copyright 1992, Woodchuck Press, all rights reserved
Two years before, in 1777, the New State radicals had
thumbed their noses at the old colonies of New York
and New Hampshire by writing up a bold new Declaration
of Independence and revolutionary constitution. Now,
it was starting to look like a new state was not such
a good idea after all.
As Colonel Ethan Allen, recently sprung from a British
jail, surveyed the little republic in the early part
of 1779, he knew Vermont's control didn't extend much
north of Rutland or east of the Green Mountain ridge.
Really, only Bennington County was secure and a lot
of the newcomers in Bennington didn't especially like
the rabble rousing, boasting and sharp business dealings
of Ethan and his brother Ira.
British warships still controlled Lake Champlain long
after the Continental victory at Saratoga. Most of
the scattered settlers in the Champlain Valley had
fled south in 1776 when Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne's
red-coated army swept through. It still wasn't safe
to return. A new invasion from out of Canada could
come at any moment. The British continued to lead raiding
parties of Indians along the lake shore and up Otter
Creek looting and burning whatever they could find.
Somehow, the Allens and their Onion River Land Company
partners had to figure out a way to get back those
thousands of acres of rich Champlain lakeshore they
claimed.
Perhaps it had been a mistake, Ethan might have thought,
to engineer the return of the Connecticut alley towns
to New Hampshire. The so-called "Eastern Union"
had been popular among the Connecticut River people.
Sixteen towns on the New Hampshire bank of Connecticut
River had voted in early '78 to join the new state
of Vermont. Influential land baron Jacob Bayley and
Eleazar Wheelock, founder of Dartmouth College, had
urged the the towns to vote for a separate "Valley
State" with Hanover as its capital. Wheelock and
Bayley's disappointment over the vote, however, did
not match New Hampshire's anger. Half of the state
had been ripped off by this illegitimate new sovereignty.
In Bennington, the political faction known by its enemies
as the "Allen Junto" was worried. They controlled
the newly organized General Assembly, but New Hampshire
would certainly strike back. The addition of the New
Hampshire towns to the Vermont legislature would tip
the balance of political control to the Connecticut
alley. Governor Thomas Chittenden and his council quickly
dispatched Ethan Allen to Philadelphia to gauge the
reaction of the Continental Congress and argue the
new state's case.
Upon his return, Ethan reported that Congress was resolute:
Vermont would have no chance for admission into the
new union of states if it tried to keep the New Hampshire
towns; indeed, Ethan said, Vermont was risking invasion
by Continental troops. He was bluffing, almost lying.
Congress had made no such threat but an impressionable
General Assembly session, minus most of the Connecticut
alley representatives, met in Bennington and hastily
voted out the New Hampshire towns.
Connecticut Valley people cried betrayal. The Bennington
boys would control the Vermont government while the
alley community would remain fragmented. Thus began
a political schism that would divide Vermont into factions
east and west of the Green Mountain ridge for the next
150 years.
The heavily populated southeastern towns of Guilford,
Brattleboro, Halifax and Marlboro declared a renewed
loyalty to New York. The upper Connecticut Valley refused
to send representatives to the Vermont legislature,
perhaps urged by Bayley and Wheelock to reconsider
a separate alley State. Massachusetts renewed old claims
to southern Vermont. New York and New Hampshire started
negotiations to divide Vermont between themselves along
the Green Mountain ridge. In 1779, Vermont seemed to
be dissolving.
Vermont barely existed in 1779. A delicate political
coalition had collapsed. Across Green Mountain territory,
Vermont New Staters, New Yorkers, New Hampshiremen,
Massachusettsmen, Valley Staters, British Loyalists,
Continental Patriots, East-ot-the-Mountains Unioners
all struggled for dominance or independence.
But all this was political froth, the details bubbling
beyond the vision of ordinary people. Everyday reality
was complex enough. Building new farms and villages,
cutting tall trees and digging in unplowed earth commanded
a pioneer's full attention. Most information went around
by word of mouth or letter when one had time to talk
or write. Still, important news could travel fast and
some of the hard political realities penetrated into
even the deepest wilderness isolationism.
The overpowering physical reality of virgin Vermont
was land, vast, beautiful, nearly empty land. This
was no longer hostile, forbidding territory riddled
with French and Indian terrorists. To the crowded,
landless poor of lower New England and Europe this
land could become a rich new home. A hundred acres
of Vermont hillside or river bottom represented freedom
and potential wealth. Families were streaming north
in the 1770s to own a piece of almost free land. Unfortunately,
politics and greed created some nasty complications.
The land had been given by the King of England to the
royal governors of New Hampshire and New York. But
just who had jurisdiction over what in the mainly unexplored
new territory was vague and constantly under dispute.
The friends and associates of New Hampshire governor
Benning Wentworth paid pennies per acre to acquire
patent rights to huge tracts arbitrarily carved into
unsurveyed blocks usually six by six miles square.
These first proprietors named the new towns, promoted
and sometimes surveyed them, then sold land at retail
to pioneer settlers. Often the land went to real estate
speculators, such as the Allen brothers. Typically,
parcels, sometimes whole towns, passed from speculator
to speculator sight unseen before the first settlers
moved in.
Prices went up, of course with each resale. Because
hard cash was difficult to obtain from real estate
entrepreneurs or young pioneers, speculators extended
a lot of credit, expecting that the debts could be
easily paid off with a few years of profitable agricultural
endeavor. If things went well, the speculator got rich
and the pioneer built a prosperous new farm. But a
speculator could just as easily go bankrupt, and pioneers
could fail and be forced off their land.
