Читать книгу Ethan Allen, the Robin Hood of Vermont - Hall Henry Foljambe - Страница 6

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REMOVAL TO VERMONT.—THE NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS.

Allen came to Vermont, probably, in 1769, a year memorable for the founding of Dartmouth College and for the birth of four of earth's renowned men: two soldiers, Wellington and Napoleon; two scholars, Cuvier and Humboldt.

In the early history of Vermont, one of its prominent judges speculated extensively in Green Mountain wild lands. The aggregate result of these speculations was disastrous. Attending a session of the legislature, the judge was called upon by a committee for his advice in reference to suitable penalties for some crime. He replied, advising for the first offence a fine; for the second, imprisonment; and if the criminal should prove such a hardened offender, such a veteran in vice as to be guilty the third time, he recommended that the scoundrel should be compelled to receive a deed of a mile square of wild Vermont lands. Speculation in wild lands is a feature of pioneer society. Vermont was once the agricultural Eldorado of New England. Emigration first rolled northward. Since that time a certain star, erroneously supposed to belong to Bishop Berkeley, has been travelling westward.

In 1749 Benning Wentworth, Governor of New Hampshire, issued a patent of a township, six miles square, near the northwest angle of Massachusetts and corresponding with its line northward, and in this township of Bennington the Allens bought lands and made their home. This grant caused a remonstrance from the governor and council of New York. Similar remonstrances had been made in the cases of Connecticut and Massachusetts, each of whom claimed that their territory extended to the Connecticut River. But that question had been settled in the former cases between New York and New England by agreeing upon a line from the southwest corner of Connecticut northerly to Lake Champlain as the boundary between the provinces. Wentworth urged in justification of his course that the boundary line was well known, and that New Hampshire had the same right as the other colonies of New England, and he persevered in his own course. In 1754 fourteen new townships had been granted, when the French war broke out and the settlers were deterred from occupying their lands by the incursions of the French and Indians on the frontier and the uncertainty of the termination of the contest; but when Canada was reduced by the English and peace concluded, there was a new rush for the possession of the fertile lands by the hardy and adventurous sons of the old New England colonies. In four years Governor Wentworth granted one hundred and thirty-eight townships, and the territory included was called the New Hampshire Grants. Then began in bitter earnest the long controversy between New York and New Hampshire for the ownership of all the territory now known as Vermont.

In order to make clear the circumstances of the time when Ethan Allen came to the front, it is necessary to explain something of the origin of the strife. The New York claim was founded on a charter given by Charles II. to his brother, the Duke of York, in 1664, for the country lying between the Connecticut and Delaware rivers. But that charter had long been considered as practically a nullity, for when the Duke of York succeeded to the throne of England, it all became public property subject to the king's divisions; and there are strong reasons for believing that the mention of the Connecticut was merely a formality, not intended as a definite boundary, and that the design was to take in the whole of the New Netherlands. The geography of the country was little known, and the wording of the charter was ambiguous and vague. Allen at once espoused the cause of the settlers. But for him the State of Vermont would probably have never existed. But for Allen, Albany, not Montpelier, might have been the capital of Vermont. Allen's most illustrious achievement for the benefit of the nation was the capture of Ticonderoga. His great work for Vermont was successful resistance to the Yorkers.

Before entering upon this period of litigation, one of the stories of Allen, illustrating his honesty, may fitly find a place. Having given a note which he was unable to pay when it became due, he was sued. Allen employed a lawyer to attend to his case and postpone payment. But the lawyer could not prevent the rendering a judgment against Allen at the first term of court, unless he filed a plea alleging some real or fictitious ground of defence. Accordingly, quite innocently he put in the usual plea denying that Allen signed the note. The effect of this was to continue the case to the next term of court, exactly what Allen wanted; but Allen was present and was indignant that he should be made to appear to sanction a falsehood. He rose in court and vehemently denounced his lawyer, telling him that he did not employ him to tell a lie; he did sign that note; he wanted to pay it; he only wanted time!

It was in June, 1770, that Allen first became prominent in Vermont public affairs. Then it was that the lawsuits brought by Yorkers for Vermont lands were tried before the Supreme Court at Albany. Robert R. Livingston was the presiding judge; Kempe and Duane, attorneys for plaintiffs; Silvester, of Albany, and Jared Ingersoll, of New Haven, attorneys for defendants. Ethan Allen was active in preparing the defence. But of what avail was defence when the court was virtually an adverse party to the suit? Not only did Duane claim 50,000 acres of Vermont lands, but, to the disgrace of English jurisprudence, Livingston, the presiding judge, was interested directly or indirectly in 30,000 acres. The farce was soon played out; the court refused to hear the New Hampshire charter read; one trial was sufficient; the plaintiffs won all the cases. Duane and others called on Allen and reminded him that "might makes right," advising him to go home and counsel compromise. Allen observed: "The gods of the valleys are not the gods of the hills!" Duane asked for an explanation, and Allen replied: "If you will come to Bennington the meaning shall be made clear to you."

