USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 35
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With such endorsement as Weare and Stark had given, the Council of Safety proceeded with no little assurance. They collected funds through the seizure and confiscation of Loyal- ists' possessions; they raised and equipped troops for Her- rick's command; they advertised in the Hartford (Connecti- cut) Courant for the aid of Vermont settlers who through fear of the British had sought refuge in Connecticut and Massa- chusetts; they imprisoned "disaffected" persons and they made an example of the case of James Clay, the chairman of Cumberland County's Committee of Safety, who had dared in obedience to orders from New York to distribute in his county copies of the Resolves of the Continental Congress of June 30.6
The Council of Safety, sitting first at Manchester and next at Bennington, were not a little disturbed by the reports from
1 Slade's Vt. State Papers, p. 80. 2 Clinton Papers, vol. 2, p. 228.
8 1 Gov. & Coun., 133.
6 4 Doc. Hist., 569, 570.
& Id., 144. 5 Id., 133.
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THE COUNCIL OF SAFETY
Cumberland County. In the belief that a chief cause of the uneasiness lay in the dissemination of the Resolves of the Con- tinental Congress of June 30, the Council published in the Hartford Courant of August 18 an address in explanation of the Resolves and sent Ira Allen across the Mountains into Cum- berland County to exert his efforts in pointing out that the Continental Congress, although refusing to recognize Vermont as a separate State, did not fully comply with the demands of New York.1 Ira Allen's brief memorandum of this important mission, submitted in support of his expense account,2 gives us the only report of his journey that has been preserved. He says he devoted fourteen days-from August 10 to 24-to the business of explaining the Resolves, counteracting the policy of New York, appointing some officers for Colonel Herrick's regi- ment, paying bounty money, etc. He does not mention the names of any of the towns he visited, but since the appoint- ment of Benjamin Wait, of Windsor, as major in Colonel Her- rick's regiment, followed soon after Allen's return to the Coun- cil, it is not unlikely that Windsor was the base of his opera- tions. A wise distribution of military commissions and a little "bounty money" doubtless went far towards stimulating the sentiments which Ira Allen sought to engender. Many miles behind the guns this astute politician was doing his own effec- tive work while General Stark and Colonel Seth Warner were fighting one of the decisive battles of the American Revolu- tion to the west of Bennington.
There are other items in the records that give hint of Ira Allen having been in close touch with the town of Windsor at that time. Four days after his return to the Council of Safety that body sent this notice "to the Committee of Safety in Windsor" and the adjacent towns:
State of Vermont. In Council of Safety, 29th August, 1777.
Gentlemen,-All such persons as you shall have sufficient Evidence exhibited against on Tryal as to prove them so far Enemies to the Liberties of America as to be dangerous persons to go at Large you will send to Westminster Gaol, and put
1 H. Hall's Early History of Vermont, pp. 267-268.
2 Thompson's Vermont, part II, p. 107, note.
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
them in Close Confinement; if you send any prisoners to said Gaol, you will send a proper Guard, provided it should hap- pen before any prisoners or Guards should be sent from this. By order of Council,
Thomas Chittenden, Pres't.1
On the date of this letter the Council of Safety had already in hand some "evidence" against Watts Hubbard, junior, of Windsor. They included his name in a "list of tories," four- teen in number, in a letter transmitted on that very day to General Benjamin Lincoln, of Massachusetts, who was then stationed in Vermont .? Unfortunately, the papers of General Lincoln, which for many years were kept by his family at Hingham, have been scattered, and it has been impossible to trace the "evidence" against Hubbard, which was enclosed in the Council's letter. That Hubbard was long a prisoner, was put on trial months later, and was deprived of considerable personal property is a matter of record to which we shall later refer. He seems eventually to have secured release tempo- rarily on a bond given in his behalf by Captain Zedekiah Stone and Alexander Parmelee.3 Whatever the extent of Hub- bard's coolness to the Revolutionary cause or the New State, it was insufficient to cause his banishment. He remained a resident of Windsor as long as he lived, and for a brief period was enrolled as a soldier.
