USA > Vermont > The history of Vermont, from its discovery to its admission into the Union in 1791. By Hiland Hall > Part 15
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. See Allen's Papers, pp. 1, 39. Letter from Peter Yates to James Duane, Albany, April 7, 1772.
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from a letter of Justice Munro to Gov. Tryon, dated in February following, and from affidavits which accompanied it, that the excite- ment of the settlers was much increased by the offering of rewards for Allen and the others, and by what they termed the "grand falsehoods" in the governor's proclamation in relation to the New York title, and that violent and threatening language was in common use against Tryon and his government. Munro in his letter speaks of the military organization which they had entered into, and says " he finds that any act of indulgence which the government offers is treated with disdain," and that by the best information he could get, the settlers were determined to oppose the authority of the government, " assigning for reason that should they comply it would weaken their New Hampshire title, and they should lose their lands ; for this reason they should fight till they died." Sheriff Ten Eyck of Albany, who went to Rupert and Pawlet to endeavor to arrest the parties named in the governor's proclamation, reported to him his inability to find any of them, and added " that from the conduct and behavior of those who were at home, though not particularly mentioned or concerned in the riot, he finds the greatest appearance of a determined resolution not to submit to the government, and this he found particularly verified by the conduct of eight or nine who were armed with guns and clubs, in which manner they came to the house of one Harmon, on Indian river,1 where he then was, and from their conduct it appeared what they intended."
Justice Munro, who, as we have before seen, was an agent of Mr. Duane and his associate land claimants, and who resided near the west line of Shaftsbury, ambitious to serve his principals and to stand well with the government, resolved to make a serious effort to capture Remember "Baker and take him to Albany jail. Baker's residence was a mile or more to the eastward of the present village of Arlington, some ten or twelve miles distant from Munro's. Munro. by means of a spy, having learned the precise position of things at Baker's house, with his constable Stevens and a party of ten or twelve others, surrounded the house a little before daylight on the 21st of March, 1772, and after a desperate struggle, in which Baker tras severely wounded, and his wife and little son also much injured succeeded in arresting him. He was immediately bound and placed in a sleigh, which was driven off toward Albany. Caleb Henderson and John Whiston, two of Baker's neighbors, attempted to stop the sleigh but failed, and Whiston was taken prisoner and carried
1 Indian river is a small stream that runs through Rupert and Pawlet.
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off by the party, but Henderson escaped. A messenger was imme- diately dispatched to Bennington to carry the news. Munro and his party drove about sixteen miles to Sancoik, where they stopped several hours to rest. In the mean time, ten men had been rallied at Bennington who rode with all speed to the ferry across the Hud- son, where the city of Troy is now situated. On arriving there, they found, as they had hoped, that they were ahead of Munro and his party, and they accordingly turned back on the road to Arling- ton, and after traveling six or seven miles, met them. Most of the party on coming in sight of the Green Mountain Boys fled to the woods, but Munro and his constable were captured and detained until the rescuers were well on their way with Baker to Bennington when they were released. Baker was so exhausted by loss of blood and by hard usuage, that he was almost helpless, and he was held on his horse by a man riding with him. The rescuers reached Mr. Breakenridge's in the north-east part of Bennington at two o'clock the next morning, having traveled more than sixty miles in twenty- four hours. It appears from several contemporaneous accounts of this affair that Baker and his family were treated in a very barbar- ous manner by Munro and his party. Munro, in his letter to Duane giving an account of Baker's rescue, complains of the want of spirit of his neighbors, and says " that if he had had but ten men that would have stood by him when the Bennington mob met him he should have had Baker in Albany jail, but all run for it only the two constables," and in a letter to Gov. Tryon, he makes com- plaint, that the men with him would not obey his orders " but all run into the woods when they ought to have resisted." 1
1 Rural Magazine, Aug. 1795. Connecticut Courant of April 21 and June 2d, 1772. Doc. Hist. N. Y., vol. 4, p. 776. Munro to Duane, March 28, 1772. Allen's Nar., 1776, p. 39. Fra Allen's History, p. 31. Miss Hemen- way's Vt. Magazine, No. 2, p. 124. N. York Narrative, 773. In the Docu- mentary History of New York, vol. 4, p. 777, a list of fourteen names is given as of " persons who rescued Baker " stated to have been produced in council, 26 May, 1772. The persons designated were all from Arlington and Sun- derland, and could not have been che actual rescuers. Uniform tradition has always ascribed the rescue to Bennington men. Munro, as stated in the text, calls them "the Bennington mob." Ira Allen in his history says, " an express was sent to Bennington with the tidings ; instantly on the news ten men mounted their horses and pursued them," etc., etc. In a biographi- cal notice of Remember Baker published in the Rural Magazine for August, 1795, when many who were actors in the affair were living, a detailed account of the whole transaction is given with the names of the rescuers, as follows (the men being designated by their subsequent titles), viz: Gen.
