USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 25
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"The better therefore to convince the Publick of our readi- ness to join in the common Defence of the aforesaid Liber- ties, We do Publish and Subscribe the following Association, (viz .: )
"We the subscribers inhabitants of that District of Land, commonly called and known by the name of the New Hamp- shire Grants, do voluntarily and Solemnly Engage under all the ties held sacred amongst Mankind at the Risque of our Lives and fortunes to Defend, by arms, the United American States against the Hostile attempts of the British Fleets and Armies, until the present unhappy Controversy between the two Countries shall be settled." 1
Forty-nine delegates subscribed to this form of an "Asso- ciation" which differed in but one material particular from other associations that had been signed throughout the colo- nies and even upon the New Hampshire Grants during the previous year. The only peculiarity of this association rested in its allusion to the land title dispute. It contained no dec- laration of independence from New York and no threat of secession. It did, however, seek to make clear the opinion of
1 1 Gov. & Coun., 21-22.
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the subscribers that complete union with New York was im- practicable during the pendency of the land controversy.
Following the adoption of this form of association, the Dor- set convention passed a resolution of a minatory nature and of a type which had long been in vogue on the west side of the Green Mountains, for the purpose of intimidating neighbors and colleagues. This resolution denounced as "enemies to the Common Cause of the N. Hampshire Grants" any inhabitants of the district who should in the future sign an association other than in the form just prescribed. The attitude thus dis- played was not unlike that of unionized strikers who, through exhibition of hostility, deter other workmen from taking the jobs which the strikers themselves have given up.
The convention adjourned on July 25 to meet again at the same place on September 25.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE RANGERS
IT is best at this point to turn to the activities of the dele- gates in the New York Provincial Congress. Owing to the exigencies of the war, the place of meeting on July 9 was at Westchester County Court House at White Plains. On paper the New Hampshire Grants had fair representation. Colonel Joseph Marsh, Major Simon Stevens, and Captain John Ses- sions were certainly competent to look out for Cumberland County's interests. Gloucester County had chosen the best possible representative in General Jacob Bayley who had Colonel Peter Olcott as his colleague; Charlotte County had Alexander Webster, Doctor John Williams, and the distin- guished William Duer; while Albany County had many dele- gates. Actually, the New Hampshire Grants were represented only by the members from Cumberland, for Colonel Olcott was in attendance scarcely more than a week, General Bayley was too much occupied with the war to attend until the very close of the session, and the delegates from Albany and Char- lotte Counties were identified only with the region which is now the State of New York.
Almost the first act of the convention was to listen to the Declaration of Independence, which John Hancock, as Presi- dent of the Continental Congress had sent up from Philadel- phia. Under the inspiration of that stirring document, which they spread in full upon the records, the delegates at White Plains voted to change the title of their Provincial Congress to "The Convention of the Representatives of the State of New York," and to fix upon July 16 as the day when they should begin the work of framing a State Constitution, as the Continental Congress had advised.
Military measures occupied at first most of their attention. The exposed condition of the counties on the New Hampshire Grants made strong appeal and accordingly munitions were
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voted. On July 23, which was the day following Colonel Marsh's arrival, the Convention voted to raise troops to pro- tect the northeastern region from Indian attack. For Cum- berland and Gloucester Counties the convention ordered the enlistment of a force of two hundred and fifty-two rangers to be under the command of a major. The record of the conven- tion indicates that our Windsor settler, Joab Hoisington, was on hand at White Plains and was still "glowing with true martial ardor," for, on the morning of July 24, on the recom- mendation of the delegates from Cumberland County, he re- ceived an appointment as major of the Rangers, for which office the commission was issued in the afternoon of the same day with orders that it be "delivered to the said Joab Hoising- ton." Certified copies of the resolves of the convention cover- ing the raising of the troops were ordered "delivered with all despatch to the respective committees of the counties"; and one week later, on July 31, Major Joab Hoisington in great impatience burst in on County Chairman James Clay at Put- ney, with a demand that Cumberland County's Committee of Safety must assemble at Windsor on August 6 in joint session with Gloucester's committee for the purpose of choosing cap- tains and lieutenants for the Rangers.