Political complications added to the difficulties in
Vermont. The lands granted by New Hampshire's Royal
Governor in the 1750s and 60s were also claimed by
New York colony. The Crown eventually ruled in favor
of New York's jurisdiction. Land titles of settlers
and speculators from New England were suddenly declared
invalid. New York sent its own settlers and tax collectors.
Eviction notices and financial ruin faced New Englanders
who had bought their land in good faith. Conflict was
inevitable. The Yankees of the New Hampshire Grants,
led by the intimidating Ethan Allen, land speculator
extraordinaire, formed the Green Mountain Boys and
went to war with the encroaching "Yorkers."
The issue was still in doubt when the first shots of
the American Revolution were fired at Lexington in
the spring of 1775. Vermont's "Westminster Massacre"
preceded Lexington by about a month but didn't involve
British soldiers. A Yorker sheriffs pose shot up a
mob of farmers who were trying to stop the New York
court in Westminster from doing business. Charles Miner
Thompson in Independent Vermont says, "The revolt
was mainly one of poor debtors who believed that the
courts were mainly agents of the local rich men and
speculators in divesting them of their property."
Even though, as Thompson goes on, "There is little
to show that the generality of the people cared much
what happened outside their own communities,"
the pioneer farmers of the "Grants" now were
caught up in the explosion of long restrained social,
economic, and political energy called the American
Revolution. The excitement, tension and fear would
build for two years along the northern frontier, until
the Saratoga victory. Ordinary people would be forced
to fight for their land and take seriously the making
of something called a "state."
Revolutionary passion crackled throughout the New England
colonies. Instant armies formed. British troops were
punished at Bunker Hill and bottled up in Boston. The
thunder of the cannon could actually be heard far up
the Connecticut River in the New Hampshire Grants.
The stories followed quickly, igniting in the backcountry
the will to resist. Many people identified the Boston
battle with their ongoing fight with Yorkers, Royal
magistrates and rich land owners. The King's troops
were still far away but plenty of people were ready
to fight.
Those who had been stirring up the hostilities, such
as Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold, and the Green Mountain
Boys, launched a plan to capture the Lake Champlain
forts, Ticonderoga and Crown Point, then invade Canada.
The backwoods suddenly became the main theater of a
major war.
The Revolution pushed the problems of personal debt
into the background for a while. All at once great
new questions and choices confronted people of all
social categories. Life or death choices must be made.
Where is loyalty owed, to King or native country? What
does "country" mean? What are these new things
called "states?" Should a person fight or
stay deep in the woods? Who is a patriot and to what?
The invasion of Quebec rushed forward in the fall of
1775, an ill-prepared, undermanned, and disorganized.
Feverish ambition, naked greed, and negligible British
garrisons fueled hopes for an easy conquest of important
new lands. Strategically, the Canadian adventure was
a good idea, but it was doomed from the start. Ethan
Allen foolishly tried to capture the city of Montreal
almost single handedly. He failed and spent the next
two years in British prisons.
The remarkable little invasion was beaten back in 1776.
Thousands of British reinforcements had arrived. They
launched their own invasion up the Champlain Valley
toward New England and New York. Fear spread like plague,
but a spirit of defiant independence spread with it.
People fled at the edges of the invasion, especially
in the thinly settled Champlain Valley, but rebellion,
the will to fight, grew even stronger.
Even though hostile foreign troops stalked their doorstep,
the people of the "Grants" had urgent political
issues to settle. Vermonters recognized the need to
cooperate with their old New York enemies against the
British but they were not about to accept New York
rule. Ethan Allen spoke for many when he wrote to the
President of the Continental Congress, "I am as
determined to preserve the independence of Vermont
as Congress is that of the Union; and rather than fail
I will retire with my hardy Green Mountain Boys into
the caverns of the mountains and make war on all mankind."
Following the Continental Declaration of Independence
and congressional agreement to Articles of Confederation
each of the 13 old Crown Colonies wrote their own revolutionary
constitutions. Radical Vermonters found the New York
constitution reactionary and repressive. Their New
Hampshire land titles would remain invalid. Voting
rights would stay limited to large property owners.
People feared that the New York manorial system of
great estates worked by virtual serfs would be applied
to Vermont. But retreat into the "caverns of the
mountains" wouldn't retrieve those thousands of
acres of Onion River land for Allen, Chittenden, and
company. Political action was required.
For some, the changes were quick. The Green Mountain
Boys were transformed immediately from outlaw bullies
to respectable Continental Militia.
West-of-the-Mountains town representatives convened
at Dorset in 1776 to talk about the meaning of independence.
They decided that the "Grants" ought to be
an independent district. The radical leadership of
these unofficial meetings included the Ira Allen and
future Governor Thomas Chittenden. They convinced many
of the Connecticut Valley towns east of the mountains
to send representatives to "state-wide" discussions
on the future of the territory. The Westminster Conventions
of 1777 declared the independence of a "state,"
drew up a constitution, and called the entity "New
Connecticut alias Vermont."
Now this all buzzed by the population pretty quickly
in the middle of the biggest war anybody had ever seen.
These meetings could hardly be considered very broad
exercises in democracy. Information about the proceedings
was vague. Town representation was spotty. Citizen
participation in town meetings varied greatly. There
was no general referendum on any question, indeed,
none would have been possible.