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This attack upon Baker heightened the animosity of the settlers against the Yorkers, and strengthened their determination to re- sist their encroachments at all hazards. Soon after this, Surveyor Campbell went with Hugh Munro, whom Ira Allen calls an " old offender," to survey a tract of land for him in Rupert, when, accord- ing to the New York account, the party were seized as prisoners by Cochran and others, who " conducted them to their tribunal as if they had really been malefactors, where after deliberating upon their fates it was resolved to chastise them severely. Sergeant Munro and the chain-bearers were beat with clubs unmercifully ; but to the deputy surveyor they showed a little more lenity, and he received only three blows from Cochran." The account further states that Cochran boasted of his exploits, saying he was a son of Robin Hood and would follow his mode of life, which sentiment was received with great applause by his party, and that "after this treatment, and every species of derision, Mr. Campbell and his assistants were conducted in triumph several miles, and then dismissed with a solemn denunciation that death would be their doom if they pre- sumed to return." 1
More stringent measures were also adopted by the settlers against the few men among them, who from timidity or some other cause, were willing to purchase the New York titles. Some of them gave doleful accounts to the New York governor, of the state of affairs in their neighborhood. Other statments of an alarming character came to him from other quarters. Justice Munro wrote him " that the rioters were enlisting men daily, offering fifteen pounds bounty to every man who joined thiem; that they struck terror into the whole country ; that his house was surrounded every night by rioters,
.Isaac Clark, Col. Joseph Safford, Major Wait Hopkins, Col. David Safford, and Messrs Timothy Abbott, Stephen Hopkins, Elnathan Hubbel, Samuel Tubbs, Ezekiel Brewster and Nathaniel Hohnes. This is doubtless a correct list. The account in the Rural Magazine states that on the return of the rescuers with Baker, they met in the night at the crossing of Hoosick river, "another party of men from the Grants in quest of Baker, and that the two parties having joined, proceeded on to Bennington. The list in the Documentary History probably gives the names of the men comprising this party, who were from Baker's neighborhood.
A brief account of the attack upon Baker, was published in the Connecti- cut Courant of April 28, 1772, and another in greater detail in that of June 9. In both the conduct of Munro and his party is represented as most un- feeling and barbarous.
