Social Ferment in Vermont 1791-1850 9780231890748

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
I. The Scene
II. The Puritan Counter-Reformation
III. The Temperance Crusade
IV. Antimasonry
V. Antislavery and Religion
VI. Antislavery and Politics
VII. “Equal and Exact Justice to All”
VIII. Social Architects
A Vermont Bibliography, 1791–1850
Index

Citation preview

SOCIAL IN

FERMENT

VERMONT 1 7 9 1 - 1 8 5 0

NUMBER COLUMBIA AMERICAN

5

OF

THE

STUDIES

IN

CULTURE

SOCIAL FERMENT IN VERMONT 1 7 9 1 - 1 8 5 0

BY D A V I D M. L U D L U M

NEW YORK : MORNINGSIDE

COLUMBIA U N I V E R S I T Y 1

9 39

HEIGHTS

PRESS

COPYRIGHT

1939

COLUMBIA U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS, NEW Y O R K Foreign agents: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, Humphrey Milford, Amen House, London, E.C. 4, England, AND B. I. Building, Nicol Road, B o m b a y , I n d i a ; KWANC HSUEH PUBLISHING HOUSE, 1 4 0 P e k i n g R o a d ,

Shanghai, China; MARUZEN COMPANY, LTD., 6 Nihonbashi, Tori-Nichome, T o k y o , Japan MANUFACTURED

IN T H E

UNITED

STATES OF

AMERICA

TO MY

FATHER AND

MY

MOTHER

COLUMBIA

STUDIES

IN A M E R I C A N EDITED

AT

COLUMBIA

CULTURE UNIVERSITY

A series bringing together scholarly treatments of those aspects of American culture that are usually neglected in political histories and in histories of American literature and education: the arts and sciences, philosophy and religion, folkways, industry and agriculture—in short, whatever has contributed significantly to the patterns of American life and to its heritage. BOARD HARRY J.

CARMAN

PROFESSOR

OF

HISTORY

J O H N A. ASSOCIATE OF

KROUT PROFESSOR

HISTORY

OF

EDITORS MERLE

E.

PROFESSOR TEACHERS

HERBERT

W.

CURTI

OF

HISTORY

COLLEGE

SCHNEIDER

PROFESSOR RELIGION

OF

PREFACE E R M O N T in recent years has been represented as a stronghold of conservatism where attachment to the traditions of the past is deeply ingrained. There was a time, however, when the Green Mountain State was noted for its radicalism. In the period of unrest preceding the Civil War the inhabitants of the region were given to the "spirit of innovation" and lent their support to many movements to change social and political institutions. Vermont also produced many social propagandists who carried the gospel of reform far and wide. When studying these fascinating years of American history as an undergraduate, the writer was struck by this apparent contrast between past and present. Happily a summer residence of ten years afforded many pleasant acquaintances with the present inhabitants of the state. Therefore, the opportunity as a graduate student to explore the insurgent activities of their ancestors was readily seized. The subject was first investigated in the seminar of Professor Frederic Logan Paxson of the University of California. The formative part of the work was carried on under the friendly guidance of Dr. John E. Pomfret, formerly of Princeton, now Dean of the Senior College and Graduate School in Vanderbilt University. To him and to his wife I owe much for encouragement when my spirits were low. Professor Clifton R. Hall of Princeton offered many valuable suggestions as to content and presentation. Publication of the work in its present form was made possible by the kindly interest of Professor Merle E. Curti of Teachers College, Columbia University. Social Ferment in Vermont was presented in partial fulfillment of the

PREFACE

X

degree of Doctor of Philosophy and accepted by the faculty of Princeton University in 1938. M a y I express my sincere thanks to the staffs of the many libraries which extended me their hearty cooperation

and

thereby lightened the task of research. Especially I wish to thank Miss Agnes Lawson of the Vermont Historical Society and M r . M a l c o l m Y o u n g of the Princeton University Library. M y gratitude to M r . and M r s . W i l l i a m B. R e i l l y is great as their generosity provided the opportunity to pursue the work to completion. In the task of preparing the manuscript the assistance of Miss Gertrude K e m p and Miss Dorothy R u n g e was invaluable. A n d finally, a word of thanks to the Board of E d i tors of Studies in American Culture for their share in presenting this to the public. DAVID

The Peddie School Hightstown, N. J. March 20, 1939

M.

LUDLUM

CONTENTS I. II.

T H E SCENE THE PURITAN

COUNTER-REFORMATION

III.

T H E T E M P E R A N C E CRUSADE

63

IV.

ANTIMASONRY

86

V.

A N T I S L A V E R Y AND R E L I G I O N

134

VI.

A N T I S L A V E R Y AND P O L I T I C S

167

" E Q U A L AND E X A C T J U S T I C E T O A L L "

199

SOCIAL A R C H I T E C T S

238

A VERMONT BIBLIOGRAPHY, 1791-1850

279

INDEX

293

VII. VIII.

SOCIAL IN

FERMENT

VERMONT 1791-1850

C H A P T E R ONE THE

I

SCENE

N 1 7 9 1 , scarcely thirty years after his father had planted the first permanent settlement in the Green Mountains, Moses

Robinson of Bennington took his seat in the Senate of the United States and announced the presence of the representatives of the Vermont freemen. In comparison with other parts of N e w E n g land the extreme youth of this northwestern sector must be emphasized in considering the social developments of the threescore years following its admission to the Federal Union. It is significant that Vermont was passing through the frontier stage of settlement at the very time that a new government and a new social order were arising in America. A remarkably vigorous and unmannered society came into being which showed little respect for traditional ties and institutions. Free for the moment of the controls of religion and the civil state, a postwar generation in Vermont indulged in a period of loose living and freethinking almost unparalleled in American history. It was, however, a temporary state of affairs. W i t h the region's coming of age and the passing of the disorders and uncertainties that marked the aftermath of the Revolution, a return to more normal conditions commenced. T h e establishment of law and order together with the introduction of evangelical Christianity put to rout the reign of chaos and infidelity which had gripped the people in the 1780's and 1790's. " T h e mighty moral regeneration of V e r m o n t " in the early nineteenth century awakened a tender social conscience and found expression in a multitude of humanitarian enterprises. Extension of the rewards of a Christian living and of the blessings of democracy to all Americans on an

4

T H E SCENE

equal basis was the underlying motif of the varied reform movements agitating the state in the pre-Civil War period. T h e wave of emigration from southern New England at the close of the French and Indian War ( 1 7 5 5 - 1 7 6 3 ) was the first of a series of expanding impulses which were destined to scatter New Englanders to the far corners of the country. During the fifteen years of stress and strain preceding the outbreak of the W a r of Independence approximately twenty thousand landthirsty pioneers settled in the New Hampshire Grants, as the land between Lake Champlain and the Connecticut River was designated before the adoption of the anglicized version of Verd Mont. 1 The frontier communities arising in the Grants became shuttlecocks of colonial politics. At various times New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York pressed their alleged titles to the settlements. Despite hostile proclamations of the Crown and punitive threats of colonial officials, the Green Mountain Boys, ever doubtful of the identity of their legitimate parent, rebuffed all attempts of foster parents to exercise authority. With the outbreak of the Revolution events took a new turn. In keeping with the widely current philosophy of natural rights, the inhabitants of the New Hampshire Grants threw off all shackles of earthly sovereigns and proclaimed the free and independent State of Vermont. The preamble to the democratic Constitution of 1 7 7 7 sounded a familiar note: W h e r e a s , all g o v e r n m e n t ought to be instituted and supported, f o r the security and protection of the community, as such, and to enable the individuals w h o compose it, to enjoy their natural rights, and the other blessings which the A u t h o r of existence has bestowed upon m a n ; and w h e n e v e r those great ends of g o v e r n m e n t are not obtained, the 1 N o reliable population statistics f o r Vermont before i 790 are available. Zadock Thompson, History of Vermont (Burlington, 1 8 5 3 ) , II, 30, estimates the number of inhabitants in 1 7 7 6 at 20,000, basing his figures on the incomplete census of 1 7 7 1 and the military rolls of the Revolution. See Evarts B . Greene and Virginia D . Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 ( N e w Y o r k , 1 9 3 2 ) , pp. 8 6 - 8 7 .

T H E SCENE

5

people have a right by common consent, to change it, and take such measures as to them may appear necessary to promote their safety and happiness. 2

For the next fourteen years the "Republic of Vermont" followed an insurgent career. Resisting the efforts of "Yorkers" to establish jurisdiction, wooing the Continental Congress for admission to the Union, alternately enticing and repulsing England's offer of colonial status, and finally pursuing an independent course until 1791—these are, in outline, the principal activities of the hill country democracy.3 T o the spirit of self-reliance and radicalism so evident in the military and political happenings of this period has been attributed the heritage of independence of action and originality of thought now accepted as characteristic of the Vermont personality. The largest portion, probably a majority, of the Vermont pioneers were of Connecticut origin.4 Though never asserting a legal title to the remote districts of northwestern New England, "the land of steady habits," a stronghold of Calvinism and reactionary politics, was destined to exert a dominance in Vermont far greater than that of other states seeking to establish territorial claims. Through the more subtle but enduring bond of consanguinity and cultural affinity Connecticut contributed a fundamental element to the Vermont social pattern. Yet the rebellious spirit exhibited by the early Vermonters and their attachment to new systems of philosophy failed to reflect the undeviating conservatism of the Connecticut tradition. For the first four decades 2

Vermont State Papers, William Slade, editor (Middlebury, 1 8 2 3 ) , p. 24.1. Vermont's relations with the Continental Congress during the Revolution and the Confederation constitute a controversial subject among its historians. Clarence W. Rife, "Ethan Allen, An Interpretation," Tht New England Quarterly (October, 1 9 2 9 ) , presents a critical opinion of Vermont's attachment to the Union; James B . Wilbur, Ira Allen, Founder of Vermont, i 7 5 / - / < ? / ( 2 vols., Boston and New York, 1 9 2 8 ) , offers a more favorable interpretation. * Timothy Dwight, Travels in New-England and New-York (New Haven, 1 8 2 1 ) , II, 473. 3

6

THE

SCENE

of Vermont's existence, until 1800, radicals in politics and religion were in the ascendancy. N o t until the launching of the Puritan Counter-Reformation in the opening years of the nineteenth century did the people of Connecticut rout the forces they considered subversive to an orderly society. In fact, throughout the entire period under survey, 1 7 9 1 - 1 8 5 0 , there was a constant warring between the advocates of a natural rights liberalism and the champions of the Calvinist system of election and reprobation. T h e conflict of ideologies may be illustrated by the constitutional issue. T h e Vermont frame of government was inspired by the democratic Pennsylvania constitution of the previous year. 5 T h e adoption of the latter as a model was urged by Ethan Allen's former tutor, D r . Thomas Young, a democrat in politics and a Deist in religion. Provision was made in the Vermont document for free manhood suffrage, complete religious tolerance and the abolition of N e g r o slavery—all radical doctrines in that day. In supplying substance to this governmental structure the Vermont General Assembly decreed the wholesale enactment of laws "as they stood on the Connecticut law book" and later established "the common law, as it is generally practised and understood in the N e w - E n g l a n d States." 8 O n many vital points the liberal aspirations of the constitution and the conservative tenor of the Connecticut common law were in direct opposition. T h e legal history of Vermont is one long struggle to reconcile these hostile elements. In the sixty years that the document was in effect, 1 7 7 7 - 1 8 3 6 , no less than five conventions were held to amend it. 8 Vermont State Papers, pp. 7 9 - 8 1 . Records of the Council of Safety and Governor and Council, E . P . Walton, editor (Montpelier, 1 8 7 3 ) , I, 86. T h i s constitution exceeded the Pennsylvania model in one important respect. "Vermont alone of the commonwealths applied the doctrine of natural rights to all men irrespective of race or color. . . T h i s clause may well be considered epoch-making for it was the first antislavery provision in an American constitution. . . " Francis N. T h o r p , A Constitutional History of the American People, ¡276-1850 ( N e w Y o r k and Lon6 Vermont State Papers, pp. 287-88. don, 1 8 9 8 ) , I, 5 4 - 5 5 .

T H E SCENE

7

The divergence of political principles was accompanied by similar conflicts in the field of theology and social philosophy, subjects to which this study will be devoted. The American Revolution had many repercussions aside from its stirring military campaigns and momentous political events. It was a social upheaval of great consequence. A recent historian of New England has written that it is a mistake "to think of the patriots as having simply left their shops and farms for military service and returning to them unchanged when the fight was won. The old order was gone for good by the time they came back to their families and firesides, and a new order, intellectual, social, and political, had begun to form." 7 In the back country of New England this tendency was illustrated by a concerted reaction against the politico-ecclesiastical domination long wielded by the Standing Order clergy. Hostilities between the United States and Great Britain had not yet ceased when General Ethan Allen laid aside his sword and with an untrained pen turned his invective on the Calvinist clergy. In a ponderous philosophical work, Reason, the Only Oracle of Man,8 Allen attempted to demolish the bases on which the accepted religious system of the day rested. His was only one of the voices assisting in breaking down the old order and aiming at creating a new society fashioned on the tenets of rationalism. Particularly vehement were the complaints of minor religious sects at the haughty pretensions of the Congregationalists and at their intolerance of all dissent. The historian of the Freewill Baptists said that his co-religionists of the Revolutionary period "had been more oppressed with the doctrines of ultra Calvinism 7 James Truslow Adams, New England in the Republic, ¡776—1850 (Boston, 1 9 2 6 ) , p. 79. 8 Ethan Allen, Reason, the Only Oracle of Man, or a Compendious System of Natural Religion Alternately Adorned vAth Confutations of a variety of Doctrines incompatible to it; Deduced from the most exalted Ideas vjhich had received rumors of revolt from political observers posted throughout the state. In western Vermont, in the regions so given to insurgency in social reform, the organizers of faction 64 Theodore Clark Smith, The Liberty and Free Soil Parties in the Northwest (New York, 1 8 9 7 ) , pp. 1 2 1 - 3 7 ; Margaret Plunkett, " T h e History of the Liberty Party with special emphasis upon its Activities in the Northeastern States" (Manuscript thesis, Cornell University, 1 9 3 0 ) , pp. 1 6 8 - 7 3 . 65 Lucius E . Chittenden, Personal Reminiscences, 1840—1890, Including Some Not Hitherto Published of Lincoln and the War (New York, 1 8 9 3 ) , pp. 1 1 - 1 7 ; Charles G. Eastman, "History of Barnburnerism in State," Vermont Patriot, August 3 1 , 1848. 66 Vermont Watchman, J u l y 27, 1848.

A N T I S L A V E R Y AND POLITICS

193

were active. Here the leaders were in close communion with the Barnburners of New York; Edward D . Barber of Middlebury, S. S. Brown of St. Albans, Lucius E . Chittenden of Burlington, and Luke Poland of Lamoille County were the secret plotters in the conspiracy to overthrow Hunker control.87 With approximately twenty-five supporters they entered the Democratic Convention and attempted to carry all with them. They were successful in winning a platform opposing the extension of slavery as Wilmot Proviso sentiment was strong among the delegates; but the attempt to block the endorsement of Cass was defeated, illustrating the inconsistency of national and state platforms. 68 Upon failure the insurgents withdrew and issued to the disgruntled of all parties a manifesto for a convention at Middlebury. 69 The Liberty Party of Vermont met for their organization at the same time the major parties were convening and restated their long standing opposition to slavery not only in the territories but also in the states where it already existed, approving all constitutional means to bring it to a speedy end. 70 The spirit of discontent among Democrats and Whigs caused considerable discussion, and high hopes of amalgamating this into the Liberty Party were voiced. A subsequent meeting was called to consider the advisability of sending delegates to the Buffalo Convention, which had been called by the Barnburners of New York in anticipation of uniting all third-party movements on a single platform and on a single set of candidates. The name of Martin Van Buren was frequently mentioned in connection with the New York bolters, an association that did much to cool the ardor of many Whigs to whom the name of the ex-President had been 07 Eastman Manuscripts (Library of the Vermont Historical Society) contain several letters showing the spread of insurgency. 08 Vermont Patriot, J u l y 1 3 , 1848. 69 " T o the Freemen of Vermont," Montpelier, J u l y n , 1848, Green Mountain Freeman, July 20, 1848. 70 National Era (Washington), July 20, 1848.

194

ANTISLAVERY AND

POLITICS

anathema for years. Even Liberty men had an antipathy for him. Joseph Poland on the eve of his departure for Buffalo warned his associates, "should Van Buren be the nominee of that convention . . . then the Liberty Party is bound by every consideration of moral principle, consistency and true expediency to retain its present organization and candidates." 7 1 T h e wirepullers from N e w York controlled the session, and Martin Van Buren was nominated as the candidate of the Free Soil, Free Speech, Free M e n Party. T h e Vermont delegates were not in accord with this move; they had voted eleven for retaining H a l e and only seven for Van Buren. 72 Nevertheless, the declaration of principles included practically all the Liberty Party objectives, so they dropped personal animosity in the hope of defeating the slave power at the polls. T h e most important contribution to the Buffalo Convention from Vermont was ex-Governor Slade's letter. L o n g an advocate of working through the W h i g Party to secure enforcement of antislavery policies, he finally became disillusioned with its domination by the South and warned his associates that they were "walking into a snare" if they supported Taylor. H e pointed out the unity of the South whenever any matter touching slavery was discussed. This must be met by an equally strong and vigilant union in the North: U n i o n — t h e U n i o n — s h o u l d be o u r w a t c h w o r d . T h e vital interests of f r e e d o m are p u t at h a z a r d , a n d t h e union t h a t is d o i n g it, I a g a i n repeat, m u s t be m e t by u n i o n . D i v i d e d w e h a v e f a l l e n , a n d divided w e

must

f o r e v e r f a l l , b e f o r e the a l l - g r a s p i n g , o v e r - r e a c h i n g , a n d n e v e r satisfied p o w e r of s l a v e r y . O u r o w n interests of h u m a n i t y alike u r g e us, w i t h a voice of resistless e n t r e a t y , to unite a n d put f o r t h o u r f u l l s t r e n g t h against t h e d a r i n g a t t e m p t to e x t e n d a n d p r o l o n g i n d e f i n i t e l y , t h e d o m i n i o n a n d curse of s l a v e r y in o u r l a n d . 7 3 Green Mountain Freeman, July 20, 1848. Ibid., August io, 1848. 7 3 "Letter of William Slade to the Buffalo Convention," Green Mountain man, August 31, 1848. 71

72

Free-

ANTISLAVERY

AND

POLITICS

195

T h e " B u f f a l o Letter" was a far-reaching step from his " C o n necticut L e t t e r " of 1842, and his words were hailed and widely circulated by the strange medley of politicians and reformers who flocked to the Free Soil standard. 74 Slade sounded the keynote of Free Soil activity in Vermont: "But in the name of God, let us be united now—standing firmly and immovably, upon the platform of 'no more slave states—no more slave territory— Free Soil for Free M e n . ' " 7 5 T h e campaign in Vermont was short; only five weeks intervened between the insurgent Convention at Middlebury and the September election. But with remarkable speed the spirit of revolt spread through the ranks of all three parties. T h e Free Soil slate contained men from all affiliations: Oscar L . Shafter, a Liberty man, for Governor j Luke W . Poland, a Democrat, for Lieutenant-Governor and Edward A . Stansbury, a W h i g , for Treasurer. T h e sixteenth resolution adopted at Middlebury expressed the basis of discontent among the electorate: Resolved, T h a t the Democratic and W h i g parties in this State, by passing resolutions in their State Conventions, pledging themselves to oppose the extension of slavery into Free T e r r i t o r y , while they recommend the support of candidates for the office of President, w h o are commited and pledged to the South on that subject, insult the intelligence and honesty of the members of those parties and stamp their own conduct with the strangest inconsistency. 78

A n accurate analysis of the former affiliations of the members of the Free Soil Party is not available as the material from which to draw reliable figures does not exist. It seems reasonable, however, to assume that few of the seven thousand Liberty voters of 1847 failed to follow their leaders into the coalition. CerSee page 182. Green Mountain Freeman, August 3 1 , 1848. 7 6 "Proceedings of the Free Soil State Convention, Middlebury, August 1848," Green Mountain Freeman, August i o , 1848. 74 76

1,

196

ANTISLAVERY

AND

POLITICS

tainly, all Liberty papers fell into line after receiving assurance that the Buffalo platform contained the essentials of their platform. A t Burlington the Free Soil Courier and at Ludlow the Free Soil Union appeared in new dress to displace antislavery journals formerly published in those towns. A new campaign organ, the Free Mountaineer, a title indicative of the support given the party, was instituted at Waterbury. But most decisive of all was the conversion of the Montpelier Green Mountain Freeman, whose editor, Joseph Poland, reluctantly swallowed his expressed antipathy for Martin Van Buren and advised Liberty candidates to withdraw from the field so antislavery voters might unite on one ticket. Like many of the evangelical people who flocked to the Liberty Party in the early iS^-O's, Poland's political thinking was dominated by a conviction of divine inspiration. H e once declared that the spirit animating his party was a "deep seated religious feeling," and from Buffalo in August, 1848, he wrote: Nothing but the over-ruling providence of G o d could have prepared the way for a harmonious union of such diversified and discordant elements in the organization of a great National Party, planted upon the eternal and immutable principles of justice, and destined to consummate the great w o r k so gloriously begun by our Revolutionary Fathers. 7 7

T h e Democrats, standing to lose most by the flux in party lines, at first were highly amused by "Van, Van, the used-up man" attempting a political comeback by riding the antislavery hobbyhorse. T h e "little fizzle of barnburnerism," as they regarded it, grew during the late summer as the revolt spread. Charles Eastman took alarm and employed all his invective to ridicule the movement. H e dubbed it "the free-soil, free-speech, freelabor, free-anything-else-that-can-catch-a-stray-vote party." 78 H e declared it a " h u m b u g — a thing for which there was no 77 78

Green Mountain Freeman, August 17, 18+8. Vermont Patriot, August 3 1 , 1848.

A N T I S L A V E R Y AND P O L I T I C S

197

sort of necessity—a thing that can do no good." 79 But the cleavage in the Democracy seemed irreparable; no longer would antislavery Vermonters accept the dictates of Southerners in national affairs. They wanted the "moral influence of the presidency." 80 A whirlwind campaign preceded the state elections in September. When all the ballots had been counted, it was found that the defections of Conscience Whigs, the prerequisite for thirdparty success, had been kept at a minimum. Carlos Coolidge, an able member of a famous Vermont family, won the Governorship with 22,125 votes. Shafter, the Free Soiler, received 14,038; the regular Democrat, Paul Dillingham, ran a close third with 13,501. 8 1 The Free Soil coalition had eclipsed the Democratic vote and doubled the best previous total of an antislavery candidate. Its backers in Vermont and throughout the nation were encouraged at this first testing of their strength. " I t can hardly be doubted," commented the Washington National Era, "that from both these sources the Free Soil vote in November will be augmented to a majority of the whole number cast." 82 Their hopes were doomed to disappointment. The relative totals garnered in the Green Mountain State by the three Presidential aspirants varied but little from the September vote. Free Soil editors agreed that the presence of Martin Van Buren on their ticket had prevented the capture of insurgent Whig votes in this traditionally anti-Jackson region. Another candidate, unburdened by a political past, might have carried the state in 1848 in much the same manner as William Wirt had done under similar circumstances in 1832. By 1848 the great mass of Vermonters were practically united in opposition to slavery. The three political parties had incor78 80 81 82

Ibid., August 24, 1 8 4 8 . Letters of Hon. William Slade, upon Free Soil and the Presidency Journal of the Senate . . . 1848, p. 1 3 . National Era ( W a s h i n g t o n ) , September 2 1 , 1 8 4 8 .

. . .

1848.

198

A N T I S L A V E R Y AND

POLITICS

porated into their platforms resolutions denouncing the extension of slavery into the territories and were pledged to work for abolition by every constitutional means. Underneath the devious political maneuvers of the next dozen years—Free Soil, Free Democracy, Know Nothing, and Republican—lay an unchanging foundation, a religio-humanitarian hatred of slavery. "There is no ground for fear," noted Carlos Coolidge in speaking of the moral stamina of his native state, "that she will not continue steadfast therein. In performing their part of the work of destroying slavery, her people will not falter at that which they can rightfully do." 83 There could be no turning back now; slavery must go or Christianity be repudiated. From Vermont in 1848 a conflict with the South seemed irrepressible. 83

Journal

of the Senate . . . 1848, p. 31.

