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11 



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Ml^SISiU) VALLEY. 



HISTORY 



OF THL 



MISSISCO VALLEY. 

37 / 

BY SAMUEL SUMNER, M. A. '^^7 



WITH AN INTRODUCTORY NOTICE OF ORLEANS COUNTY, 



BY REV. S. R. HALL. 



PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE ORLEANS COUNTY 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



IRASBURGH: 

A. A. EARLE, BOOK PRINTER. 
1860. 



9U 
'^7 






PEEFACE. 



The objects of the Orleans County Natural and Civil 
JIiSTORiCAL Society, formed in 1853, are expressed in the 
first Article of the Constitution — to be, " to promote the 
study of Natural History, primarily of Orleans Coimty and 
Northern Vermont ; — rand also, to collect and preserve, while 
the early settlers in the county are able to furnish them, the 
items of interest in the civil history of the county, which would 
otherwise be soon lost to the future historian." 

While the object, first mentioned, has not been neglected, 
and a valuable cabinet of minerals has been contributed, and 
many interesting articles collected, — there have been strong 
reasons for maTcing the second object a leading one, during the 
first years of the Tabors of the Society. The natural history 
of the county is, from year to year, becoming more and more 
developed ; but the means of gathering up the incidents of 
pioneer life, hardships, sufferings, &c., are 'yearly diminishing. 

It is, therefore, proper that the early publications of the 
Society should have reference, rather to the civil, than the 
natural history of the County. That portion, now committed 
to the press, has precedence, because first prepared, by the 
p7-aiseivorthy energy of the Author, 

It will be preceded by a very brief general notice of the 
County, omitting details, till after a notice of Black River 
valley, and Barton and Clyde River valleys shall have been 
prepared and published. 



ORLEANS COUNTY. 



This County is situated in the central part of Northern 
Vermont ; being bounded on the North by Canada East, on 
the South by Caledonia, on the East by Essex, and on the 
West by Franklin and Lamoille counties. It was an unbroken 
wilderness till after the Revolutionary war, and inhabited only 
by Indians. Hunters had visited it, and soldiers had passed 
through some portions of it, in military excursions. A portion 
of Rogers' men, returning, after the destruction of St. Francis 
indian village in 1759, passed through, from Memphremagog 
lake, by Lake Beautiful, in Barton, on their way to the foot of 
the jfifteen mile falls, on Connecticut river, or what was then 
called lower Coos! Marks made on the trees by these sol- 
diers, it is believed have been discovered in several towns, 
and also a ^^ shirt of mail" and the remnants of an "iron 
spider " have been found, that were probably left by them. 
A son of one of these soldiers is now a resident in tlie county, 
after the lapse of more than a century ! 

Many years later, a military road was made through the 
South-West portion of the county, to Hazens' notch in the 
present town of Westfield. The traces of that road, though 
made during the early part of the Revolution, are still distinct 
in Greensboro, Craftsbury, Albany, and Lowell. 

The county was incorporated November 5, 1792, and em- 
braced twenty-two townships and some gores. Craftsbury 



and Brownington, were constituted half-shire towns. When 
the new county Lamoille was constituted, three towns 
were embraced in the limits of that county, and the area of 
Orleans was diminished by more than one hundred square 
miles. Irasburgh was constituted the shire town in 1816. 
The number of towns remaining in the county is nineteen. 

The physical geography, and geology of Orleans county 
are diverse from any other portion of the State. It is situated 
almost wholly within the Y of the Green mountians. The 
streams mostly flow northerly and north westerly, toward Mem- 
phremagog lake. The Missisco river flows northerly, till 
it enters Canada, and then turning westward finds a pas- 
sage into Champlain. But the upper valley of this stream is 
appropriately classed with others, the waters from which flow 
into Memprhemagog. The latter lake, at no very distant 
geological period, no doubt, covered the low lands of the 
Missisco valley, as well as those bordering on Black, Barton 
and Clyde rivers. The highest land between the lake and 
Missisco valley is, in some places, probably not more than one 
hundred to one hundred and fifty feet. 

The county is more abundantly supplied with lakes, ponds 
and streams, than any other portion of Vermont, if not New 
England, of equal area. Black, Barton and Clyde river, are 
almost entirely limited to the county, also the head waters of 
the Missisco, and Wild branch. Several streams which flow 
north into Conada, and empty into Magog and St. Francis 
rivers, rise in ponds within the county. 

A considerable portion of Memphremagog lake, Caspian 
lake, Willoughby lake, Morgan lake, Chrystal lake, or Lake 
Beautiful, are with a very large number of ponds, within the 
county. 

These ponds and lakes furnished abundance of the finest 



fish, to the Indians, hunters and early settlers*. They also 
were the home of numerous beaver and otter; while the 
meadows on the numerous rivers, furnished rich pasture to 
moose and deer, thousands of which were killed principally 
for their skins. 

The face of the country differs considerably from other 
parts of the state. The general slope is northward ; and 
though there is considerable difference in the height of arable 
land, the highest points are reached by a general rise, and the 
summits or ridges are capable of convenient cultivation. 
Precipitous cliffs and ledges are very uncommon, except on 
the western boundary. From Hazens notch to Jay peak, is a 
continuous mountain range, varying from 2500 to 4000 feet 
above the ocean. The summit of Jay peak, in the north-west 
corner of Westfield, is 4018 feet above tide water. The 
summit of Westmore mountain, in the extreme east part, is 
nearly 3000 feet. 



EUigo Pond, Craftsburj', is 


863 feet above the ocean. 


Hosmore Pond, " 


1001 " " 


Lake Beautiful, Barton, 


933 " 


Island Pond, Salem, 


967 " 


Pensioners Pond, Charleston, 


1140 " 


Island Pond, Brighton, 


1182 " " 


Morgan Lake, Morgan, 


1160 " 


Willoughby Lake, Westmore, 


1161 " 


Memphremagog Lake, 


695 " 


South Troy village. 


740 " " 


Irasburgh, (Court House), 


875 " " 


Barton village, 


953 " 


Derby, (Centre). 


975 " " 


Derby, (Line), 


1050 " 


Craftsbury Common, 


1158 " '" 


BrowningtOD, (village), 


1113 " 



* About the year 1800, Mr. Erastus Spencer, ■5\'ith Mr. Elijah Spencer, and two 
others residing in the east part of Brownington, went to a pond near the foot of 
Bald mountain in Westmore, and in a single day caught more than 500 pounds of 
trout, weighed after being dressed. They were obliged to procure oxen to carrj- 
home the avails of their days work ! ' ■ 



Cultivated lands in Holland, Greensboro', Westmore and 
a portion of Glover, vary from 1100 to 1500 feet above the 
ocean. Most of the lands lying on the rivers, vary from 700 
to 1000. Much of the table land, lying between the streams, 
is of the best quality for cultivation and grazing. The mead- 
ows and intervals are unsurpassed by any in the state. 

The soil differs materially in different parts of the county, 
by the character of the rock in place. The prevailing rock 
in Missisco valley is talcose slate. This variety of rock con~ 
tains very little carbonate of lime, and decomposes very 
slowly. The soil will, therefore, be deficient in lime, except 
on the intervals, or drift soil. The rock in the extreme 
eastern part of the county is mostly granite or gneiss. The 
decomposition of these rocks, is not rapid, but suJBficiently so, 
to furnish new materials of value to the soil. The remaining 
portion of the county is embraced in the calcareous mica slate 
region. These varieties of rock, lime stone, clay and horn- 
blend slate, are found interstratified, and all are inclined to 
very rapid decomposition, so that the soil will be constantly 
enriched by the addition of lime, and the other materials 
embraced in the rocks. Decomposed lime and hornblend 
slates form the very best varieties of soil for wheat, grass^ 
barley, &c. 

In the northern part of the county the soil is a deep loam, 
resulting from di'ift agency, and in many instances, covering 
the rock in place to a great depth. This soil, originating 
in a region of purer limestone at the north, is rich in salts of 
lime and very highly productive. Troy, Newport, Coventry, 
Derby and Holland, contain many thousand acres of this 
variety of soil, of great excellence. 

A prominent fact, in the entire calcareous mica slate re- 
gion, is the immense growth of sphagnous peat or muck. This 



8 

substance has already filled the basins of many original ponds, 
and those formed by beavers ; and is rapidly accumulating 
on the borders of many others. Beneath many of these beds 
of peat, or muck, shell marl is found in large quantities, fur- 
nishing abundant material for manufacturing the best quality 
quality of caustic lime. When peat or muck is combined with 
■wood ashes, or lime, in the proportions of two bushels of the 
latter to a cord of the former, it is more valuable as manure 
than any made at the barn. Nothing exceeds it in value, as 
a topdressing for grass lands. The abundance and distribu- 
tion of this substance is very remarkable. In one town the 
writer surveyed the deposites of muck, and found more than 
640 cords for each acre of land in the township. Many other 
towns have an equal supply. These beds of muck constitute 
the future iveallk of the agriculturist. Most of the arable 
land in the county may be easily enriched, to any degree 
desired. The natural soil is not inferior to that in any por- 
tion of New England, but these resources of indefinitely 
increasing its fertility, add immensely to its value. 

Another part should be noticed. The numerous rivers and 
streams in the county furnish an immense amount of most 
valuable water 'power. Excellent sites for mills, factories, &c., 
abound; — only a small part of which have as yet been 
improved. This should excite no surprise, when it is remem- 
bered that but little more than half a century has elapsed, 
since the Indian wigwam occupied the site of our smiling 
villages, and the "wild fox dug his hole unscared," in what 
are now our best cultivated fields, and where rural dwellings 
are scattered over hill, plain and valley. 

The climate does not vary materially from other portions 
of the state of similar latitude and altitude. The altitude 
is greater than that of the Champlain valley, but less than 



9 

the upper valley of Conuecticui river. The Memphremagog' 
lake and other large bodies of water moditj the temperature^ 
and the average range of the thermometer at Craftsbury, 
Brownington and Derby, is only a few degrees lower than at 
Burlington, The winters are long, and the cold somewhat 
severe. But the greater uniformity of temperature, from 
November to April, than what is usual, either in Champlain 
valley, or on the Atlantic slope, in the same latitude, is an 
important compensation- Men and animals suffer less from 
a continuous low temperature, than by frequent changes from 
a higher to a lower. The thermometer does not fall so low, 
as at places considerably further south. Early frosts are less 
frequent than in many parts of Massacliusetts. 

There are really but tivo seasons, summer and winter. 
The transition from one to the other is commonly sudden. 
The only real inconvenience to the agriculturalist is the 
shortness of seedtime. The summers are generally suffi- 
ciently long and warm to mature corn — the exceptions being 
rare, in favorable locations. Domestic animals not only 
thrive and mature well, but have a decided preference in the 
market over those reared in many other sections of country. 
Better horses, oxen, or cows, than the average of those reared 
in the county, are not easy to find. The quantity of butter 
made from a cow, is not exceeded, if equaled, iu any pari of 
New England.* 

The forest trees are similar to those generally in northern 
New England and Canada East. The arbor vita, (white 
cedar,) is however more abundant, and of larger size than in 
any other portion of the northern states. The sugar maple 
is the glory of the forests, furnishing as it does in every town, 



♦More than two hundred pounds per cow, has been sold frequently from dairies 
of considerable size, beside the supplies of a family. 



10 

an important revenue of saccharine secretions, conducive 
alike to health, pleasure and profit. 

The noble pine, formerly abundant, has, alas, suflfered so 
much from Vajidal extirpators, as hardly to have a represen- 
tative now of its once toiverino- height and srisantlc hidk. 
Ruthless hands have laid this forest king in an untimely 
grave ! True, here and there a scattered few remain, that 
feebly represent the glory of the fallen, as the Indian of this 
age does the Phillips and Tecumsehs of the former. Would 
that the insane cupidity of early settlers had spared a few 
of these magnificient specimens of the former forests. But 
all that our children can know of them, is learned from the 
large stumps that yet adhere to the earth which reared 
them.* 

A few of the immense elms remain, and it is hoped may 
long be preserved, to exhibit a trace of the magnificence of 
the early forests. 

The first settlements in the county were made simultane- 
ously at Greensboro and Craftsbury, in 1788. Most of the 
other towns were settled prior to the commencement of the 
present century. An account of the early settlers, their 
hardships and sufferings will be more appropriately given in 
the history of the several towns, the publication of which it 
is hoped will not be long delayed. The history of Black 
River Valley, embracing Greensboro' and Newport, is in an 
advanced state of preparation. The history of Barton and 
Clyde River Valley's, together with the towns of Holland and 
Morgan, it is hoped will be completed at no distant period, 
and also a full account of the natural history of this portion 
of Vermont. S. R. H. 

»A pine recently felled in Coventry, yielded 4131 feet of inch boards ! 



MISSISCO VALLEY. 



I. — GEOGRAPHY. 

The upper valley of the Missisco, comprising the towns of 
Troy, Westfield, Jay, Lowell, and a small portion of the 
Province of Canada, lies between the Western range of the 
Green Momitains, and the range of highlands dividing the 
waters of the Missisco from those of Black River and Lake 
Memphreraagog. 

The "Western lines of Jay, Westfield, and Lowell, com- 
monly extend a short distance over the summits of the Green 
Mountain range, which divides Orleans from Franklin County ; 
but the East lines of Troy and Lowell generally do not 
extend to the height of land towards Black River and Lake 
Memphremagog. The length of the valley in a direct line 
from Canada line to the South line of Lowell and the source 
of the Missisco river, is about eighteen miles. The width of 
the whole valley from the summit of the mountains West, to 
the height of laud on the East, is from six to ten miles. The 
towns of Jay and Westfield are each, according to their char- 
ters, six miles square. 

The town of Troy lies on the East of these towns, almost 
the entire length of them, and is oblong and irregular in its 
form, being eleven and one half miles in length from North to 
South, whilst the North line is about five miles, and its South 



12 

line about two miles in length. The town of Lowell lies 
South of both Troy and Westfield, and is still more irregular 
in its form, being almost in the shape of a triangle, and con- 
tains thirty-seven thousand acres. These four towns, accord- 
ing to their charters and original surveys, contain one hundred 
and six thousand and eighty acres. The general face of the 
country is that of two great slopes or inclined plains, extend- 
ing from the summits of the two chains of mountains to their 
common centre — ^the Missisco river. The height of the 
Western or Green Mountain chain is from fifteen hundred to 
four thousand feet, and of the Eastern range from three 
hundred to fifteen hundred feet, above the river. 



