USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 23
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"Att a Request Dated October ye 18th 1775 of six of the Committee Men from six Towns-Viz
Gillford- Benjn Carpend' Esq"
Halifax- John Thomson
Hensdale- Eleazr Patterson
Fullom- Enoch Cook
Rockingham- Moses Wright
Chester -- Thos Chandler Jun"
Upon sd Request I have Thought proper as being obligd by a former Vote To apoint the Twenty first Day of November
1 B. H. Hall's Hist. Eastern Vt., 248, note.
2 1 Gov. & Coun., 341. The diary of Samuel Stevens, of Charlestown, gives the date as July 25, and mentions the presence of Colonel Nathan Stone.
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
Next to meet at Westminster at Nine oClock in the fournoon then and there to acte on the following articles Viz "1. To chuse a Modrator to govarne sd meeting
" 2dly To Examin to the cause of the Universal Uneasyness In the County mentioned in sd Request and to provid a Remady If Posseable for the same.
" 3dly I am Desired to Reccomed it to the Sevral Towns to Give Genral Instructions to sutch men as they shall Chuse and in petculer for Raising Money to Difray the County Charge which seames to be one Grand Cause of uneasyness.
" 4 thly You are Desired to send in by the man or men that you shall send to the County meeting a True Vallieuation Viz how many mailes above sixteen years old in Each Town and how many acres of Improved Land and houses and Barnes mills that is worth a Rating and how many oxen & horses above four years old & Cows Three years old and sheep & hogs one year old.
“'5 th To See what head and Lands & buildings & Stocks as mentioned in the forth article shall be Vallued at in order to make a Tax to Tax the people with. Let yr sum be Great or small So that Justice may be Equaly Done to Every person in the County.
"6 th To See what the County will do with Sutch Towns as shall not send in a Vallieuation if any there should be that Do not.
"7 To see if the County will Raise money to Defray the County Chargs.
"8th You are Desired to Send Stedey Liberty Men that have always apperd stedfast in the Cause of Liberty. and also to acte on any other matter as thay shall think for the pease and safefty of the County.
"Townshend October Ye 18th 1775
John Hazeltine, Charman."
Good John Hazeltine! It was a fine warning even if the topics were unpleasant. On the back of Windsor's copy Chair- man Hazeltine endorsed these two personal messages:
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"To Mr. Hezekiah Thomson County Committee man for Windsor Sir: I have Recd Intiligence from York and think it proper for the Committee to meet on the 21 Day of Novembr at Westminster at Nine in the forenoon. Sir, pray Don't faill. John Hazeltine Charman
"To the Town Clark in Windsor
To be Communicated to the Town"
It was doubtless to economize in writing-paper that John Hazeltine used but one sheet for the warning of the County Congress and the notice of the meeting of the County Com- mittee of Safety. He seems to have intended that the Town Clerk of Windsor should call a town meeting to choose dele- gates for the county congress while Hezekiah Thomson as a committee man should be Windsor's representative at the meeting of the County Committee of Safety. The Windsor records show no town meeting called in response to Hazeltine's warning.
As if in an endeavor to assemble the County Committee of Safety at an earlier date Hazeltine sent the following letter to Windsor on November 6:
"Townshend, November ye 6: 1775.
"Gentlemen :
"You are Desiered to Meet the Committee of Seftey at Westminster on Fryday Next at Nine a Clock in the morning : To Take under Consideration the Reports of the Provincial Congress Respecting Choosing Diligates to Send to New York to Set in Congres this Winter, fail not, for it is Mater of Importance.
from yours to Sarve John Hazeltine Charman
For
Deacon Hezekiah Thomson
and Capt. Wate
in Windsor, Committee men."
There is no record to show whether pursuant to the last note Deacon Thomson and Captain Benjamin Wait or the com- mittee men from any of the other Cumberland County towns
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
attended a meeting at Westminster on November 10. The matter of the election of the delegates "to Set in Congres" was attended to at the county meeting on November 21, when Major William Williams and Doctor Paul Spooner were re- turned as county deputies. A more important transaction of this meeting was the nomination of brigade and regimental officers. These nominations, which are set forth at page 342 of the first volume of Governor and Council, aroused so much local jealousy that only a portion of the nominees received commissions from the Provincial Congress. James Rogers, nominated as Brigadier General and soon to prove himself a Loyalist declined to serve. Joab Hoisington was commissioned as Colonel of the regiment of Minute Men and Elisha Hawley was commissioned quartermaster of the same regiment, but the writer finds no record that these troops were mustered into service.