Whether Captain Clay was annoyed that the war finally had spread to Putney, or whether Major Hoisington's impetu- osity and insistence were unpleasant, there developed lasting friction between the two. Clay protested that one week's no- tice to Cumberland's twenty-two towns, some of which were very remote, was quite too short, while as for Gloucester it was utterly out of the question. Hoisington announced that he would be responsible for notifying Gloucester's County Com- mittee, and on this promise, practically incapable of fulfilment, succeeded in persuading Clay to warn the committeemen of Cumberland to be on hand at the Town House at Windsor on August 6. The unhappy chairman of the County Commit- tee had been Clay in the hands of potter Ebenezer Hoisington and secessionist colleagues at Westminster on June 21 : he was again Clay in the hands of potter Joab Hoisington at Putney on July 31.
Of course, the meeting of the Joint Committees of Safety
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of Cumberland and Gloucester Counties at Windsor lacked a / quorum. One account says that only ten committeemen at- tended; another account puts the number at thirteen. Chair- man James Clay was on hand protesting, but with his usual ineffectiveness, that business could not be done without a quorum. Major Joab Hoisington, although not a committee- man, was on hand as the most interested party and full of de- termination that, quorum or no quorum, the nomination of officers must take place. Sometime during the day, as ap- pears by the affidavit of Benjamin Whitney, both Clay and Hoisington were at a "publick house" and seated on opposite sides of a table. To Windsor readers this should suggest that most famous of all Vermont's "public houses"-the "Old Constitution House," in which, according to tradition, there sat but eleven months later the immortal convention that founded the State of Vermont. Here on that sixth day of August, 1776, Benjamin Whitney heard Clay in a very low voice ask Hoisington's permission to see a copy of the resolu- tions calling for the raising of troops. Whitney doubted if Hoisington heard. At all events Hoisington did not comply, and his supposed refusal formed the basis of a complaint which Hoisington subsequently was called upon to answer before the New York State Convention.
Late in the day Chairman Clay capitulated. He had had an all-day wrangle with the overbearing major, who was fighting on his old home grounds, with the probable support of his uncle, Ebenezer Hoisington, and Ebenezer Curtis-the two latter present as Windsor's county committeemen-and, all three of them, early and staunch members of the Congrega- tional "Church of Christ in Cornish and Windsor." It was a formidable group, even without the help of Benjamin Em- mons and John Strong, of Woodstock, Israel Burlingame and William Upham, of Weathersfield, Jonathan Burk, of Hertford (Hartland), and Stephen Tilden, of Hartford. That the major lacked the support of some of these, as well as that of others among the delegates is most likely. But there were present, besides the committeemen, several Windsor citizens who in the potent rôle of office-seekers must have lent that helpful pressure for which in such capacity Vermonters have since
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become renowned. Here we find Benjamin Wait, a candidate for the office of Captain of the Rangers; Elisha Hawley, a can- didate for the office of Lieutenant of the Rangers; William Hunter, a candidate for the job of sergeant. With the friendly aid of such amici curic and with the lubricants obtainable at the "publick house" of landlord Jacob Hastings or Elijah West there could have been but one outcome for Major Joab Hoisington's fight at Windsor. What was a little thing like & lack of a quorum among friends ?
That evening saw some new military officers at Windsor: Captain Benjamin Wait and Lieutenant Elisha Hawley. The record of the day's session of the joint committees closed with a resolution to subscribe to an association forwarded from New York and to take proceedings against those who were "Refusers." 1 The nomination of officers for Gloucester was deferred to a meeting of the Gloucester Committee of Safety, to be held at Thetford on August 11. It was a good day's job that Major Joab Hoisington had done; and if he turned in at Windsor's "publick house" that night with a good deal more than a soldier's normal allowance of rum aboard, who was there then or who is there now who would not forgive him? Even a twentieth-century prohibitionist should have a heart for the spirit of 'seventy-six.