II. PONDS AND STREAMS. 

There are no natural ponds of any size in this valley ; the 
regular slope and steep ascent of hills preventing the accu- 
mulation and retention of water to make them. Neither are 
there many streams or brooks of much size. Near the con- 
fluence of the Missisco with the North or Potton Branch, a 
stream of considerable size, called Mud Creek, unites with 
the Missisco river from the East. 

This stream rises in Newport, and after running some dis- 
tance almost parallel with Troy line, passes into Troy, and 
after crossing the Northeastern part of that town, runs into 
Potton and pays the tribute of its waters to the Missisco, a 
short distance above its junction with the North Branch. 
Around the confluence of these three streams is a large basin 
of interval or meadow land, extending both into Troy and 
Potton, which for fertility may well compare with any in the 
State. Above this creek there is no stream of any size run- 
ning into the Missisco from the East for several miles. The 



13 

first which occurs is the Beadle Brook, named from an early 
settler, who erected his cabin in the wilderness on its banks. 
This stream also rises in Newport, and running West, unites 
with the Missisco. On the West side of the river the first 
stream of any consequence is Jay Branch, which is the largest 
of Jill the Branches. It rises in Jay,, and after receiving 
almost all the rivulets of that town, runs into the Missisco 
in Troy, about four miles South of the State line. 

Farther South is the Coburn Brook, so called. This 
stream rises in Westfield and unites with the Missisco a short 
distance from Troy village, almost opposite the mouth of the 
Beadle Brook. About two miles farther South the Missisco 
receives a large accession to its waters from the Taft Branch, 
which runs through Westfield village, and receives in its 
course almost all the smaller rivulets of Westfield. Another 
stream rises in Lowell, near Hazen's Notch, and running 
through the Northwestern part of that town, joins the Mis- 
sisco near Westfield line. 

These are all the principal branches of tlie Missisco in the 
valley ; but the river receives large accessions from number- 
less springs and smaller rivulets j though the streams men- 
tioned are the only ones large enough for mill sites. The 
valley is abundantly supplied with water power, the Missisco 
and its tributaries afi'ordihg power enough to move all the 
cotton factories of New England. 

The Missisco river, which, with the mountains, is the most 
prominent feature of the valley, rises in the chain of hills or 
highlands Southwest of the county, separating the waters of 
the Lamoille from the streams running into the Missisco and 
Lake Memphremagog. 

Two streams or branches rising in this chain of hills near 
the line between Lowell and Eden, and on the opposite sides 



14 

of Mount Norris, unite near Lowell village and form the 
Missisco river. The Eastern branch, just before its junction 
with the other, runs over a series of rapids or ledges, afford- 
ing many excellent mill sites. After the union of the two 
streams the river runs in a Northeasterly course two or three 
miles, in the town of Lowell, crosses the town line into W^st- 
field, and runs thence four miles through the Southeastern 
part of that town and passes into Troy, and flows almost the 
entire length of that town. 

For several miles below Lowell vilTage, the river flows with 
a gentle current through a valuable body of interval, but has 
no falls or rapids suitable for mill sites. The first water fall 
suitable for mills is about a mile below Troy village, at 
Phe'ps's Falls. Below these falls the meadows are not so 
continuous ; high rocky bluffs occasionally appear, intermin- 
gled with frequent tracts of fertile intervals. In passing 
these ledges the course of the river is commonly rapid, and 
the fall sufficient for mills. Four of these falls occur between 
the falls just mentioned and North Troy, two only of which 
have been improved, one where the furnace is erected, and 
the other at the Great Falls. 

The most remarkable of these falls is about one and a half 

miles south of North Troy, called the Great Falls, described 

in Thompson's Vermont. The fall in this river is probably 

not so great as described by Mr. Thompson, but the over- 
hanging cliff presents a scene truly grand — almost terrific. 
The river here runs over a steep, rocky bottom, through a 
zig-zag channel, worn through a ledge of rocks. • The banks 
rise precipitously, and on one side absolutely overhang the 
river to the height of from eighty to one hundred feet, and 
the dizzy visitor in viewing the cataract in the time of high 



15 

water, from the overhanging cliff, is filled with awe at the 
wild sublimity and grandeur of the scene. 

The river then runs to the village of North Troy, where 
there is an excellent fall for mills, and three-fourths of a mile 
below North Troy crosses the State line into Canada. After 
running about three miles in Potton it unites with another 
stream called the North Branch, which is about one-third less 
than the Southern or Troy branch of the Missisco. This 
north branch rises some sixteen or eighteen miles farther 
North in the town of Bolton, and passing through that town- 
ship and Potton, runs through a valley very much resembling 
our own. 

These two vallies may be compared to two vast amphithe- 
atres, enclosed on one side by the Green Mountains, and on 
the other by the range of hills dividing the Missisco valley 
from the valley of the Memphremagog. The two rivers run 
in almost opposite directions, the one North and the other 
South, from their sources to their point of confluence ; and 
the whole valley on these two rivers extends almost in a 
straight line from the defile which we pass between Lowell 
and Eden, about forty or fifty miles to a similar defile at the 
head of the North branch in Bolton ; affording a direct and 
level route which will at some future day be a great thorough- 
fare from the central part of this State to the heart of the 
French settlements in the valley of the St. Lawrence. 

The Geography of Vermont presents one remarkable fea- 
ture. Our highest chain, the Western range of the Green 
Mountains, is intersected by our largest rivers, the Winooski, 
Lamoille and Missisco. But the course of the Missisco 
through these highlands is the most singular, and is perhaps 
an exception to all others. 

In passing this range of mountains, we might naturally 



16 

expect a succession of liigh, precipitoui? cliffs for river banks/ 
and a channel abounding with precipices and water falls ; but 
instead of this, the river from Troy to Richford, passing the 
mountains, flows through fertile and level meadows, with a 
sluggish current, without a rapid or water fall, until it re- 
enters the State at Richford. 



III. — SOIL. 

Through the valley the course of the river is generally 
lined with a succession of rich alluvial intervals. Much of 
this is overflowed by the spring freshets and produces luxu- 
riant crops of grass and most kinds of grain — particularly 
Indian corn. Ascending from these intervals at no great 
height are commonly found either large plains or gently ele- 
vated hills composed of sand, clay, and gravel or loam, in 
which sand generally predominates ; the whole often being 
well mixed. These plains and hills are easily tilled and well 
adapted to most kinds of produce. 

Rising still farther and receding from the river, is found a 
great slope or inclined plane, of easy ascent. These gener- 
ally have a rich soil resting on a substratum of rock or hard- 
pan, and are well adapted to the culture of grass, English 
grain, potatoes and fruit. Ascending still farther the soil 
becomes thinner, and rocks and ledges more frequent. 

This land when cleared produces a good crop of grain and 
then affords a rich pasture. The summits of the mountains 
on the "West are generally steep, and are composed of rock 
covered with a thin soil, and a growth of stunted Evergreens. 

This glade of land does not generally occupy a space of 
more than from half a mile to a mile in width and is almost 
the only land in the valley which can be called worthless. 



17 

The valley is of easy access from abroad, notwithstanding 
the chains of mountains which appear to surround and hem 
it in. The most uneven and difficult roads leading into it, 
are from the East. On the South a defile at the head of the 
Missisco affords a level and easy entrance from the valley of 
the Lamoille, and on the North a like defile at the head of 
the North branch affords like facilities for a road, so that 
without encountering a hill, we may pass from the valley of 
the Lamoille through this valley to that of the St. Lawrence ; 
whilst on the West the broad vale, through which the river 
passes, affords every advantage for a smooth and level road 
to the great valley of Lake Champlain. The general appear- 
ance of the valley is naturally picturesque and interesting^ 
presenting many prospects of surpassing beauty and sublim- 
ity, and were it improved by cultivation and adorned by 
wealth and taste, it might well compare with the celebrated 
vales of Italy and Greece. 



IV. — ROCKS AND MINERALS. 

The two great chains of mountains which enclose the 
valley, on the East and West, are composed of rock similar 
to other parts of the Green Mountain range. Talcose slate 
is the prominent rock of the Western range. Argillaceous 
slate, interstratified with the former, and with Alterated slate, 
and Novaculite, constitutes the Eastern hills. Granite ap- 
pears in the valley of Lake Memphremagog, but none is 
found in the Missisco valley, or farther West, except occa- 
sional boulders, among loose stone. Near the highest parts 
of the mountains West, is a variety of Talcose slate, much 
harder than usually abounds, which has sometimes been called 
Green Mountain Gneiss. Veins of quartz abound in it. 

3 



18 

iThis is a gold bearing rock, and gold has been found in it. 

The most striking features of the valley are the immense 

ranges of serpentine and soapstone. There are two ranges 

of the former, and two of the latter ; extending from Potton 

on the North, to Lowell in the South end of the valley. The 

quantity of serpentine in Lowell and Westfield, is greater 

than in any other part of the county. The Eastern range 

contains the veins of Magnetic Iron Ore, which supplied the 

furnace at Troy. The quantity is inexhaustible ; but the ore 

contains Titanium, and is hard to smelt. The iron when 

manufactured) is of the best quality, having great strength 

and hardness. It is finely adapted to make wire, screws, &c. 

It would make the best kind of rails for railroads. Should 

a railroad be constructed in the Missisco valley, this ore will 

be of immense value to the county and state. It might, even 

now, be wrought with profit to the owners. It makes the 

most valuable hollow ware and stoves. 

In the serpentine range on the West side ot the river, is 

found Chromate of Iron, a mineral of great value in the arts. 

The largest beds of it are in the Eastern part of Jay, within 

one and a half miles of Missisco river. 
Small beds of Chromate of Iron have been found in the 

serpentine range, on the East side of the river, South of the 
Magnetic Iron ore, in both Troy and Westfield. Most beau- 
tiful specimens of Asbestos, common and Ligniform, are found 
in the serpentine at Lowell and Westfield. This serpentine 
might be wrought, and would be found of equal value to any 
in the state. It contains the most beautiful veins of Amian- 
thus and Bitter Spar. Some varieties resemble Verde An- 
tique. 

The soapstone which accompanies the serpentine, is gener- 
ally hard, but no doubt might, in many places, be wrought to 
great advantage- 



19 

Several mineral springs have been discovered, and they 
appear to be impregnated more or less with sulphur and iron, 
some with magnesia. Most of them are of little or no value. 
There is, however, one of these springs near the line be- 
tween Troy and Lowell, which merits an examination, and 
a more perfect description than can here be given. The 
waters have never been analyzed, but have been much 
resorted to and used. They have a strong sulphurous taste 
and smell, and very much resemble the taste of the Highgate 
and Alburgh springs. The water operates as a powerful 
diuretic, and is considered very efficacious for sores and 
humors, and has been much used in the vicinity for those and 
other complaints. If the waters of the spring were analyzed, 
and their properties made known, they would doubtless draw 
to them many visitors and invalids. 

But the most distinguished feature in the Geology of our 
valley, is its vast deposits of iron ore before mentioned. 
The principal mine of iron ore was discovered in 1833; 
it lies in the central part of the town of Troy, in a high 
hill, about three-fourths of a mile East of the river. 



V. CHARTERS AND GRANTS OP LAND. 

The town of Troy was originally granted in two gores of 
nearly equal extent ; the North to Samuel Avery, and the 
South to John Kelley, in 1792. Westfield was granted to 
Daniel Owen and his associates in 1780. All or nearly all 
the grantees of this town resided in Rhode Island. Lowell 
was granted in 1791 to John Kelley, from whom the town 
received its original name of Kelley Vale. Jay was granted 
two-thirds to the celebrated John Jay of New York, and 
John Cozyne, and the other third in the South part of the 



20 

town, to Thomas Chittenden, the first governor of this State. 

It would probably be a curious piece of history, if we could 
know the motives which were urged, and the intrigues used 
to obtain these grants, and the management and speculations 
of the grantees if the grants were obtained. The policy of 
the State in making these and other grants at that time, may 
well be questioned. 

The State, probably, never realized any pecuniary advan- 
vantage from them. The reason commonly urged for these 
lavish grants, was to advance the settlement of wild lands in 
the State. The effect was usually different from what was 
intended. These towns at the time they were chartered 
were remote from any settlement, and some of them had 
been granted twenty years before any settlement was made 
in them. 

The lands in the mean time fell into the hands of specu- 
lators ; and by sales, levies of Executions, and vendues for 
taxes, titles often became confused and doubtful. Prices 
were enhanced by such speculators endeavoring to realize a 
fortune from their adventure, and whilst some speculators 
realized large sums from their lands, most of them, from 
expenses of surveys, agencies, and land taxes, and interest of 
money on these advances, sustained heavy losses. 

In many instances, when early settlements were attempted, 
the consequences were disastrous to the settlers. A few 
families were prematurely pushed into a remote wilderness 
without roads, mills or any of the conveniences and institu- 
tions of civilized life, and were left to encounter innumerable 
hardships and privations, and run the hazard of themselves 
and their families relapsing into barbarism. 

Had the State retained these lands a few years longer, and 
granted them only as they were needed for actual settlers, it 



21 

might have realized a handsome profit from the lands ; titles 
would have been better, a fruitful source of speculation and 
knavery prevented, a vast amount of suffering and privation 
avoided, and the condition of the settlers and their families 
improved. 

The North gore of Troy was sold by Mr. Avery to a Mr. 
Atkinson, an English merchant residing in Boston. It is said 
that Avery received one dollar per acre for his lands ; if so, 
he doubtless realized a handsome profit, tut how Atkinson 
fared in the trade may be inferred from the fact that these 
lands have commonly been sold for two dollars per acre, and 
that after sustaining the expenses of agencies, and innumer- 
able land taxes for more than half a century. A few of these 
lots remain unsold, and are still owned by his heirs and 
descendants. 

Kelley sold his grant to Franklin & Robinson, a firm in. 
New York. They failed, and the grant passed into the hands 
of a Mr. Hawxhurst of New York. 

His land speculations were about as successful as Atkin- 
son's. A few of his lots of land still remain unsold, in the 
hands of his son; 

As for the town of Lowell, from some old conveyances, we 
may infer that Kelley's interest passed as soon as obtained 
into the hands of his creditors, among whom were some of 
the first names in New York, as Alexander Hamilton, the 
Livingstons and others, who condescended to speculate in the 
wild lands of Vermont, and sold the town to one William 
Duer, for $4,680. The titles of most of the lands of this 
town have been bandied about from one speculator to another, 
through a maze of conveyances, levies of execution, and 
vendue sales for taxes, and a large portion of the town is to 
this day held by non-resident owners. 



