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ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
S ^0 B. 
 
 
 --f 
 
 v^^^^ 7U^ (??i^pi^ 
 
 
 E.O COCKAYNE, BOSTON, MASS. 
 

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Annals of Brattleboro 
 
 1681-1895 
 
 Compiled and Edited by- 
 Mary R. Cabot 
 
 With Many Illustrations 
 
 The mountains win' a strange love from their child; — 
 
 Back like the eagle to his eyry wild 
 
 His soul flies hither, at the time of dreams, 
 
 To loiter by the banks of those glad streams, 
 
 That have like him their birthplace in the hills. 
 
 — Reverend George P. Tyler, D. D. 
 
 In Two Volumes 
 Volume I 
 
 Brattleboro, Vermont 
 
 Press of E. L. Hildreth & Co. 
 
 1021 
 
 i ( I ( / ( , 
 
Copyright, 1921, 
 By Mary R. Cabot. 
 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Grateful acknowledgment is due authors and publishers for data con- 
 cerning the early history of Brattleboro: 
 
 On Certain Aspects of Local Geology, Doctor William Bullock Clark. 
 
 The Indians and Fort Dummer: a paper written by Judge Hoyt H. 
 Wheeler, to which is added an account of the Indian attack on the family 
 of Benjamin Moor, the contents of a diary describing a journey from 
 Fort Dummer to Lake Champlain in 1730, the Indian alarm from Putney 
 West Hill, from Hall's "History of Eastern Vermont"; and further infor- 
 mation derived from Doctor George Leon Walker's address before the 
 Pocumtuck Association in 1896, by permission of Professor Williston 
 Walker. 
 
 The Early Settlement ; Settlement on the Hill ; Roads ; The First Church, 
 Reverend Lewis Grout. 
 
 Reverend William Wells, by permission of Miss Julia Chester Wells 
 of New York. 
 
 The Militia, Brattleborough under the Jurisdiction of New York, Oppo- 
 sition to the Authority of New York, and Resistance to the State of Ver- 
 mont, from papers by. Judge Hoyt H. Wheeler and Hall's History. 
 
 Leaders in the Opposition to the Sovereignty of New York has been 
 taken wholly from Hall's History, by permission of Appleton & Company. 
 
 The Second Church, Reverend Charles H. Merrill. 
 
 Facts relating to the Post Office, Militia, River Navigation, Chase's 
 Stage-House, Water Supply, Insurance, Newspapers and Lottery, from 
 Burnham's "History of Brattleboro," by permission of Mrs. Albert H. 
 Moore (Mary H. Burnham). 
 
 The Baptist Church, from Burnham's History and an historical address 
 by Fred S. Knight on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of 
 the church. 
 
 The Universalist Church, Reverend James Eastwood. 
 
 Church on the Common, Reverend Charles Orrin Day. 
 
 Centre Congregational Church, Reverend Harry R. Miles. 
 
 The Unitarian Church, Reverend Edmund Q. S. Osgood. 
 
 The Masons, Honorable Kittredge Haskins. 
 
 The Brattleboro Retreat, from a pamphlet by Joseph Draper, M.D. 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 Doctor Charles Grau and The tawrence Water-Cure, Burt's "Guide to 
 the Attractions of Brattleboro." 
 
 St. Michael's Episcopal Church, Reverend William J. Hamilton. 
 Skilled Mechanics, Ex-Governor Levi K. Fuller. " 
 
 Brief Biographies of Richard Whitney, Samuel Elliot, the Fessenden 
 Brothers, Deacon John Holbrook, Joseph Steen, Francis Goodhue, John 
 R. Blake, George Baty Blake, Lafayette Clark, Major Henry Smith, 
 Colonel Arnold J. Hines, George Newman, Reverend John C. Holbrook, 
 Gardner C. Hall, Jonathan Dorr Bradley, Judge Daniel Kellogg, Larkin 
 G. Mead, Junior, from Burnham's History. 
 
 Thomas Green Fessenden, Doctor Samuel Stearns : James R. Conland, 
 M.D. 
 
 Chief Justice Royall Tyler, from a Memoir by Reverend Thomas P. 
 Tyler, by permission of Miss Helen Tyler Brown. 
 
 Samuel Clark, Epaphroditus Seymour and Samuel Root: Charles K. 
 Field. 
 Honorable Asa Keyes, Kittredge Haskins. 
 Honorable William C. Bradley, Reverend Pliny H. White. 
 George Chandler Hall and George Jones Brooks : Honorable Broughton 
 D. Harris. 
 
 To Mr. H. R. Lawrence for information which, without his generous 
 assistance, would have been inaccessible to the editor. 
 
 To Mr. W. H. Simonds for time given to examination of records in the 
 town clerk's office. 
 
 It has been impossible to verify in every instance the genealogies, incom- 
 plete because subservient to the general purpose of the book, but which 
 in the main have been derived from the families to whonj they refer. 
 
 To avoid frequent repetition, Brattleboro is to be understood as the 
 birthplace wherever the date of birth has been given with no mention of 
 the place. 
 
 ^ Important consummations taking place after 1895 in the lives of indi- 
 viduals who were citizens of Brattleboro before 1895, have been included, 
 and the same course has been pursued with regard to the progress of 
 affairs. 
 
 ( ( 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface ........... v 
 
 Introduction .......... xxi 
 
 On Certain Aspects of Local Geology ..... xxiii 
 
 FIRST PERIOD 
 
 THE INDIANS— FORT DUMMER 
 
 1681-17S3 
 
 Chapter I. The Indians and Fort Dummer .... 3 
 
 The Indians — Vermont, a hunting-ground of the Iroquois — Pocumtucks — 
 Squakheags — Their territory — Relics — Sculptured rocks — Capitol — Culti- 
 vated crops — Shad and salmon — Earliest conveyance of land, 1681. 
 
 Fort Dummer 1724 — Equivalent Lands — Location and description of Fort — 
 Lieutenant Timothy Dwight — Colonel John Stoddard — Indian soldiers — 
 Scouting parties — Scout paths — Roads — Skirmishes — Joseph Kellogg, earli- 
 est interpreter — Peltry trade — Chaplains : Reverend Daniel Dwight, Rever- 
 end Ebenezer Hinsdell — Diary Account of Journey from Fort Dummer to 
 Lake Champlain along the Indian trail — Scaticooks and Caughnanagas — 
 Indian Treaty— Sartwell's Fort — Fort Bridgman — Hinsdell's Fort — Colonel 
 Josiah Willard — Lieutenant Dudley Bradstreet — Captain Willard's Com- 
 pany — Lieutenant John Sargent — Other Sargents — Four men killed at 
 Jamaica — Stevens' Rocks — Willards — Nathaniel French — The Ferry — Bar- 
 rett's Ferry. 
 
 SECOND PERIOD 
 
 THE CHARTER— EARLY SETTLEMENT 
 
 1753-1811 
 
 Chapter II. Brattleborough ...... 27 
 
 Brattleborough, Origin of Name— William Brattle— The Charter 17S3— 
 Names of grantees — Amendment of 1761. 
 
 Chapter III. Early Settlers ...... 33 
 
 Early Settlement — The Moors — Capture of Mrs. Moor — Colonel John Sar- 
 gent — Deed of Sargent land — Thomas Sargent — ^John Arms — Arms Tavern 
 — Samuel Wells — Roads — Division of lots — Gristmill at falls of Whetstone 
 — Brattleboro in the Province of New York — Petition for holding lands 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 under New York — Stephen Greenleaf, first store — Samuel Knight, first 
 house in village — Matthew Martin — Samuel Elliot, Junior — Lieutenant 
 Oliver Waters — Joshua Wilder — Benjamin Butterfield — William Harris of 
 West Brattleboro — Jacob Spaulding — Jesse Frost — Daniel Whipple — First 
 town meeting — Plan of town. 
 
 Chapter IV. The Settlement on Meeting-House Hill . . 46 
 
 Settlement on the Hill — General location — Meeting-House — Graveyard — Com- 
 mon—The Covenanters — Census — Customs of early settlers — Jonathan 
 Dunklee, shoemaker — Ebenezer Fisher arrested for felling white pines- 
 Mrs. Dunklee's adventure with wolves — Rutherford Hayes and wife Chloe 
 — Hayes Tavern — Locations of settlers — Character of settlers. 
 
 Chapter V. Brattleboro under the Jurisdiction of New York 58 
 
 Brattleboro under the Jurisdiction of New York — West bank of Connecticut 
 River proclaimed the boundary between New Hampshire and New York — 
 Albany County — Cumberland County — Warrant for Charter of Brattleboro 
 as part of Cumberland County in Province of New York — Brattleboro 
 organized first town in county — Samuel Wells appointed Judge of Court 
 of Common Pleas — Committees of remonstrance against maladministration 
 of Courts. 
 
 Chapter VI. The Militia 63 
 
 Militia — Six hundred men capable of bearing arms in 1766, between Connecti- 
 cut River and Green Mountains — Commission of John Arms — Militia Com- 
 panies, Brattleboro: The Floodwood, Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery — June 
 Training— Indian alarm at Putney West Hill— Officers Brattleboro com- 
 panies. 
 
 Chapter VII. First Church in Brattleboro .... 69 
 First Church, 1768-1770— Reverend Abner Reeve, first pastor— The Covenant 
 —Glebe— Pastorates of Reverend William Wells and Reverend Caleb Burge 
 —Biographical sketch of Reverend William Wells— Poem by Chief Justice 
 Royall Tyler— Captain Ebenezer Wells— Other children and descendants. 
 
 Chapter VIII. Town Records — 1768-1775 . . . .101 
 Town Records, 1768-1775— Town officers— Brattleboro backward in opposing 
 claims of New York— Westminster Massacre— William French, proto- 
 martyr of the Revolution — John Arms, poet. 
 
 Chapter IX. Further Development of the Village . . 109 
 Further Development of the Village— Changes in Esquire Greenleaf's farm- 
 Location of Aaron Whitney— Gardner Chandler— Matthew Martin— Oliver 
 Evans— Joseph Clark— Benjamin Gorton— Elnathan Allen— Asa Putnam— 
 Elisha Pierce— Nathan Willard— Nathaniel Church— Captain Nathaniel 
 Bliss— John Thomas— Jonathan Church— Samuel Dickinson— John W. 
 Blake— Hiram Houghton— Edward and James Houghton. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter X. Brattleboeo Opposed to the Formation of a State 
 
 OF Vermont ......... 112 
 
 Brattleboro's Resistance to State of Vermont — No delegates sent to convention 
 at Dorset or Windsor — Declarations of broken condition of country— Sup- 
 port of Great Britain in Revolutionary War — Protests against "pretended 
 state" — Further protest against unjustifiable proceedings of Vermont — 
 Estates of Yorkers confiscated by Vermonters — Arrest of forty-four per- 
 sons charged with "enemical conduct" in opposing authority of Vermont, 
 among them Micah Townsend of Brattleboro — Governor Clinton of New 
 York appeals to Congress — Ethan Allen enforced authority — Organization 
 of town under state — Name Vermont, at first "New Connecticut alias Ver- 
 mont" — Execution against body of Timothy Church — Seizure of Oliver 
 Waters — Troops assembled at Arms Tavern on way to Guilford — ^AUotment 
 of lands to Timothy Church and associates — Abduction of Luke Knowlton 
 of Newfane by Francis Prouty, Thomas Whipple and Jonathan Dunklee of 
 Brattleboro with others from Newfane. 
 
 Chapter XL Leaders in Brattleboro's Opposition to the 
 
 Sovereignty of Vermont ....... 130 
 
 Samuel Wells — Samuel Knight — Samuel Gale — Timothy Church — Micah 
 Townsend, leaders in Brattleboro's opposition to the sovereignty of Ver- 
 mont. 
 
 Chapter XII. Soldiers of the Revolution .... 150 
 
 Chapter XIII. Schools ....... 161 
 
 Schools — Division of town into districts — Names of heads of families in dis- 
 tricts — Location of schoolhouses. 
 
 Chapter XIV. West Brattleboro ...... 166 
 
 West Brattleboro — Harris-Hayes center — Hayes Tavern — Roads — John 
 Noyes's store — General Jonas Mann — Samuel Clark — Chester Miller— 
 Admatha Dunklee — Other owners — Glen House — Proprietors : Rutherford 
 Hayes, Russell Hayes, Amasa Bixby, Henry Barrett, Timothy Root — 
 Stewart's Hotel, Phineas Stewart. 
 
 Chapter XV. The Post Office 170 
 
 Post Office — ^John Arms, first postmaster at Arms Tavern — John W. Blake — 
 Aaron Horsford — John Holbrook— Samuel Elliot — Asa Green — Removal to 
 Main Street. 
 
 Chapter XVI. Second Meeting-House ..... 173 
 Second Meeting-House — Plan of house — Original purchasers of pews — • 
 Moved in 1818 — Revival of 1832-1833 — Reverend Caleb Burge — Reverend 
 Jedediah L. Stark — Reverend Corbin Kidder — Reverend Joseph Chandler- 
 Reverend Charles H. Merrill — Reverend James H. Babbitt. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter XVII. Polls and Ratable Estates in 1789 — Census, 
 
 1790 179 
 
 Chapter XVIII. The Stage-House — Bridges — "The Burying 
 
 Ground" .......... 183 
 
 The Stage-House. Samuel Dickinson, John R. Blake, Major Henry Smith, 
 Colonel Paul Chase, Liberty Rice, Lemuel Whitney & Company, William C. 
 Perry, Charles G. Lawrence, proprietors. Stage notices — Bridges — ^West 
 River bridge — "Burying Ground," Prospect Hill Cemetery — First bridge 
 across the Connecticut, Oliver Chapin leader in the enterprise — Bridge over 
 "Little Creek" — Later bridges — Toll-keepers: Pettis, Reuben Metcalf, 
 Richard Gill, Asa Sherwin, John L. Putnam. 
 
 Chapter XIX. Brattleborough Academy .... 188 
 
 Brattleborough Academy — Built by joint stock company — Roswell Harris — 
 Reverend William J. Harris — Reverend Charles C. Harris. 
 
 Chapter XX. Federal Galaxy. Benjamin Smead, 1797 . . 194 
 
 Chapter XXI. Notable Early Settlers .... 196 
 
 Notable Early Settlers — Henry Wells, M.D. — Stephen Greenleaf — Stephen , 
 Greenleaf, Junior (Jeremiah Greenleaf) — Rutherford Hayes and wife 
 Chloe — Deacon Russell Hayes — Rutherford Hayes, Junior — Hayes's Store, 
 Dummerston — William R. Hayes — President Rutherford B. Hayes — George 
 
 ■ Holmes Hall, M.D. — ^John Welland Blake — Lemuel Dickerman, M.D. — 
 Judge Lemuel Whitney — Honorable Richard Whitney — Honorable James 
 Elliot — Samuel Elliot — Doctor Samuel Stearns — Joseph Clark. 
 
 Chapter XXII. An Industrial Era ..... 232 
 
 John Holbrook — William Fessenden (The Reporter) — Joseph Fessenden — 
 Thomas Green Fessenden — Joseph Steen — Honorable John Noyes — General 
 Jonas Mann. 
 
 Chapter XXIII. Notable Early Settlers (continued) . . 251 
 
 Chief Justice Royall Tyler ("The Contrast," Description of Earliest Village 
 from autobiography of Madame Royall Tyler, Literary Society)— Honor- 
 able Oliver Chapin— Captain Samuel Root— Ezra Clark— Nathan B. Willis- 
 ton— Honorable Jonathan Hunt— Asa Green— Grindall R. Ellis— Reverend 
 Alonzo Church, D.D.— Eccentric persons: Jimmie Barnes and Sukie, his 
 wife. 
 
CONTENTS xi 
 
 THIRD PERIOD 
 FURTHER INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT- 
 INSTITUTIONS ESTABLISHED 
 1811-1844 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter XXIV. The General Merchandise Store . . 299 
 
 The General Merchandise Store — Cargo of river boat— River navigation — 
 Francis Goodhue — John R. Blake. 
 
 Chapter XXV. The Paper Mill 313 
 
 The Paper Mill, 1811. Proprietors: Joseph Clark, Samuel Dickinson, Francis 
 Goodhue, William Fessenden, Joseph Fessenden, Caleb Leland. Location — 
 Capacity of mill. Holbrook & Fessenden : Paper mill, printing office and 
 book binding; succeeded by Elihu Thomas and William G. Cutting, 
 Nathan Woodcock and Timothy Vinton. Wool carding and cloth dressing 
 by Joseph Clark — Built house kept as tavern by Rufus Clark, 1815-1837, 
 sold to Captain Adolphus Stebbins — John H. Stebbins. 
 
 Chapter XXVI. The Medical Professiojst .... 315 
 
 The Medical Profession: Doctor Willard Arms — Doctor Russell Fitch — 
 Doctor Jonathan A. Allen — Doctor Artemas Robbins — Doctor Daniel Gil- 
 bert. 
 
 Chapter XXVII. Social Life ...... 318 
 
 Social Life — Style of John W. Blake's hospitality — Honorable and Mrs. Oliver 
 Chapin — Mrs. Patty Fessenden — George Baty Blake's Reminiscences of 
 Mrs. Francis Goodhue — John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Webster, 
 guests of Honorable Jonathan Hunt — Mrs. Hunt — Mrs. Freme's "Man- 
 sion,'' destruction by fire — Remarkable Cookbook — Flower gardens — Mrs. 
 Boott — Mrs. Joseph Fessenden. 
 
 Chapter XXVIII. The Militia (continued) .... 324 
 
 Militia — Officers of companies — General muster — Regimental commanders — 
 Reorganization of militia — Roll and return of Brattleboro company — 
 Chapin's muster. War of 1812, recruiting rendezvous Brattleboro — Anti- 
 War Society — Soldiers of 1812. 
 
 Chapter XXIX. The Masons — Columbian Lodge, Number 36 . 333 
 
 Chapter XXX. The Church on the Common . . . 337 
 
 The Church on the Common — Association Covenant — Subscribers — Parish 
 record — Meeting-House regulations — ^Location — Plan of church — Reverend 
 Jonathan McGee — Letter from Mrs. Sally Holbrook — Reverend Charles 
 Walker — Plan of pews — Deacon John Holbrook — First Sunday School — 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 Deacons — Clerks of the Society — Superintendents of the Sunday School — 
 Female Friendly Association- — Members — Social meetings — Governor Hol- 
 brook's address at the Congregationalists' Jubilee — Reminiscences continued 
 — Temperance — Antislavery in 1837 — Church unity — Ladies' meeting in be- 
 half of the Greeks. 
 
 Chapter XXXI. Business Prosperity between 1819 and 1838 . 366 
 
 Business Prosperity between 1819 and 1828 — Vermont National Bank — 
 Epaphroditus Seymour, first cashier. Stoves and tin — Ashbel Dickinson — 
 Linus Dickinson. Water supply. Vermont Mutual Life Insurance — 1828, 
 Hall & Fessenden — Doctor Charles Chapin — Benjamin R. Jenne — Sherman 
 & Jenne. Lottery — Colonel Paul Chase and Major Henry Smith, managers 
 — Methods. Vermont House : Willard Pomroy, Chester W. Pomroy, Hiram 
 and Alonzo Joy, George W. Emerson, J. S. Robinson, Captain Thomas C. 
 Lord, proprietors. 
 
 Chapter XXXII. Bridges 377 
 
 Bridge across West River — Petition for public highway — Case argued by 
 Judge Samuel Phelps and Daniel Webster — Little bridge over "Creek"— 
 Bridges over Connecticut River. 
 
 Chapter XXXIII. Newspapers 379 
 
 Newspapers — American Yeoman — Simon Ide, 1817 — Brattleboro Messenger, 
 1822 — Windham County Democrat — George W. and Clarissa L H. Nichols, 
 1836. 
 
 Chapter XXXIV. Private Schools 382 
 
 Private Schools— Miss Rebecca Peck— Mr. Edward Sanborn— Miss Melendy 
 —Mrs. Carpenter— Miss Kimball— Miss Amelia S. Tyler. 
 
 Chapter XXXV. The Universalist Church .... 385 
 
 Universalist Church— Names and record of pioneer preachers— Settled 
 pastors — Ladies' Circle. 
 
 Chapter XXXVI. The Unitarian Church . . . .389 
 
 Unitarian Church— Names of those dismissed from Congregational Church, 
 October 9, 183S— Reverend Addison Bro\vn— Mrs. Brown— Pastors— 
 Freme Circle— Women's Alliance. The Village Lyceum. 
 
 Chapter XXXVII. The Brattleborough High School Asso- 
 ciation . . . . . . ■ . 
 
 The Brattleborough High School Association— Character of school— Names 
 of teachers — Scholars of 1846. 
 
 400 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter XXXVIII. American House . . . . . 405 
 
 Phoenix House, American House — ^"Sikes Tavern," Uriel Sikes — (Daniel 
 Webster a guest in 1840) — Ralph Herrick — Burnett — Edward Woodman- — 
 George A. Bugbee — Charles G. Lawrence— Liberty Rice — J. H. Matthews — 
 Shaw — H. C. Nash — R. W. Rawson — J. S. Gates — C. Stearns — Henry 
 Starkey — F. E. Reed — George Albert Boyden. 
 
 Chapter XXXIX. Men Foremost in Manufacture . . 401' 
 
 Machine Shops — Elihu H. Thomas — Thomas & Woodcock — Hines & New- 
 man — Hines, Newman & Company — Newman & Son — Colonel Arnold J. 
 Hines — George A. Hines — George Newman — Ferdinand Tyler. Stanley 
 Rule Company — S. Morton Clark— Edward A. Stearns — F. E. Edwards — 
 D. C. Stratton — Horatio S. Noyes — Madison Ranney — Azor Marshall — 
 Theodore Cole. Manufacture of carriages — Captain Adolphus Stebbins — 
 Asa Miller — Sidney A. Miller — Howard A. Pratt. 
 
 Chapter XL. Methodist Episcopal Church .... 417 
 
 Methodist Episcopal Church — First house of worship, 1835-1837 — New house, 
 1880 — Fields of service of former members. 
 
 Chapter XLI. The Vermont Phcenix ..... 419 
 
 Vermont Phcenix (The Statesman, The Republican) — William E. Ryther— 
 Obadiah H. Piatt — Doctor Charles Cummings — Charles S. Prouty — Rever- 
 end Addison Brown — D. B. Stedman — O. L. French — Walter E. Hubbard. 
 The Brattleboro Publishing Company incorporated. Windham County Re- 
 former changed to Brattleboro Daily Reformer in 1913, Howard C. Rice 
 and Ephraim H. Crane, editors and owners. Samuel Knight, correspondent 
 of Vermont Phoenix. 
 
 Chapter XLII. The Brattleboro Retreat .... 434 
 
 Brattleboro Retreat, formerly Vermont Asylum for the Insane — Bequest of 
 Mrs. Anna Marsh — Location — Buildings — Trustees — William H. Rockwell, 
 M.D. — Madame Rockwell — Edward R. Chapin, M.D. — Doctor Joseph 
 Draper — Doctor Shailer E. Lawton. Statistics of Asylum Estate. Notable 
 assistant physicians. 
 
 Chapter XLIII. Business Methods in the Forties . . . 437 
 
 Business Methods in the Forties — Hall & Townsley. Stage lines — Asher 
 Spencer — Daniel P. Kingsley — Bridge & Weeks. Birge & Dickinson — John 
 R. Blake & Company — John H. Wheeler — G. & C. Lawrence — Calvin 
 Townsley & Son — Ranger & Thompson — Williston & Tyler, Merchants — 
 Salisbury & Company— A. Barber — Goodhue, Chapin & Company — Hines, 
 Newman & Company, Manufacturers. Political Campaign of 1840 — Daniel 
 Webster, orator. Speech in Goodhue Grove — Mass-meeting Stratton Moun- 
 tain. Stage-Drivers — Charles D. Gale — ^Asher Spencer — Daniel P. Kings- 
 ley — Charles Wood — Bridge & Weeks. 
 
xiv CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter XLIV. Brattleboro Violins : William A. Conant . 445 
 
 Chapter XLV. The Baptist Church 448 
 
 The Baptist Church— Origin— Development — Numbers in 1840— Pastors and 
 their record — Deacons — ^Woman's Missionary and Aid Society — Sunday 
 School — Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor — L. W. tiawley — 
 J. Edward Hall's class. 
 
 Chapter XLVI. Centre Congregational Church . . . 457 
 
 Centre Congregational Church — Church building — Pastors — Ladies' Associa- 
 tion — Invested funds^Temperance — "The Cold Water Army"— Reverend 
 George P. Tyler — Society of Christian Endeavor — Reminiscences of Charles 
 F. Thompson. 
 
 Chapter XLVII. The Third Meeting-House in West Brat- 
 tleboro, 1845 ......... 469 
 
 Chapter XLVIII. The Odd Fellows ..... 471 
 
 Chapter XLIX. Biographical Sketches .... 473 
 
 In Trade — ^James Esterbrook — Major William H. Esterbrook. James Frost — 
 Willard Frost — Charles C. Frost — John W. Frost. Uriel Sikes — Samuel 
 Clark — Lafayette Clark — Anthony Van Doom — Joseph Goodhue — Wells 
 Goodhue — Henry F. Houghton — Houghton & Kuech — William Pitt Cune — 
 Major Henry Smitli — John H. Wheeler — Franklin H. Wheeler — John C. 
 Holbrook — Gardner C. Hall — Aaron E. Dwinell — Colonel Paul Chase — 
 Doctor Charles A. Chapin — John Hyde — Zelotes Dickinson — Asahel Clapp 
 — Samuel Dutton — Calvin Townsley — Seth Herrick. 
 
 George Baty Blake — Selah Chamberlain — Doctor John Wilson, "Thunder- 
 bolt" — John Humphrey Noyes. Lawyers — William H. Cary — Elisha H. 
 Allen, 1827 — Honorable Asa Keyes — Honorable William C. Bradley — 
 Jonathan Dorr Bradley — ^Judge Royall Tyler — Honorable Larkin G. Mead- 
 Honorable Edward Kirklqnd. 
 
 Captain William S. Brooks— Francis J. Higginson, M.D.— Miss Anna Higgin- 
 son, tribute by Doctor George Leon Walker— Mrs. Nathan Lawrence — 
 George C. Lawrence— Charles G. Lawrence— James Fisk— James Fisk, 
 Junior. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Map : New Hampshire and New York Grants 
 Location of "Indian Rock," near mouth of West River 
 Indian Hieroglyphics on Rock .... 
 Site of Fort Dummer ..... 
 
 Submerged by river after erection of dam at Vernon, 1909 
 Dummer Farm in background. Simon Brooks farm in fore- 
 ground. Wilder Willard settled here in 1766. House built 
 by Sylvanus Sartwell. Last owner Colonel John Hunt. 
 
 Venters Brook ...... 
 
 Chase Cascade, named for Edwin D. Chase 
 
 Early Roads ....... 
 
 Plan of Fort Dummer ..... 
 
 Facsimile of Document by Colonel Timothy Dwight 
 
 Map : Equivalent Lands ..... 
 
 Green Dragon Inn, Boston, where Equivalent Lands 
 were Sold at Auction ..... 
 
 Falls of Whetstone Brook . . . . 
 
 A gristmill was built by Governor Benning Wentworth at 
 the falls of Whetstone Brook in 1762; a sawmill in 1768. 
 Barrett's Ferry was north of the falls and near the mouth 
 was a landing place for the flatboats. 
 
 Arms Tavern ........ 
 
 Major John Arms "kept tavern" here from 1762 to his death 
 in 1770, from which time it was carried on by his widow 
 Susannah and son Josiah until sold to Peleg Kingsley. From 
 1815 to 1834 Joseph Goodhue resided here. Later owners 
 were Nelson Crosby and Newman Allen. The remains of 
 the original buildings were torn down in 1870. 
 
 Location of Old Ferry ...... 
 
 The crossing was here in 1723 ; the ferry from east side of 
 river to landing opposite Fort Dummer in 1786. 
 
 Gravestone of Colonel John Sargent .... 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 facing page 4 
 
 " " 4 
 
 " " 4 
 
 CI tt 
 
 5 
 
 ii tt 
 
 5 
 
 tt IS 
 
 5 
 
 on " 
 
 9 
 
 . facing " 
 
 14 
 
 It it 
 
 26 
 
 s 
 
 tt (( 
 
 32 
 
 it iC 
 
 32 
 
 33 
 
 on 
 
 33 
 
 35 
 
 ERRATA 
 
 In title under illustration facing page 472, read residence of James 
 H. Esterbrook instead of William H. Esterbrooks. 
 
 In title under illustration facing page 5, read Venters Brook instead 
 of Ventners Brook. 
 
XVI 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Facsimile of Marriage License and Signature of Cover 
 
 nor Banning Wentworth 
 Map: Land Deeded by New York to Judge Samuel 
 
 Wells and Associates .... 
 Drawing: Settlement on Meeting-House Hill 
 Map: First Political Divisions . 
 Portrait: Reverend William Wells . 
 Woodlands ...... 
 
 Mansion famous for hospitality as the home of Mrs. Boott, 
 
 Joseph Fessenden next owner. 
 
 Freme Mansion 
 
 Residence of Reverend William Wells, remodeled by his 
 daughter, Mrs. Freme. 
 
 Cemetery, Meeting-House Hill . 
 
 Court House, Westminster 
 
 Grave of William French . 
 
 Residence of Judge Samuel Wells, 1773 
 
 Gravestone of Judge Wells 
 
 Hayes Tavern .... 
 
 Rutherford Hayes kept tavern here from 1789. 
 
 Centerville Bridge (Red Bridge) 
 
 Cemetery, West Brattleboro 
 
 Residence of General Jonas Mann 
 
 Chase's Stage-House 
 
 Built in 1795 by Samuel Dickinson. Known as Chase's 
 Stage-House, 1827-1828 and 18S0-18S3, when kept by Colonel 
 Paul Chase. 
 
 Blake Mansion 
 
 Built in 1808 by Jonathan Townsend. Residence of John W 
 Blake. 
 
 Plan of Pews, Second Church, West Brattleboro 
 
 Plan of Gallery Pews, Second Church 
 
 Judge Lemuel Whitney . 
 
 Doctor Samuel Stearns 
 
 Stephen Greenleaf , Junior 
 
 Samuel Root . 
 
 Joseph Steen . 
 
 Epaphro Seymour . 
 
 facing page 
 
 38 
 
 on 
 
 
 40 
 
 n 
 
 
 47 
 
 facing 
 
 
 58 
 
 it 
 
 
 90 
 
 it 
 
 
 91 
 
 on 
 
 facing 
 
 91 
 
 104 
 104 
 104 
 105 
 105 
 166 
 
 166 
 166 
 166 
 167 
 
 167 
 
 177 
 178 
 210 
 210 
 210 
 211 
 211 
 211 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 xvii 
 
 Deacon John Holbrook 
 
 Mrs. Holbrook 
 
 Francis Goodhue 
 
 Joseph Goodhue 
 
 Wells Goodhue 
 
 Chief Justice Royall Tyler 
 
 Chief Justice Royall Tyler's House in Guilford 
 
 Facsimile of Document Signed by Royall Tyler 
 
 Mrs. Jonathan Hunt and Her Children 
 
 William Morris Hunt 
 
 Colonel Paul Chase .... 
 
 Gardfter C. Hall . . ■ . 
 
 Chase Street School 
 
 On northwest corner of the Common until 1807, when land 
 was donated by John and Willard Arms for present school 
 site. Chase Street named for Colonel Paul Chase. House 
 at left built by, and residence of, Captain Nathaniel Bliss. 
 
 Steen House ........ 
 
 Built with his own hands by James Steen, whose son Joseph 
 spent his long life in this house. 
 
 Residence of Captain Samuel Root 
 
 Afterwards residence of his son-in-law, George C. Lawrence, 
 
 Second West River Bridge, 1821 
 
 Hunt House ....... 
 
 Residence of Deacon John Holbrook, The Common 
 
 Residence of Joseph Goodhue, Main Street . 
 
 Built by Francis Goodhue, taken down to give place to the 
 Brooks Library in 1885. 
 
 Holbrook House, Main Street ..... 
 
 Built about 1833 by Deacon John Holbrook for his son. 
 Reverend John C. Holbrook. Wells Goodhue owner and resi- 
 dent from 1857 to 1873, when it was purchased by Honor- 
 able B. D. Harris, who added portico. 
 
 facing page 
 
 232 
 
 
 
 332 
 
 
 
 233 
 
 
 
 233 
 
 
 
 233 
 
 
 
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 ft 
 
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 it 
 
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 (( 
 
 (( 
 
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 307 
 
 Honorable John R. Blake . 
 
 
 308 
 
 George Baty Blake .... 
 
 
 308 
 
 George Newman .... 
 
 
 309 
 
 Colonel Arnold J. Hines . 
 
 
 309 
 
 Samuel Clark 
 
 
 309 
 
 Lafayette Clark .... 
 
 
 309 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Connecticut River Bridge ..... 
 
 First tollbridge, built in 1804. Date of bridge in background 
 over "Little Creek" is not known. 
 
 Looking North from Island .... 
 
 Road across Island ...... 
 
 View South from Residence of Judge C. Royall Tyler 
 
 River above West River Bridge 
 
 River above and below Village .... 
 
 Plan of Pews, Church on Common . 
 
 Plan of Pews, Gallery, Church on Common 
 
 American House ...... 
 
 Building occupied as store before 1811. Francis Goodhue 
 first proprietor, Phillips & Sikes from 1820 to 182S, when 
 it was known as Sikes House. In May, 1903, taken down 
 to make way for the American Building. 
 
 Rufus Clark's Hotel, Canal Street .... 
 Built in 1812 by Joseph Clark, whose son kept it as "Rufus 
 Clark's Hotel" from 181S ; sold in 1832 to Captain Adolphus 
 Stebbins and occupied by his son, John Stebbins, 1880. 
 
 Vermont House ....... 
 
 On the site of St. Michael's Episcopal Church and the Town 
 Hall. Doctor Jonathan A. Allen lived here in 1816 ; fitted 
 for a hotel in 1828 by Willard Pomroy. Removed in 1849- 
 1850, when a part of the building was left standing and a 
 hotel of three stories was erected. In February, 1852, 
 "Lord's Vermont House," Townsley's store and Asahel 
 Clapp's house were destroyed by fire. 
 
 Brattleboro House ....... 
 
 Doctor William H. Rockwell ..... 
 
 Asylum Meadow ....... 
 
 The Vermont Asylum in 1856, 1844, 1854 . 
 
 Residence of Doctor Perley Marsh, on Road to Hins- 
 dale ......... 
 
 Built by Captain Ebenezer Hinsdale in 1759. Judge Daniel 
 Jones lived here. Sold about 1804 to Doctor Perley Marsh, 
 whose widow was Mrs. Anna Marsh. 
 
 Marsh Building ....... 
 
 In 1834 "Woodlands" was sold to the trustees of Vermont 
 Asylum by Nathan Woodcock, "six acres and the dwelling 
 house thereon." Since called the "Marsh Building'' in honor 
 of Mrs. Anna Marsh, founder of the institution. 
 
 Vermont Asylum, 1874 ...... 
 
 Old Hedge 
 
 facing page 330 
 
 
 330 
 
 ii l-l 
 
 330 
 
 (( t( 
 
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 . 
 
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 (. 41 
 
 331 
 
 on " 
 
 346 
 
 a tt 
 
 347 
 
 facing " 
 
 404 
 
 i( It 
 
 a (( 
 
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 ii ii 
 
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ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 
 
 
 
 facing page 
 
 433 
 
 
 
 
 
 a it 
 
 433 
 
 
 
 
 
 (I tt 
 
 436 
 
 
 
 
 
 if t< 
 
 437 
 472 
 
 Retreat Tower 
 
 Retreat Garden 
 
 Brattleboro in 1836 . 
 
 River from Cemetery 
 
 Wood Farm . 
 
 "The Great River Road" came past this place. Elisha Pierce 
 lived here in 1782. Philip Wood brought his family here in 
 1814. 
 
 Residence of Elihu H. Thomas, Thomasville, now Birge 
 Street 
 
 "Reed's Castle" 
 
 Built about 1854 by James Reed, taken down in 190S 
 
 Residence of James H. Esterbrooks 
 
 Frost Mansion 
 
 Residence of Anthony Van Doom 
 
 House built by Doctor Wilson, "Thunderbolt," in 1836 
 
 Canal Made in Connection with Manufacture of Paper, 
 Beguii in 1811 
 
 Chapel of Perfectionists, Putney 
 
 Tree on Wood Farm 
 
 On the Brook Road . 
 
 West Brattleboro 
 
 Anthony Van Doom 
 
 Timothy Vinton 
 
 Doctor John Wilson, "Thunderbolt' 
 
 Grave of Doctor Wilson . 
 
 Brick Church, West Brattleboro, 1835 
 
 Residence of Lafayette Qark . 
 
 Four Grandmothers of Those Days : Mrs. Joseph Good- 
 hue, Mrs. Royall Tyler, Mrs. Franklin Fessenden, 
 Mrs. Nathan Lawrence 
 
 Brattleboro from Mountain, 1856 
 
 Judge Asa Keyes 
 
 Judge Royall Tyler . 
 
 Reverend George P. Tyler 
 
 Miss Amelia Tyler — The Tyler School 
 
 Honorable William C. Bradley . 
 
 473 
 473 
 
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 473 
 
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 484 
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 ■485 
 ■485 
 
 488 
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 538 
 
XX 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Jonathan Dorr Bradley . 
 
 Richards Bradley . 
 
 Arthur C. Bradley . 
 
 William C. Bradley, II 
 
 Larkin G. Mead 
 
 Philip Wells . 
 
 Honorable Edward R. Kirkland 
 
 Reverend Addison Brown 
 
 Captain William S. Brooks 
 
 Doctor Francis J. Higginson 
 
 Higginson Cottage, Asylum Street 
 
 Mrs. Rowland's "Boarding and Day School for Young 
 Ladies" 
 In house built by A. E. Dwinell. 
 
 Residence of N. B. Williston 
 
 Built by Doctor Willard Arms, sold in 1818 to Doctor Arte- 
 mas Robbins, next owned by Nathan B. Williston. 
 
 Residence of Edward Kirkland ..... 
 
 Oak Street, Corner of High ..... 
 
 At left, house of Joseph Clark. At right, large house of 
 Oscar Esterbrook. Next, one owned by David Goodell and 
 sold to Lewis Higgins. Dutton house. 
 
 Residence of Henry Burnham ..... 
 
 Residence of Riley Burdett ..... 
 
 acing page 
 
 538 
 
 It 
 
 (I 
 
 539 
 
 a 
 
 it 
 
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 it 
 
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 it 
 
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 551 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 These volumes are not to be mistaken for an attempt to write a formal 
 history of Brattleboro ; in the general acceptance of the term it may be said 
 to be a town without a history. 
 
 No permanent settlement was made here during the Colonial period, 
 in which, therefore, its people had no part. During the time of dispute 
 that preceded the Revolutionary War the vital issue in the minds of the 
 settlers was the question of right to the land which had been granted to 
 his Excellency, Governor Benning ' Wentworth of New Hampshire, in 
 1753, and contested in 1764-1765 by New York's claim that the west 
 bank of the Connecticut River was the boundary between the provinces 
 of New Hampshire and New York. 
 
 The leading men in this part of the New Hampshire Grants were 
 Tories, their legal status derived from New York under the Crown ; when 
 the royal authority was proclaimed in favor of New York, they speedily 
 took measures to have titles to the land confirmed by that province, thereby 
 gaining more favorable conditions than they had previously known; and 
 in the feeling of personal security that followed years of uncertainty 
 and discord, indifference to the larger interests of the country and blind- 
 ness to the trend of the times appear to have prevailed. 
 
 Brattleboro became a Tory town, and as such had no share in the 
 formation of the state of Vermont. 
 
 Being outside the direct action of the British forces, the full significance 
 of the Revolutionary War also passed it by. 
 
 The growth of Brattleboro advanced in the order of many other towns, 
 — the first settlements where Nature offered the least resistance, suc- 
 ceeded by a formal town on an elevation as vantage ground against danger 
 from the Indians, a final return to the waterways for industrial privilege, 
 and the road, bridge, inn, store, church, school, — signs of a progressive 
 civilization. Little that is distinctive may be related of the general course 
 of action by which these benefits were effected. 
 
 But the place Brattleboro has held in the interest and esteem of the 
 world has been all its own, and is due to the variety of interesting per- 
 sonalities who have left here a rich human tradition. To preserve existing 
 records of the men, lives and achievements contributed to this tradition 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 and to make them available to everyone interested in the life that preceded 
 theirs in Brattleboro is the object of this publication. 
 
 To this end, facts from town and church records, reports of institutions, 
 and the product of original research which has already been given to the 
 public in pamphlets and newspapers, are here brought together for the 
 first time in collected form and in chronological order. The brief biog- 
 raphies, written mainly by familiar friends of the lives considered, repre- 
 sent the verdict of contemporaries. Much has been made use of without 
 alteration; in other instances the material proffered has been treated as a 
 basis for additional information, or curtailed, as befitted the purpose of 
 the book. 
 
 New and diverse influences have entered the town changing the direc- 
 tion of its life into four distinct periods, and the book has been edited 
 with reference to these periods. 
 
 The number and variety of the illustrations are intended to include 
 all that has come down to us of the appearance of the early village, the 
 principal features of the change to the modern town, and portraits of 
 well-known citizens. 
 
 M. R. C. 
 
ON CERTAIN ASPECTS OF LOCAL GEOLOGY 
 
 When our ancestors, less than two centuries ago, entered this region 
 and sought to estabhsh here their future homes, they found the same 
 mountains and hills and streams with which we are today familiar. The 
 Connecticut received then, as now, the drainage of the same broad tract 
 that lies between the Green Mountains upon the west and the highlands 
 of New Hampshire on the east. Wantastiquet and Black Mountain and 
 Wichopee, and many another landmark, presented the same characteristic 
 outlines at that time as at the present. Recognizing this, we are impressed 
 with the permanence of our mountains and our valleys ; yet time was w;hen 
 they were not. The hilly country of New England is but the remnant of 
 a once mountainous region whose lofty summits have been carried sea- 
 ward, and whose process of removal we see in progress in every stream 
 that scores the surface. The green hills of Vermont have been carved 
 out by its many rivulets, brooks and rivers. 
 
 The rocks have been crushed and ground by stream action to form mud 
 and sand, and the solid rocks were once similar sediments on the floor 
 of some ancient sea that covered New England. In Vermont are some 
 of the oldest rocks on the surface of the globe : rocks that, during the long 
 ages since they were sand and mud and broken shells, have suflfered many 
 changes. We find on the highest points of the Green Mountains remains 
 of marine shells imbedded in the solid rock. Sometimes these shells are 
 so numerous that they form limestone, which, in the process of time, may 
 be changed to marble, as in the western part of Vermont. The muddy 
 sediments which formed on the bed of the ancient sea are today our 
 slates, and the sand has been changed into granite and quartzite, the 
 latter a favorite building stone quarried in the mountain opposite. 
 
 The mountains are little by little cut away by the streams, and the 
 deposits have accumulated on the sea floor to form the thousands of feet 
 of strata that are exposed in the mountainous regions of the globe. After 
 accumulation has ceased and the deposits are raised above the level of 
 the- water, long ages must elapse before they can be up-folded into moun- 
 tain chains. Besides the result of these agencies, as the earth cooled 
 down from a gaseous to a molten mass, a solid crust formed, which, as 
 the heated interior contracted, became crumbled and folded. These folds, 
 which we call mountains, that were slowly formed, were attacked by the 
 
xxiv ON CERTAIN ASPECTS OF LOCAL GEOLOGY 
 
 streams from the first, so that they must have lost continually from their 
 higher points as the process of development went on. The constructive 
 forces acted more powerfully than the destructive, and, as the folding 
 went on, the rocks were here and there disrupted, the results of which 
 are manifested in great dislocations in which the strata are pushed at times 
 thousands of feet out of their normal position. 
 
 The Green Mountains were formed long ago, and we have no evidence 
 that movement is now in progress. They are, in fact, older than all the 
 other mountain ranges on the continent, so far as we know. 
 
 There were also changes produced during the glacial period. Intense 
 cold prevailed at that time over the northern portions of North America 
 and Europe. Great fields of ice, similar to those now seen in Greenland 
 and other regions of the North, extended far within the limits of the 
 United States. This ice mass moved, as the Arctic ice moves today, slowly 
 but surely onward. The precipitated moisture, in the form of snow, must 
 have accumulated to great depths, for we find that the ice reached a 
 thickness of over 5000 feet in northern New England, and thence grad- 
 ually thinned down to its southern border. Our own region was entirely 
 buried by this great ice sheet and we now find the surface of the country 
 scored by the effect of ice and loosened debris as it was borne from one 
 point to another. The rocks have been rounded and polished, and here 
 and there deeply scratched or striated, by bowlders that were borne on- 
 ward at the bottom of the moving ice sheet. Such rounded surfaces and 
 striae are seen very distinctly on the slate rock at the top of West River 
 Hill.^ Their direction, northwest to southeast, shows the direction of 
 the moving ice. Oftentimes hundreds of feet of debris known as drift, 
 composed of angular bowlders, gravel, sand and clay, were ground off 
 the mountain-tops and accumulated in the valleys. It formed an irregu- 
 lar coating over the whole country, but thickest in the deepest valleys. 
 It changed to a large degree the drainage of the country, and by blocking 
 the streams, formed numerous lakes.' Chesterfield Lake and Marlboro 
 Pond were produced by the blocking of old stream valleys by glacial 
 debris, and will ultimately disappear as their barriers are cut away or 
 the basins themselves are filled up. 
 
 Much of the glacial drift came from rocks far to the north, as among 
 the bowlders we find fragments of rock not known in this vicinity. At 
 times bowlders of gigantic size were left lodged in critical positions on 
 the mountain-sides. Such bowlders, the size of small dwellings, are 
 perched upon the hillsides along the highway from Wilmington to 
 Searsburg. 
 
 As the ice sheet melted and gradually withdrew northward over New 
 
 1 On Putney Road. 
 
ON CERTAIN ASPECTS OF LOCAL GEOLOGY xxv 
 
 England, the loose debris was washed into the streams and choked the 
 valleys. Finally the ice edge withdrew beyond the sources of the Con- 
 necticut and the river was greatly reduced in volume. It could no longer 
 spread over its broad bed, but meandered through it at the lowest point. 
 Since that time it has been cutting down through the mass of debris and 
 in places has again reached the solid rock of its ancient bed. In its cutting 
 it has oscillated from side to side, and, as a result, we have the beautiful 
 series of terraces so well shown in this region. Brattleboro is situated on 
 a series of such terraces cut by the Connecticut and its tributaries, the 
 West River and Whetstone Brook. Cemetery Hill and Western Avenue 
 today mark the high level to which the valley of the Connecticut was 
 blocked with debris while the ancient swollen stream flowed around 
 Highland Park as an island. Later the stream cut downward until it 
 stood at the elevation of Oak Street, then of Main Street ; and finally 
 it reached its present level. 
 
 Fossil Elephant 
 
 The tusk of a fossil elephant was found about 1883 in a muck bed, 
 five feet below the surface, on the farm of D. Stewart Pratt. One tusk 
 taken out in a good state of preservation, was forty-eight inches long, 
 eighteen inches in circumference at one end and eleven inches in circum- 
 ference at the smaller end. 
 
 The Mountain 
 
 The mountain opposite the village, first known as West River Moun- 
 tain, is one thousand and sixty-one feet above the river. Later it was com- 
 monly called Chesterfield Mountain, probably because of its situation 
 within the township of Chesterfield. In May, 1853, it was formally 
 christened Wantastiquet, the Indian name for West River Mountain, by 
 the editor of the Eagle, and a three-storied log cabin was built on the 
 summit by patients and guests of the Water-Cure. 
 
 Mine Mountain, on the Hinsdale side, is said to have received its name 
 as a result of mining operations which were carried on under the direction 
 of General Arad Hunt and Francis Goodhue in search of silver. Accord- 
 ing to tradition, these pioneer prospectors sank a shaft to a depth of thirty 
 feet in the solid rock. They did not find silver, but took out a quantity 
 of yellow ochre; so far as is now known, no use was made of it. 
 
 • A new variety of moss, Fontinalis Frostii (Sullivant), a moss, Andrea 
 Rupestris, not common to this latitude, and a lichen, Hydrothyria Fontana, 
 have been found in a swamp on the east side of the summit of Wantas- 
 tiquet. 
 
FIRST PERIOD 
 
 THE INDIANS— FORT DUMMER 
 
 1681-1753 
 
CHAPTER I 
 THE INDIANS AND FORT DUMMER 
 
 The Indians — Vermont, a hunting-ground of the Iroquois — Pocumtucks — Squak- 
 heags — Their territory — Relics — Sculptured rocks — Capitol — Cultivated crops — 
 Shad and salmon — Earliest conveyance of land, 1681. 
 
 Fort Dummer 1724 — Equivalent Lands — Location and description of Fort — Lieu- 
 tenant Timothy Dwight — Colonel John Stoddard — Indian soldiers— Scouting 
 parties — Scout paths — Roads — Skirmishes — Joseph Kellogg, earliest interpreter — 
 Peltry trade — Chaplains : Reverend Daniel Dwight, Reverend Ebenezer Hinsdell 
 — Diary Account of Journey from Fort Dummer to Lake Champlain along the 
 Indian trail — Scaticooks and Caughnanagas-^Indian Treaty — Sartwell's Fort — 
 Fort Bridgman — Hinsdell's Fort — Colonel Josiah Willard — Lieutenant Dudley 
 Bradstreet — Captain Willard's Company — Lieutenant John Sargent — Other Sar- 
 gents — Four men killed at Jamaican-Stevens' Rocks — Willards — Nathaniel French 
 —The Ferry^Barrett's Ferry. 
 
 When Samuel de Champlain discovered the lake that bears his name, 
 in 1609, he saw "on the east side very high mountains capped with snow," 
 the Green Mountains of Vermont. He asked the Indians if that country 
 was inhabited, and they answered him, "Yes, and that the inhabitants 
 were Iroquois." 
 
 Vermont was undoubtedly a beaver-hunting ground of the Iroquois, 
 the confederated Five Nations. But there is no evidence that the valley 
 along the Connecticut River was ever the home of any considerable num- 
 ber of aborigines, although for many years the early settlements were 
 harassed by Indian attacks and Indian depredations. Until the middle 
 of the eighteenth century, it was for the most part a wilderness through 
 whose solitudes only hunters, trappers or soldiers made their arduous 
 way. ' 
 
 The Pocumtucks, with sub-tribes and allies, were the leading tribe of 
 a confederation occupying the valley as far north as Brattleboro, the 
 Squakheags occupying jointly with the Pocumtucks the territory of 
 (now) Northfield, Vernon and Hinsdale. 
 
 The Squakheags -were the only tribe left north of the Pocumtucks, 
 above Millers Falls, after the tribe living in northern Vermont and New 
 Hampshire returned to eastern New York, planting their tribal tree at 
 what is now Schaghticoke, and calling themselves Schahkooks. (Sheldon 
 says, "The Squakheags were a fugitive band from the Hudson River, 
 
4 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 probably a fragment of the Mohicans, driven away from their original 
 homes by the Mohawks of the Five Nations in 1610.") 
 
 The generally accepted translation of the name Squakheag has been a 
 fishing-place, which would refer to the mouths of small streams flowing, 
 into the Connecticut River, where the best places for salmon were to 
 be found. There is a divergence of authority as to the extent of their 
 territory, one asserting that it extended on the east to Monadnock, on 
 the west to the Green Mountains, and on the north to Bellows Falls and 
 above ; the others, that it extended as far north as "the little river called 
 Wanasquatok." 
 
 Indian relics, remains of granaries, underground barns and their burial 
 places have been discovered within the town of Vernon. In 1850 
 Holland Pettis, when ploughing in "The Cove" of West River, found a 
 human skull. It was apparent, upon examination, that the individual 
 (believed to be an Indian chief) was buried in a sitting posture, arrow- 
 heads, pipe and pestle with him, that he might not enter upon another 
 life without means of sustenance and protection. Indian hieroglyphics 
 were seen upon rocks in the same cove until the setting back of the river 
 water by the erection of the dam at Vernon. 
 
 "This Cove, which it may be believed, was anciently overrun with wild 
 rice, has always been a famous resort of wild ducks, . . . and we may 
 believe that the Indians were accustomed to spend many hours here watch- 
 ing either for waterfowl or fish. Hence the sculptures, both at the Great 
 Falls and on West River, are to be attributed to the whim of vacant 
 moments." Kendall's Travels, Vol. Ill, p. 319. 
 
 Their capitol of wigwams or tribal headquarters was on the high land 
 between the Connecticut and Ashuelot rivers, known as Coopers Point, 
 below the highway leading to Hinsdale. It was there their chiefs lived, 
 the last one named Na-we-let. 
 
 . Their only cultivated crops were Indian corn and .pumpkins, which they 
 raised by burning over the ground and then scratching it with a stone 
 plow, dragged by hand. They knew how to make sugar, boiling the sap 
 in stone vessels. The wild tui-key was native to the country and with 
 salmon furnished an important item in their subsistence. Although 
 living mostly in villages, they had no domestic animals, except dogs. Shad 
 and salmon were caught in scoop nets and seines in the basin below the 
 falls of the Whetstone. In 1733 two shad sold for one penny at North- 
 ampton. Previous to 1800 they were so abundant that only the poor ate 
 them. In 1803, as the records have it, at the mouth of West River, in 
 the season, the water was so filled with salmon that it looked as if one 
 could walk across them from one shore to another. 
 
*' Indian Eock.! 
 
 " '-T'^':^^'^^ 
 
 SITE OF FORT D0MMER 
 
 COCKAYNE. BOSTON 
 
CHASE CASCADE VENTNERS BROOK 
 
 m0mn 
 
 
 
 v.:^ 
 
 EARLY ROAD 
 
 EARLY ROAD 
 
 COCKAYKE. BOSTON 
 
THE INDIANS AND FORT DUMMER 5 
 
 About 1670 white settlers began to show themselves up the Connecticut 
 Valley. Deerfield was settled in 1671. In 1676 the battle of Turners 
 Falls was fought to resist the encroachments of the whites, the Squak- 
 heags of the vicinity joining with other allied tribes south. Captain Tur- 
 ner came on from Boston with a company of provincial troops and Cap- 
 tain Holyoke from Springfield with another company. One hundred 
 Indians were slain and the rest took to their canoes in the river; of these, 
 one hundred and forty went over the falls and were drowned. This 
 battle so weakened the local tribes that they never attempted further 
 warlike operations on their own account. The Squakheags gradually 
 diminished in numbers and finally, in 1687, the proprietors o.f Northfield 
 bought out the Indians, and took this deed, which is the earliest conveyance 
 of any lands, in Brattleboro. 
 
 To all Christian people to whom these presents shall come, Know ye that 
 Nawelet, Gongequa, Aspiambemett, Haddarawanset, Meganichcha, wee the 
 Indians mentioned, and for good consideration moving us hereunto, and in 
 particular in consideration of the sum of forty-five pounds in trade goods all 
 ready in hand paid or secured to satisfaction, the said Indians above expressed 
 doe for themselves their heirs executors — give grant bargain and sell, and by 
 these presents firmly pass over a certain parcel of land lying in the bounds of 
 Northfield unto William Clarke sen. and John King sen. both of Northampton, 
 being agents for the proprietors of Northfield, which is bounded as foUoweth : 
 viz. southerly against a river called Cowas being on the east side of the Great 
 River and soe running directly over the great river: the northerly side run- 
 ning to a river on the west side of the Great River called Wanascatok lying 
 twelve miles wide six miles wide on each side of the great river; with all the 
 privileges benefits advantages commodities and apurtenances thereon and there- 
 unto belonging. 
 
 Witnesses: (Signed by) 
 
 Jonathan Hunt, Preserved Clap, Wm. Clark Jun., Peter Jethro, Joseph Ather- 
 ton, Isaac Chauncey, Nawelet, Congequa, Aspiambemet, Haddarawansett, 
 Meganichcha. 
 
 The river Wanascatok is West River, and this deed covers about three- 
 fifths of the township of Brattleboro. 
 
 The Squakheags lingered hereabouts and finally drifted away, a few at 
 a time, to join the St. Francis Indians in Canada. 
 
 The Deerfield Massacre took place February 39, 1704. Under Major 
 Hertel de Rouville and two hundred French, the bloody deed was done 
 by a party of about one hundred and fifty St. Francis Indians, who came 
 down from Canada, guided by some of the Squakheags who were familiar 
 with the country. The party left their sleds and dogs at the mouth of 
 the West River, on the lands now owned by the Retreat and Bradley 
 estates. The snow was four feet deep and covered with a hard crust. 
 
6 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 as they went south by way of Guilford and Green River. The settlement 
 was taken completely by surprise at dead of night; forty-seven of its 
 inhabitants were killed, one hundred and twelve taken prisoners, nineteen 
 of whom were tomahawked on their way back to Canada. From the 
 rendezvous on West River, where they took up teams of dogs, the march 
 up the Connecticut was made with great haste, for a thaw threatened to 
 break up the ice, Mrs. Williams^ gave out after fording the river in 
 Guilford and was killed. Four other women were killed and their bodies 
 left on the ice between here and Bellows Falls. 
 
 Fort Dummer 
 
 The rivalries and jealousies that made France and England so long 
 enemies in the Old World were transplanted to the new continent. The 
 French made allies of the aborigines against the English, a combination 
 more to be feared than any previous Indian warfare, and years of blood- 
 shed and terrorism followed. 
 
 The first of these hostilities, known as the French and Indian War, 
 began with William's accession to the throne of England in 1690, and 
 was terminated in the peace of Ryswick in 1697. During the progress 
 of these wars the territory of Vermont was often crossed and recrossed 
 by portions of both armies, and a few military settlements sprang up. 
 
 Queen Anne's War, so called, came next. The peace signed at Utrecht, 
 April 11, 1713, which terminated this war, brought a little breathing space 
 to the frontiers. Agriculture began to revive, new settlements began to 
 extend westward in Massachusetts. It was about this time that attention 
 was being turned towards this immediate region as a desirable one for 
 settlement. By an arrangement between Massachusetts and Connecticut, 
 various parcels of land lying northward of existing settlements in Massa- 
 chusetts were given to Connecticut in exchange for lands of which Con- 
 necticut had been deprived by a rectification of the boundary between the 
 two colonies. One of these portions of Equivalent Lands, as they were 
 called (within the Province of Massachusetts Bay), consisted of a section 
 of about forty-four thousand acres on the west bank of the Connecticut, 
 within the bounds of the now existing towns of Vernon, Brattleboro, 
 Dummerston and Putney. The commissioners appointed to locate the 
 Equivalent Lands were Joseph Dudley, governor of Massachusetts ; Gur- 
 don Saltonstall, governor of Connecticut; Elisha Hutchinson and Isaac 
 Addington of Massachusetts, William Pitkin and William Whitney of 
 Connecticut. In 1716 (April) Connecticut sold them at public vendue in 
 Hartford and gave the proceeds to Yale College. 
 
 The proprietors of the Equivalent Lands, summoned by the following 
 
 ''■ Wife of Reverend John Williams. 
 
THE INDIANS AND FORT DUMMER 7 
 
 notice, met at the Green Dragon Tavern in Boston in June, 1718, to 
 organize and divide the lands : • 
 
 These may certify all persons concerned, but more especially the sev- 
 eral and respective proprietors of the Equivalent Lands, so called, lying 
 in the County of Hampshire: That pursuant to a law of the Province, 
 and at the desire of five of the proprietors of the said lands, the Honorable 
 Samuel Partridge, Esquire, hath appointed the first Wednesday of June 
 next, at two o'clock in the afternoon, at the Green Dragon Tavern, in 
 Boston, to be the time and place for the meeting of the said proprietors, 
 in order to the choosing of a proprietors' clerk, the appointing a committee 
 to be selected out of their number for such purposes as shall be agreed 
 on, the devising or disposing of their said property or any part thereof, 
 the choosing an agent or general attorney to represent, manage, and act 
 for them, to regulate meetings for the future, etc. I do therefore, hereby, 
 in obedience to a warrant directed to me for that end from the said justice, 
 inform and give notice to all the proprietors of said lands, there will be a 
 meeting at the time and place, and for the ends aforementioned, and they 
 are hereby desired to give their attendance accordingly. 
 
 The Equivalent Lands were bid off by a group of Massachusetts, Con- 
 necticut and London capitalists, who got them for little more than a 
 farthing an acre. The part above Northfield fell to William Dummer, 
 lieutenant-governor and acting governor of the Province of Massachu- 
 setts, William Brattle of Cambridge, Anthony Stoddard and John White 
 of Boston, gentlemen, and it was all called Dummerston, in honor of 
 Lieutenant-Governor Dummer, who had been appointed lieutenant-gov- 
 ernor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in the reign of George I and 
 was held in high esteem both by the people of the provinces and the home 
 government. He died in 1761. The property was a valuable one. It 
 was well diversified with hills and meadows, with forests and brooks, 
 and it lay alongside some of the best fishing privileges of the great river. 
 It was in the direct line of communication between the settlements in 
 Massachusetts and those in Canada, and the hunting and pelting regions 
 along Lakes George and Champlain, and was altogether the most desirable 
 section of territory then accessible and unappropriated in New England. 
 
 But scarcely had the lands passed into the new proprietors' possession 
 before Indian hostilities, the result of the old race feud, broke out afresh. 
 To diminish the perils of the situation, the Massachusetts Legislature 
 resolved on the twenty-seventh of December, 1723, "to build a block- 
 house, above Squakheag [Northfield] in the most convenient place on 
 the lands called Equivalent Lands and to post in it 40 able men, English 
 and Western Indians, to be employed in scouting a good distance up 
 
8 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Connecticut River, West River, Otter Creek, and sometimes eastwarilly 
 above Great Monadnock for the discovery of the enemy coming toward 
 any of the frontier towns ;" and that "so much of the said Equivalent 
 Land as shall be necessary for a Block House, bee taking up, with the con- 
 sent of the owners of said Land ; Together with five or six acres of their 
 Interval Land, to be broke up, or plowed, for the present use of Western 
 Indians, (In case any of them shall think fit to bring their families." 
 
 Assent to the building of the fort was given, and it was located on the 
 bank of the river where the valley between the mountains and the rugged 
 hills toward Guilford is narrow, and where Mr. Simon Brooks lived many 
 years. No settlements had been made above the neighborhood where 
 Northfield village is, and the route to the place for the fort was from 
 there up the east side of the river to opposite the place, and across the 
 river to it. It was begun February 3, 1724, and built under Colonel John 
 Stoddard^ by Lieutenant Timothy Dwight of Northampton, who was the 
 first commander of it, with three carpenters from Northfield, one John 
 Crowfoot, an Indian from Springfield, who was paid a shilling a day 
 more than others, twelve soldiers "with narrow axes," and two teams. 
 They crossed the river on the ice. The fort was in shape an oblong, run- 
 ning in length northeast and southwest, with a corner cut off, forming 
 a short side on the top of the bank of the river. It was built of the yellow 
 pine timber covering the meadow, hewed square, laid up about twenty 
 • feet high and locked together at the corners. The north side was one 
 hundred and fifty-seven and one-half feet, the west one hundred and 
 thirty-six feet, the south one hundred and eight, the east eighty-five, the 
 short side on the bank of the river. It had a double two-story house in 
 the southwest corner, thirty-four by twenty-two feet, with two fireplaces 
 below and one in a chaniber ; a two-story house in the northwest corner, 
 seventeen and one-half by twenty-two feet, with two fireplaces below, 
 and a one-story double house, forty by sixteen and one-half feet, adjoining 
 it along the east side ; a two-story house, thirty-four by twenty-two feet, 
 in the southwest corner, with two fireplaces below ; each of these houses 
 projecting beyond the walls from four to eleven feet, forming bastions to 
 defend the walls ; a watch box in the short side on the bank of the river ; 
 a gate in the southeast and southwest sides ; and a covered underground 
 way under the short side to the river. The walls of the forts made the 
 outer walls of the houses, and the inner walls of the houses were built 
 like the walls of the fort inward, with doors arid windows opening within 
 the fort, which could be closed and barricaded. There was a large open 
 
 1 "Colonel John Stoddard was the most expert military engineer of his time, in 
 New England, one of the most important lawyers and judges of Massachusetts, and 
 one of the wealthiest men of New England." (Roberts.) 
 
THE INDIANS AND FORT DUMMER 
 
 9 
 
 space in the center. It was built near enough to the river to observe and 
 command the passage by it in canoes. The fort was supplied with a well 
 for drinking purposes, but the garrison in general went to the riverside 
 for water for washing. Colonel Stoddard wrote to Governor Dummer, 
 February 3, 1724 : "We intend the fort shall be so built that the soldiers 
 shall be as safe if the enemy were in the parade as if they were without 
 
 r jt j» 
 
 •1, .v.- /»v ^' Z^'''"' 
 
 J. he h c r ri <l f- 
 
 [Z ^1 «/■'■'"■' ''f "■""' / "/' To r I XJ 
 
 }hg ^ro^t net. 
 
 W 1 /.*Jt • qa\t 
 
 X' »» n 
 
 PLAN OF FORT DUMMER 
 
 the fort." It had one great gun for alarms, which could be heard at a 
 long distance, and four small swivel guns for defense in the houses. It 
 was completed that summer and was named Fort Dummer, in honor of 
 the lieutenant-governor. In the official records, however, it was called 
 the "Block House above Northfield" or simply the "Block-House." Lieu- 
 tenant Dwight asked permission to bring his family to the fort, and in 
 June of the same year permission was given by a committee. 
 
10 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Here is the roH of officers : Captain Timothy Dwight, Northampton ; 
 Lieutenant Elisha Searl, Northampton; Sergeant John McRanney, 
 Springfield; Sergeant John Burke, Hatfield; Sergeant Robert Cooper, 
 Northfield; Sachem Hendrick, a Maqua; Sachem Ampaumet, Hudson 
 River Indian. There were thirty-six privates; seven from Springfield, 
 five from Windsor, four from Suffield, two each from Deerfield, North- 
 field, Marlboro and Framingham, and the others one each from various 
 places. Hendrick had four Maquas under him, and Ampaumet seven 
 Hudson River Indians and one "Scaticook" under him. The Maquas 
 were a part of the Mohawk tribe of Indians occupying the east part of the 
 valley of the Mohawk, which was at first called the Maquese River. The 
 Hudson River Indians were those occupying the valley of the Hudson 
 above Albany, among whom were the Schaghticoke Indians, who went 
 there f rorn above Monadnock in New Hampshire about 1673. 
 
 Relieved awhile of military alarm. Fort Dummer now became- for a 
 period the scene of quiet events. Here was born within the stockade, on 
 May 27, 1726, Timothy Dwight, the father of the future first President 
 Dwight of Yale College. 
 
 Great importance was attached to the presence of the Indians, and 
 various means were taken to retain them in the service. On the twentieth 
 of June, 1724, a committee; appointed by the General Court of Massachu- 
 setts to examine a demand made by the Maquas engaged in the service of 
 the government at Fort Dummer, reported that "two shillings per day be 
 allowed to Hendrick and Umpaumet, as they are sachems, and the first 
 of that rank that have entered into the service of the province ; That none 
 of the Indians be stinted as to allowance of provisions ; That they all have 
 the use of their arms gratis, and their guns mended at free cost; That 
 a supply of knives, pipes, tobacco, lead, shot, and flints, be sent to the 
 commanding officer at the fort, to be given out to them, according to his 
 discretion ; That four barrels of rum be sent to Capt. Jon^ Wells, at Deer- 
 field, to be lodged in his hands, and to be delivered to the commanding 
 officer at the Block-House as he sees occasion to send for it, that so he may 
 be enabled to give out one gill a day to each Indian, and some to other 
 men as occasion may require." 
 
 A committee of clergymen was desired "to procure a person of gravity, 
 ability and prudence" for chaplain. Daniel Dwight of Northampton, 
 brother of Colonel Timothy Dwight, was chosen ; his pay was to be £100 
 a year, and besides his duties as chaplain he was to "instruct the Indian 
 natives residing thereabouts in the true Christian religion." 
 
 July 25, 1724, Governor Dummer wrote to Captain Kellogg : "I would 
 you as soon as you can Inlist a Surgeon for the service of your company 
 and Captain Dwight and in the meantime I enclose you my warrant to 
 
THE INDIANS AND FORT DUMMER 11 
 
 enable you to ffetch a Surgeon when you want one. I shall be glad to see 
 a scalp or two brought downe by some of your scouts." 
 
 On June 25, 1724, the Indians belonging to the garrison found a fresh 
 Indian trail, and, following it, discovered about forty warriors, whom, 
 however, because of their superior force they did not attack. The enemy 
 hovered about the region all summer at intervals, killing two men at 
 Northfield and five at Rutland, Massachusetts, in the month of August. 
 
 When Stoddard sent in his bill in August he said: "We agreed with 
 the carpenters at N'^'field for five shillings per diem, except Crowfoot to 
 whom I promised six, and they allow that he earned his money by doing 
 so much more work than others. The soldiers had very hard service lying 
 in the woods & were obliged to work hard early and late, its thought they 
 deserve two shillings p'' diem besides the stated pay, and the Carpenters 
 something more. The horses were wrought very hard, and commonly 
 had nothing to eat but oats ; and I believe two shillings a day will not be 
 thought an excess for that service," for "I think," he wrote to Governor 
 Dummer, "it considerable probable that by means of some of our friend 
 Indians, they may be instructed so that they will persue an enemy, & in 
 case they should kill one Indian, it will more effectually prevent them 
 coming than the killing many in anny other way." 
 
 Colonel John Stoddard trained large dogs to ferret out the Indian 
 trails, which were used by scouting parties from Fort Dummer. 
 
 On October 11 the fort was attacked by about seventy of the enemy 
 and four or five of its occupants were killed or wounded, but the attack 
 was repulsed. It does not appear to have been attacked afterward. Cap- 
 tain Joseph Kellogg, a returned Deerfield captive, had a company of 
 scouts who ranged between this fort and that at Colerain. A scout path 
 was trod about where the east part of the land leading to the Brooks 
 farm was, and further north towards and past the cascade into where 
 the crossroad and old road to Guilford are. This part of the lane and 
 these old roads are probably among the oldest roads in Vermont. On 
 some occasions scouts were "sent up ye West River Mountain there to 
 Lodge on ye top and view Evening and Morning for smoak, and from 
 thence up to ye mountain at ye Great Falls, and there also to Lodge on 
 ye top and view morning and evening for smoaks." Many exploring 
 parties were sent out from the fort in the early days of its occupancy. 
 The. Great Falls came afterward to be called Bellows Falls. The garri- 
 son was reduced after ,the close of the war in 1727. 
 
 When the town of Deerfield was destroyed by the Indians on the twenty- 
 ninth of February, 1703, Joseph Kellogg, then a lad of twelve, with his 
 brother and two sisters, was taken captive and carried to Canada and in 
 the distribution of captives fell to a Maqua who took him for his own. 
 
13 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 He lived the free forest life with the Indians a year, and afterwards with 
 the French ten years, acquiring meanwhile, with the skill of the hunter 
 and trapper, a knowledge of French and of the language spoken by the 
 northern tribes and by the Mohawks. Thus after his return to a more 
 civilized life, he became of great value to the colonial leaders as an inter- 
 preter in their Indian councils, and was almost constantly employed in 
 public service on the frontiers. He it was who, having learned the peltry 
 trade in Canada, asked the General Court that a trading-house be estab- 
 lished at Fort Dummer or further up the river. The fort was selected 
 for that purpose, and he became both captain and truckmaster. June 19, 
 1728, the General Court set apart "ilOOO equal to about i338 6s 8d ster- 
 ling for the purchasing goods to be lodged at the Truck-house above 
 Northfield to supply the Indians withal." The truckmaster was directed 
 "to advance 50 per cent on rum sugar and molasses 25 per cent on 
 European goods." 
 
 The Indians, finding that they could carry on a cheaper trade here 
 than at, the French trading-houses, came in large numbers, bringing with 
 them deerskins, mooseskins and tallow. The fort was soon found to 
 be too small to accommodate all who came to it, and Captain Kellogg was 
 ordered, on the tenth of April, 1729, to raise an outhouse near the truck- 
 house "for the reception of the Indians," to build a boat for transplanting 
 the supplies, to advance 15 instead of 50 per cent on provisions and to 
 supply the soldiers with clothing at the same price with the Indians. He 
 was also permitted to sell beaver skins to people residing in the vicinity 
 who should desire to obtain them for the purpose of converting them 
 into hats. 
 
 In 1730 Reverend Ebenezer Hinsdell became the chaplain.^ He was the 
 son of Lieutenant Meheuman Hinsdell, who was the first-born child 
 at Deerfield ; and his second wife was Abigail, daughter of the Reverend 
 John Williams of Deerfield. The Indians engaged at first did not long 
 remain, but returned to their own ways. The chaplain labored with them 
 and some came to hear him preach. One squaw presented her child for 
 baptism, which was refused because she had not been baptized ; a reason 
 which, he wrote to the General Court, he could not make her understand. 
 
 This graphic account of a journey from Fort Dummer to Lake Cham- 
 plain in 1730 is taken from an old diary: 
 
 Monday, ye 27th April, 1730, at about twelve of ye clock we left Fort 
 Dummer, and travailed that day three miles, and lay down that night by 
 
 iHe was ordained December 12, 1733, as one of three missionaries, appointed 
 by the "Honorable Society for propagating Christian knowledge, and to carry the 
 Gospel to the aboriginal natives on the borders of New England." He was founder 
 of the town of Hinsdale. 
 
THE INDIANS AND FORT DUMMER 13 
 
 West River, which is three miles distant from Fort Dummer. Notabene, — 
 I travailed with twelve Canady Mohawks that drank to great excess at 
 ye fort and killed a Skaticook Indian in their drunken condition, that 
 came to smoke with them. 
 
 Tuesday. — We travailed upon the great river [Connecticut] about ten 
 miles. 
 
 Wednesday. — ^We kept ye same course upon ye great River, travailed 
 about ten miles, and eat a drowned Buck that night. 
 
 Thursday. — ^We travailed upon ye great River within two miles of ye 
 Great Falls [Bellows Falls] in said River, then went upon Land to ye 
 Black River above ye Great Falls, went up in that River and lodged about 
 a mile and a half from the mouth of the Black River, which days' travail 
 we judged about ten miles. 
 
 Fryday. — ^We cross Black River at ye Falls [Springfield village] after- 
 wards travail through ye woods N. N.- W. then cross Black River again 
 about seventeen miles above our first crossing, afterwards travailed ye 
 same course, and pitched our tent on ye homeward side of Black River. 
 
 Saturday. — We crossed Black River, left a great mountain on ye right 
 hand and another on ye left [in Ludlow]. Keep a N. W. course till we 
 pitch our tent after eleven miles travail by a Brook which we called a 
 branch of Black River. 
 
 Sabbath Day. — Soon after we began our days' work, an old pregnant 
 squaw that travailed with us, stopt alone and was delivered of a child, and 
 by Monday noon overtoo'k us with a living child upon her back. We 
 travail to Black River. At ye three islands, between which and a large 
 pound we past ye River, enter a mountain [in Plymouth], that afforded 
 us a prospect of ye place of Fort Dummer. Soon after we enter a de- 
 scending country, and travail till we arrive at Arthur Creek [Otter Creek] 
 in a descending land. In this days', travail which is twenty-one miles, 
 we came upon seven Brooks which run in a S. W. course at ye north 
 end of said Mountain. From Black River to Arthur Creek we judge 
 is twenty-five miles. 
 
 Monday. — Made Canoes. 
 
 Tuesday. — Hindered travailing by rain. 
 
 Wednesday.^We go in our Canoes upon Arthur Creek, till we meet 
 two great falls in said river [in Rutland] . Said River is very Black and 
 deep and surrounded with good land to ye extremity of our prospect. 
 This days travail thirty-five miles. 
 
 Thursday. — We sail forty miles in Arthur Creek. We meet with 
 great Falls [Middlebury falls], and a little above them we meet with 
 two other great Falls [at Weybridge], and about ten miles below ye said 
 
14 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Falls we meet two other pretty large Falls [at Vergennes] . We carryd 
 our Canoes by these Falls and came to ye Lake. 
 
 A treaty appears to have been entered into with some of the Indians 
 in 1731. The records of the General Court for Monday, July 19, 1731, 
 show: 
 
 A petition of Capt. Joseph Kellogg Truck Master at the Fort above 
 Northfield praying that he may be allowed for half a Barrel of powder 
 which he lost by the staving of a cask in transporting it, as also for three 
 yards and a half of scarlet cloth being so much short measure in a piece 
 he bought for the Indian trade & that he may be allowed the sum of 
 ;£10 10s by him expended on the French Maquas upon their delivering 
 the Calumet of Peace, & proposing that the roof of the Truck House be 
 repaired, & that a separate room should be built on the back side for 
 keeping the goods, & also that the garrison which is now very weak & 
 small should be enlarged [when the garrison was reinforced by an addi- 
 tion of ten soldiers, and from that time until 1750 it seldom numbered 
 less than twenty men, and in times of danger amounted to fifty] . In the 
 House of Representatives Read and ordered that the memorialist be 
 allowed out of the public treasury for the half barrel of powder, the 
 three yards and a half of scarlet cloth at the rate he was charged therefor, 
 and the sum of 10£ 10s be expended in Entertaining the Indians, the said 
 Kellogg to apply to Mr. Laughton, of whom he bought the cloth for satis- 
 faction for the short measure, and when obtaii;ed to return the same into 
 the treasury, and that Mr. Treasurer supply the said Kellogg with mate- 
 rials for covering and repairing the Block House as also for building a 
 room or separate apartment for a store house on the back of said block 
 house. In council read & concurred. Consented to J. Belcher. 
 
 To encourage trade and peace, October 8, 1734, Massegunn, first cap- 
 tain, Nannatoohan, second captain, and Massamah, lieutenant, were re- 
 ceived into the fort as commissioners from the "Scaticook" Indians, whose 
 headquarters were where Schaghticoke is now; and September 1, 1735, 
 Ontausoogoe, colonel, Thyhausilhan, lieutenant-colonel, and Connerghan, 
 major, were received from the Caughuawagas, who remained there ten 
 years. 
 
 The most ceremonious treaty made here was that of October 6, 1737, 
 in renewal of the former treaty, when John Stoddard, Eleazer Porter, 
 Thomas Wallis, Joseph Kellogg and Israel Williams, commissioners of 
 the province, met delegates of the three tribes of Caughuawagas. Among 
 other things Ontaussoogoe said : "Brother the Broadway two years past 
 I was at Deerfield; the matter then delivered to us by you was that the 
 
l-i— -I — 
 
 
 2"- r- o ,— 5 
 35 1 -J '=- -" 
 
 I I' I" I 
 
 £2 E-"^ S 
 
 ri~] ^ Ac 
 
 
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 ^^tC:i? 
 
 C5 
 
 ■ ^ 
 
 
THE INDIANS AND FORT DUMMER 15 
 
 old covenant of peace and unity between us might be continued. We now 
 return answer for our three tribes that our desire is that it might remain 
 firm and unshaken, and do from our heart promise that the covenant 
 shall not be broken on our part, but if ever there should be any breach 
 it shall begin on yours; arid the God of Heaven who now sees us and 
 knows what we are doing be witness of our sincerity." He then laid 
 down a belt of wampum and said : "We your brethren of the three tribes 
 have learned by hearsay that our Brother the Broadway has lost his wife. 
 Such losses ought to be made up. We did not know whether the Gov- 
 ernor would be capable of a Treaty under his affliction but find that he 
 is and are thankful for it." He then gave a belt of wampum to quiet the 
 governor's mind and remove his grief. The commissioners drank King 
 George's health to them ; they drank King George's health and the gov- 
 ernor's to the commissioners, who said they would answer in the after- 
 noon. In the afternoon the commissioners among other things said : "We 
 do in the name and behalf of the government assure you that they will 
 cultivate the friendship they have contracted with your tribe, and that 
 nothing in our own hearts nor the instigation of others shall ever prevail 
 upon us to break our solemn engagements to you, but we shall always hold 
 ourselves under the strongest obligations to a punctual observance of 
 what we have promised," and gave a belt of wampum. They also gave 
 three black blankets to express their concern for the death of friends of 
 the delegates, and to comfort their hearts. They all drank the governor's 
 health and the commissioners made a present to the Indians "of the value 
 of seventy pounds ten shillings.'' 
 
 In 1737 Josiah Sartwell built a fortified house, known as Sartwell's 
 Fort, two miles south. of Fort Dummer, which was owned by his descend- 
 ants about one hundred years, and in 1837 was taken down and replaced 
 by a house in which many of the hewn timbers from the old fort were 
 used and still remain. 
 
 Twelve of the Sartwell family were killed or taken captive by Indians. 
 Among the latter was Jemima Sartwell, who married Caleb Howe.^ 
 
 Fort Bridgman was built in the same year, 1737, by Orlando Bridgman, 
 and located one hundred rods southeast of Fort Sartwell, and about fifteen 
 rods east of the present residence of George W. Hubbard. It was larger 
 than Fort Sartwell, and was protected by a stockade. In 1776 the Indians 
 who had made an attack the previous year succeeded in destroying the 
 fort, killed several of the inhabitants and carried a number of others 
 into captivity. 
 
 Captain Josiah Willard of Winchester was placed in command of Fort 
 
 1 Ancestor of the Honorable George Howe, Mary Howe, the singer, and other 
 Brattleboro people. 
 
16 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Dummer in 1740. On the twenty-fourth of June "for himself and those 
 under his command" he informed the governor that they were "wilHng 
 to be at the. cost of putting ye garrison into a posture of defence and 
 erect two sufficient bastions at opposite angles providing the government 
 will be at the charge of hiring a carpenter and provide nails, iron work 
 and boards." This was done; a stockade twenty feet high was built 
 around the fort enclosing about four acres. ^ Sentry boxes five feet 
 higher were placed on opposite corners, and swivels were placed in the 
 houses projecting into the bastion for an enfilading fire. On account of 
 the poverty of the treasury and delays in forwarding moneys, private 
 individuals and officers advanced large sums to defray public expenses. 
 At one time Josiah Willard advanced ten thousand pounds, and was 
 reimbursed by the government of Massachusetts. 
 
 In 1743 Mr. Hinsdell, the chaplain, built a fort about twenty rods 
 southwest of where the Marsh house on the west side of the road to Hins- 
 dale stands, and a gristmill on Ash Swamp Brook below for himself ; but 
 he does not appear to have ceased then to act as chaplain at Fort Dummer. 
 A French and Indian war broke out again in 1744; fraud and plunder had 
 by this time entered into the white man's relation with the Indians, which 
 destroyed the earlier confidence between the two races. The trading was 
 discontinued and the commissioners left. The truckhouse was also dis- 
 continued. Captain Willard took grain to Hinsdell's mill to be ground 
 July 3, 1746, and twenty men to guard the mill during the grinding. He 
 discovered a force of Indians in ambush and attacked it so fiercely that 
 they retreated, leaving their packs in his hands. 
 
 Lieutenant Dudley Bradstreet; son of Reverend Dudley Bradstreet of 
 Groton, was placed in command April 15, 1747. Here is a list of the 
 stores turned over to him by Captain Willard : "2 Carriage guns and fur- 
 niture; 5 Patteraroes, one exclusive of ye five being burst, all of which 
 belong to the Province stores of ye Truck Trade; 12 small fire arms; 
 }i' barrel common powder; 20 lbs of other powder; 140 lbs of lead; a 
 quantity of Flints; one large iron pot." The pay of the men was: to 
 the captain, 25 shillings per month ; to one lieutenant, 13s. 6d. ; one ser- 
 geant, 13s. 6d. ; one corporal, 12s. ; sentinels, 10s. The rations were : to 
 each man one pound of bread and half a pint of peas or beans per day, 
 two pounds of pork for three days and a gallon of molasses for forty- 
 two days ; on the march a pound of bread, a pound of pork and a gill of 
 rum. Lieutenant Bradstreet remained in command five months; at the 
 efid of that time it was restored to Captain Willard. Here is the roll of 
 Captain Willard's company at Fort Dummer, February 12 to July 1, 1748 : 
 
 1 "An acre and a half." (Hall.) 
 
THE INDIANS AND FORT DUMMER 17 
 
 Captain Josiah Willard Simeon Knight 
 
 Lieutenant John Sergeant Robert Cooper 
 
 Sergeant Nathan Willard Joseph Willard 
 
 Sergeant William Willard Andrew Gardner, Junior 
 
 Clerk Oliver Willard Wilder Willard 
 
 Samuel Ashley Valentine Butler 
 
 Joshua Wells John Alexander 
 
 Daniel Sergeant Joseph Rose 
 
 Ebenezer Putnam Ebenezer Alexander 
 
 Robert Bafford Simeon Willard 
 
 Moses Brewer John Fletcher 
 
 Eleazer Stratton Andrew Gardner, Senior, Chaplain 
 
 Moses Cooper Joseph Kellogg, Interpreter 
 
 Hezekiah Elmer Daniel Elmer 
 
 Digory Sargent first appears on the records as a soldier in King Philip's 
 War, from Boston. He was killed in an Indian attack at Worcester in 
 the winter of 1703-1704, and his wife and five children were taken cap- 
 tive. The mother and one son were also killed. Of his children by wife 
 Mary, Daniel remained with his captors and adopted the Indian life; 
 Thomas resided in Boston in 1715 ; Mary followed Daniel in captivity, 
 and Lieutenant John Sargent, born about 1696-1697, was released from 
 captivity about 1716. 
 
 Lieutenant Sargent was a scout and interpreter in the service of the 
 Province of Massachusetts, especially at Northfield — ^he was lieutenant 
 from 1728 to 1745 under Lieutenant Joseph Kellogg — and at Fort Dum- 
 mer under Captain Josiah Willard, 1747-1748. His wife was Abigail 
 Jones of Springfield. They had six children, Daniel, Abigail, Rufus, 
 Thomas, John and Mary. In a petition to the General Court, dated 
 November 39, 1738, asking for a grant of land, he says : 
 
 About the beginning of Queen Anne's war yr Petitioner's father 
 (Digory Sargeant) then (1704) living in Worcester, had the misfortune 
 with your petitiotier's mother and one brother to be killed by the Indian 
 enemy: At which time yr petitioner with 5 brothers, and sisters were 
 taken into captivity where yr petitioner remained 12 or 13 years. 
 
 When Inclined to go home met with great oppossition as well from 
 the papists as Indians : yet he came home and was at the sole cost of his 
 redemption: That upon his arrival into his native country, he was put 
 into the service under Capt. Kellogg, (and after under Capt. Willard) 
 and so remains to this time : That he has been three times to Canada in 
 the service of the Province since his redemption, and when the Truck- 
 
18 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 house (one of the small houses in the stockade) was burnt in 1737, he 
 lost greatly. 
 
 Two hundred acres above Northfield in the vicinity of Fort Dummer 
 were granted to him, which would be on the meadow below Broad Brook, 
 on which he built a house where he and his family lived. life also acquired 
 by purchase one hundred and sixty-one acres and a "tract of land" below 
 Fort Dummer. 
 
 Lieutenant John Sargent, his son Daniel, Moses Cooper, Joshua Wells 
 and one other soldier started March 29, 1748, from Fort Dummer down 
 the scout path to Colerain, for oars and paddles. When a little more than 
 a mile from the fort, they were fired upon by an ambush of twelve or 
 fifteen Indians. Moses Cooper was mortally wounded at the first fire, 
 but managed with the help of a comrade to reach the fort. Lieutenant 
 Sargent with the others retreated slowly, firing as they went. The woods 
 were thick and the savages were well covered. Wells was soon killed. 
 The Lieutenant encouraged his son with the assurance that help would 
 be sent from the fort; dared the skulking enemy to come out and 
 fight like men, and fired as often as an Indian showed himself. When 
 near the fort Lieutenant Sargent was killed and his son was taken cap- 
 tive. His scalp, taken off by the Indians, was in- the possession of his 
 family for nearly eighty years. Relatives who saw the scalp describe it 
 as having light brown hair and in size as large as a silver dollar. The 
 next day a company of seven men went from Fort Dummer and found and 
 buried Lieutenant Sargent. His grave was probably in sight of the 
 fort. Daniel was taken a prisoner to Canada and kept there several 
 years, but was returned to Fort Dummer as sentinel. He afterwards 
 lived in Dummerston. John, the son born at the fort December 4, 1733, 
 afterwards was Colonel John Sargent of Brattleboro. In 1755 he was 
 sentinel in Captain Elijah Williams's company of Deerfield, Massachusetts, 
 in the Crown Point Expedition, and in 1756 was sentinel in the command 
 of Captain Nathan Willard at Fort Dummer. Lieutenant Thomas 
 Sargent was born February 33, 1734-5, at Fort Dummer. Rufus Sar- 
 gent was also born in the fort June 15, 1740. Rebecca, daughter of 
 Joseph Kellogg, was born at Fort Dummer April 8, 1739 ; she married 
 Major Kent of Sheffield. 
 
 Scouts under command of Captain Eleazer Melvin left Fort Dummer 
 early in May, 1848, going westward. They reached the lake opposite Fort 
 Frederick, a French outpost, when a party of Indians in canoes was dis- 
 covered. It seems that a company of about thirty Indians had left Canada 
 May 1 for the frontier, under the command of Sieur Manet. The Indians 
 retreated at the first firing, which also alarmed the men at the fort ; three 
 
THE INDIANS AND FORT DUMMER 19 
 
 cannon were discharged and one hundred and fifty men turned out in 
 pursuit of the enemy. 
 
 Captain Melvin retreated across the mountains to the head of West 
 River, halting in the town of Londonderry May 31, long enough for his 
 men to begin shooting salmon for breakfast, unaware that their trail had 
 been followed by a party of two Frenchmen and nine Indians under 
 Sieur Louis Simblin. Creeping through the underbrush until near 
 their prey, the Indians pounced on the English who were separated from 
 their arms in careless confidence, killing John Howard, Isaac Taylor, 
 John Dodd, Daniel Mann and Samuel Severance, and wounding Joseph 
 Petty. After only a slight resistance, Melvin's party, demoralized, fled to 
 Fort Dummer. Their victors did not attempt to pursue them but re- 
 turned homeward to Montreal, in triumph, with five scalps. 
 
 Captain Phineas Stevens^ led a company to the scene of disaster, but 
 failed to find Petty, who had given out and was left by his companions 
 in their flight; but sixteen men from Northfield, after a search of five 
 days,- found his dead body and buried it. 
 
 The danger was so great that settlers from below (none lived above) 
 sought shelter for their families and themselves at Fort Dummer and at 
 Hinsdell's Fort during this season. Some small houses were built by 
 them outside the walls, within the stockade. Twelve of Captain Willard's 
 men and two of Captain Hobb's rangers coming from Fort Ashuelot, in 
 what is now Keene, June 16, were ambushed opposite the mouth of 
 Broad Brook and three were killed. The great gun at the fort was fired, 
 seventeen men came up from Northfield and found that a large body 
 of the enemy had been hiding about Fort Dummer and Hinsdell's Fort 
 several days. Sergeant Taylor and others were taken captive and some 
 wounded July 14 near the same place. The great gun was again fired for 
 help, which did not arrive in season to save them. This event is com- 
 memorated by the monument at North Hinsdale. These disasters called 
 forth a special sermon on Revelations iii. 3, from the Reverend Andrew 
 Gardner, chaplain of the fort, which those who had come for aid and 
 those who could leave Hinsdell's Fort attended to hear. Peace by the 
 treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was declared October 18, 1748. 
 
 The fort' had been built and the ground cleared in the vicinity by the 
 government of Massachusetts but the claim of this state was soon con- 
 tested by New Hampshire, whose government insisted that her jurisdic- 
 
 ^ Stevens' Rocks, at the base of the mountain east of Walnut Street, were named 
 for Phineas Stevens, who commanded post number four, now Charlestown, New 
 Hampshire. There were two objects for the naming of rocks in the river: one as 
 points of surveys for land, the other as stopping places in voyages on the river to 
 military posts. 
 
20 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 tion went as far west as that of Massachusetts, which was within twenty 
 miles of the Hudson River. This had been declared as the boundary 
 between Massachusetts and New York in the reign of George II, in 
 1740, and Governor Benning Wentworth as governor of New Hampshire 
 had been authorized by the Crown to have control of the fort. In the 
 dispute between New Hampshire and Massachusetts relative to bound- 
 aries at the time Fort Dummer was building, the claim of Massachusetts 
 would have made her northern boundary at the base of Ascutney Moun- 
 tain on the northern side, while by the claim of New Hampshire it would 
 have crossed Black Mountain. 
 
 The new line between the provinces, fixed in 1741, left the fort in 
 New Hampshire; but as it was more necessary to Massachusetts Bay, 
 it continued to be maintained by this province. The plan shows it as it 
 was when it was expected to be, but was not, turned over to New Hamp- 
 shire in 1749. Colonel Willard and Major Willard, as mentioned on the 
 plan, got those titles otherwise than as officers of the fort. Colonel 
 Willard died, much lamented, September 8, 1759, probably at the fort; 
 and if there, was probably buried in the burying ground of the fort, 
 which was in plain sight of it where the old cemetery is, on the north 
 side of the road just beyond the bend past the mountain towards Hins- 
 dale, and where his widow was afterwards buried. His son Josiah, who 
 lived at Winchester, was at once put in command of the fort, and his 
 son Nathan was made second in command. Oliver Willard removed to 
 Hartland in 1763. His schemes for securing extensive lands for himself 
 and his friends in the New Hampshire Grants were so successful that in 
 1773 he was in possession of the entire township of Woodstock, except 
 the "Governor's lot." 
 
 In the charter of Brattleboro by Governor Benning Wentworth under 
 King George II, December 28, 1753, "His Majestys Fort Dummer and 
 a Tract of Land fifty rods round it, viz 50 rods West twenty five rods 
 South & twenty five North of said Fort," was reserved. The rest of the 
 meadow as cleared and fenced by Willard from the river to the foot of 
 the bank on the west side was granted to him" for his share. The garrison 
 at the fort was reduced to eight men, to five and to three. In 1754 it was 
 increased to eight and September 19 was placed under command of 
 Nathan Willard as sergeant. Another French war came on in. 1755, and 
 the garrison was increased to nine under him as captain. Oliver Willard, 
 Wilder Willard and William Willard were among them. The troops were 
 dismissed from all the other forts in 1759, hostilities closed, and this 
 ceased to be a military post in 1760. 
 
 Captain Willard, the last in command, appears to have got the land 
 about the reservation for the fort and to have been left in possession of 
 
THE INDIANS AND FORT DUMMER 21 
 
 the whole. Nathaniel French, father of William French, killed at the 
 court house in Westminster, lived in the fort and this son with him in 1769. 
 He moved to the French place by the Dummerston line the next year. 
 From a description in a deed the fort appears to have been standing in 
 1773. Probably it did not remain long after that. James Hubbard, who 
 lived opposite, January 3, 1786, petitioned to the New Hampshire Legisla- 
 ture for a ferry "over Connecticut river against where the Fort called 
 Dummer formerly stood." The travel from the east side of the river came 
 past there over the place of this ferry after it was granted in June, 1786, 
 till the bridge at Brattleboro village was built in 1804, and a tavern was 
 kept there. Some of the timber remained and was used about the build- 
 ings till 1831, and after many years the village boys were still making 
 collections of arrowheads turned up with the soil on the site of the old 
 fort. 
 
 Of the commanders, Lieutenant Dwight, the first, returned to North- 
 ampton and became judge of probate and a land surveyor. Captain 
 Joseph Kellogg, the longest in command, was mostly afterwards engaged 
 as an Indian interpreter. He died in 1756 at Schenectady on his way to 
 Oswego with General Shirley. He was said to be the best interpreter 
 New England ever had. Colonel Josiah Willard, Senior,^ next longest in 
 command, was a principal proprietor of Number One on the west side 
 of the river, now Westminster, and an owner in other towns about here. 
 He brought James Johnson, an active boy at the wharf in Boston, who 
 married Abigail Willard, a relative, of Number Four, afterwards and now 
 Charlestown, New Hampshire. Colonel Josiah Willard, Junior, was 
 born in 1716, left Ashuelot and settled in Winchester in 1749, and was a 
 large owner in Brattleboro under the New Hampshire charter. He mar- 
 ried Thankful, daughter of Sergeant Thomas Taylor, whose captivity is 
 commemorated by the monument at North Hinsdale. In the Worcester 
 magazine this was printed of him: "Winchester November 19th, 1786. 
 This day departed this life in sure hope of a glorious immortality in the 
 seventy second year of his age, to the great loss of his family and friends 
 as well as the public in general Josiah Willard, Esq. an affectionate 
 husband, a tender parent, a faithful friend, a generous benefactor." In 
 his will were these clauses : 
 Item. It is my will that my. Negro Wench named Nancy be free at my 
 
 decease, and if she should stand in need of support that she be 
 
 maintained out of my estate. 
 Item. It is my will that my Negro Man Jacob be free at my Death and 
 
 the Death of my wife, which shall last happen. 
 
 ^ Nearly all of the Willard families of New England are descendants of Major 
 Simon Willard, who emigrated to this country from the county of Kent, England. 
 
22 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Captain Nathan Willard was the last. Complaint was brought against 
 him by nine of the garrison that he favored too many of his family in 
 houses and stores to their privation and suffering.^ He had three sons, 
 Nathan, Benjamin, and Allin, and five daughters, Lucy, Abigail, Olive, 
 Relief and Lois. Nathan married Submit Phips, who was taken prisoner 
 to Canada in 1755, when nine years old, with her mother, Jemima Howe, 
 who went back to Canada alone and brought her to the Howe place in 
 Vernon. He and his wife, this son and his wife, are buried in that old 
 cemetery. This inscription is on his gravestone: 
 
 Nathan Willard, Esq. 
 
 Departed this life 
 March 12th, 1784 in ye 
 
 60th year of his age. 
 
 Tho death a mighty victor stands, 
 
 And loth to yield his prey. 
 Yet by the power of Gods command. 
 
 Resistless, must obey. 
 
 Tho in the grave my body lies 
 
 Slain by Death's fatal wound ; 
 The wished for hour with speed draws nigher. 
 
 That frees me from the ground. 
 
 Of the soldiers at the fort a few of the later ones became settlers in 
 the neighborhood; of Lieutenant D wight's company but one, Robert 
 Cooper, did so; he settled upon and gave the name to Coopers Point in 
 Hinsdale. 
 
 The Old Ferry 
 
 There was a crossing place from the east side of the river to the old 
 Brooks place when Colonel John Stoddard and Lieutenant Timothy 
 Dwight came to locate Fort Dummer in 1723. The principal travel of 
 the river came that way afterwards, and there was much passing between 
 Shattuck's Fort on the meadow, Hinsdell's Fort at the Marsh place, and 
 Fort Dummer, after they were built, about 1755. Such a ferry with the 
 privilege of taking toll is a franchise, and to be well founded must be 
 granted by the sovereign power, which, as the river belongs to New 
 Hampshire, has, since the Revolution, been the Legislature of that state. 
 Before that it was the King of Great Britain through the royal governor. 
 
 It was at this place that James Hubbard made a petition, January 2, 
 
 1 For complaints, see Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 75, p. S47. 
 
THE INDIANS AND FORT DUMMER 23 
 
 1786, for a ferry "over Connecticut river against where the Fort called 
 Dummer formerly stood." In the petition he set forth that he owned 
 the land, and had a dwelling house about eight rods from the ferry 
 landing on the east side of the river ,^ which was the only house within 
 half a mile of there. 
 
 That was the only crossing place near here till one was made from the 
 foot of the road leading down by the machine shop to the electric power 
 house across to the island. This was Barrett's ferry, and the landing on 
 this side was where the north end of the railroad arch stands. There 
 was no road down the brook on the south side below the Main Street 
 bridge till the Connecticut River bridge was built in 1804. The rocks 
 there came up to the brook, making a deep gorge till they were blasted 
 away to make the road to the river bridge. 
 
 1 Where the railroad bridge of the Boston & Maine was laid in 1912-1913. 
 
SECOND PERIOD 
 
 THE CHARTER— EARLY SETTLEMENT 
 
 1753-1811 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 BRATTLEBOROUGH 
 
 Brattleborough, Origin of Name— William Brattle— The Charter 1753- Names of 
 grantees — Amendment of 1761. 
 
 There were two brothers, Thomas Brattle, a merchant, and William 
 Brattle, a minister and scholar, who were men of prominence in Boston 
 and Cambridge in the last part of the seventeenth century. William 
 Brattle, Junior, who gave the name to Brattleboro, was born in Cambridge 
 in 1702, was graduated at Harvard College, studied theology and became 
 a preacher, but afterwards took up the practice of law and was for many 
 years a member of the Legislature and Governor's Council. He was 
 evidently a man of versatile attainments, for he also practiced medicine 
 extensively and was prominent in the military affairs of the province, 
 becoming a captain of artillery, and afterwards major-general of militia. 
 He was a favorite with the governor, and generally popular. His social 
 connections, especially his attachment to General Gage, led him to side 
 with the British. 
 
 William Brattle had become Colonel Brattle and had married Katherine, 
 daughter of Governor Saltonstall, when he acted as agent for the othef 
 owners and for himself in taking out the charters. As he chose shares of 
 land on which the town of Brattleboro was subsequently built, his name 
 was given to the town. His claim also covered, some of the best land in 
 the town of Putney. But William Brattle, being loyal to the King, fled to 
 Nova Scotia at the commencement of the Revolutionary War and died 
 at Halifax in 1776. After the "Jay treaty" it is said that his heirs made 
 efforts to recover his confiscated property in this country. 
 
 The shares of Governor Dummer and Anthony Stoddard were located 
 in Fulham (Dummerston) and those of the heirs of John White in Put- 
 ney. Brattleboro contained about nineteen thousand five hundred acres 
 and the shares of the grantees were three hundred and sixty each, except 
 that of Oliver Willard. The rest of the town was a dense forest, and 
 none of the other grantees became settlers in it. It was twenty-nine years 
 after the erection of "His Majestys Fort Dummer" that Brattleboro was 
 chartered under George II, and Josiah Willard, Esquire, was chosen or 
 appointed moderator of the first town meeting. 
 
28 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 CHARTER OF BRATTLEBORO ;i BY KING GEORGE THE 
 SECOND, 1753 
 
 PROVINCE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 (L. S.) George the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France 
 and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, &c. 
 
 To all persons to whom these presence shall come, greeting: 
 
 Know ye that we of our special grace and certain knowledge and mere 
 motion, for the due Encouragement of settling a new plantation within our 
 said Province. By and with the advice of our trusty and well-beloved Benning 
 Wentworth, Esq., our Governor and Commander-in-Chief of our said Province 
 of New Hampshire in America, and of our Council of the said Province, have 
 upon the conditions and reservations hereafter made, Given & Granted and by 
 these Presents for us our Heirs & successors Do Give and Grant in equal 
 Shares unto our Loveing Subjects Inhabitants of our said Province of New 
 Hampshire and his Majesty's other Governments and to their heirs and assigns 
 forever whose Names are Entered on this Grant to be divided to and amongst 
 them into fifty-six shares. Two of which shares to be laid out in one Tract of 
 the contents of Eight Hundred acres for his Excellency Benning Wentworth, 
 Esq., and is in full for his two shares, which Tract is bounded as follows, viz : 
 
 Beginning at the rocks at the upper end of the Fort meadow so called. 
 Thence up Connecticut River Two hundred and forty rods, & to carry that 
 breadth back West ten degrees North so far as to contain Eight Hundred 
 acres. All that Tract or parcel of Land situate, lying & being within our Prov- 
 ince of New Hampshire containing by measurement Nineteen Thousand Three 
 Hundred and sixty acres, which Tract is to contain five miles and one-half 
 mile square & no more, out of which an allowance is to be made for high 
 ways & unimprovable lands by rocks, mountains. Ponds & Rivers, one thou- 
 sand and forty acres free according to a plan thereof made & presented by our 
 said Governors orders & hereunto annexed. Butted & bounded as follows, viz : 
 Beginning at the mouth of Venters Brook so called where it empties itself in 
 to Connecticut River, & runs from thence six miles or thereabouts to the South 
 East corner of Marlebrough thence five miles. North ten degrees East by 
 Marlebrough aforesaid to a stake & stones in said Line. Thence East 10 
 degrees south to Connecticut River aforesaid, then down said River to the 
 bounds first mentioned at Venters Brook, Except a Tract of land lying in the 
 said East corner of said Township containing about Two Hundred acres as 
 the same is now fenced in and improved, which is hereby granted & assigned to 
 Oliver Willard and to his heirs & assigns one of the within Grantees, He 
 having heretofore cleared and improved the said Tract and is to be in full for 
 his share & proportion of the said Township, said Two hundred acres are 
 bounded as follows, viz : Beginning at Venters Brook and runs West ten 
 degrees North sixty rods to a Hill and then runs under the Hill round as the 
 Hill runs to the rocks at the upper end of the Meadow called fort meadow, 
 thence down the river to Venter Brook and that the same be and is incorporated 
 into a Township by the name of Brattleborough, and that the Inhabitants that 
 
 iThis charter was amended in 1761, in 1832, and again amended seven times. 
 In 1872 a new charter was obtained by Colonel Kittredge Haskins, then a member 
 of the Legislature, which has been amended eleven times. 1913. 
 
BRATTLEBOROUGH 29 
 
 do or shall hereafter Inhabit said Township are hereby Declared to be Enfran- 
 chised with and entitled to all & every the priviledges & Immunities that other 
 Towns within our said Province by law exercise and enjoy, and further that 
 the said town as soon as there shall be fifty Familys resident and settled therein 
 shall have the liberty of holding Two Fairs, one of which shall be held on the 
 first Thursday in October annually, and the other on the first Thursday in 
 February annually, which Fairs are not to continue & be held longer than 'the 
 respective Saturday following the said respective Thursday, and as soon as 
 said town shall consist of fifty familys a market shall be opened and kept one 
 or more days in each week as may be tho't most advantagious to the Inhabi- 
 tants. Also that the first meeting for the choice of Town Officers agreeable 
 to the laws of our said Province shall be held on the fifteen Day of Jan'ry next 
 which meeting shall be notifyed by Josiah Willard, Esq. who is hereby also 
 appointed Moderator of the said first meeting which he is to notify and govern 
 agreeable to the laws and customs of our said Province, and that the annual 
 meeting forever hereafter for the choice of such officers of said Town shall be 
 on the first Wednesday in March annually. To have and to hold the said 
 Tract of Land as above expressed together with all the Priviledges and appur- 
 tenances to them and their respective heirs & assigns forever, upon the follow- 
 ing conditions Viz : That every Grantee, his heirs or assigns shall Plant or 
 cultivate five acres of land within the term of five years for every fifty acres 
 contained in his or their share or Proportion of Land in said Township, and 
 continue to improve and settle the same by additional cultivations on Penalty 
 of the Forfeiture of his Grant or share in said Township, & its reverting to 
 his Majesty his heirs & successors to be by him or them regranted to such of 
 his subjects as shall effectually settle & cultivate the same. That all White or 
 other Pine Trees within the said Township fit for Masting our Royal Navy be 
 carefully Preserved for that use, and none to be cut_ or felled without his 
 Majestys Especial Lycence for so doing first had and obtained upon the 
 penalty of forfeiture of the right of such Grantee his heirs & assigns to us our 
 heirs & successors as well as being subject to the Penalty of any act or acts 
 of Parliament that now are or hereafter shall be enacted. Also his fort 
 Dummer & a Tract of land of fifty rods square round it, viz : fifty rods West, 
 twenty-five rods South and twenty-five rods North of said Fort. That before 
 any Division of the land be made to and amongst the Grantees, a Tract of 
 Land as near the center of the Township as the land will admit of shall be 
 reserved and marked out for Town Lots, one of which shall be allotted to each 
 Grantee of the contents of one acre yielding and paying therefor to us our 
 heirs & successors for the space of ten years to be computed from the date 
 hereof the rent of one Ear of Indian corn only on the first day of January 
 annually if Lawfully Demanded, the first payment to be made on the first day 
 of January after the first of January next ensuing the date hereof, and every 
 Proprietor, Settler or Inhabitant shall yield and pay to us our heirs and 
 successors yearly & every year forever from and after the expiration of the 
 ten years, from the date hereof. Namely on the first day of January which will 
 be in the year of Our Lord Christ one thousand Seven Hundred & Sixty-four, 
 one shilling Proclamation money for every hundred acres he so owns, settles 
 or possesses, and so in proportion for a Greater or Lesser Tract of the said 
 Land, which money shall be paid by the respective persons above said their 
 heirs or assigns, in our Council Chamber in Portsmouth or to such officer or 
 
30 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 officers as shall be appointed to receive the same, and this to be in lieu of all 
 other rents and services whatsoever in Testimony hereof we have caused the 
 seal of our said Province to be hereunto affixed. Witness Benning Wentworth, 
 Esq., our Governor & Commander in Chief of our said Province the Twenty- 
 six day of December in the. year of our Lord Christ 1753 and in the Twenty- 
 seventh year of our Reign. 
 
 B. Wentworth. 
 
 By his Excellencys command with advice of Council. 
 
 Theodore Atkinson, 
 
 Secty. 
 
 Entered and Recorded according to the original under the Province Seal, this 
 27th day of December 1753. 
 
 Pr Theodore Atkinson, 
 
 Secty. 
 
 Names of the Grantees of Brattleborough, viz : 
 
 William Brattle, Jacob Wendell, James Read, Isaac Brodish, Owen War- 
 land, William Lee, Ebenezer Smith, William Garamage, John Hicks, Ebenezer 
 B radish, James Whitemore, William Manning, Thomas Sherren, Thomas Hast- 
 ings, Jonathan Sprague, John Warland, Benjamin Lynde, Andrew Oliver Junr., 
 William Bowls, Cornelius Woodbury, William Willard, Oliver Willard, Samuel 
 Allen, Moses Wright, Sampson French, Joseph French, William Fessenden, 
 Stephen Palmer, Stephen Palmer Junr., William Barrett, Daniel Printice, 
 Caleb Prentice, Ebenezer Stedman, Edward Marrett, Junr., Abner Hasey, 
 Benjamin French, Thomas Blanchard, Thomas Blanchard, Junr, Jacob Fletcher, 
 Samuel Searle, Samuel French, Sampson Willard, Oliver Coleburne, Jeremiah 
 Coleburn, Peter Powers, Stephen Powers, Daniel Emerton, William Laurence, 
 Abel Laurance, Mather Livermore. 
 
 Also by Theodore Atkinson, his Excellency Benning Wentworth a Tract of 
 Land to contain Eight Hundred acres which is to be accounted Two of the 
 within mentioned shares and Laid out and bounded as within mentioned, one 
 whole share for the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 
 in foreign parts, one whole share for the first settled Minister of the Gospel 
 in said Town, one whole share for a Glebe for the Ministry of the Church of 
 England as by law Established. Also his Majestys Fort Dummer, and a Tract 
 of Land fifty rods round it, viz : 50 rods West, twenty-five rods South and 
 twenty-five North of said Fort. 
 
 Recorded from the Back of the Charter for Brattleborough the 27th day 
 of December, 1753. 
 
 Pr Theodore Atkinson, 
 
 Secty. 
 
 Particular care was taken that the rights of the original grantees should 
 not be infringed, but frauds virere alleged, and several protests and con- 
 tests arose until it was finally settled to the satisfaction of all. 
 
 With their utmost effort it proved impracticable for the grantees to ful- 
 fill the conditions of the charter in five years, that is, to settle, clear and 
 cultivate five acres for every fifty in the township while they were being 
 thrown into confusion by the Indian War. 
 
BRATTLEBOROUGH 31 
 
 In 1761 the Governor of New Hampshire was petitioned for an exten- 
 sion of the time required to confirm the grants and the petition was met by 
 an amendment to the charter as follows : 
 
 PROVINCE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE 
 
 George the Third by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France & Ireland, 
 
 King Defender of the Faith &c. 
 
 To all whom these Presents shall come 
 
 Greeting : 
 
 Whereas our late Royall Grandfather King George the Second of Glorious 
 Memory did of his Special grace and mere motion for the Encouragement of 
 setting a New Plantation within our said Province of New Hampshire by 
 his Letters Patent or Charter under the Seal of our said Province dated the 
 26th day Decemr 1753 & in the 27th year of his Majestys reign Grant a Tract 
 of Land equal to five & J/^ miles square Bounded as therein expressed to a 
 Number of our Loyal Subjects whose Names are entered on the same to 
 hold to them their Heirs or Assigns on the Conditions therein Declared to be a 
 Town Corporate by the Name of Brattlebo rough as by reference to the said 
 Charter may more fully appear. 
 ' And whereas the said Grantees have Represented that by the Intervention 
 of an Indian War since making ye said Grant it has been Impracticable to 
 comply with and fulfill the Conditions & humbly Supplicated us not to take 
 Advantage of the Breach of said Conditions but to Lengthen out & Grant them 
 some Reasonable time for Performance thereof after the said Impediment shall 
 cease. 
 
 Now Know Ye that We being willing to Promote the end Proposed have of 
 our Further Grace & Favour Suspended our Claim of the Forfeiture which 
 the said Grantees may have Incurred & by these Presents do grant unto the 
 said Grantees their Heirs & Assigns the Terra of One Year for Performing 
 & Fulfilling the Conditions Matters & Things by them to be done which Term 
 is to be Renewed Annually untill our Plenary Instructions shall be Received 
 Relating to the Incident that has Prevented a Compliance with the said 
 Charter according to the Intent & meaning of the same. 
 
 In Testimony whereof we have Caused the Seal of our said Province to be 
 hereunto affixed. 
 
 Witness Benning Wentworth Esq. our Governour and Commander in Chief of 
 our Province aforesaid the 6th day of July in the Year of our Lord Christ 
 
 1761, and on the first Year of his Majesty's Reign. 
 
 By his Excellency's Command 
 with advice of Council. 
 
 Theodr. Atkinson, Secy. B. Wentworth. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 EARLY SETTLERS 
 
 Early Settlement— The Moors— Capture of Mrs. Moor— Colonel John Sargent- 
 Deed of Sargent land— Thomas Sargent— John Arms— Arms Tavern— Samuel 
 Wells— Roads— Division of lots— Gristmill at falls of Whetstone— Brattleboro 
 in the Province of New York- Petition for holding lands under New York- 
 Stephen Greenleaf, first store— Samuel Knight, first house in village— Matthew 
 Martin— Samuel Elliot, Junior— Lieutenant Oliver Waters— Joshua Wilder— Ben- 
 jamin Butterfield— William Harris of West Brattleboro— Jacob Spaulding— Jesse 
 Frost— Daniel Whipple— First town meeting— Plan of town. 
 
 Though Brattleboro was chartered in 1753, except for the clearing of 
 two hundred acres by Oliver Willard in 1753 around and under the pro- 
 tection of Fort Dummer, few attempts at settlements were made till the 
 French war was ended in 1760. No highway was laid out till that year. 
 Only the old Indian road^ along the Great River gave indication that the 
 country had ever been disturbed by the presence of human beings. 
 
 And yet many of the more adventuresome and enterprising men of New 
 England had passed up and down the state from Massachusetts and Con- 
 necticut to the scene of hostilities on Lake George and Lake Champlain, 
 and had thus formed some idea of its fertile soil and abundant water- 
 power. The promise of safety given by the conquest of Canada served to 
 stimulate a desire to emigrate to this attractive country, and settlements 
 increased with rapidity after 1760 — although for some years the land 
 included in the present village of Brattleboro was covered with a dense 
 forest of primeval pines. 
 
 "In 1757 Fairbank and Benjamin Moor came from Fort Dummer and 
 blazed a trail over Cemetery Hill across where Main Street now is, back 
 of where the Chase Street schoolhouse stands to the terrace above the 
 Retreat farmhouse. They made a clearing and built a log house. They 
 brought Mrs. Benjamin Moor and her three children. On the sixth of 
 March, 1758, a party of Indians attacked the log house in which the Moor 
 family were living. Surrounding the building, they burst in the door, 
 killed with hatchets and scalped Captain Fairbank Moor, the father, and 
 
 1 From Northfield to Fort Dummer, to West River, the Connecticut, Black River, 
 two miles below the Great Falls, Otter Creek, Lake Champlain. 
 
GREEN DRAGON IRH, BOSTON 
 
 FALLS OF THE WHEATSTONE 
 
/Min JrryH^ 
 
 LOCATION OF OLD FERRY 
 
 COCKAYNE. BUSTON 
 
EARLY SETTLERS 33 
 
 Benjamin, the son, but not until one of their number had been slain and 
 several wounded. Captain Fairbank Moor had been in Captain Elijah 
 Williams's company in the Crown Point Expedition in 1755 and a soldier 
 at Fort Dummer, where two of his children were captured. Two skeletons 
 were found where the Retreat farm barns stand, about 1864. An old- 
 fashioned lead musket ball was found in one of the skulls and a hole where 
 the ball entered. It is possible that these were the remains of Fairbank 
 Moor and his wife. 
 
 "Mrs. Moor, — Margaret, daughter of Captain John and Martha (Moor) 
 Kathan of Fulham, — ^the wife of Benjamin, and mother of four children, 
 the youngest of whom was but three or four weeks old, sprang from the 
 bed and in her confusion hastily drew on three pairs of Captain Moor's 
 long stockings, which were the means of preserving her- life. Snatching 
 up the baby and the child next in age, she endeavored to escape by a sled 
 path, in which her husband had been drawing wood the day before. She 
 had gone but a short distance when the Indians overtook her and brought 
 her back. They then searched for portable provisions, and having found 
 a quantity of beans, they mixed them with about twenty pounds of tallow 
 and boiled them in it. This compound, being cooled, was put in sacks 
 and served them for food on the road. 
 
 "Mrs. Moor was then provided with snowshoes, her babe committed to 
 her own care, the house burned, and the party set out on their long march, 
 the children being led or carried by the Indians. They reached Fort 
 Ticonderoga in safety, on the tenth day after their departure, having 
 crossed the Green Mountains in the most inclement season of the year. 
 Thence Mrs. Moor and her children were taken to Montreal, where they 
 remained in captivity until the year 1762, when they were all redeemed by • 
 Colonel Peter Schuyler for four hundred livres ($74) and returned to 
 their friends. The youngest child had not been named when they were 
 taken and was afterwards called Mary Captive." 
 
 Colonel John Sargent, son of Lieutenant John Sargent, who has been 
 reputed to be the first white male born in Vermont^ (Fort Dummer, 
 December 4, 1732), was a brother-in-law of Mrs. Moor. He was the 
 Sargent who had been sentinel in Captain Elijah Williams's company of 
 Deerfield in the Crown Point Expedition, and later was in 1756 under Cap- 
 tain Nathan Willard at Fort Dummer. February 26, 177,6, Brattleboro 
 then being in the county of Cumberland, state of New York, he was 
 commissioned a captain of the Brattleboro company in the First or Lower 
 Regiment, and on August 18 of that year he was commissioned colonel 
 of the same regiment. He married, December 10, 1760, Mary, daughter 
 of Captain and Martha (Moor) Kathan. 
 
 1 Timothy Dwight was born at Fort Dummer, May 27, 1726. (Hall.) 
 
34 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 In 1763 Lieutenant Thomas Sargent, born also at Fort Dummer (Feb- 
 ruary 23, 1734-5), and his brother, Colonel John Sargent, purchased a 
 tract of four hundred and sixty-three acres in the West River district 
 where many of his descendants have lived.^ 
 
 This Indenture 
 
 Made the Twentieth Day of April in the Year of our Lord One Thousand 
 Seven Hundred and Seventy BETWEEN Samuel Wells of Brattle- 
 borough in the County of Cumberland and Province of New York Eq' of 
 the first Part ; And John Sergeant & Thomas. Both of said Brattleborough 
 of the second Part, WITNESSETH; That the said Party of the first 
 Part, for the Consideration of Two Hundred & Eighty Six Pounds Law- 
 ful Money of New York, already by him received, and from which he 
 doth release and discharge the said Party of the second Part, and their 
 Heirs and Assigns ; HATH granted, bargained and sold, aliened, released 
 and confirmed ; And hereby DOTH grant, bargain and sell, alien, release 
 and confirm, unto the said Party of the second Part (in their actual Pos- 
 session now, being by Virtue of an Indenture of Bargain and Sale, for 
 a Year, dated Yesterday, and of the Statute for transferring Uses into 
 Possession) and to their Heirs and Assigns for ever : ALL that Certain 
 Tract or Parcel of land lying in Brattleborough aforesaid Containing 
 Four Hundred and sixty three acres Bounded as follows (viz) Beginning 
 at the North East Corner of the ^aid Township of Brattleborough joining 
 on Connecticut River From thence West Ten Degrees North on the North 
 Line of said Township three hundred and sixty six Rods — From thence 
 South thirty Degrees West Two Hundred and fifty Eight Rods — thence 
 South Fifty five Degrees East one Hundred and sixty Rods To said 
 Connecticut River From thence up said River to the Place of Beginning. 
 
 The farm, comprising the meadow now owned by the Retreat, was 
 first owned by Thomas Sargent, his house being on the meadow just east 
 of Linden Lodge. West River was the name given to settlements along 
 the river of that name. He had a second house on the Putney road at 
 the foot of the hill beyond where George Sargent lived. Colonel Sargent 
 built a large two-story, gambrel-roof house, which became a noted ren- 
 dezvous for the neighborhood, and also for the entertainment of travelers 
 
 1 Another tradition has come down in the Sargent family that John Sargent 
 (father of Colonel John) and a brother James purchased the land between the West 
 and Connecticut rivers to the Dummerston line, on what is now called West River. 
 On account of the hostility of the Indians, it was not deemed prudent to build and 
 occupy, so they, with their families, took refuge in Fort Dummer. 
 
EARLY SETTLERS 
 
 35 
 
 and officers of military posts up and down the river. This house was 
 situated on the south side of the road leading to the Suspension Bridge, 
 where the Henry Sargent farm is. He owned all the land from the 
 Connecticut to West River, and was buried in the cemetery made on his 
 property. This stone is at the head of the grave. 
 
 , Who 'feayi^ia'WSfeJblyf^ 
 
 f/' We.wjrBf r^ V «>3tlhe,ifirrt^,WJ 
 ( iarrim ife ftai-e oft- Venwpflf ■ ', . 
 
 It was during the same year, 1763, of the settlement of Benjamin Moor 
 and the Sargents along the West River, that John Arms, who became 
 Major Arms, settled where the Retreat farmhouse stands. He estab- 
 lished the first tavern there (the inn spoken of by Thompson in his 
 "Rangers, or the Tory's Daughter") and kept it till his death from the 
 kick of a horse, March 6, 1770, when he was sheriff of Cumberland 
 County. He was also the first postmaster, and the first post office was 
 at the Arms Tavern. His widow Susannah^ maintained the tavern after 
 his death and she was succeeded by her son Josiah.^ The copy of the 
 commission received by Major John Arms from Governor Sir Henry 
 Moore, written on parchment, is in existence. (See p. 63.) 
 
 ^ Daughter of Colonel Josiah Willard. 
 
 2 Born December 6, 1760; Representative to the Legislature, 1793-1796. 
 1803. 
 
 He died 
 
36 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 The character of Major Arms is. expressed on his tombstone in the 
 old burying ground on Meeting-House Hill : 
 
 In Memory of Majr. John Arms Esq. 
 
 Who Departed this Life 
 
 Mar. ye 6th 1770 in the 48th 
 
 Year of his age. 
 
 ' Beneath the sacred Honours of the Tomb, 
 In awful Silence and Majestic gloom, 
 The man of mercy here conceals his head. 
 Amidst the awful mansions of the Dead. 
 No more his liberal hand shall help the poor 
 Relieve Distress and scatter Joy no more. 
 
 Descendants of Major Arms to the fourth generation have been citizens 
 of this town. 
 
 Samuel Wells^^ and Hannah (Sheldon) Wells, his wife, came from 
 Deerfield to Brattleboro in 1763, and began a settlement in a log house 
 west of Linden Lodge ;^ some ten years later, he built on his farm of six 
 hundred acres what was the main part of the Lodge. Some of the original 
 cupboards, shutters and wainscoting remain.' Here were born many of his 
 family of thirteen children. "Judge Wells was a large man, above 
 medium height, stern in bearing and countenance, but affable in manner. 
 His dress was in the style of the landed gentry of the period, half military, 
 half yeoman." 
 
 Samuel Wells was an active and consistent Tory throughout his life, 
 and the chief military man in the southern part of the county. The 
 persecution which befell other men of his allegiance was meted out to him 
 in scant measure because of his recognized superiority of character and 
 remarkable tact. 
 
 Three years after the peace of 1783 he died. A plain white stone in 
 the old burying ground on Meeting-House Hill marks the spot where 
 his mortal remains repose, and bears this inscription : 
 
 His friends, the stranger and the poor have lost 
 A kind companion and a generous host : 
 
 When he fell, — ^the statesman fell 
 
 And left the world his worth to tell. 
 
 In 1766 Obadiah Wells (born in 1716 in Southold, Long Island) and 
 his son Henry (Doctor Henry) became patentees, with a number of 
 others, of two of the tracts of land granted by Sir Henry Moore, governor 
 of New York. 
 
 1 For Samuel Wells, see p. 130. 2 See p. 434. » 1919. 
 
EARLY SETTLERS 37 
 
 The earliest road came from Fort Dummer up Venter's Brook, on 
 which is the Chase Cascade, to where the old road to Guilford is, and then 
 turned southwest. This was begun as a scout path to the fort at Colerain 
 before there was any town of Guilford or of Brattleboro. 
 
 The first roads were hardly more than footpaths until they were widened 
 enough) by cutting away the trees on either side, for an oxsled or cart to 
 make its way; though it was long before all the stumps, roots and big 
 stones were r^noved. The paths and roads were extended roughly from 
 one settlement to another, here and there, as new emigrants came in and 
 made new homes. 
 
 The passing of people on foot or horseback up and down the Con- 
 necticut, previous to 1763 and before wagons had come into use, made 
 a track from the ferry opposite Hinsdale, now the Vernon line, by the 
 Wood place over the (Cemetery) hill to a bridge across Whetstone Brook 
 about where the present bridge stands. From this point it passed through 
 the woods along near the front of the American House and farther east 
 than Main Street now goes, around a low place opposite the Brooks 
 Library, along the Linden Street line, past the Retreat and the Arms 
 Tavern and where the Weld place is, across the West River by a ford, 
 across the meadow and up the hill beyond, to where the present Dum- 
 merston road- is and to the Dummerston line beyond — and was called the 
 Great River Road. 
 
 As none of the original grantees of Brattleboro became settlers, the 
 reservations of land were not appropriated for the purposes defined in the 
 charter, with the exception of the land covered by the village, which was 
 owned by Governor Benning Wentworth of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 
 
 The town was surveyed into lots for division among the proprietors, 
 and a center line, which is often referred to for a boundary, was run 
 parallel with the north and south lines through the town. This line passed 
 through the cemetery on top of Meeting-House Hill, north of Center- 
 ville. At about the time of the renewal of the charter, John Arms and 
 Samuel Wells obtained the right of many of the proprietors, whose lots 
 were north of the center line, and of "Sampson's tract," probably the 
 share of Sampson Willard between the center line and the "Governor's 
 right." They deeded one thousand six hundred acres to Colonel Josiah 
 Willard of Winchester, October 22, 1761. 
 
 Before 1765 one hundred and fifty townships had been granted by 
 Governor Wentworth to purchasers who were influential citizens of the 
 New England colonies. These lands were known as the New Hampshire 
 Grants. Only about seventy families could be counted as inhabitants of 
 the dozen townships that were situate on the Connecticut River. Most 
 of the land in these towns was laid out without a surveyor's compass. 
 
38 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 The "Town Measurers" had a measuring chain and a square to form 
 angles. Their calculations were in gfeneral sufficiently accuraite, if not 
 exact. 
 
 The beginning of the village proper was the building of a gristmill — 
 probably owned by Major John Arms — at the falls of Whetstone Brook 
 (Wheatstone River, as it was laid down on a map in the old Indian 
 Chronicle), just above the Main Street bridge, in 1763, by Governor 
 Wentworth, to encourage settlers, nor does there seem 'to have been 
 any other building on that tract till a sawmill was built at the same place 
 in 1768, owned by Judge Wells. A receipt undoubtedly referring to the 
 gristmill reads : 
 
 Bratt Dec 6, 1762. 
 Then received of Wilder Willard four pounds ten shillings sterling, 
 in full for an axx that was damnified by bringing His Excellency the 
 Governor's millstone. 
 
 Paid me, John Arms. 
 
 There was no miller to the mill, but settlers themselves could go and grind 
 as they might have occasion. This mill was on the eight hundred acres 
 reserved for the royal governor, "the governor's farm," which extended 
 from the lower end of the depot yard nearly to the foot of Walnut Street 
 (another account says "on the river on Mr. Bradley's land nearly oppo- 
 site the east end of Keyes Lane") and along Whetstone Brook till it took 
 in the Benson farm and most of the O. L. Miner tract — which now 
 includes a great part of the East Village and Esteyville, all of Western 
 Avenue and Centerville — ^the northwest corner being between two roads 
 which divide south of Meeting-House Hill. It is to the water power 
 of the Whetstone that the East Village owed its origin and its economic 
 support for nearly a century. 
 
 On July 30, 1764, the boundary Hne between the provinces of New 
 Hampshire and New York was fixed by the King in council at "the 
 western bank of the Connecticut river where it enters the province of 
 Massachusetts bay, as far north as the 45 degree of northern lati- 
 tude" . . . "for the time being," and Brattleboro, with all the rest of 
 what is now Vermont, became a part of the Province of New York. 
 Then, supposing that titles to the lands must be acquired from the 
 governor of that province, Samuel Wells and nineteen others procured 
 from Sir Henry Moore, the governor, a grant of the township of Brattle- 
 boro,^ after presenting this petition: 
 
 1 Brattleboro, Putney, Westminster and Newfane were the only towns organized 
 under the New York charters. 
 

EARLY SETTLERS 39 
 
 Petition 
 
 To the Honorable Cadwallader Golden Esq Lieut Governor and Commander 
 in Chief in and over the Province of New Yorke & Territories depending 
 thereon in America in Council October 9th, 1765 — 
 
 The Petition of Samuel Wells in behalf of himself & twenty other Persons 
 Humbly Shews — That there is a Tract of Land now Lying in Said Province of 
 New York, known by ye Name of Brattleborough. Beginning at the Mouth of 
 Venters Brook so called where it enters Connecticut River thence Running 
 West 10 North to the South East Corner of Marlborough about Six Miles 
 thence Five miles North 10 Degrees East by Marlborough aforesaid to a stake 
 and stones in said Line thence East ten Degrees South to Connecticut River 
 aforesaid thence down said River to ye Bounds forst mentioned where Venters 
 Brook emptys into sd River on which said Tract of Land your Petitioner and 
 Associates have settled themselves and have Improved a Considerable part of 
 said Land in Consequence of Grant made of said Tract under the Seal of the 
 Province of New Hampshire, but Finding by his Majestys order in Council of 
 the twentieth Day of July 1764 that the Beforementioned Tract of Land is 
 within the Province of New York, and your Petitioner and his Associates Being 
 desirous of securing their Possessions Property and Improvements by Obtaining 
 his Majesty's Grant under the Seal of this Province Your Petitioner therefore 
 in behalf of himself and his Associates, Humbly Pray, that your Honors will 
 be Favorable pleased to Grant to your Petitioners and his Associates Their 
 Heirs and Assigns Forever The Tract of Land above described & Incorporated 
 into a Town & Vested with the Privileges usually granted to other towns within 
 the Province, as in Duty bound shall ever pray. 
 
 Saml. Wells. 
 
 Associates : David Wells, Joseph Barnard, jun., Susanah Arms, Nathan Wil- 
 lard, Eliakim Arms, Remembrance Sheldon, John Arms, Daniel Arms, Joseph 
 Smead, Hannah Wells, Wilda.r Willard, William Arms, Elijah Sheldon, Seth 
 Catling, Joseph Barnard, David Hoit, Elisha Hinsdale, Saml. Taylor, Henry 
 Wells, Amasa Sheldon. 
 
 Judge Wells deeded the southwest quarter of the town 5400 acres, 
 which had few settlers, to William and Thomas Smith and Nicholas Stuy- 
 vesant, all of New York, the former its chief justice. 
 
 None of these were settlers except Samuel Wells, John Arms, Nathan 
 Willard and Wildar Willard. In granting lands to private persons only 
 one thousand acres to each were allowed, and twenty grantees were 
 necessary. 
 
 The others deeded their shares and rights to Wells, and he became 
 the sole owner of the New York title, which included all of Governor 
 Wentworth's reservation except that on which he had made improvements 
 (tradition says for five bxen),^ and then in 1771 the Judge sold the whole 
 eight hundred acres to Stephen Greenleaf. This tract, perhaps as valu- 
 
 ^ The governor's rights were, by the confirmation of the New York charter, given 
 to those who should clear and cultivate the land. 
 
40 
 
 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 able now as any single private grant in the state, is not holden by any 
 connecting chain of titles which the courts of the state could uphold — but 
 titles within the tract are held under that deed which became good by 
 possession. 
 
 ^^mt a£mH. ZAiynt^ 
 
 Stephen Greenleaf had come from Boston the year before (1770) and 
 was living near the southwest corner of the fairground, on a part of the 
 Richardson farm, probably at the ice pond. He opened a store in 1771 
 above and near where Union Block is. "The Tory's Daughter" speaks 
 of it in 1775 as "resting on the Connecticut River" at the mouth of the 
 Whetstone. He divided the tract into two parts, by a line running from 
 
EARLY SETTLERS 41 
 
 the east side of Crowell's Park near the north end of the reservoir, across 
 Whipple, School and Elm streets to Central, which cut off two hundred 
 acres towards the river, and included the saw- and gristmills and their 
 privileges. 
 
 He paid one hundred pounds down, and was to pay two hundred 
 pounds lawful money to New York on the first day of May in 1773, 
 1773 and 1774, and one hundred pounds lawful money of Massachusetts 
 Bay "in good merchantable white pine boards at the cash price" on the 
 twelfth day of August in 1773, 1774, 1775, 1776 and 1777; two thousand 
 one hundred pounds in all. 
 
 In 1773 Samuel Knight,^ who had lived northwest of Samuel Wells — 
 where there is a cellar beyond the Kane Pine, on an old road to Newfane 
 in the Retreat grounds — and had just been admitted to the bar of the New 
 York court, bought twenty-six and three-fourths acres of the north end 
 of this two hundred acres, which came down below Terrace Street and 
 below Oak to the lower end of High, and built a house just north of the 
 library and lived there. This was the first sizable house, and probably the 
 first house, in what is now Brattleboro Village, and the only one between 
 Stephen Greenleaf's (where the American Building is) and Major Arms's 
 farm. Samuel Knight was the first lawyer in the town and was judge of 
 the Supreme Court of Vermont, 1788-1795. He was an active Tory. 
 The land where the railroad depot stands was used by Mr. Greenleaf 
 for a goat pasture, where Flat Street now is for goats, and the rest of 
 the land on which the village is situated, not crossed with a forest, was 
 a cow pasture. 
 
 Mr. Greenleaf in 1773 built a new sawmill which was about where the 
 factory in Centerville now is. The town was divided into highway dis- 
 tricts soon after this, and the plan of these districts defines the position 
 of the sawmill.^ He was made justice of the peace by the governor of the 
 province, April 14, 1772, and soon afterwards became known as Esquire 
 Greenleaf. He had been an extensive merchant in Boston, importing 
 goods from England, but came to Brattleboro, through some misfortune, 
 heavily burdened by debt, and soon (August 7, 1773) mortgaged the west 
 six hundred acres, on which the new sawmill stood, to Judge Wells, to 
 secure the balance of unpaid purchase money for the whole, and a month 
 later (September 28) the east two -hundred acres, except what had been 
 
 1 See p. 134. 
 
 2 The line between districts Nos. 2 and 3 ran from the northeast corner of Guil- 
 ford to Esquire Greenleaf's new sawmill, and thence to the center line by Ebenezer 
 Fisher's, which was where Mr. Brown lived many years. This line must have run 
 to Centerville, to include in No. 2 those who lived in that district, and a later deed 
 shows the sawmill to have been at that place. 
 
43 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 sold to Mr. Knight, to include "one grist and one saw mill standing on 
 the premises on Whetstone Brook, with sundry small dwelling-houses" to 
 Peter Johannot, distiller, to secure £173.83, lawful money of Massachu- 
 setts Bay, both of Boston, and payable one-fifth part in each year for 
 five years. The land probably went on the mortgage, for Judge Wells 
 was soon selling that in the west part and others that in the east part, 
 and he not any of it. 
 
 Matthew Martin, formerly of Townshend (born 1737, died 1831), soon 
 had the mills on the east part. The land he bought of Stephen Greenleaf 
 he mortgaged back to secure iSlO 13s. 4d., and the mortgage was assigned 
 to Samuel Elliot, Junior, of Boston, and in 1784 remained unpaid. A land 
 tax of ten shillings on each acre was said to have been paid by Martin 
 on his land to Richard Prouty, collector, and repaid to have land sold for 
 the tax, which was done August 16, 1784. The mode of sale was for 
 the bidder to say for how little land he would pay the tax and costs. 
 
 Lieutenant Oliver Waters, "gentleman," of Halifax was the lowest 
 bidder for an acre and a quarter — which included the house where the 
 American Building is, and the mills and land on both sides of the brook 
 at its mouth. The tax amounted to £1 Is. 3d. 
 
 Mr. Elliot died and his widow applied to the Legislature for relief by 
 extension of the time of redemption, or by declaring the sale void, setting 
 forth these facts and that the principal value consisted in the mills and 
 buildings, the soil of the land being but indifferent, and "that from the 
 Idea she entertains of the Legislative Body of the State of Vermont she 
 has the most unshaken confidence that they will not be less disposed to 
 grant her relief because this request comes from a widow and a stranger, 
 and on behalf of several helpless orphan children who without justice 
 being done in this matter must be reduced to the most extreme penury." 
 Her petition was referred to a committee, but no definite action appears 
 to have been taken upon it. 
 
 When Governor Wentworth built his gristmill and Major Arms his 
 tavern, the track that led up along where the buildings on the east side 
 of Main Street are, through Linden Street, began to put on the semblance 
 of a highway and to have a rapid extension towards the north, northeast 
 and northwest. 
 
 Passing the Arms place the road led on north and west to the Wells 
 place, where it opened into two, one of which turned to the right and 
 east, down to West River and the ford, and led on past the several 
 Sargents and Frenches towatds Dummerston, the only road from Brattle- 
 boro in that direction till 1796 ;i while the other branch continued straight 
 
 1 When the Putney road was built. 
 
EARLY SETTLERS 43 
 
 on westward, passing the Dunklee homestead, Ohver Carpenter's, Wicopee 
 Hill and eventually the old meeting-house on Dummerston Hill, to Wil- 
 liamsville, Newfane Hill and thence to Chester, the shire town of Cum- 
 berland County when the state was under the rule of New York Province. 
 Still another road struck out from near the Wells place, going first south 
 of west, then west, passing near Samuel Knight's place, then Pastor 
 Reeve's and Ebenezer Fisher's, and came in 1768 upon Meeting-House 
 Hill from the north. 
 
 Joshua. Wilder came from Westniinster and settled at "Wilder Farm" 
 in 1765. At one time this father, son, grandson and great-grandson 
 resided on the same farm, cultivating it in common. They produced all 
 they consumed, carrying on tanning and other mechanical labor in this 
 connection. At the age of eighty-eight. Deacon Joshua built a covered 
 wagon, a sort of prairie schooner, in which representatives of the four 
 generations on Sunday mornings made their way to the church in 
 Dummerston Center. 
 
 Benjamin Butterfield in 1766 settled where Doctor Bemis lived, taking 
 up one hundred rods wide on the river, to extend back far enough to make 
 one hundred acres, for which he paid £130. This land adjoined the farms 
 of John and Thomas Sargent. He was a captain of New York militia, 
 justice of the peace and a man of influence, being a firm supporter of . 
 the government. He was also called "Esquire Butterfield." Benjamin 
 Butterfield, Junior, about 1772 built and lived in a house where there is a 
 cellar in the northwest corner of the roads west of the Sargent cemetery, 
 and probably kept a tavern at this place. 
 
 At this time there was an increase of settlers to the farming region 
 around and beyond West Brattleboro. The beginning of this influx was 
 the settlement of William Harris, who came from Holden, Massachu- 
 setts, in 1768 and settled at the southwest corner of his farm of one 
 hundred acres, which extended south just west of the tavern and of 
 Potato Lane. The land east and as far south as where the seminary 
 buildings and the Meeting-House now are was surveyed out to Malachi 
 Church, who had built a sawmill about where the shop is on Whetstone 
 Brook. This land was conveyed to John Houghton, who afterwards 
 lived there in front of the tavern and gave the land for the meeting-house. 
 
 Jacob Spaulding was just below Waite's corner in 1769 and Jesse Frost 
 took up sixty-seven acres that year, the "Frost Farm," and lived on the 
 east side of the Dummerston road next above Daniel Whipple's. There 
 are a number of old deeds of this farm, one of them being given under 
 King George of England in the year 17£9 in "Brattleborough in the County 
 of Cumberland and Province of New York," to Jesse Frost, and the 
 grants provisioned for paying yearly, beginning with the date February 4, 
 
44 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 1769, a peppercorn for the term of one year. Five shillings was the 
 amount paid at the signing of the deed. From time to time more land 
 was added; fifty acres in 1787. 
 
 When Daniel Whipple came in 1769 he purchased two hundred and 
 twenty acres of land, the Bradley farm, just over West River. The 
 house stood on the road after it turned beyond the Thomas houses to 
 cross the river towards Judge Wells's. He was appointed sheriff of the 
 county by commission from the colonial government of New York, April 
 17, 1770, in the place of John Arms, resigned, but was dismissed in 1772, 
 having been accused by the judges presiding in the courts of his bailiwick 
 of charging and receiving mileage fees, when by law he was entitled to 
 none, of remissness and negligeijce in the execution of his office, of 
 exacting exorbitant and unlawful fees, and of refusing to receive pris- 
 oners into custody who had been taken on execution. Condiict like this 
 they declared to be "totally subversive of the authority of the civil magis- 
 tracy" in the county and "highly prejudicial and displeasing to the well 
 disposed inhabitants" therein residing. Letters of administration were 
 taken out by his wife in May, 1775. 
 
 Brattleboro was the first town organized in Cumberland County, a 
 town meeting being held on the first Tuesday of March, 1768, probably 
 at the house of Doctor Henry Wells, agreeable to the time prefixed by 
 the patent for annual town meetings, — when such officers were elected 
 as were required for towns in the Province of New York. 
 
 John Arms was the moderator of that meeting; names of other officials 
 were Doctor Henry Wells, Judge Samuel Wells and Captain Benjamin 
 Butterfield. Naturally no ballot box would be provided for that meet- 
 ing. The next meeting was holden in March, 1769, probably at the 
 Meeting-House, which had been built the year before. A square ballot 
 box made of cherry, now preserved in the Brooks Library, was doubtless 
 used at the meeting in 1769. 
 
 The original plan of the town of Brattleboro, as granted by the Crown 
 through' his representatives of Cumberland County in the state of New 
 York, dated June 35, 1766, is on file in Albany, New York, in the Colonial 
 Manuscript Land Papers, 1766, Vol. XXI, p. 81. 
 
 In the town clerk's office in Brattleboro is on file a sketch of the plan, 
 and attached to the sketch is a typewritten report in considerable detail 
 giving boundary lines as follows : "548 chains west from where Venters 
 brook enters the Connecticut river north 400 chains east 590 chains to 
 the Connecticut river, thence following river to point of beginning." 
 Reservations are made for churc^, minister and school-teacher, these 
 reservations being in the northwestern corner and extending south. The 
 southwestern part is blocked off into five ranges of fourteen lots each. 
 
EARLY SETTLERS 45 
 
 Each lot contains one hundred acres. The balance of the grant is marked 
 "Samuel Wells and associates." 
 
 There is also on file the grant from the state of New Hampshire. 
 There are no records available between June 25, 1766 (the date of the 
 grant), and August, 1781. From August, 1781, to June, 1799, the records 
 are very unsatisfactory, as no knowledge is to be obtained as to the loca- 
 tion of the property conveyed. For instance: "June 24th 1785, Samuel 
 Wells to Isabel Cook. A tract of land beginning at a stake and stones 
 standing on the west line of lot formerly belonging to Thomas Cook and 
 joining on the land of Doctor Dickerman, thence running north twenty 
 degrees east, ten chains and fifteen links to a stake and stones." The 
 other boundaries are of a similar nature. 
 
 In the absence of an unbroken chain of deeds from 1766, it would be 
 impossible to get satisfactory data of transfers of land. There are some 
 .records quite clear in transferring the lots in the ranges. Instances are 
 noted where clear titles would be lacking. 
 
 Lot 7. Range 2 September 15th 1783 
 
 Micah Townsend 
 On March 17th 1786. to Abner Scovell Jr. 
 
 Samuel Wells deeds one half of this same lot to Jonathan Stoddard. 
 
 This shows that the transfer of Abner Scovel, Junior, to some other 
 party has not been recorded. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 THE SETTLEMENT ON MEETING-HOUSE HILL 
 
 Settlement on the Hill — General location — Meeting-House — Graveyard — Common — 
 The Covenanters — Census — Customs of early settlers — ^Jonathan Dunklee, shoe- 
 maker — Ebenezer Fisher arrested for felling white pines — Mrs. Dunklee's adven- 
 ture with wolves — Rutherford Hayes and wife Chloe — Hayes Tavern — Locations 
 of settlers — Character of settlers. 
 
 According to the prevailing judgment of the earliest settlers, the town 
 was built upon a high hill from which a survey of the surrounding country 
 enabled them to guard against sudden attacks from the Indians. 
 
 When the proprietors of the New Hampshire charter of Brattleboro 
 had the town surveyed and divided into lots they made a plan of it, and 
 on this plan five acres^^ were reserved for a common and a burying ground, 
 and then, when the charter was annulled by the town's coming under the 
 jurisdiction of New York, Judge Wells obtained a grant of it from that 
 province ; after which, July 30, 1774, he conveyed essentially the same five 
 acres to the trustees of the town for essentially the same purposes. A law 
 was passed in 1773 authorizing trustees of towns to take grants of lands 
 for meeting-houses to stand upon.^ 
 
 The following is a description of the land and the uses to be made of 
 it, as given in the deed : "Commonly called and known by the name of 
 Meeting House Hill, a part of which is used for a burying ground, 
 bounded northerly by land belonging to David Church, westerly by a 
 road or highway, until the same enters into another road, which last 
 mentioned road runs through the hereby granted tract of land, and 
 partly by lands now belonging to Abner Scovil, and easterly partly by 
 part of the aforesaid road, which, turning its course, runs through the 
 said hereby granted tract, and partly by lands belonging to Henry Wells ; 
 containing about six acres of land, be the same more or less; In trust, 
 that in some convenient part or parts thereof on the north side of said 
 road which passes through the said hereby granted tract, a building or 
 buildings for the public worship of Almighty God be erected, and a con- 
 
 1 Of the north end of lot 6 in the fifth range of fifty-acre lots. 
 
 2 In the first settlements, house lots were built around the meeting-house, and the 
 common or undivided lands served for pasturage of flocks and herds. 
 
THE SETTLEMENT ON MEETING-HOUSE HILL 47 
 
 venient part or parts around said building or buildings be applied for 
 the purpose of a burying place or places, the profits of the said burying 
 place or places, and all that part of the hereby granted premises, which 
 lies on the north side of the aforesaid road, is hereby declared to be given 
 and granted to the -use of such minister or ministers respectively for the 
 time being, as shall officiate there, and the other part of the said hereby 
 
 granted premises, lying on the south side of the aforesaid road, which 
 runs through the said hereby granted tract to be applied for the use of 
 building thereon any other public building, which shall at any time here- 
 after be found necessary for the service of said township of Brattle- 
 borough, and for training and exercising the inhabitants in the use of 
 arms or in other useful and entertaining exercise, and for any and every 
 other public use or service of the said township, and for no other ends, 
 intentions, meanings or purposes whatsoever." 
 
48 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 The general location of the hill was probably selected by Colonel Josiah 
 Willard of Winchester, New Hampshire, the commander at Fort Dummer, 
 who was greatly interested in the town, and who reserved one lot as his 
 personal property. He was a member of the Assembly of the Province 
 of New Hampshire and possessed great influence among the inhabitants 
 of the "Grants." He bought three shares of land in Fulham in 1754, and 
 gave Mrs. Moor a deed of fifty acres of land which he owned in Brattle- 
 boro, dated February 16, 1763. This lot lies southwest of the cemetery 
 on the hill north of Centerville, and a short distance westerly from the 
 settlement where she was captured by the Indians. She was married 
 to Moses Johnson of Putney, by the Reverend Bunker Ga;y of Hinsdale, 
 January 36, 1764. They sold the land November 33, 1767, to Abner 
 Scovel for ilO 3d. in money, a note of £10, and another note of £1 6s. 8d. 
 "to be left at Major John Arms'," who purchased, after the death of 
 Captain Moor and his son, the farm on which they settled in 1757. She 
 died October 18, 1779, aged forty-nine. 
 
 The lots not fixed by the charter were drawn by chance. The five acres 
 reserved for a common and burying place included the southern part of 
 the cemetery as it now is, and a part of the open level field south of the 
 cemetery. 
 
 The precise location and date of building of the first Meeting-House has 
 been a subject of discussion and some disagreement. The earliest town 
 record is that of the annual town meeting on the first Tuesday in March, 
 1769, recording that "Israel Field was chosen Surveyor and overseer of 
 the highways to inspect and oversee that the road from Nathaniel 
 Church's to the Meeting House" among others, was kept in good repair. 
 (Nathaniel Church lived on the west side of the river road where the 
 Marsh building is.) This shows the Meeting-House to have been built 
 before that time, and as it would not be built in the winter, it must have 
 been built as early as the fall before, in 1768, especially as the winter of 
 1770 was known as the hard winter. 
 
 A road was laid, June 33, 1774, from the Meeting-House to Ebenezer 
 Haws's^ and according to the description of this road, the Meeting-House 
 must have been on the common a little west of where the southwest corner 
 of the cemetery now is, but no road led to the' hill until the Meeting- 
 House was in process of construction. For some time all the roads there 
 were, were farther north. Nearly all the roads led to and from the 
 
 1 "Beginning at the burying ground in the center line, from thence running with 
 the center line on the south side of said line the north side of the meeting-house to 
 William McCune's land. The center line was the north side of the common ; and 
 the road was on the south side of that line and the meeting-house was south of the 
 road." 
 
FIRST MEETING-HOUSE 49 
 
 Meeting-House Hill, that place being in all respects the greater center 
 of the town's life. The road up the hill northward did not go on the 
 east side of the cemetery, but went westward across the common and 
 then turned north and went west of the cemetery and down the hill to the 
 road along West River. A road was built from the east near where the 
 road goes part way up the hill, and then turned to the left on the common. 
 Another was built from near the first bridge at West Brattleboro up to 
 the west side of the common. 
 
 The Meeting-House was built by private enterprise, which at that time 
 was a matter of no small account, the entire population of the town 
 being so small — all the "grown men" numbering but seventy-five, and 
 almost every one of them at his wit's end to know how and where to get 
 the means to build his own house, extend his clearing, feed his pig, keep 
 his cow and horse, and support his family. 
 
 The house was framed, was longest east and west, and fronted south. 
 
 In the historical address given by Charles K. Field, Esquire, at the 
 Brattleboro Centennial Celebration on the Fourth of July, 1876, he spoke 
 of it as reputed to have been built of logs, like a blockhouse, in 1770. 
 There may have been a blockhouse of logs, used for a time for public 
 worship until another could be built. But there is no doubt that the 
 first Meeting-House, as we know of it, was a framed building. When 
 steps were taken for the building of a new house the town authorized 
 the selling of the old one to Mr. Israel Smith, and some of the older inhabi- 
 tants have said that it was taken down and moved a mile to the north- 
 ward, to the Hapgood or Kittredge place, there set up and occupied for 
 some years as a dwelling house and finally consumed by fire. It is also 
 said that the porch of it was brought down to Elliot Street and used for 
 some years by Samuel Elliot, Esquire, as a lawyer's office, and that this 
 part of it is still extant in the ground story of the house at the east end 
 of the West Village, just the other side of the covered bridge. 
 
 In those early days the laws of Vermont required every town to have 
 a good pair of stocks, with a lock and key, sufficient to hold and secure 
 such' offenders as should be sentenced to sit therein, "to be set in the 
 most public place ; and in the same place, a signpost, on which all notifica- 
 tions, warrants, etc. for meetings, etc. shall be set up." At a meeting 
 held September 14, 1781, the town, in compliance with this law of 
 Vermont — 
 
 Voted to build a pair of stocks and a signpost. 
 Voted to sett the signpost near the meeting-house. 
 Voted to fitt the stocks into the signpost. 
 
50 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 While digging to locate evidences of the foundation of the old structure, 
 Ezra E. Fisher found the fire pit where the housewives of a century and 
 a half ago replenished their footstoves while attending worship. 
 
 About fifty rods west of the cemetery may he found the old well where 
 the church's men gathered and drank their noggin of rum between ser- 
 vices on Sundays. In the near-by pasture may be found cellar holes of 
 the houses of those who settled about the Meeting-House. The outlines 
 of the old north road can easily be traced, though the old thoroughfare 
 is overgrown with tall trees. 
 
 The English church's custom of keeping the dead in a graveyard close 
 to the house of prayer was retained by the colonists for about forty years, 
 and nine years previous to the granting of the deed a portion of the land 
 on the hill had begun to be used for one of the purposes specified in the 
 deed, when Elizabeth, a beloved daughter of Judge and Mrs. Hannah 
 Wells, was buried there in 1765. When that little grave was made — 
 probably the first in all that region — it was in the lone woods, amid prime- 
 val trees, the entire hill being then covered with one dense, unbroken 
 forest. From that grave westward there was only a trail, a footpath, then 
 a bridle path, and not until 1774 an open road full of stumps and stones, 
 just passable for an oxcart or sled, the only vehicle they had in those days. 
 And here it was that our earliest town fathers gave themselves, promptly, 
 to the development of church and state. 
 
 A few feet west of the granite memorial with its tablet of bronze, in 
 about the center of the cemetery, will be found the marble headstone of 
 Colonel Wells, and beside his grave that of his daughter, who was the 
 first white child born in Brattleboro. A short distance away is the grave 
 of Thomas Sargent, who died August 6, 1786. Joseph Williams, "an 
 eminent merchant in the town of Norwich, Connecticut," is buried in this 
 cemetery. He died January 10, 1776. Four of his sons havirig joined 
 the army of Washington, he broke up his household and mercantile estab- 
 lishment in Norwich, came to Brattleboro and lived in a small house "on 
 the Connecticut River." Zipporah, his daughter, was married June 6, 
 1776, to Timothy Church. Near the center of the cemetery is the grave 
 of Daniel Stearns, a Revolutionary soldier, who died in 1834. 
 
 The visitor cannot fail to be impressed with the inscriptions on many 
 of the older stones. The Arms lot, where Major Arms was buried, 
 contains a row of slate stones that show but little effect of the ravages 
 of time and the dates and inscriptions are perfectly legible. 
 
 The stone above the grave of Timothy Whipple, who died November 
 34, 1796, aged seventy-two years, bears an inscription that doubtless 
 refers to the aifffiction with which he died. The inscription reads : 
 
THE SETTLEMENT ON MEETING-HOUSE HILL 51 
 
 Deliriums' state was worse than fate, 
 
 And vacancy of mind ; 
 But real grace filled up the space 
 
 And left a hope behind. 
 
 The short life story of a seven-year-old, Silvanus Blodgett, son of Samuel 
 and Mary Blodgett, is told in the pious training which the boy received, 
 as testified to by the statement on his tiny tombstone. The inscription 
 contains that olden hymn, "Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound," etc., 
 to which is added the statement that the little fellow sang these lines the 
 day before he died. The grave is overrun with rose bushes and a big 
 pine tree casts a shadow over the place. 
 
 Facing the old north road is the Reeve lot, where were buried Rev- 
 erend Abner Reeve, the first minister, his wife Phoebe, and son Obadiah. 
 North of the site of the Meeting-House stands a granite marker bearing 
 a bronze tablet in memory of Benjamin Hadley, descendant of George 
 Hadley. He was born in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, in 1685, and died 
 in 1776. The old stone erected to the memory of Mr. Hadley still stands, 
 and near by is a tiny grave, quite likely one of the first to be made follow- 
 ing the birth of the nation. It is a little mound with a slate stone, staf- 
 ing that beneath lies Joseph, the two-year-old son of Jesse and Joanna 
 Frost. The child died September 11, 1776. So far as the inscriptions on 
 the stones show, this was the first death in Brattleboro to follow the 
 Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. Captain Oliver Cook and his 
 wife Beulah are buried here, and the inscription upon the stone of Mrs. 
 Cook testifies to the character of this woman of a hundred and fifty years 
 ago. Moss has partly filled the cutting on the stone but there can be read 
 these lines: 
 
 Calm were her passions; 
 Constant was her mind, 
 
 To her neighbors friendly ; 
 To her consort kind. 
 
 (Thomas Cook, the blacksmith, lived on the road coming from the north, 
 which became "the Doctor Dickerman place," now McVeigh's.) 
 
 Isaac Amsden, who operated a woolen mill on the Brook Road, is buried 
 on the crest of the hill in this cemetery. Ebenezer and Bathsheba Fisher, 
 who were great-grandparents of Ezra E. Fisher, are buried there also. 
 Ebenezer Fisher came when there were but fourteen settlers and lived 
 where the little brick house stands east of the old Meeting-House. 
 
 The old New England meeting-house was everywhere something more 
 than a place of worship. Within its walls were gathered the social, intel- 
 lectual and civil life of the community. This 'Meeting-House was in use 
 
52 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 for town meetings as well as for public worship, being, as it was, the only- 
 public building in town for some years. Until 1773 business meetings 
 were held in private houses, usually in the house of Doctor Henry Wells. 
 In 1773 the March meeting for the town was called at the Meeting- 
 House for the first time, and from this date to 1785 the house was in 
 regular use, by both church and town, for business meetings. The land 
 around it, save the cemetery on the north of it, was used as a public 
 common and a field for training till 1785. Here the troops of General 
 Stephen Bradley's brigade, mustered in 1784 to suppress opposition to 
 the state of Vermont, camped over Sunday before proceeding to Guil- 
 ford. 
 
 After building a meeting-house on the hill, when the people began a 
 search and effort to obtain a suitable minister for the pulpit and other 
 parish work, they formed themselves, in 1770, into a society called "the 
 Covenanters," no less than seventy out of the seventy-five men of the 
 town at that time giving in their names as severally agreeing, covenanting 
 and promising to abide and stand by certain measures and articles for 
 settling and maintaining a true gospel minister in town. This was an 
 association of a twofold character, answering to what was, later, divided 
 into the two distinct bodies of church and society, which was devoted 
 to the transaction of business as well as religious interests. This agree- 
 ment of Covenant was originally all the constitution there was of the 
 Brattleboro (now West Brattleboro) church and society. The Covenant- 
 ers were in fellowship with a similar association in Guilford. 
 
 At the time of which we speak, when the Meeting-House was built and 
 a church formed, a census of the town put the number of "grown men" 
 at seventy-five, and the entire population at four hundred and three : one 
 hundred and two males (white) above sixteen and under sixty, seventy- 
 nine females above sixteen. The following are the names of the men 
 and the localities in which they lived at that time: 
 
 Josiah White, John White, Abijah White, Tilly Wilder, Tilly Wilder, 
 Junior, Wildar Willard, Benjamin Nourse, Samuel Brown and Willard 
 King, who lived south of where the village is ; William King, who lived 
 up the hill above the cider mill at Mr. Thayer's, was further west ; John 
 Sargent, Thomas Sargent, Benjamin Butterfield, Benjamin Butterfield, 
 Junior, Jesse Frost, Jacob Spaulding, Joshua Wilder, Lemuel Kendrick, 
 Benjamin Gold, Nathan Gold and Levi Baldwin above West River; 
 Samuel Wells, Elias Wilder, Elias Wilder, Junior, Isaac Earheart, Joel 
 Atchinson, John Arms, Josiah Arms, Joseph Herrick, Jonathan Herrick, 
 William Nichols, Oliver Harris, Oliver Harris, Junior, Ephraim Knapp, 
 Jonathan Church, William Ellis, Thomas Ellis, Samuel Knight, John 
 Baldwin, Jonathan Hobs -and Daniel Baldwin northwest of where the 
 
THE SETTLEMENT ON MEETING-HOUSE HILL 53 
 
 Retreat is; Timothy Church, Nathaniel Church, David Church, William 
 Cranny, Israel Field, Richard Prouty, Samuel Kent, William Goss, 
 Ebenezer Knapp, John Pike and Jacob Pike in the neighborhood of Oscar 
 Ware's; Doctor Henry Wells, Joshua Pardridge, Ebenezer Fisher, Alex- 
 ander Youngs, John Campton, Jacob Ball, Shadrach Ball, William Mc- 
 Cune, Isaac McCune and Elijah Prouty in the neighborhood east and 
 north of the common where the Meeting-House was built ; and a Mr. 
 Burnap, Reuben Bump, Nathaniel Church, Eben Church, Jabez Davis, 
 Edward King, Samuel Bennet, Thomas Cooke, Oliver Cooke, John 
 Alexander, James Knapp, Jonas Knapp and Sawyer Wright northwest 
 of there towards Wicopee Hill. 
 
 That no one among them had more than two names is to be noticed. 
 
 The men who made the first permanent settlements in New England 
 were united by a common purpose and struggle for religious and political 
 liberty ; their conception of liberty had been incorporated into the life and 
 customs of four generations before the coming of settlers to Brattleboro, 
 whose motives for migration were almost as various as the individuality 
 of the men themselves. They were from different colonies in which 
 liberation from the authority of the old world had taken separate lines of 
 advance, and they came bringing ideas, traits and habits developed by the 
 conditions into which they were born. Hall says that part of the New 
 Hampshire Grants now the state of Vermont was "the abode of a mixed 
 and heterogenous population." 
 
 Indian fighters from Fort Dummer made the first clearings, choosing to 
 wrestle with the forces of nature in the wilderness to which they had be- 
 come wonted rather than return to the tamer life of Massachusetts Bay. 
 
 About this time resentment towards certain aristocratic tendencies of 
 the government of that colony, an impulse for freedom from some exac- 
 tions of the Puritan Code, and a belief that the most fertile land had been 
 appropriated, gave an impetus towards removal to a near and open 
 country. 
 
 Under the seal of New Hampshire, as later, from the government of 
 the Province of New York there were sent, not a fe\v, on some official 
 mission, — but whether by authority of the Crown, patentee, surveyor, 
 lawyer, innkeeper, adventurer, all farmed the land of which the greater 
 number were purcTiasers — others were squatters, a "wild and rough lot." 
 
 Customs of Early Settlers 
 
 Little, if anything, has come down to us, by writing or tradition, of the 
 domestic life and social customs in the settlement on the hill. 
 
 It was a rude and laborious life for those whose part it was to clear the 
 land, build houses and barns when beams and planks were felled and 
 
54 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 turned by hand, care for live stock and make a living out of the soil. To 
 produce a regular supply of food required continual exertion, although 
 the land was productive enough after the first clearings were made. The 
 entire food of a family was derived from the farm. In New England, 
 Indian corn, rye, potatoes, peas and beans were planted first ; flax, pump- 
 kins, turnips and parsnips, later. Pork was the meat in general use. Fish 
 and game were plentiful in season, and growing wild on the hillsides were 
 blackberries, huckleberries and strawberries.. In 1780 tradition says the 
 settlers everywhere in Vermont sufifered greatly for food. 
 
 The roads radiating from the hill that traverse the country in every 
 direction, with the old stone walls and less frequently a stump fence, 
 remain the only visible witness to the unceasing toil of the early settlers. 
 
 Besides the preparation of food, which was cooked in the huge fire- 
 place which took up one side of the room, — ^the fire lighted by flint, steel 
 and tinder, or by a bit of coal from a neighbor's hearth, — the material 
 for clothing the men, as well as the women, and all household linen were 
 made by hand in the home. The hum of the spinning wheel and the 
 thud of the loom's beam were familiar sounds in every house. Girls spun 
 and their mothers wove wool for winter wear, and flax into linen 
 in checks, for gowns and aprons. Men wore tow cloth in summer and a 
 dark gray homespun in winter. "Coloring" (dyeing) was done by the 
 women from plants and trees about them in Nature's store. Leather was 
 also made into garments, yellow buckskin being commonly used for men's 
 breeches. Children generally went barefoot, and many women and men 
 protected their feet with- pieces of undressed leather for lack of boots 
 and shoes. After a time shoemakers went from house to house once a 
 year, when a stock of footwear was laid in for the family. There was a 
 shoemaker very early who was also a prosperous farmer. In his old 
 account book, Jonathan Dunklee makes a record of boots, shoes, and shoes 
 for infants made by him and repairs on the same, also of pewter spoons 
 made in sets of six or twelve. He owned a sleigh, renting it as he had the 
 opportunity, and he paid a tax on a "four-wheeled vehicle called a 
 waggon." Tallow candles and oil for the lamps and soap were of home 
 manufacture. 
 
 There was little leisure, when the common conveniences of life were 
 only in the making. Work and play, however, met in raising, logging, 
 stone and husking bees, when necessity created a mutual dependence 
 and combination of forces. Wherever stumps were to be pulled, 
 stones lifted or piled, a house, barn, church or school raised, neighborly 
 feeling turned to practical helpfulness. Raising bees were occasions for 
 forming "Wrestling Rings," the victor being the "Bully of the Ring." 
 
CUSTOMS OF EARLY SETTLERS 55 
 
 At the raising of the church in West Brattleboro in 1785, the Guilford 
 boys were challenged by the Brattleboro boys for a wrestling match, 
 twelve men to each side. In nothing was neighborliness more constantly 
 shown than *n the custom of watching with the sick — only friendly hands 
 were laid on the dead. 
 
 As early as 1726 timber was being floated down the river. In 1733 a 
 company of men in Connecticut had been formed for cutting and floating 
 down the river white pine logs for the British Navy. They sent a ship- 
 load of this timber from New London, and had then "in the woods, near 
 70 miles above Fort Dummer a considerable number of men cutting and 
 preparing another ship load, and had expended 1200 pounds." 
 
 By the assertion of royal authority lands were to revert to the King 
 when those who held them were guilty of cutting pine trees without a 
 license, but the lands were granted upon condition that three acres for 
 every fifty granted should be cultivated within three years of the grant, 
 and the settler could not cultivate without cutting down trees in which he 
 was in danger of persecution and fines. Ebenezer Fisher of Brattleboro 
 was arrested for felling white pines, when he swore that the trees had 
 been dead before he had taken up the land. 
 
 The difficulties which they were compelled to encounter called forth 
 special energies of mind and body. Women matched the courage and 
 endurance of the men. Mrs. Dunklee, wife of Jonathan, who was one 
 of the earliest settlers, on Road 4, while on a horseback journey to the 
 western part of the town, was chased by wolves, and only escaped by 
 climbing the branches of a tree, when the horse made his way home and 
 brought the family to her rescue. 
 
 The first Rutherford Hayes must have come from New Haven, Con- 
 necticut, about 1778, when he was just of age. He was a blacksmith by 
 trade. The few settlers, wishing such a workman to locate among them, 
 made a bee, shoveled away the deep snow, helped to build a shop, and in 
 less than a month he was using his tools. This was in what is liow the 
 West Village. He also kept a tavern, combining this with farming. It 
 is related of his wife Chloe, daughter of Israel Smith, that on a special 
 occasion she waited on guests at a country ball in the tavern all night, 
 and started with her husband in the morning on horseback for Bain- 
 bridge, New York. The journey was two hundred miles or more, and 
 she returned in her usual health and strength. 
 
 The sign of the old tavern is in existence at the very house to which 
 it once attracted the traveler. It reads : 
 
 R. Hayes 
 Entertainment 
 
56 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 and underneath is a gorgeous painting of a jockey in yellow smallclothes 
 and black top-boots, holding a spirited steed. The remains of earlier 
 decorations are to be seen, with the dates of 1776 and 1791. 
 
 The interest in religion and the meetings which were its characteristic, 
 where there were no amusements to divert the thoughts of men, was a 
 bond most effective in drawing all together into a real community of 
 feeling. Judge Wells, from his estate three miles distant ; Deacon Wilder, 
 from across West River by way of the ford ; Esquire Warriner, from an 
 opposite direction; and from the nearer distances some on horseback, 
 women and children on pillions behind the men, aiid women, in the 
 absence of any fire, carrying the footstoves, others in oxcarts, which were 
 used for families as well as for hauling loads, — all came to the Meeting- 
 House on the hill. 
 
 The noon respite from the long sermon of the morning, which was 
 the event of the week, gave an hour for friendly visiting, when gossip, 
 social and political, brightened the countenances of our forefathers, and 
 at the end of the afternoon session they wended their way back, singly or 
 in groups, to their simple homes. It was a New England custom with 
 regard to Sunday, that it began at sunset on Saturday. If there were 
 those who were not fully in accord with a strict Sabbath observance, they 
 were held in the leash of the Connecticut law-book, the law for "keeping 
 the first day of the week, as the Sabbath or Lord's day," being, "whoever 
 should be guilty of any rude, profane, or unlawful conduct on the Lords- 
 days, in words or action, by clamorous discourse, shouting, halloeing, 
 screaming, running, riding, dancing, jumping" was to be fined forty shil- 
 lings for each offense and "whipped on the naked back, not exceeding ten 
 stripes, nor less than five." 
 
