USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 44
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That the foregoing surmises are not far out of the way may be gathered from one of Ira Allen's letters. After the lapse of years; after every known statute of limitations had run and after he had ceased to live in Vermont, Ira Allen felt safe in boasting that the "two persons" between whom at Philadel- phia was laid the "plan" for uniting all parties on the Grants were but one person and that he was the one. "When in Phila- delphia in September attending Congress," wrote he, "I con- certed the plan of extending claims on the States of New Hampshire and New York, to counteract the claims of said States, to unite political parties in Vermont, with a view to lessen British military measures on the frontiers of Vermont, which enabled General Ethan Allen to make a truce with Major Carleton1 in the fall of that year, . . . ' 77 2 We may believe him in part if we choose. To the extent that he would make Ethan Allen's truce with the British an event subsequent to the New Hampshire and New York unions of 1781, he is falsifying. He also appears to have forgotten that he had stated on page 158 of his History that at Philadelphia was laid the basis for the New Hampshire Union only.
On September 26 Knoulton concluded that the high cost of living in Philadelphia and the unhealthfulness of the city
1 Major Christopher Carleton of the British Army.
2 3 Gov. & Coun., p. 419.
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made it imperative that he should go home.1 Six days later, on the eve of the day that Major André was hanged for com- plicity in Arnold's treason, Ira Allen and Bradley notified Con- gress that they must leave for Bennington to attend the session of the Vermont Legislature to convene on October 12. Their farewell letter to Congress laid on thickly the purpose of Ver- mont's Assembly to prosecute the war "in conjunction with the thirteen United States" and make "every effort in their power to establish the sovereignty and independence of Amer- ica." 2 In its tone their letter contrasted rather too sharply with Chittenden's threat of desertion which Congress had re- ceived from their hands. They closed with the questionable and not too detailed announcement that they had "many pa- pers more authentic than those exhibited to Congress that will shew our right to sovereignty over the claims of all our adver- saries," but which "we have not here at present." For that reason they asked that Congress postpone further inquiry to some future day.
At the September State election Windsor chose Ebenezer Curtis and Deacon Joel Ely as representatives to the General Assembly. The Legislature having convened at Bennington on October 12, 1780, began its labors as usual by canvassing the votes cast for State officers. The returns showed, as was prob- ably fully foreseen, the re-election of Thomas Chittenden as Governor. Thereupon there occurred an amazing scene which historians have thought without historic significance or too trivial to mention. Appearing before the General Assembly and in the presence of several of the Council, Chittenden "re- quested the house verbally to accept his resignation of his office as Governor." 3 He was dissuaded by the "repeated re- quests" of a number of representatives and members of the Council,4 but there was recorded on the Assembly minutes the statement that he actually sought to be relieved of the position which he had held continuously for two and a half years, and for which he had voluntarily been again a candidate. What doubt, misgiving, or fear had suddenly come over him is now largely a matter of conjecture.
1 B. H. Hall's Hist. Eastern Vt., p. 382. 2 2 Gov. & Coun., pp. 262-263. 4 Id.
Vt. State Papers, vol. III, p. 127.
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WINDSOR GAINS SOME "NICE PEOPLE"
Chittenden probably knew the contents of the letter of July 25 which somebody-probably Ethan Allen-had drafted for him and to which he had affixed his signature. He knew that that letter threatened Congress with the possibility of Ver- mont's withdrawal as a belligerent in the American Revolu- tion. He knew, presumably, by word of mouth from Ira Allen and Stephen Bradley the "plan" devised "by two persons at Philadelphia" for Vermont's aggressions on her neighbors if Allen tells the truth in his History, and if Allen and Bradley were then apprised of the "plan." Chittenden may also have remembered that in the month of July he had himself sent a letter to General Frederick Haldimand, commander of the Brit- ish forces in Canada. No letter sent by Chittenden to General Haldimand in July has ever come to light, but both Ethan Allen and Ira Allen more than once asserted that one had been sent.1 Chittenden himself admitted it.2 He may have had some inkling of the secret negotiations soon to take place with the enemy, and to which he was expected to be a party. One thing that Governor Chittenden did know was that General Benedict Arnold had been detected in the crime of treason, had saved his neck by flight, and that Major André, the British particeps criminis, had been hanged. A bolder man than Thomas Chittenden, even if technically innocent, might well have preferred to withdraw from public view under such conditions. It would be interesting to discover just what forces blocked his retirement and compelled him to remain as Vermont's nominal chief magistrate.
