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American Commonwealths.
EDITED BY
HORACE E. SCUDDER.
[Illustration: (Map of)
VERMONT
TO ACCOMPANY
ROWLAND E. ROBINSON'S
VERMONT in
AMERICAN COMMONWEALTHS
THE MATTHEWS-NORTHRUP CO., BUFFALO, N. Y.]
American Commonwealths
VERMONT
A STUDY OF INDEPENDENCE
BY
ROWLAND E. ROBINSON
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1892
Copyright, 1892,
BY ROWLAND E. ROBINSON.
_All rights reserved._
_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE HIGHWAY OF WAR 1
II. THE WILDERNESS DURING THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS 15
III. OCCUPATION AND SETTLEMENT 47
IV. THE NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS 57
V. THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS 68
VI. THE WESTMINSTER MASSACRE 90
VII. TICONDEROGA 100
VIII. GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS IN CANADA 115
IX. LAKE CHAMPLAIN 132
X. VERMONT AN INDEPENDENT COMMONWEALTH 139
XI. TICONDEROGA; HUBBARDTON 151
XII. BENNINGTON 165
XIII. SUBSEQUENT OPERATIONS OF VERMONT TROOPS 179
XIV. THE UNIONS 189
XV. THE HALDIMAND CORRESPONDENCE 203
XVI. UNIONS DISSOLVED 225
XVII. "THE REPUBLIC OF THE GREEN MOUNTAINS" 238
XVIII. THE NEW STATE 254
XIX. VERMONT IN THE WAR OF 1812 269
XX. OLD-TIME CUSTOMS AND INDUSTRIES 292
XXI. RELIGION, EDUCATION, AND TEMPERANCE 307
XXII. EMIGRATION 324
XXIII. "THE STAR THAT NEVER SETS" 333
XXIV. VERMONT IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION 340
XXV. THE VERMONT PEOPLE 354
INDEX 367
VERMONT.
CHAPTER I.
THE HIGHWAY OF WAR.
Champlain, in the account of his voyage made in July, 1609, up the lake
to which he gave his name, mentions almost incidentally that,
"continuing our route along the west side of the lake, contemplating the
country, I saw on the east side very high mountains capped with snow. I
asked the Indians if those parts were inhabited. They answered me yes,
and that they were Iroquois, and there were in those parts beautiful
valleys, and fields fertile in corn as good as any I had ever eaten in
the country, with an infinitude of other fruits, and that the lake
extended close to the mountains, which were, according to my judgment,
fifteen leagues from us."
It was doubtless then that the eyes of white men first beheld the lofty
landmarks and western bounds of what is now Vermont. If the wise and
brave explorer gave more thought to the region than is indicated in this
brief mention of it, perhaps it was to forecast a future wherein those
fertile valleys, wrested by his people from the savagery of the
wilderness and the heathen, should be made to blossom like the rose,
while the church, of which he was so devout a son that he had said "the
salvation of one soul was of more value than the conquest of an empire,"
should here build its altars, and gather to itself a harvest richer by
far than any earthly garner. But this was not to be. His people were
never to gain more than a brief and unsubstantial foothold in this land
of promise. The hereditary enemies of his nation were to sow and reap
where France had only struck a furrow, and were to implant a religion as
abhorrent to him as paganism, and a form of government that would have
seemed to him as evil as impracticable, and he was only a pioneer on the
warpath of the nations.
Although the Indians who accompanied Champlain on his inland voyage of
discovery told him that the country on the east side of the lake was
inhabited by the Iroquois, there is no evidence that it was permanently
occupied by them, even then, if it ever had been. There are traces of a
more than transient residence of some tribe here at some time, but their
identity and the date of their occupancy can only be conjectured. The
relics found give no clew by which to determine whether they who
fashioned here their rude pottery and implements and weapons of stone
were Iroquois or Waubanakee,[1] nor when these beautiful valleys were
their home.
A fact affording some proof that the Iroquois abandoned it very long ago
is, that not one stream, lake, mountain, or other landmark within the
limits of Vermont now bears an Iroquois name. Of all the Indian names
that have been preserved, every one is Waubanakee; and though many of
them are euphonious, and those least so far better than our commonplace
and vulgar nomenclature, none of them have the poetic significance of
those so frequently bestowed by the Iroquois on mountain, lake, rock,
and river.
It does not seem probable that the warlike nation that conquered all
tribes with which it came in contact, having once gained complete
possession, should relinquish it. A more reasonable conclusion is, that
the country lying east of Lake Champlain was a debatable ground of these
aboriginal tribes in the remote past, as it was more recently of
civilized nations and states.
