Vermont Independence: Chapter 1 A Pre-Vermont History

The following is the first chapter of my culminating study on Vermont Independence. It covers the geological formation of the Vermont landscape through the boarder disputes that predated the American Revolution ending which the Westminster Massacre in 1775. Because the program I attended focused on original content, much of my writing on the Green Mountain boys is omitted as it was covered by studies in earlier semesters. 

Chapter 1

A Pre-Vermont History

In June of 1770, Ethan Allen rode to Albany, New York, to represent John Carpenter, an evicted settler from Bennington in the so-called New Hampshire grants, the disputed land that lay north of the Massachusetts Colony west of the Connecticut River across the Green Mountains to Lake Champlain. Through, poor cartography, unclear charters, as well as opportunism and outright land snatching, the territory that was to become Vermont was parceled with conflicting deeds issued by both New Hampshire and New YorkJohn Tabor Kempe, the former attorney general of the colony of New York, represented fellow attorney and real estate operator John Duane. Duane had considerable interest in the grants and had what were called “writs of ejectment” issued to New Hampshire deed holders. The Albany courts sided with the New York deed holders based on a 1764 ruling of the Orders in Council. The following day Kempe and Duane caught up with Allen at Stephen Fay's Catamount Inn in Bennington to offer him a substantial plot of prime real estate under New York patent if he were to drop the grant's cause. When he refused, Kempe threatened, “Be advised, the people of the grants would do well to make the best terms with the rightful New York land lords.” Allen replied with words that have echoed through Vermont's history and have become its rallying cry “The gods of the hills are not the gods of the valleys” (Jellison 38). Allen's intent was to let these “Yorkers” know that the people of the grants were not to easily bought. Having worked hard to build and obtain what little they were able, they were not quick to relinquish it. This was a direct threat as Ethan Allen continued by saying “If you accompany me to the hills of Bennington, the sense will be made clear.” From there they could see that a group of armed settlers, later known as the “Bennington Mob” and the predecessor to the Green Mountain Boys, was assembling in the streets of Bennington, ready to defend the western front. With these statements Ethan Allen showed a not-so subtle disregard for popular and standard religious sentiment by implying that there may be more than one almighty God with a capital “G,” effectively

denouncing the monotheistic notions held by most Puritan people of colonial New England. Allen was known for his disregard for popular and contemporary religious views having himself been evicted by special town meeting from Northampton, Massachusetts, for such “insolence.”

By invoking the “gods of the hills” he implied that the geography and physical landscape of the Green Mountains are at the core of the people's resolve, that the hills shape and carve people's character. The terrain is a little bit harder to traverse and the soil even harder to work. The winters are a bit more severe and last longer than in the lowlands. Survival was a daily concern for early settlers of the grants. These are among the core reasons Vermonters are diligent and durable.

The gods that formed and raised the Green Mountains to a maximum height of over 12,000 feet did so through a series of major tectonic events. The first, over a billion years ago, the Greenville Orogeny, was a collision of the North American and Eurasian plates creating the Adirondack Mountains and the bedrock on which the Green Mountains would rest. When the plates receded 575 million years ago, the Iapetus Ocean opened up and covered what would be Vermont. Evidence of this ancient ocean can be found on Isle le Motte in Lake Champlain, which is among the world's oldest coral reefs and has fossils dating to this period. As the plates receded, taking several million years, the seam between the plates ruptured causing volcanic activity that created a massive chain of islands called the Taconic Island Arc which divided the ocean. Soon after in geological terms (50 million years), the Taconic Island Arc collided and fused with the North American Continent and pushed the Green Mountains to heights the East Coast hasn't seen since. With this event the gods had something special in store for the land that was to become Vermont. When the Taconic plate collided with early Green Mountains the heat and pressure turned shale into slate and limestone into marble. This is evidenced by the large veins of slate from Fair Haven, Vermont, that continue through New York and Pennsylvania as well as Vermont’s famed “Marble Valley”.

