USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 41
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
Ira Allen, as Vermont's emissary from Windsor to New Hampshire's seat of government, proceeded with more caution than did his elder brother. On arriving at Exeter he got in touch with the state authorities, prepared for them a brief but well written history of the proceedings leading up to the union with the sixteen towns, charged the responsibility for the union largely to Colonel Elisha Payne, of Cardigan, New Hampshire,
1 Vindication of General Assembly, pp. 47-48.
2 George Clinton Papers, vol. 4, p. 322.
482
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
and sought to make it appear that Colonel Payne's false repre- sentation of New Hampshire's assent to the union in the spring of the year had deceived the people of Vermont into voting for it in the first instance. He then proceeded to give his own version of the "dissolution" voted by Vermont's Legislature at Windsor and wound up his report with a warning that the representatives from the sixteen towns were presently to meet with representatives from several Vermont towns in Lebanon in furtherance of a plan to unite the Grants on both sides of the Connecticut in one state. This paper of Ira Allen's, dated at Exeter, November 4, 1778, may be found in the first volume of Governor and Council at pages 427 to 429. That it made a fairly satisfactory impression on President Weare, of New Hampshire's Council, may be inferred from the latter's letters to Governor Chittenden1 and Ethan Allen2 under date of November 5, 1778. From the letter to Chittenden it would appear that Ira Allen had given oral assurances that there was to be a more definite legislative repudiation of the union on the part of Vermont after taking a referendum vote on the subject.
Ira Allen was back on the Connecticut River before the end of November. At Alden Spooner's printing office at Dresden he turned in for publication on the 27th his Address to the Inhabitants of the State of Vermont, 3 a paper in which he gave not only a report of his doings at Exeter, but a brief argument in favor of the expediency of strictly limiting the State of Vermont to the Grants west of the Connecticut. Seizing upon Lieutenant-Governor Marsh's public suggestion that New Hampshire might be urged to consider asserting a claim to Vermont, Ira Allen cunningly treated this as a real danger. He pointed out that New Hampshire was "some in debt" and had a plan of assembly representation by popula- tion whereby "it would take five or six of our new towns to send one member" to the New Hampshire legislature. He also asserted himself to have been advised that the Continental Congress, except for New York's delegation, was quite willing that Vermont should be a State "in its first described limits west of Connecticut River." From these premises he reasoned
2 1 Id., p. 427.
18 Gov. & Coun., p. 400.
3 5 Gov. & Coun., p. 540; 4 George Clinton Papers, p. 396.
483
ERRATIC DAYS
that the people of Vermont would perceive the prudence of keeping aloof from New Hampshire and sticking to the claim for separate statehood and admission to the confedera- tion.
The representatives of the sixteen towns under the leadership of Colonel Payne, Lieutenant-Governor Marsh, General Bay- ley, and Professor Woodward, though not as prompt as Ira Allen, were equally busy at Lebanon and elsewhere in prepara- tion for the coming Cornish convention. It will be recalled that prior to the rupture at Windsor a committee consisting of Ethan Allen, Colonel Payne, Doctor Jonas Fay, Professor Woodward, and General Bayley had been appointed to draft a "declaration" to lay before the General Assembly. The breach had occurred before the committee could report, but a majority of the committee were included in the body which had withdrawn from the Council and General Assembly. Taking advantage of that circumstance the three majority members of the committee-General Bayley, Colonel Payne, and Professor Woodward-sought to give to the manifesto which they now prepared the guise of a committee report made under Vermont legislative sanction. This cloak deceived nobody, even if it was intended so to do, yet it did give to the composition a certain dignity of official standing or propriety which it otherwise might not have possessed. It begins: "Pursuant to a Resolve of the General Assembly of the State of Vermont passed Oc- tober 20th, 1778, 'that a declaration be drawn up setting forth the political state of the New Hampshire Grants (so-called) on both sides of Connecticut River &c' the major part of their Committee appointed for that purpose, have agreed to present the following facts and observations . . . "
This report, which was printed as a pamphlet by Alden Spooner at Dresden under the title "A Public Defence of the right of the New Hampshire Grants (so-called) on both sides Connecticut River to Associate together and form themselves into an Independent State," may be found in full in the fifth volume of Governor and Council at pages 525 to 539. Instead of being intended primarily as a committee report it was a cam- paign document published for circulation in Vermont and western New Hampshire with a view to gathering delegates at
484
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
the Cornish convention and furnishing them with a political platform. As a state paper it can stand comparison with the average of the period in logic, truth, and persuasiveness. Economically, it presented the advantage of a larger state and the elimination of the inconvenience of keeping the boundary at the Connecticut River. It had the defect of being rather long and in proposing too many possible methods for the solu- tion of the union questions instead of driving for one conclusion ; and it had the grave disadvantage of having been anticipated by four days by Ira Allen's Address.