In the scanty records of what was now going on in Windsor there is enough to show that there was fear of local disorder, even if no actual outbreak occurred. Soldiers were detailed to protect Windsor's Committee of Safety.4 Our old friend Colonel Nathan Stone, the deposed political leader of the town, was regarded as one of the "dangerous persons to go at large." Outspoken in his contempt for the New State move- ment, there is a hint that he was also suspected of hostility to the American cause. At least, we find in the Revolutionary Rolls that in the month of August, he, with others, was taken by soldiers of Captain Zebulon Lyon's company to Springfield5 -perhaps on the way to Westminster jail. Colonel Stone,
1 1 Gov. & Coun., 152. 2 Id., 153, 154. 3 1 Gov. & Coun., 247.
‘ Goodrich, Vt. Rev. Soldiers, pp. 798-799. 5 Id
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THE COUNCIL OF SAFETY
with the memories of his exploits as a leader of the Windsor rioters of 1770 still fresh in the minds of his neighbors, might easily have become an object of fear to those whom he hated or despised. Among the soldiers who conducted him out of town were Zebina Curtis and David Hunter. The writer has found no further record of this prosecution of Colonel Stone, who, nineteen months later, still unterrified and unsubdued, was stoutly cursing the New State and its officers.1
1 B. H. Hall's History of Eastern Vermont, p. 331.
CHAPTER XLIII IN WINDSOR ON CHRISTMAS EVE
THE defeat of General Burgoyne's troops in the Battle of Bennington, followed by other reverses and the final surren- der of Burgoyne's army at Saratoga on October 17, relieved greatly the pressure on the men who were managing the new State. To their project they were now able to give almost un- divided attention. New York, being closely engaged in the work of installing her own new State government and intent on the prosecution of the war, had temporarily suspended the prosecution of her claim to Vermont. Vermont's Council of Safety now took time to sit in judgment in occasional cases of private litigation, as the county committees had previously done, and passed sundry ordinances for the government of their constituents. By the end of October the Council felt justified in taking a recess of twelve days. Ira Allen had found moments in which to write another pamphlet of Miscellaneous Remarks, which he caused to be printed at the press of Han- nah Watson in Hartford in Connecticut.1 This was a brochure dealing mainly with the Constitution of New York and the communications addressed by New York to the Continental Congress concerning the rebellion on the Grants. It ended with an exhortation to the Vermont settlers to cast intelligent votes at the election which he then expected would take place late in December.
Here occurred a change in programme. In collaboration with Chittenden at Williamstown in Massachusetts, Ira Allen had, as he says, spent some time in "writing the Preamble to the Constitution." 2 Since the first and last parts of this Pre- amble are almost verbatim the Preamble of the Pennsylvania Constitution, and since the remainder was merely a revision of the recitals already incorporated in the petition addressed
1 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. 1, pp. 133-144.
2 Thompson's Vermont, part II, p. 107, note.
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IN WINDSOR ON CHRISTMAS EVE
to the Continental Congress earlier in the year and restated in the published list of causes for secession from New York, the "writing" of the Preamble was neither a heavy nor an origi- nal piece of work. Allen, however, professed to attach impor- tance to it. He seems to have regarded the Vermont Consti- tution as incomplete without it, for he spoke of the Constitu- tional Convention of July, 1777, as having adjourned "with- out accomplishing" the establishment of the Constitution.1 Elsewhere he speaks of the Constitution as then "not fully compleated." 2 In the opinion of this shrewd student of human nature it may have seemed essential to preface the Constitu- tion with something more inflammatory, to insure a reading of the whole document in a warm, indignant, and rebellious spirit. The Preamble, revised to suit him and Chittenden, was turned over with the draft of the Constitution to one John Knickerbocker-ominous New York name-to make a fair copy for the printer3; but the publication of the famous document was held back.
The first public announcement of a cause for deferring the distribution of printed copies of the Constitution appeared in the following letter written by Chittenden to Joseph Bowker, under date of November 25, 1777:
"Sir .- The Confusion & Multiplicity of Business Occa- sioned by the Unhappy War in the Northern Department since the appointment of this Council has prevented their being able to git the constitution printed which oblidges us this Council to desire you to Call together the old Convention to meet at Windsor, on Wednesday the 24th of December Nexte, which you will not fail to do. I am Sir (by order of Council)
your most Obedient Humble Servant,
Capt. Bowker Thos. Chittenden,
"P. S. The business of the Convention will be to Adjourn the meeting of the General Assembly. Thos. Chittenden." 4
It may be that a truer reason for failure to "git the consti- tution printed" is revealed in Ira Allen's History of Vermont
