USA > Vermont > Vermont in quandary, 1763-1825 > Part 18
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29
186
THE AFTERMATH OF UNION
of the state to amend or alter the provision of the Constitution which granted universal manhood suffrage. In this letter he raised the question "is there not danger in some cases that those who are persons of property may experience injustice & great injury in an undue appropriation of their property, from a combination of those who have none?" The other states, he said, "have generally if not individually in their Constitutions of Government .. . fixed a certain amount of property to be really owned or possessed as a requisite qualification."1
Possibly the proposal made by Fletcher was discussed at the meeting of the Council of Censors in 1792. Its reports did not recommend property qualifications for the suffrage in Vermont like those formerly required while Vermont was a part of New York. It did, however, recommend that the unicameral system of Vermont be replaced by the bicameral system, but this recom- mendation was not adopted by the Assembly because the attach- ment of the majority of the inhabitants to their democratic Con- stitution was too strong for them to approve of such a conserva- tive amendment. Therefore, conservatives contented themselves with ridiculing Chittenden as a backwoodsman who lacked polish. They rejected the idea that Chittenden was the poor man's gov- ernor and that Tichenor would be the rich man's governor.2
Although the conservatives were not successful in revising the Constitution, they were fairly successful in their efforts to reward their friends in New York for their help in securing New York's recognition of Vermont's independence. Yorkers who were prom- inent in New York before and after the Revolution either were granted land on the payment of nominal fees, or were enabled to purchase lands at extremely low prices, probably in partial pay- ment for their services.
One John Kelley, a Yorker land-speculator and a veritable Talleyrand in his ability to keep on good terms with the various political regimes in Vermont, doggedly represented the Vermont interests of both Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary leaders in
1. N.Y.S.L., Isaac Tichenor Papers, June 2, 1792. The Tichenor Papers were almost totally destroyed in the State Library fire of 1911.
2. Vermont Journal, Aug. 11, 1794.
187
THE AFTERMATH OF UNION
New York. Before and after 1791, he was active in securing from the Vermont Assembly, which was at this time friendly to New York, land grants for himself and his clients. Among the old Yorker grantees, he numbered as his clients Cadwallader Colden. The latter wrote Kelley from Albany, October 19, 1793, to take any "measure ( that you would do in your own case) to recover or get compensation for the Property our family lost in the State of Vermont."3 Other Yorkers whom he represented or knew in- cluded John Jay, John Mckesson, John Cozine, William Duer and Alexander Hamilton.
When in Vermont, he was careful to keep on friendly terms with Nathaniel Chipman, Isaac Tichenor and other powerful lead- ers. Kelley was personally interested in discovering how the political changes in Vermont would affect his own fortunes. Before the Revolution, he had owned land in twelve New York grants, and also blocks of land in military patents. He attempted to secure lands from the Assembly to compensate him for the lands which he had lost as a result of the Vermont Revolution.4. The Assembly compensated him for his losses. On March 5, 1787, he received grants of land in Fairfield, St. George and Kellybrook, and he was permitted to make up the balance of his losses from vacant lands. Some of these lands, which now lie in the town of Lowell, passed immediately into the hands of his creditors, Alex- ander Hamilton and William Livingston who, in turn, sold them to William Duer, a prominent New York business man.5 Indeed, during the meeting of the New York and Vermont commissioners in 1790, it had been agreed that Kelley would be compensated to enable him to pay his debts.6
Another Yorker who sought and won compensation was Samuel Avery who had invested in New York and New Hampshire grants many years before the Revolution. In 1789, the Assembly granted him fifty-two thousand acres. It also rewarded John Jay, who had supported Vermont's independence, by honoring the petition in
3. Tichenor Papers.
4. See Noe, Vermont State Papers, V. 414-416.
5. Hemenway. A. M. (ed.), The Vermont Historical Gazetteer ( Burlington, 1868- 1891), 5 vis. MI, 276; Davis, Joseph S., Essays in the Earlier History of American Corpo- titions ( Cambridge, 1917), 2 vols., II, 277.
6. Journal of the Assembly of Vermont ( Rutland, 1792), Oct. 27, 1792.
-
.
188
THE AFTERMATH OF UNION
which Kelley and Chipman had recommended that a town be granted to him.7 The town, to which he gave his own name, is situated in the northern part of the state.
