To trace the rise and progress of communities; to follow the fortunes and elucidate the character of those who have laid the foundations of commonwealths; to preserve from decay the memory of the men who have transferred from one generation to another the arts of peace, the blessings of liberty and the consolations of religion   these belong to the province of history. "It is not the least debt," says Sir Walter Raleigh, "we owe unto history, that it has made us acquainted with our dead ancestors and delivered us their memory and fame. Besides, we gather out of it a policy no less wise than eternal, by the comparison and application of other men's fore-passed mercies with our own like errors and ill-deservings."

      The history of our ancestors is indeed of inestimable value to their descendants, though by it our "ill-deservings" may perhaps stand out in more prominent relief against their fore-passed mercies. But their example remains for all time to come. -- Simple, unpretending, high-minded and pure of purpose,the early men of New England had great objects in view.

      The story of our origin, as the people of New England, is not obscure. It is not traced back to the dim uncertainty of tradition and fable. The foundations of society and the origin of institutions, both civil and religious, may be correctly ascertained. The first settlements of New England and Vermont came into being, as communities, with all the attributes of organized society and all the restraints of good government and subordination. If any feeling of which vanity forms a prominent part ever attains the dignity of a virtue, it is that which is felt in an honorable history. It is a prescriptive right to recite deeds and heroic acts of our ancestors. It is a high pleasure and a grateful duty. Whatever is noble, whatever is heroic, is only so by comparison, for the very terms themselves signify something above, beyond, higher than the ordinary measures of human thoughts and action. In love of country, in determined opposition to tyranny and oppression, in daring adventures, in fortitude under sufferings and steadiness of purpose, the early settlers of Rutland county will not suffer in comparison with any pioneers of New England. Since the peculiar circumstances in which they were placed no longer exist to call into exercise like virtues in their descendants, nothing else will so effectually stay the possibility of degeneracy in the latter as the remembrance and contemplation of the fathers' elevated patriotism and devotion to the, service of the State.

      The discovery of Lake Champlain by Samuel CHAMPLAIN on the 4th of July, 1609, was without question the discovery of the territory now comprised in Rutland county. The county has been subject to the nominal jurisdiction of five different powers. The Indians; the French, by right of discovery in 1609; the English, by right of conquest and colonization; Vermont, as an independent republic, from her declaration of independence January 15, 1777, to her admission into the Union, March 4, 1791; and the United States for the last ninety-four years. Rutland county has been a portion, also, of five different counties. In 1683 Albany county was first founded, its southern boundary Sawyer's Creek, west of the Hudson, and Roeloffe Jansen's Creek on the east. These creeks are in about the same latitude as the northern line of the State of Connecticut, and Albany county included all Massachusetts west of the Connecticut River and the whole of Vermont. In 1772 Albany county was divided into three counties, one of which, Charlotte, extended over the territory of which this work treats. The early settlers, in their deeds, described themselves as being of the county of Albany, or Charlotte, according to dates. In March, 1778, at the first organization of the State government of Vermont, the State was divided into two counties, Unity on the east side, and Bennington on the west side of the Green Mountains. In 1780 the name of Washington was given to the territory north of the present Bennington county and west of the mountains; but this act of the General Assembly is reported to have been written only on a slip of paper and never recorded.

      On the 13th of February, 1781, Rutland county was incorporated, embracing the same territory as Washington county, its first officers to be elected March 4, 1781. During the year 1781 Rutland county extended not only from Bennington county to Canada, but also from the Green Mountains to the Hudson River, including Lakes George and Champlain. The year of the organization of the county, the commencement, was darkest in her history. She was threatened with a sad fate by the neighboring commonwealths, with the invasion of a well-armed British army, more in numbers than her manhood population. Every continental soldier had been withdrawn; New York had withdrawn her last garrison. She had been solicited by British officers with bribes to return to her allegiance to the crown. A letter by Lord Germain had been published proclaiming that fact. Vermont at that period adopted A policy of her own, which made futile the action of the British army and protected her territory. Then it was she twofolded her territory, annexing thirty-five towns from New Hampshire. Her Legislature met in that State. She annexed all of New York farther north than Massachusetts, and east of the Hudson River and east of a line due north from the source of the Hudson River to Canada. Several towns in New York and New Hampshire were taxed in Vermont and were represented in her Legislature. At that time the towns of Brandon, West Haven, Middletown, Mount Tabor, Mount Holly, Mendon, Sherburne had not an organization under their present titles. Mount Tabor was "Harwich;" Mendon was "Medway;" Sherburne was "Killington," Chittenden was "Philadelphia." Several of the towns were not inhabited. The population of the county was a little over four thousand, and the appraisal of property for taxation was considerably less than one hundred thousand dollars. There were several military forts scattered about the county, with a few hundred troops. Tinmouth was selected as the county seat and remained so until 1784, when the seat was removed to Rutland; the courts where held in the bar-room of a log hotel. In the formation of Addison county in 1785, Rutland county was brought to its present limits, with the exception of the town of Orwell, which was annexed to Addison county November 13, 1847.

