USA > Vermont > Caledonia County > St Johnsbury > The town of St. Johnsbury, Vt. ; a review of one hundred twenty-five years to the anniversary pageant 1912 > Part 2
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"At a meeting of the Proprietors of the Township of St. Johnsbury held in the House of Jonathan Arnold Esq. in the said Township, in the County of Orange, on the 18th day of June, A. D. 1787-Alex Harvey Esq. was chosen moderator, Dr. Joseph Lord, Proprietor's Clerk. Voted that the several Rights in said Township (Exclusive of Two Lots of One-third Right to each of the ten persons who had entered the town in 1786, and who were admitted as Proprietors by reason of actual settlement-also one Full right for building Mills in said Township, and Five Public Rights-all of which said Rights are located and designated on the said Plan) be now drafted for."
"Thereupon Alex Harvey, Jos. Lord and Enos Stevens were authorized to prepare lots with numbers affixed, the same to be shuffled, and drawn out
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
against each Proprietor's name-David Cahoon Jr., and William Trescott in presence of and under superintendence of the Assembly, made draft of the lots, and in the said draft the lots came out to each Proprietor's name in the order required in the Proprietor's Book."
Harvey, Stevens and Cahoon were from Barnet and Lyndon : perhaps they represented the non-resident proprietors who held a good many rights. The one full right of 300 acres reserved for building mills, was located to include the powerful water fall on Passumpsic river, around which Arnold's Mills, Ramsey's Mills and Paddock's Foundries successively grew up.
II
CONTRIVING A NAME
"-of great renowned "Was skillful Merlin, namer of that town."
TRADITION OF THREE SONS-A NORMAN ADVENTURER-LURE OF THE NEW WORLD-PINE HILL PLANTATION-ROMANCE OF FANNY-THE FRENCH CONSUL-CONTRIVING THE NAME-RE- DISCOVERY OF THE TOWN GODFATHER-PORTRAIT IN THE ATHENAEUM-AN AMERICAN CLASSIC-IDYLL OF THE FARM- FEEDING QUAIL-BEES IN A KING BIRD-PERNICIOUS LETTERS -A VERSATILE CAREER-HONOR TO A NAME
THE NEW TOWN NAME
It is a singular circumstance that up to the year 1860 the facts in regard to the naming of this town were not generally known. Current tradition had it that Billymead, now Sutton, Lyndon and St. Johnsbury were named from Dr. Arnold's three sons, William, Josias Lyndon, and John; the latter by his early death having acquired the saintly prefix. With respect to Lyndon it was pointed out by Pliny H. White that probably Dr. Arnold, moved by patriotism rather than by parental pride, named both his son and the town, from his excellency Josias Lyndon, Governor of Rhode Island in 1768. As regards this town, the origin of the name was conclusively determined by an autograph letter handed me October 1860, by the antiquary Henry Stevens, who remarked "that'll tell you where you got your name." Before quoting from
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the letter we will get a glimpse of its author, who belonged to a family of the French nobility entitled
DE CREVECOEUR
"M. Michel Guillaume St. Jean de Crevecoeur, commonly called Mr. St. John, a native of Normandy in France," is the entry, Sept. 20, 1769, on his marriage certificate. Mr. St. John was his American name, assumed when he became a naturalized citizen : he also prefixed the name Hector on the title page of his books. On the deed of transfer of the Gray Court property in Ulster Co., N. Y., 1769, his signature appears as "Hector St. John, Gentleman." He was son of the Marquise de Crevecoeur, born Jan. 31, 1735, in the city of Caen ; and received a liberal education in France and England. In 1754 he sailed for the new world ; was for ten years in the midst of stirring events ; an adventurer, soldier, surveyor, explorer-here and there with youthful dash and energy characteristic of his Norman blood. He was with Mont- calm in Canada, an expert in artillery and engineering; he was at the capitulation of Fort William Henry in 1757; he won rank as lieutenant of battalion ; he traversed the great lakes region, explored the upper Susquehanna, was adopted into the Oneida tribe, lived in Nantucket and in South Carolina, sailed for Jamaica, wintered with Mohawk Indians among the Green Mountains.
Early in 1764 he was naturalized and became intensely and enthusiastically American in spirit. He bought a large tract of land near the Hudson, made a spacious clearing, drained 300 acres of bog meadow, planted an orchard, built a substantial house, married in 1770, an American wife, Miss Mehitable Tippett of Yonkers. He gave his plantation the name of Pine Hill, and there were born his three children, to the first of whom he gave the name, America Frances ; all of whom lived to occupy important positions in the social and diplomatic circles of France.
