USA > Vermont > Vermont in quandary, 1763-1825 > Part 23
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Ordinances of the Canadian Government and statutes of the British Parliament which established the Commercial Empire of the St. Lawrence made possible the free entrance of this timber
1. Creighton, The Commercial Empire of the St. Lawrence. 148-149. There is a wealth of detail in Lower, A.R.M., Lumbering in Eastern Canada ( Harvard Ph.D. Thesis, Cam- bridge, 1928), 2 vols. See I, 171-174, 181. More easily available but less detailed, is Lower, A.R.M., The North American Assault on the Canadian Forest ( New Haven, 1938 ).
2. P.A.C., E, Land C, Lower-Canada, 43-44.
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into Lower Canada. To take advantage of these opportunities, British timber contractors in Liverpool and elsewhere in the British Isles migrated to Lower Canada where they established them- selves in Quebec.3 Their presence soon made itself felt by the in- crease in the amount of timber clearing inbound at St. Johns and a corresponding increase in the amount of timber exported from the province to Great Britain. As a result, the Champlain Valley hummed with an activity never experienced but long anticipated by the Allens.
The bulk of this timber was cut in winter by Americans and French Canadians who needed cash to supplement the income from subsistence farming. After the timber reached the lake, it was made into rafts which were floated to St. Johns from as far south as Whitehall. The trip down the lake was extremely tedious, taking on the average some weeks. At St. Johns, the rafts were halted near the Customs House, where they were boarded by an inspector who kept a sharp look out for articles which raftsmen endeavoured to smuggle into the province.4 The inspector was. however, often outwitted by the simple expedient of unloading goods before arriving at St. Johns and secreting them in the woods until the rafts had been cleared at the Customs House after which the goods would be hoisted aboard again.5 Just before the rafts reached the Richelieu rapids, they were broken up into sections. run over the rapids and re-assembled at Sorel. From Sorel, the rafts floated to the mouth of the Richelieu and from there down the St. Lawrence to Quebec. The shallow, easily ruffled waters of Lake St. Peter were known as the graveyard of these timber rafts. If Lake St. Peter were safely negotiated, the rafts proceeded slowly to Quebec, where they were likely to be berthed in the quiet waters of Wolfe's Cove.6
At the height of this trade, the timber was often transported to Great Britain on old East India merchantmen, long since past their prime. These vessels were sometimes so overloaded that great chains were passed under the keels to keep them from
3. O. LXXXIX, 227.
4. S, L, 63.
5. Ibid., LV, 74.
6. Defebaugh, History of the Lumber Industry of America, II, 317-318.
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breaking apart in the stormy seas of the north Atlantic. The trade was hazardous, filled with disasters and disappointments, even on the stretch between St. Johns and Quebec. The vexations of one valley timber merchant, Andrew Bostwick, were characteristic of this trade. He left Missisquoi River on or about June 2, 1810, with a large timber raft. He found water so low in the Richelieu rapids that the labor of fifty men was required to get the sections of his raft over them. Further delays prevented the arrival of the raft at Quebec until August 9th. There a large section of it unavoidably floated past the city, "which was attended by great trouble and loss of timber." The result was an unprofitable business venture for Bostwick. "When the bills of expenses were brought forward, to be cancelled with losses of timber, there was found," he said, "an immense loss."" Many rafts, of course, did not meet the diffi- culties which his experienced. The profits, however, remained fairly high when trade was booming.
Owing to the lack of water communication from the lake to the Hudson, only a small proportion of valley timber found a market in New York. A small amount of lumber went by sleigh in winter from Whitehall to the Hudson where it was transported by sloop to Albany or New York.8
For a generation, the timber trade provided the life blood of Vermont's economy. Frontier agriculture provided a subsistence but, where there was access by stream or river to Lake Cham- plain, the lumbermen preceded or accompanied the farmer. The first cash crop of the settler was lumber. If this first crop could not be marketed in this form it could be taken in the form of potash to Lower Canada, from where it could be exported to Britain. In Britain, it could be used in making soap or as a bleach in the expanding cotton textile industry. The production of potash was a simple operation any farmer could readily master; it re- quired only muscle and the use of a leaching bed. The timber was burned, the ashes collected, leached and the resulting potash packed in barrels. The barrels could be transported to market in summer on timber rafts, or in winter by sleigh. The ash trade was
