USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 21
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the messengers to whom it was confided it failed to reach its destination until after the ugly affray known as the West- minster Massacre.
No record of similar conventions in Gloucester county at this period has come to light. The New Hampshire Grants west of the Green Mountains continued, as before, in the throes of their semi-warfare against the Province of New York and as late as January 31, 1775, had held a convention of their own and adopted a report or compact of great length and in minute detail on the subject of that grievance without even alluding to the great cause which had united the Colonies against Great Britain.1 In vehemence and picturesqueness of expression that report is one of the most conspicuous outbursts of the period, but its chief importance lies in the fact that even at that critical moment in American history everything else was subordinated to the purely local question of land titles under the New Hampshire and New York Grants.
It would be a mistake to assume that the settlers on the Grants between the Connecticut River and the Green Moun- tains had become completely law-abiding and that lawlessness prevailed solely on the west side of the mountain range. The example of Colonel Nathan Stone's Windsor rioters in rescuing prisoners, attacking the sheriff and mobbing the court in the year 1770 had been followed in 1772 in Putney by a mob which took possession of cattle and other personal property that had been levied upon by the sheriff under a writ of execution.2 At the same time there had been open threats of rescuing prisoners at the county jail.3 Again, in the autumn of 1774, a rough and lawless character who had been jailed at West- minster upon a charge of sedition or treason obtained his free- dom at the hands of a mob.4 Contempt for law was rampant. Debtors were numerous and their disinclination or inability to pay their debts aroused an abundance of sympathy among the neighbors. Courts, as aids to the creditor class, were hated.
A contemporary but doubtless biased and extravagant ac- count of conditions in Cumberland County says, probably with a bit of truth, "At this time there were tory parties form-
12 Gov. & Coun., 489-497.
2 4 Doc. Hist., 461.
$ Id., 462.
4 B. H. Hall's Eastern Vermont, p. 202.
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ing, although they were under disguise; and had laid a plan to bring the lower sort of people into a state of bondage and slavery. They saw that there was no cash stirring, and they took that opportunity to collect debts, knowing that men had no other way to pay them than by having their estates taken by execution and sold at vendue. There were but very few men among us that were able to buy; and those men were so disposed that they would take all the world into their own hands, without paying anything for it, if they could, by law; which would soon bring the whole country into a state of slavery." 1 This passage, which was written by Doctor Reuben Jones, of Rockingham, emphasizes not unduly the general poverty and the dangerous accumulation of overdue debts. Such conditions are to be kept in mind if one is to understand rightly the course of events.
The calendar of the Court of Common Pleas for Cumberland County must have been full of actions for debt upon promis- sory notes and other contracts, actions of replevin and bills to foreclose mortgages. The debtors and their families were in despair as the March session drew near. The Court of Common Pleas, which never had been highly regarded, was then at the lowest point in popular esteem. Judge Samuel Wells, who though of tory principles was personally liked, was away in New York City attending to his duties as assemblyman for the county. Of Judges Chandler and Lord we need not repeat what has already been said. A fourth judge, in the person of Noah Sabin, had been appointed. His stiff, uncompromising disposition and his ambition as a new broom to make a clean sweep of the calendar made him as disliked as any of his col- leagues. William Paterson, an Irishman, who had succeeded Daniel Whipple as sheriff, was an unfit character for the post; while Samuel Gale, who had replaced the rascally Irishman, Crean Brush, as county clerk, was an Englishman and there- fore a "foreigner." That these "foreigners"-men not born in the Colonies-were appointed to the court offices was galling to the harrassed yeomen of Cumberland County. This point the settlers frequently featured in later statements of their complaints.
1 1 Gov. & Coun. 333.
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As the opening day of the term drew near murmurs against the court had become so threatening that cautious men sug- gested to Judge Chandler the expediency of postponing the session. That shifty character pretended to acquiesce in the proposal so far as the trial of civil causes was involved but pointed out that it would be desirable to hold a court of General Sessions of the Peace to try a murder case that was on the docket. Whether the countryside had any faith in Judge Chandler's word is doubtful. At all events an angry and de- termined mob of about one hundred took the precaution of seizing Westminster Court House late in the afternoon of March 13, 1775, which was the day before the date scheduled for the opening of the term. What followed is recognized even by Ira Allen and Governor Hiland Hall as real Vermont history.
