Vermont Part 13

The remonstrance of Governor Chittenden was printed and extensively circulated, especially among the officers of the Continental army, to inform them of the merits of a controversy in which they might soon be called upon to take part. General Washington's letter being referred to in it, he laid it and the one to which it was an answer before Congress, and at the same time wrote to Mr. Jones, a member of that body, reminding him that the committee on these affairs, of which he was a member, had approved of the reply to Governor Chittenden. He was sure that Vermont had a powerful interest in the New England States, and with regard to the enforcement of the resolutions of Congress by the army he wrote: "Let me ask by whom that district of country is princ.i.p.ally settled? And of whom is your present army (I do not confine the question to this part of it, but will extend it to the whole) composed? The answers are evident,--New England men. It has been the opinion of some that the appearance of force would awe those people into submission. If the General a.s.sembly ratify and confirm what Mr. Chittenden and his council have done, I shall be of a very different sentiment, and, moreover, that it is not a trifling force that will subdue them, even supposing they derive no aid from the enemy in Canada; and that it would be a very arduous task indeed if they should, to say nothing of a diversion which may and doubtless would be made in their favor from New York if the war with Great Britain should continue." He could not say that there "would be any difficulty with the army if it were to be ordered on this service," but "should be exceedingly unhappy to see the experiment." There would be "a general unwillingness to imbrue their hands in the blood of their brethren."

The threat of Congress certainly had not the effect of awing Vermont into any compliance with its behests, and if more than a threat was ever intended, nothing beyond it was ever attempted.

No reparation was made to the offenders who had been so summarily dealt with; and when two of the banished men ventured to return, they were seized and imprisoned, but were released on their promise of submission to the laws of the State. When opposition was offered serious enough to require it, the militia was properly called out to enforce the civil authority; and the st.u.r.dy little commonwealth continued to exercise its jurisdiction unmolested by Congress, though the legislature of New York seethed with wrath and boiled over in protests and complaints.

Constable Oliver Waters had made himself particularly obnoxious to the New York party by his activity in making arrests, and while he was lodging at an inn in Brattleboro the house was attacked by twenty or thirty men. After firing through the doors and windows and wounding two of the inmates, they made forcible entry, and, seizing Waters, carried him into Ma.s.sachusetts, intending to deliver him to Governor Clinton at Poughkeepsie, but he was taken from them by a rescue party and brought safely to Vermont. This affair was the cause of vigorous action against the insurgents, several hundred of the militia turning out to aid the state troops. Several of the ring-leaders were taken, and several fled into Ma.s.sachusetts, whither they were not pursued.

In February a new act was pa.s.sed making punishable by death the levying of war against the State by any citizen thereof. At the same time the governor and council were given discretionary power to grant pardons, during the recess of the legislature, to offenders "who should appear penitent and desirous of returning to their duty." In the following month all active opposition to the jurisdiction of Vermont ceased, and the troops were gradually withdrawn from Windham County. Many of the disaffected persons were granted pardons and the restoration of their confiscated property on taking the oath of allegiance. Among these was Charles Phelps, who had been one of the most inveterate opponents of Vermont, but who now became a peaceable citizen of the State, and so continued during the remainder of his life. Many of the adherents of New York removed to lands on the Susquehanna, granted them by that State.

New York made complaint to Congress of the employment of troops by Vermont to reduce residents thereof who professed allegiance to New York, and again urged the intervention of Congress. Being apprised of this, Governor Chittenden wrote a pungent letter to the president of Congress. "It seems they are willing Congress should settle this dispute," he says of New York, "as they have a mind, but not otherwise."

Referring to the desire expressed by New York that she might not be blamed if blood was shed in the a.s.sertion of her authority: "As to this b.l.o.o.d.y proposition, the council of this State have only to remark that Vermont does not wish to enter into a war with the State of New York, but she will act on the defensive, and expect that Congress and the twelve States will observe strict neutrality, and let the two contending States settle their own controversy." Referring to the suppression of the malcontents, he wrote: "This matter has been managed by the wisdom of the legislature of this State, who consider themselves herein amenable to no earthly tribunal." Congress was reminded of the impropriety of permitting New York and New Hampshire to vote on any motion which came before it respecting Vermont, contrary to the express resolution of September, 1779, though it appeared they had ever since done so. In conclusion, the desire of Vermont for a confederation with the United States was reiterated. This letter was referred to the same committee to which the representation of New York, and other papers relating to Vermont, had been committed. On the 29th of May, 1783, it reported in favor of Vermont, reciting the resolutions of August, 1781, and offering one recognizing the independence of the State, and admitting it into the Union. A few days later the New York delegates moved the postponement of another matter that this report might be taken up, but only New York and New Hampshire voted in favor of the motion.

