Early Exploration of
Vermont
It has been aptly said, that "that country is the happiest which
furnishes fewest materials for history;" yet, if rightly considered, the
duty of the historian will be found not limited to the narration of the
dramatic events of war, but equally applicable to the arts of peace, and
that the true heroes of mankind are those who have manfully encountered and
overcome the difficulties which might have hindered them from arriving at
honorable ends by honest means. Viewed in this light, the pioneer who has
subdued the wilderness of nature, and surrounded his home with the luxuries
of a well directed husbandry, is socially far above the victorious warrior,
and his toils, privations, and successes are more worthy of record. Still,
to those who dwell with interest on the recital of scenes of blood, this
district is classic. Tradition relates that in ancient times it was the
scene of long and bloody wars between its savage possessors, who fought for
the supremacy of its soil, and doubtless many a stealthy march and midnight
massacre, had they but had their historian, would now thrill the blood of
the reader. But we have to leave this period of the buried past, through
which the stream of time has coursed its way, without leaving more to mark
its path than the scattered relics and obscure traces, which tell nothing,
but that something was, and is not, to approach the period of authentic
history; and even here we find many links wanting in the claim of events,
which might have enabled us to trace the progress of the discovery, and the
settlement and the changes of dominion, which our country has undergone.
There are good reasons for believing that the first civilized people who
visited New England were a colony of Norwegians, or Northmen, who emigrated
thither, according to the original Icelandic accounts of their voyages of
discovery, as follows:
" In the spring of A. D., 986, Eric the Red, so named from the fact of his
having red hair, emigrated from Iceland to Greenland, and formed a
settlement there. In 994, Biarne, the son of Heriulf Bardson, one of the
settlers who accompanied Eric, returned to Norway, and gave an account of
discoveries he had made to the south of Greenland. On his return to
Greenland, Leif, the son of Eric, bought Biarne's ship, and, with a crew of
thirty-five men, embarked on a voyage of discovery, A. D., 1000. After
sailing sometime to the southwest, they fell in with a country covered with
slaty rock, and destitute of good qualities, and which, therefore, they
called Helluland (Slateland). They then continued southerly until they found
a low, flat coast, with white sand cliffs, and immediately back, covered
with wood, whence the called the country Markland (Woodland). From here they
sailed south and west, until they arrived at a promontory, which stretched
to the east and north, and sailing round it turned to the west, and sailing
to the westward, passed between an island and the main land, and entering a
bay, through which flowed a river, 'they concluded to winter there. Having
landed, they built a house to winter in, and called the place Leifsbuthir
(Leif's booths). Soon after this they discovered an abundance of vines,
whence they named the country Vinland, or Wineland, which corresponds with
the present country at the head of Narragansett Bay, in Rhode Island."
Other discoverers and navigators followed this expedition, attempts at
colonization were made, and the country was explored, in some localities,
quite a distance back from the coast, but dissensions among themselves, and
wars with the savages, at length put an end to these rude attempts at
civilization, and except a few records, such as the above, and a " rune
stone " found here and there throughout the territory, marking a point of
discovery, or perhaps the grave of. some unhappy Northman, the history of
these explorations are wrapt in oblivion. Even the colonies that had been
established in Greenland were at length abandoned, and the site upon which
they flourished, became, for many years, forgotten. Finally, however, the
fifteenth century was ushered in, marking an era of great changes in Europe.
It put an end to the darkness of the middle ages; it witnessed the revival
of learning and science, and the birth of many useful arts, among which not
the least was printing. The invention of the mariner's compass in the
preceding century having enabled sailors to go out of sight of land with
impunity, a thirst for exploring unknown seas was awakened. Long voyages
were undertaken, and important discoveries made.
It was during this age of mental activity and growing knowledge, that
Christopher Columbus undertook the most memorable enterprise that human
genius ever planned, or human skill and courage ever performed. On the third
of August, 1492, a little before sunrise, he set sail from Spain for the
discovery of the western world. A little before midnight, on the thirteenth
of October, he descried a light on the island of San Salvador. From this
moment properly dates the complete history of America. From this time
forward its progress bears date from a definite period, and is not shrouded
in darkness, nor the mists of tradition.
