USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 30
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1 See, however, The Vermonter, vol. 30, No. 11, p. 168. The Vermont Council in March, 1778, hired a room of one West (39 Vt. State Papers, MS., pp. 10-11).
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old Captain Nathaniel Leonard homesteads, and several other buildings now stand.
Jacob Hastings's farm extended from the River up what is now the Common Hill, and included a large part, if not the whole, of State Street and the whole of the Common. Its west- ern boundary was not less than three-fourths of a mile from the town street. North of the Hastings farm and of similar size was the farm of Watts Hubbard, senior, which had for- merly belonged to Joab Hoisington. A portion, lying east and perhaps also to the west of the main highway, Watts Hubbard had deeded to his son Elisha. Next to the north along the River Road came some of the numerous holdings of Captain Steel Smith, whose home, "the first frame dwelling-house in Windsor," stood on the knoll north of the Pulk Hole Brook and west of the River Road. Beyond him to the north was a compact area belonging to William Smead. The northern bounds of the last tract were nor far from the foot of the first hill leading up towards the Hourglass. Then came John Benjamin's farm, which he seems to have inherited from Caleb Benjamin and which extended from the river across the road and far to the west. Properties belonging to Benjamin Bishop1 and Jeremiah Bishop separated the Benjamin farm from the very large property of Colonel Nathan Stone, which lay along the top of Hourglass Hill and extended down its northern side nearly if not quite to Bashan Brook. Another farm owned by Jeremiah Bishop lay to the north of Colonel Stone's and south of the two Burke farms. Of these last the southerly belonged to Isaiah Burke: the northerly, along the Hartland town line, to Solomon Burke.
West of the river farms and along the upper courses of the Hubbard Brook to the north of Paradise, the old map shows farms belonging to Ebenezer Curtis, Elnathan Strong, Heze- kiah Thomson, and William Smead, junior. Ebenezer Hois- ington's was still further to the west, while Solomon Emmons had a comparatively small farm somewhere near the south- west corner of Paradise. To the westerly of Emmons's place were the farms of Doctor David Hall, Nathaniel Atkins, the
1 The Benjamin Bishop property seems to have been the same as the Pettes property at the north end of the flat.
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cooper, and Ebenezer Howard, who was exceptional among the Windsor settlers for "making his mark" instead of sign- ing his name. The northerly and northwestern part of the town had been sold, as has been stated, to Henry Cruger and Goldsbrow Banyar, of New York, and perhaps was unoccu- pied.
The road to the west or "back" part of the town left the River Road at the foot of our Common Hill. It is not safe to say that it followed exactly our present State Street. Possi- bly it passed to the south of or across the present site of St. Paul's Church. Certain old maps indicate that the church stands in what was once the highway. So far as was practica- ble, this road presumably extended westward on a straight course to what later was called Sheddsville, and thence in the same general direction to the Reading town line. Up this road, a mile or so from the town street, were the farms of Ebenezer Howard and Nathaniel Atkins, which have been already men- tioned.
The major part of Benjamin Wait's considerable holdings were on the east slope of the Sheddsville Hill. If his brother, Richard Wait, had at that time a separate farm of his own, the writer has not been able to locate it. Near neighbors on the west of Benjamin Wait were Andrew Blunt and Asaph Butler. Their farms extended respectively to the south and north of the Sheddsville center. Asaph Butler's nine-year-old boy, Ezra, was destined to become the governor of Vermont. An older son, Joel, was one of the early Baptist preachers in the vicinity of Windsor. Next to the west of Andrew Blunt was a tract of one hundred acres belonging to Andrew Norton, whose properties were presently confiscated by the State as the penalty of his loyalty to his King.
Elihu Beach owned two hundred acres at or near the pres- ent site of Brownsville, while Joseph Woodruff and Levi Ste- vens divided between themselves some five hundred acres to the west or northwest of Elihu Beach.