There presently arrived at Westminster Court House Sheriff William Paterson and a posse of sixty men whom, in an- ticipation of trouble, he had been recruiting in Brattleborough and the river towns to the northward during the two days last past. The sheriff's posse, some of whom had firearms and some of whom had clubs, approached to within a few feet of the court house door where Paterson commanded the mob to dis- perse. The mob showed no sign of yielding and Paterson read the King's Proclamation. The only results of this formality were shouts of defiance in which was recognized the voice of Charles Davenport, a Fulham carpenter, who declared that the rioters would stay in the court house as long as they pleased and that the sheriff and his men would be blown to hell if they undertook to force matters. Doctor Reuben Jones, in his highly colored report of the proceeding, makes the doubt- ful statement that the mob offered to permit the sheriff and his posse to enter if they would leave their weapons outside. After some time spent in nothing more violent than threats Sheriff Paterson, having notified the rioters that he would give them time to reflect, ordered his men to withdraw to John Norton's tavern for supper.
On the withdrawal of the posse some of the rioters left the court house and engaged in debate with members of the posse. In Yankee fashion they undertook to trade or compromise.
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Samuel Gale, the county clerk, who was conspicuous in the "court party" and especially bitter against the mob, was prompt in trying to head off any parley. "I will hold no parley with such damned rascals," exclaimed Gale, "but by this!" With that he held up a pistol. This seemed to suspend the effort at adjustment and the members of the posse disappeared -some to Norton's and some to gather recruits. A substantial number of the mob remained in possession of the court house.
About seven in the evening Judge Chandler walked to the court house where, as Doctor Jones states, he gained admit- tance. To Chandler the rioters made protest that they had se- cured his promise at Chester, only a few days before, that there should be no firearms carried by the court party but that the sheriff's posse had come armed. Chandler's excuse, which seems to have been acceptable, was that the arms were brought without his consent. Still generous in promises he gave his word to the rioters that they might remain in undisturbed possession of the court house until morning. This visit paid to the mob by Chandler of course afforded opportunity for him to learn something of the force against which the court party must fight. Doubtless he made known the facts to Paterson at Norton's tavern where Paterson's men were then drinking heavily.
Late at night, Sheriff Paterson and his men, more in the mood for battle than they had been six hours before, gathered once again in front of the court house. Addressing the mob as if he meant business Paterson demanded entrance and as- sured them that he would force it unless it were peacefully granted. With this he mounted the steps at the door. Up to this moment there had been no act of violence, but on reaching the doorway blows of clubs rained upon him. History does not relate "who struck Billy Paterson" 1 first and thus began what some enthusiastic Vermonters have called the first battle of the American Revolution. The blows were hard enough to force Paterson to the ground, but he had the pluck to make a second attempt. Faring as badly as before he ordered his men to fire. After several gunshots by the posse and possibly a few by the mob Paterson's men stormed the door and forced an
1 Is this the origin of the familiar slang ?
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entrance. Quickly routing the rioters, several of whom were made prisoners, the posse took and retained possession of the court house for the remainder of the night.
In this affray two of the posse and ten of the mob were wounded. In the case of the latter the wounds of William French and Daniel Houghton proved mortal. French died before daybreak on the morning of March 14 and is extrava- gantly styled by Mr. B. H. Hall as "the proto-martyr to the cause of American liberty and of the Revolution." Houghton lingered for nine days.
The "court party" was able to open court according to schedule on March 14 and devoted a part of the day to pre- paring an official report of the riot.1 This report was subscribed by Judges Chandler and Sabin, Assistant Justices Stephen Greenleaf and Benjamin Butterfield, Deputy Sheriff Bildad Andross, and County Clerk Samuel Gale. The court then de- cided to adjourn until June. This was expedient since, accord- ing to Mr. B. H. Hall, not less than four hundred people had congregated at Westminster by noon of March 14. Half of this number, he says, were from New Hampshire and many were of military companies under the command of their cap- tains. This assemblage promptly released the few prisoners taken by the "court party." Before evening the judges and all of the "court party " who could be found were placed under arrest. Threats of lynching and other violence were suppressed by Captain Benjamin Bellows of Walpole who seems to have had the coolest head of any of the whigs.
