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The report of the committee, which dealt with both subjects, may be found in full in the fourth volume of the Documentary History at pages 396-397. It is a cleverly worded paper and worth reading. It exonerated Judge Wells in fine style for having accepted the conveyance of Captain Dean's goods and chattels. It asserted the committee's information regarding the judge to be that he "sustains a fair character even in a district where there are not wanting some Persons to whom, from their attachment to the unjustifiable Claim of the Prov- ince of New Hampshire and his zeal in asserting the Right and Jurisdiction of this Colony, he must be peculiarly obnoxious." This was quite a sarcastic dig at both Governor Wentworth and the people of Windsor. That its full effect might be felt a copy was sent to Governor Wentworth. The part of the report which deals with the demand that Captain Dean's lands be forfeited to the Crown is so adroit and so indicative of the policy of the New York Provincial Government that we must quote it at length. It reads as follows:
"With respect to the Request that the Lands granted in the Township of Windsor, under the seal of New Hampshire, be declared to be forfeited for a Breach of one of the Conditions in the Patent, the Committee conceive that advantages of
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broken Conditions expressed in Royal Grants are to be taken in a legal course by regular Prosecutions against the Patentee; and that it would be manifestly improper to order any steps for that purpose in the Present case, because we consider the Grant which his Excellency refers to, as merely void for want of Authority in the Government of New Hampshire to issue Patents for Lands (as has been done in many Instances) on the West side of Connecticut River.
"But when the New Hampshire Grantees (who have gen- erally by the Moderation of this Government been preferred to others) pray for new Patents under the Great Seal of this Colony, we conceive that such as have shewn a Disregard to the Terms under which they settled, in articles injurious to the Crown, & such also as have been guilty of Infractions of the Laws for the Preservation of Masts for the Royal Navy, are unworthy of his Majesty's Bounty, & that their applications for Lands in this Government ought to be rejected."
William Smith, afterwards chief justice of the Supreme Court of New York, as chairman of the committee which thus dis- posed of Governor John Wentworth's grievances, deserved congratulations. He was not to be caught in the slightest admission that the Benning Wentworth grants conferred any title whatever, and he pointed out an easy way by which the council could extricate itself from the dilemma of having to pass on Captain Dean's liability to a forfeiture of his land. It is scarcely to be wondered at that the council on September 29, approved and confirmed the committee's report.
Thus ended the life though not the political and historical importance of the Dean cases, which, whether intended or not by Governor Wentworth as the means of forcing the recogni- tion of the New Hampshire titles, certainly had forced his ad- versaries to seek and secure the establishment of the New York titles by judicial decision. And here it should be recorded that the prosecution of the Deans, starting from the original spite- ful moves of Israel Curtis and Benjamin Wait against Captain William Dean, affords the first example of what local feuds in Windsor have accomplished. While Windsor has been fertile in feuds, this one was perhaps the most far-reaching in its
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ultimate results since it was one of the causes that contributed to produce the State of Vermont.
Chief Justice Smith's suggestion of an expectation that New Hampshire grantees would resume the practice of asking confirmation charters from New York is probably the reflec- tion of the belief inspired by the judgments in the ejectment cases. There had been, moreover, some slight manifestation of a disposition on the part of England to remove or modify the sweeping restriction against the issuance of New York re- grants. For example, in reply to a letter from Lieutenant- Governor Colden reporting the receipt of a petition from one Lieutenant Cruikshank for a grant of lands, Lord Hillsborough had remarked in a letter dated February 17, 1770, that the petition seemed "equitable" and that the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations would presently be advised to take into consideration everything pertaining to the settlement of the region west of the Connecticut River.1 Inasmuch as this was in response to a suggestion from Colden that new grants by New York should be allowed in that region and that the prohibitory order of July 24, 1767, was the cause of retarding settlement, the remarks of Lord Hillsborough might have filled an optimistic New York official with hopes.
