USA > Vermont > Vermonters : a book of biographies > Part 17
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a few men of unusual ability and resourcefulness, but few of them had received more than a meagre education in school and college. Among the few college graduates included in the list of Vermont leaders during the period from 1760 to 1800 was Isaac Tichenor.
In passing it may be of interest to enumerate some of the early Vermont leaders who were college graduates. This list in- cluded Stephen R. Bradley (Yale), one of the first United States Senators; Israel Smith (Yale), one of the first Congressmen ; Nathaniel Niles (Princeton), one of the first Congressmen ; Nathaniel Chipman. (Yale), Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court; Elijah Paine (Harvard -- a non-graduate), United States Judge; Noah Smith (Yale), Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court; Stephen Jacob (Yale), Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court; Samuel Williams (Harvard), first Vermont historian; Samuel Hitchcock (Harvard), United States Judge; Royall Tyler (Harvard), Chief Justice of the Vermont Su- preme Court.
Tichenor was born at Newark, New Jersey, February 8, 1754. He was graduated from Princeton College in 1775 under the presidency of Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, who had owned a large tract of land in eastern Vermont which he had sold to a company of Scotch emigrants.
Tichenor abandoned the study of law to enter the American Army and was assigned to the commissary department, spend- ing most of his time in New England. An important depot of supplies was located at Bennington, which General Bur- goyne, the British commander, sought to capture. Tichenor arrived at Bennington during the progress of the battle of Bennington and, proceeding to Landlord Dewey's tavern, asked for food. Although there were great kettles of meat cooking over the fire, Mrs. Dewey refused to serve the young officer, saying, "This meat is for the men who have gone to fight for their country, where you ought to be." Proper ex- planations enabled Tichenor to secure a dinner. His head-
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quarters were at Bennington until the end of the war, when he made Bennington his home and established a law practice.
From 1781 to 1785 he represented Bennington in the Gen- eral Assembly and served as Speaker in 1783. In 1782, he was a member of a committee sent to confer with Congress and served in a similar capacity in 1783, 1787, 1788 and 1789. He was a member of the Council from 1786 to 1788, and Justice of the Supreme Court, 1791-95, serving as Chief Jus- tice in 1794-95. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Con- gress in 1791, 1792 and 1796. He was a candiadte for gov- vernor in 1793 and 1794, but was defeated by Governor Chittenden, although the majorities were not large. In 1796, he was elected United States Senator to fill the unexpired term of Moses Robinson, and also for the full term. There was no choice for governor in the election of 1797, following Gover- nor Chittenden's death, and the Legislature elected Isaac Tichenor. Both Robinson and Tichenor resigned the senator- ship to become governor, indicating the relative importance of the two offices in the public mind at that period. Isaac Tichenor held the office of governor by successive elections for ten years, when he was defeated. After an interval of a year he was again elected. He was defeated as a candidate for governor in 1809, 1810 and 1817. He was elected again to the United States Senate in 1814. During his term as gov- ernor he was obliged to deal with a difficult and delicate situa- tion on the northern border when the relations with Canada were strained.
As governor he was a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Vermont when that institution began its career in 1800. He is said to have been responsible for the design of the first University building, which was modeled after an edifice on the Princeton campus, possibly old Nassau Hall. When Ira Allen, who more than any other man was the founder of the University of Vermont, returned from the long absence in Europe, ruined in fortune and burdened with
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debt, an added touch of bitterness was the situation which made his personal and political enemy, Isaac Tichenor, the most influential figure in the management of the new institu- tion of higher education which Allen had planned. In Con- gress Senator Tichenor introduced bills providing for the gradual reduction of the number of Supreme Court Justices and for the better organization of the Treasury department. He voted against the Missouri Compromise bill.
Isaac Tichenor was a Federalist in politics. He was a man of accomplished manners and great personal charm, the com- plete opposite of the uneducated, untrained, rough and ready Thomas Chittenden, but Tichenor ranks next to Chittenden in length of service as chief executive of the state. Owing to his political astuteness Governor Tichenor was dubbed "Jer- sey Slick." Long after the Federalist party had gone into a decline in Vermont, Tichenor was elected again and again until his enemies almost despaired of ousting him from the executive chair. Probably Vermont never has had a political leader whose personal popularity exceeded that of Isaac Tiche- nor. Writing about 1797, John A. Graham stated that Mr. Tiche- nor had the finest house in Bennington County, in which there were mantels and hearths of marble. Isaac Tichenor died De- cember 11, 1838, at the age of eighty-four years.