After some ten years of idyllic home life and literary diver- sions at Pine Hill, he set out for a visit to his father in the old home. The first incident on the trip was his arrest by the British who at that time were quartered in New York, and his im-
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CONTRIVING A NAME
prisonment on suspicion of being a spy. Three months later he received honorable acquittal and in 1780 sailed for France. The next untoward event was shipwreck on the coast of Ireland ; from this he escaped uninjured and in October crossed from Dublin to England where he spent a considerable time and sold to a London publisher the manuscript of his Letters from an American Farmer, three folio volumes, for thirty guineas ; original copies of which now bring a high price. He finally arrived at Pierrepont the paternal county seat in Normandy, Aug. 20, 1781, after an absence of 27 years. Here he entertained five officers of the American navy, "genteel discreet men from Massachusetts," who had just made their escape from the British military prison, and eventually he secured their safe return to Newburyport. By pen and per- sonal interview he began arousing interest among the people of France in American ideas and in the great struggle for inde- pendence.
THE FRENCH CONSUL
Under the terms of the treaty signed at Paris, Sept. 3, 1783, the independence of the United States was formally established ; at that time seventeen applicants appeared for the post of French Consul in the city of New York. The position was given to de Crevecoeur in recognition of his abilities, character and wide acquaintance with American men and affairs. Meantime the mis- carriage of letters left him unaware of tragic events that had occurred. On landing in New York, Nov. 19, 1783, he found to his dismay that his home at Pine Hill was in ashes, burned by the British and Indians ; his wife was dead and his children were miss- ing. Seventeen days of anxiety passed before they were found in the city of Boston.
"Here begins the romance of Fanny St. John." This was the theme of a story book published in Boston, perhaps sixty years after the events; which included the flight of Fanny, America Frances, from the British at the ravage of Pine Hill, being then about twelve years of age ; her destitute condition in Westchester ; her rescue and safe arrival in Boston under the protection of Gus- tavus Fellowes, a well known Bostonian. Referring to this in a
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letter to Gov. Bowdoin, her father speaks of "the wonderful series of hospitalities and kindness that my dearly beloved daughter Fanny has received from the Fellowes family." Moreover this friendly Fellowes appreciated the courtesies received by his cousin, who was one of the five naval officers entertained years be- fore at the Crevecoeur Villa in Normandy. Fanny was given a good education ; she with her brothers was by special Act made a citizen of the State of Vermont in 1787. She became the Countess d' Otto, having married the Secretary of the French Le- gation in New York, April 13, 1790; among the guests on that occasion were Thomas Jefferson, Col. Wadsworth and Jonathan Trumbull.
NOTE-This Trumbull was the man referred to by Washington in a council of war as Brother Jonathan. By a curious twist of usage that name came to signify the United States; and in time the humor of American caricature evolved a more original figure than John Bull-the Brother Jonathan of pa- ternal aspect, trousered in the flag of the Union and topped with the big hat of continental times.
St. John's Consulate at New York continued seven years with honorable record; he received courtesies from Washington, was intimate with Franklin, a special friend of Ethan Allen and had familiar acquaintance with many of the distinguished men of the day. He returned to France in 1790; in many ways promoted friendship between that country and this, and was accorded high rank as a litterateur and philanthropist. He was a member of the French Academy, moral and political science, and of the Philo- sophical Society of Philadelphia. He died at Sarcelles near Paris, Nov. 12, 1813, of a malady originally contracted in the old Sugar House Prison at New York.
ST. JOHN CONTRIVES THE TOWN NAME
In the letter to Ethan Allen above referred to May 31, 1785, the Consul writes : "If the General don't think it too pre- sumptuous, in order to answer what he so kindly said about names, I would observe that the name St. John being already given to many places in this country, it might be contrived by the appellation of St. Johnsbury."
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CONTRIVING A NAME
This extract, interesting to us as citizens of the town, was copied from the original autograph letter. Allen laid the matter before the Governor and Council, and before the grant was made, the name, as contrived, had been adopted and remains to this day unduplicated on the maps of the world. At St. John's nomination our neighboring town was named from the Duc d'Anville, and the first little city in the state from the Comte de Vergennes. He offers to get the seal of the state elegantly engraven on silver by the King's best engraver, also hopes he can procure from the King Louis XVI, some marks of his Bounty and useful presents for the State College. In 1787, by an Act of the General Assembly the Honorable St. John de Crevecoeur and his three children were adopted as citizens of this Commonwealth. Nearly 100 years later his biographer remarks that "on the district delimited to be called St. Johnsbury, has since arisen a flourishing and industrious village where temperance is observed in the strictest manner."