The next morning found Major Hoisington up and doing. He waited upon Chairman Clay, whom he seemed to regard by this time not only as his servant but as a quasi prisoner of war, and demanded that he sign warrants certifying to the choice of the several officers. Again Clay hemmed and hawed and again reluctantly yielded. Major Hoisington followed up his triumph by recruiting Corporal Matthew Hammond and Privates Solomon Emmons, Samuel Stone, and Ebenezer Howard. These men, with Sergeant William Hunter, Ser- geant Samuel Messer, and Privates Eldad Hubbard, Zebina Curtis, Asa Smead, Thomas Hunter, David Hunter, and Eze- kiel Hawley, who were recruited a little later, were among the Windsor men in Captain Wait's company in Hoisington's Rangers. The liberal bounty or bonus paid at enlistment to each non-commissioned officer and private, and the prospect
11 Gov. & Coun., 355-356.
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THE RANGERS
of big-game hunting, with an Indian or two as the bag, made service in the Rangers attractive.
It would seem from the testimony of Chairman Clay that all the committeemen remained in Windsor overnight. Per- haps the cause was not the darkness of the roads and paths to their homes. Three important visitors were on their way to Windsor, if they had not already reached Windsor the night before. At all events they were there on August 7, and the committeemen were interested. These visitors were Heman Allen, Doctor Jonas Fay, and William Marsh, who had come as members of the committee appointed at Dorset on July 25 to treat with the inhabitants on the east side of the Green Mountains relative to an association for the whole of the New Hampshire Grants.
Chairman Clay made a valuable report of his interview with Heman Allen. It is preserved in volume 4 of the Docu- mentary History of New York, at page 556. "On the 7th of August last," wrote Clay, "Heman Allen, Doctor Fay and Col. Marsh came as a committee from the other side of the Green Mountains to Windsor, when the committees of Cum- berland and Gloucester were setting at that place, and begged to be admitted before the committees." This request was soon granted, and thereupon the three guests proceeded to read "several papers." Some of these papers, Clay asserts, "ascertain the boundaries they proposed for a New State."
The proposal for a "New State" went beyond the literal meaning of any measure adopted at Dorset the month before. That it had not been discussed at Dorset we cannot assert. There certainly had been a vote to solicit the settlers to join in forming the Grants into a "separate district"; but Heman Al- len's committee was specifically empowered only (first) to solicit the East Side inhabitants to join in an "association," (second) to exhibit a record of the Dorset proceedings, and (third) "to do Business as above." Allen and his colleagues evidently con- strued their power "to do business as above" to include the promotion of the New State idea. Here, then, at Windsor, on August 7, 1776, we find through reading James Clay's narra- tive what is possibly the first mention on Vermont soil of the word "State" as applied to an organization of the New Hamp-
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shire Grants, although Mr. E. P. Walton has taken the liberty of inserting, without the slightest authority, after the word "District" the words "or State" in brackets in the record of the Dorset convention of July 24.1 The word does not appear in the manuscript record of Doctor Jonas Fay.2
Clay proceeds to relate that the Dorset committee of three then invited the committeemen of Cumberland and Glouces- ter "to sign a paper." Clay does not identify the "paper," but it was probably the association agreement which had been drawn up at Dorset. There is room, however, in what follows for an inference that this paper may have been a petition to the Continental Congress.
As a further means of promoting their projects, Allen, Fay, and Marsh stated that "they" had consulted with several members of the Continental Congress, who advised them to collect the sense of the people on the subject. At this point Clay, who was strongly averse to anything as strenuous or bold as breaking with New York, interposed a question: Did Allen suppose "the Continental Congress would take up the affair at this time in case the people did sign?" To this Allen answered in the negative; but he hastened to add that some members of the Congress advised them to petition because, as Allen said, "if we submitted to the mode of Government now forming in the State of New York we should be tied so that we could not get off at a future day." That Heman Allen's answer was shrewd and had force, and that it must have had an effect on such radicals as Ebenezer Hoisington and some of the other committeemen of secessionist tendencies cannot be denied.
Clay omitted to relate-possibly because the subject was not specifically touched upon in his presence that Heman Allen and his fellow-agitators urged that each town in Cum- berland and Gloucester should hold a meeting to consider the New State idea and should in any event send a representative to the adjourned session of the Dorset Convention. How thor- oughly this proposal was circulated does not appear. Though Mr. B. H. Hall, in his History of Eastern Vermont,8 gives the
1 1 Gov. & Coun., 20.