 They were for the most part a sturdy but uncultivated race of men, 
 pioneers in spirit as they were in the realm of nature, who migrated from 
 other parts of New England not so much for material advantage as from 
 a desire to be allowed a larger liberty in all that concerned the life of 
 the time. And whether it was in the development of the town meeting, 
 in defense of their rights against oppression from powers beyond their 
 borders or as founders of religious and educational institutions, the his- 
 tory of Brattleboro in the first period is remarkable for its variety of 
 strong and independent characters. 
 
 Among the leaders were also men of the finest inheritance, graduates of 
 colleges, whose ability and attainment might have filled places of distinc- 
 tion in the larger world. Such were Doctor Henry Wells, Brattleboro's 
 first physician; Reverend Abner Reeve, the pastor of the first Meeting- 
 House; Judge Samuel Wells and his sons-in-law, Samuel Gale, Judge 
 Samuel Knight and Micah Townsend, and the Reverend William Wells, 
 
THE SETTLEMENT ON MEETING-HOUSE HILL 57 
 
 first pastor of the Church on the Common. (It is to be noted that the 
 name Wells has always been a name to conjure with in Brattleboro.) 
 Their biographers like to dwell on their culture and their gracious and 
 finished manners, yet the common tasks must have called out an impulse 
 for association and for mutual respect, a recognition of individual values* 
 as well as of class consciousness. "Mr.," "Esquire," "Gentleman," were 
 titles of dignity — and the dress which came with them from ancestral 
 lands comported with their social importance. "Gentlemen" wore cloth 
 coats with high collars ; more or less silk with embroidered waistcoats 
 for full dress; knee breeches and stockings; full ruffles at the shirt front; 
 hair craped, curled and powdered when wigs were not worn. The dress 
 for ladies was elaborate and costly. The hair was dressed over a silk 
 cushion stuffed with wool, necessitating a calash of silk, ribbed and 
 bulging in the wind, that swayed and bobbed as the lady moved. Reverend 
 William Wells was the first gentleman of the town, the heaviest tax- 
 payer, and the only man who owned a gold watch. 
 
 The first house of any size or claim to substantiality was that of Doctor 
 Henry Wells, of which a description is in existence. (See p. 266.) 
 
 The house of Judge Samuel Wells conformed in essentials to the colo- 
 nial pattern, square with a chimney of huge dimensions in the center, four 
 large, square rooms on each floor opening off a large entrance hall — solid 
 beams across the ceilings, floors of heavy planks, wainscoting of wood, 
 closets and cupboards made by hand. Big fireplaces with the ever present 
 backlog afforded the only means of warmth. Houses of this kind were 
 lighted from outside by windows made up of many small panes of glass. 
 
 The minister was a little apart in dress, manners and speech, and was 
 looked to and respected as a leader not only in religion, but in intellectual 
 and political thinking. When the minister entered, the congregation would 
 rise and stand, while their pastor walked slowly up the aisle to the 
 steps that led to the pulpit. The ministers appeared at every important 
 crisis in civil affairs, and the influence of the church organization can 
 hardly be overestimated. The kind of men and women able to found a 
 community were those who thought most of the meeting, and they aimed 
 at a civil society which should be in harmony with the methods and spirit 
 of the church. The ministry of the church in Brattleboro was in the pos- 
 session of men of large human attributes, which could not be stifled by a 
 Puritanic system of opinions. Having found within the orthodox creed 
 room for spiritual growth, their minds and hearts were in accord, and 
 their social development, genial and kindly, tended to elevate the tone of 
 the people to whom they gave themselves in Christian service. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 BRATTLEBORO UNDER THE JURISDICTION 
 OF NEW YORK 
 
 Brattleboro under the Jurisdiction of New York — West bank of Connecticut River 
 proclaimed the boundary between New Hampshire and New York — Albany 
 County — Cumberland County — Warrant for Charter of Brattleboro as part of 
 Cumberland County in Province of New York; — Brattleboro organized first town 
 in county — Samuel Wells appointed Judge of Court of Common Pleas — Com- 
 mittees of remonstrance against maladministration of Courts. 
 
 When Charles II gave the province of New York to his brother James 
 in 1664, its area included "all the land from the west side of Connecticut 
 river to the east of Delaware Bay," which grant confirmed later had never 
 been set aside ; consequently the grants made by Governor Benning Went- 
 worth were without authority, "null and void." 
 
 Encroachments on the territory by Massachusetts and Connecticut had 
 been temporarily adjusted, but beginning with 1750, Governor Benning 
 Wentworth made grants of land west of the Connecticut River, north of 
 the Massachusetts line, and by the end of the French War, had divided 
 the New Hampshire Grants into townships which were distributed among 
 his favorites and followers, many of them being me;n of little capacity or 
 character. 
 
 On the twenty-eighth of December, 1763, a proclamation issued by 
 Lieutenant-Governor Cadwallader Colden of New York declared the 
 Connecticut River to be the eastern boundary of that province, and com- 
 manded "all judges, justices and other civil officers holding commissions 
 under New York to exercise jurisdiction in their respective functions as 
 far as the banks of the Connecticut river," and he furthermore enjoined 
 the sheriff of Albany County to secure and return to him the names of all 
 persons "who under the Grants of the government of New Hampshire" 
 held lands west of the Connecticut River, that they might "be proceeded 
 against according to law." 
 
 Titles to the land were the first concern of the settlers, who having in 
 all sincerity paid for them, and raised companies of militia to protect 
 them, refused to be dispossessed of their rights — although as they declared 
 in a petition for a fair decision of their claims they "were unacquainted 
 with the laws of the province (of New York) and the modes of dispens- 
 ing justice therein." Governor Wentworth published a counter-proclama- 
 
FIRST POLITICAL DIVISION OF VERMONT 
 
THE JURISDICTION OF NEW YORK 59 
 
 tion on the thirteenth of March, 1764, asserting the rights of New Hamp- 
 shire. 
 
 The case was laid before the King, but his declaration was open to 
 verbal misconstruction, and thus further contention with fresh arguments 
 continued for ten years to retard the progress of civilization in the dis- 
 puted territory. 
 
 The royal governor of the Province of New York resided in the city 
 of New York, and the government was located there. When the boundary 
 between this province and that of New Hampshire was fixed, July 30, 
 1764, at the west bank of the Connecticut River, what is now Vermont 
 became a part of Albany County, the shire of which was at Albany. Not 
 only jurisdiction, but the right of making void all that had already been 
 done by New Hampshire was argued as their right. There was no money 
 in circulation and knowing that men had no way of paying debts, they 
 took their land by execution and sold it. 
 
 Twenty-one additional justices of the peace were appointed for the ad- 
 ministration of the laws within the county of Albany, of whom Samuel 
 Wells and John Arms appointed January 30, 1766, lived in Brattleboro. 
 They were allowed to hold a court for the trial of cases to the value of 
 five pounds and under. Holding office by appointment, many of these 
 officials kept themselves aloof from the interests of the people and their 
 decisions were often influenced by their own predispositions. It was with 
 the New York government and, in the main, with the inferior officials that 
 the contention of the inhabitants of the New Hampshire Grants increased 
 in intensity, for the King in 1767 forbade the New York authorities to 
 molest any person who could produce a valid deed for land under the 
 Province of New Hampshire. Ejectments attended by violence, on the 
 refusal to obtain deeds for land under the jurisdiction of New York were 
 attempted on the western side of the mountains which roused men to 
 action for protection and defense and the formation of the regiment of 
 Green Mountain Boys. The sherifif of Albany County could with difficulty 
 act in the northern part of his bailiwick or convey prisoners across the 
 mountain to the jail at Albany without an armed guard. Besought by the 
 people for a divided county, the governor and council of New York 
 proposed a plan for turning what is now Windham and Windsor counties 
 into a new county, named Cumberland,^ July 3, 1766, with a shire at 
 
 1 In the laws of Vermont passed October, 1780, Cumberland County was referred 
 to as being divided into the half-shires of Cumberland and Gloucester, the line 
 between them being about where the northern boundary of Windsor County now is. 
 February, 1781, the County of Cumberland as established in 1778 or 1779 was sub- 
 divided into the counties of Windham, Windsor and Orange. (Some changes in 
 boundary since.) 
 
60 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Chester. The act was laid before the King for his "royal approbation or 
 disallowance," and he declared it "void and of non effect." The "royal 
 will" afterwards became favorable to such a county and the governor was 
 advised, February 10, 1768, to have an ordinance prepared for it, which 
 was completed March 19 following, and Judge Wells was appointed one 
 of the judges of the court of common pleas, and John Arms the sheriff. 
 Brattleboro was organized in the meantime, the first town in the county. 
 The county was named from Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, who 
 in 1746 met with distinguished success in opposing the rebels in Scotland. 
 It was bounded on the south by the north line of Massachusetts, on the 
 east by the Connecticut River, on the north by the south line of the 
 Province of Quebec. 
 
 WARRANT FOR THE CHARTER OF BRATTLEBORO AS PART OF 
 THE COUNTY OF CUMBERLAND, PROVINCE OF NEW YORK 
 
 By his Excellency Sir Henry Moore Baronet, Captain General and Governor 
 in Chief in and over the Province of Ntw York, and the Territories depending 
 thereon in America, Chancellor and Vice Admiral of the same — 
 
 To John Tabor Kempe Esquire, his Majesty's Attorney General for the 
 Province of New York Greeting: 
 
 You are hereby directed and required to prepare a Draft of Letters Patent 
 to Samuel Wells, John Arms, Seth Catling, David Wells, Daniel Arms, 
 Joseph Barnard, Joseph Barnard, Junior, Joseph Smead, David Hoit, 
 Susannah Arms, Hannah Wells, Elisha Hinsdale, Nathan Willard, Wilder 
 Willard, Samuel Taylor, Eliakim Arms, William Arms, Henry Wells, 
 Remembrance Shelden, Elijah Shelden, and Amasa Shelden, for all that cer- 
 tain Tract or Parcel of Land situate lying and being in the County of Cum- 
 berland within the Province of New York, on the West side of the Connecticut 
 River, called and known by the name of Brattleborough, containing Nineteen 
 thousand five hundred acres; and being further Bounded and described as by 
 the Certificate of the Commissioners appointed for the setting out of all Lands 
 to be Granted within the Province, bearing date the sixteenth day of July Instant 
 (a copy whereof is hereunto annexed) may more fully appear; under such 
 Quit Rent, Provisoes, Limitations and Restrictions as are directed and appointed 
 by his Majesty's Instructions; with proper Qauses erecting the said Lands 
 into a Township by the Name of Brattleboro, with such Powers and Privi- 
 leges as the Inhabitants of other Townships in this Province have and do Enjoy 
 and granting such Shares of the Premises and for such uses as are particularly 
 expressed in the Certificate aforesaid, and for so doing this share be your 
 Warrant. 
 
 Given under my Hand and Seal at Arms — at Fort George in the City of New 
 York — the Seventeenth day of July, One thousand seven hundred and Sixty-six. 
 
 H. MooRE. 
 By his Excellency's Command, 
 Geo. Banyar, D. Secy. 
 
THE JURISDICTION OF NEW YORK 61 
 
 William Smith, chief-justice of New York, had a New York title to a 
 large part of the southeast quarter of Brattleboro. 
 
 Committees were appointed representative of the settlers who met in 
 convention to devise means of remonstrance when maladministration of 
 justice became almost unbearable ; petitions were sent to the government 
 of New York praying for such laws as would tend to improve the mode 
 of administering justice, protesting against the "great expense and heavy 
 burdens" imposed on the county by additional courts established whereby 
 lawsuits increased. Charges were multiplied and families nearly beggared, 
 and, among other hardships, was the calling from their business of more 
 than seventy farmers at each of the quarterly sessions of court to act as 
 jurors. Furthermore, the court and public elections held at Albany were 
 one hundred and fifty miles distant, and the difficulty and expense of 
 getting there an added burden to the settlers. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE MILITIA 
 
 Militia — Six hundred men capable of bearing arms in 1766, between Connecticut 
 River and Green Mountains — Commission of John Arms — Militia Companies, 
 Brattleboro: The Floodwood, Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery — ^June Training^— In- 
 dian alarm at Putney West Hill — Officers Brattleboro companies. 
 
 In 1766 at the request of Sir Henry Moore, governor of New York, 
 measures were taken to ascertain the number of men between Connecticut 
 River and the Green Mountains capable of bearing arms. According to 
 the report of Thomas Chandler, presented on the twentieth of January, 
 there were in the southern portion of that district about six hundred men,^ 
 and in the northern portion about one-half that number, answering to this 
 description. A proposition was then made, that two regiments should be 
 formed, and that the command of the southern one should be assigned to 
 Thomas Chandler, and military companies were formed in several towns. 
 John Arms received his commission as major in that regiment. 
 
 Copy of the commission of Major John Armes, 1766. 
 
 By his Excellency, Sir Henry Moore, Baronet, Captain-General and 
 General-in-chief in and over the Province of New York and the Terri- 
 tories depending thereon in America, Chancellor and Vice Admiral of the 
 same. 
 
 To John Armes, Esquire, Greeting ! 
 
 1 In a letter from Sir Henry Moore, to the Earl of Shelburn, dated "Fort George, 
 New York, 9th June, 1767," are these words : "I afterwards issued out Commissions 
 for forming a Militia in those parts, and in some months afterwards a return was 
 made to me of the Regiment formed there, which amounted to upwards of six 
 hundred men. I could not help expressing much satisfaction at seeing so large a 
 Return, and expected to find that the number of families was in proportion to it, 
 but the Officer who made it, would not impose on me, and told me in a very ingen- 
 ious manner, that a great number of Families concerned in those Lands, resided 
 either in New England, New Hampshire, or Connecticut, and had never been upon 
 them ; that some Of the most active young People out of each family were sent there 
 to begin the Settlements, many of whom at the close of the summer returned to 
 their Homes, while others more industrious, continued there in the Winter that by 
 forwarding their improvements, they might more readily pave the way for those 
 who did not choose to encounter all the difficultys of a New Settlement, but would 
 rather wait till some improvements were made before they removed." 
 
THE MILITIA 63 
 
 Reposing special Trust and confidence as well in the Care, Diligence and 
 circumspection, as in the Loyalty, Courage and Braveness of you to do 
 his Majesty good and faithful service, I have nominated, constituted and 
 appointed you, the said John Armes, to be Major of the Regiment Foot 
 in the said Province, whereof Thos. Chandler, Esquire is Colonel. You 
 are, therefore, to take the said Regiment into your Charge and Care as 
 Major thereof, and duly to Exercise both the Officers and Soldiers of that 
 Regiment in Arms. And as they are hereby commanded to obey you as 
 their Major, so are you likewise to observe and follow such Orders and 
 Directions from Time to Time as you shall receive from me or any other 
 your Superior Officer, according to the Rules and Discipline of War, in 
 Pursuance of the Trust reposed in you, and for so Doing this shall be your 
 commission. 
 
 Given under my Hand and Seal at arms in New York, the Twentieth 
 day of Janna'y in the sixth year of his Majestys Reign, Annoque Domini, 
 One Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty Six. 
 
 H. MOOEE. 
 
 By His Excellencys Command. 
 
 John French. 
 
 Early in 1775 a project was under consideration by the New York 
 Provincial Congress of creating two regiments in Cumberland County, one 
 of .which was to be called the lower regiment, and the other the upper regi- 
 ment. 
 
 On the twenty-second of August, 1775, it was voted that the militia of 
 the counties of Charlotte, Cumberland and Gloucester should be formed 
 into one brigade. On the twenty-first of November following, the field 
 officers for the lower and upper regiments, and for a regiment of minute- 
 men, were nominated at a convention of representatives from the towns 
 in Cumberland County, held at Westminster. On the fourth of January, 
 1776, during the recess of the New York Provincial Congress, the com- 
 mittee of safety for that colony confirmed the nominations of the officers 
 for the upper regiment and the regiment of minutemen, but refused to 
 act upon the nominations of the officers of the lower regiment, on account 
 of the political character of some of those whose names w_ere presented. 
 
 On the sixth of February, 1776, in a letter dated at Guilford, Benjamin 
 Carpenter, chairman of the committee of safety for Cumberland County, 
 communicated to the New York Provincial Congress a list of militia 
 officers, chosen in the different towns comprised in the lower regiment. 
 From Brattleboro were John Sergeant, Captain ; Oliver Cooke, First Lieu- 
 tenant ; Timothy Church, Second Lieutenant ; John Alexander, Ensigii. 
 
64 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 This warrant was found by Mr. Zenas Frost among old papers of his 
 grandfather, of which the following is a copy : 
 
 To Corporal Jesse Frost 
 (L. S.) In His Majestys Name you are hereby commanded to Warn all 
 the Soldiers herein Named to appear on Tuesday ye thurteenth day of 
 November next at Nine of the clock Before Noon at the house of the 
 Widow Susanna Arms, compleat with Arms and Aminition as ye Law 
 Directs in Order for Vewing hearof fail not at ye Pearel of ye Law and 
 make Due Return of your Doings to me 
 
 Given under my hand and Seal at Arms in Brattleborough this eigth 
 Day of October 1770 in ye tenth year of his Majestys Reign. 
 
 Benja. Butterfield, Capt. 
 Notify ye Sargents 
 
 John Ellis, Nath'el french, Jr. Benja Butterfield, jur. Phillip Paddle- 
 ford, Oliver Wells, Thomas Sergeants, Josiah Armes, Jon't Wells, Wm. 
 Rice. 
 
 In the records of the New York Provincial Congress, at New York, 
 under date : "Die Veneris, 9 ho., A. M. July 31, 1775," is this entry : 
 
 A letter from Elisha Benedict was read and filed and is in the words 
 following, to wit: 
 
 ALBANY, July 14, 1775. 
 
 Sir, According to your instructions I went into Cumberland County to 
 deliver a copy to the Lieutenant, Samuel Fletcher, who was appointed 
 the First Lieutenant, and is with the army at Cambridge. I took the ad- 
 vice of the leading men there and they nominated William McCune^ in 
 his place, and he is enlisting of men. Alexander Brink the second Lieu- 
 tenant lives in the upper part of the County. I sent a man with his instruc- 
 tions. I have enlisted forty men, and if I had the money to pay the men 
 a small matter my company would be full in two or three days' time. 
 
 I am your humble servant 
 
 Elisha Benedict. 
 To P. V. B. Livingston, Esq. 
 
 President New York Provincial Congress N. B. I should be glad if 
 Mr. McCune might be the First Lieutenant in place of Mr. Fletcher. 
 
 The first company here was the "Floodwood." Each member was obliged 
 to furnish his own long-barreled musket, bullet pouch and powder-horn 
 and other equipment. They were without uniforms, the only similarity 
 
 iQf Brattleboro. 
 
THE MILITIA 65 
 
 in dress being that they all wore short breeches in homespun, with deer- 
 skin jackets and long stockings. The lack of military effect was the reason 
 for the name given to them by the uniformed companies. Benjamin But- 
 terfield was the first captain. "The Brattleborough Light Infantry," 
 "Brattleborough Artillery" and part of a cavalry company came later. 
 
 The infantry and cavalry were volunteer companies, and prided them- 
 selves on their exceedingly martial uniforms. The infantry wore a blue 
 coat trimmed with yellow, adorned by large eagle buttons, white vest, 
 leather stock, white drill pants, gaiters or boots, leather helmet with high 
 tin crest from which waved a long, red horsehair, while from a cockade 
 on the left stood very erect a tall red feathered plume with white top. No 
 drill or parade was complete without the provision of pails of whiskey 
 dealt out unsparingly. Captain Benjamin Smead, editor of The Federal 
 Galaxy, was their commander in 1797. 
 
 The Brattleborough Artillery came into existence soon after the infan- 
 try, and Jacob Stoddard was the first captain. Their uniform consisted 
 of "long, black, swallow-tail coats, profusely covered with brass buttons 
 of the size and shape of a large musket-ball, — ^tall, bell-shaped, black 
 leather caps, mounted by long waving black plumes, which gave this com- 
 pany such a solemn, funeral air when in. parade that they might be taken 
 for undertakers of the regiment." 
 
 June trainings- on the first Tuesday in June, when every company was 
 inspected, continued to be held on the Common of Meeting-House Hill 
 for years after the hill was deserted, when patriotism was enlivened by a 
 flowing accompaniment of New England flip or toddy. In the late au- 
 tumn, when the crops were gathered, companies from neighboring towns 
 joined for a general muster and for sham battles. Sometimes Indian war- 
 fare was feigned, a band of men representing Indians making the attack. 
 To the music of bass drum, bugle and clarionet, resounding from one 
 hill after another, the troops marched and countermarched in their strik- 
 ing uniforms, and stirred further the enthusiasm of the people who 
 participated as onlookers, by firing blank cartridges in rapid succession. 
 The climax was reached when the cavalry dashed in, their red coats, blue 
 pants and helmets triranied with bearskin, as were their holsters, adding 
 a higher note of color, while the movement of horses and flashing of long 
 sabres — ^which with braces of mounted pistols comprised their arms — 
 combined to furnish a spirited military spectacle. 
 
 In fulfilling a citizen's duty, every man who participated in these mili- 
 tary efforts derived an enjoyment which tended to stimulate his other- 
 wise monotonous life and to promote patriotic feeling. 
 
 Still exposed to the inroads of the Indians, some of the inhabitants of 
 the more distant sections of Albany County, and many of the inhabitants 
 
66 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 of Tryon, Charlotte, Gloucester, Cumberland, Ulster and Orange coun- 
 ties, moved into the interior. To prevent these removals, and to 
 afford protection against the savages, a Convention resolved, on the 
 twenty-third of July, 1776, to raise ranging parties in the above-named 
 counties, to scour the woods and expel the Indians who infested them. 
 Cumberland and Gloucester were ordered to raise, together, two hundred 
 and fifty-two men, "for the joint defence of both counties." This force 
 was to be divided into four companies, and each company was to consist 
 of one captain, two lieutenants, three sergeants, three corporals and fifty- 
 four privates. The commissioned officers were to be nominated by the 
 mutual consent of the committees of both counties, and it was recom- 
 mended that they should be "persons of sober and active dispositions." 
 The command of the companies was vested in a major, to be appointed 
 by the Convention. This officer was required to "march to the relief of 
 any of the neighboring counties or states, upon a mutual application from 
 the county committees of such respective counties or states, or upon an 
 application from the continental officer commanding -in the northern de- 
 partment." A provision was, however, inserted, by which the conti- 
 nental officer was not permitted to order the companies beyond the limits 
 of the counties of Cumberland, Gloucester and Charlotte. The pay of 
 the officers and privates was the same as that of the continental troops. 
 A bounty of $35 was allowed to each non-commissioned officer and private 
 "upon his passing muster."^ In lieu of rations, a certain sum was paid, 
 weekly, in the following ratio : to each captain, 16s. ; to each lieutenant, 
 14s. ; and to each non-commissioned officer and private, 10s. 
 
 By a law enacted at the fourth session of the General Assembly of Ver- 
 mont in February, 1779, all male persons between the ages of sixteen and 
 fifty were required to "bear arms, and duly attend all musters and mili- 
 tary exercises" of the companies to which they belonged, with the excep- 
 tion of "ministers of the gospel ; councillors ; justices of the peace ; the sec- 
 retary (of state) ; judges of probate and of superior and inferior courts; 
 the president, tutors, and students at collegiate schools ; masters of arts ; 
 allowed physicians and surgeons ; representatives or deputies for the time 
 being; schoolmasters; attornies-at-law ; one miller to each grist-mill; 
 sheriffs and constables for the time being; constant jurymen; tanners, 
 who make it their constant business ; and lamed persons or others disabled 
 in body." Each soldier and householder was required to be always pro- 
 
 1 By a subsequent resolution, one-half of this sum was to be paid "to every able 
 bodied man" who should pass muster; the other half as soon as "the first muster 
 roll of every company" should be received by the Convention. For the payment of 
 the first half of the bounty, the sum of £1200 was advanced to the deputies of 
 Cumberland County.— Journal New York Prov. Cong., i, 539, 640. 
 
THE MILITIA 67 
 
 vided with, and to have in constant readiness, "a well fixed firelock, the 
 barrel not less than three feet and a half long, or other good fire-arms, to 
 the satisfaction of the commissioned officers of the company to which he 
 doth belong, or in the limits of which he dwells; a good sword, cutlass, 
 tomahawk, or bayonet; a worm and priming-wire fit for each gun; a 
 cartouch-box or powder-horn, and bullet-pouch; one pound of good 
 powder ; four pounds of bullets fit for his gun ; and six good flints." 
 
 The militia of Cumberland County formed a brigade, subsequently 
 divided by the Legislature of New York into the northern regiment and 
 the southern regiment. The officers of the southern regiment, who re- 
 ceived their commissions from the Council of Appointment of that state, 
 August 18, 1778, were, in Brattleboro, Timothy Church, Captain; James 
 Blakslee, First Lieutenant ; Jonathan Church, Second Lieutenant ; Samuel 
 Root, Ensign. 
 
 In 1780 individuals of a party surveying in Brookline were observed 
 by some sportsmen hunting on Putney West Hill. One of the latter, 
 who had practiced imitating the Indian war whoop, took it into his head to 
 surprise the surveyors with an exhibition of his accomplishments in that 
 line. In addition to the whoop, he repeated again and again the shrieks of 
 the savage. The surveyors ran precipitately, giving the alarm, "The 
 Indians are coming!" The panic was increased by farmers in Newfane 
 who were burning brushwood and old logs, the flames looming up as the 
 darkness fell, until the inhabitants far and near were convinced that the 
 neighboring houses and barns were burning. They fled from all direc- 
 tions towards Brattleboro and Fort Dummer. "The cattle were left, 
 dwellings deserted, teams left harnessed in the fields, food being cooked 
 left at the hearthstones." The report was spread that "every log-house 
 in the pleasant vales and upon the heights of Newfane" and Athens had 
 been destroyed. The people from Athens added to their numbers on the 
 journey until, on reaching Putney, they amounted to between two and 
 three hundred. 
 
 From Dummerston the alarm reached Colonel Sargent of Brattle- 
 boro, who gave notice to Mr. Stockwell of Marlboro to call in the town 
 militia. Companies from Westminster, Brattleboro and Marlboro were 
 soon on the way, and companies from Halifax and Colrain assembled 
 in Brattleboro. A severe snowstorm coming on checked the flight of the 
 people, and the soldiers became satisfied that even the Indians could not 
 extend their ravages, and forthwith returned home. 
 
 But there was a mighty spirit for the event that required it, and feeling 
 mounted higher and higher, as the encroachments of the British were to 
 be reckoned with. Besides genera] disturbances arising from disaffection 
 
68 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 with the mother country, fostered by a growing feeling of independence, 
 there were suspicions that the court sitting at Westminster would give 
 decisions against titles to land claims. 
 
 General Burgoyne, in a letter to the minister of war, spoke of the New 
 Hampshire Grants as "a country unpeopled and almost unknown in the 
 last war" (the French War of 1756-1763) "now abounds in the most 
 active and rebellious race of the continent, and hangs like a gathering 
 storm upon my left." 
 
 The act of the government of New York in making Cumberland County, 
 and the assumption of increasing authority, tended to add to the uncer- 
 tainty of the settlers as to where their allegiance belonged. Meeting- 
 House Hill was in the line of conflict between the opposing forces.^ 
 
 On the fifth of June and the twenty-fourth of July, 1783, were chosen 
 officers of the southern regiment: Timothy Church, Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Commandant; Elisha Pierce, Quartermaster. 
 
 On the twenty-fourth of July, 1782, the officers chosen to the command 
 of the companies in the southern regiment were : for the South Company, 
 in Brattleboro, Artemas How, Captain; Reuben Church, First Lieuten- 
 ant; Isaac Crosby, Second Lieutenant; Rutherford Hayes, Ensign. In 
 the North Company were, Richard Prouty, Captain; John Alexander, 
 First Lieutenant; Francis Prouty, Second Lieutenant; Jonathan Alex- 
 ander, Ensign. 
 
 1 General Stark, on his way from Manchester, New Hampshire, to the Battle of 
 Bennington, crossed the Connecticut River above the mouth of West River. Amos 
 Thomas, who lived on the east side of the river, rowed him across in a little old 
 dugout or canoe. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO 
 
 First Church, 1768-1770— Reverend Abner Reeve, first pastor— The Covenant- 
 Glebe — Pastorates of Reverend William Wells and Reverend Caleb Burge — 
 Biographical sketch of Reverend William Wells — Poem by Chief Justice Royal! 
 Tyler — Captain Ebenezer Wells — Other children and descendants. 
 
 The following ancient papers relate to the earliest religious history of 
 the town. 
 
 Brattleborough April 18 1769. 
 
 At a meeting of the subscribers of the agreement, relating to the settling 
 of a Minister, on Tuesday the 18th day of April, 1769, regularly warned 
 at one o'clock in the afternoon, after choosing John Arms, Esq'r Mod- 
 erator the following Votes were pass'd 1st Voted that those subscribers 
 who shall move out of Town shall be released from paying any moneys 
 in consequence of their Becoming subscribers to the above mentioned 
 agreement; except such monies as shall be assessed prior to their Removal. 
 3d Voted to chose Mess Sam'l Wells Esqr John Arms and Henry Wells, 
 that they be a committee to confer with Guilford committee as to what 
 proportion Each Town must Pay towards settleing a Minister, & towards 
 his sallary & for what time to Join Together & make report of their 
 Doings to the adjourned Meeting, that the subscribers may approve or 
 Disapprove thereof. 3d Voted that this meeting be adjourned to Friday 
 the 31st Instant, at 3 o'clock. 
 
 At the adjourned meeting of the subscribers on Friday the 31st of 
 April at Two o'clock in the afternoon, after choosing Benjn Butterfield 
 Moderator in the Barn of John Arms who was so much Indisposed he 
 could not attend, the following Votes were passed : 
 
 1st Voted that a Minister be procured to preach for the Term three 
 Months upon probation for settling him & The Town of Guilford to pay 
 for one Month & have preaching one third of the Time. 8nd Voted that 
 the Sum of Sixteen Pounds, York Currency, be raised, for the Purpose 
 
 Brattleborough Feby 19th 1770 
 We the Subscribers Desire the Town Clerk to Warn a Meeting of the 
 Subscribers to the Agreement relating to the Settling of a Minisster 
 
70 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 to be held at Major Arms on the first Tuesday of March next at one 
 oClock in the afternoon To act & Vote upon the Following articles Viz 
 1st to chusse a Moderator 2dly To Signify their Minds With respect to 
 hiring a Minisster upon Probation for Settling, or otherwise, as they Chuse 
 3dly if they Chuse to hire, to chuse a Committee to procure a Minisster. 
 
 Signed Danl Whipple Malachi Church Israel Field Jasper Partridge 
 Sylvester Wright John Arms Saml Wells William Nichols Nathan Church 
 Jonathan Church Israel Field. 
 
 Brattleborough July 5th 1770. 
 
 After Choosing Capt Butterfield Moderator the following Votes were 
 Pass'd of the Notification Voted to Hire Mr. Reeve to preach for Two 
 Sabbaths upon Probation for Settling, one at Guilford & one here. 
 
 Art 4. Voted that Saml Wells Esqr Henry Wells & Nathan Church be 
 a Committee to agree with Mr Reeve. 
 
 7th Art Voted to Join With Guilford for three years in Settling Mr 
 Reeve. Lastly Voted to adjourn this Meeting, after choosing Capt Butter- 
 field, Oliver Harris & Oliver Cooke assessors 
 
 Article 9th Voted that Timothy Church be the Person to sue those Who 
 Neglect or refuse paying their proportion of any assessments. Voted 
 that we will Join with Guilford for three years, they to Pay half the 
 Salary & one sixth Part of the Settlement & Mr Reeve preach half the 
 Time for them, they Loseing the Time when bad weather prevents his 
 preaching There 
 
 Art 3 Voted to Settle Mr Reeve. 
 
 A Copy of the Agreement of the Committee with Mr Reeve 
 We the Subscribers being Duly Chosen a Committee to Agree with 
 the Reverend Abner Reeve with Respect to his Settlement & Sallary, by 
 the Subscribers, relating to the settling a Minisster in the Town of Brat- 
 tleborough, do hereby Agree in behalf of Said Subscribers, in Manner & 
 Form Following. That if Mr. Reeve Shall return to preach for us & 
 Bring a Recommendation from under the Hand of Ten of the Members 
 of the Church of Blooming Grove — ^that he has presided over, or from 
 one of the neighboring Minissters Signifying that he has been in Good 
 Standing as a Minisster of the Gospel & sustained a Good Character while 
 he has resided there, We Engage to pay the said Mr Reeve the Sum of 
 fifty Pounds New York Currency towards his settlement, one third part 
 in cash yearly until Paid. Also the Sum of Thirty Pounds said Cur- 
 rency for the first years Sallary & the sum of Thirty Two Pounds of said 
 Currency for the Second Years Sallary, also the sum of Thirty Four 
 Pounds said Currency for the Third Years Sallary, Provided Mr Reeve 
 
FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO 71 
 
 Continues to Supply the Pulpit in Brattleborough half the Time for & 
 During the said Three years, Sickness only Excepted. The Above said 
 yearly Payments to be made one Third Cash — The Other Two Thirds in 
 Merchantable Produce at the Market Price to be Delivered at such Place 
 as Mr Reeve shall appoint in said Brattleborough. Whereunto we have 
 set our Hands this Day July 3d 1770 at Brattleborough 
 
 Signed Saml Wells 
 
 Nathl Church 
 Henry Wells 
 -*■ 
 We the Subscribers desire the Town Clerk to warn a Meeting of the 
 Subscribers to the Agreement relating to Settling a minister To be hgld 
 at Esqr Wells's on Monday the twelfth Day of November Next one 
 oClock in the afternoon to Vote and act upon the following Articles Viz 
 1st To chuse a Moderator. 2dly to reconsider the Vote passed at the 
 Last Meeting in order to raise money for Mr Reeves Settlement and 
 Sallary. 3dly To pass a vote to pay the Collector for his Trouble of 
 Collecting. 4thly to Raise money to pay the Charge of bringing Mr 
 Reeves Family & Goods from Hadley. 5thly To raise money to make up 
 Deficiency of Last Years rate. 
 Brattleborough Oct 25th 1770 
 
 Signed Saml Wells 
 
 Benjamin Butterfield 
 Danl Whipple 
 John Sargent 
 Nathan Church Junr 
 Elijah Prouty 
 
 The names below, not given heretofore, as follows, 1769 to 1786 : Jacob 
 Spaldin, Abner Scovell, Oliver Harris, Josiah Wheeler, Thos. Cumpton, 
 Wm. M'Cune, Wm. Brail, Richard Prouty, Doct. Dickerman, John 
 Houghton, Elisha Pierce, Eben'r Howze, Wm. Ellas, Beijj'm Gorten, 
 Joseph Whipple, David Church, Lemuel Kendrick, Seth Smith, Joshua 
 Wilder, Ebenezer Hadley, Jonathan Herrick, Silas Houghton, Joseph 
 Burt, Eben'r Fisher, O. Cook, John Griffin, Sam'l Warriner, Daniel 
 Johnson. 
 
 At a meeting June I'd, 1770, they voted to hire the Reverend Abner 
 Reeve to preach two Sabbaths for settling, one at Guilford and one here. 
 On July 3 they voted : 
 
 That we will join with Guilfoi'd for three years, they to pay one-half 
 of the salary and one-sixth part of the settlement, and have Mr. Reeve 
 
n ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 to preach half the time for them, they losing the time when bad weather 
 prevents his preaching there. ' 
 
 And to raise £60 pounds New York currency for his settlement and the 
 same for a year's salary. 
 
 A formal agreement was entered into between a committee and Mr. 
 Reeve for supplying the pulpit in Brattleboro half the time for three 
 years, "sickness only excepted," for £50 New York currency, one-third of 
 it yearly, toward his settlement, and i30 the first year, £33 the second 
 and £34 the third, for his salary. A meeting was held November 13, 1770, 
 when this agreement presented by Mr. Marshall, which had been pre- 
 viously drawn up by Judge Wells in handsome writing upon parchment, 
 was dated and probably largely signed. Here is a copy of it : 
 
 Whereas it is the Desire of us the subscribers. Inhabitants of the Town- 
 ship of Brattleborough, to come into some measures for the settlement and 
 maintaining of an Orthodox Gospel Minister in the Town, and in order 
 to put in Execution such a necessary and salutary scheme, and likewise 
 to prevent any misunderstanding that might otherwise arise. We the 
 subscribers do hereby severally agree, covenant and promise to abide and 
 stand by the following articles, viz. : 
 
 1st. That at all meetings of the subscribers for the Future, all matters 
 that shall be transacted, whether the raising of money or any other 
 thing relative to the settling and maintaining a minister, shall be governed 
 by the majority of votes of the subscribers that shall be present; A 
 Record of said votes to be made by the Town Clerk or by some other 
 person the subscribers may appoint their clerk, which votes, so recorded, 
 shall be binding upon us the subscribers during our residence in the ToWn 
 Of Brattleborough. 
 
 3d. That when and so often as six or more of the said subscribers shall 
 signify under their Hands to the clerk their Desire to have a meeting of 
 said subscribers called for any of the aforesaid Purposes, and in their 
 application to the clerk for any such meeting shall insert every particular 
 Article that is to be acted upon; then the clerk shall warn said meeting 
 by setting a Notification at some Public Place in said Town, fourteen days 
 before said meeting is to be held, and in said Notification insert every 
 Article to be acted upon ; And all votes passed at said meeting, so called 
 as aforesaid and relative to such Matters as are notified by the Notification 
 aforesaid, shall be binding upon us the subscribers ; And that any Matter 
 or thing that shall or may be voted or determined that is not so inserted 
 in said application for a meeting, shall not be binding upon us the sub- 
 scribers. 
 
 3d. That this Covenant shall, for the future, be kept by the clerk as 
 
FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO 
 
 73 
 
 aforesaid or his successor till it shall be otherwise determined by a 
 majority of votes of us the subscribers. 
 November 12th, 17?0. 
 
 Samuel Wells, 
 Henry Wells, 
 Benjamin Butterfield, 
 Josiah Bumpus, 
 Oliver Harris, 
 Daniel Whipple, 
 William McCune, 
 Jacob Spaulding, 
 Oliver Cook, 
 Elias Wilder, 
 Israel Field, 
 Timothy Church, 
 William Brace, 
 Elijah Prouty, 
 John Sargeants, 
 Eber Church, 
 David Church, 
 Richard Prouty, 
 Joseph Burt, 
 Samuel Knight, 
 Joshua Wilder, 
 John Baldwin, 
 Jonathan Church, 
 Susanna Arms, 
 John Campton, 
 William Ellas, 
 Benjamin Gorton, 
 Nathaniel Church, 
 Malachi Church, 
 Ebenezer Fisher, 
 Jonathan Herrick, 
 Nathaniel Church, jr., 
 Ebenezer Havv^s, 
 Thomas Sargeant, 
 Reuben Field, 
 
 William Nichols, 
 •Joseph. Whipple, 
 William Gould, 
 Isaac McCune, 
 John Houghton, 
 John Williams, 
 Benjamin Butterfield, jr., 
 John Alexander, 
 Benjamin Church, 
 Edward Jewett, 
 Seth Smith, 
 Daniel Eraser, 
 Stephen Greenleaf , 
 Oliver Harris, jr., 
 Benjamin Baker, 
 Francis Prouty, 
 Abner Scovel, 
 Silas Houghton, 
 Joel Atchison, 
 Simeon Eaton, 
 Thomas Reeve, 
 Ebenezer Hadley, 
 Frederick Williams, 
 Jonathan Wells, 
 Elisha Pierce, 
 David Houghton, 
 Lemuel Kendrick, 
 Joseph Chamberlain, 
 Daniel Johnson, 
 David Pierks, 
 Jeremiah Hopkins, 
 Stephen Greenleaf, jr., 
 Isaac Crosby, 
 Bethuel Church, 
 George Dickson. 
 
 The next day Judge Wells deeded to him the lot of fifty-seven and two- 
 fifths acres next east of then Ebenezer Fisher's, east of the Meeting- 
 House, and a lot of one hundred and fifty acres, covering the rest of 
 
74 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 the school lot and extending up over the hill eastward to the mowing 
 on Meeting-House Hill. He was described in the deed as "Abner Reeve 
 of Cornwall Precinct in the County of Orange and Province of New 
 York, Clerk." The addition of clerk to a man's name then meant clergy- 
 man. That part of Cornwall in which he lived lies among the mountains 
 west of West Point and became Blooming Grove in 1799. Mr. Reeve 
 came immediately to the place east of Mr. Fisher's and lived there. 
 
 There seems to have been, from the beginning, considerable difficulty 
 in raising sufficient money for the payment of Mr. Reeve's salary. The 
 annual meeting, as long as he was their pastor, was mainly concerned with 
 this issue. Some items of the annual discussion are of interest as they 
 refer to methods employed. 
 
 The salary, September, 1774, was £76. At a meeting held the year 
 following, April 3, 1775, it was "voted to get Mr. Reeve's fire wood by 
 rate. Also voted not to have persons' names put into the minister's rate 
 who have not signed the Covenant. Also, That the treasurer shall sue 
 the collectors for the minister's rate, if they neglect collecting the rates. 
 Voted, further, to allow Mr. Reeve's interest for his money if not punc- 
 tually paid." At the meeting in May, 1776, having voted the salary, they 
 voted to get Mr. Reeve's firewood, fifty cords, by rate, and raised £10 
 to pay for getting it — ^the assessors to have charge of the work. Stephen 
 Greenleaf, Clerk. A meeting was held in November of this year (1776), 
 among other things, "to empower the collectors to strain for the rates, or 
 contrive some other method whereby the minister's rate may be effectually 
 collected, and to raise Mr. Reeve's salary somewhat higher on account 
 of the present advanced price of Produce. Voted to let Mr. Reeve have 
 the Produce at the price it was, when the covenant was made with him." 
 
 From 1769 to 1781 or 1783, some twelve or thirteen years, the obtaining 
 of a minister, the raising of his salary and all the affairs of this kind seem 
 to have been the work of the association called the "Covenanters" ; but all 
 business of this kind, by the laws of Vermont to support the ministry, now 
 passed into the hands of the town, and there it remained for some twenty 
 years, or till 1802 or 1803, and the record of the same is kept with the 
 other records of the proceedings of the town. 
 
 March, 1773, at an adjourned meeting of "the freeholders of the town 
 of Brattleborough, in the county of Cumberland, it was voted that the 
 Supervisor of the town give certain instructions to the Assemblymen of 
 this county [representatives, probably, to the Provincial Assembly of 
 New York] , viz. : to ask leave of the Assembly to bring in several Bills, one 
 about the poor, one about taxing unimproved lands, one about electing 
 Assemblymen; and the 4th, a Bill to have any person allowed to give a 
 deed of land to any town, i.e., to trustees and their successors, for the 
 
FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO . 75 
 
 purpose of setting up Dissenting Meeting Houses in this county ; and 5th, 
 that the Supervisor instruct the Assemblymen to use their utmost influ- 
 ence to hinder any act being passed to oblige the people of this country to 
 pay ministers of the church of England; also to oppose, with all their 
 might, any act of Assembly which shall in any way or manner tend to 
 introduce a Bishop into America." 
 
 At the March meeting in 1780 the town chose. three tithingmen and two 
 gravediggers, and adjourned to the last Wednesday in May, to see about 
 building a new meeting-house. At this meeting, in May, they voted to 
 build such a house, and appointed a committee of three to select a com- 
 mittee of three from the adjoining towns to "prefix" a place on which 
 to build, and also choose another committee of five to "weight" on the 
 above from abroad. But this last committee of five found themselves 
 unable to proceed, because the town had made no provision to pay the 
 committee from abroad. A meeting being called in June to see if this 
 town would raise money to pay the aforesaid committee from abroad, it 
 was voted not to do so. 
 
 September, 1781, in which the records of the proceedings of the "Cov- 
 enanters" fail us in respect to Mr. Reeve, he begins to appear in the 
 records of the town. And yet some three years elapse before we find 
 the town really making any provision for him. There seems to have been 
 much hesitation or opposition in regard to declaring him the settled min- 
 ister of the town, because of' the effect this might be supposed to have 
 on his claims to lands set apart by government, in those days, for ministers 
 of that class, the first settled. 
 
 About this time the glebe became, by several laws, the first of which 
 was passed in 1779, school lands; and neither the first settled minister 
 nor any religious society had anything to do with them. The shares were 
 of about three hundred acres each, divided into two one-hundred-acre 
 lots and one lot about one hundred and sixty acres. The first settled min- 
 ister had lived on one of the one-hundred-acre lots, and probably sold the 
 other two. One of the one-hundred-acre school lots, originally glebe lots, 
 had its southwest corner at the old graveyard back of the Hayes House, 
 and extended north one hundred and sixty rods and east one hundred 
 rods. 
 
 The twenty-eighth of June, 1784, it was voted "that the Reverend 
 Abner Reeve be the settled minister of this town for the future upon 
 conditions following, viz. : That the vote shall never be construed to give 
 Mr. Reeve any greater or other title to any public lands in this town than 
 that which he hath by virtue of his ministerial labors in the town previous 
 to passing this vote ; and that Mr. Reeve shall not be entitled by this vote 
 to any greater or other salary from the town than that which he was 
 
76 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 entitled to by virtue of his settling in the town, from the individual 
 persons who settled him. Voted, also, to raise £60, lawful money, by a tax 
 upon the polls and rateable estate in this town, upon the list of the year 
 1783, for the purpose of paying Mr. Reeve's salary for the year 1783." 
 
 But, for some reason, this action of the town seems to have been de- 
 fective or illegal, at least not satisfactory; for, in less than three months, 
 September 7, we find the town called together again to do the same thing. 
 This meeting was adjourned to the twenty-third, when they met and voted 
 "that this town will not make good to the Rev. Mr. Reeve the arrearages 
 of his salary which have already become due. Voted to choose a com- 
 mittee — Messrs. Butterfield, Warriner and Knight — to confer with Mr. 
 Reeve, and know of him upon what condition he will agree to be the settled 
 minister of the town. Voted that the Rev. Mr. Abner Reeve be the 
 settled minister of this town upon his acceptance hereof, and relinquish- 
 ing from this date the covenant made with him by many of the inhabitants 
 of this town for his support, for so long a time (and no longer) as he is 
 able to supply the pulpit with preaching ; on this condition, however, that 
 the said Reeve by virtue hereof be not entitled to any land in this town 
 given by public authority to the first settled minister. Voted that the 
 salary of Mr. Reeve, during his officiating as Public Preacher in this town, 
 be at the rate of £60 per annum, payable two-thirds in produce at the 
 market price, and one-third in cash. Voted that the aforesaid committee 
 (Benjamin Butterfield, Samuel Warriner and Samuel Knight), lay the 
 foregoing votes before the Rev. Mr. Reeve," — to which Mr. Reeve was 
 pleased to return the following answer, viz. : 
 
 Gentlemen, — You have sent me a conditional vote, with which I cor- 
 dially comply, if your meaning and intention be not to weaken or destroy 
 my claim to the land in the town, granted to the first settled minister of 
 the gospel, previous to the passing of said vote, as witness my hand. 
 
 Abner Reeve. 
 
 In reply to this it was voted that the town do not intend, by the preced- 
 ing vote, to weaken or destroy any claim which the Reverend Mr. Reeve 
 had to the right of land in this town, granted to the first settled minister, 
 or to add any strength to such claim. And the town clerk, Samuel Knight 
 at that time, concludes the foregoing record with the remark, the like 
 to which was often appended to other similar proceedings, "I do hereby 
 certify that in passing the foregoing votes respecting the settling Mr. 
 Reeve, there were more than twenty-five legal voters in the afifirmative." 
 
 And here we introduce a communication from the hand of Reverend 
 Mr. Reeve, an original document, written and signed by himself, and 
 
FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO 77 
 
 bearing date of the same day and year as the action of the town, October 
 3, 1793. It is beautifully written, penmanship, erasures, interlinings, and 
 all, — just as it came from his own hand and heart. The paper reads as 
 follows : 
 
 There being unhappily, to my great Grief of Mind, dififerences subsist- 
 ing in the Town of Brattleboro' with respect to my further preaching the 
 Gospel to the Inhabitants of said Town in virtue of a former vote 
 thereof — For healing said Dififerences, and for uniting the said Inhabi- 
 tants in brotherly Love in the service of our common Lord and Master, 
 and in full hope that these very important purposes will be answered, I 
 do hereby disclaim for myself, my Heirs Ex'ors and Adm'ors, all pre- 
 tence to any salary by virtue of any vote of the Inhabitants of said Town, 
 in legal meeting assembled, to become due and payable after the date 
 hereof, — Provided always, and this writing is on this express condition, 
 that all arrearages of salary, including the time to the date hereof, be 
 settled or paid to me my heirs ex'ors or adm'ors, the one-half on or before 
 the 3d of April next and the other half on or before the 3d day of October 
 next ; and that I may have the privilege of preaching in the meeting house, 
 as heretofore, when no other preacher shall be employed by the Selectmen 
 of said Town for that purpose, upon such pay only as shall gratuitously 
 be given me by said Inhabitants thereof. 
 
 Given under my hand the 3d Oct'r 1792. 
 
 Abner Reeve. 
 
 April 16, 1793, a resolution was passed that sundry sums voted Mr. 
 Reeve in past years be paid into the treasury by the third of October next 
 (1793), — which seems to have been the last action recorded, as taken 
 by the town, in respect to the Reverend Abner Reeve. Early in the suc- 
 ceeding year, April 2, 1794, we find the town taking measures to engage 
 the Reverend William Wells. , 
 
 About Mr. Reeve's right to land of which so much is said in the rec- 
 ords of the proceedings of the town in those early days — this land, now 
 belonging to the Brattleboro Retreat, embraced the farm generally known 
 as the Shepard Rice place, being situated about a mile directly east from 
 the cemetery near which the first Meeting-House stood. In the grants of 
 townships in this state by the Provincial Government of New Hg.mpshire, 
 three rights were reserved for the support and propagation of Christian- 
 ity, — one a glebe for the minister of the Church of England, one for the 
 Society for Propagating the Gospel and one for the minister that should 
 be first settled in the town. In the Vermont grants of townships, two 
 rights were reserved for the support of the clergy, — one for the first 
 settled minister, to be his own personal property, for the sake of encour- 
 
78 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 aging such settlements ; and one for a parsonage, designed to go towards 
 the minister's support, and never to be aHenated to any other purpose. 
 
 The tract to which we now refer as coming into the hands of Mr. 
 Reeve is spoken of, in the charter, as one whole share; and as the gov- 
 ernor's two shares contained eight hundred acres, this would seem to 
 have been originally four hundred. But some of the" older inhabitants 
 of the town had the impression that it was two hundred; while others 
 have thought it was only one hundred. Whatever may have been its 
 original size, after it had passed through several hands it had come to be 
 so reduced as to contain only some fifty or sixty acres when it came to 
 be known as the Rice place. Here it was that Mr. Reeve lived, even 
 after the new meeting-house was built in the West Village, though the 
 change in the place of worship put him some two miles away — at least 
 twice the distance he was from the first place of worship. Here he reared 
 the younger portion of his large family, doing pulpit and parish work, 
 and, with the help of his sons, especially Silas, the youngest, carrying on 
 the farm to eke out the small and somewhat uncertain or irregular salary 
 which his people of the town paid or promised him. Eventually, however, 
 he made an exchange with a Mr. Patterson, and obtained what used to 
 be known as the Reeve farm, which extended from the cemetery, of which 
 we have spoken, down the hill westward to Whetstone Brook, and 
 embraced the premises which now constitute the Pettee place. 
 
 Reverend Abner Reeve 
 
 The Reverend Abner Reeve is said to have been of Scotch descent. 
 He was a descendant of Sergeant Nott, who settled Wethersfield, Con- 
 necticut, in 1640, through the eldest daughter of Nott, who married 
 Robert Reeve. His father, Thomas Reeve, was born October 3, 1678, 
 and died November 9, 1735, the very year his son entered the ministry. 
 
 Reverend Abner Reeve was born in Southold ( Southwo.ld or Southold, 
 as the name is variously written). Long Island, New York, February 31, 
 1708. He pursued his collegiate studies at Yale, New Haven, and gradu- 
 ated from that institution in 1731, at the age of twenty-three; and the 
 next year, October 16, 1732, he was married to his first wife, Mary, in 
 his native place. He entered on the ministry at the age of twenty-seven, 
 and commenced pastoral labor in 1735, in the old church at Nissiquasque 
 or Nesaquake, now Smithtown, Long Island. Here he remained some- 
 thing more than six years. During this time there were born to him 
 three sons and one daughter. In 1741 his wife Mary died, and in Decem- 
 ber, 1843, he was married to Miss Deborah Tapping of Brookhaven. 
 From this marriage he had two sons. Tapping and Erastus. His second 
 wife died in 1759 ; and in 1761 he was married to his third, Miss Phoebe 
 
FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO 79 
 
 Foster of Southampton, Long Island, of whom were born to him five 
 children, John, Phoebe, Obadiah, Deborah and Silas. The three younger 
 of them were born in Blooming Grove, New York, where, having left his 
 first parish, Smithtown, and preached for some fifteen years in South- 
 haven and other places, he was settled in 1756. Here' he remained some 
 fourteen years, of till he came to Brattleboro in 1770. 
 
 Of his five children by his third wife, a son died in infancy. His 
 second son, Obadiah, was killed at the age of sixteen, by falling into a 
 well they were digging on the minister's lot (the Rice place). His grave 
 is in the old burying ground on the hill. His eldest daughter (by his 
 third wife) married Captain James Blakeslee, who lived on the meadow 
 farm, half a mile out from the village, where Samuel Sargent was the 
 last owner and resident. The other daughter, Deborah, married a brother 
 of the Captain, Nathaniel Blakeslee. 
 
 Silas, the youngest of these five, and indeed the youngest of all the 
 eleven, inherited his father's farm, the so-called Reeve place, as has been 
 said, and spent his days in West Brattleboro, being an active, consistent 
 member of the church, an intelligent, enterprising citizen, a good neigh- 
 bor, "upright, gentle and beloved, and against whose name I never heard 
 a word." He was born in 1769, was married by his father to Miss Rhoda 
 Blakeslee in 1788, in the twentieth year of his age, and had eight children, 
 two of whom, Mrs. Rhoda Adams, the eldest, and Miss Eliza, next to 
 the youngest, were living in West Brattleboro in the memory of the 
 present inhabitants. 
 
 Of the Reverend Mr. Reeve's other children, there was one by his 
 second wife who took his mother's name. Tapping, for a Christian name, 
 concerning whose memory scholars and Christians will love to talk and 
 hear and think for many generations. He was born September 20, 1744, 
 some say at Southold, some at Brookhaven, where, it would seem, his 
 father preached for a time. This son, sometimes called Judge Reeve, 
 and sometimes the Honorable Tapping Reeve, established a law school 
 in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1784, which was for a long time the most 
 celebrated' institution of the kind in the United States, and was author 
 of "Reeve's Domestic Relations," a law book; he married a sister of 
 Aaron Burr. Allen's American Biographical Dictionary tells us that 
 "he was not only a profound lawyer, but also an eminent Christian,'' that 
 "his charities were extensive" and that "much of his time was employed 
 in devotion." This son of his was "a worthy son of a worthy sire." 
 Doctor Lyman Beecher, for many years the son's pastor, has left us a 
 beautiful outline of these traits, when, on the occasion of the son's funeral, 
 the Doctor says that "he was blessed with a mind of the first order. His 
 person was well-proportioned and commanding, his countenance regular 
 
80 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 and interesting, his eye especially was filled with mild but most animated 
 expression. His voice was full-toned and musical, and his eloquence, 
 when his soul was roused and his heart awake, was powerful, — ^the elo- 
 quence of a vigorous mind, a vivid imagination and an expansive heart. 
 His humor was genuine, his sensibilities exquisite, his affections copious 
 and ardent. Few minds are formed to receive or communicate more 
 social enjoyment, or to inspire or feel more ardent afifection. The man- 
 ners of Judge Reeve were equally removed from repulsive haughtiness and 
 unbecoming familiarity, and were strongly marked by a guileless sim- 
 plicity combined with a real dignity of demeanor." 
 
 The Reverend Abner Reeve was described, by those who knew him 
 personally, as a fine-looking man, well built, large and portly, dignified 
 yet easy and gracious in his carriage, noble and generous in mind and 
 heart, and much beloved by his people. Some of his grandchildren have 
 told of their riding behind him horseback, on a pillion, in going with 
 him to meeting. A chair of his, very antique in appearance, and a few 
 books that he once owned and used, such as Cruden's Concordance, a 
 very old edition published in London, and dedicated to the Queen, and 
 an Exposition of the Bible, or a portion of it, in Latin, are still extant. 
 
 In religious and doctrinal views and teaching, the Reverend Mr. Reeve 
 was an Orthodox Congregational minister, — such, at least, the Covenant- 
 ers sought. And when he came among them, they required of him that he 
 bring good, clean papers to this effect from his former charge, or from 
 ministers of his acquaintance in that neighborhood, certifying also to his 
 good moral character. And, judged of by his teachings during his twenty- 
 five years' labor here, he came to be spoken of in history as "of the order 
 called New England Calvinistic Congregational." "He was an earnest, 
 faithful, cultured, modest and loving Christian minister." 
 
 Mr. Reeve took a generous and active part in religious and ministerial 
 labors outside of his own particular parish. And here, too, it is worthy 
 of record that the first Ministerial Association ever formed in the state 
 of Vermont, was organized in Brattleboro at the house of the Rev- 
 erend Abner Reeve, October 17, 1775. By what preliminary movement 
 the brethren were called together does not appear; but the Preamble to 
 the Articles of the Association Covenant is worth quoting: "We, the 
 subscribers. Ministers of the Gospel in the County of Cumberland and 
 State of New York, being desirous of promoting the interest of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and the spiritual good of the church and people, as 
 far as we have charge, opportunity and influence; and having a divine 
 direction to do all things decently and in order, which respect God's 
 house and worship, and being instructed by the sacred oracles to be 
 modest, humble and self-diffident, and that in the multitude of council 
 
FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO 81 
 
 there is safety; and finding (Acts 15) that even inspired men took coun- 
 cil one of another ; think it expedient and our duty to associate and unite 
 in an ecclesiastical body, for the more effectual service of Christ in his 
 church, and for our own mutual assistance in matters of weight and 
 difificulty respecting our ministerial office — do now engage to be one body, 
 and to abide by the following Articles, till our associated body shall find 
 good reason to alter or exchange any of them or add thereto." Among 
 the articles adopted by them, there was one forbidding that any but min- 
 isters sound in the faith should be admitted as members. Another is: 
 "We will hold ministerial and Christian communion with neighboring 
 ministers and churches, and invite them occasionally to our assistance." 
 Having resigned his "charge and retired from official service, Mr. Reeve 
 passed two or three years of comparative quiet with his son Silas, at his 
 new home on the so-called Reeve farm, of which we have already spoken. 
 In the spring of 1798, his son being for many weeks very sick, he was 
 invited to go and stop for a time with his daughter Phoebe, the wife of 
 Captain Blakeslee, where he soon departed this life, and went home to 
 the "rest that remaineth." His mortal part was interred in the grave- 
 yard, just in the rear, or to the east. 
 
 Reverend William Wells 
 
 Reverend William Wells was settled, as a dissenting minister, for 
 twenty-three years at Bloomsgrove, in Worcestershire, England. Leav- 
 ing that field, he came to this country and landed with his family in 
 Boston, June 13, 1793. From thence he came to Brattleboro in March, 
 1794, and settled on a farm, — wishing to avoid by this means the charge 
 of a parish, but still be useful as a preacher, — now Linden Lodge, on 
 the West River road, about a mile north of the present Brattleboro Re- 
 treat. On his arrival here the clerk of the town was requested to call a 
 meeting to see if his services could be secured for the desk of the church ; 
 thus : "We, the Subscribers, Inhabitants and Freeholders of the Town of 
 Brattlebo'ugh, impressed with a sense that it is of the utmost importance 
 to the welfare of ourselves and families, and highly essential to the peace 
 and good order of the inhabitants in general, that the precepts of Chris- 
 tianity and the rules of morality should be publickly and uniformly incul- 
 cated among us, — do hereby request you to warn a meeting of said inhabi- 
 tants to be holden on Wednesday, the 3d day of April (1794)" — ^to see, 
 among other things, "whether said inhabitants will agree to employ the 
 Rev. William Wells to preach with us, and what sum of money they will 
 raise for that purpose." Signed: William Harris, Jonathan Dunklee, 
 Lemuel Dickerman, C. Harris, Samuel Greenleaf, Jonas Knapp. 
 
82 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 At this meeting tlie town voted to employ Mr. Wells, and allow him 
 thirty shillings per Sabbath for his services. On the thirtieth of December 
 the town voted to offer him £60 a year, and chose Messrs. Jonathan 
 Goodenough, Samuel Warriner and Doctor Lemuel Dickerman a com- 
 mittee to see if he would accept this amount. March 31, 1795, a meeting 
 being called to see if the town would agree on any method to procure 
 preaching in "Abner Reeve's congregation," and raise money for said 
 purpose, they voted to employ Mr. Wells the ensuing year, and appointed 
 a committee to report to him their action, and ask him to preach in the 
 meeting-house on the next Sabbath. The next meeting was held Sep- 
 tember 30, 1795, "at the house of Rutherford Hays, Innkeeper," to see 
 about building a belfry, partly by "private subscription." In this and in 
 other things, we now begin to see the coming in of new ideas as to the 
 proper way of managing and supporting religious interests, though the 
 transition from the town to the society is gradual. 
 
 The following year, April 20, 1796, it was voted that the town clerk 
 is a proper and legal clerk to serve in society business (as respecting the 
 minister), and voted to employ Mr. Wells on a salary of £80 the ensuing 
 year; the salary to be assessed on the list of 1796 and paid by the first of 
 June, 1797. A meeting of the "Town or Society" being called for May 
 1, 1797, to see if the "Town or Society" will take measures to procure 
 preaching, it was voted to "improve" [employ] the Reverend William 
 Wells as a preacher the ensuing year, or until the town shall or may pro- 
 cure a candidate for the gospel ministry in this Town (if such a thing 
 should happen to be within a year) ; if the said Wells shall agree to 
 preach at the rate of £80 a year, the same to be raised by assessments. 
 
 A distinct society, aside from the town organization, for the support of 
 the gospel, seems now to have come into being and operation, as witness 
 the following record : "April 15, 1799 : Whe.reas, the inhabitants of the 
 Congregational Society have voted to hire a young candidate on proba- 
 tion, to preach in this place, therefore voted unanimously that the Rever- 
 end William Wells be presented with the grateful thanks of said Society 
 for his former eminent and useful services, together with an expression 
 of their highest wishes for his future happiness and prosperity." A com- 
 mittee having been appointed to wait on Mr. Wells with the above, it was 
 voted that the town clerk, treasurer and collector, be the clerk, treasurer 
 and collector for the society, and that the selectmen be the assessors for 
 the society. 
 
 But the move for a new minister does not seem to have been successful. 
 For, the next year, March 29, 1800, "The Society for the support of the 
 gospel in this town," having been convened at the meeting-house, it was 
 voted to hire the Reverend Mr. Wells for the ensuing year, and raise 
 
FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO 83 
 
 $260, the same to be assessed, for the expense of preaching, a committee 
 being chosen to carry this resolve into effect and take care of the pruden- 
 tial affairs of the society. A year later, March 6, 1801, the society having 
 met and taken about the same action in respect to a minister and his 
 salary, and having chosen Messrs. Lemuel Whitney, John W. Blake and 
 Doctor George H. Hall a prudential committee, it was voted to dismiss 
 the fourth article of the warrant in relation to the raising of money for 
 "the encouragement of social worship so far as it respects singing." 
 
 The first record of the Congregational Church in West Brattleboro, 
 as distinct from the Society or Association of Covenanters for the sup- 
 port of the gospel in this town, bears date the twelfth day of June, 1799 ; 
 the second record, November 30, 1803, speaks of a meeting of the church 
 at the hall of Mr. Rutherford Hayes, where it was opened with prayer by 
 the Reverend William Wells, and a committee, Benjamin Baker and 
 Deacon Joshua Wilder, chosen to consider a case of discipline. This case, 
 together with others, constituted the chief business for the next three 
 meetings, though at one of those meetings the clerk was instructed to 
 purchase a book in which to keep a record of the proceedings of the 
 church at their meetings. It was also voted that the Reverend William 
 Wells be requested (on communion days) to invite any members of 
 regular standing in other churches to commune and partake with this 
 church at the Lord's Table. 
 
 At a meeting of the church in January, 1803, which the Reverend 
 William Wells opened by an address to the Throne of Grace, a commit- 
 tee was chosen with discretionary powers to invite such persons of the 
 Baptist persuasion in this town and others who make application and 
 who are of regular standing in the Baptist Church, to commune and par- 
 take with this church at the table of our common Lord. At a previous 
 meeting, December 28, 1802, it was voted, almost "without a dissenting 
 voice, that their opinion of the method of admitting church members is 
 briefly but clearly expressed in the following observations : "As to candi- 
 dates for church membership giving an account of their experience, in a 
 minute and circumstantial manner, to the whole body of the church or to 
 a committee appointed by the church, — as it has no foundation (as we 
 can find) in Scripture, it is putting persons to an unnecessary piece of 
 mdrtification, hurts the modesty of the most diffident and humble, grati- 
 fies the spirit of vanity and pride of such as value themselves upon their 
 religious knowledge and attainments, and is the occasion of preventing 
 many worthy persons from church communion." This action of the 
 church was followed by two pages of remarks and explanations by the 
 pastor. 
 
84 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO • 
 
 It is however presumed that though this Church does not think they 
 have any right to pry into the secrets of mens hearts, which after all are, 
 and can be known only to God and themselves. Yet it is their opinion, not 
 only that it is the indispensible duty of every one to look into his own 
 heart, & examine himself before he enters upon a public profession of 
 religion, but that it may be very useful for intimate friends to com- 
 municate their religious experience to each other for their mutual edi- 
 fication & comfort. And that it is particularly incumbent upon Aged 
 & judicious Christians to speak to others of the things of God, to inform 
 their Children & other Young People of God's gracious dealings with 
 them in bringing them into & keeping them in his good ways. It may 
 also prevent a great deal of unnecessary perplexity & distress, for persons 
 under concern of soul, to make known their difficulties & troubles, to a 
 Godly Minister, and to their own minister in particular, or to some emi- 
 nently serious & judicious Christian, to receive the benefit of their coun- 
 sels & prayers. — Men of genuine piety and devotion who have themselves 
 tasted that the Lord is gracious, & have experienced the pleasure & profit 
 of a proper attendance at the table of the Lord, might be very useful, by 
 inviting their serious & well disposed Neighbors to that ordinance ; And 
 it is to be hoped, if they considered the matter aright, they would esteem 
 it an important & delightful duty, as they are not only to use their utmost 
 endeavours to get to heaven themselves, but to take as many with them 
 as possible. — And when a person wishes to become a Church member, it 
 is highly proper, if he desires it, to converse with the Minister, or with 
 some of the more intelligent members, on the nature & design of baptism 
 & the Lord's Supper, that he may receive suitable information from con- 
 versation or from proper books, And if there should be any part of his 
 experience which he wishes to communicate to them, for his own satis- 
 faction, they ought Certainly to hear it. — There is no occasion for Gods 
 servants to be mute in their way to a better world. Let them commune 
 together respecting their difficulties, dangers & temptations, their joys 
 and sorrows, fears and hopes. But all these things must be matter of 
 personal choice. The prophet says Malachi 3. 16. They that feared the 
 Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, 
 and a Book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared 
 the Lord and thought upon his name. 
 
 Wm. Wells. 
 A true Copy from the minutes. 
 
 Stephen Geeenleaf, Church Clerk. 
 
 The time had now come for a still further separation to be made 
 between the ordinary and proper affairs of the town and those of the 
 
FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO 85 
 
 Congregational Society. This is seen in the fact that, with the opening 
 of the following year, 1803, a record of the proceedings of the latter 
 was made in a book of its own, procured for the purpose, and by a clerk 
 of its own appointing. In 1799 the warrant caUing a meeting to provide 
 for preaching was addressed to all the inhabitants of the town except 
 those who were legally exempt from paying taxes for this purpose. But 
 the practice of levying a tax upon all except this class, annually, for 
 raising the salary, which had prevailed now some eighteen years, was 
 attended with both difficulty and more or less of discontent; and from 
 this time onward the notification and warrant is addressed only to the 
 inhabitants and members of the Congregational Society, and the assess- 
 ment made only upon such members. 
 
 The first entry in the "Records of the Congregational Society," as made 
 in their new book, bears date, "Brattleborough, 7th April, 1803," and is 
 in substance as follows : Pursuant to a legal request, the inhabitants of 
 the Congregational Society were notified and warned to convene at the 
 meeting-house on the nineteenth of April, inst., at 3 p.m. The meeting 
 being opened agreeable to warning, proceeded to choose Lemuel Whitney, 
 Esquire, moderator; Stephen Greenleaf, clerk; Valentine Harris, treas- 
 urer; Messrs. Asa W. Burnap and S. Greenleaf, assessors; and Benjamin 
 Baker, collector. Voted to have preaching the ensuing year, to employ 
 Reverend William Wells, and raise $300 for salary and other expenses ; 
 the same to be assessed on the valuation list of 1803, and paid into the 
 treasury on the first day of March, 1804. Rutherford Hayes, Esquire, 
 Waitsill Orvis, Esquire, and Samuel Warriner, Esquire, were chosen a 
 committee to have care of the prudentials of the Society, abate such taxes 
 as they might deem necessary, make such repairs in the meeting-house 
 as they might think proper, and take such measures with any person or 
 persons who may do injury to the meeting-house as they may think 
 expedient. The number of votes in respect to the minister and his salary, 
 as above noticed, was more than twenty-five in the affirmative. The next 
 year, 1804, the number was twenty-nine. In 1807 the number of votes 
 in the affirmative was thirty, being the whole meeting. 
 
 At the annual meeting the following year, April 6, 1808, a committee of 
 twenty-one persons volunteered and were chosen to agree with Mr. Wells 
 to supply the pulpit and be responsible to him to make up any deficiency 
 in the sum of $266.67, in case the collection thereof should be found 
 impracticable ; namely, Samuel Warriner, Jonathan Goodenough, Lemuel 
 Dickerman, John W. Blake, Rutherford Hayes, Noah Bennett, Joshua 
 Wilder, Samuel Elliot, Nathaniel Barker, William Whipple, Calvin Harris, 
 Jonathan Dunklee, Jonas Mann, Silas Reeve, Solomon Wilder, James 
 
86 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Blakeslee, John Steward, Nathaniel Blakeslee, Safford Bennett, Jonathan 
 Townsend and William Holden. 
 
 The amount raised for the salary and contingent expenses in 1809 was 
 only $245. In 1810 it was voted to raise $300 ; and seventy-three persons, 
 their names given in the record, voluntarily associated and covenanted, 
 each with the other, by vote, to pay their proportion of all arrearages, in 
 the manner heretofore noticed. In April, 1811, the "Cong' Soc." met and 
 passed the usual votes, and fifty-seven covenanted, as in former years, to. 
 pay arrearages. Similar action was taken in 1813. 
 
 At the annual meeting in April, 1813, they voted that the committee 
 use their discretion in hiring some person to supply the pulpit the ensuing 
 year, that two cents on the dollar of the list be assessed to defray ex- 
 penses, and that the committee ascertain of Mr. Wells if he can supply 
 the pulpit any part of the ensuing year. 
 
 Judging from the records of the church, it would seem that matters of 
 discipline had a large place in the proceedings of that body during these 
 years. July 4, 1805, a case of discipline having been considered, it was 
 voted that any occasional communicant shall be indulged to sit and com- 
 mune with this church, unless some special reason shall be assigned to 
 the contrary. In 1809 there were two additions to the church, which 
 made a membership of one hundred and thirty-five. In 1811, October 13, 
 a meeting was called by request of one of the members of the church, 
 who submitted a paper to the effect that he regarded the system of doctrine 
 called Calvinism, as set forth by some of the neighboring churches, to be 
 according to the Scriptures, and that to explain away or deny any of 
 these doctrines tends to unbelief and self-righteousness: therefore re- 
 quested that the church would commit him to the care of the church in 
 Marlboro, under the pastoral care of Reverend G. C. Lyman. The peti- 
 tion was unanimously rejected by the church, but the petitioner allowed 
 full liberty to commune with the church in Marlboro, without abridging 
 his privileges to commune and .fellowship with the church in Brattleboro. 
 
 In the latter part of March, 1814, Reverend William Wells gave up his 
 past6rate on account of advancing age and on the twentieth of June, 
 1814, "the Congregational or Presbyterian Society" met, as warned, 
 ninety-three out of one hundred and thirty associates being present, and 
 of these, ninety-one voted to invite the Reverend Mr. Caleb Burge to 
 settle and be installed among them as the pastor of the church in Brattle- 
 boro, and continue in that relation during his life, or until he shall be 
 dismissed by the Society. At an adjourned meeting, July 2, it was voted 
 that the salary should be $600 annually, the trustees to raise and collect 
 the same by assessments, deducting what may accrue from donations. 
 The salary was to be paid on the first of January each year, and the stated 
 
FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO 87 
 
 services to be at the Meeting-House, , lectures and funerals excepted, — 
 one hundred and eight out of one hundred and eleven in the affirmative. 
 
 At a meeting of the church at the Meeting-House, dated Brattleboro, 
 June 30, 1814, Deacon Nathaniel Samson, moderator, a committee of two 
 members of the church. Doctor Lemuel Dickerman and Deacon Nathaniel 
 Samson, was chosen to join the "Trustees of the Brattleborough Congre- 
 gational or Presbyterian Society for supporting the gospel," to wait on 
 • Reverend Caleb Burge with a united call and invitation for him to ajccept 
 the pastoral care and perform the ministerial labors for the church and 
 people in this town by being installed as their pastor and minister; and 
 also to express the satisfaction of this church with his performance in 
 the pulpit as a candidate, and their sincere desire to reap further benefits 
 from his continued labors of love. At a joint meeting of the church and 
 the trustees of the society, July 25, 1814, it was unanimously agreed to 
 accept the answer of Reverend Caleb Burge to the invitation to be installed 
 as their minister. September 14, 1814, Doctor Lemuel Dickerman was 
 chosen a delegate of the church "to attend, with Reverend Caleb Burge, at 
 the Consociation in Dummerston, that this church may be united with and 
 become a member of said Consociation." 
 
 At a meeting of the society, April 10, 1815, the following officers were 
 chosen: Jonas Mann, moderator; Stephen Greenleaf, clerk; Silas Reeve, 
 treasurer; Nathaniel Samson, Waitsill Orvis and Valentine Harris, trus- 
 tees; John Kelsey, Abisha Samson and Reuben Stearns, committee; 
 Russell Hayes, collector, to be paid six dollars for his services ; salary and 
 other expenses, i$600. In 1816, November 35, it was moved by Colonel 
 Daniel Stewart that the question be tried relative to the second article of 
 the warrant, namely, to dismiss the Reverend Caleb Burge. The yeas 
 and nays were taken by dividing the house, and only eleven voted for 
 dismissal. The question was thus decided in the negative. In 1817 the 
 inhabitants comprising "the First Congregational Society in Brattle- 
 borough" were warned to meet at the "West Meeting house in said 
 Brattleborough." For salary and other expenses they'raised $550. The 
 year following, in April, they voted to raise $500. Six months later, 
 October 5, a meeting was called to see if the existing relation with Mr. 
 Burge could be dissolved, and a committee was chosen to confer with him 
 on the necessity of dissolving the contract now existing by covenant 
 between him and the society, and the making of a new contract on the 
 ground of a subscription for his salary. The meeting was adjourned twice 
 and then dissolved. 
 
 At a church meeting held in July, 1818, Reverend Caleb Burge, moder- 
 ator, the. church adopted a covenant and a confession of faith, — ^both 
 
88 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 given in the records of the church, — ^the following persons being present : 
 Deacon Joshua Wilder, Deacon Nathaniel Samson, William Bigelow, 
 Moses Nash, Ebenezer Hawes, Jonas Rice, Jonathan Herrick, Thadeus 
 Miller, Rutherford Hayes, Isaiah Richardson, David Harris, Silas Reeve, 
 Nathaniel Blakeslee, Samuel Bailey, Jonathan Dunklee, Stephen Green- 
 leaf. Among these we find the name of the brother who, in 1811, asked 
 to be let off from this church, that he might go where he thought he could 
 get sounder doctrine. At this meeting it was voted to admit members 
 only when they have been previously examined by the pastor and brethren 
 of the church and duly propounded; that public offenses require public 
 confession; and that credible evidence of piety ought to be made the 
 ground of fellowship and Christian communion. 
 
 Admonition to the individual under censure was given in private, 
 according to "the regular steps of the Gospel for convincing and reclaim- 
 ing said person." Unless a satisfactory explanation followed, a "citation" 
 of the offense was read before a committee of church members, when a 
 public confession and promise of amendment was necessary to restoration 
 in the privileges of the church. The majority of these occasions of offense 
 were due to neglect of religious observances. Mrs. A., who "manifested 
 no desire to attend meetings," in 1799 was excommunicated. 
 
 In 1803 Benjamin Baker and Deacon Joshua Wilder were "chosen 
 committee to hear Mr. Benj. Gould in vindication of himself, for absent- 
 ing from the Table of the Lord and Public Worship." His reason for 
 absence, as reported, was bodily weakness. 
 
 Deacon Horton was voted "at Liberty to return to all the privileges of 
 this church, and to overlook and pass over his withdrawing, considering 
 him to be an aged man." 
 
 Work on the Sabbath was second in the character of complaints. There 
 were verbal confessions made by those who had so labored. Two loads 
 of hay were brought in on a Sabbath for Albert Bennet, who should have 
 protested at sight of the first load. 
 
 Thomas Crosby would not appear at the Meeting-House to answer to 
 complaints that he had labored on the Sabbath, as he "believed that the 
 Sabbath was no more Holy than the other days of the week." 
 
 Slander was under severe discipline, and false speaking. 
 
 In 1779 it was "voted that Mr. J. H.'s written acknowledgment and 
 retraction of false speaking [concerning work at a certain School-House] 
 exhibited to this church, be a sufficient apology and satisfaction, and that 
 he is discharged from further examination on the subject." 
 
 Another example is Stephen Greenleaf, Junior, clerk, vs. Ebenezer 
 Fisher. 
 
FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO 89 
 
 At a justice court before Samuel Warriner, Esq., said Fisher alleges that 
 s* Smith uttered things in said court which were not true, particularly- 
 respecting one and an half bushel of rye which s" Fisher sold Levi Church, 
 s^ Smith said he gave no orders for the delivery of s* rye, nor had any 
 benefit from its being delivered. Also respecting labour, which s* Smith 
 denied to have done on Cart Wheels when at work for me the said 
 Fisher, which things were not true, were injurious to me, and to the evil 
 example of others, and I pray the cognizance of the Church to be taken 
 on the same. 
 
 Ebenezer Fisher. 
 
 There were citations for the use of ardent spirits to intoxication, of 
 immorality and a few of theft, "embezzling money of the Singing-School, 
 and making effort to secure property from taxation." 
 
 Caleb Burge was born in Tolland, Connecticut, May 36, 1783, and 
 moved with his parents,' Nathaniel and Lucretia S. Burgess, to Spring- 
 field, Vermont, in 1783. Here the name "Burgess" was changed, for a 
 time, to "Burge." He graduated from Middlebury College in 1806, and 
 was ordained first pastor of the church in Guildhall, Vermont, in August, 
 1808, where he was greatly blessed in his labors, seventy-four being added 
 to his church in 1810. But for want of adequate support, as alleged, he 
 was dismissed February 16, 1814. In June, 1814, a very unanimous call 
 was extended to him by this church and society to settle here, which he 
 accepted, and was, apparently, installed early in the following August. 
 Here he remained until 1819. For his first wife he married Roxana 
 Chapin, and for his second, Jerusha Hall, both of them natives of this 
 county. He lived about two miles northwest of the village, on what was 
 afterwards known as the "Harris place." He was honored with the 
 degree of M.D. by Castleton Medical College in 1828: Doctor Chapin, in 
 an exhaustive memorial address in 1853, says that "for a few years pre- 
 ceding his death he gave up preaching and confined himself to the prac- 
 tice of medicine." He died in the fifty-sixth year of his age. 
 
 Reverend Caleb Burge preached a sermon on his first communion 
 Sunday defining his theological position, — but theology could not have 
 been a first essential with him, as his reply to someone who asked him 
 if there were Arians and Socinians in the region, was that there were 
 worse men than that — thieves, immoral men. He is said to have been 
 "a powerful preacher," but "imperious." While living in Brattleboro he 
 wrote a "very able and notable book" — "An Essay on the Scriptural 
 Doctrine of the Atonement; Showing its Nature, its Necessity and its 
 Extent," which was published in 1833 in Hartford, Connecticut. Installed 
 
90 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 in August, 1814, he seems to have been dismissed in 1819, but at what 
 particular date does not appear. During his ministry of five years no less 
 than ninety-six persons were admitted to the church : three in 1814, 
 twenty-six in 1815, twenty-four in 1816, thirty-nine in 1817 and four in 
 1818. 
 
 At a church meeting held in the Meeting-House, September 9, 1819, 
 Deacon Nathaniel Samson, Silas Reeve and Asa Stoddard were chosen 
 a committee to aid and assist in settling difficulties. Cases of discipline 
 were considered, and the meeting adjourned to September 30, when cases 
 of discipline were taken up again, one of which was whether a member 
 be guilty of a breach of moral obligation in putting his property out of 
 the reach of covenant taxation. This was decided in the affirmative by 
 a unanimous vote of sixteen. Three subsequent meetings, one at the 
 schoolroom in the Academy Hall and one at the house of Anthony Van 
 Doom, were devoted chiefly to matters of discipline. 
 
 September 4, 1820, having chosen officers, among whom were Nathaniel 
 Samson, Stephen Greenleaf, Rutherford Hayes, Lemuel Dickerman, 
 Moses Van Doom and Anthony Van Doom, they voted full satisfaction 
 with the ministerial performance of Jedediah Stark, expressed a wish to 
 call and settle him, and voted to raisie a salary of $400 per annum. 
 
 October 5, 1830, a church meeting was held in the West Parish Meeting- 
 House, twenty-two members present. Reverend Mr. McGee in the chair, 
 and a vote passed, twenty in the affirmative, to give Mr. Jedediah L. Stark 
 a call to the pastoral care of the church, the society concurring; and 
 Rutherford Hayes, Deacon Samson and Doctor Dickerman were chosen 
 a committee for the purpose. November 22, in a joint committee of the 
 church and society, it was unanimously agreed to accept the terms pro- 
 posed in the answer of Mr. J. L. Stark to be ordained and settled as their 
 gospel minister. He was ordained January 3, 1821. 
 
 An examination of the records in the Brattleboro town clerk's office 
 during the years from the organization of the town in 1768 to 1800 
 reveals a change in religious opinions. In the first forty-five years of 
 the church's existence fifteen persons were excommunicated. 
 
 One part of the book is devoted to religious certificates, some of them 
 explaining that a certain person was a member of a certain church and 
 had paid the taxes assessed to him for religious purposes. There are, 
 however, over fifty declarations which state in substance as follows: 
 "I do not agree in reUgious opinion with the majority of the inhabitants 
 of this town, as the case now is." Just why certificates of this kind were 
 recorded is not known, but the chances are that there was some provision 
 whereby, if such statement was made, no taxes for the preaching of the 
 gospel could be collected from the party so certifying. It seems from the 
 
/^■^w M^^ 
 
 COCKAYNE. BOSTON 
 
WOODLANDS 
 
 PRE ME MANSION 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO 91 
 
 records that many sharp bargains were driven with the minister, the 
 evident design of the people being to get their religious instruction at 
 the lowest price possible. 
 
 It is stated that one minister in the early days received, in his package 
 of bills paid him for service, two counterfeits. The society refused to 
 make the matter right, because the pastor was paid with the veritable 
 money obtained from subscribers to his support and the collector could 
 not tell from whom the two bills came. 
 
 Birth and death records are very meager, the records of marriages being 
 more complete. The former were evidently considered of less impor- 
 tance. The first record is a marriage intention: "This is to certify that 
 ye intention of marriage between David Church of Brattleborough and 
 Damaris Church of Sunderland has been made publick according to 
 custom, Henry Wells, town clerk, Brattleborough, Dec. S^th, 1768." On 
 the back of this certificate is written: "These are to certify ye persons 
 within named were joined in marriage by me, Bunker gay, Hinsdale. 
 De. 29th, 1768." 
 
 Rachel Wells was married to Samuel Gale. (See p. 137.) This was 
 the first marriage of which there is any record. According to the by-laws 
 of the Province of New York a bond was required that "neither of the 
 parties had any lawful let or impediment of pre-contract, affinity, or con- 
 sanguinity to hinder their being joined in the holy bond of matrimonny." 
 
 There are over one hundred records of notices to leave town, given to 
 undesirable people who might become town charges. 
 
 Reverend William Wells, D.D. 
 
 The Reverend William Wells, D.D., was born at Biggleswade in Bed- 
 fordshire, England, in 1744. He was the only son of Richard Wells, 
 who was also the son of Richard Wells. His father and mother both 
 dying in his childhood, he was brought up by his uncle, Ebenezer Caster- 
 son, as his own son. 
 
 His thoughts were early turned to the ministry, for which he was pre- 
 pared in the dissenting college at Daventry, and he was encouraged and 
 assisted in his purpose by John Howard, the celebrated philanthropist, 
 an intimate acquaintance of his uncle Ebenezer, after whom he named one 
 of his sons, long a resident of this town. Another son was named after 
 Howard. 
 
 In the year 1770 he was invited to preach at Bromsgrove, where he was 
 afterwards settled as a minister of a dissenting congregation, a ministry 
 in which he continued to officiate during his residence in England. 
 
 In January, 1771, he married Jane Hancox, a daughter of the Reverend 
 
92 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 James Hancox of the neighboring town of Dudley, who possessed what 
 was considered ^t that time a handsome fortune. Mr. Hancox had been 
 destined to be a clergyman of the Established Church and to hold the 
 living of Kidderminster, which was in the gift of his grandfather. Even 
 as a boy, however, he had formed opinions in favor of nonconformity, 
 and finally declined to accept the living (of iSOO a year), although his 
 grandfather declared his intention of disinheriting him, in such a case, 
 of his claims as eldest son, a threat which he carried out for a time, 
 relenting in his last illness. Mr. Hancox was admired for his power of 
 pathos in the pulpit, but was in the habit of saying he should do injustice 
 to his people if, while he attempted to move their passions, he neglected 
 to inform their minds. He appears to have been, as one might expect, 
 a champion of freedom, whom anything like the appearance of oppression 
 roused to a noble wrath. 
 
 A letter is extant from a friend of Miss Hancox, a clergyman, from 
 which we take an example of writing a century and a half ago : 
 
 I acknowledge I was not quite ignorant of Mr. Wells' attachment before 
 I received your favor, and I am confident it is as strong as it is reasonable. 
 I do not wonder that a man of his taste should soon be convinced that 
 the half had not been told him. Kindred minds soon attract each other, 
 and we who know both have often thought and said that if any two minds 
 were cast in the same mold they were yours and his. And really, my 
 dear Miss Jane, as to Mr. Wells, mere justice obliges me to say that I 
 never knew a man better formed by nature and grace for being happy 
 and making others so who are most nearly connected with him. His 
 natural temper is excellent, sedate and even, always easy and cheerful, 
 inclined to think well of and be pleased with everybody and everything 
 that is tolerable, obliging, tender and affectionate, yet active, manly and 
 prudent, remarkably free from caprice and affectation and every turbulent 
 passion. 
 
 And to these human attributes, valuable as they are, divine grace has 
 added, what you still more highly prize, a rational and warm piety. This, 
 you will think, is saying a great deal ; but really, Miss Jane, I cannot in 
 conscience say less. This is the light in which his character appears to 
 me. This is the character his tutor and his most intimate friends univer- 
 sally give him. . . . 
 
 In the summer or fall of 1783, as we learn from a memoir written by 
 his son Hancox, a companion of his voyage, Mr. Wells determined to 
 remove with his family to the United States; before leaving England, 
 he made up his mind that he would not take his family to a slave state, 
 and would not establish himself in the wilderness. For many years he 
 
FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO 93 
 
 had taken a warm interest in the country, and during the Revolutionary 
 War he was decidedly on the side of the colonies. The state of the 
 political world in 1792 was gloomy. The French Revolution caused fear 
 and great excitement in England. The Birmingham riots took place in 
 the summer of 1791. Several dissenting meeting-houses and a number 
 of houses belonging to opulent dissenters were destroyed and openly 
 plundered by a brutal mob, and all this was done with the almost open 
 approval of the High Church party. The watchword of the mob was 
 "Church and King," and the dissenters felt that they were frowned on 
 by the government and not protected as they ought to have been by the 
 civil authorities against a mob who were too ready to suppose that their 
 excesses were, to a certain extent, at least, agreeable to their superiors. 
 
 In addition to what is said above of Dr. Wells's attitude during the 
 Revolutionary War and his life as an English dissenting minister, we 
 quote from a sketch^ of his life written by his son, William Wells. 
 
 Birmingham was only thirteen miles from my father's house at Bowen- 
 heath, his meeting house was at Bromsgrove, two miles off. The destruc- 
 tion of the meeting house was openly threatened. He feared at one time 
 that his house was in danger, and he removed some of his most valuable 
 goods. All sorts of absurd reports were circulated respecting the dis- 
 senters. Men of the most blameless and benevolent characters were 
 suspected of forming secretly the most wicked and despicable conspira- 
 cies. These were some of the circumstances that determined my father 
 to quit his native country and remove to the United States. 
 
 At the commencement of the movements which preceded the American 
 Revolution, he took a strong interest in favor of the colonies. He exerted 
 himself, with Dr. Price, Dr. Wren of Portsmouth, etc., in collecting sub- 
 scriptions for the relief of the American prisoners. When Mr. Laurens, 
 upon his liberation from the Tower, passed through Bromsgrove, on his 
 way to Bristol, he inquired for Mr. Wells, stating that he wished to return 
 his own and his country's thanks to him for this service. . 
 
 His health had been affected by his residence in the town, and 
 he removed to a hamlet distant about two miles, where he cultivated a 
 small farm. This was an occupation which he well understood, and in 
 which he much delighted. He had in his house several boys from respect- 
 able dissenting families, some of whom became attached friends. 
 
 Notwithstanding these laborious avocations, no one thought his people 
 or his study neglected. He commonly rose at 4 o'clock, and in the tardy 
 mornings of an English winter his candle might be seen three hours 
 
 1 Doctor Sprague's "Annals of the American Pulpit," Vol. VIII, p. 257. 
 
94 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 before daylight. At the academy and in early life, he was a hard student, 
 and, though he never claimed the reputation of a learned man, he had read 
 much and carefully. I cannot be mistaken when I state that at that time 
 the education of dissenting ministers, under Dr. Doddridge and others, 
 his contemporaries and successors, was far superior to that commonly 
 acquired at the Universities. 
 
 He was always a student. He had in England a very, good library, and 
 to the latest period of his life, his study was his resort when leisure 
 allowed'. His memory was tenacious. He was well acquainted with 
 ecclesiastical history, that of the Reformation, and especially of the Puri- 
 tans and Dissenters. He also had in his library many of the best writers 
 belonging to the established church. Burnet, Tillotson and Clarke were 
 his favorites. No man was less of a bigot, but the idea of submission to 
 articles of faith he never could endure. 
 
 During the ravages of the smallpox, contrary to the prevailing popular 
 prejudice, he inoculated his children. The operation succeeding, he was 
 beset with requests to inoculate others, which he complied with as 
 respected some of his poor neighbors, who could not afford to pay 
 doctors' bills. He carried through the disease 1300 persons, a work which 
 occupied much of his time during two years. An eminent physician at 
 Worcester, with whom he was intimate, used to call him in jest "Brother 
 Doctor." 
 
 It was at the time of the Birmingham riots, and the destruction of 
 Doctor Priestly's church and residence, that Mr. Wells's house and church 
 were also threatened, and this persecution decided him to emigrate to* 
 America. 
 
 In January, 1793, he wrote to his son : 
 
 We design to land at or near Boston, and where we shall pitch our tent 
 it is hard to say. ... I have, as may be supposed, a good opinion of 
 America, but yet my expectations are not raised unreasonable high. I 
 know, like every other land in this world, it must be subject to affliction, 
 disappointment, pain and death. But let it be remembered, also, that 
 there is the same kind Providence to attend us there as here, and as to 
 government, liberty and the prospect of getting a comfortable livelihood, 
 I think the advantage lies on the other side of the Atlantic. 
 
 Doctor Wells set sail from Bristol, May 8, 1793, — ^the ship in which he 
 sailed being towed down the Avon by several boats to get it through at 
 high water, — and after a passage of thirty-two days/cast anchor in Boston 
 harbor. 
 
 Eight children came over with their parents, William and Jane Wells, 
 
FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO 95 
 
 among whom may be mentioned William, the eldest son, who spent two 
 years at Harvard College, where he was afterwards tutor, and subse- 
 quently the head of the publishing house of Wells & Lilly, in Boston 
 (among the publications of which house may be mentioned Griesbach's 
 "New Testament in Greek," at the time an extraordinary enterprise for 
 America, which was revised and carried through the press by Mr. Wells's 
 own supervision) ; James Hancox, long a successful merchant in Hart- 
 ford; and Ebenezer Casterson. 
 
 It is remarkable that these eight children were all living in 1834, forty- 
 one years after the voyage, and met to welcome their oldest sister, Mrs. 
 Martha Freme, when, after marriage and widowhood in England, she 
 returned, shortly after the death of her father, to settle in Brattleboro. 
 
 From a letter written by Mary L. Pickard, in the "Life of Mrs. Henry 
 Ware, Jr.," by Edward B. Hall, we quote : 
 
 In Liverpool I went with Mrs. Freme to visit the Female Penitentiary, 
 and took a long walk with her. . . . She is an uncommonly sensible, kind 
 woman, extremely interested in the encouragement of all good works, 
 a warm Unitarian, and a truly liberal, benevolent Christian. I never 
 enjoyed anything in my life more than the conversation I had with her. 
 
 • Doctor Wells had corresponded on the subject of the history of New 
 England with the Reverend Doctor Morse of Charlestown, historian and 
 geographer, and father of the inventor of the telegraph. After visiting 
 Doctor Morse for a few days, he went to a house which the former had 
 taken for him in Medf ord. With his son, William, he made a car- 
 riage tour through Connecticut to the Hudson and Mohawk valleys, to 
 inspect his adopted country, and went as far as the Whitestown country, 
 now called Clinton, where he made a stay with Reverend Samuel Kirk- 
 land, missionary to the Indians, and father of John Thornton Kirkland, 
 afterwards president of Harvard College. The next year he purchased 
 a farm of four hundred acres in Brattleboro, to which he removed his 
 family by sleighing. He wished to settle where he could occupy a farm 
 and be useful in preaching. In Brattleboro he found both. 
 
 For some time the family felt severely the difficulties and discourage- 
 ments of their situation. He was invited to become the pastor of the 
 society, but declined, feeling that he would be more independent as a 
 preacher than if he were formally settled. He, however, acted as minister 
 and accepted the remuneration voted him by the town. 
 
 At that time the character of the population was extremely mixed and 
 the tone of manners rough (notwithstanding the presence of some edu- 
 cated and elegant families), and the moral and religious character of the 
 people as a whole was much below that which he had left in England. 
 
96 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Reverend Mr. Wells was eminent in that department of ministerial duty 
 in the olden time — visiting. The children were always glad to see the 
 pleasant old English gentleman in antique costume, and his inexhaustible 
 fund of anecdote and story, his fine attractive social qualities, with much 
 of the kindly and sympathetic in his nature, endeared him to the homes 
 of joy or sadness. Someone said: "He was an aristocrat, yet genial, 
 social ; used to call at my father's and always depended on having a pipe 
 and a bowl of milk." 
 
 Generally the finale to sermons by Mr. Wells were in these words : 
 "Consider well what has been said and may God give you understanding." 
 His laconic commentary upon "the Sermon on the Mount" reminds us 
 of the brief defense by Patrick Henry of the dissenting ministers in 
 Virginia. Mr. Wells, after reading the concluding words of the chapter, 
 namely, "And the people were astonished at his doctrine," gave a general 
 glance over the congregation, as he closed the Bible, and simply but 
 impressively said, "and well they might he." 
 
 Among old papers left by Stephen Greenleaf , Esquire, wa.s the follow- 
 ing letter from the pen of Mr. Wells. This letter was directed to Mr. 
 Russell Hayes, but, judging from its contents, was for the students of the 
 old academy : 
 
 Brattleborough, March 20, 1808. 
 
 My Young Friends : — I am pleased and comforted with your respectful 
 address. Those lectures at the academy would have been begun many 
 years ago, had not a series of bodily indisposition prevented. When it 
 pleased God to favor me with returning health, I did not know any way 
 in which I could be used more agreeably to myself, or with better pros- 
 pect of success, than to have an occasional service in the winter season 
 particularly suitable for young men and youth growing up into life. To 
 find, therefore, that those labors have been acceptable and useful, and, 
 as I hope, cannot fail of aflrording me great satisfaction. 
 
 Being considerably advanced into the vale of years, the shadows of the 
 evening are growing long and the night of death fast approaching with 
 respect to me. This, however, I do not in the least regret. But so long 
 as I sustain my present relation to the society in this town, and health 
 and capacity for usefulness remain, be assured I shall, with great pleasure, 
 continue the services above-mentioned, well knowing that the sober, 
 virtuous and religious character of young men is of infinite importance 
 to themselves, to their friends, and to the community at large. That you, 
 my young friends, may continue to be useful in life, the supports and orna- 
 ments of religion when my head is laid low in the dust and my lips closed 
 in perpetual silence, and that we may all at last have a happy meeting in 
 
FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO 97 
 
 the world above, never more to part, is the ardent prayer of your sincere 
 friend and affectionate pastor, 
 
 William Wells. 
 
 Dr. Wells is described by all who have seen him as of a very noble 
 person, uniting dignity and sweetness in a remarkable degree. He was 
 six feet in height, well made and very erect. He is the subject of one of 
 Stuart's finest portraits, presenting a countenance of such benevolent 
 radiance as not to be easily forgotten. He commonly wore a black velvet 
 cap over his flowing white locks, which gave him a priestly and patriarchal 
 appearance. 
 
 While he was visiting England it was currently reported among the 
 populace, anxious in respect to Catholic aggressions, that the Pope of 
 Rome was making a journey through Great Britain. Children who saw 
 him for the first time, even babies, would manifest a desire to sit on his 
 knee, and the elder ones would sit to look at and listen to him. This 
 regard of children he valued highly. 
 
 At the age of seventy-five he received the honorary D.D. from Har- 
 vard University. 
 
 Even at the age of eighty years he would read for two hours in the 
 evening, holding his lamp. His temper, though ardent by nature, was 
 chastened by gravity and seriousness; and he is described as abounding 
 in the thoughts which might serve to mitigate trouble, and as having an 
 especial faculty in prayer. 
 
 He died in peace of mind, December 9, 1837. 
 
 Mrs. Jane Wells died June 3, 1817, aged seventy-five. 
 
 Among the publications by Reverend William Wells were : 
 
 A sermon preached at Brattleborough, July 3, 1797, by Reverend Wil- 
 liam Wells, on the occasion of the burial of Pardon Taylor and Edward 
 Palmer, both drowned the day before in the Connecticut River. Printed 
 in Brattleborough by Ben Smead, 1798. 
 
 Some Communications first published in the Brattleborough Paper; 
 with Extracts from "Candid Reflections on the different Conceptions 
 concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity," by William Wells, Brattle- 
 borough, 1816. 
 
 The following poem written by Chief Justice Royall Tyler is supposed 
 to have been inspired by Doctor Wells : 
 
 Tho' the frail tablet's broken line 
 The honored tenant's name denies, 
 They know that here, embalmed by time, 
 The earliest village pastor lies. 
 
98 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 For they have heard their fathers tell 
 What their forefathers told to them. 
 And fond tradition knows full well 
 The story of the best of men. 
 That what was good, or kind, or true. 
 Of morals pure, or faith unfeigned 
 Which his adopted village knew 
 His precepts taught, his life explained. 
 
 The old obituary was for the few, and only for those worthy of one, 
 and we find in it, generally, a trustworthy estimate of a man's life, work 
 and character, as viewed by his contemporaries. It is also valuable as an 
 expression of the standards by which people were judged and the qualities 
 most appreciated by the generation to which the subject of the obituary 
 belonged. 
 
 Died 
 
 In this town, on Sunday evening last, the Reverend WILLIAM 
 WELLS, D.D., aged 83. — This eminent divine was, in early and in 
 mature life, the Minister of a congregation of Dissenters at Bromsgrove, 
 England. He emigrated to America about thirty-five years ago, and was 
 for over twenty years, the Pastor of the Church and Congregation in 
 Brattleborough. Although his mind was stored with those rich treasures 
 of theological information which are the products of a long and studious 
 life, he had none of the pride or pomp of education; and although he 
 was blessed with ample powers of argument, he did not feel it his duty 
 to expatiate in the thorny tracts of controversy, believing that he could 
 better serve the great cause of truth and piety by preaching Christ and 
 him crucified, by plain and practical illustrations of the pure morality, & 
 perfect purity of the Christian system. Sustaining through life the repu- 
 tation of liberal principles and comprehensive views, he was not under- 
 stood to adopt, in all their amplitude, the peculiar doctrines of any of the 
 contending sects that occupy the extreme points of the vast field of reli- 
 gious contemplation. While his capacious mind emoraced, in its benevo- 
 lent wishes, and in its fervent aspirations, the whole family of man, he 
 acknowledged no human master of the human mind, and still less did he 
 presume to mark out the limits of either the power, the justice, or the 
 mercy of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The "daily 
 beauty" and moral elevation of his character were of course more 
 peculiarly obvious to his family, his intimate friends, and the circle of his 
 neighborhood : But he had a name and a praise in many of the congrega- 
 tions on both sides of the Atlantic. To the Church he was a shining 
 
FIRST CHURCH IN BRATTLEBORO 99 
 
 light, and to the World a bright example. It is known that many able 
 and candid men, of diflferent denominations, regarded him as combining, 
 in a degree very unusual in this late age of the world, the primitive sim- 
 plicity of the patriarchal, with the paternal dignity of the apostolical 
 character. And those whose lot it was, from their nearer and dearer 
 connexion with him, to stand around his bed of death, while they could 
 not but mourn their irreparable loss, must have derived consolation from 
 the circumstance that the flight of his pure spirit was so silent and peace- 
 ful, that none could mark the moment of departure, and will find their 
 sorrows richly mingled, not with mere hope that borders on belief, but 
 with faith unshadowed by a doubt, that he ascends to the general assembly 
 and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, to the spirits 
 of just men made perfect, to the innumerable company of angels, to Jesus 
 the Mediator of the new covenant and to God the Judge of all, in Mount 
 Sion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and in the house 
 not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 
 
 His funeral was attended on Wednesday last. An excellent and ingen- 
 ious discourse was delivered on the occasion by the Rev. SAMUEL -WIL- 
 LARD, D.D., of Deerfeld, Mass., from 2 Timothy IV. 7 & 8. "I have 
 fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. 
 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the 
 Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." — (Communicated.) 
 From The Brattleborough Messenger, December 14, 1827. 
 
 Other children of Reverend William Wells : 
 
 Martha A., married John R. Freme of Liverpool ; died May 20, 1849. 
 Mary A., born July 19, 1773 ; died in Boston May 3, 1862. 
 Hannah, born June 15, 1780 ; died March 3, 1855, in Hartford, Connect- 
 icut. 
 John Howard, born November 7, 1784; died in lUinois June 1, 1844. 
 
 Captain EbenezeIJ Casterson Wells was born in Bromsgrove, Eng- 
 land, in 1777, and came with his father to this country when he was about 
 sixteen years of age. In 1806 he married Mary Chester, daughter of 
 John and Elizabeth Huntington Chester of Wethersfield, Connecticut, a 
 woman of rare virtues, who died October 20, 1836, aged fifty-seven. 
 
 They lived in the house afterwards occupied by the Burnside Military 
 School, and Captain Wells owned much of the land now a part of the 
 Retreat estate. He was twice a representative to the Legislature, 1839- 
 1840. He died June 10, 1850, aged seventy-three. 
 
100 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Captain Wells was a man of uncommon worth, and was universally 
 respected in this neighborhood. Though not gifted with brilliant talents 
 or endowed with striking characteristics, yet there was in him a beautiful 
 blending of mental and moral powers, making a finely proportioned 
 character. Benevolence, modesty, a self-sacrificing spirit and unsullied 
 honor were among his traits. His domestic ties and affections were very 
 strong. He lived and died a Christian gentleman. 
 
 The north transept window in the Unitarian Church is a memorial to 
 Ebenezer and Mary Wells. 
 
 Children of Ebenezer and Mary Wells : 
 
 Charles, of New York, born in 1799 ; died March 29, 1886. 
 John C, born April 3, 1807; married November 14, 1839, Elizabeth 
 Colt, daughter of Elisha and Lucretia Davis Colt of Hartford, 
 Connecticut, bom May 20, 1816. They lived in Brattleboro ; he died 
 February 22, 1862, aged fifty-four. She moved to Minneapolis in 
 September, 1899 ; died June 11, 1906, aged ninety. Children : 
 Mary C, born October 17, 1840 ; died April 6, 1877. 
 Sarah C, born May 8, 1843 ; died April 29, 1891. 
 John Chester, born January 27, 1847 ; died September 28, 1905. He 
 
 was in the drug trade in St. Paul. 
 Ebenezer F., born June 2, 1851; graduated at Cornell University, 
 1872; was assistant engineer in charge of the office in the con- 
 struction department of the Northern Pacific; later was supply 
 agent for the same department of Manitoba and Southeastern 
 Colonization Railway, and in Iron and Steel Company of West 
 Superior, Wisconsin ; finally he was in the Home Telephone Com- 
 pany, Portland, Oregon, as director and treasurer. He died De- 
 cember 10, 1915. 
 Captain Howard, born in 1810. 
 
 William Henry, born August 5, 1811; married March 16, 1852, 
 Frances Tracy, daughter of William Gedney and Rachel Huntington 
 Tracy of Utica, New York, born February 6, 1821 ; died in February, 
 1886. He died April 17, 1891. They lived in New York, coming to 
 Brattleboro every summer for many years. The Wells Fountain 
 was a gift to the town where his youthful days were passed, by 
 William Henry Wells. He also gave $1000 to the Brooks Library. 
 Their daughter is Miss Julia Chester Wells of New York. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TOWN RECORDS 
 1768-1775 
 
 Town Records, 1768-177S — Town officers — Brattleboro backward in opposing claims 
 of New York — Westminster Massacre — William French, protomartyr of the 
 Revolution — John Arms, poet. 
 
 There are no available records of meetings which may have been held 
 between 1753 and 1768. It is a question whether there were any regular 
 town meetings previous to the one recorded of 1768. 
 
 The record runs : 
 
 At a legal meeting of the Freeholders of the Town of Brattleborough 
 in the County of Cumberland on the first Tuesday of March 1768 agree- 
 able to the time prefixed by the Patent of said Township for annual Town 
 Meetings The following Persons were chosen and 'elected to serve as 
 Town officers the ensuing year 
 
 After choosing John Arms Esq Moderator 
 
 1st Henry Wells M. A. Town Clerk 
 
 3d Samuel Wells Esqr Supervisor 
 
 3d John Arms Esqr, Samuel Wells Esqr, Capt. Benjamin Butterfield 
 Assessors. 
 
 4th Samuel Wells Esqr. Treasurer 
 
 5th Samuel Wells Esqr, John Arms Esqr, Capt Benjamin Butterfield 
 Commissioners for Laying out & Regulating Highways. [These officials 
 probably correspond to the selectmen of the present time.] 
 
 6th John Sargent Henry Wells, M. A. Timothy Church Josiah White 
 Samuel Wells Esqr Malachi Church overseers of the Highways. 
 
 7th Henry Wells M. A. John Arms Esqr overseers of the Poor. 
 
 Samuel Knight, Timothy Church, Levi Baldwin, Jasper Partridge, Con- 
 stables. 
 
 8th Timothy Church Collector 
 
 9th Lemuel Kendrick, John Arms Esqr, Malachi Church, Josiah White 
 Overseers & viewers of Fences. [These men were appointed to take 
 charge of building and keeping in repair fences that surrounded enclosed 
 fields, in which farmers living near could place their cattle.] 
 
102 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 10th Jacob Spaldin, Richard Prouty, Samuel Brown, William McCune, 
 Howards^ to take care that no unruly Cattle or Horses or any that belong 
 to other towns or any swine unyoked or unringed run at large on High- 
 ways or unfenced unimproved lands in this town the year ensuing. 
 
 11th Capt Benjamin Butterfield, Samuel Wells Esqr To Demand sue 
 for and receive all Penalties and forfeitures incurred by breach of fore- 
 going orders. [These officials correspond to some extent with the town 
 agent of the present time.] 
 
 Henry Wells M. A. Town Clerk. 
 
 It was voted to raise twelve pounds (York currency) on the poll and 
 estates for defraying the necessary and contingent charges of the town. 
 
 At this meeting the highways were divided into six districts, and the 
 freeholders of the town were divided among the six overseers of the 
 highways, elected at this meeting, and in this way the roads of the town 
 were taken care of. The care of the roads of the town was apportioned 
 among these men as follows: 
 
 To John Sargent, the whole of the roads north of West River, and he 
 was given ten men to assist him ; to Josiah White, the road from H. Dale 
 (Hinsdale) line to the bridge at the mill and from William King's to the 
 county road from Guilford line across the county road to Connecticut 
 River, and he was given eight men as assistants; to Samuel Wells, the 
 roads from West River to the mill and the bridge and the road from EHas 
 Wilder's to the upper end of the meadow, twenty-one men, evidently 
 leading citizens, being appointed as his helpers ; to Timothy Church, the 
 road from Nathaniel Church's, Senior, to the road from Elias Wilder's 
 to Mr. Wells's and the road from Fane (Newfane) road to the road 
 "betwixt" Richard Prouty's and John Alexander's and the road from 
 Mr. Kent's to Hobbs's, ten men being appointed to work with him; to 
 Henry Wells, the road from Church road to the town road and from 
 William McCune's to the county road, and his assignment of man force 
 was nine; to Malachi Church, the road from Fane (Newfane) Ifne to 
 William McCune's and from Mr. Bump's to Fane (Newfane) road and 
 from Thomas Cook's to Fane (Newfane) road, and six men were given 
 into his charge to help make the highways what they should be. In all, 
 sixty-four men were appointed to assist the six overseers of the highways, 
 or a grand total of seventy men. 
 
 This system, beginning then, was used in the state for one hundred 
 and twenty-four years. 
 
 1 The office of "howard" was another name for that of hog or cattle reeve. 
 They saw that the cattle were properly marked and did not do damage to crops. 
 
TOWN RECORDS 103 
 
 The officers of the town for 1771 were : 
 
 Captain Benjamin Butterfield, moderator; Henry Wells, town .clerk; 
 Samuel Wells, supervisor ; Henry Wells, John Houghton, Benjamin But- 
 terfield, trustees (whose duties may have been similar to those of select- 
 men) ; Henry Wells, Thomas Sargent, Oliver Cooke, assessors ; Henry 
 Wells, treasurer; Henry Wells, Benjamin Butterfield, overseers of the 
 poor; John Alexander, Reuben Field, Benjamin Gorton, Jacob Spaulding, 
 collectors; John Houghton, Oliver Cooke, John Sargent, commissioners 
 for laying out highways. Henry Wells, Samuel Wells, and Benjamin 
 Butterfield were assessors for his Majesty's interest; John Sargent, col- 
 lector of his Majesty's quit rents. The quit rents for his Majesty were 
 two shillings and six pence per hundred acres of land. 
 
 The town voted that year that the sum of five pounds, ten shillings and 
 three pence be raised to pay the debts contracted by the town. 
 
 There were about sixty voters, seven of whom lived about old Fort 
 Dummer and from there to William King's, where Lorenzo Thayer's 
 farm is : ten lived north of West River, and the rest north of Arms's. 
 
 These officers were such as were required for towns in the Province 
 of New York, and they were elected annually afterwards. Towns in the 
 province or state of New York had never been authorized to send repre- 
 sentatives to the Assembly. The representation was by counties. Cum- 
 berland County was, December 23, 1772, authorized to send two repre- 
 sentatives. The election was held at Westminster and the freemen had 
 to go there to vote. Judge Wells was a candidate, and "methods some- 
 times said to be used now may have been then." He and Crean Brush 
 were elected. John Bolton of Westminster sent to him this note: 
 
 Westminster June the 11th 1773 
 Sir : I have paid unto Jont. Stafford nine Shillings and Six pence Law- 
 ful money of the Bay Province for Necesares the People of Halifax had 
 when they Come to Lexion, if you wold be so good as to pay ye same to 
 Mr. Whipple ye Bearer by next thursday so as he may bring it to me, 
 you will much oblige your Humble Servant. 
 
 Mr. Brush lived at Westminster ; and "other things may have been done 
 about the election." Reform from such practices appears to have taken 
 root here early. 
 
 Men over eighteen years old, poor or rich, by the law were required to 
 work on the roads six days, if necessary for good repair, in each year. 
 In view of these things the freemen of Brattleboro, on the third Tuesday 
 of April, by adjournment from the first Tuesday of March, 1773 : 
 
 Voted That the supervisor of this town give the following instructions 
 
104 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 to the assemblymen of this county, viz. To ask leave of the assembly 
 to bring in the following Bills. 
 
 1. A Bill to relieve the poor from doing as much as the rich at the 
 Highways, that is to have the Highways repaired by the assessment upon 
 mens estate according to their substance, also that the roads for the 
 future may be recorded by the town clerks. 
 
 2. A Bill to oblige the non-resident proprietors of unimproved Land 
 to pay one penny on every acre yearly for the space of five years to be 
 applied for the making and Repairing of Highways in the Towns where 
 they have lands. 
 
 3. A Bill for electing assemblymen whereby every person may be 
 excluded from the assembly who shall hereafter ask for the votes of the 
 electors or keep open house or use any method of this kind by himself 
 or others to influence the electors to vote for him, and that the votes may 
 be given for the future either by Ballot or viva voce at a meeting in each 
 town and that the votes may be taken by the town clerks & Trustees and 
 be conveyed by the town clerk to some person to be appointed by the 
 assembly for Judges of the election. 
 
 These votes do not seem to have had much effect. The highway laws 
 appear to have remained the same; and the same representatives were 
 reelected in 1774 and in 1775. 
 
 But the people of Brattleboro were backward in the opposition to what 
 were deemed by many to be oppressions of New York authorities, and to 
 the proceedings of the court. Westminster jail, where Lieutenant Leonard 
 Spaulding was confined for alleged treasonable words spoken of the 
 King,^ was opened for his release "without key or lock-picker," in Novem- 
 ber, 1774, by a committee "assisted by a Large Concourse of their f reeborn 
 Neighbors and brethren Consisting of the inhabitants of Dummerston, 
 Putney, Guilford, Halifax, and Draper," but not of Brattleboro, which 
 was in the midst of them. 
 
 A standing committee of correspondence was formed in twenty-one 
 towns of the county, — Nathaniel French, a member from Brattleboro, — 
 for the purpose of keeping informed of the doings of friends of liberty 
 in other colonies, and at a meeting held in Westminster in February, 1775, 
 it was resolved that the administration of justice in the county should be 
 no longer in the hands of Tories. In order that their grievances might 
 be made known before the session regularly opened on the second Tues- 
 day of March, 1775, the people devised a plan to take possession of the 
 
 1 Spaulding having said that if the King had signed the Quebec bill which gave 
 French instead of English laws to that province and established the Roman Catholic 
 religion, it was his opinion that he had broke his coronation-oath. 
 
OLD CEMETARY MEETING HOUSE HILL 
 
 GRAVE OF WILLIAM FRENCH 
 
 COURT HOUSE WESTMINSTER 
 
 COCKAYNE. BOSTON 
 
RESIDENCE OF JUDGE SAMUEL WELLS 
 
 GRAVESTONE OF JUDGE S. WELLS 
 
 COCKAYNE. BOSTON 
 
TOWN RECORDS 105 
 
 court house. But news of the conspiracy having reached the ears of the 
 court officials, armed guards surrounded the door of the court house 
 where the sheriff ordered the "King's proclamation" to be read, and 
 threatened to "blow a lane" through the mob wide enough to afford an 
 easy exit for all whom the bullets might spare, unless they departed within 
 fifteen minutes. One of the Whigs came forward saying that his party 
 would be glad to hold a parley with them, whereupon Samuel Gale (of 
 Brattleborough), the clerk of the Court, drew a pistol and exclaimed, "I 
 will hold no parley with such damned rascals but by this," referring to his 
 pistol. An affidavit of Oliver Church of Brattleboro made a few days 
 after says : 
 
 That on the next day, being Sunday, William Patterson, Esquire, High 
 Sheriff of the said county of Cumberland, came to Brattleborough and 
 confirmed the said Report and desired the Inhabitants to go with him the 
 next day to Westminster the Town where the said Courts were to be 
 held to assist him in keeping the peace and Suppressing the Rioters. 
 That on the next day, being Monday, the thirteenth day of this instant 
 March, the Deponent with several other Inhabitants of Brattleborough 
 to the number of about twenty-five, unarmed except with Staves attended 
 the said Sheriff from Brattleborough to Westminster. 
 
 Among those there from Brattleboro on the side of the sheriff were 
 Samuel Knight, then the only lawyer of Brattleboro, attending to his 
 practice before the court, Benjamin Butterfield, a justice of the sessions 
 of the peace which met at the same time, Oliver Church's father, John 
 Griffin, Benjamin Gorton and Benjamin Butterfield, Junior: 
 
 One from Brattleboro was there among those in the court house to be 
 ready to present their grievances and to have the business of the court 
 put off ; that was William French, "son to Mr. Nathaniel French," who 
 lived next to Dummerston where those of the same name have since lived. 
 
 The affidavit of Mr. Church further says that: 
 
 To intimidate them three Guns were fired over their heads just above 
 the Door. That thereupon the mob returned the fire from the House. 
 That one of their Balls entered the Cuff of the Coat of Benjamin Butter- 
 field Esquire one of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the said 
 County of Cumberland which went out of the elbow without hurting 
 him and another went through his Coat Sleeve and just grazed the Skin. 
 That a pistol was discharged by one of the Rioters at Benjamin Butter- 
 field, the Son of the above named Justice Butterfield so near that the 
 Powder burnt a large hole in the breast of his Coat. 
 
106 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 An affidavit of John Griffin, made at the same time, says "That one 
 of the party of the rioters, Williani French, lost his life by a musket ball." 
 
 William French, son of Nathaniel French, resided in Brattleboro, near 
 the southern line of Dummerston. He had a brother, Nathaniel French, 
 Junior, who settled near West River in Dummerston in 1768, and was a 
 resident there at the time his brother was killed, in Westminster. The 
 people of Brattleboro who lived in the immediate neighborhood of Wil- 
 liam French's home, were mainly favorers of the court party, but young 
 French's principles were those which he had received from his father. 
 Finding sympathy with the liberty-loving people of Dummerston, he 
 generally acted with them on questions relating to the public weal. 
 
 Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Frost, sister of Jesse Frost) French had a 
 family of eleven children, of whom William was the fifth and was born 
 March 21, 1753, lacking only eight days of being twenty-two years old at 
 the time he was killed. In person he was of medium height and stature, 
 and, in the words of one who knew him, was esteemed "as a clever, 
 steady, honest, working farmer." Being undoubtedly more ardent than 
 others in expressing and enforcing his sentiments, he was among the 
 first to attract attention, and in the issue was most mercilessly butchered. 
 He was shot with five bullets in as many different places. One of the 
 balls lodged in the calf of the leg and another in the thigh. A third, 
 striking him in the mouth, broke out several teeth. He received the fourth 
 in his forehead, and that which caused his death entered the brain just 
 behind the ear. In this horrible condition, still alive, he was dragged 
 to a crowded jailroom and thrust in among the well and wounded. Be- 
 tween the hours of three and four on the next morning Doctor William 
 Hill of Westminster was allowed to visit him, but assistance had come 
 too late. On the day after the affray the name of French was on every 
 lip, and hundreds visited his corpse, anxious to 
 
 . . . dip their napkins in his sacred blood ; 
 Yea, beg a hair of him for memory. 
 
 A coroner's jury was assembled on the fifteenth of March to inquire 
 into the cause of French's death and the original report of the investiga- 
 tion is still preserved. In the report Benjamin Groton and Samuel Night 
 (of Brattleboro) are among those who "assisting with force and arms, 
 made an assault on the Body of the Said Wm. French and shot him 
 Through the Head with a Bullet of which he Died and Not Otherwise." 
 On the same day of the inquest he was buried with military .honors, his 
 funeral being attended by all the militia of the surrounding country, who 
 paid their final adieu to the ennobled dead in the salute which they fired 
 above his grave. 
 
TOWN RECORDS 107 
 
 The coroner's inquest is deposited in the rooms of the Vermont His- 
 torical Society in the capitol at MontpeHer, 
 
 The slate stone over his grave split and was removed. It was kept in 
 the hearsehouse near the old church until lightning destroyed the church 
 in 1888. The present stone, with the epitaph, is an exact copy of the 
 original. 
 
 In Memory of William French 
 
 Son to Mr. Nathaniel French Who 
 
 Was shot at Westminster March ye 13th 
 
 1775 by the hands of Cruel Ministerial 
 
 tools of Georg ye 3d in the Corthouse at 
 
 a 11 a Clock at Night in the 32d year of 
 
 his age. 
 
 Here William French his Body lies 
 
 For Murder his blood for Vengeance cries 
 
 King Georg the third his Tory crew 
 
 tha with a bawl his head Shot threw 
 
 For Liberty and his Country's Good 
 
 he Lost his Life his Dearest blood. 
 
 The title of protomartyr to the cause of the Revolution has been 
 claimed for William French. Certain it is, says Hall, that "in his grave 
 were buried all hopes of reconciliation with. the mother country." 
 
 Esquire Benjamin Butterfield and Benjamin Gorton of the Brattleboro 
 men in the sheriff's party were taken with others, under guard of Robert 
 Cochran and some of his Green Mountain Boys who had come from the 
 west side of the mountains, to Northampton jail for safe-keeping. When 
 released, the latter returned and married Abigail, daughter of Colonel John 
 Sargent, reputed to be the first white girl born in Vermont. He removed 
 to Gray, New York, where he engaged in trade. He prophesied that the 
 world would come to an end in 1816, and in that year rode a horse through 
 the streets of that city calling men to repentance. He was the author of 
 many pious books. Mrs. Gale, wife of the clerk of the court, who was also 
 taken, was a daughter of Judge Wells. "Her husband had an opportunity 
 of speaking to her in a whisper to desire her to send the Deponent to Mrs. 
 Wells her mother requesting she would send somebody immediately to 
 City of New York to acquaint Colonel Wells and Mr. Brush of the pro- 
 ceedings of the said Rioters that the Governor and Council might be ap- 
 prized of their Situation and send them relief without Delay." They set 
 off from Brattleboro "a little after midnight the same day," and arrived 
 in New York in the afternoon of the next Monday. 
 
108 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 John Arms, a boy of fifteen, in 1775 joined "enemies of this and other 
 American States," afterwards returned, asked pardon, was forgiven "and 
 restored to privileges of the State." On taking the oath of allegiance he 
 made the following verses : 
 
 March ye thirteenth, in Westminster there was a dismal clamor, 
 A mob containing five hundred men, they came in riotous manner. 
 Swearing the courts they should not set, even to adjournment 
 But for fear of the sheriff and his valiant men, they for their fire 
 
 arms sent. 
 The Protestant that stood by the law, they all came here well armed : 
 They demanded the house which was their own, of which they were 
 
 debarred. 
 The sheriff then drew off his men to consult upon the matter, 
 How he might best enter the house and not to make a slaughter. 
 The sheriff then drew up his men in order for a battle. 
 And told them for to leave the house or they should feel his bullets 
 
 rattle. 
 But they resisted with their clubs until the sheriff fired. 
 Our valiant men entered the house, not in the least confounded. 
 And cleared the rooms of everyone, except of those who were 
 
 wounded. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE VILLAGE 
 
 Further Development of the Village— Changes in Esquire Greenleaf's farm— Loca- 
 tion of Aaron Whitney— Gardner Chandler— Matthew Martin— Oliver Evans- 
 Joseph Clark — Benjamin Gorton— Elnathan Allen — Asa Putnam — Elisha Pierce — 
 Nathan Willard— Nathaniel Church— Captain Nathaniel Bliss— John Thomas- 
 Jonathan Church— Samuel Dickinson— John W. Blake— Hiram Houghton— Ed- 
 ward and James Houghton. 
 
 Esquire Greenleaf owned the fifty-acre lot of Mr. Herrick's farm south 
 of O. L. Miner's and went there to live about 1772-1773, and perhaps 
 before he built the sawmill, to be near it, and sold the place toward 
 Guilford April 3, 1776. He probably built the house on the Herrick 
 place, which is just about at the junction of the roads now marked 
 Elm Corners; and in 1783 he bought twenty acres more of Benjamin 
 Baker off the north side of the lot next south. There was his home 
 afterwards. In 1784 he mortgaged his farm to Stephen Cleverly of 
 Boston to secure Joseph Webb, Thomas Lee, John Perkins, John Scolley, 
 Esquire, Micael Jackson, James Wesson, Joseph Bradford, John Green, 
 Joseph Torrey, mostly or all of Boston, and Samuel Wells, Esquire, and 
 Matthew Martin of Brattleboro, for what he stood justly indebted to 
 them. The title to this farm probably soon went on the mortgage, for 
 it soon began to be described in deeds of adjoining lands as "the farm 
 upon which Esquire Greenleaf lives." 
 
 Esquire Greenleaf was a member and clerk of the church. He does not 
 appear to have taken any active part in the controversy about adhering 
 to New York or forming a new state. The organization of this town 
 under New York was maintained till 1781, and he was the last town clerk 
 under that jurisdiction; an organization as a Vermont town was then 
 effected. Judge Wells's title, under which he sold the governor's right to 
 Esquire Greenleaf, rested upon the New York title, which failed with 
 the establishment of the state of Vermont, whose constitution recognized 
 the New Hampshire and repudiated the New York titles. This left the 
 title of Governor Wentworth to his right reserved in force. He had 
 married handsome Martha Hilton, one of his servants, willed her all of 
 his property and died; and she had been married to Colonel Wentworth 
 at Portsmouth and had Governor Wentworth's title. Joseph Clark bought 
 her title and afterwards conveyed it to John Houghton, who conveyed 
 
110 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 the new sawmill, house near and lands to Josiah Arms, who had a "shop" 
 about where the house east of the road now leading north from Center- 
 ville is. Mr. Arms afterwards sold to Judge Samuel Knight. 
 
 On October 10, 1776, Judge Wells sold the sawmill and one hundred 
 acres of land extending north and eastward, including what is now Oscar 
 Benson's farm, to John Houghton, whose house stood in what is now 
 the south side of the road opposite Mr. Benson's barn. The wharfing of 
 the road opposite Mr. Benson's is in what was the mill pond, and the 
 bridge across the brook was a little farther east than it now is. 
 
 Esquire Greenleaf bought of Joseph Clark six acres and ten rods of 
 land adjoining the north side of the farm on which he lived; it included 
 the flat on the east side of the road and part of the pasture on tlje west 
 side. He died in 1803, aged sixty-seven, leaving this land which was 
 appraised by Joseph Clark and John Stewart at £90, one acre, two roods 
 and twenty rods of which, in the flat where the new house stands, was 
 assigned to his widow Eunice as her dower. The personal estate, except- 
 ing a cart, a cow, a man's saddle, some lumber and a few farming tools, 
 was all assigned to her. 
 
 Mr. Greenleaf was in occupation a merchant when he came here ; and 
 he took a license as a tavernkeeper at the May term of court in 1773 at 
 Westminster, as did Christopher Osgood of Newfane, Samuel Whitney 
 of Marlboro, Nathan Willard (who lived near Fort Dummer in 1766) 
 and Benjamin Butterfield, Junior, of Brattleboro, and he probably kept 
 "some goods for sale here for a short time, but not many." After the 
 news of the battles at Lexington and Concord reached here, Solomon 
 Phelps wrote a letter to his brother Charles at Hadley, dated "New Marl- 
 borough, May 1, 1775," in which he said: "We have all been alarmed at 
 the bloody news from Concord; our people universally stand ready to 
 assist you; Major Hunt, Esquire Bridgman and Mr. Tute give each a 
 barrel of pork, besides considerable wheat. Mr. Greenleaf told me he 
 was then instantly going to send 20 bushels of wheat flour for the use 
 of the men at Roxbury or thereabouts." Some notes were made in 1778 
 payable in salt "at Esq. Greenleaf 's," and some in wheat "at Esq. Green- 
 leaf's house or the Grist Mill there in Brattleborough," which indicates 
 that he then had no store at which to make them payable. The house 
 referred to was probably that at the Herrick place, and the mill, Mr. 
 Seth Smith's mill, which were both in quite as lively a place as Main 
 Street was then, near the end of the bridge where is now the creamery. 
 Seth Smith lived in the first house beyond the watering trough on the 
 road to West Brattleboro. 
 
 In 1778 Matthew Martin of Townshend bought the remaining one 
 hundred and seventy-three and one-quarter acres of the two hundred 
 
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE VILLAGE 111 
 
 acres, moved to where the American Building is, and built a very good 
 gristmill where the machine shop is, and a sawmill with two saws below. 
 In 1779 Aaron Whitney, a merchant at Northfield, bought of Samuel 
 Knight and Matthew Martin the land on both sides of the road from the 
 First Baptist Church to the American Building, and Gardner Chandler, 
 who lived in a house on the garden- north of Colonel Hunt's (the Hooker 
 House), had it, and afterwards in 1784 had a house and barn where the 
 Brooks House stands (built before and occupied by John Humphrey) 
 and a shop where the stone block is, which soon became, if it was not 
 then, a store. In 1781 Joseph Clark came and lived where Stebbins's 
 carriage shop was at the corner of Canal and South Main Streets, and 
 had a fulling mill on the brook above the bridge. 
 
 In 1782 those living along the road running through what is now Main 
 Street were Benjamin Gorton — who married a daughter of Judge Samuel 
 Wells — at the upper end of the West River meadow, Samuel Wells at the 
 Linden Lodge, Josiah Arms at the Retreat farm, Nathaniel Church at the 
 Retreat on the west side, Samuel Knight north of the Brooks Library, 
 Matthew Martin at the American House, Joseph Clark at Stebbins's shop, 
 Elnathan Allen, Oliver Evans and Asa Putnam beyond Cemetery Hill, 
 Elisha Pierce at the Wood farm, Gardner Chandler at Colonel Hunt's and 
 Nathan Willard at Fort Dummer. A schoolhouse was built soon after on 
 the southwest corner of what was, later, the Common, where religious 
 services were held two or three times a week by Reverend William Wells, 
 before the Church on the Common was built in 1818. 
 
 In 1784 Nathaniel Church's house was the most northeastern dwelling 
 in the town ; Captain Nathaniel Bliss was living on "Bliss Farm" in 1790 ; 
 John Thomas located in 1793 upon the farm afterwards owned by his 
 grandson. 
 
 Jonathan Church built, before 1787, a sawmill above Joseph Clark's 
 fulling mill, where the paper mill is, and in that year leased to Samuel 
 Dickinson of Petersham land between for a shop, with the privilege of 
 taking water from the dam sufficient to run a trip-hammer. Mr. Dickin- 
 son moved here and lived on the east side of the road north of the 
 American Building. In 1790 John W. Blake, a lawyer -and the second 
 one in town, bought the house and law practice of Samuel Knight, who 
 had become a judge of the Supreme Court ; and Hiram Houghton bought, 
 and built a house, on the east side of the road, now Linden Street. In 
 1793 Lemuel Whitney bought and built where Mrs. Dowley lives, and 
 had a shop beside the road towards Hiram Houghton's; and Elnathan 
 Allen sold the land where the Van Doom house stands below (he UUery 
 Building to Edward Houghton, merchant of Guilford, who built and kept 
 a store there with his brother James. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 BRATTLEBORO OPPOSED TO' THE FORMATION 6F A 
 STATE OF VERMONT 
 
 Brattleboro's Resistance to State of Vermont — No delegates sent to convention at 
 Dorset or Windsor — Declarations of broken condition of country — Support of 
 Great Britain in Revolutionary War — Protests against "pretended state" — Fur- 
 ther protest against unjustifiable proceedings of Vermont — Estates of Yorkers 
 confiscated by Vermonters — Arrest of forty-four persons charged with "enemical 
 conduct" in opposing authority of Vermont, among them Micah Townsend of 
 Brattleboro — Governor Clinton of New York appeals to Congress — Ethan Allen 
 enforced authority — Organization of town under state — Name Vermont, at first 
 "New Connecticut alias Vermont" — Execution against body of Timothy Church 
 — Seizure of Oliver Waters — Troops assembled at. Arms Tavern on way to Guil- 
 ford — Allotment of lands to Timothy Church and associates — Abduction of Luke 
 Knowlton of Newfane by Francis Prouty, Thomas Whipple and Jonathan Dunk- 
 lee of Brattleboro with others from Newfane. 
 
 In 1776 the disaffection had become so general that many of the prin- 
 cipal men were ready to join in forming a free and independent state to 
 include the whole of the New Hampshire Grants lying between the 
 Connecticut River and Lake Champlain. 
 
 The general convention of delegates from thirty-five towns on the 
 west side of the Green Mountains, holden on the twenty-fourth and 
 twenty-fifth days of July, 1776, at Dorset, "after receiving the Report 
 from the Honorable the Continental Congress by Capt. Heman Allen" 
 
 Voted that suitable application be made to form the District of land 
 commonly called and known by the name of New Hampshire Grants into 
 a separate district, Dissentient only one. 
 
 Voted to choose a committee to treat with the inhabitants on the east 
 side of the range of the Green Mountains relative to their associating with 
 this body. 
 
 Voted that Capt. Heman Allen, Col. William Marsh, and Dr. Jonas 
 Fay in conjunction with Capt. Samuel Fletcher and Mr. Josiah Fish, 
 together with such other gentlemen on the east side of the range of the 
 Green Mountains on said Grants as they may hereafter appoint to join 
 them be and hereby are appointed a Committee for the above purpose : 
 
FORMATION OF STATE OF VERMONT OPPOSED 113 
 
 The convention also adopted and the delegates individually signed this 
 declaration : 
 
 We the subscribers inhabitants of that district of land commonly called 
 and known by the name of the New Hampshire Grants do voluntarily 
 and solemnly engage under all the ties held sacred among mankind at the 
 risk of our lives and fortunes to defend by arms the United American 
 Colonies against the hostile attempts of the British fleets and armies until 
 the present unhappy controversy between the two countries shall be 
 settled. 
 
 Voted that each inhabited town on the New Hampshire Grants be 
 served with a copy thereof and that it be and is hereby recommended to 
 each of said inhabitants who are friendly to their country that they 
 severally subscribe the same as soon as may be and make return by the 
 Delegate or Delegates which they are hereby directed to appoint to join 
 this Convention at their next sitting at Dorset the 35th day of September 
 next to which time and place this convention stands adjourned. 
 
 Brattleboro did not send any delegate to the convention at Dorset, 
 which resolved unanimously to take suitable measures as soon as may 
 be to declare the New Hampshire Grants a free and independent district ; 
 nor to that to which this one adjourned on the fifteenth of January, 
 1777, at Westminster, which voted unanimously "that the district of land 
 commonly called and known by the name of New Hampshire grants be 
 a new and separate state and for the future conduct themselves as such," 
 made a declaration and petition to Congress, and adjourned to the first 
 Wednesday in June at Windsor. 
 
 The original record shows that at the convention of January 15, 1777, 
 the state was given the name of "New Connecticut alias Vermont." It 
 was subsequently learned that a district of land lying on the Susquehanna 
 River bore the name of New Connecticut, and at the convention held at 
 Windsor, June 4, 1777, it was voted that the new state "should now and 
 hereafter be called and known by the name of Vermont." 
 
 The committee of safety, on the second of December, 1777, prepared a 
 representation of the "broken situation" of the county. 
 
 We therefore, the committee of the county of Cumberland, and others 
 especially appointed by the towns of Weathersfield, Westminster, Putney, 
 Brattleborough, Hinsdale, and part of Guilford, for said purposes, do 
 represent as follows, viz., that the convention held at Windsor on the 
 fourth day of June, instant, for the purpose of establishing their new state 
 of Vermont, have taken into their possession the prison of this county. 
 
114 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 and have strictly forbid all committees acting under the authority of New 
 York, so that it has become impracticable for the county committee, or 
 any other committee to proceed to any publick business in this county. 
 The publick peace is so interrupted by the proceedings of this convention 
 at Windsor, that it hath already considerably hindered the raising of men 
 for their common defence ; and we think we have reason to believe that if 
 a stop is not speedily put to this spirit of disorder which rages so vehe- 
 mently here, a final period will soon be put to any further provision being 
 made in this county for the common defence of America. 
 
 We further represent that a considerable number of the people in this 
 county who are so warmly engaged in setting up their new state, have not 
 any or but little property which they can claim under any grant whatever ; 
 and we really believe that the leaders of the people who are for the new 
 state in this county, arre pursuing that which they esteem their private 
 interest, and prefer that to the publick weal of America, and that they are 
 determined to support the authority of the new state at all events ; and that 
 without interposition of Continental Congress they will never submit to 
 the authority of New York until obliged so to do by the sword. 
 
 By a resolution of the New York committee of safety, passed some 
 months previous, authority had been given to the county committees to 
 select places suitable for the residence of persons who should be "inocu- 
 lated with the small-pox." Permission was now granted by the county 
 committee "to erect a house in Brattleborough" to be used for that pur- 
 pose. Obadiah Wells, Captain John Sargent, and Lieutenant Israel 
 Smith, were employed to select a proper site for the building, which when 
 completed was to be in their charge. 
 
 The Revolutionary War diverted the minds and activities of the people 
 for brief periods of time, but any respite from internal dissensions was 
 temporary, and the conflict between the partisans of New York and the 
 Grants was carried forward with renewed vigor and acerbity. 
 
 In Cumberland County the people of each town chose their committee 
 of safety, and each town committee sent delegates to sit in the committee 
 of safety for the county. Israel Smith and John Sargent were delegates 
 from Brattleboro. 
 
 May 27 Brattleborough 
 
 Voted & chose Lieut. Israel Smith to go to Winsor as an agent for this 
 town. 
 
 Chose Col. Seth Smith Lieut. Timo Church & Joseph Burt as a com- 
 mittee to take care of the town stock of ammunition. 
 
 Chose Mr. Obadiah Wells Ens Richd Prouty & Capt. John Sargeants 
 
FORMATION OF STATE OF VERMONT OPPOSED 116 
 
 a committee to give instructions to Lieut. Israel Smith who is chose to go 
 to Winsor as an agent. 
 
 Lieutenant Smith had previously received these instructions : 
 
 Brattleborough April 25, 1777. 
 To Israel Smith Esqr. of Brattleboro in the County of Cumberland and 
 state of New York : You being appointed by this Town to Represent the 
 different Circumstances this Town is Under by means of the Factions 
 which Prevals in this and the Neighboring counties. We the Subscribers 
 being appointed a Committee for the Purpose of Giving You instructions, 
 do instruct you as Followeth : that you Represent that a Number of Per- 
 sons Calling them Selves the Representatives of the County in Conjunc- 
 tion with those Calld the Green Mountain Boys met at Westminster in 
 January Last and Declared that Land known by the Name of the New- 
 hampshire Grants a Separate independent State, that Not half the Towns 
 in this County were Represented in this meeting, that all the People in 
 this Town are Loyal to the State of New York and think themselves in 
 duty Bound to Put in Execution all orders of the Contennental and this 
 State Congress, and that it is the opinion of this Committee that the 
 Greater Part of the People in the County who own Propity are so, that 
 these Factions are Carried so high in Some Parts of the County it is 
 dangerous speaking against a New State, that you inform the Convention 
 of the many DifHculties that have subsisted in this County some years 
 
 Obadiah Wells^ 
 Seth Smith, 
 Sam'l Warriner, 
 James Blakeslee, 
 John Griffin. 
 
 The convention held on the first Wednesday of June at Windsor recom- 
 mended to the people of the new state to assemble in their respective 
 towns on the twenty-third of June and choose representatives to meet on 
 the second of July at Windsor to form a constitution and elect delegates 
 to Congress. On June 16 at Brattleboro — 
 
 It was put to vote in full town meeting whether the town would accept 
 the proceedings of the late convention held at Winsor or not. Voted not 
 to accept or approve of their proceedings Voted & chose Mr. Samuel 
 Knight, Capt. John Sergeant, Ens. Richd Prouty, Col. Seth Smith & 
 Stephn Greenleaf a committee to join the committees of sundry other 
 towns to consult what was best to be done respecting the proceedings 
 of the above convention. 
 
 Stephen Greenleaf^ town clerk. 
 
116 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Brattleboro did not send any delegate to this convention of the second 
 of July at Windsor, which adopted the constitution, and had no part in 
 the formation of the state. 
 
 The committees mentioned in the vote met on the seventeenth arid on 
 the twenty-sixth of June at the house of Captain Sargent in Brattleboro 
 and their report was : 
 
 And we do hereby solemnly declare that we entirely disapprove of the 
 proceedings of the late convention at Windsor and of all persons whatever 
 acting under authority of that convention and that we will at all times 
 do our best endeavor to support the legal authority of the state of New 
 York in the county. 
 
 January 28, 1778, a number of the inhabitants of Cumberland County 
 who were allies of New York, assembled at Brattleboro and prepared a 
 petition addressed to the Legislature of that state, stating that the con- 
 vention of "the pretended state of Vermont" had adopted a constitution 
 under which state and other officers were soon to be elected. From the 
 evils which threatened them in this quarter, they prayed to be defended. 
 
 At the annual meeting of the town, March 3, they appointed Benjamin 
 Butterfield, Samuel Knight, Israel Smith, James Blakeslee and Micah 
 Townsend a committee to confer with the different town committees in the 
 county and ascertain who among them were inclined to bear testimony 
 against the "unjustifiable proceedings of Vermont." Another meeting 
 was held on the eighteenth. 
 
 At an adjourned meeting held at the house of Captain Sargent in 
 Brattleboro on the fifteenth of April, 1778, representatives from Guilford, 
 Brattleboro, Putney, Newfane, Hinsdale and Rockingham were in attend- 
 ance. A protest in the form of an address was directed "To the gentle- 
 men convened at Windsor, under the style of the General Assembly of 
 Vermont." 
 
 To quote in brief from this document: "The final adjudication of the 
 King of Great Britain in privy Council (the only proper court which could 
 then determine matters of this nature), that this territory was within 
 the jurisdiction of New York; our peaceable acquiescence in that judg- 
 ment; and representation in Continental Congress and the Convention of 
 New York, both before and since the Declaration of Independence, are 
 undoubted proofs that our allegiance is justly due to the state of New 
 York until Congress shall otherwise determine. The resolutions of Con- 
 gress of the 30th June last, and the articles of confederation, are convinc- 
 ing to us that that honourable body disapproves of a measure so extraor- 
 dinary. The present government of New York engaging to remove 
 such grievances as we really laboured under, from the iniquity and bad 
 
FORMATION OF STATE OF VERMONT OPPOSED 117 
 
 policy of our former governors, we hope will quiet the complaints arising 
 from those grievances. The confusion that erecting a new state, without 
 the consent of Congress, has already, and will more abundantly, intro- 
 duce ; the present inabiUty of the people to support a separate government, 
 however frugally the public moneys are managed; and the great, very 
 great scarcity of men qualified to make and put in execution a wise sys- 
 tem of laws, plainly demonstrate to us the wretched policy of so extraor- 
 dinary an attempt at this time. 
 
 "We think it the duty of every friend to the independence of America, 
 more especially in the 'Grants,' to use their most strenuous efiEorts to 
 suppress or check this offspring of anarchy in its infancy. And as pre- 
 serving unanimity amongst the number who choose not to assist in divid- 
 ing the continent, in this momentous crisis, may have a tendency to answer 
 that end, and is essentially necessary as well for the public good as for 
 the security of their persons and property, we beg leave to recommend to 
 you, to elect a committee, in such time that they may meet at Captain 
 Sergeant's in Brattleborough, on the 30th day of June next, at eleven 
 o'clock in the forenoon, to exist for six months ; to authorize them to con- 
 sent to such measures as they shall think most likely to restore to this 
 divided county internal tranquillity, and submission to the just and neces- 
 sary authority of those who, by order of Congress, are regularly appointed 
 to rule over us ; from time to time to transmit to the government of New 
 York, accounts of all such matters as may be material for them to be 
 acquainted with; and to take such steps as they think best for relieving 
 those who may suffer in their persons or properties by any pretended 
 authority to be derived from the state of Vermont." 
 
 In August, 1778, the sense of the. voters as to the new state was at- 
 tempted to be taken. The report from this town was : 
 
 The number of voters in Brattleborough who dissent from the 
 pretended State of Vermont August 11, 1778, 165 
 
 Number who are for Vermont, 1 
 
 Total 166 
 
 At the February session (1779) the Vermont Legislature continued 
 sixteen days, during which time nearly one hundred acts were passed 
 for regulating such matters as required immediate attention. Various 
 laws ostensibly introduced for the benefit of the whole state, but more 
 particularly intended to affect the county of Cumberland, were enacted. 
 In order to increase the revenue of the state, the estates of those inhab- 
 itants of Cumberland County who had joined the enemies of Vermont 
 
118 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 and of the United States were, on the sixteenth of February, declared con- 
 fiscated, one of these estates being that of Samuel Gale of Brattleboro. 
 
 As soon as courts of justice were established hj Vermont, prosecutions 
 were commenced against the subjects of New York. 
 
 The friends of New York, when they saw that the laws of Vermont 
 were prevailing, determined to assert whatever power they had, and many 
 towns were provided with two sets of officials, one of New York, and the 
 other of Vermont appointment, both striving to further their conceptions 
 of justice, and each aiming to frustrate the efforts of the other. 
 
 On the fourth of May, 1779, the committees of Hinsdale, Guilford, 
 Brattleboro, Fulham, Putney, Westminster, Rockingham, Springfield and 
 Weathersfield, "chosen for the purpose of opposing the pretended state 
 of Vermont," convened at Brattleboro, and prepared a petition, addressed 
 to Governor Clinton, and signed by Samuel Minott, chairman, in their 
 behalf. 
 
 On the fifth of May, 1779, Colonel Patterson, in anticipation of com- 
 bined and strenuous efforts, on the part of the Vermonters, to seize the 
 property and persons of such as refused to acknowledge their authority, 
 asked for advice, and suggested the necessity of issuing orders to the 
 militia of Albany County to hold themselves in readiness to afford him 
 assistance. 
 
 On the fourteenth of May, Clinton wrote, in reply, to Samuel Minott 
 of Brattleboro, expressing his belief that the decision of Congress would 
 be favorable to New York, and that the delay which characterized their 
 proceedings had arisen from no other cause than the necessity of first 
 attending to topics of greater importance. "As in my former letters, so 
 in this," wrote he, "I forbear to poirit out the line of conduct I could wish 
 the well-affected inhabitants in your quarter should observe upon every 
 particular occasion. I conceive it impossible, and therefore can only 
 recommend, in general, firmness and prudence, and in no instance to 
 acknowledge the authority of Vermont, unless where there is no alterna- 
 tive left between submission and inevitable ruin." 
 
 On the eighteenth of May, 1779, writs were issued, signed by Ira Allen, 
 for the arrest of forty-four persons, among whom were the officers in 
 Brattleboro, Putney and Westminster who had received commissions from 
 New York, charged with "enemical conduct" in opposing the authority of 
 the state. Of this number thirty-six were taken and confined in the jail 
 at Westminster. No return was made of the remaining eight.^ Closely 
 crowded together in one room, the prisoners were obliged to remain stand- 
 ing on their feet during the first night of their confinement. This, and 
 the excessive heat of the weather, rendered their sufferings almost intoler- 
 
 1 One of whom was Israel Smith of Brattleboro. 
 
FORMATION OF STATE OF VERMONT OPPOSED 119 
 
 able. In answer to their demands, more comfortable quarters were on the 
 next day provided for them, and their situation during the week in which 
 they continued in prison was rendered endurable. 
 
 A meeting of the county committee composed of New York adherents, 
 was convened at Brattleboro on the twenty-fifth of May. An account of 
 the events of the preceding week was prepared by Samuel Minott, the 
 chairman on that occasion, and was forwarded to Governor Clinton by 
 an express. 
 
 Among the prisoners was Micah Townsend'^ of Brattleboro, a lawyer of 
 ability. By his advice they addressed a petition to the judges of the court, 
 in which they set forth the peculiarity of their situation, and the want 
 of impartiality in the proceedings then in progress against them. They 
 averred that on account of the recency of their apprehension, and the 
 strictness of their confinement, they had been unable to procure any writ- 
 ings or witnesses to substantiate the pleas which they might wish to offer, 
 and, further, . that they could not be "justified to their consciences and 
 to the world," should they omit any "prudent and lawful measures to 
 acquit themselves." 
 
 On being apprised of the disturbances which had occurred in Cumber- 
 land County, Governor Clinton, on the twenty-ninth of May, transmitted 
 by express the papers containing the information to John Jay, the presi- 
 dent of the Congress, with a request that he would lay them before Con- 
 gress without delay. By the same conveyance he wrote to the New York 
 delegation, telling them that the "Vermont business" had reached a crisis, 
 and assuring them of his confidence in their exertions to obtain the opinion 
 of Congress on that subject at the earliest moment possible. He informed 
 them that the State Legislature would meet on the first of June, and would 
 probably adopt decisive measures. At the same time he assured them that 
 he should issue his orders to the militia, and make the necessary arrange- 
 ments for supporting the injured dignity of the state; and further, that 
 he should conceive it his duty to order a force of a thousand men who had 
 been destined for the defence of the frontiers, to march to Brattleboro for 
 the protection of that and the adjacent towns, unless the interposition of 
 Congress should render such a measure unnecessary. To support the 
 troops he doubted not that private contributions would be made. In 
 behalf of Colonel Samuel Wells of Brattleboro, he promised a thousand 
 pounds of beef and a barrel of pork. He also expressed his belief that 
 when it should appear that New York was "in earnest" in her efforts, a 
 company could easily be raised in the county to assist in garrisoning the 
 fort. 
 
 1 See p. 145. 
 
130 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 The opposition to Vermont was so strong that Ethan Allen came to 
 assist the civil officers in enforcing its authority. Here is an account of 
 his doings from the New York side : 
 
 Brattleborough, May 25, 1779. 
 
 Sir. The Committee of this County who are now met for the purpose 
 of opposing the Authority of the State of Vermont take this opportunity 
 to inform your Excellency by Express. That Col. Ethan AUine with a 
 number of Green Mountain Boys made his appearance in this County 
 yesterday well armed and equipt for the purpose of reducing the loyal 
 inhabitants of this County to Submission to the authority of the State of 
 Vermont and made Prisoners of Col. Patterson, Lieut. Col. Sergeant and 
 all the Militia officers except one in" Brattleborough with Mr. Townsend 
 and a number of other Persons. They have also taken the Militia officers 
 in Putney & Westminster with others, the number of Prisoners we can- 
 not ascertain. 
 
 Warrants were issued and the following persons brought before the 
 court on trial: Lieutenant-Colonel John Sargent, Lieutenant James 
 Blakeslee, Lieutenant Samuel Root, Micah Townsend, Timothy Church 
 and Benjamin Butterfield of Brattleboro. 
 
 Col. Alline declared that he had five hundred Green Mountain Boys 
 with him, we are not able to ascertain the number, but believe there is not 
 quite so many who came from the west side of the Mountains, they are 
 assisted by a number of the Inhabitants of this County, where they will 
 carry the Prisoners we cannot tell. Col. Allen treated the people here with 
 the most insulting language, assaulted and wounded several persons with 
 his sword without the least provocation, and bids defiance to the State 
 of New York, declares they will establish their State by the sword and 
 fight all who shall attempt to oppose them. Nothing but the reluctance 
 the people here have to shedding human Blood could hinder them from 
 attempting to rescue the Prisoners, they had every insult which the human 
 mind is able to conceive of to prompt them to it. Our situation is truly 
 critical and distressing, we therefore most humbly beseech your Excel- 
 lency to take the most speedy & effectual Measures for our Relief, other- 
 wise our Persons and Property must be at the disposed of Ethan Allin 
 which is more to be dreaded than Death with all its Terrors. 
 
 Sir we are with the greatest esteem 
 Your Excellency's most obt humble servts 
 Signed by order of the Committee 
 
 Samuel Minott, Chairman. 
 
 To his Excellency George Clinton, Esq., Gov. of the State of New York. 
 
FORMATION OF STATE OF VERMONT OPPOSED 131 
 
 The prisoners were taken to Westminster and tried, found guilty and 
 fined by the court in session from i% to £40 each with costs, for opposing 
 the state of Vermont. 
 
 Opposition to the government of the state was organized by conven- 
 tions of delegates from the towns disaffected, who adopted a uniform plan 
 of resistance. The collection of taxes and drafting of men in defense 
 of the state were opposed, men were excluded from the polls by force 
 and constables were prevented from acting. 
 
 On the twenty-third of July, 1779, committees from neighboring towns 
 and from Springfield and Weathersfield, assembled in convention at the 
 house of Colonel Sargent in Brattleboro for the purpose of concerting 
 measures to protect themselves and their constituents from the indignities 
 to which they were subjected by the authorities of Vermont. 
 
 At their spring session, the General Assembly of Vermont had, on the 
 fifteenth of March, 1780, appointed Stephen R. Bradley, Moses Robinson, 
 and Jonas Fay, a committee "to enquire as soon as may be into the cause, 
 and officially take the reasons why certain of the inhabitants of the county 
 of Cumberland are opposed to the authority of this state, and wherein 
 their grievances consist." Pursuant to this appointment, the committee, 
 accompanied by Governor Chittenden, assembled at Westminster, and 
 afterwards at Putney, "to attend on the Yorkers," and to "bring about a 
 union with the Brattleborough committee," of which Samuel Minott was 
 chairman. However well-intentioned this measure may have been, it does 
 not seem to have been followed by any kind of settlement. When Oliver 
 Waters, deputy sheriff, seized Timothy Phelps of Marlboro and other 
 Tories, his route to the place of imprisonment was through Brattleboro. 
 "A large collection of Yorkers assembled for raising a building in that 
 town, sprang from the frame, handspikes in hand, rescued Mr. Phelps, 
 and sent Sheriff Waters with his Vermont posse home to try his luck 
 again. Mr. Phelps was immediately provided with a horse and a strong 
 guard to conduct him beyond the Vermont line into Massachusetts." This 
 incident reveals the popularity of the New York party among the inhabit- 
 ants of this town. 
 
 For the purpose of ascertaining the political condition of Cumberland 
 County, a convention of those owing allegiance to New York was held at 
 Brattleboro on the eleventh of April. Nine towns were represented. 
 
 May 2, 1780, committees of eleven towns in Cumberland County 
 assembled in Brattleboro for the purpose of devising such measures as 
 should seem best fitted to protect their own interests and those of New 
 York. In a letter addressed to Governor Qinton they defined the position 
 in which they were placed. 
 
 This communication, signed by Samuel Minott, chairman of town com- 
 
1^2 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORQ 
 
 mittees, and entrusted to Major Jonathan Hunt, who proceeded to Phila- 
 delphia, was read in Congress on the twenty-third of May. Major Hunt's 
 affidavit declared his belief "that the assumed government of the New 
 Hampshire Grants called Vermont" was intending after June' 1 to "put 
 their laws into execution over the persons and estates of the inhabitants 
 of said Grants," and to exact from them an oath of allegiance to their 
 pretended state. 
 
 Although Vermont had a government in full operation after 1777, Con- 
 gress did not recognize the new state. The government of New York 
 held out hopes that it would maintain authority over the territory, and 
 Brattleboro kept up its organization as a New York town, and sent no 
 representatives to the Vermont Assembly till 1781. Then sentiments in 
 favor of government under Vermont had gained and held place in the 
 minds of many. The record of the last town meeting pursuant to the 
 laws of New York runs : 
 
 At a legal Town Meeting of the freeholders of the Township of Brat- 
 tleborough in the County of Cumberland on the first Tuesday of March 
 1781 agreeable to the time prefixed by the Patent of said Township for 
 annual town meetings the town proceeded as f olloweth viz, 
 
 1 Chose Doct Henry Wells Moderator 
 
 2 Chose Stepn Greenleaf Town Clerk 
 
 3 Voted to adjourn this meeting to the first Tuesday in Mcirch 1782 
 Stephen Greenleaf Town Clerk. 
 
 This left the town without executive officers. Steps were taken for 
 another meeting, the record of which reads : 
 
 Brattleboro March 15, 1781 
 Having been requested by more than six Inhabitants of this Town to 
 warn a Meeting of the Inhabitants thereof to meet at the Meeting House 
 on Tuesday the 27th of March instant precisely at ten o'clock in the fore- 
 noon to act upon the following articles viz 
 
 1 To choose a moderator of said meeting. 
 
 2 To see whether this Town will approve of. the union proposed be- 
 tween the Towns represented in Convention of New Hampshire Grants 
 and the State of Vermont. 
 
 3 If the Town shall approve of the proposed Union To choose two 
 members to attend the Assembly of said State at their adjourned session 
 on the first Wednesday of April next agreeable to the recommendation 
 of the Convention and Assembly. 
 
 4 To proceed to the Choice of County officers agreeable to the law of 
 Vermont for that purpose if it shall be thought expedient. 
 
FORMATION OF STATE OF VERMONT OPPOSED 123 
 
 5 To choose Town officers under Vermont if it shall be thought expe- 
 dient. 
 
 I do therefore in pursuance of the sd Request Notify the Inhabitents 
 of this Town to meet at the Meeting House in this Town the time first 
 above mentioned for the purpose before expressed. 
 
 Stephen Greenleaf, Town Clerk. 
 
 Brattleborough March 37, 1781 
 
 The Inhabitants being met agreeable to the above request & Notification 
 they proceeded as follows viz 
 
 1 Made choice of Samuel W?irriner for their Moderator 
 
 2 Chose Stephen Greenleaf for their Town Clerk 
 
 3 The Town voted to accept of the Union adopted between the Legisla- 
 ture of the State of Vermont & the Committee of Convention. 
 
 4 Made choice of Stephen Greenleaf Colo John Sargeant & Capt Sam- 
 uel Warriner, for the select Men [first record of Selectmen] 
 
 5 Chose Doctr Lemuel Dickerman for their Treasurer 
 
 6 Made choice of Mr. Richard Prouty Mr. Jonathan Goodenough for 
 Constables 
 
 7 Made choice of Doctr Lemuel Dickerman Lieut Thomas Sargeant 
 Lieut Samuel Root, Lieut Samuel Knight, Capt Artemas Howe for their 
 listers. 
 
 8 Made choice of Mr. Richd Prouty & Mr. Jonathan Goodenough for 
 their Collectors. 
 
 9 Made choice of Capt Samuel Warriner Sealer of Leather 
 
 10 Made choice of Mr. Ebenezer Hadley for their Grand Juror 
 
 11 Made choice of Deacon Jacob Spaulding & Mr. Ebenezer Fisher for 
 tything Men 
 
 12 Made choice of Capt Oliver Cook for their Horse Brander. 
 
 13 Made choice of Mr. William Harris for Sealer of Measures. 
 
 14 Made choice of Deacon Wilder, Mr. Francis Prouty, Mr. John 
 Dickerman, Mr. Samuel Mixer & Mr. Asa Putnam for their Surveyors 
 
 15 Made choice of Samuel Wells Esqr & Capt. Samuel Warriner for 
 their Representatives to the Assembly of Vermont. 
 
 16 Made choice of Colo John Sargeant to go to Putney to carry the 
 votes taken in this Town at our election and there to assist in sorting and 
 counting the same, and was sworn to a faithful discharge of the trust 
 reposed in him. 
 
 per Stephen Greenleaf Town Clerk. 
 
 Thus Brattleboro became organized as a town under the state of Ver- 
 mont; it has ever since remained such. 
 
134 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 The representatives elected did not take their seats, probably because 
 of their adherence to New York. "Col. John Sargeant and Saml. Knight 
 Esquire," were afterwards elected, and attended. 
 
 Changing the town from under New York to under Vermont did not 
 subdue or quiet all the adherents of New York. Fears were prevalent 
 that the enemy were about to make an incursion into Vermont from 
 Canada, for the purpose of reducing it to a British province. Deposi- 
 tions containing information to this effect were attested by Benjamin 
 Butterfield and Jonathan Church, inhabitants of Cumberland County. 
 The statements made by these gentlemen were based entirely on hearsay, 
 partly on conversations which they had held with persons who had seen 
 scouts who had removed from Cumberland County and joined the British 
 in Canada. These depositions, which were taken at the instance of the 
 New York adherents, were transmitted to Governor Clinton for his 
 perusal. Accompanying them was a conimunication of the eleventh of 
 September, 1781, signed by the deponents, also by Colonel Eleazer Patter- 
 son, Lieutenant-Colonel John Sergeants, Captain Timothy Church, and 
 several private gentlemen, recommending the appointment of a committee 
 "invested with some degree of authority," whose duty it should be to 
 watch such of the inhabitants of the county as might be suspected of 
 conspiring with the British against the Americans, and report their names 
 to the proper authorities. 
 
 At a town meeting held at Brattleboro, on the twelfth of March, 1783, 
 the people assembled and declared by vote, that in their opinion a treaty 
 had been "entered into with the enemy" ; that the inhabitants of the New 
 Hampshire Grants justly owed their allegiance to New York ; that it was 
 their duty "to withdraw all allegiance of obedience to the state or authority 
 of Vermont"; and that in case a sufficient number of the inhabitants of 
 the other towns in the county should adopt similar sentiments, they would 
 petition the Governor of New York to appoint civil and military officers 
 for their guidance, and to establish a civil government under the authority 
 of that state. 
 
 On the twentieth, a convention of the committees of Guilford and Hali- 
 fax met at Brattleboro, for the purpose of concerting such measures as 
 the peculiar situation of the county demanded. Elijah Prouty of Brattle- 
 boro was chosen moderator of the meeting. Samuel Avery, as agent, was 
 directed to repair to the Legislature of New York, and lay before them 
 "a just and true state" of the "oppressions and grievances" to which their 
 constituency on the "Grants" were subjected. 
 
 Representatives from the towns of Brattleboro, Guilford, Halifax and 
 Marlboro assembled in convention on the seventeenth of March, and pre- 
 pared a combined "remonstrance and petition" for the consideration of 
 
FORMATION OF STATE OF VERMONT OPPOSED 125 
 
 Governor Clinton. This production disclosed the fact that "intrigues, 
 conspiracies, and insurrections" were "daily perpetrated" by the Ver- 
 monters; that warrants were frequently issued for the seizure of the 
 persons and property of the petitioners; and that usurpations had been 
 "valiantly opposed" by the friends of New York. The petitioners de- 
 clared it to be their intention to defend their rights by force, until "proper 
 authority" should be instituted. 
 
 The New York party in the townships of Guilford and Brattleboro 
 drew up a "Representation," as it was called, of their situation, and com- 
 mitted it to Seth Smith, their agent, with orders to present it to the Legis- 
 lature of New York, and to the Congress of the United States. In this 
 document, which was composed with much care and apparent truthful- 
 ness, Smith, representant, declared that a "very great majority" of the 
 inhabitants of Brattleboro and Guilford, and "at least three-fourths" of 
 the people living within the "usurped jurisdiction of Vermont, on the 
 east side of the Green Mountains and west side of Connecticut river," 
 were desirous of returning to the "rightful jurisdiction of the state of 
 New York," from which by the violent measures of the state government, 
 and the want of necessary protection and assistance from Congress and 
 New York, they had, "much against their inclinations, been obliged to 
 appear to depart" ; that the towns which he represented, and a majority 
 of the inhabitants of the New Hampshire Grants, were, as he believed, 
 firmly determined to oppose by arms the "usurped jurisdiction of Ver- 
 mont." 
 
 Fearing that a civil war was about to break out. Colonel John Sergeant 
 of the Vermont militia ordered his regiment to rendezvous at Brattleboro, 
 in order, as was afterwards stated in the muster rolls, "to suppress insur- 
 rections and disturbances then subsisting in those parts." The Yorkers 
 meanwhile held two companies of militia formed in Brattleboro, three in 
 Guilford and one in Halifax to aid in opposing Vermonters who might 
 cross the mountains and commence hostilities upon Yorkers in Cumber- 
 land County. 
 
 In the meantime the adherents of Vermont were actively engaged in 
 increasing the number of their supporters, not only in their own state, 
 but in the other states of the Union; but by 1783 the friends and sup- 
 porters of the government of New York in southeastern Vermont had 
 been gradually decreasing in power and numbers. 
 
 Timothy Church,^ who lived north of the Meeting-House, was appointed 
 "Lieut Col. Commandant" of the southern regiment of militia as arranged 
 under New York, and was foremost in this opposition at Brattleboro. 
 
 1 See p. 141. 
 
136 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Stringent laws were enacted against hindering the authority and officers 
 of Vermont, and power was given to the governor, as captain general, to 
 raise men to assist sheriffs when necessary. 
 
 An execution against the body of Colonel Church was issued on a judg- 
 ment rendered by John Bridgman, Esquire, a Vermont justice, in favor 
 of Gershom Orvis, and put into the hands of Jonathan Hunt, high 
 sheriff, to be served. Church denied the authority of the Vermont 
 authorities and resisted being taken; the sheriff commanded bystanders 
 to assist him, but they assisted Church and prevented his arrest. 
 
 Other similar transactions took place so frequently as to demand atten- 
 tion of the Vermont authorities. By direction of the governor, Brigadier- 
 General Ethan Allen raised two hundred and fifty mounted men from the 
 regiments of Colonels Walbridge and Ira Allen on the west side of the 
 mountains, and came with them to Marlboro September 9, 1782. They 
 were reenforced there by Captain Duncan of Dummerston with eighty- 
 three men; Captain Wheeler of Wilmington with forty-six; Captain 
 Warren of Marlboro with twenty-seven; Lieutenant Moor of Cumber- 
 land, now Whitingham, with twenty; and another officer with twenty 
 from the brigade of General Samuel Fletcher and regiment of Colonel 
 Stephen R. Bradley and Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Kathan, who were 
 present in command in person. 
 
 Detachments were sent to Halifax and Guilford ; the rest proceeded to 
 Brattleboro with prisoners from Marlboro and arrested Colonel Church. 
 The detachments from Halifax and Guilford came to Brattleboro the 
 same evening with prisoners. It is supposed that they passed over Meet- 
 ing-House Hill on the way. They encamped at the inn of Josiah Arms, 
 where "the jurisdiction of Vermont was enforced by the militia." The 
 detachment of General Allen was fired upon when leaving Guilford, 
 whereupon he returned and made proclamation that he "would give no 
 quarter to man, woman or child who should oppose him, and that unless 
 the inhabitants of Guilford should peaceably submit to the authority 
 of Vermont he would lay it as desolate as Sodom and Gomorrah.'' He was 
 not further molested in going to Brattleboro. 
 
 On the tenth he gave orders to kill without quarter anyone who should 
 fire on his men, and marched them with the prisoners to Westminster. 
 On the eleventh, before the superior court then in session, several of the 
 prisoners were tried by jury for treason to the state and convicted, among 
 them Colonel Church. He with three others was sentenced to be "taken 
 back to the common gaol of this county, there to remain in close imprison- 
 ment till the 4th day of October next ; and that they be then taken by the 
 sheriff of the said county from the said common gaol and carried without 
 the limits of this state, and that they be then and there banished from 
 
FORMATION OF STATE OF VERMONT OPPOSED 127 
 
 this state not to return thereto on penalty of death ; and that all their 
 goods, chattels and estates be condemned, seized and sold as forfeited to 
 the use of the state." The sentence was carried into execution, and on 
 the fourth of October they were taken from Westminster jail to the line 
 of the state at the river next to Walpole and there banished by the sheriff 
 according to the terms of the sentence. 
 
 Emboldened by the further encouragement of the governor of New 
 York, Colonel Church returned to his home in Brattleboro on the fifteenth 
 of December, was seized by military force on the twenty-second and taken 
 to Westminster jail, from which he was released May 14, 1783, on pardon 
 by act of the Assembly for his submission to the state of Vermont. "On 
 the 10th of January, 1784, warrants were issued for the arrest of Eleazer 
 Church and Nathaniel Chandler of Brattleborough. Church on the 12th 
 was brought before Judge Nathan Fisk of Westminster and being charged 
 with "treasonable conduct' was lodged in the jail of that town 'loaded 
 with irons.' On the 13th Chandler was committed." Others attempted 
 to exercise the powers of officers of New York, and resistance to those 
 of Vermont continued with frequence. A detachment of state troops was 
 kept under arms at Brattleboro to assist the Vermont officers. They were 
 under Commander-General Joseph Farnsworth, Major Josiah Boyden, 
 Ensign Oliver Waters, and Lieutenant Experience Fish, who were 
 quartered at the inn of Josiah Arms. The men were stationed about a 
 mile away. Fourteen men from Guilford and two, Richard Church and 
 Isaac Kendall, of Brattleboro, attacked the inn in the night to get Ensign 
 Waters, who was of Brattleboro and had by his activity made himself 
 very offensive to them. General Farnsworth parleyed with them to gain 
 time for sending for the troops, but they would not be put off, and 
 fired upon the house, wounding Major Boyden and a traveler lodging 
 there. Ensign Waters gave himself up and was taken by them to Massa- 
 chusetts, fastened to a heavy weight of iron, and put into the hands of two 
 of them to be taken to Poughkeepsie. He was rescued by men from 
 Halifax, rallied by Lieutenant John Noyes of Guilford. 
 