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ROYALL TYLER
By Frederick Tupper
N INETY years ago, Martin Chuzzlewit, in his notable visit to our shores, encountered at every crossroad the local great man hailed by his fellows as, "one of the master-minds of our country, sir" or as, "a splendid sample of our native raw material, sir, true born child of this free hemisphere- verdant as the mountains of our country." The subject of our present story is of other stature. Royall Tyler, as a man of law, has a local, and only a local reputation. Royall Tyler, as a man of letters, has a reputation which, though far less than his merits, is not local but national. His writings and his fame are not the exclusive possession of his adopted Ver- mont or even of his native New England, but are a part and by no means a negligible part of the literary history of Amer- ica. As the writer of the first American comedy regularly acted by professionals, as the author of the first American novel republished in England, as the creator of the Yankee type on stage and in story, as the composer of fictitious let- ters of international interest, as the producer of periodical essays and verses eagerly read from Casco Bay to Kentucky (the Dan to Beersheba of his day), Royall Tyler is not to be reckoned for a moment with merely provincial notables. The best in his genius is not peculiar to one little corner of earth.
Royall Tyler was born in Boston, July 18, 1757, of cultured and wealthy people. His father, Royall Tyler the elder, was a Harvard graduate, prosperous Boston merchant, and member ". of the King's Council during the troublous days of the Stamp . Act. At fifteen the son goes to Harvard too. In 1776, that year of great beginnings, Royall Tyler begins life with his bachelor's degree, or rather with his two bachelor degrees,
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for Yale bestows upon him an A.B. simultaneously with Harvard. After Tyler's graduation, he studies law for three years, at first in the office of Francis Dana. He sits, too, at good men's feasts as a member of a club of brilliant youngsters, many of whom rose to fame. Tyler draws his sword in sun- dry skirmishes of the Revolution. He is admitted to the bar in 1779, and practices in several places, in Portland, Maine, in Braintree and in Boston. For a short season he is the ac- cepted suitor of Abigail Adams, John Adams' daughter, but the lady sends him back his ring. Shays' Rebellion brings him once more under command of General Benjamin Lincoln, with whom he had served in the Revolution. As aide-de-camp, with the rank of major, he follows the fugitive rebels into "the territory called Vermont," but his diplomatic overtures availed little against popular sympathy with the outlaws.
Negotiations in connection with the Rebellion carried him in March, 1787, to New York. Inspired by plays of the period, he wrote for the little red wooden playhouse in John Street his comedy of life amid the gay circle of the metropolis, THE CONTRAST. Its success was felt at the time to open a new and native era in our dramatic annals. In the first American comedy appears fitly enough the first stage Yankee, Jonathan. From a copy of the play, which contains George Washington's autograph, Mr. James B. Wilbur of Manchester printed his edition of 1920. A month after the first appear- ance of THE CONTRAST, Tyler produces a comic opera in two acts called MAY DAY IN TOWN. Tyler is courted and feasted and toasted.
Suddenly his sky darkens, depression and despondency make him bid farewell to friends and to the scenes of his . triumphs. In 1791, he settles in Guilford, Vt., near Brattle- boro, bringing hither a year or two later, his young wife, Mary Palmer. The pioneer community took to her young heart the clever lawyer and careless playwright and moulded him into a leader. Within a few years of his coming to Ver-
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mont, Tyler was state's attorney of Windham County and within a decade (1801) he sat on the bench of the Supreme Court. In 1807, he became Chief Justice. He served for three years (1811-14) as Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Vermont, of which he had been a trustee since 1802.