Quebec, the town which Champlain had founded in 1608, did not begin to
assume much importance till eighteen years afterward, when its wooden
fortifications were rebuilt of stone. Nor was the place strong enough
three years later to offer any resistance to the English fleet which,
under the command of Sir David Kirk, then appeared before the city and
presently took possession of it. The conquest was as lightly valued by
King Charles I. of England as it had been easily made; and in 1634, by
the treaty of St. Germain, Canada, Acadia, and Cape Breton were restored
to France. Thenceforward, for more than a hundred years, these regained
possessions of the French were a constant menace and danger to the
English colonies in America.
Advances toward the occupation of the country lying between Lake
Champlain and the Connecticut River were made slowly by both French and
English, though the tide of predatory warfare often ebbed and flowed
along the borders of the region and sometimes across it, along the
courses of the larger tributary waterways, navigable almost to their
narrow and shallow sources by the light birch of the Indian while there
was open water, and an easy if crooked path for the snowshoe and
toboggan when winter had paved the streams with ice.
One of the earliest of such French incursions into New England was made
after the failure of the attempt of De Callieres, the governor of
Montreal, to capture New York, and all the English colonies in that
province, when less important expeditions were organized against the New
York and New England frontiers and the Sieur Hertel went from Trois
Rivieres against the English fort at Salmon Falls in New Hampshire. At
about the same time, in February, 1690, the expedition under Sieurs
Helene and Mantet set forth by the way of Lake Champlain to destroy
Schenectady. Both expeditions were organized by Count Frontenac for the
purpose of inspiriting the Canadians and their Indian allies, who were
sadly disheartened by the recent descent of the Iroquois upon Canada
when Montreal had been sacked and destroyed, and most of the frontier
settlements broken up.
The wide expanse of pathless woods that lay between the outposts of the
hostile colonies gave a false assurance of security to the English
settlers, while to their enemies these same solitudes gave almost
certain immunity from the chance of a forewarned prey. In the wintry
wastes of forest, through which these marauding bands took their way,
there ranged no unfriendly scout to spy their stealthy approach, and
bear tidings of it to the doomed settlements.
Unburdened by much weight of provision, or more camp equipage than their
blankets and axes, these wolfish packs of Canadians and Indians (the
whites scarcely less hardy than their wild allies nor much less savage,
albeit devout Christians) marched swiftly along frozen lake and
ice-bound stream, through mountain pass and pathless woods, subsisting
for the most part on the lean-yarded deer which were easily killed by
their hunters. At night they bivouacked, with no shelter but the sky and
the lofty arches of the forest, beside immense fires, whose glow, though
lighting tree-tops and sky, would not be seen by any foe more dangerous
than the wolf and panther. Here each ate his scant ration; the Frenchman
smoked his pipe of rank home-grown tobacco, the Waubanakee his milder
senhalenac, or dried sumac leaves; the Christian commended his devilish
enterprise to God; the pagan sought by his rites to bring the aid of a
superhuman power to their common purpose. The pious Frenchman may have
seen in the starlit sky some omen of success; the Waubanakee were
assured of it when dread Wohjahose[2] was passed, and each had tossed
toward it his offering of pounded corn or senhalenac, and the awful
guardian of Petowbowk[3] had sent no voice of displeasure, yelling and
groaning after them beneath his icy roof; and each lay down to sleep on
his bed of evergreen boughs in an unguarded camp. Not till, like
panthers crouching for the deadly spring, they drew near the devoted
frontier settlement or fort, did they begin to exercise soldierly
vigilance, to send out spies, and set guards about their camps.
Assured of the defenseless condition of the settlers or the carelessness
of the garrison, they swooped upon their prey. Out of the treacherous
stillness of the woods a brief horror of carnage, rapine, and fire burst
upon the sleeping hamlet. Old men and helpless infants, stalwart men,
taken unawares, fighting bravely with any means at hand, women in
whatever condition, though it appealed most to humanity, were
slaughtered alike. The booty was hastily gathered, and the torch applied
by blood-stained hands, and out of the light of the conflagration of
newly built homes the spoilers vanished with their miserable captives in
the mysterious depths of the forest as suddenly as they had come forth
from them.
So were conducted the expeditions against Salmon Falls and Schenectady.
By the first, thirty of the English were killed, and fifty-four, mostly
women and children, taken prisoners and carried to Canada. The success
of the other expedition spread consternation throughout the province of
New York. Sixty persons were killed, and nearly half as many made
captive.