CHAPTER

"EQUAL

AND TO

SEVEN

EXACT

JUSTICE

ALL"

T

H E I D E A L S of Thomas Jefferson, expressed in the Declaration of Independence and later elaborated in his legislative acts, have maintained a peculiar hold on the American people, exerting an almost mystical attraction to all, no matter of what class or creed. In the Vermont hill country of the i830's politician and reformer alike revered the writings of the great democrat only less than the teachings of the New Testament. T h e natural equality of man and his God-given right to life, liberty, and happiness were concepts that inspired social reformers to great deeds of altruism. " L e t us complete the glorious work of the Declaration of Independence and the Revolution!" exclaimed an exuberant orator in arousing sympathy for the underprivileged. 1 T h e writings of Jefferson, like those of the ancient Prophets, have been distorted beyond recognition by partisan and fanatic to suit party or personal ambition, and their meaning has been thus obscured. Reduced to the simple terms of his own words, "equal and exact justice to a l l , " the Jeffersonian principles held out the fervent hope that a social and economic democracy might arise on a structure of political equality. This belief, though vehemently disputed in the period of party battles before 1 8 1 2 , became an accepted doctrine among the vast majority of Americans in the postwar years. With political freedom recognized in 1 7 8 3 and economic independence in sight by 1 8 1 5 , the young 1 For a detailed expression of this sentiment: Enoch Mack, The Revolution Unfinished or American Independence Begun (Dover, N. H., 1838) ; also Samuel Marsh, The Age of Prophecy in which we live (Montpelier, 1848).

200

EQUAL

JUSTICE

TO

ALL

Republic entered on an era of peace and expansion which d e m onstrated the practicality of republicanism. T h e utterances of Governor Cornelius P . Van Ness, who occupied the executive chair during the middle years of the twenties, express a sentiment pervading all classes. Addressing the General Assembly in 1 8 2 3 he said: In casting our eyes over the condition and prospects of our country, we find abundant cause for gratitude to heaven, and felicitations to ourselves. It is but forty-seven years since the United States first claimed the rank of an independent nation, and but forty since that rank was acknowledged by the government whose dominion they had renounced. During this period the improvement of our country, and the increase of her population and wealth, have been without parallel. With a government which was erected by the sages of the revolution, upon the broad and durable form of equal rights, and which stands the loftiest monument of human reason, and the most humbling spectacle to tyrants, we enjoy a liberty unknown to any other people on the face of the earth. 2 A n d taking a closer view was it not apparent that Vermont, possessed of a sturdy republicanism and a stable prosperity, had solid ground for gratification and pride? There is abundant evidence of her increasing progress in wealth and population, and in the cultivation of the mind, and the morals; and the prevalence of an unusual degree of harmony and good feeling throughout the community. 3 Surely the A l m i g h t y had willed that America, under the aegis of a republican government and with the guidance of the Bible, would be the scene of the "paradisical millennium." A s E z r a Butler, the clergyman-politician, declared in 1 8 2 6 : " W e have just cause to consider ourselves the most favored of the human family, and nothing can or will stop the current of his favor, unless it is obstructed by our own vice and f o l l y . " 2 "Speech of cil of the State 8 "Speech of * "Speech of

4

Governor Van Ness—1823," Records of the Governor of Vermont, V I I , 438. Governor Van N e s s — 1 8 2 5 , " ibid., V I I , 44.8. Governor B u t l e r — 1 8 2 6 , " ibid., V I I , 453.

and Coun-

EQUAL J U S T I C E TO A L L

201

T h e hosannas bestowed on all things American by patriotic statesmen were destined to be of brief duration. T h e y were outbursts of a period of nationalism, the E r a of Good Feeling, marking an interlude of economic adjustment between two intense political struggles. Sectional interest and growing class consciousness were shortly to appear on the national scene and subject the traditional social and political structure of America to the critical investigation of all. T h e impulse behind this movement, which separated the world of the pre-Civil W a r generation from that of the Revolutionary fathers, was the appearance in the seaboard cities and towns of the industrial revolution, that new force in society, profoundly affecting men's lives but so inadequately understood. T h e years around 1 8 3 0 brought important change to the Vermont economic system. 5 Frontier economy gave way to a more permanent order: agriculture was making the transition from a subsistence basis to an agronomy of the single staple type; household manufactures were declining perceptibly and consumption of factory goods was increasing. 6 A symptom of social and economic unrest appeared in the ever-swelling stream of emigration which annually flowed Westward. T h e optimistic note previously sounded by orators was not heard in the thirties. A realization grew that other factors besides " o u r vice and f o l l y " were obstructing progress toward the Jeffersonian ideal. T o combat these new developments humanitarians mustered their forces in the 1830's and 1840's. Injection of the compelling personality of Andrew Jackson into the Presidential race heralded the end of political unanimity in Vermont. T h e election of 1828 witnessed a revival of 5

Material on the early Vermont economic system is limited: Lawrence D . Stilwell, " E m i g r a t i o n from Vermont, 1760—1860," Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society . . . ; 9J 7,- and Harold W. Fisher, The Hill Country of Northern New England ( N e w Y o r k , 1 9 3 6 ) , both treat briefly the transformations around 1830. 6

Documents

1833)-

Relative

to the Manufactures

in the United

States

(Washington,

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party warfare and the alignment of men into two camps according to the dictates of their political philosophies.7 Among the heterogeneous elements drawn almost instinctively to the standard of Jackson appeared one common trait. " O l d Hickory," himself a typical American of the day, appealed to the common man, to the underprivileged, to the unfortunate. Discontent with the conduct of the American system and not dissent from the principles upon which it had been founded induced the restiveness of those seeking to oust the incumbent regime. An alleged perversion of the government from the aims of the Revolutionary fathers provided the weapon with which Democrats attacked National Republicans. Here began a critical scrutiny of native political and social institutions. The spirit of inquiry was the "Zeitgeist" of the 1830's. In this lies the historical significance of that nebulous phrase: Jacksonian Democracy. WORKING MEN'S

MOVEMENT

Wider manifestations of this spirit early became visible. Consideration has been given the Free Enquirers of Woodstock and other towns, who, in addition to opposing existing tendencies toward aristocracy and caste, exhibited a strong anticlericalism.8 More important and more productive of results was the organization of numerous Working Men's societies in 1 8 3 0 and 1 8 3 1 . This movement of artisans, mechanics, and farmers among the Green Mountain communities reflected similar agitations in other Eastern states. It was an awakening of the underprivileged classes to a consciousness of their rights, and expressed their first groping toward political power, toward achieving the status which the Declaration of Independence had posited for all. Working Men's organizations dotted the countryside: Norwich, Calais, St. Albans, Burlington, Middlebury, and Woodstock 7

The rancors attending the disputed election of 1824 apparently did not affect Vermont; only a scattered vote was cast against Adams. 8 See page 97; Liberal Extracts (Woodstock), 1 8 2 9 - 1 8 3 0 .

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were a few of the localities leaving record of them.9 The people of Woodstock, through the agency of the Working-Marts Gazette, gave direction to the program. As Tom Paine had been the patron saint of the Free Enquirers, Thomas Jefferson, though dead only four years, was venerated by the laboring classes. His writings were already treated with reverence, the motto of the Gazette being the provocative phrase: " A l l men are created free and equal." The constitution of the Woodstock Working Men's Society opened with a familiar ring: When in the course of human events, a large, respectful and useful class of the community manifest uneasiness with their present condition, it is incumbent on them to show the cause of their inquietude, and devise some means of alleviation. T h a t there is an uneasiness existing among the laboring, or productive class of fellow citizens, is evinced by the fact, that similar and simultaneous expressions of grievances, are heard from almost every part of our country—viz: T h a t power and influence, is passing from the many to a f e w ; that faction and party spirit, having their origin in the basest passions of the human heart, threaten to extinguish in a great degree the love of country, of justice and our happy institutions,—that an aristocracy based and reared in exclusive selfishness, is silently and insidiously undermining the temples of Freedom, and equal rights. 1 0

This first expression of class consciousness aroused widespread notice. That there existed a basis of discontent was illustrated by a controversy in the Montpelier Lyceum occasioned by receipt of a copy of the Working-Man's Gazette. The intellectuals who composed the debating society of the state capital decided in the affirmative by 19 to 15 the question: " H a v e the Working Men of the State just cause for complaint." 1 1 The Gazette did not 9 Working-Man's Gazette (Woodstock), September 23, 1830, through August 24, 1 8 3 1 , contains accounts of the formation and proceedings of these groups. 10 "Constitution of the Working Men's Society," ibid., September 23, 1830. 11 "Records of the Montpelier Lyceum, February 23, 1 8 3 1 " (Manuscript in Library of the Vermont Historical Society).

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r e c o m m e n d political action, h a v i n g d e c l a r e d its course to be " s t r i c t l y and fearlessly i n d e p e n d e n t . "

12

N e v e r t h e l e s s , politi-

cians of all connections w e r e u r g e d to adopt the wide p r o g r a m of social r e f o r m appearing w e e k l y at the h e a d of its editorial column: Equal Universal Education. Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt. Abolition of all Licensed Monopolies. A n entire Revision, or Abolition of the present Militia System. A Less Expensive L a w System. Equal Taxation on Property. A n Effective Lien L a w for Laborers. All O f f i cers to be Elected by the People. N o Legislation on Religion. 1 3

O f these the first and second w e r e the most pressing. " I t is w e l l k n o w n to our readers, g e n e r a l l y , " declared the editor, " t h a t the t w o most prominent features of the measures advocated by the W o r k i n g M e n is the abolition of imprisonment for debt, and a m o r e g e n e r a l and liberal system of e d u c a t i o n . "

14

These were

the principal d e m a n d s of the u n d e r p r i v i l e g e d , w h e t h e r laboring m e n or not, and a consideration of their v a r i e d aspects w i l l g o f a r t o w a r d explaining the cross currents of social action in succ e e d i n g years. F o r it was the W o r k i n g M e n , striving f o r the status of " e q u a l r i g h t s , " w h o g a v e the initial impetus to m a n y campaigns of r e f o r m . PRISON

REFORM

A b o l i t i o n of imprisonment f o r debt constituted o n l y one phase of a w i d e campaign of humanitarianism embracing care of the insane, education of the deaf and d u m b and amelioration of p e n a l code severity. A l l the m o v e m e n t s took root in prison ref o r m and w e r e corollaries of the second of t w o instances of interest in p e n o l o g y that e n g a g e d p r e - C i v i l W a r generations. T h e condemnation of s l a v e r y and intemperance b y the P h i l a d e l p h i a Q u a k e r s soon a f t e r the R e v o l u t i o n was accompanied by the be12

Working-Man's Gazette, September 23, 1830.

13

Ibid.,

14

Ibid., April 19, 1831.

May

17, 1831.

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ginnings of a concern for the physical welfare of prisoners. T h e precepts of the Declaration of Independence burned brightly in these pious souls, and their sincere attempts to make a reality of an ideal marked a warm spot in an otherwise callous generation. T h e formation of the Philadelphia Society for the Alleviation of the Miseries of Public Prisoners ( 1 7 8 7 ) and the erection of the Walnut Street Prison ( 1 7 9 0 ) signaled the first attempts of this kind in America. 1 5 T h e activities of the Philadelphia group stimulated similar movements in other states. In 1807 Vermont took steps to ameliorate the condition of her criminals in accordance with the principles formulated by the public spirited Quakers. T o place this in its proper perspective a brief consideration of early Vermont jurisprudence will be helpful. A t Bennington in 1779 the Vermont revolutionists drew up a set of statutes to give substance to the constitution adopted two years previously. 18 These largely represented the colonial conception of crime. Three major capital offenses were enumerated: murder, rape, and treason. T h i s was a mild code in contrast to the hundred odd crimes for which a culprit might forfeit his life in eighteenth-century England, but the mode of punishing minor breaches of the law earned it the sobriquet, Draconian. Punishment rather than reform was the object of the law; immediate retaliation rather than imprisonment, the means. Confinement played little part in treating offenders, being reserved merely for vagabonds and debtors. There existed good reason for this. T h o u g h the constitution had provided for the erection of houses of detention, it was thirty years after the founding of the government before public sentiment forced the parsimonious Legislators to provide a penitentiary. Meanwhile the common means of chastisement were fines, whippings, detention in stocks, and even branding or physical mutilation. For punishment of 1 6 O. F. Lewis, The Development of American Prisons and Prison Customs 1776—1845 (Albany, 1922), pp. 16—32. 18 Vermont State Papers, pp. 287-388.

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the prevalent crime of counterfeiting a typical series of penalties was reserved: E v e r y person so offending shall be punished by having his right ear cut o f f , and shall be branded with the capital letter C , on a hot iron, and be committed to a workhouse, there to be confined and kept to w o r k , under care of a master, and not to depart therefrom without special leave of the General Assembly of this State, until the day of his death. . . 1 T

A l l property of the culprit was forfeited. In the absence of adequate workhouses to carry out the full sentence, after the infliction of the above cruelties he was set at liberty, penniless and resentful toward society. N o reform of character was possible under this system. T h e nature of many offenses for which corporal punishment was meted out was another feature of the laws separating them from modern jurisprudence. Section X L I of the constitution declared, "laws for the encouragement of virtue and prevention of vice and immorality shall be made and kept in force." 18 A m o n g the early statutes are found many for the regulation of individual conduct; these are the so-called Blue Laws, long considered synonymous with the New England character. Copied from the rigid code of the Connecticut forefathers, they proved difficult of enforcement among the heterogeneous elements composing the Vermont frontier population. Such practices as traveling on the Sabbath and profane swearing were punishable offenses, and the early court calendars were filled with cases of this type. 19 Strict repression of acts of this nature tended to lessen respect for the laws in general and increased the difficulty of controlling crime. A t their first meeting in 1786 the Council of Censors complained: " T h a t by directing corporal punishment to be inflicted for offenses not infamous in their nature, that 1 8 Ibid., Ibid., p. 333. p. 254. Henry H. Vail, Pomfret Vermont (Boston, 1 9 3 0 ) , I, 309—22, contains illustrations of early law enforcement drawn from manuscript records. 17

19

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207

chastisement is rendered less disgraceful to the delinquent, and less beneficial to society, where the crimes require it." 20 T h e enactment of a code and its enforcement are two distinct functions of government; one relatively easy, the other difficult at all times. Under easy-going Governor Chittenden, who was "well skilled in ye mysteries of Vermont," the frontier country saw little attempt to carry out the more drastic clauses of the enactments of 1779. T h e opinions of Connecticut missionaries were unanimous on this point. " I n the government of this State there appears to be no energy at all"—this lament of Thomas Robbins represented a true picture of a region noted for its endless litigations and supine law enforcement. 21 A movement for controlling the disorders that had marked the robust days of the 1780's and 1790's developed with the heightening of moral consciousness during the Evangelical Awakenings. The Council of Censors in 1806 took notice of the nonenforcement of the laws. It pointed out the failure of corporal punishment as a means of reformation, recommending that the system of confinement, now coming into vogue in other states, should be given a trial. At the next session of the General Assembly, Governor Israel Smith called the attention of the Legislators to the provision of the constitution authorizing a house of detention and urged the construction of an institution along the lines followed by the Philadelphians. " T h e rendering of the punishment of criminals less sanguinary" was the keynote of his message. 22 T o accomplish this, he proposed a fundamental change in the penal code, the substitution of confinement at hard labor for corporal punishment. The recommendations of Governor Smith were carried out, and the state prison at Windsor was opened for occupancy in 20

The Proceedings of the Council of Censors . . . 1786, p. 1 3 . Diary of Thomas Robbins, I, 1 5 4 . 22 "Address of Governor Smith," Journals of the General Assembly . . . p. 16. 21

¡807,

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23

1809. Now, instead of whipping, branding, and clipping of ears as means of chastisement, delinquents were committed to the hands of the superintendent for prescribed terms of imprisonment. This marked a step forward in improving the condition of the unfortunate, but it is doubtful if criminals relished the change. Though such barbarisms as flogging and pillorying were prohibited by law, other modes of a more subtle nature were introduced to enforce discipline. It is difficult to arrive at an accurate portrayal of conditions existing within a penal institution. Reports of officials are colorless and often tend to minimize evils 5 on the other hand, revelations by former convicts and investigating committees are prone to sensationalism and unbalanced judgment. In chronicling the history of Windsor Prison a valuable work by John Reynolds, Recollections of Windsor Prison, is at hand.24 An inmate of the place for a number of years, Reynolds later returned to do missionary work among the convicts in preparing them for a return to private life. Somewhere between his critical expose of the failure of the Vermont prison system to reform the criminal and the self-laudatory reports of the superintendents lay the truth. The Windsor state prison, considered adequate in 1809, soon proved unable to accommodate its inmates comfortably. The thirty-five cells were only of moderate size and many sheltered from two to six men. The building was neither well lighted nor properly heated. " M a n y a time," related Reynolds, "have I made large balls by scraping the frost with my hands from the stone walls of my cell." 25 In other instances he complained: " I had to tax my ingenuity to turn over the pages of my Bible" so cold were the cells. As the years passed and little money was available for improvements, conditions became worse; many cases of frozen fingers and limbs were reported, and the lack 23 24 26

Journals of the General Assembly . . . 1X0S, p. 19. John Reynolds, Recollections of Windsor Prison (Boston, 1 8 3 9 ) . Ibid., p. 1 1 .

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of light and sanitary facilities made the place a pesthole. A traveler in 1 8 3 0 found the jail a "wretched establishment"; while W i l l i a m C r a w f o r d , an English visitor, described the cells as dirty and offensively close and the discipline lax. 2 8 In addition to suffering caused by public indifference prisoners were tormented by several extraordinary

punishments

reserved for those who broke rules of discipline. T h e superintendent, a political appointee of the Assembly, was a dictator in his little bailiwick; both his subordinates and the convicts were amenable to his will. Reynolds's account of solitary confinement, a favorite method of torture, is moving: This is cruel and dreadful. T h e want of food reduces the strength and takes away the flesh, so that when the sufferer comes out, his face is often pale as death, his frame only a skeleton, and he is unable to walk without reeling. He has only a small piece of bread every twenty-four hours, with a pail of water; and no bed but the rock. In the winter he has a blanket, but such is the degree of cold to which he is exposed, that he has to keep walking and stamping night and day, to keep from freezing to death. And having no proper nourishment to sustain him, he becomes, under the joint influence of cold, fatigue, and hunger, a miracle of suffering, over which Satan himself might weep. Day after day, and night after night, he drags about his heavy and burdensome existence, friendless and unpitied, the sport of his keeper, and the victim of an enormity of torment. I know what this suffering is, for I have experienced it. Seven days and seven nights in the dead of winter, I hung on the frozen rim of this misery, and died a thousand deaths. Every day was an eternity, and every night forever and ever; all this I endured because I incautiously smiled once in my life, when I happened to feel less gloomy than usual. But my suffering was nothing compared with others. Some spend twelve, some twenty, some over thirty days there. My heart chills at the thought! If God is not more merciful than man, what will become of us? ~7 26 "Notes by a M a i l T r a v e l l e r to Quebec," Burlington Sentinel, August 6, 1 8 3 0 ; William C r a w f o r d , Report of William Crawford, Esq. on the Penitentiaries of the United States (London, 1 8 3 5 ) , quoted in L e w i s , The Development of American Prisons, p. 1 5 3 . 27

Reynolds, Recollections of Windsor Prison, p. 36.

2io

E Q U A L J U S T I C E TO A L L

For minor violations, the block and chain or the strait-jacket were reserved. But witnesses to such cruel punishments were few and the public remained unaware of the fate of these unfortunates. The neglect of the Vermont prison was paralleled in other states where penitentiaries had been erected early in the century. Overcrowding and the economic exploitation of prisoners were notorious practices. Attempts to remedy these gave rise to a second wave of penal reform about the time when Jackson was making his entrance on the national political scene. Influential in this renewed drive was the Prison Discipline Society ( 1 8 2 5 ) of Boston, one of the many benevolent institutions created at this time. 28 Under the militant but partisan leadership of Reverend Louis Dwight, this organization became an important force in broadening the scope of reform. Consideration was given to improvement of county and local jails, segregation of the insane from common criminals, education of the deaf and dumb, and abolition of imprisonment for debt, subjects heretofore receiving little attention. Dwight early became a vigorous advocate of a new mode of discipline. In opposition to the Pennsylvania system, which confined inmates "in solitary" at all times, Dwight championed the method then being tried in New York State at Auburn Penitentiary, where efforts were made to prevent communication between prisoners. According to Dwight's plan, the men were confined in small cells at night and worked together in a shop under strict rules of silence during the day. Bickering between advocates of the "silent system" and the "separate system" stimulated much thinking on the matter of penology. But Dwight was an aggressive proponent of his views, and largely through his insistence Vermont erected in 1 8 3 0 a long-needed addition to the old structure on the Auburn or "silent system." The words 28

Reforts of the Prison Discipline Society, Boston, 1826—1851 .855).

(3 vols., Boston,

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of Governor Crafts, in addressing the General Assembly in 1829, well illustrated the necessity of this move: In our prison, the cells are so f e w in number, that it has been necessary t o confine t w o or more in a c e l l — o f t e n the hardened villain w i t h the y o u t h f u l o f f e n d e r ; g i v i n g t h e m the opportunity for conversation t h r o u g h the n i g h t — t o recount o v e r the deeds of wickedness, the means used to circumvent the unsuspecting, and to f o r m plans for future depredations on society. I n these schools of wickedness, the y o u n g are instructed in the w h o l e science of k n a v e r y ; and, w h e n released, return into society with greater ability for mischief. It has been f o u n d , by experience, that by c o n f i n i n g convicts in separate cells, so that w h e n they leave their workshops, they can hold no communication with each other, and are kept in silence and solitude, under a never ceasing supervision and inspection, these evils have been prevented. I n the solitude of their cells, they have m u c h time to reflect, and are rendered peculiarly susceptible to instruction in moral and religious principles. In several of the State Prisons, Sabbath Schools have been introduced, a n d with happy e f f e c t . T h o s e

w h o could read, have been supplied

with

Bibles; and, in some instances, those w h o could not, have been t a u g h t to read. If the contemplated alteration should be made in our state prison, and a proper course of discipline maintained, there are strong g r o u n d s to believe that a large portion of that unfortunate class of h u m a n beings may be reclaimed a n d restored to society; and, by their industry and good c o n d u c t , make amends of their f o r m e r misdeeds. 2 9

T h e Auburn system, largely as a result of Dwight's evangelism, came into vogue in many Eastern states, and it was defended against detractors in the Reports of the Prison Discipline Society, which Dwight edited throughout his active years. H i s testimony on the efficiency of the Windsor institution is, therefore, distorted by prejudice. From other sources, one learns that the "silent system" proved difficult to enforce. There resulted frequent cases of punishment for infractions of its rigorous code. Revelations of floggings and of extreme cases of solitary confinement, especially in the penitentiaries of New York State, 29 "Speech of Governor Crafts—1829," Records of the Governor and Council, VII, 465.