Windsor, at this critical period of Vermont's history, shared in common with nearby communities the fear of a return of Indian warfare. Down the White River Valley into the towns of Randolph, Tunbridge, Royalton, and Sharon came a band of savages led by a British Lieutenant named Haughton. They burned, they pillaged, they took prisoners. Fears that they would penetrate as far as the Connecticut River were expressed by Joseph Marsh in a letter to Washington.3 "We are in danger of being totally destroyed soon unless assistance is
1 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pp. 63, 118; Allen's Hist. of Vt., p. 169.
2 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, p. 201.
a Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, p. 74.
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
granted," he wrote.1 What Joseph Marsh felt might happen in his town of Hartford could hardly fail to be dreaded in Windsor a dozen miles to the south. Accordingly, on receipt of the alarm from Royalton, Captain John Marcy with twenty- nine men, most of whom were recruited in the East Parish of Windsor, started for the relief of the White River Valley on October 16.2 A few days later Lieutenant Asahel Smith fol- lowed with a company of thirty-three mostly from the West Parish.3 Sharon, however, was the most southeasterly town reached by Haughton's expedition which presently retired to the northward.
Another item of local interest in 1780 was a two days' visit to Windsor by Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Safford, who said he was "on the trail of Tories" 4 but who did not report having apprehended them.
To Vermont's real leader, acknowledged as such by his countrymen and the enemy alike, there now came on the eve- ning of October 28, 1780, at Castleton a British spy. Without disguise, of features well known to many of the inhabitants of Vermont, proscribed as a Tory under Vermont's Banishment Act of 1779, Captain Justus Sherwood under the protection of a British flag of truce sought and obtained on behalf of General Haldimand a private interview with Brigadier-General Ethan Allen. The story of this amazing exploit, with the shadow of André's gallows in the not remote background, is detailed in full in Sherwood's official Journal.5
The daring of Justus Sherwood and Ethan Allen in actually discussing in secret conversation a plan for bringing over Ver- mont to the British side is one of the high and glaring spots in Vermont's hectic history. Allen, of course, acted his part in his own typical style. He would be no party to any "Damnd Arnold plan to sell his country and his own honour by betraying the trust reposª in him," 6 was determined to be "governd by the strictest sense of honour & justice" 7 and asserted that he valued the liberty of Vermont's people above his own life.8 Nevertheless, since Sherwood's proposals seemed to General
1 Id. 2 Goodrich's Vt. Rev. Soldiers, p. 260. 3 Id., p. 199.
· Id., p. 724. 5 The Vermonter, vol. XXVIII, pp. 76-82.
6 Id., p. 76. 7 Id., p. 77. 8 Id.
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WINDSOR GAINS SOME "NICE PEOPLE"
Allen to concern the welfare of all Vermont, he vouchsafed seriously to consider them.1 General Allen not only did not spurn the British emissary, but announced that in the event that Congress refused to recognize Vermont's independence and decided in favor of New York, Vermont would declare herself a neutral power. This, Allen said, would bring an attack from Congress and when a force should be raised by Congress against Vermont he would march with his own brigade to take Albany, would summon to his aid the militia of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and, if necessary, would call for sup- port from General Haldimand.2 A modern American news- paper, bent merely on " circulation," could hardly have boasted a loftier altruism on its editorial page than did Ethan Allen in protesting the purity of his motives. Pharisee or patriot, hypo- crite or hero, view him as we will, we must admit the daring of Ethan Allen in putting his neck into a noose in his efforts to shape the destiny of his State.
In that series of conferences between Ethan Allen and Justus Sherwood were laid the plans for the subsequent famous sub rosa correspondence between Allen's group and the British in Canada. The immediate fruits of the Castleton conferences were the recalling of Vermont's scouting parties, the discharge of the militia and volunteers, the practical ending of Vermont's participation as a belligerent in the American Revolution,3 and consequent dismay and indignation on the part of the better sort of army officers. As a matter of fact, Vermont, accord- ing to an official report dated October 16, then had under arms only two hundred and thirty men,4 exclusive of those in the Continental service.
While Ethan Allen-to use General Bayley's language- "had made peace for Vermont," 5 Luke Knoulton was busy in Cumberland County. On October 31, at a meeting of town committeemen of the New York party, we find him heading the list of a special committee of thirteen among whom were such
1 Id. 2 The Vermonter, vol. XXVIII, pp. 77-80.
3 1 Gov. & Coun., p. 262.
4 One hundred and fifty in the garrisons at Castleton and Pittsford: eighty in the garrisons east of the Green Mountains. (Vt. State Papers, vol. III, p. 131).
