The history of Vermont, from its discovery to its admission into the Union in 1791. By Hiland Hall

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Preface

The purpose of the author is to treat more fully than has yet heen done by any writer, of the discovery, exploration and settlement of Vermont ; of the adverse claims to the lands occupied by the settlers, and of the origin and character of those claims; of the necessity under which the early inhabitants were placed of forming themselves into a separate and distinct community, in order to maintain their titles and preserve their property; of their earnest and valuable services against the common enemy during the revolutionary war; aud of the obstacles they encountered in organizing a new state government, and in establishing and maintaining its independence. His aim is to embody facts, and to state them with his views ,jn intelligible language, without ■ making any pretensions to literary merit.

Among those to whom the author is indebted for information and ready access to papers and documents on the subjects of his inquiries, his acknowledgments are specially due to Benjamin BE. Hall, Esq., of Troy, author of the History of Eastern Vermont; 'to E. B. O'Callaghan, LL.D., of Albany ; the Hon. J. Hammond Trumbull, of Hartford; the Rev. Pliny H. "White of Coventry, President of the Vermont Historical Society; the Hon. Charles Reed, of Montpelier; the Hon. James H. Phelps, of Townsheud ; Henry Hall, Esq., and Henry Clark, Esq., of Rutland.

North IJennington,

September, 1868.

Contents

Settlement of Vermont, and conflicting claims to its .territory, 1

European discoveries, grants of territory and colonization, - 6

The Charter of New Netherland by King Charles the second to the

Chapter I

Settlement of Vermont and Conflicting Claims to its Territory.

1609-1665.

Approach of civilized men — The Dutch, the French and the New England Puritans — Port Dummer— Territorial claims of Massachusetts — Boundary dispute of that province with New Hampshire — Lands granted by Governor Wentworth — French war — Settlements under New Hampshire — Transfer of jurisdiction to New York — Lands regranted by New York, and under what claim.

fT^HE state of Vermont, as an independent commonwealth, strug- -*- gled into existence through a double revolution. The early inhabitants of the state revolted against the province of New York, to which the territory had been annexed by the arbitrary will of the king, and they united with their brethren of the other colonies in their armed resistance to the demands of the mother country. It is my purpose to inquire into and state the causes which produced the former revolution, and to take some notice of its progress, from its commencement to its final consummation in the acknowledgment of the independence of the state by New York, and its consequent admission as a member of the federal union.

At the close of the French war which terminated in the conquest of Canada in 1760, the territory now the state of Vermont, with a trifling exception, was an uninhabited wilderness. Civilization, however, had long been gradually, though slowly, approaching it.

In 1609, Henry Hudson had sailed up the river which bears his name, and as early as about the year 1620, the Dutch had established themselves at Albany. That place had, however, been occupied principally as a post for carrying on trade with the western Indians, and so tardy had been the progress of settlement, that at the end of one hundred and forty years the northern frontier of the province 1 of New York, east of the Hudson, was along the banks of the Hoosick river, within about thirty miles of that city.

Simultaneously with the first visit of the Dutch to Hudson's river, Champlain the French governor at Quebec, had ascended the- St. Lawrence and Sorel into the lake which bears his name, and as early as 1646, the French Jesuits had discovered that beautiful body of water now known as Lake George, and had given it the name of St. Sacrament. In 1730, a few individuals or families, came up the lake from Canada, and established themselves at Chimney point in the present township of Addison, and built a block house and wind mill. The next year troops were sent out who erected on the opposite side of the lake Fort Frederick, afterwards known as Crown Point. At a later date the French built a fort at Ticonderoga. They claimed that the territory of New France, by rights of discovery and exploration, included both lake St. Sacrament and Champlain, and the governors of Canada made extensive grants of land along both shores of the latter lake. It does not, however, appear that settlement, for purposes of cultivation were made by the French other than in the vicinity of those forts. They were not very extensive and were abandoned on the approach of the English under General Amherst in 1759. *

Southerly and easterly of the territory of Vermont were the Puritan settlements of New England. As early as 1636, these enterprising pioneers had commenced a settlement at Springfield on the Connecticut river; eighteen years later they had begun a town at Northhampton; by the year 1670 had founded Deerfield; and in 1714, a, previous settlement which had been made at Northfield and broken up by the Indians, was permanently renewed. Northfield embraced both sides of Connecticut river, and bordered on the present states of New Hampshire and Vermont.

