USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 39
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It is barely possible that Ethan Allen's gaiety of spirits may have roused what little sense of humor Governor Clinton pos- sessed. At all events, there appeared in one of Clinton's let- ters to James Duane a passage which comes near to levity. Writing Duane under date of September 18, 1778, Governor Clinton, after expressing the fear that the New York legisla- ture might put off until too late an adequate provision for troops and fortifications along the western frontiers, adds this observation:
"I should not be surprised to hear that Gen' Starke and these Green Mountain Boys claim the whole Western Country by Right of Conquest & if they should take it in their heads to go scouting that way & kill one Tory or Indian it would go far towards establishing their Title." 2
As was natural, New Hampshire took offence at the seces- sion of the sixteen towns that had deserted from New Hamp-
1 Thompson's Vermont, part II, p. 53, and note. The address was distributed the latter part of August, 1778. (Id., p. 107, note.)
2 MS. letter among Duane Papers, N. Y. Hist. Soc.
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
shire to Vermont. New Hampshire also took offence at Ver- mont's having received the deserters. Meshech Weare, presi- dent of New Hampshire's Council, addressed letters of com- plaint to New Hampshire's delegates in the Continental Con- gress as well as to Governor Chittenden. The eminent New Hampshire official who had been so free but a year before in acknowledging Vermont an independent State when Vermont comprised only seceding portions of New York, now that Ver- mont had reached out over New Hampshire, changed his tune. What had been sauce for the goose was plainly not sauce for the gander. "A gentleman of great wisdom and virtue," as the learned Doctor Williams describes him,1 President Me- shech Weare now referred to Vermont as "the pretended State of Vermont" 2 and declined to address Governor Chittenden in "magistratical style." 3 He revealed in his letter to Chit- tenden a glimpse of what Whittier called "Crafty Meshech"; for while explicitly stating the reasons why all law-abiding people ought to deplore the contemplated dismemberment of New Hampshire, he attempted so to distinguish and sympa- thize with the situation of the New Hampshire Grants west of the Connecticut River as to create the belief that he would once more become friendly to Vermont's ambition for inde- pendent statehood if Vermont would agree to let New Hamp- shire alone. His letters served the double purpose of causing Vermont to hesitate and reflect and giving to a man of Ethan Allen's shrewdness an inkling as to the best and safest play for Vermont next to make.
Although the Vermont histories declare that at this crisis Governor Chittenden called the Vermont Council in session for consultation, and that as a result it was decided to send Ethan Allen as an ambassador to Congress, there is no record whatever of any meeting of the Council at this time. We do know that in the month of September Ethan Allen did start on a trip to Philadelphia, and that he performed his mission with success. He reported afterwards that he undertook the trip "by the desire of his Excellency and at the request of
1 Williams's History of Vt. (1st ed.), p. 243.
2 Slade's Vt. State Papers, p. 90.
3 Id., p. 91.
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PERMANENT STATE GOVERNMENT
several of the Members of the honorable the Council," 1 but it is quite as reasonable to suppose that Ethan Allen himself suggested the idea of the trip and instructed the Governor and occasional Councillors that for the sake of form it would be well for them to "desire" or "request" him to repair to Philadelphia as Vermont's agent. That Allen took the journey with the authority of the people of Vermont was emphatically denied by Lieutenant-Governor Marsh2-a point which prob- ably was of little concern to Allen or to the Continental Con- gress.
1 1 Gov. & Coun., p. 415. 2 8 Gov. & Coun., p. 399.
CHAPTER XLVII THE NEW STATE TOTTERS
THE Windsor town records of this critical period contain but few allusions to state or national affairs. The presence of the Governor, the Council, and the Legislature as visitors in town naturally served to remind the inhabitants that local improvements would be in order. With this idea in mind, the town meeting of April 9, 1778, had directed the selectmen to "set out the Burying yard in order to have it fenced"-a modest and proper measure. On several Sundays Asa Burton, a recent Dartmouth graduate who was studying for the min- istry with President Wheelock, came to Windsor to preach. On July 7 the town voted a local tax of fourpence upon the pound "to Purchace Town Books and Town waits and mea- sures and pay other Contingent charges." On the same day appeared the earliest sign of the movement which eventually severed Windsor into two townships: "Voted to Divide the Town into two Parishes." Following that decision came an agreement that the six westerly ranges-numbers one to six, inclusive should be within the West Parish and the remainder within the East.1 Between the two parishes the public lands of the town were to be equally divided. Later in the same year the town voted to erect two "Public Posts," one in each parish, on which all "Public Notifycations shall be Sett up."
