USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 45
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 motives which actuated Luke Knoulton and Ira Allen to favor the union have already been discussed; but there were others on the Vermont side who, innocent of any intrigue with the British, hoped that if the inhabitants of western New Hampshire were admitted, the recalcitrant towns in the south- ern part of Cumberland County might become willing to trust themselves to Vermont's jurisdiction. All hands must have recognized that Vermont was weak as long as the New York party in Cumberland County remained independent of Ver- mont. It was a matter of prime importance to make the whole of that county solid for Vermont. Therefore the immediate
527
528
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
task of Vermont's politicians had been to engender a belief that if a greater preponderance of political power in Vermont's government could be lodged on the east side of the Green Mountains through the admission of the New Hampshire towns, the New York party in Cumberland would feel safe in casting their lot with Vermont. Not only was this belief now entertained in Vermont, but the force of the reasoning ap- pealed even to Governor Clinton, who felt that if Vermont's statehood must ultimately be recognized, it would be far bet- ter to have Vermont more largely controlled by the people of New Hampshire and southern Cumberland County and less by characters who had become so offensive to him.1
Windsor was the scene of the lively negotiations which re- sulted in the new union of the New Hampshire Grants. At the meeting-house in Windsor on Wednesday, February 7, 1781, the General Assembly of Vermont met for an adjourned session with Captain Ebenezer Curtis, Windsor's senior town representative, as Clerk pro tem. On the same day, at the meeting-house in Cornish, assembled for an adjourned ses- sion, the Convention of New Hampshire towns west of the Mason Line,2 with Captain Samuel Chase, of Cornish, as chairman. Direct bargaining between the two assemblies be- gan on the afternoon of February 8, when Colonel Elisha Payne, heading a committee from the Cornish Convention, came over to Windsor bearing a letter and resolutions. Only a year earlier Colonel Payne had had the honor of being ac- cused by Vermont publicists as a chief trouble-maker and a disseminator of misrepresentations. In February, 1781, Ver- mont received with open arms this same man, who had altered his schemes in no respect except to make them broader and more dangerous.
For six days the Governor and Council and the Vermont House of Representatives, sitting as a Committee of the Whole, considered Colonel Payne's proposals. On February 14 a sub-
1 Clinton Papers, vol. VI, p. 745.
2 The Mason Line was the supposed western boundary of a grant made to John Mason in 1629. Its course lay on a curve which may be described as passing along the eastern lines of the New Hampshire towns of Richmond, Swanzey, Keene, Marlow, Lempster, Wendell, Springfield, Grafton, etc. (See George B. Upham's learned paper in The Granite Monthly, vol. LII, no. 1, p. 19.)
529
VERMONT BECOMES IMPERIALISTIC
committee of seven, appointed two days earlier and headed by Joseph Bowker, reported to the "grand committee" that the State of Vermont ought to "lay a jurisdictional claim to all the lands situate east of Connecticut River, north of the Massa- chusetts, and south of latitude 45," but not to exercise juris- diction for the time being. This amazing recommendation, if interpreted literally, contemplated Vermont's eventual con- quest of all of New Hampshire except the tiny tip projecting north of Vermont's northern boundary. The proposal seems to have gone far beyond what was invited by the New Hamp- shire delegates at Cornish. These delegates were representa- tives of towns lying to the west of the Mason Line and, so far as the record shows, had made no overtures to Vermont respect- ing eastern New Hampshire.
The report of the sub-committee contained other new matter almost as startling. It advised that Vermont should lay a jurisdictional claim to that part of New York lying north of Massachusetts and east of mid-stream in the Hudson River. It is likely that favor only prevented a third proposal to annex Berkshire County, Massachusetts. The inhabitants of Berk- shire County, according to Ethan Allen, were "very anxious to join and make a part of Vermont." 1 Massachusetts, however, had been friendly, had not pressed her claims to part of Ver- mont, and was believed to be a supporter of Vermont's right to independence. The omission, under such circumstances, to propose annexation of western Massachusetts gives point to the threat of aggressions on New Hampshire and New York.
