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

order restored to the ill-starred tow
till after the close Of the war; wheI
every refractory spirit, whether tory O
Yorker, was punished or awed int
submisf ion by the fiery energy of tn
iron .hecled Ethan Allen, who, thel
being relieved from the pursuit o
more important game, came thunder
ing down upon. the town with hi
hundred Green Mountain Boys, pro
claiming to the disatrectcd. with dem
constructions which they we'll knew how
to inter3ret, that the peaceable anC
new authorities of the land should
alone save it from being "made as
desolate as the cities of Sodom and
Gomorrih.'
1t wasa dark and gloomy day in
April, md the sleety storm was beat.
ing, in ftful gusts, against the broker
and ere lkIng easements, and the dis.
jointed, loose, and leasy covering and
old d%ilapidated log house, standing
by the road side, in one of the thous-
and little dales, which, with their
corresponding hills, SO beautifully
diversity the face of the town we have
been describing. But as comfortless
as this miserable hut was, and as pool
and insufficient a protection from the
elements as it afforded, even for the
healthy and robust, it was now the
only shelter of a sick and destitute
woman, the widowed mother of Harry
WOODBURY.. The hand of her sons
prosecutor, as it not unfrequently is
seen to occur in the history of human
oppression, vas destined to fall even
more heavily on her than on him
for whom the blow was designed. The
minlon officer, selected by Peters for
the pun pose, had no sooner received
his warrants, than, faithful to the
cruel instructions of his employer, he
had repaired post haste to the resi-
dence of the absent Woodburn. of
which he was authorized to take pos
session, and. with insults and abuse.
rudely thrust the lone and unprotected
occupant out of doors in despite of all
her entreaties for mercy, or delay till
her son should return, or eve for one
day, to give her al opportunity to find
some shelter for her now houseiess
head. He then. with the aid to the
three or four rufian assistants enlisted
to accompany him, threw all the furni-
ture out of the windows or doors into
the mud and snow beneath where the
whole, consisting of crockery and
glasses, now half broken by the fall,
and beds, linen, kettles, chairs. tables,
and the like, soon lay piled promiscu-
ously together. Having thus driven
the terrified and distressed woman
from the comfortable abode which had
formerly cost her and her deceased
husband so many years of toll to erect
and furnish, and having, To add to
the wrong, either injured ar destroyed
the greater part of her little stock of
goods, by the wanton or careless man
ner in which they had been removed,
this brutal officer mex proceeded TO
the barn, and by virtue of his capias
for costs. seized the row and oxen. the
last remaining property OF the wronged
and ruined young man., which after
i~ntrusting the present keeping and
defence Of the premises to two of his
band, he drove away to another part
of the town. to be sold at the post, as
soon as the forms of the law, respect
ing notice of the sale, could be com
piled with. The poor widow, half
distracted at being thus suddenly be
reft of house and home, spent the re-
maindcr Of the day in vainly endeavor-
ing TO procure some tenement into
which she could remove with her
furniture, or with SO much of it as
might yet be saved. On the next day,
however, as "A last resort, she obtained
and accepted the present use of the
deserted cabin | have described, situat-
ed but a short distance from the house
from which she had been elected. And
into this comfortless place, after sew
eral days of incessant toll and expos.
ure, she succeeded in getting her
damaged furniture. but not till her
exertions, combined with her anXieties
and grief, had given rise to a malady
which. though not at first very threat
became, each subsequent day, !
more ard more alarmingly developed in
her ovegtasked system. In this situa-
tion she was found by her son who, |
being entirely ignorant that any judg
had passed against him, and,
consequently, little dreaming what
was taking place at home, had re-
NAMED at Westminster nearly a week
after the massacre, attending the pub
lie meetings, which, as we have before
followed that event; when
he returned to Guilford, and, with feel
ings bordering on desertion, learned
the extent of his misfortune. But the
bitterness of his feelings, as great as
it was, at being stripped of all his
property through such a series of
wrongs, soon became wholly merged in
anxiety and grief for his sick and sor
row stricken parent, and in the eNas-
perating thought that her sickness
and suffering proceeded from the same
source with his other injuries. And
lose and unremitting had been his
attentions to her, until the day pre-
yious to the one on which we have
her to the reader when he
had been induced 10 leave for Brattle-
borough, or other more distant towns,
10 try to obtain money to redeem his
stock, which was now about to be
sold, and which was worth more than
iouble the amount, as he had recently
iscertained, of the execution on which
{ had been seized. On the morning
after his departure, she had become SO
much worse that she was compelled to
AXE to her bed, and despatch her only
attendant for a doctor. That attendant
vas Barty Burt, who had come from
Westminster with WOODBURY., and had
1een engaged by the latter to remain
With his mother during his absence.
thus glanced over the events
which had occurred previously to the
opening of this new scene of our story,
will now return to the point we left
make the depression.
Slowly, to the suffering invalid,