Vermont: A Study of Independence

by Rowland Evans Robinson

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.