USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 5
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
Zadock Thompson's version of the arrival of Smith and Emmons, as printed in Thompson's Gazetteer and Thompson's Vermont, is as follows: "The first permanent settlement in the town was commenced by Captain Steel Smith, who removed his family from Farmington, Connecticut, to this town in August, 1764. At that period there was no road north of
1 See the article by Bancroft Fowler in the Adviser or Vermont Evangelical Magazine for October, 1810.
2 The Vermont Republican of April 20, 1812, in recording the death of Captain Steel Smith, asserts that he "is said to have cut down the first tree ever felled in Windsor." That in this he anticipated all explorers, trappers, hunters, soldiers, and surveyors seems improbable.
3 It is a fact that in a deed of Hartland land, executed by Emmons at Windsor on August 10, 1764, he described himself as of Hatfield, Mass., which had been for some years the home of some of the Emmonses.
49
50
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
Charlestown, N. H., then called Number Four. ... There was, however, a man by the name of Solomon Emmons, and his wife, who had erected a hut and were living here when Captain Smith arrived, but he had not purchased the land or made any improvements with a view to a permanent settle- ment. Mrs. Emmons was the first and for some time the only white woman who resided in the town."
In 1764 Steel Smith was thirty-five and Solomon Emmons was thirty-eight. The former was the more considerable figure of the two, became the owner of many acres of land in Wind- sor and elsewhere, kept for a time a public house, was treasurer of the town, was an army contractor in the American Revolu- tion and lived until 1812. Emmons seems not to have pros- pered and died in poor circumstances in 1805.1 Solomon Em- mons's wife, Mary, who outlived him by twenty years, was for a long time the only midwife in Windsor and vicinity. During the pastorate of the Reverend Benjamin Bell, she was excommunicated from the Congregational Church of Wind- sor, seemingly for having asked a letter of dismissal to Parson Shuttlesworth's church. Later, when charges of dishonesty were preferred against Pastor Bell, Mrs. Emmons's testimony against him was very damaging. She died November 8, 1825, at the reputed age of 94.2
No contemporary account of the arrival of any of the early Windsor settlers remains. Still, there is an account of an early arrival on the opposite bank of the Connecticut in Cornish in the year 1765, which is told so pleasantly and is vouched for by such respected authority that it might almost be given place in this history. It is Dame Alice Chase's story of her coming to Cornish, as printed in the Reminiscenses of her son, Bishop
1 Spooner's Vt. Journal, October 1, 1805; Post Boy of same date.
' Vt. Republican and Yeoman, Nov. 14, 1825, in which her name is given as "Eunice." The notice further states that "Mrs. E. was the first and for several months the only white female inhabitant of this town." The writer's father, Henry Wardner (born in Windsor in 1817), and the writer's aunt, Helen Minerva Evarts (born in Windsor in 1820), said that they could remember Mrs. Emmons. A question arises in the writer's mind as to whether these accurate and reliable people may not have confused a later Mrs. Emmons with the settler's wife. There was for a time as manager of Pettes's Coffee House in Windsor, one Solomon Em- mons, who was probably a son of Solomon Emmons the settler.
51
THE SETTLEMENT OF WINDSOR
Philander Chase, and in W. H. Child's History of Cornish. One wishes that she had thought to mention the two families already settled on the opposite bank of the Connecticut in Windsor, instead of erroneously recording that she herself was the first white woman to move into the region north of "Number 4."
Let us hope that this good woman found in her Windsor neighbors, Mistress Mary Emmons and Mistress Lois Smith, congenial spirits with whom to face the rigors of life in the wilderness.
In plain view from "Blowmedown," which was the site chosen for the home of Dudley and Alice Chase, and but a few rods down the river on the opposite side is the traditional landing-place of Steel Smith. Proceeding from the river bank west to near where the main highway now runs and perhaps sixty yards north of the Hubbard Brook, he selected the spot for his first log hut in what later was approximately the south- west corner of the Jason Steele property, one-half mile north of the present Windsor post-office. Here we shall leave him for a time. And if in that then remote and lonely spot he was harassed and terrified by the roar of wild beasts and by In- dian war-whoop attuned to the conventional overture of American local history, Steel Smith left no record of his "suf- ferings" out of which the readers of this volume can be served with goose-flesh. As a matter of fact, the Indians had left Windsor for good.
