Historic Events of Colonial Days

by Rupert Sargent Holland

The people of Bennington and the Green Mountain Boys, however, only laughed at these proclamations of the New York governor. They were quite ready to defend themselves if any came to arrest them.

While they were at Bennington Ethan Allen and the others who had been declared outlaws issued a proclamation of their own. They said, "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."

The boys heard other gossip and rumors from the hunters and traders and farmers who came and went in Bennington. They learned that there was a plan on foot to settle the dispute about the Grants by joining them to that part of the province of New York that lay to the east of the Hudson River, and forming that whole new territory into a separate royal province. Colonel Philip Skene, who lived in state at Skenesborough House on his large estate at the head of Lake Champlain, was reported to be very much interested in this new plan, and was said to be going to England to further it, with a view to becoming the first governor of the new province.

The people of the New Hampshire Grants continued their defiance of the Yorkers. When a sheriff or surveyor from the other side of the line was caught by the people, he was, as Ethan Allen humorously put it, "severely chastised with twigs of the wilderness." The rods used, however, were the "blue beech" ones that the farmers used in driving stubborn oxen, and could hardly be considered twigs. This punishment the people of the Grants called "stamping the Yorkers with the beech seal," and many a sheriff who tried to carry out the orders of his province in the Green Mountain country went home with the "beech seal" on his back.

The officers of New York protested and protested. They sent a request to General Gage at Boston for men to aid their sheriffs in the county of Charlotte, but General Gage declined to interfere in the border struggle. And while the Yorkers fumed and vowed vengeance, Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, like Rob Roy and his Highland outlaws, did as they pleased in the debatable land.

Peter Jones and Jack and Sam went back to their lake, ready to take the trail to Dutton's and Beaver Falls and Bennington whenever they should be needed. In early spring the boys left the hunter and joined their fathers on the farms, where there was plenty of work to be done at that time of year. There they spent the summer, planting and harvesting the crops.

Meantime a flame was smouldering in the country that was soon to burst forth into fire. Some men were not satisfied with the way in which the British government was treating its colonies in America. Conventions were held in various parts of New York and the New Hampshire Grants. The people of Dummerston, in the eastern part of the Grants, freed Lieutenant Spaulding from their jail after he had been sent there on a charge of high treason for criticizing the king of England. Troubles grew more frequent between the more independent people, known as Whigs, and the strict Royalists, or Tories. It flamed out when the time came for holding the King's Court of Cumberland County at the town of Westminster on March 14, 1775. Forty citizens of the county called on the judge, Colonel Chandler, and asked him not to hold the court. The judge said the court must meet. The Whigs thereupon decided to lay their protests before the court when it was in session. Then word spread about that the court meant to have a strong guard to prevent the citizens from attending its meetings. About a hundred men, armed only with clubs that they picked up from a wood-pile, marched into the court-house at Westminster late in the afternoon of March 14th. They meant to make the judges listen to their complaints. Meantime down the main street came the sheriff, with a strong force of armed men and the court officers. He halted in front of the door, and demanded admission. He got no answer from the men inside the building. Then he read aloud the king's proclamation, commanding all persons unlawfully gathered there to disperse at once; and he added that if they didn't come out in fifteen minutes he "would blow a lane through them!"

The men in the building answered that they would not disperse, but would let the sheriff and the court officers come in if they would lay aside their arms. The clerk of the court drew his pistol, and swore that that was the only way in which he would parley with such rascals. Judge Chandler, however, found a chance when the sheriff's men were seeking refreshments at the tavern to tell the citizens that the arms had been brought without his consent, and added that the Whigs might stay in the court-house until the next morning, when the officers would come in without arms and would listen to any petitions.

Dusk encircled the little town that lay close to the broad Connecticut River. The Whigs stayed in the court-house, a single sentry stationed at the door. The people shut their houses for the night, while the tavern did a good business. Some of the Whigs fell asleep on the court-room benches, others listened to the stories of old Indian-fighters.

Then, about midnight, the sentry at the door saw the sheriff and his men coming from the tavern, where they had been drinking all the evening. He gave the word to the men in the court-house to man the doors. The sheriff's force marched to within ten rods of the main door and halted. The order was given to fire. Three shots answered the order. A louder order was given, followed by a volley that killed one of the defenders, fatally wounded another, and severely wounded a number of others. Then the sheriff's party rushed in on the defenders, who were only armed with clubs, and taking some of them prisoners, carried them off to jail. Some of the Whigs escaped, fighting their way through the sheriff's force with their clubs.