The number of courses presented for selection in the Bayley- Payne-Woodward "Defence" were in fact four, viz., (1) that the New Hampshire Grants on both sides of the Connecticut come to an agreement with the assembly of New Hampshire as to a boundary between New Hampshire and the Grants; (2) that all disputes with respect to the union be submitted to a Court of Commissioners appointed by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut; (3) that all such disputes be submitted to the Continental Congress; (4) that in case no adjustment could be made in any one of the three mentioned modes there be negotiations with New Hampshire looking to an extension of New Hampshire's jurisdiction over the Grants on both sides of the Connecticut.
The Cornish Convention assembled on December 9, 1778, at the house of Dudley Chase. This house, which formerly stood approximately on the site of the recently burned Beaman residence at "Blowmedown" has been preserved in attractive condition through the efforts of the late Charles Coatsworth Beaman. It has long been one of the ornaments of his estate and stands about one hundred yards north of where his main house stood. He called it "the Casino" by which name it is still locally known.
The attendance at the Cornish Convention was probably not large. Ira Allen, who took the precaution to be in the neighborhood at the time-"providentially," as he says-in order to spy upon the doings of his rivals, seems to have had no difficulty in gaining admission. His report of the transactions omits to give the number of delegates and is singularly lacking in names, but he does state that only eight of the towns west
485
ERRATIC DAYS
of the Connecticut River were represented by delegates,1 and that the number of New Hampshire towns represented was "not so many as expected." 2 An attested record of a portion of the proceedings shows that Lieutenant-Governor Marsh, of Hartford, Vermont, presided as chairman of the convention and that the secretary was Professor Bezaleel Woodward, of Dartmouth College. The same record shows that the pam- phlet heretofore referred to as the Public Defence was thor- oughly considered by the delegates, was unanimously approved and that the several proposals for settling the jurisdictional dispute as therein set forth were adopted in convention in the order in which they had appeared in the pamphlet. The extract reveals that the delegates seriously contemplated applying to New Hampshire to extend its jurisdiction over the whole of Vermont although such course was to be predicated only on the failure of further efforts to induce a larger number of the towns west of the Connecticut River to join with the sixteen towns east of the river in forming a new or reorganized State.
In his letter written to Weare on December 12 3, as well as in his Vindication of the General Assembly 4 and in his History of Vermont 5 Ira Allen, who was prone to follow the not un- usual custom of attributing blame and unworthy motives to others, expressed his conviction that the real aim of the seced- ing members of Vermont's Assembly and Council had been to establish the seat of government of the New State at the Connecticut River. The Vindication contains Allen's assertion that the first seeds of discord between the sixteen towns and the State of New Hampshire were sown at Dartmouth College.6 For this belief on his part, if in fact he did so believe, there is some color of support in a passage from the Public Defence where, as one of the arguments for the joinder of the sixteen New Hampshire towns with the State of Vermont, the writers point out that Vermont had shown a disposition liberally to patronize the college whereas New Hampshire had neglected
1 See Ira Allen's letter to Meshech Weare, dated at Windsor, December 12, 1778 (5 Gov. & Coun., pp. 539-540).
2 Vindication of the General Assembly, p. 34.
4 Vindication, etc., p. 42.
6 Vindication, etc., p. 41.
3 5 Gov. & Coun., p. 540.
6 Allen's History of Vt., p. 118.
486
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
and would probably continue to neglect it.1 Further corrobora- tive evidence might possibly be found in the records gathered by Mr. E. P. Walton2 from New Hampshire sources for the fifth volume of Governor and Council and particularly from President Weare's letter of December 16, 1776.3 But Ira Allen fails in terms to controvert the statement of General Bayley, Colonel Payne, and Professor Woodward in the Public Defence that "overtures were made by a Convention of the Grants on the west side to those on the east side of the river as early as September, 1776,"4 to join the Vermont movement.
