The strangers had come to the head of the bridge on the opposite bank of
the river from the sawmill when they were suddenly halted by an abrupt
"Who are you--friend or foe?" They saw a big man coming round from
behind the mill, followed by about twenty others, and the light was now
sufficiently clear to show the strangers that these men were armed, and
quite prepared to use their guns if necessary. The strangers--of whom
there were ten--stopped on their side of the river.
"Big Bill," marching his men down to his end of the bridge, so as to
prevent any attempt to cross it, now repeated his question, "Are you
Yorkers? Or are you friends? If you're looking for a fight we're the
boys as can give you one!"
The leader of the other party saw that the big fellow who spoke for
Beaver Falls was telling the truth. There were twice as many Green
Mountain Boys as there were men of his own party, and they looked ready
for fight. In such case he instantly recognized that discretion was the
better part of valor. He grounded his musket to show that he had no
intention of using it, and smiled at the big man opposite. "We're
peaceful folks," he declared, "and not spoiling for a fight with you."
"That's sensible talk," said Dutton, also grounding his gun, which he
had been holding ready for instant use. "All the same, I reckon you be
Yorkers, and weren't coming on any good business to the Falls."
"We've got orders from the proper parties in New York to take possession
of this territory," admitted the other leader.
"Well, you can go back to your proper parties and tell 'em other folks
have already taken possession here."
"You folks haven't got the law on your side," protested the Yorker
leader.
"That depends on what law you're talking about," retorted "Big Bill."
"We've got the law of New Hampshire, and I reckon that's as good law as
any they make in the Yorkers' country."
The other man saw there was no more use in arguing with his opponents
than in fighting them. "You're a pretty slick lot," he said in a
conciliatory tone. "Can't catch you boys asleep, can we?"
"Some o' your men tried to last night," said Dutton. "We've got 'em in
the sawmill now, and we're going to take 'em down to Bennington pretty
soon and see what the law there has to say about men who come around
trying to steal other folks' property."
"Oh, you've got 'em, have you? We were wondering where they'd got to.
Well, I guess there isn't much more for us to be doing round here then."
Dutton grinned. "No, Yorkers, I don't hardly think there is. Unless you
want to hand over those guns and join the party that's going down to
Bennington."
"Hardly think we'd enjoy that party, neighbor," said the Yorker leader.
"Well, some of us is going south with your friends," said "Big Bill,"
"but there'll be plenty left here at the Falls to give you a pleasant
welcome any time you want to call."
The Yorkers conferred together for a few minutes. Then the leader sang
out, "Good-bye, boys. Glad to have met you!"
"Good-bye," Dutton called back. "Come again any time!" shouted Snyder.
The rest of the men of the Falls sent other messages flying across the
river.
The Yorkers shouldered their muskets and marched back the road, while
the Green Mountain Boys cheered until the last of their opponents was
hidden by the trees.
Dutton's party, including the three boys, stayed at Beaver Falls the
better part of that day, waiting to see if any more Yorkers would put in
an appearance. But no more came, and that afternoon, leaving a
sufficient number to guard the village, they set out with their
prisoners for Bennington. They spent the night at another small
settlement, where the people were only too glad to give them shelter
when they learned what the band had done. Next day they reached
Bennington, and turned their prisoners over to the sheriff there, to be
dealt with as the officers should think fit.
In Bennington, which was a very primitive town, but the center of that
part of the country, Jack and Sam heard much about the border strife.
They heard that the governor of New York had offered rewards for the
capture of certain Green Mountain Boys, one hundred pounds apiece for
the arrest of Ethan Allen and Remember Baker, fifty pounds apiece for
Seth Warner and five others. The governor also ordered that any people
who should resist the commands of New York officers should be arrested
and taken to Albany for trial. All of "Big Bill's" party, Jack and Sam
among them, were therefore now liable to be arrested by New York
officers.
The people of Bennington and the Green Mountain Boys, however, only
laughed at these proclamations of the New York governor. They were quite
ready to defend themselves if any came to arrest them.
While they were at Bennington Ethan Allen and the others who had been
declared outlaws issued a proclamation of their own. They said, "We are
under the necessity of resisting even unto blood every person who may
attempt to take us as felons or rioters as aforesaid, for in this case
it is not resisting law, but only opposing force by force; therefore,
inasmuch as, by the oppressions aforesaid, the New Hampshire settlers
are reduced to the disagreeable state of anarchy and confusion; in which
state we hope for wisdom, patience, and fortitude till the happy hour
His Majesty shall graciously be pleased to restore us to the privileges
of Englishmen."
The boys heard other gossip and rumors from the hunters and traders and
farmers who came and went in Bennington. They learned that there was a
plan on foot to settle the dispute about the Grants by joining them to
that part of the province of New York that lay to the east of the Hudson
River, and forming that whole new territory into a separate royal
province. Colonel Philip Skene, who lived in state at Skenesborough
House on his large estate at the head of Lake Champlain, was reported to
be very much interested in this new plan, and was said to be going to
England to further it, with a view to becoming the first governor of the
new province.
The people of the New Hampshire Grants continued their defiance of the
Yorkers. When a sheriff or surveyor from the other side of the line was
caught by the people, he was, as Ethan Allen humorously put it,
"severely chastised with twigs of the wilderness." The rods used,
however, were the "blue beech" ones that the farmers used in driving
stubborn oxen, and could hardly be considered twigs. This punishment the
people of the Grants called "stamping the Yorkers with the beech seal,"
and many a sheriff who tried to carry out the orders of his province in
the Green Mountain country went home with the "beech seal" on his back.