Royall Tyler studiously kept asunder his vocation and his avocation. Jurist and artist led two separate existences. Only his legal REPORTS bear his name. All his literary publications are anonymous. Yet the man of letters was never long dorm- ant. To his brother, Colonel John Tyler, now manager of the Boston Theatre, he sent several plays, truly American, that pleased both groundlings and gallery gods. In 1797, he published a novel, THE ALGERINE CAPTIVE, which won an unprecedented international reputation. It was the first American work of fiction reproduced in England. In this, "Updike Underhill," Yankee of Yankees, tells the story of New England life, first in pioneer days, and then in his own late eighteenth century epoch; turning only in the latter half of the book to his experiences in captivity. In the recital of adventure Tyler employs, like Daniel Defoe, a plain unvar- nished style, and evinces a scrupulous regard for detail. This archcreator of the New England type had, in his play, revealed a Yankee in New York and in his novel, a Yankee on his na- tive heath, and on Algerian shores. He now in a series of fictitious letters (New York, 1809) presented THE YANKEE . IN LONDON. This tour de force, which even Englishmen praised for the accuracy of its impressions, is an amazing achievement, coming from one who knew England only by hearsay.
Royall Tyler, the man of humor, is at his best in his con- tributions to THE FARMER'S MUSEUM OR THE NEW HAMP- SHIRE AND VERMONT JOURNAL, a weekly journal published at Walpole, New Hampshire during the seventeen-nineties. The prose of "Colon" or Joseph Dennie, and the poetry of "Spondee" or Tyler reflect the wit of the lively gatherings of
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young lawyers at various river taverns along the Connecticut. This periodical boasted readers in all the states-indeed, a circulation larger than that of any other village paper in the country. In Tyler's later years he wrote many things both in prose and verse. Some of the happiest products of his lively imagination still await publication.
The last days of Tyler's life are those of a distinguished lawyer, who, after his enforced retirement from the Supreme Court Bench, practised at Brattleboro most successfully, and of a gallant gentleman who endured heroically for many years great suffering until relief and rest came in 1826. To the last he was a man of letters-that is, one whose thought must find expression through the pen-point.
THEODORE NEWTON VAIL
By O. D. Mathewson
T THEODORE VAIL was born in Carrolton, Ohio, July 16, 1845, of Quaker ancestry. When Theodore was four years old, his father removed to Morristown, New Jersey, and with his brother Stephen founded the Speedwell Iron Works which built the engines for the SAVANNAH, the first steamer to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Another brother, Alfred, was asso- ciated with Professor Morse in perfecting and promoting the telegraph and devised the code which is now used in every telegraph office in the United States.
Theodore Vail was educated in the Old Morristown Aca- demy and for a time thought seriously of studying medicine; later, he learned telegraphy and became an expert operator.
At the age of twenty he removed with his parents to a farm near Waterloo, Iowa. There he tried several occupations with
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only moderate success. He often referred humorously to his experiences as a teacher and re-called with pride the days when he was a pitcher on a baseball team captained by "Pop Anson," the famous Chicago player. It is interesting to specu- late concerning his possible career as a baseball player. What an organizer he would have been!
All the while he was dreaming of greater things. Through the influence of General Grenville Dodge, president of the Union Pacific Railroad, he was given a position as telegraph operator at Pine Bluffs, Wyoming. He soon became a railway mail clerk, in which position he quickly showed his ability to organize and systematize the service. His efficiency in dis- tributing and dispatching the mail won speedy recognition from the Post Office department, and he was called to Wash- ington where he became general superintendent of the Railway Mail Service.
Against the advice of his friends, he resigned this responsi- ble position to become president of the American Bell Tele- phone Company. The telephone business was then in its in- fancy, with little prospect of extensive use except for local communication. Mr. Vail, however, was a man of such energy, vision, and courage that he foresaw the possibilities of its use for long-distance communication. His first line, from Providence to New York, was generally ridiculed as "Vail's Folly"; yet many of those who scoffed saw the tele- phone in successful operation between New York and San Francisco, only thirty-five years later. He was the first presi- dent of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, which was organized to promote long-distance use of the tele- phone. He made the telephone such a convenience that it became a necessity. He united a hundred million people into a great neighborhood and gave to business a personal element otherwise impossible.
