Historic Events of Colonial Days

by Rupert Sargent Holland

New York appealed to the king of England to settle the dispute, and he declared that the western bank of the Connecticut River should be the boundary line, giving all the Green Mountain country to the province of New York. By this time, however, there were a great many people from New Hampshire living there, and they meant to keep their homes no matter what the New York governor might do. What he did was to order the settlers to give up their grants from New Hampshire and buy their lands over again from New York, which charged twenty times as much as New Hampshire had. A few settlers did this, but most of them refused. A meeting of the latter was held at Bennington, and they resolved, as they said, "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."

The settlers began to resist all New York officers who came to arrest them or try to eject them from their homes. Surveyors who came to run new lines across lands already granted by New Hampshire were forced to stop. No matter how secretly a sheriff with a party of Yorkers, as the New York officers were called, came to a farm in the disputed land, there were sure to be settlers there to meet the Yorkers and drive them away. The settlers had scouts all through the country; every trading-post was a rallying-point.

A military force was organized, and chose Ethan Allen, a rugged, eloquent man, to be its colonel. The governor of New York declared that he would drive these men into the Green Mountains, and when they heard this Ethan Allen's followers took the name of Green Mountain Boys for themselves.

Peter Jones was a hunter and trapper. The two boys, Jack and Sam, were the sons of men who had moved into the country on New Hampshire grants and taken up farm land. The boys had wanted to learn more of the woods than they could on their fathers' farms, and so had joined Peter at his cabin. He had taught them woodcraft and Indian lore, how to paddle a canoe, how to shoot straight, how to track the animals they wanted. All three were ready at any time to go to the help of settlers who might be driven from their land by New York officers.

Jack told the news of Dutton's trading-post, and then the hunter and the boys went to bed. Outside the cabin the wind whistled and sang. By morning the wind had dropped, but the air was very cold. Peter was up soon after dawn, putting fresh wood on the fire. The boys followed him shortly, getting into warm clothes as quickly as they could. They ate breakfast, and went outdoors. The lake was a field of ice, the trees were stiff with frost, the cold air nipped and stung their faces viciously.

There was plenty of work to do. Soon Peter set out to visit a line of traps to the south, and the boys went through the woods northwest to look at other traps. They came to the frozen bed of a little stream and a couple of beaver traps. There were no animals there. Perhaps the night had been too cold to tempt them from their homes. "I shouldn't think any animals would have gone prowling round last night," said Sam.

"I know I wouldn't," said Jack, "if I was a beaver."

They pushed on through the woods until they came to an open pasture. They had started across it when they heard a crow calling overhead. "Must be a fox somewhere about," whispered Jack. "Let's see if we can find him, even if we haven't got our guns."

They went back to the edge of the woods, making as little noise as they could, for they knew that a fox depends more on his ears than on his eyes. They stopped behind the trees and after a few minutes saw a big gray fox trotting slowly along the edge of the woods. Dropping to their knees the boys crept forward to a hummock and hid back of it. The fox stood still, looked about, and then started at a slow gait across the meadow.

The fox was more than a hundred yards away from the boys when Jack began to squeak like a meadow-mouse. No Indian or hunter could have heard the sound at half that distance, but the air was very still and Jack knew the fox's big ears were very sharp. True enough, the fox did hear it, and stopping, looked around.