THE WESTMINSTER MASSACRE.
While the western portion of the New Hampshire Grants was involved in
this turmoil of incipient warfare, most of the settlers to the eastward
of the Green Mountains held aloof from the strife, for many of them had
surrendered their original charters, taking new ones under New York and
submitting quietly to its jurisdiction. Yet they were not lacking in the
spirit of patriotism that was now warming all their countrymen into a
new life, and presently there came an event which welded them into
closer affiliation with their brethren of the western grants, and
brought them into active opposition to the imperious government of New
York.
On the 16th of May, 1774, a committee of correspondence was formed in
the city of New York, with the object of learning the sentiments of the
people concerning the measures of the British government respecting its
American colonies. A letter, addressed by its chairman to the
supervisors of Cumberland County, was kept secret by them, and no action
taken upon it at their June session; but its receipt in some way became
known to Dr. Jones of Rockingham and Captain Wright of Westminster, who
notified their towns; and a committee for the purpose being appointed in
each, the supervisors were called on at their September session for any
papers received by them which should be laid before the towns of the
county. The letter was unwillingly produced, a copy was sent to each
town, and a county convention was called to meet at Westminster on the
19th of October. Delegates from twelve towns met accordingly, and passed
resolutions similar in spirit to those of the Continental Congress. When
the action of Congress in declaring the rights of the colonies, and in
adopting the "Articles of Association," became known, another convention
was called, which met at Westminster on the 30th of October, "and did
adopt all the resolves of the Continental Congress as their resolves,
promising religiously to adhere to that agreement or association." But a
motion to choose a "committee of inspection" to observe whether any
person violated the Articles of Association was defeated by the
opposition of two Tory members. The town of Dummerston, however, whose
good people, "tired of diving after redress in a Legal way," had set
Lieutenant Spaulding free from the jail to which he had been committed
on a charge of high treason for saying that, "if the king had signed the
Quebec bill, it was his opinion he had broken his coronation oath," at a
town-meeting held in January following chose such a committee. This body
removed two assessors from office for refusing to execute an order of
the town to assess a tax, payable in potash salts, for the purpose of
procuring 100 pounds of powder, 200 pounds of lead, and 300 flints, for
the town use; suspended another town officer till by his conduct he
proved himself a Whig; and disarmed a suspected Tory. The example of
this town was generally followed by others, without waiting the action
of a convention.
The General Assembly of New York had refused to adopt the resolves and
Articles of Association of the Continental Congress, and the courts of
justice were continued in that province, while elsewhere they were
almost universally suspended.
Affairs were at this pass, causing great dissatisfaction among the
patriots of the Grants, when the time for the session of the King's
Court of Cumberland County, to be holden at Westminster the 14th of
March, 1775, drew near. A deputation of forty citizens of the county
waited upon the chief judge, Colonel Chandler, at Chester, and
endeavored to dissuade him from holding the court. He admitted that it
would be better to hold no court in the present state of affairs, but
said there was a case of murder which it was necessary to try, after
which, if not agreeable to the people, no other cases should come on. In
answer to the objections of one of their number, that the sheriff would
be present with an armed posse and there would be bloodshed, he assured
them that no arms should be brought against them, and dismissed them
with thanks for their civility. After considerable discussion of methods
to prevent the sitting of the court, it was decided that it should be
permitted to come together, when the objections to its proceeding should
be laid before it, "thinking," says the "Relation of the Proceedings,"
"they were men of such sense that they would hear them."[57] It
presently became known that the court intended to take possession of the
court-house the day before its session was to begin, and hold it with a
strong guard against the intrusion of those opposed to its opening. To
forestall this purpose, about 100 men, armed only with clubs that the
stalwart men of Rockingham took from a neighboring woodpile, entered the
court-house late in the afternoon of that day, with the intention of
holding it till the judges should hear their grievances. They had not
been long within it when the sheriff, with a strong posse of armed men
and attended by the officers of the court, came marching up the level
street of the little town. Halting near the door, he demanded entrance,
but received no answer. He then read the king's proclamation in a loud
voice, commanding all persons unlawfully assembled to disperse, adding
with an oath that, if they did not do so within fifteen minutes, "he
would blow a lane through them." They answered that they would not
disperse, but would admit the sheriff and the others if they would lay
aside their arms, and asked if they had come for war; declaring they
themselves had come for peace, and would be glad to hold a parley with
them. Upon this the clerk of the court drew his pistol, and, holding it
up, swore that "only by it would he hold parley with such damned
rascals," and would give no more friendly reply to any overtures. Judge
Chandler, however, came to them when the sheriff's posse had gone for
refreshments, and declared that the arms were brought without his
consent, and said that those who held the house might continue to do so
undisturbed till morning, when the court should come in without arms,
and hear what they had to say before it.
