USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 46
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How Congress or Vermont took this drunken or megalo- maniac outburst can only be surmised. The times were not such that people could laugh carelessly. Ira Allen seems to have accepted his brother's turgid nonsense as a really serious proposal. The Vermontese, Ira thought, would, if disappointed in their hopes, "return to the Mountains, turn Savages and fight the Devil, Hell and Human Nature at Large." Captain Sherwood, to whom he confided this enlightened programme, smilingly refused to admit its practicability.4 At this period
1 Public Papers of George Clinton, vol. VI, p. 777.
2 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, p. 105.
4 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, p. 110.
3 Id.
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VERMONT BECOMES IMPERIALISTIC
the "state of society," as Doctor Samuel Williams would have called it, may be illustrated by the fact that Governor Chit- tenden presented to the Legislature at Windsor on April 12 a copy of Ethan Allen's letter to the Continental Congress and a copy of the two letters from Beverly Robinson, in order to show how spotless had been Ethan Allen's virtue. Not even the fact that two such characters as Ira Allen and Matthew Lyon had certified to the "truth" of the copies seems to have caused the Assembly to suspect the real situation. It is really difficult to understand how Vermont's House of Representa- tives, if genuinely in sympathy with the Revolutionary cause, could have swallowed such an artifice as that practiced by Gov- ernor Chittenden, or how the House could have passed a vote of confidence and approval. Yet that is what Chittenden suc- ceeded in gaining in behalf of Ethan Allen, the Governor, and the Council.1 And such a vote was of service in safeguarding necks and reputations.
Besides Colonel Samuel Wells's elevation and Ethan Allen's correspondence there were plenty of other symptoms to lead a jealous and vigilant revolutionist to suspect that Vermont was on easy terms with Britain. Of course, General Bayley went so far as to believe that treason was in the air.2 Beverly Robinson, as colonel of the Loyalist forces in New York, wrote to General Haldimand of the British Army that "Colonel Wells of Brattleborough has sent his son-in-law with verbal information that throws great light upon the conduct of Ver- mont." 3 Of the several sons-in-law of Colonel Samuel Wells, there was then none in Vermont so competent to handle an important and highly confidential matter as Micah Townsend. Robinson's letter to Haldimand bore the date of May 8, 1781. Micah Townsend wrote from Fishkill on the Hudson on May 15, 1781, that he had been to Long Island and was hurrying back to Vermont.4 Since this information is derived from a letter in which Townsend thanked Governor Clinton for hav-
1 Vt. State Papers, vol. III, part 1, p. 227.
2 2 Gov. & Coun., p. 444, note; 2 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., p. 82, note; Wells, History of Newbury, Vt., p. 102.
3 2 Gov. & Coun., p. 418; 2 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., p. 120.
4 Public Papers of George Clinton, vol. VI, p. 874.
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
ing given permission to him to pass within the enemy's lines, it grates upon the feelings of those who would like to regard Micah Townsend's integrity as beyond question; but he was Colonel Wells's son-in-law, and the two letters are damaging although not conclusive evidence. On his return from Ver- mont, Townsend promptly became a Register of Probate, and one of the Judges of Probate in the newly organized County of Windham, and a few months later became Vermont's Secre- tary of State.
Another suggestive happening at the April session of the Legislature at Windsor was the retirement of Thomas Porter and Doctor Reuben Jones as "Commissioners or Auditors to settle Public accounts." For all that appears these men were stout anti-British Whigs. Certainly Jones was of that sort. His demotion, according to the record, was forced because he had "Public accounts" of his own to settle. Porter appears to have asked to be relieved of the position. Their retirement might not be worthy of notice were not the character of their successors so significant, for no sooner was the Legislature through with Porter and Jones than "Capt. Matthew Lyon and Colo. Sam1 Wells" were "appointed Commissioners or auditors in the room of Messrs Porter and Jones." We may be quite sure that any expense accounts incurred at the direction of Ethan Allen in his dealings with the British would be certi- fied by such a pair as Wells and Lyon without question for payment by State Treasurer Ira Allen.
