USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 7
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"N.B. The above Advertisement was agreed to, and de- sir'd to be inserted in all the public Papers, by a large Meeting of some of the principal Proprietors in sundry of the said Townships at the House of Mr. Hugh Rider aforesaid on this 29th day of August."
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On October 9 thirteen of the Windsor proprietors conveyed all their interest in the township to Nathan Stone.1 This deed presumably is the one referred to in Thompson's Gazetteer of Vermont and in Thompson's Vermont in the following passage: "During the controversy between the government of New York and New Hampshire respecting the jurisdiction of the territory now forming the State of Vermont, the proprietors of Windsor became alarmed for their title, and conveyed their respective rights of land, in trust, to Col. Nathan Stone. . . . " 2 As a matter of accurate description, the conveyance to Nathan Stone was not "in trust": the conveyance was absolute and reserved no equity whatever to the grantors. Although, from Thompson's language, one would expect to find that all the Windsor proprietors joined in the deed, the record shows but thirteen, viz., Enos Stevens, Martha Stone, Willard Stevens, David Stone, Joshua Willard, Samuel Hunt, Israel Curtis, Zedekiah Stone, Samuel Stone, Thomas Cooper, Joab Hois- ington, Joel Stone, and Steel Smith. These are the same per- sons whose names appear in the list submitted to the Provin- cial Council of New York on July 9, omitting the ten nominees of the New York government and omitting, also, Mary Stone, who was the wife of Nathan Stone and who, if she was an actual property owner, presumably could not make a valid deed in favor of her husband. The witnesses of the deed were Andrew Norton, John Evarts, John Benjamin, Benjamin Wait, and Caleb Stone. All the grantors are stated to be in- habitants of Windsor except Willard Stevens, Samuel Hunt, and Joshua Willard, who lived at Charlestown, New Hamp- shire. Enos Stevens, though stated to be of Windsor, had lived at Charlestown and his residence in Windsor could have been but temporary.
A striking feature of this deed of October 9, 1766, is the recital that "his present Majesty by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Province of New York dated the Nineteenth day of July, 1766, Did Grant unto the said Parties to these Presents and others as Tenants in Common in Fee simple Certain Lands ... on the west side of Connecticut River
13 Windsor Deeds, pp. 24-27.
2 Thompson's Gazetteer, p. 292; Thompson's Vermont, part III, p. 195.
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called and known by the name of Windsor." Here, then, is a definite statement that there was a New York patent for Windsor. Not only were the Windsor signers of the deed of October 9 of the belief that such a patent existed, but the ten New York men whose names were mentioned in the certificate of award or allotment of July 14, actually signed under seal another deed conveying to Nathan Stone under date of July 23, 1766, all their interest in the township of Windsor granted by "our now Sovereign Lord, King George the third by his Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Province of New York bearing Date the Nineteenth day of July Instant." The witnesses to the latter deed were James Rogers, Willard Ste- vens, and Samuel Stevens. The originals of these two deeds are among the Vermont Historical Society's manuscripts.
Unquestionably, therefore, there must have been a New York patent for Windsor, antedating by nearly six years the existing New York charter or patent of 1772 on which depend the titles to all of Windsor's real estate. Either the earlier patent was never actually delivered to Nathan Stone by rea- son of some unperformed condition on his part, or, if actually delivered, was afterwards withdrawn and suppressed.
Of course, if the deed of October 9 to Nathan Stone was intended to meet the requirements of the Council's order of June 6, it will strike the reader as a belated compliance. Its execution was not acknowledged until November 24, nor did the certificate of acknowledgment appear perfect as to execu- tion by either of the Stone women or Willard Stevens. In this connection we should notice the remark of Sir Henry Moore in a letter to Lord Shelburne, where, in speaking of the order of June 6, he says, "altho it was not strictly com- plyed with as to the time limited, no advantage was taken of such Delay. . ." Yet whether the deed of October 9 was or was not in time, or whether it was or was not otherwise sufficient, there appears to have been no further progress in securing a confirmatory grant from New York for more than five years except an order of the Council on January 7, 1767, to substitute the name of Caleb Hyatt for that of Alexander Dallas as one of the Windsor grantees. Dallas, whose name is occasionally written "Dulles," had omitted to endorse the
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receipt of the consideration on the back of the deed of July 23.
