USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 36
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Hall tells us, there assembled at Brattleboro a meeting of men of Cumberland County, who prepared an address or petition to New York's legislature, reporting that a convention of the "pretended State of Vermont" had formed a constitution, had prohibited the exercise of any governmental authority derived from New York, had made "laws" to bind the inhabitants, and were about to hold an election. The petitioners prayed protection from the evils that this new insurrectionary govern- ment threatened, and they appointed James Clay as their agent to lay their case before the New York Assembly.1 In response to this petition "and others similar," as Mr. Hall asserts, Governor Clinton, pursuant to authority vested in him by New York's Assembly, published and distributed throughout Vermont as extensively as was then practicable, his proclamation of February 23, 1778.2
Intended as a conciliatory document, Governor Clinton's proclamation failed in most quarters to produce a favorable impression. It asserted New York's supremacy, but offered confirmation titles on terms. Governor Hiland Hall points out its defects at length in his Early History of Vermont, at pages 273 to 275. Although the town of Halifax regarded the proclamation as acceptable and wrote to Clinton a letter, signed by forty-six inhabitants, expressing gratitude and ap- proval,3 that instance seems an exception. Colonel John Wil- liams, of Charlotte County, thought that the proclamation had been generally suppressed and kept from the people in his neighborhood4 and that in some of the towns it had been burned.5 Mr. B. H. Hall, who never failed to give New York credit for anything that had the appearance of wisdom or fairness or justice, admits that the proclamation "was gen- erally regarded as an unfortunate production." 6 If it had an effect upon the course of events it was rather to solidify the partisans of the New State movement and to make them more determined; for it gave grounds for the growing conviction that New York was resorting to words by reason of inability
1 B. H. Hall's History of Eastern Vermont, p. 309.
2 4 Doc. Hist., pp. 573-575.
3 3 Clinton Papers, pp. 16-17.
4 Id., p. 262.
Id., p. 40.
6 B. H. Hall's History of Eastern Vermont, p. 310.
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to coerce by acts. Moreover, it had the ill-luck to be antici- pated by an announcement by Thomas Chittenden, as presi- dent of Vermont's Council of Safety, reporting that everything was now in readiness for Vermont's first State election under the Constitution.
On February 6, 1778, this letter or proclamation of Thomas Chittenden's had been issued "to the inhabitants of the State of Vermont." It reported that the Constitution had been unanimously agreed upon, that the day of election had been fixed by postponement for the first Tuesday of March, that the Assembly would open session at Windsor on the second Thursday of March, and that "the Constitution is now printed & will be distributed among the Inhabitants of the several Towns in this State so early that they (sic) may be perused before the day of Election. . ." 1 B. H. Hall thought that the copies of the Constitution were actually distributed by the Council of Safety on the date of Chittenden's letter,2 but this seems hardly likely, in view of the passage last quoted, nor does it seem to accord with Ira Allen's recollection. The latter wrote in his History of Vermont that he "returned from Hart- ford in Connecticut a few days before the time of the general election with the constitution printed and dispersed it." 3 To have delayed to the latest practicable moment the circulation of the copies for general reading would not have been incon- sistent with the ideas of the men on the "inside" who had detected a "difficulty" and had "concluded the best way to evade it was to keep it in as small a circle as possible." 4 Prob- ably the copies of the Constitution reached the public nearly simultaneously with the copies of Governor Clinton's procla- mation.
So the first Vermont election came on. Of whatever warn- ing or notice for this election may have been posted in Wind- sor there is no record. Possibly a copy of Chittenden's letter of February 6, and a printed copy of the Constitution may have been all. Fortunately, the minutes of Windsor's meet- ing and election remain and show the town's ratification of the Constitution. All the important acts of this meeting took
1 1 Gov. & Coun., 215.
2 History of Eastern Vt., p. 308.
¿ Allen's History of Vt., p. 109. ' Id., p. 108.
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place at "the house of Ens" Steel Smith," which, we assume, was the building long known as the Evarts farmhouse-the first frame dwelling erected in Windsor-and which, until de- stroyed by fire in recent years, stood on the knoll to the west of the main highway, about one-fourth of a mile north of the present village of Windsor. Those who remember March meetings in frigid town halls can easily appreciate the alacrity with which the Windsor freemen of 1778 adjourned from the meeting-house to the warmth and comfort of Steel Smith's home, where the prospect of securing a hot rum toddy was even more alluring than the opportunity to vote for town rep- resentatives, councillors, or governor. The full record of the meeting and election follows.
