USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 40
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48
The next morning-Tuesday, October 20-the Assembly approved the report. Then followed resolutions for the trans- mission of messages to the president of New Hampshire and the president of the Continental Congress, announcing the de- cision to adhere to the union and the offer to treat with New Hampshire. The Assembly chose one committee to draft the two communications and another to "draw up the proposed declaration at large to be laid before this assembly." To this point things had gone fairly smoothly, but the personnel of the last-mentioned committee boded trouble in including such enemies as General Jacob Bayley and Colonel Ethan Allen with Colonel Payne, Doctor Jonas Fay, and Bezaleel Wood- ward. Next came a resolution for the distribution of hand- bills to show what had been agreed upon. The last transaction of the day was the appointment of a committee of nine to con- fer with a committee of the Council in the preparation of a bill to divide the State into four counties. Colonel Payne was a member of every committee appointed by the Assembly
470
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
and Captain Ebenezer Curtis, of Windsor, was appointed to the committee on the four counties.
Wednesday morning showed that there had been an over- night weakening in determination. A day of reconsideration and of change of front followed. By nightfall the General As- sembly of Vermont had been torn asunder by proposals which in effect discarded totally the courageous programme thereto- fore adopted. The first rift appeared on a motion that the counties of Vermont remain as established at the March ses- sion. Since the Connecticut River was the eastern boundary of Cumberland County, the towns lying to the eastward of the stream and already admitted into union with Vermont would, if the motion prevailed, be outside of any Vermont county. To pass such a motion would look like a breach of faith with such towns and, according to modern views, would be an un- constitutional proceeding. This was the interpretation placed upon the motion by the representatives from the east side of the Connecticut. They and others who shared the same opin- ion were in a minority of twenty-six. Thirty-five voted in the affirmative.
There followed in quick succession two other motions, viz., first, a motion to make the towns east of the Connecticut and already in union a part of Cumberland County. This motion was defeated by a vote of thirty-three to twenty-eight. The next and last motion covered a proposal to erect into a sepa- rate Vermont county the towns east of the Connecticut and already in union with Vermont. This motion was rejected by exactly the same vote and the repudiation of Vermont's en- gagement with the sixteen New Hampshire towns was vir- tually complete. On each of the three ballots the names of Thomas Cooper and Ebenezer Curtis, of Windsor, appear with the majority.
In analyzing the minority vote on the three motions, it will be found that it included, in addition to the representatives from the east side of the Connecticut, the representatives from the Connecticut valley towns on the west side of the river north of Hertford (Hartland), the representatives from Wil- mington, Kent (Londonderry), Clarendon, and Wallingford, and one of the two representatives from Bennington. Putney's
471
THE NEW STATE TOTTERS
representative joined the minority on the two last motions, while Speaker Chandler, of Chester, voted with the minority on the first. The division of the Assembly was therefore not wholly on sectional lines, although largely so. Vermont his- torians take the view that the majority of the House had acted the part of discretion and had made an intelligent at- tempt to right a wrong. Two wrongs, however, do not make a right.
If it was wrong on the part of Colonel Payne's New Hamp- shire towns to separate from the jurisdiction of New Hamp- shire and form a part of Vermont, it is not easy to see why towns lately within the jurisdiction of New York could right- fully forsake that government to form another part of Ver- mont. A little over two years later, when Ethan Allen had changed his opinions and had found the boot on the other leg, he himself was making this very point.1 If any towns which preferred to be a part of Vermont had the right to be such, why was it that towns like Brattleborough, Hinsdale (Ver- non), and Newfane, which preferred to be a part of New York, might not rightfully have their way? To answer this and other questions by logic or according to principles of law or equity we may leave to those historians who profess the ability to do so. The factors which seem to have been controlling in determining Vermont's course were inclination, an appraisal of strength and weakness, and a consideration of the expedi- ency of the moment. To assume the average Vermont settler of the Revolutionary period to have been actuated always by what we call principle is extravagant and unjust. He and his fellows, against heavy odds, formed and maintained a State. Whatever their methods, their achievement in that particular is enough to make Vermont history remarkable without our crediting the actors with virtues that they did not possess.