In giving reasons for the proposed annexations the sub- committee was not conspicuously frank or truthful. It put the dissolution of the first New Hampshire union on the flimsy ground that the soil of the sixteen annexed towns was less fer- tile than Vermont and that Vermont was unwilling to have a controversy with a neighboring State. It overlooked the fact that the Vermont Legislature in 1779 had ruled that the an- nexed towns belonged to New Hampshire as a matter of right. The committee attempted to justify the new conquest on the theory of a reprisal, first, because of the action of New Hamp- shire's Legislature in instructing her agents at the Continental
1 The Vermonter, vol. XXVIII, p. 79.
530
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
Congress to make claim to Vermont and, second, because New Hampshire had "endeavored to support internal broils" in the eastern part of Vermont, apparently with a view to extend- ing New Hampshire's jurisdiction to the west of the Connecti- cut River. The committee advanced as the last and least im- portant reason for the new union the fact that the inhabitants of the New Hampshire towns lying west of the Mason Line desired it. This reason, however, had the merit of honesty.
Not more impressive are the pretexts for taking control of a part of New York. They consist merely of the ancient grudge; the weak defence maintained by New York against British invasion and the correspondingly increased burden imposed on Vermont's military department; the failure of Governor Clinton to answer a letter of Governor Chittenden's which de- manded New York's relinquishment of all claim to Vermont; and, last, the fiction that Vermont and the contiguous parts of New York were Philip Skene's province by royal patent and not even as a matter of law a part of New York. The committee's report as a whole is a studied piece of pettifogging and a jockeying for position in a programme of political conduct wherein the draftsmen themselves doubted the morals. It was accepted by the Vermont Legislature on February 14 without a roll-call. On the same day the Legislature passed resolutions that the jurisdictional claims should be made and that the committee's report should be submitted to the Cornish Convention.
The delegates at Cornish were prompt in action. On Febru- ary 15 a committee sent by them to Windsor appeared before the Legislature with a request (it seems) that the inhabitants of the New Hampshire Grants lying west of the Mason Line and east of the Connecticut River be received "into union with" Vermont. The following day a committee of the Ver- mont Assembly recommended the granting of that request if a safe and beneficial plan could be agreed on. With the As- sembly's immediate acceptance of this suggestion the idea of annexing eastern New Hampshire seems to have been forgotten. Later in the day a draft of an agreement, drawn up by the New Hampshire men, to be entered into between the Convention and the Assembly came before the latter body for discussion.
531
VERMONT BECOMES IMPERIALISTIC
Debate on this document continued until the 20th. This agreement was obviously intended more as a means of reaching an understanding of preliminaries than as a code of rules to govern the management of the union. Colonel Payne appears to have called it a treaty.1 Its text, which may be found in Slade's State Papers, beginning at page 132,2 contains one note- worthy set of items in articles 5, 6, 8, and 9, which provide for the future immunity of those who had been supporters of New York. That proposals of such nature should have emanated from Cornish, New Hampshire, is more remarkable than that they secured the acquiescence of the Vermont Assembly. It shows that interests in addition to those of western New Hamp- shire were represented and influential in the Cornish Con- vention.
As a part of the treaty it was stipulated that the union should become effective on condition that a major part of the towns in Vermont and two-thirds of the towns east of and within about twenty miles of the Connecticut River should vote in favor of the union before the first Wednesday in April. On the likeli- hood of the union being ratified by the referendum vote the New Hampshire towns as well as unrepresented Vermont towns were warned to elect assemblymen who would be ready to take their seats in the Vermont Legislature as soon as the ratifica- tion of the union should be promulgated. Another salient fea- ture of the preliminary stipulations of the union consisted of the two following articles proposed by Vermont's Assembly Committee and agreed to by the Cornish Convention's com- mittee :
"Art. 1. That the independence of the State of Vermont be held sacred; and that no member of the Legislature shall give his vote or otherwise use endeavors to obtain any act or resolution of Assembly, which shall endanger the existence, independence or well being of the state, by referring its inde- pendence to the arbitrament of any power.
"Art. 2. That whenever this state becomes united with the American States, and there shall then be any dispute between this and either of the United States, respecting boundary lines,
1 2 Gov. & Coun., p. 292. 2 See also 2 Gov. & Coun., p. 289, et seq.
532
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
the Legislature of this state will then (as they have ever pro- posed) submit to Congress, or such other tribunal as may be mutually agreed on, the settlement of any such disputes."
