USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 43
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
12 Gov. & Coun., pp. 183-185. 2 Id., p. 187. 3 Id.
4 2 Gov. & Coun., p. 186.
7 Allen's History of Vt., p. 132.
5 Id. Id., p. 187.
504
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
for the punishment of the men in Cumberland County who dared to hold civil or military commissions under New York.1 To counteract the spirit of surrender Ethan Allen had himself named by the Assembly as one of a committee of four with Doctor Reuben Jones, Nathan Clark, and John Fassett, to form the outline of a plan for the defence of Vermont against the menace of the neighboring States under the recent resolu- tions of Congress.
The fact that General Allen was not an assemblyman was no obstacle to his being a member of a legislative committee and dominating it. Yet it took a deal more than "a little touch of Harry in the night" to bring courage to the Assembly. Potent though he was, it took him from Saturday, October 16 to Thursday, October 21 to obtain from the legislature, the gover- nor, and the council, sitting as a committee of the whole, a unanimous resolution that Vermont ought to support its right to independence "at Congress and to the World in the char- acter of a free and independent State" and that Vermont should so far defy the Congress as to make Grants of unap- propriated lands. The day before winning this victory there had been appointed a Board of War of nine members. Mr. E. P. Walton suspects that in giving to this Board of War the power "to conduct the political affairs of this present War" the originator of the plan had in mind the policy which soon manifested itself in the secret correspondence and parleys with the British,2 but proof is lacking. On the contrary, several of the men chosen to the Board of War were never parties to that policy and one of them-Major Ebenezer Allen-did what he could to obstruct it.
General Allen next had himself designated ambassador to the State of Massachusetts as well as the first of five delegates to Congress with power to vindicate at Congress Vermont's right of independence and her right to be admitted to the confeder- acy of States. At the same time he had his brother Ira sent as an agent to the legislatures of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the lower counties on the Delaware and Maryland and to distribute copies of the "Vindication" pamphlet and transact there such business as might be necessary.
12 Gov. & Coun., p. 5.
2 2 Gov. & Coun., p. 7, note.
505
ERRATIC DAYS
At this session of Vermont's Legislature began the practice of granting new townships to men of influence in Vermont. The Grant of "The Two Heroes" to "Colonels Ethan Allen & Samuel Herrick and their associates our worthy Friends," which vested in a band of three hundred and sixty-seven Ver- mont spirits the Lake Champlain island townships later known as North Hero, Grand Isle and South Hero, was among the first of the distributions of the public domain among those deemed deserving, influential or helpful. The men favored in Windsor by shares in that then unsettled land were Ebenezer Curtis, Benjamin Wait, Joel Butler, Alexander Parmelee, Steel Smith, William Hunter, John Benjamin, Thomas Cooper, Ebenezer Wood, and Richard Wait.
The realization that Alden Spooner, the State printer, was now located outside instead of within the Vermont borders led to the appointment of a committee of the assembly to wait upon him at Dartmouth College with a view to inducing him to move his printing-office to Westminster and starting a news- paper.1 A member of that committee was Major Benjamin Wait, of Windsor. So urgent did this matter seem to the legis- lature that it appropriated three hundred pounds to be given Alden Spooner if he would remove his press to Westminster and settle there.2
1 Vt. State Papers, vol. 3, pp. 94-95.
2 Vt. State Papers, vol. 3, p. 97.
CHAPTER XLIX WINDSOR GAINS SOME "NICE PEOPLE"
THE year 1780 at Windsor opened with a gesture of recogni- tion of the existence of the American Revolution. In compli- ance, apparently, with a request received from the colonel of the Third Vermont Regiment the townspeople assembled in a special town meeting on February 15 at the house of Jeremiah Bishop "in said Windsor." The records of the following year indicate that Jeremiah Bishop's house was in the West Parish. If he had made his home there as early as February 15, 1780, then the special meeting held on that day was probably the earliest held in the West Parish of the town and affords addi- tional evidence that the West Parish was gaining a population somewhere near that in the East.
As became a meeting called to consider military matters Major Benjamin Wait presided. Promptly the town voted to raise five men "in accordance with orders from the Colonel of the Militia." 1 Following this vote were several resolutions relative to raising and equipping a "Scouting Party" of five under the supervision of Major Wait, Major Ebenezer Wood, and Lieutenant Samuel Stow Savage; but the measures came to nought through a characteristic Vermont "reconsideration." Indeed, it is not entirely clear that the initial decision to furnish men on the colonel's requisition was not revoked.