5 2 Gov. & Coun., p. 444.
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
well known characters as Micah Townsend of Brattleborough, Charles Phelps of Marlborough, Hilkiah Grout of Weathers- field, and Simon Stevens of Springfield. The purpose of this special committee, says B. H. Hall, was to devise measures for uniting in one political body all the inhabitants between the Green Mountains in Vermont and the Mason Line in New Hampshire.1
This plan is suggestive of the concession proposed to Gov- ernor Clinton by Floyd, Livingston, and l'Hommedieu earlier in the year without mention of a possible annexation by the gov- ernment of New Hampshire. It was very likely on all fours with the arrangement which Colonel Peter Olcott and Bezaleel Woodward would have preferred if thought attainable.2 Micah Townsend, who theretofore had been most steadfast for the re- establishment of New York's control in Vermont, wrote Governor Clinton as early as April 12, 1780, that a number of the committeemen "begin to think seriously of Messrs. Olcott & Woodward's Plan." 3 At this period, as Doctor Samuel Williams asserts, "Most of the inhabitants of the towns in the western parts of New Hampshire were desirous of being annexed to the government of Vermont." 4 Natural as that feeling may have been it is not likely that they or any consider- able number of their neighbors on the east side of the Connec- ticut entertained a belief that such a re-annexation was likely in view of the harsh, abrupt, and definite severing of the first union by the Act of the Vermont Legislature in February, 1779. Professor Woodward thought in July, 1780, that his constituents had practically given up hope of there being any New State.5
Following the appointment of Luke Knoulton's committee came three conventions in short order: the first at Charles- town, New Hampshire, on November 8; the second at Walpole, New Hampshire, on November 15; and the third at Charles- town, on January 16, 1781. The last was attended by delegates
1 B. H. Hall's History of Eastern Vt., p. 401; 2 Gov. & Coun., p. 488.
2 2 Gov. & Coun., pp. 242, 252, 253; 8 Gov. & Coun., p. 407.
3 Papers of George Clinton, vol. V, p. 616.
4 Williams's History of Vermont (1st ed.), p. 258.
5 8 Gov. & Coun., p. 407.
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WINDSOR GAINS SOME "NICE PEOPLE"
from no less than forty-three towns on both sides of the Connecticut. Among the number were Luke Knoulton, Micah Townsend, Colonel Elisha Payne, Bezaleel Woodward, Colonel Peter Olcott, and-remarkable to relate Assemblyman Ebe- nezer Curtis, of Windsor and that uncompromising Loyalist Colonel Samuel Wells of Brattleborough, heretofore designated as "Judge" Samuel Wells. It was truly a convention "to unite all parties." Although unanimity was hardly to be expected out of the discordant elements, among which were men of such rectitude and standing as Samuel Hunt of Charlestown, Ben- jamin Bellows of Walpole, and Samuel Chase of Cornish, the convention did reach an agreement, despite the protest of eleven dissentients, to open negotiations for a new union with Vermont at the coming February session of Vermont's As- sembly.1 For that purpose the convention then adjourned to re-assemble at the meeting-house in Cornish opposite Windsor on the first Wednesday of February.
Writing of the last Charlestown convention after a lapse of seventeen years, Ira Allen pictures himself as solely responsible for making the delegates re-consider a previous decision to unite or attempt to unite all of the New Hampshire Grants to New Hampshire. The result of the original decision, if acted upon by all constituencies, would have been as he says, "to annihilate the State of Vermont." 2 It is a fact that Ira Allen, having become involved in General Ethan Allen's secret nego- tiations with the British, did attend the convention in Charles- town in January, 1781, and did surprise some of the delegates by telling them that Vermont would be willing, in spite of its previous stand, to receive into its jurisdiction the New Hamp- shire towns lying west of the Mason Line. This was what, as Doctor Williams tells us, most of the inhabitants of those towns desired,3 but had despaired of getting. Even if the delegates knew Ira Allen too well to rely on his word it was apparent that no great harm would result from a month's adjournment in order to put his word to the test. With those delegates who were not prompt to be caught by the proposal he tells of having put to them certain other arguments which had effect. He had
12 Gov. & Coun., pp. 280-283.
2 Allen's History of Vt., pp. 147-148.
3 Williams's History of Vt., 1st ed., p. 258.
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found, he says, on arriving at the convention that "a number of Tories were members." 1 To these he says he "hinted" "Vermont's plan of neutrality, and to others the advantage of joining Vermont, by which they would evade a large burden of taxes. By those insinuations," according to what he con- fided to Captain Sherwood, he "soon gained over a majority of the convention in favor of Vermont." 2 It is not a particu- larly edifying story nor, in view of the source, can it be confi- dently accepted as true in all respects. Nevertheless the con- vention did conclude to try to effect a new union with Vermont and did succeed.