This was the posture of affairs when the Earl of Dunmore who had been appointed governor of the Province of New York on the 2d of January, 1770, reached his post of duty on October 19 of that year. This royal governor, the only one except General Monckton in whose honor Vermont has retained a geographical name, has been given a poor character by Ver- mont historians. He did, however, have the faculty of writing lucidly and was very interested in the duties of his post. To him we are indebted not only for the first census of the coun- ties of Cumberland and Gloucester with a list of the heads of families in the various towns, but his short administration left besides these records quite a store of petitions and other docu- ments which bear on the history of Windsor and the sur- rounding settlements. He was, like Colden, a Scotsman, which may have been one reason that the two fought each other with all the bitterness that greed and jealousy could engender in 1 8 Lond. Doc., 205.
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mature men. Having had for several years before the receipt of his colonial appointment a seat in the House of Lords, Lord Dunmore assumed something of an air of assurance and fa- miliarity in writing official letters to England. For that reason his letters are especially interesting and informing even if he sometimes wrote with not altogether exact knowledge of local conditions.
One of the earliest letters of Lord Dunmore as royal governor is that addressed to Lord Hillsborough under date of November 12, 1770,1 relating largely to the actions of Colonel Nathan Stone's Windsor insurrectionists. In this letter he described the conditions in Cumberland County as "truly lamentable" since disorderly people were "continually committing riots." He feared that little could be done to preserve order "when even the courts of justice are obstructed and their proceedings stopped." The instigation for the rioters proceeded, according to Lord Dunmore, from people of New Hampshire who were suggesting that the New York courts and magistrates lacked lawful authority, that the boundary decision would be revoked and that the jurisdiction of New Hampshire would be extended to the region west of the Connecticut River. Lord Dumnore had already felt called upon to deny publicly that there was any truth in the rumor of an impending change in jurisdiction and in his letter to Lord Hillsborough he made the strong point that the only real encouragement of which the New Hampshire sympathizers could boast was the order of July 24, 1767, whereby the New York government was forbidden to make further grants in the Vermont country. If this ruling could definitely be withdrawn, he argued plausibly and with force that tranquillity and prosperity would prevail throughout the region.
The tone of easy confidence of the Earl of Dunmore in writ- ing this letter should be contrasted with the disappointed air with which Governor John Wentworth wrote to the Earl of Hillsborough on October 22, 1770, in explanation of the prac- tical fruitlessness of the Dean prosecutions. A cost of £36, 17s. 10d. involved in the case of Captain Dean and £34, 14s. 10d. in each of the two cases against the sons made a total bill of
18 Lond. Doc., 252.
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£106, 7s. 6d. to be paid by the Navy Department for the ex- pense of the three convictions. This loss Governor Wentworth attributed in part to the refusal of the New York government to order a forfeiture of Captain Dean's land and in part to the connivance of Judge Wells. For the latter the governor de- manded expulsion from every position in the King's service. It is to be noted that in this letter Governor Wentworth made a very full report of the Dean prosecutions, transmitted many documents relating to them and thus caused to be spread on the British records a practically complete history of those famous cases of Windsor origin which affected so largely the future of Vermont.
During the autumn of 1770 Colonel Nathan Stone was occu- pied in getting signatures to a new petition or a new edition of a former petition. This paper was probably that of which a copy may be found at pages 412 to 413 of the fourth volume of The Documentary History. It was addressed to the King. It set forth that the petitioners, relying on the New Hampshire titles, had settled and cultivated the lands but were now threatened with ejectment suits and other law suits for "the enrichment of a few men in said Province of New York whose great influence is the destruction of our hard, honestly earned property. . The petition recited that it was disadvanta- geous to the signers to have had the region made a part of New York. It also alleged their belief that the boundary decision was based upon false representations. Therefore the peti- tioners desired that the region be annexed to New Hampshire, for they had no confidence in the officials of the Province of New York "from whose operations our distresses have arisen." One item of historical value is the allegation that the New Hampshire officials "having read our Petition to them for Relief declare their inability to Take cognizance thereof as the premises are by your Majesty's order in Council commanded to be within the province of New York."
The draft for this petition was supposed to have been brought from Portsmouth by Benjamin Whiting,1 and Judge Wells thought it the composition of Governor John Went- worth.2 From the original draft a copy was made for circula- 1 4 Doc. Hist., 413.