Windsor's annual town meeting was held at the meeting house on the town street on March 7, 1780. It is fully reported and shows an unusually large number of civil offices filled. John Benjamin, having been deposed as the sheriff of Cumber- land County, was given by his fellow townsmen the consolation honors of election as moderator and fourth selectman. The other men chosen to the board were Captain John Marcy,
1 The reference is either to Ebenezer Wood, of Windsor, who was in command of the Third Regiment later in 1780, or to Colonel Joel Marsh, of the White River Valley, who succeeded his cousin, Colonel Joseph Marsh, on the latter's election as Lieutenant-Governor in 1778.
506
507
WINDSOR GAINS SOME "NICE PEOPLE"
Captain Benoni Cutler, Major Ebenezer Wood, and Deacon Joel Ely. Although Ebenezer Curtis continued to hold his position as town clerk and was chosen town treasurer after Deacon Hezekiah Thomson had declined an election to that office it is observable that a new element was coming into power in the town. Where the older names appeared it was usually in connection with minor posts. Among the new listers we find the name of that excellent Windsor penman, Briant Brown, whose showy signature and clear chirography ornament several volumes of Windsor's real estate records. The other listers were Jacob Hastings, Charles Leavens, and Reuben Dean. For this office as well as for membership on a "Committee to Settle with the Treasurer" we may guess that the ability to write clearly and to figure accurately was the great qualifica- tion. To such committee Reuben Dean, Lieutenant Briant Brown, and our old friend Thomas Cooper Esquire were chosen. Aside from elections the chief business of the meeting was the vote that swine "if yoked and ringed" by April 1 might "Go att Large" and a resolution "to add one Shiling on the Pound as in the Grand Leavey to the money Voted att a meeting held March 27, 1779, for the purpose of Procuring Town Book, Waits and Measures, etc."
To turn from this comparatively peaceful record to an almost contemporary description of the Vermontese by their critical neighbor, Charles Phelps of Marlborough, enables us to see ourselves as others see us. Mr. Phelps had been waiting on the New York Legislature and on the Continental Congress in the hope of securing decisive action in favor of establishing some firm government-other than Vermont's-over the region of the Grants. He had suffered annoyances and persecutions, was out of pocket and out of patience in his attempts to resist "the Lawless & Treasonable pretended Domination of such a Contumacious most violent Insulting headstrong and ferocious People of Vermont." He went on thus to anathematize them to Governor Clinton of New York: "Rissen up in the woods among the mountains, Snatching the Helm of Government, wrenching the Sacred and awful Scepter thereof out of the Hands of those who were Lawfully Commissioned to wield it; to the Infinite Prejudice of the people of the whole State and
508
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
in Contempt of the authority of Congress and to the whole magistracy of this and in its Consequence to that of the whole United States; which Every Statesman & Learned Politician throughout these States must necessarily own without Hessi- tancy upon the first Clear and Impartial view thereof." 1
Though he was almost as illiterate as General Bayley or Gov- ernor Chittenden, as full of bluster and extravagant speech as Ethan Allen, Charles Phelps's picture of the times and the peo- ple deserves to be viewed along with the writings of his contem- poraries and partisan enemies. Even if he was ultimately un- successful he fought with a pugnacity, a daring, a persistence, and an egotism equal to his adversaries'; had succeeded in Bos- ton in so embarrassing Ethan Allen before the Massachusetts Legislature in the autumn of 1779 as to receive from that worthy a threat of death,2 and presently managed to make him- self so obstructive to Vermont's endeavors before the Conti- nental Congress that Governor Chittenden felt bound to ac- knowledge the fact and to mention him by name to that body as "a notorious cheat and nuisance to mankind, as far as his acquaintance and dealings have been extended." 3
Of the progress on Vermont affairs before the Continental Congress in 1780 it is not necessary to deal in any particularity. This is not because the record of the Congress was mainly one of timidity, postponement, shuffling, and evasion, but because such available works as Mr. Walton's notes in Governor and Council have detailed the story with admirable fullness and have supported the narrative with the text of many documents. One of these papers, entitled A Concise Refutation of the Claims of New Hampshire and Massachusetts-Bay, by Ethan Allen and Jonas Fay,4 contains towards the end the keynote to Vermont's attitude before Congress at this stage. As Ethan Allen was pleased to phrase it: " And Whereas this State hold their char- ter of liberty from Heaven ... the State has determined not to submit Heaven Born Freedom to the arbitrament of any tribunal below the stars." 5 For the sake of language he could compromise with his cherished agnosticism, but he could not
14 Doc. Hist. N. Y., pp. 601-602.
' George Clinton Papers, vol. V, p. 436.