It was perhaps due to the wisdom of Captain Bellows that Timothy Olcott of Chester, one of the official coroners of Cum- berland County, was called to hold an inquest over the body of William French. The report of the coroner's jury of seventeen men, under date of March 15, found that French came to his death by gunshot wounds inflicted at the hands of William Paterson, Mark Langdon, Christopher Osgood, Benjamin Gorton, Samuel Knight, and others unknown. Two members of the coroner's jury were Alexander Parmelee and Elihu Newell of Windsor.
Men continued to pour into Westminster throughout the
1 1 Gov. & Coun., 337.
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day. On the evening of March 15, Robert Cochran, one of Ethan Allen's lieutenants from the west side of the Green Mountains, arrived on the scene with a band of followers so that by the morning of March 16 there were at Westminster "five hundred soldiers well equipped for war." The accession of Cochran and his men effected, perhaps for the first time, a combination of agitators on the east and west sides of the mountains. In spite of the disorderly elements in this con- siderable concourse of indignant settlers there was enough wisdom to select a committee to act for the whole. This committee decided to admit to bail Judge Chandler and six others on their giving bonds to Colonel John Hazeltine to appear for trial at such time as might be appointed. Sheriff Paterson, Judge Sabin, Assistant Justice Benjamin Butter- field, County Clerk Samuel Gale, and five others, were held without bail and sent under military guard to Northampton in the Province of Massachusetts Bay to be lodged in jail for trial. Cochran's company of twenty-five men with a like number of New Hampshire men under Captain Butterfield acted as guards on the journey.
Colonel Nathan Stone, who was one of the assistant justices, seems to have entirely avoided implication in the Westminster affray. The explanation doubtless lies in the fact that he was in New York City on March 8, and had not had time to return to Cumberland County for the beginning of the court session. The evidence of this may be found in the fact that on March 8 he recorded in New York City a patent for a new township, called Rutland, which the Provincial Government of New York under date of September 8, 1774, had granted to him in partnership with Judge Samuel Wells, Samuel Knight, John Church and a number of New York speculators. In connection with the granting of that patent, which related not to the present town of Rutland, but to a tract in the vicinity of the present town of Sheldon,1 we may refer to Doctor Cadwallader Colden's letter to Governor Tryon under date of July 6, 1774. In this letter the Lieutenant-Governor said: " . . It is proper your Excellency should now know that since my last letter the Council have advised me to issue patents to several
1 1 Collections, Vt. Hist. Soc., 157.
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persons who had not only heretofore obtained warrants of survey but who had other very strongly equitable claims- such as Col. Stone, Mr. Avery, Col. Willard, Mr. Ashley and Mr. Knowlton, whose warrants are all of them for tracts of land that never were granted by New Hampshire or the French." 1
The outbreak of the American Revolution put a final end to sessions of courts of law under the government of New York upon the New Hampshire Grants. If there were any attempts to bring to trial the members of the "court party" or other participants in the Westminster Massacre such attempts have escaped the vision of the historian. With the incarceration of Paterson, Sabin, Gale, and their companions in Northampton, their subsequent release at the instance of Chief Justice Hors- manden of New York and the acceptance of the several bail bonds taken by Colonel Hazeltine, the curtain falls on the Westminster tragedy. There remain for consideration, how- ever, the epilogues delivered by various contemporaneous authorities and the true meaning, if we can find it, of the West- minster episode.
Allusion has already been made to the memorial prepared by Judge Chandler and his associates,2 to the affidavits3 of Hancock and Griffin and to the narrative of Doctor Reuben Jones.4 To these documents it is not necessary again to refer although the inquisitive reader who wishes to examine them at length may find in them enough of interest to repay perusal. It is, however, worth while to note Lieutenant-Governor Col- den's observations on the riot. In a letter addressed by him to Lord Dartmouth under date of April 5, 1775, and probably having in mind such matters as the Boston Tea Party, he ex- pressed his belief that the inhabitants of Cumberland County had been infected by the example of the men of Massachusetts Bay. "It is proper that your Lordship should be informed," he wrote, "that the inhabitants of Cumberland County have not been made uneasy by any dispute about the title of their lands; those who have not obtained Grants under this Gov- ernmt live in quiet possession under Grants formerly made by
1 N. Y. Hist. Soc. Colden Letters, pp. 347-348. 2 1 Gov. & Coun., 337-338.
$ 4 Doc. Hist., 545-550.