This was the last action taken by the Continental Congress in relation to Vermont, with whose affairs it thenceforth offered no interference.

By the treaty of peace with Great Britain signed at Paris on the 3d of September, 1783, Vermont was included in the territory belonging to the United States. But she was in fact thenceforth, till her admission to the Union, what the legend[92] on her copper coins declared her to be, "The Republic of the Green Mountains," and independent of every other government.

A standard of weights and measures was prescribed, the value of coins regulated, and a postal service established, the rates of postage being the same as those of the United States, for the superintendence of which a postmaster-general was appointed, and the post-riders were given the exclusive right of carrying letters and packages. The mails were carried on horseback, and in their long and lonely routes the riders encountered much discomfort of storm and cold on roads always bad, often worse with blockades of snow or bottomless quagmires. The post-offices were for the most part a shelf in the great tavern bar, inconspicuous among the array of bottles and decanters that were in more frequent demand; or a drawer in the village store, into which the infrequent letters and few newspapers were promiscuously tumbled, to be searched through on demand of each inquirer. The furniture of one central office is still preserved,--a great chest of three drawers, each bearing in large letters the name of a town.

Being out of the Confederation, Vermont could not be called on to bear any part of the debt incurred by the war, by such general government as existed, and having made the taxes for the support of her own troops payable in provisions, which were always furnished, she herself owed no considerable debt, and this was in course of speedy liquidation by the sale of her lands, now in great demand by people of the neighboring States. Her bills of credit, issued in 1781, had suffered no depreciation, and were faithfully redeemed.

Under these circ.u.mstances, the people of the prosperous commonwealth were quite lukewarm concerning its admission to the Union, though they cultivated friendly relations with the neighboring States, and the legislature of the State enacted that all citizens of the United States should be equally ent.i.tled to all the privileges of law and justice with those of Vermont, and an annual election of delegates to Congress was provided for, though none had occasion to attend.

Contrasting their condition with that of the pioneers, these people might well be content with that which was now enjoyed. Those brave invaders of the wilderness had been opposed by all unkindly forces of nature,--unpropitious seasons, floods, the bitterness of almost arctic winters endured in miserable shelter with meagre fare, and by more cruel man, the prowling, murderous savage and his as relentless Christian allies; and withal had borne the heavy loneliness of isolation, lightened only by toil save when Nature changed her mood and conversed in songs of familiar birds, voices of wind-swept trees and babble of streams whose torrential rage was spent, or smiled in sunshine from the little patch of sky, and in the bloom of innumerable flowers out of the border of the grim forest. The dangers and privations of pioneer life had now been pa.s.sed through, and there were peace and abundance of all that simple lives required.

The "plumping-mill"--the rude device for pounding corn in a huge mortar, with a pestle hung from a spring-pole--went out of use, and the long journeys on foot or on horseback to the gristmill forty miles away were no longer necessary. The wild streams were tamed to the turning of millstones, as well as to plying the saws that were incessantly gnawing into the heart of the woods.

The wild forest had receded and given place to broad fields of tilth, meadow land, and pastures, not now in the uncouth desolation of stumps and log-heaps, but dotted with herds and flocks. The jangle of the sheep-bell was as frequent as the note of the thrush in the half-wild upland pastures, for two shillings were deducted from the lists for each pound of wool raised during the year. Orchards were beginning to whiten hillsides with bloom and color them with fruitage, for every acre with forty growing trees was exempted from taxation.

But while Vermont continued very indifferent and almost inactive concerning the acknowledgment of her independence by Congress, her old enemy had come to desire what she had so long opposed. It had become apparent to New York that the admission of the State to the Union would be to her own advantage. The establishment of Vermont as a free and independent State was an accomplished fact; her interest in the affairs of the nation, were she an acknowledged part of it, would in the main accord with that of New York. There was, then, no good reason why New York should continue to oppose her admission merely in the selfish and insignificant interest of the land speculators, and in the blind lead of Governor Clinton's persistent enmity. In accordance with this wiser view, the legislature of New York, on the 15th of July, 1789, appointed commissioners with full power to acknowledge the independence of Vermont, and settle all matters of controversy with that State. In October Vermont appointed commissioners to treat with those of New York, and finally determine everything which obstructed the union of Vermont with the United States. The princ.i.p.al difficulty was the adjustment of the compensation for lands claimed by citizens of New York which had been re-granted by Vermont, but after two or three meetings the commissioners came to an amicable arrangement of this most troublesome question. In October, 1790, the commissioners of New York declared the consent of the legislature of that State to the admission of Vermont to the Union, and that upon such admission all claims of New York to jurisdiction within the limits of Vermont should cease; that the boundary line between the two States should be the western lines of towns granted by New Hampshire, and the mid-channel of Lake Champlain.