1 Ira Allen in his history (pp. 27), states that Hugh Munro was whipped with bush twigs until he fainted.
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firing their guns, so that he was already worn out with watching, and that nothing saved him but the figure he made about his house with arms, etc., and that he hoped his excellency would lose no time in affording him relief." Counselor Yates at Albany, in a letter to Mr. Duane of the 7th of April, expressed his decided opinion that the civil power of the province was insufficient to subdue the rioters. "You," he says, " will stand in need of military force to bring these people to a proper sense of their duty, and obedience to the laws of the country, and until this happens you will, I presume, never recover the possession of your lands." But a still more formidable demonstration of the power and determination of the settlers occurred. Information, supposed to be reliable, had been received at Bennington that Gov. Tryon was on his way from New York to Albany by water, with a body of British regulars, to reduce them to submission. Upon which a general meeting of the com- mittees of safety and military officers was speedily held, at which, after due deliberation, it was unanimously resolved, " that it was their duty to oppose Gov. Tryon and his troops to the utmost of their power, and thereby to convince him and his council that they were punishable by the Green Mountain Boys for disobeying his majesty's prohibitory order of July 1767." A plan of action was agreed upon. Two pieces of cannon and a mortar were brought from the old fort at East Hoosick (Williamstown), with powder and ball, the military were warned to be in readiness, and every preparation for a vigorous defence was made. It proved, however, to be a false alarm. The troops were destined for Oswego and other western posts, and the governor was not with them. 1
This warlike demonstration of the settlers, following their other late hostile proceedings, seems to have produced some alarm in the mind of Gov. Tryon, and to have suggested to him the expediency of trying. what could be done with the rioters by negotiation. On the 19th of May, he laid his information in regard to this military display before his council, together with the draft of a letter he had prepared to forward to some of the rioters, which was approved by the council. The letter was addressed " to the Rev. Mr. Dewey and the inhabitants of Bennington and the adjacent country, on the east side of Hudson's river." It complained of "the many illegal acts they had lately committed against the peace and good order of the province," expressed a desire " to avoid compulsive measures while lenient
1 Ira Allen's Vermont, 32-35. Allen Papers, 37. Doc. Ilist. N. Y., vol. 4, p. 776-778.
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methods might prove successful," invited them, "by the advice of his council, to lay before the government the causes of their illegal proceedings," and expressed a disposition "to examine into the grounds of their behavior and discontent, with deliberation and candor, and as far as in him lay to give such relief as the nature of their situation and circumstances would justify." In order to enable them to lay before him and his council, a fair representation of their conduct, the governor engaged " full security and protection to any person whom they should choose to send on that business to New York, from the time they leave this town until they return," except Allen and the other persons named in his proclamation of the 9th of the previous December, and Seth Warner, "whose audacious behavior to a civil magistrate," he says, " has subjected him to the penalties of the laws of the country." 1
In pursuance of this invitation the committees of Bennington and adjacent townships met and appointed Captain Stephen Fay, and his son, Dr. Jonas Fay, their agents to repair to New York to represent them before the governor and council. They were the bearers of a letter signed by Mr. Dewey and some others, in which their grievances were briefly stated, and another from Ethan Allen, Seth Warner, Remember Baker, and Robert Cochran, whose appear- ance in New York had been proscribed in Governor Tryon's letter, in which a more particular account of the condition of the settlers, in their relations to the New York government, was given. Both acknowledged that they were under the lawful jurisdiction of New York by the king's order in council of 1764, but complained of the oppression of that government in regranting to others the lands which had before been granted to them, and in aiding an artful
1 The offence of Warner, here alluded to, occurred under the following cir- cumstances. In Munro's expedition to Arlington he had succeeded in carrying off Baker's gun, which had not been recaptured with its owner. Soon after Warner with a single companion rode to Munro's house and in the name of Baker demanded the gun. Munro refused to deliver it and seizing Warner's horse by the bridle commanded a constable and several other bystanders to arrest him. Warner immediately drew his cutlass and striking the pugnacious magistrate over the head felled him to the ground, and then rode off. The injury though severe was not dangerous. This exploit was looked upon in a different light by the Green Mountain Boys from that in which it appears to have been viewed by Gov. Tryon. Warner was in fact complimented for it by the proprietors of Poultney, with a pitch of 100 acres of land in that township. The vote is still found on the proprietors' records May 4, 1773, declaring it to be " for his valor in cutting the head of Esquire Munro the Yorkite." New York Narratice, and Allen Papers, p. 43. Ira Allen's Vt., p. 35. Slade, p. 26.