The opening sentence of the Vermont Declaration seems
confused, almost contradictory about the idea of nationhood.
It boldly states: "We will at all times hereafter,
consider ourselves as a free and independent state,
capable of regulating our internal police in all and
every respect whatsoever, and that the people on said
Grants have the sole and exclusive and inherent right
of ruling and governing themselves..." but then
qualifies this absolute sovereignty by finishing the
sentence, "...in such manner and form as in their
own wisdom they shall think proper not inconsistent
or repugnant to any resolve of the Honorable Continental
Congress."
What was a nation? What was a state?
The questions were being asked all over America.
The Vermont constitution of 1777 was modeled after Pennsylvania's,
the most radical of the 13 constitutions. Full citizenship
was guaranteed to all adult males without regard to
property ownership. Vermont went one step further by
outlawing slavery, the first state to do so. The document
seems like a blueprint for a new nation, but it also
clearly included the expectation of statehood within
the union of old colonies.
The Continental Congress, however, was not about to
throw out the claims of some of its members to seat
a new one, nor did it have the power to decide conflicting
territorial claims or enforce the decisions. Petitioners
came to Philadelphia achieving no definitive action
from Congress which had enough on its hands trying
to keep an army in the field.
Meanwhile, the battlefield moved closer. It would be
the most exciting and insecure time of most peoples'
lives. General Burgoyne's ten thousand man army smashed
the thin Continental defenses at Ticonderoga and chased
the Americans south. The Westminster Convention adjourned
in a hurry after passing the new Vermont constitution
on July 2, 1777. It was time for every farmer-politician
to become farmer-soldier.
The militia turned out. Colonel Seth Warner, one of
the original Green Mountain Boys and perhaps Vermont's
most competent military leader, led a spirited rear
guard action at Hubbardton, the only Revolutionary
battle actually fought on Vermont soil. The Americans
were overpowered, and nothing, it seemed, stood in
the way of the British from wiping out Vermont before
it had even begun.
But things started to get tough for Burgoyne. His supply
lines got longer and thinner. The farther south he
drove, the stiffer the resistance he encountered. He
saw a chance to obtain food and horses in Vermont so
sent the ill fated German, Colonel Friedrich Baume,
toward Bennington with orders to seize supplies allegedly
stockpiled there, then move on to Rutland, cross the
Green Mountain ridge and raid the Connecticut Valley.
It was a bold but stupid plan, without the resources
or manpower to back it up.
Burgoyne had good reason to fear, as he wrote in a dispatch
to England, that Vermont "now abounds in the most
active and rebellious race on the continent, and hangs
like a gathering storm on my left." Militia from
Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont gathered at
Bennington under New Hampshire General John Stark.
Baume's detachment was surrounded and shattered before
they had even crossed the Vermont border. The grand
scheme to split the northern colonies was now doomed.
The British army bogged down, cut off from supplies,
near Saratoga. Burgoyne surrendered. The British army
would never seriously threaten lower New England again.
The Vermont farmers went home to patch the roof and
thresh out the last of the grain before winter. It
was time to cut trees and reflect with some satisfaction
on a new nation successfully defended. The year 1778
would bring the first meeting of the new Vermont General
Assembly, trying to bring regular government out of
revolutionary uproar.
The new Vermont constitution granted each organized
town at least one representative in the General Assembly.
Towns with a population of over 80 voters were allowed
to send two members. A governor and executive council
ran the government when the legislature was not in
session, which was most of the time. It was never clear
in advance who would show up for General Assembly meetings.
Towns would fail to send representatives because they
were antagonistic or just didn't care. Sometimes bad
weather made the long trips impossible for some. The
political climate could fluctuate overnight.
Revolutionary era Vermonters were still all newcomers,
flatlanders. In 1771 the population of the "Grants"
was less than 7,000. By the end of the American Revolution
the number of Vermonters had more than quadrupled to
nearly 30,000, even though the chartering of new towns
effectively stopped for the duration of the war.
British loyalists were exiled to Canada and their lands
confiscated. When the British invaded the Champlain
Valley, homesteads were abandoned and settlers forced
south into overcrowded Rutland and Bennington, creating
something of a refugee problem. Congress's Continental
Army tended to desert about as fast as it could be
recruited. Thousands of men took the military bonuses,
then would disappear into the woods. Many were reported
drifting into Vermont, a place on the edge, with few
rules and no extradition.
The infant General Assembly started making rules. In
March of 1778 legislative elections were held and ten
days later the first Vermont government opened for
business in Windsor, an east-of-the-mountains town.
The seat of government was to remain in annual relocation
back and forth across the mountains to satisfy regional
interests until a compromise capital was chosen many
years later.
Most of the early legislators were not lawyers or bankers
or professional politicians but radical soldier-farmers.
The west of the mountains Bennington faction held the
most seats in the first General Assembly but the Governor
and Council were a careful east-west balance.
The new legislature authorized the seizure of "Tory"
property and its sale to support the expenses of the
state. This allowed the redistribution of many thousands
of acres of wilderness confiscated from rich absentee
landlords who could be proved to favor the King. Much
of this land was auctioned off to a new set of speculators
who were betting on the eventual defeat of the British.
It was an effective funding measure for the Vermont
government.
Ethan Allen returned from captivity in May, 1778. He
was pleased, no doubt, to find the new state operating
but worried whether the fragile little republic could
survive. Newly elected Governor Thomas Chittenden appointed
Allen commander of the Vermont Militia, although his
military record was unimpressive if not disastrous.