22 

In Jay a portion of the town granted to Governor Chit« 
tenden, is still owned by his descendants ; a part of their 
grant has been sold mostly within a few years. Of the part 
granted to Judge Jay a portion of it was sold by his son 
twenty years since, but the greater portion of this grant 
passed into the hands of Judge Williams of Concord, about 
half a century. ago, and about fifteen years since he gave his 
unsold lands, being about fifty or sixty lots, to the University 
of Vermont. Bilt a small portion of the lands of this town 
were purchased and paid for by actual settlers previous to 
the last twenty years. 



VI. — SETTLEMENT OF TROY AND OTHER TOWNS. 

The military road made by Colonel Uazen during the rev- 
olutionary war, from Peacham to Hazen's Notch in Lowell, 
had a tendency to extend the knowledge of the Missisco 
valley, and create an interest in it. The fertile meadows in 
Troy and Potton, attracted attention. 

Mr. Josiah Elkins, of Peacham,* a noted hunter and Indian 
trader, in company with Lieutenant Lyford, early explored 
the Northern part of Orleans County. Their route was to 
follow Hazen's road to the head of Black River, and thence 
to Lake Memphremagog, where they hunted for furs and 
traded with the St. Francis Indians, who then frequented the 
shores of that Lake. 

Elkins and Lyford sometimes extended their hunting 
excursions into the Missisco valley. 

The reports they and other hunters and traders made, 
probably induced an exploration of the valley with a view to 
forming a settlemeat. 

In 1796 or '97, a paity of several men from' Peacham, of 



!23 

which Captain Moses Elkins, a brother of Josiah Elkins, was 
one, came up and explored the county. They agreed to 
come hither and settle, but none of them except Captain 
Elkins had the hardihood to carry this resolution into effect. 
He started from Peacham June 7th, 1797, with his furniture 
in a cart drawn by a yoke of oxen and a yoke of bulls, and 
one cow driven by his son Mark, a boy of nine years old, and 
two hired men. After three days they arrived at Craftsbury, 
where they were joined by three men from Richford, making 
a party of six men and one boy. They proceeded on the old 
Hazen road until they crossed the river in Lowell, cutting 
out their road as they went. Mrs. Elkins followed them some 
days after, riding on horseback with a child three years old, 
and attended by a hired man. They overtook her husband 
and his party, June 16th, near the centre of Jay, where they 
camped for the night, and the next day they arrived at their 
home in Potton, which consisted of four crotches set in the 
ground, and covered with poles and bark. Captain Elkins 
made some improvement on his land, but on the approach of 
winter he went down to Richford and wintered there, and 
returned to his land the next spring. He was probably the 
first white man who settled in this valley. 

In 1797, a Mr. Morrill moved into Troy, and erected tt 
house about half a mile East of the village of North Troy, 
and probably was the first white man who ever wintered in 
the valley. 

In the fall of 1798, Josiah Elkins moved his brother Curtis 
Elkins into Potton, and they erected a house on the place 
called the Bailey farm, about half a mile North of the line. 
The house was built of logs of course, but they cut, split, and 
hewed basswood logs, for their supply of boards and shingles. 



24 

Curtis Elkius remained with his family during the winter in 
this house. 

Josiah Elkins moved from Greensboro' into Potton, Feb, 
26, 1799, with his wife and three children, and moved into 
the house with his brother Curtis. His route was by what 
was called the Lake Road. 

The first night in his journey he stopped in Glover ; the 
next in Newport, in what was called the old lake settlement ; 
and on the third day he arrived at his new home. 

The settlement then consisted of Mr. Morrill in Troy, 
Capt. Moses Elkins, Curtis Elkins, and Abel Skinner, Esq., 
in Potton. Mr. Jacob Garland and his son-in-law, Jonathan 
Heath were there at that time, and moved in their families a 
short time after. In the same winter or the following springs 
Mr. James Rines and Mr. Bartlett moved into Troy, and set- 
tled about a mile South af North Troy village, on the meadows 
below the great falls. Mr. Hoyt also moved into Troy, and 
settled on the meadows about half a mile North of North 
Troy village. Col. Ruyter also, the same winter or spring, 
moved into the the West part of Potton, some three or four 
miles farther down the river. 

A most melancholy event occurred soon after, which cast a 
deep gloom and sorrow over the little colony, and the sad 
story still lingers in the traditions and rccollectians of the 
oldest inhabitants. 

On June 10th, 1799, a great freshet occurred, and the 
waters of th« river were swollen to an unusual height. The 
settlers prompted by a transient adventurer who had visited 
them, had provided themselves with several large and elegant 
pine canoes, to supply the deficiency of roads and bridges, 
and to enable them to pursue their favorite pastime of fishing 
and rowing on the water. 



25 

Col. Ruyter had recently established, at his residence down 
the river, a store of goods, which, according to the custom of 
those days, consisted principally of groceries. The colonists, 
numbering fifteen or twenty men, in five canoes, proceeded 
down the river to visit the Colonel and his store, and test 
the goodness of his groceries. 

The hours passed jollily away and the day was far spent 
before the party was ready to return. Returning in the 
evening, when within a mile of their homes the canoe in 
which were the three sons of Esq. Skinner, and two other 
men, was upset, and the men were precipitated in an instant 
into the rapid and swollen current. Three of the five were 
rescued by their companions, but the two eldest sons of Esq. 
Skinner, young men about eighteen and twenty years of age, 
were swept away by the resistless waters and perished. 
These young men were said to be of great promise, the 
main hope of their parents ; and whatever may have been 
the condition of some of the party, they were perfectly sober. 
After vainly attempting to rescue these unfortunate youths, 
the party were compelled to give up all hopes of recovering 
them, and had to carry heavy tidings to the bereaved parents. 
The news caused a paroxysm of despair and insanity to the 
unhappy father. It required the exertions of several men 
during the night and following day, to restrain the raving 
father from rushing to the river, and plunging into the stream 
to recover his sons, as he vainly thought to bring them back 
to life from their watery grave. 

After watching the waters and searching the river for a 
week, the sympathizing neighbors recovered the bodies of the 
young men. One of the settlers who was a professor of 
religion, and was considered a pious man, officiated at the 
funeral, a prayer was offered, and the remains of the two 

4 



26 

brightest hopes of the valley were decently and sorrowfully 
consigned to the parent dust. Three or four weeks after- 
wards, Judge Olds who had settled in Westfield, and who 
had formerly been a clergyman, was called upon to preach a 
funeral sermon, which was from the appropriate text, " Be 
still and know that I am God." 

Tradition relates two well authenticated circumstances, 
connected with this mournful event, which may be worthy the 
attention of the physiologist. One is that the despairing 
father, who was then a man of middle age, with scarce a grey 
hair on his head, became in a few days grey, and his hair soon 
turned almost white. 

The other circumstance is that the mother, who was then 
laboring under an attack of the fever and ague, was restored 
by the shock the news gave her ; the periodical chill was 
broken, and she had no more returns of her complaint that 
season. 

Several families moved into Troy and Potton in 1799, and 
in the winter of 1799 and 1800, a small party of Indians, 
of whom the chief man was Capt. Susap, joined the colo- 
nists, built their camps on the river, and wintered near them. 
These Indians were represented as being in a necessitous 
and almost starving condition, which probably arose from the 
moose and deer (which formerly abounded here) being 
destroyed by the settlers. Their principal employment 
was making baskets, birch bark cups and pails, and 
other Indian trinkets. They left in the spring and never 
returned. They appeared to have been the most numerous 
party, and resided the longest time of any Indians who 
have ever visited the valley since the commencement of the 
settlement. 

One of these Indians, a woman called Molly Oi»cntt, excr- 



27 

cised her skill in a more dignified profession, and her intro- 
duction to the whites was rather curious. 

In the fall or beginning of the winter in 1799, one of the 
settlers purchased and brought in a barrel of whiskey and 
two half barrels of gin and brandy. The necessities of the 
people for this opportune supply may be inferred from the 
fact that the whole was drunk or sold and carried off within 
three days from its arrival. The arrival of a barrel of 
liquor in the settlement was, at that time, hailed with great 
demonstrations of joy, and there was a i eneral gathering at 
the opening of the casks. So it was on this occasion, a 
large party from Troy, Potton, and even from Richford, 
were assembled for the customary carousal. Their orgies 
were held in a new house, and were prolonged to a late 
hour of the night. 

A transient rowdy from abroad by the name of Perkins, 
happened there at that time, and in the course of the night 
grew insolent and insulting, and a fight ensued between him 
and one Norris, of Potton. In the contest Norris fell, or 
was knocked into a great fire that was burning in the huge 
Dutch back chimney which was in the room. Norris' hair 
and clothes were severely scorched, but the main injury he 
sustained was in one hand which was badly burned. The 
flesh inside of the hand was burned, or torn ofi" by the fall, 
so that the cords were exposed. The injury was so serious 
that it was feared he would lose the use of his hand. 
A serious diflSculty now arose ; there was no doctor in the 
settlement, no Pain Extractors or other patent medicines had 
found their way there, and no one in the valley had skill 
or confidence enough to undertake the management of so 
difficult a case. 

Molly Orcutt was known as an Indian doctress, and then 



28 

resided some miles off, near the Lake. She was sent for, and 
came and built her camp near by, and undertook the case, 
and the hand was restored. Her medicine was an applica- 
tion of warm milk punch. Molly's fame as a doctress was 
now raised. The dysentery broke out with violence that 
winter, particularly among children, and Molly's services 
were again solicited, and she again undertook the work of 
mercy, and again she succeeded. But in this case Molly 
maintained all the reserve and taciturnity of her race, she 
retained the nature of her prescription to herself, she pre- 
pared her nostrum in her own camp, and brought it in a coffee 
pot to her patients, and refused to divulge the ingredients of 
her prescription to a^iy one ; but chance and gratitude drew 
it from her. 

In the March following, as Mr. Josiah Elkins and his wife 
were returning from Peacham, they met Molly at Arnold's 
mills in Derby ; she was on her way across the wilderness to 
the Connecticut river, where she said she had a daughter 
married to a white man. Mr. Elkins inquired into her means 
of prosecuting so long a journey through the forest and snows 
of winter, and found she was but scantily supplied with pro- 
visions, having nothing but a little bread. With his wonted 
generosity, Mr. Elkins immediately cut a slice of pork of 
five or six pounds out of the barrel he was carrying home, 
and gave it to her. My informant remarks she never saw a 
more grateful creature than Molly was on receiving this gift. 
" Now you have been so good to me," she exclaimed, " I will 
tell you how I cured the folks this winter of the dysentery," 
and told him her receipt. It was nothing more or less than 
a decoction of the inner bark of the spruce.* 

* Among my earliest recollections of events was the arrival of Molly at Guild- 
hall on the Connecticut river, soon after the event before mentioned. She was 
almost famished, as well she might be, after such a journey ; for if her statements 



29 

The town of Troy, or as it was then called Missisco, was 
organized in March, 1802. According to the town record, 
the inhabitants were warned to meet on March 25, 1302, at 
nine o'clock in the forenoon to organize the town and choose 
the necessary town officers. The record also shows that 
they met agreeably to the warning, chose a moderator, and 
then voted to adjourn until the next day at ten o'clock in the 
forenoon. 

No reason appears on record for this adjournment, and we 
can scarce suppose the affairs of the infant settlement were 
so intricate as to require a night's reflection before they could 
proceed to act, or that the number of their worthies was so 
great that they could not make a selection of officers for the 
town. But it appears that they did adjourn, and tradition 
says they were as drunk as lords, and could not proceed 
any further in the business of the meeting. 

It appears, however, by the records of the town, that the 
good citizens did meet the next day agreeable to adjourn- 
ment, and chose the usual batch of town officers, including a 
tythingman, and voted £6,00 of lawful money to be expended 
on roads, and $10,00 to defray the expenses of the town for 
the year. From that time the town of Troy has had a re- 
gular corporate existence, notwithstanding it came so near, 
in the first town meeting, being strangled in its birth. 

The first settlers of Troy were from Peacham and the 



are reliable, she was then more than one hundred years old. She informed my 
father that her husband fell, in Lovell's war, and that she then had several grand- 
childi-en. Lovell's war terminated in 1725. If Molly was then only 40 years of 
age, she must have been bom as early as 1685. If so, she was 115 years old, 
when she went from Derby to Guildhall in 1800, and might have been 120 or 125. 
But she lived 17 years after this period. She was at last foand dead, on Mount 
White Cap, in East Andover, Maine, in 1817, where she had resided for some 
weeks, gathering blueberries, Her body when found had been partly eaten by 
a wild animal. I have no doubt that she was nearly 140 years old, at the time of 
her death. She was certainly very familiar with the events of " Lovell's fight," 
and the war next preceding. I saw and conversed with her frequently, from 
1812 to 1816, and have no doubt, that she was bom earlier than 1685, and that her 
statements were generally to be credited. S. R. H. 



30 

towns on the Connecticut river, many from New Hampshire,, 
and several were from Lyme. 

Although there were many worthy persons among them, 
many able, substantial men who were pioneers in the settle- 
ment, many men who had nerve and hardihood well fitted to 
encounter and overcome the hardships and difficulties of a 
new settlement, yet there were many who resorted thither 
who were of loose character, and but few comparatively of 
the first settlers or their descendants now remain among us. 

They appear to have partaken much of the wild habits of 
the time, and to have possessed a strong love of excitement 
and somewhat of a relish for stimulants mental and physical. 
They lacked not for enterprise, hardihood, and love of adven 
ture, but were wanting in the staid and regular habits which 
distinguished the Puritan settlers in the older States in New 
England, and they seem to have impressed their enthusiasm, 
and love of excitement on the character of the inhabitants 
of the town for a long time. 

The first settlement in Westfield was made by Mr. Jesse 
Olds in 1798. Mr. Olds was originally from Massachusetts, 
and was rather a remarkable character for a pioneer in such 
a settlement. He had been a minister of the gospel, and on 
one occasion, as before stated, he officiated as a clergyman at 
the funeral of Esq. Skinner's sons, but it does not appear 
that he ever acted in that capacity in the valley on any other 
occasion. He is described as having been a man of some 
property and of liberal education, of very genteel appear- 
ance and address, but of a ' lewd and licentious character. 
Some acts of misconduct or indiscretion had probably induced 
him to flee from society and seek a refuge in the wilderness. 
He selected and purchased a lot of land lying near the geo- 
graphical centre of the town, on a hill some two miles from 



31 

the present main road. Here he built a log house and moved 
his wife and family to his solitary home, and here his wife 
passed one winter with him, without having another woman 
nearer than twenty miles. After remaining in Westfield 
several years and clearing up a considerable portion of his 
land, Mr. Olds removed to Craftsbury, remained there a few 
years, and finally removed to the State of New York. The 
lands which he cleared were abandoned, and they and the 
orchard which he planted were overgrown by the returning 
forest, until within a few years they have been again reclaimed 
for a pasture. 