The procedure for securing re-grants was made still more exacting by an order of the New York Provincial Council on February 12, 1767, providing that action on all pending peti- tions for re-grants be suspended until the principal proprietor or proprietors of each township should appear before the Council with due authorization on behalf of all persons inter- ested in the township and be prepared to furnish the fullest information respecting the shares of the several claimants.1 Any attempt, after one hundred and sixty years, to give the reason for Colonel Nathan Stone's failure to secure in 1766 the confirmatory patent for Windsor is mere guess work. It is likely that in his efforts he did not have the full benefit of the advice which Colonel Josiah Willard extended to the Hart- land and Putney proprietors. Nor had he at his command the cunning at wire pulling exhibited by the manager of the Chester application or the popular and attractive qualities of Samuel Wells of Brattleboro. Yet when all is said and done, we are not far advanced as to the reason for Colonel Stone's failure.
Ira Allen in his History of Vermont speaks of the issuance of confirmatory patents to "some leading characters on the east side," who, "by yielding up their New Hampshire grants, had new or confirmation grants from New York on paying half fees."2 Allen's expression, "leading characters on the east side," would fit Chandler, Wells, and the Willards well enough, and he adds with characteristic animus: "This plan was in- tended to divide the people, while the settlers on the west side had their lands regranted [to others] and were called on to acknowledge themselves tenants to the grantees under New York." If Allen was correct in his view that the object of the confirmatory patents to Chester, Hartland, Brattleboro, and Putney was to divide the east from the west, he leaves unex- plained the omission of the New York government to confirm the titles of Windsor and several other east side townships in behalf of which applications had seasonably been filed. His statement that some of the east side townships secured their
1 4 Doc. Hist. 364.
2 Allen's Hist., p. 20.
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confirmatory patents on payment of "half fees," if true, may reveal an initial policy of the New York government with a view to starting a practice in a popular way and then charg- ing full fees on later applications.
There were many complaints of the oppression by the New York government, not only for granting the Vermont lands to other than the New Hampshire proprietors, but for charging such proprietors exorbitant fees for confirmatory patents. Daniel Chipman, the biographer of Judge Nathaniel Chipman, is practically the only Vermont historian who asserts the New York fees for confirmatory patents to have been reasonable enough to warrant compliance with the terms. He points out that those who bought such confirmatory patents were wise and that the practice would have become general but for the insistence of some of the leading characters on the west side of the Green Mountains who were "land poor" through the extent of their speculations in the Onion River Company, and could not possibly raise the funds to secure confirmatory titles. As a matter of fact, these men forced their own wishes upon their neighbors west of the Green Mountains by the passage of a "convention" decree forbidding the solicitation or accept- ance of confirmatory charters from New York.1 While several of the towns on the west side of the mountains, following the examples of the settlers along the Connecticut River, had made application to New York for confirmation charters, none for any town west of the mountains was actually taken out.
Probably Mr. Chipman was referring to the later applica- tions of 1772 rather than to the earlier ones we have been dis- cussing; but somehow Mr. Chipman's theory does not clearly satisfy. While he was not prone, like some of our other Ver- mont historians, to color facts for the purpose of making a popular story, the truth must have been that the costs of New York patents, whether relatively large or small, extortionate or reasonable, were beyond the means of the proprietors to pay in cash and could only be met by a sale of a part of their lands. In that view of the case, one can appreciate that if the Allens and their fellow speculators had a large tract of land which they intended to exploit as a whole, they would not dare
1 Allen's Vt. Hist. 28; 1 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll. 5.
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sell a portion of it to outside hostile interests-especially if such interests had the selection. Moreover, land along the Onion River lay far off in the wilderness and must have struck New York capitalists as of such slight present value that an enormous acreage would have had to be sold to raise cash sufficient to defray the cost of confirmation charters.