13 Gov. & Coun., p. 418. 2 Allen's History of Vermont, p. 95.
3 Thompson's Vermont, part II, p. 107, note. '1 Gov. & Coun., 201.
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
at page 109, where he gives as an excuse for not submitting the Constitution to the people for ratification his belief that the Resolves of the Continental Congress and the intrigue and money of New York made it doubtful whether a majority of the people of Vermont would have "confirmed" the Constitu- tion at that time. He alleges on page 108 that after he and Chittenden had dealt with the Preamble "there was not time, before the day assigned for the election, to print and publish the constitution"; but since there had been plenty of time to compose, print, and thereafter to publish sundry articles in the Connecticut Courant, and the somewhat elaborate pam- phlet edition of Ira Allen's latest Miscellaneous Remarks, we feel like questioning the frankness of both Chittenden and Allen in their announcements of the reason for postponing the issuance of printed copies of Vermont's Constitution. Some- body in the convention had actually brought up the question of ratification by the people. Ira Allen thought it presented a difficulty. The decision reached was that "the best way to evade it was to keep it in as small a circle as possible." 1 Per- haps the professed need of attending to the Preamble was merely stage play to create an impression that the Constitu- tion could not earlier have been handed to the printer. That the Council had received from the convention of July, 1777, any authority to enlarge the Constitution by a Preamble or otherwise has never been suggested. There need be little won- der on reading in one of Ira Allen's letters, written years later, to find him recalling that "much address was made use of to establish the Constitution of Vermont, amidst war, political parties, claims of neighboring states and opposition by Con- gress." 2
The appointment of Benjamin Wait as major in Herrick's regiment was not the only favor that had been distributed by the Council of Safety to Windsor at this period. We find that on August 30 Richard Wait was in command of a company of Rangers.3 John Benjamin received a captaincy in Colonel Joseph Marsh's regiment of militia. Enrolled in Captain Ben- jamin's company, from August 16 to October 4, we find the
1 Allen's History of Vermont, p. 108.
3 Vt. Rev. Rolls, p. 783.
2 3 Gov. & Coun., 419.
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IN WINDSOR ON CHRISTMAS EVE
names of Lieutenant Benjamin Wait, Sergeant Asa Worcester, and Privates Joel Butler, Silas Bannister, Zebina Curtis, Lot Hodgman, Elihu Newell, Steel Smith, David Hunter, Joseph Woodruff, and William Porter.1 Vermont's Council of Safety paid a special honor to Captain Ebenezer Curtis in appointing him one of a committee of three, with Doctor Paul Spooner, of Hertford (Hartland), and Colonel Peter Olcott, of Nor- wich, as the other two, "to settle with the Commissioners of Sequestration on the East Side of the Green Mountains." 2 In this office Ebenezer Curtis had much to do with the for- feited possessions of the Loyalists. One of the Commissioners of Sequestration was Ebenezer Hoisington, who at one time showed seventy-eight pounds fifteen shillings and sixpence ex- tracted from his unfortunate townsman Watts Hubbard, junior.3 The members of Windsor's Committee of Safety were busy in Windsor and neighboring towns with cases of persons charged with "disaffection." With such offices of honor or profit held by the men of Windsor the town's ardor to prosper the New State must have been appreciably enhanced.
Windsor saw at this period something of the assembling of the troops for the front. Here, on September 26 to 29, Colonel Joseph Marsh's regiment of militia was reinforced by Colonel Jacob Kent's command and began its march across the Green Mountains.4 The town seems to have been a collection post and the point of shipment for army supplies destined for the west as well as the point of departure for Loyalists who were marched west or south under guard.
Immediately to the south of Windsor, beginning with. the town of Weathersfield, the region of the Grants as far as the Massachusetts line gave strong manifestations of allegiance to New York. Major Hilkiah Grout, of Weathersfield, Major Simon Stevens, of Springfield, Captain John Sessions, of West- minster, and James Clay, of Putney, still had substantial fol- lowings in the opposition to the New State movement, while the towns of Brattleboro and Hinsdale (Vernon), well settled and organized, showed nearly unanimous support of New
2 1 Gov. & Coun., p. 200.
1 Id., p. 28.
3 MS. Vt. State Papers, "Courts."
Wells, History of Newbury, 381.