 This seizure of Waters determined the Vermont authorities to subdue 
 the opposition at once by military force. Orders were issued and soldiers 
 began to assemble at the inn of Josiah Arms again on January 17, 1784. 
 One hundred men of Colonel Wait's regiment came under Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Elijah Knight, Major Josiah Boyden and Captain Benj. Whitney. 
 From Colonel Bradley's regiment came Captain Josiah Fish's company 
 of fifty-three men from Townshend; Captain Silas Burk's of forty-four 
 men from Westminster ; twenty-seven men from Putney under Lieu- 
 tenant Ebenezer Parker, and twenty-two men from Rockingham under 
 Captain John Fuller. From Colonel John Sargent's regiment came Cap- 
 
128 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 tain Isaac Wheeler's company of thirty-two men from Wilmington; 
 twenty-two men from Dummerston under Lieutenant Daniel Gates, and 
 fifteen from Marlboro under Sergeant Sylvester Bishop. One field piece 
 came in charge of Captain Isaac Miller and Ebenezer Haven. 
 
 Sunday was spent in preparations. On Monday the troops moved to 
 Guilford. Their opponents left before them, until on Wednesday a de- 
 tachment was fired upon and Sergeant Sylvanus Fisk was wounded so 
 that he died the next spring. Further resistance was not made. Ethan 
 Allen arrived at Guilford on the twenty-second with the companies of 
 Captain Joseph Safford, Captain Hezekiah Armstrong and Captain Joseph 
 Wickwire from Bennington. The main body of the troops returned to 
 the inn of Josiah Arms that evening. A part of the troops were here 
 dismissed, and the rest of the body went to Westminster with the 
 prisoners who had been taken for trial. Negotiations by Micah Town- 
 send and Ira Allen brought about the final compromise by which the town 
 was turned over to the jurisdiction of Vermont. 
 
 This ended the disturbance in Brattleboro. Submission soon followed 
 elsewhere, and the authority of Vermont remained undisputed. The 
 New York title to lands was overthrown by Vermont in its first constitu- 
 tion at the very beginning. New York made recompense in other lands 
 to those who lost. Colonel Church received three thousand eight hundred 
 and forty acres. They are situated in Bainbridge, Chenango County, on 
 the Susquehanna River in New York. Israel Smith was removed to 
 Bainbridge about 1790, where he died June 7, 1811, and was buried inthe 
 old Colonial Cemetery in the town of Sidney, New York. 
 
 The allotment of lands by the Legislature of New York to Timothy 
 Church and his associates led others who had been similarly situated, 
 but who at a comparatively early stage in the controversy had submitted 
 to the government of Vermont, to apply for assistance. On the twelfth 
 of December Eleazer Patterson, Samuel Knight, Benjamin Butterfield, 
 John Sargent, Josiah Arms, and twenty-two other persons addressed a 
 petition to Governor Clinton and to the Senate and Assembly of New 
 York, in which they declared that they had been "uniformly loyal to the 
 state of New York" ; had supported the rights and interests thereof ; had 
 "not only frequently risked their lives, but expended large sums of money 
 and lost an abundance of time in defence of the said state ; had been often 
 imprisoned; and had suffered the loss of property to a considerable 
 amount." They further stated that they had "continued to exert them- 
 selves in support of the state of New York, until they were left totally 
 abandoned to the fury of their enemies," and then had submitted "to the 
 usurpation of the government of Vermont," only to avoid being "deprived 
 of their whole property." For these services and sufferings they asked 
 
FORMATION OF STATE OF VERMONT OPPOSED 139 
 
 as a compensation "a grant of vacant and unappropriated land." No evi- 
 dence was adduced in support of these statements. In consequence of 
 this omission, the committee of the Legislature to whom the subject was 
 referred reported adversely to the petition. 
 
 Francis Prouty, Thomas Whipple and Jonathan Dunkley of Brattle- 
 boro, John Wheeler and Darius Wheeler of Newfane, with others, being 
 armed with "clubs, guns, swords, pistols and bayonets," forcibly broke 
 and entered the house of Luke Knowlton at Newfane, on the morning of 
 November 16, 1783, took him prisoner and carried him across the bound- 
 ary line into Massachusetts and left him. As soon as the seizure and 
 abduction of Luke Knowlton was known. General Fletcher of Townshend 
 ordered the military to assemble. A portion of the regiment commanded 
 by Colonel Stephen R. Bradley, rallied immediately and reported them- 
 selves ready to act, but Knowlton's return and the dispersion of the York- 
 ers terminated all further action on the part of the Vermonters. 
 
 On the eighteenth of November, Edward Smith, a constable of New- 
 fane, entered a complaint against the rioters. Jonathan Dunkley was 
 arrested and gave the requisite bonds for his appearance before the 
 Supreme Court. Francis Prouty, the ringleader, was afterwards found 
 at his own house in Brattleboro by Barzillai Rice, a deputy sheriff; he 
 was, in company with his neighbors and friends, armed with muskets and 
 pitchforks. Prouty confronted the sheriff and threatened to "let out his 
 guts" if he entered his house or touched his person. Prouty was not 
 arrested until the eighth day of January, 1784 ; his house was surrounded 
 by a party of Vermonters and he was captured and committed to West- 
 minster Jail. On the third of February, 1784, the Superior Court com- 
 menced its session at Westminster. Francis Prouty was tried upon three 
 indictments, one for burglary, upon, which he was acquitted; one for 
 resisting sheriff Barzillai Rice, to which he pleaded not guilty and was 
 acquitted ; and one for seizing and carrying away forcibly Luke Knowlton 
 out of the state of Vermont. 
 
 The Jury returned a verdict as follows : 
 
 "The Jury in this case find that the prisoner did break and enter the 
 house of Luke Knowlton, Esq., in the night season and did take and carry 
 away the said Luke Knowlton, and if that breaking a house and taking 
 and carrying away a person as aforesaid amounts to burglary we say he 
 is guilty, if not, we say he is not guilty." The judgment of the court on 
 the verdict was that he was not guilty. 
 
 To the last indictment he pleaded guilty and was fined £30 with costs 
 of prosecution, and imprisonment in close confinement for forty days. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 LEADERS IN BRATTLEBORO'S OPPOSITION TO THE 
 SOVEREIGNTY OF VERMONT 
 
 Samuel Wells— Samuel Knight— Samuel Gale— Timothy Church— Micah Townsend, 
 leaders in Brattleboro's opposition to the sovereignty of Vermont. 
 
 Samuel Wells 
 
 Samuel Wells was the son of Jonathan Wells and Mary, his second 
 wife, and was born at Deerfield, Massachusetts, September 9, 1730. He 
 had three brothers, Jonathan, David and Oliver, and two sisters, Mary 
 and Rebecca. He married Hannah Sheldon and in July, 1763, settled in 
 Brattleboro on a farm of six hundred acres, situated about a mile north 
 of the East Village. Two of his children died in infancy. The remaining 
 five sons and six daughters, with the exception of one daughter, mar- 
 ried in Brattleboro. A grant of one thousand two hundred acres of land 
 in Canada having been made to each of them by the Crown, as a com- 
 pensation for the losses which Colonel Wells had suffered during the 
 Revolution on account of his adherence ta the King, they all removed 
 thither between the years 1798 and 1803. The daughters were married to 
 Samuel Gale, Ephraim Nash, Micah Townsend, Jonathan Gorton, 
 Nathaniel Church and Ephraim Stimpson. 
 
 Upon the establishment of Cumberland County by the government of 
 New York Colonel Wells was appointed a judge of the Inferior Court 
 of Common Pleas and a justice of the peace, and was authorized by a 
 dedimus protestatem commission to swear all who should take office in 
 the county. The commissions issued in conformity with these appoint- 
 ments were all dated the seventeenth of July, 1766, and he served under 
 them until the authority from which they were derived ceased to be 
 acknowledged by the people. During the same period he was the chief 
 military man in the southern part of the county. When, in answer to 
 the petition of the inhabitants of this district, the Council of New York, 
 by an order dated the twenty-third of December, 1772, authorized them 
 to choose two representatives to the General Assembly, Samuel Wells 
 and Crean Brush were returned, and took their seats in the latter body 
 on the second of February, 1773. 
 
LEADERS IN BRATTLEBORO'S OPPOSITION 131 
 
 At the time of the "Massacre" at Westminster, in 1775, Colonel Wells, 
 although one of the court judges, was in attiendance upon the General 
 Assembly at New York, and was not aware of the circumstances con- 
 nected with the development and results of the affray until the arrival of 
 the messengers who had been dispatched with the tidings. In connection 
 with his colleague. Brush, he is supposed to have been instrumental in 
 preparing the depositions which were signed by the messengers and 
 presented to the Assembly, containing an account of the "Massacre" 
 favorable to the action of the Crown adherents, and condemnatory of the 
 conduct of the Whigs. In the same year, during the recess of the 
 Assembly, "he joined the ministerial members in a letter to General Gage 
 at Boston," and seldom failed to evince a loyalist disposition, even after 
 policy had dictated an opposite course of action. On suspicion of having 
 been engaged in an attempt to introduce arms into Cumberland County 
 in behalf of Great Britain, for the purpose of reinstating and maintaining 
 the administration of justice therein, he was examined before the New 
 York committee of safety on the twelfth of September, 1775, during the 
 recess of the Provincial Congress, but he was dismissed, nothing having 
 been proved against him. Though opposed to the American cause, he had 
 sufficient skill and influence to preserve his property from confiscation, 
 but was not wholly able to escape the odium which attached to a loyalist, 
 or the punishments which a profession of this nature so often incurred. 
 From the records of the committee of safety for Cumberland County, 
 it appears that Lieutenant Leonard Spaulding, a most patriotic member 
 from Dummerston, allowed his enmity towards Colonel Wells to manifest 
 itself, on one occasion, without support of public opinion, in a most 
 improper manner. The incident referred to was noticed by the committee 
 in their proceedings on the twenty-fifth of July, 1776, and in order to wipe 
 out the disgrace which had been cast upon them by the unwarranted act 
 of the fiery Dummerstonian they resolved "that Lieut. Spaulding make 
 suitable Confession to this Committee for his Conduct in Taking Col. 
 Wells by military force ; the mode of proceeding Being Contrary to the 
 minds of this Committee, and also a Violation of a Certain Resolve 
 formerly passed by this Committee." To this resolution is appended the 
 following note : "Mr. Spaulding Comply'd with the above Vote by making 
 his proper Confession, &c." In The New York Gazette, under date of 
 June 23, 1777, it is stated that "Judge Wells of Brattleborough had been 
 lately confined to his farm and otherwise ill-treated," and it is known 
 that, for a long time, permission was granted to anyone to shoot him, 
 should he be found beyond the bounds of his acres. 
 
 During the period in which the British agents in Canada were endeavor- 
 ing to negotiate an alliance with the principal men in Vermont, for the 
 
133 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 purpose of reducing that state to the condition of a Crown province, 
 Colonel Wells's efforts were directed in behalf of this end. In a letter 
 to General Frederick Haldiman, dated at New York, May 8, 1781, and 
 written, it is supposed, by Beverly Robinson, notice is taken of the willing- 
 ness of Wells to promote the interests of Great Britain. "Colonel Wells 
 of Brattleborough," said this writer, "has sent his son-in-law^ with verbal 
 information that throws great light upon the conduct of Vermont. We 
 take him to be a friend, and he says by this messenger that you know 
 him to be so. Is it true? He offers his services for a monthly inter- 
 change of letters between Canada and the coast of Connecticut, where 
 we are to find a friend to give and receive dispatches. Do you approve 
 of this confidence?" 
 
 That the offer of Wells was ultimately accepted, and that he and Luke 
 Knowlton of Newfane lent their aid to advance the interests of Great 
 Britain, is proved by the following facts. In the month of April, 1783, 
 Christopher Osgood of Brattleboro, a housewright by occupation, was 
 hired by Knowlton to carry a letter to William Smith of the city of New 
 York, who had formerly been chief justice of the province. The letter, 
 it was supposed, was from General Haldiman, and was brought from 
 Canada to Newfane by Solomon Ball. Osgood received from Knowlton 
 $38 for this service, and on his return early in June received from Smith 
 an undirected letter, with verbal orders to deliver it to Knowlton, and a 
 reward of thirty guineas for his trouble. In the month of August follow- 
 ing, Shadrach Ball arrived at Brattleboro with another letter from Canada 
 directed to Smith. Osgood was on this occasion employed by Wells, who 
 gave him five pounds to take the letter to New York. After remaining 
 a few days in that city he set out on his return, being the bearer of a letter 
 without direction from the British Secretary Morgan, which he had orders 
 to deliver to Wells. For this last service he was rewarded with fifty 
 guineas. Of the information communicated he was ignorant, but was 
 commanded to destroy the letters in the event of his capture. 
 
 The fact that an embassy of this character had been established becom- 
 ing known to the authorities of Rhode Island, measures were immediately 
 taken to end it. In the latter part of October, or early in November, the 
 sheriff of that state arrived in Brattleboro, arrested Christopher Osgood 
 and carried him to Providence. Here on the thirteenth of November, at 
 a session of the court of assize and general jail delivery, he was brought 
 before the Honorable Paul Mumford, chief justice of the Superior Court 
 of Judicature, and upon examination detailed the facts above stated. The 
 "Information of Christopher Osgood" was on the nineteenth sent by the 
 lieutenant-governor of Rhode Island to Congress, accompanied by a 
 
 1 Samuel Gale is probably referred to. 
 
LEADERS IN BRATTLEBORO'S OPPOSITION 133 
 
 letter from that official. These documents, "containing evidence," as was 
 then stated, "that some of the leaders in Vermont, and particularly Luke 
 Knowlton, who had been deputed in the year 1780 to Congress as agent 
 for that party opposed to its independence, but who had since changed 
 sides, had been intriguing with the enemy in New York" — ^these docu- 
 ments were read in Congress on the twenty-fifth, and were referred to 
 Samuel Osgood, Daniel Carroll and John Rutledge. 
 
 In acting upon their report, which was presented on the twenty-seventh, 
 Congress, by a resolution passed in secret session, directed the com- 
 mander-in-chief "to take immediate measures for apprehending and 
 securing Luke Knowlton of Newfane, and Samuel Wells of Brattle- 
 borough, both of the district of country commonly called the New Hamp- 
 shire Grants, west of Connecticut River, and such others within the 
 district aforesaid as there may be good reason to apprehend have been 
 concerned with the said Knowlton and Wells in a dangerous correspond- 
 ence and intercourse with the enemy." 
 
 On the third of December the same topic was again .brought forward, 
 and the opinion was openly expressed that the leaders of Vermont were 
 "perfidious men." In order to warn the northern states of the dangers 
 to which they were exposed by the machinations of internal foes. Con- 
 gress resolved, in secret session, to furnish a. copy of Christopher Osgood's 
 declaration to the "supreme executives of the states of New Hampshire, 
 Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York." The charges contained in 
 his "information," implicating, as they did> certain citizens of each of 
 these states in "treasonable practices," rendered this course necessary for 
 the safety of all. Pursuant to the resolution of the twenty-seventh of 
 November, an officer was sent into Vermont to arrest Wells and Knowl- 
 ton, but they had been previously informed that such an attempt would 
 be made and had left the state before the officer arrived. An account 
 of this proceeding was sent to Congress by General Washington, together 
 with the report of the officer who had been sent to make the arrest. 
 From the representation of the latter it appeared, on the statement of 
 Israel Smith of Brattleboro, "that Knowlton and Wells had received a 
 letter from Jonathan Arnold, Esquire, at Congress, part of which was 
 made public, which informed them that affairs in Congress were unfavor- 
 able to them, and would have them to look out for themselves." The 
 subject was again considered on the twenty-seventh of January, 1783, 
 and Mr. Arnold, who was present when the papers were read, expressed 
 his surprise at the declarations which they contained respecting himself ; 
 denied that he had ever held any correspondence with either Knowlton 
 or Wells; and requested a copy of the above charge. In this request 
 he was indulged without opposition, "but it was generally considered," 
 
134 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Mr. Madison observes, "notwithstanding his denial of the correspondence, 
 that he had, at least at second hand, conveyed the intelligence to Ver- 
 mont." A similar opinion was entertained by Governor Clinton. In a 
 letter to Colonel Floyd, dated the sixth of February, 1783, he said : "Wells 
 and Knowlton have both fled the country, and there is strong reason to 
 suspect they had notice of the measures which were taken for their 
 apprehension, from a quarter too, where secrecy should have been 
 observed. A letter from a member of Congress to a person in that quarter, 
 is said to have given them the alarm." As to the design of Wells in this 
 affair, there can be but little doubt that he aimed to reduce Vermont to a 
 Crown dependency. Of the conduct of Knowlton, it is a fair inference 
 that he was influenced by Wells to engage temporarily in advancing the 
 views of that stern old loyalist. His subsequent conduct, however, proved 
 his hearty adherence to the American cause and his true devotion to the 
 best interests of Vermont. 
 
 Colonel Wells maintained his principles as a loyalist firmly to the last. 
 The opening sentence of his will, which was executed on the twenty-eighth 
 of October, 1784, was in these words : "In the nanie of God, Amen, I, 
 Samuel Wells of Brattleborough, formerly in the county of Cumberland, 
 in the province of New York, but now the territory called and known 
 by the name of the state of Vermont, do make my last will and testament 
 in manner and form following," etc. Micah Townsend, his son-in-law, 
 being one of the heirs and administrators under the will, and at the same 
 time probate judge of the district of Marlboro, which district included 
 Brattleboro, the General Assembly, by an act passed on the twenty-first 
 of October, 1786, permitted the probate judge of the district of West- 
 minster to administer on the will, "as fully and as amply as if the said 
 Samuel Wells had died in the district of Westminster." Wells died 
 deeply insolvent, his estate being valued at £1577 6s. 2>^d., and his debts 
 amounting to £5880 3s. 7>4d. Among his creditors were Abraham Lot, 
 Goldsbrow Banyar, William Wickham, the Honorable William Smith, 
 Stephen Greenleaf, the estate of Crean Brush and the estate of Josiah 
 Willard. He died August 6, 1786. 
 
 Samuel Knight 
 
 Samuel Knight was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, February 10, 1720. 
 He was married in Killingly, Connecticut, about 1757, and came to Brat- 
 tleboro in 1763, and settled on the old road to Newfane. He was then 
 a farmer and had two children. His commission as attorney-at-law in 
 "his majesty's courts of record" was granted by Governor Tryon, the 
 twenty-third of June, 1773, and he was admitted to the bar of thq Inferior 
 
LEADERS IN BRATTLEBORO'S OPPOSITION 135 
 
 Court of Common Pleas, September 8, 1772. He soon after bought 
 twenty-six acres and three square rods of land of Esquire Stephen Green- 
 leaf, in the northeast corner of what was called the "Governor's farm," 
 which covered a large part of the present village of Brattleboro. He 
 built a house where Mr. Cune's house stood on Main Street and lived 
 there. He was the attorney for the Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel in Foreign Parts, which was located in England. He was naturally 
 with those who favored the jurisdiction of New York. He was present 
 at the affray at Westminster on the thirteenth of March, 1775, and at 
 the inquest which was held on the body of William French, he, with four 
 others, being declared g[uilty of his death. The conduct of Mr. Knight 
 immediately after this event is described in a footnote to "The Rangers ; 
 or the Tory's Daughter," on the authority of "a distinguished early 
 settler" of Vermont, and is given in his own words : "I have heard 
 Judge Samuel Knight describe the trepidation that seized a portion of the 
 community, when, after the massacre, and on the rising of the surround- 
 ing country, they came to learn the excited state of the populace. He 
 related how he and another member of the bar (Stearns, I think, who was 
 afterwards attorney-secretary of Nova Scotia) hurried down to the river, 
 and finding there a boat (such as was used in those times for carrying 
 seines or nets at the shad and salmon fishing grounds, which were frequent 
 on both sides the river, below the Great Falls), they paddled themselves 
 across, and lay all day under a log in the pine forest opposite the town; 
 and when night came, went to Parson Fessenden's at Walpole, and 
 obtained a horse ; so that, by riding and tying, they got out of the country 
 till the storm blew over, when Knight returned to Brattlebprough." 
 
 From Westminster Knight went to Boston and thence to the city of 
 New York, where he arrived on the twenty-ninth of March. Oii his 
 return to Brattleboro in the course of the following summer, he resumed 
 his professional duties, but does not appear to have taken any very active 
 part in the struggle between Great Britain and the colonies. When Ver- 
 mont was declared a separate and independent state, he strenuously 
 favored the jurisdiction of New York, and strove to effect a reconciliation 
 between the contending parties. In the supply bill passed by the Legisla- 
 ture of New York on the fourth of November, 1778, £60 was voted to 
 him as a reimbursement of his "expenses in attending upon the Legisla- 
 ture, on the business of quieting the disorders prevailing in the north- 
 eastern parts of this state." Satisfied, at length, that New York would 
 never be able to maintain her claim to the "Grants," he became an open 
 supporter of the government of Vermont. 
 
 In 1781 he and Colonel Sargent were elected representatives to the 
 Vermont Legislature, and he was the representative in 1783, 1784 and 
 
136 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 1785, and in 1789 and 1797. He was elected a judge of the Supreme 
 Court of Vermont in 1788, and continued until 1795 ; a part of the time 
 he was chief judge. 
 
 Samuel Knight lived in Guilford for a time, and in 1781 was appointed 
 a justice of the peace. Owing to the discontent of some of the citizens 
 of that portion of the state, who believed him to be infected not only with 
 sentiments favorable to New York but with Tory principles, he was 
 suspended from office by the Council on the twelfth of April of the same 
 year. He was reinstated on the twenty-fifth of October following. In 
 1790 he sold his land and house to John Welland Blake. He then built 
 and moved to the house on Western Avenue where D. S. Pratt lived. 
 
 When Vermont was admitted to the Union, and there came to be a 
 United States district judge, Matthew. Lyon and Governor Chittenden 
 strongly favored his appointment, but did not succeed, the reason given 
 being that the President would not appoint a man over sixty years old and 
 who had not had a college education. Knight was, however, one of the 
 most talented men of his time in this part of the country and a man of 
 fine culture. 
 
 Judge Knight, after his retirement from the Supreme Court, continued 
 the practice of law in Brattleboro until the time of his death, which 
 occurred Monday, July 23, 1804, "at about sundown." His widow died 
 at the age of ninety-three. 
 
 Children of Samuel and Mary Knight : 
 John, married Miss Polly Carpenter. Children: 
 
 Thomas J., born in Dummerston August 8, 1824, went to Marlboro, 
 came to Brattleboro and worked for the Estey Organ Company 
 many years ; married Miss Lucy Shephard of Jamaica. Children : 
 Arthur E. 
 Frank G., who went to Hartford. 
 
 Elbert A., of West Brattleboro, married Betsey ; married, 
 
 second, and had children, Henry and Ira H. Daughter by first 
 marriage. 
 Susan E. S., married September 15, 1846, John D wight Plummer. 
 (See Appendix.) Children: 
 Virginia, married June 15, 1874, Henry B. Pitman of Troy, New 
 
 York. 
 Edward A., born 1858 ; died 1905. 
 Sabra, married December 16, 1828, Isaac Joy. Their daughter married 
 Samuel Butterfield of Dummerston. 
 
LEADERS IN BRATTLEBORO'S OPPOSITION 137 
 
 Samuel Gale 
 
 Samuel Gale was born in Hampshire, England, on the fourteenth of 
 October, 1747, and during his boyhood received the benefits of a good 
 education. Having been appointed a paymaster in the British Army, he 
 was ordered to the American colonies, probably about the year 1770. 
 From manuscript plottings prepared by him, which are still extant, it is 
 evident that his knowledge and practice as a surveyor were accurate and 
 extensive. On the twelfth of March, 1773, he issued at Philadelphia the 
 printed prospectus of a work which he was then preparing, to be entitled 
 "The Complete Surveyor." To this paper were affixed recommendatory 
 notices from the Right Honorable, the Earl of Stirling, Lieutenant- 
 Governor Cadwallader Golden, Mr. Rittenhouse and Mr. Lukens. From 
 a letter which he wrote while a prisoner at Fairfield, Connecticut, to John 
 McKesson, secretary of the New York Provincial Congress, dated Febru- 
 ary 29, 1776, it appears that the work was still unpublished. Having, in 
 this communication, requested to be released on parole, if no other better 
 relief could be afforded, he added, "You may mention what you choose 
 in the parole, but I would choose, by all means, if possible, to be at New 
 York or Philadelphia, where I may finish my intended publication on 
 surveying, which you well know is allowed by all parties to be a matter 
 of great actual service to America." Of the volume — published or 
 unpublished — nothing further is known. 
 
 On the twenty-fifth of June, 1773, he married Rebecca, the eldest 
 daughter of Colonel Samuel Wells of Brattleboro, and soon after left 
 the service. Becoming a resident of Cumberland County, he was 
 appointed, on the seventh of March, 1774, clerk of the court, that office 
 having become vacant' by the resignation of Crean Brush. In a descrip- 
 tion of the General Assembly of New York, given in The Connecticut 
 Courant, under the date of April 10, 1775, it is said of Brush that he 
 "sold the clerkship of the county to Judge Wells' son-in-law." On the 
 fifth of May, 1774, Mr. Gale was honored with another mark of favor, 
 in receiving a commission authorizing him to administer the prescribed 
 oaths to all persons appointed to office in the county. 
 
 Notice has already been taken of his conduct on the memorable evening 
 of the thirteenth of March, 1775. Warmly attached to the royal cause, 
 and deeming those who should rebel against constituted authority as 
 worthy of the direst punishment, his indignation knew no bounds when 
 he saw the yeomanry, whom he had been accustomed to regard only in 
 the light of obedient subjects, demanding redress for wrongs which doubt- 
 less appeared to him more imaginary than real, and enforcing the demand 
 with manifestations whose import could not be mistaken. On the day 
 following the outbreak, Mr. Gale was imprisoned in the jail at West- 
 
138 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 minster, and there remained until the nineteenth of March, when he was 
 taken to Northampton, Massachusetts, where he was kept in confinement 
 from March 23 to April 6, when he obtained his release and repaired 
 to New York. 
 
 Here he continued to reside, his family having joined him, until Febru- 
 ary, 1776, when he was seized at night in his own house, and conveyed 
 to a guardhouse at the upper barracks in the city, where the troops from 
 Connecticut were quartered. Thence he was soon after removed to 
 Fairfield jail, in Connecticut, where he was placed in close confinement. 
 Hoping to obtain his release, he wrote to John McKesson, requesting him 
 to interfere in his behalf. His letter, dated the twenty-ninth of February, 
 evinced by its style and expressions the honorable character of the writer. 
 "You well know," he remarked, "that my sentiments have been uniform 
 and steady, even if erroneous ; and, therefore, I consider myself entitled, 
 at the least, to the privileges and protection which, by the laws of all Chris- 
 tian nations, are granted to prisoners of war. I call it prisoner of war, not 
 as being an enemy in heart to any man breathing, but as being by birth and 
 education one of that country between which and this country a war 
 exists. Let me request that I may either be allowed the privilege granted 
 by all Christians to a prisoner of war ; or else the birthright of a British 
 subject — ^the writ of habeas corpus." He declared his belief that a design 
 against his person had been formed by some of the inhabitants of Cum- 
 berland County, and referred to a document which had been drawn up in 
 vindication of his own conduct, and that of the sheriff and posse, during 
 the affray at Westminster. He described his place of confinement as "a 
 common jail, where the cold wind through the bars (for the windows are 
 not glazed) far exceeds the warmth of all the fire that is obtained," and 
 asked to be accommodated with "a genteeler apartment." 
 
 This letter was considered by the New York Provincial Congress on the 
 fifth of March, and the seizure of Mr. Gale was declared to be "a wanton 
 act of military power, inconsistent with that liberty for which the colo- 
 nists are contending." On the following day Congress wrote to Major 
 Charles Lee, notifying him of the facts as they had been presented, and 
 requesting from him a statement of the nature of the charge brought 
 against Mr. Gale, in order that proper steps might be taken either for 
 his discharge or punishment. In his reply, written the same day, Lee 
 acknowledged that the arrest of Mr. Gale should not have been made 
 by the Provincial Congress, but gave as a reason for his conduct the 
 assurances he had received from many respectable men that Mr. Gale 
 was "a most dangerous man, and ought not to be suffered to remain on 
 Long Island," where, as Lee observed, "an enemy is more dangerous than 
 in any other spot of America." 
 
LEADERS IN BRATTLEBORO'S OPPOSITION 139 
 
 Information of the views of Congress in the matter was sent to Mr. 
 Gale by Secretary McKesson. In his answer, dated the twelfth of March, 
 Mr. Gale referred to a letter which he had written to Colonel Benjamin 
 Bellows (in which he had claimed a right to the records pertaining to his 
 office as clerk of Cumberland County) as being the probable cause of his 
 arrest. His remarks on this point were in these words : "Whoever con- 
 strues the disliked expressions in my letter to Col. Bellows to relate to 
 others than those of the county of Cumberland, gives it a construction 
 which was not thought of by me when I wrote it. I am not of opinion 
 that you or many of your body hold their proceedings in a much better 
 light than myself ; nor can I suppose that any one can think me blameable 
 in forbidding a delivery of the records to any but myself or deputy." He 
 then stated at length what his conduct had been ; that he had scrupulously 
 abstained from disobeying the orders of those opposed to Great Britain ; 
 that he had never been engaged in any "Tory plots" ; that the treatment 
 he had received was far from being reconcilable with the principles of 
 liberty ; and closed with this impassioned peroration : "Whether I return 
 to New York or not, may the Almighty's will be done ! I flatter myself 
 that, that nobleness of heart which characterizes the free-born Briton, 
 that spirit in which malice or revenge hath never reigned, added to a 
 conscience serene and clear, will enable me to pass through the various 
 mazes and labyrinths of persecution, torture, or death, with all the 
 patience and resignation of a martyr ; and should the apprehensions which 
 I have mentioned grow into realities, I shall say with Balaam, 'Let me die 
 the death of the righteous ; let my last end be like his.' " 
 
 Meantime, the committee of the Provincial Congress to whom the sub- 
 ject had been referred, reported on the eighth of March that "the sole 
 occasion for apprehending Samuel Gale, and sending him into confine- 
 ment" had arisen from certain letters in the possession of Colonel William 
 Williams, a member of the said Congress, and that they knew of no other 
 evidence against him. This report was taken up on the sixteenth of 
 March, and, in view of its statements, a resolution was passed, declaring 
 the opinion of Congress that Mr. Gale ought to be forthwith released, 
 inasmuch as he had been carried away and imprisoned "without any 
 hearing, trial, or adjudication whatever." Notice of this decision was 
 communicated to the chairman of the committee of Fairfield County, 
 accompanijsd by a request for the immediate discharge of the prisoner. 
 Mr. Gale was informed privately of the resolve, but the committee, con- 
 cluding that they had no jurisdiction in the case, refused to comply with 
 the request. In a third letter to Secretary McKesson, dated at Fairfield, 
 on the twelfth of April, Mr. Gale repeated his application for a release, 
 and detailed the reasons why it should be granted ; described the misery 
 
140 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 of his situation ; and expressed his views upon the merits of the struggle 
 between the colonies and the mother country in terms which bore evidence 
 to the sincerity, ability and honesty of the man. 
 
 "In this intolerable place," he wrote, referring to the prison, "the wind, 
 when cold, fairly chills every vein in my body. The smoke, when there is 
 fire, not only blinds but nearly suffocates me ; and the continual smell of 
 the room has, I fear, tended to rot my very vitals. In the morning, I have 
 perpetually a sickness at the stomach ; about noon comes a fever, which 
 in about three hours is succeeded by an ague, sometimes more and some- 
 times less violent. Every one of these intolerable tortures were so 
 inexpressibly increased by the excessive weather of Saturday the 30th ult., 
 that they introduced thoughts and extorted expressions too wild to men- 
 tion in cooler moments." Turning then to a consideration of the death 
 whose "slow approaches, inch by inch," he could not fail to perceive, he 
 remarked : "Though I consider it a duty incumbent on every man, to use 
 his endeavors for the preservation of his life, yet I never viewed death 
 through so horrible a medium as some men do. I have lately learned to 
 consider it as a matter of relief, rather than as a punishment. To leave 
 the wife of my bosom a disconsolate widow, and the babes of my loins 
 without a helper, is doubtless an unhappy reflection. But I am of opinion 
 that a single stroke, however violent, would in the end be less grief to 
 those I leave behind me, than a continuation of that suspense and anxiety 
 of mind with which they are now totally overwhelmed." Do "some of my 
 persecutors," he exclaimed, "want to dip their hands in the blood of a 
 martyr? If so, it would in my opinion be far less criminal, both in the 
 sight of God and man, for them to let it flow in decent streams than thus, 
 with dastardly meanness, to drag it from me drop by drop." A few days 
 after this letter was written, Thaddeus Burr, the sheriff of Fairfield 
 County, received the resolve of the Provincial Congress and released his 
 prisoner on parole of honor. In a letter to General Washington, dated the 
 nineteenth of April, Burr notified the course he had pursued, and asked 
 for directions. Of Mr. Gale he remarked: "He is an Englishman, a 
 gentleman of good education, and possessed of high notions in favor 
 of his native country ; is frank and open in declaring his sentiments, but 
 says he never has been, or will be active against the colonies." From an 
 entry in the Journal of the New York Provincial Convention, under date 
 of September 16, 1776, it seems that Mr. Gale was then in .the city of 
 New York, and that he had been brought thither by order of the New 
 York committee of safety. Ultimately, after due examination, Mr. Gale 
 was released from his parole of honor, and restored to liberty. 
 
 His sufferings, while in confinement, had not tended to lessen his hatred 
 of the "rebel" cause, but on the contrary had strengthened his attachment 
 
LEADERS IN BRATTLEBORO'S OPPOSITION 141 
 
 to the government in whose behalf he had endured so many privations. 
 Experience had also taught him that he was ill prepared to engage in civil 
 commotions. Desirous of avoiding a repetition of scenes which, to him, 
 had been fraught with sorrow and distress, he prudently removed with 
 his family to Quebec, where he received the appointment of provincial 
 secretary, under the administration of Governor Prescott. He subse- 
 quently accompanied his Excellency to England, to defend him with his 
 powerful pen in the difficulties which had arisen in connection with the 
 Council in Canada. He had written and published an elaborate work 
 entitled "An Essay on Public Credit," involving many abstruse and exten- 
 sive mathematical calculations on finance, having for its object the gradual 
 extinguishment of the national debt of England. This work he presented 
 for adoption to Pitt, then chancellor of the exchequer, by whom its cor- 
 rectness was admitted and its principles highly approved ; but who found 
 it easier to put off the learned author with a pension for life than to meet 
 the public creditors with this book of financial reform in his hand, which 
 might have cost him his place. In 1803 or 1804 Mr. Gale rejoined his 
 family in Canada, where he lived in retirement, and died at his country 
 residence in Farnham on the twenty-seventh of June, 1836. He left a 
 daughter and a son, the latter an eminent lawyer and a judge of King's 
 Bench, at Montreal, where he lived retired and respected. 
 
 Mr. Gale possessed an intellect of more than ordinary strength, and 
 his writings were always pregnant with thought and lucid in expression. 
 The first printing press in Vermont was brought by Samuel Gale probably 
 for his own use.^ In disposition he was amiable and forgiving; in man- 
 ners, polished and gentlemanly; in character, ingenuous, honorable and 
 conscientious. 
 
 Timothy Church 
 
 The New York party in Vermont, though reduced to a minority, were 
 still unwilling to abandon their cause. Startling reports of negotiations 
 between the governor and Council of Vermont, on the one hand, and the 
 agents of the British ministry in Canada, on the other ; the flight of Luke 
 Knowlton of Newfane and Samuel Wells of Brattleboro, on receipt of 
 information of the passage by Congress, in secret session, of a resolution 
 authorizing their arrest by the commander-in-chief, in consequence of "a 
 dangerous correspondence and intercourse" in which they were said to be 
 engaged "with the enemy" ; the constant passing and repassing of messen- 
 gers ; the fact that passports could be obtained from Governor Chittenden 
 which would give the bearer a safe-conduct among the British in Canada 
 — ^these and other circumstances induced many to believe that Vermont 
 
 1 See "Bibliography of Vermont" by M. D. Gilmore. 
 
142 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 was preparing to desert the American cause, and influenced some to seek 
 protection from New York. 
 
 Timothy Church returned to Brattleboro on the fifteenth of December, 
 1782, and was seized on the twenty-second, in his own house, by a party 
 of armed men acting under the authority of Vermont, and taken to West- 
 minster, where he was handcuffed and placed in jail. On the day follow- 
 ing his arrest he was ironed, and conveyed across the mountains to Arling- 
 ton. On reaching this place his irons were removed, but on being brought 
 before Governor Chittenden he was again shackled by direction of that 
 official, and committed to the jail in Bennington. For the first half week 
 of his confinement he was kept in irons both by night and by day. During 
 the four succeeding days his irons were taken off in the morning and put 
 on again in the evening. Subsequently these restraints' were entirely 
 removed. Being regarded with especial distrust, since by his own confes- 
 sion he had opposed the officers of Vermont after subscribing to the "free- 
 man's oath," a petition, in which he begged to be released, was viewed 
 with but little favor by the governor. But the temper which it displayed 
 was regarded by some of the State Council as a favorable indication, and 
 probably secured for him milder treatment than under other circum- 
 stances he would have received. With the design either of extorting a 
 large sum of money from his friends for his ransom, or of forcing him 
 to an unconditional submission, or of intimidating others who might be 
 inclined to disobey the laws of Vermont, a report was disseminated that he 
 was to be executed, and he was advised to prepare for the fatal hour. 
 The currency which this rumor obtained is evident from its frequent repe- 
 tition in the letters written by various citizens of Vermont at that period. 
 
 At the end of a month and a half the solitude and misery of confine- 
 ment were made more tolerable by the presence of a friend — a political 
 prisoner like himself — and from that time until the hour of his release 
 he found intelligent sympathy in the company of Timothy Phelps, the 
 deposed sheriff of Cumberland County. Wearied with vain attempts to 
 propitiate the government of Vermont, Timothy Church and Timothy 
 Phelps determined to notify Governor Clinton of their condition, in the 
 hope of obtaining some relief through his interposition. The document 
 in which they riiade known their situation and prospects was dated the 
 twenty-eighth of March. It was drawn by Charles Phelps of Marlboro, 
 and abounded in all that fulsomeness of diction and redundancy of expres- 
 sion by which both his compositions and his conversation were distin- 
 guished. Though intended especially for the perusal of the first person 
 named in the direction, it was addressed to "His Excellency Governor 
 Clinton, His Excellency General Washington, and to the Honorable Con- 
 tinental Congress as the Supreme Council of the United States of Amer- 
 
LEADERS IN BRATTLEBORO'S OPPOSITION 143 
 
 ica." The description of their condition was sufficiently graphic. They 
 are confined, wrote the amanuensis, "in the nasty, scandalous prison, 
 erected by that detestable and most rebellious people, called the Ver- 
 monters, in Bennington." In summing up the causes of their unhappiness, 
 the same fertile pen declared it to be immeasurably disgraceful for them 
 to be compelled to suffer imprisonment "from that vile nest of detestable, 
 seditious Vermonters," more especially at that period "when the triumph 
 of the American arms" was adding transcendent luster "to the honor, 
 dignity, and grandeur of the arms of their glorious allies both by sea and 
 land; reflecting lasting honor on the power, virtue, and courage of the 
 house of Bourbon ; and asserting the honor, establishing the grandeur, and 
 eternizing the dignity and glory of- his most Christian majesty's trium- 
 phant flag." 
 
 It was noticed that from the day on which this grandiloquent applica- 
 tion was drafted, the jailer refused to supply Colonel Church with food. 
 But his friends did not desert him in this emergency. The "good people 
 of Guilford" contributed from their wasted estates liberally for his sup- 
 port ; and from the money which they sent him he was enabled to supply 
 his wants during the remainder of his confinement. From the letters 
 which the prisoners themselves wrote while at Bennington, it is clear 
 that the life they there led must have been odious in the extreme. "Our 
 estates," said they, in a joint communication to Governor Clinton, dated 
 the tenth of April, "our estates — everything that we had — are seized and 
 sold, our families are in the greatest want; destruction has seized our 
 habitations, and we are left by our masters to perish in prison. This has 
 befallen us because we have been true to Congress, and faithful to the 
 state which we have ever been in. If there is any prospect of our being 
 released from this stinking jail, we should be glad to know it, for we 
 cannot stand it much longer. We came home under the royal law of 
 Congress. That law Vermont pays no regard to, and without speedy 
 help we shall sicken and die." In another letter to the same gentleman, 
 dated the first of May, they wrote, "It seems hard that officers of a sover- 
 eign state, who have jeoparded their lives in the high places of the field 
 against the powers of Great Britain, should be kept in prison by enemies 
 of the United States against the royal law of Congress." Though in 
 terms like these they bewailed their misfortunes, yet they were not 
 ignorant of the conditions on which release could be obtained. To submit 
 to these conditions was, however, a humiliation to which for a long time 
 imprisonment seemed preferable — a disgrace the indignity of which was 
 only to be incurred when all hope of relief from other sources had failed. 
 
 During the late session of the General Assembly a law had been enacted 
 on the twenty-fourth of February, intended to facilitate the return to 
 
144 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 their allegiance of those who were desirous of again becoming subjects 
 of Vermont. In the preamble of the act a suggestion was entertained 
 that some of those persons who had already been convicted "of conspiring 
 and attempting an invasion, insurrection, and public rebellion" against 
 the state, and had been banished therefor, were "penitent and desirous 
 of returning to their duty." To this was added a declaration that the 
 Assembly were desirous at all times of showing mercy, provided it could 
 be done consistently with the public safety. On these grounds the gover- 
 nor and Council "were fully authorized and empowered," in the words 
 of the act, "upon application to them made during the adjournment of 
 this Assembly, to pardon any of the said persons who have been banished 
 from this state by the Supreme court, as aforesaid, in as full and ample 
 a manner as this Assembly could do if convened." At the ^ame session 
 another act had been passed, granting pardon to Timothy Church, who 
 had been "found guilty of treason," but who had by his own petition 
 declared his "sincere and hearty penitence, and a determination to behave 
 orderly and submissive" in case he should receive forgiveness. The 
 condition of pardon and of the remission of the sentence passed upon 
 him in the month of September, 1782, was the payment of all costs which 
 had accrued in consequence of his trial and imprisonment. 
 
 Aware of these legislative provisions, and weary of prison life, Colonel 
 Church at length applied for his release. In answer to his application. 
 Governor Chittenden informed him that, to obtain a discharge, he would 
 be obliged to give his bond with surety for the payment to the treasurer 
 of Vermont of £30 10s. lawful money of Massachusetts, the sum due for 
 costs of trial ; and to pay £4 lis. for seven weeks' board in jail. To these 
 terms he consented, and on the sixteenth of May he left a prison where 
 he had dragged out nearly five months of confinement in cold, want and 
 pain. During the period of his banishment his family had been permitted 
 to reside upon and improve his farm, "by the permission and indulgence" 
 of the state. The same privilege was now accorded to him. But his 
 whole estate was still regarded as confiscated, and levies were not unfre- 
 quently made upon his cattle or his household goods whenever a collection 
 was to be made to replenish the treasury of the state. In a deposition 
 which he made on the twenty-fourth of June, referring to the sufferings 
 to which he had been subjected, he stated that, "although no formal 
 regular charge" had been exhibited against him, he was satisfied that "the 
 only cause for which he was apprehended and confined was his returning 
 home after he had been banished," and that the cause of his banishment 
 was the acceptance of a commission from the state of New York. On the 
 same occasion he affirmed his loyalty in the most positive manner, declar- 
 ing that he "never did acknowledge himself to owe allegiance or subjec- 
 
LEADERS IN BRATTLEBORO'S OPPOSITION 145 
 
 tion to the pretended state of Vermont, but, on the contrary, had always 
 since the first attempt to establish that pretended state, claimed himself 
 to be a subject of the state of New York." 
 
 In 1786 the state of New York granted an entire township, comprising 
 about forty-eight thousand acres, in what is now the town of Bainbridge, 
 and allotted the lands to Israel Smith, Timothy Church, Rutherford 
 Hayes and more than one hundred others of the inhabitants of the New 
 Hampshire Grants (in what is now Windham County), to recompense 
 them for losses and sufferings by reason of their adherence to the state of 
 New York, and many of them emigrated thereto. 
 
 MiCAH TOWNSEND, B.A., M.A. 
 
 Henry Townsend, the first of the family who settled in America, came 
 from England to Long Island previous to the year 1687. His son, 
 Micajah Townsend, having married Elizabeth Piatt, their son, the subject 
 of this notice, was born at Cedar Swamp, Oyster Bay, Long Island, on the 
 thirteenth of May, 1749 O. S. After pursuing the studies commonly 
 taught in elementary schools, and others, under the guidance of a neighbor- 
 ing clergyman, preparatory to a collegiate course, he entered at the age 
 of fourteen the college of Nassau Hall in Princeton, New Jersey, during 
 the presidency of Dr. Elihu Spencer. At the end of four years, having 
 completed the usual course of academic studies, he proceeded Bachelor of 
 Arts on the eighth of October, 1766, and during the presidency of Dr. 
 John Witherspoon proceeded Master of Arts on the fifth of October, 
 1769. On leaving college in 1766 he immediately commenced the study 
 of the law in the office of the Honorable Thomas Jones, a distinguished 
 barrister and attorney in the city of New York, and subsequently a justice 
 of the Supreme Court of the Province of New York. Having continued 
 this pursuit for the term of four years, he was admitted to the practice 
 of the law on the sixth of April, 1770, by a commission under the hand 
 and seal of the Honorable Cadwallader Colden, lieutenant-governor of 
 the colony. 
 
 Soon after his admission to the bar, he established himself in his pro- 
 fession at the White Plains, in Westchester County, where he remained 
 until after the commencement of the War of the Revolution. Attached 
 by conviction and by principle to the cause of the colonies, he freely lent 
 his efforts to advance that cause. He served as clerk of the Westchester 
 County committee of safety, and on the twenty-second of June, 1776, was 
 appointed to the command of a company of militia in that county, con- 
 taining fifty men, including officers, which had been raised to defeat the 
 machinations of the Tories who abounded in that region. On the twenty- 
 fifth of July following, he was ordered to take post at the mouth of 
 
146 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Croton River, and continued on duty in and about that locality until 
 the end of October. On the night of the first of November, it became 
 evident to General Washington that the British were preparing to take 
 possession of the heights in the neighborhood of the White Plains, which 
 he then held with his troops. In order to gain a more secure position, 
 he broke up his camp and, having previously set fire to the houses in the 
 White Plains and the neighborhood, removed his forces to a more moun- 
 tainous region, in the vicinity of North Castle. The destruction of the 
 village where he had at first entered upon the active duties of life was 
 doubtless the immediate cause which led Mr. Townsend to seek in the 
 interior of the country a residence less exposed to the disturbances of that 
 exciting period. Removing to Brattleboro, he was soon surrounded by 
 friends, and on the fifteenth of August, 1778, married Mary, a daughter 
 of Colonel Samuel Wells. 
 
 In the controversy which at that time raged with peculiar animosity 
 in the southeastern portion of Vermont, Mr. Townsend,' at the first, sided 
 with the supporters of the New York jurisdiction, and was in constant 
 communication with Governor Clinton. His letters were always prepared 
 with accuracy, expressed in well-chosen language and engrossed in a 
 chirography of singular beauty. He was frequently entrusted with the 
 conduct of important negotiations between the provincial government of 
 New York and its supporters in Vermont, and never failed to perform 
 his duty in a manner which gave the completest satisfaction. In the 
 supply bill passed by the Legislature of New York on the fourth of 
 November, 1778, the sum of £Q0 was appropriated to him, in payment of 
 his "expences in attending upon the Legislature, on the business of quiet- 
 ing the disorders prevailing in the north-eastern parts of the state." 
 
 The share which he had taken in military aflfairs while at the White 
 Plains had secured for him the enmity of the Tories who infested that 
 part of the country, and, when occasion offered, they did not fail to clothe 
 this feeling in deeds. In the year 1781, having obtained permission from 
 Governor Clinton to visit Long Island, he performed the journey, but in 
 a letter to the governor, written at Fifehkill on the sixteenth of May, 
 1781, while on his way home, he informed his Excellency that he had met 
 with abuse in the city of New York from the Westchester refugees ; had 
 been "once carried before his Worship," the British mayor of that city ; 
 and had been obliged to take a different route on his return, to avoid his 
 "old enemies," who were lying in wait to take him. "A thousand pounds," 
 said he, "would not tempt me to a similar visit." 
 
 Having come to the conclusion, after an honest and careful review of 
 the circumstances, that New York would never be able to substantiate her 
 claim to the New Hampshire Grants, or to enforce her laws in that dis- 
 
LEADERS IN BRATTLEBORO'S OPPOSITION 147 
 
 trict, he took the oath of allegiance to, and became a citizen of, Vermont. 
 In the practice of his profession, though not distinguished as an eloquent 
 advocate, he possessed what was of more value than eloquence, the esti- 
 mation of the community for integrity. By reason of his legal attain- 
 ments and the soundness of his judgment, he was esteemed the first 
 lawyer in the state, and during the twenty-four years of his residence 
 in Brattleboro his practice was successful and profitable. At this place 
 his children,, five daughters and three sons, were all born. In the year 
 1781 he was chosen judge and register of probate for Windham County, 
 and held those offices until the year 1 787. 
 
 The constitution of Vermont, which had been established by a conven- 
 tion on the second of July, 1777, was never submitted to the people for 
 popular discussion, lest in those critical times, when unanimity was the 
 only strength, its consideration should create disunion. Having been 
 acted upon, as an experiment, for eight years, it was found to admit of 
 so many practical abuses that its revision was regarded as imperative. 
 This duty devolved upon a council of censors, who were chosen from the 
 ablest men in the state for this specific purpose, and of this council Micah 
 Townsend was the secretary. Their sessions were held at Norwich in 
 June, 1785, at Windsor in September and October following, and at 
 Bennington in February, 1786. All the members of this body, doubtless, 
 participated in the discussions of the various points embraced in the work 
 they had in hand, and justly shared in the honor of the labor. But their 
 secretary alone could mould and shape the honest but crude suggestions 
 into the clear and explicit form of legislative procedure. The discriminat- 
 ing acumen acquired by his legal education gave him an ability in drafting 
 judicial and legislative documents which was then as important as it was 
 rare, and was duly appreciated by such men of his associates as the 
 Honorable Messrs. Marvin, Robinson, Mosely, Walbridge, Marsh, Jacob 
 and Hunt. 
 
 In the year 1781 Mr. Townsend was called to fill the office of secretary 
 of state, under the administration of the Honorable Thomas Chittenden, 
 and was continued in that station by annual election until 1788. While 
 occupying this position his habits of promptitude and regularity enabled 
 him, by reforming the looseness and confusion which had prevailed in the 
 department, to establish system and order. By these means access to the 
 records was rendered easier, and the facilities for the dispatch of business 
 were increased. 
 
 Pending the controversy between New York and Vermont, Micah 
 Townsend was, on the tenth of July, 1784, arrested in the city of New 
 York, by Seth Smith, "solely for his officiating in the line of his duty as 
 clerk of the county court of Windham County," and was obliged to give 
 
148 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 bail in the sum of £2000 for his appearance. The matter having been 
 laid before the General Assembly of the state, an act of indemnity was 
 passed at the next session of the Legislature, by which commissioners 
 were appointed to sell lands in the state of Vermont, belonging to citizens 
 of New York, until money should be raised from the sales to reimburse 
 Mr. Townsend for all the expenses consequent upon his arrest. 
 
 For domestic reasons Mr. Townsend resigned his state secretaryship 
 in 1788, much to the regret of all persons connected with the government. 
 On tendering to the Legislature the seals of his office, the event was 
 noticed by the House in the following complimentary resolution: 
 
 In General Assembly, 31st October, 1788. 
 
 RESOLVED, that this House having accepted the resignation of Micah 
 Townsend, Esqr., late Secretary of this State, feel themselves obliged to 
 express the warmest sentiments of gratitude to that gentleman, for the 
 fidelity and skill with which he has discharged the duties of his said office. 
 That it is with reluctance we consent that an officer of state of his ingen- 
 ious accomplishments, which have been so faithfully and to so general 
 satisfaction exerted for the public good, should so soon retire from the 
 station he has filled with advantage to the state, and honor to himself. 
 
 He now retired from all public business to the bosom of his family, 
 residing still in Brattleboro until the year 1801, when he disposed of his 
 estate at that place to the Honorable Royall Tyler, and with his family 
 dwelt in Guilford for one year. In the spring of 1802 he removed to the 
 township of Farnham, Lower Canada. He lived here in retirement, 
 devoted to domestic and religious duties, until 1816, when he changed his 
 residence to Clarenceville, that he might spend the evening of his life 
 with his son, the Reverend Micajah Townsend. Although for many years 
 he had intended not to engage in public business, yet as his health was 
 good and his faculties unimpaired, he yielded to the solicitation of the 
 people to make himself useful among them as a justice of the peace, and 
 from the governor, the Earl of Dalhousie, he received the appointment 
 of judicial commissioner for the trial of small causes. At length admon- 
 ished by the infirmities of age, he resigned these offices, and filled up his 
 time in gardening, reading and meditation. 
 
 In the year 1831 he was called to part with the faithful wife of his 
 youth, who died on the twenty-seventh of June, at the age of seventy-one. 
 About the middle of the following spring he was attacked with chills and 
 fever, and on the twenty-third of April, 1832, his mortal life terminated 
 at the age of about eighty-three. 
 
LEADERS IN BRATTLEBORO'S OPPOSITION 149 
 
 He was a member of the Masonic fraternity, and, according to the cer- 
 tificate of lodge Number 2 of the Province of New York, was elevated to a 
 Master Mason's degree on the fourteenth of June, 1770. His moral 
 character was marked for its truthfulness, integrity, justice and honesty. 
 His mind was stored with various and extensive knowledge. His style 
 of writing was plain, classical and elegant. His business habits were 
 characterized by system, order and correctness. His disposition was mild, 
 amiable and forgiving. His personable deportment was dignified yet 
 unforbidding, and his manners graceful, polished and gentlemanly. For 
 the last thirty years of his life, his daily practice was to retire for an hour 
 at twilight for meditation and prayer, and yet his personal piety which 
 was thus sustained, and was further evinced by a constant attendance on 
 public worship and communion in the Episcopal Church, of which he had 
 been from youth a member, was of a meek and unobtrusive character, 
 commending itself more by deeds than words. 
 
 Though his physical activity was abated by age, his bodily health was 
 unimpaired, and his sight and hearing, and appetite for food and sleep 
 were undiminished. His mental powers, upheld by the habit of reading, 
 had lost but little of their vigor, and he could compose and write with his 
 customary ease and perspicuity up to the time of his last illness. His 
 remains were deposited by the side of those of his wife, in the cemetery 
 of the parish of St. George, Clarenceville, Lower Canada. 
 
 Two of his sons were the Reverend Micajah Townsend and the Rever- 
 end Canon Townsend. 
 
 — Hall's "History of Eastern Vermont." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 SOLDIERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 *Thomas Akeley, b. at Boston, Mass., May 25, 1755 ; d. at Brattleboro, 
 Vt., Feb. 28, 1850 ; buried in West Brattleboro Cemetery. He served 
 as Private on the Lexington Alarm Roll of Capt. Joseph Guild's Co., 
 Col. Greaton's Regt., which marched on the Alarm of Apr. 19, 1775 ; 
 service twelve days, from Dedham, Mass. Also Private in Co. Re- 
 turn of Capt. Guild's Co., Col. Heath's (36) Regt., dated Camp at 
 Fort No. 2, Oct. 5, 1775. Town to which soldier belonged, Dedham. 
 • Reported enlisted May 9, 1775. 
 
 Ensign John Alexander, b. at Fort Dummer in 1738, was one of the 
 first settlers of Brattleboro. He died at Marlboro, July 8, 1828. He 
 was commissioned Ensign, Feb. 26, 1776, and gave various important 
 services in the Revolutionary War. 
 
 DEATH NOTICES OF REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 
 
 (From the New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette, Feb. 4, 1838) 
 
 — Died— 
 
 In Marlborough, Vt., John Alexander, his age supposed to be 89 years. 
 
 At the time when Bridgman's fort was burnt by the Indians (the site 
 of which is Vernon) and when Mrs. Howe and others were made cap- 
 tives, Mr. Alexander was a lad ten years old, in the woods, after the 
 cows belonging to the fort. Being in the woods he providently escaped 
 captivity. 
 
 In the old French War, at the age of 17, he served as a soldier under 
 Gen. Amherst and was at the taking of Ticonderoga, and in the American 
 Revolution was at the taking of Burgoyne. He was one of the first settlers 
 of Brattleborough, where he resided more than half a century and reared 
 a large family. 
 
 Few men have lived to his age and enjoyed a great measure of health, 
 and few, very few men of his stature, which was below the middle size, 
 
 * Out of about 200 graves of Soldiers of the American Revolution marked by 
 the Brattleboro Chapter, D. A. R., 45 were for men who, at some time, had lived 
 in Brattleboro. 
 
SOLDIERS OF THE REVOLUTION 151 
 
 have been more active, robust and Herculean than Mr. Alexander. One 
 instance is mentioned (which he was often heard to relate) as proof in 
 point. 
 
 He, at one time, carried on his shoulders, upon snow-shoes, a five-pail 
 iron kettle, two sap-buckets, an axe, a tapping-iron, a knapsack, four days' 
 provisions, a blanket, a gun and accoutrements, more than three miles 
 through the woods, over hills and valleys and in deep snow. An enormous 
 load! Mr. Alexander at the time of his decease, was the second white 
 person born, the oldest living, and one of the first native settlers on the 
 New Hampshire Grants, alias Vermont. 
 
 JoNAT" Alexander. Among a list of officers chosen July 34, 1783, ap- 
 pears Ensign Jonat" Alexander of Brattleborough North Company. 
 (Ref. Vt. Revolutionary Rolls, page 837.) 
 
 Ensign Jon" Sartle Alexander. Vt. Revolutionary Rolls, page 834, 
 gives name Jon° Sartle Alexander as Ensign of North Brattleborough 
 Company. 
 
 ♦Dudley Bailey, b.. at Lancaster, Mass., Dec. 16, 1744; d. March 8, 1813 
 or 1813; buried at West Dummerston, Vt. He was at one time a 
 resident of Brattleboro. He recruited for Rhode Island service dur- 
 ing 1777, Dec. 36, Capt. Edgell under Craft Bailey, eight months. 
 He was also once a resident of Westminster, Mass. 
 
 *JoHN Bemis, b. at Brattleboro, Vt., June 13, 1753; d. June 33, 1835; 
 buried in Locust Ridge Cemetery. He enlisted in the Continental 
 Service, was at Valley Forge with Washington's Army in 1777 and 
 was a pensioner. Resident of Brattleboro in 1790. 
 
 *Samuel Bennett. Name appears on Brattleboro's "Ancient Roll of 
 Honor." A Samuel Bennett buried at Brookline, Vt., was born in 
 R. I. He died Sept. 23, 1841, aged 83 years. He served as Private 
 with the Connecticut State Troops and his name was placed on the 
 Pension Roll Aug. 13, 1833. 
 
 Capt. James Blakeslee, Captain of a company of men (many of them 
 Brattleboro and Dummerston men) who gave service to the state of 
 Vermont from the beginning of the campaign, 1781, to the thirtieth of 
 June in the said year, inclusive. Taken from the original in the Pay- 
 master's Office. He also gave other service. (Ref. Vt. Revolutionary 
 Rolls.) 
 
 *JoEL Bolster. Name appears on Brattleboro's "Ancient Roll of Honor." 
 A Joel Bolster buried in the old Phelps Cemetery (on town line of 
 Guilford and Halifax) was born at Uxbridge, Mass., June 17, 1761; 
 died June 11, 1845. He served as Private in the Massachusetts Con- 
 tinental lines. He was placed on the Pension Roll Sept. 6, 1819. 
 
152 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Joseph Bonett. Name appears in Vermont Revolutionary Rolls as serv- 
 ing from Brattleboro. He enlisted Nov. 2, 1776, for term of the 
 war. As per the U. S. Census of 1790 a Joseph Bonnett was a resi- 
 dent of Barnet, Orange Co., Vt. 
 
 *LiEUT. Benjamin Butteefield, b. Westf ord, Mass., May 15, 1726 ; d. 
 at Brattleboro, Vt., Dec. 7, 1804; buried in Locust Ridge Cemetery, 
 Brattleboro, Vt. He was Lieutenant in Capt. William McCune's Co., 
 Seth Warner's Regt., Green Mountain Boys. 
 
 *James Carpenter, b. at Rehoboth, Mass., Feb. 16, 1738 ; d. at Brattle- 
 boro, Vt., Nov. 4, 1829. He was Private Volunteer in Capt. Cole's 
 Co., Col. Green's Regt. He was in the Rhode Island Alarm Dec. 
 8, 1776. 
 
 *JoHN Carpenter, Jr., b. at Rehoboth, Mass., Apr. 6, 1756 ; d. at Brattle- 
 boro, Vt., Feb. 1, .1843 ; buried in West Brattleboro Cemetery. He 
 was a Private in Capt. Isaac Hodge's Co., Col. Frances's Regt., from 
 Aug. 1 to Nov., 1776. 
 
 *Benjamin Chamberlain. His name appears on Brattleboro's "Ancient 
 Roll of Honor.'' There is a Benjamin Chamberlain buried in Dum- 
 merston Hill Cemetery. He was born about 1758 and died Apr. 26, 
 1844. His wife was Patty. He served in the Massachusetts Militia. 
 His name was placed on the Pension Roll Apr. 4, 1833. 
 
 Oliver Chapin, d. June 26, 1811, aged 51 years ; buried at Prospect Hill 
 Cemetery; came to Brattleboro, Vt., from Orange, Mass., about 
 1800. He became one of the county judges and held other positions 
 of importance. He was a member of Washington's bodyguard. 
 
 Lieut. Jonathan Church. His name appears as Second Lieutenant in 
 a Brattleboro Company in which Timothy Church's name appears as 
 Captain, Aug. 18, 1778. Other service was credited to him. He was 
 an early settler of Brattleboro. 
 
 *LiEUT. Reuben Church, b. about 1760 ; d. at Brattleboro, Vt., Sept. 18, 
 1839, aged 79 years ; buried in West Brattleboro Cemetery. He en- 
 listed in Col. Seth Warner's Regt., Aug. 7, 1776. He served as 
 Ensign from Aug. 7, 1779, to Aug. 1, 1780 ; as Sergeant from Jan. 
 1, 1777, to Aug. 7, 1779 ; was commissioned First Lieutenant July 
 24, 1782. He was a pensioner. 
 
 *LiEUT. CoL. Timothy Church, b. about 1736, and d. at Brattleboro, 
 Vt., Nov. 13, 1823; buried in Meeting-House Hill Cemetery. He 
 was appointed Second Lieutenant of Brattleboro, Vt., Co. in 1776; 
 Captain of the same Company Aug. 18, 1778, and Lieutenant Colonel 
 commanding the Southern Regiment June 5, 1782. "He was one 
 of the first settlers of the town." 
 
 Nathaniel Cole, b. in Swansea or Rehoboth in 1758; d. in Brattle- 
 
SOLDIERS OF THE REVOLUTION 153 
 
 boro, Vt., in 1824, and is buried in the Akeley family cemetery at 
 Guilford, Vt. He gave valuable service in the Revolutionary War. 
 
 John Colkin. Name appears in Vermont Revolutionary Rolls as serv- 
 ing from Brattleboro as a Private. The list in which his name ap- 
 pears was compiled from New Hampshire Rolls and George C. 
 Gilmore's New Hampshire Soldiers at the Battle of Bennington. 
 
 Peter Coval. Name appears in Vermont Revolutionary Rolls as serv- 
 ing from Brattleboro, a Private. The list in which his name appears 
 was compiled from New Hampshire Rolls and George C. Gilmore's 
 New Hampshire Soldiers at the Battle of Bennington. He resided 
 with his family in Brattleboro in 1790. 
 
 Lieut. Isaac Crosby, b. about 1744; d. Sept. 14, 1813, in his 69th 
 year; buried in West Brattleboro Cemetery. His name appears as 
 serving in 1782 under Capt. Artemas How. He was chosen Lieu- 
 tenant July 24, 1782. 
 
 *Benajah Dudley, b. in the state of Connecticut May 27, 1763 ; d. at 
 Brattleboro, Vt., June 20, 1850; buried at West Brattleboro Ceme- 
 tery. He served in the Connecticut Troops as Private and received 
 a pension. 
 
 *Warren Esterbrook, b. at Warren, R. L, June 29, 1748 ; d. at Brattle- 
 boro, Vt., June 29, 1838 ; buried in West Brattleboro Cemetery. He 
 served as Private in Sergt. Thomas Esterbrook's Co., as town guard 
 at Warren, R. 1., from Apr. 26, 1778, to May 26, 1778. 
 
 *CoRP. Samuel Field, bap. at Amherst, Mass., Jan. 20, 1754; d. at 
 Brattleboro, Vt., Apr., 1829 ; buried in Meeting-House Hill Cemetery. 
 Served in Capt. Noadiah Leonard's Co., Col. Ruggles Woodbridge's 
 Regt., on the Alarm of Apr. 19, 1775. He also gave other service. 
 
 *Obadiah Gill, b. about 1758 ; d. May 25, 1838, aged 80 years ; buried in 
 Prospect Hill Cemetery, Brattleboro, Vt. He served as Private in 
 Capt. Moses Harvey's Co., Col. Jonathan Brewer's Regt. Muster 
 Roll dated Aug. 1, 1777. He served one month and three weeks after 
 enlisting Jan. 12, 1775. He had an order for a bounty coat or its 
 equivalent in money, dated at Cambridge Dec. 5, 1775. He also gave 
 other service. 
 
 Corp. Benj. Gould, b. Apr. 6, 1753, at Stoneham, Mass.; buried at 
 Meeting-House Hill, Brattleboro. He served three years from Nov. 
 2, 1776, to Nov., 1779. In 1777 he was in Col. Seth Warner's Regt. 
 (Ref. Vt. Revolutionary Rolls, pp. 108-110.) 
 
 ♦Stephen Greenleaf, b. in Boston, Mass., Jan. 31, 1759 ; d. in Brattle- 
 boro, Vt., Mar. 5, 1850 ; buried in West Brattleboro Cemetery. He 
 served nearly four months in the Revolutionary War. He gave 
 valued and efficient service as town clerk for nearly half a century. 
 
154: ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 *Salathiel Harris, b. at Holden, Mass., Aug. 12, 1759 ; d. at Brattleboro, 
 Vt., Oct. 29, 1846; buried in West Brattleboro Cemetery. Served 
 in the New York State Troops and was placed on the Pension Roll 
 in 1833. 
 
 *WiLLiAM Harris, b. Oct. 2, 1757, at Holden, Mass. ; d. Mar. 12, 1845, at 
 Brattleboro, Vt. ; buried in West Brattleboro Cemetery. His name 
 was placed on the Pension Roll Mar. 10, 1819. Pension commenced 
 June 2, 1818. 
 
 *Ensign Rutherford Hayes, b. at Bradford, Conn., July 29, 1756 ; d. at 
 Brattleboro, Vt., Sept. 25, 1836 ; buried in West Brattleboro Ceme- 
 tery. Residence New Haven, and Brattleboro, Vt., after 1778. Ser- 
 vice — Changes in Southern Regt., July 24, 1782, among others 
 Rutherford Hays, Ensign, Southern Co., Brattleboro, town. 
 
 *Elihue Hotchkiss, b. about 1756; d. Jan. 11, 1840, aged 84 years; 
 buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery, Brattleboro, Vt. Private in Con- 
 necticut Militia. Placed on the Pension Roll in 1833. 
 
 Capt. Artemas How. Name appears in Vermont Revolutionary Rolls 
 as Captain of South Co., Brattleboro' Town, under date of July 24, 
 1782. He received his appointment as Captain on the same date. 
 He was a resident of Brattleboro in 1790. 
 
 *Income Jones, b. June 16, 1757, at Dighton, Mass. ; d. Jan. 19, 1845 ; 
 buried in West Brattleboro Cemetery. He served about one year 
 under Capt. Joshua Sayer, Col. Elliott's Regt. Applied for pension 
 in 1832, which was granted. 
 
 ♦Oliver Jones, b. about 1758 ; d. Dec. 24, 1832, aged 74 years ; buried in 
 West Brattleboro Cemetery. He served eight months under Capt. 
 Samuel Bliss, Col. Timothy Walker's Regt., in the state of Massa- 
 chusetts. He was a prisoner nine months on a British Prison Ship, 
 fifteen days in irons. His widow was allowed a pension. 
 
 *JoHN Kelsey, b. about 1760 ; d. in Brattleboro, Vt., Aug. 16, 1835, aged 
 75 years. He enlisted Jan. 3, 1777, to Dec. 29, 1779. He was engaged 
 in the Battle of Monmouth, under Capt. Aaron Stevens and Col. 
 Herman Swift. He received a pension. Later his widow also re- 
 ceived a pension. 
 
 CusHiNG King. Residence not given, but undoubtedly of Brattleboro. 
 Descriptive list of men "raised to reinforce the Continental Army 
 for the term of 6 months, agreeable to resolve of June 5, 1780. re- 
 turned as rec'd of Justin Ely. Commissioner, by Major Peter Har- 
 wood of 6'th Mass. Reg't. at Sp'd July 1, 1780. age 16 yrs. Statue 
 4 ft. 11 in. Complexion light, engaged for town of Greenfield. 
 Marched to Camp July 1, 1780. under command of Ens. Joseph 
 Miller." Buried in South Newfane. 
 
SOLDIERS OF THE REVOLUTION 155 
 
 Ezra King. Brattleboro, Vt. Descriptive list of men "raised to reinforce 
 the Continental Army for the term of 6 months, agreeable to resolve 
 of June 5, 1780. returned as rec'd of Justin Ely — Commissioned by 
 Major Peter Harwood of 6'th Mass. Regt. at Sp'd July 1, 1780— 
 age 18 yrs — statue 5 ft. 4 in. Complexion, light — engaged for town 
 of Gf'd — marched to camp July 1, 1780. under command of En- 
 sign Joseph Miller." Also list of men raised for the six months' ser- 
 vice, and returned by Brig. Gen. Patterson as having passed muster 
 in return dated Camp Totoway, Oct. 25, 1780, residence Brattle- 
 boro. Also "Pay roll for 6 months men raised by the town of 
 Gf'd for service in the Cont. Army during 1780. Marched June 30, 
 1780. discharged Jan. 3, '81, 172 m. from home. Service 6 mos. 
 4 days." 
 
 William King, Sr., b. about 1724; d. Nov. 8, 1793, aged 69 years; 
 buried in West Brattleboro Village Cemetery. His name appears on 
 a pay roll of Capt. Jacob Odel's Co., in Col. Ira Allen's Regt. of 
 Militia for service done in the state of Vermont, which commenced 
 Oct., A. D. 1781. 
 
 *WiLLiAM King, Jr., b. 1762; d. Dec. 19, 1840; buried at South 
 Newfa.ne. His name appears on a list of Vermont soldiers who 
 served in New Hampshire Regiments, compiled from New Hamp- 
 shire Rolls, Vol. 4. 
 
 David Lee, b. about 1764 ; d. May 30, 1839, in his 76th year ; buried in 
 Prospect Hill Cemetery. He enlisted at Thompson, Conn., July 5, 
 1780; discharged Dec. 13, 1780. He served under Capt. Allen and 
 Col. Sheldon. (Ref. Conn. Men of the Revolution.) He applied 
 for a pension in 1832. He is said to have been in the War of 1812 
 also. Gravestone says he was a "Soldier of the Revolution." 
 
 ♦Johnson Lynde, b. at Leicester, Mass., July 8, 1741 ; d. at West Brattle- 
 boro, Vt., Mar. 24, 1831. He served as Minute Man and was also 
 one of a committee to furnish provision for Washington's Army. 
 He was one of a Committee of Safety, and that committee met at 
 , his house. 
 
 Capt. David Mc'Cune. His name appears in Vermont Revolutionary 
 Rolls as serving from Brattleboro, June 5, 1783, in Col. Seth War- 
 ner's Regt. 
 
 *Capt. William Mc'Cune, b. about 1729; d. Dec. 27, 1807, aged 78 
 years ; buried in the West Brattleboro Village Cemetery. He came to 
 Brattleboro from Massachusetts and raised a company and served as 
 Captain in Col. Seth Warner's Regt., Sept. 16, 1776, until Nov. 18, 
 1778. 
 
156 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 *Thaddeus Miller. Name appears on pay roll of Capt. Jonathan War- 
 ren's Co. of Militia in Col. Sarjeants [sic] Regt., in the state of Ver- 
 mont for service done in Dec, 1783, pursuant to orders received 
 from Col. Sergent for the suppressing of insurgents in Windham Co. 
 
 *IsAAC Platts, Jr., b. at Bradford, Mass., 1744; d. at Brattleboro, Vt., 
 Sept. 27, 1835; buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery. He served as 
 Private in Capt. John Savoy's Detachment from the 3d Bradford 
 Co., which marched Nov. 30, 1775, and returned Dec. 4, 1776. Roll 
 dated Bradford, and sworn to at Andover, Mass. 
 
 Isaac Pratt, whose name appears on Brattleboro's "Ancient Roll of 
 Honor," died in Sudbury, Mass. He was placed on the Pension Roll 
 in 1818, then aged 71 years. 
 
 Lieut. Francis Prouty^ bap. at "Lancaster, Mass., Apr. 29, 1744. He 
 removed to Brattleboro, Vt., and bought land in 1770 ; was Lieutenant 
 in the Militia in 1793. His name appears as Second Lieutenant, July 
 24, 1782. On the foregoing date he was chosen Lieutenant. 
 
 Capt. Richard Prouty^ bap. at Lancaster, Mass., Apr. 23, 1742. He 
 removed before Apr. 1, 1771, to Brattleboro, Vt. He was constable 
 of the town in 1781. He was commissioned Captain on July 24, 1783. 
 
 *Ephraim Rice, born at Brattleboro, Vt. ; died at Wardsboro, Vt., Jan. 
 18, 1851. He served in the Massachusetts Militia as a Private, his 
 name being placed on the Pension Roll on Sept. 31, 1833. 
 
 *LiEUT. Jonas Rice, b. about 1765 ; d. May 1, 1849, aged 84 years ; buried 
 at Meeting-House Hill Cemetery. He was a resident of Brattleboro, 
 Vt. His name appears on a pay roll of Capt. James Blakeslee's Co., 
 Col. Fletcher's Battalion and Gen. Eno's Brigade in the service of the 
 state of Vermont in 1781. 
 
 Lieut. Joseph Rogers, b. about 1754 ; d. at Brattleboro, Vt., Sept. 4, 1838, 
 aged 84 years. He received a large pension. He served in the New 
 York Militia. His gravestone says, "A soldier of the Revolution." 
 
 Ensign Samuel Root. His name appears as serving from Brattleboro, 
 under Col. Eleazer Patterson, Aug. 18, 1778, in the same Company 
 with men from Brattleboro, Halifax, Guilford, Fulham, Putney and 
 Westminster. 
 
 *Hezekiah Salisbury, b. at Bristol, R. L, May 17, 1754 ; d. at Brattle- 
 boro, Vt., May 37, 1883 ; buried in West Brattleboro Cemetery. He 
 was a Private, and later served as Sergeant and Captain. Engaged 
 in the Battle of Long Island — Harlem. Date of enlistments, May 
 10, 1775 ; Jan. 10, 1776 ; May 1, 1778. AppHed for pension Aug. 2, 
 1833. 
 
 *Capt. Jonathan Salisbury, b. at Bristol, R. I., Nov. 13, 1735 ; d. in 
 Brattleboro, Vt., Mar. 37, 1817. He was commissioned by the Gov- 
 
SOLDIERS OF THE REVOLUTION 157 
 
 ernment to serve as Privateersman. During the Revolution he de- 
 voted himself and vessels, of which he was owner, to his country's 
 cause. 
 
 *Nathaniel Sampson, b. at Middlebury, Mass., in 1754; d. in Brattle- 
 boro, Vt., Mar. 24, 1849; buried in Meeting-House Hill Cemetery. 
 Engaged in a skirmish at Mile Square. Enlisted at Middlebury, 
 Mass. Applied for a pension, Aug. 1, 1832, which was granted. 
 
 ♦Elihu Sargent, b. May 3, 1758 ; d. Dec. 1, 1833 ; buried in Locust Ridge 
 Cemetery, Brattleboro, Vt. In 1782 his name appears on pay roll of 
 Capt. Jason Duncan's Co. of Militia, in Col. John Sargent's Regt., 
 for marching to Brattleboro sundry times, "by order of Col. Sar- 
 gents in order to suppress the disaffected party in said Regiment." 
 
 *CoL. John Sargent, b. at Fort Dummer, Vt., Dec. 4, 1733 ; d. July 30, 
 1798 ; buried at Locust Ridge Cemetery, Brattleboro, Vt. Name ap- 
 pears on the pay roll of Capt. Isaac Wheeler's Co. in Col. John Sar- 
 gent's Regt., dated the 24th day of Dec. to the 26th. Also served as 
 Colonel in Capt. Jason Duncan's Co., and in various other important 
 service. 
 
 *Sergt. Rufus Sargent, b. at Fort Dummer, Vt., June 15, 1740 ; d. Nov. 
 23, 1836 ; buried in Dummerston Center Cemetery. He was Sergeant 
 in Capt. Josiah Boyden's Co. of Dummerston men, in Col. William 
 Williams's Regt., in the Bennington Expedition; also served again 
 under Capt. Jason Dunton and Col. John Sargent (his brother). 
 
 Nathaniel Sartwell (Sawtell), b. at Groton, Feb. 12, 1729; d. Aug. 5, 
 1816 ; buried at Locust Ridge Cemetery, Brattleboro, Vt. He served 
 as Corporal and Sergeant of Groton. He has a governmental stone, 
 given for Revolutionary War service. (Ref. Sec. of State of Mass.) 
 
 Sylvanus Sartwell, b. Nov. 10, 1757, at Sunderland, Mass. ; d. at Brat- 
 tleboro, Vt., Nov. 31, 1842 ; buried at Locust Ridge Cemetery and has 
 a governmental stone. He applied for pension Aug. 2, 1832, and was 
 placed on the Pension Roll in 1833. His wife was Lucy Hosley, b. 
 July 3, 1755 ; d. Jan. 30, 1848, aged 92 years. She received a widow's 
 pension. 
 
 *Jacob Spaulding, b. about 1727 ; d. June 18, 1808, aged 81 years ; buried 
 in Meeting-House Hill Cemetery, Brattleboro, Vt. Served as Pri- 
 vate. His name is recorded in Capt. James Blakeslee's Roll, begin- 
 ning of campaign, 1781, to thirtieth of June of the same year. 
 
 *Daniel Stearns, b. July 7, 1760; d. Jan. 9, 1824; buried in Meeting- 
 House Hill Cemetery, Brattleboro, Vt. He appears as Fifer on the 
 pay roll of Capt. Jesse Safford's Co. of Rangers, Maj. Eben'r Allen's 
 Detachment, raised for the defense of the state of Vermont, com- 
 mencing Jan. 18 and ending Dec. 1, 1780. 
 
158 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 *Reuben Stearns, b. 1759, and a resident of Brattleboro, Vt. ; d. at the 
 home of his son in Dummerston, Vt., Jan. 39, 1845 ; buried in West 
 Brattleboro Cemetery. He enhsted at Paxton, Mass., July, 1776, 
 served three months under Capt. Benjamin Richardson and Col. 
 Nicholas Dike. He enlisted Dec, 1776, and served three months; 
 again at Paxton in 1778, and served six vireeks. 
 
 *CoL. Daniel Stewart, b. at Paxton, Mass., in 1756 ; d. at Brattleboro, 
 Vt., June 13, 1834; buried in West Brattleboro Cemetery. He ap- 
 pears with rank of Private on the Lexington Alarm Roll of Capt. 
 Phineas Moore's Co., Col. Ephraim Doolittle's Regt., which marched 
 on the Alarm of Apr. 19, 1775, from Paxton to Cambridge ; service 
 nineteen days. 
 
 Lemuel Thompson, a native of Connecticut, came to Brattleboro in 1816, 
 and lived with his son, Isaac Thompson, the remainder of his life. 
 He was killed by an accident, being run over on High Street while 
 returning from muster. 
 
 Samuel Warriner, b. Aug. 31, 1744; came to Brattleboro, Vt., from 
 Wilbraham, Mass. ; d. Sept. 35, 1808. His wife was Chloe Nash, 
 who died in 1830, aged 84 years. His name appears upon the pay 
 roll of Capt. Josiah Boyden's Co., 'in Col. William William's Regt. 
 of Militia in the service of the United States on an expedition to 
 Bennington in 1777. 
 
 David Wells, whose name appears on Brattleboro's "Ancient Roll of 
 Honor," was born about 1753, and died Jan. 37, 1836. He was 
 placed on the Pension Roll June 4, 1818', then aged 65 years. 
 
 *William Whipple, b. about 1763 ; d. Oct. 30, 1848 ; buried at Meeting- 
 House Hill Cemetery, Brattleboro, Vt. His name is recorded in 
 Capt. James Blakeslee's Roll, beginning of campaign, 1781, to thir- 
 tieth of June of the same year. 
 
 *JosHUA Wilder, b. (per) Shutesbury, Mass., Mar. 4, 1754; d. Mar. 4, 
 1849 ; buried in cemetery on old Wilder Farm. In his application for 
 pension, he states that he belonged to Capt. Edmond Brigham's Co., 
 Col. Brigham's Regt.; was detached Oct. or Nov. 1, 1777, and served 
 until Sept. 1, 1780, as a military guard at Westboro, Mass., under 
 Corp. or Ensign Fisher. His residence at date of enlistment was 
 Westboro, Mass. His pension claim was allowed. 
 
 *JoTHAM Wilder, b. at Lancaster, Mass., 1710 ; d. at Brattleboro, Vt., 
 May 35, 1801 ; buried in West Brattleboro Cemetery. He fought in 
 the Battle of Bunker Hill at the age of 65 years. Muster Roll dated 
 Aug. 1, 1775. He enlisted May 15, 1775, service 2 months 33 days, 
 in, Capt. Andrew Haskell's Co., Col. Asa Whitcomb's Regt.; also 
 other service. 
 
SOLDIERS OF THE REVOLUTION 159 
 
 *Samuel Willington, b. at Lincoln, Mass., Nov. 28, 1757 ; d. at Brattle- 
 boro, Apr. 10, 1836; buried in Locust Ridge Cemetery. He served 
 with the Massachusetts State Troops. He received an invahd's pen- 
 sion in 1789. His name was placed on the Pension Roll May 17, 
 1822. 
 
 *Philip Wood, b. at Rehoboth, Mass., Apr. 29, 1756 ; d. in Brattleboro, 
 Vt., July 16, 1845; buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery, Brattleboro, 
 Vt. He appears with the rank of Private on the pay roll of Capt. 
 Stephen Bullock's Co., Col. Thomas Carpenter's Regt., for service 
 at the Rhode Island Alarm, Dec, 1776. 
 
 Other Names on the Ancient Honor Roll 
 
 Daniel Harris (buried at Wardsboro, Vt.). 
 
 IcHABOD King. 
 
 William Butterfield. 
 
 Jabez Clark (there was a Jabez Clark, Hinsdale, 1790). 
 
 Bromer Jenks. 
 
 Joseph Joy (buried in Putney West). 
 
 Elias Joy. 
 
 Israel Jones (there was an Israel Jones of Halifax in 1790). 
 
 Levi Shumway (there was a Levi Shumway of Whitingham, 1790). 
 
 Teomas Simpson (there was a Thomas Simpson of Wardsboro, 1790). 
 
 Royal Tyler (of Brattleboro). 
 
 Southeastern Vermont was outside the field of action of the Revolution- 
 ary forces but not outside of the intentions of the British commander as 
 seen by the following extracts from General Burgoyne's instructions to 
 Colonel Baum: "You are to proceed from Batten Kill to Arlington, and 
 to take post there. . . . You are then to proceed to Manchester, where 
 you will again take post, so as to secure the passes of the mountains on the 
 road from Manchester to Rockingham; from thence you will detach the 
 Indians and light troops to the northward toward Otter Creek ; on their 
 return, and also receiving intelligence that no enemy is in force upon the 
 Connecticut river, you will proceed by the road over the mountains to 
 Rockingham, where you will take post. . . . Should you find it may be 
 efifected, you are to remain there while the Indians and light troops are 
 detached up the river, and you are afterwards to descend the river to 
 Brattleburg (Brattleboro'), and from that place by the quickest march 
 you are to return by the great road to Albany. . . . During your whole 
 progress your detachments are to have orders to bring in to you all horses 
 fit to mount the dragoons under your command, or to serve as bat-horses 
 
160 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 to the troops, together with as many saddles and bridles as can be found. 
 The number of horses requisite, besides those necessary for mounting the 
 regiment of dragoons, ought to be thirteen hundred. If you can bring 
 more for the use of the Army, it will be so much the better. . . . All 
 possible means are to be used to prevent plundering." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 SCHOOLS 
 
 Schools — Division of town into districts — Names of heads of families in districts — 
 Location of schoolhouses. 
 
 The town first took action in regard to schools December 4, 1783, by 
 voting: "2d, to choose a committee to confer with the selectmen in order 
 to divide the town into districts for the benefit of schools ; 3d, to choose 
 a committee of six men and accordingly chose Lieut. Thomas Sargeant, 
 Lieut. Richard Prouty, Lieut. Sam'l Knight, Mr. Wm. Harris, Capt. 
 Artemas Howe and Mr. Eben'r Hawes committeemen for the above pur- 
 pose." The town was divided into six districts by heads of families. 
 Those north of West River were made into District Number 1 ; those east 
 and south of the Meeting-House into Number 2 ; those where the red 
 schoolhouse was and south of there to Guilford into Number 3 ; those in 
 the southwest part of the town into Number 4; those north and west of 
 the meeting-house into Number 5 ; and those in the west part of the town 
 into Number 6. The names of the heads of families were : 
 
 District Number 1 
 
 Henry Segar Jesse Frost 
 
 Daniel Whipple Ebenezer Hadley 
 
 Mary Whipple Jesse Hadley 
 
 Nathan Pierce Elias Wilder 
 
 Benjamin Butterfield Abner Bemis 
 
 Joseph Fuller Eli Sargeant 
 
 John Sargeant Levi Sargeant 
 
 Thomas Sargeant Jesse French, Junior 
 
 John Baldwin Timothy Bebee 
 
 Nathaniel French Asa French 
 
 Joshua Wilder Jesse French, Junior 
 
 John Bemis Charles Wiler 
 
 District Number 2 
 Benjamin Gorton Josiah Arms 
 
 Samuel Wells Ebenezer Frost 
 
162 
 
 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 James Smith 
 Nathaniel Church 
 John Joy 
 Samuel Knight 
 Matthew Martin 
 Mr. Clark 
 Peter Covel 
 Elnathan Allen 
 Oliver Evans 
 Asa Putnam 
 Elisha Pierce 
 Nathan Willard 
 Mr. Stearns 
 Gardner Chandler 
 William King 
 Oliver Wells 
 Moses Tute 
 Oliver Harris 
 
 John Pettis 
 Reverend Mr. Reeve 
 Ebenezer Fisher 
 Micah Townshend 
 Jonathan Peabody 
 John Griffin 
 Joel Atchinson 
 Caleb Morgan 
 John Dickerman 
 Stephen Greenleaf 
 Benjamin Baker 
 Joshua Harris 
 Jonathan Goodenough 
 John Arms 
 William Dickerman 
 Abraham Martin 
 Abner Scovel 
 
 District Number 3 
 
 Elihu Hyde 
 Samuel Root 
 Lemuel Kendrick 
 Simpson Ellis 
 John Houghton 
 William Harris 
 Israel Smith 
 William Harris, Junior 
 Salathiel Harris 
 Oliver Nash 
 Aaron Nash 
 William Houghton 
 Peter Houghton 
 Jeremiah Hopkins 
 Isaac Crosby 
 Valentine Harris 
 Joseph Burt 
 Luther Burt 
 John Ellis 
 Simeon Eaton 
 John Campton 
 Moses Nash 
 
 Isaac McCune 
 Doctor John Munro 
 Asa Dagget 
 John Hager 
 David Pinks 
 Samuel Warriner 
 Zebediah Marsh 
 Jabez Wood 
 Jabez Wood, Junior 
 Nathaniel Chandler 
 Henry Chandler 
 Jacob Spalding 
 Abel Symonds 
 William Church 
 Josiah Church 
 William Evans 
 Nathaniel Blakeslee 
 Eber Church 
 Widow Blakeslee 
 James Blakeslee 
 William Jones 
 
SCHOOLS 
 
 163 
 
 District Number 4 
 
 Daniel Steward 
 
 William Salisbury 
 
 Hezekiah Salisbury 
 
 Oliver Salisbury 
 
 John Steward 
 
 Gideon Briggs 
 
 Mr. Hail 
 
 James Barney 
 
 Mr. Stoddard 
 
 Thomas Akeley 
 
 Jonathan Stoddard 
 
 George Dixon 
 
 Stephen Greenleaf, Junior 
 
 William Holton 
 
 John Dixon 
 
 David Dixon 
 
 Daniel Frazer 
 
 Jonathan Smith 
 Philip Paddleford 
 Reuben Smith 
 John Plummer 
 Joseph How 
 Artemas How 
 Samuel Mixer 
 Abel Grout 
 Jesse Butterfield 
 Nehemiah Horton 
 Benoni Thompson 
 Samilel Newton 
 Philip Wood 
 David How 
 John Carpenter 
 Luke Butterfield 
 
 District Number 5 
 
 John Newton 
 
 David Polard 
 
 Samuel Bennett 
 
 Joseph Bennett 
 
 Noah Bennett 
 
 Timothy Church 
 
 William Cranny 
 
 Joseph Whipple 
 
 Stephen Bennett 
 
 Jonathan Church 
 
 Joseph Chamberlain 
 
 Richard Prouty 
 
 Timothy Whipple 
 
 Benjamin Butterfield, Junior 
 
 William McCune 
 
 Doctor Dickerman 
 
 Mr. Leason 
 
 Taylor Brooks 
 
 Oliver Cook 
 
 Jonathan Herrick 
 
 Francis Prouty 
 Jonathan Dunklee 
 Joseph Dunklee 
 Amos Rice 
 Ephraim Rice 
 Jonathan Alexander 
 Ephraim Knapp 
 James Knapp 
 Benjamin Gould 
 John Alexander 
 Elijah Prouty 
 Israel Field 
 Jotham Spaulding 
 William McCune, Junior 
 Isaac Kendall 
 Sawyer Wright 
 Ebenezer Knapp 
 Ebenezer Church 
 Joseph Cook 
 Mr. Nichols 
 
164 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 District Number 6 
 
 Barnet Field Jonathan Hobbs 
 
 Isaac Bump Ebenezer Hawes 
 
 Reuben Bump Daniel Whipple 
 
 Selah Wells Jonathan Salisbury 
 
 Nathan Gould ' Jabez Davis 
 
 Among those in District Number 3 is to be noticed Doctor Munro, not 
 often mentioned among the early physicians. He was probably the first 
 in that part of the town. 
 
 The schoolhouse in District Number 1 was probably built where the 
 schoolhouse in that district now is; that in Number 2 at the northwest 
 corner of what is the Common in Brattleboro Village ; that in Number 3, 
 perhaps where the red one stood ; that in Number 5 where that in District 
 Number 6 now stands. Colonel John Sargeant was committee in Number 
 1; Mr. Asa Putnam in Number 2; Mr. William Harris in Number 3; 
 Captain Howe in Number 4 ; Mr. Noah Bennett in Number 5 ; and Mr. 
 Jonathan Salisbury in Number 6, and all were chosen by the town and not 
 by the respective districts — which were called "classes." 
 
 A school meeting was held by "voters of the eastern part of Center 
 School district," December 11, 1797. At that time money to defray the 
 expense of a term of school was "raised on the poles" and ratable estates 
 of the district, the fuel and teachers' board being furnished by pupils. 
 Teachers received nine dollars per month and "boarded round." 
 
 John and Willard Arms deeded a portion of land owned by them, July 
 7, 1807, for a school site on the northwest corner of what is now the 
 Common, near the top of the hill descending to the Retreat. The little 
 red schoolhouse built on this site was used for the first religious meetings 
 held in the East Village, and "lectures were preached there on Lord's-Day 
 evening" by Reverend William Wells, and generally as often as twice a 
 week besides. 
 
 In 1857 the schoolhouse was removed at the expense of the Retreat 
 to the present location on Chase Street, as it was thought to obstruct the 
 view of the Retreat buildings and grounds. Besides that schoolhouse, 
 there was one on the Hunt farm near where the old gravestones stood 
 in the open field. The building was originally a cooper's shop, not particu- 
 larly warm in winter, but when the weather was very severe the pupils, 
 said to have been about forty in number, were permitted to take their 
 books and study around the big fireplace in which were burned four-foot 
 green logs. Instead of the athletics of the modern school system, there 
 were wrestling matches and other crude devices to develop muscle and 
 give vent to the animal spirits of the country boy. 
 
SCHOOLS 165 
 
 In the more settled parts of New England the large body of the people 
 received the rudiments of an education in the district schools. The 
 instruction was confined to reading with a fair degree of fluency, writing 
 .legibly, spelling, and enough arithmetic for simple practical computations 
 and to make change. The teacher was generally a divinity student 
 scarcely out of his teens. 
 
 Only a few passed into the seminary kept by some minister, or the 
 academy which fed the colleges then in existence. A few academies 
 offered a standard of scholarship under men of remarkable endowment 
 for the profession of teacher, which has given them a just and lasting 
 fame. These were schools of secondary instruction, intellectual primarily, 
 but bringing to youth during the years when character is formed, not only 
 mental discipline and honest work, but moral and religious influences 
 fitting for life. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 WEST BRATTLEBORO 
 
 West Brattleboro— HarrisrHayes center— Hayes Tavern— Roads— John Noyes's 
 store— General Jonas Mann— Samuel Clark— Chester Miller— Admaiha Dunklee 
 —Other owners — Glen House— Proprietors : Rutherford Hayes, Russell Hayes, 
 Amasa Bixby, Henry Barrett, Timothy Root— Stewart's Hotel, Phineas Stewart. 
 
 There was no village where West Brattleboro now is till after 1784, 
 though some ten or twelve years previous to that date, a bridle path, and 
 then an ox-sled road, led from the Harris-Hayes center; southeastward to 
 the Hayes Tavern, which was kept by Rutherford Hayes from 1778. 
 
 Hayes Tavern 
 
 The house was placed where the road divided, between the straight road 
 going on over Meeting-House Hill, and, by a sharp turn to the west, the 
 road to Marlboro. The highway east of the house was changed to the 
 west when a more direct route to Marlboro was needed. The house was 
 built for an inn. It was called "The Big House" because of its size. The 
 ballroom on the second floor was the only large hall in the region and many 
 public meetings were held there as well as balls and card parties, and 
 people came from neighboring hamlets to attend them. 
 
 The house was very substantially built, with two cellar walls three feet 
 apart, and heavy timbers in which no dry rot has ever been found. Four- 
 teen fireplaces were required to warm the house and there were two brick 
 ovens, one in the dining-room and one in the well-lighted cellar. In the 
 cellar was an immense fireplace with a long crane and Dutch ovens for 
 roasting meats and fowls. It was also provided with running water, 
 a deep well and every convenience the period furnished for cooking the 
 bountiful suppers served in the dining-room above. Chloe was a famous 
 cook and had, usually, a corps of helpers. 
 
 There was a barroom at the right of the wide hallway, and upstairs, 
 opening into the ballroom, was a bar-cupboard where thirst could be 
 quenched without descending to the barroom. The bar-cupboard is now 
 a closet, but still retains the shelf over which the liquor was sold and the 
 little corner shelf below the counter where the money-box was kept. 
 
HAYES TAVERN 
 
 CEMETERY 
 WEST BRATTtEBORO 
 
 RESIDENCE OF 
 GEHERAl JONAS MANN 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
CHASE'S STAGE HOUSE 
 
 BLAKE MANSION 
 
 COCKAYNE. BOSTON 
 
WEST BRATTLEBORO 167 
 
 Capacious woodsheds, so necessary in fireplace days, were connected 
 with the house by a gangway, from which opened a large milkroom. 
 Under the milkroom was an ice-cellar. Also connected with the sheds 
 were a carriage-house and barn, and near by a small "kettle-house" where 
 maple sugar was made. A certificate to keep a carriage issued by G. 
 Denison, collector for the second collection district of Vermont, shows 
 that for the privilege of owning a "two-wheel carriage called a chaise and 
 the harness used thereof," Mr. Hayes paid $1.00. 
 
 A large room upstairs containing four beds, one in each corner, was 
 reserved for the babies and children of tender years who could not be 
 left alone at home. It is said that the "Reverends" of those days were 
 punctual in their parochial calls at the hospitable home of Rutherford and 
 Chloe Hayes. It was a rule of the house that whichever child had behaved 
 in the most exemplary manner during the week was to have the privilege 
 of bringing from the cellar and presenting to the parson a glass of wine. 
 But the Hayeses were strict in their observance of Saturday evening as 
 the beginning of the Sabbath. At sunset every Saturday night the wooden 
 shutters were drawn, doors closed and the weary traveler knew it was of 
 no use to call for refreshments at that hostelry. 
 
 From this time the path went south to Ellas's by the old Academy, then 
 east to a ford or bridge on the Whetstone, near the iron bridge, then to 
 Lieutenant Root's. Here, about to turn to the left and go up the hill 
 north, it met and took on another which came from Guilford via Benja- 
 man Baker's, now Stafford's, on Fair View Hill, then passed Greenleaf 's, 
 now Herrick's, then passed John Dickerman's, now Miner's, then crossed 
 the Whetstone by Smith's (who sold in 1795 to John Field from Amherst, 
 Massachusetts) gristmill, near the red bridge, then turned to the left 
 and went west to Lieutenant Root's, where it joined the other, as above 
 named, and with it went up the hill north past Lemuel Kendrick's, and 
 thus reached the Common, Meeting-House and cemetery on the hill, about 
 1774. It is thought that this road from Guilford and the brook to the hill 
 was that which Colonel Ethan Allen took when he went with his soldiers 
 and prisoners from Guilford to Brattleboro September 10, 1782, and that 
 his troops and the prisoners stopped for the night on the hill, perhaps 
 in the church, while he and his officers went on and stopped at the famous 
 Major Arms Inn. 
 
 From this a road led across Whetstone Brook to the Hayes corner; 
 from this Harris-Hayes center one road went northwest,, passing the home 
 of Captain Nathaniel Blakeslee, who lived at the Miller place; then to 
 the home of Captain James Blakeslee, who lived at the Samuel Sargent 
 place. Another road went up the hill, west, passing Major Greenleaf's, 
 
168 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 now Wellman's, soon after which it parted and went, one southward to the 
 Warriner's, another westward to Marlboro. A road westward passed the 
 Dunklee homestead, Oliver Carpenter's, Wicopee Hill and eventually the 
 old Meeting-House on Dummerston Hill, to Williamsville and Newfane 
 Hill, thence to Chester, the shire town of Cumberland County. Still 
 another road struck oUt from near the Wells place, going first south of 
 west, then west, passing near Samuel Knight's place (Pastor Reeve's and 
 Ebenezer Fisher's) and came, in 1768, upon Meeting-House Hill from the 
 north ; whence, eventually, it went on westward, down across the northern 
 part of the Miller farm to the S. S. Sargent place on Whetstone Brook ; 
 thence across the country west to Abel Stockwell's, now Hillcrest, on 
 Ames Hill in Marlboro, and extended about fifteen miles from the Con- 
 necticut River into Halifax. There was no other road in that direction. 
 A path extended from this road across the mountain to Albany. 
 
 One and the same as the beginning of this road on the hill was the one 
 which came west from the Meeting-House down through what was once 
 the Reeve pasture, to the Reeve, later Pettee, place. 
 
 From Lieutenant Root's to what is now the East Village there was no 
 direct road till 1785, the same year in which the Meeting-House on the 
 hill began to give place to the building of a new one in West Brattleboro. 
 
 After 1774 anyone going from the Harris-Hayes region to the East 
 Village region might go northeast to the hill via the road up through 
 the Reeve pasture ; or, doubtless better, via Lieutenant Root's to the hill, 
 and thence by a road going southeast past Gilbert Smith's, later Abner 
 Scovil's, to the great river road. 
 
 Aside from the roads already named, there were the two others leading 
 from the hill northward to the Oscar Ware and West Dummerston region. 
 
 The "old store building" in West Brattleboro was probably built about 
 1775, although the exact date is not known. From 1800 to 1826 the store 
 was owned by Esquire John Noyes, in company with General Jonas Mann ; 
 Noyes and Mann sold to Samuel Clark and he to a Mr. Baker. From 
 1837 to 1840 Chester Miller was in business in the building; in 1840 
 or 1841 the store was purchased by Admatha Dunklee, who remained 
 in business about twenty-seven years, when it was again sold, to Perry 
 and Howe. 
 
 The Glen House, West Village, was the second hotel built by Ruther- 
 ford Hayes. Russell Hayes succeeded his father as proprietor; Amasa 
 Bixby, Henry Barrett and Timothy Root followed. It was taken next by 
 Phineas Stewart and from that time, for many years, was called Stewart's 
 Hotel, when it was a favorite resort of the militia. R. Goodenough, 
 George Emerson, Mark Worcester, George A. Boyden, H. Holland, 
 Henry Nash, C. C. Miller, L. D. Thayer, M. Alden, William Warren, 
 
WEST.BRATTLEBORO 169 
 
 T. Clapp, Albert Smith, John L. Sargent and Seth Jones were successively 
 proprietors. 
 
 No settlement was made in the valley of Whetstone Brook above the 
 Estey sawmill till 1798, when William Harris began one where the old 
 road to Marlboro turns up the hill at West Brattleboro. John Houghton, 
 afterwards Captain Houghton, settled on the farm northwest of the 
 Goodenough mills, where Mr. Cutting lived, in 1770, built mills there, and 
 sold them to Aaron Nash in 1774. Israel Field settled on the lot next 
 east, on which Samuel Sargent lived, in the same year, and Simpson Ellas 
 settled where the seminary buildings are in 1772. All roads led for public 
 business to the Meeting-House on the hill, and none was built along Whet- 
 stone Brook until 1784, when the old road from Marlboro was laid, which 
 came down the hill where it now does to William Harris's, then along the 
 road, as it now runs, to the tavern house, then across where the park is to 
 where the seminary buildings are, and then turned and ran straight down 
 to near the brook. From there it ran near where the. road now is to the 
 road leading from Northfield to Westminster near Gardner Chandler's 
 "shop," which stood where the Williston stone block is in the village of 
 Brattleboro. John Houghton lived in front of where the Dunklee house 
 and store in West Brattleboro now are, and owned the land between there 
 and the bridge. Rutherford Hayes lived at the Hayes place, and had a 
 blacksmith shop there, and Israel Smith near where Mr. Stockwell's 
 house is, across the road to the north. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE POST OFFICE 
 
 Post Office— John Arras, first postmaster at Arms Tavern— John W. Blake— Aaron 
 Horsfort^-John Holbrook— Samuel Elliot— Asa Green— Removal to Main Street. 
 
 The Governor's Council concurred March 5, 1784, with the General 
 Assembly in session at Bennington in the appointment of Anthony Has- 
 well of that place postmaster-general of the state. Five post offices were 
 then established, at Bennington, Rutland, Brattleboro, Windsor and New- 
 bury, -under regulations governing other offices then in operation in 
 the United States. Postriders were appointed, the rider from Bennington 
 to Brattleboro being allowed threepence a mile, while the others, including' 
 the rider from Bennington to Albany, were given but twopence. News- 
 papers were delivered up to this time by carriers on main routes of travel 
 when suitably rewarded, but were not received at post offices. Other 
 postriders, it seems, were employed to ride through certain circuits to 
 promulgate the laws. The comment of The Vermont Journal, published 
 at Windsor at that time, shows the interest felt in the novel scheme : 
 
 The General Assembly, during their last session, having resolved to 
 establish a post to ride weekly from Bennington to Newbury by way of 
 Brattleborough, and one from Bennington to Rutland, post-offices will 
 immediately be erected in the towns of Bennington, Brattleborough, 
 Windsor, Newbury and Rutland. These will open a regular communica- 
 tion through the State, by which the inhabitants on each side of the 
 mountain will be relieved from the inconveniences they have heretofore 
 labored under in keeping up a mutual correspondence, so necessary for 
 the union of a people. We flatter ourselves that the honorable Assembly 
 has done essential service to the State by adopting this measure, as it 
 naturally tends to unite the people thereof, affords a regular source of 
 communication with the Southern States, there being a post already 
 established from Bennington to Albany, gives a thorough vent for the 
 circulation of newspapers (that most excellent vehicle of intelligence and 
 amusement), supplies us with the means of transmitting domestic occur- 
 rences with public and private ; and in fine, from so important an estab- 
 lishment, if conducted with regularity, we may anticipate the most happy 
 consequences. 
 
THE POST OFFICE 171 
 
 In the following November The Vermont Gazette had this iteni of news 
 from Hartford, Connecticut : 
 
 A stage wagon has lately been erected to run with four horses between 
 the city of New York and Stratford Ferry in Connecticut, which com- 
 pletes the stages from Portsmouth in the State of New Hampshire, to 
 Richmond in the State of Virginia, a distance of upwards of 700 miles. 
 
 John Arms is supposed to have been Brattleboro's first postmaster 
 under Postmaster-General Haswell's administration. 
 
 John W. Blake was appointed postmaster by the general government in 
 1793, and the records of the. post-office department show that the first 
 returns from this office were March 20, 1793. Blake's successor was 
 Aaron Horsf ord, who was appointed October 1, 1793. He was succeeded 
 by John Holbrook one year later, and he in turn by Samuel Elliot, July 1, 
 1804. Then came Asa Green, July 1, 1811. 
 
 Brattleboro's first post office was probably located in the "Old Tavern," 
 which was kept by John Arrris, the first postmaster. On the day when 
 the postrider was due the people assembled for the distribution of the 
 mail at the inn. The office was subsequently located in a building on 
 the Hunt lot at the junction of High and Main Streets, and afterwards 
 removed to a building erected by Postmaster Green on the south side of 
 High Street and on the present site of Retting Block. Later it was moved 
 to "Hall's long building," on the east side of Main Street, into a room 
 afterwards occupied for many years by I. N. Thorn's drug store. The 
 post office held by Asa Green, Esquire, from 1811 to 1841, was, as the 
 "old Stage-House,'' constantly open both day and night. It was a dis- 
 tributing office, and at one period of Mr. Green's administration was the 
 post office for Guilford, Dummerston, Halifax, Vernon, Whitingham, 
 Newfane, Bernardston, Weybridge, Marlboro, Hinsdale, New Hampshire, 
 Gill, Massachusetts, Leyden, Massachusetts and Chesterfield, New Hamp- 
 shire. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 SECOND MEETING-HOUSE 
 
 Second Meeting-House — Plan of house — Original purchasers of pews — Moved in 
 1818— Revival of 1832-1833— Reverend Caleb Burge— Reverend Jedediah L. Stark 
 — Reverend Corbin Kidder — Reverend Joseph Chandler — Reverend Charles H. 
 Merrill — Reverend James H. Babbitt. 
 
 The first house on Meeting-House Hill had been in existence a little 
 more than ten years when agitation for a new one began. Several reasons 
 contributed to this. The growing importance of the highway leading up 
 to Marlboro pointed to some spot on Whetstone Brook as a more con- 
 venient location for all concerned. Land in Marlboro in those early days 
 was selling for twice the price of land in Brattleboro, but the farmers 
 there upon the hills had need of access to the river for the means of 
 transportation. 
 
 When the matter of building a church was first agitated, in 1780, it was 
 thought necessary to have a committee appointed from out of town to 
 decide upon a location. A failure to vote the money for the expense of 
 the committee, however, made this plan inoperative. But when, after the 
 lapse of nearly five years, the matter was taken up again, the town had no 
 difficulty in deciding by themselves on a site. It was voted to place the 
 new house upon "the County Road, east of Captain Houghton's and west 
 of Whetstone Brook." The location was nearly in front of where the 
 present house stands. 
 
 Another reason leading to so early an abandonment of the old house 
 upon the hill may have been the temporary structure of the building itself. 
 It is significant that no part of the old was utilized in the new house, and 
 that the question of deserting the old house was raised after only ten years 
 of occupancy. 
 
 Also the passage of a law in 1781 authorizing towns to assess a tax 
 upon land for the purpose of building houses of worship gave an oppor- 
 tunity for taking matters wholly out of the hands of the voluntary band 
 of Covenanters and erecting a house suitable for all purposes of public 
 interest. 
 
 "The Town" acted in all matters pertaining to the welfare of the com- 
 munity, built meeting-houses and schoolhouses, hired the minister, 
 enforced Sabbath attendance, hired the schoolmaster, had charge of grave- 
 
SECOND MEETING-HOUSE 173 
 
 yards, levied rates and enforced attendance on its own meetings. The 
 support of the minister, at first voluntary, became a regular item of civic 
 expense ; he was generally chosen in open town meeting. 
 
 The construction of the new building extended over a period of fifteen 
 years, during which the people had opportunity to discuss and accept and 
 reject and modify plans to their hearts' content. During these fifteen 
 years, if a man lived long enough, he would have the privilege not only 
 of voting on every detail of construction and finish, but he would have the 
 opportunity of working out his individual tax at his leisure. Indeed, the 
 books show that the large part of the expense was met by furnishing 
 labor and materials. In 1785 the frame was erected, accepted by the town, 
 and a new committee chosen to enclose it. At the raising of the frame 
 the committee was authorized by vote of the town to employ one hundred 
 and fifty men. That this was done we may reasonably infer from the fact 
 that when the bill for "rum & shugar" was brought in the following year, 
 it required a tax equaling one-half the tax assessed for furnishing "nales 
 & glass" to cover the claim.^ By putting the two taxes together, a vote 
 for their assessment was readily secured. 
 
 It appears that the house in an unfurnished state was occupied imme- 
 diately, for a vote for the sale of the old house was passed the same year. 
 At first there were benches instead of pews. Two years later, in 1788, 
 the lower floor was laid and six pews in each side of the main aisle, 
 leaving the rest to be furnished with seats. But it was not until 1803 
 that we find upon the town records, placed there "by authority,'' a plan 
 of the completed house with pews and pew owners' names attached. The 
 external features of the house were an exact rectangle of sixty by forty- 
 eight feet. It was placed in what is now the middle of the street so that 
 the length would run up and down the road ; there was a belfry on one 
 side and a door midway on each of the two ends. The pews were 
 square, and seated on three sides, with chairs for the aged and stools for 
 children in the middle. They were unpainted, uncushioned and'uncar- 
 peted. In the galleries free seats and unoccupied pews were filled by 
 "hired help" and the larger boys. 
 
 The irrepressible boy in the gallery figures in the records even down 
 to 1843. The seats opposite the pulpit would be reserved for the choir. 
 It is uncertain at what date the double bass viol and trombone and violin, 
 now in existence in families in town, were introduced there. A vote 
 of the church is on record, 1801, by which the article in the warrant "to 
 raise money for the encouragement of social worship so far as respects, 
 singing" was dismissed. It does not follow from this, however, that 
 
 1 "Report of Accompts, by Meeting House Committee with Dr. George H. Hall. 
 £46.10.3=$lSS-26-100, for rum, sugar, glass, white lead, &c." 
 
174 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 voluntary efforts for the establishment of a choir were discouraged, but 
 rather the contrary. 
 
 Around the church, horses and vehicles were gathered in a tract of low, 
 swampy ground, as it was then, where the evergreen trees and fountain 
 now stand. In later years there was a tight board fence for hitching 
 purposes near the present row of maple trees. 
 
 During the intermission of a winter's day groups of women would be 
 seen hurrying to the neighbors' with the footstoves for fresh coals — and 
 the men to the barroom of the tavern near by. The length of the after- 
 noon service was prescribed to two hours. 
 
 The appearance in the pulpit of the familiar form of Reverend Abner 
 Reeve would insure a service of no extraordinary length. A manuscript 
 sermon of his, preached in 1803, could easily be delivered within a half 
 hour. It is practical, pointed, somewhat formal in division, though not 
 excessively so, and bears the marks of a cultivated, scholarly, easy-going 
 mind, taking more interest in the moralities than in polemics — a character 
 such as tradition makes him out to have been. In later years he wore a 
 black silk cap in the pulpit, and was seated upon a high stool. 
 
 The notices of these days would differ widely from the notices of ours. 
 In place of the announcement for Sunday school, for weekly prayer 
 meetings, ladies' missionary meetings, ladies' benevolent society, young 
 people's meetings, etc., would be heard requests for prayer for persons 
 who were sick or in need, — requests in some cases thought to convey a hint 
 for charity and relief temporally as well as spiritually, — formal declara- 
 tion of intention of marriage between contracting parties, the reading of a 
 vote of church censure, or the humble confession and apology of an erring 
 brother, or, more singularly, the request of some member with a Scotch 
 conscience that he be allowed to go to Marlboro to commune with a 
 church where the old doctrines were more faithfully preached. 
 
 On the church records of October 13, 1811, is the following petition : 
 
 To the Reverend Pastor, Fathers, and Brothers of the church of Brat- 
 tleborough. Whereas, I believe that the system of Doctrine called Cal- 
 vinism, as it is set forth in some of the neighboring churches, to be 
 according to the Scriptures, and to explain away, neglect or deny any of 
 these doctrines tends to confirm persons in unbelief and self-righteous- 
 ness: — Therefore my request is that you would commit me to the care 
 and fellowship of the church in Marlborough, under thg Pastoral care of 
 the Rev. Gershom C. Lyman, as I think you do not agree with me in this 
 (I think) very essential matter, with all due acknowledgements and 
 reverential esteem and love, I am your Petitioner. 
 
 Signed, — — 
 
SECOND MEETING-HOUSE 175 
 
 The church voted unanimously that the prayer of the petitioner be not 
 granted, but that when it shall suit his inclination or conscience he may 
 attend the church in Marlboro, or any other church, and commune, pro- 
 vided this privilege do not "abridge his occasional attendance on the 
 ordinances of this church or the Christian reciprocal care and watchful- 
 ness over each other." Our respect for this petitioner suffers a shock 
 when we find that in 1819, between the ministry of Mr. Burge and Mr. 
 Stark, the church disciplined him for "putting a part of his property out 
 of his hands to evade paying taxes on the Covenant," and he came forward 
 and confessed that he had "violated moral obligations" and expressed 
 himself "heartily sorry for the same." Especially does our respect for 
 the Calvinistic strain in his conscience make us stand aghast, when we 
 find that in 1831 he makes humble confession again for having evaded 
 taxes in 1837, and that this time he has gone to the Methodist church for 
 a sound doctrine that Mr. Stark had failed to preach. It is a question 
 whether it was his pocket or his head that kept him in controversy with 
 his fellow Covenanters. The public confession of Seth Herrick is inter- 
 esting : 
 
 October 28, 1840. A Report having been publicly circulated that Seth 
 Herrick, a member of this church had been seen intoxicated on his return 
 from a Military Muster, he confessed as a duty to God, to the church and 
 to his own Christian character that at a Military Muster September 17, 
 he "did several times make use of Brandy, to relieve bodily pain and 
 disease, without any apprehension of injury, — Yet it was on a Public day 
 and occasion, under circumstances of such Publicity, want of Christian 
 prudence and Circumspection, as rendered it an example of injurious 
 influence in the Community, Scandalous to religion and my own Christian 
 character, and to God, and giving the enemy occasion to blaspheme." He 
 declares his fault and scorn for the same and asks for prayers of his 
 Christian brethren that he "may be enabled to walk circumspectly and 
 inoffensively in future." 
 
 In 1818 this church was moved across the road, remodeled and reoc- 
 cupied. The remodeled house witnessed the revival of 1833-1833, which 
 brought into membership one hundred in two years (sixty-one and thirty- 
 nine in 1833 and 1834). Persons recently living remembered standing 
 with a company that filled the middle aisle of the old church, and taking 
 covenant vows upon themselves. All the churches in the county shared 
 the blessing, and at no time in their history has the aggregate membership 
 been so large. Dummerstoh and Putney reported each two hundred; 
 Marlboro, two hundred and three ; Townshend, two hundred and one, and 
 
176 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Westminster West, two hundred and fifteen. And here in 1833 a dis- 
 agreement over the ownership of the house, certain pew owners claiming 
 a right to have the building occupied part of the time by preachers of 
 another faith, led to the formation in 1834 of an "Orthodox Congrega- 
 tional Meeting House Society." 
 
 In this house "across the road" the spire was in front and there were 
 three entrance doors, the larger in the middle and two smaller ones on 
 the sides. There was a vestibule beneath the singers' gallery, a middle 
 aisle through the center, the pulpit opposite the entrance. Pipes ran 
 through the house from stoves in the vestibule, extending out of the rear 
 of the church without chimneys. 
 
 On Sunday morning, February 2, 1845, between the time for ringing the 
 first and second bells, the old house, the frame of -which was raised in 
 1785 and had stood for nearly sixty years, was burned to the ground. 
 It was an excessively cold day. The sexton had built the fire in the 
 stoves, rung the bell at nine o'clock, and gone away, leaving the house 
 closed. When first discovered, in less than half an hour after, the flames 
 were bursting from windows and doors, and the whole interior was 
 ablaze. In less than an hour it was in ruins. 
 
 The clergy of this church were : Reverend Caleb Burge, from 1814 to 
 1819 ; Reverend Jedediah L. Stark, 1821 to April 24, 1839, when he was 
 dismissed; Reverend Corbin Kidder, October 26, 1839, to April 1, 1845, 
 when he was dismissed; Reverend Joseph Chandler, 1845 to 1870. 
 
 Deacons previous to 1820 were Joshua Wilder, Jacob Spaulding, Sam- 
 uel Warriner, Nathaniel Samson; from 1830 to 1894, Russell Hayes, 
 David Carpenter, Daniel Warriner, Clark Jacobs, Joseph Wilder, Pres- 
 ton F. Perry, S. Gilbert Smith, Charles S. Clark, Cotton Mather, Hervey 
 C. Harris. 
 
 The cause of the dismissal of the Reverend Jedediah L. Stark, April 
 24, 1839, was dissension, in which the choir was involved. On one occa- 
 sion two rival choirs occupied the gallery and each attempted to conduct 
 a service of song independently of the other. The trouble was carried 
 into a church meeting, and "a formal deliverance" on the subject of sacred 
 music put on record. 
 
 Reverend Corbin Kidder never succeeded in becoming pastor of more 
 than one party in the church. At his dismissal the council felt called upon 
 to speak in strong terms of the relationship that ought to exist between 
 pastor and people. 
 
 The following is a plan of the groundwork of the first meeting-house 
 in West Brattleboro, the situation of the pews and their numbers, together 
 with the names of the original purchasers annexed (by number) to the 
 pews they purchased, which pews were sold at auction agreeable to a vote 
 
SECOND MEETING-HOUSE 
 
 177 
 
 passed in a meeting of the town for the purpose. Recorded January 17, 
 1803, by direction of Messrs. Josiah Arms, Lemuel Dickerman and Noah 
 Bennett, committee for finishing the meeting-house. 
 
 /6 
 
 
 1$ 
 
 M 1 '3 
 
 fit 
 
 r** r " 
 
 10 
 
 T^ 
 
 9 
 
 '7 
 'S 
 
 Wtsl. 
 Puf 
 
 >9 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 7 
 
 M 
 
 fftr 
 
 6 
 
 s 
 
 
 40 
 
 1 3S 
 
 41 
 
 •I 
 
 3f 
 
 3a 
 
 
 4/ 
 
 1 ?« 
 
 36 1 3' 
 
 fa 
 
 1 ^' 
 
 «7 j 3» 
 
 13 
 
 39 
 
 3» j 53 
 
 H 
 
 39 
 
 39 j 3< 
 
 ii 
 
 \ f^ 
 
 y/ ( f» 
 
 
 
 
 JL 
 
 
 
 a/ 
 
 i 
 
 zx 
 
 »? 
 
 ^1 
 
 1 
 
 a 
 
 , 1 
 
 4 
 
 Names of Original Purchasers of Pews 
 
 1. 
 
 Daniel Eraser. 
 
 22. 
 
 John Hopkins. 
 
 2. 
 
 Jonathan Herrick. 
 
 23. 
 
 George H. Hall. 
 
 3. 
 
 Jonathan Dunklee. 
 
 24. 
 
 Abner Gardner. 
 
 4. 
 
 B. Baker, E. Haws, W. Harris. 
 
 25. 
 
 Jonathan Stoddard. 
 
 5. 
 
 Holbrook & Fox. 
 
 26. 
 
 Benjamin Butterfield. 
 
 6. 
 
 Ebenezer Fisher. 
 
 27. 
 
 Josiah Arms. 
 
 7. 
 
 Samuel Greenleaf & J. W. Bliss. 
 
 28. 
 
 Noah Bennett. 
 
 8. 
 
 Samuel Dickinson. 
 
 29. 
 
 Levi Stebbins. 
 
 9. 
 
 Jesse Frost. 
 
 30. 
 
 Elijah Prouty. 
 
 10. 
 
 Deacon Wilder. 
 
 31. 
 
 Isaac Crosby. 
 
 11. 
 
 J. Dickerman & Wm. Holton. 
 
 32. 
 
 Caleb Parker. 
 
 12. 
 
 Judge Knight. 
 
 33. 
 
 S. Reeve & W. Whipple 
 
 13. 
 
 Town's property. 
 
 34. 
 
 Valentine Harris. 
 
 14. 
 
 Dr. Dickerman & Wm. Holton. 
 
 35. 
 
 Samuel Warriner. 
 
 15. 
 
 W. Cune & Sabin. 
 
 36. 
 
 Reuben Church. 
 
 16. 
 
 Rutherford Hays. 
 
 37. 
 
 Jonathan Townsend. 
 
 17. 
 
 S. Root & J. Goodenough. 
 
 38. 
 
 George H. Hall. 
 
 18. 
 
 H. Thurber. 
 
 39. 
 
 Thomas Sargent. 
 
 19. 
 
 John Alexander. 
 
 40. 
 
 Jesse Hadley. 
 
 20. 
 
 John Steward. 
 
 41. 
 
 Stephen Greenleaf. 
 
 21. 
 
 J. & N. Blakeslee. 
 
 42. 
 
 Joseph Clark. 
 
178 
 
 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 43. John Cune. 46. 
 
 44. J. Alexander & W. Orvis. 47. 
 
 45. J. Higgins & H. Salisbury. 48. 
 
 R. Stearns & D. Holton. 
 B. Bennett & E. Prouty. 
 S. Sartwell & J. French. 
 
 i6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 •4 
 
 1} 
 9 
 
 wut 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 Sutt 
 
 SttU 
 
 I 
 
 to 
 '3 
 
 Suts 
 
 
 SeeU. 
 
 
 
 Suit 
 
 Sutls 
 
 
 Aitle. 
 
 Aisu. 
 
 
 19 J 7 
 
 f ? 
 
 • 
 
 X 
 
 4 
 
 M 
 
 iS 
 
 Gallery Pews and Seats 
 
 Names of Proprietors of Pews in Gallery 
 
 1. N. Bennett & J. Arms. 
 
 2. J. Steward. 
 
 3. Ezra Harris. 
 
 4. Isaac Amsden. 
 
 5. S. Dickinson. 
 
 6. L. Dickertnan. 
 
 7. E. Briggs. 
 
 8. Jonathan Smith. 
 
 9. Isaac Crosby, Junior. 
 
 10. W. Orvis, L. Stebbins, and S. 
 Greenleaf. 
 
 11. Benjamin Pratt. 
 
 12. Elisha Stoddard. 
 
 13. John Plummer. 
 
 14. I. Smith & J. Dickerman. 
 
 15. J. Hadley & J. Wilder. 
 
 16. Jonathan Goodenough. 
 
 17. Reuben Church. 
 
 18. Josiah Arms. 
 
 19. Benjamin Wheaton. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 POLLS AND RATABLE ESTATES IN 1789— CENSUS, 1790 
 
 The first census of Brattleboro was taken in 1790. The United States 
 marshal for the district of New Hampshire had charge of making the 
 enumeration of the inhabitants of New Hampshire and Vermont, and 
 was given nine months in which to make his report to the president in 
 Philadelphia, then the seat of government. He received $300 for the 
 work. His assistants in towns the size of Brattleboro received $1 for 
 every 150 population, or a little over $10. The records of the first census 
 show that Brattleboro had a population of 1589. There were 360 heads 
 of families, 381 free white males of sixteen years of age and upward, 
 including the heads of families. There were 436 free white males under 
 sixteen years and 758 free white females, of whom six were listed as the 
 heads of families. The six women accorded the honor of having their 
 names entered on the first census enumeration of Brattleboro were all 
 widows and were given as Widow Evans, Widow Williams, Widow 
 Hager, Widow Mills, Widow Rice and Widow Salsbury. 
 
 Guilford was the banner town in point of population in Windham 
 County, with 3433 inhabitants. Putney came second with 1848, and 
 Westminster was third with just ten more than Brattleboro, or 1599. 
 The population of the county was given by towns as follows : 
 
 Athens 450 
 
 Brattleborough ". 1589 
 
 Dummerston 1490 
 
 Guilford 3433 
 
 Halifax 1309 
 
 Hinsdale^ 483 
 
 Jamaica 363 
 
 Johnsons Gore 49 
 
 Londonderry 363 
 
 Marlborough 639 
 
 Newfane 660 
 
 Putney 1848 
 
 Rockingham 1335 
 
 '^ Hinsdale, New Hampshire, was included in the enumeration of Windham 
 County. 
 
180 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Somerset Ill 
 
 Stratton 95 
 
 Thomlinson 561 
 
 Townshend 678 
 
 Wardsboro, No. Dist 483 
 
 Wardsboro, So. Dist 370 
 
 Westminster 1599 
 
 Whitingham 442 
 
 Wilmington 645 
 
 The average family numbered six, but the first man on the list, Josiah 
 Arms, was credited with a family of eighteen persons. Joseph Clark 
 headed a family of thirteen, and Henry Cole's family numbered sixteen. 
 
 Only five questions were asked by the enumerators in taking the census 
 of 1790. The name of the head of every family was ascertained, and the 
 number of free white males sixteen years and upward was something the 
 census taker made no guess about in making his return. The object of 
 this inquiry was to obtain a definite knowledge of the military and indus- 
 trial strength of the country. In this respect Windham County led the 
 state of Vermont with 4416 white males sixteen years old and over. 
 Windsor County came second with 413 less. The town of Brattleboro, 
 according to the faded records of the census bureau, had the largest 
 family in Vermont. 
 
 The names of the men who headed the families in this town when the 
 first census was taken are : Joseph Arms, Elnathan Allen, William Avery, 
 John Alexander, Thomas Akeley, Nathan Adams, William Avery, Jr., 
 Nathaniel Blakeley, James Blakeley, Jesse Butterfield, John Bennet, 
 Stephen Bennet, Daniel Blakeley, Isaac Bumpus, Nathaniel Burnham, 
 David Bigelow, Benjamin Baker, Solomon Briggs, Joseph Burt, John 
 Burnham, John Bemis, Benjamin Butterfield, Gideon Briggs, Isaac Bar- 
 ret, Samuel Briggs, Noah Bennet, John W. Blake; Levi Briggs, Joseph 
 Basset, Elisha Briggs, Frederick Baker, Thomas Bond, John Blair, Lem 
 Burnham, William Blasdale, Dudley Bayley, Gideon Badger, Solomon 
 Brush, John Carpenter, Nathaniel Cole, Benjamin Chase, Peter Covell, 
 Jonathan Church, Oliver Cook, Joseph Chamberlain, Joseph Clark, Henry 
 Chandler, Malachi Church, Tim Church, Josiah Church, Nathaniel Chan- 
 dler, Samuel Chandler, Eber Church, Eber Church, Jr., John Chappel, 
 Isaac Cune, Joseph Cook, Samuel Carpenter, William Cranny, Peter 
 Castle, Joseph Castle, Elias Croswell, Henry Cole, Isaac Crosby, Peter 
 Croswell, Reuben Church, Solomon Cook, Benjamin Carter, Gardiner 
 Chandler, William Cune, William Cune, Jr., Asa Dogget, Lemuel Dicker- 
 man, John Dickerman, Jonathan Dunkley, Joseph Dunkley, Benajah Dad- 
 
POLLS AND RATABLE ESTATES IN 1789 181 
 
 ley, John Dickerman, Jr., Samuel Dickinson, Warren Esterbrook, Benja- 
 man Ellis, John Ellis, Simpson Ellis, Simeon Eaton, William Evans, 
 Benjamin Esterbrook, Widow Evans, Samuel Earl, Imry Evans, Andrew 
 Ferrand, Ebenezer Fisher, Ebenezer Fox, Daniel Frost, Jesse Frost, Jesse 
 Frost, Jr., Joseph Fuller, Daniel Frazer, Nathaniel French, John French, 
 Asa French, Isaiah Fisk, Asa Frost, Bennet Field, Isaac Gale, Stephen 
 Greenleaf, Jonathan Goodenow, John Gould, Abel Grout, Samuel Guern- 
 sey, Stephen Greenleaf, Jr., Benjamin Gorton, Daniel Greenleaf, Samuel 
 Greenlccif, Moses Goddard, Abner Gardiner, Nathan Gould, Benjamin 
 Gould, Levi Goodenow, Joseph Goodale, Artemas How, Valentine Harris, 
 Ebenezer Haws, Calvin Harris, Jesse Hadley, William Hall, Josiah Hall, 
 Oliver Harris, Joseph How, Hiram Houghton, Philemon Houghton, 
 
 Joshua Harris, John Hough'ton, Jacob Hadley, Harris, Peter 
 
 Houghton, William Harris, Ebenezer Hadley, Rutherford Hays, William 
 Holton, Jonathan Herrick, John Hopkins, Widow Hagar, James Harris, 
 James Houghton, Jeremiah Hopkins, Phineas Houghton, Nehemiah 
 Houghton, Welman Harris, Nathaniel Haven, John Kelsey, David Knap, 
 Samuel Knight, Isaac Kendall, James Knap, Ebenezer Knap, William 
 King, Adonijah King, Gushing King, Seth Knight, Ezra King, Peter 
 Lamb, James Lawton, Samuel Mixer, Daniel Mixer, Rosbotham Munro, 
 William Morgan, Cafeb Morgan, Mathew Martin, David May, Samuel 
 May, Widow Mills, Oliver Nash, Moses Nash, Ephraim Nash, Samuel 
 Newton, Samuel Nobles, Samuel Nichols, Aaron Nash, Samuel Owin, 
 James Otis, John Plummer, Caleb Packard, Jonathan Peabody, Elijah 
 Prouty, Philip Paddleford, Nathan Prince, Elisha Prince, Francis Proiity, 
 Asa Putnam, John Pettis, Nathan Prince, Jr., Benjamin Pratt, Levi Red- 
 field, James Rice, Samuel Root, Ephraim Rice, Widow Rice, Abner 
 Reaves, Jonathan Smith, Barnard Salsbury, Oliver Salsbury, Abel Si- 
 monds, Abner Scovel, Jonathan Stoddard, Jonathan Stoddard, Jr., Jacob 
 Stoddard, Hale Salsbury, Daniel Steward, Jr., Reuben Sharus, John 
 Steward, Jesse Stockwell, Levi Smith, Widow Salsbury, Benjamin Stew- 
 ard, Zebediah Stebbins, Levi Stebbins, Joshua Sawyer, Hezekiah Sals- 
 bury, Thomas Sargeant, John Sargeant, Eli Sargeant, Jacob Spalding, 
 Elijah Shelden, Noah Smith, Abner Scovil, Jr., Josiah Smith, Sylvanus 
 Sartwell, Solomon Shelden, Jonathan Salsbury, Daniel Snow, Warden 
 Thurber, Daniel Toogood, Micah Townsend, Moses Tute, Ezra Tubbs, 
 Ziba Tute, David Wells, Charles Wilder, Abiel Wilder, Thomas Walkup, 
 John Wells, Jabez Woods, Philip Woods, Oliver Wells, Samuel Warner, 
 Joshua Wilder, Peter Wilder, William Whipple, Samuel Wells, Samuel 
 Welman, Adreal Warner, Jesse Ware, Jabez Wood, Daniel Whipple, 
 Robert Wells, Sawyer Wright, Tilly Wilder, Elias Wilder, Widow Wil- 
 liams, Lemuel Whitney. 
 
A Partial List of the Polls and Ratable Estate op the Inhabitants of 
 THE Town of Brattleborough for the year Anno Domini 1789 
 
 Men's Names 
 
 "o 
 
 g 
 
 o 
 
 I 
 
 09 
 
 B 
 
 CM 
 
 "3 
 
 
 c 
 
 3 
 
 s 
 
 § 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 a 
 ,0 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 e 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 CO 
 
 J3 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 A 
 
 i 
 
 ■0 
 
 1 
 « 
 
 i 
 
 CO 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 D 
 
 1 
 
 c 
 
 
 ^ s 
 
 £ a 
 
 £ s 
 
 Allen Elnathan 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 V 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 i' 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 i' 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 5 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 5 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 1 
 6 
 1 
 5 
 2 
 3 
 1 
 4 
 5 
 
 i' 
 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 3 
 1 
 4 
 3 
 1 
 1 
 5 
 1 
 3 
 3 
 
 is 
 
 5 
 
 "2 
 
 i 
 
 7 
 
 '3 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 '2 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 
 1 
 2 
 
 6 
 2 
 8 
 2 
 
 4 
 3 
 3 
 2 
 
 1 
 9 
 1 
 
 '2 
 
 1 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 20 
 20 
 
 14 
 150 
 
 '24 
 
 "75 
 7 
 
 20 
 45 
 
 'io 
 
 "5 
 8 
 
 17 
 5 
 6 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 7 
 
 50 
 
 "7 
 
 "e 
 
 10 
 
 '25 
 4 
 8 
 
 "3 
 
 "16 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 30 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 19 
 
 "vi 
 
 10 
 
 32 
 32 
 
 33 10 
 148 10 
 17 
 
 8 
 37 
 
 6 
 42 10 
 83 
 
 19 15 
 10 
 53 5 
 
 8 
 24 
 
 8 
 
 8 10 
 14 
 
 26 10 
 10 
 
 23 
 17 
 
 23 15 
 11 10 
 65 15 
 8 
 
 25 IS 
 4 
 
 24 
 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 22 10 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 26 10 
 12 
 
 14 15 
 17 10 
 
 9 10 
 8 
 
 8 
 33 
 
 9 10 
 26 10 
 59 5 
 80 10 
 15 
 38 10 
 
 8 15 
 22 
 23 
 
 6 
 
 84 
 
 39 
 
 43 
 
 992 
 
 22 
 56 
 25 
 110 
 50 
 
 ioe 
 
 117 
 
 493 
 110 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 12 40 
 
 10 13 
 3 7 
 
 35 19 
 
 11 10 
 6 
 
 24 
 
 
 
 2 
 4 
 
 23 1 
 
 Akelv Thomas 
 
 30 19 
 
 
 62 9 
 
 Avery William , 
 
 6 10 
 
 
 
 i 
 i 
 
 4 
 
 i 
 i 
 
 2 
 
 
 46 
 
 
 
 39 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 54 
 
 53 
 
 48 
 
 130 
 
 127 
 
 '36 
 25 
 45 
 12 
 33 
 12 
 54 
 32 
 38 
 8 
 
 260 
 
 '54 
 
 36 
 26 
 91 
 
 90 
 382 
 101 
 
 
 
 8 2 
 
 21 14 
 
 8 3 
 
 37 2 
 
 Butterfield Benj. Esq.... 
 Butterfield Jesse 
 
 63 
 14 
 
 Bullock William 
 
 16 10 
 
 Bennet Stephen 
 
 59 
 4 
 
 24 
 8 
 
 275 
 
 
 
 19 19 
 
 2 
 
 4 8 
 
 4 5 
 
 39 
 
 
 7 19 
 
 Bumpus Reuben 
 
 40 
 69 
 
 
 
 21 2 
 
 
 5 
 
 Blaksly David 
 
 10 15 
 
 Burt Joseph 
 
 15 
 25 
 18 
 
 SO 
 55 
 65 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 5 5 
 5 1 
 
 10 12 
 
 Blaksle James 
 
 
 2 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 22 
 
 Badger Gideon 
 
 S 11 
 
 
 
 25 14 
 
 Bumpus Isaac 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 18 12 
 
 Blaksle Nathaniel 
 
 Barrit Isaac 
 
 31 
 31 
 59 
 3 
 36 
 
 80 
 135 
 230 
 
 99 
 100 
 
 
 
 7 2 
 9 17 
 
 17 8 
 S 5 
 
 8 12 
 1 16 
 
 18 
 
 2 1 
 
 
 61 7 
 
 Burbanks Klias 
 
 2 16 
 
 Baker Benjamin 
 
 19 17 
 
 Bumham Nathaniel 
 
 2 4 
 
 Burnham John 
 
 
 i 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 2 
 1 
 2 
 
 2 
 2 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 24 
 
 Ball Moses 
 
 50 
 44 
 60 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 BrififSfs Gideon 
 
 20 
 
 40 
 
 100 
 100 
 
 
 
 7 
 9 
 
 12 4 
 
 Briggs Samuel 
 
 16 10 
 
 Bardwell Moses 
 
 12 
 
 Bahen, Frederick 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 Covel Peter ; . 
 
 90 
 36 
 
 13 
 
 '27 
 
 '45 
 
 '94 
 30 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 31 
 
 Cole Henry 
 
 15 
 33 
 IS 
 
 '23 
 IS 
 30 
 87 
 
 50 
 
 40 
 
 115 
 
 30 
 
 70 
 
 59 
 
 95 
 
 90 
 
 158 
 
 194 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 5 6 
 7 5 
 
 1 10 
 3 10 
 
 2 19 
 7 1 
 6 
 
 10 18 
 18 8 
 
 9 16 
 
 Chamberlin Thomo 
 
 Church Eleazer 
 
 10 2 
 10 5 
 
 Castle Peter 
 
 9 7 
 
 Chandler Nathaniel 
 
 Chandler Henry 
 
 4 10 
 
 5 1 
 
 
 28 4 
 
 C EHas 
 
 3 10 
 
 
 20 6 
 
 Chamberlin Joseph 
 
 42 7 
 
 Chandler Gardner 
 
 
 80 10 
 
 Cole Nathaniel 
 
 45 
 81 
 
 27 
 35 
 
 89 
 220 
 
 
 
 7 3 
 14 10 
 
 10 2 
 
 
 28 1 
 
 Cresey Moses 
 
 8 IS 
 
 Cune William 
 
 28 
 20 
 
 25 
 20 
 
 100 
 80 
 
 
 
 7 10 
 6 
 
 15 18 
 
 Cune William Jun' 
 
 Church Eber Jun' 
 
 
 18 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 In 1804 six chaises were owned by different persons and nine men were known to have 
 silver watches. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE STAGE-HOUSE— BRIDGES— 
 "THE BURYING GROUND" 
 
 The Stage-House. Samuel DicWinson, John R. Blake, Major Henry Smith, Colonel 
 Paul Chase, Liberty Rice, Lemuel Whitney & Company, William C. Perry, Charles 
 G. Lawrence, proprietors. Stage notices — Bridges — West River bridge — "Burying 
 Ground," Prospect Hill Cemetery — First bridge across the Connecticut, Oliver 
 Chapin leader in the enterprise — Bridge over "Little Creek" — Later bridges — Toll- 
 keepers : Pettis, Reuben Metcalf , Richard Gill, Asa Sherwin, John L. Putnam. 
 
 The first public hostelry in the village of Brattleboro was the house 
 long known as "Chase's Stage-House."^ It was built by Samuel Dickinson 
 in 1795 and conducted by him until 1818. Samuel Dickinson married 
 Hannah Whitney, a sister of Honorable Lemuel Whitney. When he 
 gave up the hotel he built a house on Flat Street, afterwards owned by 
 James Frost, where he died May 16, 1817, aged sixty-one. 
 
 A man by the name of Palmer had the house after Samuel Dickinson 
 and kept it until he failed ; John R. Blake took possession in 1822, and 
 Major Henry Smith next, when it was known as "Smith's." Colonel 
 Paul Chase gave it the name "Chase's Stage-House" in 1827-1828. He 
 was a man of distinguished and gracious presence who had exceptional 
 social gifts, and was withal very handsome. He made an extended reputa- 
 tion for the house. Members of the best families throughout New Eng- 
 land were innkeepers. The landlord was usually connected with the 
 militia, often a justice of the peace or sheriff. As knowledge of current 
 events came through hearing and talking rather than through reading, the 
 innkeeper was not only the well-informed man of the place, but influential 
 in local afifairs. Taverns were the original business exchanges, where 
 notices of town meetings, of elections, new laws and ordinances were 
 posted, as were bills of sale of auctions and records of transfers. In the 
 almanacs of the day distances were given from tavern to tavern, instead 
 of from town to town. 
 
 While looking up some data connected with the genealogy of the Tucker 
 family an agreement was found, made by Paul Chase when he was land- 
 
 1 Situated on the Main Street. See Brattleboro House, p. 607. 
 
184 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 lord of the "Stage-House," in 1829, with Amos Tucker of Hahfax. The 
 agreement between the two men was in substance that Amos Tucker, 
 who was the driver of the stage, was making arrangements with Mr. 
 Chase for supper, lodging and breakfast for himself and feed for his 
 horse each day. The price which he was to pay was thirty-five cents for 
 the two meals, lodging and good hay for the horse. The agreement speci- 
 fied that "In taking those meals, if Amos Tucker is present with us at 
 mealtime he is to have an equal chance with the family or those present 
 with a warm meal ; otherwise, he is to have such victuals as are already 
 cooked or such as can be obtained without the extra trouble of cooking 
 particularly for him." 
 
 Of those who early in life began their career by rendering services as 
 bartender, office clerk, or occupying some subordinate position here, 
 were: Edson Fessenden, William Chamberlin and Simeon Leland. Fes- 
 senden was a native of this town, but for many years a citizen of Hart- 
 ford, Connecticut, where he successfully filled important offices in that 
 city, among them, president of the Phoenix Life Insurance Company. 
 Chamberlin was an eminent wholesale merchant in New York, and began 
 business in that city by retailing goods from a wheelbarrow, on a capital 
 of but $100, and that was lent to him by Major Henry Smith, who was, 
 at the time, keeping the old stage-house here. The fame of Leland, as a 
 man of enterprise and success, reached from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 
 Henry A. Willard, who became the owner of Willard's Hotel in Wash- 
 ington, was also a clerk. Edward Crosby came to Chase's Tavern at 
 seventeen, his duty being to call out the hours to passengers for the stages. 
 He was afterwards promoted to be clerk and office assistant. 
 
 About the time of the last war with Britain it was the custom to roll 
 into the big barroom a hogshead of old West India rum, and supply 
 customers from the faucet. 
 
 The only hall in the village for public gatherings was in this house. 
 It was dedicated in 1816 by feasting and dancing. 
 
 Some old invitations to sleighrides and to assemblies are souvenirs 
 of the years from 1829 to 1835. One invitation to a dance at Chase's 
 Assembly Room gives the hour for beginning the dance as six o'clock 
 and is signed by John G. Leavitt, W. H. Wells, Samuel H. Elliot, W. H. 
 Cune, W. W. Fessenden, F. Holbrook. 
 
 Four-horse coaches from Boston, Troy, Hanover and Hartford, fre- 
 quently ten in number, would meet for supper at Chase's Stage-House, 
 continuing their journey in the cool of the night. In the winter the guests 
 gathered around the huge fireplace, where fires were burning day and 
 night. 
 
THE STAGE-HOUSE— BRIDGES . 185 
 
 A few of the old stage notices are to be seen in the newspapers of the 
 time: 
 
 Chase's Stage-House. 
 
 Stage leaves every morning at 3 o'clock; arrives at Troy and Albany 
 the same evening, where it intersects with the great western canal steam- 
 boats for the New York Railroad for Ballston and Saratoga Springs. 
 
 Leaves Chase's at 3 A. M. (Sundays excepted) for Boston, via Keene, 
 Peterboro, Milford and arrives in Nashua for 4.30 train for Lowell and 
 Boston. 
 
 CooLEDGE Sargent and Company. 
 
 Old Mail Line leaves Brattleborough for Hartford every morning at 
 3 o'clock. 
 
 Tickets, $4.25. 
 
 Telegraph Mail at 6 A. M., $5.50. 
 
 The subscribers having purchased the lines of Stages heretofore running 
 from Brattleborough to Winchester, will continue to transport passengers 
 between those places every day in connexion with the Boston and Albany 
 Stages. The business will be done under the firm of Blake, Holbrook & 
 Company. 
 
 John R. Blake, 
 John C. Holbrook, 
 Wells Goodhue. 
 July 7, 1839. 
 
 Bridges 
 
 The first bridge across West River was a trestle bridge starting at a 
 point of rocks east of Weld's shop. The bridge in its present position 
 was built after 1795 and opened in 1799 ; it was a toll bridge, granted to 
 John W. Blake and Calvin Knowlton for one hundred years. 
 
 The old road leading across the Main Street bridge was laid by the 
 county commissioners across the plain of the Wood farm and around the 
 brow of the hill on the east side of the cemetery, across the field to the 
 Newman house and down on the east side of Cemetery Hill to the bridge 
 over the Whetstone and on the east side of the main highway as far as 
 the Dowley house, continuing about where the road now runs. Not till 
 1796, after the toll bridge was constructed, was the Putney road opened. 
 
 The south bank of the brook from the bridge down was very rocky 
 and steep, and no road was built there till about the time the Connecticut 
 River bridge was built in 1804, but a road ran from Joseph Clark's about 
 
186 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 where the road is now, back of the Brattleboro House, and round down 
 to the island in the river, then called Little Spruce Island. The road 
 down the hill past the machine shop to the electric light station was the 
 road to the mill yards, to Barrett's ferry, and the boat landing, where 
 the arch now is. The road down High Street came down Green Street 
 to Oliver Wells's at the foot of the first steep hill near where Mrs. Julius 
 J. Estey lives, then across to the top of the hill by Charles R. Crosby's, and 
 then along the south side hill to the other road where the north end of 
 the Brooks House now stands. 
 
 First Bridge across the Connecticut 
 
 The original charter of the bridge corporation was granted in an act 
 of the New Hampshire Legislature of 1802, and the first bridge across the 
 Connecticut, connecting the town with the road on the New Hampshire 
 side leading to Hinsdale, was built in 1804. It was built under the name 
 of "The Proprietors of the Hinsdale Bridge and Sixth New Hampshire 
 Corporation," the purpose of the company being to bridge the Connecticut 
 at Brattleboro and also to build and operate a turnpike from the. New 
 Hampshire end of the bridge through the towns of Hinsdale and Winches- 
 ter to the Warwick line in Massachusetts. It was built on the site of the 
 present structure and was a toll bridge. Before the bridge was built 
 the only way to cross the river hereabout was by the old ferry, which 
 was still in operation near the Simon Brooks farm, two miles below the 
 village. 
 
 At the dedication of this bridge there was a great celebration and an 
 oration by a distinguished lawyer of the town. Just at the point where 
 the speaker had begun to grow interestingly eloquent, the bridge timbers 
 began to crack, when the excited orator, perceiving the threatening danger, 
 called out in stentorian tones, "Run, damn you, the bridge is going down !" 
 Fortunately, however, the bridge did not go down. 
 
 Oliver Chapin was a pioneer in this enterprise and owned a large share 
 of its stock. Other corporators were Foster Alexander, Cyrus Shattuck, 
 Seth Hooker, Edward Gustin, Thomas Taylor, John W. Blake, Samuel 
 Dickinson, Gardner Chandler, George H. Hall, John Holbrook, Silas Bar- 
 rett, James Elliot, Stephen Hawkins, Reuben Alexander, Daniel Twitchell 
 and Daniel Hawkins, Junior. 
 
 The date of the bridge over "the creek," as the little river was called, 
 is not known ; both bridges stood until 1820, when the one over the Con- 
 necticut was rebuilt, "an arch bridge," as the former bridge was found to 
 be defective. 
 
 A few rods above the bridge was the general landing-place for mer- 
 chandise, which was brought by flatboats from the lower country. 
 
"THE BURYING GROUND" 187 
 
 Since the first bridge there have been five or six new ones built, one- 
 half or more of the number having been carried off either by high water 
 or ice. The first toll-keeper was an old resident by the name of Pettis, 
 who, it is said, was in the habit of standing at one end of Mechanics' 
 bridge, so-called, at the lower end of Main Street, for the purpose of 
 collecting toll from those passing to the New Hampshire side. He was 
 succeeded in turn by Reuben Metcalf , who served for twenty-five years, 
 and lived in a little one-story red house which had but two rooms. Then 
 came Richard Gill, who tended the bridge for thirteen years, until he 
 committed suicide by drowning, just above the bridge. He was followed 
 by Asa Sherwin, who served seven years. Finally "Uncle" John L. Putnam 
 took charge, and was a familiar and much esteemed character at the toll- 
 house for thirty-eight years and three months. During that period he 
 moved out of the house with his family twice on account of high water, 
 April, 1863, and again in October, 1869, when he moved out in the night, 
 and for four months he collected toll from a small improvised office which 
 he occupied in the bridge while the tollhouse was rebuilding. 
 
 Ephraim Nash was the surveyor who ran all the lines in 1790 and for 
 years after. It is upon his original survey of "the county road leading 
 from Bennington through Brattleborough to Connecticut river" that many 
 of the street lines of the village are based, for the old road came down 
 High Street. The record is dated April 15, 1791. 
 
 On Main Street are to be found two original landmarks. One is a 
 stone post at the corner of Terrace Street; another, the middle of the 
 doorstep of the Sikes house, finally the residence of Charles F. Thomp- 
 son.^ 
 
 The road, bridge and inn indicate that people of a similar purpose have 
 taken the first steps towards civilization. The church then appears to 
 embody their aspirations and the school follows as the handmaid of the 
 church. In Brattleboro the newspaper appeared within a few weeks of 
 the school. 
 
 The Burying Ground 
 
 The land — originally a pine forest — used for "the Burying Ground" 
 was given for the use of the East Village of Brattleboro, in 1797, by 
 Joseph Clark, Esquire, and his wife. She was the first occupant and was 
 buried there the same year. Additions to this land, on the east and south, 
 were made in 1849 by Colonel Arnold J. Hines, George B. Simonds and 
 others who formed a Prospect Hill Cemetery Association. 
 
 1 Taken down to make place for the Federal Building. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 BRATTLEBOROUGH ACADEMY 
 
 Brattleborough Academy — Built by joint stock company — Roswell Harris — Rever- 
 end William J. Harris — Reverend Charles C. Harris. 
 
 "An act establishing an academy in the town of Brattleborough, in the 
 county of Windham, state of Vermont," was signed by Roswell Hopkins, 
 secretary of state, the fourth day of November, 1801, in Newbury, Ver- 
 mont, from which the following extracts are taken : 
 
 It is hereby enacted by the general assembly of the state of Vermont 
 that there be, and hereby is constituted and established an academy in the 
 town of Brattleborough, in the county of Windham, to be known and 
 designated by the name of Brattleborough Academy or the Asylum of 
 Youth. And it is hereby further enacted that the Reverend William 
 Wells, Mr. John Noyes, John W. Blake, Joseph Clark and John Steward, 
 Esquires, and Lemuel Eiickerman, Physician, all of Brattleborough, the 
 Reverend Gershom C. Lyman of Marlboro, Arad Hunt, Esquire, of 
 Hinsdale, N. H., William Bigelow, Esq., of Guilford and Dr. Josiah 
 Goodhue of Putney, all of said county of Windham, and such others as 
 shall be appointed in manner, and to the number herein directed, shall 
 form and constitute the board of trustees for the said institution, and be 
 known by the name and style of the Corporation of Brattleborough 
 Academy — and the said corporation and their successors in office are 
 hereby declared, constituted, ordained and appointed a body corporate 
 and politic, to all intents and purposes, with all the rights, powers, priv- 
 ileges and immunities to which any academy in the state is entitled — And 
 it is hereby further enacted, that the said corporation shall have full 
 power to take by gift, grant, purchase or devise, any estate, either real, 
 personal or mixed for the use of said Academy, provided that said estate 
 shall not exceed the value of the sum of $6,000. That all such estate for 
 use and benefit of said institution shall be free and forever exempt from 
 all taxes ; and the persons of the instructors and preceptors and the stu- 
 dents belonging thereto during their continuance therein be, and they are 
 hereby exempted from all taxes and military duties. . . . That the first 
 meeting of the board, of trustees be holden at the dwelling house of 
 
BRATTLEBOROUGH ACADEMY 189 
 
 Rutherford Hayes [now owned by Mrs. Mary Hayes Bigelow, a 
 granddaughter of Rutherford Hayes] in said Brattleborough on the 17th 
 day -of December at 2 of the clock in the afternoon at which time and 
 place, or at some adjournment of said meeting said board of trustees shall 
 proceed to elect such officers as they may deem necessary for the benefit 
 of said institution. 
 
 It is recorded that at that meeting Reverend Gershom C. Lyman of Marl- 
 boro, William Bigelow, Esquire, of Guilford, John Steward, Joseph Clark, 
 Esquire, Doctor Lemuel Dickerman and John Noyes of Brattleboro were 
 the members of the board present. Officers were elected, also a committee 
 of two. Doctor Lemuel Dickerman and John Noyes, appointed to 
 "draught" a system of rules and regulations to be established as the laws 
 of the Academy. The land on which the Academy was situated was 
 given by Honorable John Noyes. 
 
 Thus it was the original Academy was built by a joint stock company 
 in 1803, the charter of the company having been granted by the state of 
 Vermont in 1801, and renewed in 1831. Its construction was in the days 
 of "wrought nails, pod augurs and flint-lock muskets." During the thirty 
 years in which Mr. Roswell Harris was preceptor many young men were 
 fitted for college courses, among whom a few are here mentioned who 
 later became influential men : Alonzo Church, president of Georgia Col- 
 lege; William R. Hayes, attorney; Royall Tyler, Junior; Reverend Lewis 
 Grout, Stanford R. Clark, Samuel Elliot, Wells Goodhue, William C. 
 Bradley, Doctor John L. Dickerman, William R. Mead, Henry K. Field, 
 W. H. Bigelow, R. H. Bigelow and C. H. Davenport. Burnham's "His- 
 tory of Brattleboro" states, "In by-gone days this Academy was famous 
 for its exciting, thrilling exhibitions in the ancient, spacious meeting- 
 house." 
 
 The rules and regulations of the institution provided for four terms of 
 school each year, three of which were of twelve weeks', and one of ten 
 weeks' session ; each morning session to be opened by prayer, when it was 
 requested that each student be present ; two recitations on each day of the 
 week, Wednesday and Saturday afternoons excepted, and Wednesday 
 afternoons were devoted to public speaking and compositions for criticism. 
 The immediate government of the school was required of the preceptor, 
 and the tuition for languages and higher branches of English studies was 
 fixed at $3 per quarter and $3.50 for common English branches. 
 
 In 1815 the school closed and remained closed for two years. During 
 that period the second story of the building was rented to Anthony Van 
 Doom. 
 
 In November, 1833, a vote was passed that each student admitted to 
 
190 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 the school should receive a certificate of admission, for which he should 
 pay twelve and a half cents to the preceptor. 
 
 At a special meeting of the board of trustees held April 13, 1847, it was 
 voted that a sufficient sum be taken of the funds of the Academy to defray 
 the expenses of recasting the bell, and Mrs. Admatha Dunklee was 
 appointed to cause the bell to be recast, the expense being $8.69. 
 
 Extensive repairs were made in 1842, resulting in a new Academy 
 building. The first chemical apparatus was installed in the institution 
 in the year 1848 at a cost of about $30. 
 
 The dedication of the new Academy was largely attended. Prominent 
 speakers were present and an excellent program was arranged. The 
 structure was considered one of the best in town and for several years 
 was used for public gatherings and entertainments. The area of the 
 Academy was fifty-six by forty feet. The upper story was improved and 
 used as a town house. In the spring of 1854 the first school was held in 
 the new Academy and the old Academy was converted into a boarding 
 house and used for that purpose in connection with the school until it was 
 torn down. 
 
 Since the institution was established in 1803 the names of forty pro- 
 fessors have been enrolled, with terms of service varying from one to 
 thirty years, among the preceptors being: Reverend Titus Hutchins of 
 Westmoreland ; Luke Whitcomb ; Reverend Elijah M. Plumb, D.D. ; 
 Andrew M. Brown, A.B., Amherst ; J. F. Allen, A.B. ; Thomas C. Briscoe ; 
 Ehjah J. Rowe, Hanover College; E. H. Barstow, Dartmouth; J. W. 
 Tucke ; Joseph Russell Gaut, B.A. ; George B. Newton ; Roswell Harris ; 
 Reverend Charles E. Bruce; E. P. Hooker, Middlebury; Henry M. 
 Grout, A.B.; Professor C. H. Chandler; Arthur Folsbm, B.A.; V. F. 
 Lang, A.B. (See p. 660.) 
 
 Roswell Harris 
 
 William Harris was the first settler in West Brattleboro. He came with 
 his family of nine children from Bolton, Massachusetts, in 1768. His 
 farm included a large part of the West Village. His son, William, Junior, 
 was the father 6f Roswell Harris, "the beloved teacher." William Harris 
 married Abiah Brooks. A daughter, Betsey, born in Brattleboro March 
 22, 1800, married May 18, 1818, Doctor Russell Fitch of West Brattle- 
 boro. 
 
 An old highway may still be traced from a point near the farm buildings 
 of Frank B. Richardson, extending north to the present stage road. In a 
 house, now in ruins, situated on the crossroad near the foot of Round 
 Mountain, Roswell Harris was born March 6, 1798. He grew to manhood 
 
BRATTLEBOROUGH ACADEMY 191 
 
 on this farm, was eager for an education and availed himself of all the 
 advantages within his reach. He was a born teacher. At the age of six- 
 teen he began teaching district schools— ^his first school was in Wardsboro 
 in the winter of 1813-1814 — and he followed that pursuit to earn money, 
 while fitting for college under the special tuition of Reverend Caleb 
 Burge. He entered Middlebury College in 1817 and graduated there in 
 1821. While in college he devised a plan for the uplift of the Academy of 
 which he had been a student, and upon his graduation, in accordance with 
 his plan, the institution was reorganized under a new charter, the build- 
 ings were repaired, he was made principal, and in a few years he raised 
 it from its waning condition, fired it with new life and soon madeit rank 
 with the best academies in the state, of which there were then many, most 
 of them having since been put out of existence by high schools. 
 
 But Mr. Harris was ambitious to enter the ministry, so he studied 
 theology and graduated from Andover Theological Seminary in 1836, 
 after a full course, and entered upon the work of his profession. With- 
 out being installed as a pastor he preached for two years as a licentiate 
 in Salisbury and Amesbury, Massachusetts, and in Antrim and Derby, 
 New Hampshire, when an affection of his throat, with which he was 
 always afterwards afHicted, compelled him to give up preaching. He then 
 accepted the position of principal of Hampton, New Hampshire, Acad- 
 emy, about forty miles southeast from Concord. That academy was very 
 prosperous during the five years of his management. He had large classes 
 of young men fitting for college, and many who became distinguished in 
 business, in political life and in the learned professions might well give 
 Mr. Harris credit for his thorough instruction and his magnetic power 
 to stimulate students to develop their best qualities. 
 
 In August, 1833, Mr. Harris was induced by the trustees of Brattle- 
 borough Academy to again take charge of that institution, which he restored 
 to a high state of prosperity. It was especially noted for its large class 
 of young men preparing for college, most of whom were destined for the 
 ministry under the guidance of the principal. It may also be safely 
 stated that a good number of young women in the academy were destined 
 to become ministers' wives without guidance from the principal. 
 
 In 1837, on account of ill health, Mr. Harris resigned his position and 
 did not resume it until 1845, when he again took up the work and con- 
 tinued it until 1853, when he finally retired. His greatest success in the 
 Academy was in these last eight years. 
 
 Mr. Harris was the first superintendent of schools for the town of 
 Brattleboro and held the ofifice many years. 
 
 September 16, 1835, he married Matilda, daughter of James Leavitt of 
 Hampton, New Hampshire, who died in West Brattleboro December 13, 
 
192 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 1841. She had been an assistant of his in Hampton Academy. He mar- 
 ried, second, Miss Mary F. Harris, who died in New Milford, Illinois, 
 February 16, 1877. He died March 6, 1870. 
 
 There were three sons by the first marriage. 
 
 Reverend Doctor William J. Harris, born in 1836 in West Brattleboro, 
 graduated from Yale College and received his degree from Trinity in 
 1856. 
 
 He received his first idea of episcopacy from a little prayerbook which 
 he bought for seventeen cents at an auction-room in New Haven during 
 his Junior year at Yale. After graduating he followed the orthodox 
 teachings of his father, was principal of a Presbyterian Academy at St. 
 Stephen, New Brunswick, from 1856 to 1859, and was pastor of several 
 Congregational churches in New Hampshire and Vermont, his first 
 parish being in Manchester, New Hampshire. In 1865 he went to Boston, 
 was confirmed in the Episcopal Church, became rector of Episcopal 
 churches in New England and dean of the cathedral at Sioux Falls, 
 South Dakota. A sermon in meter by Reverend William J. Harris, D.D., 
 entitled "Nain," for the sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, has been pub- 
 lished. 
 
 He also taught in the Monson Academy. He finally became diocesan 
 missionary for Vermont. 
 
 He married Miss Mary Gale Hill, who died in 1918. He died June 23, 
 1917. 
 Children : 
 
 Emma, married William M. Hall of Montreal. 
 
 William Leavitt, born in Rutland, Vermont, December 3, 1874; grad- 
 uated from Dartmouth in 1896, and from the Law School of Boston 
 University with highest honors, completing the three years' course 
 in two years. He was junior member of the law firm of Burke, 
 Cobbett & Harris, Lowell, Massachusetts, when he died, June 11, 
 1908. 
 
 Reverend Charles C. Harris, after graduating at Middlebury College, 
 studied theology in Philadelphia, where he was assistant at Grace Church. 
 He was the rector of St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Brattleboro from 
 June, 1869, to March, 1874. After resigning here, he was the rector of 
 Christ Church, Guilford, for two years. He then removed to the West, 
 where he resided for ten years. 
 
 Mr. Harris's other rectorships were at Trinity Church, Bridgewater, 
 Massachusetts ; St. John's Church, Lawrence, Massachusetts ; Holy Trin- 
 ity, Lincoln, Nebraska, and St. Mary's, Mitchell, South Dakota. He was a 
 man of kind heart and genial manners. He was always faithful in the dis- 
 
BRATTLEBOROUGH ACADEMY 193 
 
 charge of his parochial duties, and made many friends both within and 
 without his parishes. 
 
 He married, first, February 17, 1874, Miss Georgietta Golden. There 
 was a daughter, Bessy H., who married and has children. He married, 
 second, a daughter of Harvey Josselyn of Bridgewater, Massachusetts. 
 Children by this marriage: Charles Gilbert; Guy; Mabel and Gertrude, 
 twins, have died. 
 
 Mr. Harris died in Parsons, Kansas, December 3, 1886, aged fifty-one. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 FEDERAL GALAXY. BENJAMIN SMEAD, 1797 
 
 The first printing press, set up in 1797, and the first newspaper. The 
 Federal Galaxy, were started by Benjamin Smead in 1797. The printer 
 and editor were generally one. In 1798 he published a sermon by Rever- 
 end William Wells, the first publication in Brattleboro, preached on the 
 occasion of the burial of Pardon Taylor and Edward Palmer, both of 
 whom were drowned the day before in the Connecticut River. 
 
 The Galaxy was printed on a four-page sheet measuring about seven- 
 teen by twenty-one inches, four columns to a page, in good-sized type, 
 but of the "old style," and was sold to subscribers for $1.34 per year, 
 payable on the last day of every quarter. 
 
 Until the question of state boundaries began to be settled, the interest 
 and sympathy of the pioneer of the eighteenth century were without any 
 clearly defined limitations, and the people of Vermont felt farther from 
 the Carolinas than from the continent of Europe. The thoughts and 
 ways of the old world were still familiar. The first newspapers reflect 
 the general interest in world-wide affairs. An idea of what was con- 
 sidered news in those days may be gained from the contents of Number 
 71, Volume Two, dated May 8, 1798. The entire first and second pages, 
 and nearly one column of the third page, are taken up with a copy of the 
 "Instructions to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, John Marshall and El- 
 bridge Gerry, Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary to 
 the French republic," signed by Timothy Pickering, secretary of state, 
 and bearing date July 15, 1797, — nearly ten months previously ! Follow- 
 ing this article, under the general head of "Domestic Events," is given 
 about a column and a half of news from South Carolina, Virginia, Mary- 
 land, New York and Massachusetts. Then follows a half column of edi- 
 torial matter, the leading article treating upon the then all-absorbing topic 
 of our relations with France. Something more than a column of this 
 page is occupied with advertisements. Two and a half columns of the 
 fourth page are devoted to a report of the proceedings of the American 
 Congress, House of Representatives, extending from Wednesday, March 
 28, to Tuesday, April 3. The remainder of the page is taken up with 
 
FEDERAL GALAXY, BENJAMIN SMEAD, 1797 195 
 
 advertisements, among which are three applications for divorce. There 
 is not a local or state paragraph in the entire paper. The Galaxy was con- 
 tinued until about 1803, when Mr. Smead removed to Dansville, New 
 York. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 NOTABLE EARLY SETTLERS 
 
 Notable Early Settlers— Henry Wells, M.D. — Stephen Greenleaf— Stephen Green- 
 leaf, Junior — (Jeremiah Greenleaf) — Rutherford Hayes and wife Chloe — Deacon 
 Russell Hayes — Rutherford Hayes, Junior— Hayes's Store, Dummerston— Wil- 
 liam R. Hayes — President Rutherford B. Hayes— George Holmes Hall, M.D.— 
 John Welland Blake — Lemuel Dickerman, M.D. — ^Judge Lemuel Whitney — Hon- 
 orable Richard Whitney— Honorable James Elliot — Samuel Elliot— Doctor Samuel 
 Stearns — ^Joseph Clark. 
 
 Henry Wells, M.D. 
 
 Henry Wells, M.D., son of Obadiah Wells, was of the fourth genera- 
 tion from Reverend William Welles, Norwich Cathedral, England, whose 
 son, William Wells, was the first founder of Southold, Long Island. 
 
 Doctor Henry Wells was born in Essex County, New Jersey, June 14, 
 1742. He took his first degree at Princeton at the age of fifteen, studied 
 medicine in New Haven with the famous Doctor Hull for four years, 
 and in 1760 Yale College conferred on him the degree of A.M. ; in the 
 following year he returned to New York for a four years' continuation 
 of his studies. He studied divinity for a short time after 1764, and added 
 the business of an apothecary to his early medical practice in New York 
 (when the population of that city was less than ten thousand), where he 
 married Hannah, daughter of John and Elizabeth Sibley Stout, May 28, 
 1764, in the old Dutch Church on Nassau Street. She was born February 
 11, 1747, and died October 1, 1813. Doctor Wells was hardly more than 
 twenty-five and his wife twenty, the mother of two children, when they 
 started for their new home in the wilds of Brattleboro, of which he and 
 his father became patentees in 1766. They came by a sloop to Hart- 
 ford, Connecticut, and from thence followed the Connecticut River. His 
 father and mother (Mary, daughter of Captain Cornelius Conkling, who 
 died in Brattleboro in 1780) came with him. 
 
 He was the first physician of Brattleboro — when a doctor's saddlebags 
 carried simple remedies to the remotest dwelling ; and the first town clerk 
 —elected to office in 1768. 
 
 On the brow of a hill two miles west of the East Village, Doctor Wells 
 
STEPHEN GREENLEAF 197 
 
 erected a substantial frame house of considerable size on a farm of about 
 one thousand acres.^ 
 
 From 1768 to 1781, when he removed to Montague, Massachusetts, he 
 constantly held some public office. His name is attached to two memorials 
 to the King in behalf of the government of the Province of New York. 
 
 In his profession Doctor Wells attained the highest rank and was called 
 in consultation to distant parts of New York, Massachusetts, New Hamp- 
 shire and Connecticut. From 1785 he was counsellor of the Massachu- 
 setts Medical Society. As a recognition of his services in stopping an epi- 
 demic in Greenfield and its vicinity in 1803, Dartmouth conferred on him 
 the honorary degree of M.D. He had the confidence of all his professional 
 brethren throughout the country. 
 
 His habits and manners were conformable to what is called the old 
 school of gentlemen. His dress was Quaker-like in simplicity, velvet or 
 buckskin breeches, long jacket with flapped pockets, and broad-brimmed, 
 low-crowned hat. 
 
 He died August 34, 1814, aged seventy-two. 
 
