Vermont: A Study of Independence
by Rowland Evans Robinson · English · Gutenberg #35573 · 564,596 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Vermont: A Study of Independence
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Vermont: A Study of Independence
Author: Rowland Evans Robinson
Editor: Horace Elisha Scudder
Release date: March 14, 2011 [eBook #35573]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35573
Credits: Produced by Darleen Dove, Barbara Kosker and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VERMONT: A STUDY OF INDEPENDENCE ***
Produced by Darleen Dove, Barbara Kosker and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
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.
CHAPTER II.
THE WILDERNESS DURING THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS.
By the easiest path, in summer and winter, of the larger streams, the
English settlements were pushed into the wilderness, and where the
alluvial land gave most promise of fertility the sunlight fell upon the
virgin soil of new clearings, the log-houses of the pioneers arose, and
families were gathered about new hearthstones. They were soon confronted
by the old danger, for the Indians, jealous of their encroachments and
covertly incited by the governor of Canada, presently began hostilities,
and the gun again was as necessary an equipment of the husbandman afield
as his axe or hoe or scythe, and his wife and children lived in a
besetting fear of death, or a captivity almost as dreadful. Though
England and France were at peace during the time for the five years
beginning with 1720, a savage war was waged between the eastern Canadian
Indians and the provinces of Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
It was in these troublous times that the first permanent occupation was
made in the unnamed region which is now Vermont. In 1723 it was voted
by the General Court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, that "it will
be of great service to all the western frontiers, both in this and in
the neighboring governments of Connecticut, to build a block-house above
Northfield, in the most convenient place on the lands called the
'equivalent lands,'[7] and to post in it forty able men, English and
western Indians, to be employed in scouting at a good distance up the
Connecticut River, West River, Otter Creek, and sometime eastwardly
above great Monadnock, for the discovery of the enemy coming toward any
of the frontier towns, and so much of the said equivalent lands as shall
be necessary for a block-house be taken up with the consent of the
owners of the said land, together with five or six acres of their
interval land to be broken up or ploughed for the present use of the
western Indians, in case any of them shall think fit to bring their
families hither."
Accordingly a site was chosen in the southeastern part of the present
town of Brattleboro, and in February, 1724, the work was begun under
the superintendence of Colonel John Stoddard of Northampton, by
Lieutenant Timothy Dwight, with a force of "four carpenters, twelve
soldiers with narrow axes, and two teams." At the beginning of summer
the fort was ready for occupancy, and was named Fort Dummer, in honor of
the lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts. The fort was built of hewn
logs laid horizontally in a square, whose sides were one hundred and
eighty feet in length, and outside this was a stockade of square timbers
twelve feet in length set upright in the ground. Within the inner
inclosure, built against the walls, were the "province houses," the
habitation of the garrison and other inmates, and themselves capable of
stout defense, should its assailants gain entrance to the interior of
the fort. In addition to the small-arms of the garrison, Fort Dummer was
furnished with four patereros.[8] There was also a "Great Gun," used
only as a signal, when its sudden thunder rolled through leagues of
forest to summon aid or announce good tidings. On the 11th of October
following its completion, the fort was attacked by seventy hostile
Indians, and four or five of its occupants were killed or wounded.
Scouting parties frequently went out to watch for the enemy, sometimes
up the Connecticut to the Great Falls, sometimes up West River, and
thence across the Wilderness to the same point. Sometimes they were
sent to the mountains at West River and the Great Falls, "to lodge on ye
top," and from these lofty watch-towers the keen eyes of the rangers
scanned the mapped expanse of forest, when it was green with summer
leafage, or gorgeous as a parterre with innumerable autumnal hues, or
veiled in the soft haze of Indian summer, or gray with the snows of
winter and the ramage of naked branches, "viewing for smoaks" of hostile
camp-fires. In July, 1725, Captain Wright, with a volunteer force of
sixty men, scouted up the Connecticut to Wells River, and some distance
up that stream, thence to the Winooski, which they followed till they
came within sight of Lake Champlain, when, having penetrated the heart
of the Wilderness farther than any English force had previously done,
the scantiness of their provisions compelled a return.
By the authority of the General Court of Massachusetts, a "truck house,"
or trading house, was established at Fort Dummer in 1728, and the
Indians finding that they could make better bargains here than at the
French trading-posts, flocked hither with their peltry, moose-skins, and
tallow.
When, seventeen years after the erection of Fort Dummer, the boundary
line was run between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the fort fell
within the limits of the latter State, whose government was appealed to
by Massachusetts to maintain it, but declined to do so, on the ground
that its own frontier was better protected by a stronger fort at Number
Four; also that it was more to the interest of Massachusetts than of New
Hampshire to continue its support. Governor Wentworth urged upon a new
assembly the safer and more generous policy, but to no purpose, and such
a maintenance as Fort Dummer continued to receive was given by
Massachusetts.
After pushing their fortified posts up the Richelieu and to Isle la
Motte, where they built Fort St. Anne in 1665, the French made a long
stride toward the head of the lake, where in 1730 they built a small
fort and began a settlement on Chimney Point, called by them Point a la
Chevalure, and the next year began the erection of a more considerable
work on the opposite headland of Crown Point, a position of much greater
natural strength. In the building of this fortress of St. Frederic,
which was for many years to remain a close and constant menace to the
English colonies, they were opposed only by feeble protest of the
government of New York, though that of Massachusetts urged more active
opposition. The fort was completed, and the French held the key to the
"Gate of the Country," as the Iroquois had so fitly named Lake
Champlain. Seigniories were granted on both sides of the lake, and in
that of Sieur Hocquart, which extended three leagues along the lake and
five leagues back therefrom, was this settlement on Point a la
Chevalure. Northward from the fort the habitants built their cabins of
logs in close neighborhood along the street, and sowed wheat, planted
corn and fruit-trees on their narrow holdings. Flowers new to the
wilderness bloomed beside doorways, and the fragrance of foreign herbs
was mingled with the balsamic odors of the woods. Where only the glare
of camp-fires had briefly illumined the bivouac of armed men, the blaze
of the hearth was kindled to shine on happy households; where had been
heard no sound of human voice but the sentinel's challenge, the stern,
sharp call of military command, or the devilish yell of the savage, now
arose the voice of the mother crooning to her babe, the prattle of
children at play, the gabble of gossiping dames, and the laughter of the
gay habitant; while from the protecting fort flaunted the lilies of
France, an assurance to these simple people of the permanency of their
newly founded homes. Here the Canadians tilled their little fields, and
shared of the lake's abundance with the fish-hawks and the otter, hunted
the deer and moose, and trapped the fur-bearing animals in the broad
forest, and at the bidding of their masters went forth with their
painted allies, the Waubanakees, on bloody forays against the English.
When in 1744 war was again declared between England and France, the
English frontier settlements soon began to suffer from the advantage
their enemies possessed in a stronghold from which they were so easily
reached. During the next year they were frequently harassed by small
parties, and in August, 1746, Vaudreuil set forth from Fort St. Frederic
with an army of seven hundred French and Indians to attack Fort
Massachusetts, then the most advanced post in the province, whose name
had been given it.[9] There were but thirty-three persons in the
garrison, including women and children, but Colonel Hawkes bravely
defended the place with his insignificant force for twenty-eight hours,
when the supply of ammunition was exhausted and he surrendered, with the
stipulation that none of his people should be delivered to the Indians.
Yet in spite of this, soon after the capitulation, Vaudreuil gave up one
half of them to the savages, who thereupon at once killed a prisoner who
was unable to travel.
After the capture of Louisburg by the force of New England troops which
he had organized, Governor Shirley of Massachusetts proposed a plan for
the conquest of Canada, in which a fleet and army promised by the mother
country were to attack Quebec, while the colonial troops were to march
against Fort St. Frederic.
While active preparations for this enterprise were being made, the
colonies were alarmed by news of the arrival at Nova Scotia of a French
fleet and army so formidable as to threaten the conquest of all their
seaboard, and all their efforts were turned toward defense. When storm
and shipwreck had scattered and destroyed the fleet and frustrated its
objects, Shirley proposed a winter campaign in which the New Hampshire
troops were to go up the Connecticut and destroy the Waubanakee village
of St. Francis, and the Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York
troops, advancing by the way of Lake George, were to attack Fort St.
Frederic; but Connecticut declining to take part in it, the project was
abandoned.
The English had continued to extend their settlements upon the
Connecticut, and had built several small forts on the west side of the
river. These so-called forts were block-houses, built of hewn logs, with
a projecting upper story and pierced with loopholes for muskets. Such
was Bridgman's fort in what is now Vernon, and which was twice attacked
by Indians, and in the second attack was destroyed. Some years
afterward, in July, 1755, a party of Indians, who were lurking near the
fort, now rebuilt, waylaid three settlers as they were returning from
their work, and killed one Caleb Howe. Another was drowned in attempting
to cross the river, and one escaped. The Indians gained entrance to the
fort, whose only inmates were the wives and children of the three men,
by making the customary signal, which they had learned by observation.
After plundering the fort, and taking the helpless inmates captive, they
proceeded through the wilderness to Crown Point, and from thence to
Canada. Their prisoners suffered there a long captivity, but were at
length mostly redeemed.[10]
The most northerly settlement now on the river was at Number Four, on
the east side of the Connecticut. Three years after its settlement, in
1743, a fort was built under the direction of Colonel Stoddard, the
builder of Fort Dummer. It was similar to that fortification in size and
construction, but was stockaded only on the north side. It inclosed, as
"province houses," the dwellings previously built by five of the
settlers, and one built at the same time with the fort. The settlers
continued here for three years thereafter, during which they suffered
frequent assaults from marauding bands of Indians, in which eight of the
soldiers and inhabitants were killed and three taken prisoners. When the
Massachusetts troops which for a while had garrisoned the place were
withdrawn, the helpless people abandoned their newly made homes, and for
months the divested fort remained as silent and desolate as the wintry
wastes of forests that surrounded it. In response to representations
made to him of the expediency of such a measure, Governor Shirley
ordered Captain Phineas Stevens, with thirty men, to march to and occupy
the fort at Number Four. Arriving there on the 27th of March, 1747,
Captain Stevens found the place in good condition, and was heartily
welcomed to it by an old dog and cat which had been left behind in the
hurry of the autumnal departure. The garrison had been in possession but
a few days when they were attacked by French and Indians commanded by M.
Debeline, who opened a musketry fire upon the fort on all sides. Failing
to take it in this way, the enemy attempted to burn it by setting fire
to the fences and houses near it, by discharging flaming arrows upon
the roof, and then by pushing a cart loaded with burning brush[11]
against the walls.
Stevens thus describes the ingenious device by which he prevented the
firing of the wooden walls by the enemy: "Those who were not employed in
firing at the enemy were employed in digging trenches under the bottom
of the fort. We dug no less than eleven of them, so deep that a man
could go and stand upright on the outside and not endanger himself; so
that when these trenches were finished we could wet all the outside of
the fort, which we did, and kept it wet all night. We drew some hundreds
of barrels of water, and to undergo all this hard service there were but
thirty men."[12] All the attempts of the enemy were baffled, fair
promises and dire threats alike set at naught by the brave defenders of
the fort.
On the third day of the siege Debeline offered to withdraw if Stevens
would sell them provisions. Stevens refused, but offered to give them
five bushels of corn for every hostage that should be given him to be
held till an English captive could be brought from Canada, whereupon,
after firing a few more shots, the besiegers withdrew to Fort St.
Frederic.[13]
No other expeditions were afterward undertaken by the French while the
war lasted, but the Indians in small parties continued to harry the
settlements till after its close in 1748. To guard against these
incursions, scouting parties, led by brave and experienced partisans,
frequently went out from the frontier forts to watch the motions of the
enemy, when oftentimes their perilous adventures and heroic deeds were
such that the story of them is more like a tale from an old romance than
like a page of history. One memorable incident of this service took
place on Vermont soil in the summer of the next year after the gallant
defense of Number Four, when Captain Humphrey Hobbs, Stevens's second in
command at that post, being on a scout toward Fort Shirley in
Massachusetts, with forty men, for four hours held at bay and finally
beat off an Indian force more than four times outnumbering his own. It
was a brush fight, wherein the scouts had no shelter but such forest
cover as their assailants also took advantage of. But three of the
scouts were killed; the loss of the Indians, though great, was never
known, as when one fell his nearest comrade crept to the body and
attached a line to it, by which it was withdrawn to cover. During the
fight, the scouts frequently beheld the ghastly sight of a dead Indian
gliding away and fading from view in the haze of undergrowth, as if
drawn thither by some superhuman power.[14]
Until the beginning of another French and English war in 1754, and while
the colonies were endeavoring to form a union for their better defense,
while elsewhere were occurring such events as Braddock's Defeat and
Monckton's and Winslow's Conquest of Acadia, there is little of
consequence to record of affairs in this quarter till Colonel William
Johnson, with an army of 4,000 or more, began an advance against Fort
St. Frederic. The French had occupied Ticonderoga, and begun to fortify
the point, which soon became far more important than the older fortress
of St. Frederic; and their army of 2,000 regulars, Canadians and
Indians, under Baron Dieskau, taking the offensive, moved against
Johnson and attacked his fortified camp at Lake George in September,
1755. The French were defeated with severe loss;[15] but Johnson did not
follow up his success, and the enemy retreated to Ticonderoga unmolested
but by the impetuous attack of Captain McGinnis of New Hampshire, with a
force of 200 men. Yet in England his barren victory seemed of such
importance that he was honored with a baronetcy.
Now, while an army of more than two thousand regulars, under Lord
Loudon, was lying at Albany, and Winslow was at Lake George with 7,000
provincial troops, Montcalm besieged Oswego, which presently surrendered
with all its garrison, arms, stores, and munitions of war. Montcalm
continued actively on the offensive, and in March, 1757, undertook the
capture of Fort William Henry, which was held by Colonel Monroe with a
garrison of 2,500 men. His surrender was at once demanded, but he
refused, and defended the fort with great bravery, being confident
General Webb would presently send him relief from Fort Edward. But
though frequently entreated, no help came from Webb, only a letter
protesting his inability to aid him, and advising him to surrender on
the best terms obtainable. This fell into the hands of Montcalm, and
with renewed demands of surrender was sent by him to Monroe. Thus
abandoned, after holding out for more than a week, he signed the
articles of capitulation, by the terms of which his paroled army was to
be escorted to Fort Edward, his sick and wounded to be cared for by
Montcalm, and given up when sufficiently recovered. The story of the
perfidious violation of these terms, and the horrors of the carnage when
the defenseless prisoners, of whatever age or sex, or sick or wounded,
were butchered by the savage allies of the Frenchmen, some of whom stood
passive witnesses of the massacre, raising neither hand nor voice to
stay it, is a dark and blood-stained page of American history, and an
ineffaceable blot on the name of Montcalm. Webb, with increased alarm
for his own safety, sent swift messengers to the provinces for
reinforcements, which were at once raised and forwarded to him; but
Montcalm did not return from Ticonderoga to attack him, and the recruits
were not long kept in service.
Loudon at New York was engaged in a controversy with the government of
Massachusetts concerning the quartering of British troops, and
threatening to send an army to that province if his demands were not
speedily complied with, and so the campaign ended without honor or
advantage to the English. Its poor results were chiefly due to the
inefficiency of the British ministry, and the incapacity of the British
commanders to carry on this unaccustomed warfare of the wilderness, and
their unwillingness to avail themselves of the experience of the
colonial officers, whom they despised, thus leaving to their alert and
active enemy all the advantage of familiarity with its methods. So
universal was the complaint in England and her American colonies caused
by this and the preceding campaigns that the formation of a new ministry
became necessary, and William Pitt was appointed secretary of state.
In his plan of the American campaign, which was soon to be vigorously
undertaken, one army of 12,000 men was to attempt the conquest of
Louisburg; another, still larger, that of the French forts on Lake
Champlain; and a third, that of Fort Du Quesne, at the head of the Ohio
River. The expedition against Louisburg was commanded by General
Amherst, under whom were Generals Wolfe, Whitmore, and Lawrence. The
naval force, commanded by Admiral Boscawen, sailed for America early in
the spring, and in May, 1758, the whole armament of 157 sail was
gathered at Halifax. Sailing thence on the 28th, a part of the
transports arrived near Louisburg, and on the 8th of June the troops,
under General Wolfe, disembarked and invested the city. Louisburg was
garrisoned by 2,500 regulars, 300 militia, and later by a reinforcement
of 350 Canadians and Indians, and the harbor was defended by 11 French
ships of war. After a siege of several weeks, during which the French
warships were destroyed, the place surrendered to General Amherst on the
26th of July. In the beginning of the same month General Forbes set
forth from Philadelphia on his difficult march to Fort Du Quesne.