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York's jurisdiction. Mr. B. H. Hall, in his History of Eastern Vermont, tells at length of the efforts made by the inhabitants of southeastern Vermont at this period to stem the tide of the New State idea.1 The outside influence or pressure which was now brought to bear by others on the New York sympathizers, whether in the form of peaceful persuasion or threat of injury, was exerted mainly by the Vermont party. Our intelligent friend Captain Sessions, in a letter written by him to John Mckesson, secretary of New York's convention, stated the case admirably :
Westminster, 4th Septemâ„¢. 1777.
Sir :- It gave me Peculiar Satisfaction when I found not only by your letter but by the Resolves you therein mention that our affairs have ben upon the Carpet in Congress, but it by no means answers the end (at Present) to stop the Prog- ress of the faction respecting a New State. I would have sent you one of the Connecticut Papers wherein is contained the Construction those People put upon the Resolves of Congress, but I conclude you have seen it so that it will be kneedless. If they had Resolved that they would break their necks if they did not Desist I don't know but those People might have thought they were in arenest; but the Honble Congress and Council of this State will become more Sencable (I trust) of the Temper and Disposition that actuates those People than they have ben, and I am sorry they han't before now. If it had been supprest sooner it in all Probability might have ben Effectual; but the Event now I am unable fully to Determine, altho I can Conjecture & is what I should Dread. My opposi- tion has rendered my Situation somewhat unhappy at pres- ent but trust shall find the old Maxim True in the end-(viz.) honesty is the best Polacy. I have ben a Sort of Micaiah in the affair & believe many would be glad I were in the house of Jonathan & have threatned; but if sumthing is not Done Soone shall be obliged to give up the Point. As to News I have noth- ing special to Write only it is a very sickly time among us and in Neighbouring Towns. Should be glad of a Line from you whereby I may understand what your Sentements are abought
1 B. H. Hall's History of Eastern Vermont, pp. 305-307.
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IN WINDSOR ON CHRISTMAS EVE
our affairs as I want to act with safety and Prudence both for my Self, State and Country.
Sir, I am with Due respect your most obedient sernt
John Sessions1
It was the old story over again. Britain had dallied over the points at issue between Benning Wentworth and the Prov- ince of New York, had rendered a decision only after fourteen years of suspense, had announced the decision in terms sus- ceptible of different constructions and had done little or noth- ing to enforce it or to make adequate regulations thereunder. The Continental Congress, weak and timid, had failed to com- pose the difficulty. New York was unequal to overcoming it. Aside from the extremists on both sides, there were few who understood the posture of the case or appreciated its gravity. Among those few were Gouverneur Morris, of New York, and John Sessions, of Westminster.
In anticipation of the re-assembling of the Constitutional Convention at Windsor, the Council of Safety took a recess on December 20. To Windsor some of the Council undoubt- edly repaired. How many of the delegates who had attended the convention in July again turned up in Windsor on Christ- mas Eve no record reveals. Neither record nor tradition helps to show whether this supplementary session was held in the Old Constitution House or in the Town House. Although the fear of British attack had vanished and the delegates felt more free to leave their homes for a brief time, it seems unlikely that the meeting on December 24 was largely attended. Not only was the season inclement, but the call for the meeting, as served by Chittenden on Chairman Bowker, gave notice that the session would be unimportant. It does not appear that the delegates knew in advance that they would be called upon to pass on the Preamble as changed by Chittenden and Ira Allen.
The Constitutional Convention, having re-assembled at Windsor on December 24, accomplished four things. Accord- ing to programme, it postponed the first elections from Decem-
14 Doc. Hist., 572.
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT -
ber to March 3 and the first session of the General Assembly from January to March 12. The other three achievements were the adoption of the Preamble or the amended Preamble, the appointment of Benjamin Carpenter, of Guilford, to the Council of Safety, and changing the place of the first legisla- tive session from Bennington to Windsor. The last item, which seems to have been unexpected, was interesting. No historian has assigned a reason for this move. We can only conjecture as to the causes.