The location of the seat of government was a point in contro- versy. Of this there can be little doubt. It was, however, hardly a major point. Behind it lay the larger consideration of what men or what political group should control the affairs of the New State. Jeremy Belknap, in his temperate review of these times, perceived the external aspect of the case and stated it with admirable clearness. "Several interfering interests," wrote Belknap, "conspired to perplex the subject. The people on the western side of the Green Mountains wished to have the seat of government among them. Those adjoining Connecticut River, on both sides, were desirous of bringing the centre of jurisdiction to the verge of the river. The leading men of the eastern part of New Hampshire were averse to a removal of the government from its old seat." 5
It would not have been a serious blow to posterity if the Connecticut River had not become the dividing line between Vermont and New Hampshire; nor would the cause of civiliza- tion have suffered if such men as General Bayley, Lieutenant- Governor Marsh, Colonel Olcott, Colonel Payne, and Bezaleel Woodward, with or without the active political support of Dartmouth College, had won the upper hand in shaping the destinies of the New State. With all respect for the talents of the group of men who succeeded in keeping control of Vermont affairs at this trying stage we must not forget that the leaders were far from faultless. Although President Dwight of Yale College perhaps permitted religious intolerance unduly to color
1 5 Gov. & Coun., 537.
3 Id., p. 506.
5 Belknap's History of N. H., vol. II, pp. 343-344.
2 Id., pp. 507-513.
4 Id., p. 527.
1
487
ERRATIC DAYS
his opinion of these men there is food for reflection in his al- most contemporary judgment of them. "A considerable num- ber of those who first claimed and acquired influence in the State of Vermont," wrote he, "were men of loose principles and loose morals. They were either professed Infidels, Uni- versalists, or persons who exhibited the morals of these two classes of mankind. We cannot expect, therefore, to find the public measures of Vermont distinguished, at that time, by any particular proofs of integrity or justice." 1
Up to the meeting of the adjourned session of Vermont's Legislature at Bennington on February 11, 1779, no large re- sults seem to have flowed from the campaigning on either side. Perhaps the inhabitants had had enough of politics for the season. The disposition of the people of Windsor was indicated by the following decision reached at a town meeting held on February 8: "Voted that the Representatives be Instructed that they act Relative to Dessolving the Union between this State and Sixteen Towns East of Connecticutt River as shall apear to them Nessasary." Crockett says, however, that the committee appointed by the Cornish Convention was active in attempting to secure such instructions for Vermont's assemblymen as would insure the continuance of the Union.2 Certain of the Chase Family of Cornish who were warm advo- cates of the union and were also owners of land in Windsor may be presumed to have been pulling wires at this time. Ira Allen, on the opposing side, with the co-operation if not at the direction of Ethan Allen, sent out from Alden Spooner's press at Dresden as a campaign document the Vindication of the General Assembly under date of January 9, 1779. This pam- phlet of forty-eight pages, although containing a good deal of specious reasoning and occasional passages of doubtful veracity, is an effective composition and an entertaining review of the Union and of the rupture in the October legislative session. That neither the Vermont Historical Society's Collections nor the volumes of Governor and Council contain a transcript of this Vindication is quite remarkable.
1 Timothy Dwight's Travels in New England and New York, 1821 edition, vol. 2, p. 471.
2 Crockett's History of Vt., vol. II, p. 237.
488
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
Not the least diverting portion of this Vindication is the two-page appendix, subscribed by Ethan Allen, giving a report of his last Philadelphia lobbying trip from which he omitted all reference to his having encountered Colonel John Wheelock. A comic feature of the appendix is what appears to be an inti- mation that Ethan Allen had reached the conclusion that his refusal to meet in October the religious test required of assem- blymen was a political misstep. "When I consider," he wrote, "the infant settlement of this country, the oppressive hand of New York which has ever been stretched out against it, its frontier situation in the present revolution and barbarous war with Great Britain, and the magnanimity, fortitude and perseverance with which the militia (alias) Green Mountain Boys have withstood the several conflicts, maintained their ground, vindicated their liberty, triumphed over their enemies, foreign and domestic, and baffled all their machinations, shining with superior lustre both in arms, freedom of constitution and government, and, above all, in the righteousness of their cause, I cannot reflect on the mighty scene without amazement and acknowledging the propitious agency of Deity." We can imagine the winks and grimaces with which the blustering agnostic wrote that absurdly extravagant sentence to make himself appear a less improper person than the good Congregationalists at Windsor must have thought him in October when he refused to acknowledge his belief in God, the Bible and the Protestant religion.