Obstacles which delayed and reverses which checked his progress did not
discourage him, although he was so debilitated by a mortal sickness that
for much of the distance he was carried on a litter; and in November he
took possession of the fort, which had been dismantled and abandoned by
the French, and gave it the name of Fort Pitt.
While these undertakings of Amherst and Forbes were progressing, General
Abercrombie began his movement upon Ticonderoga with a well-appointed
army of more than six thousand regular and nearly ten thousand
provincial troops. The army embarked on Lake George in more than a
thousand batteaux and whaleboats; and as the flotilla moved down the
lake, with glittering arms and gaudy uniforms and flaunting banners
shining in the July sunshine, their splendor repeated in innumerable
broken reflections on the ruffled waters, this wilderness had never seen
such pomp and circumstance of war; nor had its solitudes been stirred
by such martial strains as now burst from trumpet, fife, drum, and
Highland pipe, and echoed from shore and crag in multitudinous
reverberations. Having landed next day without opposition at the lower
end of the lake, the troops began their advance in four columns. An
advanced guard of one battalion of the enemy, after firing their tents,
retreated from their fortified camp on the approach of the English, but
afterward engaged in a skirmish with the left column, when the troops
had fallen into some disorder in their march through the dense woods. It
was in this engagement that the English suffered its first severe loss
in the death of Lord Howe, a gallant young general, who had especially
endeared himself to the provincials by his kindly manners, by sharing
their hardships and perils, and by easily accommodating himself to the
exigencies of this new service. Israel Putnam, then a major of the
rangers, in which branch of the service he had distinguished himself by
his coolness and daring, was a conspicuous actor in this affair. After
the death of Howe, Putnam and the troops with him attacked the French
with such fury that more than four hundred of them were killed and taken
prisoners. But the army having fallen into great disorder in its passage
through the woods, it was deemed advisable to withdraw it to the place
where it had disembarked. Next day, the sawmill on the outlet of Lake
George was taken possession of by a detachment under Colonel Bradstreet,
the bridge there which the enemy had destroyed was rebuilt, and the
army again began its advance on Ticonderoga.
Montcalm had strengthened his position by throwing up a breastwork
across the neck of the peninsula on which the fort stood, and by hedging
this with an almost impenetrable abatis. Yet the engineer whom
Abercrombie had sent to examine the enemy's position was of the opinion
that it might be successfully stormed; and as the prisoners taken
reported that large reinforcements were likely to arrive soon, it was
determined to assault the works at once. The attacking columns were met
by a scathing fire of artillery and musketry, but rushed on to the
abatis, through which they vainly endeavored to make their way, Murray's
regiment of Highlanders hewing at the bristling barrier of pointed
branches with their claymores, while a murderous fire from the
breastworks thinned the ranks of the brave clansmen. Again and again the
assailants were swept back by the pelting storm of bullets, and again
they returned to the assault; the few who struggled through the abatis
were slain before they reached the intrenchments, or only reached them
to be made prisoners, and of the Highland regiment twenty-five of the
officers and half the privates fell. With persistent but unavailing
valor, the attack was continued for more than four hours, and then a
retreat was ordered, and the defeated army sullenly fell back to the
camp which it had occupied the night before. Early next morning it was
reembarked, and the torn and decimated regiments continued their
retreat up the lake.
General Abercrombie's defeat did not discourage him from making further
efforts against the enemy. He sent General Stanwix to build a fort at
Oneida and dispatched Colonel Bradstreet with 3,000 men against Fort
Frontenac on the St. Lawrence, and both successfully performed their
allotted duties.
General Amherst returned from Louisburg, assumed command, and in the
summer of 1757 began a movement for the reduction of Ticonderoga and
Crown Point, which was a part of this year's campaign. Moving forward by
the same route that Abercrombie had taken, he reached the neighborhood
of Ticonderoga without encountering any opposition from the enemy, and
made preparations to besiege this fortress; but the French made only a
brief defense, in which, however, Colonel Townshend and a few soldiers
were killed, and then, leaving the French flag flying and a match
burning in the magazine to blow up the fort, evacuated it and retired to
Crown Point the night of the 27th of July. An hour after their departure
came the thunder of the explosion, which destroyed one bastion and set
the barracks on fire. They presently abandoned Crown Point and retired
to the Isle aux Noix, while Amherst was repairing and strengthening the
fortifications of Ticonderoga.
So at last, with but slight resistance to the tide of conquest that was
now overwhelming their northern possessions in America, the French
abandoned the strongholds that guarded the "Gate of the Country."
For more than a quarter of a century Fort St. Frederic had been the
point from which marauding bands of Indians and their scarcely less
ferocious white associates had set forth on errands of rapine and
murder, which had made as dangerous and insecure as a crater's brink
every frontier settlement of a wide region. Here had been plotted their
forays; here they had returned from them with captives, scalps, and
plunder; here found safety from pursuit. The two forts had held
civilization at bay on the border of this land of "beautiful valleys and
fields fertile in corn," and to all the inhabitants of the New England
frontier their fall was a deliverance from an ever-threatening danger.
The French held the Isle aux Noix, their last remaining post on Lake
Champlain, with a force of 3,500 regular troops and Canadian militia,
and had also on the lake four large armed vessels, commanded by
experienced officers of the French navy. The presence of this naval
force made it necessary for Amherst to build vessels that might
successfully oppose it, and while this work was in progress the British
general dispatched a body of rangers against the Indians of St. Francis,
who for fifty years had been active and relentless foes of the New
England colonies.
Early in the century many members of the different tribes of
Waubanakees in the eastern part of New England had been induced by the
governor of Canada to remove to that province, and since then had lived
on the St. Francis River, and were commonly known as the St. Francis
tribe, though they gave themselves the name of "Zooquagese," the people
who withdrew from the others, or literally "the Little People."[16]
Their intimate knowledge of the region, which had been the home of many
generations of their people, and their familiarity with every waterway
and mountain pass that gave easiest access to the English frontiers,
made them as valuable instruments, as their hatred of the English made
them willing ones for the hostile purposes of the French. From none of
their enemies had the frontier settlements suffered more, and toward
none did they bear greater enmity.
The wrongs which these tribes had suffered from the English, since their
earliest contact with them, gave cause for vengeful retaliation, and its
atrocities were such as might be expected of savages accustomed by usage
and tradition to inflict on their enemies and receive from them the
cruelest tortures that could be devised, and whose religion taught no
precept of mercy; but for those Christians, boasting the highest
civilization of the world, the French, who encouraged the barbarous
warfare and seldom attempted to check its horrors, there can be no
excuse.
Amherst chose Major Robert Rogers to lead the expedition against St.
Francis, and he could not have chosen one better fitted to carry out the
scheme of vengeance than this wary, intrepid, and unscrupulous ranger.
To him it was a light achievement to creep within the lines of a French
camp, and he could slay and scalp an enemy with as little compunction as
would an Indian,[17] while the men whom he led had seen or suffered
enough of Indian barbarity to make them as unrelenting as he in the
infliction of any measure of punishment on these scourges of the border.
Rogers left Crown Point on the night of the 12th of September with a
detachment of 200, embarked in batteaux, and went cautiously down the
lake. His force was reduced by one fourth on the fifth day out by the
explosion of a keg of powder, which wounded several of his men and made
it necessary to send them with an escort back to Crown Point.
Arrived at the head of Missisco Bay, the boats and sufficient provisions
for the return voyage were concealed, and left in charge of two trusty
Indians, when the little army began its march across the country through
the wilderness toward the Indian town. Two days later it was overtaken
by the boat guard, bringing to Rogers the alarming news of the discovery
of the boats by a force of French and Indians, four hundred strong,
fifty of whom had been sent away with the batteaux, while the others,
still doubly outnumbering his force, were following him in hot pursuit.
Rogers kept his own counsel, and alone formed the plans that he at once
acted upon. He dispatched a lieutenant with eight men to Crown Point to
acquaint General Amherst with the turn of affairs, and ask him to send
provisions to Coos, on the Connecticut, to which place it now seemed
that soon or late he must make his way. The only question was, whether
he should do so now, or attempt to strike the contemplated blow before
his pursuers could overtake him. It was characteristic of the man to
decide upon the bolder course, and he marched his men, as enduring as
the enemy and as accustomed to such difficult marching, with such
celerity that the pursuing force was left well behind when, on the
evening of the 4th of October, the neighborhood of the town was reached.
While his men halted for rest and refreshment, he, disguised as an
Indian and accompanied by two of his officers, went forward and entered
the village. The Indians, unsuspicious of danger, were celebrating some
rite with a grand dance, which quite engrossed their attention while
Rogers and his companions thoroughly reconnoitred the place. Returning
to his troops some hours before daylight, he marched them within a few
hundred yards of the town, and at daybreak, the dance being over and the
Indians asleep, the onslaught was made.
Amherst's orders to Rogers, after reminding him of the "barbarities
committed by the enemy's Indian scoundrels," and bidding him to "take
his revenge," had enjoined that "no women or children shall be killed or
hurt;" but if this command was heeded at first, it was presently
disregarded. If there was any touch of mercy in the hearts of the
rangers when the assault began, the last vestige of it was swept away
when daylight revealed hundreds of scalps of their own people displayed
on poles, silvered locks of age, tresses of women's hair, golden
ringlets of childhood, all ghastly trophies of New England raids.
Old and young, warrior, squaw, and pappoose, alike suffered their
vengeance, till of the three hundred inhabitants two thirds were killed
and twenty taken prisoners, fifteen of whom were soon "let go their
way." The church, adorned with plate and an image of silver, and the
well-furnished dwellings, were plundered and burned, and the morning sun
shone upon a scene of desolation as complete as these savages themselves
had ever wrought.
When the work of destruction was finished, Rogers assembled his men, of
whom only one had been killed and six slightly wounded, and after an
hour's rest began the return march with the prisoners, five recaptured
English captives, and what provisions and booty could be carried.
The route taken was up the St. Francis and to the eastward of Lake
Memphremagog, the objective point being the Coos Meadows, where it was
expected that the relief party with provisions would be met. They were
followed by the enemy, and had lost seven men by their attacks, when
Rogers formed an ambuscade upon his own track, into which they fell and
suffered so severely that they desisted from further pursuit.
When ten days had elapsed, and Rogers and his men had come some distance
within the bounds of what is now Vermont, they began to suffer much from
lack of food, and it was thought best to divide the force into small
parties, each to make its way as best it could to the expected succor at
Coos, or to the English settlements farther down the Connecticut.
While its autumnal glories faded and the primeval forest grew bare and
bleak, the little bands struggled bravely on over rugged mountains,
through tangled windfalls, and swamps whose miry pools were
treacherously hidden beneath the fallen leaves, fighting hour after hour
and day after day against fatigue and famine, foes more persistent,
insidious, and unrelenting than Awahnock[18] and Waubanakee. Such small
game as they could kill, and the few edible roots that they found, were
their only subsistence; and they would gladly have bartered the silver
image and the golden candlesticks brought from the church, and all their
booty, for one day's supply of the coarsest food. They buried the
treasure, with scant hope that they might ever unearth it, and cast away
unheeded the useless burdens of less valuable plunder.
At night they cowered around their camp-fires and shivered out the
miserable hours of darkness, then arose unrefreshed, and staggered on
the way that each day stretched more wearily and hopelessly before them.
Some could go no farther, but fell down and died, and were left unburied
by comrades too weak to give them the rudest sepulchre, and some in the
delirium of famine wandered away from their companions to become
hopelessly lost in the pathless wilderness and die alone.
The officer whom Rogers had dispatched to Crown Point performed the
difficult journey in nine days, and General Amherst at once sent a
lieutenant with three men to Number Four, to proceed thence up the
Connecticut with provisions to the appointed place. The relief party
embarked in two canoes laden with provisions, which they safely landed
on an island near the mouth of the Passumpsic; but though ordered to
remain there as long as there was any hope of the coming of those whom
they were sent to succor, when only two days had passed they became
impatient of waiting, or were seized by a panic, and hastily departed
with all the supplies.
Rogers and those who remained with him, following the Passumpsic down to
the Connecticut, came at last to the place where they hoped to find
relief, but only to find it abandoned, and that so recently that the
camp-fire of the relief party was still freshly burning. These men were
yet so near that they heard the guns which Rogers fired to recall them,
but which, supposed by them to be fired by the enemy, only served to
hasten their retreat.
Rogers says: "It is hardly possible to describe the grief and
consternation of those of us who came to the Cohasse Intervales."[19]
Sorely distressed by this shameful desertion but not discouraged, the
brave commander left his worn out and starving men at the Passumpsic in
charge of a lieutenant, whom he instructed in the method of preparing
ground nuts and lily roots for food, and set forth down the river on a
raft with Captain Ogden, one ranger, and a captive Indian boy, in a
final endeavor to reach Number Four and obtain relief. At White River
Falls the raft was wrecked, and Rogers, too weak to cut trees for
another, burned them down and into proper lengths, while Ogden and the
ranger hunted red squirrels for food. A second raft was then built, and,
after a voyage that would have been perilous to men in the fullness of
strength, they at last reached Number Four. Rogers at once dispatched a
canoe with supplies to his starving men, which reached them on the tenth
day after he had left them, as he had promised. Two days later he
himself went up the river with canoes, manned by some of the inhabitants
whom he had hired, and laden with provisions for those who might come in
by the same route, and he sent expresses to towns on the Merrimac that
relief parties might be sent up that river.
On the 1st of December he returned to Crown Point with what remained of
his force, having lost, since beginning the retreat from St. Francis,
three lieutenants and forty-six non-commissioned officers and privates.
Notwithstanding its losses and dire hardships, the expedition was
successful in the infliction of a chastisement that the Indians of St.
Francis never recovered from and never forgot, and which relieved the
New England frontier from the continual dread of the bloody incursions
that it had so long suffered. Throughout the whole of it, in leading it
to victory and in retreat, in sharing their hardships and in heroic
efforts to succor and save his men, Rogers's conduct was such as should
make his name honorably remembered in spite of the suspicions which
tarnished it in after years.
While Rogers's expedition was in progress, a sloop of sixteen guns and a
raft carrying six guns were built at Ticonderoga. With these and a
brigantine, Captain Loring sailed down the lake and engaged the French
vessels, sinking two of them and capturing a third, which was repaired
and brought away after being run aground and deserted by its crew,
leaving to the enemy but one schooner on these waters.
Amherst at the same time embarked his whole army in batteaux, and began
his advance against Isle aux Noix, but, being delayed by storms and
adverse winds, deemed it best to abandon for this season the attempt,
and returned to Crown Point, arriving there on the 27th of October. He
now began the erection of a new and larger fortress and three new
outworks there; completed the road between Crown Point and Ticonderoga,
and began another from the latter fort to Number Four.
Meanwhile events of great moment had occurred elsewhere. In July, after
the death of General Prideaux, who commanded the army besieging Niagara,
Sir William Johnson had defeated the French army sent to its relief, and
the fort had surrendered to him. On the 13th of September Wolfe, on the
Heights of Abraham, had given his life for imperishable renown; and six
days later Quebec, the most impregnable stronghold of the French in
America, was surrendered to the enemy, whose attempts to reduce it had
for seventy years been unsuccessful.
All the English colonies in America rejoiced in its fall, for the
conquest of Canada was now assured, and the day of their deliverance
from French and Indian invasion had dawned.
Levis's attempt to recapture Quebec had failed, though sickness and
death had sorely weakened Murray's garrison, and now at Montreal the
French were to make the last stand against English conquest. Amherst was
to advance upon it down the St. Lawrence, Murray from Quebec, and
Haviland from the south, to break the last bar of the "Gate of the
Country," held by Bougainville at Isle aux Noix.
On the 15th of July Murray embarked with nearly 2,500 men. He met no
great opposition from the superior forces of Bourlamaque and Dumas,
which on either shore of the river withdrew slowly toward Montreal as
the fleet advanced. He issued a proclamation promising safety of person
and property to all the inhabitants who remained peaceably at home, and
threatening to burn the houses of all who were in arms. He kept his word
to the letter in the protection and in the punishment, and the result
was the rapid dwindling away of Bourlamaque's army.