      The county lies between 43° 18' and 40° 54' north latitude, and between 3° 41' and 4° 18' longitude, east from Washington. Following are the present boundaries of the county: north by Addison county; east by Windsor; south by Bennington, and west by Washington county, N. Y., and Lake Champlain. It is forty miles long and thirty wide. The area is nine hundred square miles. It has twenty-five towns, one more than any other county in the State. The towns are Benson, Brandon, Castleton, Chittenden, Clarendon, Danby, Fair Haven, Hubbardton, Ira, Mendon, Middletown, Mount Holly, Mount Tabor, Pawlet, Pittsfield, Pittsford, Poultney, Rutland, Sherburne, Shrewsbury, Sudbury, Tinmouth, Wallingford, Wells and West Haven. Thirteen towns in the county have an aggregate of less than twelve hundred inhabitants. Rutland has over fifteen thousand inhabitants. The population of the county falls little short of forty-five thousand, more than seven thousand greater than that of any other county in the State. The latest fixed valuation was over twelve million dollars, nearly two millions larger than any other county in Vermont.

      The territory of Rutland was, beyond question, subject to the nominal jurisdiction of the Indians, by priority right of discovery. At the time when the French and English began to effect lodgments in Canada and the northern part of the present United States, they found the country in possession of two distinct and wide-spread native peoples, speaking two different languages, which were heard in the different dialects of the tribal divisions. These two peoples, or nations, were the Abenakis, a name signifying "the people of the east," or, "those first seeing the light of the rising sun," and the great western confederacy of the Five Nations (later the Six Nations), to whom the French gave the general name of the Iroquois. The Abenakis, under their various tribal names and organizations, were found in possession and undoubted ownership of the present New England States bordering on the Atlantic. It is not the purpose to give a connected history of this occupation, further than this general conclusion deduced from an investigation it is beyond dispute at this period, that the Iroquois came into possession of the territory of which we are writing some short time previous to 1540, and held it and lived on it until the settlement of the State by our ancestors between 1740 and 1760.

      During the colonial and Indian wars, the territory of Rutland county was a thoroughfare through which most of the hostile expeditions proceeded. The situation was such that it was exposed to the depredations of both English and French and was at times the lurking place of their Indian allies. From this cause settlements were regarded dangerous and impracticable, and it was not until after the complete conquest of Canada by the English in 1760 that any considerable settlements were made. Several points had however been previously occupied as military posts. Previous to that time the whole territory comprising the present county was substantially an uncultivated wilderness.

      The men of New England who had participated largely in the wars had frequently passed over it in their expeditions against the French and Indians, and becoming well acquainted with its soil and general aspects, had imbibed a strong desire to settle upon it; and no sooner was the territory opened for safe occupation, by the favorable results of war, than the tide of emigration set strongly toward it from the New England provinces. The settlement of towns in a wilderness region like that within the then limits of Rutland county is influenced in some measure by laws similar to those which govern the spread of epidemics. The proximity of neighbors and distance to other settlements are weighty considerations with him who seeks a home where "the war whoop of the savage might wake the sleep of the cradle," and where great care and vigilance would be necessary to guard his little flock from destruction by the wild beasts of the forest. Hence, the settlements on the west side of the Green Mountains, which began at the southern extremity of the State, progressed northward from town to town with considerable regularity, in the order of time. A similar order of time is noticeable in the issuing of patents, with the exception of the town of Bennington, which was chartered in 1749, when there occurred an interval of twelve years before any town north of it received a patent.