 Of his thirteen children two sons were born in New York. Seven more 
 children were born to Doctor and Mrs. Wells in Brattleboro. All removed 
 with the father to Montague. (See Appendix.) 
 
 Stephen Greenleaf 
 
 Stephen Greenleaf was a descendant of Stephen Greenleaf who came 
 to America in 1635, and son of Doctor Daniel Greenleaf of Boston, bom 
 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 3, 1703, married Miss Silence 
 Marsh, by whom he had ten children. He married a second time, and 
 died in July, 1795. 
 
 Stephen Greenleaf was born in Bolton, Massachusetts, October 15, 
 1735. He married January 11, 1758, Miss Eunice Fairbanks of Boston 
 and removed to Brattleboro in the autumn of 1771, having purchased eight 
 hundred acres, the "Governor's Farm." 
 
 He died June 8, 1803, aged sixty-seven. Mrs. Greenleaf died March 
 18, 1836. 
 
 They had eleven children, six born in Boston, five in Brattleboro. 
 
 The oldest son, Stephen, born in Boston January 31, 1759, came with 
 his father to Brattleboro in 1771. 
 
 In 1783 he married Miss Anna Sargent, who died October 11, 1813. 
 He married, second. Miss Cynthia Ryan. He was drafted at the age of 
 eighteen and served for a short time in the War of the Revolution, and 
 
 1 This house, purchased from Micah Townsend, its second owner, in 1801 by 
 Chief Justice Royall Tyler, was not taken down until 1875, by S. Gilbert Smith. 
 
198 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 was present at the surrender of Burgoyne. He was of large stature and 
 an athlete in strength and agility. 
 
 Bred a carpenter and wheelwright, many of the first buildings in Brat- 
 tleboro were erected by him. In 1799 he was elected town clerk and was 
 reelected to office forty-five years in succession, declining it finally on 
 account of his age. He died March 5, 1850. 
 
 A few books, which he read during the long winter evenings by the light 
 from the kitchen fireplace, mathematical problems worked out by himself 
 alone and the practice of penmanship were his education, and he was 
 obliged to stretch himself horizontally on the floor to get the full light on 
 his books. He was a natural mathematician and was valued as a tutor 
 for that subject. 
 
 His penmanship in the old town records is a model of uniformity and 
 precision. Besides his work as town clerk, he wrote in 1834 several letters 
 to friends respecting the past and present of Brattleboro, which were 
 printed in The Phcenix, and he also furnished a sketch of the town for 
 Thompson's "Historical Gazetteer of Vermont," published in 1846. A 
 painting of Major Greenleaf hung in the gallery of the west end of the 
 Town Hall until it was remodeled into the Auditorium — as a memorial 
 of the love and respect in which this "Nature's nobleman" was regarded 
 by three generations of his fellow townsmen. 
 
 These verses written by Stephen Greenleaf, Junior, show a bit of the 
 quiet humor which was one of his characteristics, and that Fast Day was 
 not a universally serious matter as far back as his time. 
 
 ON THE 6th MAY THE CITY KEPT FAST, 1781. 
 
 The Farmer kept Fast — at holding the plough ; 
 The City kept Fast as the D — 1 knows how. 
 For some kept Fast at even and odd. 
 And some kept Fast at drinking Todd. 
 
 Some kept Fast at seven up 
 
 For ninepence a corner and a Cup. 
 
 Some kept Fast the money they got; 
 
 Others kept Fast at pipe and pot. 
 Some kept Fast at sliding the goose, 
 And some kept Fast to Petticoats loose. 
 Some kept Fast between the sheets ; 
 Others kept Fast and walked the streets. 
 
 Some kept Fast at playing Ball ; 
 
 Indolence kept no Fast at all. 
 Some kept Fast, got drunk and slept — 
 
GREENLEAF FAMILY 199 
 
 As droll a Fast as e'er was kept. 
 Those who a steady Fast did keep 
 Were found keeled up and fast asleep. 
 
 Children of Stephen Greenleaf, Junior, by first marriage: 
 
 Thomas Sargent, born March 35, 1784; married Miss Dimmis 
 Nash, by whom he had three children,; married second, Miss 
 Lydia Miller, by whom he had six children. 
 Anne, born September 34, 1788 ; married Thomas Ellis of Brattle- 
 
 boro. 
 Stephen Scollay, bom August 22, 1795 ; died September 20, 1813. 
 Other children of Stephen and Eunice Greenleaf : 
 
 Eunice, born August 19, 1761 ; married George Dickson of Ohio. 
 Daniel, born in Boston January 16, 1764; married Miss Huldah Hop- 
 kins, lived in Guilford, Vermont. His son :. 
 
 Jeremiah Greenleaf, born in Brattlebbrb, December 7, 1791; mar- 
 ried Eunice Elvira, daughter of Doctor Simon Stevens of Guil- 
 ford, where they resided and had six children. He was a teacher 
 and the author of Greenleaf's Grammatical Chart. He entered 
 the United States service from Guilford during the War of 1813, 
 and was promoted to lieutenant in 1816. In 1820 he published 
 a work on grammar entitled "Grammar Simplified, or an Ocular 
 Analysis of the English Language," which he claimed relieved the 
 study of objectionable features and made it comparatively easy of 
 attainment. It was acknowledged the best treatise ever produced 
 on that subject and the first edition was published in Brattleboro 
 in 1819, the twentieth in 1832. At a later period, he prepared a 
 modified form of this work, the "Labor Saving Grammar," which 
 appeared in 1855. His children were : Halbert Stevens, born April 
 12, 1827 ; Malcolm Cyprian, born February 11, 1831 ; Thomas Ben- 
 ton, born February 27, 1837 ; three daughters younger. 
 Emory Greenleaf, born in Guilford August 36, 1793; died 1849; 
 married Miss Gratia Houghton of Guilford and had six children; 
 removed West. 
 Stephen Greenleaf, born in Guilford, 1795 ; married Sarah, daugh- 
 ter of Joseph and Sarah Weatherhead, resided in Brattleboro; 
 died in 1850; she was born in Guilford March 17, 1797; died in 
 Philadelphia February 13, 1891. Their children were : Sarah, who 
 died November 13, 1858, at West Chester, Pennsylvania, where 
 she was teacher in the High and Normal School; Ellen, married 
 J. R. Gaut, at one time principal of the Brattleborough Academy ; 
 died in Philadelphia June, 1887. 
 
200 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Elizabeth, born January 18, 1774; married James K. Goodenough of 
 Watertown, New York; died March 25, 1847. 
 
 Doctor Christopher, born in Brattleboro, 1776; married Miss Tabitha 
 Dickinson of Hatfield. They had five children. He practiced his 
 profession at La Fargeville, Jefferson County, New York, and died 
 there in May, 1837. Mrs. Greenleaf died May 21, 1837. 
 
 Hayes Family — Rutherford Hayes 
 
 George Hayes, who came from Scotland and was living in Windsor, 
 Connecticut, in 1763, was the first ancestor of the Hayes family in this 
 country. He raised a family of ten children. 
 
 His son Daniel was taken ca.ptive by the Indians in 1703, carried into 
 Canada and kept there a- prisoner five years. 
 
 Ezekiel, son of Daniel, with his wife Rebecca, daughter of Judge John 
 and Sarah Trowbridge Ru,^ell of New Haven, also great-granddaughter 
 of Reverend John Russell oi Hadley, Massachusetts, — where he concealed 
 the Regicides, — came to New Haven in 1773. Their son, Rutherford 
 Hayes, was born in Branford, Connecticut, July 39, 1756. 
 
 Captain Blakesley of New Haven bought and settled the tract of 
 meadowland beyond West Brattleboro known as the "Sergeant Farm." 
 His four sons having located along that meadow, sent "enticing words" 
 to their friend Rutherford Hayes and he, at the age of twenty-one, set 
 out for Brattleboro. This was in 1778. 
 
 Rutherford Hayes knew something of blacksmithing, which trade he 
 had learned from his father, and the new settlement in Brattleboro was 
 very much in need of a blacksmith. They offered to build him a shop and 
 send for his tools if he would stay. He refused at first, saying that he 
 "came for a visit and did not care to stay in the woods." He boarded on 
 his arrival in the family of Israel Smith, who lived in a small red house 
 then standing on the spot now occupied by the Hayes mansion. Before 
 the visit of Rutherford Hayes was over he had fallen in love with Chloe, 
 the daughter of Israel and Abigail (Chandler) Smith, and decided to 
 remain. The settlers made a bee, shoveled away the deep snow and 
 built a log shop for him near the foot of what is now Greenleaf Street, 
 then the only road to Marlboro, and here he worked at his trade of black- 
 smith which he spoke of later in life as a "dirty, black business, but it 
 brought white money." 
 
 He and Chloe were married in 1779, in her seventeenth year, and they 
 occupied a house next to her father's, above the shop, where four of the 
 eleven children were born. 
 
 He served as ensign in the "South (Vermont) Regiment" of New 
 
RUTHERFORD HAYES 201 
 
 York troops, being commissioned July 24, 1783, and received a grant of 
 land in Chenango County, New York, for losses and services. 
 
 In 1789, Israel Smith and all the younger members of his family moved 
 to Bainbridge, Chenango County, New York, where he had received a 
 grant of six hundred and forty acres of land from the state because he had 
 espoused their cause in the controversy over the New Hampshire Grants. 
 
 It was about this time that Rutherford Hayes built the house which he 
 kept as an irin and which has been the home of his descendants to the 
 fourth generation. 
 
 In old age, after his innkeeping days were over, Mr. Hayes became a 
 farmer "in easy circumstances." He is described as a "round corpulent 
 old gentleman, with an elastic, square step, medium height, with florid 
 complexion, sandy hair, a cheerful temper, and friendly, courteous man- 
 ners." Also as "a consistent and active church member, maintaining for 
 many years family worship and dying as a Christian." After he was 
 seventy he became a total abstainer "fearing" that his "example would 
 be quoted against the cause of temperance." He died September 25, 183G. 
 
 His wife Chloe, born in Hadley, Massachusetts, November 10, 1762, 
 with only six months of schooling, matured into a remarkable woman, a 
 great worker, and a Christian character. She kept a diary now cherished 
 by her descendants. 
 
 She was passionately fond of flowers and stole time from her care- 
 filled days to cultivate them. She had skill in needlework of all kinds 
 and an artist's love for f ancywork, copying her designs from the flowers 
 in her garden. She loved the work so much that on Saturday afternoon 
 as the Sabbath hours drew on, "she was wont to put her worsted-work in 
 her workbasket and push it as far under the bed as she could and get it 
 all out of her mind for Sunday." One of her grandsons said "She knit 
 more stockings, mittens, and gloves, wove more rag carpets, spun and 
 wove more cloth, elaborated more wonderful rugs, lamp-mats and bags, 
 than any woman of her generation." 
 
 W. D. Howells, who married one of her granddaughters, once wrote of 
 her, "She left upon the memory of many surviving children and grand- 
 children the personal impression of her strong and resolute character, and 
 her rugged Puritan virtues, tempered and softened by aesthetic gifts 
 amounting almost to genius." Her aesthetic gifts have been an inherit- 
 ance in the family of her oldest granddaughter, Mary, who married Lar- 
 kin G. Mead. 
 Children : 
 
 Polly, born February 8, 1780; married, 1804, Honorable John Noyes. 
 (See p. 247.) 
 
303 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Linda, born February 38, 1783 ; married, first, in 1803, John Pease who 
 
 died in 1804; a son; married, second, November 34, 1808, Samuel 
 
 EUiot. (See p. 315.) 
 Russell, born May 31, 1784. 
 Rutherford, Junior, born January 4, 1787. 
 Clarissa, born November 34, 1790 ; married May 15, 1811, Azor Moody 
 
 of Granby, Massachusetts. 
 Sarah, born April 11, 1793 ; married May 35, 1815, Dyar Bancroft of 
 
 Chesterfield, Massachusetts. They had four children. 
 Abigail, born 1796; married in 1830, Asa Robbins of Granby. She 
 
 died January 19, 1867 ; five children. 
 Fanny, born September 37, 1800 ; married February 3, 1834, Levi Smith 
 
 of Granby ; died August 3, 1870. They had five children. 
 William Rutherford, born December 6, 1804. 
 
 Deacon Russell Hayes, the* oldest son of Rutherford Hayes, Senior, 
 passed a life of usefulness on the old homestead, sharing his energies and 
 affection in service to the academy and the church, and caring for the 
 declining years of his parents. He was "a Christian of equable temper, 
 a man of excellent judgment and a neighbor highly esteemed." 
 
 He married, first, Rhoda, daughter of Gideon Moody of Granby, who 
 died January 7, 1838 ; married, second, Hannah L., daughter of Moses and 
 Abigail (Baker) Forbes of Townshend, Vermont; married, third, Martha, 
 daughter of Barnabas and Martha Billins of Northampton, born April 16, 
 1800, died August, 1873. Children by this marriage : 
 
 Mary Ann, born October 3, 1838 ; married November 15, 1856, William 
 Howard Bigelow, born in Easton, Washington County, New York, De- 
 cember 31, 1839; graduated at Williams College in October, 1853. He 
 taught a fall term in the Brattleborough Academy, and commenced the 
 study of medicine with Doctor Willard Arms. In 1853 he assisted 
 Reverend James Tufts in the Academy at Monson, Massachusetts, but 
 was interrupted by a hemorrhage of the lungs which led him to abandon 
 professional ambitions and to seek an outdoor life in the West. He began 
 by surveying in Des Moines, Iowa, but located after a time at Sioux City, 
 Iowa, where he organized the firm Bigelow & White in real estate and 
 banking. He was mayor of the city. 
 
 In 1864 he went to Chicago and established the firm Bigelow Brothers, 
 dealers in lumber, carrying on the manufacturing of lumber at Muskegon, 
 Michigan ; 1873-1874 he spent with his family in Europe. On their return 
 they resided in New Haven for the educational advantages to their sons, 
 passing summers at the ancestral home of Mrs. Bigelow. He died August 
 13, 1883. Children: Russell, born July 33, 1859, at Sioux City (see p. 
 
RUTHERFORD HAYES, JUNIOR 303 
 
 975) ; William H., born July 22, 1861, married Miss Margaret Allardice, 
 and died December 19, 1900 ; Hayes, born in New Haven, February 30, 
 1879, married Carolyn, daughter of H. J. Qark of West Brattleboro. 
 
 Martha Jeannette, born March 14, 1841 ; married June 7, 1862, Joseph 
 Nash Field, brother of Marshall Field of Chicago and member of his 
 firm. She died January 23, 1864. By a second marriage he had five 
 children. 
 
 Rutherford Hayes, Junior, spent his early life in West Brattleboro, 
 was employed as a clerk in a store in Wilmington, where he married Sep- 
 tember 19, 1813, Sophia Birchard, daughter of Roger and Drusilla (Aus- 
 tin) Birchard of that town, born April 15, 1792. She died October 30, 
 1866. 
 
 In 1812 young Hayes formed a partnership with John Noyes and 
 opened a store in Dummerston Center. Here they prosecuted a successful 
 business until 1817, when Mr. Hayes closed out his interest in the store, 
 having accumulated a fortune for the times, and removed to Delaware, 
 Ohio, where he purchased land and established himself as farmer. 
 
 His wife being very much opposed to this departure westward, stayed 
 for a time with her children in the family of John Noyes, but soon re- 
 moved to a small building which then stood just east of the store, where 
 she and her children remained until her husband returned and took them 
 to a western home. 
 
 Mr. Hayes was a man who commanded universal respect. He died in 
 1832, a few months before the birth of his son who became President of 
 the United States, leaving only moderate means to his wife and three 
 children. A wealthy bachelor brother, Sardis Birchard of Fremont, Ohio, 
 came to her aid, and assumed charge of educating the children. Mrs. 
 Hayes possessed a rare combination of physical and mental power, and 
 was beloved and admired by all who knew her. Children: Lorenzo, 
 Sophia, Fanny Arabella, Rutherford Birchard. 
 
 From The Boston Journal,. August 18, 1877: 
 
 On the south side of the Common, in the middle of the town of Dum- 
 merston, connected with a large, modern wooden structure, stands the 
 little store in which Rutherford Hayes, father of the President, first 
 embarked in business as a member of the firm of Noyes, Mann & Hayes 
 (John Noyes and General Jonas Mann). The partners came from West 
 Brattleboro and set up a country store — ^they bought the store in 1811 
 from the Samuel Porter Estate for $535 — where they continued to do 
 business for several years. The firm dissolved in 1814 and John Noyes 
 
304 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 and Rutherford Hayes united their fortunes and opened a store in a long, 
 two-story building, painted red, which still stands on the east side of the 
 green. A portion of the second story was fitted up as a ballroom, and 
 here in "ye olden time" the rustic belles and beaux were wont to trip the 
 light fantastic toe, to the music of the violin. The ceiling, from which 
 great patches of plaster have fallen, is arched, and along the sides of the 
 hall are permanent seats, innocent of paint, which have grown brown with 
 age. 
 
 In this building Mr. Hayes carried on business between the years 1813 
 and 1817. The kitchen and porch of the house, now owned and occupied 
 by Mr. Asa Knight, were built by Mr. Hayes and are still in a good degree 
 of preservation. When Mr. Hayes married Miss Birchard they lived for 
 a short time in the red house, and from there moved into the larger resi- 
 dence. 
 
 President Rutherford Birchard Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio, 
 October 4, 1833. 
 
 Mr. Hayes graduated at the head of his class at Kenyon College, Gam- 
 bier, Ohio, and graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1845. He 
 began practice in Fremont, but removed in 1849 to Cincinnati, where he 
 soon came into prominence in his profession. His army career began 
 with the. Civil War and ended with it. Enlisting originally as a private 
 soldier, the governor of Ohio appointed him major of the Second Ohio 
 Infantry, having first offered him the colonelcy, which Mr. Hayes mod- 
 estly declined on the ground that it should go to a more competent and 
 experienced man. In every engagement throughout his service, mostly 
 in West Virginia, he bore himself with marked courage, skill and self- 
 poise. This was notably the case in the battle of South Mountain, where, 
 with his arm broken by a bullet, he fought at the head of his regiment 
 until, overcome by pain and loss of blood, he was carried from the field. 
 His charge across the slough in the battle of Opequan was scarcely 
 excelled during the whole war as a feat of personal gallantry, and the 
 skill and intrepidity with which he handled his division at Fisher's Hill 
 and Cedar Creek stamped him as a man of real military genius. For the 
 qualities thus displayed he was promoted to be colonel and then to be 
 brigadier-general, and in March, 1865, he was brevetted major-general. 
 
 In 1864,. while he was still in the field, General Hayes was nomi- 
 nated for Congress by the Republicans of his district, and it shows the 
 quality of the man that, when urged to come home and take the stump, he 
 answered with this telegram; 
 
 In Camp, Oct. 3 : Yours of the 29th ult. is received. I have other busi- 
 
WILLIAM R. HAYES 205 
 
 ness just now. Any 'man who would leave the army at this time to elec- 
 tioneer for Congress ought to be scalped. 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 R. B. Hayes. 
 
 He was elected to Congress, and took his seat December, 1865. He 
 was three times elected governor of Ohio, the last time in 1875 under 
 very unusual circumstances, as the pronounced advocate of an honest 
 currency. The National Republican Convention met at Cincinnati in 
 June, 1876, and General Hayes was nominated on the seventh ballot, Mr. 
 Blaine being the principal candidate at the start. The Democratic candi- 
 date was Samuel J. Tilden. An electoral commission was the outcome 
 of the controversy that followed, and the result of the commission's 
 deliberation was to declare Mr. Hayes elected. He was inaugurated 
 March 5, 1877. 
 
 December 20, 1852, he married Lucy Ware Webb, born in Chillicothe, 
 Ohio, August 28, 1831, a daughter of Doctor James Webb ; she was edu- 
 cated at the Wesleyan Female College, Cincinnati. She died at Fremont, 
 Ohio, June 25, 1889. 
 
 After the death of Mrs. Hayes the ex-President was a yearly visitor in 
 Brattleboro, the old ties of relationship and early association growing 
 stronger in. his years of bereavdment and loneliness. 
 
 William Rutherford Hayes 
 
 William R. Hayes, the third son of Rutherford Hayes, Senior, was born 
 
 December 6, 1804, prepared for college under the instruction of Reverend 
 
 Mr. Hallock, and graduated at Yale in the year 1825. He took a high 
 
 stand in his class. The following is a bill of his expenses while in college : 
 
 Mr. W. Hayes Dr. 
 
 1822 To the President and Fellows of Yale-College. 
 
 May 1. To Tuition, $11. — Ordinary Repairs, 80 cents, $11 80 
 
 To Chamber rent, 2. — Sweeping, 75 2 75 
 
 To Glass, 9 . — Damages, 13 . — Average Damages, 27 50 
 
 To Wood for Recitation room, 65 
 
 C. Q. F. 
 
 To Wood, Nut " 2 " at 7.40 
 Oak, at 
 
 Pine, at 
 
 To sawing, splitting, &c. 
 
 
 15 70 
 
 2.70 
 
 
 58 
 
 3.28 
 
206 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 To balance of old account, 
 
 Dr. To the Steward of Yale-College 
 
 To board, 14 weeks, at 1.68 23.53 
 
 To proportion of his Salary, 11.85 24.37 
 
 43.35 
 
 Rec'd payment June 5th 1822.- 
 
 S. Swining. 
 
 These bills are payable at their date; and if not paid within fourteen 
 days after vacation, the student against whom they are charged, cannot 
 recite till he exhibits to the Treasurer a certificate from his parent, guard- 
 ian or patron, that he has seen them. 
 
 Closing the three years of his studies at the law school in New Haven, 
 under the care of Judge Daggett, he was admitted to the bar, and opened 
 an office in Brattleboro in 1828; he married October 10, 1830, Harriet, 
 daughter of Henry and Harriet Hayes Trowbridge of New Haven, born 
 August 2, 1808; she married, second. Reverend William Patton, D.D., 
 who died in New Haven, September, 1680; she died January 24, 1874. 
 Mr. Hayes is said to have had a fine voice, and to have been a successful 
 pleader. In his will be left $1000 for the Academy at West Brattleboro.. 
 
 He, with two other professional men, his daily associates, Mr. Elliot 
 of his own profession, and Doctor Dickerman, were among the subjects 
 of the revival of 1832. He became thereafter an earnest, active Christian, 
 and was restrained from preparing himself for the gospel ministry by fail- 
 ing health. Skillful physicians advised him to seek a milder climate. 
 In 1836 he relinquished the practice of law, and moved to Barbados in 
 the West Indies. His health was gradually restored, and he spent the rest 
 of his life engaged in prosperous mercantile pursuits, and in discharging 
 the duties of United States consul for the Island of Barbados. He en- 
 gaged heartily in the support of temperance and in the abolition of slavery, 
 organizing societies in his new home, and he wrote and labored success- 
 fully for the promotion of these reforms. 
 
 Quoting from Doctor Bacon of New Haven : "He was known and hon- 
 ored there and at home as a business man of eminent skill, courtesy and 
 probity, and a Christian gentleman, ready for every good word and work." 
 
 His life was suddenly terminated by a malignant erysipelas July 13, 
 1852. 
 
HON. JOHN WELLAND BLAKE 207 
 
 George Holmes Hall, M.D., 
 
 born in 1763, was the first resident physician of the East Village, from 
 1790 to 1807. He also had a store for the sale of drugs, hardware and 
 groceries, which stood at the southeast corner of his property on Main 
 Street, the site of the Hunt house. In 1797 the Store and its contents 
 were destroyed by fire, a blow from which Doctor Hall, it was said, never 
 entirely recovered, although he lived ten years afterwards, and died 
 April 3, 1807. "Multos ille bonis flebilis occidit" is the inscription, on his 
 tombstone. 
 
 His widow Sarah, born in 1764, married, second, Richardson Bigelow. 
 She died in July, 1809. 
 Children : 
 Helen M., died, aged twelve. 
 
 George W., married Sarah, daughter of Deacon John Holbrook, Sep- 
 tember 17, 1818; died February 1, 1834. She died September 5, 
 1849. They had three children. 
 Gardner C, born 1796; married October 6, 1823, Julia Ann, born 
 January 27, 1806, daughter of Colonel Thaddeus and Jemima Loomis 
 Leavitt of Sheffield, Connecticut. He died March 22, 1856. (See 
 .p. 498.) 
 
 Honorable John Welland Blake, 
 
 a descendant in the fifth generation of William Blake of Dorchester, 
 Massachusetts, was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, in (probably) 1759, 
 the eldest son of Joseph and Deborah (Smith) Blake. There are records 
 showing that land in Rockingham was conveyed to him by Samuel Sar- 
 gent in 1789, and, two months later, a conveyance of the same land away 
 from John W. Blake, when he moved to Brattleboro. He married May 
 24, 1790, Abigail, daughter of Judge Daniel Jones of Hinsdale, New 
 Hampshire, and June 17 of the same year was admitted to the bar of 
 Windham County, becoming one of the foremost lawyers and most 
 influential citizens of southern Vermont. 
 
 He bought considerable real estate in the village of his adoption, fifty 
 acres where the Emerson Block stood on South Main Street, and the 
 house built by Judge Samuel Knight where the Federal Building now is. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Blake and their nine children lived in this house many years. 
 
 He held the office of postmaster from 1790 to 1792. In 1795 the Legis- 
 lature granted him and Calvin Knowlton of Newfane an exclusive charter 
 for the toll bridge across West River. Mr. Blake and Mr. Knowlton also 
 secured the charter for a turnpike road from Rockingham to Brattleboro. 
 
 Mr. Blake represented the town in the Legislatures of 1798, 1799 and 
 
208 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 1802, and became a leader in the political activities of the state. He 
 finally moved to the brick mansion built by Jonathan Townsend, where 
 the Vermont National Bank now stands, where he entertained lavishly. 
 "An inexhaustible fund of anecdote" added to the charm of his conversa- 
 tion, and attracted tp him a social environment which fostered habits 
 proving disastrous to his professional life, and which were the final cause 
 of the sale of his real estate to Francis Goodhue in 1811. "But he was a 
 gentleman of wealth, education and polish, a man of true distinction."^ 
 
 Mrs. Blake died December 14, 1808, aged forty-two; he died October 
 27, 1818, aged fifty-nine, and they are both buried in the "graveyard on 
 the hill." 
 Children of John Welland Blake : 
 
 Henry Jones, born March 4, 1792; married February 18, 1816, Ger- 
 trude B., daughter of Isaac Truax of Albany; died November 30, 
 1822. 
 John Rice, born February 3, 1793. (See p. 309.) 
 Anna Sophia, born July 2, 1796; married Henry Cabot; died March 
 22, 1845. 
 
 Children: Elizabeth, George, Anna Sophia. 
 Charlotte Smith, born April 7, 1798; married January 15, 1822, Dexter 
 
 Chapin of New York ; she died March 17, 1837. 
 Frances Williams, born October 10, 1800 ; married January 13, 1823, 
 
 Edward Clarke of Northampton ; she died September 30, 1828. 
 Harriet Barker, born September 6, 1802 ; married December 10, 1827, 
 
 James Houghton pi Brattleboro. 
 William Caldwell, born July 10, 1804 ; died unmarried August 17, 1830. 
 Mary Welland, born March 30, 1806 ; married June 7, 1828, Frederick 
 
 S. Hill; married, second, Dr. Page. 
 George Baty, born May 19, 1808. (See p. 508.) 
 
 Lemuel Dickerman, M.D., 
 
 the sixth in descent from Thomas, who came from Bristol, England, and 
 settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts, was born October 18, 1751, at 
 Stoughton, Massachusetts. When a boy he was a bound apprentice to 
 learn shoemaking, but left his employer and traveled on foot to Brattle- 
 boro. Here he obtained employment on the farm of Doctor Henry 
 Wells, and, according to the tradition, from him Doctor Dickerman 
 learned his profession, and "became so accomplished that he assisted him 
 in practice until so many preferred the young doctor, that the old one 
 sold out and went to Montague, Massachusetts." 
 1 Burnham. 
 
LEMUEL DICKERMAN, M.D. 209 
 
 Doctor Dickerman was the third physician in Brattleboro and the 
 longest in practice, which he combined with farming on a large scale. 
 His farmhouse, situated about three miles northwest of the village, was 
 standing in 1869. A son in three generations of his descendants followed 
 his profession of medicine. There is a painting of him, in possession of 
 a grandson, expressing the character and sensitive perceptions for which 
 he was noted. 
 
 He married March 13, 1779, Lucinda Arms, daughter of Major John 
 and Susanna Willard Arms of Brattleboro, who was born in 1757. "She 
 was of an excellent family." She died September 2, 1833, aged seventy- 
 six. He died October 8, 1832, and was buried on Meeting-House Hill. 
 Children : 
 
 Lucinda, married Jonathan Herrick and settled in Canada. 
 
 Polly, born January 4, 1781 ; married July 3, 1799, Windsor Newton ; 
 
 died January 31, 1823. 
 Susan W., born November 16, 1782; married Josiah Putnam, son of 
 
 Asa, born in 1781 ; he died March 24, 1864. 
 Theda, born April 19, 1785 ; married December 1, 1803, Alfred Bar- 
 rett ; died June 10, 1805. 
 Sophia, born March 19, 1787 ; married Alfred Putnam. 
 John Locke, born March 12, 1790; married October 6, 1813, Kezia, 
 daughter of John and Kezia Dickerman, born March -27, 1791 ; she 
 died September 26, 1850; he died December 15, 1857. Children: 
 John Locke, M.D., born June 23, 1814; married June 16, 1844, 
 Miss Emily Ann Squires, who died November 5, 1887 ; he died at 
 Rutland, Vermont, February 16, 1879. Children: 
 Harriet Emily, born October 19, 1846. She taught painting and 
 for many years was corporation clerk in the secretary of state's 
 office, Boston, Massachusetts ; married November, 1902, Edward 
 Minturn Ransom; died December 9, 1902. 
 Sarah Harston, born September 25, 1848; married December 18, 
 1879, Patrick Frank Connors, born January 6, 1848; she died 
 December 23, 1910. 
 Willard Arms, M.D., born September 15, 1817. He began the 
 practice of medicine with his father in 1840, and went soon after 
 to Keene, New Hampshire, where he was for some time with Dr. 
 Twitchell, the elder, one of the most eminent and successful sur- 
 geons of his day. He went to Foxboro in 1858 or 1859, and prac- 
 ticed there for some thirty-two years. He married, first. Miss Mary 
 Caroline Smith of Bennington, who died May 28, 1845 ; married, 
 second, Emeline, daughter of Leland and Polly Crosby Fairbanks 
 
210 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 of Wardsboro; died in Taunton, Massachusetts, December 15, 
 1890. 
 
 Harriet Maria, born March 14, 1824; married June 15, 1848, Joel 
 Mills Haven of Dummerston; died at Rutland September 35, 1878. 
 He was of the firm Fisher & Haven, merchants in Brattleboro. 
 At the time of her death she was president of the Rutland Auxil- 
 iary of the Woman's Board of Foreign Missions; vice-president 
 for the state of the National Woman's Christian Temperance 
 Union. Her deep religious experience and knowledge of the Bible 
 made her a remarkable Sunday school teacher. She was of the 
 stuff reformers are made of, full of inspiration which was carried 
 with indefatigable energy into good works for her fellow creatures. 
 
 Lemuel, M.D., born January 4, 1826 ; married, first, Miss Lucretia 
 Ann Pope; married, second. Miss Maria Knapp of Foxboro; he 
 died August 4, 1895. 
 Willard Arms, born February 28, 1793; married January 1, 1822, 
 
 Miss Nancy Crombie, born September 17, 1805; he died April 17, 
 
 1836. Their children were: 
 
 Willard, died in infancy. 
 Maria, born October 6, 1796; died July 11, 1816. 
 
 Whitney Family — ^Judge Lemuel Whitney 
 
 Judge Lemuel Whitney was born in Petersham, Massachusetts, in 
 1764 and came to Newf ane in 1785, where he held the office .of sheriff. 
 
 He removed from Newfane to Brattleboro East Village in 1790, occu- 
 pying at first a low, unfinished house where the Peoples Bank now is. 
 The next year he bought about an acre of land on "the plain," ^ as the level 
 part of Main Street was then called, brought from Newfane Hill his house 
 containing but two rooms and, with another story under it, set it up on 
 the site of the house now occupied by Mrs. George Dowley. Additions 
 and improvements on this house made it finally one of the most attrac- 
 tive in the village. Here he lived until his death on April 4, 1857. 
 
 He was town representative ten years, from 1803 to 1807, 1827, 1831, 
 1832, 1834, 1836 ; clerk of the Supreme Court ; 1796 to 1816, clerk of the 
 county; 1817 to 1828, judge of probate; 1790 to 1847, justice of the 
 peace. From 1818 to 1821 he was the grand master of the Masons in 
 Vermont. 
 
 He was a man of independent opinions and fearless in his expression 
 of them, and as honorable as he was independent in all the relations of his 
 life. "In theology, a Unitarian ; in politics, a Whig to the backbone, and 
 
 1 The land now the Common was, in other records, spoken of as "the plain." 
 
%, 'T-'F 
 
 
 DOCTOR SAMUEL STEAIUSfS 
 
 
 COCKAVWE. BOSTON 
 
U^^J^. 
 
 ^tr%^^ v=^^^^ 
 
 
 COCKAYNE. BOSTON 
 
WHITNEY FAMILY 311 
 
 a warm admirer of Henry Clay. He was, as compared with most men, 
 of gigantic stature, and his dignified presence, with a good understanding 
 of parliamentary rules, well qualified him to preside at public meetings." 
 Mrs. Sophia Root, consort of Lemuel Whitney, died July 6, 1843, aged 
 fifty-three. 
 Children : 
 
 Susan, married Grindall R. Ellis ; died September 9, 1873, aged eighty- 
 four; they had three children. 
 Lieutenant George, died October 19, 1834, aged twenty-seyen. 
 Lieutenant Lemuel, died February 38, 1835, aged twenty-four. 
 Captain Samuel Brenton, married January 1, 1831, Miss Amelia Hyde. 
 They moved to Woodstock, Vermont, in 1835 ; she died May 18, 1851, 
 aged fifty-one. Children: 
 
 George Frederick, born December 34, 1831 ; married February 7, 
 1849, Miss Augusta Eaton; died December 6, 1866. Children: 
 Harry, Mary, Ellen. 
 Emily Hyde, born October 33, 1833; married October 34, 1849, 
 Charles Chapman of Woodstock; died September 3, 1908. Chil-. 
 dren: Frank H. of Rutland; Carrie, married George Updike of 
 Omaha ; Lucy, married Frederick W. Wilder ; Henry B. of Wood- 
 stock; Mary, married Pliny Fisk. 
 Susan Jane', born September 36, 1835 ; died August 8, 1833. 
 Dana Hyde, born March 6, 1838; died at Newport News, Virginia, 
 
 July 33, 1861. 
 Lucy Fitch, born February 38, 1830; married October 10, 1859, at 
 Woodstock, Vermont, James Brewer Jones, born at Windsor March 
 > 31, 1836, died December 31, 1901. Children : Fred Whitney, born 
 February 15, 1861, died January 3, 1871; William Field, born 
 April 33, 1863, married at Portland, Maine, November 14, 1894, 
 Miss Lena A. Newhall, and has a son, James Newhall, born October 
 17, 1897, and a daughter, Eleanor Whitney, born December 8, 
 1901, died September 38, 1917; Mary Wells; Ellen Hyde; Alice 
 Whitney. 
 Charles Lemuel, born at Cavendish, February 33, 1833 ; in 1834 his 
 parents moved to Brattleboro. Lemuel was tuner for J. Estey & 
 Company and later head tuner of the New Haven Organ Company. 
 For several years he was salesman for J. Fisk, Senior. He married 
 Frances Jane, daughter of John Gore, born October 9, 1836 ; died 
 November 17, 1873. He was agent for a mowing machine 
 invented by her father. In 1853 he became proprietor of the old 
 Brattleboro House. He finally entered the employ of O. B. North 
 
212 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 & Company, New Haven, in 1869. He died January 8, 1912, at the 
 home of his daughter, Alice Chase, who married George B. Bascom 
 of Ticonderoga. 
 Samuel Brenton, born June 4, 1842 ; died August 3, 1914 ; organist 
 of Christ Church, Boston. 
 
 Honorable Richard Whitney 
 
 Honorable Richard Whitney, a brother to Judge Lemuel Whitney, 
 was born in Petersham, Massachusetts, in 1776, practiced law in Brattle- 
 boro in 1808, and was secretary of state in 1806. 
 
 He was one of the group of intellectual and literary lights who shone 
 as members of the literary society, but became mentally deranged towards 
 the end of his life. He was committed to the care of Mr. Hooker of 
 Hinsdale, New Hampshire, the son-in-law of Reverend Bunker Gay, 
 whose house on the Hinsdale road is still standing. 
 
 A council of physicians — Doctor Perley Marsh of Hinsdale being one 
 of the council — decided upon trying, for the recovery of Mr. Whitney, 
 their theory of cure ; a temporary suspension of his consciousness by 
 keeping him completely immersed in water three or four minutes, or until 
 he would become insensible, and then by resuscitation awaken him to new 
 life. Passing through this desperate ordeal, it was hoped, would divert his 
 mind, break the chain of unhappy associations and thus remove the cause 
 of his disease. Upon trial this system of regeneration proved of no avail, 
 for, with the returning consciousness of the patient, came the knell of 
 departed hopes, as he exclaimed, "You can't drown love." 
 
 The next resort was opium, and Mr. Whitney died under the treat- 
 ment, September 9, 1815. He is buried in the cemetery at Hinsdale. 
 
 The vat in which this victim of the medical profession suffered and 
 struggled back to life is still to be seen in its original place, a witness to 
 what would, otherwise, be considered an incredible story. The tradition 
 is that the cries of Doctor Perley Marsh's patients worked with such 
 poignance on the sympathies of his wife that, when she became a widow, 
 she resolved on the benefaction to Brattleboro which was the foundation 
 for the Asylum for the Insane in this place. 
 
 The monument over Mr. Whitney's grave has the following inscription : 
 
 Here lies the mortal remains of 
 Richard Whitney, counsellor at 
 law, of Brattleboro, Vermont, who 
 departed this life Sept. 9, 1815, 
 aged 39 years. Those who knew 
 
HON. JAMES ELLIOT 213 
 
 him not, may learn from this 
 monumental stone that his vir- 
 tues have rendered his memory 
 precious to his bereaved friends. 
 The sight of it will excite a ten- 
 der recollection of his. worth in 
 the bosoms of those who knew 
 him, and a tear of sincere regret 
 at his early and untimely depart- 
 ure. Let us humbly hope he has 
 gone where his virtues will be 
 justly appreciated. 
 
 Elliot Family — Honorable James Elliot 
 
 Honorable James Elliot was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, August 
 18, 1775. His father died at sea when he was an infant, of disease con- 
 tracted in the navy in the service of his country, and his mother subse- 
 quently removed to Salem, Massachusetts, to live among relatives. At 
 the age of seven he went to work for Captain Sanderson, a merchant and 
 farmer at Petersham, Massachusetts. He had already manifested a pre- 
 cocious taste for reading, had read the Bible three times ; in reading he 
 gained a thirst for military glory. 
 
 He remained in Petersham seven years, and from there came to Guil- 
 ford, Vermont, where he was clerk in a general merchandise store. The 
 Indians were active in their hostilities upon the settlements northwest of 
 the Ohio, and on July 17, 1793, he enlisted at Springfield, Massachusetts, 
 as the first noncommissioned officer in the Second United States Sub- 
 Legion, commanded by Captain Cornelius Lyman. 
 
 After his return to Guilford in 1796 he had a store of his own, studied 
 law, and about 1800 began to practice at the bar, occupying an office with 
 his brother Samuel in Brattleboro. 
 
 In 1798 he published four volumes, entitled "The Poetical and Miscel- 
 laneous Works of James Elliot, Citizen of Guilford, Vermont, and late 
 a Non-Commissioned Officer in the Legion of the United States." 
 
 Many of the pieces are versifications of the odes of Horace. Among 
 the pure original effusions is one on "The Autumnal Seasons," addressed 
 to Royall Tyler, of which the four concluding stanzas are : 
 
 Oh Thou ! my early and my constant friend ! 
 
 In thee the fruits of early knowledge shine ; 
 In thee the graces and the virtues blend — 
 
 A soul sincere, a feeling heart are thine. 
 
214 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 In thee has nature various powers displayed; 
 
 Art, eloquence and taste, alike to grace 
 The bar, the senate, or the studious shade. 
 
 To wield the sword, or tread the walks of peace. 
 
 On thee, long may the rays of science fall. 
 
 And in thy life and writings greatly glow : 
 Long be thy useful life — and thine be all 
 
 That conscious virtue can bestow. 
 
 Be thine throughout life's variegated year, 
 
 The meed of genius and the poet's lays ; 
 And in thy autumn may bright suns appear. 
 
 To gild the happy winter of thy days. 
 
 "Polite Literature" was a formative influence on the minds and man- 
 ners of this period, and poesy was one of the accomplishments of a cul- 
 tivated man or woman. Of unequal merit, these poems are printed here 
 to make known the inner individuality of the writers. 
 
 Considering the period at which our author wrote, soon after the close 
 of the Revolutionary War, his ideas of equality may be considered as 
 possessed of interest. 
 
 Ode to Equality 
 
 All hail, divine Equality ! 
 
 Benignant daughter of the sky ! 
 
 Sister and friend of Godlike Liberty ! 
 
 Descend from the ethereal plains. 
 
 Proclaim on earth, Jehovah reigns ! 
 
 'Tis Nature's King who rules on high. 
 
 O'er Countless Equal Worlds Equal Power Maintains ! 
 
 Thou, gentle, soothing, sovereign balm of woe, 
 
 And purest bliss that human beings know, 
 
 'Tis thine to cheer old age and guide the youth: 
 
 Come issue from thy calm retreat, 
 
 And fix on earth thy peaceful seat 
 
 Attended by the radiant Orb of Truth ! 
 
 On Reason's basis build thy throne; 
 Exalt the peer and prince to Man^ 
 And humble all the ignoble clan ! 
 Beneath Oppression's iron rod. 
 
HON. JAMES ELLIOT 215 
 
 Obedient to a tyrant's nod, 
 
 No more, the wretched, human race shall groan — 
 
 Oh ! come with Virtue in thy train, 
 
 And o'er the Universe extend thy glorious reign! 
 
 The book contains twenty-five short essays, called "The Rural Moral- 
 ist," which had been generally published in The New England Galaxy. 
 Of these, one was written by his brother, Samuel Elliot, and another by 
 John H. Palmer, then a youth of seventeen. They are apparently imita- 
 tioris of Addison, Steele and other English authors of that time and are 
 quite creditable to the writers. But the most interesting part is a journal 
 kept by the writer during his military service. He was also the author of 
 a series of critical essays called "The Rural Wanderer," printed in The 
 Farmers' Museum. 
 
 Mr. Elliot was clerk of the Vermont House of Representatives, 1801 
 and 1803 ; elected as a Federalist to the Eighth Congress and was re- 
 elected to the Ninth and Tenth, 1803 to 1809 ; representative to the State 
 Legislature, 1818 and 1819 ; clerk of Windham County Court, 1819 and 
 1830, and constantly from 1836 to 1836, inclusive; register of probate 
 from December 26, 1832, to November 30, 1834; state's attorney, 1837 
 and 1838 ; justice of the peace for twenty-one successive years. 
 
 Following his six years in Congress he resided a short time in Philadel- 
 phia, where he edited The Freeman's Journal, and returned to Brattleboro. 
 
 He was one of the incorporators of the first joint stock company that 
 originated in Brattleboro, which built the first bridge connecting the East 
 Village with New Hampshire, in 1804. He sustained through life the 
 character of an honorable man, with talents and intellectual acquirements 
 of the first order. 
 
 His superior mental endowments were made more effective to the public 
 service by habits of thorough study. The variety of subjects of which he 
 had accurate knowledge was remarkable in' view of the limited oppor- 
 tunities of his youth. Congressional records contain reports of his 
 speeches on fifteen different questions of national importance. In the 
 Ninth and Tenth Congress he made notable speeches in relation to the 
 defense of ports and harbors, on suspension of writs of Habeas Corpus, 
 and on the tariflf. 
 
 He went to Newfane about 1835, represented that town in the Legisla- 
 ture, 1837-1838, and died there November 10, 1839, aged sixty-four; his 
 remains were brought and deposited in Prospect Hill Cemetery. 
 
 He married Lucy, daughter of General Dow, who survived him thirty 
 years, residing in Binghamton and New York with her daughter. She 
 died January 35, 1869,' aged eighty-eight. 
 
216 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Children : 
 
 James Madison. 
 
 Mary A., married at Dover September 37, 1833, Wright Pomeroy of 
 New York; he died March 21, 1884, aged seventy-three; she died 
 April 33, 1896, aged eighty-four. Their only child, Stella M., died 
 March 13, 1869, aged thirty-five. 
 
 Honorable Samuel Elliot was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, 
 August 16, 1777. Samuel, like his brother James, began active life as 
 clerk in a store in Guilford, but came to Brattleboro before 1800, was ad- 
 mitted to the Windham County bar in June, 1804, and established a law 
 practice here. In 1804 with several others he was instrumental in the 
 erection of the first bridge across the Connecticut River. In 1805 he pur- 
 chased fifteen acres of land west of Main Street on either side of what 
 is now Elliot Street, which was named for him, and in 1808 all the land 
 west of his first purchase extending the length of that street, south of 
 Green Street and to Whetstone Brook and erected a brick dwelling house 
 of two stories, in the midst of extensive and well-laid-out grounds. His 
 law office, a one-storied wood building, stood where the Peoples National 
 Bank now is. He sold, about 1835, the site of this property to Ashbel 
 Dickinson. He succeeded John W. Blake as postmaster but, being a 
 prominent and active Federalist during Jefferson's administration, lost the 
 office and was succeeded by Asa Greene in 1811. 
 
 He was judge of probate for this district, 1807, 1808, 1813, 1814, 1839, 
 1830, 1838, 1839, and represented the town in the State Legislature, 1813, 
 1814, 181.5, 1823, 1833, 1838, 1839, 1830 ; he was a member of the Con- 
 stitutional Convention in 1814 ; was a candidate for Congress ; was also 
 associate judge of this county in 1844-1845, where he was widely known 
 as a man of marked ability and unquestioned integrity. He was state's 
 attorney in 1814, 1833, 1833, 1834. He was justice of the peace twenty- 
 seven successive years. 
 
 A natural philanthropist, he was concerned for the alleviation of every 
 kind of suffering the world knew. 
 
 In 1836 his mind and heart were stirred by the atrocities committed on 
 the people of Greece by the "unspeakable Turks." Mr. Elliot's influence 
 and eloquent appeals led to an organization of ladies who contributed 
 garments of their own making, which were sent with those from different 
 parts of New England to those unfortunate people. 
 
 At that time William Morgan, a stone mason of Batavia, New 
 York, wrote a book revealing the secrets of Freemasonry, followed by 
 the abduction and probable murder of Morgan. "Freemasons unfit for 
 
HON. SAMUEL ELLIOT 317 
 
 an office of confidence" became a political slogan in an anti-Masonic con- 
 vention. In the Vermont congressional campaign of 1839 seven thousand 
 votes were cast by anti-Masons. "A Voice from the Green Mountains on 
 the subject of Masonry and Anti-Masonry by Samuel Elliot, Esquire," 
 was printed by George W. Nichols in 1833. 
 
 Patriotism was another controlling passion in Mr. Elliot's nature, to 
 which his eminent powers as an orator were dedicated. The principal 
 figure in Fourth of July celebrations, his services were in demand wher- 
 ever justice and mercy were in need of noble and fitting expression. 
 
 Like many of his gifted contemporaries, his intimate feelings often 
 found vent in verse. 
 
 He married May 36, 1805, Miss Fanny Foster, who died the following 
 year, leaving a child, Edwin Day Elliot. (Died June 15, 1873. His widow, 
 Annie, died August 10, 1888.) Burnham speaks of her "blooming 
 beauty" that found so soon a grave. On her tombstone in Prospect Hill 
 Cemetery is inscribed : 
 
 For other nymphs let 
 
 vernal roses bloom. 
 Mine be the dreary region 
 of the tomb. 
 In Memory of 
 Mrs. Fanny A. Elliot 
 Consort 
 of Mr. Samuel Elliot 
 who died July 36, 1806, 
 ae 23 
 
 World farewell ! Gay Scenes of life adieu, 
 
 1 go to join my dear departed friends. 
 
 In The Brattlehorough Messenger of December, 1834, were printed 
 these lines addressed by the boy, then eighteen years of age, to his 
 unknown mother: 
 
 In childhood's gay and sportive hours, 
 
 I reckless play'd upon thy grave; 
 Well pleased to pluck the sweet wild flowers. 
 
 Which o'er thy grassy bed did wave. 
 
 I loved to view thy marble stone, 
 
 To read the sculptur'd letters try ; 
 But when my father wept thereori, 
 
 I could not think what made him cry. 
 
218 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Remembrance cannot bring to light 
 
 Thy form, or make thy face appear ; 
 But fancy paints thee fair and bright 
 
 As holy, beauteous angels are. 
 
 And now I love to think of thee — 
 
 Of all thy virtues, all thy worth — 
 And hope my soul with thee will be 
 
 When I am pillowed deep in earth. 
 
 Ode 
 
 Written for the Celebration, at Brattleboro, of the 51st Anniversary 
 
 of American Independence — By E. D. Elliot. 
 
 Tune — "Adams and Liberty." 
 
 Ye sons of New England, oh ! welcome the day. 
 
 When our fathers arose, 'mid war's wild commotion, 
 And swore to destroy the wild despot's array, 
 Or die for their country with patriot devotion : 
 Though each prospect look'd drear, 
 Yet they thought hot of fear. 
 But sternly pursued their heroic career, 
 Resolving to burst the harsh fetters they wore. 
 And still live as freemen — or cease to live more. 
 
 Then the tempest of war gather'd over our land. 
 
 And the slaves of Oppression and Discord surrounded ; 
 But Heaven protected our patriot band. 
 Till Earth with the fame of their exploits resounded : 
 Then from regions of light. 
 Fair Freedom took flight. 
 And our green hills first saw the goddess alight. 
 And may she her blessings ne'er cease to bestow. 
 While our mountains stand fast, and our rivers shall flow. 
 
 From Europe, debas'd by oppression and crime. 
 
 The Eagle of Liberty quickly ascended. 
 And sought in the wilds of this far western clime. 
 An asylum, by valour and virtue defended : 
 Here in peace she resides. 
 In her strong hold confides, 
 And her pinions shall rest, while Freedom presides : 
 And still shall our mountains — our valleys be free, 
 While the gales fan our shores, or enHven the sea. 
 
ELLIOT FAMILY 219 
 
 And oh ! while we cherish one thought for the dead, 
 
 Or memory the worth of our sires shall retain, 
 The Rights for which fearless they suffer'd and bled, 
 IVe will sink in the grave, or with honour maintain. 
 And though Peace we desire. 
 Should invaders conspire. 
 Like our sires we will conquer, or freemen expire : 
 "For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, 
 While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves." 
 
 Children of Edwin Day and Annie Elliot : 
 James Henry^ of Newark, New Jersey, editor of The Home Journal, 
 married September 5, 1864, Miss Sarah E. Dresser of Blackstone. 
 William Cowper of Providence, Rhode Island, married October 11, 
 
 1871, Miss Kittie L. Clarke. 
 Fanny Foster. 
 
 Rose Standish, married June 33, 1873, Louis H. Stellman. 
 Children : 
 Wilhelm E. Stellman of West Brattleboro, married Lillian, daugh- 
 ter of Thomas Miller. They have a daughter, Maxine. 
 Gladys. 
 Louis M. Stellman of Syracuse, New York, married Miss Corinne 
 
 Blodgett. Children, Evelyn and Barbara. 
 Frances M.,^ born March 8, 1876, graduated from Glenwood Semi- 
 nary, and took a nurse's training at Lynn, Massachusetts. She 
 was for two years an efficient nurse in the Ancon Hospital in 
 the Panama Canal Zone; this was followed by public health 
 work in South Boston, and in Wallace, Idaho. 
 November 34, 1808, Mr. Elliot married, second, Linda, who was Widow 
 Pease, a daughter of Rutherford Hayes ; she died January 5, 1832. Their 
 children were : 
 Reverend Samuel Hayes, born October 23, 1809; he graduated, 1841, 
 from Union College, and Yale Seminary ; married October 9, 1844, 
 Marcia Laurette, daughter of Colonel C. R. Harvey of Woodbridge. 
 He was pastor at Woodbridge, Jamestown, New York, and West- 
 ville, Connecticut, from 1842 until 1855, and conducted West Rock 
 Seminary, but was compelled by failing health to leave the ministry, 
 
 1 Under the name Mercutio he was a frequent contributor to the Brattleboro 
 newspapers. 
 
 2 January 1, 1919, Miss Stellman became superintendent of the Brattleboro 
 Mutual Aid Association, where her remarkable ability, wisdom and poise found 
 further opportunity for public service. She died May 24, 1919. 
 
230 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 when he entered into business in New Haven. He was author of : 
 "The Rolling Ridge" ; "Parish Side" ; "Attractions of New Haven" ; 
 "Emily Maria: a True Narrative"; "Dreams and Realities in the 
 Life of a Pastor and Teacher," etc. "New England Chattels, or Life 
 in the Northern Poor House," had a wide circulation and was the 
 means of radical reformation in the treatment of the poor. Before 
 this time many of the poor were auctioned off to the highest bidder. 
 He died September 11, 1869. 
 
 James H. Elliot finished his course at Trinity College with promise, 
 and had been chosen to be valedictorian of his class but was pre- 
 vented by illness, and he died December 2, 1838, at Savannah, 
 Georgia, aged twenty-seven. 
 
 Fanny E., born December 28, 1813 ; died April 2, 1852. 
 
 Belinda, born April 6, 1816; married August 27, 1839, R. W. B. 
 McClellan, son of Robert and Jane Bolton McClellan of Colerain, 
 Massachusetts. She wrote of her brother, William C, 
 
 He was our youngest brother, fondly loved — 
 Companion, friend, and cherished counsellor. 
 
 Sweetly in him did blend 
 A childlike, simple spirit, with a mind 
 Matured, refined, with knowledge and with grace. 
 To God he consecrated all he had: 
 Yes, on His altar freely laid himself. ' 
 
 William C, born June 21, 1818. The health of William C. EUiot, the 
 youngest son, failed after about two years at Trinity College in 
 Hartford, Connecticut, and he died in Brattleboro December 5, 
 1839. 
 
 Janette, born December 11, 1820, after her school life in Brattleboro 
 attended the Misses Draper's School in Hartford, and afterwards 
 lived with brothers and sisters in North Adams, New Haven and 
 Providence. A poem by Janette Elliot, "Family Gatherings," ap- 
 peared September 26, 1850. She married May 12, 1867, Marion 
 Keeler of Fremont, Ohio;' she died in Fremont September 4, 1899, 
 leaving three children. 
 
 Sophia, born June 18, 1823 ; married December 21, 1845, S. Gilbert 
 Smith, born in Marlboro February 13, 1824; she died May 28, 
 1904, aged eighty. He died in 1889. Children : 
 Mary EUiot, born September 2, 1849 ; died November 15, 1870. 
 Reverend Chfford Hayes, born August 11, 1856; married, first. 
 Miss Nellie Bartlett; married, second. Miss Martha Votey. A 
 son, Howard. 
 
SAMUEL STEARNS, M.D., LL.D. 321 
 
 Alice Janette, born September 13, 1861; married May 13, 1890, 
 
 Fred C. Brown. Children : Raymond C, Maud Anna. . 
 Anna W., born July 1, 1864; married May 1, 1908, Rodney 
 Wheeler of West Brattleboro. 
 
 Honorable Samuel Elliot married, third, Sophia, daughter of Captain 
 Elisha Flint of Brookline, November 19, 1834. He died December 10, 
 1845. She died December 27, 1845, aged thirty-five. 
 
 Mr. Elliot wrote several papers on the appearance of Lafayette in this 
 country in 1824 ; also the following : 
 
 Oration at West Springfield, Mass., July 4, 1803. Printed by A. 
 Haswell & Co., Bennington. 
 
 An Oration delivered at Brattleborough, Vt., February 22, 1812. 
 Printed by William Fessenden, Brattleborough. 
 
 An Address to the members of the Washington Benevolent Society, 
 and Publick, delivered at the Semi-annual meeting of the county Society 
 of Windham County, Vt., at Newfane, June 11, 1812. Printed by Wil- 
 liam Fessenden. 
 
 Oration pronounced at Brattleborough, Vt., before the Washington 
 Benevolent Societies, July 6, 1813, in Commemoration of American Inde- 
 pendence. Printed in Brattleborough. 
 
 A copy of Orations and Addresses of Samuel Elliot is in the Historical 
 Society's Library, State House, Montpelier. 
 
 In 1842 was printed An Humble Tribute to my Country ; or Practical 
 Essays, Political, Moral and Miscellaneous, including a brief account of 
 the Life, Sufferings and Memorable Visit of General Lafayette, by Hon. 
 Samuel ElHot, printed by Otis, Broadus & Co., 1842. 
 
 Samuel Stearns, M.D., LL.D., 
 was the second son of Benjamin Stearns, who was born in Concord, 
 Massachusetts,' November 8, 1714. He married Dinah Wheeler of Boston 
 in 1738; died January 5, 1755. Their second son was Samuel Stearns. 
 
 In the northwest corner of Prospect Hill Cemetery is a slate stone slab 
 fast going to decay, which bears the following inscription : 
 
 Samuel Stearns, LL.D. 
 Died Aug. 8, 1810. 
 Nature was his preceptor, philosophy 
 His mistress, and astronomy his prompter. 
 Disappointment ever succeeded his best 
 Endeavors; he deserved better. 
 Ingratitude was the reward of his labors. 
 Peace to his ashes. 
 
322 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 That Samuel Stearns was a remarkable man for his time, and that he 
 experienced life's vicissitudes in their most aggravated form, is demon- 
 strated in the few fragmentary accounts of his life that are left to us. 
 It is difficult, with the slight amount of material at hand, to arrive 
 at an estimate of this man's character, so as to partially, at least, account 
 for the multiplicity of his misfortunes and discover the reason why he 
 was pursued with such pertinacity by "the shafts and arrows of 
 outrageous fortune." He had an overconfidence in his intellectual 
 ability, and as a result was possessed of an egotism that must have 
 rendered him obnoxious to many with whom he came in contact. 
 In his writings he frequently refers to himself as Doctor of Canoni- 
 cal and Civil Law, speaks of his extensive travels in Europe, of his 
 numerous astronomical publications, and is constantly alluding to prior 
 events in his own life in such a manner as to give the reader the impres- 
 sion that he loved to magnify his own achievements. He was born in 
 Lancaster, Massachusetts, in 1747, and was, to Use his own language, 
 "early taught by parents and ministers to fear God and honor the king. 
 I was also instructed in the various branches of grammar, arithmetic, 
 algebra, geometry, trigonometry, navigation, surveying, astronomy, music 
 and medicine. I always had a natural inclination to do good; to walk 
 in the paths of righteousness, and to shun vice and immorality." Proba- 
 bly all his instruction was received at the hands of his parents and the 
 village clergyman, though his- medical studies may have been directed 
 by some neighboring physician, as he makes no mention of having 
 attended academy or college, which he would have been likely to do had 
 such been the fact. It is evident that he received a good education from 
 some source, and when quite young removed with his parents to Paxton, 
 an adjoining town, where, at the age of twenty-six and on the eve of the 
 Revolutionary War, we find him engaged in the practice of medicine and 
 compiling and publishing almanacs. Up to this time nothing had occurred 
 to change the current of his. existence; his medical practice was fair, and 
 his fame as an astronomer led many of the inhabitants to consult him on 
 the turn of future events. But upon the announcement of hostilities 
 between the colonies and the mother country his troubles began. At the 
 outset, and probably with reason, he was suspected of being a Tory ; his 
 practice fell off, his friends deserted him, and the wonder is that, enter- 
 taining the sentiments he did respecting his allegiance to the King, he 
 did not find means to dispose of his property and flee to the royal lines. 
 He chose to remain, and endure the sneers and insults that were no doubt 
 freely bestowed upon him until 1780, when he was arrested. His experi- 
 ences for the next seven years are given in his own words, copied from 
 a petition dated at Brattleboro, July 18, 1799, and addressed to His Excel- 
 
SAMUEL STEARNS, M.D., LL.D. 223 
 
 lency Robert Listen, Esquire, British Minister to the United States, 
 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (then seat of the United States government), 
 and by him to be transmitted to the King : 
 
 To the King's Most Excellent Majesty : — 
 
 The petition of Samuel Stearns most humbly, — That when the unhappy 
 dissensions commenced between Great Britain and Your Majesty's Ameri- 
 can colonies he was an inhabitant of Paxton, in the county of Worcester, 
 in the province of the Massachusetts Bay, where he followed the practice 
 of physic and the making of astronomical calculations. That for a num- 
 ber of years he suffered persecution in consequence of his loyalty to 
 Your Majesty, and attachment to the British government, was made a 
 prisoner on the twenty-third day of September, A. D., 1780, accused of 
 holding a traitorous correspondence with, and of ofifering aid and com- 
 fort to the enemy, supposed to be Your Majesty's armies, but was liber- 
 ated by giving bonds for his appearance before the Supreme Judicial 
 court in April following. 
 
 That on the third day after he was thus recognized he received infor- 
 mation that his adversaries had issued a second warrant with a design to 
 put him in close confinement, and finding that his life was in great danger, 
 fled for protection to Your Majesty's army, then at New York. That 
 he resided within the British lines during the remainder of the war, and 
 Congress having ratified the treaty of peace between Great Britain and 
 America, he returned to said Paxton in the year 1784, with a design to 
 collect sundry debts due to him, ascertain the value of the property he had 
 left and remove his family to Nova Scotia. 
 
 That although it had been agreed in the 6th article of said treaty, that 
 no prosecutions would be commenced against any person, etc., for, or by 
 reason of the part he had taken in the war ; and that no person would on 
 that account, suffer any future loss or damage, either in his person, liberty 
 or property, yet in less than two days after his return he was seized and 
 imprisoned in the gaol in said county of Worcester, under the pretence of 
 being brought to trial, in consequence of the accusations already men- 
 tioned. 
 
 That, without any trial, without the finding of any bill against him, 
 and without his being allowed anything to eat, drink or wear, at the 
 expense of the county or state (water excepted) he suffered two years 
 and eleven months' confinement in a very disagreeable prison, although it 
 had been customary to allow state's prisoners something for their subsist- 
 ence, even if they had been thieves, highway robbers and murderers, and 
 although he frequently petitioned the general court or assembly of the 
 commonwealth of Massachusetts praying for liberation and the enjoy- 
 
2U ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 ment of those rights which were granted to him as one of Your Majesty's 
 subjects in the definitive treaty of peace between Great Britain and 
 America. 
 
 That, for a long time he was treated with neglect and contempt, but 
 was at last discharged from confinement on the 28th day of July, 1787, 
 by order of the said General Assembly. That he was liberated in a very 
 distressed condition, being destitute of house and home and the common 
 necessaries of life, but went with his claims for the loss of his houses, 
 lands, etc., to Montreal, in the Province of Quebec, in hopes it was in the 
 power of the commissioners appointed by Your Majesty to inquire into 
 the losses, services and sufiFerings of the American loyalists, to grant 
 compensation. That he found it was not in the power of the commis- 
 sioners to receive his claims because they had not been delivered to them 
 previous to the beginning of May, 1786, at which time he was in prison. 
 He, therefore, went to Great Britain, petitioned for relief and had some 
 compensation granted for what he suffered in the time of the war, but 
 not anything that he knows of, for his sufferings since the establishment 
 of the peace. That he returns his sincere thanks to Your Majesty for 
 those favours, and further begs leave to mention that he returned to 
 America in the year 1791 ; and having been informed that the common- 
 wealth of Massachusetts had paid for his board whilst he had been a 
 state's prisoner, went into that government to visit his friends in the year 
 1793, when he was unexpectedly seized and imprisoned in the gaol in 
 the county of Bristol, for not paying for said board. That he suffered 
 four days, eighteen hours and fifteen minutes close confinement in said 
 county of Bristol, and lost by this prosecution 141 pounds, 16 shillings 
 and 6 pence, sterling. He also lost, when imprisoned in Worcester, 273 
 pounds, 19 shillings and 9 pence, sterling, in consequence of his non- 
 appearance before the Supreme Judicial Court, when he resided within 
 the British lines in the time of war, the greatest part of which sum was 
 paid to said commonwealth by his bondsmen, who were also imprisoned. 
 That said imprisonment also prevented his collecting the debts that were 
 due to him in said state, which amount to 368 pounds, 6 shillings and 6 
 pence, sterling, including the principal, which, joined, amount to 784 
 pounds, 2 shilHngs and 9 pence, besides the two years, eleven months, four 
 days, eighteen hours and fifteen minutes imprisonment which he has 
 suffered repugnant to the requisitions of the articles of the peace. That 
 he has petitioned to Your Majesty's commissioners in Philadelphia, and 
 those appointed by the President and Senate of the United States of 
 America, for the purpose of ascertaining the amount of all losses and 
 damages as divers merchants and others. Your Majesty's subjects have 
 sustained in consequence of their being debarred by sundry lawful impedi- 
 
SAMUEL STEARNS, M.D., LL.D. 225 
 
 ments from collecting their debts in said states, praying that the said 
 commissioners, would aid and assist him in obtaining compensation, but 
 they esteem themselves as not empowered to act upon the subject, because 
 his imprisonment is considered not as a lawful but as an unlawful impedi- 
 ment to his collecting his debts. That he understands that a number of 
 Your Majesty's subjects in Nova Scotia and elsewhere, who formerly 
 belonged to Massachusetts, are debarred from receiving compensation for 
 their debts in the same mariner, although it does not appear by the records 
 that the General Assembly of Massachusetts ever repealed the laws they 
 made in the time of the war for the purpose of protecting the American 
 loyalists, and which were repugnant to the definitive treaty of peace 
 between Great Britain and America, till the year 1787. That it appears 
 by an article of Congress passed in the year 1794:, that no foreigner is 
 allowed to sue any state within the limits of the United States of America. 
 Therefore, he sees no way to obtain compensation for the injuries and 
 abuses that he has received than that of imploring Your Majesty's most 
 gracious aid and assistance. He therefore prays that Your Majesty will 
 be graciously pleased to aid and assist your petitioner, and, all others 
 Your Majesty's loyal subjects, who have been injured by violations of the 
 treaty aforesaid, "and for whom, no provision appears to be made at 
 present for their relief" in obtaining compensation of the United States 
 in such a way and manner as Your Majesty in your wisdom may see fit. 
 
 This petition bears the following endorsement : 
 
 Sworn before me this 23d of July, 1799. 
 
 Luke Knowlton, 
 
 Member of the Honorable Council for the State of Vermont in America 
 and Justice of the Peace throughout said State. 
 
 The five or six years succeeding his release from imprisonment, 1787, 
 were spent in various parts of the United States and Europe. In 1789 
 he was for a short time engaged in editing The Philadelphia Magazine. 
 He also published an almanac, which was printed in Bennington, though 
 it does not appear that he had at that time any intention of locating in 
 Vermont. (The Universal Calendar and North American Almanack for 
 the year of our Lord, 1790, and from the creation of the world, according 
 to Sacred Writ, 5752. Being the second after Bissextile or Leap Year, 
 and the fourteenth of the Independence of the State of Vermont and 
 America, calculated for the Latitude and Longitude of the State of Ver- 
 mont. By Samuel Stearns. Professor of the Mathematics, Natural 
 Philosophy and Physic. Printed at Bennington, Vt., by Haswell & Rus- 
 sell. 12mo. pp. 24. The same for 1791.) 
 
326 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 In 1790 he published a work entitled "A Tour in Holland, by an Ameri- 
 can." This work was published in Worcester, Massachusetts, though 
 he was then in Europe; probably he sent over the manuscript. In 1791 
 he had published in Dublin a work entitled "Doctor Stearnes's Tour from 
 London to Paris" ; also, in London, "The American Oracle," 1791, com- 
 prehending an account of recent discoveries in arts and sciences. Not 
 far from 1796 he came to reside permanently in Vermont. His first settle- 
 ment was in Dummerston, where he engaged in the practice of physic. 
 There were at that time several families in this section who had removed 
 here from the vicinity of his early home, which may have been the reason 
 he selected this comparatively new state for his residence ; or it may have 
 been that he sought to elude creditors, who were forever on his track. 
 Very soon after his arrival he took steps to consummate a scheme that had 
 been in his mind for many years. His own words will best convey the 
 scope of his project: "In the year 1772, observing that the physicians 
 could not agree when they met to consult upon dangerous cases, I under- 
 took to examine into the causes of the disagreements, and found it to be 
 from their being instructed by dififerent physicians and by different 
 books." To remedy this he proposed to publish a regular and universal 
 system of surgery, physic and materia medica, so that all physicians might 
 receive their instructions from the same source and forever put an end 
 to medical bickerings. He had carefully prepared such a work, entitled 
 "The North American Dispensatory" — of 350 pages. He died before it 
 was finished, but the materia medica portion is complete. 
 
 He petitioned individuals, medical societies, Stqte Legislatures, and 
 finally the United States Congress, with a persistency that is painful to 
 contemplate, to aid him in establishing a lottery whereby he might raise 
 the means necessary ($15,000) to place his work before the medical fra- 
 ternity. The matter finally resulted in his publishing in 1801, by sub- 
 scription, a small work entitled "Stearns' Herbal," which, viewed in the 
 light of the ambitious project of which it was the outcome, seems con- 
 temptible in the extreme. Upon the list of subscribers are forty-seven 
 names comprising the most prominent citizens of that time in Brattleboro. 
 Here is a letter he received in reply to a petition sent to Judge Tillinghast, 
 then a member of Congress from Rhode Island, soliciting his aid in secur- 
 ing an act to legalize a lottery for the purpose mentioned above. It is a 
 fair specimen of the replies he received from all whom he addressed on 
 the subject — not a positive rebuff, but an excuse that varied with the posi- 
 tion and circumstances of the individual addressed : 
 
 Philadelphia, Feb. 13, 1799. 
 S. Stearns, Esquire, — Dear Sir: Your favor of last month, enclosing 
 petition and sundry letters, received. According to your request, I de- 
 
SAMUEL STEARNS, M.D., LL.D. 337 
 
 livered your letters and advised with some influential members respecting 
 the adoption of the measure, and have to observe that I received very little 
 encouragement. I was at the time so much out of health as to entirely 
 prevent me from attending Congress for about ten days. Immediately 
 upon being able to resume my seat I offered your petition and moved 
 a reference to a select committee, to which the House did not agree. Am ■ 
 not able to ascertain with precision the reason which actuated this deci- 
 sion, but presume it rests on the ground of Congress never having granted 
 a lottery in any case, and also that it is not in the power of any person to 
 secure the copyright of any performance of the kind. With respect, 
 ob't serv't, 
 
 T. TiLLINGHAST. 
 
 Received March 6, 1799. 
 
 Although the last ten or twelve years of his life were spent in Vermont, 
 he seems to have continued his early habit of roving about, as he speaks 
 of being in a number of different places in New England. After settling 
 here, it is not known how he obtained his livelihood ; he might have real- 
 ized something from the sale of his books ; perhaps he continued his medi- 
 cal practice in a desultory way, or friends may have assisted him. He 
 taught astronomy and other branches of higher mathematics. He was 
 for a time in Newf ane Jail, for debts ; while there he wrote a poem entitled 
 "The widower in Jail exposed to Sale," dated July 15, 1780. He was 
 married before his arrest in 1780, but it is still unknown whether or not 
 he had any children. During the last few years of his life he had a strange 
 predilection for writing doggerel verse. Any commonplace occurrence 
 would at once suggest to him a theme and, once started, his jingling irieter 
 would continue indefinitely. A specimen or two may suffice to give an 
 idea of his abilities as a versifier : 
 
 Lines Addressed to Young Students. 
 
 If thou art young and hast a mind 
 Much profit in the world to find 
 
 And be a man of fame ; 
 Then learn to read, also to write. 
 To cypher too and well indite 
 
 And wear an honest name. 
 
 He continues in the same strain to the extent of twenty stanzas, giving 
 advice on every subject that would be likely to cross the mind of a school- 
 boy. Here is an epitaph which was written at the request of the parents 
 of the deceased, though not until eight years after her death. 
 
328 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 In memory of Miss Polly Ward, who died Nov. 17, 1795, aged 5 
 years, 6 months, 37 days. 
 
 By bouling cyder she was slain 
 
 When less than 6 of age. 
 Then her exquisite Racking pain 
 
 Removed her from the stage. 
 
 But her immortal spirit went 
 
 To the Almighty King 
 Where all the Godly ones are sent 
 
 The praise of God to sing. 
 
 During his residence within the British lines in 1780-1783, he compiled 
 and published the first nautical almanac that was ever printed in America. 
 Reverend Doctor Walker of Hartford, consulted respecting the authen- 
 ticity of this claim, and when and where he obtained his degrees LL.D. 
 and M.D.,^he received F.R.S. in England, — made a reply, though not 
 giving exact date, interesting as tending to show that authorities recog- 
 nize his titles and support his claim. He says: "I find in looking up 
 Samuel Stearns that he is in the Boston Athenaeum Catalogue and else- 
 where, credited with his degrees M.D. and LL.D. Also that some of the 
 notices accord to him the credit of the first publication of nautical 
 almanacs." 
 
 In what has been written there is more or less confusion of dates, but 
 in the main they are correctly stated. 
 
 He died in Brattleboro August 8, 1810. 
 
 The epitaph of his first wife, Sarah, in Dummerston, reads : 
 
 The Hon. Mrs. Sarah Stearns, the amiable consort of the Hon. Samuel 
 Stearns, one of the senators of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, 
 Physician and Doctor and Master of the canon and civil laws, died in 
 this town Oct. 14, 1801, aged 54 years, ten months, 23 days. 
 
 He married, second, Mrs. Elizabeth Kelly, widow of Alexander Kelly 
 of Dummerston, who died January 15, 1803. Dr. Stearns's marriage 
 certificate reads : "This may certify that on the tenth day of November 
 in the year 1803, the Hon. Samuel Stearns L.L.D. one of the Royal Pen- 
 sioners of the Kingdom of Great Britain, after being lawfully published 
 three Sundays, was on the said tenth of November legally married by me, 
 according to the method practiced by the church of England, to Mrs. 
 Elizabeth Kelly of Dummerston, in the county of Windham, State of 
 
JOSEPH CLARK 329 
 
 Vermont, in America and in the presence of the following witnesses, — 
 Samuel Mead, Rector of the church in Alstead." Eleven witnesses were 
 present. 
 
 There was quite a village in school district Number 3, East Dummerston. 
 The store known as Roger Birchard's burned in 1870, was owned in 1804 
 by Captain Jabez Butler, a Revolutionary soldier, Samuel Stearns, M.D., 
 LL.D., and Asa Houghton, astronomer. Doctor Stearns probably lived in 
 the house north of the store. An old apple tree set out near the house in 
 1776 measured thirteen feet in circumference. Mr. Stearns claimed he 
 gathered from it, in a single year, fifty bushels of apples. A sister of 
 Doctor Stearns was wife of William Herschel, the astronomer. 
 
 Joseph Clark 
 
 came from England to Auburn, Massachusetts, at an early date and died 
 in 1800. 
 
 Children: 
 Joseph of Brattleboro, born in 1775, married April 3, 1796, Miss Free- 
 dom Alexander of Northfield, Massachusetts. She died September 
 6, 1834. 
 
 Joseph Clark at one time owned most of the land on the south side 
 of Whetstone Brook to the Vernon and Guilford lines, and established 
 the first shop for wool carding and cloth dressing. The water rights 
 owned by him were sold, in 1811, to Francis Goodhue by John Hol- 
 brook. He was for many years engaged in the hardware and drug 
 business on Main Street. He was representative in 1800-1801 and 
 1855. He died October 31, 1870. 
 Henry, married Electa, daughter of Jonathan Goodenough, in 1808; 
 she died in 1810, and he afterwards married Eunice, her sister, who 
 died in 1823. Children: 
 
 Electa, born February 30, 1814; married May 10, 1836, Doctor Reu- 
 ben Spaulding of Montpelier, Vermont; died February, 1855. 
 Children : Henry G., a Unitarian clergyman of Boston, Massachu- 
 setts; Frederick; Edward, M.D., died in Dorchester April 16, 1876, 
 aged thirty-one. 
 Joseph, born February, 1816 ; married, 1846, Elisabeth, daughter of 
 Doctor Charles Chapin of Brattleboro, who died October 4, 1870. 
 Children : Oliver C. ; William O.,. who died September 29, 1876, 
 aged twenty-six. 
 George H., born January 13, 1818. He was educated in the common 
 schools of Brattleboro, studied surveying with Addison Brown and 
 with his father, who was also a surveyor, and was engaged most of 
 
230 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 his life in that occupation and in farming. November 7, 1843, he 
 
 married' Sarah Hubbard, daughter of Colonel Erastus Nims of 
 
 Sullivan, New Hampshire, who died May 2, 1896. He resided in 
 
 this town all his life ; died November 30, 1901. Their eldest son : 
 
 Henry G., born October 14, 1843 ; married December 16, 1865, 
 
 Miss Josephine Wooster of Brattleboro, who died September 10, 
 
 1899. Children : 
 
 Mary Josephine, married June 30, 1893, Gerry L. Messer. A 
 
 son, George. 
 Sarah Louise, married January 1, 1895, Ernest E. Perry. 
 
 A daughter, Clara Clark. > 
 
 Alice Cordelia, married June 19, 1894, Charles A. Risbey of 
 
 New York. 
 Charles H., born January 17, 1873. 
 Henry married, third, Sophia, daughter of Judge Gilbert Dennison 
 of West Brattleboro, who died October 3, 1855, aged sixty-one. He 
 died March 19, 1855. Their daughter, Sophia D., married November 
 5, 1850, Thomas Doane of Charlestown, Massachusetts. 
 Freedom,^ married Hiram Houghton. 
 
 RuFus, died June 10, 1860, aged sixty-nine. Sally Goodenough, his 
 wife, died April 8, 1889, aged ninety-two. She was a woman of rare 
 graces of character, manners and speech. Deprived of her eyesight 
 for some years before her death, she was cared for in the home of her 
 daughter Eunice, who married Reverend E. Hale Barstow. 
 Children of Rufus and Sally Goodenough Clark: 
 Mary A., born January 18, 1818 ; married December 9, 1841, Rever- 
 end Thomas P. Tyler; died May 17, 1850. 
 Caroline G., born September 8, 1820 ; married March 13, 1844, Rev- 
 erend James Aiken, born November 10, 1810; died February 1, 
 1885 ; she died March 11, 1895. 
 Sarah Frances, died March 29, 1843, aged nineteen. 
 Eunice Goodenough was educated at Mrs. Phelps's School, West 
 Chester, Pennsylvania; married Reverend E. Hale Barstow, for 
 some years pastor of the Congregational Church of Walpole, New 
 Hampshire, and was afterwards at the head of a private school in 
 Newton, Massachusetts. Mr. Barstow with his family subse- 
 quently moved to Haverhill, New Hampshire, where he died April 
 10, 1862, at the age of forty-six, and Mrs. Barstow continued to 
 reside there until her death, June 14, 1885, aged sixty-three. She 
 
 1 Freedom H. Clark married October 17, 1839, Robert H. Pitman of Albany, 
 New York, according to another record. 
 
CLARK FAMILY 231 
 
 left four children : one son living in the West ; another studying for 
 the ministry; a daughter, Sally Clark, 1851-1916, a teacher in 
 Bradford Academy, Massachusetts ; a younger daughter, a teacher 
 in Portland, Maine. 
 
 "None knew Mrs. Barstow but to love her — of graceful person 
 and pi-esence, winning and refined in speech and manners, glad and 
 hopeful of face, with true motherly devotion to her family, of the 
 tenderest filial regard for the comfort and happiness of the aged 
 mother, kind and condescending to her inferiors without sacrificing 
 her innate dignity of character, and over and above all the graces 
 of a noble Christian life." 
 Rufus, Junior, married January 7; 1863, Miss Jane A. Mason ; died 
 March 28, 1876, aged thirty-six; she died March 7, 1913, aged 
 seventy-five. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 AN INDUSTRIAL ERA 
 
 John Holbrook— William Fessenden (The Reporter)— Joseph Fessenden— Thomas 
 Green Fessenden — Joseph Steen — Honorable John Noyes — General Jonas Mann. 
 
 Deacon John Holbrook 
 
 The era of industrial development which made the early prosperity of 
 this village began with the coming of John Holbrook in 1795, of William 
 and Joseph Fessenden and, in 1811, of Francis Goodhue. 
 
 Deacon John Holbrook was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, July 
 10, 1761, and died in Brattleboro April 6, 1838. At the beginning of the 
 Revolutionary War, his father moved with his family to Dorchester. 
 English officers stationed on Dorchester Heights were so pleased with the 
 conduct and appearance of young Holbrook that they offered to instruct 
 him in drawing and suAreying and engineering. The opportunities of 
 obtaining knowledge of this character were limited in this country at the 
 time, and to this event in his early history may be attributed much of his 
 success in after life, although his natural gifts of mind and . character 
 would have triumphed over obstacles under any imaginable circumstances. 
 He soon became so efficient that he was employed by the government, and 
 in this capacity, soon after he became of age, his duties led him beyond 
 his native state to Newfane, Vermont, where he brought letters of recom- 
 mendation to Luke Knowlton, one of the first judges of the Supreme 
 Court of Vermont and of the county court, who assisted, him to employ- 
 •ment as a land surveyor. Young Holbrook ran town and division lines 
 in the vicinity of Newfane. The county of Windham was largely pri- 
 meval, an almost unbroken forest, and his work was attended with many 
 hardships; many a winter's night he was forced to sleep in the dense 
 forest on a bed of hemlock, subsisting on sliced pork spread over brown 
 Indian bread. 
 
 At the age of twenty-five he married Judge Knowlton's daughter, 
 Sarah, who was a young woman of uncommon personal beauty and grace 
 and in her subsequent life a power in Brattleboro's social life. For a few 
 years they lived in Newfane and Wardsboro, and children were born to 
 them in both towns; they moved to Brattleboro in 1795-1796. She used 
 
en 
 
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 i 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 o 
 n 
 
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 o 
 
 13 
 
 o 
 
 i 
 
 o 
 o 
 

 y A^^ ct» 
 
 JOSEPH GOODHUE 
 
 WELLS GOODHUE 
 
 COCXAYNK. BOSTON 
 
JOHN HOLBROOK 233 
 
 to relate to her grandchildren how one day she and her mother were left 
 alone in the house when they heard a great racket outside and, going to 
 the window, saw a huge bear in the act of ripping the boards from the 
 pigpen ; then, seizing a pig, he carried it to the woods near by. The men, 
 soon returning, were told of the bold capture, and started in pursuit of 
 bruin, which in time was brought back, several excellent steaks being cut 
 for the family consumption from the carcass, while the skin made a com- 
 fortable robe. The settlers sought such elevations as Newfane Hill, to 
 protect themselves from the Indians who were wont to make their attacks 
 from ambush along the valleys. 
 
 From Newfane, where he had a share in a small general store, Mr. 
 Holbrook took his produce and articles of barter on pack horses over a 
 bridle path defined by marked trees along the West River Valley, down 
 through Brattleboro, then unsettled, to Greenfield, where they were ex- 
 changed for dry goods and groceries. His eldest daughter, afterwards 
 Mrs. Fessenden, was the first woman to ride in a wheeled conveyance 
 from Newfane to Greenfield. 
 
 After accumulating his first $1000, he moved to Brattleboro, buying 
 the old mill which stood where Hines & Newman afterwards built their 
 machine shops, and also buying the house which in later years was con- 
 verted into a public house known as the American House, his family 
 occupying the house in part. He soon sought another outlet for his 
 farmers' produce and articles of domestic industry and handiwork, taken 
 in at the Brattleboro store, and for this purpose formed a business part- 
 nership with David Porter, a leading merchant of Hartford, Connecticut, 
 under the firm name of Porter & Holbrook at Hartford, and Holbrook 
 & Porter at Brattleboro. He started the first flat-bottomed boats on the 
 Connecticut River between here and Hartford, and for many years these 
 boats were the principal means of exchanging heavy freight with the 
 seaboard. He owned The Highlander, a flatboat that would carry twenty- 
 four tons and was the largest on the river. He became successful in im- 
 • porting goods from the West Indies all the way to Brattleboro by water. 
 Thomas Hines, father of Colonel Arnold J. Hines, was Mr. Holbrook's 
 assistant in starting his first mechanical operations. He also built a 
 slaughterhouse on the island across the river, where large quantities of 
 beef, pork, hams and tongues were cured for the West Indian market. 
 
 About the year 1811 he sold his house, store, mills and other property 
 to Francis Goodhue, who came from Weathersfield, Vermont, in that 
 year, and who at once took an active and conspicuous part in the town's 
 trade and life. Mr. Holbrook then removed to Warehouse Point, Con- 
 necticut, where he lived two or three years. He was one of the original 
 
234 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 directors of the old Phoenix Bank of Hartford, and is said to have put the 
 first bank notes in circulation in Brattleboro. 
 
 In 1816, owing to the death of his son-in-law, William Fessenden, who 
 married his daughter Patty, and was for many years an enterprising 
 paper-maker, printer, bookbinder and dealer, as well as publisher of one 
 of Brattleboro's first newspapers, it was necessary for Mr. Holbrook to 
 return to Brattleboro to assume charge of the business, which he subse- 
 quently enlarged after taking as partner Joseph Fessenden, brother of 
 William, who was also a son-in-law, under the firm name Holbrook & 
 Fessenden. The pure whiteness and clearness of the post and letter paper 
 made at their mill were said to be due to the purity of spring water for 
 which the town was noted. 
 
 For undertaking to publish a large family Bible, by subscription, in this 
 obscure town, so far away from the centers of trade, Mr. Holbrook was 
 ridiculed by the foremost publishers of the day in New York and Boston, 
 and certain failure by them was confidently predicted ; but they little knew 
 the character or capabilities of the man. In spite of prophecy and dis- 
 couragement, he supplied all subscribers with the Bible and made it a 
 complete financial success. 
 
 Mr. Holbrook retired from active business, though still associated with 
 the firm Holbrook & Fessenden from 1832 to 1837, when he became presi- 
 dent of the Brattleboro Bank. Joseph Fessenden died in 1834:. John C. 
 Holbrook, son of Deacon John, and others then bought out the old con- 
 cern, and published in Boston, as Richardson, Lord & Holbrook, a 
 twelvemo, octavo, quarto and a Polyglot Bible, Comprehensive Commen- 
 tary, Church History and Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, doing a 
 very large business. The company failed owing to poor management 
 during the financial crisis of 1836 and sold to William Field, later Ticknor 
 & Field. John Holbrook's name had been given freely to his son's notes 
 and when the panic came his own fortune was seriously impaired. 
 
 July 15, 1816, "Mr. John Holbrook was set apart as deacon" by the 
 members of the first church of the East Village. In 1826 John Holbrook, 
 Asa Green and Francis Goodhue formed the Western Aqueduct Associa- 
 tion which brought to High Street the first water supply. He was one of 
 the first trustees of the High School Association and one of the original 
 trustees of the Vermont Asylum for the Insane. The Holbrook residence 
 was at the corner of Main and Elliot Streets, where the Vermont National 
 Bank now stands, but when he retired from active business in, 1825 he 
 built the house facing the Common, which is the best specimen of colonial 
 architecture the town has had, with twenty acres adjoining, which were, 
 laid out under his direction in flower, vegetable and fruit gardens. He 
 also built for his son, John C, the fine brick mansion, third house north 
 
JOHN HOLBROOK 235 
 
 of the Congregational Church on Main Street, afterwards occupied by 
 Major J. J. Crandall, Wells Goodhue, B. D. Harris and George C. Averill. 
 
 Deacon John Holbrook had "a tall, strong and well-proportioned figure 
 and a commanding personality." An anecdote is extant which illustrates 
 his sterling, resolute and independent character. A clergyman, who was 
 a distant relative, was temporarily enjoying the deacon's hospitality when 
 a discussion arose, the parson persistently advocating the doctrine of 
 infant damnation. Although the deacon was the leader and supporter of 
 the church, he refused to further entertain one who held such "damnable 
 views" and firmly showed his guest the door. 
 
 The Vermont Phoenix of April 13, 1838, said of him : 
 
 He was one of the oldest inhabitants of this village, and had probably 
 done more to promote its prosperity than any other individual. For 
 many years he was occupied in extensive business with his f ellowmen, and 
 by his unyielding integrity he won the respect of all who knew him. The 
 afflicted and distressed always received his attention and kindness; and 
 he was ever ready to aid all worthy public enterprises and institutions. 
 By this afflictive dispensation of Divine Providence, his family are be- 
 reaved of a kind and affectionate husband and father; the church with 
 which he was connected of one of its firmest pillars and brightest orna- 
 ments ; the community of an useful member ; and the world of a generous 
 philaiithropist. 
 
 John Holbrook married November 30, 1786, Sarah, daughter of Judge 
 Luke Knowlton of Newfane; died April 6, 1838; she died March 32, 
 1851, aged eighty-four. 
 Children : 
 Patty, born March 21, 1788 ; married October 9, 1807, William Fessen- 
 
 den ; died January 16, 1870. 
 Franklin, born January 27, 1792 ; died February 4, 1810. 
 Frederick. (See p. 788.) 
 Sibbel Lane, born June 15, 1794, in Wardsboro; married October 1, 
 
 1810, Joseph Fessenden. (See p. 238.) 
 Sarah, born March 28, 1796 ; married September 17, 1818, George W. 
 
 Hall, who died in 1825; she married, second, June 28, 1828, Isaac 
 
 Cbale of Boston ; she died September 5, 1849. 
 Sophia K., born March 15, 1798; died November. 20, 1821. 
 Lucinda, born March 25, 1800 ; married February 10, 1823, Rudolphus 
 
 Bennett, Junior ; died November 8, 1843, in Davenport, Iowa. 
 John Calvin. (See p. 495.) 
 Eliza, born April 15, 1804; died March 23, 1858. 
 
236 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 The Reporter — Fessenden Family — William Fessenden 
 
 The Reporter was started by William Fessenden in 1803-1804. He was 
 born in 1779, in Walpole, New Hampshire, the son of Reverend Thomas 
 K. Fessenden. After learning the trade of printer in his native town, 
 where he served his time with Messrs. Thomas & Carlyle, he stopped in 
 Brattleboro on his way to New York to procure employment as a journey- 
 man printer ; and the fact becoming known to his landlord, Samuel Dick- 
 inson, John W. Blake, Esquire, and other leading men, who desired to 
 have a Federal paper published here, Mr. Fessenden was induced to 
 remain and embark on the undertaking. He obtained a press and other 
 materials in Boston, at second-hand, established The Reporter and 
 remained proprietor of it until his death in 1815. 
 
 This was a village of hardly a dozen dwellings when Mr. Fessenden 
 commenced publishing his paper. With no capital, but a mind fertile in 
 resources, he labored' under great disadvantages. He often made a jour- 
 ney on horseback to some distant paper mill, and returned with just 
 enough paper bound upon the back of his horse to issue The Reporter 
 one week. 
 
 At this time Anthony Haswell was trying to publish "Webster's Spelling 
 Book" in Bennington. As Mr. Haswell did not succeed, his effects were 
 soon sold. Mr. Fessenden in some way came into possession of the plates 
 and fixtures for the spelling book. Under his economical, judicious man- 
 agement there was a demand and inducement for many helpers in this 
 enterprise, and the population soon doubled. 
 
 The editorial charge of the paper was after the first few years left 
 largely to others, in 1814-1815 being in the care of his brother, Thomas 
 Green Fessenden. 
 
 Soon after the death of Mr. Fessenden it passed to his father-in-law. 
 Deacon John Holbrook, whose daughter Patty he married October 9, 
 1807, and by Mr. Holbrook it was continued until merged into The 
 Brattlehorough Messenger about 1836. In the meantime another paper. 
 The Independent Freeholder and Republican Journal, was started about 
 1808 by a printer named Peter Houghton, under the patronage of Judge 
 Chapin, but was soon discontinued. 
 
 Mr. Fessenden, accompanied by his wife and infant, was returning to 
 Brattleboro from a visit to his friends at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1815. 
 While riding in a sleigh, some miles from any habitation, he was suddenly 
 seized with an apoplectic attack.. Mrs. Fessenden, with a child in her 
 arms and a dying husband at her side, drove to Mr. Pomroy's inn at 
 Northampton, Massachusetts, and here Mr. Fessenden soon breathed his 
 last. It was not only that he was a man of great business sagacity, thereby 
 benefiting himself and others, but it was his integrity, benevolence, "moral 
 
WILLIAM FESSENDEN 237 
 
 excellence and social virtues that won all hearts. Only thirty-six years 
 of age at his death, and only about twelve years a resident of this place, 
 yet men who attended the funeral service of Mr. Fessenden have said 
 that never, before or since that time, has the death of any person caused so 
 universal sorrow ; all business was suspended, and when the head of the 
 procession arrived at Prospe'ct Hill Cemetery the rear rested on Main 
 Street opposite the entrance to Elliot Street. He died January 20, 1815. 
 The following extract is taken from the village paper of January, 1815 : 
 
 Rarely does it occur that a person who had so much to do with mankind 
 in the common concerns of life, so universally obtained' their good will ; 
 no man was his enemy, no one spoke of him but in praise. He was at the 
 head of a widely extended establishment, that he had himself created, 
 which gave employment and bread to a large number of families and indi- 
 viduals in this village, where his early death will be long felt and deeply 
 regretted. Cut off in the prime of life and in the triidst of his usefulness, 
 his decease has created a void which we almost despair of seeing again 
 occupied. He was amiable in private and useful in public life; a most 
 affectionate husband, a fond parent, a dutiful son, an affectionate brother 
 and a steady friend ; open-hearted and generous,- he had nothing selfish in 
 his nature, and apparently lived more for others than for himself. 
 
 Left a widow in 1815, with four children, "Mrs. Fessenden seemed to 
 
 have a charmed life. Time withered the faces of her contemporaries and 
 
 covered them up in darkness forever, while her face, at fourscore years, 
 
 had the smoothness and bloom of youth. Though all her life one of the 
 
 most attractive, substantial and beautiful women in Brattleboro, no earthly 
 
 influence, no second love, could swerve her devotion from the memory of 
 
 the early loved and lost. Of the character and magnitude of her loss, as 
 
 well as the loss of the community of that day, the traditions and records 
 
 of the past inform us." 
 
 Children : 
 
 Reverend William W. Fessenden, born March 9, 1812, left his native 
 
 town in 1842, and from that time until 1880 was in New York City as 
 
 bookkeeper and accountant. He was then ordained minister of the 
 
 Clinton Avenue Congregational Church, Brooklyn, Long Island, and 
 
 having a personal income sufficient to admit of freedom in the choice 
 
 of activities, he supported a mission in North 8th Street and gave 
 
 liberally to many like Christian benevolences. He died January 26, 
 
 1900. 
 
 Sarah E., a very brilliant woman, married in 1828 the Honorable Elisha 
 
 Allen; died April 20, 1845. (See p. 522.) 
 
238 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Sophia W., possessed great personal beauty, a strong mentality, and 
 
 sparkling wit; she died August 6, 1890. 
 Ellen C, married J. S. Blake of Boston; died July 24, 1881, aged 
 
 fifty-one. 
 
 Brattleboro Imprints. 13 vols., 16mo and 12mo, calf, by Wm. Fes- 
 senden. 
 
 Call to Unconverted, etc., Richard Baxter, printed by Wm. Fessenden, 
 16mo, 1813 ; Force of Truth, an authentic narrative, Thos. Scott, 18mo, 
 1819 ; Lindley Murray Grammar, 12mo, 1819 ; Murray abridgment, pub. 
 by Holbrook, 18mo, 1815; Narrative of Indian Wars in New England, 
 Wm. Hubbard, 16mo, 1814; Meditations and Contemplations, Jas. Her- 
 vey, 16mo, 1814; Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan, 16mo, 1815; Essay on 
 Bailments, Wm. Jones, 1813; Prayer, etc. for Particular Persons, Benj. 
 Jenks, 16mo, 1814; Heartease in Heart Trouble, under all kinds of Afflic- 
 tions, John Bunyan, 18mo, 1813 ; Stranger in France, Tour Devonshire to 
 Paris, first printed London, 1803, Fessenden, Printer, 16mo, 1806 ; Rasse- 
 las, Prince of Abyssinia and Dinastas, Samuel Johnson, in 1 vol., 1813 ; 
 Solitude Sweetened, etc., Jas. Meikle, 1817; Elements of Philosophy of 
 Human Mind, 1808 ; Human Understanding, John Locke, 1806, etc. 
 
 These books are of superior workmanship in both printing and binding. 
 
 Joseph Fessenden, born January 17, 1777, after the death of his 
 brother William became associated with his father-in-law. Deacon John 
 Holbrook, in the publishing business and the manufacture of paper. He 
 owned and occupied, at the time of his decease, the estate afterwards 
 purchased for the Vermont Asylum for the Insane, and now covered by 
 their extensive buildings. 
 
 Mr. Fessenden married Miss Sibbel Lane Holbrook, and together they 
 added greatly to the attractions of this valuable property. She died Jan- 
 uary 38, 1835. 
 
 A humanitarian spirit, manifested in action as in sentiment, was the 
 prominent feature in the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Fessenden. 
 To the noble influence of the Fessenden family this village owed an eleva- 
 tion of tone about this time which was felt in the social conditions years 
 after they had passed away. 
 
 At a society meeting of the Congregational Church, of which Mr. Fes- 
 senden was a prominent member, he was stricken with apoplexy and died 
 August 28, 1835. 
 Children : 
 
 General Franklin H. Fessenden, born September 24, 1811, the 
 oldest son of Joseph Fessenden, was one of the partners in the pub- 
 lishing house at the time the business was assumed by the "Brattle- 
 
FESSENDEN FAMILY 239 
 
 borough Typographic Company." He was also of the firm Hall & 
 Fessendep, agents of the Vermont Mutual Fire Insurance Company, 
 established in 1828 ; later of the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Com- 
 pany and in 1847 of the New England Health Insurance Company. 
 He married December 20, 1832, Henrietta A., eldest daughter of 
 Major Henry Smith, born October 31, 1813. 
 
 He received his commission as brigadier-general in 1834. 
 General Fessenden was a valuable member of society, highly 
 esteemed for his many noble qualities, and died in Brattleboro, much 
 lamented, January 2, 1863. Mrs. Fessenden died at Menasha, Wis- 
 consin (April 2, 1884), where she had moved with her family in 1869. 
 Children : 
 William Alfred and Joseph, died in 1834 and 1836, each being one 
 
 year of age. 
 Frederick Holbrook, born January 6, 1837; killed in battle near 
 
 Nashville, Tennessee, December 16, 1864. 
 Jane R. S., born November 26, 1838 ; married April 11, 1861, Ed- 
 ward F. Wright of New Auburn, Minnesota; died July 9, 1866. 
 Ann Elizabeth, born September 2, 1841 ; married October 14, 1869, 
 Charles E. Judson of Ansonia, Connecticut; he died December, 
 1912. 
 Harriet Augusta, born November 4, 1844; married October 15, 
 
 1868, A. Duane Clinton of Menasha, Wisconsin. 
 Thomas Kendall, born July 22, 1849 ; died April 3, 1915. 
 James Craig, born June 24, 1854; died December 30, 1869, of 
 
 cholera at Zanzibar. 
 Mary Chester, born August 12, 1859 ; married October 27, 1886, 
 
 George L. Borden of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. 
 Sophia W., died August, 1890. 
 Reverend Thomas R. Fessenden, born September 10, 1813, began his 
 studies with Reverend E. H. Newton and continued them at Phillips 
 Exeter Academy and at Pittsfield, Massachusetts ; he graduated from 
 Williams College in 1833, after which he studied theology at An- 
 dover, Yale and Princeton ; he was licensed by the Windham Asso- 
 ciation and served as pastor in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New 
 York State until 1854. He married October 23, 1839, Miss Nancy 
 Cowles of Farmington, Connecticut. 
 
 He was a member of the Connecticut Legislature three years; 
 established an Industrial School for girls in Connecticut; raised 
 $300,000 for Hampton Institute, Virginia ; and gave himself to every 
 good work in Farmington, Connecticut, where he died January 10, 
 1894. 
 
240 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Jane Wells, born August 24, 1815 ; married Doctor Joseph Clark of San 
 Francisco; died July 9, 1896. 
 
 Elizabeth Porter, born July 5, 1817; noted for personal beauty, and 
 superior mental qualities ; died with consumption July 28, 1836. 
 
 William Alfred, born May 27, 1819, was drowned in the Connecticut 
 River, opposite the village, August 2, 1826. His body, and that of 
 another lad, Andrew Jackson Shattuck, were taken from the water 
 by some members of a circus troupe, at that time near the river mak- 
 ing preparations for their exhibition. 
 
 Thomas Green Fessenden 
 
 was born at Walpole, New Hampshire, in 1771. He graduated at Dart- 
 mouth in 1796, and immediately thereafter entered upon the study of law 
 at Rutland, Vermont, with Nathaniel Chipman, with whom he afterward 
 formed a partnership and practiced for about a year. During his residence 
 at college he had evinced a rare literary taste, and had attracted some 
 attention by the publication of a Yankee ballad entitled "Jonathan's Court- 
 ship," so that while pursuing his law studies he frequently contributed to 
 the columns of The Farmer's Weekly Museum. One of his earliest pro- 
 ductions, an ode to the new year, 1798, is quoted by Buckingham in his 
 "Newspaper Reminiscences"; he says it filled a whole page of The 
 Museum. It opens thus : 
 
 Old Time, a persevering codger. 
 Like debtor dunned, a nimble dodger. 
 Who, having scampered one inch by you. 
 Will never afterward come nigh you. 
 
 Another, published the same year and in the same paper, was designed 
 to celebrate an event which did not come off according to the program 
 laid out. The old frigate Constitution was finished, and a day appointed 
 for her launch. A large crowd assembled, expecting to see her glide 
 gently to her future honie ; but some defect in the apparatus designed to 
 assist her seaward held her fast to the stocks, and the exhibition had to be 
 postponed. Fessenden thus refers to the circumstance : 
 
 But man is under contribution 
 To sing the frigate Constitution, 
 Lest this our pithy ode be lost on 
 Commercial wits and tars of Boston. 
 Bostonians built a stately frigate. 
 
THOMAS GREEN FESSENDEN 241 
 
 And undertook to man and rig it ; 
 The aforesaid frigate, on a day 
 Appointed, was to glide away. 
 The wished-f or day arrived, when lo ! 
 Miss Constitution would not go. 
 
 For two years preceding 1801 he was constantly employed in his legal 
 practice and as a contributor to the columns of The Museum. In 1801 
 he became interested in a hydraulic hoisting machine, and, a company 
 haying been formed in this state, he accepted the foreign agency and 
 immediately sailed for Europe. Arriving in London, he found that his 
 machine was in common use there, thus at once destroying all prospect 
 of the pecuniary reward he hoped to ^ain by its introduction. He very 
 soon engaged in another .enterprise, which had recently been set on foot 
 by an American then in the city — namely, the building of a mill to be run 
 by the waters of the Thames. For what purpose this mill was to be used 
 is not ascertainable ; but at the outset it was endorsed by leading capital- 
 ists, including the Lord Mayor, and Fessenden invested his entire fortune 
 in the business. He struggled along, bearing a large share of the embar- 
 rassments and disappointments incident to the inauguration of a new 
 mechanical contrivance, for nearly, two years, when the enterprise col- 
 lapsed through lack of funds to push it farther. Meanwhile he had 
 become acquainted with Mr. Benjamin Perkins, who had recently set all 
 London agog over the wonderful cures performed by his metallic tractors. 
 These tractors — which, by the way, were the invention . of Dr. Elisha 
 Perkins of Norwich, Connecticut (born 1741), — were metallic instru- 
 ments shaped like a Itnariner's compass, and when allowed to come in 
 contact with the body, were, in theory, capable of attracting or drawing 
 out all disease, near and remote, that might be lurking in the system. 
 The success of the tractors in this country induced the son of the inventor 
 to cross the water with them, and it was he whom Fessenden met in 
 London. The tractors had proved to be the fashionable novelty of the 
 day, and Perkins's office was always crowded with patients awaiting treat- 
 ment at his hands. As a natural result he was frowned upon by the 
 members of the recognized medical faculty, and his "quackish methods" 
 denounced in no measured terms. Fessenden, either from a friendly 
 desire to defend Perkins against assaults he deemed uncalled for (as it is 
 evident he had faith in the virtue of the tractors), or else seeing in the 
 doctors' war an opportunity to reach the public mind at a favorable 
 moment and thus secure what he probably needed — funds — did, in the 
 summer of 1803, publish a volume entitled "Terrible Tractoration," a 
 poem in four cantos. It proved a success, and rapidly passed through 
 three editions, returning to the author a compensation far beyond his 
 
342 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 expectations. Of the character and merits of the work his friend Haw- 
 thorne says: "The poem professes to be a poetical petition from Dr. 
 Christopher Caustic, a medical gentleman who has been ruined by the 
 success of the metallic tractors, and who applies to the Royal College of 
 Surgeons for relief. The wits of the poor doctor have been somewhat 
 shattered by his misfortunes, and with crazy ingenuity he manages to 
 heap ridicule on his medical brethren while railing against Perkinism. 
 The first canto is most characteristic of the author. It is occupied with 
 Dr. Caustic's description of his mechanical and scientific contrivances, 
 embracing all sorts of possible and impossible projects, every one of 
 which has a ridiculous plausibility. The inexhaustible variety in which 
 they flow forth prove the author unrivalled in his way." Daniel Webster, 
 in reviewing the work in 1805, says of it : "In commending it we are only 
 subscribing to the opinions expressed by the people of another country. 
 To be behind that country in our appreciation of his merits were a stigma ; 
 it is pardonable to go beyond it. National vanity may be a folly, but 
 national ingratitude is a crime. It belongs to that class of productions 
 which have the good fortune to escape what Johnson angrily but too 
 justly denominates the general conspiracy of human nature against con- 
 temporary merit." It passed through three editions in this country, the 
 last appearing in 1836. 
 
 In 1804 Fessenden returned to New York, and for the next four years 
 was engaged in a variety of literary enterprises. His chief work during 
 this period (published in Philadelphia) was a political satire entitled 
 "Democracy Unveiled, or Tyranny Stripped of the Garb of Patriotism." 
 Like his previous effort, "Terrible Tractoration," it at once became popu- 
 lar. It lashed the Democrats with an unsparing hand, and copious foot- 
 notes laid bare every political scheme then on foot. In the latter part of the 
 year 1806 he began the publication in New York of a sixteen-page quarto 
 sheet. This too was political in character and lived only about a year. 
 A quotation from this sheet, taken from his New Year ode for 1807, 
 emphasizes the oft-asserted fact that history repeats itself, and shows 
 that the same material for poUtical weapons that we use now was in exist- 
 ence at that time. Of our navy Fessenden writes : 
 
 Of ships of war we cannot one float. 
 Save now and then a hog-hacked gunboat ; 
 With such, if bridged the Atlantic o'er. 
 They could not match a seventy-four; 
 A frigate blessed with any breeze, 
 Would run down fleets of them with ease ; 
 Nor could their means of molestation 
 The least impede her navigation. 
 
THOMAS GREEN FESSENDEN 243 
 
 In 1808 he came to Brattleboro and engaged with his brother William 
 in editing and publishing The Reporter. He resided here and at Bellows 
 Falls, where he for a short time edited a paper, until 1822, when he went 
 to Boston and became editor of The New England Farmer. During his 
 residence in this section he was constantly occupied with his pen. He 
 published two legal works, a dictionary of agriculture and "The Lady's 
 Monitor," a poem devoted to the consideration of female education, and 
 he was continually called upon for New Year odes and Fourth of July 
 addresses. Here Mr. Fessenden won the aflfection and the esteem of all 
 who knew him by the simplicity and amenity of his manners, his generous 
 and frank nature and his strict integrity. He was remarkable for his 
 good nature, and many are the sallies of his wit remembered by his 
 friends. His generosity of heart knew no bounds. The following little 
 incident illustrates his utter thoughtlessness of self when this quality was 
 called into exercise. When he first removed to Brattleboro — an entire 
 stranger to most of the inhabitants — he took a morning walk, and coming 
 to the toll bridge found there a poor family whom the gate-tender had 
 stopped for want of money. Fessenden at once emptied his pocket of all 
 the change he happened to have and let them through, passing along with 
 them. On his return he found himself in a like situation, and it was not 
 without some parleying and explanation that he succeeded in getting 
 through. 
 
 Buckiiigham says of him: "He had the book of Yankee Comparisons 
 always at the nib of his pen, and quotes from Tabitha Towzer, which you 
 will, I think, agree with him is ludicrously rich in sportive metaphor :" 
 
 My Tabitha Towzer is fair. 
 
 No guinea pig ever was neater. 
 Like a hackmatak slender and spare. 
 
 And sweet as a muskrat or sweeter. 
 My Tabitha Towzer is sleek. 
 
 When dressed in her pretty new tucker. 
 Like an otter that paddles the creek, 
 
 In quest of a pout or a sucker ! 
 
 After assuming charge of The Farmer he gave up political writing and 
 devoted his whole time to the interests of agriculture. The paper obtained 
 an extensive circulation, and its editor became known to the yeomen of the 
 United States as authority on all subjects pertaining to their interests. 
 
 The active part of his life was spent at a period when it was contemptu- 
 ously asserted by foreign reviewers that America had no literature, and 
 though the productions of his pen at that time were of a transitory char- 
 acter, yet he contributed his mite in replying to the question that has since 
 
244 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 been triumphantly answered, Who ever reads an American book? This 
 tribute is from Hawthorne : 
 
 On the 13th of November, 1837, while on my way to Boston expecting 
 shortly to take him by the hand, a letter met me with an invitation to the 
 funeral. He had been struck with apoplexy on Friday, three days before, 
 and had lain insensible till Saturday night, when he expired. The burial 
 took place at Mount Auburn on the ensuing Tuesday. It was a gloomy 
 day, .for the first snow storm of the season had been drifting through 
 the air since morning and the Garden of Graves looked the dreariest spot 
 on earth. The snow came down so fast that it covered the coffin in its 
 passage from the hearse to. the sepulchre. The few male friends who had 
 followed to the cemetery descended into the tomb, and it was there that I 
 took my last glance at the features of a man who will hold a place in my 
 remembrance apart from other men. He was like no other. In his long 
 pathway from the cradle to the place we had now laid him, he had come — 
 a man, indeed, in intellect and achievement — but in guileless simplicity a 
 child. Dark would have been the hour, if, when we closed the door of 
 the tomb upon his perishing mortality, we had believed our friend was 
 there. 
 
 Other publications of Thomas Green Fessenden : 
 
 Oration at Rutland, Vt., July 4, 1798. Together with an ode adapted 
 to that occasion. Printed at Rutland by Josiah Fay, 1798. 
 
 The American Clerk's Companion, and Attorney, Prompter. Printed 
 by John Holbrook, Brattleborough, 1815. 
 
 The Husbandman and Housewife. A collection of valuable Receipts 
 and Directions, relating to Agriculture and Domestic Economy. Bellows 
 Falls, Bill Blake & Co., ,1820. 
 
 The American Annual Register of Public Events ; Vol. III. Fessenden 
 & Co.'s Series for 1831-32. Fessenden, Brattleborough, 1833. 
 
 The, American Gardener. Boston, 1828. 1832. N. Y. 1852. 
 
 Essay on the Law of Patents, and New Industries. Boston, 1810. 
 1822. 
 
 Joseph Steen 
 
 Joseph Steen was the son of James Steen who was born in Malpos, 
 Cheshire County, six miles from Chester, England, May 19, 1761. He 
 was a landholder, and by trade a housebuilder. In December, 1785, he 
 married Elizabeth Wood, who was a native of Chester. In 1793 political 
 troubles caused the taxes to be so great upon real estate that rents were 
 not enough to pay them ; the "press-gang" also went about the country, 
 
JOSEPH STEEN 245 
 
 enlisting men peacefully if they could, but otherwise forcibly, for the army 
 and navy. 
 
 James Steen sold his property, receiving therefor but little more than 
 enough to pay the expenses of his removal. On recommendation from 
 a Mr. Nelson of London, to Kirk Booth, Esquire, of Boston — whom he 
 luckily found aboard the ship Galen on the passage — he obtained from 
 Mr. Booth a letter of introduction to Reverend William Wells, D.D., then 
 but a short time settled in Brattleboro, Vermont. He settled in this vil- 
 lage in 1795, living at first in the old Dickerman house on the point where 
 Doctor Hamilton now lives. He died February 37, 1836, aged sixty- 
 eight. 
 
 His son, Joseph Steen, was born in this village March 3, 1797. He 
 worked at housebuilding with his father until 1814, when he commenced 
 learning the trade of a printer under William Fessenden, and remained 
 with the publishing house of Holbrook & Fessenden until 1838. That 
 year he purchased of Thomas & Woodcock the right to sell in the state 
 of New York a "pulp dresser," and for the two following years he was 
 engaged in selling and installing it in the paper mills of that state. 
 
 He married January 5, 1831, Eliza L. Miller, who died October 35, 
 1881, aged eighty-one. 
 
 James Steen built the house in which the long life of his son and the 
 lives of his family were passed. 
 
 Joseph Steen's quiet operations in the book and stationery business 
 continued from 1830, when he bought of George H. Peck one-half of the 
 bookstore and bindery business, but the next year dissolved partnership 
 with Peck and took simply the bookstore and stationery business into his 
 hands. His shop was on the corner of Main and High Streets, "Steen's 
 Corner," and subsequently, 1858, on the opposite side of Main Street. 
 
 Printing was hard work in those days, being done by hand power 
 stimulated by alcohol in the form of whiskey blackstrap, rum or rye gin. 
 For being a solitary exception in a total abstinence from all intoxicating 
 liquors, Mr. Steen was ridiculed by his fellow workmen ; but he lived to 
 see nearly all of them in drunkards' graves. Near the printing office was 
 a whiskey distillery, constantly sending into the atmosphere a delightful 
 aroma, while the old presses were as constantly sending forth into the 
 same atmosphere, "The Mysteries of Udolpho," "Scottish Chiefs," 
 "Alonzo and Melissa," "Democracy Unveiled," "Paul and Virginia," 
 "Romance of the Forest," etc.^ But when he reached manhood he was 
 known to declaim in a public lyceum against novel reading; and in 1830 
 he was foremost in organizing a temperance society in this village. 
 
 ^ Peter Parley's Arithmetic, with numerous engravings, was printed by Joseph 
 Steen. 
 
246 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Mr. Steen made some approach to obeying the scriptural command, 
 "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." He read Paine's 
 "Age of Reason," but could not become an infidel. 
 
 In 1838 he tried Democracy under Van Buren's administration, and for 
 a short time was editor and proprietor of The Windham County Demo- 
 crat, years afterwards — until 1847 — conducted by George W. Nichols. 
 This experiment worked upon him as harmlessly as did Paine's "Age of 
 Reason." In 1840 he was editor of The Flail, a Whig campaign paper, 
 which had a circulation of five thousand copies per week. This paper 
 was published by William E. Ryther, later of Bernardston, Massachusetts. 
 
 Mr. Steen was the last agent appointed here for paying pensions to 
 soldiers of the Revolution of 1776, having continued that duty until the 
 last one died. 
 
 He was appointed assignee in bankruptcy for Windham County in 
 1844; justice of the peace in 1848; selectman, 1854-1855; school com- 
 mittee, first chosen to put in operation the graded school system in 1841. 
 He was prominent in advocating school reform by effective remarks 
 to the assembled voters of the district. He was severely censured by a 
 wealthy man in this place for his action respecting the schools, but neither 
 wealth nor position could ever close his mouth. He was always ready to 
 sell books, but never his principles. 
 
 His early struggles with poverty, his prudence, economy and self- 
 culture under difficulties — never having attended school over five months 
 — and being by trade a printer, remind us, in these respects, of Benjamin 
 Franklin. 
 
 In July, 1881, he sold his bookstore to W. H. Geddis. 
 
 He died August 11, 1881. 
 Children : 
 
 Edward T., of San Francisco, California, married Miss Margaret N. 
 Whitcher of New York, 1856. 
 
 Doctor William C, died in Bennington, March 4, 1862, aged thirty- 
 eight. 
 
 Annie E., born July 4, 1834; married E. E. Flint; died December 5, 
 
 1915. Children: Ethel Steen, died ; Mrs. Robert W. Murphy 
 
 of Arlington, Massachusetts. 
 
 Joseph F., of San Francisco, married Miss Laura J. Flye. 
 
 Susan B., daughter of Jonathan and Hannah (Butterfield) Salisbury, 
 who was born October 25, 1805, in the house on the east side "of the road 
 north of the Asylum, for many years following her school days was 
 employed in Holbrook & Fessenden's printing office, and also worked for 
 Joseph Steen. In 1869 she went to Hartford to make a home for a 
 
HON. JOHN NOYES 347 
 
 cousin, Edson Fessenden, president of the ^tna Insurance Company, and 
 with him she remained nineteen years. She returned to Brattleboro and 
 Hved to the age of ninety-eight, with her sister, Mary C. ; she died Decem- 
 ber 27, 1903. 
 
 Her will, besides bequests to relatives, contained substantial benefac- 
 tions for the Centre Church, the American Board of Foreign Missions 
 and the Brattleboro Home for the Aged and Disabled. 
 
 Honorable John Noyes of West Brattleboro 
 
 Prominent among the citizens of Windham County in the early part of 
 the present century was Honorable John Noyes of West Brattleboro. 
 Born at Atkinson, New Hampshire, April 2, 1764, he was fifth in the line 
 of descent from Nicholas Noyes, one of the early settlers of Massa- 
 chusetts, and inherited the aptitude for learning which belonged to his 
 ancestry. After graduating at Dartmouth, 1779, he became a tutor in the 
 college and was instructor in the class of Daniel Webster. (Mr. Webster, 
 in the time of his fame, visited Dartmouth College, and held a "reception." 
 Among the students presented to him was John H. Noyes, who was intro- 
 duced as a son of his former tutor. "I wish," said Mr. Webster, taking 
 the student's hand, "that I could do you as much good as your father 
 did to me.") Mr. Noyes's attention turned to theological study, and he 
 prepared himself for the ministry; finding it unsuited to his health, he 
 returned to teaching, and had charge for some years of Chesterfield (New 
 Hampshire) Academy. 
 
 In 1800 he removed to Brattleboro and engaged in mercantile business 
 with General Jonas Mann. Their store was in West Brattleboro. As the 
 business of the firm increased, it drew in other partners and extended its 
 operations to other towns — under the, name of Noyes & Mann in Brattle- 
 boro, 1813, or Noyes, Mann & Hayes, 1812-1830, in Wilmington and 
 Whitingham. (John Noyes was one of the richest men in Windham 
 County.) A principal article of produce in these towns was potash, ex- 
 changed for goods at the store — ^tea, coffee, tobacco, calico and plain stuffs, 
 together with' the "mug of flip," the common attendant of every bargain. 
 Nearly all classes then drank liquor, from the ministers and magistrates 
 down. 
 
 At forty years of age Mr. Noyes married Miss Polly Hayes, by whom 
 he had nine children. After serving in the State Legislature, 1808, 1810, 
 1811, 1812, he was elected to Congress from the southern district of Ver- 
 mont in 1815 and entered the House of Representatives as fellow member 
 with Clay, Randolph and other celebrities, of whom he was fond of telling 
 anecdotes in after life. 
 
 In 1812-1817 Mr. Noyes had in Dummerston a store, Noyes & Hayes, 
 
248 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 which was on the north side of the old meeting-house, west of the road, 
 in 1791, and was moved to the present site in 1795. Austin Birchard suc- 
 ceeded Rutherford Hayes in 1817, when the firm became Noyes & Birch- 
 ard; this firm dissolved in 1819. When Roger Birchard entered as partner 
 the firm became A. & R. Birchard. Mr. Noyes removed to Dumtnerston 
 and continued to reside there until 1821, when, having acquired what he 
 deemed a competence, he retired from active business to a farm in Putney, 
 and occupied himself mainly thereafter in superintending the education 
 of his children. 
 
 Mr. Noyes died in Putney October 26, 1841. 
 
 The Noyes house was built by Simeon Colby in 1794. Ebenezer Nash 
 and Asa Black were subsequent owners. Honorable John Noyes and 
 R. Hayes bought the house October 37, 1814 ; the Knights, in 1827. 
 
 An oration delivered in Brattleboro July 4, 1811, by John Noyes, Es- 
 quire, was published in Brattleboro by William Fessenden in 1811. 
 Children : 
 Mary J., born September 16, 1806 ; married June 8, 1829, "Larkin G. 
 
 Mead and lived in Brattleboro. (See p. 542.) 
 Joanna S., born September 10, 1807 ; married August 14, 1833, Samuel, 
 
 youngest son of Ezekiel Hayes II. 
 Elizabeth F., born September 16, 1809 ; married June 28, 1831, Doctor 
 
 Farnsworth E. Ransom, and had three children. 
 John Humphrey, born in West Brattleboro September 3, 1811 ; educated 
 
 at the Academy there before removal to Putney. (See p. 519.) 
 Horatio S., born April 16, 1815 ; Yale, 1835 ; married May 24, 1843, 
 Mary Augusta, daughter of Honorable David Chandler of Saxtons 
 River. He was a banker in Springfield. She died February 22, 1855. 
 He married, second, May 19, 1857, Abbie S., daughter of Charles 
 Woodman of Arlington, Massachusetts. Children: 
 Edward H., born September 18, 1844 ; graduated from Norwich Uni- 
 versity, went to Chicago in 1864, and was of the firm E. H. Noyes 
 & Company, grain merchants, a member of the Chic^igo Board of 
 Trade; married October 4, 1870, Cornelia, daughter of John G. 
 Hamilton. He died November 3, 1914. Children : William Hamil- 
 ton Noyes, Albert Hamilton Noyes. 
 Charlotte Augusta, born in Brattleboro December 29, 1846 ; died 
 
 1851. 
 Charles Rutherford, born April 16, 1858 ; U. S. Military Academy, 
 
 1879 ; second lieutenant, ninth infantry, U. S. A. 
 William Stacy, born August 4, 1859, of E. H. Noyes & Company. 
 Mary Louisa, born August 10, 1861. 
 
GEN. JONAS MANN 349 
 
 Harriet Hayes, born July 5, 1817; married March 3, 1841, John L. 
 Skinner; had one son. 
 
 Charlotte Augusta, born in Dummerston March 2, 1819 ; married Sep- 
 tember 7, 1841, John R. Miller of Putney ; had two children. 
 
 George Washington, born December 4, 1833; married July 13, 1847, 
 Helen, daughter of Alexander Campbell of Putney; had four sons. 
 
 General Jonas Mann 
 
 General Jonas Mann, born 1768; married Mary, daughter of Joseph 
 and Roxanna (Miller) Negus of Dummerston. (William Negus and 
 Joseph Negus were among the early settlers of Dummerston. ) They lived 
 in West Brattleboro, in the house now occupied by Miss Susan E. Clark, 
 and General Mann owned most of the land of the present village. He 
 was general of militia. He was on the board of directors of the old bank 
 from 1833 to 1839. He removed in 1833 to Syracuse, New York, where 
 he engaged successfully in business and where his generosity and liberality 
 towards every educational and religious effort for the advancement of 
 the people, made him one of the formative influences of that city. 
 
 He died in 1831, leaving four children, of whom Mary A., born in 
 Brattleboro March 33, 1815, inherited the best characteristics of her 
 father and mother, being unusually gentle and refined, yet possessing 
 great strength of character and common sense. 
 
 She completed her education at Mrs. Willard's School, Troy, and soon 
 after met a young graduate of West Point, detained at Syracuse by 
 illness contracted when on his way to join his regiment in the Black 
 Hawk War. The result was that in May, 1833, at the age of eighteen, 
 she was married to Lieutenant Randolph B. Marcy, then only twenty-one 
 years of age. He was born in Greenwich, Massachusetts, April 9, 1812, 
 and graduated from West Point in 1833. 
 
 She followed the fortunes of her husband with courage and cheerful- 
 ness in long journeys attended by discomfort to army posts — at first to 
 Fort Howard, on Green Bay, Wisconsin, where they passed four years, 
 to Fort Wimiebago for two years, and to Fort Gratiot, Michigan — but 
 was often separated from him, waiting in army posts for his return from 
 frontier achievements. 
 
 After 1853, when he was sent on an expedition to explore the Red 
 River, she returned again to friends at home. He was absent on duty 
 when she died, January 39, 1878, in Baltimore, where her later years were 
 spent. Although in the highest and best sense an accomplished woman 
 of the world, she preserved to the last a guileless simplicity of thought 
 and action. 
 
 In Florida against the Seminole Indians in 1857, in Utah against the 
 
250 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Mormons, promotion came to her husband. He was promoted to the rank 
 of major and made paymaster of the northwestern posts. On the out- 
 break of the Civil War Major Marcy was made General McClellan's 
 chief of staff; was promoted colonel and inspector-general August 9, 
 1861 ; served with General McClellan in campaigns in West Virginia, on 
 the Peninsula and in Maryland, being made brigadier-general of volun- 
 teers September 23, 1861. 
 
 He was finally made inspector-general of the United States Army with 
 rank of trigadier-general to date from December 12, 1878. He continued 
 in this office up to January 2, 1881, the date of his retirement after forty 
 years of service. 
 
 He died in Orange Mountain, New Jersey, November 22, 1887. 
 
 Their daughter, Ellen Mary, born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, became the 
 wife of General George McClellan, and was a woman of great social dis- 
 tinction, in Europe as in her own country. Fanny married Doctor Taylor. 
 
 General and Mrs. Marcy came many times to Brattleboro to visit her 
 birthplace, and General and Mrs. McClellan were guests at the Water- 
 Cure after the Civil War. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 NOTABLE EARLY SETTLERS— (continued) 
 
 Chief Justice Royall Tyler ("The Contrast," Description of Earliest Village from 
 autobiography of Madame Ro3fall Tyler, Literary Society) — Honorable Oliver 
 Chapin — Captain Samuel Root — Ezra Clark — Nathan B. WiUiston — Honorable 
 Jonathan Hunt — Asa Green — Grindall R. Ellis — Reverend Alonzo Church, D.D. 
 — Eccentric persons : Jimmie Barnes and Sukie, his wife. 
 
 Tyler Family — Chief Justice Royall Tyler 
 Chief Justice Royall Tyler was the son of Royall Tyler, whose 
 father, William Tyler (born March 15, 1688, died July 1, 1755), married 
 December 7, 1710, Sarah Royall (born September 33, 1688, died April, 
 1740), daughter of Joseph and Mary Royall. William Tyler married, 
 second, Jane, daughter of William and Margery Bray Pepperell, who was 
 a sister of Sir William Pepperell. 
 
 Royall Tyler was born in Boston, Massachusetts, July 18, 1757. 
 His family was wealthy and influential, giving him favorable oppor- 
 tunities for intellectual culture. His father, Royall Tyler, Senior, was 
 a man of marked ability, and a graduate of Harvard College at nine- 
 teen years, and soon after engaged in mercantile business in company 
 with his brother-in-law, Samuel Phillips Savage. He was a member of 
 the King's Council from 1765 until his death in 1771. As such the name 
 of Royall Tyler, Senior, appears upon the most important committees, 
 during the long contest between the General Court and Governors Ber- 
 nard and Hutchinson, occasioned by the Stamp Act, the quartering of the 
 troops in Boston, and the removal of the General Court sessions to Cam- 
 bridge. As. the spokesman of the committee, he demanded of the gover- 
 nor the removal of the troops from Boston. 
 
 Amid the excitement, agitation and tumults of this period his son 
 Royall was growing to boyhood. The fireworks, processions, pealing of 
 bells and salvos of artillery which marked the brief intoxication of loyalty, 
 on the repeal of the Stamp Act, was to him a childish, though vivid 
 memory, and he was a lad fitting for college at the grammar school when 
 the same bells sounded the tocsin of alarm on the fearful night of the 
 "Boston massacre." Notwithstanding the political agitation of the times 
 and heavy taxation, amounting often to more than one-third of their 
 income, the family enjoyed twelve years of prosperity and domestic quiet. 
 The next year, Mary, the eldest daughter, died, aged eighteen, and in 
 
352 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 May, 1771, Royall Tyler, Senior, closed his honorable career at forty- 
 eight years. He was buried in the tomb built by his father in the church- 
 yard of King's Chapel. It is situated on the westerly side of the ground 
 adjoining the sidewalk of Tremont Street, arid is covered with a slab 
 sculptured with the coat of arms of the family. 
 
 At Commencement, July 15, 1772, Royall Tyler entered the freshman 
 class of Harvard College, being then within three days of his fifteenth 
 year. His class seems to have been an able one, numbering among others, 
 who afterwards distinguished themselves. Chief Justices Sewall and 
 Thacher, and Christopher Gore, governor and United States senator of 
 Massachusetts. The latter was his roommate, and many years after. 
 Judge Tyler, while driving with his son down into Maine, pointed out a 
 house where he and Gore spent some weeks, having been rusticated by the 
 faculty for an unlucky contretemps in which they had involved themselves. 
 Their toom. was over the front door of one of the college halls, and from 
 the window they had thrown down a line with a hook properly baited, 
 endeavoring thereon to catch one of a litter of pigs in the yard below. 
 Intently watching the issue of this experiment,, they failed to notice the 
 approach of the Reverend and austere President Langdon, until he had 
 ascended the steps, removed his cocked hat, and was wiping his forehead. 
 The line was pulled up with a sudden jerk, in the hope that he might not 
 see from whose window it came; but alas, swinging across the doorway 
 in its quick ascent, the hook caught the wig of the venerable doctor and 
 brought it up with a run. Aside from the unlucky result of his fishing 
 for pigs, the only punishment recorded during his whole course was a 
 fine of sixpence for abusing a library book. 
 
 Royall Tyler graduated in July, 1776, completing his collegiate course 
 in his nineteenth year, while the country was in a delirium of hope and 
 fear of its first month of independent existence. No record is known to 
 exist of his comparative standing in his class. His reputation, however, 
 for wit, genius and elegant scholarship had already extended beyond the 
 walls of Harvard. He was recognized in the cultivated circles of Boston 
 as the brilliant scion of a prominent family; and Yale, as a compliment, 
 perhaps unprecedented, this same year, almost simultaneously with his 
 Alma Mater, bestowed on him the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He com- 
 menced at once the study of law with the Honorable Francis Dana of 
 Cambridge. For the three years succeeding he pursued his professional 
 studies, mingled with more congenial literary occupations and the pleas- 
 ures of social intercourse. A remarkably brilliant set of young men, 
 contemporaries and intimates in college, formed a club, which met statedly 
 at the rooms of Colonel John Trumbull, the young soldier and painter. 
 Among those of this coterie who became distinguished in after life, beside 
 
/icPjjllLly^ 
 
 ROTALL TYLER'S HOUSE . GUILFORD 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 

 ^ 
 
 
 t- ^ y- y<i~*>-- 
 
 . ""^ «:■' fr^ 't^. ^.^ .^ —-J .-^-^^ 
 
 ,i_, .. ^--t'-^ y;^ yd..©-— ^9-. 
 
 
 ?..-■ 
 
 
 
 (TWO THIRDS SIZE OF ORIGINAL) 
 
 COCKAYNE. BOSTON 
 
CHIEF JUSTICE ROYALL TYLER 253 
 
 Christopher Gore and himself, were.Rufus King, subsequently delegate 
 to the American Congress, United States senator and ambassador to Eng- 
 land; William Eustis, governor of Massachusetts, member of Congress 
 and secretary of war ; Aaron Dexter, professor of Chemistry and Materia 
 Medica at Harvard, and Thomas Dawes, justice of the Supreme Court 
 of Massachusetts. Such a youthful company must have been an efficient 
 mutual stimulus to intellectual exertion, and we do not wonder that 
 Colonel Trumbull recalls, with pleasure, the evenings when in his studio 
 they. "regaled themselves with a cup of tea, instead of wine, and discussed 
 subjects of literature, politics and war." He also mentions his having 
 painted, at this time, a portrait two-thirds length, of Rbyall Tyler. This 
 picture, which would now be so invaluable, both for the sake of the artist 
 and the subject, was unfortunately lost some thirty years afterwards, 
 destroyed by fire. 
 
 Tyler, when a gay gallant of twenty, in scarlet coat and shortclothes, 
 entered the house of his friend, Mrs. Joseph Pearce Palmer of Boston, 
 and took from her arms her, infant child (Mary Palmer) and said, "This 
 child will become my wife." Time verified his prophecy. In the varied 
 and in the elevated departments of human effort — in the pulpit, at the bar, 
 mercantile and teachers' desks — ^her children have proved the character 
 of their maternal parentage. That mother, who was little Mary Palmer, 
 was seated in her mother's arms at the dining table of General Joseph 
 Warren when he partook of his last dinner, and received the parting 
 hand from his most intimate friends for the last time, before marching to 
 his death on Bunker Hill. The story as related near 1830 by the aged Mrs. 
 Palmer has been recorded. She said : "My husband was an early associate 
 and intimate friend of Joseph Warren, therefore we, with other of his 
 friends, were invited to dine with him, as he said, 'for the last time.' " Beau- 
 tiful in her old age, seemingly, as Madame Recamier, with swimming eyes 
 and trembling lips she continued : "Joseph Warren was an ardent patriot, 
 an accomplished scholar, elegant in manners, universally beloved, and was 
 the idol of Boston. After dinner, we all and each begged and prayed that 
 he would not go to the battle-field ; but vainly did we try to move him ; 
 he firmly believed the cause demanded the sacrifice of his life, and he must 
 obey that demand. Amidst the flames, constant roar of artillery, and 
 panic-stricken inhabitants, I fled from the city with my little Mary crying 
 and clinging to my bosom." 
 
 When a girl of fourteen, Mary Palmer accompanied the family of 
 Elbridge Gerry to New York, where she witnessed the inauguration of 
 Washington, April 30, 1789. 
 
 Mr. Tyler was admitted to the bar in 1779, at the most gloomy period 
 of the War of Independence. The business of Boston had been nearly 
 
254 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 ruined by the British occupation and the siege, while the presence of 
 hostile fleets on the coast still prevented its revival. Such commerce as 
 was possible had been driven to the more distant parts of Maine, where 
 the building of vessels for the privateering service also contributed to the 
 activities of trade. This seems to have induced him, in the first 
 instance, to establish himself at Falmouth (now Portland), a town 
 which, having been burned by the enemy three years before, was rapidly 
 rising from its ashes. His residence there was brief, and would not have 
 been known to the writer, but for a notice of him in Willis's "History of 
 the Law, the Courts, and the Lawyers of Maine," which states that 
 "Royall Tyler came to Falmouth in 1779. He was a fine scholar and an 
 accomplished man. He continued but about two years in our state. After 
 studying law he became aide-de-camp to General Sullivan during the 
 Revolution and took part in the attack on Newport." 
 
 The improving prospect of peace and the revival of business soon made 
 it expedient for Mr. Tyler to return to the vicinity of Boston. He 
 removed to Quincy, then called Braintree, with the intention of identifying 
 himself permanently with the interests of the place. He purchased landed 
 property there, and is mentioned by its local historian as one of the first 
 who endeavored to supply the pressing want of water power by erecting 
 a windmill on an original plan of his own. Popular as a lawyer, and 
 admired as a wit, his neighbors seem nevertheless to have lacked confi- 
 dence in his skill as a millwright. They made his undertaking a butt of 
 their ridicule. Meeting one day the minister, of the village, from whom 
 he hoped for a more favorable judgment, he asked what he thought of 
 his mill. "Very ingenious," replied the parson, "and in theory undoubt- 
 edly correct. When I was young, I built one just like it, and the only 
 fault it had, was that it would not go." Such proved to be the case with 
 Mr. Tyler's also. 
 
 The measures taken to suppress Shays's Rebellion engaged Mr. Tyler 
 once more in military service. January 19, 1787, Major-General Ben- 
 jamin Lincoln took command of the state of Massachusetts. He 
 appointed Royall Tyler his aid-de-camp, with the title of major, and in the 
 heart of one of the coldest of New England winters took the field, pressing 
 on with all speed, to save the arsenal at Springfield. The fortnight fol- 
 lowing the defeat of the rebels was spent in vigorous pursuit of them 
 through the blustering storms of winter over the hills of Berkshire, 
 covered with two feet of snow, into New York and "the territory called 
 Vermont." Major Tyler, with a troop of cavalry, was actively employed 
 in this service. 
 
 The energetic cooperation of the authorities of the bordering states 
 entirely paralyzed the action of the fugitives. They meekly acknowledged 
 
CHIEF JUSTICE ROYALL TYLER 355 
 
 their error and sued for pardon of their crimes. Special terms of court 
 were held for trial of those in custody. Fourteen were condemned to 
 death for high treason, and many more to imprisonment, fines, whipping 
 and the pillory. The submission of the rebels was, however, so complete 
 that the government felt itself strong enough to be merciful. None of 
 the sentences were executed, and before the summer was over an act of 
 general amnesty was passed. Even Shays himself was permitted to 
 return home unmolested. He soon removed to Sparta, New York, where 
 he died in 1835. 
 
 After this stirring episode in his life, Mr. Tyler returned to his law 
 office in Boston. He evidently kept up his acquaintance and correspond- 
 ence with those gentlemen whom he met at Bennington. The following 
 letter, from one of the most distinguished men of Vermont, we copy : 
 
 Bennington, 28 Aug., 1787. 
 Sir: — You find, by this time, I dare say, that the government of this 
 State has been very friendly to yours. Such persons as have been crirn- 
 inals, and have acted against law and society in general, and have come 
 from your State to this, we send back to you ; and others, who have only 
 took part with Shays, we govern by our laws, so that they do not and 
 dare not make any inroads or devastations in Massachusetts. As to the 
 appendix to the Oracles of Reason, should you procure £18 or £20 by 
 subscription, in ready money, it shall be published next spring. 
 
 I am, sir, with respect. 
 
 Your humble servant, 
 
 T, TVT • T^ 1 Ethan Allen. 
 
 To Maj. Tyler. 
 
 During the year 1788, Mr. Tyler remained in Boston, engaged in the 
 practice of law, and no doubt in literary pursuits, although no production 
 of this date can be found. The care of the family property had been left 
 to him, and must have occupied much of his time. An incident connected 
 with this is among the few that can be recalled. Tyler lane, or alley, had, 
 in a former generation, been opened from Ann Street, through the family 
 estate to the town dock, to be held and used by the public for that purpose 
 only. The town authorities, having determined to close the lane, pro- 
 ceeded, against Mr. Tyler's protest, to move a small wooden building 
 upon the ground. Nearly forty years afterwards, his son. General John 
 S. Tyler, brought a successful suit for the recovery of this land. An old 
 man was found who remembered distinctly 'that when a long line of men 
 and boys were moving the building, by a rope attached to it, Royall Tyler 
 stood on the boundary of this land, forbidding their moving it across the 
 line ; that he had an axe in his hand, and, as they did not stop, with one 
 
356 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 blow he cut the rope, letting those who were pulling at it go headlong, 
 with shouts and laughter, to the ground. 
 
 At this period the wonderful acting of Garrick and Siddons, and the 
 success, of Dr. Goldsmith and others as writers of comedy, had revived 
 in England a taste for the drama. In our larger cities the stage was well 
 supported, even Boston having so far overcome the prejudices of Puri- 
 tanism as to fill the old Federal Street Theatre with its wit and fashion. 
 Mr. Tyler was intimate with the managers and principal actors of this 
 establishment, and became much interested in dramatic literature and art. 
 
 No American play had yet been produced on the regular stage, and 
 urged by these friends, he resolved to attempt a comedy which should 
 have the elements of success as an acting drama, and also be strictly 
 national in plot and characters. The field was in good measure clear 
 before him. The typical Yankee, especially now so familiar, had not yet 
 appeared on the stage or in print. 
 
 The general plan which he adopted and which led to distinguished 
 success, was to contrast the homely, honest plainness of our native char- 
 acter and breeding with the polished, tinseled hypocrisy and villainy of 
 foreign fashionable society. His dramatis personse naturally disposed 
 themselves in pairs : the two gentlemen and their two menservants, the 
 two mistresses and their two maids, etc., and each pair being in marked 
 contrast one with the other suggested "The Contrast" as an apt title to 
 the play. 
 
 Here is a transcript of the title-page : 
 
 THE CONTRAST, 
 A Comedy ; in Five Acts : 
 Written by 
 A Citizen of the United States : 
 Performed with Applause at the Theatres in New York, 
 Philadelphia, and Maryland; and published (under an As- 
 signment of the Copy Right) 
 
 By THOMAS WIGNELL. 
 
 Primus ego in patriam 
 
 Aonic — deduxi vertice Mufas. — Virgil. 
 
 (Imitated.) 
 First on otir shores I try Thalia's powers, 
 And bid the laughing, useful Maid be ours. 
 
 Philadelphia : 
 From the Press of Prichard & Hall, in Market St., 
 Between Second and Front Streets. 
 M. DCCC. XC. 
 
"THE CONTRAST." ROYALL TYLER 357 
 
 The dedication runs as follows: 
 
 As a Just Acknowledgement of the Liberal Exertions by 
 which the Stage has been rescued from an Ignomin- 
 ious Proscription, 
 THE CONTRAST, 
 (Being the First Essay of American Genius in the 
 Dramatic Art) 
 Is Most Respectfully Dedicated 
 TO 
 The PRESIDENT and MEMBERS of the 
 Dramatic Association, 
 
 by • 
 Their Most Obliged 
 and 
 Most Grateful Servant, 
 
 THOMAS WIGNELL. 
 Philadelphia. 
 1 January, 1790. 
 
 The second of the three paragraphs of the "Advertisement" or prelude 
 is interesting. It reads: "In justice to the author, however, it may be 
 proper to observe, that this comedy has many claims to public indulgence, 
 independent of its intrinsic merits. It is the first essay of American 
 genius in a different species of composition; it was written by one who 
 never critically studied the rules of the drama, and, indeed, had seen but a 
 few of the exhibitions on the stage; it was undertaken and finished in the 
 course of three weeks; and the profits of one night's performance were 
 appropriated to the benefit of the sufferers by the fire at Boston." 
 
 Many of the most distinguished public men of the day are found in the 
 published list of subscribers to this edition of the comedy, among them 
 George Washington; Aaron Burr; Charles Carroll of Maryland; Roger 
 Chew; A. J. Dallas of Philadelphia; William Falkener, Virginia; Peter 
 Freneau, Esquire, Charleston; Reverend Ralph Higginbotham ; Thomas 
 Hull, Esquire, London ; H. Knox, Esquire, Secretary of War ; His Excel- 
 lency Thomas Mifflin, President of the State of Pennsylvania ; Honorable 
 Robert Morris; Jonathan Pinckney; Nicholas G. Rutgers, Esquire; Ed- 
 mund Randolph, Attorney-General; Major-General Baron Steuben; Wil- 
 liam Smallwood, Esquire, late Governor of Massachusetts ; . Jonathan 
 Trumbull, Esquire, of New York; Prosper Wetmore, etc., etc. 
 
 The prologue, "written by a young gentleman of New York, and spoken 
 by Mr. Wignell," is not too long or dull to copy : 
 
358 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Exult each patriot heart! — ^this night is shown 
 
 A piece, which we may fairly call our own; 
 
 Where the proud titles of "My Lord ! Your Grace !" 
 
 To humble Mr. and plain Sir give place. 
 
 Our author pictures not from foreign climes 
 
 The fashions or the follies of the times ; 
 
 But has confin'd the subject of his work 
 
 To the gay scenes — the circles of New York. 
 
 On native themes his Muse displays her pow'rs; 
 
 If ours the faults, the virtues too are ours. 
 
 Why should our thoughts to distant countries roam? 
 
 When each refinement may be found at home? 
 
 Who travels now to ape the rich or great. 
 
 To deck an equipage and roll in state ; 
 
 To court the graces, or to dance with ease, 
 
 Or by hypocrisy to strive to please? 
 
 Our free-born ancestors such arts despised; 
 
 Genuine sincerity alone they prized ; 
 
 Their minds, with honest emulation fir'd. 
 
 To solid good — not ornament — aspired; 
 
 Or, if ambition rous'd a bolder flame. 
 
 Stern virtue throve, where indolence was shame. 
 
 But modern youths, with imitative sense. 
 
 Deem taste in dress the proof of excellence ; 
 
 And spurn the meanness of your homespun arts, 
 
 Since homespun habits would obscure their parts; 
 
 Whilst all, which aims at splendor or parade. 
 
 Must conie from Europe and be ready made. 
 
 Strange ! we should thus our native worth disdain. 
 
 And check the progress of our rising fame. 
 
 Yet one, whilst imitation bears the sway. 
 
 Aspires to nobler hights, and points the way. 
 
 Be rous'd, my friends! his bold example view: 
 
 Let your own Bards be proud to copy you! 
 
 Should rigid critics reprobate our play, 
 
 At least the patriotic heart will say, 
 
 "Glorious our fall, since in a noble cause, 
 
 The bold attempt alone demands applause." 
 
 Still may the wisdom of the Comic Muse 
 
 Exalt your merits or your faults accuse. 
 
 But think not, 'tis her aim to be severe ; 
 
 We are all mortals, and as mortals err. 
 
"THE CONTRAST." ROYALL TYLER 259 
 
 If candor pleases, we are truly blest ; 
 Vice trembles when compell'd to stand confess'd. 
 Let not light Censure on your faults, offend, 
 Which aims not to expose them, but amend. 
 Thus does our author to your candor trust ; 
 Conscious, the free are generous as just. 
 
 Two casts of the characters are given : 
 
 New York. Maryland. 
 
 Colonel Manley Mr. Henry Mr. Hallam. 
 
 Dimple Mr. Hallam Mr. Harper. 
 
 Vanrough Mr. Morris Mr. Morris. 
 
 Jessamy Mr. Harper Mr. Biddle. 
 
 Jonathan Mr. Wignell Mr. Wignell. 
 
 Charlotte Mrs. Morris Mrs. Morris. 
 
 Maria Mrs. Harper Mrs. Harper. 
 
 Letitia Mrs. Kenna Mrs. Williamson. 
 
 Jenny Miss Tuke Miss M. Tuke. 
 
 Servants. 
 Scene — New York. 
 
 The first edition of "The Contrast" was limited to five hundred and 
 thirty-six copies. Only two copies of the first edition are known to be in 
 existence, — one presented to George Washington by Thomas Wignell, now 
 in the possession of Mr. James Benjamin Wilbur of Manchester, Ver- 
 mont; the other owned by Doctor Frederick Atkinson, President of the 
 Brooklyn and New York Polytechnic Institute. 
 
 Wignell, to whom the author gave the copyright, was a comic actor of 
 some celebrity. He sustained the character of Jonathan, both in New 
 York and Maryland. 
 
 The play had its first public presentation on the boards of the John 
 Street Theater, New York, April 16, 1787, just after the inauguration of 
 Washington, and while the First Congress was in session. It was received 
 with great favor by the brilliant gathering at the young metropolis and 
 had a run (very unusual at that period) of several weeks. 
 • It is said that until "The Contrast" was produced, a strong prejudice 
 existed against the stage. It helped in breaking up this prejudice and 
 revolutionized the popular feeling that both Quakers and Puritans, sup- 
 ported by the Continental Congress, had arrayed against it. After the 
 success of Tyler's play, American writers turned out other plays in rapid 
 
360 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 succession. When General Washington attended a first-night perform- 
 ance of an American play the victory was won. 
 
 Town meetings were held in Boston, resolutions were passed instruct- 
 ing representatives in the Legislature to work for the immediate repeal 
 of laws against theatrical amusements, and upon such repeal being denied, 
 citizens put up the funds necessary to erect a theater and invited the 
 American company to give a series of performances in Boston. Although 
 the authorities demurred and interfered somewhat, the new theater was 
 built and in time the prohibitory laws became obsolete and ignored. 
 
 In the book of the play as reprinted by the Dunlap Society in 1887 
 is a just acknowledgment of the liberal spirit by which the stage was 
 rescued from an ignominious proscription. On the title-page the author 
 is described as "A citizen of the United States." There is also the follow- 
 ing dedication inscribed: 
 
 "The Contrast" (being the first essay of American Genius in the 
 Dramatic Art) is most respectfully dedicated to the President and Mem- 
 bers of the Dramatic Association. 
 
 Mr. Tyler also wrote a farce under the title of "May Day in Town," 
 which was brought out at the same time as an afterpiece with marked 
 success. He was petted, caressed, feasted and toasted, and no doubt lived 
 too freely. 
 
 The first American novel honored with republication in England was 
 also written by Judge Tyler in Guilford. It was entitled "The Algerine 
 Captive, or the Life and Adventures of Doctor Updike Underbill; Six 
 Years a Prisoner among the Algerines," and was published at Walpole, 
 New Hampshire, by David Carlyle, Junior, in 1797. Messrs. G. and J. 
 Robinson, Paternoster Row, London, republished the work in 1803, and 
 improved greatly on the American edition. 
 
 It is dedicated to the poet Humphreys. This work is said to have been 
 mistaken by an English critic for a narrative of actual adventure. It is a 
 fictitious book of memoirs, in which the author ventilates his opinions on 
 various topics of American society, paints the horrors of the slave trade, 
 and the now almost incomprehensible grievances which the European and 
 American powers for a long time endured from the assumptions of the 
 Algerines. In the close of the work, there are some sketches of Mahomet- 
 anism. The book is written in short chapters, with spirit and neatness 
 of style. There is quite enough of ingenuity in the thought, coupled with 
 the descriptions of the manners of the time, to redeem this work from 
 the neglect into which it has fallen. Though printed in, at least, a second 
 American edition, it is now exceedingly scarce. 
 
CHIEF JUSTICE ROYALL TYLER 261 
 
 In 1797, he wrote a comedy in three acts, "The Georgia Spec, or Land 
 in the Moon," in ridicule of a speculating mania for wild Yazoo lands. 
 It was repeatedly performed in Boston with success He wrote other 
 dramatic productions, but none of them have been published. 
 
 In 1799, he composed a Fourth of July ode for the public celebration 
 of the Day at Windsor, Vermont, and a convivial song for the same occa- 
 sion. He was frequently called upon for these services, and for the occa- 
 sional prologues in vogue at charitable and other theatrical benefits. 
 
 In 1804, Tyler was a contributor of verses to The Columbian 
 Sentinel. In 1809, he published two volumes of "Reports of Cases in the 
 Supreme Court of Vermont." He still wrote for journals — ^there were 
 seventy-four articles on the literature of the period in the Port- 
 folio of 1801, 1802, 1803, 1804, 1805, from the "Workshop of Colon & 
 Spondee" — and in other quarters. Some of his latest productions ap- 
 peared in The New England Galaxy. In 1806, he was a contributor to 
 Buckingham's monthly periodical. The Polyanthus, of the papers entitled 
 "Trash," and a number of fugitive poetical pieces, and again, on the 
 revival of the publication in 1812. 
 
 Though the writings of Judge Tyler are but little known at the present 
 day, yet his ability has been warmly eulogized by those best acquainted 
 with his scattered productions. 
 
 Among his later publications was "The Yankee in London," purporting 
 to be a series of letters written by an American abroad. The comments 
 on English life and manners were recognized as sensible and just, but it 
 finally leaked out, to the astonishment of his readers, that the author had 
 never been across the ocean, and so drew upon his imagination and famil- 
 iarity with English people and customs for material for his letters. 
 
 After his return from Vermont he rusticated with his mother again, a 
 widow living at Jamaica Plain, and after a few visits of condolence, we 
 learn no more of him for four or five years, except that his spirits seemed 
 greatly depressed. In the spring of 1790 Mr. Palmer removed from 
 Boston onto a farm in Framingham, Massachusetts, and during the sum- 
 mer Mr. Tyler called (Mrs. Palmer living there), being on a horseback 
 journey to Vermont, where, as he informed Miss Mary, he had deter- 
 mined to start anew in life, leaving his mother in the care of his brother, 
 John, and relinquishing the Boston property for her use and support. 
 
 It seems that he was engaged to Abigail, daughter of John Adams, 
 when the latter was transferred from The Hague to England as our 
 representative abroad. His betrothed received paternal summons to Eng- 
 land, and after her arrival there broke the engagement, subsequently 
 marrying her father's secretary. This circumstance very probably led 
 
362 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 the young lawyer to forsake the associations connected with Boston for 
 the then comparative wilderness of Vermont, and the "new State" Cer- 
 tainly presented peculiar attractions at that time. 
 
 In the summer of 1790 Mr. Tyler visited Vermont, probably for the 
 first time since the Shays affair. This time he ascended the valley of the 
 Connecticut to Windsor, where the Supreme Court was in session. In 
 January following he established himself in the middle of the town of 
 Guilford, Windham County, as the lawyer of the place. 
 
 In a small account book he kept during this year, the first entry is Jan- 
 uary 15; from the charges it appears, that his practice rapidly extended 
 through the country. He attended the courts not only of Windham, but 
 the adjoining counties. In Bennington, during the summer, 1792, he 
 renewed many of his former acquaintances, and after the adjournment of 
 court, drove into Berkshire County, Massachusetts, to visit at Stock- 
 bridge his friend, Judge Sedgwick. 
 
 Another attraction doubtless led him in this direction, and induced him 
 to continue his journey to New Lebanon, New York. His steadfast 
 friend and devoted admirer, Mary Palmer, whom, not improbably, he 
 already hoped to make his wife, was spending a year there with a brother 
 of her mother. She was now seventeen, and unquestionably was a very 
 lovely and beautiful girl. It required, much explanation of bygone rela- 
 tionships to convince the uncle and aunt of the propriety of Miss Mary's 
 warm greeting of a fashionable gallant. 
 
 Mr. Tyler returned to Guilford and attended the fall sessions of the 
 courts. The next winter he made his promised visit to his friends, the 
 Palmers, in Framingham, with a fine pair of black horses, which, with 
 his accustomed facetiousness, he had named "Crock and Smut." He now 
 acknowledged to Miss Mary, who had returned home, that since he saw 
 her at her uncle's he had determined in his own mind that it was quite 
 indispensable to his happiness that she should become his wife. He did 
 not ask for any set time ; he must prepare a cage before he took his bird, 
 and he had a prospect of obtaining a house in the spring, but some time 
 must elapse before it could be finished and furnished. 
 
 No stage lines were as yet established, and all travel was by horseback 
 in summer and sleighing in winter. 
 
 Mr. Tyler left his affianced bride and returned to his clients in Ver- 
 mont. It appears from his docket at the June term of 1793, he had sixty- 
 two cases, thirty-two new entries; November term, forty-eight entries, 
 twenty-two new ones. With an extensive and growing practice and a repu- 
 tation for literary, ability already established, gifted with remarkable 
 powers as an orator, overflowing with wit and humor, genial and social, 
 his acquaintance soon extended throughout the state. It is the universal 
 
CHIEF JUSTICE ROYALL TYLER 263 
 
 testimony of his contemporaries that he had no rival. The intercourse 
 between the towns on the opposite sides of the Connecticut was constant 
 and intimate, and Mr. Tyler's practice extended into New Hampshire. It 
 chanced that on one occasion, about Christmas time, he was attending 
 court at Charlestown. The Episcopal parish there was vacant and, some 
 of the lawyers having heard that he had written sermons for the Guilford 
 people on one occasion of the minister's absence, he was strongly urged by 
 bench and bar to conduct church service on the ensuing Sunday, and also ' 
 on Christmas day. Both his reading of the service and the sermons were 
 greatly admired. In narrating this incident he was wont to say, "After 
 this I was strongly urged to turn my thoughts to the Church and prepare 
 to take orders, being assured that I had mistaken my vocation, that it was 
 my bounden duty to turn my talents that way, etc., and it would have 
 been rest to my soul,, at that time, had I dared, but a consciousness of 
 having lived too gay a life in my youth, made me tremble lest I should in 
 some way bring disgrace upon the sacred cause." 
 
 It was at Charlestown that he formed the acquaintance of Joseph 
 Dennie, who became his most intimate friend. Thomas & Carlisle had 
 established a magazine at Walpole, which had now taken the name of 
 The Parmer's Weekly Museum, or The New Ham,pshire and Vermont 
 Journal, on which Dennie was employed, first as contributor and after- 
 wards as editor. The success of this periodical was unprecedented. "Den- 
 nie," says Joseph T. Buckingham in his reminiscences, "was aided in his 
 task as editor, by Royall Tyler, then a lawyer in Guilford, Vt., who fur- 
 nished all those agreeable and humorous articles, purporting to come from 
 the shop of Messrs. Colon and Spondee. For three years succeeding this 
 arrangement The Museum had no rival. Its circulation extended from 
 Maine to Georgia, and it was more richly supplied with original com- 
 munications of a literary character than any other paper that had then, 
 or has since, been published in the United States." These contributions 
 to The Museum, were to Mr. Tyler a mere amusement of leisure moments, 
 the outcome and overflow of wit and humor. He had, however, planned 
 and was engaged upon works of a more serious import. 
 
 Royall Tyler and Miss Palmer were married in Framingham. He had 
 secured and furnished a house in Guilford. Twice during the summer he 
 had visited his wife and boy. The young husband at Guilford waitpd 
 anxiously for the sleighing, then indispensable for the transportation of 
 ladies, children and baggage. 
 
 The winter proved mild, nor was it till February that Master Hampden 
 (Mrs. Tyler's brother, H. Palmer, a law student with Tyler) drove 
 "Crock and Smut" once more into the farmyard at Framingham. All was 
 now hurry and bustle to start for home, in horrible dread of a thaw. 
 
264 ANNALS OF BRATTLEE(ORO 
 
 which might postpone Vermont housekeeping for yet another year. All 
 went well ; with bright, cool weather and capital foads they drove the first 
 day thirty miles; the third brought them home in the evening. They 
 crossed the Connecticut on the ice near the site of old Fort Dummer, and 
 stopped for supper at Squire Howe's at Vernon. His mother, known in 
 story as "the fair captive," who married Amos Tute, was now once more a 
 widow, and residing with her son, the Squire. She was, of course, one of 
 the celebrities of the country, and the travelers enjoyed not only a good 
 fire and a substantial supper, but an account from the heroine's own lips 
 of the terrible sufferings of that march through the woods to Quebec. As 
 they made their way over the Guilford hills, Mr. Tyler described to his 
 wife the society to which he was about to introduce her. "Open, hospitable 
 and friendly, they have no distinction among them," he said. "If they 
 have a social party the whole neighborhood are invited. We have two 
 merchants, the Messrs. Houghton, two physicians. Dr. Stevens and Dr. 
 Hyde, one lawyer, your humble servant, all men of education, and their 
 wives and families well-bred country people. There are several well-to-do 
 mechanics who aim to treat company equally well. In fact, my dear, you 
 will find it a truly primitive state of society, and if you have any adequate 
 idea of the heartlessness of the world in general, you will rejoice in the 
 friendly simplicity of these people, among whom I have spent three or 
 four of the happiest years of my life, and I rely upon you to continue 
 and even to add to the high opinion they have formed of me." 
 
 Mrs. Tyler was received with open-hearted kindness by the neighbors 
 around her first Vermont home, forming devoted friendships which con- 
 tinued unbroken till one by one they all passed away. 
 
 It will be noticed that in his comic grammar Mr. Tyler anticipated, by 
 more than half a century, the comic histories and comic Blackstones with 
 which the country was, at one time, surfeited. He says : 
 
 You are a thorough grammarian, but did you ever see an amusing, 
 sportive, entertaining grammar? Did you ever laugh over a conjunction 
 copulative, weep over a gerund, and have all your best passions called 
 forth by an interjection? I must tell you about this business. 
 
 In the beau pursuits of early life, it was necessary that I should teach 
 grammar to a young lady. But the pretty Miss had contracted an aversion 
 to everything that savored of study and science. She did not lack intel- 
 lect, and to amuse her into reading was the great object. I accordingly 
 wrote a grammar in usum puellw, and being forwarded in twelve letters, 
 folded as billet doux, she condescended to read. To give you some idea 
 of the work — the fundamental rules were illustrated by examples from 
 the most approved and entertaining English authors, and sometimes by 
 stories of my own. A lover at the feet of his mistress, gave a passionate 
 
CHIEF JUSTICE ROYALL TYLER 265 
 
 example of interjection; a lady crowned her favored lover's virtuous 
 wishes in the passive voice, and dismissed an unsuccessful admirer in the 
 imperative mood. Thus every rule of syntax was associated with some 
 pleasing anecdote, brilliant quotation, or quaint observation, which famil- 
 iarized the stubborn rule to a mind open only to the amusing and pleasing ; 
 or, in the style of Fontaine, "thus the thorn of science was decorated 
 with the roses of fancy." 
 
 Doubtless this work would need much emendation, but I believe it prac- 
 ticable to edit a grammar which shall be read. 
 
 When Mr. Tyler's location in Guilford was made, it was the most 
 populous town in the state; but already Brattleboro began to give some 
 faint promise of becoming the business place of the county. The follow- 
 ing letter describes the new home: 
 
 Beattleborough, March 18, 1801. 
 
 Here we are in quiet and complete possession of our new farm* on the 
 hill where was built the first meeting-house in this town, after a most fa- 
 tiguing fortnight of moving, and to add to our fatigue, the baby and little 
 Mary have both been very sick. The latter was so indisposed, when we 
 removed, that it was thought to be accompanied by some risque, even by 
 her physician; but the earnest wish of all the family, and the dread of 
 the snow leaving us, overcame all apprehensions, and on the 3d inst. we 
 came here bag and baggage. The children are now so far recovered as to 
 allow us, for the first time, to hunt up our writing materials and address 
 a line to you, who, next to ourselves, we apprehend will enter most fully 
 into our enjoyments. If I had Sophia's tongue, or Mary's enthusiasm, 
 I might give you a description of this farm in some measure equal to their 
 ideas of it ; but as the purchasing of a farm is entirely Mary's, and I have 
 some fears of our success in yeomanry, I cannot write with the spirit, the 
 subject, they suppose, merits; so you will look for the raptures and the 
 beauties from them, while I detail you a little homespun fact. The farm 
 we have purchased is in a retired spot, upon the brow of a large hill, about 
 one mile, as the road goes, from the [West] Brattleborough meeting 
 house; though we have a shorter cut through our own grounds, which 
 reduces the distance half. The farm consists of about 150 acres, the 
 greatest part of which — indeed, upward of an 100 acres is well fenced and 
 under good improvement. We have wheat and rye now in the ground, 
 springing up as the snow leaves it, and promising a sufficiency of those 
 grains for our bread and pies. We have two large orchards, and two 
 
 1 Doctor Henry Wells was the original owner. 
 
266 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 smaller ones coming on, and expect to make some fifty or sixty barrels of 
 cider; and, in a few years — as the orchards are young and thrifty — we 
 may reasonably expect to make 100 barrels per year. We have plenty of 
 good pasturing and expect to cut hay enough to winter thirty head of 
 cattle. Our neighbor, Mr. Peck, takes the farm, at present, at halves, and, 
 with his family, has removed to our farmhouse, about a quarter of a mile 
 from us. 
 
 Mrs. Peck is an excellent dairywoman, and he is a regular farmer. He 
 has a hired man with him, and I have hired a young man, active and 
 stout, who in busy seasons will assist Mr. Peck, so that without reckoning 
 boys and extra help, we shall always have three stout men for farming 
 work. With the farm, we purchased farming tools, young cattle, hogs, 
 poultry and twenty-three sheep, who have now increased the flock by eight 
 lambs ; and it would amuse you to see Sophia and the children surrounded 
 with sheep, lambs, geese, turkeys and hens, feeding them from their hands. 
 
 The house is entirely secluded from a view of any neighbors; though 
 on the crown of a hill it is yet in a hollow, but the necessary buildings 
 around it give it the air of being a little neighborhood : a large barn and 
 shed, corn-barn, chaise-house, smoke-house, ash-house, etc. 
 
 The house is somewhat similar to Judge Jones', in Hinsdale, which I 
 think you observed, an upright part with a handsome portico, two hand- 
 some front rooms, well finished, papered and painted ; and two handsome 
 chambers over them ; back, is a sitting-room and by the side of it a room 
 for my office, which has a door into the sitting-room and another out of 
 doors, so that ingress may be had independent of the house; back of the 
 sitting-room a good kitchen, from whence you go into two bed-rooms, 
 one for the boys, and the other for the maids, and overhead a meal gran- 
 ary ; and over the sitting-room an apartment for our hired man and boy ; 
 back of the kitchen is a long wood-house, about twenty feet of which 
 makes a summer wash-room, and here stands the water-trough, constantly 
 supplied with plenty of excellent water. In front of the house is a fruit 
 garden, peaches, plums, etc., but the former will not bear until next year. 
 
 On one side of the house is a kitchen garden, with a good asparagus 
 bed and plenty of currants, red, white and black, and large English goose- 
 berries, on the other side is a flower garden. 
 
 Next the house runs a small brook, on the other side of which is a grass 
 plot set out with young fruit trees, chiefly plums. We have on the place a 
 plenty of common cherry trees and four fine blackheart cherry trees near 
 the front windows. We have also pear trees which bear, and quince 
 bushes. On the place we may gather cartloads of chestnuts, no walnuts, 
 but a sufficiency of butternuts. In a word, if one can love a retired 
 farmer's life, here you may have it to perfection. 
 
CHIEF JUSTICE ROYALL TYLER 267 
 
 For all we live down, or rather up a lane, you will scarcely see three 
 persons pass in as many days. We cannot see a single house, even from 
 our chamber windows, not even our farm-house, but that is prettily 
 situated; there you may see perhaps thirty houses, and if we climb our 
 orchard we can see the country thirty miles around. 
 
 I think this place may be made comfortable and even pleasing, but the 
 house can never be made to look handsome, that is, on the outside, within, 
 to be sure, if we shut the windows, or look into the garden, it does 
 tolerably, but the house is in a hollow, and a house in a hole cannot look 
 well from abroad, but then it is a home and has a thousand pleasant 
 things, fruitful fields, and delicious fruits about, thrown together hig- 
 gledy, piggledy. 
 
 By this removal his ten years' residence in Guilford ended. They had 
 now four children : Royall, about six years old ; John S., four ; Mary, two ; 
 and Edward, an infant. 
 
 Mrs. Tyler's brother, John Hampden Palmer, had been, until now, a 
 member of the family, but was about this time admitted to the bar and 
 settled at Woodstock. Her youngest sister, Sophia, aged fourteen, had 
 been virtually adopted as a daughter. For a year or more, John Tyler, 
 Mr. Tyler's nephew, had been a student in his office, but abandoned the 
 law for what proved a very successful business in Boston. Mr. Tyler had 
 also, though secretly, as a student, the Reverend Mr. Wollage, whose 
 temper he had formerly ruffled by invading his pulpit. This gentleman 
 was admitted to practice, and afterwards oscillated once or twice between 
 the two professions, sacred and profane. 
 
 Three new judges were appointed for the Supreme Court, October, 
 1801, but they were not selected on account of their political opinions, 
 but on account of their supposed qualifications for the office. Those thus 
 elected by an adverse Legislature were Jonathan Robinson, Royall Tyler 
 and Stephen Jacob — Robinson being the chief justice. 
 
 As district attorney for Windham County, Mr. Tyler had been obliged 
 to attend the Legislature, and had thus extended his acquaintance through 
 the state. His practice had also taken him to the courts of nearly every 
 county. His legal reputation and the peculiar charm of his manners no 
 doubt led to this result. 
 
 The same judges were reelected in the fall of 1802. The constant inter- 
 course of a year had already induced between them a remarkable degree 
 of intimacy and personal regard. The chief justice retained his office 
 until, in 1807, he was elected to the Senate of the United States. While 
 he was in Washington he and Mr. Tyler corresponded constantly, and in 
 one of his letters the Senator refers to their early prejudices against each 
 
268 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 other, how soon they passed away, and related an incident of the religious 
 discussions into which they fell during their early intimacy. One of the 
 points of Hopkinsianism that had been much debated between them was 
 the alleged necessity, as evidence of regeneration, that one should be 
 willing to be lost eternally if it were for the glory of God. 
 
 Judge Tyler, detained from court on one occasion, wrote to Judge 
 Jacob and requested him to inform the chief justice "that he really began 
 to hope that he had made some little spiritual progress ; for, although he 
 could not honestly say that he was willing to be damned himself, even if 
 it were needful for the glory of the Almighty, yet he believed that by 
 great effort he had nearly or quite attained to a sincere willingness that in 
 such an exigency Brother Robinson should be damned." 
 
 In Hall's History of Eastern Vermont we find the following : 
 
 He [R. Tyler] presided as side judge of the Supreme Court of Ver- 
 mont, from 1801 to 1806, when he was chosen chief judge. This position 
 he retained until the year 1813. Party strife and ill health combined were 
 the causes which prevented him from being chosen to fill this office for a 
 longer period. From the year 1815 to 1821 he was register of probate for 
 Windham County, and this, it is believed, was the last public station he 
 was called to occupy. 
 
 In 1815 the Tyler family moved to the frame house, then the most 
 northerly in town, on the site of the Marsh building and lived there a year. 
 They then moved to the house on Main Street north of the Centre 
 Church, three years later to the Sikes house and thence to a permanent 
 home near the Common. 
 