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staggered an unsuspecting public. In Vermont similar conditions were uncovered by the work of Reynolds and by a controversy arising between the chaplain and the head at Windsor. Elder Rufus Harvey charged Superintendent Brown with playing politics in prison management, peculation of funds, and inhumane treatment of convicts. Charles G. Eastman of the Spirit of the Age and William Fay of the Rutland Herald gave publicity to these charges and called for a clean-up of the situation.30 A wholesome airing of conditions followed with the result that the dictatorial power of the superintendent was curbed. When Dorothea Dix, the one-time resident of Vermont who did much to alleviate suffering of criminals, visited the prison in 1843, she found conditions much improved. Discipline was "less relaxed" at only one other institution in the country, punishments "mild and infrequent." 3 1 Investigation of conditions in county and local jails revealed the wide extent of imprisonment for debts of trifling sums. By far the greater number of inmates of these places were convicted merely of the crime of being poor. No attempt was made to segregate debtors from those convicted of criminal offenses; both were confined indiscriminately in structures whose lack of sanitary conveniences and ordinary comforts rendered them useless for other purposes. In Middlebury for the six months ending June 1, 1 8 3 1 , no less than ninety-four men and women were incarcerated, twenty-five for sums of less than five dollars. It was estimated that over four thousand Vermont citizens annually suffered commitment to jails for debt.32 The Prison Discipline Society was largely instrumental in keeping this subject before the public. For many years the under30

Spirit of the Age, October i, 1 8 4 1 ; Rutland Herald, October 5, 1 8 4 1 . Dorothea Dix, Remarks on Prisons and Prison Discipline in the United States (Philadelph ia, 1 8 4 5 ) , pp. 22—23. 32 Prison Discipline Society, Sixth Annual Report . . . 1831, p. 4 4 1 . 31

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privileged had been laboring for a reform under this head, but with little tangible result. At every session of the Legislature from 1820 to 1838, the year of final success, bills for the repeal of existing statutes had been introduced j but passage had been obstructed by special interests, often by the coterie of lawyers who formed the Governor's Council and exercised a legislative veto. "The voice of the people is against the law,—why then is it not repealed?" queried the Northern Sentinel of Burlington. "The answer is this—a few cold hearted, miserly men control the elections of the freemen of Vermont. Freemen yet slaves —slaves to men who are slaves to their passions." 33 Meetings of protest against the operation of the law assembled throughout the state, largely at the instigation of the Working Men's Societies, and their presses featured the movement.34 Imprisonment for trifling sums and attachment of mechanics' tools had proved an onerous burden. During the decade of the thirties social reformers joined workingmen in the attack on "this relic of barbarism." Revelations of the practice in Vermont, more prevalent here than in surrounding states, aroused public opinion. The case of a seventy-seven-year-old veteran of the Revolution, who languished in the Burlington jail for inability to meet a small debt, reminded many of this repudiation of the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the Vermont Constitution of 1777. 3 5 Attempts to ameliorate the rigidity of the law were made in 1830 and 1834, but the electorate would be satisfied with nothing short of complete repeal. In 1838, Governor Silas Jennison, an Antimason and abolitionist, pressed for repeal as "an act of humanity, as well as of justice," and imprisonment of the body for debt was finally expunged from the statute books in that iz 34 35

Northern Sentinel (Burlington), October 30, 1829. Working-Man?s Gazette (Woodstock), October 7 and 14, 1830. Prison Discipline Society, Tenth Annual Refort . . . ¡83$, p. 87:.

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36

year. By this act Vermont joined New Hampshire, New York, and Tennessee as a leader in abolishing a custom so odious to the champions of social democracy. Another penological reform was the abolition of the death penalty. Throughout the early history of Vermont its infliction had been remarkably infrequent, but with the heightened consciousness of the dignity of man permeating the country during the Jackson era crusading spirits called for the end of this vestige of Old Testament justice. A plea for doing away with capital punishment appeared among the demands of the Working Men of Woodstock in 1 8 3 1 . 3 7 Foremost in this campaign in the later thirties were the aggressive Non-Resistants who would overturn all the institutions of society in their Utopian quest for ultimate peace. Orson S. Murray was moved to some of his rarest utterances in attacks on " j udicial murderers." H e once declared, upon witnessing a public execution, that he would prefer the most vicious murderer to break bread with him than the most pious of the New England clergy, whom he charged with upholding the "death system." 38 Governor Silas Jennison, in his famous reform message of 1838, noticed " a strong expression of public opinion" on a recent occasion when a public execution took place. Efforts had been made to prevent carrying out the sentence.39 No legal action was taken until five years later, in 1843, when capital punishment in Vermont was to all purposes suspended. In a Legislative session full of radical measures the execution of a capital offender was ordered to be stayed fifteen months after conviction. In effect, it was a triumph for the opponents of the death sentence. The case of Eugene Clifford, convicted of the heartless murder 88 "Message of Governor Jennison," Journal of the Senate . . . 1838, p. 1 0 ; Acts and Resolves fassed by the Legislature of the State of Vermont . . . 1838, p. 8. 87 Working-Man's Gazette, June 14., 1 8 3 1 . 38 Vermont Telegraph, November 1 2 , 1 8 3 5 , December 7, 1836, December 19, 1838. 89 "Message of Governor Jennison," Journal of the Senate . . . 18¡8, p. 1 1 .

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of his wife and child, demonstrated the actual working of the revised law. Clifford had been committed to Windsor Prison, but during his fifteen months' reprieve his case became a rallying point for reformers. 40 Governor Slade failed to issue an order for Clifford's execution at the appointed time. Should the mandate of the law be carried out, or should an aroused public opinion be served? Aside from the merits of the case, it was a ticklish problem for politicians to handle, for they dared not alienate any section of the electorate at a time when the antislavery issue was making political prophecy so hazardous. But Clifford himself, after languishing in jail for several years, conveniently resolved the dilemma by passing away quietly in his cell. 41 The movement throughout the country was put on a firm basis by the organization of the National Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment ( 1 8 4 7 ) . 4 2 Vermont, at the close of the half-century, the law of 1843 stood} execution after a fifteen months' interval might be ordered for those convicted of murder, fighting in a fatal duel, bearing false witness with intent to take away life, or committing arson with fatal results. 43 The decade of the forties brought an easing of the penal problem from an unexpected direction. Crime began to decline. Instead of having more than her share of criminals as in the tumultuous days of her early existence, Vermont now had less than the average of the surrounding states. " W e have but few convicts," wrote the superintendent in 1840, "and our number is constantly diminishing—not two-thirds as many as ten years since, and likely to be still diminishing at a rapid rate." 44 In the same year Dwight on a tour of the county houses of correction was profoundly impressed by the lack of occupants of his 40

Liberator, November 24, 1 8 4 3 ; The Hangman (Boston), December 5, 1845. Prisoner's Friend (Boston), March 22, 1846. 4 - Ibid., May 24, 1848. 43 The Compiled Statutes of the State of Vermont . . . 1851, by Charles K . Williams, pp. 539—50. 44 Prison Discipline Society, Fifteenth Annual Report . . . 1840, p. 445. 41

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beloved jails whom he might reform. " I n no part of the United States," he wrote in a millennial vein, "is the reflection impressed upon the mind than in Vermont, that the time may not be distant when there shall be less use than at present for prisons." 45 HUMANITARIAN

CARE

OF T H E

UNFORTUNATE

The interest shown by the Prison Discipline Society and later by Dorothea Dix in the condition of county jails brought to light revelations which opened broad fields for social reformers. Confined there with hardened criminals were found many whose only offense against society was either poverty or bodily infirmity: the insane, paupers, deaf and dumb, blind, and poor debtors. T o those bent on worldly success, they represented the defeated and hence were incumbrances. T o the religious community raised in a hard Calvinism, they represented those forsaken by God and were to be shunned. Accordingly, they were extended little sympathy. The treatment of the insane was most revolting and depressing. Countless instances could be enumerated of poor lunatics being chained to the floor of an attic, caged in an unheated outhouse, provided with neither bed nor blankets, wallowing in filth, and nourished on the barest of diets.48 Those whose families could not or would not supply a home were left as public charges in common jails or poorhouses, the victims of a neglect which only exaggerated their malady beyond possible cure. Insanity appears to have been quite prevalent among the inhabitants of the Green Mountains; numerous instances of it, as well as many resultant suicides, have been recorded with a melancholy fascination by local historians. A committee of the General Assembly in 1836 estimated the insane population at 45

Ibid., Sixteenth Annual Report . . . 1841, p. 77. The Vermont Asylum for the Insane, Its Annals for Fifty Years (Brattleboro, 1887) ; Miller and Wells, History of Ryegate, p. 2 1 1 . 46

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three hundred, two-thirds of the number being town paupers or destitute.47 The establishment of the Connecticut Retreat at Hartford ( 1 8 2 4 ) was the first concerted action in New England to relieve the suffering of the insane. Though open to all, it did little to alleviate conditions in Vermont, the annual fee of one hundred dollars being prohibitive to most families. Initiative for the systematic relief of local lunatics came from a private source. In 1834 Mrs. Anna Marsh, the widow of Dr. Perley Marsh, long a prominent physician of Brattleboro, left the sum of ten thousand dollars to found a hospital to care for unfortunates of this type. As quoted by the executor of her will, Mrs. Marsh once declared, "Everybody gave to missionary objects, and educational interests belonged to those who had children (she had none living), but nobody cared for the insane poor; they were neglected and shifted about, and she wanted to provide a home for them." 48 Stimulated by this act of benevolence, the Legislature opened its purse strings and agreed to appropriate two thousand dollars annually for five years to assist this experiment in social service.49 The Vermont Asylum for the Insane opened in December, 1836, and took a high place among the ten similar institutions throughout the country, most of which had been only recently created. Dr. William H . Rockwell, assistant superintendent of the Connecticut Retreat, became head of the new establishment at Brattleboro. H e was a firm believer that insanity was a mental disease and that, if given attention in its early stages, might be cured by sympathetic treatment. Manual labor to divert the mind—farming for men, sewing for women—occupied a high place in his system, and its extensive employment here gave the 47 48 49

Prison Discipline Society, Eleventh Annual Report . . . 1836, p. 6. The Vermont Asylum for the Insane, p. 6. Journals of the General Assembly . . . 183s, p. 44.

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Vermont A s y l u m a distinguished record of cures as well as of economical administration. T h e A s y l u m soon won the confidence of the people with the result that it was crowded to capacity. In the first six years of operation 4 2 4 patients were received f r o m eleven states and the W e s t Indies, and 1 7 9 of this number were restored to their reason. A t that time, 1 8 4 2 , 1 1 3 patients remained under care, enj o y i n g kindness and reasonable comfort where a f e w months previously they had been victims of neglect and burdens on the community. 5 0 F o r a testimony of the value of the institution one can improve little on D r . R o c k w e l l ' s touching recital of one case history. T h e second case is a man w h o had been twenty-four years insane, and for the last six had worn no clothing, and had been furnished with no bed except loose straw. H e had become very filthy, regardless of everything which is neat or decent. Here was a case which required more skill and exertion than to restore a recent case to sanity. He was brought here a year and a half ago, and in less than three months from his admission he so improved that he has ever since worn his clothing; has been supplied with comfortable bed which he has kept neat;

has

gone to the table with the rest, and used knife and fork; and has not injured bedding, clothing, or any other property to the amount of t w o dollars. T h i s last summer he has worked regularly on the farm, and he is peaceful, quiet and happy. 5 1

T h e original objective of the A s y l u m , the relief of the insane poor, had been only partially achieved in its first years of operation. T o attain this goal the General Assembly in 1 8 4 4 agreed to appropriate three thousand dollars annually for maintenance at Brattleboro of those then dependant on the niggardly charity of towns. T h i s put the A s y l u m on a new basis, making it practically a public institution, though private patients were still received at a slightly higher rate than the state paid f o r charity cases. 52 80 81 62

Prison Discipline Society, Eighteenth Annual Report . . . ¡84$, p. 230. The Vermont Asylum for the Insane, p. 67. The Journal of the Senate . . . 1844, pp. 56, 6 i , 65, 89.

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From time to time money also was provided for enlargement and improvement of the facilities. Progress had been made during fifteen years, 1835-1850, in extending human sympathy to the insane and in giving many of the curable an equal opportunity in life with their slightly more normal fellows. Nevertheless, the problem was not yet solved} many remained in need. In 1850, there were approximately 550 white persons in Vermont listed as insane or idiotic, or a ratio of one in every 366 persons, the highest average of any state in the Union! 53 Of these some 300 were cared for in the Vermont Asylum; the remainder depended on relatives or public charity. Most important, however, was the revolution in thought brought about by a decade and a half of persistent humanitarianism. No longer was the poor lunatic considered an outcast, but a social responsibility had been awakened and steps toward returning him to society begun. An interesting phase of the history of the Asylum remains to be considered. In the summer of 1842 there came to Brattleboro a young printer's apprentice from northern New Hampshire laboring under the delusion that he was Benjamin Franklin. Upon showing indications of a rapid recovery, he was allowed to set type at the office of the local Vermont Phoenix. While employed there, he conceived the idea of publishing a small sheet for the benefit of his fellow patients. With Dr. Rockwell's approval of this extension of the manual labor system, the Asylum Journal was launched as a weekly in November, 1842, and continued for the next four years. It carried material of more permanent value than found in many of the contemporary political presses. This first newspaper to be issued regularly from an American insane asylum won wide recognition for its unique character. "Franklin" afterwards became a prominent Republican statesman in Michigan and never forgot his debt of gratitude United States Census Office, Statistical pp. 6o, 1 1 2 . 53

View of the United States . . .

1S50,

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to the State of Vermont, D r . Rockwell, and the kind attendants of the Retreat. 5 4 Attention had been called at an early date to the pressing need for educating another class of dependents, the deaf and dumb. Imitating a similar action in Connecticut, the Vermont Assembly in 1 8 1 7 recommended the construction of an institution for the instruction of the seventy persons of this class enumerated in a recent census. 55 Nothing was done until 1 8 2 3 when Governor Van Ness again called attention to "these helpless and unfortunate beings." Subsequently, an appropriation was made for sending a f e w to the H a r t f o r d Asylum in Connecticut. 56 Until the middle of the century Vermont continued to send her deaf and dumb to H a r t f o r d , but on account of the miserly annual appropriation by the Legislature only a small portion of the mutes reported in the 1 8 5 0 census were given this opportunity. T h e blind, too, received similar treatment, being sent to the Perkins Institute at Boston. F o r education of these two classes the sum of $ 2 , 5 0 0 was annually expended, about enough to care for twenty of the three hundred suffering these afflictions. 57 Care of the poor was regarded as a local function; the selectmen of each town were charged with providing victuals, clothing and firewood for paupers. T h i s well-meaning provision seems to have been seldom observed in the early days. A n ingenious flouting of the law developed among miserly selectmen. T h e custom of "warning out of town" all new settlers absolved the town of responsibility for their support if they should eventually become destitute. 58 Hence, the pauper became literally a " m a n 54

The Vermont Asylum for the Insane, p. 85. Journals of the General Assembly . . . 1818, p. 126. 66 Ibid . . . 182}, p. 1 1 ; ibid . . . 1825, p. 12. 57 The American Journal of Education (Hartford), May, 1856, p. 456. 58 Miller and Wells, History of Ryegate, pp. 1 6 9 - 9 1 ; William Tucker, History of Hartford, Vermont (Burlington, 1 8 8 9 ) , p. 305; "Records of the Overseers of the Poor, Underbill, Vt." (Manuscript in Library of the Vermont Historical Society). 55

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without a town." T h e problem of public charity was pressing during the early years of the century as the impact of successive economic disasters reduced a large number to straitened circumstances. 59 M a n y a luckless or improvident farmer found himself without means of support. T h e practice of hiring out the poor to a contractor was designed to cope with this situation, but its inhumanities soon became evident, and numerous towns established poor farms where the indigent might work for support under a more benevolent protector. Nevertheless, the contract system lingered on in several communities to shock society occasionally as its brutalities were revealed. 0 0 A n increased disposition to assist the poor was evidenced by the organization of benevolent societies for this purpose during the thirties. T h e Female Charity Society of Woodstock and the Ladies Benevolent Society of Montpelier were only two of many similar groups. These efforts, sympathetic and well-intentioned, were merely palliatives; the greatest blow at alleviating poverty was struck by the temperance movement. In visiting the poorhouses of Bennington County in the interests of the drink reform Samuel Chipman found that liquor had contributed to the present distress of three-quarters of their inmates. 81 Great emphasis on this point was placed by temperance advocates in their eagerness to demonstrate the money-saving aspect of their campaign. Though progress had been made in reducing the suffering of the poor during the 1 8 3 0 ' s and 1840's, a new problem faced humanitarians at the end of the period. Of the 3,600 paupers who received public charity in 1 8 4 9 - 1 8 5 0 , over one-third were of foreign birth, Irish railroad laborers and French Canadian sea69 Lawrence D. Stilwell, Emigration from Vermont, 1760-1860, contains a discussion of the succcssive calamities which befell Vermont from 1 8 1 0 - 1 8 2 0 . 60 Green Mountain Freeman, March 16, 1848. 61 Samuel Chipman, "Report of an Examination of the Poor Houses, Jails, &c. in the State of New York, and the Counties of Berkshire, Massachusetts, Litchfield, Connecticut; and Bennington, Vermont," The American Quarterly Temperance Magazine (Albany), May, 1834, p. 81.

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sonal workers. Many Vermonters were ill content with the burden of supporting these aliens, and this attitude contributed to the rise of the Native American movement in the next decade. An annual expenditure of $ 120,000 for relief, inadequate though it was, disclosed that all was not well with the economic system and that provision for the unfortunates would continue to be a pressing problem. EDUCATIONAL

REFORM

The most insistent demand of the Working Men was for "Universal Education." To this subject many articles in the Working-Man's Gazette 83 were devoted. "The original element of despotism," it declared editorially, "is a monopoly of talent which consigns the multitude to comparative ignorance, and secures the balance of knowledge on the side of the rich . . . the means of equal knowledge, (the only security for equal liberty) should be rendered by legal provision, the common property of all classes." 64 Centering of reforming zeal on education with the resultant common-school revival came late to Vermont and only its beginning appeared by 1850, but the forces at work and the repercussions aroused form an important chapter in the social development of the Green Mountain State. A consideration of early legislative provisions for common schools would lead one to the opinion that interest in education comprised a prime concern of the public. The town charters granted by New Hampshire and later by Vermont set aside at least one plot of land in each town for support of schools. Indeed, the town of Bennington, two years after its settlement, laid a tax on its residents for the erection of a school building.85 As in the older settlements from which the Vermonters had emigrated, 62

United States Census Office, Statistical View . . . 1850, p. 163. In March, 1 8 3 1 , the subtitle, and Journal of Useful Knowledge, was added to the head of the Gazette. 61 Working-Man's Gazette, October 7, 1 S 3 1 . 65 Isaac Jennings, Memorial of a Century, p. 336. 63

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schooling was considered a local problem j and little change was made in this respect on the transition from colonial status to independence. The Constitution of the Republic of Vermont directed the setting up of a system of schools which, if carried out, would have created an admirable group of graduated institutions on much the same plan as Thomas Jefferson formulated for his native Virginia. " A school or schools shall be established in each town, by the legislature for the convenient instruction of youth. . . One grammar school in each county, and one university in the State, ought to be established by the General Assembly." 66 T h e first general law " f o r the due encouragement of learning and the better regulation and ordering of schools" was passed in 1782. 6 7 Local boards of trustees were authorized to administer school lands, to provide means to maintain schools, and to divide towns into convenient districts. The act contained the essentials of the common-school system as it existed until almost the middle of the nineteenth century. Recognition of local independence and encouragement of self-sufficiency marked its provisions. Funds originated from a tax laid on all residents of the district, or, as was usually the case, half in this manner and half from a levy on those parents whose children attended school. Thus, by encouraging local autonomy, some hundreds of little scholastic republics were created which exhibited in matters of education all the independence characteristic of a hill people. Breaking down this feeling of self-sufficiency with its intense hostility to outside domination, even by state officials, was to be the principal task of progressive educators. T h e district meeting became a forensic center in which questions the most remote and personal animosities of long standing were

fought

out. Petty local interests and a "dog-in-the-manger" spirit too often 68 67

146.

Vermont State Papers, p. 254. Proceedings of the General Assembly . . . ¡y82

(Bellows Falls, 1 9 2 5 ) , p.

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prevailed, to the great detriment of the schools. District jealousies prevented needed development. A n exaggerated idea of district rights, district importance, and district perfection became common. 0 8

Little reliable material concerning the actual functioning of these early schools is extant; lack of state-wide coordination prevented the collection of statistical data. If an opinion were formed by reading statute books and town records, one would be led to believe the schools were of a high order. But to a large extent the ideals of the Legislators, like Jefferson's vision of an integrated federal educational system, remained unfulfilled. J e r e m y Belknap, the historian of N e w Hampshire ( 1 7 9 2 ) , complained of the neglect of institutions of learning accompanying and f o l lowing the W a r of Independence. M a n y regions " w e r e destitute of any public schools" during that conflict, and after the conclusion of peace, despite the law, failed to reorganize their school systems. " T h i s negligence was one of the many evidences of a most unhappy prostration of morals during that period. . . " 09 E v e n in the first years of the new century, Belknap reported, "there is still in many places a great and criminal neglect of education." 70 T h e observations of the reliable historian of N e w Hampshire applied with equal force to the frontier districts across the Connecticut R i v e r where the effects of the war were felt even more severely. In 1 8 2 0 the Vermont Council of Censors was obliged to call attention to the flouting of the school law of 1 8 1 0 , which made the levying of a local tax to support teachers obligatory on a community in return for financial assistance. T h e Council pointed out that many towns receiving state aid failed to maintain adequate schools. 71 T h e first critical investigation of the public-school system 68

Elwood P. Cubberly, Public Education in the United States (Cambridge, 1 9 1 9 ) , p. 162. 69 Jeremy Belknap, The History of New Hampshire (Boston, 1 8 1 3 ) , III, 218. 70 Ibid., p. 2+7. 71 Journal of the Council of Censors . . . 1820-1821, p. 6 1 .

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took place in the middle and late twenties. Among the subjects broached in the annual messages of Governor Van Ness, 1 8 2 3 1 8 2 7 , education occupied a prominent place. In 1 8 2 3 he called attention to the patronage accorded higher institutions, but complained of the relative neglect of common schools, whose tendency was "to preserve that equality in society, which is so just in itself, and so consistent with the simplicity of genuine republican principles." A n increase in the tax on the polls and estates of the people, as provided by the L a w of 1 8 1 0 , he reasoned, would work no hardship on the rich, the chief opponents of tax-supported schools. " T h e r e can be little doubt, that the little which is taken from them, by its effect in improving and elevating the society around them, renders more safe and valuable that which they retain, and enables them to enjoy it with a greater degree of comfort and pleasure." 7 2 T h e Legislators, as in the matter of caring f o r the insane and the deaf and dumb, were reluctant to be "less frugal in the expenditure of the public treasure" than former assemblies. A n alternative to direct taxation was found in the creation of a school fund derived from a six percent tax on excess bank profits and from tavern and peddler license fees. This provided no solution, for the sum grew so slowly that an impatient Legislature a few years later confiscated it for ordinary expenses. In 1 8 2 7 a Board of School Commissioners was created to supervise the public education facilities, especially in the matter of finances. 73 Its Report in the following year was enlightening. T h e degree of independence that the district arrangement engendered was well illustrated by the discussion of text-books. N o system of common-school education can be of lasting or essential benefit unless it receives the cordial cooperation and support of parents and instructors. But so generally diffused through the great mass of 72 "Message of Governor Van Ness—1823," Records of the Governor and Council, VII, 4 4 1 . 73 Ibid., VII, 456.

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the community is the sense of personal as well as political independence, and so sleepless is the jealousy of arbitrary power, which is almost instinctive in the popular mind, that the attempt, however well-intentioned, to dictate the books to be used in our common schools is regarded by many as invasion of the right of private judgment, and consequently incompatible with the genius of our free institutions. 74

A n y attempt to establish a minimum of supervision was reported by the Board as "peculiarly obnoxious and unacceptable to the people." In the matter of appointing local committees the Report complained: "Nothing could be more absurd than the idea that the only point to be ascertained is, at how cheap a rate can his services, or rather his time, be engaged." Inveterate prejudice and inherent conservatism in these matters defeated the purpose of the reform law of 1827. T h e r e were occasional meetings of teachers and educators, like that at Montpelier in October, 1830, but they failed to arouse public interest. 75 As in other New England states, few tangible improvements resulted from this first school reform effort. 78 Perhaps the most important aspect of the renewed interest in learning was the development of the lyceum. This form of adult education had been promoted by Josiah Holbrook in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and after 1830 rapidly spread through the country. It received the sanction of many prominent Vermonters at a Montpelier meeting in 1829 when plans were laid for its systematic dissemination through the state. 77 T h e nineteenth-century lyceum in many ways resembled the 74

Report

75

Burlington

of the Board

76

A c o m m u n i c a t i o n in a hill t o w n n e w s p a p e r in 1834 c o m p l a i n e d : " H e r e in

Sentinel,

of Commissioners

on Common

Schools

. . .

¡818.

October 1 5 , 1 8 3 1 .

N e w E n g l a n d — i n V e r m o n t — i n N e w f a n e , district schools are v e r y d e f e c t i v e — v e r y f a r f r o m a c c o m p l i s h i n g w h a t , w i t h the same o r little greater pecuniary means, they m a y ; and farther still b e l o w w h a t they o u g h t to be, and w i l l , w h e n fathers and mothers are made to feel a parent's d u t y a n d a parent's noblest hopes." Free Press ( N e w f a n e ) , A u g u s t 16, 1 8 3 4 . 77

Vermont

Watchman,

November 17, 1829.