Allen went home and no compromise was thought of. The great seal of New Hampshire being disregarded, the "Beech Seal" was invented as a substitute. A military organization was formed with several companies, Seth Warner, Remember Baker, and others as captains, and Ethan Allen as colonel.

In July, 1771, on the farm of James Breakenridge, in Bennington, the State of Vermont was born. Ten Eyck, the sheriff, with 300 men, including mayor, aldermen, lawyers, and others, issued forth from Albany, as did De Soto to capture Florida, as Don Quixote essayed to conquer the windmills. Breakenridge's family were wisely absent. In his house were eighteen armed men provided with a red flag to run up the chimney as a signal for aid. The house was barricaded and provided with loop-holes. On the woody ridge north were 100 armed men, their heads and the muzzles of their guns barely visible amid the foliage. To the southeast, in plain sight, was a smaller body of men within gunshot of the house. Six or seven guarded the bridge half a mile to the west. Mayor Cuyler and a few others were allowed to cross the bridge and a parley ensued. The mayor returned to the bridge, and in half an hour the sheriff was notified that possession would be kept at all hazards. He ordered the posse to advance, and a small portion reluctantly complied. Another parley followed, while lawyer Yates expounded New York law and the Vermonters justified their position. The sheriff seized an axe, and going toward the door, threatened to break it open. In an instant an array of guns was aimed at him; he stopped, retired to the bridge, and ordered the posse to advance five miles into Bennington. But the Yorkers stampeded for home, and the bubble burst. The "star that never sets" had begun to glimmer upon the horizon.

In the winter of 1771-72 Governor Tryon, of New York, issued proclamations heavy with ponderous logic and shotted with offers of money for the arrest of Allen and others. To the arguments Allen replied through a newspaper, the Connecticut Courant, of Hartford. To the premium for his arrest he returned a Roland for an Oliver in the following placard:

£25 Reward.—Whereas James Duane and John Kempe, of New York, have by their menaces and threats greatly disturbed the public peace and repose of the honest peasants of Bennington and the settlements to the northward, which are now and ever have been in the peace of God and the King, and are patriotic and liege subjects of Geo. the 3d. Any person that will apprehend those common disturbers, viz: James Duane and John Kempe, and bring them to Landlord Fay's, at Bennington, shall have £15 reward for James Duane and £10 reward for John Kempe, paid by

Ethan Allen.

Remember Baker.

Robert Cochran.

Dated Poultney,

Feb. 5, 1772.

Duane and Kempe were prominent lawyers of New York, and also prominent as advocates of New York's claim to Vermont lands. Duane was the son-in-law of Robert Livingston and Kempe was attorney-general. The idea of their being kidnapped for exhibition at a log tavern in the wilderness was slightly grotesque. But this did not satisfy Allen. He would fain visit the enemy in one of his strongholds.

Albany was emphatically a Dutch city, for it was two centuries old before it had 10,000 inhabitants. In 1772 it might have had half that number. While the country was flooded with proclamations for his arrest, Allen rode alone into the city. Slowly passing through the streets to the principal hotel he dismounted, entered the bar-room, and called for a bowl of punch. The news circulated; the Dutch rallied; the crowd centred at the hotel; the officers of the court, the valiant sheriff, Ten Eyck, and the attorney-general were present. Allen raised the punch-bowl, bowed courteously to the crowd, swallowed the beverage, returned to the street, remounted his horse, rose in his stirrups and shouted "Hurrah for the Green Mountains!" and then leisurely rode away unharmed and unmolested. The incident illustrates Allen's shrewd courage, and sustains Governor Hall's theory that the people of New York sympathized more with the Green Mountain Boys than with their own land-gambling officers.

At the Green Mountain tavern in Bennington was a sign-post, with a sign twenty-five feet from the ground. Over the sign was the stuffed skin of a catamount with large teeth grinning toward New York. A Dutchman of Arlington who had been active against the Green Mountain Boys was punished by being tied in an arm-chair, hoisted to this sign, and there suspended for two hours, to the amusement of the juvenile population and the quiet gratification of their seniors.