Two years after the discoveries of Columbus became known in England, Henry
VII. engaged John Cabot, a Venetian merchant, to sail in quest of
discoveries in the west, and this navigator, in 1497, reached the coast of
Labrador, which he named Prima-vista, thus making, probably, the first visit
of Europeans to this coast since the days of the Norsemen. This voyage was
succeeded by others under Sebastian Cabot, son of John, in 1498; and by
Gasper Cortereal, from Portugal, to whom the discovery of the St. Lawrence
some authorities claim is due. This adventurer returned to Lisbon in the
month of October of that year, laden with timber and slaves, seized from
among the natives of the coasts he had visited. On a second voyage he
perished at sea. In 1504, the French first attempted a voyage to the New
World; and in that year some Basque and Breton fishermen began to ply their
calling on the banks of Newfoundland, and along its adjacent coasts. From
these the island of Cape Breton derived its name. In 1525, Stefano Gomez
sailed from Spain, and is supposed to have entered the. Gulf of St.
Lawrence, and to have traded upon its shores. A Castilian tradition relates
that finding neither gold nor silver upon the coasts, nor, anything which
conveyed to these sordid adventurers an idea of mines of wealth of any kind,
they frequently exclaimed "aca-nada," signifying "here is nothing," and that
the natives caught up the sound which was repeated by them when other
Europeans arrived, and thus gave origin to the designation of Canada.
In 1534, Francis I., king of France, listening to the urgent advice of
Philip Chabot, admiral of France, who portrayed to him in glowing colors the
riches and growing power of Spain, derived from her Trans-Atlantic colonies,
despatched Jacques Cartier, an able navigator of St. Malo, who sailed April
20, 1534, with two ships of only sixty tons each, and a hundred and twenty
men, reaching Newfoundland in May. After coasting along for some time,
without knowing that it was an island, he at length passed the straits of
Belleisle, and traversed the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Having spent part of the
summer on these coasts, he sailed on the 25th of July, highly pleased with
the hospitable reception he had received from the natives, with whom he
traded for furs and provisions. His report induced the French king to
attempt a colony in the newly discovered regions; and in May, 1535, Cartier
again sailed with three small ships, with a numerous company of adventurers,
and arrived on the coasts of Newfoundland much scattered and weakened by a
disastrous storm of July 26th. Here they took in wood and water, and
proceeded to explore the gulf, but were overtaken, August 1st, by a storm
which obliged them to seek a port, difficult of access, but with a safe
anchorage, near the mouth of the " Great river." They left this harbor on
the 7th, and on the roth came to a gulf filled with numerous islands.
Cartier gave to this gulf the name of St. Lawrence, having discovered it on
that saint's festival clay.. Proceeding on his voyage, he explored both
shores of the St. Lawrence. Pleased with the friendly disposition of the
natives and the comfortable pros-. petts for a winter's sojourn, Cartier
moored his vessels where a little river flowed into a " goodly and pleasant
sound," which stream he named the St. Croix,. near the Indian village of
Stadacona, the site of the present city of Quebec. Subsequently, October 2d,
he ascended the river to a populous Indian village called Hochelaga, upon
the site of which the city of Montreal now stands. Here Donnacona, an
Algonquin chief, conducted Cartier to the summit of a mountain situated
about two miles from the village, and to which he gave the name of Mount
Royal, or Montreal, and showed him, "in that bright October sun," the
country for many miles south and east, and told him of great rivers and
inland seas, and of smaller rivers and lakes penetrating a beautiful
territory belonging to the warlike Iroquois. This beautiful country,. which
the chief called Iroquoisia, included the present State of Vermont. Thus, to
Jacques Cartier, a French navigator and explorer, is due the honor of having
been the first European to gaze upon the Green Mountains of. Vermont.
In May, Cartier returned to France, taking with him the Indian chief,
Donnacona, and two other prominent natives of the village, as prisoners;,
and they, who had treated him with such uniform kindness, died in a strange
land, exiles from their homes and friends.
During each succeeding year, for some time after, expeditions were sent out
to the newly discovered river, but misfortune attended them all, and no
efficient attempt at colonizing the country was made until 1608, when
DeMonts, a Calvinist, who had obtained from the King the freedom of
religious faith for himself and followers in America, but under the
engagement that theCatholic worship should be established among the natives,
after several perilous voyages, and much opposition, despatched Champlain
and Pontgrave, two, experienced adventurers, to establish the fur trade and
begin a settlement, Samuel Champlain reached Quebec, where Carrier had spent
,the winter nearly three-quarters of a century before, on the 3d of July. On
the 18th of the following April, 1609, in company with two other Frenchmen,
and a number of the natives, he started up the St. Lawrence, and, after a
time, turned southward up a tributary, and soon entered the lake which
perpetuates his name.