The number of men prominent in the political and business life of New York who appear in the seventeen-nineties as owners of land under either New Hampshire or under Vermont title is suffi- ciently large to justify the assertion that Yorkers benefited by the reconciliation of Vermont and New York. Unfortunately for those who were granted land by Vermont or who bought land from Vermonters, the available land in the state was limited in area and lay almost wholly in inhospitable mountainous areas. Jay, for example, did not realize upon his holdings as he had perhaps hoped.
Vermont's reconciliation with New York, however, was neither stable nor permanent. Chipman and his party had not reckoned with the resourcefulness of Vermonters in finding new ways and means of fleecing Yorkers and other speculators who owned lands in Vermont. After 1791, Vermont landjobbers kept on buying lands at tax sales and selling them at a profit. The Assembly con- tinued to pass bills authorizing towns to levy penny or two-penny taxes on each acre of land, the revenue from which was to be used for local public improvements. In the long run, absentee owners would benefit by such improvements because these would tend to increase the price of their lands. Certain of these acts, however, betrayed a long-existent bias against absentee owners. The inhabitants of Fletcher, for example, petitioned the Assembly to tax its lands at three cents per acre for the twofold purpose of building roads and forcing absentees to sell their lands. The peti- tioners complained that "the principal part of the landowners of Fletcher [are] not living in sd. town and they [are] estimating their Lands at so high a rate that the sale of their lands is far from rapid which deprives us of inhabitants." 8
The sale of land for the non-payment of taxes opened wide the door for fraud and a final surge of land speculation in Vermont. One speculator, Ebenezer W. Judd, one time Middlebury resident.
7. Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, III, 110-111.
8. Manuscript Vermont State Papers, XX, 43.
3
189
THE AFTERMATH OF UNION
secured lands sold for taxes by underhand methods.9 On one occa- sion, Judd endeavoured to purchase lands by persuading a tax collector to place absentee-owned land on sale, despite the fact that they both knew that the land taxes had been paid by the lawful owner. He also attempted to obtain lands by paying back taxes, claiming falsely that he was the absentee and lawful owner.10
One absentee-owner said that these tax sales were surrounded with "great secrecy & apparent conniving to keep People in Ignor- ance how the Business was & what Land was likely to be lost."11 Another non-resident flatly charged that tax sales were calculated solely as a means of speculation in land.12 Joseph Fay, ex- Vermonter, now living in New York, wrote James Whitelaw that "the Lands in your Country are shamefully taxed, it has become almost the only profitable speculation, the value of Lands are lessened in market, owing to such numerous taxes which so fre- quently change the titles and render them perplexed. . . . "13
To guard against fraud, many absentee-owners empowered James Whitelaw, one time Surveyor-General, and other Vermont- ers, to exercise watch and ward over their lands. Whitelaw dis- charged his responsibility faithfully towards his clients and on occasion he purchased lands at tax sales for himself. At one sale he purchased six and a half rights for two pounds, ten shillings, lawful money.14
The end of Yorker speculation in Vermont lands was, however, already in sight because most of the desirable lands in Vermont had been granted. Old wounds which had been reopened by the tax sales scandal were soon healed completely. Furthermore, Yorkers had new fields for land speculation in the western part of their own state which were greater than those opened after the French and Indian War in the northeastern part of the old Royal Province of New York, now the state of Vermont. Land sales in Vermont lagged because, as a correspondent wrote Ira, Yorkers did not like to purchase lands in Vermont except in large
9. Whitelaw Papers, French to Whitelaw, June 12, 1799. 10. Ibid.
Il. Ibid., Williams to Whitelaw, June 14, 1799.
