With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga

by W. Bert Foster

Enoch and Lot planned their start into the woods in November, and they were nearly ready when the second raid on Durham was proposed. The boys knew that the matter had been discussed by Colonel Allen and the other leaders for some time, for Justice Spencer still continued to disobey the orders of the Council of Safety, and the matter could not be ignored. It was past the middle of November when the commander of the Green Mountain Boys and some of his followers set out in the direction of Durham, and Lot and Enoch hurried their own going, determined to hide their canoe when once they reached the Otter and join in the descent upon Clarendon village.

It was eleven o’clock at night, November 20th, that Colonel Allen, Captain Baker, and more than a score of their friends, entered the settlement with all the care and circumlocution of Indians. Nuck and Lot Breckenridge had joined the party at supper time in a certain rendezvous of Allen’s in the woods, having hidden their canoe and traps on the bank of the Otter several miles away. The attacking force of Green Mountain Boys was heavily armed and might have been bound upon an expedition against Fort Ticonderoga itself, one might imagine. But a show of force was thought to be necessary to overawe the Yorkers who made up more than half the population of the village.

The Green Mountain Boys awakened nobody in their approach to the house of Justice Spencer, until the leader himself thundered at the door and demanded that the New York official come down. After some parley, and seeing that there was no help for his case, Spencer descended and, as the next day was Sunday and nothing could be done then, the prisoner was hidden in the house of Mr. Green, some mile and a half from the settlement, until Monday morning. Early on that day, a still larger force of Grants men having gathered, as well as settlers whose titles had been derived from New York, Justice Spencer was taken to the door of his own house and tried.

The inquest, with Allen, Warner, Baker, and Cochran, sitting in judgment, was carried forward with all due formality, although the judges were the principal accusers of the prisoners, and the sentence was finally pronounced that the prisoner’s house be burned and he himself give his bond to not again act as a New York justice. At this the doughty justice broke down, for he plainly saw that his captors were quite able, and in the mind, to carry out the sentence. He told the court that if his house were burned his store of dry goods and all his property would be destroyed and his wife and children made destitute.

“And have you and your like not made many of our friends destitute?” cried some of the crowd. But more showed some heart for the justice, notably Captain Warner. Warner finally suggested that as the dry goods store was a public benefit and was one of the few stores in the township, it should be saved if possible; and it would be too hard at that time of year to turn the man and his family out of their home. He declared for taking off the roof of the prisoner’s house and then putting it on again, providing that Spencer acknowledged that it was put on under a New Hampshire title, and that he would purchase the same at once. Spencer, who might have felt some gratitude by this time, promised compliance in every particular, and with great shouting and good-nature, the roof of the house was lifted off and then put on again. And the lesson to the Durhamites was a salutary one.

Enoch Harding and his chum left immediately after the settlement of the case and returned to their canoe. They feared the approach of a storm which threatened, and were desirous of building their winter camp and getting their traps set before the forest would be full of snow and the streams completely frozen. Both boys were very good woodsmen by this time, for Bolderwood had been Enoch’s mentor and Lot’s uncle was an old ranger who knew every trick of the forest and trail. They selected a heavily wooded gulley not far from the Otter and built there a log lean-to against the rocky side-hill, sheltered from the north and open to such sunshine as might penetrate the forest. The traps were set along the bank of the stream, some of them in the water itself, where the boys’ sharp eyes told them that the fur-bearing game of which they were in search, were wont to pass.

A fortnight after the Durham riot, as the Yorkers were pleased to call the visit of the Green Mountain Boys, the two friends were very cozily fixed in the gully. One heavy snow had fallen, and their traps had begun to repay their attention most generously. Then the Otter froze over solidly and they had to keep the ice open about their traps with the axe. They were in a lonely piece of wood and day after day saw nor heard nobody but themselves. The bears had taken to their long winter sleep; but the fierce catamount was still abroad, and at night the howling of the wolf-pack as it followed some hard-pressed doe or decrepit buck, reached the boys’ ears. And at that day the timber-wolf of the Green Mountains–a long, lean, gray creature as big as a mastiff–was much to be feared.

The traps stretched so far along the creek that if one went out alone to examine and bait them, almost the entire day was consumed. The boys did not possess ice-runners, or skates, with which they might have skimmed over the frozen creek and visited the traps in a couple of hours. Each had brought a pair of snow-shoes, but these were of no use on the creek. So baiting the traps was no easy task. Usually they divided the work between them and thus got it over and had time to stretch and scrape their pelts in the afternoon. One day, however, Lot remained at camp to make some repairs on his clothing, and Enoch set out early to go the rounds by himself.

It had been a very cold night and the ice was frozen solidly about the traps. The catch had been good, too, and both of these facts delayed the young trapper more than common. There were fish lines to examine, also, for some of the traps were baited with fish which was considered particularly tempting food for certain of the beasts they wished to catch. It was long past noon when Enoch got back to the camp for dinner, and then he had gone over but half the line of traps. When he started in the other direction after hastily eating the meal, he knew he should be out until past moonrise, and told Lot so.

“I’ll come and meet you,” said his campmate.