He jumped into the political action enthusiastically
but he would never serve in the General Assembly and
never hold any other high state office. Rather, he
wrote pamphlets, rabble roused, intimidated the New
State's enemies and often represented Vermont in unofficial
negotiations with various foreign governments including
New York, New Hampshire, the United States and the
British Empire.
In October the General Assembly met again. This time
the Connecticut Valley dominated: 35 East of the Mountains
towns plus 11 from New Hampshire were able to outvote
the Bennington faction's 26. The Allen junto did not
like the new odds.
When Ethan came back from Congress in the winter of
1779 with his exaggerated story of Congressional threats
the Bennington faction was ready to listen. Independently,
he had made a deal with New Hampshire to send the eastern
riverbank towns back in exchange for New Hampshire's
support of Vermont's admission to the American Union.
Of course, Congress was in no position to enforce its
threat and New Hampshire's support would not prove
effective in getting Vermont admitted.
Executive Counselor, Jacob Bayley, and many representatives
of the Valley towns walked out. In February of 1779
the General Assembly counted 29 west-of-the-mountains
towns and only 21 from the Valley. The Bennington Boys
had won for the moment. But it would be a hollow victory
unless some kind of unity could be restored.
The radical constitution's appeal to ordinary farmers,
control of the militia and the loud bluffing of Ethan
Allen allowed Vermont to survive such a shift in political
circumstances. The infant republic, a roiling assemblage
of raw new communities, was threatened with extinction
on all sides, but it would prevail and grow.
The New State leadership decided to get tough. They
had to prove they were the legitimate government. They
passed a militia draft or levy which filled the ranks
and could provide at least a rudimentary military-police
force on short notice. Better off men to substitute
money for militia service. Vermont officials now had
a practical tool to selectively squeeze the political
opposition.
Michael A Bellesiles, in a 1986 PhD dissertation titled
Life, Liberty and Land, writes, "Ethan Allen was
seeking some definitive action. So, 'to establish Government
in the minds of the people, and to consolidate all
parties,' Allen prevailed upon the legislature to pass
a law empowering the Superior Court to inflict corporal
punishment on any who opposed the laws of Vermont.
It was a vague, and therefore useful law."
There were many New Staters in the northern Connecticut
Valley but the Yorker faction in the southeast defied
Vermont's "pretended" authority. It does
not appear that the Yorker majorities in these "rebellious"
towns of Brattleboro, Guilford, Halifax, Marlboro and
Putney choose New York citizenship because they were
rich landlords with insecure land titles. It seems,
rather, to have been as much a clash of style or personality
as anything -the Bennington Boys against the Brattleboro
Boys.
The Yorkers in southeastern Vermont were used to running
their own towns and they controlled their own New York
authorized militia. New York was far away, however,
and could offer only token practical support. In these
long-settled towns people spoke "seditiously"
of Vermont and refused to pay the militia levies. Newly
promoted Brigadier General Ethan Allen led a hundred
man Bennington militia army over the mountains to make
them pay. Men who refused were thrown in jail and fined.
The Connecticut Valley towns were impressed but not
subdued.
Congress ordered Vermont to stop its repressions and
wait for a Congressional decision on land grants and
territorial boundaries. The Vermont government would
be extinguished while Congress carved up the territory
when it got around to it. After all the petitioning
and arguing it looked like the other states would refuse
to recognize Vermont at all. Western and eastern New
Staters reacted alike: They damned this new Congress
and begin to think of themselves as Vermonters first
and Americans second. Previously, the American identity
had come first, coupled with the assumption that Congress
would do the right thing and recognize the separate
identity of Vermont as part of the American Union.
Now, the Vermont Republic would handle its own business.
The Continental Congress was itself in shaky condition.
The American Revolution hit a psychological low point
in 1780. The shooting war was far in the south, but
hostilities had dragged on for five long years. The
British may have finally realized they could not physically
conquer the huge territory of rebellious colonies,
but Washington's rag-tag army seemed incapable of decisive
victory. The British securely held New York City and
were able to punish the Americans whenever and wherever
they choose.
Regular commerce was in chaos. Continental currency
had become a paper blizzard, fueling an inflationary
firestorm. This monetary instability caused an ever
worsening shortage of essential goods.
The Articles of Confederation were proving to be clumsy
tools for operating a unified government. These ideas
of "states" and "nations" were
still very unclear. When Congress thought about Vermont
it was mainly to worry about the British poised in
Montreal and Ticonderoga making ready for another thrust
up Lake Champlain into New York.
The Allen brothers and the government of Vermont did
their best to fuel anxiety in Philadelphia by opening
direct negotiations with British Governor-General Haldimand
in Canada. For the record, Vermont was negotiating
a prisoner of war exchange, but the real issue was
Vermont's reconciliation with the mother country. Regaining
the Onion River land was also, no doubt, a prime motive
for Ethan and Ira.
These talks have been called treasonous to the American
cause, not very different from Benedict Arnold's plot
to sell out West Point. Haldimand offered Vermont full
provincial status as a part of Canada plus honors and
cash for the Allens and their friends. Ethan and Ira
gave the proposals serious thought and kept the negotiations
going for months, supposedly in absolute secrecy. Few
reliable documents survive. More generous historians
give the Allens credit for a skillful diplomatic shuffle
to keep the British at bay in Canada and fortifying
Vermont's independence from her encroaching neighbor
states.