+ 1 Gov. & Coun., 332-336.
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New Hampshire. The Rioters have not pretended any such pretext for their conduct. The example of Massachusetts Bay is the only reason they have assigned. Yet I make no doubt they will be joined by the Bennington Rioters who will endeavor to make one common cause of it, though they have no connection but in violence to Government." With undis- guised bitterness he also stated that according to advices "if the debts of the people who have been concerned in this out- rage were all paid there would not be a sixpence of property left among them." 1
Except for a New York grant in Hinsdale (Vernon), Colden was correct in giving the impression that the holders of New Hampshire titles on the east side of the Green Mountains had not quite the same causes of complaint as the settlers to the west. Nevertheless the settlers in the Connecticut Valley were not wholly complacent in the thought of what they had paid or might be called upon to pay to the government of New York for confirmation charters nor were they by any means unanimous in their desire to remain citizens of that province. That the people of Cumberland County were affected by the example of disorder in Massachusetts Bay and by the discon- tent of the American colonies in general is probably quite true, yet the evidence is pretty strong that the immediate or proxi- mate cause of the outbreak was impatience with the burden of the local courts and the distress of debtors.2 Colden's sound prediction of union in effort between the settlers on the two sides of the Green Mountains-if it was a prediction-accords with his usual sagacity.
A somewhat singular sequel to the expulsion of the courts at Westminster is disclosed in a letter written by William Marsh and James Rose at Manchester on June 28, 1775.3 This letter related that a mob had lately assembled at Man- chester with the intention of marching to Fort Edward and breaking up the courts at the latter point. On hearing that
1 4 Doc. Hist. 551.
2 The letter of Solomon Phelps in the Family Memoirs compiled by John Phelps sets forth the "ignorance" and "knavery" of the Cumberland County Magis- trates as well as the people's sympathy for the Massachusetts revolutionists.
31 Journal Prov. Cong. N. Y., 72.
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the court house at Fort Edward was under the protection of Colonel Mott with some Connecticut troops the mob abandoned the project. A letter under date of June 5, 1775, from William Duer, covers the same subject.1 It was the opinion of Marsh and Rose that the mob was composed of poor debtors. If this conclusion be the correct one and if the motive at Westminster could be inferred from that involved in the Manchester episode, there is little doubt as to the nature of these uprisings against the courts. It is to be noted that Fort Edward was beyond the western limits of the New Hampshire Grants but within the limits of Charlotte County which included Manchester and many other townships that were chartered by Benning Wentworth.
Of the real meaning of the Westminster affray, Mr. James Truslow Adams, in his scholarly Revolutionary New England, has perhaps stated the case better than any predecessor when he says it "has all the familiar ear-marks of an acute economic crisis on any frontier." 2 In the opinion of well- informed Vermonters it was not considered a part of the Ameri- can Revolution, for we find a letter written by Jonas Fay and Ira Allen on February 7, 1782, in which they fix Vermont's first participation in the war as "after the Battle of Lexing- ington." 3 As might be expected Ethan Allen entertained a similar opinion.4
In a month's reflection on the Westminster Massacre the men of Cumberland County reached their own conclusion as to its meaning, or, at least, what had best be declared as its meaning. They refused to admit that it was an uprising of poor debtors who sought to evade their obligations. They re- fused to adopt as their own the specious pretext advanced by Doctor Reuben Jones to the effect that the General Assembly of the Province of New York had not endorsed the resolutions of the Continental Congress. They refused to assign the op- pression of Great Britain as one of the causes. Beset by doubts as to the right or expedient course, embarrassed both by the thoughts of their own conduct and the ferment of impending war, their committee-men (who recorded that they had been
1 Id., 71-72.
2 Revolutionary New England, p. 415.
3 2 Gov. & Coun., 369.