The protests against the nominations made at the county convention on November 21 were coupled with criticism of the high handed manner in which the several conventions had been conducted. Besides the complaints of individuals there were remonstrances with numerous signatures from the towns of Putney, Westminster, and Fulham. It was stated that a ring of a few men controlled. John Grout charged Colonel John Hazeltine with being a dictator. Without taking such out- bursts too seriously or more than the normal ebulition of Vermont spirit it is quite easy to understand that in the tur- moil of a revolution there would be occasional use of arbitrary methods and many lapses from orderly procedure. The con- vention of November 21, however, had the tact to order a new election of county committee men and local committees of safety. To this order Windsor responded by a town meeting on December 20.
Hezekiah Thomson acted as moderator, but was not re- turned as one of the county committee. Benjamin Wait, who by this time was engaged in military pursuits, was dropped from both the county and the local committees of safety. Captain William Dean and Thomas Cooper were elected to the County Committee and to the Town Committee while Colonel Nathan Stone, Deacon Thomson, Ebenezer Curtis, Ebenezer Hoisington, and William Smead were made members
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of the latter. The meeting also showed public spirit and gen- erosity in voting eight pounds and five shillings towards pay- ing the expenses of the county's delegates to the Provincial Congress.
As far as Cumberland County was concerned the late breach with New York seems to have been overlooked for the balance of the year. Not so, however, on the west side of the Green Mountains. There it had been observed that when the officers of Warner's battalion received their commissions they were expected to take an oath of allegiance which might prove em- barrassing when the question of land titles should again arise. A local convention to consider this point among others was accordingly called to be held at Dorset on the sixteenth of January, 1776.
The year 1775 ended with the disastrous assault on Quebec in which the gallant Montgomery lost his life. Perhaps, had that life been spared, the history of Vermont would have been far different from what it is. For Richard Montgomery was a singularly lovable character, a soldier of bravery and capacity and the first trained leader under whom the Green Mountain Boys had served since the beginning of the controversy with New York. A New Yorker by adoption, allied by marriage with one of the best and most influential families in the Prov- ince, possessing every personal quality which should have inspired the affection, trust, and respect of his soldiers, he was the one man who seemed to have been fitted to settle the long- standing feud between the settlers on the Grants and the government of New York.
Montgomery had no illusions with regard to the character of the men in his army. Mortified by Allen's insubordination and imprudence, he wrote in a private letter to his brother-in- law, Robert R. Livingston, under date of October 5, 1775: "The New Englanders, I am now convinced, are the worst stuff imaginable for soldiers. You would be astonished how their regiments are melted away and yet not a man died of any distemper that I have heard of. There is such an equality among them that the officers have no authority.1 I .
1 This same excessive spirit of equality Washington complained of in the Mas- sachusetts soldiers (Bassett's Middle Group of American Historians, p. 110). Colonel Tompkins found it also among a better body of troops in the First
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don't see among them that zealous attachment to the cause I flattered myself with, but indeed they are homesick." He formed an even more unfavorable impression of the First New York Regiment which he said was "the sweepings of York streets; and they have not more spirit than the New Eng- landers, their morals are infamous and several of them have deserted."
But in spite of early discouragement, Richard Montgomery labored with the skill of a trained soldier and with all the charm and persuasiveness of a gentleman and born leader until he had made of his unpromising troops an army in which he felt a measure of confidence. It is pleasant to recall that two men of Windsor-Captain Israel Curtis with his New Hampshire company and Sergeant William Hunter who as an orderly was attached to the person of General Montgomery-had the privi- lege of serving near to that inspiring young hero of the early Revolutionary days.