The next year after the settlement of Mr. Olds in "West- 
field, Messrs. Hobbs, Hartley and Burgess came into that 
town and settled on the same range of highlands near him ; 
and in 1802 the town of Westfield was organized and Mr. 
Olds was chosen the first town clerk. The year before, he 
had been elected a Judge of Orleans County Court. 

In the spring or summer of 1803, Mr. David Barber moved 
into the town, and in the fall of that year his brother-in-law, 
Thomas Hitchcock, visited the town with a view to settlino- 
there and selecting lands for himself and his father, Capt. 
Medad Hitchcock. Mr. Hitchcock explored thd flats or inter- 
vals in the Eastern part of the town, where the village of 
Westfield is now situated, and was much charmed with the 
appearance they then presented. He said he traced the lot 
lines from the hill North into the midst of the intervals. 
They were then covered with large, wide-spreading elms, 
with scarcely any brush, or any other kinds of timber growing 
among them. As he wandered among these stately elms, the 
interval, as he said, appeared to be boundless in extent and 
to include thousands of acres. 

Mr. Rodolphus Reed removed from Montague, Massachu- 



32 

setts, to Westfield, in the fall of 1803. During his journey 
he was detained by the sickness of his wife, and arrived at 
Craftsbury late in November. Being impatient to complete 
his journey before winter had made any further advances, 
Mr. Reed started for Westfield with his wife who had an 
infant only two weeks old, and his furniture in a sleigh drawn 
by two horses. A deep snow had lately fallen, and he sent 
two men in advance to remove obstructions from the road, 
and to break a path through the snow. It was his expecta- 
tion when he left Craftsbury to arrive at Judge Olds's in 
Westfield that night. Soon after he commenced the day's 
journey Mr. Reed was overtaken by Judge Olds, who was on 
horseback, returning from the session of the Legislature 
which he had attended as representative of Westfield. Judge 
Olds expressed to Mr. Reed his fears that they would not be 
able to get through the woods that night, and passed on, 
promising to send them assistance when he got home. The 
difficulty of traveling was so great, owing to the depth of 
the snow and the bad state of the road, that Mr. Reed and 
his party had advanced but a few miles when night overtook 
them. They halted, kindled a fire, and prepared to encamp 
in the woods* and snow. Their supply of provisions and 
forage for the horses was rather scanty, but as the weather 
was mild they passed the night without much suflFering. 

Next morning at the dawn of day they resumed their jour- 
ney, but with all the exertions they could make they were 
unable to complete their journey and night again found 
them in the forest. With much difficulty they succeeded 
in reaching a place about half a mile from the present 
site of Lowell village, where Major Caldwell, the summer 
previous, had felled a few acres of trees and erected 
a camp, and had then retired for the winter. This camp 



33 

could hardly aspire to the dignity of a hovel. It consisted 
of logs laid up on three sides only, and was open at one end 
for a fire and entrance, and was covered with poles and 
barks. The camp, humble as it was, afforded a welcome 
shelter for these weary travellers. The night was cold and as 
Mr. Reed and his party were then several miles from their 
place of destination, and their supply of provisions and forage 
was almost exhausted, the prospect was rather gloomy. Early 
the next morning they were cheered by the arrival of men, 
teams, and provisions, which Judge Olds had sent to their re- 
lief. The journey was resumed and that day, November 27th, 
1 803, Mr. Reed and his party arrived safely at Judge Olds's the 
place of their destination. 

Before they arrived, the settlement in WestlBeld consisted of 
the four families of Messrs. Olds, Hobbs, Hartley, and Burgess, 
and a mulatto man by the name of Prophet, who lived with 
Judge Olds ; and these constituted the community which Judge 
Olds had been to represent in the Legislature of Vermont. 

In 1 804 Capt. Medad Hitchcock with his three sons moved 
into Westfield, and three or four sons-in-law, and several other 
relatives soon followed him. This colony of settlers was from 
Brimfield and other adjoining towns in Massachusetts. They 
avoided the error of Judge Olds in settling on the high moun- 
tain side, and settled on the flat or low lands in the Eastern 
part of the town where the village of Westfield is now located. 
The first settlers of Westfield appear generally to have dif- 
fered somewhat from their neighbors in Troy, being of a more 
sober and sedate character, less impulsive, and perhaps less 
energetic and less liberal than the first settlers of the adjoining 
town. 

The first settler in Lowell was Major William Caldwell who 
commenced making improvements on his land in 1803, but did 

5 



34 

not move his family into the town until a year or two after. A 
few families followed him one or two years afterwards, but the 
town was not organized until the year 1812. 

Major Caldwell was from Barre, Massachusetts, and be- 
longed to a class of men who constituted a portion of the 
early settlers of Vermont. He had seen better days, had been 
a man of property and standing in Massachusetts, and had 
held the office of Sheriff in Worcester County. He is des- 
cribed as having been a man of a liberal and generous dispo- 
sition, which seems to have caused his ruin. He became in- 
volved in debt by being bondsman for his friends, lost all his 
property and fled to the wilds of Vermont.* 

* There are a few anecdotes connected with the Caldwell family which illustrate 
the manners of the past and may be worth preserving. The ancestor of Major 
Caldwell who first settled in this country w.ts Esq. Caldwell a native of Ireland. 
He was very poor when he came to America, and was one of the early settlers of 
Barre, Massachusetts. By his industry, perseverance, and good management, 
Esq. Caldwell amassed a large property in Barre, rose to a very respectable station 
in society, and was a Justice of the Peace at a period when that office was not so 
lavishly conferred as it is in this democratic age. In the after part of his life he 
used to say that the purchase of any farm which he then owned never gave him so 
much real satisfaction as the purchase of a table when he had saved tlie means to 
procure that necessary article for his family's use. After he became wealthy Esq., 
Caldwell had an obsei-vance in his family which is somewhat remarkable for its 
singularity as well as its propriety. For certain days in each year he and his 
family returned to the same coarse and scanty fare which he was compelled to use 
when he first settled in Barre. This he said was designed for a sort of passover, to 
remind him and his family of the poverty and indigence from which they had 
arisen. 

The circumstances of Major Caldwell's removal to "Vermont are also somewhat 
illustrative of the straits some of our early settlers were reduced to and of the 
stratagems of that day. After he lost his property, he made arrangements to re- 
move to Vermont. Some of his creditors got wind of his intention and prepared to 
arrest him. With some difficulty he escaped his pursuers, took refuge in a tavern, 
and secreted himself there. The house was quickly beset with deputy sheriffs 
who suspected the place of his concealment and were watching to arrest him. In 
this dilemma he sent for a friend, by the name of Brighara to come and see him at 
the house where he was concealed. Mr. Brigham came in the evening and found 
the bar-room filled with sheriff's watching for Caldwell. With some difficulty he 
got an interview with Caldwell and made his arrangements for the escape. He 
told Caldwell he must wait until late in the night and when he heard a tremendous 
uproar in the bar-room, come down and escape to the place where there was a 
horse and sleigh waiting; for him, saying that when he attempted to do anything 
slyly he made a great noise about it. Brigham then went into the bar-room, called 
for a mug of flip, and commenced conversation with the sheriffs and others pres- 
ent. One mug prepared the way for another, and the third and fourth soon fol- 
lowed. The officers, to relieve themselves of the tedium of watching, willingly 
joined In carousing and drinking with him, until they got into a somewhat 
merry mood. 

In the course of the evening Brigham went out and removed his horse from the 
place where he had hitched him, and secreted him. He then joined his friends in the 
bar-room and the carousal was continued. The company supposed Brigham was 
for a spree and drank freely to carry out the joke of the day of getting him intoxica- 
ted which was no easy matter. He was a large, athletic man, had been an officer 



35 

In Jay the first settler was Mr. Barter who came into town 
in 1809. A few families joined him previous to the war of 
1812, but upon the declaration of war they all abandoned the 
settlement and left him alone. In despite of the war and the 
cold seasons that followed, he maintained his post like a vete- 
ran, and, like a skilllul commander, deeming a numerous gar- 
rison essential to maintain his position, contrived to rear a 
family of twenty children on the highlands of Jay. The old 
gentleman survived to the age of nearly ninety. 

The early settlers of the valley had many and great hard- 
ships and disadvantages to encounter ; the roads were few, 
ill-wrought, and badly located, there were but few mechanics, 
and no regular merchants, and the transient traders who 
sometimes located for a few months among them commonly 
had for the main article in their stores, that which is the 
least valuable of all commodities, spirituous liquors. It was 
an event of frequent occurrence for the traveler to be lost 
or belated in the woods, and compelled to remain there through 
the night. In December, 1807, a Mr. Howard of Westfield, 
from such an exposure, and from exhaustion in crossing the 
mountain from Craftsbury to Lowell on foot in a deep snow, 
lost his life ; and a Mr. Eaton, on the same road and in the 



in the Revolutionary army, knew the strength of liquor, and would probably bear 
more liquor than any of them ; besides he knew what he was about and had no in- 
tention of taking more than he could manage, which he rarely or never did on any 
occasion, being considered in that day a sober and temperate man. At rather a 
late hour in the evening Mr. Brigham called on the landlord for his bill, paid it and 
started apparently for home. He soon returned in a terrible passion saying his 
horse was gone and accused the company of turning him loose, this was of course 
denied, the horse was searched for, and it was found he was gone sure enough. 
This appeared to aggrevate Brigham, more and moi-e flip was called for, but Brig- 
ham's passion seemed to increase, and he threatened to flog the whole company 
for the insult he said they had put upon him. The uproar from drinking, laugh- 
ing, threatening, and swearing, was now complete. Caldwell was forgotten for the 
moment by the sheriffs, but the noise of the tumult reached his anxious ear, the 
signal was understood, and he slipped out of the house and was off. Before Brig- 
ham and his company could be quieted and the uproar hushed, Caldwell was well 
on his way for Vermont. When all was accomplished at a pretty late hour in the 
night Mr. Brigham went out, took his horse from his hiding place, and went home, 
leaving the disappointed sheriflFs to get sober and make a Non est retnrn on their 
writs. 



36 

same month, was so badly frozen that he became a cripple 
for life. To give some instances of what were then con- 
sidered almost common hardships, a Mr. Reed purchased a 
common sized plow in Craftsbury, and traveling on snow shoes, 
cai'ried it on his back to his home in Westfield, a distance of 
about twenty miles; another man carried a heavy mill-saw 
from Danville to Lowell in the same way. 

The want of mills was a serious evil to which the early set- 
tlers were exposed. They had no mills among them for several 
years, and to get their grain ground they had to resort to 
Craftsbury, Derby, Richford, and other places. The mode of 
journeying to these mills was as various as the places to which 
they resorted. When they went to Richford they commonly 
used the canoe and paddled down the river, to go to the other 
places, they commonly used horses on excessively bad roads, 
and some even carried their grain on their backs to remote 
towns to be ground, so that they could supply themselves and 
families with breads ; whilst some hollowed out the stump of a 
tree or a log into a rude mortar, and by the aid of a huge 
pestle attached to a springing sapling pounded their gi-ain into 
meal. Besides these difficulties under which the first settlers 
labored in common with many other of the early settlers of 
Vermont, there were other disadvanges which seem to have 
been in some measure peculiar to themselves. None of our 
first settlers were possessed of much property. With perhaps 
one or two exceptions none had any thing more than enough to 
pay for the first purchase of their lands, and supply themselves 
with provisions for a year, and the necessary team and tools 
to commence a settlement. A few only possessed property to 
that extent, a majority had to purchase their lands on credit, 
and rely upon their own industry to pay for their lands and 
support themselves and families. The axe and the iirebrand 



37 

were the only aids wliich most of the first settlers had in 
reclaiming the forest and providing for the sustenance of them- 
selves and their families. The difficulties in making purchases, 
and procuring titles to land embarrassed the operations and 
impeded the progress of the first settlers. The lands of the 
valley were owned by non-residents, and the agents who had 
the care of the lands generally resided abroad. This led to 
a species of speculation called "making pitches," which 
enhanced the price of land and diverted the time and atten- 
tion of individuals from more regular and industrious pui"- 
suits, and It is remarkable that the abuse should have been 
tolerated at all. The mode of operation was this : An in- 
dividual would, to use the current plu-ase, " Pitch a lot" that 
is, he would select a lot and take possession of it by felling a 
few trees, and then apply to the distant agent for the lot. 
Even this ceremony of making any sort of communication 
with the ag-ent was not always observed. By thus making 
■his " Pitch" the individual, by a sort of common law of the 
valley, or usage which was recognized among the settlers, 
acquired a pre-en^tion right to the lot, so that no person who 
really desired to purchase and settle on it could do so without 
first buying the "pitcher's" or squatter's claim. By this ridi- 
culous species of speculation a kind of monopoly was created, 
the best lots were occupied and prices were enhanced. One 
of the oldest settlers, Dea. Hovey, asserts that when he came 
into the valley, in 18®3, he found all the best lots, those he 
wished to purchase were ^' pitched," or covered by these sham 
claims. To encourage settlers, Mr. Hauxhurst had previously 
reduced the price of five lots in his gore to fifty cents per 
acre, these were "pitched" of course and Dea. Hovey says 
that he selected and purchased one of these lots for which he 
paid two hundred dollars of which sum fifty dollars only were 



38 

paid to Mr. Hauxhurst's agent and one hundred and fifty dol- 
lars were pocketed by the speculator or man who made the 
pitch. Another early settler states that the price of the lot 
he purchased was advanced one-third by this same ingenious 
devise. 

Another cause which tended to retard the prosperity and 
improvement of the valley was its proximity to the province of 
Canada. The interruption in the trade and business between 
the several communities bordering on the line, by the duties 
imposed by the two governments has been an inconvenience 
which they have felt at all times, and a strong temptation to 
resort to illicit and contraband traffic. And the protection 
which a foreign government affords tended to allure many 
fugitives from justice into the bordering towns in Canada, and 
many of them frequently lingered on this side of the line. 
The effect of the residence of these outlaws was pernicious, 
and particularly so to a new settlement which had hardly 
acquired the stamina of an organized community. The pres- 
ence and society of these wretches served to contaminate and 
poison the moral atmosphere, to introduce immoral habits and 
practices, and from their influence a feeling was created 
among the first settlers which long remained and led them to 
connive at crime and breaches of the law, and to harbor 
and protect some who had better have been expiating their 
crimes within the walls of the state prisons. 