Without extended surveys and a minute examination of recorded deeds, it is impossible exactly to locate the properties of particular individuals at that time. Even then, owing to the fact that most of the inhabitants then owned several
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widely separated parcels, one is often at a loss to determine on which of several premises the owner made his home. It is therefore not the intention of the writer to attempt to say where each of the Windsor citizens then had his home farm, but rather to indicate the localities with which some of the early families seem to have been identified. The writer re- grets especially that he cannot locate the homes which young Zebina Curtis and young William Hunter occupied at that early date; for among all those men who might be called Wind- sor settlers none attained stations of higher consequence or respect in the community than the two last named. Except for the descendants of Watts Hubbard, Richard Wait, and Ebenezer Hoisington, perhaps none of the early Windsor set- tlers named in this chapter have left descendants in the direct male line who remain identified with the town.
Of the Windsor industries of 1777 none, other than hus- bandry, equaled the importance of the grist-mill and the saw- mill. The manufacture of pearlash and potash is spoken of somewhat vaguely in the histories of most of the towns. Before 1777 Enoch Judd had a small plant for one or both of these industries on the river meadow property which we have spoken of as Alexander Parmelee's. Another similar establish- ment was just to the west of the main highway and just north of the road which leads up the Common Hill. These were pass- ing industries incident to new clearings. The grist-mill, how- ever, and the saw-mill continued. To the former came patrons from as far as Woodstock in the early days.
Ebenezer Curtis was an early Windsor blacksmith. While his stand would naturally have been somewhere on the main thoroughfare rather than on one of his several farms, the writer has not found its location. Duty Sayles and Elisha Hawley, the early cordwainers or journeyman shoemakers, and John Amos (or Ames), an early journeyman weaver of wool, we have already mentioned.
Colonel Jonathan Chase, of Cornish, at an early date estab- lished a ferry across the Connecticut River. The Cornish His- tory states that his house was the mansion nearly opposite the eastern end of the present railroad bridge. If this be so, we should suppose the ferry to have been there or a little to the
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northward. The first bridge across the river was not completed until 1796.
Windsor in 1777 was without a settled minister. It had had no lawyer since John Grout's brief sojourn and expulsion. It had a physician in the person of Doctor David Hall. Like many of his profession at that date he was rated according to the low standards of the times as both learned and skillful, and, like many of his neighbors, he was known to be intem- perate. Although the Hall Genealogy speaks of him as a grad- uate of Harvard, the records of the college show that he was not.
In spite of having no minister, the Congregational Church of Windsor was a good deal of a power. There had been a re- vival in 1776. Good men and bad men were members of the church and gained and maintained standing through their membership. Even those members who were addicted to drink or profanity could, by public confession of their sins in open meetin', obtain a sort of popular absolution that raised them above their similarly erring neighbors who lacked the advan- tage of church members and could not resort to the same beneficent forum. The pillars of the Congregational Church in 1777 were Hezekiah Thomson, Ebenezer Curtis, and Eben- ezer Hoisington. It was through the last named of these rus- tic worthies, as has already been demonstrated, that Windsor had acquired most of its political intimacy with the "New Staters" in the other towns on the New Hampshire Grants.
If the Windsor people up to this time had been somewhat indifferent to the New State movement and to the activities of their determined delegate in that behalf, the knowledge that Windsor was to be the scene of a secessionist convention must have awakened in the inhabitants a new interest in politics. As the various issues of the Hartford Courant came up the Connecticut Valley with Ira Allen's "pieces" in them, and as reports from Philadelphia told of the Continental Congress receiving a petition for statehood tendered by settlers on the New Hampshire Grants, Windsor became more keenly aware that the town was involved in a cause of great moment. It is possible that a convention of which no journal has come to light was actually held in Windsor in the month of March.
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We have, at any rate, the lines in the diary of Samuel Ste- vens, of Charlestown, who recorded under date of March 19, 1777: "I set out for Windsor, where a meeting was held by the people of the several coun[ties] of Cumberland, Gloucester & Charlot who are or design to form themselves into a new State called new Connecticutt." Not the least exciting item of news was the report of the suggestion and encouragement given to the delegates from the Grants at Philadelphia by Thomas Young.
Doctor Thomas Young for years had been one of the radi- cal and not inconspicuous Whigs of the northern colonies. His acquaintance with Ethan Allen is said to have dated back to the time when the latter lived at Salisbury in Connecticut, and when Doctor Young made his home in Dutchess County in New York. Later we find Doctor Young in Albany: later yet, in Boston, where his name was associated with Samuel Adams, James Otis, and Joseph Warren. Having moved to Philadelphia he became, according to John Adams, an advo- cate of the notions of Thomas Paine as set forth in Common Sense, and was instrumental in spreading what John Adams called "anarchy." 1 That he was largely responsible for launching the State of Vermont none may deny.
