Westminster Massacre: Difference between revisions
Magicpiano (talk | contribs) m moved William French The Martyr, First blood of the Revolution to William French (Vermont): a more suitable name per WP naming conventions |
|||
| (87 intermediate revisions by 27 users not shown) | |||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
[[File:Historical_marker_Westminster_Massacre_U.S._Route_5_Westminster,_Windham_County_VT_August_2023.jpg|thumb|Historical marker in Westminster. The word ''[[massacre]]'' is in [[scare quotes]], probably because only two men were killed, which would not fit the conventional definition of a massacre.]] |
|||
{{Multiple issues|wikify = January 2011|dead end = January 2011|orphan = January 2011}} |
|||
The '''Westminster Massacre''' was an incident that occurred on March 13, 1775, in the town of [[Westminster (town), Vermont|Westminster, Vermont]], then part of the [[New Hampshire Grants]], whose control was disputed between its residents and the [[Province of New York]].<ref name="VG">{{cite web |
|||
|title=The Massacre at Westminster, Vermont |
|||
|url=http://www.vermontgenealogy.com/history/massacre_at_westminster_vermont.htm |
|||
|publisher=Vermont Genealogy |
|||
|accessdate=21 August 2022 |
|||
|ref=VG |
|||
|archive-date=19 October 2020 |
|||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201019214212/http://www.vermontgenealogy.com/history/massacre_at_westminster_vermont.htm |
|||
|url-status=live |
|||
}}</ref> It resulted in the killings of two men, William French and Daniel Houghton, by a sheriff's posse, after a crowd occupied the Westminster Courthouse to protest the evictions of several poor farmers from their homes by judges and other officials from New York. The Westminster Massacre is regarded by some Vermont historians as a key event in the history of [[Vermont]].<ref name="RD">{{cite web |
|||
|title=OLD BENNINGTON |
|||
|url=http://www.revolutionaryday.com/usroute7/bennington/default.htm |
|||
|website=Revolutionary Say |
|||
|accessdate=21 August 2022 |
|||
|ref=RD |
|||
|archive-date=28 November 2010 |
|||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101128235020/http://revolutionaryday.com/usroute7/bennington/default.htm |
|||
|url-status=live |
|||
}}</ref> |
|||
== Background == |
|||
{{New unreviewed article|source=ArticleWizard|date=January 2011}} |
|||
{{main|New Hampshire Grants}} |
|||
Tensions in the New Hampshire Grants had existed since the 1760s between the majority of its residents, lower-class farmers from New Hampshire, and "Yorkers", a wealthy minority of landowners from New York. The New Hampshire Grants were claimed by both the [[Province of New Hampshire]] and New York. [[Surveyors]] employed by the Yorkers were often attacked and beaten by angry farmers, who formed the radical [[Green Mountain Boys]], an anti-Yorker militia led by [[Ethan Allen]] and [[Remember Baker]]. The Green Mountain Boys began destroying the homes of Yorkers who settled in the New Hampshire Grants. Many of these Yorkers had taken land from impoverished farmers. In response to the attacks on Yorkers, officials from New York began arresting and evicting settlers across the New Hampshire Grants. |
|||
== The incident == |
|||
Very little is known about William French ''The Martyr'' (1753–1775) brother of Nathaniel French, JR (1747–1811) son of Nathaniel French, SR (1720–1801) son of William French (1687–1745) son of John French (1635–1712) son of [http://www.frenchfamilyassoc.com/FFA/CHARTS/Chart002/ William French of Billerica, MA] |
|||
On March 13, 1775, a group of "riotous and disorderly persons...[numbering] between eighty and ninety" assembled outside the Westminster Courthouse to protest the arrival of a judge from New York, along with several settlers from New York. In an effort to prevent "the session of the county court scheduled for the following day." Many members of the "riotous and disordley" crowd were "pro-Independence [[Patriot (American Revolution)|Whigs]]." The number of people occupying the courthouse soon numbered in the hundreds, and many were armed with clubs and firearms. The "rioters" were ordered to leave the courthouse by Sheriff William Patterson. When the rioters refused to disperse and end their "riotous assembly", Patterson rode to the town of [[Brattleboro]], a Yorker stronghold, and recruited "25 residents for the purpose of 'keeping the peace'".{{cn|reason=All quotes in this paragraph need citation|date=September 2022}} |