In the same year, 1690, the colonies of New York, Massachusetts, and
Connecticut organized a formidable expedition by land and sea against
Canada, in which they hoped to be aided by the mother country. Having
waited till August for the hoped-for arms and ammunition from England
which were not sent, the colonies determined to undertake it with such
means as they had, Massachusetts to furnish the naval force against
Quebec, New York and Connecticut the army to march against Montreal.
The New York and Connecticut troops, commanded by John Winthrop of the
last named colony, marched early in August to the head of Wood Creek,
with the expectation of being joined there by a large number of the
warriors of the Five Nations, but less than a hundred of them came to
the rendezvous. Arrived at the place of embarkation on the lake, not
half boats enough had been provided for the transportation of the army,
nor sufficient provisions for its sustenance. Encountered by such
discouragements, the army returned to Albany.
Captain John Schuyler, however, went forward with twenty-nine Christians
and one hundred and twenty savages whom he recruited at Wood Creek as
volunteers. In his journal[4] he gives an account of his daily progress
and operations; mentions, by names now lost, various points on the lake,
such as Tsinondrosie, Canaghsionie and Ogharonde. "The 15th day of
August we came one Dutch mile above Crown Point. The 16th ditto we
advanced as far as Kanondoro and resolved at that place to travel by
night, and have that night, had gone onward to near the spot where
Ambrosio Corlear is drowned, and there one of our savages fell in
convulsions, charmed and conjured by the devil, and said that a great
battle had taken place at Quebeck, and that much heavy cannon must have
been fired there." About midnight of the 18th, "saw a light fall down
from out the sky to the South, of which we were all perplexed what token
this might be." On the 23d, having drawn near to La Prairie, he attacked
the people of the fort, who had gone forth to cut corn. "Christians as
well as savages fell on with a war-cry, without orders having been
given, but they made nineteen prisoners and six scalps, among which were
four womenfolk," and "pierced and shot nearly one hundred and fifty head
of oxen and cows, and then we set fire to all their houses and barns
which we found in the fields, their hay and everything else which would
take fire." Setting out on their return, "the savages killed two French
prisoners because they could not travel on account of their wounds," and
on the 30th arrived at Albany.
* * * * *
At nearly the same time the fleet sailed from Boston under command of
Sir William Phipps, governor of Massachusetts. It consisted of nearly
forty vessels, carrying a force of two thousand men. It was not till the
5th of October that it reached Quebec. Precious time was lost in
deliberation while the place was defenseless, and then Frontenac,
released by the retrograde movement of Winthrop's army from the
necessity of defending Montreal, marched to the relief of Quebec with
all his forces. After an unsuccessful attack by land and water on the
9th of October, the troops were reembarked on the 11th and the
storm-scattered fleet straggled back to Boston. Such were the poor
results of an enterprise from which so much had been expected.
To remove the unfavorable impression of the English which these failures
had made on the Indians of the Five Nations, Major Schuyler of Albany,
in the summer of 1691, went through Lake Champlain with a war party of
Mohawks, and attacked the French settlements on the Richelieu. De
Callieres opposed him with an army of eight hundred men, and, in the
numerous encounters which ensued, Schuyler's party killed about three
hundred of the enemy, a number exceeding that of their own.
In January, 1695, winter being the chosen time for the French invasions,
Frontenac dispatched an army of six hundred or more French and Indians
by the way of Lake Champlain into the country of the Mohawks, and
inflicted serious injury upon those allies of the English. Retreating
with nearly three hundred prisoners, they were pursued by Schuyler with
two hundred volunteers and three hundred Indians, and were so harassed
by this intrepid partisan leader that most of the prisoners escaped, and
they lost more than one hundred of their soldiers in killed and wounded,
while Schuyler had but eight killed and fourteen wounded.
Thus, across and along the border of this yet unbroken wilderness, the
hostile bands of English and French and their Indian allies carried
their murderous warfare to many an exposed settlement, and kept all in
constant dread of attack.
Different routes were taken by the predatory bands in their descents
upon the frontiers of New England. One was by the St. Francis River and
Lake Memphremagog, thence to the Passumpsic, and down that river to the
Connecticut, that gave an easy route to the settlements. Another was up
the Winooski and down White River to the Connecticut. Another left Lake
Champlain at the mouth of Great Otter Creek; then up its slow lower
reaches to where it becomes a swift mountain stream, when the trail led
to West River, or Wantasticook, emptying into the Connecticut. And still
another way to West River and the Connecticut was from the head of the
lake up the Pawlet River. Of these routes, that by the Winooski was so
frequently taken that the English named the stream the French River;
while that of which Otter Creek was a part, being the easiest and the
nearest to Crown Point, was perhaps the oftenest used, and was commonly
known as the "Indian Road."