7. Vermont, Office of the Secretary of State, Manuscript State Papers, XLIX, 17. 8. Defebaugh, op. cit., II, 317.
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a great aid to the small farmer. Only the professional timber cruiser, cutter or merchant with resources and established rela- tions with Quebec contractors could hope to profit by the timber trade. The farmer, however, could easily make his own ashes and ship them to market. Ashes could be imported duty free into Lower Canada and, from there, to Great Britain. To judge the quality of the ashes, the government of Lower Canada appointed, in 1795, an inspector of potash and pearl ash.9 From January 5, 1800, to January 5, 1801, 3549 barrels of ashes were imported through St. Johns.10
The trade between Vermont and Lower Canada was a one- sided affair. At St. Johns the value of imports was much greater than the value of exports. For the year January 5, 1800, to January 5, 1801, the balance in favor of the American states was 34,233 €. With the exception of furs exported to the United States, most of them bound to John Jacob Astor, the larger items exported through St. Johns were 5874 bushels of salt, 367 gallons of spirits, 6S barrels of fish, 86 horses, 4 casks of ale, 538 pounds of wool, 37 hundred weight of bar iron, 110 gallons of wine, 1 pot ash kettle, . 206 pounds of shot and other small items.11 The disproportion between the value of Canadian imports and exports at St. Johns was due to the fact that the proceeds from the sale of American timber and potash in Lower Canada were taken from the province in cash rather than in goods.
Vermonters knew by experience that, by and large, the prices of manufactures in Lower Canada were higher than the prices of corresponding articles which could be purchased in either New England or New York. Indeed, the amount of business which New England or New York merchants had with Vermonters depended to a degree upon the prosperity of the Canadian timber trade. It determined in part how much cash was available to buy goods shipped from New York to Albany or Troy and from there even to northern Vermont. This commercial influence is known because Silas Hathaway arrived at St. Albans in October, 1802, with 9. P.A.C., Journal of the House of Assembly of Lower Canada, Jan. 5 to May 7, 1795. 161-163.
10. S, LIV, 2; LVI, 5. 11. Ibid., LVI, pt. A, 5.
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$15,000 worth of goods he had secured from Benjamin Pell & Son of New York.12 Its influence extended even across the border be- cause Canadians often bought goods in Vermont.
Selling in the Canadian and buying in the American market had its disadvantages. Cases of bankruptcy of Vermonters can be traced to their failure to pay their debts in the United States be- cause of losses of timber rafts or a drop in timber prices in the Canadian market. One bankrupt was described as "a man of prop- erty, & was to have received money from Canada for lumber out of which to pay his debts in New York."13
From the Canadian point of view, the drain of cash to Vermont was a cause for genuine alarm. Yet one merchant, John Robertson, made light of the situation. He declared that, although the bal- ance of trade appeared on the surface to be in favor of the United States, no Canadian merchant need be apprehensive as enormous sums had been brought into the province by the sale of American potash in Great Britain. As the Canadas became more fully settled, he predicted, there would be "a sufficiency of that article to sup- ply to market without having recourse to our neighbours in the States." 14
Of more immediate concern to Canadian merchants was the amount of smuggling across the border. The collector at St. Johns, George McBeath, had ever to be on the alert against it. The Cana- dian government furnished him with the services of only one land- waiter whose task it was to prevent smuggling from the American states into Lower Canada. The number of roads crossing the bor- der, made his task extremely difficult.15 After the Canadian govern- ment had reproved McBeath for his lack of vigilance in permitting loaded sleighs to pass illegally into the Province, the perplexed collector replied, "I never had any account of them from the Land- waiter for they pass in so many directions and different Routes that it would be impossible for a Landwaiter to be able to give a distinct account of the number that pass into the province by Odelltown on the New York side of the Lake." 16
12. Ibid., LVI, pt. A, 5.
13. N.Y.S.L., Follett Papers, 1815-1818.
14. P.A.C., Baby Collection, Robertson to William Berczy, Dec. 9, 1799.
15. S, LXII, 461. 16. Ibid., LXV, 112.
.
