CHAPTER IX.
ESTABLISHMENT OF A CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
This disastrous retreat exposed the frontiers of the Grants to an invasive war; most of the inhabitants of Onion River and along the shore of Lake Champlain instantly removed, and the militia was organized for the general defense. Internal dissensions were rife regarding the establishment of a civil government. Some were for joining with New Hampshire; others were in favor of forming a new state; and a few proposed uniting with New York during the war; but this last too much effected the title to lands to be seriously considered.
Vermont was likely to be devastated as a common battle-ground; yet the people met in Convention at Dorset, January, 1776, and drew up a petition to Congress, in which they declared their readiness to furnish their quota of men in support of the war, and bearing an equal proportion of the expense, and asked that their rights might be secured them. Congress recommended that they submit to the authority of New York for the present, and assist their countrymen in the contest with Great Britain.
Colonel Allen being in captivity, Baker dead, Warner, Cockran, and others, engaged in the army, the Council of the New Hampshire Grants was greatly weakened, and months passed without any decisive results. The government of the province was conducted by committees and conventions as before the war, though the bitterness of the dispute with New York seemed to be lost in the common cause of the struggling colonies; for those who had been outlawed for high treason against the government of New York, now passed freely through that province.
The following were some of the reasons for forming a new State:
A new government would perpetuate the name of the Green Mountain Boys, and the honor of their leaders.
A new government would establish the title to their lands under the New Hampshire Grants, and provide that unappropriated lands might be disposed of to defray the expenses of the war.
The active part taken by her citizens in the taking of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, would entitle the State to a favorable consideration by Congress.
That upon the revolutionary principles adopted by Congress, Vermont was the oldest State in America.
A call was issued for a convention, which, after several adjournments, on the 15th of January, 1777, declared the district of New Hampshire Grants to be a free and independent State. A declaration and a petition to Congress were drawn up, and a committee appointed to present the same.
New York, alarmed at the possible consequences of the measure, wrote to Congress, through the President of the Committee of Safety, as follows:
“I am directed to inform Congress that by the arts and influence of certain designing men, a part of this state has been prevailed on to revolt. Information we have received would lead us to believe some persons in our sister States have fostered and fomented these divisions. But as those informations tend to accuse some of your honorable body being concerned in this scheme, decency obliges us to suspend our belief. The Convention are sorry to observe that by conferring a commission upon Colonel Warner, with authority to name the officers of a regiment to be raised independently of the Legislature of this State, and within that part of it which hath lately declared itself independent, Congress hath given too much weight to the insinuations of those who pretend that your honorable body are determined to support those insurgents; especially as this Colonel Warner hath been constantly and invariably opposed to the legislature of this State, and hath been on that very account proclaimed an outlaw by the late government thereof. It is absolutely necessary to recall the commissions given to Colonel Warner, and the officers under him, as nothing else will do justice to us.” Congress voted to dismiss the petition of Vermont.
Notwithstanding this rebuff, the people resolved to draft a constitution for the new State. A committee was also appointed to visit the officer in command at Ticonderoga, and consult with him respecting the defense of the frontiers.
While the committee was at that post, Burgoyne appeared in force on Lake Champlain, and resting at Crown Point sent a detachment of three hundred, mostly Indians, to land at the mouth of Otter Creek, and ravage the frontier settlements. The commanding officer at Ticonderoga refused to send off any of his troops in aid of the panic-stricken families, but allowed Col. Warner to go with the committee to raise a volunteer force from the Green Mountain Boys. A hasty levy was raised, with which the raiders were promptly repelled.
All who were members of the Convention left the militia and repaired to Windsor, July 4th. A draft of the constitution was laid before the convention and read. The matter under consideration was new, of great moment, and required serious deliberation; it was debated step by step, and paragraph by paragraph. While absorbed in their duty, an express arrived with tidings that Ticonderoga had been evacuated, and that the whole frontier of the Hampshire Grants was exposed to the ravages of the enemy.
At this awful crisis the Convention was for adjourning, as many of the members had families residing in the portions likely to be overrun by the enemy and their Indian allies. Indications of a terrible thunder storm among the mountains having put all thoughts of immediately going home out of the question, some of the more thoughtful called attention to their unfinished work. In the midst of the peals of thunder, the incessant flashes of lightning and the tumult of the elements without, the constitution was read, paragraph by paragraph, for the last time; and as the sun broke forth upon a smiling landscape, invigorated with the summer shower, Vermont was in possession of a constitution, and stood pledged to its support. A Council of Safety was instituted to act during the recess, the Convention adjourned, and the members betook themselves to their homes.
Three days afterward, this “outlaw” Warner and his proscribed Green Mountain regiment were engaged in deadly conflict, on the soil of Vermont, with the British and Indian foes of America, on the memorable battle field of Hubbardton, in which Warner’s force was decimated to about ninety men.