These reflections perhaps are no more profitable than the tables of figures at pages 153 to 159 in vol. I of the Collections of the Vermont Historical Society, which were apparently com- piled to show what money the officers of New York might have received for granting patents in Vermont if the maximum statutory fees for such patents had been paid, and to arouse in the reader who contemplates the figures a sufficiency of eighteenth-century indignation. The price commonly said to have been charged by the provincial government of New York for a confirmation charter was $2,300.1 Assuming a township to contain 23,500 acres, the fee for a New York charter would be something under ten cents per acre. If, as Ira Allen says,2 some of the towns on the east side of the Green Mountains received their confirmation charters at half price, the cost was at the rate of less than five cents per acre. To take as correct the tabulation of fees compiled by Governor Hiland Hall and set forth on page 158 of the first volume of the Vermont His- torical Society's Collections and the statement of the acreage granted by New York, we find that if the maximum official fees were charged the cost, per acre, was a trifle over nine cents.
Both Sir Henry Moore and Cadwallader Colden were em- phatic if not explicit in denying extortion in the matter of patent fees, although Colden somewhat unkindly mentioned Sir Harry's insistence on his own fees in certain cases.
If it was not the matter of price that caused Colonel Stone to suspend his quest of the New York patent, it was probably some defect or omission in the papers he was required to sup- ply to the law offices of New York. Sir Henry Moore wrote
1 Ira Allen's Miscellaneous Remarks and Short Arguments, Hartford: 1777; 1 Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll. 120; 1 Gov. & Coun. 321. See also Memorial of Lebanon Conven- tion, 1779; 2 Gov. & Coun. 172.
2 Allen's History of Vt., p. 20.
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with apparent sincerity of the confused state of the New Hampshire titles in some of the townships. Though these titles were but a few years old, there had been so many deal- ings in individual rights that it was almost impossible to ascertain who were the true owners. There was no place for the recording of transfers of proprietary rights and the best that Sir Henry could do on several of the applications was to take a bond from some of the principal proprietors condi- tioned on their distributing and re-conveying to the real own- ers the land covered in the patent.1
Another point of difficulty had arisen in the circumstance that some of the petitioners, either inadvertently or purposely, failed in the beginning to acquaint the New York authorities with the fact that the New Hampshire charters had reserved certain rights for the Church of England and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. In this re- spect the Stones had been delinquent, as appears by a refer- ence to the Windsor application in the New York Narrative of 1773. In Appendix XXI of the Narrative is a report of a dis- cussion in the New York Council chamber on June 10, 1767, with relation to the early applications for confirmatory grants. From this report it appears that soon after the announcement of the boundary adjudication of July 20, 1764, "the grantees of the townships of Newbury, New-Flamstead, New-Windsor, and Hallifax applied for Grants under this Government, and not producing their Charters, and the Government here not being at that Time informed that it had been usual to reserve any Shares of such Townships for public Uses, no such reser- vations were made on the granting of the Petitions for these four Townships. That the Letters Patent for the Townships of Newbury, New Windsor, and Hallifax having not yet passed the Seals, it still remains with his Excellency to make those Reservations in these Cases: That as soon as the Council dis- covered by the Charters of New Hampshire such proportion of Land had been granted or reserved for public Uses, the like Reservations were made here in every Instance. . . . "
From these minutes of the Council's proceedings it is clear that the re-grant of New Flamstead (Chester) on July 14,
1 4 Doc. Hist. 372.
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1766, antedated the discovery of the reservations in the New Hampshire charters. By that time the proceedings for the confirmatory patent of Windsor had gone as far as the issu- ance of a certificate of sale or award of Windsor to Zedekiah, Nathan, and David Stone. Yet this discovery could hardly account for the subsequent long delay in the Windsor appli- cation, because the applications on behalf of Hartland and Putney, which admittedly were affected by the same discov- ery, came through successfully. The hitch in the Windsor pro- ceedings must have been due to other causes not now clearly ascertainable, but probably similar to those affecting New- bury, Halifax, and other towns on the east side of the Green Mountains. Perhaps a strict compliance with the Provincial Council's order of February 12, 1767, was impossible. On the other hand, Windsor's New York patent may have been one of the three which Governor Moore said merely awaited his signature when he received the letter of Lord Shelburne, dated April 11, 1767, directing that, for the time, no more grants west of the Connecticut River should be made.1 The situation of the townships on the west side of the mountains was com- plicated by the fact that their boundaries in some cases over- lapped the ancient Hoosick and Wallumschaak grants of the New York government and in others were overlapped by recent patents issued by Cadwallader Colden. Then, too, if Daniel Chipman was correct, the circumstances of the men of most prominence on the west side of the mountains was such that they could not comply with the pecuniary conditions nec- essary to secure confirmatory patents and the influence of these men set an example of hostility to the practice of paying a price for such patents.