These striking provisions, which were also incorporated verbatim into the terms of the subsequently arranged treaty with the towns of eastern New York, have been interpreted by so learned a commentator as Governor Hiland Hall as evidence that the two unions were to be but temporary.1 Although it is a fact that Moses Robinson of Bennington has been quoted as making the almost contemporary observation that it was Ver- mont's intention "to take the East side of the River only to get Rid of them the first opportunity" 2 it is difficult to believe that the Vermontese as a body were guilty of such perfidy. It would have run counter to an elaborate defence of the unions as prepared by Ethan Allen in collaboration with others 3 and is equally inconsistent with the opinions professed by Ira Allen in his History of Vermont, published in 1798.4 Moreover, whatever the implications to be drawn from the literal wording of the two articles under discussion, it is hard to believe that an intention such as that mentioned by Moses Robinson could have been generally entertained in Vermont and by Vermont's Council and Assembly and at the same time kept secret not only from the representatives of the Cornish Convention and the members of the New York party in Cumberland County, but also from the inhabitants of eastern New York who pres- ently and in good faith and on like terms joined forces with Vermont.
The treaty of union with the New Hampshire towns, al- though the great transaction of the Windsor legislative session of February, 1781, was not of lasting results. Another measure, which had been agitated on a previous occasion and now was put through, had a degree of permanence. It consisted in the creation of Windham, Windsor, and Orange Counties out of what had been Cumberland County. The town of Windsor, as was natural, was designated as the place for holding the sessions of the courts of Windsor County and thereby became
1 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, p. 100. 2 8 Gov. & Coun., p. 424.
$ 2 Gov. & Coun., pp. 355-363.
4 Allen's History of Vt., pp. 213-214.
533
VERMONT BECOMES IMPERIALISTIC
the shire town. It also was selected as one of the points for the delivery and storage of wheat accepted in payment by the State for township charters granted.1 Similarly, the Vermont Board of War named Windsor as one of four places "for Re- positing Provisions." 2 Major Benjamin Wait of Windsor, who seems to have continued as sheriff of Cumberland County until February 23 was now succeeded by Briant Brown of Windsor whose term of office was to end when the officers of the three new counties were selected and qualified. Deacon Joel Ely and John Throop became his bondsmen in the sum of one thousand pounds. Briant Brown was also designated as the first Clerk of Windsor County but declined the office.
The Vermont Legislature wound up the session on Feb- ruary 23, probably in ignorance of the fact that New York's Legislature had all but committed itself to a step very favora- ble to Vermont's aspirations. On February 21, the New York State Senate with but one dissenting vote had passed a resolu- tion that it was inexpedient longer to claim jurisdiction over Vermont. New York's House of Representatives was appar- ently on the point of acquiescing in the proposal when Governor Clinton, in the nick of time, halted the capitulation by a threat to prorogue the Legislature. Writing of the episode some weeks later, Clinton expressed his conviction that "an old friend of ours"-very likely General Philip Schuyler-had been pro- moting the idea of a cession to Vermont since the preceding autumn and that on the eve of the New York legislative session, following the receipt of Governor Chittenden's demand that New York surrender her claims, there had been very industrious and effective circulation of the argument that Vermont would not participate in defending the northern borders against the British unless New York agreed to Vermont's independence. So sure were some of New York's politicians that an adjustment would be made that Clinton suspected them of having begun to speculate in Vermont lands.3 It does not appear that the New Yorkers were at this time aware that Vermont's share in protecting the frontiers against the enemy was more likely to take the shape of a truce than forts and troops.
12 Gov. & Coun., p. 75.
2 Id., p. 76.
8 Public Papers of George Clinton, vol. VI, pp. 742-743.
534
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
Windsor's March meeting for the year 1781 came late. The record, which seems to be quite full, gives the date as the 27th and shows a great number of citizens elected to office. Deacon Joel Ely, who had been one of Windsor's representa- tives in the late important session of the Legislature, was elected moderator and chosen as one of the five selectmen. Ebenezer Curtis, his colleague in the Assembly, was also elected a selectman and was re-elected as town clerk. The influence of Parsons Tullar and Chapin may account for Windsor's increasing the number of tythingmen to four in 1781. For this office the town made choice of Solomon Emmons, Elnathan Strong, Andrew Blunt, and Seth Bishop. The town meeting of 1781 was also noteworthy for the election of a school committee in each parish: for the "East Society," Captain John Marcy, Colonel Nathan Stone, Samuel Patrick, and Joel Butler; for the "West Society," Deacon Joel Ely, Charles Leavens, and Jerahmeel Cummins. This honor for Colonel Stone and his election as a surveyor of highways indicate that for some reason or other his fellow townsmen had grown to feel more charitably disposed towards him. The explanation of this may appear a little later.