12. Ibid., Joseph Fay to Whitelaw, Sept. 3, 1797.
13. Ibid., Fay to Whitelaw, Sept. 3. 1797.
14. Ibid., Jan. 2, 1790.
190
THE AFTERMATH OF UNION
tracts and then only if the price were low and the convenient situation of the lands could be proved. Because of the vast amount of land now on sale in New York "of excellent quality and in- disputable title .. . " he said, "purchasers here are very timid and cautious with respect to Purchasing in Vermont ... unless they can be well satisfied with the Authenticity of the title and the reasonableness of the price."15
Speculation in New York land and lands elsewhere lessened greatly the interest of Yorkers in Vermont. The only remaining undecided land question between the two states was the status of confirmatory patents issued by New York before 1772. Before that year, many New Hampshire grantees had sought confirma- tion of their New Hampshire titles by New York. Sixty confirma- tory patents had been granted and nineteen issued.16 Thousands of acres had been sold by owners of New Hampshire grants to secure funds to pay for the confirmation of their titles by New York. Prior to 1791, Vermont courts had not passed upon the legality of these confirmatory patents. After the "considerable revolution," the opposition to the Allens under the leadership of Chipman forced a decision upon their legality. Chipman, it is said, recognized that New York's claim to Vermont lands since 1664 was legal and not the New Hampshire title. As Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont, he rendered a decision in 1791 in the case of Paine & Morris vs. Smead which, as his brother, Daniel, later wrote, did substantial justice to both parties.17
The litigation arose when the defendant, Smead, seized a parcel of 3,000 acres which had been sold by New Hampshire grantees ( of which he was one ) to pay the New York confirmation fees for other lands they owned. Smead defended his actions by claiming that its sale was illegal because Vermont did not recognize any title derived from New York. The plaintiffs, Paine and Morris, argued that Smead had agreed to the sale of the parcel and also that all the persons involved had so agreed. In his decision, Chip- man decided that a title derived from New Hampshire which had
15. N.Y.S.L., Ira Allen Papers, 1774-1793, James Savage to Ira, Feb. 5, 1792.
16. Jours, Vermont in the Making, 110-112.
17. Chipman, D., The Life of the Honorable Nathaniel Chipman ( Boston, 1846), 101.
١
191
THE AFTERMATH OF UNION
been confirmed by New York after 1764 was a legal title in Ver- mont. He added, however, "had the question arisen between a New York claimant and a claimant under New Hampshire, who had disagreed to these proceedings and refused any benefit under the second grant, it might have had an other consideration; at least it would have stood a more favorable light." In answer to the defendant's contention that the sale of the 3,000 acres had been wrung from the New Hampshire grantees under duress, the court replied, that it was "a wholly new doctrine that the great- ness, or, if you will, the enormity of the consideration given, should invalidate a grant." 18
This decision validated all confirmatory patents which had been generally accepted by the confirmees, thereby ending all disputes between New York and Vermont over land titles. Chipman's achievements in securing a compromise of the Vermont-New York land title dispute in a manner very favorable to Vermont, his activities in the ratifying convention and his decision in the case of Paine & Morris vs. Smead entitle him to a respected place in Vermont history as a man who demonstrated a capacity for con- structive statesmanship.
Chipman's greatness rests also upon his recognition that land politics was not alone responsible for the reluctance of many Ver- monters to enter the union. He saw clearly that the commercial ties between the Champlain Valley and the Province of Quebec were largely responsible for the separatism of the Allens and others liv- ing in the Champlain Valley. As a spokesman for the Southwest and as a Hamiltonian nationalist, he sought to end this aloofness and indifference to the United States by building a canal to con- nect the Hudson River and Lake Champlain. To help win Ver- mont's ratification of the Constitution, he and his associates had employed the rumor that such a canal was to be built. In October, 1791, a resolution was introduced into the Vermont Assembly re- questing "that the Legislature take into consideration the expedi- ency of opening a commerce between the waters of Lake Cham- plain and Hudson's River, and also rendering the navigation of
18. Vermont, Supreme Court Reports (1824), I, 56-59.
192
THE AFTERMATH OF UNION
the Connecticut River more easy and advantageous for traders." 19
Sometime during the following winter, Chipman discussed with Philip Schuyler, New York's foremost advocate of a State canal system, the building of a Hudson-Champlain canal. Schuyler thought that canals should be built around the Little Falls of the Mohawk and that the remainder of that river should be made navigable. He agreed with Chipman that a canal to connect the Hudson with Lake Champlain was highly desirable. New York's commerce would be greatly increased by these canals because they would furnish New York with the means of extending its commercial influence north and west into the hinterland of its great rival, Montreal.20
Chipman described the effect of a Champlain canal upon the trade of Quebec and New York. "Were a water communication opened as proposed," he wrote Schuyler on January 25, 1792, "the Quebec trade would be immediately deserted except for lumber- the whole would center in New York." After enumerating and describing the agricultural and mineral resources of both shores of the lake, he predicted that "it would not be extravagant to sup- pose that through this channel only New York would in less than ten years command the trade of 100,000 people."21
In the same year the Northern and Western Inland Lock Navi- gation Companies were chartered by the State of New York to make the Mohawk navigable and to connect the Hudson with Lake Champlain. Philip Schuyler, President of both companies, appealed to merchants in New York to purchase stock. Stock- holders of the company which was chartered to build the Cham- plain Canal soon totalled 562 in New York, 110 in Albany and included such firms and persons as Leroy & Bayard, Rufus King, Robert Troup and Gilbert Aspinwall.22 During the spring of 1792, the canalizing of Wood Creek and the building of locks began. From the start, however, the Northern Inland Lock Navigation Company experienced unforeseen difficulties because its engineer- ing staff was inexperienced, although the chief engineer, James
19. Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, IV, 448.