|||
What IS known is that Nathaniel French, JR, prior to 1768, was [[New Hampshire Grants |granted]] property near the West River in what is now Dummerston, VT and Nathaniel French, SR was deeded, in 1770, property on the Connecticut River in what is now Brattleboro, VT. |
|||
In 1775, the governor of New York was attempting to steal their land. |
|||
By 9:00 pm, when Patterson returned to Westminster with a posse of "60 to 70 armed men", the [[riot]]ers were in control of both the courthouse and local jail. Once again, Patterson ordered the rioters to disperse, and once again the rioters refused, after which the sheriff commanded his men to fire into the courthouse to frighten the rioters. The rioters returned fire, "slightly wounding" a magistrate who had accompanied the sheriff's posse. Patterson's men proceeded to storm the courthouse, armed with swords and guns. Once they broke down the courthouse door Patterson's posse began shooting into the crowd, killing William French in the moments after they entered. French was shot five times, and died immediately. One eyewitness described the chaos that ensued: |
|||
Tensions were rising, as noted below, and young William, age twenty-two, and his family, were preparing for a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_War fight.] |
|||
---- |
|||
{{blockquote|They rushed in with their guns, swords, and clubs, and did most cruelly maim several more, and took some that were not wounded, and those that were, and crowded them all into close prison together, and then told them they should be in hell before the next night, and that they did wish that there were forty more in the same case with that dying man [William French]. When they put him [French] into prison, they took and dragged him as one would a dog, and would mock him as he lay gasping, and make sport for themselves.{{cn|date=September 2022}}}} |
|||
NEW WORLD ENCYCLOPEDIA |
|||
The opposing sides fought each other in hand-to-hand combat, in which many of the rioters were injured. The rioters poured out of the courthouse as Patterson's men continued to shoot. One of the rioters, Daniel Houghton, was shot and beaten so brutally that he died from his wounds nine days later. |
|||
<blockquote> |
|||
''The [[New Hampshire Grants |grants]] sparked a dispute with the New York governor, who began granting charters of his own for New Yorker settlement in Vermont. In 1770, [[Ethan Allen]]—along with his brothers Ira and Levi, as well as Seth Warner—recruited an informal militia, the [[Green Mountain Boys]], to protect the interests of the original New Hampshire settlers against the new migrants from New York. When a New York judge arrived in Westminster with New York settlers in March 1775, violence broke out as angry citizens took over the courthouse and called a sheriff's posse. This resulted in the deaths of Daniel Houghton and William French in the "Westminster Massacre." '' |
|||
</blockquote> |
|||
== Aftermath: Vermont's independence == |
|||
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Vermont#Colonial |
|||
After the massacre, seven of the rioters were caught by Sheriff Patterson's posse and thrown into the local jail. News of the massacre spread quickly throughout New England and New York, partly because many of the rioters rode to neighboring towns and told locals how the sheriff's posse had killed William French. |
|||