Three days after the town meeting came a meeting of the "Authority," consisting of the Board of Selectmen, the two constables and the two grand jurors. These officials voted Alexander Parmelee "in nomination for to keep a Publick house" and Captain Steel Smith and Jeremiah Bishop "in nomination" for tavern keepers,1 thus providing that the re- spective nominees could come before the County Court in the following June as applicants for licenses for the ensuing year. Although the records of the Cumberland County Court under the Provincial Government of New York contain several entries of licenses granted in Windsor, the earliest record of the town's action by its Board of Civil Authority or otherwise, in a matter of this nature, is that of March 30, 1781, as given above.
At the same meeting the Board of Civil Authority decided to divide the town into seven "surveyors' districts." The
1 The Act of February, 1779 (Slade's State Papers, p. 370), seems to contem- plate the possibility of a distinction between "taverns" and "public houses," but does not make the distinction clear.
535
VERMONT BECOMES IMPERIALISTIC
purpose of so districting the township, while not explained in the minutes, may have been intended to divide equitably and conveniently the responsibilities of the men who had been elected surveyors of highways, but more likely it was to assign to groups of the inhabitants, according to the localities in which they resided, the particular portions of the highways which each group should be charged with keeping in repair. In the East Parish there were to be three districts, viz., the South District, from the south line of the town to Mr. Tullar's;1 the North District, from Mr. Tullar's to the Hertford (Hart- land) line; the West District, "extending westerly from the Town Street, so called, ... to the West Parish Line."
In the West Parish there were to be four districts. The first of these, called the South District, seems to have been bounded as follows: beginning at Captain Samuel Stow Savage's; thence apparently westerly, to Major Benjamin Wait's; thence, along "the same course" to the west line of the township; thence, south to the southwest corner of the town; thence, east along the town's south line to a point south of Captain Savage's; thence, north to the place of beginning. The North District which, seemingly, was not contiguous to the South District, included that portion of the "Woodstock Road" to the north of Mr. Chapin's2 and "all the inhabitants on and east of said road." The "Woodstock Road" was obviously a road running about north and south and must have been the western bound- ary of a district which touched the northeast corner of the Parish. Between the north and south districts of the West Parish came the West District, which extended easterly as far as Roswell Smith's. The East District lay north of a portion of the South District and cornered both at Mr. Chapin's and Benoni Patrick's. The blindness of the descriptions is due in part to the comparatively few highways then in existence and in part to our present ignorance of just where those highways ran. Except for a main thoroughfare leading west by way of what was later called Sheddsville, and a branch road leading north to Woodstock, we cannot be sure what roads had then been opened.
1 Approximately the south corner of Main and State Streets.
2 Either Calvin Chapin or Rev. Pelatiah Chapin.
536
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
Copious as were the records made by Ebenezer Curtis, town clerk of Windsor, for the year 1781, they omit all reference to Windsor's referendum vote on the question of the proposed second New Hampshire union. That Windsor voted in favor is established by the journal of the Assembly.1 In taking this position Windsor conformed to the opinion of the overwhelm- ing majority of the towns represented in Vermont's Legisla- ture, although the union was not endorsed by the votes of most of the Vermont towns in the immediate neighborhood. For instance, Hertford (Hartland) and Woodstock voted against it, Weathersfield, Hartford, and Cavendish sent in no opinion, and Springfield was not accounted for. The town of Reading stood with Windsor.