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and mercenary set of speculators in their efforts to deprive them of their possessions, to their utter ruin. In regard to their alleged illegal proceedings, they averred that they had done nothing more than was justified by the great law of self preservation, in the defence of their liberty and property. "If," says the latter com- munication, "we do not oppose the sheriff and his posse, he takes immediate possession of our houses and farms ; if we do, we are immediately indicted as rioters ; and when others oppose officers, in taking such their friends, so indicted, they are also indicted, and so on, there being no end of indictments against us, so long as we act the bold and manly part, and stand by our liberty." 1
The Messrs. Fay accordingly repaired to New York and presented the letters from the settlers to Gov. Tryon, who laid them with other papers relating " to the disorders and disturbances in Bennington and the townships adjacent thereto," before his council, and they were referred to a committee of that body, of which Mr. Smith, the historian, was chairman. On the 1st of July, the committee made a long report on the subject in which the great lenity and kindness which it was claimed had ever been shown by the New York gov- ernment towards the grantees and settlers under New Hampshire, were elaborately and ingeniously set forth, the committee coming to the conclusion that " the right of the New York patentees was in- controvertible," and that the settlers had no real grounds of com- plaint. Nevertheless the committee "in great tenderness for a deluded people " add, " we are desirous that your excellency should afford the inhabitants of those townships all the relief in your power by suspending until his majesty's pleasure shall be known, all pro- secutions on behalf of the crown, on account of the crimes with which they stand charged by tlie depositions before us, and to re- commend to the owners of the contested lands under grants of this province to put a stop during the same period to all civil suits con- cerning the lands in question." This report was adopted by the council and entered on its minutes, and with a copy from the min- utes of so much of it as is given above together with a letter from Gov. Tryon approving of the same, the messengers returned to their constituents. These terms on their first view were thought by the settlers to furnish them complete relief, as is shown by an article published in the Connecticut Courant, bearing date August 22d, 1772, in which an account is given of their proceedings on the re-
' This correspondence was published is the Connecticut Courant, of July 14, 1772, by request of Ethan Allen, as stated in that paper. It is found in full, in Slude, pp. 22-29.
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turn of their agents. The article was evidently from the pen of Ethan Allen, and it concluded as follows :
" After our agents received copies of the minutes of council and also a letter from his excellency, purporting his approbation and compliance therewith, they returned to Bennington with great joy, warned a meeting of that town and the adjacent country, which was held on the 15th of July ultimo, and before a large auditory of people, the copy of the minutes of council was read and also his excellency's letter of compliance with the same, which diffused universal joy through the country of the New Hampshire Grants ; and the people were at strife in doing the most exalted honor to Governor Tryon. And having at Bennington a cannon, it was discharged sundry times in honor of his excellency and his majesty's honorable council, and after the report of the cannon each several time, the whole audience gave a huzza in acclamation, good will, gratitude and vocal honor to Governor Tryon. And Captain War- ner's company of Green Mountain Boys under arms, fired three volleys of small arms in concert and aid of the glory. His majesty's health, also a health to his excellency and his majesty's honorable council was drunk, with full flowing bowls, and confusion to Duane and Kempe and their associates, hoping peace and plenty may abound."
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CHAPTER XIII.
NEGOTIATIONS, PUBLICATIONS AND COLLISIONS; RIGHT OF REVOLUTION AGAINST OPPRESSION.
1772-1773.
The supposed reconciliation a failure - Collisions of claimants continued - Col. Reid's tenants at Panton and New Haven dispossessed - His patent in violation of the king's order of July 1767, and void -The New Hampshire claimants, the first to occupy the land, had been previously driven off by him - Correspondence between Gov. Trvon and Allen and the others who had dispossessed Reid - Surveyor Stevens attacked and sent out of the territory - The New York claimants few in number and with their own people against them, are no match for those under New Hampshire, who flock into the territory and occupy the lands - Breakenridge and Hawley agents to London -" The state of the right of New York," etc., reported to the assembly, and published with an Appendix giving a highly colored account of the violent and tumultuous proceedings of the settlers - Their conduct compared with that of the people in the early stages of the American revolution and defended as a justifiable revolt against governmental oppression.