The force of the collision between the Taconic Island Arc and the proto-North American plate was so great that the eastern edge of the Taconic Islands snapped from the oceanic crust. As the proto-North American plate continued to move eastward the ocean's plate began to subduct, and volcanic activity began once again, this time creating a series of granite domes in Vermont and New Hampshire. About 400 million years ago a small continent in the east called “Avalon,” thought to be part of the African plate collided with the proto-North American plate, which began the massive mountain-building cycle known as the Acadian Orogeny. After the Acadian Orogeny the plates continued to subduct and tighten to form the well-known supercontinent of Pangaea. During the Allegheny Orogeny, the Appalachian Mountains from Alabama to Pennsylvania were formed. The instability of Pangaea caused major rifting and eventually the massive continent began to break apart, and over a period of 180 million years the plates drifted into their present place (Sherman et al. 3). After the gods of the hills were done building their massive peaks it was time for the ice to do its part. No fewer than four glacial periods have occurred since the last mountain-building cycle. These mile-thick sheets of ice repeatedly scraped, gouged, and blunted the landscape and ground the once giant mountains down to the relatively small peaks they are today. As these glaciers began to melt, rivers formed under the sheets of ice and deposited boulders and fragments. These fragments can still be seen in the many stone walls lining dirt roads. Hikers may happen upon these walls in new forests, the Around 13,000 years ago glacial-melting created Lake Vermont where present-day Lake Champlain is. The glacier to the north dammed water draining into the lake and caused it to swell over 700 feet higher than the present lake. It engulfed all of Lake George and the northern Hudson Valley. The lake also entirely covered the Otter Creek region up to Rutland, and the Missisquoi region as far as Memphremagog. It also extend deep into the river valleys of the Winooski to Montpelier and the through the Waterbury reservoir to Stowe, and the Lamoille as far as Hyde Park (Klyza 38).

When the glacier began to melt, Lake Vermont drained out through the St Lawrence River and left a body of water that was lower than the present lake. When the glacier melted completely the ocean levels rose while the plate, crushed by glacial ice, was hundreds of feet lower than at present and the Atlantic reached Champlain through the St. Lawrence gulf mixing saltwater and creating what would become known as the Champlain Sea. Although not as big as Lake Vermont, the Champlain Sea left its own distinct marks. Relics of the Champlain Sea are found in several places throughout the Champlain Valley in countless fossils, most notably that of a whale, found while laying a railroad bed near Charlotte in 1848.

Over time the plate recovered, rose above sea level, These events of tectonics, glacial drifts, and receding seas have shaped Vermont into its six distinct physiographic regions. The Green Mountains run north to south for the length of the state and split into three separate ranges. They include hundreds of peaks up to the tallest at the north peak of Mount Mansfield at 4,392 feet. The Taconic Mountains in the southwest of the state are a source of limestone and slate and provide a seemingly impregnable barrier between the Green Mountains and the Hudson Valley. The Valley of Vermont is nestled between the Taconic and Green Mountains, and apart from being a great source of limestone and marble, it also supports many plants that are not commonly found in New England. The Champlain Valley gives Vermont its only real fertile plain as well as a variety of New England fish. The Piedmonts are just what they translate into, foothills. This region covers most of the eastern side of the state as part of the Connecticut River watershed. The last region is the Northeast Highlands, 600 square miles of primarily spruce and some of the foothills of the White Mountains

The gods stayed quiet in the region for a while after the glacier retreated, tending only to the flow of rivers and the return of life. The glacier had washed clean the surface of the mountains awaiting the bacteria and angiosperms that would inhabit them and start life anew. Elk, caribou, mammoth, and mastodons used to roam these hills, but as the temperatures rose and the waters receded they moved on. When the waters dropped to nearly their current depths the forest diversified, bringing in the type of landscape we see today.

Vermont has four primary watersheds. The Connecticut River runs nearly the entire length of the state along its eastern border with New Hampshire. The river originates from lakes in northern New Hampshire but swells as it carries the drainage from the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains and the foothills in New Hampshire, divides Massachusetts and Connecticut, and empties into the Long Island Sound. The Champlain Valley receives most of the drainage from the western slopes of the Green Mountains and the eastern Adirondacks, and drains northward through the Richelieu River and into the St. Lawrence River. In the southwest Taconic Mountains, the waters of the Battenkill and the Willomac Rivers drain into the Hudson River and make their way to the Atlantic through New York's Lower Bay. The fourth, and sometimes forgotten, watershed carries a few small rivers north through Lake Mempremagog into the St. Francis River and to the St. Lawrence River. These rivers and lakes would not only determine the flow of people and commerce in and out of the region, they would inevitably shape the future of Vermont in its relationships with neighboring states and Canada.

