USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 20
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sor might have preferred to be a part of New Hampshire; but all in all they were probably pretty well content with their lot, except for the thought of having been forced to sell so much of the township to pay the New York charter fees.
Thus ends the first distinct period of Windsor's history. In that period Windsor had unconsciously become the historic town of Vermont. On Windsor soil had begun the official struggle for supremacy between New Hampshire and New York land titles. In Windsor and by a Windsor leader had been organized the first band of Green Mountain Boys to resist the authority of New York. It was fitting that within the next few years Windsor should become the birthplace of the new State of Vermont.
CHAPTER XXVII
A BREATHING SPACE
DURING the years from 1772 until the outbreak of the American Revolution the life of Windsor was one of compara- tive quiet. But the quiet was comparative only. The turmoil on the New Hampshire Grants to the west of the Green Moun- tains reached and maintained great heights during this period. These were the days of many of the hero tales of Vermont, with which we have become familiar through versions dis- creetly glossed for school and fireside uses. In this period no part of the American colonies could have been wholly unaware of the turbulence prevailing in Bennington and other towns to the north of Bennington, where such inspiring leaders as Ethan Allen and Seth Warner, by examples of violence and intimida- tion, were successfully rallying the settlers to break the au- thority of the Province of New York. In every settled town- ship on the Grants themselves, even though located as was Windsor on the extreme eastern boundary, and even though its own land titles had been made secure through a confirma- tory patent from the government of New York, it must have been possible to hear the reverberations and to feel the shock of the frequent clashes on the Grants to the westward.
While the people of Windsor were keenly alive to the strug- gle that was going on, it is not clear that their sympathies lay with the New England settlers. Into the disturbed region flocked from other provinces many of the ne'er-do-well and outlaw class,1 who saw opportunity, and these undesirable characters most likely in some instances drifted again out of the range of local warfare into the more peaceful localities on the Grants and there exerted their baneful and disturbing influence. If one may judge the temper of the people of Wind- sor at this stage by the conduct of Colonel Nathan Stone, we should draw the inference that their desire was to uphold the authority of New York. For example, in the case of Benjamin
14 Doc. Hist., 535; Memoirs of An American Lady (1901 edition), vol. II, p. 198.
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Spencer, who held title under New York in the township of Clarendon, and who more than once was the target for attack by Allen's regulators,1 we find that Colonel Stone prepared and forwarded to the Provincial Council of New York by let- ter a report of the outrages. So important and informing was Colonel Stone's report that the Council ordered it transmitted to England.2 In time, as we all know, the majority of the people of Windsor were won over to the insurgent cause and joined forces with their brethren on the west side of the Green Mountains in secession from New York, but at the time we are now discussing Windsor appears to have been not only submissive but loyal to the New York provincial authority.
Colonel Nathan Stone and Captain William Dean were among the Cumberland County characters who were most active in bringing about the removal of the county seat to the Connecticut Valley. This they accomplished over Judge Thomas Chandler's vigorous opposition. In vain Judge Chand- ler raised the very timely objection that the men of Windsor in the not remote past had earned a reputation for riotous behavior, and that it would be dangerous to move the court house nearer to them.3 Although his warning might justly have excited the retort that even Chester had proved itself an unsafe haven for the courts the subsequent occurrences at Putney, at Westminster, and at Windsor tended to show the wisdom of his suggestion.
In another county matter Colonel Stone also took the lead. Up to this time Cumberland County had had no representation in the New York provincial legislature. On a petition with Colonel Stone's name at the head of a list of signers which in- cluded Israel Curtis, Willard Dean, and one hundred and forty-eight other men of Cumberland County, the province law was promptly amended so as to give the county two representa- tives to the assembly.4 This action gave Colonel Stone an added reputation in the county and reflected honor upon his town. The success of his petition led to another effort of more practi- cal importance, namely, the presentation of a petition sub- scribed by more than four hundred men of Cumberland and
14 Doc. Hist., 520, 531. 2 N. Y. Council Minutes, December 23, 1773.
3 B. H. Hall's Eastern Vermont, p. 181.
4 4 Doc. Hist., 495, 496.