Toward the end of August he encamped below the town on the island of
Ste. Therese, and awaited the arrival of the other English armies. A
regiment of New Hampshire men commanded by Colonel Goffe opened the road
which Amherst had ordered to be made from Number Four to Crown Point,
and performed the labor in such good time that on the 31st of July they
arrived, and, turned drovers as well as pioneers, brought with them a
herd of cattle for the supply of the army there.[20] This road ran from
Wentworth's Ferry, near Charlestown, up the right bank of Black River to
the present township of Ludlow, thence across the mountains to Otter
Creek, and down that stream to a station opposite Crown Point, to which
it ran across the country. That part of the road across and on the west
side of the mountains was begun and nearly completed in the previous
year, under the supervision of Colonel Zadok Hawks and Captain John
Stark; Stark and 200 rangers being employed on the western portion.[21]
Haviland embarked at Crown Point on the 12th of August with 3,400
regulars, provincials, and Indians in whaleboats and batteaux, which,
under sunny skies and on quiet waters, came in four days to Isle aux
Noix. Cannon were planted in front and rear of Bougainville's position.
The largest vessel of his naval force was cut adrift by a cannon-shot
and drifted into the hands of the English; and the others, endeavoring
to escape to St. John's, ran aground and were taken by the rangers, who
swam out and boarded one, tomahawk in hand, when the others presently
surrendered.[22]
Bougainville, abandoning the island, made a difficult night retreat to
St. John's, and from thence fell back with Roquemaure to the St.
Lawrence. Haviland was soon opposite Montreal, and in communication with
Murray, and both awaited the coming of Amherst's army. This force had
assembled at Oswego in July, and numbered something more than 10,000
men, exclusive of about 700 Indians under Sir William Johnson, and had
embarked on Lake Ontario on the 10th of August, and within five days
reached Oswigatchee. After the capture by five gunboats of a French
armed brig that threatened the destruction of the batteaux and
whaleboats, the army continued its advance to Fort Levis, near the head
of the rapids. Amherst invested the fort, and opened fire upon it from
land and water; and when for three days rocky islet and wooded shore had
been shaken by the thunder of the cannon that splintered the wooden
walls, the French commandant, Pouchot, was compelled to surrender the
ruined works and his garrison. Johnson's Indians were so enraged at not
being allowed to kill the prisoners that three fourths of them went
home.[23] There was no further resistance from the French, but there was
yet a terrible enemy to be encountered in the long and dangerous rapids
that must be descended. Several were passed with but slight loss; but in
the most perilous passage of the last three, forty-seven boats were
wrecked, several damaged, some artillery, ammunition, and stores lost,
and eighty-four men drowned in the angry turmoil of wild waters. When
these perils were past, an uneventful and unopposed voyage ensued, till
on the 6th of September the army landed at Lachine, and, marching to the
city, encamped before its walls.
The defenses of Montreal were too weak to resist a siege; the troops,
abandoned by the militia, too few to give battle to the three armies
that hemmed them in; and there was nothing left for Vaudreuil but
surrender. Some of the terms of capitulation proposed by him were
rejected by Amherst, who demanded that "the whole garrison of Montreal
and all the French troops in Canada must lay down their arms, and shall
not serve again during the war." In answer to the remonstrances of
Vaudreuil and his generals he said: "I am fully resolved, for the
infamous part the troops of France have acted in exciting the savages
to perpetrate the most horrid and unheard-of barbarities in the whole
progress of the war, and for other open treacheries and flagrant
breaches of faith, to manifest to all the world, by this capitulation,
my detestation of such practices."[24]
Vaudreuil yielded, as perforce he must, and on the 8th of September
signed the capitulation by which Canada passed into the possession of
England. The French officers, civil and military, the troops and
sailors, were to be sent to France, and the inhabitants were to be
protected in their property and religion.
The Indian allies of the English, and those who had lately been the
allies of the French but were now as ready to turn against them as they
had been to serve, were held in such firm restraint that not a person
suffered any injury from them more than from the soldiers of the
victorious armies.
The long struggle was over, the conquest of Canada was accomplished, and
great was the rejoicing of the people of all the English colonies,
especially those of New England. The toilsome march through the savage
forest, the cheerless bivouac on remote and lonely shores, were no
longer to be endured; nor the deadly ambuscade dreaded by the
home-loving husbandman, who for love of home had turned soldier; nor was
his family to live in the constant fear of the horrors of nightly
attack, massacre, or captivity that had made anxious every hour of day
and night.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Massachusetts gave 107,793 acres of land to Connecticut as
_equivalent_ for as many acres she had previously granted that were
found to be south of the boundary between the two provinces, and which
she wished to retain. One section of these "Equivalent Lands" was on the
west bank of Connecticut River, within the present towns of Putney,
Dummerston, and Brattleboro'. (_Colonial Boundaries Mass_, vol. iii.)
This fell to the share of William Dummer, Anthony Stoddard, William
Brattle, and John White. "The Equivalent Lands" were sold at public
vendue at Hartford, in 1716, for a little more than a farthing per acre.
The proceeds were given to Yale College. (Hall's _History of Eastern
Vermont_.)
[8] Light pieces of ordnance mounted on swivels, and sometimes charged
with old nails and like missiles, or, upon a pinch, even with stones;
hence sometimes called "stone pieces."
[9] This fort was situated in what is now Williamstown.
[10] Dr. Dwight's _Travels_, vol. ii. p. 82.
[11] Williams's _History of Vermont_.
[12] Captain Stevens's letter to Colonel Williams.
[13] Stevens's bravery was so much admired by Sir Charles Knowles, an
officer of high rank in the British navy, that he presented him a
handsome sword, and in honor of the donor the township was named
Charlestown. For Captain Stevens's account of this siege see _History of
Charlestown_, p. 34.
[14] This fight took place on Sunday, June 26, 1748, about twelve miles
northwest of Fort Dummer, in the present township of Marlboro'.
[15] Johnson's "Account of Battle of Lake George," _Doc. Hist. N. Y._
vol. ii. p. 402.
[16] From John Wadno, an intelligent Indian of St. Francis.
[17] For some reports of his scouts, see _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ vol. iv. p.
169 _et seq._
[18] Awahnock, = Frenchman.
[19] Rogers's Journal.
[20] Belknap's _History of New Hampshire_.
[21] Sanderson's _History of Charlestown_, p. 87.
[22] Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_.
[23] Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_, vol. ii. p. 370.
[24] Parkman.
CHAPTER III.
OCCUPATION AND SETTLEMENT.
Now that Canada was conquered and the French armies withdrawn from
Ticonderoga and Crown Point, all the country lying between Lake
Champlain and the Connecticut, commonly called the Wilderness, was open
to settlement.
In 1696, long before the granting of French seigniories on Lake
Champlain, Godfrey Dellius, a Dutch clergyman of Albany, had purchased
of the Mohawks, who claimed all this territory, an immense tract,
extending from Saratoga along both sides of the Hudson River and Wood
Creek, and on the east side of Lake Champlain, twenty miles north of
Crown Point. The purchase was confirmed by New York, but three years
later was repealed, "as an extravagant favor to one subject."
In 1732 Colonel John Henry Lydius purchased of the Mohawks a large tract
of land situated on "the Otter Creek, which emptieth itself into Lake
Champlain in North America, easterly from and near Crown Point." The
deed was confirmed by Governor Shirley of Massachusetts in 1744. This
tract embraced nearly the whole of the present counties of Addison and
Rutland. It was divided into townships, and most of it sold by Lydius
to a great number of purchasers,[25] some of whom settled upon it. The
township of Durham was originally settled under this grant, but the
settlers, finding the title imperfect, applied for and obtained letters
patent under New York.[26]
The French colony at Point a Chevalure vanished with the shadow of the
banner of France. The young forest soon repossessed the fields where
almost the only trace of husbandry was the rank growth of foreign weeds.
House walls were crumbling about cold hearthstones and smokeless
chimneys, and thresholds untrodden but by the nightly prowling beast or
the foot of the curious hunter. There was no remembrance of the
housewife's hand but the self-sown lilies and marigolds that mingled
their strange bloom with native asters and goldenrods above the graves
of forsaken homes. From where the sluggish waters of the narrow channel
are first stirred by Wood Creek, to where the waves of Champlain break
on Canadian shores, there was not one settlement on its eastern border,
nor any inhabitant save where some trapper had built his cabin in the
solitude of the woods, and dwelt hermit-like for a time while he plied
his lonely craft.
The Wilderness had not long rested in the silence of peace when it was
invaded by a throng of pioneers, who came to wrest its soil from the
ancient domination of the forest, and upon it to build their homes.
Farmers and sons of farmers, while serving in the colonial armies, had
noted during their painful marches through it what goodly soil slept in
the shadow of this wilderness; keen-eyed rangers, chosen from hunters
and trappers for their skill in woodcraft, when on their perilous
errands had penetrated its depths wherever led an Indian trail or wound
a stream to float a canoe, and knew what it held for men of their craft,
and each had planned, when peace should come, to return to the land that
gave such promise of fruitful fields or the easier garner of peltry.
Lumbermen, too, knew its wealth of great pines; and speculators were
casting greedy eyes upon the region, and plotting for its acquisition.
As the soldiers who guarded its posts, or crossed and recrossed the
savage wilderness, were of New England origin, it naturally followed
that most of the actual settlers came from the same provinces. Thus,
from the very first, each little community of hardy and industrious
pioneers was clearly stamped with the New England character. Such
inspiration, such love of home, as glows in the hearts of all
mountaineers, they drew from the grand companionship of the stern and
steadfast mountains, the Crouching Lion, Mansfield, Ascutney, whose
heavenward-reaching peaks shone white with snow when winter reigned, or
summer came or lingered in the valleys,--landmarks enduring as the
world, that stand while nations are born and flourish and pass away.
Sometimes the pioneer left his family in the older settlements while he,
with a neighbor or two, or often alone, went into the wilderness to make
the beginning of a new home. A pitch was located, and the herculean task
of making a clearing begun, the apparently hopeless warfare of one puny
hand against a countless army of giants that towered above him. Yet one
by one the great trees toppled and fell before his valiant strokes. The
trunks of some were built into a log-house, with a puncheon floor and
roof of bark; more were rolled into heaps and burned, and the first
patch of cleared soil was planted with corn or sown with wheat. After
weeks and months of this toil and hardship and loneliness, perhaps not
once broken by the sight of a fellow-being, when the tasseled corn and
the nodding wheat hid the blackened stumps of the scant clearing, the
giants still hemmed him in, their lofty heads the horizon of his little
world, the bounds of his briefly sunlit sky. When his crops were housed,
and the woods were gaudy with a thousand autumnal tints to where the
glory of the deciduous trees was bounded by the dark wall of "black
growth" on the mountains whose peaks were white with snow, he shouldered
axe and gun and went southward, following the army of crows that raised
a clamor of amazement at this intrusion on their immemorial domain.
While the little clearing slept under the snow, and the silent cabin
made the wintry loneliness of the forest more lonely, he spent a winter
of content among old friends and neighbors, and in the spring set forth
on horseback, or with an ox-team, with wife and children or newly wedded
bride, and scant outfit of household stuff, to take permanent possession
of the new home, where, if the burden of loneliness was lightened, the
weariness of toil, privation, and anxiety was not lessened. Nature was
the only neighbor of the new-comers, kind or unkind, according to her
impartial mood to all her children, now a friend and consoler, with
sunshine and timely shower, flowers and birdsong and hymns of wind-swept
pines, now relentless, assailing with storm and bitter stress of cold.
Miles of weary forest path marked only by blazed trees, or miles of
toilsome waterway, lay between them and their kind, or help or sympathy
in whatever trouble might befall them. Such consolation as religion
might give must be sought at the fountain-head of all religion, since
church and gospel ministrations were left behind.
The old warpaths became the ways of peace, and on lake and river, that
before had borne none but warlike craft, now fared the settler's boat,
laden with his family and household goods, skirting the quiet shore or
up the slow current of a stream, through intervales whose fat soil as
yet nourished only a luxuriant verdure of the forest. From afar the
eternal roar of a cataract boomed in swelling thunder along the green
walls of the lane of waters, foretelling the approaching toil of a
portage. But no foeman lurked behind the green thicket, and the voyagers
were startled by no sound more alarming than the sudden uprising of
innumerable waterfowl, the plunge of an otter disturbed in his sport, or
the mellow cadence of the great owl's solemn note.
The granting of lands, which had been interrupted by the war, was again
begun by the governor of New Hampshire, Benning Wentworth, and in
different parts of the region surveyors were busy running the lines of
townships and lots. There was a flavor of discovery and adventure in
their weary toil that gave it zest, as, with no guide but the compass,
they were led through sombre depths of the primeval forest, where the
footsteps of civilized man had never before fallen, and set the bounds
of ownership where had never been sign of possession but the mark of the
patient beaver's tooth, bark frayed by the claw of the bear, the antler
of the moose, and the brands of the brief camp-fire of the savage. At
night they bivouacked where with the fading of daylight their labors
ended, prepared their rude supper by the fire that summoned a host of
weird and grotesque shadows to surround them, and slept to the grewsome
serenade of the wolf's long howl and the panther's scream.
The conditions of the grants or charters were, that every grantee should
plant and cultivate five acres within five years for every fifty acres
granted; that all white and other pine trees fit for masting the royal
navy should be reserved for that use, and none felled without royal
license; that after ten years a yearly rent of one shilling for each
hundred acres, also for a town lot of one acre, which was set to each
proprietor, a yearly tribute of one ear of Indian corn, both to be paid
on Christmas Day. In each township that he granted, the thrifty governor
had five hundred acres set apart to himself, still known as the
governor's lot, and marked on the old township maps, drawn on the backs
of the charters, with the initials "B. W." In each township one share of
two hundred acres was set apart for the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel in Foreign Parts, one for a glebe for the Church of England,
one for the first settled minister, and one for a school in said town.
The isolated townships constituted little commonwealths, with
governments of their own, every inhabitant and freeholder having liberty
to vote in the town-meetings, and the three or five selectmen being
invested with the chief authority.
Naturally the proprietors to whom the township was granted were the most
potent factors in its welfare and government, and, if actual settlers,
took the most prominent part in its affairs.
Frequently they offered bounties for the building of gristmills and
sawmills, and the forty dollars bounty offered induced the building of
such mills, that in their turn failed not to attract settlers; for it
was not unusual for pioneers to go twenty miles on foot with a grist to
the nearest mill, or to make as tedious journeys for a load of boards,
the more tedious that all the environing forest was full of unattainable
lumber.
Many of the towns now most populous and important were then uninhabited
and unnamed. Bennington, the first township granted by New Hampshire,
had its hamlet, its principal building, the Green Mountain Tavern,
conspicuous for its sign, a stuffed catamount. Here the fathers of the
unborn State often sat in council, moistening their dry deliberations
with copious mugs of flip served by their confrere, landlord Stephen
Fay. Brattleboro, within whose limits Fort Dummer was built and the
first permanent settlement made, although it boasted the only store in
the State, was of less importance; while Westminster, with its
court-house and jail, assumed more. But at Vergennes, then known as the
First Falls of Otter Creek, where the beavers had scarcely quit building
their lodges on the driftwood that choked the head of the fall, there
lived only Donald McIntosh, the stout old soldier of the Pretender's
futile array and of Wolfe's victorious army, and half a dozen other
settlers, whose cabins clustered about the frequently harried mills.
Where now is the beautiful city of Burlington, the unbroken forest
sloped to the placid shores of Petowbowk; and the Winooski, from its
torrential source to where its slow current crawls through the broad
intervales to the lake, turned no mills, and, but for its one
block-house and the infrequent cabins of adventurous pioneers, was as
wild as when its devious course was but the warpath of the Waubanakee.
Thence to Canada stretched the Wilderness, its solitude as supreme as
when, a century and a half before, the French explorer first beheld its
snow-clad mountain peaks.
Oftener than human voice, the sonorous call of the moose, the wolf's
long howl, the panther's cry, awoke its echoes, and the thud of the axe
was a stranger sound than the rarest voice of nature. The eagle,
swinging in majestic survey of the region, beheld far beneath him to the
southward, here and there, a clustering hamlet and settlements creeping
slowly upon his domain; here and there a mill, where a stream had been
stayed in its idle straying; and here and there on the green bosom of
the forest the unhealed wound of a new clearing, the bark roof of a
settler's cabin, and the hazy upward drift of its chimney smoke; then to
the northward, as far as his telescopic vision ranged, no break in the
variegated verdure but the silver gleam of lake and stream, or the
rugged barrenness of mountain tops.
Although the settlement of the newly opened region did not progress with
anything like the marvelous rapidity that has marked the occupation of
new Territories and States in later times, yet it was remarkable, in
consideration of the tedious journeys that must be made to the new
pitch, with slow ox-cart or sled, or on horseback, where, if there were
roads at all, they were of the worst, or they were made by weary oar or
waft of unstable wind. Furthermore, there was but comparatively slight
overflow of population from the older provinces, or influx of
immigration to American shores.