Westerly from Springfield the progress of the Massachusetts emigrants had been less rapid. Although they had founded Westfield, ten miles west of Connecticut river by the year 1666, it was as late as 1730, that they had crossed the range of mountains and established themselves in the valley of the Housatonic at Sheffield, and Stockbridge, near the western border of the province. In the year 1744, the government of Massachusetts had erected a fort on the Hoosick river between the present villages of North Adams and Williamstown, called Fort Massachusetts, and sometimes Hoosick fort, and before the close of the French war in 1760, some progress

1 Swift's, History of Addison County, chap. iv.

had been made in the settlements of Pittsfield and Lanesborough, and perhaps of one or two other towns in the northerly part of the present county of Berkshire. l

The first permanent occupation of any of the territory of Vermont by civilized men was in 1724, when a block-house, named Fort Dummer, was built on the Connecticut river at Brattleboro. It was erected by the colony of Massachusetts for the better protection of the settlers at Northfield and its vicinity against the incursions of the French and Indians from Canada, and garrisoned by a few men, their number varying from five to thirty or more, as the proper security of that section of the province seemed from time to time to demand. It was supported principally, if not wholly, by Massachusetts, and was occupied as a military post during the continuance of the Indian and French wars.

The government of Massachusetts had always claimed that the province extended much further north than the present limits of that state, and included a large portion of the territory now in New Hampshire and Vermont; and, in accordance with that claim, had early in the eighteenth century made grants of land on both sides of Connecticut river within such territory. In 1715 a tract of about forty-four thousand acres, covering a portion of the present Vermont townships of Putney, Dummerston and Brattleboro, had been granted to the colony of Connecticut, as an equivalent for lands which had been previously granted by Massachusetts, and which on running the line between the two provinces were found to fall within the limits of Connecticut, which " equivalent lands," as they were called, were, the succeeding year, sold and transferred by Connecticut to Wm. Dummer, afterwards lieut. governor of Massachusetts, Anthony Stoddard, Wm. Brattle and John White. On the 19th of .Nov., 1736, in pursuance of a vote of the general court of Massachusetts, a township, designated as number one, was laid out between the great falls and the equivalent lands, comprising the present township of Westminster. Vernon, which formed a portion of Hinsdale, and also Guilford, and perhaps other townships, were likewise granted by Massachusetts, at an early day.2

In 1740, a long pending controversy between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, about their respective limits, was decided by the crown in favor of the latter, by the establishment of the present

1 Holland's History of Western Massachusetts.

2 Hall's Eastern Vermont, chap. 1. Statistics of the American Association, vol. 1, p. 13-21.

northern line of Massachusetts, as the boundary between them ; of which controversy and decision, a more full account will be given hereafter. The next year Benning .Wentworth was appointed governor of New Hampshire, and in his commission from the king, his province was declared to extend westerly until it should meet his niajesty^s other governments.1