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Gloucester Counties asking that all the New Hampshire char- ters be confirmed by New York on payment of half the regular fees.1
The latter petition contained the striking recital that "your petitioners are not desirous of any Change of Jurisdiction but are perfectly satisfied and earnestly wish to continue under the Government of New York." The petition was signed not only by inhabitants of towns which had not secured New York con- firmation patents, but by inhabitants of towns whose charters had been confirmed. Among the Windsor supporters of this petition were Nathan Stone, Israel Curtis, William Dean, Willard Dean, William Dean, junior, Thomas Cooper, Joab Hoisington, Zedekiah Stone, Samuel Stone, David Stone, Benjamin Wait, Solomon Emmons, Elisha Hawley, Caleb Benjamin, William Smead, William Smead, junior, Ebenezer Curtis, Peter Leavens, Jacob Getchell, David Getchell, Watts Hubbard, Elisha Hubbard, Elnathan Strong, Benjamin Bishop, Jeremiah Bishop, Reuben Dean, Matthew Hammond, Solomon Burk, Isaiah Burk, Levi Stevens, Joseph Woodruff, and Francis Beatty. There are perhaps among the four hundred or more signers several other men who then lived in Windsor, but nowhere in the list appear the names of Ebenezer Hoising- ton, John Benjamin, Hezekiah Thomson, and Steel Smith. While it would not be safe to say that all the men of Windsor who omitted to sign the petition withheld their signatures through conscientious objection to subscribing to sentiments of allegiance to the Province of New York it is the fact that Ebenezer Hoisington soon was foremost for secession and that John Benjamin and Hezekiah Thomson were among the earliest to be appointed to office in the New State. The language of the petition obviously raised an issue which, while proving that the overwhelming majority in Windsor adhered warmly to New York, disclosed a small minority of the disaffected. The failure of the petition to obtain the desired charters doubtless helped to strengthen the minority party. The petition is undated but an affidavit attached thereto indicates that the petition was signed early in the year 1773 or late in the year 1772.
The notice of Windsor's town meeting to be held on the third 1 Id., 498-500.
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Tuesday in May, 1773, set forth that the meeting would be held "at the Meeting house yard near the Mill." This is not only the first notice or warning that called for an open air meeting in Windsor, but it supplies the earliest reference to a meeting house in the town. An inference is fairly to be drawn that a yard had been set aside for a meeting house, but that the meeting house had not then been erected. The record of the meeting, however, leaves it unnecessary to rely solely on the notice since we find in the record of the meeting itself the fol- lowing interesting items:
"Voted to build a Town-house twenty-four feet in width and thirty feet in Length-post to be twelve feet in Length.
"Voted to Raise twenty pound in order to build the above mentioned house."
In these votes were taken the initial steps to provide Windsor with its first "Town House" or "Meeting House" which was known by both names and which was used both for religious services and town meetings until 1798. The exact location of this poor but historically famous structure, described by Colonel John Andrew Graham as "a mean building and a dis- grace to Windsor" 1 has not been exactly determined. The 'meeting house yard" was "near the mill." The location of the "mill," or rather of the two mills, was on the Mill Brook by the main highway. The present "meeting house yard" is some three hundred yards away. While this might not to-day be called "near," it must be remembered that in a township con- taining thirty-six square miles and with perhaps only one building2 then standing between the meeting-house yard and the mill it was natural enough to describe them as near each other. All the inhabitants of the town knew where the grist- mill and the saw-mill were. All may not have known where the spot selected for the meeting-house yard was. No meeting- house had been built: probably the yard had not fully been cleared of standing timber since it was not until five years later that the adjoining burying ground was "set out" to be fenced.
1 J. A. Graham's Hist. of Vt., 121.
" The shop of Reuben Dean, the silversmith.
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
It was important that the townsmen should see and determine for themselves on town meeting day the precise site for this contemplated public building. The wisdom of the language used in the notice is apparent.