The settlers in the Wilderness soon found their peaceable possession
obstructed by an obstacle which they had scarcely foreseen,--not by the
harassments of a foreign or savage foe, which now seemed hardly
possible, nor by the inert and active forces of nature that had always
to be taken into account, but by the jealous rivalry and greed of two
provincial governments, both claiming the same territory, and both
deriving their authority from the same royal source.
This controversy between New Hampshire and New York, concerning their
respective boundaries, began with the first English settlement of the
region, and continued till after the close of the Revolution. It
constitutes the most unique feature of the history of the commonwealth;
and though it retarded its settlement, and afterward for years its
admission into the Union, it was the real cause of its becoming an
independent State. For undoubtedly, if the claims of either province had
been undisputed by the other, the region would have quietly taken its
place as part of that, and have had no individual existence. But the
aggressions which the people were compelled to resist schooled them to a
spirit of independence that most naturally led them to establish a
separate government.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] In an indenture made 30th December, 1761, Colonel Lydius grants to
Thomas Robinson, merchant, of Newport, in the Colony of Rhode Island,
one sixtieth of the township No. 24, called Danvis, for the "sum of one
Shilling money one peppercorn each year for seventy years (if demanded)
and after twenty years five Shillings sterling annually, forever, on the
Feast Day of St. Michael the Archangel, for each hundred acres of arable
Land."
[26] Petition of Colonel Spencer and others. _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ vol. iv.
p. 575.
CHAPTER IV.
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS.
As early as 1749, a dispute concerning the boundaries of their provinces
had arisen between the governments of New Hampshire and New York, when
Governor Benning Wentworth of New Hampshire had communicated to Governor
Clinton of New York his intention of granting unimproved lands within
his government under instructions received from his Majesty King George
Second, and inclosed his Majesty's description of the province of New
Hampshire.[27] In 1740 the king had determined "that the northern
boundary of Massachusetts be a similar curve line pursuing the course of
the Merrimack River at three miles distance on the north side thereof,
beginning at the Atlantic Ocean and ending at a point due north of a
place called Pautucket Falls, and by a straight line drawn from thence
due west till it meets with his Majesty's other governments."
By this decision, reaffirmed in Governor Wentworth's commission, the
government of New Hampshire held that its jurisdiction extended as far
west as that of Massachusetts, which was to a line twenty miles east of
Hudson River. Furthermore, the king had repeatedly recommended to New
Hampshire the support of Fort Dummer, as having now fallen within its
limits, and which was well known to be west of the Connecticut.[28]
But it was ordered by the governor's council of New York "that his
Excellency do acquaint Governor Wentworth that this Province is bounded
eastward by Connecticut River, the letters Patent from King Charles the
Second to the Duke of York expressly granting all the Lands from the
West side of Connecticut River to the East side of Delaware Bay."[29]
Governor Wentworth had already, in January, 1749, granted one township
west of the Connecticut, which in his honor was named Bennington, but he
now promised for the present to make no further grants on the western
frontier of his government that might have the least probability of
interfering with that of New York. Later he agreed, by the advice of his
council, to lay the matter before the king and await his decision, which
his government would "esteem it their duty to acquiesce in without
further dispute," and furthermore agreed to exchange with the government
of New York copies of the representation made to the king.[30]
This the council of New York reported in November, 1753, that he had
failed to do.
This wrangling of governors and councils continued till the beginning
of the war in 1754 stopped for the time applications for grants, when
the mutterings of the inter-provincial quarrel were drowned by the
thunder of the more momentous contest of nations.
With the subjugation of Canada, the granting of lands in the debatable
ground was resumed. Governor Wentworth had a survey made sixty miles up
the Connecticut, and three lines of townships were laid out on each side
of the river. During the next year sixty townships were granted on the
west side of the river, and within two years 108 grants were made,
extending to a line twenty miles east of the Hudson, and north of that
to the eastern shore of Lake Champlain.
It was reported in New York that a party of New Hampshire surveyors, who
were laying out lands on the east side of the lake in September, 1762,
asserted that Crown Point was in the limits of their government. In
December, 1763, Lieutenant-Governor Colden issued a proclamation
reiterating the claim of New York to the Connecticut as her eastern
boundary, still basing it on the grant to the Duke of York, and also on
the description of the eastern boundary of New Hampshire as given in the
letters-patent of his Majesty dated July 3, 1741. He commands the civil
officers of his government to exercise jurisdiction as far as the banks
of the Connecticut River, and the high sheriff of the county of Albany
to return the names of all persons who, under the grants of New
Hampshire, shall hold possession of any lands westward of Connecticut
River, that they may be proceeded against according to law. This was
followed by a proclamation of Governor Wentworth on March 13, 1764, in
which he reviews and denies the claim of New York. He says: "At present
the boundaries of New York to the Northward are unknown, and as soon as
it shall be His Majesty's pleasure to determine them, New Hampshire will
pay a ready and cheerful obedience thereunto, not doubting but that all
Grants made by New Hampshire that are fulfilled by the Grantees will be
confirmed to them if it should be His Majesty's pleasure to alter the
jurisdiction." He encouraged the grantees under his government to be
industrious in clearing and cultivating their lands, and commanded all
civil officers within his province to be diligent in exercising
jurisdiction as far westward as grants had been made by his government,
and deal with all persons who "may presume to interrupt the settlers on
said lands as to law and justice doth appertain."[31]
Though the claims of New York had thus far been founded on the grant to
the Duke of York, she now sought to establish it on a less doubtful
tenure, and made application to the crown for a confirmation of the same
grant. This was supported by a petition representing that it would be
greatly for the advantage of the settlers on the New Hampshire Grants to
be annexed to New York. To this were appended the names of many such
inhabitants, who afterwards asserted that it was done without their
knowledge.[32]
In response came a royal order declaring "the Western bank of the
Connecticut, from where it enters the province of Massachusetts Bay as
far north as the 45th degree of northern latitude, to be the boundary
line between the said two provinces of New Hampshire and New York."
Though this decision was not in accordance with the wishes of many of
the inhabitants of the Grants, it gave them no uneasiness concerning the
validity of their titles. They had obtained their lands under grants
from the crown, and had no fear that under the same authority they would
or could be compelled to relinquish or repurchase them. Governor
Wentworth remonstrated against the change of jurisdiction, but finally
by proclamation, "recommended to the proprietors and settlers due
obedience to the authorities and laws of the colony of New York."[33]
But the government of New York chose to construe his Majesty's order as
annulling the grants made by Governor Wentworth west of the Connecticut.
It divided its newly confirmed territory into four counties, annexing
the southwestern part to the county of Albany, which was termed by the
New Hampshire grantees the "unlimited county of Albany." North of this
was the county of Charlotte, east of it the county of Cumberland, and
north of this the county of Gloucester.
The New Hampshire grantees were required to surrender their charters,
and repurchase their lands under New York grants. Some complied, and
paid the excessive fees demanded by the New York officials, which were
twenty fold greater than those exacted by the government of New
Hampshire;[34] but for the most part the settlers were not men of the
metal to submit to what seemed to them rank injustice, and they refused
to comply with the demand. Thereupon New York re-granted their lands to
others, and actions of ejectment were brought against them. It was an
easy matter to obtain judgments in the county of Albany against the
settlers, but the execution of them was met by stubborn resistance, in
which the people soon associated for mutual protection.
A convention of representatives from the towns on the west side of the
mountains was called, and by it Samuel Robinson of Bennington was
appointed as agent to present the grievances of the settlers to the
British government, and obtain, if possible, a confirmation of New
Hampshire grants.
The mission of Robinson[35] was so far successful that the governor of
New York was commanded by his Majesty "to make no grant whatever of any
part of the lands in dispute until his Majesty's pleasure should be
further known" (July 24, 1767).
But the governor's council of New York decided that this order did not
restrain the granting of any land formerly claimed by New Hampshire, but
not already granted by that government; and the governor continued to
make grants, and writs of ejectment were issued as before, returnable to
the Supreme Court at Albany. It was decided in this court that
authenticated copies of the royal orders to the governor of New
Hampshire, and the grants made in pursuance thereof, should not be used
in evidence.
Ethan Allen, soon to become one of the most prominent actors in this
controversy, was attending suits at Albany when this decision was made.
Being urged by some of the officials there to use his influence with the
settlers to induce them to make the best terms they could with their New
York landlords, and reminded that "might often prevails against right,"
Allen replied, in the Scriptural language which he was so fond of
employing, that "the gods of the valleys were not the gods of the
hills;" and when asked by the attorney-general to explain his meaning,
answered that, "if he would accompany him to Bennington Hill, it would
be made plain to him."[36]
Thus debarred from obtaining justice in the courts, the people,
assembled in convention at Bennington, "resolved to support their
rights and property in the New Hampshire Grants against the usurpations
and unjust claims of the Governor and Council of New York by force, as
law and justice were denied them."[37]
A more thoroughly organized resistance was now opposed to all attempts
of the New York officers to make arrests or serve writs of ejectment.
Surveyors who undertook to run the lines of New York grants across lands
already granted by New Hampshire were compelled to desist. A sheriff
could not come so secretly that vigilant eyes did not discover his
approach, nor with so strong a posse that, when he attempted to execute
his duties, he did not find a formidable force gathered to resist him.
If he persisted, he was, in Allen's quaint phrase, "severely chastised
with twigs of the wilderness," though the "blue beech" rod, whose
efficacy in reducing a refractory ox to submission had been so often
proved by the rough yeomen of the Grants, and which they now applied to
the backs of their oppressors, could hardly be termed a twig. This mode
of punishment, with grim humor, they termed the "beech seal."
A proclamation was issued by the governor of New York for apprehending
some of the principal actors, and in the January (1770) term of the
court at Albany several of the inhabitants of Bennington were indicted
as rioters, but none of them were arrested.
Each party in the quarrel accused the other of being incited by the
greed of the land-jobber and speculator, and no doubt there was some
foundation for the charge, even on the part of the New Hampshire
grantees. But with them, as against an aristocracy of monopolists, were
the sympathies of the yeomen of New York, who, when called upon to
enforce the authority of their own officers against their brethren of
the Grants, held aloof, or feebly rendered their perfunctory aid.
Sheriff Ten Eyck, being required to serve a writ of ejectment on James
Breckenridge of Bennington, called to his aid, by order of the governor,
a posse of 750 armed militia. About 300 of the settlers, being apprised
of his coming, assembled to oppose him. Nineteen of them were posted in
the house; the others, divided in two forces of about equal number, were
concealed along the road by which the sheriff and his men were
advancing, and behind a ridge within gunshot of the house. Unsuspicious
of their presence, the sheriff and his men marched to the house and were
within the ambuscade. On threatening to make forcible entry, the sheriff
was answered by those within, "Attempt it and you are a dead man." The
ambuscading forces now made their presence known, and, displaying their
hats upon the muzzles of their guns, made a show of twice their actual
strength. The sheriff and his posse became aware of their dangerous
position, and as one of the first historians of Vermont, Ira Allen,
quaintly remarks, "not being interested in the dispute," and Mr. Ten
Eyck remembering that important business required his immediate presence
in Albany,[38] they discreetly withdrew without a shot being fired on
either side.[39]
The New York officers were not always so easily vanquished, nor so
unsuccessful in their attempts. The doughty esquire John Munro, who held
lands in the Grants under a New York title, and lived upon them among
his tenants in Shaftsbury, was a justice of the peace for the county of
Albany. He was a man of other metal than Sheriff Ten Eyck, whom he
assisted to arrest Silas Robinson, of Bennington, at his own door; and
though the house wherein they lodged with their prisoner the night
thereafter was surrounded by forty armed men who demanded his release,
they carried him to Albany. Robinson was there indicted as a rioter in
January, 1771, and held in jail till the next October, when he was
released on bail. Upon another occasion, Munro, accompanied by the
deputy sheriff and twelve men whom he called to his aid, demanded
entrance to the house of Isaiah Carpenter, to serve a writ of ejectment
upon him. Carpenter threatened to blow out the brains of any one who
should attempt to enter, whereupon the deputy and his men forced the
door, and Munro, entering alone, seized Carpenter with his gun in his
hand. Two other men were found in the house, and two guns in a corner,
"one loaded with powder and Bullets and the other with Powder and
kidney Beans."
The New York claimants now sought to draw some of the prominent persons
of the Grants to their interest by offers of New York titles on
favorable terms, and by the bestowal of offices upon them, and they
induced people of their own province to settle upon unoccupied New
Hampshire Grants. By such means they hoped to smother the unmanageable
element which had so far thwarted their attempts to gain control of the
coveted region, and insidiously overcome the turbulent faction termed by
them the "Bennington Mob."
Committees of Safety were organized in several towns of the Grants, and
a convention of the settlers decreed that no New York officer should be
allowed to take any person out of the district without permission of the
Committee of Safety, and that no surveys should be made there, nor lines
run, nor settlements made, under the authority of New York. The
punishment for violation of this decree was to be discretionary with a
court formed by the Committee of Safety. Civil officers, however, were
permitted to perform their proper functions in the collection of debts,
and in other matters not connected with the controversy.[40] Thus the
inhabitants of the Grants established a crude but efficient civil
government of their own.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ vol. iv. pp. 331, 332.
[28] Williams's _Hist. of Vt._ vol. ii. pp. 12, 13.
[29] _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ vol. iv. p. 332.
[30] _Ibid._ p. 333.
[31] _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ vol. iv. p. 353.
[32] Slade's _State Papers_, p. 62.
[33] _State Papers_, p. 20.
[34] The fees to the governor of New Hampshire for granting a township
were about $100. Under the government of New York, they generally
amounted to $2,000, or $2,600. Williams's _Hist. Vt._ vol. ii. p. 9.
[35] Governor Moore sneers at him as "a driver of an ox-cart for the
sutlers." _Doc. Hist. N. Y._
[36] Thompson's _Vermont_, part ii. p. 21.
[37] Slade's _State Papers_, p. 21.
[38] _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ vol. iv. p. 422.
[39] Thompson's _Vermont_, part ii. p. 22.
[40] Thompson's _Vermont_, p. 22.
CHAPTER V.
THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS.
A military force was organized, of which Ethan Allen was colonel
commandant, and his active coadjutors, Warner, Baker, Cockran,
Sunderland, and others, were captains. Of the name which they assumed,
and which Vermonters are always proud to bear, Ira Allen says: "The
governor of New York had threatened to drive the military (his
opponents) into the Green Mountains, from which circumstance they took
the name of Green Mountain Boys."[41]
The necessities of backwoods life accustomed every man of this force to
the use of the musket, the long smooth-bore, or the rifle, and most were
expert marksmen with any of these weapons, while many, from ranger
service in the late war, were accomplished bush-fighters. Inured to
hardship and toil, they could not but be enduring, and, to face the
dangers that ever beset the pioneer, they must be brave. Rough but
kindly and honest backwoods yeomen, they were of the same spirit, as
they were of the same race and generation, as the men who fought at
Lexington and Bunker Hill.
They were occasionally mustered for practice and drill. Esquire Munro
informed Governor Tryon in 1772 that the company in Bennington,
commanded by John Warner,[42] was on New Year's Day "received and
continued all day fireing at marks," and again that "the Rioters had
brought to Bennington two pieces of Cannon and a Mortar piece from the
small Fort at East Hoseck with powder and Ball."
Ethan Allen was the chosen as well as the self-appointed leader of the
people in their resistance to the claims of New York and its attempts to
enforce them. Early in the controversy, he, with four of his brothers,
came from Connecticut, and taking up lands under grants from New
Hampshire in the southern part of the territory, west of the Green
Mountains, very naturally espoused the cause of the New Hampshire
grantees. His rude eloquence was of the sort to fire the hearts of the
uncultivated backwoodsmen, whether he harangued them from the stump of a
clearing, or, addressing a larger audience in the gray pages of his
ill-printed pamphlets, he recited their wrongs and exhorted them to
defend their rights. His interests and sympathy, his hearty
good-fellowship and rough manners, though upon occasion he could assume
the deportment of the fine gentleman, brought him into the most intimate
relations with them; while his undoubted bravery, his commanding figure,
and herculean strength set this rough-cast hero apart to the
chieftaincy which his self-asserting spirit was not slow to assume.
His brother Ira afterwards became a man of great note and influence in
the young commonwealth, but was more distinguished for civil than
military service, though he was a lieutenant in Warner's regiment, and
afterward captain, colonel, and major-general of militia.