The western boundary of New York had always, both in England and America, been generally understood to be a line running from the western limits of the colony of Connecticut on Long Island sound, northerly to Lake Champlain ; and upon the determination of the boundary controversy before mentioned, it was not doubted in New England, that New Hampshire, as well as Massachusetts, was bounded westerly by that line, and that the former thus included the territory now Vermont. In accordance with this understanding Governor Wentworth, in 1749, granted the township of Bennington six miles square situated six miles North of Massachusetts line, and twenty miles east of Hudson's river ; and he subsequently, from time to time, made other similar grants west of Connecticut river up to the year 1764, when the whole number of townships which had been granted by him was about one hundred and thirty.9 But the exposure of the territory to Indian depredations had prevented very extensive settlements until after the conclusion of the French war, which terminated in the month of September, 1760, by the capture of Montreal and the formal surrender of the province of New France to the English arms. With the exception, indeed, of a few small tracts which had been cleared and partially cultivated, under the immediate protection of Fort Dummer at Brattleboro and of some private block houses on the banks of the Connecticut in the towns of Hinsdale (now Vernon), Putney and Westminister, the territory still remained an unbroken forest. It had, however, been frequently traversed by the men of New England in their expeditions to the theatre of war in the vicinity of Lakes George and Champlain, and the fertility of its soil had become familiarly and favorably known to them. No sooner, therefore, was the territory opened for safe occupation by the conquest of Canada, than a strong desire pervaded the New England colonies to emigrate to it. Several townships were accordingly occupied under the New Hampshire charters, in the spring of 1761, and settlements continued thereafter to be rapidly made.

1 Belknap, Parmer's Edition, p. 357. American Statistics, vol. i, p. 26. Iowa of Cang, Oct. 8, 1787. Doc. Hist. New York, vol. 4, p. 532.

2 Slades' Vermont State Papers, p. 13.

On the 20th of July, 1764, the king by an order in council placed the settlers under the government of New York, by declaring " the western bank of the river Connecticut, from where it enters the province of Massachusetts bay, as far north as the' forty-fifth degree of northern latitude, to be the boundary line between the two provinces of New Hampshire and New York." l This change of jurisdiction, which had been made without the consent or knowledge of the settlers, though not pleasing to them, would no' doubt have been quietly submitted to, if nothing further had been demanded. But the lieutenant governor of New York and his council held that the king's order, not only conferred on them the powers of government as far eastward as Connecticut river, but was in effect a declaration of the crown that such had always been the rightful extent of their jurisdiction. As a consequence of this retrospective interpretation of the order in council, they declared that all the grants which had been made by Wentworth, as governor of New Hampshire, having been of lands not within his province, were absolutely null and void. They thereupon treated the settlers as trespassers upon the king's domain, and the lieutenant governor proceeded to grant the lands anew to others. This conduct of the New York government towards the settlers and claimants under New Hampshire, was the sole cause of the long and bitter controversy which followed, and which ended in the separation of the territory from that province. The grounds, therfore, on which the rulers of New York sought to justify their measures against the settlers, will deserve a particular and careful examination.

That the words "to be the boundary," in the connexion in which they were used in the king's order, were designed to have any further meaning, than that such should be the boundary from that time forward, must at best be very doubtful. Indeed, the construction that would limit the operation of the order to the future, would seem to be the most natural. But its true construction could be of very small importance, for the declaration, even of the king, could not alter the fact of history, whatever it might have been. The New York rulers did not in truth appear to place much reliance upon their critical exposition of the words " to be," but asserted an earlier title to the territory, under the charter of King Charles the second to the Duke of York, in 1664, which title they declared to be " clear and undoubted." A particular examination of the character of this charter claim, will therefore be necessary, and the subject will be pursued in a future chapter.

lDoc. Sist. W. T., vol. 4, p. 574, Appendix, No 4.

EARLY HISTORY OP VERMONT.

CHAPTEE II.

Grants and Colonization of Territory.

1497-1662.

Colonization by the Dutch and English — Their conflicting claims to territory—The English claim from Labrador to Florida, and deny any right in the Dutch — Different classes of English colonial governments — Grant of the first and second colonies of Virginia in 1606 — Of New England to the council of Plymouth in 1620 — Grant by that company to Massachusetts in 1627 with territory extending to the Pacific — Colonies of Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven — New England confederacy — Boundary treaty between their commissioners and the Dutch governor of New Netherland at Hartford in 1650, and its ratification by the States General of Holland — Charter of Connecticut by King Charles in 1662,, including New Haven and reaching west to the Pacific.