By this time all well informed persons in New England and elsewhere had heard rumors of Ethan Allen's transactions with the British. The exact facts, of course, were not known; yet enough had been said to induce at least two Vermonters to prefer charges against him in the Vermont Assembly. Con- temporary. opinion seems to have been unanimous that there would be no bona fide trial of the charges. The records of the Assembly come pretty near proving the soundness of such opinion, especially since whatever portions of the charges and testimony that had been reduced to writing were conveniently destroyed. General Allen professed to be enraged at the accusa- tions, suited his own whim in attending or withdrawing from the Assembly sessions when the charges were under considera- tion, successfully obtained an acquittal, and finally forced upon the Assembly the acceptance of his resignation as Brigadier- General with "the thanks of this House to Gen1 Ethan Allen for the good services he has done this State since his appoint- ment of Brigadier General." 3 While the failure of the charges and the acceptance of his resignation, both of which took place on November 7, 1780, left him even more free than before to guide Vermont's political affairs and safer from court mar- tial, it must be confessed that in some quarters his reputation for integrity had been permanently impaired. The cloud that
1 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, p. 111. He mentions specifically Colonel Samuel Wells, of Brattleborough, and Judge Daniel Jones, of Hinsdale. He also-per- haps falsely-mentions Colonel Peter Olcott, but carefully omits the name of Luke Knoulton.
3 State Papers of Vt., vol. III, pp. 170-171. 2 Id.
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WINDSOR GAINS SOME "NICE PEOPLE"
now hung over him probably shadowed to some extent his brother Ira and anybody else who was suspected of complicity in the irregular intercourse with the enemy.
Windsor, at this stage, began with increased force to attract new inhabitants. People outside Vermont were hearing of Windsor as the chief political center of the New State. The West Parish in particular had gained many new residents as may be seen by Captain Samuel Stow Savage's list of his militiamen called out on occasions in the months of August, September, and October, 1780.1 Briant Brown, who moved over from Cornish, we have already mentioned. The new Colonel of the Third Vermont Regiment, Ebenezer Wood, had become a Windsor citizen and was promptly honored by elec- tion to the offices of selectman and moderator. Most important of all of the new recruits was Stephen Jacob, who, after two years of reading law with the eminent and cultured Theodore Sedg- wick at Sheffield or Great Barrington in Massachusetts, had concluded to hang out his shingle in the East Parish of Wind- sor. Stephen Jacob may, perhaps, be termed the first of the "nice people" to become actual residents of Windsor. The term will not be misunderstood; it carries no implication that he was faultless or that others who had lived there longer were not as well endowed with Christian virtues. His name comes first in the list of "remarkable men" who, according to Horace Everett, junior, gave lustre to the town of Windsor from the years 1780 to 1830.2 Stephen Jacob had come from four years of college life at New Haven and,-perhaps still more to his advantage from two years of sojourn near a distinguished couple who afforded to him as fine a pattern of the American gentleman and gentlewoman as could be found on the North American continent. These were Theodore Sedgwick, described not too generously as "a magnificent type of physical man- hood, the face of one accustomed to command and sneer down opposition," 3 and Mrs. Sedgwick, "a woman of elegance and refinement, typical of the best New England could offer in a matron." 4
1 Goodrich's Vt. Rev. Rolls, pp. 539-540.
2 The Centennial at Windsor, p. 21.
3 Jefferson and Hamilton, by C. G. Bowers, p. 134. 4 Id.
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
Stephen Jacob let no grass grow under his feet. During the October session of the Assembly at Bennington, although he was not a member of the Legislature, he was present making acquaintances and picking up business. Here he may have gained his first retainer as a lobbyist. His education was recog- nized when he received an appointment as one of a committee to draft a legislative bill for disposing of confiscated estates. With his Yale friends, Noah Smith and Ezra Stiles, he secured similar employment at the adjourned session at Windsor. He soon did duty as a militiaman in Captain Marcy's Windsor company. To the office of lister, which in the judgment of the Windsor people was the only one in which an education was especially useful, he won an election at an early date.
