USA > Vermont > Vermonters : a book of biographies > Part 3
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It is a conviction of the present writer that the three volumes of RHYMES OF VERMONT RURAL LIFE represent an achievement unique in American letters. In content, the volumes reveal an amazing amount of detail, tinted with the lights of memory, but never false in accuracy of use or in suggestion-pictures of
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rural life of near and far days so finely done that they need never be done again. Here also are values that escape the historian, the economist, the sociologist, and others of the same clan; only the poet could find them-and this poet did. The Vermont of the future must turn to these books to learn of a rich and fruitful period of the past, to discover a significance in the present that eludes all other Vermont writers. In technique, the poems disclose a simplicity that suggests only to the trained eye the true poetic skill needed to write them. The flavor of the dialect is there but is never obtrusive as it is, for instance, in Lowell's Cambridge version of what a Yankee is supposed to say; the stanza used in the "folk" from-the style adopted uncon- sciously by any mountain maker of ballads. The combination of man and poet, of content and technique, joined with a love and understanding of Vermont and its people that few Vermont- ers possess or have possessed, gives these RHYMES a promise of affectionate regard through many generations.
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NATHANIEL CHIPMAN
By John Spargo
T HERE is little glamor of romance in the story of Nathaniel Chipman. His name evokes the respectful homage which is the just tribute to distinguished service, but it never evokes the enthusiasm which is the tribute to heroic or romantic deeds. Re- spect and a full measure of admiration were his during the greater part of his life, but it is probable that nobody outside of his immediate family circle ever enthused over him.
He was the oldest son of Samuel and Hannah (Austin) Chip- man and the fourth in descent from John Chipman, of Barn- stable, England, who settled at Barnstable, Massachusetts, in
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1631, and later married Hope Howland, daughter of John Howland, a Mayflower passenger. Nathaniel was born at Salis- bury, Litchfield County, Connecticut, November 15, 1752. Until he was twenty years old, he worked upon his father's farm. At that time, in 1772, he began to prepare for college, in the manner of the time and place. His preparation for college consisted of nine months of study with a local minister. In 1773, he entered Yale College, from which he was graduated in 1777, his degree being conferred in absentia by reason of his being at the time in military service. In the spring of that year he had been commissioned as an ensign in the Second Connecticut Regiment of the Continental Line commanded by Colonel Charles Webb. He was at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78, and later was in the Battle of Monmouth. He was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant early in 1778, but in October of that year resigned his commission and left the army. In a letter to General Washington resigning his commission, dated at Camp Fredericksburg, October 10, 1778, he gave as his reason for resigning that his pay did not enable him to support his rank.
Returning to his home he spent about four months studying law, then sought admission to the bar and was admitted to the bar of Litchfield County in March, 1779. He did not remain in Connecticut, however, but set out for Vermont to join his father, who had settled at Tinmouth. It had apparently been his plan to settle at Bennington, for he wrote to a friend, Ebenezer Fitch, later president of Williams College, "I shall probably settle in Bennington, where I shall be rara avis in terris, for there is not an attorney in the state. Think, Fitch, what a figure I shall make when I become the oracle of law to the state of Vermont." However, he changed his mind, for on April 10, 1779, he arrived at Tinmouth, where he stayed for some time. At the June court held at Rutland, then a shire of Bennington County, "on the 2d. Thursday of June, A.D. 1779, Nathaniel Chipman was appointed attorney at law,
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sworn and licensed to plead at the bar within the state." He was the third lawyer licensed in the state of Vermont and first in the shire of Rutland, as it then was.