"VTEW York was originally settled by the Dutch under the name -^ of New Netherland, and was conquered by the English in 1664. The charter of King Charles, by virtue of which the territory of Vermont was afterwards claimed by the rulers of New York to constitute a part of that province, had been issued to the Duke of York, a few months previously, in contemplation of such conquest. The charter was undoubtedly designed to embrace the Dutch colony as it then existed, and without any intention of the king to interfere with existing rights under previous grants of the English crown. A knowledge of the extent of that colony, at that time, will therefore be necessary in order to determine the proper effect to be given to the language of the charter in regard to boundaries, and in deciding what were subsequently the extent and limits of the province of New York. A proper understanding of this matter, will require some account of the origin and progress of colonization by both the Dutch and English, prior to that period.

It has been previously stated, that Henry Hudson, sailing under the authority of the Dutch, had, in 1609, discovered and partially explored the river which bears his name. That enterprising commercial people soon opened a trade for furs with the natives along that river, and about the year 1614, established a trading post on an island near the present site of Albany, and another on Manhattan island. This trade gradually increased in activity and importance and in 1623, settlements for purposes of cultivation were commenced near the ocean, under the direction of the Dutch West India company, to which, by a charter from the United Netherlands, had been granted a monopoly of trade to the African and American continents. The Dutch from Manhattan, which afterwards bore the name of New Amsterdam, and subsequently that of New York, made an early exploration of Long Island sound, and of the coast further eastward; and they claimed that New Netherland extended from Delaware bay to Cape Cod, especially embracing the river Connecticut, which they named Versch, or, Fresh river. This claim was always denied by the English government, who as early as 1621 " having been informed that within the year past the Hollanders have entered upon some parts of North Virginia, by us called New England, and there left a colony, and given new names to the several ports appertaining to that part of the country, and are now in readiness to send for their supply six or eight ships," instructed Sir Henry Carlton, their embassador at the Hague, to represent to the States General that his majesty had " many years since by patent granted the quiet and full possession of the whole precinct unto particular persons," and to require of them "that as well those ships as their further prosecution of that plantation be stayed." Which representation and request were accordingly made, but without any other apparent result, than information from the States General that the matter had been properly referred, and would be inquired into. The English, however, ever afterwards insisted that the Dutch of New Netherland were intruders upon territory which belonged to them,1

The English claimed the whole of North America, from Labrador to Florida, by virtue of its prior discovery by the Cabots under their authority in 1497, and of subsequent explorations and efforts to colonize it, though their claims had to some extent been interfered with by the occupation of Canada by the French, and New Netherland by the Dutch. By the English constitution, the title to all the lands belonging to the natives was vested in the king, who might grant them at pleasure. The king also exercised the power of creating corporations by charter, and prior to this grant of King Charles to the duke, extensive portions of North America had been granted by the crown, either to individuals or to corporations thus constituted. The charters to corporations not only passed the title of the crown to the lands they described, but also conferred on the grantees certain powers of government over the people that should thereafter inhabit them. Some of the king's charters to individuals also con-

1 Colonial Hist. N. T., vol. 3, p. 678, and vol. 1, p. 27, 28. Brodliead's N. York, vol. 1, p. 140, 142.

ferred on them powers of government, while others only conveyed the title to the soil.

These charters were irrevocable by the king, who while they remained in force had no authority to recall the titles or the political privileges with which he had thug parted. The charters might, indeed, be declared forfeited for a violation by the grantees of some of their express or implied conditions, but this forfeiture could not be taken at the pleasure of the crown. It could only be ascertained and declared by a judicial proceeding instituted in the courts of law or equity for that purpose: the usual mode being by what was termed a writ of quo warranto. The grants of the king with corporate powers constituted what was denominated charter governments. To this class belonged those of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, and also some of the more southern colonies. Where the lands of a province with political authority were granted to an individual the government thus constituted was termed a proprietary government. Of this character were the grants of Maryland to Lord Baltimore, of Pennsylvania to Mr. Penn, and also the grant now under consideration, that of New Netherland to the Duke of York.