2 Gov. & Coun., pp. 223-234.
33 Gov. & Coun., pp. 261-262. 5 Id., p. 234.
509
WINDSOR GAINS SOME "NICE PEOPLE"
bring himself to become a party to a trial in which the right of Vermont to independent statehood might be attacked and put in jeopardy. He and other Vermont delegates consistently throughout the year 1780 begged the question. It was obvious enough that once Vermont's independent government were recognized by Congress the claims of New York, New Hamp- shire, and Massachusetts would fall to the ground, leaving no case for Congress except the question of admitting Vermont into the confederacy. For this reason Vermont's delegates never met or intended to meet the issues raised by the other States. That Vermont seriously expected to be granted ad- mission at this stage of the proceedings may be doubted.
New York, on the other hand, if John Jay's opinion was shared by her other public men, had real hopes of prevailing, although on February 7, 1780, William Floyd, Robert R. Liv- ingston, and Ezra l'Hommedieu as members of New York's delegation to Congress wrote to Governor Clinton indicating their willingness to compromise with New Hampshire by ceding territory lying east of the Green Mountains.1 Some encourage- ment to New York's contentions came from the resolutions of Congress on June 2, 1780, which declared that "recent acts and proceedings of the people" inhabiting Vermont "are highly unwarrantable and subversive of the peace and welfare of the United States" and which required the people of Ver- mont to abstain from the exercise of all authority over those inhabitants of the Grants who professed allegiance to New York, New Hampshire, or Massachusetts.2
The resolutions just referred to come pretty nearly indicating the peak of the courage of the Continental Congress in the Vermont controversy. The Reverend Samuel Williams, writing but fourteen years later, observes that it was generally believed in the other States that some of Vermont's "leading men would incline to join with Canada and make the best terms they could with the British Government if no alternative was held out to them but submission to the government of New York." 3 Doctor Williams goes on to say that it was as dangerous for Congress to decide against Vermont as against any of the claim-
1 MS. letter in the Duane Papers at N. Y. Hist. Soc.
2 2 Gov. & Coun., p. 247.
3 Williams's History of Vt., 1st ed., p. 257.
510
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
ing States and that "those who remember the virulence of these parties and the precarious situation of the American con- test at that time will not wonder that Congress found reasons to avoid coming to a decision. >> 1 ยท
Through American newspapers of Loyalist sympathies the British Government had been giving publicity to the authority vested in General Sir Henry Clinton as Commander in Chief of the British forces in America to offer to the Colonies at large, or separately, a general or separate peace. Pursuant to such authority he attempted as early as August, 1779, to sound Ethan Allen on the subject.2 In August, 1780, Ethan Allen re- ceived from Colonel Beverly Robinson of the Loyalist troops in New York the somewhat noted letter, dated March 30, in which the writer broached the possibility of Vermont's becom- ing a British Province. The same idea which, as Doctor Wil- lians relates, had gained currency in the several States had ob- viously occurred to the enemy. This letter was not answered, but Allen showed it to Chittenden and "some confidential friends." 3 That it made an impression in Vermont circles there is no room for doubt even if there were no direct proof of the fact; but previous to its receipt and under date of July 25, in a memorial addressed by Governor Chittenden to the Presi- dent of the Continental Congress, occurs a passage which plainly implied the possibility of Vermont's coming to terms with Great Britain. The passage reads as follows: "This people are, undoubtedly, in a condition to maintain govern- ment; but should they be deceived in such connexions, yet as they are not included in the thirteen United States, but con- ceive themselves to be a separate body, they would still have in their power other advantages; for they are, if necessitated to it, at liberty to offer, or accept, terms of cessation of hos- tilities with Great Britain, without the approbation of any other man or body of men; for, on proviso, that neither Con- gress, nor the Legislatures of those States, which they represent, will support Vermont in her independence, but devote her to the usurped government of any other power, she has not the most distant motive to continue hostilities with Great Britain,
1 Id., p. 258.
2The Vermonter, vol. XXVIII, pp. 61-62.