Seth Warner was of a commanding presence, "rising six feet in height,
erect and well-proportioned, his countenance, attitude, and movements
indicative of great strength and vigor of body and mind," says Daniel
Chipman, who in his boyhood had often seen him.[43] But he was cast in a
finer mould than was his more renowned compatriot, Ethan Allen. Modest
and unassuming, he was no less brave, and with no lack of firmness,
energy, and promptness to act, his bravery was tempered with a coolness,
deliberation, and good judgment which made him a safe and trusted
leader. He was no pamphleteer. In the public documents to which his name
is appended with those of his associates, Allen's peculiar style is most
apparent, yet his letters show that he could express himself with ease,
clearness, and force. He too was of Connecticut birth, and removed with
his father to Bennington in 1763, when he was twenty years of age. The
abundant game of the region gave a first direction to his adventurous
spirit, and he became a skillful hunter, expert in marksmanship and
woodcraft. The same spirit presently led him to take an active part in
the controversy respecting the Grants, and he soon took his place among
the leaders of the opponents of New York. Remember Baker, the kinsman of
both, was a native of Connecticut. He was killed early in the War of the
Revolution while with the army invading Canada he was reconnoitring the
enemy's position at St. John's. Ira Allen says: "He was a curious
marksman, and always kept his musket in the best possible order," which
was the cause of his death, for he had so over-nicely sharpened his
flint that it caught, and prevented his firing so quickly as did the
Indian who killed him. Robert Cockran was another of the border
captains, and made himself particularly obnoxious to the government of
New York by his active resistance to its encroachments. He served during
the Revolution first in a Connecticut, then in a New York regiment, and
rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel.[44] Peleg Sunderland, who in
peaceful times was a wood-ranger, hunting moose in the loneliest depths
of the Wilderness and setting his beaver-traps on streams that were
strange to the eyes of white men, was another leader of the Green
Mountain Boys, prominent enough to suffer outlawry.
When, under the encouragement of the New York claimants, settlements
were made on the western border of the Grants, though armed to defend
themselves, the new-comers were driven away, their log-houses torn down
and burned by Allen, Baker, Cockran, and six others. For their
apprehension as rioters, warrants were thereupon issued. But the justice
who issued them gave it as his opinion that no officer could arrest
them, and recommended that a reward be offered to induce "some person of
their own sort" to "artfully betray them." Accordingly Governor Tryon
offered a reward of twenty pounds each for their apprehension.[45]
Thereupon Allen, Baker, and Cockran issued a proclamation offering a
reward of fifteen pounds and ten pounds respectively for the
apprehension and delivery at the Catamount Tavern in Bennington of James
Duane and John Kemp, two New York officials who were conspicuously
active in pushing their claims to lands in the disputed territory. And
one proclamation was as effective as the other.
However, some months later Esquire Munro was impelled to undertake the
capture of Remember Baker at his home in Arlington, and in the early
morning of March 22, 1772, with a dozen of his friends and dependents at
his back, forcibly entered Baker's house. In the fray that ensued, Baker
and his wife and boy were all severely wounded by sword-cuts, and he
being overcome and bound was thrown into a sleigh and driven with all
speed toward Albany. But the triumph of his captors was brief, for
before reaching the Hudson they were overtaken by a rescue party that
followed on horseback in swift pursuit upon the first alarm, and
abandoning their bleeding and exhausted prisoner, they fled into the
woods, and Baker, after being cared for by his friends, was triumphantly
carried to his home. Munro also attempted the arrest of Seth Warner, who
while riding with a friend was met by the squire and several adherents.
Seizing the bridle of Warner's horse, Munro called on the others to aid
him. When, in spite of all entreaty, he would not desist, Warner struck
him to the ground with a blow from a dull cutlass delivered on his head,
and went his way. The pugnacious squire had now had enough of the barren
honors of his magistracy. "What can a justice do," he asks, "when the
whole country combines against him?" and begs Governor Tryon to excuse
his acting any longer. He gave his neighbors of the Green Mountains no
further trouble, and in 1777 fled to the army of Burgoyne. His property
was confiscated, and he was one of those who were forever proscribed by
the Vermont act of February 26, 1779.[46]
The Green Mountain Boys were ready to resist more formidable attempts to
bring them to submission. When news came to Bennington that Governor
Tryon was ascending the Hudson with a considerable force to invade their
territory, the Committee of Safety and the officers convened and
resolved that it was "their duty to oppose Governor Tryon and his troops
to the utmost of their power." Accordingly the fighting men of
Bennington and the neighboring towns were assembled. The cannon,
mortar, and ammunition were brought out. Sharpshooters were to ambuscade
the narrow passes of the road by which Tryon's force must approach, and
cripple the invaders by picking off his officer.
While this warlike preparation was in progress a messenger, who had been
sent to Albany to gain information of the strength and intended march of
the enemy, returned with the news that the troops, which were wind-bound
somewhere below that town, were not coming to invade the Grants, but to
garrison the lake forts. In fact, during this season of alarm, Governor
Tryon was contemplating a milder policy than had so far been pursued,
and presently dispatched a letter "to Rev. Mr. Dewy and the inhabitants
of Bennington and the adjacent country on the east side of Hudson's
River."
Though he censured their acts of violence, and warned them that a
continuance of such acts would bring the "exertions of the Powers of
Government" against them, and reasserted the claim of New York to the
Connecticut as its eastern boundary, his tone was conciliatory, and he
invited them to lay before his government the causes of their illegal
proceedings, which should be examined with "deliberation and candor,"
and such relief given as the circumstances would justify. To accomplish
this, such persons as they might choose to send to New York were
promised safe conduct and protection, excepting Ethan Allen, Warner,
Baker, Cockran, and Sevil. This was briefly replied to by those to whom
it was addressed, and at more length by Allen, Warner, Baker, and
Cockran.[47] In both replies the validity of the titles given by New
Hampshire was maintained, and Allen and his associates declared their
resistance had not been to the government of New York, but to
land-jobbers and speculators who were endeavoring to deprive them of
their property.
These were delivered by the settlers' appointed agents, Captain Stephen
Fay and his son, and were laid before his council by Governor Tryon.
Upon due consideration, the council recommended that all prosecutions in
behalf of the crown, for crimes with which the settlers were charged,
should be suspended till his Majesty's pleasure should be known, and
that owners of contested lands under grants from New York should stop
all civil suits concerning the same during the like period, and agree
with the settlers for the purchase thereof on moderate terms, on
condition that the inhabitants concerned in the late disorders should
conform to the law of New York that settlers on both sides in the
controversy should continue undisturbed, and such as had been
dispossessed, or forced by threats or other means, to desert their
farms, should in future enjoy their possessions unmolested.
This report was approved by the governor. When the agents, returning
with it, laid it before the Committee of Safety and the people assembled
in the meeting-house at Bennington, there was great rejoicing over it.
There was a universal expression of a desire for peace. The "whole
artillery of Bennington, and the small arms," thundered and rattled
salutes in honor of the governor and council of New York, and healths to
the king, to Governor Tryon, and to the council were drunk "by sundry
respectable Gentlemen."
Unfortunately for the continuance of this promising condition of
affairs, news had come before the return of the agents that a surveyor
employed by the New York claimants was surveying lands for them in some
of the townships to the northward. Thereupon Ethan Allen, with a small
party, went in pursuit of him, took him prisoner, and returned with him
to Castleton, where he was tried and sentenced to banishment, under pain
of death if again found within the limits of the Grants. Upon learning
the favorable progress of the negotiations with New York, his judges
revoked the rigorous decree and set him at liberty. Making the most of
their time while in pursuit of the surveyor, Allen and his men halted at
the First Falls of Otter Creek, in the present city of Vergennes, to
dispossess the tenants of Colonel Reid, who had himself previously
dispossessed persons who, under a New Hampshire grant issued in 1761,
had settled there and built a sawmill. Allen's party drove the intruders
away, burned their log-houses, and broke the stones of the gristmill
Reid had built, and reestablished the New Hampshire grantee in his
sawmill.
Governor Tryon was soon informed of the summary proceedings of the
mountaineers, and in a letter dated August 11, 1772, he sharply
reprimanded the people of the Grants for "so manifest a breach of public
confidence," and, to "insure a continuance of his friendly intentions,"
required their assistance to reinstate in their possessions the persons
who had been ejected. To this an answer was returned by the Committees
of Safety of Bennington and ten other towns, in which they denied that
any breach of faith had been committed in the seizure of the surveyor,
or the dispossession of Reid's tenants, as at that time the proposals of
Governor Tryon had not been accepted or even received, and asserted that
not they but Reid and the surveyor who was acting for the land-jobbers
were the aggressors, and they declined giving any aid in reinstating
Reid's tenants in possession so unjustly obtained.[48] They respectfully
asked a reply, but it does not appear that any was vouchsafed them, or
that further advances were made by the government of New York.
Colonel John Reid, who had been lieutenant-colonel of the Forty-Second
or Royal Highland Regiment, held to the purpose of maintaining his
settlement on Otter Creek, and in the summer following he repaired
thither with a company of his countrymen lately arrived in America. The
New Hampshire settlers were again ousted, the gristmill was made
serviceable by hooping the stones, and the Scotchmen were installed in
their wilderness home, with orders to hold possession against all
claimants. Ira Allen chanced soon after to come that way, at nightfall
of a stormy day, on his return from an exploration of lands on the
Winooski with a view to settlement there. The wet and weary traveler
sought admittance at a log-house, whose cheerful firelight promised such
welcome as had before been given him there. He was met instead by the
savage thrust of a Highlander's skene dhu, delivered through the
scarcely opened door, and was questioned, not in the familiar drawl of
his compatriots, but in such broad Scotch dialect as unaccustomed ears
could scarcely comprehend. He was grudgingly permitted to enter, and
then discovered who his unwilling hosts were. He was given shelter for
the night, and then went his way to Bennington with the news of this
latest intrusion of the "Yorkers."
Ethan Allen and Seth Warner then mustered a force of sixty Green
Mountain Boys, and set forth for Otter Creek. Arriving there after a
march of four days, they at once set about dispossessing the Scotchmen
and their families, burned their houses after their effects had been
removed, and destroyed their corn by turning their horses loose in the
fields. Allen's party was joined next morning by Remember Baker, with a
force nearly as large, when they completed the work of destruction by
tearing down the mill, breaking the millstones past all mending, and
throwing the pieces into the river. With his sword Baker cut the
bolt-cloth into pieces, which he distributed among his men to wear in
their hats as cockades. When the sturdy miller, John Cameron, demanded
by what authority or law he and his men committed such acts, Baker
answered, "We live out of the bounds of the law," and, holding up his
gun, said, "This is my law."[49] Cameron told him that with twenty good
men he would have undertaken to defend his house and mill, though there
were a hundred and ten of them, and was answered that he and his
countrymen were all for the broadsword, but they were for bush fighting!
Perhaps it was in admiration of his brave Scotch spirit that they
offered him a gift of land if he would join them, an offer which he
rejected, while it may be that Donald McIntosh, who had fought at
Culloden and under Wolfe at Quebec, at least took the proposal into
canny consideration, for his house was not molested, nor he forced to
leave it.
Cameron deposed that he was informed some three weeks later by one
Irwin, who lived on the east shore of the lake not far from Crown Point,
that Baker and eight others had lain in wait a whole day near the mouth
of Otter Creek, with the intention of murdering Colonel Reid and his
boat's company on their way to Crown Point, and would have done so, had
not Reid departed a day sooner than expected. The story seems unlikely,
as the Green Mountain Boys, who had come so far to enforce their laws
of the green wood, could have had no means of gaining information of
Colonel Reid's intended movements, even had they desired to take his
life. They retaliated with hard and unrelenting hand the oppressive acts
and the encroachments of New York, but never, though the opportunities
were frequent and the chances of retribution few, did they, in all the
course of this bitter feud, take the life of one of their opponents,[50]
even when their leaders were outlawed and a price set upon their heads.
Having destroyed six houses, the mill, and most of the growing and
harvested crops, the "Bennington Mob" departed from the desolated
settlement, Thompson says to build a block-house at the lower falls of
the Winooski, to prevent the intrusion of New York claimants there, but
it was not reported to the New York government that such fortifications
had been built at that place and at Otter Creek till September of the
next year.
The controversy engaged the attention of the British government in a
direction favorable to the New Hampshire grantees, the Board of Trade,
in a report to his Majesty's Privy Council, proposing measures[51]
which, if carried out, would have confirmed the rights of settlers under
the grants of New Hampshire.
It is worthy of notice that in this report the board spoke with
considerable severity of the conduct of the governor of New York in
passing patents of confirmation of townships before granted by New
Hampshire, and in granting other lands within the district, and in like
manner called attention to the exorbitant fees exacted for grants by the
governor, secretary, and surveyor of New York, which were more than
double those established by an ordinance of 1710. Added to these were
unauthorized fees taken by other officers, making "the whole amount of
these fees upon a Grant of one thousand acres of Land in many instances
not far short of the real value of the Fee Simple." It was in
consideration of these emoluments, the board supposed, "that His
Majesty's governors of New York have of late years taken upon themselves
the most unwarrantable pretenses to elude the restrictions contained in
His Majesty's Instructions with regard to the quantity of Land to be
granted to any one person," by the insertion in one grant of numbers of
fictitious or borrowed names, for the purpose of conveying to one person
a grant of from twenty thousand to forty thousand acres. They
recommended that his Majesty be advised to give the most positive
instructions to the governor of New York that the granting of lands
should be attended by no fees to the attorney-general, the
receiver-general, or the auditor; and that neither the governor, the
secretary, nor the surveyor-general should take any fees but those
prescribed by the ordinance of 1710, which were greater than those
taken by the same officers for similar service in any other colony.[52]
That portion of the report proposing a method of settling the dispute
was transmitted by Lord Dartmouth to Governor Tryon, who in a lengthy
reply set forth the impossibility of an adjustment upon the plan
proposed.
No further conciliatory measures were proposed or entertained by either
party in the quarrel, which after this brief respite grew more bitter.
New York attempted to make herself friends in the grants by appointing
some of the prominent settlers to office. To prevent the success of this
policy, the Committees of Safety assembled in convention decreed that no
inhabitant of the Grants should hold or accept any office of honor or
profit under the government of New York, and all civil and military
officers who had acted under the authority of that government were
required to "suspend their functions on pain of being viewed." It was
further decreed that no person should take grants or the confirmation of
them under the government of New York. The punishment for violation of
these decrees was to be discretionary with the court, except that for
the first offense it must not be capital.[53] Banishment from the Grants
was a frequent punishment, and as frequent was the application of the
"beech seal." As may be imagined, when the spirit of the times and the
rough character of a backwoods community are considered, this was often
inflicted with cruel severity. Yet it must be remembered in extenuation
that the whipping-post was then a common adjunct of justice, and that,
by the sentence of properly constituted courts, the scourge was
mercilessly applied for the correction of very venial crimes.
The chastisement of offenders was sometimes more ridiculous than severe.
A Dr. Adams of Arlington, who made himself obnoxious to the Green
Mountain Boys by his persistent sympathy with their enemies, suffered at
Bennington, according to his sentence, only the indignity of being
suspended in an armchair for two hours beneath the famous Green Mountain
Tavern sign, whereon stood the stuffed hide of a great panther, a tawny
monster that grinned a menace to all intruders from the country of the
hated "Yorkers."
Not long after Allen's raid on the Lower Falls of Otter Creek, he and
his men appeared in Durham and Socialborough, whose inhabitants were for
the most part friendly to New York, some of them having accepted office
under that government. The officials sought safety within its
established bounds at Crown Point and Albany, flooding courts and
council with depositions, complaints, and petitions. Those who remained
were obliged to recognize the validity of the New Hampshire titles.
By the advice of his council, Governor Tryon requested General
Haldimand, the commander-in-chief of his Majesty's forces, to order a
sufficient number of regular troops to Ticonderoga and Crown Point to
aid the civil authorities in enforcing the laws, but the general
declined on the ground that, in the present state of American affairs,
the employment of regular troops to suppress "a few lawless vagabonds"
would have a bad tendency as an acknowledgment of the weakness of the
civil government; also that "Crown Point, being entirely destroyed, and
unprovided for the quartering of troops, and Ticonderoga being in a most
ruinous state, such troops as might be sent thither would not be able to
stay a sufficient time to render them of much utility." If the request
was persisted in, however, he wished to know what force would be deemed
sufficient. The council thought that 200 men at Ticonderoga might be
enough,--a very modest demand upon the commander-in-chief, but not on
the individuals of a force so insignificant that it might as well have
undertaken to level the Green Mountains as to attempt to subdue in their
fastnesses these accomplished bush-fighters of the Grants. The
requisition was not approved by the king, and the troops were not sent.