The following day an angry mob of "upwards of 500", that included local farmers and teens as well as militias from the towns of Guildford, Westminster, and the counties of Windham, Bennington, and Albany, and even as far away as New Hampshire, descended upon Westminster. The mob surrounded the courthouse and "took [with them] the judges, the sheriffs, the clerk" and local Yorkers, who were paraded through town to the town jail. The mob broke into the town jail, freeing all the prisoners, including the seven rioters who had been arrested, and proceeded to lock up the officials and Yorkers they had dragged through Westminster. The mob then searched the area for more Yorker leaders, who they captured and imprisoned in [[Northampton, Massachusetts]]. The mob continued south to [[Brattleboro]], where they broke into the homes of prominent Yorkers, including [[Samuel Gale]] and Benjamin Butterfield, who, along with several other Brattleboro Yorkers, were brought to Northampton and imprisoned alongside others the mob had already captured. The mob, which still numbered in the four hundreds, chased attorney Samuel Knight out of Brattleboro. Militias set up roadblocks in the countryside surrounding Westminster, who held people they believed to be loyalists or Yorker officials at gunpoint, then handed them over to search parties who brought the "Yorkers" to Northampton. A few days later, the mob created a committee who "charged" five of the prisoners with the murder of William French. |
|||
---- |
|||
The Westminster events so impressed Vermonters that the following year, they chose the Westminster courthouse as location for their declaration that the [[Vermont Republic]] was now an independent nation, not a colony. |
|||
OUR COUNTRY by Benson J. Lossing 1877 |
|||
<blockquote> |
|||
''The precedence as to the time and place where blood was first shed in the Revolution is claimed for Westminster, Vermont, where, more than a month before the affair at Lexington, officers of the crown in endeavoring to subdue a mob, caused the death of one of the rioters. The event is recorded in an epitaph inscribed upon a slab of slate in the old burial-ground at Westminster, in the following words:''<br> |
|||
== See also == |
|||
''"In Memory of WILLIAM FRENCH, son to Mr. Nathaniel French, who was Shot at Westminister, March ye 13th, 1775, by the hands of Cruel Ministerial tools of George ye 3d, in the Court-house at a 11 O'clock at Night, in the 22nd year of his Age.'' |
|||
*[[List of massacres in the United States#Vermont|List of massacres in the United States]] |
|||
''Here William French his Body lies, For Murder his Blood for Vengeance Cries. King George the third his Tory crew tha with a bawl his head Shot threw. For Liberty and his Country's Good he Lost his Life, his Dearest Blood." '' |
|||
*[[Green Mountain Boys]] |
|||
</blockquote> |
|||
http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/Our_Country_vol_2/williamf_fh.html |
|||
==Further reading== |
|||
---- |
|||
*Westminster. by Rev. F. J. Fairbanks |
|||
*The New England Historical and Genealogical Register |
|||
==References== |
|||
OLD BENNINGTON, VERMONT |
|||
{{reflist}} |
|||
==External links== |
|||
<blockquote> |
|||
* [http://vermonthistory.org/explorer/vermont-stories/becoming-a-state/the-westminster-massacre The Westminster Massacre] |
|||
''The Westminster Massacre polarized Vermonters and helped to fill the ranks of the [[Green Mountain Boys]] for the defense of Vermont. Two months after the massacre, they would agree that the British posed a bigger threat and marched to Fort Ticonderoga for the defense of Boston.'' |
|||
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD8ddO3ACeA The history Guy on "The Vermont Republic"] |
|||
</blockquote> |
|||
http://www.revolutionaryday.com/usroute7/bennington/default.htm |
|||
{{coord|43.0724|-72.4625|type:event_globe:earth_region:US-VT|display=title}} |
|||
---- |
|||
{{DEFAULTSORT:Westminster Massacre}} |
|||
THE MASSACRE AT WESTMINSTER, VERMONT |
|||
<blockquote> |
|||