There was still another class of English colonial governments which were styled royal governments, of which it is necessary that special notice should be taken. Those were governments in which the king, untramelled by charter grants of the soil or of political privileges retained over them all his original authority. They were presided over by a governor, assisted by a council, appointed by the crown, and removable at his pleasure. The governor had a negative upon the proceedings of any assembly of the people which he might convene, with power to prorogue or dissolve it, whenever he saw fit. To the governor also was committed authority to grant, for and in the name of the king, any unchartered lands in his province. The king retained full power over the boundaries and extent of these royal colonies, and might enlarge on or contract them at pleasure. These changes in the limits and extent of royal provinces were not unfrequently made, sometimes by creating new charter governments in portions of the territory, sometimes by the adjudication of boundary disputes between provinces, at others by descriptions of territory in commissions to governors, and sometimes by mere informal recognition or usage. To this class of royal provinces belonged both New Hampshire and New York at the time of the territorial controversy between them in relation to Vermont; for although the latter province had originally been chartered to the Duke of York, with political authority, yet on his accession to the throne in 1685 his title merged in the crown, and the colony was ever afterwards governed as a royal province.

Owing perhaps to the imperfect knowledge in England - of the geography of this country, and especially of its interior ; or to the small value which was placed upon its remote and uncultivated lands, or to the carelessness or dishonesty of draughtsmen or transcribers of patents or others, many of the descriptions of territory in the early English charters were confused and of uncertain meaning, so much so, that new grants were frequently found to clash with others of previous date, or to be of very indefinite and doubtful extent.

Thus the grant of New Hampshire to Mason in 1629, which reached southerly to the middle, of the river Merrimack plainly clashed with that of Massachusetts, which had been made two years previous, and which extended northerly to a line three miles to the northward of every part of that river. The descriptions of their boundaries were also so confused in other respects as to produce a long and tedious controversy which was finally settled by the king in council, by establishing an arbitrary line that neither of the parties claimed. So likewise there was a direct conflict between the two charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island, the former granted in 1662 and the latter, the year after. By the first charter Connecticut was bounded east by Narragansett river and bay, and by the latter Ehode Island included the whole of that river and bay, and extended west twenty miles farther to Pawkatuc river. Notwithstanding the priority of the Connecticut charter, the disputed territory, after a tedious controversy, was retained by Ehode Island by the final decision of the king.1 Indeed there were scarcely any two of the original English colonies adjoining each other, between which serious controversies did not arise, growing out of the ambiguous or contradictory language of the evidences of their title under the crown.

The charter of King Charles to the Duke of York when brought into comparison with those of adjoining colonies, was found from its indefinite language to be peculiarly exposed to disputes of this character. Not only did it occasion sharp and tedious controversies with the several New England colonies, of which full accounts will be given hereafter, but also with the two adjoining provinces of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which bounded it to the west and south.

In pursuance of the English claim to the whole northern part of this continent, King James the second, in 1606, granted in one

1 Story's Com., vol. 1, p. 75, 83. Hutchinson, vol. 2, p. 313.

charter to two separate companies, the one denominated the London and the other the Plymouth company, the right to colonize any part of North America between the latitudes of thirty-four and forty-five degrees north. The London company, whose settlement was to be distinguished as the first colony of Virginia, might plant any where between the thirty-fourth and forty-first degrees of north latitude, or between cape Pear and the east end of Long Island. The Plymouth company, whose settlement was to be called the second colony of Virginia, might plant any where between the thirty-eighthand forty-fifth degrees of north latitude, or in other words between Delaware bay and Halifax ; but neither company was to begin its settlement within one hundred miles of any spot previously occupied by the other. Each colony was to extend along the coast fifty miles each way from the spot first occupied, and one hundred miles inland. Under this charter the first permanent English settlement on this continent was made -at Jamestown in Virginia, the following year. In 1609, the London company obtained from the crown a new charter, with powers of government, comprising a territory which reached two hundred miles south and the same distance to the north of Old Point Comfort ; that is, from about latitudes thirty-four to forty degrees north, and extended west to the Pacific Ocean. This charter was however vacated in England, in 1624, by writ of quo warranto, and Virginia becoming thereby a royal colony, several new provinces, and among them Maryland and North Carolina, were subsequently carved out of its territory, by charters from the king.