In consideration of the representations and petitions laid before it, a
committee of the General Assembly of New York resolved that the governor
be requested to issue a proclamation offering a reward of fifty pounds
each for the apprehension, and securing in his Majesty's gaol at Albany,
of Ethan Allen, Warner, Baker, and five others, and that a bill be
brought in more effectually to suppress the riotous proceedings and
bring the offenders to condign punishment. These resolutions having come
to the Grants in the columns of the "New York Mercury," the committees
of the towns on the west side of the mountains met at Manchester and
made answer thereto. They said that in consequence of the report of the
British Board of Trade, so favorable to them, they were in daily
expectation of a royal confirmation of the New Hampshire grants, and
declared themselves loyal and devoted subjects of his Majesty; that the
government of New York was more rebellious than they, in that it had
acted in direct opposition to the orders of the king; that they had
purchased their lands of one of his Majesty's governors on the good
faith of the crown of Great Britain, and would maintain those grants
against all opposition, till his Majesty's pleasure should be known, and
recommended to the governor of New York to await the same before
proceeding to the harsh measures proposed, "to prevent the unhappy
consequences that may result from such an attempt." They resolved to
defend with their lives and fortunes their neighbors and friends who
should be indicted as rioters, and that the inhabitants would hold
themselves "in readiness to aid and defend such friends of ours who, for
their merit to the great and general cause, are falsely denominated
rioters," but they would act only on the defensive, and would "encourage
execution of the law in civil cases, and in criminal prosecutions that
were so indeed."[54]
But before this answer was approved by the general committee, the New
York Assembly had enacted a law (March 9, 1774) as stringent as its
committee could have urged, or its report had foreshadowed, and with it
or following close upon its passage was issued Governor Tryon's
proclamation of a reward of one hundred pounds each for the arrest of
Ethan Allen and Remember Baker, and fifty pounds for the apprehension of
Seth Warner and five others. Some of the provisions of this
extraordinary law were, that if three or more persons, "being
unlawfully, riotously, and tumultuously assembled within the counties of
Charlotte and Albany," did not disperse when commanded to do so by
proclamation made by a justice, sheriff, or coroner, they should upon
conviction suffer twelve months' imprisonment without bail; and any
person opposing, letting, hindering, or hurting the person making or
going to make such proclamation, should be adjudged a felon, and suffer
death without benefit of clergy. It should also be adjudged felony
without benefit of clergy for an unauthorized person to assume judicial
powers, or for any person to assist them, or to execute their sentences,
or to seize, detain, or assault and beat any magistrate or civil
officer, to compel him to resign his office, or to prevent his
discharging its duties; or to burn or destroy the grain or hay of any
other person; or to demolish or pull down any dwelling-house, barn,
stable, or gristmill, sawmill, or outhouse within either of the said
counties. When the persons named in the governor's proclamation, or any
other persons, were indicted for any offense committed after the passage
of this act, and made capital by it or any other law, did not, within
seventy days after the publication of the governor's command to do so,
surrender themselves to one of his Majesty's justices of the peace for
either of the said counties, they were to be adjudged guilty of the
offense for which they had been indicted; and if for a capital offense
thereafter to be perpetrated, they should be convicted and attainted of
felony, and should suffer death, as in the case of persons so convicted
by verdict and judgment, without benefit of clergy; and it should be
lawful for the supreme court of New York, or the courts of oyer and
terminer or general gaol delivery, to award execution against such
offenders as if they had been convicted in such courts. It was provided
that, as it was impracticable to bring offenders to justice within the
county of Charlotte, all persons committed within its limits should be
proceeded against by any grand jury of the county of Albany, and tried
in that county by a jury thereof, as if the crime or offense had been
perpetrated therein.[55]
Here was indeed an "exertion of the powers of government," but it was
barren of any result but to strengthen the spirit of opposition in those
against whom it was directed, and, instead of terrorizing them into
abject submission, as its authors had confidently expected, it served
rather to unite them in more stubborn resistance.
In response, Allen and his proscribed associates put forth a manifesto
and an address "to the people of the counties of Albany and Charlotte
which inhabit to the westward, and are situated contiguous to the New
Hampshire Grants," wherein, for the most part, the case is forcibly
stated in Allen's peculiar style, and closes with the declaration that
"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."
Not many times, if ever, thereafter, was the authority of the king
invoked by those who set their names to this paper: but little more than
a year had elapsed when most of them were engaged in wresting from the
crown its strongholds on Lake Champlain.
Now, however, a scheme was set on foot to withdraw the Grants from the
hated jurisdiction of New York by erecting them, and that part of New
York east of the Hudson, into a separate royal government. Colonel
Philip Skene, who lived in considerable state in Skenesborough House on
his estate at the head of Lake Champlain, was engaged in it, probably
with a view to the governorship of the new province, and he went to
England to further the project. Whatever his success may have been, it
came to nothing with the breaking out of the Revolution.[56]
The people of the Grants maintained their attitude of defiance and
resistance. The stinging imprint of the beech seal was still set as
relentlessly on the backs of justices who yet dared to act under the
authority of New York, and their stern judges sent them "toward the City
of New York, or to the westward of the Grants," with duly signed
certificates that they had received full punishment for their crimes.
Lieutenant-Governor Colden, now acting governor, as Tryon "had been
called home to give Lights on the Points in dispute," applied to General
Gage at Boston for a force of 200 men to aid the civil officers in the
county of Charlotte, but Gage declined, as Haldimand had done; and the
attempts of New York to enforce its authority continued as futile as
ever, while the Rob Roys of the new world Highlands as boldly went their
way as if no price was set upon their heads.
FOOTNOTES:
[41] _Hist. Vt._ p. 345.
[42] Meaning _Seth_ Warner.
[43] Chipman's _Memoirs of Seth Warner_.
[44] He died among his former enemies, the Yorkers, at Sandy Hill, N.
Y., in 1812.
[45] 1771.
[46] _Governor and Council_, p. 149.
[47] _State Papers_, p. 22.
[48] _State Papers_, pp. 29, 30.
[49] Baker showed James Henderson the stump of a lost thumb, as his
commission (possibly given by Esquire Munro), for performing this "very
disagreeable work."
[50] _Doc. Hist._ vol. iv. pp. 512-516.
[51] _Ibid._ p. 488.
[52] _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ vol. iv. p. 493.
[53] Thompson's _Vermont_, part ii. p. 25.
[54] _State Papers_, p. 42.
[55] _State Papers._
[56] Williams's _History_; Thompson's _Vermont_.
CHAPTER VI.
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.
CHAPTER VII.
TICONDEROGA.
Those ruthless destroyers, time and man, have wrought sad havoc on the
once formidable fortress of Ticonderoga. One wall of solid masonry has
withstood their assaults, and still rears its sharp-cut angles and
massive front, gray with age and scaled with lichens of a century, as
grimly now as in the days of yore, above the broad expanse of fields
that stretch away to the southwest.
Across the neck of the peninsula, in the shadow of great oaks that were
but saplings then, may be seen the well-preserved breastworks against
which the storm of Abercrombie's assault so vainly beat, and within them
green mounds show the position of old outworks. But the fort itself is a
desolate ruin. Ditches choked with brambles and rubbish, grass-grown
ramparts, crumbling bastion, and barrack walls, fallen-in bomb-proof and
magazine, mark the sight of a stronghold once deemed worth the blood and
treasure of nations to hold or gain.
Amherst's useless fort of Crown Point, built with lavish expense, has
not suffered such complete decay. The barracks are in ruin, but the
almost unbroken ramparts rear their walled and grassy steeps high above
the long incline of the shrub-grown glacis, and the hoary walls of the
outworks have stoutly withstood the ravages of almost seven-score years.
The older French fort of St. Frederic; its citadel within whose walls
commandant, priest, and fierce Waubanakee plotted raids on the frontier
hamlets of the heretics, in whose dungeons English captives languished;
its chapel, where masses were said in celebration of savage deeds, while
white-coated soldier of France, rough-clad habitant, and painted Indian
knelt together before the black-robed priest; its water-gate, bastions,
scarps, and counter-scarps,--all have fallen into the desolation of
utter ruin.
The conquest of Canada accomplished, it was no longer of vital
importance that the forts on Lake Champlain should be maintained;
consequently the elaborately planned fortifications of Crown Point were
never completed, and they, with those of Ticonderoga, fell into such
neglect that in September, 1773, the first one was reported by General
Haldimand to be entirely destroyed, and the other in a most ruinous
state. And though it does not appear that they were dismantled or quite
abandoned, for years they were held by garrisons too insignificant to
defend them against any vigorous attack. In such defenseless condition
they continued, as if too remote from the great centres of revolt to be
of consequence to England, while the threatening attitude of her
American colonies daily grew more menacing. But while the appeal to
arms was yet impending, the importance of these posts became apparent to
some active patriots of the New England colonies. In March, 1775, John
Brown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, who had recently passed through the
New Hampshire Grants on a secret mission to Canada, wrote from Montreal
to Samuel Adams and Dr. Warren, the Committee of Correspondence in
Boston, mentioning one thing to be kept a profound secret. "The fort at
Ticonderoga must be seized as soon as possible, should hostilities be
committed by the king's troops. The people in the New Hampshire Grants
have engaged to do this business, and in my opinion they are the most
proper persons for this job. This will effectually curb this province,
and all the troops that may be sent here." Thus it appears that so early
as February, 1775, the capture of the fort was contemplated by the
leaders of the Green Mountain Boys, and that they were committed to the
enterprise.
Yet, when confronted by the actual outbreak of war, they were sorely
perplexed. Self-interest inclined them to hold aloof from a rupture with
the mother country when king and privy council were considering, with
apparent favor to them, their controversy with New York; while on the
other hand the ties of birth strongly bound them to their brethren of
New England, and every impulse of patriotism impelled them to espouse
the cause of their common country.
Soon after receiving the news of the battle of Lexington, which Ethan
Allen says almost distracted them, the principal officers of the Green
Mountain Boys, and other prominent leaders, met at Bennington, and in
the council chamber of the Catamount Tavern "attempted to explore
futurity;" though they "found it to be unfathomable,"[59] they resolved
to unite with their countrymen, whom they doubted not would, in the
event of a successful issue of the conflict, freely accord to them the
rights which they demanded.
Without any knowledge of what was already brewing in the Grants, some
gentlemen of Connecticut, who on the 26th of April met Benedict Arnold
on his way to Cambridge with a company of volunteers, learned from him
the defenseless condition of Ticonderoga and the great number of cannon
there, and at once formed a plan for its capture. To carry it out, they
procured L300 from the treasury of Connecticut. This was given to Noah
Phelps and Bernard Romans, who immediately set forward toward the
Grants, where it was thought best most of the men should be raised. Just
after their departure, Captain Mott arrived at Hartford and proposed the
same enterprise, to procure artillery and stores for the people of
Boston, and being apprised of what was already on foot, agreed to join
in the expedition. He set forth next day with five others, and at
Salisbury was joined by eleven more. Arrived at Pittsfield it was
determined, by the advice of Colonel Easton and John Brown, just
returned from his Canadian mission, to raise a number of men before
reaching the Grants, where it was thought the scarcity of provisions and
the poverty of the inhabitants would make it difficult to raise and
equip a sufficient number. Accordingly about forty men were recruited
and made ready to march, in Jericho and Williamstown, by Colonel Easton
and Captain Mott, while the others went on to Bennington. When, after
this service, Easton and Mott were on their way to the same place, they
were met in the evening by an express from their people with the news
that Ticonderoga was reinforced and its garrison alert, and with the
advice that, as it could not be surprised, the men recruited would
better be dismissed. The news was discredited, the advice unheeded, and
the colonel and the captain held forward for Bennington, rejoining their
companions and finding the leading men of the Grants there in conclave.
Captain Mott told his hesitating friends that the "account they had
would not do to go back with and tell in Hartford;" and his friends Mr.
Halsey and Mr. Bull declared they would go back for no story till they
had seen the fort for themselves.[60] It was decided that the attempt to
capture the fort should not be abandoned.
Two agents were dispatched to Albany to purchase and forward provisions
for the troops, and trusty men were sent to waylay all the roads leading
from the Grants to Skenesborough, Lake George, and the Champlain forts,
to prevent any intelligence of the movement from reaching those points.
Then, going on to Castleton, the committee, of which Captain Mott was
chairman, arranged there the plan of operations.
A party of thirty men under Captain Herrick were to go to Skenesborough
and capture Major Skene and his men, and go down the lake in the night
with his boats to Shoreham to transport the men assembled there across
the water; while Captain Douglass was sent to Crown Point to concoct a
scheme with his brother-in-law, who lived there, to hire the king's
boats, on some plausible pretense, to assist in getting the men over to
the New York shore.
Meanwhile Captain Phelps of Connecticut had gone to spy out the
condition of Ticonderoga. In the guise of a simple backwoodsman, he
easily gained admission to the fort on the pretext of getting shaved,
and, after taking careful note of all that could be seen in the place,
returned to Castleton and reported to his friends.
Agreeable to a promise made to the men when engaged that they should be
commanded by their own officers, Colonel Ethan Allen was given the
command of the force which was to attack Ticonderoga. After receiving
his orders from the committee, and dispatching Major Gershom Beach of
Rutland to rally the Green Mountain Boys, he went on to Shoreham, where
they were to assemble.
Major Beach performed the almost incredible feat of making on foot the
journey of sixty miles in twenty-four hours, over rough by-paths marked
only by blazed trees, and along the wretched roads of the new country.
The forest-walled highway led him to the hamlets of Rutland, Pittsford,
Brandon, and Middlebury, whose fighting men were quickly summoned. Along
its course, he turned aside here and there to warn an isolated settler,
to whose betterments he was guided by the songs of the earliest bobolink
rejoicing over the discovery of a new meadow, by the sound of
axe-strokes, by the drift of smoke climbing through the greening
tree-tops from log-heap or potashery. Each man, as summoned, left his
task unfinished,--the chopper his axe struck deep in the half-felled
tree; the grimy logger his smoking pile; the sawyer his silenced mill
with the saw stopped in its half-gnawed course through the great log;
the potash-maker left the fire to smoulder out beneath the big kettles;
and the farmer, though hickory leaves as large as a squirrel's foot
calendared the time of corn-planting, exchanged the hoe for the gun.
Each took his firelock, bullet pouch, and powder horn from their hooks
above the fireplace, and, bidding brief farewell to homefolk, set forth
to the appointed meeting place. In little bands, by threes and twos and
singly, scarred and grizzled veterans who had scouted the Wilderness
with Rogers, Putnam, and Stark, men in their prime who had seen no
service but in raids on the Yorkers, and beardless boys hot with untried
youthful valor, took their way toward the lake. Most of them plodded
the unmistakable course of the muddy highways till they struck Amherst's
road leading to Crown Point; but some, with consummate faith in their
woodcraft, took the shortest ways through the forest, now breasting the
eastern slope of ledges whose dun incline of last year's leaves was
dappled thick with the white bloom of moose-flowers and green tufts of
fresh forest verdure, now scrambling down the sheer western wall of
diluvian shores, now wading the mire of a gloomy morass, and now
thridding the intricate tangle of a windfall.
On the evening of the 9th of May, 1775, they had come to the appointed
place of meeting, a little cove about two miles north of Ticonderoga,
where the mustering force was quite hidden from the observation of
voyagers along the lake, and where the camp-fires might blaze behind the
wide screen of newly leafing woods unseen by the garrisons of the two
forts. Here the Green Mountain Boys were met by their adored leader, and
awaited the arrival of the boats and their comrades coming from the
southward.
Allen had just left Castleton when Benedict Arnold arrived there, and
demanded the command of the expedition by authority of a colonel's
commission just received from the Massachusetts Committee of Safety,
with orders to raise 400 men for the reduction of Ticonderoga. The
committee in charge of the enterprise, in consideration of the
conditions under which the men had engaged, refused to give him the
command. But he persisted in demanding it, and at once set forward to
overtake Allen, whom he found no more disposed to yield to his demand
than the committee had been, nor would his men consent to follow another
leader. Upon this, Arnold joined the force as a volunteer.
By the evening of the 9th, 270 men, all but forty of whom were Green
Mountain Boys, had assembled on the shore of the little creek in
Shoreham now known as Hand's Cove, which is in summer a level expanse of
sedgy marsh threaded by a narrow sluggish channel, but during the spring
floods is a broad cove of the lake, its waters over-running the roots of
the trees that grow upon the banks. Here the force anxiously awaited
transportation, for the seemingly well-laid plans for securing boats had
not proved successful. It was not till near morning that the watchers,
often deceived by the cries of strange waterfowl, the sudden plunge of
the muskrat, or his long wake gleaming in the light of the camp-fires,
at last heard the unmistakable splash of oars, and saw the boats coming
in among buttressed trunks of the great elms and water-maples that stood
ankle-deep in the spring flood. When scows, skiffs, dugouts, and yawls
had crushed through the drift of dead waterweeds and made a landing, it
was found that there were not enough of the motley craft collected to
transport half the force.
