USA > Vermont > Rutland County > The history of Rutland county, Vermont; civil, ecclesiastical, biographical and military, pt 1 > Part 51
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While residing near the river, the road running close by the bank, instead of over the flat as now, he had commenced clearing the land which about this time became his home farm in Fair Haven. It extended from Poultney river to Poultney west line, and is said, in a survey of 1746, to contain 205 acres, laid, all but 64 acres of it, on his own proprie- tary right.
At his death, in Sep. 1803, the farm became divided among his sons, Joshua, Albert, and James. James' part, about 80 acres, he sold in Nov., 1807. Albert also sold his 60 acres in 1813, but probably continued to occupy it until Sep., 1817. Joshua had 60 acres and lived on the same until near the spring of 1818, when he removed to Hampton and sold his part.
Mr. Cleveland was a rough, illiterate man, unable even to write his own name, yet a man of great natural force and ability, and was elected one of the selectmen of the town from March, 1781, nearly every year till his death. He left a large family.
The lands lying to the south of Mr. Cleve- land, between the river and Poultney line. had also been improved as early as 1779, by Joseph Squier, Lemuel Hyde and William Meacham, resident on the Hampton or Green- field side, who do not seem to have become citizens of the town.
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At a meeting of the proprietors, held at | whence he came, but he must have been here. Castleton, Oct, 1780, it was voted that John or on the Greenfield side of the river, as early at least as 1779, and it is probable that i .- came from Massachusetts or southern Ver- mont. Meacham, Joseph Ballard, William Meacham, Lemuel Hyde and Joseph Squier might have the privilege of "covering their possessions with 21 Div. pitches to be laid out in the form of the first when there was undivided land enough to lay them out in such form ; and it appears from records in the archives of the State that these individuals, together with some fifty or more who had settled along the river and in what is now Hamp- ton, considered themselves as within the bounds of the State and had as early as the year 1779, and probably in the last part of the year, after Fair Haven was incorporated, and while the Legislature was still in session at Manchester, petitioned the authorities of Vermont for incorporation of the territory on which they resided as a town under the name of "Greenfield"-but the boundary of the State being in controversy, the authori- ties did not grant it, and the petition was re- newed in June, 1751, the petitioners express- ing a strong desire to be under the govern- ment of Vermont, and evidently supposing the boundary, which was then established, to be to the westward of them. The catalogue of signers of this petition includes the names of several individuals who were then resi- dent, or who afterwards became such ; as John Meacham, Joseph Ballard, Abel Parker, Soi- omon Cleveland, Abraham Sharp, Oliver Cleveland, Derrick Carner, Isaac Race, Ben- jamin Parmenter and Stephen Holt.
From the State archives we learn, in June 1781, the settlers on the south side of East Bay and north of the old town of Skeenes- borough, many of whom were from New Hampshire and the East, desired to be under the authority of Vermont, and supposed they were so, being on the east side of the Lake, and they accordingly petitioned our Gen. As- sembly, then met at Bennington, for an act of incorporation as a town by the name of " New Cheshire." Among these petitioners were Lemuel Bartholomew, Peter Christie, Robert Adams, and others.
John Meachain and Joseph Ballard, men- tioned above, and by the proprietors at their meeting in October, 1780, as having posses- sions in town, were actual residents along the river to the north of Mr. Cleveland. Wheth- er Mr. Ballard came before or after Mr. Meacham we are unable to determine, or
Mr. Meacham, with his wife and three chii- dren, came from Williamstown, Mass , either in the fall of 1779 or the spring of 1750, and built him a log-house on the west side of the road, a little south from where Myron D. Barnes resides. His fourth child, Esther Meacham, born Apr. 23, 1780, it is claimed was the first child born in the town.
Mr. Meacham appears to have been an ac- quaintance and friend of Col. Lyon in Massa- chusetts, and he is said to have worked with Richard Beddow at nail-making in a shop which stood on the hill-side east of Mr. Kid- der's barns. He was a poor man and had a large family, which necessitated assistance from the town and the apprenticeship of his eldest son, John, afterwards a merchant in the town, and later an influential citizen of Castleton, by the authorities of the town, dur- ing his minority. Mr. Meacham was one of the members of the first board of selectmen chosen at the organization of the town in Aug., 1783, and was one of the committee chosen by the citizens in Sep., 1784, to draw up a remonstrance against the doings of a County convention. He removed from Fair Haven to Galway, N. Y., in 1794, and thence to Benson in 1800, where he carried on a brick-yard, and was so injured by the cav- ing in of earth, he survived but one week, and died in 1808 or '9, aged 58 years. His children were Sarah, John, Rhoda, Esther, Jacob, Joel, James, Eliza, Isaac and Rebecca.