"Att a Legal Meeting of the Freeholders and Inhabitants of the Town of Windsor held att the Meeting house in Said Town on Tuesday the third Day of March 1778 by Virtue of the Constitution
"1ly Voted and Chose Capt William Dean Moderator
"2ly Voted to Adjoin Said Meeting to the house of Ens" Steel Smith
"Meet according to adjoinment and Proceded
"3ly Put to Vote whether the people wold act under the Constitution
"Voted in the affirmative
" 4ly Voted and Chose Thommas Coopper Representytives to attend the "5ly Voted and Chose Eben' Curtis General Assem- bly
"6ly Voted and Chose Capt Joel Ely, Capt John Benjamin and Eben' Hoisington for a Committe to Remove the Ferry to the Town Landing.
"7ly Voted to Desolve this meeting." 1
Other towns-although nobody has yet found the exact number-held meetings similar to Windsor's. Ira Allen put the matter thus: "There was one (or more) in each town who
1 Windsor Ms. Records. Unfortunately the minutes contain no record of votes for governor or other State officers.
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coveted the honour of being a member of the first general Assembly of the new State of Vermont. It was, therefore, their interest to induce their friends to attend the meeting, and take the freeman's oath. ... Bennington was the only town that objected against the Constitution, for the want of a popular ratification of it. Only twenty-one freemen quali- fied in that town, who elected representatives for the first general Assembly. . . Colonel John Williams, writing from Albany to Governor Clinton on March 14, 1778, reported having heard that only one-third of Bennington's freemen voted and that "the others went home dissatisfied with their proceedings. . 1) 2 Brattleborough, although holding a meet- ing on March 3, seems to have acted in defiance of, rather than in conformity to, the Constitution. The freemen of that town voted unanimously to send a protest to the Assembly of the "pretended State" denouncing secession from New York as an act tending to "disunite the friends of America. . ."
Brat- tleborough also appointed a committee of five to consult with other town committees on steps to check the "unjustifiable proceedings of Vermont." 3 Miss Cabot, in her Annals of Brattleboro, is quite within the facts in stating that that town "had no part in the formation of the State." 4 A few other towns in southeastern Vermont were of similar mind, yet per- haps none of them so overwhelmingly strong as Brattleborough in allegiance to New York. The story of the opposition to the New State in this quarter, as far as Mr. B. H. Hall could trace it from the records, is told very fully in his History of Eastern Vermont.
That this defection in southeastern Vermont was not ex- tinguished more promptly may have been due less to the num- ber of the towns and individuals of New York sympathies than to the quality of some of the leaders. These, in several cases, were men of character and attainments beyond the ordi- nary. Perhaps the most notable of all the New York adherents at this period was Micah Townsend, of Brattleborough, who eventually was converted into one of the most respected citizens
1 Allen's History of Vt., pp. 109, 110. 2 3 Clinton Papers, p. 40.
3 B. H. Hall's History of Eastern Vt., pp. 310-311.
' 1 Annals of Brattleboro, p. 116.
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of Vermont. In 1778, having but recently become a settler in the State and having planted himself among people who, al- most to a man, shared his own ideas of fealty to his native State of New York, he had not learned the unconquerable de- termination of the majority of the inhabitants in other parts of the New Hampshire Grants. But the die was cast despite the tenacity of the Brattleborough, Hinsdale, and Halifax groups, and despite Governor Clinton, with the great majority of New York behind him.
It seems singular that Gouverneur Morris, who had in his nature and in his politics far less in common with the early settlers of Vermont than had George Clinton, should have ap- praised the situation so much more nearly right. What pur- ports to be an extract from a letter written by Morris to Clinton under date of March 4, 1778, Mr. E. P. Walton has happily preserved. Its statesmanlike views and its downright tone are a refreshing contrast to most of the contemporaneous literature relative to the subject. With no apology for the length of the quotation and confident that it will please the reader, we set it forth.
"Sir:
"Moor Hall, 4th March, 1778.
