The Windham County reformer. (Battleboro, Vt.) 1876-1897, 1896-01-10

a curious anomaly even in the anoma-
lous history of Vermont. The territory
comprising this township appears to
have been granted, as early as 1754, to
a of about fifty persons, by
a charter. which, unlike that of any
other town, empowered the proprietors,
in express terms, to govern themselves
and regulate the concerns of their
little community, by such laws as the
majority should be pleased to enact,
without being made amenable to any
power under heaven, save that which
might be exercised by the British Par
lament. Being thus constituted a
band of freeman and Legislators, at
the outset, they soon took possession
of their chartered piece OF wilderness.
organized by the election OF the proper
officers of state, and assumed the title
of an independent republic, 90 which
their charter, in fact, created. any con
troll of the Parliament of England be-
ing as little to be apprehended, in
their secluded retreat among the wilds
] of the Green Mountains, as that Of the
/ Great Mlfougl Of Tartary. And as
novel as was the idea of a republic at
that early period, when the divine
| right of kings'to govern all men was
as little questioned as the divine right
Of Satans to atilict the pious Job of
old, this enterprising little band of
settlers, for many years, appear to have
well sustained the character they had
assumed, not only by carr, ing out. in
all their public doings. that ESSENTIAL
principle of a republic which makes
the will of the majority supreme, but
by the simplicity of their tastes and
habits in private life, and their
beautiful exemplification of the great
law of love, that can only be fulfilled
towards our neighbors by according to
them equal rights and privileges with
ourselves. At length, however, new
doctrines began to prevail, and the
independent character OF our little re
public was soon, in a good degree,
forfeited and that. too, by the very
means, it would seem. which had
been taken to make it flourish and in
crease. 1t had been n of the condi-
tions of the charter that every grantee
should become an actual settler, and.
within five years, clear and cultivate
five acres of land, for every fifty pur-
chased. And in accordance with this
cunning policy for insuring the actual
and rapid settlement of the place, the
township had been laid out in fifty
and one hundred acre lots, except the
governors right Of five hundred acres,
which his excellency Of New Hamp-
shire, in granting Vermont lands,
never forgot to reserve for his own use,
in every township, but which the pro-
prietors generally contrived as in this
instance to have set off on the highest
mountain in town, considering ii but
respectful and fitting, as they used
waggishly to observe. that so elevated
a parsonage should be honored with
the most elevated location. (71 And the
effect of this policy, together with the
low prices at which the lands were
put, and other inducements held out
to draw in settlers, soon became visi-
BILE in the rapid increase of the popula.
ton, and consequent improvement o.
the town. So unexampled in this
new settlement was its progress, in
deed, in both the particulars we have
Just named, that within twenty years
from the time when the sound of the
axe was first heard in its woody limits,
the inhabitants were found to number
nearly 5000; 81 while fields were
every where opened in the wilderness,
and buildings raised in such neighbor-
ly contiguity, that the whole town
presented the appearance of a contin-
village. 1t is not very surprising,
therefore, that, through such an influx
of settlers, coming from all parts OF
the country, and including many in
and active partisans of the York
jurisdiction, a majority should soon
be obtained, who were induced to de.
part from the views of the first settlers
the independence of their
and adopt the more fash
ionable form of subordinate govern
ment, which prevailed in all the towns
around them. And accordingly we
find them, at the annual meeting in
l772, voting the district of Guilford,
as they termed it, to belong to the
of Cumberland and province of
New York, and thereupon proceeding
to %reorganize the town, agreeably to the
Of that province. This change,
however, does moi appear to have been
followed by any material alteration of
their internal policy, or to have been
of any great civil discord,
till about the time of the opening of
the American revolution when the
became the prey of contending
factions, Of SO fierce and lawless a
character as to convert this once Ar
abode of virtue, simplicity, and
rural happiness, into a theatre OF
and social disorganization,
which never, perhaps, found a parallel
the limits of order loving New
England. Sometimes the York party
md tories, for, in this town, it so
happened that the two were identical,
and sometimes the wings and friends
# the new state of Vermont, were in
he ascendant; while scenes of such
disorder and outrage were constantly
occurring between the b%elligerent
PARTIES, that his honor, Judge Lynch
many years, appears to have been
Tot in the least among the potentates
# this notable republic. Nor was