Litigants were numerous and insatiable in those days. Chip- man was soon enjoying a large and, presumably, lucrative prac- tice. For years his name appears in the court dockets in al- most every case, either upon one side or the other. When Rutland was incorporated as a county, at the first county court held, in 1781, he was appointed state's attorney, which position he held for four years. It was in 1781, soon after his appoint- ment as state's attorney, that Chipman became involved in the negotiations with General Haldimand, commander of the British Army in Canada, in one of the most questionable episodes of the negotiations. We have it upon the authority of his younger brother, Daniel, his biographer, that it was Nathaniel Chipman who made "copies" of certain letters from General Enos and Colonels Fletcher and Walbridge concerning a note sent by Colonel Barry St. Leger of the British army to Governor Chit- tenden apologizing for the killing of Sergeant Tupper, a Vermont scout. On account of the wide publicity which had been given to the strange incident, and the excited comment provoked, it be- came necessary to lay the corespondence before the legislature, then in session at Charlestown, in that part of New Hampshire which Vermont had annexed. Fearing the effect of the dis- closures contained in the letters, Nathaniel Chipman was em- ployed by Governor Chittenden to prepare "copies" which were, in effect forgeries. Ira Allen says that, "new letters were made out .. . . and, for the information and satisfaction of the public, read in council and assembly for the originals, and then returned to the governor. Those letters contained everything but the existing negotiations which prudence and policy dictated to be separated from the other part of said letters."
In 1784 he was elected to the legislature from Tinmouth and was made a member of a committee to revise certain acts. He was again elected to represent Tinmouth in the legislature in
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1785. In 1786 he was elected one of the justices of the Supreme Court of Vermont, and it is interesting to note that he was the first lawyer to hold that position. He served only one year, resigning to take up his practice at the bar, which was more lucrative, but in 1789 he was again called to the bench, being elected Chief Justice. He was re-elected in 1790 and continued as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont until October, 1791.
Chipman was one of the foremost advocates of the admission of Vermont into the Union, and corresponded with Alexander Hamilton, among others, upon the subject. He was one of the commissioners appointed in 1789. to settle the boundary dispute with New York. With Lewis R. Morris he served as joint commissioner in negotiating with Congress for the admis- sion of Vermont into the Union. He represented Rutland at the constitutional convention held at Bennington, in January, 1791, which ratified the Constitution of the United States, which was followed by Vermont's admittance to the Union.
In October, 1791, he was appointed, by President Washing- ton, judge of the District Court of the United States for the district of Vermont. In 1793, he resigned this office and once more resumed practice at the bar. In that year he published a work entitled SKETCHES OF THE PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT, the first legal essays written or published in Vermont. In the same year he published the small volume of reports of judicial decisions of the Vermont courts, called REPORTS AND DISSERTA- TIONS. In 1796, he was once more elected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but held the position only one year. In the same year he was appointed a member of a committee to revise the statute laws of Vermont. It is said that almost all of the acts known as the Revised Laws of 1797 were written by him.
When Isaac Tichenor resigned his seat in the United States Senate to become governor of the state, Nathaniel Chipman was elected to fill out the unexpired portion of Tichenor's senatorial term. Elected October 17, 1797, Chipman served
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in the Senate until March 4, 1803, when he returned to Tin- mouth and to his law practice. In 1806, he again represented Tinmouth in the legislature and was re-elected in each of the four succeeding years. In March, 1813, he was elected a mem- ber of the Council of Censors, and in October of that year he was yet once more elected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont, to which he was re-elected in October, 1814.
In 1815, he was chosen Professor of Law at Middlebury Col- lege in succession to his younger brother, Daniel, who had been compelled to resign that position on account of ill health. He did not actively serve as professor very long. Serious deafness made teaching practically impossible and caused him to retire from public life. For another quarter of a century he lived quietly at Tinmouth, dying there on February 15, 1843, in his ninety-first year.
His wife, who was Sarah Hill, of Tinmouth, and to whom he was married in 1781, bore him nine children. Dartmouth College honored him with the degree of Doctor of Laws. A staunch Federalist in politics, he was esteemed for his learn- ing. His career was a most remarkable fulfillment of a prophetic letter that he wrote to his friend, Ebenezer Fitch, in 1779. "Let's see," he wrote. "First, an attorney; then a selectman; a huffing justice; a deputy; an assistant; a member of Congress."