Many other business enterprises engaged Mr. Vail's atten- tion. One of his most notable achievements was the develop-
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ment of a splendid street railway system in Buenos Aires, in Argentina. While engaged in this work he spent much of his time in London, England.
About 1883, Mr. Vail bought a farm in Lyndon, Vermont, to which he added other farms from time to time, until he had an estate of several thousand acres, which he called Speedwell Farms. Here he built a commodious house in which to live and to entertain his many friends. He was deeply interested in all sorts of farm problems and believed thoroughly in the agricultural development of Vermont. He gave generously to many agencies intended to improve farming conditions. He exhibited his thoroughbred horses and cattle at the leading fairs in New England, and was one of the most generous promoters of the Eastern States Exposition at Springfield, Massachusetts. Speedwell Farms products became well-known throughout the United States. While traveling abroad he usually registered as "Theo. N. Vail, Farmer, Lyndon, Ver- mont, U. S. A."
In order that boys might be taught how to farm scien- tifically, he established an Agricultural School in connection with Lyndon Institute. After operating this successfully, he gave the entire plant with stock and equipment to the state of Vermont. When the state ceased to operate it, this property reverted to the Institute, and became part of its endowment. For many years Mr. Vail gave generously to the Institute and in 1912, assumed all operating deficits. In accordance with his wishes, the Institute emphasized domestic arts and normal training while giving excellent preparation for colleges and professional schools.
Mr. Vail was keenly interested in the home and garden work of children, especially those in his home town. He attended their annual fairs and while chatting with the children often made helpful suggestions about next year's work. Sometimes government specialists came at his invitation to give expert ad- vice to young and old concerning farm and household problems.
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Theodore Vail was a "big" man, mentally, physically, and in his achievements. He was, in fact, the biggest telephone man in the world. He had the passion of a scientist to get at the facts of any business enterprise with which he was con- nected. These facts became the basis of future action. The annual reports of the great telephone company of which he was president were models of clearness, precision, and frank- ness in discussing the economic principles involved. He op- posed vigorously government ownership of public utilities. His public addresses were broad minded, with clear vision and wisdom drawn from wide experience and observation.
Before the days of the automobile Mr. Vail enjoyed driving a spirited span of horses over the hills and through the val- leys of northern Vermont. He loved to entertain his friends at "The House" as he always called his horne. He was fond of good music and had a magnificent organ which he often played while entertaining. He was a great reader and had a fine library containing many rare volumes. Late in life he was the recipient of honorary degrees from a long list of col- leges and universities, to some of which he left substantial bequests.
Mr. Vail will be known in history as the "Master Mind" in developing the telephone on a national basis. He will be re- membered by his associates as the "Big Chief" who inspired them to do their best to realize his vision of what the tele- phone should do for society. He was a powerful and com- manding figure in state and nation. His philosophy of life is well expressed in a bit of final advice he gave to a graduating class, "Do the best with everything, and make the best of everything."
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SETH WARNER
By Walter S. Fenton
O N the 17th day of May, 1743, at Roxbury, Connecticut, was born Seth Warner. Of him it has been said :
He was distinguished in his youth as he was afterward in his man- hood, for the "solidity and extent of his understanding."
He had no scholastic advantages other than those afforded by the common schools of the time, yet he made such use of them that at his majority, he was possessed of a most service- able fund of practical knowledge.
In 1763, at the age of twenty, Seth Warner moved with his parents to the newly chartered township of Bennington, where his father, Doctor Benjamin Warner, had purchased a tract of land.
A great lover of nature, he was a skillful botanist, and he quickly became familiar with the plants and roots of his new habitation to such an extent as to enable him to apply their healing properties to the relief of his fellow settlers when medical assistance could not readily be obtained.
Whenever time could be spared from the clearing of the forest and the cultivation of the soil, Warner could be found abroad with his rifle, hunting the game with which the coun- try abounded and seeking the places where medicinal plants were most abundant.
Thus was developed the powerful body, the keen mentality and the strength of character that distinguished him through- out an honorable life.