The population on those of the New Hampshire Grants west of the Connecticut River, to the eastward of the Green Moun- tains, in the spring of 1765 was sparse and scattered to a de- gree hardly realized by the moderns. B. H. Hall, in his His- tory of Eastern Vermont, at pages 130 and 131, gives estimates by various authorities. Perhaps the best-informed witness on this subject was Judge Oliver Willard, of Hertford (Hartland), who testified under oath to the belief that at the time the order of the King in Council was proclaimed1 "there might be about one hundred families settled in all that country east- ward of the Green Mountains . .. and that those inhabitants were scattered through about twenty tracts or townships, of 1 April 10, 1765.
52
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
about six miles square each, and principally along the Connec- ticut River." Judge Willard's estimate is the largest of all. The population on the west of the Green Mountains at that time was hardly greater. More likely it was a little less; but the testimony is vague.
"The next season" after Steel Smith's arrival, says Zadock Thompson (which would be the summer of 1765), "Major Elisha Hawley, Captain Israel Curtis, Deacon Hezekiah Thom- son, Deacon Thomas Cooper, and some others came on and began improvements." 1 As to Curtis, the statement is prob- ably true. He had been in Charlestown, New Hampshire, with Steel Smith the year before and had taken more than a per- functory interest in the settlement of Windsor. As to Hawley and Cooper there is less evidence. Thomson, perhaps, did not settle in Windsor quite so early, for in deeds of a later date he is described as residing at Farmington, Connecticut. It is fairly to be inferred from the records in the Documentary His- tory of New York that the spring of 1765 saw Zedekiah Stone, Nathan Stone, Joseph Wait, and Benjamin Wait at Windsor, and it is likely also that Joel Stone, David Stone, and Samuel Stone came during that year. All told, the settlements in Windsor so progressed that on August 17, 1765, Zedekiah, Nathan, and David Stone were willing to subscribe their names to the indefinite though probably exaggerated state- ment that "about sixteen familyes" had already seated them- selves within the township of Windsor.
It is hardly reasonable to suppose that the early settlers in Windsor differed in quality from those in other of the older towns on the New Hampshire Grants. General characteriza- tion is far from impressive and not particularly informing, but that is what the histories supply. Thompson's Vermont gives a fair sample of it in these words, which probably are sufficiently eulogistic: "The settlers on the New Hampshire Grants were a brave, hardy, but uncultivated race of men. They knew but little of the etiquette of refined society, were blessed with few of the advantages of education, and were destitute of the ele- gancies and, in most cases, of the common conveniences of life. They were sensible that they must rely upon the labor of 1 Thompson's Vermont, Part III, p. 194.
53
THE SETTLEMENT OF WINDSOR
their own hands for their daily subsistence, and for the accu- mulation of property. They possessed minds which were nat- urally strong and active, and they were aroused to the exer- cise of their highest energies by the difficulties which they were compelled to encounter." 1 Thompson, like many other writers, here omits to state specifically the all-important fact that the settlers were generally very poor.2 Poverty was the factor which gave direction to most of their efforts and shaped their history.
A passage from C. L. Becker's Beginnings of the American People has something of the right description of the first Ver- mont settlers, although that writer was not in terms referring to them. "Long before the Revolution," wrote he, "there existed in New England a fringe of pioneer settlements ... which formed a newer New England, less lettered and scrip- tural than the old, where class distinctions were little known, where contact with the Indians and the wilderness had added a secular ruthlessness to the harsh Puritan temper, and where the individual, freed from an effective 'village moral police,' learned in the rough school of nature a new kind of conformity unknown to the ancient Hebrew code." 3
Nor is it to be believed that the settlers in Windsor or the neighboring towns were men of exceptional virtue or above those failings which have marked human nature at all periods of history. As far as the writer is aware, there is no separate estimate of the character of the Windsor settlers other than a somewhat uncharitable tradition handed down in his own family to the effect that the founders of the town were a rough lot of men. How this tradition started or whether it was based on comparisons with the pioneers in other townships the writer is uninformed. As the story proceeds the reader may determine whether the tradition does injustice.