With little fear of molestation now, yet taking the precaution to post a
sentry at the door, the garrison of the court-house held the place. The
curving crest of hills that half encircle the town, touching the river
above and below it, grew dim against the darkening sky, and the last
gleam of daylight faded from the ice-bound reaches of the broad
Connecticut. The pallid dusk of the starless winter night blurred houses
and threshold trees into indistinct forms, and fused the
half-surrounding wall of forest-clad hills with the sky, till they
seemed a part of it creeping down upon the little hamlet. One by one the
lights went out, save where some housewife waited her husband's coming,
and where the glare of the inn's hospitable fire fell in broad bars of
flickering light across the snowy street. The sentinel at the door paced
his short beat. Of those whose guard he kept, some fell asleep on the
hard benches, some gathered in groups to listen to the discourse of
oracular politicians, or discuss the all-absorbing topic of the hour.
Some of the younger men crowded into the charmed circle wherein some
gray and garrulous veteran of the old wars discoursed of bush fights and
Indian ambuscades, the siege of Number Four or Ticonderoga's woeful day
of slaughter and defeat, where he fought so hotly for the sovereign whom
he now denounced. Some sat apart silently brooding, and taking no heed
of the buzz of conversation, but grimly awaited the struggle they felt
was impending. All became suddenly alert when, about midnight, the
sentinel discovered armed men approaching, and gave the word to man the
doors. The sheriff and his men were coming, with courage reinforced by
potations of flip and fiery rum.
They marched to within ten rods of the door and halted. In a moment the
order was given to fire, and three shots were reluctantly delivered. The
order was repeated with curses, which incited the posse to a deadlier
volley that killed William French almost outright, fatally wounded
Daniel Houghton, and severely injured several others. The assailants
then rushed in on the men, who had only clubs to defend themselves with,
made several prisoners and took them to the jail. One of these was the
dying man, whom "they dragged as one would a dog, and would mock at as
he lay gasping," and "did wish there were forty more in the same case."
Lying on the jail-room floor, his five wounds undressed, French, not yet
twenty-two, died in the early morning of the 14th. Houghton survived his
wounds nine days.
Thus in a remote frontier town was shed the first blood of the momentous
conflict that gave birth to a nation.
In the darkness and confusion all the rest of the Whigs escaped, some
fighting their way out with their clubs; one, Philip Safford, laying
about him so lustily that eight or ten of the sheriff's posse went down
beneath the blows of his cudgel.
The court party came out of the melee victorious for the present, and
without serious injury to any of their number, though in the "State of
the Facts," prepared next day by the judges and other officers of the
court, two were reported as wounded by pistol shots, which, if indeed
so, must have been fired by their friends, for the others declared that
they had not so much as a pistol among them, having come with the
expectation of gaining their object without violence. Some did now go
home for their guns, but did not return to renew the fray. More hastened
away to carry the woeful tidings of bloodshed to the Whigs of all the
country around, and with such dispatch was this done that, before noon
of the next day, two hundred armed men had arrived from New Hampshire.