For the adjustment of the land claims, it was declared that if the legislature of Vermont should before the 1st of January, 1792, agree to pay to the State of New York the sum of $30,000 on or before the first day of January, 1794, all rights and t.i.tles to land granted by the colonial or state government of New York should cease, except those which had been made in confirmation of the grants of New Hampshire.

The legislature of Vermont at once acceded to this arrangement, and on the 28th of the same month pa.s.sed an act directing the state treasurer to pay the sum named to the State of New York, and to accept the line proposed as a perpetual boundary between the two States.

Thus peaceably ended the controversy that for more than a quarter of a century had been an almost continual annoyance to the people of this district, and in its later stages a source of danger to the whole country.

The a.s.sembly of Vermont called a convention to consider the expediency of joining the Federal Union. This convention met at Bennington, January 6, 1791, and though at first several members were not in favor of union, after a debate of three days the question was decided in the affirmative by a vote of 105 yeas to 3 nays. A few days later the a.s.sembly chose Nathaniel Chipman and Lewis R. Morris commissioners to negotiate with Congress for the admission of the State to the Union. The commissioners went immediately to Philadelphia, and laid before the president the proceedings of the legislature and convention.

On the eighteenth day of February, 1791, Congress, without debate or one dissenting vote, pa.s.sed an act declaring that on the fourth day of March next, "the said State, by the name and style of the State of Vermont, shall be received into this Union as a new and entire member of the United States of America." So at last the star, that so long had shone apart, now added its constant ray to the l.u.s.tre of the constellation.

FOOTNOTES:

[91] For these resolutions see Slade's _State Papers_, p. 177; also Chittenden's reply, p. 178.

[92] _Vermontensium Res Publica._

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE NEW STATE.

When Vermont had taken her place in the Union, her state government continued to run smoothly in its accustomed lines, still guided by the firm hand and wise counsel of her first governor. With unabated faith in the wisdom, integrity, and patriotism of Thomas Chittenden, the freemen of Vermont again and again reelected him to the chief magistracy of the commonwealth after its admission, as with but one exception they had done in the twelve years preceding that event.

Notwithstanding the simplicity of home life in those days, "Election Day" was observed with a pomp and ceremony well befitting the occasion.

An old newspaper[93] of the day tells us that the morning was ushered in by beat of drums, and that the governor-elect, Thomas Chittenden, Esq., and Lieutenant-Governor Peter Olcott, accompanied by several members of the council, Jonas Fay, Samuel Safford, Walbridge, Bayley, and Strong, old a.s.sociates in the stalwart band of Green Mountain Boys, were met at some distance from the town of Windsor by a troop of horse, a company of artillery, and one of infantry, all in "most beautiful uniforms,"

doubtless of the beloved Continental buff and blue, glittering with great bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, whereon were inscribed the initials "G. W." and the legend, "Long live the President."

As this corps, made up of veterans who had smelled powder when it burned with deadly intent, and of martial youths whose swords were yet unfleshed, marched proudly to the screech of fife and beat of drum, the chronicler writes, their evolutions and discipline would have gained the applause of regular troops. Upon the formal announcement of the result of the election, the artillery company fired a salute of fifteen guns, and then the governor and council, the members of the house, and all the good people there a.s.sembled, repaired to church, and listened to the election sermon, delivered by the Rev. Mr. Shuttleworth "with his usual energy and pathos;" and in the evening the happy occasion was further celebrated by an "elegant ball given by a number of Gentlemen of this town to a most brilliant a.s.sembly of Gentlemen and Ladies, of this and neighboring States."

The sessions of the legislature usually continued about four weeks, and its business princ.i.p.ally consisted in the granting of new townships, levying a small tax, and the pa.s.sage of necessary laws. Frequent pet.i.tions were received, and many granted, to establish lotteries to aid towns in the building and repairing of bridges and roads; to remove obstructions in the channel of the Connecticut; to enable individuals to carry out private enterprises, such as the building of a malt and brew house; in one case to furnish a blind man means wherewith to go to Europe to have an operation performed on his eyes; and at least one pet.i.tion was presented praying for the grant of a lottery to build a church!