Whatever the direct effects of the political campaign that preceded the adjourned legislative session of February, 1779, the organization of the Assembly was complete enough to make unanimous the passage of a resolution definitely terminating the union with the sixteen towns. In all, fifty representatives were present. Of these at least twenty-one came from the east side of the Green Mountains. The minutes and debenture list show Thomas Cooper's presence but nothing as to Windsor's other assemblyman. Four of the twelve councillors and the lieutenant-governor were absent. The comparatively small body of those in attendance coupled probably with their realization of the urgency of the hour made for such efficiency that a complete revision of the State's statute law was finished
489
ERRATIC DAYS
after a session of sixteen days. Not the least interesting of the enactments of the session was a law passed on the day of ad- journment whereby upwards of one hundred named persons were banished for having gone over to the enemy. Included in the list were our old acquaintances John Grout (then of Ches- ter), Colonel William Marsh, of Dorset, Colonel James Rogers, and Crean Brush. No Windsor name, barring Grout's, occurs in the list. The most important of the men named in the statute was Justus Sherwood, of New Haven, who shortly afterwards figured prominently in Vermont affairs.
The year 1779 has perhaps no equal for turbulence in Ver- mont's history. The position of Vermont as an actively com- batant State in the American Revolution had become almost negligible though it had not acquired the anomolousness which characterized it a year later. Internal dissensions and the un- friendliness of neighboring States gave little opportunity for warring upon a foreign foe. Such men as General Bayley and Colonel Seth Warner who still considered the question of American independence paramount to other subjects were con- tributing their efforts to that end in co-operation with the military authorities of New Hampshire or New York or the Continental Congress rather than with those of Vermont.
No sooner had General Bayley been apprised of Vermont's action in definitely dissolving the union with the sixteen towns than he with Davenport Phelps of Orford, on behalf of towns on both sides of the Connecticut River, retaliated by applying to the New Hampshire Legislature to extend New Hampshire's jurisdiction over all the Grants on both sides of the Connecticut. After a few months of deliberation the New Hampshire As- sembly voted favorable consideration of this proposal. Pres- ently Massachusetts preferred a claim to a portion of southern Vermont, thereby-with New York-making three neighboring adversaries against whom the new and feeble State was called on to contend, to say nothing of the persistent group of New York sympathizers in southeastern Vermont and the British army in Canada. There can be no wonder that Vermont was in a tremble: rather the wonder is that Vermont was not extinguished.
In this most trying period Windsor continued to be a storm
490
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
center, an outpost of Vermont's struggle for existence, con- fronted on the east by the convention headquarters of the sixteen New Hampshire towns, on the north by the Marsh, Olcott, and Bayley party and on the south by the outposts of New York sympathizers. Sheriff John Benjamin, of Windsor, as the active local agent for the Vermont government, had his hands full. He now had personal charge of the recalcitrant Watts Hubbard, junior, with the duty of keeping him under guard and extracting from him the amount of the judgment for fine and costs imposed by the Council.1 To John Benjamin's charge was also committed the person of Titus Simonds of Hertford (Hartland), a Loyalist prisoner, who having lately served as a lieutenant and quartermaster in Lieutenant-Colonel Peters's Queen's Loyal Rangers, was now sentenced to labor within the town of Windsor.2
Another case requiring Sheriff Benjamin's services was that of Major Hilkiah Grout, of Weathersfield. Grout's predica- ment was peculiar. Holding a commission as justice of the peace from the State of New York he had been requested to take within the territorial limits of Vermont the testimony of several witnesses for the purposes of a case pending in one of the New Hampshire courts. Counsel had applied for leave to take the testimony before a Vermont justice but the New Hampshire court had refused and had ordered that it be taken before a New York justice of the peace. Grout was the officer selected for the duty. Consistently a loyal supporter of New York's gov- ernment and not lacking in a sense of duty or in courage, Grout proceeded towards the Otter Creek where the several witnesses resided. At a house in Shrewsbury witnesses appeared before him, were sworn by him and their testimony taken on the eve- ning of February 17. At two o'clock the following morning the house at which he lodged was surrounded by armed men who carried him to Fort Ranger in Rutland for trial by Court Mar- tial on the charge, as he says, of conduct, "enemical to the United States of America." Apparently Ethan Allen was ab- sent, for the Court Martial gave as its decision that "the crime is not suported."