      It was during this interval that the French war broke out (1755), which extended in its operations from Canada to the adjoining colonies of New England, New York and Pennsylvania and which finally terminated by the bloody battle on the Plains of Abraham, near Quebec, September 13, 1760, in which the British arms were victorious. The French, disheartened by their losses, were thrown into great confusion, and on the 13th of September the remainder of the troops and the city of Quebec were surrendered into the hands of the English. General Amherst, who had previously taken Ticonderoga and Crown Point, arrived before Montreal September 8, 1760, which place, with the whole province of Canada, was surrendered to the British.

      The event at once attracted attention to the territory of Vermont, the adjoining province, which had been transformed from a hostile to a friendly neighbor. Applications for charters of towns were now made in rapid succession to Benning WENTWORTH, the colonial governor of New Hampshire, who was disposed to grant them on the most liberal terms; so that the principal towns in Rutland county were chartered in 1761. In most of these towns there was an interval, however, of several years between the time when the patents were granted and the commencement of settlements. By the terms of the charters an ear of Indian corn was required to be paid annually by the trustees of each town until December, 1772; after which, one shilling proclamation money was to be paid annually for each hundred acres.

      In ten towns of Rutland county, whose charters were granted between the 26th of August and the 20th of October, 1761, settlements were made at the following periods; Pawlet, 1761; Clarendon and Rutland, 1768; Castleton and Pittsford, 1769; Poultney and Wells, 1771, and Brandon in 1772. In similar progression of settlement, the settlements north of this county, with very few exceptions, were commenced at a later period. But the settlers who came before the Revolutionary War all left immediately after its commencement, and did not return until it was over. While women and children, however, were thus compelled to abandon their new homes, and return for a season to whence they came, the men generally joined the army, substituting for a time the weapons of war for the implements of husbandry.

  "Pitching" before purchasing was the common practice of the settlers for several years. Indeed, the purchase money, or consideration, was at that early day of such small amount as to deter no one from a settlement who had made up his mind to seek a home in the wilderness. Beside, the purchase of a proprietor's right, or any number of acres on such a right, gave to the purchaser no advantage over any one else who had not purchased of selecting any particular lot until surveys were authorized to be made. It will be observed from this statement of the customs obtaining in the early settlements of this part of Vermont that it was the policy of the proprietors to encourage settlements by the most liberal means. The general rule observed in all the towns was "that such man shall hold his lot by 'pitching' until he can have opportunity to survey it." Although many "pitches" were made before title could be obtained to any particular tract, or lot, the settlers had no fears of being ousted or disturbed in their possessions, as the whole country was open to newcomers, with the exception of a few spots here and there, which were indicated by the smoke issuing from log houses or the burning of a fallow. But few, if any, of the original proprietors made settlements.

      Such, then, was the mode in which the pioneer settlers and those who came at a later period selected their homesteads, and this was the condition of affairs at the time of the first actual settlement of the territory covered by Rutland county. A hundred and twenty-five years had elapsed since the Puritan first placed his foot on Plymouth Rock, and the English colonies had extended along the Atlantic from Maine to Georgia. More than a century had passed since the English had settled at Springfield on the Connecticut, the French at Montreal, the Dutch at Albany, and up to this time no white man had made his cabin in this local solitude. This was rather the hunting-ground of the fierce Pequods of the South, the warlike Iroquois of the West, and the blood-thirsty Algonquins and Coosucks of the Northwest. The bloody battles that may have been fought upon this soil between these warlike and hostile tribes can never be known, as no pen has ever described them. The thunder of the cannon from Forts William Henry, Crown Point and Ticonderoga announced that armies had met in deadly hostility in the solitude of the wilderness. The hunter-soldier, with his knapsack on his shoulder, had passed through the valleys and over the hills on the old Crown Point road to the fields of conquest, looking, upon the fertile lands that bordered the Otter Creek; yet no settlement was made, for it remained disputed and dangerous ground until WOLFE scaled the rock at Quebec.

      The early settlers brought their families and effects with them, mainly in midwinter, upon sleds drawn by their horses and oxen. They did not settle in neighborhoods, but frequently miles intervened between their cabins. The pioneers were energetic men, equal to the task before them; of athletic frames and rugged constitutions, they faced the dangers and hardships of a settlement in the wilderness and gained for themselves a home.