By the time of colonial exploration Vermont was inhabited by the Eastern Algonquin Indians, primarily Abenaki, who used the Green Mountains as a hunting ground, and took fish from Lake Champlain. A number of other tribes, including Mahican, some of the southern Algonquian tribes of Massachusetts, and the Iroquois tribes of upstate New York, knew these hills and used them for hunting, fishing, and as a crossing route from the St. Lawrence River to the Atlantic Ocean, with very few permanent native settlements, mostly in the Champlain Valley.

Early Paleoindians likely arrived in Vermont about 11,000 years ago after the last glacier receded. Paleoindian sites are consistent with the eastern reaches of the Champlain Sea, suggesting that they were present on the banks of the sea around 6,900 years ago. Evidence of villages in Vermont can be found as far back as the Woodland The Abenaki's woodland ancestors were pre-agrarian, hunting and gathering tribes. Agriculture didn't appear in Vermont until 1100-1400 C.E. Owing to Vermont's late spring, the Abenaki had limited agricultural produce. The advent of the bow made the Native Americans heavily reliant on hunting. In the winter they would gather in large villages and live off of prepared food, while men went hunting on snowshoe.

By the time Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1609, few native boundaries were clear, but the lake that now bears his name was a natural boundary between the Iroquois and Abenaki people when sixteenth-century European explorers arrived (Klyza 31). European exploration altered native life considerably. The natives traded furs for manufactured cloth from Europe. When the furs became scarce the natives were convinced to sell land in order to continue receiving the goods to which they had grown accustomed. The Europeans also brought disease, which nearly eradicated the native population in New England, killing them by the thousands. Apart from the depletion of the fur trade and new diseases, Europeans brought with them a new kind of warfare, far more devastating than the tribal warfare the natives were accustomed to. European trade turned into European military alliance and the natives became entangled in a thousand year old grudge match that migrated across the Atlantic Ocean and was now being played out on the North American Continent.

During the early period of American exploration the Spanish covered most of the Caribbean, Central American and the Gulf Coast, while the English were penetrating the Atlantic coast from Virginia to Maine. The French, in pursuit of the Northwest Passage to India, were in control the St. Lawrence Seaway allowing them access further inland by In 1535 Jean Cartier had explored the St. Lawrence as far up-river as Hochelaga, present-day Montreal, but Samuel de Champlain was the first to explore Vermont's coast. The Dutch would reach Vermont by way of the Hudson River, while the English

explored both the Hudson and Connecticut rivers to reach Vermont.

The French built forts along Lake Champlain in efforts to control the fur trade with the Abenaki. In 1666 the French built Fort Ste. Anne on Isle le Motte, the first white settlement in Vermont. Although the French worked their way through the lake with forts at Chimney Point and Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga), they did not aggressively attempt to settle Lake Champlain. The first permanent settlement of colonists in Vermont was Fort Dummer, built in 1724 along the Connecticut River near present-day Brattleboro. It was one of four forts the Massachusetts Bay Company had been given royal charter to build along the Connecticut River. The others were Hinsdale on the eastern bank across from Dummer, Fort Hill, over looking the Great Meadow in present-day Putney, Vermont, and Fort No. 4 in Charlestown, New Hampshire, at which were stationed Phineas Stevens and Robert

Rogers during the French and Indian Wars, and later General John Stark, the hero of the Battle of Bennington.

An important point to remember is that Vermont was never in the plans for the American Colonies. It wasn't granted as an individual region by any nobility. There was only a lake, a mountain range, and a river that may have belonged to New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, or even Canada. Land disputes in New England arose from simple boundary errors that were neatly exploited. The first lands chartered in present-day Vermont were issued by Massachusetts in 1713. These towns lay just north of Massachusetts' current northern border, on the west bank of the Connecticut River. The “equivalent lands” were granted to Connecticut as compensate for land lost on a boarder dispute near Agwam.