Coming to Windsor with Stephen Jacob or soon after him was his brother-in-law Daniel Farrand, a Yale graduate of the class of 1780, who had determined to become a Vermont lawyer. Before this, practically without exception, there was nobody in Windsor above what Jeremiah Mason called the "ordinary caste." A Windsor maiden prior to 1780 could have sung with Gilbert :
"The sons of the tillage Who dwell in the village Are people of lowly degree-degree. Though honest and active They're most unattractive And awkward as awkward can be-can be."
But with the coming of Stephen Jacob came the dawn of that cultural development in Windsor which eventually made the place more famous than all its political prestige. Little by lit- tle he and people of similar quality and station who followed him to Windsor in the years after 1780 emancipated the com- munity from the enforced and unnatural social equality of a new settlement until what the candidates for elective offices still miscall "democracy" was well shattered beyond mend- ing. Some of the sons and daughters of the older Windsor families had the ambition to recognize and embrace the op- portunity for social improvement. These joined hands with the newcomers in creating the Windsor society which, primi-
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WINDSOR GAINS SOME "NICE PEOPLE"
tive and simple though it was, came to be Windsor's chief pride and innocently caused apprehension in the breast of dear, old, narrow, "democratic" Zadock Thompson.1
Windsor's year of 1780 closed with a "war meeting" at the house of Jeremiah Bishop, "Innholder." At this meeting, called to see if the town would furnish a certain "provision tax" voted by the Legislature as a war measure, Colonel Ebenezer Wood was in the chair. Obediently the town voted the tax and appointed to raise it a committee of two in each parish: for the West Parish, Deacon Joel Ely and Captain Samuel Stow Savage; for the East Parish, Captain John Marcy and Captain John Benjamin. The only other business was the appointment of a committee of five to meet with a similar committee from Reading to fix the boundary between the two townships. "Capt." Ely, Richard Wait, Briant Brown, Ebe- nezer Curtis, and Joseph Thomson were Windsor's committee- men.
The "provision tax" mentioned in the preceding paragraph was perhaps the first direct tax laid by the State of Vermont. It is worthy of brief consideration here because by the terms of the statute imposing it the comparative importance of the town of Windsor at that period may be measured. The stat- ute, which was enacted at the Bennington session, October 25, 1780, bore the title "An Act for the purpose of procuring Pro- vision for the Troops to be employed in the service of this State for the year ensuing." 2 Its scheme was to raise, under the supervision of a commissary-general, by enforced levy on the separate towns, certain specified aggregates of beef, pork, wheat flour, rye, and corn. The statute named every Vermont town, not then within the British lines, fixed the amount of each of the designated commodities which each town must contribute, invested the selectmen of the respective towns with authority to lay local taxes in order to meet the several town quotas as allotted by the statute and made the select- men liable for the required results. Each town was obliged to deliver its goods packed in barrels identified "with the same mark as is established by law to brand their horses."
1 Thompson's Vermont, part II, p. 212.
2 Slade's Vt. State Papers, pp. 407-411.
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
By calculation we find that under the "provision tax" the towns west of the Green Mountains were liable for a total con- tribution of something over 43 per cent of each commodity, while the east-side towns were liable for something over 56 per cent. In the allotment of separate town quotas Windsor's obligation was to furnish 11,813 pounds of flour, 3,93712 pounds of beef, 1,969 pounds of pork, 324 bushels of corn, and 162 bushels of rye. It was by far the heaviest quota imposed on any east-side town and was exceeded on the west side only by Bennington's and Shaftsbury's. Whether the apportion- ment of the levy depended on estimated population or on estimated wealth or on a combination of both factors does not appear. In any event, the recognition of Windsor's con- sequence and resources is marked.
CHAPTER L
VERMONT BECOMES IMPERIALISTIC
OF the motives underlying the proposed consolidation of all of the New Hampshire Grants into one government, it is per- haps impossible to speak with certainty. One would prefer not to stress as causes the desire on the part of some of the inhabi- tants of Cheshire and Grafton Counties to escape further par- ticipation in the Revolutionary War, or the desire on the part of others to avoid responsibility for the payment of war debts already incurred. There was a note of sincerity in the plea of the Woodward and Olcott party that all the New Hampshire Grants, having been settled at approximately the same period and by people of similar origin, pursuits, and manners, should not be separated by the Connecticut River into two govern- ments. It was more comfortable to have them united than disunited: the River, unlike a mountain range, was not a nor- mal or convenient boundary. Although different arguments weighed with different men, the idea of uniting all the Grants in one new State was four years old, had had the constant support of substantial men, and was founded on rational views. It is not unlikely that, among other contributing causes, the economic soundness of the measure was the greatest force in bringing about the expansionist policy which presently pre- vailed for a season in Vermont.
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