It would only be treason, the Allens reasoned, if Vermont
was one of the United States. Since the Congress continued
to reject Vermont then Vermont certainly had a right
to make a separate peace with the British. Although
suspicion and gossip leaked out around the edges of
this activity the Allen junto was never quite caught
red handed compromising Vermont's sovereignty. If the
full extent of these covert negotiations had been known
the Allens might well have been hanged for treason
by angry American patriots
By this time, separation from the British Empire had
become an established reality in most people's minds.
All the contentious Vermont factions fought England
even while they fought with each other. In any case,
Congress grew more respectful of the New State while
New York and old New England were powerless to interfere.
The prickly Vermont militia were able to hold their
mountains against all comers.
British officers led an Indian raid on the town of Royalton
in the fall of 1780. Four civilians were killed and
many taken captive. Vermonters soured on any idea of
reunification with Britain. read: The Dark Year
The Vermont government did manage to arrange a de-facto
truce with the British, guaranteeing no new invasions.
The talks with Haldimand continued but nothing would
come of them. The Allens and the Onion River Land Company
continued to look with hope to the north. The British
occupation ought quickly to turn into the Canadian
trade opportunity. The rich fields and tall pines of
the Champlain Valley had a natural market at Montreal.
Champlain Valley refugees wanted to return to their
homesteads, while prospective new settlers needed open
communications and free trade with Canada.
The Connecticut Valley towns didn't want to accept the
river as a dividing line. They were part of the same
community. Business passed freely across the river.
Friends and family lived on both sides. New Hampshire
and New York were mountain ranges away.
In January of 1781 representatives of 43 towns from
both sides of the river met in Charlestown, N.H. to
discuss the Valley's political future. Once again,
they voted to join the Vermont Republic as their best
chance to keep the Valley integrated and independent.
This "Union" was even more popular than the
previous attempt two years earlier. The Brattleboro-area
Yorkers liked the idea because the new towns would
dilute the power of Bennington and the Allens. The
Bennington Boys and Vermont's undercover royalists
liked it because it strengthened their influence with
both Congress and the British in Canada.
Vermont voted to accept the Valley towns and the "Greater
Vermont" General Assembly met in April. To balance
the Valley towns the Allen Junto encouraged a number
of towns between Bennington and the Hudson River to
free themselves from New York and join Greater Vermont.
These towns got together and voted to join in May and
were accepted into Vermont in June.
According to Hiland Hall's History of Vermont, "By
that bold and decisive policy Vermont had augmented
her resources, compelled the respect of her enemies,
gained the confidence of friends, and at the same time
had quieted in a great degree the most serious disaffection
at home."
New York and New Hampshire sputtered and fumed. Rather
than splitting Vermont between them, their own states
were now being dismembered by the Green Mountain outlaws.
Clearly a weak-kneed, preoccupied Congress wasn't going
to do anything. They would have to take action on their
own.
New York mobilized a few hundred militia and marched
them toward their rebellious towns. Ethan Allen led
about five hundred Vermont militia to greet them. Threats
and harsh words passed between the lines but fortunately
no shots were fired. The New York troops retreated
to Albany and dispersed, not willing to fight the backwoods
wildmen.
New Hampshire made threats to send an armed force into
the Connecticut Valley. Vermont returned the threats.
New Hampshire decided a fight with the wildmen would
cost more than it was worth. Some other tactic must
serve to get back at least the New Hampshire side of
the Connecticut Valley.
The largest Vermont General Assembly yet met in October
of 1781. The 137 representatives included most of the
new towns and was almost equally divided between east
and west-of-the mountains men. They voted resoundingly
to keep the New York and New Hampshire towns. All of
a sudden Vermont was bigger and more powerful than
it had ever been before or ever would be again. It
wouldn't last long. A Map of Greater Vermont (85k jpg)
About this time, British General Cornwallis surrendered
his surrounded army to George Washington at Yorktown,
Virginia. The end of the long war was in sight. Vermont's
questionable negotiations with Haldimand could no longer
be used as a tool to pressure Congress. However, the
reality of the State of Vermont had finally begun to
solidify. Even New York seemed prepared to compromise
a little. Vermont got word Congress would consider
admitting the New State, but the wandering towns would
have to be returned to their home states.
Vermonters were not impressed or trusting. They had
heard this story before. The new towns controlled enough
votes to retain "Greater Vermont." Thinking
their new country secure, the citizen legislature adjourned
and went home for the winter.
A manipulative new element in Vermont politics now began
to emerge and started to maneuver the situation. Typical
of the new group was a recent immigrant to Bennington
named Isaac Tichenor, sometimes called Jersey Slick.
He argued the Continental cause and warned of the dire
consequences if Vermont didn't go along with the Congressional
offer. The Allens were off tramping the Champlain Valley
wilderness, planning their commercial push into the
rich land along the Winooski River. A new faction was
forming, opposed to the Allens and other radicals.
They were established order conservatives, later called
"Federalists".
George Washington was much respected and admired among
Vermonters as he was throughout America. He wrote a
letter to the Vermont government in early 1782 which
was widely circulated around the state. Washington
guaranteed respect for Vermont's status as a free and
independent state equal to the original thirteen. This
seemed like a real breakthrough. Washington wouldn't
lie. But Vermont must give up the New York and New
Hampshire towns.