2 Id., p. 426.
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tion in each of the towns on the New Hampshire Grants. 1 John Kelley of New York City made oath to having seen several of these petitions. He reports "that Nathan Stone, one of the Rietors of Windsor in the County of Cumberland, shewed this deponent another of said petitions which he said was delivered to him in order to be subscribed. " 2
The signing of these petitions was not as popular as might have been supposed, but we have by no means a full list of the signers. Lord Dunmore thought that the subscribers did not much exceed two hundred. Out of that number we can account for fifty-six in the town of Westminster and twelve in Rocking- ham.3 It is possible that a search of the British Record Office in London would disclose exactly the extent to which this movement was supported. There we could perhaps confirm the statement of Justice Oliver Willard that "the strength of the opposition" to the jurisdiction of New York, "except on the west side of the Green Mountains, is in the Inhabitants of Windsor and Westminster.4 At all events we know that this statement of Justice Oliver Willard's, which was made in the month of March, 1771, became indisputably true in a few years, for among the inhabitants on the east side of the Green Moun- tains those two towns became the hotbeds of propaganda for the "new state."
To Lord Dunmore's gratification he was favored with a counter petition addressed to the King and signed under date of November 1, 1770, by four hundred and thirty-three in- habitants of the New Hampshire Grants. This petition asked for little but asserted much. It began with the statement that by the grant of King Charles the Second to the Duke of York in 1664, the Province of New York included "all the lands from the west side of Connecticut River to the East side of Delaware Bay"; it alleged the determination of the boundary dispute in 1764, the erection of Cumberland County in 1768 and of Gloucester County in 1770; it expressed satisfaction with the establishment of the New York courts in these counties and the administration of justice through such agencies. Then come recitals which go to the heart of the matter and concern
14 Doc. Hist., 430. 2 Id. 3 Id., p. 413.
' Id., p. 429. See also the deposition of Samuel Wells, Id., p. 427.
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especially the political turmoil to which Windsor had con- tributed so generously. We quote from the middle of the petition :
"That in the month of June last, a number of disorderly persons seated in the township of Windsor in the County of Cumberland, assembled in a riotous manner & by threats obstructed the proceedings of the Court of Common Pleas; pretending that the Magistrates & Civil Officers were unau- thorized, that no obedience was due to them; that the juris- diction belonged to the Government of New Hampshire; that your Majesty's Royal Order aforesaid would soon be rescinded, and the Lands thereby declared as part of your Majesty's Colony of New York be decreed to appertain for the future to the Province of New Hampshire.
"That residing near the borders of the two governments, the said riotous persons have eluded the publick justice by flight into New Hampshire; and confederating with divers inhabitants there, have promoted a spirit of disorder and diso- bedience to the authority of your Majesty's Government of New York, by Signing and procuring the subscriptions of many persons in both provinces to a Petition, the avowed purpose of which is the change of Jurisdiction.
"That your Petitioners are persuaded this measure is calcu- lated to elude the punishment due to those lawless trans- gressors; to promote the interests of individuals, who have made a traffic of the New Hampshire titles, and to aggrandize the family of the late Governor Wentworth,1 for whose benefit reservations of land were made in all the numerous Grants which he thought proper to pass."
The petition proceeded to state it as the belief of the signers that the majority of the inhabitants preferred the advantages of the settled government of New York to any change in juris- diction.
Of course all the New York officeholders, such as Judge Wells and Judge Chandler, signed this petition as did John
1 Benning Wentworth, the former governor, had just died. John Wentworth was his nephew as well as his successor in office.
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Grout, Captain William Dean, Willard Dean, and William Dean, junior; but the other names are so fairly representative of the character and citizenship of Cumberland County that one cannot dismiss the petition lightly. For example, among the signers we find the honored names of Paul Spooner and Benjamin Carpenter, who were among the most influential and active in the founding of the Republic of Vermont seven years later. But for the purposes of this history the signer whose name causes most surprise is Israel Curtis. How he within five months from the date he had assisted in obstructing the court at Chester, could come around to subscribing such a petition is remarkable. Possibly he had some misgivings or apprehen- sions of what might happen to him as a result of the complaint lodged against him and Colonel Stone in the New York Pro- vincial Council by the judges of Cumberland County and then pending in the Supreme Court. Both before and after the date of the petition Esquire Curtis and Captain Dean were enemies. Yet in this matter these two men, who in mere business enterprise and initiative were perhaps the superiors of their fellow townsmen, stood out against what had been and still was the popular cause in Windsor. Such a defection was striking and was bound to weaken the insurgent party.