Thus entered the first European upon the territory now included within the
limits of Vermont, unless, perhaps, we accept the testimony of the curious
document found a few years since, on the banks of the Missisquoi river in
Swanton, as follows:: In December, 1853, as Messrs. Orlando Green and P. R.
Ripley were engaged in excavating sand on the left bank of the Missisquoi,
near the village of Swanton, they discovered a lead tube about five inches
long, and an inch and a half in diameter, embedded in the earth. Enclosed
within this tube was found a manuscript, of which the following is an exact
copy:
"Nov. 29 A D 1564.
" This is the solme day I must now die this is the Both day since we lef
the Ship all have Parished and on the Banks of this River I die to farewelle
may future Posteritye know our end.
JOHNE GRAYE."
This document had every appearance of being genuine, and nothing has
Occurred since to point in an opposite direction. It certainly does not seem
improbable that a party of sailors should wander away from their ship, or
for some cause be left behind, and that they should then become lost and
finally die in the forest; and it is also very natural that a sailor should
leave some record to tell of his fate. But be that as it may, there is, of
course, no positive evidence that the manuscript is genuine.
The early explorations and discoveries we have mentioned, led to much
litigation and controversy on the part of the several European countries
under whose auspices they had been conducted. The English, on the ground of
the discoveries by the Cabots, claimed the territory from Labrador to
Florida, to which they gave the name Virginia; but their explorations were
confined principally to the coast between Maine and Abermarle Sound. The
French confined their explorations principally to the country bordering on
the St. Lawrence and its tributaries, which they named New France, while the
Dutch, by virtue of the discoveries of Henry Hudson, afterwards laid claim
to the country between Cape Cod and the Delaware river, which they called
New Netherlands.
Attempts at colonization were made by England during the reign of Elizabeth,
but they proved abortive, and it was not until the Tudor dynasty had passed
away, and several years of the reign of James I., the first of the Stuarts,
had elapsed, before the Anglo-Saxon gained any permanent foothold.
Stimulated by the spirit of rivalry with France, England pushed her
explorations and discoveries, while France, from her first colony on the St.
Lawrence, had explored the vast region from the great lakes to the Gulf of
Mexico, and established among the savages missions and trading posts, first
in Canada, then in the West, and finally in New York and Vermont.
But the rivalries and jealousies that had made France and England so long
enemies in the Old World, were transplanted to the New Continent. The French
made allies of the savages and waged war against the English, and years of
bloodshed followed. The first of these hostilities, which are now known as
the Old French Wars, began with William's accession to the throne of
England, in 1690, and was terminated in the peace of Ryswic, in 1697. Queen
Anne's war, so called, came next, commencing in 1702, and, terminating in
the peace of Utrecht, in 1713. The third controversy was declared by George
II., in 1744, and continued until the preliminaries of peace were signed at
Aux-la-Chapelle, in 1748. The last conflict was formally declared by Great
Britain, in 1956, and terminated by the capture of Montreal, in September,
1760, when the whole of New France was surrendered to Great Britain.
During the progress of these wars, the territory of Vermont was often
crossed by portions of both armies, and a few settlements sprang up. The
first of these was in 1665, on Isle LaMotte, where a fort was erected by
Captain De LaMotte, under command of M. De Tracy, governor of New France. In
1690, Captain De Narm, with a party from Albany, N. Y., established an
outpost in the present town of Addison, at Chimney Point, where he erected a
small stone fort. The first permanent settlement, however, was made at
Brattleboro, in 1724, when Fort Dummer was built. For six or seven years the
garrison of this fort were the only white inhabitants. In 1730, the French
built a fort at Chimney Point, and a considerable population settled in the
vicinity. In 1739, a few persons settled in Westminster, and about the same
time a small French settlement was begun at Alburgh, on what is now called
Windmill Point, but was soon abandoned. The colony at Westminster increased
but slowly, and in 1754, the whole population, alarmed by the Indian attack
upon Charleston, N. H., deserted their homes. Forts were erected, and small
settlements were commenced in several other places, but fear of the Indians
prevented any large emigration till after the last French war, when, the
Province of Canada being then ceded to Great Britain, the fear of hostile
incursions subsided, and the population rapidly increased.
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