"I take the liberty of writing to you upon a subject of the utmost importance to our State. By following so much of St. Paul's advice as to become all things to all men I find clearly from the very best authority that without nice management we shall certainly lose the State of Vermont. The Eastern States are determined that they shall not be oppressed-to use their phrase. The prejudices of the people are against us: so are their interests. Designing men take advantage of these circumstances to forward their own private views. 'Tis absurd to reason against the feelings of mankind. Neither is it much to the purpose whether our claim is right ; for if it be, the most which can be said for us is that we have right without remedy. What are their claims? Occupancy, settlement, cultivation, and the Book of Genesis. What their plea ? Their mountains, their arms, their courage, their alliances. Against all this what can we produce? Why, forsooth, a decision of the King in Council and a clause in the confederacy. How ridiculous for
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wise men to rear any edifice of hope upon so slender a founda- tion. But how are we to act ? to give them up? No! We must go to the mountain if the mountain won't come to us. They complain that the capital is too far off: carry it nearer not merely for their sakes but for our own. They complain of our impeachment of their title. Give them a good title: we want subjects not land. They complain of the quit rents: abolish them. We can't have more of a cat than the skin. A good government-a free one, I mean-will always command the wealth of its people. Hudson's River ensures us that of Ver- mont and Vermont ensures us Hudson's River. For Vermont must be fortified all over and vast magazines of military stores must be laid up in Vermont and when anybody presumes to attack us from the eastward we shall know what to do. All this is not enough: you must apply to their feelings. Suppose for instance the legislature should take up the case of Van- dyke, Ethan Allen and other of our subjects and make very pointed resolutions of liberating them. Suppose for his [Al- len's] services and sufferings a part of Kempe's land should be given him and that part, if any such there be, which eastern gentlemen claim. Apply yourself to Warner's weak side. Bay- ley is still a considerable man among them. Let splendid acts of justice and generosity induce these people to submit early to our dominion, for prejudices grow stubborn as they grow old. This business, my dear sir, hath long pressed upon my mind with a weight and impression which I cannot describe. It is under heaven the great thing needful to us; and though I laugh whenever Vermont is named yet I could almost use the poetical language intended for another occasion and say "tis laughter swelled with bursting sighs.'" 1
To move New York's seat of government nearer to Vermont, to confirm the New Hampshire titles, to abolish the quit rents, to attempt to secure the release of Ethan Allen as a prisoner of war and to enrich him by the gift of a part of John Tabor Kempe's forfeited lands, to win the affections and support of Seth Warner and Jacob Bayley, made a magnificent pro- gramme; but it was offered too late in the day and it presented
1 3 Gov. & Coun., pp. 291-292.
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too violent a change of front on the part of New York to be of use.
Full of suspicion of anything in the nature of compromise offered by New York, prejudiced against influential citizens of that State to the extent of being pleased to have such a person as General Horatio Gates supersede General Philip Schuyler as commander of the Northern Department, the majority of the people of Vermont had passed beyond the stage where ad- justment was practicable. The unpleasant effect produced by Governor Clinton's proclamation of February 23 made a bad situation worse. Yet, though the time had passed in which a plan such as that sketched by Gouverneur Morris might have been available, the diagnosis on which he based his prescrip- tion was so obviously sound that it should have made an im- pression. But Morris and Governor Clinton were men of op- posite schools of political thought, and the latter-patriot and upright citizen though he was-seldom had it in him to take the broadest view in politics, or to admit that he might have been mistaken. Perhaps, also, he was too much of a democrat to doubt that the will of the people of New York was the voice of God. At the same time we cannot, with our knowl- edge of American history, dismiss with contempt the convic- tions of George Clinton, who, in spite of his faults, proved to be enough of a leader to command a large electoral vote at the time of Washington's re-election in 1792, and who served as Vice-President of the United States under Jefferson and Madison. Ere many years had passed the good Republicans of Windsor were drinking to his health on the Fourth of July.