In the somewhat famous application to the Crown through Samuel Robinson, of Bennington, for relief against the author- ities of New York in the matter of re-granting Vermont lands, the settlers on the east side of the Green Mountains did not join. This at least seems to have been the view of Governor Moore2 and we find no evidence to the contrary.
1 4 Doc. Hist. 367.
2 4 Doc. Hist. 367, 373.
CHAPTER XI CUMBERLAND AND GLOUCESTER
VERY early in his administration Governor Moore had con- ceived the idea of organizing two militia regiments from the settlers on the New Hampshire Grants. Possibly Thomas Chandler, of Chester, had impressed him with the value of such a move, since the plan involved the appointment of Chandler as the colonel of one of the regiments. The other was to be in the command of Jacob Bayley, of Newbury. Nathan Stone assisted Chandler in canvassing the Grants to ascertain the number of men available for the militia, with the result that on January 20, 1766, Chandler made to Governor Moore the astounding report that the number of men fit to bear arms in Chandler's proposed regiment was about six hundred, while the number available for Bayley's was about three hundred.1
The governor, as he afterwards stated in a letter to Lord Shelburne, was so amazed by the size of Chandler's fig- ures that he undertook to cross-examine the candidate for a colonelcy, and elicited the information that "a great number of families concerned in those Lands resided either in New England, New Hampshire, or Connecticut, and had never been upon them; some of the most active young people out of each family were sent there to begin the Settlemts many of whom at the close of the summer returned to their Homes, others more industrious continued there in the Winter that by forwarding their improvements they might more readily pave the way for those who did not choose to encounter all the difficultys of a New Settlement but waited until some im- provements were made before they removed." 2 Still, even if a majority of the members of the proposed new regiments were only summer residents or had still to make their first visit to the Grants, Sir Harry would not disappoint Chandler, and presently gave him a colonel's commission with authority to form a regiment. Nathan Stone was also commissioned a
14 Doc. Hist. 363.
2 4 Doc. Hist. 368.
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second colonel or a lieutenant colonel. Ira Allen speaks of him as a colonel, and from 1766 to Nathan Stone's death he was known as Colonel Nathan Stone.
Another early step toward organizing the Grants, and in half-hearted response to the repeated petitions for county gov- ernment, was the issuance on January 20, 1766, of commis- sions for justices of the peace for Albany County to twenty- one of the settlers. Among the twenty-one new justices of the peace was Nathan Stone. On February 27, 1766, Joel Stone was chosen by the justices of the peace a constable for the township of Windsor, and may therefore be regarded as Wind- sor's first town officer.
The summer of 1766, near the time that Windsor's petition for a re-grant had come again before the Provincial Council, brought Nathan and David Stone, Joseph Wait and Benjamin Wait once more to the city of New York. Their mission was not solely on township matters. Nathan Stone with Thomas Chandler, Samuel Wells, James Rogers, and Simon Stevens made the fourth application for a regular county government, while Captain Joseph Wait, Lieutenant David Stone, and En- sign Benjamin Wait in their own behalf sought individual patents for lands in consideration of military services rendered as "Rangers." This time the application for a separate county government succeeded and under date of July 3, 1766, the Provincial Legislature of New York enacted a statute erecting the county of Cumberland.
Mr. B. H. Hall, at page 1 of his History of Eastern Vermont, states that the new county "probably received its name from Prince William, the Duke of Cumberland, who in 1746 met with distinguished success in opposing the rebels in Scotland." It embraced generally all the territory between the Connecti- cut River and the Green Mountains, from the Massachusetts line northward to the northern boundaries of Norwich, Sharon, and Linfield (Royalton). The final petition-that of June 16, 1766-for the establishment of a county was unfortunately not copied in the Documentary History of New York, and the original was burned in the Capitol fire in 1911.