Discharged by that tribunal, Grout was haled before a Ver- 11 Gov. & Coun., p. 290. 2 1 Gov. & Coun., p. 291.
491
ERRATIC DAYS
mont justice of the peace on the charge of having officiated in a judicial capacity without a commission from Vermont. On this charge Grout was held in bail for appearance at the Su- perior Court of the State of Vermont at Rutland the following June. Grout was able to give bail, was released, returned to his home and in June, "agreeable to my Recognisance" like a good soldier, he appeared at the Vermont Superior Court in Rutland for trial. Very properly, the only defence he offered was a plea to the jurisdiction. This, of course, was overruled and the court imposed on him a fine equivalent to one hundred and sixty-six pounds, thirteen shillings, four pence of New York currency together with costs of sixty-four pounds, sixteen shillings. All told, Grout's contribution to the resources of the New State was to be two hundred and thirty-one pounds, nine shillings, four pence, when collected. For this great sum the possessions of Major Grout at Weathersfield became liable under levy of execution in the hands of Sheriff John Benjamin.1
One can imagine that John Benjamin with his sounding titles of captain and high sheriff had made his Windsor neigh- bors aware of his sense of his own importance. During the period that the union with the sixteen towns had been operative his activities had extended even beyond the Connecticut River, for, as Ira Allen remarked in his Vindication of the General Assembly, "the High Sheriff of the county of Cumberland had officiated in his office in said sixteen towns." 2 An officer whose bailiwick was so large and whose hands were full of political cases of public interest had a right to expect that the New Englanders' reverence for public office should be properly manifested in his direction. To John Benjamin's mortification his near neighbor, Colonel Nathan Stone, was not impressed.
Colonel Stone, as will be remembered, had been both lieu- tenant-colonel of the militia and high sheriff of the County of Cumberland under the Provincial Government of New York. He had been a justice of the peace. He had been for a brief period the chairman of Windsor's Committee of Safety. Of course, he had met with political reverses in consequence of
1 4 George Clinton Papers, pp. 694-697; 5 Id., p. 172; B. H. Hall's History of Eastern Vt., pp. 329-331.
2 Vindication, etc., p. 15.
492
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
his leaning towards the older government, had been deposed from his last named office and once had been a prisoner under military guard. Although it was his usual condition to be in- volved in debt he was still a large land-owner in his own right with the sole trusteeship of all the undivided common lands and "public rights" in the township of Windsor. By the Reverend Ranna Cossit, the Loyalist minister of the Church of England in Claremont, New Hampshire, Colonel Stone was rated as a Loyalist. Captain Justus Sherwood, a secret service agent attached to the British army in Canada, also seems to have regarded Colonel Stone as a Loyalist; but there appears to be no definite record of any proceeding against Nathan Stone on that count. A good reason for leniency towards him was that much of the public lands still stood in his name, that new purchasers were frequently coming forward to whom Colonel Stone was obliged to make conveyances, and that no court of chancery or equity had then been constituted under Vermont law within authority to remove Colonel Stone from his trusteeship and appoint a successor. In the deeds which he gave he continued stubbornly to describe the Windsor lands sold by him as "in the Province of New York," a phrasing which no doubt was very annoying to all Revolutionists and all adherents to the New State. Later he compromised by use of the terms "in the State of New York" which were but little more agreeable. It is small wonder if he regarded Sheriff John Benjamin as an upstart or if Sheriff Benjamin considered Colonel Stone as a peculiarly undesirable citizen.
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.