JOHN MEACHAM, JR., was a poor boy, in Fair Haven, but rose by his own energy to be a merchant in the town, in 1804, when about 28 years of age, and removing hence to Castleton in 1805, continued in the mer- cantile business there, acquiring quite a for- tune, and becoming Probate Judge for the district of Fair Haven, which office he held at the time of his death. He married Mary Langdon, in 1306, and had one child, Claris- sa, now the wife of Hiram Ainsworth Esq. of Castleton.
Mr. Ballard's place of settlement lay next west of Mr. Meacham's, 177 acres, besides some 60 acres bought at auction on Stephen Fay's right. The first 100 acres were laid Tout to him in August, 1781, on rights pur-
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chased of Col. Clark in June. 77 acres were laid out in July, 1784, 50 acres of it on Na- thaniel Smith, bought on tax sale, and 27 acres on Elijah Galusha's right, purchased of John Meacham. In Feb., 1785, Mr. Ballard deeded the west part of his farm to his son, John Morrow Ballard, and the east part to his son-in-law, Stephen Holt. He re-deeded a portion of the Clark lot to Mr. Holt in Nov. 1792, and gave 15 acres lying south toward the river, to his daughter, Drusilla Holt, with whom he appears to have lived, and perhaps died, about 1795.
The ".Clark lot" was sold to Col. Erwin in June, 1794, he having bought Meacham's farm of John Meacham in January previous. Mr. Holt continued to reside on the south part until May, 1801, when it was sold to Henry Ainsworth, and passed through the hands of Danforth Ainsworth and Enos Wells to Barnabas Ellis, in November, 1813. It is now owned by Mr. Ellis' son Zenas C.
John Morrow Ballard sold his part to his brother-in-law, Solomon Wilder, of White- hall, in March, 1794, and soon thereafter re- moved to Whitehall himself. John Morrow Ballard is said to have been a Methodist min- ister, and to have been partly of Indian blood; and beyond this we learn little or nothing of him. Jeremiah Ballard, a noted Methodist clergyman, of southern Vermont and Massachusetts, may have been a broth- er. He was in the town in Dec., 1795, when he quit-claimed to Mr. Wilder an interest in land which had been owned by Joseph Bal- lard. Samuel Cleveland, of Hydeville a son of Solomon Cleveland, an intimate friend of Col. Matthew Lyon, and formerly resident in the town, relates that in his boyhood, while his father owned the mills, between 1796 and '98, he well remembers going to Mr. Holt's and hearing Lorenzo Dow preach there, Mr. Holt being known as a devoted Methodist.
Besides these settlements, which appear to have been the earliest in the south part of the town, there were others lower down on Poultney river, which may have been of old- er date ; as at the point where the " Hessian road" came over the river, now on the Stan- nard farm, where a man by the name of Jonathan Lynde had improved a place.
The improvement may have been one cause that the Hessians crossed there, or Lynde may have sat down at that point because they had bridged the river and opened a road there. It
is probable that he was one of a company of Dutch people who came into the neighbor- hood during the Revolutionary War, from the vicinity of Bennington, or country east of Albany.
The proprietors at their first meeting in June, 1780, called this place of Lynde's " an old possession on Poultney river," and voted to give him the privilege of holding it, " if laid out before the next meeting of the pro- prietors." The next meeting occurred in August, and as there appears no record of any survey or deed to him, he must either have relinquished his claim or sold it to John Smith, of Poultney, or to Michael Merritt- Mr. Merritt taking possession and surveying the same, this same month, on the 1st div. of Mr. Smith's right.
A little above this improvement of Lynde's, Abraham Sharp, a Dutch settler on the New York side, then at that point, called "New Haven," who came with his brother- in-law James Vandozer, or Vandozen, if no: also others of his countrymen, from near Bennington, was given the privilege by the proprietors, in Oct., 1780, of "covering with some proprietor's right all his possessions ex- tending from the upper part of the falls on Poultney river to the junction of said river with Castleton river, excepting Elisha Ham- ilton's lot, which shall not be covered by any other person to take away his labor."
Elisha Hamilton's lot, surveyed to him Aug. 1780, and laid where Hamilton Wescott now resides, reaching southward over the river and nearly to the river westward,-would thus appear to have been one of the earliest improvements in town; but whether im- proved by himself-he being said to be a resident of Tinmouth in 1779-or by some person of whom he purchased, we have no means of knowing.