Some of the statutes made for the government of the commonwealth in its turbulent infancy, and which were soon repealed, are curious enough to deserve mention.

Manslaughter was punishable by forfeiture of possessions, by whipping on the naked back, and by branding the letter "M." on the hand with a hot iron. Whoso was convicted of adultery was to be punished by whipping on the naked body not exceeding thirty-nine stripes, and "stigmatized or burnt on the forehead with the letter 'A' on a hot iron," and was to wear the letter "A" on the back of the outside garment, in cloth of a different color, and as often as seen without it, on conviction thereof, to be whipped ten stripes. The counterfeiter was punished by having his right ear cut off, and by branding with the letter "C" and being kept at hard labor during life. Burglary and highway robbery were punished by branding with the letter "B" on the forehead, by having the right ear nailed to a post and cut off, and by whipping. A second offense entailed the loss of the other ear and the infliction of a severer whipping, and for the third offense the criminal was to be "put to death as being incorrigible."

Every town was obliged to maintain a good pair of stocks set in the most public place, and in these were exposed the convicted liar, the blasphemer, and the drunkard. In such place also must be maintained a sign-post, whereon all public notices were placed, with occasional ghastly garnishment of felons' ears.

Every town a.s.signed a particular brand for its horse kind, each one of which was to be marked on the left shoulder by a regularly appointed brander, who should record a description of every horse branded. All owners of cattle, sheep, or swine were required to ear-mark or brand such animals, and cause their several marks to be registered in the town book. Many of these ear-marks may yet be seen described and rudely pictured in faded ink on the musty pages of old record books.

There was a general revision of the laws in 1787, and a second revision ten years later, whereby the barbarous severity of the penal laws was considerably lessened.

After admission to the Union, Vermont was as faithful to the newly a.s.sumed bond as she had been steadfast and unflinching in the a.s.sertion of her independence of Congress when that body attempted to exercise its authority over the unrecognized commonwealth. She was not backward in furnishing soldiers for the common defense. In 1792, Captain William Eaton, who some years later won renown as the heroic leader of a bold and successful expedition against the city of Derne in Tripoli, raised a company for service against the Indians in the Northwest. There, in the fourth sub-legion of General Wayne's army, these brave men well sustained the valorous reputation of the Green Mountain Boys, bearing the evergreen sprig to its accustomed place in the battle-front. At the battle of Miami, of the eleven privates killed in the fourth sub-legion five were Vermonters. The patriotism of these three-years' volunteers was stimulated by a bounty of eight dollars, and a monthly wage of three dollars.

The pioneers of Vermont aged early under the constant strain of anxiety and hardship which their life entailed, and though most of the leaders were spared amid the dangers of the frontier, the perils of war, and intestine feuds, few reached the allotted term of man's life. Warner, whose vigorous const.i.tution was sapped by the stress of continuous campaigns, died in 1785, aged only forty-two, six years before the State in whose defense he first drew his sword became a recognized member of the nation to whose service he unselfishly devoted the best years of his brave life. Neither was Ethan Allen permitted to see the admission of Vermont to the Union, but was suddenly stricken down by apoplexy, in the robust fullness of his strength, two years before that event. n.o.ble and generous in his nature, bold, daring, and resolute, "he possessed,"

says Zadoc Thompson, "an unusual degree of vigor both of body and mind, and an unlimited confidence in his own abilities."

Vermont has given him the first place among her heroes, has set his marble effigy in the national capitol, in her own, and on the monument that marks his grave; yet to that brave and modest soldier, Seth Warner, the knightliest figure in her romantic history, the State he served so well has not given so much as a tablet to commemorate his name and valorous deeds. It is as if, in their mouldering dust, the character of the living men was preserved, the one still self-a.s.serting, the other as unpretentious in the eternal sleep as he was in life. Though Governor Chittenden's age was not beyond that in which modern statesmen are still active, infirmity and disease were upon him, admonishing him that he could no longer bear the fatigues of the office which for eighteen years he had held. In the summer of 1797 he announced that he would not again be a candidate for the governorship. He had seen the State, which he had been so largely instrumental in moulding out of the crude material of scattered frontier settlements, and which his strong hand had defended against covetous neighbors and a foreign enemy, in the full enjoyment of an honorable place in the sisterhood of commonwealths, and felt that his work was done. While still in office, a few weeks later, his honorable life closed at his home in Williston, among the fertile fields that his hand had wrought out of the primeval wilderness, and his death was sincerely mourned by the people whom he had so long ruled with patriarchal care.