In 1741 Benning Wentworth became royal governor of New Hampshire at the time that new boundary lines were established in surrounding colonies. A 1664 grant placed the Connecticut River as the eastern border of New York. This disputed earlier charters that placed the border at a line twenty miles east and parallel to the Hudson River, roughly where it is today. Massachusetts and Connecticut had contested the Connecticut River line, but it was not resolved until around 1725 when Massachusetts and Connecticut were given the twenty-mile line as their western border, and the lines on the maps began to look similar to today (Meeks 53). In 1740 the northern boundary of Massachusetts was determined to 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 Pentucket Falls, and by a straight line drawn from thence due west 'till it meets with his Majesty’s other governments” (Meeks 50). This put Massachusetts' northern border seven miles lower than their Fort Dummer. At this Massachusetts gave control of the fort over to New Hampshire. This was enough to give Wentworth an argument that the land west of the Connecticut River to “his Majesty’s other Governments” twenty miles from the Hudson would fall under the jurisdiction of New Hampshire. It is assumed that Wentworth had intended on granting land west of the Connecticut River immediately upon ascending to his position as governor but the outbreak of King George’s War in 1744 delayed granting and settlement in the Green Mountain Wilderness. In November 1749, Benning Wentworth wrote to New York Governor Tryon stating his intentions of selling New Hampshire Grants in the Green Mountains claiming a royal commission.

I have it in command from his Majesty to make Grants of the unimproved Lands within my Government, to such of the inhabitants and others, as shall apply for grants for the same [. . .] The [French & Indian]War hitherto has prevented me from making so great a progress as [. . .] it will be necessary for me to be informed how far North of Albany the Government of New York extends [. . .] and how many miles to the east of the Hudson river to the northward of the Massachusetts line, that I might govern myself accordingly. (qtd. in Graffanino et al. 20, hereafter

referred to as Vermont Voices)

Wentworth had chartered the first town in honor of himself long before the letter was composed. Bennington is located between the northwest corner of Massachusetts and the southern tip of Lake Champlain. It seems that Benning wasn't merely crossing the line a bit but outright reaching to his furthest extent, the twenty-mile line, in order to grab as For the next five years grants were given and settlements began to grow. Many of the grantees secured their grants at no money down with the understanding that they were to build mills and pay off the deed. Others paid for their grants in installments of pelts and furs, all of it payable to Benning Wentworth himself. In 1754 during the onset of the French and Indian Wars, granting ceased. Vermont was primarily used as a military crossing. In 1761 after the war had stopped, New Hampshire resumed granting and New York began surveying land it thought to be its own.

In 1764 it was ruled that the Connecticut River would be the border between New York and New Hampshire. However, this ruling gave no decision on the validity of New Hampshire Grant holders who had already settled and were living in the grants. New York began to issue writs of ejectment to overlaying lands in the Grants. By the time conflict started Wentworth became quite wealthy and had no intention of taking responsibility for his settlements in the grants. By 1766, after granting over 100 questionable grants, Benning Wentworth resigned his post as governor but was replaced by his nephew John Wentworth. During the rest of the decade conflicts arose on the grants, mainly due to surveyors drawing lines on land already inhabited by settlers. A number of those settlers were forcibly evicted

from their land. When grievances were presented to England, both provinces were ordered to stop granting, an order both governors chose to ignore. New York immediately established Cumberland County along the Connecticut River and continued granting disputed land, while New Hampshire pressed their grants north toward the Champlain

While many people were removed from their homes, some began to take a stand. James Breckenridge was among the first to resist eviction by the New York authority. In October of 1769 New York surveyors, drawing lines on his farm in Bennington, were driven off with threats. On July 11, 1771, Sheriff Henry Ten Eyck arrived from Albany with about 300 men to serve Breckenridge a writ of ejectment. They were greeted by seven armed men and a couple dozen farmers inside the main house, also armed. After a brief parley, two of his posse were allowed on to the farm to meet with Breckenridge. By the time they reached Breckenridge's house, as many as forty men made their presence known along a nearby ridge overlooking the meeting. After a brief exchange Breckenridge ordered the posse off his land and returned to his house.Ten Eyck reconvened with the rest of the posse and ordered a charge on the house. The charge began but quickly collapsed. Most of the men retreated while twenty men made it to the door and demanded entrance. The sheriff read the writ out loud and

movement began along the ridge. He threatened to batter the door down. At this, the forty men along the ridge took “casual bead along the sites.” The twenty men on the sheriff’s lead retreated and returned to Albany (source). It was at this standoff that the Green Mountain Boys were born. They were a militia free from any continental or royal authority, who, between 1771 and 1775, were

the guardians of the ordinary farmers and homesteaders. Although they would fight along side the United States during the American Revolution, their enemy wasn’t the Crown as much as it was one cell of authority in the royal government of New York. When the settlers in the Grants first looked to the Royal authorities in New Hampshire to come to their aid in the land dispute; “The people [were] heard with patience by British authorities. . . .