The rank and file of inhabitants of Windham County took exception to most of the men selected for the county offices on the ground that the candidates were British sympathizers or Tories. Micah Townsend's name seems to have aroused no opposition but there were well-grounded remonstrances against Luke Knoulton and others.1 In spite of the charges and in spite of his actual political character, Luke Knoulton received from the Governor and Council a commission as one of the judges of the County Court. Thus to place in responsible po- sitions in State and County governments men whose hearts were not in the Revolutionary cause, set an example sufficient to cause in Windsor a reconsideration of the prejudices that
1 B. H. Hall's History of Eastern Vt., pp. 409-410.
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VERMONT BECOMES IMPERIALISTIC
for some years had caused his townsmen to keep Colonel Na- than Stone out of local office. He became not only a highway surveyor and a member of the school committee, but was also placed upon the committee to fix a place for the county buildings for the newly erected County of Windsor, which now included in addition to the present constituent towns, the towns of Hanover, Dresden, Grantham, Lebanon, Plainfield, Croydon, and Cornish in New Hampshire. Further than this, the town of Windsor appointed him chairman of a committee, consisting of himself, Stephen Jacob, and Lieutenant Briant Brown, to give instructions to Windsor's town representa- tives relative to procuring from the Governor and Council an order for the election of new officers for the Third Vermont Regiment.
Incidental to the return of Colonel Stone to public esteem, the item of chief local interest in connection therewith is, of course, the determination of the place for the county buildings. The first step in the matter, following the Legislature's selection of Windsor as the county seat, came at a town meeting held in Windsor at the Meeting-House in the East Parish on June 5, 1781. The record, which is somewhat mutilated, seems to be as follows:
"Voted that a Comtt of Six be apointed to meet a Committe appointed by the County Court on the third Tuesday of June Inst. for the purpose of Looking out a Proper Place in the Town of Windsor for Erecting a Courthouse and Goal for the County of Windsor.
"Voted that Capt. John Marcy, Stephen Jacob Esqr., Colo. Nathan Stone, Lt. Briant Brown, Capt. Savige,1 Leut. Com- mins2 [be the committee] as above."
The work of this committee, in co-operation with the com- mittee appointed by the County Court, resulted in the selec- tion of a plot of ground which now includes Windsor's "Com- mon" and which was then a part of the farm of Jacob Hast- ings. A full description of the extent of the original Court House Common may be found in Hastings's deed conveying the property for county uses. Its easterly boundary ran ap- proximately along the present retaining wall just east of the
1 Samuel Stow Savage.
? Jerahmeel Cummins.
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
.
Town Hall and the High School Building, the northerly and westerly lines about as at present, and the southerly line well out into and along what is now State Street. Of the original location of the Court House it is impossible for the writer to speak with certainty, but for many years and perhaps from the date of its erection it stood in the extreme northeast cor- ner of the premises on the ground now occupied by the pres- ent Town Hall.1 Less is known as to the position of the County Jail. The fact that for many years there was a well near the western line of the Common suggests that the jail stood near the northwest corner of the property. As to the location of the whipping-post, the stocks, and the pillory, if such acces- sories were provided, the writer has no clue.
Windsor had now reached the zenith of its first stage. It had come to the height of its political importance. Besides having been the birthplace of Vermont it had become, by reason of its location and without numbering among its citizens any men of real leadership, virtually the State capital and actually the shire town of the largest county in the State. On paper, the area of Vermont was more extensive than that of the State as we now know it. Measures were then under way still further to enlarge it.
The State Government of which Windsor was the principal center had succeeded in forming, maintaining, and strengthen- ing itself by means of force, daring, ingenuity, and persistence. This government was now only nominally allied with the thir- teen former colonies, was practically independent of any of them and was secretly on such terms with Great Britain that the future of the State might easily have been that of a Canadian province.2 As Washington remarked in a letter written by him to General Schuyler under date of May 14, 1781, "the Ver- montese ... are at least a dead weight upon us. It is greatly to be regretted that they are not by some means or other added to our scale as their numbers, strength, and resources would certainly aid us considerably, . . . . "' 3
None of the men who in later years made Windsor noted more as a town of social or cultural or commercial importance
1 See The Old Constitution House and Its Neighbors, p. 26, et seq.
2 1 Gov. & Coun., p. 116, note.
3 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, p. 108.