2 Early Vermont Conventions, p. 43
3 B. H. Hall's History of Eastern Vermont, p. 269.
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THE RANGERS
impression that most of the towns were moved to take action either for or against, he cites but three cases. The record of the Dorset convention of September 25 shows no response whatever from any of the towns in Gloucester County, and lists responses from only ten towns in Cumberland. To the list we should add that Chester was favorable to the New State idea, that Halifax was probably opposed, and that neither was represented at Dorset.
Ebenezer Fuller, of Rockingham, was one of the committee- men attending at Windsor on August 6 and 7. So much was he impressed with the project of erecting a separate State out of the New Hampshire Grants that shortly after his return to his home we find a town meeting called at Rockingham to consider the subject. The record says the meeting was "legal" and "full." That energetic radical, Doctor Reuben Jones, did much of the talking, and with such persuasiveness that the town voted "to associate with inhabitants of the district of land called the New Hampshire Grants," to send two dele- gates to Dorset for the convention of September 25, and to instruct those delegates "to use their best influence in said Convention that proper measures be taken to Get that Dis- trict of Land commonly called and known by the name of the Newhampshire Grants formed and incorporated into a sep- arate District or State. . . . "
This action of Rockingham's, taken on August 26, was un- equivocal. The vote of Halifax was equally definite to send no delegate to Dorset. Windsor took a stand between the two. Windsor had had the benefit of the full force of the Dorset committee's eloquence, but still had to reckon with Colonel Nathan Stone. There is little doubt that he had no faith in nor sympathy for a plan to separate the New Hampshire Grants from New York and launch them as a little govern- ment of their own. He had been Windsor's leader in stormy times and in difficult places. He had made his townsmen se- cure in their land titles. He was the largest property owner in town. It was therefore probably due to Colonel Stone's influence that at the town meeting, called on September 20 and presided over by Joel Ely, the town merely voted to send Ebenezer Hoisington as a delegate to attend the Dorset con-
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vention on September 25, and avoided committing the town to any scheme such as Heman Allen had broached. Could Colonel Stone have prevailed on Windsor to take a firm stand, like Halifax, against sending a delegate he would probably have done so.
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CHAPTER XXXIII
WINDSOR'S DELEGATE AT DORSET
IN choosing Ebenezer Hoisington as Windsor's delegate to Dorset, the town selected the man who was equipped as far as acquaintance and convention experience were concerned. Politically, and especially on the question of loyalty to New York, Colonel Stone could hardly have found among his towns- men another who entertained views so opposed to his own.
At Dorset, Ebenezer Hoisington found himself in the com- pany of forty-four alleged delegates from the west side of the Green Mountains, and ten delegates besides himself from the east side. In attendance, but not as delegates, were Colonel Seth Warner, Captain Heman Allen, and, probably, Captain Abner Seeley. Although the convention styled itself as an ad- journment of the "general" convention of the July preced- ing, the presence of several new delegates from west-side towns that had been represented by other men at the last session, and the presence for the first time of considerable east-side representation almost rendered this convention of September 25 a new body. In comparison with the preceding session it had become "general" if a convention on the Grants could be called "general" which lacked a single elected delegate from Gloucester County and left one-half of Cumberland County unrepresented.
Among the delegates whom Ebenezer Hoisington may then have met for the first time were Joseph Bowker from Rutland, Ira Allen from Colchester, and Thomas Chittenden from Wil- liston. On previous occasions he had met William Marsh, of Manchester, Doctor Jonas Fay, of Bennington, Doctor Reuben Jones, of Rockingham, and Colonel Benjamin Carpenter, of Guilford. The last appeared not only as a delegate from Guil- ford, but is recorded also as a delegate from the town of Hali- fax, which had expressly voted to send no delegate whatever. Another irregularity in representation is evident in Benning- ton's delegation, which was made up of no less than six men.