20. N.Y.P.L., Schuyler (Canal) Papers, Chipman to Schuyler, Jan. 25, 1792. 21. Ibid.
22. The lists of stockholders are in the Schuyler (Canal) Papers.
1
٦
193
THE AFTERMATH OF UNION
McCotter, claimed to have had invaluable training in the build- ing of canals in Scotland. Furthermore, the financial strength of the company was sapped by the failure of 240 subscribers to pay for their stock.23 Possibly, many defaulted because they were financially embarrassed by the business slump which sent Hamil- ton's friend, William Duer, to a debtor's jail.
Private finance in the end proved incapable of providing suffi- cient funds to complete the Champlain Canal. Therefore public financial aid was requested by the company. New York State re- sponded by granting subsidies totalling $37,000 to each of the companies. The continued poor performance of the Western and Northern Inland Lock Navigation Companies caused the state to oppose further grants of public funds, beyond instructing the State Treasurer in 1795 to purchase 200 canal shares.24
Philip Schuyler endeavoured to secure financial aid for the Northern Company from Vermont even though he had been warned in advance of the hostility of the inhabitants of the Con- necticut Valley to the Champlain Canal. John Williams, a South- westerner, wrote Schuyler on July 10, 1793, that "the people on this side of the Green Mountains and on the East side of the Lake are anxious that the Canal should be completed, but they say an opposition to an encouragement is made by Members East of the Green Mountains."25 Undismayed by the opposition, Schuyler wrote Chittenden on October 17 requesting that he use his in- fluence to secure aid for the distressed company. He proposed that the Assembly either grant an outright cash subsidy or pur- chase a number of shares of stock. "It is certainly needless," he said, "to detail the advantages which will be derived by the com- munity from a completion of the contemplated work."26 Chit- tenden referred the letter to the Assembly. A committee was ap- pointed which recommended that the Assembly authorize the state to purchase twenty shares.27 Much to Schuyler's dismay, the Assembly never acted on this recommendation.
23. Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, IV, 335.
24. Whitford, N. E., History of the Canal System of the State of New York ( Albany, 1906), 2 vols .. 1, 34.
25. Schuyler (Canal) Papers.
26. Records of the Governor und Council of the State of Vermont, IV, 449-450.
27. Ibid.
1
194
THE AFTERMATH OF UNION
Failing to secure any further aid, the company could not fulfill the expectation that it would complete a canal able to carry the bulky raw materials of the Champlain Valley to the mouth of the Hudson. By 1797, more than $100,000 had been spent without producing the results desired. The Champlain Canal waited a quarter of a century to be completed.28
As a result, bulky articles had to be shipped from the valley to Quebec. Yet Quebec as a market for lumber, no less than as a source of supply for manufactures, continued to disappoint the Allens and other Vermonters for some years after Vermont entered the union. When the United States Customs District was estab- lished at Alburg, Vermont, in 1791, Vermonters had protested that they would be forced to pay double duties, one at Quebec, and another at Alburg. This protest was undoubtedly made in anticipation that large amounts of European goods would enter the state via Quebec. But the amount of these importations re- mained relatively small in the early nineties. A revealing com- mentary on the small volume of the trade between Vermont and Quebec is found in the unhappy business career of Stephen Keyes before he was appointed as the first American Customs Collector at Alburg. He sought the position because of his losses in the Canadian market. He had acquired a good reputation in Mont- real and Quebec as a lumber merchant; but the continued depres- sion in the market for that article and his "misfortunes due to un- certainty of navigation of Lake Champlain" had forced him to retire from business.29
Regardless, however, of the unfavorable conditions at this time in the Quebec lumber market, the failure of Schuyler's Company to complete the Champlain Canal dealt a body blow to Chipman's efforts to strengthen the commercial ties of the Champlain Valley with the United States. Political union was not followed by com- mercial union, the lack of which Chipman saw was largely re- sponsible for the continuance of separatist feelings among his fellow Vermonters in the Champlain Valley.