REDISCOVERY OF THE TOWN GODFATHER
As to the facts above noted additional interest was awakened in 1905 by what might be termed the re-discovery of the French Consul. It happened that at that time two young students at the Lycee in Paris were seated together. Presently one of them said, "are you an American?" "Yes." Then the questioner said, 'my ancestor was in America a hundred years ago or more and had the naming of a town." "Where was that?" "In the state of Vermont, and the town is St. Johnsbury." "That town," said the American, "was the home of my ancestor." This young man was Robert Turner, grandson of Gen. Stephen Hawkins, great- great grandson of Jeriah Hawkins, one of the earliest settlers of this town. The French student was Lionel de Crevecoeur, great great grandson of the man who had the naming of a town in Ver- mont. It then came out that his father Robert de Crevecoeur, not then living, had in 1883, published a voluminous and interest- ing biography of the Consul St. John. When this became known in St. Johnsbury, correspondence was taken up with Madame de Crevecoeur, resulting in the presentation by her to the Athenaeum of a portrait of St. John, a picture of Pine Hill plantation, and a
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
copy of the book, "Saint John de Crevecoeur, sa Vie et ses Ouvrages." Copious material from this biography was given by Mr. S. O. Todd in the Caledonians of June 1905, on file in the Athenaeum. The portrait is an engraving produced from profile sketch in black chalk and pastel; it was sent by the hand of his valet from Paris in 1786 to his son Alexander, then in Caen; on the back of the frame was inscribed in English, "St. John de Crevecoeur, Your Father."
AN AMERICAN CLASSIC
An additional discovery interesting to the general public was made in 1904 thro the revival of interest in our Colonial litera- ture. This was the re-issue in New York of "An Early American Classic, entitled Letters from an American Farmer, by J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur." Apart from any interest it may have in the town that bears his name, this book found generous recognition for its literary merit. It was written at Pine Hill and the first edition appeared in London, 1782; it was brought out in four languages by nine different publishers, in London, Dublin, Bel- fast, Philadelphia, Leyden, Leipsic and Paris. "The book," says the Countess d'Houdetot of France, "has met the greatest and most flattering success ; every one loves the author and esteems his character."
Charles Lamb wrote Hazlitt for a copy of de Crevecoeur's book on America ; and the lively, pictorial way in which the new world scenery and manners are therein depicted was pointed out by Hazlitt in the Edinburgh Review. Barrett Wendell thinks its portraiture of Colonial life is rather ideal; but, says Moses Coit Tyler, it may have stirred the imagination of Byron, Southey and Coleridge. President Washington wrote that he found in it "a good deal of profitable and amusive information." Some of its pages anticipate the vein of the Ik Marvel rural papers ; the idyl of life at Pine Hill, for example-where the farmer drives his plow, the wife sits knitting under the apple tree, the little boy rides in a chair screwed to the plow beam. His sympathies are extended to creatures that need befriending ; "instead of trapping and murther- ing the quail in midwinter where they light in the angles of the
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CONTRIVING A NAME
fences, I carry them chaff and grain ; the one to feed them, the other to protect their tender feet from freezing fast to the earth as I have observed them to do." He was obliged however to check the depredations among his bee hives : "I took a king bird that was snapping up quantities of my bees and opened his craw, from which I took 171 bees; I laid them out on a blanket in the sun-to my surprise 54 returned to life, licked themselves clean and joyfully went back to the hive, where they probably informed their companions of such an adventure and escape as I believe had never happened before to American bees," [With like genial spirit, Ik Marvel a century later, sees on his Farm at Edgewood, king-birds and bees. "I have not the heart to shoot at the king- birds, nor do I enter very actively into the battle of the bees. I give them fair play, good lodging, limitless flowers, willows bend- ing-as Virgil advises-in to the quiet water of a near pool."] It is of interest to us of later time to read in the appendix of Creve- coeur's book that in the city of New York "the streets are fre- quently cleaned and are lighted during the dark nights, also cer- tain of them have sidewalks paved with slabs of rocks and adorned with plane trees."