As the several votes were announced, the defeated minority in the Vermont Legislature signed and submitted two well- drawn protests against the injustice done by the majority. Twenty-four assemblymen who were of the minority then withdrew from the Legislature and by a written remonstrance filed with the majority renounced their association with the
12 Gov. & Coun., p. 359.
472
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
government of Vermont. Lieutenant-Governor Marsh, Gen- eral Bayley, Colonel Olcott, and Thomas Murdock, of the Council, joined the separatist movement, and, with the ex- ception of General Bayley, joined in signing the remonstrance. The Vermont Assembly, which showed upon its records a membership of seventy-four, was thus reduced almost in the twinkling of an eye to forty. Under the Constitution a quorum was two-thirds, so that fifty members were necessary to do business. The ingenious majority were not baffled by this seemingly impassable barrier against further transactions. They won back the revolting member from the town of Sharon, fixed the original maximum membership of the Assembly at sixty-one by omitting to count any but representatives of towns west of the Connecticut, and thus maintained that with forty-one members present they had a Constitutional quorum. The historians Doctor Samuel Williams, Ira Allen, and even William Slade, Zadock Thompson, and Governor Hall have swallowed without a wink this interesting feat of mathematics, and its soundness seems to have been questioned only by the luckless minority members.
The "quorum" of forty-one continued their sittings at Windsor for three days, created the Superior Court of Ver- mont, voted to "revive" every statute passed at previous legislative sessions, except the Banishment Act and the act constituting the "Special" Court, resolved to report to the towns "the circumstances of the union subsisting between six- teen towns on the east side of Connecticut River and the former state of Vermont," asked for another referendum vote on the subject and appointed a committee consisting of Colonel John Barrett, of Springfield, and Captain Ebenezer Curtis, of Windsor, to prepare the laws for the press.
On October 24, the last day of the session, the members present voted to appoint Thomas Cooper, of Windsor, with Edward Harris, of Halifax, and Thomas Rowley, of Danby, a committee of three "to prepare a bill, respecting the freedom of slaves, agreeable to the bill of rights." This was the first recorded notice of official recognition of the most famous pro- vision in Vermont's Constitution. The session adjourned to February 11 at Bennington.
473
THE NEW STATE TOTTERS
William Slade in his State Papers fully recognized the grav- ity of the situation produced by the schism in the new State.1 He speaks of the excited feeling on the part of the revolted minority2 and regards the measures they presently pursued as of an alarming character.3 Jeremy Belknap, the eminent New Hampshire historian, writing at a period when the events we are dealing with were fresh in his mind, asserts that "this secession had nearly proved fatal to the State of Vermont." 4 The bolting Assemblymen and the bolting members of the Council having immediately organized themselves into a con- vention or committee at Windsor, took steps to lay their grievance before the people of Vermont, with a view to recon- structing the State on broader lines. Lieutenant-Governor Marsh, as chairman, signed on October 23 a brief on the ille- gality and unconstitutionality of the conduct of the majority.5 It displayed a knowledge of constitutional law rather unusual for the time. Altogether it was of such weight and soundness that the majority discreetly refrained from attempting a di- rect answer at the moment. Prepared for circulation through- out the Grants, it called on the people to elect delegates to a convention to be held at Cornish-just across the river from Windsor-on December 9, to decide upon a method of uniting the whole of the New Hampshire Grants on both sides of the river in one new State, or, failing that, to induce New Hamp- shire to annex the entire region. On the same day Marsh wrote from Windsor a letter to the president of the Continen- tal Congress reporting briefly the issues that had developed. The letter stated that the bearer, Colonel John Wheelock,6 would give fuller details of the situation.7
The leaders of the majority at Windsor were equally busy at mending their fences. Ethan Allen's quill on October 23 drafted a letter to accompany Governor Chittenden's official communication of the same date to President Weare, of New Hampshire. As might have been expected, the Governor's letter was not a particularly happy production. Four days prior to its composition he had signed and submitted as chair-
1 Slade's State Papers, p. 100.
4 2 Belknap's History of N. H., p. 34.
6 A son of the president of Dartmouth.
2 Id. 3 Id., p. 101.
5 1 Gov. & Coun., pp. 423-426.
7 8 Gov. & Coun., pp. 398-399.