With a lieutenant's commission, William Hunter returned to Windsor in December for recruits and according to Reverend Sewall Cutting, succeeded in the following month in enlisting Ebenezer Hoisington, Phineas Killam, Joel Butler, Asa Smead, Jonathan Hodgman, and Solomon Emmons and re- enlisting John Heath.1
Vermont Cavalry in our Civil War. (The Vermonter, vol. XVII, p. 507.) "I'm jest ez good ez you be," may not really be the belief of the speaker, but his am- bition to make this sentiment his creed will as frequently retard his progress as it will promote it. Yet who will deny that this same spirit was largely responsible for American independence and the war against slavery ?
1 Windsor Centennial Memorial, p. 40.
CHAPTER XXX EBENEZER HOISINGTON
THE convention which was held at Dorset on January 16, 1776, was composed wholly of representatives from towns on the west side of the Green Mountains. Like the preceding Dorset convention of July 26, 1775, it was erroneously classed as a "General Convention" by Mr. E. P. Walton in the first volume of Governor and Council. As a matter of fact the con- vention of January, 1776, was, and was intended to be, as local or sectional as the Cumberland County conventions, because only those inhabitants of the Grants "west of the range of Green Mountains" were warned to attend. No others did attend. The important topics announced for discussion were: first, the question of obedience to New York law when not in conflict with New Hampshire land titles; second, the regulation of "schismatic Mobbs"; third, the expediency of sending lobby- ists to the Continental Congress; fourth, the question of unit- ing with New York in the defense of the American colonies or acting alone. The first of these subjects was not new. Al- ready, at the convention held on January 31, 1775, it had been solemnly decided that, while New York laws and officers of the law should be resisted in all that pertained to the old land title dispute, the settlers would, in all other matters, respect the laws of New York. The three other subjects were new.
The convention, after being in session two days and devoting its time almost entirely to the proposal of sending a petition to the Continental Congress, agreed on a form of memorial to that body and delegated persons to present it. This paper was the product of a committee of three consisting of Doctor Jonas Fay who became one of the most active and conspicuous of the founders of Vermont; William Marsh of Manchester, who, after exhibiting great zeal in setting up a new state, went over to the enemy and joined Burgoyne; and Thomas Rowley (or Rowlee) of local fame as the writer of patriotic doggerel.
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The effort of this committee, addressed to John Hancock as President of the Continental Congress, was styled "The Humble Address, Remonstrance and Petition of that part of America being Situate South of Canada line, West of Connecti- cut River, North of the Massachusetts Bay and East of a twenty Mile line from Hudson's River commonly called and known by the name of the N. Hampshire Grants." Obviously this was a falsehood to the extent that it purported to be the voice of the entire district. The same untruth appeared in the certification at the end of the document. In other respects the paper fairly presented the old arguments-hardship, injustice, and attempted extortion-and supplemented them by the new point that the inhabitants if sworn in as soldiers of New York might be bound by the oath in such a way as to embarrass them subsequently in asserting their New Hampshire titles. They therefore sought permission to serve either as Continentals or as soldiers of the New Hampshire Grants rather than as sol- diers of New York.
Whatever may have been the sincerity of this plea it was shrewdly calculated to win the attention of the Continental Congress since that body was more concerned about raising troops for the general defence than in deciding a question of title to real estate. It was a fetching plea: "that your peti- tioners' ardent desires of exerting themselves in the present struggle for freedom may not be restrained and that we might engage in the Glorious Cause without giving dur opponents any advantage in said Land dispute" we would wish the latter controversy to "lie Dormant until a general restoration of Tranquility shall allow us the opportunity for an equitable decision of the same."
What could be fairer or more plausible? Yet the scheme worked poorly. Heman Allen, a brother of Ethan and Ira, was the bearer of the communication to the Continenal Congress. Having presented it to that body early in May he remained in Philadelphia a month waiting for a decision. The committee of the Continental Congress to which the petition was referred recommended to the Dorset convention and to Mr. Allen that the inhabitants of the Grants should, in the present American emergency, consent to do duty under New York but expressed
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the opinion that such submission ought not to prejudice the holders of New Hampshire titles. We have Heman Allen's word for the fact that at Philadelphia several gentlemen pri- vately counseled him on the expediency of uniting the whole of the Grants in a single association and not in affiliation with the Provincial Congress of New York. These gentlemen real- ized as, doubtless, did the Continental Congress that Heman Allen's constituency was but a fraction of the district. There is some evidence that Samuel Adams, who thought well of organizing a New England confederation, may have planted other ideas in Heman Allen's mind.1
Less subtle, perhaps more straightforward, certainly more disturbing to the government of New York, as will be pointed out a little further on, was the procedure of the inhabitants of the Grants on the east side of the Green Mountains in Cumber- land County. Their military organization had been planned on a more elaborate scale. Officers of the Upper Regiment and the Regiment of Minute Men had already been chosen and, on February 1, 1776, at the eighth Cumberland County meeting, the disagreements in the southern part of Cumberland County had been sufficiently ironed out to permit a choice of officers for the Lower Regiment. At this meeting of the county com- mittee of safety which reached that happy conclusion Captain William Dean and Thomas Cooper should have been present as Windsor's delegates, although the writer is unable to find a list of the commiteee-men who actually attended.