We find in Ira Allen's History of Vermont the statement that the town of Bennington at some time objected to the Consti- tution for want of popular ratification.1 If a fact, this seems a slight cause for discarding Bennington as the place for the first meeting of the legislature. Besides, the first legislature, after a session at Windsor, adjourned to Bennington. The same author mentions that once the Constitutional Conven- tion for the sake of harmony yielded to the wishes of a minor- ity of the delegates,2 but there is nothing to show that the demand for Windsor as the legislature's first meeting-place was not the demand of the majority. Why Bennington was selected in the first instance has never been explained, and apparently the substitution of Windsor was voted unani- mously.3 The fact that at Windsor the great work of founding the New State had been successfully accomplished was in it- self a sufficient reason for having the first legislative session there. The town had become a sort of State capital. It was entitled to see the beginning of the permanent constitutional State government.
Thus at Windsor on Christmas Eve, 1777, the Constitution of Vermont, which had been established there six months earlier, was amended and "compleated" and the town was in effect created the State capital.
1 Allen's History of Vermont, 110.
3 1 Gov. & Coun., 215.
2 Id., 108.
CHAPTER XLIV THE FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL ELECTIONS
VERMONT's Council of Safety resumed sittings at Benning- ton on January 3, 1778. This body continued to exercise exec- utive and legislative functions in managing the military estab- lishment and regulating Tories. It continued, also, its judicial functions in dealing with private disputes. In its capacity as a Board of War it ordered the raising of a new volunteer regi- ment, with Samuel Herrick as colonel and Benjamin Wait as major, to join a proposed expedition against Canada. Almost blithely Vermont's provisional government pursued its busi- ness while Washington's army, under the appalling conditions of the Valley Forge winter, was passing through the darkest days of the Revolution. For several months no new move by the Continental Congress or by the State of New York had jarred the Vermont situation, but from another source now sprung a movement that was fraught with danger.
At Danvers, in Massachusetts, at the press of E. Russell, an anonymous writer who named himself "Republican" se- cured the printing of a pamphlet entitled "Observations on the Right of Jurisdiction claimed by the States of New York and New Hampshire over the New Hampshire Grants (so called) Lying on Both Sides of Connecticut River." In the form of a long letter to "The Inhabitants on said Grants," dated January 6, 1778, this pamphlet consisted of an argu- ment to show that not only the New Hampshire township grants on the west side of the Connecticut River, but also those on the east side of the river and west of the "Mason Line," 1 in New Hampshire were legally outside the jurisdic- tion of any of the original thirteen State governments and free, if they so chose, to form themselves into a State or sep- arate States of their own. The argument, although lame and clumsily worded, obtained circulation and gained converts.
1 The westerly line of the Mason Grant of 1629 was somewhere about twenty miles to the east of Connecticut River.
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
It excited many settlers on both sides of the Connecticut River into a belief that some of the New Hampshire towns lying near the river might legitimately and advantageously be added to the State of Vermont.
The text of the Danvers pamphlet, which Mr. E. P. Walton very properly has reprinted in full, may be found in the fifth volume of Governor and Council at pages 513 to 521. The agi- tation it produced in the locality to which it referred was pro- found. Although the idea of admitting some of the New Hampshire towns into Vermont had been broached seventeen months earlier, the Danvers pamphlet, according to Ira Allen, was the means of making the subject one of larger and more general interest.1 He intimated that the underlying scheme had its origin in the minds of some New Hampshire residents who thought that thereby they might bring Vermont's future seat of government to the Connecticut River. He mentions that these persons had met in conference on this matter at Hanover, and he seeks to give the impression that to them was due the appearance of "Republican's" printed argument.2 On the two latter points, however, Ira Allen is not altogether convincing. He might better have admitted that, whatever the origin of the pamphlet, it had the effect of stimulating in- terest in the coming Vermont elections among the citizens of Gloucester County, the northern part of Cumberland County, and western New Hampshire, and arousing in those sections a larger and more ambitious hope for the success of the new State. To a corresponding degree it diminished the prospects of a large measure of control over the new State continuing so firmly in the hands of the Allens, the Fays, Thomas Chit- tenden, and others on the west side of the Green Mountains. Broadened as the scope of the new State's potentialities thus became, there was obviously and inevitably an increase of risk in the likelihood that the State of New Hampshire, in- stead of remaining friendly to Vermont, would regard Ver- mont's inclusion of several New Hampshire towns as an act of hostile encroachment and would thus become an enemy.
The southeast corner of Vermont remained as unreconciled as ever to secession from New York. On Jaunary 28, as B. H. 1 Allen's History of Vermont, pp. 113-114. 2 Id.
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