At the July meeting Lieutenant Thomas Cooper, by the votes of his fellow-townsmen, was honored by an election to the office of Justice of the Peace. Although there had been earlier appointments of justices of the peace by the New York government, Cooper's election by popular vote is the first instance of an election to this office on record in the town. There was probably a little local excitement on July 17, when
1 Later in the year the boundary line was moved easterly to the center of the seventh range, which left each parish with a more nearly equal area. Though there were but eleven ranges, the eleventh, which abutted on the river, was from two to three times the width of any of the others.
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THE NEW STATE TOTTERS
Sheriff John Benjamin, with the assistance of a few soldiers detailed by Colonel Joel Marsh, escorted out of Windsor sev- eral unnamed "inimical persons" who were taken first to Albany and thence to Bennington.1 In military matters Wind- sor was interested from June to September by occasional scouting parties under Captain Steel Smith, acting under the orders of Major Ebenezer Wood.2 On September 15, at the first of the "September elections" for which Vermont later became noted, Thomas Cooper, "Esq.," and Ebenezer Curtis were re-elected representatives to the General Assembly.
The 16th day of August, 1778, which was the first anniver- sary of the Battle of Bennington, marked the first appearance in Vermont of Stephen Jacob, who was destined to become a citizen of Windsor and one of the State's leaders. The day was being observed in Bennington as a holiday. Stephen Jacob and his college classmate, Noah Smith, just graduated at Yale, were at Bennington together. The presence of two young men of such exceptional education was sufficient to cause their impressment into the service of the town as poet and orator respectively for the celebration. Happily, their effusions on this occasion have been preserved and may be found in the first volume of the Vermont Historical Society's Collections, at pages 255 to 270. Mr. Jacob paid glowing trib- ute to Ethan Allen, while Mr. Smith had the tactlessness not only to omit all reference to Vermont's chieftain, but made matters worse by eulogizing Seth Warner and Chittenden. On such a point Ethan Allen could be sensitive, as is indicated by his subsequent ridicule of Noah Smith the following spring.3
The second Vermont State Legislature met at Windsor on October 8, 1778. Towns east of the Connecticut River, hav- ing been admitted as a part of Vermont pursuant to the law enacted in June, had participated in the September elections and had elected thirteen town representatives and one coun- cillor. As announced in the public proclamation of Sheriff John Benjamin, of Windsor, the ballots showed the re-election of Thomas Chittenden, Joseph Marsh, and Ira Allen, as Gov- ernor, Lieutenant-Governor, and State Treasurer, respectively,
1 Goodrich's Vt. Soldiers of the Revolution, p. 798.
2 Id., p. 83.
3 B. H. Hall's History of Eastern Vermont, pp. 343, 600.
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and a new Council composed of Joseph Bowker, Jacob Bayley, Peter Olcott, Paul Spooner, Timothy Brownson, Jonas Fay, Benjamin Carpenter, Moses Robinson, Jeremiah Clark, Ira Allen, Thomas Murdock, and Elisha Payne. The last, then a citizen of the town of Cardigan (Orange) on the east side of the Connecticut River, having also been elected a town rep- resentative, preferred to serve in the latter capacity and re- signed from the Council. His place as a councillor was filled by the appointment of Benjamin Emmons. The Legislature chose Thomas Chandler, junior, as Speaker, Bezaleel Wood- ward, of Dresden (representative of the Dartmouth College district), as Clerk, and Joseph Fay as Secretary of State.