28. Whitford, op. cit., I., 409-410.
29. Vermont State Papers, XIX, 24.
.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Allure of Canadian Lands
Although the Quebec market was in the doldrums, the interest of Vermonters in the Canadian province continued undiminished in the years immediately after Vermont joined the union. Whereas in the Critical Period the chief interest of Vermonters in Quebec had been freedom to trade with that province, in the years im- mediately after federation their chief interest was in the acquisi- tion of Canadian lands. This interest was the more intense be- cause most of the desirable lands in their own state were already granted. The decade of the nineties has been often referred to as the Golden Age in Vermont's history, but it was not the Golden Age for land speculation. The reservoir of land which had been tapped successively by speculators in New England, New York and Vermont had at last run dry.
Consequently, Vermonters would have to migrate to new fields for land speculation or abandon it for other activities. A few re- sponded to the lack of good lands in Vermont by going to New York and at least one, Ebenezer W. Judd, abandoned land specu- lation to engage in selling Vermont marble. The majority, how- ever, chose to seek ungranted lands lying near by in the Canadian province. These lands were eyed hungrily by Vermonters who looked forward eagerly to securing the consent of the province to their engaging in land speculation. Profits on either side of the border depended largely on securing land before the arrival of the settler. The Vermonters' expectations for profitable invest- ment in Canadian lands were confirmed by the knowledge that the New England frontier was approaching the province.
A generation before the Revolution, the British government had attempted, but unsuccessfully, to deflect the American frontier from the west to the Province of Quebec by the Royal Proclama- tion of 1763, which promised grants of land and the establish- ment of a provincial assembly. Not until 1783, or thereabouts, had
196
THE ALLURE OF CANADIAN LANDS
the frontier advanced far enough north to be even poised on the border. What the British had failed to effect a generation before by a Royal Proclamation was now effected by the lack of desirable lands in Vermont and elsewhere in New England. Quebec was becoming an attractive place for Americans to settle.1
The boundary of 1783 did not present any natural obstacles to the passing of settlers over the frontier from Vermont into Que- bec. It cut across the natural routes of transportation, communi- cation and migration. The province could be reached easily by passing from the upper Connecticut River into its southeast cor- ner. West of the Green Mountains, whose northward extension into Quebec is known as the Notre Dame Mountains, settlers could enter through the Lake Memphremagog gateway or through the Missisquoi River Valley which crosses and recrosses the border, or through the major gateway, Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River.
The desire of Vermonters to settle in Quebec posed a problem for the Canadian government which was made more delicate and perplexing by the fact that these settlers were no longer British subjects but American citizens. The first British response to the approach of the American frontier was to slam shut the back doors of their province. Lord North instructed Haldimand, July 24, 1783, to exercise the greatest care that all applicants for land take the usual oaths and make a declaration acknowledging the British Parliament as the supreme legislative power. At the same time, he warned Haldimand to be on guard against "disaffected persons becoming settlers in Quebec."2
The attitude of the British towards the loyalists from the Amer- ican states who arrived in the province during and immediately after the Revolution was very different. Haldimand cared for them to the best of his ability; he gave them provisions and granted them land at some distance from the border. He forbade loyalists to settle near it and, to enforce this prohibition, he threatened to burn the makeshift dwellings of those who had settled there.3
1. Hansen, M. L., Brebner, J. B., The Mingling of the Canadian and American People's (New Haven. 1940), 68-69.
2. N.Y.P.L., William Smith Papers.
3. B, LXHI, 269.
197
THE ALLURE OF CANADIAN LANDS
One reason for his threats of severity arose from his fear that settlers near the border would engage in smuggling, as they had done near the close of his negotiations with the Allens. Another reason was Haldimand's desire to provide a barrier against Ver- mont by keeping the border a wilderness. Canada, declared Philip Skene, "will be liable to be insulted even in times of Peace by a Banditti, or free Booters, that sett themselves above Law, to the detriment of His Majesty's Subjects .... "4 Haldimand agreed, saying, "Americans ... cannot be expected at least for some years, to become good neighbors."5 He also opposed border settlements because he wished to prevent trouble between Americans and Canadians by keeping the border uninhabited and he declared to North that he had refused to grant border lands either to Ver- monters or to loyalists who had petitioned for them.6 So angry were loyalists at Haldimand's decision that it was reported that they were determined to bring the General to trial for refusing to grant the lands for which they had petitioned.7
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.