474
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
man of a committee a report advising that Vermont was "de- termined ... to maintain and support entire the state as it now stands." In the letter to Weare he found himself report- ing, first, a determination that "no additional exercise of juris- dictional authority be had east of Connecticut River for the time being," second, the dissent and withdrawal from the Legislature on the part of the representatives of the sixteen towns, and, third, his conclusion that these representatives had no further claim on Vermont's protection.1 He could not produce, had he wished it, any definite legislative act or reso- lution actually severing the New Hampshire union. The fact that the "quorum" of forty-one had included upwards of half a dozen members who had previously voted with the minority, had made it a delicate matter to raise the issue again. And probably not even a majority of the forty-one would have been willing to flout the referendum vote of the preceding spring. "As the union was formed by the voice of the people, the Legislature chose to dissolve it in the same way." 2
If Chittenden felt any sense of mortification either at con- fessing a backdown from former pretensions or in acknowl- edging a breach of faith with his eastern constituents, no such feelings troubled the stalwart breast or busy brain of Ethan Allen. The latter saw nothing shameful in Vermont's conduct except in failing to rebuff the sixteen towns when they had first asked leave to join Vermont. Allen's anxiety, if anxiety is a thing that he was capable of experiencing, was that Chit- tenden's letter would not satisfy Weare. So Allen himself wrote a letter. Its Rooseveltian tone is so refreshing and its substance and style are so characteristic of Ethan Allen, that we give it in full.
Sir:
State of Vermont, Windsor, 23d Octobr 1778.
In Conformity to my engagement to Colonel Bartlett, one of the Members of Congress from New Hampshire, I am in- duced to write to your Honor, Respecting a number of Towns to the Eastward of Connecticut River which Inadvertently by influence of designing men, have Lately been brought into Union with the State of Vermont, which in my Opinion is now 18 Gov. & Coun., p. 398.
? Allen's History of Vt., p. 116.
475
THE NEW STATE TOTTERS
entirely disolved. I engaged Col. Bartlett to use my Influence at this Assembly for that Purpose. The Governor's Letter to your Honor, Together with what Squire Allen1 the Bearer will Communicate, will set this Matter in its True Light.
The Union I ever view'd to be Incompatible with the Right of New Hampshire, and I have punctually Discharged my Obligation to Col. Bartlett for its Disolution, and that Worthy Gentleman on his part assured me that he had no Directions from the Government of New Hampshire to extend their Claim to the westward of Connecticut River to Interfere with the State of Vermont, and I hope that the Government of New Hampshire will excuse the Imbecility of Vermont in the matter of the Union. I apprehend Col. Payne had a Principal Influence in it, and it was with Difficulty that this Assembly got rid of him. I am appointed by this Assembly to act as agent for the State of Vermont at Congress, where I shall shortly repare, and Depend that New Hampshire will Accede to the Independency of the State of Vermont as the last Ob- sticles are Honourably removed.
I am with Due respect Sir your very Humble Servt
Honble Meshech Weare, Esq. Ethan Allen.
Having been a prisoner of war and outside of Vermont poli- tics at the time the union with New Hampshire had been voted in Vermont's referendum, Ethan Allen could speak of Vermont's "Imbecility" in the matter without accusing him- self. Others may have made idiots of themselves but not he. Alone he proceeded without fear, embarrassment, or visible misgivings. His example was of incalculable value at this and many other trying moments in Vermont's early days, and no- body profited by that example more than did his young brother Ira, who under Ethan's orders and instructions, and as his chief clerk, came now into his own as a useful political tool of the New State.
Strict observance of the truth was never deemed by the two brothers as a requirement which they themselves must meet. As indulgent a commentator as Governor Hiland Hall
1 Ira Allen.
476
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
is caught remarking regretfully in an editorial foot-note to one of Ethan Allen's papers that a certain assertion was "a strik- ing instance of the inaccuracy (to use no harsher word) of the Allens." 1 So in the foregoing letter to President Weare, it should not be assumed that Ethan Allen sincerely felt every- thing that he wrote. In fact, not many years elapsed before he was expressing on the major point quite the opposite sen- timents when they seemed best to serve his purpose.2 One is reminded of Lowell's playful yet discerning rhyme on Glad- stone:
"His greatness not so much in genius lies As in adroitness, when occasions rise, Lifelong convictions to extemporise."
12 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., p. 238, note.
2 Id., pp. 231-239; 2 Gov. & Coun., pp. 355-363.
CHAPTER XLVIII
ERRATIC DAYS
So Windsor, having seen the end of an exciting legislative session and the amputation of the eastern wing of the New State, was about to become an onlooker of attempts at repairs or reorganization in a new convention center.