Other sources of discontent and unhappiness existed, which, 
as they did not depend upon physical causes, could not be so 
easily removed. A venerable lady, one of the fii'st settlers of 
Westfield, says that dm-ing the fii'st year of her residence in 
that town her feelings of discontent and homesickness arising 
from the loneliness of her situation, and loss of the society of 
her early friends and relatives, was almost insupportable. 



39 

Others doubtless felt the same bereavement. Some missed the 
institutions of religion, and many parents felt the need of better 
and more convenient schools for their children than the rude 
settlement could then afford. But although the early settlers 
had to encounter many hardships, and were surrounded with 
many difficulties and discouragements, their situation was not 
without its comforts and enjoyments, and their lot was not all 
gloom, discontent, and suffering. They had many comforts, 
and even luxuries which are often denied to those in more 
affluent circumstances. Their lands were fertile, the seasons 
for many years were propitious, and theii' crops abundant. 
The forests afforded some deer and moose; the river and 
streams abounded with delicious trout, and a few hours spent 
in the enjoyment of their favorite pastime of hunting or fishing, 
would oftentimes furnish the settler with a meal which would 
excite the envy of our city epicures. 

The sugar maple was a rich blessing to the early settlers of 
Vermont. Those beautiful groves yielded an abundant supply 
of sugar, affording to the indigent settler a necessary and luxury 
of life which the wealthy in older countries could scarce afford, 
whilst the cheerful fii-es of this wood which in our infancy we 
saw blazing in the old stone-backed chimneys, call up recollec- 
tions of an enjoyment we cannot now find in the dull, invisible 
warmth of an air tight stove, and the ashes of this generous 
tree when manufactured into potash or pearlash, furnished an 
article for exportation, and almost the only one which would 
warrant the expense in transporting it to the then distant 
markets. 

One great solace the fiii'st settlers of this State enjoyed which 
it is doubtful if it ever has been or can be sufficiently appreci- 
ated, that is, the harmony, friendliness, and good will which 
almost universally prevailed. All were exposed to hardships, 



40 

all felt the need of each others assistance, and in the general 
mediocrity of fortune, feelings of envy or of proud superiority 
were rare. This feeling of friendliness and sociability univer- 
sally prevailed in the valley. Although this social feeling might 
in some instances explode in scenes of boisterous and drunken 
mirth, yet it often appeared in another form which indicated 
better manners and better morals. It was manifested in kind, 
unbought services at the sick bed, in relieving destitution and 
want, in a readiness to assist in a heavy job of work, at the 
raising and logging bee, and at the neighborly visit, when the 
ox sled was often put in requisition to transport the wife and 
children to the evening visit where the whole neighborhood 
were assembled. One of the earlier settlers — Judge Stebbins — 
and his wife, for some years after they moved into Westfield^ 
made it a rule to visit every family in their town at least once 
each year. Another of the early settlers of the same town, a 
lady, in speaking of the old times mentioned this feeling of 
harmony which prevailed among her old neighbors, and said 
that the first note of discord which was heard in the town 
originated in the political strifes and contests which preceded 
the declaration of war in 1812. Previous to that time all had 
been peace and concord. 

Notwithstanding the difficulties and discouragements which 
surrounded the infant settlement, the prospects of the valley 
were improving. From the fragment of an old tax bill dated 
February 28, 1807, it appears that the town of Troy in that 
year contained thirty tax payers. By the census of 1810, it 
appears that Troy then contained two hundred and eighty-one 
inhabitants, and Westfield one hundred and forty-nine. Not 
only were their numbers increasing, but the prosperity of the 
valley was otherwise advancing ; clearings and improvements 
were made, houses and other buildings were erected, and many 



41 

of the worst difficulties attending a new settlement were over- 
come. The deficiency of mills which seems so inconsistent 
with the existence of civilized life, was soon supplied. In 1 804 
Mr. Josiah Elkins erected a mill in Troy. Deacon Hovey had 
a grist ground there in October of that year, the first grist that 
ever was ground in Troy. The next year Capt. Hitchcock 
built a mill in Westfield. The attention of the public had 
begun to be more and more directed to the valley, new settlers 
were arriving and forming new settlements, and the value and 
* extent of the farms and improvements were yearly increasing, 
when all these flattering appearances were crushed to the earth 
by the war of 1812. 



THE WAR OP EIGHTEEN HUNDRED TWELVE. 

The war of 1812 was peculiarly disastrous in its effects to 
the Northern part of Vermont and exhibits an instance of the 
ruinous effects of war on a country, even when it does not 
Buffer from the invasions of the enemy. Few sections of the 
state suffered more than this valley. Lying on the frontier 
and separated by mountains and forests from other parts of 
the state, the people supposed they would be the first victims 
of an attack. The settlers of Troy seem at first to have 
regarded the approach of war with their usual spirit and 
daring. Many spirited meetings were held at that time, and 
many patriotic resolutions were adopted. 

A fort also was, about this time, built in Troy, and another 
in Westfield. These forts, as they were called, were rude 
palisades, consisting of logs about a foot in diameter, and 
twelve or fifteen feet in height, placed perpendicularly, one end 
being inserted in a deep trench dug into the earth. The ruins 
of the Troy fort remained for twenty years, a monument of 
the courage and military j?kill of the early settlers. 

6 



42 

But however resolute our people might have been when 
danger was only anticipated, yet when it was known that war 
was actually declared, the courage of many appears to have 
quailed under the supposed danger. The nursery tales of 
Indian havoc and warfare were rehearsed, the people seem to 
have been seized with a sort of panic, and supposed that hordes 
of Canadian Indians would be let loose upon them. The 
consequence was that a great part of the people abandoned 
their farms and homes, some only for a short time, but many 
never to return. Mrs. Elkins states that of the families which 
passed her house on one day, moving out of the settlement, 
she counted nineteen females who had been her neighbors. 
The eflfects of this removal were disastrous both to those who 
left and those who remained. Many of those who left made 
ruinous sacrifices of their property, abandoned farms where 
had expended years of hard labor, and where a few more 
years of like exertion would have rendered them independent 
and wealthy, to return again to poverty and begin the world 
anew. Nor were they the only sufferers ; those who remained 
experienced a loss in being deprived of the society and 
assistance of their neighbors and friends, and in a sparse 
settlement scarcely numerous enough to maintain the institu- 
tions of civilized life, this loss must have been severely felt. 
Several of the citizens enlisted into the army, and the time 
and attention of those who remained in the settlement were 
very much diverted from the regular business and employ- 
ments of life. The labors of the husbandman for a season 
were generally interrupted, few felt much confidence to till 
the earth when the prospect of remaining to the time of 
harvest was deemed so uncertain. All improvements in clear- 
ing farms and erecting buildings were of course discontinued. 
Speculation and smuggling soon followed, and diverted the 



43 

time and attention of the people from more profitable and 
honorable pursuits. In the winter of 1812-13, a small 
detachment of troops was stationed at North Troy. It is 
probable that the desire of quieting the fears of the people, 
and preventing smuggling and driving cattle into Canada, was 
the object of the government in stationing this body of troops 
in Troy rather than the apprehension of an invasion from 
that quarter. 



HARD TIMES. 

But the calamities of the valley did not end with the 
war. A succession of cold and unproductive seasons 
followed. The cold season of 1816 with its snow storm in 
June will long be remembered in Vermont. After the war, 
a general depression in business was experienced throughout 
the country. Almost secluded from the rest of the world by 
bad roads through forests and over mountains the evils ex- 
perienced from the failure of crops and the revulsion in trade 
were felt here in the greatest severity. The settlers were 
but poorly prepared to meet and overcome the diflBculties 
which surrounded them, arising from the failure of crops, and 
the change from the lavish expenditures of the war to the 
contraction and revulsion in business which followed its ter- 
mination, with numbers reduced by emigration, farms neg- 
lected, and habits of idleness, speculation, and dissipation 
engendered by the war, the cold seasons of 1815 and 1816 
produced a scarcity and dearness of provisions, in some in- 
stances almost approaching to famine. Provisions were then 
scarce throughout the state, bad and almost impassable roads 
rendered it more difficult to procure here a supply from 
abroad, and the price of bread-stuffs rose to an unusual 



44 

height. Indian corn in the summer cf 1716 was sold from 
$3,00 to $3,50 per bushel. One of the early settlers gave 
six days work in haying in that season for two bushels of 
rye ; and in one instance in Lowell a family were for several 
days driven to the necessity of feeding on boiled leeks and 
clover heads to sustain life. 

At that time the inhabitants of the valley produced little or 
nothing for sale from the ordinary productions of husbandry, and 
their almost only resource to procure money for their pressing 
necessities, was by the slow and laborious process of making 
ashes, from which the laborer could hardly realize more than 
from twenty-five to thirty cents for his day's work. There 
were then but few mechanics and no stores or merchants in the 
valley. In 1 8 1 8, Jerre Hodgkins, Esq., commenced trade with a 
store of goods in Westfield. At that time there was no store 
nearer than Craftsbury, except one with a small stock of goods 
in Potton, and the people were compelled to dispense almost 
entirely with those articles deemed necessary for their dress or 
tables, or to purchase a few scanty articles at ruinous prices 
enhanced by expensive freight and extravagant profits. The 
decline of the settlement is indicated by the census. In 1810 
the town of Troy contained two hundred and eighty-four inhab- 
itants ; in 1820 their numbers were diminished to two hundred 
and twenty-seven, and had the census been taken in 1817 or 
1818, their numbers would doubtless have been much less. 

From the accounts which have been transmitted to us of 
these times, we have reason to believe that the moral and social 
condition of the people of the valley was but little in advance 
of their physical condition. Their means of moral and mental 
improvement were very limited. Almost cut ofif from the world 
by mountains and bad roads, they had few books or newspa- 
pers, few schools, and those with difficulty supported by the 



45 

sparse population, with little intercourse with society calculated 
to benefit or improve, and few religious meetings and those 
irregularly maintained, it appears that a low state of morals 
existed, that intemperance and other profligate habits prevailedj 
and were it not for the renovating influence of Christianity, 
and the progressive spirit of the age, the settlement must have 
relapsed into barbarism. 

But there appears to be a point both of depression and of 
prosperity in the fortunes of communities as well as of indi- 
viduals, to which they seem destined to go, and beyond which 
they cannot pass ^ and having reached this point the current of 
events begins to flow in an opposite direction. The people of 
the Missisco valley reached this point of depression about the 
year 1817, and from that period the condition and circumstan- 
ces of the people, with many interruptions and untoward 
events, seem on the whole to have been gradually improving. 
Many causes doubtless contributed to this beneficial change. 
It could not be expected that a region possessing so many nat- 
ural advantages could long remain waste and unimproved in 
New England, Some valuable settlers came in soon after, and 
the necessities of life would naturally tend to revive industry 
and introduce some order and improvement into the depressed 
and discordant state of things which then existed. But among 
the many causes of improvement perhaps none was more effica- 
cious even for the temporal prosperity of the people, than the 
great religious revival which occurred in the valley in 1818. 



REFORMATION OP EIGHTEEN HUNDRED EIGHTEEN. 

The history of no community, whether great or small, can 
be complete without some relation of its moral and religious 
character. Some account of the religious and ecclesiastical 



46 

history of the valley seems to be requii-ed. The moral char- 
acter of the people has already been referred to. No religious 
teacher at this time had ever been permanently settled there^ 
nor had any church or ecclesiastical society ever been organ- 
ized in the valley, and but few of the settlers had ever made 
any public profession of religious faith. The settlement had 
been occasionally visited by a few devoted missionaries, partic- 
ularly by the Rev. James Parker, who had occasionally labored 
there for a short time. A small society of Methodists was in 
Potton, the Rev. Mr. Bowen was located there, and had occa- 
sionally preached in Troy. Public worship on the sabbath 
had been but irregularly maintained, and in many districts, for 
long periods of time, could hardly have been said to exist. 
The consequences of this deficiency of religious instruction 
were felt on the moral character, and finally on the temporal 
prosperity of the people. A low state of moral feeling pre- 
vailed, and many instances of irregular conduct were connived 
at which should not have been tolerated by any civilized or 
well regulated community. 

The reformation which followed can scarcely be accounted 
for on any cause or principle which the world would call philo- 
sophical. Early in the winter of 1817 and 1818, an unusual 
solemnity seems to have rested on the minds of many of the 
people, an indefinite feeling of man's accountability, that all 
was not well with them, that a state of retribution hereafter 
was to follow the trials and temptations of this probationary 
scene. But no particular cause for this state of feeling can be 
assigned ; no particular affliction, sickness, or death, or what is 
called common casualty, had occurred. 

It is said that Asher Chamberlin, Esq., who previous to his 
removal to Troy, had made a profession of religion and 
united with the church in Peacham, had attempted, in the 



47 

fall of 1817, to maintain some religious meetings in his house, 
by reading a sermon and other exercises on the Sabbath, 
and by conference and prayer meetings at other times. At 
the close of one of these meetings he proposed to the audience 
that there should be an expression of their wishes whether 
these meetings should be continued or not, and unexpectedly 
to all there was an unanimous expression of the desire of the 
assembly that the meetings should be continued. They were 
therefore continued with as much or increasing interest. 

About this time an inhabitant of Troy, on a journey to 
New Hampshire, found at Hardwick the Rev. Levi Parsons, 
(a missionary employed by the Vermont Missionary Society, 
and who afterwards finished his labors in Palestine,) who 
was then preaching in that place, and invited him to visit 
Troy. He accepted the invitation, and arrived at Troy about 
the beginning of the year 1818. The first discourses of Mr. 
Parsons excited a deep interest on the already moved minds 
of the people of the valley. But the story of his labors and 
of the reformation which followed, can best be told in his 
own words which are extracted from his sermons published 
soon after his decease : — 

" In Troy and the adjoining towns I spent eleven weeks. 
The revival commenced upon the first of January and con- 
tinues still with great power. Three churches have been 
organized ; two of the Congregational and one of the Baptist 
denomination. Troy contains thirty-five families. Previous 
to the revival only one individual was known as a professor 
of religion, and only one family in which were offered morn- 
ing and evening sacrifices. From information, I have been 
led to believe that, in scarce any place did the sins of Sab- 
bath breaking, swearing and Intoxication prevail to a more 
alarming excess. Especially for a few months previous to 



48 

this every thing seemed to be repining for the judgment of 
Heaven. But He who is rich in mercy looked down in com- 
passion. * * * * At my first meeting I 
perceived an unusual attention. Every ear was opened to 
receive instruction, and many expressed by their countenances 
and actions the keen distress of a wounded conscience. The 
ensuing week convictions and conversions were multiplied. 
At some of the religious conferences more than twenty re- 
quested the prayers of their Christian friends. 