In February, 1782, a somewhat furtive General Assembly
met in Bennington. Jersey Slick Tichner controlled
the proceedings. A quorum was barely present in the
dead of winter. Ethan and Ira Allen were away. The
Connecticut Valley towns were almost unrepresented.
On the basis of Washington's assurances the Tichner
faction engineered the shrinkage of Greater Vermont
back to the borders recognized today. They expected
instant admission to the Union but it was not to be.
Vermont got nothing for its concession except the permanent
distrust of the abandoned towns.
More was at stake for Congress than the Vermont problem.
Critical issues of sovereignty and procedure needed
solving for all the states. Overlapping territorial
claims and rebellious pioneers troubled the frontiers
of many of the old colonies. Charles Miner Thompson
writes in Independent Vermont, "Of those (frontier)
lands, Virginia was the largest claimant, for it regarded
as its own not only the whole of the present state
of Kentucky, but all the land lying north of the Ohio
River and east of the Mississippi. But North Carolina,
South Carolina, Georgia, Connecticut and New York also
professed to own large tracts. Some of these claims
conflicted... Now, Vermont, if made a state, was expected
to strengthen the part that had no wild land to exploit..."
Nine states were needed to approve a new state's admission.
Vermont could gather only four or five.
One last major civil convulsion spasmed in southeastern
Vermont before the end of the Revolution. The old Yorker
elements again rebelled over the rejection of "Greater
Vermont."
The "Guilford War" erupted over the confiscation
of a cow in that town by an overbearing Vermont deputy
sheriff. The Vermont government used the incident to
demonstrate, once again, its authority and legitimacy
by force. Brigadier General Ethan Allen headed a 200
man Bennington militia contingent over the Green Mountain
ridge to put the Guilford rebels in their place. Ethan's
troops smashed up houses, burned barns, and confiscated
crops throughout the rejectionist towns of Guilford,
Brattleboro, Halifax and Marlboro. The Yorker leadership
was imprisoned or driven out but the population would
not give in to Vermont rule for more than a year. The
outcome was never seriously in doubt. Guilford served
as a example to others that Vermont was capable of
controlling internal dissent. read: The Guilford Rebellion
The final settlement with Great Britain came in 1783.
Vermont territory was recognized by the peace treaty
as part of the United States, but in reality neither
Congress nor any other state exercised authority in
Green Mountain country. In his History of Eastern Vermont,
Benjamin H. Hall wrote, "The peace of 1783 had
found Vermont in a condition of actual independence,
organized under a regular form of government, and with
a population rated at one-half of that of New York."
No doubt it was a generous estimate of population,
but Vermont did begin the peace with many advantages
won by its independent status.
The little republic had never accumulated the massive
war debts of the other states. So far, Tory land confiscations
had served to fully finance the government. Immigration
began to avalanche. New towns were rapidly organizing.
Settlers were returning to the Champlain Valley in
droves. The commercial doors to Montreal and the St.
Lawrence began to swing open. Opportunity beckoned
as giant trees were felled and rich soil planted with
corn and wheat. Rivers and streams were dammed and
the waters turned hundreds of new wheels, sawing lumber,
grinding grain. New frame houses began replacing rough
log lean-tos in the settled towns.
As the Republic of Vermont aged the opinion of Congress
seemed less important. The state was managing quite
well on its own. There seemed to be little advantage
in joining the United States. In 1784, Vermont established
its own postal system, issuing stamps and setting up
postal routes and post offices. In 1785, the state
authorized the minting of coins in the name of the
Republic of Vermont.
According to Michael Bellesiles, "Vermont was changing
fast. In the decade after Yorktown, the population
more than tripled, most of the increase coming from
migration. It was a sign of the success of Vermont
that so many were confident enough to move there in
the mid and late 1780s. . . . The number of new arrivals
overwhelmed the founders and transformed social arrangements."
Many of the new people were a very different from the
revolutionary pioneers of a few years earlier who would
damn King and Church as well as Continental Congress.
Many were lawyers, merchants, printers and real estate
dealers. Age-old antagonisms between well born wealth
and penniless individualism continued to flare now
and then throughout the years remaining to the Republic,
but the upper classes gradually were able to take control.
Bellesiles tells us, "The New England settlers
of the Grants sought and attained an informal and flexible
legal structure. Lawyers, every one of whom had been
a supporter of New York, were perceived in the popular
imagination as a form of vulture, a creeping parasite
creating litigation where none had previously existed,
and agents of oppression. Several times in the 1780s
the General Assembly considered placing a limit on
the number of attorneys and their fees. And in one
memorable proclamation in 1786 Governor Chittenden
rejected the suggestion that lawyers and deputy sheriffs
be put to death, offering as an alternative that lawsuits
be taxed. Given that judges were elected in Vermont
it is not too surprising that only one lawyer was elected
to that office in Vermont's first fifteen years."
Despite popular antagonism, lawyers and their well healed
clients came to dominate the General Assembly and town
governments. It was a logical process. When an educated
young lawyer moved into a town he was immediately in
great demand among a contentious and uneducated population.
It often seemed as if everyone wanted to sue everyone
else, usually over land. Titles changed hands rapidly.
Hasty, incompetent surveying created conflict while
development moved at a breakneck pace. The young lawyer
was the natural choice to send off to General Assembly
as most people went about the task of exploiting the
new country's wealth.
Ethan Allen was getting old, pushing fifty in the 1780s.
The Guilford Rebellion had been his last big show.