Governor Hall informs us that the leading characters among the Windsor insurgents seem to have been " appeased and recon- ciled to the New York Government by appointment to office and by becoming favored petitioners for land patents," 1 but whether he made this statement as the result of independent research or on Ira Allen's dictum is unknown. Ira Allen, in his History of Vermont, had remarked that Colonel Nathan Stone, having raised a considerable insurrectionist party, "finally was overpowered and submitted; and soon after was appointed Colonel of the militia in the county of Cumberland, which then included all the New Hampshire grants east of the Green Mountains and west of Connecticut River." 2 In using the word "overpowered" Ira Allen intended elegant euphem- ism, since on referring to his index we find the above passage condensed into the short and ugly item: "Stone, Colonel, seduced by New York."
1 Early History of Vermont, p. 157. 2 Ira Allen's History of Vermont, p. 22.
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In justice to the memory of Nathan Stone it should be pointed out that he had been a colonel or lieutenant-colonel of the militia for four years before the time that Ira Allen had him "seduced" by elevation to that office and that Cumber- land County did not at that time or at any other cover so ex- tensive an area as Ira Allen describes. It is true that some years later Colonel Stone again became active in attempting to secure confirmatory charters and other grants from New York. It is true also that in 1772 both Colonel Stone and Israel Curtis were appointed justices of the peace, but already they had been justices for several years and could hardly have been "overpowered" or "seduced" by the grandeur or emoluments of that dignified position. It is true, also, that David Stone, Joseph Wait, and Benjamin Wait were not backward in reminding the New York Provincial Government that they had served the King as soldiers and would accept bounty in the shape of soldiers' land grants, but their appli- cations for personal grants seem to have antedated the Wind- sor insurrection. In fact, the only considerable "reward" that any Windsor insurgent is known to have received within a short time from the insurrection was the grant to Joseph Wait of five hundred acres in the southwest corner of Claremont, New Hampshire, and the donors were no other than Governor John Wentworth and the New Hampshire Council.
There must be some better explanation of the checking of Colonel Stone's insurgent movement than the "seduction" of the ringleaders. Certainly a more plausible one is that sug- gested by the character and number of the petitioners who represented to Lord Dunmore that the region west of the Connecticut was content to remain under New York's juris- diction. The unpopularity of rioting as a means to an end, the defection of Esquire Israel Curtis, and the fact that New York authority had been pretty nearly battered down in Windsor should have been enough to warrant a cessation of hostilities for a period. Then, addressed to Lord Dunmore on December 1, 1770, there came another petition, signed by about four hundred persons (nearly all of whom had signed the petition of a month before), asking confirmation of their titles "on moderate fees" and stating that the peti-
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tioners were "wholly unable to pay the patent fees demanded by the late Governor in chief of the Province for the lands so cultivated" by the unfortunate petitioners who had expended their worldly substance upon New Hampshire grants in reli- ance on the validity of the New Hampshire titles. It was the part of wisdom for Colonel Stone and his followers to wait and see what would happen to such a petition, supported as it was by a large and respectable body of signers, including their fellow townsmen Esquire Israel Curtis and Captain William Dean.1
In the summer of 1770 there had occurred in Windsor a shocking tragedy which might well have had a sobering effect on the turbulent spirits of the town. The story has been pre- served in Mr. Henry Swan Dana's excellent History of Wood- stock in connection with his notice of Joab Hoisington. It seems that Aaron Bartlett, who was mentioned by John Grout as one of the mob which attacked Sheriff Whipple's posse in Windsor, and who was also with the mob that broke up the court at Chester, had gone with Joab Hoisington to hunt deer in the then thickly wooded swamp of the Pulk Hole Brook. This swamp, which, since the building of the dyke on the Evarts estate, is now almost entirely flooded by Runnemede Water, was then of large area. Hoisington and Bartlett, going in different directions, soon lost sight of each other. Later, through some error-perhaps mistaking Bartlett for a deer- Hoisington fired and killed his companion. "This event," says Mr. Dana, "cast great gloom over the new settlement." He adds that a coroner was brought from Charlestown to hold an inquest, and that after a searching examination Hoising- ton was acquitted of all blame. If Mr. Dana is correct, the Windsor people, even in the shadow of such a tragedy, would not recognize the lawful authority of New York by summon- ing either of the two coroners of Cumberland County, but sent to the neighboring Province of New Hampshire for an officer to conduct the inquest. The date of Bartlett's death was after the return of the Windsor rioters from Chester and prior to August 9, 1770, because on the latter date John Grout made his complaint against the Windsor rioters and men- 1 4 Doc. Hist., 409-411.
