Case Name: BENSON against WEST-HAVEN, Ap't
Court: Vermont Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Vermont
Decision Date: 1819
Citations: 1 Brayt. 187
Docket Number: No. 13
Parties: BENSON against WEST-HAVEN, Ap’t.
Judges: 
Reporter: Brayton
Volume: 1
Pages: 187–188

Head Matter:
No. 13.
BENSON against WEST-HAVEN, Ap’t.
Rutland,
1819.
A minor, bound out as an apprentice, does not gain a settlement, by 1ÚB residence witB his master, but his settlement follows that of his father.
THIS was an appeal from an order for removing Robert Sharp, a pauper, from the town of Benson to the town of West* Haven.
The counsel for Benson relied on the following point, to wit : That Robert Sharp, by the indentures executed by his father Abraham Sharp, on the 28th day of February, 1811, to Reuben Wilkinson, of said West-Haven, and going and living with said Reuben as one of his family, in West-Haven, aforesaid, for more than one year, till he was twenty-one years of age, thereby became emancipated from his father’s family, and acquired a settlement for himself, in said West-Haven. 5 Term Rep. 670. 2 Bur. Set. Cases 287. 1 Strange 438-9.
Contra. That the pauper gained no settlement, while residing in West-Haven, under the indentures of apprenticeship.
Settlement in Vermont, as well as in England, must be gained by express Statute ; those who are embraced in the words of the Statute, “coming and residing in any town,” &c. must be those who are de facto or de lege, independent of others and acting for themselves.
That an apprenticeship is not, by any legal principle, to be considered as emancipation, but on the other hpmd, a continuance of servitude, imposed by parental authdrity. S Term Re,p. 356. 6 T. R. 247. Strange 438, 831.

Opinion:
The Court decided — That the pauper did not gain a settle ment, by bis residence with bis master, under the indenture of apprenticeship, but that his residence followed that of his fa-t ther.
Judgment-?-That the pauper was unduly removed.