The sentiment in favor of the union was pretty nearly unanimous in western New Hampshire: no less than thirty- five New Hampshire towns voted for the proposal, and none was recorded against it. So prospered the plan "to unite all parties" that Vermont's Legislature at its adjourned session in Windsor in April, 1781, admitted as assemblymen about forty men from east of the Connecticut River, and, for the first time, some representatives from Brattleborough and Hins- dale (Vernon). In addition to these new members, Vermont had the satisfaction of welcoming back into the fold General Jacob Bayley's town of Newbury. Most significant, perhaps, of all the local elections was that in Brattleborough. That town actually chose as one of its representatives Colonel Samuel Wells, an outstanding and uncompromising Loyalist; and the Legislature received him without a murmur.
The session of the Legislature at Windsor in April, 1781, lasted only from the 4th to the 16th, but in that short space of time much besides augmenting the number of the assembly- men took place. Washington County was erected out of the towns of southwestern New Hampshire and incorporated as a part of the State of Vermont; New Hampshire towns oppo- site the present Windsor County and north of Claremont, Newport, Unity, and Wendell became a part of Windsor County; Orange County was made to include other New Hampshire towns. The Legislature now developed a surpris- 1 Vt. State Papers, vol. III, part 2, pp. 213-214.
537
VERMONT BECOMES IMPERIALISTIC
ing toleration towards Quakers by permitting such "to wear their hats in this House"; yet it refused to acquiesce in Hart- ford's desire to substitute for her sitting representatives Ste- phen Tilden and former Lieutenant-Governor Marsh, who had become reconciled to Vermont. It recommended that the New York towns lying to the west of Vermont should meet in con- vention to see if they could agree to a union with Vermont, and, if so, to elect representatives to sit in Vermont's Assem- bly. The resolution embodying the foregoing recommendation was the subject of debate and division. In favor were forty- eight yeas: in opposition thirty-nine nays. All representatives from the west side of the Green Mountains-eighteen in number-together with twenty-three east-side members and seven assemblymen from New Hampshire cast the majority vote. Twenty-seven New Hampshire representatives and twelve Vermonters from towns east of the Green Mountains were counted in the negative. Windsor's vote was divided: Deacon Ely for and Captain Curtis against. Colonel Samuel Wells, of Brattleborough, was among those voting "yea." He and the unsavory Matthew Lyon were then appointed a com- mittee to draw a bill in conformity to the resolution.
Among the three brigadier-generals chosen by the Legisla- ture at this session, Ethan Allen, in spite of the gossip and in spite of his previous resignation, was elected to command the First Brigade. For soldiers to defend the State "against the common Enemy" the Legislature deemed fifteen hundred men necessary. These troops it proposed to raise as volunteers at a contemplated cost of thirty thousand pounds. Ebenezer Curtis received appointment as one of a committee of six to devise the means of supplying the State Treasury with funds for this purpose. The resulting revenue law provided for the emission of something over twenty-five thousand pounds in paper currency to be redeemed in part by a tax of one shilling and three pence on "polls and rateable estates" and in part by a land tax of ten shillings on each privately owned one hun- dred acres, which, under the existing condition of war, might be capable of settlement.
Colonel Seth Warner, who had heard enough rumors of Ethan Allen's double dealing, had interviewed him face to
538
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
face and had charged him with receiving private letters from the British.1 After first denying the accusation, Allen admit- ted that he actually had received two such letters signed by Colonel Beverly Robinson, a regimental commander of the Loyalist forces. His hand having thus been forced by Colonel Warner, Ethan Allen hit upon the expedient of forwarding both of Robinson's letters in his own now famous letter to the Continental Congress. He wrote to the Congress that the Robinson letters were the only ones he had ever received from "him," and that he had made no reply to them, but he omit- ted all reference to his own secret interview with the enemy's messenger, Captain Justus Sherwood, at Castleton, in the pre- ceding autumn. Thus, while Allen's tone towards Congress spoke the almost perfect patriot, it served as a sort of blind to hide what he had actually done. Nor was that the only touch of adroitness in his communication: he still left open for himself and his followers an avenue for retreat to British protection by insisting that if Congress should continue to refuse to admit Vermont into the Union as a separate State "Vermont has an indubitable right to agree on terms of cessation of hostilities with Great Britain." 2 He closed his remarkable letter with this characteristic flourish: "I am as resolutely determined to defend the independence of Vermont as Congress are that of the United States, and, rather than fail, will retire with hardy Green Mountain Boys into the desolate caverns of the mountains and wage war with human nature at large." 3
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.