On Thursday the fifth of February, assisted the Rev. Mr. 
Leland of Derby, in organizing a church consisting of twelve 
members, all of whom gave evidence of renewing grace. At 
the close of the exercises the sacrament of the Lord's supper 
was administered for the first time in Troy. The season will 
ever be remembered with peculiar gratitude. * » ^ * 
In vain was the virulence of the moralist, or the sneers of the 
infidel. Nothing was able to oppose, with success, the in- 
fluences of the spirit. No heart was too hard to be melted } 
no will too stubborn to be bowed ; no sinner too abandoned 
to be reclaimed. The Sabbath breaker, the swearer, the 
drunkard, were humbled at the footstool of mercy. Every 
house for a distance of more than twenty miles was open for 
instruction. The church was soon enlarged to forty-five 
members, and many more were the evident subjects of grace. 
The neighboring towns were blessed with the same outpour- 
ings of the Holy Ghost. In Westfield I assisted in the 
organization of a church of ten members. Considerable ad- 
ditions have since been made and many are now inquiring 
' What shall we do to be saved ?' There have been a few 
instances of hopeful conversion in Potton and Sutton in the 
province of Canada. * * * * All ages and 
classes have shared in the work. Among the number who 



49 

have united with the church is the youth of fourteen, and the 
aged sinner of three score and ten." 

The statements of living witnesses confirm all there is re- 
corded by Mr. Parsons in his journal, respecting the state of 
society in the valley previous to the reformation occasioned 
by his labors there. The impression made by the preaching 
of Mr. Parsons is repi esented by all to have been profound, 
and a general spirit of inquiry upon the subject of religion 
seems to have been awakened. It does not appear that Mr. 
Parsons, although a man of respectab e abilities and learning, 
was possessed of any remarkable powers of oratory, but a 
deep feeling of love, sincerity, and earnestness, seemed to 
pervade his discourses, which appeared to come from the 
heart and to reach and melt the hearts of his hearers. It is 
not pretended that all sin and unbelief were banished from 
the valley by this reformation. Some were but slightly 
affected or were wholly unmoved, and some who then ap- 
peared to reform, and even covenanted to break off from 
their sins, returned to their evil habits, and in their after 
lives offered feeble evidence that their repentance was " unto 
life." Yet it is adrritted by all that a favorable change was 
wrought in the morals and habits of the people, and that with 
very many individuals there was not only a renunciation of 
Hi aven-daring sins, but a change in habits and conduct which 
told on the temporal prosperity and peace of families, and 
the community. Most of our religious societies date their 
origin from that period. A Congregational church was or- 
ganized in Troy and another in Westfield in 1818. A Bap- 
tist church was formed in those two towns in the same year. 
A Christian church was formed in Westfield in 1819. 

A little event occurred at Troy in August of 1819, which 
well illuBtratee the incidents of a settler's life, and shows the 

7 



50 

resolution and presence of mind of the wife of one of the 
early settlers. At this time Mr. Jonah Titus resided on the 
farm now owned by Capt. Kennedy, about a mile east of 
Troy village. This farm which is now on one of the main 
roads through ^he county, and is surrounded by a large and 
flourishing settlement, at that time presented a very different 
appearance. A few acres only were partially cleared, the 
only buildings were a small log house, and a hovel used as a 
substitute for a barn. These were surrounded by a dense 
forest. No road led directly to Troy village ; the only 
means of communication with the other settlements was by a 
path or sled road to the bridge at Phelps' Falls. No neigh- 
bor lived on that side of the river, except one, and he lived 
at the distance of more than half a mile. 

At this time Mr. Titus was laboring for Mr. Oliver Cham- 
berlain on the farm which is now the present site of Troy 
village, at the distance of two miles, as the road then was, 
leaving his wife with three small children in this secluded 
home. Early one morning Mrs. Titus was aroused by a loud 
squeal of the hog which was roaming in a raspberry patch 
near the house. Going to the door she saw the hog wounded 
and bleeding, running towards the house, pursued by a large 
she bear attended by two cubs. Mrs. Titus promptly inter- 
fered, and with the help of a small dog arrested the pursuit 
of the bear. The hog fled to the hovel, and the two cubs 
alarmed by the barking of the dog ran up a tree near the 
house. Mrs. Titus then took a tin horn and began sounding 
it in the hope ot arresting the attention of her distant neigh- 
bors. By her resolute bearing, the noise of the horn, and the 
barking of the dog, she kept the cubs up the tree and pre- 
vented the old bear from making an attack on herself Deter- 
mined if possible to bring these unwelcome invaders to their 



61 

deserts she resolutely maintained her post. The uncommon 
noise of the horn at length attracted the attention of her hus- 
band and distant neighbors, who suspecting trouble hastened 
to her relief with guns and other means of defence. A shot 
from one of the guns brought down the old bear, the cubs also 
were soon slaughtered, and Mrs. Titus had the pleasure of 
seeing these unwelcome assailants atone with their lives for 
their invasion of her premises, and their skins were the tro- 
phies of her courage and presence of mind. 



PROGRESS OP THE VALLEY. 

During the ten years following, the fortunes of the Missisco 
valley were advancing, and society seems to have been impro- 
ving. Farms were improved, new lots were purchased and 
settled, and the census taken in 1830 shows that the popula- 
tion of Troy had almost trebled in ten years, increasing from 
two hundred and twenty-seven in 1820, to six hundred and 
eight in 1830. In the same period Westfield had advanced 
jfrom two hundred and twenty-five to three hundred and fifty- 
three ; Jay from fifty-two to one hundred and ninety-six. 

Some new branches of mechanical business had been com- 
menced, and the people had made a considerable advance in 
the comforts and conveniences of life. Yet they were far 
from being a wealthy community, or their situation a desirable 
one for an intelligent and prosperous people. Few of the 
farmers produced more than was needed for the use of their 
own families, and for the supply of the mechanics and laborers 
in the immediate vicinity. None of the great staple articles 
were then extensively cultivated ; and only one farmer in the 
valley had any surplus produce to send to a distant market. 
Money was loaned at a rate of interest from twelve to twenty- 



52 

five per cent. The laborious process of making ashes and 
selling them to the merchants, or to some owner of an estab- 
lishment for manufacturing pearlashes, was almost the sole 
resource of many to obtain small sums of money, or to pur- 
chase those necessaries of life which were procured from 
abroad. 

Two merchants traded at that time in the valley. The lar- 
gest establishment was kept at the place now known as Troy 
village. The stock of goods commonly consisted of a hogs- 
head of whiskey and another of molasses, and a barrel or two 
of rum or other spirits. The assortment of cloths a stout 
man might carry on his shoulders, and the crockery and hard- 
ware might be packed in a handcart or wheelbarrow. At 
North Troy another store was kept on a rather smaller scale. 

The roads into the valley were ill wrought and in the worst 
locations, and over almost impassable mountains. The most 
traveled route was the old Hazen road crossing the two chains 
of Lowell mountains from Craftsbury to Montgomery, a route 
which has of later years been pretty much deserted by man 
and surrendered to the beasts of the forest. A mail from 
Craftsbury to St. Albans passed and returned on this road 
once a week, and a branch or local mail jfrom Troy connected 
with this route in Lowell. 

No house for public worship had been erected in the valley 
until the year 1829, when by the liberality of Dea. Page and 
a few individuals in Westfield, a meeting house was erected in 
that town. No clergyman had settled and ofl&ciated in that 
capacity in the valley for any number of years, and in the year 
1828 one solitary physician was the only professional man 
who had permanently settled in these towns. 

About this time several changes for the better occurred. 
In 1828 the Burlington and Derby road, as it was called, wae 



53 

surveyed and partially made, entering the valley on the South, 
through a natural ravine, from Eden, and passing through the 
towns of Lowell and Westfield to Troy village, thence turning 
East through Troy and Newport to the " narrows" of the 
Lake. By this route a remarka,bly easy and level road was 
made into the valley from the South, and a much more feasible 
and level route to the East than had ever before been enjoyed. 
The valley no longer remained in the inaccessible and isolated 
state it had previously been in. A large share of the travel 
and business from Burlington and Lake Champlain to this 
county passed over this road. Intersecting the principal roads, 
and crossing the valley at Troy village, business and travel 
was concentrated there. Another merchant established him- 
self there in 1829, several mechanics settled there, and Troy, 
<jr South Troy village, became an important location in the 
oounty. Lowell also was greatly benefitted by this road. A 
large tract of land in the South part of that town, which had 
previously appeared to be destined to remain for a long time 
a wilderness, was now made accessible to settlers and was 
soon occupied, and the population and wealth of that town 
was very much advanced. 

The Temperance reformation which was much needed here, 
as well as in other parts of the State, was about this time ex- 
tended into the valley, with very salutary effect to many indi- 
viduals and families. This reformation, however, was strenu- 
lously opposed by a large portion of the people, who insisted 
on maintaining their free agency without pledge or control. 

In 1831, the subject of religion again engrossed the attention of 
the people of the valley. This revival spread through the four 
towns in. this County and extensively prevailed in the adjoining 
town of Potton. This reformation was not as general nor its 
fruits as valuable as the former one in 1 818. It was carried on 



54 

with much of the zeal and enthusiasm which commonly charact- 
erizes the acts of the people of the valley, both good and bad. 
Large additions were made to the churches, particularly to the 
Baptist and Methodist societies. Many of the converts of that 
time have adorned the profession which they then made by a 
life corresponding to their sacred vows, and though some have 
proved to be like the seed sown on stony ground, yet the moral 
atmosphere was purified for a time, and the cause of religion 
and temperance was much advanced. 



IRON MINE IN TROY. 

The year 1833 was distinguished by an event from which 
much was at the time anticipated, and from which important con- 
sequences will sometime be realized, the discovery of the iron 
mine in Troy. Some years previous, specimens of the ore had 
been found in detached rocks or boulders which had attracted 
attention, and had been pronounced by some scientific men to be 
iron, and the existence of it in large veins or quantities in the 
vicinity had been conjectured. But the discovery of the mine 
was made in 1833 by Mr. John Gale. Mr. Gale was a black- 
smith, and had resided in Troy for a few years previous to the 
war of 1812. Whilst he resided in Troy, he discovered a rock 
which from its color and weight attracted his attention and led 
him to suspect it might be iron. After he left Troy, he resided 
some years in the iron region west of Lake Champlain, and 
from the knowledge he there acquired of ore was confirmed in 
the belief that the ledge he saw in Troy contained iron. Re- 
turning to this vicinity on a visit he with Harvey Scott, Esq., 
of Craftsbury, commenced search for this ore, in which he was 
joined by Thomas Stoughton, Esq., of Westfield. After search- 
ing some days, Mr. Gale discovered the vein of ore lying as he 



55 

thought at or near the spot where he had discovered it more 
than twenty years before. He broke off some specimens of the 
rock and tested their value by melting them down in a black- 
smith's forge and hammering them into horse nails. 

The discovery of this ore occasioned a great excitement 
in the vicinity, and extravagant expectations were formed of 
the value of the mine. The ore was first discovered on lot 
number ninety in the South Gore in Troy. The owner of 
that lot, Mr. Fletcher Putnam, gave a deed of one half of 
the ore to the discoverers according to the promise he had 
made them when they commenced their researches. These 
fractional interests were magnified by the eager hopes and 
imaginations of the owners into immense fortunes which they 
had partially realized. 

Mr. Putnam had a short time before bought this lot of land 
for $500. Soon after the discovery of the ore he sold the 
land and his half of the ore for $3,000. Mr. Stoughton after 
keeping his interest in the ore for several years sold for 
$2,000. Mr. Gale realized but little from his ore, and Mr. 
Scott nothing at all. This ore has been discovered in large 
quantities on lot eighty-nine, South of the one on which it was 
first discovered, and it has also been traced on the lot North, 
number ninety-one. A forge was erected at Phelps' Falls in 
1834, by several individuals in Troy, and the manufacturing 
of the ore commenced. The owners of this forge were soon 
discouraged, and in the winter following they sold their forge, 
ores, and machinery, to Messrs. Binney Lewis & Co., of Bos- 
ton. These gentlemen obtained an act af incorporation- from 
the Legislature of the State, and commenced making wrought 
iron, but with little success, and they soon discontinued the 
business. The forge has been abandoned and has fallen into 
a heap of ruins. In 1835 another company was formed and 



56 

incorporated by the Legislature, and in the name of the Bos- 
ton and Troy Iron Company. This company purchased thi'ee- 
fourths of the ores, and twenty acres of land where the ores 
were situated on lot number ninety, for which they gave $8,0007 
also about twelve hundred acres of other land, commenced ope- 
rations, and built a furnace, a large boarding house, and other 
buildings in 1837. After expending large sums of money 
without realizing much profit, this company failed in 1841, and 
the lands, ores, and buildings, passed by mortgage into the 
hands of Mr. Francis Fisher of Boston. In 1844 Mr. Fisher 
put the furnace again in blast and commenced the manufacture 
of iron, with the prospect of making it a permanent and prof- 
itable business, but these expectations were destroyed by the 
alteration of the Tariff in 1846, and like many other iron 
establishments in the United States, the operations of this 
furnace were then suspended and have not since been resumed. 
Thus far the iron mines of Troy have not answered the ex- 
pectations which were formed from them, or justified the out- 
lay which has been made in the manufacture. As yet it has 
proved an injury rather than a benefit to the people in the 
vicinity, and a heavy loss to all who have engaged in the manu- 
facture. But the richness of the ore is undoubted* and from the 
abundant supply of charcoal and excellence of the water power 



* The following analysis of the Troy ore was made by Dr. Charles T. Jackson : 
" The ore is a gi-anular tnagnetis variety, the fractured grains having a bright 
shining appearance. This granular appearance is owing to imperfect chrystali- 
zation of the ore. There may be observed a silicions matter between some of the 
chrystals or grains. The specific gravity of this ore, tried on two specimens, was 
from 4.69 to 4.70. The ore yields on analysis : — 

Per-Oxide of Iron, .......90 per cent. 

Titanate of Iron, 8"** 

Silica, - . 2 " " 

100 
90 grains of Per Oxide of Iron contain 62.4 pure Iron, 8 grains Titanate of Iron 
contain 5 grains Titanic Acid and 8 grains of Protoxide of Iron. I have no doubt 
that 60 per cent, of excellent cast Iron may be obtained by smelting this ore. It i» 
a very rich and valuable ore and will make the very best kinds of Iron and Steel. 
It may be reduced directly to Mailable Iron in the blooming forge by the ataa? 
process." 