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As to the possibility of preventing all smuggling, McBeath was pessimistic. "Permit me humbly to observe," he wrote, "that I fear the good purposes intended by the Governor in Council in those appointments of Landwaiters have been, and ever will be totally defeated."17 One person estimated that two thousand sleighs passed through Odelltown, a notorious rendezvous for smugglers, during the sleighing season of 1806. The only seizure was that of sleighs loaded with 2800 pounds of bar iron and 8 bushels of corn, be- longing to James Morgan of Troy and Jacob St. Ours of Elizabeth- town.18 In addition to smuggling by land, there was smuggling by water. In 1796, the collector at St. Johns seized 93 wool hats, IS pieces of nankeen, 6 dozen gloves and 9 walking sticks which were found hidden on a sloop inbound from Whitehall.19
Many of the articles smuggled into the province were British manufactures which had entered the United States through the port of New York and had been shipped via the Hudson-Cham- plain route and smuggled across the border. Others were East India goods which could be purchased more cheaply in New York than in Lower Canada, because the trade of the latter was subject to the monopoly still exercised by the great East India Company. The Americans monopolized the tea-trade of the Canadian pro- vinces, "as it has a great degree become the general beverage of his Majesty's Provinces of Lower and Upper Canada." The Ameri- cans similarly cornered the trade in coarse white cottons, silks, shawls, handkerchiefs and china.20
The lower prices of goods south of the border caused settlers in Lower Canada, particularly those in the Eastern Townships, to seek the American rather than the Canadian source of supply. Un- connected by water and poorly connected by roads with Montreal and Quebec, they viewed northern Vermont also as a market for the products of their farms. Joseph Pennoyer, a leading Eastern Townships resident, wrote Thomas Dunn of the Governor's Council that during the winter of 1805-1806, settlers shipped approximately 600 barrels of ashes besides grain, flax and dairy products to the
17. Ibid., 115.
18. Ibid., LXVI, 199.
19. Ibid., XLVIII, 62.
20. Ibid., LXXXXI, 13.
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United States, instead of to ports on the St. Lawrence and the Richelieu, where "they would have connected ties with Quebec merchants instead of involving themselves in Debt with our Ameri- can neighbours." His solution was to build a road from the Upper Connecticut River to St. Joseph on the Chaudiere.21
Many inhabitants of the Eastern Townships, however, desired to tie themselves more, rather than less closely to the United States. On September 19, 1803, they petitioned the Canadian government to establish the county form of government for the townships, to build roads and to secure by suitable application "relief from the hardships resulting from the vigorous operations of the Law, re- specting the entry of goods, wares and merchandise at the Port of St. Johns at the outlet of Lake Champlain." 22
The Canadian government endeavoured to deflect the trade be- tween the Eastern Townships and Vermont to Canada by building Craig's Road, running from St. Gillis de Beaucrivage, through the township of Leeds, Inverness, Halifax, Chester and Tingwick to Shipton on the St. Francis River. The road, seventy-five miles long, was built by four hundred soldiers from the Quebec garrison and opened in 1810. Not only was it poorly constructed, but its course, defying topography, led straight over the hills. Craig's Road did not offer much inducement to settlers of the Eastern Townships to trade more largely with Canadian merchants.23
The growing importance of the Vermont-Eastern Townships trade caused the inhabitants of the townships to request their government to establish a new port of entry at a point on the bor- der east of St. Johns, or to permit free trade in goods imported from the United States. The inhabitants agreed with their govern- ment that all imports from the United States should be in principle discouraged if not prohibited; yet, because of the lack of roads to connect the townships with the other parts of the province, they had no alternative but to purchase articles which they needed in the states. They requested "that opportunity be offered for the do- ing under the sanction of Law, what must in all probability other-
21. Ibid., Land Sundries, 1803-1806, Pennoyer to Dunn, March 31, 1806.
22. Ibid., LIX, 184.
23. Bulletin des Recherches Historiques, VII, 316.
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wise take place without it, at the risk of seizure of the goods or articles so introduced."24 Despite smuggling across the border in both directions, the amount of timber and goods entering the pro- vince at St. Johns was growing from year to year. In 1806, Mc- Beath was happy to report that the customs district which "in the first year of establishment .. . [had] barely paid expenses .. . [now] turns in a handsome surplus." 25
One reason for the volume of this trade lay in the ease with which goods could be moved by land or water across the border. In winter, travellers entered by sleigh on the ice of the rivers and lakes. Lake Champlain was open for navigation from the middle of April or the first of May until late fall and provided a broad waterway to Lower Canada.26 As early as 1790, the British listed the following vessels on the lake: one schooner, 70 tons; three schooners, 15 tons each; one sloop of 30 tons; three sloops, 20 tons each; and twelve boats, 3 to 6 tons.27 After 1800, every little port on the lake increased the number reported in 1790 by building many vessels. Not only were better connections established by water to St. Johns, but numerous ferry franchises were granted · by the state of Vermont to establish connections between the east and west shores of Lake Champlain. The state granted franchises between Panton and the west shore, Ferrisburg and Grog Harbor, Burlington and Chesterfield, and other points.28 The first steam- boat was built in 1809 at Vergennes. Its second-hand engine was brought overland from Albany.