He had made money and gained fame. It was time to settle
down and build a farm of his own on some of those fertile
Onion River acres which had been so hard to win. His
influence waned in Vermont politics. Ira Allen, never
widely trusted, got in trouble over the conduct and
finances of the various government positions he held.
He too lost influence with a new crowd of upper-crust
legislators.
The Allens, from their new homes in the Champlain alley,
worked hard to cement the commercial ties with Canada.
They distrusted the powerful new United States constitution
but rejected the old idea of reunion with the British
Empire. Chilton Williamson in Vermont in Quandary:
1763-1825, says, "By 1788, or thereabouts, the Allens would be
satisfied with nothing less than a Vermont-British
alliance and reciprocal trade treaty. Such an alliance
and treaty assumed that the relationship would be that
between sovereign and equal states."
The land was rich and giving. Cold winters made for
good sliding and easy river crossings. The process
of cutting virgin forest, building houses, barns and
fences, then planting the cleared fields yielded useful
and marketable products at every step. The pioneers'
slash-and-burn methods would rapidly drain the thin
fertility of Vermont soils. But for now, prosperity
seemed only a few good harvests away.
Hard money was scarce in post-revolutionary America.
The Continental currency had collapsed in wild inflationary
frenzy. States were thrown back on their own fiscal
resources. Available gold and silver coins were not
adequate to support the burgeoning economic expansion.
A frontier settler needed money to buy his land and
pay local taxes. He needed tools, seed and livestock
to get the farm going. He needed cash to pay his lawyer
and support the church. For many, heavy debt was inevitable
and difficult to pay off. Wealth became ever more concentrated
despite the objections of the aging revolutionaries
who had been fighting Yorkers and sheriffs for nearly
twenty years.
Debt foreclosure became a profitable racket. Williamson
reports on a petition of Rutland citizens: "To
increase legal costs, the lawyers thereupon placed
these writs in the hands of Deputy Sheriffs by which
means legal expenses would exceed the debts. Lastly,
the estates of the debtors would be put up for auction
and bid off to attorneys, sheriffs, or their creditors
for very small sums. Everyone, charged the petitioners,
wanted to be a Deputy Sheriff because the position
was so remunerative. The petitioners accused Deputy
Sheriffs of loitering near Sheriffs offices, filling
their pockets with writs and collecting four pence
per mile for serving them. '...and the more writs they
have the Better thus they live upon the Spoils of their
fellow Subjects...'"
Small rebellions broke out in 1786 in Rutland and Windsor.
Debtors tried to stop the county court sessions with
sit-in tactics. The militia was called out and the
"rioting" put down with little difficulty.
The conservatives could see the underclass was starting
to get out of hand again but most people retained hopes
they could clear their debts and become prosperous.
Daniel Shays Rebellion in the Berkshires of Massachusetts
broke out in the same year. Shays' poor debtor farmers
were brutally repressed by Massachusetts militia and
many escaped north into Vermont. Many Vermonters were
sympathetic to the refugees. Governor Chittenden, under
pressure from conservatives and the Massachusetts government,
felt obliged to issue a proclamation warning Vermonters
not to give aid or shelter to these outlaws.
Radical proposals to alleviate debt and redistribute
wealth were beaten back. A referendum defeated a plan
to issue paper money and create a state bank, no doubt
a reaction to the recent experience with worthless
Continental currency. One relief measure did pass.
Payment-in-kind for public and private debts was made
legal. Farmers could now pay their taxes and other
debts with wheat or lumber or whiskey.
Now, a counter-revolution loomed. In 1787, the General
Assembly passed a law, which, as Bellesiles writes,
"allowed the imprisonment of debtors. It was the
first step in what was to be a dark chapter in Vermont
history. In the three years of 1827 to 1829, 4,901
people were imprisoned for debt, and less than half
of them were released during that time. In the 1780s,
such actions would have led to a revolution."
The old days of the revolution were fast fading. The
Green Mountain Boys were rapidly becoming an insignificant
minority. Jersey Slick Tichenor and Nathaniel Chipman
were the most effective of the new federalist-conservative
leadership. Chipman had immigrated to Tinmouth in 1779.
According to Bellesiles, "Chipman especially represented
everything Ethan Allen resented and had tried to keep
out of Vermont. He came from a prosperous family in
Salisbury Connecticut. He was a Yale graduate, a lawyer.
Chipman was a snob, a traditionalist, an elitist and
an orthodox Calvinist."
Chipman led the fight to bring Vermont into the United
States. The Federalists succeeded even though, as Williamson
writes, "This new federal government met with
little if any favor in Vermont. The appeal to a sense
of nationality had no effect on the Allens because
the old central government and the State of New York
had been their inveterate enemies and because the other
American States had seemingly been indifferent to their
plight." As state after state debated and approved
the new federal constitution, most Vermonters paid
little attention.
Ethan Allen died in 1789 while sliding a load of hay
across the ice of Lake Champlain. He didn't live quite
long enough to see the death of his beloved little
republic. Brother Ira and Governor Chittenden were
disgraced and out of office due to shoddy financial
dealings. Federalist-conservative Moses Robinson was
governor. Tichenor and Chipman controlled the General
Assembly.
The strong new central government of the United States
was settling territorial conflicts. Kentucky was clamoring
for statehood. New York and New England realized Kentucky
would tilt the Congress to the south and a new northern
state was necessary to keep the balance. The deadly
north-south competition among the states was beginning
and would continue through the Civil War and beyond.