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VERMONT BECOMES IMPERIALISTIC
than as a political center had as yet come into his own. The more distinguished and lovelier part of Windsor's history was yet to be made. The day of the pioneer and the frontiersman was not yet over. Although habit rather than actual need per- petuated the atmosphere of the camp it was the part of expedi- ency for the sake of appearances rather than necessity to keep the military organizations of Windsor and other Vermont towns alive and conspicuous. For a few days at a time these companies still were called out for excursions on "alarms" much as town fire companies are called out for practice to-day. The Windsor men of 1781 responded to these calls without thought of danger, without expectation of fighting or killing anybody or being killed themselves and without an ambition for anything more noble or heroic than an early discharge and sufficient rum and other rations in the meantime. If by any chance they had had to fight there is little doubt that, under decent leadership, they would have fought bravely and well. The Tories-Jones and Buel-dared to come to Windsor in 1781 in furtherance of a plan to make a prisoner of Colonel Jonathan Chase, of Cor- nish.1 If it be said that Windsor had become less concerned for American Independence it should be remembered that Ver- monters generally now lived in the well-gounded belief that in whatever manner the War of the Revolution might terminate they and their State would be reasonably safe.2 Of their war- like qualities one of Washington's comments, written early in 1783, is worthy of note even if it is only a left-handed com- pliment. The inhabitants of Vermont, wrote he, "are a hardy race, composed of that kind of people who are best calculated for soldiers; in truth, who are soldiers ; for many, many hundreds of them are deserters from this army, who, having acquired property there, would be desperate in the defense of it, well knowing that they would be fighting with halters about their necks." 3
Inglorious as might be the cause of Vermont's feeling of se- curity, the people of the State showed no general disposition to criticize Vermont's guiding spirit. It is true that Colonel John Williams, who shared the view of the professional soldier
1 Chase's History of Dartmouth College, p. 420. note.
2 1 Gov. & Coun., p. 116, note. 3 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, p. 326.
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THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
and who had a fair opportunity to observe the progress of events in Vermont, wrote that Ethan Allen "hath completely done for himself, and every person, almost, twits him for timber." 1 It is true, also, that Colonel Williams had been circulating a story to the effect that General Allen's com- mission as a brigadier was withheld because of a report that he had made a written overture to Governor Clinton.2 But whatever the people of Vermont may have thought of Ethan Allen's negotiations with the British or of the letters he may have felt constrained to write by way of camouflage in order to give the appearance of continued sympathy with the Revolu- tionary cause such as his letter to the Continental Congress,3 his letter to General Philip Schuyler,4 or the letter to Governor Clinton5-there is no convincing proof that Vermont generally regarded his reputation as destroyed or even tarnished. Con- sistently with his previous resignation as Brigadier-General in the autumn of 1780 he now declined to accept his new elec- tion to that office; but there is no real evidence that he had lost his standing or influence in Vermont unless such loss might be inferred from the emphatic vote to reject his brother Ira as a candidate to succeed him in the command of the First Brigade.6 As a matter of fact Ethan Allen as the principal leader of his State was now actively and successfully cam- paigning in the eastern towns of New York to secure their ad- herence to Vermont and thereby insure them against British invasion.7 So influential were the arguments which he and his lieutenants made in that district that ten New York towns presently elected fifteen representatives to sit in Vermont's Assembly.8
1 Public Papers of George Clinton, vol. VII, p. 12. 2 Id., vol. VI, p. 685. 4 Id., p. 131.
32 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., p. 104.
5 2 Gov. & Coun., p. 107, note. 6 3 Vt. State Papers, part 1, p. 252.
7 Public Papers of George Clinton, vol. VI, pp. 841, 890.
8 3 Vt. State Papers, part I, p. 244.
APPENDIX
EARLY MANUSCRIPT RECORDS
1. Records of the Windsor Proprietors. These papers were kept by and on behalf of the individuals to whom the Charter of Windsor was granted by Benning Wentworth, the Royal Governor of New Hampshire, on July 6, 1761, and their im- mediate successors. Such of these records as now remain extend from the year 1761 to the end of the year 1771. As far back as runs the memory of any person now living, the origi- nals of these papers have been in the office of the Town Clerk of Windsor. They are written on loose sheets, unbound, and protected merely by being interleaved with sheets of heavy paper. They are somewhat mutilated, and the paper on which they are written is, in some cases, crumbling badly. They should not be handled. Two manuscript copies of these records are known, one being in the custody of Windsor's Town Clerk and one the property of Mr. Wardner.
2. Windsor Town Records. The earliest records of this na- ture (except the conveyances of proprietary rights and real estate entered in the books of Cumberland County and in the land records in the office of Windsor's Town Clerk) are in a packet labelled "Proceedings of Town Meetings from 1769 to 1788, Inclusive, & also a Petition for Town Meeting in 1794." For a long time prior to the discovery of this packet the earliest known records of Windsor town meetings were those in the so-called "Volume I" at the Town Clerk's office, beginning with the minutes of the town meeting of March, 1786. The packet above referred to supplies a record-al- though not quite complete-from 1769 to 1785 and includes a few items of a later date. In spite of the label on its wrapper, the packet at the time of its discovery in July, 1916, con- tained no records for the year 1786. Records for that and subsequent years are inscribed in "Volume I."
