ESTABLISHMENT OF A CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
This disastrous retreat exposed the frontiers of the Grants to an
invasive war; most of the inhabitants of Onion River and along the
shore of Lake Champlain instantly removed, and the militia was
organized for the general defense. Internal dissensions were rife
regarding the establishment of a civil government. Some were for
joining with New Hampshire; others were in favor of forming a new
state; and a few proposed uniting with New York during the war;
but this last too much effected the title to lands to be seriously
considered.
Vermont was likely to be devastated as a common battle-ground; yet
the people met in Convention at Dorset, January, 1776, and drew up
a petition to Congress, in which they declared their readiness to
furnish their quota of men in support of the war, and bearing an equal
proportion of the expense, and asked that their rights might be secured
them. Congress recommended that they submit to the authority of New
York for the present, and assist their countrymen in the contest with
Great Britain.
Colonel Allen being in captivity, Baker dead, Warner, Cockran, and
others, engaged in the army, the Council of the New Hampshire Grants
was greatly weakened, and months passed without any decisive results.
The government of the province was conducted by committees and
conventions as before the war, though the bitterness of the dispute
with New York seemed to be lost in the common cause of the struggling
colonies; for those who had been outlawed for high treason against the
government of New York, now passed freely through that province.
The following were some of the reasons for forming a new State:
A new government would perpetuate the name of the Green Mountain Boys,
and the honor of their leaders.
A new government would establish the title to their lands under the
New Hampshire Grants, and provide that unappropriated lands might be
disposed of to defray the expenses of the war.
The active part taken by her citizens in the taking of Ticonderoga and
Crown Point, would entitle the State to a favorable consideration by
Congress.
That upon the revolutionary principles adopted by Congress, Vermont was
the oldest State in America.
A call was issued for a convention, which, after several adjournments,
on the 15th of January, 1777, declared the district of New Hampshire
Grants to be a free and independent State. A declaration and a petition
to Congress were drawn up, and a committee appointed to present the
same.
New York, alarmed at the possible consequences of the measure, wrote
to Congress, through the President of the Committee of Safety, as
follows:
“I am directed to inform Congress that by the arts and influence of
certain designing men, a part of this state has been prevailed on
to revolt. Information we have received would lead us to believe
some persons in our sister States have fostered and fomented these
divisions. But as those informations tend to accuse some of your
honorable body being concerned in this scheme, decency obliges us
to suspend our belief. The Convention are sorry to observe that
by conferring a commission upon Colonel Warner, with authority to
name the officers of a regiment to be raised independently of the
Legislature of this State, and within that part of it which hath lately
declared itself independent, Congress hath given too much weight to
the insinuations of those who pretend that your honorable body are
determined to support those insurgents; especially as this Colonel
Warner hath been constantly and invariably opposed to the legislature
of this State, and hath been on that very account proclaimed an outlaw
by the late government thereof. It is absolutely necessary to recall
the commissions given to Colonel Warner, and the officers under him,
_as nothing else will do justice to us_.” Congress voted to dismiss the
petition of Vermont.
Notwithstanding this rebuff, the people resolved to draft a
constitution for the new State. A committee was also appointed to visit
the officer in command at Ticonderoga, and consult with him respecting
the defense of the frontiers.
While the committee was at that post, Burgoyne appeared in force on
Lake Champlain, and resting at Crown Point sent a detachment of three
hundred, mostly Indians, to land at the mouth of Otter Creek, and
ravage the frontier settlements. The commanding officer at Ticonderoga
refused to send off any of his troops in aid of the panic-stricken
families, but allowed Col. Warner to go with the committee to raise a
volunteer force from the Green Mountain Boys. A hasty levy was raised,
with which the raiders were promptly repelled.
All who were members of the Convention left the militia and repaired
to Windsor, July 4th. A draft of the constitution was laid before the
convention and read. The matter under consideration was new, of great
moment, and required serious deliberation; it was debated step by step,
and paragraph by paragraph. While absorbed in their duty, an express
arrived with tidings that Ticonderoga had been evacuated, and that the
whole frontier of the Hampshire Grants was exposed to the ravages of
the enemy.
At this awful crisis the Convention was for adjourning, as many of the
members had families residing in the portions likely to be overrun by
the enemy and their Indian allies. Indications of a terrible thunder
storm among the mountains having put all thoughts of immediately going
home out of the question, some of the more thoughtful called attention
to their unfinished work. In the midst of the peals of thunder, the
incessant flashes of lightning and the tumult of the elements without,
the constitution was read, paragraph by paragraph, for the last time;
and as the sun broke forth upon a smiling landscape, invigorated with
the summer shower, Vermont was in possession of a constitution, and
stood pledged to its support. A Council of Safety was instituted to act
during the recess, the Convention adjourned, and the members betook
themselves to their homes.
Three days afterward, this “outlaw” Warner and his proscribed Green
Mountain regiment were engaged in deadly conflict, on the soil of
Vermont, with the British and Indian foes of America, on the memorable
battle field of Hubbardton, in which Warner’s force was decimated to
about ninety men.