The Federalists in Vermont found it easy in this new
political climate to settle the dispute with New York.
Vermont agreed to pay $30,000 to extinguish all remaining
land claims. New York would now support statehood for
Vermont.
By 1790 the population of Vermont was pushing 100,000,
an enormous increase in a few short years. The new
people brought new money, resources and skills. The
cash crunch eased and the prosperity's promise could
begin to come true. Life stabilized and people paid
less attention to great public issues.
The General Assembly voted to call a convention of elected
delegates to consider the question of statehood. In
January of 1791, 109 representatives met in Bennington.
Ira Allen and Thomas Chittenden were the only old revolutionary
members.
Williamson reports, "The delegates were primarily
the more substantial citizenry of Vermont: lawyers,
land owners, merchants, office holders, ex-army officers
and even two opportunistic (British) loyalists... The
absence from the Convention of radicals, including
Reuben Jones and Leonard Spaulding, indicates its conservative
character. Their absence was undoubtedly due to the
indifference displayed by the rank and file of Vermonters
to the election of delegates. The return of relatively
prosperous times was the major cause for this indifference.
So long as times had been hard, the populace was a
force to be reckoned with in Vermont politics. Prosperity
had the effect of lulling humble Vermonters into political
apathy."
As a measure of this apathy, the Vermont Journal of
Windsor reported on March 22,1791, that "at the
late election of delegates to Constitutional Convention,'
in a town of 300 voters, only 19 attended and formed
a quorum and chose their delegate." Although most
Vermonters were probably not wildly enthusiastic about
joining the federal union it is fair to say that few
were adamantly opposed.
The Convention voted overwhelmingly to accept the offer
of statehood but not without a great deal of debate.
Commercial interests were weighed carefully. In Williams,
History of Vermont, we read, "The members were
not all agreed on the expediency of being connected
with the 13 states, and it was doubted, whether a majority
of the people were for the measure. Several of the
members of the convention wished to defer the consideration
of the question to a more distant period. It was urged,
on the other hand, that the safety, the interest, and
the honor of Vermont, would be essentially promoted
by joining the union of the other states, and that
this was the precise time, when it might be done without
difficulty or opposition."
Nathaniel Chipman made the most telling arguments in
"a notable address". He harped on the economic
and military weakness of an independent Vermont. He
claimed the United States was Vermont's only practical
hope. If Vermont persisted with independence he concluded,
"we must ever remain little, and I might say,
contemptible; but united, we become great, from the
reflected greatness of the empire with which we unite."
The transition from independent nation to subordinate
state of the American Empire went off with barely a
ripple. After all, Vermonters had never stopped being
Americans, and the change in political status was not
really a change in circumstance. These were still what
Lewis Stillwell, in Migration from Vermont, called
"The Good Years." The earliest settlers had
by now built substantial communities. All the Green
Mountain towns had been chartered and surveyed in basically
today's arrangement. Many thousands of new people still
poured into the state every year. The virgin timber
was falling fast and the rich woodland soil could still
yield bumper crops.
But the blush was already off the virgin, and the flood
tide was beginning to ebb. Vermont was, in reality,
a rough little patch of frontier, with thin soils and
difficult terrain. The real action was in the west
and Vermont's first generation pioneers were quick
to realize this. Soon, Vermont's biggest export would
be people moving out.
The egalitarian revolutionaries of the Vermont Republic
had been pushed aside and their ideas systematically
ignored in the rush to exploit the land. In their revolutionary
zeal they neglected to augment their own personal fortunes.
Many died in poverty and debt while their federalist
neighbors built fine brick houses and hired servants.
Many left for new frontiers in the west.
The rush to get out of Vermont began before the rush
to get in had reached its peak. Statehood foreshadowed
the end of Vermont's rank springtime growth. The new
century would mark American industrialization and expansion.
Vermont would become an American backwater populated
by stiff-necked conservatives, a place better to be
from than in.
The United States grew bigger and bigger while Vermont
seemed to shrink, becoming relatively smaller and smaller.
In the early years of statehood Vermont boasted a powerhouse
six member Congressional delegation. Today, in a much
larger Congress the state's population doesn't even
merit its single constitutionally mandated House seat.
The people who stayed in the Green Mountains have often
been considered quirky and contrary by the rest of
America, quintessential Yankee individualists. Vermonters
continue to take pride in the idea of fundamental respect
for a person's right, or responsibility even, to be
different, to be independent. This is the ghost of
the Vermont Republic.
Academic opinion differs over the very existence of
an independent Republic of Vermont. One school maintains
that the expectation of statehood was a constant feature
of Vermont government for the entire period, 1777 to
1791. The opposite view points out that Vermont independently
exercised all the conventional aspects of national
sovereignty during that time, from coining money to
conducting foreign policy and controlling its own military
forces. Both sides of this argument are valid. Analysts
often fail to recognize that modern nationalism was
itself in a formative period. The American Revolution
overturned the old colonial system and its attitudes
toward nationhood and patriotism. Something entirely
new was being invented.
Whatever the technicalities, the Independent Republic
lives in the hearts of most Vermonters. The mythology
and pride in that brief 14-year period when Vermont
stood on its own against the world have steadily grown
for two centuries. Vermonters, immigrants and natives
alike, continue to think of themselves as special,
a people apart from the American mainstream.
contact:
Michael J. Badamo
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