CHARLES EDGAR CLARK
By John Phelps
R ECENTLY while reading Mark Sullivan's book OUR TIMES, a most interesting history of America at the turn of the century, I came across the statement that the slow journey of the battleship OREGON around South America through the Straits of Magellan to join the American battle fleet off
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Florida in the Spanish-American War, was the most compelling argument in the minds of the American public toward the build- ing of the Panama Canal. "The OREGON," said my friend as we sat before the fireplace, "You mean Clark of the OREGON. Don't you realize that those names go together? It was the beginning of the great 'slogan era' .. . Roosevelt at San Juan, Dewey at Manila, Hobson and the Merrimac, and Clark of the OREGON. Think of what an exciting thing modern radio an- nouncers would have made of Admiral Clark's sixty-six day journey, with daily radio reports of the OREGON getting nearer and nearer the Spanish fleet getting more and more impatient, bottled up in the Bay of Santiago de Cuba. Yes, of course, Admiral Clark of the OREGON . . . who can forget?"
And indeed who can? In the light of modern transportation when a plane hops from San Francisco to New York in twenty- four hours and when the art of war has been lifted into the air, the sixty-six days that Admiral Clark took to get from San Francisco around South America to Florida seem like an age. But in 1898 it was an unparalleled feat. It was a triumph of seamanship, good judgment, discipline and planning. The battleship was an untried instrument of war, and the OREGON was the first with its 15,000 mile race, to prove the efficiency of this fighting machine.
Clark, in command of the OREGON at San Francisco, was ordered to make all possible haste to join Admiral Sampson off Cuba. He started March 19, 1898. Off the Brazilian coast Clark first heard of the declaration of war and that he might be opposed by the entire Spanish fleet. The choice was given him by the War Department. He decided, when he thought of the bravery of Vermonters in the Revolution and the Civil War, to face it. As it happened, he did not meet the Spaniards, and he arrived just in time to help win the great naval engage- ment of Santiago de Cuba. The Spanish fleet was bottled up in the harbor, and Clark with the OREGON instantly took front place with the American fleet just outside. On the morning
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of July 3, all were amazed to see the Spanish ships gallantly coming out! The American vessels opened a hot .fire. The OREGON, narrowly averting collision with two other American battleships, rushed to the fore and was nearest the enemy throughout the engagement. Its accurate fire, its efficient hand- ling, and its superb condition played a large part in the Ameri- can victory which resulted in the sinking of every one of the Spanish ships, a feat duplicated only by Dewey at Manila Bay.
Clark was promoted five grades, and the American public widely acclaimed him as one of the great heroes of the war. Songs and verses were made up in his, and the OREGON's honor, and its 15,000 mile cruise was called a feat unprecedented in naval annals.
Thus, Charles Edgar Clark toward the end of his fifty years in the navy achieved some measure of fame and became, with Dewey and Mayo, one of the three admirals that the small in- land state of Vermont has furnished to American History.
Charles Edgar Clark was born in Bradford, Vermont, August 10, 1843, son of James Dayton Clark, a bookbinder, and Mary (Sexton) Clark. He prepared at Bradford Academy and like Dewey aspired to West Point but was led by Senator Morrill to choose Annapolis which he entered September 20, 1860, just before the Civil War. He trained on the old CONSTITUTION and was with the Academy when the midshipmen were moved, because of the war, to Newport, Rhode Island, in 1861. In 1863, Clark made his first European cruise, and then entered the Civil War, serving with coolness and bravery with Admiral Farragut at the extensive fighting in Mobile Bay, August, 1864. In 1865, he was on the VANDERBILT cruising around South America where, on the way up, he witnessed the Spanish bombardment of Val- paraiso, Chile, and the subsequent defeat of the Spanish fleet at "Caliao, Peru. In 1867, he was on the SUWANEE, wrecked at Vancouver Island, and was placed in charge of the survivors. He married Marie Louise Davis of Greenfield, Massachusetts, April 8, 1869 and for the next several years served on many
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ships and at land stations. He was navigator of the DICTATOR, largest ironclad in the navy; assistant commander at Annapolis; took his first command in the ship RANGER surveying the west coast of Central America ; served in Asiatic squadron for several years and was head of the American fleet in the Bering Sea to en- force sealing regulations -- which brings us to 1898 and to the exploit of the OREGON. . His life in these years was one of routine and regular naval service. He had been promoted to lieutenant commander by the time he was twenty-four but did not become captain until 1896. After the battle of Santiago de Cuba, he was chief of staff to Commodore J. C. Watson, head of the so-called flying squadron organized to dissuade the Spanish from setting out with their fleet. The threat was enough, for the Spanish remained in Spain, and the flying squadron never put to sea. Clark was commandant on the navy yard in Phila- delphia in 1899 and was made rear admiral, June 16, 1902 retiring in 1905.