In one of his Letters the American Farmer remarks that life in this country is independent and tranquil, under laws that are simple and just, and that he himself has caused upwards of 120 families to come thither. This statement alarmed the mind of a certain conservative Englishman, Rev. S. Ayscough by name, who promptly came out with a pamphlet alleging the "Pernicious Tendency" of Crevecoeur's Letters as encouraging emigration from Great Britain ! This was in 1783, a century before the Ellis Island era. In this connection we may remark that if the Ameri- can Farmer is over optimistic, his friend The American Printer is wholly discriminating. For while Franklin is pleased that "the favorable light in which you have placed our Country will have the good effect of inducing many worthy European characters to re- move and settle among us"-he elsewhere assures the world that America is not a French Pays de Cocagne, where the streets are said to be paved with half-baked loaves, the houses til'd with Pancakes, and where the Fowls fly about ready roasted, crying, come, eat me!"
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"Un Voyage dans la Haute Pennsylvanie et dans l'Etat de New York" is the title of a work published in Paris by de Crevecoeur, 1801. It had contemporary value for its descriptions of scenery, settlements and Indians. A copy of this in three volumes, im- print of de Crepelet, Paris, 1801, is in the Athenaeum. The author's name on the title page carries the decoration-"Un Membre adoptif de la Nation Oneida." Perhaps his adoption as an Oneida Indian gave point to Brissot's remark that Madame d'Houde- tot in her salon at Paris-"proud of possessing an American Savage, wished to form him and launch him into society. But he had the good sense to refuse, and confine himself to the picked society of men of letters." This was characteristic of the man.
To the end of his life St. John was keenly alive to every thing that might contribute to human progress and betterment. He made one of the first attempts in this country at what is now called scientific agriculture ; he wrote to Ethan Allen for seeds of any grass, bush or plant likely to be useful or curious ; in France he published a treatise on the culture of the potato then little known; also helped the introduction of lightning rods into that country. He prepared for the French government voluminous data relating to economic conditions in New York state ; he established the first packet-line between New York and France ; he distributed samples of paper made from the bark of the linden tree, antici- pating the present day wood-pulp product; he became intensely interested in the initial experiments with steam as a motive power, respecting which he wrote the Duc d'Harcourt, fully con - vinced of its feasibility twenty years before Fulton drove his steamboat up the Hudson. Like his American friends Franklin and Rittenhouse and Jefferson, he was eager and alert in explor- ing the field of new ideas and practical applications of the arts and sciences.
It is a pleasure now to record on these pages that the man so little known in the town that perpetuates his name, was widely recognized in his day as a gentleman of culture and versatility, honored for his partriotism and philanthropy, for sweetness and dignity of character, whose life was devoted to the good of man- kind.
III
PIONEERING 1787-1790
"The hardy and restless backwoodsmen were now hewing their way into - the vast, sombre forests-frontiersmen of strong will and adventurous temper, accustomed to the hard, barren, and yet strangely fascinating life of pioneers in the wilderness."
Roosevelt.
A CLEARING IN THE WILDERNESS-NEWS FOR KING GEORGE-A PATRIOT IN CONGRESS-TOWN SURVEYS-FIELD BOOK OF SURVEYOR GENERAL-SLEEPY HOLLOW-PIONEERS OF 1786- A LOG HOUSE-GETTING MEAL, POTATOES AND MOOSE MEAT- HUGGED BY A BEAR-NEW LANDS ON THE PASSUMPSIC-RIVER TERRACES-THE PLAIN-ALTITUDES
"Felled the Forest And let in the sun."
St. Johnsbury Plain was an unbroken wilderness prior to 1787. On the 7th of May that year a man built his camp near the north end. The same month, with five other choppers, he felled and burned seven acres of forest. Early in June this was planted with corn "in the Indian manner," potatoes, squashes, beans, cucumbers and turnips. . In July ten more acres were chopped and sowed with oats and wheat mixed with clover.
"This work I did all by hand, not having one minute of ox-work about it. I have chopped besides the above on my homestead lot about 26
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acres and girdled 30 acres more, so that I have an opening of 43 acres be- sides the girdled land to begin on next spring."
"I labored under great disadvantages in making this beginning; the nearest mill was ten miles off, and most of my provisions I brought from 26-30 miles ; being under necessity of making a log canoe 30 feet long to freight in my stores by the river which was rapid and had several carrying places to pass."
"When I had chopped as much as I judged prudent I employed my hands in making roads and bridges and in surveying townships. I have cut out 16 miles of roads, dug and bridged where necessary ; one bridge I built 12 feet high and covered 80 feet long. I was at one time ten nights suc- cessively in the woods without shelter on the business of roads ; not one man was sick, and I believe there is not anywhere a more healthy country.