Of the Windsor settlers, all may be classed as husbandmen. Steel Smith, on his farm a short distance north of the present village, and Solomon Emmons, wherever he pitched his camp,
1 Thompson's Vermont, Part II, p. 30.
2 Documentary History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Connecticut, vol. II, pp. 162-163.
3 Beginnings of the American People, p. 175.
54
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
were plainly farmers. Israel Curtis, a millwright and a man of business capacity, built a grist mill on the north side of Mill Brook east of the main road and probably settled there or close by. On the opposite side of the road was the saw-mill of Thomas Cooper, who was Doctor Thomas Frink's successor as Proprietors' Clerk and at whose house after the settlement of Windsor the Proprietors' meetings were usually held. Cap- tain Zedekiah Stone, who appears to have been the town father, steady and respected, had a farm south of Mill Brook, including Buena Vista. Zedekiah's eldest son Nathan, who soon was known as Colonel Stone, was the chief political char- acter and the man who was trusted to handle the transactions with the provincial government of New York. Although he had some of the qualities of leadership, he was unstable and bad-tempered. He seems to have been endowed with brains and ambition somewhat above his fellows. His was the most outstanding individuality among Windsor's first settlers. Next to Thomas Cooper, he was the best penman in town and was a fair speller. He is said to have lived near the northern boundary of the township and not far from the river. Per- haps his home was on top of Hourglass Hill. There were at least two farms between his place and the Hartland line. David Stone, another of Zedekiah's sons, lived on the river bank at the ferry. Possibly he was one of the ferrymen. Joseph Wait, Benjamin Wait, and Joab Hoisington were sol- diers as well as farmers. Where the Waits had their first Windsor habitations is unknown, though there is some indica- tion that they lived on the south or lower meadows. Hois- ington, according to H. S. Dana's admirable History of Wood- stock, made his home on the south side of Pulk Hole Brook, then called Hoisington's Brook, and on the west side of the main road. The present site of the Old Constitution House is not far from the spot.
Joseph Wait, Joab Hoisington, and Israel Curtis were offi- cers in the Revolutionary army and gave their lives in that service. Benjamin Wait, also an officer, survived the war and attained a position in Vermont history more noted than any other Windsor settler. Samuel Stone, who was the first Wind- sor surveyor, and Joel Stone, who was the first Windsor con-
55
THE SETTLEMENT OF WINDSOR
stable, may have made their homes in the beginning with their father, Captain Zedekiah, although in a few years Samuel had a house of his own. The first homes of Hezekiah Thomson and Elisha Hawley the writer cannot locate. Perhaps Thom- son settled north of the present village. The Vermont Journal of June 16, 1883, mentions the rise of ground north of the Pulk Hole Brook and west of the highway, where stood for many years the Evarts farmhouse, as the spot where Deacon Thomson once lived, but the writer has no proof. Of Haw- ley little is known. He acquired some of his land in partner- ship with Thomas Cooper and as early as 1772 took title to the grist-mill property. Thomson was a deacon of the first church and an orderly, quiet character, somewhat of the type of Zedekiah Stone. Two other early settlers were Andrew Norton (or Naughton), who located in the western part of the township and proved himself an excellent farmer, and Joseph King, a carpenter, whose name appeared in the records for a few years only. The last was chosen by the settlers as the contractor to build the first bridge across Mill Brook-a work that he never accomplished.
CHAPTER IX
A VISIT TO NEW YORK CITY
THE summer of 1765 saw several of the inhabitants of Wind- sor, in the company of settlers from other towns upon the Grants, at the city of New York, painfully waiting on the Provincial Council in the hope of having their land titles con- firmed by New York authority. To this end these men of Windsor, like settlers in the other towns, conceived it expe- dient that each township theretofore chartered by Benning Wentworth should be re-granted to the inhabitants by the New York provincial government. They also felt that for the convenience of the growing population the New Hampshire Grants should be accorded a county government separate from the County of Albany, of which the Grants had become a part.