THE rejoicing of the settlers, over the supposed arrangement of their difficulties, was premature and of short continuance. The engage- ment of the governor and council might be considered as furnishing sufficient security against public prosecutions for past violations of New York laws, but the resolve in relation to the suspension of civil suits concerning the contested lands was advisory only, and left it at the option of the claimants to comply or not as they should think proper: Besides the language of the treaty was not sufficiently comprehensive to embrace all the occasions of dissention and tumult. Some of them at least still remained, of which an example was soon furnished.
It has been already mentioned that Surveyor Cockburn had been arrested on Onion river by Baker, Warner and others, brought to Castleton and there discharged, on learning the favorable result of the negotiation with Tryon, of which they had till then been ignorant. During their absence the party had also forcibly expelled some tenants of Col. John Reid from their possessions on Otter creek. On being informed of these proceedings, Gov. Tryon addressed a letter of sharp rebuke " to the inhabitants of Bennington and the adjacent country," charging that such conduct " during the very time their commissioners were at New York waiting the determination of the government on their petition, was a breach of faith and honor," and
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requiring their immediate assistance in reinstating the expelled parties in their former possessions.
This letter of Gov. Tryon was taken into consideration, and an answer returned to him by a meeting of the committees of Benning- ton and ten other townships, held at Manchester, on the 25th of August. The answer denies that there was any breach of faith in the acts complained of, for the reason that the messengers who went to New York were not authorized to complete any arrangement, that the binding force of the treaty could only commence on its ratifica- tion by the public meeting at Bennington on the 15th of July ; but that if there could be any breach of faith during the pendency of the negotiation, Surveyor Cockburn was first guilty of it by invading their territory ; that it was understood by them to be implied in the terms of the arrangement " that no further settlements or locations on their lands, granted under the great seal of New Hampshire should be made until his majesty's pleasure should be obtained as to the validity of the grants ;" that if such was not the understand- ing, they begged to be undeceived by him, " declaring that such locations and settlements on their lands, would be incompatible with friendship, and had all along been the bone of contention." The expulsion of the tenants of Col. Reid was justified on the ground that it was only a restoration to the real owners of property, of which Col. Reid had previously deprived them by force. The fol- lowing is the language of the committee on that point.
" Our people having notice of Mr. Cockburn's intrusion on our borders, rallied a small party, and pursued and overtook him and his party ; and in their pursuit, passed the towns of Panton and New Haven, near the mouth of Otter creek ; dispossessed Col. Reid of a saw-mill, in said Panton, which by force and without color, or even pretence of law, he had taken from the original owners and builders, more than three years before, and did, at that same time, extend his force, terrors and threats into the town of New Haven ; who, by the vicious and haughty aid of Mr. Benzel, the famed en- gineer, with a number of assistants under their command, so terrified the inhabitants (which were about twelve in number), that they left their possessions and farms to the conquerors, and escaped with the skin of their teeth, although they had expended large sums of money in cutting roads to, and settling in that new country, as well as fatigued, and labored hard in cultivating their farms. Col. Reid,, at the same time, and with the same force did take possession of one hundred and thirty saw logs, and fourteen thousand feet of pine boards, which boards were made in the same mill, and all lying thereby,
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all which he converted to his own use. Not long after, the original proprietors of said mill did reenter and take possession thereof, but were a second time attacked by Col. Reid's steward, with a number of armed men, under his (supposed) instructions and by their supc- rior force and threats, obliged to quit the premises again -all which tenements, said Reid occupied and enjoyed until dispossessed, as your excellency's letter complains of."
The committees therefore declined to aid in restoring the posses- sion to Col. Reid's tenants and expressed the conviction that if his excellency had known by what unlawful means he had originally obtained possession, he would not have required it. This answer of the settlers was received by Gov. Tryon, and laid before his council the Sth of September, and by that body treated as " highly insolent and deserving of sharp reprehension." The council advised him that, in their opinion, the opposition to the government had become so formidable that it " could not be effectually suppressed without the aid of regular troops." From this time it was evident that the negotiation was a failure, and no further regard appears to have been paid to it on either side.
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