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At the previous session Bennington had sent Doctor Jonas Fay, Simeon Hathaway, and Captain John Burnham, junior. They were on hand again in September, but accompanied by Nathan Clark, Colonel Moses Robinson, and Major Samuel Safford. Townshend, which had been the only east-side town to send delegates to the July convention, was now unrepre- sented. Windsor was the most northerly of the east-side towns to send a delegate. Whatever may be said of the character and attainments of the delegates from the west side of the Mountains, the delegates from the east side, at least, were hardly up to the average of the best citizenship in the Con- necticut Valley towns.
The first day's session included a reading of the minutes of previous west-side conventions "to give light to those Gen- tlemen Delegates from the east side of the Green Mountains in particular and the whole in general." It seems somewhat singular that after reading these minutes the convention should have garbled one of the most important of the resolutions passed on July 25. Yet that is precisely what was done on the second day of the September session. The resolution of July 25, which had favored an application "to the inhabitants of said grants to form the same into a separate district" was again brought up for discussion and in quotation marks was made to read as a resolution passed on July 24 to the effect that "suitable application be made to form that District of Land, commonly called and known by the name of the New Hampshire Grants, into a separate District." No record of previous minutes shows a resolution to have been passed in that form on July 24. The subject had been put over until July 25, and the resolution that was finally passed on July 25 contained the words which we have just italicized, and which gave an aspect to the plan quite different from that which the minutes of the September convention purported to give. How- ever, it is not worth while to be hypercritical. The delegates were taking chances at best. In a body engaged in plotting secession exact truth is perhaps too much to expect.
Pursuant to the above resolution, thus recast, the conven- tion appointed a committee, of which Colonel Benjamin Car- penter was chairman, to form a plan for future proceedings.
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It was a businesslike committee: it made its report on the morning of the day it was appointed. This committee on pro- gramme was remarkable for another reason: two of the mem- bers, viz., Colonel William Marsh, of Manchester, and Colonel James Rogers, of Kent (Londonderry), inside of a year de- serted to the British, while at least two of the members, viz., Ira Allen and Colonel Thomas Chittenden, were among those eminent Vermonters who were parties to the ostensibly trai- torous correspondence with General Haldimand, the com- mander of the British forces in Canada in 1780 and subsequent years. The remaining three members of the committee were Chairman Carpenter, Doctor Reuben Jones, and Doctor Jonas Fay.
The committee's idea of a programme was one that should involve the signing of what was called "a covenant or com- pact" by the members of the convention on behalf of them- selves and their constituents, whereby all should agree to be bound by such rules as the majority might impose. Though the context of the committee's report is not altogether clear, it seems to have been the intent of the committee on pro- gramme that the rules above referred to should deal with the seven following topics: First, the regulation of the militia with a view to furnishing troops to the extent of the ability of the Grants for the defence of the liberties of the United States of America, but subject to the proviso that militia officers there- tofore appointed by New York should carry out orders al- ready received from the military authority of New York. Thereafter the militia was to be under the control of the con- vention. The proviso appears to have been an afterthought- perhaps on the suggestion of Colonel Benjamin Carpenter, who, as colonel of the Lower Regiment in Cumberland County, must have had some compunction against deserting his com- mand in the face of the enemy. Second, a return or census of the inhabitants of the Grants to be reported to the Continen- tal Congress. Third, a pledge of willingness to abide by the decisions of the Continental Congress. Fourth, the appoint- ment of a committee to wait on the Continental Congress with such "petitions or directions" as the Dorset convention might agree to send.
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Having thus paid due obeisance to the Continental Con- gress, the committee on programme proceeded to touch the meat of the matter as follows: Fifth, "To make suitable pro- visions that the whole of the inhabitants on Sd N. Hampshire Grants on each side of the Green Mountains be notified and have proper opportunity to join and coincide with the mea- sures taken and to be hereafter taken for the benefit of form- ing Sª District into a separate State." Here we have definite allusion to the ultimate goal and definite admission that the Grants were not then fully united or prepared to attain it. Next, as the sixth article of the programme, the committee showed its militancy by reciting that the ancient dispute over land titles had not subsided and recommending that "we do therefore vote that any Law or Laws, Direction or Directions we may (for the time being) receive from the State of N. York will not in future be accepted neither shall we hold ourselves bound by them." The seventh and last item was a recommen- dation that tories be more sharply looked after.
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