The latest record of the Council of Safety at its Bennington headquarters bears date March 9, 1778. On that day Chit- tenden recorded that but few of the Council were present. Most of them were probably at their homes making prepara- tions for the coming events at Windsor. Chittenden himself reached Windsor by March 12, for on that day at Windsor he issued the final orders of the Council of Safety. Here he found himself surrounded by the newly elected town representatives ready to organize Vermont's first Assembly and to participate in the canvass of the votes for Governor, Lieutenant-Governor,
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Councillors, and State Treasurer. His announcement on be- half of the old Council of Safety shows by the wording the realization that the authority of Vermont's provisional govern- ment was vanishing before the rising sun of a new and perma- nent order. It was rather the prologue for a new act in Ver- mont's drama that an epilogue to what had gone before. Dated "State of Vermont, In Council, Windsor, 12 March, 1778," the announcement is as follows:
"This Council do recommend to the Several gentlemen ap- pointed by the freemen of the Several Towns within this State to represent them in General Assembly, to Assemble at the Town House in this place immediately & to form a house of Assembly by choosing a Speaker & Clerk, and make Report of your proceedings hereon as soon as may be to this Council.
By order of Council
Thos. Chittenden, P."
In recommending that the Assembly, when organized, should report to the old Council of Safety the announcement was strictly in accord with a provision of the Constitution which prescribed that the first committee to canvass votes for State officers and councillors should be chosen out of members of the original Council and the newly elected Assembly. It was thus necessary for the Council of Safety to remain in existence not only until after the Assembly had organized but until com- mitteemen chosen from the Assembly had met with com- mitteemen chosen from the Council of Safety and together determined the results of the State election.
Following directly upon the warning to the assemblymen to convene came the very last of the recorded orders of the old Council of Safety. This consisted of the appointment of a sheriff-perhaps in modern parlance more properly a sergeant- at-arms-to attend the Assembly session. Since the appoint- ment fell to Captain John Benjamin, of Windsor, who thus became the very first civil officer to hold office in Vermont under the permanent State government, we give his letter of appointment in full:
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State of Vermont. In Council, Windsor, 12 March, 1778. To John Benjamin, Gentleman:
Whereas a number of Inhabitants of this State are now met together in this place, appointed by the freemen of the several Towns within the Same in order to form a house of Assembly; and
Whereas it is found Necessary that some person be ap- pointed to act in the Capacity of a Sheriff, you are therefore hereby appointed, authorized and impowered in the Capacity of Sheriff during the Session of this present Assembly (unless sooner discharged) and to subject yourself to such rules and orders as you shall from time to time receive from this or a future Council of this State, for which this shall be your Sufficient Warrant.
By order of Council,
Attest: Joseph Fay, Secy
Thos. Chittenden Prt
From the standpoint of State politics the choice of John Benjamin for this honor was well enough. He had a military title, was something of a soldier, lived at the place where the official duties of his civil position were mainly to be performed, and, so far as has been discovered, had become a consistent member of the New State party. Locally, his standing was less than that of several of his fellow townsmen, his character was far from exemplary, and though his commissions as a militia captain and a State sheriff must have had the effect of exalting him above the rank and file, there is nothing to show that his personal reputation was such as to win respect or that his selection for honors strengthened the New State in the esteem of the better sort of citizens. He was, however, in the good graces of those in State authority, was presently appointed by the elected Council as sheriff for the newly erected County of Cumberland, and, after he had moved away from Windsor, served for one year as the town representative of Bethel. Perhaps, by virtue of his appointment by the Council of Safety, he had the distinction of calling to order the first Assembly of the State of Vermont on Thursday, March 12, 1778, and pre- siding until a Speaker had been chosen. On this point the record shows nothing.