''On the northerly end of the lower street, on the brow of the terrace overlooking the upper street, occurred the first organized resistance to the oppression of King George's tyrannical courts, and here was shed the first blood of the Revolution, March 13, 1775. The story has often been told, how a few determined men met there and took possession of the courthouse to prevent the session of next day's court, and the officers of the court attacked them, and that one man was killed and another fatally injured. The attempt of the sturdy citizens was successful, for the session of court was not held, nor was it ever held again in this county under the rule of the king.'' |
|||
</blockquote> |
|||
http://www.vermontgenealogy.com/history/massacre_at_westminster_vermont.htm |
|||
---- |
|||
THE WESTMINSTER MASSACRE |
|||
<blockquote> |
|||
''The Westminster Massacre of March 13, 1775 is viewed by some as the first battle of the American Revolution.'' |
|||
</blockquote> |
|||
http://www.vermonthistory.org/freedom_and_unity/new_frontier/massacre.html |
|||
---- |
|||
WINDHAM COUNTY 1884, HAMILTON CHILD |
|||
<blockquote> |
|||
''Here the old church still stands, built in 1770, which in its early days housed a generation of worshipers who bore a prominent part in the struggle of the State and Nation for independent. Near the northern end of the street lies the old burying-ground which entombs the bones of the fathers, and among them those of the young and ardent patriot, William French, to whom history accords a place as the first martyr of the Revolution. A few rods distant from the cemetery, almost at the brow of a gentle hill, is the site of the old court-house (see page 33) where French was shot, in 1775..'' |
|||
</blockquote> |
|||
http://www.westminsterhistory.net/?p=101 |
|||
== OTHER REFERENCES == |
|||
[[Green Mountain Boys]] |
|||
[[Westminster Vermont]] |
|||
http://small-stuff.com/FRENCH/DNA/tree6.htm |
|||
http://www.ibrattleboro.com/braintrust/index.php?title=William_French |
|||
Westminster. by Rev. F. J. Fairbanks |
|||
The New England Historical and Genealogical Register |
|||
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_(VT) |
|||
{{DEFAULTSORT:William French The Martyr, First Blood Of The Revolution}} |
|||
[[Category:American Revolutionary War]] |
|||
[[Category:People of Vermont in the American Revolution]] |
|||
[[Category:Vermont]] |
|||
[[Category:Patriots in the American Revolution]] |
|||
[[Category:Vermont militiamen in the American Revolution]] |
|||
[[Category:Conflicts in 1775]] |
[[Category:Conflicts in 1775]] |
||
[[Category: |
[[Category:1775 in the Thirteen Colonies]] |
||
[[Category: |
[[Category:Vermont in the American Revolution]] |
||
[[Category:Pre- |
[[Category:Pre-statehood history of Vermont]] |
||
[[Category:History of the Thirteen Colonies]] |
[[Category:History of the Thirteen Colonies]] |
||
Latest revision as of 19:21, 20 May 2024
The Westminster Massacre was an incident that occurred on March 13, 1775, in the town of Westminster, Vermont, then part of the New Hampshire Grants, whose control was disputed between its residents and the Province of New York.[1] It resulted in the killings of two men, William French and Daniel Houghton, by a sheriff's posse, after a crowd occupied the Westminster Courthouse to protest the evictions of several poor farmers from their homes by judges and other officials from New York. The Westminster Massacre is regarded by some Vermont historians as a key event in the history of Vermont.[2]
Background
[edit]Tensions in the New Hampshire Grants had existed since the 1760s between the majority of its residents, lower-class farmers from New Hampshire, and "Yorkers", a wealthy minority of landowners from New York. The New Hampshire Grants were claimed by both the Province of New Hampshire and New York. Surveyors employed by the Yorkers were often attacked and beaten by angry farmers, who formed the radical Green Mountain Boys, an anti-Yorker militia led by Ethan Allen and Remember Baker. The Green Mountain Boys began destroying the homes of Yorkers who settled in the New Hampshire Grants. Many of these Yorkers had taken land from impoverished farmers. In response to the attacks on Yorkers, officials from New York began arresting and evicting settlers across the New Hampshire Grants.