67 

the facilities for maufacturing are great, and the iron produced 
from this ore, for durability, toughness, and strength, is not ex- 
ceeded by any in America. The causes of the past failures are 
to be attributed to the difificulty of melting and fluxing the ore, 
the want of experience in the workmen, the fluctuations in the 
Tariff, the remoteness of the location from water or railroad 
communication, and the difficulty of finding access to markets. 
Let us hope that these difficulties will eventually be surmounted 
by science and the progress of improvement, and that the time 
is not far distant when the Troy iron will prove a rich mine to 
the owners, and be manufactured not only to supply the county 
but a large portion of the state with that most valuable of all 
metals. 

The season in 1833 was uncommonly bad and unproductive, 
the summer was wet and cold, crops were light, and Indian 
corn was almost a total failure. The scarcity of bread stuffs 
which followed, and the improvement which had been made in 
the roads, occasioned in the next year the introduction of a 
new branch of trade in the valley, the importation of western 
flour in barrels. Previous to that time flour had never been 
brought into the valley, but since the year 1834 western flour 
has constituted a large portion of the breadstuffs used in the 
Missisco valley, and has caused a considerable change in the 
system of agriculture. Since that time the farmers have real- 
ized less on the raising of grain, and have applied their labor 
and capital more to their flocks and dairies. 



THE PATRIOT WAR. 

The discussion between the Liberal and the Government 
parties in Canada, which for several years agitated that Prov- 
ince, resulted, in the year 1 837, in an open rebellion against 

8 



58 

the British govemment. The inducing causes and the princi- 
pal events of this insurrection, belong to the history of the 
Province, rather than to this narrative, but its effects were felt 
even here, and constitute quite an era in the annals of the 
Missisco valley. This attempt to establish the independence 
of the Province occasioned a great excitement in the valley, 
as well as in other places on the frontier of this State. The 
sympathy of the people was very strongly in favor of those 
who were considered as asserting the cause of liberty and 
independence in the Province. This feeling was increased by 
the reports, (some of them no doubt much exaggerated,) of 
the atrocities committed by the troops and adherents of the 
government in the Province, after the first outbreak at St. 
Charles had been suppressed. Many who were connected 
with the Radical or revolutionary party fled from the adjoin- 
ing towns in Canada and took refuge in Troy. The presence 
of these exiles and the story of their wrongs increased the 
feeling of a people naturally excitable and enthusiastic. 
Meetings were called, and sometimes attended by three or 
four hundred people ; contributions were raised for the relief 
of the exiles, and measures were taken for their protection. 
The sympathy of the people of this State for the Canadian 
revolutionists would have been sufficiently strong without any 
prompting ; but this feeling which was perfectly natural, and 
would have been commendable, had it been restrained within 
the bounds of prudence and the duty of American citizens, 
was soon tainted by demagogueism, the bane and curse of pop- 
ular excitements and American politics. The opportunity to 
gain a cheap popularity by a boisterous zeal for liberty, was 
too tempting to be lost by some who aspired to notoriety and 
popular favor. Violent addresses were made to the excited 
people, intemperate resolutions, sympailiyzing with the Radi- 



59 

cals, condemning the tyranny of the British, and the cold neu- 
trality of our government, were introduced into the popular 
meetings and passed by acclamation. Such was the excite- 
ment of the time that many were (or professed to be,) ready 
to arm and march to the assistance of the Canadian Patriots, 
and aid them in subverting the rule of a foreign government. 

In the month of February, 1838, the leaders of the Radical 
party, many of whom had taken refuge in Franklin and Chit- 
tenden Counties in this State, concocted a plan for a general 
insurrection in Canada. A provisional government was organ- 
ized, and Robert Nelson was appointed President. A consid- 
erable force was collected on the borders of Franklin County. 
A proclamation was issued by provisional President Nelson, 
abolishing many of the grievances complained of, declaring the 
independence of Canada, and calling upon the people of Can- 
ada to arm and join his forces to establish an independent gov- 
ernment. The design of the revolutionary leaders was to 
concentrate their forces at Napierville, and then march upon 
and take St. Johns and Montreal. To facilitate this enterprise 
dispatches were sent by Nelson to his partisans in this vicinity, 
calling upon them to take up arms and make an inroad into 
Pottcn, and another into Stanstead, to distract the attention 
of the Provincial authorities and aid him in his attempt on St. 
Johns and Montreal. At this time a military force consisting 
of militia and volunteers was organized and armed in Potton 
by the British government. This company was frequently 
called together for inspection and drill, and when needed, to 
do duty as a guard, and to resist any attempt at invasion or 
insurrection, and when not on duty were dispersed at their 
several houses through the town. This company was of rather 
an irregular character, had but little of the order and disci- 
pline of veterans, and some of them exhibited but little conr- 



60 

tesey towards the radicals in the Province, or towards the 
citizens of this State who were supposed to favor the cause 
of Canadian independence. A plan was formed to disarm 
these troops, at the same time the invasion was made by Nel- 
son from Franklin County. For this purpose, on the evening 
of February 27, 1838, a party collected at North Troy, 
consisting of about thirty men, of whom ten or twelve were 
citizens of Troy and Jay, and the remainder were exiles from 
Canada or inhabitants of Potton. Their plan was to proceed 
to the houses of the members of this corps enrolled by the 
government, called "The Potton Guard," demand and take 
their guns and equipments, and proceed from house to house, 
until the whole company were disarmed, and secure or over- 
awe the most influential and zealous of the Tory or govern- 
ment party, but it was not the intention to take life or destroy 
property. 

Before they started on their expedition these invaders chose 
a citizen of Troy for their commander, and provided them- 
selves amply with arms and ammunition, and from the char- 
acter of the men, their personal courage and enthusiasm, had 
they been engaged in a lawful and well considered enterprise, 
it would not have been very safe to oppose them. This com- 
pany, about 10 o'clock P. M., crossed the line of the State^ 
called at two houses and demanded their arms. Not finding 
any in those two places they proceeded to the house of Mr. 
Salmon Elkins who resided about two miles from North Troy. 
They arrived there about eleven o'clock. Mr. Elkins was a 
zealous adherent of the government or Tory party, and two 
of his sons and one grandson had enlisted into this govern- 
ment corps called the " Potton Guard." This family had a 
short time previous been notified of this attempt, and had 
made preparations to resist if the attack should be made. 



61 

The three Elkiiis who belonged to the " Guard," had loaded 
their guns and retired to their chamber. The invading com- 
pany halted near the house, four of their number were selected 
to go into the house and demand their guns. They entered 
the house. Mr. Salmon Elkius and his wife had not retired 
for the night, and appeared to be the only persons in the lower 
part of the house. The guns were demanded, and they were 
told they should not be harmed, but the guns must be deliv- 
ered. Mr. Elkins told them they had no guns there, the com- 
pany insisted that they had. Hazen Hadlock, one of their 
number, took a candle and with one or two others attempted 
to go up stairs to search for arms. The instant Hadlock 
appeared on the stairs two of the Elkins fired from above ; 
one shot took effect on Hadlock, a ball pierced his heart, he 
staggered back exclaiming " I am a dead man," and fell dead 
in the midst of his comrades. The band were infuriated at 
the horrid sight. Two or three guns were instantly raised 
and leveled at Mr. Salmon Elkins, and had it not been for the 
prompt intervention of Capt. Ira A. Bailey of Troy, he would 
have been shot in an instant by his own fireside. Some of the 
party proposed to fire volleys into the chamber windows, and 
some proposed to set fire to the house and burn it and its 
inmates to ashes. Bailey interfered again ; he commanded 
the Elkins in the chamber above to surrender their arms 
immediately and their lives should be spared. The guns 
were immediately given up. Finding that their purpose of a 
surprise was frustrated, that the intelligence of their design 
had been communicated to the government party, and the 
houses in the vicinity were lighted up, the invading company 
placed the dead body of their companion in one of their 
sleighs, and sorrowfully returned to North Troy. The 
wretched result of this ill-judged invasion was that six stand 



62 

of arms were taken from the "Potton Guard," and one 
unhappy man was untimely hurried into eternity. 

The intelligence of this invasion spread "with much exag- 
geration throughout the adjacent parts of the Province and 
the State. Several companies of troops were sent into Pot- 
ton by the provincial authorities, from the towns of Shefford 
and Broome and other parts of the Province. Seventy or 
eighty stand of arms were also collected from different towns 
in Orleans county and secretly delivered to the Potton rad- 
icals. Threats of vengeance and reprisal were made by indi- 
viduals on both sides of the line, and everything seemed to 
threaten a destructive border war. 

These disturbances which had occurred on the Canadian 
frontier, and the remonstrances of the British government, 
drew the attention of the government at Washington to the 
subject. Proclamations for maintaining the laws of a neutral 
government were issued, government agents and officials were 
dispatched to inquire into the difficulties, and United States 
troops were stationed at different places on the frontier to 
enforce our laws of neutrality. Troy received a share of the 
attention of the general government and a company of United 
States troops under the command of Capt. Van Ness (a 
nephew of a former Governor of this State) was sent there 
in the fall of 1838, and Troy again had the distinction of 
being a garrisoned town. This company remained in Troy 
until the spring following. The prudent and judicious conduct 
of Capt. Van Ness tended to repress and allay the excitement 
on the frontier. His courteous and gentlemanly deportment 
towards the citizens won their confidence and regard, whilst 
his kind attentions to his soldiers, and the strict discipline he 
maintained over his company composed of almost all nations 
proved him and officer of merit. 



6S 

But the decline of the Revolutionary cause in Canada, and 
the good sense of the people began to react and to restore 
peace and tranquility on our frontier. The opinion was now 
generally adopted by the citizens, that the cause of liberty 
could not be advanced by irregular forays and incendiarism, 
that the Canadians for the present, at least, had better be left 
to themselves, that unless they could exhibit more unity of 
conduct than they had done they could never hope to estab- 
lish or maintain an independent republic, and that it was vain 
for a few individuals in this State to conquer it for them. 

" Hereditary bondmen, know ye not 

Who would be free themselves must strike the blow, 

By their right arms the conquest must be wrought." 

The exasperation and difficulties arising from this Canada 
war did not wholly terminate in the Missisco valley. A few 
remained especially among the exiled radicals who were still 
disposed to keep up a useless excitement and perpetrate acts 
of mischief and violence. The last outbreak which occurred 
in the vicinity happened on the night following the first 
Tuesday of June 1840. On that night the house, barn, and 
out-buildings, belonging to Mrs. Susannah El kins of Potton, 
were set on fire and burnt. This barbarous deed was done, 
as with good reason was supposed, by four or five fugitive 
radicals from Canada who had resided in Troy, though there 
was some reason to fear that their design was known if not 
approved by others. This fire was seen at a late hour in the 
night by a neighbor, who ran and gave the alarm. Mrs. 
Elkins and her tv/o sons, Leander Oilman and John T. Gilman, 
were the only occupants of the house. They were aroused 
from their sleep by the alarm given, and had barely time to 
escape with their lives from the devouring flames. Had the 
intelligence been delayed a few minutes, they must all have 



64 

inevitably perished. The house and other buildings and all 
the property in them, including a horse and cow confined in 
the barn, were consumed to ashes. Mrs. Elkins (formerly 
Mrs. Oilman) was an elderly lady and much esteemed by a 
large circle of acquaintances but was strongly attached to the 
government cause, her sons and other relatives had been 
active in that party, and the houses she owned had been used 
for the quarters of the government troops when they were 
stationed in Potton. These were the probable reasons why 
she was made the victim of such singular and barbarous ven- 
geance. This atrocious act closed the events of the Canada 
rebellion in the Missisco valley. Sympathy for suffering and 
exiled patriots could not justify an act like this. Public sen- 
timent was aroused and the universal condemnation of the 
act prevented the repetition, though the actors escaped the 
hands of justice. 



EDUCATION. 

The inhabitants of the Missisco valley have never been 
distinguished by any very great attainments in Science and 
Literature. Though many instances may be cited of more 
than ordinary natural talents, and the general intelligence of 
of the people is admitted, yet it must be confessed that the 
intellectual powers have not been cultivated and improved to 
that point which elevates society and humanity to its highest 
state of refinement and improvement. The causes of this 
state of things it is perhaps useless to investigate, and the 
consequences which have followed this neglect of mental cul- 
ture it may be offensive to point out. No schools or semina- 
ries of learning above the common district school have been 
maintained in the valley until within a few years past. 



65 

In 1 855 an Academy was incorporated at North Troy, and 
in 1857 another was incorporated in Westfield. These insti- 
tutions are but the commencement as is to be hoped, of gi'eater 
good. Schools have as yet been maintained in them only for 
portions of the year. 

No young man born and reared in the valley has ever 
received a Collegiate education, except Rev. W. W. Living- 
ston, son of Dea. Livingston of Potton, and but few of the 
young men have studied the learned professions or entered 
into the higher ranks of literary or scientific life, though 
several young men who have gone abroad have by their char- 
acter and industry attained to a respectable rank in society. 



CRIMES. 

No case of murder is known to have occurred or been sus- 
pected in the valley. There have been two or three instances 
of suicide, and several melancholy instances of accidental 
death, mostly by drowning. There has scarce been -an 
instance of a conviction for a felony of any resident in the 
valley. Some instances of prosecutions for minor oflfences 
have of course happened, and there may have been some 
other cases which have escaped, which deserved the notice 
and animadversions of the law. 



GROWTH OF BUSINESS AND POPULATION. 

The introduction of the manufacture of iron into Troy 
occasioned a very considerable increase in the business and 
population of the town. The decline and final suspension of 
the business in 1846, caused a temporary decrease in the 
business of the place, and most of those attracted there by 

9 



66 

this manufacture left soon after its suspension. But the course 
of improvement, though flattering, was still progressive. 
Farms were extended and improved, some new settlements 
were commenced and other improvements made. The intro- 
duction of the manufacture of starch in the year 1846 
brought much new land into cultivation, relieved many from 
embarrassments, and raised some to easy or independent cir- 
cumstances, and on the whole there was a very perceptible 
accumulation of capital and an amelioration of the circum- 
stances of the people. The populations of the four towns of 
the valley advanced from 1965 in 1840, to 2518 in 1850. 