The Grants had no legitimate grievance against Great Britain before the Revolution. The governors of New York, the land speculators of New York, were the oppressors, not King George III” (Van DeWater 55). As the first winds of revolution began to blow all over the colonies, Britain became a common enemy. The next four years would see a period of relatively nonviolent rebellion in many parts on the western side of the state. In most cases the armed militia was used to drive off New York surveyors. The punishment for Yorkers disputing land was the application of the “beech seal” in which the accused would have his pants removed and whipped with a switch from a beech tree, and be banished from Vermont. In another case at the Catamount Tavern in Bennington, Dr. Samuel Adams was speaking out against the actions of the Green Mountain Boys. He was tied to a chair and hoisted above the entrance to the tavern for more than two hours. These acts were carried out for purposes of propaganda rather than physical harm.

With few exceptions the eastern side of the state was safe from the oppressive arm of the royal New York government in Albany. Most people along the Connecticut River owned New York land. Of those who bought New Hampshire deeds, many simply forfeited their deeds and repurchased their land under New York patent. This worked for those with just a few acres, but for those with much larger tracts, often acquired on credit, the cost was unmanageable. As rebellious tones grew louder, royal governments acted more harshly toward dissent. In October, 1774, Lieutenant Leonard Spaulding was charged with high treason and jailed for saying that the king had broken his coronation oath by signing the Quebec bill, which deprived the people of the province the right to assemble, the right to a jury trial, and in civil cases replaced British law with French law. Spaulding was later freed from jail by a group of sympathetic local citizens (Hall 202).

The royal authorities of New York in Cumberland County were set to hold a session of court in Westminster on March 13, 1775, to settle unresolved land claims. A warning was sent to Colonel Thomas Chandler in Chester to suspend the court session for fear that an armed posse would cause uneasiness among the people. Chandler assured the group that there would be no arms present and agreed to do no further business than one case, which involved a murder that had to be tried. By the time the court officials, accompanied by and armed posse, arrived at Westminster, a mob of nearly 150 militia men, led by Lieutenant Leonard Spaulding, had assembled to block entrance to the court and prevent any proceedings from going on. After a being refused entrance to the court, the posse retreated to a local pub. After a few hours they returned to the courthouse. The mob occupying the courthouse dwindled as night had fallen. The posse demanded entrance and fired shots above the door. The mob inside returned fire over the heads of the posse. At that the posse unloaded a steady volley of fire into the courthouse instantly killing William French, a nineteen year-old militia member from Brattleboro, and wounding several others, including Daniel Houghton from Dummerston, who would die

Upon realizing that a man had been killed in the melee the posse fled from the scene. They were pursued by the militia and rounded up within the night, brought back to the courthouse (when they were finally let in) to stand trial for the murder of William French. A mock trial was conducted and the offenders were convicted to banishment from Vermont. The death of William French would remain a symbol of New York and British oppression. His grave in the cemetery in Westminster, just across from where the courthouse once stood bears this epitaph:

In memory of William French,

Son of Mr. Nathaniel French,

who was shot at Westminster, March ye 13, 1775,

by the hands of cruel Ministerial Tools of George ye 3rd

in the Court house, at a 11 a'clock at night,

in the 22d year of his age.

Here William French his Body lies,

For Murder, his Blood for Vengenance cries,

King George the Third his Tory Crew,

Tha wich a bawl his head Shot threw,

For Liberty and his Country's Good

Lost his Life, his Dearest blood.

On April 11, at a convention in Westminster, it was voted “that it is the duty of the inhabitants to wholly renounce the resist the administration of the government of New York 'till such a time as the lives and property of these inhabitants may be sucured by it” (Robinson 99). In less than ten days the battle of Lexington began and the American colonies were engaged in war. Vermont would spend the next few years sorting out where its allegiance would lie while there was only a clear enemy and no clear allies.