This old packet of original records was found on Friday
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APPENDIX
evening, July 28, 1916, by Stanley R. Bryant in a barrel in the basement of the Windsor Public Library. It was a part of a mass of papers, books, and documents which George A. Duncan, at the request of H. S. Wardner and with the con- sent of A. K. Hall (then Windsor's senior Selectman) and Sherman Evarts (then president of the Windsor Library Asso- ciation) had gathered up from the basement of the Windsor Town Hall on July 26 and 28, 1916, and removed to the Library on the date last mentioned. The packet and other Windsor records had been lying on the floor at the west end of the Town Hall basement, underneath a pile of firewood. When found, the contents of the packet were damp and in places the fibre of the paper had disintegrated, but most of the writing was intact and legible.
The present Town Clerk is of the opinion that this packet and other records found with it were kept in a safe in the Town Clerk's office until some time in the administration of George M. Stone, when, at the direction of one of the Select- men, they were removed to shelves or compartments on the walls of the so-called Selectmen's Room in the present-then new-Town Hall. It is believed that about the year 1889, when the Selectmen's Room was used as a recitation room for some of the classes in the public schools, all such records and papers were again moved and were lodged in the base- ment of the Town Hall. Some of them remained there in un- locked trunks and boxes or in barrels, while others were strewn loose upon the basement floor. All of them have been rum- maged through by curiosity seekers at various times and with- out supervision. These papers still remain in the Public Li- brary, but are not arranged or catalogued. In the summer of 1916 Sherman Evarts transcribed for H. S. Wardner a com- plete copy of the contents of the packet above mentioned, and of the original Proprietors' records. These copies are in Mr. Wardner's possession.
The early records of births, marriages, and deaths in Wind- sor were made and kept with the laxity and irregularity com- mon to most Vermont towns. The records of the Congrega- tional Church, although not extensive, go back as far as Mr. Tullar's pastorate and are important. The Windsor Public
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APPENDIX
Library has the late Lawrence Brainerd's very valuable anno- tated book of inscriptions on the gravestones in the Old South churchyard.
3. Court Records. The records of the Cumberland County Courts under the government of the Province of New York consist mainly of entries in two of the volumes in the office of the Clerk of Windham County at Brattleboro. The entries begin with the year 1772. They are by no means complete, but, such as they are, they should be copied and published by the State or by the Vermont Historical Society. Already the remaining court records of Gloucester County, now pre- served in the office of the Clerk of Orange County at Chelsea, have been published by the Vermont Historical Society. (Proceedings, Vt. Hist. Soc., for 1923-1925, pp. 141-192.)
The earliest court records of Vermont as a State, so fre- quently referred to by Mr. B. H. Hall in his History of Eastern Vermont, the writer has not succeeded in finding.
At the office of the Clerk of Windsor County at Woodstock are records from 1782. As an aid to future historical research there is a field for work on the part of the State and the sep- arate counties in arranging in calendars and classifying ac- cording to subject-matter the early judicial archives from Vermont's assumption of statehood down to 1850.
4. Windsor Land Records. These have been faithfully kept and are in an excellent state of preservation at the office of Windsor's Town Clerk. They are inscribed in many volumes of varying size. The earliest liber is bound in the original paper pasteboards covered with white vellum, and still bears upon the inside of the cover the quaintly inscribed card of the Paris stationers from whom it was bought about the year 1784. This card reads as follows:
A L'ENFANT JESUS Ruë St. Honoré, au coin de celle des Prouvaires. DES LAURIERS Tient Magazin de Papiers, Et Fournit les Bureaux. A Paris
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At the Windham County Clerk's office at Brattleboro there are two volumes of Cumberland County deeds recorded under New York's jurisdiction prior to the American Revolution. Among them are a number of deeds of Windsor realty or pro- prietary interests in the township.