The three Cumberland regiments having been duly officered the next step was the choice of a brigadier general and a brigade major for the troops of Cumberland, Gloucester, and Charlotte counties. The nominating committee, consisting of three committee-men from each of these three counties, were ordered to meet at Windsor for this purpose on May 22, 1776. This meeting, it is interesting to note, was probably the first, other than meetings of a purely local nature, to be held at Windsor. The selection of the place was due to its geographical position with reference to the several counties and not for any then recognized eminence which the town had then attained in the affairs of the New Hampshire Grants. The achievement of the
1 Life of Samuel Adams, vol. II, pp. 358-359.
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meeting, over which Colonel Joseph Marsh presided, was the nomination of Jacob Bayley of Newbury as brigadier general and Simon Stevens of Springfield as brigade major.1 Wiser selections could hardly have been made if the sole object were the advancement of the Revolutionary cause. Neither nominee was hampered by anxiety for his land titles or bitten with the idea of hostility to New York. Both were widely informed of matters on the New Hampshire Grants, both were possessed of superior intelligence and both had the influence and standing of elected delegates to the New York Provincial Congress. The sterling quality of Bayley's patriotism has already been mentioned.
The nominating of the brigade officers followed by a day Windsor's annual town meeting, at which were chosen a longer list of town officials than ever before. New names appear in the record and familiar names were dropped, never to return. Deacon Hezekiah Thomson presided as moderator. Thomas Cooper, who for four years had been town clerk, was displaced by Ebenezer Curtis. Possibly this change may have been due to Cooper's having moved his residence to the west part of the township and having thus become less accessible to his townsmen. It is not apparent why so competent a town clerk should otherwise have been retired. To the chief office of supervisor the town elected Captain William Dean. Steel Smith became town treasurer, Ebenezer Curtis and Thomas Cooper the assessors, and Steel Smith and Elisha Hawley the overseers of the poor. The care of the highways was entrusted to Benjamin Bishop, Levi Stevens, and Richard Wait as com- missioners, and to John Benjamin, Willard Dean, Joseph Thomson, Asa Worcester, and Samuel Cook as surveyors. The fence viewers were Jacob Hastings and Jeremiah Bishop. No less than four constables were chosen, viz., Roswell Smith, Samuel Cook, Thomas Cooper, and Elisha Hawley. Benjamin Bishop and Samuel Stow Savage were elected collectors, Caleb Stone, Samuel Patrick, and George Stow hog drivers, and Elihu Newell key keeper. To this list of purely local officers were added Ebenezer Hoisington and Ebenezer Curtis as a "Committee for the County."
1 1 Gov. & Coun., 373.
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EBENEZER HOISINGTON
Not of the standing of Zedekiah or Nathan Stone or Israel Curtis, not possessed of the personal ambition of Joab Hois- ington or Benjamin Wait, not recognized as quite up to the local importance of Deacon Hezekiah Thomson or Thomas Cooper or even the once despised Captain William Dean, Ebenezer Hoisington was a dogged, stubborn hill-farmer and carpenter who lived out on what was later known as the Rus- sell Farm. He might have been termed a "granger." Seldom elected to any town office, he did his duty as he saw it, was a strict member of the Congregational Church, was rarely if ever complained of for over-indulgence in liquor, but was sometimes lacking in control of his temper. He was illiterate to the extent of being uncertain of the way to spell his own name, was a Whig of the Whigs, and had definite ideas of the sort of democratic government he wished to live under. Al- though his election with Ebenezer Curtis as a county com- mittee-man to succeed Thomas Cooper and Captain Dean probably meant at the moment nothing more than a com- munity belief in rotation in office, it nevertheless afforded Ebenezer Hoisington the opportunity of his modest career and put him in a position which he loved. His name has been given no prominence by Vermont historians. To Williams it was merely a name: Graham probably never heard it: Ira Allen suppressed it. Yet, as will appear in this history, Eb- enezer Hoisington was a factor of importance in shaping the destiny of the New Hampshire Grants.