Vermont

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modern forum. Preassigned questions of current political interest or topics of a literary nature were debated at meetings, while often an original discourse on science or literature was presented to vary the program. Active lyceums of which full records have been preserved existed at Poultney, Woodstock, and Montpelier. T h e valuable records of that at the state capital afford an intimate glimpse of public opinion on many matters of contemporary importance from 1829 to 1836. 7 8 Interest in higher fields of learning began to stir at this time. In several towns private academies had been founded early in the century and prospered on the patronage of well-to-do families. Now their number was rapidly increasing till every county contained one or more, and the addition of secondary departments multiplied their usefulness. 79 A trend toward founding sectarian schools became noticeable, particularly among the Baptists and Methodists, erstwhile hostile to the dissemination of knowledge. 80 The Congregationalists founded no private schools in Vermont, probably content in the knowledge that a majority of the public institutions were conducted by teachers of their denomination. An indication of a softening of the tenets of a Calvinism that formerly regarded children as "young vipers," appeared in the formation of Maternal Associations composed of mothers who were anxious to assist their offsprings' development. 81 In advanced education, too, great changes in the curriculum began to transform both Middlebury College and the 78 "Records of the Montpelier Lyceum: 1 8 2 9 — 1 8 3 6 " (Manuscript in L i b r a r y of the Vermont Historical Society) ¡ also William Nutting, An Address to the Orange County Lyceum at their first meeting, June 23, ¡8¡i (Chelsea, 1 8 3 1 ) . 79 E d w a r d D. Andrews, " T h e County G r a m m a r Schools and Academies of Vermont," Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society, September, 1936 (Montpelier, 1 9 3 6 ) , p. 1 7 4 . 80 Crocker, History of the Baftists in Vermont, p. 5 3 7 ; Cyrus Prindle, " M e t h odist Episcopal Church in Vermont," in Thompson, History of Vermont, I I , 1 8 4 . 81 "Constitution and Records of the Maternal Association of New Haven, Vt., 1 8 3 6 - 1 8 5 3 " (Manuscript in L i b r a r y of the Vermont Historical Society).

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University of Vermont in accord with progressive ideas of collegiate instruction. 82 Our interest, however, must be confined to the common schools for their influence was fundamental to those bent on building a social democracy. T h e second quarter of the nineteenth century, and particularly its last ten years, witnessed the great battle for equal rights in education throughout the Northern states. A tax-supported, publicly controlled and directed, and nonsectarian common school summarized the aim of this crusade. W e have surveyed the first period of interest in this matter, its noble attempts and ineffectual results, and the way in which the whole program had been wrecked by public indifference. T h e second stage encountered the same difficulty; after a long battle to arouse public opinion, the religious zeal of its backers finally brought about the beginnings of improvement. T h e movement of the forties among the Green Mountains was stimulated and directed by an outside force. In the year of the Great Panic of 1 8 3 7 a young man of Boston gave up a lucrative law practice and a promising political career to become head of the Massachusetts State Board of Education. Horace M a n n had been instrumental in securing the passage of a revolutionary school law and was persuaded by friends to devote his life to giving vitality to the program outlined in the bill. On the day of his acceptance of the position he recorded in his diary: " H e n c e forth so long as I hold this office I devote myself to the supremest welfare of mankind upon earth. . . I have faith in the improvability of the race, in their accelerating improvability. T h i s effort may do, apparently, but little. But mere beginning a 82

Samuel W. Boardman, "Anniversary Address Before the Christian Associations," in A Record of the Centennial Anniversary of Middlebury College, (Middlebury ( ? ) , 1 9 0 1 ) p. 7 3 ; George W. Benedict, "History of the University of Vermont," American Quarterly Register, May, 1 8 4 1 , p. 391 ; and James D. Butler, "Collegiate Education in New England: Vermont," Ibid., August, 1839, p. 72.

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good cause is never little. If we get this vast wheel into any perceptible motion, we shall have accomplished much." 83 By means of innumerable addresses to philanthropists and Legislators, by his carefully drawn reports and the Common School Journal, and, most of all, by his intense conviction of the righteousness of the cause, Mann stimulated men in all parts of the country to assist in creating a system of schools worthy of a great democracy. As Cubberly has concluded: N o one did more than he to establish in the minds of the American people the conception that education should be universal, non-sectarian, and free, and that its aim should be social efficiency, civic virtue and character, rather than mere learning or the advancement of sectarian ends. U n d e r his practical leadership an unorganized and heterogeneous series of community schools was reduced to organization and welded together into a state school system. . . 8 4

The common-school revival in Vermont owed its inception and prosecution almost entirely to Horace Mann and his associates in Massachusetts. The link between the two was Thomas H . Palmer of Pittsford, a man long prominent in abolition circles, now destined to win lasting fame for his untiring interest in educational improvement. How Palmer became interested in the program of Horace Mann the documents fail to reveal. We first encounter him as author of an essay, "The Teacher's Manual," which won first prize in a contest conducted by the Boston Common School Journal.8o This work won praise among contemporary educators and later reappeared in book form to serve as a guide for teachers. Upon the instigation of Palmer the wheels of reform began to move in the Green Mountain State. A convention met at Brandon early in 1841 "to take in consideration 83

Quoted in Cubberly, Public Education in the United States, p. I 6 J . Ibid., p. 167. 85 Common School Journal (Boston), September i and 1 5 , October 1 and 1 5 , and November 2, 1840. 84

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the condition of our Common Schools, and to devise some means for their speedy improvement." Palmer addressed the gathering which included many pedagogues from the surrounding country as well as the usual group of reformers always present on any occasion tending to "the spirit of innovation." 86 As a result of this and other similar meetings throughout the state, Governor Paine in 1841 appointed a committee to investigate conditions. The following year he again urged the subject on the Legislature, pointing out the great strides that Massachusetts had taken in this respect.87 The recommendations of Paine constituted the first official recognition of the deficiency of the Vermont school system, but actual steps toward its correction awaited that reforming zealot, William Slade, who was soon to occupy the executive chair. An interesting document of this stage of the movement has fortunately been preserved. In January, 1841, the Mirror and Student's Repository—"A Monthly Periodical devoted to the interests of Common School Education, Science and Literature" —appeared at Newbury and continued through twelve issues. There is no indication as to the identity of the editors of this timely publication, which was probably a cooperative effort of the faculty of Newbury Seminary, as the sole advertisement in its pages referred to this institution.88 Its contents resembled Horace Mann's Common School Journal and Henry Barnard's Connecticut School Journal from which items were copied. Two articles in the May issue: "Necessity of Normal Schools" and "Examination of Teachers," demonstrated the subjects, accepted as commonplace today, that early educators were attempting to impress on the people. Particularly significant was the space devoted to promoting female instruction—a natural corollary of 86

Rutland Herald., February 2, 1 8 4 1 ; Mirror and Student's Repository bury), November, 1 8 4 1 . 87 Common School Journal, December 1 5 , 1 8 4 2 . 88 Mirror and Student's Repository, November, 1 8 4 1 .

(New-

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the campaign for equal rights which underlay all these humanitarian efforts to assist the unfortunate and underprivileged. 89 T h e entrance of William Slade into this field, as in all matters of reform, acted as a chemical agent to speed the process of action. After his retirement from Congress in 1843, abolition ceased to be Slade's prime interest, and educational problems gradually usurped his attention. A major portion of his address to the General Assembly in 1844 treated the need of immediate improvement of the schools. H i s forcible presentation of the subject soon brought a centering of activity. A convention met at Middlebury in M a y , 1845, and adopted forward-looking measures. Thomas H . Palmer composed an admirable report of the recommendations of the convention and gave publicity to its proposals as head of the Committee for Disseminating Information respecting School-Laws. Vermont's backwardness was revealed in three particulars: no examination of teachers, absence of systematic visitation and supervision, and a hopeless lack of uniformity in text books.90 In October a State Education Society was formed with a membership including many high in political and social life. 91 Public interest was rising. T h e Rutland Herald came out boldly for a radical change, urging the subject on the Legislature as the most important issue of the session: " T h e system of common schools in Vermont has become a farce; almost as broad as the old militia system. . T h e Herald especially decried the tendency of the well-to-do to withdraw their children from the public schools and place them in the better conducted private academies. This had been unknown twenty years earlier. If not 8 9 Agitation of "women's rights" lies beyond our time period. T h e only substantial consideration of the subject before 1850 came from the pen of Clarinda Nichols, wife of the editor of the Windham County Democrat of Brattleboro. Unfortunately, a diligent search for a file of this paper has proved unrewarding. A t the end of our period, 1848, a law passed the Legislature easing the restrictions on the owning and managing of property by women. Real accomplishments in this field, however, lay in the decade of the fifties and beyond. 90 81

Rutland Herald, M a y 29, 1845. Green Mountain Freeman, October 23, 1845.

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checked, the practice would create cliques, set up a pseudo-aristocracy and threaten the continuation of democratic principles. 92 With passage of an " A c t for the Regulation of Common Schools" on November 5, 1 8 4 5 , Vermont joined her sister states who were pioneering in this field.93 " W e rejoice with unspeakable j o y , " exclaimed Horace M a n n , " a t the accession of Vermont to the Party of Progress. R h o d e Island has already joined it. W h e n will N e w Hampshire and Maine wheel into the r a n k s ? " 94 T h e Vermont law was in many respects similar to that of Massachusetts. Its most important provision created a system of statecontrolled supervision in an attempt to break down local autonomy and to achieve some measure of standardization. Each town was directed to choose one to three overseers whose duties included an intimate supervision and direction of all schools in the vicinity. In each county a superintendent with extensive duties was selected. This last group constituted the effective agents; among their duties were the visitations of all schools in the county, the examination of teaching candidates, calling annual conventions of educators, and compiling detailed reports on conditions in their respective districts. At the head of this hierarchy was the State Superintendent whose activities embraced advising county superintendents, securing information abroad, submitting recommendations to the Legislature, and preparing an annual report. 95 H e r e was an attempt to put Vermont's educational facilities abreast of the times. Horace Eaton, the first State Superintendent, often compared the common-school revival to the scientific agricultural revolution and the introduction of railroads, each playing an interlocking part in the mutual improvement of the state. 82

Rutland

93

The Acts and Resolves

Herald,

October 2 , 184.5. Passed by the Legislature

the October Session . . . 1845, 94 96

Common Idem.

School

Journal,

p p . 25—29. February 16,

1846.

of the State of Vermont

at

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Eaton's First Annual Report, in 1845, served as a valuable revelation of the situation not only in Vermont but throughout most of the North. The conditions noted by him prevailed generally where the arm of progress had not yet penetrated. Six outstanding deficiencies were enumerated: small districts, miserable schoolhouses, total lack of equipment, multiformity of textbooks, inept teachers, and irregularity of attendance. Each received extended treatment. The small number of students in the usual school area prevented any real progress. "Small districts are said—and truly so—to be the paradise of ignorant teachers." The total number of districts was about 2,750, while the average number of pupils in each amounted to only thirty-seven! Comparison with New York's average of seventy-five pupils in a district and Massachusetts^ sixty-five readily demonstrated that Vermont education, like its agriculture, was extensive rather than intensive. A single instructor was often expected to teach pupils in ten different stages of advancement but with only two or three in each class. Consolidation of school districts was a crying necessity.96 In the second place, Eaton revealed the "miserable condition" of a large majority of the buildings. Constructed as cheaply as possible and located in unattractive sites, the schoolhouses repelled instead of being "the most attractive and delightful places of resort on the face of the earth." Many were inadequately heated in winter and poorly ventilated in summer. T o their unhealthy condition he attributed the germ of that scourge of the New England hill country—consumption. Habit had been the only guide in building. Clearly there existed a need of supplying standardized architectural specifications and inducing one town in each county to erect a structure of approved style to serve as a model for imitators.97 99

First Annual Refort of the State Superintendent of Common Schools made to the Legislature, October 1846, p. 7. 97 Ibid., p. 1 1 .

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If the exteriors of many buildings were in a lamentable condition, their interior equipment exhibited even more serious deficiencies. A n almost complete dearth of apparatus was reported from all sources. M a n y schools were "not generally furnished with even so cheap and simple, though vastly important an article as a blackboard," and of the few observed most were "not very large, nor very black." T h e absence of globes was also noticed by the county superintendents conducting this astonishing inventory. " O f maps, charts, geometrical figures and the like we hear nothing—absolutely nothing." 98 In the matter of lesson books little progress toward uniformity had been made since the disclosures of the Report of 1828. Each parent still considered it his constitutional privilege to send his children to school with texts of his own choosing. " T h e consequence is a Babel-like confusion of books," Palmer once observed, "good, bad, and indifferent indiscriminately mingled in almost any school, bidding defiance to classification, order or method." 99 Over fifty different titles were noted in the Report, many of them excellent according to the standards of the day, but the futility of attempting uniform instruction under these conditions needed little comment. 1 0 0 Superintendents possessed only advisory power in this respect; many years passed before this vestige of localism was routed by mandatory legislation. T h e lack of properly trained personnel was "painfully apparent" to all investigators. Under the system of district independence no standard of qualifications and no means of training candidates existed. T h e sole question in selecting a teacher too often resolved itself into " h o w cheaply can his time be bought?" This difficulty plagued Horace Mann in Massachusetts, H e n r y Barnard in Connecticut, and their associates in all parts of the country. In Vermont the average age of educators was only *sIbid., p. 12. 99 Rutland Herald, May 29, 184.5. 100 First Annual Re-port of the State Superintendent

. . . 1846,11.

13.

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twenty-two years; frequently the position of schoolmaster was only a prelude to a more permanent station in life. In addition to room and board, an instructor might expect an average monthly income of $ 1 2 , if a man, and $4.75 if a woman. The teaching profession was not attractive, and only those unable to find better positions accepted posts in common schools. " W e repeat then the proposition, that the paramount evil in our schools, is the want of thoroughly qualified teachers." 1 0 1 Finally, the Report brought to light actual attendance figures about which there had been much conjecture. Eaton estimated the average school session lasted only three months. Seventyseven percent of the youth of the state were enrolled, but only fifty-one percent were found in regular session. Twenty-two thousand young Vermonters of school age failed to enter any school during 1845, while irregularity of others robbed them of one-third of the time offered. "This presents a condition of things truly alarming—we might say absolutely appalling." 1 0 2 Publication of the Report created a sensation in Vermont society, long complacent in the assumption of the excellence of its educational facilities. What was the cause of this state of affairs? Where the remedy? Eaton found this not difficult to trace. I t is the failure of parents to estimate the immense influence

which

the instruction children receive at school is to exert upon the character and destinies of their children. I n looking at the subject with a v i e w of obtaining a proper basis of action, this failure must be regarded as the foundation of all other evils. H e r e lies the w o r l d to which the lever of A r c h i m e d e s must be a p p l i e d . 1 0 3

As we approach the middle of the century, the note of pessimism of the early forties gave way and here and there a ray of hope was expressed for the future of the Vermont school system. 101 102 103

Ibid., p. 16. Ibid., p. 2 1 . Ibid., p. 16.

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During the past four years much enthusiasm had been aroused by conventions held in accordance with the law of 1845. Montpelier had been honored by playing host to the American Institute of Instruction on its twentieth anniversary meeting in August, 1849. 104 The School Journal and Vermont Agriculturalist ( 1 8 4 9 ) had been instituted, and under the able editorship of the publishers of the Vermont Chronicle, disseminated reliable information on these two subjects so vital to the prosperity of the state. Writing in this magazine, the Reverend R . S. Hall, a veteran teacher of northern Vermont, expressed the opinion that the deterioration of the schools had been checked and in the past four years "obvious progress" had been made. 105 Thomas Palmer and William Slade, acting under the inspiration of Horace Mann, had initiated the common-school revival in Vermont. Horace Eaton had proved a worthy guide during its formative years. In 1850 he gave up the task of supervision and a period of decline ensued. But the accomplishments of the period had been real. A healthy consolidation of districts was in progress. Teachers' wages had been raised and the profession made more attractive. Attendance was increasing, until the average for the school year almost doubled former figures. State financial assistance, a powerful weapon, had been employed to enforce compliance with the law. In short, a system of statecontrolled, tax supported, nonsectarian schools—the ideal of Horace Mann—was becoming a reality. 106 One important aspect of educational reform remains to be considered. It is a significant fact that a number of champions of equal rights, whose multiform activities we have traced, centered their later energies in assisting institutions of learning. In the calmer contemplations of old age, there came the conclusion 104 Account of proceedings in School Journal and Vermont Agriculturalist s o r ) , September, 1849. 105 Idem. 108 Fourth Annual Report of the State Superintendent . . . 1849.

(Wind-

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that the movements of the thirties and forties were superficial in character. Something deeper was needed if the America of their ideals was to become a reality. Governor Slade was a notable example. For a decade after his retirement from politics and the antislavery front, he traversed the growing Middle West as agent of the Board of National Popular Education, transporting and placing youthful Yankee misses in the frontier region as so many ambassadors of New England culture. 107 W h e n death came to Slade in his seventy-second year, he was still actively engaged in this task of fostering democracy at its roots. Horace Eaton, in concluding one of his able reports, well expressed the sentiment general among reformers: E x p e r i e n c e p r o v e s that as society a d v a n c e s in a g e , there is e v e r g r o w i n g up a t e n d e n c y to w i d e disparities of r a n k a n d c o n d i t i o n . A n d

what

m e a n s c a n be devised that shall be so e f f e c t u a l in g u a r d i n g against t h e m as t h e g e n e r a l d i f f u s i o n of k n o w l e d g e ? levelling

engine,

which

we

may

H e r e is a n e q u a l i z i n g

rightfully

and

o p e r a t i o n w i l l n o t u n d e r m i n e , but c o n s o l i d a t e

power—a

lawfully employ.

and strengthen

Its

society.

L e t e v e r y child in the l a n d e n j o y the a d v a n t a g e s of a c o m p e t e n t e d u c a tion at his outset in l i f e — a n d it w i l l d o m o r e to s e c u r e a g e n e r a l equality of c o n d i t i o n , t h a n any g u a r a n t e e of " e q u a l rights a n d p r i v i l e g e s " w h i c h c o n s t i t u t i o n o r l a w s c a n g i v e . A n d if w e w o u l d p r e s e r v e this life g i v i n g spirit, as w e l l as the f o r m , of o u r r e p u b l i c a n institutions, w e m u s t rely m a i n l y u p o n p o p u l a r e d u c a t i o n to a c c o m p l i s h o u r p u r p o s e . 1 0 8 1 0 7 Board of National Popular Education, Annual Reports of the General Agent (Hartford, 1 8 4 8 - 1 8 5 7 ) . 108 First Annual Re-port of the State Superintendent of Schools . . . 1846, p. 33.

CHAPTER

SOCIAL

EIGHT

ARCHITECTS

H R O U G H all the currents of social agitation of the early nineteenth century appeared a constant reiteration of a belief in the nearness of a millennial society. T h e vision of a free man inhabiting a free world has engaged the attention of aspiring souls in all ages and climes. T h e back country of early America, stretching from interior N e w England across N e w Y o r k State and into the Ohio Valley, gave birth to numerous prophets and messiahs who aimed at being the architects and builders of a new social order. T h e communities among the Green Mountains produced their portion of these Utopians and gave an enthusiastic hearing to their variform plans. T h e chief actors in the contemplated reorganization of the American way of life f a l l into two categories in accordance with the mainspring of their thinking. In the first place, there were those who ran to an evangelical pattern and sought a return to the first principles of the Scriptures. T h e revivals of 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 3 7 had restored the Bible to a high place; to many it was the sole guide for the conduct of life. Accordingly, they felt it their imperative duty to realize the prophecies outlined in the Books of Daniel and Revelation. On the other hand, there were nonreligious social planners whose approach was rationalistic. F o l lowing the trends of the popular natural-rights philosophy, they set out to discover the natural laws of social organization and to create a system of living guided by blueprints of their own fashioning. These two groups were mutually hostile, the one placing faith in the supernatural, the other in material means.

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Nevertheless, their objectives were the same, and Vermonters lent receptive ears to each. RELIGIOUS M I L L E N N I A L I S T S There are records of several attempts to form a more perfect society in Vermont, and there must have been others which have passed into limbo. One of the first instances occurred in the latter 1790's on the Massachusetts border. A former English army officer by the name of Dorril brought together a circle of followers from Leyden in the Bay State and from Guilford in Vermont. Claiming to be a prophet of God through whom revelations were to be made, he set up a religio-political organization of unique character. 1 Unfortunately, few details of the actual working of this social economy have been preserved. A communism of property existed but no democracy; Dorril appears to have insisted on complete obedience to his divinely inspired commands. H e enforced a strict vegetarianism on his followers, and even refused to allow them to don clothes which had been produced at the expense of life. Leather shoes were taboo, woolen foot coverings being the mode. The Dorrilites, so the rumor ran, frequently gathered for bacchanalian revels and thus aroused the suspicions of their neighbors. Joseph Lathrop, a distinguished clergyman of Springfield, Massachusetts, brought this singular sect into prominence by publicly castigating it in one of his tirades against the infidelities of the age. In the northern part of this State, I am well informed, there has lately appeared, and still exists, under a licentious leader, a company of beings, who discard the principles of religion, and obligations of morality, trample on the bonds of matrimony, the separate rights of property, and the laws of civil society, spend the Sabbath in labor or diversion, as fancy dictates, and the nights in riotous excess and promiscuous concubinage, 1 Material on the Dorrilites is limited: Federal Galaxy (Brattleboro), January 15, 1799; National Philanthropist (Boston), August 3, 1 8 1 7 ; Thompson, History of Vermont, II, 203.

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as lust impels. T h e i r number consists of about forty, some of w h o m are people of respectable abilities and once, of decent characters. A society of this description, would disgrace the natives of Caffraria. 2

T h e Reverend Lathrop believed the Dorrilites a manifestation of the D e v i l , failing to recognize that they were merely trying to conform to their interpretation of Biblical injunction. Like all single-purposed individuals, however, they ultimately took flight on wings of fancy that led to their undoing. One day Dorril announced to his disciples his immunity from pain as an illustration of his God-given powers. Captain Ezekiel Foster, not a member of the company, was drawn to a meeting by his curiosity and there challenged the leader's pretension that "no arm can hurt my flesh." Stepping forward, the Captain delivered a well-aimed blow on the prophet's chin and floored him. Upon being knocked down a second time, Dorril pleaded with Foster to desist. T h e latter agreed to stop his iconoclastic offensive if his adversary would acknowledge the pain so evident on his face and disclaim any further supernatural powers. With the puncturing of their leader's invulnerability, the Dorrilites dispersed. Nevertheless, a residue of susceptibility to religious excitement remained in the region, as was attested in later years by the occurrence of vigorous religious revivals and a strong attachment to the doctrine of the Second Advent. A m o n g the amalgam that populated the valleys of western Vermont another outburst of fanaticism arose. In 1799 a mysterious fellow by the name of Winchell came to Middletown in Rutland County and took up a secretive residence on an outlying farm, where he was suspected of being a fugitive from a counterfeiting indictment in Orange County. 3 Presently his 2

Joseph L a t h r o p , A Sermon especially

Government

( S p r i n g f i e l d , M a s s . , 1 7 9 8 ) , p. 14.

3

from

on the Dangers

Immorality;

a lately

discovered

of the Times conspiracy

from

Infidelity

and

against

Religion

and

Source m a t e r i a l on this incident is contained in Barnes Frisbie, History

dletown,

Vermont

in Vermont

of

Mid-

( R u t l a n d , 1 8 6 7 ) , pp. 4 6 - 6 4 ; reminiscences of the a f f a i r appear

American

( M i d d l e b u r y ) , M a y 7 and A u g u s t 6, 1828.