The town house or meeting-house was built with sufficient promptness to permit the town meeting of May, 1774, to be held therein. The earliest reference to it as a meeting-house is found in Reverend James Wellman's Diary where he recorded his engagement on July 14, 1774: "to preach a Lecture at Mr. Ebenz Hoisington's-now desired to preach it in Windsor meeting-house at 3 o'clock, P.M." Its location, according to Ezra Hoyt Byington's History of the First Congregational Church of Windsor, was "a little south of the present meeting- house, near the corner of the cemetery." The same author describes the house as nearly square, with a pointed roof, and without a steeple. "That was," he says, "in the usual form of a Puritan meeting-house in Massachusetts and Connecticut in the early periods." He adds that it was provided with benches instead of pews and had a pulpit. He believed that it had a gallery and a seating capacity about one third that of the present Old South.1 When the present Old South Church was built, in 1798, the old town house or meeting-house was de- molished and its timbers and boards were used in the erection of a building which is now the ell of the present St. Paul's rectory.
That Mr. Byington was correct as to the absence of pews in the original meeting-house may be guessed from a vote in town meeting in May, 1775, "that no Person Shall build any Pew in the town house without the Consent of the town;" but it seems unlikely that a building with posts "twelve feet in length" would contain a gallery or that a "town house" would be equipped with a pulpit. It was perhaps in consequence of the erection of this building that eleven of Mr. Wellman's parish- ioners2 sought and secured letters of dismission on April 3, 1774, from the "Church of Christ in Cornish and Windsor"
1 Hist. Cong. Church, p. 11.
2 Deacon Hezekiah and Hannah Thomson, Watts and Mary Hubbard, Eben- ezer and Elizabeth Hoisington, Ebenezer and Martha Curtis, Andrew and Eunice Blunt, and Lois Smith.
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with a view to joining with others in forming a church of their own in Windsor.
The town meeting of May 18, 1773, after convening at the meeting-house yard and choosing Israel Curtis as moderator, adjourned to the more convenient "house of Ens Steel Smith" where the rest of the business of the day was transacted and where the freemen could obtain such liquid refreshment and stimulant as would prosper their deliberations. Besides the election of town officers and the decision to build the town house they voted to divide the township into three highway surveyors' districts. One of these districts embraced the entire western half of the town: the other two, dividing at the road which led to the west part of the town, covered the eastern half. Except for the vote to raise twenty pounds to build the town house no town tax was voted in 1773. No tax whatever for town purposes was laid in 1772 or 1775 and only eighteen pounds in 1774. Of course there was the Cumber- land County tax to be paid but that was imposed by province or county authority.
During this period the affairs of Cumberland County were administered by the elected supervisors of the towns and dis- tricts who met, first at Chester and later, after the change of the county seat, at Westminster. Windsor's supervisor for 1772 was Israel Curtis, for 1773 and 1774 Benjamin Wait, for 1775 Hezekiah Thomson. On the eve of the outbreak of the Revolution these meetings of the supervisors became "conven- tions" or "congresses" and the delegates instead of being town or district supervisors were "committee men" chosen usually from the local committees of safety. Together they constituted the Cumberland County Committee of Safety. Upon the Grants on the west side of the Green Mountains there was somewhat similar organization through conventions except that on the Grants west of the mountain range there had never been any county government through supervisors' meetings. Gloucester County, for a brief period, had a County Com- mittee of Safety, while Bennington and perhaps a few other western Vermont towns were represented by delegates to the Albany Committee of Correspondence in 1775.
As the Revolution progressed the conventions or congresses
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in Cumberland County, the Gloucester committee of safety and the conventions on the west side of the Green Mountains merged into the general conventions of the whole of the New Hampshire Grants, although even after such merger a few of the Cumberland County committeemen attempted for a time to maintain their separate organization.