Governor Hiland Hall states that the object of erecting Cumberland and Gloucester Counties was to create offices and
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so win favor for the New York government among the settlers on the east side of the Green Mountains.1 It seems to be the case that the county offices in Cumberland County went mainly to those who had been active in making petitions for a county government and to those whose applications for town- ship patents had received favorable consideration. For in- stance, the three judges of the court of common pleas, viz., Thomas Chandler, Joseph Lord, and Samuel Wells, were of Chester, Putney, and Brattleboro, respectively. Except for the justices of the peace, who were appointed in nearly all the settlements, Chester, Putney, Brattleboro, and Hartland se- cured more than fair representation among the office-holders. Windsor, in spite of not gaining a township re-grant, did fairly well. Nathan Stone, besides being a "colonel," became the high sheriff of Cumberland County, Israel Curtis became a justice of the peace, and Zedekiah Stone was appointed both justice of the peace and an assistant justice of the court of common pleas. All of these commissions, according to Mr. B. H. Hall, were dated July 16, 1766.
A considerable part, if not most of the court records of Cumberland County are lost,2 and writers have alluded to such loss as something of a mystery. Yet in the turbulent days of Vermont's birth there was plenty of opportunity, as there was incentive, to destroy records which were full of entries both mortifying and annoying to the settlers on the New Hampshire Grants. The land records, in two volumes, still remain in the office of the clerk of Windham County, where also are some of the Court records beginning with 1772. In volume one of land records the first deed was recorded October 21, 1766. In this book may be found several of the early deeds of Windsor real estate. These should be tran- scribed and recorded in the town clerk's office at Windsor.
The life of the first Cumberland County was short. Fol- lowing Samuel Robinson's application to the Crown for relief against the hard terms imposed by the New York authorities in re-granting the township charters came an order of the King in Council under date of June 26, 1767, disallowing the
1 Early History of Vermont, pp. 154, 155.
2 See 5 Hemenway's Vt. Gazetteer, p. 9; 5 Crockett's History of Vt., p. 10 et seq.
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act of the Provincial Legislature under which the county had been created.1
On March 18, 1768, the New York provincial government by letters patent erected a new county by the name of Cum- berland, with boundaries nearly the same as the original. Two years later Gloucester County was organized, embracing ter- ritory to the north of Cumberland. These two new counties were probably named out of compliment to two very gay brothers of King George the Third, namely, Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, and William Henry, Duke of Glouces- ter. In coincidental association with the name of Windsor, it may be noted that the former became "ranger of Windsor Great Park" in 1765, and that in December, 1767, according to Dodsley's Annual Register, "at a meeting of the corporation of Windsor it was unanimously agreed to present the dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland with the freedom of that ancient borough." Although, according to the Dictionary of National Biography, these princes led lives that were far from exem- plary, it is rather a pity that the names of Cumberland and Gloucester could not have survived the prejudices of Revolu- tionary days and been preserved as county names in Vermont.
The whole of the New Hampshire Grants lying west of the Green Mountains remained within the County of Albany until the creation of Charlotte County in 1772. The latter county included the northerly portions of the towns of Arling- ton and Sunderland and embraced territory to the northward on both sides of Lake Champlain.
14 Doc. Hist., 375, note.
CHAPTER XII
SETTLING THE GOSPEL IN WINDSOR
IN the two preceding chapters are brief allusions to Samuel Robinson's application made to the Crown on behalf of set- tlers on the New Hampshire Grants for relief against the prac- tices of the New York provincial government respecting re- grants of townships. This application seems to have been sponsored only by settlers on the west side of the Green Moun- tains,1 who empowered Samuel Robinson, of Bennington, as their agent to visit England and lay their case before the Crown officers. The powers of attorney under which Robin- son acted and the petitions which were handed him form the subject of a chapter in the first volume of the Collections of the Vermont Historical Society, at pages 271 to 288.
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