Doctor Young, on examining the petition and declaration which Doctor Jonas Fay, Doctor Reuben Jones, Colonel Thomas Chittenden, and Captain Heman Allen had brought to Philadelphia, became greatly impressed with the justice of the case, but felt that the claim was not in proper form and that the application for recognition by Congress was prema- ture. The defect in form was the omission to refer, as the first revised declaration had done, to the resolution of the Con- tinental Congress of May 15, 1776, recommending that the colonists form governments suited to their respective needs. That omission being remedied, Doctor Young advised that a constitutional State government should actually be organ- ized, and that when the delegates should again wait on the Continental Congress with such a record of achievement, their application would not be gainsaid. His advice he embodied in a letter addressed under date of April 11, 1777, "to the In-
1 Hall's Early History of Vermont, p. 499.
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habitants of Vermont, a free and Independent State, bound- ing on the River Connecticut and Lake Champlain," followed by a postscript dated April 12. As an enclosure he sent a cer- tified copy of the Continental Congress's resolution of May 15, 1776. The text of the two communications follows:
To the INHABITANTS of VERMONT, a Free and Indepen- dent State, bounding on the River CONNECTICUT and LAKE CHAMPLAIN.
PHILADELPHIA, April 11, 1777.
GENTLEMEN,-Numbers of you are knowing to the zeal with which I have exerted myself in your behalf from the be- ginning of your struggle with the New York Monopolizers. As the Supreme Arbiter of right has smiled on the just cause of North America at large, you in a peculiar manner have been highly favored. God has done by you the best thing commonly done for our species. He has put it fairly in your power to help yourselves.
"I have taken the minds of several leading Members in the Honorable the Continental Congress, and can assure you that you have nothing to do but send attested copies of the Rec- ommendation to take up government to every township in your district, and invite all your freeholders and inhabitants to meet in their respective townships and choose members for a General Convention, to meet at an early day, to choose Del- egates for the General Congress, a Committee of Safety, and to form a Constitution for your State.
"Your friends here tell me that some are in doubt whether Delegates from your district would be admitted into Con- gress. I tell you to organize fairly, and make the experiment, and I will ensure your success at the risk of my reputation as a man of honor or common sense. Indeed they can by no means refuse you ! You have as good a right to choose how you will be governed, and by whom, as they had.
"I have recommended to your Committee the Constitution of Pennsylvania for a model, which, with a very little altera- tion, will, in my opinion, come as near perfection as any thing yet concerted by mankind. This Constitution has been sifted
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with all the criticism that a band of despots were masters of and has bid defiance to their united powers.
"The alteration I would recommend is, that all the Bills in- tended to be passed into Laws should be laid before the Exec- utive Board for their perusal and proposals of amendment. All the difference then between such a Constitution and those of Connecticut and Rhode-Island, in the grand outlines is, that in one case the Executive power can advise and in the other compel. For my own part, I esteem the people at large the true proprietors of governmental power. They are the supreme constituent power, and of course their immediate Representatives are the supreme Delegate power; and as soon as the delegate power gets too far out of the hands of the con- stituent power, a tyranny is in some degree established.
"Happy are you that in laying the foundation of a new gov- ernment, you have a digest drawn from the purest fountain of antiquity, and improved by the readings and observations of the great Doctor Franklin, David Rittenhouse, Esq., and others. I am certain you may build on such a basis a system which will transmit liberty and happiness to posterity.
"Let the scandalous practice of bribing men by places, com- missions, &c. be held in abhorrence among you. By entrust- ing only men of capacity and integrity in public affairs, and by obliging even the best men to fall into the common mass of the people every year, and be sensible of their need of the popular good will to sustain their political importance, are your liberties well secured. These plans effectually promise this security.
"May Almighty God smile upon your arduous and impor- tant undertaking, and inspire you with that wisdom, virtue, public spirit and unanimity, which insures success in the most hazardous enterprizes !