$2 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., p. 62.
511
WINDSOR GAINS SOME "NICE PEOPLE"
and maintain an important frontier for the benefit of the United States, and for no other reward than the ungrateful one of being enslaved by them." 1 The letter from which this passage has been taken was in Ethan Allen's possession for some time previous to its date.2 Presumably it was drafted by him. He made no scruple of airing its sentiments among army officers of the New York line.3
The story of Vermont has now reached the threshold of one of its great sensations. The situation of the State, though de- scribed in the Chittenden letter as "in a condition to maintain government" and by Doctor Williams as affording "conditions and expectations" that "had at no time been so high," 4 still exhibited extreme weakness in the townships south of Wind- sor and north of Hertford (Hartland). With an eye to such weakness and as an adverse critic of Vermont's management, Joseph Marsh, of Hartford, Vermont's first Lieutenant-Gov- ernor, asserted that the conflict of claims of jurisdiction had rendered it "impracticable to conduct the concerns of civil society with any tolerable regularity." 5 In a joint letter to the Continental Congress, Professor Woodward and Colonel Olcott represented that "every confusion is taking place among the people" on the Grants. Seventeen years after, when Ira Allen was writing his History of Vermont, and per- haps felt called upon not only to make his own exploits as a rescuer bulk as large as possible, but to extenuate his own questionable methods, he remarked that at this stage "the State of Vermont was in a forlorn situation, torn by intestine divisions and the intrigues of her enemies in Congress.6 He described it as "on the verge of ruin." 7 Somewhere between the statements of Ira Allen, on the one hand, and those set forth by Chittenden and Doctor Williams, on the other, lies the truth.
Here a character, new to this volume, enters the play. Liv- ing among those inhabitants of Cumberland County who had remained firm in their allegiance to New York, but identifying
12 Gov. & Coun., p. 256.
2 Public Papers of George Clinton, vol. VI, p. 40. 3 Id.
4 Williams, Hist. of Vt., 1st ed., p. 257.
5 2 Gov. & Coun., 248.
6 Allen's Hist. of Vt., p. 158.
Id., p. 161.
512
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
himself neither with them nor with the champions of the new State, apparently on terms of neighborliness with representa- tives of all parties, leader in the local affairs of his own town, was Luke Knoulton, of Newfane. Unidentified as a Loyalist, and frequently pictured by historians as a staunch Vermont patriot, Luke Knoulton, the founder, town clerk, and foremost citizen of Newfane, had been secretly serving the British cause from the beginning of the war. "I have devoted great part of my time for eight years last past," he wrote in 1783, "to pro- mote the Interest of Great Brittain at the great Risk of my life and fortune." 1 In the same letter he also observed that "if a peace should take place on such terms as I have now great reason to fear, it would be very mortifying to submit to a Government I have Laboured so much to Overturn." 2 There must have been men in Cumberland County who sus- pected Luke Knoulton in 1780. Excited reports of British mes- sengers coming to Newfane from Canada had been dispatched from Brattleborough to Governor Clinton, of New York.3 The region was searched for spies, but without success, al- though a couple of names were mentioned.4 So far as appears from the literature of the times, the finger of suspicion not once had pointed at Luke Knoulton. On the contrary, the leaders of the New York party in Cumberland County reposed such confidence in his integrity and ability that they retained him to represent them before the Continental Congress in the hearings on the Vermont question.5
The chairman of the Cumberland County Committee repre- senting the New York party wrote to Governor Clinton on August 30, 1780: "As Mr. Knoulton has resided in the County from the beginning of the Disturbances, and is a gentleman of Penetration and Probity, we flatter ourselves he may be use- ful to the Delegates either in refreshing their Memories or in acquainting them with some Circumstances which may not have come to their Knowledge." 6 With such a recommenda- tion it is not to be wondered that Governor Clinton handed
1 Knoulton's MS. letter to General Frederick Haldimand of the British Army, dated April 19, 1783, in the British Museum.
? Id. ' Papers of George Clinton, vol. VI, pp. 213-215. + Id.
$ 2 Gov. & Coun., p. 258. 6 Papers of George Clinton, vol. VI,p. 150.