The records of the Assembly show that an aggregate of seventy-four men had received credentials as representatives from the several towns. After deducting from this total the thirteen representatives from towns east of the Connecticut River, we find thirty-five representatives from towns between the River and the Green Mountains, and twenty-six represen- tatives from towns to the west of the Mountains. Whether we include or exclude a considerable number of the elected assem- blymen who seem to have been absent throughout the session, we find in canvassing the sixty-three who were noted as pres- ent that the control of the State looked definitely transferred to the east side of the Green Mountains. Many towns were unrepresented. Of those on the west side, Cornwall was the most northerly one to send an assemblyman. Brattleborough, Hinsdale (Vernon), and Newfane still ignored the New State; and although several of their near neighbors are credited with representatives, we may doubt that this fact indicated in every case a preponderance of New State sentiment. Ethan Allen was one of Arlington's two elected assemblymen. Owing, as he explained, to his conscience and his convictions, he could not meet the religious test which formed a part of the Consti- tutional oath of office. He therefore did not qualify as a rep- resentative, yet he was quite willing to remain in attendance, and, so far as he was able, to dominate the session. His sen- sitiveness in the matter of religious belief must have afforded to those who knew him a comic touch to what was otherwise a rather tragic fortnight.
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THE NEW STATE TOTTERS
With respect to the election of representatives from the town of Norwich, the legislative minutes disclose a course of procedure which may have been observed in some instances in the transactions of the previous legislature, but which is definitely set out in the minutes for the first time in the en- tries on October 10. Colonel Peter Olcott and Thomas Mur- dock, who had been elected as the town representatives of Norwich, were also elected by the votes of the State as mem- bers of the Council. Instead of resigning from the Council, as did Colonel Elisha Payne, of Cardigan, in a similar case, they retained their seats as Councillors and obtained a legislative "order" whereby on four days' notice the freemen of the town of Norwich were called to a new election of town repre- sentatives. Proceedings under this "order" went forward with such dispatch that on October 14 Abel Curtis and Captain Joseph Hatch took their oaths of office as the new Norwich assemblymen. Not only as a matter of interesting procedure, but as introducing into Vermont politics the educated and tal- ented young Abel Curtis, the Norwich special election was im- portant. Although but twenty-three years of age, this young Dartmouth graduate of the class of 1776 soon played a large part in Vermont affairs.
Another matter which arose early in the session left marked results. It consisted of the appointment of the brothers Judah Paddock Spooner and Alden Spooner as "printers for the Gen- eral Assembly of this State." These brothers had recently set up a press near Dartmouth College in Dresden. By the law of Vermont the State's eastern boundaries now included Dres- den and Hanover with other New Hampshire towns. Four months earlier, at the June session, Vermont's Legislature had voted "to take the incorporated university of Dartmouth un- der the patronage of this State" and to commission its presi- dent, Eleazar Wheelock, a justice of the peace. A Hanover clergyman, the Reverend Eden Burroughs, had preached Ver- mont's "election sermon" in Windsor on October 8. There was, therefore, plenty of precedent for appointing as the State printers two young men who resided and had their printing office on the east side of Connecticut River. In this manner began Vermont's connection with the Spooner brothers, and
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
the long career of Alden Spooner as an editor, a printer, and a conspicuous figure in the public affairs of Windsor and Ver- mont generally.
When Abel Curtis and Captain Hatch reached Windsor on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 14, and had been sworn in as members of the Assembly, they found the House of Rep- resentatives, the Governor, and the Council "in a committee of the whole" considering the letter of complaint written by President Weare of the New Hampshire Council, and other disturbing papers which bore a relation to the same subject. This was the beginning of what was perhaps the most sensa- tional legislative transaction in Vermont's history. The "com- mittee of the whole" already had been sitting during the afternoon of the 13th and the morning of the 14th.
Ethan Allen, back from his visit to the Continental Con- gress in Philadelphia, had reported to Vermont's Assembly in writing under date of October 10. Heretofore we have stated that his trip had been a successful one. He had established friendly if not confidential relations with Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, the President of Congress1; he had secured for himself from Congress the handsome bonus of seventy-five dollars per month, dating from the award of the brevet on May 14,2 and he had barely failed in obtaining a Continental commission as colonel. Gouverneur Morris, who had made the motion for the brevet, had since become aware of Allen's renewed activities against New York and had blocked the proposal for the commission.3 But aside from gaining personal profit and increased distinction as a public character, Ethan Allen's chief stroke at Philadelphia was the winning of a promise from a sufficient number of delegates that no decision on the protests of New York and New Hampshire against Vermont should be made by the Congress before he had had opportunity to explain the congressional situation to the Ver- mont Assembly and report back to Philadelphia.4 With no little dramatic skill and without concealing his own satisfac- tion or his good opinion of himself, he described this triumph
1 Rural Magaizne, p. 518; 1 Gov. & Coun., p. 417, note.
2 Journal of Cont. Cong. for Sept. 24, 1778.
3 4 Public Papers of George Clinton, p. 100. 4 Slade's State Papers, p. 93.