The 2d division of Zadock Everest's right was laid out in July, 1731, next N. of " lot No. 5," made to run W. to the river ; but it appears that Mr. Sharp had a claim by pos- session to all the lands lying along the river west of " lot No. 5," and to the west parts of both the Hamilton and Everest divisions, as also to the land which laid between the two rivers as they formerly run, the junction a: that time being further down, below the : Frs- ent bridge, and the Poultney river sweeping westward around land owned by Mir. Sharp, in Vermont, which is now, in consequence
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of a change made in the river about 1830, considered to be in the State of New York.
Mr. Sharp appears to have covered his claims in Aug. 1783, with surveys on the 4th. divisions of the original rights of Jesse Sawyer and George Foot, the Foot division was deeded to him for £17 by Beriah Mitchell, Apr. 5, 1784, and both divisions quit-claimed by Gen. Clark in December 1783.
April, 1784, Joel Hamilton, who had come into possession of a half interest in " lot No. 5," and the Everest division north, for £ 20, deeds to Mr. Sharp 20 acres from the west end of the lot No. 5, and 30 acres from the Everest lot.
This Abraham Sharp was a noted hunter, and was called by the early inhabitants, "Old Abe." He married Jemima Vandozer, and had a son Abraham, who was the father of Robert. "Old Abe" was drowned on one of his hunting excursions, in the river near Granville, previous to March, 1789. Charles Rice was the administrator of the estate, which being insolvent, was sold, with the exception of the widow's interest, Oct. 27, 1789. Dr. Witherell finally purchased the whole estate.
James Vandozer, brother-in-law of Mr. Sharp, purchased of Heman Barlow, of Greenfield, N. Y., Sept., 1782, the 1st div. of Josephi Haven's right, laid out to Mr. Bar- low, in Sept., 1780. This lot must have been improved, and may have been settled by Mr. Vandozer and family at as early a period as the lands west of it. Tradition reports it was occupied by Vandozer and his son-in- law, Simeon McWithey, called by the old people "McQuivy," who lived in a log-house on the south side of the road, just west of Mr. O. P. Ranney's barns, in 1788.
Mr. Vandozer and his wife were old peo- ple and died at their place at an early day. He willed the west half of his farm to his grandson, Isaac McWithey, who sold about 12 acres to Isaac Cutler, Esq., in Nov., 1789, and the remainder to Russell Smith in Aug., 1795; Mr. Smith building a house on the same, which is now standing.
The east part of the farm, was inherited by Simeon and Sarah McWithey, who bought of Col. M. Lyon, in Sept, 1790, a building-lot on the north side of the road, on which they erected a dwelling-house.
Maj. Ebenezer Allen was allowed by the
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proprietors to cover with some proprietary right the possession in the north part of West Haven, which he had purchased of Joseph Hyde; and Benoni Hurlburt was granted a like privilege of laying out on some proprietor's right " a piece of land which he has had in possession a number of years, containing about 15 acres, provided he does not encroach upon any lands already laid out for public or private use." This lot of Benoni Hurlburt's lay on the bank of East Bay, south of Hiram K. Hunt's, and } was sold by him in July, 1784, to Luman Stone, of Litchfield, Ct. Benoni Hurlburt's name appears on a petition in the Secretary of State's office, together with those of Jo- seph Carver, Joseph Haskins, Jona. Hall and John Vandozer, dated at Fair Haven, Feb. 23, 1782, in which the petitioners com- plain that they have been unjustly treated and deprived of their property and rights by those who obtained the charter of the town without informing them or giving them an opportunity to be represented in the same, though they were " persons who had for a long time before improved the land," having fled " from the southern parts of New Eng- land to Vermont to resume its liberties and promote its interests "
The committee to whom the petition was referred reported that on account of the ad. verse party not being cited to appear at the hearing, the petition be laid over till the next session, and that as the petitioners had made improvements and sowed and raised grain, an order be issued that they be not disturbed in their possessions in the meantime. But May 26, 1782 Hurlburt, who had perhaps been bought over in the meantime, signs a remonstrance, dated at Cheshire, declaring that Carver is a transient person from Rhode Island, and had used his name on the peti- tion without his knowledge or consent, and against his interests.
Who Joseph Carver was, or Jona. Hall or John Vandozer, further than appears above, we are not informed, nor do we know where they located; but it is probable that they dwelt in the neighborhood of Hurlburt and not far from the falls on the Poultney river which are now known as Carver's Falls.
Joseph Haskins lived below the road south of where Otis Hamilton resides when the first surveys were made in 1730. It is said that " an old Indian" had made a pitch
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and built a log-cabin on the place with a view to holding it, but Gen. Clark located the 1st div. of his right over the same ground, surveyed and commenced building a saw-mill, on the north side of the Great Falls, now the " Dry Falls," when the Indian taking umbrage at such intrusion sought satisfaction by digging away a neck of land above the falls so as to change the bed of the river over the falls, to the western channel in which it now runs, destroying a valuable fall of water of some 150 feet.
