Border guard

by Don Whitehead

Despite the assurances from Robinson and Witherell, Jefferson was convinced that strong Federal action had to be taken immediately, to set a precedent if for no other reason. The President directed Gallatin to authorize Collector Penniman to equip and arm “such vessels as might be necessary” to put down the smuggling. Penniman also was authorized to engage crews for these vessels “voluntarily, by force of arms, or otherwise, to enforce the law.” Then if further aid were necessary, the Secretary of State was to authorize the United States Marshal to form a posse to “aid in suppressing the insurrection or combination.”

These measures would seem sufficient to discourage any normal smuggler. But, apparently caught up in the enthusiasm of stamping out the evasion of the Embargo and the payment of Customs duties, the President went even further. He declared that in case the armed vessels and the posses should not be able to do the job, then the Secretary of War was to move Federal armed forces to the scene. The Secretary himself was asked to go to Vermont “and lend the aid of his counsel and authority.” Also the aroused President informed Secretary Gallatin that he was going to have two gunboats built at Skenesborough (Whitehall), New York, to halt the flow of illegal traffic between Vermont and northern New York and Canada.

Many Vermonters were surprised and indignant at the President’s use of the word “insurrection” to describe the situation. But in May, 1808, the good citizens of Vermont (and those not so good) were thrown into further uproar by a Presidential proclamation which appeared without warning in Spooner’s Vermont Journal. It said information had been received by the White House that “sundry persons are combined or are combining and confederating together on Lake Champlain and the country thereto adjacent, for the purpose of forming insurrections against the authority of the laws of the United States, for opposing the same and obstructing their execution.” The President sternly warned against any person engaging directly or indirectly “in any insurrection” and he ordered “such insurgents and all concerned in such combinations, instantly and without delay to disperse themselves and retire peaceably to their respective abodes.”

The citizens of St. Albans for some reason must have felt that the President was aiming his shafts at them. At any rate, a town meeting was held in St. Albans at which it was “positively and unequivocally” the consensus that the conduct of the citizens of the district had never given President Jefferson cause to issue such a proclamation. It was the sense of the assembly that the President’s proclamation “must have been issued in consequence of erroneous and unfounded representations, made and transmitted to the executive department of the United States by some evil minded person or persons.” Then the citizens let their personal sympathies leak into the matter when they added that even if individuals “finding themselves and their families on the verge of ruin and wretchedness” had tried successfully to evade the embargo, nevertheless this did not justify the President in proclaiming to the world that the district was guilty of insurrection and rebellion.

People living along the Canadian border, whose livelihood depended on the trade with Canada, did not regard this trade as being the evil which Jefferson declared it to be. For them it was a matter of economic survival. Soon after the Land Embargo became a law, smuggling rings had begun operations along the border. Dress goods and other merchandise were carried to the border on the Canadian side, where it was picked up by men and transported through the woods into the United States. The contraband was hidden until such time as it could be taken by wagons or boats to the merchandising centers.

It was openly rumored that the merchants in Troy and Albany were hiring gangs to bring foreign goods into the country in this fashion. Some Customs officers tried to stop the traffic, though most were in sympathy with the smugglers. In one case a Customs officer leaped aboard a smuggling craft to seize the cargo and arrest the crew. He was carried across the boundary line, and then dumped unceremoniously overboard in water which, fortunately, reached only to his chin.

One method of getting Vermont goods across the border into Canada was this: dozens of wagons or sleds would be loaded with barrels of pork, flour, and other commodities. They would be driven to a hillside point on the American side of the border. A hut would be built in such a way that, when a stone was kicked from the foundation, the hut would collapse, the floor would tilt and the contents would roll down the slope of the hill into Canada, where men were waiting to receive it. Who was guilty of smuggling if barrels of merchandise, of their own momentum, suddenly rolled across the border into Canada?

Many Vermonters, however, applauded the action of the President and supported Customs Collector Penniman in his efforts to halt the illegal trade across the border. A group of citizens in Franklin County publicly applauded the action of the President and the Collector. They said that the lumber and potash merchants were determined to carry on their “nefarious schemes” of smuggling by armed force if necessary and that threats had been made to kill the Collector if he attempted to enforce the laws. There were hints also of a citizens’ agreement for an uprising if any troops should kill anyone in the process of law enforcement.

Soldiers were stationed along the border at Windmill Point on the western shore of Alburg under the command of Major Charles K. Williams, who later was to become Governor of Vermont. The Customs officers themselves had a twelve-oared cutter called The Fly, which they used near the outlet of the lake to intercept smuggling operations.

One of the most famous of the boats used by the smugglers was known throughout the area as the Black Snake. This boat was originally built for ferry service between Charlotte and Essex, New York. It was 40 feet long, 17 feet wide, and had seven oars on each side in addition to a sail. After being smeared with tar, the boat was almost invisible at night. It was said to have a capacity of 100 barrels of ashes, and for a single run across the border the owners received $5,000 to $6,000.