CHAPTER XXVIII THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION
IT is not impossible but it is certainly not easy to obtain from the printed Vermont histories a coherent impression of the early conventions held by the settlers upon the New Hamp- shire Grants. Neither Samuel Williams nor Ira Allen made pretence of thoroughness in this field. The former either failed to appreciate or lacked knowledge of the first three of the con- ventions held in Cumberland County: the latter had little interest in events on the east side of the Green Mountains in which he was not personally a figure. The example of these two historians largely controlled future writers until Benjamin Homer Hall wrote his History of Eastern Vermont. Governor Hiland Hall, in his desire to counteract some of the propositions of Mr. B. H. Hall, almost ignored the early history of the east side of the State when he wrote his Early Vermont History. Again, in his chronological account of the Vermont conventions in the first volume of the Vermont Historical Society's Collec- tions, Governor Hall seems to have been misled into omitting the early Cumberland County conventions on the theory that they were local instead of "general." The theory was sound enough but in applying it he failed to recognize the fact that several of what he termed "General Conventions" on the west side of the State were quite as local as the Cumberland County conventions.
Of all records of the early Vermont conventions the best and fullest are those collected by E. P. Walton in volumes I, II, and VIII of Governor and Council. Always partially under the thumb of Governor Hall, Mr. Walton consigned the early Cumberland County conventions to an appendix in the first volume instead of inserting them in their proper chronological place, but he at least had the independence to avoid his men- tor's error of omitting them altogether. With this preliminary statement the writer will endeavor to deal chronologically with so much of the convention records as seems pertinent to the main purpose in hand.
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Since the followers of Ethan Allen, though greatly influenced by their leader's pen, were preeminently men of action rather than of words the resolutions passed at their conventions on the west side of the Green Mountains had value chiefly in periodical advertisement of their grievances against New York. Of another character were those occasional resolutions or "de- crees" which denounced as enemies those neighbors who should dare accept office from the Provincial government of New York or should seek to secure from that government confirmatory charters. Such announcements, coming from men ruthlessly and effectively engaged in burning or otherwise destroying the cabins and the goods of the families who had settled under claim of New York titles, amounted to intimidation of a very persuasive sort. Beatings and lashings administered to New York officials and others who, in the interests of New York titles, ventured upon the New Hampshire Grants west of the Green Mountains gave plenty of point to these edicts. Under such conditions, although the actual issue was merely one of land titles, there could be little concert of action on any subject between the people of this region and those in other parts of the Province and least of all with people at the seat of New York's government. Thus it happened that while the Liberty party or "Liberty Men" in New York City were organizing their committees of correspondence and taking other steps which were the preliminaries of the American Revolution the settlers on the Grants west of the Green Mountains were not called on to participate.
On the Grants east of the Green Mountains where the county supervisors of Cumberland and Gloucester were holding their orderly business meetings on county affairs the case was differ- ent. As early as the month of May, 1774, the supervisors of Cumberland County were asked by a letter from Isaac Low of the New York City "committee of correspondence" to as- certain from their constituents the sentiments of the county on the rights of the American colonies. Almost as if controlled by twentieth century Vermont practice in politics this enquiry elicited no immediate response. Perhaps through fear of being charged with treason, perhaps through suspicion of the motives of Isaac Low and his committee, perhaps through constitu-
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tional reluctance to engage in letter writing, the Cumberland supervisors suppressed Mr. Low's letter. In spite of this, the fact that the letter had been received soon leaked out with the result that town meetings were held to choose delegates to meet in a county convention at Westminster on October 19, 1774. At this convention Low's letter was brought up and discussed and, in consequence, all the grievances against the British Parliament-the tax on tea, the Boston Port Bill, the Quebec Bill, and other measures which were believed detri- mental to the interests of the American Colonies were aired then and there.
A fairly full report of the proceedings at this meeting or con- vention was made by the chairman, John Hazeltine of Towns- hend. It may be found in the first volume of Governor and Council at pages 317 to 319. An examination of this report shows the first reaction of the settlers on the New Hampshire Grants to the suggestion of Americanism. Pledging loyalty to King George the Third, the convention resolved to defend "our just rights as British subjects," to "assist the people of Boston" and to co-operate with the committee of correspond- ence already formed in New York City. As if in apology for some of their own conduct in the not remote past and possibly with reference to more recent performances by their brethren on the west side of the Green Mountains the members of the convention recorded a promise to "bear testimony against and discourage all riotous, tumultuous, and unnecessary mobs which tend to injure the persons or property of harmless in- dividuals." If delegate John Grout, of Chester, twice a victim of mob violence, introduced a resolution on this subject he could hardly have been satisfied by such a qualified endorse- ment of his idea. The wording shows compromise: a necessary mob would always be within the bounds of propriety.