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money-making propensities appeared in a different form; he became a rodsman, one of those gifted frontier characters claiming an ability to discover hidden wealth by the use of a divining rod, usually a stick of witch hazel. During a year's stay in the vicinity Winchell duped many of his neighbors into contributing funds to finance his treasure hunts. Just as each cache was to be uncovered some slight incident occurred to break the mysterious spell. While at Middletown, Winchell made the acquaintance of Nathaniel Wood, who has been described by the historian of Middletown "as dishonest and unscrupulous in matters of religion as any modern politician has been in politics." 4 Wood was one of those defiant Separates of Connecticut who had sought a haven for his unorthodox beliefs in the free air of the Green Mountains. But even in a region given to radicalism Wood stood out from his fellows. In 1789 he was excommunicated from the local Congregational Society for "saying one thing and doing the contrary and persisting in contention." 5 H e was therefore forced to organize his own religious sect around the nucleus of his large family. In Winchell's magical powers Wood saw a powerful instrument. Accordingly the divining rod became St. John's rod, and the whole business of the money digging took on an air of revelation and evangelism. T h e Middletown preacher shortly became conscious of divine inspiration revealed through the rod and commenced to issue pontifical pronouncements which were taken as Gospel truth by his followers. Believers began to exhibit signs of fanaticism under the spell of their faith in the nearness of the Almighty. On one occasion two young ladies felt the presence of the Devil in their clothing; fleeing on a cold night, they threw off their garments and sped naked over the snow to the summit of a near-by mountain to which the rod guided. The frenzy caused by Wood's frequent prophecies in4 5

Frisbie, History of Middletotun, p. 45. Thompson, History of Vermont, II, 100.

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creased during the last days of 1800. His wrath against the Gentiles (all those who were skeptical of his disclosures) mounted with each taunt hurled at him. In a short time the announcement came forth that the catastrophe predicted in the Book of Revelation was near. On the fourteenth of January, 1 8 0 1 , God would send a great earthquake and all the unregenerate and their worldly goods would be destroyed. As the appointed time approached, signs were put on the doors of believers in anticipation of the heavenly visitation. The more staid residents of Middletown gave little credence to the local soothsayer, but on the fateful night the authorities called out the militia in the fear that some "destroying Angel" in his mad delusion might do bodily harm to a Gentile. The night passed but neither angel nor earth tremor appeared. The Wood Scrape, as the incident was called, is indicative of the belief latent among the religious that the Day of Judgment was not far distant, and it demonstrated the ease with which subtle propagandists claiming divine inspiration could excite the credulous. Another significant aspect of the affair lay in its alleged inspiration of Mormonism. Winchell and Oliver Cowdry, a son of a prominent actor in the Wood Scrape, subsequently moved from Middletown to Palmyra in New York State and there became acquainted with another transplanted Vermont rodsman, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. 6 The strands of connection between the Wood Scrape and the Palmyra outcroppings are too tenuous to withstand historical criticism. Nevertheless, the two incidents suggest similar social tendencies in the soil of these two "infected districts." Another group of religious primates appeared in the Green Mountain region in 1 8 1 7 , a year of widespread revivals follow6

The historian of Middletown was convinced of an intimate connection. " . . . it is my honest belief that this Wood movement here in Middletown was one source, if not the main source, from which came this monster—Mormonism." Frisbie, History of Middle tovmt p. 64.

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ing in the wake of a series of economic catastrophes.7 Designated Pilgrims, they had their origin in Lower Canada near the forks of the St. Francis River, a region forming an extension of the cultural pattern of northern Vermont. In their retreat from a hostile environment the Pilgrims sought an earthly salvation in a return to a Biblical way of life. Bullard, their leader, like many other religious prophets, had suffered a long illness and upon recovery determined to devote himself to the service of Christ. H e commenced preaching and soon gathered a following. In their search for the Promised Land the Pilgrims journeyed southward, finally coming to rest at South Woodstock where they gained proselytes to their faith. 8 In tune with the monarchal tendencies of these theocratic communities Bullard became a spiritual and secular dictator and commanded even the personal property of all converts. His fervent desire to return to first principles led him to pay little heed to historical evolution} he ordered his disciples to discard the ornaments of civilization and to clothe themselves in bear skins and leather girdles. By order of their leader the men shaved the upper lip but not the chin. T h e most notable characteristic was filth, to them a cardinal virtue. Finding no Scriptural command to wash, they never bathed, but delighted in rolling around in the thick dust which covers Vermont by-roads in summertime. T o the relief of local religious bodies, they departed the Woodstock district in the fall of 1 8 1 7 , but not without close to a hundred converts, one of whom had formerly been a Methodist preacher. The Pilgrims turned southward then westward in search of their Promised Land. They were reported in Troy, N. Y . , Sussex, N . J . , Cincinnati, Ohio, and New Madrid, Mo., where Bullard 7

Thompson, History of Vermont, II, 203. Henry S. Lee, Uncommon Vermont (Rutland, 1 9 2 6 ) , p. 1 9 8 ; William H. Tucker, History of Hartford, Vermont (Burlington, 1 8 8 9 ) , p. 2 7 1 , speaks of "Puritans" in Hartford "around 1 8 2 0 . " It would seem that the Pilgrims and Puritans were the same. 8

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finally lost his charm and the pilgrimage appears to have ended. 9 At a New York village they were interviewed by Ira Chase, a Baptist elder, who reported that their leader was a red-bearded giant who "rules the whole company as an absolute monarch in all things spiritual and secular." When questioned closely about his tenets, the leader ordered silence, then "he and some of the others, poured forth upon both of us, a torrent of abuse, such as surpassed all that may be heard in a grog shop, from the lowest of the profane rabble, when ministers of the Gospel are made the theme of derision." 1 0 The Pilgrims represented an extreme expression of the fundamentalist spirit dominating religious men of the early nineteenth century. The greatest of the Vermont prophets was John Humphrey Noyes, born in 1807 in the valley of Federalism and Congregationalism, in conservative Brattleboro. The history of the development of the Noyesian theology of Perfectionism at the Putney Community in Windham County and its further expansion at Oneida in New York State is a fascinating story, one which has been told many times of late and told well. 1 1 Therefore, it will be pertinent to confine attention to the philosophical basis of the movement and to examine its relationship to the contemporary world. The focal point of Perfectionism was the belief that Christ had already reappeared on earth and that the reign of the Second 9 Budget ( T r o y , N. Y . ) , and Register (Sussex, N . J . ) quoted in American Yeoman (Brattleboro), October 14, 1 8 1 7 ; Cincinnati Bee quoted in North Star (Danville), May 22, 1 8 1 8 . 10 Letter of Ira Chase, Clarksburgh, Va., January 6, 1 8 1 8 , in The American Baptist Magazine (New Y o r k ) , May 1 8 1 8 , pp. 341—44. 11 T w o works by George W. Noyes are practically source books of information about his ancestor's career: Religious Experiences of John Humphrey Noyes (New York, 1 9 2 3 ) , and John Humphrey Noyes, The Putney Community (Oneida, 1 9 3 1 ) . Pierpoint Noyes has written a penetrating appraisal of his father's later life: My Father's House (New York, 1 9 3 7 ) . The best of the biographies is Robert A. Parker, A Yankee Saint, John Humphrey Noyes and the Oneida Community (New York, i935>-

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Kingdom had commenced. Failure of previous Bible expounders to realize this lay in their misconception of the nature of His return. All had envisaged Christ's reappearance and the Day of Judgment as simultaneous acts, and all believed the introduction of the Kingdom of God on Earth would await the "physical" presence of the Son. Noyes argued that the New Testament indicated that Christ had already returned in a "spiritual" form within the lifetime of the Apostles. Accordingly the beginning of the millennium was long past and Christians were now capable of attaining that high state of perfect holiness promised by the testimony of John and Paul. It was while Noyes was a theological student at New Haven that the Lord revealed this grandiose conception and selected him as His instrument to carry the message to the rest of the world. After several years of evangelical peregrinations through the Eastern states, Noyes returned to his native soil. During his "wanderjahr" he had engaged in forwarding such reform measures as temperance and antislavery, but upon settling at Putney he devoted his attention to building the spiritual communism which he considered the ultimate goal of Christianity. Briefly, this was the basis of his philosophy as outlined in the pamphlet, Bible Communism (1849): T h e chain of evil which holds humanity in rein has four links:

first,

a breach with G o d ; second, a disruption of the sexes involving a special curse on w o m e n ;

third, oppressive labor, bearing specially on

man;

fourth, death. T h e chain of redemption brings reconciliation with G o d , proceeds to a restoration of the true relations between sexes, then to a reformation of the industrial system, and ends with victory over d e a t h . 1 2

At Putney between 1838 and 1847 Noyes gradually put his theories into practice. In turn, the "sin-system, the marriagesystem, the work-system, and the death-system" were studied and a solution for these eternal, human problems sought. The 12

G. W. Noyes, John Humfhrey Noyes, The Putney Community, p. 119.

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prerequisite for admission to Putney Community was an intense conviction of a shedding of God's divine grace, a sense that the soul had been washed clean forever never again to be stained by sin. W h e n a settlement had been made with God, one might move on to severing the next chain, marriage. Noyes separated the sexual function into two branches: the amative, which was favorable to life and the procreative, which was expensive of life. Through the formula of M a l e Continence (coitus interruptus) he found a means of satisfying the mating urge without imposing an onerous burden on women. L o v e was thus elevated, sexual shame done away with, and the way opened to proceed from the customary marriage partnership to a community partnership—a cooperative home would be much more attractive than the usual family circle. W i t h the removal of man-wife individualism the chief obstruction to association in labor was removed. A division of labor would lessen the amount required by an individual, excessive toil would be abolished. W o r k would become attractive. " M e n and women will mingle like boys and girls in their employments, and labor will become sport." With the breaking of these three bonds the way was open for attaining everlasting life. W e can n o w see our way to victory over death. Reconciliation with G o d opens the way for reconciliation of the sexes. Reconciliation of the sexes excludes shame, and opens the w a y for Bible Communism. Bible Communism increases strength, diminishes w o r k , and makes work attractive. T h u s the antecedents of death are removed. First w e abolish sin, then shame, then the curse on w o m e n of exhausting child bearing, then the curse of man of excessive labor, and so w e arrive regularly at the tree of life. G e n . 3 . 1 3

Casting off traditional bonds of sex, the Putney Community embarked on an uncharted sea and soon grounded on the shoals of disaster. This vexed problem of marital relations sooner or later confronted all community architects. Ideal communism— 13

Ibid., p. 1 1 2 .

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the abnegation of individual rights—demanded a sharing of love as well as of property; this more than any other factor brought the early American communists into disrepute with conventional society. Among the residents of Putney and its vicinity were those who doubted the authenticity of the "Yankee Saint's" commission to institute the Kingdom of God in their backyard. When rumors of sexual promiscuity leaked out, they lost no time in sending the High Sheriff to the door of the Community charging violation of the 99th Chapter of the Revised Statutes of the State of Vermont. Mass meetings of the morally indignant were held and violent measures to rid the village of the Perfectionists were suggested. The leading "saints" decided discretion was the better part of valor and hastily took leave of their Green Mountain home. "The Flight" ever after remained a point of attack for detractors. Noyes, however, persistently maintained that "we left not to escape the law but to prevent an outbreak of lynch law among the barbarians of Putney." 14 The Perfectionists later gathered at Oneida and there reinstituted their social and economic experiments with singular success. Thus Vermont lost one of her most forceful personalities, a courageous man who sought a meaning to life and attempted to solve the most pressing problems of the age, a leader who combined religion and economics to bring forth a perfect social order. The Putney prophet's relations with William Lloyd Garrison are of special interest. In March, 1837, he journeyed to Boston and interviewed the editor of the Liberator. To him Noyes recited his "anti-human government gesture"—his renunciation of citizenship in a government whose Administration was "drunk with tyrannic power and rampant with cruelty toward Negroes, Indians and Missionaries." He denounced its policy "as essentially infidel and reprobate, the seat of the slave-power, the 14

Ibid., p. 302.

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instrument of every kind of villainy and oppression, and wholly antagonistic to the spiritual forces which are working for the introduction of holiness, peace and human brotherhood." Noyes urged Garrison to join him in an abjuration of the Constitution, and a few days later put his signature to a document similar to the Declaration of '76, repudiating his allegiance to the Government of the United States and asserting the title of Jesus Christ to the throne of the world. 1 5 In another day and age these remarks might be considered slightly treasonable. In urging the cause of Perfectionism on Garrison, Noyes appraised his movement as the acme of reform. " A l l the abhorrence which now falls on slavery, intemperance, lewdness and every other species of vice will in due time be gathered into one volume of victorious wrath against sin. I wait for the time as for the day of battle, regarding all the previous movements as only fencing-schools or at best as the preliminary skirmishes which precede a general engagement." 1 6 H e urged all to flock to his shrine because he, John Humphrey Noyes, was the incarnation of the noble specimen of man long foreseen by social reformers, a sinless man in a free environment. Garrison's sons accredited the Vermonter with precipitating the anti-human government and nonresistance principles then fermenting in their father's mind. On the Fourth of J u l y , 1837, Garrison declared: " M y hope of the millennium begins . . . at the overthrow of this nation," and within a few days he dispatched the letter which disrupted the meeting of the Vermont Peace Society. 17 These outbursts of Garrison hastened him on his way not only to a repudiation of the Government but also to a denial of the appropriateness of the Bible to the existing situation. In the former, Noyes was in accord with the abolitionist, but in the 15

G. W. Noyes, Religious Experiences of John Humphrey Noyes, p. 118. Idem. 17 W. F. and F. J . Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, II, 1 5 1 . See page 169 for a discussion of the Vermont Peace Society. 16

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latter move he did not share for he consistently maintained that his thinking was in harmony with a true interpretation of the Scriptures. 18 Another religious millennial philosophy winning attention in Vermont was Swedenborgianism. Its founder, an eighteenthcentury mystic of Scandinavian birth, after a long career of scientific investigation turned his speculations on the relation betwen God and man. With the details of his creed we are not concerned. Suffice it to say that he possessed extraordinary visionary powers, claimed to have witnessed the Last Judgment and to be in communication with the Lord. 1 9 In the decade of the 1840's Swedenborgianism experienced as great a popularity with the intelligentsia as Second Adventism exerted among the ignorant. Here at last, they thought, was a religion with a scientific basis, for Swedenborg tried to establish the nexus between the spiritual and material worlds. Brook Farmers embraced the enticing philosophy, hailing it as the complement, in the religious field, of Fourierism in the field of social economy. The foremost popularizer of this "scientific religion" was a Vermonter, Professor George Bush of Norwich, long a teacher of Hebrew at New York University. 20 At this time Swedenborgianism was rather an intellectual hobby than an organized sect. Nevertheless, a considerable disturbance developed at Cambridge, Vermont, when the local pastor, John Truair, became a convert to the new doctrine. Dismissed from the Association, Truair formed the Union Church of Cambridge to harbor like-minded souls. 21 Swedenborgianism, like all other movements of the age which aimed at creating the universal church predicted in the Scriptures, resulted only in the formation of another new sect, the 18

See page 245. Alexander J . Grieve, "Swedenborg," The Encyclopedia Britannica (14th edition, London and New York, 1929), X X I , 653. 20 Harris E. Starr, "George Bush," Dictionary of American Biography (New York, 1929), III, 347. 21 American Quarterly Register (Boston), November, 1841, p. 130. 19

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Church of New Jerusalem, to further complicate the schisms of Protestantism. Of the galaxy of prophets and messiahs appearing in the American firmament in the 1830's and 1840's none achieved greater success and more lasting fame than the founder and the organizer of Mormonism. Vermont played an important role in the rise of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Joseph Smith was born at Sharon in 1805, Brigham Young at Whitingham in 1801. 2 2 The story of the miraculous finding of the Book of Mormon, the courageous trek Westward, and the successful establishment of the State of Deseret in the Far West lies beyond the scope of this essay. Mormonism, though castigated by the orthodox of Vermont on all occasions, continued to draw recruits from the native state of its founders. In 1835 two missionaries of the new faith were reported in Montpelier where their sober preaching aroused commendation among those mindful of the extravagant conduct of more "respectable" revivalists." 3 The Census of 1850 reported two hundred and thirty-two Vermonters residing in Utah, all of them presumably Mormons and participants in building the most successful of all the American communisms.24 Another extreme expression of the conviction that the millennium was near aroused a social upheaval of great magnitude in the early forties. William Miller and his followers, commonly called Millerites, preached the doctrine that the Second Coming of Christ and the commencement of His thousand year reign might be expected some time between March, 1843, and March, 1844. They looked forward to the establishment of the Kingdom of God with its rewards to saints and punishments to sinners. 22 Bernard De Voto, "Joseph Smith," Dictionary of American Biography (New York, 1 9 3 5 ) , X V I I , 3 1 0 ; De Voto, "Brigham Young," ibid., X X , 620. 23 Vermont Patriot (Montpelier), J u l y 13, 1835. 24 United States Census Office, Statistical View of the United States . . . 1850, p. 1 1 6 .

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" I cannot avoid the belief," confessed M i l l e r , "that this earth is to be restored to its E d e n state, and become the eternal residence of the saints; that Christ will redeem us from the power of the grave j that he will change our vile bodies into the likeness of his glorified body, and destroy those who destroy the earth. .

29

T h e Millerite movement represented the sum-

mation of all the reforms of the age. In one step, man was to move into that idealistic structure of society for which reformers for years had been shaping stones that it might rest on a firm foundation. Preachers of the Second Advent, however, did away with all preparatory campaigns; the worthy of this world, they insisted the Scriptures indicated, would ascend to a state of perfection overnight. W i l l i a m M i l l e r was a typical product of the cross drift of social forces of the early nineteenth century. Born in 1782 at frontier Pittsfield, his family followed the trend northward and migrated to Poultney, Vermont, on the N e w Y o r k border when W i l l i a m was only four years of age. H e received little formal education, never more than three months a year, but absorbed a vast array of historical data by delving into the library of none other than seditious Matthew L y o n , a near neighbor. In accord with the popular philosophical bent of the frontier, young W i l liam discarded the Bible as being a work of fiction and became an outspoken advocate of Deism. 2 8 W i t h many of his associates in heresy, a few years later he fell a ready victim to the wave of religious revivals which followed in the wake of the depredations of the W a r of 1 8 1 2 ; he made a public profession of his faith that the L o r d had designated him for salvation and joined the Calvinist Baptist Church. U p to this time Miller's life had 2 5 Letter of William Miller, L o w Hampton, M a y 12, 1849, quoted by James White, Sketches of the Christian Life and Public Labors of William Miller (Battle Creek, Mich., 1 8 7 5 ) , P- 39728 Views of the Prophecies and Prophetic Chronology selected from the manuscripts of William Miller; ig44-

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voluntary or otherwise.66 Are you an American citizen? Then you are a joint owner of the public lands. Why not take enough of your property to provide yourself a home? Why not vote yourself a farm? Land reformers were aggressive propagandists, efficient organizers, bent on arousing the public to use the ballot to achieve their ends; and Evans was an indefatigable, uncompromising and shrewd leader. Against all other "panacea doctors" he stormed long and vehemently, especially at Associationists. In attempting to outflank the Association advocates of Brook Farm, Evans moved into New England and organized local Land Reform Clubs in affiliation with his national organization. In Vermont he found a fertile field of operation for the results of land monopoly were already making an impression on the farmer. "And even here, in our highly favored Vermont," lamented a native son, "large numbers of small tenants are springing up on the overgrowing farms, to be occupied not by freemen, but by those whose only alternative is to render service to allgrasping capital." 67 In Passumpsic, Braintree, Waterbury, Williamstown, and Pittsford, the cry of land reform reechoed, and organized groups planned to bring pressure at the polls for a lex agrar'ta. In the Otter Creek Valley, where "the spirit of caste and aristocracy is the strongest, and the tendency to land monopoly the most fearful," the movement took a firm root.68 A vigorous protest at the conditions engendered by the industrial revolution was voiced by the Pittsford National Reform Club: " M e n and women are in want in the midst of an abundance created by themselves. Crime and pauperism is increasing— prisons and poor houses are multiplying." To remedy these conditions the agrarians proposed a specific set of measures. 88 87

Norman Ware, The Industrial Worker, p. 182. "Address of Pittsfield National Reform Club," Rutland Herald,

184788 The Harbinger, July 3, 18+7.

June 23,

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Resolved, T h a t in our opinion, the measures proposed by the N a tional Reformer, v i z : — t h e freedom of the public lands to actual settlers, in limited quantities, a limitation to the quantity of land which one person shall be protected in acquiring; exemption of the homestead from any future debt, mortgage or alienation, except by the free consent of the husband and w i f e , or owners thereof, where no such relation exists; a limitation to the number of hours that shall be deemed by law a day's labor; and a reduction of the salary of all public agents (especially salaries of eight dollars per day and over) to as nearly as practical the compensation of useful labor; have their basis in natural laws, established by the Creator, and if placed upon our statute books and carried into practice, would do more to secure to labor its just reward, to promote equality and happiness, than the adoption of either or all the measures that divide the Democratic and W h i g parties. 69

A convergence of forces was presaged by the state convention of National Reformers in October, 1847, when spirited resolutions were passed condemning both land monopoly and Negro slavery. 70 T h e following year the advocates of land limitation j oined the abolitionists in forming the all-reform Free Soil Party. Upon failure to secure approval of their program at the polls, the free-land advocates carried the matter to the floor of the Legislature. A petition of George Armington proposed the passage of a statute limiting the acreage that one might acquire and prohibiting attachment of the homestead for debt. After full consideration of the subject a report was drawn up by the eminent jurist, Charles K. Williams. 7 1 In the matter of homestead exemption, he observed, the Legislature was not only empowered to act but frequently ordered in individual cases the immunity of the home from seizure for ordinary debts. As for land limitation, he went to great length to point out that inequality of wealth arose not from the quantity but from the quality of the land possessed. One might purchase an entire town high on the crest 09 70 71

Rutland Herald, June 23, 1847. Green Mountain Freeman, November 12, 1847. The Journal of the Council of Censors . . . iS^S-ii^g,

pp. 1 5 - 1 6 .

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of the Green Mountains for the price that he would pay for a single plot in Montpelier. Nor would free land provide a cureall for existing economic ills, Williams maintained} a certain amount of capital and a degree of physical energy were needed unless the land owners were to become charges of the government. With this pointed rebuke coming on the heels of the disillusionment attending the Free Soil defeat, land reform agitation became quiescent in local circles. In the United States Congress, however, the subject continued to arouse controversies, and it was a Vermont member, Justin H . Morrill, who was instrumental in paving the way for the Homestead Act of 1862. Few workers could forsake the world and enter a phalanx; and only a limited number possessed sufficient capital to migrate to a quarter section of Western land and to sustain themselves until the stake paid dividends. T h e majority had to stay put and make the best of their lot. A more realistic approach to the maladjustments of the age appeared in the movement to establish cooperatives. Its origins in Vermont are clouded in obscurity. Account books of two early adventures are extant: The West Fairlee Farmer's and Mechanic's Store ( 1 8 3 9 ) and the Farmer's and Mechanic's Mercantile Company of Peacham ( 1 8 4 0 ) . 7 2 There must have been similar enterprises of this type whose records have vanished. The cooperative at Fairlee experienced a relatively long life, 1839 to 1847, but faulty administration, constant withdrawal of individual members, and public indifference hastened its dissolution. T h e cooperative movement in New England experienced a mushroom growth in the late forties. The Working Men's Protective Union, organized in 1845, created at least 63 branches and claimed ten to twelve thousand members 72 "Constitution and Records of the Farmer's and Mechanic's Store Company, West Fairlee, March 2, 1 8 3 9 - A p r i l i , 1 8 4 7 , " and "Records of the Farmer's and Mechanic's Mercantile Company, Peacham, J a n u a r y 16, 1840—March 3 1 , 1 8 4 3 " (Manuscripts in Library of the Vermont Historical Society).