513
WINDSOR GAINS SOME "NICE PEOPLE"
Luke Knoulton a note of introduction to the New York dele- gation in Congress.1
It is unlikely that Luke Knoulton was of service to New York's delegates in Congress or that he intended to be. He went, however, to Philadelphia, where he met Ira Allen and Stephen Row Bradley, the agents for Vermont. There he also met Colonel Peter Olcott and Professor Bezeleel Woodward, the agents for the New Hampshire Grants on both sides of the Connecticut and not in union with Vermont. Ira Allen was moved to record in his History that at Philadelphia he and Bradley "spent several evenings in the most sociable manner" 2 with the New York members of Congress. Doubtless all the Vermont visitors had a good time at Philadelphia without get- ting nearer to a decision of the pending questions. The oppor- tunity for intimacy and confidences between Luke Knoulton and Ira Allen during those September days and nights at Philadelphia must not be overlooked. Birds of a feather, skilled at double dealing, the close relations which they then established were proved by events of later years.
At the conclusion of his account of the futile proceedings at Philadelphia, Ira Allen, in his History, relates that "a plan was then laid between two persons at Philadelphia to unite all parties in Vermont in a way that would be honourable to those who had been in favour of New York, and said sixteen towns that would also justify the Legislature of Vermont, . . We do not at the moment complete the quotation of this exe- crably written sentence, but stop at this point to say that with singular unanimity Vermont historians incline to the guess that the "two persons" were Luke Knoulton and Ira Allen. Obviously there was a reason in Allen's mind why the names should be suppressed. It was not his practice to omit the mention of his own name if he had been a party to anything worth recounting and to his own credit. The use of the word "honourable" should not be given too much weight, since Ira Allen's understanding of the term, if measured by his charac- ter, would not accord with modern definitions or with those of his time. There was then, if he was not romancing, "a
1 Id., p. 216.
3 Allen's History of Vt., p. 146.
2 Allen's History of Vt., p. 140.
514
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
plan" concocted between "two persons at Philadelphia to unite all parties." He then proceeds to state that to carry out the plan it was arranged that "western" members of the Council and Assembly of New Hampshire should call a con- vention at Walpole, and he goes on to give his version of the history of that convention and the subsequent re-union of western New Hampshire with Vermont.
The results of the "plan" seem not sufficiently incriminat- ing to make Ira Allen's suppression of names natural. Indeed, he does mention his own name as a participant in the delibera- tions of the New Hampshire Convention.1 But we have an- other version-at least as trustworthy as Allen's History-of what the "plan" really was. In a personal interview with Captain Justus Sherwood, a Loyalist in the British service, Ira Allen explained the re-union between New Hampshire and Vermont and a similar alliance on the west by saying that the Vermontese "have taken in the new Territories with a view to embarrass congress and strengthen themselves for a revolu- tion; ... " and that "this great and sudden revolution has been brought about upon the principles of an Union with Great Britain, or at least of Vermont being a neutral power during the war." 2
While too great credence must not be placed in what Ira Allen found it convenient to say to Captain Sherwood, the above interpretation of what was done in furtherance of the "plan" accords with Luke Knoulton's confessed ambitions. It also ties in with Chittenden's ugly threat in his letter of July 25 already quoted. Except to make Vermont more strong as a British ally or province, and to weaken New Hampshire, Luke Knoulton had no interest in a New Hampshire-Vermont union. Divided between the New York party of Cumberland County, the Marsh, Olcott, Payne, and Woodward party and the Vermont party, the inhabitants of the Grants had far less to offer to Great Britain than if united and harmonious. If Knoulton could be instrumental in bringing these discordant elements together and back into British allegiance, it would be a worthwhile stroke. Even if Ira Allen regarded British allegiance less favorably than did Knoulton, and only as the 1 Id., p. 147.
2 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pp. 111-112.
515
WINDSOR GAINS SOME "NICE PEOPLE"
last resort or a temporary expedient, Allen perceived that the consolidation of parties would at least create a much more formidable body and one whose threats of desertion to the British side might more probably extort from the Continental Congress and the other States a recognition of Vermont's in- dependent statehood. Knoulton and Ira Allen might thus from motives not identical work together for the same imme- diate objective. Furthermore, Allen's statements were made to Sherwood within a few weeks after the events, and not, like the account in his History, written seventeen years later. The traitorous aspect of the case from an American standpoint would sufficiently account for Ira Allen's suppression of his own name and that of his friend Knoulton, in a written his- tory which was to be offered for sale in Vermont after the achievement of American independence.
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.