' 1 Id., p. 467.
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"appointed by a large body of the inhabitants on the east side of the range of Green Mountains") gathered at Westminster in large numbers for what we may call the fourth Cumberland County Convention on April 11, 1775. Their resolutions passed on that day are important enough to be set forth in some detail.
First of all, the convention found "the government of New York" designing arbitrarily to take away the property of the inhabitants of the New Hampshire Grants. Second, the lives of such inhabitants were in danger under the administration of that province-witness, the affray at Westminster. Third, the inhabitants of the Grants should resist the authority of New York until they could lay before "his most gracious Majesty in Council" the several wrongs with a "petition to be taken out of so oppressive a jurisdiction and either annexed to some other government or erected and incorporated into a new one . . '' 1 Although the settlers were destined soon to recant and almost to eat their own words, every point was directed for the moment against New York with not a word in opposition to the Crown. Expediency and caution may have had more weight than sincerity, for the situation was per- plexing in the extreme. If the Cumberland County yeomen deemed it less dangerous to lay blame on the Province of New York than on Great Britain one should not be surprised. One point, however, stands out clearly and that is the alternative suggestion of a new and separate province. It was the first time that this idea had been publicly broached by a declaration of settlers upon the New Hampshire Grants.
In advancing a plea for a separate Crown province the men of Cumberland County are not to be credited with originality. Five and one half years before the date of this fourth Cumber- land County convention the missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts had heard of such a suggestion and had written to Sir William Johnson recom- mending Partridge Thatcher as a fit person to be appointed governor of the new province.2 Later, Major Philip Skene had favored a similar project with the view of securing for himself the governorship and is said to have had the approval of Ethan
1 Slade's Vt. State Papers, p. 60.
2 4 Doc. Hist., 378.
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Allen.1 Governor Hiland Hall believes that the Cumberland County convention had reference to Skene's own undertaking,2 but there is no evidence that this was the case. As far as public declarations of the settlers are concerned the germ of the idea of a separate government for the New Hampshire Grants is found in that utterance of the fourth Cumberland County convention at Westminster on April 11, 1775.
The concluding transaction of the fourth Cumberland County convention consisted in the designation of a committee, consisting of Colonel Hazeltine, Charles Phelps, and Colonel Ethan Allen, to prepare the remonstrance and petition already referred to. The composition of this committee was such that it could hardly have acted harmoniously in any event, but all opportunity to demonstrate its efficiency or inefficiency ended with the news from Lexington.
2 Early History of Vermont, p. 195. 1 Allen's History, p. 53.
CHAPTER XXIX ANY PORT IN A STORM
THE bonds between the Province of New York and the inhabitants of the New Hampshire Grants had all but snapped. The measures adopted in New York City by the Provincial Legislature with relation to the Westminster affray made matters worse rather than better. Backed by the efforts of Samuel Wells and Crean Brush as Cumberland County's repre- sentatives in the assembly, that body voted an appropriation of one thousand pounds to preserve order and to protect the sittings of the court in Westminster.1 This was followed im- mediately by offers of reward for the arrest of Ethan Allen, Robert Cochran, Seth Warner, and several other of the in- habitants on the west side of the Green Mountains.2 At the same time the people of Cumberland County through a com- mittee of four were canvassing their own financial condition- apparently with special reference to the county tax which they now hoped might be evaded.3
Threatening as were the local conditions and although the war of the Revolution had actually begun, no sign of either was revealed in Thomas Cooper's warning under date of May 8, 1775, for Windsor's annual town meeting to be held on Tuesday, the sixteenth. Nor does the record of the meeting itself re- flect the slightest sign of anything out of the normal except a vote that "no person shall build any pew in the town house without the consent of the town." Thomas Cooper was re- elected town-clerk, Hezekiah Thomson was chosen moderator and supervisor, and Captain William Dean, who by this time had lived down his disgrace of five years before, was raised to the office of overseer of the poor and surveyor of highways. But this peaceful atmosphere prevailed in Windsor for less than a month. The lively performances of Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys had taken place on May 10, and in the
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