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throughout the New England states. Division 26 was located at Winooski Falls in Chittenden County. It sent large quantities of cheese to the Boston Divisions in return for manufactured goods. 73 These consumer cooperatives aimed "to enable their members to purchase goods at retail at wholesale prices, and to guard against fraud by false weight and measure, and by adulteration." They took the form of joint stock companies under the management of boards of directors. The establishment of new divisions continued in the decade of the fifties with periods of varying prosperity until the Civil War apparently brought them to an end. T h e producers of Vermont, too, formed cooperatives to market their products. The chief product of the Green Mountain hill country at this time was wool. A depot to receive the clip was organized at Addison on Lake Champlain in 1847 and two years later was duplicated at White River Junction. 74 These efforts to secure the strength of union in dealing with purchasing agents of southern New England mills were described by John Orvis: E a c h farmer takes his wool to the depot, where it is assorted into several qualities, each distinct quality being weighed and washed and marked, for which the owner receives, if he wishes, an advance of twothirds the current price of wool of that quality. He will thus be enabled to wait until the wool can be disposed of at its full value. T h e r e will be one or two agents connected with a depot, who will attend to the assorting, weighing and selling, and whose expenses are to be defrayed by those interested. T h e effect of this arrangement will be to equalize the profits of wool growing, and to protect small farmers against speculators, whilst it will guarantee that reward to the growers of superior qualities of wool, to which their enterprise entitles them, and establish a unity of system in the wool trade throughout the country. 7 5 73

The Harbinger, October 28, 1848. Vermont Watchman, February 1 1 , March 4, September 2, 1 8 4 7 ; April 16, 1848; April 26, and June 2 1 , 1849. Voice of Freedom, March 4, 1847. New England Farmer (Boston), June 9, 1849. 76 The Harbinger, July 3, 1847. 74

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The wool depots continued their activities into the 18 50's. This attempt of producers to combat the rising capitalistic interests was the opening phase of a battle which has continued to the present day. The motives behind the formation of wool associations reappeared later in the century in the cooperative movement among dairy farmers. W e take leave of the currents of social life in Vermont at the middle of the nineteenth century. For six decades agitation had been constant—the cultural pattern had been in a state of flux. An energetic group of religious and social reformers had woven together two concepts, a belief in the nearness of the millennium and a tenacious attachment to "equal rights." Their effort had rearranged the political contours and transformed the social institutions of the region. In 1850 there were over twenty-five thousand residents whose lifetime spanned the sixty years of statehood. Their retrospects bore ample testimony to the transformations in the Vermont scene. Governor Carlos Coolidge in 1848 called attention to the "eminent success in the experiment for the enlargement of the happiness of the race." 78 Along with many of his contemporaries he saw much to be thankful for in the accomplishments of the past. The tumultuous state of the early settlements in 1790, a condition that led members of Congress to question the advisability of admitting the Green Mountain Republic to the Union, had given way under the influence of growing maturity, and a wellordered community had come into being which was considered an exemplar of democratic morality. Much was attributed to the Puritan Counter-Reformation which had routed the forces of infidelity and freethinking, reinstated the precepts of Christian living and warmed the impulse to "disinterested benevolence." A number of humanitarian enterprises had flowed from an awakened social conscience. 76

Journal

of the Senate . . . 1848, p. 17.

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The scourge of intemperance had been stayed and habits of sobriety inculcated. The privileged position of Masonry had been attacked and its political aspirations permanently allayed. Sympathy was being extended to the lowly slave and a mighty movement to end American Negro slavery was in progress. The underprivileged, too, had received public solicitude. The penal system had been revised; prison conditions ameliorated; imprisonment for debt abolished; and capital punishment suspended. The unfortunates—the insane, the poor, and the sick— now were objects of beneficence. In the opinion of many, most important of all was the common-school revival, the beginnings of a tax-supported, state-supervised, nonsectarian school system. On the periphery of these movements and currents were offshoots of religious fanaticism and whirlpools of social experimentation which accomplished little of permanence but exhibited a courageous spirit in attacking the pressing problems of the period. Six decades had brought important change to Vermont. The enlargement of the happiness of the race had been real. The question arises: "What happened to these currents? Why were they not abroad in the land during the second half of the century? What dried up their sources?" The answer is difficult; we can merely suggest new factors coming into being after 1850. Throughout the decade of the fifties the conviction grew among humanitarians that the continued existence of slavery nullified all attempts at creating a real democracy in America. Thus to the antislavery movement were drawn all the rivulets of reform, swelling into one mighty flood of moral indignation. The diversified movements of the thirties and forties were swept up and submerged. The climax of social reform came in the Civil War. Vermont gave much, emotionally and physically, to that conflict but received little. The mainstream of American life in later years lay far afield from the Green Mountain region. In the 1850's the voice of industry first became an effective

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power. It signalized a new trend in American history, for with the coming of age of the factory system the Jeffersonian ideal of an agrarian republic receded into the background. Industrialism with its handmaid, science, moved America into a different world from that of the pre-Civil War generation. The California Gold Rush ( 1 8 4 9 ) a n d the publication of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species ( 1 8 5 9 ) exemplified the new trend. The spread of a belief in evolution and the espousal of the scientific attitude profoundly affected the course of theology. To a large degree the new outlook undermined the basis of revivalism, that mainspring of so many reform movements of the early years of the century. The vision of the millennium faded. Furthermore, the Forty-Niners seemingly put the stamp of approval on the spirit of acquisitiveness which formerly had met with a latent hostility. The absorption of the country in money-making put an end to campaigns of "equal rights" for many years to come. The terms in which politicians and reformers had spoken in the 1830's were not germane to the 18 8o's. In Vermont the middle years of the nineteenth century brought a new stream of activity. The coming of the railroad was the most visible evidence of this. In the last month of 1849 both the Rutland and the Central Vermont Railroads reached Lake Champlain near Burlington; the Green Mountain barrier was pierced, and isolated communities of the hinterland were tied to the New England seaboard. The economic geography of the region was profoundly altered by this quickening of transportation. The railroad was the symbol of the new age. In the second half of the nineteenth century Vermonters continued to achieve fame in American life, but their accomplishments lay in a different domain from those of their fathers. Instead of seeking prominence in the fields of religion and social service, the distinguished Green Mountain Boys of later years were leaders of American industry: railroad builders in the Far West, factory owners in the

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East and South, and business and professional men in the rising commercial cities of the M i d d l e W e s t . T h e redirection of effort illustrated the change in the times. Vermont reached maturity in the middle years of the century. L i k e a stream of hot lava its youthful energies had flowed swiftly and in many channels. But the pace soon slackened, and a crystallization of character took place. A t that very time there appeared on the American political front a new institution. T h e Republican Party, conceived in antislavery and nourished by industrialism, won the allegiance of Vermont and has ever since molded its outlook.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A VERMONT BIBLIOGRAPHY,

1791-1850

Gilman, Marcus D . , T h e Bibliography of Vermont (Burlington, 1 8 9 7 ) . Contains over seven thousand items. Jones, Matt B . , " L i s t of Additions to Gilman's Bibliography" ( M a n u script in Boston Public and N e w Y o r k Public Libraries). Tuttle Company, Turtle's Catalogue of Books (Rutland, 1 9 1 9 ) . D e scribes many Vermont imprints not mentioned elsewhere.

C H A P T E R ONE. T H E SCENE HISTORY: G E N E R A L

Williams, Samuel, T h e Natural and Civil History of Vermont (Walpole, N . H., 1 7 9 4 ; Burlington, 1 8 0 9 ) . Allen, Ira, T h e Natural and Political History of the State of Vermont ( 1 7 9 8 ) , reprinted in Collections of the Vermont Historical Society (Vol. I , Montpelier, 1 8 7 0 ) , pp. 3 1 9 - 4 9 9 . Haskins, N . , A History of the State of Vermont (Vergennes, 1 8 3 1 ) . Thompson, Zadock, History of Vermont, Natural, Civil, and Statistical (Burlington, 1 8 3 3 , 1 8 4 2 , 1 8 5 8 ) . By far the best history of Vermont —much valuable social material is embraced. Beckley, Hosea, T h e History of Vermont (Brattleboro, 1 8 4 6 ) . Carpenter, William H. and Arthur, Timothy S., T h e History of Vermont (Philadelphia, 1 8 5 3 , 1 8 5 6 , 1 8 7 2 ) . Robinson, Rowland E . , Vermont, A Study of Independence ( N e w Y o r k , 1 8 9 2 , 1 8 9 5 ) . Catches the spirit of Vermont. Crockett, Walter H., Vermont, T h e Green Mountain State ( 5 vols., New Y o r k , 1 9 2 1 - 1 9 2 3 ) . Is the most extensive work, but the material Ls poorly digested. HISTORY : L O C A L

Hemenway, Abby Maria, T h e Vermont Historical Gazetteer ( 5 vols., various places, 1 8 6 2 - 1 8 8 2 ) . Contains a great mass of variated local lore of all towns except those in Windsor County. Thompson, Daniel P., A History of the T o w n of Montpelier ( M o n t pelier, i 8 6 0 ) .

28o

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Dana, Henry S., History of Woodstock, Vermont ( N e w Y o r k , 1 8 8 9 ) . T u c k e r , George H., History of Hartford, Vermont (Burlington, 1 8 8 9 ) . Miller, E d w a r d , and Wells, Frederick, History of Ryegate, Vermont St. Johnsbury, 1 9 1 3 ) . Vail, Henry H., Pomfret, Vermont (Boston, 1 9 3 0 ) . BIOGRAPHY: G E N E R A L

Ullery, Jacob G . , Men of Vermont (Brattleboro, 1 8 9 4 ) . Kent, Dorman B . E . , One Thousand Men (Montpelier, 1 9 1 5 ) . T h e Dictionary of American Biography ( N e w Y o r k , 1 9 2 8 - 1 9 3 6 ) . Crockett, Walter H., Vermonters; A Book of Biographies (Brattleboro,

1930BIOGRAPHY: INDIVIDUAL

Chipman, Daniel, T h e Life of Hon. Nathaniel Chipman, L L . D . , formerly member of the United States Senate and Chief Justice of the State of Vermont (Boston, 1 8 4 6 ) . McLoughlin, James F . , Matthew Lyon, the Hampden of Congress (New York, 1900). Spargo, John, Anthony Haswell, Printer—Patriot—Ballader (Rutland, 1925). Wilbur, James B., Ira Allen, Founder of Vermont, 1 7 5 1 - 1 8 1 4 ( 2 vols., Boston and N e w Y o r k , 1 9 2 8 ) . Pell, J o h n , Ethan Allen (Boston and N e w Y o r k , 1 9 2 9 ) . G O V E R N M E N T : SOURCES

Journal of the General Assembly, 1 7 7 8 - 1 8 3 5 . T h e Proceedings of the Council of Censors, of the State of Vermont, 1 7 8 6 and at seven year intervals until 1 8 3 5 . Slade, William, editor, Vermont State Papers (Middlebury, 1 8 2 3 ) . Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, 1 7 7 7 1 8 3 5 (Montpelier, 1 8 7 3 - 1 8 8 0 ) . Journal of the Senate, 1 8 3 6 — 1 8 5 0 . Journal of the House of Representatives, 1 8 3 6 - 1 8 5 0 . GOVERNMENT: GENERAL WORKS

Landon, S. W . , A Brief Outline of the History of Civil Government of Vermont ( N e w Y o r k , 1 8 9 0 ) .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

281

Meader, Lewis H., T h e Council of Censors of Vermont (Providence, 1899). Conant, E d w a r d , A Textbook of the Geography, History, Constitution, and Civil Government of Vermont (Rutland, 1 9 1 5 , 1 9 2 5 ) . Carroll, Daniel P., " T h e Unicameral Legislature of Vermont," ceedings of the Vermont Historical Society . . . 1932

Pro-

(Montpelier,

1932). Woodard, Florence, T h e T o w n Proprietors of Vermont ( N e w Y o r k , 1936). ECONOMICS

Fisher, Harold W . , T h e Hill Country of Northern N e w England, 1790— 1930 ( N e w Y o r k , 1 9 3 6 ) . T r e a t s the early years in the introductory chapters. Stilwell, Lawrence D . , "Emigration from Vermont, 1760—1860," Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society . . . 1937 (Montpelier, 1 9 3 7 ) . Deals with the economic causation of emigration.

CHAPTER

T W O .

T H E

PURITAN

C O U N T E R -

R E F O R M A T I O N CONGREGATIONALISTS: G E N E R A L

WORKS

"History of the Congregationalists in Vermont to 1 8 3 0 " (Manuscript in the Congregational Library in Boston). Sherman, D . , Sketches of N e w England Divines ( N e w Y o r k , i 8 6 0 ) . Comstock, John M . , T h e Congregational Churches of Vermont and T h e i r Ministry, 1 7 6 2 - 1 9 1 4 , Historical and Statistical (St. Johnsbury, 1915). CONGREGATIONALISTS: SOURCES

Reforts of the General Convention of Congregational Ministers in Vermont, 1 7 9 5 - 1 8 5 0 . The Connecticut Missionary Magazine ( H a r t f o r d ) , 1800—1815. Panoflist and Missionary Magazine (Boston), 1806—1819. The Advisor, or Vermont Evangelical Magazine (Middlebury), 1809— 1815. Christian Messenger (Middlebury), 1816—1819. Evangelical Monitor ( W o o d s t o c k ) , 1821—1823.

282

Vermont American

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Chronicle

( B e l l o w s Falls and W i n d s o r ) ,

Quarterly

Register

1826-1850.

(Boston), 1 8 2 9 - 1 8 4 3 .

BAPTISTS: G E N E R A L W O R K S

W r i g h t , Stephen, A History of Shaftesbury Baptist Association from 1 7 8 1 to 1 8 5 3 ( T r o y , 1 8 5 3 ) . C r o c k e r , Henry, History of the Baptists in V e r m o n t (Bellows Falls, I9I3)BAPTISTS: SOURCES

Massachusetts

Baptist Missionary Magazine

(Boston), 1803—1816.

Vermont Baptist Missionary Magazine ( R u t l a n d ) , 1 8 1 1 — 1 8 1 2 . Proceedings of the Vermont Baptist Convention, 1825—1850. Vermont Vermont

Telegraph ( B r a n d o n ) , 1 8 2 8 - 1 8 4 3 . Observer (Poultney and L u d l o w ) , 1 8 4 2 — 1 8 4 6 .

METHODISTS: G E N E R A L W O R K S

Parks, Stephen, T r o y Conference Miscellany ( A l b a n y , 1 8 5 7 ) . G r a h a m , Henry, History of T r o y Conference ( A l b a n y , 1 9 0 8 ) . M u d g e , James, History of the N e w E n g l a n d Conference of the M e t h odist Episcopal C h u r c h , 1 7 9 6 - 1 9 1 0 (Boston, 1 9 1 0 ) . Cole, Otis, and Oliver S. Baketel, History of the N e w Hampshire C o n ference of the Methodist Episcopal C h u r c h ( N e w Y o r k , 1 9 2 9 ) . METHODISTS: SOURCES

Minutes of the Annual 1796-1850.

Conferences

of the Methodist

Episcopal

Church,

Zion's Herald ( B o s t o n ) , 1 8 2 9 - 1 8 4 2 . Biblical Messenger ( N e w b u r y ) , 1 8 4 7 - 1 8 5 0 . UNIVERSALISTS

Christian

Repository

and

Universalist

Watchman

(Woodstock

and

Montpelier), 1 8 2 0 - 1 8 5 0 . EPISCOPALIANS

Documentary History of the Protestant Episcopal C h u r c h in the diocese of Vermont, including the journals of the conventions from the year 1 7 9 0 to 1 8 3 2 , inclusive ( N e w Y o r k , 1 8 7 0 ) .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

283

Bailey, A . H., T h e Lord our Light, Salvation and Strength. A Sermon Sketching the History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Vermont (Montpelier, 1882). Clarke, Lewis D., "Vermont Lands of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel," The New England Quarterly (Portland, M e . ) , April, 1930, pp. 2 7 9 - 9 6 .

CHAPTER

T H R E E .

T H E

T E M P E R A N C E

CRUSADE

V E R M O N T T E M P E R A N C E IMPRINTS

Porter, Ebenezer, T h e Fatal Effects of Ardent Spirits (Middlebury, 1812). Rush, Benjamin, A n Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits upon the Human Body and Mind (Middlebury, 1 8 1 2 ) . General Assembly of Vermont, An Address to the Inhabitants of the State of Vermont on the Use of Ardent Spirits (Montpelier, 1 8 1 7 ) . Vermont Chronicle (Bellows Falls and Windsor), 1826-1850. Morton, Daniel O . , A Discourse Delivered at Montpelier, Oct. 16, 1828, on the Formation of the Vermont Temperance Society (Montpelier, 1828). Sweetser, William, A n Address Delivered Before the Chittenden County Temperance Society, August 26, 1830 (Burlington, 1830). Roberts, D . , Address Delivered Before the Temperance Society of Wallingford and Its Vicinity, July 4, 1831 (Rutland, 1 8 3 1 ) . Journal of Temferance (Windsor), 1832. Moody, Robert, A n Address Delivered Before the Williston Temperance Society (Burlington, 1 8 3 2 ) . Washington County Temperance Society, A n Appeal to the People of Washington County, upon the Subject of Temperance ( Montpelier ?, 1832). Smith, Worthington, Address on the Subject of Petitioning the General Assembly to Abolish the Traffic in Ardent Spirits (St. Albans, 1833). Vermont Temperance Society, Annual Refort of the Vermont Temferance Society . . . 1834 (Montpelier, 1834). Allen, Jonathan, A n Essay on the Use of Narcotic Substances (Middlebury, 1835). Hopkins, John Henry, T h e Primitive Church compared with the Protestant Episcopal Church, of the present day (Burlington, 1835).

284

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Sargent, Lucius M., Letters to John H. Hopkins, D.D. (Windsor, 1 8 3 6 ) . Reid, James, Remarks on the Lecture of Rt. Rev. Bishop Hopkins (Frelighsburg, L . C., 1 8 3 6 ) . Vermont Temperance Society, Annual Report of the Vermont Temperance Society . . . 1837 (Montpelier, 1 8 3 7 ) . Vermont Temferance Star (Montpelier), 1839. Hume, James N., Versus Intemperance: An Address, or concise treatise on the Nature and Effects of Alcohol. Delivered in the Brick Church, Montpelier, Vt. (Boston, 1 8 4 0 ) . Marsh, Leonard, T h e Physiology of Intemperance (Burlington, 1 8 4 1 ) . State Banner (Bennington), 1841—1843. Reformed Drunkard (Montpelier), 1 8 4 1 - 1 8 4 3 . Bliss, Zenas, The Philosophy of Intemperance (Burlington, 1 8 4 2 ) . Slade, William, Address Delivered Before the Young Men's Temperance Society of Middlebury, Vt. (Washington, D. C., 1 8 4 3 ) . Cobb, Enos, Dr. Cobb's Reply to the Speeches of the Hon. Charles Adams on the Subject of Licenses and Temperance (no imprint, 1844? ). Magill, S. W . , An Address Delivered Before the Temperance TeaParty of the Young Men's Temperance Society (Middlebury, 1 8 4 5 ) . Vermont Temferance Herald (Woodstock), 1845—1849. United Brothers of Temperance, Constitution and By-Laws of Middlebury Association No. 1 (Middlebury, 1 8 4 7 ) . Slade, James M . , An Address explanatory of the Principles and Objects of the United Brothers of Temperance (Vergennes, 1 8 4 8 ) . Rechabite Songster and Tee-Total Minstrel (Burlington, 1 8 4 8 ) . Sons of Temperance, Constitution and By-Laws of Green Mountain Division No. 5 . . . Montpelier (Montpelier, 1 8 4 9 ) . Sons of Temperance, Constitution and By-Laws and Rules of Order of Washington Division, No. 27 . . . Barre (Montpelier, 1 8 4 9 ) . Read, David, The Best Way to Remove the Curse of Intemperate Drinking (Burlington, 1 8 4 9 ) . Sons of Temperance, Constitution and By-Laws of Mount Nebo Division, No. 9 . . . Middlebury (Middlebury, 1 8 5 0 ) . Vermont Temperance Society, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Vermont State Temferance Society (Windsor, 1 8 5 0 ) .

BIBLIOGRAPHY C H A P T E R

FOUR.

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A N T I M A S O N R Y

GENERAL WORKS

M c C a r t h y , Charles, " T h e Antimasonic Party: A Study of Political Antimasonry in the United States, 1 8 2 7 — 1 8 4 0 , " Annual American

Historical Society for the Year 1902

Refort

of the

(Washington, 1 9 0 3 ) .

Blakeslee, George H., " A History of the Antimasonic P a r t y " ( M a n u script in the Harvard College L i b r a r y ) . Tillotson, L e e S., Ancient C r a f t Masonry in Vermont

(Montpelier,

1920). V E R M O N T ANTIMASONIC IMPRINTS

Records of the G r a n d L o d g e of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of Vermont, from 1 7 9 4 to 1846 inclusive (Burlington, 1 8 7 9 ) . Vermont Patriot ( M o n t p e l i e r ) , 1 8 2 6 - 1 8 5 0 . North Star ( D a n v i l l e ) , 1 8 2 6 - 1 8 5 0 . Y o u n g , August, A n Oration, delivered at Craftsbury, on the anniversary of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, June 24, A . L . 5828 ( M o n t pelier, 1 8 2 8 ) . A Candid Appeal to the Publick, by the Members of the Masonick F r a ternity, connected with L o d g e s of W a t e r f o r d , Concord, Lyndon, St. Johnsbury, Peacham and Craftsbury, and the Royal A r c h Chapter at Danville (Montpelier, 1 8 2 8 ) . Vermont

American

Vermont Luminary Equal Rights

(Middlebury),

1829-1830.

(Randolph), 1829.

(Chester), 1829.

A n Appeal to the Inhabitants of the State of Vermont, on the subject of the Anti-Masonic Excitement, by a committee previously appointed for that purpose, M a d e at a Public Convention, Holden at Middlebury, April 7, 1829, and an address delivered before the Convention by Jonathan A . Allen, M . D . (Middlebury, 1 8 2 9 ) . Palmer, David, Address delivered before St. John's L o d g e , N o . 4 1 , T h e t f o r d , Vermont ( H a n o v e r , N . H . , 1 8 2 9 ) . Proceedings of the Anti-Masonic dolph, 1 8 2 9 ) .

State Convention

. . . 182g

(Ran-

Barber, E d w a r d D . , A n Address before the Anti-Masonic Convention of the County of Addison at Middlebury on the 12th of M a r c h , 1829 (Vergennes, 1 8 2 9 ) .

286

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Chandler, Amariah, Evenings by the Fireside: or Thoughts on some of the first principles of Speculative Free-Masonry (Danville, 1 8 2 9 ) . American Whig, Vermont Luminary, and Equal Rights (Woodstock), 1830-1835. Barber, Edward D., Popular Excitements, An Oration Before the AntiMasonic Convention, Holden at Middlebury, February 26, 1 8 3 0 ( Middlebury, 1 8 3 0 ) . Slade, William, Masonic Penalties (Middlebury, 1 8 3 0 ) . Barber, Edward D., and William Slade, A Memorial to the Legislature of Vermont for the repeal of the acts incorporating the Grand Lodge and Grand Chapter of Vermont, Presented October 23, 1 8 3 0 (no imprint). Proceedings of the Anti-Masonic State Convention . . . 1830 (Middlebury, 1 8 3 0 ) . T h e Vermont Anti-Masonic Almanac, for the year of Our Lord 1 8 3 1 (Woodstock, 1 8 3 0 ) . Proceedings of the "Montpelier (Vermont Congregational) Association," in reply to the annexed statements of Henry Jones, one of that body, in relation to the influence of Freemasonry in the Churches (Danville, 1 8 3 0 ) . State Journal (Montpelier), 1 8 3 1 - 1 8 3 6 . Anti-Masonic Refublican (Middlebury), 1 8 3 1 - 1 8 3 2 . Barber, Edward D., An Address Delivered before the Rutland County Anti-Masonic Convention, holden at Rutland on the First Day of June, 1 8 3 1 (Castleton, 1 8 3 1 ) . Proceedings oj the Anti-Masonic State Convention . . . 1831 (Montpelier, 1 8 3 1 ) . Middlebury Free Press, 1 8 3 2 - 1 8 3 6 . Proceedings oj the Anti-Masonic State Convention . . . 1833 (Montpelier, 1 8 3 3 ) . Masonic Oaths, with Notes; to which are added Practical Proofs of the Character and Tendency of Free Masonry (Montpelier, 1 8 3 4 ) . Vermont Free Press (Newfane), 1835—1836. Letters of M r . Slade to M r . Hallett, February, 1836 (no imprint). CHAPTERS

FIVE

AND

SIX.