The officers of New York protested and protested. They sent a request
to General Gage at Boston for men to aid their sheriffs in the county of
Charlotte, but General Gage declined to interfere in the border
struggle. And while the Yorkers fumed and vowed vengeance, Ethan Allen
and the Green Mountain Boys, like Rob Roy and his Highland outlaws, did
as they pleased in the debatable land.
Peter Jones and Jack and Sam went back to their lake, ready to take the
trail to Dutton's and Beaver Falls and Bennington whenever they should
be needed. In early spring the boys left the hunter and joined their
fathers on the farms, where there was plenty of work to be done at that
time of year. There they spent the summer, planting and harvesting the
crops.
Meantime a flame was smouldering in the country that was soon to burst
forth into fire. Some men were not satisfied with the way in which the
British government was treating its colonies in America. Conventions
were held in various parts of New York and the New Hampshire Grants. The
people of Dummerston, in the eastern part of the Grants, freed
Lieutenant Spaulding from their jail after he had been sent there on a
charge of high treason for criticizing the king of England. Troubles
grew more frequent between the more independent people, known as Whigs,
and the strict Royalists, or Tories. It flamed out when the time came
for holding the King's Court of Cumberland County at the town of
Westminster on March 14, 1775. Forty citizens of the county called on
the judge, Colonel Chandler, and asked him not to hold the court. The
judge said the court must meet. The Whigs thereupon decided to lay their
protests before the court when it was in session. Then word spread about
that the court meant to have a strong guard to prevent the citizens from
attending its meetings. About a hundred men, armed only with clubs that
they picked up from a wood-pile, marched into the court-house at
Westminster late in the afternoon of March 14th. They meant to make the
judges listen to their complaints. Meantime down the main street came
the sheriff, with a strong force of armed men and the court officers. He
halted in front of the door, and demanded admission. He got no answer
from the men inside the building. Then he read aloud the king's
proclamation, commanding all persons unlawfully gathered there to
disperse at once; and he added that if they didn't come out in fifteen
minutes he "would blow a lane through them!"
The men in the building answered that they would not disperse, but would
let the sheriff and the court officers come in if they would lay aside
their arms. The clerk of the court drew his pistol, and swore that that
was the only way in which he would parley with such rascals. Judge
Chandler, however, found a chance when the sheriff's men were seeking
refreshments at the tavern to tell the citizens that the arms had been
brought without his consent, and added that the Whigs might stay in the
court-house until the next morning, when the officers would come in
without arms and would listen to any petitions.
Dusk encircled the little town that lay close to the broad Connecticut
River. The Whigs stayed in the court-house, a single sentry stationed at
the door. The people shut their houses for the night, while the tavern
did a good business. Some of the Whigs fell asleep on the court-room
benches, others listened to the stories of old Indian-fighters.
Then, about midnight, the sentry at the door saw the sheriff and his men
coming from the tavern, where they had been drinking all the evening. He
gave the word to the men in the court-house to man the doors. The
sheriff's force marched to within ten rods of the main door and halted.
The order was given to fire. Three shots answered the order. A louder
order was given, followed by a volley that killed one of the defenders,
fatally wounded another, and severely wounded a number of others. Then
the sheriff's party rushed in on the defenders, who were only armed with
clubs, and taking some of them prisoners, carried them off to jail. Some
of the Whigs escaped, fighting their way through the sheriff's force
with their clubs.
Here, at the town of Westminster, in the Grants, the first blows were
struck that preceded the coming Revolution.
Those of the men who escaped from the court-house carried the news of
the bloodshed to the Whigs all through the neighboring country, and so
quickly that before noon of the next day two hundred armed men reached
Westminster from the province of New Hampshire. Before that night every
one who had had a part in the shooting of the citizens at the
court-house was seized and held under a strong guard. Still more Whigs,
roused by the story of what the king's officers had done, poured into
the little town from the southern part of the county, and even from the
colony of Massachusetts, so that by the following day it was said there
were in the little village five hundred soldiers all ready for war.
All these men met and voted to choose a committee to act for them and
see that justice was done. This committee ordered that all those who
were known to have taken part in the shooting should be put on trial at
the next court. Then the men of the Grants, and those from New Hampshire
and from Massachusetts, went back home.
But the men of the Grants heard news later that spring of 1775 that made
them forget the affair that was called "the Westminster Massacre," and
the trial of the sheriff's soldiers was neglected in the whirl of far
more exciting events. One day in April came the word that the farmers of
Lexington and Concord had fired on the redcoats who marched out from
Boston. The spirit of revolt, smouldering so long, leaped into instant
flame at the news. All through the colonies from New Hampshire down to
Georgia men vowed to stand beside the farmers of Massachusetts and defy
His Majesty, King George the Third. The men of the Grants, who had been
resisting the orders of the royal governor of New York, the Green
Mountain Boys, who had driven Yorkers time and again from their country,
were among the first to arm for independence. And Yorker fought side by
side with Green Mountain Boy in the war of the Revolution.
Peter Jones, and Jack and Sam, Snyder, "Big Bill" Dutton, and the others
who had made the stand at Beaver Falls, were among the men and boys who
flocked to the flag of Ethan Allen when he took the field in the Green
Mountain country. And Ethan Allen's Boys won some of the greatest
victories of the Revolution, at Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga on Lake
Champlain, and in many battles along the Canadian border. The people of
the Grants also met and declared their territory a free republic,
belonging neither to New Hampshire on the east nor to New York on the
west, and choosing for themselves the beautiful name of Vermont, which
means Green Mountain.
Thirteen states formed the original union of the United States, and
Vermont became the fourteenth state of the Union in 1791. By that time
Green Mountain Boys had become a name of great honor, and the Yorkers
were their staunchest friends and allies.