"I am, Gentlemen, Your sincere friend and humble servant, THOMAS YOUNG.
April 12, 1777.
"Your Committee have obtained for you a copy of the Rec- ommendation of Congress to all such bodies of men as looked upon themselves returned to a state of nature, to adopt such
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government as should in the opinion of the Representatives of the people best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular and America in general.
"You may perhaps think strange that nothing further is done for you at this time than to send you this extract. But if you consider that till you incorporate and actually announce to Congress your having become a body politic, they cannot treat with you as a free State. While New-York claims you as subjects of that government, my humble opinion is, your own good sense will suggest to you, that no time is to be lost in availing yourselves of the same opportunity your assuming mistress is improving to establish a dominion for herself and you too.
A WORD TO THE WISE IS SUFFICIENT."
It will be observed that Doctor Young chose to address him- self to the inhabitants of "Vermont." Years before, the Rev- erend Samuel Peters, on a journey to the New Hampshire Grants, says he declared that the region should bear the name "Verd-Mont" as the French equivalent of Green Mountains.1 Members of the Peters family who settled in Thetford and Bradford adhered to the earlier form of spelling for some years after the establishment of the Constitution. After Doctor Young's suggestion the spelling generally conformed to his, and was so written in the fourth revised Declaration of Inde- pendence and in the Constitution, although it was not infre- quently written by individuals as "Vermount" and sometimes as "New Vermount." The president of Yale College at first spelled it "Veremont."
On top of Doctor Young's exciting advice came the news that New York had agreed on a State Constitution on April 20. It was published on April 22. Printed copies of this docu- ment were soon in circulation on the Grants, with an ordi- nance for the holding of the elections, and about contempo- raneously came copies of the somewhat belated printed pam- phlet of Miscellaneous Remarks,2 from the pen of Ira Allen. This pamphlet, composed with remarkable force and ingenu-
1 Compare Allen's History of Vermont, p. 259.
2 Copied in full in 1 Gov. & Coun., at pp. 376-389.
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ity, is a noteworthy production. A prophet, even if he is a false prophet, is not without honour save in his own country, and the document which Ira Allen undertook to meet by argu- ment and asseveration in his Miscellaneous Remarks had lost some of its edge by lapse of time. These considerations lead one to suspect that Thomas Young's suggestion and the New York Constitution were by far the most potent factors in bringing the secession to a successful culmination.
So distasteful to the mass of the settlers on the New Hampshire Grants were some of the provisions of the New York State Constitution that the whole flood of current lit- erature now disseminated had but one tendency. Every pa- per became a brief for secession and independent statehood.
Governor Hiland Hall, at pages 246 to 248 of his Early History of Vermont, details in an admirable review of New York's Constitution the particulars in which that document gave offence to the settlers on the Grants. He mentions its affirmance of the New York Provincial Land Grants, the pros- pect of a continuance of quit-rents, the property qualifications for voters and some of the office-holders, the three-year term for the governor, the appointment of all judicial officers, and some of them for good behavior instead of for fixed terms of years, and the creation of a select council of revision to pass on all legislation. He omitted to cite as one of the objection- able features the division of the State into assembly districts and senate districts. To the inhabitants of the Grants, accus- tomed as they had been to regard each separate town as a unit entitled to a separate representative,1 it must have been peculiarly displeasing to discover that the whole of Cumber- land County was to be accorded only three representatives, and that Gloucester County would have but two. These two counties were grouped with Charlotte County into one senate district which would have three senators. If we refer back to the code of instructions which Ebenezer Hoisington's com- mittee handed to Cumberland's delegates the year before, we can see how far the New York Constitution fell short of the specifications. Though a no less upright and distinguished American patriot than John Jay was largely responsible for
1 Compare, on this point, 5 Gov. & Coun., pp. 508-509.
.
GEORGE CLINTON GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK From a painting by Ezra Ames
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the form of New York's Constitution, and although that Con- stitution served the needs of New York's people for nearly half a century, it did not provide a frame of government that the settlers on the New Hampshire Grants with their New England traditions would endure.