 An idea, of the originality of Mr. Tyler's style aiid manner in arguing 
 a case under circumstances calculated to produce embarrassments may be 
 gained from the following anecdote : 
 
 At a court held in Newf ane, he undertook his first case after he left 
 the bench. He had not practiced for a long time and many of the lawyers 
 at the bar had never heard him address a jury. 
 
 At the period referred to, the disease of which he died, a cancer on the 
 left side of the nose, near the eye, caused him to wear a patch of black 
 silk on his face, which did not tend to improve his appearance. The case 
 was one of importance, involving the property of his client, a certain Mr. 
 Richardson. 
 
 The opposing counsel in presenting their pleas, made frequent reflec- 
 tions upon the ex-chief justice, declaring that his faculties were failing, 
 that he had a disease about him and that he had been turned from the 
 bench for incapacity. 
 
CHIEF JUSTICE ROYALL TYLER 269 
 
 During the delivery of these sentiments Judge Tyler sat within the bar, 
 taking no notes and apparently oblivious to what was passing around him. 
 When the time came for him to address the jury, he rose in his place, 
 and turning his back upon the twelve men whose minds he was desirous 
 of influencing, called out to his client, "Richardson ! come here !" Rich- 
 ardson started up in great astonishment, and made his way through the 
 crowded court-room to the railing within which the lawyers sat. "Rich- 
 ardson," said Judge Tyler, turning to that individual, who was exceedingly 
 surprised at the oddity of the proceedings, "go home ! there is no use of 
 your staying here! I thought you had a case, a good case!" He then 
 went on, with his back to the jury and judge, to tell his client all the strong 
 points of his case, making it very plain, or, at least, making it appear that 
 Richardson had been basely abused by the lawyers on the other side. 
 
 "But,'' said he, in conclusion, "I was mistaken in supposing you had 
 any rights that could be maintained. It appears you have no case because 
 my faculties are failing, and what is worse, you have no case at all, 
 because I have this patch on my nose. Go home ! go home ! I can't be 
 expected to say a word to the jury under such circumstances." With 
 these words Judge Tyler sat down. 
 
 The opposing counsel were dumbfounded at this mode of attack, but 
 the jury were only out long enough to make up for Richardson a most 
 satisfactory verdict. 
 
 In his lightest vein are verses written by Chief Justice Royall Tyler for 
 a Fourth of July celebration in Windsor, Vermont. 
 
 As It Used to Be. 
 
 Squeak the fife and beat the drum. 
 Independence day has come ! 
 Let the roasting pig be bled. 
 Quick twist off the cockerel's head ; 
 Quickly rub the pewter platter. 
 Heap the nutcake fried in batter; 
 Set the cups and beaker glass. 
 The pumpkin and the apple sass. 
 
 Send the keg to shop for brandy. 
 Maple sugar we have handy ; 
 Independent, swaggering Dick, 
 A gogging mix of swiggering thick ; 
 Sal, put on your russet skirt — 
 Jotham, get your boughten shirt, 
 Today we dance to tiddle diddle 
 ■ Here comes Sambo with his fiddle. 
 
270 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Sambo, take a dram of whiskey 
 And play up "Yankee Doodle" frisky: 
 Moll, come leave your witched tricks 
 And let us have a reel of six. 
 Father and mother shall make two, 
 Sal, Moll and I stand all a-row : 
 Sambo play the dance with quality. 
 This is the day of blest equality. 
 
 Father and mother are but men. 
 And Sambo is a citizen. 
 Come, foot it, Sal — Moll, figure in. 
 And, mother, you dance up to him ; 
 Now saw as fast as yOu can go 
 And, father, you cross o'er to Sambo. 
 Thus we dance, and thus we play. 
 On glorious Independence day. 
 
 Chief Justice Royall Tyler wrote the Valedictory Address for an 
 exhibition at the close of Miss Rebecca Peck's Select School, in the East 
 Village of Brattleboro, in 1823. His son, Reverend Thomas P. Tyler, 
 D.D., — ^then a lad of about eight years, — was the orator on this happy 
 occasion. According to the best information obtainable, the Judge gave 
 compliments well deserved, for the little misses of that school were gen- 
 erally remarkable for their personal beauty and good conduct. The de- 
 livery of the address took the school, as well as the audience, by surprise, 
 and furnished a theme of pleasant allusion and reference for a long time 
 in this village. The young orator was quite personal in the application 
 of his theme, causing the whitest of roses to become blushing ones when 
 he pointed his little magic finger toward them. Some of these roses, very 
 well preserved, remained many years in this place, becoming grand- 
 mothers. The orator became a distinguished clergyman of the Episcopal 
 Church, and officiated many years in western New York ; but when over 
 threescore years, retired from service, he returned to Brattleboro, his 
 native place, to the scene of his first oratorical efforts. 
 
 The valedictory address in verse, with the names of the young misses 
 whose charms were likened to the various flowers, is to be found in 
 Burnham's "History of Brattleboro." In 1824 he wrote in verse "The 
 Chestnut Tree," which was a forecasting of Brattleboro, East Village, and 
 its people as they would pass under the shade of that tree in another 
 hundred years. 
 
MRS. ROYALL TYLER 371 
 
 The inscription on the monument of Royall Tyler in Prospect Hill 
 Cemetery reads : 
 
 ROYALL TYLER 
 
 Reip V Mont Cur Sup Jurid 
 
 Princ. 
 
 Mortem Obiit 
 
 Die XVL Aug. Anno Domini 
 
 MDCCCXXVI. 
 
 Etatis Suae 
 
 LXVIIL 
 
 Uqor et liberi 
 
 ejus 
 
 Hoc saxum ponendum 
 
 Curaverunt. 
 
 Mrs. Royall Tyler 
 (From The Vermont Phoenix of July 13, 1866.) 
 
 Died, at her residence, in this village, on the seventh instant, Mrs. 
 Royall Tyler, aged ninety-one years, four months and seven days. . . . 
 
 Born during the stirring events that led to the Revolution, her days 
 have been extended to cover the entire period of our national life. 
 
 Her native place was Watertown, Massachusetts, and she was the 
 daughter of Joseph Palmer and Elizabeth Hunt. In 1794 she married 
 Royall Tyler, Esquire, who had served as an officer in the Revolutionary 
 War, and who subsequently became distinguished in literature and juris- 
 prudence. Soon after their marriage they removed to Guilford, Vermont, 
 which was then the most flourishing town in the new state. There, while 
 aiding greatly, through the benign influence of high natural endowments 
 and all the graces of her sex, in sustaining and encouraging her husband 
 in his progress to the Supreme Bench as chief justice of Vermont, she 
 contributed much towards imparting a tone of elevation and refinement, 
 .and an ambition for literary pursuits, to the new and unformed circle 
 around her. In those early times, when the bear still sulkily crossed the 
 path of the horseman in the unopened forests, as we once heard her relate 
 of her own experience, she was a light and center to society, giving 
 warmth and enjoyment to all who came within her sphere. She was be- 
 loved and respected, a bond of union ; a center of mingled love and author- 
 ity to the early settlers, as she has ever been since, down to her latest day, 
 to a large family of adoring children and descendants, amidst whose 
 kindly administrations it was her happiness to expire. 
 
 Devoted to everything that was calculated to elevate, refine and adorn 
 humanity, she ever took a deep interest in the welfare of the country. 
 
272 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Her infant eyes were opened, as we have already said, upon the dramatic 
 scenes of the Revolution ; and in the closing years of her life, she watched 
 with the liveliest solicitude and concern every stage in the progress of the 
 rebellion, until she saw the last rebel force defeated and disarmed. Up to 
 within a short time of her death she was a constant reader of the news- 
 papers, and during the war was thoroughly acquainted with the battles 
 fought, with the character and merits of many of the generals, and the 
 localities of military operations. Amidst all, she received home the corpse 
 of a grandson, a young colonel who fell in the battle of the Wilderness, 
 and saw his remains sent to the grave. 
 
 The deceased was a member, and an ornament, of the Episcopal church, 
 upon which she was a constant attendant until the last two years of her 
 life. Previous to the establishment of St. Michael's Church in this village, 
 she used to attend service in Guilford, often walking there, a distance of 
 three miles, even when seventy years of age. 
 
 Madame Tyler, as she was called by the people of the village, was the 
 mother of a large family of children, several of whom still survive. Two 
 of these were yet remaining under the paternal roof at the time of her 
 decease, and two others, Judge Royall Tyler and the Reverend Doctor 
 Tyler, were among her nearest neighbors. Four of her sons entered the 
 ministry, two of the Congregational and two of the Episcopal church. 
 Her first-born died while in college at Burlington, Vermont. 
 
 Her funeral took place at St. Michael's Church on the afternoon of the 
 tenth instant, and was largely attended by the friends of the family. The 
 services were performed by Reverend Doctor Fay, assisted by Reverend 
 Doctor Pine of Washington. — Com. 
 
 Henry Burnham says : 
 
 "It was not the mission of this old and distinguished family to set in 
 motion the wheels of industry, or directly, to any great extent, advance 
 the material interests of this town. In that far off time in our history 
 when this family settled here, they must have occupied as exceptional a 
 position in Brattleborough, as does the book of Job in the Old Testament. 
 
 "Their first coming to that high hill overlooking the whole town, seems 
 to us as the morning dawn of intellectual life in this region, or, the begin- 
 ning of an Elizabethan age in Brattleborough." 
 
 Children of Judge Royall Tyler and Mrs. Tyler : 
 
 Royall Tyler, born in Framingham, Massachusetts, 1794; died in col- 
 lege. 
 General John S., born in Guilford, Vermont, September 29, 1796. 
 Mary Whitwell, born in Guilford June 33, 1798. 
 Reverend Edward R., born in Guilford August 3, 1800. 
 
TYLER FAMILY 273 
 
 Major William Clark, born in Brattleboro August 28, 1802. 
 
 Reverend Joseph Dennie, born September 4, 1804. 
 
 Amelia Sophia, born June 29, 1807. 
 
 Reverend George Palmer, D.D;, born December 10, 1809. (See p. 463.) 
 
 Judge Charles Royall, 2d, born April 19, 1812. (See p. 539.) 
 
 Reverend Thomas Pickman, D.D., born November 20, 1815. 
 
 Abiel Winship, born November 9, 1818 ; died September 19, 1832. 
 
 General John S. Tyler, the oldest son, may well be called the advance 
 guard of the family. He left his home in Brattleboro in 1810, at the age 
 of fourteen years, and passed the long period of over sixty years in Bos- 
 ton, Massachusetts, engaged in mercantile and marine affairs. He served 
 some time as clerk in the dry goods business in Boston, and subsequently 
 entered the counting-room of Abiel Winship, in the Northwest Coast and 
 Canton trade, whose daughter, Mary, he married in 1820. Upon the 
 death of Mr. Winship, Mr. Tyler became a clerk for Colonel Amos 
 Binney, the navy agent of Boston, and afterwards partner with Amos 
 Binney, Junior, in the commission business on Long Wharf. This busi- 
 ness continued until the general disaster in 1829. Mr. Tyler then under- 
 took the adjustment of insurance losses. 
 
 The city of his ancestry became the scene of his active life until the time 
 of his death in 1876. It was there he maintained eminence in his avoca- 
 tions and social position. His magnanimity, as manifested in business 
 relations,, and noble generosity to his parents and other relatives proved 
 his mind was as well worthy of his splendid proportions and such external 
 personal attractions as are rarely, if ever, surpassed. 
 
 For a long period of years he was almost invariably selected as chief 
 marshal on great occasions. The facility with which he discharged the 
 duties of that office, combined with his fine personal presence and bearing, 
 made him the observed of all observers. Many years ago a convent in 
 Charlestown was destroyed by a mob, and there was every indication of 
 mob violence in the destruction of buildings in Boston as a retaliatory 
 measure. The authorities of the city requested General Tyler to call out 
 the military under his command. He told the authorities he never should 
 order his soldiers to fire blank cartridges at a mob. If they would consent 
 that every one of his soldiers load his musket with ball cartridge, he would 
 lead them wherever they might direct. The consent was given, and intel- 
 ligence of the fact was quickly received by every person in the city. The 
 mob disappeared and peace was restored without bloodshed. 
 
 In Boston papers, published at the time of his death, it was said: 
 
 "Early in the war of 1812, Mr. Tyler, though under the lawful age for 
 military duty, joined the Boston Light Infantry, and went with the corps 
 
374 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 to throw up fortifications on Dorchester Heights, Governor's and Nod- 
 dle's Islands, and also participated in such other duties as were required 
 of the militia. He was chosen captain of the Suffolk Light Infantry Sep- 
 tember 21, 1821, and was the first commander of the City Guards. He 
 commanded the military escort when LaFayette visited Boston. He was 
 adjutant of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1827, and 
 was its commander four years — an honor not enjoyed by any other man. 
 He was the senior member at the date of his death. He acted as chief 
 marshal at the Railroad Jubilee, 1851, attended by the President of the 
 United States, Lord Elgin, and numerous other distinguished guests. . . . 
 He held many civil offices, was a member of the Constitutional Conven- 
 tion in 1853; member of the Common Council in 1859-1862; alderman, 
 1863-1866 ; trustee of the Public Library two years, and member of the 
 Legislature four years. He was president of the Granite Railway Com- 
 pany, engineer of the fire department of Boston, president of the Associa- 
 tion of the Sons of Vermont and of the Burns Club; also, president of the 
 Female Medical College. He received the honorary degree of A.M. from 
 both Middlebury College and the university of his native state at Bur- 
 lington." 
 
 In 1829 he engaged in the business of adjusting averages, which he 
 continued the remainder of his life. In this branch he had no superior. 
 Of his ability in this business, ex-Governor Holbrook said : "He brought 
 to the discharge of this duty that clearness of perception, candor and 
 fairness of judgment which made him sought for in the large commercial 
 cities of our country." His industry was proverbial. He devoted much 
 valuable time to the service of the public, and the midnight hour often 
 found him at work. His business mind enabled him to state cases before 
 committees, and as alderman and representative, with great clearness. 
 
 At the time he was elected alderman of the eighth ward, we find the 
 following in a Boston paper : "He will make an excellent alderman, for 
 he is honest and incorruptible — merits which are not always carried into 
 the city hall by those who enter it covered with official eclat. The people 
 have done well to elect him. He received the united support of the Demo- 
 crats and Republicans." 
 
 In 1820-1821 he made a gift to his parents of the house on the Putney 
 Road near the Common, where they died, and where his sister, Amelia, 
 had her school. 
 
 ■General Tyler was for many years identified with the institution of 
 masonry. He took his degree in St. John's Lodge, received the chapter 
 degrees in St. Paul's Chapter and was an active member of the De Molay 
 Commandery of Knights Templar. In politics, the General was an old 
 
TYLER FAMILY 275 
 
 line Whig, but early in its history he identified himself with the Republican 
 
 party. 
 
 Children : 
 
 Lucinda B., married George H. Cutler ; married, second, Crane. 
 
 Children of Lucinda B. and George H. Cutler : 
 Mary Eliza, married Charles Lowell Pearson and had a son, Horace. 
 Emily Lyman, married Isaac Lowell Pratt. Children : Tyler ; Stella ; 
 Emily, married Don Alonzo Clay. Mrs. Pratt died January, 1921. 
 
 There were two daughters, Mary Whitwell Tyler and Amelia Sophia 
 Tyler. They both lived until past threescore and ten years. In their 
 sphere of action, and in almost every characteristic, they were widely 
 different, yet were both highly esteemed and beloved, because they were, 
 each in her way, public benefactors. 
 
 Miss Mary was born in Guilford. She was, in her early years, a natural 
 kindergartner. Her influence over a large portion of the children in this 
 village was greater than that of their own parents. She was a member of 
 the Episcopal Church, but at the time when there was no organization of 
 her faith in this place, she gathered the children for the Sunday school 
 and meeting in the old church on the Common. If clothing for destitute 
 children were wanting, she contrived some way to get it for them. If any 
 poor family were in want or suffering of any kind, she would interest 
 some benevolent friend in their behalf, so that relief came. Her affection 
 for the little ones, rich or poor, was unbounded. "Among our earliest, 
 pleasantest recollections of infantile and juvenile days, is the kindly, 
 happy face of 'Aunt Mary,' when she was telling a dozen or more of us 
 interesting stories. She would always give a reply to the little eager 
 questioners, in language adapted to their comprehension. We all knew 
 she was our friend. She was our oracle and sure defense against 'bears 
 and codgers.' " 
 
 Reverend Edward R. Tyler graduated at Yale College, with honor, in 
 the class of 1825, pursued theological study at Andover, and for many 
 years with ability and usefulness filled the office of Congregational pastor, 
 first in Middletbwn and afterwards in Colebrook, Connecticut. He was 
 for a few years editor of The Congregational Observer, a weekly religious 
 journal published at Hartford, and from January, 1843, was editor and 
 proprietor of The New Englander, which, in conjunction with other 
 gentlemen, he originated and established. Mr. Tyler had a clear and dis- 
 criminating mind, and excelled in the department of moral and theological 
 science; though decidedly evangelical, he was remarkably liberal arid 
 catholic. As a true friend of his race, his mind, hand and heart were ever 
 open to the claims of philanthropic principles and enterprise. 
 
 In the summer of 1837 he pleaded the cause of the slave. 
 
276 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 From the journal of his mother, of date Tuesday, July 4, 1837, we learn 
 the status of public sentiment in Brattleboro towards the abolition move- 
 ment: 
 
 Great doings : Edward delivered a lecture on Abolition at the Chapel, — 
 Cannon fired, and all manner of noises made to interrupt the services, no 
 violence, however, offered. At five o'clock, another lecture, and increased 
 noise of Cannon, etc., so much so as to frighten some ladies away from 
 the house, nevertheless Edward proceeded undaunted; and the friends 
 of the cause succeeded in organizing a Society Auxiliary to the A. A. F. F. 
 and adopted a constitution, which was signed by about forty. 
 
 In his private relations Mr. Tyler was, in a rare degree, modest, un- 
 selfish and amiable. 
 
 Mr. Tyler married. May 7, 1838, Ann Murdoch, daughter of Professor 
 Murdoch of Andover, who died June, 1830. He married, second, 1831, 
 Sarah Ann, daughter of Deacon Joseph Boardman, who was born in Mid- 
 dletown, Connecticut, September 19, 1806, and died April 3, 1891. He 
 died September 28, 1848. 
 
 His widow remained in New Haven, educating her children, until, hav- 
 ing seen them all in the way of providing for themselves, she came to 
 Brattleboro in 1867 to assist her sister-in-law. Miss Amelia S. Tyler, in the 
 Tyler School. She remained in Brattleboro, an active and efficient mem- 
 ber of the Congregational Church, until 1879, when she removed to Wash- 
 ington and took up her residence with her daughter Amelia and her son 
 Edward, both unmarried. 
 Children : 
 Amelia, "Miss Minna" she was called, was born in October, 1832. She 
 was brought up in a home atmosphere that developed her natural abil- 
 ity, and as a young woman the brilliancy of her mind was generally 
 recognized. 
 
 She was for some years a teacher in the school of her relative. 
 Miss Sarah Porter, in Farmington, Connecticut, but becoming keenly 
 interested in the cause of the education of the negro, gave up her 
 position, with its promise of congenial surroundings and financial 
 return, to devote her services to the establishment of Hampton Insti- 
 tute, Virginia. She remained there as a teacher several years, and 
 numbered among her pupils Booker T. Washington, who, in the 
 course of a lecture delivered in Brattleboro in 1900, paid a noble 
 tribute to her influence on his life. 
 
 After leaving Hampton, she taught several years in the West, and 
 then occupied governmental positions in Washington. For some 
 years she was connected with the Dead Letter Office, where her 
 
TYLER FAMILY 277 
 
 powers as a linguist and her ability to read many foreign languages 
 were of great value. For twenty-seven years she was in the Patent 
 Office, where her work was largely in the Botanical Department. 
 She died May 22, 1908. 
 Elizabeth, born in Colebrook, Connecticut ; her earlier years were spent 
 in her own home and with near relatives in Hartford, Middletown 
 and New Milf ord, Connecticut, and in Brattleboro ; her education was 
 mostly completed in the house of the grandmother whose simple pres- 
 ence was an inspiration to everything gentle and good. She united 
 with the Congregational Church under the pastorate of her uncle. 
 Reverend George P. Tyler ; her early womanhood was passed in the 
 family of another uncle. Doctor Thomas P. Tyler of Batavia, New 
 York, where in 1862 she married Captain Cornelius C. Billings of 
 the 151st Regiment, New York Volunteers. Her husband was killed 
 in the battle of the Wilderness, at the same time that her cousin. 
 Colonel John S. Tyler, was mortally wounded. 
 
 Three years later, in 1867, she came to Brattleboro to assist her 
 aunt. Miss Amelia Tyler, in conducting a school for young boys, and 
 was thus efficiently employed until disabled by a fatal illness. 
 
 In Batavia she became a communicant of the Episcopal Church. 
 She had personal beauty and a lovely character. It was remarked by 
 some of her contemporaries that in her "sweetness and light" were 
 blended. She died September 20, 1878, aged forty-four, leaving one 
 son: 
 
 Cornelius C. Billings, born in New Haven, Connecticut, December 
 2, 1864. In Brattleboro, at Miss Tyler's School, and at the High 
 School, young Billings received his early education, supplemented 
 by one year at the Brattleborough Academy and one year at the 
 University of Nebraska, until in 1882 he was appointed by Honor- 
 able James M. Tyler (then member of Congress from the Second 
 Congressional District of Vermont) naval cadet at Annapolis, 
 where he graduated in 1886. 
 
 Two years afloat followed, including a trip around the world, 
 when he spent nine months in Japan aboard the United States 
 Steamship Brooklyn, Admiral Ralph Chandler, commanditig the 
 Asiatic Squadron. Upon a reorganization of the navy in 1888, 
 which cut down every grade, the surplus, with one year's pay, was 
 honorably discharged. 
 
 In August, 1888, Mr. Billings was appointed to a position in the 
 hydrographic office, in connection with the navy department. 
 
 In May, 1889, as a result of civil service examination, he was 
 appointed an assistant examiner in the United States Patent Office. 
 
278 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 In 1895 he was graduated from the Columbia Law School, now 
 the George Washington University, in Washington, D. C, and 
 admitted to the bar of the courts of the District of Columbia. 
 
 In May, 1898, he offered his services to the Navy Department, 
 and was commissioned ensign and served with the fleet off San- 
 tiago, in the Spanish War, until honorably discharged in January, 
 1899. He then received a reappointment to the patent office and 
 soon after was reinstated in his former grade; in June, 1901, he 
 was promoted to the position of law clerk in the Commissioner's 
 Office, serving until November, 1905, when he was appointed exam- 
 iner of interferences. About a year later he was appointed by 
 President Roosevelt examiner-in-chief in the patent office and was 
 promoted in 1907 to the important position of assistant commis- 
 sioner of patents. He was promoted by President Taft in 1909 to 
 the office of first assistant commissioner of patents. He is now a 
 patent lawyer in New York. He married Mrs. Almena S. Dresel. 
 Edward Royall Tyler was "born in New Haven in May, 1843, where he 
 lived until his graduation from Yale in 1865. He soon after entered 
 the service of the government as clerk in the Treasury Department, 
 studying law during his time out of office. After his admission to 
 the bar he resigned his clerkship under circumstances peculiarly 
 honorable : a reduction had been made in the force of the office but 
 he had been retained; among those who had been discharged was a 
 very worthy young man with a dependent family, and Mr. Tyler 
 offered his resignation with the understanding that this other man 
 should be appointed in his stead. 
 
 After some time spent in the practice of law, he reentered the 
 service of the government as a fourth assistant examiner in the patent 
 office; his merit gave him promotion until he reached the grade of 
 principal examiner, which he held at the time of his death, March 
 30, 1891, at the age of forty-nine years. 
 William. 
 
 Miss Amelia Sophia Tyler was the principal of a female school of a 
 high order in Brattleboro sometime before 1837. (See p. 383.) 
 
 From The Vermont Phoe^iix: 
 
 A Hfe so full as hers has been of every patient and loving sacrifice is 
 rare indeed, but when coupled with the high intellectual qualities and 
 Christian virtues which lent such a charm and dignity to Miss Tyler's 
 character, it becomes, after it is ended, a subject over which one lingers 
 with tender admiration. And to the young what a lesson of unselfish 
 devotion it furnishes. Many of our middle-aged and other ladies remem- 
 
TYLER FAMILY 379 
 
 ber, with grateful 'affection, the careful instruction they received at her 
 hands, when her school for young ladies was in existence, while in more 
 recent years, and up to the time of her death, the old Tyler homestead has 
 been a school for boys, in the management and instruction of which Miss 
 Tyler possessed rare skill and tact, combined with an unvarying motherly 
 love. 
 
 She died February 38, 1878, aged seventy-one. 
 
 Reverend Joseph D. Tyler graduated from Yale College in 1839. He 
 was a clergyman of the Episcopal Church, but never officiated in that 
 office to any great extent for he early became interested in the instruction 
 of the deaf and dumb, and was a teacher in the first institute for that pur- 
 pose in this country, in Hartford, Connecticut. After several years' ser- 
 vice in Hartford, he was in 1840 chosen principal of the Virginia Deaf 
 and Dumb Asylum in Staunton, Virginia, where he died January 39, 1853, 
 at the age of forty-eight. 
 
 From a Virginia paper of January, 1853 : 
 
 He was beyond all question one of the rarest and ripest scholars of our 
 country, and one of the most vigorous and polished writers of the present 
 day. His essays in the leading reviews of the United States (though his 
 shrinking modesty prevented him from accompanying them by his own 
 name) have been pronounced among the most powerful and beautiful 
 contributions to American literature. His official duties rarely permitted 
 him to preach, except in the language of signs to his deaf-mute congrega- 
 tion ; but such sermons as were heard from him were masterpieces, models, 
 and unsurpassed in strength, purity of style and solid learning by anything 
 out of the pages of old English divines. 
 
 This man, with powers which would have graced the most conspicuous 
 arena of cultivated intellect in our whole country, was not only content, 
 but joyful to pass his days in the comparatively obscure and humble 
 position of teacher of the deaf and dumb, and to that field of usefulness 
 all the energies of his intellect were devoted. 
 
 Mr. Tyler was a person whose substantial excellence of character was 
 without cant or austerity. A correspondent of the Charleston Literary 
 Gazette remarked, in a letter from Staunton, that he "had never seen a 
 face so strikingly stamped with the impress of benevolence." 
 
 He married Miss Amanda Fuller. 
 Children : 
 
 Ellen, married Pearson. 
 
 Daniel Fuller. 
 
 Joseph and Clarence, were in the Confederate Army. 
 
280 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Reverend Thomas Pickman Tyler, D.D., graduated from Trinity 
 College, Hartford ; had charge of Brattleborough Academy for a time, and 
 was engaged in ministerial service for some years in the state of New 
 York. 
 
 December 9, 1841, he married, first, Mary A., daughter of Rufus Clark 
 of Brattleboro, born January 18, 1818 ; died May 17, 1856. He married, 
 second, Mrs. Diana, widow of Honorable Joshua Lawrence Brown of 
 Batavia, New York. He died in Brattleboro January 15, 1893. 
 Children by the first marriage : 
 
 Colonel John Steele Tyler, born April 29, 1843 ; died May 23, 1864. 
 
 (Seep. 780.) 
 Rufus Clark, born 1847. 
 
 Hanson R.^ lieutenant in the United States Navy, came to Brattleboro 
 with his parents when a child. He was graduated from Annapolis 
 in the class of 1866 and immediately received an appointment to the 
 United States Navy, serving until 1896, when he was retired on 
 account of physical disability. He was recalled to active duty during 
 the war with Spain, and served first as recorder of the Board of 
 Labor Employment and later on the receiving ship Independence at 
 Mare Island. He married Miss Mary Horton ; died in Vallejo, Cali- 
 fornia, May 11, 1900, leaving a son, John Steele Tyler. 
 
 A Description of the Earliest Village of Brattleboro 
 (From the autobiography of Mrs. Royall Tyler.) 
 
 Directly at the foot of the hill now leading up High Street, making the 
 corner, was Doctor Hall's house, and he had a beautiful garden, reaching 
 up to the grove of trees now owned by Judge Kellogg [Charles R. 
 Crosby's], which was terraced and elegantly cultivated, with flights of 
 steps from one level to the other. Fruit trees of all kinds the country 
 produced, currants, gooseberries, and strawberries in great abundance, 
 and flowers of every variety ; the handsomest tulips I ever saw anywhere. 
 
 Next to this garden was usually in the summer a fine field of grain or 
 grass, and now occupied by Doctor Post, dentist. Then came Mr. J. W. 
 Blake's, the handsomest house then in the village. Mrs. Blake was the 
 daughter of Colonel Jones, who once owned the beautiful seat since owned 
 and occupied by Doctor Marsh [Hinsdale road], on the banks of the 
 Connecticut, where your father and I visited occasionally. Mrs. Blake's 
 father was then dead, and her mother removed into a house she owned, 
 about half a mile further ; selling the homestead to Doctor Marsh. Mrs. 
 Blake had one brother, known as Harvey Jones; he inherited the chief 
 of his parents' property, and was called rich; but he was an eccentric 
 
DESCRIPTION OF VILLAGE. MRS. TYLER 381 
 
 character; he built himself a singular looking house very nearly on the 
 site of Mrs. Zelotes Dickinson's house [Herrick's] ; it consisted of three 
 stories of one room wide, with a kitchen back; it excited the risibles of all 
 beholders, as it looked as if a gust of wind would blow it over; here he 
 lived with one maid servant, keeping bachelor's hall ; for some years doing 
 no business, but amusing himself as he could. 
 
 After leaving Mr. Blake's house there was no dwelling that side of the 
 road, till we came to Miss Nancy Hall's on the point, afterwards owned 
 by Doctor Dickerman. That house was built by the first tailor ever 
 settled in Brattleboro village ; a Mr. Houghton, who married a Miss Free- 
 dom Clark, sister of Rufus Clark, Esquire. Her father owned. and occu- 
 pied the farm now belonging to Mr. Rufus Clark. 
 
 About the time we were first acquainted in this village, old Mr. Steen 
 began building the house Mr. Joseph Steen now lives in and for many 
 years it stood only boarded in, unfinished, only the basement story, where 
 he lived with his family; this was the only dwelling on this road, till we 
 came to Mr. Pettis's [Dorman B. Eaton's] ; where we now live [Tyler 
 place, on the Common] was a sandy pine plain, mostly denuded of its 
 ancient trees, and the whole land between that house on the point and 
 Pettis's belonged to Mr. Steen. Afterwards he sold all south and east 
 of the road to Judge Whitney as I have understood. Doctor Hall's father 
 and sisters occupied the Houghton house. 
 
 From Mr. Steen's house and orchard on the east side of the road, all the 
 land was owned and cultivated by Judge Whitney. His house stood where 
 it now [Dowley's] does, but was only one story high. 
 
 From Judge Whitney's house and office there were no buildings on that 
 side of the road, till we came to Doctor Clark's druggist's store; after- 
 wards he built a dwelling house. All the land was cultivated as gardens 
 by Mr. Blake and Doctor Clark. 
 
 I now recollect that the building occupied by Doctor Hall as a druggist 
 store was the one built by Mr. Jones. 
 
 At this time there was no Druggist, or any other building except this, 
 till we came to Doctor Hall's store ; the same afterwards occupied by his 
 son Chandler, not then born. There were beautiful gardens all along. 
 Then came a range of low buildings. 
 
 Over Doctor Hall's store was Townsend's Printing office. 
 
 The next decent dwelling was Mrs. Townsend's, who afterwards built 
 the brick house since owned in succession by Deacon Holbrook, and John 
 Blake [site of the Vermont National Bank]. And below all these, down 
 around the bridge and over the brook, were a number of small buildings 
 occupied by the blacksmiths, shoemakers, etc. On Flat Street was a Tan- 
 nery, etc. Where the present Brattleboro House is [Brooks House, 
 
383 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Crosby Block] the only hotel in the village, was then kept by Mr. Samuel 
 Dickinson, who married a sister of Judge Whitney, and lived there many 
 years I believe. It was known as the Stage House. 
 
 Mr. Dickinson was a blacksmith by trade, but had at this time relin- 
 quished that business in favor of Winslow Whitney, brother of his wife. 
 He had a boy apprentice by the name of Root [Samuel], who succeeded 
 him after some years, and by industry and integrity amassed wealth and 
 is now President of the Brattleborough Bank. 
 
 We have now mentioned all the dwelling houses of note. There were 
 no buildings up into High Street at the time I first saw the village, but 
 not many years after, and before we came to Brattleborough [1801] Mr. 
 Chapin came from Orange and purchased of Mr. Dickinson land where 
 he built his dwelling house and store. The only one after the rise of the 
 hill going up to West Brattleborough, was the Hadley's, which old house 
 I believe still stands. 
 
 At the time I now write about our village was famous for its rural 
 beauty. 
 
 The hill now covered by the tombs of most of those who then lived here, 
 was a dense forest both sides of the road leading to Guilford; which 
 road was encumbered by stumps and stones, or rather rocks; for several 
 years your father and I rode on horseback whenever we visited Brattle- 
 borough, and were never weary of lingering when we first came in sight 
 of the village, admiring the lovely prospect. When the first inhabitants 
 settled here, the only thought was to clear away the forest around Whet- 
 stone Brook, and erect their dwellings, and have fields' to cultivate for 
 food and shelter. So they left few trees for ornament, and when Lom- 
 bardy poplars were introduced, and more refined minds succeeded the first 
 settlers, they found the houses bereft of shade, and as those trees grow 
 rapidly, and their spiral forms, so different from the native forest trees, 
 had all the charm of novelty, every gentleman of taste had united in 
 setting them out each side of the road, so that from Cemetery Hill the 
 village looked beautifully with its little white cottages scattered sparsely 
 among those towering trees, backed in the distance by the primeval forest. 
 
 This was long before we termed it Brattleborough. 
 
 In the meantime there was quite a rush of inhabitants who soon spoiled 
 its first beauty by building, opening stores, etc. 
 
 Doctor Timothy Dwight, president of Yale College, in his book of 
 Travels in New England, speaks of Brattleboro in 1803 as "a little collec- 
 tion of houses often styled the village, and sometimes the city, built on the 
 southern limit of a plain immediately below the mouth of West River, 
 which is one of the prettiest objects of the kind and size within my recol- 
 
THE LITERARY SOCIETY 283 
 
 lection. If we did not mistake in counting them, there were now but ten in 
 number. The inhabitants are all included in a single congregation, and 
 amounted in 1790 to 1589, in 1800 to 1867." 
 
 The Literary Society 
 
 As the author of the first comedy written by an American and played 
 on an American stage, and as a gay and gallant wit, Royall Tyler had 
 received the homage of the literary and fashionable world before emigrat- 
 ing to the wilderness of Vermont. Here he found time from professional 
 duties and lectures to continue his literary ventures, his essays and verses 
 appearing in the most important journals. 
 
 That Uncle Jonathan, the hero of "The Contrast," suggested a model 
 for the typical, native-born American character "Uncle Sain" as we now 
 know him, is one of the interesting features of "The Contrast" itself. 
 
 Mary Palmer, his wife, in her autobiography gives us some account of 
 the social conditions which they found on their arrival in this village. 
 She says that in 1800 "The Holbrooks, Fessendens, Halls and Blakes had 
 recently settled on the west bank of the Connecticut. These, with the 
 Chapins and the Reverend William Wells, formed a cultivated society." 
 
 "Devoted to everything that was calculated to elevate, refine and adorn, 
 and withal giving warmth and enjoyment to all who came within her 
 sphere," she also contributed much towards "an ambition for literary pur- 
 suits." 
 
 But Mrs. Tyler's influence in this new country was not limited to the 
 amenities of life, however worthy they might be; the care and work of 
 making cheese and butter, and the spinning wheels were attended by 
 herself with the assistance of one and sometimes two girls. She spun 
 all the thread she used, bleaching some and dyeing some, weaving it into 
 sheets and table linen. She also made woolen sheeting. Her children's 
 summer and winter garments for common use were made by her. Later 
 in life, in the Tyler house on the Common, she spun sewing and embroidery 
 silk from silkworms fed on mulberries of her own planting.^ 
 
 The brilliant coterie of ladies and gentlemen who composed the literary 
 society known by the name of "Colon and Spondee," meeting at Guilford 
 and less often at Dummerston, under the inspiration of the Tylers, in- 
 cluded, as members, Richard Whitney, James Elliot, whose poetical and 
 miscellaneous works were published in four volumes. Miss Amelia Palmer, 
 Miss Mary Tyler, Miss Elizabeth Peck and Miss Harriet (daughter 
 of Micah Townsend), described as "a belle of well-founded pretensions 
 in all respects." Every one of them contributed original poetry and prose 
 
 i-A craze for silkworm culture swept through all this section from about 1835 
 to 1845. 
 
284 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 to The Farmers' Museum, or The New Hampshire and Vermont Journal, 
 a publication of high merit, edited by Royall Tyler's intimate friend, 
 Joseph Dennie. 
 
 Samuel Shephardson, John H. Palmer, Henry Denison, Edward 
 Palmer, Samuel Porter, Richard Vose, Abel Duncan, William Coleman 
 and John Phelps were other members. The conversational powers of 
 these uncommon people were as brilliant as their literary gifts, and, having 
 also acquirements in elocution, they read their own productions excel- 
 lently well. 
 
 There was a dinner after each feast of soul under the supervision of 
 Edward Houghton, who was said to be "a veritable Maecenas." 
 
 A few ladies. Miss Polly and Miss Sally Bigelow, the Misses Negus, 
 "the Crosbys" and Miss Lydia Miller of Dummerston, were also admitted, 
 not as poets or authors, but "some for their fortune, sofne for their beauty 
 and some for other entertaining qualities." 
 
 "It may be remarked that the gentlemen of this society attained posi- 
 tions of importance in after life, and the ladies married suitably and 
 happily." 
 
 Honorable Oliver Chapin 
 
 Honorable Oliver Chapin, son of Daniel and Abigail Chapin, of the 
 fourth generation from Deacon Samuel Chapin, who came to Springfield, 
 Massachusetts, in 1642, was born October 1, 1759 ; married April 29, 
 1784, Miss Mary Jones of Milford, Massachusetts. 
 
 In 1775 he entered the Revolutionary Army as a private and became a 
 member of General Washington's bodyguard, serving until December, 
 1779. 
 
 In 1789 he moved from Milford to Orange, Massachusetts. In 1799 
 and 1804 he represented the towns of Orange and Warwick in the General 
 Court. In 1806 he moved from Orange to Brattleboro, and was engaged 
 as a country merchant here as in Orange ; was interested in turnpike build- 
 ing and in 1804 built the bridge across the Connecticut River, between 
 Hinsdale, New Hampshire, and Brattleboro. At that time the island in 
 the river was called Chapin's Island. In 1807 he was appointed second 
 assistant judge of the Windham County Court and in 1809, first assistant 
 judge. 
 
 He died June 26, 1811. Mrs. Chapin died August 27, 1849, aged eighty- 
 four. 
 
 He was a man of uncommon ability and enterprise and became an 
 influential factor in the development of the town. He built houses on the 
 main street, which were destroyed by the fire of 1869, including his own 
 residence on the south corner of Main, and High Streets. 
 
CAPT. SAMUEL ROOT 285 
 
 Children : 
 
 Cyrus Chapin, born in Milf ord June 10, 1785 ; graduated from Brown 
 University; a merchant; unmarried; died in Brattleboro April 27, 
 1811. 
 Abigail, born in Orange July 2, 1789; married Thomas Harris of 
 Charlestown, Massachusetts. She was left a widow with nine chil- 
 dren, of whom Thomas and George became farmers in Hillsboro, 
 Illinois. She died in Jaflrey, New Hampshire, August 3, 1870. Other 
 children were : 
 
 Julia J., married April 33, 1851, Doctor F. A. Holman, a physician 
 at the Vermont Asylum. They lived in California, where she died 
 February 13, 1871, aged forty-five, leaving a daughter, Sophie. 
 Mary C, married April 32, 1856, Doctor Fred S. Ainsworth, born in 
 Jaflrey, New Hampshire, April 17, 1830 ; graduated at Dartmouth 
 in 1840 and Harvard Medical School, 1844; practiced his profes- 
 ' sion in Boston; was surgeon (major) of the 33d Massachusetts 
 Infantry; brigadier-surgeon of United States Volunteers from 
 1863 to 1865 ; died in Jaffrey October 5, 1878. 
 Charles A., born July 10, 1803. (See p. 501.) 
 
 Captain Samuel Root, 
 son of Moses Root, was fourth in descent from Thomas Roote, who came 
 to Hartford, Connecticut, about 1637 from Badby, England. He was 
 born at Montague, Massachusetts, October 9, 1788, came to Brattleboro 
 when he was about twenty years of age and worked for Samuel Dickinson, 
 from whom he learned the trade of a blacksmith. After laboring for 
 Dickinson a few years and completing his engagement, he bought of 
 him his shop, tools and good will and commenced business for himself. 
 
 He married Februai'y 6, 1817, Catherine, daughter of Eli Sargent, who 
 was born April 18, 1791, at the old Sargent homestead, West River, the 
 second of nine children, and during her whole life a resident of Brattle- 
 boro; she died February 6, 1876. 
 
 Captain Root was a man of great industry, of an indomitable will and 
 always exercised the most rigid economy. When New England and New 
 York were chartering banks by the score, the prudent Captain invested 
 his surplus gains and accumulations in bank shares, and his investments 
 uniformly proved productive and added largely to his wealth. At the 
 time of his death he owned a large amount of stock in some ten or fifteen 
 banks in New England and New York. 
 
 His stern, unflinching honesty and practical good, sense rendered him 
 exceedingly popular with his neighbors and townsmen, and he was annu- 
 ally elected to responsible offices in town, the duties of which he dis- 
 charged with great fidelity. He represented the town in the General 
 
386 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Assembly of the state ; was oftentimes chosen one of the selectmen of the 
 town, and was for many years trustee and keeper of the surplus money, 
 a fund sequestered and set apart for the support and maintenance of 
 common schools in town. The fund was large, and great' care was required 
 in obtaining ample security for loans that were made of portions of the 
 same. He was for a long time a director in the old bank, and was elected 
 president thereof after the death of Epaphroditus Seymour in 1854, and 
 continued to hold the office until his own death in March, 1869. 
 
 During the last fifty years of his life he filled the most important munic- 
 ipal offices in town. As a citizen, he discharged all his duties faithfully 
 and distinguished himself by the zeal and energy with which he entered 
 into enterprises which were calculated to promote the growth and pros- 
 perity of the town, and his conduct was characterized by the utmost frank- 
 ness and sincerity. He followed closely the policy adopted by his dis- 
 tinguished predecessor, Mr. Seymour, in the management of the bank. 
 He was captain of the Brattleborough Artillery. 
 
 He died March 15, 1869, sincerely mourned and regretted by a large 
 circle of relatives and friends. 
 Of five children, only two survived the father : 
 
 Frances, born December 17, 1817; married August 12, 1839, George 
 
 C. Lawrence; died February 23, 1871. (See p. 554.) 
 Catherine, born March 21, 1820 ; died in Chicago April 20, 1896 ; mar- 
 ried January 4, 1843, Samuel H. Price of Virginia, bom November 
 7, 1815, died in Chicago April 8, 1863. Children : 
 Edward R., born November 5, 1843, lost his health in the war ; died 
 August 5, 1900 ; married Miss Elizabeth Rowley ; sons : S. Harri- 
 son, died August 30, 1918 ; and Robert C. 
 Frank, born in 1846 ; married Miss Hattie Gaskell, who died March 
 23, 1913. He died March 23, 1931, leaving a son, Harold Gaskell 
 Price. 
 
 Samuel H. Price was born in Greenbriar County, Virginia. When a 
 young man he came to New England, and received his collegiate education 
 at Amherst, Massachusetts. In 1839 he was principal of the old Chester- 
 field Academy and was principal of the High School in Brattleboro in 
 1840. He studied and practiced law in this village with J. D. Bradley and 
 was admitted to the bar in September, 1841. He the.n removed to Windsor 
 in this state and continued the practice of his profession for several 
 years; after spending a year or two in Manchester, New Hampshire, 
 superintending the construction of a railroad, he went to the West and 
 was employed by an insurance company and transacted business in Mil- 
 waukee, Wisconsin, and went to Chicago, Illinois, in 1856. On the 
 breaking out of the war he and his eldest son entered the service of the 
 
EZRA CLARK 387 
 
 United States. He was quartermaster of the Ninth Regiment of Illinois 
 Cavalry under General Curtis and continued to perform the duties of that 
 office till sickness compelled him to resign and return to his home in 
 Chicago, where he lingered under the fatal efifects of disease so common 
 to our army in the swamps of the South. 
 
 Mr. Price was a man of great moral worth. Being imbued with a keen 
 sense of justice and right, he was always strongly opposed to that 
 "peculiar Institution" which proved the bane of his native state. Into 
 all measures for human improvement and progress be entered with an 
 intelligent zeal and manly independence. Loyal to the heart's core, he 
 was ready to make any sacrifice which the good of his country demanded. 
 In short, he was a man who could justly be called a Christian, a patriot 
 and a gentleman. 
 
 Ezra Clark 
 
 Ezra Clark, called "Doctor" because up to his time the sale of drugs 
 was controlled by physicians, came here from Northampton, Massachu- 
 setts, in 1809, and during the time he resided here was the only druggist 
 in Brattleboro, which profession he combined with hardware. ■ His shop 
 was in a small wooden building about on the site of the Episcopal Church, 
 • just north of Captain Lord's tavern. About 1830 he moved, with his 
 family, to Hartford, Connecticut, where he was an extensive iron dealer. 
 N. B. Williston, his former clerk and partner, became his successor and 
 with E. Hunt purchased the entire stock of Doctor Clark. The building 
 remained in possession of Doctor Clark over twenty years after his 
 removal to Hartford, but the drug business therein was successfully con- 
 tinued by Messrs. Williston & Hunt for many years. 
 
 "Doctor Clark was remembered in Brattleboro for his excellent quali- 
 ties of mind and heart and for his remarkable uprightness in business. 
 He was vivacious, quick-witted, and was in demand for extemporaneous 
 speeches which overflowed with wit and wisdom." His sons came back 
 to Brattleboro after a few years. The eldest son, S. Morton Clark, 
 became the proprietor of a manufactory of "mother-of-pearl" as early 
 as 1833. This material was converted into articles of beauty, such as 
 pearl slides, buttons, etc. He married Janette, daughter of G. R. Ellis, 
 Esquire, and returned to Hartford, Connecticut. He died January 10, 
 1870, aged eighty-one. 
 
 Honorable Ezra Clark, Junior, was in early life employed as a clerk 
 by Messrs. Williston & Hunt in this place. Several years after his return 
 to Hartford he was elected representative to Congress from that city. 
 He married Miss Laura Whitney, who died May 4, 1862. 
 
 He was president of the Vermont Savings Bank from 1847 to 1857, 
 and was trustee of the Vermont Asylum. 
 
288 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Nathan Birdseye Williston 
 
 Reverend Payson, son of Reverend Noah Williston of West Haven, 
 Connecticut, was born in 1763 ; graduated from Yale, 1783 ; ordained at 
 Easthampton August 13, 1789. He married Sarah Birdseye, daughter 
 of Reverend Nathan Birdseye of Stratford. 
 
 His son, Nathan Birdseye WiUiston, was born at Easthampton August 
 11, 1798. He left his father's home at the age of twelve years, and from 
 that time on was dependent on his own resources. He came to Brattle- 
 boro in 1810, as clerk in the store of Ezra Clark. Winning the confidence 
 of Mr. Clark, he became a partner, and ultimately succeeded to the busi- 
 ness in 1835. Later on he took into partnership his brother-in-law, Fer- 
 dinand Tyler (p. 414), and still later Charles F. Thompson (p. 678), 
 in 1853. At the establishment of the Windham County Bank, in 1856, he 
 became its president ; and when that institution was merged into the First 
 National Bank, in 1864, he continued in the same relationship to that 
 organization till his retirement in 1879. During the war he was engaged 
 in the manufacture of carriages. 
 
 Mr. Williston was twice married : to Miss Margaret Miller, who died 
 October "5, 1841, aged thirty-five, leaving five children; and to Miss Caro- 
 line Brewster, who died August 19, 1873, aged sixty-five. 
 
 He died December 5, 1883. 
 Children : 
 
 Payson, died February 7, 1831, aged nineteen months. 
 
 Margaret M., died February 5, 1858, aged twenty-five. 
 
 Maria, born October 19, 1835 ; married September 16, 1858, Reverend 
 George Leon Walker ; died August 31, 1865. (See p. 733.) 
 
 Edmund H. Sawyer was, when a young man, a clerk in the employ 
 of Williston & Tyler. He went from here in 1852 and entered into busi- 
 ness relations with Samuel Williston of Easthampton. 
 
 Mr. Sawyer was widely known as the manager of the Nashawannock 
 Manufacturing Company, and as an enterprising business man. He occu- 
 pied many positions of trust and responsibility, and was a member of the 
 Massachusetts Legislature. 
 
 He married October 4, 1848, Mary A. Farnsworth, daughter of Eleazer 
 Farnsworth, who died May 3, 1851,, aged twenty-four. 
 
 He died in Easthampton November 26, 1879. 
 
 Honorable Jonathan Hunt 
 
 Jonathan and Elisha Hunt, who cleared land in Vernon in 1758, were 
 sons of Samuel Hunt, whose father, Jonathan, was son of the Jonathan 
 who was first of the name in this country. 
 
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HON. JONATHAN HUNT 389 
 
 Samuel had other children : 
 Arad, who lived in Vernon, was general of militia, and member of 
 the Westminster Convention of 1777, and donated five thousand acres 
 of land in Albany, Vermont, to Middlebury College. 
 Another son, Jonathan, was lieutenant-governor of Vermont, major 
 in 1780, sheriff of Windham County, June 15, 1781, high sheriff in 
 1783, judge of the County Court, October 34, 1783, and member of 
 the Convention of 1791. He was born September 13, 1738; married 
 July 15, 1779, Miss Lavinia Swan of Boston, born August 13, 1749 ; 
 died June 39, 1834. He died in Vernon June 1, 1833. Children: 
 Anne, who married Doctor Perley Marsh, left $10,000 to found an 
 Asylum for the Insane in Brattleboro; Frances, married Gouverneur 
 Morris ; Arad, who was the father of Roswell, in business in Brattle- 
 boro with Colonel Arnold J. Hines and George Newman, a brilliant 
 machinist and a fascinating man, and of Lavinia S., married Major 
 John C. Tyler of Brattleboro. (See p. 414.) Jonathan and Lavinia 
 Hunt were also the parents of : 
 
 Honorable Jonathan Hunt, who was born in the town of Vernon, 
 Vermont, August 13, 1787; graduated at Dartmouth College in the 
 class of 1807; studied law, was admitted to the bar, and soon after 
 began practice in Brattleboro. He married Maria Jane, daughter 
 of Colonel Thaddeus and Jemima (Loomis) Leavitt of Sufiield, 
 Connecticut. 
 
 He was captain of artillery in 1811, general later, and contributed 
 largely from his fortune to the maintenance of the militia. He built 
 a house on the main street, where many of the distinguished men 
 of the country were guests. This was the first house built entirely 
 of brick in Brattleboro and Windham County, and people came 
 from miles distant to see the wonderful sight. 
 
 A little one-story building^ (at the foot of High Street and 
 corner of Main) was built on his grounds by him in 1830 for a 
 law office. In 1830, when Hunt was a member of Congress, 
 occurred the great Hayne- controversy in which Daniel Webster 
 immortalized himself, and which was said to have had its incep- 
 tion in the little office on High Street when the great orator was a 
 guest of the Hunt family. 
 
 Jonathan Hunt represented the town in the Legislature in 1816, 
 1817 and 1834, was elected to the Twentieth, Twenty-first and 
 
 1 Used as an insurance office by Doctor Charles A. Chapin, a law office by J. D. 
 Bradley and others, an express office in the sixties, removed in April, 1872. From 
 November 9, 1832, Gouverneur Morris as attorney and counselor-at-law occupied 
 the law office of Honorable Jonathan Hunt. 
 
290 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Twenty-second Congress, serving from March 4, 1827, until his 
 death in Washington May 15, 1833. 
 
 He was president of the First National Bank of Brattleboro 
 from March 1, 1832, to the time of his death. 
 
 He was a man "of sound practical sense and stern integrity." 
 Resolutions by the House, of Representatives at the time of his 
 death stated that "the character of Mr. Hunt for professional up- 
 rightness, political independence and unsullied integrity in his 
 private affairs was not surpassed by that of any man in the com- 
 munity. Attended from early youth by all the allurements which 
 wealth can furnish, few men have arrived at the meridian of Hfe 
 through a course of more uniform industry and perseverance." 
 Mr. Everett of Vermont, in addressing the House, said, "I have 
 known him long, I have known him well, and a purer spirit never 
 inhabited mortality." 
 
 Children of Honorable Jonathan and Jane Leavitt Hunt were : 
 Jane, born September 12, 1821. 
 
 William Morris, born March 31, 1834. (See p. 733.) 
 Doctor Jonathan, died in Paris, 1855. 
 Richard Morris, born October, 1838. (See p. 736.) 
 Leavitt, born February 33, 1830. (See p. 738.) 
 
 After the death of her husband Mrs. Hunt took her family to 
 Europe for a prolonged stay, that they might be educated in the 
 direction of their natural endowments. 
 
 Mrs. Hunt died December 30, 1877. 
 
 Miss Jane Hunt left by will to the Brooks Library the painting, 
 "The Prodigal Son," by her brother, William Morris Hunt. 
 
 Asa Green 
 
 Asa Green came to Brattleboro previous to 1810, was a lawyer, and 
 was postmaster from 1811 to 1841. Green Street, on land he owned, was 
 named for him. He married Electa Willard, who was born at Westmin- 
 ster, Vermont, December 33, 1787; she was a daughter of BiHy Willard, 
 who was born at Fort Dummer. She died October 33, 1877. 
 
 Upon their marriage they removed to Brattleboro, joining the Centre 
 Congregational Church together in 1817. For thirty or more years Mr. 
 Green was one of the prime movers in the organization of the church, 
 and was the first clerk. They lived in the house which he built, in 1834, 
 on the top of the hill where Green Street bends down to High ; this house 
 was afterwards the residence of Doctor Francis J. Higginson. Henry 
 Burnham speaks of his "pleasantness, peculiarities, virtues and eccen- 
 
REV. ALONZO CHURCH, D.D. ' 291 
 
 tricities." In 1843 he moved to Davenport, Iowa, where he died October 
 2, 1843. 
 
 His wife remained in Davenport until 1845, when she returned, and her 
 death occurred in Brattleboro. She left a sister. Miss Betsey Willard, 
 who died February 36, 1882, aged eighty-eight, and an adopted son, 
 Theodore P. Greene, admiral of the United States Navy. (See p. 821.) 
 
 Grindall R. Ellis 
 
 Grindall R. Ellis was admitted to the bar of Windham County in 
 December, 1810. He moved from Newfane Hill to Brattleboro in 1812 
 and lived south of the Common. 
 
 He deeded the land now known as the village Common to the town on 
 condition that the church should be built on it. 
 
 Mr. Ellis married Susan, daughter of Judge Lemuel Whitney, who died 
 September 9, 1872, aged eighty-four; 
 
 He died September 10, 1830, aged forty-three. 
 Children : 
 
 Helen E., married November 1, 1830, John R. Blake. 
 
 Janette, married Ezra Clark of Hartford, Connecticut. 
 
 Frances L., educated at the Troy Female Seminary, 1835-1836 ; married 
 October 31, 1837, D. P. Russell; died December 19, 1838, aged 
 twenty- four. 
 
 Reverend Alonzo Church, D.D., 
 
 was born in West Brattleboro on the Dwight Goodenough farm, April 9, 
 1793. He was the son of Reuben Church, who, with his father, served 
 in the Revolutionary War. His boyhood and youth were spent upon a 
 small farm, and he was obliged to pay his way through Middlebury Col- 
 lege by teaching in the winter. He graduated in the class of 1816 and soon 
 after, on account of impaired health, emigrated to Georgia, where at 
 Putnam in that state, he established in 1818 a classical school for both 
 sexes. This school became, famous, drawing pupils from all the adjoining 
 counties. 
 
 Soon after his arrival in Georgia he was ordained a minister of the 
 Presbyterian Church, but continued to teach, devoting himself to the 
 ministry without salary, by supplying the pulpit of those poor churches 
 whose members were unable to provide themselves with a pastor. 
 
 In the year 1819 he was elected professor of mathematics and astron- 
 omy in Franklin College, an institution which had been endowed by the 
 state of Georgia as early as 1789, and upon the resignation of the presi- 
 dent of the college in 1829 he succeeded to that position, which he filled 
 for thirty years, until 1860. 
 
393 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 He married one of his pupils, Anna D., who was born in 1836 and died 
 in 1889. He lived for more than forty years in Athens, Georgia. 
 
 Among those who received instruction at his hands were many of 
 Georgia's most distinguished sons. A. H. Stevens was his pupil, and dur- 
 ing his collegiate career was an inmate of Doctor Church's family. Num- 
 bers of Georgia's best and oldest men acknowledged their indebted- 
 ness to the wise and good man who directed their education. He was the 
 friend and associate of Crawford and Bowen, of Calhoun and Preston and 
 McDuffie, and, although his pursuits were dififerent, he was a peer among 
 them. 
 
 He was a great educator, with a sense of justice that made him a power 
 for good. To him more than to any other one man is due the intellectual 
 development of the citizens of Georgia. 
 
 Doctor Church died May 18, 1862. T. Alonzo Church, his son,, died 
 at the age of fifty-six. 
 
 JiMMiE Barnes and Sukie, His Wife 
 
 The country in New England until a very recent period has bred, side 
 by side with, and as a sort of humorous accompaniment to, its strong and 
 balanced individualities, lesser and strangely eccentric persons, who have, 
 like Shakespeare's clowns, relieved by their humor and exaggeration the 
 more serious aspects of life. We are fortunate in having such a lively 
 account of Jimmie Barnes and Sukie, his wife. 
 
 John W. Blake, Esquire, found employment for Jimmie Barnes on a 
 farm owned by Mr. Blake in the West River district. At this time Jimmie 
 had no family, and he was intensely devoted to the interests of his em- 
 ployer, for whom he had great veneration. He considered the "Esquire" 
 the man, and the only man, fit for office. When asked the question whom 
 he should vote for, for representative, governor or president, the answer 
 was invariably, "Squar Blake." Jimmie remained a single man until he 
 met Sukie at the store of John Holbrook, in the building afterwards 
 known as the American House. This event must have been before 1810, 
 for Mr. Holbrook ceased his mercantile operations in this place about 
 that time. 
 
 However much "Barkis was willin'," there was a serious objection, in 
 the shape of a husband, to be disposed of before Sukie could be honored 
 by the name of Barnes. In all the stores and hotels of that time customers 
 were furnished with a popular beverage called "flip." This was, we be- 
 lieve, a compound of some kind of ardent spirits, beer, water, nutmeg, 
 sugar, and finished off by inserting into the mug containing the composi- 
 tion, a red-hot iron. As Esau sold his birthright for a mess of "pottage, 
 the husband of Sukie, for a mug of flip, gave up his marital rights to 
 
JIMMIE AND SUKIE BARNES 293 
 
 Jimmie, and left him in undisturbed possession of "the charmer." The 
 legality of this affair was never questioned before the courts, and for 
 effectiveness, expedition and economy the transaction has never been 
 surpassed, if equaled, in this town. Jimmie ever afterwards had a weak- 
 ness for the beverage, and had as many blessings in store for the man who 
 invented "flip," as Sancho had for the man who invented sleep. 
 
 A daughter, the eldest from this novel union, married one of the brave 
 tars who served under Commodore Decatur in the War of 1813, and 
 assisted in the capture of the British frigate Macedonian. It was the 
 custom of that time to use complimentary words in marriage notices, 
 therefore appeared in the village paper : "Mr. J. Freeman, to the amiable 
 and accomplished daughter of James Barnes, Esquire, of England." 
 
 Our earliest recollections of Jimmie date to the time he was bent with 
 age and went about with a bag upon his back, to carry off — we were told — 
 naughty, disobedient children, and especially those boys who neglected 
 to attend school and religious exercises. 
 
 But more dreadful than with a bag was Jimmie with a spade — ^that im- 
 plement of his vocation in the village cemetery — when, he covered from 
 our sight, forever, our schoolmates in the long ago. The pent-up grief, 
 led slowly up Cemetery Hill by Deacon Wood, often found utterance, 
 when fell upon the ear a hopeless, heart-rending rattle upon the coffin, of 
 gravel from the glittering spade of Jimmie. 
 
 Though 
 
 It was a childish ignorance, 
 
 there was pleasure in wishing anything but good for the old wretch who 
 dug the first graves on that hill and made so many people cry. 
 
 By the death of Mr. Blake, in 1818, Jimmie lost his most highly valued 
 patron. From that time, or a short time before the death of Mr. Blake, 
 Jimmie took up his abode on the east side of the river. The small dilapi- 
 dated cottage, where he lived with Sukie and an idiotic child named Olive, 
 was, in 1825, standing near the base of Chesterfield Mountain and about 
 opposite the Congregational parsonage. He cultivated some over an acre 
 of ground about his cottage, but the principal source of his income was 
 this place, where he passed most of his time in varied employments, such 
 as working in gardens, doing chores, moving grain on his back up or 
 down stairs for merchants, and telling big stories. 
 
 "The honey bees in England," he said, "are big as the sheep in this 
 country, but the hives are about the same size as used here." "When at 
 work with my axe on the mountain," said he, "I was attacked by a big 
 snake that measured, after I had killed and straightened him out, just 
 sixteen axe-helves long." It was as impossible to get an abatement of 
 one axe-helve from the measure of that snake, as to get firom Farmer 
 
294 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 W a reduction of one bug from the "eight bushels of squash bugs, 
 
 potato measure," found by him, as he declared, when tearing away an old 
 barn. 
 
 Jimmie claimed to be a native of old England, and he evidently felt 
 superior to the natives here who were laborers like himself. In hair- 
 breadth escapes and thrilling experiences, he rivaled old Sindbad of 
 Eastern romance. There was an air of earnestness and seriousness in his 
 manner, when relating the events of his life, that would doubtless have 
 generated more faith in the minds of those who listened to his narratives 
 if he had regarded the old admonition. 
 
 Lest men suspect your tale untrue. 
 Keep probabilities in view. 
 
 The history of his advent here is given, as well as we can remember, in 
 his own words: 
 
 When some weeks on the voyage from England to this country, our 
 ship was leaking so badly we could not save her, and to save myself I got 
 into a large hogshead. The cooper headed me in and the waves cast me 
 ashore. The bung of the cask loosened by sunshine and I pushed out 
 and grabbed the tail of an ox. The frightened animal dragged me over a 
 ledge, the cask broke open and up jumped Jimmie. 
 
 His wife, Sukie, made mops and husk doormats, and told ladies' for- 
 tunes to order ; but she was a poor financier. Her price for reading the 
 book of fate was a small package of green tea. When the summer was in 
 prime many small packages, wafted by white dresses and enclosed by 
 jeweled fingers, passed over Chapin's Island to the shrine of Sukie. To 
 the Brattleboro fair of doubtful age, feeding on blue clay and the illusions 
 of hope, there was an unaccountable charm in the ugly, pock-marked, 
 tripelike face of their oracle. A company of plain-looking girls never 
 appeared so attractive as when standing beside old Sukie. We will allow 
 them credit for sagacity transcending their aspirations of receiving light 
 from Sukie's yellow teacup. The cunning creatures understood the value 
 of comparison ; willingly did they accompany eligible and desirable young 
 beaux to this little cot on the mountain, who would "look on this picture 
 and then on that." 
 
 In 1833 some people then living in this place caused the erection of a 
 new building for Jimmie and Sukie. Colonel Paul Chase, and Mr. Mc- 
 Kean, the first high school teacher, especially interested themselves in this 
 matter, and Mr. McKean went over the river with his nail-hammer, to 
 help shingle the house. A few years after this event the house was 
 destroyed by fire, and from injuries thereby received, Olive, their idiotic 
 
CHASE STREET SCHOOL 
 
 STEEN HOUSE 
 
 RESIDENCE OF 
 CAPTAIN SAMUEL ROOT 
 
 3^,>..Ht! 
 
 WEST RIVER BRIDGE 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
,^ '^ -;--«r" * 
 
 HUNT HOUSE 
 
 STAIRCASE IN HUNT HOUSE 
 
 HUNT HOUSE WITH PORCH ADDED 
 
 COCKAYNE. BOSTON 
 
JIMMIE AND SUKIE BARNES 295 
 
 child, died. At this time age and infirmity had nearly finished their work 
 upon the aged couple; but Colonel Chase did not desert them in this 
 extremity. With his own carriage he brought them to this side of the 
 river, where his personal superintendence was given to their wants, and 
 every needful provision made for their comfort up to the last moment 
 of their lives. 
 
THIRD PERIOD 
 FURTHER INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT- 
 INSTITUTIONS ESTABLISHED 
 1811-1844 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE GENERAL MERCHANDISE STORE 
 
 The General Merchandise Store — Cargo of river boat — River navigation — Francis 
 Goodhue — ^John R. Blake. 
 
 The second half century of Brattleboro opened with a promise which 
 was fulfilled by men who were attracted in increasing numbers to its 
 industrial possibilities. Distinctions between those who were in the pro- 
 fessions and those who were in trade had given leadership in public affairs 
 to the clergy and lawyers, whose minds were enlightened and disciplined 
 by a more thorough education; they had also the obvious advantage of 
 being able to present causes with some degree of oratorical effect. The 
 duty of the citizen was recognized by them as a compelling influence when 
 office was given rather than sought. 
 
 After the Revolution, however, a more democratic spirit permeated the 
 ideals and feelings of the people ; especially in New England a man was 
 judged for his personal qualifications rather than by his occupation. 
 
 In Brattleboro the Tory leaders and lawyers, Samuel Wells, Samuel 
 Knight and Micah Townsend, had passed away. John W. Blake, James 
 Elliot and Chief Justice Royall Tyler died before 1830. Honorable Jona- 
 than Hunt died in 1833. The positions of influence and control assigned 
 to eighteen lawyers and two merchants in their time, were now to be 
 divided among twenty-one merchants and seven lawyers. A grasp of the 
 economic basis and general needs of the community and of the ways by 
 which they could be met, was fortunately characteristic of such men in 
 trade as the Fessenden brothers, John Holbrook, Francis Goodhue, John 
 R. Blake, Gardner C. Hall, Samuel Clark, John Wheeler and others. 
 
 By this time impetus had been given to the expansion of highways for 
 travel and merchandise. Canals were being made to connect the water- 
 ways, turnpikes were spreading out from the cities, steamboat companies 
 were forming, mills and factories increased. Banks were started. (In 
 1784 there was no national treasury and no banks. The people of New 
 England for one hundred and fifty years kept their accounts in English 
 pounds, shillings, pence and farthings. The value of the pound varied 
 in different states. Six shillings made the value of a Spanish dollar. 
 
300 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 The pistareen, worth about thirty cents, was also in circulation. Old 
 stockings were the depositories of the people's savings.) 
 
 The general merchandise store marks the beginning of trade in growing 
 towns. Here the farmer's produce was brought and bartered for articles 
 to make life more comfortable, which came up from Boston at first in the 
 saddlebags of the country merchant or in the stages run for trafific as for 
 travel. Little money being in circulation, nearly all trade was carried on 
 by barter. Subscriptions to newspapers were made in rags, grain, butter, 
 cheese, wood, etc. 
 
 As the more remote towns and villages were stirred by the larger move- 
 ment, stores of general merchandise were enlarged in important centers, 
 supplied by means of river boats, bringing products of lands beyond thd 
 seas, and by six-horse teams connecting them with resources in other parts 
 of New England. 
 
 The demands of the people kept pace with the development of the coun- 
 try. Iron, nails, steel, lead, salt, spices, molasses, sugar, tin, codfish, 
 powder and rum were brought into the interior, to be exchanged for 
 pitch, tar, turpentine, pearlash, flaxseed, tallow. 
 
 The West Indies needed grain, pork and other food products from the 
 states, with lumber, and in return the tropics gave of their abundance to 
 the wants of towns lying along the waterways of the eastern states. Rum 
 was a great factor in the trade with the West Indies until New England 
 undertook her own distilling, which became a business in high repute, 
 some of the most intelligent and virtuous engaging in it. Not to oflfer a 
 visitor "something to drink" was a breach of hospitality. Rum was 
 present on all public occasions and at private feasts, weddings and 
 funerals. "Casks of black-strap, a mixture of rum and molasses, stood 
 in every country' store, and a salted, dried codfish alongside. The codfish 
 was stripped off, and eaten, being free of cost, by the patrons of the store 
 whose thirst stimulated the purchase of more black-strap." In 1830 
 efforts of temperance societies so far discredited the custom of the people 
 as to diminish the quantity of rum used and this proved fatal to the profit 
 of the manufacturer. 
 
 In combination with manufacturing, trading and the learned profes- 
 sions, the soil remained the real source of subsistence and the main 
 industry. 
 
 As we have seen, the first general merchandise store on any considerable 
 scale was started in West Brattleboro about 1800 by John Noyes. He Was 
 one of the country merchants who made two trips a year to Boston by 
 stage, or on horseback, spending three or four days on the road, and 
 carrying a change of clothes, money for his purchases and perhaps a pistol 
 for his defense, in a pair of ample saddlebags. In 1813 he and General 
 
THE GENERAL MERCHANDISE STORE 301 
 
 Mann were conducting a big business there, and up to 1830 Noyes, Mann 
 & Hayes and Noyes & Hayes had branch stores in Dummerston, Wilming- 
 ton and Whitingham. 
 
 In England a man was forbidden by law to carry on two trades at the 
 same time, but in the new world there were no restrictions and no 
 monopoly. Every man was free where trade was concerned. 
 
 We have here an advertisement from William Fessenden's Reporter of 
 August 32, 1803, of the 
 
 ARRIVAL OF A RIVER BOAT. 
 
 The Packet. 
 Arrived on Thursday evening last, 
 with 
 34 Tierces Turks I. Salt, 
 8 Do. of Rock, 
 1 Box Smoking Tobacco, 
 1 Tierce Hard Biscuit, 
 6 Connecticut Plows, 
 1 Cask of Nails, 
 1 Hhd. of good Old Spirits, 
 Such as must please connoisseurs in grog drinking, 
 and must command a great price. 
 N. B. The best of Turks 
 I. SALT at 7s6 — any quantity may be had at that price under 
 800 bushels. 
 
 For sale by 
 
 HOLBROOK & HOSFORD. 
 Another advertisement is as follows: 
 
 NEW GOODS. 
 
 George W. Hall received a new supply of cheap, elegant goods, con- 
 sistant of elegant calicoes, yellow nankins, Chinese crepes, ginghams, Irish 
 linens, also hardware, crockery and glassware, also W. I. & N. E. rum, 
 real cognac brandy, Lisborn port, genuine cider brandy, American gin and 
 plug tobacco, Maccoboy snuff, mould and dipp candles, brimstone, sul- 
 phur, etc. 
 
 Wanted freighted, first sleighing, loading teams to and from Albany, 
 Sacket's Harbor, New Haven and Boston. 
 
 George W. Hall. 
 
302 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 This is descriptive of the contents of a general merchandise store in 
 1830: 
 
 GOODHUE & BLAKE. 
 
 Have just received and have on hand for sale, 
 BROAD CLOTHS & KERSIMERES. 
 
 Devonshire Kersey, Sattinetts, Flannels, Rose Blankets, Calicoes, Bom- 
 bazetts, Black and White Cambric, Figured and plain Muslins, Ladies' 
 Silk, Kid, and Beaver Gloves, Gentlemen's do. Black Synchaws, dO. 
 Sarsnett, Br'n and other coloured Silks, Black Tabbt Velvet, Drab do. 
 Silk Velvet, British Shirtings, Steam Loom Ditto, Carlisle and American 
 Ginghams and Checks, Cotton Shirtings and Sheetings, Cotton Factory 
 Yarn at wholesale or retail, Morocco Shoes, MuflEs, Tippets, Flag, Ban- 
 danna and checked Silk Hdkf s. Madrass do. Figured and plain Muslin do. 
 Velvet Bindings, Ribbcins &c. &c. 
 
 Also — A general assortment of 
 
 W. I. GOODS and GROCERIES. 
 
 Such as W. L & N. E. Rum, Cogniac Brandy, Holland and American 
 Gin, Lisbon and Malaga Wines, Molasses, Loaf and Brow^n Sugar, Hyson, 
 Young Hyson, Hyson Skin, Souchong and Bohea Teas, Coffee, Chocolate, 
 Pimento Pe;pper, Ginger, Nutmegs, Cloves, Raisins, Tobacco, Spanish and 
 American Cigars, Sal Niter, Sulphur, &c. &c. 
 
 Also — ^A general assortment of 
 
 Hard Ware 
 GOODS, 
 
 Brass Kettles, Trace and Halter Chains, Nails all sizes do. Brads, Eng- 
 lish and Russia Sheet Iron, Eng. and American Blistered Steel, Russia 
 and Swedes Iron, Lamp Oil, Linseed do. 
 
 Also — a large assortment of Iron Hollow Ware. 
 
 Likewise— An extensive assortment of Crockery and Glass Ware, con- 
 sisting o£ Blue printed Edged, and C. C. Plates, Blue printed Tea Sets, 
 Blue printed and Enml'd Cups and Saucers qt. and pt. Ring neck and 
 plain Decanters, Tumblers, Wine Glasses, &c. &c. All which are offered 
 cheap for Cash, most kinds of Country produce, or on a liberal credit. 
 
 The subscribers are still wishing to purchase from 15 to 30 tons of good 
 Hay, also five hundred Bushels Oats for which they will pay Cash. 
 
 River Navigation 
 
 Captain Nelson Richardson, captain of the line of freight boats which 
 plied between Hartford and Bellows Falls previous to 1847, lived in 
 boyhood at the foot of "swift water" nearly opposite the Whithed place. 
 
THE GENERAL MERCHANDISE STORE 303 
 
 where Ira Ide and Milton Cutting kept the "Old Tavern," Richardson 
 being engaged on the ferry connecting the Vermont and New Hampshire 
 shores. They had no wires in those days with which to guide the ferry, 
 "so it was necessary to pull up stream," says Richardson, "and then pull 
 like Sam Hill for t'uther shore." He had a skiff, and foot passengers 
 were rowed across for three cents a head. He afterwards moved up to 
 "Cooper's Hill," where he worked around for a year for 12^4 cents a day, 
 except in haying, when the governing price was 75 cents, and, as a boy, 
 he could do as much work as a man. 
 
 He moved, with his parents, to the Bartlett farm, where he lived six 
 years, and it was there that he was first employed as a "swift waterman," 
 being one of a crew of about fifteen polemen who lived on either side 
 of the river in Hinsdale and Vernon. These men had a regular organiza- 
 tion, and the best of their number were always in readiness to go on duty 
 whenever the boats required an extra force to pole them through the 
 swift water, which began at the Hinsdale landing, the head being about 
 three miles above Brattleboro. Often this crew was reinforced by one or 
 two pair of oxen, which were hitched to a towline of some four hundred 
 feet in length, and pulled the boats past "little meadow," about a mile 
 below the old toll bridge here, and up to the foot of "the tunnel," just 
 below the bridge, where a powerful windlass was brought into requisition. 
 This device was fastened to a large buttonwood tree still standing near 
 the toll bridge, a strong perpendicular post with four arms at the top, 
 where the "swift watermen" were wont to exert their strength on the 
 windlass. 
 
 The rapids at "Leavitt's rock," just above the suspension bridge, a mile 
 and a half north of the village, was another difficult place to navigate; 
 when once over this, the men were discharged, and it was clear sailing to 
 Bellows Falls. Richardson, with others, would meet the boats at the 
 ferry, and armed with poles sixteen to twenty-three feet long, tipped at 
 one end with a pike a foot long, would post themselves on either side 
 of the boat, and each of the crew in turn would walk from the bow to 
 the mast-board, usually about one-third the length of the boat, with the 
 pike planted' on the bottom, the other end of the pole pressed against his 
 shoulder. The craft was able in this way, with favoring wind, to make 
 a trip to Hartford and return from Bellows Falls in ten or twelve days. 
 The boats used were small, carrying something like eight tons; though 
 some of them, after the canals and locks were completed, carried nearly 
 twenty tons, the largest boat being owned by Capron & Alexander of 
 Winchester. These were sixty-eight feet in length, fourteen feet beam, 
 and drew about eight inches of water, the draft being increased three 
 feet under load. Each was supplied with a thirty-three-foot mast and 
 
304 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 a sliding topmast, the two sails carrying about two hundred square yards 
 of canvas. 
 
 The boats were run in the daytime only, being moored to some landing 
 or anchored in the stream at night. The freight charges averaged about 
 $7.50 a ton from Brattleboro and a trifle higher from Bellows Falls. They 
 usually carried wool and soapstone down the river, bringing back a cargo 
 of general merchandise. The crew consisted of captains, cook and two 
 or three bow hands. Some days the "swift watermen" would go over 
 the route twice a day for four or five days in succession, all depending on 
 the season and the high water. In the fall of the year they were driven 
 all the harder. These men were paid two dollars a trip to Brattleboro, 
 and fifty cents additional to "Leavitt's rock." 
 
 Two boats were run regularly by Hall & Townsley, and one by John R. 
 Blake and Francis Goodhue, an extra boat being run in the fall of the 
 year. Two regular boats ran from Bellows Falls, being owned by Wentr 
 worth, Bingham & Company, the company being Samuel Granger of 
 Fairlee. There were two boats from Wells River run by Samuel Nutt, 
 who was also the captain. The Legislature of New Hampshire incor- 
 porated the Connecticut Steamboat Company in 1839, the incorporators 
 being Jonathan H. Hubbard, Frederick Pettes, George Button, Isaac 
 Hubbard, Edward R. Campbell and others, many of whom were mer- 
 chants. This charter, however, was amended a yea!r later to the Connect- 
 icut River Valley Steamboat Company, and the right given to purchase, 
 own and convey real estate to the value of $30,000. Canals and locks 
 were built where there were rapids or falls, so it was possible to navigate 
 the Connecticut from Hartford to the fifteen-mile fall at Dalton in Coos 
 County. A canal and lock were built at Bellows Falls, one at Sumner's 
 Falls, another at Allcott's Falls, and steamers were used between these 
 points, the passengers and freight being transferred to flatboats and rafts 
 through the canals. Captain Nutt's little steamer was designed to run 
 through the canals and locks, but it was not a success. 
 
 Three steamboats from below have, at different times, visited this 
 village, namely : Barnet, John Ledyard and William Holmes. The Barnet, 
 seventy-five by fourteen and a half feet, was the first. It was built by 
 Thomas Blanchard, who invented a lathe for turning eccentric shapes and 
 first set it in successful operation at the United States Armory in shaping 
 gunstocks. In 1837 when the little Barnet went, for the first time, scream- 
 ing and puffing up the river. Captain Blanchard, the presiding genius, 
 already known to fame for his achievements in mechanics, proudly walked 
 the deck of his steamer, inspiring increased confidence that a new era was 
 about to dawn upon this fertile valley. His advent here was greeted with 
 bonfires, bell-ringing, illumination and intoxication. But theSe demon- 
 
THE GENERAL MERCHANDISE STORE 305 
 
 strations were made before our hero had gotten into port; he was 
 struggling against the rapids below the bridge. When about halfway 
 up the rapids, the boat came to a standstill. Notwithstanding the fire 
 was so great that the blaze poured from the smokestack, and Captain 
 Blanchard, with the energy of despair, was punching against the bed 
 of the river with a spiked pole, no further progress could be made. 
 While making vain efforts to successfully reinforce steam with this ancient 
 method of navigation. Captain Blanchard fell from the boat into the rapids 
 and came near being drawn under the boat, but was fortunately rescued 
 by strong hands, which seized him by the collar at the right moment to 
 save him from the threatened calamity. Sorrow and disappointment 
 were apparent as swift water now obtained the victory, floating the Barnet 
 and Blanchard down the stream, where a sturdy pair of oxen were used 
 to tow her into port near the foot of old Mill Street. The next trial to 
 ascend proved successful, by applying the old stationary windlass that had 
 long been used for drawing flatboats over these rapids. 
 
 Now safely moored in the desired haven, as the sun went down, the 
 asthmatic breathing and noise of contending elements in the bosom of the 
 Barnet ceased, but the public mind was under a high pressure all that 
 night. The survivors of this brilliant engagement for the evening, 
 aroused the following day by the cannon, bell and hissing steam of the 
 Barnet, bravely stepped on the hot, quivering deck of the monster and 
 away they went north, at the enormous speed of four miles an hour, and 
 arrived finally at Bellows Falls. These heroic deeds were embalmed in 
 verse by the poetical genius of the time and place. 
 
 Two years after, Mr. Blanchard huilt two boats, called the Blanchard 
 and the Vermont, which made a few trips between Bellows Falls and 
 Barnet. The stroke of their pistons was horizontal, and their engines 
 were one hundred and twenty horsepower. The William Holmes, her 
 captains being Theodore Griswold and John Davenport with several 
 others, was built at Bellows Falls especially for towing purposes. This, 
 too, ran about three or four years, when it was abandoned because of the 
 many turns in the river, which made it impracticable ; but not, however, 
 until one of the Brattleboro boats was destroyed by running upon 
 "Cooper's rock." 
 
 Mr. Richardson let himself to Whithed & Company in the spring of 
 1853 and began running regular trips as bow hand and finally succeeded, 
 to the captaincy of the Peacock, which he commanded about two years, 
 when he went to work for Capron, Alexander & Company, whose boats 
 ran between the Hinsdale ferry and Hartford. Captain Richardson ran, 
 with his brother Timothy, the Dispatch, of which he was later the captain. 
 From the Dispatch he went to the Royal Tar as captain. "I had her 
 
306 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 repainted and christened myself," said Richardson. "Folks said I picked 
 out pretty bully names, but it was the luckiest boat I ever had. I attended 
 a menagerie at Hartford, in which was a panorama representing a ship 
 on fire and a lot of animals jumping overboard. The scene impressed me, 
 as well as the name on the picture boat, and I adopted this for my own boat. 
 I ran the Royal Tar for two or three years, when I took the Mary Ann, 
 one of the Brattleborough boats. It was most too large to run to Brattle- 
 borough, as it carried thirty-six tons. This, too, I named in honor of my 
 sister and the sister of my bow hand, William Smith." 
 
 Leander Thomas of Brattleboro was the cook, both on the Royal Tar 
 and Mary Ann. Captain Richardson made his last trip on the latter in 
 the fall of 1847, the Brattleboro boats having been taken off one year 
 before, though the Greenfield boats continued to run after he had left 
 the service. He occasionally had a jolly party on board his boats from the 
 different towns along the route, who simply went down the river for the 
 fun of the thing. The boats were open, with tents to cover the dry goods. 
 "Gosh !" said the good-natured captain, "I have often been up to Bellows 
 Falls with eight hogsheads of rum. Then there was nothing on the 
 present Brattleboro depot grounds save the notorious 'Thunderbolt's' 
 home. On leaving the river I went to work in the factory of Ripley, 
 Hale & Todd at Hinsdale, and in 1850 I bought a farm and have farmed 
 it ever since. I am pretty sure that there is no other Connecticut River 
 steamboat captain living who ran boats as far north as Bellows Falls." 
 
 The Canal Company Formed in December, 1828 
 
 In 1838 a prospect was under consideration for a horse railroad from 
 Boston to Brattleboro at a cost of $1,000,000 or $9000 a mile. 
 
 In the office of the secretary of state of New Hampshire is to be seen 
 an act of incorporation for a dam and canal near Brattleboro, evidently 
 intended to avoid the rapid water just below the bridge, which were never 
 constructed. This is the substance of the charter : 
 
 An Act to Incorporate the Connecticut River Canal Company. Ap- 
 proved December 30, 1838. 
 
 Incorporators: Richard Kimball, Elias Lyman, Amos A. Brewster, 
 Francis Goodhue, Henry Hubbard, Allan Wardner. 
 
 The company was authorized to construct a canal from some point 
 . in the town of Hinsdale to the mouth of Israel's River, with the right to 
 cross Connecticut River and locate a part of said canal within the limits 
 of the state of Vermont. The canal was to be not less than thirty-four 
 feet wide at the surface of the water, twenty feet wide at the bottom, and 
 four feet deep, and the locks of such length, not less than eighty feet in 
 the clear, and of such width, not less than twelve feet, that boats which 
 
RESIDENCE OF DEACON JOHN HOLBROOK 
 
 RESIDENCE OF JOSEPH GOODHUE 
 
 CKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
BUILT BY DEACON JOHN HOLBROOK FOR HIS SON 
 THE REV JOHN C HOLBROOK 
 
 SAME 
 
 COCKAYNE. BOSTON 
 
THE GENERAL MERCHANDISE STORE 307 
 
 could conveniently navigate Connecticut River might float and pass 
 through the same. The authorized rates of toll were based on each mile's 
 transportation on said canal. 
 
 Francis Goodhue, Esquire 
 
 Francis Goodhue was descendant from William Goodhue, who came 
 from England to America in 1635-1636, settling in Ipswich, Massachu- 
 setts. He married Hannah, daughter of Reverend Francis Dane of An- 
 dover, and it is from him that the name Francis has been brought down 
 through five generations to the present time. Francis Goodhue removed 
 from Ipswich to Winchendon, Massachusetts, to Swanzey Center, New 
 Hampshire, then to Weathersfield, Vermont, in 1804. His son Francis 
 was born in Winchendon October 36, 1768 ; married in 1788, Polly Brown, 
 daughter of Reverend Joseph Brown. In Weathersfield, he came into 
 possession of the famous "Bow Farm" of about one thousand acres, being 
 of the most fertile and desirable meadowlands of the Connecticut River 
 Valley. In 1810 he sold this valuable farm to Honorable William Jarvis, 
 afterwards known as "Consul Jarvis," soon after the latter resigned his 
 office as United States consul.^ After selling this farm, Mr. Goodhue was 
 said to have brought to town $30,000 in gold when he settled in Brattle- 
 boro — in 1811 — and this place was his home the remainder of his life. 
 
 The then small settlement in the part of the town known as the East 
 Village, having extensive meadows north and south of it, attracted the 
 attention of Mr. Goodhue, and he made purchase of lands north and south, 
 containing in some localities buildings thereon. Much of the real estate 
 had been previously owned by the Honorable John W. Blake. 
 
 About the same time Deacon John Holbrook sold to Mr. Goodhue the 
 water power and buildings east of the south bridge on Main Street, con- 
 taining a saw- and gristmill and some machinery for other purposes. Mr. 
 Goodhue owned all of the west side of Main Street from the Town Hall to 
 the Common, the north side of High Street, Mechanic's Square, the Re- 
 treat farm and the island. 
 
 With Mr. Goodhue every moment was improved in advancing the 
 growth and general prosperity of this settlement on the western bank 
 of the Connecticut River. Though diligent and attentive to the many 
 small and needful details of life and business, he was ever awake to 
 greater occasions. About fourteen years had passed after his coming 
 here, when an enterprise of great importance aroused the public attention. 
 The Erie Canal, so often called in derision, while in process of construc- 
 tion, "Qinton's Ditch," was universally allowed to be a grand success. 
 A canal was made from New Haven, Connecticut, to Northampton, 
 
 1 Father of Mrs. Hampden Cutts of Brattleboro. 
 
308 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Massachusetts, and it was proposed to extend the same to Brattleboro. 
 Gardner C. Hall, Mr. Goodhue and other business men became interested 
 in the enterprise. Surveyors and civil engineers were put on the route, 
 and while performing their duties in this vicinity they were accompanied 
 by Mr. Goodhue, whom many of the old people remembered, holding 
 one end of the chain, measuring through the forest. While the public 
 mind was discussing and deliberating upon this matter, a little noisy 
 steamboat came screaming up the Connecticut to tell the people that they 
 had a natural canal leading southward, and all that was needed to make 
 Brattleboro a seaport was to put on the steam. The canal project was 
 laid upon the table, and Mr. Goodhue and others here, gave their attention 
 and money to allow the experiment of steam navigation a fair trial. Mr. 
 Goodhue lived to see this enterprise a failure, and not until about eleven 
 years after his death was the success of transportation accomplished by 
 railroad, his son, Colonel Joseph Goodhue, and his grandson, Francis 
 Goodhue, Esquire, acting from the first on the board of directors of the 
 Vermont & Massachusetts Railroad. 
 
 This intensely practical man seemed to receive a new inspiration in this 
 his last home, for he became everything this village needed at that time. 
 He paid no regard to the old adage, "Don't have too many irons in the 
 fire." He threw in hammer and tongs, shovel and poker all at once. He 
 carried on wool carding, cloth dressing, saw- and grainmill, cotton spin- 
 ning, distilling, and a large store of such goods as were sold from country 
 stores at that time. He was also erecting a building of some kind every 
 year, and largely at the same time engaged in farming, yet his note was 
 never worth less than one hundred cents on the dollar. 
 
 No man of property has settled here who manifested more real confi- 
 dence in the future of Brattleboro than did Mr. Goodhue. He completely 
 identified himself with its private and public interests, and his hopefulness 
 and cheerfulness were a constant inspiration to everyone with whom he 
 came in contact. He was generally successful, and he was always gratified 
 to learn that others were so ; and was a young man unfortunate in busi- 
 ness, Mr. Goodhue had not only the hopeful word to say, but could gen- 
 erally find some employment for him until he could do better. His public 
 liberality was apparent in several instances. He gave valuable locations 
 upon his lands on Main Street for the old Brattleborough Bank, chartered 
 in 1821, and the Unitarian and Congregational church buildings. Mr. 
 Goodhue died March 16, 1839, aged seventy-one. 
 
 When Francis Goodhue came to Brattleboro he brought with him his 
 wife, his children, Joseph, Lucy and Wells, his own mother, born Lucy 
 Wells, and his wife's mother, Mrs. Joseph Brown. For this large family 
 he built a house on Main Street where the Brooks Library now stands. 
 
JOHN R BLAKE 
 
 GEORGE BATY BLAKE 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
GEORGE NEWMAN 
 
 COLONEL ARNOLD J HINES 
 
 SAMUEL CLARK 
 
 LAFAYETTE CLARK 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
THE GENERAL MERCHANDISE STORE 309 
 
 The memory of Mrs. Francis Goodhue, who by some years survived 
 her husband, has been cherished. by later generations. Those who in their 
 youth rendered service to Mr. Goodhue, living in his family, spoke in high 
 praise of the kind treatment they invariably received at the hands of Mrs. 
 Goodhue. The ladies of the village, who gathered on certain occasions 
 around her table, considered her a model housekeeper, and the cordial 
 welcome with which all were received was especially commended. Her 
 visits to the homes of the afflicted were not simply visits of condolence; 
 she was ever seeking a way whereby some real benefit, some tangible 
 good, might be effected, and if there was any apparent possibility of 
 human aid to the suffering, her efforts in this direction were never lacking. 
 Her hired help were often summoned to her assistance, with needed sup- 
 plies, on errands of mercy to the sick and destitute, and she often passed 
 the whole night in her ministrations, performing the humblest offices in 
 the abodes of poverty, by the bedside of the sick and dying. 
 
 She died July 4, 1849, aged seventy-one. 
 
 Her only daughter, Lucy, born in 1798, was remarkable for her exter- 
 nal beauty and universally admired for her many virtues. She became the 
 first wife of John R. Blake, Esquire. 
 
 To his son. Colonel Joseph Goodhue, soon after his marriage, Mr. 
 Goodhue gave the large meadow farm, occupied in early times by John 
 Arms. 
 
 In 1834, however, he persuaded his son Joseph to move to the village, 
 giving up to him his home, when he and his family moved across the way 
 to ithe house north of the Centre Congregational Church where he and his 
 wife died. 
 
 Honorable John Rice Blake 
 
 Honorable John Rice Blake, son of John Welland and Abigail Jones 
 Blake, was born February 3, 1793. His father, at the closing period of 
 his life, became reduced in circumstances and the son, John Rice, was 
 taken from school and compelled to go into business and commence the 
 battle with the world as a poor boy at a very early age. His first experi- • 
 ence as a trader was with the Indians at Onondaga, New York, now 
 Syracuse, which was then considered far west, being taken from school 
 at Deerfield, Massachusetts, and sent there to begin life. 
 
 Returning to Vermont, he soon entered upon an extensive business as 
 merchant, in company with Francis "Goodhue, as Blake & Company, Brat- 
 tleboro, and with Cune (Charles H.) & Company (Wells Goodhue), 
 Newfane, Algiers and Dummerston. George C. Lawrence was a partner 
 in J. R. Blake & Company, and when his brother Charles succeeded to the 
 business the firm became George C. & C. G. Lawrence. He married, first, 
 
310 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Lucy, daughter of Francis Goodhue : "May 7, 1816, by the Reverend Wm. 
 Wells, Mr. John R. Blake, merchant, to the amiable Miss Lucy Goodhue, 
 all of this town." She died September 39, 1829, aged thirty-one. He 
 married, second, November 1, 1830, Helen E., daughter of Grindall R. 
 Ellis; she died December 11, 1833, aged twenty-one. He also married 
 Sarah, daughter of Reverend Aaron Bancroft, D.D., of Worcester; she 
 died December 26, 1834, aged thirty-two. October 17, 1844, he married 
 Miss Lucy Dumaresq of Boston. 
 
 He carried on an extensive trade with Hartford, Connecticut, shipping 
 horses, cattle and other produce by the river, receiving back West Indian 
 and other goods, and sent from fifteen to twenty teams to Boston. He 
 possessed a great fondness for fine stock, for horses and cattle. A picture 
 of one of his favorite horses, made by Fisher, the New England painter, 
 is still in possession of his family. In the days of staging he took an 
 interest in stage lines, and especially in seeing them supplied with fine 
 horses ; and he exercised a leading influence in promoting the construction 
 of the Vermont & Massachusetts Railroad, which connected the village 
 with Boston by steam. He also took an active interest in establishing 
 the old Brattleborough Bank, of which he was for a long time one of the 
 directors. His financial abilities were solid and comprehensive. 
 
 During the times when the militia was maintained on a respectable 
 footing, he served as aid-de-camp to General Mann; and in subsequent 
 years he sat for several terms in the Legislature, both as representative 
 of his town, 1844, 1847 and 1849, and as senator, 1851-1852. His career 
 as legislator was marked by his usual businesslike practical ability, and 
 may be said to have been distinguished by his frank and decided opposi- 
 tion to the Maine law, so-called, which he believed impolitic, and for an 
 eulogy pronounced on the death of Daniel Webster. He removed to 
 Boston, Massachusetts, in 1853 and became a partner in the banking 
 house, Blake Brothers & Company. 
 
 He died in Boston June 6, 1873, aged eighty. Funeral services were 
 held in the church by the Reverend Rufus ElHs, June 8 ; and on the day 
 following the body was brought to Brattleboro by the only son of the 
 deceased. Doctor John Ellis Blake of New York, and deposited in the 
 village cemetery, with those of his first wives. 
 
 The following letter was received by Reverend WilHam L. Jenkins, 
 pastor of the Unitarian Society in this place, from the pastor of the First 
 Church in Boston, with which Mr. Blake was associated: 
 
 106 Marlborough Street, June 14, 1873. 
 Dear Mr. Jenkins: — I performed the funef-al service in my church on 
 Sunday morning last over the remains of a most worthy gentleman, the 
 
THE GENERAL MERCHANDISE STORE 311 
 
 Honorable John R. Blake ; and as the burial was to be in Brattleborough, 
 there may have been a burial service there also. I hope that there was, 
 for Mr. Blake was born in the town, and long and honorably identified 
 with it; and it was exceedingly pleasant to think last Monday of the 
 beautiful graveyard under the clear afternoon sky, and that they were 
 making his grave in that hill country which was so familiar and so dear 
 to him from boyhood. I have seen much of Mr. Blake, and especially 
 of late, during a long and painful illness. He was a very true and a very 
 thoughtful man, with far more in his heart than ever found expression 
 in word; a Christian of a broad and practical type, with a good leaven 
 of the old Puritanism, to which this country owes so much ; a man down- 
 right, upright, and forthright, not untouched by the questionings of the 
 day, and yet holding fast the essentials of faith and all "the weightier 
 matters of the law." He was much respected in Boston as a man of his 
 word; but the larger part of his life was passed in Brattleborough, and so 
 I am moved to send you these few words concerning one whom we 
 greatly miss, although we ought to be thankful that days which had be- 
 come labor and sorrow are no more. I love to think of him as gathered 
 to his fathers in your beautiful town, where, if anywhere, the body may 
 rest in peace, whilst the spirit is refreshed with the light of the Divine 
 Face. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 RuFus Ellis. 
 
 Children by his second wife were : 
 John Ellis, bom October 30, 1831 ; graduated at Harvard College, 1849, 
 Harvard Medical School, 1855; married January, 1858, Elizabeth 
 Stone, daughter of Samuel C. Gray of Boston, who died September 
 37; 1880, aged forty-eight. Children: Henry Sargent, born March 
 10, 1860; Louisa Dumaresq, born April 8, 1862; John Rice, borfi 
 February 33, 1869. 
 By his third wife : 
 
 Henry Cabot and Sarah, both died young. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE PAPER MILL 
 
 The Paper Mill, 1811. Proprietors: Joseph Clark, Samuel Dickinson, Francis Good- 
 hue, William Fessenden, Joseph Fessenden, Caleb Leland. Location — Capacity of 
 mill. Holbrook & Fessenden: Paper mill, printing office and book binding; suc- 
 ceeded by Elihu Thomas and William G. Cutting, Nathan Woodcock and Timothy 
 Vinton. Wool carding and cloth dressing by Joseph Clark — Built house kept as 
 tavern by Rufus Clark, 1815-1837, sold to Captain Adolphus Stebbins — ^John H. 
 Stebbins. 
 
 The first paper mill was built in 1811, by Joseph Clark, Samuel Dickin- 
 son, Francis Goodhue, William Fessenden, Joseph Fessenden and Caleb 
 Leland, Junior, of Athol. In 1813 Joseph Clark, Samuel Dickinson and 
 Francis Goodhue sold their interest to William Fessenden. The mill stood 
 on the north side of Canal Street, directly opposite where South Main 
 Street leads up (Cemetery) Prospect Hill on the bank of Whetstone 
 Brook. The capacity of the mill was from one hundred and fifty to two 
 hundred pounds of paper per day. In December, 1815, the mill was de- 
 stroyed by fire. John Holbrook, who had removed to Warehouse Point, 
 Connecticut, returned to Brattleboro to look after the estate of his son-in- 
 law, William Fessenden. He found the mill in such a prosperous condi- 
 tion, in spite of the fire, that he resolved to rebuild, and enlarge the plant. 
 Under the firm name of Holbrook & Fessenden it was continued until 
 the year 1836. 
 
 The process of rebuilding the mill and supplying machinery was carried 
 on under great difficulties. There were no iron foundries, no machine 
 shops, no tools to speak of in the vicinity', and only the most primitive 
 modes of transportation to the town. The iron castings for the mill were 
 brought from Rhode Island by wagons. In spite of these handicaps, the 
 manufacture of paper was carried on on a larger scale than ever before. 
 
 All of the product of the mill was made by hand until 1833, when 
 Thomas & Woodcock improved paper making machinery to such an extent 
 that the old hand processes were done away with. This improvement was 
 largely due to the mechanical genius of a Samuel G. Foster of this village, 
 who invented "the pulp dresser',' which is now used in all paper mills. 
 The paper was superior in quality, excelling any paper made elsewhere 
 
THE PAPER MILL 313 
 
 in pure whiteness. This was said to be due to the purity of spring water 
 for which the town is noted. A special brand, "imperial post," was used 
 in the manufacture of legal documents and blank books. Letter paper as 
 well as the company's own supply of printing paper was turned out. 
 
 Not only was the paper making part of the plant enlarged, but the 
 printing establishment was materially increased. Over $30,000 was ex- 
 pended by Deacon Holbrook on the publication of a comprehensive com- 
 mentary on the Bible in six royal octavo volumes and of the Encyclopedia 
 of Religious Knowledge which followed it. The copperplate engravings 
 were made by a Mr. Chorley who was brought from England for that 
 purpose. Professor Benjamin Silliman said that "the mechanical execu- 
 tion of these works was an honor to the country." 
 
 Webster's Spelling Book, the New England Primer and the school 
 books then in use, cheaply bound in boards, were sold among the farmers 
 by traveling salesmen. Among the most popular publications were Samuel 
 Johnson's "Rasselas," "Paul and Virginia," the novels of Jane Porter and 
 other novels and poetry of English origin, with here and there the product 
 of a native author. 
 
 • In the year 1836 at Holbrook & Fessenden's paper mill, power-press 
 printing oiHce and book bindery, the estimated amount of business done by 
 all branches was $500,000, — which gives an idea of the growth and de- 
 velopment of the plant and of its influence on the community from its 
 origin in- 1811 or in 1804, when William Fessenden, a pioneer in printing 
 and manufacture, first started his paper. The Reporter, and began the 
 printing of books and pamphlets. It was, in fact, largely through this 
 industry that the East Village was developed during the early years of 
 the nineteenth century. 
 
 In the year 1838 a combination was formed under the name of the 
 Typographic Company, with Reverend John C. Holbrook as president 
 and Edwin Hollister as superintendent and manager. Holbrook's lack 
 of business acumen and judgment involved not only the immediate affairs 
 of the company but also the fortune of his father, who signed notes for 
 the son until they both failed. ' The making of paper and printing, how- 
 ever, was continued by this company until 1844, when they sold the 
 property to Elihu H. Thomas^ and William G. Cutting, who carried on the 
 business of paper making until 1847. Nathan Woodcock and Timothy 
 Vinton then took the mill on a lease for five years and afterwards bought 
 of N. B. Williston, into whose hands the property had come on a mortgage. 
 In September, 1857, the mill was again burned, but immediately rebuilt 
 and occupied by Woodcock & Vinton, continuing thus until the death of 
 Mr. Woodcock, when Mr. Vinton bought out the heirs and carried on the 
 
 1 See p. 407. 
 
314 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 business until his death in 1890; at this time five hundred pounds were 
 manufactured a day, and finally as much as three thousand pounds. 
 
 The elaborate printing establishment of The Brattleborough Typo- 
 graphic Company employed ifi their several departments not less than one 
 hundred hands. 
 
 Joseph Steen served as an apprentice with William Fessenden nine 
 years and, after securing the plates from the Holbrook firm, published 
 eleven thousand royal octavo Bibles, one thousand five hundred pages 
 each, two thousand school books and one thousand pocket Testaments. 
 
 It may well be that familiarity with books in their marketable aspect 
 awakened a curiosity and taste for reading. A library society was formed 
 January 23, 1811, the whole stock of the society to be considered as con- 
 sisting of as many shares as there were members, held in common, all 
 the members to have equal rights and privileges. 
 
 A circulating library of about three hundred volumes was established 
 at the Peck's bookstore in 1821 — ^the terms for regular subscribers, three 
 dollars and fifty cents a year. They were allowed one week for the read- 
 ing of duodecimo or smaller volumes, and two weeks for an octavo. From 
 that date Brattleboro has never been without some kind of public library. 
 
 Wool Carding and Cloth Dressing. Rufus Clark's Hotel 
 
 A house south of Whetstone Brook was built in 1812 by Josepli Clark, 
 the early settler, the master workman being James Steen, father of 
 Joseph. There was no road past the house, and no Canal Street. Travel 
 from Brattleboro to Guilford was up Cemetery Hill and over to the road 
 on the right past the present Richardson farm, now known as the "old 
 Guilford Road." 
 
 Here Joseph Clark established the business of wool carding and cloth 
 dressing, the shop and machinery being where now is the machine shop 
 built by Thomas & Woodcock for the manufacture of paper machinery 
 and where, afterwards, was a brick shop used by Hines, Newman & 
 Company. Rufus Clark, son of Joseph, kept tavern here from 1815 to 
 1832, when it was sold to Captain Adolphus Stebbins ; later it was owned 
 and occupied by his son, John H. Stebbins.* The upper story of the ell in 
 the rear, where there was a hall for dancing, was removed by Captain 
 Stebbins. 
 
 ijohn H. Stebbins, married February 16, 1862, D. Elmira Field of Leverett, 
 Massachusetts. Their daughter Ella is owner of the old house. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 
 
 The Medical Profession: Doctor Willard Arms — Doctor Russell Fitch — Doctor 
 Jonathan A. Allen — Doctor Artemas Robbins — Doctor Daniel Gilbert. 
 
 Medical education was, generally, such as could be obtained by study 
 with some established practitioner, and the performance of various ser- 
 vices as his assistant when the profession combined that of the doctor and 
 the apothecary. 
 
 The shelves of the village store furnished only the simplest drugs, 
 which had come by the way of Boston from England, all compoundings, 
 tinctures and infusions being prepared by the physician, who put up his 
 own prescriptions. 
 
 The doctor's knowledge was derived from personal experience rather 
 than books, and was in direct proportion to his keenness of perception, 
 human sympathy and gift for the healing art. His position in the com- 
 munity was second only to that of the minister. Wherever his calling led, 
 he entered the lives of families as an intimate friend and counselor and 
 became possessed of their inmost secrets, was present at every birth and 
 death, and with the lawyer put his name to many a last testament. 
 
 Captain John Arms, the son of Major John Arms, had sons, Josiah, 
 John, Alfred and William. 
 
 Willard i\RMS, M.D., was the son of Josiah; he studied with Doctor 
 William S. Williams of Deerfield, Massachusetts. On February 8, 1803, he 
 married Miss Susan Arms of Deerfield, born September 3, 1778, and 
 went immediately to Stukely, Canada. About a year after he was called 
 back to settle the estate of his father, who died in possession of the meadow 
 farm which had belonged to the Major, his grandfather. 
 
 Doctor Arms remained in practice in his profession in this place about 
 fourteen years. He built the house later owned and occupied by Nathan 
 B. Williston, Esquire. In 1818 he sold his house and practice to Doctor 
 Artemas Robbins, on condition that he should not practice in this town 
 for ten years, and the most of this time he followed his profession in 
 Northfield, Massachusetts. In 1833 he returned and settled in the West 
 
316 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Village, where he remained thirty years, and died September 35, 1863, 
 almost eighty-three years of age. Mrs. Arms died February 35, 1865. 
 
 He practiced sixty years, forty-four in this town, where he was con- 
 sidered the leading authority in obstetrics, smallpox and other branches 
 of his profession. When he emphasized his orders by pounding the floor 
 with the stub of his crutch, every child knew there was no release from 
 the dose of castor oil, calomel, senna and Dover's powder. As late as 
 1818 an annual duty of one dollar was paid by him "for and upon a four- 
 wheel carriage and the harness used therefor"; the same upon a "two- 
 wheel carriage called a chaise." 
 Children :■ 
 Willard, born in 1806, a man of fine education and public spirit; mar- 
 ried, first. Miss Gracia Liscom of Hinsdale, New Hampshire; mar- 
 ried, second, Mrs. L. D. (Diantha) Cobleigh, who died April 36, 
 1863, aged sixty-two. He died January 30, 1893. By his first wife 
 there were a daughter, Mrs. Mills, and a son George of Ansonia, 
 Connecticut. 
 Susan E. Arms, having graduated from the Brattleborough Academy, 
 married July 11, 1843, Reverend Edward Wright, a graduate of Yale, 
 and from 1843 to 1853 pastor of a church in West Haven, Connecti- 
 cut. Here they soon established Oak Hill Ladies' Seminary, of 
 which Mrs. Wright became principal at the death of her husband 
 in 1853. After some twenty-five years of successful teaching, during 
 which time she married Reverend Mr. Atwater, she withdrew from 
 the institution to give herself to mission work in the South. 
 Other physicians of this period were : 
 
 Doctor Artemas Robbins (son of Nathaniel and Mary Coolidge Rob- 
 bins) bought the practice and house of Doctor Willard Arms. In 1836- 
 1837 he removed to Bellows Falls, where he established a drug store and 
 practiced his profession until his death, May 16, 1857. He was a skillful 
 practitioner, and a great worker for the cause of temperance, although a 
 man stern and proud. 
 
 Doctor Russell Fitch^ born July 18, 1775 ; practiced in West Brattle- 
 boro before 1816 ; married, 1799, Miss Polly Tinker, born July 13, 1776. 
 Children : 
 Laura, died July 33, 1832, aged thirty-two years. 
 
 Russell, Junior, born July 3, 1802; married March 31, 1831, Alvira, 
 daughter of Captain Nathaniel Bliss ; married, second, 1833, Rosetta 
 Roosevelt. A son, James Russell Fitch, was father of Florence, who 
 married Telfair Stockton of Jacksonville, Florida. 
 
THE MEDICAL PROFESSION' 317 
 
 Mary, born April 27, 1807; married April 16, 1828, Lafayette Clark; 
 died August 1, 1866. 
 
 Jonathan A. Allen, M.D., and his family were living, in 1816, in 
 a dwelling on Main Street afterwards converted into Lord's tavern. He 
 was an able physician, a gentleman. His lectures, particularly those on 
 chemistry in which he was especially proficient, were considered of great 
 value to other physicians and medical students. He left here in 1822-1834, 
 and became professor of chemistry in Middlebury College. 
 
 His son, Charles I. Allen, born January 31, 1820, graduated at Middle- 
 bury in 1842 and the Castleton Medical School in 1846. He was a profes- 
 sor in Middlebury College and the University of Vermont, brigade sur- 
 geon in the Civil War two years and the founder of the State Board of 
 Health; he died July 2, 1890. 
 
 Doctor Daniel Gilbert practiced here from 1828-1829 to 1841, when 
 he removed to Boston and was officiate in the Massachusetts General 
 Hospital. He had studied surgery with Doctor Twitchell of Keene and 
 was a good surgeon, and progressive and courageous in his profession. 
 He died in Boston August 5, 1849, aged fifty-four. 
 
 Charles A. Chapin, M.D., from 1831. (See p. 501.) 
 William H. Rockwell, M.D., 1836-1873. (See p. 428.) 
 
 While so many educational opportunities were in existence and an able 
 corps of physicians already established. Doctor J. Moore's "Essence of 
 Life" was recommended by all the clergy, General Stephen Rowe Bradley 
 and other men of distinction, as the elixir for which the world had been 
 ever seeking. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 Social Life — Style of John W. Blake's hospitality — Honorable and Mrs. Oliver 
 Chapin — Mrs. Patty Fessenden — George Baty Blake's Reminiscences of Mrs. 
 Francis Goodhue — John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Webster, guests of 
 Honorable Jonathan Hunt — Mrs. Hunt — Mrs. Freme's "Mansion," destruction by 
 fire — Remarkable Cookbook — Flower gardens — Mrs. Boott — Mrs. Joseph Fessen- 
 den. 
 
 There was an open hospitality by the firesides of Brattleboro in the old 
 days and, with a few families, style and elegance according to the standard 
 of the times. John W. Blake, who combined tradition, education and 
 wealth, made of the mansion erected by Jonathan Townsend,^ where the 
 Vermont National Bank now stands, a center of social life in the grand 
 manner. This house was set back from the street amid tall trees and 
 enclosed by a very high, stately fence. An elm of unusually graceful 
 proportions, planted near the house in 1835 by Mr. Blake, suffered in the 
 fire of 1869 when the house was burned, and was cut down the next year. 
 This elm inspired a "Farewell address to the people of Brattleborough by 
 the late Venerable Elm," in The Phoenix of October 38, 1870, an address 
 of regret over an untimely death, "and of real sorrow that it could not 
 longer be permitted to stand in the midst of the active life of its friends, 
 the citizens of Brattleborough," — a true expression of the sentiment of 
 those who had passed this old tree in the course of their daily round for 
 forty-five years. 
 
 Honorable Oliver Chapin was a member of General Washington's body- 
 guard during the Revolution. He brought wealth and influence, and he 
 and Madame Chapin kept open house to friends at their residence, where 
 the Brooks House stands, corner of Main and High Streets. They loved 
 young people and entertained constantly for them. 
 
 Perhaps no woman has come down to us with more appeal to the imag- 
 ination than Mrs. Patty (Holbrook) Fessenden, whose beauty, charm 
 and character, in combination with the practical wisdom, integrity and 
 benevolence of her husband, William Fessenden, won all hearts, giving 
 them a place of pronounced leadership in their social relations. 
 
 1 Jonathan Townsend came here from Tyringham, Massachusetts, in 1808 with his 
 wife, Lois Scripture, whom he married May 18, 1791, and eight children. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE 319 
 
 George Baty Blake speaks, in his reminiscences, of the housekeeping 
 of Mrs. Francis Goodhue and the scale and spirit of her hospitality. He 
 also describes the appearance of her guests : "In summertime each one of 
 them wore a green silk calash, covering a lace cap, white as the new 
 fallen snow. When they entered the house of Mrs. Goodhue, the calash 
 was removed, but the cap remained, giving a uniformity and neatness to 
 their appearance. There was a stateliness and dignity in their manners, 
 not surpassed by the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 Never have I felt a more weighty responsibility devolving upon me than 
 when, under the direction of Mrs. Goodhue, I assisted her in the enter- 
 tainment of the ladies of this society, and no food I have since partaken 
 has had such a relish, or given me so complete satisfaction as, in the 
 long ago, came from the table of my dear old friend in Brattleborough." 
 
 The Honorable Jonathan Hunt came to Brattleboro with a rich inherit- 
 ance of ability, character and the best things of the time in which he lived. 
 As the first congressman from this district, he was deservedly conspicuous 
 in the town and county. 
 
 Mrs. Hunt was a gifted woman, with unusual personal attractions, 
 as may be seen in the portrait of her painted by William Morris Hunt. 
 It was from Mrs. Hunt the three sons, William, Richard and Leavitt, 
 inherited their artistic bent, and her ambition that they should be famous 
 in the world of art was the moving power in their careers. 
 
 The Hunt house received as guests the truly great men who came to this 
 region : John Adams, who had been the guest of Mr. Hunt's father in 
 Vernon, Daniel Webster and Thomas Jefferson, just after his appointment 
 as minister to France and before embarking for that country. 
 
 Parson Wells and his family kept to the social customs of their native 
 land as becomes the English, but adapted them with so much grace to the 
 country of their adoption that their goodness and refinement were as a 
 light to the people around them. Miss Hannah Wells carried her work 
 for the Sunday school as far as Vernon, making gifts of books in every 
 district of that town. 
 
 These families were not without their difficult or eccentric members. 
 For some years a spite fence, very high and built of plain boards close 
 together, stood between the admirable houses of two sisters living side by 
 side on the Main Street to ensure the keeping of peace. 
 
 Mrs. Martha Freme, the daughter of Reverend William Wells, after the 
 death of her husband, John R. Freme, came to this village in 1834 to make 
 her home in the house which had been her father's for more than fifty 
 years. This house she refitted and embellished with rich and rare furnish- 
 ings, and paintings by old masters. A portrait of her father, which she had 
 commissioned Gilbert Stuart to paint, was brought by her, and hung where 
 
330 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 it could be seen by the parishioners of the old Parson, who included the 
 larger number of the townspeople. Violets still bloom from her planting 
 by the roadside just north of Linden Lodge. 
 
 Her social position in England afforded a remarkable opportunity for 
 acquaintance with men of national importance, who were quick to recog- 
 nize the strength of her mind and her brilliant conversational powers. 
 She kept a retinue of servants here, and lived in "princely style," accord- 
 ing to the estimate of the time. The citizens of Brattleboro felt honored 
 by her presence among them, not more for the interest and beauty with 
 which her life was surrounded than for her noble character. She gave 
 the communion service to the Unitarian Church, keeping it always in her 
 own house and under her protection. 
 
 About midnight on the twentieth of May, 1849, she perished in a fire 
 that consumed her residence and all her possessions. "The night was dark 
 and birds hovered over the fire, the reflection of which on the plumage 
 gave them a bright and unusual appearance." Reverend Mr. Motte, who 
 preached the funeral discourse, alluded to "these birds as winged mes- 
 sengers escorting her spirit to heaven." 
 
 It was the lot of widows, unmarried women and orphans without money 
 to assist in the domestic drudgery of their more fortunate sisters, and 
 gain a home thereby. One of these dependents was the author of a cook- 
 book, which makes known the cookery of model housekeepers. 
 
 It was printed by hand, hand cut and published by William Fessenden 
 in 1814. The title-page and preface follow : 
 
 AMERICAN COOKERY: 
 
 OR, THE ART OF DRESSING 
 
 VIANDS, FISH, POULTRY, AND VEGETABLES. 
 
 AND THE BEST MODE OF MAKING 
 
 PUFF-PASTES, PIES, TARTS, PUDDINGS, CUSTARDS, AND 
 PRESERVES. 
 
 AND ALL KINDS OF 
 
 CAKES, 
 
 FROM THE IMPERIAL PLUMB, TO PLAIN CAKE. 
 ADAPTED TO THIS COUNTRY AND ALL GRADES OF LIFE. 
 
 BY AN AMERICAN ORPHAN. 
 
 BRATTLEBOROUGH, VT. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM FESSENDEN. 
 
 1814. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE 321 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 AS this treatise is calculated for the improvement of the rising genera- 
 tion of FEMALES in America, the Lady of fashion and fortune will not 
 be displeased, if many hints are suggested for the more general and uni- 
 versal knowledge of those females in this country, who by the loss of 
 their parents, or other unfortunate circumstances, are reduced to the 
 necessity of going into families in the line of domestics, or taking refuge 
 with their friends or relations, and doing those things which are really 
 essential to the perfecting them as good wives, and useful members to 
 society. The orphan, though left to the care of virtuous guardians, will 
 find it essentially necessary to have an opinion and determination of her 
 own. The world, and the fashion thereof, is so variable, that old people 
 cannot accommodate themselves to the various changes and fashions 
 which daily occur : they will adhere to the fashion of their day, and will 
 not surrender their attachments to the good old way — whtle the young 
 and the gay, bend and conform readily to the taste of the times, and fancy 
 of the hour. By having an opinion and determination, I would not be 
 understood to mean an obstinate perseverance in trifles, which border on 
 obstinacy — by no means, but only an adherance to those rules and maxims 
 which have stood the test of ages, and will forever establish the FEMALE 
 CHARACTER, a virtuous character — although they conform to the rul- 
 ing taste of the age in cookery, dress, language, manners, etc. 
 
 It must ever remain a check upon the poor solitary orphan, that while 
 those females that have parents, or brothers, or riches to defend their 
 indiscretions, that the orphan must depend solely upon character. How 
 immensely important, therefore, that every action, every word, every 
 thought, be regulated by the strictest purity, and that every movement 
 meet the approbation of the good and wise. 
 
 The candor of the American Ladies is solicitously entreated by the 
 Authoress, as she is circumscribed in her knowledge, this being an original 
 work in. this country. — Should any future editions appear, she hopes to 
 render it more valuable. 
 
 In contrast with the modern cookbooks is the amount of liquor which 
 was used in making cakes, etc. Very few cakes were considered proper 
 if they did not contain a quart or more of brandy. It should be said, 
 however, that they made things in large quantities in those days. Inde- 
 pendence Day cake called for twenty pounds of flour, four dozen eggs, 
 one quart of wine and one quart of brandy. Election cake calls for 
 thirty quarts of flour and twelve pounds of raisins. Other things which 
 enter into the recipes and cause wonder and amusement to the modern 
 
333 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 cook are musk and amber gum and rose-water, intended to produce aroma 
 of various kinds. The spelling in the old book is quaint, "receipts," "sal- 
 lad," "alamode," "chouder," "stake" and "plumb" being samples. There 
 are some quaint expressions, too. Eggs are whipped "into a raging foam" 
 and one dish is recommended as "furnishing a sweet repast at any time 
 of day." 
 
 Gardening was a taste cultivated with imagination and feeling by the 
 several members of Mrs. Tyler's "cultivated society," and by many others 
 of equal taste who followed. 
 
 Spaces between houses and shops along the village street were given to 
 orchards and gardens. Fruit, vegetables and flowers grew side by side. 
 Their abundance reminds us that there were days when dwellers in vil- 
 lages, as well as in the farming country, lived on the products of their 
 own soil. A large peach orchard flourished for many years on the land 
 directly south of the Common. 
 
 The first flower garden of which we have any knowledge was the formal 
 garden, reaching from the house of Doctor George Holmes Hall, up by 
 terraces to the Grove, with "flights of steps from one level to another," — 
 where fruit trees, berry bushes, shrubs and flowers grew in ordered and 
 lavish beauty. 
 
 The twenty acres adjoining Deacon Holbrook's colonial house, facing 
 what was afterwards the Common, was laid out by him in 1835 in a large 
 orchard, bearing a variety of fruits, a vegetable garden and a bordered 
 garden of flowers. The fragrance of those old-fashioned flowers seems 
 to be wafted down. the years to us, with their quaint and suggestive names : 
 eglantine, sweet violet, honeysuckle, London pride, love-lies-bleeding, 
 heart's-ease, gillyflower, polyanthus, sweet-william, wallflower, honesty, 
 spicy pinks, foxgloves, flower-de-luce, hollyhocks. 
 
 Mrs. Boott, "an opulent English lady," lived in "the mansion," — accord- 
 ing to the language of the day, — which stood in a setting of many acres 
 on the site of the original Marsh building, now the Retreat estate. It was 
 noted for its gayety and hospitality. From Mrs. Boott this valuable 
 property passed into the possession of Joseph Fessenden, whose wife, 
 Sybil Holbrook, seems to have inherited from her father. Deacon John, 
 a love of beauty and an instinct for nature. Her flower garden was the 
 pride of the town. She introduced plants, trees and flowers never before 
 seen in this part of the country, and related them with so much art to the 
 natural landscape that her plans were accepted and developed in the 
 permanent laying out of the Retreat grounds. The winding walks, sum- 
 merhouses and nooks were a favorite resort of the village people and of 
 strangers, drawn there as much by the gracious and generous spirit of the 
 owners as by the charm of the place itself. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE 333 
 
 A path at the rear of Woodlands, as the mansion was called in the Fes- 
 sendens' time, led to a veritable botanical garden of wild flowers carpeting 
 a partly wooded hillside. Such a variety was unknown elsewhere. Mossy 
 rocks were there too, and higher up the trees were mostly slender pines 
 with arches and vistas between, leading across bridges made of fallen 
 stumps and trees covered with lichen and creepers, and on to an open 
 rising ground from which a view of the West River Valley obtained. It 
 was a magic wood, and one of seemingly endless possibilities for the 
 nature lover. 
 
 Later, when another Ijouse on the Main Street built by Deacon Hol- 
 brook was occupied by Wells Goodhue, there was a garden of flowering 
 shrubs and graceful walks on the south side as far as the house above the 
 church. In particular, the roses of varying shades of pink and yellow 
 that festooned the arbors and climbed the gray walls of the house made 
 a picture of unsurpassed loveliness. 
 
 Fences of good design, and hemlock or cedar hedges, gave the architec- 
 tural note that made for dignity and seclusion to houses and gardens. 
 How much the village owes to the background of the mountain and 
 wooded hills opposite is as apparent now as in the time of beautiful 
 gardens. 
 
 When Thoreau came to Brattleboro in 1856 to look up an aster which 
 did not grow in Concord, he said of the mountain : "It is the most remark- 
 able feature here. The village is peculiar from the nearness of the primi- 
 tive wood and this everlasting mountain forever lowering over the village 
 — shortening the day and wearing a misty cap each morning. Its top is 
 covered with wood." , 
 
 Into the late sixties cows, pigs and chickens were kept in barns in the 
 rear of many of the finest houses, — ^the cows driven to pasture through 
 the Main Street in the morning and home again at dusk. In that time 
 great elms, overshadowing the streets, encroached on the graveled side- 
 walk so as to make it necessary to walk around their massive trunks. 
 
 No telephone poles marred the roadways. It was a rural setting. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE MILITIA (continued) 
 
 Militia— Officers of companies— General muster — RegiiAental commanders— Reorgani- 
 zation of militia— Roll and return of Brattleboro company— Chapin's muster. War 
 of 1812, recruiting rendezvous Brattleboro — ^Anti-War Society— Soldiers of 1812. 
 
 Records of the militia companies are few and give only partial lists of 
 officers. 
 
 Captains of the Floodwood Company were Samuel Warriner; 
 Jerry Frost; D. Mixer; Henry Clark; Benajah Dudley; Nathaniel 
 Bliss; Lafayette Clark; Charles C. Frost, 1835; John Leavitt, 1829; 
 Leonard Knapp, 1831; Frederick Holbrook, 183- ; Perry Smith, 1837; 
 George H. Salisbury, 1848. When Frederick Holbrook was captain of 
 the Floodwood the company mustered, besides officers, one hundred and 
 thirty-two men, who appeared in all sorts of dress, some in caps, some in 
 stovepipes, some in black coats, some in shirt sleeves, some in linen dust- 
 ers, and some barefooted. There was the customary half barrel of punch, 
 and practicing on Main Street and around the Common. 
 
 Of the Light Infantry there were Captain Ebenezer Wells, 1804, and 
 Captain Howard Wells, 1810, both sons of Reverend William Wells; 
 Captain Ebenezer Sabin; Captain Daniel Bliss; Captain Samuel Brenton 
 Whitney, son of Honorable Lemuel Whitney, 1816 to 1821; Captain 
 Nathaniel Chandler, 1833 ; Captain Eli Sargent, grandson to Colonel John 
 Sargent, 1833-1834; Captain Adolphus Stebbins, 1834; Captain Willard 
 Frost, 1835-1836 ; Captain Chester Sargent, 1837-1839 ; Captain William 
 Brooks, son of Captain William S. Brooks, 1830; Captain John King, 
 1831-1833. In 1833 to 1835 the Brattleborough Light Infantry under 
 Captains Eli Sargent and Samuel Brenton Whitney was called the best- 
 disciplined company in the state. This company maintained full musters, 
 excellent discipline and uniforms of the best style and quality until 1830. 
 
 Among the causes which contributed to give a consequence to the 
 citizen-soldiery of 1830 and 1826, was a sprinkling in their ranks of 
 veterans who had seen service in the last war with Britain. National 
 gratitude to these old soldiers increased in a marked degree about 1826, 
 or soon after the last visit of Lafayette to this country. Previous to that 
 
THE MILITIA 335 
 
 time, pensions were paid only to the poor, dependent soldiers, but after 
 1833 no discrimination was made as to pecuniary circumstances, and the 
 widow of a soldier received the same pension as was paid her husband. 
 
 Of the soldiers of 1813 there were J. Wilson Landers and J. Freeman, 
 who had stood on the deck with Commodore Decatur when he captured 
 the proud Macedonian. In the Brattleborough Infantry were John Burn- 
 ham and John Fowler from Connecticut, both soldiers in the war of 1813, 
 and also Ebenezer Howe, grandson of Caleb Howe of Fort Bridgman; 
 in the artillery was Captain Lewis Henry, who, in the same war had served 
 in a company commanded by Captain James Elliot. 
 
 The Brattleborough Light Infantry dined at Hayes Hotel the day the 
 mail coach, decked with flags, brought the tidings of peace after the War 
 of 1813. 
 
 Sham fights during the annual June training came off in front of the 
 old Academy. Roofs of canvas were fastened against the walls of the 
 buildings, making booths for the sale of refreshments, gingerbread, cider, 
 etc. In addition, small wares such as jackknives, pencils, etc., were on 
 sale in a tent pitched near by. Tubs and pails of whiskey were inevitable. 
 Someone has remembered that after the first temperance agitation, the 
 "Sons of Cold Water" were organized here. Captain Brooks, drawing 
 up his men in line one muster day, with the pails of whiskey ready, 
 ordered, "All cold water men three paces to the front!" Not a man 
 moved. 
 
 Artillery officers were Captain Atherton from 1813 to 1815 ; Captain 
 Samuel Root; Captain Simpson Goodenough; Captain Osearl Stod- 
 dard; Captain Lewis Henry, 1837; Captain William Cobleigh; Cap- 
 tain Roswell Goodenough; Captain Albert Bennett; Captain Argillas 
 Streeter; Captain Arnold J. Hines, afterwards colonel of the regiment; 
 Captain Franklin Cobleigh; Captain Jonathan Davis, 1836-1837. The 
 artillery was in glorious prominence for Fourth of July celebrations 
 when the guns, stored with the hearse under the North Meeting-House 
 on the Common, were brought forth with pride. 
 
 "Tradition is not expected to be exact about dates, but either in 1834 
 or 1835," as an old resident remembered, "there was a fourth of July 
 celebration with a novel band of musicians. It was the first and last time 
 I ever saw a procession march through the public streets to the music of 
 bass viols and violins. The bass viols were fastened to the performers 
 in some way so that they could be played while marching." 
 
 Colonel Nathan Willis did much in his time to sustain the military 
 reputation of this section, and probably was one of the most efficient 
 officers for active service. During Captain Sargent's command there was 
 
326 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 held the greatest general muster ever seen in town. A resident from 1815 
 to 1853 said of this muster : "Colonel Henry Jones Blake was in command, 
 and he well understood his duty. When marching through Main Street the 
 bands of the several companies united. I know not how many wind 
 instruments were in operation, but I counted fifty drums, and ten of them 
 were large brass drums. The noise made exceeded anything of the kind 
 I have heard since ; but the most pleasing impression left upon my mind 
 was the address, action and elegant appearance of Colonel Blake." He 
 was a son of the Honorable John Welland Blake. 
 
 Other regimental commanders were General Jonas Mann ; General Jon- 
 athan Hunt, 1811 ; Colonel Paul Chase ; Colonel Joseph Goodhue ; General 
 Jonathan Smith; Colonel Lewis Henry; Brigadier-General Franklin H. 
 Fessenden, 1834; Colonel Nathan Miller; Colonel Albert Bennett, 1836- 
 1837 ; Colonel Arnold J. Hines. 
 
 Military orders were of the following character : 
 
 Whereas I, Abraham Marshall, private in Lieutenant Joseph Wilder's 
 Company of Militia, have received from said officer the following military 
 order, to wit : 
 
 "Abraham Marshall: You are hereby ordered to notify and warn all 
 persons to your knowledge south side of the brook in this village, to appear 
 at Phineas Stewart's Inn in Brattleborough on Saturday the 16th of April, 
 at one o'clock P. M. to make choice of a Captain and fill all vacancies. — 
 In like manner appear yourself. 
 
 Hereof fail not, but make a return of your doings on or before the 7th 
 of April inst. 
 
 Jos. Wilder, Lieut." 
 
 Now, therefore, in obedience to said order, all persons, whether black 
 or white, bond or free, men, women or children, in the southern and 
 middle states of North America, and the rest of the world, including that 
 portion of New England lying south of Whetstone Brook in Brattle- 
 borough, — ^greeting. 
 
 You are hereby warned to appear at Phineas Stewart's Inn in Brattle- 
 borough on Saturday the 16th of April inst. at one o'clock P. M. to make 
 choice of a Captain and fill all vacancies which may occur. 
 
 The subscriber takes this method of obeying orders, not having suffi- 
 cient time to visit you personally. Hereof fail not at your peril. 
 
 By order of the commanding officer, or at any rate one who commands. 
 
 Abraham Marshall. 
 Brattleborough, April 6th, 1836. 
 
THE MILITIA 327 
 
 In 1837 Francis E. Phelps, Green Blackmer and E. B. Chase, the board 
 of ofHcers "to organize the militia of the state into divisions, brigades, 
 regiments, battalions and companies," defined the limits of the artillery 
 company of the 37th Regiment as comprising the whole town of Brattle- 
 boro. Solomon Standclift of Halifax was the colonel of the regiment 
 and Captain Jonathan Davis was appointed to command the new com- 
 pany. On the eleventh day of August, 1838, the members of the com- 
 pany assembled at George W. Emerson's tavern, which stood on the spot 
 now occupied by the Town Hall, and elected Alvin Flint second lieutenant, 
 Elijah Jacquith third lieutenant, Jonas Putnam second sergeant, Thomas 
 G. Crosby third sergeant and George Bennett fourth sergeant. Samuel 
 Bullock and Edwin Putnam were chosen corporals. The company had 
 no uniforms at that time, save a cap and sword with yellow mountings 
 and black sword belt. The following summer there were forty-eight men 
 in the company, Lewis Putnam, being the first lieutenant. The musicians 
 were Stephen Burnett, George B. Sargent, Franklin Fowler and Ezra 
 Gleason. 
 
 June, 1840, the company was warned to meet for inspection and drill 
 at the North Meeting-House. A year later the company met at T. C. 
 Lord's tavern, formerly Emerson's, and elected Landlord Lord to the 
 captaincy, and then and there voted to uniform themselves during the 
 year. E. S. Rice of Wilmington was at that time adjutant of the regi- 
 ment, he being succeeded by E. S. Riddle one year later. T. S. Taft of 
 Green River succeeded Solomon Standclift as colonel of the regiment, and 
 Horace Hastings of Wilmington was the colonel commanding the Third 
 Regiment. The uniform adopted by Captain Lord's company consisted 
 of a blue coat, trimmed with gold lace, the red-faced skirts turned up, a 
 high cap with white plume, tipped with red, while the pantaloons were 
 white, with a wide strap of the same material buttoned under the boot, 
 with crossbelts and white gloves. The officers before the reorganization 
 of Captain Lord's company, August 33, 1845, and when the name of the 
 company was changed to Lafayette Light Infantry, were distinguished 
 by their, yellow epaulets, red sashes and buff gloves. The regiment often 
 mustered near Captain Ira Adams's West Marlboro inn, and several times 
 on the large plain adjoining the Clark farm on Ames Hill. Captain Lord's 
 company was subsequently attached to the Third Regiment. 
 
 Many of the prominent men of the town were members of this com- 
 pany, Silas Waite serving as clerk for several years. Perrin Simonds 
 later succeeded to the command of the company. 
 
 "The roll and return" of the company appears in its record book, which 
 is still preserved, and the names are as follows : Captain, Jonathan Davis ; 
 first lieutenant, Lewis Putnam ; second lieutenant, Alvin Flint ; third lieu- 
 
328 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 tenant, Elijah Jacquith; sergeants, Edwin Putnam, Jonas Putnam, Sam- 
 uel Bullock, Warren Hall ; corporals, George R. Snow, Charles A. PuUen, 
 Asa Sherwin, George E. Fuller; musicians, Rual Fraisure, Stephen Bur- 
 nett, Samuel French, Thomas O. Amsden, George B. Sargent; privates, 
 Alexander Capin, Silas Atwood, George H. Butterfield, Luther Bardwell, 
 Emery Miller, Emery Stearns, Ebenezer Bardwell, John Bruce, Asa G. 
 Pratt, Smith Starkey, George H. Wilcutt, William Robertson, Leroy 
 Stoddard, William Ellis, Palmer Carpenter, Benjamin Pierce, Merrick 
 Newton, George W. Brown, George Ellis, Henry Miller, Roswell Love- 
 man, Isaiah Stearns, James Streeter, Nelson D. Evings, Rufus Cooke, 
 Alphonso Hildreth, Roswell Parker, William S. White, Nathaniel Bangs, 
 James Estey, Richard Billings, Umphia Harris, Samuel Pike, Manassah 
 Button, Proctor Amsden, George Bills, Jacob Marsh, Harris Stockwell, 
 Cromwell Carpenter, Marvin Hall, Austin Holden. 
 
 There must have been a good deal of politics in the company, for the 
 next year we find an overthrow of the officers, T. C. Lord being captain ; 
 Jonathan Davis, first lieutenant ; Nelson D. Evans, second lieutenant, and 
 Lewis Putnam, third lieutenant. Captain Lord continued at the 'head of 
 the company as long as it existed, but in 1843 Lewis Putnam was elected 
 first lieutenant ; William S. Chase, second lieutenant, and Edwin Putnam, 
 third, while Davis had become the orderly sergeant. Later the lieutenants 
 included Chester G. Herrick, Riley Burdette and Francis Goodhue. In 
 1845 S. M. Waite— "S. M. Wait," as he then signed the name— became 
 clerk of the company and from that time the records are all in his hand- 
 writing. 
 
 The militia meetings were mostly held at the old Wantastiquet Hall. 
 
 The following notice was posted in the village May 20, 1850 : 
 
 NOTICE. 
 
 Ho ! for Cuba ! 
 
 The members of 
 
 The Lafayette 
 
 Light Infantry 
 
 Are hereby ordered to meet at 
 
 T. C. Lord's 
 
 On Tuesday, June 4, 
 
 1850 at 8 o'clock A. M. 
 
 Armed and equipped 
 
 as the law directs 
 
 And there wait for further 
 
 orders. 
 
 Per order 
 
 S. M. Waite, clerk. 
 
THE MILITIA 329 
 
 The last muster in the place by legal authority occurred in 1857, 
 and was considered by all a feeble affair. It was on grounds after- 
 wards known as Forest Square, leading north from Western Avenue. A 
 volunteer muster came off in a short time thereafter, attended by invited 
 companies from New Hampshire — the Ashuelot Guards from Hinsdale, 
 the Chesterfield Rifles from Chesterfield — and the Vernon troops. This 
 military gathering was called Chapin's muster, as Doctor Charles Chapin 
 was the highest officer on parade. He was very active in the movement 
 and much interested in this military revival, as was evidenced from the 
 address he delivered to the assembled troops near the close of the day. 
 He was sorry to see a decline in the military spirit of our people for the 
 following reasons: "The rapid increase of our population from people 
 unfitted for the duties of freemen. Our institutions and privileges for 
 self-government having been obtained by the bayonet, by the bayonet 
 must be maintained." 
 
 The Anti-War Society of 1813 
 
 Political opposition to the policy of the government in the War of 1813 
 gained considerable ground in this part of the country, owing to a general 
 financial depression, the result of burdensome taxes, nonimportation laws 
 and accumulating debts. The banks were embarrassed, and there were 
 many failures among business men. Organizations of protest and reform 
 were started. 
 
 There was an Anti-War Sotiety of 1813 in Northfield, Warwick and 
 Royalston, Massachusetts; in Winchester, New Hampshire; in Brattleboro 
 and probably in Putney. The following letter from the Brattleboro So- 
 ciety to the Northfield Society is all we have to indicate the extent of 
 this Society's activity: 
 
 Elnathan Allen 
 
 President of the 
 
 W. B. Society in Brattleborough, Vt. 
 
 Sam'J Elliot, 
 
 Vice President. 
 
 Brattleborough, Vt. Jan'y 11, 1814. 
 Brethren : 
 
 Tho' separated by State lines and members of different state Govern- 
 ments; yet we belong to the same political family, claiming the same 
 political father and guide, and enjoying like civil & republican privileges. 
 We are quite interested in the Policy & welfare of our common Country 
 — and we mourn together at that perverse and ill-fated system of Policy, 
 
330 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 which seems hastening the once happy land of WASHINGTON to 
 misery & ruin ! 
 
 Permit us to enquire whether there are any bounds to our grievances & 
 burdens ? Whether the cup of our calamity is nearly full ? Whether the 
 enormous Taxes now collecting — ^the renewal of the Embargo — ^the ex- 
 travagance of our Cabinets — ^the folly & Cruelty of the War, and the 
 worst conducted of all wars — ^the sacrifice of our blood, treasure, com- 
 merce & Peace, will ever, again open the eyes of the American people? 
 They seem lulled into fatal ease & security, ready to believe every tale 
 of comfort or possible relief and almost to excuse the whole burden of 
 their oppressions. Will not the blood wantonly spilt cry from the ground ! 
 Will not the awful & distressing progress of this War, rouse up their 
 slumbering senses, & make its author tremble ! 
 
 Our state, by great exertions, has been righted up to proper ground, 
 but much remains to be done, or she will keel over again. To be sure the 
 last wretched campaign & the late "glorious exploits" of the allies will aid 
 the advocates of Peace but nothing will convince the main War Party — 
 They bear their late defeat with resentment & will do their best to regain 
 their lost power. 
 
 Our projected alteration of our Constitution, making more independent 
 our Judiciary, and more stable our Government, will be opposed with all 
 the rancor & all the power of Democracy. 
 
 Br. Samuel Elliot having borrowed your standard last July, we inclose 
 a little payment of 2$ for the use of it, and would cheerfully do more but 
 our fund & means are much embarrassed. 
 
 We shall celebrate the 23d of Feby. at Putney, & should be happy to 
 have such of you as could make it convenient to join us. 
 
 Our Society would receive with pleasure any communications from 
 yours, which might tend to brighten our friendship, comfort us under 
 political affliction, or extend the happy influence generally of our charitable 
 brotherhood. 
 
 We are cordially yours &c 
 Samuel Elliot, President of the W. B. Society of Brattleborough — 
 & one of the corresponding committed. 
 
 But the voice of the Federalist majority is heard in this notification 
 from an issue of The Reporter of 1814. 
 
 ATTENTION. 
 
 124 dollars bounty, 160 acres of land and eight dollars per month are 
 now offered to every able bodied man, from the age of 18 to 45, who shall 
 voluntarily enlist as a soldier of the U. S. of America for the period of 
 

 CONNECTICUT RIVER BRIDGE 
 
 LOOKING NORTH FROM ISLAND 
 
 ROAD ACROSS ISLAND 
 
 VIEW SOUTH FROM RESIDENCE 
 JUDGE C. ROYALL TYLER 
 
 RIVER ABOVE WEST RIVER BRIDGE 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
THE RIVER BELOW THE VILLAGE 
 
 ABOVE THE VILLAGE 
 
 FARTHER NORTH 
 
 COCKAYNE. BOSTON 
 
THE MILITIA 331 
 
 five years or during the war. The bounty to be paid $50 on enlistment, 
 $50 on being mustered into some miHtary corps, and $34 together with 
 the land on being discharged. 
 
 A recruiting rendezvous is now opened in Brattleborough village oppo- 
 site Clark & Hunt's store, where all those who being actuated by the love 
 of liberty and wishing to engage in their country's cause are invited to 
 call. Our country loudly calls on her brave and gallant sons to avenge 
 her wrongs, her violated rights and national independence; therefore let 
 not Honor be rocked asleep by Affection or Delusion. 
 
 Eight dollars premium will also be given to any non-commissioned 
 officer, musician, private or citizen for each man they may procure to 
 enlist, answering the above description. 
 
 J. Greenleaf, Lieut., 
 
 31st Regt. of U. S. Inft. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 THE MASONS— COLUMBIAN LODGE, NUMBER 36 
 
 A petition bearing date March 27, 1812, by nineteen Master Masons, 
 residents of Brattleboro and Guilford, namely : Lemuel Whitney, Abram 
 Kingsbury, Almerin Tinker, Elisha Chase, Elihu Field, Junior, Samuel 
 Elliot, Samuel Clark, John W. Blake, Nahum Cutler, Rodney Burt, Quar- 
 tus Smead, Nathaniel Bliss, Aaron Barney, Samuel Dickinson, Richard 
 Phillips, Porter Johnson, Joseph Boyden, Josiah Brown and Asa Green, 
 speaking in behalf of themselves and about twenty other Master Masons 
 of this vicinity, was presented to John Chipman, grand master, praying 
 that a dispensation be granted, empowering them to assemble as a regular 
 lodge on the last Tuesday preceding the full moon of the month in every 
 month, alternately in the towns of Guilford and Brattleboro, for the dis- 
 charge of the duties pertaining to a Masonic lodge in a regular and con- 
 stitutional manner until such time as a charter could be granted by the 
 grand lodge, or the authority to meet and act be revoked. In their peti- 
 tion, as is the custom and rule, they nominated Lemuel Whitney to be 
 worshipful master, Abram Kingsbury to' be senior warden and Almerin 
 Tinker to be junior warden, and that said lodge be named Columbian 
 Lodge. Grand master having considered the petition, granted his war- 
 rant of dispensation under the date of May 5, 1812, as prayed for by the 
 petitioners. The dispensation did not require the lodge meeting to be 
 held alternately in Guilford and Brattleboro, but empowered them to 
 "convene and open an Apprentices, Crafts and Masters Lodge of Brat- 
 tleborough or Guilford in the state aforesaid by the name of Columbian 
 lodge and to do all business appertaining to those degrees until the Mon- 
 day preceding the second of October, next," and from an examination of 
 the records of the lodge somewhat imperfectly kept, it seems that the 
 meetings were held in Guilford until December 20, 18l4; at Brattleboro 
 commencing with the meeting of December 34, 1814, until November 30, 
 1819, a period of five years ; next under a vote of the lodge they were held 
 at the East Parish in Guilford, better known as East Guilford or Algiers, 
 for five years, which included the meeting of November 24, 1824; com- 
 mencing with November 30, 1824, the meetings were again held in Brattle- 
 boro until the time the records close, December 8, 1829. 
 
THE MASONS 333 
 
 The first recorded meeting held under the dispensation was August 18, 
 1812, at which twenty-six members were present, and three visiting 
 brethren, of whom District Deputy Grand Master Martin Field of Blazing 
 Star Lodge of Newfane was one. (Here two pages were removed from 
 the record book.) Whether any meetings were held after that of Decem- 
 ber 8, 1829, which was the annual meeting of the lodge, and officers duly 
 elected and installed, is more or less doubtful. The proceedings of the 
 grand lodge show that at the annual convocation in 1830 Columbian 
 Lodge, Number 34, was represented by Samuel Root as proxy for John 
 Hodson, W.M., Moses Ware, S.W., and Nathan Wood, J.W. ; that in 
 1831 it was represented by Lemuel Whitney as proxy for the three officers 
 just mentioned; that in 1832 it was unrepresented, but in 1833 it was 
 represented by Samuel Elliot as proxy for Nathan Wood, J.W. 
 
 Whatever became of the charter of old Columbian Lodge, Number 34, 
 no one knows. By vote of the grand lodge in 1833 all lodges desiring to 
 do so were given opportunity to surrender their charters. Grand secre- 
 tary. Brother Roess, does not think Columbian Lodge, Number 34, ever 
 surrendered its charter, but that in 1849, after lodges had been given the 
 opportunity to resume work, if they so desired, Columbian Lodge was 
 declared extinct, January 10 of that year. 
 
 The lodge meetings were held in the afternoon, with a good attendance, 
 as a general thing, from the first recorded meeting to the last. It was 
 invariably opened upon the first degree, where nearly all of the business 
 was transferred, except balloting for and passing F.C. and raising M.M., 
 where the lodge would be opened upon each of those degrees for that 
 purpose. The dues were 12^ cents, to be paid by each member in attend- 
 ance, including E.A. and F.C, and also by each visiting brother after the 
 first visit. During the seventeen years of its active life it made a large 
 number of Masons and elected a number who had received their degrees 
 in other lodges, and its membership of that early period was composed 
 of the best and most prominent men in business and professional life. 
 
 During the lodge's existence it had nine worshipful masters, Lemuel 
 Whitney, Samuel Clark, Elihu Field, Artemas Robbins, Aaron Barney, 
 Emerson Burnham, Dana Hyde, Junior, Ariel Root, John Hodson. Of 
 them all, Lemuel Whitney, whose portrait hung in one of the rooms of 
 the Town Hall, was the great central figure, and became the most prominent 
 in Masonic and public affairs. He was grand junior warden of the grand 
 lodge in 1812-1813; grand senior warden in 1815, 1816, 1817; deputy 
 grand master in 1814, and grand master in 1818, 1819, 1820, 1821. He 
 was grand secretary of the grand chapter in 1817; grand king in 1819, 
 1820, 1821, and grand high priest in 1822, 1823, 1824. 
 
 Upon the petition of Charles Cummings, Louis Frust, Edward J. Car- 
 
334 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 penter, A. Pope Wilder, W. C. Bryant, James H. Capen, H. R. Godfrey, 
 Horace Hastings, Ashbel Dickinson, Henry Smith, Samuel Knight and 
 Ranslure Clarke, Grand Master Philip C. Tucker issued to them, under 
 date of January 4, 1855, his warrant of dispensation empowering them to 
 meet under the name of Columbian Lodge and to do and transact all 
 business pertaining to a lodge of Masons until the annual meeting of the 
 grand lodge in 1856, unless sooner revoked, and appointed E. J. Carpenter 
 to be its worshipful master, Charles Cummings its senior, and Louis Frust 
 its junior, warden. Their first meeting was held June 10, 1855. 
 
 At the July meeting R. W. Henry H. Barton, D.D.G.M. of Rockingham 
 was present, also many visiting brethren from Golden Rule Lodge of 
 Putney, Blazing Star Lodge of Newfane and Republican Lodge of Green- 
 field, Massachusetts. District Deputy Barton delivered an address, the 
 several candidates proposed at a former meeting were all duly elected, 
 and William E. Nichols and Sidney A. Miller received the degrees of 
 E.A. and F.C. After three hours of intermission for refreshments the 
 lodge was called to labor and William E. Nichols and John J. Crandall, 
 who had received the first two degrees in Republican Lodge, Greenfield, 
 were raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason. 
 
 The lodge was granted its first charter by the grand lodge in January, 
 1856, received its number, 36, and at the stated meeting for that month 
 elected its officers for the ensuing year, namely : E. J. Carpenter, W.M. ; 
 Charles Cummings, S.W. ; Louis Frust, J.W. ; Horace Hastings, treasurer, 
 and Sidney A. Miller, secretary. 
 
 A large amount of work was done during the years of the Civil War, 
 both on account of residents of this jurisdiction and of soldiers in camp 
 upon whom degrees were conferred by request of the lodges that had 
 elected them. 
 
 March 23 the lodge authorized the making of a contract for the leasing 
 of the hall in Granite Block of D. S. and O. J. Pratt for the term of ten 
 years at a rental of $400 per annum. 
 
 During fifty-seven years of the life of Columbian Lodge, Number 36, 
 and previous to its removal, Columbian Lodge, Number 36, has had four 
 homes— the first in Williston's stone block on Main Street, second in what 
 is known as Retting's building on High Street, then in Pratt's granite 
 block on Main Street and fourth in Market Block on Elliot Street. The 
 hall in Pratt's block was dedicated to Masonry December 27, 1869, Brother 
 Charles A. Miles acting as grand master. An able address was delivered 
 by Reverend Brother H. W. Nye of Springfield, Massachusetts, and a 
 collation was served in the banquet hall to the brethren and their ladies. 
 This was occupied until December, 1887, when the new hall in Market 
 Block was dedicated to Masonry by the officers of the grand lodge, M. W. 
 
THE MASONS 335 
 
 Alfred A. Hall, grand master. All of the Masonic bodies then moved to 
 their new home and continued to occupy the same until they moved April 
 1 to the temple, which was dedicated May 31, 1911. June 6, 1876, the 
 date for holding their stated meetings was changed from the Tuesday on 
 or preceding the full moon to the second Tuesday of each month and has 
 remained so ever since. 
 
 In the summer of 1880 various members of the lodge, feeling that the 
 interest of Masonry would be best conserved by the establishment of 
 another lodge in town, took their demits from the lodge and subsequently 
 petitioned Grand Master Lavant M. Read for a dispensation to hold meet- 
 ings and do Masonic work under the name of Brattleboro Lodge, with 
 Brother William H. Vinton, W.M. September 14, 1880, Columbian 
 Lodge, by vote, gave its consent for the establishment of the new lodge. 
 A dispensation was granted the petitioners by the grand master, and 
 December 14, 1880, Columbian Lodge, on request of Brother Vinton, 
 voted to give the use of its aprons, working tools, furniture and other 
 paraphernalia to Brattleboro Lodge until they should obtain such for 
 themselves. June 16, 1881, Brattleboro Lodge, Number 103, received its 
 charter. 
 
 The records of Columbian Lodge, Number 36, demonstrate that its 
 members were never afraid to cast a black cube, and during the fifty-seven 
 years of Masonic life its membership as a whole has been selected from the 
 best citizenship within its jurisdiction. Twenty-three of its members have 
 served the lodge as its worshipful masters, namely : Edward J. Carpenter, 
 Ranslure W. Clarke, William E. Nichols, George H. Newman, William H. 
 Vinton, Nathan S. Howe, Charles A. Miles, Lyman H. Dearborn, Edwin 
 H. Putnam, Albert J. Simonds, Daniel L. Herrick, Chauncey B. Dickin- 
 son, Kittredge Haskins, Isaac D. Bailey, Henry A. Chapin, Albert W. 
 Crouch, Charles H. Grant, James B. Randoll, Anthony F. Schwenk, 
 Walter E. Hubbard, Christie B. Crowell, James A. Hoadley and Sanford 
 A. Daniels. The longest periods of service as W.M. have been that of 
 Brother Carpenter, four years; Brother Nichols, four years; Brother 
 Haskins, eight years; Brother Bailey, four years. The lodge has had a 
 steady, healthy growth, and notwithstanding it lost some of its best and 
 highly esteemed members when Brattleboro Lodge was established, it has 
 always pursued a conservative and careful course, constantly keeping in 
 mind and observing the ancient landmarks of the order. At the present 
 time it numbers 166 members. 
 
 That Columbian Lodge has received its due share of recognition by the 
 several Masonic grand bodies of Vermont, the following will show: 
 Brother Clarke was grand senior warden of the grand lodge in 1863, 1864, 
 1865, 1866, 1867 ; Brother Vinton was grand junior warden in 1870 and 
 
336 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 grand senior warden in 1871-1872; Brother Miles was grand high priest 
 of the grand chapter in 1867, 1868, 1869 ; Brother Haskins was grand high 
 priest in 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886 ; grand junior warden of the grand lodge 
 in 1889-1890 ; grand senior warden in 1891-1892 ; deputy grand master in 
 1893-1894; grand master in 1895-1896; was grand captain general of the 
 grand commandery in 1888; grand generalissimo in 1889; deputy grand 
 commander in 1890 and grand commander in 1891-1892 ; Brother Bailey 
 was grand junior deacon of the grand lodge in 1904; grand captain of the 
 guard of the grand commandery in 1904; grand warden in 1895; grand 
 sword bearer in 1896 ; venerable chief of the Masonic Veterans' Associa- 
 tion in 1907 ; most illustrious grand master of the grand council in 1910 
 and grand senior warden of the Knights of the Red Cross of Constantine 
 in 1911 ; Brother Crowell was made master of the first veil of the grand 
 chapter in 1911; our treasurer. Brother Frank B. Putnam, was grand 
 captain of the guard of the grand commandery in 1908, grand sword 
 bearer in 1909, grand standard bearer in 1910 and grand junior warden 
 in 1911. 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 THE CHURCH ON THE COMMON 
 
 The Church on the Common — Association Covenant— Subscribers^Parish record 
 — Meeting-House regulations — Location — Plan of church — Reverend Jonathan 
 McGee — Letter from Mrs. Sally Holbrook — Reverend Charles Walker — Plan of 
 pews — 'Deacon John Holbrook — First Sunday School — Deacons — Clerks of the 
 Society — Superintendents of the Sunday School — Female Friendly Association — 
 Members — Social meetings — Governor Holbrook's Address at the Congrega- 
 tionalists' Jubilee — Reminiscences continued — Temperance — ^Antislavery in 1837 
 — Church unity — Ladies' meeting in behalf of the Greeks. 
 
 The North Meeting-House, now known as the "Church on the Com- 
 mon," was building in the years 1814-1816. The boys and girls watched 
 the frame go up from the hill on the west of the Common, with a view un- 
 obstructed by the present abundant growth of trees. There were a large 
 number of people on the ground, partly because of the necessities of the 
 work of raising such a frame, partly because of the dream of Reverend 
 Caleb Burge, who dreamed that two men wfere to be slain in the effort, 
 and for whom, after all went well and safely, the crowd lustily and 
 ironically cheered ; and partly because the event itself was so signal in the 
 history of the town as to call out the residents. It came to be in this way : 
 The Reverend William Wells, who came to Brattleboro in 1794 for the 
 twofold noble purpose of preaching the gospel and with his own hands 
 supplying his necessities, and who had been for twenty years the heartily 
 chosen stated supply of the one town-church at West Brattleboro — ^this 
 father in the gospel had not limited his work to the regular services, but 
 held Bible meetings "on Lord's-day evening, generally as often as twice 
 and sometimes three times a month," in the schoolhouse at the northwest 
 end of what is now the Common, also in private residences and sometimes 
 in Uriel Sikes's hotel. 
 
 This he could do more easily, as he lived on the West River road, just 
 beyond the present Retreat. Population grew in the East Village. The 
 schoolhouse meetings became, a permanency, and as the town would not 
 vote two church buildings and one parish, a separate society became a 
 necessity. 
 
338 
 
 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Association Covenant 
 The first mention of a religious society in the East Village is contained 
 in the Association Covenant : 
 
 We the Subscribers, inhabitants of Brattleborough (in the eastern part 
 of said town) do hereby voluntarily associate and agree to form a Society 
 by the name of the Brattleborough East Society in Brattleborough Village 
 (so-called) for the purpose of settling and supporting a minister and other 
 necessary Society concerns according to the first section of an Act entitled 
 "an act for the support of the Gospel," passed October 36, 1797. It being 
 understood, that no subscriber shall be compelled by a majority to pay 
 any money for the purposes aforesaid, but by his voluntary consent. 
 
 In vifitness whereof, we have hereunto severally set our hands. 
 
 Dated at Brattleborough this 27th day of August in the year of our 
 Lord, one thousand, eight hundred & eighteen. 
 
 NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS AND ASSOCIATES. 
 
 John Holbrook. 
 Samuel Elliot. 
 Asa Green. 
 Artemas Robbins. 
 Grindal R. Ellis. 
 Ezra Clark. 
 Boaz M. Atherton. 
 Jonathan Hunt. 
 Francis Goodhue. 
 Isaac Thompson. 
 Eli Sargeant. 
 David Wood. 
 Elihue Sergeant. 
 John Hudson. 
 Geo. F. A. Atherton. 
 Geo. W. Hall. 
 Jona. A. Allen. 
 Geo. W. Nichols. 
 Jonathan Davis. 
 John S. Barrett. 
 Elisha Briggs. 
 Asa French. 
 Philip Wood. 
 Leml. Shattuck. 
 Nathl. Chandler. 
 
 John Thomas. 
 Mason Kingsley. 
 Levi Sargeant: 
 Leonard Scott. 
 Jesse French. 
 John Wood, 
 Joseph Goodhue. 
 Joseph Fessenden. 
 Luther Howard. 
 John L. Dickerman. 
 John Burnham. 
 Calvin Sargeant. 
 Romeo Bowen. 
 Philip Potter. 
 Saml. Wellington. 
 Richard Gill. 
 Alexander Sargeant. 
 Allin Joy. 
 Saml. Frost. 
 Alpheus Thayer. 
 Ebn. Wells. 
 Gardner C. Hall. 
 John Birge. 
 John R. Blake. 
 John W. Prouty. 
 
THE CHURCH ON THE COMMON 
 
 339 
 
 George Sargeant. 
 Thos. H. Wood. 
 Geo. Lord. 
 John P. Fessenden. 
 George Thompson. 
 Theodore James. 
 Asa G. Smith. 
 Rodolphus Bennett. 
 John C. Holbrook. 
 John P. Leavitt. 
 A. M. BHss. 
 James Gumbell. 
 Lewis M. Amsden. 
 James Steen. 
 Jesse Frost. 
 Nathl. Barber. 
 Alba Kimball. 
 Geo. W. Knowlton. 
 John Charley. 
 Willard Pomroy. 
 Anson Barber. 
 John K. Caldwell. 
 Joseph Steen. 
 Jona. Wood. 
 Henry Ballard. 
 Joseph Tyler. 
 Jonathan Glennington. 
 Alexander C. Putnam. 
 James Elliot. 
 Silvanus Sartwell. 
 Uriel Sikes. 
 Henry C. Blake. 
 Rufus Clark. 
 Henry Frost. 
 Wm. Frost. 
 Solomon Wilder. 
 Noah Fisher. 
 
 Allen Fuel. 
 Pliny Kingsley. 
 Roswell Holton. 
 Henry Kimball. 
 ' Geo. T. Mixer. 
 Lewis Holton. 
 Henry Smith. 
 Theodore Phelps. 
 Aaron C. Hammon. 
 Angalous Streeter. 
 Elisha H. Allen. 
 Danl. B. Thompson. 
 Henry Kemp. 
 Philip Hall. 
 George Draper. 
 Wm. Fred Hall. 
 Enos C. Crosby. 
 Reuben G. Hildreth. 
 Argos Nash. 
 Wm. R. Hayes. 
 Nathan Woodcock. 
 Frederick Van Doom. 
 Charles C. Frost. 
 Willm. A. Conant. 
 Anthony Van Doom. 
 Willard Frost. 
 Saml. Root. 
 Amandarin Clark. 
 Wells Goodhue. 
 E. H. Thomas. 
 Guy M. Fessenden. 
 Saml. S. Leonard. 
 John H. Hastings. 
 Moses Ware. 
 Geo. H. Peck. 
 Nathl. Williston. 
 Horace Wilcox. 
 
 In 1832 there were added : 
 
 Asahel Clapp. 
 Samuel H. Elliot. 
 Lewis Newman. 
 
 Wm. P. Cune. 
 Uriel Sikes. 
 Levi Sargeant. 
 
340 
 
 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 David Allen. 
 John Fowler. 
 
 In 1833 : 
 
 George Sargeant. 
 F. H. Fessenden. 
 Rufus Clark. 
 Ozearl Stoddard. 
 Fred Holbrook. 
 James M. Reed. 
 Alonzo Blodgett. 
 Chester Pomeroy. 
 Leveritt Smith. 
 Henry Pratt. 
 Wm. Briggs. 
 Warnham Burnham 
 Pomroy Knowlton. 
 
 In 1834: 
 
 Winslow V. Coles. 
 Ransom Covey. 
 David Marshall. 
 Lewis E. Sikes. 
 William Gould. 
 Saml. Bailey. 
 Geo. W. Woods. 
 James Elliot. 
 Alvin Flint. 
 Moses Ware. 
 Samuel Dutton. 
 W. L. Dickerman. 
 
 Daniel Gilbert. 
 Chester French. 
 Asa French, Jr. 
 
 Israel H. Pilgrim. 
 Henry S. Knox. 
 J. P. Fessenden. 
 Alexander Brown. 
 Adolphus Stebbins. 
 Chas. H. Cune. 
 Hezekiah Salisbury. 
 Johnet Keith. 
 Albert G. Pratt. 
 Joseph G. Root. 
 James Minbtt. 
 John H. King. 
 I. R. Miltimore. 
 Alexander Capen. 
 
 I. H. Hills. 
 Asa Keyes. 
 Edmund Shattuck. 
 Wm. F. Rockwell. 
 John Burnham, Jr. 
 Isaac Hines. 
 George Sargeant. 
 Wm. W. Fessenden. 
 Alexander Stone. 
 Shipman Swain. 
 Jacob Marsh. 
 Addington Daniels. 
 
 The society was, however, incorporated under the laws of the state 
 August 27, 1818, but it was not until March 26, 1832, that, in a code of 
 by-laws adopted at a meeting of that date, the society declared its bound- 
 aries as follows : 
 
 The limits and boundaries of this East Society in its general views ; to 
 wit. It shall be three miles north, three miles south, one and a half miles 
 east and one and a half miles west of the said parish Meeting-house, the 
 Common or spot of ground on which it stands. Any person, then, now 
 
THE CHURCH ON THE COMMON 341 
 
 living, or coming within these boundaries and wishing to associate in 
 Christian worship with this Society and conforming to its articles and by- 
 laws, is cordially invited to unite with them. 
 
 The intention at first was not to divide the original parish, but only to 
 have such a portion of the public services as their members and their 
 ministerial tax might entitle them to, but objections were made by the 
 people in the middle-and western parts of the town, who would have noth- 
 ing to do with a new meeting-house. 
 
 When the society was formed, Reverend Mr. Wells, who at the age of 
 seventy had given up his larger charge in March, 1814, was invited to be 
 the minister, and began regular services in the schoolhouse on the first 
 Sunday in April, 1814. 
 
 On the twentieth of April of the same year the narrative of the parish 
 record begins. "A number of inhabitants of Brattleborough, having 
 assembled at the public house of Salem Sumner for the purpose of making 
 arrangements for the erection of a House of Public Worship," organized 
 for the business by appointing Peleg Kingsley moderator and Ezra Clark 
 clerk, and voted (1st) "That the persons who compose this meeting, and 
 others who may become associated, form ourselves into a society by the 
 name of the Brattleborough Village Meeting-house Society, for the pur- 
 pose of purchasing land and erecting thereon a house of public worship 
 for the convenience of the inhabitants of said Brattleborough and the 
 adjacent towns;" voted (3d) "to choose a committee to purchase land of 
 Grindal R. Ellis situate at the north end of the village, on the plain" lying 
 between the roads to Newf ane and Putney ; also to contract for building 
 the church, to raise the money and sell the pews. The following is a 
 record of sale by the committee: "Know all men. That the Committee 
 for the Brattleborough Village Meeting-House Society have received of 
 Ebenezer Wells the sum of Eighty-seven Dollars, being the purchase 
 money of a Pew or Slip, No. 45, on the floor of said Meeting-House; 
 which said Pew or Slip was Sold by said Committee, at public vendue, to 
 the said Ebenezer Wells for the sum aforesaid ; Therefore, the said Com- 
 mittee do hereby grant and convey unto him the said Ebenezer Wells his 
 heirs and assigns, said Pew or Slip, etc." July 10, 1815, Grindall R. Ellis 
 deeded to the society's committee "for the consideration of $300, approxi- 
 mately 4 acres of land between the road to Putney and the road to New- 
 fane, bordering on each," on condition that the new church should be 
 built on it. In 1843 the church society lost claim to the land by removing 
 the house, and neglecting to fence the grounds. This first committee 
 consisted of Francis Goodhue, Lemuel Whitney and Eli Sargent. The 
 subscription paper starts off with the names of Peleg Kingsley, Francis 
 
342 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Goodhue and William Fessenden for $400 each, and contains forty-two 
 names, standing for three subscriptions of $400, two of $200, one of $150, 
 one of $140, seven of $100, and none less than $10— one of $10, one of 
 $15, and the rest $25, $40, $60, $75. The movement thus started with a 
 rush lingered somewhat in execution. The records mark successive meet- 
 ings for painting pews and steeple, scouring pulpit and common furniture, 
 and so on; the expense of building and finishing amounted to between 
 $4000 and $5000, "which sum was raised with utmost cheerfulness" ; and 
 it resulted that the edifice, which was completed in the main in 1815, was 
 not actually dedicated until August 22, 1816, when fourteen members 
 withdrew from the mother church and set apart Mr. John Holbrook as 
 deacon. (The members who withdrew were : John Holbrook, Mrs. John 
 Holbrook, who was Sarah Knowlton; Mrs. William Fessenden, who was 
 Patty Holbrook; Mrs. Uriel Sikes, who was Elizabeth Edwards; Sarah 
 Barber; Susanna Dickinson; Mrs. Julia (Edwards) Phillips; Mrs. Laura 
 (Whitney) Clark; Jane Wells; Ebenezer Wells; Mrs. Ebenezer Wells, 
 who was Mary Chester; Mary Ann Wells; Hannah Wells and Anna 
 Gill.) The Lord's Supper was first celebrated in the house on the seventh 
 of July before the organization of the church or the dedication of the 
 edifice, in the characteristically independent and vigorous spirit which pro- 
 ceeded to its privileges on no man's authority, but under the grace of God. 
 
 We find in the records of the society meeting of September 21, 1816, 
 that "the thanks of the society, through their clerk, be made to Mr. John 
 Holbrook and to General Arad Hunt for the liberal donation of a bell 
 to this society" (this is the bell that broke when the society was divided 
 in 1831) ; and voted "that the thanks of the society be made, through their 
 clerk, to Mr. Ebenezer Hunt, Jr., of Northampton, for the donation of a 
 clock to the society." The communion plate, baptismal bowl and pulpit 
 furnishings were a present from the ladies; the Bible with the Psalms 
 and hymn book for the pulpit were given by the young men of the society. 
 
 Before we look more closely at the aspect and the annals of the old 
 church, let us regard for a moment the cherished ministry which virtually 
 closed with the opening of the new house thus provided. The Reverend 
 Mr. Wells did not close his labors till one year and eight months later, at 
 which time he went to England ; but his active history belongs chiefly to 
 the formative times, when his earnest and charitable faith and genial 
 piety were laying foundations in men's hearts and overcoming the rough 
 and wild spirit that was, in early days, proverbially too much the character 
 of this town. Personally and spiritually we see a kindly and noble figure 
 in this large-hearted man. He was a man who would belong very sympa- 
 thetically to the earnest school of men, who, mediators and broad 
 churchmen in theology, touch very deeply the common heart of men, "that 
 
THE CHURCH ON THE COMMON 343 
 
 human heart by which we Hve" — men like Erskine, Maurice, Kingsley, 
 Robertson. Still, the times demanded clear and deep convictions, and into 
 his views I'll not go, except to refer to the beautiful covenant beginning 
 thus : "Admiring the infinite condescension and grace of God in opening 
 a door of life and salvation to perishing sinners through the death and 
 mediation of Jesus Christ." This was the covenant which he used and 
 introduced into the new church ; on which, in very simple, unquestioning 
 trust in the atonement of Jesus Christ, he rested his personal hope, as, 
 when on his deathbed, he told Deacon Holbrook. This is the covenant 
 which continued in cordial use on the part of nearly a generation after 
 he had ended his labors in 1818, and by which he, being dead, yet speaketh. 
 Mr. Wells was above all things a social man, welcome in all homes, where 
 the hospitable cup of tea and long pipe always awaited him, and where he 
 would be full of stories of Old England. He not only was loved by the 
 old; rather even more sympathetically by the children. He loved them. 
 Once, when hearing how a certain little boy had cried for him, he said, 
 "That is the highest compliment you could pay me." He loved young men, 
 and the letter he wrote to some of them, pupils at the seminary in West 
 Brattleboro, marks in its simple, direct and manly appeal to the highest 
 and best in them, that he both loved and knew them. He had a prayer 
 meeting in his house for them. His character was in his face ; his experi- 
 ence was there, in kindly benevolence. He died beloved, and left the 
 record of a man of charity, and for the sermon of his life such a message 
 as this : "Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, 
 even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." 
 