5. Vermont State Records. Regarding these there is little to add to Mr. Augustus Hunt Shearer's "Report on the Archives of Vermont," reprinted from the Annual Report of the Ameri- can Historical Association for 1915, pages 311 to 355. What may be termed the earliest known volume of State records consists of forty pages in the handwriting of Doctor Jonas Fay, covering a transcript of convention records from 1776 to 1777. In 1904 Senator Redfield Proctor published a very handsome lithograph copy of them with interesting notes and letters. The query as to whether these pages are original records is best answered in the negative, and perhaps also by a reference, first, to the vote of Vermont's Council on June 18, 1778, appointing Doctor Jonas Fay, Colonel Moses Robinson, and Captain Ira Allen a committee "to Inspect into the votes and doings of the several conventions from . To- gether with the doings of the Council of Safety, (the present Council & house of Representatives,) and put them in Regu- lar order, and record them in Books for that purpose" (1 Gov. & Coun., p. 272); and, second, to the entry at folio 323 in volume 8 of the MSS. State Papers in the Secretary of State's office at Montpelier, showing that Jonas Fay charged and re- ceived £10-16-0 for examining and recording at several times in September, 1778, the proceedings of former conven- tions. Manifestly there were original journals from which Doctor Fay in 1778 made his transcript.
INDEX
Adams, James Truslow, 250
Adams, John, 98, 104, 356, 447; extract from diary of, 99
Adams, Samuel, 273, 286, 356
Adams, Thomas, 495 n.
Addison, 6
Address to the Inhabitants of the State of Vermont, 482 Aiken, Edward, 367, 370 Aikens, Asa, 40
Ainsworth, Laban, 39
Albany, 43, 46; records lost by fire in, 69, 183, 396; section of New Hamp- shire Grants in county of, 84; eject- ment cases, 141, 143, 167; represen- tation at N. Y. Provincial Congress, 291
Algerine Captive, 56
Allen, Ebenezer, 367, 504
Allen, Ethan, 238, 250, 252, 253, 286, 356, 428, 455, 456, 461, 471, 500, 502, 504, 532; escapades under, 154; quoted, 37, 167, 508; activities in New Hampshire Grants, 167, 455 ff., 469; leadership of, 230, 453, 454, 496 ff .; at Ticonderoga, 254, 255; his over- tures to New York, 257, 258; rejected by Green Mountain Boys, 262-264; Canadians recruited by, 263; assault on Montreal, 263; characteristics of, 264; compared with Ira, 454 n .; his reply to Clinton's proclamation, 456, 457; visit of, to Continental Congress, 458, 459, 464 ff., 481, 488, 501; un- qualified as assemblyman, 462, 488; letters from, 473-475, 538, 539, 544; letters to, 482, 510, 511; his Vindica- tion of the General Assembly, 491; grant to, 505; secret negotiations of, with British, 510 ff., 538 ff .; interview with Sherwood, 518, 519; charges against, 522; elected to command First Brigade, 537; campaign activ- ities in New York, 544
Allen, Heman, 272, 273, 285, 288, 295 ff., 299, 304, 306, 334, 336, 339, 356, 380, 399, 404 ff.
Allen, Ira, 82, 237, 250, 254, 275, 277, 301, 351, 355, 377, 386, 404 ff., 422, 432, 433, 436, 462, 468, 472, 475, 497, 498, 504, 516, 527, 538, 539, 548; his History of Vermont, 76, 145, 160, 175, 372, 394, 404, 415, 420, 485, 511-515, 532; quoted, 178, 378, 400, 404, 424, 451; his support of separate state
idea, 286; at conventions, 299, 306, 324, 325, 334 ff., 384, 484, 521, 522; his Miscellaneous Remarks, 78, 359 ff., 392, 414, 416; secretary of Coun- cil of Safety, 380; sent to Cumber- land County, 411; compared with Ethan, 454 n .; first Vermont seal drawn by, 478; reports favoring limi- tation of State of Vermont, 481-483; Knoulton and, 513 ff.
American Archives, 312, 333
American Judiciary, The, 392
American Revolution, 250, 253
Americanism, conventions held in cause of, 239 ff.
Ames, John, see Amos
Amherst, Jeffery, 6, 25, 114
Amos, John, 354
André, Major, 516, 517
Andrews, John, 95
Andross, Bildad, 154, 246
Annals of Brattleboro, 426
Anne, Queen, 108
Arlington, 119 Arms, John, 123
Armstrong, John, 69
Arnold, Benedict, 254, 517
Ascutney, Mount, 5, 386
Associations, pledging support to Revo- lutionary cause, 288-290, 294
Atkins, Nathaniel, 92, 193, 352, 353
Atkinson, Colonel, 131, 143
Atkinson, Frances Deering, 100
Atkinson, Theodore, Jr., 100
Atlee, Samuel, 500, 501
Baldwin, Judge, quoted, 392
Banishment Act, the, 451, 452, 455, 472, 518 Bannister, Silas, 417, 447
Banyar, Goldsbrow, 178, 201, 216, 353 Barnard, 335 Barrett, John, 379, 408, 436, 472, 480
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