Looking across the Connecticut from the Windsor side of the river one can see to-day no village or trace of a village in Cornish. There was no village there in 1778. There has never been a village in that part of Cornish Township which is visi- ble from Windsor. In 1778, as at present, from the Plainfield line on the north to the Claremont line on the south, the river front of Cornish showed a succession of houses, generally widely separated, with Cornish Hills in the near background. There was a meeting-house not far from the spot where Trinity Church now stands. One or more of the homes of the Chase family took in transient lodgers and wayfarers, of whom- except for extraordinary occasions like legislative sessions- there were probably rather more on the New Hampshire than on the Vermont side of the river. Travelers were inclined to favor the road on the New Hampshire side of the river as against that through Windsor. On Chase Brook and perhaps on Blowmedown Brook were whatever saw mills or grist mills the town of Cornish could support. The place had none of the appearance of what we would picture as a convention town.
Yet, if one stops to consider, one recognizes the fact that in 1778 there was little difference in community development on the two sides of the stream. True, Windsor had more meadow: the hills on the Vermont side rose less abruptly from the valley: Windsor had more space available for roads or streets: the Windsor terraces covered a considerable cleared area stretching back from the river to Leet's Hill and the other uplands lying to the north or south; but in the matter of clustered dwellings or other buildings that go to make up what we term a village, Windsor then had scarcely more to show
477
478
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
than had Cornish, then or to-day. Indeed, perhaps a journey up the river road through the Cornish of to-day, if due allow- ance is made for the improvement in the quality of the houses and grounds, affords a pretty clear idea of what Windsor looked like in 1778. Therefore, there was nothing outlandish in 1778 in selecting Cornish as a convention town if Windsor was one. Rather it was a natural selection, because it was close to what had become the political center of New State activity and yet possibly beyond the reach of a Vermont in- dictment for conspiracy, sedition, or treason.1
Not all the men who had participated in the doings of the October session at Windsor left town immediately on the adjournment of the Legislature. The Governor remained over Sunday in Windsor, where he found time on the following Monday to sign an order in the case of Watts Hubbard, junior, as heretofore mentioned. Ira Allen also tarried. The latter, as he himself asserts, having turned artist for the time being, charged to the State of Vermont under date of October 26, 1778, "2 days at Windsor drawing a plan for a state seal and getting Mr. R. Dean to make it." 2 The price-ten shillings for his own time and ten shillings paid to Reuben Dean for cutting Vermont's first seal-was but a modest outlay for what was obtained. In 1923 the present writer, drawing upon his own imagination for an interpretation of that interesting work of art, composed the following:
"The original Vermont State seal, a cut of which appeared in volume 15 of The Vermonter and, more recently, in Folklore of Springfield, dates back to the foundation of the State. It was a disc and has as its main feature an unbroken horizontal line of trees which may be supposed to represent Vermont's primeval forests. In the center of the forest rises one tree of exceptional height to typify the range of the Green Moun- tains. On each side of the great tree and above the forest as
1 For a few months following the establishment of the Eastern Union in June, 1778, John Benjamin, of Windsor, as Sheriff of Cumberland County, had exer- cised authority in the sixteen towns east of the Connecticut River. (Vindication of the General Assembly, p. 15.)
2 Thompson's Vermont, part II, p. 107, note.
479
ERRATIC DAYS
well as in each of the two corresponding stations below the forest is a shock of grain to represent the four constituent New York counties which wholly or in part seceded from New York to form Vermont, viz., Gloucester and Cumberland on the east side of the Green Mountains, and Charlotte and Albany on the west. A cow appears on the east side in recog- nition of the comparative safety of that locality, while on the opposite side a hostile spear from New York has penetrated the western boundary.
"Just inside the circumference of the seal and in each of the four quarters, as if guarding the grain, is a serried line formed by ten arrow heads. These four lines of weapons may denote Vermont's defence against the world. Directly below the forest is the name 'Vermont' between two ornamental scrolls, while lower yet, in two lines, are the words 'Freedom & Unity.'