The assembling of the Cumberland County Committee of Safety at Westminster for the ninth county convention on June 11, 1776, gave Ebenezer Hoisington his introduction as a member of a representative body. He and his Windsor col- league are recorded as present on the opening day. The auto- cratic Colonel Hazeltine no longer appeared as chairman, hav- ing been replaced in February by Benjamin Carpenter, of Guilford, who, in turn, was now replaced by Captain James Clay, of Putney. Hoisington received two committee ap- pointments, one to complete the organization of the regiment of Minute Men and the other to inspect the Upper Regiment. To the latter committee Curtis also received an appointment.
Much of the business of the convention consisted of judicial
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duties in deciding controversies, civil and criminal, in the county. The most important transaction of the three days' session was the preparation for an election of three county delegates "to set in Provincial Congress" pursuant to notifica- tion by hand-bill from New York "to choose delegates and invest them with power to establish a form of government." 1 The italics are our own. They mark the words which gave Eben- ezer Hoisington an idea. The County Committee then ad- journed for one week to give to the inhabitants of the county an opportunity to vote for delegates to the New York con- gress. That "congress" was the convention which, pursuant to the recommendations contained in the resolves of the Con- tinental Congress of May 15, established the constitution of the new State of New York, and in its list of members we find such shining names as John Jay, Gouverneur Morris, William Duer, Philip Livingston, and Robert R. Livingston.
Re-assembling at Westminster on June 20, the County Com- mittee passed a formal resolution in favor of sending delegates to the New York convention. The next step was the appoint- ment of a committee to canvass the votes for delegates, and then came the appointment of a committee "to make a Draft of Instructions to the Delegates if chose and to make a return to this comtee," i. e., to the whole County Committee.2 On this sub-committee of three to draft the instructions to the dele- gates Ebenezer Hoisington's name came first, indicating that he probably was its chairman.3
The canvassers of the ballots for the three delegates found the vote to have been very light and unevenly distributed. Colonel Joseph Marsh, of Hartford, led the ticket with a total of 368 votes, while Captain John Sessions, of Westminster, and Major Simon Stevens, of Springfield, trailed with only 172 and 166, respectively.4 These three men, having received more votes than any other candidate, were declared elected.
1 1 Gov. & Coun., 348.
2 Id., 346.
3 NOTE: The writer observes that in the list of committee-men recorded as present at nine o'clock on the morning of June 20, the name of Ebenezer Hoising- ton is omitted. Unquestionably he appeared very soon thereafter, because the record shows his appointment to a committee that was required to act imme- diately. He was appointed to other committees at the same session.
' 1 Gov. & Coun., 382,
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Though the published record does not so state, we have Ira Allen's word for it that six or seven of the towns of Cumber- land County protested against sending any delegates to New York.1
On the afternoon of the following day, Ebenezer Hoisington's sub-committee brought in the draft of instructions for the newly elected delegates. Professing warm attachment to the cause of liberty, and hoping that the new government would preserve the civil and religious liberties of the people, the sub- committee ventured at the outset to observe that the people of the county were sensitive on these points in view of the fact that in the past the county had been imposed upon by having "Certain Foreigners put into High places of Emolement & Honour." With this thrust at the late Sheriff William Pater- son and the two last county clerks, Crean Brush and Samuel Gale, the instructions proceeded to prescribe several features of democratic government which the sub-committee thought desirable and with most of which, through the constitutions and statutes of our States, New Englanders are now familiar. Hoisington's draft is, in fact, one of the very earliest if not the first paper of local origin to set forth in concrete terms the governmental institutions under which the settlers on the New Hampshire Grants desired to live.
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