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tioned Bartlett as having been at Chester, but "since de- ceased."
Other causes, now unknown, probably contributed to sub- due the Nathan Stone rebellion, but whatever they were the year 1770 saw its subsidence. Although by itself this uprising was a comparatively small affair, it was the beginning of the forcible and organized resistance that produced the State of Vermont. If, as Ira Allen truthfully says, it was "a bold stroke of a hundred men" to unite by resolution at Benning- ton to resist the governor and Council of New York by force,1 it was equally bold for Colonel Nathan Stone and his Wind- sor followers, well in advance of the Bennington movement, to be the pioneers in the conflict and become the first band of "Green Mountain Boys." Colonel Nathan Stone and the men of Windsor, although overlooked in the popular histories of Vermont, struck the first blow and set the pattern and the precedent for those who won the glory and who have received the applause of posterity.
As the sign of Colonel Stone's final submission to New York, we may here incorporate the following remarkable let- ter, which has been preserved among the "Duane Papers" in the possession of the New York Historical Society. It was addressed by him under date of December 29, 1770, to William Smith, James Duane, and Goldsbrow Banyar, of New York. Perhaps not wholly ingenuous and certainly affected by self- interest, it nevertheless shows Colonel Stone's familiarity with the situation on the New Hampshire Grants. It also contains suggestions which, even if not original, seem to foreshadow the subsequent course of events. For its independent histori- cal value, as well as its revelation of Colonel Stone, it is given in full.
Windsor, Cumberland County, 29th Dec. 1770.
Gentlemen
From a perfect knowledge of your Candure and Sincerity as well as firm attachment to the true Intrest of the Gover- ment of New York; I take the liberty of representing to you, a few Circumstances which if adopted will be highly advanta-
1 Ira Allen's History of Vermont, p. 25.
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gous to your Province. . . . The Inhabitants of this County being deeply Impressed with a tru Sence of the inestamable blessings they enjoy under the protection of the happy Con- stitution of Great Britain; and the mild and auspicous Reign of their most Gracious Sovrign; and being firmly attached to his Royal person family and Goverment, Concive themselves entitled to the same Priviledges which are enjoyed by their fellow Subjects within this Goverment; that theire being urepresented in the General Assembly of this Province they esteeme a very peculiar Greeveance and Doubt not but the fatal consequences resulting from this Deprevation, will ap- pear so clear to Gentlemen of your Superior Abilities as to need no Elusidation, and I flatter myself that you will be pleesed to lend your kind aid towards redressing those Greeve- ances.
Many Circumstances unnecessary to be here mentioned mil- itate against Continuing Chester the Shire Town of this County, but particularly as the principle part of the Inhabi- tants live on the banks of the River Conecticut in the South- erly and northerly parts of the County, it therfore seems ex- pedient that two of the River Towns should be Established for Holding the Courts at (to wit) one in the Southerly and the other in the Northerly part of this County; and the Gov- erment of New Hampshire being Sensebile of the object the Inhabtients of this County make of obtaning the said Change have promised Some of them that if the Lands situate west- ward of the River Conecticut shuld revert to New Hamp- shire, that a Shire Town will be Constituted at each end of this County, by which promise they have brought Several of the Occupants in this part of the County over to their Intrest.
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