"At the extreme top of the disc is what appears to be a heavy cloud. The meaning of this cloud, if it has any, is some- what difficult to guess. From Ira Allen's firsthand account of the adoption of the State Constitution in Windsor on July 8, 1777, we know that the Constitution was read for the last time and agreed upon by the convention while a violent thunder- storm was raging. We also know that at the same moment the advance of Burgoyne loomed over Vermont like a threatening cloud. As the Reverend Aaron Hutchinson wrote to Vermont's Council of Safety on September 6, 1777: 'I had expected the convention would not sit at that time by reason of the dark cloud then coming over us, and which overwhelmed us the week after.' Whether the designer of the seal had in mind General Burgoyne's army or Ira Allen's thunderstorm the 'cloud' is a very obvious part of Vermont's original seal.
"The maker of Vermont's original seal was a Windsor silversmith named Reuben Dean. His shop was on the east side of the Connecticut River highway or town street not far from where the Methodist Church now stands.1 . .. This seal was used by the State until 1821 when it was superseded by one bearing a closer resemblance to the present State Coat
1 Reuben Dean's place passed to Doctor Nahum Trask and was inherited by the latter's daughter, Mrs. Plumb. It was known in the writer's day as the Plumb place and the McCarty house. Originally it was but a one-story dwelling.
480
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
of Arms with which most Vermonters are familiar. The new seal was considered of much finer style and far more appropriate then Reuben Dean's production. It is not unlikely, however, that if the choice were now open the decision would favor the original seal as the more artistic and more full of historical significance. Though obviously an old-fashioned piece of work, Reuben Dean's seal has the quaintness and much of the grace and manner of the old 'samplers' which are now treasured as priceless heirlooms.1 They were almost the only works of art commonly made in Vermont in those early days and it was therefore natural that in patterning a design for a State seal Reuben Dean's ideas should have been shaped by what he had seen made in his own modest home and in the homes of his neighbors." 2
Vermont's Legislature at its Bennington session on February 20, 1779, formally accepted this seal as the seal of the State with the proviso that Ira Allen be empowered to have it "cut deeper." It was thereafter affixed to commissions and other papers that had been voted or authorized as far back as the spring of 1778. Its use continued for upward of forty years.
Another sequel of the legislative session of October, 1778, was the matter of preparing the Vermont laws for the printer. We find from a voucher dated November 17, 1778, that Ebenezer Curtis of Windsor and Colonel John Barrett of Spring- field had completed their work upon the statutes and that the manuscript had been delivered to Alden Spooner the State Printer at Dresden on that day. The actual printing was de- ferred until after the next adjourned session when many more laws were passed. Another voucher among the original papers of this period, preserved in the Secretary of State's offiec in Montpelier, concerns our old Windsor friend Ebenezer Hoising- ton. He who had been so prominently identified with the pre- liminaries leading to Vermont's statehood was now reduced to the minor but perhaps more lucrative roles of deputy conserva- tor of confiscated property and deputy constable. Under date
1 See cut on title page.
2 From the editorial columns of the Burlington Free Press of November 13, 1923. (The Vermonter, vol. 28, No. 9, p. 126.)
481
ERRATIC DAYS
of October 3, 1778, he submitted his "Bill of Expenses for Cort attendenc" which included a gill of wine and a "Diner" for himself as well as "oats for horse" on September 29. Other items charged by Hoisington to the State of Vermont were a mug of flip, a glass of rum, ferrying at Windsor and "pursuit of prisoners that broke goal." It is a pleasure to find that Doctor Paul Spooner of Hertford (Hartland) and Benjamin Emmons of Woodstock, who were the committee to pass upon this account rendered by Ebenezer Hoisington, wrote at the foot thereof and over their own signatures:
"Your committee have examined the above bill of expenses and find the charge agreeable to the times, the expenses mod- erate and the sums rightly cast."
From Windsor, Ethan Allen went to Philadelphia to give to the Continental Congress his version of the dissolution of the New Hampshire Union. A very brief report of his mission he submitted as an appendix to Ira Allen's printed Vindication of the Conduct of the General Assembly of the State of Vermont. He was comforted to find that the New Hampshire delegates at Philadelphia had received from their constituents instructions "not to assert their claim to the westward of Connecticut River" 1 but he seems to have overstepped discretion in seeking to give to the Congress the erroneous impression that the in- habitants of the sixteen New Hampshire towns had finally acquiesced in the severance of the union and a return to New Hampshire's jurisdiction. On this point Colonel John Whee- lock of Dresden, who as their delegate had come on from Windsor to Philadelphia, tripped him up.2
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.