"A man of iron frame and noble personal appearance, standing not less than six feet and two inches in his stocking feet" (one account of him says six feet three inches and three- quarters), Seth Warner "was possessed of great bodily strength
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and agility." "His features were regular and strongly marked, indicating great mental strength and fixedness of purpose." "A broad and intellectual forehead, surmounted with a pro- fusion of nut brown hair, with sparkling blue eyes, gave con- vincing evidence of an intelligent, courageous and energetic man." He was good-natured, of simple and natural man- ners, modest, dignified and particularly "distinguished for his courage and perfect self-possession on all occasions, and for the entire confidence with which he always inspired his asso- ciates and those under his command."
Such a man naturally became a conspicuous figure in the stirring events of the times, which developed shortly after his arrival in Bennington, due to the controversies arising over the conflicting claims to the New Hampshire Grants. His efforts in behalf of the settlers were such that he was one of the eight inhabitants of the territory who were prescribed by the New York Act of March 9, 1774. He was a leading spirit, second only to Allen, in the pre-Revolutionary activities of the Green Mountain Boys.
To one who makes any extended investigation of the sub- ject, it is only too evident that Vermont has given altogether too little consideration to Seth Warner and the magnitude of the service which he rendered her in her infancy and hour of need. To him, as much as to any other one man, is Ver- mont indebted for her existence as a state.
The limits of this sketch, however, do not permit any such detailed account of his life and services as to approach com- plete justice to the subject. All that can be attempted is a brief outline of the more important events in which he played a leading part.
Seth Warner was at Ticonderoga with Allen, and com- manded the party that captured Crown Point on the same day. In July, 1775, when the first regiment of Green Mountain Boys was raised under the authority of Congress and the government of New York, after the war began, he was elected
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lieutenant colonel by the committees of the several townships assembled at Dorset, by a vote of forty-one to five, over Ethan Allen himself, who was a candidate for the office.
He was with Montgomery in the Canadian campaign in the fall of 1775, at the siege of St. Johns and the capture of Montreal, returning from Canada the latter part of Novem- ber, 1775. His military achievements were of the highest order, and reflected the greatest credit to his outstanding abilities, both in battle and in council.
Early in 1776, at the request of General Wooster, command- ing in Canada, Warner immediately raised a regiment, re- turned to Canada in January, and remained there until the retreat of the army in May, 1776, during which he commanded the rear guard with the greatest skill and success.
Of his conduct, it has been said :
Probably no Revolutionary patriot during the war performed a service evincing more energy, resolution and perseverance, or a more noble pa- triotism, than the raising of a regiment in so short a time, and marching it to Quebec in the fact of a Canadian winter. The men of this day would shiver at the thought of it.
So impressed was Congress with the conduct of Warner and his comrades in the Canadian campaign, that in July, 1776, a regiment was authorized out of the troops who had served with so much reputation in Canada, and Warner was commissioned by Congress lieutenant colonel in command, and was retained in that position by Congress notwithstanding the emphatic protest of the Provincial Congress of New York following Vermont's Declaration of Independence.
Warner was with St. Clair in July, 1777, when Ticonderoga was evacuated, and again commanded the rear guard on the retreat. His conspicuous courage and gallantry at the Battle of Hubbardton immediately following, would alone insure his everlasting fame, while his services at Bennington, first with Stark and later with his own regiment on its arrival from
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Manchester, turning a doubtful result into a glorious victory, entitle him to a most prominent position in the annals of Vermont's great men, for all time to come.
Shortly after the Battle of Bennington, he was promoted by Congress to be colonel, and continued in command of his Green Mountain Boys until 1781, although after the end of the year 1777 his health was such that he was not able to be with them in the field at all times. He was wounded near Fort George in September, 1780, and this, combined with his broken health, eventually caused his retirement. His health steadily declined until 1784, when, in the hope of obtaining some relief from his sufferings, he left Bennington with his family and returned to his native town of Roxbury (or, as it was afterward called, Woodbury), Connecticut. His hopes were vain, for his condition rapidly grew worse until his mind became affected and at times it was necessary to use physical restraint when, in his delirium, he lived over again the bat- tles he had fought for his country. On December 26, 1784, at the early age of forty-one, death intervened to end his suf- ferings, and Seth Warner passed on to his final reward.
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