The improvement of water transportation was accompanied by the building of roads to connect Vermont with New York, New England and with Lower Canada. From northern Vermont, set- tlers could pass by land into Lower Canada by a road around Missisquoi Bay to St. Johns and to La Prairie. A second road was cut through Sutton Township to St. Armand. A third ran from the east side of Lake Memphremagog via Stanstead, Gibraltar Point and St. Armand to Yamaska. Another led from Ascott through the
24. S, LXIII, 142.
25. Ibid., LXVI, 219.
26. Hemenway, The Vermont Historical Gazetteer, I, 705.
27. Q, XLVII, pt. I, 215-217.
28. Vermont, Acts of the Assembly, 1804, 5,8,9; Records of the Governor and Couned of the State of Vermont, V, 48, 49, 51.
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valley of the St. Francis to Three Rivers on the St. Lawrence.29 An elaborate turnpike was that of the Montreal-Boston Turnpike Company which Vermont chartered in 1805. It was supported by resident and absentee Vermont landowners. "I am glad to hear," said Andrew Craigie, the Massachusetts financier and land-owner, "the Legislature of Vermont has granted a turnpike through that state in a direction between Montreal and Boston-it will receive all the aid I can give it." 30
The improvements in transportation by water and by land brought an increase in the number of Vermonters crossing and recrossing the border. The majority of them were never recorded. Many of the unrecorded crossings were made by persons bent on smuggling missions, but numerous individuals, obeying provincial regulations, declared themselves at the border and made known their reasons for entering Lower Canada. Among the aliens who made declarations were cheese-sellers, saddlers, tailors, cord- wainers and Shoemakers "bound for Montreal." The students John Collins and Dan Stone of Williams College said they were en route to Montreal "solely for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of the French Language." A hatter moved to Montreal to "work my trade." Men came from Willsboro to buy horses, others to ex- change cattle for the small but tough French Canadian horse and one came from Windsor on "business to Montreal." A Yorker, Eden Johnson was on his way "to Canada in quest of a Black man" be- longing to a resident of Plattsburg, New York.31
In addition, numerous persons arrived at the border from as far south as New Jersey and as far east as Connecticut. Some of them were moving permanently to Montreal or other towns to engage in a variety of businesses. Americans established what was in effect a stranglehold on innkeeping. Stage coaching between St. Johns and Montreal, and between Montreal and Quebec was likewise in American hands.32 Many skilled artisans, as well, came into the province, among them saddlers, tailors, masons and
29. Royal Society of Canada, Transactions, VII, 139.
30. V.H.S., Whitelaw Papers, Craigie to Whitelaw, November 23, 1805.
31. S, Declarations of Aliens, 1792-1811.
32. Cushing. Elmer, An Appeal Addressed to a Cordial Public ( Stanstead, 1826). 7-S; Bouchette. Joseph, A Topographical Description of the Province of Lower Canada ( London, 1815), 174.
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lumbermen. The province welcomed them, for Canadian artisans were reported less skilled and efficient than their American fel- lows. "Canada masons are no ways skillful in this Trade and do not work equal to other masons."33 The American contribution of industrial techniques to Canada at this time has often been over- looked.