The "Manifesto" prepared by Ira Allen and to which we have already referred, contained one item that can hardly be construed otherwise than as a personal attack on Colonel Na- than Stone. It will be remembered that Stone had been a justice of the peace, an assistant justice of the Cumberland County Court, and a militia colonel by New York appoint- ment. Nobody on the Grants had been more active than he in securing re-grants or confirmation charters. In several ap- plications for re-grants other than with respect to Windsor's, he had acted as an agent. The reader will see how sharply the following quotation from the "Manifesto" must have struck home:
"The methods taken by the legislative power of New-York in erecting the Counties of Cumberland and Gloucester was not (by them) intended for the benefit of the inhabitants, as may appear by their appointment of ... such persons who by their immediate influence were most likely to prove sub- servient in bringing the inhabitants of the said Counties into a disposition to apply to the power of New-York for a regrant of the lands in said County; and it's to be observed the most of the civil magistrates and military officers were so appointed that they were great friends to the legislative body of New- York. Those persons thus appointed did not fail to use their influence with the inhabitants to get themselves appointed agents to transact a business of that kind at the court of New- York. The issue of which was, that regrants over the great part of the lands were then obtained; and the extravagant patent fees, together with the fees of the agents, amounted to so much that many of us were obliged to have a considerable part of our lands disposed of (thus regranted) at a very mod- erate price, to defray the charges aforesaid, and on said sub- sequent patents was added more than three-fold quit-rents." 1
1 This "Manifesto" may be found in 1 Gov. & Coun., pp. 390-393.
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Of course this quotation seems unfair; but party spirit was running high, and it is to be remembered that Ira Allen's History of Vermont, written years later, revealed in a passage already discussed a lasting grudge against Colonel Nathan Stone. We shall discover later how local hostility to Colonel Stone took still more severe expression.
Of course, here and there upon the New Hampshire Grants, were several instances of effort to stem the tide of secession. Most noteworthy of all, perhaps, was the position of the sub- stantial town of Brattleborough, where the representation was made probably with truth-"that all the people in this Town are Loyal to the State of New York. .. . " 1 So strongly did Brattleborough feel on the subject of allegiance to New York that the town sent a delegate in the person of its towns- man, Israel Smith, to wait upon the New York Convention and explain conditions existing upon the Grants. Smith was accorded marked respect by the New York Convention, as is attested by the report of the committee appointed to confer with him,2 and he was no doubt instrumental in inducing Gou- verneur Morris to offer to the Convention on May 7, 1777, a resolution that the troublesome quit-rents be abolished and that overdue quit-rents be remitted. This wise recommenda- tion, if made earlier, might have accomplished something, but it came late in the session and disappeared in a committee reference.
Captain John Sessions, still faithful to New York, but at the time on leave of absence from his chair in the New York Convention, wrote from his home at Westminster his views of those critical days. A portion of his letter, addressed to John Mckesson, clerk of the New York State Convention, follows:
"Sir:
"Westminster, April 21st 1777.
I received your favour of the 19th of March and am obliged to you for those tokens of respect you manifest, and wish it was in my power to comply with your request in attending Convention; but the situation of affairs are such in our county (together with my own) that it is almost impracticable. I am 14 Doc. Hist. N. Y., 564.
2 Id., pp. 564-566.
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anxious to hear the determination of Congress with regard to the new State; I have lately had an opportunity of conversing with General Bayley and Colonel Marsh, and to my satisfac- tion I find a different disposition in them from what I had expected. Colonel Marsh, having received orders of late, marched to Ticonderoga with his regiment, whereby he mani- fested his loyalty to the State of New York; and I hope, if prudent measures are taken, this new-fangled scheme will, like the house of Saul, wax weaker and weaker. I ardently wish that some decisive measures might be taken that the sword of justice and sceptre of mercy may be properly exercised. I have no disposition to extenuate the faults of those who mani- fest such contempt for the authority of New York, yet I could wish that every obstacle might be removed with respect to the title of lands, etc. I find that what was proposed by some gentlemen when I was at Convention relative to accommodat- ing our difficulties would be very agreeable to many people; and I hope something similar thereto may take place, except- ing the quit rents, which I find to be a delicate point; many, it seems, would rather prefer what they call a land tax, but it is not for me to dictate in this matter. I doubt not some equita- ble measures will be taken by the Honourable Convention or Legislature of the State." 1
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