Allen, Easton, Arnold, and eighty others at once embarked, and,
crossing the lake, landed a little north of Willow Point, on the New
York shore, when the boats returned to bring over those who, under
Warner, remained at the cove. Day was now dawning, the rugged horizon
line of forest and mountain becoming each moment more distinct against
the eastern sky, and it became evident that, if the attack was much
longer delayed, there would be no chance of surprising the garrison.
Allen, therefore, determined to move forward at once, without waiting to
be joined by those who remained on the other shore. Briefly addressing
his men, who were drawn up in three ranks, he called on those who would
voluntarily follow him to poise their firelocks. Every musket was
poised, the order was given to right face, and Allen placed himself at
the head of the centre file; but when he gave the order to march, Arnold
again asserted his right to take command, and swore that he would be
first to enter the fort. Allen as stoutly maintained his right, and,
when the dispute waxed hotter, turned to one of his officers and asked,
"What shall I do with the damned rascal? Shall I put him under guard?"
The officer, Amos Callender of Shoreham, advised them to compromise the
untimely dispute by agreeing to enter the fort side by side, to which
they both assented, and the little column at once moved forward in
silence, guided by a youth named Beeman, who, living near by, and having
spent many of his idle hours in the fort, was well acquainted with the
entrances and all the interior appointments.
Captain Delaplace and his little garrison of a lieutenant and forty-two
uncommissioned officers and privates[61] were sleeping in careless
security, not dreaming of an enemy near, while two or three sentinels
kept listless guard. The drowsy sentry at the sallyport, now come upon
so suddenly by the attacking party that he forgot to challenge or give
an alarm, aimed his musket at the leader and pulled trigger. The piece
missed fire, and, Allen running toward him with raised sword, the
soldier retreated into the parade, when he gave a loud halloo and ran
under a bomb-proof. The Green Mountain Boys now swiftly entered the
fort, and, forming in the parade in two ranks facing the east and west
rows of barracks, gave three lusty cheers. A sentry made a thrust with
his bayonet at one of the officers, and Allen dealt him a sword cut on
the head that would have killed him, had not the force of the blow been
broken by a comb which kept his hair in place.[62]
He threw down his gun and asked for quarter. Allen demanded to be shown
the apartment of the commandant, and was directed to a flight of stairs
leading to the second story of the west row of barracks. Mounting to the
door at their head, Allen ordered Captain Delaplace to "come forth
instantly, or he would sacrifice the whole garrison." The bewildered
commandant came to the door with his breeches in his hand, when Allen
demanded the immediate surrender of the fort, "By whose authority do you
demand it?" asked Delaplace, and Allen answered, "In the name of the
great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." Delaplace attempted to
parley, but Allen cut him short, and, with his drawn sword over his
head, again demanded an immediate surrender. Having no choice but to
comply, Captain Delaplace at once ordered his men to parade without
arms, and Ticonderoga with all its cannon and military stores was
surrendered to the Green Mountain Boys.
Warner presently arrived with the remainder of the force, and after some
convivial celebration of the almost bloodless conquest was dispatched by
Allen, with about one hundred men, to take possession of Crown Point,
which was held by a sergeant and twelve men, and on the 12th Warner and
Peleg Sunderland reported its capture on the previous day to the
governor and council of Connecticut. Captain Remember Baker, who had
received orders to come with his company from the Winooski and join the
force, after meeting and capturing two small boats on their way to St.
John's with the alarming news of the surrender, arrived at Crown Point
nearly at the same time with Colonel Warner.[63] Skenesborough was taken
possession of by Captain Herrick, Major Skene made prisoner, and his
schooner seized. Callender was sent with a small party to seize the fort
at the head of Lake George, an exploit easily accomplished, as its sole
occupants were a man and woman.
Thus, by no heroic feat of arms, but by well-laid plans so secretly and
promptly executed that they remained unsuspected till their purpose was
accomplished, the two strongholds that guarded the passage to the head
of the lake fell into the hands of the Americans, with 200 cannon, some
mortars and swivels, and a quantity of military stores, all of which
were of incalculable value to the ill-supplied patriot army.
Allen at once sent a report of the capture of Ticonderoga to the Albany
committee, and asked that provisions and a reinforcement of 500 men
might be sent to the fort, as he was apprehensive that General Carleton
would immediately attempt its recapture. He also reported the capture to
the Massachusetts government, and on the 12th sent the prisoners under
guard to Connecticut, at the same time apprising Governor Trumbull of
the preparations being made to take a British armed sloop then lying at
St. John's.
Ticonderoga had not been many hours in possession of its captors when
Arnold again attempted to assume command, as no other officer had
orders to show. But the soldiers refused to serve under him, declaring
that they would go home rather than do so. To settle the question of
authority, the committee issued a written order to Colonel Allen
directing him to keep the command of said garrison for the use of the
American colonies till further orders from the colony of Connecticut or
from the Continental Congress.
The capture of the English sloop was now undertaken. Arnold, in command
of the schooner taken at Skenesborough and now armed with a few light
guns, and Allen of a batteau, set forth on this enterprise, favored by a
brisk south wind, more propitious to Arnold than to his coadjutor, for
it wafted his schooner so much more swiftly onward that he reached St.
John's, made an easy capture of the larger and more heavily armed sloop,
made prisoners of a sergeant and twelve men, and still favored by the
wind, which now shifted to the north, was well on his way up the lake
with his prize when he met Allen's sluggish craft, some distance south
of St. John's, and saluted him with a discharge of cannon. After
responding with a rattling volley of small arms, Allen and his party
went on board the sloop, and further celebrated the successful issue of
the expedition by toasting Congress and the cause of the colonies in
bumpers furnished forth from the ample stores of his Majesty's navy. The
vessels then pursued their way up the lake, past unfamiliar headlands
and islands whose fringe of dark cedars was now half veiled in the
misty green of the opening deciduous leaves, now sailing in mid-channel
with low shores on either hand, on this La Motte and Grand Isle, on that
the pine-clad plains and Valcour, the scene of Arnold's future desperate
naval fight, and now, when the Isles of the Four Winds and solitary
Wajahose, far astern, hung between lake and sky, they hugged the cleft
promontory of Sobapsqua[64] and the rugged walls of the western shore,
till Bullwagga Bay was opened and the battlements of Crown Point arose
before them and their present voyage ended.
The Americans now had complete control of the lake, the only armed
vessels afloat upon its waters, and all the forts except St. John's. Yet
for a time a greater value seemed to be attached to the cannon and
stores received than to the military importance of the forts taken.
After the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, more than a month
passed in a wrangle of the commanders for the supremacy, and
dissatisfaction and insubordination of the men, before the garrisons
were effectively strengthened by a force of a thousand men under Colonel
Hinman, who was put in command of the posts by the government of
Connecticut, to which, in the division of affairs, this quarter had been
relegated.
FOOTNOTES:
[59] Ethan Allen.
[60] Mott's Journal in Chittenden's _Capture of Ticonderoga_.
[61] Allen's own accounts of the number do not agree. In his report to
the Albany committee he gives the number of prisoners taken as one
captain and a lieutenant and forty-two men, while in his _Narrative_ it
"consisted of the said commander, a lieutenant, Feltham, a conductor of
artillery, a gunner, two sergeants, and forty-four rank and file." The
first number, given in the report made on the day following the capture,
is probably the correct one.
[62] Goodhue's _Hist. of Shoreham_.
[63] Ira Allen's _History of Vermont_.
[64] "Pass through the Rock," Split Rock.
CHAPTER VIII.
GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS IN CANADA.
On the 23d of June, 1775, the Continental Congress, recognizing the
services of Allen and his associates, voted to pay the men who had been
employed in the taking and garrisoning of Crown Point and Ticonderoga,
and "recommended to the Convention of New York that they, consulting
with General Schuyler, employ in the army to be raised for the defense
of America, those called Green Mountain Boys, under such officers as
said Green Mountain Boys shall choose." With a copy of these
resolutions, and a letter from John Hancock in his official capacity as
President of Congress, Allen and Warner presented themselves before the
convention on the 4th of July. They were admitted in spite of the
opposition of their old enemies, the speculators. Acting upon this
recommendation of Congress, the convention ordered that an independent
body of troops, not exceeding five hundred men including officers, be
forthwith raised of those called Green Mountain Boys, under officers of
their own election.
When this order, forwarded by General Schuyler, was received in the
Grants, a convention of the town committees was called, which met at
the house of Mr. Cephas Kent, innholder, in the township of Dorset, on
the 26th of July, and, after electing a chairman and clerk, at once
proceeded to elect the officers of the regiment. Ethan Allen, who had
previously proposed to the New York convention a list of officers in
which his name appeared first, followed next by Warner's, now offered
himself as a candidate for the lieutenant-colonelcy, which was the rank
of the commander. But he received only five votes, while Warner was
given forty-one. As may well be imagined, he was greatly mortified by
the result, which he charged to the old farmers who did not incline to
go to war, while with the young Green Mountain Boys he claimed to be a
favorite.[65] Though it seemed like a slight to the acknowledged leader
of the Green Mountain Boys to elect his junior and subordinate to the
command of this regiment, if not an act of calm and dispassionate
judgment, it was one of which future events proved the wisdom; for the
less impetuous but no less brave Warner was the safer commander in
regular military operations. It is noticeable that neither Baker,
Cockran, nor Sunderland, Allen's intimate associates in resistance to
New York, was elected by the Dorset convention, though they were on his
list of proposed captains.
A copy of the proceedings was forwarded to General Schuyler, with a
letter briefly setting forth that this action had been taken in
compliance with the orders of Congress and General Schuyler's
recommendation, in no wise acknowledging the authority of New York, but
as independently as other colonies contributing a military force to the
Continental army.
There were then no more regular troops in Canada than served to garrison
the posts, and the governor, General Carleton, attempted to raise an
army of Canadians and Indians for offensive operations, for the
equipment of which 20,000 stand of arms had been sent from England. But
the habitants had no stomach for fighting, and, though martial law was
proclaimed, refused to arm for the invasion of the southern provinces,
while they declared their willingness to defend their own. The governor
urged the Bishop of Quebec to exercise his ecclesiastical authority to
effect this purpose, but the prelate adroitly excused himself. An
attempt was made, through the influence of the son of the late Sir
William Johnson, to engage the Indians in the contest, but they
prudently declined to take part in it. Of all the Canadians, only the
French _noblesse_ showed any willingness to support the governor, and
they were too few to be of much account.
The Americans, apprised of these futile attempts, determined to invade
Canada before reinforcements should arrive from England. Two thousand
men were to be raised in New York and New England, and commanded by
Generals Schuyler and Montgomery.
Among the prizes secured by the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point
was a quantity of materials for boat-building, which now became
available. With ready Yankee aptitude, the soldiers turned their hands
to the construction of batteaux for the transportation of the troops
down the lake, and the surrounding forests rang for many a summer day
with the busy stroke of axe and hammer.
Montgomery reached Crown Point in August, and upon receiving news that
Carleton was preparing for offensive operations, and had several armed
vessels at St. John's ready to transport his forces up the lake, at once
set forth with what troops had arrived. With sweep and sail, the lazy
flotilla of batteaux was urged down the lake to Isle la Motte, where
Montgomery was joined by Schuyler, who though ill had hastened on from
Albany. They then moved on to Isle aux Noix, and there so disposed their
forces as to prevent the passage of the enemy's vessels. From this point
they issued a proclamation to the Canadians, assuring them that their
army was not in any way directed against them, but against the British,
and inviting them to join in the struggle for liberty.
Ethan Allen, whose patriotic ardor had not been cooled by his recent
rebuff, had, by invitation of the generals, accompanied them to Isle aux
Noix. He held no commission, but was considered as an officer, and was
upon occasion to be given the command of detachments. He was now
employed, with Major Brown and accompanied by interpreters, to
distribute this proclamation among the Canadians, and satisfactorily
performed the duties assigned him. On the 6th of September, the American
army, not more than a thousand strong, advanced toward St. John's, and
landed a mile and a half from the fort. This they found too strong to
warrant an assault, and after a reconnoissance, in which they were
attacked by a party of Indians, and suffered a slight loss while
inflicting a somewhat greater one, they withdrew next morning to the
Isle aux Noix, to await the arrival of artillery and reinforcements. It
was during these operations that the brave Captain Remember Baker was
killed. He was held in great esteem by his friends, and his death, being
the first that occurred in the military operations in this quarter,
created more stir, says Ira Allen, than the death of a thousand later in
the war. Montgomery's reinforcements having arrived, he again moved upon
St. John's on the 17th, and laid siege to the place, but, with his
undisciplined troops and slender supply of ammunition, his progress was
slow. Parties were sent out through the country, and were favorably
received by the Canadians, who contributed men and provisions, the
latter the more valuable contribution.
At this time, much against his wishes, for he would rather have taken
part in the siege, Ethan Allen was dispatched by Montgomery on a mission
similar to that in which he was previously engaged. With a guard of
about eighty men, mostly Canadians, he passed through the parishes on
the Richelieu and up the St. Lawrence to Longueuil, "preaching
politics," as he says, and meeting "with good success as an itinerant."
On his way thence to La Prairie, he fell in with Major Brown, who was
out on the same errand, and now proposed to Allen that they should
attempt the capture of Montreal. His plan was, that Allen should return
to Longueuil, and, there procuring canoes, cross his men to the island
of Montreal, a little below the town; while Brown, with about 200 men,
should cross above it. Allen readily fell in with it, and, making haste
back to Longueuil, obtained a few boats and collected about thirty
recruits. In the course of the night he got his party across the river,
and, setting a guard between his position and the town, with orders to
let no one pass, awaited the signal which Brown was to give when he had
effected a crossing. Allen waited with growing impatience, while
daylight grew and sunrise came. All the world began to be astir, and yet
Brown made no sign. Unsupported as he now found himself, he was in sorry
plight, and would have recrossed the river, but he had only boats enough
to transport a third of his force at a time, and the attempt would
certainly result in the capture of the other two thirds. He determined
to maintain his ground if possible, and that, in any event, all should
fare alike. He dispatched messengers to Brown at La Prairie, and to
L'Assomption, to a Mr. Walker, who was in the interest of the
Americans, urging them to hasten to his aid.
Montreal was already alarmed, and the governor and his party were
preparing to retire on board the vessels of war, when a spy, who had
escaped from Allen's guards, brought them information of Allen's
condition. Upon this, Carleton marched out to attack the presumptuous
invader, with forty regulars and "a mixed multitude" of Canadians,
English, and Indians, numbering nearly 500, and Allen perceived that it
would be a "day of trouble if not of rebuke."[66] About two o'clock in
the afternoon, the British force began firing from the cover of
woodpiles, ditches, and buildings, Allen's men returning the fusillade
from positions quite as favorable, till near half the enemy began a
flank movement on their right. Observing this, Allen dispatched half his
force, under a volunteer named Dugan, to occupy a ditch on their flank;
but Dugan took the opportunity to escape with his detachment, as did one
Young, posted on the other flank with a small force, and Allen was left
with only forty-five men, some of whom were wounded. He began a hopeless
retreat, which was continued for a while. An officer pressing close upon
the rear fired his gun at Allen, the ball whistling past his head.