ANTISLAVERY

VERMONT ANTISLAVERY IMPRINTS

Vermont Colonization Society, Annual Reforts,

1818—1850.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

287

Journal of the Times (Bennington), 1828—1829. McKeen, Silas, A Sermon Before the Vermont Colonization Society . . . 1828 (Montpelier, 1 8 2 8 ) . State Journal (Montpelier), 1 8 3 1 - 1 8 3 6 . Converse, John K . , A Discourse on the Moral, Legal, and Domestic Condition of Our Colored People (Burlington, 1 8 3 2 ) . Remarks on African Colonization and the Abolition of Slavery. By a Citizen of New England (Windsor, 1 8 3 3 ) . Tracy, Joseph, National Equality. A Sermon before the Vermont Colonization Society (Windsor, 1 8 3 3 ) . Fowler, William C., A Discourse, delivered at Montpelier, October 1 7 , 1 8 3 4 , before the Vermont Colonization Society (Middlebury, 1834). Vermont Anti-Slavery Society, Annual Reforts, 1835—1840. Starksborough and Lincoln Anti-Slavery Society, Address to the public, presented n t h month, 8th, 1 8 3 4 (Middlebury, 1 8 3 5 ) . Vermont Telegraph (Brandon), 1 8 3 5 - 1 8 4 3 . Johnson, Oliver, An Address delivered in the Congregational Church, in Middlebury, by the request of the Vermont Anti-Slavery Society (Montpelier, 1 8 3 5 ) . Barber, Edward D., An Oration Before the Addison Anti-Slavery Society (Middlebury, 1 8 3 6 ) . Prentiss, Samuel, Remarks of M r . Prentiss, of Vermont, in the Senate of the United States, March 1 , 1 8 3 6 , on the question of reception of a petition from the Society of Friends, praying for the abolition of slavery in Washington, D . C . (Washington, 1 8 3 6 ) . Slade, William, Speech on Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the District of Columbia, House of Representatives, December 20, 1 8 3 7 (Washington, 1 8 3 7 ) . Worcester, Leonard, A Discourse on the Alton Outrage, delivered at Peacham, Vermont, December 1 7 , 1837 (Concord, N. H., 1 8 3 8 ) . An Appeal to the Females of the North, on the Subject of Slavery, by a Female of Vermont (Philadelphia, 1 8 3 8 ) . Boardman, E . J . , Immediate Abolition Vindicated (Montpelier, 1 8 3 8 ) . Proceedings of the Anti-Slavery Convention at West Randolph, Vermont, 1 8 3 8 (no imprint). Voice of Freedom (Montpelier and Brandon), 1839—1847. Shaw, Benjamin, Illegality of Slavery (no imprint, 1840? ). Slade, William, Speech of M r . Slade of Vermont, on the right of petition

288

BIBLIOGRAPHY

. . . delivered in the House of Representatives on 18 and 20, January, 1840 (Washington, 1 8 4 0 ) . Converse, John K . , History of Slavery and Means of Elevating the Human Race (Burlington, 1 8 4 0 ) . Prindle, Cyrus, Sinfulness of American Slavery (Middlebury, 1 8 4 1 ) . Address of the Baptist Anti-Slavery Convention held at Waterbury, Vt., on the 29th and 30th of September, 1 8 4 1 (Brandon?, 1 8 4 1 ) . Vermont Freeman (Norwich and Montpelier), 1842—1843. Green Mountain Freeman (Montpelier), 1844—1850. Webster, D . A., Kentucky Jurisprudence. A History of the Trial of Miss Delia Webster (Vergennes, 1 8 4 5 ) . Collamer, Jacob, Speech on the Annexation of Texas. Delivered in the House of Representatives, January 23, 1845 (Washington, 1 8 4 5 ) . Dudley, John, The Mexican W a r and American Slavery (Hanover, N.H., 1847). Genius of Liberty (Ludlow), 1 8 4 7 - 1 8 4 8 . Marsh, George Perkins, Speech on the Mexican War. Delivered in the House of Representatives, February 10, 1848 (Washington, 1 8 4 8 ) . McKeen, Silas, A Scriptural Argument in Favor of Withdrawing Fellowship from churches and ecclesiastical bodies tolerating slaveholding among them (New York, 1 8 4 8 ) . Marsh, George Perkins, Remarks on Slavery in the Territories (Burlington, 1 8 4 8 ) . Slade, William, Remarks on Free Soil and the Presidency (no imprint). Free Soil Courier (Burlington), 1848. Free Soil Union (Ludlow), 1848. Liberty Courier (Burlington), 1848. Vermont Gazette (Bennington), 1848—1850. Windham County Democrat (Brattleboro), 1 8 4 8 - 1 8 5 0 . C H A P T E R SEVEN. EQUAL AND E X A C T TO ALL WORKING MEN'S

Working-Man's

JUSTICE

MOVEMENT

Gazette (Woodstock), 1 8 3 0 - 1 8 3 1 .

PRISON R E F O R M

Superintendent of the State Prison, Annual Reports, 1810—1850. Prison Discipline Society, Annual Re forts, 1 8 2 6 - 1 8 5 0 .

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

289

Reynolds, John, Recollections of Windsor Prison (Boston, 1 8 3 4 ) . The Hangman (Boston), 1845. Prisoner's Friend (Boston), 1 8 4 6 - 1 8 4 8 . C A R E OF T H E I N S A N E

Draper, J . , Insanity in Vermont, 1 8 3 5 - 1 8 8 5 (Montpelier, 1 8 8 6 ) . Superintendent of the State Asylum for the Insane, Annual Reforts, 1836-1850. The Vermont Asylum for the Insane, Its Annals for Fifty Years (Brattleboro, 1 8 8 7 ) . C A R E OF T H E POOR

Town histories usually devote several paragraphs to this local function. EDUCATIONAL

REFORM

Barber, A. D., "Vermont as a Leader in Educational Progress," Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society . . . 1896 (Montpelier, 1896). Bush, George G., "History of Education in Vermont," United States Education Bureau, Circular of Information, No. 4, 1900 (Washington, 1 9 0 0 ) . Stone, Mason S., History of Education, State of Vermont (Montpelier, 1936). Andrews, Edward D., " T h e County Grammar Schools and Academies of Vermont," Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society . . . 1 9 3 6 (Montpelier, 1 9 3 6 ) .

C H A P T E R

E I G H T .

SOCIAL

A R C H I T E C T S

DORRILITES

Lathrop, Joseph, A Sermon, on the Dangers of the Times, from Infidelity and Immorality; and especially from a lately discovered conspiracy against Religion and Government (Springfield, Mass., 1 7 9 8 ) . Federal Galaxy (Brattleboro), January 1 5 , 1799. National Philanthrofist (Boston), August 3, 1 8 2 7 .

290

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

W O O D SCRAPE

Vermont American (Middlebury), May 7 and August 8, 1828. Frisbie, Barnes, T h e History of Middletown, Vermont (Rutland, 1867). PILGRIMS

North Star (Danville), May 22, 1818. The American Baftist Magazine ( N e w Y o r k ) , May, 1818. Tucker, William H., History of Hartford, Vermont (Burlington, 1889). Lee, Henry S., Uncommon Vermont (Rutland, 1 9 2 6 ) . PERFECTIONISTS

The Witness ( N e w Haven and Ithaca), 1 8 3 7 - 1 8 4 3 . The Perfectionist (Putney), 1 8 4 3 - 1 8 4 6 . T h e Berean: a manual for those who seek the faith of the primitive church (Putney, 1 8 4 7 ) . Eastman, Hubbard, Noyesism Unveiled: A History of the sect self-styled Perfectionists; with a summary view of their leading doctrines (Brattleboro, 1849). Noyes, George W . , T h e Religious Experiences of John Humphrey Noyes ( N e w York, 1 9 2 3 ) . Noyes, George W . , John Humphrey Noyes, T h e Putney Community (Oneida, 1 9 3 1 ) . Parker, Robert A . , A Yankee Saint: John Humphrey Noyes and the Oneida, Community ( N e w Y o r k , 1 9 3 5 ) . MILLERITES

Signs of the Times (Boston), 1 8 4 2 - 1 8 4 4 . Midnight Cry ( N e w Y o r k ) , 1 8 4 2 - 1 8 4 5 . White, James, Sketches of the Christian Life and Public Labors of W i l liam Miller (Battle Creek, 1 8 7 5 ) . Sears, Clara E., Days of Delusion (Boston and New York, 1 9 2 4 ) . COOPERATORS

The Harbinger ( N e w York and Boston), 1845-1849. Noyes, John H., History of American Socialisms (Philadelphia, 1 8 7 0 ) .

INDEX

INDEX Abolition of Negro slavery, 6, 273; see also Antislavery Abolitionists, denounced by Bishop Hopkins, 7 7 ; launch offensive at colonization Society, 144; breach with moderate clergy, 156; found Liberty Party, 172; split on issue of moral or political pressure, 174, 179; recruited for Association movement, 266 Academies, 227 Adams, John, 14, 15, 86 Adams, John Quincy, 152 Addison Baptist Association, 60, i o j Addison County, 15, 42, 47, go, 104, 105, 115, 126, 265 Address to the Inhabitants of Vermont on the Use of Ardent Spirits, An, 64 Adult education, 226 Advocate (Boston), 130 Advocate of Freedom, 174 Age of Benevolence, 50-55, 62 Age of Reason, The ( P a i n e ) , 29 Allen, Ethan, 14, 44, 9 0 ; publishes attack on Christianity, 7, 27, 4 1 ; Reason, the Only Oracle of Man (Oracles of Reason), 7, 27, 29; influence of French thought upon, 26-27 Allen, Heman, 117, 118, 121 Allen, Ira, 90 Allen, J o h n , 264, 265 Allen, Jonathan, 115 American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 179 American Anti-Slavery Society, 144; declaration of policy, 147; supplies speakers to state auxiliaries, 151; assumes leadership of crusade, 152; questioning campaign, 167, 168; op-

poses Liberty Party, 179; splits on woman question, 179 American Colonization Society, 137, 139. U S , 155. >59 American Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, 137, 138 American Institute of Instruction, 236 American M o r a l Reform Society, 60 American Peace Society, 169, 170 American Revolution, 7, 136 American Society for the Observation of the Seventh Commandment, 60 American Temperance Society, quoted, 68-69 American Union of Association, 265 A merican Universal Geography ( M o rse ) , 18 American Wesleyan Anti-Slavery Society, 162 American Wesleyan Methodist Church, 162 American Whig, Vermont Luminary and Equal Rights, 119 Anti-Christ, Jefferson portrayed as, 3 1 ; reign of, 38-40 Antimasonic Party, 113-32; manifestation of disaffection, 101; first political convention held in Vermont, 116; elects Congressman, 118; increase in 1830, 119; wrests control of government from National Republicans, 121, 122; activity in presidential election of 1832, 124-26; political victory in 1833, 127; victory deprives it of its issue, 128; breaks up, 131; press takes up abolition, 148 Antimasonry, 15, 17, 86-133; Freewill Baptists leaders in, 3 5 ; M u r r a y campaigns for, 5 8 ; effect on political and

294

INDEX

Antimasonry (Continued) social life, 89 ff., 1 1 1 - 1 3 ; campaign led by Randolph Triumvirate, 96; influence of press, 99, 1 1 9 ; a major issue in politics and religion, 100; organized, first appearance of, 1 0 1 ; embraced by sects opposed to hyperCalvinism, 108-, interweaving of religion with, 1 1 0 - 1 2 ; political, 1 1 3 32 (see also Antimasonic Party); opposition to masons in public office, 1 1 5 ; opposed as undemocratic, 130; socio-religious sentiment carried into antislavery movement, 133, 155 Antislavery, in Connecticut Valley, 13 ; in Champlain Valley, 15 ; Freewill Baptists leaders in, 35; and Religion, 134-66; historical basis, 134-37; ideological foundation, 1 3 5 ; early agitation local, 13 7 ; supported by press, 139 ff. ; turns from movement to crusade, 140; perversion of democracy a factor in, 1 5 5 ; slavery a sin or an evil, 156-60; attitude of sects toward, 157 ff.; splits churches, 16266; and politics, 167-98; activity shifts from moral to political front, 167 ff. ; attempt to create bloc in Congress, 167; increasing political importance, 189 Antislavery societies, 139, 146, 147 Affeal to the Inhabitants of Vermont, 9° Arminianism, 25, 31-40, 44, 56 Arminius, Jacobus, 31 Asbury, Francis, 14, 34, 37, 68 Association movement, 262-67 Asylum Journal, 219 Atheism, 29 ff. Attendance, school, 233, 235, 236 Auburn Penitentiary, 210 Banner of Liberty, The, 178 Baptists, immigration of, 1 1 , 18 ; increase in churches, 23; revivalism, 44, j 6 ; denounce masonry, 92, 102; disrupted by abolition agitation, 163-

66; found sectarian schools, 227; susceptible to Millerism, 254, 259 Baptists in America, The, quoted, 56-57 Barber, Edward D., 147, 193 Barnard, Henry, 230, 234 Barnburners, 191-93 Barnet, History of (Wells), 67 Bates, Joshua, 67 Beckwith, George C., 169 Belknap, Jeremy, 224 Benevolent societies, organization of, 51-55 Bennington, first community, 10 Bennington County, 10, 21, 126 Bernard, John, 79 Bible Communism (Noyes), 245 Birney, James J . , :68 Blanchard, Jonathan, 132 Blind, care of, 216, 220 Blodgett, Calvin, 96 Blue Laws, 206 Board of National Popular Education, 237 Board of School Commissioners, report, excerpt, 225 Bowen, Dr., describes effect of alcohol, 74 Boycott of stores handling liquor, 72 Branding as punishment, 205, 206 Brisbane, Arthur, The Social Destiny of Man, 263 Brook Farm, 16, 249, 263 Buck, D. Azro A., 1 1 5 Buffalo Convention of 1848, 193-95 Bullard, leader of Pilgrims, 243 Burchard, Jedidiah, 56-57 Burlington Free Press, 84 Burlington Sentinel, 13 3 Burton, Asa, 21, 23; quoted, 5 1 , 53 Bush, George, 249 Bushnell, Jedidiah, 43 Butler, Ezra, 24, 47, 200, 2 6 1 ; leader in antimasonry, 102; in antislavery, 147 Caledonia County, io, 17, 104, 1 1 2 , 126 California Gold Rush, 274

INDEX Calvinism, Connecticut, its influence among settlers, 5, 4 1 ; w a r with liberalism, 6; attacked by Ethan A l l e n , 7, 2 7 ; condemned by Arminius, 31 Capital punishment, movement for abolition of, 2 1 4 - i j Cass, Lewis, 191, 192 Central Vermont Railroad, 274 Champlain Valley, 9, 13-16 Chipman, Samuel, 221 Chittenden, Lucius E., 193 Chittenden, Martin, 90 Chittenden, Thomas, 14, 23, 90, 207 Chittenden County, 15, 42 Christian Herald, 50 Christians (sect), 32, 35, 39, 108 Church of New Jerusalem, 250 Cincinnati, Methodist Conference at, 160 C i v i l liberties, issue merged with abolition, i ; 4 Clark, Augustine, 147 Clark, John, "Account Book and D i a r y , " 1 5 ; quoted, 20 Class consciousness, growth of, 201 ff. Clay, Henry, 124, 1 2 6 ; condemned by abolitionists, 173; nominated by Whigs, 1 8 4 ; in campaign of 1844, 184, 186; of 1848, 190 Clergy, conflict over methods of support, 4 6 ; antimasons charged with domination of, I I I Clifford, Eugene, 214 "Close communion," 92 Collamer, Jacob, 151 Collins, John A . , 266 Colonization plan for Negroes, 145, 146, 155 Colver, Nathaniel, 1 1 7 ; quoted, 103 "Come-outcrism," 62, 165, 255 Common School Journal, 229 Common schools, early laws for, 22224; revival of, 222, 229, 273; system based on districts, 223, 225, 2 3 3 ; reform movements, 225-26, 228-36; state supervision, 232; report on deficiencies, 233

295

Conant, John, quoted, 104» Congregationalism, religious oppression by, 7 ; increase in churches, 2 3 ; evangelical awakening, 40-44; revivalism, 47, 5 6 ; activity in antimasonry, 1068 ; protest plantation labor system, 1 3 6 ; opposed to Garrisonism, 1 4 2 ; pastors defend colonization plan, 155 ; g r o w t h of abolition sentiment, 1575« Congress, U . S., attitude toward antislavery petitions, 152-541 slave power intrenched in, 1 6 7 ; Slade champions immediatism, 1 7 7 ; land reform introduced, 270 Connecticut, Vermont pioneers from, 5 ; system of laws adopted by Vermont, 6 ; religious influence among settlers, 41 ; antislavery sentiment of churches, 1 5 8 ; Blue L a w s , 206 Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, The, 43 ; excerpt, 48 Connecticut Retreat, 217 Connecticut River Valley, settlement o f , 10-13 Connecticut School Journal, 230 "Conscience W h i g s , " 186, 1 9 1 , 197 Constitution of U. S. denounced by Garrison, 170 Constitution of 1 7 7 7 , 4, 6, 46 Coolidge, Carlos, 197, 198, 272 Cooperatives, 262, 270-72 Corporal punishment, 206, 207 Council of Censors, criticises laxity of morals, 2 2 ; required support of clergy, 4 6 ; intemperance, 6 3 ; treatment of prisoners, 206, 207 ; flouting of school l a w , 224 Counterfeiting, penalties for, 206 Crafts, Samuel L., I I J , 1 1 7 , 1 4 7 ; quoted, 211 Crime, early statutes covering, 205 ; decline of, 215 Crocker, Henry, 102 Cubberley, E l wood P., quoted, 213 n, 229

296 Dartmouth College, 26 Dartmouth Gazette, 4 7 ; Darwin, Charles, Origin Davis, Emerson, 65 Deaf and dumb, care of, 220 Debt, imprisonment for,

INDEX excerpt, 4 ; of Species, 274 204, 210, 2 1 6 , 204, 210, 2 1 3 ,

173 Declaration of Independence, 26 Declaration of Rights of Inhabitants of Vermont, 1 3 4 Deism, spread of, in Vermont, 8, 25-31 Democracy, devotion to, a basis of antimasonry, 102, 108 Democratic Party, societies centers of social agitation, 29; favors annexation of Texas, 1 8 3 ; slavery driving a wedge into, 1 8 8 ; Vermonters repudiate Southern control, 197 Democratic Republican Party, champion of antireligious ideas, 28 Democrats, Northern, dissatisfied with slavery trend, 190-92 Dillingham, Paul, 197 Dissertation . . . relative to Anti-christ, A (Smith), 38 District of Columbia, abolition of domestic servitude in, 139, 1 5 2 , 154, •57

Dix, Dorothea, 2 1 2 , 216 Dorrilites, 239-40 Dow, Neal, 84 Dwight, Louis, 210, 2 1 1 , 2 1 5 Dwight, Timothy, 34, 7 3 ; Travels, 1 1 ; quoted, 22, 24 Eastman, Charles G., 185, 1 9 2 ; on ultraism in prohibition, 78, 84; ridicules Free Soil Party, 1 9 6 ; calls for prison reform, 2 1 2 Eaton, Ebenezer, 92 Eaton, Horace, efforts for school reform, 232, 233, 236; quoted, 235, 237 Eaton, Nathaniel, 188 Economic unrest, 201 Edgerton, Lebbeus, 96

Education, demand for liberal system, 204; reform of system, 2 2 2 - 3 7 ; see also Common schools Edwards, Jonathan, 31 Emancipator, 144, 152, 189 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 262 Emigration, westward, 2 0 1 , 262 Enquirer (Rochester), 94 Episcopalians, 8 "Equal and exact justice to all," 199*37

Equal rights, social force behind reforms, 155, 236 Equal Rights, 119 Era of Good Feeling, 50, 93, 97, 201 Essex County, 10, 17, 82, 104, 126 Evangelical awakenings, 40-49, 207 Evangelical Society of the Western District, 53 Evangelists, in Vermont, 43 ff., 56; urge liquor control, 68 Evans, George Henry, 267-68 Everett, Horace, 190, 192 Expansionism, 184-86; attacked by Whigs and Liberty Party, 185 Fairbanks, Erastus, 76 Fanaticism, see Ultraism Farmer's and Mechanic's Stores, 270 Father Miller, see Miller, William Fay, David and Jonas, 90 Fay, William, calls for prison reform, 212 Federal aid for internal improvements, 113 Federalists in Connecticut and Vermont, 1 2 ; oppose repeal of law for support of clergy, 47 Female education, 230 Fisk, Wilbur, 160 Fletcher, S. S., quoted, 254 Flint, Martin, 95, 96, 1 0 1 , 1 1 4 Forum Society, 66 Fourier, Charles, 262, 263 Fourierism, 249, 263 ff. Franklin County, i j , 42, 126 Fraternal orders, temperance, 82-83

INDEX Free Democracy ( p a r t y ) , 198 Free Enquirers, 102, 203 Freemasonry, Institution o f , 89-94; see Masonry; Antimasonry Free Mountaineer, 196 Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Men Party, 194 Free Soil Courier, 196 Free-soil Freemen, 19 2 Free Soil Party, 1 5 5 ; growth, 195-98 Free Soil Union, 196 Free speech, abolitionists protest abridgment of, 150, 1 5 1 ; abridgment of, an element in socio-political movement, >55 Freewill Baptists, 32, 4 4 ; oppression o f , 7 ; founding and growth, 35; lead in w a r on rum, 6 7 ; condemn masonry, 104, 108; embrace advanced antislavery principles, 157 French Revolution, influence on growth of Deism, 28 Friend, The, excerpt, 110 Friend of Man, 177 Friends, see Quakers Friends of Independent Nominations, «77 Frontier conditions, 19 G a g laws, 154, 167 Galusha, Elon, 164 Gambling, 19 if. Garrison, William Lloyd, 58, IJJ, 1 8 9 ; quoted, 54, 139, 140, 1 4 1 ; advocate of abstinence, 74; attitude in antimasonic conflict, 100, 1 1 6 ; antislavery activity in Vermont, 137, 1 3 9 - 4 1 ; edits Journal of the Times, 138; appearance, 1 3 8 ; edits Genius of Universal Emancipation, 141 ; founds Liberator, 1 4 2 ; leading spirit of New England Anti-Slavery Society, 1 4 3 ; Thoughts on African Colonization, 1 4 5 ; initiator of abolition crusade, 1 5 2 ; criticised for attacks on clergy, 1 6 1 ; relations with Baptist preachers; denounces Constitution, 1 7 0 ;

297

nonresistance letter disrupts Peace Society, 170 ; loses influence among abolitionists, 171 ; relations with Noyes, 147 Garrisonians, disdain political measures, 169 ; influence diminishes, 1 7 1 ; control American Anti-Slavery Society, 1 7 9 ; break up Vermont Anti-Slavery Society, 180 General Assembly, attitude on temperance, 64, 7 2 ; protests Missouri Compromise, 137 General Association of Ministers in Connecticut, 41 General Convention of Vermont, j 1, 69 ; formed, 30; condemns use of liquor, 6 5 ; attacks use of tobacco, 7 5 » ; condemns slavery as sin, 158 Genius of Universal Emancipation, 141 "Gradualism," advocated by colonization Society, 143, 145-46 Graham, John, 21 Grand Isle County, 71 Grand Lodge, 90 Great Awakening, 25 Great Revival of 1800, 42, 56, 69, 260 Greek Rebellion, 54, 128 Greeley, Horace, on conversion to temperance, 66; opens columns to Association idea, 263 Green Mountain Boys, 4, 14 Green Mountain Boys ( T h o m p s o n ) , 21 Green Mountain Freeman, 81, 185, 189, 196 Green Mountain Liberty associations, 181 Green Mountain Patriot, 31 Green Mountains, effect on soil and weather, 9 Green Mountain Tribe of Rechabites, 82, 83 Hale, Dr., condemns Cologne Water, 75 Hale, John P., 191, 194 Hall, R. S., 236 Hallock, Jeremiah, 43 Harbinger, The, excerpt, 264»