Before night every one known to have been concerned in the killing of
French was seized and kept under strong guard. The next day an inquest
was held, and a verdict given that French came to his death at the hands
of the sheriff, and certain others of his posse. Armed men continued to
come from the southern part of the county and from Massachusetts, till
by the following morning five hundred "good martial soldiers, well
equipped for war," thronged the one street of the little town.
On that day all the people who had come assembled, and voted to choose a
large committee to act for the whole, to be composed in part of citizens
of Cumberland County, and in part of those residing outside its limits.
After an examination of the evidence, this committee voted to commit
those most implicated in the killing of French to the jail at
Northampton, Mass., there to await a fair trial, while those who seemed
less guilty should be put under bonds to appear at the next court. The
bonds of those admitted to bail were taken next day, and the others were
conducted under a strong guard to Northampton jail, but it does not
appear that any of them were ever brought to trial, these cases being
lost sight of in the thickening whirl of Revolutionary events.
Such is substantially the account of the affair as given by the
committee chosen by the people. The accounts given by the officers of
the court in their "State of the Facts," and by members of the sheriff's
posse in their deposition, make it appear that the so-called rioters
were the first violent aggressors, beating the sheriff with clubs when
he first attempted to force his way in; that three shots were then fired
by his order above the heads of those who held the court-house, who at
once returned the fire by a discharge of guns and pistols, one
pistol-shot being fired at such close quarters that the powder burned a
large hole in the breast of his coat, and yet the wearer was not hurt;
that only four or five shots were fired into the court-house by the
sheriff's party, and yet by this volley French was struck by five
bullets, Houghton received a fatal wound, and several others were hurt.
According to these accounts, Robert Cockran and others proposed such
atrocities as burning the court-house and all within it, or firing
volleys through it, and were only restrained by the New Hampshire men
from doing so.[58] But there is nothing of this in the relation of the
committee, which is quite as likely to impress the unbiased inquirer
with its truthfulness. Governor Colden, in his report to Lord Dartmouth
of what he calls this "dangerous insurrection," does not attribute it to
any dispute concerning land titles, but only to the example of
Massachusetts; nor does he charge the Bennington rioters with being
implicated in it, though he foresaw that it would draw to the common
cause of resistance to New York the people of the eastern Grants with
their brethren of the western. He wrote to General Gage of this affair
in Cumberland, and hoped that by his assistance he might soon be able to
hold a court of oyer and terminer in that county; but the British
general had weightier affairs upon his hands at Boston, and could give
him no help.
In a convention held at Westminster on the 11th of April, it was voted
"that it is the duty of the inhabitants to wholly renounce and resist
the administration of the government of New York till such time as the
lives and property of these inhabitants may be secured by it, or till
such time as they can have opportunity to lay their grievances before
his most gracious Majesty in council," with an humble petition "to be
taken out of so offensive jurisdiction, and either annexed to some other
government or erected and incorporated into a new one, as may appear
best to said inhabitants, to the Royal wisdom and clemency, and till
such time as his Majesty shall settle this controversy." Colonel John
Hazletine, Charles Phelps, and Colonel Ethan Allen were appointed to
prepare the remonstrance and petition that were to be presented.
Never again did any representative body of the Grants give an expression
of loyalty to the king. Not many days later came the news of Lexington
fight, and presently the mountaineers were all in as open revolt against
King George as any had ever been against his royal government of the
province of New York. Men grown so accustomed to resistance of the
tyranny of the lesser power, as were the persecuted settlers of the
western Grants, were not apt to be laggards in opposing the greater when
its encroachments became as unendurable, and for a time the petty
warfare of provincial bounds and jurisdiction was hidden from their
sight in the over-spreading cloud of the grander struggle that involved
the liberties of every American.
FOOTNOTES:
[57] _Governor and Council_, vol. i. p. 332.
[58] _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ vol. iv. pp. 547, 549.