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of diplomacy in his written report to the legislature at Wind- sor. As set forth in the report, he had formed a pretty definite impression that the temper of Congress was utterly opposed to Vermont's appropriating any territory east of the Connecti- cut, and that Vermont was in danger of annihilation through a hostile move by all the confederated States, unless the union with the New Hampshire towns was rescinded; but with the New Hampshire union out of the way he was satisfied that Vermont had little to fear from New York as a single adver- sary.1
Ethan Allen's report, Meshech Weare's protests to Governor Chittenden and to New Hampshire's delegates at Philadelphia and a letter written by Chittenden to Weare on September 3, had been laid before the committee of the whole in the Ver- mont Legislature at Windsor on October 13. Besides these documents, the committee had the protest of Brattleborough, Hinsdale, and other southeastern towns objecting to the for- mation of the New State.2 The committee had also a copy of Governor Clinton's letter addressed to Pelatiah Fitch, of Brattleborough, under date of July 7, advising that New York would presently commission military officers in Cumberland County, and urging that the people of New York allegiance should resist the execution of Vermont laws in the communi- ties in which the friends of New York predominated.3 Slade's transcript of the Assembly's minutes adds this item: " A verbal representation was also made by Col. Ethan Allen, of the situation of affairs relative to this state, at the honorable Con- tinental Congress: after which, the matters relative to the union of sundry towns, east of Connecticut river, with this state, were largely discussed." 4 As a matter of fact, not much else of importance was discussed at the session from October 13 to the date of final adjournment on October 24.
Forceful as Ethan Allen's reports had been there were mem- bers of the Vermont Legislature who were determined still to defend the New Hampshire union. Some of them were prob- ably actuated by motives of self interest. Others seem to
1 Id., p. 93.
2 Supra, pp. 439-441.
3 Slade's State Papers, p. 94; 3 Public Papers of George Clinton, p. 528.
4 Slade's State Papers, p. 94.
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have supported the union as a matter of honor. There were some men like General Jacob Bayley, a member of Vermont's Council, who were not inclined to give full faith or credit to any report submitted by Ethan Allen. One of these men-an unnamed member of the Assembly-according to an article written by Doctor Samuel Williams for the Rural Magazine, bluntly put to Ethan Allen the question whether the New Hampshire delegates at Philadelphia did or did not give him a pledge that they would help defeat New York's claim to Vermont, if Vermont would dissolve the union with the towns east of the Connecticut River. To this question Allen is re- ported to have answered: "Yes, they did, upon honour." 1
But we do not have to rely wholly on hearsay for what took place at Windsor in the way of heckling Vermont's political leader. An eye-witness in the person of Windsor's venerable old settler, Captain Zedekiah Stone, has left a written state- ment under oath of what he, while sitting as a spectator in Windsor's meeting house, heard of Ethan Allen's cross-exami- nation on the bargains made at Philadelphia. This statement, drawn in what looks like the handwriting of Colonel Nathan Stone, signed by Captain Zedekiah Stone and sworn to before Hilkiah Grout as a justice of the peace under the government of New York, found its way to Governor George Clinton, who transmitted it to New York's delegation at Philadelphia in a letter dated December 17, 1778.2 The statement, now pre- served among the papers of James Duane at the rooms of the New York Historical Society, is as follows:
"State of New York Windsor 19th November 1778
Cumberland County
"I, Zedekiah Stone of Lawfull age, testifieth and saith, That at the Sessions or General Assembly of the pretented State of Vermont in October Last, held in Windsor, Came into the said assembly as a Spectator; That your Depont heard Colo1 Payne one of the members of said assembly ask Colo1 Ethan Allen upon his Hon' to give him an ans' to the following Ques- tion-Vizt. Whether in his Conversation with the Members of the Continental Congress for the State of New Hampshire
1 1 Gov. & Coun., p. 417.
2 4 Clinton Papers, 394.
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THE NEW STATE TOTTERS
(did not get encouragement from them that if he would break off the Union and Leave out that part of the State on the East side of Connecticut river) that they would befriend him in Getting that part on the West side of said river Established as a state. The aforesaid Colo1 Allen answered to the aforesaid Question Yes. further your Depont Sayeth Not.