Allen's shot in turn missed his enemy, as both were out of breath with
running. Allen now offered to surrender if assured of quarter for
himself and his men, which was promised by this officer. Whereupon
Allen gave up his sword and surrendered his party, dwindled to
thirty-eight, seven of whom were wounded. A painted and half-naked
Indian rushed toward them, and within a few yards aimed his gun at
Allen, who, seizing the officer to whom he had delivered his sword, made
a shield of him, and kept him spinning around, as the Indian swiftly
circled about the two, in a vain attempt to fire a shot that should kill
only the Green Mountain Boy. Another Indian then took part in the
attack, and Allen's shrift would have been short, had not an Irishman
and a Canadian come to his rescue. He was then well treated by his
captors, walking to the town between a British officer and a French
gentleman, who, though he had lost an eyebrow in the action, "was very
merry and facetious." But when General Prescott, who throughout the war
never missed an opportunity of exhibiting his brutality, met them at the
barracks and learned that the prisoner was the captor of Ticonderoga, he
showered a torrent of abuse upon him, while he shook his cane over his
head. Allen shook his fist at the general, and told him "that was the
beetle of mortality for him if he offered to strike." An officer
whispered to Prescott that it was inconsistent with his honor to strike
a prisoner. Prescott turned his wrath upon the Canadians, and ordered a
sergeant's guard to kill thirteen of them; and when Allen had somewhat
dramatically but successfully interposed to save their lives, Prescott
roared at him, with an oath, "I will not execute you now, but you shall
grace a halter at Tyburn!" By Prescott's orders he was taken on board a
vessel of war and manacled like a common felon, and presently, with
other prisoners, was sent to England. Landing at Falmouth, clad in the
fawn-skin jacket and red woolen cap that he wore when taken, his strange
appearance excited a curiosity that not a little gratified him. From his
capture till he was exchanged in 1778, he suffered on shipboard and in
prison, with brief intervals of kinder treatment, a hard and cruel
captivity, from which he emerged, however, with a spirit unsubdued, and
unswerving loyalty to his country's cause. The attempt upon Montreal has
generally been characterized as rash; yet, if Brown had not, for some
unexplained reason, failed to perform his part in it, it is more than
probable the undertaking would have succeeded. It was one of those
daring enterprises which if successful receive the highest praise, if
unsuccessful are scouted as foolhardy.
Meanwhile the siege of St. John's progressed slowly, principally through
lack of ammunition. But on the 18th of October the fort at Chambly,
further down the river, and garrisoned by about 100 men of the British
Seventh Regiment, surrendered to Majors Brown and Livingston, and among
the most important of its captured stores were 120 barrels of gunpowder,
which enabled Montgomery to push the siege with more vigor. As
gratifying if not as useful was the capture of the colors of the
regiment, the first trophy of the kind received by the Continental
Congress.
General Carleton was making all possible efforts for the relief of St.
John's, whose garrison of 500 regulars and about 200 other troops was
bravely defending it. He had collected a force of 800 regulars, militia,
and Indians, which he embarked at Montreal, with the design of landing
at Longueuil and joining Colonel McLean at the mouth of the Richelieu,
where that officer was posted with a few hundred Scotch emigrants and
some Canadians. Colonel Seth Warner with 300 Green Mountain Boys was
keeping close watch of Carleton's movements, and when the flotilla drew
near the south shore of the St. Lawrence, the rangers poured upon it a
destructive volley of small-arms and a shower of grapeshot from a
four-pounder. Carleton's force retired in confusion, and when McLean's
Canadians got news of the disaster they took French leave of him, and he
with his Scotchmen retired in haste to Quebec. Left now without hope of
relief, St. John's capitulated on the 3d of November, and a considerable
number of cannon, a quantity of military stores, and 600 prisoners fell
into the hands of the Americans. The prisoners were sent by way of
Ticonderoga into the interior of New England.
Montgomery now marched to Montreal, which Carleton had secretly quitted
the night before. The inhabitants proposed a capitulation, which
Montgomery refused, as they were incapable of making any defense.
Promising them perfect protection of person and property, he marched his
army into the place, and took peaceable possession on the 13th.
Colonel Easton had been sent with a detachment to the mouth of the
Richelieu, where he erected a battery of two guns, and, being reinforced
by a gunboat from St. John's on the 17th, he captured, as they attempted
to pass on their way to Quebec, eleven sail of armed vessels freighted
with provisions and military stores, and having on board General
Prescott and 120 officers and privates.
The term of enlistment of Warner's men having now expired, they
presently returned to their homes, not long after to be recalled, with
their leader, in the stress of the Northern winter, by the urgent appeal
of the commander of the army in Canada.
During the occurrence of these events, Arnold was engaged in his
memorable expedition against Quebec by way of the Kennebec. Arriving at
the mouth of that river on the 20th of September, he set forth with an
army of 1,100 men, embarked in heavy batteaux, to voyage up the wild
stream where hitherto had floated only the light craft of the Indian,
the scout, and the hunter. Battling with dogged persistence against the
angry rush of rapids, and now dragging their bulky craft over portages
of swamp or rugged steeps, they made their slow and weary progress
through the heart of the pitiless wilderness at the rate, at best, of
little more than four miles a day. Through constant strain of toil and
hardship many fell sick, and in the passage of the rapids much of their
provisions was lost, so that the horror of starvation was added to the
heavy measure of their suffering. Men killed and ate their dogs, or
gnawed their shoes and the leather of their cartouch boxes, to allay the
pangs of hunger. When the head of the Kennebec was reached, Colonel
Enos, who was ordered to send back the sick, himself went off with three
companies, a council of his officers having decided that it was
impossible to proceed, for lack of provisions. But Arnold, with his
remaining force, held on his way with desperate determination, and,
coming to the Chaudiere, followed it till on the 3d of November they
came to the first house that they had seen for a month, and there
procured some supplies. At Sortigan, the first village reached, they
were kindly received by the Canadians and bountifully supplied with
provisions. A proclamation prepared by Washington was distributed among
the Canadians. It invited them to join the Americans and assured them
protection of person, property, and religion, and was well received by
them. With the aid which these people afforded, Arnold made an easy
march to Point Levi, arriving there on the 9th with about 700 men.
Twenty-four hours passed before his coming was known in Quebec. There
was such dissension among the British inhabitants in consequence of the
opposition of the English merchants to the Quebec Bill, that the city
was in no condition for defense. The French citizens had no inclination
to take up arms against the Americans; and had Arnold the means of
transportation across the broad St. Lawrence, it is probable that he
might easily have taken the city. Three days later Colonel McLean
arrived there with 170 of his regiment of Scotch emigrants, and at nine
in the evening of the next day Arnold began embarking his men in canoes.
By four in the morning 500 were landed at Wolfe's Cove, whence they
marched to the Plains of Abraham. When Arnold's landing became known in
the city, sailors were brought on shore from the ships to man the guns
of the fortifications; the loyal citizens became more confident of
making a successful defense, and when Arnold sent a flag with a summons
to surrender, it was fired upon. He was not strong enough to strike; he
could but menace; and when menace failed to intimidate the enemy, there
was nothing for him but to retire. Therefore he withdrew to Pointe aux
Trembles, seven leagues above Quebec, on the left bank of the St.
Lawrence. There, on the 1st of December, he was joined by Montgomery,
who had marched his little force of 300 men with all possible celerity
through the half-frozen mire of roads wretched at best, and in the
blinding snowstorms of a winter already rigorous in that climate. Three
armed schooners had also arrived with ammunition, clothing, and
provisions. On the 5th the little army, less than a thousand strong,
appeared before Quebec, now garrisoned by more than 1,500 men of
McLean's regiment, regulars, seamen, marines, and militia. Montgomery
opened an ineffectual fire on the town from two small batteries of
mortar and cannon. An assault was determined upon, and on the last day
of the year, under the thick veil of a downfall of snow, the troops made
the assault in four columns at as many points. The attack of two columns
was a feint against the upper town. Montgomery and Arnold led the actual
assault of the other two against the lower town, and gained some
advantages. Montgomery was killed, and his corps of 200 swept back by a
storm of grape and musket balls poured upon them from the second
barrier. Arnold was carried from the field with a leg shattered in a
successful attack upon a battery, and his column of 300, after a
desperate fight of three hours, was overwhelmed by the whole force of
the British now turned upon it, and it was obliged to surrender.
The command now devolved upon Arnold, and the troops, reduced to 400,
withdrew three miles from the city, and there maintained a partial
blockade of it.[67] General Wooster, in command at Montreal, sent
expresses to Washington, Schuyler, and Congress, and on the 6th of
January wrote to Colonel Warner urging him to raise and send on the more
readily available Green Mountain Boys, "by tens, twenties, thirties,
forties, or fifties, as fast as they could be collected." The response
to his call was prompt. In eleven days Warner mustered his men, and
despite the rigors of the northern winter, whose bitterness they had so
often tasted, they marched in snow and pinching cold to the assistance
of their brethren in Canada, and their alacrity called forth the
approval of Washington and Schuyler.[68]
The offensive operations of the Americans in Canada were thereafter
feeble and ineffectual. Reinforcements had arrived, but smallpox was
raging in the camp, so that when General Thomas took command on the 14th
of May there were less than 900 men fit for duty. In this condition, and
with only three days' provisions remaining, an immediate retreat was
decided upon by a council of war. This became precipitate when three
English ships of war arrived and landed more than a thousand marines and
regulars, and General Carleton marched out with 800 regulars against the
Americans, already in retreat.
Artillery, stores, and baggage were abandoned, and the troops scattered
in flight, the general being able to collect no more than 300 of them.
By day and night they retreated nearly fifty miles before they halted,
when, being beyond immediate reach of the enemy, they rested a few days
and then marched to Sorel, in sorry plight, worn with disease, fatigue,
and hunger.
For the most part, the Canadians proved but fair-weather friends, and
gave them little aid now that the fortune of war no longer favored
them. General Thomas died here of smallpox, and General Sullivan took
command. After the cowardly surrender by Major Beadle of his force of
nearly 400 posted at The Cedars, a small fort on the St. Lawrence, to
Captain Foster, with a detachment of 40 regulars, 100 Canadians, and 500
Indians, without artillery, and the disastrous failure of General
Thompson with 1,800 men to surprise the British advance at Trois
Rivieres, all the American troops began a retreat from Canada, where an
army of 13,000 English and German troops were now arrived.
Arnold, who had been in command at Montreal since the 1st of April,
crossed the St. Lawrence at Longueuil on the 15th of June, and marched
to Chambly, whence the army continued its retreat in good order, first
to Isle aux Noix and then to Crown Point.
During the withdrawal of the army from Canada, the services of Warner
and his Green Mountain Boys again became conspicuous. Following in the
rear, but little in advance of the pursuing enemy, he was chiefly
employed in gathering up the sick and wounded. Some straggling in the
woods, some sheltered in the garlick-reeking cabins of the least
unfriendly habitants, he succeeded in bringing a great number of them to
Isle aux Noix.
Thence embarked, in leaky open boats, the wretched invalids voyaged to
Crown Point, their misery mocked by the brightness of the June skies,
the beauty of the shores clad in the luxuriant leafage of early summer,
and the glitter of the sunlit waters. The condition of the broken army
gathered at Crown Point was miserable in the extreme. More than half of
the 5,200 men were sick, and those reported fit for duty were weak and
half clad, broken in spirit and discipline. A few were in tents, some in
poor sheds, while the greater part had only the shelter of bush huts.
Colonel Trumbull says: "I did not look into a tent or hut in which I did
not find either a dead or dying man." More than 300 new-made graves
marked the brief tarry of the troops at Crown Point. Those whom Colonel
Warner did not succeed in bringing off, and who fell into General
Carleton's hands, were treated by him with the greatest kindness.
So closed this unprofitable campaign, in whose prosecution such heroism
had been expended in vain, such valuable lives wasted. Beginning with a
series of successes, it ended in disaster, and was fortunate only in
that it did not achieve the conquest of a province to hold which would
have required the presence of an army that could ill be spared
elsewhere,--a province which was chiefly peopled by a race alien in
language and religion, too abject to strike for its own freedom, and so
priest-ridden and steeped in ignorance that its incorporation with it
could prove but a curse to the young republic.
FOOTNOTES:
[65] _Governor and Council_, vol. i. p. 6.
[66] Allen's _Narrative_.
[67] Williams, vol. ii.
[68] Hall's _Early History of Vermont_.
CHAPTER IX.
LAKE CHAMPLAIN.
General Gates having been appointed to the command of the northern army,
General Sullivan resigned it to him on the 12th of July, receiving the
thanks of his officers and the approval of Congress for the ability with
which he had conducted the retreat.
In conformity to the decision of a council of war, General Gates
withdrew his troops from Crown Point, where not a cannon was mounted, to
Ticonderoga, and began strengthening the works there and erecting new
ones upon a hill on the opposite side of the lake. While this new work,
a star fort, was in progress, news came of the Declaration of
Independence, and in honor of the event the place was named Mount
Independence. The smallpox patients were removed to a hospital at Fort
George, and the recruits, now coming in considerable numbers, were
assembled at Skenesborough.
The construction of vessels of war, wherewith to keep control of the
lake, was now entered upon. In spite of the difficulties attending their
construction in a place so remote from all supplies but timber, and
that green in the forest, the work was pushed so vigorously that before
the end of August one sloop, three schooners, and five gondolas were
ready for service, mounting fifty-five, twelve, nine, and six pounders
and seventy swivels. These were manned by 395 men, old sea-dogs drifted
to inland waters, and unsalted navigators of lakes and rivers, "a
miserable set," Arnold wrote to Gates. In the latter part of August the
fleet sailed down the lake under the command of Arnold, and, when soon
after reinforced by a cutter, three galleys, and three gunboats,
amounted to fifteen sail.
At the north end of the lake, the British were as busy in constructing
and assembling a fleet. Six armed vessels, built in England especially
for this service, could not be got over the rapids at Chambly, and were
taken to pieces, transported above this obstruction, and reconstructed.
The largest of these, the Intrepid, was completed in twenty-eight days
from the laying of the keel. Several gondolas,--a sort of long, narrow,
flat-bottomed craft,--thirty longboats, and 400 batteaux were hauled up
the rapids by the amphibious Canadians, with an immense expenditure of
toil and vociferous jabber. By the 1st of October the fleet was ready to
enter the lake, and consisted of the Inflexible, carrying eighteen guns;
the schooners, Maria and Carleton, carrying fourteen and twelve
respectively; and the Thunderer, a floating battery of raft-like
construction, mounting six twenty-fours, as many sixes, and two
howitzers; with a number of gondolas, gunboats, and longboats, each
carrying one gun. It was manned by 700 experienced seamen, and commanded
by Captain Pringle. In opposing this formidable fleet, so vastly
superior in all its appointments, in everything but the bravery of
officers and men, the odds were fearfully against the Americans, but the
intrepid Arnold did not hesitate to accept the chances.
The sails of the British squadron were whitening the lake beyond
Cumberland Head when Arnold disposed his vessels behind the island of
Valcour, where, screened from sight of the main channel by woods whose
gorgeous leafage was yet unthinned by the frosty touch that painted it,
he awaited the approach of the enemy. Sailing past the island, the
British discovered the little fleet of the Americans, and, conscious of
their own superiority, at once advanced to the attack from the
southward; but the wind, which before had favored them, was now against
them. The flagship Inflexible, and some others of the larger vessels,
could not be brought into action, and the Carleton and the gunboats took
the brunt of the battle.
For four hours the fierce fight raged, sustained with the utmost bravery
by both combatants. The forests were shaken with the unwonted thunder,
whose roar was heard at Crown Point, forty miles away, and the autumnal
haze grew thick with sulphurous smoke. General Waterbury, commanding
the Washington galley, was in the hottest of it, and only brought his
shattered vessel out of the fight when all but two of his officers were
killed or wounded. One of the American schooners was burnt, a gondola
sunk, and several other vessels much injured; while the British had two
gondolas sunk, and one blown up with sixty men on board. Toward
nightfall, Captain Pringle withdrew the vessels engaged, and anchored
his whole fleet across the channel to prevent the escape of the
Americans. Escape was all that Arnold hoped for now, and in the darkness
of night he silently got his vessels around the north end of
Valcour,[69] and, making all speed southward, was out of sight of his
enemy when daylight came.
The British gave chase, and overtaking the Americans at Split Rock,
about noon of the 13th, at once began firing on them. The sorely
crippled Washington was forced to strike her colors after receiving a
few broadsides. Arnold fought his flagship, the Congress galley, with
desperate courage, while, within musket-shot, the Inflexible poured
broadsides into her, and two schooners raked her from astern. He
effectually covered the retreat of his escaping vessels with the
Congress and four gondolas, and then ran ashore in the shoal head of a
little bay on the eastern side of the lake. He set fire to the vessels,
and keeping his flag flying on the Congress, which he did not quit till
she was enveloped in flames, got all his men landed but one wounded
lieutenant, who, forgotten in the confusion, was blown up with his
vessel. Of the American fleet, only two galleys, two schooners, a sloop,
and gondola had escaped; and toward Ticonderoga, whither these had fled,
Arnold retreated with his stranded crews, barely escaping an Indian
ambuscade. Joined by the few and now defenseless settlers, they toiled
along the rough forest road, behind them rolling the irregular boom of
the cannon, exploding as the fire heated them, and at intervals the
thunder of a bursting magazine. Throughout that long, unequal combat, as
in many another in the same good cause, Arnold bore himself with cool,
intrepid valor, still preserved by an unkind fate from honorable death
to achieve everlasting infamy. The land-locked bay, where may yet be
seen the oaken skeletons of his brave little
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/35573