All these familiar warpaths to every Waubanakee warrior, with every
stream and landmark bearing names his fathers had given them, led
through Vermont, then only known to English-speaking men as "The
Wilderness."
The treaty of peace between England and France in 1697 gave the
colonists a brief respite, till in 1702 war was again declared, and in
the summer of the next year five hundred French and Indians assaulted in
detachments the settlers on Casco Bay, and that part of the New England
coast. In the following winter a force of three hundred French and
Indians commanded by Hertel De Rouville, a skilled partisan leader, as
had been his father, was dispatched by Vaudreuil, the governor of
Canada, against Deerfield, then the northernmost settlement on the
Connecticut. It was February, and Champlain was frozen throughout its
length. Along it they marched as far as the mouth of the Winooski, and
took this their accustomed path through the heart of the wilderness
toward the Connecticut. Marching above the unseen and unheard flow of
the river, over whose wintry silence bent the snow-laden branches of the
graceful birch, the dark hemlock, and the fir, or along the hidden
trail, an even whiteness except to the trained instinct of the Indian,
seldom a sound came to them out of the forest save the echo of their own
footsteps and voices. Sometimes they heard the resonant crack of trees
under stress of frost, or the breaking of an over-laden bough, the whir
of startled grouse, the sudden retreat of a deer or a giant moose
tearing through the undergrowth; and sometimes they heard the stealthy
tread of their brothers, the wolves, sneaking from some point of
observation near their path, but in this remoteness from human haunts,
and this deadness of winter, never a sound to alarm men so accustomed to
all strange woodland noises. Then they came to the broad Connecticut, an
open road to lead them to their victims, upon whom they fell in the
early morning when the guards were asleep. Winter, the frequent ally of
the Canadian bands, aided them now with snowdrifts heaped to the top of
the low ramparts about the garrison houses, and upon them the assailants
made entrance. All the inhabitants were slain or captured, the village
plundered and set on fire, and an hour after sunrise the victorious
party was on its way to Canada with its booty and wretched captives.[5]
Such warfare was waged for years, the French and Indians making frequent
attacks on the most exposed settlements of the English, and they, at
times, retaliating by invasions of the Canadian frontier. In 1709
another grand expedition was planned to operate against Canada in the
same manner as that undertaken in 1690. But the troops, which under
Nicholson were to advance by the way of Lake Champlain, got no farther
than Wood Creek, where Winthrop's advance had ended nineteen years
before, for while they were there awaiting the arrival at Boston of the
English fleet, with which they were to cooperate, a terrible
mortality[6] broke out among them, the fleet never came, and the
undertaking was abandoned. In 1711 a still more formidable attempt was
made to conquer Canada. But the fleet, commanded by Sir Hovenden Walker,
with nine thousand troops on board, met with disaster in the St.
Lawrence, and the land force, which again under Nicholson was to invade
the French province by Lake Champlain, was not far beyond Albany when
news of the fleet's disaster reached it and it was disbanded. Thus, as
miserably as had the two preceding ones, this third attempt to conquer
Canada failed, and a heavier cloud of humiliation and discouragement
overcast the English colonies. But after the treaty of Utrecht the
eastern Indians made a treaty of peace with the governors of
Massachusetts and New Hampshire which gave some assurance of
tranquillity to the long-suffering people of those provinces.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Indians themselves pronounce the word as here given. It
signifies The White Land. It has been thought better to follow this,
than the more common spelling, Abenaki, which has come to us from the
French.
[2] Wohjahose, signifying The Forbidder, is the Waubanakee name of Rock
Dunder, which was supposed to be the guardian spirit of Petowbowk. Some
dire calamity was certain to befall those who passed his abode without
making some propitiatory offering.
[3] Petowbowk, interpreted by some "Alternate Land and Water," by
others, "The Water that Lies Between," is the Waubanakee name of Lake
Champlain.
[4] _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ vol. ii. p. 160.
[5] White's _Incidents in the Early History of New England_. See _The
Redeemed Captive returning to Zion_, by Rev. John Williams, who was one
of the Deerfield captives.
[6] In _Summary, Historical and Political_, by William Douglass, M. D.,
this is said to have been yellow fever.