 It was during the absence of Reverend Mr. Wells in England that the 
 society called the Reverend Jonathan McGee to the pastorate — not "rev- 
 erend" then, for he came to be ordained. Mr. Wells went to England in 
 April, and Mr. McGee was called in October, 1818, and ordained January 
 13, 1819. The clerk's record states that "the ordination day was very 
 pleasant and although the middle of January it was as warm and as mild 
 as October, there being no snow on the ground. About thirty ministers 
 were present and many hundreds of people to witness the ordination, this 
 being the first ordination that ever was performed in the town of Brattle- 
 borough, though there had been stated preaching in it for fifty years. All 
 things were conducted with the greatest decency and order." On August 
 37, 1818, four years after the Brattleborough Village Meeting-House 
 Society was organized, James Elliot, Esquire, expressed the belief that 
 the society had never been legally associated for the purpose of hiring or 
 settling a minister, and, the members accepting that view, the meeting was 
 dissolved and immediately it was voted to associate themselves under the 
 name of the Brattleborough East Society, for the support of the gospel, 
 
344 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 as provided by a legislative act of October 26, 1798. In a few days by- 
 laws were adopted and legality given to the proceeding. The church 
 edifice was ready for Mr. McGee. It had been dedicated August 23, 1816, 
 with a sermon by Reverend Samuel Willard of Deerfield on Habakkuk 
 2 : 20, "The Lord is in his holy temple : let all the earth keep silence before 
 him." 
 
 There were Meeting-House Regulations as follows : 
 
 This Meeting-house was dedicated to the Most High; in which the 
 Divine service or the religious worship of the East Society of Brattleboro, 
 is to be performed. It is under their control, and is for their use only, 
 by whom and for whom it was built. It is proper that the Minister of the 
 Parish, should have the charge and regulations of the pulpit, agreeable to 
 the proper custom of our fathers, of the Congregational order, and other 
 denominations, since the first settlement of our country. — For the peace, 
 comfort and happiness of this Society therefore it is declared by them, 
 that No irregular or unchristian Preachers shall be admitted into the 
 pulpit. No exhibitions, tragedies, plays or farces shall disgrace the Tem- 
 ple. No military bands or training companies of men with their firearms 
 and train of dirt and dust, tarnishing the pews, disorganizing the cushions, 
 and Books, shall be permitted to enter this House. But, on great, or 
 public days, if orations are necessary to be delivered here ; leave must first 
 be had of the board of trustees of the society ; under whose care and super- 
 intendence it shall be at all times. — 
 
 The Society, and individuals are owners of the slips or pews, — and of 
 course are the owners of the Temple or House and whatever repairs or 
 painting may be necessary — ^they must be done by the owners. Every 
 owner of a pew belonging to the society (and no others without leave) 
 shall have the right to take the key and enter the house at any proper time 
 for the purpose of regulating the inside of his pew, agreeable to his con- 
 venience and fancy ; but shall not do anything, to alter its external appear- 
 ance, to the annoyance or injury of others, nor meddle with nor move, any 
 other thing in the house. — It is also understood, that funerals may be 
 held here, for the benefit of the members of the society, and others ; or 
 extraordinary Providential occasions ; when the minister and Trustees of 
 the Parish, may deem it more proper or necessary, than at a private 
 House. 
 
 The above notice to be adopted and recorded. 
 
 The meeting-house stood near the center of our present Common, facing 
 south, at or to the west of the soldiers' monument ; was painted white ; 
 had no spire, but rather the more solidly built steeple common in our hill 
 
THE CHURCH ON THE COMMON 345 
 
 towns, constructed of a cubical base, surmounted by an octagon and 
 crowned with a round-topped tower. This steeple had a clock, bearing 
 but one face, and the bell before mentioned, which swung in plain sight 
 and later was enclosed by blinds. The church rejoiced in a very generous 
 supply of windows, in number just double that which the same frame now 
 holds ; likewise the same weather-vane, with the letters that now crown 
 our spire. Beneath was a cellar, not always in perfect order, as in the 
 warrant of March 14, 1825, we find a special article and vote to clean it 
 out. Here were kept two old cannon, said to have been captured from 
 Burgoyne, the village hearse and, for a while. Judge Tyler's sulky. Such 
 a collection drew the children to the door, through which they would 
 curiously and fearfully look, without venturing to enter. 
 
 The pews were not the old-fashioned square pews, but straight, though 
 shorter and wider than now, and with a door at each end except for the 
 wall pews. There were three aisles, and, while there were wall pews, yet 
 the number of pews was not as great as at present. Each line of pews had 
 an aisle to itself. The center aisle ran to the space before the pulpit, 
 while the side aisles branched to right and left respectively, aflfording 
 access to the corner pews, five on each side, and including long ones, 
 against the walls, which were at right angles to the main body. The 
 gallery had on the sides two rows of pews, with a long aisle between, 
 running all the way down, and circular pews, three deep, at the south 
 end, where the singers sat. The church was painted plain white all 
 through, with dark top trimmings for the pews, except behind the pulpit, 
 where were frescoed in red colors, from ceiling to floor, the gorgeous cur- 
 tains, draped appropriately back for the timid emergence of the sacred 
 desk, which met and oppressed the eyes (that is, the curtains, not the 
 desk, of course,) of the Sunday company. The pulpit was half the height 
 of the church, after the common manner, and was supported upon and 
 over four pillars, beneath which was a recess, and in this the minister 
 sat at the communion, while before him stood the table. On either side 
 of this recess was a door, one leading to the pulpit stairs, and the other 
 into a closet, where were kept the furniture and the elements for the 
 sacrament. The pew furnishings, as to cushions, carpets and colors, 
 were the work and the monuments of the very diversified individual tastes 
 of their occupants, while in the aisle there was nothing. 
 
 The light was intense — white light, for the windows were many and 
 the blinds were not; the curtains were poor, inadequate paper affairs, 
 often rent, which allowed the penetrating beams to strike the face and 
 enter the eye without mercy, and cause the hands and hats to go up. in 
 self-protection, "the immense Navarino bonnets, nearly as large as an 
 umbrella," here finding a reason for being. In the cold season the house 
 
346 
 
 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 came to be heated, or better, smoked, by stoves, though the age of foot 
 stoves had not yet passed away; and these two ' innovating stoves, that 
 stood at the south end on each side, did double duty. The pipes ran 
 along under the gallery as far as the side aisles went, and then turned 
 suddenly at an angle and went out of the nearest window, through a tin- 
 lined aperture; and the smoke sometimes took revenge for such uncere- 
 monious ejection by making another eccentric turn b^ck again, so that we 
 find other special articles in warrants dealing with this burning question 
 of "smoke in the meeting-house." 
 
 The people came in numbers and in all weather ; and the winter weather 
 was severe indeed. The Common had once been a pine plain ; was bare of 
 trees, and even of grass, though pennyroyal grew on the east side. It had 
 been the playground of the boys and the training ground of the militia. 
 The snow had no hindrance from Retreat buildings or trees as now. It 
 drifted tremendously. The minister's head would disappear in the path 
 as he went from house to church ; the sleighs, which were many, and had 
 the large old-style bells we find now sometimes, could pass only one way, 
 up one side and down the other on the branches of Main Street, and stood 
 in a long line reaching back from the church by the approach, when the 
 service ended. 
 
 
 
 
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THE CHURCH ON THE COMMON 
 
 347 
 
 In the first plan of the old church, we find John Holbrook in the north- 
 east long corner pew against the wall, and meeting his pew at a sharp 
 right angle the minister's pew. In the corner pews, in front of Deacon 
 Holbrook, came J. Fessendenj E. Allen, E. Clark and Lemuel Whitney. 
 Facing them in the northwest corner slips are G. G. Atherton, Samuel 
 Elliot, Asa Green, Artemas Robbins. Across the front, after the minis- 
 ter's pew, are Peleg Kingsley, G. R. Ellis and E. Sargent. Behind Mr. 
 Ellis was the pew of Jonathan Hunt, in which Daniel Webster sat when 
 he came here, erect, interested, with his eye steadily and continuously 
 fixed on the minister. The congregation came from a distance, some of 
 them. The members living over West River sat mainly on the east side 
 of the church. In the end gallery pews, looking right down on the pulpit, 
 are the names of James Frost and Eben Wells. As some men owned 
 several pews, it cannot be seen where they sat. The occupants of the 
 end circular pews were the choir. They had the instruments and the 
 voices to "make a joyful noise unto the Lord." Two violins, a double 
 
348 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 bass, a violoncello and two flutes, on the one hand, and as many voices as 
 personal inclination suggested, on the other, united in praise. They were 
 wont to be trained three months in singing school, and to be left for the 
 other nine to their own discretion, until the new period began, with the 
 leadership of a brother. There were Uriel Sikes with his bass viol, played 
 by him for thirty years, William Fessenden with his flute, "Uncle John" 
 Fessenden and old Mr. Robbins, whose wrestlings of face, as he wrestled 
 with his instrument, made the boys laugh, but of whom, when he peered 
 over to discover their doings on the back seat in knife trades and other 
 practices, they were in wholesome awe. 
 
 Reverend Jonathan McGee, trained at Williams College and Andove'r 
 Seminary, labored here from January 13, 1819, to September 10, 1834. 
 To begin with first impressions, he was every inch a gentleman, even to 
 the last inch on the heel of his boot. His face was fresh and young- 
 looking, with light hair and eyes, his figure erect and dignified, his man- 
 ners polished, his address comely, his personal appearance always immacu- 
 late ; and this signal care extended to all things, including the bells on the 
 harness of his horse. Beneath this^precise exterior was a scholarly and 
 care-taking mind, fine culture and a warm heart ; above all, a faculty of 
 keen common sense, so invariably in use that it could be said of him that 
 in all his pastorate he never made an injudicious remark. He came at a 
 hard time for him; succeeding Mr. Wells, and representing a trend of 
 thought and feeling (for the presence of which in the parish that earnest 
 and devoted man, Deacon David Wood, was largely instrumental — ^to his 
 influence, also, the Sunday school owed more than to any other one man) 
 somewhat different from that of his predecessor. In spite of this disad- 
 vantage, he held and edified a united and prosperous people for over twelve 
 years. As a preacher, those who recall him have given various estimates. 
 It has been said that he lacked originality, was more student than thinker ; 
 and yet the encomium of such a man as Doctor Spring (who heard him 
 here, and who once crept by stealth into the singers' seats and was dis- 
 covered during the service) and the personal memories of those now liv- 
 ing, mark him as a man of power. Once he was speaking of the omni- 
 presence of God. "God is here!" he said; "God is there!" (at that 
 moment someone, to disturb the service, rapped on the window) "and God 
 is there!" he cried, suddenly pointing toward that window. The effect 
 was a shock and an impulse to the conscience of the man outside, leading 
 to his conversion. His prayers were very scriptural and sincere, yet 
 marked by unique inflections and sometimes tremblings of the voice, and 
 were not free from stereotyped phrases, such as the generally repeated 
 "We are all cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." He gave 
 his notices with peculiar emphasis, sending home, for instance, a notice 
 
THE CHURCH ON THE COMMON 349 
 
 of a "meeting at the schoolhouse at half -past six," with a quick, positive 
 and invariable nod of the head. 
 
 As a pastor he was faithful, but more in a formal, official way than in 
 the social way of Mr. Wells. He had perhaps more to do. He had classes 
 at the school of Miss Peck. He had pupils in his family. He may have 
 been more occupied with reading and study. He excelled as a teacher 
 in grammar, rhetoric and mathematics. He appeared at the schools and 
 corrected mispronunciations of the pupils. "Not Morlboro, but Marl- 
 boro," he would say. It has been said that he hardly possessed the close- 
 ness of sympathy with the young which marked his predecessor, so that, 
 cfuring a season of religious interest, in 1837, the young girl who served 
 in the house preferred to see, when spending a night in agony of mind, 
 the visiting evangelist rather than her pastor. And yet, the young found 
 him very affectionate, inviting confidence, developing faith and becoming 
 the means of leading many into the church, no less than two hundred and 
 twenty-nine, by profession, during his ministry. He must have been a 
 strong man, for he was the friend of the strongest, and ranked as their 
 equal ; a wise man, for he most judiciously guarded a strong and growing 
 society during trying years; a tender man, for those now old and then 
 young, loved him; and a skillful soul winner, for he won souls. 
 
 He was a noble. Christian gentleman, prudent in business, authoritative 
 in scholarship, Christian in spirit and easily master of a difficult situation. 
 He introduced into his pulpit earnest men from the vicinage, such as the 
 strong old-school preacher, Doctor Tufts of Wardsboro ; Reverend D. H. 
 Newton of Marlboro, one of the ablest ministers the county has ever 
 known ; Reverend Messrs. Andrews and Foster of Putney ; and Reverend 
 Doctor Taggart of Colerain, the latter a peculiarly picturesque and striking 
 figure. Doctor Taggart was long as well as eloquent. He would hold the 
 people for two hours, and when he had said "16th-ly," and the boys began 
 to grow cheerful, would come out with "Ah — but furthermore," and then 
 "Ah — but again," until the end came by and by. He would search out the 
 causes of sounds ; he would follow passing vehicles ; at family prayer at 
 Deacon Holbrook's house, he would bend down while standing, and watch 
 the progress of a dog trying to crawl under a secretary too low for him, 
 going on, all the while, most fervently with his prayer. 
 
 During the pastorate of Mr. McGee the annals of the society meetings 
 show nothing of marked interest until the latter end. Records of expenses 
 showing the cost of keeping up services (ringing bell, $16.25 ; repairing 
 clock, $4.75 ; lyi cords of wood, $2.25 ; cutting and fixing wood, 75 cents, 
 etc.), of casual interest in a comparison with cost today. It is interesting 
 to see the various styles and hands of the clerks, of whom there have 
 been nine, all told, including Ezra Clark, Samuel Elliot, John C. Holbrook, 
 
350 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 George Draper, Wells Goodhue, Frederick Holbrook, W. W. Fessenden, 
 thus far carrying the records down to the removal of the church building, 
 the end of the period we are considering. One of the most important 
 matters attended to, as the ministers all hold, was the procuring of the 
 parsonage in 1833. It had been in the agreement with Mr. McGee, four 
 years before, to provide such parsonage when he should want it. He came 
 to want it; now — ^to secure it. It was another case of "the ladies to the 
 rescue." While the society were deliberating, they received a letter from 
 Mrs. Sally Holbrook, wife of Deacon Holbrook. This letter is an admira- 
 ble document, in discreet suggestion, and in the leadership — without any 
 assumption, and even with a studied disclaimer of superiority, to the 
 gentlemen whose province it is "to attend to and manage the weightier and 
 more important affairs and concerns of life" — in the leadership of a jarge- 
 brained and warm-hearted woman, able and minded to do a wise and 
 generous thing in a simple and direct way. She discloses the existence of 
 a Female Fund Society, which has collected $400 "in industry, savings, 
 and gathering of mites," to which she herself adds the gift of land suitable 
 for a parsonage, to be distant not more than one hundred and sixty rods 
 from the meeting-house. Her offer, and that of the ladies, was, it is 
 needless to say, immediately accepted — the subscription was started and 
 the parsonage was built. 
 
 But here is a copy of the letter itself : 
 
 Wednesday eve, Jan'y 22d 1823. 
 Gentlemen and Parishioners — 
 
 At an early day, your female friends of this locality, anticipating the 
 time, when from our engagements, we must of course be called on for a 
 House for our Clergyman — formed themselves into a little Society, called 
 the Female Fund Society, for the purpose and with the intent of turning 
 the minds of the Parish towards procuring a permanent Parsonage. Be- 
 lieving as we do, that if so desirable an object could be effected, that there 
 would be at least, one more link, in connecting and holding this hitherto 
 united Society, still the more strongly together. Also knowing, that while 
 it is the peculiar province of gentlemen, to attend to, and manage the 
 weightier, and more important affairs and concerns of life — it is also the 
 duty and privilege of the other sex, to attend to the smaller things — ^and 
 in this way discharge their duties and fill their stations in life with use- 
 fulness to their Fathers, Husbands brothers and friends. 
 
 With this view, and with a view of assisting in obtaining the object 
 before the Society, they have with extra-exertions in industry and savings 
 and gathering by mites, in the small space of three years time, a sum not 
 less than 400 Dollars, which is now before you. 
 
 Who feels the poorer ? and what member of the Society is there, who 
 
THE CHURCH ON THE COMMON 351 
 
 does not feel the richer, to effect the object before us? Such we see, 
 is the effect of small causes, in producing large events, under the oppera- 
 tions of union, perservance and a little time. — But more to the point.-=- 
 
 The time has now come, when the Parish expects every one to do his 
 duty — ^this time has been received by your female friends, with no incon- 
 siderable degree of anxiety. — Believing as they have done, and still do, 
 that we are now about placing the Kee- Stone, for the basis of our fabrick 
 — if it is well fitted, and strongly laid, in the cement of unanimity and 
 friendship — it will be lasting, otherwise it may give way and your Parish 
 go down with it. — It would however ill become a humble female to dic- 
 tate to this enlightened Society. She would disclaim every idea of the 
 kind — ^but as a member of your Parish, may she be permitted to ask, 
 if it would not be the safest, and surest way in the end, to transfer all our 
 donations at once, to the Society ; for the perpetuity of the support of the 
 Gospel among us ? Surely no one can fear to trust the Society for his own 
 good, and for the good of the whole unitedly. If the Society should think 
 this the better way ; may I be perinitted to offer, in aid of such an object, 
 the following as a free Donation — which I do cheerfully in the name, and 
 in behalf of the Female Fund Society, viz. a plat of ground of not less 
 than one acre, (if it be obtained within 160 rods of the meeting house, at 
 a fair price.) for the purpose of placing the buildings thereon. 
 
 I have the approbation and assistance of my husband to assist in pro- 
 curing the Deed. If this shall be accepted, it will be on the condition that 
 it is for the purpose of a Parsonage for the East-Society of Brattleboro' 
 forever. Provided nevertheless, it shall never be diverted in use, from the 
 support of the free independent Congregational order, in manner and 
 form as the Parish is now organized and which may be considered as 
 the true Apostolical order, of Churches and congregations; and which 
 is that freedom of worship, which our fathers suffered for, and bled in 
 establishing from the first foundations of New England. — Presuming, 
 gentlemen, that in all your deliberations, you will aim at that course, which 
 promises most for unanimity and peace — and whether you accept or reject 
 this offer — ^you have my best wishes for success. 
 
 Sally Holbrook. 
 
 It was at first only a small house (of one story), the total cost being 
 $1530. In the same meeting Deacon Holbrook offered $400, on condition 
 that the society would raise an equal amount; the whole to accumulate 
 in trust for three years, after which the interest on the whole should be 
 given toward the support of the gospel. 
 
 Powerful revivals and large accessions marked Mr. McGee's ministry. 
 Miss Susan B. Salisbury joined in 1827; Mr. and Mrs. William Conant 
 joined September 9, 1831; sixty-six came in at the great accession Sep- 
 
353 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 tember 11, 1831. Other large gains were nineteen in March, 1827 ; fifty- 
 nine in January, 1833 ; twenty-one, May 12, 1833. The nearest approach 
 from that time to the large figures above given was in May, 1875, when 
 thirty-three joined together. Mr. McGee was earnest in revivals, and 
 yet not so zealous and fiery in expression that he could keep pace with 
 some of his colaborers ; and the work and words of Reverend Mr. Boyle 
 in 1833, whose after history was marked by eccentricity, to say the least, 
 are said to have been the means of rendering Mr. McGee's moderate 
 methods less influential than they had been before. 
 
 The unusual work in 1831 was one of those movings among people 
 which begin in their own midst. The prayer meeting must be remem- 
 bered, in its touching solemnity, with which that revival began; when 
 Mr. Joseph Steen rose and expressed his desire for forgiveness froip any 
 who had been wronged by him, and Mrs. Sally Holbrook simply and fer- 
 vently said amen ; and at that brief prayer the heart of the company was 
 humbled before God. In those days" and until 1835, when the chapel on 
 Elliot Street^ was built, the prayer meetihgs were in the schoolhouse west 
 of the church, where Reverend Mr. Wells had been wont to expound .the 
 Scriptures. 
 
 One of the greatest influences for good in the church through these 
 years was the ladies' prayer meeting — for long the only weekly religious 
 meeting. This meeting was started by a suggestion of Reverend Mr. 
 Andrews of Putney, was faithfully held and conducted on Wednesday 
 afternoons through many years, and was regarded by Reverend Mr. 
 McGee as the main spiritual prop of his ministry. It was a remarkable 
 circle of women who met together, remarkable in culture as well as piety. 
 The culture was of the deep and fine quality which we are in danger of 
 losing in our scrappy and hand-to-mouth reading habits now. And the 
 piety was that of the saints in light. To that meeting, in the dress appro- 
 priate for the most important and sacred of duties, went Mrs. Sally Hol- 
 brook, Mrs. Joseph and Mrs. Patty Fessenden, Mrs. Eben Wells, Miss 
 Mary Ann and Miss Hannah Wells (the latter a missionary spirit for 
 the whole region), Mrs. David Wood, Mrs. Samuel EUiot and others. 
 Mr. George Baty Blake of Boston has recalled vivid reminiscences of 
 these noble ladies, to whom none in the world were to his mind superior. 
 He remembered their progress in white caps, calashes and ribbons, and 
 all the stately dress and bearing of the times, to the place of meeting. It 
 was a lasting power here of the highest and best and most refining Chris- 
 tianizing influences. 
 
 iThis chapel was on the south side of Elliot Street where Emerson & Son's 
 furniture store now stands. It was moved to the rear of the Wesselhoeft Water- 
 Cure building in 1913 and is used for a tenement. 
 
THE CHURCH ON THE COMMON 353 
 
 Reverend Mr. McGee departed September 10, 1834, and in 1834, Octo- 
 ber 24, Reverend Charles Walker, who had been pastor of a church in 
 Rutland, was called, being then in his prime — forty-four years of age. 
 He was a man of great resolution and of spiritual and pulpit power ; and 
 moreover of far-sighted wisdom. He early saw that the church must be 
 moved from the Common. The growth of the population, the one-sided 
 position of the edifice as related to most of the residences, the incon- 
 venience caused by stormy weather, the larger practical advantages of a 
 nearer site, as shown by the chapel on Elliot Street, for reaching the peo- 
 ple, and the coming in of other churches, were all considerations which 
 he urged ; and urged at first with small success. The people were taken 
 by surprise. The matter was not feasible. In the meeting of the society 
 in March, 1836, only a year and two months after Mr. Walker's settle- 
 ment, there had already been such a stirring up of the subject that it was 
 necessary to dismiss the fifth article in the warrant, thus to negative the 
 project of enlarging or moving the meeting-house. The work must wait. 
 Meanwhile the ministry went on. Earnest religious feeling there was, 
 especially in 1838, when nineteen came into the church in May and fifteen 
 in July. The campaign of 1840 and the death of President Harrison 
 touched the church closely; for in the excitement and cannonading over 
 the presence of Daniel Webster during the campaign, the casting of a 
 slow match into Joseph Steen's barn by a zealous and careless boy, started 
 a fire which came near burning the church down ; and some now living 
 recall the draping of the' church for the dead President, and the strong 
 and impressive address that was presented by Doctor William H. Rock- 
 well. At last the time was ripe, however. The continual pressure of the 
 pastor prevailed, and the society resolved upon the move that had become 
 a necessity. February 33, 1841, was the date of that important meeting, 
 when by a ballot of thirty-one to five it was voted "that the members of the 
 society are in favor of building a new house." The meeting of March 8 
 of the same year saw a committee appointed to raise the funds. 
 
 By February 23, 1842, one year later, the plans had so changed that the 
 society voted to move the present meeting-house, and appointed a building 
 committee to accomplish the same by taking the old structure down and 
 setting it up again on the site known as "the orchard," where it now 
 stands. The committee thus appointed were Colonel Joseph Goodhue, 
 Ferdinand Tyler, Esquire, Lovell Farr, Esquire, George Sargent, Colonel 
 Calvin Townsley. This committee carried out the work, and after all 
 that they had done had been scrutinized by an examining committee, they 
 secured the verdict that it had been well done. The examining committee 
 consisted of Doctor Rockwell, Asahel Clapp and Samuel Dutton. And 
 so, at the meeting held January 12, 1843, it was voted "that the thanks 
 
354 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 of this society are now presented to their building committee for their 
 faithful and judicious performance of the duties imposed upon them in 
 the erection and completion of this house." 
 
 December 28, 1845, Reverend Charles Walker preached a temperance 
 sermon so searching that it could not be gainsaid, — ^the text, "But judge 
 this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his 
 brother's way," — in which he attacked the system of licenses as a scheme 
 for private gain rather than a conservator of public morals. His argu- 
 ment was that a license to do a wrong thing catinot make it right, and that 
 if men must and would drink intoxicating liquors, let it be done against 
 the law, rather than by its sanction. To rent a house to a licensed proprie- 
 tor was to share the responsibility of the law and the traffic. 
 
 The disturbance caused by a sermon so pointed and fearless inevitably 
 led to his final withdrawal from the pastorate of the church. 
 
 For nearly a quarter of a century after the Centre Church was organ- 
 ized the person dominant in its affairs was Deacon John Holbrook. His 
 death took place on Fast Day, April 6, 1838, during Reverend Mr. 
 Walker's pastorate. In the church record it is written of him: "The 
 Lord has seen best in His holy will and pleasure, this day to remove a 
 valuable disciple from His church on earth to His immediate presence 
 in heaven. John Holbrook, who had sustained the office of deacon in this 
 church from the time of its organization in 1816 to the present day and 
 had watched over its interests with parental care, had witnessed its in- 
 crease from a little company of 14 to 300 members, has gone to receive the 
 rewards promised to those who have been faithful in their Master's 
 service. The hope that had sustained him in life was his support in death. 
 When near the border of the grave, a friend to comfort him recounted 
 the many good deeds he had done. He immediately replied: 'Did I not 
 put my trust in the atonement made by Christ I should have no hope.' 
 Thus departed this servant of Christ, rejoicing, as he had long lived, in 
 the Lord." 
 
 The following have served as deacons of the Centre Church : John Hol- 
 brook, 1816 ; David Wood, 1833 ; Anson Barber, 1838 ; John C. Holbrook, 
 1838; Aaron E. Dwinell, 1841; Frank H. Fessenden, 1860; Daniel B. 
 Thompson, 1865 ; Charles L. Mead, 1865 ; Riley Burdett, 1865 ; Charles F. 
 Thompson, 1865 ; Doctor Charles P. Frost, 1868 ; Charles B. Rice, 1868 ; 
 Alfred H. Wright, 1871; William A. Dutton, 1876; Henry E. Bond, 
 1879 ; Barna A. Clark, 1882. 
 
 The clerks of the society have been: Ezra Clark, 1814; Wells Goodhue, 
 1846; F. Holbrook, 1847-1861; Charles L. Mead, 1861-1867; Malcolm 
 Moody, 1868-1889 ; L. D. Green, 1890-1895. 
 
THE CHURCH ON THE COMMON 355 
 
 . The First Sunday School 
 
 For a short time previous to 1815, Miss Hannah Wells, daughter of 
 Reverend William Wells, had brought together a Bible class of young 
 ladies, who met from time to time to study the Scriptures under her 
 instruction, in the old and only district schoolhouse and only during the 
 summer months. The work growing upon her hands, so that she was 
 unable to do justice to so large a class, on the first Sabbath in May, 1815, 
 at her request, four assistants were chosen from among the members of 
 the ladies' praying circle connected with the church, this being the first 
 organized Sunday school work in town. On the first Sabbath in May, 
 1833, the school assumed its present organization, under the auspices of 
 the church. Deacon David Wood was the first superintendent chosen, 
 and he continued to serve until 1838. 
 
 One of the books used at that time had for a frontispiece a picture 
 representing Christ, youth and the devil, the latter being painted in black 
 except enormous white eyes. A pair of horns adorned the head while a 
 brace of serpents coiled about it to complete the effect. A little farther 
 on was a picture of Cain armed with a huge club with which he was beat- 
 ing his brother Abel. "The devil and Cain were pretty well used up before 
 many moons," said one of the early possessors in describing one of these 
 little books, "for every Sunday I thought it my Christian duty to stab 
 them with a pin." 
 
 Miss Wells also started the first Sunday school in Vernon. 
 
 The following persons have served as superintendents of the Sunday 
 school : David Wood, elected in 1833 ; John C. Holbrook, 1838 ; John L. 
 Dickerman, 1838; Joseph Steen, 1841; Edward Kirkland, 1844; Joseph 
 Steen, 1848; Joel M. Haven, 1853; Edward Kirkland, 1855; Charles F. 
 Thompson, 1856; Charles L. Mead, 1859; Alfred H. Wright, 1863; 
 Charles B. Rice, 1866 ; Charles F. Thompson, 1877 ; George H. Clapp, 
 1878 ; Eugene H. Adams, 1885 ; Charles O. Day, 1887 ; Henry H. Thomp- 
 son, 1894. 
 
 A "constitution of the Female Friendly Association for Religious and 
 Charitable Purposes. East Village, Brattleborough, Vermont," was 
 adopted November, 1816. 
 
 Article 1. It shall be the object of this association, to make improve- 
 ment in christian knowledge ; to promote our personal religion ; to increase 
 our christian acquaintance, friendship and love; to pray for the revival 
 of religion and the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom ; to cultivate a 
 spirit of sympathy for the afHicted, and to establish habits of economy 
 and liberality — for the noble purpose of doing good according to our 
 ability and opportunity. 
 
356 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Art. 2. The Society shall consist of Church Members, and those who 
 are expecting soon to become such. ' 
 
 Art. 3. Each rneeting of the Society shall be opened with prayer; 
 after which a portion of Scripture shall be read, and a Psalm or Hymn 
 sung. 
 
 Art. 4. As we are all inexperienced, and liable to be intimidated in our 
 attempts to pray, it shall be our endeavour to exercise towards each other 
 that christian candor, and to repose in each other that christian confidence, 
 which shall be calculated to remove our embarrassment: And sensible 
 how much our timidity may arise from pride of heart, and how liable we 
 are to be elated with pride should we be enabled to pray with freedom, it 
 shall be our earnest endeavour to seek help of God in our own and each 
 others' behalf ; imploring Him to grant us such a sense of His Majesty, 
 Glory and all-surrounding presence, as shall raise us above the fear of 
 creatures, and lay us low at his footstool. 
 
 Art. 5. That we may be better able to exercise charity, and extend 
 relief to the afflicted, it shall be our endeavour, through each week, to gain 
 by extra labour, or by some special saving, a small pittance at least, that 
 we may at each meeting, if possible, cast our mite into the Treasury of the 
 Lord. 
 
 Art. 6. There shall be an annual meeting of the Society, on the 
 
 Wednesday of November ; when two Committees, a Secretary and Treas- 
 urer shall be chosen, by nomination. 
 
 Art. 7. It shall be the duty of the first Committee, when applications 
 are made by any one who wish to become members of this Society, to 
 consult with each other, and to admit such only, as they shall think quali- 
 fied according to the intention of the Society. 
 
 Art. 8. It shall be the duty of the second Committee, to enquire into 
 the circumstances of the afflicted, and recommend proper objects of 
 charity to the association. 
 
 Art. 9. It shall be the duty of the Secretary to record the doings of 
 the Society, and make an annual report of the same. 
 
 Art. 10. It shall be the duty of the Treasurer to receive all contribu- 
 tions, and make an annual report to the Society. 
 
 Art. 11. Each meeting shall be closed with prayer. 
 
 Art. 12. A collection shall be made at the close of each meeting. 
 
 Committee to admit members. 
 
 Committee to discover proper 
 
 objects of charity. 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 Treasurer. 
 
THE CHURCH ON THE COMMON 
 
 357 
 
 Names of Members : 
 
 Jane Wells (Deceased). 
 
 Nancy Wood. 
 
 Hannah Steen. 
 
 Sally Holbrook. 
 
 Linda Elliot. 
 
 Sally Barber (Deceased). 
 
 Louisa Potter. 
 
 Abigail Atherton. 
 
 Sophia Knowlton. 
 
 Mary Goodhue. 
 
 Huldah Bennett. 
 
 Ruth Bartlett. 
 
 Susanna Dickinson. 
 
 Sukey Arms. 
 
 Betsey Allen. 
 
 Mary Wells. 
 
 Elizabeth Sikes. 
 
 Julia Phillips. 
 
 Dorcas Goff. 
 
 Laura Clark. 
 
 Sophia Whitney. 
 
 Sibbel Fessenden. 
 
 Patty Fessenden. 
 
 Electa W. Green. 
 
 Eunice Metcalf. 
 
 Maria Metcalf (Deceased). 
 
 Clarissa Stanford. 
 
 Elizabeth Wood. 
 
 Sally Wood. 
 
 Abigail Ballard. 
 
 Dolly Bennett. 
 
 Sophia Holbrook. 
 Sarah Holbrook. 
 Almy M. Crafts. 
 Lucinda Holbrook. 
 Beulah Barber. 
 Mary Platts. 
 Emma R. Thomas. 
 Sarah Goodhue. 
 Hannah Coller. 
 Hannah Wells. 
 Ann Nichols. 
 Sophia Amsden. 
 Azubah Amsden. 
 Lydia Wood. 
 Huldah Bennet. 
 Rebecca Peck. 
 Mary Chapin. 
 Eunice Dickinson. 
 Naomi Smith. 
 Louisa Potter. 
 Marian Wells. 
 Lucy Bliss. 
 Lucy Briggs. 
 Fanny Scott.. 
 Mary Sartwell. 
 Rachel Thomas. 
 Betsey Hastings. 
 Agnes Willard. 
 Abigail Lewis. 
 Betsey Willard. 
 
 From Governor Holbrook's Address at the Congregationalists' 
 
 Jubilee 
 
 The old fugue music was sung at the dedication of the new meeting- 
 house. A large congregation, assembled from all the country around, 
 crowded the edifice, and many remained outside. The choir, composed 
 of thirty or forty members, 'occupied the whole south end gallery, which 
 was circularly formed, and its rendering of the fugue music was with 
 unction. 
 
 A large assemblage of able-bodied men, with willing hands gathered to 
 
358 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 assist at raising the frame of the meeting-house. The timbers were large 
 and heavy, and the appliances for lifting them into place were few as 
 compared to modern facilities, the sides being constructed on the ground 
 and then raised into position by means of pike-poles and fastened with 
 wooden pins ; but strong men, of daring as well as strength, accomplished 
 the work. The old-time "Raisings," especially of meeting-houses, were 
 the occasions for the assembling of large crowds of men with stalwart 
 arms and willing hands to accomplish the work by main strength. 
 
 The bell for many of the earliest years of the parish was rung each 
 evening at nine o'clock, thus regulating the time of the household clocks 
 of the village. The bell was also tolled at funerals, during the movement 
 of the procession to the cemetery. It was also tolled on the occurrence 
 of deaths in the village — ^the age of the deceased being tolled ofif at the 
 close, so that each listener, counting the strokes, might pretty generally 
 infer whose death had occurred and was being thus heralded. 
 
 For many years after the formation of the Brattleboro East Society 
 and Church, and the building of this meeting-house, the population of the 
 part of the town embraced in the then East Parish was small and scat- 
 tered. All the people in the eastern section who ever went to church at all, 
 attended this meeting-house on the "Common," so-called. All the denom- 
 inations here (with the exception of the Catholic) were then represented 
 in the congregation there assembled. As the village grew and these other 
 denominations became sufficient in numbers and strength to build for 
 themselves, a nucleus was found in the old parish to help form each new 
 parish. 
 
 The Reverend Doctor William Wells was the first minister of the East 
 Parish. He was a highly educated Englishman, a gentleman of the old 
 school, most interesting and charming in personality, kindly and sympa- 
 thetic, and greatly esteemed by all. All the boys in town took ofif their 
 hats with respectful bows, and each of the girls dropped a pretty curtsey 
 to him as he passed by, either riding or walking, and he took special pains 
 to return their civilities. Like most Englishmen, he was fond of a cup 
 of tea an afternoon or evening, when calling in a social way upon his 
 parishioners. Many households also kept a long-stemmed clay pipe and 
 the best of smoking tobacco in readiness for him. 
 
 The congregation quite generally joined in singing the old fugue tunes 
 in their pews to the hymns announced ; nearly every one held up a hymn 
 book in one hand and quite plainly beat the time with the other hand, for 
 each singer in those days beat the time also, which was usually a sort of 
 measured, stately movement, like a stately march of even trend. 
 
 For many years meetings were 'held on the coldest and most blustering 
 days of winter in this house, situated in a very bleak and exposed location. 
 
THE CHURCH ON THE COMMON 359 
 
 with just twice the number of windows now in the house, and with no 
 means of warming save the warmth communicated by the audience, and 
 the Httle foot stoves of live coals carried by the ladies into their pews. 
 The hugest snowstorms did not deter the people from attending services. 
 But the people of those days were tough, and accustomed and hardened 
 to exposure, in their homes as well as in churches. Years after large 
 stoves were placed in the entrance or porch, with pipes running the entire 
 length of the audience room, on either side aisle, and passing out of a 
 window on either side. Sitting in my father's pew, as a small boy, I used 
 to see how far I could blow my breath, by the fog created, and judge it 
 must have been from six to ten feet. Sermons were usually about an hour 
 long, and dealt largely with dry, abstruse discussions of knotty points in 
 theology. But people were fond of discussing them, and often did so at 
 the corners of the street and in stores and not infrequently in the public 
 inns. 
 
 The winters were in those days seemingly much colder and the snows 
 deeper than of later years, accumulating to the depth of four or five feet 
 not infrequently, and were of course drifted correspondingly. The young 
 men of the parish used to form what they styled a "bee," in winters, to 
 shovel out a roadway and a footpath across the "Common" to the meeting- 
 house, as the snows were drifted too deeply to allow, otherwise, a passage 
 to and from the house. 
 
 In those days it was the practice of the boys and girls of an evening to 
 play "Betty Winkle," a sort of hide-and-seek play, around the meeting- 
 house, the front steps being the starting and leaving-off place. There was 
 a cellar under the whole house, with large double doors at the north or 
 rear end of the house, and a window each side of the doors to light the 
 cellar, and the village hearse and the two brass cannon could be plainly 
 seen through these windows. The youngsters, especially the girls, used to 
 scamper as fast as possible when passing round the north end of the 
 house, past these cellar doors, where the hearse with its sable coverings 
 and huge black plumes on top and black tassels at the sides, and those two 
 cannon were .kept, especially if the evening was somewhat dark, for they 
 were regarded as something suspicious and forebodings of evil. When 
 it was decided best to take the old house down and reerect it on its present 
 site, some variations were made in the internal arrangements. The pulpit 
 was lowered and remodeled, the side or wall pews at the pulpit end of the 
 house were taken out, the windows lessened one-half in number, and 
 those remaining refitted with larger-paned glass, and the choir end of the 
 house entirely changed. The same spirit of unity, liberality and loyalty 
 which had previously characterized the people of the parish in providing 
 for the interests of the church and society was equally shown in meeting 
 
360 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 the expenses of removing and replanting the house on its present founda- 
 tions. 
 
 I can recollect several occurrences of the winter of 1815-1816 quite 
 distinctly, when on February 15, I became three years of age. I can just 
 remember how in that winter of 1815-1816 my father's two-horse lumber- 
 box sleigh and span of iron-gray horses, Bob and Poppit by name, used 
 to drive round to the front door on Sunday mornings, with plenty of straw 
 in the bottom of the lumber box, plenty of buffalo robes in the four board 
 seats across the sleigh, holding three grown persons in each, and with full 
 strings of old-fashioned large and loud-sounding sleighbells on the horses, 
 with all the household save myself and someone to take care of me, and 
 also all persons who cared to go from my sister's house opposite to ours, — 
 the sleigh-load with foot stoves for the women and plenty of lunch for all, 
 would start off for "up-in-town" meetings, eating lunch in the hour's 
 intermission at noon, then another hot sermon in the afternoon, then home 
 between three and four o'clock and a sumptuous meat supper and hot 
 coffee. 
 
 "Bob," the horse, was a square trotting,^ sturdy fellow of great bottom 
 and strength, the fastest trotter in the country, but to ride him horseback, 
 which I sometimes had to do, was like riding an up-and-down country 
 sawmill going with a full head of water. Bob was a son of the original 
 Justin Morgan, the progenitor of the renowned breed of Vermont Morgan 
 horses; he lived to be' thirty-six years old and was owned by my father 
 thirty years. When at length his end came, the entire household had to 
 drop a tear on his memory, for a more faithful servant never lived. A 
 good representation of Bob is to be seen, painted from life by Fisher in 
 1839, in a painting of Brattleboro. . 
 
 Madame Wells was a sprightly little body, small in stature and full of 
 spirit and energy. As a little boy I used to think Madame Wells lived 
 under the pulpit — for she had charge of the communion service and prepa- 
 ration of the bread, which was kept in the closet there. Afterwards this 
 fell to the lot of my good mother for many years. 
 
 My father's pew was the northeast corner wall pew, probably the cold- 
 est in the house, and I used, as a little boy, to carry my mother's foot stove 
 of live coals into and out of the meeting-house. She always carried a 
 capacious muff and when my hands became unbearably cold, I used to put 
 them into her muff to warm. 
 
 An old hymn in frequent use and favor was : 
 
 Our life contains a thousand springs 
 
 And dies if one be gone ; 
 Strange that a harp of thousand strings 
 
 Should keep in tune so long ! 
 
THE CHURCH ON THE COMMON 361 
 
 I remember one hymn which I cannot find in our modern hymn books : 
 
 In sleep's serene obHvion laid 
 
 I safely passed the silent night ; 
 Again I see the breaking shade 
 
 I drink again the morning light. 
 
 Newborn, I bless the waking hour ; 
 
 Once more, with awe, rejoice to be ; 
 My conscious soul resumes her power 
 
 And springs, my guardian God, to thee. 
 
 It was during Doctor Charles Walker's pastorate that the old Meeting- 
 House on the Common was taken down and reerected on its present site. 
 Doctor Walker was of huge, portly frame and commanding presence, and 
 had a heavy voice. He performed the marriage service for us at the old 
 Goodhue farmhouse, which stood where the Retreat farmhouse now 
 stands. 
 
 In early days the Retreat farmhouse was a noted hostelry, where 
 travelers baited themselves and teams, or spent the night, when journeying 
 up and down the country. The meadow was largely used for baiting 
 droves of cattle and sheep on their way to market. Droves of turkeys 
 and occasionally of geese stopped there for the night. It was amusing 
 to watch the turkeys as they came along towards evening. They wanted 
 to go to roost on trees or on the ridgepole of any house, barn or shed they 
 came upon, and were with difficulty prevented or dislodged. 
 
 Mrs. Holbrook had an exceptionally high, clear, leading soprano voice 
 and being a ready and correct reader of music, she could execute at sight 
 any church music put before her. She sang in the choir some thirty years, 
 and I led the choir for over forty years, composing or else arranging and 
 adapting many selections for the use of the choir and furnishing other 
 new music for it from time to time. Doctor Walker was very fond of 
 music. He and Madame Walker not infrequently came to my house to 
 tea and an evening's visit, and with Mrs. Holbrook at the piano we used 
 to gratify him with some of our best selections of music. It was during 
 his pastorate here that my father died at the age of seventy-eight years. 
 Being a man of powerful frame and robust vitality, he would probably 
 have lived several years longer but for a heavy fall on an icy walk, strik- 
 ing the back of his head ; brain fever resulted, causing death a few weeks 
 after. 
 
 During the pastorate of Doctor Walker, the choir used to give a public 
 concert or two each winter at the old meeting-house on the Common, in 
 which the heavy choruses of Handel, Haydn, Mozart and other composers 
 
362 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 were pretty well handled by a choir of some fifty members; and the 
 choruses were duly interspersed with music of a lighter character, such as 
 songs, duets and quartets. There were some fifteen sopranos, several con- 
 traltos, six or eight tenors and a long row of basses, with accompaniment 
 of three violins, two flutes, clarionet, violoncello, double-bass and bassoon. 
 The instruments were well played for that day and in a country town, 
 and some of them remarkably well. The violoncello playing, by a fine old 
 singing master of wide repute, James F. Robbins, could hardly be matched 
 for rapid and skillful execution, outside the playing of famous foreigners 
 at city concerts. We had three sopranos, Mrs. Holbrook one of them, who 
 could each take octave B and C above staff firmly and clearly. As leader 
 of the choir, I used to feel quite proud of its achievements. The people 
 came in droves to these concerts on the Common, no matter how deep the 
 snowdrifts, some coming quite long distances and not getting home till 
 midnight. 
 
 Temperance 
 The Church took a definite stand on the matter of the use of intoxicants 
 at its meeting of January 31, 1834. The clerk's entry reads : 
 
 This evening being the time appointed for the church to act on the 
 subject of temperance, it was discussed with much ability by several mem- 
 bers. Resolved, that the traffic in, and use of ardent spirit as a drink being 
 immoral, their practice is inconsistent with the Christian profession, and 
 with good standing in this church, and their abandonment shall henceforth 
 be an invariable rule of admission to membership in this church. 
 
 This resolution was carried with only three dissenting votes. 
 A temperance store was advertised as follows : 
 
 The subscriber flatters himself that not having the smell of ardent 
 spirits in or about his store that he shall secure the patronage of a good 
 portion of the community. 
 
 Among the earliest organizations devoted to the promotion of temper- 
 ance was the Young Men's Temperance Society of Brattleborough, 
 formed in 1836. Two hundred and sixty-two pledges were signed. This 
 was merged into a Young Men's Total Abstinence Society in 1841. 
 
 Uriel Sikes kept a temperance house in the forties, at his residence on 
 Main Street. 
 
 The Concordia Division of The Sons of Temperance of the State of 
 Vermont was instituted February 18, 1848. The officers for the first 
 quarter were : Thomas Chubbuck, W.P. ; Frederick Hunt, W.H. ; William 
 S. George, R.S. ; Bethuel Ranger, T. ; E. W. Prouty, C. ; J. H. Farwell, 
 A.C. ; Riley Burdett, I.S. ; William Davenport, O.S. 
 
THE CHURCH ON THE COMMON 363 
 
 Cyrus Davis, printer and pressman in the old Typographic Company, 
 was a Methodist preacher, and among the earliest of temperance ex- 
 horters. The chapel and the Alexander house on Canal Street were 
 scenes of much of his oratory. 
 
 Doctor Timothy Dwight remarked of Brattleboro that "the inhabitants 
 were all included within a single congregation, and amounted in 1790 to 
 one thousand, five hundred and eighty-nine, a goodly number for one 
 creed." 
 
 This kind of unity lasted about twenty years, and doubtless sowed the 
 seed of the unusual degree of harmony between the different religious 
 bodies afterwards organized. Church buildings have been occupied inter- 
 changeably as the emergency demanded room. The first Francis Good- 
 hue, a Congregationalist, gave to the little band of people who departed 
 from the orthodox society, the land on which the Unitarian Church was 
 built. Subscriptions from prosperous members of one church to needs 
 in another have not been uncommon. As early as 1841 there was "a con- 
 cert of sacred music by the united choirs of Reverend Mr. Walker's and 
 Reverend Mr. Brown's Societies on Thanksgiving Even," a union of 
 Congregationalists and Unitarians in the same songs of praise. 
 
 Proselyting has been frowned upon. For many years, however, the- 
 ological questions led all others as subjects of general conversation. Gov- 
 ernor Holbrook remembered a heated discussion over the persons of the 
 Trinity, in the old taproom of Chase's Stage-House, participated in by 
 men who halted the theme long enough for another "glass," when the 
 subject was taken up again with renewed vigor. Instances there would be 
 of bigotry, which held its own side by side with personal charity. When 
 the first Christmas tree was carried through the village street. Deacon 
 John Holbrook, most tender to human frailty, exclaimed, "There go the 
 rags of popery !" 
 
 A story has come down to us of a Congregational divine; who stated 
 in the course of one of his sermons that more persons went to perdition 
 from the Episcopal Church than from any other cause whatsoever. This 
 exposition of the nature of sin was presented to his flock when the Tylers 
 and others, Episcopalians at heart, were still worshiping with Congrega- 
 tionalists in the absence of any church of their own preference. The first 
 considerable impetus towards St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Brattle- 
 boro was contributed by that sermon. 
 
 Church fairs, held in the Town Hall, patronized without regard to reli- 
 gious affiliation, and anticipated the whole year through, have been made 
 occasions of social importance by the presence of summer visitors who have 
 added fresh interest and the note of fashion, while paying generously for 
 the fine handiwork of the fancy articles table. It was the strawberry supper 
 
364 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 in June of the Congregationalists that has called forth the large attend- 
 ance. The Unitarian ladies have always carried off the palm in the gentle 
 rivalry of bountiful suppers. The Universalist fairs have had the advan- 
 tage of being held in the winter when large numbers of the townspeople 
 have been eager to patronize an entertainment distinctly their own. 
 
 The charity of the ladies extended beyond the limits of their respective 
 churches. On May 27, 1838, there was a ladies' meeting in behalf of the 
 Greeks. Of it The Messenger said : 
 
 The attention of the benevolent females of this village has of late been 
 particularly called to the subject of relieving their destitute and suffering 
 sisters in Greece ; and the result is equal to the high expectations which the 
 known liberality of the sex has led us to indulge. 
 
 The meeting at the Bank Hall, on the 23d ult. was numerously attended. 
 John Holbrook, Esquire, having been called to the chair, the throne of 
 Divine Grace was fervently addressed by the Reverend Mr. McGee. Then 
 a very lively and powerful address, prepared at the request of the ladies, 
 was dplivered by Mr. E. D. Elliot. The meeting was also addressed by 
 E. H. Allen, Esquire, and by the presiding officer. Several resolutions 
 were then brought forward by the ladies, expressive of the deep interest 
 which they felt in the success of Greece, struggling for freedom and for 
 life . . . and more particularly in the distresses of those of their own 
 sex in that unhappy country. Committees were also appointed to carry 
 into effect the various objects expressed in the resolutions ; and it affords 
 us pleasure to say that they have been executed with a promptitude and 
 efficiency that does honour to their benevolent exertions. Donations to 
 the amount of 205 dollars were shortly collected and expended for cloths, 
 which have been manufactured into about four hundred garments for the 
 naked women and children of Greece, and forwarded to the Greek Com- 
 mittee of Boston. These contributions when contrasted with those of 
 many large towns, may appear trifling; but considering the smallness of 
 our village and the limited means of the greater part of its inhabitants, it 
 is a goodly offering. 
 
 A combination of women for a charitable but more secular object was 
 the Maternal Association, May 22, 1834, organized with a membership of 
 fifteen ladies. 
 
 Antislavery in 1837 
 
 Although the Constitution of Vermont specifically declared that "no 
 male person born in this country, or brought from over sea, ought to be 
 holden by law to serve any person as a servant, slave, or apprentice . . . 
 unless bound by his own consent," between 1830 and 1840 lectures against 
 
THE CHURCH ON THE COMMON 365 
 
 slavery met with an unwelcome reception in many towns in New England. 
 Public sentiment was against any discussion of this question by. the people 
 of Brattleboro. The leading citizens encouraged a mob to disturb the 
 antislavery lectures of Reverend Edward R. Tyler, and the Congrega- 
 tional pastor of that period refused to read in his pulpit a notice of these 
 lectures, or even a notification of a "prayer meeting for the oppressed." 
 Deacon David Wood made the announcement, "There will be a meeting of 
 prayer for the oppressed, at Elliot Street chapel, ..." It was well under- 
 stood at the time why the deacon, instead of the minister, read the notifica- 
 tion. The reverend gentleman also recommended the church discipline, 
 or expulsion, of members of his church who attended said lectures. One 
 justice of the. peace advocated tar and feathers to be applied to his person 
 and another justice of the peace said he would "find powder for the mob 
 if they would blow the damned abolitionist down the bank." 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 BUSINESS PROSPERITY BETWEEN 1819 AND 1828 
 
 Business Prosperity between 1819 and 1828 — Vermont National Bank— Epaphrodi- 
 tus Seymour, first cashier. ' Stoves and tin— Ashbel Dickinson — Linus Dickinson. 
 Water supply. Vermont Mutual Life Insurance— 1828, Hall & Fessenden — Doctor 
 Charles Chapin— Benjamin R. Jenne— Sherman & Jenne. Lottery — Colonel Paul 
 Chase and Major Henry Smith, managers — Methods. Vermont House — Willard 
 Pomroy, Chester W. Pomroy, Hiram and Alonzo Joy, George W. Emerson, J. S. 
 Robinson, Captain Thomas C. Lord, proprietors. 
 
 The Brattleborough Bank, 1831 
 The Vermont National Bank, 1865 
 
 The first moneyed institution, called the Brattleborough Bank, was incor- 
 porated in 1831. Ninety days were given in which to secure subscription 
 to the capital stock, which was placed at $100,000, divided into two thou- 
 sand shares of $50 each. Jonathan Hunt, Junior, Epaphroditus Seymour, 
 Jonas Mann, Samuel Clark and Artemas Robbins were named commis- 
 sioners to receive the stock subscriptions. The first meeting of the stock- 
 holders was held on the first day of March, 1833, "at the inn of John R. 
 Blake," when William Hall, Junior, Jonas Mann, Samuel Clark, Jonathan 
 Hunt, Junior, and Epaphroditus Seymour were elected directors, and on 
 the same day the directors organized by electing Jonathan Hunt, Junior, 
 president. At this meeting the first installment of fifteen per cent of the 
 capital stock was ordered to be paid. April 4, Epaphroditus Seymour 
 was appointed cashier, and on the following day the directors voted "that 
 a banking house be erected on land owned by F. Goodhue, a few feet 
 north of Williston & Hunt's store, provided the land is given to the cor- 
 poration and put in good condition to erect a building on." General 
 Jonas Mann was named a committee to see that the building was erected 
 "as soon as convenient." This building, which occupied the site between 
 the Clapp house and the Congregational Church, was built during the 
 season of 1833, but the exact date of its completion and occupation by 
 the bank is not given. The business of the bank was done in this building 
 until about the year 1855, when it was removed to the corner room on the 
 first floor of the old Revere House building, afterwards used as the 
 Revere House office. The bank's first dividend, of one dollar per share, 
 
BUSINESS PROSPERITY BETWEEN 1819 AND 1828 367 
 
 was declared September 17, 1823, and for some time the regular semi- 
 annual dividend was one dollar per share. It is evident, however, that 
 there was profit in the banking business in those early years, for in Janu- 
 ary, 1828, $10,000 of undivided profits was carried to the dividend 
 account. In 1836, also, a division of profits was ordered, and a "first 
 instalment" of five dollars a share was directed to be paid. Mr. Hunt 
 held the office of president until his death, and was succeeded in 1834 
 by John Holbrook. In 1837 Mr. Holbrook declined a reelection, and was 
 succeeded by Mr. Seymour, who held the office until his death in June, 
 1854. At this period; 1837, a new charter was granted the bank, and the 
 capital stock was increased to $150,000. The directors at this time were 
 Samuel Clark, John R. Blake, Charles Chapin, Henry Smith and Epaph- 
 roditus Seymour. In July, 1841, Horatio S. Noyes became cashier and 
 served until October, 1850, when Philip Wells succeeded to that office. 
 
 The vote instructing the directors to take the necessary steps toward 
 converting the institution into a national bank was passed March 14, 1865, 
 and the charter of the Vermont National Bank, under the national bank- 
 ing laws, was granted on the twelfth of May following. The directors at 
 the time of conversion were Samuel Root, W. H. Rockwell, Parley Starr, 
 Wells Goodhue and Hampden Cutts. Samuel Root was the president, 
 having been elected on the death of Mr. Seymour in 1854. Philip Wells 
 continued as cashier until January, 1867, when he resigned. His brother, 
 Frank Wells, was elected his successor, and served for one year, when, 
 in January, 1868, George S. Dowley was elected. On the death of 
 Samuel Root, in 1869, Wells Goodhue succeeded to the presidency, serv- 
 ing till 1874, when he resigned and was succeeded by Lafayette Clark, 
 who held the office till 1878, when he declined a reelection and was suc- 
 ceeded by William P. Cune, who from that time attended with unvarying 
 diligence and efficiency to the duties of the office. 
 
 The Vermont National Bank, or Bank of Brattleborough, had but one 
 predecessor in the state. The Bank of Burlington was chartered in 1819, 
 but the separate existence of that institution ceased when its stock and 
 assets were bought by the Merchants' National Bank of that city, and it 
 was merged in the last-named institution. The Vermont National Bank, 
 therefore, ranks as the oldest bank in the state. 
 
 George C. Averill succeeded George S. Dowley as cashier in 1886 when 
 Mr. Dowley became president in the place of W. Pitt Cune, deceased. 
 Mr. Dowley died November 4, 1896.^ 
 
 The bank built the banking house which it now owns and occupies. 
 
 ^ Mr. Averill was president from January 1, 1897, to May 10, 191S, when Doctor 
 H. D. Holton became president. Honorable James M. Tyler succeeded Doctor 
 Holton March S, 1917, as president, and Charles G. Staples succeeded Mr. Averill as 
 cashier. 
 
368 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Epaphroditus Seymour 
 was the youngest son of Major Moses Seymour of Litchfield, Connecticut. 
 He was born July 8, 1783, received a good academical education at the 
 Morris Academy, South Farms, Connecticut, and afterwards was 
 thoroughly trained in the business and duties of a merchant's clerk in a 
 mercantile establishment at Brooklyn, in his native state. 
 
 Horatio Seymour, the eldest brother, was educated for the legal pro- 
 fession, and settled in Middlebury, Vermont. He became a distinguished 
 lawyer in western Vermont, and for twelve years, being the Whig leader, 
 represented the state in the United States Senate. Near the close 
 of the last century, Henry Seymour, an older brother of Epaphroditus, 
 came to Guilford and was extensively engaged in mercantile business. 
 Subsequently Henry Seymour, about 1802, induced his brother Epaph- 
 roditus to come to Guilford and engage in trade, although he was less 
 than twenty years of age. At this time Guilford was the most populous 
 and prosperous town in Vermont. 
 
 Henry Seymour removed to Pompey, Onondaga County, New York, 
 and engaged largely in trade. Subsequently, in 1819, he removed to 
 Utica, New York, and was appointed one of the canal commissioners 
 of that state. 
 
 Epaphroditus continued in mercantile business in Guilford until 1814, 
 when he removed to Brattleboro and was associated with George Atherton 
 in mercantile business. He continued in trade here some three or four 
 years, after which he resided alternately at Guilford and Brattleboro. 
 He spent the winter of 1820 at Middlebury, Vermont. 
 
 In the fall of 1821 the Legislature of Vermont chartered a bank at 
 Brattleboro, which was organized the following year, and Mr. Seymour 
 was chosen cashier thereof by the directors in March, 1822, and continued 
 to hold the office until January 1, 1837, when he was elected president 
 of the bank to fill the vacancy made by the resignation of John Holbrook. 
 He held this office and faithfully discharged the duties thereof until his 
 death, June 19, 1854. He settled the estate of Honorable Jonathan Hunt, 
 as executor, without executing bonds for the faithful discharge of the 
 trust which the testator had reposed in his integrity and fidelity, and the 
 estate inventoried at a sum exceeding $150,000. During the year 1837 
 and from 1837 to 1840, inclusive, he was associated with his nephew, 
 Horatio Seymour^ of Utica, New York, and C. Si. Seymour of Litchfield, 
 Connecticut, in settling the estate of his brother, Henry Seymour, which 
 estate was very large and widely scattered. While connected with the 
 bank his time and energies were almost exclusively devoted to the main- 
 tenance of its reputation for soundness and solvency. 
 
 1 Afterwards governor of New York and candidate for the Presidency. 
 
BUSINESS PROSPERITY BETWEEN 1819 AND 1838 369 
 
 He was a great admirer of a fine horse, and manifested a deep interest 
 in the improvement of the breed of horses in Brattleboro and vicinity. 
 At his death he was keeping in his stables eight brood mares with colts 
 that were sired by the celebrated Giflord Morgan. Some of its descend- 
 ants have been owned in Windham County, and old horse fanciers readily 
 detected in them the symmetry and prominent characteristics of the sire, 
 which was always regarded as the noblest horse in New England. 
 
 The community reposed the most implicit confidence in his integrity. 
 Before the adoption of savings banks and trust companies in this state, 
 large sums of money were entrusted to his care and keeping, and in many 
 cases with a simple minute noting the amount ; yet for the period of more 
 than forty years not a whisper was ever breathed against his fidelity in 
 the discharge of any fiduciary engagement he had assumed. He was a 
 generous-hearted man to the poor and unfortunate, and kindly aided 
 young men who were struggling against adversity and poverty to obtain 
 an education and qualify themselves for professional pursuits. He was 
 trustee of the Vermont Asylum. 
 
 He married Miss Mary Root, sister of Mrs. Lemuel Whitney of Brat- 
 tleboro. He had but one child, a boy, who died November 33, 1830, aged 
 two years and six months. 
 
 Mrs. Seymour died October 35, 1841, aged forty-two. 
 
 Stoves and Tin Factory 
 
 Ashbel Dickinson and Horace Wilcox came to Brattleboro from Berlin, 
 Connecticut, in April, 1819, and formed a partnership in the stove and tin 
 business that continued about three years. Mr. Dickinson had previously 
 been in business in Richmond, Virginia, and Brockville, Canada. The 
 building occupied by this firm stood on the corner of Main and High 
 Streets. Mr. Dickinson was subsequently associated in business with the 
 following persons successively : Oren Curtis, I. G. Chandler, Charles H. 
 Cune, L. D. Prouty and Charles H. Crosby ; the shop having been removed 
 first to the room in Fisk's Block, afterwards occupied by I. N. Thorn & 
 Company, druggists, thence to Esterbrook's Block, where E. A. Wood 
 was, and thence to the stone building occupied by Joseph Clark, which 
 was built by Mr. Dickinson. While here Mr. Dickinson, who at the same 
 time was connected with parties in Troy, New York, sustained heavy 
 losses, which obliged him to go into bankruptcy, in consequence of which 
 he removed to New Britain, Connecticut, in 1849, having then been in 
 business here for thirty years. 
 
 Returning three years after, he again established himself in the tin 
 business, occupying the location used by F. C. Edwards as a bindery, from 
 which place he removed to the south end of Fisk's Block. From here he 
 
370 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 finally removed to Blake's building, on Elliot Street. In 1859 Mr. Dickin- 
 son sold the business to his son, Linus P. Dickinson, who sold to D. W. 
 Kathan. 
 
 It was a period of fifty years in which the Dickinsons, father and son, 
 were identified with the business interests of Brattleboro. 
 
 Ashbel Dickinson married Miss Lydia P. — — ; he married, second, Mrs. 
 Louisa Porter of Berlin, Connecticut, December 24, 1837 ; she died Sep- 
 tember 10, 1860, aged fifty-seven. He died September 14, 1879, aged 
 eighty-six. Their children were: 
 
 Evelyn, born April 29, 1824; married March 21, 1842, Edwin H. Chase 
 
 (see p. 500) ; died April 3, 1870. 
 Emily, baptized October 3, 1827 ; married December 13, 1847, Sidney A. 
 
 Miller (see p: 416) ; died May 12, 1851. 
 Linus Porter, born August 3, 1828 ; married Miss Emma Balch. Their 
 daughter Emma was born May 20, 1868; married Charles C. Elliot 
 of Elgin, Illinois. 
 Lucy Marvin, born October 9, 1842. 
 Clarence Blydenburg, born September 13, 1846. 
 
 In 1824 the East Village was said to be the richest village of its size 
 in New England. Paper was manufactured here, in the Holbrook paper 
 mill, to the amount of ten or twelve thousand dollars, and in his printing 
 and bookbinding establishment business was done to the amount of twenty ^ 
 to twenty-five thousand dollars annually. At the distillery of Francis 
 Goodhue nine thousand bushels of rye were distilled, and at his fac- 
 tory eighteen thousand pounds of wool were manufactured yearly. At 
 the tin factory of Wilcox & Dickinson ware was manufactured in 1823 to 
 the amount of ten thousand dollars. At the distillery of Phineas Stewart, 
 in the West Village, about eighteen hundred barrels of cider were distilled, 
 and more than seven hundred barrels at the distillery of Levi Goodenough 
 in eight months. At the factory of Edward Woodman five thousand 
 yards of cloth were dressed, and fourteen thousand pounds of wool carded 
 in one year. 
 
 At the East Village there was an "Aqueduct Corporation," an "Engine 
 Company," and a "Royal Arch Chapter of Freemasons." Four stages, 
 carrying mails, arrived at Smith's tavern three times a week; one from 
 Boston, one from Hartford, Connecticut, one from Albany and one from 
 Hanover, and they all reached here the same day they left the above places. 
 A mail arrived here once a week from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, from 
 Northfield, Massachusetts, and from Townshend, this state. There were 
 three military companies in town, one of light infantry, one of artillery 
 and one of infantry. There were eleven school districts and schoolhouses, 
 
BUSINESS PROSPERITY BETWEEN 1819 AND 1828 371 
 
 one printing office, issuing a weekly paper, The Brattleborough Messen- 
 ger; one paper mill and one bookstore, connected with, perhaps, the 
 largest printing and bookbinding establishment in the state; one post 
 office, one bank, "The Bank of Brattleborough"; five gristmills, seven 
 sawmills, one cotton and one woolen factory, a hat factory, an aqueduct 
 lead pipe factory, three clothiers' works, three carding machines, nine 
 merchants, four taverns, four distilleries, an apothecary's shop, two tan- 
 neries, six blacksmiths, two goldsmiths, and a variety of other shops. 
 The population was two thousand and seventeen. 
 
 There were "brought into town by boats and other conveyances during 
 the year ending March 1, 1824, $96,963 of merchandise." 
 
 Water Supply 
 
 All the buildings on Main Street, and a large proportion of dwelling 
 houses throughout the village are supplied by water from springs of great 
 purity. 
 
 The water from the Western Aqueduct (Association) was brought 
 about one mile to High Street in 1826 by John Holbrook, Asa Green and 
 Francis Goodhue. It was divided into one hundred and eighty shares 
 which sold for eight dollars each. This supplies all streets north of Elliot 
 Street. The Northern Aqueduct (Association) supplies Linden Street 
 and the Common. The Southern Aqueduct (Association), South Main, 
 Canal, Clark and Reed Streets. The Brattleboro Water Company, or- 
 ganized in 1860, a portion of Green, School and Elliot Streets. The 
 Prospect Hill Aqueduct Company, 1866, residences on Prospect Hill. 
 The Centerville Aqueduct (Association), residences in Centerville only. 
 
 In consequence of a fire entirely consuming, for lack of water, the house 
 of Doctor John L. Dickerman in 1834, large cement cisterns, supplied by 
 waste water from dwelling houses, were placed at advantageous points. 
 
 A remarkable example of public service quietly carried on has come to 
 light by the resignation of Mr. F. W. Kuech (January 26, 1918) from 
 the care of the water tower of the Western and Northern Aqueduct Asso- 
 ciation, near the Common. He not only made necessary repairs on the 
 building, but for forty-one years hauled wood from his own woodpile 
 and "sat up" with a fire on bitterly cold nights to keep the water from 
 ■ freezing, without any expense whatever to the shareholders. 
 
 The First Insurance 
 
 Hall & Fessenden (Franklin H.) became agents of the Vermont Mutual 
 Fire Insurance Company when it was established in 1838. William R. 
 Hayes was agent for West Brattleboro in 1831. Major Henry Smith 
 was a director and local agent for several years. Mr. Fessenden became. 
 
372 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 later, agent for the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company, and in 1847 
 for the New England Health Insurance Company. Hall & Fessenden 
 sold to Doctor Charles Chapin and he in 1867 to Major Benjamin R. 
 Jenne, of whom Sherman & Jenne (1878) and again Clarence F. R. Jenne 
 were successors. 
 
 The Lottery 
 
 The lottery played an important part when the business of taxes and 
 the art of carrying public burdens was crude and ill-defined. Probably 
 the course of Great Britain in legitimatizing the lottery in 1709 promoted 
 its growth in this country. 
 
 The lottery mania created a furor in Vermont, and for fifty years or 
 more lotteries had the sanction of the Legislature and successfully 
 flourished. In either 1826 or 1827 a lottery office was opened in Brattle- 
 boro, chartered by the state, for the benefit of Horatio Knight, and Messrs. 
 Paul Chase and Henry Smith were managers. The office was directly 
 opposite the Brattlebprough House, a famous hostelry at that time and 
 for many years thereafter. A large sign hung over the door with a 
 painting representing a woman holding in her hand a cornucopia from 
 which was flowing a perfect avalanche of dollars. In those days the most 
 reputable people of the town, as well as others, patronized the lottery 
 office and without the least suspicion that it was anything like gambling 
 or at all reprehensible to "try your luck." People thought no more of 
 buying a lottery ticket than of buying a pound of tea. The townspeople 
 evidently thought they stood a little better chance of getting rich by laying 
 out two or three dollars for a ticket than in any other way, but it seems 
 to have taken but four or five public drawings to change their minds, and 
 after all had had a few chances at "forturie's wheel" even the promise 
 of a twenty per cent dividend in the "Brattleborough Typographical Com- 
 pany" did not seem to lure shy capitalists. One of the old-time spectators 
 thus describes the drawing : 
 
 When the day arrived for revolving the glass cylinder to decide who 
 was to get $3000 or $5000, a stage was built just in front of the hotel, on 
 which stood the city fathers looking as wise and solemn as the bird of 
 wisdom. They surrounded the cylinder with the exception of the side 
 to the crowd. 
 
 The prize numbers and blanks were enclosed in little tin boxes, some- 
 thing like a pill-box, when they were thrown promiscuously into the 
 cylinder, which was hung with a crank, like a grindstone or a Chinese 
 praying machine. When the word was given the awful cylinder, loaded 
 with so many different fates, was revolved a few times and then stopped, 
 when James Elliot, then clerk of the county, would proceed to take out one 
 
BUSINESS PROSPERITY BETWEEN 1819 AND 1828 373 
 
 of the little boxes, open it and proclaim its contents, at the same time hold- 
 ing before the gaze of a multitude that filled the streets, and whose hag- 
 gard looks and almost breathless anxiety told of the great interest, the 
 "prize winner." 
 
 McMaster's history says of this period : 
 
 Lotteries sprang lip and in a short time there was a wheel in every 
 city and in every town large enough to boast of a court-house or a jail. 
 Whenever a clumsy bridge was to be thrown across a little stream, a public 
 building enlarged, a schoolhouse built, a street paved, a road repaired, a 
 manufacturing company to be aided, a church assisted, or a college treas- 
 ury replenished, a lottery bill was passed by the Legislature, a wheel 
 procured, a notice put in the papers, and often in a few weeks the needed 
 money was raised. It was with the money collected from the sale of 
 lottery tickets that Massachusetts encouraged cotton spinning and paid 
 the salaries of many of her officers ; that the city hall was enlarged at New 
 York ; that the court-house was rebuilt ; that the library was increased at 
 Harvard. 
 
 People were extremely poor at that time and very little money was in 
 circulation except coppers. The good money was coined in the seven 
 state mints then in operation. So scarce was the coinage that people paid 
 for their lottery tickets in wheat,- and in turn were paid in the same com- 
 modity when the prizes were declared. 
 
 There was an advertisement in The Reporter of April, 1811, of the 
 Harvard College Lottery, $15,000 being offered as the highest prize. 
 
 That James Elliot lent his name to the following is a proof of the 
 sincerity with which people of character regarded the lottery. 
 
 SPLENDID SCHEME. 
 
 2 of $2000—2 of $1000—20 of $350 
 Highest Prizes! — Tickets only $2. 
 
 VERMONT LOTTERY, 
 
 Sixth Class, New Series, 
 
 For the Benefit of Horatio Knight. 
 
 To be drawn at Brattleboro' East Village in June or July next. 
 
 (In the 5th Class, Three Thousand Tickets remained unsold, and yet 
 the four highest prizes, amounting to Four Thousand Seven Hundred 
 Dollars, were every one sold. The immense loss by unsold tickets renders 
 necessary the entire sale of another Class, to effect the object, of this 
 Lottery.) 
 
374 
 
 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 
 
 SCHEME. 
 
 2 
 
 prizes 
 
 of 
 
 2000 
 
 are 4000 
 
 2 
 
 (( 
 
 
 1000 
 
 2000 
 
 20 
 
 It 
 
 
 250 
 
 5000 
 
 20 
 
 (t 
 
 
 100 
 
 2000 
 
 20 
 
 it 
 
 
 50 
 
 1000 
 
 20 
 
 It 
 
 
 20 
 
 400 
 
 200 
 
 t( 
 
 
 10 
 
 2000 
 
 200 
 
 ti 
 
 
 5 
 
 1000 
 
 200 
 
 tt 
 
 
 3 
 
 600 
 
 6000 
 
 It 
 
 
 2 
 
 12000 
 
 6684 Prizes. $30,000 
 
 13316 Blanks. 20,000 Tickets. 
 
 Not two blanks to a prize — Subject to a deduction of fifteen 
 
 per cent. 
 
 Every number in the Lottery will contain four figures or cyphers, thus — 
 0000— 0001— 0009— 0010— 0099— 0100— 0150— 0200— 0999— 1000— and 
 so on to 19999. 
 
 DRAWING. — 40 figures and cyphers, four of each from to 9 inclu- 
 sive, will be put into a wheel, and every one of them drawn out suc- 
 cessively. This will be the whole operation, and the prizes will be assigned 
 as follows : 
 
 The 6000 prizes of two dollars will be assigned to the tickets ending 
 with either of the three first drawn figures or cyphers of different 
 numbers. 
 
 The 200 of three to those ending with the 4th and 5th drawn, whether 
 different or the same, in the order in which they are drawn from the 
 wheel. 
 
 The 200 of five to those ending with the 6th and 7th drawn in like 
 manner. 
 
 The 200 of 10 to those ending with the 8th and 9th drawn in like 
 manner. 
 
 The 20 of 20 to those ending with the 11th, 12th and 13th drawn in 
 like manner. 
 
 The 20 of 50 to those ending with the 16th, 17th and 18th drawn in 
 like manner. 
 
 The 20 of 100 to those ending with the 21st, 22d and 23d drawn in 
 like manner. 
 
 The 20 of 250 to those ending with the 36th, 37th and 38th drawn in 
 like manner. 
 
BUSINESS PROSPERITY BETWEEN 1819 AND 1828 375 
 
 The two prizes of' 1000 dollars to the ticket having for its number the 
 4th, 14th, 24th and 34th drawn, in the order in which they are drawn, and 
 the corresponding number over 9999. 
 
 Those of 2000 to the ticket having for its number the 10th, 20th, 30th 
 and 40th drawn in like manner, and the corresponding number as above. 
 
 The following is the explanation of "the corresponding number:" — 
 Suppose No. 0000 should draw one of the highest prizes, the correspond- 
 ing number would be 10,000.— Should No. 2759 draw $1000, No. 12759 
 would be entitled to the other prize of 1000. Should No. 5486 draw 
 $2000, so would 15,486. 
 
 James Elliot, Manager. 
 May 5th, 1827. 
 
 The resignation of Mr. Elliot in 1831 is as follows : 
 
 State of Vermont, Windham ss. New Fane, April 9, A. D. 1831. 
 To the Hon. John Roberts and James L. Stark, Esquires, 
 Two of the Judges of Windham County Court. 
 I the Subscriber, having heretofore been legally appointed, by your 
 Honours, the Sole Manager of the Lottery formerly granted by the Legis- 
 lature of the State of Vermont, by which the sum of One Thousand 
 Dollars was authorised to be raised for the benefit of Horatio Knight, 
 do certify that the said sum of One Thousand Dollars has been raised by 
 the said Lottery under my management, of which sum nine hundred and 
 fifteen dollars has been paid to said Knight, and the balance of eighty 
 five dollars remains in my hands subject to his Order. And that all the 
 expenses of said Lottery have been paid. 
 
 I do therefore resign the trust and office of Manager of said Lottery, 
 and have caused a certificate to this effect to be filed in the office of the 
 Secretary of this State, as evidence that the said grant has been fulfilled 
 and satisfied, and that the said Lottery is at an end. 
 
 James Elliot. 
 
 The Vermont House 
 
 In 1828 a common wooden dwelling of two stories stood where St. 
 Michael's Episcopal Church and the Town Hall now are (it was the home 
 of Doctor Jonathan A. Allen in 1816), which was in that year (1828) 
 fitted up for a public house by Willard Pomroy, and called the Vermont 
 House. His brother, Chester W. Pomroy, who came here from Newfan6 
 Hill, was the first proprietor; he was succeeded by Hiram and Alonzo 
 Joy, George W. Emerson, J. S. Robinson and others. Captain Thomas C. 
 Lord (son of Judge Joseph Lord of Putney) being the last owner and 
 
376 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 proprietor. (Sumner Pratt was steward of the house under Captain 
 Lord.) Wantastiquet Hall was built in the rear of this hotel by Colonel 
 Calvin Townsley and sold to Captain Lord after 1840. 
 
 Captain Lord married Miss Olive Hough; he died August 21, 1851, 
 aged forty-five, and she lived until 1897, to the age of eighty-eight. . 
 
 The militia meetings were mostly held at the Wantastiquet. It was 
 sixty-eight feet long by thirty wide. Dancing school was taught in the 
 old hall in 1848 by a Mr. Rockwood of Greenfield. James Gordon Ben- 
 nett stopped at this house in 1850 just before its removal. The old Ver- 
 mont House was removed in 1849-1850, and a brick front of three stories 
 took its place. B. and N. Holland were the proprietors from 1850. It was 
 destroyed by fire in 1852. 
 
 An invitation to a railroad ball at the Wantastiquet has been preserved. 
 It was printed in gold by J. B. Miner on an embossed card, on which was 
 the picture of a railroad train of two cars behind an engine and tender, 
 all looking uncertainly balanced on four wheels each, the wheels placed 
 well toward the center of the car, and reads : 
 
 The Pleasure of your company is requested at Wantastiquet Hall on 
 Tuesday, Feb. 20, 1849. Managers: Chas. Chapin, D. F. Kingsley, 
 Joseph Clark, F. Goodhue, F. A. Holman, Roswell Hunt, H. Townsley, 
 J. J. Crandall. Dancing will commence at 7J^' o'clock. Music Flagg's 
 Band. 
 
 Another invitation to the general public from a village newspaper : 
 
 Complimentary Dinner at the opening of Lord's New Vermont House, 
 Brattleborough, Thursday, August 1, 1850, at 3 o'clock P. M. You are 
 respectfully invited to attend. Committee of Arrangements : C. Townsley, 
 William H. Rock-well, G. C. Hall, L. G. Mead, A. E. Dwinell, George 
 Newman, Lovell Farr, O. H. Piatt, George C. Lawrence, Frederick 
 Franks. 
 
 Music, Kendall's Band. Tickets, $0.75. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 BRIDGES 
 
 Bridge across West River — Petition for public highway — Case argued by Judge Samuel 
 Phelps and Daniel Webster — Little bridge over "Creek" — Bridges over Connecticut 
 River. 
 
 In 1831 an arch bridge of solid timber, in place of the trestle bridge 
 then standing, was built across West River, by Captain Nathaniel Bliss, 
 which was open for travel about the first of December. In 1841 it was 
 thought to be unsafe' and was accordingly removed, and a covered bridge 
 was built of what was commonly called the "X" pattern, but was known 
 as "Town's Patent." There was a defect in the supporters when the 
 bridge was raised, so that the center sank, and the upper chords never 
 shortened. On this account the bridge presented an unsightly appearance. 
 The inhabitants of Dummerston and Putney were dissatisfied with paying 
 tolls every time they came to this village,^ and they, through' one Dix, 
 petitioned for the laying of a public highway across said bridge, and the 
 case, involving thfe constitutionality of the law, went to the Supreme Court 
 and was argued by Judge Samuel Phelps and Daniel Webster, with the 
 result that the bridge was made free in 1848, — ^the town of Brattleboro 
 paying therefor the sum of $4000. This is an old notice : 
 
 WEST RIVER BRIDGE 
 
 Toll-free until the First day of January, 1848, on your family domestic 
 concerns. You are not to carry or do any business for any person that has 
 not a Ticket to pass said Bridge, so as to hinder them from paying Toll, 
 directly or indirectly, upon the forfeiture of your Ticket. You are to open 
 and shut the gate for yourselves. 1847. 
 
 John Bemis Toll Gath. 
 
 Of the bridges across the Connecticut River, the "little bridge" over 
 "the creek" was carried away in the winter of 1834-1825. In 1831 both 
 bridges were rebuilt by Captain Isaac Damon; $6300 was paid for the 
 main bridge, $1500 for the smaller one, the committee to superintend the 
 
 1 The little red house near the present bridge was the tollhouse. 
 
378 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 erection of these bridges being Mrs. Mary Chapin, Francis Goodhue and 
 Henry Clark. In 1843 the Httle bridge was swept away by freshet. In 
 1844 there was a new bridge, built by Henry Reed and Charles Liscum, 
 under a committee consisting of Charles Chapin, Joseph Goodhue and 
 John H. Wheeler. February 19, 1857, the main bridge was swept away, 
 and rebuilt by Dexter Morse of Newfane at a cost of $6000. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 NEWSPAPERS 
 
 Newspapers — American Yeoman — Simon Ide, 1817 — Brattleboro Messenger, 1822— 
 Windham County Democrat — George W. and Clarissa I. H. Nichols, 1836. 
 
 The American Yeqman 
 
 Simeon Ide had worked as pressman on Webster's Spelling Book 
 the greater part of the year 1813, for William Fessenden. In 1816 he had 
 printed "the first new Ipswich (New Hampshire) edition" of the New 
 Testament, in his father's blacksmith shop in that town; but the work 
 proved unremunerative, and after having disposed of most of the edition 
 to pay his debts, he found himself possessed of a good Ramage press, a 
 font or two of type, and a few other necessary utensils of the trade, and 
 he resolved upon publishing a newspaper. Failing to find the necessary 
 encouragement at Keene, he next turned to Brattleboro, and issued the 
 first number of The Yeoman, February 5, 1817. 
 
 Honorable John Phelps, Honorable James Elliot, Honorable Royall 
 Tyler, Doctor Allen, Doctor J. P. Warren and other men of some note, 
 were occasional contributors to the columns of The Yeoman. A circula- 
 tion of three hundred copies was insufficient, however, to satisfy Mr. Ide's 
 ambition, and at the end of one year he removed to Windsor, Vermont, 
 and united his paper with The Vermont Republican, in the office of which 
 he had commenced his apprenticeship in the fall of 1809. 
 
 The Windham County Democrat 
 
 (The Brattleborough Messenger) 
 
 (Edited by George W. and Clarissa I. H. Nichols) 
 
 In 1833 The Brattleborough Messenger, a Whig paper, was started by 
 Alexander G. Putnam, a printer who learned the trade at Windsor. 
 George W. Nichols purchased The Messenger in 1826, and continued it 
 until it was merged into The Vermont Phoenix^ in 1834, which was "purely 
 Whig and wholly anti- Jackson." Mr. Nichols was a Democrat. After 
 two years' connection with The Phoenix, he sold out, and soon purchased 
 
 1 See p. 419. 
 
380 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 The Windham County Democrat, which was started in 1836 by an asso- 
 ciation o.f Democrats and run for one year under the editorial manage- 
 ment of Mr. Joseph Steen. 
 
 George W. Nichols was born in Stowe, Vermont, in 1783, and learned 
 the printer's trade at Walpole, New Hampshire. He came to Brattleboro 
 to be foreman on The Reporter, and married a sister of William Fessen- 
 den. By this marriage there was a son, George W. Nichols, Junior. 
 March 6, 1843. Mr. Nichols married, second, Mrs. Clarissa I. Howard 
 Carpenter of Townshend, Vermont, and she was for some years the real 
 and accredited editor of the paper. Under her administration The Demo- 
 crat became one of the eariiest champions of woman's rights in the coun- 
 try, and took a prominent position among the newspapers of the state. 
 The paper was discontinued in 1853. In the spring of 1855 Mr. Nichols 
 removed with his family to Kansas, where he died August 39, aged 
 seventy-three. Mrs. Clarissa I. Howard Nichols was born January 25, 
 1810, in Townshend, Windham County, Vermont, the daughter of Chapin 
 Howard of that town. She was one of th^ earliest and ablest women who, 
 with tongue and pen, championed the rights of her sex. No woman in so 
 many varied fields of action more steadily and faithfully labored as editor, 
 speaker and teacher in Vermont, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, 
 Kansas and California. It was while editing The Windham County 
 Democrat, as early as 1847, she began in Vermont her plea for woman's 
 educational, industrial and political rights, speaking in public. The next 
 year she was instrumental in securing the passage of the first bill in the 
 Vermont Legislature that recognized the civil existence of women. Mrs. 
 Nichols and her daughter, in bloomers made of buff calico, walked the 
 streets of Brattleboro to the amazement of the natives until their depar- 
 ture for Kansas, where she served one term as recording clerk of the 
 State Legislature. 
 
 In Kansas she plead for : 
 
 First — Equal educational privileges in all the colleges and institutions 
 of learning fostered and controlled by the state. 
 
 Second — Equal rights in the formation and conduct of the schools. 
 
 Third — An equal right for the mothers, with the fathers, to the custody 
 and control of their mutual offspring. 
 
 Fourth — The right of the wife to hold and accumulate property and sue 
 and be sued, as if sole. 
 
 The first, second and third provisions were adopted in advance of all 
 other states, and the fourth secured a broader margin of property rights 
 to wives and widows than was for years enjoyed by the women of any 
 other state except Louisiana. 
 
 The Brattleborough Emigrant Aid Society was formed at the time of 
 
NEWSPAPERS 381 
 
 the movement towards Kansas, which was instigated by Mrs. C. I. H. 
 Nichols in 1855. Reverend Addison Brown was president; Doctor O. R. 
 Post, vice-president and treasurer; R. W. Clarke, E. E. White, etc., 
 directors. 
 
 Mrs. Nichols with her husband, son and five others from Brattleboro 
 and many more from the surrounding towns, started for Kansas March 
 24) 1855, the second train sent out by the Emigrant Aid Society. She 
 moved to Pomo in Potter Valley, Mendocino County, California, in 1871, 
 and died there January 11, 1885. 
 
 She had two children by a first marriage to Carpenter. 
 
 Children by her second marriage were: 
 
 Mary, . married Herrick. They had six daughters and two sons. 
 
 She died in 1908. 
 
 Julia M., married January 26, 1864, Charles Robertson of Boston. 
 
 Eliza, died in 1894, aged seventy-four. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 PRIVATE SCHOOLS 
 
 Private Schools— Miss Rebecca Peck— Mr. Edward Sanborn— Miss Melendy— Mrs. 
 Carpenter — Miss Kimball — Miss Amelia S. Tyler. 
 
 Miss Amelia S. Tyler 
 
 Private or "select" schools made their appearance as early as 1823, when 
 Miss E. Whitcomb opened a boarding school for young ladies "in the 
 pleasant Mansion-House of the Honorable Gilbert Denison^ in West Brat- 
 tleborough." She had as assistants two young ladies "amply qualified." 
 
 Miss Rebecca Peck's School on the corner southwest of the Common in 
 the East Village in 1823 was under the patronage of Mrs. Boott, which 
 was a guarantee of the qualifications of Miss Peck as principal. 
 
 A private school for boys — the number of pupils limited to twenty — 
 was conducted by Mr. Edward Sanborn from 1838. Other schools were 
 opened, one by Miss Melendy in Ashbel Dickinson's building in 1837, by 
 Mrs. Carpenter in the Dickinson building in 1838, and by Miss Kimball 
 the same year. Of few years' duration, they doubtless accomplished their 
 purpose of beginning and "finishing" the youth under instruction. 
 
 But it was Miss Amelia S. Tyler who started a school in her father's 
 house- October 1, 1826, when she was but twenty years of age, which 
 continued through various changes for fifty years, or until her death in 
 1878 ; in the beginning, a school for girls, in other years a "home school 
 for boys," and, finally, for boys and girls. Brothers, nephews and cousins 
 of her family were prepared for college under her inspiration and instruc- 
 tion, and three generations of children from the best families in this town 
 and a large number from remote towns and cities were among her pupils. 
 
 A circular of the school in the third year of its existence reads : 
 
 MISS A. S. TYLER 
 
 will reopen her school in this 
 
 Village on Monday, Dec. 28. 
 
 Terms — For the usual branches of an English education. 
 
 And including rhetoric, Composition, Grammar, 
 
 1 Son of Captain David Denison of Leyden, Massachusetts, and probate judge for 
 the District of Marlboro in 1809. 
 
PRIVATE SCHOOLS 383 
 
 Natural Philosophy, Geography and Astronomy, with 
 
 the Globes,^ Algebra, Geometry, etc., together with plain 
 
 and ornamental needlework, — $4.00. 
 
 For the French, and Latin language, 
 
 or drawing, — ^$5.00. 
 
 An Instructor in Music will be 
 
 engaged if sufficient encouragement 
 
 is offered. 
 
 Mrs. Tyler will take a few young ladies 
 
 to board in her family. 
 
 For board, including washing, — $1.75. 
 
 For board only, — $1.50. 
 
 Brattleborough, Nov. 4, 1829. 
 
 The daughter of Chief Justice and Mrs. Royall Tyler, she inherited the 
 mentality of both parents. In addition to the influences of a home in 
 which history and literature were daily companions, as was the best 
 thought of the day, she had the advantages of education in a noted school 
 of Salem, Massachusetts, where her cousins, Elizabeth Peabody, the 
 famous kindergartner, the Pickmans and the Nathaniel Hawthornes were 
 living, who made much of the charming and promising girl, thereby aiding 
 in the development of her mind and character. 
 
 And she was a born teacher. But the teacher was not made at the 
 expense of the girl and woman. Full of exuberant vitality, she passed 
 through dancing days that seemed to her mother to go beyond the bounds 
 of "rational amusement," into the poise and power of a rich and balanced 
 nature — for power she had, to reveal the intellect of youth to youth itself 
 and to guide that intellect to the culture into which she was born. 
 
 Kindergarten methods, learned directly from Elizabeth Peabody, were 
 applied in the instruction of the younger children, but English and the 
 languages were her own particular department of the school's curriculum. 
 She was also remarkable as a teacher of mathematics, giving life to the 
 dry bones which that study was too often made under other teachers. 
 History was a very important study in the school, its interpretation being 
 based on the deep religious faith of Miss Tyler in a Creator working 
 through humanity towards more enlightenment and happiness for human- 
 ity. The Bible was studied and a thorough grounding given in the history 
 of the Church. A great deal was made of life in the open. Botany was 
 taught on long tramps across country. A two months' vacation in the 
 summer was the only break in the course, and the boarders remained over 
 
 1 The use of globes was considered essential to the study of geography, and as 
 the cost was considerable, they were one of the assets of a model school. 
 
384 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Christmas and the Fourth of July, sharing a big family tree at the house 
 of Judge C. Royall Tyler on Christmas Eve, while lessons in patriotism 
 were made effective by the celebration of Independence Day with the 
 noise and spirit that characterize our national holiday. 
 
 Miss Tyler was respected and loved in the happy home she made for 
 the boys, while she never failed in her duty as a strict disciplinarian. Her 
 favorite punishment for boys was to send them to bed for a day, which 
 was more severe on their active, rebellious feelings than any short-lived 
 chastisement by the rod could be. And she did not spare the rod. 
 
 One of her most discerning boys has said that of all the teachers he had 
 studied under, in school and at Harvard, she was the best, the one who 
 made him wish to study and who gave him a permanent joy in the life 
 of the intellect. 
 
 When the Tylers moved to their permanent home near the Common, 
 the school moved with them, and there, in a room running the length of 
 the second story in the ell, lighted by very small windows set high in the 
 walls, without any equipment beyond deal desks and benches, a table for 
 the teacher and a blackboard, the intellect and character of Miss Amelia 
 Tyler's pupils were given stimulus for lifelong tasks. 
 
 In 1867 the widow of Edward R. Tyler and her daughter, Elizabeth 
 Billings, came to assist Miss Amelia in her increasing task, and remained 
 as important factors in the welfare of the school. 
 
 Below the window placed to her memory in St. Michael's Episcopal 
 Church is the following inscription : 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 by a grateful pupil 
 
 to Amelia Sophia Tyler, 
 
 Teacher of Three Generations. 
 
 Vivit post funera virtus. 
 
 A nation is rising whilst 
 
 its women are wise and virtuous, 
 
 for good women are God's modelers 
 
 of its heroes. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 THE UNIVERSALIST CHURCH 
 
 Universalist Church — Names and record of pioneer preachers — Settled pastors — 
 Ladies' Circle. 
 
 Reverend Hosea Ballou, who was born in Guilford, preached his 
 second sermon in this place, in 1791. He was then in his twenty-first year. 
 He says: "The second time I attempted to preach was in the town of 
 Brattleboro, Vt., where my brother preached in the daytime and I under- 
 took to speak in the evening, being overpersuaded to do so; but this 
 attempt was a failure, and I was greatly mortified and thought for a time 
 that I would not engage in a work for which I was not competent." The 
 brother referred to was David Ballou, considerably older than Hosea, 
 and the father of Reverend Moses Ballou of Philadelphia. Among the 
 auditors of Father Ballou on the occasion mentioned above were, prob- 
 ably. Colonel Daniel Stewart, Levi Goodenough and Reuben Stearns; at 
 least, these men were pronounced Universalists at that time. Colonel 
 Stewart was always a Universalist. If so, the doctrine of the final 
 restitution of all things was believed here as early as 1780. 
 
 Hosea Ballou, 3d, preached some of his first sermons in Brattleboro. 
 It is believed that he preached at the residence of Levi Goodenough in his 
 eighteenth year — 1814. He certainly preached there not later than 1816- 
 1817.^ Between this date and 1829, there was occasional Universalist 
 preaching in schoolhouses or private residences by Reverends John 
 Brooks, Thomas J. Sawyer, William A. Balch, Russell Streeter and Isaiah 
 Boynton. In December, 1829, Reverend Matthew Hale Smith, then only 
 a boy of eighteen, was settled over a society in the West Village. He 
 preached half the time there and the other half in Guilford. Meetings 
 were then held in the Town Hall. Mr. Smith continued his pastorate in 
 Brattleboro till 1832, a successful one so far as indicated by outward 
 results. He was popular and his congregation was always large. 
 
 He was succeeded by Reverend Aurin Bugbee. The old church in 
 
 1 Hosea Ballou, 2d (bom in Halifax, Vermont), was the author of "The Ancient 
 History of Universalisra from the Time of the Apostles to the Condemnation in the 
 Fifth General Council, A. D. 533, with an Appendix tracing the Doctrine down to 
 the Era of the Reformation." 
 
386 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 West Brattleboro was owned in considerable part by Universalists. They 
 asked for the privilege of using it occasionally a Sunday, but their request 
 was absolutely refused. Thereupon they went to church early Sunday 
 morning, November 24, 1833, forced open the door and took possession 
 of the house. Meantime, two clergymen, Reveriends F. Loring of Hins- 
 dale, New Hampshire, and Warren Skinner of Proctorsville, had been 
 engaged to conduct the religious services during the day. Mr. Loring 
 began his service at nine in the morning and continued until half past 
 ten, when Mr. Skinner took the pulpit.- At this time the other party 
 with their members, one of them the principal of the Academy, came in a 
 body to the church, entered the vestibule and demanded admittance to the 
 auditorium, the doors of which were all closed, long seats filled with men 
 being placed against them. They requested the Universalists in the vesti- 
 bule to call out their committee for consultation ; but they answered that 
 they should not interrupt the services, which had then begun. Next the 
 Congregationalists proposed to overpower the Universalists in the entry, 
 rush into the church and expel Mr. Skinner by force from the pulpit, and 
 take possession themselves. But Judge Clark advised them that by this 
 course they would all render themselves liable to indictment and heavy 
 fines as disturbers of a religious meeting. The academy bell was then 
 rung and they departed in a body to that place and held their meeting, 
 leaving the Universalists in undisputed possession of the church for the 
 rest of the day. However, at the close of Mr. Skinner's service, at twelve 
 o'clock, Mr. Loring began his second service for the day, and at its con- 
 clusion, at half-past one o'clock, Mr. Skinner took the desk and occupied 
 it till three o'clock. As a result of this contest, after some months the 
 Universalists sold their interest in the church to the other owners and in 
 1834 built the brick church now standing in the West Village. Meantime 
 their meetings were held in Stewart Hall. 
 
 The brick church was dedicated the first of January, 1835. Imme- 
 diately after the dedication of the church, Reverend Charles Wood- 
 house assumed the pastorate of the society and continued it two 
 or three years. He was succeeded, about 1838, by Reverend Abraham 
 Page, whose ministry extended only through one year. Reverend J. W. 
 Bailey preached here from 1841 to 1843. An incident occurred during 
 this period which made a deep impression upon his audience. One Sun- 
 day while he was preaching, a pure white dove came into the church, 
 through an open window, perched upon the stovepipe, where it re- 
 mained a moment, flew directly over the minister's head, poising there 
 awhile, and then passed out of the window through which it entered. 
 The speaker was moved by this incident, so rniich resembling the descent 
 of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus, and drew from it encouragement and ap- 
 
THE UNIVERSALIST CHURCH 387 
 
 proval of his words and work. Reverend W. S. Ballou was pastor of 
 the society in 1844-1845. He was succeeded" in 1847 by Reverend John 
 S. Lee. The Melrose Seminary, of which Mr. Lee was head, was estab- 
 Hshed at West Brattleboro at this time. Mr. Lee was followed in the 
 parish by Reverend W. S. Ballou, whose second pastorate extended 
 through two years. Reverend Edwin Davis preached part of the time 
 during 1851-1852; Reverend W. Wilcox part of the time during 1853- 
 1854. The society's last settled pastor was Reverend Maxey B. Newell, 
 who supplied them half the time in 1858-1859. 
 
 The society was organized January 10, 1834. Among the signers of 
 the first constitution were Phineas Stewart, Samuel Earle, Junior, Jere- 
 miah Beals, Emory Stearns, John Cutting, Robert Windsor Frazier, Ros- 
 well and Alonzo Goodenough, John Mixer and Rufus Pratt. 
 
 Universalist meetings were held in Wheeler's Hall in the East Village 
 as early as 1835, Reverend Charles Woodhouse being the preacher; but 
 it was not till May 24, 1843, that the present society was organized. 
 Among the original members were William H. Esterbrook, September 17, 
 1843, G. W. Goodrich, John W. Frost, Sabrina P. Miller, Doctor Reuben 
 Spaulding, A. J. Hines, J. H. Esterbrook, Alfred Simonds, O. J. Martin, 
 Orin Starkey, Luther Weld, Harvey Houghton, John B. Miller and 
 Sewall Morse. The first meeting-house owned by the society was a 
 chapel located on the corner of Canal and Clark Streets, where the Alex- 
 anders lived, which was purchased by the Millerites in May, 1843. It was 
 built and occupied for many years by the Methodists. 
 
 The first settled pastor of the society was Reverend L. J. Fletcher, who 
 began his ministry in the early part of 1844 and remained until 1846. 
 He was succeeded in July, 1846, by Reverend John H. Willis, who 
 remained here only one year. Reverend C. R. Moor assumed the pas- 
 torate of the society early in January, 1848, this being his first pastorate ; 
 he preached at the old chapel and boarded with Colonel Arnold J. Hines ; 
 on account of ill health he closed his connection with the society in Feb- 
 ruary, 1852. The present Universalist Church was built during his settle- 
 ment here. It was erected in 1850 and dedicated in February, 1851. He 
 held some of the best pastorates in New England, was a trustee of Tufts 
 College and one of the editors of The Gospel Banner, the denominational 
 organ. Reverend H. P. Cutting was settled over the society in May, 1852, 
 and remained one year. He was followed, June, 1853, by Reverend 
 George H. Deere, whose pastorate extended through seven years. During 
 his ministry the church was repainted in 1857, and through his exertions 
 $500 was raised in 1858 for Tufts College. Reverend E. Smiley began 
 his labors with the society the first of January, 1861, and closed them the 
 same year. He was succeeded early in 1862 by Reverend W. T. Stowe, 
 
388 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 whose pastorate extended to July, 1864. Reverend M. R. Leonard sup- 
 plied the desk through the winter of 1864-1865. Reverend James East- 
 wood was called to the pastorate of this parish September 15, 1865, and 
 resigned January 3, 1870. Reverend M. H. Harris was settled July 1, 
 1870. During the nine years of Mr. Harris's pastorate — until October, 
 1879 — ^this parish grew to be among the largest and strongest in the village, 
 and the largest Universalist parish in the state. In 1871 the church edifice 
 was enlarged and remodeled. The church organization was reorganized 
 September 14, 1843. Other parishes held by Reverend Mr. Harris were 
 in Worcester and Chicago. 
 
 Later pastors here have been: Reverend E. W. Whitney, 1880-1887; 
 Reverend T. W. Illman, 1887-1889 ; Reverend F. W. Sprague, 1889-1893 ; 
 Reverend Hal D. Maxwell, March 30, 1894.^ 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart Barrett were prominently connected with this 
 church for forty years or more, and most of the time he was the church 
 sexton. He rang the bell for church, fires and deaths during this period, 
 though under the new order of things fires and deaths are no longer an- 
 nounced from the church towers ; but it took some time for the faithful 
 sexton to reconcile himself to the change. 
 
 The Ladies' Circle of the church has given a succession of annual fairs 
 from about 1850, which have been perhaps more largely attended than 
 those of any other church society. 
 
 1 Reverend R, K. Marvin was installed September 22, 1899; Reverend F. L. 
 Masseck served from May, 1905, to December, 1906; Reverend Delmar E. Trout 
 was installed July, 1907. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI 
 THE UNITARIAN CHURCH 
 
 Unitarian Church — Names of those dismissed from Congregational Church, October 
 9, 1835 — Reverend Addison Brown — Mrs. Brown — Pastors — Frame Circle — 
 Women's Alliance. The Village Lyceum. 
 
 In 1818 Reverend William Wells, pastor of the Congregational Church 
 for twenty years (then in the seventy-fifth year of his age), went back to 
 England, where he spent a year with his eldest daughter, Mrs. Freme. 
 During this interval a dispute arose among his parishioners about various 
 matters of doctrinal opinion, which resulted finally in the calling of a new 
 minister of a more rigid type, the Reverend Jonathan McGee, to succeed 
 Mr. Wells. This was naturally a source of grief, not only to Mr. Wells 
 on his return, but to a number in the society who disliked this reversal to 
 a stricter and narrower exposition of theological belief. After the death 
 of Mr. Wells, in 1827, the feeling became so intensified that measures 
 began to be taken to establish a second Congregational society in the 
 village, which should embrace those who were in sympathy with the ideas 
 of Unitarianism, now being advanced so freely in many of the New Eng- 
 land churches, especially in those in the neighborhood of Boston and up 
 and down the Massachusetts coast. 
 
 The American Unitarian Association was established in Boston in 1835, 
 and Reverend Edmund Quincy Sewall, while employed in missionary 
 work by this body, was sent to Brattleboro in March or April of 1830 to 
 help found this church. In a letter dated at Rochester, New York, May 
 18 of that year, he writes (quite naively perhaps), "I had a very pleasant 
 month in Brattleborough and left an impression very favorable to myself 
 and to my doctrine." Within a few months of Mr. Sewall's visit (which 
 was doubtless supplemented by the earnest service of other Unitarian 
 clergymen sent on the same errand) the society was formally brought into 
 being. On April 5, 1831, Samuel Root, Paul Chase, Gardner C. Hall, 
 John R. Blake, Charles Chapin, J. D. Bradley and George Newman, with 
 others holding the same views, came together and entered into the follow- 
 ing agreement: 
 
 We, the subscribers, do hereby voluntarily associate and agree to form 
 a religious society by the name of The Brattleborough Unitarian Congi'e- 
 
390 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 gational Society for the purpose of building a meeting house, and settling 
 and supporting a minister. 
 
 At this first meeting Honorable Lemuel Whitney was chosen modera- 
 tor ; Samuel Allen, clerk ; John R. Blake, treasurer, and Gardner C. Hall, 
 Charles Chapin and John R. Blake, a prudential committee. Francis 
 Goodhue, Gardner C. Hall and Elihu N. Thomas were chosen a building 
 committee. Samuel Allen, Jonathan D. Bradley and Charles Chapin were 
 chosen a committee to report a code of by-laws. At a meeting held April 
 11 it was voted to add Paul Chase and Samuel Root to the building com- 
 mittee. On the following day, April 12, a contract was entered into by 
 this committee and Messrs. Howard & Emerson of Swanzey, New Hamp- 
 shire, builders, for the erection of this place of worship. The amount to 
 be expended was $1500, this to cover the erection of a wooden meeting- 
 house with its end to the street, fifty-four feet long by forty-two in width, 
 furnished with a pulpit, galleries and bell tower, the same to be com- 
 pleted by the first day of December of the current year (1831). The lot 
 on which it stood is practically the same on which the present church 
 stands, and was presented to the society by Francis Goodhue. The church 
 was dedicated February 33, 1833, Reverend George W. Hosmer of North- 
 field, Massachusetts, preaching the sermon. On the Sunday succeeding 
 the dedication, Addison Brown, who had been preaching several months 
 at Troy, New York, where he had organized a liberal church, commenced 
 supplying the pulpit as a candidate, and at the expiration of three months 
 received and accepted an invitation to become the minister of the society, 
 with an annual salary of $600. His ordination took place June 14, among 
 those taking part in the service being Doctor Hill of Worcester, Doctor 
 Kendall of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Doctor Abbott of Peterboro, 
 New Hampshire. On the same day. Reverend Nathaniel Thayer, D.D., 
 of Lancaster, Massachusetts, and other clergymen being present, the fol- 
 lowing persons, Eben Wells, Mary Wells, Samuel A. Allen, Maria Allen, 
 Lemuel Whitney, Sophia Whitney, S. D. Chapin, Eliza Hyde and Eunice 
 Metcalf, united themselves into a church, adopting and subscribing the 
 same covenant which had been used under the ministry of Doctor Wells 
 and Mr. McGee. Mr. Brown's pastorate extended until October, 1845, a 
 period of nearly fourteen years, and during that time he was active in 
 every good work, whether relating to the parish over which he was minis- 
 ter or to the community at large, in whose service he always took rare 
 delight. 
 
 A society for the men in the parish was formed during his pastorate, 
 also one for the women, both organizations meeting apparently for the 
 deepening of the soul life within as much as for charitable and other 
 
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH 391 
 
 work. The Sunday school was estabHshed immediately upon Mr. Brown's 
 entrance upon his charge, as well as a church organization with frequent 
 services of communion. The silver used on these occasions was the gift 
 of Mrs. Freme, who by this time had given up her English home and was 
 now a resident of Brattleboro, and a strongly interested member of the 
 Unitarian society. The congregation during these early years numbered 
 from one hundred and ten to one hundred and fifty. Families of the 
 Universalist faith worshiped with their Unitarian brethren until the estab- 
 lishment of their own church in the village. Among the prominent family 
 names at this period are Blake, Bliss and Bradley; Chase, Clark and 
 Chapin ; Dickinson, Frost and Hall ; Higginson, Hunt and Hyde ; Law- 
 rence, Newman and Pratt; Root, Ryther and Seymour; Wells, Whitney 
 and White. 
 
 Mr. Brown's pastorate of fourteen years terminated in October, 1845, 
 but during the succeeding period of the same length no less than four 
 ministers labored, one after another, in connection with this society. 
 Apparently a year and a half passed by, with only supplies from Sunday 
 to Sunday, before Farrington Mclntyre, a student at the Cambridge 
 Divinity School, received and accepted a call to take the place left vacant 
 by Mr. Brown's resignation. He was ordained April 15, 1847, yet for 
 some reason his pastorate ended within the same year. The year previous 
 to his settlement, however, a small pipe organ, costing $550 (known as 
 the Salem organ), had been purchased by the society to take the place 
 of the bass viol of former days, so that the Sunday services, during his 
 brief ministry, were enriched to this extent. Mr. Mclntyre was followed 
 in 1848 by the Reverend Mellish I. Motte, whose pastorate extended only 
 to the following year, therefore does not stand out with much vividness 
 in the annals of the church. Nevertheless, he was the minister at the 
 time of Mrs. Freme's tragic death in May, 1849, when her house was 
 destroyed by fire, and his address at her funeral service has been pre- 
 served in print. The name of this excellent lady has likewise been kept 
 green through the honorable record of the Freme Circle, which came 
 into existence the summer of this same year (1849) for the purpose of 
 raising money to replace the silver communion service that was lost in the 
 fire, together with its guardian. 
 
 From 1849 to 1853 there seems to have been no minister regularly 
 settled over the parish, though, doubtless, its work went on, in a steady, 
 unobtrusive fashion, contributing constantly to the well-being of its mem- 
 bers and of the larger household without. 
 
 Finally, in the summer of 1853, Reverend Solon W. Bush, then settled 
 in Burlington in this state, was asked to become the minister of the parish 
 and, after some deliberation, accepted the invitation. He was the pastor 
 
393 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 of the church for five years, and is said to have been the first occupant 
 of the parsonage that through the earnest efforts of the members of the 
 Freme Circle had now been added to the material resources of the society. 
 The quiet, devoted ministry of Mr. Bush left a legacy of affection and 
 good will behind it. 
 
 The fifth minister of the parish, following Mr. Bush in 1858, was 
 Reverend Francis C. Williams of North Andover, Massachusetts. Mr. 
 Williams was a classmate in the divinity school of William Orne White, 
 so long the faithful pastor of the Unitarian society in Keene, New Hamp- 
 shire, and of John Farwell Moore of Greenfield. An earnest and well- 
 read man, although of an impetuous nature, Mr. Williams threw himself 
 into the work allotted him until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he 
 was appointed chaplain of one of the Vermont regiments. He served in 
 this capacity from December, 1861, to June, 1864, severing meanwhile 
 his connection with the society to whose needs he was no longer able to 
 minister. This separation occurred in 1862, and two years later (in 1864) 
 Reverend Frederick Frothingham was called to the vacant pastorate, the 
 duties of which he performed most acceptably until 1867, a term of three 
 years, or until shortly before he entered upon his ministry in Buffalo, 
 New York. In many respects Mr. Frothingham was a man of unique 
 personality and his sermons are reported as being original in their outlook 
 upon life, and full of reserve power. 
 
 Then followed an interregnum of four years when the pulpit was 
 maintained by temporary supplies, and all parish work, requiring the ser- 
 vices of a minister, was performed either by pastors of churches within 
 the town, or by such as might be called in from a greater distance. The 
 name of only one minister has been reported, that of a Mr. Richardson, 
 a friend of Mr. Frothingham, who (though not formally settled) preached 
 here for nearly a year, giving general satisfaction. 
 
 On June 1, 1871, Reverend William Lincoln Jenkins was settled over 
 the society as its seventh pastor, his ministry extending until April 1, 
 1879, being next in length to that of Mr. Brown and of unwonted interest 
 to the people under his care. It was during his pastorate that steps were 
 taken to replace the old meeting-house by the substantial edifice of, stone 
 of today. Mr. Jenkins labored most assiduously to bring about this 
 object, seconded by the hearty and self-sacrificing efforts of his parish- 
 ioners, young and old, and by the year 1874 preparations were begun for 
 the erection of the new building. Leavitt R. Sargent, Richards Bradley 
 and George H. Clark served as a building committee, and the new church, 
 with its many memorials to the departed who had done good service in 
 days gone by, was dedicated October 13, 1875. Four years afterwards 
 Mr. Jenkins's pastorate came to a close, and he was succeeded during 
 
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH 393 
 
 the same year by Reverend John B. Green, who came hither from Mont- 
 real, where he had been officiating as pastor of the Unitarian Church. 
 
 Mr. Green served this parish as minister from 1879 to 1882, fully three 
 years. He took great interest in the communion service while here, and 
 did all he could to enlarge the number of communicants. The more formal 
 statement of religious belief, handed down from the ministry of Mr. 
 Wells and Mr. Brown, he changed and simplified; although perhaps the 
 best, as well as the most concise, utterance of this nature is to be found 
 in the present Bond of Union, namely, "In the freedom of truth, and in 
 the spirit of Jesus Christ, we unite for the worship of God and the service 
 of man." 
 
 Reverend Samuel McChord Crothers succeeded Mr. Green, his ministry 
 beginning October 18, 1883, and ending October 5, 1886. Mr. Crothers 
 was originally a preacher of another faith, and his pastorate in the Brat- 
 tleboro church was the first under Unitarian auspices. His four years 
 of unpretending usefulness speak for themselves, and proved but the 
 stepping-stone to a larger and higher place in the profession to which he is 
 so warmly attached. Two years passed away before the society had 
 another settled minister. But in this interval, as at other periods when the 
 emergency has arisen, the services in the church were conducted by lay- 
 men, often for weeks at a time, and the names of Miles (Colonel Charles 
 A.), Chapin and Draper (Doctor Joseph) — among others — call to mind 
 hours as full of devotion and of earnest, thoughtfully prepared speech, as 
 any this place of worship has ever known. 
 
 In the year 1888 Reverend Frank L. Phalen was called to the vacant 
 pastorate and served as minister until his acceptance of an invitation 
 to Concord, New Hampshire, in 1893. Formerly of a different religious 
 connection, he was filled with enthusiasm while presenting his new mes- 
 sage. His desire to spread more widely abroad the liberal faith, led him 
 to speak in outlying hamlets, while he proved his. willingness to labor 
 for the common good of the community by taking a place on the pruden- 
 tial committee in charge of the public schools. The number of worshipers 
 in the church increased during his ministry. 
 
 The eleventh pastor was E. Bradford Leavitt, who, graduating from 
 the Divinity School in Cambridge in June, 1893, was at once invited to 
 become the minister, acting in that capacity from July 6 of that year until 
 December 31, 1896. Youthful, brilliant, with. a mind trained by keen 
 scientific observation, his message could not have failed to claim the atten- 
 tion of his hearers. During his ministry (to be exact, October 29, 1894), 
 the Brattleboro branch of the Women's Alliance was formed, with Mrs. 
 Charles Warder as president, Miss Stella P. Dalton, secretary, and Mrs. 
 C. M. C. Richardson, treasurer. This organization has gone on with its 
 
394 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 quiet, efficient work ever since, supplementing in many ways the long- 
 continued labors of the older society, the Freme Circle. 
 
 Reverend Edmund Q. S. Osgood preached for the first time February 
 21, 1897 ; in July he accepted a call to become the minister ; and on October 
 6 he was formally installed,, the sermon being preached by Mr. Crothers 
 and the address to the people being given by Mr. Phalen, two of his 
 predecessors in the pulpit. 
 
 Reverend Addison Brown 
 
 Reverend Addison Brown was born at New Ipswich, New Hampshire, 
 March 11, 1799, the last year of the eighteenth century; his education, 
 life and spirit were emphatically of, and kept pace with, the nineteenth. 
 His collegiate and theological education were furnished by Harvard Col- 
 lege and the Cambridge Theological School. A graduate of the class of 
 1836, and of the class of 1831 from the theological school, he became 
 minister of the newly established Unitarian Church of this village in 1833. 
 As its first minister, he continued in its pastorate nearly fourteen years, 
 and on dissolving his official connection remained, with brief interrup- 
 tions, until his death, one of its most devoted members. 
 
 His connection with the Brattleboro Unitarian Church terminated De- 
 cember 1, 1845. Though continuing to preach as occasion offered during 
 the greater part of the remainder of his life, Mr. Brown formed no new 
 pastoral connection. With the deepest interest in the advancement of the 
 general good, which he always held to be the great aim of the church and 
 the ministry, he turned his attention to other methods of promoting it. 
 The cause of education especially interested him. To it he gave increas- 
 ingly his thought and energies. The condition of the public schools in this 
 region excited his deepest concern. He saw they were far behind what 
 the public need and the possibilities of the case required; he sought to 
 remodel the schools on a higher and more effective plan, and he aimed to 
 bring a more direct relation between the parents of the pupils and the 
 teachers and schools entrusted with their education. In 1841 he had the 
 gratification of seeing a response to his efforts, in the introduction into 
 the schools of the graded system. He labored to the end of his public 
 life to deepen the sense of responsibility in the public mind for the effi- 
 ciency of the schools. He held office as superintendent of the schools in 
 Windham County from 1846 until that office was abolished, after which, 
 for several years, he acted as superintendent of the schools of the town 
 of Brattleboro. He also conducted a Boarding and Day School for Young 
 Ladies in his home. (See p. 660.), 
 
 With the press he became connected in 1863, when Doctor Charles 
 Cummings, summoned from the editorial chair to the battlefield, relin- 
 
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH 395 
 
 quished the charge of The Vermont Phoenix. Mr. Brown became editor 
 and one of the proprietors, which post he held until March, 1871, when 
 failing health compelled his retirement. Loyally, in the bitter days of the 
 Civil War, he stood by the flag of the Union ; that he ceaselessly identified, 
 and toiled to induce others to identify, the fortunes and significance of 
 that flag with the broadest and most generous ideas of liberty and the 
 rights of man, his works attest. He realized the importance of his post 
 as editor of a newspaper, and sought, in every way that opened before 
 him, to make the journal in his control powerful for good. 
 
 With a special interest he advocated the cause of woman's elevation. 
 He set no bounds to his claims of right for her. To her largest aspira- 
 tions he lent a faithful, helping voice. Not alone her pleading for a 
 higher education, not alone her assertion of right and opportunity to labor 
 in other spheres than those heretofore at her command, not alone her 
 right to the possession and use of her earnings, but, besides and beyond, 
 her right to enter on every sphere to which she felt a divine call, a native 
 fitness, and to the enjoyment of full political rights, found in him a 
 devoted, and, so far as was possible to a mind so finely balanced and so 
 judicial as his, an enthusiastic advocate. Indeed, wherever oppression 
 was, there was he to be found exposing and withstanding it. In the days 
 when slavery's night brooded over the land, he stood one of the lights of 
 liberty that prophesied the coming of the dawn. And the slavery of 
 strong drink found no more steadfast enemy than he. In his own person, 
 in his home, in all his public teaching and writing, he was the advocate 
 and the exemplar of temperance. 
 
 His life was devoted chiefly to others' good. He believed in personal 
 righteousness rather than in profession of piety. To do justly, love mercy 
 and walk humbly with God, formed his great aim. 
 
 He married December 13, 1833, Miss Ann E. Wetherbee of New 
 Ipswich. He died in May, 1872. 
 
 Mrs. Brown was born in Boston August 36, 1807, the daughter of 
 Abijah and Betsey Wilder Wetherbee. Her grandfather, Paul Wetherbee, 
 was a minuteman of the Revolution, and her great-great-grandfather, 
 Joseph Wilder, was a judge of the Massachusetts courts. In her early 
 childhood the Wetherbee and Wilder families moved to New Ipswich, 
 New Hampshire, where they and their descendants built up the neighbor- 
 hood known as Wilder Village. Mrs. Brown grew up in New Ipswich, 
 receiving her education in the district school, attending afterwards New 
 Ipswich Academy and private schools in Keene, New Hampshire, and 
 Groton, Massachusetts. She taught in a private school in Fitchburg, 
 Massachusetts, and in the common schools in New Ipswich. 
 
 Her marriage to Mr. Brown took place at her father's house in New 
 
396 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Ipswich, and was solemnized by Reverend Abiel Abbott of Peterboro, one 
 of the early ministers of the Unitarian denomination. The next day, De- 
 cember 14, they drove to Brattleboro by way of Keene and Chesterfield, 
 and it is a record of the time that the weather was then mild and pleasant 
 and there was no snow on the ground. 
 
 Mrs. Brown's long life was one of ceaseless activity and of constant 
 devotion to her family and friends. Until past her eightieth year she did 
 her household work and had charge of all her affairs. To the last her 
 mind was clear and she retained her interest in all the intellectual pur- 
 suits which had been the great source of enjoyment of her whole life. 
 There has probably been no person in Brattleboro who read so constantly 
 all of the world's best literature, all current literature worth the while, 
 and kept so fully in touch with the whole trend of modern thought — in 
 religion and theology, in politics, in science, in history, and on all social 
 questions — as did Mrs. Brown. She was especially versed in astronomy 
 and was an expert botanist, possessing an innate gladness in the wild 
 flowers, the birds and all free outdoor life. She was an accomplished 
 linguist, reading with ease in Latin, German and French. She had true 
 artistic perception. In her earlier years she sketched from nature with 
 skill and taste and instructed her pupils in this art. 
 
 During the last half-dozen years of confinement to her room Mrs. 
 Brown's enjoyment of all these pursuits continued unabated and she was 
 constantly in touch with all affairs in the village and the world outside. 
 The final weakness and decline of old age came only during the summer 
 preceding her death in the autumn. Within ten days of her death she sat 
 up in bed to read the village and daily papers, and on the day of her death 
 she asked in an interval of consciousness for news of the elections and 
 expressed her pleasure that Mr. Hughes had been elected governor of 
 New York. She died November 7, 1906, aged ninety-nine years and 
 three months. 
 
 Along with her intellectual attainments and capability for affairs, Mrs. 
 Brown possessed a bright, strong, sunny nature, sweet and good to the 
 core, which made companionship with her a delight, and chased away all 
 the minor cares and worries of life. The women who were her pupils 
 fifty years before, no less than her own family and her immediate neigh- 
 bors and friends of later years, recalled all these qualities with gratitude 
 and paid to this good, true life a heartfelt tribute of thankfulness. 
 
 Mrs. Brown was born of one of the pioneer Unitarian families of New 
 England, and the joy and strength of her inner life were in the breadth 
 and freedom of that faith ; and so long as her strength permitted, she was 
 a constant attendant on the services of the Brattleboro church and a par- 
 ticipant in all its activities. 
 
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH 397 
 
 Children : 
 
 Frances Allen, born January 15, 1834; died August 27, 1871 ; a teacher, 
 assisting her father; was assistant in Colonel Charles A. Miles's School, 
 Brattleboro, and in Westside High School, Rockford, Illinois. 
 Ann Elizabeth, born June 25, 1836 ; married May 30, 1853, Christian F. 
 Schuster; died February 9, 1862. Children: • 
 Lora and Anna May, died young. 
 
 Paul F., born April 15, 1858 ; cashier of Forest City National Bank, 
 Rockford, Illinois; married April 15, 1879, Lizzie, daughter of 
 Honorable Thomas Butterworth of Rockford, bom May 3, 1859. 
 Children : Paul B., Addison B., Ann E., Margaret. 
 Elizabeth Frances, born January 6, 1861; married June 28, 1887, 
 Edward T. Twitchell, M.D.,^ born in Keene January 19, 1861, son 
 of Doctor George B. and Susan Thayer Twitchell; owing to the 
 death of her mother, she lived in Brattleboro in the Brown and 
 Higginson families until her marriage. Children: Paul Schuster 
 Twitchell; Margaret White Twitchell, married, 1911, Frederick 
 Lincoln Steele, Junior; Helen Hinds Twitchell; Roger Thayer 
 Twitchell. 
 Addison, Junior, born June 6, 1838; married February 7, 1863, in 
 Washington, District of Columbia, Florida Starr, born in Norwich, 
 Connecticut, August 3, 1842, daughter of Melancthon and Lucretia 
 Neyins Starr ; died March 3, 1865, on his way home from the Civil 
 War; a lieutenant-colonel, 5th Vermont Regiment. (See p. 781.) 
 Charles Wetherbee, born November 7, 1840, of the 2d Regiment Ver- 
 mont Volunteers; married in Rockford, Illinois, August 20, 1867> 
 Elizabeth, daughter of Melancthon and Lucretia N. Starr, who was 
 born in Tallahassee, Florida, January 5, 1846; died June 25, 1904; 
 he died November 26, 1908. They had a son and two daughters 
 living in Rockford. 
 Mary, born July 5, 1842 ; married, first, July 31, 1863, Captain Dennie 
 W. Farr, born January 7, 1840 ;^ married, second, February 7, 1867, 
 Colonel A. T. Dunton. The Duntons left Brattleboro in November, 
 1906, to live with children in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. 
 
 Colonel Augustus T. Dunton was born in Manchester, Vermont, 
 August 22, 1825, the son of Doctor Thomas Dunton, who preached in 
 Bennington and St. Lawrence Counties, New York. During the war 
 Colonel Dunton served as captain and assistant quartermaster in a 
 New York regiment of United States Volunteers, and received brevet 
 
 1 Harvard Medical School 1884, practiced in Ashmont, Massachusetts ; died, 1920. 
 
 2 Killed in Civil War. (See p. 779.) 
 
398 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 commission as major and lieutenant-colonel. He died in Sheboygan 
 
 August 9, 1913. Children: 
 
 Flora Starr Dunton; born in Rockford, Illinois; married at 
 Clearwater Harbor, Florida, January 15, 1893, Ovington Ross, 
 born October 20, 1868. Children: Prudence Ovington; George 
 Thomas Ovington ; Mary Virginia ; William Hulin. 
 
 The Village Lyceum 
 
 The Village Lyceum was organized by Reverend Addison Brown, who 
 was its first president. A Young Men's Lyceum Course was an effort 
 towards general culture which took root in New England in the early 
 thirties. In their first phase, declamation, anonymous compositions and 
 questions for discussion preceded debates. There were five lyceums in 
 Windham County in 1830 : in Brattleboro East and West Village, Marl- 
 boro, Townshend and Newfane. Improvement in the common schools 
 was a direct influence of the lyceum. 
 
 "Ought the present law to be abolished requiring imprisonment for 
 debt?" was a question for discussion in the Brattleboro lyceum in 1831. 
 "Is the sale of alcoholic liquors worse, in a moral point of view, than the 
 vending of quack medicines?" "The slanderer more dangerous to society 
 than the thief," were discussed in the e.arly lyceum. In 1858 it was 
 argued and deprecated that more encouragement is not given to young 
 men in professional or mercantile pursuits than to more worthy men in 
 mechanical and industrial pursuits. 
 
 The lyceum organized at Centerville for discussion in 1865 "Resolved, 
 That our nation has reached the point of perfection in military strength 
 and glory." And in 1866 the Village Lyceum "Resolved, That the village 
 of Brattleborough is more indebted to the mechanics for its prosperity 
 than to its transient sojourners," and in the same year, "That Emigration 
 from New England to the West ought to be encouraged" ; in 1877, "That 
 the manner in which the town of Brattleborough provides for her poor is 
 a disgrace to our Christian profession" — to be discussed by the Liberal 
 Association. 
 
 In the meantime lectures were growing in popularity : literary, historical 
 or political subjects were treated by the clergy, teachers or men of liberal 
 education in the community. The value of this institution increased in 
 proportion to the distance from metropolitan centers and became a source 
 of intellectual interest and diversion, as men of the first order of mind 
 appeared on the lecture platform. 
 
 In 1843 John B; Gough lectured and Henry Ward Beecher gave 
 his first public lecture here when a student of Amherst College. Horace 
 Greeley and Bayard Taylor were here in 1849. Henry Ward Beecher 
 
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH 399 
 
 spoke at the Unitarian Church on "The Mission of the Beautiful," Jan- 
 uary 1, 1854; Wendell Phillips and J. G. Holland before 1860; in 1861 
 Edward Everett, John G. Saxe, Henry Ward Beecher again and Mark 
 Twain. About forty ladies and gentlemen went from Brattleboro to 
 Greenfield in 1861 when Thackeray made his appearance in that town. 
 Reverend William H. Channing and Wendell Phillips lectured here in 
 1864. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 THE BRATTLEBOROUGH HIGH SCHOOL 
 ASSOCIATION 
 
 The Brattleborough High School Association— Character of school— Names of 
 teachers — Scholars of 1846. 
 
 The Brattleborough High School Association came into existence in 
 the year 1832, when the following act of incorporation was passed by the 
 Vermont Legislature: 
 
 An act to incorporate the Brattleborough High School Association. 
 
 Sec. 1. It is hereby enacted by the General Assembly of the State of 
 Vermont, That there be, and hereby is, constituted and established a High 
 School for young masters, ladies, and misses, in the east village of the 
 town of Brattleborough, in the county of Windham, in this state; and that 
 John Holbrook, Francis Goodhue, Joseph Fessenden, John L. Dickerman, 
 Gardner C. Hall, Samuel Root, Paul Chase, Henry Smith, Henry Clark, 
 Philip Hall and William R. Hays, and their successors, be trustees of the 
 same, and they and their associates and successors are hereby constituted 
 a body politic and corporate, to be known and distinguished by the name 
 and style of the Brattleboro' High School Association; and by that name 
 shall have succession, and may sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, 
 contract and be contracted with, may have a common seal, and the same 
 alter at pleasure ; make and establish such by-laws, rules and regulations 
 as shall, from time to time, appear necessary to said corporation, not 
 repugnant to the laws of this state or of the United States ; and may take 
 and hold, by grant, gift, purchase or devise, or otherwise, real and per- 
 sonal estate, to the amount of thirty thousand dollars, and the same use, 
 improve, manage and appropriate for the benefit of said school. 
 
 Sec. 3. It is hereby further enacted, That the officers of said associa- 
 tion shall be appointed annually, on the first Tuesday of April, at the hall 
 of the High School, in said Brattleboro', by a majority of the members 
 present at said annual meeting ; and in voting upon this, as upon all other 
 business which may come before the corporation, each share of the stock 
 of said association shall entitle the owner thereof to one vote. 
 
 Provided, That any future legislation may alter, amend or repeal this 
 act. 
 
BRATTLEBOROUGH HIGH SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 401 
 
 The land on which the building was erected, and on which the present 
 building stands, was owned originally by Francis Goodhue and John 
 Holbrook. In 1838 and 1839 a considerable tract in that vicinity was sold 
 to Doctor Philip Hall, and from this he made several sales. March 35, 
 1831, he executed a bond to John Holbrook, Francis Goodhue and G. C. 
 Hall, in. the sum of $6000, to sell and convey to them or their representa- 
 tives, upon request, a certain portion of that land, and it was on this that 
 the High School building was erected. A deed of the land was not 
 given until almost ten years later, when the property passed into the hands 
 of District Number 3 and the schoolhouse became a public school. 
 
 Public schools were conducted with no more method than was charac- 
 teristic of the teacher, whose control depended on a strong will supple- 
 mented by physical prowess. Children expected to be whipped or beaten 
 for the least misdemeanor, and as little' was done to direct the energies of 
 boys outside school hours in profitable channels, their ebullition of natural 
 spirits often exceeded the bounds of decency. . The bigger boys were fair 
 matches in strength for the average teacher and in many a conflict came 
 off victorious. The pupils were crowded together on long benches in 
 rooms without ventilation, which made study a difficult task, and any 
 books selected by parents without cooperation with each other were 
 accepted as textbooks. 
 
 There were writing schools in 1833, the chief occupation of teachers 
 being the manufacture of pens from goose quills. Fine writing became 
 an art, and was an indispensable accomplishment in a teacher. But im- 
 provements came rapidly. A blackboard was introduced by Charles C. 
 Frost in 1827. 
 
 The High School building was erected during the year 1832, or just 
 previous to the passage of the act of incorporation. Probably the first 
 term of school in the building was kept during the winter or spring of 
 1833. Mr. John W. Frost taught the last two terms of school in the 
 old schoolhouse on the Common, which were held there previous to the 
 opening of the High School. He had about one hundred and ninety 
 pupils in the school, which he taught with only one assistant. Miss Arabella 
 Ranger, sister of Mr. Bethuel Ranger. 
 
 The High School of that day was not a high school in the sense in 
 which the term is used since the establishment of our graded school sys- 
 tem. It was not a public school, but more properly a select school or 
 academy, established and maintained for the benefit of those who wished 
 and could afford to give their children better school advantages than were 
 provided by the district schools. All pupils who attended paid a stated 
 sum for tuition. 
 
402 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO. 
 
 The first teacher of the school was Mr. L. G. McKean, who came in 
 1823, a young man of bright mind and versatile parts,, who was a leader 
 and a central figure in the community so long as he remained here. After 
 him came Mr. Meeker, who afterwards entered the ministry; Mr. 
 Packard; John S. Brown, brother of Reverend Addison Brown, 1835; 
 Mr. D. M. Kimball, before 1839; Aldace Walker; and Samuel H. Price, 
 1840. Miss Leverett taught French, drawing and botany, 1834-1835. 
 
 To obtain now a complete list of those who attended the first term of 
 the school under Mr. McKean is impossible, but these names were recalled 
 by Mr. Henry Burnham and Mr. George H. Clark, who were themselves 
 of the number: Charles Harris (a nephew of Doctor Chapin), A. A. 
 Barker, Theodore Barber, W. A. Dickinson, Belinda Elliot, Eliza Fessen- 
 den, William and Henry Elliot, Hiram Farnsworth (later secretary of 
 the Kansas board of education), Charles Reed, Elizabeth, Ann and Henry 
 Smith, Edward and Lucy Chase, Fanny Frost, John Burnham, Jane and 
 Sophia Woodcock, Maria, Henrietta and Albert Cross. 
 
 The school, under the old association, had varying degrees of success, 
 and it would be impossible to give now a correct estimate of the several 
 teachers. John Brown is remembered as an excellent teacher. 
 
 As early as 1834 Reverend Addison Brown made the public schools a 
 theme of discourse at his church on Fast Day. J. Dorr Bradley, L. G. 
 Mead, J. Steen, J. R. Blake, Addison Brown and C. Davis, being interested 
 in the new system for public schools, held a meeting for discussion, and in 
 1841 formed a prudential committee of L. G. Mead, J. Steen and C. Davis, 
 who engaged Moses Woolson, the first teacher of the "central" and most 
 advanced school.^ He was a man of marked personality, a thorough 
 scholar, widely read, of great sincerity of purpose, a hater of shams and, 
 all in all, a remarkably strong character. After he left here he taught in 
 the West and about Boston. During the latter years of his life he was 
 chiefly engaged as a private tutor, having fitted for college many a young 
 man who has since made his mark in the world. He died January 19, 
 1896. 
 
 Honorable Mellen Chamberlain succeeded Mr. Woolson. He was' a 
 student in Pembroke Academy and at Concord — where his father moved 
 his. family when Mellen was fifteen — and entered Dartmouth College in 
 1840. Mr. Chamberlain was principal of the High School in Brattleboro 
 for three years, then went to Dane Hall at Harvard and studied law, 
 serving also as librarian, and was admitted to the bar and opened a law 
 office in Boston in 1849. He married and made his home at Chelsea, and 
 served the city in several positions, was representative to the general 
 court in 1858 and 1859, being a member of the special committee on the 
 
 ^ High School. 
 
BRATTLEBOROUGH HIGH SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 403 
 
 revision of the statutes ; and he was in the senate in 1863 and 1864, in the 
 latter year chairman of the judiciary committee. 
 
 From 1866 to 1878 he was a judge of the municipal court of Boston, 
 and during the last eight years of his life chief justice of that court. 
 Judge Chamberlain's historical studies, and his great interest in collecting 
 in England and elsewhere abroad, as well as at home, manuscripts relat- 
 ing to American history, were well known, when, in 1878, he was chosen 
 librarian of the Boston public library, and he held that post in the old 
 Boylston Street building until 1890, when the impaired health of advanc- 
 ing age caused his resignation. He died at Chelsea, Massachusetts, June 
 25, 1900. 
 
 After Judge Chamberlain came I. L. Clark ; Mr. Wilson Abbott, 1855 ; 
 Mr. Sears ;' Reverend Mr. Southgate ; Mr. C. A. Miles in 1858 ; Mr. Wil- 
 liam F. Bacon, 1859 ; and Mr. T. A. Howard in 1863, assisted by his wife. 
 The latter was the immediate predecessor for one year of Mr. Binghain. 
 
 Complete records of the school back of Mr. Bingham's day are scarce. 
 There comes to our hand, however, one such record. It is in the shape of 
 a well-thumbed blank book which Addison B. Hall, then a boy of four- 
 teen, filled with various memoranda, boy fashion and with painstaking 
 care, during the winter term of 1846-1847. One of these memoranda is 
 headed "Names of the scholars who attend school the winter term, 1846," 
 and the list is the following: 
 
 Boys. Girls. 
 
 John Stebbins. Mary Ann Hyde. 
 
 Sidney Wadsworth. Fidelia Fowler. 
 
 Leonard Wheeler. Elizabeth Crosby. 
 
 George Leon Walker. Louisa Dickinson. 
 
 Charles Cune. Jane Thomas. 
 
 Joseph Wright. Sophia Pratt. 
 
 Gilbert Grout. Harriet Button. 
 
 Willard Sumner. Mary Reed. 
 
 John E. Blake. Sarah Stoddard. 
 
 George Fowler. Eliza Hyde. 
 
 Charles Frost. Jane Clapp. 
 
 Addison B. Hall. Margaret Williston. 
 
 Henry Newman. Caroline Hoar. 
 
 Charles L. Mead. Martha Mussa. 
 
 William Hubbard. Susan Putnam. 
 
 George Chaney. Angelina Hyde. 
 
 Frank Cune. Frances Brown. 
 
 O. H. Chapin. Gracia Reed. 
 
404 
 
 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Richards Bradley. 
 William Wheeler. 
 Samuel Warren. 
 Erastus Bardo. 
 Edgar Bradley. 
 George Stoddard. 
 George Samuels. 
 Henry Thompson. 
 Payson Williston. 
 William Thomas. 
 Frank Marsh. 
 Wells S. Frost. 
 Larkin G. Mead. 
 Robert Arms. 
 Charles Newman. 
 Henry Wait. 
 Byron Morse. 
 
 Mary Newman; 
 Mary Ann Conant. 
 Mary Howe. 
 Elizabeth Briggs. 
 Julia Goodhue. 
 Maria Webster. 
 Mary Chaney. 
 Mary Chapin. 
 Sophia Thomas. 
 Mary Bemis. 
 Jane Streeter. 
 Jane Thompson. 
 Mary Brown. 
 Ann Steen. 
 Jane Simonds. 
 Mary Nash. 
 Adeline Button. 
 Harriet Crosby. 
 
 Another of the memoranda is headed 
 
 List of Studies studied at the Central School at the Winter 
 
 Term, 1846. 
 
 Davies's Algebra. 
 Adams's Arithmetic. 
 Davies's Arithmetic. 
 Colburn's Arithmetic. 
 Worcester's Geography. 
 History of England. 
 History of the United States. 
 American School Reader. 
 Porter's Rhetorical Reader. 
 
 In the fore part of the book are copied several pages of songs from the 
 old school singing book, "The Odeon." In the list are the "Canadian 
 Song," "County Guy," "Tyrolese Evening Hymn," "The Maltese Boat- 
 man's Song," "Isle of Beauty, Fare thee Well," "The Mellow Horn," 
 "Bounding Billows," "Bonnie Doon," "Balerma," etc. 
 
 Edward Clark, who came to West Brattleboro in 1863 to teach music 
 in Glenwood Seminary, introduced music into the public schools, giving 
 up his position as leader of the Unitarian choir to devote more time and 
 thought to this important service for the boys and girls. 
 
AMERICAN HOUSE 
 
 RUFUS CLARKS HOTEL 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
VERMONT HOUSE 
 
 BRATTLEBORO HOUSE 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 AMERICAN HOUSE 
 
 Phoenix House, American House — "Sikes Tavern," Uriel Sikes — (Daniel Webster 
 a guest in 1840)' — Ralph Herrick— Burnett — Edward Woodrakn— George A. Bugbee 
 — Charles G. Lawrence — Liberty Rice — J. H. Matthews — Shaw — H. C. Nash — 
 R. W. Rawson — ^J. S. Gates — C. Stearns — Henry Starkey — F. E. Reed— George 
 Albert Boyden. 
 
 The American House 
 
 was a small building occupied by Deacon John Holbrook for mercantile 
 purposes until 1811. It was sold about 1830 to one of the Hunts of 
 Vernon (probably Arad Hunt) in company with Francis Goodhue, who 
 added the front gable and pillared porch between 1833 and 1837", and 
 gave it the name Phoenix House. From 1830 to 1835, when Uriel 
 Sikes kept tavern there, it was simply known as "Sikes' Tavern." He was 
 followed by Ralph Herrick as proprietor and he by a Mr. Burnett and 
 Edward Woodman. 
 
 This house sheltered many distinguished guests during the years it was 
 open to the public, but probably the most famous was Daniel Webster, 
 who had dinner and a nap here the afternoon of July 5, 1840. The great 
 orator was on his way from Barre, Massachusetts, to Stratton Mountain, 
 where he spoke at the Harrison rally. He left Barre early in the morning 
 in a barouche drawn by four horses, and reached Brattleboro about the 
 middle of the afternoon. He did not stay at the Stage House, as Colonel 
 Paul Chase, its proprietor, was a Democrat, while Edward Woodman of 
 the Phoenix House was a staunch Whig. After dinner and his slight rest, 
 Mr. Webster made a brief speech in the grove of oaks known as the 
 Goodhue Grove, and continued on his way to Stratton. 
 
 This hotel was in the possession of the Goodhue family (Joseph and 
 Wells) until 1860, when it was sold to Charles F. Simonds. In 1863 it 
 was again sold, to Stearns & Ray (John L.), and in 1865 it was bought 
 by Ray & Boyden. 
 
 Mr. Boyden, who was proprietor for eleven years, — longer than any of 
 the others, — seemed to be especially identified with the reputation of this 
 hotel. His kindness of heart and inborn courtesy looked unfailingly to 
 
406 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 the happiness and comfort of his guests and lent an atmosphere apart 
 from that of the usual public hostelry. 
 
 Among other proprietors have been George A. Bugbee, Charles G. Law- 
 rence, Liberty Rice, T. H. Matthews, Shaw, Henry E. Nash, Rufus 
 
 W. Rawson, J. S. Gates, C. Stearns, George A. Boyden, Henry Starkey, 
 F. E. Reed. 
 
 George Albert Boyden, 
 son of Asa Boyden of Guilford and Betsey his wife, was born January 7, 
 1835, and June 26, 1861, married Alice M., daughter of William S. Chase, 
 who was born May 7, 1843, and died September 10, 1894. He died March 
 13, 1903. He was a partner in the dry goods store of O. E. Austin for 
 twelve years before 1850. Mr. and Mrs. Boyden lived for twenty-two 
 years in various Brattleboro hotels, being proprietors and managers of 
 the Revere House and of the American House eleven years, retiring in 
 November, 1879. 
 Children : 
 Charles Asa, born March 19, 1875; he entered the Vermont National 
 Bank in 1894, serving as clerk, bookkeeper and teller until the organi- 
 zation of the Brattleboro Trust Company in 1906, and he became 
 treasurer of that company the next year. He married October 8, 
 1901, Ethel L., daughter of Judge E. L. Waterman. Children : Alice, 
 George Albert, James Waterman. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 MEN FOREMOST IN MANUFACTURE 
 
 Machine shops — Elihu H. Thomas — Thomas & Woodcock — Hines & Newman — 
 Hines, Newman & Company — Newman & Son — Colonel Arnold J. Hines — George 
 A. Hines — George Newman — Ferdinand Tyler. Stanley Rule Company — S. Mor- 
 ton Qark — Edward A. Steams — F. E. Edwards — D. C. Stratton — Horatio S. 
 Noyes — Madison Ranney — Azor Marshall — Theodore Cole. Manufacture of 
 carriages — Captain Adolphus Stebbins — Asa Miller — Sidney A. Miller — Howard 
 A. Pratt. 
 
 Machine Shops 
 
 The first machine shop was established about 1833 by Elihu Thomas 
 and Nathan Woodcock. As improvements in paper making were made, 
 dispensing with the old-school process of making by hand, a new impetus 
 was given to the business and there was a great demand for suitable 
 machinery, the difficulty of supplying the demand rendering it very 
 profitable. Besides supplying the mills in this immediate vicinity, 
 Thomas & Woodcock filled numerous orders from Massachusetts. In 
 1838 the establishment passed into the hands of Hines & Newman, with 
 whom Roswell Hunt was associated in 1845, after which the firm name 
 was Hines, Newman & Company. Their paper machinery was in use in 
 a large number of mills from Canada through the United States to 
 Mexico. In 1861 the firm was Newman & Son; in 1865, Ferdinand 
 Tyler & Son. In 1866 they employed twenty men, their machinery being 
 sold in various parts of the Union. 
 
 Other machine shops were owned by Crane & Morris ; John Gore, who 
 made steam engines and paper-mill presses; Luther Weld, who carried 
 on his shop from 1830 to 1866, when Calvin J. Weld purchased the prop- 
 erty. He manufactured planes, band saws, the Weld two-block shingle 
 machine and self-regulating water wheel. 
 
 Elihu H. Thomas 
 The Thomas family are of Welsh origin and the branch in Brattleboro 
 descendant of Sir Rice App-Thomas of Carew, Wales. Elihu H. 
 Thomas, son of Daniel and Mary Ruggles Thomas, was born in Worces- 
 ter, Massachusetts, October 30, 1802, and when quite young came to 
 Brattleboro to reside with his uncle, Elihu Hotchkiss. He married Miss 
 
408 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Abigail Bangs May 11, 1835, and reared nine children, Elihu H., Junior, 
 remaining in Brattleboro. Mr. Thomas was a very enterprising man. 
 He learned paper manufacturing, and at one time, besides the mill in 
 Brattleboro, had one at Hinsdale, New Hampshire, and one in Ohio, 
 where he also manufactured pins and combs under the firm Thomas & 
 Marsh ; he had also a f anning-mill factory in this town. In 1837 he ad- 
 vertised "gravestones, cast-iron ploughs, fanning-mills at the New Brick 
 Shop, six rpds south of the Creek Bridge." 
 
 He had a tannery near the site of the old depot; he was also the 
 first to take daguerreotypes in this locality. In 1834 he was sent for six 
 months to England and France, in the interest of paper manufacturing, 
 to study English and French processes of manufacture, being at that tiine 
 of the firm Thomas & Woodcock. (Elihu Thomas, Nathan Woodcock 
 and Gouverneur Morris, son of General Lewis R. Morris of Springfield, 
 Vermont, were promoters.) On his return from England, Mr. Thomas 
 built, after an English model, a large brick house on Birge Street in 
 the section known as Thomasville. In 1844 he and William G. Cutting 
 purchased the mill property owned by the Typographic Company. Owing 
 to the mismanagement and dishonesty of Cutting, Mr. Thomas lost his 
 money, so in 1848 he went to Boston, where he was engaged in perfecting 
 a sewing machine. In 1850 he went to California, where he engaged in 
 hotel keeping, in the manufacture of mining machinery and other enter- 
 prises. About 1874 he returned to Vermont, locating at North Benning- 
 ton, and died there February 7, 1876. Mrs. Thomas died August 4, 1867, 
 in California. 
 Children : 
 
 Julia Montague, married 1864, George B. Keyes, son of Judge Asa 
 Keyes of Brattleboro. He died in Wilmington, Los Angeles County, 
 California, May 32, 1877, aged fifty-six, leaving a son, Charles. 
 
 Charles Ruggles, married Miss Ann Hill. 
 
 Sarah D., married Charles E. Welling of Bennington and had five 
 children. 
 
 Jane Abigail, married Samuel Burton Purple of Northfield, Massachu- 
 setts ; had four children. 
 
 Sophia A., married Isaac Desler ; have had three children. 
 
 William Wells, married Mrs. Henrietta Pratt Fowler ; have had three 
 children. Married, second. Miss Regina Lake. 
 
 Dwight Bangs, married Miss Helen Jones Eddy ; they live in Benning- 
 ton and have three children. 
 
 Elihu Hotchkiss Thomas, Junior, born June 10, 1837 ; married Septem- 
 ber 18, 1863, Miss Celia Daggett of Westmoreland. Children: 
 Nina J., married May 18, 1887, John C. DeWitt, and has children, 
 
MEN FOREMOST IN MANUFACTURE 409 
 
 Ruth, Arthur B. ; Lenna H., married September 15, 1904, Elbert W. 
 Tenney, son of Webster and Mary (Bingham) Tenney, and has a 
 son, John Norman. 
 
 Going with his parents to Boston, Mr. Thomas learned the carver's 
 trade, and in 1856 went to Jacksonville, Colorado, where he engaged 
 in mining, building mining machinery and in the lumber business. 
 For many years he made use of his knowledge in the setting-up 
 department of the Estey Organ Company. 
 
 He was an expert workman and his business dealings were marked 
 by the expert's characteristics of sincerity and skill. Integrity and a 
 fine sense of honor were the basis of every act and relation in the 
 life of Mr. Thomas. 
 Frederick Robbins, married Miss Ann Shipley ; they have had two chil- 
 dren; he married, second, Mrs. Emma Pearson Staples; married, 
 third. Miss Frances Pearson. 
 
 HiNES & Newman 
 
 William Hines, son of William of Rhode Island, came from Monroe, 
 Massachusetts, to Guilford, Vermont, and here his son Thomas was born 
 April 7, 1780. John and William were other sons. William Hines, 
 Senior, finally settled at Hinesburg, which was named for him. 
 
 Thomas was a millwright by trade and came to Brattleboro as assistant 
 to Deacon John Holbrook in his milling operations. He married July 6, 
 1800, Sarah Arnold, a descendant of Thomas Arnold of Providence, 
 Rhode Island, whose family was of great antiquity in Wales, having its 
 origin in the ancient Princes of Wales. 
 
 They had twelve children : William, Isaac, Mrs. Isaiah Stearns, Lydia, 
 Laura (Mrs. Streeter), Emily J., who married Jacob Estey, Mila Ann, 
 who married Lockhart Barrett, Arnold J., who lived in Brattleboro. 
 
 Mrs. Hines died October 23, 1865. Mr. Hines died April 20, 1869. 
 
 Colonel Arnold J. Hines was born in Guilford, Vermont, January 28, 
 1805; he married December 39, 1835, Sarah, daughter of Ezekiel Gore 
 of Bernardston, Massachusetts, who died March 14, 1835. In 1837 he 
 married Maria L. Brown, granddaughter of Gamaliel Arnold; she was 
 born in Dummerston April 12, 1818. In 1829 Arnold and his father 
 removed to this place, where the remainder of their lives was passed. 
 
 Arnold J. Hines, as captain of the old artillery and colonel in the old 
 Vermont State Militia, in the declining days of our military organization, 
 proved worthy to lead a "forlorn hope." He was prominent in the fire 
 department, securing the first village charter, was one of the original 
 members of the Prospect Hill Cemetery Association, and -principal or 
 important actor in establishing and sustaining the Universalist Church. 
 
410 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 In politics he was a strong antislavery Democrat until the christening 
 of the Republican party, of which he was one of the active and original 
 members. 
 
 He was for twenty-five years the senior partner of the well and widely 
 known firm of Hines, Newman & Company, iron founders and machin- 
 ists. He was a man of excellent judgment, of good business habits, and 
 his advice was frequently sought and highly esteemed by his townsmen. 
 In all the relations of life he was a man of integrity of character com- 
 bined with a geniality of disposition that commanded the respect and 
 affection of his fellow citizens no less than of his more intimate associates 
 and friends. He died April 6, 1863. 
 
 Children of Arnold J. Hines : 
 
 By his first marriage, Mary J., born July 20, 1832; married May 1, 
 1849, George Cutler; a daughter, Mary L., married Walter Hay- 
 wood, son of Jeremiah E. and Mary Brown Haywood of Brattleboro. 
 She died in 1915, leaving a son, Leon. 
 
 Mrs. Sarah A. Morrill, who died at Dedham, Massachusetts, Decem- 
 ber 15, 1891. 
 
 By his second marriage, Julia A., Mrs. A. P. Wilder, who died October 
 19, 1915, aged seventy-eight. A. P. Wilder, a pioneer traffic man in 
 Kansas, was official of the Santa Fe Railroad thirty years, finally 
 manager of Missouri and Kansas Car Service Association. Chil- 
 dren : Mrs. Belle Hillyer of Topeka ; Mrs. Franklin Hudson (Annie 
 L.) of Kansas City; Mrs. B. F. Criswell of Denver. Mrs. A. P. 
 Wilder was a singer and founded the first musical society of Topeka. 
 
 George A. Hines, born January 29, 1840. He prepared for college at 
 the Brattleborough Academy and "Parson Brown's" private school, 
 and graduated from the civil engineering and architectural courses 
 of the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard College in the class 
 of 1863. He married Henrietta Henfel of Philadelphia, and lived 
 in that city a short time. He then moved to Boston, where he lived 
 a few months before coming to Brattleboro to make his permanent 
 home. He was employed for many years at the Estey Organ 
 shops as cost accountant and designer. He represented Brattleboro in 
 1894 in the State Legislature and was secretary and treasurer of 
 the Prospect Hill Cemetery Association. He was a member of the 
 Professional Club of Brattleboro and was a regular attendant at the 
 Universalist Church. Children: Arnold J., died February 12, 1886, 
 aged six years ; H. Marie, married April 20, 1886, W. S. McKenney 
 of Northampton; Bertha, married August 1, 1888, W. H. Brackett 
 (see p. 985), and has a son, Roger Brackett, born March 15, 1895; 
 Amy J. Hines. 
 
MEN FOREMOST IN MANUFACTURE 411 
 
 Lockhart H. Barrett, who came here from Hinsdale, where he was 
 born in 1832 (son of Ora and Anna Adams Barrett), married November 
 28, 1843, Mila Ann, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Hines. He was 
 in the employ of Wells Goodhue, who was at that time president of the 
 bank ; afterwards of John Birge and "Squire Clark." For ten years Mr. 
 Barrett worked in the shop of Hines & Newman, until he bought a half 
 interest in Samuel Pike's lock and gunsmith shop ; in two years he bought 
 his partner's interest and for more than twenty-five years carried on 
 with success this business, which was sold to Herbert M. Wood in 1885. 
 Children: Georgiana, married November 18, 1867, H. F. Brooks, of 
 the grocery firm of Raymond & Company, Boston, and son of Thomas 
 D. Brooks of Athol ; Charles B. Barrett, of the firm of Barrett & Leonard, 
 Springfield, Massachusetts, married Miss Harriet Lyman. 
 
 John M. Willis began work in Hines & Newman's shop as an expert 
 moulder in brass and iron; Asa Sherwin was with this firm from 1835 
 to 181'4, and John M. Joy in this shop learned the machinist's trade. 
 
 George Newman 
 
 George Newman was born in 1798 at Seekonk, Massachusetts. He 
 came as a boy with his parents to Marlboro, and when still very young 
 became a skilled mechanic while learning the trade of carriage making 
 in the shop of Captain Adolphus Stebbins. In 1838 he was employed 
 by Elihu H. Thomas in the fanning mills in the East Village. He was 
 a clerk in the employ of Thomas & Woodcock at the time they began 
 the manufacture of pulp dressers for paper making. A few years later 
 he succeeded them in this business, as also in their iron foundry, black- 
 smithy, clothier's shop, sawmill and gristmill, and was a partner of 
 Colonel Arnold J. Hines and Roswell Hunt, Esquire, in the same branches 
 of industry in which Lewis Newman, Gouverneur Morris, Esquire, and 
 
 Brinsmade of Troy, New York, invested money. Finally all this 
 
 business came into the possession of the Newman family, under the name 
 of George Newman & Son. 
 
 He married Miss Lydia Lee, who was born in 1807 and died February 9, 
 1888. He died September 11, 1872. His character was one of the town's 
 assets for good, and his unconsciousness of it added to his influence. 
 
 In The Vermont Phcenix of September 13, 1872, appeared the follow- 
 ing obituary notice of Mr. Newman : 
 
 The life of George Newman was in a large measure identified with 
 that of the town of which he was so long an honored resident. He served 
 many years as lister, town treasurer . and selectman, and for two years, 
 1848-1849, represented the town in the Legislature. As proprietor of the 
 
413 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 machine shop, engaged in the manufacture of paper machinery, with 
 which he was associated from 1837 to 1865, his name was familiar to 
 many people in various parts of the country, and the respect with which 
 he was regarded was universal. Evidences of this may be seen in the 
 frequency with which he was called upon to settle estates. Probably no 
 man in the county had administered upon so many estates as he. For 
 more than twenty years he was an officer of the Windham Provident 
 Institution for Savings, and for the last two years was its treasurer; he 
 was president in 1868-1869. He was also one of the original members 
 of the Unitarian Church in this village, of which he ever remained a 
 prominent and liberal supporter. Ever ready to oblige a neighbor or 
 assist the needy, kindly in all his relations, and without an enemy in the 
 world, the influence of his genial life has not passed away. 
 Children : 
 Lucy N., married H. R. Godfrey; died in 1863. 
 
 George Henry Newman, born in 1831, learned the machinist's trade 
 in his father's establishment, and upon attaining his majority became 
 a partner. 
 
 In middle life Mr. Newman moved to Topeka, Kansas, where for 
 some years he was engaged in bridge building, and later conducted a 
 banking business. Returning to Brattleboro after having acquired 
 a competence, he was soon invited to take the treasurership of the 
 Nashawannuck Manufacturing Company, the largest manufacturers 
 of webs and suspenders in the country, and was a resident of East- 
 hampton for fifteen years, where he held important offices of trust, 
 among which was director in the First National Bank of that town. 
 He moved to Boston for the purpose of engaging in banking busi- 
 ness with his brother, Albert H. Newman, president of the Common- 
 wealth Bank of Boston. The sudden, death of the latter somewhat 
 changed his plans, but he continued his residence in Boston from 
 that time, not engaging in active business but being the special 
 partner for some years in the banking firm of Rogers, Newman & 
 Tolman. 
 
 He married, first, Miss Sarah E. Caldwell, born in 1835, died in 
 1867; second, 1869, Miss Mary D. Chase of Toledo, born in 1843, 
 died in 1897 ; third. Miss Mary Page of Boston. 
 
 He was past worshipful master of Columbian Lodge, Number 36, 
 F. and A. M. of Brattleboro. He died in March, 1902. 
 
 His will contained a bequest of $5000 to the Brattleboro Home for 
 the Aged and Disabled and another of $2000 to the Unitarian Society 
 of Brattleboro, the latter in memory of his father, George Newman, 
 who was a deacon of the church many years. 
 
MEN FOREMOST IN MANUFACTURE 413 
 
 Julia, born June 9, 1840; married, first, Charles Boyden; they had a 
 son, Walter L. Boyden, president of Plymouth (Massachusetts) 
 National Bank, who married Miss Mary S. Maher of Easthampton. 
 Julia married, second, October 22, 1868, George H. Ryder^ son of 
 William and Mary (Richardson) Ryder, bom April 30, 1835, who 
 was for thirty-five years in the employ of the Estey Oi'gan Company, 
 and who died in 1903. She died in 1910. They left one son, John R. 
 Ryder, born September 16, 1878, who married October 8, 1902, 
 Marcia Parker, daughter of E. L. Parker. 
 
 Laura D., born in 1843, married November 21, 1864, Reverend James 
 Henry Wiggin. A son, Albert H. Wiggin, born in Medfield, Massa- 
 chusetts, February 21, 1868, married Miss Jessie Duncan Hayden of 
 Boston October 4, 1892; he was bank clerk in Boston, 1885-1891; 
 cashier of the Third National Bank of Boston, 1894-1897 ; president 
 of the Chase National Bank, New York; Eliot National Bank, 1897- 
 
 ; National Park Banks, 1899-1904; director of many important 
 
 corporations ; trustee of the hospital of the Saturday and Sunday As- 
 sociation ; on the board of managers of the Music School Settlement ; 
 on the board of the Bank of Commerce and of the Guaranty and 
 Banker's Trust. His residence is in New York City and he has a 
 country place in Greenwich, Connecticut. 
 
 Albert L. Newman, born in 1846, left the Brattleboro High School 
 at fifteen to become clerk in the Vermont National Bank under Philip 
 Wells, cashier. . At seventeen he was clerking in Athol. He went 
 to Chicago, but was called back to Athol to become cashier of the 
 Millers River Bank. In 1881 he was vice-president of the Common- 
 wealth Bank, Boston, and became president, which position he held 
 until 1892, when, on account of ill health, he spent several months 
 in European travel. In January, 1893, he became partner in the 
 firm of Rogers, Newman & Tolman, brokers. June 11, 1868, he 
 married Ella M., daughter of Alpheus Harding, who was president 
 of the Millers River Bank. Colonel Newman was on the staflE of 
 Governor Ames three years. He died May 2, 1894, aged forty-seven. 
 He left a son, Albert H., born December 6, 1872, who studied at 
 Athol and Prince School, Boston, and the English High School, and 
 was a graduate of Harvard College, 1895. He entered the office of 
 Kidder, Peabody & Company ; in 1897 he became partner of the firm 
 Blodgett, Merrill & Company. He married Miss Jeanie Smith ; died 
 in 1915, leaving two sons and a daughter. 
 
 Ida, born October 15, 1848 ; married June 3, 1873, Doctor H. A. Deane 
 of Easthampton. Children : Mary L., married Lester G., son of Olin 
 L. French, and has a son, Freeman Lee. Mary L. Deane graduated 
 
414 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 from Smith College in 1900 ; was assistant teacher of High School 
 
 in Brattleboro 1906-1907. 
 Ira, died in March, 1864. 
 Mrs. William C. Bryant of Greenfield. Her daughter,. Hattie L., 
 
 graduated from Smith College in 1900 and was assistant teacher in 
 
 the Brattleboro High School during the years 1906, 1907 and 1909. 
 
 For two years and a half she was teacher of Latin at Brunot Hall, 
 
 a private school in Spokane, Washington. She married Samuel H. 
 
 Rice of Waltham. 
 
 Ferdinand Tyler 
 
 Ferdinand Tyler was born in Townshend December 20, 1808. He 
 united with the Congregational Church when very young and was its 
 faithful supporter to the end of his life. In 1831 he came to Brattleboro 
 as clerk for Nathan B. Williston, and was taken into partnership by the 
 latter in 1868. In 1864 Mr. Tyler purchased the machine shops of New- 
 man & Son and continued the manufacture of paper-mill machinery, in 
 which he was engaged at the time of his death. 
 
 To Mr. Tyler more than to any other man, perhaps, we are indebted 
 for the organ shops. He was the efficient one who solicited and secured 
 subscriptions after the fire for the joint stock company that started the 
 business. He was one of the original stockholders and directors of what 
 was then known as the First National Bank, and was active in advancing 
 its interests. He built the Tyler brick block in 1872. 
 
 Mr. Tyler was extensively known in New England, and elsewhere, 
 as an active business man, and in Brattleboro especially was highly 
 esteemed not only as a business man of integrity, but for his public spirit, 
 intelligence and kindliness of nature. 
 
 August 13, 1837, Mr. Tyler married Miss Sophronia Miller, born June 
 3, 1811, who died December 11, 1862. He died June 19, 1876. 
 Their only son : 
 
 Major John C. Tyler, born February 18, 1839 ; graduated from Yale 
 College in 1861 and received the Bishop Prize for debate, was ad- 
 mitted to the bar in 1864; died January 11, 1880.. His wife, who was 
 Lavinia S. Hunt, daughter of Arad Hunt, was born July 5, 1839; 
 died December 30, 1891. 
 
 The Stanley Rule Company 
 In 1833 S. Morton Clark (son of Doctor Ezra Clark) & Company 
 started a manufactory on the site of the old railroad depot. Business 
 increased rapidly and in 1835 they removed to a factory built for their 
 use on Birge Street, where the old woolen mill stood, and where they 
 employed from twenty-one to thirty hands in the manufacture of box- 
 
MEN FOREMOST IN MANUFACTURE 415 
 
 wood and ivory rules. In 1837 the "hard times" put a stop to their opera- 
 tions, and in 1838 all their machinery, stock, etc., were purchased by 
 Edward A. Stearns, previously in their employ. 
 
 Edward A. Stearns was born in Warwick, Massachusetts, in 1806- and 
 came to Brattleboro in 1831; married Miss Elizabeth C. Salisbury Septem- 
 ber 15, 1834; he died July 29, 1856. He had a son, Edward A., who was 
 born in 1839 and died in 1890. A brother, John Stearns, was for a while 
 associated in the business, but was succeeded at different times by F. E. 
 Edwards, D. Charles Stratton, Horatio S. Noyes, Madison Ranney, Azor 
 Marshall and Theodore Cole. Deacon Augustus A. Stearns was in the 
 employ of the company twenty-two years, Lewis S. Higgins eighteen 
 years. In 1842 the shop was destroyed by fire with all the machinery. 
 Stearns immediately recommenced business in the building formerly 
 occupied by the Typographic Company. In 1853 they manufactured 
 eighty different patterns of rules and measures, at prices varying from 
 twenty-five cents to ten dollars. All the machinery was invented or im- 
 proved by the proprietor or those in his employ. Their rules took the 
 lead, as in accuracy and beauty of finish they surpassed all others in the 
 American market. The value of the yearly products was from $15,000 
 to $18,000. 
 
 Charles L. Mead bought an interest in the business in 1857. 
 
 The Stanley Rule and Level Company, desirous of securing the special 
 machinery, bought the plant of Stearns & Company and moved it to New 
 Britain, Connecticut, in 1870, with about twenty mechanics. After the 
 war Mr. Mead was made a director and treasurer, which positions he 
 held until his death. 
 
 The rules had become so well known when Mr. Stearns died that they 
 still continued to bear his name, and found a ready sale, not only in this 
 country, but in Cuba, South America and Australia. The variety made 
 embraced about one hundred styles and sizes, and when ready for market 
 they were forwarded to New Britain, where the Stanley Rule and Level 
 Company were more largely engaged in the business of manufacturing 
 rules and a large variety of other tools and implements. The company 
 had a warehouse at 57 Beekman Street, New York, from which place 
 they were sent to all parts of the country. The boxwood and ivory con- 
 sumed in manufacturing the rules were imported, the former from Tur- 
 key, and the latter from India and Africa. The boxwood cost about $100 
 per ton, and the ivory from $3.50 to $4.50 per pound — its cost had varied 
 from $1.50 to $7 per pound. The tusks weighed from fifty to one hun- 
 dred pounds and frequently iron balls were found in them. The shop 
 was twice burnt, once at Thomasville and subsequently, September 4, 
 1858, when it was owned by Mr. Mead. 
 
416 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 The Manufacture of Carriages 
 Captain Adolphus Stebbins, son of Levi, born in West Brattleboro 
 November 11, 1779, made the first wagon ever built in this town; he 
 carried on the business of wagon making at West Brattleboro until 1832, 
 when he came to the East Village, where John H. Stebbins followed in 
 the business of his father. 
 
 The business of manufacturing carriages and sleighs on a somewhat 
 larger scale than is usual for domestic purposes only, was begun by Asa 
 Miller in the summer of 1835, when he employed six hands. He soon set 
 about manufacturing articles of a high grade, and made sales in almost 
 every state of the Union and Canada. His manufactures were wholly 
 confined to two- and four-horse open mail wagons, open and top buggies 
 and single and double sleighs. His annual production in 1853 was from 
 $25,000 to $30,000. He was established many years on Elliot Street with 
 his son, Sidney A. Miller. Howard A. Pratt was a member of this firm 
 up to the time of the war, when it was reorganized under the name of 
 N. B. Williston & Company, Mr. Pratt being a member of that firm 
 until 1874. 
 
 Asa Miller was born in Dummerston in 1797, where he married Miss 
 Sally Bemis. He died April 9, 1883, aged eighty-five years ten months. 
 Children : 
 
 Sidney A. Miller, born in Dummerston July 26, 1826 ; married Decem- 
 ber 13, 1847, Emily, daughter of Ashbel Dickinson ; married, second, 
 Mrs. Ida Balch Wheeler, who died in March, 1911. He died in 
 Omaha June 13, 1918. Of four children, Henry C. survives and is 
 cashier of Stock Yards National Bank, South Omaha, Nebraska. 
 He married October 38, 1894, Miss Augusta M. Bauman, who died 
 in 1895. 
 Catherine W., married, first, August 24, 1844, Orrin W. Slate, who came 
 to Brattleboro in 1861 and with Warren E. Wilkins kept a dry goods 
 store until 1869, when he removed to New Britain, Connecticut; 
 married, second. Reverend Alfred Stevens of Westmoreland. 
 Children of Orrin and Catherine W. Slate : 
 Genevieve, born November 8, 1851. 
 
 Emily M., married October 6, 1875, Henry H. Thompson. Their 
 son, Alfred H., born March 27, 1876; married October 7, 1901, 
 Miss Florence Howe. Children : Charlotte, Helen. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
 Methodist Episcopal Church^First house of worship, 183S-1837 — New house, 1880 — 
 Fields of service of former members. 
 
 The Methodist Episcopal Church was instituted through the efforts of 
 a layman. In the year 1833 one Cyrus Davis came to Brattleboro to 
 superintend the printing department of the publishing house of Messrs. 
 Holbrook & Company. An ardent Methodist and class leader of that 
 denomination, he lost no time in organizing a society. Early records 
 refer to preaching services in the year 1834, held in a small district 
 schoolhouse on Canal Street. 
 
 The first house of worship was erected in 1835-1837 on Canal Street 
 near the schoolhouse. The Reverend William Brewster was the pastor in 
 1837, and by his "excellent character, eloquence and energy" greatly 
 strengthened the new society. His successor, Reverend Mr. Harding, 
 was likewise a pastor of sterling qualities. But despite good leadership 
 and much zeal on the part of the members, there was that unfortunate 
 lack of this world's goods that made the clearing ofif of the mortgage on 
 the new property a doubtful and discouraging undertaking. Under the 
 roof of this building, about the year 1840, there came into being the Bap- 
 tist society. Thus, weak financially, and with much of its vital force 
 transferred to the newly formed Baptist society, it seems to have suffered 
 a temporary eclipse. In the year 1842 we find the Adventists, then known 
 as Millerites, in possession of the property. Later still it passed into the 
 hands of the Universalists, by whom it was used as a place of worship 
 till 1850-1851, when the present church home of that denomination was 
 erected. The vacant church was sold to Mr. W. Alexander, by whom it 
 was converted into a dwelling house.^ Methodism ultimately rallied and 
 reestablished itself in new and better quarters on School Street. 
 