The' early operations of the Plymouth company were not of an encouraging character. Attempts were made in 1607, 1610, and 1616, to establish colonies on the coast of " North Virginia," the latter under the famous Capt. John Smith, but all of them proved unsuccessful. The company however, under date of Nov. 3, 1620, obtained from the crown a new charter, incorporating them by the name of " the council established at Plymouth in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering, and governing of New England in America," by which there was granted them in full property with exclusive jurisdiction, settlement and traffic, all that part of America "lying in breadth from 40 to 48 degrees north latitude, and in length by all the breadth aforesaid, throughout the main land from sea to sea." The whole of North America, as claimed by the English, was thus divided into the two provinces of Virginia and New England, by a line very nearly corresponding with that which now separates the late slaveholding from the non-slaveholding states,

EARLY HISTORY OF VERMONT. H

the charter of the Plymouth company comprehending the whole of New York as well as New England.1

This Plymouth company was not however, destined to plant the first English colony within the territory which had thus been granted them. At the date of their charter, Nov. 3, 1620, a small band of men with their families, in a frail bark, were approaching its wild and inhospitable coast, seeking amidst peril and suffering, a place in which they might enjoy in peace and quiet their peculiar religious opinions. Such a place they found a few weeks afterwards, and named it New Plymouth, after the port from which they had last embarked in England. This settlement was made without any authority from the king or his patentees, and it was not until nine years afterwards, that they obtained a grant from the council of Plymouth, of a territory including their settlement, and covering most of the south-east part of the present state of Massachusetts. Plymouth constituted a separate and distinct colony from Massachusetts, until 1691, when it was made a part of that province, by charter from King William and Queen Mary.2

Of the New England colonies, Massachusetts was the next in the order of time. The council of Plymouth by their deed of indenture, duly executed under their common seal, and bearing date March 19, 1627, conveyed to " Sir Henry Roswell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcott, John Humphreys, John Endicott, and Simon Whitcomb, their heirs and assigns and their associates forever, all that part of New England in America," lying between the Merrimack and Charles rivers and three miles to the south of Charles river, " and lying and being within the space of three English miles to the northward of the said river, called the Monomack alias Merrimack, or to the northward of any and every part thereof, and all lands and hereditaments whatsoever lying within the limits aforesaid north and south in latitude and in length and longitude all the breadth aforesaid, throughout the mainland there from, the Atlantic and western sea and ocean on ike east part to the south sea on the west parts.'

King Charles, by letters patent, dated March 28, 1628, confirmed to the said Roswell, Young, Southcott, Humphreys, Endicott and Whitcomb and their associates by name, being eighteen in number, all the lands before conveyed to them by the council of Plymouth by the same descriptive words, and also created the said Roswell, Young, Southcott, Humphreys, Endicott and Whitcomb and their lHaa., vol. 1. Brod. JV. T. 138.

2 Story on the constitution, Book 1, chap. iii.

associates, a body politic by the name of" the governor and company of Massachusetts Bay in New England," with extensive powers of government. The southern line of the territory thus conveyed and confirmed, which was run three miles south of the southernmost part of Charles river, is identical with the present north line of Connecticut extended due east to the Atlantic and west to the Pacific ocean. The northern boundary was long the subject of controversy. Of the Merrimack river, little could have been known at the time of the grant. It is now understood to be formed in the interior of New Hampshire, by the junction of the Pemigewasset and the Winnipiseogee rivers, in latitude about forty-three and a half degrees north. After running from thence nearly south about sixty miles it turns rather abruptly towards the east and pursuing that direction for about thirty miles empties into the Atlantic. It was claimed by Massachusetts that what is now known as the Winnipiseogee branch constituted a part of the Merrimack, which if correct would carry its source some twenty or thirty miles farther north than the junction of that river with the Pemigewasset.