This inland-born admiral first saw the sea in the frigate CONSTITUTION while at Annapolis; he was the consort of the first ironclad to round South America, and he commanded the OREGON, the first modern battleship to come through the Straits of Magellan.
The following extract (with original spelling) from the diary of an unschooled marine with Clark on the OREGON, graphically illustrates the great esteem in which he was held by the humblest of the men under him: "They have been talk- ing of forsing the Chanell and Capt. Clark signaled over to the flag ship and asked permission to take the leed, and I am sure we will stay with him as long as the ship floats for we love him."
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THOMAS CHITTENDEN
By Walter H. Crockett
A MONG the notable figures of that remarkable group of pioneer leaders who, amid manifold perils, established the commonwealth of Vermont, Thomas Chittenden ranks among the greatest of the wise master builders of the Green Mountain State. Its first governor, elected chief executive for eighteen terms, and defeated once for re-election, he held this position longer than any other incumbent of that office during more than a century and a half of history. He was a plain, rugged individual, without the learning of the schools, lacking the graces and culture of polite society, but he was a born leader of men. His leadership differed widely from that of Ethan and Ira Allen. He lacked Ethan's commanding figure, his ready use of tongue and pen, his magnetic personal- ity, and Ira's tact and diplomacy, but he was richly endowed with shrewdness, sagacity, and the quality for which there is no substitute, common sense. Daniel Chipman quotes Ethan Allen as saying that Governor Chittenden "was the only man he ever knew who was sure to be right in all, even the most difficult and complex cases, and yet could not tell or seem to know why he was so."
Thomas Chittenden was born in East Guilford, in the col- ony of Connecticut, January 6, 1730, being of the fourth generation from Major William Chittenden, who emigrated to America in 1639, after honorable service in the Thirty Years' War. His educational advantages were meagre. Find- ing the life of a New England farm lacking in adventure, at .. the age of eighteen he signed as a sailor on a voyage to the West Indies. Great Britain and France were engaged in one of their periodic wars, and a French warship captured the trading craft, landing the crew upon a barren island of the
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West Indies. After enduring many hardships, Thomas Chit- tenden made his way back to his Connecticut home. In process of time he married a comely New England maiden, Elizabeth Meigs, removed to Salisbury, Connecticut, raised a family of four sons and six daughters, became a man of substance, and was honored by being chosen a justice of the peace, member of the Connecticut Assembly and colonel of a regiment.
There is in the Chittenden family a legend to the effect that the subject of this sketch led a rescuing party in the pursuit of a band of Indians which had taken captives from Connecticut and had started for Canada. The pursuers followed the Con- necticut and White River valleys, crossed over to the valley of the Winooski, rescued the captives and returned home. The story goes that the party camped over night on an intervale in Williston, which Colonel Chittenden determined to own. In 1773, he purchased a large tract of fertile intervale land on the Winooski, sufficient for large farms for himself and his sons. In June, 1774, the family removed to the new home, where a clearing had been made and a log house built. With the outbreak of the American Revolution the frontier was not a safe place for the Chittenden family. After the Canadian campaign had ended in an American disaster, in the spring of 1776, Thomas Chittenden buried some of his possessions, and taking his family on the backs of horses and oxen, he made his way to Danby, where he rented a farm. During the next few years the family resided at Pownal, Williamstown, Massa- chusetts, and Arlington.
Chittenden's experience in public life in Connecticut com- mended him to the Green Mountain Boys, and he was elected chairman of the Council of Safety. The New Hampshire Grants, at least that portion west of the Green Mountains, had refused to recognize the governmental authority of New York. A rudimentary form of government had been estab- lished by means of local committees of safety, a central com- mittee of safety, and delegate conventions held from time to
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time. Thomas Chittenden was a member of nearly all these conventions, which through a process of evolution, led to the formation of an independent state. That his wisdom and ability were recognized at their true worth is demonstrated by the fact that after aiding in the formation of a state con- stitution as president of the convention, he was elected the first governor of the new commonwealth "by a large ma- jority."