The general improvement throughout the State, particularly 
in the extension of railroads, begun also to affect the Missisco 
valley. The rapid advance made in the agricultui-al interest 
in the adjoining County of Franklin, arising in a great mea- 
sure from the improvement in dairying husbandry, and the 
great increase in the production of butter and cheese in that 
County, very much affected the adjoining sections of Orleans 
County. Many of the more enterprising and successful dairy 
farmers in Franklin County were both able and disposed to 
buy the farms of their less wealthy neighbors, and these, after 
selling their farms, instead of going to the far west were 
inclined to settle in a nearer region. Some enterprising 
farmers also in Franklin County, wishing to enlarge their 
farming and daiiying operations, sold out there, and made 
very advantageous purchases of large tracts here, with equal if 
not superior advantages. The combination of these cii'cum- 
stances caused quite a migration from Franklin to this part of 
Orleans County, and of course an advance in the price of 
lands here. From these and other causes the price of real 
estate in the Missisco valley has probably doubled since 1 850, 
and seems to be still <m the increase. 



67 

If the valley could have received this accession to its pop- 
ulation and business without any corresponding loss, it would 
have attained to a higher state of improvement than it now 
enjoys. Among the causes which have tended to retard the 
advance of the Missisco valley for the last ten years, the 
great emigration, and the withdrawal of capital to the West, 
may be noticed as the first. Within the last ten years it 
would be safe to calculate that from seventy-five to one hun- 
dred thousand dollars had been carried from a small circle 
around Troy village, and invested in the West. In addition 
to this amount of money, the Missisco valley has paid a further 
contribution to the West in several worthy and enterprising 
men, who have gone there with it. 

The season of 1854 was remarkably dry and unproductive; 
scarcely any rain fell during the three summer months. In 
consequence of this drought, the hay crop, the main reliance 
of the farmer, was lighter than was ever known before. 
Hardly half the usual crop of hay was secured that year, and 
English grain and potatoes suflFered much. The efiects of this 
drought were peculiarly disastrous to the farmers of the Mis- 
sisco valley. Tempted by the great profits of dairying and 
stock growing, they had engaged largely in that business. By 
this disastrous season they were deprived of the usual means 
of wintering thie large stocks of cattle they had about them, 
and were compelled to dispose of them at the lowest prices. 
Taking it altogether it was perhaps one of the most unfavor- 
able seasons ever known in Vermont. It blighted the pros- 
pects of many a flourishing farmer, and it required the labors 
of several years to recover from its effects. If any other 
cause is sought why the Missisco valley has not attained that 
high state of prosperity which an indulgent Providence seems 
to have designed, it may too probably be found in the lack of 



68 

those sterner virtues — industry, economy, and temperance, and 
in a disregard of the maxim, that " righteousness exalteth a 
nation." 

But this sketch of the history of the Missisco Valley has 
been made as minute and brought down as far as is proper. 
Few events of general interest have happened or could have 
happened in so small a community. If it were allowable to 
enter largely into details of individual or family affairs, many 
events might be narrated that would provoke a smile or cause 
a tear, — topics worthy the pen of a Crabbe or a Wordsworth. 
But this can be permitted in only a few instances, and with 
the narration of these, the history of the valley will close. 



BIOGRAPHY. 



DEACON SAMUEL H. HOVEY. 

A brief notice of several persons who once resided in the 
Alissisco valley seems to be required by respect for their 
memories, and the influence they exercised upon society. 

Dea. Samuel H. Hovey, one of the early settlers of Troy, 
was born of poor parents in Lyme, N. H. When he had ar- 
rived at an age when his labor was of some value, his father 
bound him out to a wealthy farmer in that vicinity, and re- 
ceived a yoke of cattle as a compensation for his son's ser- 
vices. In consequence Mr. Hovey begun his career in life 
penniless, and with but the limited education which the dis- 
trict schools of that day afforded. He had, however, the 
advantages of a hale constitution, a stout, muscular frame, 
and was well trained in habits of industry and thrift. 

Mr. Hovey married Miss Anna Grant of Lyme, moved to Troy, 
purchased a lot of one hundred acres of land, on what is called 
the East Hill, and commenced clearing it. He made after- 
wards additions to his farm, and was for a long time the largest 
and most successful farmer in the valley. He united with the 
Congregational Church in 1818, was elected a deacon, and 
retained that office until his death. Dea. Hovey was for many 
years agent for almost all the non-resident owners of lands 
in Troy and Jay, took an active part in the affairs of the town, 
and was generally and favorably known throughout the county. 
His house was long the resort, and his hospitality was freely 



70 

bestowed on the ministers of the Gospel and other strangers 
who visited that, then remote and secluded valley. Becoming 
somewhat involved by endorsing for a friend, he took for his 
security an assignment of a large part of the mine of iron ore, 
soon after it was first discovered in 1833, He afterwards 
sold his interest in the ore and the farm where he had resided 
to the Boston and Troy Iron Company for $13,000; and in 
1837 he removed to another farm which he owned about half 
a mile from Troy village where he resided lor the remainder 
of his life. To effect this sale, and to advance this manufac- 
turing interest in his town, he subscribed largely for the stock 
of this Ii'on Company, all of which he lost by its failure in 
1841, and also lost much by endorsing for, and endeavoring 
to sustain this Company. He also sustained many other losses 
by his generous but mistaken confidence in others. For many 
years in the early history of Troy, Dea. Hovey's name was 
an almost indispensable requisite on any note sent from the 
vicinity to any Bank for discount, and almost the only man 
that a sheriff from abroad would receive to back a writ, or 
receipt property on an attachment. This of course ruined his 
fortunes. He died in December 1856, at the age of eighty- 
one, childless, and in reduced circumstances. His wife sur- 
vived him about one year. Mrs. Hovey was a most efi&cient 
help meet for her husband, a very active, intelligent, and 
worthy lady, and was much esteemed by a large circle of 
friends and acquaintances. 



EZRA JOHNSON. 



Ezra Johnson, Esq., was bom in Phillipston, (then Gerry,) 
Massachusetts. His father removed to Westminster in this 
State, and then to Bath, New Hampshire. Mr. Johnson mar- 



71 

ried early in life, settled iu Waterford, Vermont, remained 
there one season only, sold out very advantageously the land 
he had purchased, and returned to Bath. He then engaged 
one year in lumbering and rafting on the river St. Lawrence, 
purchased a farm in Westfield, and removed to that town in 
December 1811, lived there several years, and returned to 
Bath. He resided in that town three years, and again re- 
turned to the Missisco valley, and purchased an excellent 
tract of land lying on the river about a mile South of North 
Troy village. 

In 1837, he rented his farm and purchased a tavern stand 
in Troy village, moved there and kept a public house for 
several years, very much to the satisfaction of the public and 
with profit to himself. At this time he was in very easy and 
independent circumstances, which resulted quite as much from 
his judgment and sagacity in the several purchases and sales 
he had made, as from his personal industry. 

In 1846, he had a son-in-law who had taken a large job in 
constructing the Vermont Central Railroad but had not means 
to perform his contract. The job was supposed to be an ad- 
vantageous one if it could be completed, and Esq. Johnson in 
the hope of rescuing his son-in-law ventured into the perilous 
undertaking, and with two others assumed the contract and 
undertook to complete the job. The consequence was that 
he and his associates were irretrievably ruined. To raise 
funds for this undertaking Esq. Johnson had mortgaged his 
farm and his tavern stand and contracted other debts. His 
property was swept away, and in 1 848 he was a poor man, 
with large debts still impending over him. He obtained in 
1849 an appointment in the custom house department as col- 
lector at Troy, which afforded him an ample salary with but 
few official duties to discharge, giving him an abundant leisure, 



72 

which was productive of no advantage to him. In June 1850, 
after a violent sickness of a few days only he died at the age 
of sixty-two years. 

Esq. Johnson was perhaps by nature the most liberally 
endowed of any man that has ever resided in the Missisco 
valley. Though he made some mistakes and committed many 
errors, yet his judgment was sound and sagacious. His in- 
formation derived both from books and observation was 
extensive. His wit was keen and sarcastic. He long held 
the office of justice of peace, and his decisions were remark- 
able not only for a sound discrimination of law and facts, but 
for independence and impartiality of judgment. Had he been 
properly trained and directed in early life he might have 
avoided some errors, and risen to a more prominent and use- 
ful station in society. But after all, his life was not produc- 
tive of the benefits which might have been expected from his 
abilities, and the many good qualities which he really pos- 
sessed. 

When he resided in Westfield he made a profession of 
religion, and united with the Christian society in that town. 
This doubtless exercised a salutary influence on him and 
repressed for a time the germs of evil. But in after life his 
faith seemed to fade away, and to be succeeded by a general 
doubt and skepticism. As a cause, or as a consequence of 
this declension, his morals ceased to be as examplary as might 
be expected. By temperament he was naturally indolent. 
With an active mental organization and an aversion to labor, 
he was predisposed to love of excitement and especial games 
of chance as a relief from the irksomeness of indolence. 
This introduced him_ to company and practices which his 
friends regretted, and his example and influence in his latter 
years were not favorable to the best interests of society. 



73 

DR. DAVID H. BEARD. 

Dr. David H. Beard, another noted and scme-what eccentric 
citizen of Troy, was born in Shelbnrne, Vermont, in 1803. 
In childhood he lost both parents, and "without any means 
of support was left to the charities of the world, and passed 
through the usual vicissitudes of the life of an orphan boy. 
He early manifested a love of knowledge and a capacity to 
acquire it, and when quite young commenced the study of 
medicine. By dint of his exertions he acquired such a knowl- 
edge of his profession that he commenced practice in Fair- 
field, Vermont, before he had attained to the age of twenty- 
one, and married soon after he commenced business. He 
resided in Fairfield four or five years and united with the 
Congregational Church in that place. In 1828 he removed to 
North Troy, and in 1833 removed to Troy village. 

Dr. Beard ever had many difficulties and discouragements 
to encounter, and his life was a life of toil. Commencing 
without the aid of friends or fortune, he had to rely on his 
earnings or his credit to support himself and acquire his edu- 
cation, and as he was of a free and generous disposition and 
never was distinguished for money-saving, he long remained 
in embarrassed circumstances. His constitution was feeble 
and inclined to pulmonary diseases, and his practice, espe- 
cially in the winter subjected him to much bodily suffering. 
His restless and aspiring disposition was ever leading him to 
attempt things difficult to obtain, or entirely beyond his reach. 
Yet he accomplished much. His talents were respectable, 
and he was animated by an aspiring ambition, aided by an un- 
conquerable will, and application to study, and was sustained 
by a most undoubting confidence in himself. He possessed 
many elements of a good physician, he was fond of his pro- 

10 



14 

fession, of a sympathising disposition, and was assiduous in 
his care and attention to his patients. Although he devoted 
more time to his professional studies than most physicians in 
the vicinity, yet his busy mind could not be limited to one 
object of pursuit. He engaged in all the topics of the day. 
Theology, Politics, Temperance, the Canadian rebellion. Phre- 
nology, and Homoeopathy, all in their turn, with many other 
subjects, shared in his attention. In regard to all these dis- 
puted points he ever had the most perfect confidence in the 
correctness of his own opinions, and sometimes had but little 
charity for those obtuse mortals who could not take the same 
view of a subject he did himself. His reputation and success 
in his profession was respectable. In the commencement of 
his professional career he had been somewhat noted as an 
advocate of an active treatment of diseases, and the free use 
of the lancet and patent remedies, but in the later years of 
his life he very much changed his views, and became an advo- 
cate of the Homoeopathic system, almost embracing the opin- 
ion that in most cases the less the physician interferes with 
the recuperative powers of nature the better it is for the 
patient. 

In the last years of his life afflictions seemed to gather 
thick around him. He sustained a severe bereavement in the 
loss of two children, one of them a beloved and only son. 
His health continued to decline, and he became convinced it 
was impossible for him to live and remain exposed to the 
severe winters of Vermont. In the fall of 184:7 his only 
surviving child, a promising daughter, had an offer of a place 
as a teacher in a seminery in Georgia. Supposing this to be 
h favorable opportunity for him to prepare for a removal to 
the South, the father and the daughter consented to separate 
fiw a time, aad she went to the South with the expectation 



75 

that her father would follow her there the next year. In th© 
following summer Dr. Beard left a sick bed to go to Georgia, 
in the almost hopeless prospect of recovering his health in a 
milder climate. He proceeded to a town in the vicinity of 
New York, and whilst visiting with some relatives, and waiting 
for a packet, his disease increased, and he expired October 
18, 1848, His daughter whilst in daily expectation of again 
meeting with her father, was shocked by the intelligence of 
the death of her fond parent. She rather indiscreetly left 
the South at the commencement of the winter and returned 
home to her afflicted mother in Troy. But the constitution 
of the daughter, which was naturally slender, seemed to 
sustain too violent a shock from her afflictions and sudden 
removals, and changes of climate. Her health was impaired, 
and late in the fall she had a violent attack of a fever which 
she had not strength to withstand, and died in December, 
1849, leaving her mother a childless and disconsolate widow, 
the sole survivor of the family. 



NOTE 



The following extract from the records in the town clerk's office in Troy, givee 
some idea of the state of feeling in the valley at the commencement of the war in 
1812 :— 

" The inhabitants of Troy are hereby notified and warned to meet at the dwell- 
ing house of John Bell, in said Troy, on Monday the fourth day of May next, at 
ten o'clock A. M., to act on the following business, viz : 

1. To choose a moderator to govern said meeting. 

2. To see what method the town will take in the present important crisis of times 
to famish the Militia of this town with arms and ammunition as is required by 
law. 

3. To transact any other business thought proper when met. Given under our 
hands at Troy, this 23d day of April, A. D. 1812. 

JON'A SIMPSON, 



DN, ] 
LLS, > 
J. J 



THOMAS WELLS, > Selectmen of Troy. 
JOSIAH LYON, 

At a town meeting legally warned and holden at the dwelling-house of John 
Bell in Troy, on the fourth day of May, A. D. 1812— 

Voted, Jon'a Simpson, Esq., moderator. 

Voted, that the town take means to equip the militia. 

Voted, that the Selectmen of this town be instructed to borrow twenty musket* 
and bayonets on the credit of the town for such times as they shall think nec- 
essary. 

Voted, that the town purchase twenty-five pounds of powder and one hundred 
weight of lead if it can be purchased on six months credit. 

Voted, that there be appointed a conunittee to enquire if there be any danger 
of invasion, and give information. 

Voted, that Ezekiel Currier, Cha's Conant, Jon'a Simpson, Esq., David Hazel- 
tine, and Fyam Keith be the aforesaid committee. 

Voted, that the meeting be dissolved. 

DAVm HAZELTINE, Town Clerk." 



LBAg14 



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