Eighteen men from twelve towns in Cumberland County constituted this first convention held on the New Hampshire Grants in the cause of American liberties. One of the delegates was the Windsor settler, Joab Hoisington, but it is more likely that he then appeared as a delegate from Woodstock than from Windsor since by this time he had become a property owner in the former town and had disposed of most if not all his Windsor
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holdings. While Benjamin Wait was Windsor's supervisor for that year there is no evidence that he attended this convention or that any other delegate was specially chosen in Windsor for the purpose.
The Continental Congress had convened at Philadelphia in September. Directly after the first Cumberland County convention there arrived upon the Grants copies of the resolu- tions of the Continental Congress of October 14 and 20. Chairman John Hazeltine wisely deemed them of such im- portance as to require him to call a second convention at West- minster on November 30. How fully it was attended or what business was transacted cannot be ascertained from any known record made at the time. In an account written some months later it appears that all the proceedings and proposals of the Continental Congress were endorsed save one. The exception seems to have been that provision in the association of the confederated Colonies which called for the appointment of a committee of inspection in every town to observe the senti- ments and conduct of the inhabitants on the subject of Ameri- can liberties. This measure, because it was ridiculed by two prominent individuals of Tory leanings, the Cumberland delegates dared not ratify.1
The third Cumberland County convention assembled at Westminster on February 7, 1775, and was in session three days. Although no list of the delegates was preserved there was found in the collection of historical treasures known as the Pingry Papers what purports to be a complete journal of the proceedings. This convention provided a pretty complete county organization for correspondence to co-operate with Isaac Low's committee in New York. For practically every town the convention appointed a committee-man. These committee-men constituted the standing county committee for correspondence of which the chairman was John Hazeltine. Benjamin Wait was Windsor's member. Joab Hoisington was Woodstock's.
More serious steps than the mere organization of a county committee of correspondence were discussed at this third Cumberland Convention. Somebody proposed the election 1 1 Gov. & Coun., 321.
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THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION
of "field officers." The measure was debated on the first day but was voted down. The convention adopted two rules for re- convening, viz., first, that on the call of three towns, Chairman Hazeltine should consider summoning the members for a con- vention and, second, that if five towns made a call he should immediately order a session. The convention also voted that in the absence of the clerk (Doctor Paul Spooner of Hertford) Doctor Solomon Harvey of Fulham (Dummerston) should exercise the clerk's duties. The convention thus approximated a provisional government or vigilance committee for the county. In an affidavit verified by Joseph Hancock under date of March 23, 1775, the deponent expressed his belief that Solomon Harvey, who had charge of issuing passes to those leaving or entering Westminster after the Court House riot on March 13, had been chosen a colonel at the recent convention and that a number of other officers had been elected at the same time.1 Similarly, in an affidavit sworn to by John Griffin on March 27 or 28, is the statement that several of the court officers who were imprisoned by the mob at Westminster were admitted to bail on giving a bond to chairman John Hazeltine.2 These items are quite persuasive to show that the third West- minster Convention was more than a debating society and that it had almost intended to usurp government even though the official record does not reveal such a plan.
To Mr. B. H. Hall we are indebted for still another important transaction at this third Cumberland County convention, viz., the approval of a petition addressed to Lieutenant-Governor Cadwallader Colden asking relief from the excessive burdens attendant upon maintaining the sessions of the courts at West- minster. The draughtsman of the petition was Charles Phelps, of Marlborough. Mr. Hall gives a summary of its contents at pages 207 to 209 of his History of Eastern Vermont. The en- couragement of lawsuits, the inconvenience to the seventy or more farmers summoned in the panels of grand and petit jurors, the frequency of the judicial sessions, the excessive allowances of taxable costs and various other matters are set forth as grievances. Mr. Hall states that this petition received the approval of the convention but that through the delay of 14 Doc. Hist., 547. 2 4 Doc. Hist., 550.
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