      Soon after the War of the Revolution had ended, and the settlers had returned to their homes, flattering themselves that they might enjoy in peace and safety their possessions, at least what was left to them, and which they had secured only through the severest struggles and hardships, they were annoyed by a party of land claimants, who were nearly as destructive of the peace and happiness of the settlers as were the Indians and Tories in the time of war. Ejectments were served upon the settlers without discrimination; for years they were kept in an unsettled, agitated state, in embarrassment and suspense, spending their time and money examining titles, gathering evidence, employing attorneys, attending upon the courts, with the consequent costs, surrounding their claims with boundaries, and even often purchasing new titles to land which they had supposed their own; while all their earnings were demanded in making improvements and the support of their families. The embarrassments, losses and distresses of the first settlers and the confusion and contest of claims resulted in many selling out and abandoning their landed possessions and removing to other sections, mainly to the northward and to the more quiet possessions along the shores of Lake Champlain. The troubles in New York were another source of hindrance to settlements. As there were double claimants to the title to the soil in many towns, buyers hesitated to invest, and the progress of settlement was consequently slow, until Burgoyne was defeated at Saratoga, and what was left of the British forces were driven south of the Hudson. This, together with the resolute stand taken by Ethan ALLEN in withstanding the claims of New York, encouraged settlements, and the towns rapidly filled up. Many Revolutionary soldiers who, in the course of their service, had visited this section of country, were pleased with it, and on their release from the army became permanent settlers.

      The settlers generally on the New Hampshire Grants sympathized with each other in the controversy with New York. They banded together, constituted committees of safety and prepared to resist with force the execution of New York writs of ejectment. When New York officials crossed the border to execute legal processes they were seized, and those who would not respect the great seal of New Hampshire were stamped with beech seal, impressed from the twigs of the woods, on their naked backs. Some of the landowners were arrested and sent to the jail at Albany.

      These preliminary observations from the general history of the early settlement of Rutland county indicate that the period of settlement was one in which the elements were surcharged with contention. It was just preceding the War of the Revolution. The liberties of the State and nation were at stake. The territory was claimed by two rival States, New York and New Hampshire, with neither of which were the people willing to unite. The settlers were, however, equal to the situation. The spirit they exhibited in a threefold contest is the spirit which the people have continued to manifest; it is the spirit which now burns in the bosoms of their descendants.

      People of this generation cannot have a very adequate idea of the situation of the country when Rutland county was organized. There was no means of travel but to walk or ride on horseback. There were a few sleighs and sleds, which served them well in winter, but there was not a wheel carriage in the limits of the county except ox carts or rough lumber wagons, and the condition of the roads was such that they could not be driven faster than a man could walk. Most of the way the trees were cut down and moved out of the path, leaving all the roots, stones and knots to be run over. It was a greater task to move a family hither from Connecticut or Rhode Island than it is now to move one to the Pacific coast.

      A Puritan element settled Rutland county. From Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island they came here to seek their fortunes. Their virtues, their hardihood and their enterprise is to be recorded, as well as the growth and extent of these infant communities. The Christian home now stands where the wild beasts laid down a century and a quarter ago. Property is power and property is the daughter of industry. The people own the land in fee simple and till it with free labor. The county is made up of a cordon of similar towns. Each town is a little republic by itself, and the most perfect republic in the world. Public sentiment settles everything, and these sister towns act and react upon each other "as diamonds are polished by diamonds."

      The purpose of this work is to seek out buried facts illustrating olden times; call up some forgotten life that is worthy of remembrance; identify places associated with important and stirring events; tell the story of some venerable house that has sheltered many generations and been the witness of a hundred years of human happiness and human sorrows; gather up the traditions which the old people still hold in memory, but which will soon be swept into oblivion unless caught from their trembling lips and put into permanent records, and to thus make a history worthy of a county that has done so much for the progress and glory of the commonwealth.

"History of Rutland County Vermont with Illustrations & 
Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men & Pioneers"
Edited by H. Y. Smith & W. S. Rann, Syracuse, N. Y.
D. Mason & Co., Publishers  1886
History of Rutland County
Chapter I.
(pages  17-24)

Transcribed by Karima, 2002