 The new structure was of brick and was situated directly opposite the 
 old Estey homestead. It was later disposed of, and in the form of a 
 three-story apartmeiit house, still does good service. Services were held 
 thereafter in the Town Hall until the year 1880, when the present hand- 
 some brick house of worship on Elliot Street was built free of debt, and 
 
 1 It still stands at this date (1920), being known as the Alexander place. 
 
418 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 dedicated by Bishop Andrews. Excepting its first early trials, the 
 society has known a steady and gratifying progress, and has become a 
 strong spiritual force in the community. Brattleboro Methodism finds 
 vast encouragement and its best justification for continued existence in 
 the fact that it has expressed itself worthily not only in the Christian 
 activities of the town, but has given of its vigorous young life to the 
 same form of service in the larger world without. Among those who 
 received in this church the initial inspiration that impelled them to seek 
 wider fields of service are the following : William Fuller, active in Young 
 Men's Christian Association work in his home town and in Bennington, 
 Vermont, Woodsville, New Hampshire, and other places ; D. Nat Bartlett, 
 Young Men's Christian Association worker engaged throughout New 
 England ; Reverend L. H. Sprague of Jamaica, Vermont ; Miss Ruth Saw- 
 yer, who married Reverend Hart Fuller of Ellenville, New York; Miss 
 Elizabeth Bagg, teacher in New Jersey schools, prominent in the mission- 
 ary activities of the church district in which she lives; Reverend H. 
 Chester Hoyt, late chaplain A. E. F., now pastor at Southbridge, Massa- 
 chusetts; Mrs. H. Chester Hoyt (Irene Plimpton), graduate, together 
 with her husband, of Boston University; Reverend A. W. Atwood, who 
 served the Vermont Conference; Reverend William Moore, pastor at 
 Merrillville, Indiana, student at Northwestern University; Miss Mabel 
 Baker, who became the wife and coworker of William Moore; Reverend 
 Mason W. Sharp, pastor at Milford, New Hampshire, and student at 
 Boston School of Theology. 
 
CHAPTER XLI 
 THE VERMONT PHCENIX 
 
 Vermont Phoenix (The Statesman, The Republican) — William E. Ryther — Obadiah 
 H. Piatt — Doctor Charles Cummings — Charles S. Prouty — Reverend Addison 
 Browni— D. B. Stedman— O. L. French— Walter E. Hubbard. The Brattleboro 
 Publishing Company incorporated. Windham County Reformer changed to 
 Brattleboro Daily Reformer in 1913, Howard C. Rice and Ephraim H. Crane, 
 editors and owners. Samuel Knight, correspondent of Vermont Phoenix. 
 
 The Vermont Phoenix was first published September 13, 1834, by 
 George W. Nichols and William E. Ryther, Mr. Nichols being the pub- 
 lisher of The Brattleborough Messenger, a Whig paper in politics, and 
 Mr. Ryther publisher of The Independent Inquirer, a paper of liberal 
 religious views, owned by an association of gentlemen. It was first pub- 
 lished for the proprietors for a short time by Hiram Tupper. The 
 Inquirer having been published one year, the association sold it to Elihu 
 H. Thomas. The proprietors of the two papers then agreed to let both 
 die, and from their ashes resurrect another paper to be called The Ver- 
 mont Phcemix. The Phoenix was published by Nichols and Ryther until 
 September 30, 1836, when they transferred their interest to Gardner C. 
 Hall and John C. Holbrook, the politics of the paper not being satisfac- 
 tory to some of its patrons. The paper was then put in charge of Calvin 
 Walton, from Boston, whom the proprietors engaged for the purpose, 
 Mr. Ryther being retained in the office, and the paper advocating the 
 election of William Henry Harrison for president. Five weeks after- 
 wards, having purchased the paper of the proprietors, Mr. Ryther 
 assumed its publication, and continued the same until July 8, 1847, when 
 a partnership was formed with Obadiah H. Piatt (afterwards of St. 
 Louis, Missouri) which lasted until April 18, 1861, when Mr. Piatt, 
 having purchased Mr. Ryther's interest, became sole proprietor. Mr. 
 Ryther published in 1840 The Flail, Joseph Steen, editor, which had a 
 circulation of five thousand copies a week. 
 
 The Phomix was enlarged in 1845, eleven years after its first publica- 
 tion. Mr. Ryther's office was for a time in the old "long" building, later 
 the site of Hooker Block, but it was afterwards removed to Wheeler's 
 Block. During his residence in Brattleboro he owned and occupied the 
 
420 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 house where William S. Newton lived on Cemetery Hill ; he also acquired 
 the ownership of the Main Street property, well known at one time as 
 "Ryther's Arcade," where in 1884 he erected a brick building. 
 
 June 5, 1851, Mr. Piatt, having purchased The Bellows Falls Gazette, 
 united the same with The Phoenix, announcing that the paper would be 
 published simultaneously at Brattleboro, Bellows Falls and Ludlow. How 
 long this arrangement lasted is not known. The Phosnix was again 
 enlarged January, 1852. About this time the name of the paper was 
 changed to The Statesman. January 1, 1855, it was merged with The 
 Eagle, published by B. D. Harris, and the combined paper was called 
 The Republican. George W. Nichols, publisher of The Windham County 
 Democrat, having given up his paper and gone west, the type and fixtures 
 were purchased by Doctor Charles Cummings (who"liad some connection 
 with The Eagle) and February 3, 1855, he revived T/i^ Vermont Phcenix, 
 with which The Republican was merged in 1857. Doctor Cummings 
 remained editor and proprietor of The Phomix until he went to the war, 
 in 1862, as lieutenant-colonel of the 16th Regiment Vermont Volunteers. 
 At this time the publishing of the paper was in charge of Charles S. 
 Prouty, and the editorial charge was assumed by Reverend Addison 
 Brown. Cummings was killed before Richmond, September 30, 1864, 
 while in command of the 17th Vermont Regiment, which he had recruited 
 on the expiration of the time of the 16th Regiment. 
 
 Messrs. Brown and Prouty purchased The Phoenix of Cummings's 
 estate in December, 1864. January 1, 1868, Daniel B. Stedman bought 
 a third interest in the paper, which was then enlarged to its present size. 
 Mr. Brown died May 11, 1872, and September 1, 1873, Mr. Prouty sold 
 his interest to Olin L. French, who had formerly been editor of The 
 Keene (New Hampshire) Sentinel. The firm became French & Stedman. 
 In January, 1888, when ill health compelled Mr. Stedman to retire, Mr. 
 French became sole owner and publisher. 
 
 Mr. French was a writer of ability, a printer of practical experience 
 and a good business man. Under his management The Phoenix developed 
 until it became not only one of the most influential in its own state, but 
 was recognized throughout New England as a model among country 
 weeklies. 
 
 With a steadily increasing prestige and patronage it grew from a four- 
 page "blanket sheet" to one of from ten to twelve pages, covering the local 
 and suburban fields with unusual thoroughness. In its typography and 
 letterpress it was in a class by itself as a fine specimen of the Art preserva- 
 tive of all arts. 
 
 Mr. French knew how to write in clear and concise English, and having 
 a discerning mind, his editorials on important subjects were virile and 
 
THE VERMONT PHOENIX 421 
 
 convincing. His selections of miscellaneous reading matter were made 
 with intelligence and taste. No fictitious elements were allowed in the 
 news columns, which could be depended on for accuracy. The Phcenix, 
 by his guidance, reflected the true status of the time and place. 
 
 But further than this, throughout his long connection of over thirty-six 
 years with The Phcenix, — ^twenty-two as editor, — Mr. French never lost 
 sight of the purpose to which he believed a newspaper should be devoted, 
 which was the promotion of a sane public mind. His own appreciation of 
 values in human diversity and a catholic spirit towards the manifold modes 
 oi human expression, contributed largely to the realization of this ideal. 
 
 In the columns of his paper may be found many an editorial encounter 
 with critics or opponents in terms of wit, without malice ; but when moral 
 or political issues involved his positive convictions there was open war, 
 fearless and without compromise. 
 
 The Vermont Phcenix as Mr. French made it was an effective agency 
 for the advancement of the best and lasting interests of Brattleboro. 
 
 From April %1 until September 27, 1898, The Phcenix published a daily 
 edition known as The Brattleboro Evening Phcenix, undertaking this ven- 
 ture to meet the public news interest on account of the outbreak of the 
 Spanish-American War. 
 
 In March, 1910, O. L. French retired from active newspaper work, sell- 
 ing The Vermont Phcenix to Walter E. Hubbard, who had been connected 
 with the paper since 1885, for fifteen years as head of its news and edi- 
 torial departments. Mr. Hubbard's proprietorship continued until Feb- 
 ruary, 1913, when a corporation known as the Brattleboro Publishing 
 Company acquired The Phcenix and the other local weekly. The Wind- 
 ham, County Reformer, which had been owned since November, 1905, by 
 The Vermont Printing Company. Mr. Hubbard became president of the 
 new company, Howard C. Rice vice-president and Ephraim H. Crane 
 treasurer. In March of that year (1913) The Reformer appeared as an 
 afternoon daily under the name of The Brattleboro Daily Reformer, the 
 venture meeting with a public reception which made it successful from 
 the start. Mr. Hubbard sold his holdings in the Brattleboro Publishing 
 Company to Messrs. Rice and Crane in September, 1918, and something 
 over a year later acquired ownership of The Evening Times of Beverly, 
 Massachusetts, of which he is now the publisher. 
 
 Olin Lester French 
 Olin Lester French was born in Glover, Vermont, December 26, 1843, 
 a son of George and Sylvia (Gray) French, and grandson of Silas French 
 and Joseph Gray, pioneer settlers of the town. 
 
422 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Olin' French was a student at the Orleans Liberal Institute in Glover, — 
 at the age of seventeen entered the High School of Keene, New Hamp- 
 shire, — but at the close of the school year began a three years' apprentice- 
 ship with The New Hampshire Sentinel in Keene, to learn the printer's 
 craft. At the end of this period, he became part owner of the paper and 
 he remained as part or sole owner and publisher until September 1, 1872. 
 
 November 14, 1867, he married Emma H., daughter of A. H. Freeman, 
 of Keene. She died in Brattleboro May 30, 1874. He died May 13, 1921. 
 
 Small of stature, retiring to the point of diffidence, giving himself in 
 intimacy to but few, his personal life nourished by a discriminating love 
 of beauty in literature, music, art and nature, Mr. French had in seeming 
 contrast to these characteristics — and perhaps because of them, — an un- 
 swerving public conscience. Strong principles, integrity in sustaining 
 them, without question of policy or expediency, were distinctive of his 
 course of action as a man and as a journalist. 
 
 A faithful member of the Unitarian Church, his religious beliefs were 
 held unobtrusively, as were the deep things of his private life. 
 
 A son, Lester Gray French, was born in Keene, New Hampshire, April 
 26, 1869. He married, first. Miss Addie M. Farrar. A daughter, Sylvia. 
 He married, second. Miss Mary L. Deane. A son. Freeman Lee. 
 
 Lester G. French graduated from the Brattleboro High School in the 
 class of 1887 and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1891. 
 After being for a time with the International Correspondence Schools at 
 Scranton, Pennsylvania, as instructor in mathematics, he went to the 
 Builders' Foundry, in Providence, Rhode Island, for experience in the 
 practical side of his profession; and from Providence to New York as 
 editor of Machinery. Afterwards he became editor of publications of the 
 American Society of Mechanical Engineers in New York. He was the 
 author of the earliest treatise on the steam turbine. 
 
 He died April 18, 1921. 
 
 William Eaton Ryther was born in Bernardston, Massachusetts, April 
 5, 1806, a son of Doctor Gideon and Sylvia Alexander Ryther. He 
 learned the printer's trade in Springfield and Greenfield. 
 
 Mr. Ryther's first wife was Miss Delia P. Jewett of Halifax, born in 
 1810 and died November 5, 1855. They had six children. June 7, 1859, 
 he married, second, Martha Clark of Dummerston, a sister of Thomas and 
 Eli Clark. She was born in 1819 and died in December, 1904. 
 
 Mr. Ryther was a man of real kindness of heart, but he possessed a 
 native shrewdness and a sharp wit which held their own in any encounter. 
 A staunch Whig under the old party lines, he was equally staunch and 
 
THE VERMONT PHCENIX 423 
 
 uncompromising as a Republican after the formation of that party. His 
 integrity was unquestioned. He died in Bernardston August 1, 1893. 
 
 Mr. Ryther left by will, after the death of relatives, $10,000 to mission- 
 ary organizations, $1000 to the Home for the Aged and Disabled in 
 Brattleboro and an income of $500 to the church in Bernardston. 
 Children by first marriage : 
 D. Jewett, born in 1841 ; of the 4th Regiment Vermont Volunteers ; 
 
 died of disease contracted in service, September 24, 1865. 
 Dwight L., born in 1845 ; died December 3, 1874. 
 George H., born in 1852 ; a graduate of Harvard College ; a member of 
 the City Council of Cambridge; died at Pueblo, Colorado, April 23, 
 1899. 
 
 Samuel Knight 
 
 Samuel Knight was born in Dummerston August 21, 1793, the son of 
 Samuel and Susanna Knight. In his early life he was for a considerable 
 period clerk and bookkeeper in a Putney store ; for a time he was a resi- 
 dent of Newfane, where, in 1842, when quite an old bachelor he married 
 Miss EHza Merrifield ; they had one son, Henry Samuel, who died in 1871. 
 His first wife having died, he married, second, the widow of John Robin- 
 son, a well-known hotel proprietor of Bellows Falls. 
 
 How early he began to write for the newspapers is not known, but in 
 1833 he was a contributor to the columns of The Independent Inquirer 
 and the Brattleboro newspapers. While in Newfane he furnished articles 
 for The Green Mountain Democrat, published in that town; when The 
 Vermont Phcenix started in 1834 he contributed and served more or less 
 as editorial assistant. He removed to Brattleboro in 1843 and purchased 
 the house on Elliot Street where he died September 28, 1877. 
 
 He was a member of the old board of road commissioners appointed 
 by the Legislature under a law of the country passed in 1827 ; clerk of the 
 board until the repeal of the law in 1831 ; was delegate to the State Con- 
 stitutional Convention in 1843, and from that time a resident in Brattle- 
 boro. He was entrusted very extensively with town affairs: he served 
 as first selectman ten years, many years as lister and was long a justice 
 of the peace. He had skill as a practical surveyor and was an excellent 
 bookkeeper; his services as accountant were often called into requisition 
 by merchants and other business men; he was also much employed as 
 assistant at the post office. 
 
 As a writer noted for wit and sarcasm, many old citizens recall telling 
 hits administered by him to opponents through his newspaper, but they 
 were never tinged with malice. He was always kind, obliging and good- 
 natured. 
 
CHAPTER XLII 
 
 THE BRATTLEBORO RETREAT 
 
 Brattleboro Retreat, formerly Vermont Asylum for the Insane— Bequest of Mrs. 
 Anna Marsh— Location— Buildings— Trustees— William H. Rockwell, M.D — 
 Madame Rockwell— Edward R. Chapin, M.D.— Doctor Joseph Draper— Doctor 
 Shailer E. Lawton. Statistics of Asylum Estate. Notable Assistant Physicians. 
 
 The Vermont Asylum for the Insane was founded upon a bequest of 
 $10,000 from Mrs. Anna Marsh of Hinsdale, New Hampshire. She 
 was a daughter of Lieutenant-Governor Hunt and married Doctor Per- 
 ley Marsh of Hinsdale, who died September 18, 1807, aged forty-one; 
 she died October 14, 1834, aged sixty-five. In accordance with the 
 provisions of her will, the Vermont Asylum for the Insane was incor- 
 porated by the Legislature November 3, 1834. The trustees named in 
 the will of the founder, and also in the act of incorporation, were Samuel 
 Clark, John Holbrook, Epaphro Seymour and John C. Holbrook, all of 
 Brattleboro. They held their first meeting at Colonel Chase's stage 
 tavern, pursuant to notice, signed by Samuel Clark and published in The 
 Vermont Phwnix of September 11, 1835, and organized by choosing 
 Samuel Clark chairman, Epaphro Seymour treasurer, John C. Holbrook 
 secretary. On the third of October following, at an adjourned meeting, 
 the legacy of Mrs. Marsh was paid into the hands of the trustees by 
 Asa Keyes, one of the executors of the will of Mrs. Marsh. The 
 first report of the trustees to the Legislature was then made under the 
 requirements of the charter. This report (which was never printed) 
 was in substance as follows: That they had received the sum of 
 $10,000, bequeathed by Mrs. Marsh for the foundation of an institution 
 for the relief of the insane, and that they had fixed the location of the 
 same at Brattleboro, the terms of the will restricting them to some place 
 in Windham County, near the Connecticut River. They further took 
 this early opportunity to state (what they said "must be obvious to every, 
 one"), that the sum of $10,000 was far from adequate to the establish- 
 ment of such an institution as should be at all commensurate with the 
 wants of the state. In their opinion $30,000 was requisite, and they sub- 
 mitted to the consideration of the Legislature the question of supplying 
 such additional sum as might be necessary. 
 
DOCTOR WILLIAM H. ROCKWELL 
 
 ASYLUM MEADOW 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
•S^ -H^:'$^ 
 
 1836 
 
 ..^uM6i' 
 
 1844 
 
 THE VERMONT ASYLUM 1854 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
THE BRATTLEBORO RETREAT 425 
 
 This appeal was supported by an interesting statement of the results 
 of their inquiries and investigations as to the needs of the state, in respect 
 to provision of this kind, supplemented by a showing of what had been 
 done in this direction by Massachusetts and other states. The Legisla- 
 ture responded by the passage of an act, November 9, 1835, appropriating 
 $3000 annually, for five years, "To enable the trustees the more effectually 
 to promote the benevolent designs of the institution ; provided, that said 
 trustees should take no benefit from the provisions of the act, until they 
 had so far erected the building and organized said asylum so as to receive 
 patients therein; and, provided, also, that any future legislature might 
 alter, amend or repeal this act." 
 
 The original purchase of Nathan Woodcock embraced about two acres 
 only on the westerly side of the road; but here was situated a mansion 
 house, "Woodlands," a two-story wooden building, Joseph Fessenden 
 owner, which was subsequently known and designated as the "White 
 House," until finally giving place, in 1857, to the brick building now 
 known as the "Marsh Building." On the opposite side of the road, on the 
 same plateau, — now the site of the main buildings, — were four acres 
 more, then used as a garden. Forty-five acres of meadowland contiguous 
 to the garden on the north were secured from Ebenezer Wells and, after 
 the purchase of the narrow intervening strip of Houghton Pike, were 
 bounded by the county road upon the westerly side. 
 
 A letter bearing date, Boston, May 27, to Mr. John C. Holbrook, from 
 Reverend Louis Dwight, at that time secretary of the Prison Discipline 
 Society and an active philanthropist, attests his view of the fitness of 
 the location thus secured, as follows : 
 
 I received your letter of the 25th inst. this morning, and reply without 
 delay. I have no doubt you have decided wisely in regard to your loca- 
 tion for the Asylum. I never supposed that the place which you describe 
 could be purchased at any price. I understood, when I was in Brattle- 
 borough, that it was owned by a man of fortune who had retired from 
 the busy scenes of life to enjoy that beautiful retreat, and^s I saw it was 
 fitted up in a style of taste and beauty which is not surpassed, in my 
 judgment, by any country seat in the environs pf Boston, New York, or 
 Philadelphia, and had such a profusion of flowers, shrubs, and fruits, 
 why! of course — ^as I supposed, no man of fortune would sell such a 
 place. I should always have preferred that house, and that location, to 
 the farm-house location but I consider it more of the perfection of beauty 
 of nature and art to unite that house and grounds with as much of the 
 meadow as was wanted, than could be aspired to by any man. It appears 
 now from your last letter, that you have secured this house and grounds 
 
426 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 for the insane, and can have as much of the meadow and woodland as 
 you want, together with a spring of water, at fair prices, and that you 
 have already purchased forty-five acres of meadow land. I can only say 
 that so far as my observation extends there is not a more beautiful spot 
 of earth than that which you have secured in Vermont for the insane. 
 The location of the publick institutions at Charlestown (McLean Asy- 
 lum), Worcester, Hartford, Bloomingdale, bear no comparison with it in 
 my mind's eye. 
 
 Doctor D. Hack Tuke, the celebrated English alienist, who visited the 
 United States in 1844, said : "It is difficult to convey an adequate idea of 
 the beauty of the grounds and surrounding hills of the Vermont Asylum." 
 
 The work of remodeling the dwelling was then commenced, and at a 
 meeting of the trustees, held June 28, 1836, Doctor William H. Rockwell 
 of Hartford, Connecticut, for several years previously assistant at the 
 Connecticut Retreat, was chosen to the superintendency, to enter upon 
 his duties as soon as the premises were ready for patients, which was 
 December 12, 1836. His salary was to be $1000 (of which he surrendered 
 voluntarily $400 the first year), and he was to live in the building free of 
 rent, "to furnish his own parlor and chamber — ^himself and wife to dis- 
 charge the duties of steward and matron." Three dollars a week was the 
 price of accommodation in the wings. Indigent persons, if curable, were 
 received for six months at two dollars a week. 
 
 The second report of the trustees (unpublished) was presented to the 
 Legislature in October, 1836. In this the progress made was detailed. 
 Besides the remodeling of the dwelling house, an extension of a wing 
 containing eight rooms was made to it, the whole being designed for the 
 accommodation of twenty patients, the necessary officers and employees ; 
 the cost of the whole, the purchase, refitting and furnishing, absorbing 
 nearly the whole of the Marsh legacy. They expressed the belief that 
 they had been extremely fortunate in the selection of Doctor Rockwell 
 for the superintendency, and that in the expenditure of the bequest of the 
 founder they bad erected accommodations for patients to the utmost 
 limit of the means at their command, and had so endeavored to order 
 their arrangements that,. in the event of further extensions, these first 
 expenditures should not be to any considerable degree lost ; and closed by 
 submitting to the Legislature the question as to whether the advantages 
 to be derived from such an institution should be extended through its 
 enlightened liberality to all the citizens of the state who required them, 
 or be confined to the comparatively few whom it would be practical to 
 accommodate on the original limited plan, calling attention to the impos- 
 sibility of relying at once upon the appropriation of $10,000 made the 
 
THE BRATTLEBORO RETREAT 427 
 
 previous year, by reason of the provisos which rendered the annual pay- 
 ments liable at any time to be repealed. 
 
 In response to this report, the Legislature granted an additional appro- 
 priation of $3000. Three subsequent appropriations for extending accom- 
 modations were made by the Legislature during the seven years following, 
 two of $4000 each, and one of $3000, aggregating a total of $23,000. 
 These last grants were made with certain provisos in the interest of the 
 state, securing to citizens of Vermont a preference in the matter of 
 admission over those of other states, and stipulating that, in case the 
 institution should cease to exist, the real estate should be held as security 
 for the total amount granted. From 1845, instead of a proprietary estab- 
 lishment, it became a public institution receiving the insane poor of the 
 state. With the exception of the state aid referred to, it has been self- 
 sustaining and self -creating, through the sagacious foresight and sound 
 practical management of its board of trustees and superintendent. Its 
 success has been in no small degree due to the pursuance of a steady 
 policy, which has been rendered practicable under its charter, which 
 preserved it from those frequent changes of management that are inci- 
 dental to political revolutions in institutions under ordinary state control.^ 
 
 In 184S land was purchased of Reverend Addison Brown for a ceme- 
 tery and a tomb was built. 
 
 From the opening of the institution to patients religious services have 
 been held every Sunday, in the chapel of the center building, which was 
 built in 1838. 
 
 An Asylum Journal, the first newspaper published in an institution for 
 the insane, was edited and printed by male patients from 1843 to 1847, 
 when the recovery of those connected with it concluded the undertaking. 
 "A Crazy Man's Ticket" for president and vice-president was one of the 
 attractions of The Journal. 
 
 The asylum is a chartered institution, but not a stock corporation. It 
 is simply a property in trust for a specific object and its management is 
 wholly vested in its board of trustees. The following are the changes that 
 have occurred, by resignation or death: In 1838, John Holbrook, de- 
 ceased ; Asa Keyes was elected his successor. In 1839, John C. Holbrook 
 removed from the state ; N*athan B. Williston was elected to succeed him. 
 In 1847, Epaphroditus Seymour resigned ; J. Dorr Bradley was elected in 
 his place. In 1852, Samuel Clark resigned; Frederick Holbrook was his 
 successor. In 1862, J. Dorr Bradley, deceased; Daniel Kellogg was 
 
 1 In May, 1896, under the supervision of Doctor Giddings, commissioner of the 
 State Asylum at Waterbury, one hundred and fourteen women and thirty-six men 
 were transferred from the Brattleboro Retreat. Some had been here from ten to 
 twenty years. 
 
438 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 chosen to fill the vacancy. In 1874, Daniel Kellogg and Asa Keyes 
 resigned ; William H. Rockwell and James M. Tyler were elected jn their 
 stead. In 1875, Nathan B. Williston resigned; Richards Bradley was 
 chosen in his place. In 1872, Doctor William H. Rockwell resigned, and 
 was succeeded by his son. 
 
 Doctor William H. Rockwell, Junior, was succeeded by Doctor Joseph 
 Draper February 16, 1873. On the death of Doctor Draper, Doctor 
 Shailer E. Lawton was made superintendent April 20, 1892. 
 
 Doctor Lawton studied in New York City and in the medical depart- 
 ment of the University of Vermont, where he graduated in 1881. During 
 his preparatory studies he spent some time at the Hartford, Connecticut, 
 Retreat, and it was through the recommendation of Doctor Stearns, the 
 superintendent, that he came to Brattleboro, immediately following his 
 graduation, to fill the position of assistant physician during the absence 
 of Doctor Draper in England. The following year he was appointed first 
 assistant physician. 
 
 Fitness of temperament, natural ability for the requirements of his 
 profession and long experience in practice have been supplemented by a 
 course of special study in neurology and psychological investigation in 
 New York, and by travel and observations in Europe, which have put him 
 in touch with the best thought and the best methods of specialists on both 
 sides of the Atlantic. It was Doctor Lawton who changed the name Ver- 
 mont Asylum to Brattleboro Retreat. 
 
 June 1, 1893, he married Lillian, daughter of Captain and Mrs. Upton 
 of Roxbury, Massachusetts. 
 Children : 
 
 Shailer, born March 30, 1894; married June 17, 1915, Miss Mildred 
 
 Stewart. 
 Lillian, born August 17, 1895 ; married October 11, 1919, Appleton T. 
 Miles. 
 
 William H. Rockwell, M.D. 
 
 William Haydon Rockwell was born in East Windsor, Connecticut, 
 February 15, 1800. He was the only son, in a family of eight children, 
 of Charles and Sarah Haydon Rockwell. His father was a farmer, as 
 were several generations of only sons before him, a fact that rendered him 
 especially desirous that his son should succeed him in the cultivation of 
 an estate that had been long in the family. But though not inclined to 
 adopt- this for his permanent pursuit, the knowledge of farming here 
 acquired was afterwards of great service in aiding the son to advance 
 the interests of those whose welfare became the chief concern of his life. 
 
 A rather precocious fondness for the study of mathematics enabled 
 
THE BRATTLEBORO RETREAT 439 
 
 young Rockwell to early master the science of surveying. This profi- 
 ciency gained him, at the age of seventeen, the position of leading sur- 
 veyor in the neighboring towns, and by the time he had attained his 
 majority he was appointed surveyor-in-chief of Hartford County. Dur- 
 ing the intervals that occurred between this and other engagements, he 
 found time to aid his father when his work pressed more heavily, and 
 also to prepare himself to pass the first three examinations and to enter 
 the junior class of Yale College. From this institution he was graduated 
 with distinction in 1834. He received soon after the appointment of 
 principal of the Nichols Academy at Dudley, Massachusetts. After 
 remaining there two years, he entered on the study of medicine in the 
 office of Doctor Thomas Hubbard, a professor in the Yale College Medi- 
 cal School. While yet an undergraduate, he was appointed assistant 
 physician in the Retreat for the Insane at Hartford, then under the charge 
 of the noted alienist, Doctor Eli Todd, where he remained until his return 
 to the Yale Medical School, from which he was graduated in 1831. 
 Though earnestly invited to resume his position in the Retreat, and having 
 now a strong predilection for the specialty to which he hoped sometime to 
 return, he wisely judged it better to first gain more experience in the 
 general practice of his profession, and, a favorable opportunity offering, 
 he at once entered on the practice in Durham, Connecticut. He was there 
 not quite two years when, in response to a most urgent request from his 
 old friend and preceptor. Doctor Todd, then in failing health, he returned 
 to the Retreat. Here he continued as assistant physician until called to 
 Brattleboro, though acting superintendent during Doctor Todd's disabling 
 illness and for some time after his death. 
 
 Doctor Rockwell was married June 35, 1835, to Mrs. Maria F. Chapin, 
 a native of Salisbury, Connecticut, who died August 30, 1885, aged 
 eighty-six. 
 
 He received from the board of trustees the appointment of superin- 
 tendent of the Vermont Asylum for the Insane, June 38, 1836, but he did 
 not assume charge until the following October, when his services were 
 required to supervise the completion of the alterations and additions to 
 the buildings that were being made to render it suitable for the reception 
 of patients. 
 
 Under the management of Doctor Rockwell the asylum was extended, 
 rebuilt, as to a large portion destroyed by fire December 31, 1863, and 
 remodeled in some parts before and since that catastrophe. The institu- 
 tion has, besides, supported itself from the first on income derived from 
 private patients. A new chapel was dedicated in March, 1884. 
 
 While at Hartford, Doctor Rockwell had longed for an opportunity of 
 attempting an experiment, before untried, of largely engaging the male 
 
430 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 patients of an asylum in farm labor; and it is known that the favorable 
 location of the Vermont Asylum for such purposes greatly influenced 
 him in his decision to accept the superintendency. But, as shown in some 
 of his earlier reports, he met with much opposition from some of his 
 brother specialists, who deemed the project impracticable and dangerous. 
 The success of the experiment is substantiated and, indeed, now indis- 
 putably established by the fact that all state institutions for the insane, 
 built in more recent years, have adopted his idea, and now possess exten- 
 sive farms on which the inmates are more or less largely employed.^ In 
 1839 the female patients made all the bedding of the establishment and 
 much of the clothing and did the mending under the direction of the 
 matron. Driving every day and gardening were added to their other 
 activities. But while so much interested in securing the success of this 
 undertaking, he neglected none of the other means commonly used for 
 the occupation and diversion of the insane. Indeed, he had early and 
 thoroughly tested almost everything in the form of diversion and the 
 ordinary occupations and exercises, both within doors and without, for 
 female as well as male patients, such as are now resorted to for their 
 benefit. As long as he lived there was an intimate relation between the 
 town and the Asylum. In the institution were many patients whose years 
 of separation from home and friends deprived them of the natural oppor- 
 tunities of their social heritage, but who were well enough to add variety 
 and interest to the life of the community, and in return reception days, 
 fairs, balls, concerts and theatricals at the Asylum were largely attended 
 by the people outside. Chess, billiards, cards, backgammon and, out of 
 doors, battledore and shuttlecock also served as attractions. There were 
 always a number of women actively engaged in painting, drawing and 
 piano playing. The original, sometimes fantastic, and often beautiful 
 articles made by the patients and kept in glass cases in the wards, were 
 much in demand by visitors to Brattleboro, and sold at good prices. 
 
 Possessed of abilities of no common order and in harmonious union 
 as they were with a most generous and sympathetic nature, Doctor Rock- 
 well could undoubtedly have won distinction in almost any position in 
 life. To refer to one faculty only, his memory was so retentive that until 
 late in life he could translate the classic authors with almost the same 
 facility as when fresh from college. 
 
 As a citizen of Brattleboro, Doctor Rockwell is most affectionately 
 remembered for having always taken an active interest in everything that 
 tended to advance the growth and prosperity of the town, as well as for 
 
 1 George W. Pierce had served eight years as supervisor of the male department 
 when he was appointed manager of the Retreat Farm, which position he held 
 until his death in 1909. 
 
THE BRATTLEBORO RETREAT 431 
 
 being among the foremost in every benevolent work. During the earlier 
 years of his residence here he occasionally read a lecture at the Village 
 Lyceum, choosing for a topic something regarding mental or physical 
 hygiene, or other subject in the treatment of which useful information 
 could be imparted. 
 
 In person, Doctor Rockwell was much above the ordinary height, but 
 of erect and well-proportioned figure. His head was large and of fine 
 shape; features regular and countenance pleasing. On May 10, 1873, 
 as he was starting from his door he was thrown from his wagon with 
 such force as to cause a fracture of the neck of the thigh bone ; this, to- 
 gether with internal difficulties consequent to the shock to his nervous 
 system, confined him to his bed until his death November 30, 1873. 
 
 For thirty-seven years Mrs. Rockwell shared the anxieties and 
 labors of her husband. Favored with uniformly robust health of body 
 and mind, with marked amiability and humanity of feeling, and, 
 withal, practical good sense and decision of character, she was well 
 equipped for the varied and multiform requirements of her position. 
 She was the devoted and untiring friend of the unfortunate inmates of 
 the institution, ever ready to devise ways for promoting their comfort 
 and health, occupation for their minds and hands, amusement for their 
 entertainment or solace for their darker and more troubled days. 
 
 It was largely through her natural and cultivated taste that the exten- 
 sive grounds and surroundings of the Asylum were so well preserved 
 according to the original plan, and made still more attractive. 
 Children : 
 
 Mary K., married September 37, 1860, Thomas F. Thatcher of Phila- 
 delphia, a graduate of Columbia College. During the war he held a 
 responsible position as paymaster of the army; after 1874 he was 
 a member of the firm Richard Lacey & Company, New York, brokers 
 in East India goods. He died June 30, 1879, aged forty-one. After 
 his death Mrs. Thatcher entered the Sisterhood of St. John Baptist 
 and died, after a lingering illness, September 17, 1914. 
 William H., Junior, born March 3, 1840; married June 16, 1864, Ellen 
 
 E., daughter of Robert Mowe of Eastport, Maine. (See p. 935.) 
 Lieutenant Charles F., U. S. A., born November 36, 1841 ; died No- 
 vember 13, 1868, aged twenty-seven. 
 
 Miss Abbie Rockwell, sister of Doctor W. H. Rockwell, for seventeen 
 years matron of the institution, died January 11, 1867, aged sixty-eight. 
 
 Edward R. Chapin, M.D. 
 Doctor Edward R. Chapin was born January 1, 1831, at Salisbury, 
 Connecticut, then called Chapinville, the son of Madam William H. Rock- 
 
433 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 well by her first marriage. He was educated at the Leicester Academy and 
 Yale College, and graduated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 
 New York. Immediately after graduation he entered Bellevue Hospital, 
 where he remained for two years on the staff of surgeons. He became 
 assistant physician at the Vermont Asylum under his stepfather, William 
 H. Rockwell. After a few years' service there he went to New York City, 
 where he was successful in private practice, with an office on Pine Street. 
 About the year 1850 he was appointed surgeon upon a steamer plying 
 between Panama and San Francisco. When the first city hospital was 
 established in San Francisco, Doctor Chapin was appointed surgeon- 
 in-chief, holding the place about five years. Returning to the East, he 
 resumed his old position at the Asylum, in Brattleboro temporarily, and 
 subsequently was appointed superintendent of the Insane Asylum at Flat- 
 bush, Long Island. During his incumbency, which covered a period of 
 fifteen years, this institution made rapid growth, increasing to a capacity 
 for the treatment of eight hundred patients and holding high rank among 
 similar institutions in this country. At the end of fifteen years Doctor 
 Chapin suflFered a severe attack of pneumonia, which deprived him of the 
 use of one lung. Finding change and rest necessary for the recovery of 
 his health, he resigned his position and went to Europe, returning with 
 his health much improved. November 12, 1873, he married Mrs. Sarah 
 Goodhue Bull, . the youngest daughter of Colonel Joseph and Madam 
 Sarah Goodhue. Their married life of twelve years was peculiarly happy. 
 Their winters were spent in southern climes in this country and Europe, 
 and their summers were mainly divided between Brattleboro and Old 
 Orchard, Maine. While in Paris, in 1886, Mrs. Chapin died. The sudden 
 shock was one from which he never fully recovered and he died December 
 7, 1886. 
 
 Doctor Chapin was a man of fine, generous and cheerful nature, with 
 a kindness of heart and warmth of personal sympathy and general culture 
 and refinement which endeared him to his friends and won him the love 
 and respect of all who knew him. 
 
 Statistics of the Retreat Estate 
 The Retreat estate, as it now is, has been made up of many small 
 additions of land acquired from time to time, covering a period of nearly 
 fifty years ; the statistics of these additions are interesting for their his- 
 tory of the locality and the names of the original owners. 
 
 1836 Six acres of land and buildings of Nathan Woodcock, $3500 
 
 Forty-five acres of land of Ebenezer Wells, 2700 
 
 Land of Houghton Pike, 800 
 
 1838 Spring of Houghton Pike, 150 
 
RESIDENCE OF DOCTOR PERLEY MARSH 
 
 MARSH BUILDING 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
IN 1874 
 
 GARDEN 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
THE BRATTLEBORO RETREAT 433 
 
 1845 Spring of Eben Wells, ' $ 200 
 
 1847 Wood lot and pasture of John L. Dickerman, westeriy of 
 
 Holbrook meadow, making addition to farm, 1000 
 
 1848 Fifty acres from the west pdrt of Stephen Barrett's farm, 800 
 One acre of Charles Chapin, beyond the house of Hough- 
 ton Pike, subsequently owned by Daniel MiUer and 
 
 sold by him, 150 
 
 1849 September 22. Tract of land on Chesterfield Mountain 
 
 of Samuel Thomas, twenty-five acres, 250 
 
 Sixteen acres of J. R. Blake between the main building 
 
 and the Common. 
 One acre of meadow of Newman Allen. 
 
 1850 One-half acre west side of Putney road of Nelson 
 
 Crosby, 100 
 
 Three acres of meadowland of Newman Allen, contigu- 
 ous to that bought in previous years, ' 482 
 
 1852 Three hundred acres of mountain woodland opposite the 
 
 village, in Chesterfield and Hinsdale, 4800 
 
 1853 One-half acre corner of Chase and Asylum Streets of 
 
 W. E. Eason at 300 
 
 Thirty-six acres from the Ebenezer Wells farm, 3700 
 
 1854 Bulk of Ebenezer Wells farm improved by F. Holbrook 
 
 so as to greatly increase productiveness, 5185 
 
 Meadow drained by F. Holbrook, run-out pasture lands 
 
 tilled and restored by him. 
 Small piece of land of Nelson Crosby, including a slate 
 
 ledge suitable for stone foundations, 90 
 
 December 28. Woodland on side of the mountain, 450 
 
 Fifty acres adjoining, from John L. Sargent, 310 
 
 1857 Wood lot of fifteen acres on West River road of P. B. 
 
 Francis, disconnected from Asylum estate proper, 300 
 
 Prouty lot of Nathaniel Samson and Charles S. Prouty, 1010 
 
 The Asylum gave a site, corner of Chase and Asylum 
 Streets, and moved there the schoolhouse from the 
 Common, freeing the Common from all obstructions, 
 purchasing land next to Chase Street School of the 
 Misses Crosby, 600 
 
 A low buckthorn and osage orange hedge had separated 
 the Common from the Asylum grounds. 
 
 1858 Thirty square rods of Shepard Rice, connecting Prouty 
 
 lot and Asylum lands. 
 Newman Allen farm of about 175 acres, 10,500 
 
434 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 1858 Additional woodland on the mountain, of John Heywood 
 
 and others, $ 840 
 
 1859 One-half acre, near Asylum, of Mary A. Knowlton, 30 
 Additional land on the mountain, 100 
 
 1860 Eighteen acres of cultivated land, of Keith White, 1700 
 Lot on Cedar Street. 
 
 1862 November. Sixty-nine acres of mountain woodland of 
 
 Farnsworth and Colburn, 600 
 
 1863 Ten acres of F. Holbrook upon meadow, 1700 
 Seventy acres of woodland in Dummerston, 1752 
 
 1864 Forty-six acres of woodland in Vernon of Wells Good- 
 
 hue, 1800 
 
 1866 One hundred square rods contiguous to cemetery, of 
 
 Henry F. Smith, 250 
 
 1867 Supply of water from place of James H. Capen equal to 
 
 that previously depended upon from the Ebenezer 
 Wells farm. 
 
 1868 North of the Marsh Building three buildings were pur- 
 
 chased in 1868, namely, one occupied by Willard Ed- 
 wards, one occupied by Francis T. Green and one 
 occupied by Mary A. and William Knowlton, 5400 
 
 1870 Henry H. Rice's farm of seventy acres, 3500 
 
 1871-72. March, 1871. Pike homestead of David Miller, 2600 
 
 Water from Calvin J. Weld and Isaac B. Taft. Estate 
 of James A. Chase, contiguous to Wells Farm, twenty ■ 
 acres, 3075 
 
 1877 Small cottage near Cold Spring with one-half acre, 
 
 bought of Rinaldo N. Hescock, 775 
 
 1880 House and lot with blacksmith's shop between the David 
 
 Miller place and the Newman Allen farm, of George 
 and Polly C. Person, 1800 
 
 Road from Forest Square to Newf ane road, north of the 
 David Miller place, laid out ; this road separated from 
 the farm about thirty acres for a park. Ernest W. 
 Bowditch, in October, laid out the park. 
 
 1881 Purchase of Miles schoolhouse 'and land, for Women's 
 
 Retreat, afterwards Linden Lodge, 7600 
 
 1882 Waite lot on Putney road, 2400 
 
 1883 Two and three-sixteenths acres bought of Joseph Pres- 
 
 cott, contiguous to park, 700 
 
 Work on Retreat Tower was begun in July, 1887, and the Tower was 
 conipleted in 1893. 
 
THE BRATTLEBORO RETREAT 435 
 
 The old house on the Retreat farm stood perhaps a hundred feet south 
 of the present dwelling. It was somewhat larger than the present farm- 
 house, two-storied, of the shape called "salt box," that is, sloping in the 
 rear to one story. An ell was built to the south, the second story pro- 
 jecting, so as to give a veranda with three arches. 
 
 It is worthy of note that during the past eighty-five years the Brattleboro 
 Retreat has had but four superintendents. 
 
 William H. Rockwell, M.D., elected superintendent June 28, 1836, 
 served continuously until May 10, 1872, when he sustained a fracture of 
 the thigh which terminated fatally November 30, 1873. He was suc- 
 ceeded by his son, William H. Rockwell, Junior, M.D., who accepted the 
 superintendency with the understanding that he would fill the position 
 ad interim. His resignation was tendered December 11 of the same year. 
 
 Joseph Draper, M.D., was elected superintendent December 11, 1872, 
 and entered upon service February 16, 1873. Doctor Draper served until 
 the date of his decease, March 17, 1892. 
 
 S. E. Lawton, M.D., who had served for eleven years as first assistant 
 physician, was elected acting superintendent March 20, 1892; was ap- 
 pointed superintendent April 20, and is still in service. 
 
 Among those who have served as assistant physicians at the Brattleboro 
 Retreat during its long and honorable career, the following have gone to 
 wider fields of usefulness and activity and have achieved more than 
 ordinary distinction. Their names appear in chronological order. 
 
 Chauncey Booth, M.D., connected with McLean Hospital for fifteen 
 years, serving as superintendent during the two years prior to his death. 
 
 David P. Brown, M.D., physician in chief of the Bloomingdale Hospital, 
 New York. 
 
 Oliver S. Lovejoy, M.D., superintendent of State Farm, Work House 
 and Insane Hospital at Cranston, Rhode Island. 
 
 Edward R. Chapin, M.D., superintendent of Kings County Hospital for 
 the Insane, Flatbush, New York. 
 
 John P. Clement, M.D., superintendent of the State Hospital at Madi- 
 son, Wisconsin. 
 
 Edward B. Nims, M.D., superintendent of the Northampton Hospital 
 for the Insane, Northampton, Massachusetts. 
 
 John M. Clarke, M.D., founder of Lake View Sanitarium at Burlington, 
 Vermont. 
 
 Henry T. Whitney, M.D., physician in charge of the Medical Missionary 
 Hospital at Foochow, China. 
 
 Frank W. Spaulding, M.D., superintendent of Clifton Springs Sani- 
 tarium, Clifton Springs, New York. 
 
436 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Edward French, M.D., superintendent of Medfield State Hospital, 
 Harding, Massachusetts. 
 
 Lowell F. Wentworth, M.D., superintendent of Hospital for the Insane 
 at Topeka, Kansas. Now assistant commissioner. Department of Mental 
 Diseases, State House, Boston, Massachusetts. 
 
 Whitefield N. Thompson, M.D., superintendent of the Hartford Retreat, 
 Hartford, Connecticut. 
 
 Thomas Howell, M.D., superintendent of New York Hospital, New 
 York City. 
 
 Daniel H. Calder, M.D., superintendent of State Mental Hospital, 
 Provo, Utah. 
 
 Charles D. Wilkins, M.D., superintendent of Ohio Valley General 
 Hospital, Wheeling, West Virginia. 
 
 George B. Landers, M.D., superintendent of The Morristown Memorial 
 Hospital, Morristown, New Jersey. 
 
RIVER FROM CEMETARY 
 
 COCKAYNE. BOSTON 
 
CHAPTER XLIII 
 BUSINESS METHODS IN THE FORTIES 
 
 Business methods in the forties — Hall & Townsley. Stage lines — Asher Spencer — 
 Daniel P. Kingsley — Bridge & Weeks. Birge & Dickinson — John R. Blake & 
 Company — John H. Wheeler — G. & C. Lawrence — Calvin Townsley & Son — 
 Ranger & Thompson— Williston & Tyler, merchants. Salisbury & Company — 
 A. Barber — Goodhue, Chapin & Company — Hines, Newman & Company, manu- 
 
 . facturers. Political campaign of 1840 — Daniel Webster, orator, speech in Good- 
 hue Grove— .Mass meeting Stratton Mountain. Stage-drivers — Charles D. Gale — 
 Asher Spencer — Daniel P. Kingsley — Charles Wood — Bridge & Weeks. 
 
 It is difficult to portray the labor required to propel the heavily laden 
 flatboats through the narrow rapids to moorings near the present site 
 of the railroad arch which spans Whetstone Brook at its mouth. Inside 
 the covered bridge a rude windlass, to which was attached a ponderous 
 rope or cable, turned by half a dozen stalwart men, dragged every incom- 
 ing boat through the tortuous rapids, aided by pushers with rude poles 
 along either side of the ungainly and awkward craft. The experiences 
 of the "swift watermen" in these early boating times were second only 
 to the scenes upon the Hudson and Mississippi in thrilling interest, and 
 it is related of an old Chesterfield farmer that it took him all winter to 
 recount to his neighbors his hazardous experience on a trip to Hartford. 
 
 The village had but 1500 inhabitants and the town not quite double that 
 number. The principal merchants of that day were Hall & Townsley, 
 "the great moguls" among them, occupying the whole of the Steen build- 
 ing. They ran several of the flatboats ; David Goodell, Keith White and 
 Henry Reed did the rest of the freighting with their big six-horse teams 
 at their leisurely pace. For the passenger traffic the stages came and 
 went in every direction. 
 
 Charles D. Gale 
 
 Charles D. Gale was a stage-driver thirty-two years and never had an 
 accident that injured anybody, although his coach was overturned several 
 times. He began staging on the run from Brattleboro to Athol. He used 
 to start at two in the morning and arrive at Athol at eight o'clock, then 
 give up the ribbons to another driver, who drove another stretch, and so 
 
438 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 on to Boston, a distance of about one hundred and thirty miles from Brat- 
 tleboro, arriving in the city at nine o'clock at night, the coaches making 
 on an average between six and seven miles an hour. He subsequently 
 drove on the "Cheese" line, so-called, from Worcester to Northampton. 
 Mr. Gale, during his staging, drove between Keene and Boston and be- 
 tween Nashua and Lowell. He was paid $15 per month and board. 
 
 Those were the days when the coming of the mail coach was announced 
 by the loud blowing of the driver's horn and when each country post- 
 master took the mail bag and sorted over the contents, adding to them 
 such as were to go out. 
 
 When the presidential campaign of 1840 was in full swing Mr. Gale 
 was living in Winchester, New Hampshire, and on the seventeenth of 
 June that year he was the driver of a huge wagon with six gray horses, 
 which went all the way from Winchester to Concord, New Hampshire, 
 decorated with evergreen boughs and with a log cabin on the turnout, 
 while thirty men of Winchester and kegs of hard cider made the occasion 
 one never to be forgotten. The distance was sixty miles. The principal 
 orator of the day was "Long Jim Wilson" of Keene, the most noted 
 lawyer of the Granite State at the time. 
 
 Mr. Gale married in 1850 Miss Harriet M. Moore of Brattleboro and 
 to them two sons were born, Charles E. and John W. Gale, both of whom 
 live in South Spencer. 
 
 The name of Asher Spencer, the old-time stage proprietor and post- 
 master, was once as familiar to the people of the valley as that of Chester 
 W. Chapin, his lifelong friend and collaborator. Both were prominently 
 identified with the stage line between Brattleboro and Hartford, which 
 was an important link in the "Telegraph," so-called, a line running from 
 Canada to New Haven, thence by boat to New York, the trip being made 
 with relays of four and six fleet horses in about sixty hours, traveling 
 night and day. Mr. Spencer was born in Westminster August 9, 1802 ; 
 at the age of twenty he left the farm and went to Greenfield, where he 
 began his stage-driving career with Isaac Newton. He ran from Green- 
 field to Athol seven or eight years and finally succeeded to the proprietor- 
 ship which included the route to Brattleboro. He married February 10, 
 1837, Miss Elizabeth Johnson of Greenfield. In 1841 he removed here and 
 formed a copartnership with Daniel Kingsley, under the firm name of 
 Spencer & Kingsley. 
 
 Daniel P. Kingsley was a native of Greenfield, born June 14, 1808. 
 He began staging on the Northampton and Worcester turnpike; about 
 1835 he went to Springfield and took an interest in the stage line between 
 that place and Albany, with Simeon Leland. He came to Brattleboro 
 
BUSINESS METHODS IN THE -FORTIES 439 
 
 about 1845, after the Boston & Albany Railroad was built, and in com- 
 ■ pany with Asher Spencer ran stage lines from here to Greenfield and 
 Walpole, living in the house afterwards owned by Philip Wells and 
 General Phelps. He married Mary, daughter of Stephen Button of 
 Dummerston, born March 16, 1808 ; died July 18, 1851. He finally went 
 to Springfield in the hotel business, and died October 23, 1886. A son, 
 George D., born in Brattleboro in 1834, lived at the Mansion House in 
 Greenfield from 1880 to his death in 1894. 
 
 Spencer & Kingsley at once established an extensive livery in the rear 
 of the old Brattleboro House and proceeded to buy out Lovell Farr's 
 stage route between Brattleboro and Walpole. They also secured the 
 route on the east side of the Connecticut to Montague by the way of 
 Hinsdale, Northfield and Grout's Corners. S. M. Waite was a night 
 clerk of Spencer & Kingsley. 
 
 The stage driver was a man worthy of the responsibility laid upon him. 
 He was not only responsible for the safety of his passengers, but the 
 mail, money and other valuables were entrusted to his care. Brakes had 
 not come into fashion, and the trips down Vermont's steep hills and 
 mountains over rough roads would often be full of adventure when the 
 horses were going at full speed. Ten passengers were the usual limit 
 for a stage. 
 
 Some of the most expert reinsmen were employed, among them Charles 
 Wood, whpse superior horsemanship gave him wide fame, and favored 
 him with the privilege of purchasing horses for Barnum, Forepaugh and 
 other noted exhibitors, also bringing him profit in the care and supervision 
 of famous studs. In this old-time coterie of drivers were the follow- 
 ing named horsemen who stood par excellence in their profession : Harvey 
 Gill, Amos Pond, Sidney Morse, B. F. Davis, A. U. Chase, Thomas Miner 
 and Medad Squares. 
 
 It was customary in those days for the townspeople to flock to the old 
 stage house to see the mail come in. The coaches were very showy for 
 the times, and it is even related that the cracking of the whip on a clear 
 day could be heard nearly a mile. Spencer & Kingsley's establishment 
 was the most extensive north of Springfield, about two hundred horses 
 being required. "Uncle Asher," as he was familiarly known, bought the 
 Judge Whitney place on Main Street (residence of Mrs. George Dowley) 
 and was the first to open Walnut Street to public use, the whole territory 
 in that vicinity at that time being part of his estate and used for pasturage. 
 
 Bridge & Weeks owned the line from Brattleboro to Bennington, which 
 connected with the Baker & Walker system for Troy and Albany. In 
 1840 a triweekly stage left Brattleboro at 8 a.m. Tuesday, Thursday and 
 
440 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Saturday, arriving in Bennington at 6 p.m. Leaving Bennington the next 
 morning at 6 a.m., it arrived in Saratoga, via Cambridge, at 6 p.m. The ' 
 distance to Bennington was forty miles and to Saratoga forty. The fare 
 was $4.40. The old Bridge tavern, four miles east of Wilmington, was 
 then a popular hostelry, where a good meal was to be had while changing 
 horses. The old building, remodeled, is now a comfortable tenement 
 house on Pearl Street, brought here by Deacon Estey. 
 
 Mr. Spencer was not only a good contractor, but he was also a valued 
 citizen, whose rugged honesty and fidelity to his many friends, coupled 
 with his quiet demeanor and natural aversion to anything like notoriety, 
 were everywhere recognized. 
 
 After his staging days, Mr. Spencer, being a lifelong Democrat, was 
 appointed postmaster June 3, 1858, in Buchanan's administration, with 
 William S. Guild, clerk, his appointment being secured by Chester W. 
 Chapin. He held the office about three years and was succeeded by 
 George Kellogg. This was the only public office Mr. Spencer would 
 accept. He was an associate of Landlord Paul Chase, Charles Chapin, 
 W. H. Rockwell, Hugh Henry and Madison Sloat. He died September 
 4, 1873. 
 
 Birge & Dickinson, John R. Blake & Company and John H. Wheeler 
 did a general merchandise business (see p. 494) ; also G. & C. Lawrence 
 (see p. 554) and Calvin Townsley & Son (see p. 506) . With the exception 
 of Mr. Wheeler's, liquors were sold in these stores, at that period prin- 
 cipally old Santa Cruz rum, new rum, Holland gin, and brandy. It was 
 as much taken for granted that a customer could buy New England rum 
 in any quantity, from a drink to a barrel, as that he could buy flour, or 
 sugar, or cotton cloth. Each of the three hotels had a public bar, twelve 
 or fifteen feet long, with a bartender who did nothing except serve drinks, 
 and on special days he required the services of several assistants. 
 
 About 1843 Edwin M. HoUister began the manufacture of sewing silk, 
 silk culture being an important industry until 1857. 
 
 Other merchants were A. E. Dwinell, dry goods; W. P. Cune, dry 
 goods; Woodcock & Company; Dutton & Clark; Ranger & Thompson, 
 jewelers ; Williston & Tyler, hardware ; William E. Ryther, printer. 
 
 The Ranger & Thompson firm dates back to 1817, when Isaac Thomp- 
 son set up business in a one-story wooden building on the east side of 
 Main Street, where he was succeeded by his son, Daniel B. Thompson, 
 who died in 1876, aged seventy-six. Of him Bethuel Ranger came to 
 learn the watchmaker's trade in 1836, a lad of fourteen, and bought an 
 interest in the business October 1, 1843, the firm becoming Thompson & 
 
BUSINESS METHODS IN THE FORTIES 441 
 
 Ranger. In 1842 the house was pulled down and Mr. Thompson set up 
 his business in "Hall's long building," where Hooker Block now stands. 
 In 1851 the store was returned to its former and present location. 
 
 Henry H. Thompson, son of Deacon Daniel B. and Sarah (Hammond) 
 Thompson, and grandson of Isaac Thompson, who came in 1811 from 
 Litchfield, Connecticut, was born March 31, 1848. He graduated from 
 the High School in 1866, and immediately afterwards entered the employ 
 of his father's firm, upon the death of his father becoming a partner. 
 On the death of Mr. Ranger, Henry Thompson was sole proprietor. His 
 son, Alfred H., carries on the Thompson business. Henry H., like his 
 father, was deacon of the Centre Congregational Church, and was for 
 many years treasurer of the ecclesiastical society and superintendent of 
 the Sunday school. He died November 15, 1911. Of special interest is 
 this business whicji has been carried on by four generations of the same 
 family in the same location for more than one hundred years. 
 
 N. B. Williston established the hardware business in 1835. Eleven 
 years later, April 1, 1846, Charles F. Thompson came from Salem, 
 Connecticut, at fifteen years of age, to be the clerk and boy-of -all-work 
 for the firm, which was Williston & Tyler, and was admitted a niember 
 of the firm in 1853. In the early times the store carried a great variety 
 of goods which are now entirely foreign to this line of trade. One of 
 these was logwood in its original form, rougher and harder to handle 
 than cordwood. This was ground in the company's mill and converted 
 into dyestufi and sold to various woolen mills, either for cash or exchange 
 goods. A large part of the hardware sold when Mr. Thompson began 
 here was imported by the firm itself. The firm of Williston & Tyler 
 brought the first thousand carriage bolts into town to sell. Bolts which 
 afterwards sold for one dollar a hundred then sold for four or five times 
 that sum. The firm dealt in drugs and medicine as well as hardware and 
 groceries, and Doctor Grau, a physician of wide repute, first introduced 
 the practice of putting up prescriptions. 
 
 The manufacturers at this period were Salisbury & Company, iron 
 founders ; Jacob Estey, lead pipe and pumps ; A. Barber, Goodhue, Chapin 
 & Company, leather; Hihes, Newman & Company, machinists, and the 
 Brattleborough Typographic Company, paper. Palm-leaf hats were 
 turned out by the thousands. 
 
 The lawyers were Asa Keyes, J. D. Bradley, L. G. Mead, Charles G. 
 Walker (who removed to Detroit) and Samuel Elliot. 
 
 The town representative was Lafayette Clark. The postmaster was 
 F. H. Fessenden and Russell Goodenough at the West Village. The town 
 clerk was Stephen Greenleaf, who was succeeded in 1844, after more 
 than half of a century of service, by Lafayette Clark. The selectmen 
 
442 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 were Samuel Root, Paul Chase and S. F. Goodenough. Marshall Miller 
 of Newfane was county clerk.- 
 
 The physicians were John L. Dickerman, F. J. Higginson, W. H. Rock- 
 well, John Wilson, Reuben Spaulding, Willard Arms, J. Paige and O. J. 
 Martin. 
 
 The clergymen were Charles Walker, Congregational ; Corban Kidder ; 
 Addison Brown, Unitarian; John English, J. C. Foster and William S. 
 Ballou. 
 
 The following are represented in the list of advertisements in a village 
 paper : N. B. Williston, dealer in drugs, medicines, paints, groceries, dye- 
 stuff and hardware goods ; Blake & Company, who sold broadcloths, 
 English and American piece goods and iron and steel ; Hall & Townsley, 
 who dealt in dry goods and stovepipe; Birge & Dickinson (Zelotes), 
 whose store was opposite Chase's stage house and who sold almost every- 
 thing; Birge, Brackett (Horace) & Company, watchmakers and jewelers; 
 Joseph Steen, who conducted the Brattleborough Book Store and also 
 paid cash for rags ; D. B. Thompson, who, in a page advertisement, enu- 
 merated about everything from patent lever watches to shoe buckles and 
 thread ; Charles C. Frost, who was in the shoe business and did not pre- 
 tend to "compete with the cheap work of the day, regardless of quality" ; 
 D. M. Burwell, who was a tailor and also carried a "full line of stocks, 
 collars and bosoms and a good assortment of trimmings" ; Nathan Miller, 
 who made harness, saddles, caps and trunks; S. W. Spooner, who an- 
 nounced that the subscriber had taken the stand formerly occupied by 
 A. G. Allen, where he would keep an assortment of cabinet furniture and 
 chairs, "also beds, mattresses and feathers, good, bad and indifferent, with 
 which he hopes to feather his own nest as well as those of his customers" ; 
 A. E. Dwinell, who sold dry and staple goods "at the very lowest prices 
 for cash or most kinds of produce"; John S. Sargent, who was a ma- 
 chinist and was at his shop "at all reasonable hours" ; Bemis & Willard, 
 who advertised that they were blacksmiths and had opened business in 
 their "new stone shop on Pleasant street" ; A. & F. Van Doom, who made 
 high-grade cabinets and chairs; P. Simonds & Company, shoe dealers; 
 Luther Weld, who made cast steel rifles, fowling pieces, rifle pistols, cane 
 guns, etc. ; Willard Frost, who conducted a boot and shoe store "six rods 
 north of the creek bridge, Brattleboro" ; Eleazer Farnsworth, maker of 
 "waggons" and carriages, who informed his customers that he was at the 
 "old stand" ; Miller & Lincoln, who painted carriages in addition to their 
 manufacturing business; Frederick Franks, tailor; Nichols & Ryther, 
 publishers of The Vermont Phoenix, who advertised the job printing of 
 the paper. 
 
 In that issue of The Almanac twenty-two local advertisers used space. 
 
BUSINESS METHODS IN THE FORTIES 443 
 
 a fact which would indicate that the business men of that time knew the 
 value of advertising. 
 
 The Political Campaign of 1840 
 
 During the famous campaign of 1840 Brattleboro was a storm center. 
 Here a young men's "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" club was organized, of 
 which Frederick (afterwards Governor) Holbrook was the president. 
 Frequent meetings were held, many glowing and patriotic speeches were 
 made, not only by local speakers, but by several orators from outside the 
 state. These meetings were generally held in Wheeler's Hall, but when 
 the crowd was too great for this hall they were held in the church on the 
 Common. General Wilson of Keene, a famous orator in those days, came 
 occasionally to address local audiences, swelled by a large attendance 
 from neighboring towns. The club had many good voices that sang 
 political songs with teUing effect. To Frederick Holbrook, one of the best 
 singers in the Connecticut Valley, were assigned the solos, the crowd 
 always joining in the chorus with a heartiness that would well-nigh lift 
 the rafters of the old church. 
 
 The young men's club was the originator of the idea of holding an out- 
 door mass meeting on Stratton Mountain, and secured Daniel Webster 
 as the orator of the day. Mr. Webster came by stage as far as Fitz- 
 william. New Hampshire, where he was met by a delegation in a barouche 
 and conveyed to Brattleboro. A prancing cavalcade of horsemen from 
 Brattleboro's wide-awake club met the celebrated speaker about four 
 miles out on the Hinsdale road, where they opened ranks, Mr. Webster 
 saluting the open column with bared head. His swarthy face and over- 
 hanging eyebrows made a strong impression. "I was never so impressed 
 by a human being," said Governor Holbrook. "He seemed to us troopers 
 more like a god let down from above than mortal man.'' On arriving 
 in Brattleboro Mr. Webster was served with a trout supper at the Ameri- 
 can House after he had addressed a large crowd in the Goodhue grove 
 in the afternoon, at which Colonel Townsley presided and with whom 
 Mr. Webster probably spent the night at the old Hunt house, corner of 
 Main and High Streets. Burnham says: 
 
 He was introduced by Judge Whitney to the throng that had collected in 
 the grove to hear him, as follows : 
 
 "Ladies and Gentlemen: The Defender of the Constitution." 
 As died away the cheers of the multitude, the sound of cannon and 
 strains of music, we felt, though all these demonstrations might be proper 
 from our citizens in deference to this distinguished visitor. Judge Whit- 
 ney, in the use of those last five words, had paid Mr. Webster the highest 
 compliment of them all. 
 
444 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 The following morning the party took a very early start for Stratton, 
 taking along with them a crowd of more than one hundred people, together 
 with a log cabin on wheels. 
 
 A large tent was pitched on the summit of the mountain, in which the 
 dinner was served, Mr. Webster being the guest of the Brattleboro club 
 with others from adjoining counties. It was a perfect day, July 6, warm 
 but clear, and this was the largest convention held up to that time in 
 Vermont. With a perfectly still atmosphere, Webster's sonorous voice 
 could be heard plainly by the vast audience, which repeatedly cheered 
 the speaker. 
 
 Town Clerk William S. Newton related how he, with scores of other 
 young men from their farm homes, came to Brattleboro on the fifth of 
 July, 1840, to see Daniel Webster. It was a great day, and Mr. Newton 
 remembered how Lovell Farr, the old stage man, drove the carriage in 
 which rode Mr. Webster and Mr. Townsley through the main street that 
 all might be given an opportunity to show their enthusiasm. Doctor W. R. 
 Ranney of Townshend presided at the Stratton meeting and Hiland Hall 
 was one of the prominent men of the occasion. . Judge Dorr Bradley 
 loaned his saddle and bridle to one of Webster's escorts, and they were 
 not returned. Judge Bradley subsequently advertised for the lost articles 
 in this way : "As to the bridle, I am not pertinacious, but should be pleased 
 to have the party concentrate their honesty on the saddle." 
 
CHAPTER XLIV 
 BRATTLEBORO VIOLINS: WILLIAM A. CONANT 
 
 In a quaint, white-painted cottage on Canal Street, in front of which 
 stand three or four shapely maples, lived William A. Conant, a descendant 
 of Roger Conant, who came to America in the ship Ann in 1623. An 
 unpretentious but interestingly jolly old gentleman, Mr. Conant won 
 more than local celebrity as a practical violin manufacturer, and was 
 believed to be the oldest living representative of his trade in the United 
 States when engaged in the manufacture of these instruments. Although 
 a respected resident of the town from 1839, when he moved from Massa- 
 chusetts, his life work was so quiet and unostentatious as hardly to attract 
 the attention of even his townspeople, comparatively few of whom under- 
 stood the degree of proficiency to which he attained in the manufacture of 
 violins. and violoncellos. 
 
 A single room in his tidy home furnished him a workshop. In 1841 
 Mr. Conant began the manufacture of 'cellos for John Woodbury, whose 
 music store was in Steen's bookstore on the present site of the Brooks 
 House. Eighty-four of these instruments were made and sold to the trade 
 in Boston and New York, which secured to the maker quite a reputation 
 for excellence of workmanship. After a time he began to make violins, 
 and, as his books show, three hundred and twenty-six of these instru- 
 ments were sold to Woodbury and Burdett. Not till 1876 did he begin 
 numbering his violins, so that he was not able to tell exactly how many 
 of them had been put on the market; still it was his belief that he had 
 made as many as seven hundred violins all told, i The old manufacturer 
 took commendable pride in referring to a celebrated violinist who was 
 asked by a leading city music dealer to select the best-toned instrument 
 from four, two of celebrated French and two of Conant's make. Placed in 
 a dark room, the musician was not permitted to examine the finish of the 
 instruments until he had given his decision, which was decidedly in favor 
 of the Conant make. 
 
 Mr. Conant tuned his own violins, though he could not play a tune, 
 and he was often importuned by local musicians and others to string and 
 tune their violins. The wood for the manufacture of these instruments 
 came from the Green Mountains. It was selected stock, very few 
 trees being fit for use. The top or belly of the violin was of old-growth 
 
446 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 spruce, it being selected for its softness and. fine grain. Only one side 
 of the tree was fit for the manufacture of violins. After a suitable tree 
 was found, only the north side was selected, as the south side grows faster 
 and the sun draws the gum to that side, so that the wood is coarser. It is 
 not especially the grain of the wood, said Mr. Conant, that makes a violin 
 good. Some are made of coarse grain and others fine, "but it is what I 
 call the temper of the wood that. gives the best tone to the instrument. 
 I don't suppose I could find one log in all of the millions floating down 
 the Connecticut fit for violins, as they are all second growth, cut near the 
 river, where the first growth has long since been destroyed. In Europe 
 the German pine, or deal, is used altogether for violins, but I don't use 
 it." The sideSj back and neck of the violin were made of curly maple. 
 He never worked his wood until it was at least seven years old. A friend 
 in Norwich, Connecticut, brought him some wood from the pulpit floor 
 of an old church which was taken down, with the expectation that the age 
 of this stock would impart tone to the instrument. From this two violins 
 were made, but they proved no better than those made from wood ob- 
 tained on the mountain. "Perhaps," said the manufacturer humorously, 
 "had he made his selection from the singers' seat, the result would have 
 been different." It is conceded that it is the vibrations of the wood that 
 impart the tone to the violin, and while a good violin invariably improves 
 with use, it makes a vast difference who handles a violin, as discords harm 
 a good instrument. Also a violin if laid aside goes to sleep, and it often 
 requires a master like Ole Bull to wake it up and "bring it to." It took 
 soniething like six weeks for Mr. Conant to make a thorough violin. 
 After they have been put together they are varnished, rubbed down and 
 strung. The bow he did not make, that part of the instrument being a 
 trade of itself ; most of them were made in France. 
 
 William A. Conant was born November 30, 1804. November 30, 1827, 
 he married in Lowell, Miss Harriet E. Salisbury, who was born April 9, 
 1805, and died August 3, 1890. Mr. Conant died in Brattleboro February 
 13, 1894. 
 Children : 
 William Henry, died in 1875. 
 
 Harriet M., married John W. Emmons, who died in 1904. He was 
 employed more than fifty years in The Vermont Phamix office, and 
 later as compositor in the offices of the New York Herald, Sun, 
 World, and the Harper publications. She died September 14, 1905, 
 aged. seventy-three. 
 Mary Ann, married June 25, 1852, Doctor A. L. Pettee; died March 
 5, 1895, aged sixty-one. Children: 
 Minnie; 
 
BRATTLEBORO VIOLINS: WILLIAM A. CONANT 447 
 
 Doctor Frederick G. Pettee, born in Wilmington September 10, 
 1853, studied dentistry with his father; practiced in Bridgeport 
 and New York, and returned to Brattleboro in 1883 ; was in part- 
 nership with his father five years, then practiced alone until Octo- 
 ber, 1903, when he formed a partnership with his son, Doctor A. 
 Louis Pettee, making the third consecutive generation of this 
 family in the same profession in this town. He married January 
 1, 1875, Eugenia M., daughter of Benjamin F. Bingham. He died 
 in May, 1915. Children: A. Louis, graduated from the dental 
 department of Baltimore Medical College in 1900, married Miss 
 Florence Thorn and has a son, Thornton ; Ralph B., born December 
 1, 1883, married Miss Eva Sanders and has two daughters, Dorothy 
 C, Evelyn B. ; Frederick Clinton, died December 10, 1912. 
 
 Charles S., born March 31, 1836; married 1859, Miss Charlotte Davis, 
 who died January, 1888 ; married, second, Mrs. Harrington of South 
 Londonderry. He died January 3, 1920. 
 
 Frank, of Boston. 
 
 Herbert, died in 1881. 
 
 Ella M., born in 1847. 
 
 Emma, Mrs. Arey, of Boston and Los Angeles. 
 
CHAPTER XLV 
 THE BAPTIST CHURCH 
 
 The Baptist Church — Origin — Development — Numbers in 1840 — Pastors and their 
 record — Deacons — Woman's Missionary and Aid Society — Sunday School — Young 
 People's Society of Christian Endeavor — L. W. Hav\?ley— J. Edward Hall's class. 
 
 Some of the earliest settlers were Baptists, and there was Baptist 
 preaching at an early date. In 1771 an aged Baptist by the name of 
 Whipple came to West River from Groton, Connecticut, and he occasion- 
 ally held meetings in his own house, and sometimes preached in Guilford 
 and Halifax. He was evidently a Yorker, for in 1783 there is a record of 
 a tax sale of three and three-fourths acres from the northwest corner of 
 his farm, because he would not pay the Vermont land tax laid in 1782. 
 He died here in 1789, aged ninety-seven, and is buried in the Sargent 
 burial place, over West River. 
 
 In April, 1772, Deacon Jonathan Pierce came from Norwich, Connect- 
 icut. His daughter, Esther, was probably the first person baptized in 
 the town, the ordinance being administered by the Reverend Ebenezer 
 Bailey of Westmoreland, New York. This first baptism was in the 
 Connecticut River near the village. Subsequently Reverend Mr. Bailey 
 baptized several others in the West River neighborhood, while he and 
 Reverend Beriah Willis and Reverend Richard Williams of Guilford 
 occasionally preached. There was also Baptist preaching from time to 
 time at the house of Deacon Pierce a few rods south of the cemetery, 
 where he lived and died, and where, a little farther south, he was buried. 
 
 In 1817 there was an awakening in the southeast part of the town, 
 under the labors of Reverend John Wilson of Guilford, and some ten or 
 twelve persons were baptized by him in Broad Brook, near the entrance 
 into the Connecticut River. These converts united with the church in 
 Guilford, and some of them were enrolled among the earliest members 
 of the Brattleboro church. 
 
 In 1833 Reverend Joseph M. Graves, agent of the Vermont Baptist 
 Convention, gathered twelve persons together for services in the little 
 schoolhouse on the Common. 
 
 In March, 1840, Reverend Emerson Andrews commenced a series of 
 revival meetings in the Methodist Chapel, then standing on Canal Street. 
 
THE. BAPTIST CHURCH 449 
 
 The text to his first sermon was, "Plough up the fallow ground." In this 
 sernion Mr. Andrews declared his indifference or independence in regard 
 to sectarianism, but plainly stated his belief in the necessity of immediate 
 repentance, regeneration or new birth. "If," said he, "you have evidence 
 of sins forgiven, it matters not whether you are Methodist, Baptist, 
 Orthodox, Congregationalist or Episcopalian." The Methodist society 
 was at this time in a feeble condition. The magnanimous declaration of 
 Elder Andrews aroused the vitality that was yet remaining in that society, 
 and caused it to welcome him with open arms. Deacon Wood and some 
 other members of the Congregational Church gathered at these meetings, 
 and used their abilities and influence to sustain Elder Andrews and, 
 ■forward the work according to program. 
 
 The novel, startling titles Mr. Andrews gave out for sermons he was 
 to preach the next evening, as, for instance, "Tomorrow evening I shall 
 preach the looking-glass sermon"; or, "Tomorrow night I will preach 
 the funeral' sermon for the first one of this congregation who will die," 
 caused the house to be well filled every evening for four or five weeks. 
 The result of these efforts was soon apparent in the professed conversion 
 of several persons, who were persuaded to be baptized by immersion. 
 Some communicants of that faith, residing here, united with the new 
 converts and, under the lead of Elder Andrews, organized the first "Bap- 
 tist Church of Christ in Brattleborough East Village," April 3, 1840. The 
 whole number was but twenty-three members at this time. 
 
 Elder Andrews left his charge in a short time after occupying 
 Wheeler's Hall, the third place of worship, and Reverend Joseph Free- 
 man was chosen as pastor April 34, 1840. The public recognition was 
 upon May 6, 1840, the membership at this time being ninety-four. Mr. 
 Freeman resigned his pastoral charge after a service of about four 
 months, owing to ill health. 
 
 August 28, 1840, Reverend Moses Field accepted a call of the society 
 to be their pastor. The church was admitted into the Windham County 
 Baptist Association at its annual meeting in the following autumn. The 
 first church building was erected on Elliot Street, completed in the autumn 
 and winter of 1840-1841 and dedicated the following spring, March 3, 
 1841. It was fifty-seven by forty-two feet and cost about $3700. 
 
 September 37, 1843, Reverend Moses Field gave in his resignation, on 
 account of ill health, which was accepted. He was born in Chester May 
 11, 1805; died at West Haven March 30, 1870. "An able preacher, 
 sympathetic pastor, highly esteemed by the community." 
 
 His successor. Reverend J. C. Foster, supplied the pulpit from October 
 3,-1843, to December 11 of the same year, and he was ordained pastor 
 January 14, 1843. 
 
450 
 
 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 There was a short time of extreme sectarian bitterness towards the 
 Baptists, such as can hardly be appreciated now, and when Parson Walker 
 of the Congregational Church met Mr. Foster one day, he said, "I wel- 
 come you as a citizen, but not as a minister of the gospel." It was almost 
 persecution that the Baptists of that time had to endure from everyone 
 but the Methodists. 
 
 Members of 
 April 
 
 Rollin Snow, 
 
 James F. Estey (joined the Con- 
 gregational church), 
 
 Amanda Hadley, 
 
 Betsey E. Lincoln, 
 
 Sarah E. Gill, 
 
 Sophia Gill, 
 
 Caroline M. Hyde, 
 
 Marion W. Hadley, 
 
 Cynthia Barrett, 
 
 John B. Miner, 
 
 Sarah Gill, 
 
 Lucinda Herrick, 
 
 Jemima Leavitt, 
 
 Roxana Barlow, 
 
 Esther Dearborn, 
 
 Hannah Wilcox, 
 
 Charles Dickinson, 
 
 Lucretia Briggs, 
 
 Mary Reed, 
 
 Jane Squires, 
 
 Freeman M. Bean, 
 
 George Bills, 
 May 
 
 Sophia Sykes, 
 
 Priscilla E. Eels, 
 
 Charles A. Pullin, 
 
 Income Jones, 
 
 Amy Jones, 
 
 Royal G. Wood, 
 
 Eunice Wood, 
 
 Philip Liscom, 
 
 James Streeter, 
 
 THE Baptist Church in 1840 
 
 Isaac Hines, 
 Lucius H. Crane, 
 Charlany Goodnough, 
 George E. Fuller, 
 Frances L. Gill, 
 Samuel Bullock, 
 Harriet L. Bullock, 
 Loana H. Crane, 
 Amanda M. Dearborn, 
 Richard Gill, 
 Sarah C. Reed, 
 Fanny Newman, 
 Jacob Estey, 
 Elizabeth S. Bart, 
 Samuel Sykes, 
 Warren Briggs, 
 Abraham B. Simonds, 
 Clarissa Salisbury, 
 Nancy Holton, 
 Adaline H. Bean, 
 Jefferson Burnham, 
 Elvira Hines, 
 Fanny M. Crane, 
 
 Nancy H. Gladden, 
 Alanson Norcross, 
 George S. Norcross, 
 Lydia Norcross, 
 Purshi Ford, 
 Anna Norcross, 
 George Eels, 
 Priscilla Eels, 
 Elmira Harvey, 
 
THE BAPTIST CHURCH 451 
 
 Benson Jones, William Bragg, 
 
 Phoebe Newton, Samuel Norcross, 
 
 Adaline C. Wood, Maria Norcross, 
 
 Elizabeth Briggs, Helen Wheeler, 
 
 Philena Liscom, Diana Wheeler, 
 
 Laura Streeter, Maria Wheeler, 
 
 June 
 
 Peter Dearborn, Elizabeth Dearborn, 
 
 Laura Pratt, Sophia Stoddard, 
 
 Ozearl Stoddard, Hannah Whitney, 
 
 Lucinda Peck, 
 September 
 
 Abigail Hadley, Desdemona Estey, 
 
 Clarissa Jones, 
 October 
 
 Moses Field, Sarah R. Field, 
 
 Chloe Brown. 
 
 The first pastor's sa,lary paid was $300, with the stipulation, if it could 
 be raised ; $197.37 was actually paid the first year, $33.50 of which was 
 paid in stoves, $8 in wood, $3 in a clock and $60 in rent. A parsonage was 
 erected on Green Street in 1847 at an expense of $1800. 
 
 In 1853 the meeting-house was repaired and reopened. 
 
 June 6, 1856, Reverend Mr. Foster resigned his position, to take effect 
 July 1. June 13 the church accepted his resignation. This is the longest 
 pastorate in the history of the church: Mr. Foster ministered to it for 
 nearly fourteen years. Some of the publications of Mr. Foster have had 
 an extensive circulation, one, a tract on "Baptism and Communion," to 
 the extent of several hundred thousand copies. He was recording secre- 
 tary for the Northern Baptist Education Society fourteen years, treasurer 
 of the Massachusetts Conference of Baptist Ministers thirty-one years, 
 and for three years a member of the Board of the Missionary Union. 
 
 Joseph Coggin Foster was born at Milf ord. New Hampshire, of a good 
 English family, in 1818. He was a printer's boy in youth until his con- 
 version, when he was baptized by Reverend Mark Carpenter, and, deter- 
 mining to devote himself to the ministry, took a college course at Colgate. 
 He was twice married ; first, in 1843, to Miss Ann Abigail Eaton, of East 
 Weare, New Hampshire, who died in 1864 ; and second, in 1866, to Miss 
 Julia Ann Gould, a teacher of reputation. One son, by the first marriage, 
 survived him, W. E. Foster, one of the eminent men in his profession, and 
 the originator of many plans now in general use, and since 1875 librarian 
 
452 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 of the Providence, Rhode Island, Free Library. Mr. Foster preached 
 the dedication sermon for the Baptist Church here in 1870. 
 
 August 34, 1856, Reverend Paul S. Adams was invited to the vacant 
 pastorate and commenced his labors November 2 of the same year. The 
 last Sabbath in January, 1859, he closed his ministrations. He was suc- 
 ceeded by Reverend Mark Carpenter February 13, 1859; he resigned 
 December 4, 1864, making nearly six years of devoted and successful 
 pastoral labor. 
 
 Reverend Alden Sherwin succeeded Mr. Carpenter, coming January 4, 
 1865 ; he resigned April 7, 1867. The seventh pastor of the church. Rever- 
 end H. H. Peabody, came September 1, 1867, to supply the pulpit six 
 months. March 4, 1868, he was ordained, and was dismissed December 
 6, 1868. 
 
 The congregation worshiped for the last time in the old church building 
 in January, 1868, when Mr. Peabody preached. On the first Sabbath in 
 February of the same winter, the new church was occupied in the base- 
 ment, as the principal room was not finished. Mr. Peabody, at the expira- 
 tion of six months, was ordained as pastor of the church. At this time the 
 total number on the church record was four hundred and twelve. 
 
 December 38, 1870, the new church was finished at an expense of 
 $50,000. The following years were years of revival, and at the close of 
 Reverend Leonard J. Matteson's pastorate, June 6, 1869, two hundred and 
 sixty-four had been baptized and one hundred and twenty-two received 
 into the church by letter. 
 
 In 1873 the brick church at West Brattleboro was purchased and 
 repaired by the Estey family. Reverend Charles A. Votey, ,1873-1879, 
 organizer. 
 
 Succeeding Mr. Peabody were the following ministers with their dates 
 of service: 
 
 Reverend L. J. Matteson, June 6, 1869, to September 18, 1875. 
 
 Reverend Horace Burchard, October 1, 1875, to October 35, 1879. 
 
 Reverend George B. Gow, May 1, 1880, to December 30, 1882. 
 
 Reverend F. E. Tower, June 6, 1883, to November 1, 1886. He died 
 February 13, 1916. 
 
 Reverend F. J. Parry, January 1, 1887, to April 1, 1895. 
 
 Reverend Levi D. Temple, September 1, 1895, to October 1, 1898.^ 
 
 1 Reverend F. E. Marble, Ph.D., December 4, 1898, to September, 1902. During 
 his pastorate the free pew system was adopted, the First Baptist Society was dis- 
 banded and the church incorporated in 1899. 
 
 Reverend George B. Lawson, October 24, 1902, to October 25, 1908. 
 
 Reverend John R. Gow, D.D., October 30, 1908, to April 1, 1913. 
 
 Reverend George E. Tomkinson, September 5, 1913, to . 
 
THE BAPTIST CHURCH 453 
 
 From a history of the First Baptist Church given during its seventy- 
 fifth anniversary, in April, 1915 : 
 
 On September 5, 1875, Reverend Horace Burchard received a unani- 
 mous call, and carried on the work with distinguished success. A new 
 field was opened in Putney and occasional services were held there. 
 Reverend Mr. Burchard died during the night of October 34, 1879. Dur- 
 ing his pastorate one hundred and twenty-five were received into the 
 church by baptism. 
 
 Reverend Doctor George B. Gow came to the leadership of the church 
 May 1, 1880. His ministry terminated December 31, 1882. He was 
 spoken of as a man of splendid ability and great force of character. 
 Doctor Gow took a great interest in community affairs. It was during this 
 pastorate that the work in Putney was organized, in September, 1880, as a 
 branch of the Brattleboro church. This field was particularly under the 
 fostering care of Deacon Jacob Estey, and over three years later, in Feb- 
 ruary, 1883, letters were granted to sixty-nine members to form an inde- 
 pendent church. 
 
 Reverend F. E. Tower was the next minister, serving the church from 
 June, 1883, to November, 1886. He made a special effort to reach the 
 young people and with good results. 
 
 He was followed by Reverend F. J. Parry, whose pastorate of more 
 than eight years, from January, 1887, to April 1, 1895, was the second 
 longest in the church's history. The conspicuous event of this period was 
 the enlargement of the church edifice at a cost of $28,000, the women 
 contributing about one-fourth of the amount. It was at this time that 
 the present chapel, with its admirable arrangements for Bible classes and 
 social gatherings, was built. The remodeled church was dedicated De- 
 cember 18, 1889. It was during the pastorate of Reverend Mr. Parry, 
 on February 10, 1890, that the young people were first organized as a 
 Christian Endeavor Society. 
 
 Reverend Levi D. Temple was pastor from September 1, 1895, to Octo- 
 ber 1, 1898. 
 
 The church was born in a revival and has always been evangelistic; 
 it has always contained a strong body of earnest, faithful laymen, main- 
 taining a vital interest in the largef activities of the denomination, among 
 those who have: been actively identified with organized missionary work 
 being Mrs. Julia Vinton and family in Rangoon, Burma, the late General 
 Julius J. Estey, Mrs. Estey, Doctor Henry D. Holton and Henry Bond. 
 Reverend Guy C. Lamson, D.D., of Philadelphia, who was baptized and 
 ordained in this church, is missionary secretary of the American Bap- 
 tist Publication Society. The earnest work and opportune assistance of 
 the women of the church represented by the Woman's Missionary and 
 
454 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Aid Society have been invaluable ; the Bible School, under the leadership 
 of Deacon L. W. Hawley, has taken a place in the front rank of schools 
 in the country. 
 
 Eight are now living who first united with this church fifty or more 
 years ago, their names and the dates of their reception being : Mrs. Olive 
 M. Sargent, 1849 [died 1919] ; Mrs. Sylvia A. Banks, 1860; Mrs. Abby E. 
 Fuller, 1860; Miss Frances J. Elliott, 1860; Asa S. Field, 1860 [died 1919] ; 
 Mrs. Elizabeth B. Davenport, 1862; George W. Fuller, 1864 [died 1920] ; 
 Mrs. Lucy A. Cox, 1865. 
 
 The Woman's Missionary and Aid Society was organized March 17, 
 1865 ; reorganized March 22, 1892. 
 
 The Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor was organized Feb- 
 ruary 10, 1890 ; reorganized September 16, •1893. 
 
 Deacons of the Baptist Church 
 
 November 2, 1844, Jacob Estey, Alonzo Hatch ; February 4, 1852, Asa 
 Wheeler, Benson Jones; January 28, 1853, Lucius Wheeler, Israel B. 
 Estey ; from January 20, 1854, to March' 13, 1864, the office was held by 
 Jacob Estey, Asa Wheeler. Following the resignations of Asa Wheeler 
 and Jacob Estey, there was a period of over thirty-five years when the 
 church did not have deacons. During this interval, the duties devolving 
 upon deacons were discharged by a Standing Committee, At the time of 
 the incorporatipn and reorganization of the First Baptist Church of Brat- 
 tleboro, which took place July 7, 1899, deacons were elected once more 
 and the church has had such officers since that time. 
 
 The Baptist Sunday School 
 
 The Baptist Sunday school was organized in 1840, in what was then 
 known as Revere Hall, in the building where Cox & Company's store 
 afterwards stood. The first superintendent was Reverend Joseph Free- 
 man, the pastor of the church. The first lay superintendent was Jacob 
 Estey, who took charge of the school in 1842, during the pastorate of 
 Reverend Moses Field, who succeeded Mr. Freeman. In 1846 Isaac 
 Hines succeeded Mr. Estey, when the school numbered ninety, and the 
 superintendents since then have been as follows: 1850-1852, Doctor 
 James A. Farwell, with one hundred; 1852-1854, Doctor O. R. Post; 
 1854-1856, E. E. White; 1856-1858, Doctor O. R. Post; 1858-1860, C. L. 
 Brown ; 1860-1863, Charles Raymond ; 1863-1868, A. G. Nourse, with one 
 hundred and thirty-five ; 1868-1871, G. E. Higley, two hundred and sixty- 
 five to five hundred ; 1871-1872, O. B. Douglas, four hundred and sixteen; 
 1872-1875, G. E. Higley; 1875-1876, A. A. Cheney; 1876-1877, J. E. 
 
THE BAPTIST CHURCH 455 
 
 Jacobs ; 1877-1879, S. H. Warren ; 1879, J. J. Estey ; 1886, L. W. Hawley. 
 The school reached its largest membership in 1875, when the number was 
 six hundred a:nd thirty-eight. 
 
 W.hat a layman can do for his church has been exemplified in the life 
 of Luther W. Hawley. He came to Brattleboro in 1870 and soon took a 
 position in the Estey Organ Works' office. 
 
 A man of versatile talents, he consecrated them, his strength and time 
 out of office hours, to the upbuilding of Christian life and character in 
 this community. In the prayer meeting, where he has been a constant 
 attendant, as a teacher for forty-nine years, as superintendent of the 
 Bible school thirty-four years, as deacon fifteen years, he has proved a 
 spiritual leader. 
 
 In 1873 he was authorized by the church to go to near neighborhoods 
 and surrounding districts to preach, hold prayer meetings and conduct 
 Sunday schools. 
 
 He organized and conducts the Bible school orchestra. 
 
 Mrs. Hawley, who was Miss Laura K. Taft of Taftsville, Vermont, 
 has been a helpmeet to him in his religious activities; she has been a 
 teacher in the Bible school forty-seven years. Their works will follow 
 them.*^ 
 
 J. Edward HalP came to Brattleboro in 1873 to take a position with the 
 Estey Organ Company. He was invited to take charge of the music in the 
 Baptist Church, directing the choir and presiding at the organ for many 
 years. He was an excellent musician of the older school, could teach a 
 singing school, play the piano, reed organ or pipe organ and sing accept- 
 ably the first tenor in a male quartet, and was a composer of music, 
 having written a large number of gospel hymns and songs. 
 
 For more than thirty years Mr. Hall was a faithful teacher in the 
 Sunday school. A class of women numbering fifty or more members 
 for many years gathered every Sunday under his leadership and within 
 a few years themselves adopted "The J. E. Hall Class" as their name. 
 
 Among the most zealous workers for the church in an earlier period 
 were Doctor Farwell, Doctor O. R. Post and Mr. Bela N. Chamberlain. 
 
 ^ Children : Charles T., graduate Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the law de- 
 partment of George Washington University; Jessie L., graduate New England Con- 
 servatory of Music; Luther W., graduate Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 1908, and 
 the law department of George Washington University. 
 
 2 In January, 1873, Mr. Hall married Miss Josephine Lyons, a student in Glenwood 
 Ladies' Seminary, who died in 1909. He was born in Westmoreland, New Hampshire, 
 November 19, 1845, and died November 18, 1917. Children: Rena W. Hall, lady 
 principal of Tennessee College, Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Hortense A. Hall, teacher 
 of kindergarten. 
 
456 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Of the present generation who have gone forth from this church to the 
 larger field of Christian service may be mentioned Reverend Guy C. 
 Lamson, who graduated from the Rochester Theological Seminary, and 
 after a brief ministry in West Cornwall, became pastor of the Baptist 
 Church in Montpelier, and was for one session chaplain of the House. 
 He then moved to Hyde Park, Massachusetts, where he built up the church 
 and so entered into the life of the town as to fill the position of selectman 
 as the result of a lively fight for temperance. Later he accepted the posi- 
 tion of district secretary of the American Baptist Publication Society. 
 After two years he entered upon a new field as missionary secretary for 
 the same society, having his headquarters in Philadelphia and having 
 charge of extensive missionary operations in regions west of the Missis- 
 sippi River from Canada to Mexico. 
 
CHAPTER XLVI 
 CENTRE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 
 
 Centre Congregational Church — Church building — Pastors — Ladies' Association — In- 
 vested funds^ — ^Temperance — "The Cold Water Army" — Reverend George P. Tyler — 
 Society of Christian Endeavor — Reminiscences of Charles F. Thompson. 
 
 The building on the Common was not moved intact, but was taken down 
 and set up again. The last meeting in the old church was on March 3, 
 1843. The committee to take down the church and set it up were Colonel 
 Joseph Goodhue, Ferdinand Tyler, Lovell Farr, George Sargent and 
 Calvin Townsley. The deed of land dated June 13, 1843, is from Mary 
 Goodhue, Joseph Goodhue and Wells Goodhue. 
 
 The remodeled church was rededicated January 11, 1843, and in the 
 church records for that day is the first mention of the name "Centre 
 Church." The music for the occasion was under the direction of Gover- 
 nor Holbrook, who for fifty years had charge of the church music. 
 
 A marked change in the rebuilt church was the closing up of just half 
 the windows. The church on the Common, with double the window space, 
 plain glass, no blinds and paper curtains, was flooded with an intense 
 light. The church of 1843 had high, straight pews ; those of the side rows, 
 set against the wall, were short, and the middle row held more than half 
 the congregation. There was no middle aisle, but two aisles separating 
 the middle and side rows gave entrance to both. There were six pews 
 in the front of the church on each side of the pulpit, at right angles to 
 the main rows. The side gallery was much as now. The rear gallery 
 extended all the way across the church, and was the singers' gallery. 
 Chimneys projected into the church, one each on the north and south 
 sides, just beyond the present fourth window from the pulpit. These 
 projecting chimneys made necessary a short pew in the back row in both 
 galleries, in order that the people might get past the chimneys. The pulpit 
 was twice as high as at present. The spire rose from the ridgepole of the 
 church, the front of which was a row of huge Doric columns, behind 
 which was a porch, after the plan of our Home for the Aged. 
 
 In 1847 the church called and ordained A. Huntington Clapp, a grad- 
 uate of Yale and Andover, to succeed Doctor Walker. Mr. Clapp was 
 here six years, when an eye trouble required him to stop work. The 
 
458 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 church voted him a four months' vacation with full salary, and then a 
 year's leave, with part salary, in the hope that he would be able to go on 
 with his pastorate. Not recovering sufficiently at the end of this time, 
 he resigned, and the church surrendered a minister as deeply beloved as 
 any that has served it. One hundred and two members were added to 
 the church during his pastorate. 
 
 Reverend George P. Tyler, a graduate of Yale and Union Theological 
 Seminary, succeeded Mr. Clapp in 1853. He was a Brattleboro boy, who 
 had united with this church upon profession before he went away to 
 college, and is the only minister reared up in the church who has subse- 
 quently served it, although Doctor George Leon Walker may almost be 
 said to be a second of the church's own sons called to its leadership. 
 Doctor Tyler was a "faithful, efficient pastor, with an original mind. He 
 was most zealous in defense of the government during the Civil War." 
 
 The church having been moved down town, to the "orchard," so-called, 
 "north of the Brattleborough Bank," it proved an unnecessary inconvenience 
 to hav'e it separated from the chapel, and in 1847 a committee reported 
 that the Elliot Street chapel could be sold and one could be built in the 
 basement, under the front of this room, for $300 ; but this solution did 
 not appear satisfactory and the matter was dropped until 1854, when the 
 Elliot Street chapel was sold, that the proceeds, and $150 extra, might 
 be used to build a chapel in the rear of the church, the present ladies' 
 parlors. Until this time a row of horse sheds had extended across the 
 rear of the church property, the whole distance covered by the present 
 parlors and chapel. Now that half the space was occupied by the chapel 
 in the rear of the church, the men whose sheds were displaced used the 
 basement of that chapel for horse sheds. The chapel was entered by a 
 high walk, which began at the porch behind the great columns on the 
 church front, and was joined to the baseboard on the south side of the 
 church, where the mortise holes may be seen. The two obstacles to the 
 satisfactory solution of the chapel question were the horse sheds, to which 
 the owners held tenaciously, and the Vermont Savings Bank building, 
 which stood between the church and the house now occupied by Mr. 
 Clapp. 
 
 It was not until the pastorate of Mr. Mighill, who served the church 
 from 1867 to 1875, that the bank was bought, the horse sheds all cleared 
 away, and the present chapel, or main Sunday school room, built. 
 Then the barn door still seen on the north basement wall of the ladies' 
 parlors was opened and the basement of parlors and Sunday school room 
 was used for horse sheds, as long as Doctor Dearborn owned the property 
 north of the church, and permitted use of his driveway. The changes 
 involved in all this cost $13,000. 
 
CENTRE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 459 
 
 It was in 1816, when the church had just been built in its original 
 location on the Common, that the clock began its active career. John 
 Holbrook bought it of his cousin, George Holbrook, who cast bells and 
 made clocks in Medbury, Massachusetts, and gave it to the church. He 
 and General Arad Hunt also gave the bell which then hung in the steeple. 
 When the church was moved to its present place and repaired, the clock 
 and bell came with it.^ They were there when, in 1864, a whirlwind 
 swept through the valley and tore off the steeple down to the bell and 
 clock, smashing a hole in the roof, and landing the ruins in the space 
 between the church and the Clapp house. This steeple rested on the 
 church roof, and the ringing of a new and heavier bell made a vibration 
 in the building that had brought discussion as to taking down the steeple, 
 when the tornado took it off, just above the clock. Then the west end of 
 the church was extended forward the distance between the present vesti- 
 bule doors and the nearest window. (It is not certain whether the roof 
 was extended, or simply the porch back of the columns taken into the 
 church.) The clapboards show where the new part was joined on to 
 the old. At this time the old columns were removed, and the steeple 
 built up from the stone foundation in front of the church, leaving the 
 front as we now have it. Some felt that the front was not beautified by 
 the change. It gave a solidly built steeple, topped by the same weather- 
 vane and letters that surmounted the spire of the church on the common. 
 The old bell had become cracked in the course of years, and about this 
 time it was replaced with the present one from a Troy foundry, though 
 trial was first made of a deep, mellow-toned one from the original Med- 
 bury factory, but it was thought to be not quite a match for the new 
 Baptist bell. 
 
 The pulpit of mahogany was large, massive and well proportioned. A 
 long sofa was back of the pulpit, with two mahogany-backed chairs on 
 each side ; two similar chairs stood on either side of the communion table, 
 which was below the pulpit. 
 
 A gallery extended the entire length of the rear of the church where 
 the organ was placed opposite the pulpit, — and curtains hung on upright 
 posts obscured the choir. 
 
 Reverend Nathaniel Mighill of East Cambridge was a graduate of 
 Andover, of Union Theological Seminary and of Andover Theological 
 Seminary. A significant step in his pastorate was the first districting 
 of the parish, in 1869. It was resolved that while the church did not wish 
 to diminish individual responsibility, certain persons should be appointed 
 in different sections of the town, to watch out for newcomers who were 
 
 1 Jacob Marsh, the old sexton, had charge of the clock many years ; then Thomp- 
 son & Ranger succeeded to the position of clock-keeper. 
 
460 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Congregationalists, or attendants upon no church, and make them feel 
 "at the earliest practicable time and in the most thorough possible way, 
 that they are among brethren and sisters." This was the beginning of that 
 districting of the parish that has continued, and brought greater efficiency 
 in parish work. 
 
 Mr. Mighill had fine ability and ciBture, and a beautiful spirit. He was 
 called by some "the apostle John." Some strenuous doctrines that had 
 been heard from Parson Tyler were missed from his sermons, and one 
 of the good women leaving the church a Sunday morning said : "O dear, 
 I have sat for six years under that man. He preaches love, love, nothing 
 but love. I have heard nothing of the justice and vengeance of God and 
 the everlasting punishment of the wicked, and my soul is perishing for 
 lack of spiritual food." 
 
 Doctor George Leon Walker supplied the pulpit for two years after 
 the departure of Mr. Mighill and was probably the ablest preacher who 
 has ever served the church. 
 
 The next pastor was Reverend George E. Martin of New Haven, 
 Connecticut, his first pastorate being with this church. He was asked to 
 supply one year from July 1, 1878, and on July 9, 1879, he was ordained 
 and installed. It was during his pastorate that the Ladies' Benevolent 
 Society, of which Mrs. Sarah B. Harris was president, bought, in 1882, 
 the Steere & Turner pipe organ for $3800. It was built from specifica- 
 tions drawn by Doctor Martin. The choir loft was changed from the 
 rear to the front of the church. Doctor Martin was dismissed by a mutual 
 council September 6, 1883, and went to the First Church in Brockton, 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Doctor Charles O. Day served the church nearly fourteen years. In 
 1888, during his pastorate, the church interior was decorated, the present 
 pews were substituted for the old ones, the present windows put in place 
 of plain glass, and other improvements made, footing up to $10,000 in all. 
 Mr. Day brought about the consolidation of the ladies' societies into one 
 simple and effective association. 
 
 The Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor was organized 
 February 28, 1^89, with thirty-two active and two associate members. 
 George L. Dunham was the first president ; Miss Helen M. Fletcher, vice- 
 president ; Louis A. Gregg, corresponding secretary ; L. A. Fales, record- 
 ing secretary ; S. C. Johnson, treasurer. 
 
 The ecclesiastical society has had three successive organizations. First, 
 in 1814 it was the Brattleborough Village Meeting-House Society, which 
 subscribed funds and built the church. This built, its pews were sold like 
 any other real estate, as was the custom of the day, and the owners 
 became the proprietors of the meeting-house. These proprietors organ- 
 
CENTRE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 461 
 
 ized August 37, 1818, as the Brattleborough East Society, for the purpose 
 of settling and supporting a minister. After the moving of the church 
 this society found itself in the possession of a building in a different part 
 of the town, of a chapel on Elliot Street and a parsonage ; properties 
 not contemplated in the original organization of the society, whose rights 
 and powers might have beeri exceeded, it was thought. Hence the Brat- 
 tleborough East Society was reorganized January 16, 1843, on a basis 
 providing for more varied activities. Possibly it will need to be reor- 
 ganized once more, for one of the articles of 1843 states, "We further 
 specify and declare that the religious instruction taught in said house 
 forever henceforth, shall be the Calvinistic doctrine as now understood 
 and taught in said Brattleborough East Society." 
 
 There has been' an interesting development in the way of raising funds 
 for parish expenses. The original church became the property of its pew 
 owners, who held deeds of the pews, which they transferred like any 
 other possession. John Holbrook owned seven floor and one gallery 
 pews in the Church on the Common. Francis Goodhue owned five floor 
 and four gallery pews. The Brattleborough East Society retained twelve 
 floor pews, from which it realized a yearly rental of about $50. Pew- 
 holders were assessed for repairs on the church; but parish expenses 
 were met by a voluntary subscription. If a pewholder did not pay his 
 assessment within thirty days from the time when it was levied, his pew 
 was put up for sale at auction, on thirty days' notice, as a mortgage is 
 foreclosed today. When the church was moved from the Common the 
 cost of rebuilding was assessed upon pew owners, and the society sold its 
 pews to make up the deficiency. 
 
 One of the large things in the life of the church was the sale of seventy- 
 eight and two-thirds pews by individual owners to the society, for one 
 dollar each, in 1863. That is, the pews were donated to the society. 
 
 There was no entry of expense for fuel until 1846, when there was an 
 item for wood, oil and repairs of $36.33. As oil cost about $10 a year, 
 there would not be much left for wood, after paying the repair bill. 
 Doubtless wood was given to the church. A furnace was put in in 1846, 
 and a few years later it was voted to remodel it "so as, if possible, to get 
 warmth without the inconvenience of a smoky atmosphere." 
 
 The pastors of the Centre Congregational Church have been: 
 
 Reverend Alexander H. Clapp, October 14, 1846, to November 15, 
 1853. 
 
 Reverend George P. Tyler, November 16, 1853, to 1856. One hundred 
 and ninety-four members. 
 
 Reverend N. Mighill, October, 1867, to 1875. 
 
 Reverend George L. Walker, to January 1, 1878. 
 
462 
 
 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Reverend George E. Martin, July 1, 1879, to September 6, 1883. " 
 Reverend Samuel H. Lee, 1883 to 1885. 
 
 Reverend Charles Orrin Day, December 16, 1885, to September 22, 
 1898.^ 
 
 Ladies' Association 
 Up to 1847 the society was in charge of two committees, with a secre- 
 tary and treasurer. The first president was elected at the reorganization 
 in 1847. The following ladies have served as president during the 
 century : 
 
 Mrs. William Fessenden 
 Mrs. Wells Goodhue 
 Mrs. A. H. Clapp 
 Mrs. Edward Kirkland 
 
 (Frances Robinson) 
 Mrs. George P. Tyler 
 Mrs. Uriel Sikes 
 Mrs. Anson Barber 
 Mrs. Frederick Holbrook 
 Mrs. Nathaniel Mighill 
 Mrs. Charles F. Thompson 
 Mrs. B. D. Harris 
 Mrs. Henry Burnham 
 Mrs. N. I. Hawley 
 Miss Mary Wells 
 Mrs. Sibbel Fessenden 
 Miss Jane W. Fessenden 
 Miss Sophia W. Fessenden 
 Mrs. Willard Frost 
 Miss Rebecca Peck 
 Miss E. D. Smith 
 
 Mrs. F. A. Whitney 
 Mrs. E. L. Parker 
 Mrs. C. B. Rice 
 Mrs. Edward Kirkland 
 
 (Mary Slate) 
 Mrs. H. F. Houghton 
 Mrs. H. H. Thompson 
 Mrs. Fremont Hamilton 
 Mrs. George H. Clapp 
 Mrs. E. L. Waterman 
 Mrs. H. E. Bond 
 Mrs. George C. Averill 
 Mrs. F. A. Wells 
 Mrs. Charles H. Thompson 
 Mrs. H. F. Houghton 
 Mrs. George W. Holbrook 
 Mrs. F. A. Wells 
 Miss Kate Selleck 
 Miss Genevieve Slate 
 Mrs. G. C. Averill 
 Mrs. H. H. Thompson 
 
 Invested Funds of the Church 
 
 John Holbrook Fund : For current expenses, $1000 
 
 Sarah Holbrook Fund : For parsonage maintenance, 3000 
 
 Sarah Goodhue Chapin Fund: For Sunday school library, 2000 
 
 For needy of the church, 5000 
 
 1 Reverend Harry R. Miles, June 1, 1899, to October 12, 1908. Reverend Roy M. 
 Houghton, January 1, 1909, to February 1, 1916. Reverend Richard H. Clapp, 
 March, 1916, to 1919. Deacons have been George H. Clapp, Henry H. Thompson, 
 Oscar T. Ware, 1896; Ansel I. Miller, 1901; George M. Qay, Joseph G. Stafford, 
 1906 ; Edward C. Crosby, 1913 ; Henry F. Jordan, 191S. 
 
CENTRE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 463 
 
 William P. Cune Fund : For Sunday school,- $1000 
 
 Mary Ann Goodhue Fund : For support of preaching, 1000 
 
 Susan B. Salisbury Fund : For needy of the church, 200 
 
 Temperance 
 (From The Vermont Phoenix.) 
 "The Cold Water Army" had a very interesting celebration in this vil- 
 lage on Saturday (July 29, 1843). The children of both sexes composing 
 this army, assembled at the chapel in Elliot Street, where they formed into 
 a procession. The Young Ladies, who formed an escort to this Army, 
 met at Mr. Sikes' Temperance House to the number of eighty-six. 
 Several young gentlemen went with a band of music to the house of Mr. 
 Sikes, and escorted the young ladies to the Chapel ; the procession being 
 formed proceeded thence under the direction of Colonel A. J. Hines, as 
 Chief Marshal, to Main Street, passing down to the bridge over Whet- 
 stone Brook, thence up Main Street to the beautiful grove back of Colonel 
 Goodhue's house, where an interesting address was delivered and appro- 
 priate songs were sung by Mr. Gough. — The children and the young 
 ladies carried banners expressing in significant terms their zeal and 
 determination to persevere in the good cause till the triumph of Temper- 
 ance is complete. We believe that nearly all the children of the village 
 are enrolled in the "Cold Water Army.'' Our young ladies show a com- 
 mendable zeal in the cause, and deserve much credit for the aid they are 
 lending in carrying forward the great work of reform. Thanks are due 
 to those young gentlemen who turned aside from their labors to escort 
 the young ladies on this occasion. Our only regret is, that a larger num- 
 ber had not volunteered in this agreeable service. While the young are 
 enlisted in this service ; while our young men and young women, and our 
 children, are thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Temperance reform, 
 we feel assured that the triumph of the friends of temperance draweth 
 nigh. The cause is a good one ; it is a noble, patriotic, philanthropic cause, 
 and every one, who is a friend to his country or to his race, cannot but 
 wish it success. What a change will come over the community, when 
 every place where intoxicating liquors are sold, shall be purged of that 
 poison ! What a change in society, when not an individual shall be found 
 "to put an enemy to his moirth to steal away his brains !" 
 
 Reverend Doctor George P. Tyler 
 Doctor Tyler was born December 10, 1809. He grew up here, attend- 
 ing the village schools. In his youth he was for a time in Boston in the 
 store of his elder brother. General John S. Tyler, who enabled him to take 
 a college course at Yale. 
 
 Graduating with honor from Yale, he studied for the ministry 
 
464 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 at the Union Theological Seminary of New York. Doctor Tyler was 
 married to Miss Elizabeth Atwater Trowbridge May 12, 1841, and shortly 
 after he was installed pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Lowville, 
 living there thirteen years. He then accepted a call to the Congregational 
 Church at Brattleboro, his old home, was installed November 16, 1853, 
 and remained there until 1869. 
 
 From Brattleboro he went to Lansingburg to be pastor of the Olivet 
 Presbyterian Church. He occupied this position, holding services in a 
 building on Second Avenue until 1873, when he resigned. From this time 
 until 1883 Doctor Tyler supplied pulpits in' various churches, among them 
 being the Oakwood Avenue Presbyterian Church and the Memorial Pres- 
 byterian Church of Troy. His connection with the latter was especially 
 successful. He was again designated to be pastor of Olivet Presbyterian 
 Church, Lansingburg, where he preached until the close of his active 
 life as a minister, June 4, 1891. In this year he was afHicted by the loss 
 of his wife, after a happy married life of more than fifty years. 
 
 He was pastor emeritus of the Olivet Presbyterian Church and was 
 president of the board of trustees of the Lansingburg Academy. The 
 degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by Middlebury College, Vermont. 
 He had as a cousin Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the letters of Mrs. 
 Hawthorne, published in the November Century, 1894, she alludes pleas- 
 antly to "George" as her favorite cousin : 
 
 Thinking now a moment of his characteristics, one thing which attracts 
 attention was his remarkable simplicity and sincerity. He had no double- 
 ness. It is impossible to attach the idea of finesse and indirection to him. 
 He was straight out, direct and single-minded in all that he did and said. 
 He was, moreover, a man of very unusual freshness and originality of 
 mind. His perceptions of truth were clear and penetrating and his 
 powers of illustration vivid and illuminative. 
 
 Doctor Tyler died January 18, 1896. 
 
 "In Doctor Tyler's death the close of a long and beautiful career was 
 reached — a career in which the qualities of virtue, learning and refinement 
 shone brightly and whose end was a deep sorrow to all who knew him." 
 
 Of the two children of Doctor Tyler, a daughter, Frances Bradford 
 (Mrs. John G. Mairs), survived him. She died December 9, 1907. Chil- 
 dren of Mrs. Mairs : George Tyler Mairs, married Miss Helen A. Foley ; 
 Elizabeth Atwater Mairs, married Charles Edward Merritt. 
 
 Reminiscences of Charles F. Thompson 
 The annual meeting of the Centre Church was a family gathering this 
 year, all the friends of the society and congregation, as well as church 
 
CENTRE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 465 
 
 members, being invited A large audience gathered and the occasion was 
 of marked interest. A collection of views showing the growth of the 
 village was grouped about the pulpit, and was carefully examined. It 
 began with a' painting of the town, as it was about 1830, in the possession 
 of Governor Holbrook. 
 
 The main interest of the meeting centered in the historical address of 
 Deacon C. F. Thompson, whose personal and official connection with the 
 church for over forty years enabled him'to recall and narrate, as no one 
 else could, the leading events of the past. To present a complete view of 
 the changing conditions of the church's life, or to describe, or even men- 
 tion, all of the prominent workers, was impossible in the time available ; 
 but careful summarizing, and strong and clear characterizations gave 
 an interesting and impressive account of a large part of the history. The 
 main portions of the address are as follows : 
 
 The Centre Church was founded in July, 1816, with fourteen members. 
 Reverend Doctor William .Wells, a man of advanced views for his day, 
 but one of whose characteristic texts was, "If the righteous scarcely be 
 saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" was the first 
 pastor until 1818. Reverend Jonathan McGee, under whose ministry 
 occurred the greatest revivals in the history of the church, was minister 
 until 1833. The records of other pastors are in the lives of those they 
 served. 
 
 Certain general facts about this church are these : It was founded upon 
 consecration and prayer; it has been a church very liberal in benevolent 
 and missionary giving ; it has had on the average unusually long pastor- 
 ates, and has not been seriously or permanently divided since the forma- 
 tion of the Unitarian Church. Very few liberally educated men have been 
 among its members, the strong characters who laid the foundation, and 
 built the walls having been mainly energetic, practical, competent, self- 
 made men. 
 
 Coming to personal descriptions, the first name, deservedly so for every 
 reason, is that of Deacon John Holbrook, the leader, defender and sup- 
 porter, the van and rear guard of the young church, and its only deacon 
 until the appointment of Deacon David Wood in 1833. Deacon Holbrook, 
 with Mr. Hunt, whose name, or initial, with his own, was inscribed upon 
 it, gave the first bell, always rung in the old times from midnight until 
 one o'clock on New Year's morning. The second bell, the clock (in con- 
 nection with Mr. Joseph Fessenden), and a fund of $1000 for support 
 of preaching, were also his gifts. 
 
 Deacon David Wood and his wife, both of them reliable and devoted 
 Christians, joined the church in 1819. In their house the first midweekly 
 prayer meeting was held. 
 
466 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Later on, and beginning now in the field of personal recollection, comes 
 the name of Joseph Steen. He was born in 1797 and died in 1881. He 
 joined the church at twenty years of age. He had a pious mother, and, 
 although reckless as a. boy, became a rugged and earnest Christian early 
 in life. In his prime he had a fine figure, and a strong though homely 
 face. He was a rough diamond, staunch, efficient, loyal to the church, 
 naturally fond of controversy, a worker all his life in the Sunday school 
 as teacher and superintendent, always at the Friday night meeting. He 
 was eminently a man of prayer. His early education was meager, and 
 his expressions both in prayer and remark might not always be agreeable 
 to those of more culture, but behind all there was always genuine honesty, 
 a real and earnest piety. He was liberal to the extent of his ability. His 
 education became more complete as each year rolled along, and as he was 
 a bookseller and a great reader, he came to be called a "walking encyclo- 
 pedia." He was a great friend of missions and, with many personal 
 eccentricities about which stories are still told, was a pillar of strength 
 in the church. 
 
 Nathan B. Williston, who was born in 1797 and died in 1883, was one 
 of the strongest members the church has had ; a grand man, eccentric in 
 some things, but humble, liberal and noble. He never took part in, but 
 was always present at, the prayer meetings, saying, with his peculiar 
 pronunciation, that though he did not consider Friday night as "sacred" 
 time, he thought church members should go to meeting. He was a great 
 student of the Bible, and the true testimony is borne of him by the open 
 Bible upon his memorial window. It could be said of him as of a certain 
 young Chinese native missionary, "There was no difference between him 
 and the Book." He was a man of prayer, as those found who lived in his 
 home. There, too, his little pleasantries within the home circle flashed 
 with wit and wisdom, like very diamonds. His gifts, both at home and 
 for missions, have never been equaled in this church by anyone. To the 
 man with the subscription paper he would answer, ''Say what you think 
 all will give and I'll put it in." He was treasurer of the society for many 
 years, and always paid the minister promptly. His work for the church 
 lives on, and his prayers are recorded in heaven. 
 
 Samuel Button died in 1863, having been for many years a trusted 
 member and a liberal supporter of this church.' He was always at prayer 
 meeting, ready to offer prayer, constant and upright in life, always 
 responding to calls for gifts, except for singing, and deeply interested 
 in the prosperity of the church. During quite a revival in 1836, when 
 word was brought to him on one occasion of the conversion of -a prom- 
 inent man, although so plain, quiet and unruffled ordinarily, his tears and 
 
CENTRE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 467 
 
 few expressions of joy revealed at that moment the true sentiments of a 
 deep and tender heart. 
 
 Edward Kirkland, Esquire, who joined the church by letter in July, 
 1844, and who died, after twenty-two years of membership, in 1866, was 
 probably the man of most education, as he was certainly one of the most 
 efficient, of the men who have built up the church. He at once took a 
 high position, was rarely absent from prayer meeting, and was a special 
 friend of foreign missions, which he was wont eloquently and forcefully 
 to urge upon the church, keeping himself better informed upon the sub- 
 ject than anyone else. He was for several years superintendent of the 
 Sunday school, took a live interest in all the affairs of the church and was 
 preeminently a strong and good man. 
 
 Franklin Holbrook Fessenden, who was born in 1811, joined the church 
 in September, 1831, and died in 1863, was a- very godly man, a man who 
 put his hand to the plow and looked not back. He was for three years 
 deacon, and raised the money for the first organ. He was active in the 
 sometimes unwillingly given service of asking for money needed for good 
 work, a service which he cheerfully rendered and nobly honored. 
 
 Deacon Daniel B. Thompson, who died in 1876, having been a member 
 of the church for forty-nine years, was a man ready for every good word 
 and work, a man of prayer, always at prayer meeting, ready to give to the 
 utmost of his ability and to do it joyfully. 
 
 Asahel Clapp, Joseph G. Root, Hannibal Hadley, Ferdinand Tyler and 
 Deacon Barber are some of the strong men, among others, who should 
 be spoken of as beloved and iEaithful workers in this church. 
 
 . A marked source of spiritual power in our history yet remains to be 
 mentioned — the preeminent character and prayerfulneSs of our godly 
 women. For many years the organized circle, with constitution and 
 special requirements for admission, known as the ladies' prayer meeting, 
 was maintained. At one time sixty names were on the roll. The heart 
 of the spiritual life of the church was in this meeting. It is one of the 
 distinctive things in the history of the church. Prominent among those 
 good women was Mrs. John Holbrook, already mentioned, for forty-five 
 years a member, whose generous donation of $500 went far to provide 
 the parsonage. 
 
 Mrs. Patty Fessenden was a woman of the finest and gentlest and 
 noblest personality, born to be a queen, loved, admired and looked up to 
 by all, whose decisions were always awaited and affectionately accepted. 
 The circle of ladies in which she thus stood was marked not only by piety 
 but by a dignity, nobility and courtliness of manner that could not be 
 forgotten. Mrs. Elliot should be specially recalled. Mrs. Sarah Goodhue 
 and her sister, Mrs. Dorcas Goff, were remarkable for their piety and 
 
468' ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 character. Mrs. Goodhue maintained to the last her keen interest in 
 the church, and her kindly, beautiful nature is well symbolized in the 
 perfect window in her memory, pointing always upward. Her character 
 as a Christian was many-sided ; her every side was a gem. Her prayers 
 for the church were unceasing, and "her children rise up and call her 
 blessed." 
 
 Other cherished names are those of Mrs. Harriet Holbrook, earnest, 
 beautiful and discreet; Mrs. Elizabeth Cune, for whom a personal love 
 and admiration only makes more clear the strength and trust of her con- 
 sistent Christian character; Mrs. Gracia Hollister, whose character com- 
 bined loveliness and strength in a remarkable degree; Miss Fanny Goff, 
 somewhat eccentric, but with a heart full of kindness and love, and with a 
 mind of great ability and retentiveness ; Mrs. Deacon Barber, devoted, 
 caretaking, a woman of judgment and oversight; Miss Susan B. Salis- 
 bury, who lived to advanced years but kept a young and interested heart. 
 
 Mrs. Sarah Goodhue Chapin was almost the first to make any of those 
 welcome gifts which sometimes so help on the best work of the church, 
 and her munificent and wise bequest is now one of those never failing 
 springs which no winter's cold can freeze and no summer drought can 
 quench, but one always flowing, a perpetual blessing to God's needy ones. 
 
 These make but a part of that cloud of witnesses, who, in heaven, are 
 near us, watching us in sympathy, and waiting for us to join them yonder. 
 Their prayers are now come up before God like sweet incense. 
 
 It seems as if the Christian's prayer 
 
 For peace and joy and love 
 Was answered in the very air 
 
 That wafts its strain above. 
 
CHAPTER XLVII 
 
 THE THIRD MEETING-HOUSE IN WEST BRATTLEBORO 
 
 1845 
 
 The entire expense was estimated at $2750. To meet this it was 
 decided to issue meeting-house stock, one hundred shares at $37.50 each, 
 with the understanding that two of these shares might control one pew, 
 the pews, however, to be appraised, and choice of location left to auction 
 sale. The number of pews was to be fifty-eight, of which fifty would be 
 controlled by individuals, and the remainder left to the disposal of the 
 society. The work of building began in the summer of 1845 and was 
 finished in midwinter, 1846. Snow stood upon the scaffolding around 
 the steeple before the work was done. The workmen labored from day- 
 light till dark in the long summer days, with journeyman's wages at one 
 dollar a day and apprentice's wages at ten dollars a month. In the fall 
 and early winter they would be upon the ground before it was light, and 
 celebrate their advent by ringing the cracked bell which stood near. The 
 entire expense of construction and furnishing, including recasting of 
 bell, stoves, foundation, grading and papering, amounted to $3738.61, 
 leaving a slight balance, from which a dividend was paid to the sub- 
 scribers. 
 
 This house, with pews unpainted, uncarpeted and uncushioned except 
 as it was done by individual owners, with stoves near the gallery and pipe 
 running the entire length of the room, was used for more than twenty 
 years in this condition. In 1867, under the lead of Deacon Clark Jacobs, 
 a liberal giver to this and all subsequent movements, a chapel was built 
 in the rear of the church. Previous to this date all the social meetings 
 had been held in the Academy buildings, a right secured to the church 
 by the original subscribers. In 1869 the church was thoroughly renovated 
 at an expense of $1350, $1000 of which was raised by subscription, and 
 $350 was assessed upon the pews. A choir recess was constructed back 
 of the pulpit, the stoves were taken out and new pews put in their places ; 
 a furnace, carpet and cushions were provided ; the walls were repapered 
 and the house was painted outside and in. In the winter of 1876-1877 
 the spire was blown off, and was replaced the following spring at an 
 expense, including paint and other repairs, of $350, a sum which was 
 
470 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 raised by a tax upon the pews. In this condition, substantially, the build- 
 ing has remained. 
 
 Since the building of the third house in West Brattleboro the pastors 
 have been: Reverend Charles H. Merrill, April, 1845, to February 2, 
 1888 ; Reverend James H. Babbitt, February 2, 1888, to June 29, 1900.^ 
 
 1 Reverend Luther M. Keneston, December 1, 1900, to September 1, 1908 ; Rev- 
 erend Edwin J. Lewis, March 17, 1909, to December 4, 1911; Reverend Henry 
 Lamb, May 12, 1912, to November, 1915; Reverend Arthur V. Woodworth, May 
 14, 1916. 
 
CHAPTER XLVIII 
 
 THE ODD FELLOWS 
 
 The "Application for a warrant" for Wantastiquet Lodge, Number 5, 
 is dated July 3, 1846, and is signed by six brothers, certified as holding 
 proper cards, as follows : John H. Willis, Henry Burnham, John B. Miner, 
 H. D. Brackett, Thomas C. Lord, Frederick Franks. The lodge was 
 instituted August 3, 1846 (original charter dated July 13, 1846), by 
 Albert Chase, Deputy Grand Sire, who says he was "assisted by D. D. 
 Grand Master W. T. Davis, of Greenfield, Mass." He further writes 
 in his report : 
 
 There were present about fifty brothers from Greenfield and Colrain, 
 Massachusetts, and Winchester, New Hampshire. After the organization 
 of the lodge the hall was publicly consecrated: and in the evening there 
 were twelve gentlemen initiated. They all received the degrees. Starting 
 under such favorable auspices and the merits of the new order set forth 
 by as able a representative as (Reverend) Brother Case, no wonder that 
 Number 5 possesses the proud history of the past forty years. The first 
 officers were : John H. Willis, N.G. ; Thomas C. Lord, V.G. ; Horace D. 
 Brackett, secretary; Frederick Franks, treasurer. In the decline of the 
 I. O. O. F. in Vermont during the decade following 1857, Wantastiquet 
 ' Lodge stood firm. The old ledger contains an item, not often found on 
 the pages of early lodges, showing that this lodge renewed its charge 
 books (marked second-hand) August 26, 1863, price one dollar each. 
 This might indicate an early memorizing of the work. This lodge has 
 the honor of furnishing the first historian of the order in the state, 
 Timothy Vinton, P.G.M. and P.G.R. 
 
 The organization of the lodge took place in a room either in the old 
 Revere House building or in the building next adjoining it. The lodge 
 continued to meet there for several years and then had quarters for some 
 time in Grand Army Hall. 
 
 The next home of the lodge was in quarters over the Vermont National 
 Bank and again in quarters on the third floor of the Hooker building. 
 
 In 1905, on the eighty-sixth anniversary of Odd Fellowship, the lodge 
 dedicated enlarged quarters in the same building, the tremendous growth 
 in membership having necessitated the enlargement of their quarters. 
 
472 • ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Not only is Wantastiquet Lodge one of the four oldest in the state and 
 the largest in point of membership, but it is one of the wealthiest. 
 
 The Tyler building was bought in 1893 for about $14,000. The lodge 
 paid $6000 in cash and borrowed the balance. In 1904 the property was 
 free and clear of incumbrance.^ 
 
 The officers of the lodge and of affiliated organizations. Oasis Encamp- 
 ment, Number 5, Dennis Rebekah Lodge, Number 1, the first in the state, 
 and Canton Palestine, Number 3, P.M., have been notable for their faith- 
 fulness to their trusts and their willingness to continue long in office when 
 the duties were exacting and painstaking. 
 
 Oasis Encampment, Number 5, was instituted April 9, 1868, by J. P. 
 Sanders, Grand Sire. • 
 
 Not long after, interests identified with Brattleboro Odd Fellowship' 
 brought about the institution of the first Rebekah Lodge in the state by 
 having Dennis Rebekah Lodge instituted February 9, 1869. 
 
 Canton Palestine, Number 3, P.M., the military department of the 
 order, was organized later, but, like the other local organizations of Odd 
 Fellowship, was always strong. 
 
 ^The lodge bought of Edgar H. Davenport in April, 1912, the Wesselhoeft 
 Water-Cure building on the north' side of Elliot Street on the corner of Church 
 Street. This property had a frontage of 180 feet on Elliot Street and an extreme 
 depth of 125 feet. The price was not made public, but it was understood to have 
 been about $16,000. 
 
RESIDENCE OF 
 ROYAL WOOD 
 
 REEDS CASTLE 
 
 RESIDENCE OF 
 ELIH0 H. THOMAS 
 
 RESIDENCE OF 
 WILLIAM H. ESTERBROOKS 
 
 FROST MANSION 
 ON FROST MEADOW 
 
 RESIDENCE OF 
 ANTHONY VAN DOORN 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
HOME OF CAPT. THUNDERBOLT 
 
 THE CANAL 
 
 CHAPEL OF THE PERFECTIONISTS 
 PUTNEY 
 
 ON THE BROOK ROAD 
 
 WEST BRATTLEBORO 
 
 COCKAYNE. BOSTON 
 
CHAPTER XLIX 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 
 
 In Trade — ^James Esterbrook — Major William H. Esterbrook. James Frost — Willard 
 Frost— Charles C. Frost— John W. Frost. Uriel Sikes— Samuel Clark— Lafayette 
 Clark— Anthony Van Doom — ^Joseph Goodhue — ^Wells Goodhue — Henry F. 
 Houghton— Houghton & Kuech— William Pitt Cune— Major Henry Smith — 
 John H. Wheeler— Franklin H. Wheeler— John C. Holbrook— Gardner C. Hall- 
 Aaron E. Dwinell — Colonel Paul Chase — Doctor Charles A. Chapin — John Hyde 
 — Zelotes Dickinson — Asahel Clapp — Samuel Dutton — Calvin Townsley — Seth 
 Herrick. 
 
 George Baty Blake— Selah Chamberlain— Doctor John Wilson, "Thunderbolt"- 
 John Humphrey Noyes. Lawyers— William H. Cary— Elisha H. Allen, 1827— 
 Honorable Asa Keyes — Honorable William C. Bradley — Jonathan Dorr Bradley 
 — Judge Royall Tyler — Honorable Larkin G. Mead — ^Honorable Edward Kirkland. 
 
 Captain William S. Brooks — Francis J. Higginson, M.D.*-Miss Anna Higginson, 
 tribute by Doctor George Leon Walker — Mrs. Nathan Lawrence — George C. Law- 
 rence — Charles G. Lawrence — ^James Fisltf— James Fisk, Junior. 
 
 The Esterbrooks 
 
 are one of Windham County's pioneer families, Warren Esterbrook 
 settling in Brattleboro in 1779. Born at Warren, Rhode Island, June 
 29, 1748, he was thirty-one years of age when he came with his wife, 
 Rosannah Haile, and a four-year-old son, James. For a short time he 
 worked at the carpenter's trade: in the then sparsely settled East Village, 
 but soon moved to a farm in the southeast part of the town. He had a 
 family of nine children, six boys and three girls, whose descendants 
 have proved among the town's substantial citizens. He followed farming 
 until afflicted with total blindness, which misfortune he patiently bore 
 during the remaining twenty years of his life. He died June 29, 1838, 
 aged ninety ; his wife died April 26, 1813, aged sixty-two. 
 
 Their son. Major James Esterbrook, born in Warren, in 1775, mar- 
 ried April 17, 1799, Polly, daughter of Colonel Daniel Stewart, and settled 
 on the "Hadley Farm" near the family homestead. He engaged quite 
 largely in the dairy business for a number of years, and became a con- 
 spicuous and popular figure in the local militia. He was the father of 
 twelve children, all of whom grew to manhood and womanhood. He died 
 March 5, 1856. 
 
474 ANNALS OF. BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Children of Major James and Polly (Stewart) Esterbrook: 
 
 Maria, born September 7, 1800; married July 31, 1833, Rufus Pratt 
 
 (see p. 670) ; died October 19, 1857. 
 Charlotte, born June 13, 1803; married April 10, 1835, WiHiam Bul- 
 lock ; died November 39, 1899. A daughter, Helen. 
 Daniel S., born April 17, 1804; married May 6, 1833, Betsey, daughter 
 of Royal and Martha Roberts Gladden, born May 9, 1806, died 1901 ; 
 he died September 19, 1869, aged sixty-five. Children: Oscar D. (see 
 p. 673), Ann E. 
 Dorothy M., born January 37, 1806 ; married October 5, 1838, Solomon 
 
 Fessenden ; died May 37, 1878. 
 Nancy, born October 8, 1808 ; married Wesley Jacobs ; died April 38, 
 
 1849. 
 Mary A., born November 6, 1810; married July 4, 1838, Harvey 
 
 Houghton ; died March 18, 1861. 
 James H., born August 10, 1813 ; married July 4, 1838, Miss Nancy A. 
 French ; died April 9, 1863 ; she died June 34, 1867, aged fifty-three. 
 Deacon William H., born July 31, 1814; married October 38, 1845, 
 Miss Adaline A. Thayer, who died October 10, 1889, aged sixty-four ; 
 he died Decembef 10, 1895. William H. Esterbrook learned the trade 
 of tinsmith in the shop of Ashbel Dickinson. He became a partner 
 in the firm of James H. and W. H. Esterbrook, established in 1837. 
 The firm was in business in the Vinton building, corner of Canal and 
 South Main Streets for twenty-seven years, when it was sold to 
 Wood & Kathan. Children : 
 Ada, married May 17, 1870, George S. Dowley. 
 
 George S. Dowley, born in Wardsboro August 16, 1843, was 
 the son of Darius L. and Anstis Baldwin Dowley. His father- was 
 then a farmer in the southwest part of the town. The family 
 moved to Brattleboro and the son grew up in the village, receiving 
 his education in the common schools. He left the High School to 
 take a place in the railroad office, where he assisted in the, book- 
 keeping and made collections. At that time the collections were 
 made monthly and often the boy had in his possession from $4000 
 to $6000, which he carried to the office and which was then divided 
 up and sent to the connecting roads. His alertness and his unusual 
 capability for business attracted the attention of business men, and 
 in 1863 Philip Wells, who was then cashier of the Bank of Brattle- 
 boro, went down to the freight office and offered him a place in 
 the bank. This he accepted at the age of twenty. 
 
 In July, 1868, when he was only twenty-four years old, Mr. 
 Dowley became cashier of the bank. He held the cashiership until 
 
FROST FAMILY 475 
 
 December, 1886, when he was chosen president, succeeding William 
 P. Cune in that office. 
 
 Mr. Dowley for a long term of years was the Brattleboro town 
 treasurer, county treasurer and treasurer of the village school dis- 
 trict. He was a director in the Vermont Valley Railroad Company 
 and a member of Governor Fuller's personal staff. 
 He died November 4, 1896. 
 
 Mr. Dowley left $50,000 to School District Number 2, $10,000 
 to the Free Library and $5000 to the Brattleboro Retreat. 
 Mary A., born July 14, 1848; married March 16, 1868, Lucius H. 
 Richardson. A son, Charles, married November 8, 1898, Miss 
 Vinnie E. Elmer. Children: Marion, Howard.. 
 Emily S., born September 16, 1816 ; married September 30, 1836, Henry 
 A. Gane, who was born in England and was apprenticed there seven 
 years in the bookbinder's trade. At twenty-one he came to the United 
 States, first to New Haven and later to Brattleboro, where he was 
 in the employment of Holbrook & Fessenden's typographical com- 
 pany. He left Brattleboro in 1840, becoming a bookbinder on Corn- 
 hill, Boston. 
 
 He built a beautiful estate at^AVest Newton, on his retirement from 
 business. Their daughter: 
 
 Maria Elizabeth, born in 1841, received her education in the public 
 schools of the West End of Boston and in Mr. Williams's private 
 school in Somerset Street. She received a fine mental training 
 and was especially devoted to the study of music. June 1, 1864, 
 she was married to William Henry Dutton, one of the proprietors 
 of The Transcript and son of its founder. Mr. Dutton died March 
 1, 1875, and February 16, 1881, Mrs. Dutton became the wife of 
 Mr. Jerome Jones, head of the present Jones, McDuffie & Stratton. 
 He died December, 1916 ; she died in June, 1908. 
 Cynthia J., born April 25, 1819 ; married January 5, 1843, Benjamin F. 
 
 Tilden; died January 10, 1849. 
 George W., born December 3, 1831; married October 24, 1845, Miss 
 
 Nancy A. Goddard. 
 Harriet E., born August 16, 1834; married Albert A. Cortis; died 
 November 5, 1875. 
 
 Frost Family — ^James Frost 
 
 James Frost, who was born in Rutland, Massachusetts, December 15, 
 1776, came to Brattleboro in 1779 and died February 21, 1857. He was 
 a shoemaker, and became an extensive landowner in this place ; married 
 
476 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel Daniel Stewart of West Brattleboro, born 
 October 16, 1782 ; died April 11, 1863. 
 Children : 
 
 WiLLARD, born August 24, 1804; died August 12, 1879. 
 
 Charles C. (See below.) 
 
 John W., born April 19, 1814. (See p. 479.) 
 
 Henry J., died in Wooster, Ohio, August 19, 1887, aged sixty-eight. A 
 dry goods merchant. 
 
 Eugene, born November 12, 1822 ; died March 17, 1905. 
 
 Colonel Edward D., born 1835; went to school here, and graduated 
 from Dartmouth College in the class with B. D. Harris and R. W. 
 Clarke. He taught school for a year in the South. He was a civil 
 engineer, railroad constructor and manager of the Mississippi 
 Central, which was constructed by him. He married, April 7, 1848, 
 Miss Sophronia J. Butler of Stone Mountain, Georgia. He was a 
 colonel in the Confederate Army. He died June 14, 1887, at McComb 
 City, Mississippi; his widow died in Water Valley, Mississippi, 
 March, 1891. 
 
 Fanny E., married September 1, 1835, Aaron E. Dwinell. 
 
 Helen C, married Mr. Miltmore ; both were lost in the burning of the 
 steamer Erie, on Lake Erie, in 1842. 
 
 Emily S., married November 10, 1846, Oscar Ormsbee of Circleville, 
 Ohio ; died March 26, 1868, aged forty-seven. 
 
 WiLLARD Frost 
 
 Willard Frost was born in the one-story house occupied for some years 
 by his brother, Charles C, standing on the southerly side of Flat Street 
 near the family mansion in which he died. He was educated at the village 
 schools and at the Academy in West Brattleboro. He was apprenticed 
 to learn boot and shoe making, and remained with his father in that busi- 
 ness till April 1, 1831, when he succeeded to the ownership and manage- 
 ment. His shop was in a two-story building which stood, as late as 1873, 
 where H. M. Wood's store was. He was a man of more than usual intelli- 
 gence and had an extensive knowledge of history. He was captain of the 
 Brattleborough Light Infantry, 1825-1826. 
 
 He married July 25, 1836, Lydia, daughter of Henry and Lydia B. 
 (Kilburn) Root of Craftsbury, Vermont, who died March 27, 1876. His 
 daughter, Helen M. Frost, iorn November 6, 1842, married Major C. P. 
 Dudley of the 5th Vermont Regiment ; she died August 29, 1877. 
 
 Charles C. Frost, the Learned Shoemaker 
 Charles Christopher Frost was born in this village November 11, 1805. 
 Early in his teens he learned the trade of a shoemaker, and for several 
 
CHARLES C. FROST 477 
 
 years, or until his health failed, he worked at the bench, leaving it only to 
 teach the village district school for a winter or two. In 1831 he estab- 
 lished himself in the shoe business, spending there, in the quiet pursuit 
 of his business, the last fifty years of his life. 
 
 At ten years of age young Frost noticed that the older schoolboys 
 brought their sums for him to do and that in mathematics he was up to 
 boys who were from five to nine years older than himself. He did not 
 know what that meant, but his friends afterwards told him that they had 
 discovered in him, from his first years, a cbnsiderable mathematical genius. 
 When he was fifteen years of age his father became possessor of Hut- 
 ton's Mathematics, which he had taken for debt from some West Point 
 student. Young Frost looked at it with evident delight, and his father 
 told him it should be his property if he could read it at twenty-one. At 
 nineteen he had mastered the whole course. He went into astronomical 
 mathematics, took up chemistry, learned very much of natural sciences in 
 every department, and all the while attended to his business as a shoe- 
 maker. 
 
 From some neglect of his physical habits he superinduced mucous 
 dyspepsia. No medical skill in his neighborhood seemed to relieve him. 
 He went to New York to consult Doctor Willard Parker. While waiting 
 in the anteroom, he admired intently a bouquet of flowers on the mantel, 
 and was examining them when the doctor called him in. Doctor Parker 
 candidly told him he could do nothing for him. "But," said the skillful 
 and honest physician, "you can do very much for yourself. Are you fond 
 of flowers ?" ."Very much so, indeed," said Mr. Frost. "Then make it a 
 point to walk one hour in the morning, and one in the evening, looking for 
 flowers." 
 
 He did so. His health constantly and rapidly improved. At first he 
 could hardly keep on his feet during the hour, but he soon learned to walk 
 many miles on the stretch. His scientific mind naturally began to study 
 flowers in their scientific aspects. He began to be a botanist. He ordered 
 Fries's book from London, paying $12 for it. He did not know until he 
 saw it that it was written in Latin, of which tongue he was ignorant. He 
 bought a Latin grammar, devoted himself to the language, and in six 
 months could read his new book as well as if it was written in English. 
 In the same manner he acquired German and French. He read scientific 
 books equally well in four different languages. 
 
 Having studied mathematics for several years, with little or no assist- 
 ance except from books, he finally made himself familiar with the most 
 important works on algebra, geometry, calculus, etc. He turned his 
 attention also to astronomy, geology, mineralogy, meteorology, in all 
 of which branches of science he became very proficient. His researches 
 
478 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 into that department of botany relating to the cryptogams, are especially 
 worthy of notice, as in this department he was an authority for scientific 
 men on two continents. He was for a time connected with the Smith- 
 sonian Institute as a reporter on storms, and discharged his duties most 
 acceptably. In the meantime he kept himself "posted" on the great moral 
 and political reforms of his age, with most of which he had strong, active 
 sympathies. Sunday he rigidly devoted to public worship and the reading 
 of works relating to morals, theology and religion. 
 
 Mr. Frost had habits of the closest observation and description. He 
 made collections more or less extensive of minerals, insects, shells, grasses, 
 mosses, ferns, lichens, fungi, and plants generally, and arranged them in a 
 scientific manner. Most of these he collected with his own hands, not a 
 few of them in early morning, before the usual hours of business ; some on 
 excursions made for the purpose, and others whenever business called 
 him abroad, never omitting an opportunity to bring home any rare speci- 
 men which his quick, practiced eye might discover. 
 
 He was honored by being elected a member of different societies in 
 America and Europe. He was author with Edward Tuckerman of a cata- 
 logue of plants growing without cultivation within thirty miles of Amherst 
 College. The Frost Herbarium is at the University of Vermont. 
 
 He was for many years a member of the Congregational Church and up 
 to the time of the beginning of his final illness had not failed of an attend- 
 ance at church on Sunday for thirty-five years. 
 
 The degree of A.M. was conferred on him by both Dartmouth and Mid- 
 dlebury Colleges. He was a man of few words, and did not often appear 
 in print, but when he did put pen to paper his style was a model of clear- 
 ness, conciseness and strength. 
 
 In 1831 he married Roxanna Sargent, granddaughter of John Sargent, 
 born August 12, 1806 ; died April 26, 1886. 
 Children : 
 
 Charles S., lived in Brattleboro until he was twenty-one, when he 
 went to Wooster, Ohio, as clerk to his uncle, Henry J. Frost, a dry 
 goods merchant ; became cashier of Wayne County Bank, a member 
 of the firm of Stebbs & Company, and Kanke & Frost, bankers. He 
 was the first mayor of Wooster in 1869 and member of the city coun- 
 cil. He was a good citizen and an honest man. He never married. 
 Died January 7, 1904. 
 Wells S., born October 23, 1834 ; married Mary J., daughter of Dean 
 J. Fenner of Irvington, New York, born July 12, 1840 ; died January 
 14, 1877; he died September 16, 1906. Children: Flora A., born, 
 1862 ; married April 30, 1895, William H. Proctor. Daughter, Vesta. 
 Wells S. entered the employ of Frost & Goodhue, grocers, as clerk, 
 
JOHN W. FROST 479 
 
 and was a partner from 1869 to 1880 in the firm John W. Frost & 
 Company, later Frost & Proctor. 
 Henry B. S., died in early manhood. 
 
 John W. Frost 
 
 John W. Frost was born April 19, 1814. He married, first, June 1, 
 1835, Mary Ryan, stepdaughter of Major Stephen Greenleaf. She died 
 October 18, 1861. He married, second, 1864, Annie, daughter of Judge 
 William Hall, who was born September 27, 1825, and died May 25, 1912. 
 
 Mr. Frost in his career and character was in many ways typical of the 
 place. He was born at the old Frost house on Flat Street. He began 
 his active life at the age of eighteen as teacher of the village school on 
 the Common, bi/t a year later he- went into the Brattleborough Bank as 
 clerk. He remained in this position about two years, went to Boston for 
 a year, and in 1834 engaged in business at West Brattleboro as a member 
 of the firm of Gregory & Frost, grocers. 
 
 After three or four years, returning to the East Village, he became a 
 clerk in the store of Hall & Townsley; after this firm dissolved, he re- 
 mained with Gardner C. Hall, until in 1846 he went into trade for himself, 
 continued in it steadily for nearly thirty-five years, built up a large, flour- 
 ishing business and won a repute all over this section of the state as one of 
 Brattleboro's business men of integrity, whose word was always as good 
 as his bond. 
 
 October 9, 1851, Colonel Francis Goodhue bought a half interest in the 
 business and the firm became Frost & Goodhue. In 1869 Colonel Goodhtie 
 sold his interest to Wells S. Frost and until Mr. Frost's retirement in 
 1880, when he went to Peoria, Illinois, the house was John W. Frost & 
 Company. Returning, Mr. Frost was also for a time engaged with J. F. 
 Estey and one or two other partners in the meal and grain business ; he 
 was for several years president of the Valley Mill Company, with James 
 Estey, superintendent, and Edward G. Frost, secretary and treasurer. 
 He sold to William H. Minor January 1, 1882. 
 
 John W. Frost died June 13, 1896. 
 
 Children : 
 
 Elizabeth, born September 11, 1839 ; died October 9, 1916. 
 
 Emma S., married William H. Minor September 6, 1874. Children: 
 Marion, married Lansingh Van Rensselaer, assistant general man- 
 ager of Holophane branch of General Electric Company; William 
 Frost, born December 23, 1880 ; married August 19, 1913, Helen A., 
 daughter of Clement L. V. Kinney of Newark, Ohio. 
 
480 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 John R., has lived with his uncle, Edward D. Frost, at McComb City, 
 Mississippi, as storekeeper of machine shops in Chicago of St. Louis 
 & New Orleans Railway, now Pueblo, Colorado. 
 
 Love A., married October 31, 1877, Gorham B. Goodell of Cheyenne, 
 son of David Goodell of Brattleboro. David Goodell was born in War- 
 wick, Massachusetts, May 12, 1814, married May 25, 1836, Miss Mav- 
 erette S. Ballard, who died February 11» 1901, aged eighty-seven. 
 He came to Brattleboro in 1835, and filled important offices to the 
 satisfaction of the people, serving two terms in each branch of the 
 Legislature, 1863-1863. He was a farmer, a successful raiser of live 
 stock and a prominent member of the state and other agricultural 
 societies. He died May 21, 1875. His son, Gorham B., born March 
 13, 1847, was educated in Brattleboro. He began his business career 
 in Jay Cooke's bank in New York and remained several years with 
 that institution; afterwards he went to Neosho, Newton County, 
 Missouri, in the cattle herding business. He removed to Cheyenne, 
 Wyoming, in 1872, and became a member of the stock firm of Stur- 
 gis,. Goodell & Lane, one of the biggest in the state. For many years 
 the business proved prosperous, but then came the years in the 
 eighties when severe storms blotted out half the herds and the prices 
 the following year fell one-half, which meant the financial ruin of 
 most of those then engaged in the business. Mr. Goodell then went 
 to Portland, September, 1891, and engaged in the milling and cattle 
 feeding business. He died November 14, 1913. He was a man of 
 warm heart and unflinching courage, who never murmured at fate 
 no matter how strongly the tide set against him. Children: David, 
 Gorham Lane. 
 
 Edward G., married, first. May 18, 1882, Miss Jessie B. Davis, who died 
 December 10, 1892, aged thirty-seven. Children : Raymond M., born 
 March, 1883, married, 1914, Miss Ruth Callahan; Stuart Eugene, 
 born October 20, 1884, married, 1911, Miss Edna M. Marcy ; Mary 
 Elizabeth, born March 30, 1886, married, 1910, John C. Harvey; 
 .Edward Murray, born September 13, 1888, married, 1918, Miss 
 Kathleen W. Thompson of Norfolk, Virginia. Edward G. married, 
 second, October 22, 1910, Miss Harriet E. Wilcutt. 
 
 Uriel Sikes 
 
 Uriel Sikes came here from Northampton, as a hatter's apprentice, 
 about 1811. He soon began manufacturing hats in the firm of Phillips 
 & Sikes, and lived on Flat Street near his factory. He was landlord of 
 the American House and proprietor of the Vermont House from about 
 
URIEL SIKES 481 
 
 1820 to 1834, when he moved to Hartford, Connecticut, living there eight 
 years. 
 
 He built the residence on Main Street, owned at last by his grand- 
 children, Mr. and Mrs. C. F. Thompson, and in 1843 kept a temperance 
 hotel there called "Sikes Temperance House." He married, 1808, Miss 
 Elizabeth Edwards of Northampton, baptized November 20, 1787, who 
 died May 11, 1873. He died January 31, 1874. The fourth generation of 
 descendants were in his house at the time of his death. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Sikes were a remarkable couple, retaining their intel- 
 lectual faculties to the end, living exponents of the Puritan training, senti- 
 ment and belief, — simple in tastes and manners, honest, industrious, sin- 
 cere^ kindly, devout in attention to religious duties. She did housework 
 almost to the day of her death. With limited means, they were always 
 peaceful and content. He was very musical and played the bass viol 
 in the early Church on the Common. After his wife's death he used to . 
 sing psalms and hymns to keep up his courage. 
 Children : 
 
 Elizabeth, born September 18, 1809; married July 13, 1829, Charles H. 
 Cune, a merchant of Brattleboro, who was born November 26, 1798 ; 
 died February 14, 1851; she died April 27, 1885. The name was 
 originally McCune. Children: Elizabeth, born December 15, 1834, 
 attended Reverend Addison Brown's School, the Brattleboro High 
 School and Glenwood Seminary; married May 15, 1855, Charles F. 
 Thompson; Frank G. McCune, of Columbus, Ohio; John H. Mc- 
 Cune, of Newark, Ohio. Mrs. Cune always lived with her daughter 
 Elizabeth Thompson. Coming from an old and sturdy New England 
 family — ^the Edwardses of Northampton, of whom Jonathan 
 Edwards was the most distinguished representative — she possessed 
 those traits of character which characterized so many of the New 
 England men and women of half a century ago — a strong will, a 
 clear-cut intellect and an unswerving fidelity to duty. She was for 
 more than half a century a member of the Congregational Church 
 in Brattleboro. Her religious convictions, early formed, were of that 
 earnest, solid and enduring nature which give an unchanging belief 
 in the realities of the unseen world and produced a consistent con- 
 secration of her entire life to service to others. (Frederick C. 
 Edwards, a bookbinder here from about 1840 to 1880, was of the 
 same Edwards family.) 
 Mary L., born October 10, 1826 ; married March 15, 1847, George B. 
 
 Kellogg. (See p. 711.) 
 Reverend Lewis E. Sikes, born October 19, 1810, in Northampton; 
 prepared for college at the Brattleborough Academy; graduated 
 
482 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO , 
 
 from Union College, Schenectady, in 1841 ; studied theology at Ari- 
 dover and New Haven; preached in Townshend, Vermont, Illinois, 
 Michigan and Kansas; left, at his death in 1892, a wife and three 
 sons. 
 
 Clark Family — Samuel Clark 
 
 Samuel Clark, for many years a prominent and highly respected citi- 
 zen, was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, in that part of the town which is 
 now Columbia, February 28, 1777. His father was' Samuel Clark, son of 
 Timothy Clark of the same town, whose father, with a Mr. Dewey, pur- 
 chased a tract of land of the Indians, which tract was called, down to a 
 late date, the Clark and Dewey purchase. 
 
 Through his mother, Sarah Cushman, he was a lineal descendant of 
 Robert Cushman, who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621, and 
 who, though not a clergyman nor even a "Teaching Elder," prepared and 
 delivered the first sermon preached in New England that was printed. 
 
 The family, of which he was the ninth, consisted of seven sons and 
 four daughters. Till he was eighteen years of age he labored on his 
 father's farm in Lebanon. Then, after attending a high school for about 
 four months, he went to Massachusetts and for about three years was 
 engaged in teaching school, and was a clerk in country stores in Ber- 
 nardston, Greenfield and Leyden. He then removed to Dover, Vermont, 
 where he resided for some six years, engaged in mercantile business. 
 
 September 1, 1800, he married Susan Johnson, who was born in Sep- 
 tember, 1778, in Ellington, Connecticut, daughter of David Johnson of 
 Dover; Vermont. In 1804 he removed to Guilford, where he prosecuted 
 his business successfully for nine years. In 1813 he went back to Dover, 
 which town he represented in the State Legislature in 1814. In 1815 he 
 took up his residence in West Brattleboro, and for about fifteen years 
 carried on mercantile business there. ^ In 1820-1821, and also 1825-1826, 
 he was the representative of the town in the Legislature; 1829-1830, a 
 member of the council of the state; in 1833, first assistant judge of the 
 county court ; in 1836, a delegate from this town for revising the Consti- 
 tution. While in the Legislature, he was chiefly instrumental in obtaining 
 the charter of the Brattleborough Bank, of which he was for twenty years 
 following a director. For thirteen years he was one of the trustees of 
 the Asylum for the Insane, and for thirty-five years was an active mem- 
 ber of the board of trustees of Brattleborough Academy, ever manifesting 
 a lively interest in the institution by his large contributions for building 
 
 1 Honorable Austin Birchard engaged himself as clerk to Samuel Clark for two 
 years from April, 1815. He married April, 1819, Roxanna, daughter of John Plum- 
 mer, Junior, of Brattleboro. 
 
CLARK FAMILY. SAMUEL CLARK 483 
 
 and other purposes, and by his faithfulness in promoting the welfare of 
 the school. 
 
 His religious life is supposed to have commenced during the year 1833, 
 at which time, in company with many others, he joined the Congregational 
 Church in West Brattleboro, then under the pastoral care of Reverend 
 Jedediah L. Stark. 
 
 He was, in his sphere, a strong man, fitted by, nature arid by the wise 
 and diligent use of his energies to exert an influence in society. Though 
 possessed of strong feelings, his judgment was sound and his opinion 
 was much valued by his neighbors. Prudence and sagacity were marked 
 traits in his character. Another pleasing trait was his readiness to make 
 amends for anything done under the impulse of excited feelings, which 
 he was led afterwards to look upon as wrong. In all matters, however, 
 involving moral principle, or that seemed to him of superlative impor- 
 tance, he was firm and unyielding ; and he brought all the energies of his 
 strong and impetuous nature to bear upon the business of maintaining and 
 carrying out his convictions. His interest in the welfare of the church 
 with which he was connected was- deep and unabated to the last. He left 
 to the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions a bequest 
 of $5000. 
 Children : 
 
 Lafayette, born at Dover, Vermont, June t, 1801. 
 
 Amandrin, died June 19, 1849, aged forty-seven. 
 
 Stanford Russell, married Miss Eliza L. Adkins. Children : Stanford, 
 Susan E., Doctor Charles S. 
 
 Doctor Charles S. Clark, born July 28, 1846, attended the Brattle- 
 borough Academy and the Williston Seminary at Easthampton. He was 
 also a student at Norwich University in the year 1863, and graduated at 
 Eastman's Business College in 1865. His Harvard dental course began 
 in 1868. 
 
 He married September 3, 1870, Miss Rebecca C. Clark, who died May 
 9, 1915. 
 
 He practiced dentistry in Woodstock in 1869, and came to Brattleboro 
 in 1871. He was trustee of the Brattleborough Academy from 1879 and 
 a director of the Vermont National Bank from 1901 ; he was deacon of the 
 Congregational Church at West Brattleboro for thirty-four years. He 
 died March 15, 1916, aged sixty-nine. 
 Children : 
 
 Lafayette Franklin, bom September 19, 1871 ; graduated at Massachu- 
 setts Agricultural College, Amherst ; resided at Des Moines, Iowa ; 
 afterwards at Oskaloosa. 
 
484 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Florence Rebecca, born June 15, 1873; graduated at Mount Holyoke; 
 died June 14, 1913. 
 
 Doctor Charles Ernest, born February 21, 1875; graduated at Dart- 
 mouth College and University of Michigan; medical missionary in 
 Sivas, Turkey. 
 
 Reverend James Stanford, born November 22, 1876 ; graduated at Dart- 
 mouth College and Hartford Theological Seminary. He has had 
 parishes in North Bennington, Vermont, and in Madison, Maine. 
 
 Robert Cushman, born October 3, 1878 ; graduated at Dartmouth Col- 
 lege; married Miss Katherine Perkins. 
 
 Mary Ellery, married Professor Wesley E. Nims; resides at Warren, 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Susan Louise. 
 
 Samuel Edward, born May 15, 1886; graduated at University of 
 Michigan; a civil engineer; resides in Detroit. He married Miss De- 
 Graux. 
 
 Lafayette Clark 
 
 Lafayette Clark came to West Brattleboro with his father in 1815. 
 After he became of age he entered his father's store, where he remained 
 as clerk and later as partner until 1831. Though of a modest and retiring 
 disposition, his townsmen learned to appreciate his sterling qualities and 
 sound judgment, and for many years he was made prominent as an officer 
 of the town. and as a member of the community in which he lived. He 
 represented the town in the Legislature in 1842-1844, was town clerk 
 from 1844 to 1862, and was selectman and lister several years. For 
 seventeen years he was town treasurer, for a time trustee of the public 
 money and for forty-five years justice of the peace. He was one of the 
 trustees of the Windham Provident Institution for Savings, now the 
 Vermont Savings Bank, from its commencement until 1869, and from 
 1864 to 1868 its president. From 1869 to 1878 he was a director of the 
 Vermont National Bank of Brattleboro and the last four years of this 
 time its president. 
 
 For many years he served as clerk of the Congregational Church at 
 West Brattleboro, of which he was a member and an earnest supporter. 
 He took an active interest in the welfare of Brattleborough Academy, 
 was a member of the board of trustees about fifty years, and about forty 
 years clerk of the board. In every position to which he was called, he 
 proved himself worthy of trust and honor, an efficient and faithful public 
 servant and a sincere friend. 
 
 In private his life was remarkably noble and unselfish, and ntane 
 regarded him with more honor than those nearest to him and those who 
 turned to him for counsel or help. 
 
^^5W»^ 
 
 TIMOTHY VINTON 
 
 DOCTOR JOHN WILSON 
 "THUNDERBOLT- 
 
 GRAVE OF DR. WILSON 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
EESIDENCE OF LAFAYETTE CLARK 
 
 COCKAYNE. BOSTON 
 
ANTHONY VAN DOORN 485 
 
 April 16, 1838, he married Mary, daughter of Doctor Russell Fitch of 
 West Brattleboro, who died August 1, 1886. He died August 33, 1881, 
 aged eighty years. A daughter, Mary E., married April 30, 1874, Hiram 
 F. Weatherhead. 
 
 Anthony Van Doorn 
 
 Burnham says, "Anthony Van Doorn was the son of a West India 
 sugar planter, who had studied for one of the professions but did not 
 complete his studies." He was born in Bristol, Rhode Island, October 
 14, 1793, where he passed the most of the early part of his life. In the 
 spring of 1815 he removed to West Brattleboro and established himself 
 as a cabinetmaker. November 7 of the same year he married Miss Betsey 
 Hubbard of Groton, Massachusetts. About this time his father, Moses 
 Van Doorn, a tailor by trade, who had previously for a time resided in 
 Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, removed to Brattleboro, where he spent the 
 remainder of his days, dying in 1835. Here with increased facilities, 
 together with large experience and rising ambition that forced him to 
 stand abreast with the growing demand of the time, he continued the . 
 manufacture of furniture and conducted the business with such extraor- 
 dinary energy and thrift that he soon ranked among the first manu- 
 facturers of the kind in the state. At different times he had associate 
 partners for a brief period, namely, William Conant, one year ; at another 
 time his brother, Frederick A. Van Doorn, who went to Rochester, New 
 York, in 1843, and whose wife, Matilda, died December 37, 1873, aged 
 seventy-five; and later his sons, M. T. and C. A., who continued until the 
 business was disposed of in 1851. 
 
 Asa Field came in 1843 at the age of seventeen and learned the cabinetr 
 maker's trade in five years of apprenticeship to Anthony Van Doorn. 
 
 Others benefited by the opportunity afforded by Mr. Van Doom's 
 success in manufacturing. The energy and perseverance of Chester L. 
 Brown secured for him in 1844, at the age of seventeen, a situation with 
 Mr. Van Doorn in the making and finishing of cabinet furniture. At the 
 end of five years he was able to take a responsible position in an organ 
 factory just started, which he held for twelve years, and in September, 
 1858, began in the furniture and undertaking business with John J. 
 Retting. In another year Mr. Retting sold out, and Mr. Brown prospered 
 so well that in 1875 he built, to accommodate his business, a block on the 
 very spot upon which stood the shop where he went as a poor boy to learn 
 his trade. . He moved into this block in 1869 and associated with him his 
 youngest son, Cyril F. Brown, who married Miss Nellie M. Farnsworth. 
 
 In 1849-1850 Mr. Van Doorn built on South Main Street the brick 
 house of many stories still known as the Van Doorn house. Being blessed 
 with a strong coiistitution and possessing more than ordinary mental 
 
486 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 endowments, he was abl'e, during all his business career, to contribute his 
 share of assistance in carrying forward the enterprises of his time. His 
 strong self-reliance and progressive spirit, with independence of action, 
 not infrequently created a ripple in the arena of reform; but being 
 actuated by genuine philanthropy and Christian principle his eflEorts 
 resulted largely in the elevation of society. His religious faith was of 
 the Puritan type, as held by the Congregational schools of the century. 
 "If he' had faults," he also had an unwavering trust in an overruling 
 Providence, was not slack in his devotions, and was upright, generous, 
 persistent and unflinching in resolution in all his undertakings. He was 
 among the first to engage in Sunday school work in this town and per- 
 formed so prominent a part, with such energy and zeal, that he has been 
 aptly styled "the father of the Sabbath schools." He was accustomed 
 during his last years to visit Sunday schools in various places in the state, 
 before which he spoke with considerable acceptance. He regularly con- 
 tributed substantial aid to all the various branches of missionary work, and 
 was a firm supporter of the Colonization Society, to which he was a regu- 
 lar contributor as long as he lived ; at the same time aided runaway slaves 
 in the abolition movement preceding the Civil War. He made a tour of 
 nine months in Europe, which afforded him a great deal of satisfaction. 
 While on a visit to friends in Providence, Rhode Island, he died sud- 
 denly August 23, 1871. His wife died September 20, 1875, aged eighty- 
 five. 
 
 Thomas Hill decorated furniture for Anthony Van Doom in the fifties ; 
 he had previously engraved for the Typographic Company and painted 
 miniatures. Born in Birmingham, England, he came to the United States 
 in 1840 and settled in Taunton, Massachusetts, making his earliest painting 
 in Boston, where he followed the profession of ornamental painting until 
 1853. In 1861 he went to California in impaired health and lived there, 
 with times of study in Paris, until his death. His principal well-known 
 works are, "The Yosemite Valley" (1867), "Donner Lake," "The Great 
 Canon of the Sferras," "The Heart of the Sierras," "The Yellowstone 
 Cavern," etc. 
 
 Children of Anthony Van Doom: 
 
 Mary Elizabeth, born in 1816 ; died January 3, 1896. 
 
 Moses T., born in January, 1821, at West Brattleboro, began his busi- 
 ness career as clerk for Dutton & Clark, with whom he remained 
 some six or eight years. From 1847 to 1851 he was engaged with his 
 father in the furniture business under the firm name of A. Van 
 Doom & Sons. Afterwards for a time he was engaged in the meat 
 business with Hannibal Hadley. As clerk for a time in the store 
 
VAN DOORN FAMILY 487 
 
 of F. H. Wheeler, he acquired his first knowledge of the crockery 
 business, and in 1859 he established, in what was afterwards known 
 as Devens Block, the well-known house of M. T. Van Doom & Son — 
 his son and only child, Elbridge H., who was born in 1848, being 
 received into partnership. Elbridge H. Van Doom married Novem- 
 ber 18, 1875, Mary H., daughter of Alfred Couch of Philadelphia. 
 A daughter, Bessie, married October 18, 1894, Henry H. Crosby. A 
 daughter, Betsey. 
 
 In 1877 the firm established a branch house in Greenfield, which 
 was soon sold to Charles A. Van Doom ; and in the following year 
 a branch house was established at Rutland with J. E. Tilson as resi- 
 dent manager. In December, 1847, Mr. Van Doom married Miss 
 Sophia L. Simonds of Brattleboro. He united with the First Baptist 
 Church about 1874 and was one of its most prominent and devoted 
 members, serving as trustee, teacher in the Sunday school, etc. As a 
 man and a citizen he was regarded with universal respect — a pillar 
 both in church and community. Though repeatedly urged to accept 
 public office he persistently refused, but found his greatest pleasure in 
 the society of friends and family and the daily duties of business life. 
 He died .November 13, 1885, at the age of sixty-four years and ten 
 months. 
 
 Harriet, born January 17, 1833 ; married July 6, 1848, John S. Brown, 
 who was a wood carver and had a furniture shop. For ten years — 
 1863-1873— he was in Windsor and North Thetford, but returned to 
 Brattleboro and entered the employ of the Estey Organ Company. 
 He died February 11, 1908 ; she died March 8, 1916. 
 
 Charles A., born January 3, 1825, married Miss Sarah M. Brown; mar- 
 ried, second, July 5, 1869, Miss Addie C. Baldwin of Chester. A 
 daughter is Mrs. W. A. Burton of New Bedford, Massachusetts. 
 
 He went to Alabama on account of his health and engaged in the 
 furniture trade in Eutaw and Montgomery, Alabama, for the ten 
 years preceding the war. He was also interested in the raising of 
 horses and cattle. Not being in sympathy with the South, his mail 
 was confiscated for three and a half years, during which time his 
 parents in the North heard nothing from him and supposed him dead. 
 He was taken prisoner and forced to take up arms on the side of 
 the Confederacy and was in the service two or three years, but 
 finally was made prisoner by Union soldiers and released. 
 
 Returning from Alabama to Brattleboro, he and his second wife 
 went to Concord, New Hampshire, but after the death of his father 
 they returned to Brattleboro to live with his mother, and were here 
 seven years, he being employed by the Estey Organ Company; they 
 
488 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 then went to Greenfield, where for more than twenty years Mr. Van 
 Doom conducted a crockery store. He retired from business on 
 account of ill health in 1901 and returned to Brattleboro. He died 
 May 27, 1906. 
 
 He was a man of excellent business judgment and integrity and 
 was an active member of the Baptist Church in West Brattleboro. 
 
 Joseph Goodhue 
 
 Joseph Goodhue, son of Francis, was born October 37, 1794 ; he mar- 
 ried November 3, 1815, Sarah, daughter of Eli Edwards of Northampton, 
 who was born March 10, 1796. 
 
 For many years as a merchant here he was much respected for his 
 business qualities and unswerving integrity. Although considered a most 
 cautious man he was a large investor in the first railroad enterprise, the 
 Vermont & Massachusetts Railroad, of which he and his son Francis were 
 directors from its inception. 
 
 Colonel Goodhue, as he was called from being in command of a regi- 
 ment of militia, held various town offices, and was on the first committee 
 of the old Church on the Common for its removal and enlargement in 1847, 
 he and William Fessenden heading the subscription list with $400 each ; 
 he was also on the building committee. 
 
 At the time of his death, August 33, 1861, his children were all married, 
 settled mostly in Brattleboro, and with their families constituted a very 
 important and influential part of the community. 
 
 Mrs. Goodhue had beauty, a vivacious temperament and a sympa- 
 thetic nature which made a winning personality. Always taking a lively 
 interest in her friends and acquaintances, their joys and sorrows, she 
 was the central figure in a neighborhood of children and grandchildren 
 who grew up around her. None of these characteristics suffered by age, 
 when her mirthfulness and bright conversation were as a magnet drawing 
 to her young and old. She was an active member of the Congregational 
 Church, and one whose help to the poor or suffering could always be 
 depended on. 
 
 Mrs. Goodhue died at her residence in Brattleboro November 11, 1883, 
 in the eighty-eighth year of her age. 
 
 The farm now owned by the Retreat estate, which Francis Goodhue 
 gave to his son, consisted of the southern half, perhaps more than that, 
 and the beautiful hills and woods which stretch westward from the house 
 and barns. 
 
 The northern part of the meadows and uplands belonged to the estate 
 of Reverend William Wells, on which his family lived for three or four 
 generations. 
 
MRS. JOSEPH GOODHUE 
 
 MRS. CHIEF JUSTICE ROTALL TYLER 
 
 MRS. FRANKLIN H. FESSENDEN MRS. NATHAN LAWRENCE 
 
 THERE WERE GRAND-MOTHERS IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 COCKATNE. eOSTON 
 
K 
 
 to 
 
 O 
 S3 
 O 
 
 o 
 1-J 
 
GOODHUE FAMILY. JOSEPH GOODHUE 489 
 
 Land purchased by Francis Goodhue, on Main Street, was in posses- 
 sion of the family for one hundred and three years. 
 Children of Joseph Goodhue : 
 
 Mary Ann B., born August 14, 1816 ; married August 35, 1834, William 
 P. Cune ; died April 3, 1900. Their children : 
 William G., born December 17, 1835 ; died April 3, 1843. 
 Mary Goodhue, born October 11, 1841 ; married September 17, 1863, 
 Francis E. Draper; died May 11, 1879. A daughter, Julia, mar- 
 ried December 6, 1894, 1. Chauncey McKeever of New York City. 
 Children: Edith M., Marianne, Mary Frances. 
 Julia Hall, born February 35, 1844; married November 8, 1866, 
 Major William C. Bartlett, U. S. A., son of Professor William H. 
 C. Bartlett of West Point ; died December 31, 1867. 
 
 William Pitt Cune 
 
 William Pitt Cune, son of William McCune, who came to Brat- 
 tleboro about 1767, born July 16, 1807, was first a clerk of Francis 
 Goodhue & Son and later was in business alone. He was in the dry 
 goods business in New York under the firm name of Cune & Ed- 
 wards about 1843, George Jones, afterwards editor of The New York 
 Times, being a clerk of the firm. On his return Mr. Cune entered 
 into partnership with Colonel Joseph Goodhue, and finally with 
 Frank S. Brackett, the firm being Cune & Brackett. This firm dis- 
 solved in 1873 after a partnership of twenty years. 
 