Zedekiah Stone.
Windsor, November ye 19, 1778
"Personally appeared the above Named Zedekiah Stone the Deponant and made solom oath of the truth of the above Deposition by him subscribed. "Before me
Hilkiah Grout Justice peace."
Although Governor George Clinton, who was always skep- tical of Ethan Allen's veracity, was loath to believe that New Hampshire's delegation at Philadelphia would have been party to a secret political trade so injurious to the interests of New York there is nothing incredible in the story. Every delegate at Philadelphia represented a constituency that had repudi- ated its allegiance to its former government. The confedera- tion of independent States was so comparatively new and weak that it had not gained for itself as a government any very deep-seated respect on the part of the elements which com- posed it. Each new State was living for itself, looking out for itself, and had become a member of the confederation mainly if not wholly as a war measure and only for the duration of the war. Though each separate State was deeply concerned over its own rights, it felt little anxiety for the rights of others. The idea of a permanent United States Government had not taken root.1 Neither Meshech Weare nor his State's delegates at Philadelphia cared if the State of New York be torn in two by internal dissension provided the two fragments could to- gether contribute New York's full share to the prosecution of the war. If by favoring the division of New York into New York and Vermont, the men of New Hampshire could regain their own lost sixteen towns, they saw nothing particularly immoral in giving aid and encouragement to Vermont's origi- nal aspirations at New York's expense. Allegiances were lightly
1 Timothy Dwight's Travels (1821 edition), vol. I, p. 159.
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held by the average revolutionists. The time in which Ethan Allen lived accounted for much of his lack of scruple and for a similar lack on the part of his contemporaries in Vermont and New Hampshire.
Colonel Elisha Payne, who, according to Captain Zedekiah Stone, was Ethan Allen's heckler before the General Assembly at Windsor, was a character of more than ordinary parts. To him more than to anybody else Ira Allen gives the credit or discredit of having persuaded a majority of the Vermont towns to vote in favor of the New Hampshire union in the spring of 1778.1 His counsel had been deemed of sufficient value to justify an invitation to him to accompany Doctor Jonas Fay and Lieutenant-Governor Marsh to the proposed interview with the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in the month of March. Whether rated as a citizen of Vermont or as a citi- zen of New Hampshire, his influence was strong for the union between western New Hampshire and the New State. During both periods of union his official position in Vermont affairs was important. In fact, it seemed for some time that he would succeed in preserving the first union in opposition to Ethan Allen, Meshech Weare, and the Continental Congress.
The debate "in the committee of the whole" continued at Windsor from day to day. On October 16 the committee of the whole voted that it would enter on such measures as might tend "to support the union." On the next day Colonel Payne, with Governor Chittenden, Lieutenant-Governor Marsh, Doc- tor Jonas Fay, and Bezaleel Woodward were delegated as a sub-committee to draw the outlines of a plan for the "fur- ther establishment of the state and to lay a foundation for an answer to President Weare's letter to Governor Chit- tenden."
As far as the records show, the sub-committee was unanimous in agreeing on the report which Chittenden as chairman sub- mitted to the committee of the whole on Monday, October 19. As a matter of fact, the report recommended the drawing of a declaration reciting, first, the history of the Grants from the beginning; second, that township grants on both sides of the Connecticut had formed a union under one government, had
1 1 Gov. & Coun., 428.
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"solemnly covenanted to support each other in said govern- ment," and, third, "are unanimously determined, in every prudent and lawful way, to maintain and support, entire, the State as it now stands." The next paragraph of the report is less clear and less firm. It is susceptible of an interpretation contradictory to the paragraph which precedes it. It proposed a treaty with New Hampshire with respect to such towns west of the Mason claim as "shall accede to a union with this state" and it offered, with certain reservations, to submit the case to a judicial tribunal in case of New Hampshire's unwillingness to make the cession. If this latter proposal brought into ques- tion the status of the sixteen towns that had already joined Vermont, the report of the sub-committee at once reveals an inconsistency. The concluding paragraphs of the report ad- vised a proper drafting of the foregoing proposals, their sub- mission to the Assembly, their transmission to the government of New Hampshire, the Continental Congress and the other States, and recommended that Vermont's Assembly erect courts and enact appropriate statutes. On the receipt of the report the committee of the whole adopted the same as its own report to the Assembly and then dissolved.
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