The majority of American immigrants crossing the Canadian border, however, was bound to settle permanently in the province as farmers. A few went to the Ottawa Valley, others to the triangle formed by the border, the St. Lawrence and the Richelieu Rivers, where it is said that the Americans taught the later Scots immi- grants "the homely art of living in the forest," but the majority moved into the Eastern Townships. The settlement of these town- ships had long been retarded by disputes and quarrels over war- rants of survey. After 1800, these difficulties were at last removed and the Eastern Townships were rapidly settled.34 They were easily entered by road from Vermont, the lands were to be had al- most for the asking, and the best lands in Vermont had by this time been sold or settled. Few immigrants appeared to be dis- couraged by obstacles such as the Crown and Clergy Reserves, absentee ownership, lack of roads and land offices.35 Indeed, in violation of British authority and by agreement among themselves, Americans squatted on the better lands. Alarmed by the number of squatters reported in the townships, Hugh Finlay recommended an annual survey to ferret them out.36
The migration, in increasing numbers, of Vermonters to the townships reacted unfavorably upon the settlement of the more inaccessible and rougher lands of northern and central Vermont which had been granted during and immediately after the Revolu- tion. James Whitelaw wrote Joseph D. Fay, "the low price of lands in Canada prevents the sale of ours."37 In Vermont, absentee own- ership further retarded the settlement of these lands. The town of Salem, for example, was owned largely by an absentee land-owner,
33. N.Y.P.L., Schuyler (Canal) Papers, Barent Bleeker to Schuyler, May 28, 1803. 34. Hansen, M. L., Brebner, J. B., The Mingling of the Canadian and American Peoples, 66-90.
35. Cushing. op. cit., 40.
36. S. LV. 76.
37. V.H.S., Whitelaw Letterbook, I, 355.
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"who holds land too high [and thereby] prevents settlement."38
The influx of Americans caused jealousies among Canadians, particularly those who had been American loyalists. The virtual monopoly of the lands of the townships by American settlers was bound to anger them. One Canadian was heard to declare vigor- ously that "he did not wish to have any of the damned Quakers or others from New England until he himself Luke Ferguson, Sullivan and some others had been provided for." 39 Another source of discord arose from the attachment of American settlers to re- publican and democratic principles. "As the Townships were set- tled all together by emigrants from the United States, it cannot be a matter of surprise that [the] people retained many of their political prejudices, formed in early life, and become strong by long habit."4º American immigrants must have given umbrage to Canadians when they gathered on July 4, 1806, to celebrate the Declaration of Independence.
Americans did not always welcome those French Canadians who, desiring higher wages or winter work, moved into the Cham- plain Valley in the wake of those who had for political reasons withdrawnfrom Canada with the American forces in 1776.41 At first, the Canadian government attempted to prevent the seasonal or permanent migration of French Canadians to Vermont. It opposed the attempt of Philip Schuyler to secure cheap laborers to work on the Champlain Canal in 1796. One Chardonnet of La Prairie had written him that he could provide as many hands as he needed and that the Commander in charge at St. Johns did not have any ob- jections. The Government, however, objected strenuously, accused Chardonnet of high treason and put him in jail. He was released only upon his promise that he would not attempt to secure canal workers for the states without the government's permission.42 After the furore over the McLane and Olive Branch affairs had subsided, the government changed its attitude towards this migration; not so the Vermonters, however. "No company here fit to be seen
38. Ibid., 330.
39. S. XLVIII, 49.
40. Cushing, op. cit., 41.
41. Foley. A. R., "French-Canadian Contacts with New England," Proceedings of the
Conference on Educational Problems in Canadian-American Relations, 1938 ( Orono, Maine, 1939), 79-96.
42. N.Y.P.L., Schuyler (Canal) Papers, Chardonnet to Schuyler, Dec. 18, 1796.
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with," said one of them. "The inhabitants are composed of Cana- dians, bloomers, millers and such like, a few excepted." 43 The Ver- mont Assembly unconsciously betrayed a prejudice when it passed an act to prevent the "growth of the Canada thistle (so called )." 44
A legitimate source of friction between Canadians and Ver- monters was the presence of lawless elements on both sides of the border. The constant breaking of the law by smugglers and others did not increase the respect of either Canadians or Americans for its majesty. The border, moreover, acted as a magnet attracting across it law breakers bent on escaping arrest or imprisonment. The Canadian law breakers encamped south of the border, the Americans north of it. Hence the common charge that the other country was less law-abiding, and that the criminal element was always the foreign one.
This charge was often made during the height of the activities of a gang of counterfeiters which for some years plagued Cana- dians and Americans alike. These men, branded as "profligate and unscrupled," arrived in Lower Canada in 1803 in order to counter- feit bills of American banks. The poorer classes, it was alleged, were persuaded to support the practice as an easy method of at- taining wealth. The settlement of the Eastern Townships had been retarded by the migration of many of their inhabitants to the United States to pass forged bills. More than one hundred families lost within a short time their main support by having their men- folk thrown into American jails.45
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