An adequate biographical sketch of Thomas Chittenden covering the period from 1778 until his death would of neces- sity include the story of the important events of Vermont his- tory for almost a score of years. It was necessary to set up a system of government in a region where nearly all the par- ticipants in this effort were ignorant of legislative, executive and judicial duties; to extend the jurisdiction of the new state in areas where not a few of the people were indifferent or hostile; to guard against the intrigues of hostile neighbors in adjoining commonwealths, and against attacks from British troops in Canada; to impress Congress with the adequacy of Vermont's claims for admission as a state of the Union; to secure the enactment of wise laws and the execution of the same; to raise revenue to carry on the functions of govern- ment. At times it seemed that Vermont was on the verge of armed conflict with New Hampshire and New York; that Congress would intervene to compel Vermont's submis- sion to the Yorkers; that internal dissensions would wreck the new state; that Britain would seize this region as a con- quered province. Through all these perils Thomas Chitten- den steered such a wise and prudent course that threatened disasters were skilfully avoided, Vermont steadily gained in population, wealth and prestige, and the governor was re- ยทยท elected term after term, with one exception, as long as he lived. He was aided by other men of undoubted genius and consummate ability, but he was the responsible head of the state. He was active in the Haldimand Negotiations whereby
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the British authorities in Canada were led to believe that there was a possibility of making Vermont a royal province, and armed invasion was prevented. Correspondence was car- ried on with General Washington and the Continental Con- gress relative to the status of Vermont. Revenue was derived and friends were made by grants of lands. Some semblance of order was brought out of the chaotic conditions that pre- vailed in regard to land records, due to the prevalence of war and the dispute over land titles, by means of a series of "bet- terment acts," adopted under Governor Chittenden's guid- ance. Finally, Vermont was brought into the Federal Union, by means of legislation validating the New Hampshire land grants, which had been in dispute for a quarter of a century.
The people of Vermont were strongly individualistic in their attitude toward authority. They could be led, but they could not be driven easily. In the best and in the proper use of the term, Governor Chittenden was a skilful politician. He knew how to manage men. During all the difficult and peril- ous years of his leadership, he was tactful and conciliatory, but he could be firm and resolute, when firmness was neces- sary. The homely virtues and native shrewdness which char- acterized Governor Chittenden's leadership were worth more to Vermont in this pioneer period than the polished manners and classical learning which were outstanding qualities of some of the gentlemen who were greatly admired in that day.
Governor Chittenden built a fine large house on his Wil- liston property, on a bluff overlooking the valley of the Winooski River, and there he lived during the later years of his official life.
In his last message to the General Assembly, in October, 1791, after reviewing the progress made by the state, he said, "Suffer me then as a father, as a friend, and as a lover of this people, and as one whose voice cannot much longer be heard here, to instruct you in all your appointments, to have regard for none but those who maintain a good moral character-
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men of integrity, and distinguished for wisdom and abilities." He died August 25, 1799. Over his grave in the old cemetery at Williston the state of Vermont has erected a monument, on which is fittingly inscribed the words: "Out of storm and manifold perils rose an enduring state, the home of freedom and unity."
JACOB COLLAMER
By Edmund C. Mower
MONG American statesmen of the momentous era end- A ing with the close of the Civil War, Jacob Collamer held a distinguished place. Not a son of Vermont by birth, he became one by adoption at a tender age, and to her he ren- dered conspicuous service throughout a long and eminent public career.
He was born in Troy, New York, on January 8, 1791. When he was four years old his father, who was of a prominent Massachusetts family and had seen service in the Revolution, removed to Burlington, Vermont, where he spent the re- mainder of his life. The son, completing his preparation for college at the age of fifteen, entered the University of Ver- mont, graduated in the class of 1810, at once began the study of law, and was admitted to the Vermont bar in 1813. He practiced his profession for a brief period in Randolph, re- moving in 1816 to Royalton, where he remained for the next twenty years. In 1836 he removed to Woodstock, his home thereafter until his death on November 9, 1865.
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