It is said that the Indian had a fight with a bear, and came nigh getting devoured in the fray.
Another independent tradition is that Haskins changed the course of the river; while several old people have incidentally re- marked that he was in part of Indian blood, and it has been claimed that the change in the course of the river was the work of freshets. No doubt the natural wear of the stream and repeated freshets in the drift alluvium of this old water-basin, had much to do with the change; but considering the early, decided character of the tradition, with statements from some of the old people, that men were seen to come suspiciously away from the place of the change, leaving tools on the bank, it would not be improbable, when the water had worn away the bank to a narrow isthmus, the spade of Joseph Haskins, or of some other man of the name-there being two others, Silas and Benoni Haskins, then in the country, either on the Vermont or New York sidde-hadd secretly hastened the work commenced by the streamn itself.
It is a historical fact, that the streamn was changed about the time of a freshet in the spring of 1733, and vast quantities of sand and earth were carried down into East Bay, filling up and impeding the navigation of the Bay, which until then, had been accessi- ble to vessels of 40 tons burden, and prom- ised, had it continued of its original depth, to render the town along its banks a place of considerable commercial importance.
Harvey Howes states that when his father. John Howes, from Woodbury, Ct., first came into this country, sometime soon after the first surveys, probably in 1731 or'32, he came to Castleton, and thence followel down the "Hessian road" to East Bay, where the hulks of the Hessians' boats still lay, and the water in the Bay at that point was from 10 to 12 feet deep.
In fact, a town of considerable size was projected by the proprietors at a point just below the falls, as we shall see from the pro . prietor's records. The town plot, as drawn on paper and actually laid out at the head of the Bay, contained one acre to each pro- prietor's share, and is now in existence in the town clerk's office. Had the stream re- mained of its original capacity, the vast water-power of Carver's Falls, and the abun- dance of good timber then in the forests of the adjacent country, could scarcely have failed, to render the Fair Haven of the early times a commercial mart of no mean impor- tance to the whole western portion of the State. The Bay, connecting as it did with Lake Champlain would have afforded a cheap and easy channel through which ves- sels could have come in laden with ore and merchandise, and gone out freighted with produce, lumber and other products, in our day, with marble and slate.
As it was, it was made use of for many years, and as late as 1815, or later, by Asa Smith, Joseph Sheldon, Elizer and Chauncey Goodrich and others, as an outlet during the high water in the spring of the year for the rafts of timber and large product of the supe- rior pine lumber which the region produced.
Of further improvements previous to occu- pancy by the proprietors-we find no trace in the proprietor's records. It is not un- likely that there were others, especially in the West Haven part of the town on the shore of the lake; but the leading inhabi- tants, the principal settlers after Oliver Cleveland, John Meacham and Joseph Bal- lard, were those who came into the town after the act of incorporation, beginning about the year 1780.
Michael Merritt and Philip Priest froma Killingworth, Ct., appear to have been here in August of this year, and may have come in the spring. They settled in the west part of the present town, near the Poultney river. Mr. Merritt located where Jona. Lynde had commenced, and we hear he fur- nished the early comers with corn raised on his place before the other farms were ready to grow it.
In his deed to Mr. Merritt, John Smith says, land "joining on the rode by the hussion bridge which was formerly possessioned by Jonathan Lynds and granted to him by the proprietors of fairhaven at their meeting of the 16th July 1780."
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It was deeded by Mr. Merritt to his son, Peter, in Jan. 1813, and afterwards passed to Heman Stannard.
Mr. Merritt was on several important com- mittees for the proprietors; was chosen the first constable at the organization of the town, filled the offices of town clerk, treas- urer and selectman, and served in other pub- lic capacities.
MR. MERRITT was from Killingworth, Ct. He was born in 1738 ; married in Killing- worth, to his first wife, Lucy Chittenden, by whom he had the following children, born in Connecticut : Bartholomew, Michael, Martin, Ansel, Jemima, James, Nathaniel, Lucy, Lydia, Peter, and Rebecca.
Mrs. Merritt died Sept. 15, 1810, in her 74th year and Mr. Merritt married Sarah, widow of Charles Hawkins, Esq., on the 13th of December following. He died Aug. 18, 1815, in his 78th year, and was buried in the old village graveyard.