It is plain that the Windsor settlers had ground for concern with regard to the validity of their titles, even before the an- nouncement of the boundary decision by the King in Council. Upwards of four months before the receipt of the news of the decision, the settlers in Springfield had awakened to the be- lief that the jurisdiction of the region "pertaineth to his Maj- esty's Province of New York." But the settlers of Windsor might not have bestirred themselves so soon or at all had it not been for the manner in which Lieutenant-Governor Colden began to turn the boundary decision to his own advantage. Indeed, some of the early Vermont settlers, while quite alive to the idea of possession of land, seemed to regard the matter of title as something remote and contingent. Chief Justice Royall Tyler, in the third chapter of his Algerine Captive, wit- tily illustrates a viewpoint not uncommon with regard to land titles. In the course of that "fictitious autobiography" of his he brings in an imaginary ancestor to whom had been granted by the Dutch settlers of New York fifty thousand acres of land without metes and bounds. To this grant neither the ancestor nor his descendants had laid claim. "When I men-
56
57
A VISIT TO NEW YORK CITY
tioned this circumstance some time since in Hertford," 1 re- lates the merry Vermont jurist, "certain gentlemen immedi- ately offered to raise a company and purchase my right. I candidly confessed that I was not possessed of the title and knew not the particular spot where the land lay, and conse- quently was unwilling to sell land without title or boundaries. To my surprise they laughed at my scruples, and observed that they wanted the land to speculate upon; to sell, and not to settle. Titles and boundaries, in such cases, I understood, were indifferent matters, mere trifles."
Colden's first move in the exercise of his newly acquired authority was to grant a new township on lands already granted as townships by Benning Wentworth in the south- western part of the Vermont country. He also began shortly the issue of numerous individual patents for land to former soldiers. Plainly this boded trouble for those who derived title merely from New Hampshire. Whether at Colden's in- stance or on their own initiative, four of the more prominent proprietors on the east side of the Green Mountains took steps to secure from him re-grants or confirmatory patents for their respective townships. The standing of these four men may have made their example an influence on others. One of the four was Thomas Chandler, of Flamstead (Chester), a schem- ing politician, always alert in furthering his own interests and reputed to be wise. Another was Samuel Wells, of Brattle- boro, a man of talents, social station, and worldly possessions superior to most of the early Vermont settlers. The third was Oliver Willard, who lived in Hartland, the next township to the north of Windsor, and who was probably advised by his brother, Colonel Josiah Willard. The fourth was Colonel Josiah Willard himself, of large influence among the early settlers on the Grants, and who, though a resident of Winches- ter, New Hampshire, was a property owner in Putney and active in the interests of the latter town. Colonel Willard's petition for a re-grant of Putney bore date June 5, 1765. Even earlier than Colonel Willard with such petitions were some of the proprietors of Newfane and Newbury. It is pos- sible, of course, that the Windsor settlers would have shaped
1 Hartland.
58
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
their own course regardless of what others thought expedient, and it is true that the Windsor application for a New York patent was among the earlier; yet it seems more likely that the men of Windsor were followers rather than originators of what became a common proceeding.1
There were at least two petitions on behalf of the inhabi- tants of Windsor for the confirmation of their grant. The first petition, dated August 17, 1765, is the first known public action by the inhabitants of Windsor as a body. It is still preserved and may be found at page 132 in volume XIX of Land Papers in the office of the Secretary of State of New York at Albany. It reads as follows:
"To the Hono. Cadwallador Colden Esq' his majestyes Lieutenant Governor & Commander in Chief of the Province of New York and the Territories depending thereon in Amer- ica In Council
"The Petition of Zedekiah Stone and David Stone Junr in behalf of themselves and their associates, Humbly Showeth
"That there is a Certain Tract of Land on the west Side of Connecticut River at a Place Known by the Name Windsor Beginning at a Black Ash Tree marked with the figures two & three from thence Running North Seventy-four Degrees West Six miles from thence North ten Degrees East Six miles from thence South Seventy-five Degrees East Six miles & a Quarter to a tree marked Three & four Standing on the Bank of the River Connecticut Six miles on a Straight Line South of the South East Corner of Hartford from thence Down the River to the first Bounds Mentioned Containing twenty-three thousand five hundred acres Strict Measure That your Pe- titioners conceiving the said Tract to be within the Province of New Hampshire did Seat themselves there to the number of about sixteen familyes under the Grant of that Govern- ment, but finding by his majesty's order in Councill of the 20th Day of July 1764 that the said Tract falls within the
1 Governor Francis Bernard of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in a letter to Cadwallader Colden, dated June 1, 1765, seems fully to have recognized the necessity of obtaining New York confirmations of the Wentworth charters (N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1923, p. 40).