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The journal of the first Assembly of the State of Vermont was included in that invaluable collection of historical matter compiled by William Slade, published by him in 1823 and known to students of Vermont History as Slade's Vermont State Papers. Beginning at page 257 of Slade the record shows the Assembly organized, the choice of Captain Joseph Bowker as speaker and the appointment of Major Thomas Chandler as clerk. Next, the Reverend Peter Powers, of Newbury, preached the election sermon. Following the sermon came the choice of the committee of twelve to receive, sort, and count the votes for governor, deputy governor, treasurer, and twelve councillors. Every member of this canvassing committee had a title prefixed to his name and each side of the State had six members, viz., from the west side of the Green Mountains- Colonel Thomas Chittenden, Colonel Timothy Brownson, Major Jeremiah Clark, Captain Joseph Bowker, Captain Ira Allen, and Doctor Jonas Fay; from the east side of the Green Mountains-Colonel Joseph Marsh, Colonel Peter Olcott, Colonel Jacob Kent, Major Thomas Chandler, Doctor Paul Spooner, and Deacon Benjamin Emmons.1
Since under the Constitution the personnel of the committee had to be made up from the old Council of Safety and the newly elected assemblyman, Mr. E. P. Walton, drew from the committee's membership certain deductions as to the mem- bership of the Council of Safety.2 He thought that because Jeremiah Clark and Timothy Brownson did not appear to have been assemblymen, they must have been members of the old Council of Safety. The difficulty is not in Mr. Walton's reasoning, but in his assumption that these two men had not been elected to the Assembly, and he based his assumption on the fact that they had been elected to other offices, to wit, as councillors, at the March election. Captain Joseph Bowker had been elected to both these offices at the same election. So had Colonel Peter Olcott and Thomas Murdock, of Norwich. Why may not Clark and Brownson have been favored with double honors, also? No list of the names of the assemblymen was recorded. Nobody appears in the Assembly journal's record as representing Timothy Brownson's town of Sunder-
1 Slade's Vt. State Papers, p. 257. 2 8 Gov. & Coun., p. 453, note.
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land. No person appears as representing Jeremiah Clark's town of Shaftsbury when the town was entitled to two assem- blymen.1
The canvassing committee reported the following results: Governor, Thomas Chittenden; State treasurer, Ira Allen; councillors, Joseph Bowker, Jacob Bayley, Jonas Fay, Timo- thy Brownson, Peter Olcott, Paul Spooner, Benjamin Carpen- ter, Jeremiah Clark, Ira Allen, Thomas Murdock, Benjamin Emmons, and one other. The twelfth councillor, according to Ira Allen and William Slade, was John Throop, of Pomfret. Mr. E. P. Walton has conclusively proved that Throop, if elected, did not serve. The place was filled by Moses Robin- son, of Bennington. Whether, as Mr. Walton believed, the original record of the election was erroneous and the name of Throop filled in on the strength of Ira Allen's faulty memory, has not been proved. It is possible either that a recount showed Robinson elected over Throop, or that the latter hav- ing been elected declined to serve, and that Robinson was appointed to fill the vacancy. With Robinson as a member of the Council, the personnel of that body included six men from the east side of the Mountains and six from the west.
The original canvass having shown nobody elected lieuten- ant-governor or deputy governor by a majority of votes, the Assembly, by ballot, chose Joseph Marsh for the place. Di- rectly after this election, however, "there was brought in fif- teen votes for Col. Marsh, which, if they had come before, he would have been chosen by a majority of the freemen at large." 2
1 E. P. Walton credits both Gideon Olin and John Burnham as Shaftsbury's representatives in the Legislature of March, 1778 (Vt. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1878, p. 35), but does not state his authority. Judge Fish states that Burnham was then a resident of Bennington (5 Crockett's History of Vt., p. 218).
2 Slade's Vt. State Papers, p. 257.
CHAPTER XLV THE FIRST VERMONT LEGISLATURE
No list of the men composing Vermont's first General As- sembly was entered on the records. From the minutes which, happily, were preserved and which were printed in Slade's State Papers, it is possible to discover the names of some of the members. Mr. E. P. Walton, in a paper read by him before the Vermont Historical Society on October 15, 1878, has given the results of his research as to membership in Vermont's first legislature. Deming's Catalogue of Vermont Officers and Com- stock's revision of that work list, by towns, many men as hav- ing been representatives at the session of March, 1778, and at the adjourned session in June of that year. If, however, one sticks to the legislative minutes it is difficult to identify posi- tively more than thirty-seven members acting as Vermont's first legislature and present at any part of the session at Wind- sor from March 12 to the adjournment on March 26, 1778. Even with an attendance of thirty-seven the town of Windsor must have been put to it to find suitable lodgings for so many assemblymen after providing accommodations for the gov- ernor, the lieutenant-governor, and the members of the Coun- cil. The "public house," now known as the Old Constitution House, the meeting-house, the schoolhouse, the grist-mill, and most of the near-by dwellings of a town that could not then show a real village, must have been needed to shelter so large a gathering of visitors during that fortnight in March.1
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