Mr. Priest was brother-in-law to Mr. Mer- ritt, having married his sister, Trubey, while in Connecticut. He located on his own pro- prietary right, in August, 1780, next east of Mr. Merritt, and first built a log-house on the ground where Hiram Hamilton now lives. Here he kept tavern for a number of years. In June, 1788, he sold Joel Hamil- ton 15 acres and must have removed about this time, or previously, to the residence oc- cupied by him till the summer of 1800, on the knoll south of and opposite Mr. Stan- nard's house. He sold the balance of his farm to Mr. Hamilton, and to Charles Haw- kins, partly in Sept., 1793, and partly in Apr., 1800, and went to Chateaugay, N. Y., where he died, suddenly, about 1816.
He was employed by the proprietors, in August, 1780, to lay out a school-lot, and charged them 3s. for one half day in doing it. The first meeting for the organization of a town government was holden at his house, Aug., 28, 1783, and he was made the first selectman. The town meeting of March, 1784, was also, like many of the meetings of the proprietors, held at his house; and we find his name as one of the selectmen as late as 1796.
His family were Trubey, Betsey, Noalı, Abi, Diana, Charity, Elizabeth, Merritt, Za- dock, Polly, Sally and Aaron.
son. He is said to have gone to Western New York and there died, and Zadock was a Methodist minister in Southern New York or Pennsylvanina.
Israel Trowbridge and Jeremiah Durand came from Derby, Ct., in the summer or fall of 1780, settling near the west line of Castle- ton, Mr. Trowbridge on the north, where the road enters the town from Hydeville, and Mr. Durand further south on the hill, near Alonson Allen's slate quarry.
Mr. Trowbridge was one of the proprietors named in the charter, and located, Sept., 1780, three divisions of his right-nearly 300 acres-in one body along Castleton line and river, and over land lying along the river, which, it is said, in one of the early surveys, a man by the name of Azariah Blancher, or Blanchard, " once pretended to own." He gave lot No. 34 to his son, Levi, in 1786, who, upon the death of his father, sold it, Mar., 1795, to Cornelius and David D. Board, of Castleton, from whom it passed to Hezekiah, father of Joshua Whitlock, now occupant.
The remainder of the estate appears to have been divided among Mary, the wife of Ralph Carver, of Castleton ; Elizabeth, the wife of Dr. Osee Dutton, of Derby, Ct .; Abi- gail, an unmarried daughter, and Hannah, the wife of Olney Hawkins, a grand-daugh- ter of Mr. Trowbridge.
Levi and Abigail sold the largest portion of the farm, in 1799, to Dr. Samuel Shaw, of Castleton. Levi sold the remaining 52 acres to Benj. Hickock, in 1804, and is said to have resided in the Russell Smith house, on the west street, until his removal to the West.
ISRAEL TROWBRIDGE was a son of Isaac Trowbridge of Stratford, Ct., and grandson of James Trowbridge, of Norwalk, and lately of Stratford, in April, 1716. He was baptized. at Stratford, September 30, 1722, and married Mary, daughter of Peter and Mary Johnson, of Derby, Ct., previous to 1753.
In his family were: Mary, Levi, Anna, Sarah, Elizabeth and Abigail.
Mr. Durand located his land next south of Mr. Trowbridge's, in Nov., 1780, on Thomas Ashley's right, getting a deed of the same from Col. Clark, in 1781. He sold 20 acres to Wm. Buell, in 1791, and 23 acres to Charles Boyle, in 1793; died in 1798, and the remaining 60 acres passed into the hands
Noah was an active politician on the Fed- eralist side, a pettifogger and noted anti-Ma- I of Isaac Cutler ; in 1807, to " Doct." Thomas
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Dibble; to Elisha Parkill, in 1817; is now owned by Alonson Allen.
Curtis Kelsey, sen., of Woodbury, Ct., came in 1780, buying of Josiah Grant, of Poult- ney, his proprietary right in Fairhaven. His 2d and 3d div. lots made nearly 300 acres. He removed his family from Wood- bury to Wells in the spring of 1781, where they remained until the summer of 1782, when, having erected a cabin and covered it with bark, nigh where Mr. Estey's barn is, he moved into town with his family. He was chosen by the proprietors one of the overseers of the highway in November of this year.
Mr. Kelsey was one of the wealthiest per- sons in town. In the Grand list, 1789, only Matthew Lyon, and Michael Merritt stood higher. In December, 1795, he deeded to his son, Lyman, about 83 acres. He sold in 1821, to his grandson, Harry Spalding, of Middletown. He had married Submitty Parsons, and had four children born in Kil- lingworth, Parsons who settled in West Haven, Orren, Lovisa, Lyman, and Curtis, jr .; who was three years old when the family came to Fair Haven.
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