The incident
[edit]On March 13, 1775, a group of "riotous and disorderly persons...[numbering] between eighty and ninety" assembled outside the Westminster Courthouse to protest the arrival of a judge from New York, along with several settlers from New York. In an effort to prevent "the session of the county court scheduled for the following day." Many members of the "riotous and disordley" crowd were "pro-Independence Whigs." The number of people occupying the courthouse soon numbered in the hundreds, and many were armed with clubs and firearms. The "rioters" were ordered to leave the courthouse by Sheriff William Patterson. When the rioters refused to disperse and end their "riotous assembly", Patterson rode to the town of Brattleboro, a Yorker stronghold, and recruited "25 residents for the purpose of 'keeping the peace'".[citation needed]
By 9:00 pm, when Patterson returned to Westminster with a posse of "60 to 70 armed men", the rioters were in control of both the courthouse and local jail. Once again, Patterson ordered the rioters to disperse, and once again the rioters refused, after which the sheriff commanded his men to fire into the courthouse to frighten the rioters. The rioters returned fire, "slightly wounding" a magistrate who had accompanied the sheriff's posse. Patterson's men proceeded to storm the courthouse, armed with swords and guns. Once they broke down the courthouse door Patterson's posse began shooting into the crowd, killing William French in the moments after they entered. French was shot five times, and died immediately. One eyewitness described the chaos that ensued:
They rushed in with their guns, swords, and clubs, and did most cruelly maim several more, and took some that were not wounded, and those that were, and crowded them all into close prison together, and then told them they should be in hell before the next night, and that they did wish that there were forty more in the same case with that dying man [William French]. When they put him [French] into prison, they took and dragged him as one would a dog, and would mock him as he lay gasping, and make sport for themselves.[citation needed]
The opposing sides fought each other in hand-to-hand combat, in which many of the rioters were injured. The rioters poured out of the courthouse as Patterson's men continued to shoot. One of the rioters, Daniel Houghton, was shot and beaten so brutally that he died from his wounds nine days later.
Aftermath: Vermont's independence
[edit]After the massacre, seven of the rioters were caught by Sheriff Patterson's posse and thrown into the local jail. News of the massacre spread quickly throughout New England and New York, partly because many of the rioters rode to neighboring towns and told locals how the sheriff's posse had killed William French.
The following day an angry mob of "upwards of 500", that included local farmers and teens as well as militias from the towns of Guildford, Westminster, and the counties of Windham, Bennington, and Albany, and even as far away as New Hampshire, descended upon Westminster. The mob surrounded the courthouse and "took [with them] the judges, the sheriffs, the clerk" and local Yorkers, who were paraded through town to the town jail. The mob broke into the town jail, freeing all the prisoners, including the seven rioters who had been arrested, and proceeded to lock up the officials and Yorkers they had dragged through Westminster. The mob then searched the area for more Yorker leaders, who they captured and imprisoned in Northampton, Massachusetts. The mob continued south to Brattleboro, where they broke into the homes of prominent Yorkers, including Samuel Gale and Benjamin Butterfield, who, along with several other Brattleboro Yorkers, were brought to Northampton and imprisoned alongside others the mob had already captured. The mob, which still numbered in the four hundreds, chased attorney Samuel Knight out of Brattleboro. Militias set up roadblocks in the countryside surrounding Westminster, who held people they believed to be loyalists or Yorker officials at gunpoint, then handed them over to search parties who brought the "Yorkers" to Northampton. A few days later, the mob created a committee who "charged" five of the prisoners with the murder of William French.
The Westminster events so impressed Vermonters that the following year, they chose the Westminster courthouse as location for their declaration that the Vermont Republic was now an independent nation, not a colony.
See also
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- Westminster. by Rev. F. J. Fairbanks
- The New England Historical and Genealogical Register
References
[edit]- ^ "The Massacre at Westminster, Vermont". Vermont Genealogy. Archived from the original on 19 October 2020. Retrieved 21 August 2022.
- ^ "OLD BENNINGTON". Revolutionary Say. Archived from the original on 28 November 2010. Retrieved 21 August 2022.