298

INDEX

Harrington, Theophilus, 135 Harrison, William Henry, 1 3 0 ; attitude on slavery, 1 7 g ; elected, 178 Hartford Asylum for deaf and dumb, 220 Hartford Convention, 1 2 Haswell, Anthony, 14, 29, 90 Haswell, Nathan B., 12g Hawkins, John, 79 Haynes, Silvanus, 4 } Hedding, Elijah, 24, 105, 160 Henry Clay, The, 119 Herald of Freedom, 174 Herald of Peace, 169 Hill, George Washington, 95, 123 Himes, Joshua V., 253 History of American Socialism (Noyes), 264 Holbrook, Josiah, 226 Holcomb, Jedidiah, 1 7 3 , 179 Holley, Myron, 175 Homestead Act, 270 Hopkins, John Henry, 76-78; The Primitive Church, 76; quoted, 77 Hopkins, Samuel, 52 Horn of the Green Mountains, 1 1 1 , 142 Hubbard, Timothy, 149, 150 Hudson-Champlain Canal, 10 Humanitarian care of the unfortunate, 216-22 Hunkers, 1 9 1 , 193 Hutchinson, Titus, 181 Illuminati, Order of the Bavarian, 39, •3* Illustrations of Masonry by One of the Fraternity (Morgan and Miller), 88 "Immediatism" conflict with "gradualism," 142, 143 ; alienates moderates, 1 4 7 ; growth in Vermont, 149, 1 5 1 , 166 Immigrants, in Vermont, antislavery sentiment among, 136 Immigration, into Vermont, 4, 8 ff. ; extends socio-physical pattern of source, 11 Immorality, 19 ft.} Murray campaigns

against, 59; intemperance contributing to, 6 3 ; element in fanatical reform movements, 239, 247 Industrialism, attention of humanitarians turns to, 261 j effect upon Vermont, 262, 274 Industrial revolution, cause of growing class consciousness, 201 Infidelity, reign of, 25-40; linked with Republicanism, 28, 31 Inquiry into the Character and Tendencies of the American Colonization and Anti-Slavery Society ( J a y ) , 145 Insane, care of, 204, 210, 216-20, 273 Insanity, prevalence of, 216, 2 1 9 ; manual labor a cure for, 2 1 7 - 1 9 Intemperance, 1 9 - 2 1 , 2 7 3 ; see also Prohibition ; Temperance "Jack-Masons," 1 1 9 - 2 1 Jackson, Andrew, 97, 100, 1 0 1 , 1 1 3 , 124, 1 2 9 ; effect of personality on politics, 201 Jacksonian Democracy, 202 Jacksonians, political activity, 1 1 8 ff. ; position in 1832 presidential election, 1 2 j , 1 2 6 ; join National Republicans, Jacksonism, attacks power of aristocracy, 97 ; appeal of, falls short in Vermont, 113 Jacobinism, 14, 29 Jamaica, birthplace of Vermont abolition, 146 J a y , William, Inquiry into the Character and Tendencies of the American Colonization and Anti-Slavery Societies, '45 Jefferson, Thomas, 15, 17, 49; "botanizing trip," 28; plans anti-Federalist group, 28; portrayed as Anti-Christ, 31 ; career a commentary on American system, 86; ideals revered by Vermonters, 199; school system formulated by, 223 Jennison, Silas, 1 3 1 , 2 1 3 Johnson, James, quoted, 94

INDEX Johnson, Oliver, 143, 1 5 5 Jones, Abner, 35 Jones, Henry, 107, 147 Journal of the Times, 74, 1 1 6 , 138, 139 Jurisprudence, early, 205-7 Kelley, Abby, 179 Knapp, Chauneey L., 1 2 3 , 1 4 3 , i j o ; quoted, 177 Kneeland, Abner, 61 Know Nothing Party, 198 Koch, G. Adolf, quoted, 27 Krout, John A., 66; quoted, 64

146,

Lamoille County, 17 Land reform, 262, 267-70; clubs, 268 Land speculation, 8 Lathrop, Joseph, quoted, 239 L a w enforcement, 207 Leland, Aaron, 23, 47 Liberator, 58, 144, 1 5 1 , 1 7 7 ; founded by Garrison, 1 4 2 ; loses leadership of crusade, 1 5 2 Liberty Party, 144, 1 5 5 , 172-96; fails to secure antislavery ticket, 174 ; activity in 1840 election, 1 7 5 - 7 8 ; organizes political clubs, 181 ; votes throw election into Legislature, 1 8 2 ; Mexican War advantageous to, 1 8 8 ; Buffalo Convention, 193-95; members join Free Soil Party, 195 Liberty poles, 29 Licenses, liquor, 80 Licenses, preachers required to carry, 45 Liquor, intoxicating, use of, 63 ; expenditure, 64 ; demand for legal control of, 73, 75 Local option, 80, 81 Locke, John, 26, 27 " L o g Cabin and Hard Cider" campaign, 1 3 , 178, 183 Loveland, Samuel, 108 Lower Canada, Province of, 10, 17 Lundy, Benjamin, 141 Lyceums, 226 Lyon, Matthew, 14, 18, 2 5 1 ; Scourge of Aristocracy, 29

299

McDowell, William, 59 McKeen, Silas, 107 Madison, James, 49 Maine Intelligencer, excerpt, 97n Maine prohibition law, 84 Manhood suffrage, 6 Manifest Destiny, 183 Mann, Horace, 228 ff. Marsh, Anna, 2 1 7 Marsh, Charles, 67 Marsh, George Perkins, 7 7 ; quoted, 185 Marsh, James, 77 Masonry, association with Illuminati, 39, 1 3 2 ; campaign against, 8 6 - 1 3 3 ; kidnaping of Morgan, 87 ff.; growth, 9 3; resemblance to benevolent societies, 93 ; menace to democracy, 98; as fourth beast of Revelation, 1 0 9 ; opposition organizes for political action, 1 1 5 ff.; defeated, 127, 2 7 3 ; lodges surrender charters, 1 2 8 ; Southern, blamed for secession, 1 3 2 ; see also Antimasonry Massachusetts, claims title to settlements, 4

Massachusetts Abolitionist, 174 Massachusetts Abolition Society, 174 Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1 5 2 , 1 6 1 , 174, 266 Maternal Associations, 227 Maulevrier, Comte de Colbert, 23 May, Samuel J . , 149 Meech, Ezra, 1 1 8 , 127 Merrill, Timothy, 170 Methodism, characteristics and growth, 3« Methodists, in Connecticut Valley, 1 3 ; missionary activity, 44-45; policy toward antimasonry, 1 0 5 ; conflict over slavery, 159-63 ; split into North and South churches, 1 6 3 ; found sectarian schools, 2 2 7 ; susceptible to Millerism, 254 Mexican War, 187 Middlebury College, 47, 227 Middlebury Free Press, supports abolition, 143

300

INDEX

Midnight Cry, 253, 2 5 6 ; excerpt, 257, 258 " M i g h t y moral phalanx," 1 5 5 , 166, 261 Millennialists, religious, 239-60; economic, 260-75 Millennium, 38 ff., 53, 245, 250, 274; linked with, temperance crusade, 69; masonry, 1 1 0 ; emancipation, 1 5 6 ; persistent expectation of, 238 ; see also Second Coming of Christ Miller, David, and Morgan, William, Illustrations of Masonry by One of the Fraternity, 88 Miller, Jonathan P., 128, 1 4 7 , 1 5 0 , 175 Miller, William, 70, 250-60 Millerism, 252, 253, 255-60 Millerites, 1 7 , 250-60 Mirror and Student's Repository, 230 Missionaries, Connecticut, in Vermont, 4'-45 Missouri Compromise, 1 3 7 Montpelier, antislavery riot, 149 Moral societies, intemperance combatted by, 65 Moral standards, relaxation of, 19-23 Morgan, William, kidnaped for exposure of masonry, 87, 94 Morgan, William, and Miller, David, Illustrations of Masonry by One of the Fraternity, 88 Mormonism, 242, 250, 260 Morrill, Justin H., 270 Morse, Jedidiah, 9 1 ; American Universal Geography, 1 8 ; quoted, 18 Morton, Daniel O., 67 Mulligan, James, 147 Murray, John, originator of Universalism, 33 Murray, Orson S., 5 7 - 6 1 , 70, 96, 164, 261, 264, 266; disfellowshipped by Baptist Association, 60; activity in prohibition crusade, 7 4 ; splits Vermont Association on antimasonry issue, 1 0 5 ; agent for New England Anti-Slavery Society, 1 4 4 ; activities marked by violence, 146, 1 4 7 ; edits Vermont Telegraph, 1 6 3 , 1 6 5 ; non-

resistance policy disrupts Peace Society, 1 7 0 ; followers break up Vermont Anti-Slavery Society, 1 8 0 ; attacks death penalty, 2 1 4 Murrayism, 15, 144, 165-66 National

Anti-Slavery

Standard,

The,

•79 National Era, 197 National Philanthropist, 139 National Reformers, 269 National Republicans, contest with Antimasons, 1 1 8 - 2 1 , 1 2 7 ; "Jack-Mason" groups, 1 1 9 ; in election of 1832, 12426; statement of principles, excerpt, 1 2 5 ; discredited, 1 2 8 ; oppose Jackson, 129, 1 3 0 National Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment, 2 1 5 Native American movement, 222 Naturalistic philosophy, 26 ff. Newbury Seminary, 230 New England Anti-Slavery Society, 143, 1 5 2 ; see also Massachusetts AntiSlavery Society New England Conference, 159 New England Non-Resistance Society, 170 New Hampshire, claims title to settlements, 4 ; antislavery sentiment of churches, 158 New Hampshire Conference, 160 New Hampshire Grants, settlement of, 4, 5 ; proclaim independent State of Vermont, 4 ; rum trade, 63 New York City, prostitution in, 59 New York State, claims title to settlements, 4, 5 New York Tribune, The, 263 Nichols, Clarinda, 2 3 1 » "No-government" group, 169, 170, 1 7 4 , 180 Non-resistants, oppose political action against slavery, 1 7 0 - 7 1 , 1 7 3 , 1 8 0 ; oppose capital punishment, 2 1 4 Northern Momento, 20 North Star, 67, 92, 94, 95, 1 1 5 , 123

INDEX Noyes, John Humphrey, 244-49 > quoted, 6 1 , 245, 246; Bible Communism, 245 ; founds Putney Community, 2454 7 ; relations with Garrison, 2 4 7 ; History of American Socialism, 264 Oneida Community, 244, 247 "One-ideaism," 1 7 2 , 189, 261 Oracles of Reason ( A l l e n ) , 7, 27, 29 Orange County, 126 Orchards destroyed in temperance crusade, 72 Order of the Bavarian Illuminati, 39, Origin of Species, The ( D a r w i n ) , 274 Orleans County, 10, 1 7 , 104, 126 Orvis, John, 2 6 5 ; quoted, 16, 271 Otter Creek Valley, 9, 1 3 , 265, 268 Owenite socialism, 261 Paine, Charles, 1 8 1 , 230 Paine, Elijah, 145 Paine, Thomas, 3 1 , 44, 6 1 , 2 0 3 ; The Age of Reason, 29 Palladium, 182 Palmer, David, quoted, 99, 100 Palmer, Thomas H., 228, 230, 2 3 6 ; " T h e Teacher's Manual," 229 Palmer, William A., 1 2 2 , 126, 1 2 7 , Ui Panic of 1 8 3 7 , 62, 76, 1 3 3 , 167, 228, 261 Panoflist, 48 Paupers, care of, 2 1 6 , 220-22, 273 Perfectionism, 244-49, 2o Perfectionist, excerpt, 1 7 1 - 7 2 Perkins, Nathan, 19, 23, 3 7 ; quoted, 28 Perkins Institute, 220 Petition campaign, 140, 152-54, 167 Pettibone, John, 19 Phelps, John Wolcott, 1 3 2 Philadelphia Society for the Alleviation of the Miseries of Public Prisoners, 205 Physiocrats, French School of, 8 Pilgrims, 243 Poland, Joseph, 185, 1891 quoted, 196

301

Poland, Luke W., 193, 1 9 5 Political dissensions spread into church, 49 Polk, James K . , campaign for presidency, 1 8 3 , 186 Post (Brandon), 84 Prairie Home Community, 266 Presidential vote ( 1 8 3 2 ) by counties, 126 Press attacks passage of prohibition law, 84; spreads news of Morgan kidnaping, 94; in antimasonic campaign, 99, 1 2 2 - 2 4 ; in antislavery struggle, 139 if., 148, 177 Primitive Church, The (Hopkins), 767« Prindle, Cyrus, 160, 162 Prison Discipline Society, 2 1 0 , 2 1 1 , 2 1 2 , 216 Prison reform, 204-16, 2 7 3 ; conditions in prisons, 208 i f . ; Auburn system, 210 Prohibition law, 63, 7 1 ; Vermont a testing laboratory for, 7 8 ; local option, 80; enacted on yearly basis, 8182; reenactment defeated, 82; permanent measure adopted, 8 j ; see also Intemperance; Temperance Protestant Methodists, 15 7 Purdy, C. Champlain, quoted, 1 1 1 Puritan Counter-Reformation, 6, 25-62, 2 7 2 ; combats infidelity, 25-40; evangelical awakenings, 40-49; age of benevolence, 50-55; beginnings of ultraism, 55-62; temperance activity an outgrowth of, 65 Putney Community, 244-47 Quakers, 8; oppose slavery, 1 3 6 , 204; condemn intemperance, 204; concern for prisoners, 205 Railroad, coming of, 274 Randall, Benjamin, 35 Randall, Miranda, 267 Randolph, antimasonic activity in, 1 0 1 , 104, 1 1 4

302

INDEX

Randolph Triumvirate, 96, 1 1 8 , 1 2 5 Reason, the Only Oracle of Man ( A l l e n ) , 7, 27, 29 Recollections of Windsor Prison (Reynolds), 208 j excerpt, 209 Reformed Drunkards, 79 Regenerator, 266 Religious attitude at base of antimasonry, 1 0 2 - 1 3 Religious conviction, influence in antislavery crusade, 155 Religious radicalism, 25-40 Religious tolerance, 6 Republican Party, 198, 275 "Republic of Vermont," 5 ; banishes human servitude, 134 ; school system, 223 Revelation, Book of, use of prophecies, 38-40, 109, 238, 242, 252, 260 Revivalism, 12, 14, 17, 51 ; tide reaches Vermont, 4 2 ; replaces "philosophism" as emotional outlet, 4 4 ; ultraism introduces extreme measures in, 56; decline of, 57, 62; neglected during antimasonic conflict, 1 1 1 ; resurgence of, 2 5 3 ; effect of new outlook on, Reynolds, John, 2 1 2 ; Recollections of Windsor Prison, 208 ; quoted, 209 Riley, I. Woodbridge, 8 Riots, antislavery, 149-51 Robbins, Thomas, 22, 29, 30, 45, 9 1 , 207 Robinson, Moses, 3, 28 Robinson, Rowland T . , 1 4 7 , 170, 1 7 3 , 174, 180 Rockwell, William H., 2 1 7 ff.; quoted, 218 Rollins, Edward, 109 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 8 Rum trade, 63 Rupert Peace Society, 1 1 2 Rural Magazine, or Vermont Repository, The, 30 Rutland County, 104, 126, 265 Rutland County Temperance Society, 74

Rutland Herald, 1 2 7 , 166, 2 1 2 , excerpt, 269« Rutland Railroad, 274

231;

School Journal and Vermont Agriculturalist, 236 Schools, see Common schools Scourge of Aristocracy (Lyon), 29 Second Coming of Christ, 240; associated with Millerites, 18, 250-60; with counter-reformation, 38-40, 5 3 ; with prohibition, 70; with Perfectionism, 244; with Swedenborgianism, 249 Secret societies, to promote temperance, 82-83; antagonism to, 9 1 , 98, 1 3 2 ; see also Antimasonry; Masonry Separates, 8, 13 Seward, William H., 1 1 4 Seymour, Horatio, 127 Scott, Orange, 159-62, 177 Scott, Winfield, 190 Shafter, Oscar L., 195, 197 Shaftesbury Association, 30, 1 3 2 , 165 Shays, Daniel, 1 3 , 18 Sheep-raising, 262 Sias, Solomon, 106 Signs of the Times, 253 Slade, William, 70, 1 1 8 , 1 7 0 ; swings Temperance Society to local option, 80; redirects antimasonic activity to attack on Jackson, 1 3 0 ; urges consideration of petitions on Congress, 1 5 2 - 5 4 ; quoted, 1 5 3 , 176, 1 8 7 ; speaks in Congress for immediate emancipation, 1 7 5 ; "Connecticut Letter," quoted, 1 8 2 ; runs for governor, 184, 1 8 6 ; " B u f f a l o Letter," quoted, 1 9 4 ; joins Free Soil Party, 1 9 5 ; attitude toward capital punishment, 2 1 5 ; initiates educational reform, 230, 2 3 1 , 236; places Yankee teachers in frontier schools, 237 "Slade & Co., William," 8 1 , 1 1 8 , 1 3 1 Slavery, forbidden in Republic of Vermont, 1 3 4 ; an evil or a sin, 156-60; see also Antislavery

INDEX Smith, Elias, 36 Smith, Ethan, A Dissertation on the Prophecies relative to Anti-christ, 38 Smith, Israel, 90, 207 Smith, Joseph, 142, 250 Social architects, 238-7J Social currents, reasons f o r diminution o f , 273 Social Destiny of Man, The (Brisbane), 263

Social developments, scene o f , 3-24 Social reform, temperance crusade a pioneer o f , 70; program of working men's societies, 204; religious movements, 239-60; rationalistic movements, 260-75; effect on political and social institutions, 272 Social reformers, 238 Society to Ameliorate the Condition of the Jews, 54 Socio-physical pattern, 1 1 , 1 5 ff., 1 3 5 Soil, effect of Green Mountains on, 9 Sons of Temperance, 82, 83, 84, 132 Southmayd, Jonathan, 67 Spirit of the Age, 212 Spotted fever, 49 Standing Order, 13, 18, 2j; politicoecclesiastical domination o f , 7 ; hostility toward Methodism, 37 Stansbury, Edward A . , 195 Starksboro and Lincoln Anti-Slavery Society, 152 State aid f o r schools, 224 State Education Society, 2 3 1 State Journal, 108, 122, 123, 127, 130, 143, 144, 150; excerpt, 125n Stewart, Alvah, 172, 175 Sudbury Anti-Slavery Society, 7 1 Swedenborgianism, 249, 260 S w i f t , Benjamin, 67 Taxation for school fund, 22J T a y l o r , Zachary, campaign f o r presidency, 1 8 9 ff. Teachers, 233, 234, 236 "Teacher's Manual, T h e " ( P a l m e r ) , 229

303

Temperance, in Connecticut Valley, 1 3 ; Freewill Baptists leaders in, 35; Murray campaigns f o r , j 8 ; few advocates in early period, 64; see also Intemperance; Prohibition l a w Temperance crusade, 63-8j; separated from general movement against sin, 66; societies formed, 66, 71; reform launched in Vermont, 6 8 ; revivalists adopt, 69; significance in shaping social currents, 70; technique adopted by humanitarians, 71; position of Vermont Intemperance Society in, 71; effect on habits and customs, 73; divergences among zealots, 74; criticised by Bishop Hopkins, 76-78; referendum wins temporary law, 81-82; reenactment defeated, 82; permanent law adopted, 85; effect on poverty, 2 2 1 ; see also Intemperance; Prohibition law Temperance Houses, 73 Texas, annexation o f , 183-88 Text-books, 22j, 231, 234 T h i r d Party, see Liberty Party T h i r d party movements, 1 7 Thompson, Daniel P., Green Mountain Boys, 2 1 ; quoted, 2 1 Thoughts on African Colonization ( G a r rison), 145, 159 Tichenor, Isaac, 18, 90 Tillotson, Lee S., 122 Tobacco, use attacked, 75 n T o r y element in Connecticut River Valley, 1 2 T o r y property, confiscation o f , 1 1 T r a c y brothers, 142, 155 Travels ( D w i g h t ) , 1 1 T r o y Conference, g a g resolution at, 160 Turner, Nat, slave uprising of, 148 Ultraism, beginnings of, 55-62; and decline in activity of churches, 62; antimasonry an expression o f , 104; carried over from antimasonry to antislavery, 133 Unitarianism, 3 2

3°4

INDEX

United Brothers of Temperance, 82, 83» Universalis, 14, 32, 33, 44, 108, 1 5 4 Universalist Watchman and Christian Repository, 108 University of Vermont, 57, 218 Van Buren, Martin, condemned by abolitionists, 1 7 3 ; attitude on slavery, 1 7 8 ; in campaign of 1848, 193-94, 196, 197 Van Ness, Cornelius P., 220, 2 2 5 ; quoted, 200 Vermont, frontier stage of settlement, 3 , 4 5 proclaimed an independent state, 4 ; immigration from southern New England, 4, j ; personality, characteristics of, 5 ; effect of mountain range, 9 ; of watersheds, 1 o ; a testing laboratory for prohibition legislation, 78; first political convention, 1 1 6 ; churches officially condemn slavery, 166; redirection of interests, 274 Vermont, Eastern, see Connecticut River Valley Vermont, Northern, 17, 35, 81 Vermont, Western, 10 ; radicals in, 1 3 ; supports prohibition, 81 ; centers of emancipation propaganda, 1 3 6 ; insurgent abolitionists invade Democratic Convention, 192-93; Association activity in, 265 Vermont American, 101 Vermont Anti-Slavery Society, 144, 146, 149 ; adopts policy of national society, 1 4 7 ; forces sinfulness of slavery on clergy, 156-58; admits women to membership, 180 Vermont Association, 58, 105 Vermont Asylum for the Insane (Brattleboro Retreat), 217-20 Vermont A urora, 1 o 1 Vermont Bible Society, 53 Vermont Chronicle, 76, 78, 81, 156, 1 9 1 , 236; position on antimasonry, 1 0 8 ; supports colonization, 142-43, I 5S

Vermont Colonization Society, 54, 73 Vermont Courier, 98 Vermonter (Vergennes), 173 Vermont Evangelical Magazine, 5 3 Vermont Gazette, 14, 29, 138 Vermont Journal, 29 Vermont Luminary, 109, 1 1 9 ; excerpt, 98» Vermont Mirror, j o Vermont Missionary Society, 53 Vermont Observer, 259 Vermont Patriot, 95, 123, 148, 150, 192 Vermont Peace Society, 169-71, 248 Vermont Phoenix, 219 Vermont Society for the Promotion of Temperance, see Vermont Temperance Society Vermont Statesmen, 14 3 Vermont Telegraph, 58, 104, 142, 178, 252, 264; excerpt, 59, 1 7 1 Vermont Temperance Society, 54; position in crusade, 7 1 , 74 ; urges legal control of liquor traffic, 75; states philosophy of government control, 76; reorganized, 79; supports local option, 80; influence in securing prohibition law, 85 Vermont Tract Society, 5 3 Vermont Watchman, 1 1 6 , 123, 148, 150, 190 Vershire Circuit, 37 Voice of Freedom, 70, 174, 177, 178 Voltaire, François Marie Arouet de, 8

Walnut Street Prison, 205 Walton, Ezekiel, 130 War of 1 8 1 2 , 48, 54 Washington, George, 91 Washington Benevolent Societies, 12, 91 Washington County, 17, 126 Washingtonian Movement, 79 Watersheds, influence on Vermont economy, 10 Wattles, John, 266 Weare Quarterly Meeting, 67

INDEX Weather, effect of Green Mountains on, 9 Webster, Daniel, 13, 190 Weed, Thurlow, 94, 114, 124 Wells, Frederick P., History of Bartut, 67 Wesleyan Methodists, IJ, 177, 186 Wesleyan secession, 1 6 2 - 6 3 Whig Party, beginnings of, 129; a t tracts antimasons to oppose Jackson, 129-30; attitude toward abolition, •75i >76) 1 8 2 - 8 4 ; Mexican War advantageous to, 188; state group at odds with national party, 190 White, Phineas, 96; quoted, 93 Williams, Charles K., 269; quoted, 181 Williams, Samuel, 18 Wilmot Proviso, 188, 191 Winchell, rodsman, 2 4 0 - 4 2 Windham County, 10, 12, 126, 146, 244

Windham County Democrat, 231» Windsor County, 10, 12, 126 Windsor state prison, 2 0 7 - 9 , 2 1 5 Wirt, William, 1 2 4 - 2 6 , 1 9 7 Women given membership in antislavery society, 180

305

Women's rights, 174, 23M; Freewill Baptists leaders in, 35 ; Murray campaigns for, 58; Garrison campaigns for, 1 7 9 Wood, Nathaniel, 241 Wood Scrape, 242 Woodstock Association, 15 8 Wool, raising, 262; cooperative handling of, 271 Worcester, Leonard, 52 Working-Man's Gazette, excerpt, 12in, 203,

204

Working Men's Protective Union, 270 Working Men's societies, 2 0 2 - 4 , 2I 3> 214, 261; constitution of Woodstock society, quoted, 203 ; demand for universal education, 222 Wright, Chester, 34, 70, 107, 158; quoted, 20 Yale College a mecca for Vermont students, 42 Young, Brigham, 250 Young, Ira, 2J7 Young, Thomas, 6 Zion's Herald, 1J9