59
A VISIT TO NEW YORK CITY
Jurisdiction of the Province of New York and being willing to secure their Possessions by his majestyes Letters patent under the seal of this Province and to hold Same under this Government
"Your Petitioners therefore humbly Pray your Honours will be favorably pleased by His Majestyes Said Letters Patent to grant unto your Petitioners and their Heirs in the Propor- tion of one thousand acres to each petitioner the tract of Land above described and that the same may be erected into a Township by the Name of Windsor with the Priviledges usu- ally granted to the Townships of this Province and under the Quitrents and Restrictions appointed by his Majestyes In- structions-And your Petitioners shall ever Pray &c New-York August : 17 : 1765 Zedekiah Stone David Stone Jur Nath Stone In behalf of themselves and the rest of the Petitioners."
Why the foregoing paper was not sufficient for the purpose for which it was intended is not obvious. We have called it the first petition because the other petition on the same sub- ject, although not dated by the subscribers, bears in pencilled writing on its face the date of September 11, 1765.1 By com- paring the two it is possible to conjecture reasons why the latter should have been deemed the preferred form. What we term the second petition follows:
"To the Honorable Cadwallader Colden Esq' Lieut. Gov- ernor and Commander in Chief in and over the Province of New York & Territories thereon depending in America
In Council
"The Petition of Zedekiah Stone, Nathan Stone and David Stone ye second in behalf of themselves and Twenty other Persons
Humbly Sheweth
"That there is a Certain Tract of Land now lying in this Province called by the Name of Windsor a little more than 1 N. Y. Sec'y State's office, Land Papers, XIX, 155.
60
THE BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
Six miles Square and Bounded as follows vizt. Beginning at a Black Ash Tree (Standing on the West Bank of Connecticut River) marked with the figures Two & Three and Runs from thence West Sixteen Degrs North Six Miles, then North Six Degrees East Six Miles & fifty-six Rod, then East Sixteen Degrs South Six miles and Quarter to a maple Tree on the said Bank of the River marked with the figures Three & four, then Down said River to the Tree first mentioned, Bounding Easterly on Said River Southerly on a Township called Weath- ersfield, Westerly on a Township called Reading, and Northerly on a Township called Hertford. That your Petitioners and their associates held the same by a Grant from Governor Wentworth. That they Thought their Title was good and Settled about Sixteen famalies thereon, and there would have been as many more Settled on the Same by this time had it Not been Laid to this Province by a Resolve of the King and His Privy Council on the 20th of July 1764. Yet Notwith- standing they are willing and Desirous to Secure their Prop- erty, possessions & Improvements by Obtaining His Majestys Grant Under the Seal of this Province and to hold the same therefrom (and proceed to make further Settlements on the Premises). Your Petitioners for themselves and their Asso- ciates therefore Humbly prays that in Consideration of the Equity of their Cause your Honours will be favorably pleased by His Majestys Letters Patent to Grant to your Petitioners & their Associates their Heirs and Assigns forever the said Tract of Land Containing upwards of Twenty-three Thou- sand and Six Hundred acres and that the same may be erected into a Township by the Name of Windsor and vested withe the same Powers and Priviledges as other Towns in this Prov- ince have and Do enjoy.
and your Petitioners as in Duty Bound shall Ever Pray Zedekiah Stone Nathª Stone David Stone second"
It will be observed that this latter petition was in behalf of exactly twenty-three persons-probably to meet a require-
61
A VISIT TO NEW YORK CITY
ment of law that not more than one thousand acres could be directly granted by the Province of New York to one individ- ual. The definite recital that the land is within the Province of New York distinguishes this petition from the earlier one. A further distinction is the omission in the second petition to allege the acreage by strict measure. This perhaps gave the surveyor-general of New York more excuse for making a new survey and collecting his fee. The first petition alleges a for- mer grant by the Province of New Hampshire; the second, a former grant by Governor Wentworth. It is easy to surmise why Colden and the Provincial Council of New York consid- ered the latter form of allegation the more desirable. As to the individual petitioners, Nathan Stone's name, probably through oversight, did not appear in the introduction of the first petition, while in the second petition it was inserted and the name of his brother David was more accurately termed "David Stone ye second" rather than "David Stone Junior."
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.