Your dutiful son, JONATHAN."
JONATHAN ARNOLD
The man who took this bit of summer outing in 1787 was Jonathan Arnold Esquire, somewhile sergeant and surgeon in the revolutionary army, member of the Continental Congress, chief proprietor and founder of St. Johnsbury. His abilities were by no means limited to building log canoes and chopping forests. Something of the same impetuous force and initiative that felled the old hemlocks on this Plain went into a document drafted by him eleven years before, and still extant in his handwriting. This was "a solemn, deliberate, desperate Act of popular sovereignty". that legislated the Colony and Dominion of Rhode Island out of the hands of King George on the 4th of May, 1776, two months before the Declaration of Independence at Philadelphia. That same night couriers were dispatched to all the colonies with the thrilling news. We are minded to take off our hats to the St. Johnsbury woodchopper whose fearless sense of right confronted the British Crown and set up in little Rhode Island the first inde- dependent state in America not counting the Mecklenburg Declara- tion. The second to declare its free sovereignty was the Green Mountain Tract, to which with axe and town charter in hand he migrated in 1787, being at that time forty-five years of age.
THE ACT OF REVOLT
The revolt of Rhode Island is no part of the history of St. Johnsbury. But as the Act that declared it, was formulated and
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PIONEERING
pushed thro the legislative assembly by the founder of our town, it is too important a document to be omitted; the substance of it is therefore here transcribed.
"An Act repealing an Act," etc. "Whereas in all states existing by compact, protection and allegiance are reciprocal, the latter being only due in consequence of the former-and whereas George the Third King of Great Britain, forgetting his dignity, regardless of the compact most solemnly entered into ratified and consigned to the inhabitants of this Colony by his illustrious ancestors, and till of late fully recognized by him-and entirely de- parting from the duties and character of a good King-instead of protecting is endeavoring to destroy the good people of this Colony and of all the Colonies, by sending fleets and armies to America to confiscate our property, to spread fire, sword and desolation throughout our country, in order to compel us to submit to the most debasing and detestable tyranny ; whereby we are obliged by necessity, and it becomes our highest duty, to use every means which God and nature have furnished, in support of our invalu- able rights and privileges, to oppose that power which is exerted only for our destruction."
"Be it therefore enacted by this General Assembly, and, by the authority thereof it is enacted, that an Act entitled, 'An Act for the more effectual securing to his majesty the allegiance of his subjects in this his Colony and Dominion of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations'-be, and the same is, hereby repealed."
The Act further provides for the substitution of the word Governor in lieu of King, in all commissions, writs or other civil documents, "and that no instrument in writing, of any nature or kind, public or private, shall, in the date thereof mention the year of the said King's reign." The original draft of this memorable declaration, in Arnold's bold handwriting, is preserved in the archives of the State whose independence it daringly asserted. It entitles his name to rank among the leaders who in those critical days crystallized the spirit of patriotism and ultimately secured our civic liberties.
IN CONTINENTAL CONGRESS
While in Congress, Arnold in the face of powerful opposition stoutly defended the independence of Vermont as against the claims of New York and New Hampshire. To a personal friend in the latter state he wrote :
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Philadelphia, Nov. 15, 1782.
"Dear Sir : Congress has been for several days on the affair of Vermont and upon the whole it appears that the present members will do nothing to its advantage. I have it from the friends of New York that a new state will probably be formed on Connecticut River having for its western line the Green Mountains, and its eastern they care not where. I thought these gentlemen might have imagined that New Hampshire had its public feelings as well as New York. I think it would not be amiss to suggest to the friends of New Hampshire that New York will probably set such a policy on foot, in order to secure the land west of the mountains and on the lake to themselves at Hampshire's expense-and that, as the only sure means of pre- venting such an event, it is the policy of N. H., to concede in the clearest and most decided manner to Vermont's independence. Propositions, I doubt not, have passed between some individuals of your state and New York to divide Vermont between them by the height of land ; but from what I can discover it will be dangerous for New Hampshire to depend on such a division ; and if New York agrees to it, I think it must be with a view to effect a future division of your state. I am the more confirmed in this opinion from senti- ments discoverable in the persons lately banished from Vermont, viz : Phelps and his companion, who are now in this city propogating every false and scandalous rumor that malice can invent to injure the people of that country, who have no agent or other person to contradict them. I must therefore again repeat that New Hampshire can only be safe in holding ju- risdiction to the river-leaving Vermont to its present limits Independent.
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