 Mr. Cune was trustee and on the board of investment of the Ver- 
 mont Savings Bank from 1863 to 1878, and was director of the Ver- 
 mont National Bank twenty years ; for nine years, from January 1, 
 1871, he was president of the First National Bank. He died Septem- 
 ber 30, 1890. 
 
 William Pitt Cune's business abilities were widely recognized, 
 but his unpretentious and quiet nature prevented his kindly and more 
 human qualities being known outside his family circle and their 
 connections. 
 
 Harriet S., born September 10, 1817;. married January 13, 1835, Fred- 
 erick Holbrook. (See p. 788.) 
 
 Lucy W., born July 37, 1819; married December 13, 1837, Chauncey 
 A. Hall, M.D., of Northampton; died June 3, 1859; he died May 
 8, 1856. 
 
 Francis, born August 36, 1833 ; married October 36, 1847, Mary E., 
 daughter of Captain William S. Brooks of Brattleboro; she died 
 August 10, 1901 ; he died February 8, 1910. (See p. 683.) 
 
 Sarah F., born May 3, 1837 ; married, first, November 14, 1849, Albert 
 
490 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 H. Bull of Hartford ; married, second, November 12, 1873, Edward 
 R. Chapin, M.D. (See p. 431.) She died in Paris May 26, 1886. 
 
 Mrs. Chapin left by will $5000 to the American Society for Home 
 Missions ; $5000 to the deacons of the Congregational Church, Brat- 
 tleboro, for the poor of the parish ; $2000 to the deacons to be used as 
 an income to purchase books for the Sunday school library. 
 
 Albert H. Bull was born August 21, 1804, in Hartford, Connect- 
 icut, where for several years he was a successful druggist. He re- 
 tired from business and resided in Brattleboro. 
 
 Mr. Bull was a man whose innate re'finement and culture were 
 expressed in his person as well as in his tastes, — "a gentleman" in 
 appearance, manners and speech. He had a love of beauty which 
 was cultivated by a study of the art treasures of Europe, and he 
 made a considerable collection of steel engravings after some of the 
 English masters. He occupied a large portion of his life of apparent 
 leisure in beautifying his environment in a variety of ways. 
 
 For seventeen years he and Mrs. Bull spent their summers at Old 
 Orchard Beach, Maine, where, laboring with his own hands and em- 
 ploying assistants, he laid out a park lot of forty acres, covered 
 with a pine growth and owned by the Old Orchard House, in 
 walks and avenues, rustic seats and arbors, adding materially to its 
 attractions as a summer resort. In winters at his home in Vermont 
 he painted signs for the names of the walks and shady nooks, 
 "Fisherman's Hut," "Parsons Lodge," etc., and many other similar 
 names that seemed to him appropriate to the various localities. His 
 work was a purely disinterested one, and he could only have been 
 prompted by his love of the beautiful. 
 
 To the Brattleboro library he made a donation of $2000 to be paid 
 in annual installments of $100 each, for the purchase of books. 
 
 He died at Old Orchard July 29, 1869. 
 
 Frank S. Beackett, when a boy in his teeiis, came to Brattleboro, 
 from Guilford, and for some years was clerk for Birge & Dickinson; 
 leaving here for a time, he returned as clerk for Cune & Goodhue, which 
 position he kept until 1851, when he became partner of the firm Cune, 
 Brackett & Company, O. E. Austin being the third member ; afterwards it 
 was Cune & Brackett. He died December 22, 1878. 
 
 F. Alonzo Whitney at seventeen came to Brattleboro from Marlboro 
 and learned the clothier's trade with Cune & Brackett ; he succeeded Mr. 
 Cune and after the death of Mr. Brackett conducted the business alone 
 until 1888, when Young & Knowlton became his successors. 
 
WELLS GOODHUE 491 
 
 Henry F. Houghton, born in Newfane, when a mere boy began his 
 mercantile career at Williamsville. His firm having dissolved, he was in 
 Marlboro two years engaged in trade as a merchant and holding the office 
 of town clerk. In 1857 he and John Blake came to this town and bought 
 the dry goods business of Cune & Brackett in the store which he after- 
 wards occupied as a member of the firm Houghton & Blake,- Houghton & 
 Snow, Spencer (Porter Spencer, who retired from the firm in April, 
 1877) & Company and Houghton & Kuech, with intervals when he had 
 no partner. For a time he and Blake conducted business jointly in this 
 town and in Rochester, Minnesota. Thus it appears that though he lived 
 only to a little past middle life he was among the oldest merchants in the 
 county. 
 
 He died June 4, 1884, aged fifty-eight. 
 
 Mr. Houghton was a quiet and unassuming man, devoting his life in the 
 main to his family and friends. Integrity, temperance, an intelligent 
 interest in books and public affairs, fidelity to friends, deep affections, 
 patience under intense suffering and an unfaltering trust in a Supreme 
 Power — ^these all characterized his life and made it worthy of respect 
 and imitation. 
 
 He married, first. Miss Maria Jane Westcott, who died December 4, 
 1863, aged thirty-two. They had a daughter, Emma F. He married, 
 second, Mrs. Laura Smith. Their daughter, Florence Mabel, was born 
 July 28, 1869; died February 7, 1913. 
 
 Wells Goodhue 
 
 was born December 19, 1802, at Swanzey, New Hampshire, and was ten 
 years of age when he came here with his father in 1811; he graduated at 
 Norwich University in 1823, and came back to Brattleboro to engage in 
 trade with his father. 
 
 He was married about 1828 to Miss Laura A. Barnard of Lancaster, 
 New Hampshire, who was born March 24, 1809, and died December 5, 
 1873. 
 
 Mr. Goodhue passed the most of his life in Brattleboro. He bought 
 the Holbrook house on Main Street in 1857 of Major J. J. Crandall and 
 sold it in January, 1873. He was a careful, prudent man, and never mani- 
 fested any desire for office, though he was a man of excellent administra- 
 tive ability and sterling honesty. His quiet, sagacious comments and 
 . remarks to those with whom he was familiar, respecting public move- 
 ments and passing events, gave evidence of much reflection and discrim- 
 ination, but his dread of contention kept him out of the arena of public 
 debate. His wealth constantly accumulated by real estate transactions 
 and judicious management of his capital. He was director of the old 
 
492 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 bank and on its reorganization as the Vermont National Bank continued 
 as director. He was elected president of the first bank here, chartered 
 in 1821, and reconstructed in 1863. Much to the regret of those most 
 interested in the institution, he could be retained in said office but a short 
 time. A few months after his resignation he died, December 18, 1874, 
 at the home of his only daughter, Mrs. Draper, near the city of New York. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Goodhue had three children : 
 
 Lucy B., born in 1830; married November 5, 1850, Reverend George B. 
 Draper of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, New York City; died 
 March 16, 1903. Children: Frederick Goodhue, died June 28, 1914, 
 Walter, Reverend Frank, Laura, and others. 
 Julia, born September 23, 1833 ; married September 21, 1864, Thomas 
 H. Walters of New York; died October 1, 1867. A son, James W. 
 Chari.es W., born November 2, 1835 ; married Miss Helen Grosvenor 
 Eldredge of Pomfret, Connecticut; died March 4, 1891. Children: 
 Bertram Grosvenor, bom in Pomfret, Connecticut, April 28, 1869; 
 educated at Russell's Collegiate and Commercial Institute, New 
 Haven, and at Trinity, Hartford. He married April 8, 1902, Miss 
 Lydia T. Bryant of Boston. Children : Frances B., Hugh G. Mr. 
 Goodhue studied architecture under Renwick, and became partner 
 of the firm of architects. Cram & Wentworth, in November, 1891, 
 the firm being (later) Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson. They have been 
 the architects for reconstruction and additions to the United States 
 Military Academy at West Point and have designed many cathedral 
 churches, St. Thomas's Church and St. Bartholomew's, New York 
 City, Exposition Buildings at San Diego, California, collegiate 
 and public buildings. Many book decorations and types, notably 
 "The Altar Book," have been made by Bertram Goodhue. He has 
 also been an extensive traveler. He is a fellow of the Boston So- 
 ciety of Architects and the American Institute of Architects, and a 
 member of the New York Architectural League, Calumet Club, 
 New York, and Tavern Club, Boston. 
 
 He is the author of "Mexican Memories," a contributor to maga- 
 zines and to "Spanish Colonial Architecture in Mexico" by Syl- 
 vester Bangs, ten volumes. 
 Harry Eldredge, born in Brooklyn March 11, 1873, was educated at 
 Holderness School, Holderness, New Hampshire, and at the Boston 
 Art Students Association. He married Miss Mary Louise Wright 
 of Cincinnati. Beginning as clerk in a business house at sixteen, he 
 was later for ten years with Horace J. Phipps & Company of 
 Boston, and is now in business for himself in The Harry E. Good- 
 hue Company, manufacturers of stained glass. He has studied and 
 
MAJ. HENRY SMITH 493 
 
 practiced the principles of making stained glass as it was made in 
 the Middle Ages — mixing his colors directly into the glass while in 
 a fluid state. Perhaps his finest window is in Emmanuel Church, 
 Newport, Rhode Island.^ 
 Edward, paymaster in the navy. 
 Wells. 
 
 Major Henry Smith 
 
 Major Henry Smith was associated with the social and political history 
 of this town and county for half a century, beginning with 1820. He 
 belonged to that circle of the olden times known as the "ruffled shirt 
 gentry." His father was Windsor Smith of Hadley and his mother was 
 Miss Elizabeth Robbins of Wethersfield, Connecticut. Major Henry 
 Smith was born in Hadley November 23, 1792 ; he married Miss Ruth P. 
 Dickinson, born March 30, 1790, who died March 2, 1863, aged seventy- 
 two. He died August 7, 1866. 
 
 Major Smith's strong intellectual face, invariably pleasant, and his 
 dignity of manner, were distinguishing characteristics, and he was spoken 
 of as the handsomest man of his period. No social event was thought to 
 be complete without his attendance, together with that of his friend and 
 associate, Colonel Chase, his contemporary in the hotel business. He was 
 prominent in Masonic circles and a good auctioneer. 
 
 He held a number of public offices of trust and responsibility, among 
 them that of high sheriff, judge of probate, 1843-1844, justice of the peace ; 
 in 1848 he was appointed postmaster, serving until the following June, 
 when he was succeeded by Franklin H. Fessenden. He was for several 
 years a director of the Vermont Mutual Fire Insurance Company of 
 Montpelier, and for a long period the company's local agent. He again 
 bought the old tavern of Colonel Chase, which he kept through the pros- 
 perous staging days. His genial nature and generous hospitality won for 
 him valued friendships from all parts of New England. 
 
 Late in life he made a public confession of his Christian faith and many 
 of the old settlers of Brattleboro remember the solemn occasion when 
 he, the then white-haired, venerable and always honored man, stood 
 up with two young men and united with the church. 
 
 Major Smith was an afifectionate father, and provided well for his 
 family, but later in life the depreciation in Vermont & Massachusetts 
 Railroad stock, losses by indorsing for friends, with other losses, left him 
 dependent. Nevertheless he left a more priceless record, alike honorable 
 and just, a character above reproach among those with whom he was 
 wont to associate. 
 
 1 Mrs. Harry E. Goodhue is the only woman maker of stained glass in the 
 United States. 
 
494 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Children : 
 
 Henrietta Augusta, born October 31, 1813; married December 20, 
 1832, General Franklin H. Fessenden; died April 2, 1884. (See 
 p. 238.) 
 
 Henry Robbins, born July 4, 1816 ; died June 25, 1855. 
 
 Elizabeth Dickinson, born November 26, 1817 ; died at Menasha, Wis- 
 consin, May 10, 1903. 
 
 Ann Maria, born August 20, 1819 ; married, first, September 9, 1841, 
 James T. Craig of Louisville, Kentucky, who died June 3, 1852, aged 
 thirty-five; married, second, August 24, 1860, Reverend Nathan T. 
 (or James) Monroe of Bradford, Massachusetts. She died July 16, 
 1892. A son was Henry S, Craig, chief of civil engineers of the 
 Pittsburgh Division, Pennsylvania Railroad. He died March 7, 
 1883, aged thirty-three. 
 
 Jane Robbins, born August 8, 1821 ; died February 17, 1826. 
 
 Harriet Booth, born September 6, 1823 ; married May 6, 1852, William 
 H. Simpson of New York; died November 22, 1895. 
 
 Erastus, born June 11, 1827; married May 20, 1860, Miss Sylvia Dana 
 of Boston ; died February 13, 1875. 
 
 Elisha D. Smith, married October 24, 1850, Julia A., daughter of 
 Spencer Mowry, banker, of Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He was 
 clerk in a wholesale store in Boston between the ages of seventeen 
 and twenty-one. For a short time he was in business in Woonsocket, 
 where he found his wife ; they traveled west on their wedding journey 
 and settled in Menasha, Wisconsin. He established there the Me- 
 nasha Wooden Hardware Company, amassing a large fortune, which 
 he expended liberally for the good of mankind. He was a valuable 
 citizen, although he refused the mayorship of Menasha more than 
 once. He was an ardent Republican, was trustee of Ripton College, 
 assisted other colleges and academies, and served on the American 
 Board of Foreign Missions. A free public library to Menasha, gifts 
 to thirty-four churches and many parsonages were among his benefac- 
 tions. He traveled extensively. He left $5000 to found a Home for 
 the Aged and Disabled in Brattleboro. He died July 7, 1899. Mrs. 
 Smith died August 9, 1901. Children : Charles R. ; Henry S. ; Jane, 
 married Elmer Smith of Menasha, Wisconsin. 
 
 John H. Wheeler 
 
 John H. Wheeler was one of the oldest and most successful merchants 
 of Windham County, a man whose business qualifications and sterling 
 integrity inspired confidence beyond the community in which he lived. 
 He was for more than thirty years in active life in this town. 
 
JOHN H. AND FRANKLIN H. WHEELER 495 
 
 He was born in Lincoln, Massachusetts, March 5, 1796. He came to 
 Brattleboro before 1822 and had a clothing store in the Blake building. 
 His was the only store where liquor was never in evidence. He erected 
 Granite Block in 1835. A hall for public assemblies, "Wheeler's Hall," 
 was over his shop. His wife, Lucy F., born February 1, 1800; died Sep- 
 tember 16, 1879. He died August 26, 1848. 
 
 As superintendent, his services were valuable not only for the time, 
 but also in helping to shape the permanent policy of the public schools. A 
 practical Christian, he went about doing good wherever he knew there 
 was poverty or distress. 
 
 Franklin Hoar Wheeler 
 
 Franklin Hoar Wheeler was born in Lincoln, Massachusetts, April 3, 
 1807. He came to Brattleboro in 1822 to work for his brother. In 1838 
 he built a house on Spring Street. From 1841 to 1849 he was of the 
 firm Wheeler & Pratt. (See p. 671.) When that firm was dissolved Mr. 
 Wheeler made a new partnership which continued until 1859. From 
 1866 to 1876 he was in New York with his brother-in-law, Wright 
 Pomeroy. He lost his hearing in middle life, and during his last years 
 lived quietly at home, dividing his time between reading and gardening, 
 being an expert gardener. He married May 3, 1836, Miss Elizabeth 
 Pomeroy of Newfane ; she died July 31, 1881, at the age of sixty-six. He 
 died October 13, 1902, aged ninety-four. They had five children, three 
 sons and two daughters, those who survived their parents being : 
 
 Mary E., born in 1845 ; married October 28, 1869, James Dalton (see 
 p. 590) ; died December 25, 1916. He died December 7, 1901. Their 
 daughter, Stella Pomeroy, born July 30, 1870, married August 19, 
 1896, Richard M. Dodge, professor of geography in the Teachers 
 College, Columbia University, New York, and has children : Stanley, 
 Margaret, Philip Edward. 
 Frank P., graduated at Cornell; married, 1874, Mrs. Frances Trim- 
 ingham Keyes. Lives in Chicago. 
 
 Reverend John Calvin H9LBR00K, D.D. 
 
 Reverend John Calvin Holbrook, born in this town, was two years a 
 student at Hopkins Academy in Hadley, Massachusetts (1818-1820), 
 under Reverend Dan Huntington, father of Bishop Huntington of central 
 New York; one year under the tuition of Reverend E. H. Newton and 
 two years a cadet in Captain Partridge's Military Academy, Norwich, 
 Vermont, at the most prosperous period of that institution, 1821-1824, 
 graduating in 1825. He took an active interest in military matters; and 
 
496 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 served as aid-de-camp to the general in command of Vermont Militia, 
 Brattleboro district, 1838-1834. 
 
 He was a clerk in the bookstore of Messrs. Holbrook & Fessenden, 
 1834-1828. 
 
 He became a member of the Congregational Church under the minis- 
 tration of Reverend Jonathan McGee. After a few years he succeeded 
 his father in the book publishing and paper making business, and became 
 a member of the firm of Richardson, Lord & Holbrook in Boston, and 
 removed to that city but returned to carry on the work in Brattleboro. 
 The Brattleborough Typographic Company^ was incorporated in 1838 
 with Reverend John C. Holbrook president, but his want of business 
 acumen involved the fortune of his father, who signed notes for the 
 son until they both failed. From about this time his action seemed wholly 
 under the control of a high ideal. Business was mainly desirable that he 
 might have the ability to forward his religious and beneficent plans. 
 While prosperity attended him, he assisted several young men in fitting 
 for the ministry. 
 
 In the days of his youth his mind was much exercised in regard to the 
 great West, for he believed the time not distant when she would control 
 in our national councils. Therefore, not only the welfare of the Union, 
 but of the world, demanded that the ideas of religious and political free- 
 dom, inculcated by the fathers of New England, be early implanted in the 
 growing communities of the West. Before 1840 he removed to Daven- 
 port, Iowa. While there he became pastor of the church in the city of 
 Dubuque, and in 1843 was ordained. Here he labored eleven years and 
 was instrumental in building up one of the strongest churches in the state. 
 In 1853 he removed to Chicago to establish and edit The Congregational 
 Herald and to establish the New England Congregational Church, now 
 one of the leading churches of the city and state. After three years of 
 labor he was recalled to the pastorate of his former church in Dubuque, 
 where he labored eleven years longer. 
 
 Being solicited to undertake the raising of an endowment fund for 
 Iowa College, he removed to Boston, and, in a little more than a year, 
 collected upwards of $40,000 for that purpose. While engaged in this 
 work he was called to become, pastor of the old Congregational Church in 
 Homer, New York. During his ministration of six years in Homer, 
 1864-1870, he was induced by the American Missionary Association of 
 New York City to visit Great Britain and address meetings held for 
 raising funds for the education of the lately liberated slaves of this coun- 
 try. He collected and sent home $30,000 for this object. He also visited 
 
 1 Edward Kirkland, Esquire, had an agency for the Brattleborough Typographic 
 Company in Louisville, Kentucky, from 1838 to 1842. 
 
REV. JOHN CALVIN HOLBROOK, D.D. 497 
 
 the principal parts of Great Britain and the continent, corresponding with 
 The Boston Recorder, and occasionally The Congregationalist and New 
 York Independent, as well as The Dubuque Daily Times. 
 
 From Homer he was called to the pastorate of the Congregational 
 Church in Stockton, California, in 1870, and after two years there was 
 chosen by the General Association of New York State, in 1872, secretary 
 of the*newly formed Home Missionary Society and removed to Syracuse, 
 where he subsequently resided in the discharge of the duties of this office. 
 He was pastor of West Street Church in Portland, Maine, 1882-1883. 
 
 Mr. Holbrook was married in 1829 to Miss Cynthia S. Tuttle of Wind- 
 sor, Vermont, by whom he had four children, all of whom died young; 
 she died in Davenport, Iowa, January 14, 1842, aged thirty-five. He mar- 
 ried, second, Miss Ann L. Clark of Platteville, Wisconsin; she died at 
 San Francisco November 20, 1896. They had no children, but adopted 
 and brought up as their own, two sisters, both of whom married and 
 settled in Stockton and Dubuque. 
 
 While living in Brattleboro Mr. Holbrook was chosen deacon at the 
 same time his father was in that office in the same church (an unusual 
 circumstance) and was superintendent of the Sunday school. In Boston 
 he was a member of Doctor Lyman Beecher's church, and for a time the 
 clerk of it. 
 
 While in the West he aided in founding Iowa College, 1863-1864, and 
 was one of its trustees. In Chicago he also cooperated in originating 
 and founding the Chicago Theological Seminary and was one of its 
 directors, and for a time vice-president of the board. In 1863 the honor- 
 ary degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by Williams College, of which 
 Doctor Mark Hopkins was president. After 1856 he was a corporate 
 member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. 
 He was one of the originators and members of the historic Albany Con- 
 vention of Congregationalists and was several times delegate to the 
 National Council of that denomination. 
 
 In Brattleboro he manifested much interest in all public improvements, 
 and was active in the projected railroad from Brattleboro' to Troy. He 
 was also appointed, by the governor of Vermont, commissioner to super- 
 intend the expenditure of $3000, granted by the Legislature to procure a 
 preliminary survey of a route for a railroad from the south line of the 
 state, north on the west bank of the Connecticut, which was accomplished 
 by Professor Twining of New' Haven, Connecticut, and which prepared 
 the way for the present Connecticut and Valley Railroads. 
 
 He was one of the four original trustees of the Vermont Asylum for 
 the Insane, under the will of the founder, Mrs. Marsh. 
 
 He died August 1, 19.00, in Stockton, California. 
 
498 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 He published several historical works and sermons, among them, 
 "Prairie-Breaking, or Sketches in the Experience of 'a Western Pastor." 
 "The Recollections of a Nonogenarian" (1898) was an autobiography 
 of his life. 
 
 Gardner C. Hall 
 
 Gardner C. Hall was born in Brattleboro in 1795, but he started.on his 
 business life in Putney; from that town, at that time (1829-1830) larger 
 than Brattleboro and with considerable wealth among its inhabitants, as a 
 center, his general merchandise store became the source of supply for 
 the whole county. Besides a large wholesale and retail trade in dry goods, 
 hardware and West India products, delivered by his own flatboats that 
 came up the river from Hartford, Connecticut, he engaged in the manu- 
 facture of linseed oil, cotton, iron, etc. 
 
 To begin life as a clerk to Gardner C. Hall gave a certain guarantee of 
 character above that under any other merchant, and many a man in later 
 life attributed his success to the training received in this famous old store. 
 William F. Brooks, Horace Brooks, George J. Brooks, George W. Good- 
 rich, Aaron E. Dwinell, John W. Frost and William S. Newton were of 
 the number. Mr. Hall's ability, energy and good judgment were fortified 
 by an integrity without compromise. 
 
 Burnham says that "one of the interesting events of the old times 
 was the arrival of one of Hall's [Hall & Townsley] flatbottom ships, 
 laden with twenty or twenty-five tons of merchandise. The large white 
 sails, swelling up the rapids, along the shore of tall trees and banks of 
 summer verdure, were assisted by hard-handed swift watermen, who on 
 arrival at the landing, were sure to gratify their weakness for the contents 
 of the back-store of their patron." 
 
 He contributed to every public enterprise that appealed to his judgment 
 and principles, giving freely of his time as well as money. A prominent 
 member of the Unitarian Church, he was one of the most generous in aid 
 to the erection of the first meeting-house of that society. An opponent 
 of the Democratic party (from Jackson to Pierce), a devoted Whig, he 
 was chosen representative from Brattleboro to the State Legislature in 
 1845. 
 
 In 1836 he built a brick dwelling-house on Main Street where the Bap- 
 tist Church now stands. His handsome fortune, which he used so largely 
 to advance the prosperity of his native town and her institutions and for 
 the relief of the unfortunate, was swept away by reverses in his later days, 
 but he always received the respect and regard of his townsmen as one of 
 their most distinguished citizens. 
 
 He married, -, Julia Ann, daughter of Colonel Thaddeus and Je- 
 mima (Loomis) Leavitt of Suffield, Connecticut, a sister of Mrs. Jona- 
 
AARON E. DWINELL 499 
 
 than Hunt, who was born January 37, 1806, and died May 29, 1880. 
 Mr. Hall died March 22, 1856. 
 Children : 
 
 Henry Leavitt, died November 17, 1846, aged nineteen. 
 
 William, died December 10, 1850, in Wetumpka, Alabama, aged twenty. 
 
 Addison B. (See p. 750.) 
 
 George C. (See p. 748.) 
 
 John Leavitt. (See p. 750.) 
 
 Jennie M., married October 6, 1866, Harry E. Dodge of Brooklyn, 
 New York. They had a son, Harry. 
 
 A grandson of Colonel Thaddeus Leavitt was John G. Leavitt. He 
 married November 2, 1866, Miss Mary Van Nostrand, born at College 
 Point, Long Island, May 19, 1846. After his death she came to B.rattle- 
 boro to live with her children, Harry, born June 13, 1868; John, born 
 June 21, 1871 ; Elizabeth Van N., married August 11, 1900^ Doctor Daniel 
 H. Calder. 
 
 Deacon Aaron E. Dwinell 
 
 Deacon Aaron E. Dwinell, born in Grafton, Vermont, married Sep- 
 tember 1, 1835, Fanny E., daughter of James Frost. He died October 31, 
 1869, aged sixty-five years. 
 
 When a young man he was employed as clerk in a dry goods store in 
 Bellows Falls. He came to Brattleboro as clerk for Gardner C. Hall, and 
 after a few years went into business for himself, having a small dry goods 
 store on the site of the Town Hall. A brick block which he erected was 
 afterwards occupied by Thompson & Ranger, and here Mr. Dwinell car- 
 ried on his mercantile business until he went into the furniture business 
 in a shop where he sold furniture and coffins, on the west side of Main 
 Street, near the Whetstone Brook. He also erected a dwelling house, in 
 which he resided several years, near the Common, and where afterwards 
 Mrs. Howland had her school. He was living in the Sikes house, where 
 the Federal Building now stands, when his store was swept away by the 
 great flood, which, occurring at a time when he was in feeble health, 
 hastened his death. He was deacon of the Congregational Church and 
 chairman for many years of the school committee — a useful and respected 
 citizen. He left four interesting daughters : 
 Children : 
 
 Helen F., born in 1846; married August 28, 1865, James Ballard of 
 Tarlton, Ohio. 
 
 Lucia H., married, 1875, Edward Chase of New Britain, Connecticut. 
 
 Alice S., went from here to teach music in Gallipolis, Ohio, and married 
 
500 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 there, September 5, 1871, Paul Henking of Verona, Italy, where they 
 lived thirteen years ; she died in Springfield, Ohio. 
 Etta, married November 35, 1875, George Wilson of Springfield, Ohio. 
 
 Colonel Paul Chase 
 
 Colonel Chase was born in Guilford, Vermont, April 11, 1792. He 
 grew up in his native town and married there Gratia, daughter of Doctor 
 Dana Hyde. After they came to Brattleboro he was high sheriff of the 
 county for twenty years, the number of times he was reappointed being 
 "the least indication of the satisfactory manner in which he discharged 
 the duties of his office"; he was colonel of militia and proprietor of the 
 old Stage House twenty years ; with Major Henry Smith was agent for 
 the old lottery organization. He was a member of, and ardently attached 
 to the principles of, the Masonic fraternity. He died April 24, 1857. 
 Mrs. Chase died December 27, 1875, aged eighty-two. 
 
 Chase Street and Chase Cascade were named for Colonel Chase, who 
 resided at one time on the site of the Cutts house and owned land there- 
 abouts. The old Chase house^ on the Common was moved to North Street 
 in 1871, occupied by Mrs. Crandall who kept it as a boarding house, Mrs. 
 John Leavitt, and finally by Edward W. Frost. 
 
 Paul Chase was distinguished for manliness, a commanding personal 
 appearance, and remarkable urbanity of manners, the outgrowth of uni- 
 form kindness of heart and generosity to the claims of others. His wife. 
 Gratia, of unusual beauty of person, was no less distinguished for all the 
 graces and loveliness of life that adorn the character of a Christian lady. 
 
 Children : 
 
 Lucy, married, first, Deming; married, second, October 10, 1842, 
 
 Dorrance Davis of- Hartford; died June, 1876, at Irving-on-Hudson 
 at the home of her son-in-law, Henry Cannon. 
 
 Edwin H. Chase/ born July 15, 1819, early became a clerk in his 
 father's hotel ; then engaged in the clothing trade with Jarvis Cran- 
 dall in the forties. In 1851 or 1852 he was proprietor or manager 
 of the Revere House and also of the Brattleboro House. In 1854 
 he opened the Pierrepont House, Brooklyn, New York,, with his 
 cousin, Frederick Whitney, and later engaged in the wholesale whis- 
 key trade in New York City with S. T. Suit. About 1866 he moved 
 to Louisville, Kentucky, and carried on an extensive distillery in 
 Bryantsville, Kentucky, with his son, Charles E., and Augustus S. 
 Jerome,^ whose wife, Eliza Isham Jerome, died in Brattleboro May 
 
 ^ It was taken down by George Dunham in 1912. 
 
 2 Mr. Jerome left by will $2500 to St. Michael's Episcopal Church. 
 
CHARLES A. CHAPIN, M.D. 501 
 
 10, 1896. He sold out his interest in Louisville to his son Charles 
 
 in 1896. From 1877 his summers were spent in Brattleboro, and in 
 
 1883 he bought the Park House for a summer residence. After 
 
 1897 he lived here continuously until his death, October 31, 1901. 
 
 Mr. Chase inherited the urbanity and mellow personality of his 
 
 father. March 21, 1842, he married, first, Evelyn, daughter of Ash- 
 
 bel Dickinson, born April 29, 1824 ; died April 3, 1870. Children : 
 
 Emma F., born January 12, 1843 ; married Washington Manley, who 
 
 was born in Philadelphia, .the son of Reuben and Charlotte Manley. 
 
 His father was a broker. The son was educated at Tours, France, 
 
 and Phillips Academy, Exeter. He was with his father in business 
 
 and was a member of the Stock Exchange. He died June 30, 1895, 
 
 aged sixty-two. Mrs. Manley died December 10, 1908. Children : 
 
 Evelyn Chase; Louise, married W. S. Gray, a lawyer of New 
 
 York. 
 
 Charles E., of Louisville, Kentucky, married October 16, 1872, Miss 
 
 Julia R. Stockwell of Louisville, who died November 28, 1882. 
 
 Edwin H. Chase married, second, March 21, 1872, Miss Sue A. Cowan 
 
 of Kentucky, who died in 1910. Their daughter, Allethaire, married 
 
 June 19, 1895, J. Harry Estey. (See p. 638.) 
 
 Harriet HoDper, born about 1827; married January 22, 1849, Alfred 
 
 . Gaudelet of Paris, France. They lived in Providence, Rhode Island, 
 
 until 1870, when they moved to Boston. Mr. Gaudelet died in 1875 ; 
 
 she died December 13, 1901. They had four children: Louise A., 
 
 who is Mrs. William Amory of Boston ; Mrs. John Peters of Boston ; 
 
 William Gaudelet; Howard Gaudelet. 
 
 Charles A. Chapin, M.D. 
 
 Charles A. Chapin, M.D., was born at Orange, Massachusetts, July 
 10, 1803, but his father. Judge Oliver Chapin, removed to Brattleboro 
 almost immediately after his birth. 
 
 Doctor Chapin was fitted for college by Reverend Doctor Coleman, and 
 graduated from Harvard University in 1833, when twenty years of age. 
 He went through the usual course of studies for the medical profession 
 under the direction of the celebrated Doctor Bigelow of Boston, and 
 commenced the practice of medicine in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 
 1836. He married May 8, 1837, Elizabeth B., daughter of Nathan Bridge,^ 
 Esquire, of Charlestown, Massachusetts. She died March 28, 1838. 
 
 Doctor Chapin married, second, January 6, 1830, Miss Sophia Dwight 
 Orne of Springfield, born March 6, 1810 ; died February 14, 1880. She 
 was a woman of unusual vivacity, cheerfulness and mentality, and the 
 center of a brilliant social circle. 
 
503 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 In 1831 he removed to Brattleboro, and soon gave up the practice of 
 medicine, thereafter devoting himself to business and public affairs. He 
 was a member of the Legislature in 1833, was for a long time deputy 
 sheriff and the most active officer of that kind in the county. He was 
 United States marshal during the administration of President Pierce, 
 and for twenty-five years he was the favorite moderator and presiding 
 officer at town meetings and other public gatherings. For many years he 
 was one of the directors of the Vermont Mutual Insurance Company. 
 Until infirmities forbade, he was the very acceptable and efficient engi- 
 neer of the fire department ; also a director of the Vermont Valley Rail- 
 road Company when their road was being constructed, in 1850, and at 
 the same period a clerk of the company. He was one of the first members 
 and organizers of the Unitarian society. 
 
 Doctor Chapin was an active, energetic and influential man in this com- 
 munity for nearly forty years, and whatever was given him to do was 
 always well and faithfully done. During a period of several years after 
 resigning his medical practice, his advice in counsel was deemed of impor- 
 tance by the profession. Nature was lavish in giving him excellence of 
 form and feature and a commanding presence. Quick of apprehension, 
 high-spirited, honorable in his dealings with men, possessing all the ad- 
 vantages which education, social culture and position give, his strength 
 and weakness were those of a man of the world. He died January 6, 1876. 
 Children by the first marriage : 
 
 Elizabeth Alice, born February 38, 1838; married January 7, 1847, 
 Joseph Clark ; died October 4, 1876. Children : William Orne Clark, 
 who died September 39, 1876, aged twenty-six ; Alice ; Charles W. ; 
 Oliver C. 
 By the second marriage : 
 
 Lucinda Orne, born December 31, 1830; married January 7, 1851, 
 Josiah Wheelright of Boston. Children : Sophia D., died 1891 ; Car- 
 oline B., died 1893 ; Josiah. 
 Oliver Howard, born July 15, 1833 ; married May 35, 1871, Miss Louise 
 M. Lynch ; died April 38, 1883. Their son, Charles W., married Miss 
 Gertrude Griffiths of Manchester, England. 
 Mary Wells, born September 37, 1834; married December 39, 1854, 
 Charles Warder of Philadelphia, who came here to the Water-Cure ; 
 he was born September 38, 1835, and died March 18, 1867. She died 
 January 37, 1916. In personal attractions, mentality and culture, 
 Mrs. Warder had the quality of the Chapin inheritance to the full, 
 and in giving herself with a remarkable loyalty to her family, to the 
 church and to the town where she passed her long life. 
 William Orne, born March 10, 1837 ; died January 3, 1895. He was 
 
HYDE FAMILY. JOHN HYDE 503 
 
 born in the old Chapin house, corner of Main and High Streets, and 
 began his business Hfe as clerk in a store in Boston. During the Civil 
 War he and George Salisbury were clerks to the sutler of the Fourth 
 Vermont Regulars, were taken prisoners and confined in Libby 
 Prison. Later and for some years he was confidential clerk in the 
 office of the Erie Railroad, New York. He retired from business and 
 lived at the Brooks House from that time until his death. 
 Charles Jones, of St. Louis, born August 31, 1846; married February 
 2, 1876, Miss Jennie Skinner of Oswego. Children: Mary Warder, 
 Orne Wheelright, Charles Howard, Marguerite I. 
 
 John Hyde 
 
 John Hyde, a native of New York, served in the War of 1813. He 
 came to Brattleboro from Bolton, Massachusetts, about 1838. For twenty- 
 six years he had the care of Prospect Hill Cemetery. 
 
 He married Julia D. Whiting, born April 11, 1793 ; died February 37, 
 1861. 
 
 He was a man kindly and genial. He died October 31, 1876, aged eighty- 
 one years six months. 
 Children : 
 John. 
 
 Frances Whiting, born October 37, 1816; married August 13, 1843, 
 R. G. Hardie; died January 16, 1901. They were the parents of 
 Robert Gordon Hardie, the artist. (See p. 970.) 
 Caroline M., died September 33, 1868, aged forty-eight. 
 William Hyde, born June 14, 1803, in Lancaster, Massachusetts ; mar- 
 ried March 3, 1838, in Lowell, where he was with Bent & Bush, hatters, 
 Eliza P. Hovey, daughter of E. P. Hovey of Dracut, Massachusetts ; she 
 wasborn July 11, 1800; died April 11, 1883. He died July 33, 1890. He 
 came to Brattleboro in 1830 and was with his brother John, who had a 
 hat store and factory ; R. G. Hardie, who had also come from New York 
 in the same year as John Hyde, was with them in business after a time, 
 the firm being Hyde & Hardie. William Hyde retired in 1860. He was 
 a man of strong and original opinions — of absolute integrity. He led a 
 quiet life illuminated by extensive reading. Children : 
 
 Mary Ann, married August 33, 1851, M. W. Chittenden of Williston, 
 Vermont, and Galesburg, Illinois; he died January 3, 1883, aged 
 fifty-eight ; she died April 30, 1888, aged fifty-eight. Children : Wil- 
 liam, Arthur. 
 Eliza, born July 3, 1831. She taught ten years in Cambridge, Massa- 
 chusetts, and in St. Louis; also in Brattleboro. December 33, 1864, 
 
504 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 during the administration of Mr. Fessenden as secretary of the 
 treasury, she entered the Federal Service, appointed by President 
 Lincoln. Letters dated November 18, 1864, show her application 
 for clerkship accompanied by a letter from Charles K. Field in- 
 forming Secretary Fessenden that Miss Hyde was "capable, bright, 
 alert, and efficient." Beginning with a salary of $800, it was 
 increased to $1200 in 1884; in 1889, to $1400; in 1916, to $1600. 
 On the fiftieth anniversary of her clerkship in the division of issue 
 in the office of the comptroller of the currency, and at the age of 
 eighty-three. Secretary McAdoo sent her a letter of congratulation. 
 She remained in that office four more years. For forty years she 
 was never absent without pay ; for thirty-five years she was never 
 absent on account of illness; for thirteen years she gave the gov- 
 ernment a portion of her annual leave. She died March 6, 1919. 
 
 Angeline B., married November 32, 1858, Lucius Henry Buckingham 
 of Boston; died October 14, 1912. Children: Mary, Eleanor. 
 
 J. Warren Hyde, died at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in the service of 
 his country, July 25, 1863, in the twenty-seventh year of his age. 
 (See p. 780.) 
 
 Josephine, born in 1839 ; died August 31, 1899. She was a woman of 
 many accomplishments, notably in music, English literature and 
 the modern languages. She was for some years a teacher in the High 
 School in Brattleboro. She also gave private instruction, and for 
 one year was a governess in a wealthy planter's family in Santiago 
 de Cuba. She had an intimate and formative relation with the 
 character of her pupils, besides being a stimulating teacher. 
 
 Zelotes Dickinson 
 
 was born April 30, 1807 ; he married February 25, 1834, Susan, daughter 
 of Joseph Henry Phelps of Halifax, born March 27, 1810 ; died Septem- 
 ber 28, 1837; married, second, June 22, 1840, Mary Jane, daughter of 
 Colonel Asaph and Mary Newton Smead of Greenfield, Massachusetts ; 
 she was born October 10, 1817, and died January 1, 1898. He died Octo- 
 ber 28, 1854. 
 
 He was of the firm Birge^ & Dickinson, general merchants. The slate 
 quarries at Guilford were opened by him and he formed a company for 
 operating them. 
 
 ijohn Birge had a woolen factory, which was destroyed by fire in 1843, was 
 rebuilt, a part of the building occupied as the Rule Factory— was later carried on 
 by Ripley & Fowler. John Birge was born May 27, 1780; died April 21, 1859. His 
 wife, Hannah, died April 23, 1850, aged sixty-nine. 
 
ASAHEL CLAPP 505 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Dickinson lived in a house on the. site of the Lawrence 
 Water-Cure ; they were in New York two years in the early fifties, where 
 Mr. Dickinson was a commission merchant and agent for the National 
 Oil Stone Company, 94 Wall Street. On their return to Brattleboro, they 
 moved to the house next north of the Centre Church. 
 
 Their son, Frederick Zelotes, was at one time in business with Eddy & 
 Hopkins (J. Alonzo), the firm being Hopkins, Dickinson & Company, 
 bronze hardware works, and again with Hall & Bradley, manufacturers 
 of paint and white lead. 
 
 He married Miss Harriet Miller of -New York. The Cutts place was 
 their summer home from 1892, until they purchased the "Bliss Farm" in 
 1899. In 1904 "Beechwood," the former residence of Mrs. J. N. Balestier, 
 was added to their estate. 
 
 AsAHEL Clapp 
 Asahel Clapp came from Winchester, Massachusetts, about 1831. He 
 was a carpenter by trade, but in later years directed his attention to horti- 
 culture, and landscape gardening. He laid out the ground surrounding 
 St. Michael's Episcopal Church. He married, first, Miss Annie P. Wilder, 
 who died March 7, 1844, aged thirty-nine. A daughter, Janette (Mrs. 
 Starr). He married, second, Miss Susan Wilder, who died June 19, 1861, 
 aged fifty-two. A daughter, Jane M., died August 7, 1874, aged forty-one. 
 He died July 26, 1871. 
 
 George H., was born April 20, 1846. He attended the graded schools 
 and the High School, and in the early sixties began a clerkship in a 
 stationery and book business, conducted by Welcome Felton on the 
 present site of the Vermont National Bank. Soon after Mr. Clapp 
 entered the employ of Mr. Felton, the firm changed to Felton & 
 Cheney, and on April 1, 1869, Mr. Clapp bought out Mr. Felton's 
 interest, the firm then becoming Cheney. & Clapp. The big fire of 
 1869 completely wiped out the west side of Main Street, including 
 the business house of the young stationers. The firm then moved to 
 the store over Pratt, Wright & Company, where it remained until the 
 Crosby Block was completed, when it was again moved to permanent 
 quarters. The partnership continued until April 1, 1885, when V. O. 
 Jones bought out Mr. Cheney's interest, the firm becoming Clapp & 
 Jones. Mr. Clapp has never run for or been elected to any public 
 office, and has never joined any fraternal order. For many years he 
 has been a member of the Centre Congregational Church, of which 
 he is now senior deacon. He is a fine musician, having played piccolo 
 and flute with the Brattleboro Military Band for forty-five years, and 
 he was its business manager for thirteen years. Mr. Clapp married 
 
506 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Clara A., daughter of Daniel and Emily Rugg Towne of Sullivan, 
 New Hampshire. The house in which he lives was built by his 
 father. It is located near the street directly north of the Episcopal 
 Church property. The house, when built, was in many respects a 
 model, as it was equipped with furnace and bathroom, both of which 
 were unusual in those days. Children of George H. Clapp : George 
 W., born July 2, 1876 ; Emily R. ; Arthur L. 
 Arthur B., born January 20, 1851, member of firms Randall & Clapp 
 and A. B. Clapp & Company and proprietor of the Wilder Farm 
 Products Company, in connection with his large farm interests, was 
 president of the Brattleboro Trust Company and of the S. A. Smith 
 Company. Died April 3, 1931. 
 
 Samuel Dutton 
 
 Samuel Dutton was born in Boston September 37, 1801; he removed 
 to Hillsboro, New Hampshire, with his parents; was in trade in Unity 
 with Thomas Leverett, and came to Brattleboro about 1833, being in 
 partnership here also with Thomas Leverett. Their business was burned 
 out and he formed another partnership, with Joseph Clark, in hardware 
 and drugs, which continued until June, 1853. 
 
 He was postmaster from 1853 to 1858, and again in business as grocer 
 with Henry Glover until he died, February 11, 1863. He was president 
 of the Vermont Savings Bank from 1858 until his death, a selectman, a 
 lister and an old-time Democrat. A schoolmate of President Franklin 
 Pierce, under whose administration he served, he and Doctor Charles A. 
 Chapin were looked upon as President Pierce's local advisers in the dis- 
 tribution of the patronage of the locality. 
 
 "He was as modest as a woman," said one of his early friends at the 
 time of his death, "yet a braver heart, and a more positive nature it would 
 be difficult to find. Everybody respected him and his judgment." 
 
 His wife, Sarah, died December 9, 1833, aged thirty-one. February 16, 
 1836, he married Mrs. Sylvia French, who died August 16, 1886. 
 Children by first marriage : 
 
 Nancy Maria, married Noyes Streeter; she died April 16, 1896; Lucre- 
 tia; Harriet; Adelaide. Children of Mr. and Mrs. Streeter: Adelaide, 
 married Robert Gould ; Edward ; Josephine ; Adeline. 
 By second marriage : George, died, aged fourteen ; Caroline ; Emma. 
 
 Honorable Calvin Townsley 
 Colonel Calvin Townsley was born in 1796 and was a native of Walpole, 
 New Hampshire. In early life he entered a store in Chesterfield, New 
 Hampshire, in which he became a partner at about twenty-one. He after- 
 
HON. CALVIN TOWNSLEY 507 
 
 wards kept a public house in Newfane, from which place he removed to 
 Templeton, Massachusetts, where he won an extended reputation as a 
 landlord. In 1836 he came to Brattleboro and engaged in the mercantile 
 business with Gardner C. Hall, under the firm of Hall & Townsley. About 
 ten years thereafter Mr. Hall retired and the business was continued in 
 the name of Townsley & Sons. In 1855 Colonel Townsley removed to 
 St. Louis, where he was again engaged in managing a public house nearly 
 to the time of his decease. 
 
 For many years he was one of the prominent citizens of Brattleboro 
 and a leading man in the county and state. In the local and general 
 politics of Vermont Colonel Townsley played an important part. He 
 represented Brattleboro in the General Assembly, 1837-1838, was a sena- 
 tor from Windham County, 1839-1843, a member of the Constitutiona.1 
 Convention in 1850 and presidential elector in 1844. In 1848 he came 
 within a very few votes of receiving the nomination for Congress for the 
 congressional district of which this county formed a portion, being only 
 unsuccessful by the election of a third candidate. The later years of his 
 life were somewhat clouded by unsuccessful business transactions. 
 
 He married Maria, daughter of Chester Pomeroy of Newfane, and they 
 lived, when he was prominent in business and politics here, in the house 
 brought down from Newfane Hill by Mr. Pomeroy in 1833, known in 
 Brattleboro as the Park House, taken down to give place to the residence 
 of J. Harry Estey. 
 
 He died in St. Louis August 16, 1859, aged sixty-three. 
 
 A sister of Colonel Townsley was the wife of Merrill Reed of New- 
 fane, and mother of Mrs. Roswell Field, who was mother of the poet, 
 Eugene Field. 
 Children : 
 
 Stella W., married Obadiah H.. Piatt ; died April 9, 1879 ; he died Feb- 
 ruary 13, 1893, aged eighty-six. 
 
 Charles W., died November, 1863. 
 
 Henry. 
 
 Seth N. Herrick 
 
 Seth N. Herrick was born September 20, 1819, son of Seth and Melinda 
 (Coughland) Herrick and grandson of Jonathan, who came to Brattle- 
 boro among its early settlers. He was educated at the Brattleborough 
 Academy. For the first fifteen years the family lived in West Brattleboro, 
 — from 1834 for six years on a farm. After he was twenty-one he was in 
 business in New York between three and four years, but returned to his 
 native town and was associated with Hannibal Hadley in the meat busi- 
 ness for a time. 
 
508 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 He married Mary P., daughter of Samuel and Mary Prouty Miller, who 
 was born in West Brattleboro August 33, 1823, and died August 20, 1908. 
 
 He was one of the original incorporators of the Brattleboro Savings 
 Bank and treasurer for several years; a member of the board of invest- 
 ment of the Savings Bank and a director of the Peoples National Bank. 
 
 He was tax collector from 1862 to 1875 ; deputy sheriff and collector 
 from 1861 to 1868; selectman from 1868 to 1888, except one year, and 
 chairman of the board of selectmen sixteen years ; deputy sheriff and col- 
 lector from 1870 to 1884; high sheriff in 1869-1870; represented the town 
 in the Legislature, 1866-1867. He died May 11, 1895, aged seventy-five. 
 
 George Baty Blake 
 Founder of the Banking House of Blake Brothers, Boston. 
 
 George Baty Blake, the youngest of the nine children of John Welland 
 and Abigail Jones Blake, was born May 19, 1808. His mother died in 
 1808, within a few months after George's birth, and his father in 1818. 
 
 George, thus early left an orphan, during a portion of his infancy was 
 placed with and cared for by Stephen Greenleaf and his family, living at 
 the West Village, and in after years he held their memory in grateful 
 remembrance. Subsequently he lived at the homestead until the age of 
 thirteen. His eldest sister, Anna Sophia, who in 1814 married Henry 
 Cabot, son of Honorable George Cabot of Boston, had charge of the 
 household during George's childhood until she went to Boston upon her 
 marriage and there lived until her death in 1845. Mrs. Cabot is well 
 remembered in Boston society of the time, for her personal charms and 
 her social graces. 
 
 After the death of his father, George was for a few years particularly 
 under the charge of his eldest brother, John Rice Blake. These brothers, 
 the eldest and the youngest of the family, long survived the other children, 
 and were for twenty years or more partners in the. banking business, 
 which George undertook about the year 1850, in Boston, and to which the 
 energies of the remaining years of his life were largely given. 
 
 Although George's father had been a man of very considerable wealth 
 for the time, at his death the family were left quite poor, so that when Mr. 
 Dickerman, a dry goods dealer from Boston who chanced to see George, 
 then a lad of thirteen, in Brattleboro, offered him a place in his store, 
 the family gladly availed themselves of the offer, and the boy went to 
 Boston. He lived at first with his sister, Mrs. Cabot, in Winthrop Place, 
 Boston, and for two or three years received from his brother John and 
 this sister $50 a year, which was the only help of the kind he ever 
 received. He was in Mr. Dickerman's employ a few years and went 
 thence to his brother-in-law, Edward Clarke, of Edward Clarke & Com- 
 
GEORGE BATY BLAKE 509 
 
 pany, dry goods importers, and before he was twenty-one years of age 
 Mr. Clarke took him into the firm as partner. From this time, in- 1828, he 
 was constantly going to England and the continent of Europe for the pur- 
 chase of goods, making many acquaintances and some lifelong friendships. 
 Amorig many others he thus came to know George Peabody, at that time 
 a buyer of dry .goods for his Baltimore firm and afterwards long resident 
 in London, where for several years Mr. Blake had large business relations 
 with his firm. 
 
 In these early years in England Mr. Blake made the acquaintance of 
 Richard Cobden, the distinguished English statesman, then, in 1835, 
 partner in a cotton printing establishment near Manchester, where he had 
 built up a prosperous business. Mr. Blake at this time bought goods of 
 Mr. Cobden and had a great admiration for the qualities which later won 
 him such distinction as a legislator and political economist. Mr. Blake 
 gave full adherence to Mr. Cobden's free trade views, and was always of 
 the opinion that for any country custom duties were only to be justified 
 by the need of revenue. He recognized, however, for the United States, 
 that reform in this direction, in justice to large vested interests, must be 
 somewhat gradual; but looked confidently to absolute free trade for all 
 nations, and believed that in the not distant future the United States, 
 under a free trade policy, would be cotton manufacturers for the world. 
 
 Mr. Blake, after leaving the firm of Edward Clarke & Company, 
 formed a copartnership for the importation of dry goods with Mr. Wil- 
 liam Almy, under the firm name of Almy, Blake & Company, and during 
 this time and subsequently was constantly crossing the Atlantic for the 
 prosecution of his business in buying goods through England, France and 
 Belgium. He next formed a copartnership with David Nevins and 
 Edward H. R. Lyman, under the firm name of George B. Blake & Com- 
 pany, also importers of dry goods. Mr. Nevins lived near Boston, carry- 
 ing on a large manufacturing business, and Mr. Lyman in Brooklyn, New 
 York, associated with his brother-in-law, Mr. A. A. Low, in the firm of 
 A. A. Low & Brothers, merchants in the Chinese trade. 
 
 About the year 1846, Mr. Blake's health, which had always been deli- 
 cate, failing him, he was obliged to give up active business, and in the 
 spring of 1847 he bought an estate in Brookline, near Boston, where he 
 hved the rest of his life, excepting during the winters of the last few 
 years, which were passed at his house in Boston. 
 
 During the three ox four years' interval in his active business career, 
 Mr. Blake became a director in the Boston & Worcester Railroad, and 
 took a most active interest in the aflfairs of that corporation, giving much 
 of his time and energy to the development of its growing business. He 
 was one of the very earliest to favor and promote the joining of this 
 
510 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 railroad with the Western Road. In 1850 Mr. Blake associated himself 
 with Mr. Addison Gilmore, president of the Western (now Boston & 
 Albany) Road, and Mr. George Cabot Ward, son of Thomas G. Ward, 
 Boston agent of Baring Brothers & Company of London, for the prosecu- 
 tion of a foreign and domestic banking business. The firm name was 
 Gilmore, Blake & Ward. Mr. Gilmore dying very suddenly after the 
 firm was established, the name was changed to Blake, Ward & Company, 
 and later to Blake, Howe & Company. At this time his brother, John 
 Rice Blake, came from Brattleboro and joined him as partner, the firm 
 name being later changed to Blake Brothers & Company, the three eldest 
 sons joining as partners about the year 1860. 
 
 One of the leading aims of Mr. Blake, throughout his business career, 
 was to advance in every possible way the commercial interests of Boston. 
 He was largely instrumental in securing and maintaining the regular 
 visits of the Cunard steamers to that port. 
 
 During the Civil War he was always most warmly interested in the 
 maintenance of the Union. Originally a Whig in politics, and voting for 
 Henry Clay in the presidential election, Mr. Blake early sympathized in 
 the views of Garrison, Sumner and the others who looked upon African 
 slavery in the United States as a barbarism. With many other law- 
 abiding citizens of Massachusetts, his sense of justice was shocked by the 
 enforcement of the fugitive slave law in Boston in the returning of 
 Anthony Burns into servitude. He endeavored to prevent this by offer- 
 ing, through a friend, to buy Burns of his owner, who then refused to 
 sell his property at any price. 
 
 When the state of Massachusetts was rapidly forwarding troops for 
 the suppression of the Rebellion, and incurring a large debt for bounties 
 and other war expenses, the money market had become exceedingly active, 
 so that the state, for providing money on their notes having a few months 
 to run, paid as high as twelve per cent per annum. At this time it became 
 necessary, for funding her bounty loan indebtedness, that the state should 
 promptly secure some three or four million dollars. This was finally 
 done by a sale to Mr. Blake, by Governor Andrew and his council, of two 
 millions of five per cent sterling bonds, with a short option for another 
 million and a half at the price agreed upon. Mr. Blake was then made, by 
 Governor Andrew, agent for the state for the negotiation of this loan, 
 which he was authorized to domiciliate for payment of principal and 
 interest in London, with either of several firms selected by Mr. Blake and 
 approved by the state authorities, foremost among whom were the Bar- 
 ings and Rothschilds. Mr. Blake went at once to London on this mission, 
 but found the times most unfavorable for such negotiations, the Bank of 
 England having suddenly advanced the rate of interest to ten per cent. 
 
GEORGE BATY BLAKE 511 
 
 Finally he succeeded in inducing the Barings to take a joint interest in 
 this purchase of two millions. Owing to the condition of the London 
 money market, however, no bonds had been sold up to the time when the 
 option to take the further amount was maturing. Mr. Blake, however, 
 took the further responsibility of assuming the additional amount. He 
 always felt that the deservedly high credit of Massachusetts was largely 
 due to the strong sense and high integrity of Governor Andrew, insisting 
 upon the payment of gold for the principal and interest of the state debt 
 throughout the suspension of specie payment by the United States govern- 
 ment. 
 
 May 24, 1833, Mr. Blake married his cousin, Anna Hull, daughter of 
 Joshua Blake of Boston, a prominent and successful merchant doing 
 business with the Mediterranean ports. They were married at her 
 father's house in Winthrop Place, by the Reverend F. W. P. Greenwood 
 of King's Chapel, at which church Mr. Blake then, and during his whole 
 life, attended service, acting for several years as vestryman, and always 
 taking a deep and lively interest in the church and its several clergymen. 
 The children of this marriage were nine, of whom the two first born died 
 in infancy, and the youngest of all, bearing the name of his paternal 
 grandfather, John Welland, died in 1861, aged nearly fifteen years. The 
 sons were for years partners in their father's firms in Boston, New York 
 and London. This business is still continued by the sons and their asso- 
 ciates selected by Mr. Blake, essentially as established by him. 
 
 Mr. Blake died at his home in Brookline August 6, 1875, his death 
 resulting from a severe attack of paralysis at his office in Boston two 
 days before. His wife had died two years previously, June 7, 1873, at the 
 Brookline home and was buried in a vault under King's Chapel. 
 
 From The Boston Daily Advertiser of August 11, 1875, written by 
 Gamaliel Bradford, we quote: 
 
 The recent removal by death of Mr. George Baty Blake from business 
 circles, will turn back the memories of many men over the last fifty years 
 of the commercial history of Boston. The youngest of nine children, of 
 a highly respectable family in Brattleboro, Vermont, he came to Boston 
 in 1831, with nothing but his own exertions to depend upon. Amid the 
 numerous temptations which a city life offers to young men, he kept him- 
 self pure and his moral character free from reproach. His aspirations 
 were high and were aided by an innate refinement, which distinguished 
 him through life. His manners and bearing were always those of a 
 gentleman, and nothing coarse or vulgar ever found favor with him. 
 
 Probably there is no society in the world where the English language 
 is spoken in which Mr. Blake would not have borne himself with credit. 
 Of his commercial sagacity there is no need to speak. 
 
512 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Mr. Blake delighted to select young men, to give them a chance of 
 advancement and to feel that they owed their success to him. During 
 an acquaintance of nearly thirty years, of virhich seventeen were passed in 
 close and daily intercourse, one of them testified that he had never 
 received from him a harsh or unkind word. To his inferiors in station he 
 was uniformly kind and courteous. In his family relations he was 
 affectionate, almost without limit, and as a father, at once indulgent 
 and firm. If the tree is to be judged by its fruit, he needs no other 
 monument than the character of the group of children who received his 
 last adieus. 
 
 Without theological bigotry, Mr. Blake was decidedly a religious man. 
 His attendance at church was regular and quite as much from pleasure 
 as duty. His reverence for sacred things, though unostentatious, was 
 real, and any man who acted from conscientious motives was sure of 
 respectful treatment from him. He professed to be governed by a sense 
 of responsibility to a higher power. His descendants will attach less 
 value to the pecuniary inheritance which devolves upon them, than to the 
 memory which they can thus cherish and hold in honor. 
 
 He left an estate of $1,500,000. . 
 
 There were eight children of George Baty and Anna Hull Blake, all 
 born and have lived in Boston. (See Appendix.) 
 
 Selah Chamberlain 
 
 Selah Chamberlain, eldest son of Selah Chamberlain of Brattleboro, 
 was born May 4, 1813, in a small farmhouse (which was destroyed by 
 fire) in district Number 6, where Daniel M. Barber lived, on the road 
 leading to Newfane. 
 
 The younger Selah Chamberlain's life was spent on his father's farm 
 until he became of age and his education was received in the public schools 
 of this town. He spent two years in a store in Boston and then went to 
 western Pennsylvania, where he became a contractor on the Erie exten- 
 sion of the Pennsylvania canal, and afterwards of the Ohio & Pennsyl- 
 vania and Wabash & Erie canals, and in 1845 of the canal improvements 
 along the St. Lawrence River in Canada. He then came to Vermont, and 
 formed the contracting firm of Chamberlain, Strong & Company, build- 
 ing the Burlington & Rutland Railroad and parts of the Lake Champlain 
 Railroad. He next constructed the Cleveland & Pittsburgh road, which 
 was completed in 1851. He also built and became president of the Minne- 
 sota Central and the Lake Shore and Tuscarawas Valley Railroads, the 
 latter now known as the Cleveland, Loraine & Wheeling, and the con- 
 struction of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. 
 
DR. JOHN WILSON, "THUNDERBOLT" 513 
 
 In 1871 he established a large banking house at Cleveland, under the 
 name of Chamberlain, Gorham & Perkins. He also engaged in other 
 enterprises, including the manufacture of iron. 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain was a self-made man and acquired his large fortune 
 as the result of his own labors. He contributed large sums to religious 
 and public works and to the Union cause during the war. He was for 
 forty years a member of the Presbyterian church in Cleveland. He left 
 two daughters. His father went from Brattleboro to live with his son in 
 Cleveland, and his death took place there July 21, 1863. Selah Chamber- 
 lain, Junior, died December 37, 1890. 
 
 Other children of Selah Chamberlain, Senior, were : Joseph, the second 
 son ; Abigail, who married April 13, 1834, Doctor John Wilson, supposed 
 to be the notorious highwayman, Thunderbolt ; she married, second, John 
 Plummer; another daughter was the first wife of John Plummer. 
 
 William B. Chamberlain, born 1816, had a store in West Dummerston 
 at one time and was a merchant in New York City. He moved to Cleve- 
 land, Ohio, between 1835 and 1845, and was contractor on the Lake Shore 
 and Tuscarawas Valley (Ohio) Railroads, and amassed great wealth. 
 His family lived in Hannibal, Missouri. 
 
 He died May 1, 1873. He was the father of Jennie C. Chamberlain, a 
 famous beauty, who married Captain Herbert Naylor-Leyland of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Doctor John Wilson 
 
 "Thunderbolt" and "Lightfoot" were two of the most famous highway 
 robbers of modern times, in Great Britain. Thunderbolt was a Scotch- 
 man, while Lightfoot was of unknown parentage, both living near the 
 border between Scotland and England, where they were the terror .of 
 highways and of property owners. 
 
 They were obliged in the course of their reckless acts to flee from their 
 native land, and they emigrated to this country under agreement, it was 
 said, to separate and to reform. Lightfoot found an honest life wholly 
 distasteful, soon fell into his old ways and, highway robbery in those 
 days' being a capital offense, was hanged in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
 Before his death he made a confession implicating his former accomplice, 
 but Thunderbolt had disappeared and was never heard of again under 
 that name. 
 
 According to the declaration of Lightfoot, after his arrival in America, 
 he received a letter from Thunderbolt announcing that "he had pushed 
 
514 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 off to the West Indies," where under a fictitious name, he was doing busi- 
 ness in an honest way. Doctor John Wilson claimed to have passed 
 a short time there, previous to his settlement in Vermont. 
 
 John Wilson was the son of a pious and respectable blacksmith of 
 Muirkirk, Scotland. He and his brother Robert— the only children 
 of whom we know anything — came to this country. Robert resided 
 for a while in Boston, Massachusetts, but subsequently removed to the 
 state of Connecticut; the other, John Wilson, came, as near as we can 
 ascertain, some time in 1819 and remained a year or two, when he re- 
 turned to England and came back with a cargo of roof slate ; soon after 
 that he settled in Dummerston, Vermont, coming from New Hampshire 
 by way of the ferry, up the old road, and stopping at Peter Willard's 
 blacksmith shop, which stood north of his house and west of the highway. 
 It is said there is a small closet in some dark corner of the house, in 
 which he would secrete himself when he was apprehensive of danger 
 from his enemies abroad. 
 
 He is said to have built the schoolhouse near Samuel Wheeler's, where 
 he taught during the winter of 1819-1820. He afterwards built a brick 
 shop south of the building which was Wheeler's cider mill. He boarded 
 a few years at Peter Willard's, teaching, and practicing medicine to some 
 extent. 
 
 His personal appearance was naturally very elegant. His height just 
 six feet and one inch, — ^precisely that of Thunderbolt, as mentioned by 
 Lightfoot, — ^his shoulders broad, chest deep and expansive, indicating 
 great physical power. He was a man of fine, florid complexion, dark 
 eyes and hair, of high and commanding bearing. On his first coming to 
 Vermont his deportment was that of a well-bred gentleman, whose man- 
 ners had been polished and refined by long intercourse with the most 
 polite circles. It is hardly possible that he could have acquired so great 
 urbanity of address without familiarity with the best society in Europe. 
 Still he was a most singular man. His peculiar habits were matters of 
 frequent observation and remark among the inhabitants of the place and 
 vicinity where he lived. The causes of his dislike were not then known, 
 but for some time after his coming to Dummerston he manifested a great 
 aversion to society, and seldom mingled in company. His time was for 
 the most part passed in seclusion and study. 
 
 A man of fine literary taste, as shown by the style and tenor of his 
 conversations, he was familiar with, and a most enthusiastic admirer of, 
 the best English poets, and had stored his memory with the choicest selec- 
 tions from the works of many of them, particularly of Shakespeare and 
 his favorite Burns, whom he was wont to style his "own sweet poet." 
 
DR. JOHN WILSON, "THUNDERBOLT" 515 
 
 And his recitals of their finest passages often not only amused but inter- 
 ested the literary amateur. 
 
 In the History of Dummerston by Mansfield is a drawing from a 
 portrait of Doctor Sewall Walker painted by Doctor John Wilson about 
 1821. 
 
 A pamphlet containing the "Confession of Michael Martin," under 
 which name Lightfoot had lived in this country, made its appearance 
 about the year 1822, producing considerable excitement, especially with 
 regard to Thunderbolt, who was mentioned in the "Confession" as having 
 abandoned the guilt and peril attending the adventures of a highwayman 
 for some more honorable business, and that at one time he made a very 
 profitable speculation by "passing himself off" as a traveling physician.^ 
 
 When this "Confession" came out, suspicions that he was the person 
 named therein as Thunderbolt, half uttered and half expressed, passed 
 about the neighborhood of the Doctor's residence. These suspicions were 
 doubtless grounded upon his very singular habits and the inscrutable 
 mystery thrown around a portion of his life, which he never seemed 
 inclined to remove. 
 
 After stopping two or three years in Dummerston, he removed to the 
 town of Newfane, where he soon established himself in business as a 
 physician and gradually acquired a considerable practice in that and the 
 adjoining towns. Letters found in his possession at the time of his 
 decease indicate that he had practiced medicine in his native village in 
 Scotland aiid in Edinburgh, and that his professional skill was much 
 respected. It is related of him that being one day on a professional visit, 
 his eye fell upon the pamphlet of Martin's "Confession," and seizing it, 
 he hurled it into the fire. In his practice he came by many to be very 
 much esteemed for his skill and unremitting devotion to his patients. 
 
 In the year 1836 he removed from Newfane to Brattleboro, and built 
 a dwelling house in a retired spot on the banks of the Connecticut, where 
 he resided until the time of his death. He also erected, with Thomas 
 Arnold, a mill for sawing timber where the old railroad depot is, to 
 
 1 Confession of Michael Martin, or Captain Lightfoot, who was hung at Cam- 
 bridge, Massachusetts, in 1821, for the Robbery of Major Bray. Also an Account 
 of Doctor John Wilson, believed to be the Notorious Captain Thunderbolt. Royal 
 8vo. Brattleboro, 1847. Twelve thousand copies were sold and it went through 
 foiir editions. 
 
 According to the autobiography of Michael Martin, a highwayman whose name 
 was John Doherty, known later as Captain Thunderbolt, disguised as a Church of 
 England clergyman, crossed his path when he was a young man, and induced him to 
 enter on a criminal career. In July, 1816, when he was twenty-one Doherty baptized 
 him "Captain Lightfoot," throwing a glass of brandy in his face, and giving him 
 a long sermon. 
 
516 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 which he applied steam as a motive power and which occasioned this ad- 
 vertisement in the weekly paper : 
 
 Steam Sa:w Mill 
 
 Any quantity of Custom Logs will now be received and sawed at short 
 notice and on reasonable terms. 
 
 Mill and Circular Saws breasted. 
 
 Dr. John Wilson. 
 Brattleboro, Sept. 7, 1837. 
 
 Arnold disappeared, and the imperfection of the machinery and the 
 expense attending its operation finally compelled him to abandon the 
 enterprise, after having sunk several thousand dollars, supposed to have 
 been acquired by his professional industry. About this time, in 1834, he 
 married a highly respectable young lady of Brattleboro, Abigail, daughter 
 of Selah Chamberlain. But the union was far from a happy one and was 
 ■ dissolved a very few years after by a bill of divorce granted the wife, on 
 the ground of tyrannical treatment by the husband. During the pend- 
 ency of the bill of divorce she is represented to have said that she would 
 not live with him, for she knew he had been a robber or some such 
 infamous character. The fruits of the marriage were one son. In a 
 rather inferior carriage, accompanied by the little boy, he would visit 
 in rural districts those persons who required his professional services. 
 
 Among the peculiarities of the Doctor was a very great dread of 
 lawsuits. He at one time brought a suit for medical services against an 
 individual living some twenty miles distant. The court day came. The 
 defendant, with his counsel and witnesses, was present, prepared to dis- 
 pute the claim. The Doctor came in, but on seeing the array of witnesses 
 and preparations for defense he immediately called for the bill of costs, 
 drew his pocketbook, paid it, withdrew the suit, and left the courtroom, 
 protesting that though the charges were just, yet that was no place of 
 justice for him. 
 
 While living at Newfane he associated quite freely with the members 
 of the bar who were in attendance upon the courts which were holden 
 at that place; and he appeared to be very familiar, not only with the 
 laws and general politics of Great Britain, but also of the Continental 
 Powers. 
 
 In those days of his residence at Dummerston quiltings were common 
 occasions of pastime for the young. He sometimes attended those parties, 
 which always ended with the dance. The Doctor was averse to dancing, 
 which only proved, as he said, that people's heads were lighter than their 
 
DR. JOHN WILSON, "THUNDERBOLT" 517 
 
 heels. But he could not always refuse to take part, and saying, in his 
 own peculiar brogue, "I canna resist the bonnie lassie," away he would go. 
 But in attempting to cut a "pigeon-wing," which was the fashionable 
 flourish for the heels in those days, he invariably got a tumble, to the no 
 small amusement of the ladies. These tumbles were undoubtedly owing 
 to the effect of a cork heel he wore, of which no one was aware at the 
 time. 
 
 He unfortunately contracted habits of intemperance, which grew upon 
 him as age advainced; and during the latter part of his life both his 
 physical and intellectual vigor became essentially impaired. There fol- 
 lowed the gradual loss of professional business in the vicinity of his resi- 
 dence, and the gathering around him of a class of associates and retainers 
 with which a mind like his could have felt but little sympathy. 
 
 After his separation from his wife he led a very solitary and singular 
 mode of life. His house was seldom entered by any except himself and 
 little son, who was his constant companion. Wherever you saw the Doc- 
 tor, you might know the lad was not far distant. He employed no one to 
 attend to his household affairs, but did himself whatever was done toward 
 the domestic comfort of himself and boy. The neighbors rarely visited 
 his house. As might be expected, his personal appearance and dress, for 
 which in early life he was quite remarkable, became very much neglected. 
 
 At all seasons, in the warmest as well as the coldest days in the year, 
 he might be seen with a large cravat, or cotton muffler, reaching to his 
 ears, which he always took great care to keep drawn up high on the neck. 
 It was also noticed that when in company he usually selected a position 
 that would bring as many as possible of those present in front of him, 
 as when he entered the sitting-room of a public house it was usual for 
 him to choose a seat in the corner of the room. But after his death the 
 mystery, both of the muffler and position, seemed to be revealed by the 
 discovery of a large scar upon the back of his neck. 
 
 In the purchase of his boots and shoes he always declined making trial 
 of their fit at the shop or store in the presence of others, but asked the 
 privilege of taking them home for trial at his leisure. This also is prob- 
 ably accounted for by the defective foot upon which he wore the cork 
 heel. If concealment had been an abiding passion in his life, it was 
 emphatically strong in the hour of death. He refused to be undressed 
 through his sickness, and by his own will he died with his clothes on. 
 
 After his death there were taken off, among other things, his pan- 
 taloons, three pairs of drawers and the large muffler. 
 
 The testimony of one of his neighbors — a man of undoubted veracity — 
 was that in 1846 the Doctor told him his age was sixty-two, which would 
 
518 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 make him sixty-three at the time of his death, March 22, 1847. Martin 
 says Thunderbolt was between thirty and forty years of age in 1816 ; sup- 
 posing him to have been thirty-two, in 1847 he would have been sixty-three 
 — just that of the Doctor. The Doctor's brother, however, stated his age 
 to be twelve years less than his own, which was about seventy — a very 
 equivocal mode of stating it ; besides he had every appearance of having 
 seen as many as sixty-three summers. 
 
 A gentleman who attended upon Doctor Wils9n almost constantly in 
 his sickness says that during the dreamy state of mind into which he fell 
 a while previous to his death, he dwelt upon the transactions narrated 
 in Lightfoot's "Confession" and, after going on for a time in such an 
 audible strain, would suddenly rouse himself, much excited, and inquire 
 of him what he had been saying. 
 
 The scar upon the back of his neck, already mentioned, was some inches 
 in length. Another discovered upon the calf of one of his legs, was about 
 the size of a cent, branching oflf in one direction nearly an inch. This 
 had all the appearance of having been caused by a musket ball, as 
 described by Lightfoot in the case of Thunderbolt, which, he says, he 
 extracted with his knife. And, to avoid limping, he had worn the cork 
 heel, which enabled him to hide the defect by restoring the relative length 
 of the limb. Bandages and wadded cotton were wound around this leg, 
 to give it apparently the size of the other. 
 
 Suspicions of the Doctor's identity with Thunderbolt were consider- 
 ably strengthened by exhibitions made upon the examination of his house 
 after his death. Among other things found in his possession, were three 
 old English double-barreled guns, . three pairs of old English pistols — 
 besides several odd ones — a number of swords, one of them a straight, 
 sharp blade, quite rusty, the edge much hacked, with a basket hilt for 
 the protection of the hand. It had the appearance of having driven a 
 brisk business sometime, but where and when it does not say. There 
 were found some eight or ten old watches of antique pattern — some of 
 gold, others of silver; also a very large clasp knife that might have an- 
 swered a good purpose for a cleaver. Some of these guns were not only 
 charged at the time of his death, but his custom was to keep them so. 
 
 A diamond necklace which the Doctor exhibited to a friend of his some 
 years before, has not been discovered, or if so, has not come to the knowl- 
 edge of the public. The circumstances attending this singular exhibition 
 were as follows: The gentleman to whom it was made was one of the 
 Doctor's most intimate friends, whom he had invited to a convivial enter- 
 tainment subsequent to the separation from his wife. After some conver- 
 sation with reference to her, he presented the necklace saying, "Thank 
 
JOHN HUMPHREY NOYES 519 
 
 God ! there is a nest-egg she never discovered, worth seven thousand dol- 
 lars, which she would be proud to wear." The question was asked how 
 he came in possession of such a treasure. The Doctor replied that it was 
 his mother's. His mother was the wife of an honest blacksmith. 
 
 John Humphrey Noyes 
 
 John Humphrey Noyes was born in West Brattleboro September 3, 
 1811. 
 
 At a time when New England was passing through a great awakening 
 in manufactures, farming, business, philanthropy and religion, there arose 
 a man who turned his powerful mind, not to some scheme for making 
 money as did so many others, but to a project which would help the Lord 
 usher in His heavenly Kingdom. So he professed to believe, and so those 
 who knew him best for many years also believed, for it is a significant fact 
 that Noyes was regarded in the community to the end with high respect 
 and reverence. 
 
 Noyes entered Andover Seminary in 1831, and soon became a member 
 of a secret society of students, called "The Brethren," men of the stamp 
 of the devoted missionaries, Lyman, Munson, Tracy and Perkins. It was 
 the custom of The Brethren to practice mutual criticism, an ordeal Noyes 
 introduced into the community. After a year at Andover the young zealot 
 went to Yale to obtain in the Divinity School opportunity for a careful 
 study of the Bible. He was there a year and a half. In New Haven 
 he came under the influence of a noted revival preacher, who piloted him 
 into what is known as perfectionism, or the doctrine of a sinless life. In 
 the summer of 1833 Noyes's attention was arrested by the thought that 
 Christ's second coming was accomplished in the lifetime of the apostles. 
 This was clear to him from the words of Jesus to Peter concerning John, 
 "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" It follows that 
 since the millennial reign of Christ has begun, the true believer lives with- 
 out sin, and is permitted to enjoy some of the other perquisites of the 
 heavenly state. Noyes adopted perfectionism with all his heart, and after 
 he had been licensed to preach as a Congregational minister, he preached 
 it. 
 
 It was a little uncomfortable for the professors and students at Yale 
 to have among them a perfect saint, and it began to be whispered that 
 Noyes ought to be tried for heresy, not because he was bad, but because 
 he thought himself so good. He did not care to put them to the trouble, 
 and resigned from the ministry and went to Putney, Vermont. The years 
 that followed were attended by the falling away of friends, sharp opposi- 
 tion and bitter attacks, through which Noyes carried himself in the calm 
 
530 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 assurance that he was right. In 1836 he founded a school in Putney, 
 gathering the people to study the Scriptures. He married in 1838. Disci- 
 ples gathered around him; his two sisters and brothers, except one, 
 believed in him, and in 1843 Noyes entered into a "Contract of Partner- 
 ship" with his Putney followers. Two years later the "Putney Associa- 
 tion of Perfectionists" was formed. There were forty of these people in 
 Putney at that time, and Noyes was in correspondence with small gather- 
 ings of perfectionists in other states. In 1845 Noyes made known to his 
 saints his advanced ideas about the relations of the sexes, and the follow- 
 ing year the society at Putney began to experiment in communal living. 
 
 About that time the other people in Putney awoke to the fact that a 
 queer and undesirable society was growing up in their good town, and in 
 1847 Noyes thought best to escape the danger of a mob and go to Oneida, 
 Madison County, New York. Forty acres of land were bought, and the 
 emigrants found shelter in two frame houses and a log hut. They were 
 poor, owed $2000, and for a time slept on the floor in the attic. The 
 people that went from Putney were mostly farmers of small means, but 
 others gathered with them — lawyers, ministers, doctors, .teachers. All 
 worked; Noyes labored on the farm and in the blacksmith shop. They 
 made rustic furniture, raised vegetables and fruit. In 1855 Sewall More- 
 house, a native of Brattleboro, who lived among the Oneida Indians as a 
 youth, invented the best steel trap ever made to capture wild animals, and 
 a manufacture of traps began in the Oneida Community which has grown 
 into a factory to fashion traps to catch anything from a mouse to a bear. 
 He was also the author of "The Trapper's Guide." In 1858 they began 
 to preserve fruit; in 1866, to manufacture sewing silk, and later, silver 
 plate. 
 
 Their holdings of land increased; in 1874 they had six hundred and 
 fifty-four acres; today the company owns one thousand two hundred 
 acres. There were many applicants for admission — two hundred in one 
 year. In 1874 there were two hundred and eighty-three members, forty- 
 five of whom were at the colony at Wallingford, which was started in 
 1850. The financial condition was slender at first, and the property inven- 
 toried in 1867 at only $67,000. The members were highly esteemed by 
 their neighbors as honest and industrious, and so conscientious that a man 
 would not think of borrowing a hammer. They made a large use of the 
 press, publishing The Free Church Circular and various tracts. 
 
 A sinless life was the standard, though Noyes said that not all in the 
 community had attained it. He said there must be holiness before there 
 would be the freedom of love ; there must be salvation from sin or the 
 passions would overwhelm the society ; that a community of women, chil- 
 
JOHN HUMPHREY NOYES 531 
 
 dren and property was taught and commanded by Christ. Noyes taught 
 that "complex marriage" should take the place of the ordinary method, 
 and he formed an ingenious combination of polygamy and polyandry, dis- 
 couraging the "exclusive and idolatrous attachment" of one man for 
 one woman, .since Christ said that "in the resurrection they neither marry 
 nor are given in marriage." Whenever two young people in the com- 
 munity were seen forming personal attachments for each other they were 
 frowned upon. 
 
 A "eugenic committee" gave short lessons to willing candidates, having 
 a sharp eye to the physical and mental improvement, of the race, after 
 the best style of Plato's "Republic" and More's "Utopia." Noyes was a 
 firm believer in scientific propagation, and carried out his high ideas on 
 the subject by what he called "stirpiculture," or "composite marriage." 
 
 The perfectionists at Oneida held that there was "no difference between 
 property in persons and property in things, and that the same spirit which 
 abolished exclusiveness in regard to money, should abolish, if circum- 
 stances allowed full scope to it, exclusiveness in regard to women and 
 children." 
 
 Noyes insisted on the religious training of the people, wishing no one 
 to join the community whose spiritual life was not solid and well 
 grounded. One of the leading means depended upon to maintain order 
 and avoid difficulties was his system of "mutual criticism." There was a 
 standing committee whose business it was to promote self-improvement 
 by honest, faithful, unsparing truth-telling. A kind of court was presided 
 over by the critic committee, so that if anyone was hungry to be told his 
 shortcomings he could receive his heart's desire by the ladleful. One 
 could be criticised by the special committee or, if he had a craving for a 
 wholesale attack, he was taken before the whole community. When Nord- 
 hoff was there in 1873, he saw a man called Charles submit willingly to a 
 kind of "third degree" process, which squeezed the sweat out of him like 
 a clothes wringer. He was charged with using slang, with complaining 
 of the tough beefsteak, of being haughty and talking unwisely to some 
 women. 
 
 There were twenty-one committees to look after the affairs of the 
 community. At the end of every year every member gave the finance 
 board an estimate of the clothing he would need for the coming twelve 
 months. Noyes required the women to wear short hair, short dresses 
 and pantalets, and would not permit a man to smoke, chew, drink or 
 swear. There was a horror of forms ; the Sabbath had no special services, 
 since in heaven all time is holy. Sometimes there were three meals a day, 
 sometimes two and sometimes five. New members signed the creed and 
 
522 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 agreed to work without wages. For years a doctor was out of place there, 
 and many a wound was healed and disease cured by faith. 
 
 For more than thirty years this queer combination moved along. Noyes 
 seems to have had a few good ideas, and one of them was the project of 
 sending young men to Yale College. The return of these men fostered an 
 inner ferment, which was met on the outside, in 1879, by strong opposi- 
 tion — partly political, since the community held the balance of power at 
 elections, and partly moral. Noyes hastened to Canada, whence he never 
 returned. The community was governed by a commission for a short 
 time, but in 1881 the community idea was given up and a cooperative 
 joint-stock company was formed, called the Oneida Community, Limited. 
 The Mansion House is used by families who have a common dining-hall. 
 The manufacture of silver tableware, which is so widely used and so 
 popular, is by methods and machinery of the latest models of efficiency. 
 There is also a large trap factory, the products of which are widely used. 
 Two thousand people work in these factories and produce $5,000,000 
 worth of goods annually. 
 
 The directors make a careful study of the workers and officers with 
 the desire to place everyone where he will be most efficient. Admirable 
 entertainments are provided without cost to the employees ; there is a 
 good gymnasium, and provision is made for the feeble and aged. The 
 president of the company is Pierrepont Noyes, a son of John. 
 
 Another son. Doctor Thomas N. Noyes, is secretary of the Oneida 
 Community. 
 
 Bernard Shaw, in "Man and Superman," says of John Noyes, "The 
 Perfectionists were mightily shepherded by their chief Noyes, one of those 
 chance attempts at the superman which occurs from time to time in spite 
 of the influence of man's blundering institutions." 
 
 Among John Humphrey Noyes's publications are: The Bureau: A 
 Manual for the Help of Those Who Seek the Faith of the Primitive 
 Church; The Witness, the official organ of the Perfectionists, published 
 semimonthly. Putney, 1837-1840. 
 
 Honorable Elisha H. Allen 
 
 Honorable Elisha H. Allen, son of Samuel Allen of Greenfield, Massa- 
 chusetts, was born in Greenfield, his father, representative of that district 
 in Congress, having also extensive interests in the Hawaiian Islands, 
 where he had been chief justice. The son graduated at Williams College, 
 was admitted to the bar in 1827 and began to practice law in Brattleboro. 
 Here for two years his ability and brilliance gained a reputation long to be 
 
HON. ELISHA H. ALLEN 523 
 
 remembered. His office wias in the old Chapin Block, corner of Main and 
 High Streets. 
 
 From Brattleboro he went to Bangor, Maine, where he became promi- 
 nent in his profession and as a member of Congress. In 1840 he was 
 delegate to the National Convention which nominated Harrison and 
 Tyler, and on his way home to Maine passed through Brattleboro, where 
 it chanced that the delegates from Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont 
 met, and a grand ratification meeting was held in the old Church on the 
 Common, Mr. Allen being the leading speaker ; his speech became a tradi- 
 tion for its vigor and eloquence. 
 
 In 1828 he married Sarah E., daughter of William Fessenden, who 
 died April 20, 1845, when he moved to Boston ; from there, in 1848, he 
 went to the Sandwich Islands as United States consul in General Zach- 
 ary Taylor's administration. He remained there, becoming premier, and 
 finally envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the Hawaian 
 Kingdom to the United States and was dean of the diplomatic corps at the 
 time of his death in Washington, January 1, 1863. 
 
 Their four children were brought up in Brattleboro by their grand- 
 mother, Mrs. Patty Fessenden, sister of Governor Holbrook. 
 Children of Honorable Elisha H. and Sarah Fessenden Allen : 
 William F., married Miss Cordelia C. Bishop, who died September 23, 
 1913. He was collector of the port of Honolulu and was on the staff 
 of King Kalakaua. He died in the Sandwich Islands February 5, 
 1906, aged fifty-four. 
 Elisha H., Junior, born in Bangor, Maine, July 18, 1836. He and his 
 sister Sarah spent much of their youth in Brattleboro in the house 
 of their great-uncle. Governor Holbrook. He was in business (dry 
 goods) with J. W. Page & Company, afterwards Stone, Bliss, Fay & 
 Allen, later Bliss & Allen, and finally E. H. Allen, Junior & Com- 
 pany. He retired from active business in 1880. 
 
 From 1872 to 1898 he was consul-general at New York from the 
 Hawaiian Islands. He married Miss Julia Herrick, who died March 
 21, 1913, aged seventy-four. Their children were: Julia, married 
 Wilbur Fisk; Caroline, married Edmund Dwight; Elisha Hunt, III, 
 of the firm of Estabrook & Company, bankers in New York, mar- 
 ried Miss Helen Hunt, who died April 14, 1917, aged thirty-six. 
 Children : Robert, Holbrook, Appleton. Elisha H., Junior, died May 
 6, 1906, aged sixty-nine. 
 
 Ellen H., born in 1831; married, first, George Tiffany; second, 
 
 Patterson ; third, Chief Justice Harris of the Hawaiian Islands. She 
 died at Honolulu July 14, 1881. 
 Sarah Fessenden, married January 31, 1860, Doctor William P. Wes- 
 
534 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 selhoeft ; died January 31, 1891. Children : Alice, married November 
 19, 1886, Arthur A. Haserick; Doctor William F., married June 30, 
 1887, Miss Emily Bradley. 
 
 Elisha H. Allen, Senior, married, second, Mary , from Maine, by 
 
 whom he had: Mary; Frederick H., of the law firm of Allen & Cam- 
 many, married Miss Adele L, Stevens; children: Mary, Barbara, Joan, 
 Julian. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Graves Cary with their infant daughter, Eliza- 
 beth Cabot Cary, who became the wife of Louis Agassiz and the first 
 president of Radcliffe College, were living here in 1821, Mr. Cary, a law- 
 yer in the practice of his profession. (They removed to New York in 
 1822.) Fourth of July Orations by T. G. Cary were printed here in 182L 
 
 Honorable Asa Keyes 
 
 Judge Keyes was born in Putney, Vermont, on the thirtieth day of May, 
 1787. He fitted for college at the old academy in Chesterfield, New 
 Hampshire, and was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1810. He was 
 the principal of Chesterfield Academy for two years ; read law in the office 
 of the Honorable Phineas White of Putney two years, and in the office 
 of the Honorable Ebenezer Rockwood of Boston, Massachusetts, one 
 year, and was admitted to the Windham County bar at its' December 
 term, 1814. He commenced the practice of law in his native town, where 
 he remained until he removed to Brattleboro in 1833. From the begin- 
 ning his business was ever widening and increasing, and he continued in 
 the discharge of the active and laborious practice of his chosen profession 
 until about 1864, when he retired altogether. 
 
 He was a hard-working man, and in addition to attending to his large 
 practice and numerous clients, he found time to serve the public in various 
 offices of honor and trust. He was register of probate for the District 
 of Westminster from 1814 to 1819 and in 1823; he was judge of probate 
 of the same district in 1827 and was again its register from 1830 until his 
 removal to Brattleboro in 1833. He was register of probate for the Dis- 
 trict of Marlboro from December 1, 1834, to December 1, 1837, also from 
 December 1, 1843, to December 1, 1844, and again from July 21, 1862, 
 until August 28, 1878, when he resigned by reason of the labors being too 
 arduous for his increasing years. He was a justice of the peace from 1826 
 to December 1, 1878, when he declined a further election to that office, 
 preferring that it should go to some younger and more active man. He 
 represented the town of Putney in the Legislature in the years 1826 and 
 1827 ; also Brattleboro in the year 1835, and was one of the state senators 
 for Windham County in the Legislature for the years 1855 and 1856. 
 

 
 
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 JUDGE ASA KEYES 
 
 JUDGE R07ALL TYtER 
 
 REVEREND GEORGE P. TYLER 
 
 COCKATNE. BOSTON 
 
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HON. ASA KEYES 526 
 
 In early life he connected himself with the order of Free and Accepted 
 Masons ; he was ever an earnest advocate and supporter of the institution, 
 exemplified its principles and teachings in his life and character, and at 
 his death was probably the oldest Master Mason and Royal Arch Mason 
 in the state. He was one of the first board of trustees of the Vermont 
 Savings Bank (formerly the Windham Provident Institution for Sav- 
 ings), was continued therein until his death, and during the greater por- 
 tion of the time was the most trusted legal adviser of that corporation. 
 
 He was the counsel of Mrs. Marsh, who, in her last will, made the 
 bequest of $10,000 for the founding of the Vermont Asylum for the 
 Insane. After her decease he procured from the Legislature the act of 
 incorporation by virtue of which said bequest could be made available for 
 the purposes designed by the donor. 
 
 Judge Keyes early became connected, with the Congregational Church, 
 but in 1869 he was confirmed a member of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church, by Bishop Bissell of the diocese of Vermont. 
 
 In the public offices which he held he "bore himself erect," and dis- 
 charged all his duties with diligence and fidelity. He possessed intellectual 
 and moral qualities most essential and requisite to the best discharge of 
 the duties of public trust — a clear and discriminating mind, an impartial 
 judgment, sound practical common sense, a profound and instinctive sense 
 of right and wrong, an inflexible integrity and an earnest desire for the 
 truth, so that when he laid aside an official garment it was taken up by his 
 successor untarnished, and "without spot or wrinkle or any such, thing.'' 
 Purity of motive and integrity of purpose, unsullied and unassailed, were 
 alike the law and rule of his life, both in public and private action. 
 
 He possessed a mind in which the analytic powers and the reflective 
 faculties were largely developed, and he was also gifted with a retentive 
 memory. He was capable of fixed and continuous application of his mind 
 to the examination and analysis of whatever questions he took in hand. 
 It has been said of him that, in his younger days, when at the full zenith 
 of his professional life, he would work all day and long into the night 
 without rest or food, and seemingly with but little exhaustion of either 
 his mental or physical powers. He possessed, in a remarkable degree, 
 the power of condensation, and of arranging the various points or propo- 
 sitions under discussion, in the most clear and logical order, which enabled 
 him to present them with clearness and force to the minds of others. He 
 was not eloquent, but was always instructive, and secured the respectful 
 attention of the court, jury and all who heard him. If he was not an 
 orator in the ordinary acceptation of the term, he was more and better 
 than an orator. He was a clear and logical reasoner. He was thoroughly 
 read in both the common and statute law and his advice, when sought in 
 
526 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 legal matters, always commanded just respect, and carried a correspond- 
 ing weight and influence, for the reason that his opinions were not hastily 
 formed or inconsiderately expressed, but only after careful and mature 
 reflection. 
 
 He was exact and thorough in the preparation of his cases, and in the 
 conduct of trials was watchful that no proper presentation of argument 
 beneficial to his client should be omitted. His practice of the law was 
 honorable and manly ; he never sought advantage for his client's cause by 
 the use of craft or cunning, so often resorted to by less scrupulous 
 members of the profession. He never resorted to subtle and ingenuous 
 sophistry to entrap and bewilder the triers. He abhorred and detested 
 deceit and falsehood in others and disdained to use them himself. His 
 argument of a cause to a jury was as cool, deliberate and dispassionate 
 as his argument of a dry question of law before the court, and in this 
 way he convinced their judgments and won his legal battles. He was 
 extremely considerate of and kind to the younger members of the profes- 
 sion. He would encourage them in their business and aid them in the 
 solution of some knotty question of law — which to them was a mountain, 
 but to him was hardly a molehills-cheer fully and patiently, and thus he 
 gained and ever retained the confidence, respect and love of all the younger 
 members of the bar. 
 
 His duties as a husband and father, citizen and neighbor, were also 
 faithfully and conscientiously fulfilled, and all who knew him will ever 
 retain a loving remembrance of his kind and genial nature. 
 
 Judge Keyes married January 7, 1815, Miss Sarah Britton of Chester- 
 field, New Hampshire. 
 
 He lived in a small one-storied house, with extensive grounds in the 
 rear, on the site of the Devens house. The street was named for him, 
 Keyes Lane (now North Street). He finally moved into the C. Royall 
 Tyler house on Tyler Street, sharing it with the Tyler family. Here he 
 died, June 14, 1880, aged ninety-three years. At his death Judge Keyes 
 was Vermont's oldest justice of the peace, the oldest Free Mason, the 
 oldest lawyer, and the oldest living graduate of Dartmouth College. 
 
 Mrs. Keyes died October 29, 1859. 
 
 Judge Keyes had five children, but two of whom survived him, namely, 
 Laura B., the wife of Honorable C. Royall Tyler of this town, and Eliza 
 Green, a maiden lady, who for many years resided with her venerable 
 father and ministered to his comfort and happiness ; she died November 
 29, 1884. A son, Charles D., died in infancy. 
 
 Ellen D., married April 29, 1840, Doctor Frederick N. Palmer (see 
 p. 605), born in Belfast, Maine, in 1815, who came to this town as a music 
 teacher in 1836, entered the office of Judge Keyes and was admitted to the 
 
BRADLEY FAMILY 527 
 
 bar in 1841. He was postmaster from 1845 to 1849. Soon after leaving 
 the post office the Palmers moved to Bangor, Maine, where he studied 
 dentistry; he afterwards studied homeopathy and practiced in Newton- 
 ville, Massachusetts, where his wife died, 1860 or 1861. Frederick Palmer 
 was a man of charming accompHshments. Children: Sarah; a son, of 
 Denver; Mrs. Valentine of South Framingham, Massachusetts. 
 
 George Britton, who read law in his father's office, was admitted to 
 the bar in 1844 and practiced his profession in Brattleboro until his 
 removal to California, leaving here in the winter of 1849 in company with 
 three or four others, taking passage in the ship PKarsalia and arriving in 
 San Francisco late the following summer. In 1853 he returned home for 
 a visit, carrying his family back to California with him. He was elected 
 county judge in Tuolumne County, but removed to Wilmington near Los 
 Angeles about 1870. He married Julia M., daughter of Elihu H. Thomas 
 of this town in 1864, who died January 7, 1878, in Wilmington, California. 
 He had cultivated literary tastes and a kind and loving disposition. He 
 died May 33, 1877. 
 
 Bradley Family — General Stephen Rowe Bradley 
 
 General Stephen Rowe Bradley (LL.D.) was born in Cheshire, 
 Connecticut, February 20, 1764, the son of Moses and Mary Rowe Brad- 
 ley, and grandson of Stephen Bradley of New Haven, who served under 
 Oliver Cromwell. Stephen Rowe graduated at Yale College in July, 1775. 
 
 He studied law under Tapping Reeve of Litchfield, Connecticut; his 
 first appearance in Vermont was at Westminster May 26, 1779, when he 
 was admitted to the bar of this state and appointed its clerk; he was 
 appointed, October 22, 1779, one of the agents to present the case of the 
 controversy of Vermont to Congress. 
 
 His controlling influence in legal, military and political affairs was felt 
 in Brattleboro, as throughout the state. 
 
 "Vermont's Appeal to the Candid and Impartial World" was written 
 by him — an able presentation of the right of Vermont to become an inde- 
 pendent state. In June, 1780, he was appointed state's attorney for 
 Cumberland County. He represented Westminster in the General Assem- 
 bly in 1780, 1781, 1784, 1785, 1788, 1790 and 1800, and was clerk of the 
 House in 1778, and in 1785 its speaker. From March, 1781, to March, 
 1791, he was register of probate for Windham County, and in 1783, a 
 judge of the Supreme Court ; he was one of the commissioners October, 
 1879, to settle the controversy with New York, and a delegate in the State 
 Convention of 1791, which adopted the Constitution of the United States, 
 and when the state was admitted into the Union he was elected the first 
 United States senator for the eastern side of the state and held that office 
 
528 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 until March, 1795. August 27, 1781, he was appointed a lieutenant of 
 the first regiment of the Vermont militia, and on the fifteenth of October 
 was raised to the rank of colonel. January 26, 1791, he was appointed 
 brigadier-general of the eighth brigade of the militia of the state. 
 
 In 1793 Senator Bradley, in a speech in Congress said : "Kentucky and 
 Vermont have been added to the Union and they consider themselves of as 
 much importance as the thirteen original colonies, and desire to be repre- 
 sented in the flag. I, therefore, move that the flag be fifteen stars and 
 ^ fifteen stripes." 
 
 This motion was carried, to take effect May 1, 1795. This was our 
 United States flag during the War of 1812, and "the Bradley flag" inspired 
 the words of the "Star-Spangled Banner" by Francis Scott Key. It was 
 in use twenty-three years, or from May 1, 1795, to July 4, 1818. 
 
 He again was elected and held the office of senator from March, 1801, to 
 March, 1803. He received five elections as president of the Senate, and 
 was president of the convention of Republican members of Congress and 
 as such, January 19, 1808, summoned the convention of members which 
 met and nominated Madison for President. He was opposed to the war 
 with Great Britain, and counseled Madison against it, and was so dis- 
 satisfied with the national policy that at the close of his term, in 1813, he 
 withdrew from public life. 
 
 He was a lawyer of distinguished abilities, and a good orator ; he had an 
 inexhaustible flow of wit, and a great amount of unaffected urbanity, and 
 had a large acquaintance with mankind and an extensive range of his- 
 torical knowledge. He was author of that part of the existing Constitu- 
 tion of the United States which requires that the Vice-President, like the 
 President, shall be chosen by a majority of the electoral votes. 
 
 Owing to some disaffection with the people of Westminster he removed, 
 in 1818, to Walpole, New Hampshire, "where he lived in ease, independ- 
 ence and honour," in the fine old house at the top of the hill on the right 
 as one enters the town from the railroad station, until his death, December 
 9, 1830. 
 
 General Bradley was a great admirer of Peter the Great, and wished to 
 name his first-born Peter, but his wife being determined against it, they 
 agreed on the compromise of Czar, and so he was called William Czar 
 Bradley. 
 
 Honorable William Czar Bradley 
 
 Honorable William Czar Bradley was born at Westminster March 23, 
 1782. 
 
 He was a precocious child ; he began to write poetry at six years of 
 age ; published his first prose work at twelve ; the title ran thus : 
 
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RICHARDS BRADLEY 
 
 ARTHUK C. BRADLEY 
 
 WILLIAM C. BRADLEY 11 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
HON. WILLIAM CZAR BRADLEY 539 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF YOUTH, 
 
 Composed, revised, and submitted to 
 
 The candid Reader ; 
 
 By 
 
 William C. Bradley, Esq., 
 
 Author of the Poem on Allen's and Tichnor's Duel. 
 
 Westminster : 
 
 Printed by John Goold, jun. 
 
 M.DCC.XCIV. ■ 
 
 At nine he had re^d the Bible through seven times ; was fitted for col- 
 lege at eleven, and entered Yale at thirteen. He was expelled from college 
 during the early part of his course, on account of some mischief which 
 he always said he never perpetrated, although he frankly confessed he 
 "had done undetected mischief enough to deserve censure." 
 
 Nothing daunted at the disappointment he had met, and the cold treat- 
 ment which he received at his father's hand, he resolved to become the 
 learned man which the college had refused to make him. He entered 
 upon the study of law at Amherst, Massachusetts, with Judge Simeon 
 Strong ; and after the appointment of Mr. Strong to the office of judge 
 of the Supreme Court, he returned to his father's office, where, by his 
 distinguished talent. and zealous application, he acquired a large renown. 
 At the age of seventeen, he was appointed to deliver a Fourth of July 
 oration at Westminster, which was followed by an ode which he had 
 composed. The success of this effort contained some premonition of the 
 future greatness of the man. 
 
 He was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty, and having been re- 
 fused permission to practice in the Supreme Court on account of his 
 youth, so great was the respect he had won for his talents that he was 
 appointed attorney for Windham County by the Legislature, which 
 secured his access to the Supreme Court. This office he held for seven 
 years. 
 
 At twenty-four he represented his native town in the State Legislature, 
 1806-1807 ; at thirty, he was a member of the Council, and at thirty-two 
 was a representative to Congress. 
 
 After the expiration of the term for which he was elected, at the close 
 of the War of 1813, he was appointed agent of the United States, under 
 the Treaty of Ghent, for fixing the Northeastern Boundary. This work 
 lasted five years, and W9,s regarded by him as the great service of his life. 
 He was afterwards elected to Congress for two terms, 1833-1837, which 
 services substantially closed his public career. He was, however, a mem- 
 ber of the State Legislature in 1850 and in 1853 and presidential elector 
 
530 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 in 1856, casting the vote of his state for John C. Fremont, and he was a 
 member of the State Constitutional Convention the following year. In 
 1856 he was made the bearer of the vote of Vermont to Washington, 
 forty-three years after his first entrance into Congress. His retentive 
 memory enabled him to give many reminiscences of the early days, and 
 his great fund of anecdote and wit drew around him a large circle of 
 admirers during his stay at the capital. 
 
 During the term in Congress to which he was elected in 1825, he had 
 a rupture with the President on account of a breach of faith on the part 
 of the latter, and transferred his allegiance to Jackson, the rising chief 
 of the Democratic party. But the party which he now joined was, and 
 continued to be, in a hopeless minority in Vermont, and though it gave 
 him repeated nominations for Congress, for the United States Senate, and 
 for governor, it could do no more than nominate hirn. 
 
 As the subserviency of the Democratic party to slavery became more 
 and more marked, he withdrew from it, and identified himself first with 
 the free democracy, was their candidate for election in 1853, and finally 
 with the Republican party. He attracted a great deal of attention, both 
 in the Legislature and out of it, and commanded the respect of men of all 
 parties. Two of his speeches in the House were of considerable length 
 and great ability. One of these was a eulogy on Daniel Webster, whose 
 death took place while the Legislature was in session ; the other was on 
 the bill appropriating money for a monument to William French, the first 
 martyr in the cause of American liberty. 
 
 Mr. Bradley was the colleague of Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Mallory and 
 others in the palmiest days of the brightest intellects that ever graced our 
 National Congress. 
 
 In the extent and variety of his learning he had few equals and hardlv 
 any superiors. His memory rivaled that of Macaulay, or Magliabechi, 
 and what he committed to its trust it held with a tenacity that never failed. 
 His knowledge extended to all departments of learning and literature, 
 touching Plato on one side and Artemas Ward on the other. It would be 
 difficult to say in what department of knowledge he most excelled, for he 
 seemed as much at home in one as in another. Theological literature was 
 his favorite study. 
 
 He was versed in Hopkins and Edwards, as well as familiar with the 
 German writers of the liberal school. "Theology," he said, "is the noblest 
 profession, law is second to it." He had an extensive acquaintance with 
 the Sacred Scriptures, which he was in the habit of studying in the orig- 
 inal languages. He often wrote out exegeses of difficult passages, giving 
 his own views as to their interpretation. He also wrote out his religious 
 
HON. WILLIAM CZAR BRADLEY 531 
 
 views, which are preserved among his manuscripts, in a neat and legible 
 hand. 
 
 His memory and vast acquaintance with literature were ever serving 
 him in unexpected ways. A visiting minister preached one Sunday in the 
 old church at Westminster, and according to Mr. Bradley's custom his 
 son was expected to give him a resume of the sermon on his return home. 
 He reported the text, "Father, the hour has come," and proceeded to 
 report the matter of it. After a few words, his father, seizing a volume 
 of Bossuet's Sermons from his library, at once found the sermon in the 
 original. The minister had made a literal translation, expecting to escape 
 being discovered. Mr. Bradley in characteristically strong language called 
 him a "monster," "hypocrite" and "impostor" — and forthwith dispatched 
 him from the town. 
 
 His conversational powers were such as are not possessed by one in ten 
 thousand, even of educated men, and had there been a Boswell to take 
 notes of his conversation, there might have been a score of volumes as 
 entertaining and instructive as those in which the sayings of Johnson are 
 recorded. Extreme deafness in his maturity was only a partial barrier 
 to contact and fresh sympathy with the world around him. 
 
 The generation to which he belonged never tired of repeating his wise 
 and witty sayings; one has come down to us. When a senator (in Wash- 
 ington), one of his colleagues, remarked that he never went to church, 
 Mr. Bradley replied, "I have been taught never to turn a deaf ear to the 
 Lord." 
 
 Few men are as happy in their domestic life as was Mr. Bradley. His 
 granddaughter, in speaking of this phase of his life, says : 
 
 "When a mere schoolboy he plighted his troth for the first and last 
 time ; and that love grew with his growth, and strength, till at eighty-four 
 years of age, the tenderness and devotion of this happy couple was like 
 the blossom of the olive, rare and beautiful. The object of this lifelong 
 love was Sarah Richards, daughter of Honorable Mark Richards, of West- 
 minster, and she was wholly worthy of his love, in person and in charac- 
 ter. She was petite and graceful, with a beautiful blue eye, dark hair, a 
 gentle voice and a quick, light step. She was one of the old school of 
 gentlewomen; had met Washington in her father's house at Boston, and 
 mingled with the refined and courteous of that age. Her love and admira- 
 tion for her husband was deep and sincere, and she was unconscious of 
 the great influence which she exerted over him. He never failed to con- 
 sult her on all important changes, and always paid great deference to her 
 opinions." 
 
 He outlived all of his immediate family, having buried his much-beloved 
 
533 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 and honored son, Jonathan Dorr Bradley, and his wife, within a year. He 
 came to Brattleboro to live with his kindred, but on the occasion of the 
 burial of his wife, returned to Westminster with her remains, and on no 
 consideration could be induced to revisit Brattleboro, preferring to remain 
 and die amid the hallowed scenes, and sacred associations that clustered 
 around his early and active life, and be buried with those he loved and 
 among the people who had so long and often honored him and unto whom 
 he had been a faithful servant and a useful fellow citizen. A few weeks 
 before his death he remarked-that he should die between the twentieth of 
 February and the twenty-third of March, his eighty-fifth birthday (1867), 
 and the prediction was fulfilled. 
 
 William Czar Bradley was one of the few eminent native Vermonters 
 who have thought that Vermont is a good state, not only to be born in, but 
 also to live in and to die in, and of the still smaller number who have 
 achieved a great reputation without ever removing from their native town. 
 
 "It is not too much to say, all things considered, that he was the 
 greatest man Vermont has yet produced." 
 
 From the funeral discourse of Reverend P. Frothingham, the text 
 being "His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." Deuteronomy 
 xxxiv. 7 : 
 
 "We have during the past week committed to the dust the mortal part 
 of a remarkable man. Remarkable he was in many ways, in the power 
 of his presence and the bulk of his brain ; in the vast sweep and the won- 
 derful command of his information and the hunger for knowledge, which 
 no years nor weakness could still, in the independence of his thought and 
 his tendency to superstition, in the ringing vigor of his voice and the 
 wealth of fun, wit, story, history, thought and wisdom it conveyed; in 
 the service as a public man to which he was called ; in the place he filled 
 in the regard of his fellow-citizens, and the gap he leaves behind in many 
 hearts, at almost eighty-five ; in what he did and what he did not do ; in 
 what he was and what he was not. So much was his weakness stronger 
 than other men's strength, so much more was he in the evening of his life 
 than the rest of us in life's high noon ; so robust and vivid was his life 
 even to the last, that he seemed rather to abdicate than to be driven from 
 his throne." 
 
 SELECTED FROM POEMS BY WILLIAM CZAR BRADLEY 
 A Ballad of Jxtogment and Mercy 
 (Written by Mr. Bradley in Advanced Life.) 
 As at midnight I was reading by my lamp's fitful gleam, 
 I fell into a slumber, and behold I dreamed a dream ; 
 
HON. WILLIAM CZAR BRADLEY 533 
 
 This outer world had undergone a great and sudden change. 
 And everything around me seemed wondrous new and strange. 
 
 No sunlight, no moonlight, no starlight glittered there ; 
 A mild and steady twilight seemed to permeate the air ; 
 And there sat the blessed Jesus. No golden throne had he. 
 But was clad in simple majesty, as erst in Galilee. 
 
 Behind him Justice, Mercy, Truth safe guides in earthly things ; 
 Their functions now absorbed in him, all stood with folded wings ; 
 And the recording angel, with deeply sorrowing- look. 
 Took in his hands and opened the all-containing Book. 
 
 There came a distant murmur, as of waves upon the shore, 
 While throngs on throngs unnumbered into the Presence pour ; 
 By their instincts segregated here, nigh the close of time, 
 Rush the bad of every nation, of every age and clime. 
 
 They stop, astonished, all abashed ; and with attentive ear. 
 Though the angel's lips were moving, no accents could I hear ; 
 Yet of that startled multitude, to each like lightning came. 
 His life's continued story, its mingled guilt and shame. 
 
 From all the records there disclosed, oh ! who could lift the veil ; 
 Or of the varied shades of wrong unfold the dreadful tale 
 Of kingly pride, plebeian spite, of violated trust, 
 Of mastering force, of hidden sin, hate, cruelty and lust ! 
 
 Each has due allotment, and with agony of heart. 
 
 The vast assemblage vanished at the thrilling word, "Depart!" 
 
 There was no driving angel, and no extraneous force ; 
 
 For conscience was accuser, and the punisher remorse. 
 
 When this I saw transacted, upon my face I fell ! 
 
 The anguish of that moment, no human tongue can tell. 
 
 With throat convulsed, and choking, I gasped, and strove to cry, 
 
 "Have mercy. Lord ! oh, mercy have ! a sinner lost am 1 1" 
 
 To look upon that face again, how was it I should dare ? 
 And yet I mildly ventured, with the courage of despair ; 
 When that pitying eye fell on me, beaming mercy from above. 
 And I saw that femile ineffable of never-dying love. 
 
634 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 By so sudden a transition, all stupefied I gazed, 
 When in my members trembling, rose bewildered and amazed; 
 But kindliest words of comfort the blessed Master spoke, 
 Which wrapped my soul in ecstasy; and sobbing I awoke. 
 
 Ordination Hymn 
 
 (Written by Mr. Bradley, at the request of a grandson, to be used at the 
 Ordination of a fellow student in theology.) 
 
 Part I. 
 
 When erst in Eden's leafy shade, 
 
 Man newly felt his Maker's breath. 
 Ere fair temptation's charms had made 
 
 This world a scene of sin and death — 
 No second tongue was needed then 
 
 To tell the Almighty's high behests ; 
 The still, small voice could come to men. 
 
 And find an answer in their breasts. 
 
 But when debased, the torpid soul 
 
 God by his messengers awoke. 
 Amid the thunder's solemn roll. 
 
 The tempest's blast, the lightning's stroke. 
 Then rose the altars to his name. 
 
 And crowds the ritual splendor saw, 
 Heard prophets sing, and priests proclaim 
 
 The awful terrors of the law. 
 
 At length the Fullness from above 
 
 To earth the high commission bore. 
 And spoke to me of peace and love 
 
 As never mortal spoke before; 
 And conquering Death, the risen Lord 
 
 Gave forth his great and last command. 
 And bid his brethren spread the word 
 
 To every soul in every land. 
 
 Part II. 
 
 O thou most High ! all good and just, 
 
 Look down from heaven, thy dwelling-place ; 
 
 Behold thy servant take his trust. 
 And aid him with thy helping hand 
 
HON. WILLIAM 1CZAR BRADLEY 535 
 
 To do thy work, to do thy will, 
 
 To speak thy praise, to preach thy word. 
 Promote all good, repress all ill, — 
 
 A faithful steward of the Lord. 
 
 Found him on thine Eternal Rock ; 
 
 Make him a shepherd of thy care. 
 Heavenward to gently lead his flock. 
 
 And in his arms thy lambs to bear ; 
 To walk upright in wisdom's ways. 
 
 In which the blessed Jesus trod. 
 Until the "Well done !" comes with praise. 
 
 Fresh from his Father and his God. 
 
 Written after the death of his son, Jonathan Dorr Bradley. 
 
 Birth and Death 
 
 Imprisoned in a living jail, 
 A lusty, kicking son of earth, 
 
 Ready to wake, and weep, and wail. 
 My limbs are struggling to the birth. 
 Let me pass. 
 
 Now, on my feet I tottering stand. 
 Till, by enticements bolder grown 
 
 I quit the watchful mother's hand. 
 And lo ! I learn to go alone. 
 Let me pass. 
 
 Now, in youth's buoyant, merry round. 
 With quickened pulse my steps advance, 
 
 Where music, wine, and wit abound. 
 And blooming beauty leads the dance. 
 Let me pass. 
 
 Now, blest with children, wife and friends. 
 Ambition urging to the van, 
 
 I strive to walk where duty tends. 
 With love of God, good-will to man. 
 Let me pass. 
 
536 ANNALS OF RRATTLEBORO 
 
 And now my better home draws nigh ; 
 
 Free from presumption and despair, 
 But weary, faint, I want to die, 
 
 And leave this world and all its care. 
 Let me pass. 
 
 Jonathan Dorr Bradley 
 
 Jonathan Dorr Bradley was born in Westminster April 17, 1803; he 
 was a graduate of Yale College and fitted for the legal profession. He 
 was married to Miss Susan Grossman in 1829, and first practiced law at 
 Bellows Falls, but the most of his professional life — about thirty years — 
 was passed in Brattleboro, where he died September 8, 1863. 
 
 He, in some specialties, had no equal in his profession in this county, 
 if in this state. His knowledge of mechanics — extensive scientific attain- 
 ments and willingness to impart the same to others — rendered him an 
 almost inexhaustible source of information upon matters imperfectly 
 understood by the learned, as well as those of more ordinary attainments, 
 and those who met him, in controversy at' the bar or elsewhere, learned 
 that his mental exercises in the sciences did not render him a less for- 
 midable antagonist in debate. 
 
 In the days of Andrew Jackson he acted with the democracy, but he 
 was not a radical or so governed by prejudice as not to candidly weigh 
 and examine the views of his opponents. His devotion to truth was 
 ardent and unremitting. 
 
 Mr. Bradley early left the Democratic party, acted with the dominant 
 party in this state in sustaining the flag, and shortly before our Civil War 
 — in 1856-1857 — he represented this town in the State Legislature. It 
 was there he became noted by his able action in the state house question. 
 There was healing in his presence before tumultuous assemblies and 
 heated clashing of opinions. He was on the first board of directors of 
 the Vermont & Massachusetts Railroad Company.^ No one in this place 
 exerted so powerful an influence in forwarding the construction of that 
 road to Brattleboro and his simple presence at railroad meetings in towns 
 on the route was to all a harbinger of success ; but when came forth in 
 earnest tones his arguments, honest convictions and prophecies, all doubts 
 of success vanished. 
 
 In him was seen a perfect master of the science of adaptation to all 
 grades of intellect. The countenances of the hodcarrier, mechanic, 
 scholar, farmer and merchant all assumed a more happy and elevated ex- 
 pression so long as the sound of his voice could be heard. When address- 
 
 1 He invested largely in this enterprise at a loss that impoverished his latter days. 
 
JONATHAN d5RR BRADLEY 537 
 
 ing a juvenile assembly, he would hold the attention of little boys and 
 girls, who could seem to see nothing but his genial countenance and hear 
 nothing but his words of wisdom, so attractively and ingeniously adapted 
 to their comprehension. Upon one such occasion, in the Goodhue oak 
 grove, in July, 1842, a stranger to Mr. Bradley, from Ohio, remarked, 
 at the conclusion of Mr. Bradley's address: "The gentleman who gave 
 the last address has uttered the fewest words, but he has really said 
 more than the five gentlemen who have preceded him. He is certainly 
 a Christian, for he has given us the whole law and gospel. Who is he 
 and what is his business?" To young professional brethren information 
 was imparted in so modest and inquiring a manner that it seemed as if 
 he was the learner and prevented, so far as possible, a feeling of obligation 
 from his inferiors. From his inexhaustible mental resources came forth 
 telling arguments, with playful flights of wit. After some twenty-five 
 years' practice of the law, his friend, Roswell M. Field, the noted lawyer 
 of St. Louis, reproved him for not giving the Yankee proof of success 
 in life. 
 
 "Roswell," said he, "I have laid up my treasure in Heaven, where moth 
 and rust doth not corrupt nor thieves break through and steal." 
 Another instance of his ready wit is the following : 
 Coming hastily into the law office of Mr. Field, he inquired for Chitty 
 on Contracts. 
 
 "What do you wish to know?" asked Mr. Field, placing one finger on 
 his forehead; "I carry my book here." 
 
 "I see," said Mr. Bradley, "bound in calf." 
 
 Soon after he entered on his professional career, he received from a 
 friend the gift of a noble mastiff, named Jowler, to which he became 
 much attached. About that time a motion was made in the Legislature 
 to tax dogs, which gave rise to the following jen d'esprit from his pen. 
 The effect was to defeat the motion, and it was laid aside for many years ; 
 indeed, until he became a member himself, when it was again introduced, 
 and he recited, at the request of a colleague, the lines to Jowler, with the 
 same effect as above. After his decease it passed into a law. There is a 
 likeness of Jowler in the possession of Mr. Bradley's family, painted by 
 his friend Fisher. 
 
 To My Dog Jowler 
 
 Jowler ! they have taxed you, honest friend ! 
 
 Assessed you, put you in the roll. 
 To exile every dog they'll send. 
 
 Unless some friend will pay his poll. 
 
638 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 By all that's good, the rascals meant 
 Betwixt us two to breed a strife, 
 
 And drive you into banishment, 
 
 Or bribe your friend to take your life. 
 
 But, Jowler, don't you be alarmed ! 
 
 If politicians do neglect you. 
 Confound their tax ! you shan't be harmed, 
 
 I know your worth and I'll protect you ! 
 
 But taxes by the constitution 
 Convey the right to represent. 
 
 So, dogs by this same resolution. 
 Might just as well as men be sent. 
 
 Now, dogs and men and voters hear ! 
 
 That Jowler's put in nomination 
 To go, upon the coming year. 
 
 And aid in public legislation. 
 
 Jowler, avoid the demagogues. 
 
 Keep out of the minority ; 
 Take care to smell of other dogs, 
 
 And vote with the majority. 
 
 From The Vermont Watchman of September 19, 1863 : 
 It is with great sorrow that we record the death of this distinguished 
 gentleman, at his residence in Brattleborough, on the eighth inst. We 
 learn that he was taken severely ill with fever some three weeks since, 
 and that his disease made rapid progress, until it quenched one of the 
 most cultivated intellects and genial hearts that our state has produced. 
 He had a discerning, rapid and comprehensive mind, an elegant and varied 
 culture. He was quick and ardent in his sympathies, a lover of truth and 
 justice, and a fervid hater of all shams and hypocrisy. He was a member, 
 for Brattleboro, of the House of Representatives for two years, in which 
 the State House controversy was waged, and distinguished himself as 
 leader in that most brilliant conflict. 
 
 If it had not been for his deafness, which prevented his hearing all 
 points of discussion, no man that Vermont has produced would have 
 surpassed him in the debate in the halls of legislation, But whatever 
 might have been the qualities that fitted him for a public career, he was 
 
JUDGE C. ROYALL TYLER 539 
 
 most eminent in social and private life. His rare store of information 
 and culture were open to his friends, and he had few equals in the genial 
 exchanges and conversations of social life. His reading was extensive 
 and recherche, his memory was retentive, his style of conversation was 
 playful and captivating and always appropriate to his theme, his percep- 
 tions were quick and vivid, his illustrations apt and beautiful, and his 
 whole air and manner reminded us of the school of elder times in which 
 he had his training. The death of such a man is a public calamity, and in 
 common with his nearer associates and neighbors and friends, we would 
 lay a small tribute of our high appreciation of his worth upon his fresh 
 made grave. 
 
 Susan Mina Grossman, wife of J. Dorr Bradley, was born July 25, 
 1811, at Peacham, Vermont, a small town near Northfield. She remem- 
 bered nothing of her mother, and of her father little more than his pres- 
 ence at the fireside. She was taken by her aunt, Mrs. Elisha Phelps, to 
 her home in Windsor, where she lived until she was placed in the school 
 of Mrs. Seaton, an English lady, at Gornish, New Hampshire. 
 
 At the age of eighteen she was married to Mr. J. Dorr Bradley. She 
 died November 10, 1892, aged ninety-six. 
 
 She was a woman of a rare beauty of character, quiet and evenly 
 balanced, exerting always an indescribable influence of gentleness and 
 benignity on those who were privileged to have her acquaintance. She 
 was one of the original members of the Unitarian Ghurch, in which her 
 interest never failed. 
 Ghildren : 
 
 William C, born December 17, 1831 ; died May 2, 1908. (See p. 729.) 
 
 Richards, born January 25, 1834; died October 1, 1904. (See p. 730.) 
 
 Stephen Rowe, born March 15, 1836; died August 6, 1910. (See p. 
 732.) 
 
 Arthur G., born September 13, 1849; died November 2, 1911. (See 
 p. 732.) 
 
 JxTOGE Royall Tyler 
 
 Son of Ghief Justice Royall Tyler, a distinguished lawyer and jurist 
 whose professional and official career extended over the period of half a 
 century, was the third in descent to bear the name given him. He was the 
 ninth child in the family of eleven children, was born at the family home- 
 stead at Brattleboro April 19, 1812, and lived to survive all his brothers 
 and sisters. His name was originally Gharles, and this was changed to 
 Royall after the death of a brother who bore it, in pursuance of an in- 
 herited family desire that it should be preserved through the oldest living 
 
540 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 representative. He began his education in the neighborhood schools, and 
 when thirteen years of age took employment in the store of a brother 
 in Boston. Shortly after, he entered Phillips Exeter Academy, and later 
 Harvard College, from which he was graduated in 1834. He read law 
 under the preceptorship of Charles C. Doring, an accomplished practi- 
 tioner, and was admitted to the bar in 1837. Returning to Vermont, he 
 was admitted to the bar of Windham County, and the next year became 
 the law partner of Asa Keyes, under the firm name of Keyes & Tyler, at 
 Brattleboro. He intermitted his practice for a year to care for business 
 interests in Newfane and his return home marked the beginning of his 
 public career. 
 
 In 1843 he was elected state's attorney; in 1844 was register of probate; 
 was representative to the Legislature in 1846. He was elected judge of 
 probate for the district of Marlboro in 1846, the election being by the 
 Legislature, and from this time he was successively reelected during the 
 remainder of his life, a full half-century, the greater part of the time by 
 popular vote, in accordance with the provisions of the new constitution. 
 This phenomenal term of service was almost coincident with his service 
 as county clerk, to which office he was elected in 1851 and which he also 
 held during the remainder of his life. When he was elected to the position 
 last named he relinquished his- law practice and gave his undivided atten- 
 tion to his official duties. In discharge of these he was precise and method- 
 ical, and he commanded the confidence of the people in an unusual degree. 
 Never forgetting what the law required of him, he went beyond that 
 requirement in his goodness of heart and warm sympathy and gave to the 
 distressed widow, the perplexed heir and the timid executor the benefit of 
 his broad legal knowledge as to their rights and obligations, saving hun- 
 dreds of families from annoying and expensive litigation. Known 
 throughout the district as a man of deep knowledge and incorruptible 
 integrity, he was frequently called upon to act as referee or commissioner 
 in cases of great importance. 
 
 Judge Tyler grew old gracefully and beautifully. A lover of the best 
 literature from his boyhood, he cultivated this taste to the last, keeping 
 closely in touch with the thought of the day, yet turning delightedly, ever 
 and again, to the classics of his youth. He was the personification of 
 unaffected dignity, yet withal genial, loving and lovable. He was a sin- 
 cere Christian and was one of the founders of St. Michael's (Protestant 
 Episcopal) Church, in which he was for many years a warden and vestry- 
 man. 
 
 Judge Tyler was married April 39, 1840, to Laura B. Keyes, daughter 
 of Judge Asa Keyes, and at the same time Ellen Keyes, a sister of the 
 
MEAD FAMILY 541 
 
 bride, was married to Frederick N. Palmer. Judge Tyler died October 
 
 27, 1896. Mrs. Tyler died June 5, 1907. Their residence on the Terrace 
 
 was built about 1852. 
 
 Children : 
 
 Gertrude, married December 29, 1863, Allan D. Brown, Commander 
 United States Navy (see p. 922) ; she died September 18, 1877, leav- 
 ing two children, Helen Tyler and Ethel ; the latter married June 26, 
 1896, Reverend George J. Sutherland, who had been a missionary in 
 Labrador and was seven years rector of the Episcopal Church in 
 Northfield, Vermont, five, years in mission work at Waynesville, 
 North Carolina, before taking a parish in Oxford, Connecticut. 
 Helen, died at the age of four years. 
 
 Edith, married September 2, 1877, George W. Piatt of Greenfield, 
 Massachusetts, a druggist with Henry A. Willard in Brattleboro and 
 afterwards of Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Children : Gertrude, 
 married Arthur Leon Moore of Newark, New Jersey; Royall Tyler 
 Piatt, born September 9, 1881, married Miss Gertrude L. Elliman; 
 Laura Willard Piatt, married Ernest Lawrence, who died in Decem- 
 ber, 1917. 
 
 The Mead Family 
 
 The Meads in England were an ancient and honorable family. Many 
 persons of the name emigrated at an early period from England to 
 America, among whom was Gabriel Mead, otherwise called "Goodman" 
 Mead, who settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts, probably about 1635. 
 His son, Matthew, resided in Lexington. 
 
 Among the houses that were plundered by the British soldiery on the 
 eventful nineteenth of April, 1775, at Lexington, was that of Matthew 
 Mead. Fortunately it was not destroyed, though much of the furniture 
 was broken up. Two pieces of the latter, however, escaped destruction, 
 namely, a desk and a chest of drawers. Both once graced the old "Mead 
 tavern" at the Center Village in Chesterfield. 
 
 Levi Mead, son of Matthew, in October, 1800, purchased of Asa Brit- 
 ton of Chesterfield what is known as the "Mead Farm," having a frontage 
 on the main street at the Center Village, extending from the old "back 
 road" (leading westward and now disused) to the "Dr. Tyler place." In 
 the spring of 1801 he came with his family and occupied the next house 
 south of the Tyler place, which he kept as a tavern. In 1816 he built the 
 present tavern at the Center Village, long known as the "Mead tavern." 
 In 1802 he was appointed deputy sheriff for Cheshire County and held 
 this office many years. He died April 29, 1828, and was buried with 
 imposing Masonic ceremonies. 
 
542 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Honorable Larkin Goldsmith Mead 
 
 Honorable Larkin Goldsmith Mead, son of Levi (1), was born at Lex- 
 ington, Massachusetts, October 3, 1795 ; he married June 8, 1829, Mary 
 Jane, daughter of Honorable John and Polly (Hayes) Noyes, of Putney, 
 Vermont, who was born September 16, 1806, and died at Scotch Plains, 
 New Jersey, August 24, 1876. He was educated at the Chesterfield 
 Academy and at Dartmouth College, and read law with Honorable 
 Phineas Handerson. For many years he was a prominent member of the 
 Cheshire bar. He was a man of culture and possessed rare business 
 qualities, which commanded the respect and confidence of his fellow 
 townsmen. 
 
 He removed to Brattleboro in 1839, where he was employed in closing 
 up the affairs of the Brattleborough Typographic Company. He practiced 
 law in the courts of Cheshire County, New Hampshire, and Windham 
 County, Vermont, during a large portion of the thirty years in which he 
 lived in Brattleboro. He was a prominent Whig in the Harrison campaign 
 of 1840 and was chosen senator from this county in 1846. He procured 
 the charter for the first savings bank in this state, now known as the Ver- 
 mont Savings Bank of Brattleboro, and was the first treasurer of that 
 institution, was chairman of the first prudential committee and was chosen 
 to carry into effect the present system of graded schools in 1841. Shortly 
 after resigning the office of treasurer of the bank he became president. 
 He died July 6, 1869. 
 
 Comparatively few persons have passed a more successful, cheerful, 
 hopeful life of full rounded measure, beyond, by some years, the allotted 
 age of man. In his domestic relations was, apparently, much of happiness 
 and cause for congratulation. The wisdom he showed in the selection of 
 his life partner was fully manifested in the conduct and characteristics 
 of the nine children composing this gifted family. 
 
 The eldest, John N. Mead, born April 2, 1831 ; died August 15, 1850, 
 while in his fourth year at Harvard College, at the age of nineteen years. 
 He seemed naturally to possess capabilities such as others can rarely 
 acquire by years of effort. He was, with William C. Bradley, II, and 
 others, of that brilliant circle of scholars which gave much pride and 
 satisfaction to the teachers and a high character to the schools of the early 
 school system. In the sciences, languages, music, drawing, painting, 
 mathematics and mechanics, he surprised everyone by his proficiency. 
 With an easy comprehensive grasp his mind seemingly swept the whole 
 field of human effort, giving reason to wonder what kind of an intellectual 
 giant he would become in the coming years. All problems and difficulties 
 were fearlessly met and conquered with no show of egotism or vanity. 
 
LARKIN G. MEAD 
 
 PHILIP WELLS 
 
 HONORABLE EDWARD R. KIRELAND 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
REVEREND ADDISON BROWN 
 
 CAPTAIN WnXIAM a BROOKS 
 
 DOCTOR FRANCIS J. HIGGINSON 
 
 COCKAYKE, BOSTON 
 
HON. LARKIN G. MEAD 543 
 
 Even "the great teacher," Death, never found a mortal subject who met 
 him more calmly and philosophically. 
 
 His classmates at Harvard gave evidence of their high estimation and 
 affection by erecting a monument to his memory, on which is inscribed : 
 
 The autumn winds rushing 
 Waft the leaves that are serest ; 
 
 But our flower was in flushing 
 When blighting was nearest. 
 
 He made the four sketches, — "Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior," 
 copies of which found a place on the walls of every home of old Brattle- 
 boro. 
 Children of Larkin G. and Mary J. Mead : 
 
 Charles Levi, born January 21, 1833. (See p. 544.) 
 
 Larkin Goldsmith (8), born January 3, 1835. (See p. 718.) 
 
 Elinor Gertrude, born May 1, 1837; married December 24, 1862, in 
 Paris, France, William Dean Howells, born March 1, 1837, at Mar- 
 tins Ferry, Ohio, then United States consul at Venice, where they 
 resided until 1865. Mr. Howells was assistant editor of The Nation, 
 1865-1866; assistant editor of The Atlantic Monthly, 1866; "Editor's 
 Study" of Harper's Magazine, 1886-1891, later of "The Easy Chair," 
 and was author of more than seventy works, including novels, essays, 
 poems. Mrs. Howells died in March, 1910. Mr. Howells died May 
 11, 1920. Children : Winifred, died ; Mildred ; John Mead, architect, 
 married Abby, daughter of Horace White. Children: John Mead; 
 William W. 
 
 Albert, born March 18, 1840; died September 16, 1856, aged sixteen. 
 "A lad of attainments and high promises." 
 
 Joanna Elizabeth, born March 30, 1842; married September 25, 1862, 
 Augustus D. Shepard of New York City, president of the American 
 Bank Note Company, who died September 30, 1913, aged seventy- 
 eight. She died February 3, 1914. They lived in Plainfield, New 
 Jersey. The Plainfield Press said after their deaths : "In a short time 
 there have been thus removed two of the most gracious and influen- 
 tial personalities who have enriched the life of the community for 
 the past forty years." Children : Daisy, married Osborne W. Bright 
 of Gibbonsville, North Carolina; Eleanor M., married John Doull 
 Miller of Plainfield, New Jersey. Children : Mildred H. ; Margaret 
 W. ; Robert M. 
 
 Mary Noyes, born June 6, 1844; died February 25, 1910. 
 
544 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 William Rutheefued, born August 20, 1846. (See p. 722.) 
 Frederick Goodhue, born March 19, 1848; married April 29, 1886, 
 Marie L., daughter of Lawrence Myers of Plainfield, New Jersey. 
 He was a member of the American Bank Note Company, died May 
 21, 1890. Children: Elinor; Lawrence Myers; Frederica. 
 The Mead homestead was sold in 1870 and removed to Chapin Street 
 Extension. 
 
 Charles Levi Mead was borii in Chesterfield, New Hampshire, January 
 21, 1833. He came to Brattleborq with his parents in 1836, at the age of 
 three years. When a young man he went to Springfield, Massachusetts, 
 and for a short time was clerk in the bookstore of G. & C. Merriam. 
 Returning to Brattleboro he spent some time assisting his father in keep- 
 ing books, but later went to Providence, Rhode Island, where he was 
 employed in the same business. 
 
 In 1857 Mr. Mead bought an interest in the rule factory of E. A. Stearns 
 & Company. The company was then making rules which excelled because 
 of the use of special machinery which was operated in rooms to which out- 
 sid^s had no access. About the time this business was taken to New 
 Britain, Connecticut, by the Stanley Rule and Level Company, Mr. 
 Mead received a commission on the staff of the adjutant-general of Ver- 
 mont. 
 
 At the close of the war the Stanley Rule and Level Company secured 
 his services, making him a director and electing him treasurer, which 
 position he held continuously up to his death. 
 
 Mr. Mead married May 12, 1864, Miss Isabel Martin of Walpole, New 
 Hampshire. Children : Catherine Lois, born in New Britain, Connecticut, 
 and died in New York February 5, 1906; Albert, died 1871, aged six; 
 Larkin G., born June 29, 1874 ; Mabel C. 
 
 Mr. Mead united with the Congregational Church of Brattleboro No- 
 vember 19, 1857, by letter from the church in Providence, Rhode Island, 
 where he had experienced a conversion which became the motive power 
 of his entire life and which was the means of strengthening the religious 
 life of his parents, brothers and sisters. He was the first superintendent 
 of the Centre Church Sunday school, and for about two years he was one 
 of the church trustees. At the time of his death he was a deacon and 
 member of the board of trustees of Broadway Tabernacle in New York 
 City, vice-president of the American Missionary Association and a trustee 
 of Hampton Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia. 
 
 He died August 19, 1899. 
 
HON. EDWARD KIRKLAND 545 
 
 Honorable Edwahd Kirkland 
 Honorable Edward Kirkland was the son of Samuel and Dorcas Kirk- 
 land, and was born in Warwick, Massachusetts, June 24, 1808 ; he grad- 
 uated at Amherst College in 1831 and the first three years after gradua- 
 tion studied law in Worcester, under the direction of Judge Mer- 
 rick. He then located himself in Templeton, Massachusetts, where he 
 practiced successfully in the legal profession until 1838. He undertook 
 a business agency for the Brattleborough Typographic Company, and 
 removed to Louisville, Kentucky, where he remained until 1843, when he 
 returned to the East and resumed the practice of law in Brattleboro. 
 
 Mr. Kirkland was successful in his profession, ^nd as a citizen and 
 public-spirited man was always ready to lend his hand and heart for the 
 promotion of good objects, whether political or religious. He was often 
 active in the labors of political campaigns, and was a good-deal in demand 
 as a "stump" orator. 
 
 Reverend Doctor George P. Tyler of Brattleboro wrote of him : "Dur- 
 ing twelve years in which I was his pastor, he was a prompt, useful, faith- 
 ful member of the church. In the various causes of Christian benevolence, 
 he was energetic and generous. He was thoroughly acquainted with the 
 great foreign and domestic .missionary enterprises and promoted them 
 with constant effort and success. As a lawyer, he stood among the first ; 
 as a citizen, he was often entrusted with public duties at home, and repre- 
 sented his town in the State Legislature with great credit in 1854. He was 
 state's attorney in 1847-1849 and a member of the Vermont Senate, 1862- 
 1863. Beyond his professional studies, Mr. Kirkland was a man of much 
 literary culture, fond of historical studies and belles-lettres. He left a 
 considerable library of carefully selected books of this character. He 
 devoted a good deal of time to Biblical research, and always taught a 
 Bible class and for several years superintended our Sabbath school. Such 
 a man could not fail to be missed from the bar, the church and the com- 
 munity." 
 
 His life was marked repeatedly by sad scenes of desolating bereave- 
 ment, which put into requisition the supports of a Christian faith and 
 which he met as a Christian. 
 
 Mr. Kirkland was married May 34, 1836, to Catherine P., daughter of 
 Honorable Jonathan Robinson of Wardsboro, who died in Louisville, 
 Kentucky, April 15, 1840; he married, second, October 31, 1844, Miss 
 Frances S. M. Robinson of Templeton, Massachusetts, who died in Brat- 
 tleboro October 12, 1858. October 18, 1859, he married, third, Mary E., 
 daughter of Captain Joseph and Sylvia Webster Slate of Bernardston, 
 Massachusetts, born December 31, 1830. (See p.. 900.) The last two or 
 
546 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 three years of Mr. Kirkland's life were marked by a gradual decay of his 
 bodily and mental powers, owing to repeated attacks of paralysis, which 
 terminated his life January 6, 1866. 
 Children of Edward and Mary E. Kirkland : 
 Doctor Edwaed B., born March 31, 1861, graduated from Hahnemann 
 Medical College, Philadelphia, 1886, practicing in Bellows Falls, 
 Vermont, from 1888 ; married Miss Mary Chase of Actoii, Massachu- 
 setts. Children : Edward C, graduate of Dartmouth ; Isabel. 
 Samuel W., married November 20, 1903, Miss Maud A. Dickey of 
 
 Dorchester, Massachusetts. They have a son, John. 
 Theodore W., married, first, August 14, 1894, Isabel B., daughter of 
 J. Wilder Smith, who died September 33, 1898, aged thirty-four. 
 Their son, Hugh Maxwell, was born June '6, 1895. He married, 
 second. Miss Blanche Sheldon. 
 
 Captain William Smith Brooks 
 
 Captain William S. Brooks, born in Medford, Massachusetts, March 
 5, 1781, went on his first voyage at sea with his uncle at the age of nine 
 years. He was captain of a merchant vessel in the days when it was a 
 highly honorable and lucrative calling and made a comfortable fortune, 
 which was easily reduced when he applied it to land enterprises for which 
 his life at sea gave him no training. He was in France during the French 
 Revolution and also at the time Napoleon the First was at the height of ■ 
 his power. Once, when in the Cove of Cork, he was pressed into the 
 English navy, and served six months in the royal frigate Diamond. At 
 another time, while cruising in the English Channel, he was captured 
 twice in one day — first by the English and then by the French. By the 
 latter he was retained in prison six months, a part of which time was 
 occupied in making sails for French ships. On his return from France, 
 President John Adams appointed him a lieutenant in the navy, which 
 office he declined. He was engaged for some time in commerce, as com- 
 mander of a merchant vessel, at a period when the American flag did not 
 always command of foreign nations the respect that it now does, and 
 many were the adventures and "hairbreadth 'scapes" that he used to 
 relate in the later years of his life. 
 
 On retiring from the sea, he settled at Cambridge, Massachusetts, where 
 he was postmaster four years. He engaged in the manufacture and sale 
 of cotton goods with Jacob Peabody of Salem. In August, 1821, he 
 moved to Chesterfield, New Hampshire, and entered upon the manufac- 
 ture of cotton goods at Factory Village, causing a village to spring up 
 about him which was known for many years as Chesterfield Factory. He 
 continued his business at the factory several years, until 1850, after his 
 
BROOKS FAMILY 547 
 
 removal to Brattleboro in 1839. June 20, 1807, he married Miss Eleanor 
 Forman of Middletown, New Jersey, who died in 1841. He died in April, 
 1865. 
 Children : 
 William F. Brooks, born at West Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 
 39, 1811, began his career as clerk in the store of Gardner C. Hall at 
 Putney, between 1829 and 1830. He was captain of the Brattle- 
 borough Light Infantry the same year. 
 
 From 1834 to 1836 he was in mercantile business in Manchester, 
 England, with his cousin, Samuel R. Brooks. On his return to 
 America, he made some important inventions, seamless brass and 
 copper tubing the most important, patents therefor having been sold 
 to the amount of $500,000 ; improvements called Gibbs Breech-Load- 
 ing Firearms, etc. He married Miss Harriet Bradford Stewart 
 Whiting of New Haven in 1834. Children: 
 Captain Charles Stewart, born in 1841 ; enlisted in the only regiment 
 
 California furnished for the Civil War and was transferred to 
 
 the regular army; died of typhoid fever at Fortress Monroe 
 
 July 7, 1862. 
 Eleanor Forman, born March 13, 1846; married James Piatt of 
 
 Utica ; died January, 1876. 
 Horace Brooks, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 16, 1815, 
 was early in life a clerk for Gardner C. Hall in his Putney store. He 
 married November 5, 1846, Mary Emerson, daughter of Honorable 
 A. L. Emerson of Portland, Maine, and formed the partnership 
 Persse & Brooks, which became the largest house in the paper busi- 
 ness in this country. Besides having a wholesale house in New York, 
 they were large manufacturers of printing papers, and were the 
 builders and owners of the great paper mill erected at Windsor 
 Locks, Connecticut. They also established as selling agency a part- 
 nership in San Francisco consisting of the two brothers, George J. 
 and Francis W. Brooks, under the name George J. Brooks & Com- 
 pany. 
 
 His was a noble character. He began when quite a young man to 
 assist the careers of younger brothers and gave a home in Brattleboro 
 to his unmarried sisters. This devotion to the family tie was extended 
 to sisters and brothers-in-law, which brought him often to this town, 
 where he died August 13, 1878. 
 
 To his children Brattleboro has been a second home among a large 
 family connection, where they have taken advantage of educational 
 opportunities in our private schools. Children : 
 Mary E., born August 31, 1847. She attended the school of Mrs. 
 
548 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Howland in the early sixties; married February 22, 1868, Lieu- 
 tenant Bernhard Oscar von Funcke of Dresden, Saxony, general 
 major commander of the Royal Saxon Artillery Brigade in 1871, 
 and finally commandant of the garrison at Dresden. She died 
 NQvember 26, 1919. 
 , William Leonard, born November 6, 1849 ; married Miss Katherine 
 L. Huntington. 
 Isabel, married August 23, 1881, Doctor A. M. Hurlburt of Stam- 
 ford, Connecticut. 
 Emerson, born November 19, 1860 ; married Miss Alice M. Kunkel. 
 Clarence, born November 26, 1862 ; died July 5, 1883. 
 The last two were pupils of Miss Amelia Tyler. 
 Mr. Brooks died in Brattleboro August 13, 1878. Mrs. Brooks 
 died October id, 1886. 
 Ellen Malvina, born June 13, 1817; died March 12, 1884; lived in Brat- 
 tleboro with her father, and after his death at the Brooks House 
 with her brother, George J. Brooks. 
 George J., born in Cambridge August 28, 1818; died December 23, 
 
 1886. (See p. 897.) 
 Francis W., born in Boston May 14, 1821. (See p. 926.) 
 Mary E., born at Chesterfield July 13, 1823 ; married October 26, 1847, 
 
 Colonel Francis Goodhue. (See p. 683.) 
 Lucy Quincy Tarbell, born at Chesterfield December 13, 1825; mar- 
 ried December 13, 1853, Norman. F. Cabot. (See p. 740.) 
 
 Francis John Higginson, M.D. 
 
 Francis John Higginson, M.D., was the eldest son and the grandson of 
 two Stephen Higginsons, well known as Boston merchants from the time 
 of the Revolution till about 1822. 
 
 The children of Stephen and Louisa Storrow Higginson, his parents, 
 born in Boston, were: 
 
 Francis John, born May 6, 1806; Stephen, died 1870 or 1871; Anna 
 Storrow, born December 11, 1809 ; died November 17, 1892. 
 
 Waldo, born in 1814, graduated at Harvard College in the famous class 
 of 1833, studied law and engineering, was overseer of the university from 
 1869 to 1873. He married Mary Davies, daughter of William Davies of 
 Boston ; was engineer of Boston & Lowell Railroad, 1845-1853, and presi- 
 dent of insurance companies. He was stricken with paralysis in 1853, 
 and died May 6, 1894. 
 
 Susan Louisa Channing, born March 10, 1816 ; died August 27, 1875. 
 
 Wentworth, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 22, 1823 ; 
 
FRANCIS JOHN HIGGINSON, M.D. 549 
 
 graduatied from Harvard College in 1841, the Divinity School in 1847. 
 He was pastor of the Congregational Church, Newburyport, but left on 
 account of his antislavery preaching; he was pastor of the Free Church, 
 Worcester, 1853-1858. For his part in the attempted rescue of a fugitive 
 slave he was indicted for murder, with Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips 
 and others. He aided in the organization of free-state emigrants to Kan- 
 sas in 1856, serving as brigadier-general on James H. Lane's staff in the 
 free-state forces. He became captain of the Fifty-first Massachusetts 
 Regiment, September 35, 1863, and on November 10 was made colonel 
 of the First South Carolina Volunteers (afterwards called the Thirty- 
 third United States colored troops), the first regiment of freed slaves 
 mustered into the national service. He married Miss Mary Elizabeth 
 Channing, the original of Aunt Jane in "Malbone" ; married, second. Miss 
 Mary Thacher, author of "Room for One More" and "Seashore and 
 Prairie." A daughter of this marriage, Margaret, was born in 1881. He 
 was an earnest advocate of woman suffrage, and of the higher education 
 of both sexes. He was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, 1880- 
 1881, and in 1881-1883 a member of the state board of education. 
 
 Doctor Higginson was named for his two earliest American ancestors, 
 Francis and John, both ministers of Salem in the seventeenth century 
 and famous for eloquence and piety. His parents were living in Etfflu- 
 ence when he was born, but the Embargo of 1811 was the cause of a fail- 
 ure from which the family suffered loss of personal possessions, and 
 which caused them to make several changes of residence in and around 
 Boston. From 1819 to his death in 1833, Stephen Higginson, the father, 
 had important official connection with Harvard College, where Francis 
 was graduated in 1825 after a commencement dinner of sixty persons 
 representative of his extensive family and social prestige. Francis mar- 
 ried Miss Susan Channing. 
 
 After trying his fortune in the West, he came to Brattleboro in 1843, 
 bringing with him Madame Channing, the mother of his wife, who, 
 "stately and reserved, but sweet and gracious," became a cherished pres- 
 ence in their home; his aunt, Miss Nancy Storrow (born June 34, 1784; 
 died in Brattleboro May 30, 1863), — ^the title of aunt accorded to her 
 not only by relatives, but by a large circle of loving and admiring friends, 
 — his sisters, Anna and Louisa, and his daughters, Eliza Channing and 
 Louisa. In 1843 his mother came to be near her son. 
 
 For thirty years he practiced his profession in this village, where he 
 was respected and beloved for those qualities of ability and character 
 which have belonged to his family in successive generations. His gentle 
 instincts were specially valued in his profession. He lived in the house 
 where Green Street curves towards High, on land terraced and planted 
 
550 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 with shrubs and evergreen trees. It was built by Asa Green and was sold 
 by Doctor Higginson in 1866 to Doctor O. R. Post. In 1867 he removed 
 to Brookline and died there March 9, 1872. Mrs. Higginson died May 
 14, 1877. 
 
 Doctor Stephen Tyng described Doctor Higginson's niother in the 
 bloom of young womanhood as "the most beautiful being his eyes ever 
 rested on." She had passed through vicissitudes of fortune and the loss 
 by death of husband and several children when she became known in 
 Brattleboro as Madame Higginson, but her simplicity, vivacity and refined 
 courtesy brought forth reverence and affection from everyone, however 
 distant in relationship. 
 
 A sister Paula soon joined this family galaxy — a remarkable woman 
 whose influence extended beyond her social circle wherever misfortune 
 and suffering called. 
 
 In a brief memoir of Madame Higginson by her daughter Louisa we 
 catch a glimpse of their first residence in Brattleboro "during the palmy 
 days before the beautiful old sycamores were cut down in its streets; 
 before the flaunting heels of fashion had profaned its wild woods and 
 turfy roadsides." Again, "there was much of primitive hospitality in the 
 place, and chance had collected there a more than usually large proportion 
 of agreeable and cultivated people." She "would rather be sick in Brat- 
 tleborough than well anywhere else." She lived in "a large, roomy, old- 
 fashioned house (near that of Doctor Higginson) on a height, an oak 
 grove in front, with a long, sloping, sunny garden behind, in a neglected 
 state, where there were a few stunted mulberry trees in alleys," and where 
 she planted choicest roses. Boscobel was her name for the place. 
 
 In 1845 her third son, Wentworth, the distinguished abolitionist, soldier 
 and author, brought his bride to "Boscobel. In 1854, owing to the expense 
 and care of the place, they moved to the small Elizabethan cottage on 
 Asylum Street,^ which some younger member of the family facetiously 
 dubbed "Boxobel." 
 
 And here when "a masterpiece of felicitous opportunity," as Wentworth 
 called the Civil War, presented itself in the autumn of 1863, he came to 
 be sure of the consent of his mother, without which any part he could 
 take in the war "would be impossible." In August, 1864, as Colonel 
 Wentworth, he returned on a furlough from illness, and eighteen months 
 later, when he resigned his commission. He was chiefly remembered here 
 by his contemporaries for his preeminent social gifts, which included 
 dancing. 
 
 Una Hawthorne, the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who inherited 
 ^ Now owned by John C. Howe. 
 
HIGGINSON COTTAGE ASYLUM STREET 
 
 MISS HOWLAND'S SCHOOL ASYLUM STREET 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
RESIDENCE OF 
 N. B WILLISTON 
 
 OAK STREET 
 
 RESIDENCE OF 
 EDWARD KIRKLAND 
 
 RESIDENCE OF 
 HENRT BURNHAM 
 
 «»■' 
 
 RESIDENCE OF RILEY BURDETT 
 
 COCKAYNE, BOSTON 
 
HIGGINSON FAMILY 551 
 
 some of the elements of her father's genius, wrote a very beautiful de- 
 scription of Brown's Woods during a visit to this house. 
 
 Eliza Channing Higginson, born June 24, 1834, came with the family 
 to this town when she was five years old. Removing to Brookline with her 
 parents in 1867, she -remained faithful to the thirty-three years of her life 
 spent in Brattleboro, returning every year, long after relatives and friends 
 of her generation had passed away, and when only the river and mountain 
 were left unchanged. She died January 15, 1911. 
 
 A guest at Linden Lodge with her cousin, "Miss Lizzie," as she was 
 known to the people here, was Blanche H. E. Channing, daughter of 
 Reverend William Henry Channing, pastor of the Unitarian Church in 
 Liverpool, England. He preached in the church here in August, 1880, and 
 later made political addresses urging the election of Garfield and Arthur 
 on broad international grounds. 
 
 Blanche Channing had the refinement of spirit we associate with the 
 Channing name; she was the author of several books for children, 
 which she illustrated with originality and taste. She died in August, 
 1904, and is buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery. Another daughter of 
 Doctor Channing, Fanny G., married Sir Edwin Arnold, and a son, Sir 
 Francis Channing,^ has been a member of Parliament since 1885. He 
 came to Brattleboro in October, 1904, to visit his sister's grave. 
 
 Louisa, daughter of Doctor Francis and Susan Channing Higginson, 
 married Francis Cabot of Boston. 
 
 Of their children : 
 
 Marion, born September 24, 1857; married February 15, 1886, Doctor 
 James Jackson Putnam of Boston, son of Charles and Elizabeth 
 Cabot (Jackson) Putnam, born October 3, 1846; died in November, 
 1918. Children : Charles Pickering, Elizabeth Cabot, James Jackson, 
 Marian Cabot, Louisa Higginson, Frances Cabot, born October 20, 
 1897; died December 11, 1913. 
 
 Francis Higginson, born in Boston, graduated from Harvard College. 
 He married April, 1893, Miss Maud Bonner of New York, and lives 
 in that city, with a summer home near Murray Bay, Canada. Chil- 
 dren: Francis Higginson, Junior, George Bonner, Quincy Sewall, 
 Maud. 
 
 Margaret C, married May 20, 1897, Joseph Lee of Boston, son of 
 Henry and Elizabeth P. Cabot Lee. 
 
 1 President of the British National Peace Conference, 1915. He has since (1914) 
 enjoyed the distinction of being the first American-born citizen to receive a patent 
 from an English King creating him a peer of the realm. 
 
553 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Louisa Higginson, married John Richardson of Boston. 
 
 Susan, married Arthur Lyman of Boston. 
 
 Frederick Pickering, graduated from Harvard College, 1890, and the 
 Law School; of firm of Hurlburt, Jones & Cabot; was assistant 
 United States attorney, 1896-1897; judge of the Boston Juvenile 
 Court. 
 
 Stephen. 
 
 Amy N., artist, of Boston.' 
 
 Miss Anna Higginson 
 A Tribute from Reverend Doctor George Leon Walker. 
 
 To the Editor of The Phoenix: 
 
 It cannot be without an emotion of sincere regret that, with the death 
 of Miss Anna Higginson, Brattleboro sees the disappearance of that 
 honored family name from the roll of her inhabitants. It is a name which 
 for nearly fifty years past has brought none but sweet and worthy asso- 
 ciations to the place. Some still live in your village to whom the memory 
 of the venerable Madame Higginson, Miss Anna's mother, is still fresh; 
 and to whom also the quaint, interesting figure and the benign, gracious 
 face of her sister, "Aunt Nancy Storrow," comes back with welcome dis- 
 tinctness. Many remember Doctor Higginson, so courteous in demeanor 
 and kindly in utterance that he was a beloved physician in a large share 
 of your households. 
 
 And for a like period of time who of all lovers of good things and of 
 good people has failed to think of "Miss Anna" whenever the best that 
 Brattleboro had to be thought of came up to mind ? It was one of the 
 very choicest privileges the town had to give to be admitted to the fellow- 
 ship of that pleasant home where she lived amid the association of books 
 and family treasures, and of friends of culture and refinement. A most 
 modest and retiring soul, but how potential an influence for all things 
 good and lovely 1 As kind-hearted a woman as one may ever hope to see, 
 but how her indignation flashed at every obtruded display of snobbishness 
 or wrong! 
 
 Hers was a home where the old-fashioned art and habit of rational 
 conversation preserved its traditions undecayed. One could be sure in 
 going there of an alert and responsive interest in every topic of literature 
 or of public, concern. No place for telltale gossip was that sunny sitting- 
 room in the cottage. Reticent about her own private affairs she had no 
 curiosity about the private affairs of others. That habit which is the 
 most considerable drawback oftentimes to the satisfaction of village life 
 when compared with life in larger communities — ^the habit of making 
 
MISS ANNA HIGGINSON 553 
 
 one's neighbor's doings the topic of extended and frequent discourse — 
 got no footing in that home. Other, wider and more important themes 
 crowded out any of that character. A high, pure and elevating influence 
 always dwelt in that home as its characteristic atmosphere. 
 
 There is no need to speak of the charities of the benevolent hand and 
 the kindly deeds for which Miss Higginson will be long remembered by 
 the poor and suffering. These were traits, indeed, of marked and beauti- 
 ful prominence. But these, thank God, are not uncommon among our 
 New England homes. Nor was the quiet and steadfast sincerity of her 
 religious life— unfaltering, unobtrusive, but too plain ever to be ques- 
 tioned — a feature to set her especially apart from many good women who 
 live among us and who die in the blessedness of a Christian hope. The 
 Master has many children, though called often by different names; and 
 the characteristic virtue of a really good soul can shine through any sur- 
 roundings, high or low. 
 
 But the thing— to my memory looking back over all the time the Hig- 
 ginsons have lived in Brattleboro — which made their presence there a 
 public good, and which especially in the case of our beloved "Miss Anna" 
 made her life a benefit and benediction to the community, was the power 
 of refined, cultivated intelligence and pure, elevated manners and senti- 
 ments. It has been worth to many young people more than the schools 
 they have attended or the books they have read to have known a woman 
 so high-hearted, noble and truly lady-like as our friend who has just left 
 you. 
 
 In that modest, secluded plot of ground on your beautiful Cemetery 
 Hill where Miss Anna used so faithfully to carry some floral tokens of 
 remembrance, and where she herself now rests, lie some of your village's 
 choicest treasures. Last, and of her kin perhaps best beloved as longest 
 known, she carries away from familiar sight the name of a family which 
 for almost half a century has been an honor and blessing to the community 
 where they lived, and among whom, dead, they are buried. 
 
 George Leon Walker. 
 
 Hartford, November 20, 1892. 
 
 Nathan Lawrence 
 
 Nathan Lawrence was born in 1789 in Marlboro, Massachusetts. He 
 married Cynthia, daughter of Thomas Baker, a farmer and cooper of 
 New Marlboro. He had a farm in Chester, Vermont, until his death in 
 1843. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence was born in 1789 in Old Marlboro, one of a family of 
 thirteen children, of whom she was the last survivor. When she was six 
 
554 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 years old her father moved to Nelson, New Hampshire, and here she 
 lived until 1808, when, at the age of nineteen, she married Nathan Law- 
 rence, and the young people took up their residence on the farm in Chester, 
 and lived there until after the death of her husband, when Mrs. Lawrence 
 removed to Brattleboro where her two sons, George and Charles G., were 
 living, five children in all having been born to her. Her life in Brattleboro 
 covered a period of nearly fifty years. 
 
 Stated in the usual way her life was a quiet and uneventful one, but 
 it was nevertheless one of ceaseless activity, full of human sympathy, of 
 devoted care of her children and their families, and of intense interest in 
 everything which concerned her friends, the community and her country. 
 Of short, compact stature, her physical preservation was remarkable, and 
 her mental faculties were perfectly preserved to the last. Some eight 
 years before her death the loss of her eyesight began, and for several years 
 she was entirely blind, but this infirmity did not chill her warm, energetic 
 nature or lessen her interest in the affairs of life. Receiving the devoted 
 care of her grandson, she also enjoyed the tender regard and unremitting 
 attention of many friends who found no greater pleasure than in frequent 
 visits to her, in listening to her cheery, intelligent conversation, and her 
 reminiscences of her early life. To all who knew her she was always 
 "Grandma" Lawrence, and in this expression the universal affection felt 
 for her was voiced. She was a lifelong member of the Congregational 
 Church, and with her this connection was no mere form. Her religion 
 was a thing of her life, and after her years of darkness and confinement 
 came on, one of her greatest pleasures was in the visits of her pastor and 
 the administration of the Lord's supper at stated intervals. Her children 
 and grandchildren were of the Unitarian faith, but in this fact she found 
 no reason for argument or reproof. With her the life was the test. 
 
 In politics she was a Republican of the Republic ; and not only this, she 
 was a stalwart of the stalwarts. To the last she had the daily papers read 
 to her, and it is a fact not without its amusing side that to the day of her 
 death she could see no good in the Democratic administration. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence's death occurred at the home of her grandson, H. R. 
 Lawrence, on South Main Street, Brattleboro, May 21, 1888, within a 
 year and a half of her centenary. 
 
 Children : 
 
 George C. Lawrence, born in Chester, Vermont, October 14, 1812. 
 In his boyhood he learned the printer's trade, at which he worked in 
 North Springfield, Vermont, and in Charlestown, New Hampshire. 
 About the year 1835 he came to Brattleboro and was employed as 
 clerk in the general merchandise store of John R. Blake & Company. 
 
LAWRENCE FAMILY 555 
 
 Afterwards he became a partner, and later he and his brother Charles 
 succeeded to the business, in the G. H. Salisbury Block, the style of 
 the firm being G. C. & C. G. Lawrence, continuing until 1850, when 
 he went out of trade. He was leader of the Unitarian Church choir 
 and actively interested in the affairs of that society as well as those of 
 the community in general. He married August 13, 1839, Frances E., 
 .daughter of Samuel Root, born December 17, 1817; died February 
 23, 1871. He died December 16, 1883. George C- Lawrence was a 
 man of an unusual degree of business sagacity. Children : 
 Elizabeth, born April 20, 1840; married September 18, 1872, John 
 Mclntyre, born April 20, 1846; died in Chicago May 23, 1874. 
 She died in Chicago December 14, 1873. A son, Lawrence, born 
 November 15, 1873. 
 Richard, born July 23, 1843. He was a member of the Sixteenth 
 Regiment Vermont Volunteers, nine months' men, and was mus- 
 tered out of service after the battle of Gettysburg. He went to 
 Chicago, was employed in a railroad office in that city, but soon 
 enlisted again. He was ordered to Georgia, where he contracted 
 malarial and brain fever. The last years of his life he was a con- 
 firmed invalid. He died February 5, 1878, aged thirty- four. 
 Harry R., born August 27, 1853, was clerk in the Vermont National 
 Bank from the age of fourteen to twenty-two, followed by a part- 
 nership of four years with I. K. Allen in the lumber business, when 
 he engaged in the Brattleboro tool and sewing machine industries. 
 With William H. Minor, Charles Barrett and Edward G. Frost 
 he bought out the Newman & Tyler shop in 1888. This company 
 continued until 1893. He has devoted later years to the develop- 
 ment of the Morgan breed of Vermont horses. 'Mr. Lawrence has 
 been an active agent and promoter of several enterprises of impor- 
 tance to the town. To him is due the credit of securing plans and 
 ripening public sentiment for changing the old town hall into the 
 commodious and attractive auditorium, superintending every 
 minute detail of the work. 
 Charles G., born July 16, 1816 ; married July 1, 1843, Betsey, daughter 
 of Lemuel G. Bemis (a son was William Bemis, the expressman), 
 born February 10, 1819; died January 25, 1879; she was born in 
 Dummerston but her whole life was spent in Brattleboro, where she 
 and her hu.sband were connected, as managers, with the Phoenix 
 House, the old Brattleborough House, the American House and the 
 Brooks House. Sons : Albert, Frank. 
 
 Charles G. Lawrence was identified with the successful manage- 
 ment of Brattleboro hotels for forty years. 
 
556 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO . 
 
 James Fisk 
 
 James Fisk, son of Samuel, was born in Smithfield, Rhode Island, in 
 1812. At three he removed with his parents to Adams, Massachusetts, 
 and was subsequently in manufacturing there until 1837, when he moved 
 to Pownal and to Bennington, where he engaged in the manufacture of 
 woolen goods. 
 
 About 1843 he came to Brattleboro and resided there until his death, 
 June 14, 1883, at the age of seventy-one. For twenty-four years he sold 
 goods on the road with his son James. A notice of his annual spring 
 exhibit was given in a Phoenix of 1857 as follows : 
 
 1857 JAMES FISK 
 
 Annual Spring Exhibit of Fisks peddlers. 
 
 Friday afternoon, escorted by Brattleborough Cornet Band. 
 
 9 wagons "handsome & convenient" (freight 
 
 wholly of dry goods valued at from 
 
 $25,000 to $30,000) drawn by 
 
 6 white horses, ribands in hands of 
 
 Tom Miner (the stage driver) followed by 
 
 2 coaches filled with solid business men; 
 
 then team with Fisk himself drawn by 
 
 4 bays — followed by 
 
 9 wagons of goods. 
 
 He also had at one time six or eight two-horse teams on the road — ^his 
 trade extending over southern Vermont and New Hampshire, eastern 
 New York and western Massachusetts and Connecticut. Silk dress goods 
 were a leading article in this trade, and it was said to have been no unusual 
 thing for Mr. Fisk to sell from his own cart $200 to $300 worth of these 
 fabrics to the farmers' wives and daughters in a single day. 
 
 The Vergennes Citizen, July 11, 1857, had the following notice: 
 
 Messrs. Fisk of Brattleborough, with their caravan of fine horses and 
 gorgeously decorated wagons, have been stopping fot a few days at 
 Stevens ; their business, which today enables them to exhibit such a mag- 
 nificent display of wealth, dates its success back to the early life of the 
 proprietor, whose perseverance has built it up from a single package of 
 silk goods retailed by him from house to house. They are probably at the 
 head of the silk trade in Vermont. 
 
 He built the Revere House in 1849. In 1850, when under his manage- 
 ment, it was opened as a temperance house and a great celebration was 
 
JAMES FISK 557 
 
 made for the occasion, participated in by pastors of churches and influen- 
 tial citizens. 
 
 Soon after the opening of the war, when his son became a member of 
 Jordan, Marsh & Company, Mr. Fisk went South and for three or four 
 years was engaged in buying cotton for that firm. His responsibiHties 
 were very great and his faculties were weakened by the strain so that 
 from this time to his death, he had times of invalidism. However, he was 
 able to travel for three years through the West in the interests of the 
 Putnam Manufacturing Company, and the Double-pointed Tack Com- 
 pany. 
 
 He made several inventions, one a contrivance for releasing runaway 
 horses from a carriage so as to safeguard the driver or occupant. In 
 1880 he put up a mammoth tent on a Western Avenue lot and had there 
 a magnificent chariot with carvings for the purpose of exhibiting his in- 
 vention. The chariot was prepared at A. J. Miller's shop and the carvings 
 were the work of Charles Henkel. The patent harness was a single har- 
 ness for the summer traveling exhibit made by Heustis & Burnap with 
 solid gold mountings — all the parts and ornaments being of gold fourteen 
 and sixteen carats fine and made by leading New York jewelers. On 
 Sunday afternoons he used the tent for religious services, which he con- 
 ducted for audiences of from three hundred to five hundred. Copper 
 lightning rods were another of his inventions. In connection with his 
 lectures on temperance he sold Bibles. 
 
 He married Miss Love Crowl Ryan, who was born in Putney, May 15, 
 1809. Her father died when she was very young, and her mother married 
 Major Stephen Greenleaf. She married, first, in 1833, a Mr. Ball who 
 lived in Grafton, Massachusetts ; in 1836 she married, second, James Fisk, 
 then of Bennington. James Fisk, Junior, a child by a first marriage was 
 then two or three years of age. To the stepson Mrs. Fisk gave a mother's 
 unstinted love and devotion, and in his mature years he repaid it with a 
 devotion as strong, having known no mother's care but hers. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Fisk lived in West Brattleboro on Greenleaf Street, after- 
 wards the Frost homestead. After two or three years they removed to 
 this village, where nearly the whole of their later life was spent. They 
 owned and lived in different houses here, until Mr. Fisk built the Revere 
 House, in which they lived for many years. 
 
 A daughter was born of the second marriage, Mary, who married 
 Colonel George W. Hooker, and to them was born a son, James Fisk 
 Hooker. For a few years, about the time of the death of Colonel James 
 Fisk, Junior, Mr. and Mrs. Fisk lived in New York with Colonel and Mrs. 
 Hooker, but they always turned to Brattleboro as their home. 
 
558 ANNALS OF BRATTLEBORO 
 
 Mrs. Fisk was a woman of gentleness and genuine kindness of heart, 
 with an innate dignity which grew in her later years into a rarely charm- 
 ing and benignant presence. She had a fondness for young people, and 
 a lively interest in what concerned those around her, which kept her own 
 heart young and made her always a dehghtful companion, especially to 
 the friends of her early life. After the death of her husband Mrs. Fisk's 
 home was with her daughter, Mrs. G. W. Hooker. She died July 2, 1893, 
 aged eighty-four. 
 
 James Fisk, Junior, was born in Pownal, Vermont, April 1, 1831 ; he 
 married November 30, 1854, Miss Lucy D. Moore of Springfield, Massa- 
 chusetts ; he died January 7, 1872, from the effects of a shot fired by Ed- 
 ward S. Stokes of New York, jealousy of a woman said to have been the 
 cause of the altercation. Mrs. Fisk died February 18,1912, aged seventy-six. 
 
 Fisk began his individual career with Van Ambergh's circus, after- 
 wards being in partnership with his father, and still later on a small 
 salary with Jordan, Marsh & Company. But he soon appeared in New 
 York in combination with Jay Gould (and Daniel Drew), where they 
 became directors of the Erie Railroad and swayed the stockholders and 
 the one thousand Erie employees to fulfill their ends of financial suc- 
 cess. Fisk was also a power in the Narragansett Steamship Company. 
 He was colonel of the Ninth New York Regiment. He became greatly 
 interested in theatrical affairs, owned Pike's Opera House, was a large 
 owner of the Fifth Avenue Theater from 1868, and at one time had opera 
 bouffe presented there before Mr. Daly took the management, and had the 
 exclusive control of the musical services, at $10,000 a year, of Levi, the 
 concert player. His interest in the Grand Opera House was valued at 
 $750,000. 
 
 Fisk's appearance was very striking, and in his box at the opera or 
 driving four-in-hand in the Park or on Fifth Avenue he was for many a 
 year a conspicuous figure in New York City. 
 
 He had a great deal of native wit and kindliness. His showy tastes 
 were not appreciated by his Brattleboro contemporaries in his earliest 
 days among them, and he was made to feel their disapproval. He may 
 have resented their attitude as, when asked to subscribe to a fence to go 
 around the cemetery (where he now lies) he declined with the remark 
 that he saw "no reason for having a fence, because those who were inside 
 couldn't get out and those who were outside did not want to go in." 
 
 An incident of the great Chicago Fire and James Fisk, Junior, is worthy 
 of record. He ordered the loading of a big train with provisions and 
 clothing while the city was burning, and when it was ready he commanded 
 
JAMES FISK, JUNIOR 559 
 
 that the tracks be cleared. He sent for the best engineer on the Erie, and 
 said : "Jim, what is the best time to Buffalo ?" 
 
 "Seventeen hours," replied Jim. 
 
 "Make it in fourteen," said Fisk. 
 
 The relief train, covered with bunting, was welcomed by 50,000 people 
 with shouts that rent the welkin.