At the next election, Isaac Tichenor was chosen governor. He was a native of New Jersey, and, becoming a resident of Vermont in 1777, he presently took an active part in the affairs of the State. For several years previous to his election to the first place in its gift, he had served it as a member of the council, chief justice, and United States senator. No choice was made by the people, though he received a plurality of the popular vote, and the election devolved upon the a.s.sembly. The Federalist party predominating therein, he was elected by a large majority. He was ten times reelected, and, such faith had the people in him, several times after his party was a minority in the State, although the acrimony of party strife had begun to embitter its politics.

In the early part of Tichenor's administration, while the legislature was in session at Vergennes in the autumn of 1798, five chiefs of the Cognahwaghnahs presented a claim of their people to ancient hunting grounds in Vermont, bounded by a line extending from Ticonderoga to the Great Falls of Otter Creek, and in the same direction to the height of land dividing the streams between Lake Champlain and the river Connecticut, thence along the height of land opposite Missisque, and then down to the bay, and comprising about a third of the State. The Indians were handsomely entertained during their stay, and dismissed with a present of a hundred dollars, "well pleased with their own policy," says Williams, "and with that of the a.s.sembly of Vermont, hoping that the game would prove still better another season."

An investigation of this claim resulted in a decision that, if any such right ever existed, it had been extinguished by the cession of the lands in question to the United States by Great Britain, whose allies these Indians were in the late war.

When, upon the pa.s.sage of the alien and sedition laws by Congress, the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky, in 1798, pa.s.sed resolutions, which were sent to the legislatures of all the other States, declaring these acts null, the a.s.sembly of Vermont made a firm, dignified, and forcible reply, denying the right of States to sit in judgment on the const.i.tutionality of the acts of Congress, or to declare which of its acts should be accepted or which rejected. Considering the almost recent antagonism which had existed between Congress and the State of Vermont, the one by turns vacillating or threatening, the other boldly defiant and denying the right of interference with her affairs, it might be thought that the new commonwealth would be found arrayed among the extreme defenders of state rights rather than so stoutly opposing them.

Party spirit had begun to embitter the politics of the State, and the growing minority of Republicans was hotly arrayed against the still predominant Federalists. The Federal strength was further weakened by the imprisonment, under the sedition law, of Matthew Lyon, one of the Vermont members of Congress. His free expression of opinion concerning the conduct of the administration of President Adams would not now be considered very extravagant, but for it he was sentenced to four months'

imprisonment, and to pay a fine of $1,000.

While in prison at Vergennes, he wrote letters which it was thought would cause his re-arrest before he could leave the State to take his seat in Congress, to which he had been reelected while in prison.

Measures were taken for the payment of his fine in indisputably legal tender, one citizen of the State providing the sum in silver dollars, and one ardent Republican of North Carolina coming all the way from that State on horseback with the amount in gold. But Lyon's many political friends desired to share the honor of paying his fine, and it was arranged that no person should pay more than one dollar. No sooner had he come forth from prison than his fine was paid, and he was placed in a sleigh and driven up the frozen current of Great Otter to Middlebury, attended, it is said, by an escort in sleighs, the train extending from the one town to the other, a distance of twelve miles. With half as many, he might boast of a greater following than had pa.s.sed up the Indian Road under any leader since the b.l.o.o.d.y days of border warfare when Waubanakee chief or Canadian partisan led their marauding horde along the n.o.ble river.

Lyon was of Irish birth, and came to America at the age of thirteen under an indenture for his pa.s.sage money. This was sold for a pair of steers to one of the founders of Danville, Vermont, and Lyon was wont to swear "By the bulls that redeemed me." He served in the Vermont troops in the Revolution, and for a time was paymaster in Warner's regiment. He was a member of the Dorset convention, and for several years took a prominent part in the politics of the State, of which he was an enterprising and useful citizen. His second wife was the daughter of Governor Thomas Chittenden. In 1801 he removed to Kentucky, and was eight years a member of Congress from that State. He died at the age of seventy-six, in the territory of Arkansas, soon after his election as delegate to Congress.

Four years after the arbitrary measures against Lyon by a Federalist majority in the legislature, the opposite party gained the ascendency in that body, though Tichenor had been reelected by a majority of the freemen of the State.